Movie Watch: Paranormal Activity 3

I've generally been a pretty big fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise.  I got some friends to re-watch the first two prior to heading out to see the third.  I think one of the most positive things about this series is its ability to dig deeper into the history of the story with every installment without feeling overly forced.

By itself, Paranormal Activity 3 holds its own against the first two movies.  There is still the methodic observations on everyday life and scenes where nothing goes on at all just to set that creepy baseline for the viewer.  There is still the judicial use of sound of effects to warn the viewer that something is about to jump above that baseline.

And there is still what I like to refer to as excellent Hollywood magic tricks.  I simply refuse to point to an example because the less you know about what happens in the film, the better, but while the series has special effects - they're extremely subtle and you could almost imagine most of the events of the film happening on a stage in front of you, not something which simply must be pumped through a high end computer to generate.

End the spoiler free section of it.  If you liked either of the first two, highly recommended.  If you haven't, and now that we are in the post-Halloweeen season, I'd probably recommend snagging the first one at least and watch all the films.  But Paranormal Activity 3 is certainly a fun spookfest on its own right.

Is the plot unraveling?
If there's any complaints about the third movie - it's that it raises some interesting inconsistencies with the first two movies.

SPOILERS ABOUND FROM THIS POINT ON

Got that?  Is the bold and all caps clear enough? Ok, then.

First problem that the movie gets itself into is the dubious use of images in the various trailers.  The trailers seem to be sections of the film which were mostly not used in the long run, which is relatively legitimate but can get a little confusing.

This is especially true since one of the key plot points mentioned in the first two films is the girls' house being burned down, which is apparently shown only in one of the trailers (I've seen it, but never caught it on TV).  The timestamp of the trailer, however, points to the house fire happening after the events of the film and my guess is that the makers wanted to keep the "final shock scene" which has been the trademark of the first two films instead of any kind of explanatory epilogue.

Also confusing the references to the girls' mom in the first two films.  Micah makes a crack about not inviting her over in the first film, and the girls talk about her briefly in the second with references not shown in the third film (namely people coming over and their mom crying a lot).

There are two defense for the mentions in the second film.  One is that their mom may have been crying more than we saw in the first film, especially considering the overall discord in the house towards the end ... and perhaps "people" included Dennis' friend.

Or, and this goes for Micah's reference in the first film - "mom" refers to their adoptive mother.  We don't really know what the girls remember or think happened after grandmother walks them upstairs, after all.

Still, this shows a danger of a story being told in a chain of prequels.  You can't expect viewers to try and piece together all these minor aspects - it should be part of the fun.  I don't think the third film necessarily violates anything plot-wise of the first two movies, but the filmmakers should be on notice: Paranormal Activity fans are taking notes.  And any future movies will be judged with those notes in the margin.

Paranormal Activity 4?
When walking out of the theater, I had thought that perhaps this would be swan song of the series.  After all, we have a pretty complete picture of the story in general.  And if they do another prequel, they would probably have to drop the found film aspect or go to reel to reel or something like that.  Neither sounds like a good idea.

But money is money - and Paranormal Activity 3 made a metric ton of it.  A fourth film is almost assured.  Those note taking fans have noted there is a "1992" tape shown in the box Katie brings over ... which possibly indicates they'll advance the story a few years after the events of the third film and perhaps explain the house fire, the adoptive mother, etc.

Another good possibility is having a movie which takes place after the events of PA2.  The makers have clearly made an effort to keep in touch with the original cast members, perhaps to make sure Katie Featherston would be around to portray her more demonic side in what would probably need to be the series finale.

So far the producers, directors and writers have done a good job keeping to the spirit (no pun intended) of the first film, so I'm still confident they can keep the quality up.

First trailer which reminds me of Blair Witch 2, however - and I am so not confident....

Movie Watch: Alice In Wonderland

Alice is interesting source material - the nonsensical landscape has been a Disney movie, a video game, a surrealistic stop-motion animation, 70's song and now Burton movie. The Burton movie takes a safer route than many adapations, relegating Alice to a now older (and hotter) role returning to Wonderland in what constitutes a semi-sequel to the original narrative, keeping some elements and replacing many, many others with a boilerplate Hollywood action plot.

