Clash of the Titans (2010)

The remake of the 1981 film tells the mythological story of Perseus, son of Zeus, and his quest to defeat the Kraken, a powerful titan who threatens the city of Argos and its beautiful princess.

     This movie made me laugh it was so bad. The acting was strange. Sam Worthington tried to hide his Australian accent, but by the end of the movie, he had just given up. The women were all straight-faced and tried to sound mysterious, the men were over-the-top, especially Ralph Fiennes as Hades, he was certainly in rare form with his smoker voice, and Liam Neeson obviously just phoned it in. That's the only explanation for his overwhelmingly shiny body armor. The story was entertaining and had potential, but there were so many plot holes, nothing seemed to make much sense. The worst part though were the video-game graphics. Seriously, it looked like the animators had run out of time and sent their film off half-finished. This movie tried so hard to be epic, but it was just campy. A good laugh, though. 

Inception (2010)

In a world where obtaining information through dreams has become possible, expert mind thief Fisher (DiCaprio) assembles the perfect team to conduct a seemingly impossible mission. 

   First of all, I felt this movie was a little deceiving in how it seemed eerily similar to "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise. The tagline seemed to capture that film perfectly, "Your mind is the scene of the crime." However, the movies are actually very different - while "Minority Report" was about murder and catching crimes before they happen, "Inception" is about stealing information right out of people's dreams. 

    It's a bit too earlier to say, but this movie could very well be Christopher Nolan's masterpiece. We know he was a good filmmaker; his recreation of the Batman saga was nothing short of brilliant, but that wasn't an original film. "Inception" is. The story is very complex, with just about every detail carefully considered so as to create a seamless plot that can be traced beginning to end and back and make nearly perfect sense. There are a few interpretations of the movie, which I think adds to the creativity of it. It's not a cut-and-dry sort of film. Like dreams, there are many answers. 

    The actors were well chosen. Nolan uses a few of his "Batman Begins" cast, including Ken Watanabe (who gets a much better part in "Inception" then he did in "Batman"), Michael Caine (only in "Inception" for about seven minutes of screen time), and Cillian Murphy, who all add interesting layers to the plot. The real stars are DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard. My respect for DiCaprio has grown over the years, he was never a "bad" actor in my mind, quite the opposite, but he just never really stood out. Once I saw him in "Shutter Island," he was cemented in my mind as a very intense actor, even if he's not terribly versatile. He has piercing eyes, a furrowed brow, and a dedication to his character that many actors lack. You really believe him in this movie. Marion Cotillard was perfect. She was addicting to watch, whenever you see her come into the frame, your blood runs cold and you know something big is going to happen. She's absolutely beautiful, as well. Ellen Paige was in it, which was a little odd. It felt too much like an indie actress just wandered on the set. She wasn't bad, but watching her wasn't comfortable, it didn't feel like she "belonged" in the movie. 

    This is an epic movie, I'm not sure to call if it should be called sci-fi or fantasy, or some combination of both, but at 2.5 hours with almost no breathing time, it's definitely a ride. It's complex, it's thought-provoking, it's fascinating to watch...one of the best films of the summer.  

The Fifth Element (1997)

In the future, a former military officer and current cab driver encounters a strange woman who is the key to mankind's survival 

     This movie was like the funnier brother of "Blade Runner." It had very similar elements such as the futuristic setting that's still very familiar to our world now, a rather grungy hero and his mysterious love interest, and a very vivid world in which our characters live in, complete with fast food places and flying Asian food stands. However, it was a lot more cheesy, less disturbing, and just more "fun" than "Blade Runner." 

    What made this movie light was just how over the top it is. It had a lot of humor in it from Bruce Willis' New York-style tone to Chris Tucker's flamboyant DJ to the alien villains reminiscent of Jim Henson's Muppets. Even Gary Oldman, our main villain, has a lot of fun with his role, even giving him a strong Southern accent. Of course, the minute I saw him, I was eerily reminded of the character of Beauregard LaFontaine from "American Dad." I am convinced Seth McFarlene used Mr. Zorg as inspiration. 

    The story is typical sci-fi: reluctant hero must save world. The plot is pretty predictable, too, but this movie was a lot better than most sci-fi that comes out these days, probably because it did copy "Blade Runner," which is just one of the best movies ever made. 

     There was one plot point that really bugged me: Bruce Willis' character Dallas attempts to hide a group of military officers in his fridge and later retrieves them. They looked VERY dead. Much later in the movie, they're busy in the office with the president keen on saving the world, and I was very confused. I guess in the future they can just unfreeze dead people and they're fine. Makes sense, since a huge part of the movie depends on completely rebuilding Milla Jovovich from a burned chunk of glove and flesh in under two minutes. Ahh, science. 

