Now You See Me (2013)

Who Doesn’t Love a Good Magic Trick?

As the day of my birth approaches, I decided that I should not be at work as I turned 30.  Well, not at one of my jobs at least.  I would spend my vacation from one job working on the one I actually enjoy: stuff-reviewing.  The first step would be to make my way to the theaters, with my friend Greg in tow.  There were a few movies that I wanted to see in theaters, but Greg had either already seen them or had no desire.  We agreed only on today’s movie.  This movie had piqued my interest when I saw trailers for it, but I had apprehensions about it.  It seemed like an interesting enough premise, but I worried at the movie’s ability to realize that interest.  We find out how well it did as I review Now You See Me, written by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt, directed by Louis Leterrier, and starring Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mélanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Common, Michael J. Kelly, and Elias Koteas.

A few stray tarot cards bring together four magicians – Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – with a plan to accomplish three amazing feats for a mysterious benefactor.  They become “The Four Horsemen,” sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine).  For their first trick, they rob a bank in Paris and give all the money to the audience.  This attracts the attention of FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol Agent Alma Vargas (Mélanie Laurent), who need to figure out how they did it and what they intend on doing next.  For that, they enlist the help of an ex-magician who makes a living debunking other magicians, Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman).

I enjoyed this movie.  It was not without its share of problems, but I still found the experience enjoyable.  I found the premise of the movie to be the most compelling part.  The idea of magicians using their abilities for “evil” instead of their usual motivation of “pussy” was very interesting to me, and I thought it was clever how they did it.  I especially liked when Jack Wilder fought the two FBI Agents using magic as a fighting style.  I wasn’t able to figure out their Las Vegas stunt until they revealed it to us.  Their New Orleans stunt was much more predictable and much less mystifying, especially with what they did with the word “Freeze” and how easy it would be to make someone’s money move from one account to another with a simple computer, but there were still some clever ideas in there.  I feel like the problem I had with the movie was that it practically dared the audience to figure it out and to be wary of misdirection, but overall wasn’t clever enough to make it happen.  When one of the characters tells Rhodes that someone might be a spy for the magicians, you can pretty much rest assured that it won’t be either the character that told him that or the character he was talking about.  That would be too easy.  But it doesn’t leave many options, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out.  And though you might not have known how they accomplished something, you can have an idea that something was accomplished, like the part in the story with a car crash.  I didn’t know how it was faked, but it’s a movie about magic.  Of course it was faked.  I would also say that the movie started off by getting me, because I totally picked the card that Jesse Eisenberg put on the side of the building, but there’s also a chance that this could’ve been manufactured with camera tricks.  I also felt like Woody Harrelson’s mentalism stuff was mainly included for exposition, because he delivered most of the character’s backstories using that stuff.

The cast of the movie was great, with no real complaints.  They got great people so I would expect nothing less.  Jesse Eisenberg plays nervous and self-conscious better than he plays a cocky douche, but he did very well.  Isla Fisher is hot, and I heard she almost drowned at one point in this movie, so props for the commitment as well.  Woody Harrelson was pretty entertaining all the way through, and he got to be the funny one in the group most of the time.  I’ve loved me some Mark Ruffalo ever since he was the Hulk, and I found myself worried for the magicians that they might get him too angry.  They might not enjoy that.  I was also very excited to see Mélanie Laurent since I haven’t seen her since I fell in love with her in Inglourious Basterds.  Long distance relationships are always so hard…  I also got to thinking that, with both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in this movie, how could they not have been able to get Christian Bale (and maybe even Hugh Jackman) to come in for a pivotal scene at the end of the movie where they just yell, “THE PRESTIGE!” and dance around in circles?  It would’ve made the movie for me.  But sometimes, I just want to watch the flash paper burn…

I thought the premise of Now You See Me was great, but there just wasn’t enough magic in the storytelling.  Their clever ideas also activated the parts of the brain that cause us to try to figure out how magic is accomplished, but the story wasn’t quite polished enough to hide their secrets from me.  But their ideas were clever enough to keep me interested, and it was presented well enough and included many great performances.  I’d say this movie is definitely worth a watch.  I don’t know that I’d say it was important enough that it need be seen immediately in theaters, but it also wouldn’t hurt.  Renting it would do fine as well.  Now You See Me gets “The more you think you see, the easier it’ll be to fool you” out of “You have what we like to call in the business, ‘nothing up your sleeve.’”

