The Avengers 2012 10 out of 10

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The Avengers was everything a superhero movie should be.  Exciting, thrilling and action packed.  The perfect mix of comedy and action.  The movie had a clever and witty script.  The movies verbal fights were  just as good as the physical fights.  This movie was a perfect example of  the sum of its parts being more than the parts themselves.  None of the these characters on their own were this good.   The original Hulk movie was a disaster.....Iron Man was surprisingly good as was Captain Americam but not at this level....Thor was a dud ( at least when he was on earth).   I would never go and see a Hawkeye movie or Nick Fury or Black Widow, but somehow put them all together and it makes the best superhero sandwich to ever hit the screen.  I don't consider myself a comic book fan....but I'm a devoted follower of the director of The Avengers.   I love everything he has put on the small screen.  Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr, Horrible and Dollhouse were all great.  Whedon took everything he learned from making those shows concerning the group dynamics of those shows characters and blended it somehow just right,  Flawed good guys that can be bad at times, fighting each other and then banding together for a common goal.

The Avengers success is all about balance...it was all about the right mix of ingredients that make the recipe for success just right.  Someone in Hollywood got it right in hiring Whedon to shepherd this movie.   Just like the people that put the trust in the Lord of the Rings movies in the hands of the guy that made Dead Alive and Bad Taste.  Whoever decided to give this group of superheroes in the capable hands of the guy that made Buffy was a genius

 After seeing The Avengers I can't imagine them going back to doing solo movies again.  The scope and scale of The Avengers was well beyond the other solo films

The In-Laws 2003 7 out of 10

Michael Douglas is a secret agent and Albert Brooks is NOT.   Albert Brooks is in  typical Albert Brooks mood. He is a master of being  paranoid and plays it up as he  gets caught up in a bunch of espionage when his daughter is about to marry Michael Douglas's son.  This plot puts  Albert Brooks in many some great comic situations in this good remake.

I love Albert Brooks and this film is right up his alley allowing him some of his nervous rambling and rants.  

Plus throw in a performance by K.C. and the Sunshine band....good stuff.  

Shoot First 1956 6 out of 10

A  U.S. Army Lt. Colonel (played by Joel McCrea)   stumbles across some spies while  hunting in England.  He shoots a man with some buckshot thinking he is a poacher and ended up in the middle of a spy adventure.  The movie also stars the infamous Herbert Lom of Pink Panther eye twitching fame. The movie is a decent low key 1950's spy film.

It starts off kind of slow,but  eventually speeds up a bit near the end with a staircase gunfight after a clandestine meeting inside a wax museum.  

Brad's Top 10 movies of 2008

Coming in at number 10

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor 2008 8 out of 10

Over the top CGI Mummy fun.......

Coming in at number 9

Iron Man 8 out of 10
A pleasant surprise. Robert Downey Jr ended up being the perfect casting choice for the not so humble Tony Stark

Coming in at number 8

Hellboy 2 8 out of 10
Epic Comic book fun

Coming in at number 7

Tinker Bell 2008 8 out of 10 Suprisingly good launch of the direct to DVD Tinker Bell movies. It had heart, a good story, good music and the kids all loved it

Coming in at number 6

Get Smart 2008 8 out of 10

Steve Carrell was perfect as Maxwell Smart is this update of the old TV show....Fun and funny'

Coming in number 5

Horton Hears a Who 8+ out of 10
A delightful adapation of one of Seus's works. With the voice talents of Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey

Coming in at number 4

Outlander 9 out of 10
You have probably never heard of it... I movie with a fairly big budget that pits Vikings versus Aliens that never got a wide release....It was actually pretty good.

Coming in at number 3

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull 9 out of 10

My least favorite Indy movie: Still good enough for the number 3 spot of 2008

Coming in at number 2

WALL-E 9+ out of 10 Pixar strikes again by bringing a soul to a cute little robot that barely talks. Amazing work.

