The Three Musketeers
Year: 2011
Genre: Action/Adventure/Romance
Runtime: 110mins
Rating: PG-13
IMDB Score: 5.8/10 (29,000+ Votes)
Director(s): Paul W.S Anderson
Writer(s): Alex Litvak (screenplay),Andrew Davies (screenplay) and Alexandre Dumas (novel Les Trois Mousquetaires)
Plot/Synopsis:
The hot-headed young D’Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.
Forethought(s):
Another freaking Musketeers movie just want we need. The last few weren’t a waste of time so I don’t think this one will be. Also the director knows how to film action scenes and I do like Milla Jovovich in action roles.
Fun Fact/Trivia:
To date and not counting the animated or sequels there are 23 total Three Musketeers movies.
Stars of the movie:
Logan Lerman,Matthew Macfadyen,Luke Evans,Ray Stevenson and Milla Jovovich
The Breakdown:
There are three things that were really cool about this flick: 1) Milla Jovovich’s cleavage. 2) The dialogue exchange early on in the flick with Aramis and a random chick Aramis: “I’m not really a priest” Random Girl “I’m not really a lady” Aramis: I have ten minutes. Then Aramis sits next to the chick and wraps her and himself in his cloak and leans towards her for some fun. 3) The use of tabletop miniatures and models to show an over world view. 
Now, I wasn’t thinking I was going to like this movie just because of how over been it is. I mean it seems like it’s once every 3-4 years we get a new Musketeers movie but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with this take. It was fun and enjoyable to watch. I feared the romance part of this flick would out weight the action and adventure portion but it didn’t,in fact, it didn’t really feel much like a romance movie at all. It actually felt more like a comedy with a lot of action in it with just a touch of romance.
I know I am not the only one thinking of "I would love to tea bag her right now"
The movie felt like a RPG with the way the events unfolded. We meet the young hero of the movie (yes I know there is more than one hero) who leaves on a quest of adventure and on his way he runs into and I do mean runs into his four future teammates. After he runs into the four they all want to fight and as they are about to the enemy of the four comes forth. At this point they team up. It goes on from there. It’s not bad that it happens this way, in fact, for me, I found that to be quite enjoyable as I love RPGs. Now, on the subject of video games….this movie in execution feels very much like Assassins Creed so if you know that game you get a good idea of what this movie is. Just replace the setting in the game with France and England in the movie.
The Verdict:
Fun,not heavy on the romance,more swearing than one would think for a PG-13 flick, not at all feeling like it took almost two hours to watch.
I give this movie 4 swordsmen out of 5.
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Green Lantern:Emerald Knights
Year: 2011
Genre: Action/Adventure/Animation/Sci-Fi
Runtime: 84mins
Rating: PG-13
IMDB Score: 7.2/10 (40 Votes)
Director(s): Chris Berkeley,Lauren Montgomery & Jay Oliva
Writer(s): Eddie Berganza,Alan Burnett,Todd Casey,Dave Gibbons,Michael Green,Marc Guggenheim,Geoff Johns & Peter Tomasi
Plot/Synopsis:
As the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps faces a battle with an ancient enemy, Hal Jordan prepares new recruit Arisia for the coming conflict by relating stories of the first Green Lantern and several of Hal’s comrades.
Forethought(s):
A Green Lantern take on Batman:Gotham Knight ? Yes please.
Fun Fact/Trivia:
Green Lantern the comics are based off of E.E Smiths book series Lensman.
The Breakdown:
Well, the only things this had in common with Batman:Gotham Knight was the fact that it told different stories (hell all the stories were being told via flashbacks by Jordan. Gotham Knight was a bunch of stories being told by mostly street level folk in the here and now) plus all the different writers telling different stories.
The animation was very smooth and all the same through out the movie so I do not know if they picked different artist,like Gotham Knight did, to do the animation or just one. I would have to guess just one. And you know what? It really worked unlike Gotham Knight where every story had a different artist.This way you felt like you were watching one movie as opposed to six different shorts.
