Monday, May 2, 2011

Fast Five and DVD reviews

I've been a little behind in my movie watching. There just hasn't been a ton of stuff out in the theater that I've been dying to see. Plus, Blockbuster Online has decided to start being a bitch about sending movies after I've returned all of my existing rentals. They didn't send me anything for three days and I had to complain before they finally sent me anything. Looks like they are really trying to lose all their customers at this point. I signed up for Netflix this morning and we'll see how that goes. Anyway...

Fast Five

Okay, make no mistake about it, this movie is dumb! It's dumb fun though. I almost hate to admit it, but I enjoyed this and thought it was entertaining. The good thing about a movie like Fast Five is that it doesn't appear to take itself too seriously, so it's easier to just shut your brain off and watch all the fast cars and action.

The dialog is pretty bad in parts and the acting is about what you'd expect. Paul Walker is terrible as usual and maintains his status as one of the worst modern actors. It's a good thing they keep making these movies and they do well, otherwise, he'd just disappear.

It's way over the top, but that's why you see a movie like this in the first place. Overall, I was entertained and I'd recommend it if you're looking for some dumb, summer fun. Plus, if you can't get into Thor next weekend, this is a good alternative.


A note on current trailers...

They showed the trailer for Cars 2 and boy did they show it to the wrong audience. There did appear to be a single person that reacted to it favorably. Granted it's a kids film, but maybe they thought since we were already watching a movie about cars, that we'd be into Cars 2 as well. It also just didn't look good, which to me is because it features the voice 'talents' of Larry the Cable Guy. I'm sorry, but Larry the Cable Guy is just not funny. It irritates me they cast him to do that dumb voice he does, when it's all an act in the first place.

Some of the other trailers I saw looked funny, like for Hangover 2 and The Change-Up. The crowd really seemed to be into both of those.


On to current DVDs:

The King's Speech

As you'd expect, it's a really good movie. The performances are great. I really struggled watching the scenes of Colin Firth stuttering. He did a great job with that and you just felt his frustration. I think Colin Firth deserved the Oscar for Best Actor. Geoffrey Rush is good as he always is and I almost didn't recognize Guy Pearce for some reason.

Do I think it's the best movie of the year though. Not really. I'd put it in my top ten, but that's about it.

Obviously, I give this a strong rental recommendation.


Gulliver's Travels

I hated this movie with a passion. This is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. If you already don't like Jack Black, you'll hate this even more. It's all the things that I hear Jack Black haters complain about with his movies.

They have to crowbar another scene of him playing air guitar in this. Why does it have to be in every film of his? Don't they realize that it stopped being funny years ago. When it has nothing to do with the plot of the story, it's makes it even less funny. I think he did some of his scatting at some point, but I was just too pissed off to notice.

There are lots of Star Wars references, which you'd think someone like me would appreciate, but the problem is that they aren't clever Star Wars references. Just because he has an R2-D2 on his desk or they mention the Millennium Falcon in the movie, do they really think that all of the Fanboys are going to fall all over this? We aren't that dumb. They feel like references that are from someone that has only seen Star Wars once or twice.

Overall, with all the lame jokes and toilet humor, the movie feels like it was written by a 10-year-old, for an audience of 8-year-olds.

It also has a run time of just barely 85 minutes, which for a feature, should really give you an idea of how little of a story they had here. Even with the short runtime, it felt longer watching it.

I cannot recommend this movie at all on any level.


Country Strong

This DVD highlights a pet peeve of mine now. DVDs are now putting tons of trailers at the beginning of DVDs that you can't skip past. What's worse is that many of the trailers are for movies that came out on DVD weeks ago. I don't need to see a trailer for a known movie that's already out. Chances are I've already seen it. Stop wasting my time and let me watch the damn movie!

Anyway, this movie bored the hell out of me. I suppose if you're into the country scene, then this might interest you more, but it just did nothing for me. The story is just bland and clichéd and all of the characters weren't interesting.

Garrett Hedlund really bothered me in this movie. His character seems to hate Leighton Meester's character, but the reason for the hate is basically that she's pretty. She's very nice and sweet and he just gives her a hard time for no reason. It really makes me not like him as a character, and that's pretty bad when he's one of the main characters. I'm not sure if this was just a bad script, bad direction or maybe Hedlund is just a shitty actor. It's not like he was interesting in Tron: Legacy either.

I can't recommend renting this either. Even if you already have HBO, I wouldn't recommend watching it.


On the training front, the training blog will also be back up this week. I took a few weeks off to let a few nagging aches and pains heal up. I've been back in the gym for the past two weeks, but they were real light workouts just to keep from being totally inactive.

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