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Preview Review: Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3

Rated PG-13

Staring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh

I would like to start out this weeks post with a song. Here we go everyone, sing along:

“Here comes the Men in Black (Men in Blaaaaack)

Galaxy defenders (oahhaooohh ohhh)

Here Comes the Men in Black (Men in Blaaaaack)

They won’t let you remember

Uh uh, uh uh”

Even if you didn’t sing along, hopefully I succeed in putting that song in your head for the rest of the day.

The galaxy defenders known only as the Men in Black are back for the 3^rd time but will it be big enough to knock the Avengers from the top spot?

Agent J (Will Smith) has been working for the MIB for 15 years now and in all that time he thought he’s seen everything the galaxy had to offer but that’s about to change. One day when Smith comes into the office he finds his partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is no where to be found because he died years ago.

How could Agent J have full memory of working with and doing two movies with a man that died 40 years ago? The easy answer would be that someone used one of those memory eraser things on him and implanted his past life. The more complicated, plot hole riddled, Hollywood’s answer for everything, explanation is… time travel. So time travel it is.

First let us forget the fact that if someone traveled back in time and changed the past no one, not even Will Smith, would have any memory of the original past. You have to forget that part because to make this movie work Will Smith has to remember Agent K even though no one else does.

So now Will Smith must go back in time to save K and stop an evil alien invasion from taking over the world. Don’t get too worried over the outcome of his trip because if he failed, and aliens took over the world in the 70’s people living in the present would have already known about it. So let’s just pretend to not acknowledge that little plot hole and continue on with the story.

Now in the past Smith meets up with a younger Agent K played by Josh Brolin. After some convincing, younger K decides to help Smith save the world. Oh yea, and they also ride on those perverted vehicles invented by Mr. Garrison from South Park

I’m a fan of the Men in Black movies. I saw the first two in the theater and although I though the first one was the best, 2 was good for what it was. One of the things that made the first movie so good was the chemistry between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. When I herd the 3^rd film was set in the past with a young version of Agent K I had my doubts.

After seeing the trailer, I still have my doubts but not as many. Like a Skeksis draining a Gelfling, Josh Brolin seems to have captured the essence of Tommy Lee Jones.

I just hope I’m not jumping the gun by praising Brolin’s performance because every preview for this movie only shows him delivering one small sentence and two words, but he does deliver them just like Jones.

The one thing that is bothering me is the whole time travel thing. I love movies about time travel. Back to the Future is one of my all time favorite movies, but the reason I like it, is because the entire movie series was about time travel. I really can’t stand when writers throw time travel into their already established stories.

It really ruins everything because now that I know the Men in Black are capable of time travel I will expect them to use it to solve everything. If they would have used time travel in the first Men in Black they could have just gone back to the point when the droopy faced Vincent D’Onofrio alien showed up and kicked his ass.

I know you might be thinking, “But they didn’t know about time travel in the first movie.” And yes, you’re right. The Agent J and K from the first movie didn’t know about time travel but the Agent J and K from the third movie do. So third movie J and K could go back to the first movie and stop the alien before he killed anyone then stop off in the second movie and talk Johnny Knoxville out of acting for the sake of everyone.

All my complaints about time travel aside, this movie still looks like it’s going to be fun. I think the Men in Black movies have a certain feel to them that have made them successful and the third one seems to picking up right were the others left off. If I can just let my mind go blank and overlook the time paradoxes I think I could really enjoy this movie.

I give Men in Black 3 a Preview Review of 4 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: Battleship

Battleship

Rated PG 13

Staring: Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch

Remember when you were a kid and you would spend your rainy afternoons waging an epic sea battle against the jerk kid from down the street that your mom made you play with? As you called out combinations of letters and numbers praying to hear your opponent scream, (or if you had rich parents, the sound of electronic explosions) can’t you remember thinking, “this is so awesome, someone should make it into a movie”? What, you never thought they should make Battleship into a movie? Well too bad because they did.

