Everly (1/10): An awful attempt at imitating Korean action films

“You betrayed me. You will die in that room tonight.”

It’s been a while since I’ve given a film a half star rating because I usually find some positive thing to say, but Joe Lynch’s latest movie has broken the streak. I didn’t find one redeemable quality in Everly and it’s going to be very hard for me to find another film that I could despise as much as this one. The violence in this film is disturbing and gratuitous. The screenplay, which I’m surprised to hear was in the 2010 Blacklist for most liked unmade script, is insane. The story centers on Salma Hayek’s character, Everly, who from the opening scene of the movie is facing off gangsters and assassins sent by her mob boss to kill her for betraying him. She is held up in her apartment and there are people after her coming from every direction. We’ve seen similar themed action movies like The Raid or The Judge, but this film has terrible action scenes and it doesn’t make much sense. First her boss wants her killed at any cost so he sends everyone to do the job for him, but by the end he decides he should be the one to do it in the most painful way possible so we get some very strange and disturbing torture scenes. The film also fails to be humorous even though it tries really hard to be, which reminds us why what Tarantino does is so difficult to pull off. Everly tries very hard to imitate the style of Korean action films, but it doesn’t come near to them. You need to have a story in order to get away with some of the violence, but here it all seems incredible senseless. 

Salma Hayek plays the lead role, but there isn’t much she can do with a script like this where there is no character development whatsoever. I understand that these films don’t need to introduce any backstories for these type of characters but they should at least be consistent throughout the movie, and here it seems like Everly started off as a scared and defenseless character and ended up turning into a female version of the Terminator by the end. The pacing of the film was also an issue for me. The 90 minutes felt like a three hour film and I kept on checking my watch to see how much time was left. I honestly don’t understand some of the love this film has received, because I honestly didn’t find any redeeming quality to it. Everly is by far the worst film of 2014. It’s exploitative torture trash in my opinion and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Joe Lynch should take some lessons from Tarantino before he decides to make another action flick like this. 

My Review: The Pirates! Band of Misfits (8/10)

¨You´ll see I will be Pirate of the Year! And then you´ll be laughing on the other side of your faces.¨

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie as I was catching up with the nominated animation films. I hadn’t really heard of it before the nominations, but was glad it received the recognition it got because this really is a fun and silly movie that the entire family can enjoy. My favorite animated film of the year continues to be Wreck-it Ralph, but this is still much better than Pixar´s Brave. The Pirates is one of those rare animated movies that will appeal to a diverse audience thanks to the subtle and clever jokes and puns that the British have us all familiar with. The animation is very detailed and skillful here considering this isn’t a computer generated animated movie; it´s stop-motion and was produced by Aardman, the same production company that brought us such great animated films as Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run. Directors Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt also worked in Chicken Run; and in my opinion have perfected their craft here. You can´t make a movie about pirates without having some sort of exciting adventure, and this movie delivers a real fun and clever adventure that adults and kids will enjoy alike. It has the typical silly and dry British humor that we all love so much. The screenplay was adapted by Gideon Defoe from his own novels about the pirates. I had a really fun time with all the jokes and puns, and really loved these funny characters. They were as luxuriant as the Pirate Captain´s beard.

The Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) dreams of becoming Pirate of the Year but has failed to do so for the past twenty years as he isn’t considered one of the favorites to take home the prize. His crew loves him and remains faithful to him, but are as quirky as he is and are not taken seriously by other pirates. The favorites are always Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven), Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek), and Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry) who have a great amount of booty and treasures. The Pirate Captain knows that in order to win the prize he will need to find a great treasure so he begins his quest with his crew by raiding several ships unsuccessfully. Right when he´s about to give up, the Pirate Captain encounters a ship where a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant) discovers that his beloved pet, Polly, is not actually a parrot, but a rare bird that was thought to have been extinct decades ago. He convinces the Pirate Captain to travel to London with the dodo where he promises him great riches for his discovery, but Charles has a hidden agenda of his own and everything is not what it seems. The Pirate Captain´s Second Assistant (Martin Freeman) warns him about the dangers of traveling to London, but he insists on finding these riches. In London, the Pirate Captain and his crew must avoid being discovered as pirates because Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) is known for hating pirates. Thus the adventure begins. Arrr.

