Mini Movie Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

Hello, gentle reader! Have you seen the new X-Men movie yet? Are you going to? Do you wish to avoid spoilers? Then turn back now! Rather than parcel out the little observations to timepoints like usual, I'm going to do something different today, and just point at the scenes that stood out for being either awesome or... less so. The reviews for this movie have been brutal, and though I'm about to nitpick the everloving shit out of it, I can't agree with the detractors. Yes, it's deeply silly in parts, but I thought it was perfectly enjoyable, overall. That said, let's get to the fun part. Pointless complaints!

-So, wait. I can totally accept that humans have developed some impressive futuristic technology and that evolution has led to mutated humans with special powers. That said, this world is still based on science and technology, right? Not magic? Because I don't understand how all this upward-gold-flowing-glowing-pyramid bullshit is happening in the first scene.

-And this ancient relic has lain silent and undisturbed for centuries, despite the fact that it is literally twenty feet below the streets of Egypt. Like, you could open a manhole cover and see it.

-Apocalypse awakens and wants to wipe the world clean because...REASONS.

-Cyclops gets in trouble for asking to leave class early. Literally ten seconds early. So #1: See if you can hold in that burgeoning power for five seconds, Scott, and #2: Shut up, teacher.

-I know Jennifer Lawrence hates the makeup, which explains why there's very little blue Mystique in this movie. What it doesn't explain is why there's so little Mystique-in-other-forms. I think I counted two impersonations in the 144-minute running time.

-"Hi, Psylocke! Want to join the evil team?" "Sure." "Why?" "Because...REASONS."

-Stop leaving Jubilee out of stuff! Yes, her powers are useless, but I like her for no discernible reason!

-Hey, soldiers? I'll accept that the first three to five of you die because you didn't realize that the bullets aren't hurting Wolverine. But maybe the twentieth guy shouldn't just stand there blasting away?

-There was really no need for Magneto to be in this movie at all, but I understand why they wanted Michael Fassbender back. That said, it's getting worse and worse the amount of shit they need to shovel onto him to put him in enough pain to turn evil yet again.

-Though his initial re-entry into evil is a cool scene, the foreshadowing could not have been more blatant. Here's Erik in a sun-dappled cottage with a loving wife and adorable daughter! Nothing bad could possibly happen to them!

-He's a smart guy. How come a handful of bad people = Let's wipe out the human race, but a handful of bad mutants = NBD?

-And what's his plan, anyway? Destroy the world, and then what? What comes next for him? It doesn't matter, because...REASONS.

-Oh, it's not fair. The Quicksilver scene was the best thing about Days of Future Past, and guess what? It's the best thing in this one, too. Sure, it's a blatant rehash, but it totally works.

-I know there was some timeline resetting in the franchise, so maybe it's not a giant plothole that Mystique and Nightcrawler meet in this movie. Because they don't know each other when they meet in X2. And that's entirely leaving out the comics canon of her being his mother, because in both movies, they're basically the same age.

-I sure hope Storm gets more than four minutes of screentime in the next one.

-Jean, since you're the most powerful mutant on Earth or whatever, maybe you could do something besides standing around looking perturbed until someone asks for your help. Take some initiative! Even if it's not mutant-related, you could maybe try to aid your wounded friends!

-If we must have an origin story for Dr. Xavier's baldness, you could do a lot worse.

-Dr. Xavier immediately forgives Magneto and wants him to stay on at the school. I guess no repercussions for those thousands of people he just killed, because...REASONS.

X-Men: Apocalypse: B

Mini Movie Review: Spectre

Hey, there! Seen the new Bond flick yet? If not, are you going to? If so, maybe skip this post for now, because SPOILERS AHEAD!

-3:43 PM
We arrive at the Esquire, and I head straight for the concession stand. Not for snacks, but for my Twisting Napkins. I get fidgety during thrillers and need to keep my hands busy.

