Two movie reviews, no waiting...
If Optimus Prime was my surrogate father, than Snake Eyes was my cooler older brother, and Cobra Commander was my quirky Uncle who always looked like an ass until you paid him serious attention and realized how crazy brilliant he was.
With this in mind, I was extremely excited to see G.I. Joe last Friday. Ever since I saw the first shots of Sanke Eyes's costume with Ray Park in it, I was ready to slap down my $10. Lots of mixed press out there and Larry Hama getting heat from "fans"...
Well, screw them, it was a good movie. No deep transcendental thought, but there never was with G.I. Joe, its a war story – military action/adventure tale, and that's exactly what they give you with the movie.
Was it verbatim and canonical to the old stuff? Of course not, you can't have something translate exactly between one media to another, its a different style of story telling. But they worked a lot of things in there, the names were all right (I will always prefer Roadblock to Heavy Duty though). I liked that Cobra Commander was an evil genius and puppet string puller, and the samll stuff, like The Baroness's husband being De Cobray, small stuff like that made me smile all while watching it.
That being said, why does Snake Eyes have a mouth in his costume? Thank the All Mighty they didn't have him talk! I was waiting. He also makes too short of work with Storm Shadow at the end (oh, uh...spoiler alert). I would have ather seen the two of them wail on each other in equal measure and Snake beat him just barely at the end...but whatever. I didn't mind the history they gave to Duke and the Baroness, I am thrilled that Destro's metal face wasn't just a silly-assed helmet. And Heavy Duty's British accent was jarring to me, don't know why, just was.
Over all, I liked it. I would buy it, or certainly accept it as a gift. I give it 4/5 stars.
Now the oldy but not so goldy. Watchmen. I know, I know everyone else saw this like 6 months ago or so. I was kicking myself for not making more of an effort to get to the theater and see it. I loved the look of it, I thought Zack Snyder would do the best job anybody could. And, maybe he did.
the main problem is that there is WAY too much to this story than you can fit into a 3 hour long movie. Even 4-5 hours is probably not quite enough. The way to do it properly would have been to make it like 4 2hr movies on TV. Not as glamourous as the theaters though, which is why that didn't happen. But, I think you could've told the story better in that format.
Another thing stuck in my craw – why was it deemed necessary to amp up the f-bombs and gore factor? The story already has sex, nudity, violence, what-have-you and it all fits well into the context of the comic, why push the fight scenes with extra splatter? I can only imagine that that is Zack Snyder's thing and all of his movies will have it. It was appropriate in 300, out of place and obviously forced in Watchmen.
On another note, the look and costumes were awesome. Nite Owl's suit was how they should have been doing Batman's csotume from the get go. Way freakin' cool. The casting was good too.
Overall...3/5, mostly for the look and atempt at trying to stay true to the book.
Not to worry too much, I doubt I will do too many Movie reviews on the blog. But who knows. BTW, saw Quantum of Solace this weekend too. Makes me appreciate the Sean Connery Bond films all the more. I liked Casino Royale, but this one sucked. I had on You Only Live Twice a few weeks ago, seen it all the way through like, 3 or 4 times. Love it every time.
Won't bother with Quantum again though. Oddly...the Dragonball movie was laughale terrible too. Some of my in-laws got it and Larissa and I watched it in macabe fascination. Oof.
-Joe Out.
