Incident in a Ghostland

Was sort of expecting basic bitch slasher, but it goes in a few different directions that has me shook. Lovely, and a bit sad.

3/4

 

The Invisible Man

Sigh. Easily the best movie I saw in what has unfortunately been a short cinematic year. Elizabeth Moss is stellar and just one of many recent performances that make me wish we had some type of prestigious awards ceremony for just horror movies and their performances as well. She's really great. And I liked how they tied in the elements of supernatural and mental as well. Not only does she have to worry about her ex who committed suicide coming after her in invisible form, she has to worry about the state of her mental health due to the lack of support from anyone around her. Because of course this is that type of scenario where someone swears something is going on and everyone and their mother unintentionally (and in some cases intentionally) is gas lighting her, making her question what is real and what is not. Which is in turn more bone chilling then an invisible figure who could cut your throat at a moment's notice (nudge nudge).

3/4

It Follows

It resonates,  terrifies, and is as infectious as the curse the central character faces.

4/4

Insurgent

For a movie about standing out and not playing it safe, the movie decides to ironically go against both ideas.

1/4

Inherent Vice

What a trippy, odd, unforgettable blast. Inherent Vice will take you to a world of such a serious world of crime, poverty, druggies, and coked-out dentists that's it's such a blast when you realize the whole thing is played for comedy.

The players are more then willing to work the joke. What's most fascinating is how when you first meet or hear about each of the characters, the actor plays the role to such a versatility no one ends up as expected. Joaquin Phoenix's character Doc at first sounds like such a dead-end, hopeless guy, but there's such an underplayed charisma to Phoenix's performance you end up entranced by the charmer.

Doc's trip into mayhem is all for his ex-girlfriend Shasta, he's helping finding her current boyfriend whose disappeared, while her boyfriend's wife, and her boyfriend were planning on committing him to the nut house for money. Shasta is such a fascinating character as well. At first when we see her, she seems to be the average damsel in distress, but there's such a mystery and allure that Katherine Waterston brings to the character, you see why Doc would risk his life for this beauty. You wish she was on screen more, and it's a shame that her best, most revealing, most personal scene is one that will never be shown on commericals.

Doc's main ally in this quest is Bigfoot, played by Josh Brolin who almost walks away with the movie. He's such an enigma of a a character they could have made a spin-off of this movie based off his characteristics alone. Brolin is stellar and it's a travesty that he wasn't nominated for an Oscar.

One of the biggest complaints I've read about this movie is that there's too much going on, there's a scene late in the movie where Doc sits there just trying to piece together how everyone and everything is related, and it's easy for the viewer to feel like they're in a similar boat. By this point I realized you're not supposed to really have a "point A to point B" type of mindset and just go along for the ride. If you want to look at this as a straight-forward crime/drama about a man discovering the truth, go ahead. If you want to look at this as a man's vivid and wildly inventive hallucination used to get over an ex-girlfriend, go ahead. If you want to look at this as a love story about a man who will do anything to retrieve his unattainable, unrestriced ex, then go ahead. Inherent Vice makes a solid case for all of the above, proving that sometimes in life the end isn't so much as important as the journey you take to get there.

4/4

Interstellar

A work of beauty, Interstellar soars

B ecause of the heart and soul throughout

C an you find a bigger piece of eye candy?

D oubt it

E ven though some dialogue is lost in space

F orget it all and let Interstellar take you away

4/4

Insidious 2

Add Insidious 2 to the list of sequels that should have never been made, expanding on things for no reason and occupying over 90 minutes to accomplish nothing.

Insidious 2 picks up where the previous film left off, with a dead psychic (Lin Shaye), a husband who is looking more then a bit guilty for her death (Patrick Wilson) and a wife who feels her spouse has changed ever since he went into the other world to locate their son (Rose Byrne). The Lamberts are still being haunted by the spirits from the first movie and everyone is feeling like Josh (Wilson) may have brought some of them back with him.

My biggest problem with Insidious 2 is that everything just feels so thrown together and half-assed. The story feels really sloppy and patched together. Twists are thrown in here and there just to keep things moving and too many subplots are opened (do we really care that the lead demonic spirit has a fucked up son who can't keep a shirt on?). The scares feel lazy here, as opposed to The Conjuring where the scares were planned out with skilled technique and precision, Insidious just rests on the coattails of the previous entry and all of the talent involved.

