50/50

Back from my extended vacation (a.k.a. school), I decided to take a break from studying long enough to see 50/50. I know it seems up until now that I only watch and review sci-fi or comic book movies, but little do you know, I actually love chick flicks more than I rightfully should being a man. Given the nature of this flick, you will be subject a seldom seen, strangely serious version of myself in this review. These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.


First off, 50/50 was directed by Jonathan Levine, a man who thus far has brought us very little to make his name familiar. Even shorter than Levine's filmography is that of the writer, Will Reiser, this being the first movie he has written that has been made. 50/50 stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock From the Sun) as Adam, recently diagnosed with cancer and his best friend Kyle, played by Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express). Complementing the acting talents of Gordon-Levitt and Rogen are Bryce Dallas Howard (hottie, Lady in the Water) and Anna Kendrick (hottie, Up in the Air). Following these talented young actors and actresses is Anjelica Huston (once hottie, Adams Family... I also want to mention that I noticed that she now looks like Alan Rickman in drag ).

As the trailer depicts, Adam is shockingly diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at the mere age of 27 (my current age). The film follows his struggle through the stages of accepting his situation. With the "loving support" of his best friend Kyle and his girlfriend Rachael (Howard), Adam begins to come out of his shell and to accept that his fate lays equally between life and death. I love when a good, well written movie makes me shed a few tears and this one did, more than once (I'm not afraid to express my emotions).

The cinematography reminds me of an "indie" movie and as I have said before, is well written. Based on a true story of a young mans struggle with cancer, even until the last 20 minutes of the movie you are guessing whether or not he's going to make it. I am not giving away the ending and highly suggest going to see it. This movie in my opinion earned its 4 on the Willis scale, but some might say I'm being a little generous. Lastly, there is nothing at the end of the credits. So, until next time, hope you enjoyed the return of ATC and I will see you later.

Green Lantern

Welcome back to After the Credits. Tonight I had the pleasure of going to see Green Lantern and was pleasantly surprised to find out that "Steel" is still the worlds worst comic book movie. Green Lantern was directed by Martin Campbell, the very man who also brought us a couple of Zorro movies, a few James Bond flicks and 2010's Edge of Darkness. With a pretty decent list of titles under his belt, I only wonder one thing, how did he get roped into this ball of cheese whiz? These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

First off, Green Lantern is staring none other than Ryan Reynolds (Definitely, Maybe), in my opinion, one of the best up-in-coming actors who is not just a talented actor, but a skilled on screen personality. His leading lady in this movie, Carol Farris, is played by Blake Lively (hottie, Accepted), only this time she is a brunette (hotter as a blond). Following these on screen lovebirds we have a star studded cast including Tim Robbins (random Senator),Angela Bassett (random doctor), Michael Clarke Duncan (Kilowog, a Green Lantern CGI version of himself), Peter Sargaard (Robbins's son/evil doctor), and last but not least we have Mark Strong as Sinestro (one of the good guys, for now).

The movie opens up with a beginning monolog describing the history of the Green Lantern Corp. and the creation of their planet Oa (not as horribly done as many people have said). We all know the story, Hal Jordan is a fighter jet pilot and is the first human ever chosen to wear the ring and become a Green Lantern. What you might not know is that in this movie everyone seems to have either a daddy issue, a God complex or both. The basic story line goes as followed, Hal loves Carol but is afraid, becomes a Green Lantern but is afraid, wants to help out humanity but is afraid, gets a little kiss from a hot girl and all of a sudden is good to go, the end. My favorite part was the ending, not because it ended, but because he dispatched the bad guy in a pretty cool way.

In a mere hour and forty five minutes Green Lantern managed to fill itself to the brim with cheesy dialogue and an occasional comedic save from Reynolds. The CGI was pretty good, but at times it was really cartoonish, probably because of the 3D (yes I went to the 3D showing, I didn't feel like waiting an hour and a half for the next 2D showing). There are a few different versions of the Green Lantern in the comic books and the movie follows one that I forgot about. Hal Jordan uses the rings power to create objects like guns, fighter jets, and yes, a giant RC car track. This at times was a bit to digest with the "seriousness" of the script, but not horrible.

