Quick Reviews: Five More...

Oops, I did it again. Procrastinated on writing about the movies I've seen, that is. I guess all that writing for "Man of Steel" took a lot out of me...no, just the usual issues. Anyway, here are the most recent five:

The Bling Ring is based on a true story about shallow, vapid young people robbing the homes of shallow, vapid celebrities such as Paris Hilton -- celebrities so shallow that they tended to leave the doors to their homes unlocked, which made it much easier for the burglars. I can think of no further proof of the utter shallowness of Paris Hilton than the fact that not only did she cameo in the movie, but allowed the filmmakers to film the scenes of the robbery of her house at that very same house. The movie made no points, taught no lessons, and doesn't even function as a pseudo-documentary. My grade: D.

World War Z was just odd. It felt like a mashup of different genres -- science fiction, disaster film, horror -- and it all didn't blend well for me. And Brad Pitt as an action hero didn't connect with me either. Also, I hate that the film started out in Philadelphia, where Pitt's character's family lived, but was obviously filmed elsewhere (London, if I recall). Even the skyline didn't look like Philadelphia. My grade: C-plus.

Monsters University is a prequel, focusing on the first meeting of Mike and Sully at college. When Pixar's followed up on previous films they've been good (both "Toy Story" sequels) and bad ("Cars 2," from what I've heard). This one is okay, but it doesn't bode well for other planned sequels, including one for "Finding Nemo." Pixar needs to focus on original stuff again and leave sequels and prequels to Disney's direct-to-DVD products. My grade: B.

When I get excited about a movie based on its trailer, I am always concerned about a letdown. Thankfully, there was no letdown from The Heat, the Sandra Bullock-Melissa McCarthy mismatched-buddy-cop (well, cop and FBI in this one) action comedy. Lots of humor, foul language, violence -- but heart as well. Bullock and McCarthy work very well together. My grade: A.

The Lone Ranger has Armie Hammer in the title role, but make no mistake, the masked man's the straight man for Johnny Depp's shticky Tonto. The Ranger is more of a dolt than a hero, and it all strained my credulity. It got a surprising amount of laughs from others in the theater, but I mostly sat there sighing and rolling my eyes as it went on and on, interspersed with a ridiculous framing sequence featuring an elderly Depp-as-Tonto telling the story to a little boy at a traveling circus. My grade: D-plus.

Quick Reviews: May 2012

Since I continue to procrastinate and waste time (not entirely wasting it, as I've had some stuff to deal with as well), I have to lump together the films I've seen instead of trying to do post after post. After today I've got seven that I've seen since the start of the "summer" movie season (which this year was, I suppose, the week "The Avengers" was released, which was before Mother's Day). Since I saw four of them in May, I'll wrap them up. Really, though, what's finally spurring them on is the one I just saw a few hours ago, so stay tuned.

Marvel's The Avengers: Do I really have to refer to this as "Marvel's"? Anyway, I am a bigger fan of the DC superheroes -- although with their "New 52" crap driving me away from the comic book stores, not to mention the better success of the Marvel character movies, it's a bit harder to say that. I have high hopes for "The Dark Knight Rises," but once Christian Bale's final Batman movie is over with, anyone trying to make a DC movie will seriously need to step up their game to come close to what "The Avengers" pulled off.  I was so dazzled that I had to really think of a reason to not give this a perfect A-plus grade. I finally came up with this: there's an obligatory scene where some of the heroes fight each other. This happens in the comic books and almost always is contrived -- they have to fight each other before teaming up to fight the bad guy. Even though in this movie it was almost plausible and understandable plot-wise, it was still there. My grade: A.

Dark Shadows: It started with a surprisingly long prologue before getting to the 1972 setting for the main story, which turned out to be quite disappointing. I love that Johnny Depp throws himself into these roles, and there were a few moments that were enjoyable, but resurrecting this old TV show just seemed totally unnecessary. My grade: C-minus.

The Dictator: If my generalization is correct, people mostly loved Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" and mostly hated "Bruno," although I loved both,

Quick Review: Rango

I'm gonna keep this a bit shorter because I want to try and go to bed at a semi-decent hour, after having been up all of last night (until about 11:30 am, actually). Johnny Depp is clearly having lots of fun voicing the title character in "Rango." He's a pet chameleon whose cage is thrown from the back of the car it's in. He ends up lost in the desert, and makes his way to a town called Dirt (populated by various creatures), where water is in extremely short supply and events lead to his becoming the sheriff. It cribs from a lot of other movies -- mostly Westerns, of course, since that's what it is -- but it mixes it all up into a fun, quirky little package. By the way, although it's animated it's not the typical all-ages movie. The youngest moviegoers either will probably be bored or scared. My grade: B-plus.

Quick Review: Alice in Wonderland

I was disappointed by Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland." I thought it would be a lot more silly and ridiculous. Visually, it mostly lived up to expectations. But the rest failed to excite me much. Here, Alice is 19 and attending a party that takes an unexpected turn -- to Alice, but not to anyone else at the party -- when she receives a marriage proposal. She runs off, falls down a rabbit hole and is back in Wonderland. Except it's called "Underland," and Alice doesn't remember being there before, so when she encounters the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Cheshire cat, etc., she is taken aback. It seems that "Underland" is suffering, as the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has taken control from her sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), and that Alice must help defeat the Red Queen, and...what the hell? It's Alice in Wonderland, with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and it's supposed to be crazy and wild -- I repeat -- WILD! Instead, much of the time it's sad, restrained and almost dull. Where's the fun? My grade: B-minus.

Quick review: Public Enemies

I remember seeing the trailer for "Public Enemies" a while back; based on that I expected a more lively, fast-paced and fun (not in a jokes-and-punchlines way) over-the-top film. I didn't get what I expected. Part of the reason for this is that Johnny Depp, as infamous bank robber John Dillinger, and Christian Bale, as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, are barely onscreen at the same time. They have one short scene together. While it's a competent crime drama, and not poorly acted, it lacks energy. Dillinger is supposed to be this legendary figure, a modern-day Robin Hood for many in the Depression-scarred nation, but you don't see that in this movie. It could've used some hammy "Pirates of the Caribbean"-style overacting by Depp. My grade: C-plus.