The Lone Ranger (2013)

Justice is What I Seek, Kemosabe.

The amount of awful things I heard about today’s movie made me desperately want to see it.  Not quite enough to see it in theaters, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see it.  The studio seemed to try to hide the movie under the rug after that, keeping it off the shelves for about 6 months.  Did they not know I was waiting to make fun of it?!  By the time I finally got the opportunity to see it, I had already watched the people over at Schmoe’s Know report that it was the worst and second worst movie of the year, depending on which host you asked.  But you people are here to find the opinion of the host that really matters: ME!!!!!  So what did I think of The Lone Ranger?  You’ll just have to read more words and find out.  Some of those words will be the people that wrote it, whose names are Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio.  Gore Verbinski directed it.  And the movie also starred Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter, James Badge Dale, and Barry Pepper.

A young boy at a circus goes into a Wild West exhibit and sees a statue of an elderly Comanche that seems to come to life to tell the boy a story.  The Comanche reveals himself to be Tonto (Johnny Depp), and starts to tell the boy a story about how he met a lawyer named John Reid (Armie Hammer) while trying to exact his revenge on a man he calls a “wendigo,” but is more commonly referred to as Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), notorious outlaw.  Butch escapes and John joins his brother Dan’s (James Badge Dale) search party to try to bring him to justice, but a betrayal leads the slaughter of the entire team.  Tonto arrives and gives the bodies a proper burial, only to realize that John survived, if only just.  Tonto decides that John is a “spirit walker” and unable to be killed, which will be very useful in future fights.  Slightly less useful in future fights is a mask that Tonto gets John to wear.  Even less useful is the moniker of “The Lone Ranger” for someone that is eternally accompanied by a partner and a horse.

This was not a great movie, but I would argue that the amount of hatred received by this movie is unjustified.  It’s just a dumb fun movie.  I might be prodded to say that I enjoyed the experience.  For obvious reasons, it felt like a worse version of the worst Pirates of the Caribbean movie (That would be easily the fourth one, On Stranger Tides) set in the Wild West.  It had some simple story, an odd love story, some funny moments, and some okay action.  Not a whole lot to say about the story in general because of its simplicity.  It’s kind of just a double revenge plot and not much more.  I can say some things about the love story though.  John is in love with his brother’s wife and can move in on her without regrets because Dan’s been killed, instantly proving them both to be shitty wife and shitty brother simultaneously.

There were some pretty interesting and spectacular action scenes that I enjoyed in this movie.  The big train scene at the end was pretty interesting, like in the parts where Tonto was climbing up the ladder on the moving train.  The thing that did the most damage to this action sequence was the fact that they used the Lone Ranger music, the William Tell Overture, during the whole scene.  Look, I understand why they did it.  It was an appeasement to people that loved the original … whatever it was.  TV show?  Radio program?  Both?  Who cares?!  I’m not nearly old enough to give a shit.  But I do know that this music sounds a little goofy and dated by today’s standards and I would’ve been much happier with some random metal or orchestra music in that scene.  You could’ve thrown those old people a bone by playing it during the credits or something, but the people old enough to know that music had probably fallen asleep by then.  4:30 pm is way past their bed time.

One of the things that the Schmoe’s boys hated about this movie was Johnny Depp, comparing his goofy characterization to his performance in Pirates of the Caribbean.  I may be way off base here, but I liked his performance in both movies.  I find them funny and entertaining.  So sue me.  You can have all the money I make doing these things for you.  In fact, you already have it all.  I also found his interactions with Silver the horse to be pretty funny.  And Silver was my second favorite character in this movie!  That horse had a good amount of funny moments, like when it licked the scorpions off of the Lone Ranger’s face and when they found Silver standing in a tree for no good reason.  Of course, another part of the problem with this movie is that my second favorite character was a horse and not the person riding it.  Armie Hammer didn’t really make any impression on me.  His portrayal of the Lone Ranger was not nearly as badass as I wanted him to be, and not nearly as badass as someone being portrayed by someone named Armie Hammer.  With a name like that you should be eating lightning and crapping thunder!  Instead he won most of his victories by accident and dumb luck.  He was starting to come into his own as the Lone Ranger in that last action scene, but I had already written this down in my notes by the time I got there.

