GREEN LANTERN (2011) - The summer of spandex begins

This summer has been a barrage of comic book adaptations, with Thor, X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern all hitting the big screen with gusto. Green Lantern looked promising from the previews, with Ryan Reynold's and his wit being matched up with some impressive visuals. As a kid, I was always a Batman and X-Men fan, so to be honest I know next to nothing about the Green Lantern story, but it looked interesting enough to warrant a watch.

That big, evil cloud thing is Parallax. It eats people and planets, but no vegetables.

The movie gets off to a quick start with a voice over giving a brief overview of the creation of the Green Lantern Corps millions of years ago by the Guardians of the Universe. The universe was divided up and each sector was assigned a Green Lantern to protect it from threats like Parallax, the evil, fear-inducing demigod that enjoys wreaking havoc around outer space. Luckily, one purple-faced alien Green Lantern by the name of Abin Sur (Temuera Robinson) was able to defeat Parallax and trap him on some forgotten planet.

Purple aliens... this looks promising.

Unfortunately for Abin Sur and the rest of the universe, some idiot aliens crash-landed their spaceship on said planet and released the greatest evil in the universe, which could have easily been avoided if these interstellar aliens had thought to invent an iPhone with GPS on it. Regardless, Parallax is released and is mad as hell, and goes on a rampage, destroying planets, killing fools, and just being a general pain in the ass. He faces off with Abin Sur and mortally wounds him, but not before Abin Sur manages to escape on his spaceship and make his way to Earth.

The world's only hope for survival is a Canadian.

While Abin Sur hurtles his way towards Earth in agonizing pain with an oozing chest wound, hotshot pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is late for work as usual. While flying a mock dogfight with his wingman Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) against some unmanned drones, he tries to show off and ends up crashing his jet. Abin Sur's ring ends up choosing Hal to be the first human Green Lantern. Hal is transported by the ring to the Green Lanterns' home, where Sinestro (Mark Strong) teaches him how to think and fight like a Green Lantern. He then returns to Earth to protect the planet and most importantly, Blake Lively, from being gobbled up by Parallax.

Mark Strong basically unrecognizable as Sinestro.

Ryan Reynolds has enough charm to carry the movie, but the end result is a forgettable comic movie. Charisma isn't enough to make for a good action movie. Iron Man had Robert Downey Jr and his loads of witty charm, but it also had an interesting take on the origin story, and a sharp script. In this movie, Hal becomes a Green Lantern and starts kicking ass in about 10 minutes. There's no development, no obstacles to overcome except his tendency to be an asshole most of the time. Blake Lively is there as eye candy, Mark Strong's Sinestro is only there to set up for the inevitable sequel, and the rest of the cast is forgettable.

Not even the ring could save this one, pal.

The CGI ranges from some outstanding close ups to the mediocre. Some of the best scenes in the movie come early, with the dogfight between Hal and Carol's F-35s and the drones being pretty slick, and the attack on Coast City by Parallax is awesome as well, as the big cloud of evilness and fear smashes through buildings, cars, and wreaks serious havoc every where. Apart from a few standout moments, Green Lantern is definitely not up to par with the best comic book movies. To be honest, the Green Lantern might be the most difficult of the comics to adapt to the screen, but you can't fault them for trying.

TL;DR - All flash and no dash for Hal Jordan - 5.5/10

FAST FIVE (2011) - Saving the best for last

The original Fast and the Furious was a slick if terribly cheesy action movie that kicked off the whole street racing rage back in the early 2000s. Suddenly, every middle school kid started to dream about owning a rice rocket Honda or Toyota and imagined themselves drag racing outside of their school to impress that one chick that ignored him everyday in 4th period science. It made a star out of Vin Diesel, and made bucket loads of cash. Unfortunately for the series, it turned out a bunch of completely crap sequels, which went from bad to worse and only now in this latest one do we get a good flick to enjoy. I groaned when I read they were making Fast Five, but after seeing the trailers I started to wonder if they might have finally made a goddamn decent movie after all. And sure enough, they've managed to make what is in this Guy Movie Blogger's opinion the best movie in the series.

Everybody's back.

