rate the last movie you saw

[AndyDursin]

FAST & FURIOUS 6
7.5/10

A comedown from the franchise high of 'Fast Five,' this is still a well-oiled machine of frantic action and fun as the gang -- Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges among them -- is roped into finding an international terrorist (Luke Evans) who's stolen a MacGuffin in the form of a computer chip worth untold billions to the U.S. government. Resident national-security badass Dwayne Johnson brings Diesel and Walker's clan back into the fold for one last mission -- and with the promise of pardoning their prior shenanigans -- if they can tackle Evans, but this time there's a personal catch involved for Diesel: old flame Leddy (Michelle Rodriguez) is still alive, but can't remember her identity, and is working for the bad guys.

"Fast and the Furious" has been a strange franchise to see evolve over the course of its 12-years: the 2001 original was a smash, but two subsequent sequels failed to bring back the original cast together. The fourth film reignited the franchise with writer Chris Morgan and director Justin Lin returning from the third film; the duo then hit their stride with "Fast Five," the series' best and one of the most purely enjoyable action films of the last decade.

This sequel once again crams a fair amount of plot, side characters and action into its 130 minutes, though it's not quite as inspired as its immediate predecessor. With a few dangling story elements to take care of, Morgan and Lin spend a bit too much time on the plot this time around, while a few too many of the action set-pieces occur at night, making them harder to fully comprehend. Still, there are some undeniably entertaining, over-the-top moments, such as a ridiculously good tank/car chase, and not one but two fights between Rodriguez and the fetching Gina Carano, who makes her series debut as The Rock's right-hand woman. Diesel, Walker and Johnson have been at this type of thing so long that they seem to effortlessly glide through the film, but that's part of the appeal: with so few "movie stars" commanding the screen these days, there's something to having a group of charismatic actors working on-screen together, and Diesel and Johnson generate an old-fashioned on-screen presence that's difficult to deny.

Solid if unspectacular escapist fare, with the post-credits tag intended to set up the forthcoming "Fast & Furious Seven" with a star cameo that's bound to get action fans excited.

[Monterey Jack]

Epic (2013): 7/10

Pleasant animated fare (with some exceptionally pretty visuals) bangs the same environmental drum as films like Ferngully and Avatar, but gets bonus points for the forces of "rot" not being in league with evil, mustache-twirling human greed for once...it's just two opposing forces of nature. It's not especially memorable outside of the visuals...there's the obligatory Spunky Heroine with a Deceased Parent, the Love Interest, the Wacky Sidekicks, ect. And the voicework is fairly nondescript...you know something's wrong when the villain is voiced by Christoph Waltz, and you don't even realize it's him until the halfway point of the film! Still, it's all mildly exciting, mildly amusing and mildly engaging enough to recommend for animation buffs and family audiences. Danny Elfman's score is enjoyable enough, and, like Oz The Great & Powerful, he's kind of the best choice for this kind of broad fantasy canvas in this day and age.

[mkaroly]

AFTER EARTH - 4/10. Yes, I went and saw it with a friend after all the complaining in the other thread. It is no worse than OBLIVION (which I gave a 5/10 I think), but certainly no better. On the positive side, the dialogue wasn't as corny as MNS's other, more recent films have been. But the message was weak and the climactic emotional moments (between father and son and the explanation of how father learned not to fear as well as the ending moment) were DOA and very clichéd. The faux accents were dumb, Will Smith looked like he was on morphine the entire film and was extremely one-dimensional, and Jaden, who had to carry the film, did okay. The effects sometimes drowned out the dialogue though; JNH's score was typical for an MNS movie and had its moments, but he didn't deviate much from his "scoring formula" for MNS films. It seemed like the film could have been longer with more back story explanations and deeper character development.

It is a typical MNS film with the epic big heroic moment towards the end and a couple of cheap scares, but it was at least a step away from the dreck he has been putting out. The film has an environmental message, and while I am sick of hearing about "climate change" and all that garbage I didn't feel as if he was bashing us over the head with it. The visuals were decent, but it was nothing new or surprising. Still, any step away from THE HAPPENING and TLITW is a good thing in my book, though it is a far cry from MNS's best work. I ended up not disliking it as much as I thought I would.

[AndyDursin]

It seemed like the film could have been longer with more back story explanations and deeper character development.

Sony apparently lobbied Smith to cut the film down from something much longer, so that explains your astute observation Michael.

[mkaroly]

It seemed like the film could have been longer with more back story explanations and deeper character development.

Sony apparently lobbied Smith to cut the film down from something much longer, so that explains your astute observation Michael.

