REVIEW: Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Zzzzzz....zzzzz....oh, sorry, I just dozed off during today's movie. My bad. It's just...man, this is dull.

Director: Graham Baker

Starring: The Soundtrack, Sam Neill

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082377/

Man, this is shit. Who would ever willingly watch this slop anyway? It's about as convincing and scary as your grandma's old phone books. There's more padding in this movie than in your average tampon factory. You could find a better Satanic end-of-world story in a Sunday School picture book. But it's one thing to talk about Omen III: The Final Conflict and quite another to actually watch this half-assed cobble of uninteresting crap. So, if you can stay awake, let's try and slog through this stinker.

The film begins with Damien, played this time by Sam Neill. You know, the guy from In the Mouth of Madness…well I sure hope he doesn’t…do anything he would have done in that movie…Okay, this joke sucked, moving on. He is actually aware of his role as the Antichrist now, and actively prepares for the day he can finally take over the world, which is coming soon. To do this, he needs to become the ambassador to Britain. However, there’s already another guy who has that job. So what does Damien do?

Realizing what movie he was in, this guy suddenly became very scared and later went back and constructed an elaborate scheme to kill himself. The dog later went on to star in The Stuff.

Okay, so the caption may or may not have been true, but here's a slightly different version of events: through an incredibly long, drawn out sequence of nothing, backed up with the film’s ludicrously over the top soundtrack, we see that the ambassador is hypnotized by a dog, or something, and then wires his office doors to a gun which will shoot him in the face when someone opens the door. So why couldn’t Damien have just hypnotized him to shoot himself in the head? Why all the pointless padding? Oh, right, because the film had no actual captivating material, just this nonsense. Right.

And yeah, the soundtrack is REALLY over the top. I know a lot of people praise this movie's soundtrack, and sure, the music itself is fine I guess, but when you play this really froofy, overblown symphonic nonsense when it's just some guy sitting down in his chair...it doesn't exactly work, movie. It's just kinda stupid.

Then we get about five minutes straight of pointless montages of a bunch of priests preparing for the coming conflict. We get some shots of them winning some knives in an auction that apparently can kill Damien. Then we see them all standing around looking out the window of a discarded Name of the Rose set-piece at a constellation of stars, alongside an ass-numbingly long sequence of them explaining why it’s so important. I’ll sum it up in one sentence – they find out that the reincarnation of Christ will be born soon. That’s it. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO WASTE SO MUCH TIME? God.

"Man, this is really getting in the way of my game of Pong."

Oh, but one of them said it’s the final countdown, so I have to post this:

Ah, much better than the movie.

Meanwhile, Damien talks to a statue of Jesus in his alone-time and shouts ominous, evil stuff at it because, well, otherwise I guess we wouldn’t understand his evilness, or something. And he also starts seeing this reporter lady named Kate Reynolds, who has a son, and that’s about it. The group of priests plans to kill him while sitting around a dark, cramped room, and eventually spring their attack by trying to jump him as he’s doing a TV appearance, because THAT’S truly the greatest way to do it! These guys are just geniuses!

Wow, that plan really went down IN FLAMES! HA HA HA...oh wait, no.

Yeah, just a word of warning…the priests in this movie are idiots. They really don’t have any better strategies to get Damien? I mean, look at this scene, where Damien and a bunch of other guys, including Kate Reynolds’ son, are out hunting. They have one priest, because I guess ambushing him with more than that would be a dumb idea, lure him up to this bridge where this happens:

What is this, a pound opening? This really isn't tense or scary, movie.

Yep, dogs…that’s all this movie has. God. The monks can’t put together a good assassination plot for the life of them and the Antichrist is as lame as can be; what am I supposed to latch onto in this movie?! Eh. Still better than The Hulk’s villain who utilized dogs.

Yep...still lame.

There’s another attempt on his life where he’s lured out to this church in the middle of nowhere following this one old priest. The movie DID take my advice this time, as there ARE more priests teaming up this time. However, Damien pulls the old bait-and-switch, as when they think he walks through the door, they jump him and stab him to death, only to find out afterwards that it was actually one of their own priests they stabbed. Because I guess checking beforehand would’ve been stupid! These guys couldn’t plot their way out of a paper bag even if it had neon glowing sign directing them how to!

So then, and I’m not kidding here, the next fifteen minutes or so is just infanticide. That’s right, we get to see a bunch of infants getting killed, because one of them (of the ones all born between midnight and 6 AM the previous day) is supposed to be the reincarnation of Christ. Isn’t this just so peachy and cheerful? It’s pretty tasteless and doesn’t even have much of an impact visually, but there is one part that I really like:

BEACH BALL KILL! The ball hits the stroller and it rolls out in front of a truck, like a bad 1950s comedy routine gone wrong. Yeah, that’s the most random, out-of-nowhere kill I’ve seen in an Omen movie since…well, about ten minutes ago, I guess. How come nobody in this crazy world can come up with any plausible, efficient kills? Why are they all so ridiculous? And for that matter, what if the woman or someone else caught up to the stroller and stopped it before the truck hit it? Would Damien just go “Oh, snap,” and then make the baby spontaneously combust?

