Brick Mansions

Look, I'm all for the Paul Walker farewell tour lasting as long as possible. I just watched Sin City for the first time in years where half of the stars are either dead (Brittany Murphy, Michael Clarke Duncan) or may as well be dead (Nick Stahl, Mike Madsen, Clive Owen) and it still rules! Heck, I still buy every Tom Cruise movie that comes out on Blue Ray and he's been dead for years! Come on now, that's not really Cruise, his soul has been dead ever since Jerry Maguire! "What do you want from me? My soul or something?" He wasn't talking to Renee Zellweger in that scene, he was talking to Xenu! And that's who body snatched Cruise and gave us War of the Worlds! That was his warning to us!

I also wish that I could be Luc Besson; make a few good movies that pull at the heartstrings of men by exploiting their innate desire to protect women and their families, get fat and bang supermodels as a result of it, and then recruit scrubs that idolize me to direct my lazy attempts at replicating my previous successes. Instead I'm just getting fat, making fun of people that I idolize for a living, and banging nothing but my drums on the weekend in my storage unit.  Well in the case of Brick Mansion, Besson reaches a new level of laziness by trying to Americanize his rather stellar District B13.

France is a strange strange place! Forget the fact that the national drink is wine and that they charge $100 euros to eat frogs. They have people over there that have created a new phenomenon called Base Jumping. OK, so the French may or may not have invented this but these are the only clowns I know that do it without a parachute! They jump from building to building, or even worse from one building top to another building via its window at a lower distance. As you can imagine, it takes an incredible amount of skill and amphetamines to do this and Brick Mansion star David Belle is an expert at it; so much so that he does most if not all of the stunts himself in the movie. And that's part of what made the original movie so spectacular. Besson actually had a decent story that surrounded these amazing stunts and Belle had a partner in crime that could perform these base jumping feats with him in Cyril Raffaelli.

But in the American remake you have to have someone that will draw us silly Americans to the theater to watch it. Hey, Paul Walker took a few tumbling classes when he was 8, why not snag him? Oh and lets get Black people in the theater too, Old Dirty Bastard is already dead but I hear Rza is available! So there you have it; I love both Paul Walker and Rza but neither of them are great actors. Now I do give Rza credit for making half of his lines old Wu Tang or Bob Marley lyrics but that's not really conducive to making a good movie.

The plot is simple, Paul Walker is an undercover narcotics cop who is working his way up the chain to RZA, the drug kingpin of the blocked off district that the rest of Detroit has forgotten. This district houses all of the cities undesirables and somehow Rza and his crew got their hands on a neutron bomb that can takeout millions of people at once. Due to mishandling it, the bomb is due to go off in 12 hours, so the mayor recruits Walker to work with the district's lone do-gooder Belle to locate and diffuse the bomb.

Not a bad story but once again the execution is where it fails. There isn't nearly enough base jumping in it; they instead rely on some creative gymnastics to compensate for Walker's limitations and that's not nearly as cool. I've already noted that the acting is awful in it but they did replace the original's porn star with a hot Colombian, so that was an upgrade. Overall, it loses the spirit of the original and its not strong enough to stand on its own. It feels more the edited for tv version of the original and comes off as a cheesy episode of Hawaii Five-O.

I rate it as WEAK and suggest you pass on this. Paul Walker for life though!

Mari | Celeste

Mari | Celeste is a short film that is directed by Jessie Hill, a former fashion designer and now an accomplished music video director who is making her scripted film movie debut. Jessie was fortunate enough to snag Gale Harold (Queer as Folk) to be a part of this effort as he plays the role of Mari's controlling, narcissistic, and mercurial boyfriend Jeremy. Mari, who is played by Mishel Prada , has become inconsequential in her own life as she has lost sight of her own identity. She is slowly becoming the mirror of what Jeremy's idea of perfection is and to deal with it she starts to drown herself in prescription medication. Leah Briese plays the role of Celeste, Mari's estranged childhood best friend who has recently been evicted by her sleazy landlord (Elmo Lovano). Seemingly both down on their luck, Celeste decides to reach out to Mari and proceeds to drag her off on a road trip so that the two of them can get away for a bit.

