The Homeless Nerd Reviews - The Lego Batman Movie

What is it?  Everybody's favorite (or at least well known) dark and broody superhero from The Lego Movie gets his own spin-off film.  Funny, but with some really dramatic moments and great emotional undercurrent.

    Holy Moley I loved this movie, and Batman is not even one of my favorite characters.  I cannot believe how deftly the writing team pulled off hitting so many character notes that are at the heart of the dark knight, but in such a funny and entertaining way.
    I've mentioned before how I love stories that do not see-saw between comedy and drama, but are one with a great foundation of the other.  This is that in spades.  It is not only a funny movie with a lot of heart (I cried a little at one point, if you don't then you've never lost someone dear to you), but it even took that same approach and applied to the character of Batman himself.  Using the dark and broody source material they built this wonderful comedic frame on top of it - that actually makes this one of the best Batman stories in my opinion.  It also has a great take on why he's run around with one 'Boy Wonder' after another in his career.  It is really a treat to watch, and very much in the same style as The Lego Movie, so if you liked that odds are you'll like this.

My recommendation: I got this one from Redbox, and it was some of the best $2 I've ever spent; see it, wherever you get it from, see it.

The Homeless Nerd reviews - Zootopia

What is it? Animated movie about anthropomorphic animals, aimed at kids but can work for adults

    If there is one type of story I love most it is the funny story with a serious core. This is why I love Terry Pratchett novels so much, he would write a series of comedic events, but they would have a very serious and deep meaning. Like his book Small Gods that examines the difference between religion and spirituality by the adventures of a god that becomes a turtle. This is different from funny stories that have serious moments, or serious stories that have funny moments. It's subtle, and not something that can be defined so much as experienced.
  Zootopia is one of these kinds of stories. The alternate Earth with no humans, just evolved animals is a great comedic setting - but under that is a great thread about racism, fear and prejudice. It should appeal to the kids who watch it, and the adults who think about it.
  Technically, the voice acting is great, the pacing is spot in, it never feels slow or boring. The CGI is sharp and creates a great sense of place. All around it is a great movie.

My recommendation: worth paying full price for, it's that good.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- The Last Witch Hunter

What Is It?  A Dungeons and Dragons adventure brought to B-movie life on the big screen

    Okay, I'm a die-hard, life-long gamer.  I love pen and paper RPGs.  In fact, they are one of the few things I really feel strongly about.  But I will be the first to admit that, weather home-brew or professional, they do not tend to have the most compelling or well-crafted plots.  I've read lots of books based on RPGs starting with Gygax's Gord the Rogue series through some Forgotten Realms and Eberron books, detouring through Arena for Magic the Gathering and even the couple of Top Secret S.I. novels.  None are what I would consider great fiction like Brandon Sanderson or Brent Weeks.  Just like with a game at the table, RPG-based stories tend to wander a little.  Now, for RPGs this is not such a big deal- the fun is in making the decisions and exploring the world, you generally are not expecting a tight and emotionally deep plot with so many cooks in the stew.  But when it comes to novels and movies, well, you generally want something just a bit more refined.
    Which leads me to The Last Witch Hunter.  This is a lot like a D&D adventure, which means it does not hang together as well as a movie should.  A lot of the screen time feels like it is chasing something that while a key part of the plot, does not really feel that dramatic or compelling.  There are enough explanations for everything, but none feel very well fleshed-out.  I really walked away with the feeling that there was a great movie buried in there somewhere, but it just was not quite executed right.  So many events could have been very interesting, but did not feel like they were set up.  There is a betrayal, but I had honestly forgotten that character was even in the movie - betrayal scenes only have an emotional beat if you are attached to the betraying character.  Not the character being betrayed, no, the character doing the betraying - that is where the real emotional punch is for the audience.  And the final plot hinges on being merciful and that mercy coming back to bite the characters in the posterior - which just did not really get set up with the right groundwork to have an emotional payoff.  So many things that were close, were good ideas, just not built right.  It actually reminded me a lot of Tomorrowland, another movie I thought had great concepts buried under poor execution.
    I did like Vin Deisel, thought he did a fine job with his character.  Rose Leslie was a really cool sassy street witch.  Michael Caine was in the movie, in a cameo basically.  And no one else left that much of an impression.  But the best character of all was the sword.  There are not many flaming swords in film, and the effect does not always look that cool.  A good flaming sword should be as awesome as a lightsaber, and in Last Witch Hunter the sword is awesome, looks perfect, and honestly was a big part of why I went to see the movie.  The sword deserved more screen time.

My recommendation- wait for it to come out on cable, it's good enough for passing a lazy afternoon

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- The Intern

    I ended up seeing this one with some friends, it was not something that looked very interesting (given that I'm a SF&F guy) but I decided to tag along and give it a try.  First, as a 40 year old guy the Robert De Niro character says something to me (granted I'm not his retirement 70, but I can see that down the road (and it terrifies me)).  So I had a little bonding to the premise.  "Ben" has retired, lost his wife, and is bored out of his skull.  So he decided to try an intern position with a fashion/web company founded by "Jules" (Anne Hathaway).  He is the fish out of water, with his old-school ways amid a group of twenty-somethings. But his unique perspective helps everyone around him re-evaluate their own lives.
    It's a cute movie, and a lot better than I expected it to be.  It starts at a good pace, and things keep unfolding steadily with some interesting characters.  Until the end.  None of the plot threads really seem to wrap up well, I was trying to think of how to describe it for this review and "lack of closure" is the only phrase that comes to mind.  It does end, but I did not feel a good sense of closure from anything.
    Still, it was well-acted, and entertaining to watch.  There were some great moments (the break-in scene, classic).  De Niro is great, of course - and so is Anne Hathaway and the supporting cast.  I liked everybody, as characters and performances.  My only real complaint is how the story just didn't seem to close very neatly.  It kind of fades away instead of ending on a good cathartic note.

My recommendation- catch the cheap show and give it a chance, you might be pleasantly surprised.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- The Martian

    IF YOU HAVEN'T BY NOW, GO SEE THIS MOVIE !!!

Okay, that's not really a review.

    IT IS AWESOME !!!!!!

Quick Movie Review - The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

    This is going to be a quick review, saw this movie a few days ago (maybe last week?  I can't remember anything nowadays).  I don't remember ever seeing the TV show, and I wasn't really looking forward to this movie - but I have to admit I liked it.  It had that old-time spy movie feel, and was different being set in the 60s.  Like Kingsmen: The Secret Service it was a cool new take on the spy genera.  Everybody did a good job with the acting, and the story was interesting enough.  I would recommend catching the cheap show on this one.

Understanding Jurassic World

    I don't really like dinosaurs.  My only fond memory of Jurassic Park was that I saw it with a girl I really liked, in our first sort-of-date together.  I saw the second and third Jurassic movies, and rooted for the dinosaurs to eat and kill every human on screen.  I also hated them (the movies that is).
    So, I was in no hurry to see Jurassic World (as evidenced by my talking about it two months after it came out), however my friend Sara did drag me off to see it a few days ago.
    The first thing that struck me was the stupidity of it.  People make so many terrible, bone-headed, don't-have-two-neurons-to-rub-together choices.  The bad science I can take, I use my suspension of disbelief to get over the idea that you can just mix and match different animal DNA to produce whatever type of creature and abilities you desire.  But only having one trained helicopter pilot, or even only one helicopter gunship, on an island full of potentially dangerous large animals that have previously killed people - that's beyond stupid.  They should have their own small army, not the 6 guys we see and Chris Pratt.
    But something hit me, the characters in the movie are supposed to be stupid.  You see, the stupid people are the ones who get eaten.  Oh sure, some random people also get eaten, but you can say that they are stupid for not getting indoors and going to see the dinosaurs in the first place.  It's actually something of a morality play, the bad people (or well-intentioned but stupid) get eaten and the good survive.  Once I saw that I could relax and enjoy the movie a lot more.
    Overall I liked it well enough, I'd give it a "catch the cheap seats" if I was actually bothering to review this properly.  I was amazed that the two kids actually had their own story arc and were okay to watch - usually I hate kids or teens in movies.  If you thought about seeing it but it didn't sound that appealing, maybe my revelation might help you enjoy it.  Or not, it's all good.

Really Tired Review: The Fantastic Four

    A friend of mine has been going through some really bad times, and I've been wiped out myself trying to help (in what little ways I can), so this is not going to be my usually polished (well, somewhat polished if I'm being honest) review.  Too little sleep for a few days and emotional stress are taking a toll right now.  Still, I did see the movie so I wanted to say something about it.
    What to say?
    Disappointing.

