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turin0016
Reviews
X-Men (2011)
More Soap Opera than Superhero Story
This animated installment of X-Men is just not easy to enjoy. It's unrelentingly bleak, right up to the final act. Even the art seems made for dark, dour thoughts with sharp angles everywhere and dull color (or lack thereof) palettes. The characters are variously flat, uneven, or crippled by angst. Actually, "crippled by angst" could be a title for the show's run, but more on that later. Its pace is unnecessarily slow, and a good chunk of the action sequences feel like they were shoehorned into the episodes near the end of production in an effort to give each episode something other than talking and often aimless soliloquizing.
Despite all these general flaws, the show does have some positives. The animation quality is generally rather good, and the art is well done (although I personally don't care much for the style, I can recognize that it's generally good work). Some of the English voice acting - namely Steve Blum as Wolverine - is quite good. The action sequences can be varied and interesting, but they have flaws too (did we really need to see an animation studio trying to mimic that scourge of modern-day cinema, shaky-cam, for a few scenes?). The story itself is decent enough, though it develops at a glacial speed until hitting a point where it becomes wildly transparent (which point is well before "revelations" are made). The interplay between Wolverine and Cyclops is handled pretty well, and it's refreshing to see an X-Men tale told on-screen that isn't utterly fixated on either Rogue or Jean Grey.
Back to the gripes, first and foremost is how the series rather quickly turns into "Mutant Japanese Schoolgirl and her X-Men Escorts." In fact, most of the 12 episode run consists of Cyclops angsting or Hisako upstaging the X-Men - both in the same episode if it can be managed. Granted that comics tales are loaded with this sort of thing so it's to be expected to a degree, but still it pulls the show away from X-Men's greatest strength - rather blunt social commentary interwoven with badass superheroes doing badass things. Instead we get a collection of super-chaperones dragging the uninteresting yet clumsily vital-to-the-story Hisako along, and the X-Men wind up spending much of their time clenching their fists and trying not to cry as their sorrow or indignation boil - though they do eventually fight at some point, usually after the writer seems to have momentarily run out of dialogue clichés. Not even Wolverine completely escapes this over-sensitivity, though he does provide most of the "snap out of it" moments.
Second, and more a personal issue than anything else, the whole "look" of the show just isn't very appealing. The colors are dull and dreary, which works for Batman or Spawn or other traditionally "dour" comic franchises but really doesn't mesh well with X-Men (which is essentially on the optimistic side of realist, much of the time), although I suppose it fits with the aggressively bleak attitude of this particular show. I could go on about other personal gripes with regard to the art style, mostly related to characters' body structure, but instead I'll make one point only: laughably massive breasts on very thin bodies.
Finally, there's how simply unlikeable or horribly bland several core characters are throughout the show. This is an area tougher to comment on without spoilers, but I'll just say that Cyclops was never the easiest character to like in the first place and in this show he's positively insufferable. Storm is nearly irrelevant, in combat and out. She only has the juice to attack for maybe a second each episode, then she disappears; when it comes to non-combat situations she seems to exist just to play den mother to Wolverine and Cyclops. Hisako has no depth and feels extremely forced into the story. A relatively major character is poorly portrayed as someone succumbing to tragic folly but actually comes across more as simply a blind, morally bankrupt idiot. Not even the villains and enemies are compelling or colorful (and often superhero story villains steal the show); they're basically divided into cannon fodder and infrequently appearing nuisances. Put all this together and you have a cast that's basically reduced to Wolverine as likable, Beast as acceptable, and Emma Frost as a watered-down mother figure.
In the end, the show is just not very good. Its good qualities are practically crushed beneath its more numerous bad ones, and it's just so very bleak all the way through - and it's a bleakness without the depth that makes darker franchises like Batman work so well. It's a shame, because the X-Men deserve better and the TV and movie-watching casual X-Men fans could use more stories that don't revolve around Jean Grey or Rogue.
Eragon (2006)
80's Fantasy made twenty years later
Eragon is a fun movie. That's probably the most succinct description I can give of what you'll get out of it. Don't go in looking for great substance, or acting (other than Irons, who as always does fantastically even with almost nothing of merit in his script), or writing. Go in expecting lots of pretty light shows and special effects, some decent battle sequences, and some eye candy for men and women both.
If you're old enough to remember the glut of fantasy-oriented movies in the 80s, that's what Eragon is. Not a whole lot to it, but it doesn't try too hard or go "beyond itself." A popcorn movie, or one to watch on a rainy Saturday with some donuts and coffee.
Really, the movie is exactly what the book was - derivative, predictable, though not BAD, fantasy that you'll blitz through in a few hours and promptly forget. The books were so heavily hyped primarily due to the young age of the author (and I'll admit, for a 17-year old kid, it's pretty decent writing) and the fact that they were fantasy novels that didn't utterly suck.
Moral of the story - sit down, turn off your brain, and just have some fun. That's what you paid for, that's what you get. Movie studios could actually do to emulate this sort of production. The rash of 160-minute self-important movies can really stop now.
Honey, We're Killing the Kids (2006)
it'll probably irritate you
This is the sort of show that most people will just ignore, and that's actually fine. Even though it espouses some (and I mean SOME) good eating habits and lifestyle changes, it's by and large just drama and half-truths.
Each show begins exactly the same, so you may as well tune in about 6 minutes in. Quite honestly, the entire show could be done in about 18 minutes if it was done without commercials or needless and constant repetitive footage, but I'm getting used to that in today's television shows. If you have TiVo and want to see this show, have it recorded and watch it later, that's what I do and it saves me about 40 minutes a viewing. It's seriously that padded.
