Well, I've seen three movies this weekend, and all three need to be commented on. This is all spoiler free.
The first was Collatoral, on Friday night. I was blown away. Jamie Foxx dominated this flick, and Cruise kept up nicely. The dialogue and story were great, and the violence was keen.
The stuff I was most surprised about was the photograhy and the soundtrack. Both kept me thinking about my favourite movie from last year, Lost in Translation. Director Michael Mann did his best to make Los Angelas look ethereal and beautiful, and he mostly succeded. LiT's Sophia Coppola did a better job, (of course) but maybe Tokyo is just a better looking city than LA?
I haven't seen a movie with a such an effective soundtrack since LiT, either. Maybe Eternal Sunshine. Again, LiT wins out, but I still might have to buy the Collatoral album. An awesome range of music, and it enhanced the mood everytime.
I'm thinking that Collatoral is the second best movie I've seen so far this year, rating just behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The second movie was Alien vs. Predator, a movie in which the director probably fired every single person on the set who exhibited an ounce of imagination.
remember during the production stage, how the directer kept bragging about the intense buildup in the first part of the movie. It wasn't a mindless action movie, he said - there was a plot. Build up! Character development before the fighting!
Bollocks, the movie was painfully boring and stupid, right up to the moment when a Predator goes hand to hand with an Alien.
And even then... it was kind of like watching a WWF match.
The people who made this movie had no imagination, no love for these alien creatures. The Predator just kind of stalked about, though he did get some good slicing and dicing in.
The portrayal of the Aliens continued to evolve in this movie, thankfully. Now, they scamper about like insects. It was strange to watch them move in groups - it was like watching ants, maybe.
Remember the animatronic Alien Queen from Aliens? Well, she's back, she's CGI, and she's an Olympic Track star.
The humans were stupid, just stupid. The buildup didn't generate worthwhile characters or suspense, it was just made for a useless first act that could have been filled with Predators going Samurai on a pack of Aliens.
There were really only two scenes that I was actually excited in, and both, the Predator was showing off excellent fighting ability. The rest was very workmanlike, with no imagination at all.
I've been waiting for this movie since I saw the Alien skull in the Predator ship in Predator 2... was the wait worth it?
Sure, I guess. Predators still fought Aliens, and... well, now I want to see Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash. Bring it!
And the third movie, The Exorcist. Well, I keep reading about how scary it was... not terribly scary at all. Some shocking stuff, of course. The imfamous alternate use of a crucifix scene was strange to see. But scary? Eh. The skeptical priests investigating the possible possesion were all pretty cool, asking intelligent questions and generally being smart about it.
But scary? Eh. The Ring beats the pants off The Exorcist.
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