    Okay, there you go, thanks for visiting :)

    No, really, I did not like the movie, which was disappointing since I wanted to.  I was not a big fan of the last 2 Fantastic Four movies overall, but I did think that they had some moments of potential greatness.  I've never been a big fan of the FF, I have read only a few of their comics - but since the team has done cross-overs with just about everybody, I have been somewhat exposed to them.  So I can't comment a lot on how accurate the new movie was to the comics, only to my limited impression of the team.
    The first thing that struck me, and left a sour note when the movie finally got a trailer, was how damn young everybody is.  I really, really, really hate the "boy genius" trope.  I hate it a lot.  The times I've seen it used it has never really explored the cost of that genius.  Being smarter than everyone around you is hard, no one wants to be the only human in a cage full of poo-throwing primates.  But having that burden at a young age, when your own emotions and understanding of humanity is not solid or strong, that must be very difficult.  The only thing interesting to me about the trope is the struggle to bear that intellect.  Which the FF movie makes a nod to, but does not really explore.  So, anyways, when I saw the opening of the movie where a 9 year old Reed Richards creates an inter-dimensional teleportation device in his parent's garage with spare parts from the junkyard, I cringed.  When we fast-forward a whole seven years, 16 year old boy genius who meets someone else working on the exact same thing at a science fair (what a coincidence) did not make it any better.  Of all the characters in the Marvel universe, Reed Richards is one who can and should be older - for the majority of his comic book life it seems he's been drawn with graying temples.
    The biggest problem with the new Fantastic Four movie is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.  It makes a nod to the stress of being brilliant since every character has family troubles or doesn't fit in - but one or two lines of dialogue is not enough to make a point or sub-plot or characterization.  It makes a nod to being terrified of one's powers and transformation and wanting a "normal life" but again in a flashback training montage, or a few lines, and does not devote enough time to really make or explore the point.  It sort of deals with the dangers of scientific discovery and how it can be misused, but again not in any real detail.  And the obligatory "save the world" moment feels tacked on, out of place, confusing, and really did not need to be there.  In all it's more like a collection of bullet points than a full fleshed-out plot or idea.  And after a whole movie of interesting concepts that never got explored I walked out feeling confused and let down.
    Also, it did not seem to hit any of the notes that made the FF interesting to me.  My first comic love has got to be the X-Men, a team of outcasts who fight amongst each other as much as against their villains.  But the Fantastic Four have always been portrayed as a family.  Sue and Johnny are brother and sister, Sue and Reed get married, and even Johnny and Ben argue like big and little brothers.  There is a really cool dynamic of a group of people who actually want to be together and work together.  But in this movie we have Sue talk privately to Johnny once, Ben and Reed are friends when they were kids, and the only teamwork moment comes out of the blue, all the characters seemed to hate each other and then they instantly shift gears and work together.  It was jarring, and disappointing.  Also, Ben's catchphrase, "It's Clobberin' Time" is abused and the fans are s#@t on when in this version that is the same line his older brother uses before beating him.  That shows a real lack of respect for the fans of the character to put such dark emotional baggage on what was used as a funny and encouraging catchphrase.  Overall, the movie does not feel like the writers or anybody involved really loved the original, rather like they wanted a cash-cow by making a reboot and turning everybody dark and broody (and god I wish Hollywood would get over the dark and broody superhero).

    Anyways, my brain is melting as I type, so let me summarize.  The movie has one or two decent moments or lines of dialogue, but does not hold together overall.  It makes some nods to the source comics, but does not seem to really value them.  It is not terrible, not Amazing Spider-Man 2 oh dear god please kill me in my seat the movie is half-way over and feels like 2,000 years have passed terrible.  But it is not good either.
    My recommendation: wait for it to come out on cable or Netflix or something, you don't really need to see it.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- Ant-Man

At a glance- another entry in the Marvel cinematic universe, this time a bit of a heist movie mixed in with our superhero movie

What is it?  The Marvel movie universe continues to expand with a new hero, Ant-Man.  He's something of an interesting choice, not one of the biggest characters, but one that is recognizable to the comic readers.  The Hank Pym Ant-Man was an Avenger for a very long time, and when not wearing a suit he was still in the background as the super-scientist/inventor.  This is the newer Ant-Man, Scott Lang, an ex-criminal turned hero.  Like with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, this is a superhero movie at its core with a bit of another genera for flavoring.  In Winter Soldier it was the spy movie mixed in with tights, in Ant-Man it's the heist movie.  This is kind of nice, it adds a bit of a new element to the standard mix, but at the same time it makes for a bit of a strange movie that doesn't always seem to know exactly what it wants to be.

The acting-  Paul Rudd is the titular hero, Ant-Man/Scott Lang.  I've watched very few of his movies (according to his IMDB page) but I liked him a lot here, he had a good mix of earnest hero and criminal goofball that the character needed.  Michael Douglas is fantastic as Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, and from the moment you first see him on screen I thought he was great.  Evangeline Lilly was fine as Hope Pym, and honestly the movie would have been better if she got some extra screen time to flesh out her character.  Corey Stoll plays our villain Darren Cross/Yellowjacket, in a role that really brought back Jeff Bridges in Iron Man 1, and he does good with what little he has to work with; sadly the bad guy is pretty much a moustachioed-twirling caricature instead of a complex person, which is sad.  Michael Peña should totally get a best supporting actor award, he steals the scenes he's in.  And it was great to see a cameo by Anthony Mackie.

The story-  Back in the 80s Hank Pym was the secret hero Ant-Man.  After losing his wife he retired from the hero business and vowed that no one would ever use his invention.  Flash-forward to today when Pym protegee, Darren Cross, has taken over his company and is one the verge of creating a new Ant-Man, this time called Yellowjacket and designed for widespread military use.  Pym is afraid of how his technology could change the world, not for the better, and recruits ex-thief Scott Lang to be the new Ant-Man and destroy all of Cross' work.
    This is a perfectly serviceable story.  Pym is not the flashy inventor like we saw with Tony Stark/Iron Man; instead Pym is fearful of how his invention could be misused.  Which at first blush seems a little silly perhaps, but if you think about it being able to shrink down allows for some pretty scary invasion of privacy and assassination possibilities - so he's got a point that if widely used his tech could be a very bad thing.  There are a lot of family sub-plots going, with Scott estranged from his daughter, Pym and his daughter issues, and even Cross who feels abandoned by his former mentor, Pym.  Sadly, none of these really felt like they were given the time and development they could have used.  Oddly, I was wishing they had made this movie longer, and used the extra time to spend on developing the characters - much like the last Marvel movie, Age of Ultron.  Oddly enough, a lot of the best moments seemed to come from the supporting cast, the 3 quirky fellow thieves that Scott knows and, well, the ants themselves.  We get a long montage of the different kinds of ants, who were all given their own personalities (great job CGI department) and they are Scott's number one resource.
    Overall, this was a solid movie.  It was not incredible (like The Lego Movie), it was not unwatchable (like Amazing Spider-Man 2).  It did a nice job of expanding the future Marvel universe, since we shall no doubt see more of Ant-Man in the future.  While I don't think Marvel has hit the real depth and emotion that exists in some of their comic stories (some were very deep, others of course, not so much) they have seemed to find a workable formula that makes for watchable movies.  Now, having raised the comic movie bar from rock-bottom to decent, the question is weather or not they can raise the bar further and make some really compelling stories in the time-limited movie format.

My recommendation- worth paying full price for, but catch the cheap show if you can

P.S.- of course, this being Marvel, there is a small scene in the middle of the credits, and another small scene at the end of the credits

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- Terminator: Genisys

At a glance- the 5th Terminator movie, with more humans vs killer robots time-travel action craziness

What is it?  A series is a funny thing, each subsequent movie/book/whatever can really change the tone and direction and meaning of the ones before.  Ideally each work expands on and improves the prior ones, adding new layers while keeping the same core.  The Terminator movie series has not had that for the most part.  The Terminator was an action movie with a little sci-fi twist.  It was nothing special, but it was very watchable and the main star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, did a great job with the most important part.  Terminator 2 added to the first film, showing a cold killing machine learning about being human, and suggesting that there is no fate or destiny and that people can change their future.  It did what a series piece should, kept the same core and expanded it.  Then it all went to hell.  Terminator 3 seemed to have been made just so we could see a female terminator, and it suggested that there was no way to change fate, directly contradicting the previous movie.  And it was not a great movie even on its own rights.  Then Terminator: Salvation made the biggest mistake of all, it took us into the dystopian future the series is built on.  See, there's one problem with the whole man-machine war that lies at the heart of the Terminator storyline - what the hell does Skynet need to keep any humans alive for?  With control of America's nukes Skynet literally had enough firepower to render the planet a smoking husk.  It would have been easy to cause so many nuke strikes that there would be no more ecosystem, no more human life, no more pesky people that Skynet was so afraid of it had to kill them as its first act of sentience.  So why the hell does Skynet bother to capture people, who have to be fed and cared for to continue doing work, instead of relying on its unlimited robot army?  In The Matrix at least the robots kept people around to feed off of them, which is some sort of a reason, good or bad.  In the Terminator series we never get an explanation, and with a little logical thought there seems to be no good reason at all.  Even if you say Skynet doesn't want to destroy the planet with nukes, how about engineering a super-virus, or just letting loose one that it has access to from its seemingly total control of the military?  The whole core concept doesn't make any sense, and Terminator: Salvation really made those flaws stand out (along with the good-guy-turns-into-bad-robot-turns-into-good-guy thing that was actually done better in Terminator 2).  So now we have the reboot Terminator: Genisys which is going to create a new timeline and reboot the series, thus invalidating the last 8 hours you spent committing to the series to date (wow, thanks, I love the "it was all really just a dream" cliche).

