VOD Review: The Last Witch Hunter (2016)

"Oh, Vin. Sometimes I wonder what goes through your mind when you read scripts."

Let's be honest about it: The Last Witch Hunter wasn't a great movie.

Critics universally panned it; and it only made $27 million domestic on a budget of $90 million, so crowds didn't exactly flock to it either. For us, it was just too clunky to love.

But let's be fair about it too: it wasn't that bad.

Watching this one was a lot like the watching Van Helsing for us; both movies are bland, sanitized, uninspired efforts that have fun air about them, but they offer no depth whatsoever.

We did like The Last Witch Hunter way better though.

In the Middle Ages (Dark Ages? Not sure), the magnificently-bearded Kaulder is a Witch Hunter. We only see him hunt one Witch, so we're not really sure how good he is at it, but it was the Witch Queen herself, so we have to assume that his skills are at least reasonably sufficient.

MAGNIFICENT, I TELL YOU.

When he catches up to the Witch Queen at her haunted tree fort, he manages to kinda kill her, thus ending her evil reign, but not before she curses him to live eternally; or at least until she returns 800 years later to pick up where she left off before he kinda killed her, because you know that's what's going to happen. You've seen this all before.

KILL IT WITH FIRE! TWICE.

Flash-forward to 800 years later where Kaulder is a modern man living in New York, and still hunting Witches. Not scary Witches like they had in the middle ages, mind you, but just normal-looking people who can cast spells and stuff. When a Witch murders his best friend, he gets a new best friend, and they set out to find who killed his first best friend, and they discover that the rise of the Witch Queen is imminent. Also, he meets a hot, ginger Witch, who teaches him how to love again.

Don't look at us, we don't write this shit.

NOTHING MEDIOCRE ABOUT HER THOUGH.

For us, The Last Witch Hunter is a sort of hybrid between Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Constantine, with a bit of Highlander and Van Helsing thrown into the mix. Or maybe it just tried to ape different aspects of those movies for its own benefit. I don't know, but overall, it felt way too safe and generic, and like it couldn't manage to find its own identity. It was a fun movie at times, and it didn't leave us feeling pissed off or frustrated, but something was just missing.

We really liked the premise, the cast, and watching Vin Diesel swing a flaming sword around. We also really loved the beginning of the movie which was set in medieval times far more than we did the modern-day setting that most of the movie took place in. They should have given us more of the medieval stuff, and Vin should have kept the beard throughout more of this one. It looked bad-ass.

THE FAUX-HAWK CAN STAY TOO.

The real problem with the movie was the script. We're not sure why, but It took three different writers to come up with a story which is littered with tropes, cliches, and uninspired familiarity, but it shouldn't have. The dialogue left a lot to be desired as well, especially with the cut-and-paste way in which the movie seemed to be edited. Lines like "Who said that a Witch can't hunt Witches?", "Salem was wrong, those women were innocent!", and "Witch prison!" were just shameful.

And having to watch the great Michael Caine utter a line like "Look at you, you ugly bitch of a morning" was just painful. He deserves way better.

The CGI was overabundant and bad at times, and the movie definitely could have benefited from the less-is-more motto in that department. I guess the PG-13 rating held the violence, action, and blood back, which is a shame; had they leaned more on practical FX, and pushed the envelope a bit more, the end result may have been better.

"ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO CRITICISE, ASSHOLE?"

Why yes, Frobo Bagglins, there is...

They really should have centered the story around Rose Leslie's character, and had Vin Diesel's Witch Hunter play the periphery, much like Max did for Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. Like she should have been sucked back in time to the Middle Ages via some sort of witchery gone wrong, where Vin Diesel had to protect her against hordes of Witches or something. That would have been cool.

Rose Leslie is a talented actress, and she was probably the most likable character in this one. We like Vin Diesel a lot too, but he just doesn't have the range to carry a movie like this by himself. It was cool to  watch him kick ass though.

THE LOVE SCENE.