During a routine war games exercise the US Navy comes across something very strange. It seems that a large alien ship was hiding just underneath the surface of the ocean just waiting for some hotshot young Navy officer to mess with it. The ship rises out of the ocean and starts blowing up everything and it’s at that point everyone in the theater checks their ticket stub to make sure they’re in the right movie.

Seriously Hollywood, WTF?! I have played a few games of Battleship in my day and I can’t seem to remember there ever being flying alien ships. The only thing this movie has in common with the board game it claims to be based on is that some of the action takes place on the ocean. I say some of the action because the trailer shows the aliens attacking buildings on foot. Once again maybe I wasn’t playing the old game correctly but I don’t’ remember sending in foot soldiers after my enemy.

Probably the biggest problem I have with this movie is that it looks like a Transformers rip-off. That thought entered my head the second I saw the first trailer for this movie and since then I’ve heard countless people say the same thing. Every time a new trailer comes out I watch it frame by frame trying to spot the Decepticon’s logo. This trailer would have made me wet my pants if at the end instead of the word “Battleship” appearing on the screen it said, “Tidal Wave!”

That brings me to another thing that’s bothering me about this flick, the title. As I stated before this movie bears no resemblance to the game it’s based on and that means the only reason it’s called Battleship is to try and feed off peoples nostalgia.

This movie falls into what I like to call “The Godzilla Effect”. In 1998 Hollywood took a crack at making their very own Godzilla movie where they completely ignored the source martial or what made Godzilla popular and just did their own thing and slapped the title “Godzilla” on it in hopes it would put butts in the seats. It didn’t do very well and when the credits rolled every Godzilla fan on the planet screamed “F this noise!”

The problem wasn’t the movie itself, for a mindless summer blockbuster it was semi good, but for a Godzilla movie it was crap. That’s exactly the same boat that Battleship is in. If they would have called the movie anything other than Battleship it wouldn’t be getting all the hate for bitch slapping our childhood.

Universal must be really banking on this movie being a big hit because they seem to be doubling the films budget with advertising. I went to the movies last weekend and stood at the snack counter surrounded by Battleship posters as the cahier handed me my Battleship soda cup and Battleship popcorn container and then I sat down in the theater and watched a Battleship trailer. I don’t know if completely submerging your target audience in visions of your movie is suppose to make me want to see the movie but it’s not working on me.

If you’re one of those people that really want to see the game Battleship represented in movie form then you’re in luck. I just happen to find a clip of what I feel Battleship the movie should be. Enjoy.

I was going to give Battleship a very low rating but I feel that if I just pretend the board game never existed it might turn out to be an ok movie.

I give Battleship a Preview Review of 3 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows

Rated PG-13

Staring: Johnny Depp, Bella Heathcote

Before Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries there was Dark Shadows a gothic soap opera that took daytime TV by storm in the late 60’s. Now the story of vampire Barnabas Collins is ready to hit the big screen with an adaptation by the king of weird ass cinema, Tim Burton.

The mid 1700’s were good to Barnabas who lived as a rich playboy in the town of Collinsport, Main. He ran around town doing the typical playboy thing like scoring all kinds of trim and breaking all kinds of hearts but that all came to an end one day when he messed with the wrong hoochie.

After gaming a sexy bird named Angelique he does what he always does and kicks the bitch to the curb before she gets to clingy but too bad for Barnabas it was too late. She fell deeply in love with him and took the whole break up a little poorly. This normally wouldn’t be of much concern to Barnabas except that Angelique is a witch. Most of the time when a woman’s heart is broken she lashes out by slashing your tires or telling your family you gave her herpes but witches take that shit to a whole nother level.

This witch decides a fair punishment for Barnabas treating her like a common street skank is to turn him into one of the undead and burry his immortal ass in the ground for the rest of time. So Barnabas, now a vampire spends the next 200 years trapped in a coffin until he is accidently freed in 1972. Once he’s released he goes back to his mansion to find it overrun with his very dysfunctional descendants. Now he has to readjust to a world filled with electricity and the Bee Gees and hilarity shall ensue.

