Filmsy - Movie Reviews Blog

Just Like Heaven: Review

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Just Like Heaven is More Like Purgatory

I am lucky to have seen this film with a girl. Had I not, I would have probably questioned my manhood or suffered from post-movie trauma. It is pure chick-flick all the way and is so sweet you may find yourself with diabetes afterwards. But if you can find someone special in your life and watch it with them, you may make it out alive.

justlike.jpgBig forehead Reese Witherspoon plays (implausibly) a workaholic doctor who seems to retain her Barbie-like prettiness despite working without sleep. She can’t get a date (again, yeah right) and is on her way to visit someone when she gets smacked by a car. Fast forward to sometime later and we meet Mark Ruffalo, who happens to be the new tenant in Witherspoon’s apartment. He starts seeing the unknowing ghost of Witherspoon and thus the saccharine-sweet, testicles-shrinking fun begins.

The movie does have its moments of objective comedy, such as a few jabs at classic “ghost” movies such as The Exorcist and Ghostbusters. And then there’s Jon Heder in the only memorable role of Darryl, the stoned psychic who acts like a tripped out Shaggy from Scooby Doo. The plot is tediously clichéd until a certain point where it becomes contemporarily ironic, pointing out a rhetorical pro-life situation that becomes the crux of the film. I really enjoyed that part, but liberals will probably react to it with protests and chaining themselves to trees or whatever.

But overall, it is what it is. It’s a girl’s movie and a date movie. So if you’re not a girl and you don’t have a date, you may not want to admit to people that you’ve seen this. If you qualify for watching this film, you’ll probably have warm fuzzies and all that good crap.

Grade: C+

Saw 2: Review

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I Saw Saw II

Saw (2004) introduced audiences to a fresher form of horror which amalgamated the suspense of a Hitchcock movie with down and dirty visuals and the use of a drop of torture to create a compellingly successful horror movie. It was sadistically violent yet excused itself through the plot premise of a man, Jigsaw, who wanted to make sure that his victims would leave his death traps with a new appreciation for life. It was satisfactory for people who want a little bit more substance with their horror and definitely gratifying for those just wanting to see blood and guts.

saw2.jpgSaw II does not disappoint as it hitches on to where the previous film left off. The Jigsaw killer (Tobin Bell) is at it again, leaving conceited victims in escapable death traps to give them a taste of death in order that they may fight (and appreciate) their lives. This time, he has Detective Donnie Wahlberg’s son and Donnie is not a happy camper. Donnie finds Jigsaw and is freaking out the whole time as he watches his son on a computer, navigating haplessly through a house of horrors in an undisclosed location.

As before, we are introduced to a cadre of miscreants who have a bit more character to them than your run-of-the-mill horror movie kids who are expected to die. There is a reason why each character is chosen for Jigsaw’s experiment and each test of their longevity is crafted with them in mind. The movie takes a step forward from the previous Saw by actually revealing the Jigsaw character, his origins, his motives, and himself as a person. He is not as deliciously evil or complex as Hannibal Lecter but is definitely as tangible and memorable. And as before, there is a nice twist at the end that is not as shocking as the originally but still a catalyst for a Saw 3.

As with all horror movies, this is a film to be reserved for those who can take it and not for those of us who are faint of heart or don’t want that “I’m going to Hell” feeling after seeing it. For those that can see it, Saw II is appreciable in its own way and you’ll like yourself better afterwards. Jigsaw is pleased.

Grade: A

Daredevil: Review

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Daredevil Should Have Dared To Be Something More

daredevil.jpgMatt Murdock (Ben Affleck) grew up on the tough streets of Hell’s Kitchen and was one day blinded by toxic waste. Though he lost his sight, his other senses were augmented to superhuman status. Now as a blind lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen, he upholds the law and seeks justice: but when that fails, he rams justice down your throat as the vigilante known as Daredevil.

Sound cool? Sure, if you like handicapped superheroes.

Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil is a foray into making a comic-book movie using a checklist of things you have to have. You have to have the leather costumes, the quasi-Matrixized fight scenes, the moral of the tale, and of course a soundtrack by today’s leading artists. Forget acting and probability for a moment and you basically get Daredevil, the most pedestrian of comic-book movies possible.

The film does start out solidly in explaining Matt Murdock’s origins, his father’s sins, and his desire to be the masked avenger of Hell’s Kitchen. But once we fast forward to the present, the movie’s problems begin to rear the ugly head of Jennifer Garner. I mean, Daredevil was pretty awesome throwing dudes in front of subway trains and skating down rails using thugs while obnoxious Nickelback music blasted in the background. But fighting a plain-Jane lady on see-saws in the middle of broad daylight while kids are watching just so you can get her number? Spare me. And then they do the nasty! If only they left out Jennifer and the whole Elektra character, this movie would have probably been a lot better. But considering how important Elektra is in the comics, leaving her out would have probably not been pleasing to the fans. Oh well. At least they made Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. The Kingpin) black (Michael Clarke Duncan). And Bullseye (Colin Farrell) really shines as a supporting character.

To its credit, I find the movie immensely rewatchable and, on typing this review, I was shocked to discover that I’ve probably seen this movie a good seven times. While not being the most stellar example of how to make a great comic-book movie, it does cover all the bases to the point where it is visually entertaining and a good time-waster.

