While the film starts out strong enough, the ridiculous finale spoils the whole affair.

Denzel Washington plays a mysterious vagabond who’s been roaming the desert wastelands of America for 30 years. He’s on a mission to deliver a bible… somewhere. He isn’t really sure where. A voice told him to head West, though, so that’s where he’s going. He calls it faith. I call it a lazy writer, but whatever. Apparently the voice also trained him to be a super ninja samurai bad ass too, because he’s really good at beating up cannibals and rapists without getting a scratch.

The Book of Eli

Long story short, he strolls into Oldman’s town looking to recharge the battery on his beat up iPod. It just so happens Oldman has something of a book fetish, and he’s been hunting for a King James Version for a long time. Oldman discovers Washington is carrying one, yadda yadda, insert cool gun fights, a few dozen heads getting chopped off and that hot chick from That 70s Show and you pretty much have the movie.

Now, for the most part I really enjoyed the action in Book of Eli. I loved the dialog between Denzel and Gary, and their casting was spot on. Oldman knows how to play one hell of a bad guy. Unfortunately, the last 10 minutes of the film completely ruined what was otherwise an interesting, albeit bizarrely bible-thumping adventure.

Seriously, if you’re going to make movie goers sit through 2 hours of low budget desert landscapes, give us an ending that doesn’t make everything that happened in the movie irrelevant. Twist endings are fun, but only when they don’t turn the film into a ridiculous pile of nonsense. Deus ex machina at it’s worst.

Great acting.
Fun action.
Shit script.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

OMG Napoleon what are you doing to Ivan?!

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian takes place 2 years after the first film. Larry Daley has started a successful “As Seen on TV” invention company, but he misses the fun he had with his possessed inanimate objects at the Museum of Natural History so he visits every once and awhile, bag lunch and all. He shows up after having been busy with work for a few months, only to find the whole museum is getting boxed up and moved to the Smithsonian; the exhibits are being replaced by digital reproductions.

The next evening, Daley gets a call from Jedediah Smith (Owen Wilson); the tablet has brought Kahmunrah, Ivan the Terrible, Al Capone and a handful of other baddies from history back to life, and they’re running a muck in the Smithsonian. It’s up to Daley, as always, to save the Museum from itself and put things right.

Amelia Earhart was apparently kind of hot.

So, yeah; the premise is nothing new. Museum comes to life. Havoc ensues. Daley ultimately saves the day, but not without causing trouble along the way. The formula worked for the first film, and it’s still pretty satisfying this time around. The new characters were fun, especially Hank Azaria as Kahmunrah and Alain Chabat as Napoleon. The only major disappointment I had with the film was their very brief use of Jonah Hill as the Smithsonian security guard. The trailers left you thinking he would have a larger role in the film, but all he has is one scene. Could have been way more entertaining if they’d used him throughout the movie.

Even so, my opinion on Battle of the Smithsonian matches that of the first film. If you’re looking for a solid, humorous, and family-friendly movie you can’t go wrong here.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The future is serious business.

Terminator Salvation is the 4th movie in the franchise, and although the trailers would lead you to believe it’s a story centered around John Connor, the main character of this story is decidedly Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington); a convicted murderer who is (kind of) executed by lethal injection in 2003 and wakes up 2018 at the height of man’s war with the machines. Though he isn’t aware of it for a time, SkyNet has turned him into a cyborg. His mission, if he even has one, is a mystery to him; he is just trying to figure out what’s going on. In time he befriends Kyle Reese (who is sent back in time by Connor in the first film, “get’s it on” with Sarah Connor, and in true paradoxical form end’s up being Connor’s own father) and a child named Star.

Long story short Reese, Star, and countless other humans are abducted by SkyNet and taken to it’s HQ for- presumably- experimentation towards grafting human organs and tissue ontop of and inside Terminators like Marcus Wright. Wright get’s pissed, decides to rescue them, and encounters the absurdly hot Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) along the way. She turns out to be directly under the command of John Connor, and things progress pretty much exactly as you’d think from there on out.

Christian Bale got a whole 20 minutes of screen time!