WATCH REVIEWS HERE!  YouTube  OTHER JOKES HERE!  Twitter  BE A FAN HERE!  Facebook  If you like these reviews so much, spread the word.  Keep me motivated!  Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!

The Hunger Games (2012)

The Hunger Games Can Eat Me

No one person requested today’s movie.  It was overly talked about on Facebook until I finally felt like I was definitely going to have to see it.  When my days off gave me the opportunity to catch the movie for cheap, I finally decided that it was necessary.  The movie is based on a novel by Suzanne Collins that I have not/will never read, but it’s really popular.  The movie was so popular that I walked past the second longest line for a movie’s opening night on my way to my last theatrical disappointment, John Carter.  Since it came out, I’ve heard way too much about it, so it’s now time for you to hear a little more about it in my review of The Hunger Games, based on a novel by Suzanne Collins, written by Gary Ross and Billy Ray, directed by Gary Ross, and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley, Alexander Ludwig, Isabelle Fuhrman, Amandla Stenberg, Liam Hemsworth, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Willow Shields.

In post-apocalyptic North America, the government has decided that it’s a super good idea to collect one boy and one girl from 11 districts to fight to the death in a battle called the Hunger Games.  For the 74^th Hunger Games, 12-year-old Primrose Everdeen (Willow Shields) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) are chosen from District 12, but Primrose’s sister Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) – herein referred to as Catness – steps in and volunteers to take part in the games instead of her sister.  They’re taken by Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) to meet their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) – herein referred to as Sammitch – who helps them learn how to play the game.  After some training and other nonsense, they get started into the Hunger Games.  Whoever shall survive and be the star of the next two books?  No one will ever know.

I do not understand you women-folk.  I really feel like I should try to figure out why you like the things you like, but I’ll probably just try to either ignore them or just mock them in review form.  I’ve heard this movie compared to Twilight because it’s based on a series of novels and is enjoyed almost exclusively by women, and I can say that this is a better movie than Twilight.  Of course, almost every movie is better than Twilight.  This movie is an interesting enough concept that is ruined by almost everything else.  Sure, it’s an interesting idea to have a bunch of kids try to kill each other, but it’s not when you make us follow a kid that won’t really kill anyone.  The same problems that came up in my review of Japanese Hunger Games (aka Battle Royale) came up in this movie: why is anyone unwilling to kill in this setting, and why would anyone make alliances?  You’ve been told as you enter this game that only one person is going to leave, so fucking kill yourself or throw down.  And why bother making alliances?  You’ll only have to kill them eventually anyways.  Why grow attached to someone you will have to kill eventually?  Knowing how they want us to feel about Catness, you can easily figure out how each character is going to die.  She’s meant to be our hero, so she will not be killing any friendly opponents and will probably only kill the assholes.  Catness takes it one step further by not really killing anyone.  She kills one person on accident, one person out of a reflexive action, and the last person out of mercy.  There were more than a few times in the movie where I had no fucking idea what was going on.  These things caused me to have to turn to my friend and ask him what was happening.  It seemed like there were a lot of things that would’ve been pretty obvious had I read the books, so I say fuck you to this movie for that shit.  You can’t assume that I’ve done my homework before watching your movie!  For a movie that I went into thinking it would be pretty action-heavy, I actually had walked into a movie about a girl sleeping in a tree.  All Catness really does effectively in this movie is sleep in trees, and she does it a lot and the film does not want us to miss one minute of it.  Catness is an exceptional archer, but for strategic purposes she does not pick up a bow and arrow at first.  Instead, she runs into the wilderness and sleeps in a tree.  Then she encounters enemies, so she climbs up into a tree.  Then she drops wasps on them, takes a bow from one, and climbs into a different tree.

The way they told their exceptionally boring story was also very tedious.  The director chose to film the entire thing with shaky cam, making watching the movie nearly impossible but entirely nauseating.  The final fight, for example, was shot so close and so jerky that I could barely see what was happening.  I got excited as the camera stepped back for a second that I might actually be able to see what was happening, but nope.  Right back in.  They also did a weird thing throughout the entire movie where they forgot to put sound in.  You could still figure out what was happening, but I still found it really annoying.  The settings were mostly drab and, when they weren’t, they were mostly just a bunch of trees.  The time in the Capitol had interesting settings, but they weren’t there long.  The futuristic technology that they had was pretty cool.

