“Snowpiercer” – We Move Forward.

Good news, this movie will be in theaters somewhere on June 11…though I’m not sure where. I can’t remember how I came across it, probably some IMDB list of “Movies of 2014 you need to see!!!!!!” or something, and being a fan of Chris Evans I gave it a go. Not a bad flick actually, and probably the closest thing to a real life anime film you’ll ever see. So there’s that.

“Snowpiercer” tackles the apocalyptic thought of how we’d survive by placing the remainder of earth’s humans on a self-sustaining train that rides a track built over the entire world. Yeah. As I’m sure Americans would be the first to do, the train is split up by the wealthy and the poor, with the poor being placed in crummy conditions in the “tail” section, while the wealthy get to live it up in the front. Curtis (Chris Evans) is a tail member who just doesn’t want to take it anymore. Everyday they are ruled over by a military force put together by the front and forced to eat “protein” bars; basically black Jell-O that I wouldn’t touch if I were dying. So Curtis and Edgar (Jamie Bell) plan and execute a takeover attempt (not really a spoiler, kind of what the entire movie is about) and it’s essentially a rollercoaster ride of results. Or in this case a train ride. Because it’s a movie about a train.

Now I mentioned that it was the equivalent to a real life anime, and I’m pretty sure that’s spot on. There are fight scenes with axes, torches, guns, dodging, Tilda Swinton, and just all out anarchy. There’s this great scene where everyone is throwin’ ‘bows in a train car when a conductorish guy comes out and blows a whistle, gets everyone’s attention, counts down from three and then wishes all a happy new year. You don’t see stuff like that in your everyday movie, so it added a nice level of humor to what was going on. As for the cast, a lot of recognizable faces in very odd roles that ultimately pull the whole thing together. Obviously Chris Evans is Captain America without the shield or shower, and his language is a bit more colorful but he runs the show. Jamie Bell as his number two, and John Hurt as his number one, the man who looks as if he’s run some rebellions in his time. Personally I’m surprised this guy is still acting (and doing a great job at it), as he looked about 50 in “Alien”. Alison Pill makes an outstanding “Teacher”, completely in love with the “benevolent “creator of the train and brainwashing her kids with stories of the years spent riding around the world. Last but not least is Tilda Swinton, who I had to double check to make sure it was actually her. Basically the voice of the train’s upper class she serves to keep the tail section in line both before and during their revolution. She’s got an excellent set of upper teeth and coke bottle glasses that give her character the most ridiculous sounding voice and look ever, and I loved it. She’s so creepily stern, especially when during the rebellion she stands in front of the attackers and says, “Precisely 74% of you will die.” Eerie. Plus it’s Tilda Swinton, so she’s got that going for her.

Welcome to the weirdest fight scene you’ve ever watched.

All in all this is a pretty decent movie. If anything it’s a new take on how to handle the apocalypse via the DC metro system. Director Joon-ho Bong really tackled a series of graphic novels with this film, and in my opinion did a much better job with this than his previous, “The Host” (not the Twilight piece of crap). So don’t see that. See “Snowpiercer”.

DIRECTOR’S CUT: See this. Don’t see “The Host”. And if the apocalypse is soon, I’d opt for the non-train version.

FLICKCHART RATING: 1611/2142 (Let’s just take a moment and point out that I’ve seen 2,142 movies)

“Gravity” – Don’t Let Go

So with the Oscars right around the corner and ten movies on the “Best Picture” list, I figured it was time to start checking some of these out. Granted I’ve waited long enough for all the hype to sink in, which is therefore going to mean that this post will probably piss off some people, but that’s why I write. “Gravity” was pretty good…but definitely not Oscar worthy in my mind.

Ok now that some of you are teeming with anger, let’s press on. The Academy loves to honor films that really push actor’s limits, whether physically or because they’re pretty much the only person on screen. The latter happens to be the case for “Gravity”, as we find ourselves joining Sandra Bullock for about 3/4 of the movie, and I’m pretty sure the soundtrack could’ve been recorded by the Williams’ sisters with all the grunting. Basic outline is this (if you couldn’t gather it from the trailer/poster): Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are two astronauts repairing the hubble space telescope when they are informed that some Russians blew up a defunct satellite which in turn creates a chain reaction of debris to get caught in Earth’s gravitational pull. What this means is that a bunch of sharp crap is going to be flying towards our heroes at Superman speeds. Naturally things go bad and Stone becomes untethered in space.

There’s your story.