This movie follows the classic story structure of a fish out of water and just like Crocodile Dundee, Barnabas is going to become confused with all this modern technology. My only complain about this type of story is that we’re going to have to sit through predictable jokes like him thinking there are really people in the TV, getting hit by a car, or most likely electrocuting himself.

Another thing this movie has against it, or for it depending on your view point is Tim Burton. For me Burton’s movies have been taking a downward spiral over the last couple years. I could watch Beetlejuice, Batman, and Mars Attacks hundreds of times but his latest films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, and Alice in Wonderland I was ok with only seeing once.

The dyed-in-the-wool Burton fans will say his films have never been better and even claim to like the Planet of the Apes remake he did. For them Dark Shadows is a masterpiece  before it even hits the screen, but for me I needed to be convinced to return to the Church of Burton.

Dark Shadows looks like it could be interesting and the paranormal aspect of it is tapping into the Beetlejuice loving part of my brain. I’m sure Johnny Depp will give an amazing performance like he always does and that might be enough to carry the whole movie.

The sad thing about this movie is that good or bad I think it’s going to take a beating at the box office. It’s being released one week after the Avengers, the record holder for the largest opening weekend ever and after seeing how awesome the Avengers movie is I’m pretty sure a lot of people are going to spend their movie going money to see it again or for the first time.

I give Dark Shadows a Preview Review of 3 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: Marvel’s The Avengers

Marvel’s The Avengers

Rated PG-13

Staring, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson

Time to kick off the summer with one of the most anticipated super hero movies of all time The Avengers.

Everything is going along just find here on planet Earth until the evil Norse God Loki shows up to start some shit. Apparently being an all powerful God is not enough for him and he is seeking the ultimate power. What is the ultimate power?

You might know it as the Cosmic Cube or The Tesseract or that thing Red Skull was creaming over in the Captain America movie.

Whatever you call it remember that whoever holds that tiny magic block could control the faith of the entire planet and that’s exactly why Loki and his army of alien bad guys want it.

But Nick Furry Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a plan to stop Loki and all it takes it convincing the world’s superheroes to team up into one freaking awesome team called The Avengers.

Now if you’ve watched any Marvel Movie over the last couple years you already know who the Avengers are but just incase you missed a couple here’s the list. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye and if your still not sure who these people are just turn on your TV because there is a commercial for the Avengers on right… now.

The team has to overcome their super egos and come together if they have any chance at defending the planet and that means lots of fights. We’ve already seen Thor and Iron Man smacking each other around in the trailers and I only hope we get to see Captain America bitch slap Hawkeye.

Following these characters for the last 4 years has been really fun. Every time a new movie came out I was almost more excited over seeing the extra Avenger tease after the credits than the actual movie. Then I would go back and re-watch them on DVD and pick up on all the cool little tie-ins I missed the first time around. Say what you will about Marvel but they sure as hell know how to get people excited for their movies and then actually deliver an enjoyable product. Maybe DC should try something like that.

The movie look amazing and there is no doubt that it will make hundreds of millions of dollars but I just wouldn’t be a critic if I didn’t find something to bitch about. So here are the things I don’t like about the Avengers movie.

  No Edward Norton:

The 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk was the second movie released with an Avengers tie-in. The movie picked up after the 2003 shit bomb Hulk. The Incredible Hulk was about 1000 times better than the first movie but it still had its issues.

The coolest thing about it was having such a great actor like Edward Norton playing Bruce Banner and knowing that he was going to continue playing Banner in the Avengers movie, but if you check out IMDB you’ll see Norton’s name is nowhere to be found and Bruce Banner is being played by Mark Ruffalo.

Now I got nothing against Mark Ruffalo it’s just the reason Norton dropped off the project is a little confusing. Marvel claims he was being difficult and wanted more money but Norton claims it was Marvel that was being difficult and Money was never an issue. I don’t know what the real reason was but it’s sad that people’s egos always seem to get in the way and the fans are the ones that end up getting hurt.

Where’s Henry Pym?

