Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Sarah and I have a very specific set of personal biases to get out of the way:
1. Jeremy Renner
2. Jeremy Renner's ass

That being stated, we're fairly certain we're about to embark on the classic tales of "You're Hot, But Not Hot Enough to Excuse This" and "You're An Oscar Nominee, Why Are You Here?"

 

Directed by: Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, and Norwegian movies we can't pronounce)

Starring: Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton

Plot Summary: "I feel like we're super prepared for life, because we would never in a million years approach the 'free candy' van. And these kids never heard their own story to know the proper decision."

Yes, Renner and Arterton play the grown-up Hansel and Gretel from ye olde "Don't Take Candy From Strangers" fairytale, who famously hunt witches across the European(?) countryside to ensure no one else has to deal with that mess. But, hark! Something extra sinister is afoot! Children keep disappearing mysteriously, and all signs point to witchcraft, so it's up to Hansel and Gretel and their anachronistically complex weapons to save everyone. Evil Grand Witch Muriel (Famke Janssen) is trying to devour hearts in order to keep herself and her witch sisters invulnerable to human methods of killing them (fire), which would, of course, change the whole game. The kicker is that there's only one more heart they need for the ritual, one specific heart, which happens to belong to our dear Gretel. By the way, after being force-gorged on candy in the witch's cottage as a child, Hansel has developed diabetes -- the "sugar sickness" as they refer to it here -- and shoots himself up with insulin on the regular.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"We're eight minutes in, and I already know this is going to be another edition of 'When Bad Movies Happen to Good Actors.'"
--"Are we pretending to be in Germany? Is that what's up?" / "Gretel just said, 'I'll blow your sheriff's brains all over these f***in' hillibillies,' this cannot be Germany."
--"Of course that girl's not a witch. Real witches would've f***ed them up by now."
--"SHE HAS AN AUTOMATIC CROSSBOW!?"
--"Shillings? Is this England? Where are they?"
--"Someone needs to be punished for this movie."
--"Is your sugar low, sweetheart? Hansel, eat something! You need food with your shot!" / "He's gonna lose a leg, or at least a toe."
--"From what I figure, the real downfall for everyone is that there are no brains in the H&G company."
--"Gretel needs to learn to shoot bitches on sight. Seriously. Some sketchy a**hole strolls into your inn in the middle of a fiery witch battle? You shoot her. Obviously."
--"I wish this made less sense." / Less sense than what?"
--"I don't think we can trust this woman, but at least she got him half-naked and wet for us."
--"THEY HAVE A GATTLING GUN?! WHAT YEAR IS THIS? WHERE ARE THEY?"
--"They need him to be Hawkeye right now."
--"Quick poll, do we actually care about any of these people?" / "If your question means, 'Do we give a s*** that she dies,' the answer is no."
--"Hansel, you have done nothing this entire movie to make me believe you can successfully kill a witch."
--"No. This is not how diabetes works. I've seen enough diabetic seizures and meltdowns to know this is really not how the f*** it works."

"It's just kinda dull right now. I want some weird plot twist out of nowhere, like Gretel grows a penis or something."

You'd think that a movie with such an interesting premise -- yes, an interesting premise, because we thought it was a hysterical idea when we first heard about it, and far more sensical than Abraham Lincoln fighting vampires -- would hold our attention better. This is a standard case of dullness resulting from Too Much Crazy and not enough story, which makes the audience numb to the action-crammed sequences. The saving grace here is that the movie is only 88 minutes long, so kudos to the person/people astute enough to realize there was nothing to stretch out here. Sarah counted, and there were six big fight scenes in the span of 80 minutes. Plus, we can't even remember how many bodies straight-up exploded. Not all at once, either, but at some point in every fight, and then some. Hansel states that the ways to kill a witch are to cut off her head and set her on fire, but we only saw two (of at least twenty) witches go down like that.

Let's take a moment to point out that the first insulin shots were not administered until 1922. Hansel and Gretel also have a taser and automatic weaponry. However, this movie takes place in a time period when there was no running electricity, and suspected witches were still getting burned at the stake. Okay, carrying on.

"Why has there not been one single shot of Jeremy's ass?"
"I don't know, but on the plus side, this also means there haven't been any objectifying shots of Gemma. That's a bonus for women in action movies everywhere."

Judging from that movie poster, and the way movies like this usually turn out, we figured we'd have to endure some good old fashioned, there's-no-way-she-can-fight-in-that-outfit displays of Sexy Action Heroine. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that despite the medieval-ish setting, there was only one naked woman, it wasn't Arterton, and the nudity had context (Hansel's love interest, Mina, a good witch, swims with him in a magic healing spring after he's injured.)

Speaking of Mina, here's where an age-old fairytale trope comes in: Good witches are pretty, and bad witches are ugly. Hansel meets Mina because the townspeople are about to drown her for witchcraft without any proof, and Hansel argues her case. You can tell a witch just by looking at her because the dark magic corrupts their features; a witch has black teeth, pale, veiny skin, and jacked-up eyes, he tells the people, so pretty Mina is set free. This is part of why evil Muriel's plan is so dangerous: that invulnerability ritual restores her beauty, so she can infiltrate wherever she likes. Pretty people get nicer treatment, an unfortunate fact.

The Best Part: Like we said, Mina got Hansel's clothes off. Yes, we're hypocrites about the objectification thing. No, we don't care. There's a lot of lost man-ogling time to make up in action cinema.

Also, Hansel and Gretel were trailed by a teenage fanboy who kept a scrapbook of all their adventures -- he'd totally run a "f***yeahhanselandgretel" Tumblr if it were 2013 -- and wanted to become a witch-hunter himself. The boy's enthusiasm was adorable, and Hansel and Gretel took him under their wing without reservations. 

The Worst Part: The story would've benefitted from more development. #actionmovieproblems

We give Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters a solid D. You might even hear from these fairytale siblings again, if rumors about a sequel are true.

(Poster and trailer © Paramount Pictures)

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1

I don't think Sarah and I have ever been at such a loss. We watched this over a week ago and couldn't figure out what to say until yesterday. We still aren't sure what happened here.

(Here are our thoughts on the original seed, the ugly middle child no one wanted, and the drug-addled brother no one mentions at family gatherings.)



Directed By: Bill Condon (Kinsey, Dreamgirls)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner
Plot Summary: "Oh, she thinks she threw up because of the chicken? Ha. No, Bella, it's not the chicken. You f***ing WISH it was the chicken."

