At any given moment you could be burnt up in a wildfire, carjacked by hoodlums, or hell, you could be practicing your putt on the back nine when friggin’ Harrison Ford lands a damn antique World War II plane directly on your face.
On top of all that, earthquakes are always a constant danger for the west coast due to the San Andreas fault and thanks to big blockbuster special effects, audiences are given a front row seat to experience just how horrifying it would be to trapped in the middle of one.
“Shut your mouth and know your rule, you 9.0 on the Richter scale, jabroni! Can you smell what the Rock is cookin’?”
Because…you know…the Rock used to be a wrestler and he’d call his opponents jabronis and ask them if they can smell what he’s cooking?
Never mind, 3.5 readers. Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of this summer’s wide scale disaster film, San Andreas.
(I know. I’m disappointed that it wasn’t about the video game that took away a large chunk of my early to mid 2000’s.)
OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING
Trailer – San Andreas – Warner Brothers Pictures
I’m sorry. I forgot we have to refer to the lead actor as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’ll always be the Rock to me, but I don’t want to quibble with a guy who could rip my arm off and beat me with it. I don’t think he would, he seems like too nice of a guy, but the point is he totally could so why chance it?
Johnson stars as Ray, an LA Fire Department rescue chopper pilot. He’s in the process of a divorce with his wife Emma (Carla Gugino). Together, they scour the California coast in search of their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), braving a non-stop onslaught of falling buildings, debris, explosions, floods looters along the way.
Blake teams up with two British blokes, her love interest Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and Ben’s little brother Ollie (Art Parkinson) as they face all sorts of mayhem on their own.
Paul Giamatti lends his fine tuned character acting skills to bring us Lawrence, the Cal Tech professor who was able to predict the earthquake was coming but no one listened. Once the carnage ensues, people are all ears it’s it up to Lawrence to save as many lives as possible by getting across the message that more large scale seismic activity is on the way.
Overall, the film is more of a thrill ride on screen than a vehicle to deliver any sort of a plot, though it does have its dramatic flair moments. Ioan Gruffodd of the original Fantastic Four films plays the cowardly Daniel, the man Emma’s left Ray for only to instantly regret it once his true colors are shown.
(Between you and me, 3.5 readers, in a film about a man flying around in the middle of a major earthquake, the most far fetched concept is the idea that a woman would dump the Rock in the first place. I mean, I don’t know, I’m not a woman but I’d venture that few are able to resist the smell of what the Rock is cooking.)
If the movie serves any social purpose, it would be that once all of the CGI eye candy is digested, the very real danger of earthquakes and other devastating natural catastrophes are something that we should be preparing more for.
I’ll have to consult with Dr. Hugo because I honestly have no idea what kind of warning systems are in place and what evacuation procedures are available for Californians other than to run around with their arms flailing as the chunks of cement come flying overhead as illustrated in this film every two seconds.
As disaster flicks go, it wasn’t half-bad. Not the worst film I’ve ever seen but not the best either. It’s definitely something you’ll enjoy more on the big screen so it’s worth a trip to your local theater.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy
PS – Am I the only one who didn’t know that guy’s name is Ioan Gruffudd? I feel like I’ve seen him in a zillion movies/TV shows over the years but never did I once suspect he was packing a moniker like “Ioan Gruffudd.”
Kind of sounds like he could be the villain in the next Star Wars movie. “Quick! Use the force or Ioan Gruffudd will conquer the galaxy!”
And so many scantily clad dudes rolling around on the floor that I swear I caught Aunt Gertie staring at the screen just a little too longingly.
Bookshelf Q. Battler here after FINALLY having had the chance to catch last year’s Foxcatcher.
I’m loathe to use the word “SPOILERS” for a film about a horrific crime that’s nearly 20 years old but honestly, while I’d generally heard about the case, I didn’t know the specifics until I began reading about the film. If you’d like to find out on your own as you watch, you might want to rent it first and then read this review later.
Movieclips Trailers – Foxcatcher – Sony Pictures
Wealth. For some it’s a blessing. For others it’s a curse.