The acting- Okay, usually I go over the cast of a movie in one of my reviews, but in all honestly there is only one worth mentioning: Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator.  And he is still awesome in the role he created.  Nobody else is really that memorable.

The story-  We begin again in the future, voice-overed by Kyle Reese, on the eve of the human's victory against Skynet.  We see him go back in time, and then things go wrong.  John Connor is attacked in the future and Kyle is sent to a past that is not the one he was supposed to arrive at.  Sarah Connor is a tough robot-fighting machine and there is another Terminator, named "Pops" of all things, that was sent back to help her by person(s) unknown for reasons unknown.  John is revealed to be a terminator (which isn't a spoiler since the stupid trailer spilled the big secret before the movie was released - great job marketing idiots) and Skynet is now Genisys, a military defense program that is also going to manage everyone's on-line life (and boy is that one of the stupider things in a very stupid plotline) that goes live in 2017 instead of 1997.  Honestly, don't try to think about it too much- it doesn't make any damn sense.  It kind of reminds me of the computer game Bioshock Infinite.  The game is like 15 years old now, so I don't think I'll spoil it for anyone, but the core concept of the game's story is that one character has traveled to a parallel universe and another character has to travel through time.  There's a problem with that however, time travel and parallel worlds/universes are two separate concepts!!!  And T:G seems to have a problem deciding if it is a story about time travel or parallel worlds.  But it has to, because it makes a big difference to the story depending on which one it is.
    I saw the movie two days ago, and I have been trying to think of how I was going to review it, and there are two things that keep running through my mind: disappointing and meaningless.  The movie was a huge disappointment for me, it did not bring anything actually new to the series, that for the last 2 movies (now three) has had a serious lack of new things (except for the "black dust" terminator instead of the "liquid metal" terminator, what a change).  And at the end of the day, one of the things I ask myself about a movie is: what was this movie about?  What was it trying to say?  Even a light, fluff movie like Avengers: Age of Ultron has a sort of theme about teamwork and how we can be our own worst enemy.  T:G though seems to be lacking any meaning at all.  If there was some sort of a message here I can't see it.  It never resolves weather or not they really changed the future, so I don't know if it was going future-variable T2 or future-fixed T3, and honestly those two movies have already explored that concept.  We sort of see Skynet, it even talks, and it almost has a personality, but we never see it enough to know why the evil robot decided to be an evil robot instead of a good robot, so there's a miss on the potential theme of AI evolution.  There are just so many things unanswered that there is nothing solid to hold onto, nothing to form an opinion about.  And that may have been done in the hopes of future movies, but without a solid message in this one I just don't care about any future movies.  Honestly, I hope and pray this will be the last terminator movie I ever see - because the series has sucked so bad that it needs someone to drive a stake though its heart, cut off its head, and burn the body.

My recommendation- see it for free, only because Arnold is worth watching, but don't expect much.

P.S.- there is a short clip about halfway through the credits (something I personally wish would stop, but apparently will be with us off and on forever)

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- The Hobbit trilogy

    I'm not sure how to review this.
    To say that it is too long, frequently too boring and ho-hum eye candy was something that was obvious when they announced making a short novel into an epic movie trilogy.
    Sara helped me work it out - I wish I could get back the wasted 7 hours of my life watching these movies, and have only seen the two good hours of Martin Freeman as Bilbo.

Long-Overdue Movie Review- Transformers: Age of Extinction

At a glance- this is Michael Bay, thus it is full of eye-candy and brain-dead, with giant robots

What is it? Well, here we go with another Transformers movie, number 4.  I liked the original Transformers movie, it had its flaws (plenty) but it was watchable.  I loved the toys and cartoons as a kid.  But I have to say that Transformers 2 and 3 really were disappointing.  Revenge of the Fallen (#2) seemed like it was written by drunk and stoned frat boys while Dark of the Moon (#3) was just stupid, actually annoying and stupid.  So when I saw that Age of Extinction (#4) was coming out a few months ago, I was in no hurry to see it.  And in fact, it was just last night that I finally watched it on DVD with a friend.  It was as bad as I had figured.

The acting- Our hero is Cade Yeager, played by Mark Wahlberg, a Texas robot engineer who can't build a working robot, a family man who lost his wife and neglects his daughter, and all-around blue collar American who's full of some catchy one-liners and dumb as a post.  It is a hard, thankless role, and Mr. Wahlberg seems to try his best with it, but there is no meat there to work from.  He spends the whole movie off and on talking about how important it is to not make a mistake and how mistakes can bring wonderful surprises and the whole damn movie is about as clear as whatever he's trying to talk about.  He has a daughter, Nicola Peltz, and of course there is the boyfriend he doesn't know about, Jack Reynor, and both could have been cut from the movie with nothing important missing.  So far there is yet to be a decent female character in Transformers except for the blonde computer lady in the first - I don't think Michael Bay, or any of the writers he works with, actually knows how to make a three-dimensional and engaging female character.  The formula appears to be female = eye candy and that's about all we get, except for this girl being 17 years old and in a relationship, hinted at a sexual one, with her 20 year old boyfriend which is okay because a Texas law protects them since they met years earlier and what the hell does any of this crap have to do with a giant robot movie ?!?!?  Like I said, could cut them and not notice.  There are two females with very small roles, blonde scientist lady and Chinese businesswoman, played by Sophia Myles and Bingbing Li, who are watchable because they don't have enough screen time to be turned into anything stupid.  Otherwise there is Stanley Tucci as a misguided scientist/inventor who goes from sorta-evil to a good guy, and he is actually the best role in the film.  And there's Kelsey Grammer as the totally-evil black ops CIA chairman who might as well have his evil white cat to pet, since his character is about as well-defined as a Bond villain.
    But that's just the human roles, there are also the Transformers.  Optimus' voice actor, Peter Cullen, still has a great voice, but his character is a little confused between "I'm here to save you" and "I'm here to kill you," marking a change from the previously Mr. Goody Two-Shoes of the series.  I hate it when filmmakers feel like they have to make good guys 'dark and broody' myself, your mileage may vary.  Bumblebee still doesn't know how to talk in a running gag that really needs to stop already.  There is a samurai transformer and a green car transformer, and I'm not even going to bother finding out who voiced them because they are forgettable.  John Goodman does do a good job as Hound though, the tough military-type transformer who just wants to shoot everything in sight.  Sadly Megatron is back, and still has no worthwhile or intelligent dialogue - another running gag of the series that should be put to bed.  Amazingly, I almost missed Starscream.

