From Paris With Love

My Rating: 1.5/4

John Travolta is earning his increasing reputation of being a good actor that is always put in weird roles. Like in "The Taking of Pelham 123", he played a crazy guy with a gun. Now, in "From Paris With Love", he's playing a very similar role. The plot centers around James Reese(Jonathan Meyers), a personal aide to the U.S. Ambassador in France. But, his dream job is to be an agent for the C.I.A. . So one day, he's put on a mission for such an organization with his highly-skilled, balled-headed killing Machine partner, "Wax"(John Travolta) to stop a terrorist attack.
Now, the plot is certainly interesting. But, does it deliver? The clear answer I can give is "Nope". I just wasn't really liking the film. The best thing about it is probably the acting. But even that doesn't qualify as "outstanding". But it still was pretty good. Nothing seemed fake, but nothing seemed to be at the level of the performances by Morgan Freeman in "Invictus". Or Tim Robbins in "The Shawshank Redemption". Or especially Morgan Freeman(again) in "The Shawshank Redemption". As for the action, it's certainly entertaining. Travolta pulls off some crazy fighting "manuvers" that usually result in quite a few dead badguys. From things like shooting while hanging upside down or to droppping a bomb on top of a car as soon as the bad guys reach it, it's crazy. But, all the same, it feels senseless. Not much of a point to it. The movie just seems to go on and on, without much of a purpose. But hey, at least it only has a length of an hour and a half, which is very short. One thing that really killed the movie was that it failed at hitting one of its targeted genres. It tries to not just have action, but be a thriller as well. But, it fails. It's totally predictable. When I watch thrillers, I like to have my brain guessing the whole way through, but never being even remotely certain of what comes next. That quality was shown to the max in films like "Lakeview Terrace"(2008) and "Salt"(2010). My grandmother figured out the film's most "shocking" revelation within five minutes of watching it. And that's just about all she watched! But, when all is said and done, "From Paris With Love" had entertaining action, good acting, a predictable story, but overall mainly just fails. Let's hope this is the last love letter we get from Paris.
Starring: John Travolta, Jonathan Meyers Director: Pierre Morel

Green Zone

I GUESS THE GRASS REALLY ISN'T GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE. My Rating: ** - Fair



The title of the film seems like it's dedicated to director Paul GREENgrass. I didn't realize that until one of my favorite parts in the film. Which was when it ended and the credits started rolling. Although Matt Damon (the "Bourne" series) is a very good actor, The script seemed to slow him down. The film is supposed to be a thriller and it does have a well-mapped out plot to keep the suspense but for some reason I just wasn't feelin' it. I actually had to refrain from falling asleep. The plot takes place in 2003 Baghdad and a soldier named Roy Miller(Damon) is serving there in his search to uncover the truth about Baghdad's WMD program. But as he quickly sees that the fact that every spot they are told contains these dangerous weapons comes up empty doesn't add up, he is thrown into the middle of a dangerous maze of lies and, well, shooting to help save lives. Sounds interesting right? That's what I thought. But, it's previews don't really practice what they preach. Is it suspenseful? Yes. Is it enough to really affect you? No. If you want a REAL thriller, watch "The Dark Knight" or "Taken". For almost the entire thing, I just felt like I was watching someone play "Call of Duty". Just two hours of shooting, yelling, and "good will hunting". The acting is pretty good however. If you only take a look at Damon's strengths, he's un-fire able(but then again, most actors are). Despite the fact that he has a very small amount of weaknesses anyway. All other actors deliver good performances but the screenplay wasn't good enough for you to get the full effect. What I DID like about it was that it does have a good plot, a good storyline, good acting, and a GREAT ending. Although for most of those had a lot of times that contained one of the things I can't stand that some films do: wasted potential. I feel like this movie had a lot to back it up, but it just wasn't done right a lot of the time. But like I said, the ending makes a good chunk of it worth while. It would be a felony for me to spoil it for you(maybe I should make a list of the best movie endings...). Although it's not enough to make a whole lot of the film worthwhile, it does serve as a reminder that sometimes to do what's right we need to step out of the green zone.

Starring: Matt Damon Director: Paul Greengrass

The 7 Adventures of Sinbad

JUST HAVE TWO TODDLERS RUN AROUND KICKING A BALL AND YOU WILL BE MORE ENTERTAINED. My Rating: O Stars - Are You Kidding Me?

