Magic Mike (2012)

Will You Welcome to the Stage, the One, the Only … MAGIC MIKE!

When I first heard about today’s movie, I knew it would only be a matter of time before it was requested.  It was even easier to reach that conclusion since I heard about it from a request from my friend Christian.  It certainly wasn’t a movie that appealed to me personally and, since it was still in the theaters, I felt like it would just have to wait to be reviewed until I could find it in a RedBox.  But Christian was not alone.  Ashley seconded the idea, my sister liked the idea, and Bob thought it would be funny as well.  By the time Loni requested it, I decided that was it.  I’d have to see this movie while it was still in theaters.  My readers just could not wait long enough for this to be on DVD.  They needed my thoughts now.  There was still the problem of my masculinity while purchasing a ticket to this movie, but Liz and Bonnie helped me with that.  I’m seeing this movie with two ladies!  I cannot possibly be gay!  But I’ll still see if I can write this review with a lisp as I review Magic Mike, written by Reid Carolin, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and starring Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Matthew McConaughey, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez, Kevin Nash, Gabriel Iglesias, Olivia Munn, and Riley Keough.

On a construction site, Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) meets a slacker named Adam (Alex Pettyfer), who moved to Tampa, Florida to live with his sister, Brooke (Cody Horn).  Later on, Adam sees Mike as he’s trying to get into a club and Mike gets him in in exchange for a favor to be named later.  The two of them get a group of girls interested in coming to a male strip club called Xquisite.  When they arrive at Xquisite later, we find that Mike works there and his favor will be for Adam to help out backstage with the props of the other strippers, Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), and Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello).  When Tarzan gets too drunk (or high or something), the owner of the club, Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) talks Adam into getting on stage in his place.  Taking to the money, excitement, and women, Adam starts working permanently at Xquisite while Mike tries to bang his sister.

Here’s the stunning reveal: this movie was actually not that bad.  It’s a fairly basic, but charming, story with a few minor problems and, of course, the major problem that the film insisted on banging it’s cock against my head every five minutes or so.  The story of the movie, from what I’ve gathered, is an interpretation of Channing Tatum’s life before he started appearing in movies, and isn’t a whole lot more than the life and times of a male stripper.  He has problems with his fairly lonely lifestyle as his “girlfriend” is more of a fuck buddy that doesn’t actually have any interest in hanging out with him, and then he has money problems because he has shitty credit and wants to open a furniture business.  Adam causes a few problems for him because he takes it upon himself to take care of him while he’s getting a little too interested in the dark side of stripping, like the using and selling of drugs, and he’s taking extra care so he doesn’t get on the bad side of Brooke, who he would really like to bang.  And that’s basically it.  The way this movie charms is with the comedy, which comes with a fair degree of frequency, and some good dialogue, but only about half of it.  Sometimes the dialogue came off as cute and charming and funny, but sometimes it just seemed like they improvised too much.  Leaving in people stumbling over their words does help to make the movie feel a little more real, but I can watch real life anywhere.  I just choose not to.  I was watching a movie, so I’d appreciate it if they could form their sentences all the time.  The ending of the movie was also a little abrupt and unsatisfying, but it was still a decent enough happy ending so I didn’t walk away too disappointed.

Let’s face facts: this movie was not meant for me.  I’m a straight dude.  This movie has a very targeted audience and that is anything with a pussy.  I imagine every single one of them will love it.  Straight men might even love taking their girlfriends to it, or at least allowing their girlfriends to see it, because I imagine they come home hungry for some penis.  What the movie does for me in this instance is just make me feel embarrassed.  I don’t look like all that man meat!  Not at all!  The ladies will probably approve of the somewhat sweet love story they can find here, but they’re probably going to be more about the stripping, and I’ll try to get into the head of a gay dude to describe it.  It was fabulous!  Straight me would say it was very well done and will certainly give the ladies what they came to this movie for.  I was trying to focus on everything else personally, but the guys were all big piles of man meat, to be sure.  And the greater majority of them could really dance.  The dancing was actually kind of interesting to watch and seemed well-choreographed.  Well, they started out that way.  They mostly ended up with a basic “Put dick in face and thrust” move, but they were actually pretty interesting until that part.  And they were well-filmed as well, being very colorful and full of the same spectacle you might actually find in a male strip club … for all I know.  I’ve never been to one!  I don’t know if this is all the ladies are looking for, but there’s really no dick in this movie, so don’t go if penis is all you want.  You see the silhouette of one about twice … not that I was counting or anything.  …cough…

