I’ve taken a lot of flack over the years for being the one person on earth that enjoyed Ang Lee’s Hulk. I could never understand what the problem was. He was a comic book character and for me the movie was fun to watch. I like Eric Bana. I really like Jennifer Connelly. He rips a tank apart! Whatever, judge me if you like.. I enjoyed it.
However.
I saw the new Hulk this weekend, and I guess you were all right… Ang Lee’s Hulk is just an ugly bastard of a movie in comparison. This is what a Hulk movie should be. Ridiculous over the top tense and exciting action sequences, enjoyable characters (good interplay between Norton and Tyler, although Jennifer Connelly was much more ‘appealing’), fantastic superpowers, great CGI and most importantly a ton of fun. This movie will get an assload of play on my home theater when it comes to DVD.
The CGI had a few moments of ‘eh’ .. you know where you look at it, and something seems off but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Overall though it was top notch. The integration of live action and 3d was especially noteworthy, which is where most movies have issues. This is where the Hulk excels, pitting his massive frame against normal sized individuals had an awesome impact.
Definitely go check this one out. It’s a 10 in my book.. not an Iron Man 10, but a 10 nonetheless.
P.S. No need to stay past the end credits this time… they throw you the bone right before it ends.
M. Night Shyamalan’s summer flick ‘The Happening’ came out this past weekend. If you’ve been keeping track with us over here (slackers I know) we discussed this movie a few weeks back and the scare the pants off you red band trailer that was on line.
I had high hopes for this. I like M.N.S. and most of his movies. I like the approach and the feel. I liked that this seemed to be going edgier, with his first R rated production. The first trailer had me intrigued, the red band trailer had me sold. I bought my ticket, alongside enough others for it to rake in a very respectable $35 million or so on its opening weekend.
Here’s the big twist with this one. How did a trailer with so much awesome result in a movie with so much suck? I could go into a myriad of reasons why this movie failed to deliver, and I am pretty much the most forgiving movie critic in the world. I like just about every movie I see ( except Diary of the Dead, my new favorite ‘most horrible movie ever’) and even I had trouble finding redeeming qualities with this movie. It did have a good sense of dread, had some decent creepiness… but when/if you see it, your response will probably be something like this.
“Seriously??!?”
{internal dialogue}
Something else must be coming…
So we took in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend, with I admit some apprehension because of some mixed reviews coming out. It’s a good thing I don’t listen to critics because I thought it was great. Great story, strong performances, familiar faces and just some good old fashioned fun.
A lot of people have been coming down on the story, and I think this is where I am going to differ the most. The film definitely has a sci-fi bend to it and for me that works great. I think because the first films delved heavily into theology in one form or another, people were expecting the same. They all deal with some sort of mysticism, the new film included. The mysticism simply has its roots in different areas.
Harrison Ford and Karen Allen held up pretty well. They both look like they have aged 20 years, but they are still watchable and attractive people that fit comfortably into their roles. Shia Lebeouf also gave a great performance once again, he’s shaping into a great actor.
If you enjoyed the first three Indy flicks you should not leave the theater disappointed in any way.
A new red-band trailer for Tropic Thunder is online and it looks absolutely over the top. Robert Downey Jr. looks to be hitting big again, and some early screenings have met with extremely positive reviews.
Alas we will have to wait for August, but I think that’s a good thing. Usually we only get crap towards the end of the summer movie season, maybe this year will be different.