[Movie Review] Kick-Ass.

Well, Thursday's poll turned out to be about as even as a fight between a baby seal and a spiked club, so this movie review is on the comic book adaptation of Kick-Ass.

The name aptly describes the nature of the movie, and I feel that making obvious puns such as "this movie was kick-ass" are as unnecessary as French victory dances, and as such, I will refrain from such unimaginative tomfoolery.

Though it was pretty kick ass.

Now the main character of this relatively realistic superhero story is Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), who apparently happens to be a regular teenage boy. That is, a clumsy, socially inept, chronic masturbator who wacks off to his chubby, middle aged English teacher at every conceivable opportunity.

He gets the notion of becoming a masked crimefighter after witnessing several incidents of Diffusion of Responsibility, and subsequently orders a wetsuit, a mask and some sticks with knobby bits off Amazon.

He embarks on his superhero career by getting shanked and hit by a car within 10 minutes of attempting to do any sort of "good". He barely survives, but gets half his skeleton covered in metal, which leads me to believe that they managed to sneak in some sort of superpowered advantage because he can't feel pain and is moderately impervious to getting whacked with things. Somewhat like a f****** ghetto wolverine.

Now, the movie would be pretty dull if it was all about some kid in tights getting his nipples twisted off every five seconds, which is where Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) come in. A masked vigilante father and daughter duo bent on taking down obligatory villain Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), they take the hopelessly out-of-his-depth Dave under their proverbial wing and help him to not f****** suck as much as he does otherwise.

One thing I would like to point out is that the character of Frank D'Amico also entertained me more than most comic book villains because of his penchant for roundhouse kicking anything that looked at him funnily, and then shooting three kinds of Jesus out of it.

Director Matthew Vaughn followed the source material quite faithfully, and we are thus rewarded with fluidly choreographed fight scenes that leave you giggling like a little f****** schoolgirl on her first dose of ecstasy, and somewhat juvenile but always lighthearted exposition.

Most of the action scenes belong to Hit Girl, who tries to put on a gruff, foul mouthed facade, but ultimately fails because of how adorable she is while killing hordes of henchmen to the tune of The Dickies' "Banana Splits".

Well, adorable in a psychotically disturbing fashion. Then again, maybe I'm just weird.

Pros: Excellent fight scenes; Storyline wasn't terrible; Great performances by the cast; Hit Girl.

Cons: Storyline was slightly predictable and a tad clichéd; Constantly thinking about how awesome Hit Girl is makes you feel like pedophile.

Consensus: 8/10 useless henchmen. Kick-Ass is a great popcorn flick that you should definitely watch at the movies, and then download or even, dare I say it, buy a good quality copy of it for the archives.

[Movie Review] The Losers.

With the recent trend of comic book to movie adaptations, one has learned not to expect much out of such offerings, as they are generally all vapid explosion fests punctuated with quirky one liners .
The Losers fit the bill perfectly.

You start off with a fairly generic revenge-thriller narrative, centered around a group of specialized bad-ass black ops agents, pitted against an eccentric, somewhat disfigured, snappy dressing bad guy. Sound familiar? It should.

There are only about ten thousand more movies with this same basic setup. I mean, G-Force pretty much falls into this category. Inorite?

Despite the fairly predictable plot and occasional logical loopholes, The Losers prove to be pretty damn entertaining. Featuring a list of previously obscure actors, who deliver surprisingly good performances, Sylvain White's directing, and adequate funding in the "blow stuff up" department, The Losers deliver us a good popcorn flick.

Speaking of actors and performances, Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) and Jensen (Chris Evans) pretty much held together the film's "cool" factor by themselves, with Cougar just being the badass mexican-dude-who-shoots-things-and-has-a-f******-cowboy-hat and Jensen being, well, Jensen. That is, an oddly neurotic hacker with the most awesome random t-shirts I've seen in a long time.

On the topic of clothing, Jensen seems to be the only one of the team that regularly changes his threads, with their leader Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) wearing the same goddamn suit for about two consecutive weeks. Despite this, he gets to sleep with Aisha (Zoe Saldana). Where is the justice?

Even though the film is a sequence of action scenes and lackluster exposition, the writers still manage to add one breakaway act with Jensen wittily infiltrating an office building to Journey's "Don't stop believing". I mean, that is just plain awesomesauce.