Let’s quickly switch topic to the performances!  Channing Tatum was pretty enjoyable in this movie.  He was mostly charming and definitely still knew how to do the stripping side of the movie.  He was the one most guilty of seeming unpracticed in his dialogue, but I still blame the director more for letting it slide.  Alex Pettyfer was pretty quiet and didn’t do much, but I did think it was funny that his first time stripping was reminiscent of Coco from Fame, without the crying.  Cody Horn was mostly good as Brooke.  Not only was she pretty damned cute, but she did pretty good with the acting as well.  Didn’t mind seeing her in a bikini either.  Her character got a little annoying with how judgmental she was, though.  On the other hand, I don’t really know how I’d react if I were being courted by a female stripper.  Doesn’t SEEM like the kind of girl I’d want to date, but I guess that just depends on the girl.  As a little something for the fellas, Olivia Munn has a pretty prolonged scene in the movie where her boobs are on full display that I was entirely torn on.  It’s something that I’ve touched on before in my reviews, but I don’t really like seeing people that I like get nude in movies.  I love seeing boobs, and Olivia Munn has a great set of them, but I don’t think I really wanted to see her nude.  I like her because she’s funny and cute and seeing her boobs ruin my mental image of her for some reason.  Maybe it’s just because I feel bad that she felt like she had to do it in the first place.  She could have totally had a shirt on in that scene and it wouldn’t have changed anything.  I guess she just felt that all the guys were getting far more naked, so why not?  Alright, I should move on.  I’ve talked about her boobs too much for the people that are actually interested in reading this review.  Big Dick Richie!  I don’t actually have anything to say about him as he was an uneventful character; I just wanted to get your attention back.  One thing that did keep my attention was Kevin Nash, former WCW wrestler.  I recognized him the second I saw him and was interested to see what he was going to do in this movie, but he didn’t do a whole lot.  The main issue I had with him was that a combination of his age and compounded injuries over his wrestling days made it pretty obvious that he should no longer be trying to dance alongside these young and virile fellas.  To me, Matthew McConaughey brought my attention to something that I started seeing in the rest of the cast too: they all seemed to be just acting like themselves if they were strippers instead of actually giving a performance.  Matthew McConaughey was the greatest offender with this, being every bit the “alright, alright” McConaughey that he really is.  At one point, he gets in Channing Tatum’s face about something that actually stretched his acting chops, but the rest of the time was just keep living time.

So there it is.  Magic Mike was not as bad as I expected it to be.  The story was pretty basic, but still managed to be a charming look at the life of a male stripper.  The performances were all well done even though most of them just seemed to be the stripper versions of all of the actors, and I occasionally had problems with the dialogue seeming unrehearsed.  But, let’s face it, none of those things – or even my opinion – will make anyone see this movie.  Guys won’t do it because that would make them gay, and girls have already seen it 27 times.  But I will tell you guys that it’s not actually that bad if you can manage to not be made uncomfortable by long scenes of man meat.  And I will also tell you girls that you are perverts.  Magic Mike gets “Liz loved it” out of “Bonnie too.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook and Twitter.  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

In Time (2011)

For a Few to be Immortal, Many Must Die

I confess that I never had any interest in watching today’s movie.  And yet, while thumbing through a RedBox, I decided to pick it up.  I’m an enigma.  The movie seemed like a fairly typical action movie that even the very attractive cast could not pique my interest in.  But it was slim pickings in the RedBox that I went to, so you take what you can get for your entertainment dollar.  But I’ve been surprised by movies before, so let’s see how this one did.  Today’s movie is In Time, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, and starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Matthew Bomer, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Wilde, and Johnny Galecki.

What a shocker!  It’s the future and it’s not looking that bright.  Well, one part of it is: everyone in the future stops aging at the age of 25.  The catch is that everyone is given one year’s worth of time, starting at that age.  The time can basically act as money.  You earn it by working, you spend it on living.  But when you run out of money, you drop dead.  We follow a 28-year-old factory worker named Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) who lives with his mother, Rachel (Olivia Wilde), and struggle to get by day by day.  All that changes when he saves the live of a guy named Henry Hamilton (Matthew Bomer), who repays Will by giving him 116 years and then “times out” (dies).  Will is really excited to give some time to his mom, but she times out as well.  Not really knowing what to do with himself, he decides to go to the rich district to gamble with his extra time.  He wins 1,100 years from businessman Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) and meets his daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried).  But Will has a problem: the police force (herein called the Timekeepers) found Hamilton’s dead body and think that Will stole the time from him.  At a party at Weis’ house, the Timekeepers show up to arrest Will, but Will escapes using Sylvia as a hostage.  With all of his time confiscated by the Timekeepers, what is Will going to do next?

Meh.  That’s what I have to say about this movie.  Meh.  The idea of the movie is interesting enough, but the execution leaves the greater majority of the movie people looking at their wrists while holding hands.  It’s not a new idea to film goers that the future is going to be a shitty place.  It’s not a new idea to anyone that rich people lead better and longer lives.  But turning the amount of time you have in this world into currency is a pretty nifty idea.  One that I hope never becomes reality, but it’s okay to watch it in a movie.  If it is something they’re looking at making a reality, I certainly hope they figure out how to transfer time between two people with something more than a handshake.  That shit will get stolen all the time.  Then the world would just be rich people and criminals.  But the movie eventually degenerates into a pretty basic chase movie, and even more often into a futuristic Robin Hood.  The message gets a little lost when Will and Sylvia are doing the right thing (kinda) by taking time from the rich and giving it to the poor, only to have the poor have their time taken and get killed for it.  The movie can’t decide if it wants us to do the right thing or not bother because it will only get people killed.  And to defeat these time thieves, Will must get into something that looks like an arm wrestling match, as if I was watching Over the Top with Sylvester Stallone.  Will also gets blamed for the death of Johnny Galecki because he gave him 10 years and Johnny decided he needed to go blow a year of that on booze and die in the gutter with 9 years left.  His wife then gets all bitchy at Will for that.  He tried to do something nice, bitch!  You’re the one that married the alcoholic!  The movie was not all boring though, and it at least looked good.  It shouldn’t be that hard when everyone in the cast has to be able to play 25.  Some Timberlake for the women, and some Seyfried and Wilde for the men.

The performances were fine enough, but nothing really spectacular behind the physical.  The movie didn’t require a lot of range out of anybody, really.  It was really weird to me to have Timberlake talking to Olivia Wilde as if she was his mother, even though they look to be in the same age range.  And the same could be said for Weis when he introduced his step-mother, wife, and daughter, who all looked roughly the same.  Nobody really had to put on that much of a performance in the movie beyond regular stuff and running a lot.  If you were pretty and able to look at your wrist, you’re in.

In Time is a decent idea that never really got very interesting.  Lots of running, lots of hand holding and clock checking, and pretty people everywhere.  But really not a whole lot more than that.  It’s not a bad movie, but it’s one you can easily do without.  If you need to see it so bad, you can find it at a RedBox, but there are better movies to spend your time with.  And so, In Time gets “Don’t waste my time” out of “I don’t have time.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

I Am Number Four (2011)

I Am … Not Interested

The timing of my decision to start doing movie reviews became fairly unfortunate when my friend Cody suggested I review the movie I Am Number Four.  The reason it was so unfortunate is because I had already watched this movie, it was completely lackluster, and now I must do it again to review it.  Well, here goes anyways.  I Am Number Four stars Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant (or Olyphantastic, as Kevin Smith called him), Dianna Agron, Teresa Palmer, Callan McAuliffe, and Kevin Durand (who I know from his portrayal of the Blob in the Wolverine movie I don’t like to call an X-Men movie).

