This Week in DVD - January 29th

Real Steel

I was pleasantly surprised by this.  It has some corny dialog and it's a little more kid oriented than I was expecting, but I think it turned out to be a nice family film.  I think I put it this way, if I would have taken my nephew to see this, he would have loved it, and I wouldn't have felt like I completely wasted my time.  It's like a Rocky movie, but with robots.

You can read the original review here.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars.

50/50

Emotional, yet funny, story based on the real life experiences of writer Will Riser.  As I mention in my original review, Seth Rogen plays the best friend in the movie, but was also the real life best friend of Will Riser.

It's one of those you'll laugh, you'll cry movies, but I think it was one of the year's better films and anchored by yet another great Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance.  I think JGL, and the movie, might have gotten a slight snub by the Oscars this year, but JGL will get his due eventually.

You can read more about it here.

4 Death Stars.

Paranormal Activity 3

I still think this is a terrible movie.  I really don't get what anyone sees in this series.  It's just a bunch of bad actors reacting to doors slamming shut and noises off camera.  Then, they aren't even consistent with the whole found footage thing in this one.  This is supposed to be a prequel taking place in the 80's, yet the film quality looks current.  Then there are shots in the film where you see the camera, so it's like they kind of gave up on trying to sell you on these being home movies.  Unless you want to believe that they filmed themselves filming themselves.  Right...

I will say it might be the best of the three films, but that's not saying much.

0.5 Death Stars - I still consider this to be one of the worst films of 2011.

Restless

Mia Wasikowska stars in a indie film directed by Gus Van Sant basically about two young teens that meet and fall in love, but it's also about how each character deals with death.

It might be a little too cute and twee for some, and it's a little predictable, but it worked for me.  I think the movie suffered by the lead, played by Henry Hopper, in his first role.  I think based on the subject matter, a slightly more experienced actor would have helped sell it more.  I thought his performance was kind of lifeless.  You might be tempted to say that's how he was playing the role, but when I watched the special features, that's how he appeared in interviews as well.  There's an interesting special feature that allows you to watch the movie done as a silent film, but The Artist this is not.

I did really like Mia Wasikowska's performance though and she's one of my favorite young actresses.  It also kind of freaks me out how she's a dead ringer for Aurora Snow.

3 Death Stars - I think it's worth a rental if you like cute, indie films.

That's it for this week.  I didn't watch that much as I'm trying to catch up the shows saved on my DVR.

The Grey - Movie Review

You know that Liam Neeson has a specific set of skills, right?  He's a man of many talents, mentor to both Obi-Wan and Batman, can walk into a room full of thugs and destroy them in seconds and rumor has it that he has the biggest unit in Hollywood. The Grey adds wilderness survival and wolf killing to his ever expanding skill set.

I was actually kind of glad to this movie out of the way.  If I had to see the trailer for The Grey one more friggin time I was going to punch a wolf myself. Not that there are a lot of wolves around here, but I'd go find one and punch it. Hell, I watched a DVD the other day that had this as an unskippable trailer before the movie. I was getting the feeling that they were pushing this movie too hard, which is usually a bad sign.

There's not much to the story, and the trailer pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the setup.  Liam Neeson and a group of oil workers survive a plane crash.  As if things aren't bad enough, they are almost immediately attacked by a pack of wolves.  They know that if they don't get moving, they will all be dead within a day.  So Liam, his specific set of skills, and the survivors start heading south.  They hope that as they move south, they'll leave the wolves' territory and they'll get left alone.  Unfortunately, they are stalked by the wolves the entire time.

This is a good example of a movie where the trailer really gives you a different impression of what this movie actually is.  If you think this movie is going to be 'Liam Neeson punches wolves for two hours', you're going to be disappointed.  However, I'm glad that's not how the movie played out.  That's not to say though, that this movie, and all movies, wouldn't benefit from more wolf-punching.  This is why I maintain that Eric Bana's Hulk is better than Ed Norton's The Incredible Hulk.  Bana's Hulk features mutant dog punching, which is awesome.  Ed Norton's The Incredible Hulk features no dog or wolf punching, therefore it is an inferior film. End of discussion!

