Waiting For Ben Hur Part II

Stupid Netflix.

My 'short wait' for Ben Hur has become a 'long wait'.  Bastards.

But instead of moping, I'm just going to hope it arrives sooner rather than later, and in the meantime, here's the aforementioned reviews of everything I've watched instead of the Chuck Heston chariot chase.

The Dark Knight Rises.  I wanted to like this better than I did.  Not saying it was bad or anything, but honestly, I felt it was the weakest of the three Nolan Batman movies.  Batman Begins was a believable tweaking of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One story.  The Dark Knight was a crime story with a very good turn from Heath Ledger (but with a clumsy Two-Face story shoehorned in), and The Dark Knight Rises was the war movie, I guess?  I liked Anne Hathaway better than I thought I would, but bad move getting rid of Alfred for most of the story, bad move making Bane awfully boring, and bad move by Spielberging your ending.  Didn't suck, wasn't great, but honestly I may never watch it again.  And I've watched the first two installments multiple times.

Contagion.  I felt about this the way I feel about most of Steven Soderbergh's stuff.  Nice to look at, well made, but ultimately it left me a little cold.  I liked Gwyneth Paltrow's part, I thought Matt Damon kinda phoned it in.  I liked Kate Winslet, I thought Jude Law overcooked his part.  By the end I was waiting for it to be over, but as usual, it was pleasing to my eye.  I think Soderbergh makes beautiful movies that lack heart.  That said, he's a talented director and still better than most.  I've just given up connecting to most of his stuff.  Maybe I just don't speak his language.

The Avengers.  Dig it.  Dug it.  Will watch again.  Highly recommended.  My inner nerd rejoices often that this movie hit the mark.  Joss Whedon is not infallable *cough Dollhouse cough* but he is a director that I do indeed understand the language which he speaks and he speaks it well. (that sentence was crap.)  Now.  If Shane Black's Iron Man 3 is a winner, I may just squee in public, rather than to myself while hiding in my nerd lair.  Marvel has done a wonderful job in creating its movie universe.  I wish DC/Warner Bros. would find the same success, but it hasn't worked out so well for them so far.  I hope Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is good, because if it's not, that studio could have real troubles ahead of them.

The Collector.  Bleh.  Pretty much the first line of dialogue turned me off completely.  So on the nose...so very, very bad.  Not long after that, a few characters got introduced and they were so force-fit that I was getting squirmy.  Not long after that, the drawn-out 'suspense' started to put me to sleep.  The first half hour of this thing should have taken about 15 minutes, but the ham handed attempts to create something out of nothing just kept a'comin'.  I tuned it off and was happier for it.

The Hunger Games.  I think if I was a 14 year-old girl, I would have been quite happy with this.  However.  I am a 42 year-old curmudgeon and I found it to be contrived and boring.  Also, shallow.  Also, Lenny Kravitz, have you no shame?  Also, for the amount of money spent on this thing some of the effects were crap.  Also, Wes Bentley?  I preferred your floaty plastic bag to your stupid flamey beard.  Will not watch the sequels unless mandated by law.

Resident Evil: Retribution.  I gotta be honest.  I can't tell these movies apart.  There's, I think, five of them?  Completely interchangeable.  And yet somehow I kinda like 'em.  Definitely need to turn the brain off before I watch, but they're entertaining in their own small way.  Zombies, meta-humans, Milla Jovovich in skintight pleather catsuits, carnage, mayhem.  Yes sir, I'll watch the next forty-two of them.

Skyfall.  I think I need to watch this one again.  Really liked most of it.  Kinda didn't like some of it.  I wanted to watch the director's commentary, but Netflix sent me the vanilla version so I couldn't.  Boo.  Overall, pretty good.  I liked that the villain was memorable.  That was a nice change from Casino Royale and Quantum of Snooze Button.  I liked that the story centered around M for a change, and I think the story benefited from it.  Daniel Craig continues to impress.  Sam Mendes is a fine director.  But something about it just wasn't quite right.  I'll have to watch again and give more thoughts then.

John Carter.  Nerd admission: I never read these books, so I had no real knowledge of what this movie was about.  Sure I knew a few things, but not much.  Turns out that that was perfect because this movie delivered the exact same: not much.  A few laughs (small ones), a few nice set pieces, some unbelievable 'science', some mediocre 'acting', and, uhhh...yeah.  I understand that this tanked so bad there will never be a sequel, and I can say...yay.  Good call.  No need for that.

That's all I got for today kids.  I'll be back soon with more boring reviews that aren't Ben Hur.

Peace.