Movie Diary
1. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
I remember when the first movie came out I thought it seemed awful based on the trailer, then eventually caught it in bits and pieces on cable and it grew on me enough that I was up for seeing the sequel. The trailer for this one kinda sucked, too, but I was still optimistic about it, and the twerpy non-Hellboy protagonist guy from the first movie is gone, which is a big plus for me. This was pretty underwhelming, though; it sure looked great, and there were some particularly awesome special effects creatures (the tooth fairies!), but there were also some visuals that just came out looking cheesy (Hellboy-as-a-child prologue!). The 'funny' dialogue never even got up to the level of wit displayed in even the most generic comic book/super hero movies. It was almost as if they wrote a draft with a bunch of parts that just said "sassy exchange between Hellboy and Jeffrey Tambor," then never went back and came up with anything halfway clever for anyone to say.
2. Disturbia
This was alright, never really felt too suspenseful but I enjoyed the ride. Shia's generic high school outcast character in this was at least fleshed out better than the one in Transformers. Didn't think Sarah Roemer was particularly attractive (or at least not really my type, so to speak), but there was something really sexy and charismatic about her performance in this. Maybe it helped that they made her smarter than the guys in the movie.
3. Black Dahlia
I believe this is what the kids today would call an "epic fail." I'm not sure why people keep casting Scarlett Johansson in period pieces: sure, she has the hair and the figure to look good in '40s garb, but she doesn't have the face, or the voice. Or the acting ability. The love triangle involving her and the similarly poorly casted zombie Josh Hartnett takes up like half the movie, chugs along to the inevitable at a snail's pace, and isn't even that different from the storyline in L.A. Confidential.
4. You, Me and Dupree
This was pretty damn haggard, too. Owen Wilson getting creepier and creepier as he gets old and keeps doing the manchild act. Never really totally understood the plot to this. And the few funny lines and running gags in this kind of got stepped on when they made the whole ending one big self-referential bit about those lines. Also, I have some kind of irrational hatred of Kate Hudson.
5. Airplane II: The Sequel
As many times as I've seen the original, it was nice to finally check out this, which obviously isn't as good and recycles some stuff from the first one, but is still a pretty funny movie with the same basic cast and crew. The ending bit with William Shatner is great stuff from just when he was starting to become self-aware and play up his own campiness, but hadn't gone into total irony overkill yet.
I remember when the first movie came out I thought it seemed awful based on the trailer, then eventually caught it in bits and pieces on cable and it grew on me enough that I was up for seeing the sequel. The trailer for this one kinda sucked, too, but I was still optimistic about it, and the twerpy non-Hellboy protagonist guy from the first movie is gone, which is a big plus for me. This was pretty underwhelming, though; it sure looked great, and there were some particularly awesome special effects creatures (the tooth fairies!), but there were also some visuals that just came out looking cheesy (Hellboy-as-a-child prologue!). The 'funny' dialogue never even got up to the level of wit displayed in even the most generic comic book/super hero movies. It was almost as if they wrote a draft with a bunch of parts that just said "sassy exchange between Hellboy and Jeffrey Tambor," then never went back and came up with anything halfway clever for anyone to say.
2. Disturbia
This was alright, never really felt too suspenseful but I enjoyed the ride. Shia's generic high school outcast character in this was at least fleshed out better than the one in Transformers. Didn't think Sarah Roemer was particularly attractive (or at least not really my type, so to speak), but there was something really sexy and charismatic about her performance in this. Maybe it helped that they made her smarter than the guys in the movie.
3. Black Dahlia
I believe this is what the kids today would call an "epic fail." I'm not sure why people keep casting Scarlett Johansson in period pieces: sure, she has the hair and the figure to look good in '40s garb, but she doesn't have the face, or the voice. Or the acting ability. The love triangle involving her and the similarly poorly casted zombie Josh Hartnett takes up like half the movie, chugs along to the inevitable at a snail's pace, and isn't even that different from the storyline in L.A. Confidential.
4. You, Me and Dupree
This was pretty damn haggard, too. Owen Wilson getting creepier and creepier as he gets old and keeps doing the manchild act. Never really totally understood the plot to this. And the few funny lines and running gags in this kind of got stepped on when they made the whole ending one big self-referential bit about those lines. Also, I have some kind of irrational hatred of Kate Hudson.
5. Airplane II: The Sequel
As many times as I've seen the original, it was nice to finally check out this, which obviously isn't as good and recycles some stuff from the first one, but is still a pretty funny movie with the same basic cast and crew. The ending bit with William Shatner is great stuff from just when he was starting to become self-aware and play up his own campiness, but hadn't gone into total irony overkill yet.
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on Saturday, August 09, 2008 at 8:36 PM.
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