The movie opens with a sensational set piece with Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel - in case you've been living under a rock) getting busted out of a jail bus and making his way to Rio de Janeiro, where he reunites with his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and his buddy, ex-cop turned criminal Brian (Paul Walker). In need of some cash to avoid the authorities, they take on a job stealing some high-priced cars from a high speed train. Aboard the train they're joined by a some shady Brazilians, but the job quickly goes bad when they discover DEA agents are aboard the train. The Brazilians go crazy and kill all three agents, and try to kill Dom and Brian. After escaping with a Ford GT that the Brazilians were particularly keen on getting their grubby hands on, Dom and Brian find a special GPS chip in the car. The chip contains a list of safe-houses used for storing $100 million in drug money belonging to the ruthless Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) who basically runs Rio. After Reyes threatens to kill Mia, and now being blamed for the deaths of the three DEA agens, Dom and Brian decide to rob the safe-houses and get the hell out of Rio.

Whenever The Rock is on screen, expect people to get their shit ruined.

While Toretto plans the heist, the DEA sends Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson - The Rock), their best agent to capture Toretto and his gang. He is joined by  local hottie cop Elena (Elsa Pataky), who Hobbs considers one of the few trustworthy Brazilian cops. Hobbs is no joke - the guy is built like a freaking woolly mammoth, drives a f*cking tank, and won't take shit from anyone. Back at their hideout, Brian and Dom have rounded up a new crew with some familiar faces from the earlier movies: smooth-talker Roman (Tyrese), computer whiz Tej (Ludacris), hot Jewish chick Harabo (Gal Gadot), driver Han (Sung Kang) and two random Puerto Ricans who I didn't recognize. The rest of the movie sees them try and figure out how to steal the cash from under Reyes's nose while avoiding Hobbs and his team of agents.  At the same time, Toretto's gang might also be forced to deal with threats from inside their own group.

Steroid sales have gone up 500% after Fast Five was released.

I think it doesn't really need to be said that people don't flock to the latest Fast and Furious sequel expecting to see Oscar caliber acting, but rather good action and plenty of adrenaline-filled stunts. But compared to the absolutely terrible sequels that came before Fast Five, this one has everyone at the top of their game, which was pretty surprising. Vin Diesel was born to play the role of Dom Toretto (and Riddick) and Walker does a decent job. The standout without a doubt is Johnson who nails his part as the badass Hobbs. He eats up all the scenes, drops one-liners like it's going out of style and he seems like he's having an absolute blast. He and Vin have a great beast mode fight scene that had made me giddy like a ten year old as they smashed through walls and generally beat the living shit out of each other. Everyone is in on the joke - Fast Five is ridiculous, why not just embrace it and have fun with it?

Gal Gadot + Jordana Brewster. YUMM.

 The story and plot has been done to death a million times, and except from a few twists near the end, it's all pretty predictable stuff. Good guys steal from bad drug kingpin, blah blah blah. It doesn't really matter though, since almost from beginning to end, Fast Five is basically a 2 hour chase scene that never lets up. The action scenes are flat out the craziest shit I've seen all year, and very thrilling to watch once you accept it for the brainless fun that it really is. By far the best is the 30 minute long final heist racing through downtown Rio de Janeiro at breakneck speed, with everything from shootouts, cop cars getting smashed by a giant bank vault, buildings exploding, jumps, etc. It's gloriously reckless, a little stupid, violent, fast paced, brilliantly shot and very, very fun. It's absolutely bonkers.

DAT FINAL HEIST SCENE.

It's no surprise that the ending sets up the movie for yet another sequel, but whereas before I would've been aching to blow up the studio responsible for cinematic turds like Tokyo Drift, I actually have some hope for the next one if they manage to go back to basics like this flick has and if they get The Rock back. The dude has single handedly brought the series back to decent ground.Fast Five is a perfect popcorn action movie, check your brain at the door and enjoy it. That last heist scene is worth the admission all by itself. Also, make sure you pay attention after the credits for a sneak peek at where they'll probably go with the next sequel.

TL;DR - The best movie in the series is also the best action movie so far this year - 8.5/10

TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN (2010) - Red Dawn: Aussie Style

I am not Australian (too bad, I know). But if I were, here's a few things I would be worried about: cane toads overrunning my house, radiation from Japan's nuclear reactors, the Wallabies getting embarrassed at the Rugby World Cup, or getting killed by snakes, spiders, bogans, Jacki Weaver, sharks, etc. One thing I'd most likely not lose any sleep over would be the unlikely prospect of my country being invaded by a million-man army from a bunch of Asian countries in the middle of the night. But hey, we Americans didn't worry about the Russians invading back in the 80s, and look what happened in Red Dawn. If it wasn't for our patriotic Wolverines and heroes like Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, we'd all be speaking Russian, comrades.

