It's All About the Benjamins

Jump to Comments Maybe you remember back in 2004 when I reviewed that year’s upcoming movies, and then promptly forgot about ever doing such a thing, or even a followup to my initial predictions. Well, I decided to do it again. This time… it’s personal?

Angels and Demons: +4 This book was a lot less blatant nonsensical crap than the Da Vinci Code. Then again I think I read it in High School or at most freshman in college. Though, I think the one thing that puts this at an absolute higher level than Da Vinci Code movie is that they can’t mis-cast Jean Reno again. Look guys, Jean Reno is not a bumbling detective. He’s a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and through. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would’ve immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.

Dragonball Evolution: -7 MOMMY MAKE IT STOP

Fast and the Furious 4: But should Be Fast and Furious 2: +2 This might turn out to be all right. I mean, you know, I can always go for a little bit of ludicrous RICER SOCAL NOSSSS nonsense, so long as I don’t actually have to see cars like that on the road.

GI Joe: Rise of the Colon: -1 Lame. Some dude at the super bowl party I was at shouted “Why are you raping my childhood” after the commercial for it showed in the most Comic Book Guy way ever. Honestly, I’m not sure whether that comment or the movie will be lamer. But, whatever, THIS SUMMER, SOMETHING WILL BE…. LAME.

Tokyo Sonata
Tokyo No I’m not really reviewing these I just think it’s odd there are two movies with almost the same name coming out.

Land of the Lost: -2 “Why are you raping my childhood” — uh, I mean, they should have made a Herculoids movie. That was such a better piece of Hanna Barbara filler crap than Land of the Lost. Gleep and Gloop in 4K CGI FTW LOL BBQ.

Watchmen: -4 Oh look, it’s about superheroes but not really, because it’s more real and gritty and … edgy. Okay this might have been some sort of landmark comic book when it came out, but the whole idea of deconstructing the notion of what comic book superheroes are has been done already. Several times. As large-budget films. Look: the whole classic ideals of superheroes are dumb, we get it. But what what movies like this, and say, the Spiderman movies or the Matrix sequels don’t get is that some sort of angst-ridden dystopian version of these characters is just as puerile, regardless of how many 14-34 year old males there are who think Rage Against the Machine-type music and desaturated or oversaturated film stock makes everything awesome. As an aside, the thing that is excellent about these new Batman movies that makes them so good is that he’s not really a superhero. In fact, Bruce Wayne is just barely an action hero: he’s this possibly-nutty billionaire industrialist who as “one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands.” These movies stand on their own as films — if they didn’t have the few vestigial trappings of comic books, it’d essentially be a Jean Reno movie. But back on Watchmen, I’ve already sat in a seat for 3 hours absorbing dark information-dense story laced with cartoon caricatures of Nixon and Kissinger: it’s called IS 823 American Foreign Policy.

Public Enemies: +5 Oh, this looks so good. Johnny Depp is Robin Hood tommy-gun-tottaly gangster from Indiana. Yeah, John Dillinger. Oh, and plus, Batman is like a 1930s version of … Batman without a costume but all of the crime-fighting. But it’s by that stupid director that seems to think that filming high-budget motion pictures with obvious digicams is cool. If this were on actual film, or at least some sort of digital camera that didn’t look like a home movie in the dark, it would totally be +7

Star Trek: +6 I think that toastyfrog guy said it the best: “Dear new Star Trek movie: please don’t suck. Your new trailer shows definite potential!”