There is a lot of compromise here. Fans of Carroll's work will both recognize and miss many of the elements, and probably cringe at some of the handling of some characters - especially Mad Hatter. Burton's style works well with many of visual aspects of the work: Chesire Cat and bringing many of the Jabberwocky material into line as well.

If it wasn't for the flair that Burton brings to the canvas, this would likely have been a disaster, with the Hollywood elements riding right over the literature ... but the combination of strong cinematics and acting make the movie highly enjoyable in the long run.

Recommend - though not terribly strongly. Serious fans of Carroll should be prepped for the handling, but anyone looking for a just a fun summer film can dig right in.

Fun Fact:"Jabberwocky" was meant by Carroll as a satire designed to show how not to write a poem. The poem has since transcended Carroll's purpose, becoming now the subject of serious study.

-- [Wikipedia]

Things You Didn't Know About Empire Strikes Back

Luke's fight with Fake "Force cave" Vader is actually a fight with a Celestial Vader! In the original story, the swamp and the cave disappear, and Luke and Vader lightsaber it out in deep space. Vader even grabs a handful of stars to show how powerful the Dark Side can be. (That scene was apparently sponsored by LSD.)

-- 100 Things You Didn't Know About The Empire Strikes Back [movies.ign.com]

There's some interesting production notes, but the first part is all about the differences between Leigh Brackett's original script and the edits Kasdan made. Brackett's draft is often credited for giving Empire the punch that nearly everything else Star Wars lacks. Interesting to me is that Empire has the lowest body count of any of the movies and yet is the clearly the darkest and grittiest of the bunch.

Movie Watch: Exiled

The Girl and I were in a Kung Fu mood last night and ended up with Exiled, a 2006 Hong Kong bullet ballet which just recently arrived on Netflix Instant.

It is surprisingly good. This is clearly the kind of movie which inspired Tarantino's early films (this film being a 2006 I wonder if some of it isn't being paid back now). There's a lot of themes about power, revenge, redemption - but mostly it is a movie about comrades in arms who just end up getting mixed into a heap of trouble.

While some of the cinematography isn't great, it had a few brilliantly directed scenes (there's a gunfight which moves to an outside shot of a stairway which is just awesome) but the writing is really, really tight.

Highly recommend.

Fun Fact: The film was awarded a Category III rating (18+ restriction), particularly for one scene showing Simon Yam's character shaking hands with another gangster with their left hands turned around, making a triads agreement handshake. The scene is present on the Mega-Star uncut Limited Edition DVD. However, only the Category IIB cut version was released in Hong Kong theatrically.

[Wikipedia]

Movie Watch: The Fourth Kind

Interestingly, when I went to go see Paranormal Activity in San Francisco, a huge line was waiting not for that film - but The Fourth Kind, which I had never even heard of - which seemed odd since I had only really learned of Paranormal Activity through twitter a few weeks earlier.

The Fourth Kind is a movie much in the same vein as Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, a documentary format to reveal the bizarre events unfolding for the main characters - this time dealing with the remote location of Nome, Alaska.

For those that haven't seen the movie, I'm going to say - if you've enjoyed other movies in the same vein, you'll probably enjoy this one. If you were the kind who though BWP was awful, while The Fourth Kind does some new things to the subgenre - they probably aren't going to sell you on them.

In fact, if the reviews are any indication, they will just annoy you more.

So, that said - it will be hard to write the rest of this post without talking about some of the details of the film. While I'll try to remain spoiler free in general, there are few basic things that might effect the viewing. Granted, many reviews also talked about the same thing - but consider this paragraph your warning. In a similar way that I said Paranormal Activity is best viewed knowing little about the film, the same goes for here. I won't put in any major plot points, so if you're tempted then fine ... but you were warned.

OK. So here's the thing, and what I can't quite grasp.

The Fourth Kind is about alien abduction. It's represented in parts of re-enactments of documentary style pieces of film, and also showing parts of documentary style footage. Sometimes next to each other. One common aspect is the director interviewing the person who shot the footage, who is played in the re-enactments by Milla Jovovich.