So it turns out there’s really only one baby left and it belongs to Damien’s right hand man. Now this brings up another stupid moment – all movie up to now, the assistant guy has been telling everyone that his son was born BEFORE the cut-off date for the supposed Christ reincarnations. Even though he’s been lying, for some reason Damien just went along with it. How can Damien not tell that his assistant is lying? Can’t he like…see into peoples’ minds or something? And even if he couldn’t, why not just look at the medical records for proof? He knows where all the OTHER babies are that were born at the right time, but he can’t figure out that one of his own employees is lying to him? For a future ruler of all darkness, Damien kinda sucks.

Oh, and how about this, where the priests get so desperate for ideas that they just start going around door-to-door of all the people with new babies born who could be the Christ reincarnation and telling them they’re in danger. He talks to Damien’s right hand man’s wife, and tells her what’s going on, and she believes him. However, he then talks to that Kate Reynolds chick, who’s supposed to be a smart reporter, and she doesn’t believe him, as she just goes to hang out with him the next day anyway and ends up having sex with him, because again, being the Antichrist gets you chicks:

She really knows how to pick 'em. How does this supposedly rational journalist not see who Damien really is, anyway?  Oh yeah because the plot depends on stupidity...

And all at the same time, her son has been possessed, or something, by Damien and is now working for him to spy on the priests. Man, banging the woman AND using her son as a minion; Damien sure knows how to get around! That priest guy comes back to talk to Kate again, and says that he knows that her son is working for Damien. Apparently he DOESN’T realize that the kid has been stalking him the whole time, though…pretty stupid…man, I’m bored; let’s just wrap this up in a paragraph:

Damien kidnaps the son and makes Kate lead her to where the Christ child is, because somehow she knows that, I guess. The kid dies – man, this movie really likes killing off kids for some reason – and then the priest dies, too. Damien wanders around a bit, wondering how come he’s fighting against his girlfriend, as in real life, Sam Neill and Lisa Harrow were dating around this time. But I guess they were having some problems:

This movie is a waste of time if I ever saw one. Nothing has any weight or drama to it, all the deaths are stupid as hell, there are a million little inconsistencies and plot-holes, the soundtrack is silly, the acting is bland and the story is completely trite and played out, with no surprises. Why would I ever watch this again? Oh, wait, no reason. Omen III is horrible and anything involved with it is horrible, too. A Satanic film so bad that it actually turns around and just starts reading the Bible again.

The images do not belong to me, they are copyright of their original owners.

REVIEW: Next (2007)

SPOILERS afoot here! Beware!

Nicolas Cage is a lot of things. He’s a bad actor, a so-bad-he’s-good actor, a producer of films and an all around odd character in real life. Whatever you can say about him, he is certainly noticeable. And what way to make him MORE noticeable than to put him in a movie where he plays a psychic stage magician on the run from Julianne Moore? This is Next.

Director: Lee Tamahori

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jessica Biel

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435705/

I really do like the flashy aesthetic this movie has. Pretty much anything involving Las Vegas is automatically cool. This is no exception. It’s just all about the visual eye candy. The flashy lights, the gaudy buildings, the slick streets, the fast cars…it’s all here in spades, people, with a healthy American scent all over it. This really is a very American movie in the end, with a lot of shots later on of perhaps the most American thing ever, the Arizona desert – truly a majestic sight. Any movie that has people driving through the desert gets at least one brownie point for aesthetic worth. There is a lot to be said for the atmosphere of a film and how the locations chosen affect the viewer’s enjoyment of the whole.

Cage himself is his usual stoic, too-serious self of his latter days – this is the melodramatic try-hard overly serious Cage of Drive Angry, not the silly Vampire’s Kiss-styled Cage of the 80s and 90s. He’s not a good actor and never will be, but where he succeeds is pure passion and energy into what he’s doing. Cage is always an intense guy and even when he can’t emote for shit, you can always tell he is into what he’s doing. He will never purposefully half-ass a performance and he will definitely never sell out. He just loves acting – even if the rest of us have to suffer sometimes. And I think that’s what makes him a respectable actor. In his own weird little way.

Julianne Moore is…well, Julianne Moore, playing the usual overly confident, smug lady cop she has played in other movies. Jessica Biel is probably the weakest link in this thing as she just doesn’t have much of a character other than being eye candy – and she does work as that, but as an actual character she leaves a lot to be desired, mostly just acting as your generic Mary Sue female protagonist with no flaws or personality. Pretty boring.

