The Words

As I was leaving the theater for this film I found myself reflecting on my difficulties with bringing my own stories and ideas from page to screen or novel and how that frustration could possibly turn to desperation, and you have to ask yourself the question would you do what Rory did?  Of course what I'm referring to is the premise of the film about a young writer who finds a manuscript with no name attached and in his frustration with his inability to get his own material published he re-types every word and claims it for his own. For some reason Bradley Cooper keeps taking these roles of a frustrated writer who obtains his success based on false premises. Like Limitless and one could say he played a struggling journalist/writer on Alias. Not sure what he sees in these characters but he does seem comfortable playing them. The Words is a strangely crafted film that shares it's odd narrative with another favorite film of mine Adaptation. Where that was a brilliant comedy about a story within a story this one weaves a equally intricate tale without the humor and maybe that is why it suffered at the Box Office.

Clay Hammond (Denis Quaid) starts off the film reading an excerpt of his new fictional book the Words. As he tells his story we begin to follow his protagonist Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) and his wife Dora Jansen (Zoe Saldana). Rory is a struggling novelist who is having trouble making ends meet as he tries to get his first novel sold. After traveling in Paris he comes across a manuscript in an old shoulder bag that has no name attached. He is so affected by the manuscript in it's detail of Paris post World War II that he tries to channel his own inspiration by re-typing it word for word. He eventually publishes the book under his name and receives fame and fortune for it that is until he comes across an Old Man (Jeremy Irons) who claims that he wrote the book.

I really liked the movie even though I found the pacing to be a little strange. It was hard to tell what was true and what wasn't and I'm not so sure how effective the weaving between stories with Bradley Cooper and Denis Quaid were. I think the story about Dora, Rory and the old man were enough drama to put into one movie. SPOILER ALERT---------Ok, so it's really impossible to talk about this movie without revealing most or all of the twists but I think it was interesting that the filmmakers seemed to imply that Clay Hammond was actually Rory and that his book the words is him acknowledging it. But he doesn't outright admit it's him and the film never clears that up. I definitely can understand the power of having your words stolen from you, it's not just words in this case it's your life and it has somebody else's name attached to it.  I can also understand Rory who can see the brilliance of the book as well as recognizing that on his best day he could never write anything as powerful. Which then brings us to the character of Clay who seems to smugly revel in his success while subtlety admitting he's a bit of a charlatan. But after thinking about it for a while it's pretty clear that Clay is Rory and he does feel guilt for what he did to the old man and this book is his way of trying to make things right. But he still isn't paying any real consequences for it except from Olivia Wilde's character who is the only one who seems to have figured it out. There wasn't anything very new established here, drama wise, but I think the dilemma was definitely interesting but it never seemed to fully accomplish what it set out to do. I think the filmmakers were too keen on the mystery of who is who rather than focus on the why. Otherwise there were some great performances from Bradley Cooper and the stunning Zoe Saldana. I always love Olivia Wilde and Jeremy Irons confrontation with Cooper was solid. It's just Denis Quaid that kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, he just seems out of place in his role and I'm not sure if I can pinpoint exactly why. I think he is also too focused on the mystery of this guy that he doesn't really reveal anything and it becomes a bit lost in the translation. But I don't want to be like the film and not answer the main question in my post that they didn't answer in the movie, would you take manuscript and make it your own? The answer is definitely no I would think cause the consequences are too high plus I would feel guilty about it all the time especially if it became a hit. And that is no fun. See you won't get that kind of directness from this movie and honestly that might be part of why it didn't quite hit it off with film goers. Anyway it's a nice little drama with an interesting premise but you shouldn't kill yourself to get to the theater to see it this can definitely wait till DVD. Besides you may start having trouble finding it in theaters given the pitiful box office.

Grade: 3 Buckets

Lawless

This is the first of two big Mafia related flicks that are due out over the next year or so.  You may have heard about Gangster Squad starring Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Josh Brolin. After the incident in Colorado Warner Brothers flipped out and cut a scene of a violent shoot out at a movie theatre from the film and moved the date to January 2013. I personally think they were overreacting but I'm sure Lawless is happy to have them move to keep the momentum on them for a while as it was supposed to be released this coming Friday the 7th of September.  Lawless is the first real commercial film for Director John Hillcoat who is known for his gritty, dark and bloody Indie films like the Road and the Proposition. He is joined again with his screenwriter Nick Cave who also wrote the bad ass western the Proposition. Lawless is a cross between Public Enemy and Boardwalk Empire. It didn't have the most audacious open but it was solid enough, it'll be interesting to see how it fares once the September films start heating up.