Watch the trailer. That's all you need to know at this point.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Did she just say, 'Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies?'" / "She must not have read Bridge to Terabithia."
--"Come on, Edward, you can't hunt in a crowded theater during Nosferatu. That's just mean." / "Or brilliant."
--"Damn, this is a pretty wedding."
--"STEPHENIE F***ING MEYER!"
--"I don't think Jacob made it to the ceremony. We would've noticed the lone shirtless man standing in the back, flexing for no reason."
--"This is surreal, even for Twilight. Seriously, this feels crazy."
--"I don't understand how so many people are concerned for her life when she clearly isn't."
--"Wait, was that all?! I thought it was supposed to be on the verge of an R rating for that scene!"
--"Why don't they just have sex in the water if they're doing all this swimming? He won't hurt her like that, will he?"
--"Here's where Stephenie Meyer would like to discuss Planned Parenthood."
--"Why do the wolves talk like Thor?"
--"Bella looks like she's been doing some serious smack." / "Is there such a thing as non-serious smack?"
--"That was the worst thing that's ever happened in a Twilight movie."
--"Did Carlisle just buy a gynecology office to put in his house?"
--"Ha, they think 'Renesmee' is bad? Ask Albus Severus Potter about that one."
--"WHAT THE F***?!"
--"Seriously, Edward, is this faster than a knife?"

"AAAAAHHHH THERE IS PLACENTA ON HIS FACE -- IN HIS MOUTH -- OH, GOD!!!"

If you ever want to scare a girl into not getting pregnant, make her watch this movie. It contains the most traumatic pregnancy and birth scenes either of us have ever watched. It was sheer horror.

That being said, there are a lot of pro-life/pro-choice debates being thrown around here, and Stephenie Meyer sidesteps the two by making it Bella's choice to endure the potentially-fatal pregnancy. Bella and Rosalie want the baby delivered at all costs -- the main cost being Bella's life, which Bella has been trying to throw away since day one. She's going to hold on as long as she can, then try to be saved at the last minute by Edward turning her. Edward, Alice and Jacob want the demon-fetus aborted immediately, because it's quickly killing Bella from the inside out, and Edward won't love it -- let alone accept it -- if it takes her away from him. He has stated numerous times that she's his "reason for existing," after all.

Carlisle notifies Bella that the venom probably won't be enough in the eleventh hour, and Bella just shrugs it off and tells Edward he has to accept life without her. (EXCUSE ME?! We've sat through at least six hours of you two proclaiming how you can't live without each other! In fact, two movies ago, EDWARD TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF because he thought you were dead! Maybe it's because neither Sarah nor I are mothers, but seriously, what is that bulls***?!) We respect Bella not wanting to kill her baby/demon-fetus, but there's also an argument for Edward's perspective here, which is that Bella's life is more important. Anyway, the movie quite obviously brings up a lot of sticky issues, but at least both sides are somewhat represented here, as opposed to the Mormon Values party Meyer's been staging the entire time.

The Best Part: Charlie Swan (Billy Burke) has been wrestling with Bella's relationship with Edward from the start, and his struggle to let her go makes us so sad for him. Especially when Bella gets pregnant and gives birth in the span of a month without Charlie knowing. Bella makes up some story about going to a treatment facility in Switzerland because she's been struck with some mysterious illness, but really, what were they planning on telling Bella's family once she was turned? As Jacob says (and this is probably the best thing Jacob's ever said because of the matter-of-fact way he says it), "Maybe they'll say she got hit by a car. Fell off a cliff."

The Worst Part: There is a segment where the wolf pack, all in wolf form, argues telepathically over what to do about Bella's and Edward's spawn, which they can't allow to exist. The scene itself is inexplicable. Why are they all speaking to each other as wolves when they're in an utterly secluded area? Why was the voice-over work for this so hilariously horrendous, causing them all to sound like steroid-ridden monsters at the top of somebody's beanstalk? Wouldn't it have been cheaper on the studio to just have them meet up as humans? Who let this leave the editing room?

We give Breaking Dawn: Part 1 a D. It was either a great modern horror movie, or a wretched social commentary about feminism and the pro-choice argument, but we don't think either of those outcomes was the intention.

Jasmyn: "See, Deathly Hallows decides to be two movies, and we get 2.5 hours of epic quality each. This s*** just went bonkers for an hour and a half, and then it's gonna do it again."

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(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Good lord. This one is... just... ugh. (Check out our thoughts on the original Twilight here.)



Directed By: Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson
Plot Summary: "They're trying to trick people into thinking that there's a plot. Or that Edward's there for more than twelve minutes."

When New Moon begins, it's Bella's 18th birthday, and she's having a crisis about turning one year older because Edward refuses to turn her. You'd think her obsession with her far-older, half-dead man would render this irrelevant, but Bella's freaking out because she wants to be frozen at the same point Edward is, at age 17. Ignoring Bella's pleas to not remind her that she's aging, Edward's sister Alice puts together a birthday party at the Cullens' house. There's a completely overblown accident with some wrapping paper, and Edward's brother/Alice's boyfriend Jasper tries to kill Bella when he gets a whiff of her blood dripping from her finger. Edward flips a s*** and the Cullens leave town, plunging Bella into a wretched depression and allowing Jacob to stroll in and pick up the pieces.

Let's take a moment to really lay out the depression situation in this movie. Bella sits around and doesn't speak to her dad, Charlie, or her friends, for at least three months, as the Spinning Camera Montage of Despair tells us. She has nightmares that cause her to scream like a goat being skinned alive (seriously, we can't figure out what on Earth she could've been seeing to make those noises). Every single day, she writes emails to Alice, and each of those emails gets sent back with that "undeliverable; return to sender" tag, since the Cullens have completely disappeared.

After awhile, Bella starts hanging out with Jacob, fixing motorcycles, and eating lunch with her friends at school again. She says it helps, but eventually this leads to Bella becoming an adrenaline junkie. How? Well, every time Bella engages in a near-death experience, she sees Edward telling her to be safe and not do anything stupid, as he made her promise when he left her. These visions of Edward are strangely responsive to each particular NDE for some reason, but whatever. The point is that Bella catapults off a motorcycle, hitting her head in the process, and jumps off a cliff and nearly drowns, just so she can see Edward again. Bella is so pathetic that it's downright disgusting, but meanwhile, Romeo & Juliet-obsessed Edward is starving himself to death in Brazil because he's away from her, so if anyone deserves each other, it's these two.

Observations Made As We Watched:
 --"He's a 109-year-old virgin, no wonder he breaks everything when they finally do it."
--"Jacob Black is a butterface."
--"You'd think vampires would be more careful about saying 'humans' the way we'd say 'pets.'"
--"Who the f*** gets a papercut that goes that deep?" / "And from WRAPPING PAPER?"
--"This bitch is crazy."
--"I'm completely against banning books, but I don't think I'd let my kids read Twilight."
--"The screaming is my favorite."
--"Sarah? Sarah! Wake up! ...Did you fall asleep and I'm sitting here watching this?! SARAH, THIS IS TREASON!"