Yeah, let's go camping in "Hell." Sounds safe and all...

Ellie Linton (Caitlin Stasey) is a regular teenager living in a small town in Australia. The summer is coming to an end and along with her best friend Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood), she plans a weekend camping trip to a remote spot called "Hell" way out in the bush. After begging her parents to let them borrow the family Land Rover, they get a group of their friends together for the trip. Local Greek guy and general bad boy Homer (Deniz Akdeniz) is on for the ride, as is Corrie's boyfriend Kevin (Lincoln Lewis), super religious Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings), Ellie's crush and badass Asian guy Lee (Chris Pang), and the rich, out of town girl Fiona (Phoebe Tonkin). They pack up and drive out far away from the town of Wirrawee, where they spend a chill weekend just hanging out.

No radio, no power, no phones, no YouTube cat videos. The shit's really hit the fan now.

In the middle of the night, Ellie and the others wake up to the sound of hundreds of jet planes flying over their campsite headed towards the city, which they shrug off as just some military exercise. When they make their way back into town, they find that all of their parents are gone, and all of the town folk are nowhere to be found. Some bastard has even shot Ellies dog. The phones are dead, power is out, and no one knows what the hell is going on. They wait till dark and sneak up to the local fairgrounds, where they realize Australia has been invaded by a huge army from some unnamed Asian countries, apparently out to get some of dem precious Australian resources.

Parents are annoying anyway. Maybe concentration camps aren't so bad after all.

All of their families have been rounded up and are imprisoned by the soldiers. While making their way out of the fairground, they get ambushed by soldiers, and they fight back, Ellie killing them by blowing up a lawnmower. Together, the teenagers realize they have to fight back against the invasion. Yeah, it sounds a lot like the plot of Red Dawn, but the story develops in some different ways, and the kids have to grow up quickly and plan out their attacks carefully. Along the way they'll find out more about the invasion and go through some more bitching action scenes (the truck chase with dune buggies was pretty legit).

Everything in Australia is dangerous. Even lawnmowers. Especially lawnmowers.

First, let's get the gripes and bad stuff out of the way. Some of the dialogue is cheesy. I mean, extremely cheesy. So are some of the scenes in the beginning, which don't make much sense, like coming back home to a deserted town with no power or phone lines working, only to open your MacBook Pro that's apparently still on standby. Or some of Lee's lines which feel kind of forced. Or the scene where Ellie and Fiona are waiting to blow up a huge fuel truck and decide it's a good time to start some girly talk while enemy soldiers sneak up behind them.

Goddamn Commies hating our freedoms.

The good stuff? Well, for a movie with a modest budget like this, the action sequences are pretty convincing and well-shot. There's none of that shitty Sci-Fi channel CGI with fake explosions and terrible slow motion. The action bits are fun to watch and pretty exciting. The cast is likable as well, which is always important when you're dealing with a nonsense plot like one of the most remote countries on Earth being invaded by a massive army and teenagers saving the day. There's a good amount of humor mixed into the movie, which I enjoyed a lot more than the attempts by the plot to create any sort of real drama. The Greek guy Homer is hilarious in most scenes, and the stoner dude near the end had me cracking up as well ("Woof! Woof! Dogs... how funny are they!") Homer and Ellie were the stand out characters for me, but to be fair everyone else held their own. Also, I might have a new crush on Caitlin Stasey. Maybe it's her dirt bike-riding, chainsaw-using, AK-47-shooting ways or maybe it's the accent, but I just have this unexplained longing now to move to Australia and find me a hot Aussie girl. She's fooooooiiiine.

You can liberate me anytime you want, Ellie.

It's too bad I've never read any of the books this movie is based on, so I can't comment on how faithful an adaptation it really is. In any case, it was an enjoyable flick - one of those silly but ultimately fun to watch movies.... like just about everything I watch and review on here. My main criteria for movie ratings is the fun factor. Did I enjoy the movie even if the story was shaky and I was intensely jealous of not having an old Land Rover like Ellie? Pretty much, yeah. I just wanted to vicariously defend Australia by blowing up some country-invading bastards. Since I'll never manage to get the Australian accent down without sounding like a retard, I guess this movie will have to do. If you can't be arsed to watch my favorite Aussie flick this year Animal Kingdom, or you want chicks, explosions, and laughs instead of bleak, family crime drama, watch this instead.