This is amazingly a true story based on the book The Wettest County in the World, written by Matt Bondurant about his Grandfather and his brothers Jack (Shia LaBeouf), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clark) during Prohibition. These three brothers ran a tight operation of Moonshine distribution in Franklin, Virginia until a corrupt Lawman Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) decides to wet his beak by force. A gang war of sorts is begun between the slick Chicago lawman and the backwoods rednecks the Bondurants.

Right off the bat you could see one of Hillcoat's strengths is visuals and atmosphere. Being a native of North Carolina and a relative Virginian as well as a frequent traveler, it had the feeling of being in the Smoky Mountains. The cast was pretty fantastic even Shia was pretty good and that's saying something. Like Public Enemy you get a sense of Americana when times are tough and these guys are doing what they can to get by. They are proud and stubborn but interesting and they don't like to be told what to do. Especially Tom Hardy's Forrest he doesn't say much but what he doesn't say speaks volumes about his character. It is amazing what this guy goes through and somehow finds a way to survive. If it wasn't a true story I might have called bullshit a few times in there. It is pretty incredible. While Shia's Jack can't ever shut the hell up. He's impetuous and he's always at the forefront of all the problems the Brothers encounter. He can't be held fully responsible for his character's actions since that is how he's supposed to be but damn he plays that obnoxious confidence with ease. His moments with love interest Bertha (Mia Wasilkowska) were fun as she is wooed over to the dark side from what I assume is her devout Quaker Father. Part of me enjoyed Guy Pearce's relentless beat down on Jack cause let's face it some times Shia just deserves a few kicks to the gut. He played an evil bastard nancy boy masterfully. Such a bazaar performance but certainly effective. He could get a surprise Oscar nod down the road.  I also thought Jessica Chastain was great as Maggie, it was a small role but she mixed it up with the brothers nicely. The pacing wasn't bad but I felt they focused a bit too much on Jack and I was disappointed that they didn't extend the bubble out to Forrest and Howard who were many ways much more interesting. Which brings me to the weakest part of the film, the relationship between the Brothers. The connection between the three of them felt more stilted then brotherly and when the action starts up and they are under siege they begin to feel more like close friends then siblings. I thought the relationship between Jack and Cricket Pate (Dane DeHaan) was more brotherly than the actual brothers and he was just a family friend who was the genius behind their special batch of Moonshine. I also was disappointed that Gary Oldman's Floyd Banner didn't have much to do. He shows up shooting his Tommy Gun and then disappears for most of the film only to turn up briefly again halfway through. I mean it's great to get Oldman for the role but it was so inconsequential yet he played it so well it just sucked to see him in what really amounts to a cameo role. It is a brutal flick that certainly rivals the violence of Boardwalk Empire but it's a worthy action drama in the realm of Bonnie and Clyde and Public Enemy.  If you get a chance to check this out you won't be disappointed.

Grade: 3 Buckets

The Expendables 2

I have an idea, you as fans may not like it, but I really think it needs to be done here. Our friend Sylvester he needs your help. A lot of actors well most of them, live in fantasy worlds. It's easy to get caught up in it and it's got to be damn hard to let it go once you've inhabited that world for a little while. Well as you all know Sylvester Stallone has inhabited this fantasy world as a tough grid iron bad ass for over 30 years now and he was glorious in that time. But someone, anyone needs to tell him that that time may be over and he needs to recognize his age. I want to reiterate that he is three years older then my Dad at the very young age of 66. Don't get me wrong the guy looks great for his age, he's in great physical shape, but you know what so is my Dad and he would look pretty goofy running around with a 50cal avoiding explosions and attempting to beat up Jean Claude Van Damme. I'm sorry Sly taking the grey out of your hair is not going to really make you look younger or make you look less sad when you hit on women thirty times your age. So I think, after watching the latest action flick from Stallone, that it's time we did him a favor and like in Don Quioxte put the mirror in front of his face and politely tell him he's not chasing dragons it's a fucking windmill it's time to put the sword and shield away or pass it along to your younger successor, whoever that may be. Please do it now to keep your legacy in tact, oh and one other tiny thing, please stop writing your own movies. Pretty Please?