-3:47 PM
Approximately 1.2 billion previews. The topic of how NFL ignores the problem of concussions is an interesting one, but that trailer is just wretched. If I have to hear Will Smith say "TELL THE TROOOOTH!" in that accent one more time, I'm gonna give myself a concussion.

-3:55 PM
The opening scene takes place at the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico City. No doubt the movie plays up the intricacy of the costumes and such, but goddamn, it looks fun.

-3:59 PM
Bond, who is apparently concerned with the lives of innocent people, fires into a hotel window to explode a bomb meant for a stadium full of people. This has the result of completely crushing half a city block of Mexico City, so...let's hope nobody but the bad guys were in those two buildings, I guess?

-4:01 PM
Except for the four people on the street directly outside the ruined buildings, nobody seems to care very much about what just happened. On with the parade!

-4:11 PM
Instead of just holding a gun on an enemy helicopter pilot (you know, like they did in Goldeneye), Bond just murders him and sends the helicopter into a tailspin over the crowded festival. Who do we think has less regard for civilian lives: James Bond or Superman?

-4:15 PM
Opening credits. The visuals are amazing. Sam Smith's song is...not.

-4:39 PM
Bond sleeps with Monica Bellucci, who is not only beautiful, but shockingly age-appropriate for him.

-4:59 PM
We're introduce to Dave Bautista, who is to serve as the main henchman, though I don't think it's giving away too much to mention that he doesn't do much henching. I believe his sole kill of the movie is here, as he calmly murders another bad guy who doesn't even attempt to fight back.

-5:01 PM
Oh, and since this convention Bond just wandered into is EvilCon 2015, we also meet Christoph Waltz's main villain. They stretch this out, but let's just put it out there: He's Blofeld. As with all the Bond villains lately, he's smug and fey. I think it's time to bring back some of the hammier villains.

-5:12 PM
Bond confronts one of his old enemies that I haven't bothered to remember from a previous movie. The man has been poisoned, and after giving Bond some info about his daughter to go follow-up on, he commits suicide. This is all caught on tape.

-5:15 PM
We meet the daughter, who is then immediately kidnapped, though I'm not sure why the bad guys don't just kill her. It's not like she has anything they need.

-5:22 PM
"Hi, I'm Q. I'll just go ahead and do my top-secret spywork out here in public. With a stranger sitting two feet away. NOBODY WATCH ME, PLEASE."

-5:27 PM
The United States and China agree to share a single intelligence network. Sure, it's not like those two will ever want to spy on each other.

-5:33 PM
Dave Bautista eats it in an anti-climactic moment after an anti-climactic chase. Thanks for dropping by, I guess.

-5:36 PM
A torture scene where the torture has absolutely zero effect on its victim.

-5:38 PM
One bullet causes an entire building to blow up. I feel like that's a solvable architectural issue, Mr. Blofeld.

-5:49 PM
Blofeld apparently has the time to set up a Midwestern haunted house. Like, who printed out all those pictures of the faces meant to haunt Bond?

-5:52 PM
Bond takes down another aircraft which is flying over another densely-populated city. Please stop trying to kill innocent civilians, 007.

-6:02 PM
Weaselly sub-villain who's been too boring to mention until now dies unspectacularly. Blofeld gets arrested, but survives to evil another day.

All-in-all, this was a pretty disappointing Bond movie. The Day of the Dead sequence was neat, but everything after that was just a shell of what these movies are supposed to be. The bad guys aren't that bad, the good guys aren't that good, the plot is under-baked, and for a movie that's supposed to have dire consequences for the globe's populace, it didn't really involve much beyond the half dozen core cast members. In every interview he's done about this, Daniel Craig has appeared cranky and lackluster about this project. Now I see why.

Spectre: C+

Mini Movie Review: San Andreas

It's a disaster movie, so you should kind of know what you're getting into, but fine... WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! If a plot point is ruined for you, it's not my fault. Fault, get it?!?! *rimshot*

-7:15 PM
A couple of friends and I arrive at the Esquire, which I haven't been to since they upgraded it to be all fancy. I've talked about the...general audience at the Esquire before, so it was interesting to see how the new venue would change that. Answer? Still some hooting at the screen, but less of it. Science!