"Oh, this storyline makes sense. Because all vaguely-ethnic friends are mechanics."

For anyone who doesn't know, Edward Cullen is absent from 80% of this movie. The rest is about Bella missing Edward while Jacob tries and fails to convince her that he's the right boy for her. (This is half the plot of the next movie, too, except Edward's present the entire time.) Taylor Lautner gets to shed that vomitacious wig, and since he buffed up in order to not lose his job when they wanted to recast him for someone older, he spends a fair chunk of his screen time shirtless. He's so shirtless that his Barbie doll comes shirtless too.

(Certainly an improvement, but that doesn't save Jacob from being obnoxious.)

Anyway, since Jacob's Native American tribe, the Quileutes, are "descended from wolves," Jacob discovers his identity as a massive werewolf and is forced into a pack of other short-haired, shirtless Quileute boys. He also becomes an obsessive, raging protector of Bella, like a trigger-happy Rottweiler. When Alice returns and Edward calls Bella's house, fearing Bella's death (because Alice has visions of the future and she saw Bella jump off that cliff ), Jacob tells Edward -- in true Balthasar style -- that Bella is dead. Granted, Balthasar thought Juliet was really dead, and Jacob did it out of spite, but in any case, Edward decides it's time to die. He did, after all, tell Bella at her birthday party, "You're my only reason to stay alive, if that's what I am." Edward's plan is to make the Volturi, the vampire elders, kill him for revealing himself to a crowd of humans, which would violate vampire law. Alice sees his plan, she and Bella immediately fly to Italy and steal a Ferrari (WTF?), and Bella stops Edward in the nick of time. Yay, now this crapfest can continue for another three movies!

The Best Part: In an inexplicable casting coup, the producers somehow got Michael Sheen involved as the Volturi leader, Aro, who can read every thought a person has ever had, just by touching them. He slinks around with a smile that somehow manages to be innocent while simultaneously predatory. Then, he instructs one of his vampires, Jane (Dakota Fanning, as glacial as she could possibly get), to torture Edward and Bella with her power, which is Stephenie Meyer's equivalent of the Cruciatus curse. Bella is apparently immune to supernatural manipulation, as neither Edward nor Aro can read her mind, and Jane fails to cause her physical pain. (Plot Hole Alert: Earlier in the movie, Bella responds to Jasper's power to manipulate emotions when she agrees to have that ill-fated birthday party.) Anyway, Aro's dumbfounded-yet-fascinated reaction when he realizes that he can't read anything from Bella is the sort of twisted, fantastic moment that can occur when seasoned thespians show up in Twilight movies. It's also the same sort of spark that happens during Anna Kendrick's scenes as Jessica, Bella's hilariously insecure, sarcastic classmate.

The Worst Part: Bella. Seriously, if you know that there are vampires and all sorts of things out there that want you dead, why wouldn't you learn to defend yourself instead of hoping one of your stalkers shows up at the right time? Why wouldn't you carry wooden stakes in your purse? She lives in the damn woods; it's not hard to get them. It's one thing to be at a disadvantage because you're dealing with vampires and werewolves, who could physically tear humans from limb to limb. It's another to insist upon being weak and helpless, which is exactly how Bella chooses to not handle her problems.

It's a D- for New Moon.

(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

Spider-Man 3

I (Jasmyn) have loved Spider-Man since I was four. Every day, I came home from kindergarten, dropped to the floor in front of the TV, and watched Spider-Man: The Animated Series on Fox Kids. Then, in middle school, when the first live-action movie was released, I saw it in theaters and was left exhilarated by how great it was. Yet, my most vivid memory of going to see Spider-Man 3 was the moment when, with the movie screen dark, I heard Robbie Coltrane growl, "It's changin' out there. There's a storm comin', Harry..." I slapped my hand over my friend Steven's mouth to halt whatever he was saying, hissed, "SHUT UP, it's Harry Potter!" and watched the trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I remember nothing else of that movie experience.



Directed By: Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, the first two Spider-Man movies)
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco
Plot Summary: "So, if he's the main villain... why have we seen more of James Franco's anger?"

There is so much going on (and going wrong) in this movie that it's hard to begin. Spider-Man 3 picks up not long after the second movie left off, with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson happily dating, while Peter continues his superhero duties with an ego the size of Texas and Mary Jane acts on stage. Harry Osborn, meanwhile, still stews in rage over his belief that Peter (who he discovered was Spider-Man in the last movie) killed his father. Plus, Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church), revealed to be Uncle Ben's true killer from the first movie, breaks out of prison and starts robbing banks so he can pay for medical treatments for his sickly daughter we're supposed to care about. Also, Peter's facing competition at the Daily Bugle in the form of cocky photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace, in one of the weirdest casting decisions since Tobey Maguire was cast as Spider-Man). And Eddie's "dating" Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who kinda-sorta serves as a love interest for Peter, which is odd because she's a HELL of a lot more important to the Spider-Man canon than she appears in this movie. Oh, and we nearly forgot to mention "the symbiote," a malevolent alien goo that latches onto Peter, brings out the worst in him, and later becomes Venom when it attaches itself to Eddie.

Got all that? Sam Raimi certainly didn't.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Why was Gwen Stacy even here?"
--"HE THINKS YOU KILLED HIS MUFASA!"
--"Ugh, Tobey... the faces he makes..."
--"Classic Superhero Science Accident... this is kinda what happened to Dr. Manhattan." / "What is a Dr. Manhattan? Is that a tasty drink?"
--"Okay, so, following logic, there is no reason for there to be two suits. Did everyone forget he was wearing his suit when the symbiote attached? And it melded with THAT suit? SO HOW ARE THERE TWO SUITS!? Who was in charge of this f***ing continuity?!"
--"Why can't MJ ever wear a bra, though?"
--"Wait, is he gonna forget that just happened?" / "I don't know, I blocked half of this movie out."
--"Stop making constipated noises and focus."
--"Oh, hey, Stan Lee. SHUT THE F*** UP AND GET OUT OF THE MOVIE!"
--"His sand hands are gonna make pleasuring his sand penis more difficult." / "Lots more friction, though."
--"Comic book Mary Jane would've broken a chair over that bitch's head."
--"There is no context in which this is cool."
--"I kinda wish Harry would've succeeded." / "In killing Peter?" / "...Yeah."
--"It has taken an hour for any major developments to happen. It's like it's Titanic or something."
--"Stop shooting the sand monster, you f**ktard!"
--"Again, we're just not worried about continuity here. I'm pretty sure Aunt May suspected he was Spider-Man in #2, but OF COURSE there's no reason to acknowledge that at least 50 people saw Peter's face in the Spidey suit in the last one, right? You mean to tell me not a single person whipped out their camera phone for that?"