TL;DR - Australia does Red Dawn but with less Charlie Sheen and more hot girls with guns - 7.5/10

TERMINAL VELOCITY (1994) - Skydiving Charlie Sheen saves the day

Inspired by Charlie Sheen's recent hilarious interviews and his bi-winning ways, I decided it might be fun to take a look at some of Sheen's older movies from the 90s,  back when he was still a bankable action star. Originally, I meant to watch and review Navy SEALs, but I couldn't get my hands on a copy, so I settled for the next best thing: a movie about Charlie Sheen as a sky diving instructor who fights Russian spies and mobsters. The plot makes about as much sense as Charlie's twitter feed, but rest assured, plenty of good laughs are to be found.

"Are you one of my goddesses?"

The movie opens with a blonde chick having an angry conversation over the phone in Russian, talking about how she's been compromised and it's time to leave Tucson. All of a sudden, some thugs break into her house, grab her and start to torture her, asking where they can find her sister. She refuses to give her up and they kill her. The scene switches to a skydiving school, where 'Ditch' Brodie (Charlie Sheen) is one of the hotshot instructors with a bad reputation. His latest stunt involved him dropping down into a 8-year old's birthday party (instead of the intended bachelorette party) wearing leather pants and with his ass showing. On top of that, the FAA has been investigating him for other safety violations.

The glorious, glorious '90s.

A pretty blonde named Chris (Nastassja Kinski) shows up to Ditch's company, asking for a first time lesson in skydiving. Ditch finds her pretty hot and agrees to take her up for her first jump. While getting ready for the jump, Chris says she saw another plane outside the window. When Ditch goes to the cockpit to investigate, he comes back and sees Chris has in fact, gone full retard and fallen out of the plane. He dives after her, trying to save her, but her chute won't open and she is killed. Ditch is distressed, and soon enough a safety inspector named Pinkwater (James Gandolfini) shows up to investigate the girl's death. Pinkwater seems to be really interested in finding out as much as he can about the girl. Ditch does a little digging by himself, and after breaking into Chris's apartment, realizes she'd been lying to him.

Unbelievable plot twist? YOU BETCHA.

He realizes she had faked her own death, and they eventually meet again. Chris reveals she's actually Krista Moldova, an ex-Russian spy on the run from the same guys who killed her sister earlier in the movie. It turns out that Pinkwater and his crew are ex-KGB mobsters, planning to steal a shitload of gold bars to finance a coup back home in Russia. Ditch and Krista will have to stop Pinkwater and his boys before they can get away with the gold, and prevent a new Cold War.

Don't worry, it's just a Cadillac.

Terminal Velocity is pretty much what you'd expect from an action movie starring Charlie Sheen. It's got heaps of  hilarious one-liners, sex jokes, and close ups of Sheen making weird faces. Charlie does a decent job with his character, and his comedy flows well with the action.. The girl  is decent enough as well, seeing as how she's pretty much unknown. Everyone else is as you'd expect, crappy. Gandolfini's okay, but everyone else seems to have taken their acting lessons from Billy Madison. The best part about the movie are definitely the stunts, like the scene where Charlie drives a Cadillac out of a flying plane (pretty epic shit actually), or jumps from one plane to another.

Yes, that's Charlie Sheen riding a rocket. WINNING.

Sadly, they don't really have a chance in hell of saving this pic from being anything but a cheesy, overacted action fick. It doesn't really matter all that much though, since a lot of it is tongue in cheek and the movie works much better when you've got a couple beers in you anyway. Watch it for the laughs and cheap thrills.