-7:30 PM
A bazillion previews, all of which look awful, except for one, which rose above awful to achieve looking maybe possibly worth a Netflix viewing if I'm bored one day and it's available for instant streaming.

-7:45 PM
A girl goes over a cliff in her car, and what's weird is that it's caused by a rockslide, and not by her texting while driving. Maybe God hates her for doing that.

-7:50 PM
The girl's tumble and subsequent rescue by the emergency response team, led by Mr. The Rock, has the worst CGI of the movie. Her car looks like it was animated by that movie-making game designed for Windows 95.

-8:00 PM
Exposition Man (Paul Giamatti) and his sidekick Explanatory Girl (Archie Panjabi) lay out the groundwork (GET IT?!?!). He's trying to develop a system of predicting earthquakes in order to warn people when one is coming. Unfortunately, he perfects this system about nine seconds before one hits.

-8:06 PM
Which leads to the billionth death caused by a stupid kid who refuses to run when danger is looming. Oh, wait! That billionth stupid kid already exists! So we're up to a billion and one.

-8:11 PM
Mr. The Rock gets a text from his bosses, asking him to report in, since there's been a quake, and they need him to, you know, do his job as a first responder. His response is to ignore this, and to take a helicopter to go look for his ex-wife. Guess that helicopter couldn't have been used for anything else during this disaster.

-8:19 PM
Hey, what's Constable Collins doing here? Go back to 1920s Australia, where you belong!

-8:21 PM
Apparently the escalating earthquakes aren't enough of a villain, so they toss in Ioan Gruffudd, whose cowardly abandonment of Mr. The Rock's daughter isn't enough of a dick move, so they advance to have him straight up murder someone.

-8:28 PM
Mr. The Rock's daughter may look nothing like him, but they do share one important family trait: Happening upon emergency supplies and stealing them.

-8:32 PM
I always like to watch the extras in the background, and I'm wondering if this group of people smiling and laughing as the citizens of San Francisco are evacuating were told to do that, or if I've just caught a blooper.

-8:35 PM
OK, I goofed on the special effects earlier, but the scene of a tidal wave hitting the Golden Gate Bridge looks pretty damn realistic.

-8:36 PM
Bad guy goes squish.

-8:39 PM
A character who's been shown to have a disabling leg injury is now running around faster than Usain Bolt.

-8:40 PM
A character that has been good and drowned for about ten minutes is successfully revived with CPR with no ill effects.

-8:59 PM
"What do we do now?"
-"We rebuild."
"OK, but I meant what do WE do now? Like, what are our practical next steps now that the entire state is demolished?"

I made one of those sentences up.

-9:04 PM
The movie ends on an inspirational unfurling of a grand American flag, because... Earthquakes only happen in the United States? Earthquakes in the USA are more bitchin'? Earthquakes are patriotic? Sure, whatever.

Is this a good movie? Nah. But is it a good disaster movie? Yeah, it wasn't half bad. There are plenty of things to mock (as you've seen), but it had some legitimately thrilling scenes, some legitimately good effects, was decently-acted, and was a delightful way to pass the evening with friends. It won't win any Oscars, but compared to The Day After Tomorrow, it's practically Citizen Kane.

San Andreas: C+

Mini Movie Review: Man of Steel

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

-2:00 PM
Meeting up with Dad before the movie.

Dad: "How are things? Financially and such? Are you holding your own?"
Limecrete: "I'm not flourishing, but things are OK."
Dad (looking me over): "I see you're eating well."

Fathers' Day!

-3:00 PM
The previews kick off. The sound is turned waaaaaaay up. Dad rips off part of his napkin and stuffs wads into both of his ears, so there are now tufts sticking out from his head.

-3:11 PM
Why are there previews for both Despicable Me 2 and World War Z? Who do they think is in the audience?

-3:28 PM
Apparently, people have time to hold military tribunals when the planet is literally on the cusp of exploding.

