Night at the Movies
Jun. 27th, 2007 04:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitsjayWarning: The links to the movies are reviews, which may include spoilers. Nothing too major, and most of it has been seen in the previews, but for those who like to keep themselves pure until the movie night, I would steer clear.
Chris is leaving tomorrow for field training, so I went with him to do some shopping for things he needed, then we saw
Things I Liked:
The Human Torch was amazing. I have a crush on Johnny, and so the more time they spend on him, the better. His character and The Thing's are the only ones that have any real depth, I think. The Thing's is pretty superficial, because oh-noes-he's-not-human, but Johnny's is deeper. I like to see how even though he's a daredevil, brash, and confident, he also is really insecure about things. When Mr. Fantastic (it's so hard to write a serious review with names like these) says something to him that's derogatory, Johnny is really hurt and later confides in The Thing that he feels like "a screw-up".
To me, that's way more interesting than the fact that The Invisible Woman can't have her perfect wedding and Mr. Fantastic is a science nerd. Those two are so bland it's nearly painful to describe.
That said--
They are kind of cute together. I love Mr. Fantastic's dweebishness.
The Silver Surfer was always a friend of mine and though they didn't quite give him the personality I wanted to see, I think they did a pretty good job overall with fitting him into the plot. He's underplayed, but in a show like Fantastic Four, that's actually kind of refreshing.
Stan Lee being turned away from his characters' wedding. Too awesome.
Their ship and Johnny's enthusiasm. And the Hemi comment. Love.
Without giving too much away, this installment actually hit upon one of my favorite comic-book themes that seems to be neglected. I really can't say more without completely ruining the movie, which even if you clicked this link, you might not want me to do (it's pretty obvious, but still fun to pretend to be surprised), but it's really cool.
Things I Disliked:
Frankie, the random love interest thrown in for ten second intervals to show Johnny's character development. Give me a break. She is honestly in the show for a total of maybe three minutes and serves completely as a litmus test for Johnny's maturity.
The really, really biased view of the military. Riiight. Because everyone in the military are all Big Bad Monsters who are Really Dumb and Regularly Engage in Torture Because They Can. I'm giving a little leeway for this because comic books all do this for plot lines, but it still ticks me off. A four-star general means that he has at least a Master's degree in something, and I'm fairly certain that to be a general (especially one so high up), a person has to have a Ph.D.
Joining the military does not automatically mean you check your Brains, Independence and Morals at the door.
Invisible Woman only turns invisible once in a serious situation. And Mr. Fantastic uses his abilities three times that I recall; and only once in a serious situation. Another reason I like Johnny so much is that he is constantly using his powers and sees them as fun; the others barely acknowledge them at all.
The constant showing of Jessica Alba naked. Why does this always happen to her, indeed.
It was a fun, campy movie, about the same quality of the first. If you thought the first was an enjoyable romp, then you'll probably enjoy the second one as well.
Stef's birthday is June 30, so Rachael, Mark and his girlfriend, me and Stef all went to see the midnight showing of Live Free or Die Harder.
The Die Hard series is my mom's favorite movie set, so I grew up on John McClane. About a year ago, I introduced Stef to it, and she loved it as much as I did. Courtney also was introduced, by my endorsement of Die Hard as my favorite Christmas movie. Which is completely true.
The evening was fun, if not a bit awkward because Mark's girlfriend didn't know anyone but Mark, Stef insisted on talking only to Mark, and so Rachael and I were kind of left sitting there wondering what we should say.
Anyway, about 30 minutes before the ending of the movie, the screen went blank and an alarm went off saying, "There is an emergency in the building. Please exit the building."
Everyone filed out, and we were among the last. We were just closing the door when two random young men said that it was a false alarm. We went back in, and the alarm was still going off.
"Mark, who told you it was a false alarm?"
He grinned sheepishly. "Just two random guys."
"Remind me to haunt you if we die," I said.
"Wouldn't he be dead too?" Amber mused.
"Well. I'll haunt his ghost."
The alarm went off, then the screen came on for about twenty seconds, then went off again. Then sound came on, but not the picture. Finally, it came back on, but having the alarm in the middle go off again put quite a damper on the climax.
It resumed finally with no difficulties and we watched the final thirty minutes. As we were leaving, the theatre gave each person two free tickets to any movie they wanted to see with no restrictions. That was pretty cool.
As for the movie itself,
Things I Liked:
The sidekick, surprisingly. Sidekicks generally are a bad idea, not the least of which because the writers usually make them inept or overly comic. The sidekick in LFoDH served an actual purpose and served as a nice foil to John McClane. The writers didn't push that, "OH LOOK THEY'RE BONDING DO YOU SEE?" but just let a low-key, realistic understanding develop between them. I am actually really impressed at how well done it was, considering action movies don't usually take character development into account.
