About A Stepdad

Ok, I kind of gave away what I thought about the movie but here’s the thing, while Total Recall has some great special effects and Kate Beckinsale, those two things are not enough to sustain the movie.

This is, of course, a remake of the Paul Verhoeven film with good old, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  That movie was a blast, funny in places, full of action, and even hinted at a larger story, one that dealt with the idea of appearance and reality.

This movie forgoes a lot of the cheesy humor of the first one for a slicker, faster paced and high action version.  Collin Farrell takes over from Arnie and if there’s an oscar for looking confused and stupid, he should get it.  He’s awesome at it.  In scene after scene, he stands around with his mouth open, blinking and looking lost.

Oh sure, they keep a number of things from the first movie:  The three breasted woman.  The muderous wife (first played by Sharon Stone and now played with demonic drive by Kate Beckinsale.)  The plot – a man goes to get himself some nifty new memories and discovers that he has already had memory adjustments and is, in fact, a secret agent.

But in the first one, they went to Mars, while in this one, there’s some weird thing about Britain and Australia being the only places that have avoided a world-destroying plague.  So, instead of space travel, we have a HUGE chunnel that goes from England to downunder.   You heard me, a tunnel.

Now this raises so many questions right off the bat.  Somehow they can carve something through the center of the earth but they can’t clear out a few extra buildings of biochemical fog and dust?   I mean they even have robots.  Lots of them.  But instead of sending out the robots to clean up a walmart or something, they paint them in cool colors and make them police-units.

But wait, we’re in england or aussieland and yet everyone speaks with an american accent (except Kate Beckinsale for some of the movie).  What is up with that?  Collin Ferrell’s freaking irish, why force him to do a try and do an american accent?  The rebel leader is Bill Nighy, for the love of god, an englishman, and yet, there he is faking up an american accent.

Then there’s the villain.  I love (LOVE) Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad.  He is brilliant!  But here, he has no depth, he has no motivation and simply appears on screen to make a fool of himself.  As for his main henchman, or henchwoman, Kate Beckinsale, the wife, she is a weapon of mass destruction, one part sexy ninja, one part 007 killer, and, well, that’s about it.  No depth.  No reason why she wants to kill Collin Ferrell so badly, no reason why she is SO driven.  It’s just a plot point.

So, if you like lots of action, plenty of shooting and some damn fine special effects, then this movie is for you.  If you want more meat, more character, more emotino, more depth, more humor, then skip this one, rent the older version.  At least they knew they were making something light-weight.

So, based on my arbitrary and rather limited list of things this movie had to do, did it succeed?

Did it have a great opening?

Did it have a great villain?

Does it have epic moments?

Does it have nifty, quotable lines?

Does make me feel something?

The answer, is a qualified yes; oh, yes; absolutely, yes; sure does, yes; and an unqualified, unreserved, oh yeah, baby, oh yeah.

The Dark Kight Rises is as good or better than the 2^nd and though it has some flaws, the genius of this movie is that it’s a fitting conclusion to the trilogy. Not just another 3^rd movie with same hero, this is the climax of a story, a story told in three parts, a story that has a beginning and a proper end.

Simply put, see it.

If you want the complete experience, see the other two first, then see this one.

See it in IMAX.  See it with a geeky friend who had read other comics or graphic novels.  See it with someone who hasn’t.  Just see it.

Why?

Oh so many reasons and most of them if I told you, I would reveal too much of the story, too much of the plot, and I would spoil too many of the great moments in the film.

Sure it has some holes, some flaws and there at times that I can’t hear what Bane is saying but this is not your fluffy, let’s dress up in costumes and fight the mutated villains kind of story.  This is a character-driven story, villain and hero alike, one filled with beautiful imagery, great symbolism and yes, it may even be a bit subversive.

It is the Tale of Two Cities brought to a very dark place, where sacrifices are often made but not often honored, where evil is just another way of thinking and where what’s at stake is not just the soul of a city but entire population.

Is opening great?  Sure.  It’s awesome in fact, especially when seen in IMAX where you can actually hear what Bane is saying.  It does suffer a bit from the ‘why do something so complex?” problem but whatever, it was fun.