If you were to go out and pick up the first ever issue of the Avengers comic book you would notice that the team looks a little different than those guys on the movie poster. That’s because in the comic the original Avengers were  Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and two other people the non-comic book reading world never herd of, Henry Pym aka Ant-Man and Janet Dyne aka Wasp. Captain America doesn’t even make an appearance until issue 4.

For some reason they decided to replace Ant-Man and Wasp with Black Widow and Hawkeye and that’s just not right. Now I know the whole idea of two people being able to shrink down to insect sizes and one of those people having the power to control ants might seem a bit lame to the big budget Hollywood types, but they were founding member for god’s sake can we at least get a cameo.

 Hawkeyes Sunglasses

I don’t like them. There’s nothing more to it than that, I just think they make him look like a douche.

With those complaints out of the way I would like to say I’ve been looking forward to this movie for years and every trailer, still shot, or TV spot that comes out is just getting me more and more excited. Go see this movie. I fully endorse and recommend it.

I give Marvel’s The Avengers a Preview Review of 5 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: Safe

Safe

Rated R

Staring, Jason Statham, Catherine Chan

Here we go again with another action packed movie staring none other than that transporting cranked up death racer himself, Jason Statham. This time he’s not just taking on one group of baddies but has found himself up against the Russian Mob, corrupt cops, and the Triad. Oh my.

Statham plays Luke Wright a second rate cage fighter whose entire family was murdered by the Russian Mob after he refused to throw a fight. Now he spends his days sitting around the subway station wearing sweatpants and feeling sad. Then one day he takes notice of an Asian school girl, and not in the way most of you are thinking. He notices her because she is being followed by the same Russians that killed his family.

Knowing that these Russians are up to no good he jumps into action. He follows them onto a subway train and beats them all to death and steals that little Asian girl. We all know he’s doing that right thing but any bystanders on that train would think they just witnessed some kind of live version of hobo with a shotgun.

After he saves the little girl he comes to find out that she’s like some kind of Rain Man that can remember everything and the Triad used her Rain Man abilities to store a number combination to a safe. What’s in this safe? I don’t know but everyone wants it and will stop at nothing to get it and that can only mean one thing. Lots of Statham style ass kicking.

One of the things I’m not understanding about this movie is that Statham plays a second rate cage fighter but if he has the skills to single handily beat the shit out of every person he meets   why was he only a second rate cage fighter? Skills like that should have put him among the top athletes to ever step into the octagon. Then again this is a Jason Statham action flick so things like logic kind of go out the window like a bad guy that just caught a spin kick to the face while standing guard on the 50^th floor of a skyscraper.

Now don’t go into this thing looking for some new groundbreaking cinema. It’s an action movie and that means it’s going to be filled with car chases, guns, and face punches galore and if you’re a fan of those kinds of things, and I am, this is going to be a sweet movie.

The only draw back to the action movie is they can be a bit predictable and I have a feeling this one is no different. We all know the to good guys will win and the bad guys will lose and there is no way in hell they’re going to let a 12 year old girl get killed but the beauty of these movies in the violence.

People are going to get killed in this movie and it’s the question of how are they going to die that brings us back to watch the same basic story over and over again. Now I’m not knocking the genre because I love action movies I just wish sometimes they would shake things up by having the bad guys win.

Overall I think Safe is going to be a solid R rated action movie that will keep you entertained enough with awesome fight sequences to forget the story is just ok.

I give Safe a Preview Review of 4 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: The Lucky One

 Zac Efron is a Marine that just got back from his third tour of duty (ha ha… duty) in Iraq. The one thing that gave him the strength to survive besides the best military training in the world was a picture of a woman he found. After most likely using the picture as an epic fap aid he decides it might be a good idea to find this mysterious woman. Let the stalking begin!

He finds out her name is Beth and where see lives then he just shows up at her house, you know to just say “hi.” Then in an effort to never leave his prey out of his sight he gets a job at her family run kennel. Then at some point breaks the news to her that he has been insanely obsessed with her to the point of being scary.

