dejfatman Reviews

The Grey (2011)

How 'bout that ending?

[2/10 · 19 June 2012]

I watched this abomination of a movie, saw the cop-out ending, and quickly forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I heard that the film had a surprise for me after the credits. So I took another look, and now I have a new take on the movie.

So, if like me you took off after seeing the credits start rolling, you think the film ends with the alpha wolf closing in on Leam Neeson as he straps a knife and some shards of glass to his hands. But, after the credits...SURPRISE!!! You see a heaving wolf chest with Leam's head resting upon it. Are they both dead??? Did one emerge victorious??? Did they make mad passionate love???

The movie still sucks.

Unstoppable (2010)

Awesome

[4/10 · 13 April 2011]

Talk about an unpredictable film! There's a runaway train on the loose - no telling where it might go or what it might do!

There are several attempts made by the railroad company to stop this monster train. The first one involves slamming a marine on a rope into it from a helicopter while simultaneously slamming it in the front with another train engine which apparently was loaded with nitroglycerin. Surprisingly that doesn't work; the marine falls asleep from boredom and the other engine derails and explodes like the Death Star. Awesome sauce!

Next, the police attempt to stop the train by shooting some emergency shut off switch. They abandon that approach as they realize the switch is located mere inches away from the fuel tank, which is pretty much the same thing as TNT rigged self destruct device if the first exploded train engine is anything to go by.

Later they try using some sort of portable de-railer which, when hit by the speeding train, launches rockets that immediately target the nearest police cars.

Finally they decide the best way to stop it is to have a man with a severe foot injury jump into the train from the back of a speeding hillbilly's pickup truck! Yee-haw!

This is, bar none, the best movie ever made about a runaway train inspired by the CSX 8888 incident.

Stealth (2005)

This means war

[1/10 · 5 January 2006]

(Spoilers ahead)

My brother in law must hate me, and I cannot let this pass. I mean, I might have been able to let it go if his disdain for me had manifested itself in a more civilized manner, like him sucker-punching me in the balls and calling my kids ugly. But no, his hatred for me runs so deep, he chose to exact his villainy upon me in the form of this hell-spawn stupidity know as Stealth.

Each grating second of the film was like another twist of Lucifer's fiery trident in my face. Hours after this holocaust was but a distant memory to my TV screen, the horrific imagery was still burned in my retinas. I could still hear Satan's demonic host laughing at me, lead by my brother-in-law.

Stealth, which easily charges past XXX and The Fast and The Furious in its unwavering quest to be the stupidest movie of all time, was directed by Rob Cohen, who, in exchange for fame, is obviously bound by some unholy pact with the devil to assault all of his viewers' senses. And yes, I mean all my senses: this movie looked, sounded, felt, smelled, and even tasted like week old sushi.

The movie's plot starts by introducing a trio of hotshot pilots who fight hard, play hard, and have perfect hair and teeth while doing it. You have Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), the fearless leader who is wild, unpredictable, and doesn't like to follow orders, but, gosh dangit, he's the best darned pilot they have. Then there's his love interest, Kara Wade (Jessica Biel), a woman whose skills surpass most men's, especially when it comes to filling out a bikini. Last, and certainly least, is Token Blackguy (Jamie Foxx), the promiscuous, hip hop listenin', basketball playin', and doomed-to-die comedic relief.

After completing a dazzling training mission filled with enough fast cuts to induce a seizure, our trio is informed by the evil military commander that a fourth member, piloting a new prototype plane, will soon join their group. But the new pilot is no ordinary pilot. No, it's actually a computerized, talking Times Square New Year's Eve Ball! And his name, obviously ripped off some budding porn star, is "Extreme Deep Invader" or EDI for short. EDI is the heart of the military's latest and greatest weapon, the Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV). He was also designed and built by idiots, because instead of being programmed to behave methodically, predictably, and controllably in the battlefield, he actually learns on the fly, picking up such useful skills like how to download illegal MP3s on the internet.

EDI is, of course, rushed into service during the hotshots' next mission, and before you can say "HAL900", he gets struck by lightning, goes all "Skynet" on them, becoming sentient. Luckily, his programmers equipped him to display a graphical representation of a DNA double helix being split for just such an occasion.

Soon afterward, the super team is scrambled to destroy some baddies holed up in a castle in the middle-east before the arrival of some ox carts bearing nukes (no, I'm not kidding). Despite orders telling him to stand down due to a high collateral damage assessment, EDI lights up the terrorists, spreading radioactive dust over the whole region. Not satisfied, EDI decides to off and kill several targets programmed in his hypothetical war scenario system, thrusting the plot forward into the man versus evil machine story. I could swear I heard my 3 year old say, "Saw that one coming."

From this point, the movie leaves the land of popcorn-movie incongruity and spirals into complete and utter implausibility. I won't go into too much detail, but one of our heroes dies, one manages to invade Russian airspace, shooting down 2 Russian jets sent to defend their homeland (ensuring the start of WWIII), and the other somehow crashes down in North Korea, requiring a rescue attempt that murders dozens of North Korean border patrol. And what about evil EDI? What else; he develops a conscience and sacrifices himself for the team, supposedly leaving you with a heart warming feeling. It left me with heartburn.

The abominable movie closes with the typical happy Hollywood ending where Ben Gannon and Kara Wade exchange love vows. Ah, nothing like true love to help forget about the impending apocalypse they just ushered in by invading Russia and North Korea.

You know, there are many ways to creatively describe hate. But the best one in this case, unfortunately, is not entirely my own. I couldn't help but think of one particular line in the cheesy dialog that, with a little modification, could perfectly describe this movie. At one point, in charge of maintaining EDI's brain, our stereotypical computer geek with bad hair, clothes, and, most likely odor, describes EDI as a "quantum sponge" that can learn at a geometric rate. Well, this movie is like a "quantum vacuum". The longer you watch, the more it sucks at a geometric rate.

Mystic River (2003)

Disturbing message

[6/10 · 13 July 2004]

Mystic river was a moody, well acted film which deserves much of the praise it receives, but one major point doesn't sit well with me.

(spoilers below) I liked the slower pacing of the film as it seemed necessary to properly develop all of the main characters. I felt I could really sympathize with Dave, Jimmy and Sean, and their actions seemed believable.

There was some implausibility in the movie; namely the extreme coincidence of Dave happening to murder a child molester shortly after running into Jimmy's daughter who herself is murdered that same night. But, I suppose some plot device was needed to shift suspicion to Dave.

My main gripe with the film is the ending and its implied message. After Jimmy realizes he has killed an innocent man (of his daughter's murder at least), he is disturbed, and rightly so. However, the film seems to want to justify his actions, highlighted by his wife's speech in which she more or less condones what he did since he was trying to do right by his family. Even his friend, Sean the police detective, seems to accept Jimmy's murderous behavior as OK: hey, Dave was screwed up anyway because of his history with sexual abuse, after all.

I don't mind films that end unhappily. I can walk away from them and appreciate the characters' flaws and reflect on their mistakes. But this film seems to want to convince me that murder is OK as long as you meant to kill someone who wronged you, and that some lives aren't really worth that much anyway. And that is a little disturbing.

6 out of 10