I also watched this movie the other night. What can I say other than Will Ferrell hit another one out of the park. I’ll admit I’m not a huge Nascar fan. I typically only watch the very end of a race if I watch any part of a race at all. I’m a big fan of the classic movie (in my opinion) Days of Thunder. Rubbing is racing!

Warning, there are some spoilers below, but nothing major…

Anyways, I saw the previews. It looked good. I wasn’t disappointed. They cast everyone perfectly in the movie. His buddy, his wife, his manager, his owner, his kids, his arch nemesis, everyone. The kids have a lot of good lines, both when they are little terrors and latter on in the movie.

I’ve also heard that Nascar helped out with the movie and even offered some suggestions to make it even more over the top. I’ve heard one of their suggestions was to break to commercial in the middle of a crash. They did. It was hilarious. Gotta wonder how much Applebee’s paid for it though, throwing a commercial into the middle of the movie.

The racing scenes, although ridiculous, are well done. I’d try to put some lines in here, but there are so many, one can’t even remember them all.

Now the movie does follow what I call the Tom Cruise plot… Raw, gets better, gets girl, gets really good, crashes and burns, looses girl, has revelation, becomes good again, gets girl back. Cruise has made millions making movies (Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Cocktail, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguir, etc) with this formula. Too bad he stopped making them (see my rants about the MI movies).

In closing, this is a movie I’m going to try and see again in the theatre (yes, I enjoyed it that much) and will be purchasing the moment it comes out on DVD.

Watched Descent (a movie) earlier tonight. Didn’t know anything going in other than the one sentence blurb on the theatre’s website. Basically, I watched it in order to kill time until Talladega Nights started. But back to this movie…

Basically, it stars no one you’ve likely ever heard of. And after watching, I know for a fact that I have no plans to do any spelunking of any unexplored caves ever. I leave that to others. Caves that have been well explored and host lots of tourists, I’ll still go through, but nothing unexplored. There is just way too many things to go wrong. I’ll get my adrenaline rushes elsewhere. This is much like after watching Open Water, I have no plans to go diving in Open Water in a large group. I don’t trust people’s abilities to count everyone that gets back on the boat and, although I’m a pretty good swimmer, I have no desire to swim out in the middle of the ocean.

Back to the movie again… For a horror type movie, it was actually pretty good. Nothing that makes you go wow, but there were definitely some spots that sent a chill through my body, and the first one lingered for a while.

About all I’ll say about the plot is 6 women drop into an unexplored cave and things go bad from there. A highlight… one women literally gets a blood bath.

Like I said, if you want to see a decent horror movie, this is probably worth going to. You could also probably wait till Halloween and rent it then as well.

On a side note, it looks like they are making a sequel to Open Water.

Caught Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest tonight. This review will be short, it is late. Overall, good movie, enjoyable. Not quite as good as the first, but going into that one, I had no expectations (it was a movie based on a ride?)

I thought the opening just didn’t start off as quick as the first one. Decent story in this one, although I thought it was a little long again (2 1/2 hour action movies are tough to do). Main complaint is it is all out a part one of a two-parter. Basically, if you enjoyed the first one, you’ll like this one as well. Depp does his job as Captain Jack Sparrow. Bloom (I still see Legalos) and Knightley come along for the ride.

Kudos to the special effect guys… They did a very good job blending in all the CGI with the live action… Looked seamless.

So I finally caught Superman Returns the other day. And I saw it on the IMAX in 3-D. Between skiing, work, a 1015 start time and 150 minute run time, it has been difficult to fit into the schedule. But I crammed it in regardless…

Be warned, this review contains spoilers…

Overall, I thought the movie did a good job bringing back Superman to the big screen. Seeing as how this movie has been in development hell for what seems like forever, it was even pretty coherent. I thought they could have tightened up the movie a bit, maybe trim about 15 minutes to make the pacing better, but it wasn’t bad.

I like the fact that they kept some of the cheesiness of Superman in the movie and didn’t make it completely modern. He even says swell. They have the latest cell phones and digital cameras but for some reason still seem to live in a world dominated by newspapers. I loved the whole model train scene. I thought it was actually a double reference. First, to the train scene in one of the original Superman movies and, second, to way the special effects use to be done, using models instead of CGI. It even foreshadowed a little bit.

I thought most of the effects were well done, but there were a couple that were just a little to CGI looking. Nothing major, but it was something I noticed. The plane sequence was very well done. The Daily Planet planet logo falling was also a good sequence.

The new Lois Lane played by Kate Bosworth is great. Definitely an upgrade. Lex Luther played by Kevin Spacey did one hell of a good job pretending to be Gene Hackman, and I mean that as a compliment. Whoever played Jimmy Olson brought the little photographer back to live as well. For Brandon Routh who played Superman, I say good job, but still no Christopher Reeve (its hard to believe that someone from the MTV show Undressed is still doing anything in front of the camera). But given time, he may fit better. It is just hard to replace someone who defined the role. One again, props to the new Lois Lane, Ms. Kate Bosworth (she was great in Blue Crush as well).

The premise of the movie was big enough to be a Superman dilemma and was actually a Superman dilemma instead of some random catastrophe.

Overall, I thought the movie was good. It was fun to see on the giant IMAX screen but the 3D I could take or leave. Don’t think that added anything for me. This is probably a movie I’ll pick up someday. Makes me want to watch the first couple again (which I haven’t seen in forever). From what I’ve heard this movie takes place after 1 & 2 and the others don’t exist.

Still undecided, here’s a trailer…

Finally, the line of the movie…

“I’ve done Superman!”
– Lois Lane

Truly an awesome line!!!