-3:50 PM
Oh, for fuck's sake. I don't like shakycam at the best of times, but at least I understand it when you're in the arena and there's a girl throwing a knife at your face. When two characters are simply sitting around exchanging dialogue, it is inexcusable.

-4:14 PM
Russell Crowe may be dead, but that doesn't stop his hologram from standing around as an exposition dump and hectoring people.

-4:20 PM
Hey, it's a Dollhouse handler reunion party! One is head of the military. One gets a single blink-and-you'll-miss-it line.

-4:46 PM
My dad is a lot more forgiving than I am, but the movie manages to lose both of us in the span of ten seconds when Pa Kent stops Clark (whom he knows has super-strength and invulnerability) from saving a dog from an impending tornado, and instead runs into its path himself. So he dies for NO REASON.

-5:01 PM
If throwing someone through a building is entertaining once, it must be a hundred and six times as entertaining to do it a hundred and six times. That's just math.

-5:14 PM
If the citizens of Metropolis (New York) are the most sophisticated people on the planet, they need to stop wordlessly gawking at invading alien ships, and run already.

-5:33 PM
A mini black hole opens, sucking in everything nearby, except Lois Lane, who keeps on falling away from it. I guess she needs to lay off the donuts.

-5:50 PM
The world is saved! Or at least the four square blocks of it that the aliens attacked.

I was never expecting much from this movie, and it lived down to my lack of excitement. It was really more of a loose collection of scenes than a movie. Henry Cavill is scorching hot, and there were a couple of scenes that legitimately drew me in (mostly involving General Zod's second-in-command, who played stone-cold evil to the hilt). But if this is the tentpole that is holding up the summer of 2013, we're in for a rough season.

Man of Steel: C

Mini Movie Review: Pitch Perfect

-1:40 PM
Well, I missed my chance last week to see this with the Rum Group, but here's a second opportunity. To the Esquire!

-1:47 PM
I'm in the ticket line ahead of a lady and her two small children. Aw, that's nice. She's taking them to see Frankenweenie or Hotel Transylvania.

-1:48 PM
As I head into the theater, I hear "One adult and two kids for Taken 2." Sigh. The Esquire, ladies and gentlemen.

-1:50 PM
I enter the lobby to find one of my friends in a deep discussion with some lady about how the theater isn't even trying to pass off that goo as butter, labeling the machine as "Popcorn Topping".

-2:00 PM
The trailers start. As with many of the disposable, pure-fun movies I see here, the movies previewed ahead of time look wretched.

-2:06 PM
Like this one. Ugh.

-2:10 PM
And, I mean...what?

-2:12 PM
Oh, and this next one, wherein Catherine Zeta-Jones is an ESPN producer who thinks what Americans are really desperate for is more soccer coverage. Sounds like a winner!

-2:13 PM
Oooh! Les Miserables! At least there's one promising thing to look forward to.

-2:17 PM
I've really enjoyed Anna Kendrick in every movie I've seen her in.

-2:19 PM
That said, her character is kind of snotty for no perceptible reason.

-2:36 PM
And while we're talking of no perceptible reason:
1) Why a capella groups rule the social hierarchy at a college.
2) Even accepting that premise, why a butter-faced jerkoff would be the unquestioned ruler of the reigning clique.
3) Why the dopey good guy immediately falls for and begins wooing our grumpy heroine without exchanging a single word of conversation with her.

-2:45 PM
Anna Kendrick (Beca) wants to drop out of school and become a successful DJ. Sounds like an excellent long-term career plan.

-2:48 PM
Although I will say that the mashups she (that is, the music producer for this movie) puts together are really good.

-3:00 PM
So, if you've seen Bring It On, you get the gist of this movie right away. Free-thinking spirit joins staid group with rigid rules and attempts to shake things up.

-3:02 PM
The rest of the crew that makes up the girls' a capella group is a mixed bunch, but the show is totally stolen by Rebel Wilson (as Fat Amy, a girl who voices every thought that passes through her brain), and Hana Mae Lee (as Lilly, a girl so timid that the entire audience had to lean forward and strain to hear her, but whose every word is gold).

-3:14 PM
John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks throw some Christopher Guestification up in this movie as commentators. Yeah it's totally derivative of Best in Show, but they're so good that it totally works.

-3:22 PM
For a movie that's supposed to be about a capella, the songs aren't particularly memorable. The electronic mashups are far more impressive.

-3:55 PM
The grumpy girl learns to love. Aw.

In a word, this movie was fine. The performances were fine. The music was fine. The plot was fine. I'm glad I saw it, but it didn't really bring anything new or exciting to a well-worn genre. Next time, we should definitely bring the rum.

Pitch Perfect: C+

Mini Movie Review: Magic Mike

-1:35 PM
It's been a rough weekend so far. What better way to give it a positive jolt than by seeing the male stripper movie?

-1:38 PM
Esquire theater. Check. Soda purchased? Check. Room left at the top of the cup for the addition of another liquid? Check.

-1:40 PM
There aren't many people in the theater other than me, the five female friends who are beside me, and a few other ladies. I am the only male present.

-1:42 PM
Previews. There are approximately seventeen of them. At least some of these movies look better than the previews we saw before Joyful Noise.

-2:00 PM
Five seconds into the movie, and we've got topless Olivia Munn and Channing Tatum's ass. Just in case you were unsure of what kind of movie this is going to be.

-2:17 PM
It's nice that Cody Horn has finally been discovered, because if someone's going to play Alex Pettyfer's sibling, they really need to rise to his level of being completely wooden and bland.

-2:25 PM
Joe Manganiello sits at a sewing machine in a bandana and chunky glasses, stitching up a thong. It's completely charming.

-2:31 PM
Blurry, corner-view cock shot. Alex Pettyfer's one shining moment in the movie comes as he tries his damndest not to look, but can't resist giving it the side-eye anyway.

-2:37 PM
Matthew McConaughey says "All right, all right, all right..." several times, because this movie has the good grace to have a sense of humor about itself.

-2:45 PM
Holy shit, they have him play the bongos, too!

-2:55 PM
One of the minor characters carries a pig around with her. Ooh, come here, cute piggy! I want a pig!

-3:02 PM
I could have done without the "Haha! Check out this fat chick!" joke.

-3:12 PM
There's not enough Matthew Bomer in this movie! In fact, why not just cut Cody Horn out completely and make it entirely about the guys who work at the club? And I say this not just as a fan of hot dudes, but as a fan of good acting.

-3:33 PM
You can tell this is a fictional movie because all of the male strippers and the customers they perform for are straight.

-4:00 PM
Channing Tatum rides off into the sunset with Blandy McWhiteBread. Hooray!

-4:12 PM
Still buzzing on the Captain Morgan in my soda, we excitedly dissect the movie in the lobby.

Limecrete: "Someone needs to get an Oscar for creating a movie in which Matthew McConaughey is actually good!"
Tiffany: "Truly, this is his Gandhi."

I liked this movie, as I tend to like most Steven Soderbergh movies. Any film about strippers runs the risk of either being exploitative to the detriment of the plot, or a trite rehash of the age-old saw about strippers beings the castoffs of society. This movie did neither. It portrayed male stripping as it mostly is; a legitimately viable business for those who treat it as a job, and a potential landmine for those who have no self-control.

Not everything worked. I don't know who decided that Alex Pettyfer is a person that needs to be continually cast as a lead actor in a bunch of movies, but they need to stop. Soderbergh seems to have a soft spot for vacant, bored-looking actresses, and Cody Horn is the newest one to join the club. Still, I enjoyed Channing Tatum far more than I thought I was going to, and getting me to like Matthew McConaughey is no small feat. Gyrating beefcake is always fun, but hey, it turns out that the movie beneath it is pretty great, too.

