Immortals and Rum (with a bit of Heist)

A few weeks ago, I won a contest over at Movieline. It was to see Immortals at the premiere! In 3D!!  All I had to do was caption a photo from the film. Here's the photo, with my winning caption beneath.

THIS... IS... (not quite)SPARTA!!!

 

 

 

I wrote that as a lark, thought it would be funny. Didn't think it would win, when low and behold it did.

Little did I know, that would be an apt review of the film. It's not quite 300. It's a beautiful mess of a movie. By which I mean it looks gorgeous, but it's boring and makes no sense whatsoever. Literally EVERY awesome shot is in the trailer, save for one, which I will spoil for you right now.

That would be the scene where Mickey Rourke orders the guy in the barbed wire Minotaur helmet to smash in a dude's junk with a giant wooden mallet.

This actually happens in the movie.

And it's all downhill from there. It's not a bad movie, per se, but it is rather boring. Take from that what you will.

I did also catch Rum Diary, the earlier take on the life of a drunk Hunter Thompson and his misadventures with crazy people in Puerto Rico in the early 1960s. I rather enjoyed the film, even though it's was no Fear and Loathing. (But nothing really can be, now can it?)

The mood, setting, costumes, music and locations evoke an awesome period feel, one that I imagine people who watch Mad Men always equate it to. (Don't watch the show, but hear it's great with the 60s style). The story falls apart in the end, but I enjoyed the journey, and the almost age-less Depp once again reprising Thompson-incarnate for the big screen.

Sadly, more people have seen this tattoo than the movie.

And finally, there's Tower Heist. I couldn't wait for Tower Heist to come out so that I could stop seeing ads for Tower Heist. But I'm glad I saw Tower Heist when I did, before Ratner's unfortunate comments about rehearsals for films being exclusively for homosexuals, as it may have tainted my review even more than it already has.

Not surprisingly, that comment explains a lot about the lazy film, that doesn't even bother to have Eddie Murphy do anything of significance until the middle of the third reel, and it makes you wonder whether or not Ratner could have benefited from having a homosexual or 2 on set. It's really lazy and ramshackle, and spells out everything for the audience way before the characters reach the same point. It's not bad, but feels extremely "who cares?"

The cast of Tower Heist. Right?

I didn't hate what I saw, I was sort of enjoying it, and thought "This will be one of those movies that will be played on USA infinitely in a few years."  Some performances are good (Broderick and ALda especially), even if the New Yawk accents grow irritating.

Also, it's a New York film made by a degenerate douchebag that's never lived in New York. I realize you paid for the helicopter aerial shots of the city, but that doesn't mean you have to use them to link every scene.

Full disclosure: Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to leave right when Eddie Murphy started having something to do. So I missed the ending, but I'm sure I could tell you what happens, or wait for DVD without crying too many tears.