End of April

So slowly but surely I'm catching up. Only two and three-quarter months left catch up on!! We close April off with two fun-filled movies (one of which was definitely more enjoyable than the other, however) – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and xXx: State of the Union (which will be referred to as xXx 2 for the rest of the entry, since it’s a lot less to type). Now before I give my own reviews of these movies, I decided to go back through imdb’s movie news archives to read the reviewer clips for the movies that were posted when it was released (mainly because I was just reading some of the idiotic comments reviewers had for Madagascar, and so wanted to comment on them (which I will when I get up to Madagascar), that I decided as I go through my movie reviews, I’m going to go back and see what the critics had to say about them, if for no other reason than because I like bad-mouthing movie critics, and this gives me an opportunity to do so (and in case you’re wondering why I’m just now reading reviews for Madagascar, it’s because that’s how far behind I am on my entertainment news – which shows that no, my blog is far from the only thing I’m way, way behind on. Can I just say that moving to a new place and starting fresh with a new job is just a complete pain in the @$$? No wonder it took me 8 ½ years to leave my crappy former job).

So anyways, in reading over the reviews for xXx 2, I have to say I actually agree with most of the critics (shocking, I know, but hey, these things do happen once in a great while). This movie was pretty disappointing, especially compared with the original. The first movie had a fun, original concept – making a secret agent out of an extreme sports athlete with a bad attitude and criminal tendencies. Okay, so it’s possible (and probably likely) that this has been done before, but never in a big budget film (at least not that I can recall). It was very much James Bond with a gritty edge and a modern youth culture sensibility. I especially loved the scene at the beginning where the James Bond wannabe in his tuxedo winds up at a Rammstein concert and sticks out like a sore thumb (and promptly gets himself killed). And Vin Diesel does a great job. So now we come to the sequel, where instead of the character xXx (a nickname for the main character which was tattooed on the back of his neck), we now have the “xXx program” or something silly like that. And to add insult to injury, I guess in the re-release of the original DVD, they actually have a new short film where they KILL OFF the original Xander Cage (a role that had to go to some no name, as not surprisingly they couldn’t get Vin Diesel to do it). That really pissed me off.

So what did I think of Ice Cube? To be honest, he did a pretty good job with the role. And I’ve always liked him as an actor. He definitely has the right attitude for the part. The problem is that his character is a former special forces operative in prison for punching out his superior officer (who not only desperately deserved it, but NATURALLY is the villain of the movie, and so Ice Cube’s character now gets a chance to get back at the guy who got him stuck behind bars). I’m sorry, but how cliché is that?! After the originality of the first film, it was really, really disappointing to see such a lame, been-there-done-that story concept for the sequel. And of course, to make the cliché complete, Samuel L. Jackson’s character makes the comment at the end of the movie that the NEXT xXx needs to be someone with even more attitude – letting us know that the producers have obviously decided to go the route of the old Batman franchise and change lead actors every film (but at least with these it’s a different CHARACTER to go with the new actor, unlike those goofy Batman movies).

One of the big complaints that many critics had was with the climatic ending chase/fight scene on the bullet train. And again I can’t really disagree with them. While fun to watch, it really pushed the bounds of believability way too far, so that after the movie was over, even though the scene was exciting to watch, your post-movie conversations tend to be more focused on how unbelievable and over-the-top it was, instead of how thrilling and action-packed it was. So overall I’d give this movie 3 stars as a pretty good summer action movie (I’m still undecided as to whether or not I’ll get this one on DVD – probably end up waiting until it’s $10 or something), but as the sequel to the original, I’d have to say it was a complete disappointment.

Lucky for me, then, that this weekend’s other movie was nothing short of wonderful. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was just all around fun! I enjoyed every minute of it. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to see it at the theater more than once, but I’m absolutely buying it as soon as it comes out on DVD. The critics had mixed reviews on this one, so we won’t bother with their opinions on the matter. I was most impressed by Mos Def, who did a phenomenal job as Ford Prefect. But this was hardly his first big movie role (he was also great as Left Ear in The Italian Job), so I don’t suppose I should have been surprised by that. The movie is funny and whimsical (much like the original story), the special effects are well done, and the casting was great (Alan Rickman is a riot as the voice of the depressed robot Marvin). And while it’s not the same actor (I had to look on imdb to verify for sure), the voice of the narrator bears a striking resemblance to the voice from the wonderful old BBC mini-series version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide (which I thought was pretty cool, since I'd always liked that voice for the Guide). All in all, just a fun, fun movie!

And so we leave April behind, and move on into May – only a few weeks until the start of the summer blockbusters (disappointing as many of them were). But we'll leave that for our next action-packed, fun-filled entry! :)