Right On The Right

It's having the most tremendous opening of any movie in history, and the buzz surrounding The Dark Knight is well-deserved. Most of the buzz is related to Ledger's performance, partially because of his death. I personally think the film was the best of the Superhero Genre, and there are several phenomenal performances in the film. Spoiler Warning Ahead, because here's my review:

Before seeing the film, I questioned all of the buzz about the role of the Joker (Heath Ledger). I wondered how much Ledger's death affected the opinions of critics, but after seeing the movie, I can honestly say it was an Oscar-worthy performance. As a fan of Ledger's humorous role in the movie A Knight's Tale, and seeing him in a few movies (not the Gay Cowboy movie), I can see this was Ledger's best performance. Unfortunately fitting that it would be his last. The Joker is dark and twisted, a convincing villain with no real motivations other than, as he puts it, being an agent of chaos. He's physically tough at parts, and some of his tactics are stomache-turning, including the placement of a grenade and a magic trick involving a disappearing pencil. Ledger plays one of the most powerful villains ever in film.

Christian Bale's Batman is well-done, just about on pace with his performance in Batman Begins. Bale plays well some of the interesting decisions that his character is forced to make, but his performance is not award-worthy. He's overshadowed by Ledger at times, and is just one of four great male performances in the film. He has a great on-screen competition with new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) for the heart of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes). Eckhart does a great job portraying Dent as a crusader for justice that isn't exactly ready for the task in front of him. Like Batman, Dent has to make difficult decisions balancing his personal anger and ambition vs. the best outcome for Gotham. The fourth strong male role comes from Gary Oldman, who plays the pragmatic Lt. Gordon (later Commissioner). Gordon's role shouldn't be overlooked, because the trusting Gordon plays a key role in the plot. He surrounds himself with shady characters at times, and is often the link between Dent and Batman at the beginning of the film.

Story wise, the movie excels. The movie is long, about 2 1/2 hours, but the plot moves along and it's pretty easy to follow. Ledger's character brings all of the villainy together, and he quickly begins dominating the storyline as Bale's Batman begins questioning his role in Gotham. Harvey Dent, Gotham's "White Knight" has a hard time maintaining his perfect public image, and eventually an old comic favorite jumps into the fray. The story revolves around human nature, from Batman and Dent's personal struggle to find a balance between justice and personal ambition, to the Joker's testing of society. Society ends up winning out, but not without some incredibly close calls and a few people making bad decisions. The only political moment in the film comes when Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) has to decide whether or not to effectively "wiretap". He makes the right decision, doing what's necessary for the safety of the people of Gotham but also not supporting using the machine outside of extraordinary circumstances. Overall, the movie will leave you thinking, will leave you impressed, and will leave you hoping that Ledger wins a posthumous Oscar. See The Dark Knight, you won't regret it.

Well, I haven't done a movie review in a while. Actually, I haven't done anything but dissect the race so that I can help prevent another Billary Presidency, so this should be a welcome shock of relief. I saw Cloverfield last weekend, and I decided to write about it now since Ace and Bryan Preston both just weighed in on it. I'm not much for rating movies on a star system, so I suppose I'll say it's on my top 20 favorite movies ever, which is a pretty big accomplishment. Let's get to it.

Warning: Movie Spoilers Beyond This Point.

First off, everyone that has written about Cloverfield has talked about the shaky camera. I have to say, only if you have ADD will the camerawork both you, and it's because the movie's action will draw you in and make you ignore the shotty angles. Hell, most of the time, the shotty angles give Cloverfield the realistic element that makes it work so well. When J.J. Abrams was touting the movie, he said he made it because there hasn't been a real American monster movie. He said King Kong was just a giant ape. That sums up his view on creating this bad boy, and once you see it, you'll see just how right he got it.

The movie opens up with the ending revealed, sort of. You essentially know from the get-go that this thing isn't ending well, so you can mentally prepare yourself through about 15 minutes of boring scenes that serve to introduce the film's funniest character, Hud, the cameraman. The only reason you can stand these 15 minutes is because you saw the preview and you're waiting for the attack, and because from time to time Hud loses focus on what he's doing and the camera takes an unexpected turn towards some chick's chest. Like I said, it's realistic. You get a basic who's who amongst the characters, then it gets into the action, and you're in an entirely different movie.

