Movie Reviews 2009

Here are my film reviews for movies from SPRING, SUMMER 2009.
These reviews are long over due and many of the films are long gone or just about to head out of the theaters but here goes:

SPRING 2009
The Watchmen

X-Men Origin Wolverine

The Proposal

SUMMER 2009
Up

Paper Heart

500 Days of Summer

I loved the non-linear story telling and the song and dance sequences. I loved loved Joseph Gordon Levitt as the lead (yes, the little kid from 3rd Rock is all grown up). His take on the confirmed male romantic in rose colored glasses is so convincing it's both funny and sad and even the guys in the audience were groaning in sympathy. His best male buds were on point and no help as usual in figuring out the complexities of a woman's brain. I can't wait to fix him up with a real nice girl(lol).


Surrogates

I absolutely love sci-fi movies but after seeing the trailers for this one, I had a nagging feeling that I'd seen this movie before but done better. Maybe somewhere along the lines of I Robot (James Cromwell back again here as the inventor/doctor) meets The Matrix (characters live virtual reality lives plugged into "stim" or "neuro-interface" chairs and a resistance group lead by Ving Rhames as the prophet v.s. Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus). Is it just me? Needless to say I skipped this one, and by the box office tally so far, others did too.

Zombie Land



Fall 2008 Reviews
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The first hour: Spectacular! The science behind the sci-fi and the cgi was great!
I think all the actors did their jobs well especially Reeves, who often gets a bad rap.

Midpoint: Fair. I wanted more Gort v.s. the military action. I also wanted to spank Jacob/Jaden.

Problem:
Ending: Weak with poor resolution. At 103 minutes, this movie needed another 10-20 minutes to it to affect a good resolution. Personally, I think they edited a lot out to appease the die hard fans of the original who seemed against the environmental slant. Example: The professor's scenes and argument's seem short and incomplete. I expect to see those deleted scenes when they release the DVD in 4 or so months

Overall, I gave it a 7.5 out of 10 but good fun for the Christmas weekend.
For Sci-fi fans: This movie is a must see if only to compare it to the original.