As you can see I have given Green Lantern a 2 on the Willis scale. This means I liked it, but would probably advise you to wait until Netflix or Redbox. It was entertaining and funny, the CGI wasn't the worst, but could have been better, and the effect of using the rings power was pretty cool. There is a clip about half way through the ending credits (if I could figure it out before it happened then I'm sure you could to). That will do it for this installment of After the Credits, tune (click) in next time for more movie reviewing goodness, probably Transformers 3.

Super 8

On today's After the Credits I am covering Super 8. As you can see I have given Super 8 a 3.5 on the Willis scale and I might be under cutting it. This movie is written and directed by none other than J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Fringe), the man who previously brought Lost into the world (personally one of the best TV series ever created). I personally think very highly of anything that has a "J.J. Abrams" label attached to it and only hesitated to go see Super 8 mainly based on the "Steven Spielberg" tag. After sitting through 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", Spielberg's reputation has been a bit tarnished and might need years more to recover. These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

Super 8 is full of fresh faced young up-in-coming Hollywood talent. Most of the gang is little known of except for Ella Fanning (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), little sister of The Runaways star Dakota Fanning (not to mention a much better actress).  Ella has played the younger versions of Dakota in a few movies including I Am Sam, but is branching out on her own and making a name for herself. Aside from Fanning and Kyle Chandler (King Kong) there is little to be said about the rest of the cast, many of which are making their first appearances in Super 8.

The movie starts out on a sad note as the main characters (Joel Courtney) mother is killed in an accident at her work, quickly establishing the mood for the rest of the movie. Fast forward four months where the rest of the movie takes place when school is let out for the summer and the kids are hard at work. The gang is making a zombie themed movie for a local competition and while filming one of the new scenes the train derailment takes place. A lot of mystery surrounds this small town as the U.S. Air Force steps in to clean up the mess. People go missing and all of the dogs run away, a lot of appliances and car parts are stolen and no one knows why or how, but it is up to the kids to investigate the disappearance of their friend playing by Fanning.

Through the movie there is a lot of mysticism surrounding what this creature looks like and where it came from. If I have anything bad to say about the movie it is that the reveal of the beast is brought on a little to abruptly. I have to give it to J.J. Abrams though who to create a pretty unique alien.  He didn't make a cheap knock off of an alien from another movie and just add lights and dreadlocks (Skyline). There were tons of explosions and the monster rampages through this little county town like it was nothing. All in all, the movie had an old school Goonies/ET feel and the cinematography was amazing.

Lastly, there is something I should have been doing from the start of the blog. Ironically I am one of those people who stays until the end of the credits to see if there is any clips or glimpses. This is a tradition amongst me and a few of my friends for the better part of 8 years (every movie after Constantine came out in 2005). Considering that this blog is titled "After the Credits", I should inform you if there is or isn't a clip during or at the end of the credit reel and in the case of Super 8 there is. During the credits there is a clip a couple minutes long, but nothing after the reel has ended.

What's next from Abrams? We have the Cloverfield and Star Trek sequels coming in the next few years, as well as another Mission Impossible later this year and more Fringe to look forward to. Whatever is on the horizon, it looks like J.J. Abrams is emerging as an "originator" in a city of people who seem to believe in copying the past. That will do it for this edition of After the Credits, what movie will be next? Probably The Green Lantern, please God don't make this movie suck too bad.

X-Men: First Class

Welcome back to After the Credits. This week I will be reviewing X-Men: First Class and hopefully not spoiling to much of the movie for those who are excited to see it. As you can see I have given X-Men: First Class a solid 4 on the Willis scale and I feel it has earned every point. These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

Fist off, this movie is directed by Matthew Vaughn, the mind that brought us both Kick-Ass and Stardust. After giving the X-Men franchise a youthful re-cast, the script was beefed up with some super mutant action. Professor X is now played by James McAvoy (Wanted), Magneto is played by Michael Fassbender (300), and rounding up the re-casts Mystique is now played by Jennifer Lawrence (Super hottie and The Beaver). The rest of the mutants are well casted, yet little is known about most of these rising young stars, except of course for Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy), all grown up and playing a blue furry monster. Lastly, we have Emma Frost played by January Jones (hottie and Mad Men) adding to the overpopulated (no complaints) amount of hot girls in little clothing.

