The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Cole said How to Train Your Dragon was really good, and wanted to see it a second time. So we went and I saw it.

Now, Dreamworks often kind of sucks. They’re no Pixar. You can usually discount them and their animated movies as cash-ins grabbing for that “parent desperate to take their kids to something” demographic. There are some exceptions, of course. Kung Fu Panda was pretty fun. Word on the street was that How to Train Your Dragon was another such exception. They were completely right.

The plot of this movie really got to me. It’s basically a story about how father and son live in different worlds, and although both are legit in many ways, neither will listen to the other. Hiccup’s dad is the main dragon-killing Viking. He wants his son to fit in, be strong, and most importantly, be able to defend himself so he will be safe. Hiccup realizes that Dragons are intelligent and aren’t bloodthirsty killers unless provoked, and attempts to play biologist, actually learning about them, and along the way, learns they can be ridden by working with Toothless, his adorable dragon. Both want the village to live better, without fear of dragon attacks, but neither can really completely understand the other’s position.
That kind of conflict is so real, and it certainly hits on things in my own life. That’s some serious, actual characterization in there. Plus, compare this to, say, Ash from Fantastic Mr. Fox. Now, I love that movie, but Ash is “different,” but proves himself by doing things everyone else’s way. Instead of being his own unique person, his moment of proving himself comes from being an athlete, just like everyone else. By comparison, Hiccup proves himself by doing something completely different, and by solving the problem his own way. At the same time, he wouldn’t have been able to solve the problem the way he did without his Father’s strength to save Toothless. It gives credit to both sides of the argument. It’s okay to be different, but the old ways have merit. Few movies actually give credit to both. It’s either an Icarus “don’t fly so close to the sun” story, or a “man, parents have it all wrong” kind of story. How to Train Your Dragon hits an excellent middle ground. That’s just kind of awesome.

Yeah, so, How to Train Your Dragon has strong characters, and that’s really what makes it a great movie. They’re realistic, and they’re fun. On top of it all, the animation is also pretty great. Toothless is cute as hell and also completely bad-ass, and he’s animated so great that you can buy it. There’s a little bit of stylistic difference between the viking adults and the viking kids, but that would seem to be completely on purpose, to attempt to help establish that different sort of world. It does look pretty great.

Honestly, I feel like there’s a chance that this movie will be better than this year’s Pixar offering, Toy Story 3, mostly because I just feel like Pixar never wanted to make a Toy Story 3, but is doing so because of HUGE PILES OF MONEY. That worries me that it’s not nearly going to be as touching or “real” as this movie. Granted, it’ll probably still be fun, but it surprises me to say that How To Train Your Dragon has set a bar that Pixar needs to make sure to surpass. It’s a really good movie, and if you like animated stuff, you should see it.

NevznachaY, your thread title on Talking Time was literally TOO AWESOME not to steal. Sorry. Had to be done. You rock.

Anyway, I saw Iron Man 2 day one, and I was very pleased with it. It was pretty much exactly what I wanted out of a sequel to the first, and it was a lot of fun.

There are plenty of flaws to be found, though. The movie is really over-extended, with a lot of characters and stuff going on that, unless you get a primer beforehand, might not make much sense. For example, the movie never really explains much about who Black Widow is, or even calls her Black Widow. I also think a damn good argument can be made that, by making Whiplash able to so easily make his own suit, you are really sort of insulting Stark’s genius and devaluing his abilities. Apparently everything about it is supposedly so complex that most big governments can’t handle it. In the first movie, at least, The Dude was having a team of people work with Tony’s blueprints to make his suit. It made a little more sense. Whiplash, although completely badass, was working out of an old apartment building.

Still, I don’t know. I had no problem turning the parts of my brain that look for that stuff off, and just focusing the parts of my brain that enjoy seeing Robert Downey Jr. do things on a screen. He is still the PERFECT Tony Stark, and he is so much fun to watch that I honestly have a hard time caring about plot problems because he makes them all okay in my eyes. Maybe that’s silly. Maybe I should hope for more. But man, he just makes it fun.

There was also some action. Some stuff blew up, and Iron Man shot some lasers and stuff. That was pretty cool too, I suppose. The CG is solid, and there’s nothing at all wrong with it.

