Watch This Movie: Man of Steel

The Brave and the Bold.

It's been a while since I blogged, due to the nature of grad school. I've been waiting for a good topic before I made a return, and I thought, upon doing so, I would make it about something that truly moved me.

Man of Steel is that something.

This is going to be a long review. A short one wouldn't do the film justice, and I'm going to tackle this in several segments. I don't think I can do the film any justice if I don't pay it the attention I believe it deserves. So please, grab a drink, and try and enjoy my review of Man of Steel.

Here he comes!

Story
Man of Steel tries to do multiple things at once. Aware of the fact that the Superman origin story has been told and retold, most recently in Superman Returns and the ten years of Smallville, Man of Steel shifts the origin story away from an extended stint in Kansas. In fact, it jumps tens of thousands of years prior to Kal-El's arrival on Earth, and focuses on the circumstances that developed on Krypton, leading to his departure into the stars.

Kal-El, now known as Clark, is seen wandering the world in search of his purpose, while also seen trying to hide his origins from any prying eyes. Always trying to do the right thing while keeping his powers secret, his life is, relatively speaking, nearly meaningless. He hasn't come out as the Blue Crusader, in fact he has no costume yet. He works odd jobs as he tries to get by in life, wherever he can pick them up.

It isn't until the story intersects with Krypton, as Clark begins to learn of his origins, that the story really begins to pick up pace again. The movie falls into a breathing period, considering the introductory Krypton sections are farely intense, and allows us to see Clark's childhood and development in flashbacks. Rather than focus a whole half of the movie to him growing up, the film moves back to critical periods in his lifetime, mostly focused around him as his father (played spectacularly by Kevin Costner). During this time he's also making his first, meaningful human connection outside his family, as he is trailed by the persistent Lois Lane (done with charm and grace by Amy Adams).

At this juncture in the film, General Zod (an amazingly intense Michael Shannon plays the role) also becomes a figure in Clark's life, meaning he is introduced to both the best and worst of Krypton at the same time. This is almost getting into spoiler territory, so I'm afraid to type much more. However, to at least glaze over the issue, Clark is forced to make decisions between his Kryptonian and Earthling heritage from this point out. For the first time he is interacting with the general world, which eyes him suspiciously, even as he works for their good. For the first time he is experiencing a human connection outside of his mother and father. Yet at the same time he's coming face to face with Kryptonian society and having to decide what defines him.

I mean they really don't trust him.

Technicals
Man of Steel is done mostly with hand cam, so there's a shaky vibe throughout many of the scenes. Someone complained that this was painful to watch in 3D... to which I respond, why would you watch a film not intended for 3D in 3D? The actual effect of using this style camera is intense. It's never as stuttering as, say, Cloverfield. However there are times it almost seems like a documentary. At one point, in Alaska, I mused I might be watching an episode of Deadliest Catch.

As far as CGI, the world of Krypton is brought to life in a way never before realized on film. Those of us old enough to remember the Donner films think back on a crystalline ice world. However, the comics have made clear over the decades that Krypton was technologically, highly advanced and that it was an incredibly harsh environment. In Man of Steel we finally get a sense for the technology of the Kryptonians, their grand spaceships, their rising living towers, their incredible weapons, their mastery of space travel and their grasp of advanced genetic manipulations. Explosive, volcanic terrain is paired against flying lizards and swooping star vessels. Then, when the action moves to Earth, towers are obliterated, cars tossed about, jets leaped upon, and fights waged in the depths of space. This is great stuff, completely unimaginable as a fight just a little over a decade ago. Superman is not afraid to go hard toward science fiction, a genre far more welcome with modern audiences than it has been in decades. It never comes across cheesy, but it is awe inspiring at times to see the technology that is being wielded.

