Here’s the story:

On a vast New Zealand sheep farm, a reckless genetic engineering experiment goes horribly wrong, turning sheep into blood thirsty killers.

Yes this is ridiculous, but does the story work? Hell yeah! This movie is frigging hilarious and a total gorefest. By his own admittance King was greatly influenced by The Evil Dead and this flick has the same irreverent thrills and chills as that horror classic only instead of zombies there are sheep (and the cinematography and acting are a thousand times better). In fact the film is so cinematically beautiful, with the gorgeous New Zealand hillside and stunning sun splashed shots that when sheep aren’t mauling, tearing and dragging human entrails along the country side this movie could be mistaken for a lovely period piece.

Black Sheep puts most of the focus on two characters, one is the wide eyed sheep-phobic city boy farmer’s son and the other is the charka seeing hippy gal Experience. They are both on Henry’s family farm with the hopes of freedom; Henry is coming back to the farm one last time to sell his half to his creepy brother and Experience is entering the farm with dreams of freeing the genetically tested on animals. Bizarre mayhem ensues.

The acting in this movie is strong, there are no weak links, everyone is cast well and should these quirky Kiwi actors want to work in more films they will have no problem finding jobs. The stand out performance in my eyes is that of the handsome Tucker, Davis plays the devil may care farm manager beautifully and shows his love of the land and life with great ease.

So what’s wrong with this movie?

Well it’s funny, the story is good and the acting is strong, the gore is there as are the beautiful shots, however…it’s not really all that scary. I am a screamer in theaters, even though I review movies, I act in them and will take them apart in my mind I can still very easily suspend my belief and scream my guts out if the movie is scary. I didn’t do that even one in Black Sheep. I jumped once or twice but for the most part the scary stuff I saw coming. Did this affect my viewing pleasure? A little, would the movie be better if it was scarier? Yes.

Do I still think this flick is worth watching?

Definitely. The directing is great in this movie, what they lack in fright they make up for in tone, characters and gore ahh the gore. This movie is very entertaining and endearing in a strange sort of way. So on a sale of one to ten I give this a solid 8. For a no go or routh, it’s a go.

Black Sheep come out in limited release this Friday June 22.

For those of you who don’t know A Mighty Heart is based upon one of the first of an unfortunate stream of violent kidnappings of American journalists and civilians that have begun happening since 9/11. It focuses on kidnapped Journalists Daniel Pearl and his wife and her support system during this time, it also shows how the authorities work with this growing problem in the world.

It is directed by Michael Winterbotom, and written by John Orlof and Mariane Pearl. It stars Angelina Joilie as Mariane Pearl, Dan Futterman as Daniel Pearl, Archie Panjabi, Irfan Khan, and Jillian Armenante.

A Mighty Heart delves into an area of terrorism that the media had so over publicized that I wasn’t sure I would learn anything new in this film, this was not the case, it was quite interesting and made me consider the spider web network of people who are involved with kidnappings. The movie also put a lot of focus on what a family goes through when a kidnapping occurs.

What Mariane Pearl, as a journalist did when her husband went missing was try to connect the dots, to try and find the father of their soon to born child. And while that part of the story is interesting intellectually it is a bit lacking emotionally. This is not from lack of effort but more I think from Winterbottom’s style of directing, for me things are just a little too removed.

Jolie is so quiet in this role. From some I have heard glowing reviews on her performance and I can see the effort coming through her to honor the real Mariane Pearl with her work. It obviously meant a lot to her to portray Pearl correctly and it shows; her voice is changed, the French accent is there, she moves softly and with the quiet dignity of a mother in waiting, it is all there… except Jolie.

What is missing from this performance is what makes Jolie famous after so many flops, that Angelina Jolie “je ne sais quoi” is missing. I’m not saying that she should have been a wild woman or anything but an actor should bring a little of themselves to every role, and in this performance Angelina has left the building.

