REVIEW: Now You See Me

6/10 - Boom! KaBlam! Alakazam! I have made a cow appear! (And $12 is gone from your wallet)

I think the movie makers believe magic is real.

Really real. Not showmanship, like Harry Potter real.

This makes for a really bad movie when the premise is cops trying to debunk a magic trick, because some magicians robbed a bank. It was MAGIC.

Now You See Me goes for the smart, mysterious, caper feel of Ocean's Eleven. I think that's what audiences want too, they certainly showed up in theaters for it. Instead of following creating and executing the heist (like in Ocean's), the movie centers around and follows the guy chasing them. And that guy is boring.

I, too, falsely presumed that the four magicians would be the stars of this movie, something anyone who sees the poster or trailer would be inclined to think. Big name actors, who are clearly the smart ones, with a plan. I was wrong. The "Four Horsemen" are a red herring, acting as nothing but an intermediary. They are following orders to some McGuffin ending, which isn't even clear in the end. After the first 20 minutes, their role is marginalized and those four characters no longer make decisions. Meaning they are useless. I watched a whole movie about these useless people.

Now You See Me is actually about Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) running around trying to "solve their crimes" through no investigatory technique or intelligence. Seriously, this is the protagonist, the dumbest person in the movie. There's also Morgan Freeman, who can figure out magic tricks (thank god someone in this movie can) and Melanie Laurent who plays a lady following Mark Ruffalo around. She's a great actress and is one of the only characters in the movie with charisma.

The movie itself falls apart after the first act. From the trailer it's clear that four magicians rob a bank during their stage act. This is promptly investigated, and rather quickly, explained. The next two acts try to replicate this, but don't do a good job. Neither the "illusions" or the "explanations" have any impact. I really want more of what was promised at the beginning. The story of the Four Horsemen coming together, and planning this would be wildly entertaining. The sleek magic act was really enjoyable to watch. It's sad that the magic really ends when the movie begins. The story should be straightforward, but becomes muddled with unclear character motivations, and false suspicion.

I think the actual magic is probably the worst element, distracting from, and ruining the movie. The magic illusions don't even need to be explained, they just needs to be plausible. Isla Fisher's character is constantly doing CGI tricks, to my utter annoyance and frustration. There is a long, documented history of real magicians creating elaborate and inventive illusions. I have a hard time believing many of them used post-production computer generated effects.

Not to mention that becoming a magician makes you a superhero! The magicians in Now You See Me not only gain strength and agility, but Tony Stark like technology, and some sort of telekinesis. I'm not making this up, I guess the writers couldn't conceive of what magic a magician could pull on other magicians, so they just made impossible things happen.

To round it out (hopefully I can summarize this in a way that won't spoil anything) the ending sucks. The ending to a caper like this should be highly anticipated with clues and hints, but wasn't. It's simply a convenient way to wrap up the story, and I think it's lazy and makes this movie cheap. It looks down on the audience instead of engaging them. I feel like this is a prime example of endings gone wrong, but I'll save that essay for another day.

Poof! The cow I made appear, just disappeared. Are you disappointed? I was.

IMDB - Now You See Me (7.3)
Wikipedia - Now You See Me
Rotten Tomatoes - Now You See Me (49%)
Amazon.ca - Now You See Me

REVIEW: Iron Man 3

Confession time: I've spent more time and words on this review than many of my college essays. My first draft of this was over 5 pages long. That's insane for a mediocre movie.

5/10 - It's really not very good.

Iron Man 3 was fast paced and enjoyable. It was a lot of fun to watch, something Iron Man 2 was completely missing, and it was very Tony Stark focused. All great things.

This is the biggest mess of a screenplay I've ever seen in action. It starts stories and drops them completely. It forgets about it's own plot and characters. The sentiment is vague and shallow. It has a ton of 80's action movie cliches and expects them to go over super seriously. That's what I get for watching a movie that starts with not one, but two different flashbacks.

WARNING: This is going to be incredibly spoilerific. I will ruin this movie if you haven't seen it.

The moment I turned against Iron Man 3 was after the first major action sequence when his house gets destroyed. There were small problems before, but this was infuriating. Tony Stark's house blows up, and he is presumed dead by the newspapers. Great, except.... Why didn't any of his 'super friends' come to help him? Even if none of the Avengers knew about the attack and no one could stop it, wouldn't Captain America get sent out to help stop the terrorist who already murdered a fellow Avengers? They mention the events of The Avengers every 20 seconds, you would think it was for a tie-in. What about Rhodes, why wasn't he protecting Tony? Furthermore, why didn't he care that Tony was pronounced dead? Tony call him up after "dying" and Rhodes says "Hey buddy, what's new?" Are you kidding me? This is not reality. There are no consequences to actions, this is nonsense.