The movie starts out with a little nostalgia, recapping the events that took place at the beginning of the first X-Men movie, we find ourselves in the Nazi camp where Erik Lehnsherr develops his powers. The story unfolds from there, introducing Kevin Bacon (Footloose) as Sebastian Shaw, the movies chief villain. There are a number of story lines that unfold and end up merging as the mutants are recruited and then trained by Xavier. The story line is well written with only a couple mistakes. There are a couple of concepts that don't quite follow what has been already established in the other four movies (I'm not going to give many of them away, if you are a fan of the franchise you will pick them up too), but all in all I think the writers did well.

At times the CGI was a bit cartoony and didn't really flow. Beasts transformation was portrayed first person, as if seeing through his eyes. Although afterwards, there was some disjointed audio and visual with the syncing of his vocals to his mouth. As far as I can tell all of the powers matched up to their respected mutants, but not all of them were really noteworthy, namely Angel. She has wings and can fly, but the fact that she can spit fire is a bit of a turn off, the effect was less than impressive as she flew across the screen spitting fire missiles at Banshee.

At this time I would like to point out my favorite mutant of the movie, Azazel. Played by the talented Jason Flemyng, Azazel is the father of X2's Nightcrawler and shares the same powers. Super agility and the ability to teleport wherever he wants makes Azazel a cunning and agile assassin. The difference however between him and his son are obvious, Azazel's smoke is red and he is a villain (Nightcrawler is a good guy and has blue smoke).

MINI SPOILER ALERT

For those who are wondering, there is no preview clip after the credits are over, but there is in my opinion the best cameo of all time in this movie. Yes, Hugh Jackman makes a 5 second appearance as Wolverine and promptly tells Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr to "Go fuck yourselves." This is the only appropriate cameo for Wolverine, who is sitting in a bar in Japan smoking a cigar. A small reminder that there is a sequel in the works from the 2009 X-Men Origins featuring the birth of Wolverine which is set to release in theaters at some point next year (2012).

My final thoughts about First Class are this: out of the 5 movies spawned from the popular comic, this one was one of the better ones. There are a couple moments and events that stray from the cohesion to the other 4 movies, but if you can forgive the changes they have made to the back stories of these characters so far, this shouldn't bother you to much too. The only real problem I had with the ending was that Professor X, now a cripple, pulls a "Superman 4" style mind erasing kiss at the end (even if its more appropriate here).

Priest

This week I will be covering "Priest", the most recent graphic novel to make it to the big screen. It seemed like until now most of these graphic novel movies have been pretty good, with the exception of The Spirit, which just plain sucked. Following such big sellers like Watchman, Sin City, 300, and of course my personal favorite, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Priest is hard to judge as a good or bad graphic novel movie because I never read it. These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

To avoid confusion, the main character of Priest is portrayed by Paul Bettany (Legion). I say "avoid confusion" because all of the men in the order are in fact Priests and thus have no other names. Opposite him is Maggie Q (hottie, Balls of Fury), a Priestess who is in love with Bettany, but can't act on her emotions. Karl Urban (better known as Dr. Bones from the Star Trek reboot) plays the once Priest turned vampire known only as "Black Hat". Lastly I want to mention Lily Collins (hottie, The Blind Side) as Priests niece and her whining boyfriend played by Cam Gigandet (Easy A) who you don't even see together until the last 5 minutes of the movie. 

The movie starts out kind of quick, I call it "the rush job". The plot of the movie is explained with some rough animations about the humans and vampires age old battle for dominance and ends with us winning, but not without the help of the Catholic church (It never states its the Catholic church, but its pretty obvious). What is left of civilization is kept on a short leash by "the church" and are held up in a barricaded mega city (Catholic wet dream). There is a vampire attack on a farm in the Wastelands and Priests' niece is taken captive by Black Hat. Gigandet enlists the help of Priest to rescue her and the plot pretty much follows the "I need to get my daughter back" storyline. Wait!! "I thought you said 'niece' a minute ago?" Well boys and girls, it looks like Priest had a little fun before he was taken by the order and the oops baby was left with his brother to be raised. Aside from the gnarly facial tattoos, blind vampires and super God ninja powers, there wasn't a whole lot to the movie.