I know the above paragraph was harsh and a strange way to start a review, but come on, we all know what a review of the Expendables 2 looks like and it isn't very good. The first film was also not very good but it was shot pretty well and the action match ups were pretty damn good and worth the price of admission. The one that sticks out to me is the Couture Austin fight. That was and still is in my mind one of the best action sequences in the last ten years or so. I loved it. The rest of the movie was goofy and a little strange but at least we had these great matchups with these great titans of war. Right off the bat in this sequel we are swimming in heroes. The first time it was a curiosity seeing Stallone, Willis and Arnie all in the same movie. When I was a little kid I always thought it would be fun and it was very cool the first time to see them all together sharing the screen even if it was probably 15 to 20 years to late. For the sequel we get what we all got when we were 9 playing on the playground at recess. You and your good friends all fighting over who is going to be a good guy and who is a bad guy. I guess poor Van Damme had to draw the short straw, and he is the only one. Newcomer Chuck Norris as bad ass loner wolf Booker doesn't play bad guys, duh, that's only in real life. Arnie as Trench and Willis as Church return to their roles in a larger capacity. Not to mention the return of the regulars Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture), Yin Yang (Jet Li) & Gunner (Dolph Lundgren). Throw in a few young newbies Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Nan Yu) and that's pretty much about it. Anyway, Van Damme is playing a guy not so cleverly named Vilain and he's after some uranium to sell to the highest bidder and it's up to the Old Man and his crew to stop him.

I can't say enough how much Stallone needs to stop writing his movies this isn't the 80's dude you can't get away with some of the dumb incomprehensible lines and puns nowadays without some collective groans from the audience. Almost all of Arnie's lines are one-liners he tried to be meta about it but it backfired horribly and he just looked even worse. The best scene with Arnie is when he ripped off the door to the tiny car and climbed in with Bruce Willis, I'm not saying it was a great scene because of the action but it was a little funny. The rest of his scenes were just ridiculous and just...old, again do any of these people realize the 80's happened 30 years ago? Chuck Norris fares the best of the team as he shows up out of the blue gets a couple of funny lines ripped from the internet that add to the lore of Chuck Norris and then he disappears for a bit. The action scenes were short and horribly lit, it was impossible to see anything. I expected the story and dialogue to be shit but I at least expected to see some beautiful explosions, unfortunately, I was denied again. The opener was pretty fun as the team was fucking stuff up on a separate mission and I thought the action was a bit tighter. But once they start after Van Damme everything goes dark and choppy, which should be blamed on Simon West and his inability to frame up. Van Damme wasn't terrible as the one and only villain, he didn't have very much to do but I liked what he brought to the table.

Which brings me to one of the worst parts of the film which was the one and only versus fight in the film between Stallone and Van Damme. Basically it boils down to Van Damme getting in a few signature kicks and Stallone just beating the shit out of him in what has to be the most unrealistic display of Stallone basically telling Van Damme, my court, my ball, my rules. Your ass goes down in the third. Stallone's at least twenty years older than Van Damme who still looks like he's in pretty great shape. Why not have Statham fight Van Damme that would have been awesome. But what can you do he's following the 80's script. The Number 1 hero has to fight the number 1 villain and the Number 2 hero has to fight the number 2 villain. Which wasn't honestly a bad fight but who the fuck was this number 2 villain anyway? I don't know but it would have been cooler if it was Van Damme instead. Also thought it was tedious as characters would show up and disappear solely for us to ooh and ah at their presence. It's a little insulting and lazy. So if you really really must do an Expendables 3 please hire Shane Black to write and direct. He can right the ship honest and he may be able to let these old geezers look like they belong in an action movie again. I'm not trying to be insulting to Stallone and company I love the guy and wish him well to make some awesome movies in the future but he needs a dose of some reality and he needs it stat!

