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June 24, 2012 · 8:56 am

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (film)

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Ring trilogy is concluded in the final film translation of Tolkien’s masterpiece. The surviving members of the Fellowship are scattered all across Middle-earth and Sauron is preparing an all-out assault on mankind. This was the first movie since Titanic to make over a billion dollars and it won eleven Oscars. Not too shabby.

Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and the faithful Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) are slowly but surely making their way to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring. Their treacherous guide Gollum (Andy Serkis) is leading them into a trap.

Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli (Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, and John Rhys-Davies) find Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd) chilling in the flooded ruins of Isengard. After a brief and happy reunion, Pippin picks up Sauruman’s palantír and Sauron invades his mind. Gandalf is able to deduce that Sauron will attack Minas Tirith and that Sauron thinks Pippin has the Ring.

Gandalf and Pippin head out to Gondor and try to warn Denethor, the Steward of Gondor and Boromir and Faramir’s dad. Gandalf recommends that he asks Rohan for help, but he refuses because he is stupid and stubborn. Pippin lights a beacon and Aragorn, Theodan and his Rohirrim answer the call.

Elrond (Hugo Weaving) briefly visits Aragorn and presents him with his sword, Andúril, and Aragorn accepts his destiny as Isildur’s heir. He also realizes that they don’t have enough warriors to fight Sauron’s forces. His only chance to find the King of the Dead and get all his ghost fighters to join his side.

There’s a huge battle at Minas Tirith. There’s tons of orcs and men and massive oliphants and CG fighting. It’s not looking good for Gondor, but then the Rohirrim show up and the battle continues. And then when it’s not looking good for Gondor and the Rohirrim, Aragorn shows up with the Army of the Dead and they win the battle.

Gollum is leading Sam and Frodo closer and closer to Shelob the giant hobbit-eating spider. Gollum manipulates Frodo into thinking that Sam wants the Ring for himself and that he can’t be trusted. Frodo tells Sam to fuck off and go home. Frodo keeps following Gollum and enters Shelob’s lair. The spider gets him and it looks like he’s pretty boned, but Sam shows up and fights Shelob off, but it looks like Frodo is dead. Some orcs come along, find Frodo, and it turns out that he’s just paralyzed and they take him to Sauron’s fortress. Sam manages to free Frodo, and the two of them continue their trek to Mount Doom.

Aragorn and a ragtag army make their way to the Black Gate of Mordor with the intention of distracting Sauron while Frodo destroys the Ring. Just as Frodo is about to throw the Ring into the fire, he gets attacked by Gollum. They struggle and fight and Gollum and the Ring are briefly reunited as they fall into the lava pit. The Ring is destroyed but the movie is not over.

This movie has like 5 endings. You think it’s over when Sam and Frodo get rescued by Eagles. But it’s not. You think it’s over when Aragorn gets crowned King. But it’s not. You think it’s over when everyone bows down to the four hobbits. But it’s not. You think it’s over when the hobbits finally get back home to the Shire. But it’s not. You think it’s over when Frodo finally leaves Middle-earth with the elves. But you aren’t sure. And you are relieved when the credits finally roll.

This movie has a lot of differences from the book. All that business with Shelob takes place in the second book. Aragorn gets his sword in the first book. There’s a bunch of stuff missing. But it’s a movie and not a book and the movies left shit out but they did the books justice by capturing the feel of them. It’s a satisfying conclusion to a great trilogy. It didn’t deserve all those Oscars though.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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June 11, 2012 · 7:37 am

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings is the gold standard for epic fantasies. The Fellowship of the Ring is the first installment of the trilogy and introduces us to Frodo Baggins and the other occupants of Middle-earth. Peter Jackson cares a lot about the source material, and even though a lot of stuff is left out, the film captures the tone and feel of the book.

The movie begins with a little crash course in Middle-earth history. Back in the day, the Dark Lord Sauron made himself a ring that would give him the power to take over the world. There’s an epic battle with men and Elves and Prince Isilidur manages to defeat Sauron, and Isilidur decides to keep the Ring for himself. The Ring betrays him and he dies. The ring gets lost and forgotten for a few thousand years before the creature Gollum finds it and eventually a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) gets his hands on it.