As opposed to going for scares, Insidious feels oddly fixated on going for the laughs, it almost feels like a spoof of the first at times. Too many scenes are intended for comic relief and even a few which were aiming for thrills just are too silly and overdone to be taken seriously.

Even the actors don't seem up to par this round. Patrick Wilson has a large percentage of the material resting on his shoulders with his transformation to the dark side and he just doesn't seem up to game, instead of coming off as sinister/menacing he just feels grumpy and maybe needing a nap. Rose Byrne is a talented actress but here her role feels as if it were reduced to a look of fear in every scene she's in. To say it gets old is an understatement.

Even the visuals feels cheapened at times I feel like I was watching a poorly put together carnival ride based on Insidious.

To make matters worse, Insidious 2 couldn't possibly end any worse. It's bad enough that things end as expected as possible with the Lambert family but the final scenes expanding on a last second twist involving the ghost hunters just feels terribly cheapened. There's some true evil at work if a part three to this series is ever made.

1/4

Iron Man 3

Starting out the Summer on a disappointing note is Iron Man 3, a film, which similar to the main character's suit, falls apart more often then it needs to.

The old gang is still here. Robert Downey is still smartassing his way to victory as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Don Cheadle is always by his side as Colonel James Rhodes, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper, Stark's damsel in distress girlfriend. All three of these actors do the best with the little creativity in the material that they're given. A third paycheck was the clear and only motivation to come back for this.

The newbies.....don't fare as well. The villains this time are about as interesting as watching paint dry. Ben Kingsley plays "The Mandarin", a terrorist who proclaims he really isn't a terrorist, displaying all his acts for the world to see. Sadly his character is about as menacing as a trip to the dentist, there's no intrigue or menace in his delivery or his lines, and a late plot twist shoots for cheap laughs but just ends up feeling cheap.

Guy Pearce doesn't fare much better. He plays Aldrich Killian, a scientist whose bitter that Tony Stark didn't have a meeting with him on the roof years before (no joke), and now he's bent on destroying the world by implanting devices that turn humans into machines that just look like humans. His character feels dull as dirt and the later scenes with the transformations the humanoids make look terribly cartoonish. It's strange how some scenes in the movie look like they cost a million dollars to make and the rest look like child's play

And the less said about Rebecca Hall's "Am I good or bad or good pretending to be bad whose really good" character, the better.

Iron Man 3 just feels so threadbare in terms of plot and pacing, by the end you feel it's like pulling teeth just to see the end credits roll. Humor has been removed, the fun feels forced, and keeping this movie going for 130 minutes just feels like punishment for the eyes and attention span. Add in a terribly bland final battle and a conclusion that feels like a total cop-out, and you have a movie that was bound for destruction. Time to hang up your suit, Tony.

1/4

The Impossible

A movie about tragedy clearly has to be tragic, but why the overkill? The Impossible takes the level of maudlin and melancholy and cranks it to a level where you feel like your eyes and ears will either bleed or cry. After a strong start, The Impossible sinks and ultimately just ends up as silly and overworked.

The Impossible does have strengths though, definitely present in the stellar performances. Naomi Watts is groundbreaking as Maria, the non-practicing doctor turned heroine who will stop at nothing to protect her family. Ewan McGregor also shines as her husband Henry. Though he isn't given as much material to work with, when he is on screen his portrayal will demand your attention. All of the children, most notably Tom Holland as Lucas (whose name you will hear 10,000 times) deliver the goods as well. The scenes with Maria and Lucas (especially when disaster first strikes) are easily the some of the most powerful and effective scenes in the movie.

And speaking of powerful, when it comes to disaster movies, a lot of visual importance is placed on the big destruction scene. The Impossible's first wash of carnage is breathtaking. Amazing scenery, perfectly shot, frighteningly authentic and truly scary. Everything about this scene feels realistic and shines when it comes to putting the viewer into the scenes of the carnage.

And sadly, after this stunningly devastating scene, The Impossible begins to downgrade. After the carnage, The Impossible begins to drag like a corpse. There really isn't much material to work with and I felt like The Impossible ran in circles of what to fill up the screen with, leaving a lot of the last half of the movie feeling quite tedious and unneeded to further the story.