Grade: 1 and half buckets

The Campaign

 Will Farrell has picked a pretty good time to get political as the Conventions are about to get under way and silly attack season is starting to hit a crescendo. So far in the battle for the real elections we've had sniping over gaffes, lies about the opponents policy and all out class warfare.  You would think that the insane shenanigans of a Will Farrell movie would be completely removed from reality but unfortunately this is politics and a good number of things that happen in the movie that seem ridiculous and insane have actually happened for real and in some cases the dumb ass that either slept with prostitutes or was caught driving under the influence was still able to win. Only in America I guess. Or at least in North Carolina.

Democratic Incumbent Cam Brady (Will Farrell) is seeking another term in a largely uncontested county in N.C. He's a shameless corrupt dumb ass who is running pretty fast and loose. He enjoys the lifestyle of a politician without doing very much for his constituents. He is shortly challenged by the son of Jesse Helms' campaign manager Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) who pulls off a perfect nasaly North Carolina accent. Marty is a naive weirdo who has been co-opted to run in order to be controlled by two Puppet master brothers the Motch Brothers (Dan Aykroyd & John Lithgow). These bad brothers are looking to sell off the county to the Chinese and they need Marty to sign on the dotted line once he's elected. Marty and Cam engage in warfare for votes that are hilarious and at times insane.

This was overall a funny flick and a good return to form for Will Farrell, who in my opinion, has started to hit the Adam Sandler wall into obnoxiousness. I mean there have been times lately where I want to punch him in the face but mostly for just playing the same dumb amoral jackass character he keeps playing. In this case he does the shameless politicking pretty good. It seemed like he was playing with the looks and scandals of real Senators David Vitter and John Edwards. I caught a couple jokes there about his 9,000 dollar hair cut. I thought that Jason Sudekis' campaign manager really made the funny scenes sharper and kept it a bit more grounded then it had any reason to be. But once he's off screen Will Farrell takes over and cranks it up to 11 which is where this thing went off the rails a bit. I really do enjoy good satire and this certainly was a good attempt and again if they would have tamped down Farrell it really could have resonated as such. But I mean the whole thing about making ads with Farrell trying to boink his opponents wife is not, I repeat, not going to really help him in the polls. I think they went too silly especially when the corporate puppeteer angle was so solid the hijinks near the end of the movie almost ruined the larger point. Dylan McDermott's fixer lurking behind the scenes and bullying the feminine Marty were some of the best parts of the film, who knew he could be so funny. Which brings us to the Motch Brothers stuff. I can see now why the inspiration for the brothers, the Koch's, were not so happy. It points out not so subtlety that thanks to Citizens United were going to have a lot more Boss Tweed type representatives. These Corporate bozos are really spending Billions on this election and if their guy wins they are going to be looking for their pound of flesh. If you want to know what kind of damage these brothers are looking to do if Romney wins, please click here. You'll get all the info you need on these guys and hopefully you'll be able to sleep well tonight after reading it. OK, promise I'm stepping off the soap box.  So go and check out the flick if you are looking for a funny satire. It didn't seem to do as well as the usual Will Farrell flicks so I suggest you see it soon. You'll enjoy it much more than the Conventions, and at least it's fiction.

Grade: 3 Buckets

  

Bourne Legacy

So last week I did a review for the reboot of Sony's Total Recall and in a nutshell I left disappointed. Recall had a lot of potential to be great but, in my mind, was a failure because they just didn't change it enough from the previous film. Even though it was darker and they put more into creating the world they just couldn't shake the previous one and I think in the end it's what kept audiences away. So here we are at another Reboot, although to be more accurate it's probably a Reboot/sequel. Recall and Bourne are similar in some ways as they both are about spies who have lost their memories and are desperately trying to re-invent themselves as heroic after they learned they might not have been so in their previous lives. That is what was so compelling about the Bourne Identity with Matt Damon where he can do all of these incredible things yet his greatest worry is the horrible things he must have done before he lost his memory. Also it helps that it's a pretty kick ass action movie with some incredible chase sequences. So this new Bourne is attempting to continue the series but reboot with a new character to replace Jason Bourne named Aaron Cross. Will this turn out to be another Total Recall reboot? Thankfully no, writer/director Tony Gilroy is able to, with a few bumps, take us from Jason Bourne to Aaron Cross in a very fun action thriller that presents a few new areas to explore.