He has it for sixty years before he leaves it to his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood). Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) finds out that the Ring is the Ring of Power, and that Sauron’s forces are trying to get it back. Frodo must take the Ring and leave the Shire. He sets off on this journey with his loyal gardener Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin). Gandalf goes to consult with his wizard pal Saruman(Christopher Lee) where he learns that Sauron has dispatched the Nazgûl to find Frodo. He also finds out that Saruman is also working for Sauron and Gandalf gets taken prisoner.

Frodo and Sam are trying to make their way to Bree to meet up with Gandalf. They are joined by Merry and Pippen (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd). The four hobbits are being perused by the Nazgûl, but manage to make it to Bree safely. Gandalf isn’t there to meet them, since he’s all captured and stuff, but they meet a ranger named Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen). Aragorn is an ally of Gandalf and he leads the hobbits to the Elven city Rivendell. Along the way the Nazgûl attack Frodo and stab him with a morgul blade. That’s bad. And if Frodo doesn’t get to Rivendell as soon as possible he will turn into a wraith. That’s bad. Luckily Aragorn’s Elf girlfriend Arwen (Liv Tyler) shows up to save Frodo’s life.

Frodo and his companions finally make it Rivendell. Gandalf is there and he explains how he escaped Saruman’s clutches. Uncle Bilbo is there too, and they get to have a little hobbit bonding time. Elrond the Elf (Hugo Weaving) puts together a council to determine what to do with the Ring. They decide their only course of action is to destroy the Ring by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom, right in the heart of Sauron territory. Frodo puts it on himself to take the Ring, He is joined by Gandalf, Sam, Merry, Pippen and Aragorn. And Legolas the Elf, Gimli the Dwarf, and Boromir the guy from Gondor decide that they want to join the Fellowship of the Ring too. Orlando Bloom plays Legolas, John Rhys-Davies plays Gimli, and Sean Bean plays Boromir.

The Fellowship embarks on their journey, but Sauron and Saruman aren’t making it easy for them. They have to worry about spies and orcs and trolls.  Gandalf tries to fight a Balrog and ends up dying a little bit. The Fellowship keeps moving on, but the Ring corrupts Boromir and he goes a little crazy. He attacks Frodo and tries to steal the ring but Frodo escapes. And then the Fellowship gets attacked by the Urik-Hai. Boromir dies, Merry and Pippen get snatched, and the Fellowship is in shambles. Frodo decides that he must take the Ring to Mount Doom by himself. He sneaks away from the group, but Sam tracks him down and Frodo lets him tag along. It’s always better to bring a friend when you have to do something alone.

The movie does the book justice, but the book is better. The film leaves out a lot of characters (no Tom Bombadil?!?) and events. Everything gets condensed and simplified. There are a lot of differences between the book and movie, but this is more faithful to the source material than the second and third installments.

This is a great start to a great trilogy. A lot of stuff might be missing, but Peter Jackson takes you to Middle-earth. What he does show you is amazing. Tolkien’s world comes to life and it feels real. There is a sense of history, it makes the unbelievable believable.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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June 1, 2012 · 10:40 am

The Matrix Revolutions

The Wachowski brothers direct the third and final installment of the Matrix trilogy. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving reprise their roles as Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and Agent Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith also returns, and this time she actually affects the plot. The machines are ready to attack Zion, and Neo is still in a coma. I hope that everything turns out ok.

Revolutions picks up right where Reloaded leaves off. Neo is in a coma, machines are bearing down on the last refuge of mankind, and the human race is looking pretty fucked. Neo is trapped in purgatory, which looks a lot like a subway station. The subway is controlled by The Trainman (Bruce Spence). The Trainman is an ally of the Merovingian, and Trinity and Morpheus pay him a visit and ultimately succeed in freeing Neo.

Neo visits the Oracle one last time, and this time she looks different. That’s because the original actress died and they had to replace her. They act like it’s an intentional recasting and an essential part of the story. Actors sometimes die during the filming of a movie, and this was an awkward way to handle it. They could have simply not used the Oracle character again, or they could have recast and not addressed it like when Richard Harris died and Michael Gambon took over as Dumbledore, or they could have used old footage and stand-ins like in The Crow. It cheapens the memory of Gloria Foster, and even though Mary Alice does a good job, she is still an imposter.