I also want to stress that, for the first time, we get an idea for just how powerful the Kryptonian species is. In Superman Returns, we all remember the infamous bullet-to-the-eye scene in which a bullet struck Superman's eye, only to flatten. There's plenty of that here. In fact, tons of hero movies have these. Iron Man, Thor, and now Superman all have scenes in which they have shrugged off weapon fire. Man of Steel goes above and beyond, though, to show the audience that Kryptonians aren't just like every other super powered being, though. In battles against the humans, Kryptonians move so fast on screen that they go between a half dozen soldiers within seconds. They barely struggle when brutally tossed through exploding fuel tankers, entire buildings, or hammered with missiles. I'll go so far as to say that this is the single greatest demonstration of what it means to be superhuman ever realized on film. It's not just the strength, it's the speed, the endurance. They seem almost limitless in their ability to deal out destruction, absorb it, not to mention move with a quickness never so accurately portrayed on screen. Not to mention that just two of them did as much damage as all the invading armies and defending heroes combined in Marvel's Avengers.

Finally, music wise, Hans Zimmer has put together a score that is going to remain with you for a lifetime. Borrowing a hint from Dark Knight and the entire recent Batman franchise, a few simple notes define Superman and recur throughout the films. This leitmotif takes on darker, more sinister tones, and seems to encompass Kryptonians as a whole. However, specific to Superman, it is often accompanied by soft choral voices, taking it away from its dark edges and into a glorious apotheosis. It's stirring notes, which I'm listening to even now as I let the soundtrack play, take on heavenly resonance at crucial moments in the movie when Superman demonstrates his willingness to give everything he has for the good of mankind.

The Battle for Krypton.

Themes
 "You're not even my real father".
These words, uttered by a young Clark Kent, are ones he'll come to regret in the course of the film. As an adopted son, they were words I also, regrettably, uttered to my own parents. This is one of the many issues Superman touches upon.

More than ever before, I am convinced that Superman is the most human of all superheroes. It's a notion echoed at least once by Batman, when he said of Superman, "In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all." This is realized on several levels throughout the movie.

Superman is a perpetual outsider for the majority of his life. The gain of his powers in his youth led to many distressing moments that labeled him as a freak. In refusing to use them, he became the victim of bullies that did not understand them. In young adulthood, he fled, itinerant, uncommitted, and alone. Loneliness, the feeling of being an outsider, unwelcomed, and unloved are feelings we all feel at one point or another. The second half of that Batman quote goes, "Then... he shoots fire from the skies and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him." Clark is presented with a unique problem that only the guidance of a caring father help him overcome. Though he feels like an outsider, his ability to retaliate far outstrip any of our own. Yet it is never something he truly considers, and owes much to Pa Kent's willingness to impart the value of life to his child.

Specific to Superman is the notion of adoption, which not all of us face, but I won't doubt that there aren't several adopted children out there who, like me, resonated with particular conundrums. Curiosity at one's parents, why they gave you up, where you came from, and the willingness to use that frustration as a way to hurt one's adoptive parents are all present. It even extends to Clark's decisions on to what degree he should embrace his Kryptonian past, much like a child having to decide between parents. 

Family is incredibly important, and as the primary shaper of a person's identity, it's that much more important when considering how it shapes a person with the power of a god. Two moments stand out quite prominently in my mind. One, as the Kent residence is being raided by Kryptonian soldiers and Ma Kent is being threatened directly, Superman swoops in and begins a beatdown of epic proportions while screaming out "What makes you think you can attack my mother?" There's a passion there, a reason for him being so enraged. These are the only people that have ever fully known him, a truth that, in reality, remains for many of us. There are few people that will ever know us, flaws and all, more deeply than our parents.

The second moment comes in the final flashback of the film. You've seen clips of it in the trailers, of a young Clark, a red cape wrapped around his neck, playing with the family dog. His father's working on the truck, his mother descending the stairway. It's the family we could all hope to have, if not with our parents, then maybe when we start families of our own.