After the third Bourne film we are left with a Black Ops program Treadstone/Black Briar under heavy scrutiny after Jason Bourne uncovers damning information about how these programs are being used and the puppet masters controlling them. Pam Landy (Joan Allen), an ally of Bournes within the CIA is now the catalyst of the investigation. With help from Bourne she has been able to provide proof of wrongdoing and a hearing is called.  This film takes place in between all of the drama of the third film. Bourne is on the run and missing. We find new shady heads of the program in Retired Col. Eric Byer (Ed Norton) and Retired Admiral Mark Turso (Stacy Keach) who are freaking out about the investigation as we learn there are many programs like Treadstone that are currently active. In order to protect their most fragile operations they decide to destroy the evidence linking Treadstone to the larger organization. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is one of those loose ends they want to eliminate and boy do they try. Cross is similar to Bourne in many ways without the memory loss but with other problems. He is sort of a Super Soldier as he takes Blue and Green meds that heighten his physical and mental capabilities. The problem is he's running out of meds and he can't go ask the people trying to kill him for some more. He saves one of the scientists, Dr. Marta Shering (Rachel Weisz), tasked with providing his meds with the hope that she will get him back on a regimented schedule. 

This was a fun movie and a decent start to what is obviously a new trilogy continuing the Bourne legacy, but it wasn't nearly as good as the previous three. There were some pretty substantial problems with this one so let's get to it. First of all let's start with Aaron Cross himself. I don't envy Jeremy Renner to have to come into this franchise and take over where Matt Damon left off. What made Bourne interesting from the beginning was just that, his lack of a beginning, the mystery of who he was and now who he was going to become. Because he had lost his memory there are all of these questions about how he knows what he knows, how he ended up face first in the water and what is he going to do about it. This mystery was able to sustain three films ably, amping up the action every film. Aaron Cross does not have this problem he knows who he is, who he used to be and through the course of this film he begins to understand why they are trying to kill him. More importantly we as the audience know it too and a lot of the suspense is sort of chucked. Yes they get into the meds and Aaron's weakness for them but for me that was the least interesting thing in the film. Don't get me wrong I thought Renner was great and he did the best with what he had but his character at this point isn't nearly as interesting as Jason Bourne. Thankfully though he is a different character he has the ability to be charming and conniving when he needs to be where Bourne was more cold and efficient. I'm sure there are plenty of things to learn about Cross as the series continues and I look forward to that but from what they gave us so far I'm definitely not as intrigued as I was with Bourne.

Every Bourne film peels off a layer to find another layer in this case Treadstone grows bigger and more global with more puppeteers behind the curtain. But all of this unveiling is meaningless unless there is a point to all of it. I'm not feeling it just yet, but the general plot I'm starting to take away from this series is Bourne/Cross vs. the C.I.A, and the C.I.A. is the bad guy. Are they all evil? Let's take a look back through the series: Conklin (Chris Cooper) Pretty Bad if not evil, Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) started out as a bureaucrat in the first Bourne turned into a pretty bad asshole in Bourne Supremacy, Noah Vossen (David Strathairn) turns out to be a self righteous asshole without much compunction for killing people even innocent people, Ezra Kramer (Scott Glen) the head of the friggin C.I.A seems shady at first and in Ultimatum and Legacy shows what a pretty evil scumbag he is, Pam Landy (Joan Allen) way to much of a Girl Scout to be a member of the C.I.A. but she's honorable and certainly not evil. So if I were to recap the heads of the Covert world in the Bourne series we have a whopping one person of authority who has any morals. Yeah I know these movies area about the grey area but damn some of these guys are beyond grey.

Which brings me to the problem with this film, if you strip away some new details at the end of the day, just like Bourne, Aaron Cross is just avoiding death from the same organization that trained him. It's the same damn plot and to the casual observer it might seem like a small thing but if you really enjoy this series and the trajectory they have taken then your going to be at least a little disappointed in the delivery of this last film as a rehash of what we have already seen in the three previous films. Thankfully there are enough new elements added to enhance the scope of these movies and to open up the possibility for more interesting plot lines in the future they were just woefully undeveloped in this film . But overall I did enjoy the movie and I really liked Aaron and Marta and I thought she brought something a little different to the series in that she may have a bit more knowledge about Aaron's situations then she may be letting on, it was subtle but it was there. There is more to her then meets the eye and I want to find out what that is in the next installment. The first half drags a little but once the action sets in the pace begins to pick up and it's non-stop until the unnecessarily abrupt ending. Yeah that ending was kind of terrible not in what we see but how it just sort of happens. Your just getting into the action and the story and then you start to hear that Bourne music they always use and credits role. WTF Gilroy? If you like the Bourne series I recommend you see it, if you enjoy a smart action flick then this is also up your alley. If you are hoping for an improvement in the Bourne series you are going to be disappointed for sure, but there is potential for them to fix the problems in this film and make a successful trilogy with Aaron Cross and I will be first in line when that happens.

