Deck the Halls

So last weekend my buddy talked me into going to see Deck the Halls, with Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito. Now admittedly, this isn’t the sort of movie I usually go see at the theater. But neither of last weekend’s other two big releases (Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Blood Diamond) were movies I was super excited to go see, and both my buddy and I figured it was a good weekend for a goofy comedy, so Deck the Halls it was. And I must admit, I’m definitely glad I went. I really enjoyed myself, and was laughing quite a bit during the movie. Yes, the movie was incredibly dumb (that pretty much goes without saying). But it’s one of those movies that if you go into it knowing it’s going to be dumb, you can sit back and enjoy the stupidity of it all and have a good laugh.

The two main stars are of course both brilliant actors, and each play their characters to perfection. The basic plot of the movie is that Danny DeVito moves in next door to Matthew Broderick in early December, and decides that his goal in life is for his house to be seen from space (I won’t bore you with the details of how this comes about). To do this, he sets up a garish Christmas light display that grows bigger and brighter and more outrageous every day as he adds more and more to the display. This naturally sets off Matthew Broderick, who has to live next door to this spectacle (the two characters also have pretty opposing personality types, so it’s pretty much a given from the first time they meet that these two aren’t going to get along).

Things of course quickly get out of hand as Matthew Broderick tries to get back at his neighbor and get him to turn off his light show. As is to be expected, hilarity ensues. Some of the jokes are pretty lame, while other’s are just plain wrong (while still managing to be completely hilarious). But it’s a lot funnier (and much more family friendly) than other would-be Christmas comedies such as Bad Santa (which I finally watched on one of my movie channels a while back. I hadn’t had very high expectations for the movie at all, and still managed to be surprised by just how horrid a movie it was – which was really a shame, because I think Lauren Graham is a total cutie, and just so much fun to watch). So if you’re looking for some goofy, mindless humor to give you a brief distraction from the hassles and stresses of the holiday season, Deck the Halls is worth giving a look.

Birthday Movies

Okay, so I didn’t get my movie reviews done over the weekend. But as I mentioned I was planning in my previous entry, I did make it to the theater for two movies back-to-back on Saturday for my birthday. And what two new movies did I go see? That would be Déjà Vu, and The Fountain. So here’s my short, sweet, and to-the-point reviews for these two movies. We’ll start with the latter. The Fountain is kind of hard to describe in too much detail without giving away too much of the plot, but to sum up, it is basically a love story about a man trying to find a cure for his dying wife, with something of a sci-fi angle to it. But the sci-fi elements of the story I’m not really going to touch on, firstly because I think they’re more enjoyable if you don’t really know what’s coming, and secondly because I truly feel they’re completely secondary to the love story. Now I’m sure there are those narrow-minded folks out there who won’t like it or won’t want to see it “because they’re just not into science fiction,” but I say that’s just their loss. At the heart of the film is the story of Hugh Jackman, a research scientist trying to find a cure for his dying wife, played by Rachel Weisz, and it's this story that really makes the film worth seeing.

This is just a beautiful, touching film. I definitely found myself fighting back the tears in a couple of spots (but then again, deep down I’m just a big old softy when it comes to these sorts of movies – what can I say). Visually it’s very impressive, and while the story is a bit confusing at first (since the storyline jumps back and forth in time, and is a bit on the metaphysical side in parts), once you get into what’s going on it really pulls you in and keeps you invested all the way up to the climax. While I’m sure this movie isn’t for everyone, I absolutely loved it. On the flip side, I don’t know that I’ll buy it on DVD, as it doesn’t really have a lot of replay value (at least, in my opinion), but I’m very glad I had the chance to see it, especially at the theater. Definitely a good couple’s movie (although, sadly, I had to see it by myself).