The villain is fantastic.  Bane.  Played by Tom Hardy.  He’s not a big guy but he has he bulked out and he acts, yes acts, like a huge man, stomping around, showing off his massive arms when he hooks is thumbs into his collar.  He’s shot so that we’re usually looking up at him or shot so that he FILLS the screen, a gigantic presence, calm and menacing at the same time.  Listen to the music they have chosen for him.  Look at how much Tom Hardy does with his eyes, his posture, his body language.

And there are great moments in the film.  Chris Nolan understands those moments, when there needs to be sound and when there needs to be silence, when there needs to darkness and when there needs to be light, when fire of hope must contrast with the cold, cruel despair of winter.  So many great moments.  (More on those another time, after the entire world has seen the movie 3 times.)

There are lovely, quotable moments.  “You only adopted the darkness,” Bane tells Batman.  “I was born in it.”

Now that’s not just cool but full of meanings.  Again, so much there, the dialogue so well written, so well-acted, the scenes so done so perfectly that it pops out quotable moments like the Octomom popped out kids.

Lastly, do you feel something at the end?  I did.  Though, to be fair, this is my kind of movie and this may not be everyone’s experience. I laughed where I should laugh, got all teary where I was supposed to get teary and, as the credits rolled, I felt like it ended, well, the only way it could have ended.

The characters, of course, were the key to feeling anything at all.  And not just the main characters.  The supporting ones as well.  Anne Hathaway as Cat woman was fantastic (though I would have poo-poo’d that choice had anyone asked me.)  Michael Caine brought heart and humanity to Alfred, a man who was not a doddering butler but Bruce Wayne’s guardian and conscience.  And, let us not forget the brave cop, John Blake (played by 3^rd Rock’s Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt) who discovers batman’s secret.  They all help us to feel more than we should for a comic book movie.

But I was also struck by the idea of both villains and heroes being changed forever by death of the ones they loved.  A way to deal with the pain and loss.  The grief.  Become something good.  Or not.  And at the center of those decisions is Batman, coming upon fork after fork in his road, the harder choice, always the harder choice… to do what is right.

Granted, this movie may not be for everyone but there is actually something FOR everyone in it.  Don’t like massive, epic battles, listen to what they did with the sound track or see how they tied up the themes introduced in the first movie or just sit with a fan afterwards and let them regal you with all that was great about the movie for them.

Ok, here’s something you’ll not read every day.  A pre-review, review.  But Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight Rising, the third and last in the series, is a movie that deserves more than just a simple review.

First, I have not seen or read any reviews.  Man, that’s hard but I’ve managed to even avoid overhearing some loudasses in Starbucks who were talking about the movie (by moving outside!)

Second, a caveat.  I’m a big fan.  No, a really big fan.  The Dark Knight is one of my favourite movies of all time.  Oh don’t give me that ‘Battleship Potemkin was better’ crap, this movie had it all.

But therein lies the biggest challenge for this movie.  Spiderman 2 was fantastic.  Spiderman 3 was a disaster.  So clearly simply having the same main character in a tight costume zipping around the city isn’t quite enough.

So what is?

What makes a great movie?  Or, more appropriately, what made The Dark Knight a great movie?

5 things.

Number 1.  It had a brilliant start.  No 40 min of awfully clever and artistic shots like Meloncholia.  No showing the hero in his normal world.  No.  It started like a bus rolling down the hill.  A bus full of explosives.  Pushed by a madman.  That opening grabs us by the throat and never lets go.

It’s dizzying and sets the tone for the whole show.  You never know what’s going to happen next.

Number 2.  The villain.  Heath Ledger may have created the best villain of all time, a creature of chaos and destruction, a match – no more than a match – for our hero.  He fights the hero for the very soul of the city and always seems to be one step ahead of Batman, even forcing the caped crusader to choose between saving a good man or the woman he loves (which, as it must, ends badly for our hero.)

But Nolan goes deeper here.  Listen to the music he attaches to the Joker.  It’s like an engine running out of control, a whirring, ever increasing sound, louder and faster and louder and faster and LOUDER AND FASTER.

Brilliant.

