[Movie] "Insidious" review

MINOR SPOILERS but nothing that would spoil the movie for you, when you watch it.

You don't see too many completely original horror movies being released. Because it's all been done before. Typically, "Insidious" is a melting pot of themes and techniques from other horror flicks. You've got your creepy kids, strange events that get more full-on as the movie progresses, and a nice (if predictable) twist at the end. You're looking at people running past in the background, kids laughing, baby monitors picking up some ill shit, bloody handprints, and so on.

Brilliantly, Insidious doesn't waste 30 minutes setting everything up. It gets started pretty quickly and snowballs from there. So it's definitely entertaining. There are some real jump-out-of-your-seat moments, and the general build-up of tension is very well done. In particular, the part with somebody walking back and forth outside her window, on the roof awning, made me shake like a little girl.

I lost all my fear towards the end -- I thought they went a bit over the top with some of those final scenes. But the ending was decent so it's still a winner in my book.

One problem I had was with the use of torches, or "flashlights" as they're inexplicably called in America. They never look right in movies, do they? They light up a tiny section of the room. Sure it's scary, but even a $5 Chinese LED torch will light up more than that.

Insidious - 4 out of 5
Not as scary as some IMDb reviews were suggesting, but definitely a good movie. I can't say I wasn't scared for most of it (or I should say, "I was scared for most of it").

-Gray

--- SPOILERS BELOW ---

Questions for anybody who has already seen this movie:

1) What happened to Mr. Stereotypical Goat-Footed Demon Man? After his Spider-Man act, we never saw him again.

2) Why do the ghosts in these movies always seem to be from the olden days? I'm sick of old women with veils, and men in old-fashioned clothing. Why is there never any modern-looking ghosts? Or to go the other way, why is there never any caveman ghosts?

3) Unfortunately, it's yet another movie where some basic combat training would have solved things very quickly. If you're going to go toe-to-toe with a supernatural being, at least learn some basic shit (Krav Maga). Every time we see that Undertaker-looking guy with the demented face, the characters are paralysed with fear. I just wanted them to punch him right in the nose. Lights out, game over, the good guys win. But it never goes down that way in the movies ... 

[Movie] "Drive Angry" review

Drive Angry is sort of an "intentionally corny" movie. Slightly similar to "Death Proof" in a couple of ways. Throw in some "Constantine" too. As long as you don't take it seriously, it's decent.

It's the kind of movie where a guy gets blown back by a single bullet. Where the "hero" can somehow avoid getting shot even when two cops unload from 10 feet away. Where cars can do improbable stunts, and the chick always has perfect hair and makeup no matter what she's just been through.

I'll be honest -- you take away Amber Heard and the movie would suffer. But whatever. Nicholas Cage plays his standard character -- softly spoken, with plenty of squinting and a slightly strange walk. The special effects are pretty poor, but there is hardly any in the entire movie so it's fine.

I can't really call it a good movie, but it didn't make me want to stop watching.

Drive Angry - 4 out of 5 (3 out of 5 if you don't like watching Amber Heard)

-Gray

[Movie] "Hanna" review

Hard to describe this without basically describing the entire movie. It's pretty basic. Watch the trailer here on YouTube. It's basically about a girl that gets trained from birth to be a hunter/killer/survivor or something. Then some paedophile woman from the FBI called Cate Blanchette is trying to kill her, or catch her, or something.

Eric Bana plays the father of the kid. In my mind, Eric Bana is always going to be Poiter, so it's hard for me to accept him as a German-accented assassin in this movie. Typecasting -- it's a bitch.

The albino teenage girl who stars in the film does a pretty good job I suppose.

All in all, it's a bit art-house for my tastes, but I still enjoyed this film. I recommend it if you like East European movies with slightly dubious pacing but good acting and scripting. And who doesn't?

Hanna - 3 out of 5

-Gray

[Movie] "Transformers 2" review

I can't even review this properly. The level of awful that this so-called "movie" has reached is unbelievable. In fact, if you take out Megan Fox ... I would literally rather spend 2.5 hours weeding, than watching this again. I mean that quite literally. It's painful.

Pathetic, weak story, special effects everywhere, stupid characters with no personalities (that includes the robots too), childish jokes throughout ... I would LOVE to hear somebody say they enjoyed this movie. Just so that I can ask what they liked about it. And then tear them apart with reason and logic.