TL;DR - Classic Sheen actioner. Check your brain at the door and stay bi-winning. - 6.5/10

SANCTUM (2011) - Making money off James Cameron's name

If you live anywhere in the US of A, chances are you've been bombarded by commercials and trailers for Sanctum. If this were any other movie, I guess it'd be fine, since big movies tend to get their stuff plastered all over TV anyways, but Sanctum's ad blitz was different. Right from the beginning, your puny, peasant brain is force fed huge amounts of James Cameron's name every five seconds or so. "From executive producer James Cameron... / The director of Titanic and Avatar... / The guy with a hard on for 3D... / CONVINCED YET?..." This is unfortunate, since I first saw this trailer and said to myself this might be some sort of spiritual successor to one of my favorite movies of all time, The Abyss. It's too bad James Cameron pretty much just stuck his name on the trailers to get people to pay up the $20 or whatever those ridiculous 3D movie tickets cost these days to watch this stinker.

James Franco called. He wants his climbing shit back.

Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) is an veteran cave explorer, off on an expedition in Papua New Guinea. His son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) flies out alongside his dad's friend and money supplier Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) to meet up with his father. They're also accompanied by Carl's girlfriend, Victoria, who is apparently just there for eye candy since I can't recall a single contribution she makes to further the plot throughout the entire movie. In any case, the team has already set up a camp inside the unexplored cave, complete with video and phone communications and all those other gizmos that always tend to break when a catastrophe occurs.

"Josh is a pretty cool guy. He climbs the caves and doesn't afraid of drowning."

While everyone gets settled in and ready for the dive, Frank and his partner Judes go off by themselves to check out an unexplored section. Of course, they just broke the #1 rule of survival movies: don't separate yourself from the group. Sure enough, while making their way back, the air hose on Judes' scuba gear breaks, and she drowns. Back at base camp, Josh throws a hissy fit, saying that Frank could've done more to save her, proving what an ignorant little tard Josh really is. The team decides to pack up and leave, when all of a sudden (duh?) a tropical cyclone breaks out over the island, flooding the caves with rain water, and forcing the group to have to find a way out of the massive caves before their air runs out.

Yo, that's a big ass cave tho...

It's always worrying when you watch a movie and you recognize one of the stars but cant remember what the hell they've been in or you realize you have no idea what their name is. Ioan Gruffud (how the hell do you pronounce that anyway?) was in the Fantastic Four movie, and after you watch Sanctum, it'll be perfectly clear to see why he hasn't been cast in anything else you might have seen. He over acts in every single scene, he generally comes off as an asshole, and tries hard but fails at being menacing. It's like rubbing your eyeballs on a cheesegrater. That's how bad he is in this. Wakefield and Roxburgh are also pretty unknown, but at least they do a good job of portraying the son and father who share equal parts disdain and respect for each other. Everyone else is mediocre. This really is no surprise: people who watch Sanctum are doing it because of the 3D (which is very well done actually), but the characters are forgettable and boring.

I was rooting for the cave to take them all out. True story.

Sanctum is a gimmick movie, plain and simple. If you want to see it, watch it in theaters while you still can. If it wasn't for the 3D action sequences, this thing would have gone straight to DVD, sharing the shelves with other great classics like Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. If 3D is not your thing, don't bother.

TL;DR - cave explorers try to survive flooding caves and movie execs try to get your dollars with DAT 3D - 4/10

127 HOURS (2010) - Worth giving your right arm for....

Until 2009, British director Danny Boyle had made quite a name for himself directing good movies like Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and one of my favorite sci-fi films, Sunshine. It was that year though, that made Danny Boyle blow up in fame since his little movie about Indian kids jumping around in poop puddles and becoming game show contestants hit the big time at the Oscars. Slumdog Millionaire. Remember? You might have heard of it. In any case, Boyle is known for his intense, hectic approach to films and there is always a raw, vibrant nature attached to whatever subject he takes on. Which is good news for 127 Hours, since it tells the story of a guy who gets trapped by a boulder, and cuts his damn arm off. Sounds intense to me, but hey, I live in the suburbs. Your mileage may vary.

The lucky bastard meets Kate Mara on a random hike. Yes, I mad.

Aron Ralston (James Franco) is a 28-year old mountain climber who lives as if he's got hardly a care in the world. Armed with his mountain bike, hiking gear, some water and a bit of food he sets out to explore the remote Blue John Canyon in Colorado. Something about the fact that Aron neglects to tell any of his friends or family where he's going tells you he's a bit of an idiot. You can just smell trouble coming his way. He arrives at the canyon, and comes across two girls (played by Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn), who are apparently lost, and Aron being the helpful  carefree guy that he is, offers to be their guide for a bit. Together they do a bit of spelunking, leading up to a great scene inside a huge pool inside a cave. The girls are amused with Aron, but have their suspicions that he might just be insane. I'd agree with them.