After thinking about it a bit more, I think the best way to describe it is "flat". It would make a good home DVD double feature with OBLIVION if you had nothing else to do...you'll probably get a chance to review it on DVD Andy, so when the DVDs come out, fire up the popcorn and review them together as a double feature!

[AndyDursin]

It seemed like the film could have been longer with more back story explanations and deeper character development.

Sony apparently lobbied Smith to cut the film down from something much longer, so that explains your astute observation Michael.

After thinking about it a bit more, I think the best way to describe it is "flat". It would make a good home DVD double feature with OBLIVION if you had nothing else to do...you'll probably get a chance to review it on DVD Andy, so when the DVDs come out, fire up the popcorn and review them together as a double feature!

Yes, exactly, might make for a perfect point of comparison also!

[Jedbu]

Boy, mkaroly, that was a review that just makes me want to get up off my couch....and then sit right back down again and continue cleaning out little pockets of pet hair from between the cushions....talk about damning with faint praise

[AndyDursin]

MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME
7.5/10

Deciding to go in something of a different direction, George Miller opted to turn this third "Mad Max" film into something of a more “emotional” piece less driven by violence and high-octane set-pieces. Miller and writer Terry Hayes took a cue from Max’s arc in “The Road Warrior” and turned him into a slightly more charismatic, “Man With No Name” sort here, with Max stumbling into a post-apocalyptic village named “Bartertown.” There, a political struggle ensues between leader Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) and the diminutive “Master” (Angelo Rossitto), who’s the only one who understands how to produce methane to power the town. Aunty makes a deal for Max to knock off Master’s physical bodyguard “Blaster,” but circumstances eventually send Max off into the wasteland again, where he finds a “Lord of the Flies” type community of youngsters waiting for the messianic “Captain Walker” to return.

Miller co-directed “Thunderdome” with associate George Ogilvie, something that might explain the uneven pacing of this more ambitious, though decidedly least successful, of the “Mad Max” series. There are a pair of dynamite set-pieces on-hand when Max takes to the Thunderdome to battle the hulking Blaster, and Miller caps the film with one last, stirring chase with Max and the young refugees trying to escape from Aunty’s gang on a train. As potent as these moments are, however, they’re bookended by a meandering mid-section where Max finds the castoff children, who look as if they’ve come out of the William Golding novel by way of the Ewoks in “Return of the Jedi.” Their society isn’t nearly as developed as it should’ve been, and for a group of naive youngsters who presumably haven’t encountered anything of the punk-driven outside world, why one of them actually drops an f-bomb when they re-enter Bartertown is patently nonsensical.

There’s an obvious lack of energy in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” at times. The thrilling, fast-paced intensity of the earlier films is replaced here with a more deliberately paced fantasy approach, and for fans of “The Road Warrior,” this PG-13 rated, decidedly less violent picture can be (and has often been written off as) a shock to the system.

Still, there are assorted pleasures to be found: Gibson exudes more of his natural charisma here, and this decidedly “looser” Max feels like a natural progression of the hardened warrior who rediscovered his humanity at the end of “The Road Warrior.” Dean Semler’s wide scope cinematography is impressive, and Turner brings sufficient life to her scenes as a scavenger who’s recreated herself as the leader of Bartertown (“he’s just a raggedy man!”). What’s more, Maurice Jarre’s glorious orchestral score helps to smooth over some of the picture’s rough passages – with its sweeping scale and melodic interludes, “Thunderdome” is one of Jarre’s strongest efforts from one of his most prolific periods (his marvelous score for "Enemy Mine" would follow just a few months later). In fact, the climactic, 12-minute chase cue has to rank as one of Jarre’s greatest of his esteemed career.

Although it’s a definite comedown from “The Road Warrior,” “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” is an admirable attempt at tweaking the formula established by its predecessors. Miller even manages to craft a surprisingly moving epilogue for the film as well, paying tribute to his late associate – producer Byron Kennedy – as the movie fades out and brings the original “Mad Max” trilogy to an emotionally satisfying close.

With only the theatrical trailer as an extra, “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”’s Blu-Ray debut comes in the form of a highly detailed 1080p AVC encoded transfer. The DTS MA soundtrack packs an impressive punch when Jarre’s score takes center stage, though it’s unfortunate his final cue was dialed in so low in the original mix.

[Paul MacLean]

I'm a huge fan of Mad Max and The Road Warrior, but have always disliked Thunderdome, which I went into expecting another Mad Max film, and was instead subjected to something more akin to a 70s Disney movie.

