THREE.
Last week saw me and the wife catching “Clash of the Titans,” “Date Night,” and “Kick-Ass.”
Every movie had a reason for me to see it. “Clash...” was a remake of the old classic that i had a Betamax tape of a lifetime ago, and i was curious as hell as to how good the thing would look given today’s available bag of FX tricks... “Date...” had Tina Fey. ‘nuff said. “Kick-Ass” was a superhero movie. Again, ‘nuff said.
So on to my pointless reviews!
“Clash of the Not-so-Titanic...”
I stayed away from the forums and the advance reviews on “Clash...,” and strode into the cinema holding an almost three-decade set of memories containing the booming voice of the late great Laurence Olivier as Zeus, glimpses of the gorgeous Ursula Andres as Aphrodite, the annoyingly indelible visions of Harry Hamlin shaking his 80’s style wild hair as Perseus, and the gratuitous nude bath/sacrifice scene of Judi Bowker’s Andromeda character, which I admit I rewound and replayed in the occasional absence of real porn cassettes.
And while i came into “Clash 2010” knowing this was a supposed remake, i found it quite... derivative.
Firstly, despite the gazillions most likely spent on the effects, it didn’t have quite the grandeur of the first “Clash.” Secondly, they totally screwed up the story and had to make it a “man vs. gods” story that it didn’t have to be... and while i find Bond-gal Gemma Arterton swelteringly hot in a greek-style toga/tunic, i found her character to have been totally shoe-horned in there as a convenient escape hatch for plot problems, without the gratuitous nudity that 80’s movies were so fond of...
The Medusa fight looked like salvaged from the cutting room of Jon Voight’s “Anaconda.” Okay, so the nod to the robot owl from “Clash of 1981” was quirky, but Sam Worthington sometimes looked like he was trying to remember which movie he was actually making this time... and Liam Neeson looked so bored, i wouldn’t have been surprised if he was rehearsing his “A-Team” script in his “Clash” trailer...
Can’t wait for them to ruin THOSE memories... Time to look for a DVD of the “Clash of 1981”...
“Whatta... Date Night”
Wife asked what was in the movie... i said, “Tina Fey, and the 40-Year-Old Virgin...” so she said, “Okay... can’t be too bad...”Next thing i remember is the wifey laughing her ass off at the dumb car chase...
Tina Fey and Steve Carrell play a suburban couple who are living a nice, but routine life. On the one night they decide to hit the Big Apple and do something different, they didn’t realize just how different the night would end up to be.
After losing their patience waiting for a table at a swank new resto, they claim a table reservation that turns out to have been reserved by crooks. They get mistaken for the crooks, and all hell breaks loose.
Fey and Carrell are totally in their element here, and the producers have competently surrounded them with a cast of losers and oddballs that enhance their characters... most notable of whom is Marky Mark, oops... ‘scuse me... Mark Wahlberg... who turns in a hilariously deadpan performance as a security expert who Fey flirts with, but end up helping save their asses...
One is not expected to oil the gears in one’s brain to enjoy “Date Night.” But one is expected to sit back, laugh his/her ass off, and finally understand how Steve Carrell made dorky the new cool, and why Tina Fey made smart the new sexy.
Cutting room bits thrown into the credits add just the right cherry on top of a real sweet treat.
I want a sequel...
“Kick-Ass Kicked half an ass...”Stop it, fanboys... i am NOT shitting on the flick...
The posters with Nic Cage in a Batman wannabe suit, along with 3 other characters, including the title character, totally... well... kicked ass... the posters were funny. Quite so, that i was expecting a totally funny movie in the vein of the Ben Stiller vehicle “Mystery Men.” I didn’t get it.
What i got instead was an odd comic-book movie that was promoted to be a comedy, but turned to be a (literally) bloody pastiche of what happens when Batman schools Spidey...
Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, a typical patsy teenager who does what a ton of us have surely dreamt of doing sometime after puberty. He puts on a suit and pretends to be a superhero calling himself “Kick-Ass.” On one occasion, before getting totally pulped, he is saved by some real super characters in the form of Chloë Grace Moretz’s “Hit-Girl” and Nic Cage’s “Big Daddy.”
Teenage angst and some requisite supervillain posturing ensue, and we are left with a door wide open for a sequel.
The earnestness of Aaron Johnson as the title character will win fanboys over for sure, and Nic Cage’s deadpan rendition of Big Daddy makes you want to root for him and forget he ever made “Ghost Rider.” Moretz was a total discovery and wonderful revelation, and her chemistry with Nic Cage makes you want to forgive Nic Cage for making “Ghost Rider”...
The movie’s biggest achievement is answering my personal “what if” in connection to childhood delusions of superheroism...
At least he got the girl...
-------------------------------------------------------
‘catch you later...
No comments:
Post a Comment