Thursday, February 1, 2007

Movie Review: The Marine

Rating: Zero Stars.

It starts off with a marine in Iraq. He's managed to sneak in close to 4 other marines that are about to be executed. He radios this in but is told to stay put. Instead he says there's no time, flips off the radio, and rescues them all. The movie loses credibility right here and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Bullets are flying everywhere but he kills multitudes in hand to hand combat and dodges 1000s of bullets better than spider man can. For this he is unwillingly discharged. Yeah right. In real life we can't even punish the hundreds if not thousands of marines that have raped and pillaged in Iraq and here we discharge somebody for doing a good job. Did I say the movie had already lost credibility? He goes home to his beautiful house and wife and has sex for days. This guy has muscles coming out his ears and his wife is gorgeous. But lets be honest, anybody associated with a movie like this has got to have no brains, and they had all best play their looks cards for as much as they can before they have nothing. As I understand it this guy is a product of the World Wrestling Entertainment business so it's understandable why he has muscles coming out of his ears. The WWE encourages everybody to take as many steroids as humanly possible.

Anyways, the terminator then proceeds to be shot at with millions of bullets that destroy everything around him. Lives through a 40 or 50 foot fall from a speeding vehicle over a cliff. Destroys houses and metal scaffolding with his body. Lives through several buildings that get blown up. Even big iron pipes swung with the force of a batter across the back of his head or his shins don't slow him down much. Well you get the picture. I can understand the drugs and muscles making you think you are indestructible but when metal bars hit bones with no muscle for insulation the bones break. Except in unrealistic movies like this.

The excuse used to exhibit muscles this movie is that his wife gets kidnapped by some thugs who need the car she's in. They then use her as safety. They do everything they can to portray him as the terminator who just keeps coming systematically killing them one by one.

I can understand the idea of muscles making you feel indestructible. At one point when I had been doing gymnastics for years I had a set of muscles that made me feel indestructible. But this movie goes far beyond that.

The unrealism coupled with the baggage brought on by title of the movie will probably destroy the careers of all of these actors. The actors should have known better.

Movie Review: The Invincible Iron Man

Rating: 0 stars.

I used to be a big comic book fan. I may still have chests full of comics many of them dating back to who knows when. I remember many of them being 12 cents. I think quite a few were 5 cents. I kind of evolved out of comics when maturity took over and they just insulted my intelligence too much. I liked Archie. Loved all the colors of the clothing and such. Never really grew out of it. Casper and such didn't seem to have a lot going on so I got bored. The DC line up was ok to begin with. Early Superman had many abilities he later lost. Like the ability to morph. The superpowers were just too inconsistent. You'd wonder why he wouldn't use power X which could clearly save the day. Then it became apparent DC comics were all written by a brain dead organization that couldn't remember what happened in the last scene much less the last issue so I gave up on DC early on. Marvel comics were much better. Spider Man had powers he also "forgot". One of them was the ability to see a layout of some place without having to go into it. So he would never get lost and could pick and choose which walls he could bust through to get to a certain person. They dropped that and kept the "spider sense" that allowed him to twist and turn and avoid bad things from happening to him at the very last split second. However writers in the early 80s botched marvel comics so badly I couldn't be forced to look at the inconsistencies any longer.

Now we have Marvel on DVD. Iron Man. I wasn't much of a fan of Iron Man. I always ask questions about the fit of the suit and such. It seems to bend where his joints are. Yet in this movie they show a contraption that makes him appear to be 10' tall. And he pulls levers that are connected to his fingers? Yet in the next shot he's about the normal size of a person. There's no way he can be 10' so the contraptions he pulls is an inconsistency in this movie. Now come the other set of questions. If the shell is about the same as a set of clothing what about the physics of plowing through about a mile of trees? It didn't look like he had a force field protecting him. Considering one tree can stop a several ton car without problem what's going on? How can he receive a hit to the face that sends him flying? Wouldn't an impact of that magnitude cause his brain to liquify against the inside of his skull? I just don't get it. I could get it if "magic" somehow protected him. But the science of it is absurd.

I'm not sure how consistent this movie is with the original ironman. I seem to remember him fighting this guy many many times and never with some woman essential to the plot. But oh well. Brainless drivel but good if you are into comics and don't question things.