Pompeii (2014)

Pompeii opens with a quote from Pliny the Younger as he witnessed the destruction at Pompeii. This the only thing about Pompeii I found genuinely interesting, but it's more because I'm a fan of Russian River Brewing. Beer aficionados all know and enjoy Pliny the Younger, and his uncle, Pliny the Elder, who actually died attempting to rescue people from Pompeii. A strong beer like Pliny the Elder or Younger is likely the only way you can get through or enjoy Pompeii, the latest masterpiece from director Paul W.S. Anderson.

The plot of Pompeii is basically a retread of Titanic, only Mount Vesuvius has replaced the titular ship, and then some half-assed gladiator and Roman junk thrown in. It's so packed borrowed ideas that I thought maybe Shia the Beef wrote it. Three people are credited with the "screenplay", where I imagine the writing session involved taking turns pulling movie cliches out of a hat.

It's not just the plot that's uninteresting, the characters are so forgettable and bland that some are barely ever mentioned by name. I had an easier time remembering them by names of other characters the actors played. Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) is a slave/gladiator, whose most distinguishing feature is his abs, but that's not all there is to him. He's also a horse whisperer, which basically means holding a horse down while breaking its neck. This is how he meets Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who isn't at all shocked or turned off by watching a man kill a wounded horse with his bare hands. They fall in love instantly, even though Jon Snow is just a poor slave. However, Baby Doll is expected to marry Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), who Jon Snow wants revenge on for killing his parents when he was a kid. Meanwhile, Jon clashes with another gladiator, Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), but they become best friends later.

I find it interesting the poster says "No Warning", when it seemed that they had plenty of warnings. In case you might forget that there's an active volcano in play, nearly every scene of the film features a shot of Mount Vesuvius or a loud rumble, sometimes interrupting dialog. It's nearly an hour into the film before Vesuvius erupts, so you have to squirm through the boring, tedious mess. You'll find yourself saying, "Can we just get on with it?" You care and feel nothing for these characters as they march towards their inevitable deaths. It's all rather pointless.

The effects, which you would figure to be the strong point, are also disappointing. Their quality is inconsistent, looking absolutely terrible at times. There's nothing about the destruction you haven't seen before in other disaster related flicks. There's even a scene of someone trying to outrun a shock wave on a chariot, similar to Keanu Reeves trying to outrun an explosion on a motorbike in Chain Reaction. The effect looks just as bad now as it did back in 1996. Only 3D was available to me, and I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear it didn't do anything for the visuals.

It's a waste of a decent cast having to play such wooden characters. I can't blame any of them, as it's not like they had much to work with. Like Carrie-Anne Moss is in the film, but it seemed the only point was to give her a less dignified death than Trinity had in the Matrix series. I'm surprised Anderson didn't just cast his wife, Milla Jovovich, instead. This is beneath Jared Harris as well. He's like Bill Nighy in that he's a good actor that always gets stuck in these lame action/fantasy films. Kiefer Sutherland seemed to be the only guy giving a real effort, but he has to be thrilled they are bringing 24 back so he doesn't have to take lame roles for a while.

I should have known the second I saw this was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson that I shouldn't have expected much. This is what I get for avoiding IMDB and Rottentomatoes before I see a film. I've often said that Anderson is basically Uwe Boll with a budget. Are his films profitable? Is he really easy to work with? I'm just amazed he keeps getting attached to films, and even more at the casts that star in them.

Even the soundtrack sounded borrowed, with parts having a familiar, Hans Zimmer feel. Some sounded lifted right from Man of Steel or The Dark Knight Rises. During the credits I noticed that one of the credited songs was from Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which made me wonder if originality was any kind of goal or objective here. Yes, I did stay until the end of the credits, but that's because I wanted to make sure there wasn't some post-credit sequel stinger. You know we'd all be excited for Pompeii 2: Electric Boogaloo or Pompeii 2: Vesuvius' Revenge.

Combining the worst aspects of Titanic, any disaster movie, and the Spartacus series, Pompeii puts the "disaster" back in "disaster flick". Featuring a contrived story, mediocre special effects and forgettable characters, Pompeii can't even be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure. I can only advise renting this for a dollar, and then skipping ahead 60 minutes. Won't miss anything if you do this.

1 (out of 5) Death Stars

That Awkward Moment (2014)

I don't have a ton to say about That Awkward Moment, so this may be one of the shortest reviews I've ever put out there.

It's not that I found That Awkward Moment particularly awful, but there's no plot, no real setup, and nothing happens.  The catalyst for the current situation is that Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) comes home, finds that his wife has been cheating on him and wants a divorce.  He seeks the solace of his buddies, Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller), who are living the single life.  They want to get Mikey back out there, but all vow that none of them will get into a relationship, which is just fine for Jason and Daniel, as neither one of them has any interest in that.  So how long before all of these guys find themselves in complicated relationships?

From that point, That Awkward Moment isn't much more than a mashup of buddy and romantic comedy cliches.  Again, it's not that it's terrible, but there's nothing original about it.  It really drags along as you wait for something, anything, to happen.

When you add that it's not particularly funny, it makes it that much harder to get through.  Even the one part of the film where you can tell they were going for the the big, funny event is all based on a misunderstanding that's taken to a ridiculous extreme.  It's one of the few "awkward moments" in the film.  Another one involving everyone walking into the same bathroom at the same time was so contrived that lost any believability.  What are the odds that three guys happen to walk into the same bathroom at a fancy house party at the same time?  Two of them had only arrived at the party just moments before.  Plus, nobody seemed to be interested in locking the bathroom door.  That will tend to lead to more awkward moments.  You could credit one of the characters for actually pointing the lack of door locking out, but a line of dialog doesn't explain how four different people committed the same behavior within a minute.

