Years ago when Captain Jack Sparrow was wondering where all the rum had gone, he probably would have never guessed that it was being stockpiled for another movie by the man filling his shoes.  That traitor!  Johnny Depp’s appropriately titled new film, The Rum Diary, has lots of rum, and not much else.

Based on the book of the same name, The Rum Diary finds Paul Kemp in Puerto Rico as he continues his life as a reporter.  At least that is what he tells himself, because let’s be honest, he went there to drink.  And drink he does, using alcohol as a lubricant for better enjoyment of the island culture, mixing it up with the local cock fighters, sailing around in the calm seas, falling in “love” with a beautiful woman (albeit from Connecticut), catching wind of some white man corruption.  You know, the usual.

Depp gives the role his all, granted it isn’t far from one of his most iconic characters of the recent past.  He wobbles with the grace of a just-born giraffe, has a glazed expression in his eyes as he tries to focus on what is important, and for lack of a better phrase, he drinks far more than a sailor.  Laughs are had, especially when he has a fellow newspaper worker in Sala (played by Michael Rispoli) to sing “99 Bottles of Rum on the Wall” with as they act it out together, but I think I passed my limit for rum soaked Depp a couple films back.  Giovanni Ribisi joins the party from time to time as a fellow man searching for truths through a highly intoxicated state of mind (possibly weakened by brain damage at this point as well), and though he provides some fantastic lines whenever he’s on screen (at least when they aren’t too incoherently slurred), there quickly comes a point when watching the film just feels like what it was like to be the designated driver at a college party where everyone else is drunk.  Generally the stupidity that people quickly sink to can provide plenty of laughs in response to their antics, but there comes a point where it loses its entertainment value and just becomes sad.

Surprisingly there is actually a deeper story to the film as Kemp comes across a fraction of the corruption mentioned above, and though he does have some ideals to stand on, these quickly get lost as he dedicates his time to other things.  Seeing as the title is The Rum Diary this should probably be expected, but it just becomes impossible to believe in the character when he is living the lifestyle of an alcoholic.  Occasionally he presents an article focusing on the issues of the island, but these are pushed aside by a boss who understands that this is not what the people reading the paper want, and Kemp hardly does anything to fight the system.  If anything, he only does slightly attempt to bring the lies to light when he has no other options.  He may have morals somewhere deep down, and beliefs worthy of praise in concern to how the world should be, but his conviction and dedication to things worthy of his time are drowned by the bottles he downs, leading to a lackluster film with just as little focus as the main character (and an even weaker ending).

The Rum Diary is good for a laugh or two, but in the end, save your money and go down to the local frat house to watch the natives embarrass themselves.  The experience will be the same (except for the higher percentage of getting puked on).

Final Grade:  C-

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Drive Angry 3D is a fun idea that doesn’t nearly take full advantage of the premise it unleashes into the film.  I mean, the film opens with Nic Cage breaking out of Hell to hunt down the murderers of his daughter, a satanic cult hoping to bring Hell Fire to Earth, how does this movie not rock?

It constantly teeters on embracing the silly insanity that it presents to us but sadly never grabs hold and runs with it.  Part of the problem is Nic Cage isn’t nearly crazy enough in the picture.  Sure he is a serious dead father on a mission but give us a little something; and he oddly loosens up in the film’s final moments of the film.  Cage shows shades of cool and crazy but most of that craziness is left to the very cool William Fichtner.  There is an almost compelling mythology built up in this world of Satanism and insane action but again it never really grabs on and goes with it.

Adding Amber Heard to the mix is a sexy move to bring in some viewers looking for pretty ladies but her necessity to the plot is pointless till the films final scene.  That said, Heard has a lot of fun in the part and dives into the joke as much as you wish Cage would.  Director Patrick Lussier throws a lot of action set pieces at us, most working moderately well, but weak CGI really hurts the film when it rears its ugly head.  The worst instances of this are when the film adds a CG 3D element that couldn’t be convincing in the slightest.  Now, I am sure it isn’t supposed to be photo realistic but the film never fully embraces the silly over the top vibe that it should and has a couple of instances of affectively playing things seriously that make the proceedings quite confusing.  The film almost does a few beats dramatically well but then has crazy bat shit stuff going on in the next scene and you just don’t know how to feel.  It’s the film’s final scene that finally just gives itself over to the tone it should have from the start with some so awful its bad deaths you find yourself wishing for more.

