Devil Review

Rating: 3/5

If Devil came out in 1976, was produced by Roger Corman, and was called "Hellevator," it would be remembered as a cult classic. However, it came out in 2010, is called Devil, and was produced by everyone's favorite guy, M. Knight Shyamalan. Wait a minute.....it doesn't suck???

5 seemingly unrelated strangers are trapped in an elevator, and it seems like something beyond the realm of men is trying to keep the cops out. Combine that with the past sins of each character, as well as the TITLE OF THE MOVIE, and I think you can figure out who else is along for the ride.

Overall, this movie is just ok. None of the characters are really developed, but they are pretty intriguing. For a while, there's a real mystery to which one is el diablo, and to be honest, I was surprised by the big reveal. Also, the addition of the hard-boiled-yet-troubled detective was a great decision to add, and is a good balance.

On the other hand, the ending is a massive cop out, the message is absolute bull, and at the beginning a big shining "#1" shows. Why couldn't this just be a fun little thriller? Why does EVERYTHING have to be a franchise nowadays? I digress. The biggest problem this movie has is that it tries to make you feel the paranoia inside the elevator, but the story is in real time, so technically the victims have only been in there for the length of the movie, about an hour and a half. I understand that the whole satan thing would help with freaking you out, but I just didn't feel it.

To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by Devil. Is it as good as Last Exorcism? No. Is it as bad as The Happening? No. I enjoyed myself, so try it out.

Machete Review

Rating: 4.5/5

Robert Rodriguez. I honestly don't know what to think of him. He makes classics like Desperado and Sin City, and then he makes Spy Kids 3 and Shorts. Well, thank god he's making movies like the former again.

This is Machete, 4th incredible movie of 2010 (the other 3 being Scott Pilgrim, Inception, and Toy Story 3, but I digress), an boy is it a winner in every way.

Danny Trejo is Machete, an ex-federale who is chased out of Mexico by a drug lord, and is reduced to illegal immigrant work. Jeff Fahey hires him to assassinate a racist senator, but Machete is betrayed, and now he has to go on a journey of vengeance filled with sex, blood, and explosions.

I'm going to address each part that makes this movie so great. There are 5 parts so get ready. 1: the violence. Decapitations, shootings, disemboweling, I'm talking buckets of blood, and done in a tasteful way unlike Piranha. It's awesome.

2: the sex. Damn do these chicks look good. 3: the acting. All perfect, from Don Johnson to Cheech Marin to Lindsay Lohan. 4: the characters. Steven Seagal is a Mexican drug lord and Cheech is a shotgun wielding priest. Nuff said.

And 5: the story/message. The story seems to be just standard exploitation fare, but in reality is a huge step to the left in one of America's most heated political topics. It's basically a huge middle finger to the right wing, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Go see this movie. Now. Like seriously, stop reading, and go see Machete a million times.

Takers Review

Rating: 2.5/10

Let me put to rest the fears that I didn't like this movie because I'm more of a rocker guy, and I would've liked it more if it had Bruce Springsteen or something. I like hip-hop. Classic hip hop. Lil Wayne, Drake, T-Pain, that kinda stuff doesn't do it for me. And to be honest, rappers are better actors than rockers. I mean, Mos Def and Common are awesome, and we can't forget Queen Latifah and Eminem and even Tupac.

As for rockers and pop stars, it's pretty much the opposite. Does anyone remember Madonna's acting career? Or Sting? Even Neil Diamond made a crappy movie. Anyway, on to Takers.

The Takers are a group of 5 badass bank robbers who get the money, the wine, and you bet they get the women. Matt Dillon is a "hard-boiled" detective who wants to catch them. In the middle of all this is Ghost, a recently released from jail, former Taker, who threatens to not only make the Takers a ton of money, but get them all killed because he's crazy. Sounds like the premise of a good action movie if you ask me.

Too bad that the whole thing is so obnoxiously average. How's the acting? Idris Elba is good, T.I. is over the top, Matt Dillon does his best Christian Bale impression, and of course, Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen show about 3-4 emotions apiece. There's no character development and it doesn't make much sense at times, but it's not as bad as Salt or even Tokyo Drift.

The script is cliched and you can tell what's going to happen to each character as soon as they walk in the room. The whole thing is shot like a cheesy music video, and while some of the action is ok, most of it is so shaky cam that you can't really tell what's happening.