The story- The first five minutes of the movie shows some alien ship with alien bombs that turns a bunch of plants and dinosaurs into metal.  You might think that was the story or plot for this movie, and you would be mostly wrong.  The super-bomb that makes Transformer metal is in the story, and it does kind of have something to do with it, but since we never really get a detailed explanation for this, or for why it has not been mentioned until now, it is actually just some cheap window-dressing for all the explosions we know and love from Michael Bay.  Flashing to the present, it has been 5 years since the last movie's climatic battle of Chicago, and a group of evil CIA agents are hunting down all Transformers, Autobot and Decepticon alike, and murdering them, in the name of safety for human-kind.  It is kind of nice to see that humans have finally developed a way to hurt Transformers, I was wondering over the last movies when they would figure that out, but the tone here feels off.  In all of our previous movies there have been some military soldiers working with the Autobots - what the hell happened to them?  Were they all killed along with some of the missing Autobots? (should have shown that, it would have added some depth)  Have they turned to the dark side and are now killing their former friends? (should have shown that, would have added some depth)  Are they helping hide the Autobots, at risk to themselves and their families? (should have shown that- oh hell)  You get the picture, instead of using some intelligence and making something deep and meaningful all we get is a caricature of a bad guy; reducing a legitimately complex problem (good aliens bringing along bad aliens and the balance of power between them and humans) into a line of empty dialogue like "my sister was killed in Chicago" and "there are no good or bad aliens."  So if the one guy's sister had been killed by a drunk driver would he be out murdering alcoholics? (would have been a better movie actually)  And there are obviously good and bad aliens, the good ones have been trying to keep the human race alive while the bad ones have been killing everybody - that's a fairly obvious distinction to anyone with a brain.
    And that is the crux of the story, instead of something logical and compelling we get a flat cardboard cutout of a plot.  Instead of having Yaeger's little girl and worthless boyfriend die at the beginning, thus showing the seriousness of the situation, we have the comic relief guy die at the beginning, who I personally did not mind seeing killed - I wish more of the humans in the story had been killed.  The is not a story, it is a series of special effects set pieces.  Turn your brain off and just enjoy the ride.
    Which almost works.  The movie is a rather long 2 hours and 40 minutes.  The first hour-and-half goes by at a good pace, but by then you haven't seen the dinobots (which were on almost every poster) and it starts to drag.  The last 30 minutes, which should be the most compelling, instead feel the longest after all the special effects have been burning out your retinas.  And then later, when the spectacle is over and you are left to actually think about the movie, you realize just how many inconsistencies and illogical moments there are - that, in fact, it makes only the most tenuous sense.  I don't think the writers of this movie actually knew what their story was about.
    In short (too late, I know) it's really stupid, but it looks pretty.  You can make some great wallpapers for your computer out of the screenshots.  And the CinemaSins count for this movie should be off the chart.

My recommendation- catch it for free on TV, if you are extremely bored and have nothing whatsoever worthwhile to do with your life ; or just tune in for the last 30 minutes when the dinobots show up

The Homeless Nerd Reviews- Captain America: The Winter Soldier

At a glance- superhero action with a dash of spy thriller for seasoning

What is it? In Captain America: The First Avenger we met 90-pound weakling Steve Rodgers who through the magic of science gets turned into 200-pound beefcake Captain America during World War 2.  He fought against Hydra, a splinter group of the Nazis who found magic-science weapons thanks to the Cosmic Cube (which was featured in The Avengers).  Along the way he loses his best friend "Bucky" Barnes to the Nazis and his budding girlfriend when he lands a plane full of deadly weapons, and himself, in the ocean.  Frozen on ice for 40-ish years his super-body manages to survive being a cap-scicle and he awakens in the modern world.  Winter Soldier picks up after The Avengers with cap working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and trying to adjust to the modern world.

The acting- A lot of people reprising roles, starting with Chris Evans as Captain America/Steve Rodgers.  I like him in this role, I think he brings exactly the right amount of earnest boy scout and super-soldier to his performance.  Samuel L Jackson is Nick Fury, and fits the role perfectly as usual.  Scarlett Johansson is The Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff, and is not just eye-candy, she does a great job of playing a complicated character.  New to the series is Robert Redford as S.H.I.E.L.D. top-man Alexander Pierce, and let's face it- Robert Redford rarely does a bad acting job.  Anthony Mackie is also new as Sam Wilson/ The Falcon, does a great job and I'm glad to see Marvel did a great job with updating the character from the comic books.

The story- Superhero movies are about two things: saving the world and action/explosions/fight-scenes.  Spy movies are about two things: lies and trust.  Combining them, like in Winter Soldier, makes for an interesting movie, if not exactly revolutionary.  Cap is a big boy scout at heart, wanting to do the right thing for mom and apple pie - but now he's working for S.H.I.E.L.D., who like all spy organizations is full of secrets and deception and 'trust me I'm doing it for the greater good but you can't know about it.'  I do love a line from Nick Fury where he reminds Cap that even the 'Greatest Generation' of the 40's did some things to be ashamed of - no generation has ever been perfect, and hindsight tends to gloss over the ugly parts of history.  And when Nick Fury is attacked, and warns Cap 'don't trust anyone,' it becomes apparent that something rotten is going on in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s shadowy Denmark.  Which then sends Cap, The Black Widow, and new friend Falcon on a race to save the world, since this is a superhero movie too.  And being a superhero movie, we need a super villain in The Winter Soldier, a Russian assassin with a robotic arm who can give even Cap a run for his money in a fight.
    I really liked this movie, and I really liked how Marvel branched out to make a superhero movie that isn't just about men in tights (and women in revealing tights).  The bit of spy thriller in the plot helps to make it a more well-rounded movie - and makes the Captain America series even better.  In the first Cap we had the period war drama/superhero movie, now we get Spy Games (I had to throw in the reference)/superhero movie and that is great since it covers all the the comic book Captain America's history and character.  He was a man of two eras, someone who struggled to do the right thing when that's not always easy to see, let alone do.  And added to the modern age of electronic surveillance, drones and the complicated threats the world faces it makes for an interesting story and makes Cap the one superhero from The Avengers who actually feels like he fits in the world.  Overall I'd have to say that even for its over-the-top special effects and save-the-world storyline, it actually feels like a very grounded and real kind of superhero movie, which is a neat trick.

My recommendation- worth paying full price, and if you're not really into superhero movies, you should give this one a try (catch the cheap show, it might surprise you)

The Homeless Nerd Reviews: Thor: The Dark World

At a glance- superhero action [this Thor is more superhero than god], otherworldly special effects, some good comedic moments

What is it?  Thor and Captain America were two Marvel heroes who I did not think would do well on the big screen (and have not in the past).  Thankfully, I was wrong and both turned into excellent movies.  Now, we need to see if Marvel can bring the magic again in the sequels to both characters.  We'll have to wait until next April for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but Thor: The Dark World opened today (or, well, really last night).  Once again we have the Nordic deity-turned-superhero ("There's no difference between us and humans... Except 5,000 years or so" as Thor and Loki banter in the movie) with his long-distance romance of an Earth woman, and of course evil threats from beyond time and space.  One of the things I like about Thor is how it is the vast series in the Marvel universe, it takes place across different planets and the furthest reaches of the galaxy.  That is a good epic backdrop for the scope that comic books have always had, but comic movies have lacked.  And heck, the special effects do look great.  This is where I'd usually comment on differences between the comics and the movies, but Thor was never really a favorite character of mine, so I honestly don't know his comic history very well.

The acting- We have a lot of actors reprising their roles.  Chris Hemsworth is Thor, and does a great job of not just the look, but the almost Hamlet-like brooding and semi-archaic speaking.  I think he has been great in the role.  Also great is Tom Hiddleston as Loki, back again to wreak havoc and illusion.  He has also managed to hit just the right note of multiple-personality disorder for the deity of chaos.  Natalie Portman is Dr. Jane Foster, and while she has a bit of the 'damsel in distress' in this movie, she also does a decent job of being the 'save the day scientist.'  She is watchable, but I really wish her character was defined a bit better than 'scientist love interest,' which is the fault of the writers, not her acting.  Anthony Hopkins is Odin, and Rene Russo his wife Frigga.  I do like that she has a cool scene in the film, though also a sad one.  Stealing the show to me are Idris Elba as Himedall, who may not have much screen time but manages to look awesome during every second of it.  And Stellan Skarsgård as Dr. Selvig, not quite right in the head from his last run-in with Loki in The Avengers, also makes his limited time seem like more than it is.  New to the movie is Christopher Eccleston as our main bad guy (bad elf?), Malekith.  He is okay, the role is a slightly over-the-top villain, but not particularly memorable (again though, more the fault of writing than acting).

The story- There's a short into explaining that before there was light in the universe there were the Dark Elves (who must have stumbled around a lot) and they had an evil super-weapon the Aether.  They tried to destroy the galaxy of light to make it dark again (why didn't they prevent it in the first place, don't know) but were stopped by the Asgarians (Odin's father in particular).  But of course the evil super-weapon couldn't be destroyed (they never can) so it was hidden where no one would ever find it again (which is about 20 minutes into the movie).  Cut to the present where our love interest Dr. Foster is trying to go on a date and forget about Thor, who apparently never calls and never writes.  While she is investigating The Convergence, a time when all 9 planets/ galaxies/ somethings line up (which is always a bad time, never like a time of great happiness or merriment or anything) Thor is off policing the realms with his trusty sidekicks.  She stumbles across the evil super-weapon, he takes her home to meet mother in Asgard, and the evil bad guys wreak havoc, forcing Thor and Loki to team up, and ending with the final battle in London (nice to go across the pond since Avengers was in New York, still waiting to go to Canada for Alpha Flight though).
    There is a lot of special effects, and they look great, of course (a small city's worth of animators will do that).  The music was also nice, I thought it complimented the movie well (go London Philharmonic Orchestra).  There is plenty of banter and some good one-liners, to break up the action.  Not too many slow spots, it seems to move at a decent pace - for being almost 2 hours it didn't really feel like it.  My only complaints would be that the evil Dark Elves don't really look that evil, they look like deranged Kabuki theater performers.  And if the Asgardians have high tech like guns, why the heck do they attack everything with a sword and shield?  That's just stupid.  The mix of techno-fantasy doesn't always feel quite right, it might have been better had they picked one or the other.  Still, for a few flaws it works well and is very entertaining.
    This movie, being Marvel, has a clip after the credits, and like The Avengers it has two.  Once the movie ends there is a short animated credits sequence, then a clip that sets up the future story (points if you actually know what character appears, and I was surprised at the actor), then there is the long text credits, and finally a really short but cute scene.  So plan on sitting and chatting for a while after the movie itself.  One thing I hated when I was working at the movie theater was how people would wait for something at the end of the credits when for almost all movies there isn't anything - it made us late to start cleaning.