The story is a Die Hard sort of tale, about terrorists and bombs and what not, except the twist is that Cage’s character can see two minutes into his own future to find out what’s going to happen next. Moore and her people want to capture Cage so they can channel his power to help find the terrorists, only he doesn’t want them to because he doesn’t want to be locked up like a lab rat. He does eventually team up with them when Biel is kidnapped. The whole third act is just a thrill ride, maybe not as good as any Die Hard movie, but close enough, and nail-bitingly exciting in its own right.

The only problem with this movie is actually the reason why I can’t recommend this as a bona-fide good film – it’s not exactly a small issue. One of the recurring plot points in this movie is that Cage’s psychic visions are sometimes presented to us as actual happenings in the film. Like something will happen, but then a few minutes later the screen will flash and Cage will just be sitting there THINKING about whether or not to actually let it happen – the benefits of his psychic foresight, but not exactly a strong filmmaking technique. The first few times it’s OK, as it adds to the humor – like the numerous visions he has about different ways to ask Biel out. That was pretty funny.

But it turns out Biel’s character is some kind of psychic enhancer for him, somehow, so with her he can see even further into the future. This plot point is never properly explained – how is she able to do that to him? And it’s made even worse by the fact that the entire climax, yes, the entire action-fueled, tense climax, all turns out to be part of Cage’s vision. None of it actually happens! This serves, I guess, to show us that Cage has to make the tough choice and leave Biel behind while he goes and saves the city on his own, but still, it’s a pretty damn big cop out. At the end of the day, there simply isn’t much that actually HAPPENS in Next, and that’s where the film fails in the end. It’s just the principle of the whole thing. While this film is entertaining, and quite original, the fact is, not a lot of stuff really transpires in the film – a lot of it is just in Cage’s head.

Next is a fundamentally flawed film that still remains enjoyable in spite of those flaws. Not every movie has to be absolutely spotless, and sometimes a few flaws can make a movie more interesting, as they do here – there wouldn’t be as much to talk about if this was just your average Nicolas Cage action movie. And your mileage will vary on just how much the ending disappoints you – it really just depends how much you like the idea of a lot of it only being in Cage’s mind the whole time. If you can get past that, great; you’ll probably dig it. Otherwise, it’s worth a watch and has a curious enough plot to warrant one. Go see it.

Nicolas Cage told me to tell you that the images here aren't mine. They are copyright of their original owners.

REVIEW: My Soul to Take (2010)

It’s Wes Craven time! This famed director can really go either way. On the one hand, he directed A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and Scream. On the other hand, he directed The Serpent and the Rainbow and the subject of today’s gala of wrongness, My Soul to Take.

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Max Theriot, John Magaro

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0872230/

This is a very interesting type of bad movie. It looked like a generic Nightmare on Elm Street rip off – I mean, it’s a story about a bunch of kids stalked by a serial killer who died years ago; come on – but really, it’s bad for COMPLETELY DIFFERENT reasons! I know I’m usually a lot grouchier than this when a movie this terrible comes around but…I can’t help it; this is just too interesting to me! I’m like a kid in a candy store with this shit.

The film starts off with some guy who can’t act, trying to act. He’s a father with a wife who likes to watch on the news about what kind of knife a serial killer currently on a killing spree uses, because, you know, THAT’S something the news would broadcast! What, do they just think people are going to be able to get a close enough look at the knife to be able to quickly call 911 and report it before they get slashed? And for that matter, the knife says ‘Vengeance’ on it…why? It’s never explained! Not even two minutes in, and I’m already confused!

"Ooh, a knife! Cool!"

Then the father finds the knife in the sink and the movie has an epileptic seizure trying to convey the idea that the father is crazy. He does some silly voices and the camera flashes in-between really choppy scenes of creepy angles of him. Then we find out he killed his wife, and the cops come and get him, but he won’t die, and talks to them in a voice that sounds like Jigsaw from the SAW series. Then some stuff blows up, we find out that seven babies were born at exactly midnight and…we flash forward 16 years later!

Okay, I gotta take a breather; this movie is exhausting. That was like 5 minutes of screentime right there. Maybe even less! This whole thing is like the cinematic equivalent of a speed junkie’s personal video blog. You don’t have to cram EVERY SECOND of screentime in with nonsense, Craven. You CAN have a quiet, atmospheric moment or two, you know! Why am I the one telling him how to make his movies? I’ve never made one!