Throughout history, there have been people who have been born into great circumstances, their lives preordained before they even opened their eyes and took a look at the world for the first time.
Some individuals take the vast resources at their disposal and do their families proud, achieving new levels of greatness.
Others party hearty and are destined to become paparazzi fodder.
In the middle, there are folks who enjoy their riches, coast along and somehow manage to make jackasses of themselves.
Then there’s John du Pont. Heir to a massive chemical company fortune, he’s an odd duck to say the least. He’s socially awkward, almost painfully so. It’s like he knows what he wants to say but has a hard time expressing himself, assumably because he’s lived such a sheltered life.
The majority of the film takes place in the late 1980’s, when du Pont is in his late fifties. He lives on a sprawling estate which he dubs Foxcatcher Farm, fox hunting having been a popular activity for well-to-do visitors to the grounds.
The movie makes it clear – du Pont believes himself to be a great man and he wants the rest of the world to agree. He doesn’t really want to do anything to achieve that goal. He just wants to spend large sums of money and purchase the acclaim he believes he deserves.
At the heart of his need for glory? A rivalry with his mother Jean (played by one of the few remaining Old Hollywood stars Vanessa Redgrave) leaves him with a burning desire to prove his worth to her.
One gets the impression that the rivalry is one sided. Jean trains show horses on the estate and proudly displays her trophies in the family mansion. du Pont envies the horses and wants his mother’s attention. Despite being almost 60 years old, he’s like a little kid yearning for Mommy’s approval.
Meanwhile, brothers David (Mark Ruffalo) and Mark (Channing Tatum) Schultz have each won an Olympic gold medal for wrestling. Keep in mind we’re talking about real wrestling, the kind that involves knowledge of various moves and techniques, and not the scripted garbage on Monday night.
From the film, it’s clear the brothers have a deep love and admiration of one another, but while David has found happiness with a loving wife and family, Mark is alone, living on ramen noodles in a tiny house and at the start of the film, earning a twenty dollar gratuity for speaking at an elementary school (it’s made obvious that Mark needs that twenty bucks).
Mark feels that even though he’s earned his notoriety, anything he does is overshadowed by his brother. If he has success, the public attributes it to David’s mentorship of Mark and not Mark himself. Mark wants to accomplish something on his own, and to make matters worse, he needs money.
Enter du Pont with a miraculous offer for the Schultz brothers. du Pont wants them to come to his estate, select a wrestling team, train themselves to compete in the upcoming 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul and train their team mates while they’re at it. He’ll pay them and give them houses on his property to live in for free.
David, not wanting to uproot his family, isn’t interested. Mark, seeing a chance to break out of his brother’s shadow, takes the deal.
And for awhile he excels at Foxcatcher.
But alas, it is an understatement to say that du Pont is weird.
He insists that people refer to him as “America’s Golden Eagle.” He orchestrates a large awards ceremony for himself, and in a sad commentary about society, it’s well-attended by the rich and the powerful. He wants to be a wrestler too and organizes a senior citizen wrestling competition, only to pay off his geriatric competitor to take a dive.
That’s not all. du Pont purchases a tank with the ease that one might order a book from Amazon. When it arrives, he throws a fit that it doesn’t include a 50-caliber machine gun as promised and refuses to sign for the shipment.
He snorts cocaine with reckless abandon, takes his helicopter everywhere, and its not-so-subtly implied that his generosity towards the sport of wrestling might have been a front to allow him to roll around with young sweaty men.
Throughout his Pennsylvania community, du Pont is known as a gracious benefactor, a man who doles out the cash just so he can be a part of everything. The local police department practice on his shooting range and he shoots guns alongside them.
Poor and crazy? You’re crazy. Rich and crazy? You’re eccentric. Not to fault the movie, but if you perform a web search on du Pont, you’ll come up with an endless supply of allegations, many of which weren’t portrayed in the film. That’s not a knock on the film at all. It’s just that the man was so nuts that there just wasn’t enough time to capture it all on screen:
Some of the allegations I was able to find on the web that weren’t featured in the film:
That du Pont put razor wire in the walls of his house because he thought it was haunted by ghosts
He crashed multiple cars into a pond on his property
He bought a look-alike police car and pulled over people who drove near his property.
