IN TIME (2011) - Bonnie & Clyde, 2161.

In the year 2161, medical science has become so doubleplusgood that humans have been able to stop aging at 25. Once a person reaches that age, they either die off as they 'expire' or they keep on living, possibly forever, as long as they are filthy rich. You see, with aging stopped, time has become money, and it's used to buy anything, from cappuccinos to decades of life. The poor die off pretty quickly or else live on a day to day basis, while the rich fat cats (gotta love that modern day relevancy!) live on in extreme luxury while keeping their 25 year old bodies intact.

With the boy band scene finally dead, JT takes to the factories.

 Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is one of those poor folk, a 20 something factory worker living with his mother (Olivia Wilde). Together they try to make ends meet as they go about their daily lives in the ghetto parts of Dayton. One night while getting his drank on with his boys, Will saves a time-rich stranger from being mugged. The man (Matt Bomer), a super rich 105-year old tells will he's tired of his life, and gives Will all of his remaining time, over a century in total, and commits suicide. Life in the future ghetto being what it is though, bitchslaps poor Will when he sees his mother die in his own arms after she runs out of time later that night.

In the not so distant future, douchebags live forever.

Rich with time and with vengeance on his mind, Will goes off to do what else but to make it rain with the rich people in their exclusive part of town. Here he meets a millionaire named Weis at a casino and hits it off with his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried). The party is broken up when a 'Timekeeper' by the name of Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) is sent to catch Will and take his years. They do so, leaving him with less than a day to live, but Will escapes by taking Sylvia hostage, and he's forced to take to the road and hide from the cops. All the while, he has to deal with the snooty rich girl and find a way to get back his time before he ends up as dead as the careers of Timberlake's fellow N'Sync'ers.

DERP.

The concept of time as money in this weird dystopian future sounds promising, but instead of exploring it a bit further, the movie just goes into full-on preachy mode about the haves and have-nots, trying to pass off Will and his arm candy as some Robin Hood wannabes. It tries so hard to be relevant with the present economic trouble that all it was missing was some extras with 'Occupy Dystopian Dayton' placards. The movie aims to be stylish which unfortunately at the expense of being stupid. Why do people in the year 2161 still use the same cars, guns and technology as they did in 2010? A hundred odd years into the future and all we have to show for it is a shiny, green left arm? Screw that.

Wasting Cillian Murphy in a shitty villain role... Tsk tsk.

 In Time is a barely passable action movie but it is utterly forgettable. Timberlake seems like a nice guy and all and gets props for the effort, but he just can't carry a movie like this by himself. The story gets a few points for originality, but once the novelty wears off it degenerates into bargain bin predictability. Cillian Murphy is criminally wasted as the villain who doesn't even get a decent sending off, while the whole glowing arm thing gets old after the first couple of scenes and there's just not enough action to push this movie out of mediocrity.

Best scene: all of the ones that imply that future moms might look like Olivia Wilde.

Best line: You'd have to be really desperate to quote anything from this movie. Not a single decent one-liner in sight!





TL;DR - Wasted premise, half-decent acting, and weak action. I want my time back - 2.5/10

PRIEST (2011) - Paul Bettany hates vampires

Priest opens with a neat animated segment that gives an overview of the world the movie is set in. A war between humans and vampires has been raging for thousands of years, with humans being hunted almost to extinction. Humanity's last gasp for salvation is the Church, which has turned the tide of the war by unleashing their secret weapon against the vampires: the Priests. The Priests are born warriors, trained to perfection to kill vampires and fanatically loyal to the Church, and thanks to them humans finally defeat the vampires and lock up the survivors in a series of reservation camps. The humans that survived the war have taken shelter in massive walled cities in a society which is completely dominated by the all-powerful Church. With the war over, the Priests have outlived their usefulness and have been disbanded.

Face tats are all the rage in the future.