Vin Diesel is mad cool, but some of his movies aren't so hot. Also, we really like Rose Leslie. A lot.

BEWITCHING.

If you can sit through movies like Van Helsing, or the later sequels in the Resident Evil and Underworld series, and enjoy them for what they are despite their flaws, then you'll probably be able to do the same thing with The Last Witch Hunter. It ain't great, but there is a lot about it that is pretty enjoyable, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

I wouldn't but in on Blu-ray, but I'd definitely come over to your house and watch it if you did.

C

The Last Witch Hunter is available now on VOD, and hits Blu-ray & DVD on 2/2.

We've been under Rose Leslie's spell ever since we first saw her on Game of Thrones, and we're fine with that.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

(aka The Swerve)
Release Date: In Theaters now.
Country: USA.
Written by: Drew Pearce & Shane Black.
Directed by: Shane Black.

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Sir Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, James Badge Dale and Rebecca Hall.

Had this movie been called Tony Stark instead of Iron Man 3, I think it wouldn't have caused such division amongst Iron Man fans. Mostly.

A lot of people out there on the Internets are bitching up a storm about how this movie dropped the ball, about how the big "twist" was a cop out and ruined things, about how this was a poor start for Phase Two of Marvel's Cinematic Universe...

...and yet the movie made $175 Million its opening weekend, which is good enough for the second best opening of all time.

This movie is honestly a mixed bag. A lot of complaints being leveled at the movie are pretty valid, as some of the onscreen happenings left us scratching our heads and wondering what Marvel was thinking. On the other hand though, this is a solid little flick for the most part, and we can totally see what Marvel was going for and why, and at the very least we admire the brass balls they displayed in doing so.

I'm really going to have to digest the experience of Iron Man 3 and then see it again before I can truly decide if I liked it more than I hated it. For now I can say that I liked it better than Iron Man 2, but nowhere near as much as I did the first one.

But will YOU like it? Well, that will all come down to the big twist/reveal that the movie pulls right before the third reel, and how you take it.      

This review is packed full of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to be spoiled, then don't read any further.

 

The events that took place in The Avengers have left Tony Stark a mess; he cant sleep, he's having panic attacks, his relationship with Pepper is on the rocks, and all he really spends time doing is designing new Iron Man suits. Basically, he has the Superhero version of PTSD.

Yep, he's all gorked out.

Amidst his troubles, a terrorist calling himself The Mandarin starts broadcasting cryptic messages of doom and blowing things up. When Tony's long-time friend Happy is left comatose in one of the attacks, he gets pissed and gives out his address on live TV, inviting The Mandarin to come over and hang out, maybe even face him if he dares. The Mandarin responds by blowing Tony's seaside mansion to hell, and nearly killing everyone inside.

Good plan, dummy.

JARVIS helps Tony escape to Tennessee (?) where he meets a 10 year old kid who helps him investigate the bombings (?), which leads him to discover the threat of the EXTREMIS serum, which causes people to explode...

I won't ruin anymore of the plot here, because spoilers tend to suck, and because the plot of this movie doesn't really inspire me to recall and revisit it right now. It's Iron Man, jokes are made and shit blows up. Nuff' said.

I was so hoping she'd become Rescue in this one...

As a story about Tony Stark's search for identity, this movie really works. As a Comic Book movie about Iron Man, it's hit or miss. I'm all for straight drama, and I love character pieces as long as said characters are solid, so I ate the "quieter" aspects of this movie right up. I personally love the Iron Man movies because Robert Downey Jr. is such a perfect Tony Stark, and he truly owns this role in every way. I love the action and shiny stuff too, but I'm just saying, I'm definitely a character development guy, and this movie has plenty of it.

RDJ's portrayal of Tony Stark is as compelling as it is fun to watch, and he's really has turned out to be one hell of a movie character. Even though this movie was light on the action until the last half hour or so, we didn't care; RDJ has made this character and series his, and it's just great watching him do his thing, in suit or out.

