Snow White and the Huntsman

Snow White and the Huntsman – 127min – PG-13

We seem to be in a Snow White phase. There are two movies out that focus on the raven haired maiden and her adventures. This version takes a more realistic approach to its filming and keeps a balance of fantasy and faith as its main message. One of the biggest concerns with this film was the performance of its star, Kristin Stewart. Her work in the Twilight series has been brought into question by lots of different people who either hate or love that franchise. It was great to see her in something that had a little more strength as a character. I give this movie a green light for its stunning cinematography and its great execution of mixing personal faith within a fantasy world.

Thanks to the Brothers Grimm, we are familiar with the German fairy tale about a faire maiden named Snow White (Kristin Stewart) who is far more beautiful than her evil step mother the queen (Charlize Theron). The queen sends a Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) into the dark forest to kill snow white. Snow is befriended by eight Dwarves who are named Muir (Bob Hoskins), Beith (Ian McShane), Gorth (Ray Winstone), Coll (Toby Jones), Duir (Eddie Marsan), Quert (Johnny Harris), Nion (Nick Frost), and Gus (Brian Gleeson). This is where the movie takes a different turn. They join forces with group of locals who oppose the queen and use Snow White as a rallying point to start a revolution and usurp the queen.

This movie does a wonderful job of mixing the imagery of evil as dark and gruesome and horrific contrasted with imagery of good as beauty and wholesomeness and purity. The director (Rupert Sanders) is really new in the role as director and he shows huge potential as a storyteller with this debut film. What I like best is his ability to blend in so many subtle details into the story. For instance there were small things about the queen’s wardrobe and style that had something dead mixed into every scene she was in. His eye for the cinematic background was also exceptional. He has these very stark, dreary and muted villages that are under the queen's control and pockets of resistance to the queen’s power are painted with bright vibrant color and full of life.

On the strong female character front, this movie does a much better job of showing a strong role model for young women. Snow gives a stirring speech, saying follow me because I am the only one who can kill the queen. She reminded me of Joan of Arc front of the fight in armor, army at her back. Out of all the Snow White movies out this year this one is defiantly my favorite.

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The prayer that Snow White said at the beginning of her escape was interesting. I did not think that they would go so far as to blend in the Lord’s Prayer with the fantasy setting of fairies and the spirit of nature. They did a great job of showing the spirituality of Snow White without giving us a sermon on how her faith kept her sane.

The love triangle between the huntsman, Snow White and the prince (Sam Claflin) was very apparent but they did not belabor the point that there were feelings amongst all three of these characters. This speaks volumes to the excellent story telling on Rupert Sanders part. He knows that his audience understands what’s going and gives us room to explore our own feelings about the relationships we see on the screen.

I know in movie terms there are some times in a battle where you have to show how bad things are and let the bad guy look like they are winning. There was much too long a pause in the final battle, to let the CGI shard monster have its way with the fodder that followed Snow into the queen’s tower. I would have loved to see Snow come in and the Queen starts something up and Snow runs her through before she has a chance to get the spell off or let the nasty creature loose. But that’s just me.

What Grimm story needs to be done next? What is your favorite?

Men in Black III

Men in Black III – 103min – PG-13

The Men in Black are back, and this “time” it’s personal. The team, for the most part, are back and are performing at the level we saw in the original MIB. It’s about time (no pun intended, that time). It has been way too long between films and I was beginning to think we were done with the series. I really liked the first one and was completely let down by the second one. I was afraid that the second one was such a stink burger that they decided to let it die and pretend the series never existed. I am happy to say that they have brought this series back, I am unhappy to say that it was really only as good as the first one. This is a yellow light film.

The moon has a prison for all of the aliens that the MIB uses for its most dangerious criminals. Among them is a one-armed Alien, Boris (Jemaine Clement). He breaks out and seeks revenge on the MIB agent that took his arm in his arrest, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Agent J (Will Smith) and K are doing their job when they realize that Boris has set a trap for them. Boris decides that the best way to get rid of K is to go back in time and alter it so that he saves his arm and take out K. J realizes that something is bothering his partner so he investigates who Boris is and what why he wants to harm K. During the investigation K gets ripped out of time and J is the only one who can remember him. The new head of MIB Agent O (Emma Thompson) tells him that whatever has happened K is in the middle of it. J rushes back in time to save his friend and runs into K as a young man (Josh Brolin) together they work to save the earth and K of the future.