The only reason why I know anything about this film is because I met the crew while they were on a road trip themselves as they were making this short.  We were all at a show of a local band here in Austin, Texas and I remember going up to Leah, as they were eating from a rather questionable food trailer, and asking her if she had tried the "cum" sauce. And no I don't always start off conversations that way, this was actually a real item on their menu. Thankfully she didn't slap me, instead she laughed and eventually invited me to come see them shoot a party scene for this movie the next day. I think she thought that she was still in L.A. and didn't realize that if you tell someone in Austin that there is a party with free alcohol, we will be there on time and screaming about free potato chips!

Anyway, the fact that this crew was traveling together I think will help them capture the true spirit of the road trip that Mari and Celeste were on. When you are basically experiencing what the characters in your story are going through, it cant help but add some level of authenticity to the film. And I think that this will do wonders for it as they shoot to have this completed by September 1, just in time for the Sundance film festival. It also helps that Mishel and her seductive eyes will keep you glued to the screen; and that Leah's natural beauty and spirit can convince both men and women to follow her anywhere. Where are we going? The borders of Mexico? Done! Who cares that there's an 80% chance I'll end up in a barrel.

At first I wasn't a fan of the film's title, I thought it sounded too hipster and that people would immediately forget it. But now I understand why they went this route. With a title like this, it instantly draws art house studios to it because it sounds like there's a ton of fog and subtitles in it. Do yourself a favor and check this out when it comes to a festival near you.

Check out their page https://www.facebook.com/MARICELESTEFILM

Under the Skin

I remember the first time I traveled overseas by myself; it was a week and a half long journey through the beautiful country of Spain. My boss had just seen Hostel for the first time and absolutely freaked out! The day before my flight, he pulls me to the side, and pleads with me to watch my back! "I know you Kelly, you're gonna run into some girls and end up without your liver!" I of coursed laughed at him and reminded him that it was just a movie. But wouldn't you know it, I did run into a pack of beautiful Spanish girls my second night there; and we were somehow able to hold a conversation even though they could barely speak English and I could only speak Spanglish at best. After the bar closed they rather easily convinced me to party with them late night and it was at this moment when we were walking down these dark gothic alleyways that I came to the realization that I was the dumb American tourist who was probably about to get mugged. The next thing I know, one of the girls does a secret knock on what looked like a normal wall, and soon after a small slit in this wall opened. The eye on the other side of the slit took a quick look around and let us all in.  I nearly cried tears of joy when I saw that it was a normal after hours bar they had taken me to and not some pit of despair!

There is a point to this rambling story and that is that you can convince men to do almost anything if a beautiful woman and the slightest chance of sex is involved. And this is exactly what Scarlett Johannson and her alien brothers rely on to abduct and destroy humans for presumably research or maybe even food. I don't know how Jonathan Glazer can afford to eat and pay rent when he only makes one indie film every ten years; maybe this is an autobiography of sorts and he himself seduces and eats men in his cottage in Great Britain. But apparently he still possesses the power to convince Nicole Kidman to take a naked bath with a kid in Birth and can also convince ScarJo to get naked on camera for the first time in her career. Yes boys and girls, you read that correctly; there is no body double in this movie for Scarlett Johansson. And her body is everything you dreamed it would be. I have crazy respect for her embracing her curves and not being afraid to show them on screen, as opposed to some of her counterparts who got into Hollywood and became disgusting bike rails. See Angelina Jolie, Zoe Saldana, Michael Jackson, and so on.

This is a visually stunning and engrossing film. It takes its time telling its story but once you get to the end, you certainly aren't disappointed. Glazer takes you, in his own way, from the arrival of the aliens to our planet on to ScarJo apparently replacing her predecessor in a rather creepy scene where she undresses her and takes on her human identity. From that point on, she starts her mission of picking up lonely men on the streets of Scotland in her child molester van. Once they get in, she starts flirting with them and they eventually end up back at her shady home. And this is where men thinking with the wrong head is on full display; all of the warning signs are there but when you are in Scotland and a woman like Scarjo randomly picks you up, you take the risk and don't ask any questions.

She ruthlessly traps man after man without regard for anything else that is going on around them. There is one scene on the beach that serves as the perfect example of this involving a baby, which absolutely breaks your heart. Soon however, after studying and observing human behavior she starts to gain interests in our world and in our ways and the film takes an unexpected turn. But not the kind you would normally expect.