Here's the shocker: this stuff isn't real. And quite a few reviews really took that to task:

"The problem is that it also decides to lie to your face by pretending to be honest." (CinemaBlend)

"Purporting to be a true story of alien abduction, in reality it's a clumsy attempt to update the hoax technique Orson Welles perfected seven decades ago." (Scotsman)

"The first line in The Fourth Kind has Milla Jovovich calling herself an “actress,” so we know right away the film is lying." (MountainX)

"It was with crushing disappointment that my research discovered this is all made up out of whole cloth, including the real Abigail." (Roger Ebert)

And many reviews spend a decent amount of time poking holes in the "facts" representing by the "documentary" and clearly toss their hands up in the air in grief and frustration in the process.

To which I repeat. This is about alien abductions in Alaska. While some of the "footage" could be seen as realistic, there are also bits where people levitate(spoiler but hey, it's on the cover) and speak in alien tongue. If this stuff was real, they wouldn't need Milla Jovovich to sell it.

It's true that Fourth Kind goes more heavy handed than other films in the subgenre of mockuhorrormentary (TM pending) in trying to convince you that this is real, from the bumper speeches from Milla before and after the main movie, to the footage being displayed next to re-enactments, to overreaching claims about disappearances in Nome, Alaksa, to blanking out names to protect the fictionally innocent - The Fourth Kind uses different tactics from either BWP or Paranormal Activity. Those films try to fly under your radar and keep you guessing. Fourth Kind tries to trade reminding you that this is "real" to also include recognizable actors, glitzy sets and clearly edited scenes.

On one hand, this meets with very mixed success. Don't get me wrong, The Fourth Kind isn't a great film. More like occasionally good - even by mockuhorrormentary standards. But it is an interesting film. Like The Last Broadcast is an excellent counter-example to Blair Witch Project, The Fourth Kind is a counter-example to some of the basic tenets of the genre. Don't use known actors. Don't use sets. Only use handy cams and stock footage, documentary style.

So for so many reviews to focus so squarely that the film is entirely fake when, in the words of The Girl - "it's clearly fake" ... but to skip over that the film is at least trying to change up what could rapidly become a tired formula, feels like an over-reaction to be played into a hoax.

In fact - if anything the film should be commended because Ebert felt he needed to research it when he was done watching it. To convince someone who watches as many films as Ebert does that this footage might actually be real is a pretty good parlor trick.

So again, not a great film. Barely a good film. I kinda recommend it, but only kinda. My main problem with the film is that the good bits are spread out thinly and paced unevenly and some of the "real world" plot points don't line up evenly with the supernatural elements. It's disjointed. But still somewhat fun.

But yes. It's fake.

And so are most movies.

Movie Watch: The Last Broadcast

Some people brought The Last Broadcast to my attention after the Paranormal Activity review, and for good reason. The Last Broadcast is essentially a Blair Witch Project prototype, though it is unclear how much influence or inspiration BWP actually got from Broadcast, which was released one year earlier.

It follows a very similar vein as the other movies - low budget, documentary and self-documentary style story telling, more hints at horror than the actual thing. It's not quite as successful - the overall composition feels less tight and there is a lot of relatively boring detail dragged into the background of the murders central to the plot. Occasionally the low budget aspect shows itself in unwanted ways - but these are really just details to be forewarned about before pressing play. The movie is worth watching if not for the place it holds alongside similar films. After watching it, it feels odd if Blair Witch didn't lift from the Broadcast as some many elements are the same - a trip into the woods, a supernatural presence, characters videotaping each other, etc., etc. Oddly the real difference is that Broadcast insists on a more traditional framework in some of the plot in some places ... but I'll leave that intentionally vague as to avoid spoilers.

Basically - if this kind of horror film has interested you in the past, you owe it to yourself to check The Last Broadcast out, even if only as a historical curiosity ... but also because for what it is, it manages to be pretty entertaining.

If, however, you thought BWP was overhyped boring nonsense ... I would probably avoid it.

Movie Watch: Ong Bak 2

In almost every way, Ong Bak 2 challenges what makes a good movie.

Unfortunately, I think it loses the struggle in the end.

Essentially an ostentatious and extravagant backdrop to show Tony Jaa's martial arts skills, Ong Bak 2 is a "sorta" prequel to Ong Bak ... but to say that Ong Bak isn't required viewing couldn't be more of an understatement. It's a different time with different characters and ... oh look, elephants.

First - the good. The film is beautiful. Jungle fantasy sets with great production value provide some impressive eye candy even before the fists begin to fly. And the flying of the fists is seriously top notch. It reminds someone why these movies are technically challenging ... you have to make it look like Tony Jaa just dropped a can of whoopass on some stunt guy's neck without, well, killing said stunt guy. The action is intense and insanely well directed.