Padding issues aside, the show espouses a nutritional attitude very reminiscent to the vegetarian Nazis we all met in college (or will someday, age depending). You know the sort of party line - meat is evil, everything you could possibly ever need is obtainable from vegetables and fruits, and everyone obviously has the free time to go to the grocery store every other day to reacquire the "fresh healthy foods" that go bad in a day. Oh, and everyone also has the free time to spend upwards of an hour (often up to TWO hours) preparing an evening meal.
Whether you agree with this agenda is one thing, but it's hard not to do a double-take at the utterly confrontational and unrealistic way the nutritionist approaches the concept of teaching someone to eat "healthily." The families involved are undeniably out of shape and in need of a kick in the pants, but they're forced to drop every food they've ever liked and go straight into a vegetarian (or near-vegetarian, they seem to be relenting a bit the last few episodes) diet. For example, tofu stir fry. If you don't see a dinner-table mutiny coming when that's on the menu for kids who've lived on pizza for 10 years...
Oh, and if you haven't already laughed at the highly-touted "aging technology" they use to show the kids at a hypothetical 40-years-old, well, you'll get your chance to do so. If you've ever seen a 2am weight-loss drug commercial, you've seen these trick before/after style images. It's shameless, but perhaps it serves a good purpose if these patent lies (bad eating habits keep you from shaving regularly and make you wear 70's style glasses and mullet hairstyles?) get the parents to take notice of the way their kids are living their lives.
The long and short of it is, this show has some good thought behind it. People need to be made to realize that how they live their life will have an impact on their future health, their children's health, etc, but the show goes about it in a manner sufficient to irritate a saint to violence.
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (2003)
30 Minute Debunking
Penn and Teller's show does a wonderful job of taking a given issue and (attempting to, at least) taking it apart in 30 minutes. Usually the show is a collection of interviews with people on both sides of a given topic, with Penn adding his own comments between bits while Teller hams it up with magic tricks and the like.
The true strength of this show is the simple fact that it presents a given issue to the viewer and (hopefully) makes them think about it. They do this rather well, and also in a funny manner. They present (admittedly edited) commentary from both sides and leave the viewer to see if they agree with the conclusion Penn and Teller themselves come to.
You likely won't agree with almost half of the episodes, perhaps more if you're a conservative type, but I've not met the person yet who doesn't get a laugh and won't engage in conversation about the issue afterwards. It's a good show because it pushes people's buttons, and in rather an intelligent fashion. After all, there are only so many ways to resolve ideological differences, and polite argument has to be the most amenable way.
The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
not your typical Disney fare
And that is a GOOD thing. Disney used to make good animated features when I was younger (e.g. Aladdin, Lion King, etc), movies that managed to toe the line between overly sentimental smarmy and utterly mindless fart jokes, all the while throwing in a catchy (if frequently annoying) musical number or ten; nowadays they make pretty well unmitigated garbage. From about the time they made Pocahontas on... ugh, it all got so preachy, lost the ability to make the adults suffering through the movie laugh at a few choice 'older' jokes secreted in - sorry, I'm blathering.
Anyway, Emperor's New Groove is a fantastically funny movie. Seriously, the only thing I can think of is that someone storyboarded this out as your average Disney tripe (as you can see shades of formula in it), but then the actual writers and animators busted out a bottle of JD and rewrote it before passing out on the tables.
David Spade usually just annoys me, as he usually (almost unfailingly, really) plays a total jerk with no redeeming qualities, but here he plays a self-centered young emperor who actually *gasp* learns a thing or two and grows up a bit in the course of the movie, all without soapbox lecturing or moral-spouting song-and-dance numbers. John Goodman lends a nice turn as the loyal (if gullible) yet stern peasant who helps the emperor because it's the right thing to do. Meanwhile, Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton steal the show with wonderful and ludicrous lines, situations, plots - you name it.
This movie is so full of rapid fire jokes and quick visual gags that you almost have to watch it several times to catch everything, and even then it's a great movie to relax and let loose a few laughs. I know I bought the DVD, and have watched it many times since. Trust me, this is your best bet for an animated movie out of the States, at least as far as the past few decades are concerned.
"Who's in my chair..?"
"Ooh, ooh, I know! I know! Yzma's in your chair!"
Jason X (2001)
Amusing use of a boring night
Well, the movie itself isn't that great. Some people are waaaay too analytical of silly horror flicks, though - I don't think that anybody these days, filmmaker or moviegoer, expects too much. These sort of movies are, in my opinion, made to exist after 10pm on cable television. Sit back on a night you have nowhere to go, watch stupid people of various stereotypes die horrible yet easily foreseeable deaths at the hands of an unstoppable psycho-killer, and get a good laugh.
As it's been years since I've seen any of the other movies in this particular horror 'series,' I can't really compare them to X, but I can tell you this iteration is an amiable use of your otherwise unaccounted-for time.
Potential spoilers:
Some number of years in the future, Jason's body is picked up and frozen, albeit just barely. The crew of some science vessel take him on board from a derelict and the foreseen chaos ensues. Somewhere down the line, Jason gets upgraded and harder to kill than the previous impossible-to-kill version (go figure). There are some genuine laughs in this movie (especially a scene towards the end with some holographic campers), the gore-level doesn't render it unwatchable for the squeamish, and nobody seems to take it too seriously.
As I said before, it's an enjoyable use of your time if you don't have anywhere to go or anything better to do than sit around and rot your brain for a bit.