Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

Well, it has been a month since I blogged (Long story).  Sometimes when you have to take a break, you know you need to get back in, but it seems like you need to do something big when you start back.  What is bigger than reviewing the most anticipated movie since…hmm…Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, I suppose.  Made it to the Thursday night early opening.  9:30 show.  With about 30 minutes left the movie froze.  They couldn’t get it back going for about 20 minutes.  They finally moved us to another theater.  I was there a long time.  Now I’m charged up, might as well write it before I go to bed.  I will not be proofreading (”Do you ever?”  Shut up), I mean it’s 12:40.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens AKA, Star Wars Episode VII: Don’t Disappoint Us J.J. stars a whole bunch of people you don’t know from anything.  Seriously, you don’t.  You think you recognize them, but you don’t.  It’s only because they have been running teaser trailers forever.  It also returns many from the original cast including Indiana Jones, Marie from When Harry Met Sally, the voice of Joker from Batman the Animated Series is billed as being in the movie, but was not in any of the trailers unless that mechanical hand on R2 was him.  Is he in this movie or not? Spoiler free!!!!!!  Also, Gollum is in this.  Andy Serkis is perhaps the most underrated actor of our time.  He is great.  He plays a character that I had no knowledge of before I saw it.  I tried really hard to not know anything about this movie.

Expectations:How do you even begin to answer this question?  My hopes were off the chart high.  I tried to keep them as low as I could, but I couldn’t help it, they were high.  I took a bathroom stop right before the previews and some guys dressed as Jedis were talking (they had seen it at 7).  They said they really liked it, so I was really confident.  The people who come dressed up are normally the hardest to please.

Reality: It was really good.  It really had the same spirit and feel as the original trilogy.  The new Star Trek reboot felt very different than the originals.  This felt the same in all the right ways.  It should cleanse the palate of all of those still sour from the second trilogy.  It was a great blend of the characters that we know and love but introducing some brand new characters, played by nobodies just like in the originals.  The effects were good, there were funny parts.  Everything that you would want from a Star Wars movie was there.

Appropriateness: It is a little violent but no more than any other Star Wars movie.  I would totally take a small kid to it that can take fantasy violence.  Way tamer than Lord of the Rings.  Even if I were uptight about these kinds of things, I still would recommend this movie for kids.

Rating System:

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely Redbox it again

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Redbox

Bored in 2 years and  watch it on Netflix

Avoid it.

I rate it a  See it in the theater mutliple times and buy it as soon as it comes out. There was never any doubt was there.  Well, maybe a little.  I really loved it.  I’m supposed to see it with the extended fam at Christmas.  Maybe I can wait until then to see it again.  We will see.  Call me.  I’ll go see it with you.  After you see it, we can discuss all the things that I didn’t spoil here.

Mockingjay Part 2 Movie Review

I have seen a lot of teenage post-apocalyptic dramas over the last few years.  It comes with the territory of being a dad of girls.  I have seen both Divergent series movies, Maze Runner, Ender’s Game,and more.  However, the best of all of them, by far, has been the Hunger Games movies.  The first movie was very good.  After I saw it, Lauren begged me to read the books so we could talk about it before the other movies came out.  Dad of the Year did just that.  They were great books.  Movie #4 comes out today and, as is usually the case, Maylee, Lauren and I were at the early premiere on Thursday night. (I’m so glad they are not at midnight any more)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 AKA, How Can We Drag a 4th Movie Out of a 3 Book Series stars Young Mystique as Katniss and returns all the regulars: the boy from Bridge to Terabithia as Peeta (AKA Bad Luck Brian),  Woody from Cheers as Hamitch, the professor from Animal House as the best movie villain of the last 10 years, Thor’s younger brother as Gale, and the back-up Clarise Starling as Coin.

Expectations: High but not too high.  The first movie was great.  Jennifer Lawrence is great.  The movies have kept pretty well to the book and have been enjoyable.  I was worried about this one a little because books split into multiple movies can tend to drag a little bit (Read The Hobbit and Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1. (Lord of the Rings could have been 10 movies I suppose.  What makes them awesome, in part is that they only did 1 per book.  If they came out now, I can’t imagine how many they would have made.  “Return of the King 7B is coming out in June! With 7C to follow in July #excited”)

Reality: It was really good. I wondered after reading the book, would the movies end the way that the books did.  I didn’t think that they would at first, but changed my mind some after watching the movies unfold.  (Is it a spoiler to reveal if the ending kept to the book? I’m going to say yes, it is a spoiler, so I won’t say.)  Jennifer Lawrence, even though I’m sure she’s tired of it, didn’t phone it in. The action sequences are thrilling.  Donald Sutherland is the best.  In a world, where I was in charge of the Oscars, he would have one.  The story that the author tells is compelling and the movie captures that.