 A few hardy humans still live in the wastelands outside the walled cities, and it's in one of those small homesteads that a young family is attacked by a pack of vampires in the middle of the night. The father, Owen, is left for dead after his wife is killed and their teen daughter Lucy (Lily Collins) is kidnapped. Back in the imaginatively named Cathedral City, a Priest (Paul Bettany) is approached by Hicks (Cam Gigandet), a sheriff from the town where the family was attacked. It turns out that Owen is the Priest's brother, and he's told about Lucy's disappearance. The Priest goes before a council of Church authorities and asks for his reinstatement so that he may find the girl, but he's refused and forbidden to leave the city. He does so anyways, and teams up with Hicks despite knowing that it will mean a death sentence for both of them if they are caught.

"Edward Cullen? Never heard of him, bro."

 Hicks and the Priest follow the trail of the vampires to several reservations and vampire hives, hoping to find clues to Lucy's location. Back in Cathedral City, the Church brings back four Priests from retirement, and sends them after Hicks and the Priest, with orders to bring them back dead or alive. While on Lucy's trail, the Priest and Hicks discover that there's another, much more serious bigger problem to deal with than the missing girl. Black Hat (Karl Urban), an ex-Priest turned vampire, has been creating a new vampire army and is planning to restart the war. The Priest, Hicks, and a Priestess (Maggie Q), are the only ones that can stop those bloodsucking creeps.

Phil Collins is gonna be pissed you're messing with his daughter, pal.

Priest is based on a comic book, which means that due to the fact that I'm not a gigantic nerd (just a regular nerd), I've never heard about it. I can't comment on how faithful it is to the source material, but setting stood out well. The world design in Priest is cool: the cities are a mix of Blade Runner-meets-V for Vendetta, the post-apocalyptic wastelands look believable, and for once, we get some menacing vampires (no Twilight here) which look the part of hellish beasts. The action itself is nice, with plenty well-paced, exciting fights which are unfortunately let down by a bit of bad CGI every now and then. Some of the acting is a bit iffy, the dialogue feels forced at times, and there's a bit too much slow motion used. Thankfully, Paul Bettany is in good form. He's clearly the most talented guy on the cast, and it's hard to understand why this guy keeps getting mediocre roles. Bettany is an imposing presence, handles his fights well, and is the only one who can breeze through his dialogue without sounding like he's at rehearsal.

Damn that vow of celibacy!

Priest had plenty of potential going for it, especially the first half hour or so which is exciting and gets things off to a good start, but around the halfway mark it just starts to fizzle away into mediocrity with twists that you can see coming miles away. Watching Paul Bettany beat the shit out of some vampires while rocking that wicked face tatoo makes for a decent time killer, but the weak story and half-assed ending really lets it down. It's enjoyable enough if you catch it on TV or for a rental, but unless you're a fan of the genre or have a secret crush on Bettany, it's not really memorable at all.

Best scene: the Priestess takes out five guys on bikes with a gnarly looking hook on a wire, complete with a mid-air dismemberment. Holy schnike!

Best line: "You've got your gun armed? You're gonna need it." BOOM. Vampires.

TL;DR - Nice vampire killing action by Paul Bettany can't make up for a weak story - 6/10

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (2004) - Making aliens boring.

I remember the first time that I was genuinely scared out of my wits by a movie. As a 12 year old, I'd already seen all sorts of scary movies, but there's only so many times you can see a masked guy slashing teenagers before it loses its shock value. Then I saw Alien one night on cable TV and even with my dad sitting alongside, Ridley Scott's masterful horror flick scared me shitless. I also remember the first time I saw Predator, and as a 4th grader, seeing Arnold and the Predator beating the crap out of each other blew me away. Both of these were classic movies with great creatures, and it's no wonder that they've spawned several sequels. It's too bad that aside from Aliens, none of the sequels even came close to matching the greatness of the original movies.

Nothing is sacred anymore.

The imaginatively named Alien vs. Predator opens with  millionaire industrialist Charles Weyland (Lance Henriksen) putting together a team of scientists to investigate a subterranean pyramid structure detected under the ice on an Arctic island by one of his satellites. Weyland hires Woods (Sanaa Lathan) to serve as guide for the team, who reluctantly accepts the offer. They arrive at the location and find a bunch of abandoned buildings, and to their amazement, a huge shaft drilled into the ice at a perfect 30 degree angle. Unknown to them, the hole was blasted into the ice by a Predator space ship orbiting around the Earth, as the creatures get suited up to join the party.