"I just... I don't understand how Venom, one of the greatest Spider-Man villains, if not THE greatest Spider-Man villain, was boiled down to this."

Here's the thing about writer-directors: At some point, there needs to be a checks-and-balances system in place, or else the creative power gets completely out of control. Spider-Man and its sequel were marvelous, well-paced, focused films (directed by Raimi but written by others). Sure, they had their goofy moments, which came with the quippy nature of Spidey's character and Raimi's own bizarre sense of humor. But those moments were actually funny. The "Go, web, go!" and "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" scenes from those movies were clever, sincere and realistic, and we could laugh at the situations and understand what Peter was going through. But the disco-dancing, freestyle jazz tango s**tshow that goes down near the middle of Spider-Man 3 was inexcusable, over the top, and just made us cringe. Plus, are we supposed to believe that THAT'S what "Evil" Peter does? Stops washing his hair in favor of emo bangs to show his darkness, performs some kind of crotch-thrusting rooster strut from a rejected Saturday Night Fever choreographer, and then starts throwing chairs and s*** in jazz restaurants? Real sinister, Peter. His one truly dark moment is the goblin-bomb incident with Harry after he ends Peter's relationship with Mary Jane, and sadly, that moment has already been overshadowed by inappropriate disco f**kery, from which nothing can return.

This script should've been halted from the get-go. It quite obviously suffered from what we're calling Trilogy Syndrome, as demonstrated by the X-Men and Chronicles of Narnia franchises, among countless others: The first movie captures the spark, or why the franchise resonates. The second movie goes bigger while still maintaining what the series is about. And then the third undergoes a "change in management," stumbles and clusterf**ks all over the place, adds an absurd level of unnecessary characters to "expand the universe," and becomes more shallow and missable through sheer lack of focus, so that fans must forcibly ignore the fact that the third movie even happened. (Hey, Batman fans... you better hope Chris Nolan keeps his wits about him.) We must ask... why were three major villains in this movie? Sandman is supposed to be a big deal. New Goblin is supposed to be a big deal. And Venom, who only gets about fifteen minutes of screentime, seems to have been thrown in as a dessert when he should've been the main entree.

The Best Part: Harry Osborn was the only character we vaguely rooted for, and even though some wholly unnecessary amnesia thing was thrown in the middle of his storyline, his personal conflicts with Peter and vindication in the final act did more for the poster's tagline than anything else in this movie did. Peter was a super-awkward creeper, Mary Jane was just sad the whole time, and nobody else had a point. Harry gets MVP for this one.

The Worst Part: Everything was all over the place, and the "Dark Peter" situation was laughable. In a movie that was supposed to be about "the battle within," the filmmakers sure went out of their way to supply viewers with a million external battles and be as sentimental and non-psychological as they could. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did it better.

We give Spider-Man 3 a hearty D-.

(Poster and trailer © Sony Pictures Entertainment)

The High School Musical trilogy

It seemed like the logical next step, after our Cheetah Girls excursion. Guys, get ready: this is a long one, but, as usual, we are attempting to entertain you where we mostly found despair.

Directed By: Kenny Ortega (Newsies, This Is It)
Starring: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman
Plot Summary: "Let your freak flag fly, Troy!"



The massive song-and-dance number above is the core conflict of High School Musical, and also, the synopsis for the first season of Glee. (Let's just acknowledge that right now and move on.) Albuquerque's East High is constricted by hierarchies and an alarmingly high frequency of personality disorders, resulting in a school full of students unable to accept change. When the balance is overthrown, s*** hits the fan. Our crew for this evening:

--Troy & Gabriella = The charismatic jock and the shy, brainiac new girl, who meet by chance and discover their mutual love of singing and shared desire to break out of their cliques
--Sharpay & Ryan = The theatrical queen bee and her gay-but-everyone's-ignoring-it-because-this-is-Disney twin brother, who conspire against Troy & Gabriella to keep Sharpay in power
--Chad & Taylor = Troy & Gabriella's respective BFFs, a fellow jock and brainiac, who don't appreciate their friends trying to do anything different and also conspire against them

In movie 1, the leads for the winter musical ("Twinkle Town," they're calling it) are totally on lock for Sharpay & Ryan. OR SO THEY THINK! If Troy & Gabriella win the roles at callbacks, Troy's top-dog influence as captain of the basketball team will combine with his relationship with Gabriella to create a world where athletes, mathletes and theatre kids can inter-mingle, and that is just UNACCEPTABLE if Sharpay is going to remain a star. Nevermind what her brother cares about, but we'll get to that later, because their strange relationship is going to be important.


(Brother and sister auditioning with a couple's duet to play romantic leads, folks.)

Chad & Taylor, who are the Chris Brown to Troy & Gabriella's Rihanna, are some of the worst friends in the history of the world. They go so far as to work in tandem with Sharpay & Ryan, just to break Troy & Gabriella apart and keep things in line. (This was actually a smart thing to do, script-wise, because the people who fight hardest to keep you down are rarely the obvious villains.) Taylor's hold on Gabriella isn't too difficult, since the girls have just met this year and their clique's more open to progress, but Troy is being held hostage by Chad, and Troy's own father, Coach Bolton. Their collective bullying has created a fragile boy so crippled by internal conflict that he has intense emotional breakdowns on the regular. (The severity of these freak-outs will get worse and worse as the movies go on.)

Of course, once their friends realize what they've done and stand behind them, Troy & Gabriella triumph at their callback.



In part 2, IT'S SUMMER! School's out, and everyone's constantly chattering about finding summer jobs to pay for college (even though all of these kids appear to be loaded to the point that scholarships shouldn't exist for them). Appropriately, Sharpay & Ryan, whose family owns an entire country club and some other stuff, are the only ones not talking about it, because that would just be silly and Sharpay's never worked a day in her life. She decides that what she wants this summer is Troy, so she gets him a job as a favor. Troy agrees, as long as all his friends can have jobs too, so the whole class starts working at the country club.

Sharpay's focused on her schemes and throws Ryan by the wayside, so he joins up with the rest of his classmates and becomes friends with them. Sharpay starts elevating Troy's status in the club and dangling college networking connections in front of him, so he gets blinded by riches. (We don't know why Troy needs help networking, since he's apparently got so much pull in Albuquerque that he got an entire class of highschoolers hired in a country club without applications or interviews.) His friends get pissed about him ignoring them, and Gabriella dumps him because nobody knows who he is anymore. And then Troy breaks down, and his crisis is so much harder than ever before that it results in -- for lack of a better descriptor, as we're struggling to see it any other way -- the gayest scene in the history of the Disney Channel. This is only unfortunate because half of Troy's freak-out is about his now-ex-girlfriend.


