Lately the lions share of my time has been focused on some freelance work of rebuilding a corporate website. Now that the project is mostly completed, I spent a weekend in a quasi-coma and feel mostly ready to face the world again. I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot. Generally I’m a lot more active in keeping up with a couple of forums I visit with regularity, and certainly my beta accounts have suffered negligence. Due to my seclusion, the wife and I have gotten a little behind on our movie merriment. Though it seems most of our watching comes in a glut of self-induced double or triple features. On the one hand it makes for easy contrasting between films; on the other it makes it a near impossibility to absorb much of what you’ve seen. This might not be the detriment that it might seem. I don’t think that any amount of analysis would have helped me appreciate The Informant. However, I find Zombieland all the more memorable because the other films were so forgettable.I had promised the boy a rental, but they were all out of Sherlock Holmes, and he wasn’t open to the idea of anything animated. I’ll admit a certain fascination with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and I have actually enjoyed his family films. He voices the main character in Planet 51, and though not the only reason I was interested in the movie, I wanted to see how his foray into voice acting would go. Be that as it may we ended up watching Wolverine. I’ll admit that my knowledge of what’s canon in the Marvel universe is average at best. Even without the ability to call upon the Marvel wiki at will, however, the glaring atrocities of this origin film were enough to cause cerebral convulsions bordering on seizures. Number one, Wolverine and Sabretooth are NOT brothers. Oh, I wanted to be clear so I went and checked. There is supposed to be a resemblance to Wolverine’s childhood antagonist, but that’s as familial a relationship the two ever share. Right from the start we’re already on shaky ground.
The movie continues this recipe for disaster with a dash of canon here and a liberal dose of WTF there. Stryker has been merged with Thornton the Professor and is running the Weapon X program. Team X is more or less intact except for the fact that Stryker is leading it. Ugh the list goes on and on. The real treat is how they’re going to resurrect Deadpool’s origin since they turned him into weapon XI? Don’t get me wrong, I think Ryan Reynolds is almost the perfect choice for the mouthy Wade Wilson, but I HAVE read that series and, well, let’s just say things are not looking up. I understand the reality of screenplays and how by the time it goes from inception to completion a script has been through dozens of rewrites, but I really can’t forgive the two clowns who managed to mangle this. There really wasn’t a need to change the story. Okay I admit that some of the original Team X mutants don’t have the recognition of Freddy Dukes the Blob… Oh wait that must have been chucked in for the comedy. Are you freaking kidding me?! I would be ashamed to have my name attached to this, and yet I’m unsurprised since Skip Woods is the genius behind Swordfish, Hitman, and GI Joe. I’m sure he’s currently destroying the A-Team. David Benioff? What’s your excuse? Oh and if you screw up Game of Thrones I recommend avoiding Comicon in perpetuity. Honestly I did try to switch off, but there was just no safety from the eye rape I forced myself to endure. Is it really so hard to just go read a little background? Bleah all the way kids, and if you expect future generations of geeklings to remain informed direct them to the nearest comic store not the rental kiosk.
Thankfully Ninja Assassin redeemed my fractured id. Let me start by saying that though this was by no means film excellence, I wasn’t cringing inwardly every scene. The movie is just as bloody as you want it to be and choc-ful-a ninja bad assery. Your basic story is that Ninjas are orphans raised and trained to be unfeeling machines whose only loyalty lies in the clan. Combine this with modern-day investigations of some rather violent assassinations and the one Ninja who grew a conscience, and you have all the ingredients you need for a vengeful grudge match. The story is of course rather predictable, but it’s at least a fun trip. It’s not non-stop action; they do drop in a little story to drive the plot, but it’s really only a device to get to the next scene of gut-wrenching blade-wielding blood fest. Though the story is a very fragile veneer, it’s told well enough though some very well executed cinematography. The subject naturally lends itself to angles and shots that wouldn’t work with other action films. Surprisingly the wife probably liked it better than I did which just goes to show that everyone loves a ninja. Sorry pirates. A solid film that revives my fondest memories of Super Ninjas.
The Informant promised to be just the right kind of tongue-in-cheek humor I like. At least it appeared that way based on the trailer. I was bored, and I never got past that feeling. The wifey fell asleep, and we had to finish it the following day. It really didn’t get much better. It was humorous in parts but not enough to care about the story. I was never really sure how much the character was withholding, or whether the wife was in on it the whole time or not. Regrettably, I don’t even care. I feel bad for all the actors involved, but then they chose to participate I suppose. I often wonder if the actors, after seeing the edited version, would have signed on to the project had they known in advance. I suppose the potential was there for this movie, but the execution just felt incomplete. Bleah.
Say what you want about Woody Harrelson, but I don’t think there was a better choice for the role of Tallahassee. Zombieland was fun from start to finish. It was everything I always wanted to yell at the screen during your typical zombie flick. Jesse Eisenberg makes for wonderfully neurotic Columbus. His rules for survival have already made their way to meme stardom, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Either way I find myself considering the purchase of a Rule #2 tee. I suppose there were a few moments that seemed incongruous, such as the aside about the zombie kill of the week, but over all I don’t think I would have changed a thing. I was engaged the whole time, fully investing in the characters and their story. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick write a believable scenario about human nature at the end of the world. I always choose to believe that I would meet the apocalypse with a sense of humor and a shotgun rather than the panic and terror of Romero’s zombie vision. Not that I’m particularly willing to test this theory. Adding a Bill Murray cameo was like the cherry to top an already perfect sundae. I think the man is one of the funniest people of all time, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic. Bottom line is that Zombieland will definitely be finding a home on the shelf right next to my limited edition releases of Army of Darkness. So nut up or shut up, yeah!