John McClane was still his usual snarky self (though this is also in dislikes, as I'll explain) with the same taunting manner he uses in all the movies.
The writers pay homage to the originals by having John McClane have a talk with the bad guy over a walkie-talkie, and he utters the immortal line.
The daughter. Instead of adding a frivolous love interest, they opted to go for a father-daughter angle. Instead of this being annoying, however, they pulled it off well. They didn't pay inordinate attention to it, which led to a more natural feeling. Also, she was kick-ass, but they didn't make her Super Woman. She didn't save the day, but she wasn't a damsel in distress either.
All in all, I am completely impressed at the characters in this.
Things I Disliked:
The henchmen were absolutely idiotic. One was an Asian chick who survived being thrown into a wall of computers, which I can see in an action movie. I'm okay with that. My powers of suspending beliefs have been used to design bridges. John McClane punches her twice in the face and bludgeons her with a computer. I'm okay with that, too. Hey, she's a tough chick. And even though one of my biggest pet peeves is when they have these tiny 110 pound women doing kung fu to throw 6'3" men who weigh about 250 over their shoulder and beat them up, I've given up on fighting women's empowerment to the detriment of reality.
But when she survived a truck running into her at 55 mph at least, ramming you through two concrete walls, and still was able to hoist herself up by climbing up the ropes of an elevator shaft?
That was a bit hard to take.
Then they had this random scene of another henchman who obviously was a trapeze artist in a past life. He had about a ten-minute scene of him swinging around a room like a cross between a monkey and Spider-Man. It was just so completely thrown in there for effect that I had a hard time taking it seriously.
Bruce Willis seemed rather lacking in enthusiasm which was very disappointing since he's my hero, pretty much, and one of my favorite actors. John McClane is very low-key, but he's still brimming with character. In the original Die Hard, he's fighting these bad men, but sends messages written in blood like, "Now I have a machine gun--ho ho ho."
The clever taunts he used in the first two (I hesitate to say the third, because I saw the beginnings of what I'm complaining about now in that one) are replaced with repeatedly calling the main villain a "dickhead". Once or twice would have been all right, and I think in keeping with the character, but it's like he had nothing else.
Occasionally, the original spirit broke through, such as the much-anticipated line from the previews,
"You killed a helicopter with a car."
"I ran out of bullets"
but besides that, his performance seemed very flat. It seemed as if he were just going through the motions rather than bringing his all into it. His sidekick added a much needed boost to the show, as the villain was rather flat as well. Then again, Alan Rickman is extremely hard to live up to as a villain.
Blue lens. I hate this with a passion. It was artsy and cool and possibly stylish the first couple of times it was used appropriately, but now it's thrown in everything without reason. Blue lens is used to give everything a "darker" feel, which is fine in supernatural movies (though overdone) and modern film noirs, but it also has a tendency to slow things down and bring out suspense.
Not good in an action movie. The whole purpose of an action movie is to move continuously, and blue lens really puts a damper on it. Also, when you're dealing with a comedic action movie, such as the Die Hard series, the blue lens adds drama where you're trying to detract from it.
I understand that you have a cool new toy, directors. Now put it back in the toy box and only drag it out when you really need it, okay?
If I gave a mostly negative impression, it was unintentional. The movie really was exactly what I expected, and I enjoyed it. I think it stayed mostly true to the original Die Hard and sequels, and Bruce Willis never once made me cringe thinking, "You're too old to be doing this." Man still looks damn fine for his age.
In any case, definitely worth seeing.
So I hadn't slept in 35 hours and drove home from the theatre at 3:00 in the morning. There is something undefinably amazing about driving down deserted roads at that time of night. I blasted rock music to keep myself awake, but the three lanes of emptiness beside you reflect a peacefulness and serenity that you don't see in the midst of a traffic jam. It's like nothing in the world exists except for you, and the bumper-to-bumper lines never existed except in your imagination.
And now I'm home, and much too awake to go to sleep. So I suppose I'll stay up until this morning, then sleep the rest of the day.
And a super duper spoiler that I didn't want to add in the overall Fantastic Four review of things I disliked, but
The selfishness of the Earthlings. When the Silver Surfer reveals that his planet and the one he loves will be destroyed if he doesn't follow orders, no one even cares. They all take on this, "Earth is more important, so help us" attitude. I mean, he's fighting for his planet the same way the Earthlings are fighting for their's. No one in the movie even seems to acknowledge the sacrifice the Silver Surfer makes. It kind of pissed me off.
Chris is leaving tomorrow for field training, so I went with him to do some shopping for things he needed, then we saw
Things I Liked:
The Human Torch was amazing. I have a crush on Johnny, and so the more time they spend on him, the better. His character and The Thing's are the only ones that have any real depth, I think. The Thing's is pretty superficial, because oh-noes-he's-not-human, but Johnny's is deeper. I like to see how even though he's a daredevil, brash, and confident, he also is really insecure about things. When Mr. Fantastic (it's so hard to write a serious review with names like these) says something to him that's derogatory, Johnny is really hurt and later confides in The Thing that he feels like "a screw-up".
To me, that's way more interesting than the fact that The Invisible Woman can't have her perfect wedding and Mr. Fantastic is a science nerd. Those two are so bland it's nearly painful to describe.
That said--
They are kind of cute together. I love Mr. Fantastic's dweebishness.
The Silver Surfer was always a friend of mine and though they didn't quite give him the personality I wanted to see, I think they did a pretty good job overall with fitting him into the plot. He's underplayed, but in a show like Fantastic Four, that's actually kind of refreshing.
Stan Lee being turned away from his characters' wedding. Too awesome.
Their ship and Johnny's enthusiasm. And the Hemi comment. Love.
Without giving too much away, this installment actually hit upon one of my favorite comic-book themes that seems to be neglected. I really can't say more without completely ruining the movie, which even if you clicked this link, you might not want me to do (it's pretty obvious, but still fun to pretend to be surprised), but it's really cool.
Things I Disliked:
Frankie, the random love interest thrown in for ten second intervals to show Johnny's character development. Give me a break. She is honestly in the show for a total of maybe three minutes and serves completely as a litmus test for Johnny's maturity.
The really, really biased view of the military. Riiight. Because everyone in the military are all Big Bad Monsters who are Really Dumb and Regularly Engage in Torture Because They Can. I'm giving a little leeway for this because comic books all do this for plot lines, but it still ticks me off. A four-star general means that he has at least a Master's degree in something, and I'm fairly certain that to be a general (especially one so high up), a person has to have a Ph.D.
Joining the military does not automatically mean you check your Brains, Independence and Morals at the door.
Invisible Woman only turns invisible once in a serious situation. And Mr. Fantastic uses his abilities three times that I recall; and only once in a serious situation. Another reason I like Johnny so much is that he is constantly using his powers and sees them as fun; the others barely acknowledge them at all.
The constant showing of Jessica Alba naked. Why does this always happen to her, indeed.
It was a fun, campy movie, about the same quality of the first. If you thought the first was an enjoyable romp, then you'll probably enjoy the second one as well.
Stef's birthday is June 30, so Rachael, Mark and his girlfriend, me and Stef all went to see the midnight showing of Live Free or Die Harder.
The Die Hard series is my mom's favorite movie set, so I grew up on John McClane. About a year ago, I introduced Stef to it, and she loved it as much as I did. Courtney also was introduced, by my endorsement of Die Hard as my favorite Christmas movie. Which is completely true.
The evening was fun, if not a bit awkward because Mark's girlfriend didn't know anyone but Mark, Stef insisted on talking only to Mark, and so Rachael and I were kind of left sitting there wondering what we should say.
Anyway, about 30 minutes before the ending of the movie, the screen went blank and an alarm went off saying, "There is an emergency in the building. Please exit the building."
Everyone filed out, and we were among the last. We were just closing the door when two random young men said that it was a false alarm. We went back in, and the alarm was still going off.
"Mark, who told you it was a false alarm?"
He grinned sheepishly. "Just two random guys."
"Remind me to haunt you if we die," I said.
"Wouldn't he be dead too?" Amber mused.
"Well. I'll haunt his ghost."
The alarm went off, then the screen came on for about twenty seconds, then went off again. Then sound came on, but not the picture. Finally, it came back on, but having the alarm in the middle go off again put quite a damper on the climax.
It resumed finally with no difficulties and we watched the final thirty minutes. As we were leaving, the theatre gave each person two free tickets to any movie they wanted to see with no restrictions. That was pretty cool.
As for the movie itself,
Things I Liked:
The sidekick, surprisingly. Sidekicks generally are a bad idea, not the least of which because the writers usually make them inept or overly comic. The sidekick in LFoDH served an actual purpose and served as a nice foil to John McClane. The writers didn't push that, "OH LOOK THEY'RE BONDING DO YOU SEE?" but just let a low-key, realistic understanding develop between them. I am actually really impressed at how well done it was, considering action movies don't usually take character development into account.
John McClane was still his usual snarky self (though this is also in dislikes, as I'll explain) with the same taunting manner he uses in all the movies.
The writers pay homage to the originals by having John McClane have a talk with the bad guy over a walkie-talkie, and he utters the immortal line.
The daughter. Instead of adding a frivolous love interest, they opted to go for a father-daughter angle. Instead of this being annoying, however, they pulled it off well. They didn't pay inordinate attention to it, which led to a more natural feeling. Also, she was kick-ass, but they didn't make her Super Woman. She didn't save the day, but she wasn't a damsel in distress either.
All in all, I am completely impressed at the characters in this.
Things I Disliked:
The henchmen were absolutely idiotic. One was an Asian chick who survived being thrown into a wall of computers, which I can see in an action movie. I'm okay with that. My powers of suspending beliefs have been used to design bridges. John McClane punches her twice in the face and bludgeons her with a computer. I'm okay with that, too. Hey, she's a tough chick. And even though one of my biggest pet peeves is when they have these tiny 110 pound women doing kung fu to throw 6'3" men who weigh about 250 over their shoulder and beat them up, I've given up on fighting women's empowerment to the detriment of reality.
But when she survived a truck running into her at 55 mph at least, ramming you through two concrete walls, and still was able to hoist herself up by climbing up the ropes of an elevator shaft?
That was a bit hard to take.
Then they had this random scene of another henchman who obviously was a trapeze artist in a past life. He had about a ten-minute scene of him swinging around a room like a cross between a monkey and Spider-Man. It was just so completely thrown in there for effect that I had a hard time taking it seriously.
Bruce Willis seemed rather lacking in enthusiasm which was very disappointing since he's my hero, pretty much, and one of my favorite actors. John McClane is very low-key, but he's still brimming with character. In the original Die Hard, he's fighting these bad men, but sends messages written in blood like, "Now I have a machine gun--ho ho ho."
The clever taunts he used in the first two (I hesitate to say the third, because I saw the beginnings of what I'm complaining about now in that one) are replaced with repeatedly calling the main villain a "dickhead". Once or twice would have been all right, and I think in keeping with the character, but it's like he had nothing else.
Occasionally, the original spirit broke through, such as the much-anticipated line from the previews,
"You killed a helicopter with a car."
"I ran out of bullets"
but besides that, his performance seemed very flat. It seemed as if he were just going through the motions rather than bringing his all into it. His sidekick added a much needed boost to the show, as the villain was rather flat as well. Then again, Alan Rickman is extremely hard to live up to as a villain.
Blue lens. I hate this with a passion. It was artsy and cool and possibly stylish the first couple of times it was used appropriately, but now it's thrown in everything without reason. Blue lens is used to give everything a "darker" feel, which is fine in supernatural movies (though overdone) and modern film noirs, but it also has a tendency to slow things down and bring out suspense.
Not good in an action movie. The whole purpose of an action movie is to move continuously, and blue lens really puts a damper on it. Also, when you're dealing with a comedic action movie, such as the Die Hard series, the blue lens adds drama where you're trying to detract from it.
I understand that you have a cool new toy, directors. Now put it back in the toy box and only drag it out when you really need it, okay?
If I gave a mostly negative impression, it was unintentional. The movie really was exactly what I expected, and I enjoyed it. I think it stayed mostly true to the original Die Hard and sequels, and Bruce Willis never once made me cringe thinking, "You're too old to be doing this." Man still looks damn fine for his age.
In any case, definitely worth seeing.
So I hadn't slept in 35 hours and drove home from the theatre at 3:00 in the morning. There is something undefinably amazing about driving down deserted roads at that time of night. I blasted rock music to keep myself awake, but the three lanes of emptiness beside you reflect a peacefulness and serenity that you don't see in the midst of a traffic jam. It's like nothing in the world exists except for you, and the bumper-to-bumper lines never existed except in your imagination.
And now I'm home, and much too awake to go to sleep. So I suppose I'll stay up until this morning, then sleep the rest of the day.
And a super duper spoiler that I didn't want to add in the overall Fantastic Four review of things I disliked, but
The selfishness of the Earthlings. When the Silver Surfer reveals that his planet and the one he loves will be destroyed if he doesn't follow orders, no one even cares. They all take on this, "Earth is more important, so help us" attitude. I mean, he's fighting for his planet the same way the Earthlings are fighting for their's. No one in the movie even seems to acknowledge the sacrifice the Silver Surfer makes. It kind of pissed me off.