3. Moments, Dammit, There Have To Be Moments.

Moments of horror.  Batman goes to save the woman he loves but has been tricked and arrives, even then, too late to save poor old DA Dent.  Two-Face using the coin to decide the fate of people, one side of the coin burnt and blackened, the other still silver and pure.  Funny Moments, like the Joker pressing his detonator and, behind him, the hospital not blowing up. He turns, bemused and confused, pressing the detonator again and again until, boooooom!  Sad Moments.

Epic Moments: the Dark Knight, hero, savior of the city has to become the scapegoat for all that’s happened so the city can survive, so the Joker’s dream of poisoning its soul cannot succeed.

4. There have to be quotable lines.  This movie was filled with nifty quotes.  Lots of them.  It gives us nerds something to talk about.   “How did you catch him?” Bruce Wayne asks of Alfred who once had to fight an undefeatable enemy.  “We burned down the forest,” he replies.  (Also a “MOMENT”.) 

5.  It has to make us feel something.  All movies do.  (Oh, I don’t mean we leave feeling the movie was crap.  No no no.  I mean we feel something for what happens to the characters.)  Are we happy?  Sad?  Do we share Batman’s anguish when he cannot save the woman he loves?  Do we cry?  Do we laugh?  Do you leave thinking, man, I would have loved that movie to go on for longer?

Does it evoke an emotional response?

This is, by far, the hardest of all things for a movie to do.  It’s subjective for one.  I know someone, not me, no not me at all, that gets a bit weepy every time the sister jumps off the cliff in Last of the Mohicans.  Others don’t.  I know someone , again, not me, no not me, who thinks Wil Ferrell’s Land of the Lost is hilarious.  I even know someone, amazingly enough someone who is still a friend, who thought the Dark Knight sucked sweaty monkey balls.

Clearly not every movie can appeal to everyone.

So what then, does The Dark Knight Rises have to do?

It has to start fast.

The villain has to be outstanding, an opponent Batman cannot possibly beat, someone we will remember for a long time.

Nolen has to craft moments for us.  Great moments.  The ones we will call up our friends and tell them about.

There have to be quotable lines.

It has to connect to us not only on a popcorn level but on an emotional level.

Will it be able to do all 5?

Personally I doubt it.  4 out of 5 will still make this a good movie though.  3 of 5 and I’m gonna be very disappointed.  Anything less and I’ll really, really hate it.  Why?  Because they did it with the Dark Knight.

The showed us what they could do.

Review to come.

Ah, the new Spiderman.  The Amazing Spiderman.  A reboot?  Remake?  Re-imagining?

I have to start out by saying that I loved the original Spiderman and I found myself thinking, why in the world would they have to restart a very successful series?  Why?   I mean it’s one thing to reboot something like Mission:Impossible, a TV series from the 60’s but Spiderman?   Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst did a fine job.  They had chemistry.  There was a good villain, some nifty quotes (“with great power comes great responsibility,”) and it had, well, heart.

So how could the coked-up nutbags in hollywood possibly think they could make a better movie?

And they didn’t.  Make a better movie, that is.

Oh, it’s not a bad movie.  Andrew Garfield is fantastic as an angst ridden teenager, doing something I don’t do well.   Emotion.   He adds a lot more depth to the role  than young Mr. McGuire did.     He is likable, vulnerable, kinda geeky and yet, very much the hero.  Playing off against him is the lovely Emma Stone who, despite having googly-green-eyes and a smile that looks like she’s still wearing braces, once again shines as a sassier and smarter love interest.

But they aren’t enough to make it a great movie.  The villain is boring and the beast he turns into, well, is boring, too.  Even the CGI is a bit off.  In this day and age, it has to be PERFECT!    Worse, the plot is plodding and predictable and except for the little kids watching the show, I’m pretty sure anyone knew what was going to happen and how it would end.  That’s not good.

Nor are there any great moments in the film.  One of the best is the ubiquitous Stan Lee insertion as a librarian who listens to classical music on his headphones while villain and hero battle it out behind him.  Funny as hell.  But that’s about it.