That's pretty much how we felt after watching this one.

As far as the supporting cast goes; Gwyneth Paltrow is likable as Pepper; John Favreau is likable as Happy; and Don Cheadle, who is always the man, is great as Rhodey... it's just  a shame that he really didn't have much to do this time out. James Badge Dale also played a great bad guy in this one too, and seeing him just made us miss Rubicon all the more. Don't ask.

Best of all of the supporting actors was Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian; that guy just owns whatever role he's in, and he absolutely rocked this one out as well.

As for the main star of the movie, the action, it was pretty much wall to wall crazy once it popped off. I personally think that they blew the whole "multiple suit battle" wad in the wrong way, but it is what it is. Then again my ideal Iron Man flick involves Iron Man, War Machine, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, et al. in an Armor Wars story, but this is probably as close to that as we're going to get. Still, the movie has a pretty action-packed finale.

How sweet would that be?

- We don't really see War Machine/Iron Patriot in action at all. Rhodey's character is reduced to going on a bogus, tongue-in-cheek filled wild goose chase to find The Mandarin in the Middle East, and flying away with the President at then end, thus missing the final battle.That kinda sucked.

- The after credits scene was useless. Being that this is the first movie in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, why did it not tease what's coming next, as every movie in Phase One did? Even The Avengers had a mid-credits scene featuring Thanos, before giving us the amusing-but-useless shawarma scene after the credits.

- EXTREMIS or not, seeing Pepper turn into a bad-ass killing machine felt odd.

There's a good "that time of the month" joke to be made here, but I digress.

- The whole "I don't need this thing in my chest anymore so let's have an operation to remove that shrapnel and make me "normal" again!" thing came out of nowhere, and could have been set up. Not set up better, just set up in any way whatsoever, because it felt tacked on.

- I would have liked to have seen the humor dialed down a notch or two. After seeing the trailer's leading up to the movie, I was expecting a much darker story. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty dark in places, but too much kitsch killed the tension for me, especially most of the post-reveal Ben Kingsley stuff.

- Killian's whole revenge plot seemed a bit out of whack to me. I get that he was spurned by a younger, pre-Iron Man Tony Stark, and he wanted some revenge, but the way he played it all out just felt overwrought on his part. And were those dragons on his chest some sort of veiled reference to Fin Fang Foom?

He stood around and did more nothing than the Secret Service agents.

The whole Mandarin swerve really sucked. I'm fine with Aldrich Killian being the real Mandarin and using an actor (Kingsley) as a cover, but it was handled in such a campy way that it killed any and all impact that a reveal of that size could have had. Ben Kingsley was basically wasted in this film, and the whole "goofy drunk actor being made to play a terrorist" shtick was painful.

And as far as Killian being the real Mandarin goes, who made the decision to go that way, and how did they even think it felt plausible? It's like Brad Pitt showing up in a Batman movie, just looking like plain old Brad Pitt, and then announcing "I'm the Joker!", and the Joker the world knew was just a drunk actor playing a part for the sake of diversion. Blah.

And after the big reveal, all we get to justify this crap is Guy Pearce saying "I am the Mandarin!" as if it made any sense whatsoever? It makes no sense, and it wasted the potential of what may be Iron Man's most iconic villain.

What an absolute waste of potential.

And on the off chance that all of this crappy Mandarin tomfoolery worked on us, and we bought into it even in the slightest, where were his rings? You know, the 10 Rings which give him his powers? I know they have to change things up between print and film to make the material work or fit their live-action vision, but come on. What's next, is Thanos going to show up in Avengers 2 with no Infinity Gems?

In summary: this movie had no Mandarin. It had a fake Mandarin, and a guy saying "I'm The Mandarin!" with absolutely none of the characteristics of The Mandarin, but a real Mandarin was nowhere to be found in this movie. Mandarin. *I just had to say it one more time.

