A Million
Ways to Die in the West
This movie was really funny, but at times I felt like the
writers were trying too hard. There were points where they could have pulled
back slightly on the joke and it would have been funnier. The premise was
pretty good. I have never seen a Western where the protagonist is cowardly and
would rather beg and bargain than fight. (I guess the closest to that would
have been in Back to the Future III... speaking of which, there is a hilarious
joke in 'Million Ways' that goes back to that movie!) There were excellent
jokes throughout, but like I said, some of them felt forced as if having to
placate to the demographic that watches Family Guy for raunchy humor.
I guess nobody was all that concerned with accents as most
of the stars didn't really bother with any Southern or South-Western dialect.
Seth McFarlane just did his normal voice, which is literally the one he uses
for Brian the Dog on Family Guy. Liam Neeson didn't mask his Irish accent,
which is just as well since his performance in Seraphim Falls
had given Seth McFarlane some comedy fodder...
I would have liked some more time with Neeson, as he was the
main villain of the film. He was effective as a bad guy, though I kept
wondering to myself how an Irishman ended up an outlaw in the American West.
Then I started wondering if there were more. Then I started wondering what
other foreigners were cowboys and what accents they brought to the Wild West. I
mean, obviously there were Hispanic cowboys, but who else? Christoph Waltz
wasn't exactly a cowboy in Django Unchained, but he was close and did have a
strong German accent. Were there Russian cowboys? Cowboys from India?
If I'm to believe Spaghetti Westerns, Italians may have outnumbered Americans
in the Wild West!
As I stated before, my main critique of any comedy is 'did
it make me laugh?' Yes, A Million
Ways to Die in the West made me laugh a lot, so it
was far from a failure. However, it lacked the charm of McFarlane's previous
film Ted, probably because a teddy bear being a foul-mouthed, drinking,
drug-taking sexual deviant is pretty amusing in an "Aw, I can't stay mad
at you" sort of way. I do wonder, though, if Ted 2 will run into similar
trouble as there is a good chance that the novelty will have worn off by then.
The Fault in Our Stars
I TOTALLY DID NOT CRY
I just want to put that forth right now. No crying... by me
in the theater... at all. None.
Okay, so The Fault in Our Stars was really good. It had an
excellent cast centered on the immensely talented Shailene Woodley, whom I am
willing to be will win an Oscar at some point. She does a fantastic job of
portraying Hazel, a teenage woman with terminal cancer... sort of. It's firmly
established that her cancer, which causes her lungs to fill with fluid, will
kill her someday. However, Hazel is on lots of drugs that, while unable to cure
her ailment, does place it in check, so to speak. As she says in the film
"I'm a hand grenade..." That is actually the perfect analogy for the
entire movie.
All the while watching this movie, I kept getting coming
back to the notion that this sweet teenage romance between Hazel and Gus (a
cancer survivor from Hazel's support group) was too good to be true. Then I
would remember "Oh wait, it is too good to be true." You knew it
wasn't going to last, that something bad was going to happen. This is what
gives The Fault in Our Stars it's strength. There is the enduring message of
cherishing the time you have. Their love may have been short lived, but that
didn't make it any less meaningful.
The Fault in Our Stars had a great blend of comedy and
drama. From witty lines to virtually everything involving Gus' friend Isaac,
there was a lot of funny moments. I particularly loved comedian Mike Birbiglia
as the head of the cancer support group. The actors all really gelled with one
another, with Woodley and Ansel Elgort (Gus) having amazing chemistry as well
as individual talent to portray both the good and bad times their characters
suffer throughout the film.
I would like to recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys
quirky dramedies like Juno, 50/50, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it
may be hard for guys to shake the notion that this is either a chick flick or
at the very least a date movie. I will say this, I would have enjoyed the movie
just as much had TivoGirl not been sitting beside me in the theater.
(Fine, I made it 45 minutes before crying... There! Are you
happy???)