Second - the bad. The story is paper thin and cliche. Worse, there's an attempt to make said paper thin plot interesting by making it non-linear. Which fails pretty miserably for the most part. Characters are introduced and summarily dropped and at times magically created from nowhere.

What's odd, and equally annoying, about those bad parts is that they walk over the parts which might be interesting ideas for a kung fu film. For one thing - there is very little dialogue. Why should there be? This is a pretty basic revenge story with a lot of fighting in between. We didn't come for poorly dubbed explanations - we came here to see fists! There's this keep it simple philosophy at the core of the film which just lets the kung fu speak for itself.

Except, in the end ... it doesn't. Pretty and entertaining - the twisted plot distracts the viewer through much of the film and the otherwise climatic end actually turns into a confusing cocktail of moments. Not to mention that the (kinda spoiler) final cliffhanger appears to have for more to do with production funding and not storytelling.

It's fun - but not very good.

Still, I'd love to see a feature length action film with this sparseness to it. Heck, now that I think about it - I wouldn't mind seeing and hour and a half rendition of the hallway scene from Oldboy, but maybe that's just me.

Finally, the movie begs an interesting point against The Ebert Argument (that movies are inferior to film by the nature of their interactive format). If this had been a game with graphics that equalled that of the film, then the real complaint of such a review would be the length and not the plot. Course, that might just mean game reviewers care less about plot, but if the same story is told through different mediums and one is more entertaining than the other...

Anyway, not highly recommended - but fun nonetheless.

Do We Want Mainstream Oscars?

Over the last few years, the Oscars have tried to do more and more to appeal to the average moviegoer - who is generally the kind of person who has seen every Martin Lawrence but doesn't understand why the show spends all this time showing dead people they've never heard about.

The slow compromise has been more attention given to animations, special effects and sound effects. Then, the appeal of blockbusters started to take over - and we had what could be called "The Peter Jackson Effect". Make a movie big enough, make it pretty - and pack the audiences ... and the Oscars may just love you.

Don't get me wrong, I thought Lord of the Rings was pretty impressive movie-making, by nearly any measure. Not just special effects, but directing, screenplay and acting as well.

But this latest crop?

Avatar?
OK, it pushes the envelope in a lot of ways technically and the industry is putting hopes and dreams that it will bring in avenues of sweet 3D cash. And it was a lot of fun to watch. It was also derivative, cliche, predictable and about thirty minutes too long (if it wasn't for the effects - the length would have been very unwelcome). It was an interesting movie and a good movie, but not a great one.

Kinda like Inglourious Basterds. I haven't written a full review yet, but short version is that Tarantino may be finally hitting a stride, but that doesn't make a bombastic epic like Basterds much more than a shock film with really great sets. Again, this movie was fun - and certainly better drama than say, Kill BIll, but we're not really talking about a superior film in general. I can make similar hay out of District 9 and Up. I haven't seen The Blind Side, but ... it's a Sandra Bullock feel good movie. I'm not really planning on rushing out to do so.

The Hurt Locker is probably the one that deserves it the most that I've seen (which sadly does not include Up in the Air. Again, full review pending - but I found Hurt Locker fascinating. It had an almost horror genre mentality to war, with some really pretty great acting and impressive directing.

Usually, Oscar buzz gives rise to movies which truly deserve some attention but wouldn't normally have gotten it. I doubt Slumdog Millionaire would have been on my fast track if it hadn't gotten so much nomination hype. I think the slow degradation of that just got a massive kick in the pants. Then again, I don't have to pay for the Oscar Night extravaganza - which has seen lagging ratings year after year - but I do want to know what the industry are truly great movies ... not just truly popular ones.

Movie Watch: Ink

Ink is one of those rare gems of an indie movie. While it is very clearly done on a low budget, the constraints of the budget don't inject themselves into what is a fairly solid fantasy plot and manages to deliver some decent visuals as well. Many an indie film may use minimalistic sets as a bit of a crutch, but Ink seems to acknowledge its roots and make up for it with some very solid storytelling.

