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Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Collective Rating: 3 / 5 Bull Whips
Indiana Jones 4: 3 / 5 Bull Whips
MightyThor: 3
Comments: It was entertaining to see Dr. Jones back in action, and I thought Shia LaBeouf was a good addition (he’s been great in everything he’s done, I think).  I also thought they did a nice job of expressing the history that had passed in the lives of the characters since The Last Crusade, and in capturing the essence of the times for this movie, with the red scare and all that.  However, I was disappointed by the main storyline.  The previous movies had all been about religious artifacts and questions about the existence and power of God, so the whole alien skull thing just didn’t wash with me.  It felt very politically correct, as if they were afraid to approach religion in today’s world.  Also, I want to smack George Lucas upside the head for going so overboard on the cheese factor.  All the movies have had a certain amount of over-the-top action, but it always felt acceptable in the confines of the story, and believable as such, but this one was quite a stretch.

Because it’s Indy, and he deserves to be seen on the big screen, I’ll give it a Matinee Worthy:

Manatees Love Matinees
MrHattyHat: 3
Comments:
Donjuanica: 3.5
Comments:

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Movie Review: Iron Man

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
Collective Rating: 4 / 5 Iron Helmets
Iron Man: 4/5 Iron Helmets
MightyThor: 4
Comments: Great summer moviegoing fare, and the best superhero movie since the first SpiderMan. The only part I didn’t love was the big fight at the end.
*Addendum – I must correct myself. As MrHattyHat astutely pointed out, I forgot about Batman Begins, which was far and away the best superhero movie ever. My bad.
I’ll give Iron Man a solid Matinee Worthy:
Manatees Love Matinees
MrHattyHat: 3.5
Comments: Though I thoroughly enjoyed the Iron Man experience, I did so mostly because my expectations for it were quite low. That’s not to say it wasn’t a lot of fun, and Robert Downey, Jr. played the Tony Stark character to its sardonic hilt (at least according to my limited understanding of the original comic book character), but I was far less enthused by this than, say, Batman Begins–the gold standard for comic books movies, in my opinion. On that point I’ll disagree with MtyThor: I think it was better than Spider-Man (which I thought was kind of blah), but didn’t hold a candle to Christopher Nolan’s telling of the origin of the Dark Knight (not to be confused with the as yet unreleased Dark Knight film…review forthcoming).
 
Props to Jon Favreau for a successful introduction into the world of action film direction. It wasn’t a turn of genius, but passable and worthy of follow up efforts.

All in all, definitely worth a see, though so I’ll echo MtyThor’s overall rating:

Matinee Worthy

Donjuanica: 4
Comments:

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MightyThor’s Moviegoing Philosphy

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Before I get into the writing of any actual movie reviews, I think it’s important that I lay out my philosophy about movies in general, so here goes.

I’m not a picky movie viewer.  What I look for, first and foremost, is to be entertained.  When I sit down in a theater (or in front of the TV or with a new video game or a book), I’m looking to be engaged by the characters and drawn into their world and their story for a while.  Movies have it easy, comparatively.  They only have to hold my attention for the span of about 2 hours.  If I’m looking at my watch partway through, they’re not doing their job very well. With that in mind, you’d think it would be a fairly simple matter to tell an engaging story that will make me glad I took the time to watch.  That seems harder and harder for Hollywood to actually pull off, though. 

So my perspective on reviewing movies comes down to how much money do I think this movie was worth paying to see.  My rating system breaks down like this:

Wow this is a good movie.
One Film to Rule them All (AKA: The Brass Ring): This movie was good enough to justify waiting in a huge line  on a weekend night, selling a kidney to pay for tickets for you and most likely a date (who will surely want candy and popcorn that the theater must have imported from France or outer space, judging by the prices), and then spending two and a half hours crammed into a seat between Fatty J. McLard and Allison, the world record contender for the most cell phone text transmissions in an hour.  It takes a very good movie to be worth this.
Manatees love Matinees
Matinee Worthy: This movie was good enough that it really deserves to be experienced on the big screen, but you can muster up the patience to see it during the day when the tickets are cheaper and the crowds are thinner (with the exception of Mr. McLard, of course).
 It's a red box, get it? Reminds me a little of Husker Du, actually.
Video Viewer: This movie wouldn’t be wasting your hard earned dollar if you picked it up at your local Redbox to fill an otherwise unoccupied Friday night.
It's Devo, not like Il Divo. That would be lame.
Devo it: If it comes around on TV, pick it up on the Tivo (or if you’re like me, your local cable company DVR that you call Devo) and give it a go.  You can skip the commercials and delete it if it bores you.
Push the button, Frank!
TSPYTWTLM: They Should Pay You To Watch This Lame Movie.  Seriously, avoid it unless you’re looking for some home-spun MST3K action with your friends.

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