Appropriateness: It’s scary in parts.  Lots of people die.  if you’ve seen any of the movies, this is the same.  It doesn’t take it to another level or anything.  There are some creepy sewer monsters.  That’s the worst part.

Rating System:

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely Redbox it again

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Redbox

Bored in 2 years and  watch it on Netflix

Avoid it.

I rate it a  See it in the theater and likely Redbox it. If you’ve seen the other movies, go see it.  It’s really good.  If you haven’t, what is wrong with you?  Don’t see this one first, find a fangirl and borrow the other ones and then go see this.  It’s more than an action movie or teenage love triangle movie.  It is a very compelling story that has some interesting things to say about human nature, power and corruption.  I definitely am going to miss the series.

Spectre Movie Review

So it begins, the holiday movie season.  We have some great ones coming up.  I of course mean Hunger Games and Star Wars.  You can keep the Academy Award nominees and go read a more sophisticated blog.  Here you get blockbusters and an occasional date movie.  Warning: I was not in a great mood when I watched this movie.  That could have clouded my judgment.

Spectre AKA, James Bond XXVI.  stars James Bond (Normally I reference another famous role, but this dude really is only James Bond, with all respect to Girl in the Dragon Tattoo and Cowboys and Aliens) in the lead role.  Co-stars include The Red Dragon as M.,  Drax the Destroyer as the bad guy henchman,  Mary Magdalene from The Passion of the Christ as the secondary Bond girl, the French Assassin from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol as the primary Bond girl and everyone’s new favorite villain from Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained as the bad guy.

Expectations: Moderate.  I have enjoyed this iteration of Bond movies more than the older ones (I’ve seen all of them).  I like that these take themselves more seriously.  I like that they are telling a continuous story instead of individual isolated movies.  However, I was in a bad mood and I wasn’t expecting much.

Reality: It was OK.  I guess that means it met my expectations.  It was satisfactory for a rainy day-off kill a couple of hours afternoon, but I didn’t love it.  I would have loved to love it.  There weren’t enough great action/fighting scenes to make it awesome.  The plot was  little hard to follow, like they are now trying too hard to connect all of them.  I didn’t really buy the Bond girl as a love interest.  I also feel that after some great bad guy performances that he defined for himself, Christoph Waltz tried to be too much of a stereotypical Bond villain.  However, Bautista in his limited role as OddJob 2.0 was really good and it’s a Bond movie with chases and improbable escapes so it was good.  It just wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

Appropriateness: It’s a James Bond movie, OK?  He hooks up a couple of times but you don’t really see anything.  There are a few bad words and some violence.  The one torture scene is kinda “Yikes!” but nothing like Casino Royale.

Rating System:

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely Redbox it again

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Redbox

Bored in 2 years and  watch it on Netflix

Avoid it.

I rate it a  Redbox. Unless you are a true Bond fan and need to see it in the theater, just get it on Redbox.  It will be fun for a couple of hours and is worth $1.50 or whatever. You spend real money and you might think you wasted it.  Casino Royale was great. Quantum of Solace and Skyfall were good.  This is just OK.

The Martian Movie Review

For the 12 or so of you who remember the blog from my previous go around, you had to know that this was coming.  In fact, one person has been on me for a month asking me, “When do we get the movie reviews?”  Well the problem was, September is a terrible time for movies, but that’s when I started back up writing.  I assured him that soon enough, good movies (and by good movies, I mean movies that I would want to see.  I don’t mean poignant artsy movies.) would be coming out and the movie reviews would be back.  Here we are.

The Martian AKA, Gravity 2: Martian Boogaloo.  stars Jason Bourne in the lead role. I will answer my wife’s question here.  “So, he’s a martian?”  (My wife hates alien movies.)  No, he is not a martian, but an astronaut stranded on Mars.  (My reviews are spoiler free, but what I mean by that is I won’t say more about the plot than what is obvious in the trailer.  If him being stranded on Mars is a spoiler for you, I encourage you to read the text on the poster.)  We also have two sets of ensemble cast members.  His space crew that includes Ant-Man’s funny friend, that girl from the 1st season of House of Cards (who is in like everything now, including the ill-advised reboot of Fantastic 4), Bucky from Captain America,  and the red-head from The Help, no the other one, no the other one, the one who caught Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty.  The ground crew at mission control includes Harry from Dumb and Dumber, Troy from Community, the Target Lady (???), the guy from 12 Years a Slave and Boromir/Ned Stark.  This is quite a good ensemble cast.

