ScreenHooked Reviews: May 2014

Saturday, May 31, 2014

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Edited Spoiler-Free Version

Spoiler-Filled Discussion

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Friday, May 23, 2014

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Bryan Singer returns to the X-Men franchise in full throttle with X-Men: Days of Future Past. In 1973, the murder of an anti-mutant Senator Trask (Peter Dinklage) by the shape-shifter Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) sets in motion the anti-mutant idealism that brought the sentinels into existence, causing the apocalyptic war between humans and mutants. Modern-day Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan) send the claw-wielding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 to find their younger counterparts (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) end the war before it ever begins.

Other than some major continuity errors, this movie was practically flawless as far as X-Men movies go. Hugh Jackman and James McAvoy had excellent chemistry, like a franchise veteran teaming up with the rookie. Michael Fassbender brings a Loki-like suaveness to Magneto, making the character even more interesting as a villain.

I was intrigued with the decision to center the story around Mystique, as she was a fairly bland character in the original trilogy. Her backstory shown in X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past, combined with the adequate performance by Jennifer Lawrence, gives the audience reason to care when she's on screen other than the fact that she's walking around naked all the time.

Time travel movies seem to have endless possibilities for plot holes, but this is pretty solid so long as you suspend some disbelief here and there. The only issues in the movie come from the other movies of the franchise. Here are the main four issues I noticed:

SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH

1. How the fuck is Charles Xavier alive?

Apparently a post-credits scene in X3: The Last Stand revealed Xavier sitting in a hospital bed, not completely disintegrated by Jean Grey. Is this ever explained? Not at all. And this is the one question everyone hoped would be answered.

2. Wolverine shouldn't have Adamantium claws in the future.

At the end of last year's The Wolverine, Logan's Adamantium claws were removed by the silver samurai. He still had the metallic skeleton and his regular bone claws, but this just stuck out to me. It's not the biggest of deals, because we don't see a lot of the future in Days of Future Past.

3. How does Kitty Pryde send people back in time?

I mean, she sends Wolverine's consciousness back because no one else's can take that kind of stretch of the mind, or something like that. As cohesive as this movie is, this aspect of Kitty's powers came out of nowhere.

4. Didn't the mission basically fail?

Raven didn't kill Trask, sure. But did Magneto planting a baseball stadium around the White House not terrifying enough to immediately approve the sentinel program, not to mention what happened in Paris. The public was exposed to what these mutants were capable of, which should have been enough to scare them into security.

SPOILERS END HERE

Some quick final thoughts: Peter Dinklage is awesome, William Stryker didn't really have to be in the movie (but it was cool to see). We didn't get to see much of the dystopian future, granted there wasn't much to see. The movie was able to be funny without distracting from the high-stakes plot. The original cast is kind of just there, and their importance relies on previous films. It's good to see some depth added to characters other than Wolverine.

This might be my favorite X-Men movie now. I didn't care for Singer's first two installments or X3, or Origins: Wolverine. It's a franchise I'm interested in watching grow bigger and better, but until First Class, it wasn't really up to snuff. Even if you're not an X-Men fan, I'd recommend you watch First Class and then Days of Future Past, and you might become one.

X-Men: A

Average: A-

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Million Dollar Arm

In 2008, Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh Patel (Madhur Mittal) were the first Indian athletes to be signed to a professional American sports team after being discovered through a reality show competition called "Million Dollar Arm", ran by sports agent JB Bernstein (Jon Hamm). But before they were signed, they had less than a year to learn how to play baseball, and now we have this movie.

It's pretty cut and dry, with the fish-out-of-water scenario and the unlikely bonding that comes with it. The sad part about this movie, is that Disney didn't seem to try with the marketing, because literally, the entire movie is shown in the trailers, except for the end. Not only is the movie as predictable as the Heat winning the NBA finals, it doesn't seem to do the players justice.