Pepper Pots also had no purpose or clear story. Which is a shame because it started with such promise. An early moment has the Iron Man suit, on its own, attack Pepper. That's a beautiful setup for Pepper to fear the Iron Man suit and have a touching climactic moment where the suit can't save Pepper, only Tony can. This is particularly poignant after the whole second movie had Tony fighting a guy who created dangerous Iron Man drones. That would be stunningly cohesive. Too bad they fuck it up. Immediately Pepper wears the suit herself to save Tony during the house attack. Now we have a suit that anyone can wear, or can act independently. There are no longer any consequences for Iron Man, he is not fallible he is a pawn. Iron Man and Tony are no longer the same, the myth is over.

I'll restrain myself from nit picking with every single flaw but I'll say this, the whole third act is a disastrous mess. The bad guys have no motive or purpose. Is "Tony didn't give me enough attention when I was a kid" supposed to be motivation? That doesn't explain the totally random actions of the baddies. They just show up and make stupid decisions over and over with no end game or purpose. Maya Hansen shows up to warn Tony, but she also is working for Killian, even though he tried to blow her up. Sounds like a solid business plan to me.

My favorite is when they tie up the president to kill him on television, in the War Machine suit. In a functional suit! They're hanging this guy with some basic rope and they didn't just give him a knife to cut himself down, they gave him a suit with weapons and fire, that can fly him to safety. We know it's functional because ultimately that's what saves him! Did no one use their brains on this movie? How does a $200 million dollar movie make such stupid mistakes.

I really resent the 80's cliches that lead up to the final battle. I don't think lines like "We gotta make a decision. We can either save the President or Pepper. We can't do both." should make it past the first draft of a script, ever. (Spoiler alert: he tries to do both, with a sufficient amount of time to do both. He also fails at both. The President gets captured and Pepper gets infected? injected? whatever. Tony sucks.) There is whole bit about an airplane getting ripped open, and the passengers go flying out! 'Ahh we are losing cabin pressure! Someone save us!' This is so absurd considering The Avengers had an action sequence with Iron Man and Captain America trying to repair the outside of their flying craft, and none of those people went flying out into the sky because there was an open door. Audiences are not this stupid, please stop treating them as so.

By the end of this movie, there is absolutely nothing left to care about. Pepper was a damsel in distress who needed saving, and wasn't saved by Tony. She turned into an x-men mutant and wore the suit to save herself. Then she said the suits should be destroyed. Rhodes took back the Iron Patriot/War Machine suit which Tony immediately set to self destruct? Or not? I have no idea, but an accidental murdering of Rhodes would really improve this movie. Can someone explain why he blew up the suits by the way? The time to fear the drones was early on, especially after the fallout from Hammer. I don't think Pepper using the drones to save Tony twice would make her then turn around and say to ditch them. If anything she would finally sympathize. Weren't they having some sort of "marital miscommunication" at the beginning of this movie, too? What happened to that? Oh nothing. What happened to Happy? Nothing. What happened to Rhodes? Nothing. What happens in this movie? Nothing. Tony Stark is a nobody who has no character growth, makes random choices, screws up a lot, and could have solved everything if he kept his mouth shut and stayed in his basement.

IMDb - Iron Man 3 (7.5)
Wikipedia - Iron Man 3
Rotten Tomatoes - Iron Man 3 (78%)
Amazon.ca - Iron Man 3

REVIEW: Contagion

8/10 - Gravy

Contagion is the story about a contagion that becomes contagious. I actually confused this with Quarantine before I saw the movie. How hilarious. Please don't watch Quarantine.

Really, it's a multi-linear story that uses several points of view to explore the devastation that happens globally during this event. The disease is the main character, no doubt.

I really like Steven Soderbergh and I never realized it until this year. It's a real genuine shame that he is retiring this year because the last batch of movies he has done have been really inspiring, bright, and intelligent. Many of Steve's movies have not been getting the hype they deserve and I think this is one of them.

It takes great skill and restraint to illustrate the widespread effects, with only those characters that appear on the poster. I was deeply invested in these people and had no idea it was happening. Contagion has a cold and calculated feel, from the calculated roll-out of the relief efforts. It's hyper realistic but heartfelt. There are no exaggerated wide camera shots of riots or violence for the sake of violence.