In the real world, Agent Smith still has possession over an ally of Neo’s named Bane. Bane sneaks onto Neo’s ship and beats the shit out of Trinity and blinds Neo with a power cable, but Neo discovers a new ability to see machines and programs as glowing entities.

Morpheus and Niobe are trying to get back to Zion and save it from the Sentinels. They do some crafty maneuvering to get back home, and get back in the nick of time and set off an EMP, stopping the machines temporarily, but putting Zion in grave danger in the process.

Neo reaches the Machine City and warns them that Agent Smith will take over the Matrix, and that’s bad for both machines and humans and so they decide to make peace, and Neo enters the Matrix to face his enemy.

Smith has taken over the Matrix, every single occupant is one of his copies. And rather than fight them all at once like he did in the second movie, he fights just one of them as the rest watch, as bored as you are by this point. First they fight on the ground. And then they fight in the sky. And they fly around punching and kicking and talking about the inevitable. And you are glancing at your watch. It is sad when a franchise with so much potential ends with poorly animated CG replicas of Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving slapping each other in a green thunderstorm in the sky.

I won’t tell you how the movie ends, because I don’t think it’s even worth talking about. It’s just a disappointment. It’s confusing, it’s incoherent… the Wachowskis will pretend like it’s deep and an intellectual movie. It’s not. It’s a pretentious piece of crap. It’s noise. How long can you see a sea of metallic sperm attacking cave people before you don’t give a fuck? No one cares about Zion. It’s called THE MATRIX… this isn’t the Terminator. Machines with A.I. has been done before, getting jacked into an artificial world is slightly more original.

The Matrix trilogy is a pretty decent trilogy all in all. The first movie is the best. The second movie starts to slip and falter, but has some great moments (mostly the freeway sequences). The third movie is just bad. All the best ideas for action scenes had already been used. It just feels tired and drags on and on. There isn’t anything that stands out in the movie. It’s just a sad end to a once great franchise. At least The Animatrix was good.

Critically Rated at 9/17

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May 26, 2012 · 10:12 am

Actors in Multiple Movie Franchises

Some movies make a lot of money. And people like money, so they decide to make a sequel to make even more money. And if that sequel makes money they might make a third movie. And three movies in the same series makes a trilogy, and (for the purposes of this article) a trilogy is a film franchise. So if an actor appears in three or more movies in the same franchise and three or more movies in another franchise, then they will appear on this list. Unless I forgot about them. Sorry forgotten celebrity.

Harrison Ford starred in the original Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones trilogy (and that shitty fourth movie that I try to forget about). He’s also rumored to come back in the new Star Wars movies.

Tim Allen starred in the Toy Story trilogy and the Santa Clause movies.

Michael J. Fox went Back to the Future three times and voiced Stuart Little three times.

Matt Damon was Jason Bourne three times and was in Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.

Eddie Murphy was Donkey in four Shrek movies and Axel Foley three times as a Beverly Hills Cop. Mike Myers was Shrek in the Shrek flicks and Austin Powers and Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies.

Shrek And Donkey - Shrek The Final Chapter Desktop Wallpaper

Orlando Bloom was Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and he’s reprising his role in The Hobbit movie. He was also in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies too.

Sir Ian McKellen has saved the world as Gandalf in three Lord of the Rings movies and will do so again in The Hobbit trilogy. He’s also threatened the world three times as Magneto in the X-Men franchise.

Patrick Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard four times on the big screen and played Charles Xavier in three X-Men movies with a cameo in the Wolverine movie.

Crazy anti-Semite Mel Gibson has been in four Lethal Weapon Movies and was Mad Max three times. You know he hates Jews right?

Warwick Davis was in six Leprechaun movies (about half were direct-to-video) and was also in all eight Harry Potter Movies playing duel roles as Professor Flitwick and Griphook.

Sylvester Stallone was Rambo four times and Rocky Balboa six times. I have a feeling he might be Expendable three times too.

Vin Diesel sucks a lot of balls, but he’s been in four Fast and/or Furious movies (one of them was just a cameo), and he will play Riddick again in 2013. I’m sure that there are at least four people who will pay to see that shit.