Where's Ripley or Dutch when you need them?

The humans soon realize that the pyramid is in fact an ancient temple used for a Predator hunting ritual. Every so often, the Predators would visit Earth and hunt aliens and whoever else was stupid enough to go inside the temple. They must try and make their way out of the pyramid and ensure that none of the aliens reach the surface, while at the same time avoiding the Predators. If the story sounds supremely retarded, well... that's because it is. Directed and written by Paul W.S. Anderson, the guy who butchered the Resident Evil franchise and made maybe one good movie, means that AvP was doomed from the beginning. It's plagued with bad dialogue and worst of all, weak action. There are a few good parts, but unfortunately most of them are lines or ideas lifted right out of the original flicks.

At least the Predators are still badass...

If you're going to make a movie with forgettable characters that nobody cares about, then it better have some great action to make up for it. In AvP, every action scene was apparently filmed on days when the guys who set up the lighting were off drinking at the pub. They're dark, muddled, and it's just about impossible to see the action clearly. All those neat, well-detailed creature designs and the expensive sets are wasted thanks to the shitty camera work, with shots that are either too dark, too close up, or cut too quickly. That being said, the aliens and the Predators are very well done, with smooth CGI and the always cool Predator heat vision being used to good effect. There's obvious production value in these areas. As cool as the creatures are, there really are no scares in the entire movie except for some cheap jump scares. The attempts at creating tension are laughable, most of the acting (aside from the great Lance Henriksen) is piss poor, and the ending left me wondering if I should laugh or cry at its cheesiness.

...never mind.

Alien vs. Predator has accomplished something very difficult in the world of movies. It's not that it managed to kill not one, but two great franchises with its ridiculously stupid premise and crap execution. Oh no. Even worse. It made two of science fiction's most exciting series seem boring and dull. The film's only saving grace is that it runs a merciful 100 or so minutes and that we get to see Predators killing off nearly the entire cast of dimwitted characters. From now on, I'll pretend these stupid versus movies were never made, and just watch the originals instead. Spare yourself the time and forget this movie.

TL;DR -Boring, inane mash-up that will ruin your childhood memories - 3/10

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - Bigger and better

Michael Bay gets a lot of crap about the way his movies all seem alike as well as his massive use of explosions and special effects. Whether you like his films or not, it's pretty clear to see that Bay is exactly the guy needed to direct a franchise based on a children's TV show about giant, transforming robots that come to wreak havoc on Earth. With Transformers, there really isn't any other way to approach other than just making the biggest, loudest, most visually dazzling picture that budget will allow, and he's done just that with the latest in the series. Anyone paying for a $20 IMAX ticket to Dark of the Moon and expecting to see a great screenplay and fantastic acting should have learned their lesson a while ago.

Any guy who says he wouldn't want to have Optimus Prime's voice is lying.

This time around, Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) has moved in with his new girlfriend Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), replacing poor Megan Fox and her weird toe thumb. Sam has been having trouble adjusting to his life out of college, since he's out of a job and no one seems to be giving him any respect. The Autobots, still led by Optimus Prime, are now working for the government and kicking terrorist ass worldwide in order to keep the world safe, but things don't stay rosy for too long. Optimus learns that the humans had discovered an Autobot ship on the dark side of the Moon during the Apollo landings. The Autobots investigate and find the Ark, a ship belonging to an Autobot stashed inside the ship named Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy).

Louis Stevens: humanity's last hope for survival.

Optimus rescues and revives Sentinel Prime, who informs them that the Decepticons are after a powerful technology called the Pillars, and that they must not get their hands on it. Sam offers his services to the government after witnessing a Decepticon attack on a co-worker at his new job, and is there to witness as Sentinel Prime betrays the Autobots. It's revealed Sentinel had a secret pact with the Decepticons, and after he kills Ironhide, he helps the Decepticons to plan and pull off an invasion of Earth by transporting huge armies through time and space to win the war once and for all, and enslave the human race. Things get a bit more complicated as we learn that the Decepticons may in fact have some human allies helping them on Earth, willing to betray their own kind.