My recommendation- worth full price (though don't unless you have to), even if you didn't see the last one odds are you'll get this easily; if you've liked any of the Marvel movies so far, this is just as good as the others.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews: Ender's Game

At a glance- science-fiction children go to war against aliens

What is it?   Based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is set in the future after an alien attack by the Formic (called the 'buggers' in the novel).  Earth is set to counter-attack the aliens, but needs a new breed of commanders, who start training as children.  This is a somewhat hard-SF novel, that is, it's based mostly on science and not thinly-veiled fantasy like Star Wars.  It is not really dystopian, but the future of the story is not a happy one.  And for being written in the 70s it has some fairly high-tech machinery like faster-than-light communication and Dr. Device, a cannon that disintegrates anything it hits.  This is a strange book/story, because while it is military SF, its protagonist is a kid.  Which may throw some people, who might not like it because "children don't think or act like that," but that's what drew me to the story.  As a kid I remember not liking most kids stuff, it was too stupid, it talked down to me.  I liked to read and watch the same things my parents did.  Transformers and GI Joe were entertaining, but you knew they were 'kids stuff' whereas Bugs Bunny was actually kind of smart and funny as well (only Bugs could do the 3 day epic Wagner opera in 8 minutes).  Ender is a kid who doesn't think or act like kid, which may make him more or less 'realistic' depending on your point of view about children.

The acting- Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin does a pretty good job.  His face manages to convey a good amount of emotion, which is vital since most of the story is really about what's going on in Ender's head.  My only complaint about him would be that he's too tall, a shorter actor would have conveyed Ender's underdog theme better visually.  Harrison Ford as Colonel Graf makes a strong appearance, which feels oddly out of balance if you've read the book.  In the book Graf only appears a few times, in the movie they kept all those times (and added a little), but dropped so much other stuff that Graf suddenly moves from background character to the forefront.  Jimmy 'Jax' Pinchak and Abigail Breslin as Peter and Valentine Wiggin have so little screen time that there's no point in rating their performances, another divergence from the book where they are just as important, in different ways, as Ender himself.  Ben Kingsley makes a strong showing as Mazor Rackham, with his Maori tattoos (sadly, only at the end of the story).  Nonso Anozie as Dap is actually the only character I liked better in the movie than in the book (book Dap is forgettable, movie Dap is cool).  Lastly all the other kids do a decent job for the little screen time they get, though Hailee Steinfeld as Petra has a much bigger role than in the book, and almost a teen-romance sub-plot that is totally different from the book, and almost (but not quite) works in the movie.

The story- When I heard that they were going to make The Hobbit into 3 movies of 3 hours each I thought to myself, "that's too long."  There just isn't enough material in the novel to support that many films.  On the opposite side, Ender's Game really, really, really should have been two movies.  If I had to give a one-word review of the movie it would be: rushed.  Everything just goes by too fast.  Ender is a Third, that is the third child of his parents, in a future when only two children are allowed to each family (presumably due to over-population, never really addressed a lot in the book).  After a devastating war with aliens, the planetary government is looking for commanders to lead the counter-attack against the aliens, on their own worlds instead of Earth.  Ender's brother Peter is brilliant, but vicious.  His sister Valentine is brilliant, but compassionate.  So the government allows Ender to be born, with a mix of empathy to read his opponents and determination to defeat them totally.  This is the core foundation of the whole story, and is totally neglected in the movie.
    Ender doesn't really want to be a soldier, but he is determined to protect his sister from the alien threat just as she protected him from the cruelty of their brother.  Again, not really used in the movie except for quick, passing glimpses.  Worst of all, Ender is constantly isolated- no one ever helps him, he has to look after himself.  Sadly, in the movie he is almost always shown with others, he lacks the alone-ness that made him push himself to be the best soldier, and later becomes one of the burdens of being a commander.  He goes to Battle School, a space station that puts kids in armies fighting in a zero-gravity game.  There he manages to outwit the bullies, become the top soldier, then create his own army, and become the top commander.  Which, in the movie, is about 5 scenes.  We hear how brilliant he is, and get to see him lead a whopping total of one battle.  Really?  Anybody can win once, Ender's power was that he always won, he was undefeated.  He starts as a misfit, not well liked by the other kids in both book and movie.  In the book he subtly and cleaverly manipulates the bully to break up trouble before it really starts.  In the movie he is belligerent towards his teachers once, and then all the kids magically love him.
    I know I'm doing a lot of talking about the book for a movie review, but I feel it's necessary not just because the movie is based on a book, but because it says a lot about the approach of books and movies, and the kinds of stories you can tell with each.  The unlimited imagination you bring to a book means that a story can literally put you inside the head of a character, seeing the world through their eyes and feeling their feelings.  But a movie, being visual, has to keep you at arm's length, outside and watching as events unfold.  I don't know why Hollywood hates the voice-over, which at least provides a little insight into a character while the action is happening.  Some of it is used here, as Ender narrating emails to his sister, but not enough.  This is a story about the inner development of a child into a man, burdened with the responsibilities of his intellect and actions and the society and people that use him - all internal stuff, which does not play well in an external film.  There are ways to do it, look at Momento, which for all the complexity of its storytelling manages to really put you in the disjointed world of its main character.  Sadly Ender's Game doesn't hit that strong note, and things just flash by without any proper build up for the pay off, and a lot of very good sub-plots that support the main story got cut out.
    So is this just another forgettable special effects extravaganza?  No, it's not that bad.  It has some emotion, some passion.  It looks great, the Battle Room is perfect, absolutely perfect (and then the final Command School setup is over-done, can't have everything I guess).  It's a little different from most science-fiction movies, which is a good thing.

My recommendation- if you like military- or science-fiction then catch the cheap show, and if you even liked just a tiny bit of it go get the book, it won several top awards for a reason.  Also, after you read the book of Ender's Game, read Ender's Shadow, which provides a wonderful re-telling of the main story from a different point of view.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews: Riddick

At a glance- sci-fi action, monsters, and attitude

What is it?  My philosophy for movies is that you have to look at them as what they are, not what you want.  For example, I love good dialogue in a movie (part of why I like old movies).  But with a movie like Riddick, you don't watch it for its snappy dialogue.  Now, you expect that there will be some good one-liners, but this is a special effects action film first and foremost.  So, as the third movie (not counting one animated film) beginning with Pitch Black (which I have only seen parts of) and then The Chronicles of Riddick (saw it, liked it well enough), this is all about the main character.  Riddick is a criminal and murderer, so everybody says repeatedly, but we never see him actually hurt innocent people or kill for just the fun of it.  He's a dark anti-hero, in a science-fiction universe that is not the happy, bright, lens-flare future of Star Trek.  Riddick is tough, surviving impossible odds, and can see in the dark.  And it seems like everyone in the universe is hunting him.  This is the bar that the filmmakers have set for the franchise, and the measure it must be held to.

The acting- Vin Diesel is Riddick, he's stamped the role with his own personality (and physique) to the point where I doubt anyone else could pull it off.  Matthew Nable is a mercenary who wants to capture Riddick, who happens to be worth more dead than alive.  Katee Sackhoff, from the new Battlestar Galatica series, is another merc.  And honestly the rest of them don't stick around long enough to get attached to.  Karl Urban does return as Vaako, but only for about 15 seconds.  Given that the film is more about the action than the acting, they all put in good enough appearances.

