Z/Web

This wasn’t what I expected from the promos. I thought it was about a super-spy training a young guy in the art of spying, but it turns out that was just the opening scene of the movie. The rest of the movie takes place a decade later, and it sets up a teacher-versus-student battle as the two fight each other.

That part is pretty good, but the giant conspiracy and cover up is a bit cliche. Still, it works, and there’s a lot of fun in this: great action, intelligent behavior, and a good resolution. Surprisingly good.

I guess this is based on a comic book I never read. It’s an interesting take on the concept of a guy who can see dead people. In this case, our young hero uses this info to stop bad people. For instance, a dead girl leads him to her killer and he helps the police nab the guy.

The tone is more quirky and fun, though there are some gory death graphics. The main plot is about trying to stop a mall bombing. There are a few “twists” which aren’t surprising at all, and in that respect the film’s disappointing. But the plot’s not that bad, and the film really does shine in the clever banter between the main character and his girlfriend.

I wouldn’t say you need to go out of your way to see this, but it has a bit of charm.

I knew this was a flop in theaters, but I wasn’t sure why. Now I know. The Jack Ryan character is supposed to be a desk jockey, an analyst, but the film tries to turn him into an action hero. It’s implausible (despite him supposedly having a military background).

Supposedly he’s recruited out of college and he works a cover job on Wall Street for ten years as a CIA mole, reporting back financial irregularities that might lead to terrorist organizations. The plot of the film is about him figuring out a Russian bad guy’s up to something, so he goes to Moscow to learn more. Then someone tries to kill him, his clueless fiancé shows up and becomes a hostage, while he tries to rescue her and stop the plot to destroy the US economy. It all goes horribly over-the-top and is ridiculous, with several “not quite done yet” endings.

Tedious and boring for the most part, it has a handful of really excellent moments (like when the girlfriend and the bad guy are talking), but mostly this is utterly forgettable.

Author: Lee Child

This is the first Jack Reacher book and it’s excellent. The actual mystery isn’t that mysterious (the big reveal at the end I predicted the moment I read that the conspiracy was about counterfeiting), but the way it’s presented is so good that doesn’t really matter.

The basic story is that Reacher’s a loner, out of the army after decades of service and growing up an army brat. He doesn’t have a job or a place to live, but just wanders. Thus he’s an easy suspect for a murder when he happens to pass through a tiny Georgia town and ends up stumbling into a massive conspiracy. It really sets up the one-guy-agains-the-world scenario, but Reacher’s such an awesome fighter (he was in the Military Police, so the bad guys he hunted there were trained killers, meaning he had to be even better trained) he just ruthlessly gets by anyone who stands in his way.

One aspect of that I liked is that the author doesn’t try and cripple Reacher in any way. A lot of authors are afraid of making their hero too heroic and therefore unrealistic, so they limit the guy. Reacher’s just deadly and there is no apology or limitation. It isn’t always easy for him — he’s not superhuman — but at least he’s not artificially limited.

The book’s excellently written, where we really get into the mind of the main character and understand how he does what he does, and the story’s interesting. I’ll definitely be reading more in this series!

I wanted to like this, as I’m a big fan of artificial intelligence movies, but this one didn’t work for me. Either I didn’t understand it too well or it didn’t make sense. It’s about a lab trying to produce AI robots for use in war, but when a genuinely self-conscious machine is created, the authorities want to destroy her because she’s too dangerous. Ultimately it devolves into a sort of action film, but it’s not very good at that, either. Mildly interesting, but don’t expect much.

This is the original 1979 film. I thought I’d seen it ages ago, but if so, I’d forgotten it. Much more in my memory were the sequels, which had a lot more action and a better setting. This one is not far enough ahead in the future and the world feels ordinary. It’s basically just a story about a bunch of drugged out biker maniacs go around killing innocent people and the cop who takes them on. It’s good, but it didn’t feel at all like a Mad Max movie to me, and that made it disappointing. Just not enough action.

This was a totally awesome movie! I had high hopes going in, but this exceeded them. Not only is it visually interesting and well-acted, but it’s got a great story!

I was a little leery when a part of the story seemed to be about how the world is so terrible right now (global warming, wars, famine, etc.) as it seemed an odd distraction, but it turned out to be a key part of the plot. And I loved the resolution which was simple but not flippant.

It’s hard to describe much without giving anything away, but I’ll try. The movie theorizes that many years ago all the great scientists of the world created Tomorrowland, a place in an alternate dimension, where they could create and invent in peace. Supposedly we were all supposed to be invited in once the new world was ready, but something went wrong and that never happened. The main story’s about a teenage girl who discovers a pin that temporarily takes her to Tomorrowland, leaving her wanting more — and she tracks down an eccentric inventor and tries to get him to take her there. She’s apparently broken laws going to Tomorrowland and so bad guys are after them both, trying to execute them.

The film is face-paced, full of adventure and wonder, and really captures the whole idealistic view that the future was supposed to be better, not the end-of-days. What’s really impressive to me is that the film does this in a realistic fashion: all the “magical” stuff is explained (more or less) and the events in the story are plausible. So much of the time in movies like this the authors take liberties and shortcuts and the plot really doesn’t make much sense.

If I had to make one criticism it’s that very little of the film actually takes place in Tomorrowland — I wanted so much to see more of it! We catch intriguing glimpses, but the bulk of the story is about how to get back there, not actually being there. Just a bit of a bummer, but maybe that will open the door of a sequel.

