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IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416044/

This review has very minor spoilers.

Genghis Khan is an interesting topic, he united all of the mogolian clans and built an empire which stretched across one third of the world. He was a ruthless leader who murdered and raped and pillaged throughout his entire life, and yet most people would describe him as “great”. In China and Mongolia he is revered as a Hero, while at the same time there are countries who compare him to the likes of Hitler or Stalin. Regardless of what you think about the man, there is no doubt that he was an accomplished leader, and he definetly makes for an interesting story. This was going to be part one of a trilogy of films based on the Khan’s life by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov. Unfortunatly it’s looking less and less likely that there will be more.

The life of Genghis Khan is extremely interesting, but a good story can only get you so far. I enjoyed the story, even with the odd pacing and unconventional choice of events, but it’s not the story that really grabbed me. Bodrov only cast actors which weren’t well known in the West, which was a great choice since it really let you believe in the characters. The actor playing the Khan was phenomenal and perfectly cast, as was the actor playing his “brother” Jamukha.

Bodrov did a great job of directing his actors, but the film itself falls short due to some less than ideal pacing and his choices for which sections of the Khan’s life to include. The beginning of the film seemed to drag on a bit, while the end almost flew by much too fast. I expected the majority of the film to take place in the Khan’s formative years since this was slated to be a trilogy, and I was mostly right. The problem that arose was that Bodrov seems to have tried to throw in the rest of the Genghis Khan story at the end, without actually spending any time on it. The “final battle” of the film was both short and dissapointing, and the conclusion left me more than confused.

The cinematography for the film was above average and interesting to watch, with a handful of really well shot scenes. The dialogue was fairly well written and believable, and the action was cool when it happened, but it was scarce in the film. I enjoyed the movie and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the life of Genghis Khan, but I have to warn you that it is not very historically accurate. Of course we can only really speculate as to what he was really like, but the movie paints him in a far greater light than common perceptions would.

Twilight

I have a feeling that if I say something bad about this movie I’m going to end up with a lot of angry teenage girls on my hands. It’s almost a given that I’ll watch this movie just because of the huge hype surrounding it, but if the trailer is any indication, the story is pretty bad and a lot of the acting doesn’t look much better. I don’t expect it to be a very enjoyable expirience.

The Transporter 3

The more trailers I see for this movie, the more the story gets worse and worse. It’s as if they aren’t even trying anymore, which is not surprising since people don’t really see these movies for the story. I just hope that this is closer to the first instead of the second film. The action looks pretty awesome so at least it’s a safe bet that the movie will be watchable.

Dead Snow

The only reason I’m featuring this trailer is because it is about Zombie Nazis terrorising some cabin in Norway. The plot just sounds ridiculous and it looks just about the same in the trailer. I guess it could be an interesting film for those people who love “stranded” horror films and zombies, but apart from the interesting premise, I doubt I will see this film.

Defiance

There is a great cast in this movie, and the plot sounds interesting – slightly different from your average WWII film. The trailer has peaked my interest, even though the accents of the three leads are slightly distracting. There looks to be some decent action, as well as a fair amount of good intrigue so there is a pretty good chance that I will watch this.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364970/

This review has very minor spoilers.

There has been a lot of negative reviews and opinions about this movie. It has a pitiful 7% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a higher – but still weak – 5.3 rating on IMDB. I went into the movie with some really low expectations, I was thinking it would bomb and I would hate myself for watching it. The surprising thing is that I didn’t think it was that horrible at all. It’s not great, and It deserves to be called a bad movie, but it was sort of enjoyable in that “I secretly like this but feel ashamed” sort of way, which is not surprisingly exactly how I feel about Vin Diesel. I liked Pitch Black and Riddick, and I have a soft spot for anything related to pimped out street racing cars, so I didn’t love this movie, but it’s not as bad as I thought.