Luckily this film does no lack a good supporting cast. By far my favorite character are the two Pakistan detectives on the case. Their story is fascinating, two bright men trying to make Americans see that Pakistan is a better place than it was, that they takes care of their tourists and journalists. The pride and ferocity these two charismatic detectives take in this task is impressive. As is the performance of Irfan Khan, the more senior detective. He simultaneously shows compassion, kindness, brilliance and brutality in just the few short scenes he is in, this film could have used a lot more of him.

Also impressive was Mariane Pearl’s friend Asra Nomani played by Archie Panjabi. She exudes warmth and intelligence with a strong desire to remain respected as a progressive Muslim woman, she succeeds beautifully. The passion in her eyes when she is convincing people to help Mariane is truly engaging, she is totally real in this role.

Overall this movie is interesting and informative, but a little dry, the acting is for the most part is strong but the movie drags a lot in the beginning and when it does finally start to pick up the pace in the final act I was a little tired. One a scale of one to ten I give it a 6.5, for a no, go or routh, I’d say go, but to rent it, or on a day when you are awake and feeling up to a heavy subject.

Transformers: talking alien robots that transform into cars and other human driven machines who want to destry/save mankind. Seems like a weird premise for a movie, or television show for that matter. But just as the TV show entertained millions in the eighties so, I am certain this movie will make millions of fans and new comers alike weep with delight this summer. This is a real action movie folks, the action is throughout and in great abundance, ithis is one three hour movie that will keep your attention

First off I must say that having Michael Bay come out before the movie and let everyone know that he was going to make sure that they keep the sound up “really fucking loud” was a plus, always nice to see the director sharing his joy and excitement by making our listening experience just a little better. Glad he did because the sound is INCREADIBLE in this flick. They get the Transformers language perfectly. Everything has this super cool robotic voice feel to it.

Here is the plot description:

Dueling alien races, the Autobots and the Decepticons, bring their battle to Earth, leaving the future of humankind hanging in the balance.

There is so much more than this to the movie of course but I want to stay far away from any spoilers so I’m not going to go into too much plot details here.

Since Transformers is a kick butt, amusement park on acid, weep for joy kind of movie I will make my complaints brief and then get onto the good stuff. In my opinion the one area that has room for improvement is the soldier story line. One of the first scenes in the movie has a bunch of soldier shooting the breeze in the desert talking about their loved ones. This scene frightened me for a moment or two into thinking that this movie might be a sappy lemon, of course then some amazing, freaky action started up so I relaxed. The movie continues on in fine form but these soldiers pop up every now and then and each time they do I am slightly bothered. They are one of three human stories in the movie and while the other two are well thought through and properly written the soldiers lack proper ammunition. The dialogue is pretty lame and the story predictable, even the quirky funny soldier leaves me wanting. Luckily for us they have the smallest amount of screen time and the other two human plotlines more than make up for it.

Now onto the good. Where do I start? Ok for the special effects nuts this movie is IT. Total perfection. I am not a big fan of special effects, because, just as with a facelift something always looks a bit off to me, the smile isn’t supposed to meet the ears. But if Michael Bay was arrested next week for harboring illegal Autobots I would no be surprised. I kept forgetting that these giant, kick ass robots in disguise aren’t real, my mind would try and guess how expensive these shape shifting robots must have been to build. The effects are really that fantastic .

Next are the characters. I’ll do humans first; Looks wise the romantic lead Megan Fox is hard to ignore, I am very curious if there was any CGI on that girl’s eyelashes because they are crazily perfect in length, Rachel Taylor impressed me as the young up and coming linguistic code breaker, without too much back story she was able to portray an intelligent woman with some very interesting friends. Shia LaBouf (playing Sam, the kid who gets Bumblebee as his car) is a great comedic actor, I noticed him last year in the wonderful film Bobby and just as with that movie he is able to be awkwardly funny without being uncomfortable to watch and although he may not be instantly likable he soon becomes a beloved character. John Turturro is hysterical as an anally retentive special agent Simmons. Sam’s parents are hilarious, and hit a home run with both of their performances. If everything else about Transformers had been crap these two odd and nosy parents would have made this movie bearable.