The Lone Ranger was beaten up pretty hard, but I feel it was unjustified.  Sure the story was unimpressive and the love story seemed all wrong, but there was some okay action scenes and I found Johnny Depp amusing enough to overcome Armie Hammer not living up to the awesomeness of his own name.  This movie would never really warrant a purchase, but I would feel confident recommending that you rent it from RedBox.  It’s worth a dollar.  The Lone Ranger gets “That was supposed to be a warning shot” out of “Something very wrong with that horse.”

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Batman Begins (2005)

You Must Become More than Just a Man in the Mind of Your Opponent.

Let’s go back in time to roughly 2004.  At this point, Batman had fallen on hard times, somewhat devastated by the shit sandwich known as Batman and Robin.  So devastating was this movie that it was almost a decade before they put out another one.  But this guy, he wanted to reboot the whole series.  What kind of bullshit is that?  We’ve all seen Batman’s origin story!  And you want to throw down your movie against the Tim Burton Batman’s origin story?  This has bad written all over it.  But, they wanted to take the movie in a darker direction, and it seemed as if they got mostly good people to be in it, so maybe I was judging too harshly.  I would still give it a chance.  Also, the word “Batman” was in the title, so there was a very good chance I would be seeing it anyway.  How could this movie possibly do?  We’ll find out as I review Batman Begins, written by David S. Goyer, co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Mark Boone Jr., Ken Watanabe, Linus Roache, Sara Stewart, Richard Brake, and Gus Lewis.

A young Bruce Wayne (Gus Lewis) must leave a play because of his fear of bats.  His father Thomas (Linus Roache) and mother Martha (Sara Stewart) escort him into the alley behind the theater where they are murdered in a mugging gone wrong by a desperate criminal, Joe Chill (Richard Brake).  Later, when Chill is granted parole if he testifies against crime boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Bruce (now Christian Bale) sets his mind on killing him, but is beaten to the punch by one of Falcone’s men.  Seeing how corrupt Gotham City has become, Bruce disappears into the world to study the criminal element and train physically and mentally in martial arts.  He gets himself arrested and, while imprisoned, he meets a man named Ducard (Liam Neeson), who offers Bruce the opportunity to train with and join the League of Shadows, a group of ninjas led by Ra’s al Ghul with a mind to bring justice to the world but, after training with them, he realizes that their plot is to dispel the evil from Gotham by destroying it and allowing it to rebuild.  Bruce says, “Good day,” picks up his hat and spikey gloves, and burns the place to the ground, killing Ra’s and saving the life of Ducard.  Bruce is picked up by his butler Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) and returns to Gotham to use his new skills and a pointy cowl to bring justice to Gotham in his own way.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but is Ra’s al Ghul immortal?  Are his methods supernatural?  Eh, it’ll probably never come up…

I tried, probably in vain, to act like I wouldn’t like this movie.  I can’t imagine anyone didn’t see right through that.  Of course this movie is awesome.  With each new reboot of the Batman it gets darker and better.  The old Adam West Batman was goofy and fun, then Tim Burton put out a much darker and more serious Batman with Michael Keaton that got goofier and more terrible over time as George Clooney took over the role.  What Christopher Nolan gives us is the darkest and most realistic look at the Caped Crusader we’ve ever seen, and probably the best Batman movie that had ever been released up to that point, renewing the faith of the fans that had been trampled down over the years.  I can’t recall if I went into this movie thinking that it couldn’t possibly be better than the Tim Burton Batman, but I would say it succeeded.  And, just as great, they went with some fantastic villains that we hadn’t seen in the movies prior: Scarecrow and Ra’s al Ghul.  I loved the realism in the movie as well.  Everything they changed they changed for the better, and all of it seemed like it could really happen.  The armor, the memory cloth cape, all of the setup stuff.  I don’t know that any of that stuff really exists, but it feels like it does.  The Tumbler seemed much more realistic, but I must admit that I miss the Batmobile from the first movie.  It’s an acceptable substitute.  Even the villains were more realistic.  Ra’s al Ghul stayed immortal with the use of the Lazarus Pit in the comic books; here he uses deception to spread the legend of Ra’s al Ghul as immortal.  Scarecrow was never all that unrealistic.  It’s probably not that hard to find an inhalant that will make you trip balls.  The only real issue I took with the story of the movie is that the fat cop was made out to be a dick for telling the guy he took food from that he should feed his kids falafel.  That’s just good logic right there.

