Ultimately there really wasn't any need to make yet another movie in this series. But, I guess if you can get the money to get the original crew together you might as well give it another go. And it did great box office this weekend. I anticipate a major drop off though.
The Fast & The Furious was a good movie, with some great action sequences, and a good young cast. The end of it left a small opening for a sequel but, it also left limited room for what that sequel could be if it was to include Vin Diesel's character. Honestly it left little room for story ideas outside of Paul Walker's character. Which is why 2 Fast 2 Furious worked since it was centered around his character.
So it really wasn't surprising that the new one involved Dom (Vin Diesel) still being on the run from the law and up to some of his old tricks in Mexico. It was cool that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) got to do the real stunts in the opening sequence rather than just being the driver. From there however, the set up for the rest of the story was disappointing. And the rest of the movie was disappointing. Mainly it was disappointing in it's lack of car races.
The premise of using fast cars to run drugs across the border was plausible but, not executed very well. It felt like there was a lot more they could have done. They really could have incorporated some sort of actual race with it so there was more racing and cool cars. I know it's kinda been done a lot but, lets get real what hasn't been done a lot these days?
I was very disappointed at how little both Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster were in this one. It was hardly worth the effort or money they probably put into getting them.
Major spoilers:
Pissed doesn't even begin to describe my feelings over them killing Michelle's character. At least she got to do the cool opening sequence but, we never got to see her behind the wheel and they could have set up a better story keeping her character around. It's very clear that they decided there was some fan base to her and Jordana and that's why they got them to come back just for the publicity appeal of having the "big 4" back.
Jordana was again under utilized in this movie. She was wasted more this time than in the original. And she didn't even get to do any cool driving until the very last scene of the movie. In this new era of female race car drivers not letting the girls drive is unacceptable.
The drug running was a good idea but, as mentioned earlier done completely wrong. The only race in the movie was for them to get the open seat as one of the drivers. That part was good and they should have done more. After all that is the point of the original and the one thing that should always be included. This movie was more just "look at the fast cars" a lot of the time.
When they actually went to run the drugs all they did was drive in a straight line across the desert one car behind the other and then into a tunnel where they had to play follow the leader. Very poor story development there. They could have done a thing where some people where running drugs during some big race or they could have had the drugs in one car and the cops were trying to stay on the one with the drugs but, no they think the big excitement is a bunch of cars driving in single file trying to avoid camera detection.
The big chase scene at the end was decent but, not enough to save the movie.
I saw the movie at a matinee and it was barely worth the price. Just wait for the discount theaters or dvd.
Monday, April 06, 2009
ER
As anyone who follows television knows this past Thursday brought the end of ER. Over the 15 year run of the show I watched most of it. I watched it through it's ups and downs and cursed it when it decided to make it's female characters too much of secondary plot lines. There were times when you thought, "This has to be the end of the show. They've just gone too far into stupid land with this storyline." But, some how it always recovered.
The show was always at it's best when it was inside the ER. Showing the characters outside the ER in their regular lives was nice but, they had occasion to go too far and spend too much time outside the ER. I never cared too see much of their lives outside the hospital. I was more interested in the original point of the show which was how these doctors survived such a high stress job and how their outside and personal lives affected them at work.
I was very happy to see so many people come back and do appearances in the final season. It was nice that they came back to a show that really gave a lot of them their careers. And I liked how they folded some of the stories back in. While I was watching the retrospective leading up to the finale I thought to myself that it would be nice if they found a way to bring Dr. Green's daughter back into the story. But, I really didn't figure they would because she wasn't a big main character and since they had the flashback episode for him earlier that would be it. I was so pleasantly surprised when they did in fact find away to bring her into the story.
I almost cried when she told Frank who she was. That scene had so much impact because Frank was such a hard ass kind of guy. Never really seemed to care much about other people's feelings and certainly not showing his but, when he had that moment of sorrow and I guess joy at seeing her it was very moving.
When ER started there was one moment for one character that truly made me fall in love with the show. It was in the first episode when a patients heart stopped and Dr. Carter was the only one around. He called for help but, no one came. The crash cart was down the hall and instead of pushing the cart to the patient he ran over and grabbed the paddles and ran back to the patient pulling the cart behind me. That was the moment I knew the show had great potential. All that heavy drama and they never forgot the comedy that comes with life.
