This film was engulfed by filler scenes that could’ve easily been cut. Massive explosions every few minutes and pointless dialogue in the others. The film is so focused on giving you visual stimulations, but still its special effects are years behind its 18 year old prequel. CGI just ain’t as good as the real thing, except when talking about the Arnold cameo. You’ll see what I mean. At times it seemed like the Terminators were straight out of a scary movie, looking more like zombies with gatling guns rather than super advanced machines.

It happens all too often that a character is introduced and is one of the most important characters in the whole film, but by the end we’re asking ourselves, “why was HE so important?” If something as bad as this happens in your film, you’ve got a serious problem. I’m of course speaking about Marcus Wright, which the film largely focuses on (even more so than John Connor himself!).

John Connor in T2 is human with human qualities, and was able to connect in a personal and affectionate level with a machine. In Salvation he’s become a killing machine himself with absolutely no human side or compassion, losing the very thing he’s fighting to preserve. He’s put in a very similar situation as he was in T2 and (sigh) T3, but is unable to accept that machines now look like humans, even though to him it’s how they’ve always looked!! C’mon!

It’s obvious that everyone is excited about this film largely because Christian Bale revived the Batman franchise so well. He should stick to Batman and McG should stick to Charlie’s Angels. Also, the fact that John Connor has the Batman voice 75% of the time didn’t help. This movie is better left to Netflix rather than a $11 movie ticket.

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First, what I liked. The conflict worked. Out of all the most recent Star Trek movies the only other one that I’ve liked was First Contact with the Borg. This conflict was superb.

The actors, again, were very well chosen. There were a couple that seemed to be a bit off in the age, but overall very good. The special effects of course were also amazing. In fact, perhaps there were too many. There was so much action throughout the whole film that it almost removed itself from the Sci-Fi genre and deviated a bit more towards the Action/Adventure genre. That, however, is debatable. On a side note, there’s one thing that really removed me from the film, but it had nothing to do with the story or with the characters. It was actually having to do with a technique. Lot’s of new films these days, including Transformers, use it here and there to spiff-up the look. I’m talking about lens flare. In Star Trek, pretty much every shot in the film had lens flare of some sort. So much so that it became increasingly distracting.

For the most part, I loved the film. Good story, great characters, and great actors acting like actors playing the characters… if that makes sense.

SPOILER ALERT
The film works because it’s a prequel, obviously. If it was a sequel and they simply replaced the actors, it would be atrocious. The problem arises when they try to make this into a new franchise, which you know they will Due to this film’s conflict (time travel), they effectively erased everything that Star Trek ever was. Now they can literally do whatever they want without having to follow the original story lines. So, basically, for the next few films we’re gonna have a lot of people trying to act like other people playing characters (Shatner, Nemoy, etc). And that sucks.

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First off, it’s very true to the story. This was one of those things that if they changed a lot from the comic, fans would be up in arms about since there’s such a strong following. Also, the cast was very well chosen. Rorschach was played by Jackie Earle Haley, and I don’t think anyone could have played it better.

On to the so-so things. The action sequences were very well choreographed, but the slow motion was so over the top that it took me out of it. In a film like ‘300,’ where the entire film takes place basically in a comic book, you accept the visual stimulation as it comes. It belongs there. Slow motion in that case made everything better because there was so much detail in every shot. In this film, however, imagine if you were to watch ‘Speed’ and every 30 seconds they just slowed down…. it’s kind of like… what? I appreciated it, I just think it was over done.

Another thing that bothered me was the violence. I know what you’re going to say, “why don’t you go play with your dollies,” but no. It’s not that I can’t handle violence and gore, on the contrary, I tend to treat myself to a little ‘Sin City’ here and there, or ‘High Tension.’ But as was the case with ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,’ in some cases it was simply uncalled for, and it distracts. In that film, we’re mostly in a little girl’s magical world. But remember the scene when the step father is interrogating the father and son found in the mountains, and he beats the son with a bottle, and they show you the whole thing? That was enough face-bashing for me for a while. Same deal with Watchmen.

There were other things that were more out of their control, I feel, because of time constraints. The film was already very long, and some things just couldn’t make the cut, so if you haven’t read the graphic novel, some things will be left unexplained. I almost wish they would have split the film in two.

