Climbing Higher Pictures » Zoe Saldana

Superspy Team Movie 1/3… Are they Winners, or The Losers Exclusive Review

ghm101 — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 02:54:29 +0000

I’m not really sure what is is about The Losers, but they seemed to be doomed from the start. Shifting release dates, mediocre buzz coming out of Comic-Con, huge competition in the form of The A-Team and The Expendables. Yet there was a certain entertainment value to the trailers. A popcorn fluffiness that could just amount to a great night at the movies. Does the film deliver? Find out below:

The Losers Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: C+

It just doesn’t quite work… Let me rewind a bit. I enjoy action movies. I enjoy comic book movies. I very much enjoy the combinations between the two, and have even been known to appreciate those prior attempts which have frustrated and angered others. Let’s face it, I’m the target demo for movies with one-liners and stuff blowing up. So when your entire movie hinges on the two above concepts, and I still can’t decide whether it was worth my time, you have serious problems.

For starters, the production team is phenomenal. You’ve got a script by James Vanderbilt and Peter Berg, based on a recent hit comic series. You’ve got Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, and Chris Evans among your supporting players. You’ve got a pretty expansive budget, and the full weight of Warnerbros. post-Clash of the Titans marketing. Sure the release date has been juggled more times than I can remember, but that’s just a sign of how good the film is depending on the competition, right? Right? Hmm. Maybe somebody up the line realized that it just wasn’t going to be the next Dark Knight and tried to slide it in under the radar before Iron Man 2 blows everyone away to start off the summer. All I know, is as polished a film as The Losers is, your satisfaction isn’t going to be based as much on the movie as on your own personal biases coming in.

The movie is extremely straightforward. In some ways that’s a good thing. It goes direct to the point, doesn’t dilly-dally in territory where it clearly is out of its depth, and doesn’t try to paint the world with anything other than an overly stylized popcorn brush. Problem is, when everything is this clear cut, it’s hard for an audience to find stuff to care about. The bad guy is bad. The good guys are good. Innocent people die. The plot structure revolves around different variations on revenge. Scenes just sort of happen, not because they’re particularly motivated, but because it seemed like the place in the story where a scene like that one should occur. You watch it all unfold on the shallowest of levels, though that allows you to appreciate the visual style more. The comic book flourishes are a nice touch, but they’re starting to feel almost cliché, and where Kick-Ass was fresh, The Losers is decidedly bland. I like cell shaded title sequences as much as the next guy, they just didn’t earn the connection to the source material this time around.

The funniest part of the film is the way it grows on you. The first 20 minutes feel like they should have been preceded by an introductory act, as all of the jokes make reference to character traits the audience isn’t familiar enough with to get. By the middle they start finding their mark, and the script reveals a much more sophisticated level of witty repartee than had been previously believed. By the end, it’s actually really funny, and most of that has to do with Chris Evans. I don’t know how much humor they’re going to be able to work into Captain America but if you imagine a more energetic and enthusiastic version of his work as Johnny Storm in The Fantastic Four, you understand some of what you’re getting here. His humor is hard to imagine working with anybody else playing the part, and I’m interested to know how much of it was created on set. In any event, he’s clearly a highlight of the film, and almost reason enough to shell out the matinee ticket price.

At 98 minutes, it’s a quick trip into the world of The Losers this time out. The film does what all comic book movies seem to do these days and leaves itself open for a sequel. Had it developed a more satisfying conclusion and bulked up to a 2-hour runtime, it might have made a great standalone film. As it stands now, it’s fast, light, and overall not very satisfying. I’d equate the experience to a Krispy Kreme donut. It won’t fill you up, but by its very design leaves you wanting more. Will the vast majority of American men pay to see Zoe Saldana’s ass for an hour under any circumstances? Probably. So in that case, I’d say go nuts. But as a piece of cinema… this isn’t something you’ll be talking about with your friends. With any luck, this’ll be the weakest of the 3 superspy team movies coming out this summer season.