The 3D in the film does look good, minus aforementioned effects, and the film serves as another good example of what quality 3D can look like when simply using a stereoscopic 3D camera.  If only we could have another major big budget tent pole film is released natively in 3D to really cement the medium.  But please, spend some cash on your 3D CGI!

Like I said, the acting is a bit disappointing on the Nicolas Cage front as I was expecting a far more fun and zany turn.  Heard and Fichtner both help make up in the fun department, and Billy Burke tries to out crazy the classic crazy Cage, but you can’t help but feel like there was a lot more craziness to be had.  Fichtner disappears for way to long at times and David Morse is barely even on screen in a role that gives him nothing to do.  Come on Lussier, use your talent.

In the end, Drive Angry 3D had a decent shot of being some good grindhouse fun but fails to capture the charm of even Rodriguez’s lesser genre effort, Machete.  Lussier should have taken a few notes or two on how to embrace the genre whole heartedly and not litter the film with merely moments of crazy fun.  Maybe it was a lack of budget (some of the bullet and action inserts are blatantly awful), maybe they just couldn’t get everything they wanted, but whatever it was they weren’t able to fully capitalize on their premise.  Oh well, had a bit of fun, just wish I had a lot more.

Drive Angry 3D is a D

This week we’ve got one good and a whole bunch of bad (at least in my opinion), with Dorian Gray, The Joneses, The Killers, and Lie to Me: Season 1.

Rent:

Lie to Me: Season One

Now he may be no House, but Cal Lightman is another great character on TV that is easy to love for the reasons the people in the show hate him.  I mean, I wouldn’t want to be around someone who would know when I was lying every time and call me out on it.  Annoying and abrasive, but it makes for some pretty entertaining television.

The show would get old fast if it was simply about a human lie detector, but the show works because it goes much deeper than “he’s lying!  Lock him up!” Obviously not every lie is an admission of guilt, so instead they have to delve deeper into the different suspects’ histories, emotional connections to people, religions, events, and things of that nature to figure out why their face would betray a certain emotion when answering a certain question.  In other words: they might be lying, but not always for the reason you would assume.

The show is also filled with a great cast surrounding Tim Roth as Lightman (who has won me over following his evilness in The Incredible Hulk), and though the first season stuck more to a case-by-case, episode-by-episode basis, there is a lot of potential to further these characters’ relationships to one another.

Final Grade: A-

Possibly Consider

Killers

Like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Killers plays with the idea of mixing top-secret CIA stuff with normal, everyday suburban life and marital issues.

While on a mission in France secret agent Spencer Aimes meets vacationing Jen Kornfeldt, a normal girl who makes him want to leave the business and settle down.  It’s nothing completely original, but for what it’s worth the movie was slightly entertaining when the most random people start coming out of the woodwork as assassins when a price is put on Spencer’s head (though eventually it seems like there are just a little too many secret agents in their lives).  Plus, Ashton Kutcher is also pretty good in his role as Spencer as he juggles these two worlds, as well as putting up with his fish-out-of-water (and slightly annoying) wife, played by Katherine Heigl.

With that said, the story is completely ridiculous and most of what happens doesn’t really seem to make the most sense.  Why on Earth would he tell a girl that he just met that he was a spy (I don’t care how drunk/sleepy she is)?  Why does Heigl come into one of the scenes without her shirt on?  Who carries their gun around between their fingers like a rag they just used to clean dog pee up with?  Why do all movies seem to have someone who is constantly drinking alcohol in quantities that would kill a normal person?

Final Grade: C-

Apparently I Missed Something

(AKA though I hated these movies the masses on IMDB seem to like them a lot more than I do, so if you are intrigued by the concept of the film then maybe you will see something I did not)

Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray tells the story of a wealthy and handsome young man who quickly loses his innocence to vanity after moving to London.  When his friend of the bad influence variety (and who I actually thought was supposed to be the devil for a while… my bad), asks him if he would be willing to give his soul to stay beautiful forever, like in the painting of his portait, he says yes without question.  Somehow this creates a deal with the Devil (I swear the Devil is in here somewhere) or something like that in which he does not age or show degeneration of any sort on his person (like if he gets cut it heals rather quickly).  Instead it is transferred to his painted self.

While his soul is corrupting the film takes the turn towards a soft core porno for the first hour or so of the film, with Dorian getting it on with just about anyone for sport.  Now I have no problem with a sex scene here or there in a film, but eventually this just seemed rather excessive.  Not only that but the music cues were downright weird, coming off like a string of scenes similar to that from 300 when the hunchback guy goes to make a deal with Xerxes in his tent.  You know, the one with malformed people making out and stuff.  Yeah, that one.

