Today, we went to see our first movie in quite a while — Quantum of Solace.  I haven’t posted in quite a while, so while I was working on some back-end updates I decided to make a post about it.  Simply said, this didn’t feel like a Bond movie of old.  I’m not looking for something formulaic, but it felt like an early revision.  A number of scenes felt as if they were cut short.  It really really didn’t seem like a Bond flick.  That’s not to say that this was a bad film, just not a Bond film.  Otherwise, it just becomes an action flick.  That, it certainly was.  There was non-stop action start to end.  Worth seeing, yeah, but if I’d make the choice again, I’d just wait for it to come out on video.

We went to see Live Free or Die Hard today.  It’s good!  I can’t go and call it one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen, or anything like that, but this was a true summer block buster.  It was an all out action film in the best of ways.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a “real” action film.  Mostly Hollywood tries to put out an action film with some sort of twist, but this is out and out true to the genre.  One liners, witty quips, car chases, explosions, impossible situations, a hero character than is tougher than nails and rough around the edges, no love story, no strange mystery, no attempted plot twist, no super powers, no half-hearted special effects, and nothing wrong.  Seriously, it was great.  I’ll say it’s the best action film I’ve seen this year, in the last year, maybe even in the last 5 years.  Go see it if you haven’t.  I don’t want to spoil it.

We went to see Transformers today.  We went to the theater without seeing a schedule and letting fate decide.  It turns out we got there way too early for most films, and a little late for Transformers, so we went to see it hoping that we only missed the commercials.  The timing worked out pretty well.  I gather we missed maybe a minute of the opening.

This film has me a bit torn.  I was a die hard Transformers kid.  I loved it.  I knew everything about it.  I probably saw every episode of the original TV series, and a good chunk of the crap that came later.  It’s been so many years, though, and my memory of all those little details has faded.  So my wish was that Hollywood wouldn’t screw this one up.  Well, they didn’t.  Sure, they changed things around a bit.  Some for legal reasons, some just because it’s Hollywood.  I’m not so sure I like Michael Bay’s execution.  It certainly wasn’t the crap that was Pearl Harbor, but here he seemed to be trying too hard to make it fast paced, edgy, gritty, etc.  He made a common mistake of Hollywood directors trying to zoom in on the closest details of a fight such that you lose sight of the big picture.  That single detail is what really got to me.  It made it hard to follow everything, and maybe that’s by design, but just not quite right for me.  Stepping back from that, the story was good.  Naturally, it’s a big Hollywood summer blockbuster, so it’s got big noise, explosions, weapons, the latest military gadgets, the whole spectrum of cliched government characters from spooks to grunts.  The dialog was a little less than believable at times.  That could be just acting, but I think the dialog hurt it.  I love the throwbacks and comedy.  The comedy helps with the comic book feel.  The throwbacks grab us original fans.  Number one on the list is “the sound”.  That sound the Transformers made when transforming.  The other is Optimus Prime’s voice.  They went and dug up Peter Cullen.  Amazing that he’s still alive.  Oh, and that nice car purchasing scene where Bumblebee smacks the VW Bug.  That was cool.

In short, I recommend this, especially if you loved the Transformers as a kid.

We went to see Evan Almighty this weekend.  Great movie.  Well, not “great” as in Scorsese-esque, but it was quite good.  I’d say that in many ways it was better than it’s predecessor.  It probably makes a big difference if you prefer Steve Carell vs Jim Carrey type comedy.  I prefer Steve Carell, although I have him stuck in my mind as Michael in The Office.  Note that the writers were different between these iterations of the story.  Steve Oedekerk was the writer on this one.  I love his style and it comes through.  Morgan Freeman does quite well.  The overall film really is one of the summer’s best.  Highly recommended!

