X-Men Origins: Wolverine
This movie does not, as I had previously thought, have a double colon in the title. They are missing out. Of course, the movie's also missing things like interesting characters, plots that make sense, and my attention. Punctuation's the least of their worries. Screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods seem to have thought of this movie backwards from action set pieces (cool guys don't look at explosions) and then filled out the bare minimum of plot between them. Gambit (Taylor Kitsch, deciding to do little in the Cajun accent department, but otherwise rocking) was cut from the first movie because of the budget, yet they're still doing the least they possibly can with the character. And for what? So we can laugh when Logan (Hugh Jackman, who I always want to type as Huge Jackman - that's his porn name) cuts a sink in half with his new adamantium claws? So we can get a backstory on his amnesia that makes no sense whatsoever? So Liev Schreiber can run around making his evil villain the most fun (and dangerous) character in the proceedings? Actually, that's kind of worth the price of admission. Though, like Watchmen, the movie is never so good as its opening montage (as Jimmy and Victor go from war to war over more than a century, Jimmy becoming disillusioned and Victor gradually losing his humanity), Schreiber's line reading on "Ooo, shiny," is too good to describe. He deserves a better movie. DStar Trek
J.J. Abrams, look at you! Here we have something that doesn't start in the middle, makes sense without endless exposition, and is a heck of a lot of fun in the interim. Apparently you and scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are finally figuring these things out. Best of all, you found an inventive way to reboot the entire series that works. And really, I don't know if I've ever seen anything as badass as a 12 year-old driving a car off a cliff. Chris Pine may be an excellent Kirk, all cocksure swagger with just the right stripe of intelligence to pull it off, but Zachary Quinto as Spock owns that movie from start to finish. So long as you've got those two in place, you're set. Well, kickass Bruce Greenwood, dreamy Karl Urban, and adorable Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin don't hurt either. This might be going some place good. Maybe cool it with the solar flares next time, though. B+Terminator Salvation
Another colon-less confusing title! Another Anton Yelchin movie! In this case he goes from being adorable with an overblown accent and a head of curls, to, quite frankly, a little bit sexy with his tight pants and guns and the come-with-me-if-you-want-to-lives. The casting is spot on for this kid to grow into Michael Biehn. I have no idea why writers John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris (and the legions of other writers brought on to do rewrites, of course) chose to saddle him with a little mute girl and then didn't have the good sense to kill her (for pathos not my personal amusement), but what are you going to do? I'd rewrite this movie if I could. I'd tell McG to rethink the lighting scheme (not a joke), to give dreamboat Sam Worthington some direction other than "yell a lot," to give dreamboat Christian Bale some direction other than "brood." We get that he can brood, and we love that about him, we really do. I suspect that if I were hunted for the entirety of my life, I would brood a lot, too. But then I'd remember the immortal words of Roger Ebert, and I'd get the stick out of my ass. I'd remember that my character calls for imagination. Mostly, though, I'd call up those bastards in charge of cutting my trailers and ads and thank them for spoiling the only innovative twist the movie had going for it: do you know that Worthington's some kind of terminator? You do? Too bad the movie spends its entire first hour waiting for you to find that out. Bloody hell. There really ought to be some communication when it comes to these things. I don't know if I would have made the movie less boring, but I bet it would have been a good start. C
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