Sharknado

We're back!

Direced By: Anthony C. Ferrante (other SyFy Channel movies)
Starring: Ian Ziering, Cassie Scerbo, and Tara Reid
Plot Summary: "I would like to see the screenplay for this. Because it seems like their goal was, 'What can we do to make 'sharks in a tornado' last 90 minutes?'"

There is nothing we can give you for set-up on this one. The poster ("ENOUGH SAID!") and the trailer tell you everything you need to know. So, because SyFy Channel life is an a surreal, nonsensical state of being that punches the "science" half of science-fiction in the crotch, here are the facts:

--There are no hurricanes or tornadoes in Los Angeles, California. That's not a thing. That's why "TORNADOES IN LA?!" was such a big deal in The Day After Tomorrow.
--Wild animals have a tendency to say "DEUCES" to the rest of us in the event of a major storm, and even if they didn't, sharks don't swim far enough inland for any of this to happen.
--Sharks don't travel in packs, so there's no way in hell there'd be this many of them together, at any point, anywhere.
--No.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"On a scale from 1 to 'we should've known because Tara Reid's in it,' how intense do you think this is gonna be?" 
--"HOW IS THIS STARTING IMMEDIATELY?" / "OMG THAT WAS MY THOUGHT TOO! NO CONTEXT, JUST SHARKS IN THE MOTHERF***ING SKY?"
--"Samuel L. Jackson needs to be here screaming about how he doesn't have time for this s***."
--"This guy looks like the gay porn version of a fisherman. Like, is that a Burberry trench coat?"
--"THEY CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL!"
--"I have stuffed-animal sharks that look more realistic than this."
--"Jasmyn. JASMYN!" / "I... I don't... I can't even..."
--"DUDE, WHY ARE YOU STILL IN THE WATER?!" / "Y'ALL DUMB AS F***, MOVE YOUR ASSES!"
--"Whoever's still in the water at this point deserves a shark attack."
--"I'm mad this dude's name is Finn; number one, because that's corny, and number two, because all the other Finns I've seen are either cool or cute."
--"We are really going to need to address the graphics at some point." / "That last shark looked like it was made of Play-Doh."
--"I'm mad about Global Warming because of all the bad movies it has inspired."
--"That dude looked like a Sim getting attacked, f*** these graphics."
--"I'll always remember that Cory Monteith's final two tweets were about Sharknado."
--"They had to do this in LA because East Coast people won't take this s***."
--"I like that no one is asking how this is possible." / "Because they know WE'RE asking how this is possible."
--"That shark just apparated." / "Seriously, where the f*** are they coming from?"
--"Aww, Tara, they let you act!"
--"Was a car explosion really necessary? I mean, you have sharks falling out of the sky."
--"Oh, here we go! Here we go, there it is! SHARKNADO!"
--"Why does this car have a nitro button? This is not Crash Bandicoot Racing."
--"I would sacrifice a child to star in a SyFy Channel movie."

"I know this is a strange comment, but not enough people are dying. For a movie called Sharknado, very few people are actually being eaten by sharks."

Someone exercised an unexpected level of restraint here. We thought we'd see someone randomly get chomped every ten minutes, for all the crazy "SHAAAARKNAAAADOOOOOOO" hype of the trailer and the poster, but after the initial descent of flying sharks, things calmed down a bit. There even came a point where they acknowledged the improbability -- *cough* IMPOSSIBILITY  *cough* -- of the weather situation, when the news anchor stated it was the first hurricane to hit LA. Nobody said anything about the shark part of it, but whatever.

Here's the crew we followed through the movie: bar-owner Finn (Ziering), his employee Nova (Scerbo), their Aussie surfer friend Baz (because that was apparently the first Australian the writers thought of), and Finn's ex-wife and family (Reid, a teenage daughter, and eventually a son). Nova -- my (Jasmyn's) favorite -- was a trigger-happy bartender with a shotgun and a vendetta against sharks because of an attack she survived (with survivor's guilt, after everyone she was with died) some years back. Sarah's favorite was George, an old drunkard who pretty much lived at Finn's bar, but George, unfortunately, didn't make it.

Now, we need to briefly address the real flaw of the movie: the distractingly awful special effects.

Sarah: "GUYS, THAT'S NOT HOW SCARS LOOK! AT LEAST NOT OLD SCARS! I've got old scars, they're not pretty, but they sure as hell don't look like that!"
Jasmyn: "That scar looks like he was supposed to have gangrene ten years ago. That scar looks like it formed an air bubble and, somehow, he got cum stuck in it and it solidified."

