Must See Movie of the Month (May): Star Trek --Wolverine Review Inside

[nitelite]

Once again, sorry for my inactivity in this section. Things are about to heat up as I'll be delivering summer movie reviews every week and editorials and discussion threads again when June starts.

Must-See Movie of the Month: Star Trek (May 7th)

Preview:

Why did I pick Star Trek as the must-see movie? I'm a little surprised myself. But I just don't know what to make of Terminator: Salvation. I love Christian Bale, and I trust him, but directed by McG, responsible for Charlie's Angels and We Are Marshall, written by the guys that brought you Catwoman, and Terminator 3...see what I mean? Then again, Jonathon Nolan (Momento, The Dark Knight, The Prestige) did some work on it. But there's enough uncertainty for me to not give it my complete seal of approval. I'd love to be proven wrong though, as the film looks great. But as I learned with X-Men Origens: Wolverine, looks can be deceiving.

Star Trek, on the other hand, has J.J. Abrams, who did a wonderful job on the Armagedden screen play and created a very solid popcorn flick in Mission: Impossible 3. Buzz has been great on Star Trek, the trailers look good, it is anchored by a solid cast, the special effects and word is that it caters to the casual movie-goer. That gives me every reason I need to recommend it. It was also written by Transformers/M:I3 scribes Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman. So I think what we are looking at is a fun, entertaining summer flick as opposed to the dark and moody Terminator sequel.

Worth a Look: UP (May 29th)

Preview:
If you are any kind of film nerd than this is the real must see movie of the month. Pixar seems to deliver every time...why should this be any different? The animation is top-notch, there's a cranky old man, an annoying fat kid with a lisp, and a talking dog. Pixar movies for the last few years have gotten Best Picture consideration, but this movie doesn't seem to be as artful, but we will see.

Looks Promising: Terminator: Salvation (May 21st) Wait for Reviews

Preview:
I really said all I needed to say about TS in my preview for Star Trek. But nonetheless, I'm excited for this. I hope it's good...

Must-See Horror Movie of the Year: Drag Me to Hell (May 29th)

Preview:
I'm not wild about this being PG-13 but directed by Sam Raimi and the creepy trailer, plus the fact that Universal has enough confidence in this to give it a summer release with no big names (no...Sam Raimi is not a big name) shows they are depending on strong word-of-mouth, which takes a good film. So i'm crossing my fingers for this.

Must Miss Movie of the Month: X-Men Origens: Wolverine

Review

I won't say I was disappointed, because my expectations were not high enough to be disappointed. But I enjoyed the first half, and was starting to disregard the awful reviews, thinking critics just weren't taking it for what it was...well all it turned out to be was a bad film. There were too many characters, too many bad lines, too many plot holes, and it was too formulamatic. I was literally finishing some lines in my head and called many of the "twists" long before they happened.

On top of that, Wolverine is just too bland to make a two hour film about. The character was front and center in both X-Men and X2. And, as it is explained in this film, he is by and large indestructable. So why should I worry about him? He survives explosions, bullets, logs, claws, drills, and flying concrete. And while Jackman and Schriber's acting and charisma are both good, their lines are cheesy ("Look what the cat dragged in", "You miss me"--after saving another character's life, "Back to back"----you'd have to see the corneyness to believe it, "I'm the only one who can kill you", "Anything he can take I can take".

I think the real problem lies in Fox owning the property. I wasn't crazy about the entire X-Men franchise to be honest, but I loved the cartoon as a kid, so I know it has potentional to be something more. Fox owns the rights to Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and Elektra...all films with a lot going for them(EDIT: Except Elektra), and they were awful...awful casting, acting, and writing. Marvel Enterprises needs to do everything they can to get their hands back on the rights to their characters...they seem to know how to tell the best story and how to cast. Until then, look forward to seeing another long line of bad X-Men Origens movies (Magneto is next), a sequel to Ghost Rider, cringe-inducing reboots of Daredevil and Fantastic Four, and the continued raping of the once great Spider-man franchise.