Expectations: Moderate.  I didn’t know if it was going to be an exciting action movie, a slow descent into madness or what.  I was afraid that it was going to be too poignant, but at the same time, there were great people in the movie and I figured it would a good kind of intense.

Reality: Better than I thought it was going to be.  It was an appropriate amount of poignant.  I never felt it was preaching at me (That’s my job, not a movie’s job).  It was an interesting look into an individual’s will to survive, the politics of decision-making and being a part of a team.  In addition there were just some cool parts.  Good mix of regular person good movie and fancy person good movie.  A bit long at 2 hours and 20 minutes.  The elimination of one “OH NO!” scene would have made it just about right.

Appropriateness: A few F-Bombs (some said and some written and more implied) and some other scattered language. You also get to see the backside of Matt Damon’s body double.  There’s a scene on par with Tom Hanks knocking out his own tooth in Castaway and that’s a little bloody.

Rating System (Revised for 2015):

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely Redbox it again

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Redbox

Bored in 2 years and  watch it on Netflix

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the theater and Redbox. Heidi needs to see it.  So we will Redbox it at some point.  You should go see it.  It’s visually captivating and a great story with great acting.  There’s action, drama, humor, a little bit of everything.  It’s the kind of movie, and this is rare, that you could recommend to a lot of different people.  It’s not a date movie per se, but it would work well for a date, in that everyone will enjoy it for different reasons.

Green Lantern Movie Review

I did something that some people do not understand but sometimes I find to be necessary.  I went to see a movie by myself the other day.  The girls were at camp and mom was busy and so I took a couple of hours and just unplugged and watched the Green Lantern.  First, did you know the cheap movie theater in Fayetteville has a 3-D theater now? Did you know it was small and depressing? Did you know that makes it not cheap anymore, even if you get there super-early?  Did you know they let you keep the glasses?  What does it mean?

Green Lantern stars Deadpool in the lead role (I don’t like one superhero also being in another superhero movie.  It doesn’t seem right.  I’m looking at you Captain America/Human Torch and more obscurely Cyclops/Lois Lane’s new boyfriend or husband or whoever you were.) It also stars the Gossip Girl (never seen it) as the stereotypical wet-blanket female lead, the bad guy from Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes as the foreshadowingly named Sinestro (That is not a spoiler. He is good throughout the movie, but come on, Sinestro? You could’ve figured that out.  Also, you should know that if you have any familiarity with the comics.), and I swear I know him, no I don’t, wait he was in Knight and Day as the bad guy.  It also features a couple of “Really it’s come to this” appearances by Tina Turner (the one who played her) and Andy Dufresne.

Expectations: Very low.  The previews didn’t look that good.  A fellow superhero movie lover said he didn’t like it.  “Then why did you go see it?”  Duh, it’s a superhero movie.  Clearly, you are new here.

Reality: It actually was pretty good.  Maybe that is just the expectations were so low that it had to be better, but I enjoyed it.  Better than Thor worse than X-Men First Class.  It certainly is not an elite superhero movie, read Iron Man, The Dark Knight, but it was good.  The story was good, the acting was good, the wet blanket female lead wasn’t wet blankety at all.  I think the directors are starting to figure this out.  Thor and Iron Man were both good, X-Men doesn’t even have them.  With the exception of Rachel Dawes (both movies) there hasn’t been much wet blanketyness.  (If you don’t know what this means, you don’t watch many superhero or sports movies.  Watch the Michael Keaton Batman and observe Vicky Vale or Hoosiers and that teacher.  Add nothing, discourage the hero, take away from the action.) I think the reason it (and Thor) did not do well is that I think we love sci-fi movies and we love superhero movies.  When they are both, it’s just ok.

Appropriateness: An abundant supply of wirty dords and some implied sex-having (What? He wakes up and there is a bare-shouldered woman in his bed.)  The violence is very sci-fi-ish and not troubling.  I would put it very low on the appropriate for kids.  PG-13 for a reason.