Certainly when there is a star studded cast, some actors don't shine like the others, but I didn't see that in this movie. It was an outstanding cast from clinical Kate Winslet who shines in quiet moments, to the complicated Jude Law who portrays a character you either hate or love. I think the only actor who I was unhappy with was surprisingly Matt Damon. I'm not sure he reached the emotional level to make me believe what was happening at the beginning of the movie. Granted, that's likely a writing or directional choice. I think Matty makes up for it with the rising panic, and he grounds the movie unlike any other character.

I'm not sure I have a whole lot else to say about Contagion. It was great, but maybe a little cold. I want more movies like this, with creative and unique stories. It's thoughtful, scary, fast paced and emotional. Everyone should see it.

IMDB - Contagion (6.7)
Wikipedia - Contagion
Rotten Tomatoes - Contagion (84%)
Amazon.ca - Contagion

REVIEW: RED 2

5/10 - Action movie, action movie, something something whatever.

Here's the thing. It's the same stuff we got in the original. That's what you want to get in a sequel, right? Because we wanted more. But that's why it's bad. Wait, that doesn't make sense. 

This is the cycle of sequels. We liked the first movie, want more, get more, are disappointed that it's just like the original. 

It was fine action movie. It was funny in the right moments, surprising and unique like the original. It had great pacing, moving the story along without delay. Its got great actors (from the original) who are smart and funny and unpredictable. It had absurd scenes of stuff blowing up. The crucial puzzle piece missing is that it's not surprising. Because we saw the original.

As far as sequels go, this movie nails it. If this was a stand alone it has a strong enough story to be relatively interesting. But it doesn't do anything to rise above the original. 

I think the biggest problem I have is with the story itself. Which I already said was good. It's still totally fine, just a pet peeve. Red 2 is a school lesson from the MacGuffin Institute where you learn how to make an arbitrary object so important that they need to save the world. Dear Action Movies: you don't always need to save the world. Every time, saving the world. Maybe think of something else? I'm a little sick of the bombs waiting to detonate. 

If there is going to be a Red 3, I want to see it get more personal. The world doesn't need to be ending. Maybe just the protagonist's world? I wish more sequels did that. 

I definitely would not recommend someone dropping $15 on a theater ticket to see Red 2. Wait until it's on Netflix, and if you liked Red, then maybe check out Red 2 some night. On a Wednesday when there's nothing else good on television. 

IMDB - Red 2 (7.1)

Wikipedia - Red 2

Rotten Tomatoes - Red 2 (41%)
Amazon.ca - Red 2

REVIEW: Drinking Buddies

6/10 - Everyone gets drunk. I bet you weren't expecting that. 

Previously I put this in my "Most Anticipated Movie Whatever" list meaning - I had high expectations.

I was wrong. It wasn't that great.

Ok, ok. There was some good direction, and some great actors, but at the end of the day it was boring!

I like a movie that focuses on the mundane, making natural dialogue a priority and telling more grounded stories of everyday people. From what I understand writer/director Joe Swanberg specializes in naturalistic improvisational style. I also have a huge appreciation for low-budget filmmaking. Drinking Buddies tries to pull on all those strings for me, but at the end of the day, it's a jump that doesn't quite stick the landing.

I got to know these characters, I became invested in their lives and wanted to know more. I thought it balked at the end and didn't get there for me. This wasn't unsatisfying, but just uninteresting. It develops beautifully but by the final act, it became a flat story. Maybe the stunted action was meant to be real, but there are ways to do that without making me want to fall asleep. For me it's an incomplete emotional story.

I think I need to dole out some compliments, so I will say that I think the acting was superb. I've always considered the sign of a good actor to be conveying a range of emotions without dialogue. Across the board, this is a talented group of people.

I also genuinely appreciate the journey that it tried to go on. Relationships are complicated, and exploring the evolving relationship of friends was very smart. This script taps into an experience that will relate to a lot of people. I think there are a lot of stories like this that haven't been told on screen.

Drinking Buddies is most memorable to me for having great potential. I don't see nearly enough drama's that are grounded, not high concept or melodramatic. I want more real humans in movies who say things like "I just got really nervous" or for the silence to say more than the people. I want stories about women, and stories about real life and not cliches. I want more movies like this. But better.

IMDB - Drinking Buddies (6.0)
Wikipedia - Drinking Buddies
Rotten Tomatoes - Drinking Buddies (69%)
Amazon.ca - Drinking Buddies

I am a negligent blogger

Much like your fictional father figure, after being there and supportive, I left one day to pick up a nicotine refill for my e-cigarette, and some chocolate milk, and was never seen or heard from again.

Actually, I went on vacation.

For some reason being away brought tremendous traffic to this site, so in order to maintain the great standards I've established I won't post anything ever again! Success awaits!

Just kidding. I have lots of movie reviews coming up.

Who saw a good movie recently? I haven't, so tell me about it.