JustinGibbs.org

It seems I wasn’t the only one to visit the theaters over the Christmas break. A science fiction fan I had to catch Avatar. It was entertaining but as everyone says, the plot and story fail in many ways. What was interesting was seeing how Cameron was able to cover up those holes and still give audiences an entertaining experience. I utterly hatted Titanic, but Cameron is able to pull from basic story structure, dramatic techniques to pull us in. He did it with Titanic and again with Avatar.

To see how much of an art this is, just compare Avatar to the other film I saw over the break, Sherlock Holmes. I can’t fault them for trying to make Sherlock Holmes an action star, but I can fault them for their utter lack of character development. The movie starts out more like a sequel, as if we’ve already been introduced to these characters. Even if you’ve read the books, the movie should still get me to empathises with these characters. Guy Ritchie seems more happy to play with the unnecessary fighting scenes than trying to build empathy. He did have his work cut out for him though, the great part of a Holmes novel was the explanation at the end, but in a movie that is too late. But Guy Ritchie didn’t even make an attempt at making up for that when he crafted one of the weakest and laughable villains I’ve seen in recent memory.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is one of the most convoluted and overdone movies I have seen in a long time. The plot takes nowhere near where we wanted to go but rather opens up some rediculous origin plot that for some reason goes right through the main character, Sam Witwicky. None of the characters are developed beyond being a cliche so after about ten minutes we couldn’t care less what happens to people in the film. The special effects is everywhere but lacking any interest in the characters or plot they just become a bore. It almost becomes comical how they try to out do themselves with each new creation.

In the end the movie actually conjures two questions.

1. Why did they make this movie?
2. Why did they make it so long?

All I’ve got to say, or ask, is why do they keep giving Stephen Sommers movies to director or produce, or whatever? Wasn’t Van Helsing enough?

I was warned that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was horrible and it was much worse than I could have thought. Was it just targeted at 8 year olds? With the violence I would have to think not, but it’s so cheesy I don’t see who else it would appeal to. It reminds me of the long forgotten Masters of the Universe from 1987 but on a much bigger budget. At least that film had the cover of fantasy and being of a different world, this one has no excuse for the moronic weapons, characters, and plot.

Wonder how much they lost on this turd.

I was never really a fan of The Fast and the Furious film series but I got pulled in by Tokyo Drift. I and a friend wasn’t expecting much but found it to be pretty entertaining. It wasn’t a great movie, however we found great entertainment in the crazy plot and endless cliches. But Fast & Furious was quite a let down.

I think the main problem stemmed from the fact that they chose to have the two lead characters wait until half way through the movie to confront each other. But that’s the main reason we were watching, to see what Paul Walker and Vin Diesel’s characters do to each other. By waiting what they leave us with is an uninteresting plot around running drugs. They try to build the other characters up, but I was never really open to learning about them as all I wanted to see was Vin Diesel and Paul Walker go at it.

I was impressed with what director, Justin Lin, was able to do with Tokyo Drift however this was quite a let down. It was nice to see how they integrate characters from earlier movies but they only play ancillary roles to the weak drug running plot. And the racing through a mine shaft was too much, even for me.

I remember The Rookie as a kid, but more for how it came and went without a whimper. Seeing it today I can certainly understand why. Seems to have been more a vehicle for Charlie Sheen and as we know, he can’t carry a movie. It doesn’t help that they were trying to make him an action star. They fail to ever build up his character and as the plot turns the only interesting character, Clint Eastwood’s, isn’t on the screen that much.

Cliche characters, unimposing criminals, over the top plot – typical of low budget action flicks. They actually get chased by a small plane, where exactly is the danger in that I don’t know.