Caught Click last night starring Mr. Adam Sandler. Having seen the previews I went in thinking it was a comedy and it actually starts out that way as well. Then about 1/3 of the way through it changes from a comedy to a drama. To sum up the movie, its message is simple.

Live life for every moment, and savor every minute of it.

It got me thinking a little about my life and I’d like to think that I try to follow that motto, but at times it is difficult because there are times that one needs to relax a little as well.

Anyway, back to the movie… As a movie it is pretty good, but as a comedy you’re not going to like it. It just isn’t a comedy to write home about. Sandler does a good job with his dramatic role and Henry Winkler (aka Fonzie) as his dad is great. The other guest stars are well cast as well. There are some allusions to his other movies, specifically, his neighbors. I liked the movie, but be warned, it isn’t a comedy. And one last thing, next time I go to Bed, Bath & Beyond (yea, I do go there once in a while) I’m going to look for the Beyond section.

I went out and caught The Break-Up last Friday. Would have rather have been skiing, but things didn’t cooperate so I hit the theatre. Took some slack for it from my buddy too. Anyway, back to the movie. My main reason for seeing is it looked like it might be a little bit of a continuation of Swingers, kind of taking up the character of Trent (played by Vince Vaughn) several years later.

Saying it is like Swingers is doing a little disrespect to just how good Swingers was. Now for those of you who don’t know, Swingers, in my opinion is the one and only Guy Flick. Now the ladies in the world have hundreds, if not thousands, of Chick Flicks to choose from. Us guys have one. Luckily, we have a great movie to pick from since our list contains only one choice.

Now back to The Break-Up. Yes, it is a little like Trent’s life a few laters, but it is nowhere near as good as Swingers, but it is just a little bit enjoyable. Just enough where it was worth watching. There is another pretty good video game sequence, once again not as good as the sequence in Swingers, which is the definition what a video game movie sequence should be.

BTW, Jennifer Aniston is in the movie as well, and that never hurts.

I also caught X-Men: The Last Stand when it came out as well. Once again, this was a good movie. Not on-par with the first two, but still a good movie. It seemed like they kind of threw it together quick and then I heard that after the director of the first two, Bryan Singer, dropped out to do the new Superman movie they got another director to come in and shoot it quick so it could beat Superman to the big screen. It all makes sense now.

Like I said though, it was still a good movie to watch. Wolverine continues to kick ass, but their isn’t much of Rogue or Jean Grey, two other mutants that I liked.

One thing that parallels the real world is the topic of the movie. Enhanced human beings. Currently we have a baseball player or two that are just a little too pumped up and they are being ridiculed for what they’ve done to themselves with drugs. Makes you wonder what would happen if someone just had a different gene that would let them smash baseballs out of the park or throw 80-yard bullet passes?

You probably thought I haven’t been seeing movies lately. You’d be wrong. I did head out and catch The Da Vinci Code when it opened. Just too busy with other stuff to post my review.

I had just finished reading the book and was anxious to see the movie. I had read Dan Brown’s first two books, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, and was enjoyed both. They are real page turners, especially Angels & Demons.

The movie, although it has good spots, I thought just didn’t get the pacing right. Reading the book, it was almost hard to put down. The movie just didn’t capture that. They also simplified and changed the ending quite a bit and I just can’t come up with a reason why. It wasn’t too complicated or anything.

Now the very opening sequence in the Louver started off good, but also had gone through the simplification process for no good reason either. Just not sure why they had to change a well done book.

Hanks was OK, but didn’t make me go wow with his performance. Same with the leading lady. Not bad, but just OK. The guy playing the monk nailed his performance.

All in all, not a bad movie, but not really a great movie either, just one that I saw once and probably won’t head out of my way to see again.

That is what I’ll call the movie Poseidon, because that is basically what it is. The following review contains spoilers… you’ve been warned.

I caught this movie earlier this week on the local IMAX. And the IMAX made it look good. Going in to the movie you really need to suspend your belief on reality.

First off, you have to believe in the way they portray rouge waves. Bases on my ever so brief research into this subject just a moment ago, it seems that the typical “rouge wave” can be roughly 3 times the height of the waves around it. So if there are about 10 meter waves, you might see one that is up to 30 meters (11 stories) high. So being as how the ship was sailing through pretty much glass calm (for an ocean) water, having a massive wave like the one in the movie come out of nowhere, not quite believable.

If this wave was caused by a seismic event, based on what I’ve learned about tsunamis lately, they really don’t take form until they hit the shallower water by land, and in the movie, they are in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight.

If you believe the wave that big can “magically” appear, then that wave is also going to “magically” appear on their radar and give them significantly more time to react than what they get in the movie. Going in I didn’t think they even tried to do anything to react to seeing this massive wave, but they did, just too little, too late.

The movie as a whole, was an excellent popcorn flick, entertaining pretty much the whole time. Enough story to keep you interested in who makes it off the boat, just a bit of a love story, and unlike the Titanic that took 90 minutes to hit the ice berg, this movie flips the boat over just a few minutes in, and 90 minutes later, its done. And it even has pretty decent special effects.

The movie does suffer from what I like to call the Air Force One problem. Right at the end of the movie, there is just some really cheesy looking special effects. In Air Force One, it was the plain crash, in this movie, it is the life raft. I think they ran out of money and still had a few shots left to do, so they hired a kid of the street to finish up the effects. Really bad.

Other than that, it was an entertaining summer movie. I’m guessing seeing it on the IMAX helped, but it was fun. Not mind blowing entertainment that one will talk about the next day, but makes for a fun ride.