The characters aren't necessarily flat, but merely 2 dimensional. It's enough for someone to care about them, but not enough for anyone to become more interested in this story. The comic relief carries the movie, but everything else seems to be lacking significantly. It's fun to see Rinku and Dinesh, along with Amit Rohan (Pitobash), adapt to America. But their progress in terms of baseball and their relationship with JB feel underplayed.

Pacing is a bit of an issue, because these two players don't come to America until about halfway through the movie. It's like watching 42 if Harrison Ford had spent half the movie looking for Jackie Robinson. Alan Arkin is in this movie for like fifteen minutes, which is just sort of what he does nowadays. He's actually not his usual funny self in this outside of a few one-liners. He literally walks out of the film, having served his purpose for the time.

The obligatory romance between JB and his tenant Brenda (Lake Bell) isn't necessarily refreshing, but it's tolerable. Since Bell's character is actively involved with the other characters, it doesn't feel like the usual forced romance. She keeps the plot moving and JB a relatively interesting protagonist. Aasif Mandvi is entertaining, but could be completely removed from the movie and hardly anything would change.

I'll admit, I laughed a few times, and I had a smile on my face for a lot of the movie. But as someone with a real soft spot for sports films, this felt unnecessary. Any knowledge of baseball isn't needed for this movie, and neither is an interest in India. The truth is, this movie is just Jerry Maguire, except this actually happened. The stakes don't even feel that high in the end, which is why most sports movies take place after the players are signed. There's not a lot to say about this movie, because everything is so middle of the road, there's not much to complain about.

Baseball movie: C+

Average: B

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Godzilla

I'm not one of the many people who grew up loving the monster that is Godzilla, nor am I one to completely shit on the 1998 film. I say these things, because I don't want my perception of this movie to seem biased when I express my opinion over it. It's been 16 years since the universally-panned version starring Matthew Broderick hit theaters, and I've never witnessed a more resounding acceptance for a reboot.

Bryan Cranston plays a scientist at a nuclear research facility in 1999 Japan, yada yada yada, tremors aren't natural disasters, blah blah blah, Godzilla. Seriously, I won't even bother with the premise, that's how straight forward this is. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass) plays Cranston's grown-up son who, in 2014, is a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy with a wife and son of his own. Ken Wantanabe plays the Japanese scientist who dramatically says "Gojira". There's really no one else worth caring about in the movie, so let's get further into it.

This movie was marketed extremely well in that it included some really cool shots, gave very few plot details, and greatly mislead everyone into believing Heisenberg would be the focus of this movie. He's not. He's fantastic when he's there, but he's only on screen for a good 30-40 minutes before he's tossed aside, which doesn't so much irritate me as it does disappoint me.

The movie tries to focus on the people instead of the monster, which is ideal, but not when the people are so incredibly boring. Taylor-Johnson's character is so bland, I just googled "so bland" to see if I could rip a joke off the internet, and I found another review for this movie. Call me lazy, but I'm admitting it to you anyway. I couldn't bring myself to care about any single character. There's nothing particularly special about any of them. It's like the writers put all of their hearts and souls into making Cranston awesome, and then said "that's it for character development". Godzilla had better character development than Kick-Ass, and it's only because Wantanabe's character seemingly made stuff up for his backstory.

There were too many serious moments that came off as jokes, specifically to the kid in the audience who was basically heckling the entire movie (though he made some good points). Godzilla drives itself into a rut that it doesn't feel the need to get out of. The same cycle of events keeps going until they decide to end it. The sad part is, the entire movie feels like you're waiting for something different to happen. It never really pays off. I found myself checking the clock about an hour into the movie, and then several more times before it ended.

That said, every time I was about to write off this movie, some jaw-dropping moments occurred. What the film lacks in writing, it tries to make up for in visual effects, cinematography, and Bryan Cranston. Godzilla has never looked better, bigger, or awesome-r than now. But even when the king of monsters is on screen, there's a general consensus in the audience of "too little, too late". Granted, there were two particular moments towards the end that literally had the audience cheering and applauding that make the film half-worth it.