No one should’ve been surprised that the greater majority of the people were able to bring it.  They got some fantastic actors to participate in this thing.  Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman; so many great actors that deliver in every way.  And Katie Holmes is in the movie too.  That’s perhaps harsh.  She actually did a fine enough job.  Not spectacular, but certainly not bad.  Christian Bale is probably the best performance in this movie as far as I’m concerned.  He really gives three performances.  The Bruce Wayne he puts on is mostly for show; what he’s been told a billionaire playboy would act like.  Then there’s the real guy, who is much more serious, but still finds the time to toss quips back and forth with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman – both of which bring a great deal of snarky comedy with their lines.  Then, of course, the Batman, who is always serious and speaks in a super gravelly voice that does grate on the nerves, but I didn’t take that much issue with it.  I think I more took issue with how breathless it always made him seem.  It was as if … he couldn’t do … more than three … words at a … time … like that …

Batman Begins is awesome.  One could argue that it starts out a little slowly as we have to sit through the origin story that the bulk of us were already familiar with, but once it gets moving, it gets moving.  This is the exact type of Batman movie the world wanted.  Or, in the very least, it’s the one I wanted.  The action is fantastic, the darkness and the realism are amazing, and the performances are top of the line.  I love you, Batman.  And you, Christopher Nolan.  Something tells me I might be saying that once or twice more in the next couple of days.  Come back to find out.  For now, Batman Begins gets “You’re not the devil.  You’re practice” out of “Death does not wait for you to be ready!”

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Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)

Next Time, I Get to Seduce the Rich Guy

Got back into the theaters today for another big movie I’ve been looking to see. It probably spoils it a bit early, but this is the 4th part in a series that I’ve liked all the way through. Most people hated on the third one, but I still found it enjoyable. These movies are typically a step above a big, dumb action movie. They’ve got the big and the action, but they’re usually a little bit smarter than your typical dumb action movie. But, as is the case with most sequels, I tend to go into them with a great deal of trepidation. Sequels always have the danger of being too much of the same thing. Is this one? Let’s find out in my review of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, written by Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec, directed by Brad Bird, and starring Tom Cruise, Michael Nyqvist, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Vladimir Mashkov, Lea Seydoux, Josh Holloway, Tom Wilkinson, Anil Kapoor, and Ving Rhames.

During a pick up in Budapest, IMF agent Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway) is killed in action by assassin Sabine Moreau (Lea Seydoux). In reaction, Hanaway’s team of Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) bust IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) out of a Moscow prison. Soon after, they find out that their mission – if they choose to accept it – is to break into the Kremlin to get information on someone with the codename “Cobalt”. Cobalt (Michael Nyqvist) beats them to the punch, stealing nuclear launch codes and blowing up the Kremlin, getting it blamed on Ethan Hunt and IMF. Ethan gets picked up by the IMF Secretary (Tom Wilkinson), who informs Ethan that the President has enacted “Ghost Protocol”, disavowing the entire IMF. Hunt and his team are going to take credit for it unless they get out there and fix this before they get captured. Russian security forces attack their car and kill the secretary, but Ethan escapes with the secretary’s chief analyst, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). With Brandt on their team, Ethan, Benji, and Jane go to stop Cobalt from starting a nuclear war.