I just Googled "transformers 2 sucks" and got 1.8 million results. I'm just saying.

Transformers 2 - 0 out of 5
Definitely in my top 10 "Worst Movies I've Ever Seen" ... Hey that would be a good blog entry to do.

-Gray

[Movie] "Sucker Punch" review

NO SPOILERS HERE.

I went into this expecting to turn it off in disgust, and then write a scathing post about how shit it was. Unfortunately, they've made a great little movie here. The trailer sold this movie way short. You could say I got "Sucker Punched" by this movie ... Hey? Hey? You see what I did there?

The action scenes are completely saturated in slow motion, wire effects, and CGI up the yin-yang -- but because these scenes take place in a sort of "dream world", it works really well. You know how in a dream, things are actually really strange and vivid? But you never notice this during the dream, only after you wake up. "Oh wow, I was flying in that dream. Weird." But when you're actually having the dream, you're just like "Yep, let me just fly over here .. Oh wait there is my old teacher from 3rd grade.".

The main points of this movie are: fairly interesting story if you can get a grip on it, incredibly sexy chicks who wear the most sexy outfits and look absolutely perfect in every single shot, and pretty mindblowing action scenes which fit within the context of the plot. It's almost as if they took the best bits of The Matrix, replaced Keanu Reeves with several smoking hot girls, and stripped out all the babble about destiny and free-will, replacing it with pure, undiluted awesomness.

So I'm not raving about "Why don't they ever get bruised? Why does their makeup always look perfect? Why are they suddenly able to swing a sword like a Japanese master?" It doesn't matter because it's a dream.

Overall, it's not as brainless as I thought. I pretty much predicted the overall plot, but not completely. And I'm still not sure I understand everything. So yes, there is definitely some meat on the bones here. And the chicks in mini-skirts and other sexy apparel is just the icing on the cake. The main character is just so damn sexy. Probably not in real life. But in this movie she looks incredible.

Just rent this movie, it's well worth a watch. I'm going to watch it again in a few days time.

Sucker Punch - 5 out of 5 for guys (if you're a girl, subtract 1 point, unless you're lesbian)

Disclaimer - one thing I simply cannot forgive is the use of the old "three-point landing". You know what I'm talking about; when somebody lands on the ground with one knee down, one foot down, and one hand down. Then they look up past the camera with a dramatic expression on their face. You see it in movies all the time, and it happens about 48 times in Sucker Punch. It's the most stupid concept I've ever seen. You would literally break less bones if you just landed in a limp pile.

-Gray

[Movie] "Super 8" Review (SPOILERS)

Well I'm glad I only dropped $10 on this piece of rubbish. The name "Steven Spielberg" used to stand for something. It stood for quality, story, and other useful things. How he attached himself to "Super 8",  I'll never know.

Take "Cloverfield" and add a pinch of "Signs", and a dash of "E.T.". That's the recipe for this movie. The strange thing is, I liked those movies, whereas "Super 8" stinks worse than my socks after riding my bike in the heat for 4 hours.

Kids discover an alien invasion, somehow survive while trained soldiers around them are brutally slain, the girl get's taken by the beast, the main character rescues her, he manages to communicate with the creature, and then everybody watches it safely return to it's home planet, while hugging, with nice music playing. Even more predictable than "Transformers".

Of course, you have to have a love interest for the main character. And she has to get saved from certain death, at the last possible second. And then hug him while emotional string music plays, even though they are literally in the den of a massive beast and would probably be blubbering and screaming, running for their lives. Pathetic. Unrealistic.

You've got your all-American main character with the boyish good looks, then you've got your slightly-goofy sidekick for comic relief. The overweight kid gets jealous over the main character's budding relationship with the girl. So that's a 30 second scene. Then they don't explore it further. In fact, character development is basically zero. The two fathers who hate each other, suddenly mend their differences and become friends during the crises. This is covered in a 30 second driving scene. 

I have no idea who this movie is aimed at. It's too scary for kids, with the "sudden noise" jumps all over the place, and the nasty looking creature killing people left and right.

But no intelligent person over the age of 18 should enjoy this film. So I'm confused about who it's designed to entertain. I guess -- nobody.

Super 8 - 2 out of 5.
Avoid!

-Gray