This is the scar in question:

You can see the CGI fail in the trailer, but as Sarah said, the movie could have been properly gory if the sharks looked like sharks.

The Best Part: The side characters who ended up dying were hilarious. We loved drunk old George, as well as a funny schoolbus driver and a conspiracy-theorist gas station attendant. We were also really glad that Baz didn't make it out either, because he was annoying.

The Worst Part: For all the money SyFy saved on advertising (all they had to do was say "Sharknado" and Twitter did the rest), we hope that in the rumored sequel, they spend whatever they can on the graphics. Seriously, human-hungry sea creatures falling out of the sky would be a terrifying scenario if we weren't laughing at the animated fish-tank toys they were passing off as sharks.

Regarding the greatest absurdity here, the solution that Nova and Finn's son, Matt, come up with, which is to fly a helicopter around the sharknado and drop explosives in it to blow it up... Why the hell not? The way we see it, if you're living in a reality where a sharknado is possible, you're also living in a reality where throwing dynamite into a tornado to disperse it is possible. So, if we accept the circumstances in which this movie is happening, of course that solution makes sense.

You cannot watch Sharknado with a logical eye. So, once we put the insanity aside, once we embraced the sharknado and all that it was, we weren't too bothered by the fact that Nova gets eaten whole by a shark that later, BY COMPLETE COINCIDENCE, ends up being the shark Finn throws himself into with a chainsaw and then saws his and Nova's way out of. In fact, Sarah's only question at that point was, "How did he do that without cutting Nova?"

Sharknado is fun. Sharknado is the kind of movie that's at the core of why we started Camp or Crap? in the first place. It succeeded in what it set out to do, and it's so hilariously bad it's good, so we give it a B.

Now, for bonus fun, listen to the Sharknado theme song that plays over the end credits, "The Ballad of Sharknado." Yes. This happened.

 (Poster and trailer © The Asylum and Southward Films)

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)

Abduction

That's pretty much all there is to it.

Directed By: John Singleton (2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers)
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, and Alfred Molina
Plot Summary: "This movie was not made for people who have any sort of thought process other than, 'Oh, the pictures are moving!'"

High school senior Nathan (Lautner) lives a pretty comfortable, douchey life. He's a wrestling stud (I've never seen a real high school that gave a crap about wrestling, but whatever), his best friend Token Black Kid makes foolproof fake IDs, and he and all his cohorts live in sick houses with Iron Chef kitchens. But wait! Life is not perfect in affluent suburbia, because Nathan doesn't feel like he belongs. One night while working on a school project with his "randomly assigned" partner, who happens to be his lifelong crush, Karen, the duo discovers, completely by chance, that Nathan isn't who he thinks he is. All the adults in Nathan's life are in on it. Of course, this means s*** violently hits the fan, with Nathan's "parents" (Maria Bello and Jason Issacs) as cold-blooded casualties. Nathan and Karen are now on the run from the CIA.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"No. He did NOT make it to school on the hood of a car. False."
--"Jason Issacs is in this? AND Sigourney Weaver, what the f***?!"
--"Jasmyn, every time we watch an exceptionally bad movie, I miss Twilight so much." / "Eww, hold your tongue."
--"PUNCH HIM IN THE JEANS!"
--"Hmm, maybe you shouldn't date guys who are gonna be booked on assault charges just because another guy looked at you."
--"What did Jason's agent tell him to get him to do this movie?" / "Probably, 'You get to beat the s*** out of Jacob the Werewolf, you want in?'"
--"We should treasure this moment while it lasts, because I think this is the last time we're going to enjoy anything in this movie."
--"Power Rangers spin-kick! HI-YAAAHHHH!" 
--"Put that swag away. You don't deserve all that swag."
--"You will not find a girl in college who looks like Lily Collins, bro. YOU WON'T."
--"High school boy on a motorcycle wearing aviators. Looks like a priiiick."
--"Why the f*** does Taylor Lautner walk like that? I realize he's swole, but the constipation has got to stop."
--"I hate so much about the things this movie chooses to be."
--"There's a bomb in the oven? Who put a bomb in the oven? WHO PUT A BOMB IN THE OVEN, WHEN WAS THERE TIME FOR THAT?"
--"I could fill in for Lily. I'd put a sweater over Taylor's face and just sleep on his body."
--"Dude, have you never watched a movie? You don't go to the police!"
--"ALFRED MOLINA IS HERE, THIS JUST GOT F***ING SERIOUS!"
--"I'm glad she put her hair up. We can't have all that flowing around for somebody to grab like she's a hooker who didn't pay somebody back."
--"How did the token black kid get there? Black Friend, you are in danger! BLACK FRIEND, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!"