The graphics were pretty good with all things considered, showing how all of the Priests were faster and more agile than the other humans were average at best (simple slow motion techniques). I do have to give the CGI team props for coming up with a very generic version of vampire. All of them looked exactly the same, white skin, skinny bodies, and no eyes ("The eyes are the window to the soul, if they have no eyes, then they don't have souls" as put by Urban). Urban being the first "human vampire" he could be out in the sun and talk (although it was pretty bad dialogue).

I give this movie a decent 2.5 on the Willis scale mostly because it was enjoyable. No rush should be taken to see this movie if you are expecting an epic journey of the human spirit. They conclude the movie with the ever so popular sequel promise ending (but unless it rakes in a few more hundred million box office, we wont see one). This is becoming an empty promise and a risky move by some directors. I personally hate it when movies end with the obvious cliff hanger and fail to deliver a second installment. Eragon (a movie about dragons adapted from a book series) and earlier this year "I am Number Four" didn't seem to do well enough to warrant a sequel, but desperately needs one.

The Mighty Thor!!

For this weeks After the Credits, I will be reviewing Thor, the newest comic book in a long line of live action big screen adaptations from Marvel Studios. After first learning about this movie, I started re-questioning humanity. I grew up, like lot of you, reading the comic books with these heroes in them, and now Hollywood is screwing them up for us all, or are they? These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

The part of Thor was given to relatively little known Chris Hemsworth. You might remember him from the opening scene to the 2009 blockbuster remake of Star Trek as George Kirk. As for his love interest, we have super hottie  Natalie Portman (Black Swan and Star Wars) and Thor's nemesis/brother Loki is played by even lesser known Tom Hiddleston. Of course we have Clark Gregg making his third appearance as Agent Coulsen of S.H.I.E.L.D. Throw in a wise cracking hottie Kat Dennings (40 Year Old Virgin), sprinkle in the BFF troop which includes Ray Stevenson (King Arther), and finish off with a pinch of Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs) as Odin, this movie turns out a pretty decent cast.

Thor starts out a little rocky, opening on Earth with some intense Northern Lights action then quickly rewinds to give you a good idea of what is happening. I'm not going to spoil the entire movie, but you might not want to read if you want to remain "completely shocked". The fight scenes were well choreographed and the jokes were well timed. All in all I thought it was a good movie, very well deserving of the 3.5 Bruce Willis Heads.

Now to my favorite part, making fun of it. First off, I know Thor swung his hammer around and knocked out bad guys by the truck loads, but this effect does not translate to live action well (its oddly reminiscent of the Road Runner cartoons). Also, the frost giants are barely taller than I am (I currently stand at 6'8"). Speaking of height, Natalie Portman stands at a whopping 4 inches taller than the blue Post Office mailboxes you see everywhere. I guess standing next to Hayden Christensen anyone would appear bigger (and more talented). We have a furnace on the loose for about 15 min, a cranky brother who tells lies, and a giant floating golden city. Not a whole lot else to make fun of... except the completely meaningless cameo of Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. I understand he's in "The Avengers" due to come out next summer, but 30 seconds of him pointing an arrow at Thor just doesn't do it for me. As a side note, all of these movies that are being rolled into The Avengers next year have cameos and/or 15 second clips after the credits (The Incredible Hulk and both Iron Man movies).

I liked Thor, believe it or not. I think now that Marvel is making their own movies they are getting better. Anything is better than Spider-man 3 (which is already being remade). What else is coming that we can look forward to? We have already seen The Green Hornet and Thor this year. Priest, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, Transformers 3, Captain America, Men in Black 3, Sin City 2, Ghost Rider 2, Deadpool, Conan remake and Cowboys & Aliens to finish off 2011. In 2012 we can look forward to The Avengers, Star Trek 2, Spider-Man reboot, Batman 3, G.I.Joe 2, Iron Man 3, Superman reboot, Ant-Man (really??!!??), Hancock 2, Kick-Ass 2, Wanted 2 and Wolverine 2. Where is the originality in modern cinema? I know what your saying, "half of those are DC Comics..." and my answer to that is, "Does that make their live action movies any better? NO!!" Until the next After The Credits, good night!