The score alone creeps you out as it sounds like a darker version of the music you would normally hear playing while the Roger Moore version of James Bond would sneak around the lab of an evil scientist. Stanley Kubrick would jump all over these musicians for his next project if here still alive!  And I don't believe that Scotland was a random location choice either; the fact that you can barely understand word of what they are saying helps you identify with this beautiful foreigner. Plus the drabness of the weather and the nature heavy background helps create this dark ominous setting.

My mind was blown away when you finally see what is happening to the abducted humans as visually alone its stunning. And the final scene is something that will be forever embedded in my brain. Scarlett Johannson is mesmerizing in this film and she is one of the select few in Hollywood that could be on screen for two hours without saying much at all and completely keep my attention; with or without getting naked.

I absolutely loved this film and its one of my favorites of the year so far without a doubt. I rate this movie as TIGHT!

Transcendence

I could tell from the lame trailers that played before every movie that this film was going to bomb. The only reason I even stepped foot into the theater to see it is because my buddy leaned over and said to me "Dude! It's basically Johnny Depp as Skynet!" After I thought about it for a second, digital Johnny Depp unleashing an army of Terminators on the world did sound kind of fresh but I should've known that Hollywood would never give us anything that  awesome. After watching the movie, you could tell that the writers really wanted to go that route but they didn't quite have the balls to go through with it. And like with everything in life, if you don't have any balls you will never get to dip them in honey. I have no idea what that means by the way; I just read a ton of objectifying Tinder messages and I was feeling a bit inspired. We'll just say that it's a reference to Jessica Alba and that awful movie for now.

But anyway, when was the last time Depp made a good movie? Sweeney Todd??? That was seven years ago and you have go back even further to find a good one before that. So it should come as no surprise that this snoozer falls right in line with what is the bulk of his career; a movie that has some pretty cool concepts in it but for whatever reason falls through on the execution.

Transcendence is about Will and Evelyn Caster's dream of building an A.I. machine that can tap into human consciousness so that it can make decisions based off of human emotions and feelings. The point was to use it for good; a machine that would access all of the world's information and then use that information to improve life on this planet. You could theoretically cure diseases or find better ways of growing food and so on. But not everyone shared the thoughts and the enthusiasm of the Casters. A terrorist organization that is against the advancement of technology saw the dangers of this technology and decided to make a successful attempt on Will's (Depp) life. But before he died, his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and their close friend Max (Paul Bettany) in a radical attempt to complete their dream, downloaded Will's consciousness into their A.I. machine. And at first everything seemed to be going as they had originally planned but soon Will starts working on a mission of his own that threatens the very existence of human life as we know it.

The writers actually do a decent job of explaining the science behind all of this and how it could theoretically be possible. And as A.I. Will (this sounds like a Will Smith rap album btw) gathers more information and gets more processing power, his ideas on how to improve the world and the lives of the humans in it continue to expand and grow; along with his ability to make these ideas a reality.  The problem is, it's just a really boring movie. It takes forever for anything to actually happen and by the time it does, the guy that is sitting behind you and has been snoring for an hour has completely taken you out of the experience. That's a true story by the way. Depp spends at least an hour of the movie building his army by"healing" the afflicted humans in the area while at the same time tapping into their consciousness so that he can have control over their actions.

But the problem is, he doesn't really use them to do fresh stuff like throw cars, or learn karate, or bend guns with their minds. They basically act like movie ushers and just guide people into the compound. There is one scene where they use their increased strength and motor skills but it's short lived. And there is one scene where they actually do have some Terminator characteristics on display but I'll leave that for you to discover on your own. But that's it; two scenes do not make a movie.

Also the terrorist organization is a collection of the biggest nerds you'll ever see. I liken them to the Orphans gang in Warriors. I would never be afraid of these tools. They're basically the Occupy Wall Street kids who finally got tired of not bathing.

This movie is really WEAK and I suggest that you avoid it.

The Raid 2 : Berandal

Being single certainly has its perks! For instance, I can go see as many Kung Fu movies as my heart desires to see without having to worry about watching the next 5 Kate Hudson movies as a form of payback for dragging my girlfriend to them! I was a witness to this on Thursday night. I saw a few women playing the role of the nice girlfriend and pretending to enjoy their time with their man, but I could also see the wheels spinning in their heads as each arm was being broken or each head was being smashed in on screen. These guys had picnics in the park followed by a Love Actually  marathon in their very near future, they just didn't know it yet! But I will say this, for every cheese plate they have to eat or for every love song they have to endure, seeing The Raid 2 in the theater is worth every second of the pain that is to follow! One disclaimer though, I have never actually made it through that neutering movie, so I can only assume that Love Actually is some sort of a painful musical.

