Fantastic Four review

Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer

Ah, it's nice when I'm not disappointed by a movie. Admittedly, my expectations weren't all that high for this one. A number of friends had said they liked it, but a number of reviews were reportedly negative, so I wasn't counting on anything brilliant. It wasn't, but it was very fun, and it had a number of things going for it:

• Great effects - Yeah, the man made of quicksilver has been done on film before, but this one was particularly well-done. The chase scene with the Torch trying to catch the Surfer was nifty.
• My favorite villain - Doctor Doom is back in this one, and the storyline follows one of those in the canon. I'm not sure how closely it followed it; I'm only aware of it from some old panels I remember seeing.
• Jessica Alba - Let's face it, she's a good enough reason to see a movie. She's entertaining in this movie, though it's still a bit disconcerting to see her as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Invisible Woman. Well, yeah - when she's invisible, you don't really notice those things, but you know what I mean.
  

Ok, that should be enough links to keep you busy for a while, assuming all this isn't old hat.

We get to see a bit of Michael Chiklis without his orange rock hide in a few scenes, so he does get a chance to do facial expressions and the like. I guess those are possible with all that make-up on, but I'd guess it's challenging. He plays a few scenes for laughs well, coming across as Joe Normal stuck in some very abnormal circumstances. There are a number of funny parts in this movie, but maybe you need to be a comic geek to enjoy them.

Nah. This movie was worth the regular admission price, and it's going to end up on a shelf with my other movies. If you're looking for a Summer adventure flick, this should fulfill that need.

28 Weeks Later review

I don't think this movie saw much time in the first-run theaters, as I barely remember seeing it advertised before it was at Brewvies, my favorite beer, pub food and movies place. I'm not sure why, except that it's a terrifying movie with some "Damn, but we're stupid" messages in the mix. 28 Days Later, its predecessor, is one of the scariest movies I've seen. This one was frightening and unsettling, too, but it didn't quite have the tension of the earlier movie.

The cast seemed to do a good job. It was interesting seeing Robert Carlyle of The Full Monte as one of the leads. Not quite the same character. I was a bit disappointed with the role Catherine McCormack got, but I've thought she was way hot since her Dangerous Beauty lead. There are a few other recognizable movie stars, but no A-listers, I don't believe.

[Spoiler alert]
The central schtick in the movie, that there are people immune to the effects of the rage virus, but that they are still carriers, is an interesting one. They reveal it quite early, though, and it seemed clear that it was going to play out badly in the ending. It did. Yeah, no real Sherlock Holmes stuff there, but it might have been more interesting if there were a less obvious twist.
[End spoiler]

As was true of its predecessor, 28 Weeks Later is a worthwhile zombie movie, throwing in the requisite phobias (there's a scene with a bunch of people in a very enclosed space... 'nuff said) and high body count. It doesn't really cover much ground that its predecessor didn't, though, and that's a bit sad. Recommended, but probably only with beer.

Yoga the Musical review

I saw a review of Yoga the Musical in the Salt Lake Tribune recently, and I noticed one of the aerobics instructors whose classes I used to take regularly was in it, so I decided to go. I ended up running into another instructor there, out on the town for her twelfth wedding anniversary with her husband, and we ended up sitting together. Twelfth... hard to spell, and hard to imagine. Anyway...

The show was hilarious. There are a lot of people who take yoga very seriously, and there are a lot of people who consider it just another form of calisthenics. I guess I fall somewhere in between there, so I got to laugh at the jokes poking at both extremes, while not getting whatever stereotype I fall into too scathed. I guess I did get a bit of teasing in there somewhere, but it was easy to take. The jokes and pokes were fast & furious, and the yoga-infused dance with vocals was very impressive. The troupe stayed for Q&A afterward, and it turned out there was one yoga-only member - not a real dancer, strictly speaking, but very accomplished.

I know I must've missed three-quarters of the jokes, and I'm sure it would be a bit hard to follow for folks who don't do yoga, but the piece does make some interesting points of what happens to various ideas when they're absorbed into the American mainstream. One bit where one of the practitioners characterized trying to have no ambitions as "quite ambitious" was fabulous. It's one of those yoga deals, kind of like a Zen koan, that just doesn't work in our Western mindset: You're not really supposed to strive for anything in yoga; you're supposed to let things happen organically as you practice. But if that's right, why would you practice yoga at all? Isn't that a form of striving? Yes, kind of, but you're not supposed to do it for reasons of ego. Still, how many of us would go to the gym if we were truly egoless? And around and around it goes.