The next movie I saw on Saturday (and it timed out perfectly – I left The Fountain shortly after the end credits started to roll, bought my ticket, and sat down for the next movie just before the trailers started) was the latest from director Tony Scott: Déjà Vu, starring Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer (and with a supporting role by Bruce Greenwood, and actor I’ve really liked ever since his short-lived TV show, Nowhere Man – which I really need to pick up on DVD one of these days). This is another movie that’s difficult to discuss in too much detail without giving away plot points, so I’m going to give my spoiler alert now. If you want to be completely surprised by this one, just suffice it to say this is a pretty solid (although not spectacular) suspense thriller that, like The Fountain, has a bit of a sci-fi element to it. If you like action thrillers or Denzel Washington movies, this is one you’ll probably enjoy. And with that said, onto some more details about the movie.

You can probably guess from the trailers and from the title of the film that this movie has a time travel element to it. To be more specific, the government has found a way to look precisely four days into the past, and is using this technology to try and find those responsible for the terrorist explosion that features so prominently in the trailers. Denzel plays an ATF agent assigned to the case. Val Kilmer is the FBI agent in charge of the project that lets them look into the past. I think that’s about all I’ll say about the overall plot, because anything more than that would really be giving away some spoilers (and this is definitely a movie that’s more fun to watch if you don’t really know a whole lot about what’s coming).

Between the director and the stars and the premise, I was almost certain this would be a movie I’d enjoy. I say ‘almost’ because time travel movies are always hit or miss for me. The whole issue of paradox and changing the past, etc. can be done really poorly, which tends to ruin the whole effort. This movie actually does a pretty good job with the way it handles it, and I have to say I was impressed. All in all this is a pretty enjoyable movie if you don’t take it too seriously. As I said above, this isn’t necessarily a great movie, but it was certainly worth the price of admission, and I’m glad I went to see it.

Back to the Movie Theatre at last!

So I hadn’t been out to the movie theatre in a few weeks, mainly because there hadn’t really been a whole lot out there I really wanted to see. And even though there were a couple of movies that looked halfway interesting, I had enough other things going on that I just didn’t make it out to the theatre. Well, that finally changed weekend before last with the release of Will Ferrell’s latest film, Stranger than Fiction. From the very first trailer I knew this was a must-see movie, and it proved to be every bit as good as I thought it would. It was funny, touching, heart wrenching, and just bizarre and surreal enough to absolutely be my kind of movie.

Now before I get started on the movie itself, I’d like to take a moment to express my deepest respect and admiration for the editor(s) of the trailers for this movie. In my opinion, they were among a small handful of what I would call almost perfect trailers. They gave you enough of a feel for the movie to know whether it would be something you’d want to see or not, but without giving away any key scenes of the movie. As a matter of fact, there are a few things about the movie that come as a complete surprise to you because they aren’t even hinted at in the trailer. And this is wonderful, considering that the trailer very much has to give away the biggest plot detail – mainly that Will Ferrell’s character has started hearing the voice of an author in his head who’s planning to kill him.

Luckily the movie holds so much more than that, and so knowing that detail doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of the movie at all. And that is the key thing that so many trailers completely screw up. Which is why I had to take a moment to praise the creators of Stranger than Fiction's trailers (since most trailer editors I’d like to see tarred and feathered). I mean, ask yourself, how many times have you seen the teaser for a movie and thought, “Hey, that looks pretty cool, I might have to go see that,” and then the full trailer comes out and suddenly you’re like, “Gee, now I know pretty much know exactly how the movie is going to play out.” Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a perfect example of this. The teaser strictly shows them trying to kill each other, which really peaks your interest, but then the full trailer adds just enough shots of them together fighting somebody else that you know exactly how the movie is going to play out – they find out they’re assassins and are ordered to kill each other, that doesn’t work out and so they decide not to kill each other, and so their employers decide to kill both of them and they have to fight it out to stay alive. Now admittedly, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a great enough movie that it’s still fun to watch, but I’d have been just as happy seeing this all play out as I’m watching the movie, as opposed to knowing exactly how it’s going to develop before I ever get to the theater.