YAY! Mission: Impossible didn’t let me down! It’s every bit the big, action movie of moderate intelligence that the previous films were, but that’s okay. It’s what I expected, what I wanted, and what I got. The story is solid, the action is pretty spectacular, and it was great fun. It’s worth mentioning that it’s the same basic principle that the other movies use. Something happens and Ethan Hunt must break with protocol to fix it. He does, and then he’s back with the IMF at the end. Same principle, but it’s different enough that it hasn’t gotten stale yet. The way it started was a little confusing to me. Now, I know the typical MI opening credit sequence is the lighting of a fuse that then travels along through the credits until it explodes to end them. There were two things that bothered me about these though. The first was that it seemed to show the whole movie in the background as the fuse traveled through the biggest scenes. I just thought it was odd and vaguely spoiler-y, but by the end I didn’t really think so because a brief shot from a huge action scene doesn’t really spoil it. The other thing that bothered me about it was that these people had super advanced equipment like a blue light that would cut a hole through 5-foot thick concrete, but they were still using explosives with a fuze you had to light with a match? Speaking of the technology: I know that Brad Bird came from Pixar, who is owned by Apple, but does that mean that 50% of the technology they use in the movie needs to be Apple products? Almost everyone in the movie used an iPhone, and they also used an iPad to peak around corners and to operate a machine that projected the image of the wall behind a giant screen so they could push the screen down a hall without knowing. Next time I talk to someone about the iPad, I’ll need to remember to tell them that it’s not just for media viewing, it’s also great for espionage! I just got really sick of seeing all the product placement in the movie and it bummed me out a little. And they missed the opportunity for a great joke at the end! When Ethan puts three iPhones on a table to give Pegg, Patton, and Renner their missions, Renner doesn’t take his. He says “I’m not going to take that phone …” and goes on to say something vaguely emotional. I was praying for it, but it didn’t happen. I desperately wanted him to say “I’m not going to take that phone … because I’m an Android man.” The action is over the top spectacular in this movie. I really don’t know how they’ll top it for the next movie. One such action scene is from the trailers and involves Hunt climbing the world’s tallest building in Dubai. There’s also infiltrations with cool technology, chases – both in cars and on foot (because Tom Cruise loves to run in movies), and big time shootouts and fist fights. One of the chases happens in a sandstorm that is so intelligent that it knows to arrive when it’s needed to amp up the action, but leaves right when the movie was finished with it. Very polite. If I was going to point out a negative side of the movie, it was definitely the ending. The movie is interesting and fun all the way through, but the ending seemed tacked on and out of place, as if they realized there was one more plot point to tie up (and a couple more cameos to throw in) and decided to throw it in so people wouldn’t complain. But I’m doing it anyway. It just seemed to stop the movie too abruptly and it could’ve been so much better.

The performances in this movie are much better than a movie of this type requires. They’re not super fantastic, impressive, or range-y performances, but they’re better than most of the performances that you would typically see in an action movie. Tom Cruise is as good as he was in all the other MI movies. He’s very serious and is running 90% of the time, but also stretches out his acting chops a couple of times. Simon Pegg is awesome. He’s back in this movie as the comic relief computer guy (as he well should be, being so nerdy and hilarious), but he also gets to play the badass a few times in this movie. He’s awesome in everything. Jeremy Renner is also very awesome. He didn’t have quite the emotional range to this character as he showed in Hurt Locker, but that’s not what the role called for. He kicked some ass, dropped some great lines, and just did one or two emotional parts. Paula Patton was very hot. She was also very good, but her hotness overrides her performances. WITH HOTNESS! Michael Nyqvist was pretty creepy as the bad guy, but I never really felt like his motivation was clear. I still have little to no idea why he wanted a nuclear war. But I think he was supposed to be pretty crazy, so he may not have had more reason than that.

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol keeps a great series moving forward with it’s solid story, fantastic action, and appropriately great performances. It doesn’t break any molds for story, but the action is amped up so high that I’m not sure how they’ll top it for another sequel, which I feel pretty confident will come eventually. I’m still on board to check it out. Shitty ending, be damned! I paid to see this in theaters, and I can’t see most of you being disappointed in this movie, especially if you walk out before the ending. I give Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol “Mission: Accomplished” out of “Ha, it’s funny ‘cuz you said anus.” This review was sponsored by Apple.

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Technically Speaking, the Operation IS Brain Damage

Today’s movie came as a suggestion from a coworker named Eric. When he suggested this movie, I found myself getting a little worried because, though this movie stars one of my favorite actors, it’s a total artsy fartsy movie. I generally hate artsy fartsy movies. And what made it worse (and perhaps a little apt) was that I have seen this movie before, I own this movie on DVD, but I really don’t remember anything about it beyond the fact that one of the actresses has blue hair in it. I’m going into this movie fresh because I don’t remember anything about it, but trepidatious because I don’t remember liking it. Let’s see what I think now in my review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, co-written by Charlie Kaufman, co-written and directed by Michel Gondry, and starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, David Cross, Jane Adams, and Deirdre O’Connell.

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) wakes up one day in a mood. A mood that is not helped when he goes downstairs and realizes his car has, inexplicably, been damaged. He decides at random that he’d liked to ditch work and go to Montauk. Here, he meets a lady with blue hair named Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet). At first, the emotionally withdrawn and nervous Joel is put off by Clementine’s free spirit, but she pretty much forces him into a relationship with her. As he waits for her to come out of her apartment, Patrick Wertz (Elijah Wood) knocks on his window and asks what he’s doing there. We start to unravel that Joel and Clem had once been in a two year relationship with each other, but had a messy break up. So messy, in fact, that Clem decided she wanted to have her memory of Joel erased completely. Joel hastily elects to undergo the same procedure, going to Lacuna, Inc and meeting receptionist Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst), Doctor Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), and technician Stan Fink (Mark Ruffalo). Joel starts undergoing the procedure and we watch him walk through his quickly disappearing memories, but he starts regretting his decision to forget Clem and tries to fight it, but he can’t because he’s asleep.