…the more I attempt to explain why I liked the movie, the more it’s clear that it’s purely about the actors and the acting. They were fun. They were very fun. People were talking, in said Talking Time thread, about how nice it would be to have a superhero movie that’s just character development. I think that this group could come very close to pulling that off. Still, though, they need to sell toys, and excite kids to ticket sales, so I guess it’s simply unlikely.

Still, I suppose I recommend it, because ROBERT DOWNEY JR. If you really liked the first one, I don’t think you’ll have a problem liking this one. If you didn’t see the first one, well, I think you should see that one first. It’s a little stronger, and it’ll give you a good idea on whether this sequel is worth your time. That’s about all the advice I can effectively give, apparently.

Pirate Radio was such a disappointment.

There was so much potential there. You had this boat full of this amazing cast of characters doing amazing, awesome stuff. They were making history, breaking the rules, and doing all sorts of crazy things on that boat. Any number of plots could have been drawn from that. Any number of interesting events could have happened. Or, alternatively, they could have done a documentary with some re-enacted portions, and really given me information about this cool set of events in the history of the UK.

Instead, they made Pirate Radio, which was boring and stupid.

Basically, this movie was a series of completely disconnected scenes. People entered those scenes with no background or character development, simply because they were there in history, I guess. The movie made no attempt to explain who they were, or why they were there. There were so many characters, you never give a crap about any of them, because none of them are given enough time, even if you pretend this is a movie about an ensemble cast. Things happen to these characters, and you shrug, because it amounts to nothing. I guess he found his father. I guess he got the girl. You’re given no reason to care, although the movie certainly seems to expect you to.

Similarly, the movie is constantly cutting to legislators who are trying to shut down pirate radio. However, nothing in those scenes have any effect on what’s going on in the boat until the very last event. Huge portions of the movie are dedicated to showing what’s going on in the government, and none of it matters until they pass the law at the end. It’s a complete waste of time.

Other than that, you have lots and lots of screen time dedicated to showing random people listening to the radio and dancing. Sometimes they are on the toilet for no reason. This is apparently of the utmost importance, because they show this constantly, as if the viewer didn’t understand 5 minutes in that lots of people listened to this station. It’s ridiculous.

There were so many potential plot threads that, if focused on, would have meant something. But they didn’t, and the end result is the feeling that the entire film was pointless. Nothing happened. There was no plot. There was an outcome, but it seemed disconnected to 95% of the action in the film, so it didn’t actually resolve anything in a way that feels good as a viewer.

Basically, Pirate Radio is exactly how not to do a dramatic re-enactment of historical events. I really disliked it, and I bet, if you sat through it, you would too.

(And for those wondering about the title, well, that’s a quote from the funniest part of the film: the commentary we were throwing at it as we made fun of how badly put together it was.)

As normally happens, Essner pulled me out to go see a movie film, and this film was called The Losers. I really didn’t know anything about it before I saw it. I had saw some annoying pop-over ads on websites, and I vaguely knew it was based on a comic, but nothing else, really. I had little expectation.

The movie was completely fantastic.

The Losers isn’t trying to be anything more than a fun, entertaining action movie, and that’s exactly what it pulls off. There are great fights and action sequences galore, with plenty of ranged and melee combat. There’s explosions. Action stuff happens, and it is completely satisfying.

At the same time, the movie is actually pretty hilarious. It’s not that what happens is particularly funny. It’s not slapstick or anything, or completely over the top a a la Shoot ‘Em Up. It’s simply that the characters are just really witty and entertaining in their speech. Jensen, in particular, says some damn funny lines, and fulfills his role as comic relief really, really damn well. However, he’s not a “joke” character, and still manages to get up to plenty of bad-assitude. All the heroes do. It’s actually pretty spectacular that way. Everyone is a badass, everyone plays their role and shines, and everyone has some really funny lines at some point in the film.
Similarly, the villains of the piece, Max and Wade, are similarly hilarious. Wade’s over the top level of straight man routine, done in a way where you know the character is doing it just because he knows what kind of reaction he’s going to get, sets up some really damn funny moments. They have a damn good interplay, and are suitably villainous while being completely likable.

The plot is forgettable. Some bad things happened, they’re getting revenge, there’s some sort of magic science bullshit threat, etc. But it’s no worse than any other action movie you’ve seen, and by far the humor and spot-on characterization make this movie shine above other stupid action flicks I’ve seen recently. This is a movie that I’d be glad to have on my shelf someday. I was thoroughly and completely entertained the entire way through. Essner told me that, apparently, this movie is getting bad reviews. Honestly, I can’t imagine that being the result of anything but having completely off-base expectations. This is a funny action movie. It’s not trying to be art. If you want to just relax and enjoy some action and some laughs, The Losers is a damn good choice. You should see it.