Ben Stiller has played Gaylord Focker in three movies and loaned his voice to three Madagascar movies.

Gary Oldman played Sirius Black in Harry Potter 3, 4, 5 and 7.5 and has been James Gordon three times in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Bruce Campbell has played Ash in the Evil Dead movies and had cameos in all of Sam Raimi’s Spider-man movies. That might be a stretch, but it still counts.

Antonio Banderas has been Puss in Boots in three Shrek movies and one spinoff and was in four Spy Kids movies (his scene was cut in the fourth one. Yes, there are four Spy Kids movies). He was played El Mariachi in two out of the three El Mariachi movies, so he doesn’t get any points for that.

John Cho has hung out with Kumar three times as Harold, and he was in American Pie, American Pie 2, American Wedding, and American Reunion. Cameos count. Right, Bruce Campbell?

Samuel L. Jackson was Mace Windu in Star Wars Episode I-III. He also played Nick Fury in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers, which are all part of the same universe, so he gets included.

Jackie Chan has three franchises under his belt. Three Rush Hour movies, four Police Story movies, and he’s loaned his voice to two Kung Fu Panda movies with a third coming out in 2013.

Christopher Lee played Fu Manchu three times, he was Dracula in a bunch of movies. He was Count Dooku in Episodes II and III and the animated Clone Wars movie. He was in Lord of the Rings too.

Hugo Weaving has also been in three franchises. He threatened Neo three times as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy. He loaned his voice to Megatron in the Transfomers movies. And he was Elrond in the Lord of the Rings movie and will reprise his role again in one of the upcoming Hobbit movies.

So that’s my list. I think it’s pretty complete. If you see anyone that I’m missing leave a comment. And I’ll either correct you or add it to my list. I don’t know how to rate this so I will just settle for something like this:

Critically Rated at 12/17

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May 22, 2012 · 9:03 am

The Matrix Reloaded

Neo is back on the big screen in the second installment of the Matrix trilogy. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving all return for the beginning of the Shyamalanization of the Wachowski Brothers. I had high hopes for this movie. I hate being disappointed.

So Neo is getting used to being the One. He spends his days chilling with Morpheus and Trinity in the Matrix, freeing people and acting like a holy man when he’s unplugged. Neo and his pals find out that the machines are going to launch an attack on Zion, the last remaining human city, where they like to have huge raves in underground caves. Not only do they have to deal with a massive machine invasion, but Agent Smith managed to escape death somehow, and now he’s wreaking havoc in the Matrix by making duplicates of himself. One of his copies manages to escape the Matrix and enter the real world.

Neo visits the Oracle and finds out that he needs to reach the Source of the Matrix. To do that he needs to find the Keymaker, who is being held prisoner by the Merovingian. Neo, Morpheus and Trinity manage to break the Keymaker out of the Merovingian’s grasp.

They come up with some complex plan to get Neo into the Source. The plan doesn’t work like it should, and the Keymaker dies and Trinity gets shot up by an agent. Neo reaches the Source meets the Architect and they have a conversation about how smart the Wachowskis are and how stupid you are because you don’t understand what they are talking about. And the Architect gives Neo a choice between saving mankind or saving Trinity. And Neo is selfish so he saves Trinity.

Neo discovers that he can disable the machines even without being plugged into the Matrix. But it’s too much for him to take and he collapses into a coma, and the movie ends in a cliffhanger.

There was a lot of potential for the Matrix sequels to be awesome. Instead the Wachowski Brothers decided ruining the franchise would be easier. You know that the movie was going to suck as soon as you realized that Tank is dead, even though he didn’t die in the first movie. There was no reason so replace a minor crewmember who didn’t die with another minor crewmember. It makes no sense. Link’s only redeeming feature is that he’s played by Harold Perrineau, and anyone from Lost is cool.

There are some cool action scenes, and even though they are more elaborate and complex, they are hollow, they don’t impact the story as much as the fights in the first movie. In the original the fights mean something. Morpheus fights Neo so he can learn what he is capable of for example. In Reloaded, there are fights just to fill screen time.

The fight between Neo and the Agent Smith clones could have been epic. It should have been. It starts out with a lot of promise. And about halfway through it becomes a cartoon. They get lazy with the fight choreography, with the animation, even with the sound effects. They actually use the sound of bowling pins falling over when Neo throws a Smith into other Smiths.

