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)

The Last Airbender

What Sarah and I knew about the show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, before watching this movie:
1. There are people who can manipulate (or "bend") the elements
2. This kid, Aang, is the last airbender left for some reason, and he's the Avatar, whatever that is
3. EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION ATTACKED

What Sarah and I know now:

 
M. Night Shyamalan, you are drunk.

Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable, Signs, The Village)
Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, and Dev Patel
Plot Summary: "Who edited this?!"

(We came into this so fresh and so clean, and we have to recap partly to make sure we understand what the hell happened.)

The Avatar is the one person who can bend all four elements (air, earth, fire, and water), and as such, the Avatar is the only one who can keep peace and balance amongst the four nations. Now, nobody's seen the Avatar in forever, but he's a Dalai Lama sort of figure in that he reincarnates through the ages, and it's been prophesied that the next Avatar will be an airbender. As you might've figured, there's only one airbender left (because EVERYTHING CHANGED WHEN THE FIRE NATION COMMITTED GENOCIDE ATTACKED), and he's the Avatar. Katara (Peltz), a waterbender, and her brother Sokka (Rathbone), who has no powers but can throw a boomerang, find Aang. And the Fire Nation, spearheaded by Prince Zuko (Patel) of 123 Daddy Issues Lane, is not having any of this, because if Aang defeats them, they lose all their power and conquest. So, they want Aang dead. By the way, he's only mastered air, and can sort of do water, so he's got to get all that down before they pimp-choke the Fire Nation for good.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I miss Twilight." / "I know, and I know it wouldn't make sense for him to have his Texan accent here, but I wish he did. S***, Jackson is so hot."
--"Oh, that was hella green-screen."
--"Where are they, and why are they all white?"
--"BOOMERANG VIOLENCE!"
--"This is the worst acting I've seen from either Jackson or Dev."
--"God damn it, the good guys are white Eskimos and the dark Indian is the evil one?"
--"So, Sokka can't bend anything, and that's why he has that lame-ass weapon?"
--"I feel like this had potential, because everyone says Avatar is an amazing show, but I'm already sad about how silly this seems."
--"THIS! BOY! IS ON FIIIIIIRE!"
--"I'm actually trying to pay attention, and I am so lost."
--"What is with this marshmallow dragon, for real, though?"
--"Are they dance-fighting? What the f***?"
--"If Sailor Moon taught me anything, it's that water will put out fire sometimes." / "Wait, Sailor Moon taught you that, and not life?"
--"I want out, but I know we can't stop the movie."
--"Oh, s***, Zuko's dad gave him the scar? That's f***ed up, bro."
--"What makes them think they can stop the AVATAR?!"
--"How the hell is a town full of waterbenders on fire? I don't understand how this keeps happening!"

"Haha, okay, Hollywood. You really couldn't help making the villains the dark ones."
"Just like The Lion King!"
"Just like every movie."

There's nothing more we can say about that issue tonight. We'll just show you.

Aang, the hero, pretty much the same as he was:

Katara and Sokka, Aang's friends, definitely white-washed:

Zuko, prince of the villainous Fire Nation, suddenly dark as hell:

 
This viewing gave us a case of Prince of Persia deja-vu, and not only because of the Hollywood-ized racial problems. Once again, certain physics of video games and cartoons just do not translate well on live-action film. Element bending, as an action, is this really elaborate tai-chi/interpretive dance hybrid, which we're sure was fine in cartoon form, as my roommate has told us the movement was much faster and more fluid on the show. In live-action, however, it looked silly and out of place.

Shyamalan was not the director for this material, which had such grand potential, but was on some sort of leash that never let any of the action get above a four. The fight sequences were ALMOST cool, and Aang and Katara each had some interesting bending moments, but they weren't heightened properly. Near the end, when Aang has mastered waterbending, he goes into Mach 10 Avatar Mode with his eyes and head tattoo glowing, and raises an entire tidal wave over the fleet of attacking Fire Nation soldiers chilling in the harbor, for about three straight minutes. We expected a grand WHOOSH. We expected to see Aang destroy those aggressive mofos and send the survivors swimming away with their tails between their legs. We expected glorious carnage for the destruction and insanity the Fire Nation had rained on everyone's lives, a watery "BITCH, BE COOL" for Zuko & Co.