Sappyness begins to strike also. It almost feels like The Impossible is begging for your sadness, it's like a 2 hour ASPCA commercial for your humans, shoving tragedy in your face won't register as true emotion but overkill. There's too many coincidences, forced dramatic scenes and repeated material towards the last half, causing very little enjoyment to be had by the time the credits roll. The visuals & Naomi Watts' performance are on fire, but sadly that is negated by everything else coming off as completely soggy.

2/4

Intruders

Intruders is a poorly delivered joke. And I mean that in the nicest way possible (though I certainly wouldn't call it a very good movie at all). I would compare the Intruders to a joke that starts out with a good premise, but by the time the person is done telling it...the joke has been running forever with such a poor delivery that it's impossible to have interest by the end. Intruders is like watching a good idea fall down the stairs and end up with a broken neck.

Intruders stars Clive Owen as John, a father whose daughter is having horrific nightmares about a faceless monster looking to steal her face. Simultaneously, in another country, a little boy is also having similar nightmares about this monster that's coming to get them. But what do the two children have in common? As the movie unfolds, the least that can be said, is that these two children have more similarities than they would have ever imagined, and that this monster named "Hollowface" is targeting them for a specific reason.

Like I said, Intruders had good potential. There's an intriguing premise behind this movie and I must admit fo a while, I was actually quite curious to see where it would go. Unfortunately, watching this movie for excitement and thrills is like running through mud to improve your speed. So many flat and lifeless scenes are thrown on in this movie, it seems more like your watching a Lifetime movie's deleted scenes as opposed to a real movie. There never seems to be any present terror here and the movie is unsuccessful at delivering any type of menace at all. Add on an uninspired and cliched ending, and performances that all feel like the actors were on complete auto-pilot the entire time, and you have a movie that warrants a giant alarm to go off before the opening credits roll.

1/4

The Immortals

The plot: The Heraklion King of Crete, Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) starts a war with Olympus after the Gods answer his prayers. He also starts searching for the Epirus Bow, which he intends to use to release the Titans from Mount Tartarus and destroy all of the gods. The only people that have any chance of stopping him are a small group of individuals, mainly the virgin oracle priestess Phaedra (Frieda Pinto) and Theseus (Henry Cavill).

The good: This is a bit hard for me considering I find there to be very little redeeming about Immortals, but I will say the special effects and scenery are certainly worth of honorable mentions. Whoever worked on the effects deserves an Academy award nomination, the locations of the movie are beautiful and though the effects tend to wear out their welcome at the end (this will be mentioned more so in the other column), they are certainly the best thing about this movie. If you are someone who is into the CGI and all that stuff...this is the movie for you.

The bad: Immortals is full of bad. Bad meets bad who cheated on worse. First off, the performances are a big problem here. Henry Cavill is more rigid than the swords he yields as the lied Theseus. There is not one moment of passion or energy throughout any of his scenes. Stiff as a board, he might as well be reading out of a History textbook. And as gorgeous as Frieda Pinto is, her character is pretty pointless as well. She's given nothing to do sadly which I'll blame more on the bad writing than her. Everyone else is just ridiculously overdone here, especially Stephen Dorff as the "comic relief" and Mickey Rourke as the antagonist.

The writing is another huge issue, it's laughable. I've seen more realistic, plausible, and informative dialogue on Spongebob. The characters are paper thin and you don't really understand what's so special about any of them. Isn't Greek mythology all about the grandeur, power, strength, and courage of the people who are involved in the stories? You don't find out anything about any of them, so there's absolutely no reason to care about what's going on with them.

And to make matters worse, Immortals is just boring as hell. It's like a bad knockoff of 300 minus the fun and adding a ton of cheesy dialogue and uninteresting stories. Nothing intriguing happens from beginning to end and the fighting is almost painful to watch by the end. Once you've seen one person get their head bashed off/in, you've seen it all. Only one fight in the movie stood out to me (even though you can barely tell what's going on at times), and you have to wait over an hour and a half to get to it. Talk about payoff.

The gist: Immortals is just a big fail of an action movie about Greek mythology. It takes an interesting subject and sumo wrestles it into the ground, producing a tedious, wooden, poorly acted and written montonous disease that takes forever to end. Playing Halo for 2 hours straight will give you a better payoff than the Immortals; awesome special effects + the ability to be entertained- the need to watch ten dollars fly into the trash quicker than a rat.

1/4