Iron Man 3 – I am
a bit torn on this movie. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. I did like
the Extremis soldiers could be effective villains to face a guy in a super
robot suit, which is usually said bad guy in a robot suit of his own. I also
liked that Tony Stark had to defend himself without the use of his armor for a
good chuck of the movie. But there was so much about the film that didn’t make
sense. Why was Iron Patriot in the movie? That particular armor had no purpose
in the film; I suspect its inclusion was more to sell merchandise and act as a
red herring of sorts for the big twist. And what was the big twist? That the
dreaded Mandarin, Iron Man’s greatest comic book foe, was just some nobody
actor. The real “Mandarin” (or Man Darin as he was known in China) was Killian Aldrich. As I
said before, someone else could take up the mantle of the Mandarin… but I doubt
anyone will in these films. The writers apparently couldn’t figure out how to
make it work. Sometimes I really think certain script writers for comic book
movies just don’t ‘get it.’ It would explain problems in movies like Hellboy, Jonah Hex and X-Men 3. I
didn’t get why Tony Stark would invite a terrorist to attack him at his home,
but not have a plan and actually be surprised when they show up and blow his
place to kingdom come. I don’t get why he didn’t engage those terrorists as
Iron Man or why he just didn’t send his army of remote control robot suits
after the copters. Also, why didn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. do anything to help Stark, given
his working relationship with them and the fact that taking down terrorist
organizations (like Hydra) is something that S.H.I.E.L.D. does? I didn’t understand the need to have Tony pal
around with some kid midway through the flick. And Jonny and I really didn’t
get his need to blow up all of his billions of dollars worth of suits at the
end. Why? Was there no more evil in the world to fight? Did Tony forget to
bring fireworks to impress Pepper so he had to improvise? It’s not like he
really needed the gesture to save his relationship with her. She said earlier
that she understands why he doesn’t want to give up the armor. Then Stark
basically implies that he will just build new armor anyways. What was the
point? Damn it, Tony, this is why we can’t have nice things!
Star Trek: Into
Darkness – I can understand some of the hatred of this movie but I also
think people may be a little too hard on it. Recently there was some poll of
Star Trek fans that revealed the movie non-Star Trek movie Galaxy Quest was a better Star Trek movie than Star Trek: Into
Darkness. That’s kind of funny, but it should be noted that every crappy
pre-Abrams Star Trek film (i.e. Final
Frontier and Insurrection) is
still a lot worse than Into Darkness. That said, Into Darkness isn’t really a
Star Trek film. By this I mean that every Star Trek movie, no matter how awful,
dabbled into the realms of science fiction concepts and creativity. The
original Trek movie was boring as sin, but the V-GER concept was really
interesting. Final Frontier was terrible, but the idea of an advanced being
posing as God warrants some merit. Into Darkness was just a sci-fi action movie
that really offered nothing interesting to the world of science fiction or the
collective imaginative works of the franchise. (The most imaginative part came
at the very beginning with the volcano on the alien planet.) To put it another
way, Into Darkness is to Wrath of Khan what Aliens
was to Alien. However, as an action
movie it is pretty entertaining. The fight with the Klingons was cool, the
battle with the U.S.S. Vengeance was awesome and the final brawl between Spock
and Khan was fun. But in some ways the movie felt more like fan fiction than an
actual Star Trek film. The inclusion of Khan, the plot being one of revenge, fighting
Klingons (for no real reason), the U.S.S. Vengeance being a huge black looking
Enterprise, Leonard Nemoy appearing (again), Spock yelling out “KHAN!” in the
reversal from Wrath of Khan and even Khan’s blood being able to miraculously
revive dead Kirk screams fan service. Abrams’ first Star Trek movie was
criticized as being too much like an action movie, but even that has
interesting concepts like time travel, divergent realities, red matter, the
destruction of Vulcan and the near genocide of its people. After two viewings
of Into Darkness I saw nothing that really enhances the Star Trek mythos. But,
after two viewings, I still came away entertained and I will buy the movie on
Blu-Ray (or put it on my Christmas list). So, like I said, it’s a mixed bag.
Fast & Furious 6
– Did you like the other Fast and the Furious movies? Then you’ll like this
one. It’s a big, loud, dumb movie but if you turn off your brain it’s also a
lot of fun. I always have low expectations heading into a Fast and Furious
flick… I need to see fast cars, fighting, guns and at least one explosion. This
one had all of those as well as the world’s longest runway… which is estimated
to be over 20 miles long! Sure there were some ridiculously impossible moments,
such as when Vin Diesel launched himself off the hood of a car to catch a
freefalling Michelle Rodriguez in mid-air over a massive gap between freeway
bridges and they both land safely on the hood/windshield of another car. But
the previous film, Fast Five, taught
Jonny Prophet and I a valuable lesson… all things are possible through “Vin
Diesel’s Love.” How did Vin Diesel emerge unscathed from a massive explosion?
Vin Diesel’s Love. In Fast Five how did The Rock, who was sent to apprehend the
F&F crew, become their ally instead? Why it was the of gesture of Vin
Diesel reaching down to pick him up after drug lords killed his squad,
something we like to call… Vin Diesel’s Love! When you learn to accept Vin
Diesel’s Love, you become less focused on the impossible and enjoy the movie more.
