There is an inherent danger in the combination of having time to kill and liking the look of certain actresses on film.  It is this combo that found me watching Bride Wars one afternoon.

Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play lifelong friends who grow up focused on having the perfect wedding….

Let me pause for a moment and say “What the hell is being put into baby formula for girls?”  That can only explain the freaking obsession with the fairytale wedding from birth.  Why can’t they just let it be an organic thing versus cramming their ideal down the throat of their husband-to-be????

Thank you for allowing me that outburst since it actually does apply to this movie.

Anyway, the girls end up having their weddings scheduled for the same day and neither will back down.  Predictability ensues and the audience is left with a movie that has less substance than cotton candy.

My advice: Skip it — there are so many better romantic comedies out there that you do not need to waste 2 hours on this one…

From July……

Sometimes life interferes with regular movie-watching — that happened in the spring when this little-advertised movie came out.  Fortunately I found it playing at the dollar-movie theater, so I headed over for an evening of fun.

This movie is based on the events of the mid-70’s that involved a bank robbery in London and a scandal involving the royal family.  Jason Statham plays the main character who is recruited to break into Lloyd’s of London.  He assembles his team and begins the heist.

As with all heist movies, there are twists, turns, double-crosses, and near misses.  I liked the choice the director made in filming the movie in the style of many 70’s action flicks: gritty and unpolished.  He also kept the pacing tight, while allowing for appropriate character development.

My advice: if you missed it on the big screen, check it out on DVD; particulalry if you liked Payback and Ronin…

2 months after watching it, I finally deliver the review to you…

Since 1981, every movie that involved a hero trekking through the jungle looking for treasure was billed as “this year’s Raiders” or ”a worthy heir to Indiana Jones.”  Heck, even TV got into the act in 81 with not 1, but two series in that vein (Bring Them Back Alive with Bruce Boxleitner and Tales of the Gold Monkey with Stephen Collins {great show}).  The only franchise that seemed as much fun is The Mummy (minus The Scorpion King — let’s not say anything more about it).

In 1989, Last Crusade was released and was received with mixed feelings.  People loved seeing Indy again, but they also started making remarks about the age (”it’s not the years, sweetheart, it’s the mileage”).  Add to the fact that the final product was not as strong as Raiders and you have a moderately successful swan song that left people glad for the end.

Fast-forward to the late 90’s and rumors started swirling that Lucas, Speilberg, and Ford were looking to make a fourth Indy.  Like many others, I was leary of them dipping back into the well.  After all, if Harrison Ford was deemed “too old” in 1989 to play Indy, what would he be in the 2000’s?  Then it took them several tries and years to get a script that all three agreed on, making Ford even older.  Of course, everyone involved tried keeping secrets, but inevitabley, things were leaked or logically figured out.

Now, it is safe to say that I have been pleased with this summer’s reversal of last year’s misery; blockbusters have been delivering as promised.  So, it is with high hopes that I head to the midnight showing of Indy at the AMC Altamonte.  Again, I have my pick of theaters and am able to get a pretty good seat.  Very few trailers, but that was ok.

The latest installment finds our hero in the 50’s, after years of hunting down treasure and serving as a spy for the government.  He starts off in trouble and ends up riding out a nuclear explosion in a lead-lined refrigerator.  As the story progresses, we are treated to visual benchmark nods to the other movies and characters: the college, Brody, Jones, Sr…  The reunion of Indy and Marion is nice, but I have to agree with other reviewers that she was not given the meaty role she had in Raiders.  The story moves along at a decent pace towards a satisfying ending.

My biggest issue is the fact that after the waterfall chase, I felt like I had watched the movie just 6 months prior.  That’s right — it felt identical to National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.  Now that could be simply because of both movies using the Mayan culture, but it was like they almost used the same exact sets.

One note I would suggest is to read the book after seeing it — the book makes the story stand out better.

My advice:  go see it on the big screen — enjoy a fond lookback.  To me it was a fitting end, but I have heard rumors of a fifth installment — why can’t we end on a high note?

Faithful readers of TAM (aren’t all of you faithful readers…?) will remember from last year’s review of Die Hard that celebrating my birthday involves going to a movie.  Well this year was no different.  This year, Cynthia got me an AMC card (I can see Spaldy smiling in approval) to celebrate my arrival to this planet.  So it seemed only fitting to use it to see my birthday movie.  Cynthia joined me and we tried to get our friend, Mo, to join us, but she was unable to join the merriment.

Now, it’s true that I have not been a big fan of what Pixar has released lately — that is due to me feeling like they were “phoning it in” with Cars, Finding Nemo, and Monsters, Inc.  Now before you get into an uproar, I found enjoyment in each one, but not like I had with Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and The Incredibles.  I can’t even comment on Ratatouille since I still have not seen it.  Usually I am fairly up-to-date on movies coming out, particularly Disney/Pixar, but WALL-E snuck up on me.  I did not hear anything about it until one of my friends started talking about it in March.  As time got closer I noticed more trailers and was impressed with what I saw.

WALL-E is the story of a robot that has one extraordinary day after centuries of the same routine.  Left to clean up the mess left behind by humans, WALL-E spends his day compacting trash into small cubes.  Over the years, he has developed a personality and a curiosity about things we take for granted: ladies underwear, ring boxes, and fire extinguishers.  He has also picked up an interest in watching one musical over and over, “Hello, Dolly”.

Then Eve arrives.

In Eve, he finds what he has watched over and over again on tape.  What follows is a sweet story of first love and the lengths one will go to for that other person.  There are increasing obstacles and a predictable, yet satisfying, ending.  Many side characters pop up to add color — my favorite was MO, the cleaner.

One of the big features of this movie is the lack of dialog.  For about the first hour, you just hear music and computer noises, with a slight snippet of a song from the video tape.  I loved this; it forced the animators to make the robots be more expressive physically.  I noticed that the kids enjoyed it too; it was the adults that got fidgety and frustrated.  I personally fell that the movie could have eliminated all dialog and not really suffered.

In other reviews, I have complained how learning improv has made me a harsher critic of movies.  If I wanted to pick a movie to show a budding improviser how to craft a simple story with stake-raising and a clear desire, it would be WALL-E.

My advice: see it at full price — recline back and let WALL-E’s world engulf you…

There are few entertainers that have been able to transcend different forms of entertainment and excel at each of them.   Will Smith is one of those entertainers.  Starting as a rapper that appealed to all listeners, his fanbase grew and gave him an opportunity to try TV.  Finding that to be relatively easy, Smith moved onto movies.  His first movie was Six Degrees of Separation, which garnered him many accolades and set the stage for what was to come.  Following that with the trio of July 4th hits of Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men In Black, Smith declared the July 4th box office weekend as his to rule.  He even made fun of this in a promo for Wild, Wild West by pointing out he was taking 1998 off.  Yet WWW bombed and some of his invulnerability faded.  Yet, Smith has produced more hits than misses, so I would not bet against him.

That leads us to Hancock, the latest entry in the Will Smith library.

The story is a twist on the usual superhero outline:  Smith plays a hero that people hate.  Jason Bateman provides a good counter to Smith’s character as a PR guy saved by Hancock.

Then the story goes awry.

Rather than follow the simple path established, the director decides to go in many directions and what results is not very satisfying.  I want to know more of Smith’s backstory, backstory sacrificed to throw in fights that do not make sense.  I wanted to like this movie, but came out feeling “blah”.

My advice: see it at the dollar theater; to really see a story about a guy struggling with superpowers, check out Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.