But moving on...Raid 2 picks up right where Raid 1 left off. The first thing you see is Rama's brother being executed by the ambitious Bejo, a power hungry gang lord who has designs on taking over Indonesia's criminal underworld. And to do so, he has devised a plan to usurp the current lord in Bangun, which involves getting to his equally ambitious and frustrated son Uco. But we don't discover any of this until Rama (our hero) is recruited to go undercover and infiltrate Bangun's organization so that he can expose the corrupt cops that are in cahoots with them. In order to do this, they must create a new identity for Rama and get him arrested in a manner that will immediately get him credit with Uco. And once we reach this point of the movie, you begin to experience one of the greatest action films you will ever see in the theater.

The Welsh writer and director Gareth Evans has clearly integrated himself into the Indonesian culture over the years while working with the same production team and the same actors on his last few films. And his knowledge of the country and its ways definitely comes across on the big screen. Each character has their own interesting back story and Evans at least touches the surface on every one of them, which certainly contributes to the films length of 150 minutes. But the simple fact that he has an intricate storyline to go along with the outstanding action makes this a top notch film.

Speaking of the action, there is no way I can do it any justice with my limited vocabulary but you know early on in this film that you are in for an instant classic. 15 minutes into the movie you are already vocally cheering as Rama takes on this gang of about 50 dudes in his 4 x 2 cell as they attempt to welcome him in with an initiation of sorts. One by one he is tossing and beating guys senseless in a manner that would make Bruce Lee think twice about entering. And if you have seen The Raid 1, then you know that all this does is serve as an appetizer to what's coming later. Each subsequent fight scene takes it up a notch as the situations get more and more over the top and the quality of the fighting gets more impressive as you are introduced to a number of fighting styles.

The ultra violent gang brawl in the muddy jail courtyard where prisoners very casually assault the guards who try and break it up gives you an early indicator that this a no holds barred kind of movie. Also with the increased budget Evans received to make this sequel, he wasn't restricted to only filming this movie in one location and that consequently allowed him to have a more layered story. So thankfully he wasn't limited to only making a prison movie; he was able to quickly move on to Rama's integration into Bangun's gang in the outside world. I only bring that up so you don't think you're seeing Undisputed 4 or seeing a version of HBO's Oz with Kung Fu. And yes, I know the fighting style they used in this film is Pencak Silat but only about 3 percent of the people reading this will know that, so for the purposes of this review we will call it Kung Fu.

Rama has an epic battle against a baseball bat and hammer duo that almost takes him to a level of superhero status. Evans introduces you to two villains who are skilled in using a baseball bat and hammers to take out their opponents in very creative and punishing ways. And you cant help but yell out "oooooh shit" as these three are about to face off. I wont even disrespect the final fight scene between Rama and this Raid's version of the Mad Dog by trying to describe it but just know that my jaw was dropped the entire time and just when you think it couldn't get any more badass; it does! It was at this moment that I officially decided that this was easily one of the greatest action movies ever made and I cant help but give it a rating of TIGHT!

Draft Day

After seeing the 2 hour drunken punch in the face otherwise known as Nymphomaniac Vol 1, I was in desperate need for a mindless palate cleanser like Draft Day. I say drunken punch in the face because even though it more than likely hurt to take it, you know that it was a fun night if alcohol was involved and it led to a bar fight of some kind! So yes, while it hurt to watch, I rather enjoyed Nymphomaniac. But after all bar fights, you need something to help with the hangover the next day and that's where Kevin Costner's latest attempt to help him pay his property taxes comes into play. Let's be real, the sole reason Costner and Harrison Ford are even making movies anymore is so they can keep their young starlet trophies happy! At least Costner's movies have been somewhat entertaining with him starring in Superman and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. And I have to give him props, he must be the product of a slave owner attacking his female slave back in the day, because that is the only logical answer for him aging like he's a black man! Did you know that he's 59 years old??? He still looks like his Wyatt Earp character from the 90's!