Unfortunately over the years they drug Carter's character down to a place that I began to hate him. I was never happier in my life to see a character leave a show because they had lost all focus of who he was and his character alone was dragging the show down. It was great that they brought him back and where able to center a good portion of the end of the series around him and that his character was back to what he once was.
My only problem with the final episode was it was too slow. They should have had a pulse pounding emergency early on in the show. In a way it would have been kind of fun if all the docs had visited and a major emergency had thrown them all into action together one last time. But, I know that would have been a little absurd. I did like how they put all the returning characters for the episode back into the opening sequence.
In the end it was a good episode and it wrapped up a lot of stories nicely.
The show was always at it's best when it was inside the ER. Showing the characters outside the ER in their regular lives was nice but, they had occasion to go too far and spend too much time outside the ER. I never cared too see much of their lives outside the hospital. I was more interested in the original point of the show which was how these doctors survived such a high stress job and how their outside and personal lives affected them at work.
I was very happy to see so many people come back and do appearances in the final season. It was nice that they came back to a show that really gave a lot of them their careers. And I liked how they folded some of the stories back in. While I was watching the retrospective leading up to the finale I thought to myself that it would be nice if they found a way to bring Dr. Green's daughter back into the story. But, I really didn't figure they would because she wasn't a big main character and since they had the flashback episode for him earlier that would be it. I was so pleasantly surprised when they did in fact find away to bring her into the story.
I almost cried when she told Frank who she was. That scene had so much impact because Frank was such a hard ass kind of guy. Never really seemed to care much about other people's feelings and certainly not showing his but, when he had that moment of sorrow and I guess joy at seeing her it was very moving.
When ER started there was one moment for one character that truly made me fall in love with the show. It was in the first episode when a patients heart stopped and Dr. Carter was the only one around. He called for help but, no one came. The crash cart was down the hall and instead of pushing the cart to the patient he ran over and grabbed the paddles and ran back to the patient pulling the cart behind me. That was the moment I knew the show had great potential. All that heavy drama and they never forgot the comedy that comes with life.
Unfortunately over the years they drug Carter's character down to a place that I began to hate him. I was never happier in my life to see a character leave a show because they had lost all focus of who he was and his character alone was dragging the show down. It was great that they brought him back and where able to center a good portion of the end of the series around him and that his character was back to what he once was.
My only problem with the final episode was it was too slow. They should have had a pulse pounding emergency early on in the show. In a way it would have been kind of fun if all the docs had visited and a major emergency had thrown them all into action together one last time. But, I know that would have been a little absurd. I did like how they put all the returning characters for the episode back into the opening sequence.
In the end it was a good episode and it wrapped up a lot of stories nicely.
A Haunting in Connecticut
I've always enjoyed horror movies. Pretty much any kind. However, of late they have begun to rely too much on the gore factor rather than the scare factor so I don't see them as much. Haunted house movies though are pretty reliable to not lose the story in blood and guts. Even at that though most horror movies of any kind don't deliver on the scares very well these days. That is absolutely not true with A Haunting in Connecticut. It delivers a good story and some legitimate scares. I jumped several times and even my boyfriend who doesn't think movies are scary anymore jumped a couple times.
I had actually watched a documentary on the story the movie is based around a week before seeing the movie. It was interesting to see how they tweaked the original story for the big screen. The underlying story was the same family with cancer stricken son moves into a new house to be closer to where he gets treatment and weird things start to happen. From there the writers spun the houses history to be more sinister but, it still worked. Other than the end of the movie they really didn't go over the top with the story the created. And even that little bit of over the top at the end didn't hurt the movie as a whole.
If you want the short and sweet high concept pitch for this movie it's Amityville Horror meets Poltergeist.
I went to a matinee showing and it was well worth the price. In fact is worth the price of full price evening admission.
I had actually watched a documentary on the story the movie is based around a week before seeing the movie. It was interesting to see how they tweaked the original story for the big screen. The underlying story was the same family with cancer stricken son moves into a new house to be closer to where he gets treatment and weird things start to happen. From there the writers spun the houses history to be more sinister but, it still worked. Other than the end of the movie they really didn't go over the top with the story the created. And even that little bit of over the top at the end didn't hurt the movie as a whole.
If you want the short and sweet high concept pitch for this movie it's Amityville Horror meets Poltergeist.
I went to a matinee showing and it was well worth the price. In fact is worth the price of full price evening admission.
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