Did you ever order a steak dinner and get a tough steak, bland potatoes, and a wilted salad. Oh, it may taste ok once you add A-1 on the steak, salt and butter on the potatoes and dressing on the salad but you're still disappointed. Australia is kind of like that, only for it to truly be like that particular steak dinner, the steak would have to come to life, kick you on the crotch, expose itself to your date then run out and take a leak on your car.
Somehow or other, director Bax Luhrmann managed to convince studio executives to let him make a long and ridiculously expensive three hour film "epic" even though the only truly epic aspect is it's three hour length. I've heard stories that 20th Century Fox's owner, native born Aussie and Sith Lord Rupert Murdoch, fell in love with fellow Aussie Luhrmann's vision of the film and started handing out checks to him in the same way that a crack dealer would hand out crack to crack addicts if they gave away crack instead of charging for it. Which they don't. This resulted in total creative freedom for a director whose two biggest directorial achievements were remaking Romeo and Juliet in the style of a campy drag show and Moulin Rouge, a movie that looks like it was made by having Luhrmann wire a camera directly into his brain so that he could actually film an acid trip he was having.
The movie opens in England in 1939 where Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is actually considering leaving her perfectly decent country to see what her husband has been up to while on a trip to Faraway Downs, the vast Australian cattle ranch they own. It's odd to me that a movie whose creators were trying to glorify their home country ended up portraying said country as the planet's armpit but that's pretty much how Australia makes the real Australia look. After ignoring all the people who said, "Uh, you know, we're about to go to war with Germany, don't you think it'd be a bad time to travel halfway around the world?" she sets sail and ends up in the city of Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory. I know it was 1939 but I'd like that one of Australia's most prominent cities had more going for it than the broken down buildings, manure filled streets and endless array of backwoods drongos that fill this movie. The Japanese bombed this place in 1942 because they thought it was an essential and important target and, if this movie was all I had to go on, I have to ask why they bothered. A pig farm in Alabama would have been a better target than the Darwin of this movie's world.
We also meet The Drover (Hugh Jackman). Drover is the only name we're ever told he has which really limited his career options. It would be tough to enter the world of physics research or high finance with a name like The Drover. Drover was sent by Sarah's husband to escort her over the long journey to Faraway Downs. Drover shows how seriously he takes that responsibility by getting into a bar fight just as her ship pulls into the harbor. As they travel over the godforsaken spot of the Earth that is the Northern Territories during the dry season, Sarah and Drover develop the kind of childish contempt for one another that good looking people in movies always develop when, in fact, they are destined to sleep together.
When they arrive at Faraway Downs, they discover that Sarah's husband has been killed, possibly by an Aboriginal shaman named King George. We also meet Nullah, a character who is another example of what not to do when you're trying to make a movie showing the rest of the world how awesome your country is. Nullah is the son of an Aborigine mother and a white father. This makes him the target of one of Australia's most shameful historical practices, that being a century-long assimilation program in which children of mixed race were taken from their families and placed into institutions where, as one particularly racist character puts it, they can "breed the black out of them." Nullah lives with his mother on the ranch but always has to hide when the authorities show up so he doesn't get taken. Sarah, a woman who can't have children, bonds with Nullah after his mother dies and even talks of adopting him since his father, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), is a huge dick who couldn't care less about Nullah. Fletcher is also the movie's main villain who, while working as a ranch hand at Faraway Downs, is also secretly working for rival cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown). Carney's goal is to dominate the beef industry in the Northern Territory so that he can fulfill his dream of becoming a sleazy war profiteer by charging the British military a ridiculous price for the beef it needs to feed the troops who are about to fight Germany.
After Sarah gets Drover to help her organize the cattle drive from Faraway Downs to Darwin, they discover that it was actually Fletcher who killed her husband and is now doing things like having her cattle stampede and poison all the water holes in the desert. It should come as no surprise that they manage to overcome all that, get the cows to market on time and foil Carney and Fletcher's plan to screw over the military during wartime. It should also come as no surprise that Sarah and Drover suddenly notice that they are the two hottest people in Australia and jump into bed together. Sarah, at least, did show her late husband the respect of waiting a good two weeks or so before letting another man penetrate her but, in her defense, sex, up to this point in her life, was only something she did when she wanted her wealthy husband to buy her a new necklace and not the delightfully filthy stuff she does with The Drover.