Speaking of the 90's...didn't they already make this movie in that decade? I've already seen Jerry Maguire and it had a cute kid, a crazy Cuba, an even crazier Cruise, and a pre nasally Renee Zellwegger in it! But I guess the studio execs thought that it was high time for a reboot of sorts. The difference between Maguire and Draft Day is, back in the 90's we didn't quite have an all access look into everything sports like we do now. So some of the story lines that took place in Maguire were believable to us at the time. But now that we have an ESPN 30 for 30 for every possible sports story there is, we know that it is completely implausible for a NFL GM to have time to jungle the issues he's having with his pregnant girlfriend, his over bearing mother, as well as his pouty and meddling new coach, and then still have time left over to handle trades on the day of the draft! We all know that on that day they are too busy snorting coke in between watching game film and sending off texts!

But Ivan Reitman wants us to believe that Costner can handle all of this while also dealing with a city that hates him because the team perpetually sucks and because he has fired his dad; a legendary coach there. Oh and he also fields calls directly from a few draft prospects which include a good but troubled kid who is the son of a local favorite, a hard working linebacker that no one fully believes to be a star but Costner, and the Heisman trophy winner that everyone loves but Costner.

So he has to try and figure out what's the best move for him to make after making one of the worst trades in sports history. And that's the issue with this movie; with football being as popular as it is today, even my mom would laugh at some of the stuff that happens in this film. They may as well have made the Stay Puft Marshmallow man the league commissioner and had him hand out the jerseys to the draft picks as they came on stage.

I'll say that once they actually get to the draft and the intensity that surrounds it, the movie finally becomes a bit entertaining. And it was cool how they had flyovers of each city and stadium as they introduced each team and their GM; but that was mainly because I'm a sports geek.

I say this movie is perfect for the 20 women on the planet that have yet to actually come around and like football; oh and the French. But for the rest of us, I say pass (heh) on this and kick (heh heh) anyone in the head that suggests it. I give it a rating of WEAK.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1

I think the simple fact that the very first thing I did when I got back into town was drag a cute girl with me to see a movie called Nymphomaniac, even though I hadn't slept or showered in 48 hours, makes me a pervert! Is this is a porn that we saw together in an adult theater? No. It's an art house movie made by one of the industry's most frustrating directors in Lars von Trier. I say he is frustrating because you can see that he has talent but he always feels the need to go way too far with his over stylized artistic expression in his films. So much so that you are completely taken out of the moment and you are left either shaking your head in disbelief or you simply stop watching out of disgust. The good thing about Nymphomaniac is, that similar to his last film Melancholia, he gets most of this wackness out of the way early on. So after about 5 minutes of a dark screen with only the sounds of raindrops coming from the theater's speakers, he for the most part gives you his most coherent film to date!

And I never thought that I would type these words but I truly feel as if this movie was in the best possible hands to deliver it in the manner in which is was conceived. Nymphomaniac is about a self diagnosed sex addict named Joe(Charlotte Gainsbourg) who is found beaten in an alley by the helpful and curious Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard). Once he gets her to his place to help mend her, she admits to him that she is probably one of the worst people he's ever met in his life; and that it is all due to her psychosexual disorder, nymphomania. She rather openly tells him about all of her sexual conquests; starting from early on as a child when she discovered her sexuality up until her young twenties when she was having sexual encounters with multiple men per day. All the while tying her stories to the hobbies of Seligman, which he shares with her in between her tales of promiscuity. As the movie goes on, you find yourself wondering if this all really happened or if these stories are just strongly suppressed desires of hers that she is vicariously living out through the memories of a woman she made up.

I will say that for the most part it all feels very real even though there are curious connections to Seligman's love for fly fishing, Fibonacci's numbers, and Bach's musical style. Is she merely playing him to lure him in as well? I will let you decide these things for yourself as I am sure that you are here to read about the sex and nothing else. And I have to admit, that was the only reason why I saw this film myself. After Dogville, Antichrist, and Melancholia, I swore to myself that I would never again waste a single second of my time on another von Trier film. But after reading about how the sex scenes were so hardcore that he had to hire professional porn stars to act out those specific scenes as body doubles for the real actors, I couldn't help but give it a shot. I mean, I sat through 2 hours of pain just to see Kristen Dunst's boobs once, I could certainly make it through another 2 hours for some legitimate Hollywood porn. Ok, I feel really dirty after typing that out.