After a little time she finally comes around to the fact that a stalker can turn out to be a sensitive lover and they will live happily ever after.

My biggest problem with this movie besides it being another predictable lame ass love story designed to make women question why their husbands/boyfriends don’t act that romantic is that it’s complete bullshit.

The dude is a stalker! He spends countless hours obsessing over a woman he doesn’t know and tracks her down with his head filled with the belief she will want to marry him or at least give him a handy. Any woman on the planet would call the cops the second the guy showed up at her house but Beth doesn’t because her stalker just happens to be Zac Efron proving once again that most things women feel threatened or offended by like sexual harassment or watching them from the bushes don’t seem like a big deal as long as the guy doing it has classic good looks.

Another thing I’m wondering about is how did her picture end up in Iraq? I can think of only two possibilities and both of them make Efron look like a giant dick.

1. The picture was obviously brought to the Middle East by another American solider who was in love with Beth and in the middle of defending our freedom accidently dropped it as he threw a grenade into a school house filled with terrorists. Then Efron shows up and finds the picture laying there and doesn’t really care that the woman might be married to a fellow Marine and the mother of his children. All he knows is she’s hot and he is going to find her and make her his.
2.  The other possibility is that the fellow Marine that dropped the picture dropped it because he died in the line of duty. That means Efron is going to track down the recently widowed wife of one of his brothers in arm and try to bang the hell out of her possibly during the funeral. Semper Fi!

And where did they get the title for this movie, The Lucky One? Who’s the lucky one? Is it Zac because survived a war and he doesn’t get thrown in jail for his illegal behavior, or is it suppose to be Beth because even though she might have lost her husband in the war she still gets to sleep with Efron? Well I’ll tell you who isn’t “The Lucky One” anyone that has to sit through this movie, that’s who.

Now don’t think I’m hating on this movie just because it’s a love story. Sometimes love story movies can be good but most of the time they are campy crap designed to do nothing but try and make women cry and that is exactly what The Lucky One is.

I give The Lucky One a Preview Review of 1 out of 5 Rascals

Preview Review: Lockout

Lockout

Rated PG-13

Staring: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace

What’s better than seeing explosions and people getting brutally killed all while some badass hero throws out one-liners? How about if it takes place in space? Science Fiction Action Movies have got to be my favorite type of movies. The Fifth Element, Chronicles of Riddick, Star Ship Troopers, Total Recall, and Escape for New York are some of the best movies ever made. Will Lockout live up to any of them?

The Government finally decided to blast all the world’s most violent criminals off the planet. Unfortunately instead of sending them right into the sun like they should have they sent them to a maximum security space station that’s in orbit around Earth and since Governments aren’t really know for their creativity they called this maximum security prison that’s the first of it’s kind MS One.

MS One was going through another typical day of shower rapes and shankings when the prisoners decided to take over. After a very bloody riot and many deaths the prisoners take control of the space station. The solution to this problem seems pretty easy, nuke them. Just blow up the space station killing all the bad guys and then start construction on MS Two. The problem is that for reason the President’s daughter was visiting the station on some kind of stupid government funded project and we all know the children of elected officials are way more important than say your typical high school educated prison guard so blowing it up isn’t an option.

After going through the personal files of all the well trained dedicated military personal they have at their disposal it is decided the best course of action is to force a guy that doesn’t even give a shit about the President or his daughter to risk his life to save her. Now Guy Pearce, or as his know in the movie Agent Snow has to fly into space and single handily take on thousands of hardened killers to save the president’s child. And you thought Sinbad had if bad in “First Kid.”

The plot of this movie is very Escape from New York. It’s almost like they wanted to make a third movie in the Snake Plissken saga but thought after New York and LA the idea of the Government tricking Snake a third time was just too unbelievable so they just made up a new guy to be the President’s plaything.

