Friday, July 11, 2008

Hancock by Peter Berg


Peter Berg's Hancock begs a question that has really only been asked in one other superhero film, 2004's Spider-Man 2. What happens when the personal weight of being a super hero gets in the way of being a hero and makes you a super jerk.
The film is flawed, to be sure, and the last 20 minutes or so is a little clunky. However, this film is driven by the star and artist, Will Smith, and the way that he has sold John Hancock as a man with a lot of power and a lot of problems.
The film follows John Hancock as we watch him meet a publicist (Jason Bateman) and his family. John Hancock as do other persons have some secrets that we will not reveal here. The film is quite smooth for the most part and it is quite entertaining throughout.
***
Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Top Trilogies - Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson



Peter Jackson's epic trilogy is one of the most stunning trilogies ever made. The epic nine hour (theatrical release, 12+ extended cuts) trilogy tells the tales of four hobbits, a dwarf, an elf and two men who take it upon themselves to destroy an ancient ring made by the evil Sorcerer, Sauron.

Of course, given the fact that the three films raked in $2,954,933,388 world-wide, you already knew that much. These films took a simple story about a small group of unlikey heroes who take it on their backs to save the world. Jackson, with the touch of a master shows this romantic tale initially penned by J.R.R. Tolkien based off of stories in the Bible and his own war expiriences in WWI.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Eagle Vs Shark by Taika Cohen

Eagle Vs Shark got lost in New Zealand half-way between an American and a British comedy. It has the biting wit of the great British comedies that the American comedies often lack but it added a tenderness to its romance that is often lost in the British films. The lead male is Jemaine Clement from the popular HBO series Flight of the Conchords and the leading lady's name is Loren Horsley, an awkwardly beautiful girl who also happened to write the story that sparked the screenplay and the film as a whole.

The film plays like an adult version of Napoleon Dynamite and is in its own way much more endearing because of its more mature nature.

***

Rated R for language, some sexuality, and brief animated violence

Wall-E by Andrew Stanton


There is little that I can say about Pixar Pictures latest film, Wall*E, that you haven't heard or seen for yourself by this point.
The film is an absolute masterpiece, and at this point in the year it stands as the best film released to this point. From its message to children to apprecriate what we have here in this planet and to take care of it to its wonderful homage to the late Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Wall*E is far more than a childish entertainment or a cartoon that can get to the soft side of a hardened adult. It is a tender film about taking care of our planet, it is a comedy about a cute robot and it is a romance story for the ages.
The first half hour has little to no dialouge and the film is all the better for it, the only dialouge in the opening sequence comes from a song from Hello, Dolly and from Fred Willard setting up most of the plot for the rest of the film through a left behind video. This is an animated feature for the ages and it may well be the first animated masterpiece since Disney released The Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King both in the early 1990's, long before most of Wall*E's watchers were even thought about, let alone born.
****
Rated G