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Vietnam vet Jacob Singer's life begins to take a horrifying shape when he begins to see demonic creatures and reality itself begins to wrap before his very eyes.

    This is a terrifying movie. The best thing about it is its direction, which focuses in on the chaos of Jacob's terror as the people he loves, both dead and alive, begin to take on different, hellish forms and sift in and out through so that he doesn't know if he's awake or asleep. Neither does the audience. 

    The coloring of the movie is very well-done, it's very gritty, almost as if the camera lens is rubbed in dirt and cobwebs, and the violence is shadowy, so you're not quite sure if what you're seeing is human or demon. One of the most frightening scenes is when after being thrown from a car, Jacob is taken to a hospital where the doctors say to "take him down to X-ray." Suddenly, the atmosphere changes from normal, white-light hospital to flickering, filthy bulbs, a rickety hospital cart upon which our poor hero is strapped, and a hall populated by misshapen "patients" who alternately bash their own heads on bloody windows and strewn with body parts. You're just as confused and scared as Jacob is. 

   The movie is a little slow, but that adds to the suspense as you climb up Jacob's ladder (ha ha ha) to the shattering climax. 

A Single Man (2009)

British Professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) has lost his lover of 16 years and goes through a day in which he explores issues of death, life, and sexuality. 

    This is a very interesting movie. It's relatively short at an hour and 40 minutes, but it moves slowly. Fashion designer Tom Ford's direction is fascinating especially in how he uses color to express certain states of mind - gray means hopelessness and grief, while much brighter, saturated tones represent youth and life. It wasn't my favorite movie because I found it very sad, but Colin Firth is brilliant.

    Homosexuality is the key in this movie - Colin Firth's character is gay and Tom Ford is gay, so we see things from that perspective. If that sort of thing makes a person uncomfortable, there are several scenes in this that will make them turn away, but it's all handled very tastefully. 

     I don't want to say much more about this because it's hard to describe the film without giving anything anyway, but I will say it is very slow, very sad, and very well-done in its genre. For a first film, it is excellent. I absolutely loved the art direction and costumes, they were beautiful and made the whole film look like the classiest fashion ad I've ever seen. My favorite scene: Colin Firth gets a phone call about his lover's death, and for about three minutes we watch him gradually begin to break down, run out in the rain, and weep in Julianne Moore's arms. That should have won him the Oscar.

Shrek: Forever After (2010)

The fourth "Shrek" movie finds everyone's favorite ogre getting exhausted from his married life with children, and so strikes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, with horrible consequences that has Shrek racing against time to get back the life he loves. 

    Wow. This has been a long quadrilogy. I remember where I was when I saw the first Shrek, way back in 2001. I was not especially pleased. Then the second one came out in 2004. It was much better. Then the third, which I actually saw a few hours ago, after I saw this fourth one. The third one was painfully forgettable. But I digress. This last Shrek tried to bring together what made the movies unique, but fell prey to what happens to so many of these series: repetition and crowding. 

     The concept of the "Shrek" franchise is brilliant: fairy tale satire. It was achieved best in the second movie because the filmmakers still had a lot fairy tales to work with and gags to pull: there was the Puss in Boots, the Prince Charming, the Fairy Godmother, Pinocchio, the Frog Prince, and many other little nuggets of fairy tale gold. They also axed the excessive gross humor of the first and focused more on wit. The problem with this fourth one is they basically ran out of ideas. Sure, we have the witches. That was good, but how long can that go on? We have Rumpelstiltskin, but he is pretty straightforward. The story was stolen from "It's a Wonderful Life," and the movies have been spaced out far enough where you can get away with a few repeated jokes. The concept is tired. 

    The other problem is the overcrowding of characters. No voice actor gets more than a few lines, it seemed, and there was just a crowd of witches and ogres. There were a few standouts in this gumbo of faces: Kathy Griffin as a witch, Jane Lynch as an ogre (who sadly had only one line where you can actually tell its her), and Craig Robinson as an ogre. In the second movie, we were introduced to King Harold, Prince Charming, Puss in Boots, and the fabulous Jennifer Saunders as The Fairy Godmother. Those were memorable characters. No one will remember any one witch or ogre from this fourth film. 

   Like the third Shrek, this movie wasn't terribly "bad," it was just very flat. There wasn't anything I felt I hadn't seen already.