TheMacDawg

I rather enjoyed the first installment of this Sherlock Holmes franchise and like the Pirates of the Caribbean series, I was eagerly awaiting the release of the newest offering. And like the Pirates of the Caribbean, I was equally disappointed.

The first movie was smart, fast paced and full of witty moments and brain twisting turns in the plot. This sequel was true to its name, A Game of Shadows, because it was a mere shadow of the first movie. While it was not totally void of witty moments, they were not nearly as frequent or as well-timed. The plot was also shallow and less intriguing than its predecessor. Character development was missing, as was any real dramatic effect. Its not that it was a terrible movie, it was just, well, dull, boring and uninspired.

The visual effects were similar to the first movie, highlighted by the dark, industrial motif. But the special effects were not as exhilarating, nor did they really enhance the experience. For instance, the scene in the woods where everyone is running for their lives is played out in slow motion while trees are being splintered around them. Yawn. I, for one, am quite tired of the slow motion effect and feel it is grossly over-used today. It has its place, but to use it just because it is “cool” isn’t reason enough anymore.

The whole plot of the movie, a chess game of sorts between two brilliant minds, fails to deliver on an intellectual level. There needed to be more dueling of the minds with moves and counter moves to keep us guessing. Holmes’ romantic interest from the first movie is unceremoniously dispatched early on in such a casual way that I kept expecting to find that she was not dead after all, and assumed she would emerge at any moment to play a key role. Alas, that never happened, and the movie lacked any romantic tension at all. The  female gypsy character was never truly developed in any meaningful way, and her brother, the assassin is even more of an enigma. Holmes’ brother is introduced to us, but we never find out much more about him than his sibling relationship.

Overall, the movie retained Holmes and Watson as partners, and Watson’s wife in the middle, but beyond the obvious visual similarity, the movie lacked everything that made the first one very good. In fact, I dare say if this one had been released first, there may have never been a sequel. Unless they can recapture the mojo of the first movie, I hope they avoid subjecting us to a trilogy.

It is funny now, but growing up I was a much bigger DC comics fan than a Marvel fan. As a boy in the 60?s, I actually subscribed to Superman comics for a while, as well as Jimmy Olsen. I felt like I knew the DC family, Lois Lane, Jimmy, Perry White and the gang. Then I expanded to the Justice League of America with the Flash, Green Lantern, Batman and others, and even the Legion of Superheroes. The Marvel group was edgy and less mainstream at the time, and darker. Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Iron Man, etc. I preferred the comfort of my world in Gotham City and Metropolis, not in Tony Stark’s world or Peter Parker’s, much less Captain America and the Avengers. However, when it comes to the movies, I have to say, the Marvel group has it all over the DC comics.

Iron Man was a great movie. So were the first two Spiderman movies. And despite the critics, I have enjoyed all of the X-Men movies. Not all have them have clicked (Daredevil), but for the most part, I think they have been superior to the DC flicks. The original Superman and Batman movies were fun, but campy. The new Batman franchise has improved, but it is still different from the Marvel genre. That brings us to the Green Lantern. The Green Lantern was one of my all time favorite DC characters growing up. I could run around quoting “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power, Green Lantern’s light!” Although I must confess I wasn’t above donning a towel for a cape and being Superman or Batman, but my boyhood fantasies rarely revolved around being those characters. No, I wanted to be Green Lantern. In my mind, he was the best of the best. For that reason, I was wary of the movie. Bringing something from my imagination to the screen is always challenging. Few movies ever measure up to the books in my opinion. There are exceptions… Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter being two primary ones, even though they do have their flaws (Arwen in particular).

I wasn’t disappointed in the movie, but that’s because I didn’t have lofty expectations of it. It wasn’t on the par with Iron Man or others, but it wasn’t bad either. In fact, I probably liked it as well as Thor in many ways. It could have been better, but it could have been much worse. The special effects were spotty at best. Some were pretty good, but others were pretty bad too. There was no consistency in the delivery of the story visually.

The overall storyline of the movie was predictable from the beginning to the end. Guy becomes superhero, guy wonders why and what it means and how to do it, guy has a girl that isn’t really sold on him till he becomes superhero, guy struggles, guy saves the world, guy gets the girl. There wasn’t much deviation, imagination or anything else to the story. In fact, the “bad guy” was really awful. Not the human bad guy, he was tolerable, but the space bad guy, he was laughable. There was no development of tension leading up to the end of the universe or anything else. It just happened and was over quickly. In fact, Hal Jordan dispatched the evil creature so quickly and matter of factly that it left me wondering how all of those other 3,000+ Lanterns could have failed so miserably and been so “afraid”. I mean honestly, why couldn’t those other Lanterns have just tossed the bad guy into the sun and been done with it from the beginning? Surely 3,000 of them could have done so without breaking a sweat if one Hal Jordan could do it without much trouble. Sheesh.

Best part of the movie? When the Green Lantern appears to the girl and starts talking with that goofy superhero voice telling her he is glad she is ok, etc. She looks at him and says “Hal? I’ve known you my whole life. I’ve seen you naked. You really think I wouldn’t recognize you?” I LOL’ed.