During the film the painting takes on a presence that we never quite see until the end, though it is obvious that something bad is happening to it.  How sexual promiscuity leads to physical ugliness is beyond me… (Maybe it’s symbolic… Maybe it is a plethora of STDS… I don’t really know and have lost all interest to care).  All I know is that it starts to freak Dorian out to the point that he hides it, and it also starts to make ridiculous breathing noises that haunt the house from time to time.

In a nutshell Dorian Gray comes off like a poorly executed episode of Supernatural, if Supernatural was horrible.

Final Grade: D

The Joneses

Like Dorian Gray a lot of people really seem to enjoy this film from what I’ve seen.  For the most part I think I can see why because the film really does have an interesting concept to it that is socially relevant.

The Joneses is about a “family” who are actually glorified salesman.  Their job is to move to an area, make everyone in that area jealous of the things they have and want to be them so that sales of the local businesses will skyrocket.  Interesting, but maybe it was how fake these characters were that kept me from connecting to them (maybe watching lie to me has changed me more than I know…). That way when storylines for the individuals came about to reveal something about them, whether it is them coming to terms with leading this kind of life, how they are manipulating decent people for a living, etc., I just really didn’t care.

With that said there was still a bit of humor here or there that didn’t make watching it completely horrible, but like I said, it just isn’t for me.

Final Grade: D

Though I am happier than ever that my mother has remained married to the same non-crazy man for all of my life after watching this film, the concept behind The Stepfather has a much greater impact on this feeling than the film itself, which doesn’t even live up to the other “horror” films of the same caliber (e.g. Disturbia. Yes, I realize that comparing these films may annoy many a film watcher. Let me just stop you right there. I know that both films are remakes and that one came before the other. But just look at them; if you only consider these two remakes then, in a nutshell, the movies are freakishly similar in look, story elements, and bikini-clad girls… This just doesn’t have the comedic power of Shia LeBeouf. Or tension. Now breathe and read the rest of the review when you are ready).
Following the murder of his family, David Harris is in the market for another family to get to know and kill. While perusing the selection at the grocery store, he comes across a family of the perfect quality with Susan and her two children. The next time we see them Susan and David are quickly heading towards the altar and/or a massacre, and Susan’s eldest son, Michael is returning home from military school. For the rest of the film he plays the skeptic and we are left to live through his paranoia of David in concern to his true identity and intentions.
The film starts out strong with a very haunting scene in which David is cleaning himself up after killing a family, making it clear who the bad guy is right away. I commend the film for challenging itself to find a new way to keep an audience intrigued when the mystery has already been revealed, but unfortunately it just doesn’t overcome the challenge. Instead we just get to sit there and live vicariously through the characters as they play catch-up. For the most part the characters in the film are not idiots (well, except maybe the mother. And definitely the daughter. She seemed way too touchy feeling with her soon to be step dad…). They are not just completely oblivious to what is going on and even start investigating and letting their opinions about David be known to Susan. The problem is we learn early on that if a character is too smart for their own good then they are going to die. I mean, why else would we be following random, somewhat unimportant characters around their home if they weren’t going to die in the next minute or so? With the number of skeptics dwindling, we are left with Michael’s paranoia to give us a sense of hope for this man’s comeuppance considering Sarah shields herself from all the obvious “wait-a-tick” signs and his girlfriend Kelly is too busy trying to make a swimsuit-clad girl dripping water all over the house (which you know has to be cold) look natural without a towel wrapped around her.
Though the characters on the whole can be frustrating, especially when considering how easily they are snuck up on, the character that is often the most frustrating is the killer himself. As the film progresses the question as to why he is integrating himself into families only to kill them down the road begins to nag at the audience, but the hope that maybe halfway through there will be a flashback or some revelation of some sort calms the nagging somewhat. But eventually the credits begin to roll and there is still no indicated motivation behind his actions. If a film is strong enough then it can get away with this lack of knowledge and can actually be eerier because the horror cannot be understood, but this is not one of these films in the slightest. Especially considering the fact that this story is slightly based on the real murderer John Emil List, a man who killed his family decades ago. Now that man is creepy, especially considering why he did what he did, but David doesn’t carry this same feeling with him. This is not to say that Dylan Walsh was horrible in the roll at all. He is believable in his family man routine with hints of what is really underneath peaking out occasionally, and has one of his best moments when he finally snaps, but I never really felt scared of him. Which obviously equals a failure for a scary movie.
In the end the early revelation of who the murderer is in The Stepfather is a hindrance because the challenge it presents to make things interesting for the viewer does not seem to be the concern of the film. Instead of a game of who-done-it and questions as to whether a character’s paranoia is warranted, we are left with a simple guessing game of how long it will take the killer to pop out and kill a member of the supporting cast, with an ending that is far from satisfactory enough to make some of the films weak points forgivable.

