Quick Reviews (Catching Up Again)

Yeah, I fell behind in discussing movies again. Seeing as how you don't pay me to do this, though...anyway, I'll start with the one that's not really a 2012 movie: "Finding Nemo," which was re-released in a 3D version this fall. Of the Pixar movies, there are only three I haven't seen in full. I've seen parts of "A Bug's Life" and have no intentions of ever seeing "Cars 2." So "Nemo" was the only gap in my Pixar resume. I liked it a lot but didn't love it. If it were on my 2012 movie list I'd give it a grade of B.

"House at the End of the Street" started out slowly but I ended up enjoying it more than expected, especially since it didn't involve a supernatural murderer-come-back-to-life the way it seemed (at least to me, from the little I heard of it going in). And the revelation at the end was a surprise. My grade: B-minus.

I wasn't totally enthralled with "Looper." As much as I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I didn't like how they used some prosthetic nose getup to make him look like Bruce Willis. Like "Men in Black III," the time-travel machinations didn't make sense, and even though a meta commentary by Willis' character essentially told the audience that we shouldn't worry about time-travel continuity making sense, I can't go for that (no can do). A certain amount of logic is required. My grade: B.

"Hotel Transylvania" presents Adam Sandler as an animated Dracula. The idea of a hotel that caters exclusively to monsters and keeps them from contact with humans was sort of clever, but it wasn't what it could be, and, I repeat, Adam Sandler as Dracula. My grade: C-minus.

Quick Review: Red

Finally. Time to write about a movie. "Red" is actually based on a comic book miniseries, but it's not a superhero epic or something way out like Scott Pilgrim. It's an action-comedy starring a bunch of veteran actors, and it's quite fun for what it is. Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired black-ops CIA agent who's bored with his quiet suburban life and rips up his pension check each month so he has an excuse to call the office in Kansas City to report his "missing" check and talk to Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). They've never met but he has a crush on her. An attempt on his life leads to his going to KC to protect Sarah (since he is sure his phone was wiretapped), and he also gets in touch with the former members of his black ops team (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren) to help him find out who wants him dead. It's a pretty solid film. It had some laughs and the action scenes didn't have me rolling my eyes much at the improbability of it all. It's what a lot of the summer movies could be if someone put a bit more thought into them. I'm guessing this was released in the fall because the stars aren't young and hip.

I do have a couple of questions: why doesn't Frank have direct deposit? I think that's mandatory now if you have a bank account. And how can he call a specific out-of-town office and speak to the same representative every month? From my experience, it just doesn't work that way in the federal government. And if this has happened multiple times, shouldn't Sarah have gotten suspicious? My grade: B.

Quick Review: Cop Out

Good grief, I saw this 10 days ago and am finally getting around to writing about this old movie from the 1980s...what's that? It's actually a new movie? Starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan? Directed -- but not written -- by Kevin Smith? Oh. Well, it sure seems like it's from the 1980s. It's a generic mismatched-buddy-cop movie. It's "Lethal Weapon" or "Beverly Hills Cop" or whatever -- right down to the music used in the film (by Harold Faltermeyer, who had a hit with the "Axel F" theme from..."Beverly Hills Cop." Early on, there's a scene in which Morgan's character is interrogating a suspect and repeats various lines from movies. He says to Willis he's paying homage. This movie may think it's paying homage, but it's really just a retread, with a convoluted plot, and it's kind of all over the place. Morgan does his shtick, so if you like his act you'll enjoy it more. I think Willis was just in it for the paycheck. There is a lively turn by Seann William Scott, who robs a store where Willis is selling a rare baseball card (don't ask). And a gang leader is played by Guillermo Diaz, who happens to be openly gay, so props to him. My grade: C-plus.

Quick Review: Surrogates

Imagine a world where people interact with each other only through machines. Wait, isn't that Twitter and Facebook? No, this goes beyond that. Advanced robotics, we're told at the beginning of "Surrogates," allow you to never leave the house. You control your own robot, or surrogate, from home. Supposedly this is a better way of life, although how, I'm not quite sure. You still have to eat. Why would you send a surrogate out to a nice restaurant for a fancy dinner? Or even to a fast-food chain?. We're told that because of surrogates, the world is so much better. People are happier, racism and sexism are disappearing, crime is down 98 percent. Except, early on, a large majority of the surrogates partying at a nightclub are white. That doesn't mean their owners are, but still...it doesn't match the message. Oh, and wars are still being fought...although they're now fought by surrogates. Plus there's a group of anti-surrogate people who have treaties with the government allowing them to have armed compounds where surrogates are banned. Sounds like a utopia to me.

Then a surrogate is struck down by an advanced weapon, and its owner, back at home, is found dead. Then it happens again. The FBI has to investigage the first murders in years, and Bruce Willis is one of the agents. He's ambivalent about the whole "surrogate" technology, though he uses it at first. Why his surrogate doesn't have better hair is beyond me. At least he doesn't bother with a hairpiece when he actually gets out and investigates on his own, without the robot. There are a few red herrings, the usual double-dealing, conspiracy theories, etc. and what happens in the end is fairly predictable, even if it doesn't entirely make sense (I can't say more about that without spoiling it). I hope the comic book series on which the movie is based was better. My grade: C-plus.