Two more for February. It's a bleak time of year for movies, y'all, and there's really no diamonds to be found in the rough yet. The Mechanic was good, but it was more like finding that state quarter you're still missing than a diamond. I expect Sucker Punch will be the first, but that's over a month away. Maybe we'll get lucky and Unknown will do the job. Or, at least The Adjustment Bureau, but that one's weeks away as well. For now, though, we've got a base-on-balls and a pop fly to Pedroia to pass the time...
The Eagle: I was on board with this movie. I really enjoy the rare occasion where I know absolutely ZERO about a movie, or close to it, and go in and get blown away. Die Hard was that way for me. Aliens, Se7en, and The Matrix, too. On a slightly lesser scale, Blood Of Heroes (no disrespect, yo). I'm sad to say The Eagle was not one of these. But I was on board. For awhile. Especially since it appeared I was getting something very different- a slow, brooding, atmospheric, downsized sword-and-sandles movie about regaining one's family honor that began to morph into a thought-provoking drama about questioning a government's policies about colonization and genocide by way of a complete master-slave role-reversal... and then I blinked... and suddenly some disgraced heroes were conquering the "savages" with superior arms, HUZZAH! Sigh. Look, I'm OK with a non-PC movie. In fact, for the record, fuck political-correctness. We all know when to be douchebags and when to not, so we don't need to be told what we can and can't say (and, I'm sorry, black is simply way fucking cooler than African American. "African American" sounds like something a wimpy white guy made up. So sue me). Uh... right, The Eagle (the fourth movie I've seen this year, and so far every one starts with the word "The")... I'm OK with non-PC movies, but don't give me one thing and cop out literally in the last 5 minutes. And don't ignore your own story. I mean, the guy was pale, limping, and dying of a horrible wound for the last three scenes, so don't all of a sudden put color in his cheeks and have him fight like he just got a hot meal and 8 hours of sleep. And don't have your other lead leave his sickly ass behind to scour an entire country, on foot, and make it back in only a couple of hours with twenty redemption-seeking disgraced heroes... at the exact same time the bad guys show up. And weren't you just trying to show us that they weren't actually bad guys, but people, just like us? Maybe I misread that bit. Maybe it was a "might is right" movie from the get-go. Didn't feel like it. So, yeah, anyway, very atmospheric... generic, grainy cinematography somehow works more often than not these days. Must be technological improvements... or maybe I'm getting soft. It was a stark, bleak, dry movie at the start and then once they cross Hadrian's Wall it became a dank, wet, cold film. Very effective. Billy Elliot and G. I. Joe were good. They weren't given much to do, but they did it well (?). Creepy Donald Sutherland was in this for a few minutes. The opening sequence was really good. I wonder if there's a director's cut looming for the DVD release. That might explain a lot.
6 out of 10 Golden Eagles
The (not really...) Sanctum: YOU Sanctum, you brought 'um. WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA!!! Uh... yeah. Remember that scene where they had to swim through a small passage in the rocks to try and find a new way out of the cave? Me too. 'Cause it was the ENTIRE MOVIE. But I have a question: if the cave was flooding, and you have scuba equipment, instead of venturing forward into unknown, pitch black, very likely dead-end territory, why not wait until it flooded and just SWIM THE FUCK OUT THE BIG GODDAMN HOLE THAT YOU CAME IN THROUGH. Sigh. Another question: if you're going to make a 3-D movie, where (duh) visuals are obviously the most important thing, why set the entire thing in a DARK, CLAUSTROPHOBIC FUCKING CAVE?!?!? I mean, do we really need to see how 3-D Richard Roxburgh's nose is? Sorry. Not his fault. The guy really brought his A-Game. Too bad nobody else did. I liked that Iaon... Iaan... Iooan... however the fuck he misspells the easiest name in name history, IAN Graff... Grauffoo... oh, fuck it. That guy who played Mr. Fantastic- I liked him as Lancelot in that King Arthur movie, but since then he's become the worst actor in Christendom. Why do actors from elsewhere so desperately need to throw on an (bad) American accent? Iaoaian Graffitti is from Wales, so can't his character just be from, like... WALES, for fuck's sake? What, people from Wales can't be rich, successful spelunkers, too? And that one girl couldn't die a horrible death fast enough. I kinda wanted to cheer when she did, but the movie was so boring I just couldn't muster up the strength. And there was one scene where they actually got to pan back to try and get all 3-D on us, but underwater shots can't really do 3-D because water isn't solid and has varying densities, and stuff, so all you see is the foreground stalag... rocks sticking down right in front of you, the background in, er... the background, and two assholes suspended in what looks more like mid-air than underwater. And fake! I mean, the shot was probably actually really done, but they made it look fake. I hate 3-D. I've tried, really. It only works with animation (which is why it worked so well with Avatar). Can't someone stand up and prove it causes eyeball cancer, or something? Please? Anyway, yeah, what a bunch of unlikeable caricatures these 'nozzles were. Like I said, the Duke from Moulin Rouge was good, but that was really it. There was the young guy- watching him was like watching puberty happen to a 22-year-old. An ANNOYING 22-year-old. I already spoke about what's-her-face. And Mr. Fantastic. The only other semi-likable guy (and, let's face it, he was more annoying than likable) was named Crazy George (typing that made me want to drown in a cave), but he was so obviously the red-shirt-with-a-heart you didn't need bother to invest any real sympathy. So, yes. Sanctum wasn't very good. Oddly enough, I still wanted to know if and how they'd (and who'd) get out of that blessed cave, though, so I can't call it a complete loss.
4 out of 10 3-D Glasses
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