Timothy Burton is a man who was once well regarded. Now, he is less so. Supposedly. I suppose you can’t blame him for being out of favor with the cool kids: Hot Topic and such have run him and his works into the ground, coolness-wise. Making garbage such as Corpse Bride and that remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really didn’t help things either. Still, you have to give him a little credit. This is the guy who made Big Fish.

I guess what I am saying is that it was really up in the air whether Alice in Wonderland was going to be complete shit, or just a decent popcorn flick.

I mean, I don’t think there was any chance it was going to be a good movie, perse. Alice in Wonderland didn’t need this sort of treatment, especially starring Kefka, the Mad Clown. Nobody with any sense was saying “Thank god, a remake of Alice in Wonderland. About fucking time.” Well, I guess, except the people at Hot Topic.

Still, I think Burton managed to make a fun enough ride. I enjoyed myself.

I guess I’ll get issues out of the way: the biggest problem is that they apparently couldn’t buy a foley artist which could make a decent snicker-snack sound effect. Fable knew that was the sound the Vorpal Sword makes. It’s right there in the poem. There isn’t even a vague attempt to make the sword in the movie sound this way. I was completely let down.
Additionally, the themes of the plot are really, really confused in the story. The story would seem to revolve around Alice not letting other people control her life back in London, and not giving in to the concept of fate, and yet, in the end, she gives in to her fate in Wonderland completely. She only pays lip service to diverging from the path. She never actually does. Even her diverging is “part of the plan,” and she doesn’t really think for herself throughout the story. Somehow, this magically translates to her deciding to think for herself and blaze her own path in the real world. It’s really not hard to set up that kind of parallel narrative. It really isn’t. I’m very confused why the movie had trouble with it. Would it really have been that hard to create a fate for Alice that she sees and then doesn’t follow?

Still, as I said, it was a pretty enjoyable ride if you just turn your brain off. Moreso than Avatar, I think. Avatar kept pounding how “significant” it was into your head, and thus stopped you from just being able to turn yourself off and enjoy the dumb ride. Alice is good enough not to do that. You can just have fun seeing the cool special effects and whatnot, and it works. I saw the film in 3D, and that worked pretty well, too. A bit subtle, and not either in your face with tricks or going “3D IS THE FUTURE OF ALL MEDIA” or whatnot.
I was also very pleased with the amount of Johnny Depp in the film. I feared he was going to play this like Willy Wonka, which was, honestly, pretty annoying. Plus, from everything I saw, I thought this was going to be THE MAD HATTER’S ALICE IN WONDERLAND STARRING THE MAD HATTER, but although he was certainly a main character, he got out of the way to let other characters play a part. I appreciated that. It was still, for the most part, Alice’s show. Which is as it should be.

This wasn’t the best movie. Not at all. But it was passable. It was enjoyable. I did not feel my time wasted. I suppose that’s enough, when you’re going to the theater just to go to the theater, hm? Maybe people do that all the time. I don’t tend to. But I did this time, and I didn’t leave disappointed. I guess I give this movie a slightly better than meh out of five stars. If you have any interest in it, feel free to go see it. You probably won’t hate it, and you’ll have a good hour or two of viewing.

Can you believe it? On Saturday we sat down and watched a movie that we had rented. How crazy is that? What movie did we watch, you ask?

Black Dynamite.

Basically, some wonderful, wonderful people made a new Blaxsploitation film. It was completely glorious. I have not seen a movie that made me laugh so hard in a long, long time. It is highly recommended.

Why is this movie so successful? Mostly because of the key fact that it doesn’t think it is funny. Besides several very joke-y jokes, which manage to work because they are just so ridiculous (Three Word Example: Captain Kangaroo Pimp), the entire film is played completely straight. Everything is the most serious thing that has ever happened. The drugs on the streets is a real threat! Black Dynamite is one bad motherfucker, and he is not going to be stopped. Not to mention, he has no more than 5 different origin stories and 8 different reasons for going after the bad guys, although it continually changes who the bad guys are. But the movie doesn’t realize how little sense it makes. It’s being completely serious all the time. It makes you laugh so hard, time and again.