The plot follows opposing forces between the world of the waking and the world of dreaming as they are focused on a man and his daughter. The worlds and characters collide, there's some decent twists to it and a few quite honestly cool as hell scenes. I'd really, really like to blab about them here - but they work best when you see them and realize that some of the effects, while cheap, make a lot of sense in the frame of the story and work very, very well to deliver the movie. This is a movie that is probably better to not describe in great detail - because it is often the details that make it works so well.

We found this on Netflix Instant, highly, highly recommend.

Bad Movie Showdown - Transformers 2 Vs. GI Joe

As stated elsewhere, when I travel I often dig up movies which I know The Girl won't object to me watching without her. This often requires lowering the quality bar to nearly subterranean heights. This last week saw Transformers 2 pitted against GI Joe.

Both flicks are derived from Hasbro toy lines, both were once long running cartoons which resulted in movie length features. They have established plots, backstories, and characters - all, of course, being pretty hokey and shallow ... but naturally the whole thing could use a touch up for modern audiences.

And to be fair, one of these is a sequel.

GI Joe
I had a huge Joe collection as a kid. It was about the only thing that rivaled Star Wars in terms of pure action figure goodness. These were toys with serious backstories, an arsenal of weapons - and thumbs that mysteriously broke off quite a bit.

The movie can be somewhat excused for tossing out the majority of the ensemble, I suppose - especially if you take the stance that people might not have a voluminous set of toys to instantly know the characters. Even the characters that are spotlighted, though, undergo rather drastic changes to serve the plot. It's nothing earth shattering considering we're talking source material based on a toy line, not Tolkien - but still somewhat sad that even basic outlines can't be followed.

Then there are the toys. Somehow the movie takes a franchise which already had some pretty hokey concepts and just makes them big screen hokey - the well noted "accelerator suits" (AKA - CGI Battle Warriors) as a perfect example.

And poor Dennis Quaid -I don't think he's been this out of place since Dragonheart. He seems to have problems with characters who are supposed to have growly accents.

So it's bad - not over the top bad (usually) - but pretty bad. It has some fun moments, the plot isn't so absurd that you'll hate all of it - and mostly is criminal for butchering an otherwise simple concept. It's bad, and there is better movies to watch well before getting to this one.

But it's just not nearly as bad as...

Transformers 2
Wow. Just wow.

I had no idea how bad this movie was going to be. It's not like the first one was fine cinema, but kinda like Joe it was at least somewhat fun while slashing apart the original material. There is nothing redeeming about this movie. Every scene that is supposed to be funny - isn't. Much of the human interaction in the movie comes off like bad improv.

Even the big bang special effects somewhat fizzle. For one thing, every Decepticon manages to look like nearly every other Decepticon - except for the extreme cases and Soundwave ... who is now a satellite.

Yeah. A satellite. Capable apparently of shooting plot holes to earth with alarming frequency. Trying not to spoil too much here - but a quick list ... a Decepticon Pretender shows up, though unless you are wildly familiar with the comic line ... this feels like just a bizarre violation of the "big transforming robot" concept in general, humans get swallowed whole and then transported safely half way across the world (apparently that Decepticon also transforms into a motel of sorts) and the main villain spends so much time off screen doing nothing relatively nothing except confusing you if you should be paying attention to Megatron or him ... you'll wonder why the whole thing wasn't called "Transformers 2: Revenge of the WTF were we thinking".

It's just a mess, and honestly big screen special effects aren't that hard to find these days. Sadly this movie made a ton of money, so we're likely to be burdened with "Transformers 3: Rise Of Our Massive Lack Of Editing Ability" in the near future.

Fun Fact: The Baroness was voiced by Stargate alum Teryl Rothery for a while. Also, Duke's death in the animated GI Joe movie was averted because of public outcry to Optimus dying in the animated The Transformers film, produced at the same time. Oddly, Wheeljack's death had no such impact.

Movie Watch: Drag Me To Hell

Sam and Ivan Raimi's Drag Me To Hell almost went into the pile of movies I watch while traveling, until the first five minutes made me nostalgic of the Evil Dead series and I realized, yeah The Girl will want to watch this one too...

Drag Me To Hell is the movie Evil Dead fans have been wanting even if it doesn't feature Bruce Campbell's impressive jawline (for that, see My Name Is Bruce). It takes the same tricks used in the trilogy (more the first two movies than Army of Darkness) and implants them into a new storyline, this one featuring Alison Lohman as a loan officer cursed by a rather disgusting gypsy woman.