And that’s hardly the worst example. The worst for me would have to be the trailer for the Colin Farrell/Al Pacino spy thriller The Recruit. The whole point of this film is that Colin Farrell has been turned into a double agent by Al Pacino, while the whole time thinking he was one of the good guys who was LOOKING for the double agent. But the key scene where he’s told that no, it’s actually him who’s the bad guy is in the bloody trailer!! What should have been a great movie was completely ruined for me because I knew the big secret of the movie before the opening credits rolled. Personally I think the moron who edited that trailer should be forever banned from Hollywood. What the hell was he thinking?!

But enough ranting about the goods and bads of movie trailers. Let’s get back to Stranger than Fiction. The movie is just brilliant. And I loved Will Ferrell’s performance, which was very understated compared to his normal over-the-top comedy. He actually reminded me of William H. Macy, who is the master of the quiet, befuddled character. Dustin Hoffman is also really fun to watch (but that’s not really a surprise). I don’t want to say too much more about the movie, but if you enjoy odd, quirky comedies, then this is a movie you’d likely enjoy. Four stars.

So last weekend was of course the release of the latest James Bond film, Casino Royale, starring brand new Bond Daniel Craig. I, however, spent the entire weekend helping my uncle butcher this massive bull elk he shot. It was a lot of work and some long days, but I now have a freezer full of elk meat, which is good. Consequently, though, I never made it to the theatre. Luckily I was able to correct that Wednesday, since the office closed early for the holidays and I got most of the afternoon off (and what better way to spend an afternoon off than at the movies).

And I must say it was an afternoon well spent. While not necessarily the greatest Bond movie ever (I am a big enough fan of the old Sean Connery films that they will be very hard to beat, although Pierce Brosnan is certainly a close second for best Bond). The movie is interesting in that it is jump-starting the series (much like Batman Begins did with the Batman franchise) by going back to the beginning and showing us how James Bond became 007 and going from there. And I have to say, the scene at the start of the film where we see Bond earning his 00 rating is brilliantly done.

The big controversy with this movie has been the new actor portraying James Bond, Daniel Craig. A lot of people were bitching and moaning and complaining the minute he was cast, long before any of them had actually seen the movie (which annoyed the hell out of me – just as a general rule I hate people who judge something, or more specifically condemn something, without ever actually having seen it. But that’s a whole other topic I could rant on about for hours, going off on conservative groups who attack TV shows and video games, etc., etc.; but we’ll save that one for another time). So I saved my judgment of the new Bond until after I’d actually seen him in action before deciding on how fit he was for the role.

Now that I’ve seen the film, I have to say my feelings are mixed. First off, I have to say that regardless of what all the naysayers out there might think, Daniel Craig I think is a fine actor, and did a very good job with the role. I don’t think anyone can legitimately criticize his performance in the movie. On the flip side, however, I found myself having a really, really hard time picturing him as James Bond. I don’t know if it was the blonde hair, or the way he played the character, or maybe the way the character was written, but I just didn’t see James Bond up there on the screen.

A lot of it, I think, has to do with the nature of the story, and the fact that they are starting the franchise over from the beginning. The reason I say this is that what we get in this movie is not the suave, sophisticated Bond that we’re used to. He’s a less disciplined, less experienced, more raw of a character than we’re used to. He’s more aggressive, less subtle in his tactics, closer to his military roots and less the sophisticated super spy. Which is exactly what he’s supposed to be. And that’s where I defend Daniel Craig’s performance. What we get isn’t the James Bond we’re used to or are expecting, but he’s not supposed to be. But the way the movie plays out, I’m really looking forward to the next one just to see how they develop the character, and how Daniel Craig grows into the character, because Casino Royale if nothing else leaves us with a lot of potential for future films.

As for the movie itself, it does indeed get back to basics (something the producers made a big deal about all through development). There is no Q present in the movie, and thus no super gadgets present, something that was always a staple of the Bond movies, but something that got a bit out of hand in the recent Brosnan films, so I think it’s something the movie can indeed live without. However, I think it still had too much of the big budget summer action blockbuster to it, and still not enough of the spy thriller elements that I was really hoping for (as far as spy movies go, I’d still take either of the Bourne films over Casino Royale). But that didn’t keep this from being a fun, fast-paced, exciting movie.