Watching Bay turn Chicago into a war zone is the best part of the movie.

 Weak story and wooden acting aside, you have to hand it to Michael Bay: the guy knows how to make a bitching popcorn movie. Transformers looks absolutely amazing. It's incredible to see the kind of sharp, life-like CGI that $195 million will buy. The robots themselves are great to look at, and the battle scenes are even better. The Decepticon invasion and attack is insane: whole city blocks are demolished with enormous explosions, with hundreds of planes, vehicles, people and robots sharing the screen in a spectacular orgy of synchronized destruction on an epic scale. There's a slick freeway chase scene that's amongst the best scenes in the movie, while the long final battle in which most of Chicago is turned to rubble is so wickedly entertaining that it is without a doubt a series highlight.

When in doubt, cast a former Victoria's Secret model.

 Bay has also cut down a bit on the ridiculously quick cuts from the first movie that made it nearly impossible to see just what the hell was going during action scenes. He's replaced most of that nonsense with slow motion instead, and while it's still annoying, at least you now have a clearer look at the action. Fantastic visuals aside, Dark of the Moon falls short in the same areas like the previous flicks, although this one enjoys a better cast thanks to good turns by John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and the always hilarious John Turturro. Firefly favorite Alan Tudyk and The Hangover's Ken Jeong have brief, weak cameos. Dark of the Moon is a much more enjoyable movie than the first two however, since Bay focuses more time on the action and less on the basically half-assed attempt at story, and keeps things moving briskly.

Poor Tyrese and Duhamel get less screen time than the annoying Mexican Transformer.

It's a movie made to be watched and enjoyed in 3D, make mountains of cash at the box office, and keep you interested enough to make you shell out the $20 to watch the inevitable sequel. If you accept it for what it is, and look past the obvious flaws, it can be an enjoyable movie. Bay knows the secret to putting asses in seats: amazing visuals, having Shia LeBeouf scream at the top of his lungs every 10 minutes, comedic one-liners from expendable characters, and slow-motion panning shots of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's ass as she climbs stairs in her underwear. If you're not watching it on the big screen in all it's 3D glory, you're missing the point.

TL;DR - Better cast and better action make this the best Transformers movie yet - 6/10

SOURCE CODE (2011) - Bombs (and time travel) on a train

For the last couple of years the world of movies has taken over by sequel mania. It's been a never ending stream of sequels, remakes, "re-imaginings" or blatant rip offs of older movies and it shows no sign of stopping. There's been a few good ones, but also a whole bunch of terrible ones. Every once in a while, we get a decent, original story and it's always a breath of fresh air. 2009 had Duncan Jones direct Moon, which was a good sci fi flick and had an interesting concept and terrific performance by Sam Rockwell. Jones now turned his attention towards the action scene and his new film is one of the best movies this year.

I hope you like explosions, Jake.

Source Code opens with Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) waking up on a train, with no memory of how he got there or why. We learn that Colter is an Army helicopter pilot and has been in combat in Afghanistan, and apparently is one tough bastard seeing as how he survived a disastrous mission and saved the life of his buddies. Across from him sits Christina (Michelle Monaghan), who starts a conversation with him despite the fact he has no idea who she is. Confused, Colter makes his way to a bathroom where he is shocked to discover his reflection on the mirror shows the face of another man. A bomb explodes on the train, killing everyone on board, and all of a sudden, Colter wakes up inside a dark, capsule looking thing with a uniformed woman (Vera Farmiga) speaking to him on a computer monitor.

I'd ride an exploding train to sit with Michelle any day of the week...

Colter is told that he is in fact working inside the Source Code, a rift in time that allows a user to re-live the last 8 minutes of a person's life. He has been placed into the body of Sean Fentress, a teacher and passenger on the train, to try and find out who has put the bomb on the train. Colter must find the people responsible and prevent an even bigger nuclear attack against a major city. He is placed back into the Source Code and each time he relives the last 8 minutes, but small differences begin to appear, as he starts to predict things like accidents, things people say, etc. Colter also begins to doubt the official explanation given to him by Vera Farmiga's character, and he not only has to stop the bombing, but also investigate just why they won't give him any more information about where he is or about the project's secretive boss (Jeffrey Wright).