BECAUSE, CLEARLY, THIS KID IS NOT IN A GAMING MOOD

You know what actually happened? NOTHING. Aang thought about how the Avatar isn't supposed to hurt people, and he stopped glowing, and he put the tidal wave down, and he let them go, and everyone bowed down to him as a powerful and merciful god. Like we said, all the action sequences were dissatisfactory, but that was a massive let-down after three straight minutes of Aang reaching "Jean Grey has unleashed the Phoenix"-level waterbending and the Fire Nation looking as though they'd all just crapped their pants. Especially after my roommate notified us that, on the show, Aang actually did what we thought he was going to do.

Sarah: "Is he just letting them escape?! COME THE F*** ON!"
Jasmyn: "OH, F*** THIS! I'M MAD!"

The Best Part: Ringer, the boy playing Aang in a wonderfully committed performance, seemed like he was having the time of his life. It's how we imagine we would feel if someone told either of us that we were playing Hermione Granger. Also, Oppa, Aang's pet sky bison, the creature I insist upon calling "the marshmallow dragon," was adorable.

The Worst Part: The storytelling in this movie was completely off. It was shot awkwardly, with tons of camera angles that were, frankly, bad choices (wide angles where there should have been close-ups, super close-ups on body parts when someone else was speaking, dolly shots whose movement distracted from what was actually happening in front of us, etc). The whole thing felt silly. We also had a bit of trouble following why certain things were happening, and apparently the story skipped over a lot of important events (according to my roommate) without filling in the blanks. We think we understood most of it, because, like we said, we tried really hard to do so, but a successful adaptation shouldn't require this much processing of the basic plot. Plus, we got weak performances from actors whose work we usually enjoy (Patel and Rathbone, in what we are now calling HICS, or Halle in Catwoman Syndrome).

We give The Last Airbender an F+.

(Poster and trailer © Paramount Pictures)

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2

What better way to end our hiatus than by saying a special farewell to this s***show once and for all?

For all our coverage on the Twilight series -- because other than the actual movie titles, we refuse to call this insanity a "saga" -- here are links to our previous thoughts:

--Edward Cullen is a fan of breaking-and-entering
--Jacob Black is having a really bizarre time with puberty
--No means no! Bad dog! *swats with newspaper*
--Pro-choice? Pro-life? WHATEVER! Bella's OK with dying, and we're OK with her dying too

Directed By: Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Kinsey, Breaking Dawn, Part 1)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and a CGI baby
Plot Summary: "OMG, she should have been a vampire the whole time! This is WAY better than Human Bella and how f***ing pathetic she was!"

When we last saw Bella Cullen, she died in childbirth after a violent pregnancy straight from the anus of Satan's nightmares. Her vampire husband, Edward, tried to save her life by biting the hell out of her and injecting her with his venom. Bella's pet werewolf, Jacob, sat outside on the front porch, howling over her death, until he marched back inside to be angry at someone and imprinted on the newborn baby instead. The rest of her in-laws stood around ominously. Then... Bella's wrecked, malnourished body finally took to Edward's venom, and makeup and hair mousse sprouted out of her, and she awoke, red-eyed and all, as a vampire.

It's about time. Bella's been trying to reach this point since the day she realized Edward wasn't human, and for reasons having to do with saving a soul she clearly doesn't want, and utilizing courting patterns from his Victorian-ish youth, Edward refused to turn her until they were out of school and married. Now that her heart's stopped beating, Bella can't get enough of being undead, and relishes her newfound physical capabilities. We have to admit: we like Bella so much more in this final installment. She's nowhere near a three-dimensional character, of course, as her life's -- death's? -- motivation has never wavered from Edward. But her helplessness was always one of the biggest issues in her character, and now that "protect Bella!" isn't anyone's main concern anymore, we can stop watching her angst and move on.

SEVERAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AS WE WATCHED
--"So, becoming a vampire gives you eyeshadow? She looks great!"
--"I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER CLOSE-UP OF THAT TACKY-ASS RING!"
--"She did NOT just kill a mountain lion. No. That is not real."
--"What's with the f***ing CGI baby?" / "I'm going to have nightmares about this."
--"The baby's growth rate is accelerated. Like a cancerous tumor."
--"This is the best thing she has ever done to Jacob! BEAT THE S*** OUT OF HIM, BELLA! JUST FOR ME!"
--"I know we've had this conversation before, but how does vampire sex actually work?" / "I don't know. No heartbeat means no bloodflow, no bloodflow means no boners. I can't explain it."
--"No, really, the baby HAD to be CGI?"
--"Oh no, she can smell her human dad and she wants to eat him! This is a bad plan! WHAT IF HE HUGS HER? Charlie, no!" / "Charlie is the only one that has made this series worthwhile!"
--"Who the f*** are all these people?"
--"God, that Magic Mike body on Jacob, though."
--"You can tell RPattz is enjoying this so much more, now that it's the last one."
--"Where's Jane? I wanna see Jane f*** people up."
--"Are these the type of vampires who need permission to enter a house?" / "No, remember how Edward used to climb in her window and stalk her in her sleep?"
--"Where are Jasper and Alice? I miss them."
--"WAIT, IS THAT--?" / "IS THAT JOE ANDERSON? OH, JESUSF***, WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?!"
--"Okay, Rapey-Looking Patriot Guy is definitely that adorable man from Pushing Daisies."
--"What the f*** is up with this Transylvanian Draco Malfoy dude?"
--"I think Aro just jizzed in his cloak. Inexplicably, I hope he lives through all this."

"No, for serious, WHY IS THE BABY CGI? SHE'S BOTHERING THE F*** OUTTA ME!"

Renesmee Carlie Cullen, Bella and Edward's baby daughter, named for all her grandparents (Renee + Esme, then Carlisle + Charlie), spends her first chunk of screentime with a computerized face. Presumably, this is to ensure that she is preternaturally beautiful, as Stephenie Meyer no doubt described her, and to ensure she looks as close as possible to KStew, RPattz, and the stunning young actress (Mackenzie Foy) who plays her for most of the movie. It's distracting as all hell, and couldn't possibly look right, even if we'd watched this drunk.

Infant Renesmee's weird-ass face isn't the biggest problem in the story, of course. The real issue is that some hater-bitch named Irina, one of Edward's coven-cousins, spots little Renesmee frolicking in the snow and thinks, "Holy roasted balls, the Cullens made a vampire baby!" This is a crime punishable by death, as vampire children have been outlawed by the Volturi due to their uncontrollable nature. (It's hard to teach restraint to a super-powered, bloodthirsty four-year-old, after all.) Irina rats to the Volturi, who decide immediately that the appropriate price must be paid, but here's the catch: Renesmee is NOT an immortal child, as she was born, not turned, and grows every day -- like, really grows, becoming an elementary-age child in a matter of months. Anyway, it's a classic tale of misinformed gossip folks f***ing things up for everybody.

Now that Jacob has imprinted on Renesmee as his soulmate (which he insists isn't weird, and that his imprinting is platonic, like a devoted older brother), he's her chief protector. Initially, Bella's enraged when she finds out he imprinted, because for the first time in this whole series, she finds something as creepy as the audience does. (If you missed the link on imprinting above, check the madness out here, particularly the stages of this process.) Alice and Jasper are nowhere to be found, having run off somewhere to take care of something. So the Volturi show up to murder everybody: Renesmee, all the rest of the Cullens, and all the vampire witnesses they've gathered to attest to the fact that Renesmee isn't what the Volturi think she is. Bella's in protective-mommy mode, which is totally helped by her newly-discovered power: the ability to shield herself and whoever she wants from supernatural influence. (This is why Edward and Aro could never read her mind, and why Jane can't inflict pain on her.)

After the Volturi and their army show up, Alice and Jasper reappear on the battlefield to provide evidence that Renesmee won't be a threat to vampire secrecy. They present another human-vampire hybrid, some dude from Brazil, who stopped aging once he reached physical adulthood and can live off either human food or blood. Here's a special set of reactions from us around this point in the game (and a reminder that this is not a spoiler-free blog), when things escalated into a full-on war and everyone was dying violently:

OUR REACTIONS TO THE SUDDEN DEATH SPREE:
--"Carlisle! CARLISLE! OMG, NO! YOU ARE F***ING S***TING ME! NONONONONONONONONO!"
--"THAT DID NOT JUST HAPPEN!" / "WHAT THE F***?!"
--"Oh no, not Jasper, not him, nooo..." / "NOOOOO!" / "ARE YOU SERIOUS?! NO F***ING WAY!" / "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
--"I AM SO UPSET! WHY DID THEY KILL MY TWO FAVORITE CULLENS!?" / "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS!"
--"AWW, was that the wolf puppy they killed?!" / "I think so!" / "Why do they keep killing children!? COME THE F*** ON, TWILIGHT!"
--"Bye, Jane!"
--"It's strange that they can just pull off their heads..."
--"I'm less eager for the Volturi to live." / "Me too. Aro's not safe with me now. He can't kill Carlisle like that and get away with it."