Who's the lucky one now, sucker?

After taking a few Myspace pictures  (or whatever you kids are using these days) with the chicks, they invite him to their party later that night. Aron says he'll drop by and check it out, and goes off on his own, waving goodbye and as usual, not telling them where he's off to. Flash forward a couple minutes, and Aron is made to pay for being such a colossal dumbasss. He looses his footing while climbing across a rock fracture, falls, and while trying to save himself, grabs onto a huge rock which ends up falling and smashing his right arm. Pinned to the canyon wall by this hulking boulder, running low on water, and with no means of escape. Aron tries to chip away at the rock with his cheap knife to no avail; that damn rock isn't going nowhere and he knows it.

Obviously not the best time to forget your satellite phone.

Nothing I could say about the movie or no amount of screenshots would be accurate enough to describe what a marvelous movie this is. Danny Boyle pulls no punches with his film making. His camera moves in ways you wouldn't expect, he uses light and color inventively and creates a fantastic sense of tension and claustrophobia in the canyon scenes. To keep a viewer's interest with such a limited subject is no small feat. By the time Aron makes the ballsy decision to amputate his own arm with a dull pocketknife, you've been in the canyon with him. (A word for the squeamish: the part where he cuts off his arm is gnarly. Tendons, bone, muscle, nerves, all shown pretty graphically.) We have a front row seat to witness the deterioration of mind and body to the point that he can barely deal with his situation. What's there to say about Franco? He pulls off the performance of a lifetime. Completely disappears into his role and does the hard job of making you feel empathic towards a guy who has no one to blame for his trouble but himself. The indomitable will to live that he starts to develop near the end of the movie is just great. Thrilling, thrilling stuff.

The last 30 minutes are nonstop adrenaline.

127 Hours is one of the best movies of the year. It's equal parts adventure, action movie, drama and thriller. Danny Boyle has pulled another masterpiece out of his bag of tricks, and James Franco finally puts his acting chops to good use in a fantastic role. Don't miss it.

TL;DR - Man trapped by boulder. Man cuts off arm. Story makes for most  thrilling movie of 2010 - 10/10

THE ITALIAN JOB (2003) - Marky Mark and the Thieving Bunch

Everyone loves a good heist flick. If someone ever tells you they don't, they are liars or they hate life in general. In any case, stay away from them and find normal friends. Anyways, the 1960s and 70s were a great time for old fashioned caper movies, and one of the best of the bunch was The Italian Job, which starred Michael Caine and involved a pretty awesome series of chases through Venice. The 2003 movie is inspired by it, but has a new plot and characters, and is a stand up action movie in its own right. Also, it's got Charlize Theron in it and she's looks pretty hot throughout the whole thing. It didn't take much else to convince me to choose this as my next review.

Why do I love this movie? Here's a clue: it starts with Charlize and ends with Theron

The movie opens with a shout out to the original flick, with a scene in Venice, as veteran thief and safe-cracker John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) calls his daughter back in the U.S., telling her he's in Italy for one last job. John meets up with his crew of thieves, led by Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg) and they prepare for a heist involving a huge amount of gold bricks. The team includes getaway driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), computer nerd Lyle (Seth Green), explosives pyromaniac Left Ear (Mos Def) and con man Steve (Edward Norton). They get their hands on the gold and they make their way out of the city on speedboats and meet up later to celebrate. The celebrating doesn't last long however, when they're betrayed by a jealous and greedy Steve, who pops a cap in John and makes off with the gold stash, leaving the others for dead in a frozen lake.

Every good heist movie needs its share of witty banter.

Charlie and his gang obviously start planning their revenge on that asshole Steve. To get back their stolen gold, which Steve is sure to keep in a safe, Charlie goes to recruit John's daughter Stella (Charlize Theron), who is a master safe-cracker herself. She agrees to take on the job to avenge her dead father, and the crew gets back to work, scoping out Steve's new mansion and planning to break into his security system. Steve being the bastard that he is, is still very much convinced Charlie and his buddies are dead and is trying hard to sell off his gold.

Yes, I did just add another picture of Charlize into the review. Haters gon' hate.

