Netflix Reviews #9

The crap fest edition.

Setup

I watched this movie one of those nights where there is absolutely nothing on and you just want to see some mindless action movie with some guns and some fists flying about.  Slow mo is required.  Seeing Bruce Willis was in this definitely threw me off, so I decided to give it a try.  The movie was directed by Mike Gunther.  He is a stunt man turned director.  I'm mostly surprised at the cast, though.  It seems Willis owed Gunther some sort of favor.  50 Cent is the "star" of this show and it is easily the worse performance of the bunch.  His character is devoid of anything interesting.  It's like a cloud of boringness follows him everywhere he goes.  There doesn't seem to be any passion that doesn't seem forced.  Bruce Willis was my favorite character as everyone else seems to be cardboard cutouts.  It was funny seeing Randy Couture in this thing as well.  Anyways, avoid.

2.5 out of 10   

Ironclad

Directed by mostly unknown director Jonathan English, this violent medieval action film deals with a Knights Templar (James Purefoy) who decides to join with aristocrats against the evil King John (Paul Giamatti) who has decided to forget about signing the Magna Carta and paid a bunch of vikings as mercenaries.  The movie fails mostly because the people casting this thing had no idea what they were doing.  Besides Purefoy, who did his job fairly well, Brian Cox plays a good guy... who came up with that?  Paul Giamatti hones one in with his performance here.  Its goofy and unbelievably bad.  I don't think I've ever seen him stink up the screen so badly.  Kate Mara plays the young wife of some other stuffy guy who apparently couldn't get it up or something so she falls for Purefoy's character in one of the most forced romances this side of Kim Kardashian and that basketball player no one remembers.  That being said, this is probably the best movie of this batch.  The action is gory and the battle scenes are alright.  By all means, don't rush out and see this, but its better than the other crap on this list.

4.5 out of 10

Cowboys & Aliens

Who would have thunk that this movie would be such dross.  How do you go from directing Iron Man to this movie?  The premise is really interesting.  Come on, cowboys and indians battling aliens?  I'm sold.  The movie leaves a lot to be desired.  First of all, Daniel Craig is completely uninteresting and seems just as uninterested at what is going on.  Olivia Wilde is there to be the only eye candy and hardly has anything to do.  The best character in this movie is Harrison Ford's Woodrow Dollarhyde.  He is crass, loud mouthed and just generally a prick, but we sort of like him.  Especially because everyone else is incredibly dull.  By the way... nice work in turning a great actor like Sam Rockwell into a boring mess of a character.  While the special effects looked pretty cool, the rest of the movie is plodding and uninteresting.  I'm surprised how much I disliked it, except for Harrison Ford.

4 out of 10

Friends With Benefits

I admit that I was incredibly skeptical that Justin Timberlake could act at all.  I'm glad I was wrong, because we get a young and talented actor that with some more work, could be a really good actor.  Not if he keeps picking roles like this one, though.  This movie looked interesting when I saw the trailer but it ended up being the usual rom-com bullshit that we are used to seeing all the time.  I think my biggest problem with it is that it starts completely anti-romantic and ends up being exactly what it was criticizing at the beginning.  Talk about a hypocritical movie.  I'm even more of a moron for believing for a second that this might be more than the usual dross.  Although I actually enjoyed director Will Gluck's previous film (Easy A), this one lacked any of the others originality or likeability.  Probably the best part was played by Richard Jenkins as Dylan Harper's (Justin Timberlake) father who has Alzheimer's.  I still think Timberlake could go on to do some great things while Kunis will probably stick to this type of role.  This one specifically is just not one you should watch.  Watch Love and Other Drugs instead.

4 out of 10

Detective Dee and The Mystery of the Phantom Flame

I have said here before how high I think of Andy Lau and his acting chops.  I think he is one of the premiere Hong Kong actors going at this moment.  That being said, this movie stunk of high budgitis.  Instead of going for an interesting story, we get talking deer and people bursting into flame from the inside.  Meh.  I just couldn't get to the story.  Maybe there was something that I was missing and the movie just didn't do enough to try to capture me and immerse me in this particular story.  The special effects also looked pretty cheap.  Now, I really like Hark Tsui, but I guess I just couldn't get this film at all.

3 out of 10

Netflix Reviews #8

I watched a pretty funny movie, an incredibly endearing one, fuckin' Andy Lau, and a borefest, among others.