I’ve said it with the last few animation flicks I’ve watched and I will continue to say it, I hate talking about the acting in the movie. Acting is more than just voices;it’s about body language and how you say things. In an animated movie you don’t get the body language and it does take a bit away from the experience. There is none thing worse than watching any type of media that has bad voice work in it and I’m glad to say there was none in this movie at all. There were some characters that you’d like to sound different but for the most part they all work. Now I’m sure bunch of you Brown Coats will bitch at me but over all I did not like Fillion as Hal. He was able to pull off the smug and dryness that Hal is known for but a lot of time I was asking myself if Caleb from BtVS was Hal. Yes people I know he played Caleb but the way he talked from time to time reminded me to much of Caleb. Then you have Elisabeth Moss who most of you may know from Mad Men (I don’t since I’ve never seen the show) and she is spot on for the character she plays. I mean it’s creepy how much I can see her character Arisia sounding like that. Good on the casting director. Finally we have veteran voice actor Steve Blum who has over 400 credits to his name. If you’ve watch any cartoons or played the more popular video games from the last 20+ years then I’m sure you know who this man is. Just look at his imdb page http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0089710/ Isn’t that crazy? I have seen/heard a lot of his stuff and I still have a hard time picking him out. He does a lot of different types of voices. A real talent.
The stories are engaging to the point that even non-comic book fans would like this movie. Fear my fellow comic dork/geeks/nerds there is plenty in there for those that know more about GLs than the normal person. In fact they even put in some red rage for us. The one is question was not yet raging but it was fun to see that character interact with others while without the red ring. On the other hand they were missing some key and cult GLs like: all the humans (my fav Gardner) other than Hal and G’nort. We did get a story about Mogo and lets be honest no GL history telling would be complete without Mogo. So they made it watchable for non GL fan and more watchable for the GL fans.
The Verdict:
Over all a good movie that is worth your time. It’s not worth a buy so just rent it or wait for it to hit Netflix.
I give this movie 3 power batteries out of 5.
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The Warrior’s Way
Year: 2010
Genre: Action/Fantasy/Western
Runtime: 100mins
Rating: R
IMDB Score: 6.2/10 (4,600+ Votes)
Director(s): Sngmoo Lee
Writer(s): Sngmoo Lee & Scott Reynolds
Plot/Synopsis: A warrior-assassin is forced to hide in a small town in the American Badlands after refusing a mission.
Forethought(s):
Don’t know much about this movie other than it looked cool when I saw the preview. I hope it’s more action that story.
Fun Fact/Trivia:
The painting in the saloon is a parody of Edouard Manet’s famous “Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe”.
The Breakdown:
This movie takes ideas from a lot of different pop culture sources like: anime (Ninja Scroll),video game(s) (Samurai Showdown), comics (Lone Wolf & Cub),movie (Sin City) though this is mostly in the way they filmed it. One would think that with all the things they took ideas from that the movie would be one big pile of mess from a dog with a special diet but it’s not. Sure it’s has some issues but what movie doesn’t?
For me the best thing about the movie,and this is going to sound weird, is the transitions. They used a lot of normal one but in slightly off ways. One example is when they fade from scene to scene it’s not done in the what would seem mandatory black. They used black witch is very normal but they also used white and red for the fades as well. The red was used at points in the movie where there was a huge uptake in rage while while was more of a surprised feeling. It was nice to see used in such a way. The other type of transition I liked was the dissolve. A dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. What I liked about how they used the dissolve is that it would involve the scene it was transitioning from. So lets say someone in the movie was looking down into a pound and a cherry blossom fell into the pound they would use the ripple of the water caused by the blossom to dissolve into the next scene. I think they used this technique with a bullet and a tip of a sword.
Next best thing about the movie is the action. Once they get past the opining credits BAM we get sword play! And I love it when action movies start off with action. Boy is there some real good action sequences but after the first one in the movie you have to wait some time for the next one. Yeap, it goes action,story build up, back story,unrelated drama, then action then more action then all out action. Trust me on this all the waiting is worth seeing all the fighting. Ninja assassins vs cowboys….weird and interesting to watching to watch.
The acting was all pretty good but I did have an issue with Kate Bosworths’ accent. Well that actually wraps up my thoughts on the acting.
As I stated above, this movie is filmed a lot like Sin City in the sense that around 85-90% of it was all green screened in. Most of time you see a ninja assassin who’s face is covered up that’s CG work right there. Damn near all the backgrounds,yeah, you guessed it were CG. The flowers,CG. Tons of cg/green screen work and it didn’t come off as cheese. Knowing that kinda makes you looking at the acting again doesn’t it?
The Verdict:
Pending where you live you should see this in a dollar theater,drive-in,rent it or buy it. You should only really buy it if you like stylized action movies otherwise just rent it. It’s worth a view. I can see there being a sequal but a direct to DVD one.
I give this movie 4 fun fights out of 5.
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