London Has Fallen

Shortened from it’s original title “London Has Fallen Asleep”.

Seriously.  25 minutes in and no shots fired?  No car chase?  No knife play?  Just your stereotypical bromance action flick set up.  Pregnant wife, resignation letter ready for delivery, eh, one last mission…

So I decided to go watch Liz Lemon Goes to Afghanistan.  Which would actually have been a lot better had it really been Liz Lemon Goes to Afghanistan.

Save your IQ points and skip this one.  Maybe they’ll do a “director’s cut” on the DVD and edit some of the action into the first part of the movie.

I, Frankenstein

Well, it’s about as bad as one would imagine….

I went in trying to have an open mind and be less than critical and just try to enjoy the ride.  But there’s a reason I don’t watch the CW.  And this movie made me think I was watching a two hour season premiere for a new show called Frankenstein on the CW.

It’s just bad.  It didn’t even crack the top 5 at the box office in it’s first week bad.

The acting is okay, I guess.  Although Aaron Eckhart is a fine actor he would have been much better cast as Dr. Frankenstein.  In a different movie.  As the Frankenstein monster he’s just, too damn good looking and he doesn’t really sell the “brooding anti-heor” very well.

The female lead is super hot and young which is to be expected.  I’m just not buying her as the preeminent scientist in her super specialized field.  Someone at least middle aged would be a bit more believable.  And he’s supposed to be a monster, right?  What’s he care if he falls in love with an “older” woman.  Would have actually made the story a bit better.

The gargoyles are pretty cool, but not as cool as the flying vampires from Underworld.  This film is made by the same folks did Underworld and the environment feels very much Underworld.  But they really skimped on the creatures and their transformations this time around….they even dug up poor old Bill Nighy to be the evil villain.  And he is a good old, nasty, white, British villain.  We’ve just seen it before.  Over and over and over again.

I find it almost hilarious that the Frankenstein monster, is the most normal, albeit buff as hell, dude in the movie.  The gargoyles are fairly monsterous in their gargoyle form and the demons’ faces flame up and burn off revealing their true look.  Although their clothing remains unharmed by the flair up….

It’s terrible.

The tagline from the movie that’s printed on the poster  is, “200 years later, he’s still alive.”  Yeesh.

Skip this one folks.  Just skip it.  Aaron Eckhart, find a new agent.

 

Olympus Has Fallen

i don’t know if this story just didn’t get pitched to the Die Hard people or what, but this should have been Die Hard in the White House.

Gerard Butler does his best John McClane, disregarding authority, crackin’ wise and killing terrorist.  of course you could also call this movie Gerard Butler Kicks Ass for an Hour and a Half.

it’s a good time.  the president gets abducted in his own saferoom located in a bunker underground beneath the white house while a virtual army of North Koreans dressed like Mexican immigrant lawn workers lay seige to the White House.

it’s a bit of an unbelievable set up to say the least.  like i’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a missle lock on any unidentified aircraft well before it gets over Chesapeake Bay…and some old WWII looking boat isn’t going to blast 2 modern fighter jets out of the sky…or maybe.

once you get over that and the idea that the President, the VP and the Secretary of Defense could end up in the super security, nuclear safe bunker under the White House, this movie is freakin’ awesome!

it’s a total dude flick.  there’s violence and profanity galore.

Gerard Butler, super CIA secret service dude gets kicked off the Presidential detail because during an accident he saves the President (Aaron Eckhart) but let’s the First Lady (Ashley Judd, who makes quite a stunning First Lady) plummet to her frosty grave.  not that there’s really a choice in a situation like that for a secret service guy, but whatever.

a while later there’s an attack on the White House and they really go all out.  there’s explosions and thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition fired.  bodies go down but they just keep coming on both sides.  i like to think the real secret service guys will put up a better fight anyone really tries something like this, but hey.  it’s a movie and we gotta get Gerard Butler in there to fuck shit up.

and fuck shit up he does.

Morgan Freeman is Speaker of the House and apparently if the President and VP are both incapacitated he assumes the role of the President until an election can be held?  i should really know this stuff…but anyway, Morgan Freeman is just always money.

Dylan McDermott, Melissa Leo, Angela Bassett and Rick Yune also star and are all very good and believable for the most part.  sometimes the script doesn’t give even the best actors much to work with and there’s a few times i was left wondering like what?  but then they blow some shit up and i just move on.

best action flick of the year so far.

i’ma go a two large soda, large popcorn combo and a snuck in pack of m and m’s on Olympus Has Fallen.

the last exorcism.

the last exorcism?  well, i highly doubt this will be the last exorcism movie made.  and i normally don’t go in for these kinds of flicks but what can i say?  i’m easy.

i’ve read reviews on both ends of this film.  some people are saying the script is witty and original and a great twist on the exorcism genre and i’ve read reviews that call this movie an insult to horror movies.  i guess i’m somewhere in between.  i guess maybe it’s kind of original in it combines a couple different things that we’ve seen in recent years.

it’s like this, it’s about an evangelical minister doing a video to expose the scam that is exorcism.  he has done many exorcisms in his day and at one point decides he shouldn’t and wants to show the world what they are all about.  so he brings in this video crew and goes on one more.  i found it interesting that he kept the money for performing this exorcism, but that’s beside the point.

anyway, he puts on his little show, collects his money and off he goes.  but of course things start to go awry and he’s pulled back to the house and we get to see all the gruesome stuff we expect in an exorcism film.  creepy little girl spewing baby food puke, she gets all contorsionisty and just turns into an uncontrollable freak.  then we get some running through the woods and a final scene that is so over the top it seems like we’ve seen it before.  in a south park episode….

but whatever.  i guess if you like these kinds of movies this one has a twist you may or may not see coming.  it’s got some pretty good humor especially in the first half.  i don’t feel like my life has been enriched by seeing this film, but i don’t feel like i’ve been defiled either.

i did like the first part of it.  i just liked the main character’s attitude.  he was just all nonchalant about what he was doing.  tricking people and taking their money.  patrick fabian is kinda like a poor man’s aaron eckhart.  but then it devolved into every other exorcism movie ever made.  then they added a little blair witch and paranormal activity and topped it all off with the furry woodland creatures from south park.

so go check it out if you like exorcism movies.  but if you are on the fence, go see piranha 3D!