Prince of Persia (Movie)

I waited a very, very long time to see this movie. I knew how I would feel about it pretty much right away. I love the Prince of Persia franchise. From the very first one that I used to play in elementary school on the school computers, right up until the Two Thrones. I am wildly, madly in love with these games. I remember being pretty excited when I heard that they were going to make a movie, trepedacious, but excited as well. I hoped beyond a hope that this would be the video game movie to break the bad streak of video game movies.

Then I saw the star.

Now, please, for the love of god, do not get me wrong here. I also very much adore Jake Gyllenhaal. I have seen pretty much everything that he has done in his career, and I have found very little to complain about. I think he’s an amazing actor, and has a great range. So it’s nothing at all personal to Jake.

It’s just that… well.

He’s not the Prince.

My excitement didn’t just waver, it sort of completely and utterly deflated and left me with absolutely no wanting to see this movie. That’s a pretty big drop, really. I see now that I should have expected it, given Jake’s appeal and stardom, who was producing the movie, and the fact that there are only a handful of video game movies out there worth their salt (and no, I cannot name them off the top of my head currently, so don’t ask. [but I can say none of them are by Uwe Boll.])

I waited for it to come up on Netflix Streaming until I would watch it. And I wasn’t even really waiting for it. I was just browsing one day, bored, and realized that it was there. I thought “hey, I have a few hours to kill and no desire to think about anything or put much effort into life, why not”.

While I will say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, it was bad. It disappointed me that they had to fuck with the story, they had to give everyone names. There wasn’t enough of the Prince jumping around like a supermonkey. It all sort of fell flat. Especially the ending. Flat. Predictable. Boring. About what I had come to anticipate.

I am glad that I watched it. It’s behind me now. I’ve seen it. I have an informed opinion. I wish Netflix had an added star for “meh”. Between “didn’t like it” and “liked it”. I didn’t turn it off. I didn’t loathe it to the core of it’s being. It was disappointing. I won’t ever watch it again, but I sat through it once. There’s no way to reflect that feeling on the Netflix rating system, and there really should be. I have felt that way about more than one movie.

I know it was exciting for Jake to have a role like this, who wouldn’t say yes to being the Prince? But maybe, just maybe, he should have taken a moment and really just thought it out. Asked himself if he was really right for the part, or if he was a fanboy getting his ultimate dream.

My vote? The latter.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Despite Sean Patrick Flanery looking as if he was wearing a wax mask of his own face most of the time, and occasionally a melting wax mask of his own face, I really enjoyed this movie.

It was going to be a toss up, I knew. Either it would be good, or it wouldn’t. As it always is when it comes to things you’ve been waiting forever for. I can’t even remember how long this has been in the works exactly. I just know it’s been years. I’ve haunted the Boondock Saints website for a really long time, waiting on the edge of my seat for any sign that this might go through. Then I sort of stopped checking for a couple months and all of a sudden BOOM, there it is, being released.

I put off watching it for a really long time. I almost bought it the minute it came out, almost. But I kept thinking to myself – what if it sucks? What if I hate it? If I buy it, and then I hate it, I’m going to cry. If I just don’t watch it, I don’t ever have to know that I hate it, and the dream can live on forever.

Then Netflix had to go and put it on streaming. I still put it off.

I sort of wish I hadn’t now. Of course, that’s because I liked it. The small superstitious part of me deep inside (okay, maybe not so deep) says that if I’d watched it any earlier, it would have turned out bad. Yes yes, my rational brain is quite aware that that’s not how things work. Sometimes, though, my rational brain loses. There’s nothing to be done about it.

I was very glad to see them carry on with the boys’ black humor. And as much as I didn’t like the new sidekick at the start, he grew on me. By the end, I was rooting for him just as much as I was Connor and Murphy.

Now that I’ve seen the film, I will be buying it as soon as possible.

It – Movie VS Book

Alright. So when I finally read It, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I thought that I would immediately pick up the movie and sit down and have a watch, but that didn’t happen until today. As I have previously written, I have never seen It the movie. I don’t know how. I went all these years and never even thought to pick it up on the cheap. Netflix finally sent it to me, and I finally sat down and had my viewing experience.

First things first: There wasn’t enough blood.
It is a very very bloody book. A kid gets his arm fucking ripped off. A little girl is absolutely mutilated. At one point Bev’s bathroom sink explodes with so much gore that it’s supposed to look like a murder scene.