Some of the grander themes obviously reside in the notion of a savior. Superman has, quite obviously, been compared to Christ or a general messiah figure many times throughout the years. The film not so subtly references this, but it's important for long time viewers of Superman to remember that these obvious themes aren't always as obvious to younger fans (just look at Twitter reactions to see there are many younger audience members only now making the connection).

This leads to two of the most prominent themes in the movie, and some of the grandest, although they can be made quite trite when abused. The willingness to put everything on the line for the sake of others, even those he reject you, is a highly Christian notion among others. The idea to love those even though they hate you is one Christ spoke of, perhaps one of the enduring reasons why even people who reject organized religion can find admirable things in the religion's founder. Turning the other cheek, taking an extra burden upon yourself even when it means helping those who don't deserve it, these are actions of love. Superman thoroughly loves humanity, with all its flaws, despite its suspicions of him. The messiah comparison isn't simply one born out of his willingness to die for others, but out of his willingness to restrain himself when he could dominate, to help when he could ignore, to be selfish instead of selfless.

Which leads to the final, grandest, and among all these others, most complicated notions of the Superman legacy. It's the hardest to get right, and can be subtle enough to be boring. It was aimed for in Superman Returns, and it's shot for here. For all that's discussed in the previous theme, and given an extraordinary number of discussions from both Pa Kent and Jor-El, Superman's primary function is to serve as a light, an example. His primary function isn't to punch down huge spaceships or fight flying enemies, but to inspire mankind to treat others with respect and dignity, to help one another, regardless of whether we think they deserve such treatment or not. Even in the most action intense sequences of the film, the director finds time to switch back to Superman's human counterparts and see how they're conducting themselves in the face of an invading menace. Soldiers put their lives on the line against overwhelming odds, against forces they can't possibly prevail against, but do so with the knowledge that they might help save others. However, this theme of inspiration is not limited to just soldiers. Everyday people, Mary Sue and John Doe, are on the ground helping each other in all odds. Many, many times it's shown that Superman inspires others, but that his character to do so was in turn forged by others that did the same. Superman's respect for life and willingness to try and do what's right in respect of life and dignity extend even to his enemies. There is no way I can give the ultimate example of this, since it occurs in an agonizingly painful climax that truly encompasses Superman's identity and love of life, but the final battle scene seals the deal on how much love he has for preserving life. That is something he inspires in others. 

At one point, Jor-El says, "one day they will join you in the sun." In the original Donner films, Jor-El also said "They can be a great people, Kal-El, if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son." Kal-El, Superman, Clark's ultimate mission is to inspire others to good. The perfect world will no longer need a Superman.

Still, until that day, it's good to be able to go back to the red, yellow and blue.

Many thanks to the creators of this film. I cried through about three fourths of it, even in the middle of some action sequences, that's how moving I found it to be. To give it the ultimate credit, I saw this at 11:30 P.M. on a Friday. As I left at two in the morning, I wished there was another showing so I could watch it again.

GO WATCH THIS FILM!

Don't Watch This Movie: Evil Dead

I'll Eat Your Money!

I would like to quote you some big name sites trying to get you to throw away your cash next week when the Evil Dead remake comes out.

Bloody Disgusting gave it 4 out of 5 stars.
Horror Talk said it was "the most unrelenting and bloody horror film to come out of a major studio in a very long time".
IGN gave it 9 out of 10 stars and said it was "terrifying, exhilarating and relentlessly entertaining new chapter in the Evil Dead story".

So apparently nobody has seen the SAW franchise recently.
First of all, in the last decade, SAW and a few other films and franchises have defined how to make people uncomfortable in their seats. This movie, this iteration of Evil Dead, does nothing new in that regard. Gruesome dismemberment, loss of fingers, scarring of faces, we've seen it all before. Which is fine, as Solomon said 4,00 years ago, there's nothing new under the sun (Quote: The Bible).

I wish I was Bruce Campbell.