Final Grade: C

Ruben Fleischer’s feature debut is an extremely fun zombie comedy that is definitely more comedy than any of the many other genres on display here, which isn’t a bad thing since it is frequently hilarious.
The zombie apocalypse is well under way in the United States and the living dead vastly outnumber the living. We follow the path of Columbus, as in his destination is Columbus, Ohio, in which he hopes to find his family still intact. Columbus lives by a set of rules to keep from becoming the living dead, many of which we will get a lesson in over the course of the film. Columbus is a former college student who has now hit the road and he ends up running into and pairing up with a man known as Tallahassee, a bit reckless but a hell of a zombie killer, the two form an unlikely team that is both effective and beneficial to their survival. The pair eventually runs into another couple on the run, this time a pair of sisters, Wichita and Little Rock are their call signs with Wichita being the older and Little Rock a 12 year old on the run. The foursome eventually team up, though not very smoothly and they decide to watch each others backs with the hope of finding a little peace if not what they are looking for.
The film as I mentioned in the opening is quite the genre mash up. One part horror, one part indie romantic comedy, one part action film, and three part comedy the film has a little bit for everyone. The film is first and foremost a comedy, and those looking for the horror/action stuff will find it is rather contained to beginning and the end of the picture with the middle devoted to getting to know these characters and building compassion for them along the way. And the film does that really well by making everyone likeable and fun to be around which also helps elevate the horror and the action of the picture when it is around as we really care about these characters and are hoping none of them bite the dust.
Those looking for a scared though, don’t come in expecting a creep fest. There are a couple of tense and out at you moments, but for the most part it is the graphic gore in the early goings that will get the faint of heart. Though, Fleischer does a nice job of using some of the gore to good comic effect, but after he sets the table through the first couple of scenes there isn’t a lot to worry about over the rest of the picture. This is all too just let you know that it is a comedy genre film not a gross out horror fest, in fact it is more keen to an indie comedy in its structure in pacing than anything else.
The writing in the film is very sharp and the execution of the rules is done incredibly well. The film opens with a run down of the rules, then quickly a scene of Columbus executing them. But the rules pop up over and over again and it is a lot of fun to watch our heroes execute them, and even funnier when they sneak the rules written out subtly in the background.
The cast, though sparse, is fantastic from top to bottom. Jesse Eisenberg is great as always and gets his biggest main stream role yet which he knocks out of the park. Columbus is neurotic, sticks to his rules, and has never really taken risks in his life and Eisenberg does a great job at capturing that but still instilling the snooty confidence the character has. He also makes a potentially unappealing and relatable character likeable and you will find yourself quickly getting behind him in the picture. Woody Harrelson on the other hand has to do very little to win us over. The character is written and created so well, you can’t help but not get behind Tallahassee. Harrelson dives head first into the character and makes him even bigger and better then he is written on the page, providing endless one liners and one of the better characters I have seen in a movie in a while. Emma Stone is sexy, funny, and has a bit of an edge to her that works perfectly for Wichita. The character has some trust issues and Stone nails it, but gives the character depth as she slowly lets down her guard and softens up to her new companions that we first only see with her sister Little Rock. Little Rock is played by the always great Abigail Breslin and it is fun to see her take on a film that is entirely unexpected. She doesn’t have a whole lot to do, but she shines when she does, and throws in a couple of good lines throughout the picture. Amber Heard has another solid turn in a brief appearance in Columbus’ flashback and gets to play both sides of the ball if you catch my drift. The cameo you might have heard of by now is also as good as you hear it is, but I won’t spoil here.
In the end, Zombieland is a grand ole time at the theater and one of the most fun films of the year. It is well crafted and rarely drops a joke, though I wish it had a bit more of the zombie fighting throughout the picture. Again, that’s not to say I was disappointed, I just think Fleischer and company did an excellent job with the action/zombie fighting stuff I wish there was more of it. Other than that, not a whole lot to complain about, maybe a bit better pacing in the middle of the picture but I think that feeling is more attributed to the fact that the zombie stuff dies down a bit and we focus on the characters, which is great just caught me off guard. Check it out if you are a comedy fan, even if you are a bit off put by the horror stuff I promise it won’t diminish your experience.
Zombieland is an A-