No surprises in this film, really. About a third of the way through the film you’ve already figured out how it’s going to end, and there aren’t any twists to change that. You see Bale every other scene or so, acting depressed and yelling a lot. You see a lot more of Wright… hell, you see a lot more of Williams for that matter… and the ending is even more infuriating because of it. This film was a huge disappointment overall. The action was decent, the acting was great, but without a script worth the paper it was xeroxed on it all goes to shit. On the bright side, at least it wasn’t as bad as Rise of the Machines.

Oh, and spoiler alert? You know who totally makes a (heavily CG) appearance.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Star Trek Cast

This Star Trek film is unapologetically a prequel to the original television series, but they’ve managed to pull it off in a way that is both satisfying and fresh. The new Enterprise bridge, for example, still feels like it would exist in the original series’ universe and time, but is attractive and comfortably modern at the same time. This art style along with Nero’s unique and fearsome ship design left me very comfortable with the film’s “feel.” Something that always bothered me about the atrocious and short-lived “Enterperise” series was that the ship design felt completely wrong in the time period and chronology. It felt too modern, and wrong. Abrams managed to pull this off flawlessly.

Star Trek Cast

I was pretty shocked by the events that took place in the film, and how willing Abrams and the studios apparently were at rewriting Star Trek’s history. Make no mistake: we aren’t playing in Gene Roddenberry’s universe anymore. This reboot has noticeably altered the entire Star Trek timeline, changing 43 years of novel, film and television work. We are now in an alternative timeline, which I think is fantastic. This means Abrams is free to change things as much as he wants with future films; he can reboot the franchise properly. There are no expectations now, nothing the Star Trek geeks can raise red flags about. Abrams has saved Star Trek. Finally the studios found someone capable of doing the job.

Zachary Quinto as Spock

I’m weary of breaking down the plot here as I’d honestly hate to spoil the surprises, but let me say this: if you have even a hint of love for science fiction in your body, you need to see this movie. There was nothing about it that didn’t satisfy and frankly blow me away – and that’s a rare thing indeed.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Wolverine vs Deadpool (Comic)

Wolverine’s origin is complicated and anything but brief, so going into this film I was concerned as to just how they’d be able to pull this off in 107 minutes. Overall I was pretty pleasantly surprised, though I was a bit surprised at how different this Origin was to the one I read when I was a kid. Marvel is anything but afraid of dramatically altering their character’s identities, and this story told in the film is a shining example of revisionist history. I don’t follow the comic anymore, so I can’t say if it follows the “new” Wolverine origin, but I certainly doesn’t follow the classic one that I loved. Still, Marvel kept the fundamentals true, and the new origin (or at least the one presented in the film) was definitely a good choice for movie goers.

Hugh Jackman as Weapon X, after receiving his adamantium skeleton.

As always, Hugh Jackman delivers a fantastic performance as Wolverine. He was born to play the part, really. I also really enjoyed Liev Schreiber as the new, old Sabertooth (the part was played by pro wrestler Tyler Mane in the earlier film) — he’s probably one of modern film’s most under appreciated actors, in my opinion — and Danny Huston was a damn fine Will Stryker. The CG was pretty outstanding, with a few minor exceptions (whoever did the Patrick Stewart touch up work for the younger Xavier should be fired.) My biggest complaint with the film is that it felt too rushed, which is what I expected given the amount of content they had to cover. Every other scene was in a different time period and a different country. It wasn’t confusing so much as it was tedious.

Overall though I think they did the best job they could telling this story in the time they had, and they did a pretty thorough job of it at that.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

So, what’s the premise? Dale Denton (played by Rogen) is a mild mannered process server with an affinity for weed, and an apparent self esteem problem. Bored by his job and stressed about his girlfriend (a high school student, no less), Denton turns to his dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) for some relief. Denton clearly isn’t a fan of the guy, but Saul thinks the world of him so he gives him a “exclusive sneak peek” at a new crop his supplier calls Pineapple Express. One thing leads to the next, and in a twist of divine irony, Denton is unwittingly sent to serve papers to Saul’s source (Ted Jones, played by Gary Cole), where he is the unfortunate witness to a murder. In a panic, Denton drops his joint of the rare Pineapple Express, leading Jones and his cohorts straight back to Saul and Denton.