So yeah, the plot is pretty good because it keeps you on edge. When it’s one-on-one like that you tend to feel like you’re right there experiencing the fear that the character is feeling. “Gravity” did a pretty good job with that, and there’s nothing wrong with it…it just felt empty. This is not meant to undermine Sandra Bullock’s acting in anyway, I just felt that by the end of the movie I could’ve guessed the whole thing without watching it. And George Clooney was in the film for maybe a minute so it makes you wonder if he was just attached to give it more traction. Again, not a bad movie by any means, just not something I would root for at the Oscars.

Yeah um, screw that.

I’m sure I could do some deeper research into “Space movies that have won Academy Awards” to see how they’ve fared in the past, but I don’t get paid to do this. So instead I’ll focus on seeing it without the “Oscar” connotation. The action crops up pretty fast, and watching satellite debris tear through the telescope is pretty awesome. I’ve never been in space (duh) but I can’t say it’s at the top of my list when things like that can occur. After Stone is broken loose from her tether we get to listen to Kowalski calm her down with idle chit-chat about where they’re from. I’m pretty sure that if I were floating through space that it’d take a bit more than “So what’s Tulsa like this time of year?” to keep me from screaming to death. After awhile Kowalski finally catches up to Stone using thrusters and they make their way towards the International Space Station (which inconveniently blew up in “Armageddon”). But of course nothing in space is easy, so once they reach the ISS a new set of problems arise, such as the fact that the earlier debris is still caught in Earth’s pull, which means HEY! It’s coming back for round two. So essentially, the movie starts all over again and we are forced to watch as Sandra Bullock and George Clooney make it painfully obvious that space sucks.

There you have it, I know I tend to do “in a nutshell” reviews but this almost covered the entire film without giving away spoilers. It’s said that the Oscars are all politics anyway so who knows, but when the credits started to roll both my roommate and I looked at each other and said, “Well it was good…but it wasn’t Oscar good.”

DIRECTOR’S CUT: Great acting with awesome voice work by Ed Harris, and entertaining to say the least, but just leaves you a bit empty afterwards.

FLICKCHART RATING: 547/2071

“Man on a Ledge” – You can only push an innocent man so far.

And we’re back! Sorry it’s been awhile, I was in the process of moving back home and getting situated, had two weddings to go to, packing for Europe, the girlfriend was back in town (she takes precedence), but here we are with a new review for a new-ish movie!

“Man on a Ledge” stars the quite literally “up” and coming Sam Worthington, who being Australian has barely used the accent in any of his films. He’s definitely entertaining, and if you enjoy weird, blue cat-people you should check out “Avatar” since he was in it. Otherwise just watch “Pocahontas”, “Dances With Wolves”, “Fern Gully”, etc… Anyway, “Man on a Ledge” definitely looked cooler in the trailer so if you get this bad boy from Redbox, I hope you used one of those free DVD coupons.

This is one of those movies where the storyline was most likely pieced together after the ending was already thought up. Just imagine a fat guy in a room with a bucket of KFC’s finest trying to add the first 100 pages to a screenplay, and that’s basically how “Man on a Ledge” was created. Worthington plays an ex-con-ex-cop who is trying to prove his innocence (after breaking out of jail) for a crime he didn’t commit (after breaking out of jail) by threatening to commit suicide via skydiving without a parachute. All of this after breaking out of jail. Since he’s in New York and people who live in New York clearly don’t have souls, the entire city has gathered to watch him jump. Enter the real plot. While Worthington is up on this ledge biding his time, his brother (Jamie Bell) and much-to-hot-for-him girlfriend are across the street trying to break into a building owned by the man who framed Worthington. How was he framed? A lot of cop lingo was used to set up the scene where a flashback would have been helpful, but I’m pretty sure what I gathered is correct. While Worthington was a cop he was on some transportation detail with the greedy Ed Harris, making sure the diamond from “Titanic” got from A to B without any issues. For some reason Ed Harris tried to steal his own diamond and then framed Worthington for it so that he’d wind up in jail. Insurance fraud abound and all of a sudden we’re standing with Worthington on this ledge all caught up.

Wait. First of all, who still has giant, fist-sized diamonds in their safes? This just got stupid.

The movie turns from action/drama to action right about now as traitors are unmasked, realizations are made, and Worthington can no longer contain his Aussie accent, mate. Now it sounds like I’m really bashing it but nasty thoughts aside, it was definitely entertaining. Even though blind six year olds could probably call out the plot holes and what was going to happen next, I definitely would have left the theater saying, “Alright, not bad I guess.” This wasn’t meant to be a big cash cow for anyone, probably just an interim film for Worthington and Elizabeth Banks. Oh, and a chance for Ed Harris and Ed Burns to get back into the acting game.

DIRECTOR’S CUT: There isn’t a lot to take away from this movie except that you’ll see it once and forget about it. And Elizabeth Banks is still hot.

FLICKCHART RATING: 1196/1906