This is the first time Hugh Grant voices an animated character, but he does it masterfully creating one of the most enthusiastic and beloved characters of the movie. David Tennant, Martin Freeman and Imelda Staunton all stand out in this film, but Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven, and Lenny Henry really don´t have much screen time here. I really had a fun time with this stop-motion animated film and laughed several times at the clever gags and jokes. I hope more people get to watch this fun adventure because it is a movie that the entire family can enjoy and that is just a commodity that is rare to find these days. So if you have the opportunity to see this don’t hesitate and check it out.

    

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My Review: Here Comes the Boom (5/10)

¨ If you're gonna lose, then I'm gonna help you lose. Deal? ¨

Fans of any Kevin James (or Adam Sandler) comedy will get what they expected going into the movie: a lot of cheap laughs. It isn’t a terrible movie, it just is cliché, predictable, and full of the same jokes we´ve seen repeated over and over again in his other movies. Of course I didn’t go into this film expecting it to be an artistic groundbreaking original movie, so I can´t say I was disappointed. I knew what I was going in for and I did get what I expected. The truth of the matter is that I laughed through several scenes, but this was honestly a terrible and predictable movie. I would have been better off laughing at any other sitcom comedy on TV during that hour. Kevin James has played this sort of ordinary guy who turns out to be a hero in pretty much all his films, and he has his fan base so it seems to be working for him pretty good. The reality is that these movies are so forgettable some times that you even forget you´ve seen these same scenes play out over and over again in their previous films. You even have the typical gross out scenes involving throwing up and having food fights. Here Comes the Boom receives a zero in originality, but it does get points for cheap laughs now and then. If you´re a fan of this light genre you will get your money´s worth. Come next year you will watch the same movie again with the characters having different names and professions, but facing pretty much the same situations and telling the same jokes. You will share laughs for a couple of hours and then forget everything about it, but at least it takes your mind off things for a while.

 Scott Voss (Kevin James), once a successful wrestler during his teens, is now a high school biology teacher who has seemed to have lost his purpose and vision in teaching over the past decade in the school. He is more of a slacker now and is constantly late for school. His glory days of the past when he was voted the best teacher of the school are long past him now. When the principal (Greg Germann) of the school announces that they are going to cut out extracurricular activities in the school to reduce the budget, he decides to speak up for music teacher, Marty Streb (Henry Winkler), who will be left out of a job if they can’t come up with the 48,000 dollars that the music curriculum is costing the school. Scott and her colleague Bella (Salma Hayek) decide to help Marty out by coming up with ways for raising the money. Scott decides to prepare immigrants for the citizenship test in order to come up with some extra income. Here he meets a former MMA fighter from Holland named Niko (Bas Rutten) who introduces him to the MMA world. Scott realizes that if he can get into a professional fight he may win 10,000 dollars just by participating therefore he makes it his goal to become a mixed-martial arts fighter so he can raise enough money to save Streb´s job.

Here Comes the Boom has a very ridiculous plot and unfortunately instead of going all the way with the satire they try to give it a Rocky like tone. It didn’t really work for me and some of the actors were pretty bad. Henry Winkler was probably the funniest character in this film, while Bas Rutten tried too hard to be funny but some scenes really didn’t work with him. I am not surprised I didn’t like this film considering it was directed by the same guy who brought us Zookeeper, although I was a fan of his when he directed The Wedding Singer. I think he fails here by not going all the way with the satire considering how ridiculous the plot is. It will have success however with its intended audience, but I just wasn’t the right target for it. It is a lazy comedy and you get exactly what you expect from it.

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My Review: Savages (8/10)

¨It started here in paradise, Laguna Beach, where they say God parked himself on the seventh day, but they towed him on the eighth.¨

When the movie began I thought I was actually watching a trailer for another Hostel movie or something like that, but once I realized that it was actually the opening of Oliver Stone`s new film I knew I was going to be in for something different. I knew the film would be much darker than his latest efforts going back to his Natural Born Killers days and I was excited about it. Then I heard Blake Lively`s voice over narration and it kind of killed the momentum. Despite the fact that there was no need for the narration and some other minor issues, I really enjoyed this film for the most part. I don’t think I was so hooked with a thriller like this one all year. I was literally at the edge of my seat once the boring setup was over with. The two biggest issues I had with this film had to do with the beginning and the ending, but for most of Savages I was really entertained and hooked. There are some great performances here as well, although they had to do more with the secondary characters than the main ones. Savages could have been one of my favorite films of the year if it weren’t for those issues I had. The film is really violent and difficult to watch at times, but if you like these kinds of thrillers then you will enjoy this movie. Oliver Stone made a name for himself way back in 1979 when he won an Oscar for the adaptation of Midnight Express, and followed such success by directing films like Platoon, Nixon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, and Any Given Sunday. He`s done very diverse projects, but Savages is perhaps one of his most violent and darkest films to date, at least from this century. It will stick with you long after the movie is over.