Coming in at number 1

Clone Wars 9+ out of 10........and the TV show that it came from is just as good

The Land That Time Forgot 2009 5 out of 10

LOST with a Dinosaur.......It came out around the same time that  the big budget Will Ferrell Land of the Lost came out --plus the TV show LOST --about being stuck on a strange island was on ABC as well......(Asylum has a habit of doing that....just see Almighty Thor----I mean Don't see Almighty Thor it was terrible)..... My Almighty Thor Review is  here

http://bradgeekness.blogspot.com/search?q=almighty+thor

      I hate that they are able to put the words Edgar Rice Burrough's The Land That Time Forgot  on the box because low budget movies like this and my previously reviewed  Jules Verne's  Mysterious Island really don't do those classic books justice.  

(My Mysterious Island reivew is here)

http://bradgeekness.blogspot.com/2012/02/jules-vernes-mysterious-island-2012-0.html

Someone growing up today my be turned off from reading this classic books after watching these  cheap low budget versions of them with the names of such classic authors attached.  Edgar Rice Burrough's  deserves  versions like Disney's  Tarzan and John Carter rather than  films starring (C Thomas Howell).   That being said ---at least this  direct to DVD movie was watchable unlike the Mysterious Island film that was direct to Syfy earlier this year.    Sure it was low budget and they kept shooting scenes in the same 5 shot locations over and over again.....But for an Asylum movie this one was decent in all its cheesy glory.

Cabin in the Woods 9 out of 10: Welcome to the Whedonverse!

The Cabin in the Woods fits perfectly into the Whedonverse.    It skewers the horror genre and its conventions in  a clever and laugh filled fashion.  Like a really fun episode of Buffy or Angel that goes places that the show couldn’t.   It  plays with the classic horror movie genre with a mysterious   quality straight out of the movie The Cube….  but with Buffy style laughs.   It basically serves as a way of explaining all of the horror movies that we have seen over the years…..All of the unexplained decisions that the characters of those horror movies make.  It is like if the Scooby Gang went to a spooky cabin in the woods and left Scooby at home.   Shaggy is definitely there in the form of Fran Kranz (previously from the Dollhouse)  playing the geeky stoner  Marty.   As a fan of  Buffy and Angel I got exactly what I wanted out of this movie going experience.  It meet all of my expectations by creating creepy settings and scary moments and then having great moments of laughter and fun in place of scares.  It captured the horror that it is skewering and then cooked the kabobs and added a little extra sauce.

 The big supposed twist of the movie is technically revealed in the first few minutes of the movie and that really doesn’t matter.   It isn’t a movie that solely relies on a twist at the end like the so-so films of  M Knight.   The twist  is just a fun original idea  that allows us to look at the horror genre in a different way.    The thing I like about Joss Whedon’s stuff is that he teases you and teases you and then pays it off in the end.   On Buffy there would be a season long arch ---a mystery behind the season that you would get a hint of –and then another hint and at the end of the season there would be a payoff and the story would move forward to something else.     Other shows like Twin Peaks ,  X-Files and LOST were masters of the tease (and great at times in their run)  but they all failed in the big payoff.   You need to eventually payoff the audience.   Whedon does and this movie does as well.   They could have easily ended the movie and left it open for dozens of sequels with different scenarios ---but instead the movie has a big payoff at the end.   And I appreciate it.  

Benchwarmers 2006 5 out of 10 Antibullying with a laugh or 2

A movie with a message about anti-bullying starring  Rob Schneider??   The movie itself was just okay the message or heart of the movie was unexpected. Jon Heder---plays an adult nerd that still wears a helmet and for an acting choice he basically just plays the character like Napoleon Dynamite with a helmet  (what range).  David Spade is basically just nerdier version of his exact same character he always plays with a bad haircut and  Nick Swardson is basically wasted as  Spade's brother that is afraid of the sun.  They all play a bunch of losers that never got picked to play ball back in the day that stand up to a bunch of young bullies that are picking on a kid.  This brave action  and the help of another former nerd that is now a billionaire (Jon Lovitz) leads them to  band together to take on little league teams and get payback.   The  humor in the movie is pretty average---nothing special or exceptionally funny.  The message was actually pretty heartfelt one about anti-bullying which was a bit of a surprise coming from Deuce Bigalow and Joe Dirt.  Rob Scheider --who to me is usually a throw away character with a few funny moments in Adam Sandler movies actually does a pretty good job as the main character that isn't exactly what he seems.   That plot point was predictable-but worked well anyway.  All in all it was a so-so comedy that was only slightly more than I expected it to be.