Movie Reviews – November 2007

Here is what we saw:

Here are my reviews:

The 10th Kingdom

Transdimensional trolls from the “4th” kingdom invade Central Park in their pursuit of a prince who has been turned into a dog. That’s as far as we got when the phone rang. What a perfect excuse for not wasting another minute on this clunker. If it hadn’t been for some fine, but miscast actors, this baby might even have rated a “1”. As it is it’s a very low 2.

Netflix – 2 stars

Elizabeth – The Golden Age

This movie tells the story of Phillip of Spain’s plans to invade England and get rid of the upstart Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. The movie is told from the English side of course. Along with this plot there is the romantic sub plot of Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the queen’s lady, Bess. The film ends with the sinking of the Spanish armada. From the reviews I knew the filmmakers took some liberties with historical fact. So, I’m not sure how much of this movie can be believed. The costumes were great. Elizabeth looked wonderful in armor with a waist length wig of flowing and braided red hair. I like the actors, but the storyline was pretty weak.

Theater – 3 stars

Snakes on a Plane

A man witnesses the brutal murder of a prosecuter by a crime boss and has an attempt made on his own life. He has to fly to Los Angeles to testify. Why the trial wasn’t in Hawaii where the murder occurred, I don’t know. The crime boss discovers which flight the witness will be on and smuggles a load of ultra poisonous snakes on board. When the plane is so far out, the snakes are released and spread to every part of the plane almost instantly. Oh yeah, they are all riled up because the villains have sprayed pheramones all over lots of flowers. They particularly like to bite people in intimate places when they are in the rest room. About 70 percent of the passengers are killed in a matter of minutes while the rest flee to the safety of the first class lounge. For some reason the snakes can’t get there even though they are in the cockpit which is right next door. All the interesting characters seem to survive and show lots of bravery, blah blah. When the flight crew is finally eliminated by the snakes, a hip hop body guard with 2000 hours of time on an Xbox flight simulator lands the plane and saves the day. Jeesh!

Netflix – 2 stars

Amazing Journey – The Story of the Who

If you are a Who fan, you’ll like this documentary. The basic structure of the film uses a record as a metaphor. It starts with an album, “Amazing Journey – The Story of the Who” being selected from a huge collection of records and put on a turntable. Each of the show’s segments is another cut on the album. Halfway through they turn the record over. Not a big deal but a nice touch. What’s really great is that the first quarter of the picture is before they got famous. Then it runs right up to the current day. When they were starting out, their agents were looking for a band to represent when they discovered our boys. From the very beginning they insisted that the group be filmed performing. Because of this, there is footage of the Who like no other band I can think of. Townsend is 17 or 18 years old when we first see him. Amazing. They are all babies. We all know Keith Moon died many years ago, but I had not heard that Entwhistle had died too. So it’s just down to Daltry and Townsend. While I recorded this off the TV, it is available on Netflix.

VH1 – 4 stars

Man on Fire

This is a fairly standard action/revenge movie. Our hero is hired to be the bodyguard of a little girl in Mexico City. Of course she gets kidnapped and he takes 4 bullets trying to prevent it. The ransom exchange gets muffed and the little girl is killed. A month later, pretty much recovered, our hero goes looking for revenge. Starting with one clue, an almost complete license plate number, he tracks back through the kidnappers one by one and do they pay the price. There is a little twist that I had figured out fairly early.

Netflix – 3 stars

What’s Up, Tiger Lily?

Was this ever a stinker. I remembered it fairly fondly but what a difference 40 years can make. Woody Allen got the rights to a “B” grade Japanese spy movie. He recut it and dubbed in English dialog but what seemed funny to an 18 year old does not appeal as much to a 59 year old. Give this one a miss.

Turner Classic Movies – 1 star

Firewall

A computer security expert and his family are kidnapped and he is forced to help a team of bank robbers steal $200 million from his bank. Throughout the middle of the movie he is constantly trying to get around his problem and raise the alarm. They catch him at it every time. This is all complicated by the fact that his bank is being taken over by another one and the security systems are changing. Where once he had access, now he has none. He comes up with a brilliant way to do it but he knows he and his family will be killed when it is done. Once the money has been transferred, things begin to wrong for the bad guys. From then on it’s a roller coaster ride to the conclusion.

Netflix – 3 stars

Bee Movie

A bee graduates from bee college and reports for his first day of work. Work that promises to be continuous and monotonous for the rest of his life. He is intrigued by the pollen gathers, the top guns of the hive. While they have the most glory, they also face the worst dangers; birds, spiders, fly swatters etc. They dare him to come along with them on his first mission. He gets separated from the rest and commits the biggest bee sin, talking to a human, a woman that owns a flower shop. He also learns that some bees live in bee concentration camps and are forced to produce honey that the humans steal. He sues the entire human race for return of the stolen honey with disasterous consequences. The rest of the movie is how he tries to fix things. The plot of this movie isn’t that much but it’s a wonderful framework to hang one line jokes on and this movie is just plain funny. It was written by and starred Jerry Seinfeld. So if you think he is funny you won’t be disappointed.