Seth Rogen and James Franco star in a stoner/buddy/action/comedy that is usually fairly humorous, but drags at the end and maybe over stayed its welcome a bit too long.
Dale (Seth Rogen) is a process server, handing out subpoenas all day while intermittently getting high between stop to stop. Saul (James Franco) is Dale’s dealer of two months who spends his day watching two TV’s and getting high himself. After a recent stop to Saul’s, in which he and Dale had a bit of a bonding experience over his exclusive rights to the very good Pineapple Express weed, Dale is about to serve Ted Jones (Gary Cole) when he witness him murder and Asian man with the assistance of female cop Carol (Rosie Perez). Dale attempts to flee the scene, making a scene himself ramming into the cars around him, tossing his joint out the window and rushing to Saul’s for help. Jones finds the joint and is able to detect that it is Pineapple Express, hence sending his goons to Saul’s to figure out what just happened and to shut up who ever saw him. The odd couple gets bent out of shape on paranoia and flees into the woods as the try and figure out how they can track them with their ridiculous philosophies. The movie carries on from here as a traditional cat and mouse hunt between Jones and his thugs pursuing Saul and Dale, with a smattering or random faces being pulled into the bigger picture as the overall mess grows bigger and bigger over the significance of Dale witnessing the murder.
The film itself is pretty funny over the course of the first 2/3 of the film or so, with a couple of dragging scenes, but nothing that holds the film back. The actors are allowed to create these silly, but real, conversations and we get to kind of just look in on the bonding among these characters. It is when we get to the predictable and clichéd comedy “break-up” between the leads that the film starts to drag a bit and almost grinds to a halt during the big finale. The film kind of wants to make fun of conventional turns in a film and action set pieces, but for every convention it lampoons it falls right into another. And the action is silly and funny at moments, but also seems like they were trying to make it really cool other times. The director David Gordon Green and scripter’s Rogen and Evan Goldberg just seem to not be able to really settle on what they want the film to be or find a good balance; the action is pretty much mediocre most of the time outside a couple of good explosions here or there. The film overall is a bold attempt to mix a lot of genre’s and it kind of works, kind of doesn’t, but it is definitely not terrible by any means; and many times it is pretty good.
Luckily, any confusion in what the filmmakers were going for is made up for by the solid actors work in the film. Seth Rogen isn’t playing anything terribly new but we aren’t tired of his shtick yet so he continues to easily entertain. I think he is continuously funny because he doesn’t play dumb, even though he might do dumb things; he also spouts some of the best improv lines one could imagine as well. Gary Cole plays a decent bad guy, selling us on the ridiculousness of the coincidences and convoluted plot that come up, with Rosie Perez being pretty much a non-factor in the film. Bill Hader has an excellent and hilarious cameo to open the film, and no you aren’t in the wrong theater when it opens. Danny McBride continues to show up in almost every movie and he is pretty funny as the flip flopping drug middle man for Saul, Red. He has a number of good one liners, and the fight in his house is funny and memorable. Craig Robinson also crafts a unique and odd character as one of Jones’ thugs and you really don’t know what is going to come out of his mouth or what he might do next. His partner in the film played by Kevin Corrigan is a weird anomaly though as I don’t really get what he was supposed to be or why Robinson’s character is reasonably mad at him sometimes, odd. Amber Heard also has a couple of brief appearances as Dale’s girlfriend and she is consistently funny whenever she is on screen.
The stand out though is James Franco and he is worth the price of admission alone to see this film. He is just so out there, and nails that stoner/dealer role to a T, that it is just a joy to watch. Almost everything he says is funny and the film will be worth watching again just to get down some of his one liners you might have missed. Great work Franco.
In the end, Pineapple Express is a fun and silly stoner comedy that has some ok action. Go for the comedy and you will be happy as Franco really shines and the movie is never really dull in that department. The end of the film drags on and on for way to long with nothing really happening and could have been a lot better had they trimmed things up through out. I think Pineapple will grow on subsequent viewings like any good comedy should, but I can’t say I am not a little disappointed as they have seem to have squandered a potentially great premise and got mixed results in the end. Pineapple Express is a good film, with a great turn by James Franco.
B-