The story- Conan the barbarian rose through the ranks to become king, which the movies never addressed because it's not as exciting as running around slaying monsters.  I think something of that fantasy barbarian inspired the sci-fi barbarian of Riddick, who in the last movie also became king of the Necromongers.  Which, not being as exciting (though it could be if you did it right) means that he has to leave.  He makes a deal with second-in-command Vaako (mistake #1).  Vaako supposedly knows the location of Riddick's home planet, and for a trip there Riddick agrees to step down.  Of course, Riddick is betrayed and left for dead.  So our opening is Riddick, stranded alone on a dangerous planet, in the Man vs Nature, and Monsters, motif.  Eventually he finds an outpost used by mercenaries, and realizes he has to get off the planet as soon as possible.  So he activates a beacon, telling the mercenaries that he's there - and he is worth a lot of money so they soon arrive.  Two teams of mercs land, and Riddick tries to reason with them, then starts killing them.  For, dum dum dum, the planet is full of mud-monsters (part scorpion and part crocodile), and a gigantic storm is going to bring them out (along with the requisite darkness) and everyone needs to escape.
    Not having seen the first movie, I was told by my friends that it was a lot like the first movie.  The mercs are not good guys, you really don't mind watching them die.  Riddick is actually a pretty decent guy for being a murdering psychopath.  The planet looks fairly alien, and the monsters fairly scary.  We see Riddick showing his indomitable will to survive (he is very Conan in that respect), and his predatory cunning, and his voice-overs help make up for his general lack of dialogue.  There's no deep thought required, just watch the sci-fi barbarian, who in a world full of guns always ends up using a knife.  That simplicity, though, is a part of its charm.  You don't need to guess the mystery or contemplate the deep meanings, you just go and watch and enjoy.  I went to see it just to have something to do with my friends I was visiting after the hours and hours we had been talking and catching up.  For some casual entertainment, which was what it was meant to deliver, it delivers.

My recommendation- catch the cheap show, if you liked the series or the Conan movies, otherwise you won't miss anything if you skip it

The Homeless Nerd Reviews: The Wolverine

At a glance- troubled superhero fights great odds and finds love and self-acceptance

What is it?   With X-Men: Days of Future Past coming out next year, and all the success of Marvel movies, apparently we need something to revitalize interest in the X-Men franchise.  This movie takes place after X-Men 3, which is an odd choice on several levels.  First, X-Men 3 was a pretty bad movie, and it would have been better to take the Highlander route and pretend it never happened (I kid Highlander, but I actually like the series, 'nother post though).  Also, in the comic books Wolverine went to Japan before he ever met the X-Men.  Still, we get to see more of everyone's favorite angry mutant (though he's written more as perturbed, or grouchy, and only gets angry when he screams apparently - not like the comic character).

The acting-   I have always thought Hugh Jackman has done a fine job as Wolverine.  Mind you, this is Wolverine the movie character, not Wolverine the comic character.  Comic Wolverine is short, the shortest character on the X-Men team (except perhaps Jubilee, who is a teenage girl).  Comic Wolverine is also angry, like really angry, like old Norse Berserker angry - scenes with him tend to use a lot of red ink.  I can see where nobody in movies likes to be short (look at how Tom Cruise is always filmed as taller than he really is)(not that I'm saying Mr. Jackman is short, from what I gather he isn't, rather why they didn't hire a shorter actor) and to keep the series PG-ish you have to tone down the violence (though, why use such an inherently violent character then?)  So for what he was given, I think he does a good job.  I do not remember ever seeing the leading ladies of the story, they do okay.  Mariko (Tao Okamoto) and her friend Yukio (Rila Fukushima) are watchable but evil-poison-doctor lady (Svetlana Khodchenkova) is like a bad over-the-top Jim Carry villain, not the actress' fault but rather the writer's.  Psycho-dad (Hiroyuki Sanada) might have been interesting if he actually got enough screen time for me to care, and old guy (Hal Yamanouchi), well, is there (again, I didn't like the writing for him).

The story-   We start off with our hero in the Alaskan wilderness, dreaming of Jean Grey, whom he had to kill in X-Men 3 because she went crazy and was trying to wipe out humanity.  Traumatized by what he did, he lives alone like an animal, away from all human contact.  This was the first part of the story that I didn't like.  I hate the, well, wimpification  (if I can make up a word here) of all my favorite superheroes.  Batman goes all waa-waa whiny and hides for 8 years, now Wolverine goes all waa-waa whiny because he saved the world but had to kill a woman that he loved, while she was involved with another man (whom she killed).  I can understand pain and loss, sure, what I hate though is when heroic characters have to be reduced to "mere mortals" in some misguided attempt to make them more likable.  I don't want them to be likable, I want them to be heroes.  Heroes go on, they endure, they may hate themselves but they don't wimp out and hide in a corner - that what mere mortals like me do, and I can see my own life anytime I want.  Plus, to me, from reading the comics, Wolverine doesn't get sad as much as he got angry- I could easily and happily see a tormented Wolverine going out and beating the hell out of every bad person he could find; that would seem much more appropriate to the character.
    We also have a flashback to Japan during World War 2 where Wolverine was imprisoned as a POW or something, apparently right across the street from Nagasaki.  Okay, I get that Wolverine has super-healing and dropping a nuclear bomb in his vicinity is just an inconvenience - but the fact that he had a regular human with him totally ruined that scene.  My. Normal Guy is dead, dead, dead from breathing in all that radiation dust even if he somehow survives the explosion itself (and note to Hollywood, explosions expand to fill all available space (the "mushroom cloud" itself is because the pressure wave going down rebounds off the ground and then goes up taking dirt and debris with it), being down or to the side or behind something doesn't help at all if you are too close to the blast).  So a mysterious young lady tracks down our Mr. Fussypants hero and says the guy he saved in Japan is dying and wants to give our hero a final gift.
    So Wolvie goes to Japan.  The bath scene was actually my favorite moment of the whole movie.  Finally he meets with old guy.  Old guy says he can 'cure' Wolverine and make him mortal again, free him from the curse of eternal life.  And here was another moment when I saw my character going, 'screw you bub' because while he always fought and struggled with his own nature, comic Wolverine never gave it up.  He was the best at what he did, and took pride in that, and went to Japan, in comics, to try to harness and control his endless rage so he would be better at killing the things he wanted to kill.  Movie Wolverine also turns down the offer, but not as dramatically as I'd liked to have seen.  Of course, things get complicated.  Old guy dies and his daughter is attacked at the funeral, and Wolverine rushes in to help her - only, he discovers he is not healing as fast as he should be.  Oh no, he's losing his powers.  Really?  Again, the whole point of a super-hero is that they have super-powers, you can't really separate one from the other, but I already ranted about my disdain for the mere-mortal/super-hero thing above, so I'll let it go.  I will say that the fight on top of the bullet train was cool, it was a nice little twist on the typical train fight sequence.
    Alone at last with the girl, old guy's grand-daughter, Wolvie gets in touch with his softer side.  She's heard stories about him all her life from old guy, so she's a little infatuated with him.  They run, they hide, she gets kidnapped (come on, like you didn't see that coming even from my terse description).  Wolvie finds out evil doctor lady put a thing in his heart that is techno-magically stopping his healing factor (said healing factor being the thing that spits out bullets when he gets shot, no, no, won't go there).  Which actually leads to one of the other few good scenes, Wolvie cuts open his own chest and pulls out the thingie - which is a totally-hard-core Wolverine kind of thing to do.
    Then we have our climax.  Minor spoiler alert here (though I'll talk around it), you might want to skip to 'My Recommendation' if you haven't seen the movie.  Last chance.  Okay, so we see the Silver Samurai, which I actually liked as a giant robot instead of a person, I thought it was one of the few changes from the comic original that was for the better.  SS-bot is coated in adamantium, the indestrictable metal that also coats Wolvie's bones and claws.  Inside is the evil mastermind of this whole overly-long affair, which was a big mistake.  It should have been Mariko inside.  Really, if the whole sub/co-plot is how Wolvie is tormented about killing the woman-he-loved-from-afar, then having his new love, Mariko, inside the bot (which would be remotely piloted or something) would have made a hell of a lot more sense.  It would have been dramatic.  And, if SS-bot is adamantium  and heats up hot enough to cut through adamantium , then a) adamantium isn't really indestructible like we were told and b) it would melt itself into a fairly harmless little puddle !!!  Finally, the ending dream sequence with Jean is totally stupid.  She asks why Wolvie killed her, he says she was hurting other people, and then she leaves presumably never to torment his dreams again - well no duh stupid, that's why you did it in the first place!  He didn't kill her for fun, or because he was tricked, he did it because he had to and our 'revelation' here is nothing new or surprising.