You know, I used to think movies weren't gonna get worse than "World's Greatest Dad". This broke that scale. There's a reason no one's heard of Asylum Studios. They make, simply put, amateur movies. That probably comes from the company's lack of money. But here's the thing: if you don't have the money, don't make a movie depending entirely on special effects! Make a drama or something. I mean really, just watch the previews for other Asylum films like "Mega Piranha" or "Meteor Apocalypse". They look so cheesy. Just like this film. The plot is short and simple: An industrialist must complete 7 impossible tasks to stop the apocalypse...CHEESY. I've seen old movies with many cheesy things that still topped this by measures that no person can fathom. 'Nuff said about the plot line. I would say "don't even get me started on the special effects", but then what's the point of reviewing it? But, to sum it all up, the effects are pure garbage. "Power Rangers" has done better than that. You can tell that creatures are CG. Just imagine a live-action movie that had a character from, say, "TMNT" standing next to the LIVE action characters. That's what it looked like. On top of that, you can tell the actors were staring at nothing. So yes, poor acting. But they were buried in a terrible plot line and poorly written script. Every event of the film is jumbled and random. I honestly think that "Sesame Street" makes more sense. Asylum just need to avoid special effects. If they are to become a major film company, which they clearly are trying to do, they need to make good movies. If they make good movies, they get more money, THEN they use special effects that look decent. But stick to some other genre for now because clearly this isn't getting them very far. There really isn't much else to talk about for a movie this terrible. It's not layered. Everything about the film is worn right out on it's sleeves. That leaves me with not much to talk about. It's so bad it hurts. Overall, bad acting because it really just wasn't believable for me;they need a GRIPPING performance, TERRIBLE special effects and plot definitely killed it, and just an awful experience. The thing I can say about this is: The film is an absolute must NOT see.

Starring: Patrick Muldoon Directors: Adam Silver
Bo Svenson Ben Hayflick

Ninja Assassin

WHAT HAPPENED TO JACKIE CHAN STYLE VIOLENCE? WHERE DID THAT GO? OH, THAT'S RIGHT! PEOPLE REPLACED IT WITH BLOOD AND GUTS. My Rating: * - Terrible

James McTeigue's new gory film "Ninja Assassin" has brought a whole new meaning to graphic movies. The ridiculously gory scenes in this movie are what bogs it down the most. Either way, they stink because when they look real, they are disgusting. And when they look fake, it makes you, well, not like the movie as much. The plot is about this secret clan of ninja that kidnap orphans and brutally train them as assassins from as early as the age of ten and then which ever government will pay them 100 pounds of gold, they will sell assassination "services" to them. There is so much blood in this movie that there seems to be no point to the story at all and the blood when shown long enough is easily classified as a"1940's horror film scam". And that unfortunately turn out to be what 90% of the movie is.But I guess it's better that it looks fake than real because if it looked real, it would just gross you out. The acting in this movie is not bad but not really great so I guess it's just "good not great". I still have to give the special affects team props for being able to put all of that gore together without throwing up and quitting. There are so many things that could have made this film better. The #1 thing would be to make it less gory. They could also concentrate more on how the action sequences play out in stead of focusing on making it seem like they are gathering red paint so they can pull a prank and paint the white house red. So overall, the movie had an okay plot, good acting, and (when they weren't gross) kind of good action sequences but they were not used in the movie right and it ultimately leads to the film's gory demise.

Starring: Rain Director: Jason Mcteigue
Naomi Harris
Ben Miles

Alice in Wonderland

C'MON MR. BURTON! YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT! My Rating: * - Terrible