I don't remember the last time I've walked out of a theater where the audience had applauded during the movie that I disliked as much as this one (if that's ever even happened). It felt so generic, even for a monster movie, that I walked out of saying "I am not ever going to sit through that again." It's a movie with characters so wooden, you may as well root for the monster that burns them (came up with that by myself, no need for Google).

Every year there are movies that fill certain roles. Last year's Pacific Rim was a movie I thought was going to suck Transformer balls, but ultimately surprised me. I was really hoping that would be Godzilla, which lands in Great Gatsby territory of amazing trailers but mediocre results. It could even be the most over-hyped movie since Man of Steel. However, I went in with no expectations, with the exception of Heisenberg. And if you're super amped for this movie, you're going to walk out with a sour taste in your mouth.

Giant Monster Thriller: B

Average: C-

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Neighbors

There's always that one movie that comes out in the spring of each year that makes me say "I'm surprised this movie wasn't horrible." Neighbors takes the cake for 2014. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne do battle with the young men of Delta Psi Beta, who are lead by Zac Efron and Dave Franco. As much as the "next door neighbor rivalry" theme has been done, this movie felt refreshing enough.

To start off, Seth Rogen does essentially play himself in this movie, as per usual. But have we ever seen Seth Rogen as a dad? Because, while he's a terrible parent, he's a hilarious one. As crude as the humor may be, it might be a step above his usual stuff. Byrne plays opposite Rogen very well, both as the caring mother and the out-of-touch Australian.

The main appeal to this movie is that there's a lot more heart than you'd expect. You think it's setting you up to hate Greek life or take shots at older new parents, but I ended up sympathizing with nearly every major character in this movie. What makes it, is there are no flat characters. You're able to see the faults and strengths of Efron, Rogen, Byrne, and Franco, which makes the movie a lot funnier when you can relate to it.

With that said, Efron and Franco had some career jump-starting performances. Franco has been building his the past few years, but Efron needed a boost. It's been nearly a decade since his High School Musical breakthrough, and Efron finally found a role that can show his abilities as an actor. I sincerely hope that he can grab more roles from this, because I was getting really tired of not liking the guy. Franco is no longer playing "just a douchebag" which is a good step in the right direction. I was done with seeing Cole from season 9 of Scrubs in movies.

I still have to say something negative.Ike Barinholtz fits really well into the movie, but Carla Gallo doesn't seem to have a purpose except to look crazy and flesh out Ike's character. Their sub-plot of a sub-plot doesn't really play out like the film wants it to, but the audience doesn't really care, because it doesn't take them out of the movie.

As played out as the concept of neighbors fighting sounds, this movie just felt more original than your usual summer comedy. There are a few familiar scenes (i.e. trying to catch someone doing something illegal with a hidden camera), but there were so many things that I can say I've never seen before, even some of the most basic jokes came off as genius.

As predictable as this movie seems, it takes some different roads that gave it a different tone. These weren't douchey college kids just not caring about their neighbors; they were a friendly group of people who were misunderstood by the equally misunderstood older couple. All of the interactions just hit on a deeper level to where the audience can understand the inner thoughts of each character, while still being absolutely hysterical.

Overall, Neighbors might end up being the best comedy I'll see this summer (we'll see how A Million Ways to Die in the West turns out). After my Amazing Spider-Man 2 review, I've decided to stick with the double rating system. The first rating will represent the niche or genre, while the second will represent the film in comparison to other films. If you like the potty humor, you'll like Neighbors.

Summer Comedy About Feuding Neighbors: A

Average: B

Saturday, May 3, 2014

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Zach joins me once again in reviewing "The Amazing Spider-Man 2". One of these reviews is edited down to remove spoilers. If you've seen the movie, the other one might make you laugh.