One thing I like about our Regal Cinema is there are never any crowds. We have been going to see movies on opening weekends and we never have to stand in a line… not to buy tickets… not to buy concessions. We have our pick of seats in the theater and never have to rush to get there early.

This week we saw X-Men: First Class on opening weekend. Apparently it isn’t offered in 3-D, which is fine by me. I’m pretty much over watching movies in 3-D and paying the premium. I have enjoyed all of the installments of the X-Men movies, including Wolverine, and the cameo appearance by Wolverine in this film was an unexpected treat. I really liked the idea of a prequel for this franchise because the other story lines had pretty much run their course. This was a welcome addition to explore the relationship between Charles (Professor X) and Eric (Magneto). I like the character developments between them and the tension – friends and enemies at the same time. They have to constantly balance their respect for each other without compromising their own ideals, and we see how that started from the very beginning.

I thought the plot and story were very clever, even though it follows the same overall theme as all of the movies. Using the Cuban missile crisis and the backdrop of the 60′s was well thought out and integrated into the overall story line very well. It wasn’t just a gimmick, it was developed throughout the whole movie by giving behind the scenes looks at what was going on every step.

The special effects were really good… not to the extent of something like Transformers… but they fit the story and were not meaningless attempts to show outrageous special effects. The battle scenes were not overly drawn out to the point where you were hoping someone would die just to end them. Even so, there were some slow spots in the movie. I didn’t like the casting of Kevin Bacon for his part. Most of the scenes involving him directly were yawners for me, and he seemed completely out of place. I think they would have done better using someone unknown or fresh like most of the rest of the cast. In addition, I don’t feel like they took advantage of the supporting cast very well. We were briefly introduce to their powers, but we never really learned much of anything about them as characters. I realize the emphasis was on Charles and Eric, but I think the movie would have been better if some of the time had been diverted from Kevin Bacon to exploring the backgrounds of the other characters a bit, especially since other than Raven, these were not characters we see in the later movies. I do think it leaves the door open for another movie to show the beginnings of the other major characters like Storm and Cyclops, much the same way as they did for Wolverine.

Overall, I really liked the movie, not as much for the action as for the interplay and background between Charles and Eric. We already knew some of Eric’s beginnings, but learning about Raven and how Charles was paralyzed added a lot to the X-Men lore in the movies.

The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are some of my favorites of all time, along with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and some others. So I have been greatly anticipating the release of On Stranger Tides; ever since I heard it was being filmed. I enjoy all of the characters for different reasons, and I was interested to see how they would move forward without the Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan dynamic working.

While I liked the movie, I can’t say I loved it, and it is clearly at the bottom of the four in my opinion. Here are some of my observations…

There was no chemistry. I wanted to like Penelope Cruz and her character because I was never really happy with Keira Knightley and her’s. But I have to say, after watching Cruz’s lackluster performance, it made me long for a return of Elizabeth Swan. There was no chemistry between Cruz and Depp, and her character was incredibly boring. So much so that I was thrilled to see Capt’n Jack leave her on that deserted island.

Barbossa is one of my favorite characters, but he was totally neutered in this film. He was no longer the pirate adversary to Capt’n Jack, he was one of the King’s minions, or at least had to pretend to be. In fact, there were no pirates in this film at all other than Blackbeard, who became one of my favorite characters. He was cast well and played a good part. In fact, I would go so far as to say he stole the show other than the occasional flashes from Depp.

Depp is at his best when he is playing off the other characters and orchestrating behind the scenes. In this film, he is expected to take the lead and and carry it himself, and it fails to deliver the same punch. The characters are not well developed, especially Cruz, and they all seem flat, waiting for Depp to lead them in each scene. Only at the end did we see Barbossa the pirate come out as he took control of Blackbeard’s ship.

The story itself was ill conceived and shallow. The whole mermaid and missionary dynamic seemed misplaced and forced. It was never explored or developed, and it never tied in well to the overall storyline. In retrospect, I can say I never felt any attachment to any of the characters… no feelings at all. Each time the missionary was left for dead I thought good riddance, but he kept coming back. I felt no angst for him and the mermaid, and in fact I viewed their scenes as an intrusion on the story.

There was too much land and not enough sea. Most of this story takes place in London or in Florida… on land. The sea scenes were few, and I missed the action on the open waters between pirate vessels, etc. Wandering through the jungles was boring and was not rescued by any compelling dialogue from anyone. There was no tension… no hero to root for or villain to disdain. There were no subplots or intrigue to discover. Everything was out on the table, with no hidden agendas or stories to uncover. Even the whole Blackbeard’s daughter thing was handled poorly. There was no build up or drama… no climax to ascend.

It sounds like I hated the movie, I know. But I didn’t. It was pretty good, and I enjoyed it. It just wasn’t in the league with the other 3 in my opinion. They are classics, where this one was average. It came across as a low budget attempt to make a lot of money on the hype. I don’t know where they will take this franchise, but I hope they will rediscover the magic of the first movies. They should start by bringing the Pearl back. A Pirates movie without the Pearl is doomed from the start.