Most of the film revolves around Dale and Saul fleeing from certain death, getting stoned out of their heads and trying to get out of the murderous predicament their in. Throw in a Chinese drug cartel, an impending drug war, a cop on the villain’s payroll and an abandoned military experimentation facility and you’ve got yourself Pineapple Express.

It’s decidedly an action-comedy flick with a strong “buddy movie” undertone, and at it’s core deals with Dale’s self esteem and the relationship between Dale and Saul… and it does it wonderfully. To be honest, I’m not a fan of stoner films. Most films either try to politicize the issue too much, or just make the topic so tedious that it ends up being painful to watch. Leave it to these guys to make one that I not only didn’t loathe, but actually loved.

Rogen, as always, is hilarious in his part. The man is a great comedy actor, without question. I think what makes Rogen great is that even he’s so normal and so familiar, it’s like watching a friend you know on screen. He’s also somehow managed to make his characters throughout his films unique enough that you don’t feel like you’re watching the same guy over and over again.

When I saw the first Express trailer, I was surprised to see Franco cast for the second-chair role. He just never came off as a comedy actor type to me. It wasn’t until I caught some of his stuff over on Funny or Die that I realized how great he was for the part. Franco really elevated the role of Saul from a fairly uninspired stoner archetype to a character you care about, and even as a secondary character feels just as important as Rogen’s Dale. The duo did an awesome job, and I’m not sure Pineapple Express would have been half as enjoyable with anyone else cast in those parts.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars Great acting, hilarious story, top notch comedy. What more do you want?

I don’t think it requires much of a step up if you’ve seen the trailer, but here it goes anyway. Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen meet, and instantly fall for each other. Gettin’ it on, they both tell the other things about themselves. They discover they both have 40 year old children still living at home. Oh, the hilarious irony! Flash forward, the two marry, and Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly meet. They instantly hate each others guts, and proceed to do everything in their power to piss the other one off. In the end, the two become best friends when Reilly punches Ferrell’s younger brother (played by Adam Scott) in the face for being a dick. Shenanigans ensue.

Directed by Judd Apatow (Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard, …) and Farrell, Step Brothers feels like a really, really long clip from Farrell’s funnyordie.com project, and I can’t say I have any complaints in that regard. The one-liners the guys pull off, along with some truly hilarious scenes (Farrell burying Reilly alive, the two getting beat up by a gang of ill mannered elementary school kids, etc.) make for a really enjoyable film. I think my only complaint was the vulgarity; that isn’t to say it wasn’t funny, but when virtually every line of the film contains fuck, dick, vagina or fart, it starts to get dry. Honestly I found the banter between Farrell and Reilly more entertaining when they didn’t turn every line into an excuse to get an R rating.

So, how was it overall? Not a family movie by any means (not that the R rating shouldn’t be enough to tell you that), but if you dig Farrell’s crazy, off the wall humor, you’ll love it. If you aren’t sure, watch some of the top clips from funnyordie.com first and see how they strike you.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I Want to Believe takes a step back from the “epicness” of the previous film, and instead presents us with a more down to earth (literally), enjoyable story very much along the lines of a traditional X-Files episode. This film centers around three factors: an organ-snatching Russian and his husband (yes, they’re gay), a pedophile physic priest (say that 3 times fast) and, most shockingly of all, the relationship between Mulder and Scully.

First, let’s discus the story. It was very creepy, but not in a supernatural sense, which was a nice change. It boils down to this: an FBI agent is abducted, and a priest claiming to have psychic visions of the event approaches the Bureau, telling them that he can help them track her down. The lead in charge of the investigation isn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of psychics, so they ask Mulder to come in and consult for them. By this time Mulder and Scully have long been out of the FBI game; Scully is a Doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows hospital, and Mulder has been hiding out at their home, dodging the FBI. Yeah, they live together. Even shows them in bed together. Weird, given the incredibly ambiguous relationship the two had throughout the TV series. A nice change, though.