The Grey starts out like a horror/thriller movie, but turns into a survival film with deep philosophical elements.  It's about man versus the elements (and wolves).  The wolf attacks are sudden and brutal.  You'll jump a lot in the early part of this film.  If you watch this at home and have a good surround sound system, I think it will add to the experience even more.  The film is shot beautifully as well.  While all the snow and trees look great, you understand how deadly it is.

As they press on and you get the know the characters better, it becomes more of a philosophical film.  At what point to you give up?  What keeps these guys pressing on despite the odds?  You'll get to understand all of their motivations.  Eventually, you see these guys questioning their faith.

It's a longer movie, which kind of adds to how bleak and depressing their struggle is.  I was never bored though.  This might be a bit of a spoiler, but the famous scene from the trailer where he tapes bottles to his hands is actually the very last shot of the film.  The ending is kind of sudden and I can see people being disappointed by it, but I loved how it ended. Oh, and stay until the end of the credits.

While this is a Liam Neeson movie, the rest of the cast is great, too.  Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, and Dallas Roberts all stand out in their performances.  You start out not knowing anything about these guys, and in some cases not liking them at all, but by the end you feel for them.

This was written and directed by Joe Carnahan, who has movies like Smokin' Aces and The A-Team to his credit.  Based on those two movies, I wouldn't have expected that he was capable of a movie like The Grey.  It's a totally different kind of movie for him and I think it's easily his best work.  I hope he continues on this path.

I really loved The Grey.  It's not at all the movie I was expecting and I was peasantly surprised by it.  If you can get past that this isn't the action film the trailer shows, you're in for a well made movie about a group's struggle for survival.  I strongly recommend watching it and I'm looking forward to watching it again.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars




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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Movie Review

I have to be honest, I wasn't all that interested in seeing this.  I still think it's a too soon to use 9/11 as a device in a movie.  I think it's a cheap way to give a movie more emotional weight that it didn't earn.

I think I'm still burned by Remember Me, which actually attempted to throw 9/11 into the movie at the last minute as a twist, when it had NOTHING to do with the movie up until that point.  It was one of the most insulting things I've ever seen done in a film.  Fortunately, in this film it's use of 9/11 isn't as clumsy.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close follows the story of Oskar (tell me you aren't Oscar-baiting when the main character is named Oskar), a bright, but socially awkward kid.  At one point they even mention that they tested him for Asperger's, but the results were inconclusive.  You can see that there's just something a little different about him.  Oskar and his dad, Thomas (Tom Hanks), play games that are designed to push Oskar to think creatively and force him to interact with people (something he's not very good at).  As you've seen in the trailer, Thomas dies in 9/11.  This is done at the beginning of the film, so most of the scenes with Tom Hanks are in flashbacks.

Anyway, after Thomas dies, they are understandably having a hard time dealing with it.  One of the main issues for Oskar is that as his dad's death can't really be explained in a way that Oskar can understand.  He needs to it to make sense somehow.  His mother (Sandra Bullock) is trying to help him and connect with him, but it's clear he's rather her not be around.

When searching through his dad's stuff one day, Oskar finds an old key in an envelope that's only labeled with the word 'Black'.  He decides to find out what this key belongs to.  He assumes the word 'Black' is a name and systematically decides to contact all 400+ people in the phone book with the last name of Black.  He's hoping this last mystery will either help him explain his father's death or give him some kind of closure.  This aspect of the movie reminded me of Hugo.  With Hugo you also have a kid dealing with the untimely death of his father and trying to complete a final project in the hopes it will bring him closer to his dad or answer questions.

Along the way, he's joined by the mysterious 'Renter' (Max von Sydow), who comes along with him for much of his journey.  The Renter does not speak because of events that happened in his past and communicates only through scribbling on a notepad.

