Sunday, July 28, 2013

Movie: Pacific Rim (1/5 stars) (2013)

Oooo... smelly! If you want big, giant, atomic robots fighting huge, dinosaur-ish monsters that spit acid and produce EMPs, you're getting what you want. If you want any kind of acting, directing or story-line, sorry, don't bother.

I love  as a director. I've enjoyed Hellboy II: The Golden ArmyPan's Labyrinth, and even pieces of Blade II (that does NOT count as a recommendation!). That being said, he  has a few issues and a few misses. This is one of them.

For such a good director, I find that there are all these looks, from the Martial to the pilot, from the pilot to the the ops guy and so on and so on... Looks - you need a "look" to convey meaning and seriousness, or humour or whatever. So awful!

And, just like so many other movies, there are great special effects. Of course - who has bad special effects these days? No one. I noticed that almost all the scenes with the giant robots happened in the rain, so they could show that, yes, we've come far enough to do believable rain falling off giant, metal robots. WE CAN DO IT FUCKAS!

Ug! Hated this movie. Bad, bad, bad. Of course - if you want giant robots, you've got them!

Movie: Man of Steel (3/5 stars) (2013)

Wasn't it just last year that we saw a bullet bounce off Superman's eye in "Superman Returns"? Really, do we need another one of these? They did it with Spiderman (badly) in "The Amazing Spiderman", which could have used a miss. I digress.

There's lots good about this movie. The main cast, , is pretty much perfect as Superman. No one has ever been better suited. The special effects are superb, as good as they have to be to completely fool us into seeing and believing the situations. Loved the space ships, the scenes on Krypton, how smart Lois Lane was in finding out who this guy ways and so on and so on...

On the other hand, really, you don't just make a movie because you have a good cast and some special effects? Everyone has good special effects - bad ones almost don't exist any more. So, why do you make this movie? To tweak Superman's powers? To re-cast General Zod ()? To not have Clark Kent as a reporter? What? Really... there's no need.

Some spoilers, all revealed in some dumb things about the movie:
- the Krypton atmosphere affects Superman's powers. This is a guy who can fly in space, orbits the earth in the movie, all under his own power. I think the guy could probably hold his breath for a few minutes. 
- Very inconsistent display of Kal-El's powers. At one point, he's struggling to fight a couple of guys in battle exoskeletons, and then he's weakened by the Kryptonian terraformer and STILL managed to smash through it like a meteor. No damage to Superman at all.
- Jor-El (played by ) fights Zod a couple of times and takes him out pretty easily. Zod says a couple of times how he's trained his whole life to be the ultimate warrior, genetically selected and trained to be the head of the military. Jor-El is the chief scientist. Yet, somehow, he still kicks Zod's ass. What is that about?

Anyway, fun enough to watch, but I doubt I will again. Good casting and acting throughout, really good special effects. It could used better writing and a bit of consistency and thought in the rules of the world.