But wait! As we were way too relieved to discover, the big battle that the promos have alluded to doesn't actually happen. After this crazy carnage, when Aro's head is off, it flashes back to the semi-calm battle field, before the fighting, when Alice has appeared. It turns out that Alice, with her ability to see the future, was just showing Aro, a mind-reader, what would happen if he didn't let them all go safely. So, having seen his own decapitation at the hands of Bella Cullen, Aro rethinks his judgement and everyone gets to walk away. Edward and Bella go back to the meadow, and since Bella has reached enough proficiency with her shield that she can turn it off, she lets Edward into her head and shows him how much she loves him. Everybody lives happily ever after, and we never have to do this again.

The Best Part: Bella's vampire transformation made her so much more likeable. Her aggravating damsel-in-distress status was gone, nobody had to watch out for her, and she wasn't whining about being human. Vampire Bella was far more rational and proactive. Plus, the hypothetical fight sequence was insane.

Also, Aro unleashes the most outrageous, creepy, crazy laugh when he finally meets Renesmee and discovers she's a natural hybrid, and it is the greatest thing to happen in any Twilight movie, ever. If you thought Voldemort was awkward about expressing delight, here's a grainy comparison we found, because, of course, Summit laid the smackdown on nearly all footage of this hysterical Aro situation:

The Worst Part: That f***ing CGI baby. And you can't tell us that imprinting on a newborn infant isn't disgusting. Stephenie Meyer Jacob, stop trying to rationalize it, because you sound like a pedophile.

We feel fantastic about this being over. While the Twilight series has provided us with more hours -- nay, DAYS of amusement than we ever thought possible, it's best for everyone if this continues no further. With that said, we give Breaking Dawn, Part 2 an A-. So, to recap:

Twilight: B
New Moon: D-
Eclipse: B+
Breaking Dawn, Part 1: D
Breaking Dawn, Part 2: A-

We'll leave you with Robert Pattinson's blatant hatred for the bats*** crazy, pop culture behemoth that has consumed his life since 2007. Bless you, Rob, and may you never lose your existence to anything like this ever again. We like you. Fly free.

(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

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: Eclipse

We had to keep going. We had to.

(To see where it all started, and then where it got worse, take a trip down memory lane with our reactions to Twilight and New Moon.)

We're going to give you both trailers, because they represent two very different movies that have been mashed into one:




Directed By: David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner
Plot Summary: "Oh, it's just a fantastic battle of wits on top of Mt. Dumbass."

In case you're lucky enough to have never heard of Team Edward and Team Jacob, be aware that Bella Swan's stuck in the middle of the stupidest love triangle since a guitar and a turkey sub fought over Elvis Presley. Jacob, the obnoxious werewolf, loves Bella and wants her to choose him over Edward, her emo vampire boyfriend. "It's Edward. It's always been Edward," Bella told him in the last movie, but here he is, spraying the walls with testosterone and making idiotic macho comments as often as he can. Edward's pretty chill in this one, since New Moon's Italian Suicide Extravaganza didn't turn out well for anyone, and he can't really focus on Jacob at the moment. Edward's preoccupied with worry over the army that's coming to brutally revenge-murder his entire family, with Bella at the center of the carnage, for the killing of Crazy Victoria's mate from the first movie.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"He is rather pretty when he sparkles... Let's call him Sunshine Sparkle. No, wait, is that a My Little Pony?"
--"Jacob gets really rapey in this movie."
--"Is the divorce rate lower between vampire/human couples because they just kill the human if they want a divorce?"
--"Edward looks psychotic in this scene. Real f***ing crazy."
--"I'm still wondering how the hell Charlie let her go out with Edward again. I mean, I realize nothing would've stopped her, if he'd said she couldn't date Edward. But... wow, Charlie. He's a cop, where's his goddamn authority?"
--"Emmett needs to calm down. Or die, I don't care either way."
--"Seriously, Jacob, put some clothes on, you are being indecent!"
--"I wish Wolverine would just come in and end this."
--"What is this Evian water bottle scenery?"
--"Bulls***, Jacob didn't make that charm for her, he bought it at the casino." / "...Okay, we're gonna pretend that insane racism didn't just happen."
--"BELLA, YOU ARE CLUMSY AND STUPID AND HAVE NO PURPOSE IN A FIGHT AMONG MYTHICAL CREATURES!"
--"Yes, Jacob, you do make her nervous. Because rapists make people nervous. You are not special."
--"To Bella, 'Edward is old-school' means, 'I'm horny as f*** all the time, but my vampire boyfriend is a vegetarian so he won't put meat in my taco.'"

