Movies I’ve watched recently - Feb 2013, part 1
Wow, it’s been almost a year since I posted anything here about movies. Sooo… I’ll go through what I rated things on IMDB since my last post and see what I can remember. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to include anything I’ve re-watched and didn’t re-rate, but there’s still a ton to go through, so I’ve split it into two parts.
Note: may contain spoilers, and I may be fairly brief with some if they didn’t make a big impression!
The Expendables (2010) - Take a bunch of the biggest action movie stars from the past four decades, stick them all in one movie with a cliched action movie plot, add a ton of weapons and bad guys to kill in various ways, and mix well. Face it, you’re not going to watch this for the drama or plot, this is about the cliches and ‘splosions and action movie fan service, and there’s plenty of all that. 7/10
The Expendables 2 (2012) - Same as the first one, but with a few more aging action movie stars, and much worse writing. Annoying that Jet Li only has a couple of scenes at the beginning and then is gone. The jokes are bad, the violence more extreme than necessary to get the point across (seems like much more gore than the first one), and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s big fight scene with Sly Stalone is disappointingly brief and one-sided. They could’ve done a lot better. Jason Statham has some cool fight scenes, though, and this gets an extra point for Chuck Norris, because… c’mon, it’s Chuck Norris. 5/10
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) - I didn’t like the first FF movie (gave it a 4/10), and this one was even worse. I could not stand that Galactus was a big cloud instead of a super cool giant purple guy, and the changes they made to the Surfer were heretical. Ugh. 3/10
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) - Another sequel that should not have been made. Iffy plot, bad effects, bad acting. 3/10
Battleship (2012) - Continuing the trend of bad movies, this is another stinker. Gets a few points for interesting new aliens and pretty good special effects, but the rest of this movie is a stinker. 3/10
Conan the Barbarian (2011) - I’m a fan of the Conan stories, comics, and Arnie movies from the 80’s (guilty pleasure). I found this to be a fairly competent Conan movie – I’m not sure it’d spur a reboot of the franchise, but it didn’t feel like a waste of time. 6/10
I Am Legend (2007) - Not sure how I managed to go so long without seeing this movie. It’s pretty excellent. I’m not generally a huge fan of the zombie survival horror genre, and the market is quite saturated these days, but this one has the story, film making, and acting to pull it off. Some of the effects are not super, but it’s also around 6 years old now, so I can cut it some slack for that. I’m not sure if I saw the original or new ending, but ether way it was enjoyable. 8/10
The Dark Knight (2008) - Another one I’m late to seeing. I’m not sure how much more I can say about this movie that hasn’t already been said. The plot was not quite as good as I’d ideally love, and there were a few points where Christian Bale was a bit too stiff (almost reminding me of Michael Keaton), but honestly this is Heath Ledger’s movie. 9/10