At least 6 aliens have come to Earth, their planet having been destroyed by a race known as the Mogadorians, or as I call them the Overactians.  We follow, of course, Number 4, otherwise known to us as John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) and his protector Henri (Timothy Olyphantastic).  Their identities are compromised by 4’s shiny calf scar and a combination of iPhones and the interwebs.  So they have to pick up and move.  Turns out his shiny calf (not a golden idol, I mean a scar on his calf that started glowing) meant that one of the other 6 was killed by the Overactians.  The move to Paradise, Ohio and John enrolls himself in the most cliched, John Hughes-ian school in recent memory.  Here he meets the the bully jock, the quirky artsy girl (Dianna Agron), and the picked on nerdy kid (Callan McAuliffe).  Being the good guy, he befriends the two outcasts.  This pisses off the jock because he used to date artsy girl.  Eventually the Overactians descend upon Paradise and the whole group, plus Number 6 (Teresa Palmer), must overcome the enemy.

Not a lot of this movie works for me.  The writing is totally cliched and obvious.  Like I said, the high school 4 goes to is right out of a John Hughes film.  I’ve been to high school before and I never really saw any of this stuff going down.  I could’ve been considered either a nerd or artsy girl … I mean guy … back in high school, but no one ever knocked my books out of my hands or set up elaborate exploding paint pranks in my locker.  Hell, I didn’t even have a locker!

The acting pretty much tops off at mediocre.  No one really stood out.  One of the weird things I thought about towards the end of the movie involve Number 6.  This chick shows up in the very beginning of the movie at the house Number 4 just evacuated and decides to blow it up to cover their tracks.  They work really hard to make her appear to be a badass here; having her walking out in slow mo, sunglasses on, and the building blowing up behind her.  Then you don’t see this chick again until the last 10 minutes of the movie, where they again try to sell her as a badass by giving her cool powers.  If this chick is supposed to be so cool, why not give her a little screen time?  As I said, the Mogadorians are totally hamming it up as the alien enemies.  And they look weird too.  Their main physical feature that sets them apart is having gills next to their nose, which apparently cause them to speak in a ridiculous way.  On a positive note, the fight scene near the end is decent, the CG is actually pretty good, and they have some nice parkour in the movie.

So, not a lot of this movie made sense to me.  First off, the names of everyone.  How clever is it to just give people numbers?  Was it a placeholder so you could go back and give them names later but you forgot and the deadline on the script ran out?  And how angry would you be if you were Number 2?  The poop jokes would never end.  “Hey, here comes Number Two.” “Oh you guys were looking for me?” “No, I was just saying I haveta take a shit pretty soon.” “…I hate you guys.”  Another weird thing is when Number 4 meets the artsy girl.  She introduces herself and he does as well, introducing himself as John Smith.  She gets all butt-hurt and says something like “Okay, you don’t want to tell me your name.  That’s fine.”  Bitch, you don’t think there may be a few people whose name really IS John Smith?  They’re super common names, that’s why they even use it as a unidentified person’s name.  The biggest thing that bothered me while watching the movie was the relationship between 4 and artsy chick.  Why is he even falling in love?  Aren’t you an alien?!  What kind of horrible abomination are you looking to create?  And do you even know if our reproductive organs match up?

The best thing I can say about this movie is that it is completely lackluster as a movie, but probably would’ve made a pretty decent Saturday morning TV show.  It’s got a lot of Power Rangers to it.  Probably Ben 10 too, but I’ve never seen it.  They have these powers called Legacies and it seems they can make up new ones on the spot.  This is how they show up.  They are all apparently extra agile and strong, 6 has a shield of some sort, 4 makes his hands glow, 4 learns to blast and grab things with his glowing hands, 6 can teleport, and then apparently 4 can blast another Number Ranger with his hands to “power them up”.  The glowing hands create light, heat, and concussive force, but if he decides they can also gently cradle a girl that just fell off a roof.  They can just decide whatever they want to be able to do.  Tell me this format wouldn’t get kids on board on TV every week.

This movie seemed to be after an audience stupider than myself.  Between it’s hip music, pretty people, and parkour, it adds up to a formula to appeal to the dumber masses.  It’s not horrible, but it’s not worth watching either.  Make a TV show out of it, get some kids to watch it, ’cause I won’t for a third time.  And Heaven help you if you make a sequel to this like the end of the movie hinted at.  I will never forgive you.  I give this movie “Red Bull is for pussies” out of 1060.

And, as always, please rate, comment, and/or like this post and others.  It may help me get better.