Let's go to the movies!

A couple more movies that I've seen recently.  Dish Network just gave us a free year's worth of the Starz network and I've been checking out some movies on there:

Reign of Fire (2002) - I remember seeing the previews for this one and thinking it looked interesting. But I was concerned about a movie that seemed to rely on effects this much.  Bad effects, bad movie.  Instead I was very happy to discover that this is a very well done movie.  In the course of digging a new subway tunnel in London humanity awakens dragons.  The dragons who had killed the dinosaurs (and everything else) and then gone into hibernation.  Our weapons make them stronger and now we're in the deep weeds trying to hang on.  The rest of the story is straight out of "Moby Dick".   Matthew McConaughey plays the Ahab as an bald headed, cigar chomping, obsessed American National Guardsman who has figured out how to beat the dragons.  His whale is the only male dragon.  Christian Bale plays an Englishman who was the only survivor of the event that set the dragons free.  Now he's trying to hold together a small community against the dragons.  "Ahab" arrives on his doorstep in a tank in this version.  A solid story line and some respectable acting carry you forward in this one. 

And the special effects were handled wonderfully.  We really only get glimpses and silhouettes of the dragons until the male shows up.  Some of those images will stay with me for a LONG time (especially him standing on the peak of the castle keep as he prepares to destroy everything.  Amazing).  I actually had to leave to pick someone up in the middle of the movie and kept stalling and stalling because I didn't want to leave.  I caught the rest on the DVR (thank you technology!)  The movie is Bales, McConaughey's and the dragons.  And they all deliver.  It's post-apocalyptic and Middle Earth all rolled into one.

Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time (2010) - I'm going to be honest and say I didn't watch the whole movie.  I watched the first 45 minutes to an hour and quit.  It was plotless with flimsy characters.  Plus I have a limited pain threshold for watching actors who clearly wish they were somewhere else, anywhere else doing anything else.  Jake Gyllenhaal has this incredibly pained look on his face in most scenes and I think I know why.  This is a movie about the effects, not unusual for a movie made from a game.  Bad dialogue, bad characters, minimal plot.  Really awful.

I'm sure gamers will disagree with me but I certainly wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this one.  Even if you're getting it for free.

Karate Kid (2010) - I'm very leery of remakes and REALLY leery of remakes of movies that I liked.  The original Karate Kid (1984 w/Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita and the exceedingly cute Elisabeth Shue) was a fun, feel good movie with distinctive characters that stay with you.  Plus at least one catch phrase that instantly entered the lexicon (Wax on, Wax off).  It's what I think of as a great "little" movie.  It was totally predictable but irresistible nevertheless. 

We will not speak of the sequels.

This version manages to hang onto all the positives of the original and still create a new and original version of the story.  Once again you need two actors who click as the boy and the master and they found them.  Jaden Smith (Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's son) and Jackie Chan are wonderful.  It's funny to see some of Will's mannerisms show up in Jaden but it works.  He inherited the considerable charisma of his father and puts it to good use here.  I'm looking forward now to watching father and son in "The Pursuit of Happyness".  Jackie Chan manages to walk along the edge of his usual comic martial arts characters.  You get just a glimpse every now and then but it never takes away from the serious character he plays.  I was really impressed. Chan is inevitably very watchable and a lot of fun and he scores here as well.

This version is every bit as predictable as the first.  The Kung-Fu moves are even more impressive and the ending is every bit as satisfying.  I was more than pleasantly surprised.  I really liked this movie.