In the meantime, go see this one. It’s really wild and fun.

This is by far the best film of 2015 so far. It’s amazingly deep with a lot of subtle depth that requires repeated viewing to grasp it all. The premise is simple: a young programmer has been selected by a reclusive billionaire inventor to come to his home/laboratory and perform a Turing test on an android and see if he can prove she’s actually a conscious artificial intelligence.

That sounds simple in principle — but proving something isn’t just mimicking intelligence is far trickier than it sounds.

Thus the plot is full of wonderful pretzel twists, turning over on itself. The film is remarkably similar to Moon in many ways: a tiny cast, claustrophobic atmosphere, and a bit of reality-bending. Soon you are questioning everything you’re seeing, just as the characters in the movie are doing. Is everyone lying? What are the real motives of each person?

The ending is absolutely fantastic: wicked and wonderful. This is a film that will have you thinking about reality, the nature of consciousness and intelligence, and so much more. So many films that portray supposedly super-intelligent people fail because the characters do such dumb things, but here the smart people are believable. They make mistakes, sure; but those mistakes are key parts of their personalities (we’re all blind to certain aspects of our flaws).

I just loved this and will definitely have to see this again many times. I can already tell it’s one of those movies that will just get better each time I see it.

While I liked this, it is disappointing. There are just too many Avengers and the plot’s way too overblown: nothing makes much sense and there’s too much going on for anything meaningful to happen. The fight sequences are nothing but blurs; perhaps impressive on a technical level, but numbingly boring.

The story’s bizarre: Ultron’s an artificial intelligence Tony Stark creates that’s supposed to be a peacekeeper; for reasons never explained, it’s “evil” and wants to destroy humanity. While the special effects are crazy-good (an entire city is uprooted and raised into the sky), it doesn’t feel spectacular — it feels awkward and unrealistic. The solution is even dumber (another being is created).

The script tries to give each Avenger their own story, but all fail; there’s just too many. I’d have loved an entire movie devoted to the Hulk-Black Widow romance, for instance, instead of just the cheesy snippets we get here.

Ultimately, this still a fun superhero movie, but it has little of the heart that the original Ironman so good. The plot’s so convoluted that it requires far too much time to explain it all (and even then it makes little sense), and in the end, everything gets short shrift. Watch this for explosions, cool special effects, and glimpses of favorite characters, but expect little else.

Normally I might not even write about such a terrible movie, but this one clearly had real potential that I find it a fascinating exercise in bad decisions.

The premise is decent: a school where vampires send their children. But these aren’t bad vampires — they’re mostly harmless, though they have magical abilities. There are two other races: the bad vampires (which are pretty much like the evil vampires in most legends), and a race of protectors, which are sort of like the good vampires’ bodyguards.

The story is mostly about one of these bodyguards, a girl, who tries to protect her friend, a vampire princess. They tire of school rules and run away but are hunted down and returned, while real threats from bad vampires loom. Eventually we uncover a conspiracy to kidnap and kill the princess, yada yada yada.

What’s great about the film is the bodyguard character. She’s a hoot, a sassy, smart-mouthed fighter who leaps before she looks. Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing good in the movie. Everything goes downhill right from the convoluted start, where we begin a year after the girls have run away from school. They’re hiding out on their own, which all has to be tediously explained (as do the various magical races), but then they’re caught very easily by school guards and returned. So how did they survive for a year if it was so easy to catch them?

From there the film just goes downhill. The exposition is terrible, with narration to explain vampire society to the viewer, and while those details are critical to the plot, they’re presented in such a backwards manner that it makes them artificial. Let me give you just one example.

Early on in the film we’re shown the princess sucking blood from her bodyguard. This is presented as routine between the two of them. Later we learn that this is forbidden behavior for vampires, with the two girls mocked upon their return to school for engaging in such naughtiness. But this is all backwards: we see the behavior first, out of context, and only later are we told it’s not kosher. And it’s never very clear exactly how “bad” a thing this is. Is it merely rude, scandalous, or criminal? There are few consequences shown, so it’s very confusing. Ultimately, even though this turns out to be an important part of the plot, it feels silly and unimportant.

The whole movie is filled with stuff like that. Everything’s backwards. It’s like key details being filled in via flashback, except the flashback isn’t even interesting, it’s boring narration. Just terrible.

The basic idea isn’t bad at all and this could have been a decent flick, but the raw ingredients are put together in such a disjointed, awkward fashion that nothing in the film really works. Such potential wasted. Very sad.

Not at all what I expected from the promos. I thought it was about space idiots who happen to do something heroic, but they’re actually pretty competent people (and creatures) who come from criminal and other backgrounds.

Some great action, fun dialog and characters, and a decent-enough plot. A bit strange in places, and not always consistent, but overall it works quite well and is a blast.

Author: Arthur C. Clarke

Intriguing classic science fiction from Clarke. The premise is that an advanced alien race arrives on earth and brings in an era of peace. All weapons and war are eliminated, hunger is cured, no one has to work, etc. It’s nirvana.

Or is it? The expectation is that the aliens have some sort of nefarious agenda, but Clarke goes another direction. I can’t explain without giving away the novel’s secret, but let’s just say it’s unusual and involves the human race’s next evolution.

It’s a fascinating idea, though quite out-there. I don’t really buy it, but the novel’s worth reading just for the concept. It’ll make you think and that’s rarely a bad thing.