However, the biggest surprise and the biggest waste (at least for me) was Denis Leary as the police chief (or whatever he was.) One of the greatest comedians, he’ usually just one sip of coffee away from a complete explosion. I waited for the entire movie for him to slip into character. But no, they neutered him. He was as bland a white rice and as funny as, well, white rice.

He could have been an asshole.

So, should you see it?  Sure, why not.  Andrew Garfield makes it worthwhile.  Emma Stone makes it worthwhile.  But there are better movies out there.

So, TomKat.  Getting divorced.  Color me surprised.   Who really thought this would last?

But that’s not the big issue.  Oh, no.  It’s far, far worse.  Tom Cruise will be playing Jack Reacher, the tough-guy’s tough-guy created by Lee Child.  Now, I love the Lee Child novels.  Jack Reacher is like a wrecking machine, an ex-MP who is one part terminator and one part Sherlock Holmes.

Now, did I mention he was a big fella?  Well, he is.  A monster.  A freak.  6’5″.   250lbs (though sometimes less).   50″ chest.  He can lift huge, 400lb thugs and toss them about.

So.  Not a small guy.  Not a 5’7″ dynamo.  A.  Big.  Man.

And yet, Tom Cruise will be playing him in the upcoming movie,  One Shot.  Tom.  Cruise.

Yup.

It’s not that Tom Cruise doesn’t make good movies.  By and large he does.  From “Show me the money” Jerry McGuire to “I feel the need, the need for speed,” Maverick to “I want the truth” Lt. Kaffey, he’s played some of the most iconic movie characters and made some of the best (or at least hugely successful) movies out there.  The Mission Impossible series, Vanilla Sky (which I and 4 others have seen), Days of Thunder, Risky Business, Rain Man, Cocktail, War of the Worlds… ah hell, just check out IMdB.

He is the uber leading man.  His movies are almost guaranteed to make money.

And yet, he is not Jack Reacher.

It’s nothing personal.  It’s physics.  Sure, he can play Les Grossman.   He can go bald.  He can wear a tubby tummy suit.  He can glue clumps of bear fur to his chest.  But… he cannot grow 10″.  He cannot weigh 250lbs.  He cannot puff out his chest to a massive 50″.

I joked with a friend  “Did Katie file divorce papers over him playing Jack Reacher?   Did she say, quote.  “Are you freaking kidding me, HIM playing Jack Reacher?  Ok, that’s it, I’m done, that’s the last straw, that’s just too much to bear.  What’s next, he plays Nelson Mandela?”

He can do action, no question about it.  He is tough. For sure.  He has a sense of what makes a movie great.  Without a doubt.  My issue is he cannot play Reacher.  It simply won’t be the character we’ve read in 17+ books.

Sorry, Mr. Cruise.

Of all the things I worry about when I’m thinking of getting old, the one that scares me the most is losing my mind.   I mean, will I know it when it happens?

So, I am tasking my friends to be the guardian of my sanity, or my mental well-being.  To help them along, here are 10 things to watch out for.  If I do anyone of them, please put me on a nice piece of floating ice and send me out to sea.

1) If I ever cut my hair like Justin Beiber.  It will mean I’ve either completely lost my mind or my hair (and I’m wearing a wig) or both.   Either way…

2) If I ever I begin to think the Twilight movies are AWESOME.  Don’t even bother with the floating ice, just shoot me.  In the head.  Zombie style.

3) If I ever show up at any party, camping trip or movie completely naked.  Oh I’ve had dreams about this but if it happens in real life, but a paper bag over my head and take me into the woods for the bears.

4) If I ever manage to correctly use ‘imply’ and ‘infer’.  Oh, I know the rules for their usage but those brain cells that allow me to remember them were tragically slain when I fell off a table, drunk, after singing London Calling at a staff party.  If I ever start using them correctly that means my mind has rewired itself and no telling where that will lead.  Best not to take any chances.

5) If I ever start rooting for the Boston Bruins.  There’s a good argument to be made that anyone rooting for them should be put down but for me, they are the devil’s team, mostly thugs, bruisers and cheap-shotters, yes, even back in Boddy Or’s day.

6) If I ever start keeping hissing cockroaches as pets.  Have you seen those things?  Jeez!   Spiders I get, snakes, ok, even rats I can understand, but those hideous things?  Yikes.