The best scene in the movie is the freeway chase. It might even be the best scene in the trilogy. A high speed chase with car crashes and albino twins and agents, Trinity and the Keymaker speeding the wrong way against traffic on the freeway, Morpheus fighting an agent on a semi truck… the whole sequence is exhilarating and you are almost relieved when Neo flies in and saves the day.

The Matrix Reloaded has its moments. But it’s a step in the wrong direction. It’s still worth seeing, but if you like the sequels more than the original you have issues.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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May 16, 2012 · 10:37 am

The Matrix

No one can be told what the Matrix is; you have to see it for yourself. And you’ve should have seen it by now. It’s been out for 13 years. Andy and Larry Wachowski wrote and directed The Matrix, one of the greatest action/sci-fi films ever. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a hacker who finds out the world is a lie perpetrated by machines to control and harness energy from humans, and that he is the One prophesized to save mankind.

Thomas Anderson A.K.A. Neo (Keanu Reeves) is a hacker by night and an office drone by day. He senses that there’s something wrong with the world, but he can’t quite grasp it. He gets enigmatic clues about something called the Matrix, but he can’t figure out its meaning. He meets a mysterious hacker named Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) who leads him to man named Morpheus who can help him find out what the Matrix is. Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) gives Neo a pill to swallow, and since you should always take strange pills that a stranger gives you, Neo swallows it and reality collapses into a dream and he wakes up in the Real World.

Morpheus finds Neo and takes him on his ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus is the captain, Trinity is a crewmember, and there are a few other crewmembers including the shady Cypher (Joe Pantoliano). Neo finds out the truth about the Matrix. Humans developed machines that got too smart and that lead to a war and that lead to us getting our asses kicked. Now the bulk of mankind is harvested for energy. The Matrix is a simulated reality that the controlled humans are connected to. The world that they know is a computer program.

Neo learns that he can manipulate the computer program, that he can bend the rules of gravity and physics and learn Kung Fu. Morpheus believes that Neo is the One, that he will end the war between the machines. Neo doubts himself; he can’t quite free his mind. Neo learns all the rules about the Matrix, and he learns that the Agents are bad. Especially Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving).

So there’s a bunch of philosophical hoopla about the nature of reality and prophecy and fate vs. freewill. They visit the Oracle and she talks to Neo about his future. She tells him what he needs to hear. Then the shady Cypher is revealed to be working for the Agents. He sells out his crew and tips off their location. Morpheus gets captured, the unnecessary crewmembers die, and now its time for Neo to man up and save Morpheus.

They get a shit ton of guns and have a cool fire fight and kill lots of innocent guards who aren’t agents or evil. They decided not to bring spare magazines, so each time the clip runs out they just whip out a new gun. I guess it’s easier to just carry 20 guns rather than reloading. Neo and Trinity rescue Morpheus. Trinity and Morpheus go back to the real world, and Neo gets attacked by Agent Smith. And Neo stands his ground for a while, but then he runs away like a bitch. Just as he’s about to exit the Matrix, he gets shot. And he dies. And then Trinity kisses him and he comes back to life. And now he’s the One. And then he kills Agent Smith, but not really, because Agent Smith comes back in the sequels. But we don’t know that yet. But for now, Neo has saved the day, and things are looking up for mankind

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Quick factoid: Will Smith turned down the part of Neo to star in Wild Wild West. Thank god, because he would have ruined this movie. Keanu Reeves is not a good actor, but he is perfect for Neo. He lets the events unfold around him, he doesn’t talk much, and he just reacts and looks bewildered by everything. And it suits the movie perfectly.

The action was and still is amazing. The fight choreography is as good as it gets. The bullet time sequence is one of the coolest shots in history. The action is great, but this film works because the action and philosophical scenes go hand in hand. This is a smart movie. The sequels tried to be smart and got pretentious

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If you haven’t seen this movie in a while, go back and watch it. There’s a great buildup, and the dialog is very layered. There’s a lot more to The Matrix than you might remember. It deserved to be the start of a franchise. And even though the Wachowski Brothers went kind of crazy, the Matrix Universe is still worth exploring.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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