There are a few stumbles along the way - like Justin Long's rather deadpan rendition of a doting boyfriend, and a bit of predictability down the plot (especially for fans of the genre) - but the bottom line is that this great old school horror, and extremely refreshing in the days where Saw and Hostel benchmark the modern horror movie.

It's a lot of fun, and highly recommended.

Movie Watch: Paranormal Activity

Not sure where to start with this movie - so let's start with marketing. I first heard of Paranormal Activity from Twitter of all things, and TweetYourScream is still a great way to catch quick reviews and special deals for the movie.

In this way, the comparisons between this film and Blair Witch aren't slight. People like to slag The Blair Witch Project has overhyped handycam nonsense - but I still remember when it was a highly successful marketing effort pushing the film as real footage, a truly impressive guerrilla hoax just as much as it was guerrilla film-making. The problem is that in that day and age, hype will outdo your hoax and eventually everyone wonders why anyone called this the greatest horror movie they've ever seen.

Moral of the story? Hoaxes are fun for horror. Hype isn't. Look over just the shoulder of Paranormal Activity to The Fourth Kind which is in the middle of just such a dynamic. Paranormal, however, makes such good use of Twitter and Facebook that the hype is very streamlined, and not anywhere near as out of hand as Blair Witch saw.

So how is the movie itself? Once again we have "found footage" from some people - this time a young couple who discovers things in their suburban home isn't as calm as they thought. There is some opinion that the plot starts too slow, but I was rather impressed that we get a nearly complete frame of the premise in the very early scenes.

Right here I want to call a break and give a quick recommendation. Just go see this movie. Unless what you've read so far is really turning you off - just go see it. It may not be the scariest movie ever. Might not even be the scariest this year - but it is one of the most unique and is really well done. It's an excellent spookhouse, especially for the ears. I was scared. The Girl even enjoyed it and she hated Blair Witch.

Thing is - don't go looking for info. Don't go to YouTube. Don't go to Wikipedia. It's not that there is a surprise ending or anything, but the more of a blank slate you have, the better. In fact, from what I hear some of the YouTube videos and online trailers would really spoil the movie (as bad as the cover of Quarantine). Don't think about it, just go see it.

Then come back here when you're done.

I'll wait.

OK, back? Highlight the rest of this post to read it.

For me, what was really effective about the movie is the slow progression of the demon's activities - but especially the use of audio cues and sound effects. That heavy bass was a presence which acted as a layer on top of the invisible force at work.

Another comparison between this and Blair Witch is the that part of tension is the breakdown between the characters. This is traditionally true for any good "cabin story" and a must for low budget thrillers like this one - and really well played here. Apparently like Witch, the actors worked with minimal direction and suggestions rather than a distinct script.

My only real complaint is what The Girl likes to call "going back for the cat". She hates the movie Alien because she thinks Ripley risking being eaten alive by an alien for the cat broke all plausibility. This is common in horror films, of course, the "stupid horror victim" has been parodied and even noted in recent horror films. Here, Micah goes from being bold to brainded before the third act begins. If I have a tape of something starting a spontaneous fire on my coffee table - I'm finding an expert.

That the movie got to this point is rather remarkable, and it seems like we have a lot of thanks to Spielberg and his posse for that. Not only did they pick up the film, they realized it should remain in the current format (there was the idea to remake it "Hollywood" style and just include the current film as a DVD extra) and help improve the overall structure and ending (there are two alternate endings floating around the net - neither sounds as good as their aired version).

But that's just a subcomponent of an others wise well tailored experience. I hope movies like The Last Broadcast, Blair Witch, and Paranormal Activity gets a chance to branch out into their sub-genre. Hopefully we can see this formula expanded and evolved, and perhaps now that we've seen that a studio can help the production and not hurt it ... they'll get even more sophisticated.

Obviously, highly recommended.

Movie Watch: Street Fighter, Legend of Chun-Li (Unrated and Unleashed)

I have this tradition when I travel. I try to find movies that are so horrible, The Girl can't be annoyed that I'm watching them without her.

In the most recent Street Fighter movie, I may have gone to far to that side of the spectrum. One would think that any follow up to the previous dreadful Van Damme vehicle of the same name wouldn't have to work too hard to move the franchise forward, but Legend Of Chun-Li has hopefully buried the concept of making a film from Capcom's game series forever.