So, there you have it, the whole predictable plot of this dreadfully average movie and OH MY FREAKIN GOD THE MOVIE'S NOT EVEN HALF OVER YET. Yes, we have to see these boring, two dimensional characters (especially Fletcher, one of the least interesting movie villains I've seen in a while) stretch this snooze fest out for another 90 minutes. Over the next couple of years, we see how smart Drover is by choosing to drove cattle for six months at a time instead of living as a ranch manager at Faraway Downs with the most beautiful woman he's ever known and we see how smart Sarah is by tolerating this. We also see that 11 year old Nullah possesses what must be some sort of ancient Aboriginal power to not grown an inch even though the story stretches from 1939 to 1942.
So, if your idea of a good time at the movies is watching pretty people doing boring things with spectacular shots of the Australian wild in the background, then Australia is definitely for you. At least there weren't any biker gangs looking for gasoline. Sorry, couldn't resist that.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Been Down So Long I Don't Know What Up Is
I'm swamped today and have no time to write today so here a short review of Australia:
Average, skip it.
Hopefully I'll have the longer version up tomorrow.
Average, skip it.
Hopefully I'll have the longer version up tomorrow.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Well Tonight Thank God It's Them Instead Of You
Four Christmases is a celebration. Oh, not a celebration of the holiday season, friends, family, values, laughter and the human spirit that the commercials are trying to make you think it is. Rather, this is a celebration of assholes. In fact, if this movie was all you had to go on, you'd think that big holiday in December should be renamed Christmasshole and, instead of a friendly, loving, jolly old fat man leaving toys for the kids, Santa would enter your home, drink all your liquor, watch porn on your pay-per-view and leave bones and stains from the hot wings he ate all over your living room. When you woke up in the morning, you'd say, "Aw man, Santa was here. What an asshole."
When the movie opens, we meet Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon). Brad and Kate are an asshole couple living in San Francisco who lie and tell their families that they are going to spend Christmas in Burma doing charity work so they can spend the holidays on a cruise in Fiji. They are, however, perfectly content and happy assholes. They have good jobs, an interesting and creative sex life (they are role playing in a bar when we first see them) and, most importantly, their negative views on marriage are in perfect sync. These are views that they are more than happy to share with random strangers so that said random strangers get depressed about their own marriages and jealous of Brad and Kate's blissful situation. They do this because that's what assholes do. Unfortunately for them, a news crew catches them just as their fligh to Fiji is delayed by fog. Their parents see them on TV and know that they are now free to visit them on Christmas which means they must make trips to four different households in one day (both sets of parents are divorced).
During the course of the movie, we learn the following things: Brad and Kate's status as assholes was something they apparently inherited, watching people being tormented in various ways by their families is at best only mildly amusing to watch and worst extremely painful to watch, and that days in San Francisco are 102 hours long. That's the only way to explain how they visited four different households, at least one of which was out in the woods, and spent several hours at each one all in one day.
One of the most interesting things I noticed (since the plot held little interest for me) was that all four of the parents were played by Oscar winners. Brad's father was played by Robert Duvall who, throughout his distinguished career, has played unforgettable roles in movies like The Godfather, The Great Santini, and Tender Mercies as well as the classic TV mini-series Lonesome Dove has now decided that he no longer wants the burden of being a legendary actor since in this movie playing an ignorant redneck who laughs when someone in his family does something abusive. I was expecting more from these scenes since Denver, one of Brad's brothers, was played by Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn's old partner from the movie Swingers. Instead, he and Brad's other brother, Dallas, both UFC fighters, literally beat Brad up every chance they get.
This might be a good time to point out that everyone in this movie acts like this is their first day on this planet and that they are unable to grasp concepts like tact, etiquette and boundaries. For instance, Kate got angry when Denver reveals that Brad's real name is Orlando and that he never told her that. However, her self-righteous anger is quickly neutralized when they visit Kate's mother (Mary Steenburgen) who cheerfully and without prodding reveals that Kate experimented with lesbianism when she was younger. I mean WHO THE HELL DOES THAT and, if you did do it, who the hell, upon doing such a thing, wouldn't immediately think, "Golly gee, maybe I shouldn't have just told her boyfriend that Kate may have once had sex with a girl"? I guess I'm wrong about that, though, since Kate's mom not only blurts all this out but even shows pictures from the family photo album of Kate with her girlfriend. Shows what I know.