[VenomIndustries]

What did I tell you about fox? Huh? What did I tell you weeks ago? Just a horrible company. I can only imagine what a company that actually cares about movies (Warner Bros) could have done with the Xmen. I'm still gonna go watch it tho...

And yeah, screw Sam Raimi too.

~Venom

[moankles]

oh god.....they're making a ghost rider sequel. worst movie of life. wolverine was a huge disappointment to me...you pretty much nailed all the bad points.

[Bunker]

Did you seriously just call the Armageddon script good?

Wow...

[nitelite]

Originally Posted by Bunker

Did you seriously just call the Armageddon script good?

Wow...

I don't remember if their were any bad lines...but I grew up watching that movie and loved it. I love the ending to it too. Sue me.:bye:

[Bunker]

Originally Posted by nitelite

I don't remember if their were any bad lines...but I grew up watching that movie and loved it. I love the ending to it too. Sue me.:bye:

I'll file the papers tomorrow morning.

Calling any Bay movie script good is laughable.

[like no other]

Star Trek? I didn't even bother to watch Star Wars. Never liked a sci-fi movie ever. Up looks like the only one out of those i would bother watching.

[BoogieFan]

Honestly I'm far from being a Star Trek fan. but when i watched the preview and saw that Zachary Quinto was Spok, I strongly consider going to watch it.

[nitelite]

Originally Posted by moankles

oh god.....they're making a ghost rider sequel. worst movie of life. wolverine was a huge disappointment to me...you pretty much nailed all the bad points.

Unfortunately, this will be my 1k post, but what the hell, I'll get around to making that Movie Review Thread in a bit. Yes, they will be making a sequel to Ghost Rider because you (presumably) went to see it. A lot of people did. It was doomed as soon as Nic Cage signed on the dotted line.

Originally Posted by VenomIndustries

What did I tell you about fox? Huh? What did I tell you weeks ago? Just a horrible company. I can only imagine what a company that actually cares about movies (Warner Bros) could have done with the Xmen. I'm still gonna go watch it tho...

And yeah, screw Sam Raimi too.

~Venom

LOL. That's why these movies get made. People can't help themselves. I'm not any better, I have to find out myself (considering the critics were wrong on Jesse James, The Fountain and countless others...I have a see-for-myself mentality).

But I must say the X-Men franchise is the closest Fox has ever gotten to getting it right with a super-hero series. If you've noticed, the mutant struggle and the gay rights struggle are very similar. They even have that scene where Iceman comes out to his parents in X2. That's why it was so genius to sign Singer, since he's gay. The casting of Jackman, Famke J___(forget her last name), James Marsden, Ian McKellan (another gay actor), and Patrick Stewart ...and even Halle Berry was great. It's just the story always felt thin...maybe due to having too many characters. But I would be interested to see what a good studio would do w/ the property too because there is so much more than the super-hero theme in that story, that it could become as critically acclaimed as TDK if it got into the right hands.

Originally Posted by Bunker

I'll file the papers tomorrow morning.
Calling any Bay movie script good is laughable.

Heh...I can't argue with that. The guy knows how to blow **** up and make mindless movies. I'll admit I may be misguided because I haven't seen it in a while. But I like what I like. I also enjoyed Speed Racer, Bad Boys II, Hitch, Just Married, The Beach, and Four Brothers. I guess I'm just a bad human being.

[thagame265]

The mere fact that you sat through Wolverine in its entirety and decided not to hang yourself with a piece of your red-rope licorice is impressive on it's own. Well done.

Star Trek looks cool, especially for non Trekkies such as myself. I can't help but wonder though how the die hards will feel about their precious story being overhauled into a Summer actioner.

I really, really want Terminator and Drag Me to Hell to be awesome, or at least good. I love the Terminator franchise, and I love Christian Bale's work, so I'm really crossing my fingers and wishing upon a star that McG got out of his own way enough to make this film what it should be.

Drag Me to Hell looks like it's from the exact same vein as the Evil Dead family of movies, and since those are some of my favorites, I'm pulling for this. No Bruce Campbell hurts though. Bad.