This was one of the most anticipated movies of the Spring/Summer movie season.  I’ll make this review short.  Fanboys are going to hate it.  Fans of the Wolverine comics aren’t going to like it.  Fans of the X-Men series of movies are going to like it.  As far as the story goes, its fits into the story line of the X-Men trilogy of movies.  It gives the origin of our favorite mutant, Wolverine.  Questions about his past that were raised in the first movie are answered.  As with most origin stories, the action sequences were spread out by exposition.  But, when there was action, it was impressive.  Its easy to tell that they spent much time on getting the effects just right.  Hugh Jackman was his typical brooding Logan.  Liev Schrieber was excellent as Sabretooth.  Most of the other acting was okay.  However, Will.i.Am’s performance left little to be desired.  I was looking forward to him as Wraith, but he just didn’t do it for me.   One performance that stood out to me was Taylor Kitsch as Remy Lebeau/Gambit.  When I first saw him as Riggins on Friday Night Lights, I thought to myself, “He’d make a great Gambit.”  He did.

Problems:  No matter how good CGI gets, you can’t take years off an old man’s face and make him young again without it looking wierd.  No matter how far the stories of the X-Men are off base, at least they try to stay true to characters and their powers; however, Deadpool was so far off base as to make me almost completely dismiss Ryan Reynolds performace in the first part of the movie.  How do you have that much destruction at a Nuclear Power plant and not upset one of the reactors?  If I use an adamantium bullet and put a whole in your head, how do the wholes get filled in with adamantium?  I could go on, but I said I’d be short.

Fans of the series of movies and who have less than a passing knowledge of X-Men and Wolverine will enjoy the movie.  Everyone else, its going to be hit and miss.

I saw Hancock the other day, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Will Smith is now the biggest movie star on the planet.  Even a mediocre film such as this drew huge crowds and posted huge numbers.  I went on Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 PM and the theater was packed.  Go figure.  The movie was just okay.  It was different for a superhero movie, but that’s just it, it was different, not special.

On the bright side, there were 3 things that were great about the movie:  1) Charlize Theron, 2) Jason Bateman, and 3) the soundtrack.  I forgot how good looking Charlize Theron is, and she was perfect for the role that she played.  Jason Bateman is probably one of the most underated actors in Hollywood.  And finally, soundtracks are supposed to not really be noticed, but I noticed this one, and I didn’t mind it.  The special effects were good.  The plot was just okay, and as much as we like Will Smith as a genre actor, I just didn’t buy him in this role.

I initially had my reservations about this movie.  After seeing it, I was really impressed with the action stunts.  First, let me get the comparison to the graphic novel out of the way.  The movie deviated from a good deal of the story without actually changing the main overall plot and theme of the story.  I credit the

screen writer for pulling it off.  For the most part, the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes are just like the story in the graphic novel, with a few small minor changes.  They even managed to work in an aspect of superpowers into the movie.  Secondly, I want to commend the casting.   James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Angelina Jolie all turn in spectacular and convincing performances.  The thing about the rest of the cast is that they spoke few words, which was quite effective since the movie was more about feeling and emotion than words.

The effects were solid except there was one scene on top of a moving train where the CGI looked rushed and unfinished, but over all everything looked realistic.    If you’re looking for a good summer action flick and a solid story that doesn’t require that much thinking then this is for you.

I saw The Happening around the same time I saw The Incredible Hulk, but chose to not do a quick review at the time. Now that I’ve had time to process the movie, I feel like I have to say something about it. There is nothing wrong with a director doing a message movie. But to me, the mark of a good director and writer, which Shayamalan is both, is the ability to convey your message subtly. There are subjects that as a viewing public, in my opinion, that we can deal with being slapped in the face with. Those would be topics like racism, sexism, child abuse and rape. Environmentalism is a serious subject no doubt, but for the most part everyone cares about the environment. But to me, its one of those things that if you’re going to make a horror movie about, you’ve got to shock us or be more creative. There are hundreds maybe thousands of movies about the danger of our advancing technology. Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Philip K. Dick and Michael Critchton (I can’t believe I put him in the same sentence with those giants of science fiction) made careers out of warning us about how great and terrifying technology can be, but they didn’t sacrifice good story telling just to make their point. Simply having people drop dead from toxins released by plants is not going to cut it.

I just heard an interview with M. Night Shayamalan and he had the audacity to not only compare his movie and story in one breath to The Birds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Night of the Living Dead. He says the goal was to create a “B-Science fiction movie about a subject, where you have a great ride, you jump and you’re scared, crying and you do all those things as an audience member, and then at the end, the themes of the movie have you thinking of something a little deeper.”

The thing is that to me those movies dealt with those underlying issues in a more subtle way. (And honestly, I have no clue what the underlying theme of the Birds was) His movie was an in your face message movie. I don’t have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with him thinking that his film making is anywhere near the caliber of the other directors and writers of the movies that he mentioned. His movie is more like Spike Lee, a message. We can argue of the execution of getting his message across, but I have seen Hitchcock movies, and Shayamalan is no Hitchcock, despite what he thinks.

And unfortunately for him, if The Happening had been done by a first time director, many people would have been okay with it, but Shayamalan’s success means that we have come to expect better than average for him, and soon his credit from his early successes are going to run out, and he’s going to have a hard time getting anyone to come to his movies. Between Shayamalan and Tim Story (director of Fantastic Four and Rise of the Silver Surfer), minority directors are going to be told to stay away for Science Fiction.

I said before and I have told people not to waste time seeing it, but I think I’ve changed my mind.  I am not going to tell people not to see the movie, but just be aware when you go into it that there are no surprises, there is nothing being hidden from you, nothing to figure out, and there is nothing unexpected happening, no pun intended.

I have seen the movie and I liked it. Beowulf the movie is based on the old English poem by the same name. I read the poem, or some of it, in high school, and most english literature scholars know the poem very well. They have taken some liberty with the original story but kept the spirit and gist of what was going on. The movie was done completely in CGI and with the aid of motion capture. Done by the same people who brought us Polar Express, they have seen to have learned from the mistakes they made in that movie. Here, the actors were life-like and the facial expressions were real enough. Anthony Hopkins’ Hrothgar was perfect; he looked the most real of all the characters. Ray Winstone as Beowulf was well done. But the gem of the movie was Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s Mother. You could tell that the animators took time and care in getting every physical detail about her just right.

The action was great. Going into the movie I was slightly worried that it would be a repeat of Final Fantasy as far as looking more like a video game cut-scene than an actual movie. But I was more than impressed. The one thing that I look for in animated movies is camera angles. Since there are no physical constraints of what a director and a director of photography can do, I am always looking to see if this is taken advantage of. In Beowulf, we get numerous wicked angles and shots that can’t be done in a regular action film. The animation was life-like, and the voice acting was excellent. At almost 2 hours, you don’t even notice the length of the movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should.