Edge of Tomorrow
Jonny Prophet and I have this recurring thought when it
comes to Tom Cruise movies. We will see a trailer for a movie of his (for this,
let's go with Oblivion rather than Jack Reacher). The movie looks interesting,
but inevitably it is a Tom Cruise movie and we generally pass. For Edge of
Tomorrow, I really had nothing better to do and the premise was very
intriguing. Plus, I saw Tom's last sci-fi flick Oblivion and that was decent.
Why do we view Tom Cruise so negatively? It's a combination
of things. For one, he's not that great of an actor. He's an extremely
overrated medium level talent that somehow became box office gold (for a
while). He's not a terrible actor and his one intensely determined look that he
uses in every action role usually gets the job done, but perhaps Jon and I
dislike how he's been elevated to the point of box office royalty among peers
who generally surpass him. Consider this, in the years since Interview with the
Vampire, Brad Pitt has progressed as an actor to the point where he is no
longer a pretty boy novelty and actually gets Oscar-worthy roles. Tom Cruise is
pretty much where he was back than in terms of acting talent. I do have to
consent that Tom Cruise's behavior has played into our opinion of him. From
jumping on a couch like a lunatic to his heavy involvement in a certain
philosophic-religious movement, he hasn't done himself any favors. (For note, I
don't give a shit what or whom you worship, but a spiritual movement with
sci-fi origins written by a sci-fi writer does elicit warning flags to me. Just
saying.)
So I looked past the "Tom Cruise Crazy" (great
song by Jonathan Coulton by the way) because the premise of Edge of Tomorrow
was intriguing. It was like Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers and it was
based on a manga. Plus, from seeing the trailer, the special effects looked
good and the aliens were cool. So how was it?
I thought Edge of Tomorrow was a pretty good sci-fi action
flick, not one that will go down as a classic necessarily, but smart and
entertaining. Like with so many other roles, Tom gets the job done, but I will
give him some credit. His character starts out cowardly and evolves into a
driven warrior, so I have to give Tom some props. However, at no point did it
feel like his acting had entered uncharted territory.
The story followed a D-Day like invasion that kept resetting
everytime Tom Cruise's character died on the battlefield. Like Groundhog Day,
Cruise has to keep trying new tactics and make new decisions to try to change
the outcome. The mystery behind his reliving the invasion is connected to a war
hero nicknamed the "Full Metal Bitch," played by Emily Blunt.
Together, they try to use his ability to turn the tide in the human war against
the alien invaders.
One reason I saw Edge of Tomorrow was that I needed to know
if Emily Blunt had achieved the 'hat trick' of being in promising sci-fi movies
that turn out to be disappointing (The Adjustment Bureau and Looper). I think
she dodged that bullet with Edge of Tomorrow... for the most part, but more on
that alter. Now I don't blame Blunt for the shortcomings of her previous sci-fi
offerings, she did fine in both. In this movie, I felt she she actually pulled
off playing a tough bad-ass chick, which is not easy... especially when you're
married to John Krasinski. (I'm not sure why that matters, but it seems worth
mentioning.)
My biggest complaint is what follows the climax... the
dénouement if you will. If you don't want me to spoil the ending for you, stop
reading.
For those still with me, Tom Cruise's character sacrifices
himself to destroy the alien master brain thing. Then reality resets to before
the invasion with the aliens retreating and everyone who had died alive and
well. This didn't really make sense to me. Cruise had already lost his
Groundhog Day power (part of the wacky plot, just go with it) so I'm not sure
why or how the time altering alien's death would conveniently take everything
back to before it's defeat, yet still be defeated. If the alien brain had that
time power, even in one last gasp before dying, why would it still choose to
lose the war and remove all of the consequences of the invasion? Clearly this
post-climactic part was written to give everyone a happy ending. I personally
would have preferred everyone stay dead, or maybe just Cruise's character and
had this feeling of something missing with all the other characters he
influenced, especially Emily Blunt... as if they know something about how and
why the war ended but can't quite explain what happened. I think that would
have been a more fitting ending. Granted, I'm a fan of bittersweet endings when
they favor the story.
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