As for the Autobots and the Decepticons…well…they may be robots but they still manage to steal the spotlight from any human who is on screen with them, and it isn’t just their impressive size that does it. They get almost as many laughs as the humans for their behavior (my favorite is when one of the Autobots urinates on a special government agent) and their dialogue is written and delivered perfectly. Bumblebee rocks in this movie, he is simply the most lovable character, human or robot, and the marketing works. The Camero looks great, I want one (or at least park with someone who owns one).In the Decepticons corner the stand out robots are a bunch of weird little Decepticons assistants that complain under their breath, very funny passive aggressive little things and you can’t help but laugh at them.

All in all this movie is great. Michael Bay has made his best film to date. There is the perfect helping of humor, sprinkle of romance and blasting of action to make everyone completely entertained and satisfied. As an added bonus they have left the door slightly open for more Transformer movies. On a scale of one to ten I give this a nine out of ten. For a no, go or routh I say routh, this is the full package my friends

Little helpful hint to those who are not familiar with Transformers, apparently there can be some confusion over who is an Autobot and who is a Decepticon. So, very simply, just like with rabbits, red eyes robots are the bad guys, blue eyes robots are the good guys.

The first Fantastic Four film was disappointing, no doubt. But even though it wasn’t a very good movie, it had the strange effect of still making me enjoy it a little bit. Yes there was some bad acting, terrible dialog and loads of cheese… but it was also kinda funny in places and had its charm. Still… a film that should have been much better.

So here comes along Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The trailers have looked pretty good, having the Surfer is good… but the whole “Is or is not Galactus a frigging Storm Cloud in the movie?” question has been hounding this movie like a bad PR nightmare. So with mild expectations off I went to see it.

THE GOOD

One of the things I appreciated about the the first Fantastic Four was that it didn’t try to be X-Men or Batman. This is NOT a “dark” movie. They set out to make a lighter hearted comic book movie, and they at least did that part right. The first 20 minutes or so of this film capture that pretty well too. The film is light, doesn’t take itself seriously at all and seems quite content to be just a fun, non-serious comic flick.

The Silver Surfer was a big point of apprehension for me when I first heard he was going to be in the film. I thought for sure he would end up looking like a cheesy silver dude with a surfboard. How on earth do you make that look cool in a live action film? Well… they did it. Hats off to them, Surfer looked totally fantastic in both his pumped up super mode… and his powered down mode (if you’ve seen the film you know what I’m talking about.

Sadly, that’s all for the good… now on with…

THE BAD

How the hell do you have a movie called “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”, and then have such a small amount of the Silver Surfer in the movie at all?!?!?! As a matter of fact… get this…. SILVER SURFER DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANY FIGHTS IN THE FILM! He never throws down with the Fantastic Four, he takes one shot at Doom, and then just dodges some missiles. So yeah… a movie called “Rise of the Silver Surfer” has the Silver Surfer with about 15 minutes of screen time with ZERO fights. All he does in the movie is go around digging pot holes for Galactus! LAME LAME LAME LAME!

This one is so absurd my head literally started to shake just now while thinking about it. If you’re going to have a comic book movie… DON’T SPEND MORE TIME ON WEDDING PROBLEMS THAN YOU DO ON ACTION!!! You wanna know what the BIGGEST and longest action sequence is in the entire movie is??? You wanna know what the big fight was in the film? Are you ready for this? The Fantastic Four vs. a giant falling Ferris Wheel! Yes, you read that right. The big main action set piece in this film was The Fantastic Four vs a Ferris Wheel. Do I really need to say any more?