Magic Mike: B

Mini Movie Review: Joyful Noise

When I head to the movie theater just to have fun, rather than for the quality of the movie itself, trying to come up with a well-reasoned review just seems silly. So why not embrace the silliness with a silly mini-movie review?

-1:15 PM
I arrive at the Esquire theater. For those not from St. Louis, the only reason you'd ever go to a movie at the Esquire is if you don't mind the other patrons... Interacting with the movie. You know, yelling at the screen and loudly opining that the characters shouldn't go in there. I wouldn't see We Need to Talk About Kevin at the Esquire, but for things like Spiderman 3 or Joyful Noise, it can be a grand old time.

-1:20 PM
I meet my friends Tiffany and Becky at the concession stand, and buy a soda with some room at the top of the cup. This may have something to do with the bulge in Tiffany's coat pocket.

-1:30 PM
Previews. I make a raspberry noise for all the movies I have no interest in seeing, which turns out to be all of them.

-1:33 PM
ESPECIALLY the anti-abortion one. PBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTH.

-1:34 PM
Just seeing that is enough to ask for the coat bulge to be revealed. Out comes the Captain Morgan, which is surreptitiously added to all of our sodas.

-1:37 PM
The title screen comes up, and the only other people sitting nearby curse, stand up, and leave. Apparently, all those previews with warm family messages and Tyler Perry didn't tip them off that they weren't in the theater next door, which is showing The Devil Inside.

-1:55 PM
We devise a game in which we have to take a drink every time a down-home folksy cliche like "The cheese may be free in the mousetraps, but trust me, the mice there ain't happy," pops up.

-1:57 PM
And whenever "regionals" or "nationals" are mentioned.

-2:04 PM
There is a character whose sole trait is that she repeats what people just said. She turns out to be the best secondary character in the whole movie.

-2:15 PM
Because the other secondary characters are 1) A lady who can't find a boyfriend because a dude died after fucking her, and 2) A gangly white guy who is having trouble with his faith because the economy is so bad.

-2:16 PM
Although I don't admit to Tiffany and Becky that I think said gangly white guy is super-cute.

-2:20 PM
That said, there sure is a lot of racial diversity in this gospel choir from small town Georgia. Plus, two interracial relationships, because people from small town Georgia never have any problems with that.

-2:40 PM
It's very important that the choir does well in competition, because the sluggish economy is causing all the businesses in town to collapse. And nothing pays the rent or fills empty bellies like a church choir winning a contest. That sounds glib, but there is literally a scene in which people in a bread line tell choir members that winning is their last hope.

-2:44 PM
The writers think that if they directly address the fact that Dolly Parton has had seventeen face lifts, that should end any conversation about the fact that she doesn't look quite human anymore. And I say this as a massive Dolly fan. Sad.

-2:47 PM
I haven't said anything about the forbidden romance between Queen Latifah's daughter and Dolly Parton's grandson. Nope, I sure haven't.

-2:50 PM
That grandson is meant to be a handsome rogue, but is totally that douchey guy who plays guitar in the corner at every college party, trying to get into the insecure girls' pants.

-2:55 PM
That folksy cliche drinking rule has really paid off in spades. Urp.

-2:59 PM
If you're going to try and get out of explaining your quirky character by making them autistic, you should probably do a modicum of research on autism.

-3:03 PM
There is actually a scene in which the choir sings updated music instead of the tired old standards, and shows this transition by taking off their choir robes to show the bright clothing beneath. Really.

-3:12 PM
The choir wins the big competition. Everyone in the small town is thrilled, and the movie is capped off with a wedding. Please ignore the fact that except for learning valuable lessons about life and love, nobody's life materially improves.

I wasn't expecting much out of this movie, which is why I was able to enjoy it. The guy who directed this also directed Camp, and it suffers from a lot of the same problems. Chiefly, all the music is great, and most of the storyline is crap. I was hoping for a bit more catfighting between Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton, but all I really asked from this movie is some showstopping numbers, and on that front, it was able to deliver.

Joyful Noise (as a movie): C+
Joyful Noise (as an experience): B+