It's how you do something that matters, and whatever Evil Dead that was fresh almost forty years ago is now business as usual in the horror business. Not only are the gruesome scenes never anything new, especially considering the course of the horror genre over the last few years, but it fails to be truly scary. Now, if you're a gore fiend, I'm sure you'll find plenty to enjoy about the film. There's undoubtedly plenty there for people who like seeing human beings ripped to shreds.

I have a term, a "torture box". It's a movie scene explicitly set up in which a horror movie can do unspeakable things to an individual in order to invoke the maximum pain upon the individual in the scene, in order to produce the maximum discomfort among those in the audience. SAW almost defined this, since people were literally set in rooms where these events would occur. Many horror movies do this, and Evil Dead makes it explicit, by actually locking the doors of the protagonists when they step inside a room. They enter the torture box, gruesome pain is inflicted, audience is grossed out.

My reaction to having to rate this film.

Fairly predictable set up. So, how do you distance your film from its peers? How do you make a predictable setup intriguing, or at least worth investing in? For one, good writing would be a start. Evil Dead falls apart at every corner. Some will say it's just trying to follow in the cheesy source film it's based on, but there's a reason that doesn't work, and I'll get to that. Just follow me on this point for a second. The writing is just bad. Characters recite rhymes or poems invoking the coming mayhem and death. It's foreshadowing, but foreshadowing should have some subtlety. In Evil Dead, there is none. It's just laid out, as if to say hey, we're all going to die.

The writing extends to the characters. I'm not sure what era this movie is supposed to be taking place in, but the high school teacher is written and portrayed almost as a hippy. Having once been a high school teacher, I know none that act like this one does. Not that they don't exist, but the writers went for the cheesiest portrayal of a nerdish teacher they could have. Worse than the characterization, the characters all die from stupidty. As people are being scalded alive, carving their faces off, driving needles into one another and carving off their arms, the main protagonist argues this may all be a virus.

Hi! I'm a shambling stereotype.

Nobody in real life would act like these people do in circumstances like this.

So look, you've got a good setup for continual terror boxes. A cabin in the woods, secluded from the world, partially by an unexplainable flood, but whatever. You can induce your terror boxes in each individual at this point. However, from the outset, the audience knows the protagonist is too stupid to make smart choices. The audience knows every is going to die because of his stupidity. There's no suspense, no surprise, only the gruesome moment when the terror box is activated and somebody is mangled.

Speaking of that high school teacher, it's sad that he's the closest to a real character that we ever actually get in the film. While everyone else is busy being one dimensional, people acted upon rather than acting, the high school teacher actually has diverse sets of loyalties. First he has loyalty to his friend, the girl possessed in the film. He has ongoing tension with the protagonist, who he resents for leaving their circle years before. In the end, his love for said protagonist drives him to do things that aren't in his best interest, despite the repeated stupidity of the protagonist that constantly endangers their lives. Yet in the end, the writers are content to leave these threads dangling, or at best only touch upon them for the briefest instance. That's understandable considering the screenwriters for this film are terrible with dialogue and anything remotely approaching subtlety.

Let's Play "Can You Guess What's Happening Here?"

So before I really get into why this film doesn't work as an over-the-top descendent of its predecessor, let's recap. Stupid writing, leading to unnecessary death. Cliched characterization. Obvious setups with no sense of surprise or real tension. That there is no suspense building, sense of surprise or tension owes entirely to the lack of setup. The writers never bother challenging your expectations of what's about to happen, or allowing a scene to unfold in a way that's scary and genuinely disturbing. Just throw as much piss, blood and vomit onto the screen as possible and hope to gross people out.

Okay, so why doesn't it just work out as an over-the-top horror film? Because there's nobody you can like in the movie. The final survivor? Barely a player until the end. The majority of the cast? One note stereotypes that are acted upon by outside forces and that never act. While the whole film is busy going over the top, you never have one guy that really does the same and pulls it altogether. This is where the movie could have used a Bruce Campbell, because they fail to find anyone to remotely root for or enjoy. Without someone to pull the film together, to cheer on, it's just a subpar retreading of the source material, except without any of the shock factor given what we've seen in the last decade, and without any real attempt to build tension or suspense. It's sad, really.

Included because it's the greatest poster of all time.

Evil Dead is a film trapped in the past, trying to be over-the-top when we've already seen all this before. Even the "rape tree" has been imitated, except by barbed-wire things, in the original Silent Hill film. It gives us an uninteresting cast with nobody to root for, a series of expected murders, and little else. It's gruesome, not scary, so take that as you will. If you enjoy true fear, this isn't your film. If you like gore, you might enjoy it. Just know this genre of horror has been beaten to death over the last few years and Evil Dead does nothing new in that regard.

Rating: Don't Watch It!

An utter lie!

You'll scream about this movie, but not for the reasons it intended.

Watch This Movie: Oz, The Great And Powerful

This Got Dang Epic.

It's been a while since I did a movie review but, truth is, there haven't been to many great ones. I guess there haven't been too many putridly awful ones either, since I review those as well. So now we've finally got a big budget movie coming from the House of Mouse, the first omen of the blockbuster summer season that is slowly drawing nigh upon us, like the Day of the Apocalypse.

Let's get all the obvious stuff out of the way. Oz is based off of the story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, one of fourteen Oz books he wrote, and one of thirty two! in the series. You see, Frank Baum, who wrote these stories, had other people continue it after he stopped, in an era when I guess nobody cared about copyright and profiting off of other people's work? Maybe that's too pessimistic a view, let's just say they got permission.

IT'S SO PRETTY.

The visuals are predictably sublime, although they tend to the incredibly vivid, bright and cartoonsih, especially in the landscapes. In other movies this might be a hit against it, but Oz's world sort of requires that look, and it doesn't look bad. There are some amazing landscapes, like the City f Oz, the flights through the air in Bubbles, and Chynatown with its porcelain inhabitants.

As an aside, this was made for 3D, which I'm losing my taste for and so skipped on. There was obvious pandering to the camera on occasion, with creatures, people and vegetations leaping forward as close as possible to the camera's lens in order to amaze the audience. Young kids might like this. To me, they were 'meh' moments, neither adding or subtracting. I guess you can give it a pass as a children's film, although I find such tactics tacky.

This. In 3D. Sort of wish I'd done that now.

Then again, we're talking about a movie directed by Sam Raimi, who sort of specializes in kitch, cliche and tacky. And nobody holds it against him either, because when you see his movies, you know, 'this is a Sam Raimi movie'. When you see his name, you know what to expect. In fact, I predicted Raimi would use a frightening cut away where a villainous shadow would be projected against the wall while hiding the features of the villain, a la Doctor Octopus in Spider Man 2. Raimi did not dissapoint.

I suppose his touch is appropriate for this film since it is treading a line between epic fantasy and children's fairytale, a line that's difficult to balance and that critics assailed The Hobbit for. In fact I've seen similar criticism against Oz, and still am not entirely onboard with where they're coming from. Let's not forget that while the story is trying to entertain adults it's still based on a book series aimed at children. So some of the dialogue is sharp, witty annnnd surprisingly inappropriately sexual at times. This is combined against bright visuals, flying monkeys, people made out of porcelain, munchkins, a cackling Wicked Witch, and the like. I'm sure the super serious epic lovers would have enjoyed a diabolical Wicked Witch with deep seated emotional issues and complicated motivations, but that's just really not the Oz style of story. Even expanded into this type of film, there aren't going to be intricate layers of character development. You'll lose half the audience.

Yeah yeah, this is where the cheese begins.