Though I find it very appropriate that I forgot everything about this movie, I wonder why I did. I actually kind of liked this movie even though it included many things I hate in movies. I’m not a fan of artsy movies because I think they mostly like to be confusing and absurd in order to claim they are meaningful. I don’t like movies that confuse me because it’s usually a sign of piss-poor writing. And, above all, I don’t like movies where Jim Carrey isn’t raucously funny throughout! But this movie is pretty touching, even for a guy with little to no experience in what the movie is about. The only time I’ve ever broken up with someone was a joyous occasion for me, but the story is a concept that normal people (who don’t consider their Xbox their girlfriend) have experience with: wishing you could forget someone you once loved. The movie starts off a little bit grating, before you realize why the movie is being conducted in the manner it is, with it’s quick cuts and constant blur over the movie, but when you find out that they underwent this memory loss procedure, it kind of makes sense. The fact that the middle part of the story was told in flashback (with no real indication that it was a flashback), did make the story a little hard to follow for me. It only becomes really clear around the end of the movie why it started with the beginning of their relationship and instantly jumped to the end. And all the little flashbacks within the bigger flashback did start to make me lose track of where I was in the story. It did manage to bring it all together so that I knew what was happening by the end.

The effects of this movie were pretty trippy, but also pretty interesting. When we were inside Jim Carrey’s memories, they reminded us of our location and showed us how these memories were dissolving around us. Jim Carrey would walk seamlessly from a book store into his friends’ living room with no discernible cut, he would be following Kate Winslet towards the bathroom and she would suddenly be in the kitchen, people’s faces would be missing, scenery would be disappearing behind him as he ran away from it, and then other memories would just be downright warped, like turning Elijah Wood’s eyes upside down on his head. A little disconcerting? Sure, but the effects told a story in and of themselves by showing what was happening to his memories.

The performances were one of the best parts to this movie. Though I prefer my Jim Carrey’s to come in Ace Ventura-like forms, I understand his need to do a more reserved, emotional role every now and then. Actor’s don’t like to be typecast, even if it’s for doing something you’re amazing at. Though I found her character to be pretty tedious, I didn’t blame Kate Winslet. I know she’s a good actress, but that character was just written to be the type of person I don’t ever want to be around. She gets all up in Jim Carrey’s Kool-Aid on the train, and they don’t even know each other. I’m too nice to tell her to fuck off, but she would’ve worked on my nerves by getting into my business, and then overreacting and jumping down my throat because I said “nice” too much. Well go back to YOUR seat then, bitch! Also, just because you’ve decided to call yourself an impulsive, free spirit does not give you cause to use that as an excuse for being a twat. But, again, I was annoyed by the character and not the actress. Winslet pulled off some great moments of manic-depression as her memory loss procedure hadn’t gone too well. She’d be crying one second, then happy the next, as if she didn’t remember what she was supposed to be feeling at the moment, and she pulled it off very well.

I didn’t love this movie, but I found myself pretty fond of it. The story is good and relatable, but gets kind of confusing in the flashbacks and double flashbacks. The effects of the movie are well done and do their part to tell the story instead of being there instead of having a story, but some of them were kind of off-putting. And the performances were all very well executed, but I know I would’ve hated that Clementine. I own this movie, so I didn’t bother checking to see if you could stream it or not, but I do assume it’s available to rent on Netflix. I don’t feel confident in saying that everyone will like this movie, especially as I apparently only half liked it myself. I found it to be a pretty interesting (albeit confusing) story about the moments that happen right after love with good meaning, and it was pretty endearing. I will recommend you at least give it a shot. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind gets “It’s going to be gone soon. What do we do?” out of “Enjoy it”.

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The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

I AM THE ONE WHO DWELT WITHIN THE X-BOX!

For the third in my October Horror-thon, Netflix has brought me a movie based on the story of Anneliese Michel and her possession. The movie is called the Exorcism of Emily Rose, though it should more accurately be called The Trial of Father Richard Moore about the Exorcism of Emily Rose. But that’s a pretty long name. This movie stars Jennifer Carpenter, Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, and the Devil in a cameo.