The first two films were imaginative, unflinchingly savage, groundbreaking -- and influential. But Thunderdome seemed little more than a watered-down knockoff of Road Warrior, which slavishly catered to the MTV demographic. It was filled with cute, cloying kids, Tina Turner pop songs and bubble gun "action" in what seemed more like a punkified remake of Father Goose. In The Road Warrior people get shot and run over. In Thunderdome they get hit with frying pans.

The first two films had some of the finest and most harrowing road chases in movie history. Thunderdome hardly had any action at all (Max doesn't even get behind the wheel of a car until the last ten minutes of the film!).

And what's up with Bruce Spence's casting? In the opening scene, one logically assumes Spence is the Gyro Captain, because he is the same actor, playing a pilot. Yet when Max encounters him later, Spence's character doesn't recognize Max, so is in fact a different character? Is it the Gyro Captain with a bad memory and better teeth?

I respect all the effort that went into the production (and it's not without a few good moments) but Thunderdome is to Mad Max films what the David Niven Casino Royale is to Bond films.

Ironically, the one aspect of the film I was not looking forward to -- Maurice Jarre's score -- turned out to be the only thing in the film I liked.

[Monterey Jack]

The man with the hat is back...on Blu-Ray!

-Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981): 10/10

-Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984): 10/10

-...Last Crusade (1989): 8/10

-...Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008): 6/10

[AndyDursin]

MAN OF STEEL
7/10

There’s nothing in MAN OF STEEL that hasn’t been executed before – just not with as much bombast as director Zack Snyder’s 143-minute, epic assault on the senses that, at least, manages to get more things right than Bryan Singer’s ill-conceived 2006 franchise-killer “Superman Returns.”

Snyder, screenwriter David S. Goyer and producer Christopher Nolan have gone back once again to Superman’s roots for this “contemporary” refashioning, which – once again – starts out on Krypton where Jor-El (a slimmed down and engaged Russell Crowe) sends his infant son out into the galaxy after a failed military coup staged by General Zod (Michael Shannon). Shades of “Avatar” fill this fanciful introductory section of the film, where flying beasts and tentacle-laden machines fill the otherworldly skies of the soon-to-be-doomed planet.

Kal-El eventually makes it to Earth and, once again, into the arms of the Kents, the Kansas farming couple here played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane. This Jonathan Kent, however, doesn’t exactly evoke shades of Glenn Ford or John Schneider, as Costner’s Pa worries that the world isn’t ready for his adopted son, Clark, who’s bullied at school and perpetually cast as an “outsider” despite having a knack for the heroic.

“Trying to find his place in the world” here means growing a beard and serving on a “Deadliest Catch” fishing boat where the now-grown Clark (Henry Cavill) subsequently overhears rumblings of a frozen ship in the icy Alaskan tundra. There, the last remnants of Krypton, including Jor-El’s conscience, fill in the Man of Steel about his heritage and what his relationship with humanity ought to be, all the while Clark is being pursued by the dogged Lois Lane (Amy Adams) as part of a potential Daily Planet scoop. Ultimately, Clark’s eventual embrace of his Kryptonian legacy can’t come soon enough once Zod and company arrive with the intention of exterminating mankind for a rebirth of their now-deceased civilization.

“Man of Steel” is a movie that’s sometimes dazzling and at-times mind-numbing, not to mention erratically cast. First the good news – Cavill is a fine Superman, and his confident, yet empathetic, performance is one of the film’s highlights. While you wish Snyder and Goyer had given the actors more material and dramatic beats to work with, Cavill has a much stronger screen presence than Brandon Routh and fits comfortably in both aspects of the role, providing a Superman for the 21st century whose traditional nobility and concern for his adopted race still shines through. Amy Adams doesn’t really get a whole lot to do as Lois, but she has good chemistry with Cavill, even if the two don’t share nearly as many scenes together as they ought to. Christopher Meloni does the most he can with a surprisingly hefty role of an army colonel initially reluctant to embrace Earth’s latest superhero, while Crowe seems more alive here than he’s been in ages as Superman’s biological father.

Other performances in the film, unfortunately, are a real mixed bag. Michael Shannon is a total bust as Zod, with the actor sneering and barking his lines in a vacant performance devoid of nuance. Shannon has been fascinating, and at times scary, in so many other performances that his one-dimensional, even boring, portrayal of Zod ranks as the film’s biggest disappointment; compare it to Terence Stamp’s suave, menacing turn in the Reeve films and you’ll be reminded how deficient Shannon’s cardboard portrayal is. Though not nearly as problematic, also ineffective are Costner and Lane’s respective performances as the Kents – neither registers on an emotional scale, while Laurence Fishburne’s Perry White likewise comes off blankly, with “The Fish” even sporting an Ed Bradley-like earring.