(To be honest, if this choreography had been different, the song might've worked. But we just kept laughing. We can't figure out how they managed to shoot it seriously.)

In the end, Sharpay's put in her place and everyone forgives each other. (Yeah, yeah, we know.) The most important thing that happens in the second movie is that Ryan starts to forge his own identity, and here's where we discovered the greatest part of the entire trilogy. Since Gabriella's been who she is the entire time, Troy's still crying about the same things, and Sharpay's still as selfish as ever, Ryan's character gets the only arc from movie #1 to movie #3. He goes from his sister's bitch to a star in his own right. Plus, he's the only one who finally succeeds in uniting the cliques.


(Sarah: "Does Ryan know Chad can dance because HE CAN SEE HIM DANCING LIKE WE CAN?!")

In High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the crew's doing their usual, except Chad & Taylor have faded into the background a little, and Sharpay and Ryan now operate as fully separate entities. Impending Future Freak-Out is the big situation in this one. Troy's still trying to figure out what he wants to do. His dad's got him pegged for University of Albuquerque, for a basketball scholarship, but Troy also wants to go to other schools -- one of which is Juilliard, where he's a scholarship candidate as well. The rest of the plot isn't important, but we can't watch Troy be sad for two hours without other fluff to break it up. The point here is that Troy's inability to make decisions comes back in full force from the first movie. Sports or theatre? SPORTS OR THEATRE?! He loves playing basketball, but HE'S JUST GOTTA SING, DAMMIT!!!


(The theatre director finds him at the end of this number, but if she hadn't, we have a strong suspicion that the East High Wildcats would've come to school the next morning to find their leader hanging from the rafters in the auditorium.)

Troy decides to go to the University of California, Berkeley, because there, he can study theatre AND play basketball. We find it unfortunate that no one has the heart to tell him how intense college theatre is, and how all-encompassing college sports teams are, and that he won't have time to do both like he did in high school, which will surely lead to another breakdown when he has to make this decision again, mere months from now. (He will inevitably choose theatre, because what does he turn to when he's having a crisis and subsequent violent outburst? SINGING ABOUT IT, not playing a few games of H.O.R.S.E.)

(Several) Observations Made As We Watched All Three Movies:
--"This whole thing could be a coming-out speech."
--"SAY 'MUSICAL' CORRECTLY, YOU BATTY OLD C***!"
--"Basketballs must be awfully uncomfortable to masturbate with."
--"Come on now, Sharpay, what if someone had been changing her tampon? You can't kick open bathroom stalls like that."
--"Why is Chad acting like they're in a cult? Drinking the Kool-aid, planning the group suicide?"
--"OK, 'thunderclap' is OBVIOUSLY an STD."
--"This song woke [Sarah's dog] Oskar up." / "That's because Vanessa Hudgens is so goddamn pitchy."
--"This is like a wild Greek orgy. Who brought the vuvuzela?!"
--"That's where serial killers put the bodies."
--"I'm sorry, I just can't get the visual of blow job circles in the basketball locker room out of my head."
--"You a**hole, you are gonna get this girl fired because of your obsession with frolicking."
--"His dad must want him to know how much hookers cost, especially if he's going to have all this pent-up homosexual energy that he can't share with Gabriella."
--"OH, HI ZAC'S BARE TORSO, YOU LOOK NICE TODAY!"
--"Ryan almost teabagged Chad right there." / "Oh, good, you saw that too."
--"TROY, YOU ARE DRUNK ON SORROW!"
--"I can't think of anything that makes this scene more gay." / "Dancing dildos, maybe?"
--"See, my mom would be mad if my high school boyfriend had suddenly shown up in my room, because she would assume I was letting him f*** me senseless."
--"This is worse than a Hamlet soliloquy, because this won't end in murder... just more dancing."
--"I'm not an expert on basketball, but I don't think they're doing it right."
--"Troy is not gay! He just has so many feelings!" / "I disagree."

The Best Part: The journey of Ryan Evans. He's super-likeable and we cared to see him finally get what he wanted. (He ends up being a winner of that Juilliard scholarship, for choreography.)

The Worst Part: The music. It's musical-appropriate in the first movie, clearly written for the purpose of being sold as pop singles on iTunes in the second, and then irritating by the time we get to the third. Especially because the third movie mostly consists of three sentimental bulls*** songs that each get repeated one or two more times throughout, and a few others that don't contribute to anything.

The original movie is legitimately cute, and as such, it is now the first vindicated movie to make it through the blog! CONGRATS, WILDCATS! You made it through on the basis of being better than our formerly best-reviewed bad thing, Twilight!

However, High School Musical 2 and High School Musical 3: Senior Year both get Ds. The first one, which has such a different spirit from the second two, can't save the downhill nature of the rest of the trilogy. So, it's a C for the whole shebang.

Sarah: "Truthfully, I always want to watch Love Actually after every Camp or Crap? excursion, just to remind myself that there is hope in the world."
Me: "I just want to watch The Virgin Suicides."
Sarah: "We appear to have opposite reactions."

(Posters and video clips © Walt Disney Company)

The Cheetah Girls Trilogy

WE'RE BAAAAAAAAACK!

Our summer hiatus is over, and to compensate for the lack of f**kery, we bring you not one... not two... but THREE at once! Ever since that misguided weekend, four years ago, when I made Sarah watch the High School Musical trilogy and Camp Rock, I think I've had a subconscious mission to keep her informed on all the ways that the Disney Channel makes life terrible. So, last week, when I brought The Cheetah Girls 2 into her life, Sarah asked, "Are we doing this for 'Camp or Crap?'" Shamefully, that answer was originally "no," as I had recently let myself watch it for the first time in a few years and wanted to share my guilty pleasure. However, after discussing the presence of the entire trilogy, and notifying Sarah that the first was worse than the second (I hadn't seen the atrocity the third movie yet), we decided that this would be an excellent way to jump back into things. Plus, we're still avoiding Spider-Man 3.



Directed By: Oz Scott (The Jeffersons, Fame the TV show), Kenny Ortega (Newsies, High School Musical trilogy), and Paul Hoen (Even Stevens, Sabrina the Teenage Witch)
Starring: Raven-Symone, Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams (Bailon and Williams were in 3LW when all this started)
Plot Summary: "This movie is trying really hard to be ethnic."