The Future of Cinema As We Know It… Exclusive Avatar First Look

ghm101 — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:31:28 +0000

What does a director do after making the highest grossing film of all time? He takes a break for a while. It’s been a decade since the last time a feature film appeared in theaters with James Cameron‘s name listed as its director, though considering the last time it was attached to the end of Titanic, it’s no small wonder that his latest project has accumulated this level of hype. What do you do to follow up one of the most successful films ever released? Cameron seems to think the answer lies in state of the art digital technology and the application of such special effects to a sci-fi adventure on a truly epic scale. He also made it in 3D. Ambitious? Clearly. Does it pay off? Find out:

Avatar Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A+

Robert Zemeckis, eat your heart out. I have never been the kind of person who is prone to the use of hyperbole. Sure, something will be “awesome” or “fantastic” or “terrific” but I never think anything is so great as to be crowned “best ever”, “most innovative”, or “phenomenal.” Today I was proven wrong. Today I saw the future of cinema, and its name is Avatar. The kind of movie that defines not only the time period of its release, but an entire generation of moviegoers. An experience the likes of which I have never had before, with any movie, and I can only theoretically compare to what it must have been like to see the original Star Wars back in 1977. To walk out of a theater and know, as strongly as I do now, that there is an almost limitless possibility resting just beyond our grasp, is not something I can find words for. James Cameron has seized the curtain and thrown it wide, letting the light pour in upon the unsuspecting masses. My only regret is that it will be another 2-3 years before anyone else has the confidence to attempt to follow in his footsteps.

For the first time, the concept of a 3D movie has a worthwhile reason to exist. The world that Cameron has created here is unparalleled by anything celluloid has presented before, from the dark recesses of the jungle to the blinding cloud cover in the mystical floating mountain ranges. It’s all beautiful, and completely realistic, despite your brain attempting to process that everything you are seeing was manufactured as a series of zeros and ones. The first few minutes are a bit of an adjustment period, and Cameron knows this, concentrating on grounded and emotional beats that bring the dimensionality of the 3D to an appropriately relevant level. As everything settles down, you feel yourself letting go of your own reality, sliding seamlessly into the universe in front of you.

And what an amazing place Pandora is. From the countless animals to the gorgeous plant life as far as the eye can see, this is a planet which could only exist in the mind of a true visionary. We are all guests to Cameron’s imagination, and I look forward to snatching as many tickets back as I can get my hands on. It’s a living and breathing world, and you cannot see where the lines meet. The virtual and the real have become forever blurred through a combination of incredibly detailed art design and a dedication to performance which puts all other “motion-capture” exercises to shame. I hate to hold this film up to something like A Christmas Carol because they’re not even playing the same sport at this point. If Spielberg intends to utilize these techniques for his Tintin film, that particular project will have jumped to the top of my Most Anticipated list.

The actors are all wonderful. Sam Worthington has officially earned his place as Hollywood’s newest powerhouse lead, and Zoe Saldana is a treat to watch, even if we never see her in the flesh. Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi have an incredible chemistry in their few scenes together, and there is no doubt in my mind that the film could never have worked to begin with were it not for the acting talent on hand. When so much detail is captured by a computer, it makes the animation team’s jobs undeniably easier, and you can tell from the results that every frame has been lovingly composed to recreate the original actor’s performance. The story works in much the same way, retaining a wholly classic framework with all the necessary narrative beats while rearranging and reorganizing the sequencing of those scenes so as to appear spontaneous and surprising at almost every turn. You won’t know what will happen next, but as soon as it does happen, it will feel perfectly right on every level and you’ll wonder how else anyone would have thought of writing it. The script is that good. After almost a decade in development, we’d rather hope it would be.

Avatar is the real deal, the kind of epic advancement in filmmaking that only happens when an amazing creative team is paired with an equally talented and driven group of researchers and technicians who work around the clock to bring the dream to life. As Cameron is fond of saying “we pushed the envelope, and the envelope pushed back.” The film is a testament to that final success, a wonder of storytelling and special effects wizardry that will leave you feeling transported, elated, and in love with movies all over again. It’s been a long time coming, but the next great movie masterpiece has finally arrived.