As I watch this trailer I can’t help thinking the only thing that could make this movie better besides Kurt Russell would be an R rating. This movie is the type of movie the R rating was made for. I know the real reason most movies hold back to get the PG-13 is because the studio wants as many people as possible to be able to see it and when they put an R rating on it teenagers can’t see it without parental consent and when the movie clerk tells them they aren’t allowed to see it they’ll just go watch the Hunger Games for the 4^th time.

I just wonder how the pitch meeting went for this movie. When a film maker tells a studio he wants to make a movie about a bunch of psychopathic killers taking over their prison by any means necessary and they have to send in a super solider type guy to kill all of them, what is it in the Studio executives head that tells him that’s the type of move kids should see?

When I first saw the previews for this months ago I was pretty excited and while I do have problems with the unoriginality and the rating I still want to see it. It looks like a fun over the top action flick with cheesy smart ass one liners that would make Duke Nukem proud.

  I give Lockout a Preview Review of 4 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: American Reunion

American Reunion

Rated R

Staring: Jason Biggs Alyson Hannigan

There is no stopping it, we are all getting older. After high school we all and went on to get jobs and families and even some of our favorite movie characters are going through the same thing and that is exactly what American Reunion is trying to show us.

It’s been 13 years since we first got introduced to Jim, Stifler, Oz, Finch, that kid from Rookie of the Year, and my personal favorite Jim’s Dad and it’s been 9 years since we last left them at the Jim’s wedding. So what have they been doing all these years? Well that is a question that I’m sure every person in the world has asked themselves.

I can remember times when me and my best friends all got together for a sleepover and after all the pillow fights, pedicures, and daring each other to direct message girls on Facebook we would spend hours wondering how our American Pie friends were doing. How is Jim and Michelle’s marriage going, when will Stifler finally grow up, and will Finch ever find true love, are just a few of the questions we would ponder over. Oh wait that never happened because I couldn’t give a flying shit about these people.

Whether or not I care about what’s going on in the AP circle doesn’t seem to matter because they made the movie anyway. So now we get see them all come back into to town for their high school reunion and it appears that nothing has changed. Oz and Rookie of the Year are still pining over the female Gremlin looking Mena Suvari and Tara “Hot Mess” Reid respectively, Finch is still obsessed with banging Stifler’s Mom, Stifler is still the immature jock D-bag, and Jim is still having awkward conversations with his dad and not getting laid. The only difference is now they have jobs. I really can’t seem to shake the feeling they only made this movie because 99% of the cast has nothing better to do and are tired of working at McDonalds.

I thought the whole American Pie thing was run into the ground when they started making straight to DVD movies about Jim’s Dad and Stifler’s cousins. If you include those DVD movies that would make American Reunion the 8^th movie in the series. Even Police Academy and Saw stopped after 7.

I’ve watched the trailer a couple times and honestly it didn’t seem that funny to me. The funniest thing in the trailer by far is Stilfer pooping in a beer cooler but that was it. Maybe they’re saving all their best stuff for the actual movie or maybe they got nothing and this is a desperate money grab trying to trick the original fans out of some cash.

The big question is when are they going to stop making these? Are we going to have another one of these movie pop up every couple years for every milestone in their lives all finally ending with the 2060 release of American Funeral.

Over all the movie looks like it will have a few laughs but nothing to be remembered and either way if its good or bad people will still claim the first movie is the best.

I give American Reunion a Preview Review of 2 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: Wrath of the Titans!

Wrath of the Titans

Rated PG-13

Staring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson

It’s been 10 years since Perseus was clashing around with some Titans and instead of ruling a kingdom on Earth like a powerful demigod should he’s decided to take it easy or at least as easy as a half god that rides on a flying horse and cuts off the heads of monsters can.

After one defeats a giant sea monster and basically saves the world they tend to find themselves knee deep in the vag and that is exactly where Perseus was found.

Unfortunately for him ancient Greece might have been a treasure trove of mystical beasts and wizardry but they were a little lacking when it came to their knowledge of birth control. Now Perseus has a 10 year old son and he’s left raising him on his own because the mother, (most likely some Kraken killing groupie) is no longer around.