... and then instantly regret it.

At first the glance, the plot might seem a bit confusing, but if you've seen movies like Memento or The Prestige, you'll know that by paying attention it really isn't all that hard to follow along. Gyllenhaal does a great job with his role, showing both the take charge side of his soldier character and the confused side of the guy inside the Source Code capsule. He is surprisingly convincing as a grizzled veteran, and does his action scenes pretty well. Michelle Monaghan is in most of the movie, and does a great job with adding little changes to her constantly replayed scenes. Everyone else puts in a decent effort as well. The real highlight is the thriller basics in the story. The movie plays out like a fast-paced action flick but has some great plot points that leave you wondering.

Lady, who the hell are you?

It is refreshing to see a nicely crafted action movie that doesn't include Shia LeBeouf, the number "2" in the title, or relies on some shitty 3D to sell movie tickets. Source Code is a damn enjoyable movie and it kept my attention throughout the whole running time. It's pretty smart and provoking as far as most action flicks go, and has likable leads and manages to make Jake Gyllenhaal a convincing action hero for the most part. My only real gripe was the fact that I didn't really love the ending, as I was expecting them to go in a whole different way with it, but it suits the movie just fine. Recommended.


TL;DR - Maggie's brother tries to save the day, 8 minutes at a time - 8.5/10

TRON: LEGACY (2010) - A feast for eyes & ears

The original Tron was a landmark movie for special effects and computer graphics. In the 1980s, computers were just starting to come into their own in the movie business and the ability to create the sort of images we take for granted today was unheard of. Think about it: movies on the Lifetime channel probably have CGI a hundred times better than what was possible in the '80s. The computers used to make Tron had about 2 MB of memory, less than even the cheapest cell phone today, but at the time, it was the coolest thing to ever hit the screen. It's no surprise that Tron became a cult classic, and it's equally no surprise that Disney knew it'd have to pump out a sequel sooner or later when the technology wow-factor came around. So now, twenty something years and $150+ million later, we got TRON: Legacy.

The CGI is amazing. The acting isn't.

The movie opens with a flashback to 1980s, featuring a young Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) tucking in his young son Sam to bed and telling him about work at his EMCON company. Flynn leaves after promising to see Sam in a bit, and later vanishes without a trace. Twenty years later and Sam (Garrett Hedlund) has grown up into the company's biggest shareholder in the wake of his dad's disappearance. Apart from dropping by once a year to play tricks on the company executives, Sam hardly seems to care about his company, and is sort of a loner - living in a garage with his dog and riding his sleek bike around while looking cool in leather jackets.

Olivia Wilde in 3D - puts butts in seats

One night, Flynn's old friend Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) tells Sam about a page he received, which strangely seems to have come from Flynn's old video arcade. Sam reluctantly heads over to investigate, and finds an old mainframe waiting for him. After messing around with the keys, he is transported into a virtual world inside the computer - the Grid. Immediately after arriving in the Grid, Sam gets into trouble. He's picked up by programs and sent off to the games. The games are essentially gladiator fights to the death, and while fighting the most feared program on the Grid, Rinzler, Sam is discovered to be human. He's taken to see CLU (young, computerized Jeff Bridges), who is a copy of his father Flynn, and has become a dictator in the Grid. CLU fights Sam in the arena, and just as he's about to kill him during a light cycle race, in comes Quorra (Olivia Wilde) to save his skinny ass.

Quorra takes Sam to her hideout, which is revealed to be Flynn's home. Flynn has been trapped in the Grid for over twenty years, hostage to CLU and unable to escape. After being reunited with his father, Sam learns that the page he received originally came from CLU, as he is desperate to get out into the real world and enact his vision of a "perfect system." Flynn warns his son that it would be catastrophic if CLU got out, and both of them, alongside the oh so sexy Quorra have to do everything in their power to prevent CLU from making it into the real world, while trying to get Sam and Flynn to make it out themselves.