As you'd guess, it is a very emotional movie.  I didn't find it to be as manipulative as I thought it was going to be though.  Having said that, I still didn't think the use of 9/11 was necessary.  Why does Tom Hanks have to die in 9/11?  Why couldn't it have just been a robbery or a drunk driver?  When they show the flashbacks of 9/11 related stuff, it was just uncomfortable to me.  I think they could have told the same story without using 9/11 and I think it actually would have been better.

What saves the movie are the performances.  Thomas Horn as Oskar is fantastic here.  It's a very believable and mature performance.  I think sometimes his character came off as abrasive, but I think that's more due to the nature of the character, not the performance or actor.

Sandra Bullock also gives one of her better performances and I think I identified with her character the most.  Tom Hanks is good as always.  Is it possible to not like Tom Hanks though?  I don't really think so.

Max von Sydow was great!  Talk about acting without saying anything.  I wasn't surprised to see him get nominated for Best Supporting Actor earlier this week.  I guess 'silent' is the theme for this year's awards.

My only real complaint about the movie, besides the 9/11 thing, is that it's a little long.  It's over two hours long and I think it could have been tightened up a bit.

It's based off the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer.  Apparently, the book received mixed reviews as well as this movie.  The 9/11 element is in the original book and appears to be the primary reason for the negative reviews, so I can't blame the movie for using it.. I just wish they had changed it and gone with a slightly different approach.  The screenwriter, Eric Roth, has written many other good movies and the director Stephen Daldry has directed better movies, but I think they couldn't completely overcome the source material.

I have to say I think I liked this more than the average critic did.  I guess I didn't find it as pretentious and contrived as others.  I'll even admit that I got a little weepy towards the end.  Family dramas tend to do that to me.  I will, however, say that I do not think it deserved it's Oscar nomination for Best Picture.  There are many, many much better movies that were more deserving in 2011.

It's tough for me to recommend Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, because I think most people will be affected emotionally by it.  It's like saying, "Go see it if you want to cry."  At the time time, I can see how people might feel this movie was forced and manipulative.  I do think it's suitable for almost everyone though and the performances do make it worth watching.  If you do go see it, bring Kleenex.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

This week in DVD - January 22nd

Another light week in DVD.  I was a little preoccupied with the Niner game, so I didn't rent as many movies as I normally do.  Between that bitter defeat and my buddy Conan's birthday, I'm lagging a bit more than usual.



Ides of March


Strong cast and nice political drama.  I remember this was getting early Oscar buzz when it first came out, but it didn't get anything come nomination time.  I think a lot of people think Gosling got snubbed.  Clooney, however, got his nominations for The Descendants, which is a much better movie anyway..

You can read my original here.  It's good movie worth renting.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars.




Killer Elite

Why is it that whenever I see "Based on a True Story" in the opening credits, I almost immediately call bullshit?  The events in these types of movies are just so far fetched at times, that it's too difficult to believe any of it could have actually happened.  It's based on a book called The Feather Men by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, which he claims are real, but has since come out and said it's up to the reader to decide whether or not it is fact or fiction.  He's also received a lot of criticism from many sources saying it's all bullshit.  So yeah, I'm going to call this a work of fiction.

Anyway, I didn't think the movie itself was that bad.  There's some good action sequences and I liked the setup.  It's a little too long though.  I felt like there were a few scenes that really didn't add much to the story and could have been cut out to tighten the movie up more.

2.5 Death Stars.  This is another example of a movie that if you rented when bored on a rainy day, you'd probably enjoy it enough.


Abduction

I've been dreading this one for a while.  Sometimes a bad movie can still be entertaining or fun.  This movie was just plain bad.

The first fail is that they immediately establish the lead character as an irresponsible show off with douchebag friends. They are selling fake IDs, drinking underage, calling women 'bitches', etc.  This is supposed to be the hero I'm rooting for?  It's funny because I'm in Blockbuster and I hear the kid behind the counter say that this movie grabbed him from the beginning and was action packed.  Well, I suppose that type of behavior would be interesting to a kid in high school, but for the rest of us?  As for action packed?  I guess he forgot how there were several 15-20 minute sections of the movie where nothing happens at all.

