Lockout

Plot:  A man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates.

Directors:

James Mather, Stephen St. Leger

Writers:

Stephen St. Leger (screenplay), James Mather (screenplay), 2 more credits »

Stars:

Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare

I simply cannot believe someone put $20 million behind this script.  Ready for this?

SPACE JAIL!

YES!  I'm not joking!  A jail in OUTERSPACE!

This guy gets it.

You gotta totally unplug your brain and just commit to the fantasy.  If you like stuff like Crank or Crank: High Voltage or pretty much anything else that is just so incredibly unbelievable that your suspension of disbelief requires high tensile steel bridge cables to help support it...you can consider this.

The best part is that, in addition to being a space jail, it is over run by the inmates!  When the president's daughter is on board!

OF COURSE!

And she is a smoking hot blonde with a great rack!

I kept waiting for Barney the Dinosaur to show up with a machine gun and kill all the bad guys!

What are the freaking chances I would actually find this?

I wouldn't recommend this for children, women, anyone feeling suicidal, anyone with an IQ over 50 or anyone who has the gift of sight.

1/5 STARS

Congo

Plot:  When an expedition to the African Congo ends in disaster, a new team is assembled to find out what went wrong.

Director:

Frank Marshall

Writers:

Michael Crichton (novel), John Patrick Shanley (screenplay)

Stars:

Laura Linney, Tim Curry, Dylan Walsh

This is one of those movies that simply suffers from bad writing.  The acting is fine and the action is good, but the story is unoriginal and the plot just SUCKS.

The whole idea is that diamond mine is protected by a group of feral gorillas deep in the Congo.  The diamond mine hunters just happen to join up with a zoologist who specializes in gorillas and is trying to return one of his gorillas back to her homeland.

But there is a war going on for some reason, and there are soldiers all over the place, planes are getting blown out of the sky...and here comes Dr. Doolittle and his gorilla.

It's just so deeply stupid that he wouldn't turn around and go home, but instead brave almost certain death just to return his gorilla home.  It takes you out of the movie so quickly that you just stop caring.  When people start getting killed you just think to yourself, "Good.  The deserve it.  Darwin's theory at work."

I kinda like the movie myself, because even though it is stupid, I just really like the characters.  They are colorful and feel real, and everyone outside the main character makes sense.  If they made Laura Linney's character the protagonist and tweaked the story a bit, this could have been a decent movie.  But they didn't... so it ain't.

2/5 STARS

The Faculty

Plot:  Students suspect that their teachers are aliens after bizarre occurances.

Director:

Robert Rodriguez

Writers:

David Wechter (story), Bruce Kimmel (story), 1 more credit »

Stars:

Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris

It's essentially a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but with just a much sexier cast.  

Ooh La la!

It does keep your guessing and the suspense is pretty good.  For a horror movie, it's pretty memorable.  The original is always better than the remakes, but unless the original is on Netflix, this is worth the watch for fans of the horror genre. 

4/5 STARS

Resident Evil

Plot:  A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident.

Director:

Paul W.S. Anderson

Writer:

Paul W.S. Anderson

Stars:

Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Ryan McCluskey

It's a mediocre horror film, and unless you are a fan of the videogame series, this really isn't a movie worth investing the time into watching.  You would be better off watching The Cabin in the Woods instead of this.  It has one scene in particular where it carved out some memorability in my mind, but it's mostly a blur of bad acting and zombies.  

Good for horror fans or zombie fans only.

3/5 STARS  

A Fish Called Wanda

Plot:  In London, four very different people team up to commit armed robbery, then try to doublecross each other for the loot.

Directors:

Charles Crichton, John Cleese

Writers:

John Cleese (story), Charles Crichton (story)

Stars:

John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline

This is a truly great comedy.  I like Fierce Creatures more, but this really is a good one.  A must see.

5/5 STARS  

The Rum Diary

Plot:  American journalist Paul Kemp takes on a freelance job in Puerto Rico for a local newspaper during the 1960s and struggles to find a balance between island culture and the expatriates who live there.

Director:

Bruce Robinson

Writers:

Bruce Robinson (screenplay), Hunter S. Thompson (novel)

Stars:

Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart

A no name news reporter get's tangled up in some high level conspiracy stuff and falls in love with a billionare's girlfriend.

Sound interesting?  Good, watch it.

4/5 STARS

Bernie

Plot:  In small-town Texas, the local mortician strikes up a friendship with a wealthy widow, though when he kills her, he goes to great lengths to create the illusion that she's alive.

Director:

Richard Linklater

Writers:

Skip Hollandsworth (based on the article in Texas Monthly by), Richard Linklater (screenplay), 1 more credit »

Stars:

Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey

This movie recreates the real life murder of Marge Nugent, a wealthy widow who was murdered by her much younger boyfriend.  The movie is shot as if it is a reality show of some sort, with interviews and character commentary interspersed throughout the film.  It's an interesting story in real life, but it makes a terribly boring film.  The whole punchline of the film is that Bernie was so well liked around the community that no one really wants to prosecute him for the murder.

It's not a comedy by any means and Jack Black simply isn't a very talented actor.  I wouldn't bother.

1/5 STARS