Mulder gets right back into the swing of the things and becomes obsessed with the case, while Scully finds herself unwilling to get completely involved. In fact, a good deal of the film deals with the lovers quarrel that arises from Mulder’s devotion to the case. It’s nice to see the writers giving the relationship some real depth here.

The acting was pretty great, with one exception. Callum Rennie (you might recognize him as Number Two on Battlestar Galactica) does a fantastic and pretty frightening job of his role, and Gillian Anderson has really come a long way from the actress we were introduced to in the early days of the X-Files. Billy Connolly, who has long been one of my favorite performers, does a unnervingly good job of making you feel bad for the child molesting, eye-bleeding psychic priest. David Duchovny was… well, David Duchovny. I’ve never found his acting to be anything to write home about, but he’s the Fox Mulder we’ve all grown to love. My only complaint was with Amanda Peet. Her dialog felt dry, as it always does. Not sure how she keeps landing jobs, but I guess some people can get by on looks alone.

So, how did I feel about the film overall? I liked it, more or less. The story was interesting, and they didn’t try to go over the top like they did before. They stayed true to the traditional X-Files formula and it worked well. I do feel the whole thing was drawn out a bit too long, and they could easily have shaved a good 20-30 minutes off for my taste, but beyond that I didn’t have any major complaints.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The first film, Have I Got a Story For You, was produced by Japanese Studio 6°C. Largely unknown in the states, Studio 6°C’s only recognizable work to us would be the 2008 Transformers animated television series, though I have not had an opportunity to experience it yet. “Have I Got a Story For You” tells a tale of a ongoing struggle between Batman and an unknown villain in reverse (Memento-style) from the perspective of four kids. Each witnesses a different aspect of the battle, and in turn has a completely different interpretation of Batman to tell their friends. One sees him as a monster able to shift in and out of the shadows, another saw him as a huge bat rather than a man, and yet another saw him as a robot (which was very cool, I might add.) The final kid experiences the last version of batman, the traditional capped crusader we all know, and helps him finish the struggle with the bandit.

I thought the animation style was pretty interesting, though it didn’t do much for me personally. Very gritty, and rough, and the character designs were shaped in a distractingly odd form. Still, it’s a fun story, and a neat adventure into the minds of Gotham’s citizens and how differently each see’s Batman.

Crossfire takes a different perspective to the storytelling than most of the films in this set; here you follow detectives Crispus Allen and Anna Ramirez as they deliver an escaped convict Batman has recently recaptured to Arkham Asylum. This film primarily deals with Crispus Allen’s unwillingness to trust in Batman, and his distaste for Gotham’s faith in him. I won’t reveal the plot, but needless to say Batman saves the two from a tight situation, and gain’s Allen’s confidence.

This story was produced by Production I.G., another Japanese studio well known to anime fans (like myself) for classics like The End of Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Blood+, and many more. These guys know their craft and they do it masterfully, and I was pretty satisfied with the way they produced this. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of that I.G. creativity when it came to designing Batman, as they opted to go with a pretty traditional character design for him, but they put ample detail into the other characters and the world itself to more than make up for it.

And so we come to my favorite story in the series, Field Test. I loved the animation style of this one, so it came as no surprise when I found the studio behind this one was Bee Train, a Japanese animation studio responsible for creating some of my very favorite animes (.Hack, Noir and Tsubasa Chronicle, to name a few.) I actually ended up watching this one twice before I moved on, I enjoyed it so much.

Field Test delivers far more Bruce Wayne than any other film in the series, and has the most unique (and coolest, if I do say so) Batman costume of them all. This one revolves around Wayne and Lucius Fox applying an electromagnetic field generator formally used in a Wayne Enterprises satellite to Batman’s costume. The device generates a field capable of deflecting any small arms fire. A problem occurs on the first night of it’s use, however, and a man is critically wounded from one of the deflected bullets. Batman, being the dashing hero that he is, rushes to save the man’s life.

Loved the animation, awesome character design, decent story. Favorite out of the bunch.

In Darkness Dwells was my least favorite of the bunch in terms of animation, but it had a pretty compelling story, and is the only film to have two classic villains from the Batman universe show up. I wasn’t familiar with Madhouse, the animation studio responsible for this film, but they have a couple of big animes under their belt (Death Note and Gungrave, among others.) Clearly they went for a unique style to stand out from the rest, but I’m not sure it was a wise move.