I've said this before, but Taylor Lautner cannot act.  I don't hate the kid and he seems like a nice guy in interviews, but he just doesn't have the chops to carry a film.  Maybe in a few years if he really works at it, gets a movie that's right for him and a director that pushes him, he might become a serviceable action actor.  As of this moment though, he's awful.

Having said all that, even if they had cast a better actor as the lead, it wouldn't have helped all that much.  This is just a plain terrible movie.  It's odd because this does have a pretty good cast, but they are all wasted here.    This is one of the worst stories I've seen in a while.  Nearly every thing that's said or done makes you question it or go 'huh'?  None of it makes sense as far as logic or consistency.  Like at one point Lautner's girl mentions she can't go home and her parents can't protect her because they are in Italy.  Wait, your parents left you alone at home during the school year?  Aren't you a minor?  You have shitty parents!  Plus, there was no real reason for her character to continue to be dragged along in the story anyway, but they needed a love interest, I guess.

Even as an action film, it's not good.  I thought the fight scenes were uninteresting and some of the special effects were terrible.

Oh, and the movie is called 'Abduction' yet no nobody, including the main character, was abducted in the film.  It's even explained as the movie goes on that he wasn't abducted. Why is this called Abduction again?

Wait, this was directed by John Singleon?  The same guy that directed Boyz n the Hood?  Oh man.  What a shame.

0 Death Stars.  Easily one of the worst films of 2011.


Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star

Not to be outdone, Nick Swardson and the morons over at Happy Madison Productions threw together this atrocity.  This is honestly a movie that should have never been made.  It's basically a two joke movie stretched out for 97 minutes.  Worse yet, neither of the jokes were funny in the first place.  Oh, he has giant front teeth.  Hilarious!  He prematurely orgasms just at the sight of nudity.  That's genius comedy!

This was actually written by Adam Sandler and Nick Swardson.  Between this and Jack and Jill, I'm trying to decide if Adam Sandler just hates his audience and thinks everyone is stupid, or he's actually lost his mind and thinks this stuff is genuinely funny.  Maybe he's surrounded himself with yes men.

I normally like Nick Swardson, but I thought he was better than this.  And what did poor Christina Ricci do to deserve this?  She's actually getting cuter as she's getting older, but getting stuck with worse films.

It's unfunny from the opening moments and it was a struggle to get through.

0 Death Stars.  Honestly one of the worst films of the decade, if not of all time.  I'd give this negative Death Stars if I could, but that might cause a singularity and kill us all.


Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

This was a pretty interesting concept.  It's a Finnish fantasy (I guess I could be a horror) film about an excavation that unearths the original Santa Claus.  The catch is that the original Santa Claus is more of a demon creature that only punishes the naughty.

I thought this was just okay.  I might have had my expectations set too high with this one, as it came highly recommended.  I give it credit for being a foreign film where I didn't really focus too much on the subtitles and I did find it interesting overall.  Again, maybe I wasn't in the right mood for this, but I've heard people call this a horror/comedy, yet I found nothing funny about the movie.

3 Death Stars.  I think it's worth a rental, but if foreign films aren't your thing then this might not be for you.

Haywire - Movie Review

I've been looking forward to this for a while.  There's been a lot of positive hype and I've been seeing previews for Haywire for months.  Haywire did not disappoint me.  Action has a new hero, and her name is Gina Carano.

It's hard for me to talk about this without spoiling the plot. As with all movies I like, I don't want to spoil anything when I think you should just go out and see it.

Haywire follows the story of Mallory, a freelance mercenary that does jobs for a private firm.  Again, I can't go into details, but she's ultimately betrayed after a job and then goes for payback.  It's actually a pretty standard premise.

What you're watching this for is Gina Carano.  As many of you know, Carano is a former MMA fighter and also had a brief stint on the recent American Gladiators show.  I'm not going to get into Carano's fight career as I know there are people out there that know more about it and have stronger opinions about her (I believe she was known for having issues with not being able to make weight for her fights).  I've always thought she was a hot chick that can kick ass.  That's pretty much what she is in Haywire.