I know it’s a made for TV thing, and they couldn’t include all the really gory stuff, but they certainly could have made things more to the actual story in that area.

Secondly: There were a lot of things I felt were pretty integral to the book that were completely missing from the movie. Like Mike’s story of seeing It for the first time. Where the fuck was that? What about the explanation of how they all got out of the sewers the first time around? HOW ABOUT the fact that the promise they made was a promise made in blood? That’s kind of important.

A lot of other things too. I mean, I know you’ve got a certain amount of time you can have for things like this, but if you’re going to make something three hours long, why cut so much out? Go for that fourth hour and get all the really important stuff in there.

Third and last: The ending was crap. Not the part of what It is, because that’s the same in the book. There’s a lot more involved there, and I think they should have put it in, but whatever. What I’m upset about is the fact that Derry didn’t sink into the ground. Um. Hi. The entire underground is falling apart, how is the city staying up?

All in all, I did enjoy it. I certainly enjoyed Tim Curry in it. He’s so freaking wonderful. I could watch it again, and I would probably get it on DVD, honestly. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorely disappointed in how things went.

I propose that this is remade. We bring back Tim Curry as Pennywise and we do everything right. I’m sure that we can make that spider thing look a lot more realistic and terrifying. Just imagine what the screen artists of today could pull off if given the reins.

Gabriel

Alright.

See, I went into this with the idea that it wasn’t going to be very good. I mean, I don’t recall it ever even being in theaters. I hadn’t even heard of it until I saw it in Netflix.

I’ve been putting it off for a really long time, though, because I have a thing for angels, and I knew it was going to be bad, and I didn’t want to be frustrated. But I finally watched tonight. The problem is, it’s not a bad movie, per se. Just the dialog is complete crap. I’m pretty convinced that whoever wrote the dialog is bordering on retarded. Like, actually mentally deficient.

Despite the epically bad writing, the actors still managed somehow to not come off as complete assholes. I’m not sure how they managed it, but they did. It doesn’t make anything better, really. It’s just nice to know that some actors CAN try to overcome the utter shit that some people spew. The only actor that didn’t really manage that was the guy who played Ahriman. He really felt forced.

So the movie itself, it’s about angels, I already said. Specifically, it’s about the archangel Gabriel. And Michael, and Uriel, and Raphael, etc. Seven of them vs seven fallen. In a battle of good and evil for the souls of this very strange city that I’m not sure about. In the start of the movie, it seems as if they want you to think it’s Purgatory, but everybody is still alive there, so it doesn’t quite work.

The whole thing had a very Crow-esque feel to it. Like The Crow with angels instead of avenging spirits and criminals. Very dark, very gloomy, very gothy. I can see what they were trying to go for. I mean, it’s obvious that somebody was a big fan of The Crow franchise, I would say this is a clear homage. Right down to the big battle scene at the end on a rooftop in the rain. (oops, spoiler. Like you were going to watch it anyway)

The fight scenes were actually pretty well done, and there were some special effects that I’m fairly impressed with. But I still can’t call it a good movie. I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to watch it, or put it on if I had people over. But let me be completely honest, if I found this movie on the cheap – I’d buy it. And I’d watch it while locked in my room so nobody could see what I was doing.

Deadgirl – Request(ish)

With friends like J.T., who needs prison cellmates?

It’s one thing to be a juvenile delinquent and know your friend is slightly more of a waste than you are, and another entirely to realize your best friend is willing and able to abuse a helpless girl both physically and sexually.

And entirely different thing altogether when that girl is possibly not as alive as she appears to be.

Other than some fairly bad editing and the use of some incredibly Donnie-Darko-esque music, I actually enjoyed watching this movie. Yeah, you are detecting a bit of surprise there. I really didn’t expect to enjoy it at all. A friend said she was pretty disturbed by it, and I like disturbed, so I went for it. Low expectations for everything, guessing that it wouldn’t strike my fancy too much. So yes, I’m a bit taken aback that I actually liked it. The acting was pulled off pretty well, considering that the main players in the flick aren’t real heavy hitters. The slightly slow story isn’t really noticeable because you really want to know what’s going to happen next (she says while mentioning it).