It feels like there was once a decent movie here, it just got convoluted and bogged down with unnecessary additions. I would have been content with a simple plot to highlight some cool action, instead what we got was some simple action all wrapped up with a plot that makes about as much sense as Jackie Chan’s “The Medallion”. You wouldn’t be able to tell from the final product, that it was originally based on a novel. The plot was never fully explained, and the “ending” was at the same time both not enough, and way too much. It just did not feel like it belonged in the same film.

The action had some high points, and a whole lot of low points. It must be in Vin’s contract somewhere that he has to do some sort of extreme sport while firing weapons.  Also, what is with peoples obsession with intense parkour utilising enemies? It’s a cool sport for sure, but after a while it starts to look dumb if every bad guy is leaping over railings in the same horse-vault style. And finally, for a film that touts itself as an action movie, there is a surprising lack of action in the majority of scenes, especially the end.

With all these faults, this movie should have been one of the worst of the year, and it was pretty close, and yet I still sort of enjoyed it. There were a few things I liked, the intro monalogue was pretty good, which is not something I normally think in Vin Diesel films. The man himself was also…himself, but with an unusual amount of smiling and joking around. Mélanie Thierry was enjoyable when she wasn’t in crazy mode, but still a talented actress all around, and it was cool seeing Lambert Wilson again.

I will admit that I enjoyed the movie – sort of – but I would also never watch it again, nor do I think I would recommend it to anyone. If you plan on seeing it, go in with low expectations and you won’t be dissapointed.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/

This review has no spoilers.

I put off watching this movie for awhilem I had heard that it was pretty horrible, and I haven’t enjoyed an M Night film since Unbreakable. I never did see Lady In The Water, but I heard it was one of his better films, so it’s possible he hasn’t entirely gone downhill. You wouldn’t be able to tell that he once had talent by watching this movie though, it’s a jumble of failures with little to no redeemable moments. It’s bad to the point that there is no single tipping point for where it all went wrong. There are just so many different factors that all failed with this movie, it’s hard to believe that M Night actually thought he had a great film on his hands.

The story felt like it had once started with a pretty cool idea, but then through a substantial process of adding plot points and subsequent dumbing down of the plot, the movie ended up being neither interesting, nor compelling. You never feel like anything is really at risk, the “enemy” of the movie never feels very dangerous and there is a severe lack of urgency in the film. Add that to the fact that you never get that attached emotionally to the characters, and you end up feeling bored and indifferent.

Wahlberg, Deshanel, and Leguizamo are all very talented actors, which is why it was so disheartening to see them act so horribly in this movie. Every character felt wooden, and you get the sense that the actors were just sleep walking through their lines. There was also absolutely no chemistry between Mark and Zooey, which considering the romance and their troubles was the major plot device, made the movie almost a chore to watch.

I will admit that some of the suicides in the film were interesting and looked pretty real, but that’s not the sort of thing I look for in a movie (which is probably why I never bothered watching the Hostel series). I have basically lost all respect for M Night, and at this point I doubt I will watch another of his movies unless he really steps it up. I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie, you aren’t missing anything by not seeing it.

Dragonball

All everyone has been saying since this trailer came out is how bad it looks and how unlike the show it is. I never watched the show so I may just not get the reasons why this is bad, but to me the movie actually looks sort of decent. It’s probably not something I’d pay money to see in theaters, but the action looks decent and the story doesn’t sound like a travesty.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Isla Fisher is a funny actor, and it looks like she is well tailored for this role. The movie doesn’t look horrible, but at the same time I don’t think I will be watching it. The trailer started out well but it just moved downhill when it became apparant that they were relying almost entirely on physical comedy and sight gags.

Sunshine Cleaning

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are both amazing, as is Alan Arkin, though I suspect his role is not very big. I heard about this movie when it premiered at Sundance this year and it sounded really interesting at the time, and now the trailer makes it seem… different, but just as cool.It probably won’t see a very large run, but I will make a point of looking out for it.