Okay, here’s some more things I hated that had to be prefaced with ::SPOILER ALERT::  There was a point in the movie where Catness finds out that the bad opponents are guarding a stockpile of supplies, hoping that others will come after it and get blown up by the mines they lined it with.  Catness decides to destroy this stockpile, but for some reason has someone else draw them away from it so she can shoot it with arrows and blow it up.  Guess what, Catness, you could’ve blown the thing up with them surrounding it and killed 4 of the assholes at the same time.  At one point (while Catness is sleeping in a tree … go figure), she finds Peeta has been helping the assholes to find her.  One can assume that he was trying to lead them away from her, but they never really deal with this in the movie at all.  At one point, he yells for her to run.  When they reunite later, they never have Catness say, “What the fuck were you doing, dick?”  Near the end, Catness is holding an arrow at the main bad guy, who is holding Peeta in front of him to block her shot.  She shoots him in the hand so that Peeta can push him over.  What bothers me was that Peeta had early helped establish Catness’ archery prowess by remarking on how she could shoot squirrels through the eye every single time.  But apparently she can’t hit a much larger eye under much more important circumstances.  The biggest annoyance I had in the movie (besides the shaky cam) was the resolution.  They had been told that two people from the same district could escape and Catness and Peeta survived.  They then said, “PSYCH!” and said they had to kill each other.  They decide to eat poison berries together and they give in and tell them they can both go home.  The problem with this is that they gave no weight to this dilemma and resolution, both of which were introduced and dissipated within the span of a minute.  ::END SPOILER::

Pretty much all of the performances in the movie were good, and also roughly what I’d expect from the bulk of the cast.  Jennifer Lawrence didn’t get an Oscar nomination for being hot (although that’s why I’d give her one).  She’s a good actress.  But I was curious what genetic experiment is going to come up in later books that caused her to be the only attractive person in her entire district.  She had a good bit of attitude to her.  The fact that she was never able to fully achieve badassdom was the fault of the writing, not the actress.  Neither of the love interests (Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth) did anything spectacular for me to pay them any attention, even though one of them is the brother of Thor.  Hutcherson was a little annoying to me, and usually seemed pretty dumb.  I love Elizabeth Banks, and she was good in the movie, but they made her look so weird that I only recognized her because I had seen it before watching the movie.  I also had no idea Lenny Kravitz was in the movie, but that’s all I have to say about his character.  Woody Harrelson got off to a rough start for me as Sammitch, acting the part of the clichéd guy who’s seen too much, always drunk and rude.  But you warm up to him as the movie goes along.  The only thing I have to say about Wes Bentley is that his facial hair in the movie annoyed the piss out of me.  I don’t even know how his performance was because I kept staring at it.  Also, Donald Sutherland looked like Santa Claus.

I still think you women need to raise your standards.  You’ve stepped up a pretty solid amount from Twilight, but you could still do much better.  The story was predictable, slow, and mostly Catness sleeping up a tree.  The shaky cam was annoying, but their random omission of sound was worse.  The performances were good, though.  There are worse ways to spend two and a half hours than this movie, but you might find it more entertaining to sleep in a tree for yourself.  I don’t really recommend this movie.  I promise not to hate people for liking it as I did with Twilight, but I cannot throw my vote behind others seeing it.  The Hunger Games gets “I guess we try to forget” out of “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

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.

Friends with Benefits (2011)

Let’s Play Tennis

Today ended up being a pretty rough day for me when it comes to reviews. Not because I didn’t have time to review anything but had to force one in, but because I watched 3 movies and want to do all 3 reviews back to back. These three movies are all comedies, but much different types of comedies that you will be presented with over the next 3 days. First on my list is the 3rd part to the epic and unrelated friends who fuck each other but won’t get into a relationship series. I saw No Strings Attached before I started doing reviews, so I assume I will need to back track to it eventually to write the review for it. Love and Other Drugs I saw and reviewed already. That leaves only one: Friends with Benefits, written by Harley Peyton, Keith Merryman, and David A. Newman, directed by Will Gluck, and starring Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Richard Jenkins, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, and Woody Harrelson, with notable cameos by Emma Stone, Andy Samberg, Shaun White, and Masi Oka.

Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) get dumped by their respective significant others, Emma Stone and Andy Samberg, at the very beginning of the movie, and that makes them gunshy about any future relationships. Dylan, an art director for a small internet company, goes to New York City to take a meeting with GQ about a job offer and Jamie is sent to try to convince him it’s a good idea. The two hit it off and Jamie really sells him on NYC, so he takes the job. They become pretty good friends pretty quickly. One day, while mocking a romantic comedy, Dylan proposes the idea that the two of them should bump uglies – or in their case, bump ridiculously hot and handsomes – and just be friends. This goes really awesome for them for a long time. Jamie starts dating a guy named Parker, who ditches out on her after they have sex. Dylan proposes that she accompany him back to LA to visit his family, sister Annie (Jenna Elfman) and father (Richard Jenkins). On this trip, their feelings start to interfere with their awesome fuck-buddyship. It’s a rom-com, so you can expect a good bit of happily ever after.