The show is going on next weekend, as well, also at the Rose Wagner center in downtown Salt Lake. I highly recommend it to folks who practice yoga, or those who might be interested.

Spider Man 3 review

I went to go see Spider Man 3 with a couple of my female friends who aren't afraid to be seen at a superhero movie. I figured they just liked Tobey Maguire, but they both denied it. Must be true, then.

Most of the reviews I've seen of SM3 panned it, some pretty badly. It seems to me that it does its job very well, stuffing as much action and twists in as possible, while advancing (though by the two steps forward / one step back method) the relationship between Peter & MJ. The story certainly doesn't fit the canon - for example, Gwen Stacey is Peter's rebound girlfriend after he & MJ split up, rather than being the original girlfriend snuffed by the elder Green Goblin; or Venom showing up at the same time as the Sandman, a villain introduced much earlier in the comic. Those sorts of twists do keep the comic reader guessing. I'd wondered in the first one whether the Goblin was going to kill MJ, since that was the fate of Gwen Stacey.

The special effects were stellar, with both the Sandman and Venom being rendered in great detail. I don't know if I quite bought Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman. He did grow on me as the movie progressed. Topher Grace as the slimy photographer out for Parker's job was a good pick, though I always get him and Maguire confused. Not in this movie, I mean, but in shows in general. Kirsten Dunst was hot, as usual, though having her do musical numbers was a bit much. I guess it was in furtherance of the plot, right? Yeah, right. Finally, Billy Campbell had a great bit, but I'll leave that for the viewers' pleasure.

So, they've mixed up generations a bit, and they've resolved the Goblin storyline. They've had the professor (I've forgotten the character's name) a number of times in the movies, so I'm wondering when they'll finally get one of my favorite villains, the Lizard, into the mix. There are a bunch of good candidates from the old days, including some cross-overs:

• Electro - Zap guy, who'd probably work very well with CGI.
• The Kingpin - He was the big bad in the Daredevil movie, but he was originally a SM villain, I believe.
• The Punisher - Yes, he started out as a villain. To have him, though, you'd probably need...
• The Jackal - And therein lies a problem, as part of the Jackal's motivation was Gwen Stacey's death. Still, he was a great villain.
• Kraven the Hunter - He's kind of a lion tamer / big game hunter. He probably won't translate too well.
• Doctor Doom - A staple of the Fantastic Four, but he tangled with Spidey a number of times.
• Hammerhead - Now that I think of it, this guy was really a Dick Tracey villain gone bad (or wherever villains go to get worse). Someone who attacks with the top of his head isn't likely to get much respect, either.
• The Rhino - Speaking of attacking with your head...

Yeah, that about exhausts my memory of those villains that were around while I was reading Spider Man. I'm sure I could check on-line, but why? It's a good enough list as-is.

So, I'd recommend seeing this movie, especially if you're a comics geek, or are a recovering one. It isn't as fresh as the earlier two, but frankly, Defoe and Molina made really compelling villains, and that's what really makes things interesting.

Pan's Labyrinth review

Of the two movies I saw during my recent Connecticut trip, Pan's Labyrinth was definitely the better of the two. Set in Franco's Spain, it's a very dark fantasy mixed with even darker reality. The young girl finds it a struggle to come to terms with her mother's marriage after her father's death, especially given her mother's choice of a fascist captain. Whether you believe the girl creates the fantasy world as an escape from her controlling father-to-be (yeah, that seems like the obvious choice to me) or that there really is a magical kingdom waiting for her return, the cinematic flourishes of the fantasy world are incredibly compelling.

While this seems like a children's movie - it reminds me a little of the colors seen in the recent Mirrormask - it's awfully grim in its tone and message. The resolution of the movie has the "good guys" winning (well, in a manner of speaking; historically, you know they're screwed), I think mostly to soften the story a bit. It's very much worth watching, and probably more than once, since the attention to detail is so pronounced. It may not be good for the kids, though.

Smokin' Aces review

While on my trip to Connecticut, I watched Smokin' Aces with some friends. It was about as violent as you'd expect, with a few twists and turns thrown into the plot to keep it from getting too predictable. It was still quite predictable. Piven was fun to watch, as he typically is, and there was plenty of star power to keep the movie worth sitting through, but it wasn't as much fun as it should have been. There were some nice touches, like the crazy long gun woman with the .50, and the magician with the dangerous wrist flick. It was a bit odd seeing Goodfellas star Ray Liotta as a law enforcement type.

Smokin' Aces review

While on my trip to Connecticut, I watched Smokin' Aces with some friends. It was