 

Horrible Bosses

Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis star as the three bumbling goofballs who are being in some way or another harassed by their bosses.  Kevin Spacey plays a domineering and abusive boss that doesn't care about the people he supervises.  Jennifer Aniston plays a sex maniac who is trying to sleep with Charlie Day and wouldn't care about ruining his marriage to get to him.  Colin Farrell plays the son who inherits his father's business but he just loves to do drugs and fuck hookers.  Of course, when you have bosses as horrible as this, the first thing that comes to your mind is... "let's kill them".  The premise is all kinds of ridiculous, but the actors manage to make this a pretty funny comedy.  Jamie Foxx plays the hilarious Motherfucker Jones who mostly trick these three tools into believing him and playing him a lot of money.  I'm not going to ruin the movie for you, but let's just say that hijinks ensue.  The movie was directed by Seth Gordon, who hasn't really done that much of note except for the pretty cool documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.  This movie won't get everyone laughing, but the three leads do a pretty good job of playing off of each other when it came to the dialogue.  I would have liked to have seen more from Spacey, Aniston and Farrell.

5.5 out of 10   

Shaolin

I've always thought that Andy Lau was one of the best actors working in Hong Kong cinema today.  The fact that Jackie Chan was also in this movie was also a reason I decided to watch it.  The movie deals with a warlord that is looking to control as much territory as he possibly can, but others have different ideas and they conspire against General Hou Jie (Andy Lau).  His family is murdered and he is left a shell of a man.  It takes the caring and discipline of the Shaolin monks who he had shunned and mocked previously to make him understand the error of his ways.  It was a pretty movie.  The cinematography is never overpowering but its still pretty beautiful.  The music complements the film greatly.  The theme song is played by Andy Lau himself and its pretty great stuff.  The movie deals with redemption and does it very well.  While the last battle scene was a little over the top, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie.  If you like this kind of movie, then you will really enjoy this one.

6.5 out of 10 

Super 8

I was really skeptical about this movie when I first started watching it.  It wasn't anything specific, just a feeling that it might not be that good.  I'm always glad when I'm proved wrong.  The movie is not perfect by any means, but I thought it was endearing.  J.J. Abrams directs this film about young kids who witness something tragic and then have to deal with the unexplained consequences of that event in their small town.  Truthfully, this movies strong point is the group of friends and the way they interact.  Props have to be given to both Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney who play Alice and Joe, respectively.  The two of them really shine here.  Really, most of the adults are all just there because they have to be.  I felt this movie was a little disjointed, though.  It felt like two different movies pasted together.  At one point the kids are running around while Michael Bay apparently took over the director's seat and there were explosions going of every direction.  I prefered the parts with the kids over the ones with the alien.  That's just me though.  In the end, it was still a nice movie which really embraces the magic and fantasy of film making.

7 out of 10

Win Win

This movie is definitely the gem of the batch.  Paul Giamatti is without a doubt one of the best actors working in Hollywood today.  Very few people can go from the lovable idiot, to the nasty and bloodthirsty villain to the damaged guy that you just want to root for as he makes mistakes.  That is what he does here most of the time.  Every time an idea comes to Giamatti's Mike Flaherty, you sort of want to wince and tell him not to be an idiot but you still wish that everything goes right for him.  I won't really get into what he does so as not to ruin the movie, but he ends up taking care of one of his clients grandsons who has a history of being problematic and is also an incredibly gifted wrestler.  I really enjoyed how Alex Shaffer played Kyle.  He never goes over the top with it and is almost like the character is apathetic about most things.  Amy Ryan is also really great as Giamatti's wife Jackie.  Everything about this movie just seems to fit perfectly and the result is a really good movie with really great performances.  Sure, this might not look like a movie that you have to rush out and see, but give it a shot.  If it doesn't win you over, you are wrong in the head.

7.5 out of 10

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

I can't explain how much I disliked this damn movie.  I had confused the director for some reason and decided to watch this sappy and annoying movie about friendship or something.  I'm sorry, but this movie was just incredibly boring.  The movie also touches on the tradition of foot binding which is pretty gruesome stuff.  Wayne Wang directed this movie and it should have been obvious as its plodding pace and its syrupy story weigh it down completely.  The acting is pretty mediocre from Bingbing Li and Gianna Jun, and these two alone are four of the characters in the movie... not good.  There is a reason why there are a lot more bro movies than women friends movies... bro movies are just freaking fun.  Not these.  All about binding each other forever or some such shit.  Ugh... I just couldn't stomach this at all.

3 out of 10

The Four-Faced Liar

Directed by unknown Jacob Chase with an unknown cast, this sort of romantic comedy about some 20 somethings trying to live life in New York City seems pretty earnest.  There is nothing new here that hasn't been seen before and I think that is one of the things that hurts it.  The biggest problem with this film is that the characters are not that interesting, so you never really feel the need to invest in them and their problems.  The filmmakers and the cast should be praised for making a movie that while flawed, still felt like it wanted to say something.  I can't really recommend it because its just not that great, but it was close.  I'm glad people like Chase and writer/actress Marja Lewis Ryan can make these kinds of movies and have the public watch them through a service like Netflix.

5 out of 10