It’s like the most fucked up fairy tale in the entire history of fairy tales. I’m even including all the original ones here. The Grimm’s. The folklore. All of it.

As much as you think you can anticipate the ending, you really can’t. It comes a little bit out of left feild. Then it goes ahead and runs around behind you for a while before popping up again and shouting “BOO!”

The whole movie is pretty weird, but the ending is sort of extra weird. You’re a little disgusted and a little bit horrified, but it’s also sort of sweet. In a really disturbing kind of way.

The prince and hero eventually gets his princess… sort of.

“You’ll enjoy being dead. Deadgirl does.”

Vanity Fair

There’s only one reason I watched this movie. Reese Witherspoon. I adore her so much. She’s not only gorgeous and adorable, but a fantastic actress as well.

This isn’t really my sort of movie, but I can’t really say that it was bad, either. It kept my attention, it was interesting while I watched it, and it was visually appealing to boot.

I suppose I could sit through it again, if somebody I knew wanted to see it, and I won’t own it. I don’t see myself purposefully watching it a second time by myself. But, it’s not really my sort of movie, like I said.

There’s not really any resounding negative criticism I can think of to give it. The actors did well, the story was well written, it wasn’t horribly slow paced as I sort of dreaded it would be. The costumes were fun to look at. If you like this sort of thing, I say go for it.

Inspector Gadget

So I watched this movie by accident. It was on television last night. I’m not normally a proponent of watching movies on tv, because they cut out really random bits to make the film fit into the time slot. You never know what you’re missing if you’ve not seen it before.

I have to say that it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I used to watch the cartoon when I was little, and I wasn’t quite sure how it would translate to live action. But they really did manage to do a good job.

It was really cute.

You ever watch an actor or actress and think to yourself that you know them and can’t place them? It was like this for me when I watched the very few Buffy episodes that I did and I saw Michelle Trachtenberg. Now I know that I had seen her in the commercials for this movie. Also, apparently, in Clarissa Explains It All and Harriet The Spy. Go figure.

As wary as I am about sequels, I think I’ll hunt down the one for this movie and see how it turned out.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop – Request

I feel like I’ve watched a million Sandler-associated movies in the past while. Sometimes without even knowing it when I wade in.

10 minutes into this movie and I just had to pause it to say – Really?

I think that whoever was in charge of promotion for this movie ought to be fired. They did such a spectacularly shit job of it.

I was seriously ready to be pissed off at having to watch this movie because somebody requested it. I had a nagging feeling, though, that there was malice aforethought. I was pretty firmly in the idea that this was going to be one of the stupidest movies I ever sat through.

While I’m not going to want to own this one, I’m also not left wishing for my time back. I would have been irritated if I spent money to see it in a theater, but it was amusing enough to sit through once, on my couch, where I could turn it off without guilt at any time.

Also, like I hinted at earlier, not at all what they made me think I was in for. I believed I was going to witness a huge slapstick, physical comedy, silly-packed brainless experience. Instead, I discover a plot that somebody actually put effort into. Yeah, there are some goofy bits, but not a whole never ending string of them. It had nicely timed silly bits. Which made some of them actually funny enough to laugh at.

I didn’t have a lot of faith in Kevin James either, to be honest. He’s not exactly one of my favorite actors, and I was really wary at his ability to … well. Pull himself out of the hole that Chuck and Larry must have put him into. (Didn’t see it. Won’t.) But he also surprised me.

I guess what I’m saying is, don’t get too pissed off if somebody sits you down and forces you to watch it. You won’t feel the need to rip out your eyes or bash your friend to death with their own ottoman.

Wit’ch Fire – Finished

Sometimes, all it takes is a good little rant to push aside the little tiny things that annoy you so that you can become entranced with a story. Luckily, that’s all I needed with Wit’ch Fire.

I’m still bothered by the apostrophes in the common words, but not as much as I was. It didn’t halt my progress as badly, and once the story really got flowing, I hardly noticed.

I actually ended up liking the story enough to put the other books on my to-buy-used reading list. Hopefully they can keep my attention as much as this one eventually did, so that I don’t have to come back here and reiterate my loathing of certain things.

And just for your information: It’s always good to read a non-fantasy between fantasy series. Otherwise your brain will try to uproot information from the other books and try to implant them in the current ones.

Or that could just be me.