Anyway, if you're are looking for something that is erotic, this really isn't the film for you. Some of the sex scenes are steamy and get you going but for the most part they are just uncomfortable as you see a young Joe almost uncontrollably going from man to man in hopes to quench this insatiable fire of hers. But the cool thing about this film is, Joe is never portrayed as this helpless figure that feeds into the stereotype most men would attach to this disorder. Rather she is in full control of who she spends her time with and is rather unapologetic about it; its just that she is a slave to pleasing herself no matter what the means are. There is one scene in particular involving the show-stopping Uma Thurman that fully puts this on display as she confronts her cheating husband and Joe in her apartment. Also this disorder isn't caused by any daddy issues as you see the loving relationship she has with her father, which eventually leads to some of the films most poignant moments. And her dad just so happens to be played wonderfully by Christian Slater.

Before I ramble too long about this film, I just want to hammer home the fact that this movie would've never been released if it were put in the wrong hands. Hands like Brett Ratner who would have regaled us with stories of his infamous pool parties, or that of Spike Lee who would have added an annoyingly loud jazz score with odd still shots of nymphomaniac pioneers of the past (this sounds kind of cool actually). Von Trier decided to forgo talking dogs or long still shots of random things on a golf course this time and basically shot this movie straight. or as straight as he can anyway. Wait, talking dogs and long still shots? Maybe he's Danish reincarnation of Spike Lee (see Summer of Sam)!!!

My cute friend wasn't at all affected by the use of the C word but I do think the sex game on the train between Joe and her best friend B was a bit much for her. I loved this scene however as I found it to be both comical and sad at the same time. Which overall is a perfect description for this movie. I rate this movie as FRESH and suggest that you go see the unrated version for the full effect. I'm off to go buy a yearly pass for our local train because I am a self diagnosed perv! Good night and good luck!

Captain America : The Winter Soldier

Please raise your hand if you actually remember the plot of any of the Marvel superhero movies that have come out recently; excluding everyone who fits in the category of a comic book freak that is. I saw Ironman 3 on opening night and even wrote a lengthy review of it afterwards; but three months later I tried to explain to someone what it was about and I drew a total blank! This is what mainstream Hollywood has become, a collection of forgettable popcorn flicks that are full of beautiful people who cant even get naked in them because they need to keep the movie pg-13. At the very least you could throw me a bone (pun intended) and have Kat Dennings go down on Natalie Portman ala Black Swan in the next Thor. But perhaps I'm asking too much of Hollywood; I mean we can't even get the NC-17version of Nymphomaniac released over here but it's perfectly fine to charge pre-teens $1300 a ticket to see the next One Direction documentary in 3D! I swear I'm not as sexually deprived as I sound; I just want the studios to grow some balls again and release movies with some substance.

Needless to say, I went into Captain Johnny Storm : The Winter is Coming with super low expectations. Speaking of, does anyone remember how awful those Fantastic Four movies were? Remember all of the lame dancing plastic man was doing in the nightclubs to impress the ladies? Terrible (in Charles Barkley voice)!

Sorry, I'm back on track now. Winter Soldier takes place in modern day D.C. soon after the events in New York (see Avengers) occurred. Steve Rogers is struggling to find his place in the modern world with all of its changes in technology and values. But he continues to fight the good fight along with his good friend Natasha/Black Widow; who is constantly pimping him out to every girl in sight in hopes of finally getting him a date. Soon after a somewhat successful mission to rescues hostages on a SHIELD carrier ship, Rogers is clued into a big military initiative to help control possible threats to nations and to the world as a whole via the help of giant airborne carrier ships. They have the ability to knock out a specific target almost instantly (sounds like Real Genius). But something happens that causes Nick Fury to question the security of the operation and he requests that the project be delayed. And it's not soon after this that an organization attempts to take the life of both Fury and Rogers in a rather daring attempt. Leading the attack is this mystery man who appears to be as fast and as strong as Rogers is but he comes complete with 1990's Trent Reznor hair, a Hannibal Lecture mask, and a metallic arm that makes him look cooler. So Rogers is not only fighting for his life but also trying to uncover who is behind the attacks before millions of human lives are put at risk.

There are a number of plot twists in this action packed thrill ride, none of which I will reveal here. And yes I purposely made that last line cheesy. For the most part they make sense in the context of the movie and I have to admit that they kept me on my toes. The action scenes are full of mini guns, karate, krav maga, explosions, and beautiful women; basically everything I look for in a movie! And the writers play to the strengths of the characters; so you're not stuck listening to a ton of background stories again. You instead get what you paid to see and that's Captain America knocking people senseless with his awesome shield and his bionic man speed and strength. The two scenes in particular that stand out are the beat down that takes place in the elevator and the first time you see Falcon and his awesome suit unleashed!