"That is a hilariously specific and improbable plot device."

This movie gets brownie points for not being 100% action sequences. We appreciate the fact that the action was used as sparingly as it could have been, to keep things heightened and illuminate the exceptionally thin emotional thread present. That being said, Abduction suffers from the usual action movie failing that is Lack Of Story. Near the beginning, during a visit with Nathan's therapist, Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver), we learn that Nathan has rage issues. We expected, because of the setup, that this was something Nathan would have to work through over the course of the movie. Yet we saw no indication in Nathan's character that he was inappropriately angry. In fact, he was relatively calm, for the circumstances, so there was no point to that. At the end of the movie, Nathan, Karen and everyone else were the same as they were at the beginning, except a lot of people had been shot.

The Best Part: At the beginning, after Nathan makes a drunken ass of himself at a party, his dad, Kevin, takes him home and boxes with him (read: kicks his ass) to teach him some lessons. This is a regular thing for them. We later realize that all the sparring Kevin did with Nathan was to keep him sharply trained in combat, for the day Nathan needed to use it against the bad guys who would inevitably come for him. Even before we knew Kevin's odd brand of parenting had context, we enjoyed the hell out of the scene.

After Nathan's parents are killed, and he and Karen realize the CIA is after them, Dr. Bennett helps them escape. Nathan's in tears, justifiably freaking out. Here, Dr. Bennett gets the best line in the whole movie: "I know you need time to deal with this emotionally, but right now, you need to get your s*** together."

Plus, we were treated to a wonderfully offhanded line delivery from the eastern European villain, as he watched baseball: "I don't understand the game, but I like popcorn."

The Worst Part: That nagging absence of character development.

We've got to give it to everyone involved: this is not a good movie, but we could tell they were trying, and did the best with what they had. We didn't even mind Taylor Lautner, and we've got a lot of biases about Taylor Lautner. However, a superficial script is a superficial script, and there's no getting around that. We give Abduction a C-.

(Poster and trailer © Lions Gate Entertainment)

Charlie's Angels

Personal biases to get out of the way: 1) This is a movie based on a 1970s television show, and that rarely, if ever, pans out well. 2) Sarah has an intense dislike for Cameron Diaz.



Directed By: McG (Terminator Salvation, We Are Marshall)
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz
Plot Summary: "If some girl is telling you she learned all about bombs from the Internet, maybe you should rethink your relationship."

Dylan, Alex, and Natalie (Barrymore, Liu, and Diaz, respectively) are Charlie's Angels, an elite trio of secret agents. They work for a mysterious, unseen benefactor who delivers their assignments through his right-hand-man, Bosley (an adorable Bill Murray), via a speaker in Bosley's apartment. The Angels have been tasked with recovering Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), a kidnapped software engineer whose technology would end privacy and international security as we know it. BUT WAIT! Knox and his partner, Vivian (Kelly Lynch), aren't the victims at all! In a surprisingly well-thought out plot, they (with the help of their personal assassin, Creepy Thin Man, "played" by Crispin Glover) are just using the Angels to gain access to a another company's tracking software. Knox also thinks Charlie killed his father when they were in Vietnam, so guess who he's trying to trace?

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Aww, remember when she was with Tom Green?" / "Remember how Tom Green had ball surgery on MTV?"
--"Who is this She-Hulk woman who sounds like a man?" / "Looks like a man, too. S***, that's a severe face."
--"Oh, this is back when palm pilots were a thing."
--"Really? 'Independent Women' playing over a scene featuring fast food and Lucy's ass?" / "Are they independent because they can afford fast food? I ate a burger off the dollar menu today and I'm broke as s***."
--"Crispin Glover will never not be creepy. Has he said anything in this movie, or just laughed and screamed?"
--"I always forget Luke Wilson's face." / "But how can you forget that jaw?"
--"TAKE A SHOT WHENEVER AN ANGEL FLIPS HER HAIR!"
--"Yes, send the efficient Asian to be the dominatrix stand-in."
--"God damn, I love Sam Rockwell."
--"Bosley, check for a penis!"
--"Okay, I've seen at least three movies where a crowd of black people screams, 'Go, white girl!' or 'Go, white boy!' at someone, and I can tell you, that does NOT happen."
--"YOU CAN'T THROW A DOOR LIKE THAT!"
--"I assure you, those wires would not be labeled 'Primary Flight Control Circuits.'"

