Okay, so I’m way, way past due for another blog entry. No excuses – I’ve just been lazy and busy with other things (the biggest of those being my newest obsession, a fun little online role-playing game called Kingdom of Loathing, which is taking up a lot more of my free time than I had expected when I first started playing), and just haven’t gotten around to putting together a new entry. But on the plus side, I’ve got several movies to cover since my last review came out. I’m going to start with one that I saw a couple weekends ago just get it out of the way. The movie in question would be Epic Movie (which was anything but). In a word, this movie sucked! And that’s being polite. This hadn’t been my top movie choice for that weekend, and I didn’t exactly have high hopes for it, but I’d had the same reservations about Date Movie (made by the same people) and it had turned out to be pretty damned funny. So my buddy and I decided to go see it. This movie was absolutely not funny. Okay, so I did chuckle a couple of times at a few of the gags, but as a whole this film was a complete and utter (not to mention almost painful) waste of time.
In my not-so-humble opinion, this movie had two major things going against it. First off, I must be getting old or something, because what seems to pass for humor these days just isn’t funny (Napoleon Dynamite, Jackass, and Steve Carell all come to mind). This movie is gross and vulgar and juvenile (which admittedly can be mildly amusing when done right), but there’s almost no humor to be found. And the creators were obviously trying way too hard to make things funny that just aren’t that funny. Which brings us to the second major problem with this movie – they picked the wrong type of movies to parody. Big, epic action/adventure movies just don’t really have much in the way of parody potential. It’s different when you’re parodying horror movies, because there’s always all kinds of goofy, cheesy concepts in those movies that are easy to make fun of. Same goes for romantic comedies (which is why Date Movie was pretty funny, although even it went a little too far with the vulgarity a few times if you ask me). But the movies they’re trying to parody in Epic Movie for the most parts are very serious, dramatic films, so there’s not a whole lot to work with that you can twist around or exaggerate and have it be funny. It just doesn’t work.
Sadly this movie managed to make it to the top spot at the box office despite being utter crap (but it’s certainly not the first time that’s happened), primarily I’m sure because of how funny it’s predecessors were. Not surprisingly it took a serious nosedive its second weekend, however (although I would have liked to have seen it drop even further). I can't imagine that word-of-mouth for this film was anything but horrid. If this movie’s still in the theaters in another week I’ll be surprised.
So prior to seeing Epic Movie, I went to another potentially dumb B-movie that I didn’t have too high of expectations for, and that was the horror film Primeval. In this case, however, I was far from disappointed. As a matter of fact, I was impressed enough with the movie I’m seriously tempted to buy it when it comes out on DVD (if I can get it on sale, that is. I don’t really see myself paying $20 for it – but I’ve gotten to the point that there’s almost no mainstream movie I’ll pay that price for. If I’m paying more than about $15, it had better be a fairly high-end special edition or a hard-to-get foreign film, or something along those lines). It took me awhile to get to the theater to see Primeval, and I almost didn’t bother (mainly because it did look like a fairly B-caliber horror flick). The big thing that kept it on my radar was that I loved the cast. Dominic Purcell, Orlando Jones, and Jurgen Prochnow are all just stellar actors. So finally I dragged my butt to the theater to see it (even paid full evening price, because by the time I went to see it they weren’t showing matinees of it any longer).
To say the least, it was money well spent. While fairly formulaic (as all movies of this genre tend to be), it was still pretty well written, and very well acted. It also wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The big thing that threw me off was the trailer for the movie. It makes the big deal about the movie being inspired by the true story of supposedly the world’s most prolific serial killer, who’s killed hundreds of people in central Africa and never been caught. We see a scene of a group of people digging up a bunch of buried bodies, and then we see our news crew going on the hunt for the killer, only to be attacked by some mysterious and probably supernatural creature that’s obviously not human.
Well it turns out that the buried bodies we see being dug up in the trailer are a bit of a red herring. This is from the opening scene of the movie, and the bodies are actually the results of the bloody civil war that was going on in the country at the time, and were buried there by a local warlord. The whole point of this scene is that an American aid worked with the UN is killed by our killer at the end of this scene, which is what gets the attention of the American media. Our “serial killer” is in reality a giant Nile crocodile. And before anyone accuses me of dropping a spoiler without warning, should you see the movie you'll discover this is not the case. Despite the trailer not revealing anything, the movie itself lets you know they’re going after a crocodile pretty much immediately (I’d actually read a review of the movie before I saw it revealing the killer was a crocodile, and was a little disappointed/upset about finding this out ahead of time, until I actually went to the movie only to have this information given to you right up front).
So once the movie was over, I was very curious to know just how “inspired by true events” the movie really was, so after I’d seen it I got online and did a quick Google search. What I discovered actually surprised me (to find out more, do a search on “Gustave Burundi”. Gustave is the name the locals have given to the crocodile, and Burundi is the country he lives in). One of the links I found was to a National Geographic article about the search for this crocodile, which is the primary source of inspiration for the movie. Most of the characters in the movie and several events in the movie actually came right out of this article (including referring to the killer croc as a serial killer), the only major difference being that in real life they never actually tracked down Gustave, whereas in the movie (of course) they very much find him only to have him kill off most of their group.
The stats on this crocodile are pretty unbelievable. He’s estimated to be a good 20 feet long, and weigh close to a ton! And there are actually documented cases of dozens of people who’ve been maimed or killed by the crocodile over the years. The couple of articles I read online about him were really, really interesting, and I can see why the filmmakers were inspired to make a movie about it, because the real-life events so lend themselves to a movie (one of those truth is stranger than fiction sorts of situations). And while the finished product isn’t summer blockbuster or Academy Award quality by any means, it’s still a very interesting and fun movie to watch, especially with the real-world elements that are brought into the story. And the cast all do a brilliant job with their characters. So if you enjoy a good killer animal horror movie, this one’s certainly worth checking out.
So the same weekend I saw Epic Movie (which has to be about the most inaccurate movie title I’ve ever seen), I actually managed to get to the theater and see a GOOD movie. The movie in question – Smokin’ Aces! I loved this movie!! It was just . . . fun. Sure it’s way over the top and seriously filled with bloody violence, but hey, how’s that a bad thing, right? And the cast is pretty stellar. There are numerous great actors, including a well-done supporting role by Ben Affleck, who does a really good job (and if you’re not a fan of Ben’s, you’ll still like seeing him in this movie, if only for how his character ends up). Jeremy Piven is great as always, and Ryan Reynolds actually does a surprisingly good job playing a serious character (and you can tell he’s in “serious character” mode because he’s got a beard, as opposed to his comic roles where he’s always clean shaven, something I’ve always found a wee bit amusing). Ray Liotta and Andy Garcia are also top notch as always. And Alicia Keys is not only smokin’ hot as a female assassin, but does a solid job with the character as well. I’ll be interested to see her in future roles. There are numerous other outstanding performances by great supporting actors, including a small part by Matthew Fox of Lost fame.
So if you like over-the-top action movies, this movie should absolutely be on your must-see list. With a stellar cast and a pretty solid story (for this sort of movie, anyways), this one is definitely worth watching. And on that note, I think I’ll call this entry done (so that I can actually get it published on the blog). I’ve still got the two movies I saw last weekend to cover (there wasn't anything I really wanted to see coming out this weekend, so once I get those reviewed I'll actually be caught up), but I’ll get those in the next entry so that I can get this one done.
