Hot Shots!1991
Hot Shots! Part Deux1993
Have you ever had one of those long, strenuous weekends that leaves you physically and emotionally exhausted? Dr. E~D has the cure for you. Hot Shots!
I watched both Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux on just such a weekend and I have to say, they hit the spot. In Hot Shots!, Charlie Sheen plays ace fighter-pilot Topper Harley who is plagued by the ghosts of his past. Recalled by the U.S. Navy to help a beleaguered squadron of fighters, Topper is entrusted with the mission of completing a bombing raid on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons facility. In Part Deux, Harley must save U.S. troops (and their rescuers) from Saddam’s prison camps while torn between competing (and hot!) lovers.
Both movies are wonderfully parodic of movies like Top Gun and Rambo (all 17 of them). At times, the mood is terrifically serious, only to be broken by a delightful piece of slapstick. The characters are wittily superfluous and the dialogue is indomitably loquacious.
If you have a weekend where you need to simply unwind with 4 hours of senseless, unthinking slapstick, Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux are just what the doctor ordered. As a bonus, if you watch the credits, you will receive a recipe for a delicious browning topping that whips up in about 10 minutes and will thoroughly impress the dinner guests.
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I watched both Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux on just such a weekend and I have to say, they hit the spot. In Hot Shots!, Charlie Sheen plays ace fighter-pilot Topper Harley who is plagued by the ghosts of his past. Recalled by the U.S. Navy to help a beleaguered squadron of fighters, Topper is entrusted with the mission of completing a bombing raid on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons facility. In Part Deux, Harley must save U.S. troops (and their rescuers) from Saddam’s prison camps while torn between competing (and hot!) lovers.
Both movies are wonderfully parodic of movies like Top Gun and Rambo (all 17 of them). At times, the mood is terrifically serious, only to be broken by a delightful piece of slapstick. The characters are wittily superfluous and the dialogue is indomitably loquacious.
If you have a weekend where you need to simply unwind with 4 hours of senseless, unthinking slapstick, Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux are just what the doctor ordered. As a bonus, if you watch the credits, you will receive a recipe for a delicious browning topping that whips up in about 10 minutes and will thoroughly impress the dinner guests.
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X-Men: The Last Stand2006
For those who saw the first two installments of the now completed (and unofficial) X-Men trilogy, the release of X-Men: Last Stand was attended by great expectation. The first two movies, categorically undeniably, were excellent. There is, of course, always a fear that great disservice will be done to the comic idols of one’s youth when transferred to the silver screen. (The Batman series, for example, represents the horror of what can be done to one of the coolest comic book characters ever. Only with the latest Batman movie has justice been done to the genre.) However, the first two X-Men movies provide an excellent paradigm for what can be seriously worthwhile comic book movie-making. Thus, it was not with misplaced expectation that I confidently paid my six dollars and grabbed my seat in the theater.
Although I am pained to say it, I must confess that I was less than wowed with X-Men: Last Stand. True enough, the special effects, like the first two movies, were excellent. Moreover, there were plenty of cool fight scenes and massive amounts of destruction (which always makes for a good comic book movie...).
However, I guess what really left me cold in this movie was how quickly several of the most central characters to the series were killed off. This created a vacuum of character interest and dialogue that had to be filled by Halle Berry, something that, per Catwoman, is NEVER a good thing. We all know the reason she’s there–let’s keep it that way!
But most disappointing of all was the transformation that occurred in Logan/Wolverine. In the first two movies, Wolverine is the angry, unpredictable–and cool--loner. In Last Stand, Logan becomes soft. Not only does he cry several times, but moreover, in his interactions with some of the students of Xavier’s school, he looks an awful lot like soft, coddling gym coach. But the worst sin of all remains. As with Storm, Wolverine, in the absence of other characters, is forced to adopt a more central role in the dialogue. Unfortunately, this leads his character down the path of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi. We all remember how Han Solo, in this movie, took on the role of comic relief, incessantly cracking cheesy jokes to move the story along. Well, the exact same thing occurs in Last Stand as Wolverine is transformed from the quiet, disconnected loner to a wise-cracking soccer dad.
These criticisms aside, Last Stand is a good movie. A lot of new characters from the X-Men universe are introduced (although, given the 1 hour 44 minute time frame, not much can be done with them). As mentioned before, the special effects are great, and if you see it in a quality theater, the sound is spectacular. By itself, Last Stand would be a great movie. However, in light of the two movies that preceded, it fails to live up to expectations. If you can get into a matinee for 4 or 5 bucks, go see it. If not, just wait for it to come out on video.