Darkness Dwells leads Batman through Gotham’s sewers on the search for a man-made monster known by the homeless as Croc (yes, that’s Killer Croc to those of you familiar with the Batman lineage.) Ultimately Batman’s search leads him to a struggle with Croc, and the discovery of the Scarecrow and a poisoned subterranean society that worships him. Batman gets poisoned, methane gets lit, shit gets blown up; I’ll leave the rest to you to figure out.

Yeah, wasn’t really feeling this one.

The second Studio 6°C production in the set, Working Through Pain is a flashback film in which Batman, critically wounded by a bullet to the abdomen, struggles to make his way out of the sewers and to Alfred for assistance. Trying to deal with the pain of the wound, he flashes back to time he spent in an undefined Indian country, learning pain management techniques from a rather beautiful woman. This story drips existentialism, so I’m not even going to begin to try to summarize everything that goes on here, but I really enjoyed the story, perhaps more so than any other in Gotham Knight. The animation style immediately reminded me of Aeon Flux and Reign: The Conqueror (which is surprising, given that Reign was produced by Madhouse, who did “In Darkness Dwells” and “Deadshot” for this anthology.)

Not my cup of tea in terms of design, but good, solid story.

The sixth and final film in the set, Deadshot was also produced by Madhouse. Once again, I was unimpressed by the character design and genuinely disliked the animation style. That aside, the story was quite compelling, and includes villain Deadshot as it’s protagonist. An over the top sniper, Deadshot is hired by the mob to kill Commissioner Gordon. Batman catches wind of this, obviously, and shenanigans ensue. No surprises in this one, but I did enjoy the action sequence quite a lot.

So, how do I feel about Gotham Knight overall? I enjoyed the hell out of it. It pays homage to the traditional Batman lineage, gives a great deal of insight into Wayne beyond the film, and while it doesn’t raise it’s nose to viewers who aren’t familiar with the comic book heritage, it absolutely has plenty for those of us who are to eat up.

I didn’t like roughly half the animation styles used in the anthology, but I understand what the studios were going for and I have to respect their interest in creating something unique and creative, especially when you’re up against studios like Production I.G. and Bee Train.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Suitable for comic book nerds and Batman newbies alike, it’s a great watch and definitely worth the time.

So today I decided to get my butt over to the theater and check it out myself, and I must agree with the Twittersphere; this movie rocked. The action scenes were top notch, there was some wicked new gadgets introduced (city-wide sonar for bat vision? so cool.) and the acting, as predicted, was just fantastic, if not a bit creepy given Ledger’s untimely death.

I think my only minor gripe with the film was it’s lack of Bruce Wayne screen time. Christian Bale has long been one of my favorite actors, so I was expecting to see more lines from him than there were. Bale ends up spending most of the film in the costume, which is great, but you really fail to experience his acting ability when he gets so few lines behind the mask. I thought Wayne was far more interesting in the first film in that regard.

Ledger, as I think everyone expected, proved himself to be an outstanding Joker. He really nailed the role, and delivered a fantastic, creepy experience. It’s a true pity we won’t have an opportunity to see him reprise the role.

Two-Face was pretty interesting, though I found Eckhart’s villainous side at the end to be the low point of the film. To me, it came off feeling a bit rushed. Two-Face was always a fascinating character to me in the Batman universe, and given the long back story he and Batman had in the traditional lineage I was surprised to see the rebooted movie’s different look at the once-friend-now-adversaries. Personally? I would have liked to have seen them introduce Two-Face in this film, perhaps show his criminal side’s origins at the finale, and then allow for part of the next film to close things up. As it is I wasn’t very satisfied with Two-Face or his brief involvement in the story.

In any event, my complaints are very minor, and I can find little fault with any aspect of the film. Definitely a worthy sequel to Batman Begins, and in many ways I think it even raised the bar a notch.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars Almost perfect, but I think they could have spent a little more time developing Two Face and Wayne’s relationship.

So, what did you think?