Luby’s Review: Chocolate

Chocolate is a Martial Arts film produced by the same studio that put out Ong Bak Warrior (good) and the Protector (not so good).
In a nutshell, Chocolate is about a savant (the handicapped fellows that have one peak-human skill, like adding any two numbers, remembering every day of their life, etc.) whose one peak-human skill is kicking everyone’s ass! The set up is a bit unbelievable, having learned to fight watching the next-door kickboxing school. In ny case, there is a big showdown because her mom has a history with these mobster types, having double-crossed them with this yakuza dude. Afterward they fathered the movie’s heroine, and collected most of the mobsters collection money, and took off. Well, years later, mommy contracts cancer and young daughter, who can by now fight, having tested herself against a few street punks, goes out to get the rest of the money to pay for mommy’s treatment. as is standard with martial arts flicks, she goes up against hordes of enemies which get progressively stronger, and one or two mid-bosses, then the final boss. Unfortunately, their mid-boss is the mobsters’ own savant warrior. Yeah, that’s right, one of the high points in the film is a fight between two mentally handicapped martial artists. Retard fight! Makes you feel bad just to see it. It all culminates with a ridiculous fight on a 3-story apartment building.

All in all, its a bit strange. Unique, but not necessarily great.

Luby’s Review: 5.5 out of 10

Incidentally, the credits include a long bloopers reel. there seemed to be a LOT of injuries in this film!

Luby’s Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

So, I finally watched the copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that was gathering dust on my DvD shelf. And I went into it with dampened hopes and shattered allusions, having heard virtually universal negative criticism. So I have to say, it wasn’t that bad. Honestly, it wasn’t. True, there were some abysmal moments: The fight between Logan and the Blob, the ENTIRE fake-wife deal, and the final villain. But, I don’t really think any of that are out of place in a comic-themed movie. Fact is, if the entire film was animated and they left in all the costumes, nothing would be a bit out of place! Face it, the movies are written this way because that’s the way comics are! I’ve seen even worse stuff out of Marvel in the 90’s. In the last 5 years or so, all their stuff is trying to be so high brow and mature (mostly because kids rarely read comics, more adults do) but their roots are still a bit childish, so take the lumps with the good. All-in-all, the end was bad. The final Deadpool was stupid. But the wars were a cool touch, and the whole thing taking place in the 80’s or so was kinda cool, after all, he is supposed to be about 125, so hes got a lot of  time to take from. The retconing was as to be expected, as with all comic movies. But is wasn’t so bad as “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch” That was shameful. Wolverine was just okay, not fantastic, which is what most people seemed to expect.

Seriously, lowball your expectations people. Less disappointment that way.

Luby’s Review: 6 out of 10

Luby’s Review: Commando

Arnie as the Commando

Command is an old movie from the shoot ‘em up 80’s, starring that seminal 80’s action star: Arnold Schwarenegger. So, there is a long list of problems, but we’ll start with the cliche`s (who knows, maybe they did them first and everyone else made them cliche`s)
its your usual over-the-top action film. Arnie is a retired special forces commando forced to do one lst mission fr the traitorous ex-comrades who’ve kidnapped his daughter.
In a fight with one of the named villains, he kills him by uppercutting him onto a table leg, impaling him. He then proceeds to ask the man to talk. Now I understand the dramatic necessity for the desperate hero to try and get information out of a mortally-wounded villain, but hes got a 3 foot spike through his chest, he ain’t sayin’ NOTHING! There IS a limit to even MY suspension of disbelief.
The spunky girl along for the ride. Arnie basically kidnaps a stewardess and drags her along. I would think that anyone would call the cops before developing Stockholm Syndrome.

The main villain is an ex-partner, rumored to be dead, who’s back to take on his former friend who thinks he’s gone soft. But the part is filled by Vernon Wells, a flabby, skinny-armed doofus who looks more like a crooked Florida cop than an ex-commando. Maybe if he beefed up and did some military training I could almost believe it. Perhaps we’re more used to that complete experience where millions of dollars are spent training the actors to make sure they look the part, and can do the stunts.etc. believably. maybe we’ve become spoiled…

There are all the usual ridiculous deaths, invincible heroes, infinite ammo, storm trooper effect, lame one-liners, and predictable last-minute twists, etc. you’ve already seen in every other movie.

Really the only thing I like about the movie is the fact that when the bad guys grab Arnie and send him off on his mission, the first thing he does is escape, track them down and go after them.