My recommendation-   if you like the character, catch the cheap show (and be ready to cringe) - otherwise you can miss it and be just fine (go rent X-Men: First Class instead, it was actually pretty good)

Movie Review: Iron Man 3

The Homeless Nerd Reviews:

Iron Man 3

At a glance- if you don't know the armor-wearing billionaire genius philanthropist playboy Tony Stark and his Iron alter-ego then you've been living in a cave for the last 5 years

What is it? Back again after solid successes with Iron Man 1 and 2, then a blowout supporting role in The Avengers is our favorite smart-alec inventor. Superhero movies have always been a second-class citizen in the film world, and tend to only last for 3 movies then get canceled or re-booted. So how does our third outing fare? Well... fantastically.

     I have always been a fan of Iron Man. I mostly read the comics way back when, from the original through the Jim Rhodes days and ending about the Red and Silver suit after Obadiah Stane's takeover. Which if you haven't read the comics gives you an idea of how they have altered the original story for the movies. I was a huge fan of the first movie, and liked the second one (which many others seem to disparage), so I was hopeful going into this one. It did not disappoint, and on an interesting level. You go see a movie like Iron Man, and like the character, for the “Iron” part – the cool super-suit of armor and gadgets. Which was a formula that worked great the last few movies. This one however, does a wonderful job of expanding that theme. This movie is really more about Tony Stark than it is about Iron Man.

     One of the wonderful things is in its opening minutes. We watch movies to see heroes going off and doing amazing deeds, but what few movies ever show is what happens afterwords. After the dragon is slain, what does a now ex-dragon-slayer do? What kind of a mark does that leave on a person? After all, we know from real life that the people who go out and do amazing and unusual things, like soldiers and police and firefighters, can have a hard time adjusting to normal life when the flames die down. This is how we meet Tony Stark, who is struggling with fighting aliens and meeting Gods of Thunder and guys who turn into giant green rage-monsters and, well, having his world turned upside-down again. It has left him having trouble sleeping and with his relationships. Which is a great humanizing look into the metal hero. We also have Tony's past coming back to haunt him again. This is a great thing about Iron Man – comparing him with another hero, Spider-Man. Spider-Man is warned that “with great power comes great responsibility” - something Tony Stark never learned as a boy. He's lived a very wild life, and it has made him his own worst enemy: his weapons get turned against him in his original capture and injury then again fighting armored suits built with his own technology, followed by the device saving his life slowly killing him, his actions turn his friends against him and nearly ruin his company, on and on we see his fast and loose lifestyle come back to haunt him. It makes him a very real character as he struggles to deal with the problems that he created himself. This movie takes that another step and builds on the wonderful theme of the hero who can beat every outside foe, it is fighting himself that is his greatest weakness (something the writers of Superman would do well to meditate on).

The acting- Robert Downey Jr is, without a doubt, Tony Stark. It is almost impossible to imagine anyone else doing the role with all the style, flare and mix of braggadocio and vulnerability he has brought to the role. Gwyneth Paltrow is great again as Pepper Potts, and she seems to get better with the role in every appearance. Don Cheadle returns as James Rhodes and I would love to see him in a spin-off movie, he has had so little time on screen to play a role I think he would be great at. Jon Favreau also returns as Happy Hogan and is still the great plucky comic relief, though he gets a little less screen time then in previous movies. All of these actors were great at their roles and continue to deliver.

     New to the franchise are Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, a fellow scientist Tony once snubbed who returns with an invention of his own. Mr. Pearce is a great villain who's diabolical plot was something I liked. Clever in an evil way. And Ben Kingsly is The Mandarin. I was surprised to hear that, in the comics the original Mandarin had 10 magic rings. As an opposite to Tony, the Mandarin used magic and people instead of technology and suits. So I was wondering if they were going to try to throw some magic into the mostly tech series, which sounded tricky at best. Thankfully they did not, and the movie Mandarin's magic is a very wonderful little plot twist. This was a great role in my opinion, though I'm sure some will disagree. There is no disputing that Mr. Kingsly is a great actor though.

     Last I want to mention two others. First is Ty Simpkins, a talented 12 year old who has a small but memorable role in the movie as Harley Keener. I want to give credit to him and the writers for his part – typically I hate kids in movies. They tend to stupid roles as either annoying brat or budding super-genius (which is just annoying in a different way), in this move though he is a great little comic relief part. Secondly is Paul Bettany as the voice of the super-computer Jarvis. While not integral to the plot, Jarvis provides such great comic relief as the straight man and his distinctive voice.

The story- the movie opens with a flashback to 1999 and a young Tony Stark doing something he says in voice-over will come back to haunt him. He is at a party and meets the attractive biologist Maya Hansen while making fun of the disabled nerdy Aldrich Killian. Cut to the present where we see Tony having trouble sleeping, haunted by the alien attack of The Avengers, and a new terrorist called The Mandarin is making threats and killing people. I really don't want to go into the storyline of the movie, it is meant to have some plot twists that I'd rather not spoil. I will say that we see brash and arrogant Tony Stark as a much more flawed and vulnerable person than we have seen previously. There is no final robot-on-robot fight (though of course, the suit makes its appearance), this story is focused more on Tony the man. We get to see him go MacGuyver and build some improvised gadgets, banter with a kid (who is, surprisingly, a good addition to the story unlike most kids in movies) which lets us kind of see Tony looking back on the better parts of his younger self while fighting his worst nature that got him into trouble in the first place.

My recommendation- see it on the big screen, worth full price

P. S.- yes, being a Marvel film there is a small clip after the credits that is totally worth waiting for

Review- GI Joe Retaliation

The Homeless Nerd Reviews:

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

At a glance- standard action fare loosely based on the toys, and a surprisingly good bad movie

What is it? In G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra we got the beginning of the Joes and their evil foe. I was a big fan of the toys as a kid, along with the Transformers; but while the Transformers movie reboot mostly worked, the Joes have not fared as well in translating to the big screen. The first Joe movie was, well, bad. Now, it was a pretty bad kids cartoon to start with, so I don't think anyone was expecting high art. But the funny thing was that for being a bad movie, it was actually kinda good. Well . . . watchable, let's say watchable. A trend that the sequel continues.

     Rebooting or translating any existing series to the big screen is a hard task. Audiences change, and what once looked like a cool idea for kids raised on Go-bots and He-Man look much different to kids raised on Power Rangers and Yu-Gi-Oh – not to mention The Venture Bros or Archer. So who do you target, the kids now grown up or the current generation? If you want to appeal to both, how do you juggle being true to the original and yet fresh and new? Often, given that most reboots stink, I don't think we appreciate how hard of a job it is in the first place.

     The trick is to identify the things that made the original most appealing. Something I think the Joe movies have really missed. At its heart, GI Joe was an ensemble story. There were literally dozens of different Joes, and each one had a backstory and unique costume as well as different abilities. Each Joe was supposed to be the best of the best in his/her field. And, of course, they had all the coolest toys and guns and vehicles. One good thing from this massive cast was that you could almost guarantee that you could find a Joe who you thought was neat and liked to watch. Sadly the movies have given us a smaller cast, made everybody wear about the same uniforms (which reduces their uniqueness), and shown a cool vehicle in just one scene, maybe two. For an action movie/concept/series there is a consistently depressing lack of action. For a gathering of different personalities everybody feels the same.

     Still, as I said at the beginning, it's not all bad.

The acting- We do have several characters, if not quite the whole Joe roster, to watch. Dwayne Johnson plays Roadblock and is an old hand at playing the action hero, of which he does a passable job. D.J. Cotrona plays Flint - not sure why Flint is in the movie since he only has a few lines (and is not the Flint I remember from the cartoons). Adrianne Palicki plays Lady Jaye – she does a good job playing a sadly stereotyped character. Would have been nice to have seen a tough, confident woman soldier who didn't wear skimpy clothing (granted, for only one scene); but that's asking for a lot from Hollywood. Ray Park is Snake Eyes, and the former Darth Maul does a good job playing the character who doesn't talk except with his fists. Lastly we have Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton. I kind of liked him, his acting was fine, but the role itself I wondered at – he didn't seem to fill in any missing gaps in the story, and his character had only a small part in the original comic books.

     Oddly enough, for a GI Joe movie, it is the villains who really steal the show. Arnold Vosloo is Zartan, and he is awesome. This is not the whiny Zartan of the cartoon, it is the more sinister yet smart-alec Zartan of the comic books. He was the best performance. Byung-hun Lee is Storm Shadow and does a great job looking, and most importantly moving, the part. Ray Stevenson is Firefly and for having a background role really manages to make his character stand out.

     Playing both good and bad roles is Jonathan Pryce as the President/Zartan-in-disguise. This is actually a very hard role to play, and he does it well. Playing both roles meant altering his mannerisms and speech to fit two characters, and I liked how he pulled it off. He actually gets very little time as the President, mostly playing his evil twin.