For some reason, being exposed to everything she hates about domestic family life is causing Kate to modify the worldview she has cultivated all her life and to think that maybe having Brad marry her and knock her up would be awesome. This continues as they visit Brad's mom (Sissy Spacek), a woman who has recently started sleeping with a guy with whom Brad went to school. Katge doesn't understand why being confronted with something like that wouldn't make Brad more amenable to the idea of them starting a family of their own* so she breaks up with him before going to see her father (Jon Voight). Voight is and asshole because...well, let's see, he's actually the one sane, thoughtful and loving human being in the whole movie who graciously invite his ex-wife and her new boyfriend to Christmas dinner so that his granddaughter can spend the holiday with both her grandparents. Voight is the only one of the four Oscar winners and, for that matter, the only person in the movie to keep his dignity and not look like he showed up on the set because his huge paycheck cleared.
There are a few funny moments, like a Nativity play where, though unlikely circumstances, Brad and Kate end up playing Joseph and Mary (although even that glimmer of hope goes on too long) and a scene where Jon Favreau and his Southern redneck stereotype wife played by Katy Mixon win a board game in an amusing way that only people who've been married for a while and truly know everything about each other could have done but those add up to maybe 8 minutes in a two hour movie. Vince Vaughn does well in the movie's Vince Vaughn role, that being a character who, as I've said in other posts, believes that he's the smartest one in the room and behaves accordingly while also trying to hustle his way through life. Still, it can be amusing to watch and makes you think that the movies Vaughn stars in should be funnier.
At least the release of Four Christmases means that the mediocre family comedy that comes out every Christmas has been made and we can all now relax and wait for the mediocre remake of a classic science fiction film and the mediocre cartoon about mice.
Can't wait.
*I have mentioned that all these people are assholes, right?
When the movie opens, we meet Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon). Brad and Kate are an asshole couple living in San Francisco who lie and tell their families that they are going to spend Christmas in Burma doing charity work so they can spend the holidays on a cruise in Fiji. They are, however, perfectly content and happy assholes. They have good jobs, an interesting and creative sex life (they are role playing in a bar when we first see them) and, most importantly, their negative views on marriage are in perfect sync. These are views that they are more than happy to share with random strangers so that said random strangers get depressed about their own marriages and jealous of Brad and Kate's blissful situation. They do this because that's what assholes do. Unfortunately for them, a news crew catches them just as their fligh to Fiji is delayed by fog. Their parents see them on TV and know that they are now free to visit them on Christmas which means they must make trips to four different households in one day (both sets of parents are divorced).
During the course of the movie, we learn the following things: Brad and Kate's status as assholes was something they apparently inherited, watching people being tormented in various ways by their families is at best only mildly amusing to watch and worst extremely painful to watch, and that days in San Francisco are 102 hours long. That's the only way to explain how they visited four different households, at least one of which was out in the woods, and spent several hours at each one all in one day.
One of the most interesting things I noticed (since the plot held little interest for me) was that all four of the parents were played by Oscar winners. Brad's father was played by Robert Duvall who, throughout his distinguished career, has played unforgettable roles in movies like The Godfather, The Great Santini, and Tender Mercies as well as the classic TV mini-series Lonesome Dove has now decided that he no longer wants the burden of being a legendary actor since in this movie playing an ignorant redneck who laughs when someone in his family does something abusive. I was expecting more from these scenes since Denver, one of Brad's brothers, was played by Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn's old partner from the movie Swingers. Instead, he and Brad's other brother, Dallas, both UFC fighters, literally beat Brad up every chance they get.
This might be a good time to point out that everyone in this movie acts like this is their first day on this planet and that they are unable to grasp concepts like tact, etiquette and boundaries. For instance, Kate got angry when Denver reveals that Brad's real name is Orlando and that he never told her that. However, her self-righteous anger is quickly neutralized when they visit Kate's mother (Mary Steenburgen) who cheerfully and without prodding reveals that Kate experimented with lesbianism when she was younger. I mean WHO THE HELL DOES THAT and, if you did do it, who the hell, upon doing such a thing, wouldn't immediately think, "Golly gee, maybe I shouldn't have just told her boyfriend that Kate may have once had sex with a girl"? I guess I'm wrong about that, though, since Kate's mom not only blurts all this out but even shows pictures from the family photo album of Kate with her girlfriend. Shows what I know.
For some reason, being exposed to everything she hates about domestic family life is causing Kate to modify the worldview she has cultivated all her life and to think that maybe having Brad marry her and knock her up would be awesome. This continues as they visit Brad's mom (Sissy Spacek), a woman who has recently started sleeping with a guy with whom Brad went to school. Katge doesn't understand why being confronted with something like that wouldn't make Brad more amenable to the idea of them starting a family of their own* so she breaks up with him before going to see her father (Jon Voight). Voight is and asshole because...well, let's see, he's actually the one sane, thoughtful and loving human being in the whole movie who graciously invite his ex-wife and her new boyfriend to Christmas dinner so that his granddaughter can spend the holiday with both her grandparents. Voight is the only one of the four Oscar winners and, for that matter, the only person in the movie to keep his dignity and not look like he showed up on the set because his huge paycheck cleared.
There are a few funny moments, like a Nativity play where, though unlikely circumstances, Brad and Kate end up playing Joseph and Mary (although even that glimmer of hope goes on too long) and a scene where Jon Favreau and his Southern redneck stereotype wife played by Katy Mixon win a board game in an amusing way that only people who've been married for a while and truly know everything about each other could have done but those add up to maybe 8 minutes in a two hour movie. Vince Vaughn does well in the movie's Vince Vaughn role, that being a character who, as I've said in other posts, believes that he's the smartest one in the room and behaves accordingly while also trying to hustle his way through life. Still, it can be amusing to watch and makes you think that the movies Vaughn stars in should be funnier.
At least the release of Four Christmases means that the mediocre family comedy that comes out every Christmas has been made and we can all now relax and wait for the mediocre remake of a classic science fiction film and the mediocre cartoon about mice.
Can't wait.
*I have mentioned that all these people are assholes, right?
Friday, November 28, 2008
The Elements Of Style
During my day off yesterday, when I out with family and friends or by myself in the dark doing horrific things*, I had time to reflect on the fact that I have been doing this for almost a year now. In that time, I've learned some important things about writing your own movie web site that would probably be helpful to anyone else out there thinking about doing something like this. Oh, I'm not going to cover the obvious stuff. There are loads of sites with helpful writing and blogging tips out there that are just a Google** away. Instead, I'm going to comment on the less obvious stuff that all those other sites seam to have missed.
*I was playing Wrath Of The Lich King.
**That would be the Google Search Engine Internet Web Site to you older people.
***I'm taking a gamble that at least some of you have short term memory problems.
- If you are planning to criticize a movie starring a beautiful, sexy girl like Odette Yustman, please keep in mind that there are many men covering a wide age and class range that have devoted their lives to masturbating to Odette Yustman and girls like her. This means that, when you write a post that simultaneously contains the search terms Odette Yustman, shower and naked, a lot of these guys are going to show up looking for something other than movie commentary.
- Another good way to get people looking for something that isn't there is to give your post a title that has the same name as a famous porn film from the 70s.
- You may think it's funny to take your review of a vampire movie set in Norway and give it the title Skumringen which is the Norweigian word for Twilight. Get it? Norweigian Twilight for Norweigian vampires? Yeah, you may think it's funny but no one else on the planet will. It is an excellent way to confuse Norweigians if confusing Norweigians is something you enjoy doing, but that's about it.
- Spammers can actually leave intelligent and relevant comments so don't automatically rush to delete those comments from people trying to sell you fake money for online multi-player games or the guys who say they can extend the length of your penis by three inches.
- If you jokingly say that spermicidal lube was invented by a guy named Jedidiah Twilight, you will get an extensive email correcting you on that statement as well as giving you more information on spermicidal lube than you ever wanted to know. Trust me, this WILL happen.
- From time to time, espeially if your little hobby blog only has a small number of regular readers, be sure to thank those readers and tell them that they are the finest people the world has to offer...something I have never, ever done. I'd do it now, but it would seem fake.
*I was playing Wrath Of The Lich King.
**That would be the Google Search Engine Internet Web Site to you older people.
***I'm taking a gamble that at least some of you have short term memory problems.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
How To Tell When You're Really Super Famous
You can make a movie about British currency and have it be a huge, holiday season release.
Um, that is the subject of Will Smith's new movie, Seven Pounds, right?
Um, that is the subject of Will Smith's new movie, Seven Pounds, right?
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tomato Soup
Ah Rotten Tomatoes, what would I do without you? Rottentomatoes.com is, of course, the unfortunately named movie themed website best known for collecting movie reviews from all across the country and telling us the percentage of good reviews a movie has through what they call the Tomatometer. The Tomatometer usually makes pretty good calls as to a movie's quality and has helped me on numerous occasions where I have to make a decision as to which comic book adaptation I should go see in any given week. So, what does the Tomatometer have to say about this week's upcoming releases? Mind you, these are all from early reviews and the numbers could change dramatically in the days ahead.
Well, so far it looks like a pretty tepid holiday weekend, movie-wise. The best reviewed movie so far is Australia, a movie that in no way whatsoever rips off the Humphrey Bogart/Katherine Hepburn classic The African Queen. It's about a refined woman played by Nicole Kidman who must work together with a gruff, brash, working class loner played by Hugh Jackman, just like Hepburn and Bogart had to do in The African Queen. They end up overcoming their class restrictions and falling in love in way not at all unlike the way the folks in The African Queen did. Australia, however, takes place during World War II. The African Queen was set during World War I. So there. Right now, Australia has a rating of 58% and is receiving the very definition of "mixed reviews". I heard it was one of the most expensive movies ever made so the only way I see it being a mega-hit is if it was based on a book about vampires that has a rabid teenage girl following. At least this is an Australian movie about something other than gangs riding around a post-apocalyptic Outback looking for gasoline.
Transporter 3 is currently at 43%, not that anyone who was a fan of the other 2 will give a damn. From the ads, it looks pretty much like the other Transporter films in that it will have that cheesy, European action movie look that all cheesy, European action movies have, hence the name. One thing I love is that the director's name is Olivier Megaton. Mr. Megaton was kind enough to take a break from his plot to kill the Justice League and take over the world to direct this movie and we should all thank him for it.
Todd McCarthy of Variety described Four Christmases this way:
That's pretty much the way I see it. My guess is all the laughs are in the TV ads and they aren't that funny. I do have to give kudos to Vince Vaughn for daring to stretch himself as an actor by playing a shiftless, self-centered guy who mainly tries to hustle his way through life and spends most of his time mocking and being condescending to all people, places and things around him. Come Oscar time, I'm betting the Academy won't need much in the way of con-Vince-ing. Four Christmases currently stands at 22% and I don't see it going much higher.
Milk, the lovely, sensitive and dramatic story of Harvey Milk, America's first openly gay politician, has a rating of 100%. Sean Penn is being hailed as delivering some of the best work of his illustrious career and Gus Van Sant is said to have done an amazing job at capturing one of the most important chapters in the history of civil rights for homosexuals. It looks like a wonderful film that expands your worldview and elevates the human spirit itself. This, of course, means that no one will see it.
Well, so far it looks like a pretty tepid holiday weekend, movie-wise. The best reviewed movie so far is Australia, a movie that in no way whatsoever rips off the Humphrey Bogart/Katherine Hepburn classic The African Queen. It's about a refined woman played by Nicole Kidman who must work together with a gruff, brash, working class loner played by Hugh Jackman, just like Hepburn and Bogart had to do in The African Queen. They end up overcoming their class restrictions and falling in love in way not at all unlike the way the folks in The African Queen did. Australia, however, takes place during World War II. The African Queen was set during World War I. So there. Right now, Australia has a rating of 58% and is receiving the very definition of "mixed reviews". I heard it was one of the most expensive movies ever made so the only way I see it being a mega-hit is if it was based on a book about vampires that has a rabid teenage girl following. At least this is an Australian movie about something other than gangs riding around a post-apocalyptic Outback looking for gasoline.
Transporter 3 is currently at 43%, not that anyone who was a fan of the other 2 will give a damn. From the ads, it looks pretty much like the other Transporter films in that it will have that cheesy, European action movie look that all cheesy, European action movies have, hence the name. One thing I love is that the director's name is Olivier Megaton. Mr. Megaton was kind enough to take a break from his plot to kill the Justice League and take over the world to direct this movie and we should all thank him for it.
Todd McCarthy of Variety described Four Christmases this way:
[An] oddly misanthropic, occasionally amusing but thoroughly cheerless holiday attraction.
That's pretty much the way I see it. My guess is all the laughs are in the TV ads and they aren't that funny. I do have to give kudos to Vince Vaughn for daring to stretch himself as an actor by playing a shiftless, self-centered guy who mainly tries to hustle his way through life and spends most of his time mocking and being condescending to all people, places and things around him. Come Oscar time, I'm betting the Academy won't need much in the way of con-Vince-ing. Four Christmases currently stands at 22% and I don't see it going much higher.
Milk, the lovely, sensitive and dramatic story of Harvey Milk, America's first openly gay politician, has a rating of 100%. Sean Penn is being hailed as delivering some of the best work of his illustrious career and Gus Van Sant is said to have done an amazing job at capturing one of the most important chapters in the history of civil rights for homosexuals. It looks like a wonderful film that expands your worldview and elevates the human spirit itself. This, of course, means that no one will see it.
Monday, November 24, 2008
The Ungood
It's been a while since I've done Movies I Haven't Seen and for good reason. The concept here is I review an unreleased movie that is obviously going to suck and warn the world, thus making the planet safe for democracy. The problem is that, occasionally, a movie is a victim of poor marketing (for instance, I liked Role Models even though I hated its ads) that I'm scared to go after anything that isn't really sucky fruit hanging low off a really sucky tree. This means my targets so far have been Larry the Cable Guy, Dane Cook and, of course, An American Carol.
The Unborn, however, is not a 100% surefire disaster. I'd say the odds of it being good are 99 bazillion to one against, but this could be the one out of the 99 bazillion. Before we go any further, let's watch the trailer:
So, what did we learn? First off, the idea that the world's most dangerous profession is to be a beautiful, female babysitter working alone has once again been affirmed. In this case, the babysitter is played by Cloverfield babe Odette Yustman who plays a girl named Casey who, after being overpowered by a four year old, decides to go for a soothing jog. It must be extremely important to the plot that we see her in the shower though how seeing her naked advances the story at all was not revealed in the trailer. I know because I looked at that part over and over trying to glean what must have been the relevant plot point. Anyway, Casey is obviously not one of those girls who obsesses over herself in the mirror since she managed to get into her early 20s without ever noticing that her eyes were different colors. A doctor tells her this can happen with twins but OH DEAR GOD SHE'S AN ONLY CHILD.
But no, it turns out she is not an only child. She had a twin brother who died in the womb which, ordinarily, would have been the end of that except that the dead twin has now returned as some sort of demon kid played by a very lucky young man who got paid to grope Odette Yustman while she was sleeping.
This is when we see "From Producer Michael Bay" a name synonymous with quality, assuming you think that "quality" means "huge hits that routinely wind up on Ten Worst Movies Of The Year lists." This is the first blow of a One-Two Punch the movie receives, the second being, "And David S. Goyer, co writer of Batman Begins and the Dark Knight". Well, okay, that sounds good until you discover that Goyer is actually directing this movie, not just writing it. As a director, Goyer has treated us to such cinematic gems as The Invisible (I don't know what that is and I don't want to know) and Blade: Trinity, the movie that destroyed the Blade series and was such a trauma for Wesley Snipes that he ended up getting convicted in federal court for tax evasion. (I'm sure there was some sort of cause/effect there though I'm not going to try to confirm this because I'll look stupid if there wasn't.) Oh, we also see Gary Oldman, a guy who long ago entered the, "I'll be in anything as long as the check clears," phase of his career. This is the pedigree with which the movie is working.
After this, the trailer goes in an incoherent phase where it starts throwing everything at us to see what sticks. We've got human faced dog, contorted old guys running bug-like across the floor, and an exorcism which, for some reason, had to held in a dark, atmospherically lit room instead of outdoors on a pleasant, sunny day. None of this matters since the evil demon kid had apparently reached all-powerful status.
Another nail in the movie's coffin is that it's coming out in January, the month where bad movies go to die. Releasing a movie in January is one step above a Direct-to-DVD release and it almost always means that the filmmakers said, "Screw it, release it in January and hope nobody notices."
Finally, we see the fifth of the trailer's five distinctly different plots where Casey does what all haunted girls do, roam around by herself in a spooky house and approach some creepy looking woman who is alone in a furniture-free room. Hopefully, this all has a happy ending leaving Casey free to take many public showers in the future.
I believe that I have made a concincing case that The Unborn will be a stupid, incoherent, gory mess which will be unwatchable even with sexy, naked girls in it. The thing about Movies I haven't Seen is that, so far, the movies have turned out to be even worse than I predicted. This means that there is a very real possibility that a rabid raccoon will break into each and every theater that is showing The Unborn and attack the face and genitals of each and every person who buys a ticket since that's the only thing that could make the experience of seeing this movie any worse. Fortunately, you have read this and will know to avoid any theater showing this movie which means you will be the envy of all your horribly disfigured friends who don't read this site.
You're welcome.
The Unborn, however, is not a 100% surefire disaster. I'd say the odds of it being good are 99 bazillion to one against, but this could be the one out of the 99 bazillion. Before we go any further, let's watch the trailer:
So, what did we learn? First off, the idea that the world's most dangerous profession is to be a beautiful, female babysitter working alone has once again been affirmed. In this case, the babysitter is played by Cloverfield babe Odette Yustman who plays a girl named Casey who, after being overpowered by a four year old, decides to go for a soothing jog. It must be extremely important to the plot that we see her in the shower though how seeing her naked advances the story at all was not revealed in the trailer. I know because I looked at that part over and over trying to glean what must have been the relevant plot point. Anyway, Casey is obviously not one of those girls who obsesses over herself in the mirror since she managed to get into her early 20s without ever noticing that her eyes were different colors. A doctor tells her this can happen with twins but OH DEAR GOD SHE'S AN ONLY CHILD.
But no, it turns out she is not an only child. She had a twin brother who died in the womb which, ordinarily, would have been the end of that except that the dead twin has now returned as some sort of demon kid played by a very lucky young man who got paid to grope Odette Yustman while she was sleeping.
This is when we see "From Producer Michael Bay" a name synonymous with quality, assuming you think that "quality" means "huge hits that routinely wind up on Ten Worst Movies Of The Year lists." This is the first blow of a One-Two Punch the movie receives, the second being, "And David S. Goyer, co writer of Batman Begins and the Dark Knight". Well, okay, that sounds good until you discover that Goyer is actually directing this movie, not just writing it. As a director, Goyer has treated us to such cinematic gems as The Invisible (I don't know what that is and I don't want to know) and Blade: Trinity, the movie that destroyed the Blade series and was such a trauma for Wesley Snipes that he ended up getting convicted in federal court for tax evasion. (I'm sure there was some sort of cause/effect there though I'm not going to try to confirm this because I'll look stupid if there wasn't.) Oh, we also see Gary Oldman, a guy who long ago entered the, "I'll be in anything as long as the check clears," phase of his career. This is the pedigree with which the movie is working.
After this, the trailer goes in an incoherent phase where it starts throwing everything at us to see what sticks. We've got human faced dog, contorted old guys running bug-like across the floor, and an exorcism which, for some reason, had to held in a dark, atmospherically lit room instead of outdoors on a pleasant, sunny day. None of this matters since the evil demon kid had apparently reached all-powerful status.
Another nail in the movie's coffin is that it's coming out in January, the month where bad movies go to die. Releasing a movie in January is one step above a Direct-to-DVD release and it almost always means that the filmmakers said, "Screw it, release it in January and hope nobody notices."
Finally, we see the fifth of the trailer's five distinctly different plots where Casey does what all haunted girls do, roam around by herself in a spooky house and approach some creepy looking woman who is alone in a furniture-free room. Hopefully, this all has a happy ending leaving Casey free to take many public showers in the future.
I believe that I have made a concincing case that The Unborn will be a stupid, incoherent, gory mess which will be unwatchable even with sexy, naked girls in it. The thing about Movies I haven't Seen is that, so far, the movies have turned out to be even worse than I predicted. This means that there is a very real possibility that a rabid raccoon will break into each and every theater that is showing The Unborn and attack the face and genitals of each and every person who buys a ticket since that's the only thing that could make the experience of seeing this movie any worse. Fortunately, you have read this and will know to avoid any theater showing this movie which means you will be the envy of all your horribly disfigured friends who don't read this site.
You're welcome.
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