7) If I ever say, no thanks, I don’t want steak, I would rather have a salad with tofu.  Now at some point I may not be able to have a steak or eat it but I’ll always want one.

8)  If I ever say I think Keanu Reeves can act. Hey, even if I might one day believe it, but I will never say it.  Never.  Ever.

9) If I ever offer to mow someone’s lawn. I don’t know why I hate mowing so much but such an offer will surely mean my mind has baked in the sun for weeks.

10) If I ever forgot Margot or how amazing she was and how much I loved her.

Prometheus.

There are three movies I’ve been really looking forward to seeing. Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. The new 007, Skyfall. Ridley Scott’s prequel to Alien – Prometheus.

But with such anticipation, it raises the stakes for the movie.  It HAS to be good.  It just has to be.  That’s a steep slope to climb.   Almost better to go in with low, Phantom-Menace expections.

Then there’s the director. Ridley Scottt. He’s made some of the most iconic movies of all time. Alien, of course, defined space horror movies to this day. Blade Runner, a visual masterpiece. Gladiator, “Are you not entertained?” Thelma and Louise. Black Hawk Down. Body of Lies.

But he also made Matchstick Men and Robin Hood, for the love of God. So which director would show up? And how would he outdo, well, himself?

I went on opening night. The cinema was packed. I mean, packed.

A good sign.

I gobbled my popcorn and slurped my drink and waited for the movie to begin. Ok, I’m a nerd. I know this. But I was excited to see what he would do.

The story is simple, really. We, (the ever curious humans,) are off to find our roots, our origin. Seems Darwin wasn’t completely right. Seems we may have another beginning entirely. Cool, right? So, fire up the engines, load up a ship full of scientists and evil corporate villains and awaaaaay we go to have a chat with the aliens who made us.

Now, I can’t help feeling if they had called the ship the Beagle or Fun-Fun-Happy Place (a chinese translation of a japanese translation of an english name,) then everything would have worked out fine. But why ohwhy name a ship after some poor fellow who was chained to a rock while eagles ate his liver with fava beans or something?   If you really want to send a doomed ship, call it the Titanic.   (Note to future scientists who might one day read this blog, don’t get on a f$&#in ship with a doomed name!)

But that’s the plot in a nutshell.  Kind of profound adventure, though.  Meeting our creator.  Our… God.

Now the movie does a good job with this story line but, wait for it, things don’t go particularly well for our scientists and corporate villains.   Bad things happen, but hey, they have to, it’s a horror movie.

As I sat there watching the plot unfold, I have to say I was awestruck by the visuals.  Oh sure they were all 3D-ie and Mr. Scott did a fine job with that process but he filled each and every scene with stunning effects and fantastic details.   I challenge anyone not to have a ‘wow’ moment when one of the characters stands at the center of a 3D star map as it spins and twirls and glows like silvery spider webs.   Or when the storm comes in.  Or when… oh, you get the idea.

But, let’s be honest.  Not everyone is going to go, holy crap, those mapping spheres are just too cool.   This movie needs to work on other levels as well.

And, for the most part it does.  It creates one of the best robot characters I’ve seen anywhere, played with subtle brilliance by Michael Fastbender.   Old Ridley went back to one of his other movies, Blade Runner, and brought forth a compelling character that has evolved a personality based on Lawrence of Arabia, down to the way Peter O’Toole played with his hair.  Here is a man, a robot man, in search of an identity, a purpose in life, and he is filled with wit and love and, yes, hatred.

So good.

The rest of the cast, including, once again, the absolutely beautiful Charlize Theron, all have roles to play but in each scene, each of them are also built up to be more than just paper-thin creations: They have personalities and fears and hopes as well.

Especially brilliant in this is the Noomi Rapace, from the Swedish version of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.

She gives the original heroine, Ripley, a run for her money.  She is brave and driven and vulnerable and, oh my, is she as tough as any hero I’ve ever seen.  Oh, you doubt this?   Well, wait until you see what is willing to do to save herself.  I may have nightmares about it.  I know half the audience couldn’t watch it.

Seriously!