Tom Gormican's script, (he also directed), is very underwritten.  It's a shame, as the leads are all fairly charming and have good chemistry together.  I can't really fault any of the actors, as they did the best with the material.  There's just not a lot to their characters to really identify with, and nothing particularly distinctive about any of them.  They can pretty much be broken up into the following:

• Funny guy that nobody takes seriously.  He's the first to get into a serious relationship.
• Guy that's still trying to reconcile his previous relationship.  He can't get involved with anyone else until then.
• Consummate player that's so afraid of commitment, that he doesn't recognize the good thing in front of him.

I'll let you guess who's who. Without even seeing the film, I bet you get them all correct.  Outside of some throwaway line about going to college together, we don't even know anything about how they met, or how long they've known each other.

It's interesting that two of the female characters had a lot more going on than the guys. Ellie (Imogen Poots) is an author that's getting a book published, and Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis) is a musician, but neither of these are explored with any kind of depth.  Chelsea also acts as the guy's perfect wingman, and appears to have been friends with them for a while, but their relationship is never really defined beyond that.  Was she related to one of them?  Was she also someone they knew from college?

That Awkward Moment is a collection of cliches you've seen in other films, lacking any creativity or a needed infusion of humor.  However, its biggest sin is that it's boring.  If you happened to catch it on cable or rented it for a buck, you might not think it was that terrible, but I can't recommend anyone going out to the theater and seeing it.  Don't waste your time and money.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

Evil Dead (2013) - Movie Review

Never underestimate the power of duct tape...

If the above doesn't make any sense to you, it will all become clear after watching Evil Dead, the reimaging/remake of the classic horror film from Sam Raimi.  I'm sure existing fans of the series will wonder why in the hell there was even an attempt, but if there's money in it, you know it's going to happen.  I was surprised to see that Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were producing though, so I hoped that with their guidance it wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

You'll quickly find out that this Evil Dead is tonally much different than the original.  It's been a few years since I've seen Evil Dead, so forgive me if my recollection of the original may be a little shaky.  I actually started with Evil Dead 2 over 20 years ago, and that still remains one of my favorite horror films of all time.

The familiar setup is here.  Five twenty-somethings head to the cabin in the woods to help Mia (Jane Levy) get over a drug addiction.  One of the five is her older brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), whom she's apparently lost touch with since the death of their mother.  While Mia is going through withdrawal, they stumble upon something in the basement, including a flesh-covered book.  You know which one (although I don't recall it ever being mentioned by name this time around).  Of course Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), the 70's hipster, decides to read the book aloud for some reason, despite it being covered in warnings not to.  Everything goes to hell after that.

The one thing I'll give Evil Dead credit for is it's liberal use of gore. If you've been following my blog at all, you know that one of the things I really hate in film, especially horror, is the use of CG blood and gore.  I don't think I noticed any CG effects this time around.  Everything appeared to be a practical effect, which made for a much more visceral experience.  There are some great gross out moments that just made me smile and I applaud the movie for going for it.

There are also a lot of references and callbacks to the original, which should please fans, but I thought some felt forced in or weren't really used effectively.  Oh, but is there a tree rape, you might ask?  Well, sort of.  Lets just say that a tree gets an assist this time, so is that really a legitimate tree rape?

Despite the darker tone and use of gore, Evil Dead really doesn't manage to be very scary, and kind of uninteresting at times.  There's very little character development, and you don't care at all what happens to these people.  They engage in typical, eye-rollingly moronic behavior throughout the film.  When the majority of the fairly young crowd I saw this with is also groaning at the stupidity of the actions of the characters, then you know this part of the film is pretty weak.  None of these guys acted normally, even early on.  When David finds out Mia had a overdose recently, his reaction is so dispassionate that it was hard to believe he was human, let alone that he genuinely cared about his sister.

The one person I really did enjoy though was Jane Levy as Mia.  I've only caught bits and pieces of her on Suburgatory when my DVR records the last few minutes leading into Modern Family, but she's come across to me as a smart, appealing young actress.  I really dug her commitment to the role with her willingness to get down and dirty, and in some cases outright ugly.

It's kind of ironic that The Cabin in the Woods used the same setting from Evil Dead, as Cabin was such a deconstruction and tribute to horror films, but when we come back to an actual Evil Dead movie, we're back to many of the things that Cabin poked fun at.  Another issue with this modern Evil Dead is that all of the fun is gone.  I get that they were going for a darker reimaging here, but it's like director Fede Alvarez thought darker just meant to replace all traces of humor with more blood.  Don't get me wrong though, I still loved the blood!  I also heard they brought in Diablo Cody to try to Americanize the script, since English is not the first language of either Alvarez or co-writer Rodo Sayagues, but that they didn't use enough of her edits.  That seems like a mistake, as her punch up could have really helped give some life to the characters.

Oh, and if you're a fan of the originals, you may want to stick to the end of the credits.

I'm a little torn on this one.  While I loved all the blood and gore, it lacked the fun or genuine scares to make it really stand out for me.  If this wasn't an Evil Dead film, then I would have said it was simply a good, gory horror film.  However, since this is called Evil Dead, the bar, and my expectations, are set higher.  If you're fan of horror, I think there's enough here you'll enjoy, but I didn't find it game changing.  It's worth a watch though.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars