Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

Not having read the Harry Potter series at all – indeed, knowing nothing about it except it was hugely succesful at the box office – I went into the cinema expecting nothing more than a mildly entertaining romp for children, hopefully with a few elements that might appeal to the older crew.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. The storyline itself was mildly interesting, but I found myself making comparisons to the Phantom Menace – a bunch of things happen at the start, then there’s this dumb visual spectacle (pod race / the weird ball game they play), then the rest of the movie happens again. The movie was pretty long, packed with impressive visuals, a storyline implemented in such a way as to really only appeal to children (ie, none of the smart subtle wit that appears in some movies like Shrek/Monsters Inc).

It was quite good on the big screen – the visuals make up quite a lot of the movie. Fans of the book series will no doubt enjoy seeing it come to life, though I can’t vouch for the accuracy of reproduction. Judging from the success of the movie, I’d say its probably pretty close. One to take the kids to.

American Pie 2

As far as teen comedies go, it is pretty safe to say American Pie is one of the best in the last few years. Some outstanding comedy supported by a great cast, it rates as one of my personal favourites. So of course, I was anticipating the next one hugely. For some weird reason, Australia got it months after the US did, and I’d heard a lot of preliminary reports that it was a great sequel, which raised my expectations.

To summarise, I was let down. A lot of variations on the same old jokes. Stiffler, one of the best characters from the first movie, was horribly overused and seemed he just walked around saying ‘fuckface’ to everyone. It would have been great if he’d had the same minor sort of role in the first one. Kevin and Oz, probably the least interesting characters from the first movie, had silly sub-plots in the sequel that were just boring and detracted from the antics. A lot of the original cast were there; Nadia, Sherman, the MILF guys, all carrying on in the same sort of way. Everything was just boringly rehashed into a boring new story.

Wait for video. Even better, just get the original again, and don’t spoil it by getting American Pie 2 out.

Training Day

Starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, a bit of Scott Glenn, a couple of rap stars and a bunch of other gangsta-looking dudes, Training Day got a bit of attention as it portrayed Denzel in a more evil role than he normally gets. Ethan plays the rookie, assigned to become a narc and work with Denzel’s hardcore team of lawgivers.

Ethan is quickly and harshly introduced to a totally different world of policing than he is used to, and what follows is a vaguely interesting romp through gang culture in the US. Everything was pretty decent but after seeing the trailers I found most of it pretty obvious – Ethan gets set up into working the dark side, then tries to figure a way out.

Personally, I didn’t like Denzel as a bad guy. He had the same smooth way of talking as he always does, occaisionally lapsing into gansta rap talk to try and give him some credibility as the bad guy. After watching him be the good guy in so many roles, I guess I just found it hard to accept mentally.

Overall, a mildly entertaining romp, more suspense than action. Ethan does a good job as the new kid on the block and the supporting gangsta cast are quite evil and had me sincerely hoping that real life isn’t quite like that. Not so much a big screen movie so it is safe to wait for video.

AI Review

AI took a while to come out in Australia, and as a result there was a bit more exposure to public reaction from the US that I saw before I actually was able to check out the movie for myself. Most of the feedback I’d heard was fairly negative; many people didn’t like it and were complaining that it was long and boring. So, I went into it not expecting too much, despite the fact that it was a Steven Spielberg movie, arguably one of the best directors to grace the credits with his name.

The story is set in the future; the world is (of course) a different place. Kind of like Waterworldy, but society hasn’t totally collapsed and it’s not as wet. Robot servants (mechas) are the thing of the times, and due to population restrictions, there are many couples that yearn for children. Of course, a company soon picks up on the idea of the fortune that could be made providing mecha children. The plot focuses on one such couple who actually has a child license and a son, who is in a coma. They’re given the first beta version of the child mecha series David, played by Haley Joel Osment, the kid from Sixth Sense.

After a few little amusing mishaps, the couple finally start to get into the whole having a cyborg child thing, but then their real son wakes up and is given the whole homecoming treatment. Trouble ensues when both sons become jealous of the parents, but of course the fake child quickly loses out, and is shafted by his parents. Unfortunately, by this stage, he’s been irreversably imprinted with love for his parents, and this is his overwhelming thought process.

David is cast aside, alone in the big cruel world, and he begins a quest to try and make himself a real boy, in the hope that his mother will love him again. In his travels, he hooks up with Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), who tries to help him out.

While the story is long, I didn’t find myself losing interest. Its a pretty sad story – David is consumed by nothing but love for his mother, and the tale of his search for salvation is full of misadventures. Osment does a good job as the robot boy, and he’s joined in his wanderings by what is undoubtably the coolest character the movie – Teddy, the robot bear.

One other thing of note, this was the first time I’d seen the World Trade Center in a movie since the twin towers were destroyed on September 11, 2000 in a terrorist attack, and it was interesting to note the murmur from the crowd when they came into view. The towers in the movie are partially destroyed and sitting in water; it was eerily coincidental.

Overall – I really enjoyed this movie. Its possible to babble on for hours about the story – its a long movie and a lot happens – but suffice to say it is definitely an interesting watch. There’s some cool effects, but nothing you can’t wait for video for. People with short attention spans might find themselves drifting in and out, and the ending might seem a little disjointed, but I found myself coming out of the movie feeling that my movie money was well-spent.

Rush Hour 2

One that I was really looking forward to after hearing about how well it had done in the US, was Rush Hour 2. This is, of course, the sequel to the hugely popular Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker Hollywoodised beat-up-athon. The original was great, funny and some great action scenes.

Unfortunately, I was a bit let down by the sequel. Chris Tucker’s character is so damn annoying I found it hard to focus on anything else. There were some funny scenes, sure, and some decent Kung Fu action, but I found a lot of it really boring. A lot of the humour was in-your-face, non-politically-correct shock value stuff, which sucked. The funniest part was the outtakes.

Put simply, the story is – Tucker is the same cop, on holidays with Chan in Hong Kong. Triad bosses are running riot, a bomb explodes in the US Embassy, chaos is reigning. They have to solve the crimes, and much fun is had by all, etc.

Also featured in this movie is the awesome Zhang Zi Yi, the girl from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, who plays an evil ninja chick, and does a great job. Don Cheadle also has an almost-inexplicable bit part, so small that I don’t even remember what the hell he was doing there.

Overall, another one that is safe to wait for video. Nothing really in there that makes it worth seeing on the big screen. As a Jackie Chan movie, its average at best – nowhere near enough hardcore stunts and fighting scenes for my liking.

Final Fantasy

Not being much of a console person, I don’t really know anything about Final Fantasy. I wrote a small feature on the series for Wireplay in July, which if anything left me knowing slighlty less about it than I did before. However, I do know enough to know that it is one of the longest running series of games, kicking off way back in 1987 and having some extremely huge hits, more so of late.

So because of this, it is safe to say that my interest in the movie wasn’t really piqued – at least, until I saw the trailer for the movie, as well as some of the stills. Needless to say, I turned around pretty quickly; the quality of the visuals was quite simply stunning and, in my humble opinion, unlike anything to grace the silver screen before.

The plot is sort of what I expected – a little bit weird. Basically, the story is set on Earth, after it has been invaded by invisible ghosts that suck people’s spirits away. The movie starts with the main character, Dr Aki Ross, as she continues her quest to try and find a way to battle the creatures by studying them and learning their secrets. Without going into the plot in too much detail, the story focuses on her and a bunch of others as they cruise around battling the monsters looking for a way to defeat them. Unfortunately, there’s the usual bad guy sort, General Hein, a black-clad military leader who inexplicably just wants to try blowing them up.

As mentioned, and as you can see in the trailer and wallpapers, the visuals are breathtaking. Everything is rendered in exquisite detail, perfectly modelled, accurately textured, and painstakingly animated – all the elements combine into a movie that is simply stunning to watch when you consider it was all generated on a computer.

The soundtrack fits in well, and the sound effects are pretty well done; nothing really exciting here. Its worth mentioning the big names that do the voices – Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Donald Sutherland and James Woods all do voices for the lead animated characters. I didn’t actually know any of them were doing voices, so it was cool picking some of them up during the movie.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching it. Some of the plot stuff was a little weird – it seemed very Japanese/anime focused and the tentacles and big blobby glowing masses were all over the place. Despite this, is was fun to watch – I supposed I should confess I spent a lot of time just with my mouth slightly open and glazed eyes as I was marvelling at the effects though. Good to see on the big screen for the effects but should look great on DVD as well.

Evolution

Directed by Ivan Reitman of Ghostbusters fame (as well as a bunch of other classics like Stripes, Kindergarten Cop, Dave, Six Days Seven Nights) I had pretty high hopes for Evolution. Starring David Duchovny, Orlando Jones and Seann William Scott (as well as a brief appearance by Dan Aykroyd, who now ironically resembles the Marshmallow Man). The addition of Scott (aka Stifler from American Pie) was undoubtably going to make this movie appealing.

The plot is pretty simple. Scott plays a trainee fireman dude, who – whilst performing amusing antics with a dummy to practice for his fireman test – happens to witness something plummet from space and explode into the ground, taking his car along with it. The services of Orlando Jones, a college teacher type who moonlights for the US Geological Service are called into play, and he takes his chemistry professor buddy along for the ride as they go out to the impact zone.

Upon arriving, they find a large meteorite (as distinct from meteor, because we all know meteorites occur when something from space hits the ground!) Some brief investigation leads to the discovery of a goopy substance, which further examination reveals to have single-celled life forms in it. This is, of course, incredibly exciting and fortune and fame soon beckons.

However, in a very X-Files, the government swoops in and takes over the investigation. The compulsory love interest arrives on scene, played by Julianne Moore, who for some reason in incredibly uncoordinated. The audience is subject to several scenes where she does incredibly hilarious things, like tripping over, and dropping stuff. Great stuff. She is, unfortunately, working for the government, so there’s a bit of a love-hate vibe happening throughout the movie.

The plot continues quite simply by making the alien life forms evolve into nasty things that eat people. Some nice special effects for the aliens combined with some witty dialogue make this pretty entertaining. There’s some absolutely hilarious bits, which are unfortunately a bit far between – the rest of the movie is merely a gentle giggle-fest, but its worth seeing for the really funny bits. As usual, the best humour are the ass-and-fart jokes.

Overall, its a fun movie to watch. It is by no means a classic, but has enough funny bits in it to make it worthwhile. Duchovny is good, even though he is basically Mulder. Orlando is pretty funny, and Scott is unfortunately not as cool outside of his role as teenage dude. Safe to wait for video, though some of the effects are pretty cool, but don’t really warrant a trip to the cinema.