Ophelia (Blake Lively), -who actually calls herself O after realizing she was named after the suicidal character from Hamlet- lives an ideal life in Laguna Beach along with her two lovers, Chon (Taylor Kitsch) a former Navy SEAL, and Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) a bright marihuana producer and entrepreneur. Ben and Chon have been best friends since High School and have no problem sharing their love with O. The two friends are very different from each other; Ben is peaceful while Chon who has been affected by war in Iraq is more of a violent person. The two have had success with their marihuana business since the weed that they produce is one of the best in the world. They run things as peacefully as possible, but when a Mexican drug cartel wants to become partners with them, things begin to get out of hand. The cartel is run by la Reina Elena (Salma Hayek), and Lado (Benicio del Toro) is in charge of doing the dirty work. When Elena tries to force the two men to associate with her through Alex (Demian Bichir) and they refuse, she sends O to be kidnapped. Ben and Chon will do whatever it takes to get the love of their lives back, while fighting off this dangerous cartel. A dirty FBI agent named Dennis (John Travolta) assists the Californian duo by providing some key information of the cartel. This is where things begin to get ugly and the violence escalates.

Taylor Kitsch has had a very busy year with John Carter coming out earlier this year and then Battleship. I don’t think he`s a very good actor, but this is perhaps his better work. I really didn’t know who Aaron Taylor-Johnson was until I heard he was the guy from Kick-Ass. He is unrecognizable in this film, and of the three leading actors, he´s by far the best. I thought he gave a strong performance here, although in my opinion the best performances come from the secondary actors. Salma Hayek and John Travolta were great and remind us once again why they have been such successful actors over the years. My favorite performance came from Benicio del Toro who I thought was brilliant and one of the best villains of the year. The story is really gripping and intense; if it weren`t for the narration or the pretty loose ending than this would´ve been a perfect movie. It`s still worth your time and you won`t regret Savages if you enjoy suspenseful thrillers and don`t mind a little bit of violence. It`s not a perfect movie, but I recommend it for the suspense and tension that Stone creates in this noir pulpy film.

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My Review: Puss in Boots (5/10)

¨My thirst for adventure will never be quenched! ¨

Puss in Boots is a character we came to love in the Shrek franchise, and this time director Chris Miller (who wrote the original Shrek screenplay and directed some of the sequels) makes him the star of his own animated film. Antonio Banderas is back again voicing his character, and the similarities with the Zorro can`t be ignored (considering he played this famous hero in two films). Puss in Boots takes place before the adventures with Shrek, and we get to see his background story and his interactions with other famous fairytale characters such as Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty, the Mother Goose, Jack and the Beanstalk, and many more. Of course the stories are very different from the ones we`ve heard: Jack and Jill are two thieves who remind us a lot of Bonnie and Clyde; Humpty Dumpty is a smart great inventor, but at the same time is always getting into mischief; Jack sold a stolen cow for the magic beans and therefore is in prison, and so on. DreamWorks has done the same thing with the Shrek franchise so we are used to these funny alterations to classical characters. I really enjoyed the first half of this story and laughed throughout it. Puss in Boots is a great character and he deserved to star in his own movie. I did have a problem with some of the secondary characters, and especially with the last 20 minutes of the film which just got beyond ridiculous. It`s too bad because the film really had a lot of potential and it began with a lot of promise.

Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) is a wanted man, or should I say cat. There is a reward on his head and he`s living as a fugitive traveling from town to town and gaining reputation with the kitties. One night at a bar he hears that Jack and Jill (voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris) are headed towards their town and that they have stolen the magical green beans. Puss wants those beans and is ready to steal them, but another kitten gets in his way: Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) so neither of them is able to do so. Puss is furious and when he discovers that Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) is involved he wants nothing to do with them. Dumpty and Kitty both want Puss to join them and help them finding the beans in order to climb the beanstalk and reach the giant`s mansion to steal the goose that lays golden eggs, but Puss wants nothing to do with Dumpty. Something happened in their past and he refuses to help. After Kitty insists that he join them, Puss tells her how he met Dumpty and what happened to their friendship. We see a flashback of how Dumpty and Puss met in an orphanage where they were taken care of by Imelda (Constance Marie) and how their friendship begins. We even see how Puss gets his boots, but eventually he is betrayed by Dumpty, and they each go their separate way. Eventually Kitty convinces Puss to join them by telling him he has a chance to clear his name, and therefore the three embark on the mission.

I really enjoyed the first half of the story, the dialogue was funny and the main characters were interesting. The movie felt kind of fast paced at first and everything was happening real fast. Puss, Dumpty, and Kitty were interesting characters, but the villains aren`t really memorable. My favorite part was perhaps the flashback where we get to see Puss`s background and how he was betrayed by Dumpty. Another great scene was when Kitty and Puss have a dance off in a glitter club full of cats. Those were the highlights of the movie, but then once they get a hold of the magical beans the movie goes downhill. The plot gets really ridiculous and ends pretty badly. I wish they would`ve just kept the same pace of the first half of the movie. Puss in Boots still had its funny moments and I found myself laughing a lot, but I was disappointed with the second half. This wasn`t as good a year for animated films as it was last year, but I guess I would have to say that my favorite one this year is Rio. The best thing about this film is definitely Puss and his endearing eyes.

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My Review: Grown Ups (5/10)

¨We needed to be here. Our kids were turning into snotty, spoiled, little. This is what we needed. ¨

How can a film with so many talented comedians fail to deliver laughs? Grown Ups will only make you wonder more about this question because it is just one of those movies where talents go to waste. Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, and Robert Schneider all have had lead roles and one would assume that so much talent combined would result in a hilarious movie, but it wasn`t the case because the material they had to work with wasn`t any good. They probably had so much fun working together that they focused on enjoying themselves instead of trying to write a better story or smarter jokes. Not even the talented actresses such as Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph helped improve the movie. This is just another one of those movies that relies so heavily on having a star cast that it forgets that there are other important elements to making a film.  Great actors working together doesn`t necessarily mean that you will have a great movie. Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf wrote the screenplay for this film and it is so sad to see them rely on old jokes. There is nothing fresh about this movie and you can predict most of the jokes that are going to be told. I think that all the focus of the movie was put on the cast that they forgot to find decent material to work with and that is the main problem with Dennis Dugan`s film. Dugan has directed most of these actors in the past in You Don`t Mess with the Zohan, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and The Benchwarmers.

The plot centers on a group of friends from a high school basketball team who reunite after several years at their coach`s funeral. Lenny (Adam Sandler) was the star of the team and is now a successful Hollywood agent. He is married to Roxanne (Salma Hayek), a fashion designer, and they have three kids. He is worried about his children who stay playing videogames all day and on their cell phones. Eric (Kevin James) is a restaurant co-owner, or so he says, and he also has two children and is married to Sally (Maria Bello). They have a four year old son who still breast feeds. Kurt (Chris Rock) is a stay at home dad, living with his children, mother in law, and wife, Deanne (Maya Rudolph). Marcus (David Spade) is probably the most immature of the group and he is still single. And finally there is Rob (Rob Schneider) who is married to Gloria (Joyce Van Patten) a much older woman who could very well be his mother. After the funeral Lenny decides to rent the cabin where the team celebrated their championship for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The five friends spend some time together with their wives and kids and learn some important lessons in the process.

The plot is very poorly developed and this movie could have been so much better considering the cast, but it really fails by focusing on very lazy humor instead. It is like these guys were simply put together in the movie and let each one improvise. I am sure they had a great time making this movie, and had much more laughs than we did by watching it. Not even the supporting roles by Steve Buscemi, Tim Meadows, Colin Quinn, and Norm MacDonald were enough to save the movie. Grown Ups is just one of those movies where you have to grab your head and wonder how all this talent was put to waste. This just proves that having an all star cast doesn`t mean you can make a decent movie and that it is important to have good writers mixed in the process. This was really a huge disappointment considering I am a true fan of most of these actors and have laughed hard at so many of their movies. Either the material they had to work with is getting worse or I am just getting older and not finding some of these men as funny as I used to. I am still waiting for a decent comedy to come out this year and put a smile to my face.

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