If you're not familiar with Gina Carano's look, she basically looks like she could be Rachel Leigh Cook's older sister (despite being younger than her).  Normally in movies, they get an actor and make them learn to fight or at least try to make them look convincing.  A lot of the time this fails.  You wonder why they don't just get guys that actually know how to fight.  However, this also fails, sometimes hilariously, as the fighter cannot act at all.

I was actually coming into this expecting to kind of come down on Carano's performance.  While her performance isn't what you'd call great, I think she did a good job.  She played the role as very direct, which fit the character.  She doesn't mess around.  Steven Soderberg directed her well.  If she works at it, I think there's a real future here as a female action star.  I walked out of Haywire wanting to see more of the Mallory character and hoping they do a sequel.

The fight scenes are great!  It's so nice to see a movie full of fight scenes that are edited well and you can actually tell what's going on.  There's none of that sped up or quick cut bullshit here.  It's funny that last year's Hanna, another action film starring a woman, also had some of the more convincing action scenes that didn't feature lots of quick cuts.  It all felt very realistic, and brutal.  Don't get me wrong though.  This isn't all about the action.  It's actually a smarter action/thriller written by Lem Dobbs, whose written stuff like The Limey, The Score and Dark City.

I think the difference with women, is that the action is a harder sell, as so many of these actresses are painfully skinny or nonathletic, that you don't believe it.  It's why I didn't like Salt.  I just can't believe that the anorexic looking Angelia Jolie can fight any man and win, despite special training.  The guys that she's beating up in the movie had the same special training, didn't they?  I don't buy it.  Haywire makes Salt look like a kids film.  All I'm trying to say is that it's nice they cast someone that can actually pull off the action.  In Carano's case, it helps that she's pretty.  Plus, I have a weakness for women with A-line bob haircuts.

As this is a Steven Soderbergh film, it does kind of have an Ocean's Eleven feel to it with how it wraps up, and I was actually looking forward to the reveals that you normally get as the movie concludes.  The pacing is just right and I loved how this movie ended!  I walked out of this totally satisfied.

Also to be expected with Soderbergh films, he's assembled another great cast.  Soderbergh seems to have a knack for getting good actors across the board, even for the smaller roles.  I've heard this is because he's one of the nicest guys in Hollywood to work with.  Plus, he makes good films.  He is able to get guys like Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas for smaller roles, managed to make Channing Tatum actually seem decent, and then gets guys like Michael Fassbender, and my nemesis, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) to round out the cast.

This is too good of a film to be released in January.  Maybe they thought with Carano being a relative unknown that they didn't know how it would perform.  Even after watching it and with all the great reviews, I'm fearful that this movie might get forgotten.  The theater was about 3/4 full, so hopefully that's a good sign.

Haywire lived up to the hype and was a great January surprise.  It's too early in the year to call this one of my favorite films of the year, but it's going to get some strong consideration and I wouldn't be surprised to see this up there in my lists.  I think it's a great, smart action/thriller and features some of the better fight scenes I've seen in a while.  I highly recommend watching this.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

Red Tails - Movie Review

I get a little nervous when I see Lucasfilm attached to anything these days, especially something dealing with race.  Let's face it, Jar Jar Binks put a bad taste in everyone's mouth.  When I saw that Lucasfilm was making a movie about Tuskegee Airman, I thought it might be an attempt at an apology.  As the same time, I was nervous that it could be an offensive film full of bad stereotypes.  I was practically expecting George Lucas to go back and edit in Jar Jar in as one of the pilots.  I'm sure he's saving that for the Special Edition.

Fortunately, I didn't think Red Tails was embarrassing in that sense.  However, it's not a particularly good film either though.

This is going to be a shorter review, as I actually don't have too much to say about the movie.  The story is inspired by the true events of the Tuskegee Airmen.  I'm not a big war historian, so I don't know too much about them other than just a general awareness of who they were.  Like I've said with other historical dramas, it's not a bad thing when a movie interests you into watching other (better) movies or documentaries about that subject or reading up on them.  I think Red Tails will do that for a lot of people, including me.

