Meatwadsprite's Slow Review Thread

... which played it's conventional role quite well

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The Square 2010



This Australian thriller which took it's time (2 years) to finally hit the states, is ultimately too simple to become a genre classic and just falls into the pit with hundreds of other twist predicated films.

An adulteress couple plan to steal a giant payoff from the lady's husband and run off on their respective partners together. It doesn't take long for their plan to go wrong in every which way, taking bad after worse turn.

David Roberts and unknown Claire van der Boom carry the weak script with their involved performances. The Square actually performs it's set up effortlessly, but the serve faults in a terrible way. Weak twists, barren characters, and a who cares finale. It makes you squirm when you're in the shoes of the risk taker, but there's just not nearly enough substance.

Hm, I've read a few positive reviews (mostly from Rotten Tomatoes, where it has a 94%, although that may mean very little). Looks like I'll have to check it out for myself.

An Education 2009




Carey Mulligan's naive performance finds it's mark in a by the books story of strafing off the steady path for something more exhilarating.

The script is simple enough, a wealthy thirty something gent, David, (Peter Sarsgaard) sweeps a seventeen year old school girl off her feet (and her parents). This girl with aspirations of visiting Paris and doing everything French, doesn't hesitate for a second to leave her previous life (study all day).

The tone is very tame, the real draw is Sarsgaard's mysterious character. He's clever and funny, but your suspicions will grow from his introduction. Of course it all builds up to something, but it just doesn't hit you hard - because what have you been watching this whole time ? There really were no risks being taken, or heavy tension. A lightweight relationship ending in an "oh well".

An Education doesn't glorify knowledge enough to be a complete success, but it will deliver it's message, even more effectively I think to kids in high school who're thinking twice about continuing their own education.

Eh, I was sorely disappointed by An Education. The consequences of her actions were extremely tame. Acting was good, but it wasn't enough to make up for the quick-and-easy ending that they paved for her.

I also thought the "message" could've been delivered a little more gracefully; sort of a ham-handed delivery, to me....

Good work, meat.

Thanks Meatface

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That doesn't explain anything.

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Suspect's Reviews

You're right, no reason to get excited for a psychological thriller made by Scorsese with Dicaprio - that continually keeps getting pushed back time and time again.

That Scorsese himself said would be "my ultimate masterpiece of all time".

Kick Ass 2010



Kick Ass is at the head of the tide of an epic spring-summer season for movies, it solves a lot of problems the book had, but comes up with some of it's own too.

There really was no dialogue saved from the book that could have been used in a movie without people out loud exclaiming "this is retarded". The script had a big sandbox to work with, changing major elements from the comic and keeping modified essential story arcs from the comic. The downside is that it caters to many action/comedy film standards of momentum and falls into a bad groove.

Without a doubt the action scenes are the high point of Kick Ass, Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) plow through bad guys in glorious brutality. Everyone agrees Moretz pulls the most weight in the film, making Hit Girl an adorable, remorseless killer.

Kick Ass himself (played by Dave Lizewski), just gets the crap kicked out of him the whole time. After his first attempt of crime-stopping, he is put in the hospital and receives a plethora of metal plates (which he uses to go on and take even bigger beatings). Thankfully he isn't given the spotlight, because he's the least interesting of all the characters.

I believe that was the same rating that I gave it, meat. Glad to see we're more or less on the same page.

Thanks for the review Meatface

Iron Man 2 2010



Now that the world actually knows who Iron Man is, we enter an almost entirely unexplored scenario. Iron Man 2 is a political super-hero movie, with a small interest in big action sequences. It's also not afraid to throw a slew of new characters into the mix, such as Scarlet Johannson's Black Widow or Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer (the best addition imo).

The U.S. government is pleading to Stark to share his suit with the military, his position is that he's the only one responsible enough to control it and this is pretty much what ties the bulk of the story up. Nick Fury (Sam Jack) and Rhodes (now played by Cheadle) are trying to form teams with Tony who has his hands full with a new challenger in the form of brilliant engineer Ivan Vanko (Rourke) and the newfound toxicity of his mini arc-reactor. Needless to say, there's a lot up in the air here and for a two hour movie it doesn't have enough time.



Like it's predecessor it's dialogue heavy (even more so), everyone talks fast and works fast. The brief animation heavy action scenes get cranked up a couple notches and surprisingly the one running low on special effects just might be one of the coolest. Even though it's not overflowing with action scenes, the visual team gets no break. Stark is still playing around in his holographic lab and using his suit for show. (also see if you can count how many screen wipes there are).

The web of characters really spans out here, with a lot of new favorites to pick from (Jon Faverau's character is pretty awesome). What might disappoint some is the lack of interplay between Stark and Potts/Rhodes - the three of them are mostly pursuing their own stuff. Justin Hammer is a lovable bad guy, taking every chance he gets to pull a Tony Stark move. Ivan Vanko's hated for Stark is something unexplored and it's really for the worst. We get a brief idea for his motivations, but it's not nearly substantial.

Iron Man 2 may not meet expectations, but it's a much welcome chapter to a hopefully continuing saga.

Don't you mean "meat" ?

Thanks Meatface

I saw this recently and expected more from the ending but somehow still saw that coming. While watching this I was reminded of the episode of Family Guy when Peter points out about pointing out when titles of films are mentioned in the movie. Yes I know pointless banter, forgive me.

Mother 2010



Joon-ho Bong's (The Host, Tokyo!) new murder mystery is built with fine parts, but is missing an engine. Luckily Hye-Ja Kim's performance drives like a seasoned chauffeur.

Her character, a widow, has nothing in her life but her son Yoon Do-Joon. The son is retarded (don't call him that) and when a young girl is found murdered in his Korean hometown, it only takes a golf ball to pin the crime on him. The mother is convinced that her son is innocent though, so after the police close their extremely brief investigation on him, her own investigation begins.

Once the son's in jail, we really don't have a reason to care if he even gets out. Personally, he doesn't mind being in jail, as he doesn't mind being hit by a car. His mother on the other hand refuses to give him up, even to a reduced sentence in a mental hospital. Her case is determined and unrelenting. But what fun is a mystery without effective digging ? She randomly bumps into bits of information and the viewer is left piecing very vague motives and suspects together. She wants to catch the real killer, but she doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. It's not far to the shoal, where it pursues one of the endings I already had laid out.

Joon-ho's photography is very in line with most modern Korean films I've been watching. Good framework and clarity, with all colors dampened. The style isn't afraid to cater to the actors, but it's patrolling for better discussion. Like Doon-jo, Mother knows not how to truly express itself. For a character study, it doesn't dive deep enough. For thriller fiends, there's far worse fresh blood out there.

Ajami 2010



Any scenario you can dream up I can just about point to a crime film and say "yep that's been done in that one". The critical consensus is that Ajami is a new entry in the elite league of neo-foreign crime films, along with the likes of City of God, Gomorra, and Un prophète. It's very much in line with the style of that cinema. It's not something entirely new, rather a geographical spin, and it often won't play to it's best elements. It also takes a while to tie it's lacework of Israel, where families stick together and ancient feuds of ethnic hatred thrive and fade.

Ajami's biggest trick is diluting and reversing assumptions. It follows around five main characters, and does well giving them a practical hand in the fanning mystery. The performances are fine, but we only ever slightly burrow into them. It's not so much about who these people are, rather what they do and how their environment reacts to it.

It being so geo-centric though, I'm baffled how we don't set foot in a single church or mosque. Religious and racial hatred inexplicably burst out of characters and the roots are never explored, only exploited. There isn't much big-scale photography of Israel either, most of locations are ripened concrete and not so exotic urban stretches. Is Israel really this familiar in materials to America ?

It only offers a glance at Israel, not through the eyes of criminals but through the eyes of every day people sticking their noses in crime. It you leaves early, demanding more.

The Spy Next Door 2010



It makes me feel old knowing movies from 2005 are already being remade. In this case, the remake doesn't even come close to standing up to the original (The Pacifier with Vin Diesel). It only works as a epic motion picture failure.

Jackie Chan plays Bob Ho, a CIA agent who has just caught his last bad guy (and it only takes him about 3 minutes). He's retiring now and looking to settle down with widower Gillian Something (played by Amber something). Although she doesn't think her kids are (this is a quote) "ever going to like him", so she wants to take the relationship much slower than lightning fast Chan.

Chan being the impatient man he is, offers to babysit the kids while she goes out of town for a week. His perfect opportunity ! But, one of the kids downloads a secret bad guy file from Chan's comp and then the bad guy breaks out of a prison van (off screen). So with the bad guy now reunited with his 10 man team, he somehow finds that the kid downloaded the file and for some reason that threatens his evil scheme (which is to evaporate the world's supply of oil, except for Russia .... with 10 guys that get beat up by kids).

There's no creativity here, Chan doesn't even do a couple funny things with the kids. It's got less production values than a Disney television series. This is a straight, make the money and run deal. Someone at Liongate realized movies like The Pacifier and Kindergarten Cop always do well commercially, so they penned up a screenplay in a couple hours and filmed it the next day. All in all three days of work.

Thanks meatface saw the shorts of Spy Next Door Your review confirms my fears

Dude, how in the name of blue f***ery did you end up watching this? Not by choice, I hope.

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