Paul Blart Mall Cop

This does not look very good at all, mostly because the plot is so stupid I don’t think I could sit through 2 hours of it. On the plus side, those ridiculously athletic criminals put on a pretty good show, but if I wanted acrobatics, this movie is not the sort of place I would go looking. There is little to no chance that I will watch this.

EDIT:

Australia

Alright, I wasn’t going to include this since I already featured the first Australia trailer in another issue, but then I watched it and it was far too good not to include. Baz Lurhman is a phenomenal director and the cast is amazing, but what really looks good (and what was missing from the first trailer) is the great story. I am really excited for this movie.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1031969/

This review has no spoilers.

The entire time I was watching this movie I had three main thoughts that would just alternate as to which one I was focusing on. These thoughts being that there are a lot of great comedians in small parts, Christina Applegate is pretty cute, and this movie reminds me of The New Guy but for hair metal instead of funk, and it has better lead actors. Alright so maybe it had some other things going for it, Emma Stone is also pretty attractive. As for real movie review thoughts, the movie was enjoyable and light-hearted. You could watch it while doing something else and not feel like you’re missing anything, and it is just funny enough to make you rewind to catch the good jokes.

The story was relatively fresh and well executed so I had no qualms with it. There weren’t really any “slow” sections or scenes that weren’t as important to the plot or characters which is a problem a lot of movies have. So the pacing was good, the jokes were chuckle-worthy, and the more serious “heart” scenes did not feel out of place, and really brought it all together. The writing was not phenomenal, but there werent any glaring mistakes and I didn’t have any major problems with how it panned out which is better than I can say for a lot of films.

The cast is awesome, especially the smaller parts which I enjoyed simly because I like seeing those actors (Will Arnett, Fred Armisen, Lonny Ross, that guy from Human Giant whose name I don’t know, even Jason Sudeikis who looks sort of like Andy from The Office which makes him slightly cooler in my books). Rainn Wilson was hilarious as always, even though it still feels like he’s playing “Dwight” all the time, which is not that bad since it sort of works in this context. The younger leads were all well cast and interesting; only Teddy was slightly annoying but that was more his character than the actor, and Josh Gad is sort of a less funny – early career – Jonah Hill when it comes to his comedy style and delivery.

The direction was great, which was not unexpected from the guy who gave us The Full Monty (what has he been doing for 10 years? Appearantly nothing worth mentioning). I hope this is his comeback film, albeit it’s not really amazing enough to be considered a comeback. What it is though, is a light-hearted comedy which involves very little viewer investment and a decent way to spend an afternoon with nothing else to do. I would recommend checking it out if you are a fan of the cast.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059786/

This review has no spoilers.

It’s impossible for me to expect greatness from this movie when you consider what they threw into the pot to make it. That’s not some sort of insult to the cast or director since they can actually be enjoyable and make decent movies, but they dont make great movies. Nor did the plot sound that good, especially since it is basically the same plot as a dozen other generic action thrillers. Eagle Eye was not a total failure, there were actually some pretty decent scenes, but overall the movie was not very good, and it left me sort of indifferent as to whether it was worth going to see. Maybe I should rephrase that, since the movie was good enough that I don’t regret watching it, it’s more whether or not it was worth going to the theater and paying for a ticket.

DJ Caruso makes a certain type of film, that being dumbed-down thrillers for a wide audience, and he is good at that, sort of. What he needs to do is take himself a little less seriously. If the movie wasn’t so full of itself and serious, it would have been a lot more enjoyable. I’m not saying to throw in stupid jokes, have a comedy character, or get rid of the “smarter” bits, but if you’re going to have a plot that is as ridiculous and full of holes as this one, at least realize that it’s like that.

As much as I, or anyone else, may not like Shia Labeouf, he is a talented actor. This movie was no exception, and I think if he started taking some different roles he could really excel and maybe change his image. Michelle Monaghan is also great, and the acting in this movie was one of the few really enjoyable aspects. It helps that Ethan Embry is in it, since it always makes me laugh to see him in films now (in a good way though, I’m not laughing at him). Billy Bob and Dawson were both respectable in their roles, which made the movie watchable, and almost makes you forget the plot.