(A similar practice works for Die Hard
films. How did he do that? Because he’s John McClane!) Gina Carano was in this
one and it is always a thrill to watch her in action. Even better though, one
of the baddies working Luke Evans’ terrorist guy was in The Raid: Redemption. Jonny and I would have been pissed if there
hadn’t been a scene where he got to display his insane martial arts abilities.
Thankfully we weren’t disappointed as he kicked the crap out of Han and Vin
Diesel’s replacement from 2 Fast 2
Furious! Of course this movie sets up part 7 (yes, there have been that
many movies of all this) which follows part 3 (Tokyo Drift), finally putting all this into some order. We had
hoped that Tokyo Drift had just been retconned out so Han might live (whenever
Han spoke about going back to Japan,
Jonny and I pleaded with the screen “No Han! We know what happens there!”). But
it will be cool to have Jason Statham as the bad guy and brother to Luke Evans’
character from part 6. We’re sure Vin Diesel’s love will prevail in the end.
Now You See Me – I
enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons. It was smart, clever and pretty
original… especially in a Hollywood climate of
sequels and remakes. It also had a great cast with well thought out characters.
There was humor throughout as well as great scenes of action and tension. But
then there’s the matter of plausibility. I can turn my brain off for dumb
action like “Vin Diesel’s Love,” but this is an intelligent film meant to make
you think and second guess your own theories and predictions. It was well
written, but certain problems emerge when you stop to think about the overall
plot. (Beware, I will spoil the crap out
of this if you haven’t seen it!) In the film we learn that the Las Vegas magician ensemble, “The Four Horsemen,” went to France in a
very elaborate scheme to seemingly rob a bank from Vegas. To do this, they had
to find a Frenchman who had an account with the bank and then give him a series
of mental suggestions to convince him to take a vacation in Las Vegas and to attend their show. Problem
number one… there’s a lot of suspension of belief there that they could plant
the suggestion into this man’s head to take a very expensive trip abroad…
essentially on a whim. Imagine the number of X-factors that could have screwed
up this plan. What if a loved one was sick and he couldn’t leave? What if he
chose to vacation in Europe instead or not at
all to save money? How did they track
this guy to ensure that he got on the plane, stayed in Vegas and attended the
show? Another part I had an issue with was when they screwed over Michael
Caine, who was playing a wealthy owner of an insurance company. At a show in New Orleans, it was
revealed that the Four Horsemen had depleted Caine’s millions in savings. They
then unveiled that the audience was comprised of victims of Hurricane Katrina,
that they had all been denied claims by Caine’s insurance firm and that all of
his money had mysteriously ended up in their bank accounts. Problem number two…
so they tracked down every one of these victims and gave them free tickets?
Okay, I guess that’s somewhat plausible. But that moment of joy from knowing
the rich jerk got ripped off and the victims were rewarded? Yeah, that would be
pretty short lived. You see, the authorities would make sure all of that cash
was returned to Caine. It is all traceable as it was electronically
transferred. Plus, that money was Caine’s own private savings, not the funds of
the insurance company… so that’s just plain theft. Any Katrina victims who
tried to keep it could go to prison. In the end, that entire scheme against
Caine’s character would really just end up a minor inconvenience. The biggest
gripe I have with the film is when we learn in the end that Mark Ruffalo’s
character, the main antagonist of the movie as an FBI agent trying to bust the
Four Horsemen, was also the man behind the whole thing. He had a vendetta
against several people who screwed over his father, a magician who tragically
died years ago, so he put together a group of four talents from the world of
magic to aid in his revenge, without revealing himself to them. But before
this, Ruffalo joined the FBI to so that he would be at the center of the
action… assumingly to ensure success. Problem number three... it isn’t exactly
easy to get into the FBI. There is rigorous training and testing along with a
lifetime of commitment to police and detective work to become an agent for the
Federal Bureau of Investigations. It was implied Ruffalo’s character was a
master of mental manipulation, so maybe he could have given “suggestions” to
his superiors to promote him as necessary and even assign him to the Las Vegas
branch. But that is a really big if. There are more little problems here and
there, but a lot of those implausibilites are just the nature of the kind of
movie Now You See Me is. Any movie about illusions and grifting will have
shortcomings and unrealistic plot points. Maybe I am just being too critical
here. I did like the movie. I found it pretty entertaining. In the end, it just
left me trying to justify a little too much to myself.
This Is the End –
I really don’t have much to say concerning this movie. I thought it was
hilarious, it was extremely raunchy and a lot of fun to watch. Michael Cera,
for what few scenes he was in, absolutely stole his scenes. There were tons of
great cameos including a surprise one at the end that became one of the
greatest jokes of the entire movie (that is something I won’t spoil).
There were surprisingly good special effects for a movie about selfish,
ignorant celebrities getting high and trying to survive the apocalypse. It’s
definitely not for kids, but if you were a fan of The 40 Year Old Virgin,
Superbad and Pineapple Express, you will like this one. I can’t wait for
Pineapple Express 2!
Coming soon will be part 2 of F'N Toaster's Movies of 2013 Review-a-rama-thon Spectacu-Palooza-Mania 2000 (+ 13)
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