 Oh sure, there are flaws in this movie.  Some scientists have to be completely stupid for some reason.   (Second note to future scientists, watch freaking horror movies, you dolts, you don’t try to pat-the-alien you just met!)

There are also some things that happen in the movie that go unexplained.  This, apparently, is for a reason.  A sequel.  But it’s maddening to have some of those questions not answered in the movie.  I don’t want to give away anything but trust me, you’ll know them when you see them.   I honestly love having some thing not explained in a movie, it gives me something to talk about with my friends but I think they took it a bit too far.

In a sense, though, that is my major concern with this movie.  It’s a bigger story than they are able to tell in 2 hours.  It’s an epic story that, fed to us in bits, leaves us feeling like I went out for a pee and missed something.

But, here’s the thing.  It isn’t as good as Alien.  It just isn’t.  But Prometheus is still one of the best movies this year.  Better visuals than Snow White and the Huntsman.  2 of the best characters I’ve seen on screen in a long while.   An intriguing plot with some nifty twists and turns.  Fantastic acting by everyone.

And a hint at something greater to come.

Go see it.  Be warned, though, there are some scenes that you may not be able to watch.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the movies I go… Snow White and the Huntsman, a complete re-imagining of the timeless tale of a princess, an evil queen and a gaggle of dwarves.  It’s a pretty risky move.  I mean, we know this story, right?  How could they possibly make it fresh?  Exciting?  Wow?

Much to my surprise, the theater was full of people wondering the same thing.  Or there to see Charlize (weirdest name ever) Theron.  Or maybe Thor (Chris Hemsworth).  Or Bella (Kristen Stewart of sparklie vampire fame.)

And, oddly enough, the movie does a lot of things right.  And one thing very, very wrong.

First the right things.  The visual are, well, stunning.  So stunning in fact that you could turn off the sound and just watch the eye-popping beauty (or the grim desolation) that is the world in which Snow White lives.  From the mossy turtle to the dark things in the dark forest to the CGI’d castle set against the rising sun or the little faeires or the mirror-mirror creation, it’s nothing short of spectacular. They really kicked it up a notch.

Second, the evil queen, Charlize, is breathtakingly beautiful.  No way Bella-the-vampire-lover is more fair.  No freaking way.  Not ever.  The mirror is wrong, damnit, wrong!  In fact, she is so gorgeous, that when she sucks the life out of young women to remain young and beautiful, I’m thinking, you know what, that’s ok with that.  Kill them all, the result is worth it.

Plus, Charlize rocks the role.  She brings life and a kind of likable psychosis to the part.  Every good story needs a good villain and I think she’s created one here.

Third, the dwarves.  I’m watching them on-screen and suddenly I think, wait, hold on, that old dwarf dude looks like Bob Hoskins.  And that one looks like Ray freaking Winstone and bugger me if that motherf#&*ing c#&%sucker isn’t Ian McShane.  Sure enough, they’ve CGI’d 7 fantastic British actors into dwarves!  So cool.  They nearly stole the movie.

Lastly, ok, I admit it, Snow White was pretty good.  Not Charlize-Theron-good but I forgive young Kristen for her vampire silliness.  Her and the Huntsman, that brooding Thor dude, are fine together.  So fine, in fact, that when the prince comes on stage, I’m thinking, hey, bro, f&#off, you don’t belong here.

And therein lies the one MAJOR flaw, in my opinion.  The romance of the film, light as it is, is between the Huntsman and Snow White.  Hence the title.  However, tt makes the prince  completely irrelevant.  And who gives the reviving kiss?  Not the prince.

So, ok, fine.  They why have a prince at all?  And the end, does it have a happily-ever-after?  Not romance-wise.  The person I saw the movie  actually shouted out, “are you kidding me?” and she was right.  It needed that romantic ending.  Villains have to lose, Snow Whites have to win, dwarves have to get their gold, and romantic leads have to hook up in the end.

Hey, I don’t make the rules.

However, as a movie, it works for me.  It is a visually amazing envisioning of the classic story.

Peter Jackson would be proud.

Ten Reasons Why Langley Doesn’t Completely Suck

1) It doesn’t smell like cow poo all the time.  Ok, today it did but most days it doesn’t.

