As a visceral thing, the idea of making board games into Movies offends me on so many different levels. Its shows how creatively bankrupt Hollywood has become that they think that because people play a game like Life, Chutes and Ladders, or Monopoly that somehow there is material there for a movie. When I heard there was a Battleship movie, based on the Hasbro game, I was not enthused. Then I saw the first trailer and thought, hmm. Could this movie possibly be better than it has any right to be?
Men in Black 3 finds Agent J time-traveling to 1969 to save his partner, Agent K, from being killed before he can stop an alien invasion. It’s definitely better than MIB2, but nowhere near as good as MIB.
Battleship is Battle Los Angeles with character we can care about and a sense of humor. It takes the standard alien invasion flick and rejuvenates it by giving it a tenuous connection to a popular Hasbro board game and adding some twists of its own.
General Aladeen, ruthless dictator of Wadiya, travels to NY to speak at the UN. But after he escapes a kidnapping attempt, no one in the Big Apple believes who he really is. So he risks his life to ensure that democracy never comes to the country he so lovingly oppresses.
Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley and John C. Reilly.
Directed by Larry Charles.
Written by Sacha Baron Cohen and Alec Berg.
Produced by Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, Scott Rudin and Jeff Schaffer. Genre: Comedy.
About twenty minutes into Dark Shadows, which has steadily built up a gothic horror ambience, there is a moment that literally gave me goosebumps. It’s one of only a few moments of subtlety and nuance and possibly the moment that I knew that I was having a good, creepy time.
The Avengers is ridiculously entertaining. It’s pretty much a perfect summer movie.
The movie’s tone is perfect Marvel; the characters are completely true to their previous movies; the balance of wit, charm, intelligence, drama and poignancy is lovely, and both the tease for The Avengers 2 and the tag following the end credits are amazing. Even the 3D is effective – though it only really gets to shine in the last act.
As a long time Comic Book collector, I’ve always been more of a Marvel Fangirl than a DC one. I own the entire run of Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, FF and Iron-Man books published between 1981 and 1990. Never bought X-Men, too expensive and unwieldy. This is why I have a reputation for being a lot more critical when it comes to my Marvel movies. I have a “vested” interest in seeing these characters done right. Note – My goal here is to do a spoiler free review, I may do a 2nd spoilerrific one after I watch it again in 2D.
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