antgoo

Went to see the Dark Knight last… um… night. I’m going to take my time and write a full review of this EPIC film, but for now I want to leave you with a couple of initial impressions.

1. The Dark Knight is LOOOOONG. I mean Lord of the Rings long. Fortunately, it is essentially 2.5 hours of nonstop action. It’s exhausting, but in a good way. I managed to keep myself from reading any spoilers, so I was kept on the edge of my seat the entire time. But that much adrenaline can tire a dude out.
2. While the Dark Knight is not the best film I’ve ever seen, it’s damn close. It’s easily head and shoulders above Batman Begins on almost every level. I hesitate to say whether it’s better than Iron Man (so far the gold standard for summer action movies) because they’re two very different kinds of movies, but it the Dark Knight is better. Metaphorically speaking, Iron Man is more of a comic book movie while the Dark Knight is more of a graphic novel. If you forced me to chose, I’d say the Dark Knight is the better movie.
3. Try to sit through the entire film without laughing at least once at Christian Bale’s Batman voice. I dare you. Don’t get me wrong, I think Bale is a PHENOMENAL actor. There is, however, much unintentional comedy to be drawn from his Bat-Monster-Man gravelly voice. Anyone who went to see Batman Begins knows of what I speak.

Definitely check it out the Dark Knight and be on the look out for the full on review in the near future.

Okay, so I’ve seen Wall-E twice now and I’m not sure how I feel about it. A part of me thinks this is an incredibly depressing film. Yet another part of me thinks Wall-E is incredibly heartwarming. The only thing I am sure of is that this is that the trained monkeys at Disney/Pixar have done it again and created an incredibly brilliant movie.

The trailers paint this film as a fun filled romp in the future starring our Johnny 5-esque hero Wall-E, the trash compacting robot. And to some degree, it is just that. But like all of the good Pixar movies (with the obvious exception of Cars), Wall-E is so much more.

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I went to see Wanted the other night with the Missus. Overall, our impressions were positive. Any film that can make my girlfriend fist-pump the air when the ending credits roll is a good time in my book.

On one level, I was expecting eye candy, cool fight sequences and perhaps a cool catch phrase or two use when trying to sound cool in public. I really didn’t want to look past that. I really wanted to leave it at that, but anyone who has ever read one of my film reviews knows that better than to think that I would. (Spoilers Ahead.)

Wanted chronicles the rise of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a meek 24-year-old who works in a cubicle, but is heir to a legacy of assassins. The interesting thing about Wanted is that, in the beginning, Wanted is very similar to movies such as Fight Club and Office Space in that it’s about dissatisfaction with a mundane and unfulfilling corporate job. However, when you look at the whole story Wanted is more like Star Wars or the Matrix in that it’s a fairly standard “zero-to-hero” type plot, where a nobody finds great power within and ends up saving the world from a great/hidden evil.

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I just finished watching the animated anthology, Batman: Gotham Knight. This collection of 6 intertwined animated short films are set between the events of Batman Begins and the upcoming the Dark Knight. The aim is to expand the Batman mythos and give a bit more information about the world of Gotham City.

Some of the films focus on the mystique of the Batman, while others focus more on humanizing him (going as far at times to portray Bruce Wayne/Batman as a flawed and tragic character). Each film focuses on a different facet of the character and has it’s own tone of story and visual style. Each piece is loosely linked to the others, but stands on it’s own. Much in the same way as the Animatrix series of shorts did for the Matrix trilogy. In fact, the only thing the films share is the voice actors, featuring Kevin Conroy’s voice as the Batman.

Click through for my impressions of the individual films: (more…)

Earlier this week, I stated the blatantly apparent when I stated that Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was a horrible, horrible piece of non-art. Well, you can just call me Capt. Obvious, because I just finished watching John Rambo and I’ve got more of the same. Ready?

John Rambo is an incredibly violent movie… there I said it. Yeah. Anyone who knows anything about Rambo movies can tell you that. But the reason John Rambo is worth an entire review, and not just a twitter, is because in addition to being violent beyond my expectations, it’s actually pretty good.
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