Rating: (Back to the old system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the theater and be done. (There is a small chance that I would by it.  If I were strolling around in a Best Buy this fall and the Blu-Ray were 9.99 or less, I probably would get it.)

X-Men First Class Movie Review

It was the last day of school and Lauren had her awards assembly.  She dominated and didn’t want to stay at school.  They were just going to watch movies.  So I checked her out and we went on a daddy-daughter date (Took the day off).  She didn’t want to watch movies at school, so what did we do? Went to Chick-Fil-A and watched a movie–X-Men First Class.  This was a risk.  Lauren has seen superhero movies before and she loves them.  However, I always screen them and let her watch ones that are appropriate, but no pre-screen today.

X-Men First Class is an ensemble show with too many characters and actors to mention them all.  It stars Mr. Tumnus (Narnia) as Professor X. He was in 300 but I don’t remember as Magneto, Betty from “I’m not cool enough to watch” Mad Men, and a new addition to the most improbable villain pantheon, which of course includes John Lithgow from Cliffhanger and Dennis Hopper from Speed, we have “he’s been in every movie with everyone” Mr. Footloose as the bad guy.  There were a slew of “I recognize them” and “I think I know who that is” all throughout the movie.

Expectations: Reasons for high expectations–Superhero movie, X-Men, my love for origin movies, and I didn’t know Kevin Bacon and Oliver Platt were in it.  Reasons for low expectations–5th movie in the series, not doing well in theaters and a bunch of relative nobodies starring as the X-men.  You know what pushed me over the edge?  The guy who sold us our tickets giving us a 5-minute movie review from his little cage…not really. No it really happened, but it didn’t persuade me.  Lauren thought that was hilarious.  Overall, my expectations were moderately high.

Reality: I thought it was pretty good.  Origin movies if you like the characters are always great and this one didn’t disappoint.  I watched it through Lauren’s eyes a little and felt bad for her, because it was fairly complicated and in her words, “a lot of characters to keep up with.”  I thought all of the relative new/young actors did well and it was a great blend of action and plot.  However, I could never get over, “Wait, that’s Kevin Bacon.”  That’s my bad though.  It could have used a little more mutant fight scenes, but it was still good.

Get Over Yourself: There is a discontinuity between this prequel and the Jean Grey flashback in X-Men 3.  Who cares?  You do.  Read the category title again.  On the other hand, it was cool how they tied in the Magneto origin flashback from the trilogy.

Appropriateness: This is where I wish that I had pre-screened this.  This was definitely more inappropriate for kids than previous X-Men movies.  There were a lot of scenes of women in their underwear and a lot of language.  This includes one F-bomb.

Rating: (New System–American Idol Style)

Paula: That was fabulous, amazing, and I was touched deeply (Definitely go see it, now)

Randy: It was just aiiight for me, Dawg (Maybe see it, you should rent it)

Simon: That was indulgent nonsense (Bad, but still worth seeing. Redbox it)

Kara: What was the point of Kara, anyway? (Run for the hills, don’t ever see it)

I rate this almost a Paula but better than a Randy. (I’m beginning to think this system doesn’t work) If you are an X-Men fan or even superhero movie fan, you should see it in the theater.  I will definitely have the BluRay.

Other Possibilities:

Ellen: It’s supposed to be good, but it’s not, even though you really want it to be.

Steven: Trainwreck good

Jennifer: At least she can dance, but that’s not what we’re doing. Confusing, but mildly entertaining, nowhere near a Paula.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Movie Review

I was invited by some guys relatively last minute to go see the new Pirates movie on Saturday. I had been wanting to go, but couldn’t quite pull the trigger.  I’m glad these guys did.

Pirates 4 (I don’t even feel like typing out the whole name of this movie.  That should give you some idea where this is headed.) returns the Mad Hatter as Jack Sparrow and the speech therapist from King’s Speech (Betcha didn’t think I watched movies like that) as Barbosa.  Those not returning include Legolas and Jules from Bend it Like Beckham.  New characters include “not-Selma Hayek or Catherine Zeta Jones” as a new pirate and Jack’s foil/love interest and “I think I know him no I don’t, but he was the voice of the bad guy in Kung Fu Panda” as Blackbeard.