Talking about story, while many of the characters do come off simplistically, especially the villains, Oz himself makes an interesting character progression. At the beginning he's self serving, aware that he's a simple conman and using his skills to deceive and lie his way through life. This has ramifications throughout his journey in Oz as he realizes people are coming to depend on him, and yet he has no real power to do anything. The people in this story with true, sheer power, are the witches. Whether Glenda the Good or the Wicked Witch of the West, these women are hurling out fireballs, energy streams and at one point tossing Oz around like a rag doll. In order to combat them, Oz has to mature, and realize his ability to drive these people out is through his natural gift of intelligence and illusion, putting his chicanery to good use.

There's going to be some feminist criticism of the use of women in this movie. The main villain is a witch and I thought she came off quite well. Glenda the Good, because of her inability to magically overcome the other witches, is forced to depend on Oz. The Wicked Witch emerges as a reaction of Oz's lies. So, there's going to be a lot of focus from some circles on how everything seems to circulate on Oz getting things done. Then again, he's the hero, and Glenda comes across as a noble leader who pushes her people forward even when Oz wants to run away like a coward. So really, the Wicked Witch comes across as the weakest female in the group, but they can't all be independent women.

The Witches. Oh, and the Wizard.

So why am I recommending it? It's just fun. Look, if you can't tolerate a movie that has to pander to kids at times, this one isn't for you. But as bad of an actor as I think James Franco is, his shtick works in roles like this, where you're essentially placing him in the role of a somewhat loveable loser. Rachel Weisz is great as the remaining daughter of Oz, Michelle Williams balances the awkward task of coming across as the pure and good witch with being a strong leader. Her scenes just ooze honesty. And what cane we say about Mila Kunis? Well, she did exactly as she was told by Sam Raimi, and that was to toast her acting with a lot of cheese. I've seen her do 'better', but in the roles she's asked to occupy I can see why her acting is so odd.

And hey, you've got a film full of magic, flying apes and munckin warriors combined with flying balloons, robotic strawmen and holographic projected illusions. It's the closest to steampunk I've seen in a movie in quite a while, and it's just fun. Plus, again, the writing is sharp. Franco's interactions with his companions are just funny, and he really does come across as a self aware con artist caught up in circumstances beyond his control. If you can't take the child's element, don't watch it, but I think you're missing out on a pretty good time.

Final Note: Mila Kunis is as fine as ever.
Posters and Trailers, as usual, coming up!

DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE: Movie 43

Rating: Good gods, don't watch this movie.

I want to read off a list of Hollywood names that are in this movie. Tell me if you recognize any of them.

Elizabeth Banks
Halle Berry
Kate Bosworth
Gerard Butler
Richard Gere
Hugh Jackman
Johnny Knoxville
Liev Schreiber
Seann William Scott
Emma Stone
Uma Thurman
Naomi Watts
Kate Winslet

These are only a few of the Holly wood names attached to this film. Now, let me break down the movie for you. It's framed as a crazed man pitching movie ideas to a studio director, in the hope of getting a deal signed. These are the pitches:

1.) A blind date goes awry when the man removes his scarf and reveals his scrotum is actually hanging from his neck.
2.) A homeschooling couple try to get their child to have the full high school experience. This involves his dad trying to come out as homosexual to his son, his mother trying to get a first awkward kiss from him before asking if he has protection, and holding huge school parties in which his dad makes out with the son's crush.
3.) A couple finally decides to become physically intimate when she asks if he'll poop on her, which leads to him eating tons of Mexican food for the big night.
4.) Halle Barry goes on a blind date that escalates into a bizarre truth or dare, in which she shoots hot sauce into her privates, and he gets offensive surgery to look 'Chinese'. Also, she makes guacamole with her breast.
5.) Robin goes to a speed dating night where Batman insults him as he tries to get dates and spends half the time describing Supergirl's privates to him from beneath a table.
6.) A black basketball team is rallied to defeat their white opponents, because this is basketball, they're black, the other team's white, so the outcome is obvious.
7.) A cat in love with its master self pleasures itself furiously to images of him, then tries to kill the woman he's in love with.

W T F!!!

 There are a few others but I think I hit most of them. They're a series of about ten to fifteen minute skits set within the narrative frame of a series of movie pitches. Many are just unfunny. The problem is that there's no setup. You can have askew, gross humor, but there has to be a buildup, a setup. Because all of the jokes are just skits it's like the writers jumped straight to the punchline, forgetting that what makes a movie memorable is everything around the punchline. The setup of the joke is important, and there's no setup, just a shotgun blast of absurd and often times unfunny skits.

We will all regret being in this movie in five years.

I mean, what else can I criticize? There's no camera work worth nothing, no dramatics, no real need for acting to be done, no actual soundtrack that I can even remember. It's as if they took Family Guy, with its series of cutaway skits and jokes, and extended the episode over an hour and a half. The final product is really, really terrible. I can see all the Yes Men that surrounded these actors, telling them they were doing fantastic jobs, when the final product was actually just garbage. The funniest skit is probably one involving a girl getting her first period because, at least for that skit, it's grounded in something identifiable. All the men involved with the situation come across as men often do, uncomfortable with the topic. My friend argues the scrotum skit that opens the movie is the funniest, and I guess she might be right, if you think Kate Winslet with a pair of scrotum set aside her head is funny.

I can't believe you were in this either, Kate.

There are funny parts, don't get me wrong, but I found myself checking my watch multiple times waiting for the movie to end, and that's never a good sign. Do yourself a favor and just, please, avoid this movie. Don't give money to the studio and people that thought this was a good idea. Because they are robbing you of cash. You will walk out, poorer not only financially, but poorer in spirit. There's nothing like sending you off on a Friday night than realizing you paid to see a cat masturbate.

Obvious humor is obvious.

Rating: Dears gods, just don't. Don't watch it. Don't rent it. Don't.

Don't Watch This Movie: Mama

Unfortunately this movie feels just as long.

I don't want to spoil this movie for you. Seriously, that's not the point of my reviews, or this blog. But I want to save you from yourself. I know you want to go see this film, and I know you think it will be good. Trust me, it won't be. It will be, perhaps, good enough, but it doesn't even contain the level of kick- ass spectacle that Gangster Squad that at least allowed me to recommend that movie as a rental. No, all Mama has is a ton of cliches, a stupid story and an ending so bad you'll go home and think a porn film does a better job of telling a tale.

Speaking of, this girl is hot.

There's no good music in this movie, but it's a horror film so, guess that's okay. The special effects are terrible. The movie monster looks bad, just bad, and not even in an acceptable way. Some of the cinematography, on the other hand, is gorgeous. Some of the locales are of vast forests and mountains that you might find in The Hobbit. Unfortunately, there's no comparatively good story going on. But hey! It's a horror film, right? You're in it for the scares. So how are those?

Actually, not bad.

When it comes to scares, there's three ways to go about it. One, lots of murder and gore, which I've never found scary as much as grotesque. Two, snap scares, done with sudden camera cuts, quickly moving monsters. You know, the stuff that happens so fast you can't help but jump out of your seat. Three, a director can set a creepy mood that sort of just saturates the audience and lets fear slowly sink in. Mama aims for the second and third sort of scares, and does so fairly successfully, at lest for a while.

Not even joking, this was everyone in the audience, several times.

The jump scares are always pretty good. The director makes good use of suddenly launching monsters at you, of having the girls appear from nowhere, the camera catching sudden glimpses of dark shadows. Especially in the closing thirty minutes, the entire audience was mumbling. One couple next to me were hugging each other so tightly I wasn't sure if it was the man or woman that was scared. The problem, though, is that the movie is terrible.

Creepy children are no longer scary.

The cliches are everywhere, and that's not an exaggeration. A lonely cabin in the woods? Check. Creepy children? Check. Nursery rhymes to invoke fear? Check. Drawings to communicate how disturbed they are? Check. Vengeful ghost that needs justice to end its vengeance? Check. A freaking psychologist analyzing the situation to find a rational explanation? Okay Halloween, we got you.

Don't worry kids, we're all scared of the cliches.

The story is bad, so bad that it ruins the context of the scares. At the same time I kept getting freaked out I also kept anticipating what was going to happen next, because the film is so by-the-numbers. Some things don't even make sense. For instance, the ghost is from the 1800s, but for some reason she lives in a cabin decorated with furniture fro the 1970s. Whyyyy,  it makes no sense! There's almost no point to that detail, it's just thrown in, and the name of the person who lived there, that the movie actually lingers on, never comes into play. It's like a small detail you'd expect to come into play later except the director forgot that he set up the story to include that detail.

Yes, the story is this painful

Don't watch this movie. It's got scares, but the price it requires in order for you to get to them is high. It's tedium, and boredom. That's a cost of admission that's much more expensive than the dollars you'll spend at the concession stand.

Hide us from the boredom.

Rating: Don't Watch This Movie!

Don't Watch This Movie: Gangster Squad

Rating: Rent It.

So let me toss out a few things right off the top. Emma Stone is gorgeous in this movie. If you're into women, you might see it just for her. Because she's smoking. Also? There are some brutal kill scenes in this film. If you like seeing a guy get split in half while chained to two cars, or seeing a police office and a mob boss bash each other's skulls in with their fists in what has to be one of the epic beat downs of the last few years, you might want to see it. I enjoyed this movie as a sheer testosterone rush of sex and violence, so as a man, from that perspective, it was pretty good.

Pictured: Sex.

Other than that though? I'm not sure what it says that, going into the climactic final shootout and beatdown, I kept thinking to myself, "I'd rather be watching Scarface". Don't get me wrong, Sean Penn plays a heavy vicious Mickey Calhoun, mob boss of Los Angeles. He's the most interesting character in the film, but only because he's the villain, and because his acting's pretty good. Penn gets all the good scenes with murder, violence, mayhem and intimidation, so of course his character comes across as interesting.

Calhoun in the middle of a typical work day.

But every other character is generally unremarkable. You've got a black, knife throwing police officer that's just... there. You've got a Mexican gunslinger that's just... there. It's like they tossed in the two minorities in highest demand right now in politics, just to point out that the police force fighting Calhoun was diverse. They just don't say enough to be interesting. It's not a matter of too many people filling the screen, either. Tombstone, a Wild Western film about a group of law enforces battling a belligerent criminal element had plenty of people on the screen, but they found ways to fill them with personality.

One of the greatest performances of all time. And it came from VAL KILMER.

The most interesting member of the force is, ironically, an old western gunslinger still living in the Los Angeles area, and only because he's firing six shooters when everyone else is packing tommy guns. All the other characters are essentially lifeless, just good guys doing good things.

Like beating the hell out of Mickey Calhoun.

There's some conflict between Sergeant O'Mara, who leads the force, and his wife, concerning his role in an operation that could claim his life while she's on the verge of giving birth to her child. There's also some conflict between him and his intelligence officer, who wonders what the difference is between the police engaging in these violent activities and the criminals they're fighting. That's good material and it only gets lip service on screen, without real time invested into analyzing those internal conflicts. Because Gangster Squad is more concerned with looking pretty, putting period piece costumes on people, having them roll around spouting some somewhat cheesy period dialogue from time to time.

You'll never take me alive, coppa!

It's pretty. It's got a sexy girl. It's got men beating the hell out of each other between wild shoot outs. But it lacks substance, it's got some cheesy dialogue, and you never get a sense that the movie is more than black versus white. It does give some lip service to complex themes, but never explores them. So, overall? Maybe watch it, if you're looking for a rush of sex and violence. If you're looking for something deeper, rent it when it goes to your local Red Box or skip it all together.

Sex and Violence!