The problem isn't that it's one bad movie - the problem is that it is in actuality about three bad movies tossed together with bubble gum and chicken wire. You have the "I'm a martial arts girl who has to save her father" plot, and the "I'm a badass Interpol agent who drives a BMW" plot, and the "I must avenge my mystical master" plot and ... they all suck and they all work against each other. The last bits feel forced into the narrative just to prove it is, in fact, a Street Fighter movie. Basically the movie plays out like someone took a bad Hong Kong script, tried to edit it, failed and sold it to Capcom to add in a couple of character names and the ability to toss in fireballs. Produce it cheap and hope the fans come in droves.

Heartily recommend - avoiding it. Unless you simply must dissect the badness. But wear gloves.

Movie Watch: Terminator Salvation

I'm going to through in some spoilers here because, well golly, as I've said before some things just deserved to be spoiled.

Terminator: Salvation starts off pretty strong. One of the early action sequences is actually a pretty impressive showing of cinematography and directing. A lot of the premise elements make it seem like the movie is trying to build into something more than just an action movie - something almost like a Philip K. Dick novel in places.

And then, about half way through, the entire movie gives up completely on all of the above and turns into a vapid Hollywood blockbuster before turning the corner to being blind, stupid and annoying.

I'll try to be vague, but let's just say that about the time John Connor decides to napalm an entire forest - it's about time to bail. It doesn't entirely make sense, and just serves to set up another (this time much more banal) action scene and worse - opens the plot to numerous blunders of the movie's progressive downfall.

For one thing - it begins to baffle the viewer as to why John Connor, who should have more advanced knowledge of Skynet, Terminators and hacking phones for free service (though that last bit is probably of little use anymore) acts like such a dimwitted grunt for most of the movie. Gone is the intelligence that we've seen in previous movies, in its place is a role that feels like a boilerplate from every other action movie. Bale's strategy through all of this is to give us his angry puppy dog look through most of the movie.

When the movie reaches its "twist", the wheels have officially come off the bus. There's the right way to do a twist - which is the careful seeding of hints and foreshadowing, and there's the Terminator: Salvation method which is to just wait until you need a nifty plot moment, make up a bunch of crap and hope the audience is still impressed with all that napalm blowing up.

As the movie moves into Skynet Central, you might think to yourself: "this can't get any worse". Surely all these computer interfaces designed for humans in a machine world gone made is bad enough. Or maybe that in a city full of human killing machines, the incredibly powerful AI decides to send a lone robot to kill off its most wanted prize. Or maybe the revelation that all terminators are, in fact, just walking nuclear bombs. Or the "salvation through electrocution" scene.

I won't spoil the ending - but I will warn you. Yes. Yes, it gets worse.

It's a horrible movie. Highly, highly not recommended. Seriously, Terminator 3 was much better if only because it knew it was just a stupid action film from the beginning.

Movie Watch: Seven Pounds

I would best call this movie a "Will Smith Oscar attempt". Seven Pounds follows an IRS agent who is not actually an IRS agent trying to help the lives of others he finds mildly attractive or good, preferrably with some kind of failing organ. The premise is a bit half baked, but worse is that it broadcasts itself so clearly at the beginning of the movie. You just know Smith isn't really who says he is, but worse you can quickly guess who he actually is, which makes a lot of scenes later in movie lose its strength. Especially since some of the moments the movie builds up towards seem to get very little attention towards the end.

The movie was advertised as something of a mystery, but the structure provides little mystery except to the completely obvlivious viewer. What's left is a kind of awkward romance plot whose only saving grace is Rosario Dawson as an attractive woman with a failing heart.

And rest assured, the movie mines that metaphor for much, much more than it is worth.

Not recommended, unless you're just a serious Will Smith fan.

Movie Watch: The Spirit

The Spirit is a completely ridiculous comic movie, shot in a similar vein as Sin City. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Where Sin City forces you into a cruel and harsh landscape, The Spirit feels downright cartoonish at times.

I can only imagine what moviegoers thought when they saw this film, which was heavily advertised as a Sin City follow up, complete with Frank "Dark Knight" Miller on board. It's easy to write the film off as simply bad, with the hackey and often forced dialogue, but I think any movie that goes out of its way to point out that hitting someone with a toilet is funny knew it wasn't hitting from the same ball park.