If there's one thing that drives me insane in movies, it's being thrown a twist that negates what has come before it, in part or in whole. It usually feels like a cheap co-out, and almost always takes me right out of a movie. Just like this one.

Sit down, Ben. It's over.

Iron Man 3 fails as much as it succeeds, and it leaves us unsure how we truly feel about it as a complete film. It was fun and entertaining, but it was equally as baffling and uneven. Anyone looking for a step up in awesomeness from The Avengers should not look here; whereas The Avengers was spectacle, Iron Man 3 is a more subdued man-on-a-journey flick.

They should have just went with Killian and the EXTREMIS threat on its own, and left The Mandarin out of it completely. That would have been effective enough and rang more true than the swerve they fed us.

Down the road we may see Iron Man 3 in a different, better light. It's possible that the whole EXTREMIS thing will allow Ultron to show up in the Ant-Man movie, but as it stands right now, Iron Man 3 teeters on the border between a C+ and a B- for us.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Rebecca Hall bring some hotness to the movie, but in all honesty it's Guy Pearce that spends the most time with his shirt off. Chicks will totally dig that.

Quick Review: Looper (2012)

Before we get into our end of the year awards lists, let's take a few minutes to at least offer a paragraph or two on some of the movies that we never got around to writing about, and that deserve to have a few words spoken about them.

Looper was a very ambitious movie that wasn't the genre-defining movie that we'd anticipated it to be, but that delivered a solidly entertaining story, none the less.

If you like a good Sci-Fi flick that offers some dazzling visuals and some interesting concepts, then this movie is definitely one that should be on your "must see" list.

Bruno!

It's a complex, thinking man's type of action flick, that plays in the realm of time travel. It twists and turns enough to make you want to see it again right after, so that you can both make sense out of what you just saw and enjoy it from a completely different viewpoint than you previously did.

Could Emily Blunt be any hotter?

Joseph Gordon Levitt is one of Hollywood's best young actors, and although he looked really odd at times in his "young Bruce Willis" prosthetics, he pulled off this role and became one hell of an action star in the process.

That Bruce Willis chin though...

Again, it wasn't an instant classic like we'd hoped it would be, but it was one hell of a good flick that left us satisfied, and one that's well worth a rental or purchase.

B

Ah, Emily Blunt...

The 31 Days of Horror- #3

"A seriously creepy "haunted House" flick, and a movie that made me want to punch myself in the face..."
The Hidden Gem:The Master says: Hands down one of the creepiest movies ever made. Many people haven't even heard of this bad ass little movie, and that makes me sad. It's not much for blood or kills, there aren't jump scares or evil creatures running around, but nothing tops it for atmosphere; between the creepy "Session" tapes that we hear playing throughout, to the music and the isolation of the asylum, this movie unsettles the viewer and by the end, you will want to turn all of the lights on in your house. I especially like the ending; was the voice on the tapes just a disturbed patient, or something more... something that drives people to murder? I think it's a little Demonic if you ask me, but then again, I have a vivid imagination. If you haven't seen this movie, do so now... alone, in the dark, and preferably at midnight. It just sounds cool, doesn't it?

The Train Wreck:The Master says: Wow, I can't believe what an awful, laughable, utter mess this movie is. If you see this, you will be angry for having wasted your time. If for some reason you like this, or think it good, then you're most likely slow in the brain. The acting is atrocious for the most part. Seriously unbelievable. Allison Miller was okay some of the time, but even she was bad. Onegen and the General were amongst the worst performances I've seen all year. Maybe ever. The script is just ridiculous. Whoever wrote the dialogue should be ashamed of themselves, and everything that happened in this movie was just laughable. The schoolgirl sword fight was the low-light for me... and that's saying a lot. The CGI blood and gore is horrible... is Karo syrup and red dye too expensive to use in movies these days? I've never seen a worse blood effect in a movie. Ever. The list could go on and on, exposing the crappity crapness of this lame live-action version of a beloved Anime, but you get the point. Don't ever watch this.