The de-aged Bridges. You either like it, or it freaks you out.

Right from the start, the trailer for Legacy made it pretty clear that this was obviously an effects driven movie. The light cycle scenes are insane, as is the club fight scene near the middle of the movie. On the big screen and with brutal surround sound it's really good stuff. Some of the other scenes with long shots showing the entire virtual city are pretty rad as well, and of course if you like electronic music, you'll dig the Daft Punk soundtrack. Hedlund and Wilde do a good job with their parts, though nothing spectacular really shines through. Jeff Bridges has by far the most interesting role as Flynn, but it's almost a shame how little we actually get to see of him. Also criminally underused was Tron, who gets a rushed plot twist of his own near the end which feels a bit cheap.

The Dude abides in cyberspace!

Tron: Legacy is enjoyable, there's no doubt about it. The visuals are snazzy, the music is good, and fans of the original get their long lived patience rewarded (only a 30 year wait, right?). At the end though, I was left wondering if some of that ridiculous $170 million budget could have been spent crafting a story that could match the spectacle that unfolds on the screen. Sure, it's an extravagant orgy of light, color and sound and it's exhilarating to watch it on a huge screen and with massive speakers, but Bridges seems wasted and the only thing memorable about it is the obvious set up for a sequel. Maybe third time's the charm and Disney will prove me wrong when it comes out.

TL;DR - Visually dazzling and a glorious soundtrack. Just don't ask for a great plot too - 6/10

SLITHER (2006) - Comedy + horror = always a great mix

Take equal parts The Fly, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, zombie movies, and countless other horror movie inspirations and what do you get? You get Slither.  James Gunn's movie is a hilarious throwback to some of the best of the cheesy B-movie horror flicks of the past, adding comedy into the fray and a good cast to boot. There's plenty of familiar faces and familiar plot points you'll probably see coming a mile away, but it won't change the fact that Slither is a very entertaining flick.

Starla has a problem: her husband eats wild animals and is apparently, an alien.

Slither begins with a meteor making its way into Earth's atmosphere, leaving a fiery trail across the sky as it lands on the outskirts of a small hick town in the middle of nowhere, unnoticed by two sleepy cops pulling an all night shift. The meteor splits open, and we see that it's no ordinary meteor... *GASP*, it's an alien meteor! Cut to Starla (Elizabeth Banks), a pretty blonde school teacher married to a rich jerk named Grant (Michael Rooker) who drives a fancy Cadillac and owns the biggest house in town.

After Starla rejects Grant's advances in bed one night, Grant goes off for a brisk walk to cure his case of the blue balls. He meets up with another woman in the forest, and before they get frisky, they come across the meteor lying in the boonies. Grant gets too close while investigating, and gets a worm shot at him by some weird slug looking thing. It buries into his chest and after losing and regaining consciousness, he heads back home.

Nathan Fillion is hilarious. The guy is such a bro.

Grant is obviously not the same dude however. He starts getting enormous cravings for meat, starts acting weird around others, and soon enough we learn the bug inside him is a parasite, slowly turning him into a hideously deformed freak from the inside out. Starla is shocked to discover her husband has been killing animals around town, so she tells Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion), the local town Sheriff. Bill and the rest of the town folk are forced to deal with Grant's mutation before the town is overwhelmed by the alien slugs turning everyone into mindless alien freaks. Oh yeah baby... gotta love that B-movie flavor.

Kill it with fire! Or nuke it. Or BOTH.

I'm disappointed in myself that I had never thought to give Slither a chance before. The mix of comedy, horror, and nastiness is just about perfect. There's plenty of genuinely funny lines and scenes, and the horror isn't half bad considering it's not an out and out scare flick. Nathan Fillion is one of my favorite actors, and he's great as usual, nailing the funny and serious aspects of his role, and his Sheriff is a standout character. Rooker is also good, especially in the beginning as the unlikeable Grant, and the rest of the cast does decent jobs (the asshole mayor is just hilarious). The make up and gore effects are also convincingly disgusting, especially a barn scene with a hideously mutated fat lady, or the famous bath tub scene referenced in the poster.