Basically what it all boils down to is that I cannot help but like a movie that makes a reference to both Real Genius and Wargames. So even if the rest of the movie sucked I would still give it a rating of fresh. This is probably my favorite of the Marvel comic movies so far and I have to give it a rating of very FRESH! Do yourself a favor and check it before they start releasing more superhero movies with dance numbers in them.

Noah

Are you in the mood for thrills? Well how about an experience that takes you on a 36 hour ride which includes earthquakes that register 5.3 and 4.4 on the Richter Scale? That not enough? How about we throw in a fatal shooting in the middle of Hollywood which leads to a manhunt and cops searching through everyone's trunks for the killer? You still need more? Well what if I throw in an abundance of high end cars, tons of traffic and a Jon Voight sighting? Am I talking about the latest installment of the  Fast and Furious franchise? No, I'm talking about my recent weekend in Los Angeles! Seriously, all that was missing was me doing rails off of Megan Fox's cleavage while making a "white people do this, black people do that" joke.

And just like you would in reading my last statement, if you were looking for anything closely resembling the Bible in Darren Aronofsky's Noah, then you would be sadly mistaken. Now to Aronofsky's credit, this isn't the first time Hollywood has taken a biblical story and "tried to make art" as he says. There have been plenty of movies that use stories from the Bible as a general outline and try and make an interesting story of their own; but with the recent run of movies such as the Son of Man, The Passion of the Christ, and a few others whose names escape me right now, we kind of forget the fact that these alternatives exist. Perhaps releasing it this close to Easter didn't help either but I am certain that this is why critics loved Noah but audiences have mixed feelings about it.

I too fell into this trap even though I have been following the development of this movie from the very start. There were even stories coming out early that Aronofsky was going to include evil giant sea creatures that resembled the Kraken! So I should have been prepared for what I seeing. But it took about 20 minutes of me saying to myself "Wait! That's not right!" before I reeled myself in and remembered what they were actually trying to do with this film. With that said, it's been some time since I've seen this epic and I am still not quite sure how I feel about it.

In Aronofsky's tale of Noah, he quickly runs through the creation of man and then puts his focus on what happens right after Cain slays his brother Abel. After this event the Earth is apparently only left with the evil descendants of Cain and a few good descendants of the third brother Seth to roam and rule. You are then introduced to Noah (Crowe), a descendant of Seth, along with his beautiful wife (Connelly) their three sons, and a random young girl that they have saved along their journey. Noah has transplanted his family because he has had a vision from The Creator showing him the end of the world, the reason for it, and his role in it. However he must consult his grandfather Methuselah on how he should go about fulfilling his obligation to The Creator before he can start. Once he reaches Methuselah, Method Man (as I call him) not only provides him the additional vision of the Ark he needs to build but also the means to do it. It should be noted that his grandfather is played by Anthony Hopkins, who for some reason looks like the Emperor from the original Star Wars movies in this role.

So the movie goes from there; for some reason there are fallen angels that turn into clumsy looking giant rock men, Cain is apparently the leader of the Wildlings from HBO's Game of Thrones, and Noah's young sons are in need of losing their virginity like RIGHT NOW!!! And you are taken through a weird and uncomfortable emotional ride as you root for and respect but then later hate Noah as he is contemplating doing something unimaginable. The same goes for his middle son Ham (sadly it's not the Ham from The Sandlot) played by Perks of Being a Wallflower's Logan Lerman.

Visually the cgi looks good for the most part and there are some fairly breathtaking scenes. The issue is this movie felt more like Mad Max The Road Warrior then it did a movie about Noah. And don't get me wrong, if Noah was running down wildlings with a muscle car and blowing up random animals with gasoline, then this might have been fresh. But none of that happened; instead you were stuck with a movie whose tone was all over the place.

I get what Aronofsky was trying to do, and that's tell the story of a man who has the weight of saving any semblance of goodness and purity in this world while forsaking the rest at all costs. It just seems that he probably shouldn't have consulted his co writer from the painfully abstract The Fountain on this project. This movie could have been great but instead you just get a near miss that's kind of WEAK.