Change Your Image
Cold-Cock
Reviews
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Aaaagh! Too--many--villains. Please. 2 and 1/2 is enough.
SM3 was a long movie, and with good reason. It translates to the big screen epic plots that had a large amount of buildup to work with to establish their depth. Translating these plots to the big screen usually means condensing a lot of it into a short space. Sadly, SM3 tries to do that, and craft five different story lines around 5 different characters.
There's Mary Jane, there's Peter Parker/Spider Man, there's Harry Osborn, there's Sandman and there's Eddie Brock. All five of the main cast are dynamic characters. Dynamic characters are characters that go through changes of circumstance and/or character in a movie; as opposed to static characters who go through the movie relatively unchanged. SM3 suffers from trying to give all 5 of these characters spotlight and ultimately, you don't know who the movie is really about or who is supposed to be the most important.
The real reason the movie suffers is because all 3 villains try to fill the niche of being Spider-Man's arch-nemesis, and when all three try to take center stage, there ends up being no lead villain. This mirrors Spider-Man's situation from the comics where he's got Doctor Octopus, Venom and Green Goblin each vying for the top spot of Spider-Man's all-time nemesis. But at least in the comic books, you can devote arcs to each individual villain. When you stuff 3 cats into the same bag and give them one mouse to fight over, you end up with what SM3 comes out with: a hero flying blindly into piles of sand and web.
The only redeeming aspects of the movie come at the final half where the plot threads finally start to come together and it feels like we're reading a single comic book again rather than putting down one in the middle of reading it only to pick up a different issue.
Any longer and this movie would have thrown The Lizard/Curt Conners into the mix.
24 (2001)
24...23...22...21...Count down to 1,
The basic premise of 24: Each season a group of seasoned terrorists get together and conspire to create a terrorist plot tailored specifically to make Jack Bauer run, jump, and shoot himself silly for twenty-four hours straight. This is a very difficult task, as Jack Bauer set the record of stopping the bad guys of a terrorist network during the first season in 23.5 hours. Since then, the metric for any terrorist group in the 24verse is "How long can we keep this up until Jack Bauer passes the 24-hour mark?" So far only one terrorist threat has achieved this awesome status.
To watch 24, you have to be a true thinker. 24 requires you to pay attention to its many interweaving plots and to be able to play catch-up if you miss an episode, which can create all sorts of havoc in which the events from that particular episode play out for the next 6 hours (episodes). In general, 24 is the opposite of a self-contained drama: you must watch it religiously just to be considered a "regular viewer": you have to buy the DVDs with the extra features and deleted scenes to be considered a "devotee".
Steven Johnson wrote a powerful book "Everything Bad is Good For You" which justifies TV watching using 24 as an example of why following TV plots requires critical thought. No show more than 24 does this for television's return to "smart television".
Derailed (2005)
Rent Before you Buy
Although I liked the movie, others might not. I suggest you rent it even before you see it because not everyone is going to like what's put out in it. Just read the ratings very carefully.
Derailed begins at a slow pace. The man does everything you expect out of a Hollywood picture in furtherance of the plot. Most of you will tolerate the slow beginnings and expositions because you know it's going to evolve very quickly into a knuckle-braced blackmail thriller ride quickly. And it does. But it goes the same direction for much of the time. The main char. doesn't make any surprising or out of the ordinary decisions: every move he makes is what you'd expect for a man in a Hollywood movie faced with each scenario he encounters. The plot twists: he moves right along with it. He doesn't veer off course even at the 2nd and 3rd plot twists. The typical nature of his decisions makes him feel too "blah". He won't stand out as anyone memorable in movie history: we're supposed to feel for what he went through and what he's facing but no overarching sympathy for the decisions he makes.
Derailed really scores points for the ending. Although it's a typical Hollywood ender, unlike most movies, Derailed knows it's ending on the note it ends on. We don't get the impression everything is at peace until the very final scene.
Killer Instinct (2005)
Follow your own Instincts...Nothing new to see here (Minor spoilers but Nothing Crucial)
Fox gives us Killer Instinct: a TV show which features some amazing twists we've never seen before: a male lead cop whose Mr. Lone Wolf in the field. The principal, I mean his lieutenant, airs his frustration at him playing cowboy but doesn't really try to reign him in. His hanger-on female partner does her best to give all that she's good for: following on the heels of Alpha Male's footsteps and tailing his car whenever he runs off to be Mr. Lone Wolf and catch the bad guy on his own.
The pilot showcases a twist we've never seen before: a serial killer who sexually assaults and murders women who are single and live in apartment complexes.
All in all Killer Instinct is just a few stock characters we've all seen on other more superior cop dramas thrown together by "deviant crimes" which is a cynical euphemism for Low-Budget Special Victim's Unit. In other words, Killer Instinct relies on the eye candy of snuff entertainment in order to hold onto what ratings it needs to stay on life support. Respectable cop shows have always had the common decency not to be so obvious in their glorifying sexual violence and victimization against helpless women, except in November, February and May.
FOX canceled The Inside: a well-written show about abnormal gruesome crimes featuring a frigid, wooden female lead...to replace it with a hackneyed, run-of-the-mill, white bread drama about abnormally gruesome crimes and a glazed-over lead-faced male lead.
The Skeleton Key (2005)
Scary Spirits, Hip Hop Beats and Gangsta Moments: I'm not kidding!
SPOILERS: MORE SPOILERS: STILL MORE SPOILERS (What, are you blind?): Skeleton Key is a Trojan horse of a movie: it includes all the typical stereotypes of horror thriller flicks: the white female who is a complete newbie to the spirits and superstitions of a strange place, yet manages to attract the lot of them. When she does figure out there's magic and hoodoo afoot she goes about painting a big sign "Trouble: Come get me! Ghosts, I'm right here! Homicidal maniacs: Not going anywhere soon!" But halfway through the movie while sitting in your seat you will hear from out of nowhere the most out of place, random Hip Hop background music and begin to wonder "Am I sure I didn't sneak into Hustle & Flow?" Were they filming those two movies simultaneously and just decided to borrow from someone on that set? They must have also had someone black on the set that day because SK was a scary movie infused with some gangsta and comedy in it.
Comedy: Kate Hudson's character Caroline Ellis tries to escape and drive through a chain-locked fence but her car crashes the fence and doesn't break the chains.
Gangsta: While sifting through the things of the lawyer, she realized he was just a guy playing a con game of "lawyer" and before she can turn around, he's right behind her with some wire strangling her.
In the end, Caroline gets trucked by of all things...a mirror. Then the ending progresses which you can find in the forums so don't bother me with it. The hilarity does not end there: you are also treated to a concluding hip hop instrumentals at the end. Yes, it's a movie you won't want to see but when you do you'll be left wondering why you couldn't have just waited for the video.