Some of those issues are related to Goyer’s script, which despite breaking up Clark’s childhood in flashbacks, ultimately brings nothing new to the table on a dramatic scale. Technically, it’s a different story, as the endless – if expertly executed – special effects include a headache-inducing, climactic succession of collapsing buildings, screaming Metropolis residents, flying cars, and explosions as you’ve never seen before. The carnage is endless, and Superman’s fisticuff-laden brawls with Zod and his previously-imprisoned Phantom Zone villains are so repetitive to an almost cartoonish degree that there came a point in the concluding minutes where I was just hoping the movie would end. It’s all too much – too frenetically edited, too chaotically directed, and horribly overscored by Hans Zimmer – while Snyder and Goyer miss the heart and soul that Marvel routinely infuses in their comic book films.

“Man of Steel” is likely to leave casual viewers exhausted and Superman fans in a strange place. Some may like the film a great deal, others might be hugely disappointed, and there’s likely to be a faction – myself included – that’s just happy the film isn’t “Superman Returns.” While that may be damning with faint praise, “Man of Steel” is still a reasonably entertaining comic-book movie that lays the groundwork for superior Superman adventures to come – provided the writers have something fresh to say and rely more on character than special effects. That’s a balance that Christopher Nolan struck quite well in his “Batman” films, and it’s something that, for the most part, eludes Zack Snyder and David Goyer here, with only fleeting moments where the material flies up, up and away with inspiration.

http://andyfilm.com/2013/06/14/man-of-steel-review/

[Paul MacLean]

I agree with your assessment Andy, except I liked it less than you did.

I thought Henry Cavill was terrific, and I really don't have any quarrel with any of the cast (except Michael Shannon), but for me there was nothing at all new in this film.

Superman: The Movie has held-up extremely well (and we also have several seasons of Smallville fresh in our minds), so I don't see the need for a "reboot", and felt retelling the whole story of Superman's origin was redundant.

The action sequences / effects were the run-of-the-mill CGI fare -- complex and meticulously rendered, but nothing we haven't seen before (nor were they especially realistic-looking). I agree the Krypton sequence was very Avatar-influenced, while the sinewy, robotic tentacles of Zod's ship were reminiscent of The Matrix (as was the Kryptonian "incubator").

Snyder captures almost everything with "shakeycam" and tints many of the scenes blue or just desaurates the color. Why must every film (especially comic book movies) imitate Black Hawk Down?

I also thought the depiction of Metropolis' destruction was in very bad taste, in its clearly intentional attempt to mimic news footage of 9/11 (some shots even go as far as re-staging now-infamous 9/11 images of people running for their lives from the collapsing buildings).

The score was an utter lead balloon, and has to be to most blunt and simplistic score ever written for this type of film. The "music" is absolutely sterile and bereft of emotion, and consists of simple power chords and only the bare rudiments of melody.

Beyond that, the film was just devoid of charm -- something the Donner / Lester films (even at their silliest) had in spades.

[AndyDursin]

THIS IS THE END
8/10

Highly inspired lunacy with some big laughs, a surprisingly consistent story and numerous memorable bits. Thankfully, it's also not as crass as you might anticipate either. So far, the most satisfying film of the summer!

[John Johnson]

The man with the hat is back...on Blu-Ray!

-...Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008): 6/10

6/10?

[Monterey Jack]

It's not that horrible...the opening warehouse sequence has some of the spark of the old films, Ford is game and fairly spry for his age, and there are little flourishes here and there that made me smile (the motorcycle chase through the university was pretty much the only bit of old-school practical stuntwork in the entire film, even if it was marred by that awful "joke" involving the statue of Marcus Brody). That said, the screenplay is fairly rotten (just what plot purpose does Ray Winstone's character serve? His betrayal of Indy in said warehouse scene has no dramatic weight whatsoever because this is a brand-new character we've been introduced to barely minutes earlier), Janusz Kaminski's ugly photography gives the film the look of an overly slick Indy screensaver, and Spielberg's claims that he'd use "as little CGI as possible" was as blatant a lie as any filmmaker has delivered in the last decade. Plus, Shia. At least it made me appreciate Last Crusade's wholesale buffoonery and mediocre effects work more than I have in the past. As pleasing as it was to see Ford in that costume again, it's a film that should have been made by the mid-90's at the latest. It reminded me of that lousy second X-Files movie...too little, too late, and hobbled by a slapdash screenplay held together by spit and scotch tape (the Crystal Skull MacGuffin is the worst of the series...the prop looks silly and has no real ominous presence), and yet it was mildly pleasing to see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson playing Mulder & Scully one last time.