The Cheetah Girls begin as a singing quartet of freshmen whose main goal is to perform in their Manhattan high school's annual talent show. Because their school has lots of famous alumni, this talent show is the place to be discovered. The girls:

--Galleria (Raven-Symone): the bi-racial, type-A leader and songwriter, whose number-one focus is the success of the Cheetah Girls and reaching stardom. (Yes, their races are important, because they keep referring to them.)
--Chanel (Bailon): the fun-loving, Latina best friend who has abandonment issues with her mother's boyfriends
--Dorinda (Bryan): the dancer, a poor foster kid who doesn't know where she came from, but is presumably white and some other stuff
--Aquanetta, or Aqua (Williams): the brainy-yet-goofy black one who talks about being from Texas and putting hot sauce on food at every opportunity

As one would expect in a musical about struggling for fame in a group, Galleria becomes a problem when she gets a big head and acts like a raging bitch to everyone. (A near replica of that t-shirt moment in Almost Famous when Jason Lee says, "Oh, don't mind us, we're just the out-of-focus guys!" occurs after a promo picture of the Cheetah Girls appears.) She's super-unlikable at this point, but the movie flips when some skeezy record producer named Jackal comes in, and Galleria's suddenly the one with the best instincts for the group's well-being. There's dissent, and fighting, and Galleria quits the group. And then her dog falls in a hole and the Cheetahs rally together to sing him out of it. As anyone could guess, Galleria realizes how awful she's been, and everyone forgives each other, and then the above song occurs to finish the movie, complete with Galleria's irrelevant love interest playing an electric guitar that's not plugged into anything.



Now that Disney's done acknowledging that there are several cultures in the United States, the Cheetah Girls are moving on to Spain! Through a series of highly improbable events, the girls end up in Barcelona to compete in an international music competition before they begin their senior year of high school. Galleria, ever focused, works on the group's songs and tries to get everyone to rehearse, but the girls are distracted! Chanel is preoccupied with issues with her mom's Spanish boyfriend, Luc -- we're pretty sure he was French in the first movie, but I guess the producers needed a reason to go to Spain -- a perfectly nice man who has graciously welcomed everyone to stay in his beautiful mansion/villa. Dorinda gets wrapped up with a fellow dancer, Joaquin, who works for Luc and also happens to be a Count and can't act, and Aqua's suddenly into fashion design. All the while, the Cheetah Girls are being watched/stalked by a mysterious, gorgeous guitar player named Angel. (LIKE A GUARDIAN, GET IT? DO YOU GET WHY THE WRITERS NAMED HIM ANGEL?! DO YOU GET IT?!?!?!) Everyone is unfocused and Galleria quits again, but she comes back once the girls promise to keep it together. After a rival's scheming mom tries to break up the group and fails, the Cheetah Girls are stronger than ever and perform an outrageous bonanza for the competition. The movie ends without even mentioning who won, because I guess that's not supposed to be important after all the lessons everyone learned through their adventure or whatever.



At a certain point, somebody at the Disney Channel realized that in the course of this multicultural odyssey, they haven't covered India yet. So, in The Cheetah Girls: One World, the girls jet off to India to perform in a Bollywood movie. Raven's not in this one, probably because she was smart enough to say, "Okay, we've done what we can with this, and now I'm over it." Unfortunately, we're treated to a third movie without her, because 3LW isn't a thing anymore and Sabrina Bryan doesn't appear to have been involved in anything else. (Since, the three of them have decided to perform as the Cheetah Girls as a full-time gig. I accidentally saw them in concert once -- long story, I swear I didn't mean to -- and it was a hot-ass mess.)

The third one is full of nothing. Even fewer arcs than before, weird love set-ups (the most romantic one doesn't involve any of the three leads), a hell of a lot of extra characters, outfits that inexplicably got way worse than anything from the first movie... it's just useless. And Galleria's absence, explained by her being busy with preparations for Cambridge University (I like to think she's there with Angel, who sort of ended up being her love interest in Europe), leaves the group without an anchor. The movie's 75% music, due to lack of story, and we don't even remember there being a message for this one. Also, the Indian characters are somewhat slapstick, where the Spanish characters in the second movie had been cosmopolitan Europeans. In the age of Dora the Explorer, Spanish culture was embraced wholeheartedly, while even the Cheetah Girls' attitudes towards India seemed slightly more dismissive.

(Several) Observations Made As We Watched All Three Movies:
--"I can't remember all the names, so I'm just going to call them the names I made up for them: Gonorrhea, Aquafina and Dorito."
--"No, it is NOT 'Cheetahlicious!' That is not a word! SHUT THE F*** UP!"
--"Why would they all own the same ugly-ass jogging suit?"
--"That's not how you treat a dog! I am OFFENDED!"
--"Who am I supposed to like in this movie? 'Cause I don't like any of them."
--"Oh, Jesus, I smell a dance battle."
--"We're just pretending Galleria is dead, OK?" / "No, Galleria is not dead." / "...Yeah, I'm just pretending Galleria is dead."
--"Wow, they really didn't want to work on a story for this one."
--"HEY GUYS, DID ANY OF THESE THINGS WORK IN THE FIRST TWO MOVIES? NO? THEN WHY ARE WE DOING THEM NOW?"
--"That was rude, Dorito!"
--"This is strange and awful."
--"How did the acting get worse?"
--"'Dance me if you can?' You can't dance a person! Learn your verbs! 'DANCE ME' IS GIBBERISH, YOU DUMB BITCHES!"
--"Chanel, that top is too low-cut for the Disney Channel." / "Nah, Disney's had its cherry popped since Hannah Montana."
--"I don't want to sit through all the assumptions and jealousy in order to get to the 'Nothing will tear us apart!' resolution that is sure to occur. Like, this is ridic, and these outfits are just heinous and more heinous."
--"I have to take [Sarah's dog] Oskar out and decompress from what we just watched. BRB."

The Best Part: We found ourselves missing Angel to an obnoxious extent, considering that he's only got about 3 lines in the second movie, but because of his limited dialogue, that meant he never said anything stupid or cheesy. Which means we preferred him to any other guy who showed up. And although Sarah's not the biggest fan of Galleria, she certainly gave the group focus: Galleria united the other girls in their irritation when she was the villain, and then kept their eyes on the prize after she learned from her conceited missteps.

The Cheetah Girls 2 is the lesser of three evils; not surprising, given it's the only one with a director who specializes in musicals. It improved on the cheesy failures of the first movie, had better music and dance numbers, and integrated the Spanish language and environment in a way that didn't feel like the girls were just putting on costumes.

The Worst Part: The entire third movie is atrocious, but overall, the heavy-handed "Let's celebrate all the cultures we can!" thing is too much at times (as initially evidenced by most of the girls' off-the-wall names). It's a fantastic message, for sure, to embrace multiculturalism and international awareness, but there are moments when the movies are trying way too hard. On the other hand, the third movie's main love interest, the Bollywood director who becomes involved with Chanel, is the most Americanized of the Indian men. Disney's got a knack for this kind of backhanded diversity (please see our write-up for The Prince of Persia). Plus, we're not sure if this is a shrewd cultural observation or supremely offensive: Aqua accidentally runs into her crush, a tech guy she's never met and only knows through his over-the-phone assistance with her computer problems, in India, because of course, customer service is outsourced.