"I have to say, men look like idiots in this movie, and I'm enjoying that. Because you KNOW this s*** would work. I've done it."

About 98% of action movies feature some piece of female eye candy who closes her eyes and shrieks when she's supposed to be aiming and shooting a gun. If she accomplishes anything, the hero's still got to save her at the last minute from the bad guy using her as collateral. In a refreshing take, Charlie's Angels celebrates the fact that our heroines are women as they take out clueless man after clueless man. At several points throughout the movie, the Angels use their feminine assets to get undercover: a geisha-like masseuse renders an executive unconscious in order to get an important key from his belongings. Belly dancers distract security personnel in an exotic bar while another dancer steals his fingerprints. An absurdly flirty pit-stop worker keeps a driver preoccupied in his own car, while another breaks into the trunk to plant a bug.

Sometimes, the Angels physically beat men like they stole something. (Sarah loves the trio's first, high-octane fight with Creepy Thin Man, and I love when Natalie kicks the absolute s*** out of a hitman who attacks her in a bathroom.) Other times require the soft approach, and they're owning it in either case. People say that if you want to deal with a man, you've got to meet him on his level, but what does that really mean? Fight like a man because being a woman isn't worth anything? Oh, please. "Fighting fire with fire" has never made any sense. When's the last time you saw a firefighter run into a burning building with a flamethrower?

That being said, while the Angels are very clever and good at what they do, it's odd that they're at their most efficient when manipulating men with sex. Personally, I think that fact raises a question more insulting to the location of men's brains than it is to women, but it's still something to think about. They are far more than beautiful women who look good in skintight clothing, so does this cheapen their other abilities? Plus, Jason (Matt LeBlanc), Alex's boyfriend, spends most of the movie thinking she's a bikini waxer, of all things, which is already a sexually-connotated occupation. She couldn't have said she was anything else? His disappointment at discovering that she's not a bikini waxer is not because she lied to him, but because he had thought it was so hot. That says a lot.

The Best Part: Crispin Glover, the eternal freakshow, is perfect in his rather memorable role as Creepy Thin Man. No, the character does not have a name. The Angels call him Creepy Thin Man, so Creepy Thin Man it is, and giving him a name would not have made him any less of a skinny creeper. Glover has made his career being weird -- not "Who's that girl? It's Jess!" weird, but "I've been a storyline on on Criminal Minds" weird -- and this is no exception. After ripping out some of Dylan's hair during their first encounter, he holds onto it, then runs the keepsake over his face and smells it a couple times. The same thing happens in their final meeting, when Alex is the one to lose a lock. What else could they have called him, anyway?

The Worst Part: The opening, a classic Bond-movie intro in its complete non-relation to the rest of the plot, is totally ridiculous. LL Cool J pulling off his own face to reveal that he's a disguise for Drew Barrymore is jarring, to put it lightly. The movie walks a fine line of self-referential, early 2000s camp, but that crosses it.

Charlie's Angels gets a solid B. If nothing else, it's a fun action movie with women who don't suck and have a sense of humor, and it raised a really great feminism debate between Sarah and I.

We'll leave you with the terrible video for Destiny's Child's "Independent Women, Part 1," the movie's promotional theme song. Enjoy!



Jasmyn: "I remember when this song came out. All us 11-year-olds singing, 'All the women who independent!' Cut to: 'MOM, CAN I HAVE $20 DOLLARS?!'"

(Poster and trailer © Columbia Pictures)

300

That's the entire story.



Directed By: Zack Snyder (Watchmen, Sucker Punch)
Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and David Wenham
Plot Summary: "I can't believe how long this movie is. It clearly doesn't have enough story for two hours."