I would have thought being a Titan slayer would have make Perseus enough money to live like a king till the end of days but times are tough for all of us and he has found himself working as a fisherman in a small village. Everything is going well for Perseus and his little bastard son until Zeus shows up and drops a bomb.

It turns out that even in a world where people actually see and interact with God they still don’t believe in him and when people stop believing in Gods they stop praying to them and we all now prayers like Monster Energy Drink to the Gods.  All that lack of devotion is making the Gods weak and sluggish and that is giving their sworn enemies, the Titans the opportunity they need to fight back and now they are calling on Perseus to wash the smell of old fish from his person and get back in the game.

When I herd they were making a sequel to Clash of the Titans I thought “Oh great, now Hollywood isn’t satisfied with just remaking movies they have to make sequels for the remakes too.” Then the first trailer came out and even though the action and effects looked good they paired it with the song Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson, which I’d like to point out is also a remake.

The song kind of soured me against this movie. It might be a cool song but any movie that is based in ancient times with men fighting to the death against a Cyclops needs to be scored with orchestra/classical music not something that played on MTV. Just think how bad the trailer for the new Hobbit movie would have been if it was set to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem.

After watching a couple trailers for Wrath that didn’t include industrial rock I started getting more into it and it actually looks like it might be an entertaining movie. This might even end up being better than Clash of the Titans. The Titans look pretty bad ass, we don’t already know the ending, and no one can complain about the original being better because this technically isn’t a remake it’s a fictional continuation of the original story, just like fan fiction. In fact I wish they never made the Clash of the Titans remake and when straight to the sequel.

I might be a little bit more excited for this than I should be but after last years failure with the Immortals and Hollywood not getting around to making a God of War movie I’m ready to see actual giant Titans fighting to take over the world!

I give Wrath of the Titans a Preview Review of 4 out of 5 Rascals.

Preview Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

Rated PG13

Staring, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson

Nothing brings in the people like teenagers brutally fighting to their bloody death and that is exactly what this week’s big movie release, The Hunger Games, is all about.

So the world is pretty much shit and the government controls everything. As a punishment for past uprisings and just to let people know whose boss the evil Government forces each of its 12 districts to offer up a teenage boy and girl. (Almost like Caligula but without all the freaky love making.) Then the chosen teens must fight to the death on what is guaranteed to be the highest rated reality TV show ever.

When Jennifer “little Mystique” Lawrence’s little sister gets picked to go to the Hunger Games she volunteers taking her sisters spot as district 12’s female competitor. She is then whisked away to a possibly short life as a TV celebrity. After taking a look at all her competitors I think she has a pretty good chance of winning. The only one that might pose a problem is the competitor from District 9.

There is a lot of talk online about the Hunger Games being a rip-off of a Japanese novel/movie called Battle Royale. I can see where they’re coming from because it’s basically the same concept. Evil Government collects a bunch of kids and makes them fight to the death. The only real difference is The Hunger Games takes a page from the Death Race 2000 playbook and televises it for entrainment purposes and Battle Royale does it as a secret military experiment. Instead of a rip-off I would like to think of these movies as being part of the same universe were Battle Royale is just a prequel to The Hunger Games.

So from now on remember if you ever post anything online about liking the Hunger Games some smart ass will call it a rip-off and claim Battle Royal is better. Is Battle Royal better than the Hunger Games? It all comes down to taste but remember Hunger Games isn’t going to have any decapitated kids with grenades in their mouths.

I’m not sure how to rate this movie because it looks like it should be pretty good but then it is based on a teen novel and ever since Twilight the words “teen novel” makes me cringe. The studio is pretty confident they have a winner and even started selling tickets for it a month ago but once again like Twilight just because a bunch of people that loved the books sellout the midnight showing doesn’t mean it’s a good movie.

The action looks good for being a PG-13 movie and Jennifer Lawrence is a solid actor so as long as there’s not too much lame ass drama I think I can get behind the Hunger Games. I’m just not going to see it opening weekend.

I give The Hunger Games a Preview Review of 4 out of 5 Rascals.