A few changes-Update!

Yeah, so I never update this because it is hard for me to find time to sit down and type out a long and drawn out movie review. In an effort to make the average of 0 readers that I have faithfully checking out the site on a never basis, I am going to change the way reviews are written here. Just thought I would give you a heads up.

For some reason it put my Batman stuff under this, so click here or look down if you wanna see it. Yep.

The Dark Knight

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a pretty hard core movie buff. I love all types of film from the silent era on up to the technological marvels that we experience every summer today. My favorite movie of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird from 1962. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch was my absolute favorite performance in any movie ever and while Mockingbird is still my favorite movie, Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is quite possibly the greatest thing I have ever seen.

The good:
I hate to sound like a fanboy but this whole movie is freaking amazing. The cast is ridiculously talented.

Christian Bale
Heath Ledger
Michael Caine
Morgan Freeman
Gary Oldman
Aaron Eckhart

The special effects are really well done. The story is very mature and handled in a way that gives this comic book movie a more grown up feel.

The bad.
It seems pretty obvious to me that they were setting it up to have the Joker come back for the next film, but the death of Heath kind of put the breaks on that. I can not imagine anyone that would want to follow him up on that performance. Also, even though I love the fact that this is a dark and sinister take on Batman, I am kind of bummed out that it is too freaky for anyone else in my family to watch with me.

The wrap up.
This is the best movie that I have seen since Pan's Labyrinth. If you think you can handle a gritty take on Gotham City, so not hesitate to see this movie.

10/10

Quick reviews

Just wanting to get caught up on stuff that I have seen recently, so here are some quicky reviews....

Iron Man-Probably the best superhero movie since Batman Begins (although, I think the Dark Knight is going to strip this of the honor in a few days) Robert Downey Jr is awesome as Tony Stark/Iron Man and was lucky enough to be surrounded by an "A" list supporting cast. The special effects are awesome as well. If you are an old school comic nerd, be sure to stay through the credits... 9/10

Kung Fu Panda-Great family movie with little to no objectionable material. The animation is superb and there are several subtle nods to 1970's Kung Fu movies that I loved. Really well done. 8/10

Be Kind Rewind-One of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. It is insanely stupid, but in a smart way if that makes any sense. Jack Black is actually pretty awesome in this movie (something that I can rarely say) and Mos Def turns in a very solid performance as the straight man. If you have a quirky sense of humor and a love for cinema, you should check this one out. 9/10

Into The Wild-This movie is amazing. I think everyone has wanted to do something similar to this guy at some point in their life. The cinematography is stunning and the sound track by Eddie Vedder is worth a purchase. Great film. 9/10

Anyway, expect a full review of Sweeney Todd at some point soon. Hope someone reads this...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of blah blah blah

Let me start by saying that I wanted to be Indiana Jones as a kid. We used to go to Gatlinburg for family vacation, and my brothers and I would all buy those leather whips they sold in the gift shops along with the leather tomahawks and the turquoise Indian jewelry. We would then take these home and proceed to play Indiana Jones until someone (usually me) whipped the other one (usually Ben) and they told mom. Then she would confiscate the whips and do whatever it was she did to make the disappear. I actually tried to whip a tree limb and swing across a small creek behind a friends house when I was in the 2nd grade. That was also the year we made a zip line across the same creek, but that is another story.

Anyway, to say that I was excited about a new Indiana Jones movie is a huge understatement. Even though it seems like George Lucas has a personal vendetta against me and is trying to take a crap on every thing that I still love from my childhood I thought that Steven Spielberg would cancel him out. Anyway, there are some mild spoilers in the review so if you have not had a chance to see this yet you may want to skip this.

The movie starts off with Indiana Jones (if you do not know that this is Harrison Ford, I probably do not want you reading my blogs or knowing me personally anyway. He is the man, plain and simple. Even a bad Harrison Ford movie is usually awesome.) and "Mac" played by the always reliable Ray Winstone are in the clutches of a group of Russian soldiers lead by Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (I have read that many people in the blog o sphere do not care for Cate Blanchett as an actress because she "looks like she wants you to know that she is acting" and it has never made sense to me before. She is not only bad in this movie, she is terrible. Everything about her character was really stupid and I am pretty suppirsed that she would take on a role like this... )

Now, before I go any further I would guess that most of you know that the story involves aliens. When I first heard that, I was admittedly kind of bummed out. I have to say that the alien deal is the one part of the story that I actually thought was interesting. SPOILER The plot of this movie stated that the reason the ancient Mayan civilization was that they were actually an advanced race of extraterrestrials which sounds kind of dumb and awesome at the same time. I think if they had someone who had produced a decent script in the last 10 years or so, this could have been awesome.

I actually think that I am going to stop this right here as I have been trying to write this for a couple of weeks now and just can not make myself care enough to keep going. I will say that you should see this movie, even though I hated it. I think my problem is that I went in hoping to be blown away like I was when I was a kid and instead I left the theater feeling empty. If this movie was just a Indiana Jones clone, I would probably like it more.