Skyline

Skyline was the end of the year Action/Sci-Fi of 2010 that once again begged the question, "Is there intelligent life outside our planet?". The answer given to us by AVP directing duo Colin and Greg Strause is a bit of a mixed one. Before I get to far into that, I will intoduce this star studded cast, unveiling my rating system, and giving my moments after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

First we have Eric Balfour (Texas Chainsaw Massacre the remake) and Donald Faison (Scrubs) as two BFF's who have been separated by life and land, Balfour is still in NY and Faison had moved out west to make his money (the movie never says really what he does that has apparently made him rich, but he is). Scottie Thomson (hottie) plays Balfour's girlfriend and Brittney Daniel (hottie and Club Dread survivor) portrays Faison's blond bimbo trophy girlfriend. There is a small cast of supporting actors who are virtually replaceable by any generic quasi-attractive struggling talent wiping the tables of Hollywood's counter tops with only one exception, David Zayas (Dexter). In my opinion Zayas was the best actor in the movie, even if he is a somewhat bad guy.

The movie starts out a little rocky, pulling out the "flash forward half a day" card then wasting no time going back 16 hours to establish a basic story line and character profiling. There is nothing really ground breaking or innovative in the development of the storyline at all. Balfour and Thompson are on vacation in LA visiting Faison. Half a day later (after some intense partying), LA (and for all we know the world) is being attacked by unknown aliens from outer space. The trailer is a bit misleading at this point because it shows news casters talking about aliens, and in the whole movie there are none. Now let me get back to the point about the "mixed message of intelligent life". Not to give much away (sarcasm), but the aliens have come to earth to harvest human brains. Apparently their species is born without brains and desperately need to behead us and use ours. They better watch it though, the quality of brains on this planet is rapidly declining and they might come up short on their quota.

About 30 minutes into the movie I turn to Angela (my girlfriend) and said, "Maybe they dulled down the dialog and acting because they wanted to save some money in the budget for super amazing CGI graphics." This however was not the case. The CGI was alright, but that is being pretty generous. I have definitely seen worse though. I do have to give the writers props for making such a wide and diverse grouping of aliens. There were some that flew like planes, giant colossus looking ones and even super rip-off looking ones. Angela put it perfectly by saying they looking like "the aliens from Independence Day but with lights all over them."

Putting aside the crappy acting, dialog and CGI (I have been saying this a lot lately about movies) there wasn't really much I liked about this flick. The chicks were hot but they were all pretty whiny the whole time. I would say the explosions were cool (the government nukes downtown LA and its like 45 min into the movie-so its not the ending) but even that couldn't kill any, literally, any of the aliens.

On to my rating system. I have come up with a pretty ingenious rating system and it has been developed by Angela (because I don't know how to use Photo Shop). I will be rating all of these movies (as long as I am not sued) on what I call the Willis/Stewart Scale. It's pretty easy really, each movie will either be good or bad, then be followed by a point value. If the movie is good, then it will have a "Bruce Willis" head and if it's bad then it will have a "Kristen Stewart" head (if you have a problem with the good/bad actors I have picked then say something; maybe someone is more deserving in their place). The point system is .5 though 5 heads symbolizing how well I liked/disliked the movie. Basically if I give a movie 4 Stewarts then I think it's a pretty awful movie that you should never see, if I give it 2 Willis' I think it was ok but no hurry needed in its watching.

With all of that said, I rate Skyline as a good 3 Stewarts. I hope to God I never see this movie again. It wasn't worth the $1.09 I payed for Redbox and I wish I had picked something else. From now on I will be posting the rating system under the trailer but I thought it would cause mass confusion and hysteria if it was revealed too soon. Have a lovely week and hope to see you next Tuesday for another "After the Credits".