Overall, Takers is a prime example of something that's so OK that you can't hate it. It's not good, not at all, but it's not bad either. What it ends up being is a cheesy action-drama that any director could have made in about 10 minutes with the same kind of script and characters. That may be fine for some people, it isn't for me, and I ended up being bored.

The Last Exorcism Review

Rating: 3/5

The idea of "found footage" movies kind of annoy me. I mean, if quarantine even tried to be real, why didn't they do a like investigation or a fake newspaper? And if Blair Witch was such a serious thing, why didn't the police get involved? And in Cloverfield, how were they people still holding a camera??

Ok rant over. Cotton Marcus is a faith challenged minister who wants to prove that while Christianity and god are real, exorcism is a bunch of hooey. Then, he gets a letter from the Sweetzer farm, the patriarch of which claims his daughter Nell is possessed by Satan himself. Cotton travels with a hired crew to the farm, in order to document proof that exorcism as a practice is all a pile of BS.

After the first "exorcism," everything seems to be going fine. But then, weird things start happening. Nell is getting up at night and screaming. They have video evidence of her killing livestock, and suddenly Cotton starts to believe a little more in demonology. This is usually the part where I talk about how freaky the movie gets, but I'd be lying.

Maybe I have to see it again at midnight or something, but The Last Exorcism is not scary. It creates a great atmosphere of dread of what might happen, but never really follows through. Now, how are the characters? Engaging and realistic. How's the acting? Great. Is it written well? You betcha. How's the camerawork? Realistic. It just didn't scare me or creep me out or anything.

Overall I blame the non-scaryness on 3 things. 1: I saw it in the day time. 2: during creepy parts, cheesy horror music suddenly comes in. 3: the ending comes completely out of left field, doesn't make sense in the context of the movie, and is just stupid. I leave the final decision to see it or not up to you.

Piranha 3D Review

Rating: 2/5

Fishsploitation movies (which is a genre) have been around since Jaws, but is a slowly dying breed, along with most animal-related, not Peter Jackson directed, not King Kong movies. "Piranha 3D" tries to bring back this genre, along with tongue in cheek shlock horror. Spoilers: it doesn't.

It's spring break, and the party is in full swing. Unfortunately, a legion of prehistoric piranhas have different plan, and orgy of babes, blood, and bad acting begins. Here is what the film attempts to use to make itself shlocky, and fails at.

1) Having silly dialogue and situations. The dialogue is just dumb. 2) Cheesy acting. nuff said. 3) An extreme amount of nudity. Actually, no real complaints here. 4) Cheesy effects. Instead of being cheesy in a funny way like in Drag Me to Hell, they're cheesy in a tacky way.

And finally, 5) An unbelievable amount of gore. This is where I stopped liking the movie. Because instead of having so much gore it's silly, there's so much gore it's just gross. Mostly because of how horrifically realistic a lot of it is. Also, the characters don't react like horror movie victims. They react like actual people, which is disturbing.

I don't want to see a sobbing and bloody woman crawl out of the water missing half her leg. I don't need to see the horrified look in a young man's eyes as he bleeds to death. I don't need to see a 35 minute long eating scene with NO CUTS in a supposed horror comedy. Also, the gore just feels like it's there to cover up all the other flaws.

Overall, I walked in to Piranha 3D wanting a so bad its hilarious horror comedy. What I got was a horrifically violent movie that didn't want people to realize how bad it is. When Eli Roth showed up in a cameo as a very funny wet t-shirt contest host, I actually started to have some hope for the movie. Then, a man's CGI "tool" is chewed up and spit out by two piranhas in front of our eyes, in 3D, in full detail.

Tales from Earthsea Review

Rating: 2/5

I love Hayao Miyazaki. I love every single one of his movies. I've seen each one, I go to see the new ones when they come out, and I love them. I love the animation, the stories, the characters, everything. I even loved Ponyo, which most people didn't.

Hell, I even love the non Miyazaki-directed Studio Ghibli movies, like The Cat Returns. When I heard that Miyazaki's son's debut film was FINALLY being released in America, I got excited. My mom bought the tickets, I opened my reeses pieces, and I went to see it at my favorite theatre, The Landmark in LA.

Now to be honest, I didn't expect young Goro to live up to his dad. But what I did expect, was a coherent plot, good voices, beautifully detailed animation, and original storytelling. I got none of these.