Grade: B

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I’m not what you would call a diehard fan of Eastwood, but I’ve typically enjoyed most of his films; Unforgiven hell yes… The Bridges of Madison County? Um… no…

So, Gran Torino? I enjoyed the film, the story was good, it felt genuine, but the acting was horrible (other than Eastwood’s, which is usually pretty consistant). The performances in some scenes were so bad that I thought, “really, Clint? Why would you hire this kid? Still, the film is worth a rental. Knowing this is supposedly Eastwood’s last film makes me sad. I feel like the man peaked too soon. Unforgiven, perhaps my favorite Eastwood film, should have been his last.

Grade: B

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The first film shows Schwarzenegger’s T-800 coming from 2029 back in time,” McG said. “Salvation takes place in 2018, so you see the R&D that went into the T-800. It’s like the polio vaccine: You’ve got to go through a lot of lab rats to get to vaccine. In this film, humans are the lab rats. Skynet is testing on us to figure out how to make a photorealistic, leaner, smaller, more capable machine — the T-800.

Make sure to head over to see the rest of the images and check out the interview!

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Under the deal, Fox will not be a co-distributor of the film. But, the studio will receive a heaping helping of greenbacks in one, well-raked pile and up to 8.5 percent of the box office (which should make bookkeeping entertaining at Warner Bros.).

More importantly, Fox enjoys a taste of everything Warners Bros. earns off sequels or spinoffs. The final cash payment amount has yet to be determined as Fox demands reimbursement of its development costs and attorney fees, according to Deadline Hollywood Daily.

Not only that, the actual payoff to Fox is rumored to be about $5 – $10 mil., which to be honest, considering how much the film cost to produce I would have though they would get much  more. The film is still scheduled to be released on March 6th.

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Grade: D

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The movie is about a guy who offs himself and is stuck in some purgatory-like world that is plain and boring along with everyone else who’s offed themselves. When he learns that his girlfriend has also killed herself, he goes on a quest to find her. The movie wasn’t as good as I had hoped. The characters were semi interesting, and the plot kind of predictable. The comedic reliefs weren’t even that great. Overall I would say that it’s a good rental at best. Patrick Fugit, of Almost Famous, was disappointing considering his previous roles.

Grade: C

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I finally saw Burn After Reading. The movie is quite good. It was fun, the characters were quirky, and the plot didn’t really matter because it was about the interaction between the characters that drove the film. There’s a couple of reasons why I really like this film, and there’s others that knock it down from an A to a B. First off, it makes fun of movies like Crash and Babel which I detested to no end. Words cannot describe how much I hated those films. Burn After Reading makes fun of the whole different-plots-end-up-converging-at-the-end-and-reveal-a-higher-meaning thing. Also, George Clooney and Tilda Swinton were fantastic. 

Couple of things I was not so crazy about was one, Brad Pitt. He was funny, but way over the top. And to be honest I think his character was funny just because it was Brad Pitt. If it would have been anyone else it would not have been that funny. Also, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that the Coen brothers made this film. How do you go from No Country For Old Men to this? I think the few things I find that needed work in this film could have been perfected considering the directors. If they can write characters to perfection in No Country For Old Men, they could have done it here too, and they just didn’t spend enough time with it.

Grade: B

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So I went to see Forest Gump The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There are a lot of things I liked about this film, and there were a lot of things I didn’t like. The tie-in with the clock-maker’s story was good, and the art department definitely did their job. Also, the comedic relief with the guy that got struck by lightning 7 times was a cute touch.

However, there are many things that are wrong with it. First of all, Benjamin Button is an idiot. By the time we’re supposed to believe he’s around 28 (actual age), he’s acting like a 12 year old. He lives with people all day, couldn’t he learn how to interact with them one of those years? Also, WWII didn’t start when Pear Harbor was attacked. When BB and his crew decide to join “the war,” they’re in the middle of Russia, which means they were already in the middle of the war. Did they somehow miss it? I don’t get it. I’m not even gonna begin to name off the Forest Gump similarities. It really was Forest Gump meets The Notebook.

Save yourself the money and rest this film.

Grade: C+ (the plus is for the art direction)

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