     Despite being on the posters, Channing Tatum reprises his role as Duke for just a few minutes on screen. The characters of Jinx (Elodie Yung) and the Blind Master (RZA) have minor roles, and like Bruce Willis' character could have easily been dropped.

The story- When we left our heroes the shape-shifting Zartan was pretending to be President of the US while Cobra Commander and his cronies had been captured. We have a short scene of Duke ineptly playing Call of Duty (which is a funny scene) with Roadblock's family before our heroes go off to recover some nukes and of course shoot bad guys. This is where the movie does something that I really, really hate to see. Zartan, as pretend President, orders the destruction of the GI Joes and our heroes get ambushed. Now granted, we don't see any bodies – just a pile of dog tags later – but you never, never kill off any heroes at the beginning of a sequel. It is a poor way to repay your audience who invested themselves in the characters in one movie to then kill said characters at the beginning of the next (Aliens 3 still sticks in my craw, I loved Hicks). Plus, the first movie made Duke and Ripcord seem like closest buddies – Roadblock wasn't in the first movie at all. So what happened to Ripcord? He elope with Scarlett? (who was, in the comics, close to Snake Eyes – don't want to upset the guy with the samurai sword)

     So with our huge cast of Joes cut down to just 3 (Roadblock, Flint and Jaye) our heroes have to escape the desert and track down the person who betrayed them. Who would be Zartan, disguised as the President. First we detour to seeing the super-secret prison holding Cobra Commander and Destro. Snake Eyes is brought in, and then revealed to be Storm Shadow. Now, why doesn't this raise any alarms? You think you have captured a renegade Joe, yet instead have a Cobra? In a prison of Cobra leadership? A ninja? Any yet nobody thinks, hmm.... this might be an escape attempt? So of course they all escape, with some help from Firefly – who has explosive mini-robot bombs shaped like his namesake.

     The real Snake Eyes is training fellow ninja Jinx and working to capture Storm Shadow, who killed their former ninja master. Injured from the prison breakout SS is in a Himalayan secret ninja hideout. Why does the Cobra health care plan involve going to the middle of nowhere when you are critically injured? Our ninja fight scene is somewhat underwhelming, but SS and SE's faceoff is okay. Storm Shadow is captured, and reveals that he is not a bad guy, someone framed him for the death of the Hard Master and he fled to find the true killer. This is actually true to the comics, in a pleasant change of pace.

     So former enemy-turned-friend in tow we meet up with our other heroes, who have discovered that the President isn't really the President. They decide to storm the nuclear disarmament talk the fake President is hosting. Apparently the Cobras managed to send a giant death ray (well, death rock) satellite into orbit and nobody noticed. This is actually a very odd scene. Zartan tricks every country present into launching, then detonating all their nuclear missiles. Then threatens them with destruction by death rock, and blows up London to prove the point. So Paris last movie, London this one – it sucks to be outside the US in this series. It is supposed to be very serious and evil-is-about-to-win, yet is also very funny and Zartan kind of does the world a favor by getting rid of a whole lot of nukes. It has a lot of layers.

     Of course the shooting then starts, and we are treated to our one scene of Roadblock driving a super-tank against the Cobra super-tanks; none of which reminded me of the comics. The death rock satellite can be stopped by just pushing a button on the briefcase that controls it (an astounding lack of safeguards) which our heroes fight over and of course ultimately win the day.

     Set up for a third movie, we have the closing ceremony and the vow to stop our evil villains.

My recommendation- wait for it on Redbox/Netflix/cable, if you're really a fan or bored it is worth catching the cheap show

Movie Commentary: 2013 Oscar Nominated Short Films – Animated

At a glance- 8 animated films from 2 to 30 minutes; covering drama, comedy, romance, children's stories and just plain visual fun

What is it? It's February, and that means it's Oscar time. A lot of the nominated films have returned to the box office to drum up some more support, and we also have two films that showcase the Oscar-nominated shorts, one for Live Action and the other covering Animated. Being me, I went to see the animated shorts.

     Now, I have to confess that I really like animated works. From the first Bugs Bunny cartoon as a child to the fantastic work done recently by Pixar, and surrounded by a cloud of Japanese Anime over the years. Is this love because I'm such a kid at heart (which sounds kinder than immature)? Actually, no. I have tried over the years to find a way to explain the appeal of animation over live action, and at last I think I've found it. My ex-girlfriend is a huge Opera Lover (and note the capitols as I describe her)(she also sings opera like an angel), and so of course I listened to some opera myself. I loved it. It was opera that actually explained animation to me. See, in opera I don't know the language (no left-brain) – so I am listening to the music and the tone of the singing; it is a very right-brained activity. Animation is the same way. An animated character can convey far, far more emotion then any but the most skilled human actor – because the animated character is not constrained by reality. Eyes are almost always exaggerated, expressions can literally become larger than the character's head, and the background changes at a whim. All of this brings a character's inner emotions to life, it is the right-brained way of telling, and viewing, a story.

     Shorts add an extra dimension to the animation. A short film has no room to waste, every frame has to build the story and advance the emotions that are trying to be conveyed. It is a hard, fast punch to the gut (when done right, a forgettable commercial when done wrong).

     If I remember correctly (which happens from time to time) last year the shorts were all just presented one after the other. This year, there are two hosts who briefly speak in-between each short film. William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg are directors of last year's Oscar-winning "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," and it was a great short. While some may wonder why you would need hosts for a 90 minute total collection of mostly 5 minute films, they actually were a very good idea. They provide a break, a way to let go of the last short and get ready for the one to come. Like having a glass of water to clear the palate in-between courses of a meal. And since the first 7 shorts have no dialogue, they also provide some human voices.

     Preamble aside, let's get to the shorts themselves. First, we have the nominees (in the order they appear in the film):

"Maggie Simpson in 'The Longest Daycare' "

Little baby Maggie has stepped out of The Simpsons and into her own short. This is a very cute story. Poor Maggie is put in a machine that deems her to be “normal intelligence” and she is dumped in a corner with the kids who are “nothing special.” She finds a caterpillar, which another child wants to smash, and she struggles to rescue it from the evil hammer of her nemesis.

"Fresh Guacamole"

At only 2 minutes this is the shortest of all the films. It is simply making fresh guacamole, as the title says, but with some odd ingredients. Like a hand grenade, baseball, dice and more. Claymation and brillant.

"Adam and Dog"

A dog is man's best friend, right? This short seeks to explain that. We see dog, roaming by himself, who meets Adam in the Garden of Eden. They form a bond, until Eve enters the picture. But even when the two first humans are cast out of the garden, dog follows loyally. This is a nice short, but I think a lot of it's impact comes from weather or not you like dogs. Cat lovers may not be so impressed.

"Head Over Heels"

A somewhat odd love story about a husband who lives on the floor and wife who lives on the ceiling. Something has broken them up, in more than just the spacial sense, and so we follow as they try to deal with their relationship. Good, very good story and well done. The only odd thing was that just a few days before seeing this I watched a preview for “Upside Down” which is an upcoming feature live action film about a boy and girl who live on worlds that mirror each other. Not sure if the short or people who worked on it had anything to do with the movie coming out next month.

"Paperman"

I had seen this one, so have you if you watched Disney's “Wreck-It Ralph” last year. This is a very cute boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-tries-to-get-girl's-attention-with-paper-airplanes story. You know, the classic romance.

     Then we have some shorts that are highly commended:

“Abiogenesis” – is a gorgeous special-effects short. It shows a machine that lands on a barren planet and fills it with life. Computer animated, and with such a level of detail it must have taken a heck of a lot of work to render.

“Dripped” – a tribute to Jackson Pollock, this is the rather unusual story of an art thief. Not merely stealing paintings, he actually eats them – until finally exploding in a burst of colors. This is an old-style computer animation, everything is pixelated, which surprisingly has a lot of charm. I liked the story, the artist so full of art that he can't paint something, he has to just release the paints in a frenzy. I am not much of an art guy, so I had to look up Mr. Pollock on Wikipedia the next day, but I think this is a fitting tribute to his work.

“The Gruffalo's Child” – at almost 30 minutes this is the longest, and out of the 8 shorts the only one with dialogue. An adaptation of a 2004 children's book of the same name (itself a sequel to the 1999 book, “The Gruffalo” and using the same characters) with an all-star voice cast and beautiful animation. This is a rhyming-couplet children's poem brought to life; and a very cute story of a curious child and clever mouse.

My recommendation- go see it if you want to just relax and enjoy a visual feast

P.S.- in case you were wondering, my vote is for "Fresh Guacamole" to win. It is a great example of the animated and short styles. It is like watching a wonderful magic trick. All of them are good, but I liked that one best.