Believed that Nazis and Russian spies were frequenting the property, often demanding that his employees search for them.
Kicked black wrestlers off the team claiming “the KKK runs this place”
That du Pont, after his mother’s death, sets her horse barn on fire with the horses inside. The film only shows Carrell let the horses go. Perhaps horses being burnt up is too graphic for the screen.
Again, there wasn’t just enough time in the movie, but the film more than manages to portray the fact that the man just was not right in the head.
Steve Carrell is no stranger to playing characters who aren’t exactly grounded in reality. After all, he played the dimwitted bumbling boss Michael Scott on The Office for years. But while Scott’s antics were relatively harmless, du Pont’s instability is (and as we see later) a disaster waiting to happen.
Barely recognizable under gray hair and a large prosthetic nose, Carrell earns his Oscar nomination as he plays du Pont, capturing his overall style of a hopelessly depressed ego-maniac slash elderly man child.
If I keep going, I’ll give too much of the film away. It climaxes when du Pont, spurred on by his ongoing desire to achieve greatness (by letting others earn it for him) makes David an offer he can’t refuse to come be part of the Foxcatcher wrestling program. Mark, who’s been sucked into du Pont’s unhealthy drugging lifestyle, feels betrayed by du Pont (at one point du Pont tells Mark he understands and supports his desire to win on his own), that he’s lost his chance to win without his brother’s help, not to mention he’s under intense pressure from du Pont to succeed.
Later, Ruffalo as David makes a face as if he’s losing his soul when a documentary film maker du Pont has hired to produce a glowing film about himself asks David to say du Pont is his mentor. David is perhaps the most genuinely lovable character of the whole film, caring for his family, concerned for his brother’s well-being and at a crucial moment in the film, stands up to du Pont on Mark’s behalf.
SPOILER ALERT (Again, I hate using that term here but I have no idea what else to say.)
After losing in the 1988 Olympic games, Mark leaves the Foxcatcher program and the film ends with du Pont driving his car to David’s house.
Here’s the scary part. I’ve known for years that du Pont shot David Schultz just because it was a well-known, highly reported on crime. And I’ve been reading more about it since the movie came out.
Yet, even though I knew it was coming, I just wasn’t prepared for it and was startled anyway. While David is standing in his driveway, du Pont pulls up, asks, “Do you have a problem with me?” then shoots David.
An employee riding with du Pont who had no idea what his boss was up to tries to stop him. David’s wife comes out of the house and du Pont points his gun at her, sending her back in the house.
David struggles to crawl to safety but du Pont shoots him twice more in the back then drives back to his house to hole up.
The expressionless face, the clear lack of interest in the gravity of what he’s done…Carrell as du Pont arguably portrays a villain in that short moment that rivals Hannibal Lecter.
But while Lecter made it clear he wants to eat you, du Pont is one of those people who seems off, but no one realized just how off he was or what he was capable of until it was too late.
Accounts I’ve read online typically describe the situation in that du Pont was known throughout his community as being an oddball but his antics seemed harmless and people were happy to take advantage of the generous donations he offered, thus placating his bad behavior while failing to realize he was a ticking time bomb all along.
One can’t help but feel sorry for the Schultz brothers throughout the film. Olympic wrestlers are in a tough position. They’re paid no money to train and yet have to a) train all day in order to compete and b) still somehow find a source of income to pay their bills.
A benefactor swoops in and offers to pay them a salary and gives them houses on his estate to live in while they practice the sport they love?
Hell, be honest. You’d ignore the tank too.
If you’re interested in reading more about the case, here are two articles I found helpful:
Reese Witherspoon is short! Sofia Vergara’s accent is hilarious!
This movie is dumb!
Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of a movie so goofy that even the pimply faced teenaged usher asked “Really?” when he ripped the ticket I bought for it.
SPOILERS (if such a concept is possible for a movie like this) AHEAD.
“This is the performance of a lifetime!”
And thus, with a quip said without a straight face during the ending credits blooper reel, Witherspoon totally negates any ability for this reviewer to bust on the film.
This is a throwaway movie, one designed to make you chuckle, something you can check out when you’re bored but not feeling up to the emotional rigamarole of a heavy drama. I know it, you know it and even the lead actress knows it: don’t take this flick too seriously.
It’s a mild comedy – not so lame that you won’t laugh yet not so raunchy that Grandma can’t enjoy it. In fact, Aunt Gertie opined that it was a hoot and a half.
(I only brought her because she paid for the popcorn. My blog stats took a major hit while she was watching this damn thing.)
The setup? Vergara is the wife of a drug cartel informant who’s agreed to testify against his boss. Witherspoon, a police officer who’s been riding the pine in the evidence lock-up ever since an unfortunate mistake on the job tarnished her reputation, is selected to accompany a U.S. Marshall in transporting the couple to Dallas.
Shots are fired, foul play ensues, and the film turns into a mad cap buddy comedy/road trip romp as it’s up to Witherspoon to get Vergara to safety.
It’s a downgrade for Witherspoon, who we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in acclaimed dramas like the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line or the more recent Cheryl Strayed inspired film Wild.
Arguably, it’s an upgrade for Vergara, as this marks her first top billing in a major feature film. And while this is a movie I’m not going to rush to watch again anytime soon, there were a few moments where Vergara shines, thus making it known to Hollywood that she has more to offer the world than a pair of miraculous bosoms and a funny accent.
Speaking of Vergara’s signature accent, the film even busts on that in an ironic manner. Witherspoon uses a heavy Southern accent and at times both characters claim to not be able to understand each other.
I saw this movie so you won’t have to, 3.5 readers. No thanks necessary.
STATUS: Not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to rush out to the theater to take it in either. Might be worth a rental. Might even be the movie that allows Vergara to branch out and take on heavier roles. Alas, doesn’t earn a coveted spot on the magic shelf.
It’s an eternal romance that makes you think about the fragility of life and love.
Bookshelf Q. Battler here to review the crap out of The Age of Adaline.
Warning: spoilers to come.
The incomparable Blake Lively, star of stage, screen and many of Bookshelf Q. Battler’s fantasies stars as Adaline Bowman. Born at the turn of the Twentieth Century, she experiences a freak accident that leaves her ageless. No matter how many years pass, she continues to remain young and beautiful.
TRAILER – Age of Adaline – Lionsgate
When Adaline hits her forties, people begin asking questions about how she’s managed to remain so youthful and so her life of solitude begins. Afraid to reveal her secret, she packs up and moves to a new place every ten years, taking on a new identity every time she does so.
Tragically, she refuses to look for love as she figures it will be too heartbreaking when she grows old while a significant other remains young.
Director Neil Blomkamp hit a home run his first time at bat with 2009’s District 9, attracting a rare Oscar nomination for a Sci-Fi flick. Critics weren’t big on his follow-up Elysium with Matt Damon but this blogger thought it was actually pretty decent.
So when I saw previews about a movie starring a bad ass police robot with Hugh Jackman as the villain, I was all like, “Sign me up!”
But after seeing it? Ugh. Where do I start?
OK. If you want no SPOILERS leave now.
“Suck” is a strong word. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen and it did have its up moments. “Suck” is often in the eye of the beholder. And an ongoing theme of this blog is that I cheer on artists of all kinds in the hopes that said art will find a home in the hearts of people who will appreciate it.
So, I only use the word “suck” in correlation to what I was expected and what I received.
I was expecting an off brand Robo-cop. What I got was a robot with a childish brain spending most of the movie waxing philosophically about the meaning of its existence.
I can’t really explain it without digging into the plot, so here goes.
Deion (Dev Patel) is an engineer for a corporation that builds police robots for the South African government. One day, he develops a program for a true AI, an intelligence that will allow a robot to be able to think like a human (more so, actually).
The CEO, played by Sigourney Weaver, is not interested and orders Deion not to use company equipment to experiment with his AI program. Odd that the head of a for-profit company would balk at an idea that would revolutionize the robotics industry but, ok.