Looking at the special features really drove home how much the makers of this movie got it. The special features are all exposition that explains the plot and attempts to make the horrible narrative make sense. These scenes aren’t funny. They’re true to the genre, but they’re true to the boring parts of the genre. Much like how Retro Game Challenge takes the good parts you remember from retro games and removes the bad parts, the makers of Black Dynamite decided, rightly, to take all of those boring parts out of there movie. It makes it more surreal, which cranks up the humor, and it makes it so that the laughs don’t stop.

In any case, I really, really enjoyed this film. It was one of the most entertaining comedies I’ve seen in a long fucking while. If you like laughter, you owe it to yourself to give this a view. You won’t be disappointed.

Essner is a fan of Werewolves, as more sane people are. He’s also a fan of seeing all kinds of movies, which is why he dragged me off to see The Wolfman last Friday. Now, I had saw a preview for this movie, and it looked kind of interesting! Up until the title. I thought the title was lame. Then I learned it was a remake, and my interest went down even farther. But, you know, being social and all is important. I went to watch it.

This movie has absolutely no characters in it, and that is its real flaw. Sure, people were getting murdered right and left! Death and death and death! But you didn’t know anyone, and couldn’t really give a shit if they died or not. There was no tension in it, because nobody was interesting in any way. They tried to make these people characters by listing off things from their past, but a list doesn’t make a character. It’s a good starting point, but it doesn’t work on its own, and that’s all they do. It also doesn’t help that, in their rush to flip between actions at full moons, we miss huge chunks of time where, supposedly, these characters would have gotten to know each other, developed relationships, and so on. You know, the kind of things I needed as a viewer to care about them at all.
Because you don’t care about the characters, there’s nothing interesting in the plot, either. The moment Mr. Hopkins turns up, you go “Oh, he’s the villain.” It’s so transparent. There are absolutely no surprises, because there’s nothing inherent in the characters to make them do anything surprising. If you could write a short summary of “Generic werewolf movie” on a piece of paper, it would exactly mimic The Wolfman.

The whole generic thing is not helped by the weird choice of effects in the movie. I know this is a remake of a really old film, where effects were constrained by the tech of the time. But attempting to recreate the same-looking Wolfman just did not work. It was so stupid-looking, it wasn’t the least bit scary. This was a monster that was decapitating people without any problem, but you just couldn’t find anything to fear about it. Worse yet, when it became obvious the movie was going for a Werewolf on Werewolf showdown, I cringed. I knew it would look stupid. And it totally did. It was almost comical.

The movie tries to keep that comedy away by making it incredibly gory. You see all kinds of awful wounds, dead bodies, and chunks of flesh. I had to look away a bit. However, it’s very realistic gore. It’s not over the top, and I think that’s a problem. The movie isn’t trying to be cheesy, but it has cheesy-looking Wolfman. It’s trying to be serious, but it doesn’t spend any time making serious characters. It wants to be scary, but it just goes for lame jump-scares time and again, and doesn’t actually attempt to create any sort of atmosphere were one could actually be scared.

The movie isn’t bad enough to laugh at, and I feel that’s a problem. There was one humorous moment, where the female lead opens an Encyclopedia, it seems, looks at the page for “Lycanthropy”, and then turns the page… where the next article is “Ancient Gypsy Lore.” That was entertaining. But the movie as a whole is far, far from good. It’s painfully mediocre. It assaults you with mediocrity. I really can’t recommend giving this movie a view. It’s pretty much a waste.

At times, one Matthew Essner can get crushing really hard on fairly cool actors, and follow them into movies that he knows are going to be god awful, just because he’s there. This happened with Paul Bettany, and thus I found myself going to see the movie Legion, which, by all likelihood, was going to be a horrible piece of garbage. Still, I go for the company, and I hoped that it would at least be a silly, over-the-top piece of garbage that I could laugh at and still have a good time.
Legion completed failed at that. Completely.

In fact, it failed at whatever it was trying to do so badly, that I don’t really know what it was trying to do. I’m interested to know what the people who made this movie thought it was. Was it an action movie? Was it supposed to be horror? I’m really not sure. It doesn’t do either very well.