Theater – 4 stars

Volver

Several women interact in this Spanish language movie. Primarily it is about a woman, her sister and her daughter, but it is also about the woman’s ghostly mother, her dying aunt, and the aunt’s neighbor. Fairly early on there is a murder and disposing of the body takes place over the course of the movie. Then we learn of a couple of other murders. But this is not a murder mystery. They are just incidental to the story line. Primarily it is a movie of reconciliation. It’s kind of a chick flick but it’s wierd enough it should interest guys too.

Netflix – 3 stars

Coyote Waits / A Thief of Time

These are two different movies but we saw them one right after the other. They both involve Tony Hillerman’s Navajo tribal policemen, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.

In Coyote Waits Chee is on the radio to a fellow officer who is trying to figure out who is defacing the cliffs. Something is wrong and Chee responds as backup only to arrive and find the other officer dead in a burning car. He discovers an old drunk indian walking away with a bottle of whiskey and the murder weopon. Slam dunk. Leaphorn’s wife asks him to help the old man out because he is from her clan. The deeper they dig, the more it’s unlikely the old man did it.

In the Thief of Time Leaphorn is assigned to find an archeologist who seems to be selling antiquities and Chee is looking for a missing back hoe the he was somehow responsible for. As in most Leaphorn/Chee works, the paths of the two come together and they end up working on the same case.

I am a very big fan of the Leaphorn and Chee novels and I was excited when I learned that they were making movies of the books and that Robert Redford was going to be the executive producer. The first one I saw was Skinwalkers and I was very, very disappointed. Leaphorn was portrayed as confused and unsure of his place in things and Chee was the cocksure, young stud who helps him come to terms with himself. This is almost exactly the opposite of the characters in the books. Perhaps I ought to watch this one again since it has been a number of years since I saw it and may not be remembering it exactly right. Anyway, the current two movies had things back to normal. The movies don’t come across as well as the books in showing the Navajo cultural mystery but the movies are well made. I always envisioned Graham Greene as Leaphorn and maybe Lou Diamond Philips as Chee. Wes Studi is pretty good as Leaphorn. The actor that portrays Chee is a little too stocky to match my picture of him. Graham Greene is in these two movies but rather than the main hero, he is a bible-thumping flim flam man. Oh well.
Netflix – 3 stars

3:10 to Yuma

A band of outlaws robs a stage and in the process runs into a rancher and his two sons. For some reason the outlaws don’t kill him like they did everyone else. The rancher is in financial straights and comes into town to try and talk his creditor out of foreclosing and while he is there, the main bad guy is captured. There will be hell to pay when his men come back for him so they hustle him to a nearby town to catch the 3:10 prison train to Yuma and our rancher hero signs on as part of the posse. The reward will save him financially. The rest of the gang is in hot pursuit. Our heroes arrive in town before the bad guys but have to wait around for the train to arrive. There is a stand off and one by one the posse is either killed or runs off leaving only the rancher and his teenage son to get the villain to the train depot. Of course they have to run the gantlet to get him there. Lots of gun play. Half way to the station there is a plot shift that makes no sense whatsoever and you are left with a bittersweet ending.

Theater – 3 stars

Beowulf and Grendel

This is a variation on the Beowulf story although it is pretty close to the original. Also, it ends with the death of Grendel’s mother and not 50 years later with the dragon. For this movie’s approach some liberties are taken with Grendel’s motivations for evil and the way he loses his arm. They also introduce the character Selma that I just don’t remember. Perhaps I should reread the poem. The look and feel of this movie are great. The armor looks just like what they found in the Sutton Hoo burials. The windswept northern countryside is beautiful and the characters are as filthy and earthy as you would expect. I reserved this movie months ago, long before the current release of the new 3D Beowulf. As luck would have it, the DVD arrived the same day we were going to see the new one in the theater. The theater was full however and you must wait a bit before I can give you the review on that one.

Netflix – 4 stars

The Warrior

This movie is set in northwest India sometime before guns or autos. Lafcadia, the warrior, is the local lord’s head enforcer. He is order to teach a nearby village a lesson because their taxes didn’t come up to what the lord expected. In the process he renounces his violent past and readies himself to return to his hometown of Tullu. The local lord is mad and sends Lafcadia’s former collegues to return with Lafcadia’s head. They can’t find him, kill someone else, and take his son captive. As Lafcadia treks to Tulla he encounters other characters, some new, some from earlier in the movie. There is a showdown in Tulla and Lafcadia settles down to a normal life. I gave this movie a 4 because it was pretty good and you just don’t see this type of thing. It was shot on location and the production standards were first rate. The cinematography is stunning, even the desert sequences. When they get to the mountains it is just beautiful. It’s not as action packed as many movies, but it was a delightful little find. It does have subtitles however.

Netflix – 4 stars

Flags of Our Fathers

This movie tells the story of the men who did the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima during WWII. The action is gritty, like in Saving Private Ryan. But this in not just a battle movie. Jumping back and forth in the story line it also tells what happened to the men after the battle when they were back stateside selling warbonds. And eventually how their lives ended. There were actually two flag raisings. The first flag raising was an inspiration and when some mucky muck ordered the unit captain to get him that flag, the captain sent his men up Mount Sarabachi to get the real flag and put another one in its place for the mucky much to have. The first flag was to go to the marine unit. I wonder if it ever did. Both flag raisings had pictures taken and the second one also had movie footage shot. There is sadness also in that half the men who participated didn’t make it off the island and one who took part in the real, first flag raising was never recognised till much later.

Netflix – 3 stars