Against orders, Deion implants his program into a broken down police robot headed for the scrap pile.
Oh, I forgot to mention, he does this after he is kidnapped by Ninja and Yolandi, two gangster criminals who cook up a scheme to kidnap the engineer in the hopes that he can provide them with a remote control they can use to shut the police robots off and commit crimes with reckless abandon. The gangsters abandon the remote control idea and Ninja wants to use the robot, which they name Chappie, to help with a heist that will be used to repay money owed to an even worse criminal.
Here’s where things start to get odd. Deion goes along with it and ok…what choice does he have? They’re criminals with guns and shit.
But then – from time to time, Deion just comes back to the criminals lair to talk to Chappie and help him with his development.
Well ok – Deion has stolen a company owned robot against orders so that’s understandable he doesn’t want to call the cops on Ninja and Yolandi.
But then – Ninja and Yolandi just kind of like, let Deion come and go as he pleases. I feel like most gangsters probably would have just shot him.
Chappie was born the instant his AI program was switched on so there’s a learning curve. He’s basically a kid in a robot body and everything in the world is new to him. There are some funny moments when Ninja teaches him how to swear and act like a gangster but other than that…eh, it’s…I don’t know. “Eh” is the best word I can use to describe it.
Ok…so its a goofy set up. It gets better right? Nah…while there are some good action scenes, a great deal of the film is spent on Chappie learning about morals, the soul, the purpose of being alive, how people should treat one another, and so on.
Maybe that’s good. Maybe there are people who will enjoy that. Maybe Sci-Fi should make you think and maybe it doesn’t always have to be mindless special effects.
But me personally? I came into this film expecting a 2 hour bad ass police robot film and instead I got Chappie in bed with Yolandi (who he believes is his mother) reading Ba Ba Black Sheep to him:
Chappie and Yolandi – Sony Pictures
Stop reading, Chappie. I know. I’m a book blogger. But seriously, stop reading. Stop painting. Stop philosophizing. Be a badass already.
Fun fact that I didn’t realize until I went home and Googled the film – Ninja and Yolandi are actually two members of the South African rap group Die Antwoord. I’d never heard of them before, probably because I’m not South African. Their rap names are actually Ninja and Yolandi and they play fictional versions of themselves in the movie.
After finding that out, I felt like the movie was one big joke that Blomkamp didn’t let me in on because I’m not South African and had never heard of Die Antwoord before.
Imagine if they made a movie where Nicki Minaj and Kanye West became the parents of a robot with a childish brain. That’d be kind of hilarious. Had I known who Ninja and Yolandi were prior to going into the movie, I might have found the whole thing a laugh riot (though I’m not sure a comedy was the director’s intent).
Admittedly, I might be broadcasting my lameness since these guys are apparently tearing up the inter webs.
If South African rap interests you, their vids are on youtube. They’re a bit…well…”out there.” No offense, I think I’ll stick with good old traditional Ludacris and Fiddy regaling me with tales about their trips to the club, their love of Cristal, spinning rims and so on.
That’s not a knock on Ninja and Yolandi though – they may be the only redeeming part of the movie, if there is one.
In conclusion – I gave it a solid C. Probably not something you want to rush out to the theater for but you might give it a rental in the hopes that Neil Blomkamp can be encouraged to bring us another project of District 9 proportions.
That grade was hard for me to give. My regular 3.5 readers know I hate to criticize and there may very well be people who love this movie and I’m glad for them but…meh…I think it is the first bit of media I’ve reviewed thus far that will not find its way on my shelf.
PS: What constitutes good science fiction is often debated. Some think that a sci fi flick should just be mindless laser blasting, space opera, and little else. Am I therefore being one of these people by criticizing Chappie? I suppose so, though it’s not my intention. I didn’t like it, but I can see why others might.
Bookshelf Q. Battler here. I snuck out while the Yeti was playing Tapper to take in a movie tonight. Hate to say it, but the Yeti has become less of a captor and more of an annoying uninvited house guest.
But I digress.