2) People are surprisingly (and somewhat distressingly) friendly.  Good news if you like chatting to people, bad news if you have hermit tendencies.

3) Houses are still affordable out here.  Not Saskatchewan affordable but I have a lovely home that I can afford.

4) It’s far enough from the sea not to be destroyed by a tsunami.   It is far enough from the Fraser River (at least I am) so I won’t get all wet and soggy from floods.

5) If an earthquake hits, there are tall buildings that will fall on me.  Nor will the ground underneath me liquefy and sink into the ground.

6) Shopping, theaters, and restaurants are all within easy driving distance.  Bad for my waistline and bad for my wallet, though.

7) You can’t hear the massive trains all the time.  Oh, they thunder by around 3am but I’m usually asleep by then.

8) It’s not Whalley

9) There is no occupy Langley movement.

10) It’s my home.

I loved the first Men In Black.  Will Smith as the wise-cracking FNG, Tommy Lee Jones as the stone-faced veteran, lots of funny people-are-really-aliens-jokes, but why it succeeded, why it really worked, was the relationship between the two men in black.

It’s a buddy movie.  Lethal Weapon had Riggs (Mel Gibson – when we still liked him) and Murtough (Danny Glover.)   48 Hours had Nolte and Murphy.   Turner had Hooch.   So could MIB 3 pull it off?  Could it be the perfect buddy movie?

Well, the premise had promise.  Agent J has to travel back in time to save the world and agent K.  Agent K, back in 1969 is played by Josh Brolin.   But everything hinges on how good that relationship would be.

I mean, who remembers MIB 2?  Anyone?  Bueller?

So do they succeed here?

Yes!  Most assuredly, yes!

See it.  See it with friends.  See it by yourself.  See it more than once.  Buy popcorn.

First, Will Smith is in fine form.  Hey, this guy can actually act (watch him with his dog in I Am Legend.  Watch him in 7 Pounds.  Watch him in Pursuit of Happiness.  He’s got the goods.)  But this is not that Will Smith.  This is the Fresh Prince Will Smith, the Independence Day Will Smith, the Bad Boys Will Smith.  Funny as hell.  Charming.  Pitch perfect.

Listen to the moral sermons J gives when he uses the neuralizer.  Hilarious.  Or watch all his expressions when J time-bounces back to the top of Chrysler Building.  OMG funny.

Second, Josh Brolin.  Man, he’s got big black shoes to fill but he fills them and then some.  He’s got the walk, the attitude, the voice and, oh yes, he’s got that LOOK, that dead-eyed Tommy-Lee-Jones stare.   But wait, there’s more.  He’s Agent K back in 1969, a younger, chattier, funnier agent K.

He pulls this off like he was genetically engineered to play the part.  Every scene they two of them are in together are pure goofy magic.

Third, they get all the nerdie stuff right.  Those-weirdoes-are-aliens jokes are brilliant.  From Mick Jagger to the Super models.  So good.  Then there’s the  new gadgets, the guns, the phone, the neuralizer, all, well, you have to see them.   They even hit a little on what it was like to be a black man in a suit back then.

Oh, and keep an eye out for quick reverences to the previous movies, they are gems.

Lastly but not leastly (is that a word) there are the new characters.  Oh lovely Emma Thompson as O.  I could watch her forever.  FOR-EVER!  Oddly, she has not responded to any of my proposals for marriage but I remain hopeful.   In this movie, she isn’t on screen for long but when she’s there, she owns it.

Then there is Griffin.  One of the best characters in any of the movies out this year.  Griff is an alien.  Griff has a gift.  Being a being who exists in 5 dimensions, he can see all the futures.  A cool ability, right?  Well, kinda – He doesn’t know which future will come true.  “I’m glad this wasn’t the one where we all blow up.”  or “I can never bear to watch this part.”

Brilliant.

And here is why this movie transcends the first.  It has heart.  We care about J and K.  We care about Griff.  We care what happens at the end.

So, please help Men In Black.  Reward story-telling that is funny as hell. Reward great acting.  Reward fantastic writing.

Go see it.