Expectations:  The second and third movies were mediocre at best.  I ended up owning them, because of a mix-up with the Disney movie club that I didn’t feel like fixing.  The first one is probably a top 15 all time movie for me.  I loved it.  The fact that they were redoing the cast made me think that they had a good new idea and this one would be better.  Plus, it was in 3D, which is cool.  Wait…that’s right, I didn’t see it in 3D.  Why not? I’m looking at you, guys who invited me.  In summary, my expectations were medium-high.

Reality: I was disappointed.  Perhaps if I had had lower expectations I would have liked it.  Maybe if I had seen it in 3D (still looking at you guys).  The plot idea I think was a pretty good one.  However, there wasn’t enough Captain Jack being a goofus.  Also, the mermaid thing was little, hmmm, overdone? pointless? ridiculous?  It reminded me of one of those things that sounds like a good idea in your dorm room at 2 am, but in real life, no so much.  “Dude, what if we had mermaids and they were like evil and stuff?”  “Yeah, dude. What if they had vampire teeth?”  “Awesome, what if we gave them Spiderman’s powers?” “Dude!!!!”

Spoiler Question: Is that missionary dude now in Mermaid Heaven with Tom Hanks? (Boom! Dated reference!)

Appropriateness:  Short answer: just like the other ones.  Long answer: sexual tension between Sparrow and Angelica, and plenty of innuendo.  There were a few curse words and plenty of piratey violence.

Rating: (New System–American Idol Style)

Paula: That was fabulous, amazing, and I was touched deeply (Definitely go see it, now)

Randy: It was just aiiight for me, Dawg (Maybe see it, you should rent it)

Simon: That was indulgent nonsense (Bad, but still worth seeing. Redbox it)

Kara: What was the point of Kara, anyway? (Run for the hills, don’t ever see it)

I rate this a Randy, but it was almost a Simon.  I would wait to rent it.

You may be wondering about the other judges.  They could, I suppose be there own categories.  For your enjoyment:

Ellen: It’s supposed to be good, but it’s not, even though you really want it to be.

Steven: Trainwreck good

Jennifer: At least she can dance, but that’s not what we’re doing. Confusing, but mildly entertaining, nowhere near a Paula.

Thor Movie Review

Been a while since I’ve done one of these.  I’ve been seeing most of my movies well past when a review would even be relevant.  Not this summer though.  This summer will be the summer of seeing overly-hyped movies.  Woo-hoo!  Anywho, first on the list–Thor.

Thor stars Captain Kirk 2.0 in the lead role. It also co-stars a completely out of the blue, what is going on here Hannibal Lecter as Thor’s dad, Queen Amidala as the not too-wet-blankety female love interest, the math professor from Good Will Hunting as a scientist and slew of “who-dats?” in various roles. I would be remiss to not mention Rene Russo as Thor’s Mom (Dude! You broke your rule.  You said her name.  I know, but what are you going to say? The psychiatrist from Tin Cup? The horror film actress from Get Shorty? The completely ill-conceived never believable foil to Thomas Crown?  I said her name, because where does it even come from that she’s in this? She was barely in it and it was so “wha???”  She must have had some bills needing to get paid).

Expectations: I really had mixed emotions going into this.  It was going to be in 3-D, so that’s always great.  It’s a superhero movie so that raises expectations.  On the other hand, the previews seemed weird and I was really wondering how they were going to make his backstory even remotely believable. “Believable? Since when do you care about believable? We demand that you get Cloften back here immediately to finish this review.”  Even my implausibility or “that’s ridiculous” radar goes off every now and then.

Reality:  Well, my expectations were soundly met.  “Wait? You said you had mixed expectations.”  Exactly.  The coolness of the 3-D was undeniable, and superhero movies are in general pretty cool.  That said, the back and forth between the 2 (I guess 3) worlds conflict was a bit convoluted and pretty much a big who cares.  “So what you’re saying is that the plot was bad, but you still thought the movie was OK.  What is your problem?”  I have many problems.  One of them is that cool effects and hype can overcome a plot that I don’t care about, at least to a degree.  Sometimes it can’t.  I’m looking at you Clash of the Titans 3-D!