The Cheetah Girls = D+
The Cheetah Girls 2 = C
The Cheetah Girls: One World = F

Overall, that evens out to a D+ for the whole trilogy.

PS: This is Angel (Peter Vives).


(Posters and video clips © Walt Disney Company)

Queen of the Damned

When we were in middle school, and MTV announced that Aaliyah had been killed in a plane crash (the day school started), our 6th grade hearts collectively wept. In particular, I remember showing up to class and the first thing anyone said to me was, "Did you hear what happened to Aaliyah?!" So, because Queen of the Damned was released 6 months later, there was a frame at the end that said, "In memory of Aaliyah." That was a good thing to do, but... it's tragic that this awful piece of work is her legacy.



Directed By: Michael Rymer (Battlestar Galactica)
Starring: Stuart Townsend, Marguerite Moreau and Aaliyah
Plot Summary: "I don't get why anything in particular is happening. I mean, I get that they have to stop Akasha from sucking the world dry. That's a legitimate problem. But everything else is just... what?"

Queen of the Damned is adapted from Anne Rice's third novel in The Vampire Chronicles series. And, since Anne Rice is regarded as the master of all modern vampires and the series has 10 or so books to its name, the novel simply HAS to make more sense than this movie does. Neither Sarah nor I have read Rice's work, but we have the feeling that, as is the case with so many adaptations, certain things from the novel were left out, which would've made this sentimental piece of crap coherent.

Sarah: "I have a few choice words for Anne Rice."
Me: "Sarah, Stephenie Meyer is not Anne Rice's fault!"

Lestat (Townsend) awakens from deep sleep because he hears some random garage band playing goth-ish metal in his house. Where the hell did they come from, and how did they just set up shop on his estate? Lestat decides that he'll join them, and because he's bored, he reveals himself as a vampire to the public. The public's like, "Oh, sweet! A real vampire! This band's groupies die, like, ALL the time, but we're just gonna go with it!" Lestat knows that living his life out in the open will piss off the other vampires, and since he has a deathwish, he taunts them all to come to the concert in Death Valley so they can kill him. There's also a supernatural investigator named Jesse (Moreau), who is the most annoying, nonsensical, monotone girl who could've been in this movie. (Except, of course, the Queen of the Annoying, Nonsensical and Monotone Girls, Bella Swan.) Jesse follows Lestat around for reasons we can't decipher, except that she digs dying violently.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"How is this crowd laughing at him saying, 'I was just catching my breakfast?' THAT'S MURDER, GUYS!"
--"I'm amused that there is a very distinct 'Dracula' accent. Like, not really Romania, but like 1930s Hollywood Dracula."
--"Why is this happening? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"
--"She couldn't have at least put dark circles around her eyes if she was trying to pass in this vampire club?"
--"That's some Mortal Kombat s***!!! FINISH HIM!!!"

"Okay, I don't think he's hot enough to make up for how little sense this makes."

It should be said that we've both seen this movie multiple times. At no point has it ever become more coherent. Lestat narrates the tale, which helps a lot. If you had to watch this movie without his insight, you would start hitting yourself over the head with the nearest blunt object in order to knock some sense back into things. Lestat wanders the earth as a deadly vampire with a wink, which is to say that Stuart Townsend plays him with a healthy dose of self-awareness. The same can't be said for most of the other people in this movie, whose flat, developmentally-challenged characters have no distinct personalities except for Stupid and Ancient Vampire.

Aaliyah's character, Akasha, who is awakened by Lestat's music, is the mother of all vampires. (Which begs the question... how the hell did she become a vampire in the first place? What came first, the chicken or the egg!?) Her goal is to take over the world, living openly as a vampire goddess, drinking everyone dry. Which falls under the personality category of Stupid AND Ancient Vampire: She first appears as a statue, which she became because she got too greedy and decimated the blood supply the LAST time she walked the earth. WHAT??? How would you not learn from those previous errors? How would you continue without a sustainability plan? Who's running your cabinet, the Republican party?!

The Best Part: Townsend, no question. He takes Lestat's identity seriously, but Lestat doesn't take being a vampire seriously, so it all works together to create a cheeky sense of humor about the situation.

The Worst Part: We've seen this movie together at least 3 times and still don't understand it. Nobody's motives have reason, except maybe Lestat's deathwish, because eternity would be an excessive amount of time to spend alone. The rest is a maudlin, over-stylized music video.

Queen of the Damned gets a D-. For "terribleness and being horrid," as Sarah puts it.

(Poster and trailer © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)

Ella Enchanted

It must be stated, before anything else, that Sarah and I have never entered a review with this much built-in contempt. Yes, book-to-movie adaptations are tricky, since the two media are so different, but the best are able to maintain the spirit of the original story. For instance, the filmmakers of The Devil Wears Prada altered small (but key) elements of the book's characters, but recreated their snarky charm in a way that still entertained and told a fuller story on screen. As a result, The Devil Wears Prada was that rare occasion when the movie was better than the book. However... Ella Enchanted induced childhood trauma in two twentysomethings by dropping a big, fat, elephant turd on one of the best children's books of the 90s.



Directed By: Tommy O'Haver (Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Get Over It)
Starring: Anne Hathaway and Hugh Dancy
Plot Summary: "It's like the cabaret version of The Village."

The original story was a witty variation of "Cinderella." Ella (Hathaway), given the "gift" of obedience at birth by a wacked-out fairy (Vivica Fox, because this movie's casting director was apparently a dart board), must do whatever she's told. So, when she grows up, and her absentee father leaves her with her wicked stepmother and awful stepsisters, who very quickly discover what they can do to her, Ella decides she has to find her fairy godmother and convince her to lift the curse. Along the way, she meets Prince Charming Charmont (Dancy), and you can guess what happens from there. The book handled this wonderfully, but since the movie has ended up on Camp or Crap?, it's obviously got some problems. We'll try to leave as much of the book out of this as we can, and judge the movie on its own merits, but a lot of what's wrong with this particular adaptation is the sheer level of unnecessary crap that got thrown into it.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Did they put the camera on a drunk dragon?"
--"What the f*** is this outfit? Why is she dressed as a magical hooker?"
--"This seems like something that would happen on Criminal Minds."
--"Why hasn't Anne Hathaway done a real movie-musical yet?"
--"Wassup, green-screen, how are you today?"