Regrets? Liam Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon has had a few and they’re all catching up with him over the course of one non-stop, action packed night.
Movieclips Trailers
Ever since Taken, Neeson has had a resurgence, moving from dramatic actor to tough guy action star. In most of these films, he’s calm, cool, collected. Surprisingly, in this film we see a divergence. Neeson still plays a man you want on your side if you’re in a pinch, but he’s also a bad guy. Worse, he’s not just any bad guy. When we’re introduced to Jimmy, he’s a sloppy, slobbering, lowlife drunk, depressed over a life spent being a murderer for his longtime friend and mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). Of course, Jimmy sobers up quickly as he can’t be expected to take out one goon after the next in an inebriated state.
Michael Conlon (Joel Kinnaman from last year’s Robocop reboot) hates his father and avoids him all costs in the name of living a law abiding life. Unfortunately, he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time when he inadvertently witnesses Maguire’s son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) shoot some Albanian drug dealers during a deal gone awry.
Danny tries to shoot Michael so as to leave no witnesses but ends up being shot by Jimmy. Maguire vows revenge against his long time friend and criminal associate and has a seemingly endless supply of degenerate henchmen to lob at the father-son duo as they navigate their way through the streets of New York City.
Common provides a chilling turn as stone cold hit man Andrew Price, dispatched by Maguire to take the Conlons out. Vincent D’Onofrio also submits an emotional performance as Detective Harding, the good cop who has been hunting Jimmy for twenty-five years, only to see every case he’s brought against the mob murderer fall through the cracks of a corrupt justice system.
And yet, the rub for Harding is that on this particular night, Jimmy is not the bad guy, so the detective is struck with the unenviable task of having to help a man he despises do a good thing – i.e. save the lives of Michael and his family.
Why is revenge such a powerful force that it makes men blind to the realities around them? Maguire knows his son did wrong. He knows Jimmy just did something any father would do. Even so, Maguire is out for blood and it is a bit heartbreaking to watch as a duo with a thirty year friendship take each other on.
Nick Nolte makes a quick cameo and, well, not to put the guy down because, hey, time eventually comes for all of us, but it did take me a second to realize it was Nick Nolte.
The film moves at a mile a minute pace and never slows down. If you’re looking for a good Spring action flick, you won’t be disappointed.
I try my best not to make fun of the work of others on this blog. And let’s
50 Shades of Grey – 20 Percent of Off
face it, make fun of Fifty Shades of Grey all you want, but the author, publisher, and now movie studio behind it are raking in the dough.
I just can’t help but scratch my head though as I try to make sense out of why today’s modern, empowered woman would be into this thing. But that’s a slippery slope I don’t want to get onto, lest I be accused of trying to tell women what to do.
Here’s the hypothetical Hollywood pitch meeting as it plays out in my head:
HOLLYWOOD SUIT 1 : OK. We’ve got this great movie idea.
This mousy woman goes to interview a man, but discovers he has a secret room where he tortures women!
HOLLYWOOD SUIT 2: Oh my God! Sounds terrifying! So what, I guess we brand it as a horror flick and release it on Halloween?
SUIT 1: What? No! Sorry, I forgot to mention the guy is handsome and rich.
SUIT 2: Handsome and rich?! Well, why didn’t you say so? Sounds like a surefire Valentine’s Day blockbuster to me!!!
Admittedly, I’ve never seen the book nor read the film. If you have, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the main theme basically, “If you’re handsome and rich, it’s ok to abuse women?”
Eh, what the hell do I know? I’m just a humble book blogger. Y’all have fun at the movie. I’ll be at home lamenting the decline of Western civilization as we know it.
In conclusion, let me be clear. I’m not telling women what they should or shouldn’t like. I am saying that Susan B. Anthony is rolling in her grave.
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time, mainly because I feel like they’ve been promoting in forever. Given that it is up against Seventh Son, a fantasy film, nerds have plenty to watch this weekend, though these films may be cannibalizing one another’s profits since their core audiences are going to be the same contingent of geeks and dweebs.
That’s not an insult geeks and dweebs. I am one of you.