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Are we pretending this weird, slightly Asian-looking kid grows up to look like Gerard Butler?" / "This dude looks like the Last Airbender."
--"Did they just quote Galaxy Quest?"
--"I don't think Hollywood filmmakers have a grasp of what Persia was."
--"Who's narrating?" / "Faramir from Lord of the Rings."
--"Gerard, I like you so much better with your real accent. Because that is auditory sex."
--"Geography and physics are lost on whoever made this movie." / "Psh, Zack Snyder doesn't do physics."
--"Why do all these dudes have herpes of the face?"
--"Wait a f***ing minute, MICHAEL FASSBENDER'S IN THIS MOVIE?!"
--"Whatever effects they used on her boobs make them look like part of a novelty t-shirt."
--"Was that goat playing the guitar?"
--"I wish Orlando Bloom was in this movie." / "Oh my God, yes! That's what this needs! Orlando Bloom staring at nothing!"

"These battles are either like a lame video game or a really weird dream."

If anyone expected this movie to be historically accurate, we'd venture a guess that they were disappointed. Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette would even win that argument. However, since it's easy to forget about logic, physics, geography and history in a Zack Snyder movie, we might be able to let that slide. Snyder's got a death grip on how to heighten reality to the point that "reality" becomes a loose term (for reference, please see: ANY OF HIS OTHER MOVIES). All the shirtless men had their abs digitally enhanced, which is one of the more ridiculous uses of CGI we've seen in awhile. Have Butler and Fassbender ever needed help in the ripped-and-sexy department? Does Lena Headey's cleavage need contouring? If your answer to either of those questions is, "Why not?" then let us know when you want us to review whatever horrendous movie you just wrote.

That's the big question at work here: "Why not?" Why not transform Xerxes into a ten-foot-tall transvestite with some sort of thyroid disorder? Why not throw Persian orgies with fauns? Why not make the Spartan traitor a deformed hunchback? (People with birth defects are rage-filled invalids who can't be trusted, right?) Why not depict the bad guys as Africans and other darker-skinned people than the Spartans, yet again, since that's how Hollywood copes with evildoers? Why not send Leonidas into a suicide battle against an army THIRTY-THREE times larger than his own for no reason other than being remembered?

Oh? What's that? Being slaughtered mercilessly so people can make incomprehensible movies about you doesn't win the war? YOU DON'T F***ING SAY?

The Best Part: Queen Gorgo, played by Lena Headey, was strong and intelligent, and although the Spartan society around her saw her the same way they'd see any individual with two X chromosomes, she commanded respect. Her relationship with Leonidas, who treated her as his equal, was easily the best dynamic. Plus, visually-speaking, this movie is gorgeous.

The Worst Part: This "death for glory" bulls*** is not enough motive to drive a real-life fight, let alone a two-hour movie. It's just not.

We give 300 a C. It's not as bad as either of us remembered it, but it still failed to be enjoyable in any particular way.

Fun Fact: Most of the swords and shields used in this movie were recycled from the sets of Troy and Alexander. Explains a lot about this production, doesn't it?

(Poster and trailer © Warner Bros. 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)

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)

Catwoman

The first time I (Jasmyn) saw this movie, I sat through it for 30 minutes before I couldn't watch anymore. Sarah hadn't seen it at all. This was good judgment on her part.



Directed By: Pitof
Starring: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt and Sharon Stone
Plot Summary: "Oh, right, he doesn't recognize her because she's wearing half a mask. This is some Clark Kent/Superman s***."

The movie opens with a complex, pseudo-history lesson about ancient cats and women, much like the "Bella Googles vampires" montage in Twilight. There are lots of comic-book movies that start out this way, as an homage to their own iconic images, but the difference is that the others weren't boring. These filmmakers, however, hit us over the head with the cats, as if they wrote it for an audience who had the memory of a goldfish, and would periodically forget that the movie was about CATwoman. It became cheesy, when it should have been simple and stirring, like this:



(This is one of my favorite movie openings OF ALL TIME.)

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"What's with the weird, ethereal Troy music? It's a combo of Troy music and stripper music."
--"This camera work is bothering me! I'm getting dizzy!"
--"Oh god, there are STROBES!"
--"The laws of physics have just been defied."
--"This is exactly how John Wilkes Booth broke his leg."

"How did they make her look homely?! She's HALLE BERRY!"
"It's just the wardrobe, though, because her face is f***ing up any 'homely' plans they had."