As mentioned earlier, one of the main things that made the first Fantastic Four film watchable to me was the silly charm and humor. That was sorrily missing from this film. Their idea of a fun charming funny scene? Mr. Fantastic dancing at a night club while getting all stretchy. I was so embarrassed for the movie at this point that I had to cover my eyes.

Let’s not forget about Galactus. YES, he was indeed a giant galactic storm cloud. Not just hiding in a storm cloud… he is a storm cloud. Now granted, the effects of the storm cloud in question looked pretty cool… but LOOKING cool wasn’t the problem. He was a storm cloud. I’m all for letting directors make some creative changes with characters. Use a brown haired guy to play a blonde superhero. Change costumes. Alter the looks… I’m totally ok with that stuff if it works. But to change a character from a regular looking human character (for all intents and purposes) into a gaseous entity is pushing that way too far. I have several FF fan friends who were just livid.

OVER ALL

The lighthearted nature of the film along with some decent effects with the surfer and a mercifully 91 minute running time, makes Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the best comic book film of the summer so far. But this summer… that’s not saying much. This is a terrible movie, and unlike what most other people are saying, I think this film was a huge step backwards for the franchise. Little Silver Surfer with no fights at all… the Fantastic Four vs. a Ferris Wheel… a supposedly “main character” that just digs pot holes… no humor or charm that the first one had… all leaves Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer a regrettable theater going experience. Over all, I’m giving the film a 3 out of 10.

The synopsis for Primeval looks something like this:

In one of the most remote places on earth, a bloodthirsty serial killer has claimed over 300 victims, and is still at large to this day. Now, inspired by the true story of the world’s most prolific killer, comes PRIMEVAL, a nail-biting horror-thriller that follows an American news crew determined to capture this terrifying murderer alive. The danger begins as producer Tim Freeman (DOMINIC PURCELL, “Prison Break”), cameraman Steven Johnson (ORLANDO JONES) and their rag-tag team set out on a journey up-river in search of their subject. But the deeper they probe into the mystery of this elusive assassin, the deadlier their trip becomes.

 

 

THE GOOD

Let me say this right up front. This is one of the only truly scary films I’ve seen this year. The filmmakers do a wonderful job of setting up scenes of tension and constructing an atmosphere conducive to fear. I hesitate to call this film a “Horror movie” per se… but the scares are some of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

I also quite like the fact that they make Primeval about more than a giant killer croc. The film is also a look at some of the political realities going on in some of the poorest nations in Africa. Some how, and some way, Primeval makes itself something of a message movie while also being a horror of sorts. I can’t recall ever seeing a film that tried to do both on a serious level before.

From a purely cinematic perspective, some of the nature and landscape shots are just breathtaking. There were times in the film when I just zoned out of the dialog and focused all my attention on the beautiful scenery they shot. A very good looking film

THE BAD

The film feels very small. Small cast, small scope of influence, small budget… just small. I imagine half of the films budget was eaten up (no pun intended) by Gustave (the name of the giant Croc).

The script and dialog are kinda painful in parts, and it didn’t help that the lines were being delivered by 2nd tier actors. Orlando Jones just did NOT fit in this movie. Brooke Langton (who i normally like) was awful and totally unbelievable. Dominic Purcell was surprisingly pretty good. I’ve never been impressed with him before (Blade 3 anyone?) but I’ll give credit where it’s due. He was the one non-bad spot as far as the acting went.

The invisible villain in the film is a ruthless warlord named “Little Gustave”. How they resolved this character was just terrible. I don’t know if how they worked out Little Gustave was part of the true story or not… but even if it was, the way it was translated to the screen was awful.

OVERALL
Primeval ends up being somewhat predictable poor in the sense of script, story and acting… however, it makes up for that with some legitimate great scares, some beautiful scenery and a nice combination for jumping back and forth between being a political statement movie of sorts… and a giant croc horror movie.

Overall I give Primeval a 6 out of 10