"WHAT IS YOUR LIFE, CARY ELWES!? YOU WERE IN THE PRINCESS BRIDE AND YOU WERE ROBIN HOOD! YOU A**HOLE! WHY ARE YOU S***TING ON BEING AWESOME?!"

The above fit of hysterical rage was in reaction to the god-awful role given to Cary Elwes, formerly known as the beautiful and heroic Westley in The Princess Bride and the title character of Robin Hood: Men In Tights. The producers probably thought, "Oh yeah, get Elwes, but we'll make him the bad guy this time, like he's passing on the torch for a new crop of fantasy comedies!" WRONG, MOTHERF***ERS, YOU'RE ON NOTICE! Elwes plays Char's sinister uncle, Edgar, who wears a porn-star goatee and leers at Ella like an absolute creeper. ("Ella, meet my uncle, Rape-Face McGee.") He also walks around with a talking pet snake for no reason. Uncle Edgar didn't even exist in the books, and therefore, neither did his painfully cliche plot.

Sarah: "You'd think all princes would be wary of their uncles."
Me: "They should be. If there's a dead father, there's an attempted homicide on the horizon."

Simba, Caspian, Hamlet, Dastan... the list of marked princes goes on and on. Edgar, like all uncles in fantasy movies, wants Char dead so he can take the throne. Edgar's desire to use our heroine as the hitwoman (after he finds out about her curse) is, admittedly, a fresh twist, but the plot itself is predictable. That's why we have a gripe with this facet of the adaptation: You add an entirely new storyline to the movie, and it's not even an interesting one? The same can be said for the other additions: Instead of committing to a full-on musical, there are two songs performed, and only one of those scenes makes sense in the movie's canon. (Ella is ordered to entertain a crowd of giants by singing and dancing, and the second number is just gratuitous because the filmmakers couldn't end the movie.) The fantasy creatures are turned into oafish caricatures -- although, it must be noted that one of the elves makes fun of the idea of what an elf should be. A small plot about racism, featuring Ella's best friend, Areida (Parminder Nagra), is shrunk into two short scenes that don't carry any emotional resonance throughout the rest of the movie.

Speaking of which, there were a lot of shortcuts taken with the production, which made the movie look as though it could've been staged by a high school theatre troupe. All the costumes look cheap as hell, as if they were rounded up from Joe-Bob's Halloween Shack and the basement of a Forever 21. Plus, the green-screen is done so poorly in many places that it took us out of the movie. Come on, Miramax, what was your budget? There are renaissance fairs in the back-alley cornfields of Iowa that look more legit than this did.

The Best Part: Hathaway and Dancy were wonderful and sincere, and their chemistry glues the entire movie together. In the scene when Ella is sobbing, trying to stop herself from stabbing Char in the back with a dagger while he proposes to her, it feels like a real, tragic moment. Also, at some point, a castle worker says, "Stop tonguing the foyer!" and that's a spectacular line.

The Worst Part: The Nicolas Cage School for Campy Actors should be shut down immediately. As should the JC Penney Production Design Academy.

We give it a D+.

(Poster and trailer © Miramax Films)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Historically, film adaptations of video games have been horrible. Those of us who play games on a regular basis know this, but we hope for the best anyway, because we've devoted hours of our lives to these things. At this point, however, we're starting to suspect that Hollywood secretly HATES video games, because they insist on raping everything that was wonderful about them and relying on random slo-mo shots with physics that look goofy on film, even if they were necessary in the game reality.



Directed by: Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Mona Lisa Smile)
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton and Ben Kingsley
Plot Summary: "Why does this look EXACTLY like Aladdin?"

Disney is great with animated children's movies, but they have major issues with live action. One of the problems, which is certainly the case with this particular kind of movie, is that they take material that deserves a stronger rating and water it down. One of the reasons Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl worked is because it was PG-13 (the very first PG-13 Disney movie, as a matter of fact); if it had been anything lower, it wouldn't have made sense. The same goes for Prince of Persia; it was PG-13, but wouldn't have been so bland (and awkwardly scripted, in several places) if it had been rated R. Which, of course, means that Disney shouldn't have made it in the first place, and should've passed it off to another studio instead.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Wanna know what's better than this movie so far? This Pop-Tart I'm eating."
--"LOOK at his ARMS! Hot DAMN!"
--"We should've counted how many times they got ambushed."
--"I'm impressed that Jake grew his hair out for this."
--"Holy f***, that was ham-fisted exposition."
--"Wait a minute... is that Papyrus font?! What, Disney ran out of money?"

"The video game character looks Arabic. You know who doesn't?"

(Note: For anyone who doesn't know where this movie's taking place, Persia is now Iran.)

A major peeve about ancient/medieval period pieces in non-British settings is that, for some inexplicable reason, everyone's rocking a British accent. It's even gotten to the point that "Back-in-the-Day English" has become an accent in and of itself (see Brad Pitt in Troy, Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven, Gerard Butler in 300, Colin Farrell in Alexander, etc). Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton and Alfred Molina were all born in England, but Jake Gyllenhaal was born in LA., and his struggle with the olden-times accent is apparent. He gets better as the movie goes along, leading us to believe that the movie was shot in sequential order (we can't prove this, but that's how it sounds). It makes no sense that studios spend millions upon millions of dollars to shoot in foreign locations and pay for detailed period costumes, but can't get dialect coaches.

This brings us to another weird stereotype in action: the supporting characters (and especially the villain, complete with eyeliner and evil goatee, played by the only headlining actor of Asian descent) are allowed to look Middle Eastern, but the protagonist has to be whitest guy in the room? Listen up, Hollywood: "Fall into a sand dune after exiting a tanning salon and not showering for a few days" is not a method for creating Iranian characters. We hate to nitpick, but seriously, look at this:

The Hero: A white dude with a good tan



The Resident Hot Girl: Doesn't look like she was born in England, so she's "exotic"



The Villain: Jafar?

The Best Part: Alfred Molina, as a merchant who runs plot-irrelevant ostrich races, was a fun addition to the storyline, if only for the fact that Molina makes every movie better. Ditto for Gemma Arterton, whose Princess Tamina was more than just fap-fodder for the teenage boys who went to see this movie. Her character was the best-written in the whole bunch, and on top of that, Arterton played her with fierce intelligence.

The Worst Part: Overwhelming blandness destroyed what could've been a badass movie, because this kind of material requires real commitment on the filmmakers' part (for example, 300 can be called several things, but bland isn't one of them). There's no reason a movie involving time travel, of all things, should've been predictable. And while Gyllenhaal's convincing as a rogue-ish hero, he's not convincing as an Iranian one.

We give Prince of Persia a D-.

(Poster and trailer © Walt Disney Pictures)