You start the film following a group of young pilots during World War II that are stuck with lame patrols and missions with little relevance to advancing the war.  Eventually, their commanding officer (Terrence Howard), is able to get them a forward mission guarding bombers.  In the movie they explain that existing fighter escorts were failures due to the (white) pilots going after enemy kills (being 'glory hounds') and abandoning their escort, leaving them exposed to enemy fire.  They ask the Tuskegee Airman to stay with their bombers and not chase after enemy pilots.  At first this sounds like they are asking them to die and I started thinking of the 'human shield' thing from South Park, but it was more that they just wanted the pilots to allow the bombers to do their job as they were losing too many of them.

Naturally, the mission is a great success and they gain the respect of their fellow pilots.  Later on they are even requested by other bomber pilots for future missions (a true fact, from what I read).  It's a feel good movie in that sense as you're rooting for these guys and happy they are succeeding.

That's pretty much all there is to the story.  After each fighter sequence, you are basically just waiting for the next fighter scene.  This is mainly because the characters are very paper thin and one dimensional.  I did like the pilots 'Easy' (Nate Parker) and 'Lightning' (David Oyewolo).   I feel like those were the only two characters that you got to learn anything about or had any kind of character development outside of flying.  Cuba Gooding Jr. is wasted here.  What happened to that guy?  It's all been downhill since Jerry Maguire.

The dialog is pretty corny for the most part.  It's a shame because a better script would have made a HUGE difference here.  At the same time, being a Lucasfilm movie, none of this surprises me.  Even though George Lucas only produced this, all of the trademark bad dialog and character elements are there.  The screenplay writers, John Ridley and Aaron MaGruder, have mainly only written TV shows, so maybe they were a little too far out of their comfort zone.  The director, Anthony Hemingway, also has a lot of TV shows to his credit, so again, I have to wonder if a more experienced feature film director would have helped.

While the flight scenes are done well, you do get too much of a fake feeling from it at times.  Red Tails didn't have as large of a budget as you'd normally expect for a movie like this, so sometimes the CG had a cheap feel.  With the smaller budget it seems like it would have been a  better idea to use old fashioned models instead of over relying on CG effects.  Again, not really much of a surprise here from Lucasfilm.

Despite all of if this, I was still kind of entertained by Red Tails.  It wasn't as bad as I feared it might be, but at the same time I was bummed out that they couldn't have gotten a better script and made the dialog better.  It ends up being a pretty cliched war/action film.  I did see with a packed crowd though and they definitely seemed to be into it and was a crowd pleaser.  I think it's worth a rental, but the effects don't really demand that you go out and see this in the theater.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Underworld: Awakening - Movie Review

I've never been a huge fan of the Underworld series.  I haven't hated the previous films, but I thought they were kind of boring.  Going into this, I wasn't expecting much, or even to like it.  I have to say though that Underworld: Awakening is my favorite of the series!

Again, this review might be a little spoilery, but trust me when I say there really isn't all that much to the story, and that isn't the reason why you are going to watch this anyway.

If you aren't familiar with the series, the first few minutes of the movie basically give you a recap of the series' history, which I appreciated because I had forgotten some of the details and that helped get me back into it.  If you're coming into this without seeing the rest, then that first few minutes is really all you need.

Then, the movie shows you that Humans have finally discovered the existence of Vampires and Werewolves (only refered to as Lycans in the Underworld series).  Humans have basically started an all out war to eliminate both species.  Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman) are trying to flee the city, but are intercepted by a Human task force.

One flaw in the movie right at this point was that you hear the team say they need to take Michael alive as he is a Vampire/Lycan hybrid, but what's the first thing they do?  Shoot him in the chest.  Oops!  So Selene and Michael are captured and hid in a facility.  Selene is able to escape and realizes that she's been on ice for 12 years.  Initially, she's trying to track down Michael, whom she shares some kind of psychic bond with, only to discover that it's really a child named Eve (India Eisley).  Eve is also a Vampire/Lycan hybrid created from DNA from Selene and Michael.  The Humans want Eve back as her DNA can be used to cure both Vampires and Lycans.  That's pretty much it.