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Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children2005
There were many reasons that many of us anxiously awaited Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the movie. First of all, there is the sheer love of the game series. Some of us love the series so much that we have gone to great lengths to personally play and complete each individual title, even enduring ones like Final Fantasy: Adventure (for the original Gameboy). Second, there is the macrocosm of Final Fantasy genre that is self-contained within Final Fantasy VII. This game offers a window into the epic grandeur that Final Fantasy engenders as a series. For those who, like I, were smitten by FFVII, the promise of not only a movie, but even more, a continuation of the plotline is nothing short of tantalizing. Third, most quasi-serious Final Fantasy fans have seen the original movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Not only breathtaking to behold, it captured the spirit of Final Fantasy without succumbing to the temptation of merely replicating a plot-line from a previous game.
For all these reasons and more, I could not wait for FFVII: Advent Children, to be released. To my wife’s chagrin, I cleared the NetFlix cue so that this one would be on top of the list on its release date. Finally, the fateful day arrived.
And so I watched it...
On one level, FFVII: Advent Children is disappointing. As mentioned above, I was amazed at the Final Fantasy movie. It was truly cinematic, combining the existential seriousness of a major drama/epic with truly spectacular and life-like animation. Advent Children is nothing of the kind. Although the animation is still eye-catching, it is intended to be nothing of the kind of The Spirits Within. Rather, it adopts the exaggerated proportions and flashiness of the game. In this way, the seriousness of the animation is to be found in the dramatic, over-the-top lines and colors of the voluminous explosions, sword flashes, etc.
In the same way, the story line is entirely different in structure and execution than The Spirits Within. Whereas The Spirits Within is very subdued, serious, and dramatic, Advent Children is light, flashy and borderline comedic in parts.
While fans of The Spirits Within might find Advent Children to be somewhat infantile and absurd in comparison, it is these differences which make Advent Children really shine. More specifically, it is the flashiness and over-the-top-ness that makes Advent Children the perfect continuation of Final Fantasy VII, the game. After all, we all remember the cheesy dialogue and the outrageous twists and turns of the plot. These return, full force, in the movie and reincarnate the spirit of the original game.
Overall, I have to highly recommend Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. If nothing else, watch the final battle scene with Cloud and Sephiroth–it is quite memorable.
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King Kong2005
To be perfectly honest, I am hesitant to make this the first entry on this page. What a disappointing movie! This was one movie that I was particularly looking forward to seeing. However, after 3 hours of staring in bewilderment at the non-stop onslaught of over-indulgent special effects, I seriously regretted the sacrifice of my evening.
The unfortunate thing about 3-hour movies is that one must prepare mentally and emotionally for such an undertaking. It is not for the faint of heart; moveover, it cannot be approached lightly. After all, if one is merely a casual observer, stopping and starting again, the entire project will be disjointed from the beginning. However, as one will not probably desire to actually sit again through the whole enterprise again (for one has already caught bits and peices), one will be left with a false impression of said movie.
Concerning movies like King Kong, such a distracted opinion could lead to serious misapplication of evaluation. For example, there are several very cool individual scenes (particularly the T-Rex scene...shout out to Deviant Monk). However, when taken together under the auspices of a singular, unified viewing, King Kong is sensory overload to the Nth degree, while leaving the viewer in a famine for any substantive storyline.
Now for the one-line critiques:
1. Jack Black, in the 1930's? Yeah, the very thought that he could get with Paltrow was more believable...
2. How many scenes do we really need of the beautiful girl gazing into the eyes of the monkey? C'mon!
3. Could Adrien Brody's nose have been any bigger? Watts could have crawled up in there to take a nap during their make-out scene.
4. Only 17 people died during the whole expedition? Are you serious!!! I counted at least 20 who fell off various cliffs and/or were stomped by brontos.
5. Perhaps on the extended edition they could come up with a more cliched closing line from Black...
6. Note to Ann Darrow: the next time a T-rex is chasing you through the underbrush, just stop, drop and roll. If they can't see you, the can't eat you.
7. Creepy, creepy bug scenes. Cool, but very creepy.
8. Not surprisingly, the CGI monkey pulls off the most convincing performance. Apparently, Adrien Brody was pretty much sedated for most of the time that the camera was running.
9. It took 1 freaking hour to get to the monkey! It's called "King Kong," not "King Boat!"
10. First rule of movie making: Never kill off the sound guy (loud boos and hisses emerge from the gallery...).
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