Having seen all three sex buddy rom-coms, I can say this one is by far the best. Love and Other Drugs was too much drama and way not enough funny, and, though Gyllenhaal and Hathaway are a pretty pair, you can give us TOO much nudity. No Strings Attached was funnier than Love and Other Drugs by a lot, and the drama wasn’t as heavy, and Portman is a great actress, but she was dragged down a lot by the not very likeable Kutch. Friends with Benefits manages to hit a nice sweet spot in all categories. Timberlake and Kunis are both good looking enough to appeal to any human with normal sexuality, and we don’t see everything so we don’t get bored with looking at them naked. There is a good deal of comedy to the movie and a fair amount of drama, but nowhere near enough to call this melodrama like Love and Other Drugs. It was light drama, so we don’t get depressed in the middle of our comedy. The pair in this movie have a lot of good dialogue written for them. The first act of the movie is filled with great back and forth between the two stars, and most of it is pretty funny. Their banter suffers a little once the fucking begins, but that might be in part that I was desperately searching for a little more nudity from Kunis. And the search is what I want. Once you give it to me, I’m satisfied. When you beat me over the head with it, I’m bored. Their banter gets back to form getting towards the end of the movie. I especially liked when Kunis was making fun of Timberlake for the fact that he used to like Kris Kross, and Timberlake busts a rap from “Jump”. One problem I had with the movie was that they sat around mocking a rom-com for using manipulative music and all the typical things from rom-coms, but they use most of these staples in their own movie. I’m sure it was done to be a little tongue-in-cheek, but it more served to just point out those things and make us notice them in their own movie. One such cliche is them sitting on the Hollywood sign, although that did end in some good funny. One thing they did that I don’t recall ever seeing is that they had Annie’s son (the aspiring magician) have his arm catch on fire, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kid catch fire in a movie. Also, if a movie wants to stand out so much, they should make the girl go after the guy for a change. Do we have to do ALL the heavy lifting just because of our greater upper body strength, ladies?

I had refused to allow myself to say this for a long time, but I like Justin Timberlake. *NSYNC was awful enough to make me hate him for a long time, but his appearances on SNL and Jimmy Fallon made me think he may be able to do some decent comedy. Friends with Benefit only supports that. He’s both charming and funny in this movie, and good-looking and naked enough that ladies and gays would be all over it. For the mens and other gays, Mila Kunis is hot. Real hot. And pretty damned funny to boot. She’s also charming and funny, and both actors put on a pretty good performance during the short-lived drama parts. The things they said to each other in the inevitable part where they get angry at each other would sting pretty badly in a real fight as well. Richard Jenkins doesn’t add much comedy as Timberlake’s father, but he adds some heart to his parts because of his advancing Alzheimer’s. On the exact opposite side, Patricia Clarkson doesn’t bring much drama, but brings plenty of humor as Kunis’ hippie mom. She’s almost as funny here as she was in Easy A. It’s not too much of a surprise that Jenna Elfman does some good funny in her short time in the movie. One of my favorite things she did seemed improvised, when they were having dinner and Timberlake and Jenkins were talking about sports, and Elfman was sitting to the side mumbling to herself “We get it, you guys like sports.” blah blah blah. Also not in the movie very long, but very enjoyable and original in his performance, was Woody Harrelson. He played a very masculine sports columnist, but he was also very, VERY gay. He talked with Timberlake in a way that most guys talk to each other in movies, but instead of pussy, he was all about the wang. The cameo performances are nice, but don’t really add much to the movie.

I can thoroughly recommend this movie to you guys. I got it from RedBox, so it didn’t cost me very much money to watch this, and I don’t really feel the need to go out and buy it immediately, but I will probably add it to my collection eventually. I think you’d do well to put it on your Netflix queue or your RedBox reserve. Guys have Kunis, Girls have Timberlake, and both get a good amount of funny and an interesting enough story, with pretty good performances throughout. If you’re only going to see one of the plethora of “friend fucking movies”, I recommend this one. Friends with Benefits gets “Your breasts. They intrigue me” out of “I can work with that”.