Grade: 3 Buckets   

Total Recall (2012)

What is it the last few years with this glut of remakes and reboots? I know Hollywood has consistently re-made and rebooted things over the last 50 years or so but it seems even more prominent now. From Casino Royale to Total Recall, the reboot has become the easy way out for studios. The amazing thing is 9 times out of 10 it works out. Casino Royale is a great example of a successful reboot, while crapfests like Footloose (Paramount) fail to make big enough box office. For some reason though studios are obsessed with recreating the 80's and 90's.  Fox has the reboot of Red Dawn coming out soon and along with Total Recall Sony has Robocop & Evil Dead on the way. And I'm sure they aren't going to stop there. It's a shame that no one can get a string of original ideas going but that's what happens when finance people try to dictate entertainment it's all about fast, cheap and easy.  I will say that fast and easy seem to be the key factors here in the new Total Recall but cheap is certainly not one of them. I've heard estimates between 200 and 250 million for this flick and you can definitely see it on screen. Between Colin Farrell colony hopping between massive sets chock full of automated soldiers and flying cars, it is impressive even though it looks like a cross between Blade Runner and Minority Report.

Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) seems to have an average blue collar life in the not to distant future. Apparently our world has been devastated by biological warfare and the only inhabitable parts of the world are Great Brittan and Australia. They are the last areas with air clean enough to live in. Quaid has to travel between colonies in a pretty cool tunnel elevator that goes through the core of the earth to his job at the automaton factory where he works on the factory floor making soldier bots for the government. Quaid feels trapped as he wishes his life were different. Which is a little strange given how extremely hot his wife Lorie (Kate Beckinsale) is. Yet he is having weird nightmares about being an action hero and being with another hottie Melina (Jessica Biel). So he finally builds up the courage to act on his dreams and reaches out to this company that makes dreams come true called Rekall. If you've seen the original you know what happens after he goes to Rekall and the adventure opens up.

I really wanted to love this I really did. Visually it's pretty fantastic and the action sequences were fun but overall it just felt like a clinical exercise treading over well known ground and in the end proving to be anti-climactic. To start the cast was pretty great from Colin Farrell to Bryan Cranston as the evil Cohaagen. Bokeem Woodbine as his best friend Harry really tried to ground this thing a bit and enhance the element of what is real and what isn't. The problem is it's Total Recall if you know the original film from 1990 then all the twists and turns in this new one are not going to be new for you. In fact you'll be able to predict exactly when each twist is coming. Yes there are some changes for one this isn't as goofy or bloody violent. Secondly they don't go to Mars so that whole plot point is gone. They do try to make an effort to focus on Quaid and his attempt to understand who he is and what he is supposed to do and this is an improvement from the first film but the problem is we've seen all of this before and done much better in the Bourne Trilogy. The three breasted chick is in this one, but since we aren't introduced to Mutants in this new one, it sort of feels out of place and more of a wink to the much better original. Which begs the question why remake this film if you don't have anything new to say? The first Recall is a classic action flick why toy with that unless you want to take a risk and change things up which unfortunately they didn't do enough here. The frustrating thing is they seem to be on the verge of speaking to something that could be relevant to today with the separation of the working class and the rich elite but it's only touched upon briefly and never really fleshed out.  The main appeal of Total Recall is the Inception like quality, what is real and what isn't and if it was in front of you would you be able to tell the difference. The problem is I never felt almost the entire film that that was an issue for the audience to understand. It was very clear from the beginning what was and what wasn't real. For Quaid maybe it wasn't so clear, but when you always seem to be ten steps ahead of the protagonist and are able to predict what is happening next with precision then something is definitely wrong with the narrative.