Grade: B-

The Punisher: Review

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No Punishment for The Punisher

Children of the 90’s may not have grown up with cinematic anti-heroes, but their presence is still felt in the vernacular. When you’re about go nuts on someone, you say that you’re going to go all Rambo on them. And Eye of the Tiger is still the universal theme song of the underdog who’s about to whoop someone. And hey, we even elected The Terminator as the governor of California. There is something to be said about our Charles Bronsons and Chuck Norrises who have defined the manly-man of the 1980’s. They are sort of like the boogiemen of cinema who punish evildoers in a world that is clearly black and white, and we praise them unashamedly.

punisher.jpgWe do not have a 90’s equivalent of that, so leave it up to director Jonathan Hensleigh and actor Thomas Jane to give us a whole new gun-toting vigilante for the 21st century.

The Punisher delivers. Plain and simple, the movie is a straight-up revenge tale that is not sugarcoated in CG effects, memorable fight scenes, or even a funky techno beat. No: The Punisher is a raw and gritty tale of one man’s war against those who murdered his family. It is not wrapped up with a pretty bow but rather a washed-out skull. Like an obituary, this is the type of film that does not leave a memorable impression but a morbid awareness.

Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) is an FBI agent who happens to kill the son of mob boss Howard Saint (John Travolta) on his last assignment. While at a family reunion, Castle’s entire family is slaughtered in a mob hit conducted by Saint’s men. Castle is left for dead but survives, only to return to Tampa to payback the Saints for what they did to his family.

Again, the movie is devoid of any real moral dilemma outside of the rhetorical question of how far a man can be pushed before he goes off the deep end and ruthlessly takes down his aggressors. It is a black and white issue: either you would cross the line, or you would not. Frank Castle definitely crosses the line and for the next two hours, we feel it too. It never justifies his actions or gives him the right, but it does follow him behind the shoulder to give you a feel of what it’s like to be a man so absorbed with justice that he would extend it to everyone outside those responsible for his family’s death. Thomas Jane is a perfect choice for Frank Castle, a deep-voiced stoic who delivers grim one-liners and whose gaze betrays a man driven to the edge. John Travolta takes a backseat as Howard Saint and is your run-of-the-mill villain who is just waiting to be offed at the end. Everyone else is just cannon fodder.

The movie succeeds in its apparent mediocrity but ends up feeling as if it has taken a banal plot and turned it into a paradigm of how revenge movies should be. Does it advocate violence? Not directly, though it gives us the guilty pleasure of following a man’s quest for immoral retribution. In its good guy versus bad guys return to basics, The Punisher has definitely given us an anti-hero for our day and age.

Grade: A

The Amityville Horror: Review

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The Horror of Amityville

How many of you liked the Marcus Nispel remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? All of you, great. Well, you were probably thrilled to see that the same folks who brought that movie to you would also be bringing the remake of The Amityville Horror, using the same gritty and grainy visuals used in that chainsaw movie. And with Ryan Reynolds in the lead, how can you go wrong? The trailer was pretty scary, or at least it was to the 8 year old in the front row. It had to be good.

Well, yes and no.

amityville.jpgThe premise of the film (actually the book) is based on the pseudo-true story of the Lutz family and their 28 day stay at 112 Ocean Avenue, a house in which Ronald DeFeo killed his entire family on a dark and stormy night less than a year earlier. Naturally, as with all houses in which six family members of the house are shotgunned to death, 112 Ocean Avenue comes complete with pesky flies, a ghost girl named Jodie who seems to want to kill people so she can have playmates, and the annoying tendency to wake up at 3:15 every morning. So begins the adventures of George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds) and his crazy adventures.

Whether the story is valid or not is a moot point. The question is, is this movie good or even scary? Honestly, the first two thirds of the film are well done and purposely manufactured for scares. Like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), the visuals of Amityville are crafted with a very dirty, old fashioned, and disorienting grain with heavy contrasts and great attention to lighting. It is a very good, unsettling effect that is most equatable to looking at old fashioned photography. The story itself is a refreshing take on the haunted house routine and does it much, much better than any movie has in the last few years. The only time the scares fall flat is when we are shown, through visual trickery, the unseen enemy. I’d say the moment the movie starts going downhill is when they show the ghost girl being held up to the ceiling by a bunch of hands. Just the sheer amount of CG work that had to go into that, combined with the way it just hits you in the face, is enough to already give the film an A-. But the points just get subtracted from there.

The final act of the film is the textbook example of what NOT to do in any film: do not rip off other movies of the genre. The last act makes a radical departure from the book by trying to fix the mystery of the house in its own way: hey, guess what, it’s actually built over a secret room in which some dude liked to kill people! So we’re treated to 40 minutes of the greatest rip offs of all time, including The Shining, Poltergeist, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Originality is thrown out the door in favor of a lame excuse for a plot resolution. The film would have been sufficienty creepy if we were to just assume that it was a house with bad stuff inside and that no one should live there, but no.

For what it’s worth, the film does have good intentions and is not totally doomed. But we’ll have to wait for the next remake to see if changes can be made.

Grade: C-