And sadly, since they’re both movies that cater to a younger crowd, I think they’re both going to be trounced by…dun dun dun… Spongebob: Sponge Out of Water.
But enough about business talk.
The plot? It turns out that worlds aren’t so much natural occurrences as they are business assets of a corporation owned The Abrasax family. The three heirs, played by Eddie Redmayne , Tuppence Middleton, and Douglas Booth, as heirs to a fortune often do, squabble over their inheritances, always trying to gain more planets for themselves.
But they don’t want to rule them. They want to harvest them. We’re all basically cattle and once a planet’s population exceeds its resources, the Abrasaxes have all of the people killed and somehow they are turned into a juice that can be bathed in to reverse the aging process.
Umm…good luck with that. All I can say is if you bathe in a juice made out of me, you’re going to be pretty disgusted.
Somehow, and they don’t really explain how, but Jupiter Jones, played by Mila Kunis, is a reincarnated version of the Abrasax kids’s mother. That’s a problem for them, seeing as how their mother, before being murdered by Redmayne’s character, Balem, wrote it into her will that her reincarnated self would inherit Earth.
Sidenote – this movie realized that I’ve done very little to ensure that my assets will be transferred to my reincarnated self, and thus as soon as I’m done writing this review, I’m going to get my attorney on the horn posthaste.
Keep in mind that at the start of the film, Jupiter has no idea that she’s a reincarnated space queen. She was born a Russian immigrant and cleans rich people’s toilets for a living.
Middleton’s character, Kalique, is happy to have a version of her mother back. Booth’s Titus contrives a scheme to marry Jupiter, claiming that doing so will protect Earth and keep it out of Balem’s grubby mitts. However, Titus has his own evil plans.
Here’s a rundown of a conversation I had with the Wachowskis in my mind as I watched the film:
ME: So this guy is trying to marry a reincarnated version of his mother?
WACHOWSKIS: Yes.
ME: That isn’t incest?
WACHOWSKIS: No. She’s not actually his mother. She’s his reincarnated mother.
ME: But she’s his mother brought back to life so…
WACHOWSKIS: SHUT UP AND WATCH THE PRETTY SPECIAL EFFECTS!!!!
Anyway, Channing Tatum plays Jupiter’s protector, Caine Wise, a human-wolf hybrid, and at this point, the man’s abs must be a multi-million dollar business.
HOLLYWOOD: Channing, we want you in our next picture.
CHANNING: I’m gonna have to charge you a million per ab.
And much to my surprise, Sean Bean was in the movie and he didn’t die. He dies in every movie he’s in, so it was kind of a disappointment that his character didn’t bite the dust, buy the farm, or kick the bucket.
All in all, for a February film, it was pretty decent. I’ve seen ads for this forever, and when a movie is hyped for this long, you kind of go into it expecting your socks to be knocked off, and usually they never are. But sci-fi nerds and space geeks will be pleased. The Wachowskis of Matrix fame are masters of the genre and they don’t disappoint with their special effects skills. People fly, there’s space craft warfare, and so on.
Plus, the scene lampooning the bureaucratic process that Jupiter has to go through to be named Queen was amusing.
One minor complaint – there were a lot of characters, aliens, technologies, organizations – in short, just a lot going on. It leaves you with questions that unfortunately a movie just doesn’t have time to answer.
The special effects alone are worth seeing on the big screen though, and let’s face it, you’ve got nothing else better to do this weekend, so go see it.
I wish it was a continuation (i.e. a sequel) rather than a reboot.
It could start with Ray (Dan Akyroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) selling the old firehouse to a new group of female Ghostbusters. After the cash is handed over and the papers are signed, Ray and Winston retire to Florida where they, oh I don’t know, become fishing boat captains. Or buddy cops.
Perhaps this is overly-nerdy of me, but I feel like a reboot wipes out the past universe of a movie franchise, whereas a sequel continues it.
Unless you’re into varying timelines. Or aren’t a nerd who spends too much time thinking about these things.
What say you, readers? What are your thoughts on the Ghostbusters reboot?
Bookshelf Battle 