A lawyer named Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) is convinced to defend Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson) in his trial for the murder of a young girl named Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). Father Moore had been called in to perform an exorcism on supposedly possessed Emily which eventually lead to her death and the courts have placed the blame on him. At first Father Moore is reluctant to let Bruner help him, but agrees because she agrees to let him testify so that he can tell Emily’s story. Through flashbacks during the trial, we find that Emily went to college and awoke one night smelling smoke. Then her bedsheets are pulled off by an invisible force and she is pinned down to the bed. She starts to suffer strange visions and other indications that she’s possessed. She goes to a doctor and they decide she’s epileptic and that’s also forming into a psychosis. They put her on anti-seizure medications and the prosecution is saying that Father Moore is responsible because he told her to stop taking it. Eventually Bruner decides that they’re not winning on the scientific approach and decides to take a controversial approach to her defense: she decides to defend based on the possibility that she was actually possessed. She partially reaches this conclusion after she too wakes up at 3 am smelling smoke and starts having similar, but lesser, experiences to Emily. The rest of the movie watches Father Moore’s trial to conclusion as we catch more and more of the back story through flashbacks.

There were parts to this movie I liked and parts I didn’t, but altogether I thought this was a fairly decent movie. I don’t think it has much to offer in the scares category, but it’s an interesting movie nonetheless. I found the way Bruner chose to defend her client most interesting in the movie. It’s something I’ve wondered myself fairly often. I consider myself to be a religious man, but also a man of science. As part of being religious (at least in my religion) and as part of believing in God, it stands to reason that I would also believe in demons. I’ve never had an experience with a ghost or a possessed person, but I do like watching movies and shows about them and wish I could have an experience with a ghost (not so much with a demon though). One such show I watch is Ghost Adventures. As with anything that tries to prove that ghosts exist, Ghost Adventures catches a lot of flack because the things COULD be faked. I’ve read a lot of things online that basically (and sometimes literally) say “Since this could be faked, it is obviously fake”. That’s just horse shit. This comes into this movie because the prosecution relies mostly on the fact that the symptoms that Father Moore called possession could also have been psychosis and epilepsy. But just because something COULD be something, doesn’t mean it’s not. Especially in this day, you can fake almost anything. You can make someone look like they’re levitating, you can add voices to things, you could even slap a dude wearing a sheet in there, but that doesn’t prove it didn’t happen legitimately. I’m also not saying that everything on Ghost Adventures is true and real, I’m just saying since I don’t know, I’m not going to talk out of my ass about it. I liked that they took a scientific/spiritual point of view to defend Father Moore in this movie as well. And it also got on my nerves that Bruner was an agnostic and posing the idea that MAYBE this girl really was possessed, and the prosecutor was apparently religious but every time she said something like this he would say that it was just silly. Isn’t that your religion, jackass?

Okay, I got off topic there. As for the movie, as I said, there’s really not much to the scares. Again, since I’ve never known anyone that was possessed, I reserve my opinion on whether or not they’re real. So the movie gets no scares out of me based on the fact that being possessed would be pretty freaky. And that’s where most of what I assume would be scary in this movie comes from. Other than that, it’s mostly just the cheap scares of a loud noise breaking silence, like a hallway door slamming shut as Emily is investigating it, even though it’s just the wind. Also, Emily’s possession spaz attacks tend to come off more as goofy than as scary to me. I do like a good courtroom drama though, and that part of the movie works really well. The actual exorcism itself was a little bit nifty. I mainly liked the fact that she was apparently inhabited by 6 demons and they introduced themselves in 6 different languages. That was kind of spiffy.

The performances are all pretty solid here. Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson were the ones that stood out. Linney most of all though. She had to play really conflicted based on the fact that she wanted to further her career and do right by her client and those came to clash by the end of the trial. Of course she did the right thing by her client instead, but the performance was good while the premise was cliched. Jennifer Carpenter strangely did not have much effect on me in this movie. I say it’s strange because her character name’s the one in the title. But she was dead by the time the movie started and only lived in flashbacks. Non-possessed Emily was scarcely shown in the movie and, once she was possessed, the performances tended to just come off as a little goofy.

Altogether, this movie is solidly alright. I say it depends on your expectations. I went in looking for a horror movie and found myself a little let down by even the attempt to scare me. But if you go in looking for a courtroom drama, you’ll probably think it’s pretty good. I give this movie “A Supersoaker filled with Holy Water” out of “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!”

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