Appropriateness: There were a few curse words in there, not enough to make you think, “That was a lot of bad language,” but enough for, “I wish I hadn’t brought my 10 year old.”  There is, of course, violence.  More stuff blowing up than seeing people get maimed and killed.  Nothing real sexual, a budding romance that peaks with an appropriate kiss.  The scientist dude gets drunk.  Compared to either of the Iron Man movies, this is much more appropriate.  It is about on par with a typical X-Men movie.  I know–I’m a dork.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the dollar theater (if you have one) or just rent it it. (One caveat, 3D effects are always great, so it is unlikely that either your dollar theater or TV has that, so might be worth it)

A-Team Movie Review

Went to see A-Team yesterday.  I wasn’t planning on seeing it but Heidi was out with the girls and some of their friends and there was a showing on the house.  I was going to see Shutter Island at the dollar theater, but it must have ended on Thursday.  Anywho,  A-Team stars Qui-Gon/Oskar Schindler/Rob Roy/Aslan as Hannibal, that scary MMA guy, no the other one, as B.A. Baracus/Mr. T., that dude that I know from Alias, but some of you know from the Hangover as Face, and some dude that they grabbed off the street as Murdoch.  It also has that girl from 7th Heaven who is now famous for being famous as the stereotypical wet-blanket female lead in an action movie and Rick Simon from Simon and Simon (Boom! Dated reference).

Expectations: My expectations were pretty low.  I loved the A-Team growing up and Hollywood does not have a great track record of remaking 80’s classics.  On the other hand, it has Liam Neeson which means there is a 99% chance that the movie will be great (I would have said 100, but I recently saw Clash of the Titans).  So, all put together I’m thinking better than G.I. Joe, probably about as good as Scooby Doo.

Reality: Dude.  No really, DUDE! I could not have been more wrong.  That movie was incredible.  Perhaps it was because my expectations were so low, but a few hours later I looked at Heidi and said, “I can’t get over how good that was.”  Heidi, as always, humors me.  The action sequences were very good.  They took what made the TV show great and brought it to the big screen very well.  The four main characters were cast very well.  Liam Neeson is, of course, amazing.  Bradley Cooper did well as Face.  Rampage Jackson did a great job of being a scary B.A. without jacking Mr. T’s style.  That dude that was Murdoch was hilarious.  He may have launched a career, but it would be hard for me to imagine him as a non-insane character.  It’s essentially their back story, which sets us up, I hope for some sequels.  I cannot recommend this movie enough, if you like fun action movies.

Appropriateness: In contrast to the TV show, there is some language.  There are no F-bombs and there is not a lot of it, but there is some language.  Also, in contrast to the show, people do actually get hit by the large quantities of bullets that get shot.  Obviously, there is some violence but nothing particulary gory.  I would take my teenager to it.  Well not mine.  First I don’t have one, and the one that almost is one does not like action movies.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the theater and will definitely own it.  Anybody want to go see it again?  Seriously.

Robin Hood Movie Review

Just got finished watching Robin Hood.  I meant to see it last week and then yesterday and finally got to it today.  I did the very lame (to some) thing of going to see a movie by myself.  Sometimes I just love that.  Anywho,  Robin Hood starts Maximus as the lead and reunite the Gladiator with the director of Gladiator.  It also stars Galadriel (the kinda scary Elf queen witch lady) from Lord of the Rings as Lady Marion, the priest from the Exorcist as Sir Walter Loxley, and reunites Col. Striker and the Blob from X-Men Origins: Wolverine as King Richard and Little John.  I could do this all day.  It had a lot of people in it that make you go, “wait a second, how do I know them?”

Expectations:  How could my expectations be higher?  Perhaps my expectations for the Hobbit will be higher.  I think my expectationsfor Star Wars: Phantom Menace were higher.  Suffice to say, reuiniting Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe in an heroic epic with swords had me through the roof.  I tried to temper my expectations, but they would not be tempered.

Reality: No movie, I mean no movie, can live up to these expectations.  So, I try to be gracious.  That said, I was surprised if not a little disappointed.  I was expecting more epic battle sequences and creative ways of taking people out with a bow and arrow.  What I got was a story with a plot.  This was a prequel story to how Robin Hood became Robin Hood.  I wish Heidi had been there.  I know she would have liked a plot-driven movie and thus I would have enjoyed it more.  All that said, I really enjoyed it.  The story was good, the action sequences were good.  Russell Crowe, as always, was unbelievable.

Appropriateness: In contrast to Gladiator or Braveheart, this was PG-13, so the battle sequences and kills were significantly less bloody and scary.  There was a lot, I mean a lot, of sexual innuendo, but you don’t see anything.  With the British accents, which I have a hard time understanding, there may have been even more than I noticed.  If I had a teenage son, I might let him see it.  That all depends on what you’re comfortable with.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the theater and maybe own it.  It depends on how my typical 48 hour rumination on the movie goes.

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