6/10

WHERE ARE THE UPDATES!!!!!!!!

Yeah, so I am kind of a loser who never updated his blog ever. So this is me saying sorry to both people who have read this blog at any point in time. Anyway, I will not bore you with why I am not posting like I should, but I do now have somethings in the works. Look for a review of Iron Man either later today or tomorrow. Anyway, so there.

If only Spiderman 3 had been this good.

The general consensus regarding Spiderman 3 is that it was garbage. The production budget alone was $258 millions dollars and that is not counting marketing costs.

This video was made for absolutely nothing and I enjoy it 100 more than I enjoyed SM3.


AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANIMATION! - Watch the best video clips here

Somthing I should have explained earlier...

The rating system used on this site is not a concrete as most other movie review sites. For example, I consider No Country for Old Men to be a 10 (and it deserved every Oscar it was nominated for) but I also consider Airplane! a 10. Airplane! is never mentioned in the same breath as the Godfather or Vertigo which are considered to be two of the greatest films of all time, but I love it. So there you go.

Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet is movie that I am supprised that I missed out on when it was released back in 2002. A sci-fi take on Treasure Island from Disney with a mix of hand drawn animation and CGI? Any of you who know me (and, yes, I must speak in sweeping generalizations, as my readership has positively bloomed into 4 people and when you are dealing with those kind of numbers, you have to be careful(what?)) know that the only way this movie would be more awesome is if they added a subplot about a ninja that kicks a Dinosaur until it explodes while throwing the one ring into the abyss of Mount Doom. Basically, this is a dream come true kind of movie for me that I could honestly care less about.

This is one the least memorable films I have ever seen. I honestly do not know what happened during the movie and I sat an watched the whole thing this weekend. The animation is as stunning as you would expect from Disney, with the combo of CGI and standard art really popping off the screen. But that is all I remember.

The character designs all seem pretty well thought out, outside of Jim Hawkins who looks like your typical "middle age guy thinks all kids will think this guy looks rad" look from the late 90's-early 00's. The design of Long John Silver is both practical and fanciful for the world they created.

I am already tired of writing about this movie. Maybe my expectations were out of check on this one but I just don't care. This is not a bad movie, but not a good movie either.

5 /10

3:10 to Yuma

3:10 to Yuma - Trailer - Watch more free videos


So, I finally got around to watching this film the other day. A Western starring Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, that is directed by James Mangold, and based of a short story by Elmore Leonard! Plus, the original film was pretty awesome, sign me up!

The story revolves around a down on his luck rancher, Dan Evans, (another amazing performance by Christian Bale. Why does this guy not have an Oscar yet?) who lost a portion of his leg in the Civil War. In order to save the family farm, and to win back the respect of his oldest son (who feels his father is a coward), he agrees to help escort outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to Contention Arizona where Wade will take the 3:10 train to Yuma prison. Along the way, the posse (which also includes Peter Fonda in a role that shows he can still act, contrary to what the rest of his recent filmography might say) is slowly picked off by Wade as he makes several escape attempts. Evans' oldest son (played rather well by Logan Lerman) winds up joining the posse, against the wishes of his father. The final act comprises of a fairly fresh take on the traditional Western shoot outs that we have come to expect from this genre of film.

The acting here is top notch across the board. Christian Bale, as already stated, does a tremendous job of portraying a husband and a father with something to prove. There is a scene at the end of the movie where he is trying to talk his son into turning around and leaving that is absolutely breathtaking. Bale conveys more emotion with a slight change in expression than most actors can ever possibly hope to display. Russell Crowe does a phenomenal job of playing a different kind of "bad guy" and you can tell he loves every second of it. The other star of the show is Ben Foster who is probably best known for playing Angel in the underwhelming third Xmen movie. Here he plays Wade's right hand man, Charlie Prince, with a manic energy that entices the viewer into watching not turning away, even when he is committing a gruesome act of violence.

This film, being a Western that is not Little House on the Prairie, is quite violent. People are shot and stabbed and what not. There is also a fair amount of swearing, but not enough to qualify as gratuitous. (BTW, get one of these if you are a Christian movie nerd. You can find them at Target for cheaper. Well worth the price.)

I can not recommend this movie enough. If you have not already seen it (it's box office draw was not near what it should have been) you really should go check it out.

9.5 / 10

This = awesome

I know that you all have seen this already, but man, this makes me so excited. The only thing that really scares me about this is that the last time I was this pumped about a movie from my childhood coming out was back in a year we called 1999. We all know how that turned out... The sad thing is, my youngest brother and I went to see that in the theater 13 times! 13! It took us that long to realize we were disappointed... The second one had the advantage of a Yoda fight, but Hayden Christensen was king of the androids in this one...

Anyway, hopefully the new adventures of Dr. Jones will be rad.

What we are about

Hi, welcome to 2 Dudes Movie Reviews. Here, I hope to enlighten you with wit and wisdom about films I think are awesome. I hope to update this a little more often than I do my other blog, but who knows. Check back for my first review soon!