It’s not a very good horror movie because the “monsters” were completely lame. The transformation sequence of them shaking their heads with a stupid little effect was not going to strike terror into anyone. It is a stupid and cheap effect. The possessed people themselves have also just put in dark contacts and are wearing fake teeth. It looks like an effect I could create for a movie we were shooting for fun. It would be impressive in our movie. It just adds to the “budget” feel of the film here, especially since we’re talking about a film with one location for the entire thing.
The movie also attempts some elements of psychological horror. People die, and the movie attempts to make you connect with them in some way before that happens. However, it is done via what might be some of the worst dialog I have seen in a movie in a long time. Every single character has a speech that follows this pattern: “When I was young, every night, as I was tucked into bed, my mother would tell me that I need to be good, because if I’m not, God will be very displeased with me.” Something like that. They all are a parent pulling them aside every night, and almost every single statement is one that, if you told a kid that every night of their life, it would really fuck them up. Seriously, telling a kid every night that he needs to think about what he does because it may be his last day on earth? That could warp somebody. There were other examples too. The writing is so bad, and yet taken so seriously. Put in a different light, it would be funny. As it was, it was just painful. So, no, you don’t connect with any of the characters, and there is no mental horror aspect to the film as well.

That’s fine, of course. It doesn’t have to be a horror movie. Maybe it could be an action film. And, frankly, during the few times the movie is showing fight scenes, it is at its best. The fight scenes are no better than the dialog. They often don’t make any sense, and people use the very worst tactics. However, they do tend to be over the top and fun. Paul Bettany lighting the stream from a gas pump on fire by firing a pistol in order to set a van on fire so that he could pull someone out of the van? That shit is crazy, and is fun to watch.
However, the problem is that there is so very little of that. There’s only one other sequence of fighting along those lines, and that’s the finale. All the rest of the movie is people, in this diner, talking to each other very seriously about God, and things their parents said to them. If they had embraced the “badass angel fucking shit up” angle that the movie seemed like it would go for, it would have been a fairly entertaining movie, though pretty stupid. Like, let’s say, how G.I. Joe was. G.I. Joe was successful, and was a much better movie than Legion, because it didn’t take itself seriously and let itself be fun and stupid. Legion is so, so serious, and you will be left scratching your head as to why it is.

Add into all this sort of thing some fairly large plot holes and an awful, awful case of “we desperately need to set up a sequel even though the concept of this movie getting a sequel is fairly laughable” and you pretty well wrap up how much of a trainwreck this movie was. I had a fun time because I was sitting there making fun of it with Essner and Mason the whole time. If I hadn’t been, I would have been in constant pain. I don’t know what they were trying to do with this movie, but it’s pretty clear they failed.

Sherlock Holmes is a pretty awesome movie. If you’ve seen the trailer, just know it pretty well delivers on exactly what it is advertising: You get a fun, action-filled ride that is humorous at places, and just plain awesome in places.

One could think that, with something called Sherlock Holmes, you might get a mystery movie, or a movie that’s, perhaps, a little more mental in its excitement. Something slower paced, where you’re always left guessing. This isn’t what this movie is at all. It is, perhaps, a superhero movie: an exciting, action-filled film that doesn’t really slow down, and is incredibly entertaining for it.

Robert Downey Jr. is completely excellent in the role of Holmes. He’s part asshole, part genius, and part high for the entire film, and it’s a pleasure to see it happen. I especially like how they break down his skill in combat, through showing him planning exactly what’s going to happen before it happens. That cements him as mental genius being his main skill, but still helps to explain why he can kick so much ass. It’s a really great choice, and it’s a nice variation on the now-tired bullet time, as the action sequences happen in slow-mo while he’s planning them, then are executed at full speed.

Watson, too, is played quite well by Jude Law. You’ve got this real chemistry between the two characters, which is almost a romance, but not quite. It’s obvious they’re very dedicated to each other, and Watson getting a woman is getting in the way of that, which Holmes doesn’t like. There’s just a lot of realistic tension between them. If I were some sort of horrible fanfic writer, I may interpret it as sexual tension. But it isn’t. It’s just two friends, sticking to what they believe in, and realizing it’s different from what the other thinks, and trying to get their point across without flat-out attacking the other. Watson is also, equally, a badass, which is wonderful to see after, you know, so many portrayals of him.

The supernatural plotline is a good choice, I think. I don’t necessarily connect Holmes with such things, and thus the whole way through, seeing a tale of Black Magic was quite surprising and engaging. Since this was so different from that stereotypical idea of Holmes (although Brer insists over and over again that it’s actually more accurate to the books) I kept wondering if they were actually going to have magic in this world. It didn’t seem out of place. In the end, though, they wrap up all the magical loose ends with scientific explanations fairly well, for the most part. It certainly did a better job of it than, say, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, which I appreciated.