The trailer's short depiction of the attack is expanded upon, and there's a decent build-up before you see a significant portion of the monster. My friends weren't exactly impressed by the actual monster creation, but I was, mainly because of it's ability to wreak havoc without being overtly silly, much in the way we look at King Kong and Godzilla now. The simple nature of the monster makes it work. The military responds to the attack, just as you'd expect, with rockets, machine guns, tanks, and bombs. Their efficiency however is hampered by their unwillingness to truly knock the creature out until they can properly evacuate as much of the civilian population as possible. That strategy rings true because that's what our military does, it's who they are.

Several scenes make the movie absolutely memorable. Without giving too much away, a quick scamper through the subways, a walk through central park, and the first time you see two buildings they know they have to go through. You won't forget these moments, and they make Cloverfield stand out in your mind. It breaks the mold when it comes to horror, because it's not exactly scary, and monster movies, because it's not exactly predictable. It also breaks the mold in film-making because the you're in the movie perspective hasn't been pulled off before as well as it could have.

In closing, I thought the movie was great, and I'm definately picking it up on DVD (if not heading back to the theaters to see it again). My expectations were pretty high, and I can't say Cloverfield beat them, but it was an entirely different movie than the one I expected. Characters seemed real, the plot was engaging, and most importantly, there was a big ass monster. Go see it.

I know I'm a bit late on this one, and I've been slacking on my promise to bring you guys movie reviews. Pursuit of Happyness, Casino Royale, World Trade Center, United 93, and Spiderman 3 were all requested to be reviewed by some of you guys, and I apologize that I never got to those. I figure I'll review Transformers before it leaves theaters.

Transformers follows the tale of Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), finding out about his grandfather's history and learning about the existence of alien robots in the universe. Throughout the movie he has an evolving love interest with Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), and they both end up being the driving human characters in the film. Witwicky goes to buy a vehicle, a used camaro, which ends up being the robot Bumblebee (voiced by Mark Ryan). Bumblebee leads Sam and Mikaela to discovering the presence of more Autobots, and the discovery of the Deceptacons, which are trying to find the Allspark, a device they would use to take over the universe. That's an incredibly short synopsis of the plot.

Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), is easily the coolest source of action in the film, being the leader of the autobots and the strongest of the Transformers, aside from the primary enemy Megatron. The special effects and action in the movie were incredibly good looking, but with Speilberg being executive producer it didn't surprise me that much. Another source of action is Army Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel). The military is portrayed rather positively and they help bring down some of the Deceptacons throughout the movie. The added human touch differentiates this movie with the animated film from 1986, as does the twist ending (which I won't reveal).

The movie has some surprising comedic moments, including when the various autobots try to hide outside of the Witwicky household quietly, and various scenes with Sam's parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White). One scene, which probably contributes to the movie's PG-13 rating, had Sam searching for something in his room with the door shut and his mom though he was masturbating. Another constant source of humor is an agent from Sector 7, a government agency that knows about the Transformers existence, Agent Simmons (John Turturro). Conspiracy theorists would love the movie's explanation for the existance of the Hoover Dam.

John Voigt does an excellent job playing the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States is never seen in the movie, except in a scene where his feet are visible on Air Force One, and he asks a stewardess to get him "a ding-dong." Rachael Taylor and Anthony Anderson play your tech geeks in the movie, playing a signal analyst and a hacker respectively. More humorous clips erupt when Anderson is on screen, including a clip with him and his brother playing Dance Dance Revolution.

Overall, I think a few things make this a great movie. The injection of humor into scenes that are there to move the movie along makes you forget about the fact that things aren't exploding on screen, and when things are exploding on scene, you won't be looking away. Megan Fox makes the movie interesting in some parts, and was a great pick for the female hottie. If you liked the old Transformers, you're almost sure to love the movie, although a friend of mine said he didn't like Optimus Prime because, "He had a nose." If you're willing to overlook the minor changes made, it's enjoyable. The plot moves along quickly despite it being a relatively long movie, and the casting was just about as good as it could be. All in all, I have to say you'll be glued to the screen and won't fall asleep, unless you're a 12-year-old with ADD.