Why the hell was Bill Nighy in this movie. He appears to be a pivotal character and then he has a meaningless speech and then he's done. What a colossal waste of time for such a great actor. This issue plays into the overall problem with the film there isn't enough backstory to this world and how it functions. I wanted to understand Cohaagen's motivations rather then think of him as just some evil dude. I felt like the movie was trying to give his character more but either they didn't know how or they cut a bunch of stuff that may have helped to flesh him out and make him a more rounded character. Instead you are left with stock characters; Cohaagen is evil and Melina is good. I mean hell even in the original Total Recall you get to see a different side to the protagonist, Quaid/Hauser, as he shows he may not have been such a good dude and it was good thing he lost his memory. In this new film it's not entirely clear that's the case because he is a spy and is able to play all the angles. We never see the other Quaid/Hauser in this new movie so we have no reference to what Cohaagen is talking about when he says he wants his friend back. And trust me this isn't a spoiler cause it's in the trailer but Quaid's wife Lori suffers even worse from this problem. She of course pretends to be the doting wife and it turns out she is also a spy and has been merely portraying his wife through the film. Through the remaining 80% she is attempting to track her hubby and his girlfriend and kill them.  Director Len Wiseman had an opportunity here to make Lori interesting rather then some frenetic evil bitch. Sharon Stone's Lori from the original was pretty bland as she just wants to kick the shit out of Quaid/Hauser and put him down for the count. In this new film, again it looks like they want to give Lori more development but then they just gloss right over all of that so she can manically kill Quaid/Hauser and his girlfriend, just cause she can. It's just disappointing because this is an interesting story and can be told in many different ways while still being true to the themes of the previous film. It unfortunately just doesn't quite get there.

If you are looking for a relatively harmless film that you may have already seen before in a different incarnation then sure go and see Total Recall but if you are a fan of the original I'm not sure you're going to get what your looking for in this remake. I give Len Wiseman credit for making a decent sci-fi action film with truly solid action set pieces and visual effects but the story has nothing new to offer and it left me disappointed.

Grade: 2 and half Buckets

The Dark Knight Rises

The circle is finally complete, after 7 years and three films Chris Nolan's journey through Gotham has come to a close. It's been a pretty crazy week when the fictional world was interrupted by an unfortunately real act of cowardice, terror &  murder. I don't want to go much into the events that happened in Colorado which is being covered to an overwhelming degree on your televisions. Having seen the film it is hard to separate the two of them, they are unfortunately tragically linked. Since this is only an entertainment site and frankly there is enough oxygen being spent on the whys and hows on the 24 hour death channels, so we'll leave it to them. If you click here you'll get a thoughtful look into the debate about guns. As for the film itself this was for all intents and purposes one of the most brutal PG-13 films I've seen in quite a long time. This is not the Avengers or Spider-Man. If my son Nathan is lucky he might be able to see this film when he turns 18, if I have my way.

Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) has been on the sidelines for 8 years after the events in the Dark Knight and he appears to have lost his desire to interact with the new world he helped to create in Gotham. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman)  agreed with Batman at the end of the last film that former DA Harvey Dent's turn to madness and death would be covered up and that he would remain the beacon of hope he started and with the Batman taking the blame for his demise. This in turn led to the Dent act which put almost all of Gotham's worst villains behind bars. Gotham has prospered in those years but there is a storm coming as Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) tells Bruce and that storms name is Bane (Tom Hardy).

---POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW --- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