Overall, though, I thought this to be a quite great movie. I had a really fun time watching it, and it seemed to be, at least, mostly parental-approved as well, as they went and watched with me and Jonathan without issue. I recommend a viewing, if not in theaters, then on DVD. Also, I would expect to see a sequel, soon. It kind of railroaded in a cliffhanger story arc for that purpose. Granted, I didn’t feel it was TOO out of place, just some scenes, and I’m all about them making another. Just, you know, it was awkward at times. Not a dealbreaker, though. The movie was great.

After a little getting the band back together (which, honestly, has left me completely hoarse. I was singing way too intensely. Heh.) I was invited, last night, to a showing of James Cameron’s Avatar, a complete reinvention of how movies shall be made forever more. Why not go? I mean, if nothing else, there was going to be a bunch of talk going on about it on all my podcasts and shite. It would be good to actually know what’s up. I paid my crazy 12 dollars for the stupid glasses and ticket, and went.

I had went into the movie planning on completely hating it. Well, not completely hating, but certainly thinking it very silly, and very bad. All the reviews I had heard so far talked about how breathtaking it was to watch, and how empty the story was. Not usually one to be taken by visuals alone (not that they don’t help), I expected to be pretty down on the whole thing.
The farther you get away from Avatar, the more holes you find in it. But while I was in the theater, I admit I was mostly entranced. Pandora is fucking beautiful, and the Na’Vi are animated just… so fluidly, they really don’t look out of place next to the fully-human, filmed characters, which is a real feat. Well, let me rephrase that: they look out of place, but that’s because they’re aliens, awkward, and don’t know how to treat the smaller humans, as opposed to it being “oh, there’s a CGI dude next to that human dude.” There’s no doubt that all of that is really, really impressive. You’re seeing a lot of cool stuff.

The plot, though… there are no surprises. It is what I have heard described as a “noble savage, mighty whitey” storyline, and it is completely. Human becomes a Na’Vi, learns their ways, becomes their leader, better than them all. It’s… predictable. You know exactly what’s going to happen in this movie before you even sit down. You can see all the plot twists coming from two miles away. There are no surprises, and none of the characters are deep enough to give a shit about whatsoever, which I’m sure was something that was intended. People die, and you can tell it’s supposed to be moving, but it really just isn’t. The only thing that pulls at your heartstrings a little is when Love Interest (can you tell how important the characters on when I can’t remember the names of any of them) is upset and crying. Whoever did her acting and voice acting did something so seriously raw that you can’t help but sympathize a bit. Certainly some of the best anguish. But the moment she stops, you realize you don’t really agree with her. It wasn’t a great loss. It was just some stereotype that died. Besides that moment of crying, none of the acting takes these characters out of the realm of stereotype.

Seriously, if you’re going to spend so much money on making such a fucking beautiful movie, you really could spend some time on the acting. For example, this blew my mind: the ore the humans are on Pandora to get is literally called Unobtanium. Yes, the joke term for MacGuffin ores that allow fantastic sci-fi tech to work is the ACTUAL TERM for the ore. They really couldn’t have taken a few minutes to come up with an ore name while they were coming up with an entire Na’Vi language? That’s the kind of thing that’s in the first draft of a script, but then is written out. Ridiculous.
You could also, of course, write a story that doesn’t blatantly steal from most of early American literature. I mean, sure, steal from it. Nothing particularly wrong with that. Keep those themes and put them in a Sci-Fi setting. But dammit, at least try to mix it up. Just a little. To disguise what you’re doing. To leave some tiny inkling of suspense.

There is just so much that could be said on an English Majority thing about how bad the whole story is too, but I think I’ll leave that to the experts. Or at least finally see what they and Spoony have to say and see if that inspires me to write a companion post where I do that.

As I said, though, I can’t claim I didn’t enjoy it while I was in the theater. It is just such a technical showcase that it is just pretty damn cool to see play out. But goodness, if you want to see this film, see it in theaters. If you take away the 3D and the huge screen, I have a feeling it will be even harder to forgive its flaws. All the fun comes from that spectacle. This is a solid spectacle. But not a particularly good movie, and it is a shame that such effort was wasted on a plot so lackluster.