Halle Berry is a beautiful, Oscar-winning actress. That being said, there is no excuse -- we repeat, NO EXCUSE -- for her acting in this movie. She was fine when she was timid, innocent Patience Phillips (a terrible name, considering the last Catwoman's name was Selina Kyle). When Patience became Catwoman, Halle went overboard. She was twitchy and awkward, kind of the way Anne Hathaway (another Oscar-nominee) decided to play the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland. It made us think, "What happened? Why are you doing this?" So, Michelle Pfeiffer still reigns in this role. Plus, she was sexier in her costume, covered head-to-toe, than Halle was, half-naked in an S&M bra and leather jeans. It's worth noting, because in every incarnation of the character, Catwoman's life purpose is apparently to act like a klepto-nymphomaniac.

The Best Part: The conceit that Sharon Stone's villain character had developed invincible skin because of the age-defying, illness-inducing cosmetics she was selling to the public was pretty cool. Especially when she fell out of a skyscraper, because we could see the cracks and chips that came out of her face after she landed, like a poorly-restored statue. It was a great special-effect.

The Worst Part: Instead of fixing a craptacular script, the producers threw money at it. $100 million dollars, in fact. The movie only made $40 million. Ouch...

We give this movie a resounding F.

Sarah: "I miss good movies... I'd like to remind you that this entire project was YOUR idea."

(Catwoman poster and trailer © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)
(Spider-Man footage © Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Speed Racer

Speed Racer is the first movie we've reviewed for our baby blog that neither of us had seen before. Sarah remembers watching the show when she was little, but my only knowledge of it came from a hilarious Geico commercial that came out four years ago. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was really psyched and was dying to see it... and then the reviews came in.



Directed By: The Wachowskis (The Matrix, V For Vendetta)
Starring: Emile Hirsch, John Goodman and Christina Ricci
Plot Summary: "There's some kind of color orgasm going on here."

The first thing to notice about this movie is the fact that Owen Paterson, the production designer, must have been on acid. There were moments, especially during the final race, which we are now referring to as Rainbow Road, when our eyes literally hurt from watching it. Before we started, Sarah even asked, "I have a headache, is this going to give me a seizure?" That being said, the visuals save the movie, because it is a cool-looking movie. The colors are so bright, and there are SO MANY OF THEM, that you almost forget there's no story.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Is that his NAME? Speed Racer is actually his NAME?!"
--"Do you feel like we're playing Mario Kart? Because I feel like we're playing Mario Kart."
--"I SERIOUSLY LOVE HIS HAIR!"
--"This could be futuristic London... or Tokyo... or it could be like, a thousand Times Squares... Where ARE we?!"
--"John Goodman needs a better bra."

"This ISN'T how cars work. They'd be dead a bazillion times over. Deadity-dead-dead."

There is a whole lot of Unnecessary in this movie. There is a pet chimp (named Chim-Chim, of course) who THROWS POO at an enemy's face. There are kung-fu ninjas. One of them has throwing stars but doesn't use them, and instead, accidentally catapults them into the wall NEXT TO Speed's head while his father, who apparently is a wrestling veteran (according to the random class ring they inserted into the shot), spins the aforementioned ninja over his head. The movie is over two hours long, and 90% of it was either a car race or a fight scene. Not to mention the fact that everyone knows kung fu. When the f*** did Speed Racer learn kung fu? All he wants to do is RACE, damn it!

The backstory is not interesting enough to drive Speed's need to race all the time. They talk about how Speed loves the art of racing and doesn't care about winning, but at no point does Speed ever explain what he loves about racing. In Almost Famous, the lead singer of Stillwater explains what he loves about performing (the "buzz"). In The Princess and the Frog, Tiana's father, an aspiring restauranteur, explains how food brings people together. Hell, even in Sweeney Todd, the deranged barber sings an ode to his razors. Passion is passion, and even though it's the kind of thing that should go without saying, we still don't understand Speed's obsession. "It's in my blood" is a really vague statement.

The Best Part: Aside from Emile Hirsch's hair, there is a moment during the final race when the Wachowskis decide to push the PG rating. Speed, having some kind of manic freakout breakdown, screams, "GET THAT WEAK S*** OFF MY TRACK!" to his competitor, Cannonball Taylor. I screamed "YES!!!"

The Worst Part: Yes, it's a racing movie. But there was too much racing and not enough story. The only reason we pulled for Speed at any point was Emile Hirsch, thankfully, acting his heart out. Sarah counted, and there were 7-8 races in this movie. By the time we got to Rainbow Road, it was too much. Too much motion, too many lasers... We closed our eyes because our faces hurt. THERE WERE THAT MANY COLORS. In 3D, this movie would most certainly kill people.

Also, there was a character named Inspector Detector. Inspector Detector. Seriously.

It's not a good movie, but in the grand scheme of bad (cough--THE FOG--cough), it's not terrible. It almost reaches a level of mediocrity that saves it from the worst ratings. So, we give Speed Racer a C+.

"It was like a rainbow threw up on you." --Sarah

PS: We couldn't believe the names of the characters in this movie, so we looked up Spritle (Speed's little brother) and found this photo from the original cartoon:

Sarah asked, "Why does it look like he's being molested by a priest?"

We'll leave you with that. All answers can be sent to camporcrap@gmail.com.

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

Batman & Robin

Both of us have fond memories of the pre-Christopher-Nolan, non-Christian-Bale version of Batman. The movies were fun, and everyone knew they were campy. No one expected great American cinema when they went to see the old Batman movies. We knew what we were getting ourselves into.



Directed by: Joel Schumacher (The Phantom of the Opera, Batman Forever)
Starring: George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone
Plot Summary: "This is the movie that Logic forgot."

In the beginning, we were fairly comfortable with the level of camp. It was painful to hear the terrible dialogue, especially with the "Watch me deliver this pun!" delivery. ESPECIALLY in Arnold's accent, or with Clooney's carelessness, or Chris's "I'M ROBIN, DAMMIT" conviction, or Alicia's weird thing she does with her bottom lip, or Uma's accent-from-everywhere. One thing we noticed from the get-go: Clooney just didn't give a s*** and it's confusing to try and figure out why he agreed to do the movie. Even he called it "a huge waste of money."

(Several) Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Hey, Alfred's dying."
--"That is a giant penis, and Robin's holding on for dear life."
--"They're playing hockey with A GIANT DIAMOND!"
--"This is so much better than The Fog."
--"I wish the Beach Boys were playing, that's what this needs, doesn't it?"
--"Ever since Robin joined the team, it's been one big Dumbass Moment."
--"Uma Thurman is an Amazon woman."
--"How can Batman fight minions if he can't turn his head in the Batsuit?"
--"Superman would be really helpful right now... Any other superhero would be more useful than Batman is in this movie."
--"What is this thing with the satellites?! Like, I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
--"Now, I've seen unscientific superhero movies... but this takes the cake."

"The novelty of it being bad has kind of worn off."

Batman & Robin is 2 hours and 5 minutes long. They could've -- and should've -- shaved at least 20 minutes off the ending of this movie, because not only does it feel like it overstays its welcome, but the last 20 minutes give a big middle finger to whatever logic was present. There's always a separate sense of reality in a superhero movie, but the rules that this one had established and abided by suddenly didn't exist. The exact moment: When Mr. Freeze freezes the city and the Bat-team attempts to fix it by using satellites to take sunlight from the Congo. WHAT THE F***?!

Here's an interesting thought: Does your perspective on some of the more outlandish directing choices change when you know that director Joel Schumacher is openly gay? Bad directing is bad directing, no doubt about it. But the first two movies, Batman and Batman Returns, while still goofy, are markedly darker, with WAY fewer homoerotic undertones than the last two in this incarnation of the Batman series. (Plus, they were directed by Tim Burton.) It's not a bad thing, to acknowledge the raging homeroticism that has ALWAYS been present in the Batman/Robin relationship, but just look at what happened to the Batsuits. Namely, the Bat-nipples:

Batman Returns (Burton) vs. Batman Forever (Schumacher)















The Best Part: How important Robin believes he is. Little Dick Grayson (AKA Hot Chris O'Donnell) is so serious about working together with Batman, as a team, that you kinda root for him to show his worth by the end of the movie, instead of continuing the stupid decisions he makes for 3/4 of it.

The Worst Part: Everything could've been fixed with a better script.

"Can you imagine Christian Bale's Batman putting up with any of this?"
"No. Everyone would be dead."

There's a lot to say about this movie, but let's just say this: The campiness we already knew was coming was only funny for the first half-hour. After that, it was just bad. If anything, it just made us want to watch Batman Forever. Since it's enjoyable, yet a complete joke of a movie, we'll give it a C+.

PS: This is a conversation we seriously just had:

"My head still hurts from The Fog!"
"The Fog is gone, Sarah! It's gone!"
"IT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY!"

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