REVIEW: Max Payne - SPOILER ALERT!!!

Here's my review on Max Payne, the video game adaption movie that came out last year, with Mark Wahlberg & Mila Kunis.

It's total crap. Don't go see it.

Seriously, I have no idea what the movie was about. I had no idea what was going on. And it was totally predictable. I think I knew that ***SPOILER ALERT*** Beau Bridges was the bad guy as soon as he showed up on screen.

Not a lot of thought went into this movie. And to think, people got PAID to write this crap.

The only thing I liked about this movie was that it seemed to be a colorized version of Sin City. And that got old after awhile.

REVIEW: Star Trek

I'll be the first to admit that I've never been much of a Star Trek fan, aligning myself more with the Star Wars side of the sci-fi universe. We all know how THAT turned out...

I like my science fiction to be more gritty and real than the happy-go-lucky world that Star Trek seemed to offer. I thought it was naive to think that we'd have a United Federation of Planets, and that spaceships were clean, could teleport you, or could whip up some food for you on the fly.

I watched a couple of episodes of The Next Generation, I've seen a few of the movies, but I just was never really into the whole Star Trek phenomenon. And when I heard that the great J.J. Abrams was going to be doing a reboot of the Star Trek franchise, my first thought was...WHY?

The cast for the movie was announced, and it made me go WTF? Sylar as Spock? Who the hell is Chris Pine? And don't get me wrong, John Cho is great in everything he does, but as Sulu? This guy was in Harold & Kumar! (On another note, the other guy from H&K is now working for President Obama) But the list of actors kept growing...Karl Urban, Eric Bana, and Simon Pegg? I'd see any movie with those guys in it, even a Star Trek movie.

Then I started to hear more things about the movie, and I saw the first footage, and the geek boy in me stood up and said, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It didn't help that friends that saw it kept telling me it was awesome. It also didn't help that it made so much money over the weekend, and I hadn't heard a negative review about it yet.

I've been disappointed with the recent movies I've seen lately. You can read my review of Wolverine on this blog, and Punisher War Zone left me sick for the future of comic book movies. I was hesitant about seeing this movie, but the hype got me. I had to see it.

When the opportunity arose that I could go see, I jumped at the chance. I sat down, excited and scared, and finally watched the movie.

One world...WOW! I guess you could call me a Star Trek fan. This movie had action, sex, humor, and sci-fi, but not in any sort of sterile, utopian way that the original series' did. This was a Star Trek that was dangerous, gritty, and realistic, but also fun. It was like watching the original Star Wars all over again, but with much better CGI and story.

And acting. This was a good cast, and I liked the way each actor came at their role. I think Karl Urban was channeling DeForest Kelley, because he had Dr. "Bones" McCoy down pat. And I liked the way Pine didn't try and imitate William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, such an iconic performance. This is a different Kirk from the original series, and Pine makes the role his own.

The only thing I worried about was the Trekkies, those die-hard fans who wear the outfits and go to the conventions and who are more die-hard in their convictions than Al Qaeda. These people had real power, as evidence by the fact that Star Trek shows keep getting put on television, even though no one cares about them....except Trekkies. I could hear the same babble of discontent that first heralded the start of the new Battlestar Galactica.

But I think this movie will even placate them. I won't spoil it for you, but they tie the original series and all the movies and TV series that follow it in with this new movie series. And I think it works really, really well. It was an incredibly smart move on their part, and I'm going to admit it...I'm impressed. Knowing as little as I do about the Star Trek universe, they've opened up a whole new doorway into another world, and I for one can't wait to see what's next.

REVIEW: JCVD

I heard about this movie a few months ago, when I was going to see something else at the Angelika, and it totally intrigued me. I grew up watching Jean-Claude Van Damme movies throughout my childhood...Cyborg, Blood Sport, and Universal Soldier. Hard Target is still one of my guilty pleasures.

For an actor like that to totally parody himself in a movie takes a lot of balls, and this film doesn't pull any punches. The story follows the down-on-his-luck action stars troubles...no money, losing custody of his daughter, losing film roles to Steven Seagal. He walks into a post office to wire money to his lawyer, and finds himself in the middle of a robbery.

This film takes a look not only at JCVD as a person, but as an actor and an international movie star who can't seem to catch a break. The most heart-wrenching part is a six minute monologue that he does, facing the camera, talking about his problems, and this is perhaps the Muscles from Brussels best acting...ever. He's not an action star in this movie, but an actor, and it's refreshing to see that he CAN actually act.

If you liked this past year's Cinderalla story movie The Wrestler, you'll love this movie, because instead of focusing on the wrestling world, it looks at Hollywood, and how it can grind up people like meat. Even if you don't like JCVD, I think you should check this movie out.

If I gave out stars, I'd give it 4. But since I don't, I'm just going to say it's pretty fucking good.

Dom DeLuise dies Monday night, age 75

Actor Dom DeLuise died last night after a long illness. This news is especially sad, because growing up, his movies were always some of my favorites.

Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit II, and History of the World Part I, and the outtakes from his and Burt Reynolds movies always made me laugh, even if I didn't get the jokes at the time.

He was a funny, lovable teddy bear, and I'm sorry to see him pass away at age 75. Just another Hollywood legend that has passed. Seems like all the good ones are leaving us now, when we need them the most.

See you on the other side, Dom.

OPINION: MTV Movie Award nominees announced...Does anyone care?

I saw over on Slashfilm that the MTV Movie Award nominees have been announced, and I ask you, dear reader...

Do you care?

Sure, the MTV Movie Awards used to be fun to watch when we were in high school, but now they're just a joke. Best Kiss? Best Fight Scene? It's another way for Hollywood to fellate itself, giving more awards but this time with a nudge and a wink.

It's obvious that movies for tweeners are going to win, because those are the only people who watch MTV nowadays. So, expect Twilight to win the most awards, mostly because teenage girls want to see Robert Pattinson show up with his carefully disheveled hair.

Dude, it's called hair gel. Use it.

REVIEW: X-Men Origins : Wolverine SOME SPOILERS!!!

It's with heavy heart that I am writing this post...

...I didn't think X-Men Origins: Wolverine was very good.

I know, as you can tell by my other two posts, I'm a big comic book fan. And Wolverine is one of my favorite heroes. I always felt a connection with him because I was stocky and hairy and had a bad attitude most of the time. And I'm part Canadian.

And when the X-Men movies came out a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by Hugh Jackman's portrayl of the character. Sure, X-Men 3 wasn't very good, but that wasn't his fault...that was all Brett Ratner, the hack. And to his credit, Jackman does another fantastic job with the hero. I know that as an actor, he really gets what the character is about, and I couldn't think of anyone else in this role besides him.

That being said...the movie itself wasn't very good. I went in with HUGE expectations, and I was definitely let down. Not so much in the first part of the movie, which really established the character well, but with the end part.

Why does Hollywood deem it necessary to stray from the source material and try and make it better? These characters (Wolverine, Sabretooth, Deadpool, Agent Zero, Silver Fox, Gambit) have been around for decades and haven't lost their popularity. Why would they need changing now?

I thought the casting was great, and I think Liev Shreiber did as good a job with Victor Creed / Sabretooth as Hugh Jackman did with Wolverine. I was really looking forward to seeing Ryan Reynolds as the smart-aleck non-stop joking Deadpool. However, his scenes were too short, and Deadpool was totally wasted, as a character, by the end of the film.

And as much as I like Taylor Kitsch on Friday Night Lights, he ended up doing a Kevin Costner and losing his New Orleans accent in about two scenes. While I've never been that big of a Gambit fan, I thought his character in the movie had potential, but was eventually made ridiculous.

And that's my biggest problem with this movie. I was looking forward to a story centered around one major character who, let's face it, is a total bad-ass. Instead, we got another dumb group hero movie. It makes me worried about The Avengers. And the ending was a cheap way to tie this movie into the previous X-Men movies.

I don't understand why Marvel films can't take a cue from the recent DC films that have come out, namely The Dark Knight. One of my favorite quotes that Christopher Nolan said was that the caliber of actors he had in the movie, they could have done Shakespeare. I'm not saying Wolverine is Shakespeare (though how cool would Macbeth be if he had razor sharp claws?), but at least take the characters seriously, and put them in a realistic setting.

I've been disappointed lately with the last two comic book movies I've seen (Punisher War Zone was GD awful), but I've got hope. Here's hoping that the next batch of Marvel movies fare better.

THIS WEEKEND IN MOVIES

It's a big weekend for movies, with the start of the summer movie season beginning this first weekend of May. And the first summer blockbuster that's starting off this season is none other than X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

I'm hoping to go see this movie this weekend, but I don't know how successful that's going to be, as everybody and their dog is going to see this movie this weekend.

I've been excited about this movie as soon as I heard about it, and I can't wait to see what director Gavin Hood has planned for everybody's favorite X-Man. A friend of a friend had the illegally downloaded bootleg work copy of this film, and I had the chance to see it, but I decided it would be better if I experienced in the theater, the way God intended.

Check out the trailer at the end of this post, and maybe I'll see you this weekend. I'll have a review of the film up as soon as I do.

First Iron Man 2 photos posted

To the left is the first photo to be released from the new Iron Man movie, showing Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in his lab. The photo was teased by director Jon Favreau on his Twitter account, which I follow.

The photo showed up on the USA Today website this morning, and already the internet is buzzing with what can be seen here.

First off, the Mark I and Mark II suits from the first movie are in the background, along with what looks like the Mark III. But there's another gold and crimson suit against the wall. Mark IV?

While I've never been a big Iron Man fan, I loved the first movie, especially RDJ's take on Tony Stark. I think he nailed it perfectly, and I can't think of anyone else in the role now.