"Okay, this is weird, but I think vampire fangs are attractive. I wish Edward had them, but that's also because I wish he were more frightening as a vampire."

Oddly enough, three movies in, we've never addressed the problem of Edward's physicality. He's so delicate-looking. In the words of Robert Pattinson himself, "How scary could ths guy be? He's got lipstick and a little bouffant... He rolls up in a Volvo in his customized peacoat... Never trust a guy who waxes his eyebrows." Bella's more butch than Edward is, frankly, but since her fragility is the center of this entire saga, she won't be of any use. And wasn't that the point of the first two movies? That Bella was in danger because she was around Edward, because Edward couldn't quite control himself around her? That he could kill her at any moment if he slipped up? Wasn't that why this whole "forbidden love" thing was supposed to be interesting? Wasn't that why Jacob was supposed to be a viable alternative? Edward's lack of menace means there's less at stake than there's supposed to be, and although we're now past that point, story-wise, it would've made the whole series better. We didn't see him try to kill his girlfriend nearly as much as we should have, and we're not just saying that because we can't stand Bella.

We have to admit: We refuse to bother with the rest of the series, but we did read Midnight Sun, Stephenie Meyer's fanfiction alternate version of the first book, written from Edward's point of view. It contains a very long internal monologue where Edward plots, in graphic detail, how to murder Bella and everyone else in their biology classroom because he's completely overcome with the scent of her blood. It's pure, violent insanity (though normal for a vampire), and as odd as it sounds, that dynamic has always been the best part of this whole clusterf***. It's no different here: as noted in the second trailer, above, everything comes to a head with a battle during the final act of the movie. The brawl between the newborn vampire army and the Cullens/Quilieutes -- plus, Edward's final showdown with Victoria -- finally lends some action to this bad romance. Without it, it's just more angst and obsession all over again.

The Best Part: Jasper and Rosalie, Edward's adoptive siblings, who tried to kill Bella over a papercut and generally dislike her, respectively, finally tell their pre-Cullen backstories. Jasper, a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, was turned into a vampire by a manipulative woman much like Victoria, and used as a bloodthirsty killing machine until Alice found him. Rosalie was gang-raped by her fiance and his friends and left to die; Dr. Cullen found her and turned her in order to save her life. Then Rosalie, who has always hated being a vampire, threw a homicide party until every one of her attackers was dead, saving her fiance for last so he'd know she was coming. This context for each of their characters was quite welcome. Jasper's always been the most dangerous Cullen (his desire to bite Bella's face off has been noted, then demonstrated, in the past two movies), and although we agree with Rosalie's dislike of Bella, it was good to hear why: Rosalie, who has always wanted children and a family to grow old with, envies Bella's humanity, and she can't believe Bella would choose to be a monster, frozen in time and never moving forward with life.

The Worst Part: (Obviously, the continuing love triangle, AKA what the entire story is about, but that goes without saying at this point.) Kristen Stewart cut and dyed her hair to play Joan Jett in The Runaways, but for some reason, no one seemed to put decent wigs in the movie budget for Eclipse. You'd think they'd learn from Taylor Lautner's wretched wigs in the first 1.5 movies, or from Jackson Rathbone's (Jasper's) poodle-esque hair failures up until this point. Actually, scratch that. Nearly EVERYONE who is not wearing their natural hair in these movies has had to endure some kind of mousse-crazy lacefront hairline fiasco. Here are the two worst victims, K. Stew and Peter Facinelli (Dr. Cullen), with their real hair from the first movie and the dead possums glued to their heads for Eclipse:

(Guuuuuuuuurrrrl...)

(Come on, y'all, Carlisle has been a wealthy doctor for centuries.
Stop making him look like he's being groomed in a drive-thru window at Supercuts.)

Overall, Eclipse is not that bad. The action half does a good job evening out the romantic angst, and even those parts are kind of hilarious this time around. (Especially the scene where Edward flips a s*** after Bella breaks her hand punching Jacob in the face, because Jacob missed "No Means No" Day in health class and force-kissed her.) We give it a B+.

PS: Is anyone sure they didn't just take Jacob's old wig and recycle it?

(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)

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)