Make no mistake, this movie is dumb, but if you can get past that, you're in for a ride as far as the action.  This is easlily the most entertaining of the series.  Just shut your brain off and enjoy the visuals.  From almost the opening scene this movie is action packed and gory as hell.  Like horror movie gory.  Heads are flying off, people are getting sliced open and there's blood everywhere.  I actually dug that a lot.  When you have Vampires and Lycans that have super-strength fighting each other and using guns and claws and teeth, you should see a lot of blood.  This movie earns its R rating as far as that goes.

The effects, however were a little inconsistent in parts.  One of my pet peeves about CG effects is when the actors don't react to the CG effect that's put in later.  Like, in one scene Lycans are jumping on moving cars and the drivers don't react at all.  They barely swerve or break or look around.  If a large thing just hit the roof of your car, you'd probably react a little.  Then, when the Lycan moves to the front of the car, they still barely react.  As if a Lycan being on your windshield is a normal occurrence or wouldn't affect your driving at all.  No, I'm going to just keep driving at full speed as if nothing is happening.  I'm sure it will all work out for the best.

Another funny thing is that even though this movie takes in the future, everyone seemed to be driving old sedans from the 70's.  When you see old cars in modern movies, you know it means they are going to get totaled.  You even see this in movies like Terminator 2.  I have to wonder if this just a budget thing though.

In another scene where the Vampires and Lycans face off, the (real) Vampires are shooting at CG Lycans and not even shooting in the proper direction or reacting to the most immediate threats.  There's a Lycan attacking this Vampire standing two feet to the left of another and he turns he back to them.  Clearly, they don't see it because they aren't really there, but this seems like it should have been directed better or the CG team should have been paying more attention to what the actors were doing.  Something was off there.

Another pet peeve of mine in movies like this is when powers are inconsistent.  You see a group of Vampires get worked by a group of Lycans in one scene, then later on you see one of the very same Vampires having no issues with dealing with a group of Lycans by himself.  Maybe you could write this off to Vampires being stronger if they've recently fed, but this isn't shown, so you're left to assume these kind of things.  They way they handled feeding was inconsistent and there were a few things involving healing that weren't handled very well, but I'm getting nitpicky at this point.  Let's get back to the action....

I really did like the pacing and how crazy it all was.  Just when I thought they had shown me everything, they'd do something different that would get me interested again.  This movie only has an 88 minute runtime, so it really doesn't waste a lot of time with story.  It's just moving from one frenetic action sequence to the next.

If you're a fan of Kate Beckinsale, there's lots of slow-motion shots of her with her mouth agape.  Underworld: Awakening is all about her in a skin-tight, leather suit and seeing her move around in slow-mo.  They even tease her being naked in the opening sequence.  You'd think that with all the loving shots of her, that this was directed again by her husband, and Fremont native, Len Wiseman, but he only took writing and producing duties this time around.  U: A was directed by the team of Mårlind & Stein, and I think they really nailed the action.  I'd love to see what they could do with an actual story and script.

There's not much I can say about the cast, because there's not much to the performances, but I did really like India Eisley as Eve.  Whatever they did with the effects or makeup really worked in making her look genuinely evil and threatening.  Normally, when you see a kid in this kind of role, even when you're told they are supposed to be super powerful, you just never really get that sense, but I think they did a good job of that here.

I saw this on the IMAX which is too pricey for a movie like this and the 3D doesn't warrant seeing it in 3D either.  It's not terrible, but maybe I'm getting used to 3D in the movies.  I just didn't notice much from it.  The sound of this movie on the IMAX was awesome though!.  At one point I thought someone in the theater was shouting, only to realize it was the surround sound.  It was that loud.

Look, Underworld: Awakening isn't a good movie.  It's silly overall, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  If you're a fan of the series, I think you'll like this a lot.  Even if you aren't a fan, but like over the top action movies, I think there's enough crazy action here to entertain you.  I went into this not being much of a fan, but actually hoping they make another (and yes, they setup an obvious sequel at the end).  I actually recommend checking this out.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars.