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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.5

Published by marco on

Updated by marco on

Alien (1979) — 9/10
The classic film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), John Hurt and Tom Skerritt. It documents the journey of a commercial deep-space mining ship on its way to investigate an S.O.S. call from a distant planet. The ship lands and sends out a landing party, which discovers an even larger, alien craft that seems for all intents and purposes to have crashed long ago. Something survived, though and it wants to breed again. And for that, it needs a host. Poor John Hurt plays that host and gets the party started in earnest, unwillingly and unwittingly helping the alien on its way to its second stage of evolution, where it gets really nasty. The first stage already had molecular acid for blood; the second stage has a polycarbonate exoskeleton and several, nested and pointy-tooth–filled mouths. Ripley survives (along with the cat, Jack) and lives to fight another day.
Hancock (2008) — 7/10
Will Smith is in the eponymous drunken superhero role and Jason Bateman is the PR man who’s there to save his reputation. Charlize Theron—looking absolutely amazing, as usual—is Bateman’s wife but she seems to recognize Hancock as well. Long story short—and spoiler alert—but Theron turns out to also be a superhero(ine) and Hancock’s soulmate and they’re the last pair of angels/heroes/what-have-you. The others of their kind have all died because they found one another and, in having found one another, lost their powers and grew old and died, like any other normal humans. Despite their predestined affinity, Smith and Theron choose to stay apart in order to remain immortal so they can watch over mankind. Shades of Unbreakable somehow. Shades of Jesus, too, I guess. Better than expected, but still hard to recommend.
Daybreakers (2009) — 6/10
A vampire/zombie-vampire film that I watched only because it starred Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe. It’s a slightly different take, presupposing a world in 2019 run by the vampire survivors of a bat-borne epidemic (that’s the movie’s terminology; it’s more like a pandemic). The vampires are ascendant but the human population—read: their livestock—is dwindling and Ethan Hawke is a vampire hematologist who’s trying to find a blood substitute because he doesn’t think vampires should prey on humans. He eventually throws in with a band of humans who claim that they can cure the disease that causes vampirism—using a form of vampire hydrotherapy. Some of the vampire scenes are filmed in extreme gray-scale tones, with the blood looking black, like ichor, which was kind of a nice touch. The battles are mostly between the vampires and the humans, but also the subsiders—vampires who have gone too long without nourishment. It was better than expected on the strength of the cast, but they were swimming against the current of a both clichéd and confused plot.
God Bless America (2011) — 5/10
Joel Murray stars as a terminally ill man who lost his job and who’s been cut off from his family and who gets fed up enough with modern America to go on a killing spree. It had its moments, but it got kind of preachy, especially when his partner-in-crime started pontificating. It’s not believable that she could have gotten so angry and so disappointed at her young age. In a nutshell, she hasn’t suffered enough yet to deserve the killing spree she’s on. It’s a case of being right for the wrong reasons, which is still, well, kinda wrong. The first half an hour promises much more than the subsequent hour delivers. Where it started off as what I felt might be a 21st-century equivalent to Falling Down, it dithered off into the reeds instead of ending truly strongly.
The Cannonball Run (1981) — 6/10
The classic ensemble comedy about various misfits driving really quickly from one coast of the U.S. to the other. I can’t even remember in which direction they were driving—NY to LA? Burt Reynolds makes a nod to his magnum opus Smokey and the Bandit when he suggests that they get a “black Trans Am” to complete the race. There are some good lines and a lot of silly ones as well as a lot of what I’m sure they perceived as harmless sexism and racism. Hard to recommend to anyone who doesn’t already want to see it, but I liked seeing all of the actors and actresses I grew up with, many of them still in their prime.
Cannonball Run II (1984) — 3/10
The follow-up to the original just proves that Hollywood didn’t invent the uncomfortably bad sequel in the 21st century. The technology to capitalize on the surprising amount of goodwill engendered by a sleeper success with an underfunded and most-likely contractually obligated sequel has been available for decades, apparently. Not recommended.
Friends with Benefits (2011) — 8/10
Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Woody Harrelson and Patricia Clarkson absolutely shine in this rom-com. Jenna Elfman and Richard Jenkins are also quite good. Given the cast, I guess it’s not fair to say that this movie was surprisingly good, but I was nonetheless pleasantly surprised by what looks for all the world like a cookie-cutter chick-flick. The sex scenes with Timberlake and Kunis[1] especially were much more fun and varied and honest than I’ve grown to expect from a Hollywood movie. It was rated R, however, ensuring that as few teenagers as possible would be exposed to non-cartoonish relationships by accident. Is the plot predictable? Of course it is. Was it well-executed, funny and entertaining? I’m not ashamed to say that I thought it was.
Run, Fatboy, Run (2007) — 7/10
Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran star in a comedy about a sad sack (Pegg) whose marriage to Thandie Newton (I usually dislike her characters immensely, but she was decent here) has fallen apart. Hank Azaria’s crass American has since swept in to take over where Pegg left off. Moran is Pegg’s friend Gordon, playing the incorrigible and inveterate drinker and gambler. When Azaria mentions that he’s going to run in a marathon, Pegg signs up as well. Why? To prove his love for Newton and to win her back? I guess? To improve himself? Hard to say. What ends up happening—spoiler alert—are exactly both of those things. The movie is fun not because of the plot but more on the strength of the actors—for me, it was Pegg and Moran especially that made this movie worthwhile.


[1] Hat-tip to Kunis’s body-double for sacrificing her naked ass where Kunis’s career could never have withstood such an onslaught of harlotry. Timberlake had no such trouble in displaying his own fundament.