Dame Judi Dench returns as the hard-nosed M, and is as brilliant as ever. She has the absolute best line in the movie, in my opinion. Bond has just hacked into her personnel file, and when she catches him, he comments that he thought ‘M’ was a random letter designation, and didn’t realize it actually stood for her real name. Of course, he’s just about to say her actual name, when she cuts him off by saying, “Utter one more syllable and I’ll be forced to have you killed.” And she says it with a cold conviction that tells you she’s absolutely deadly serious. It’s just brilliant. And that’s just one of the many great lines from the movie. I have to say, the dialogue of the film is probably one of its strongest points, including a number of very humorous lines (among them a sly reference to Miss Moneypenny, who like Q isn’t in the movie).

All in all I was pretty impressed with Casino Royale. I think they’ve got a good foundation to build on for future Bond movies, and I think given a chance Daniel Craig will turn out to be a very solid James Bond. I have only two real criticisms of the movie. The first is the presence of a couple of very, very blatant product placements. Which is sadly something we’re seeing more and more of in both TV and movies, and so I guess you just have to shrug it off and not let it bug you. The second complaint I have is the desire by the producers to be more politically correct with the movie, and get away from some of the chauvinistic (for lack of a better word) elements of the earlier movies that were so a part of the James Bond films (but at the same time werer very much a part of the 60s and 70s eras that the movies were made in, something the producers are trying to get away from). For starters, we still have the complex, somewhat surreal opening credits with lots of crazy visual elements that’s just fun to watch, but nowhere to be found are the silhouettes of naked women that are a trademark of the opening credits of the Bond films.

The other thing they felt the need to take away was Bond’s blatant womanizing. They make a point of letting us know he prefers married women (since there’s less strings attached), but beyond that the only woman he actually goes to bed with is the romantic interest in the movie, who he falls for about two thirds of the way through the film (and who he doesn’t actually sleep with until AFTER he’s fallen for her). Now before the feminists start attacking me, I will admit that earlier Bond movies are fairly sexist in their portrayals of women, but at the same time it was always just so much fun to see Bond seducing several women through the course of every mission he went on. Hell, that’s a big part of what Bond is famous for – he’s the suave, sophisticated super spy who can have any woman he wants (and usually does, sooner or later).

So while I understand the producers desire for a more modern, less sexist Bond, I think I’m going to miss the Bond of the past. But that’s okay, because I’ve got the first two box sets on DVD, and will have the second two as soon as they come out, so I can always go back and watch the originals (I do have to comment, though, that I'd like to just slap hard across the face whatever marketing jerk decided to mix and match the movies so you get a couple from each actor in each box set, as opposed to releasing the damn things in the order the movies came out. But heaven forbid someone buy just the Sean Connery movies or just the Roger Moore movies. No, they have to make damn certain if you're buying them you're buying the whole bloody series. Which I had planned to do regardless, but I still stay it's a screwed up way to release the DVDs).

Well, I think that’s it for this entry. Tomorrow being my birthday, I will of course be at the theatre doing a double-feature, so look forward to another entry in the next few days (hopefully I can get it done before the weekend is over; we’ll see how it goes).

Fall Movies

So things have been pretty crazy the last several weeks. Three weekends ago I was out of town. Two weekends ago my parents were in town, and last weekend I spent part of the weekend at work (and then spent Monday & Tuesday out of town for work). So needless to say I’ve been pretty busy. But fear not, dear readers, because none of that prevented me from getting to the movies during all of those weekends, and so I’ve got four new movies to review. And now I’ve finally found the time to actually get the reviews done! :)

Let’s start with the first of these movies that I saw, which was Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, a remake of the phenomenal Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs. Needless to say, the remake was easily as good as the original. Of course, with Scorsese directing a movie that gets back to his gangster movie roots, and starring such great actors as Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, and Leonardo DiCaprio (and as much as I’m not a fan of Leo’s AT ALL, I have to admit that he does a really good job in this movie).

This is so my type of movie. It’s dark, gritty, violent (about the only thing it was missing was nudity, but hey, you can’t have everything). Jack Nicholson is at the top of his game as the crime boss, and I loved Mark Wahlberg’s foul-mouthed cop (although he’s definitely a secondary character in the movie). Everyone does an outstanding job, and this movie easily ranks up there with such Scorsese greats as Goodfellas and Casino. If you like crime dramas at all, this is a must-see movie.

The movie only had one real downside for me, and it was one that didn’t really apply for most of the audience. Although the setting is changed from Hong Kong to Boston, and obviously the feel of the film is different based on the different setting/characters, the movie is pretty faithful to the original script, which means a lot of the twists and turns and surprises in the movie are all things I saw coming because I’d seen them in the original film. Which did take away from the excitement and thrill of the movie just a little bit. But at the same time, it was kind of like watching a movie you really like for the second time. Sure, you know what’s coming before it happens, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy watching the movie. And I did indeed enjoy all of this movie, even if I did know what was going to happen.

So the weekend after The Departed, I headed out to the theatre Sunday afternoon to watch The Grudge 2. While it would have been fun to see it that Friday (it being Friday the 13th and all), my parents came into town that evening, so I didn’t get to the theatre until after they headed home on Sunday (and as far as that goes, I probably wouldn’t have caught it on Friday regardless, since I don’t get off work early enough to catch a matinee, and I generally try to avoid going to evening shows since I’d prefer to pay matinee prices – I'm just cheap like that).

As far as the movie goes, it wasn’t too bad for what it was, being a sequel and all. Sequels in general have a hard time comparing to the originals, and I think horror movie sequels have it especially tough, because you’re trying to keep the same feel and theme as the original, without it being a carbon copy that simply features new people being killed off one by one. But as far as sequels go, I do have to say that I liked The Grudge 2 quite a bit better than I like The Ring Two (of course it goes without saying that I liked the originals of both movies A LOT better than their sequels).

That being said, The Grudge 2 was still a fun, creepy movie. And it did a good job of building on the mythology of the original film and expanding the history of the woman who’s spirit is going around killing everyone. I also love the way it takes three different time periods/locations and jumps back and forth between them. It takes a bit of time to figure out exactly what order the events are in and how everything fits together, but a good part of the fun of the movie is exactly that – learning bit by bit how everything ties together. If you’re a big fan of the Japanese horror movie remake genre (hard to believe there’s enough movies in that category to actually consider it a genre (well, sub-genre, anyways), but boy there sure do seem to be a lot of them these days), this movie’s definitely worth seeing.

Interestingly enough, the discussion of blending of multiple timeframes into a coherent storyline (as was done in The Grudge 2) transitions us very nicely into my next movie review, and that is for Christopher Nolan’s new film, The Prestige. I loved this movie (it was SO much better than the similarly-themed magician movie The Illusionist, which I was so unimpressed with that I don’t think I bothered to do a write-up on it). Christopher Nolan is a top-notch director, and with a stellar cast featuring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, as well as smaller roles by Andy Serkis, and David Bowie as real life scientist Nikola Tesla (who I thought I recognized when I saw him, but I had to wait until the end of the movie to see his name in the credits to be sure it was actually him).

The movie starts with Hugh Jackman drowning in a tank and Christian Bale being convicted of his murder (yes, believe it or not, Jackman’s character dies in the first 10 minutes of the film). Once in prison, Bale is given a diary written by Jackman. As he reads it, we flash back in time to when the diary was being written. During this we find Jackman reading a diary written by Bale, which flashes us back to when the two men first met, and their rise up through the world of magic (and the beginning of the competition between the two men). We shift back and forth between these three time periods, until the first time period catches up to the start of the second time period, and then back and forth between these two periods until the second catches up to the present period (which probably sounds really confusing, but it is done really well in the movie and it’s fairly easy to keep track of what’s going on when).