What I didn’t like was the fucking steel drum and saxophone in all the soundtrack!!!!

Yes, Arnie, somewhere, somehow, someone did pay: ME!

Surprisingly, having seen Arnie’s later movies, I CAN see a development as an actor, he was horrible in the movie: wooden, bland, etc. But, he is much better in later films, still no prize-winner, but not nearly this bad.
Luby’s Review: 4 out of 10

Luby’s Review: Django

I saw it! I’ve been wanting to see it for quite some time, and I was not disappointed! Django came out a couple years after A Fistful of Dollars, which should technically be called a spaghetti western, and it was written and directed by the director and his brother (I think) who had worked with Sergio Leone, the director of FoD. It centralizes on an anti-hero from late 1800’s Old West (they toss around references to the Civil War left and right, so its likely soon afterward.) Django, the protagonist appears, walking into town carrying a girl (who he saved) and dragging behind him a coffin. The local villain, Major Jackson, waltzes in to shove him around and he shows him whats up by wasting all his cronies but letting him off the hook. The Major then rounds up all his guys to kill Django (about 50 guys) he waits patiently for the attack outside the saloon, and as they mass up in the streets, he reaches into his coffin, pulls out a gattling gun, and mows them all down, but still lets Jackson escape. Turns out, while burying the bodies in the  cemetary, the Major had killed Django’s ‘girl’, and he wants revenge. With the Mojor on the run, Jackson’s rival General Rodriguez, moves into town, and then meets up w/Django, the two are old friends. Django is a gun-runner, intent on selling a few of the gattling guns to the embattled General. The two plan a heist of gold, both to weaken the Major and to pay Django for those machine guns. Off they go, stealing a treasure of gold, but when the time comes for the General to pay Django for his help, the General stalls, and Django makes off with the loot, smuggling it in his coffin. But Django is followed by the Girl he saved, Maria, and they, in turn, are followed by the General’s men, who cause the coffin to be lost, and take out their frustrations on Maria, shooting her, and Django’s hands, crushing them, but not killing either of them. While out looking for Django, Rodriquez’s men are ambushed by the Major, who eventually finds and kills Rodriguez, and corners Django in a cemetary, hiding behind his girl’s gravemarker. A tense few seconds passes as they close on Django, who has bitten off the trigger guard of his pistol to use it withhis broken hands, killing the lot of them.

Simple enough, but the style with which it was done sticks in the memory, and now that I’ve seen the movie, I see its echos in many places. An ear-severing scene in it is the forerunner of Tarantino’s Resevoir Dogs’ infamous scene. (turns out Django had a great deal of influence on Tarantino, hence his appearance in SWD, see below). But the stranger with the coffinful of Death is a trope I’ve seen in many places, from video games and comics, to film and television. Personally I think this movie has had as much a creative impact at FoD, but I could be wrong. It seems its a smaller, more localized spread in comics, anime, and video games, all of which interconnect, and are of interest to me.

All-in-all, though, I thought it was a great spaghetti western and I dearly want to add it to my collection.

8.5 out of 10

~Luby

Luby’s Review: The Dark Knight

The wife and I stepped out to see the Dark Knight last night…

It was a good movie, not quite so good at Batman Begins, but still a good movie. I liked the characterization of the Joker, though I wanted less of a jerky, spasmodic delivery, but that helped to cement his insanity. Personally I prefer a colder, more calculatingly cruel Joker, but that went against the character and purpose they were putting forth in the movie. The film showed the rise of Two-Face in what I thought was the greatest use of two villains in any movie I have ever seen. If only Spiderman 3 *shudder* could have done so well…

Anyhow, Two-Face is a cool villain and I have always liked him best of Batman’s Rouge’s Gallery since I saw the cartoon adaptation as a kid on Batman: the Animated Series. Before you judge by the fact its a cartoon, go to Hulu or Youtube and watch it yourself. I guarantee you, its good stuff. I thought the movie handled it well, introduced him well, showed him as a threat, but never a grand, overschemeing threat like the Joker was. An excellent use of a secondary villain who eventually comes to bring more potential harm to Batman than the Joker ever could. Also I VERY much appreciated how they wrapped up each villain, and was completely shocked by the main supporting character that dies. I did not see it coming.