However, they did lose some street cred by making the inevitability of a sequel so blatant. They didn't even try to hang something off a cliff. Everyone, down to the characters knows there's gonna be a sequel. The villain, Max (Jason Patric), tells us so.

Pros: Well choreographed action scenes; Good performances by the actors; Jensen and Cougar.

Cons: Logical loopholes; Max was just f****** annoying; Generic Plot.

Consensus: 6.5/10 quirky t-shirts. The Losers is definitely worth watching on the big screen, but it's nothing to write home about. It will probably be surpassed by the upcoming A-Team and Expendables and fade into obscurity. I'll try to download a dvdrip just for Jensen's randomness.

Don't stop believing! *raises lighter*

P.S. - I wish to purchase a "Go Petunias" pink t-shirt. Srsly.

-Niron Khan

[Movie Review] Clash of the Titans.

Once every now and then, there is a movie that is perfectly written, has amazing action scenes and features a lineup of realistic characters whose roles are played to perfection. This perfect movie literally blows you away with it's awesome awesomeness, and leaves you in a writhing post orgasmic state.

Clash of the Titans is definitely not that movie.

In fact, if that perfect movie happened to be a person, Clash of the Titans would be its retarded cousin that no one mentions in polite company.

It's pretty hard for me to attempt to give an unbiased review on this movie since it was so god-awfully terribad. Who ever wrote this script should literally be taken out back and shot, their remains hastily disposed of in an unmarked grave, and their identity erased.

I mean, seriously guys? A lobotomized pygmy narwhal could type up a better plot given about three and a half minutes.

Suffice to say, the storyline really really sucked.

In fact, here's a summary in about 10 lines:

Man finds baby in remarkably waterproof wooden coffin; Man raises baby to be fisherman; Hades randomly wtfpwns hero's entire family for no apparent reason whatsoever; Hero refuses to hunt Hades, then changes his mind 10 seconds later; Hero uses a gameshark to obtain mad fighting skills, despite being a fisherman; Davy Jones...I mean Zeus summons the Kraken; Hero sets out on quest with nameless companions; Hero finds magic sword in some petunias; Hero fights a goat man that happens to be his dad; Hero kills big scorpions; Nameless companions all die; Hero pwns snake lady in 2 minutes; Hero gets random magic horse; Hero pwns kraken in 1 minute; Hero pwns Hades in about 5 seconds; Zeus says "Hai"; End.

That's literally it.

Director Louis Leterrier gets no mention because he was obviously asleep, high, or dead during the filming of the entire movie. The actors get no mention, simply because they were f****** terrible.

Pros: You get 3D goggles that you have no use for, since the movie barely has any 3D elements; There were some tits somewhere.

Cons: Plot sucked monkey testicles; Greek hero Perseus had a f****** Australian accent for the entire movie; Nobody else in the movie was worth giving a shit about; Fight sequences were short and crappy; All the gods dressed like robo-fetish sex dolls; Release the Kraken? Really?

Consensus: 2/10 nameless companions. I want my money back. In fact, they should compensate me for having to watch such garbage. I'm realistically tempted to pirate a copy, burn it to DVD, then microwave the sucker.

-Niron Khan.

[Movie Review] District 9.

A movie about seafood-like aliens, crazy Afrikaners and Nigerian voodoo, District 9 goes beyond rote storytelling and introduces us to a world where aliens have come to earth, not to invade, but to squat and wear odd things on their heads.

Director Neil Blomkamp opts for a documentary style opening, using video footage and public interviews to reveal the backstory of the plot, while slowly showing the audience how the humans become desensitized to the derogatory and inhumane treatment of the aliens.
In a plot reminiscent of the South African apartheid era, District 9 presents a shocking comparison of the racial segregation and xenophobia that occurred in our own history with the story of Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) and Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope) as they both try to do what they think is best for their respective people. (Good luck trying to figure out which one is the alien by name alone.)

Awash with gritty imagery, superb storytelling and very believable special effects, District 9 shows us the merits of humanity, friendship, self sacrifice, and the potential use of cat food as currency.

Pros: Well paced plot; excellent special effects; great actors.

Cons: Subtitles are needed for the Afrikaners, cuz f*** me if I can understand a word that they're saying.

Consensus: 8.5/10 cans of Purina pet chow. Good enough to warrant buying the DVD for your collection, or at least pirating a DVD rip and storing it on your HDD.

-Niron Khan