In the past I’ve never been much for movies that jump back and forth through time like that, but then again I think a lot of that can be blamed on Quentin Tarantino (while I like all of his movies, I’ve never been a big fan of the way he jumps around between characters and time periods and scenes). Both in The Grudge 2 (and the original The Grudge, as far as that goes) and in The Prestige this seems to be handled with a lot more finesse than Mr. Tarantino uses, which made a big difference for me (but that’s strictly my opinion of things, so please no jabs from any Tarantino fans out there who happen to read this).

But back to The Prestige. This movie is just brilliant. If you have any interest in magicians or escape artists at all, you really should see this film. They show a number of amazing tricks (and in many cases, show how they’re actually done, which is quite interesting). The acting is stellar, and the tension and mystery build as the battle between the two magicians builds. There are numerous twists and surprises to it, and I just loved the ending (although the final twist I did see coming).

The second movie that I caught last weekend I was just as excited to see as The Prestige, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed with it once it was over. And that was Clint Eastwood’s WWII drama Flags of our Fathers. Part of this stems from the poor and somewhat inaccurate marketing campaign. Because despite what you see in the trailers, this isn’t really a war movie, which is what I was hoping to see. Sure, there are a number of scenes showing the invasion of Iwo Jima, and a good part of the movie takes place during the invasion, but that’s not really what the movie’s about.

The true focus of Flags of our Fathers is the story of a photograph, the very famous photo that immortalized six Marines as they erected the U. S. flag at Iwo Jima (I’m sure you’ve seen the picture – it has since been made into a statue/monument). The film follows three of the six men (the others were killed during the battle) who are pulled back to the U. S. to go on a whirlwind tour highlighting the moment captured in the photo as a way to convince Americans to buy war bonds (since the government was borderline bankrupt, and couldn’t afford to pay for a war the American people were quickly tiring of). The photograph and the men who placed the flag captured America’s attention, and the government used that to its advantage to motivate people to buy war bonds to help them fund the war.

Throughout the movie we flash back to the battle, then go back to the men as they tour the country, and we see them struggle with being called heroes as they deal with the violence and horror of the battle and the deaths of many of their friends and fellow Marines. We also see the government desperate to use this event to their advantage, and the compromises made in the name of continuing the fight in the Pacific.

The story is pretty compelling, and I learned a lot about that time period and the events surrounding that photo that I hadn’t known before. That being said, the movie would have worked just as well (and possibly better) as a documentary of these events as opposed to a feature film about them. So while it was an interesting movie, it wasn’t as exciting or intense as a good war movie (such as Saving Private Ryan, which it has been compared to), which is what I was looking for when I went to see it. So while I can say it was a worthwhile film, I can’t give it a high recommendation, either. I’d more recommend this to someone who’s a big history buff than I would to someone who’s a war movie fan.

And that catches me up on my movie reviews. I’ve also been working on a couple of other entries that aren’t new movie reviews, to try and add a little variety to the blog, but who knows when I’ll get those done. My goal is at some point to actually start having more varied entries, it’s just a matter of finding the time to write them (I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who can’t seem to find enough time to accomplish everything they’d like to). Of course, I probably have to start with actually getting my movie reviews in on time and go from there. ;-)

You Know You're a Serious Movie Geek When . . .

So there were a handful of other movies that I caught over the last several weeks that I haven’t covered in my blog, but none of them were all that impressive (ranging from just pretty good to fairly disappointing, but none of them interesting enough to discuss, or bad enough for a scathingly negative review), so I’m just going to skip them and move on to last weekend (it was such a nice weekend this weekend that I took a trip to Lewis & Clark Caverns instead of going to the movies so there's nothing to report for this weekend – I might take a mental health day in the middle of the week to check out what’s new at the theater). Last weekend there were four new movies out at the theaters, two of which I really, really wanted to see – Jet Li’s Fearless and Flyboys. And wouldn’t you know it, neither was playing here in town (the joys of living in a medium-sized town in the middle of Montana).