Don't get me wrong, Tales From Earthsea isn't horrible. Salt is horrible. This is just mediocre in every way. Besides Willem DaFoe, the actors just phone it in. The story doesn't make any sense, we know nothing about the world it's set in, and there's no real point.

Now don't get me wrong, the animation at times is gorgeous. There just isn't a lot of it. In Porco Rosso, when the planes fly across fields, you see individual blades of grass blowing along with wind lines. In this, you just see wind lines across a painted field. There's one scene when the main character Arren is offered a piece of bread. Suddenly, the film cuts to Arren eating. If Hayao had done the movie, Arren would've reached, then hesitated, then grabbed the bread and began eating it. My point is that the detail I've come to expect from Ghibli is absent.

Now, this is the 5th paragraph, and you guys should be out seeing Scott Pilgrim or the Expendables, so I'll wrap up. Earthsea has no environmental message like the rest of the Ghibli films, instead it tries to pack in patricide, rape, child abuse, psychopathic tendencies, slavery, death anxiety, abuse of power, disease, and multiple personality disorders in one bag, and it doesn't work. It's a mediocre mess and a huge disappointment from Studio Ghibli, even if the director is inexperienced. Overall, if you're into mediocre, generic fantasy anime, check this out, but otherwise, catch the next dragon to a different movie.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Review

Rating: 4.5/5

The Short Version:
Scott Pilgrim is one of the most original, funny, action packed, and good movies of the year.

The Long Version:
Though many people have told me they're tired of him, I like Michael Cera. With the exception of Juno, I've really enjoyed his movies. Sure he's pretty much the same every time, but he's charming, at least to me. Luckily, this doesn't change here.

Scott Pilgrim is a 22-year-old unemployed Toronto bassist who's is literally just shy of being just another obnoxious hipster. He seems innocent enough, but in reality, Scott is immature, selfish, and manipulative. And yet, when he has to defend his honor and fight his new GF's evil exes, we root for him all the way.

What makes this movie so worth seeing is the characters. From Scott, to Scott's friends, to Ramona's evil exes, they're all extremely well written and very funny. My personal favorites are Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells and Brandon Routh as Todd respectively. But anyway, another cool thing is the way it's shot. It feels like an indie movie, but isn't, which gives the whole movie a really personal and relatable feel.

Also, the videogamey parts may seem weird and nerdy to most people, but they give the movie it's own sense of charm. It's a celebration of everything "trendy" in pop culture today, as well as a satire. Overall, the actors are all good, the writing is good, the directing is good, the fights are awesome, and you should give Scott Pilgrim vs The World your money instead of Eat Pray Love.

The Expendables Review

Rating: 4/5

I don't want to waste time reviewing this, because you should be seeing it. It's not as good as Commando, or Demolition Man, or even Rambo 4. What it is, is a big dumb silly awesome action movie with a great cast and a hilarious cameo (which should've been bigger) from the governator/Bruce Willis. Most critics say don't see it, but I say do. It's awesome.

Salt Review

Rating: 1/5

In all honesty, I've never been the biggest fan of spy movies. James Bond is fun but not my favorite, however I do like action movies. One of my favorites from the last 10 years is the Bourne Trilogy. They're serious, realistic(ish) and just plain cool.

Now we come to Salt, a movie that wants to be Bourne, but fails. Evelyn Salt is celebrating her anniversary with her arachnologist husband, but before she can leave, she has to interrogate a Russian defector spy. Wait, we're still fighting the Russians? Anyway, the spy informs them that Salt is a Russian spy who was programmed from a young age to murder the Russian president and help bring down America.

So...basically....this movie has a hangover from the Cold War. By which I mean, there's no way this movie could have been written before the Cold War ended. For E.G., when Salt is first accused of being a Russian spy by a person who, by all means and records, does not exist in the world of espionage and shouldn't be trusted, what's the CIA's first reaction? Detain her because of the possible risk.

What brilliant plan do the Russians, who apparently still need to rise from the ashes in 2010, have to destroy America? Simple: NUKE THE SAUDIS AND THE IRANIANS. Yes, because both countries (who are NOT nuclear at the moment to my knowledge) have giant, America whooping armies. Also, according to this world, being a highly-respected spider scientist from the WEST means you have all access to NORTH KOREA, and that one skinny blonde woman can take down a legion of armed guards. 'nuff said.