Instead, the film is one of those destined to be cult offerings - too campy for its own good and too buried in its own campiness to do anything else with it. But when a guy gets hit with a kitchen sink, you're supposed to laugh. The movie is easily more comedy than action.

Miller's directing works well on a visual level, but it does feel like he was struggling with his actors at times (who may have been having a similar cognitive dissonance as the audience). Even at a cult level, the movie stumbles from time to time.

I can't say I recommend it, but The Girl and I laughed through most of it. If you watch it, just know what you're getting into.

Movie Watch: S. Darko, A Donnie Darko Tale

Beware of a movie that so wants you to realize it is a sequel that it practically repeats the title.

So, obviously, S. Darko is the direct to video sequel to Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko - without Richard Kelly's involvement. The film did manage to have Daveigh Chase reprise her role as Samantha, and you'll see Elizabeth Berkely pop in as a minor character as well.

While visually interesting at times, the film is more or less a poor study of the first film and overburdened by that movie's themes and imagery. You'll get quite tired of the forcibly induced bunny scenes by the end and the apocalyptic time travel plot has a stitched together from crib notes kind of feel.

It's not that the movie is bad - the writing itself is competent, the acting is solid and the scenes generally look fairly good. The problem is that there is little here to satisfy Darko fans. The movie's big steps to expand any explanation of the first movie's events feel awkward and disconnected. There's no development of known characters outside of Samantha, and mostly she simply plays up the sullen teen routine. As the sign in the movie goes, this film is Frank's Echo.

So not bad outright, but very hard to recommend - even to the desired audience of Darko viewers.

Movie Watch: Timecrimes

Timecrimes is a Spanish time-travelling thriller. It takes some interesting twists on the normal time jaunt concept, with doses of nudity and surrealism tossed into the mix. It never quite escapes the geek scrutiny of time related plot issues, but if you can push those into the back of your head the movie is really quite enjoyable. What feels predictable about half way through the plot gets regularly challenged during the last half of the movie.

As a side note, we watched this off the Roku and it was inflicted with the dread audio problems that occur with some of Netflix's material (The Girl has a working theory that they don't test their foriegn stuff nearly as much as the domestic). Thankfully the plot was quite easy to follow using the subtitles, so we managed to make it through the end even if we were hearing music and dialogue from ten minutes prior. We love the Roku so far, but this inability of Netflix to encode correctly or at least fix it promptly is certainly a bit of a hitch.

Movie Watch: Let The Right One In

Let The Right One In is a Swedish vampire movie based on the novel of the same name. Think of Twilight, only with some serious literary punch to it. The story follows Oskar, a young bullied boy, and his relationship with Eli - who is quickly apparent to be none of those things.

It's a slow and gripping movie. There are scenes full of nothing but subtext and you get a grounded look into Oskar's life before the action really takes hold - and the payoff in the end is excellent.

We'd recommend watching the subtitles, we were warned against the dubs and mistakenly watched the first ten minutes with them - and the voice acting is just not up to par and doesn't pace well with the movie as a whole.

An American version is due out in a couple of years, but I'd recommend getting the original on your plate before it hits. I can't imagine that the plot will remain unscathed for mainstream American culture. Considering the vast amount of time we spend on the love between a 12 year old boy and a rather androgynous vampire, I can only hope the remake doesn't end up being Twilight Lite.

Highly recommend.

Movie Watch: Dark City (Director's Cut)

Dark City is an odd movie. Something of a scifi noir, there are bits and pieces of a mystery and suspense novel tossed into a variety of new and old concepts which seem part cobbled from Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler.

It's difficult to talk much about the movie with unraveling the interesting plot for you and essentially spoiling the movie. The important portion of this post is that this Blu-Ray edition of the director's cut is the definitive way to see this movie. The original studio cut put a rather annoying and overly informative voice over at the beginning of the movie that puts the viewer in completely the wrong state to enjoy the early twists of the movie. Also, it's darn pretty.

And the early parts are easily the best, and in this cut do a better job of supporting the final acts of the movie. Written and directed by Alex Proyas, it includes all of his characteristic visuals. If similarities to The Matrix are seen, it isn't all accidental. Matrix would go on to reuse some of Dark City's sets.

Definitely recommended.