Tim Burton seems to have lost his movie-making touch with his new film "Alice in Wonderland". The previews (if you thought even those were good) don't even describe the movie in the least bit because it's a lot worse. Mr. Burton obviously knew what he was doing with the special affects and how he wanted the actors to act but the rest is completely thumbs down. The movie has somewhat of a slow beginning yet it's not bad but from the time she arrives in Wonderland it quickly gets worse, and worse, and, well, a lot worse. Some things in the movie are just plain Gothic and gross. If parents take their kids to this movie and they are surprised that this "innocent" little film has heads floating in a moat or eye balls being stabbed out, I wouldn't be surprised that they were surprised. That makes you just not want to keep watching film. They have almost no comedy in this but when they do, it's pointless. Someone warming their feet on a pig belly isn't even that funny and the funniest thing in the film is a smoking caterpillar and he doesn't even make jokes. The acting is great and you can't expect much less from big stars like Johnny Deep(The Mad Hatter) and Anne Hathaway(The White Queen) but the movie itself just doesn't even pass for "Okay". The biggest mistake made is trying to have the actors and special affects run the entire thing but one thing you can learn by watching this movie is, sadly, that that's not enough to power the engine. The plot has been done in a cartoon movie also by Disney that is this same thing so if you've seen it, you know it's about a girl named Alice who falls down a hole and ends up in a magical place called Wonderland where strange creatures live and the land has been taken over by a queen who is oddly obsessed with the color red and has this gigantic head which is ironic because she (as portrayed in the film) is also obsessed with decapitation. Another bad thing is that even though it's a fantasy movie, it still lacks logic that most fantasy movies and even books keep. Like for instance, say this was Narnia and you fell down a hole that stretched equal to a thousand stories from ground level to the bottom, wouldn't you die if not at least be seriously injured? Well, in this, Alice doesn't even get a scratch but instead she hits the ground and just gets back up like nothing happened. Yet somehow later in the film she is able to get a nasty cut after being scratched by a giant beast. The film also can be very graphic and shouldn't even pass as a kid's film and will leave you surprised at Disney but not so much at Tim Burton with this very (as you probably have guessed by the previews) weird movie. Overall, the movie has good acting and great special affects that could even compete with "Avatar" but everything else is shockingly bad and the movie isn't much of a wonderland itself.

Starring: Mia Wasikowska Director: Linda Woolverton
Johnny Depp
Anne Hathaway
Crispin Glover
Matt Lucas

Old Dogs

OLD DOGS AREN'T LEARNING ANY TRICKS. My Rating: *1/2 - Poor


Disney's "Old Dogs" is a complete disappointment from what i was expecting from the previews. Sometimes there are some hilarious scenes but it feels as if it passes by too fast and jumps right into it without telling you much. Some of the "funny" ideas and scenes that made it to the movie really shouldn't have. The plot is about 2 brothers who have been life-long friends and business partners when one of them (Robin Williams) finds out his old girlfriend has kids. Now he must take on the responsibility of babysitting them for one week while she is in jail for infiltrating some factory polluting a lake with the help of his brother( John Travolta) while at the same time preparing for the biggest moment in their careers. The movie itself is definitely a wild ride that takes you through a weird maze of Robin Williams and John Travolta trying to babysit. Most of the movie is stupid with a few big laughs but the rest just isn't the way it should. If you can get enough joy from someone singing for dear life to a gorilla, flying a jet pack and then falling, getting hit hard with a golf ball, or penguins jumping two movie stars then this would be good for you. If not, i don't recommend you watch this because aside from the LOL's, this will ultimately teach you that old dogs can't learn new tricks.

Starring: Robin Williams Director: Walt Becker
John Travolta
Seth Green
Kelly Preston
Matt Dillon

9

ACKNER MAKES MORE MISTAKES THAN THE TITLE! My Rating: * - Terrible

Director Shane Ackner has made a huge disappointment with his new film "9". The plot is that after humans invent machines meant to fight with the humans, they turn against us and the entire planet is wiped out. So, a scientist makes 9 4-inch tall figurines made of cloth and somehow gives them all the spark of life and they are supposed to defeat the machines. The plot is weird but that's nothing i can't handle. The thing smashing this to pieces is the fact it is a little Gothic and falls apart where most movies triumph-the story and acting and well, basically the parts where no one is fighting robots. The dialogue is little weird and pointless and the characters each have their own personality but some of those personalities provide nothing to the story and some provide a lot which can leave you confused at times. There are only two things i would give this movie decent credit for- the unique idea for the plot which is in fact unique and original but just wasn't done right and the visually stunning battle scenes that don't fail to entertain you at all which is where most action movies fall apart. Overall, the movie does not deliver on what you would hope to find in a movie and ends with 90% bitter and 10% nice ending which will leave you saying "WHAT?! that's weird!". But hey,(no offense-this is probably just his style) anything produced by Tim Burton is almost guaranteed to be a little weird.

Starring: Eligah Wood Director: Shane Ackner

Jennifer Conelley

Martin Landau

John C. Reily

Crispin Glover

Christopher Plummer