Hey, peeps. Why not rate and comment on this as a favor to good ole Robert, eh? And tell your friends! Let’s make me famous!

Zombieland (2009)

Another request review, comin’ atcha!  Today I picked the non-horrible movie that I think my friend Loni suggested, Zombieland.  This movie has only 7 names in the acting credits, and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Amber Heard, and a surprise appearance by the great Bill Murray.

Zombieland is the story of a guy known to us only as Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a neurotic guy trying to survive in a world overrun with zombies, a task he accomplishes by making and following a set of rules.  He’s trying to get back to his parents in Columbus, Ohio when he comes across a guy we only know as Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a man trying to survive in a world overrun with zombies, a task he accomplishes by being a total, zombie-killing badass.  Tallahassee is trying to survive, but more than that, he’s trying to find a Twinkie.  Tallahassee and Columbus team up and, on a raid of a supermarket to find said Twinkie, they meet two sisters, and the younger one has been bitten.  Tallahassee agrees to shoot her to put her out of her misery, but then her older sister says that she’ll do it.  Tallahassee gives the gun to her, just to have her turn it on Tallahassee and Columbus, robbing the two of their weapons and car.  Turns out these two, Witchita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), are two girls trying to survive, a task they accomplish by conning people and leaving them to rot.  So they drive off and leave Tallahassee and Columbus to rot.  Tallahassee and Columbus soon stumble across an abandoned, but working, replacement vehicle with a backseat full of abandoned, but working, shit-ton of weapons.  Back on the road, they find their car with “HELP” written on the side.  Fearing another con, Tallahassee goes to check out the car alone.  When he calls Columbus to bring their new wheels down, he does, bringing Little Rock with him.  They’ve been conned again!  But this time, Witchita and and Little Rock don’t leave them to rot, and take them along.  Turns out Witchita and Little Rock are going to an amusement park in California they have heard is zombie-free, and Tallahassee and Columbus go along because Tallahassee has nothing better to do, and Columbus wants him some Emma Stone.  Who could blame him?

I don’t know that I would say this movie is universally awesome, but it may be the winner of the “Movie Made for Robert” award.  You can find that out right from the get-go, while the opening scene is the credits rolling over brutal zombie killings with “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica playing.  Later, when some Van Halen is playing, and later still, when Bill Murray shows up, you may be pretty sure that someone loved me so much they wanted to give me the gift of this movie.  And what a gift it was!

There’s a lot of great to this movie.  It’s very funny and full of gruesome zombie deaths.  I’m also a big fan of the on screen messages that pop up.  As Columbus’ rules pop up on screen, they can be interacted with and movie to some comic effect.  Also, I’m totally with Tallahassee at some point in this movie when he finds a Hostess truck but, much to his chagrin, it’s full of Snowballs.  I’m with you; Snowballs suck.  I’d actually prefer a truck of Cupcakes, but I’d take Twinkie’s too.

All of the very small cast was great.  Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin pissed me off for about the first half of the movie, but that was what they were supposed to do.  I wanted one of them to get punched in the mouth the second time they went to carjack Woody and Jesse.  I just realized that their names were the cowboys in Toy Story, the guy and the girl.  Just thought you should follow my thought process there.  The two girls are very self centered, which annoyed me but, when I think about it, that’s how you have to be in the zombie apocalypse.  The more people you get attached to, the more likely you are to meet a gruesome death.  Jesse plays a similar part to every roll I’ve ever seen the man in, but he plays it well.  And Woody Harrelson is a bona fide badass throughout the entire movie, but has a really touching moment when we realize that the puppy he’s been talking about losing since early in the movie was actually his son.  Also, watching him at the amusement park in the end of the movie is the most fun killing zombies, and the most fun watching zombies die, that has been captured on film to this day.

I had to really think about any negatives I could give to this movie, and the only one I had was at the very end.  That moment is when Columbus realizes he has to be a hero – deliberately going against one of his rules – in order to save Witchita and Little Rock from a zombie clown (having mentioned earlier in the movie that he fears clowns more than zombies).  The problem with this scene is that it’s a climax that’s very anticlimactic.  It should have been a battle that Columbus barely survives, but instead he sweeps the clown’s legs with a “Test Your Might” hammer, and then smashes his head with it.  It took all of 8 seconds.  Not enough of a negative to throw off my affection for the movie by a long shot, but a bit anticlimactic.

So, this movie is awesome.  You should own it.  Go do so.  I give it “Thanks for my movie, guys” out of 14.

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