As I stated above this was an incredibly dark and brutal film almost like a Mike Tyson fight. It was incredibly ambitious and there admittedly was some glut in this almost 3 hour film, but make no mistake about it, this was a phenomenal film that, in my mind, closed the door on the trilogy in great way. All of the performances were right on the money. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake was fantastic. There is more to his character than just a simple beat cop and Nolan wove his story perfectly into the chaos. Morgan Freeman and Marion Cotillard  were great in their backup roles. I was really impressed with Anne Hathaway I was so sure she was going to be the weak link in the film I found myself enjoying her scenes with Bruce/Batman the most. Those trailers honestly did not do her justice. She was truly a great Catwoman and I wouldn't mind her strapping up in tight spandex again. I also enjoyed the twist at the end even though I wished it was fleshed out a bit more. But then I guess they would have had to tack on another hour on an already long movie. There were long stretches where Batman was rebuilding himself, after he is broken by Bane, we are left with Blake and Gordon stuck in an occupied Gotham very reminiscent of the Great Escape.  Now I know a lot of critics hated this long stretch, for Batman fans I can understand it, but this is Bane and all Batman fans have to know the consequences of what comes with him. In the comic like in the movie Batman and Bane have a devastating showdown that was intense and like in the comic Bane breaks the Bat over his knee. These critics like Harry from Aint it Cool News bemoaned these fight scenes as merely tracking shots and then he cried that he just couldn't feel the blows. I'm sorry, you couldn't feel the blows? I'm assuming Harry wanted Nolan's Batman to leap around Bane using the cape and grapple hook. What we got was Batman in over his head, we got an arrogant Batman, a complacent Batman this is a Batman with a death wish, who on his first meeting with Bane gets his ass handed to him. I know it's hard for Harry to grasp Batman as an actual human being with actual flaws. If you look at the history of this series it's fairly consistent on this point. Which is also why I like it.  Flash has never been a large part of these films, as Ras Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) tells Bruce Wayne as he beats him up in the first film, "This is not a dance!" We got a hard nosed boxing match by two men with the same training and yes, I could feel it.

Speaking of training, why would it enrage you that Bane was trained by Ras Al Ghul? I love the Batman comics too but Harry needs to learn to differentiate the page from the screen. Nolan's Batman is attempting to live in our world not the comic book world.  Bane's Venom, which acts as instant muscle growth, would seem otherworldly here in Nolan's world and it wouldn't work, trust me on this. Also thought one of the best dramatic scenes in the film when Alfred calls out Bruce for his inability to move on with his life and tells him flat out that he won't watch him commit suicide was quite frankly Oscar worthy on Michael Caine's part. So Alfred walks out on Bruce and apparently many critics had a flip out about this as well. Why did this action enrage fanboys so? It was a truly heartfelt scene that I thought played into the larger themes about Bruce Wayne and his journey. Alfred is one of the strongest willed characters in this trilogy as he has been with Bruce through all the craziest that Gotham has to throw at them until the the death of Rachel in the second film and he realizes what Bruce won't that her death has shaken him to the point that he doesn't care whether he lives or dies. Alfred, who for all intents and purposes, is his  surrogate father and he doesn't have the strength to stand by while Bruce kills himself. Makes sense to me.

There were issues though with the film and some of them were a little glaring for one, Chris Nolan needs to pick an archetype for the city of Gotham and stick with it. In Batman Begins, which looks the best, the city looks like a big urban city without looking like any real one you can recognize. You had distinctive landmarks of Gotham like the Narrows, Arkham Asylum, Wayne Tower and the high speed rail that connected them all. Most or all of that disappeared in the second and third films and real cities like Pittsburgh and New York took its place. It's most glaring in this last installment as they show wide shots of the Island of Manhattan that take you out of the action a little bit. Gotham has always been a character in these films and it's sad to see it more as a mish-mash of cities rather than the unique visual we got in the first film. I think the Wall Street scenes benefited the most from shooting in downtown NY as the disparity from rich and poor is amplified. On that front I was also disappointed that Nolan didn't go far enough into these themes as he just touches on them rather than hit it head on. He started to explore the disconnect of Bruce's wealth to his mission to protect all classes in Gotham but then Nolan refuses to actually show the poorest of Gotham especially after Bane takes over the city. We saw the rich elites being dragged from the homes and thrown into the streets which was supposed to remind us of the Nazis evicting the Jews from their houses during the war. It's a powerful image but it strikes a bit false when you don't show the same scene for the less fortunate. This is especially glaring when he exposes the gap really well in Batman Begins.

As you can see there is so much to talk about and discuss about the film whether you loved it or hated it. It solidifies in my mind why Chris Nolan is one of the best Director/filmmakers in the world right now. He still hasn't made a bad film, which is pretty damn impressive. I'm planning to see it in IMAX this weekend so I'll be sure to post whether its worth your time.  I would be surprised if it doesn't work. But if you for some reason haven't seen it, you've gotta go, good or bad, it will certainly keep your brain humming long after you leave the theatre.

Grade: 4 Buckets