We went to see DOA: Dead or Alive this past Sunday.  Don’t bother seeing this in the theater (if it even lasts past this first weekend).  If you really want to see it, wait until it’s on video and go rent it.  In fact, wait until it’s been on video a while and wait for it to get the bargain bin rates.  I used to love playing one of the early versions of the game, so I had to go see it.  Video Game based movies rarely (if ever) turn out any good and this one was beyond bad.  Acting was generally bad (although it really depends on which actor, there were a few that were okay).  The directing was very amateurish.  I’m surprised it’s from Cory Yuen.  Even low budget Hong Kong films done in 2 or 3 weeks have better camera angles, editing, and scene composition.  Maybe he was under orders to construct scenes to replicate the video game and had to spend all his time there.  The fight scenes were probably the best part.  Except for a few corny things, they were passable.  The dialog was beyond bad.  To the point that the few decent actors really had to work to make the lines remotely believable.  It was so bad, they could have even tried to be Austin Powers campy about it, but no, it’s almost like they tried to be serious.  Anyway, thumbs down.

We went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer this past Saturday.  This was another film I’d read some poor reviews of, so I tried to keep my expectations from getting too high.  What was I thinking when it was over?  Like I had just watched a long TV episode.  Really.  Despite the huge budget, lots of special effects, and super heros I just didn’t feel the “blockbuster” intent.  The acting of the team felt like it was missing something.  There was no energy there, no sense of urgency as the world is going to be destroyed.  The only character I felt delivered was the Silver Surfer.  General Hager was the next best, but he was very much a cliche.  In fact, the corny nature of many little segments just took away from the film instead of adding anything to the characters.  It was a disappointment, but even more so when I analyze it.

We went to see Ocean’s Thirteen a little over a week ago.  I tried hard to keep expectations low.  I had read some early reviews and knew to not get over hyped.  It worked.  I wasn’t over expectant and as such I wasn’t disappointed.  This iteration of the story certainly wasn’t as engaging or as well written as the first two, but it was “good enough.”  I’m certainly not raving about it, but I’m not feeling like I wasted the ticket money.  The quality of the film was quite good.  There were the neat bits of action, the twisting story, the large large scenes with lots of little things going on.  The mis-en-scene brought a very real feeling to it.  This certainly wasn’t an amateur project.  It just lacked the polish of the first two iterations in the STORY.  The casting was good.  The directing was good.  The acting was good.  No where along the line did I feel like I was watching actors.  The story, though, it feels more like a draft than a final version.  It could have used some more work.

We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on Saturday.  Afterward, I felt it was a little chaotic, but in writing this, I think it really think it was in line with the first two iterations of the story.  That’s something I want to emphasize.  This series is really just one story.  It’s one story with yearly pauses.  I can see them carrying on the story for however many they can afford to keep making.  I enjoyed it, so go watch and see how this one goes.  They certainly spent to bucks in the special effects department to give it the summer blockbuster wow.

We went to see Shrek the Third on Friday. Naturally, considering the first two iterations, there were high expectations.  I liked Shrek 2 even more than the original.  This one felt a little flat.  That’s not to say it’s a bad film.  It’s fine, but it was missing that “wow” that the first two iterations had.   I think the one thing that really made it “off” was a lack of focus.  The story telling could have been more focused and everything would have fallen together much much better.

We went to see Spider-Man 3 this weekend.  It was alright.  I mean, it certainly had action, special effects, and all the big summer block-buster components, but I thought it was kind of lack-luster.  A big deal with movies for me is expectations.  Regardless of how good or bad a movie is I have expectations about what I’m going to see before I walk in.  For this movie, I had none.  I knew it was a sequel to two movies I’d seen.  I knew that I liked the first two.  I also knew that more often than not sequels suck.  That made it kind of a wash.  So, starting out, I liked it.  It was going along fine, but when they tried to introduce the dark/possessed Peter Parker it just threw me.  It just didn’t work.  It makes me think of Jim Carrey in The Mask.  It was like a weird emo version of Peter Parker mixed in with The Mask.  It was almost comedic and in complete contrast to how well the rest of the film flowed.  So, if I ignore that big blunder, the rest of the film was fine.