The gang's first attempt to break into Steve's house and crack his safe goes wrong after Steve wises up and recognizes Stella as the late John's daughter. Charlie is forced to go back to step one and a get a new plan, which will eventually end up including a 400-pound obese Samoan dude, an awesome car chase throughout Los Angeles in tricked out Mini Coopers, explosions, a lot of Jason Statham's scowling, the Russian mafia, etc.

Mini Coopers. Mini Coopers EVERYWHERE.

The original 1969 movie had a lot of comedy alongside its caper story, and was a damn good watch. This Italian Job follows the same formula. It never takes itself too seriously and instead keeps the action moving breezily and uses its cast to good effect. Wahlberg is decent, Charlize is hot, Mos Def's annoying level is at an all-time low, Seth Green has some funny lines, and Statham, as usual, is damn hilarious. Edward Norton always does a great villain too, even if Steve is not exactly one of his best roles. He's more of a tremendous douchebag than a criminal mastermind, but in keeping with the tone of the flick it works well.

It's my blog, and I'll post as much Charlize as I want.

I doubt there's many people that haven't already seen it, but if you're out there, and you've been living under a rock with no cable or Netflix, it's worth a watch.

TL;DR - Marky Mark makes robbing people look so easy, you'll want to do it too - 7.5/10

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) - Time travelan, World War II startan, etc

Back in that glorious decade of manly movie making that was the 1980s, it was pretty easy to make a movie about any idea that sounded epic enough in the head of studio execs. The Final Countdown is a perfect example of this. Some guy, as he was drinking his morning coffee, thought to himself: "wouldn't it be badass if an American aircraft carrier from today went back in time to blow up the Japanese in World War II?" And the answer was yes, it would be.. And on the sixth day, God made The Final Countdown.

Yes, that freakish alternate universe wormhole looks perfectly safe.

The movie starts off with civilian analyst Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen rocking a Conan O'Brien haircut) being invited aboard the Navy's biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, stationed near Pearl Harbor. There, he meets the skipper of the ship, Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas... a.k.a. Spartacus), who shows him around the nuclear powered boat. They make their way to sea, when all of a sudden a strange storm with bluish lightning and strobe lights going off like a massive ecstasy fueled rave interrupts their cruise. Naturally, the Nimitz is sucked into this wormhole thing, only to find itself back in completely normal weather.

HEY JAPAN! WE TOP GUN NOW.

Confused and wondering just what the hell happened, the Captain launches a few fighter planes to check out the area, and sends another jet to scope out Pearl Harbor, thinking that World War III might have just started. While the crew wonders if the Russians just nuked Washington D.C., the fighters on patrol run into some WW2 Japanese planes. To make matters worse, the plane sent to Pearl Harbor sends back pictures of all the famous battleships from WW2 all lined up like the day when Pearl was attacked by Japan in 1941. The Captain, his officers and Lasky argue with themselves until they finally realize that the storm must have been a time portal that sent them back to the day before the Pearl Harbor sneak attack: December 6, 1941.

Note to time travelers: don't pick up kamikaze hitchhikers.

Along the way, the time-traveling Americans rescue some survivors from a yacht attacked by the evil Japanese fleet on its way to attack Pearl. One of the survivors is a hot secretary. So far, so good. The other survivor is a US Senator who was supposed to die before their attack, and now his survival is a threat to the space time continuum with potentially disastrous consequences. That one, not so good. Now, the Americans have a tough choice to make: should they use modern day technology like jet fighters and missiles to wipe out the Japanese fleet and prevent the war, or should they let history run its course? Some of the officers will argue both sides, even though no one seems to know what kind of shit they've gotten themselves into.

"What year are we in, Captain? "I dunno, LOL."

The Final Countdown is basically a popcorn movie with a B-movie plot and some decent actors. Some of the best scenes are actually of the planes in action, shooting down Japanese propeller planes and scaring the hell out of the 1940s people. It's decent sci fi and works well at presenting an alternate universe in which history might be affected by what decisions are made. It can get a bit too talkative at times, but it's running length is just right for the story. It's fun entertainment, and a reminder that not every movie has to be Oscar bait and ultra serious. It's the 80s action/sci fi mix. Just let it embrace you.

TL;DR - Americans go back in time and wonder if they should kick Japan's ass and prevent WW2 - 6.5/10