Favorite part of the movie? Why yes, yes it is.

Slither knows what it wants to do with the audience and does it pretty damn well. It's got the right amount of laughs and thrills to make it enjoyable, switches from gross out horror to comedy seamlessly. It's too bad that Slither did terrible at the box office. Maybe people were expecting a full-blown horror film and were surprised by the funky comedy factor. In any case, if you're in the mood for some tongue in cheek horror, look no further. Very recommended (just don't eat anything while you watch it).

TL;DR - B-movie gross out fun with plenty of one-liners and people getting split open - 8/10

SKYLINE (2010) - Story? We don't need no story. We got LOUD NOISES!

The Skyline trailer came out a few months ago, and I remember thinking it looked somewhat interesting and it caught me by surprise since I hadn't heard any buzz about it. I checked it out on Wikipedia and saw it was directed by the guys behind Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem... "The Brothers Strouse." Besides thinking to myself that would be a good name for a reality show about German bakers, I realized this movie was going to suck hard. Because there's a reason you give directing credit to "The Brothers Strouse" - it's called plausible deniability. See, when the two Strause brothers realized just what an abomination of a movie they were going to release, they knew that in ten years they wouldn't want their name on it. So by having just their last name on the credits, each could blame the other brother for the movie in case they were ever confronted by an angry, knife-wielding schmuck who wanted his $11.50 back after watching Skyline.

Aliens crashed the party and didn't bring booze. What a party foul.

Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) fly to California to spend a few days with his old friend Terry (Donald Faison), who is apparently filthy rich and famous or something. They are celebrating his birthday at his snazzy Los Angeles apartment, and joined by Terry's girlfriend Candice (Brittany Daniel) and his personal assistant Denise (Crystal Reed). The morning after the birthday bash, one of the guys staying in the house is awakened by bright blue lights coming in through the blindsm stares directly at it, and we see his face becomes covered with purple veins and bruises. All of a sudden he is sucked out the window and disappears. The rest of the group wakes up and soon finds out that giant alien space ships are floating over L.A. and are vacuuming up thousands of people for no apparent reason. Jarrod stares at the light as well, but is saved from being vacuumed out himself. The group then has to decide whether to make a run for it and try to leave the city or stay in the apartment and hope for the best.

Save yourself! It's the attack of the giant blue LED lights from space!

The entirety of the movie takes place in the apartment complex. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that you need interesting characters to keep the audience hooked. Misery, which mostly takes place inside a single bedroom, works because Kathy Bates's character is downright amazing as the psychotic bitch nurse from hell. In Skyline, it fails so hard because the characters might as well just die in the first five minutes and nothing of value would be lost. You don't learn anything about them, they don't develop, and you plain just don't give a damn about them. They're boring and have nothing interesting about them. In fact, Terry was the only one that even seemed likable, but since he's the Token Minority Character, you don't have to guess who'll end up dying first.

There could have been hope if at least the aliens were interesting. But no... Skyline had to go and break the cardinal rule of alien invasion movies - no boring aliens. These aliens look like flying metal squid. Well, whoop-de-doo. They're also too stupid to figure out how to grab people inside buildings. The aliens get no back story either. They just show up, start vacuuming up humans, and just chill in L.A. Boring, stupid aliens. Gee, what a thrill.

Hey, it's Turk from Scrubs packing a 9 milli. Giant alien space ships don't stand a chance.

Skyline has some nice eye candy at times (not that often, mind you) and well done special effects and CGI. The close ups of the massive alien ships are really detailed and hold up well in high-def. Without a story or any characters that the audience actually cares about, it's all wasted. By the time the credits roll, it feels like you just watched a demo reel of cool effects made by that weird kid that sat in the back of your class in high school and was always playing with AfterEffects on his Macbook. It's hollow, not exactly thrilling, and ultimately can't grow out of the fact that it is a cobbled together mix of scenes and ideas from other, better sci-fi movies.

The military is useless against the aliens? HOW ORIGINAL.

Like Gary Busey's teeth, Skyline is a disaster.

TL;DR - Aliens invade the world, but no one knows why. No one really cares either. Crap. - 1/10

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