The cast have some really great material to work with, the story is a solid formula based on the first one, a good mix of humor, effects and action. Brolin’s spot-on impression of a young K is worth the price of admission. But it seemed like they were trying to find their feet with these characters again. It almost seemed forced. There was nothing wrong with it but it did seem to come off as rediscovering the roles after 14 years.
 
Barry Sonnenfeld (director) made this seem to keep the same pace as the previous films. Etan Cohen (writer) took the original material as a base and took it in a new direction. This attempt was at best a reawakening of the series, now they need to use this momentum in the series in a bigger and brighter direction. I hope they don’t wait another 14 years to make another one.

Spoiler warning!!! I will flashy thingy you if you click on this link!!!!!

Time travel is a problem. For instance the guy who gives J the time travel devices say oh you must have been there that’s why you can remember, tell me all about it when you get back. If J goes back in time he is going to rewrite the future why would the guy know anything about what he did in the previous timeline? I know I am a geek and should really not look at stuff like that.

The technology they used was a bit too high tech for the past, I see where they did try and cover the fact that the technology should be high tech but really old. The motorcycles were way to advanced and should have been different.

The way they cover up the fact that Rip Torn is no longer in the series by having he die was perfect it gave Emma Thompson a chance to elegise in a different language. Very funny work, but mostly because of J’s reaction, And K’s eulogy was perfect.

Maybe my expectations are too high to expect that a third installment should have been better than the previous films. Do you expect movie sequels to be better than the previous film or are just meeting the expectations of the previous films ok?

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Posted on News Blaze

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen -  107 min - PG13

This is a movie that you can enjoy if you are in the mood for a film that highlights the differences in cultures and in people of the same culture. You can see my  review here 

Battleship

Battleship – 131m – PG-13

Any review that starts out with, "wow that movie did not suck as bad as I thought it would" is not a raving review. This movie was no more or less than what it was advertized as. It’s a water ballet version of Transformers. The XY of my brain liked the eye candy with the babes, explosions and high action. It pulls a little bit at the patriotic heart strings and even has a multicultural flare. All of that doesn't change the fact that this is a movie that is based on a board game. A dull board game at that. This two hour board game advertisement gets a red light. The action was fine but nothing else. Excuse me while I go weep in the corner over the realization Candy Land is actually being developed.

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a brilliant family screw-up. He has potential that no one sees except for his brother. Commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard). After Alex gets arrested for breaking into a convince store to steal a burrito for Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker), he is forced into joining the Navy by his brother. Fast forward to Alex as an officer on a ship and wants to marry Samantha. He is now in a position to ask for her hand from her father Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson).
Alex gets into trouble with another officer Captian Yugi Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) from a Japanese ship and is going to be thrown out of the Navy after they get back to shore after the cross cultural naval games. Enter an alien invasion and the ship that Alex is on gets separated from the fleet and he must fight for humanity with a rag-tag group of survivors.

The main problem with this film is that it is just an excuse to blow things up and show off how cool real battleships are. The sad point is that they might have had some really good story ideas if they had let go of the whole board game tie-in aspect. If they spent more money on making a movie that was better told I think the payday would have been much higher for much longer. This could have been much better leveraged as a sea battle movie because battleships are extremely cool. They don’t need special gimmicks.

Rihanna was in this film and for nothing more than eye candy, (and she does that well). I feel that she was completely held back and made to be set dressing than actually doing anything substantial in the role. I think she has talent but she needs to get a more serious role to really give this acting thing a go.

Spoiler Warrning!!!! Only crew members of the Mighty Mo click here to see the spoilers!!!

Ok. If you have any military experience you would know that any military equipment is being given over to civilians or set up as a museum, they break every system in that piece of equipment. They pour concrete down the barrel and strip out anything that could give away any military secret. It would have been better to say that the Mighty Mo was on its way to be decommissioned.

The other problem is that it seemed like there were only really five people on the crew the stars did everything from sniper to navigating the ship to security sweeps. I was in the Army so I am not sure but doesn't each ship have like hundreds of people on it to keep it running? Why is the Capitan down in the hold running around clearing aliens?

Col. Greg Gadson is a real life Army Serviceman who was wounded during his service in Iraq. He has been working as a director of the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program and was approached by the film’s director (Peter Berg) to be in the film. This was a great opportunity to bring attention to the men and women who have served our country; I just wish it was a better venue. Col. Gadson’s scene was poorly written. He has such a powerful presence that was poorly used. The scene was presented as a man who overpowers his internal demons as well as kicking ass on an alien. The pacing felt like it was rushed and crammed in without making sure that it was constant with the tempo of the entire move.

What changes would you have made to the story? What do you think would have been a better direction?