Now, the average person would probably think to himself, “Damn, that sucks. Guess I won’t be catching those at the theater after all.” But not I. No, dear readers, I immediately went to Carmike Cinema’s website (since Carmike operates the vast majority of movie theaters here in Montana) and started checking movie listings in other towns. The nearest place showing both movies was about 85 miles away. So what did I do? That’s right, it was time for a road trip, so I jumped in the car and headed down the highway. I caught both movies as a double feature, had dinner at the Golden Corral, and then headed home. All in all not a bad day out. Of course, it says something about how much of a movie buff you are when you spend as much money or more on gas to get to the movie theater as you do on the actual movies themselves.

So was it worth it, you might ask? Absolutely!! I loved both movies. So let’s get started with the reviews. The first of the two I saw was Flyboys, which is the story of a group of young American men who travel to France to fly in the French air service during the early days of World War I (they’re flying for the French because this is before America has officially entered the war). Just as a quick side note, I have to say it’s hard to believe there was a time in our history when American men actually traveled to another country to JOIN a war, as opposed to the Vietnam War era when people were fleeing to Canada to avoid going to war. But that’s another subject entirely that we’re not going to get into.

Like the football movies reviewed in my last entry, Flyboys is also based on real events, which only really comes into play at the end when you find out what happens to the remaining characters after the movie ends (although it is kind of neat to get a brief look into where the characters’ lives went after the events of the movie). The best parts of this movie, naturally, are the aerial battles between the French biplanes and the German triplanes. They are really, really cool to watch, and because of the differences in technology, are quite a bit different from modern dog fights in movies (or even World War II dog fight scenes, as far as that goes). And there’s a scene involving a zeppelin that’s just stellar. It’s also nice to see a movie focused on World War I pilots, since WWI movies are hard to find in general, and when you do find them they’re mostly focused on the trench warfare of the infantry, and not on the fledgling air corps that had just started to develop during that period.

The overall story isn’t too bad, and the characters are all interesting. There’s even a love story involving the main character and a young French woman that’s tolerable. Of course the critics complained about the story and the dialogue and a number of other petty little things. But in my mind, you go to see a war movie for basically one reason, and that’s the battle scenes. And when it’s a movie about fighter pilots (from whatever era) then it’s all about the dogfights. And the ones in this movie were pretty damned spectacular, as far as I’m concerned. So if you like war movies, definitely check this one out.

Our next film is Jet Li’s Fearless, which – interestingly enough – is ALSO based on true events (that seems to be a theme running through quite a few of the movies I’ve seen recently, surprisingly enough). The film takes place in China early in the 20th century, back when China was a weak nation that was starting to be heavily influenced by foreign nations, especially Western nations. The main character of the story is Chinese Martial Arts Master Huo Yuanjia, a hero of the era who stood up to the Westerners and brought pride back to the Chinese (for a well-written description of the movie, check out the plot outline on the movie’s imdb page. He did a good enough job explaining the story of the film that I see no reason to try and paraphrase it here).

This movie is being billed as Jet Li’s last martial arts epic, and is directed by Ronny Yu (who's done a surprisingly eclectic range of films since coming to the US), with action choreography by Yuen Wo Ping. The combination of these three tells you right up front that the martial arts in this movie are going to be breathtaking, and indeed they were. The fight scenes are absolutely incredible. But just as important, the story is fantastic and the acting is top notch. We see a boy rise to manhood, only to fall from greatness and journey towards redemption. Along the way he energizes the morale of his entire country (and became a national hero). It’s a great story of China’s history brilliantly told. Just as a warning, though, it is also very much a Chinese movie, meaning that you’re watching it with subtitles if you go to see it (for those people who are bothered by such things). Being as big a fan of foreign films as I am, this didn’t bother me in the slightest, and I’m so glad I went and saw this movie at the theater.

I would highly recommend both of these movies as ones to see at the theater if you get the chance (and I will definitely be picking both of them up when they come out on DVD). Well, that’s it for now. Should I get to the theater during the week, I’ll try and get my review out on whatever movie I go see as quickly as possible (which sadly isn’t always as easy to do as I’d like). Until then!