Shakey Cam is a fickle sword. It’s great when used properly and absolutely horrible when misused. Eagle Eye’s DoP belongs to the latter group. It was beyond the point of being distracting, it made for hard to follow action scenes where sometimes everything was spinning and exploding and you had no idea which way was up. So my recommendation is this, if you are the type of person who barely pays attention to plot and won’t care about holes and ridiculous scenes, then by all means check out this movie. Otherwise, it’s not horrible but there are enough cring-worthy bits to make it sub-par.

Hunger

I am so dissapointed with this movie trailer, and yet the movie still looks really good. The trailer was just horrible done, and the piano got extremely annoying after the 3rd tone. I’m also not a huge fan of the use of quotes, but none of that has anything to do with the film. The movie itself looks interesting and worth checking out on dvd.

Valkyrie

There has been a whole lot of bad press for this movie, most of which I haven’t been following, but I don’t really see what the problem is. The movie looks interesting and the trailer was extremely well put together. I also have no problem with Tom Cruise’s acting and the rest of the cast looks pretty decent. It may not be a movie that I’ll see in theaters but it still looks good.

The Spirit

The old teaser trailer for The Spirit didn’t look very promising at all. It looked like Sin City 2, and the acting did not come across well. That being said, this new trailer actually looks awesome, well worth seeing in theaters. The movie does look like a Frank Miller film, but it also has its own little nuances, and the plot sounds pretty decent.

Notorious

That was a short little teaser, and it seemed to focus more on showing some really cool still images instead of video. That’s fine though, it looked cool. It’s hard to judge a movie based on so little information, but since it’s a biopic I can sort of guess as to what the plot would be. The movie looks well made and well cast so it may be worth watching.

Bride Wars

Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are great actresses and I really enjoy watching their movies, unfortunatly this doesn’t look that amazing. It looks like any other average wedding related romantic comedy, which may not be a bad thing since it’s almost sure to make some cash, but it won’t pop out and be memorable.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0871426/

This review has no spoilers.

This is not my sort of movie. I didn’t really know much about the plot, even after watching the trailer (since I didn’t pay much attention), so what little I did know – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have different personalities and there is a baby whose parentage I didn’t really know – was sadly not the sort of movie that I look forward to. The cast looked promising though, and I didn’t have much else to do so I figured it might at least be good for a couple laughs and some occupied time. And that is exactly what it was. The story was predictable and often boring, but it was broken up by some really good jokes, delivered masterfully (mostly by Amy Poehler, whose name I never know how to shorten.) which made it at least somewhat enjoyable.

The film was written and directed by a former (or current? I don’t keep up to date on these things) writer for SNL, which explains both the casting choices and the hit or miss comedy (Badump chh!). Yet it doesn’t feel like SNL writing, which is a good thing, but it also feels overly conventional and unoriginal, which is not a good thing at all. There was a lot of great jokes in the film, mostly spot gags comedy wrought from awkward situations, but what made them great was the delivery by the talented cast.

Tina Fey is a great writer and just as talented as an actor. She oddly enough reminds me of a Meg Ryan type actor, but way better since I don’t really like Meg Ryan. Then, of course, there is Amy Poehler who is one of my favorite comedic actors, and she doesn’t fail to dissapoint in this film. Greg Kinnear was the same as always, and not at all funny, which is a contrast from the other “love interest” Dax Shepard, who has always been great at playing idiots. Also, why isn’t Romany Malco in more movies? He’s awesome and pretty funny, and I want to see him get more work.

I would only recommend watching this movie if you are a fan of the two female leads and have exhausted all otehr exciting things to do for the day. It’s not a bad movie at all, but it’s also not that great, especially after the fact, when the only things you remember are a handful of above average jokes and a memory of all the less than awesome parts. I also forgot to mention that Steve Martin is in it, and he is both awesome and hilarious, and I wish he would do more “good” comedies instead of Pink Panther movies.