There are some great “Oh Shit” and “Holy Shit” moments, and some cool gadgets, like the bat-cycle. I also liked how simply they dealt with the very realistic threat of someone simply guessing batman’s identity with a few scraps of evidence (it doesn’t take much to put 2 and 2 together).

HOWEVER! There are a few scenes which are censored, as I believe and really made me scratch my head. The Joker had a guy tied to a chair on a giant pile of bills (very comic-booky, but they treated it perfectly normally, so it came off with no mockery or camp, very well done) he lights the pile of fire without removing the guy, we are to assume he burns alive, but it never shown, nor are any sounds heard while he a some other goons continue the scene just short of the top of the pile, its like the guy wasn’t there at all! Unnecessary censorship! Just like the scene where Joker has a knife in a guys mouth, very clearly ready to cut his cheeks apart the very same way his cheeks were, but you never see him do that or anything else to the guy, he just dies. That’s a bit more acceptable, at least you see that he dies, and the cause is implied, as opposed to vanishing all together…

All-in-all, though a great comic-based movie!
And Harvey Dent was a pretty cool character, and that made Two-Face much cooler!

8 out of 10
~Luby

Luby’s Review: The Incredible Hulk

Last we I also saw the Incredible Hulk in my local theatre. (it was my Father’s Day present)

So I mentioned that Iron Man really dragged on in its extemporising the origin, and that comprised a large chunk of the movie.  Hulk summed up the origin (which everyone should be aware of) in 5 minutes without dialogue. Since that was out of the way, they were free to focus on the story, which was pretty good. I kinda like Ed Norton as Banner, he doesn’t come off as maladjusted or book-smart as I thought he should be, but he does a very good job. Liv Tyler could have done better if she had been given a better part, but he lines were a bit too cowed for my take on Betty Ross. William Hurt looked too nice to be Thunderbolt Ross, but he damn well sold it. Blonsky took a massive departure from the comics, but what else could be expected when doing a movie. I happened to like Blonsky the badass with his enhancements dancing around the hulk. But then he dropped his guard with a cocky “is that all you got” Bad idea, both for the character (getting punted across the field into a tree must hurt) but also for the writing. WHY?! Why would he?! He’s seen this thing tear apart everything they’ve thrown at it, but he thinks, what, it won’t attack him? He won’t get hurt? It’s honorable? Stupid. But it was necessary for the chrysalis-like metamorphosis into Evil Blonsky who is now single-mindedly pursuing the Hulk’s power. Whatever… It wasn’t a sappy movie like Ang Lee’s Hulk, it was a comic-movie, and a good one. It had its funny parts, its cameos, its ‘oh shit’ moments. All in all it was cool.

I also really liked both Lou Ferrigno’s cameo and is voice for the Hulk, as well as Stan Lee’s cameo.
7 out of 10

I also liked the Tony Stark cameo, at the end and the similar tie in to 201. Either it will kick ass or go down in flames. I’m hoping for ass-kicking

Luby’s Review: Iron Man the Movie

Last week I saw Iron Man in my local theatre.

I was skeptical of the film, what with the recent drop in superhero movies from Marvel (The Hulk, Spiderman 3, etc.) Plus, I’ve never much been an Iron Man fan, even less so with his current mentality in comics these days (the whole Illuminati business) But I saw it after hearing glowing reviews from family and friends (My sister, who has never, to my knowledge, enjoyed comics or comic movies, loved it.) It was a different type of comic movie, less glitz and glamor. The comic-y side of it was divorced from the ‘realistic’ side of it. Meaning there was a very clear-cut difference between the CG superhero and Downey Jr. Though Downey did a great job and the film was overall, a good one, it felt less like a comic movie than a movie about a comic hero. By contrast, Spiderman felt very much like a comic movie, it was somewhat cartoony and over-exaggerated, melodramatic. Iron man was more mature and thought out. It’s lack of comic book feel is exemplified with more than the first half of the movie devoted to the iron man armor being built and perfected. It was less about “hero kicking ass” and more about ‘man becomes a hero and has to kick ass”. This is true of most origin stories, but few try to be so realistic-ish and take such a long time to get around to it. The journey to becoming Iron Man was as important, or moreso, than actually being Iron Man.

All-in-all a good film, special effects were too flashy for me, but that’s just my opinion.

For those that don’t know you really should stay after the credits for the cameo to end all cameo, I about cheered aloud I was so impressed. I can’t wait till 2011.

7.5 out of 10