So in the present day, I guess, a bunch of kids are all gathered around in the woods where they apparently glorify the killer from before every single year on the exact day he died, which is their birthday – that’s right, these seven kids who were born when the killer supposedly died all get together each year to ritualistically pretend to kill a big puppet made to look like what they imagine he looked like. They get stopped by the cops because apparently there’s a curfew in town, and they’re all really surprised at this. Why? They do this every year. They should know about the curfew! Why is it such a surprise to them?

Anyway, we see our three main heroes, Bug, random black kid we won't see much, and our main star, Asian kid!

Hey, it's The Goonies/the kids from The Sandlot/the kids from IT/the kids from Chronicle...

Now, in an interesting twist, the Asian kid is actually a really well developed character in this movie. He has a clear motivation, a lot of depth and faults that anyone can relate to…nah, just kidding, he gets killed off in the next scene:

Yes, apparently this serial killer does it execution style and throws his victims off bridges...

After that it’s high school time, as we see one of the kids, Alex, getting into a fight with his drunk, abusive jackass of a stepfather, who drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon, so according to South Park, that’s why he’s a drunk, abusive jackass of a stepfather. I’m so glad Matt Stone and Trey Parker are there when I need them. But hey, if my stepson was in The Box, I’d be pretty angry at him too, so I can kind of sympathize with the stepfather a little.

Alex goes to school and meets Bug, where they hatch a plan to put Bug’s phone in the girls’ bathroom to overhear what they’re saying. Am I in the same movie still?

No, really; am I in the same movie? This IS a horror movie, right? And not Bratz: The Movie or some kind of fashion model photography shoot? Because you're not making a very good case for the former, Craven, I gotta tell ya.

Yeah, apparently the girls in this movie are like the mafia of high school, led by this one chick who’s watched way too many Helena Bonham Carter movies, Fang. Yes, Fang, that’s what they call this girl. They talk shit about Bug and Alex and some other people and it gets them both slightly pissed off at one another. They say that Bug has been in institutions and has killed people before. They say Alex just uses Bug like a monkey. This of course causes both friends to turn on one another with disbelieving looks! But wait, if they’re such good friends, why are they so ready to believe random shit-talking they secretly overheard from the girls’ bathroom? Shouldn’t they be good enough friends to where they would KNOW that whatever the girls said wasn’t true?

We also get this really strange scene where Bug starts imitating everything Alex does and says somehow, like he’s possessed, and has to be slapped to snap out of it. It’s…mostly incredibly pointless. Just like this little paragraph!

We see some religious girl talking to another girl who the head jock of the school got pregnant, I guess. Isn’t there supposed to be a serial killer in this movie? We’re 40 minutes in, and not more than one poorly explained, brushed over kill scene has happened! The pregnant girl is worried about her baby, so religious girl says “It’s a baby, not a bomb.” Well unless you’re in Dracula III: Legacy:

I bet you didn't expect me to reference Dracula III again, did you? But yeah, to make a long story short, they both get killed I guess.

Then we see this girl named Brittany running away from head jock asshole guy Brandon, who wants her to give him a blowjob. She comes across the dead body of the religious girl outside, which is weird, because they weren’t even anywhere CLOSE to there when she was killed just ONE SCENE AGO…but what’s even stranger about these scene is that Brittany assumes Brandon did it, just at the drop of a hat for no reason. She accuses him of killing this girl like she’s accusing him of stealing her homework. What a smart character. Luckily her punishment for this moronic dialogue is death!

Not EXACTLY a good shot...

Then Brandon gets axed, too, and the killer utters the brilliant line: “Fuck your fucking unborn child!” Wow, Wes Craven…just wow. I don’t know why I expected better lines than this from a movie serial killer…OH WAIT it’s because Craven directed A Nightmare on Elm Street, which was famous for its killer’s witty one liners that DIDN’T involve profanity and ridiculous try-hard tough guy-isms! Silly me.

At home Bug finds out that his mom baked him a birthday cake. He tells her he likes that Brittany girl – you know, the one who just got killed – and she says “Isn’t she a little sophisticated for you?” What the hell? I guess she won’t be winning any Mother of the Year awards! You might as well just tell him “Honey, you’re a hopeless loser and you can’t even talk to most girls; just give up.” I mean…wow! That was pretty cold.

After that we see one of Craven’s brilliant plot twists as that Fang girl who was acting like the Godfather of the high school mafia is actually Bug’s older sister the whole time. Yeah. Real riveting twist, right? She tells him she hates him and that he ruined her life because he’s actually the son of the serial killer from the beginning of the movie, who everyone thinks is back and killing again. Then she beats the living crap out of him, because nothing says horror movie protagonist like getting beat up by your own sister:

So…HOW did this never come up in any of their no doubt wonderful familial conversations in the past SIXTEEN YEARS?! I’m sorry, I don’t buy it! There is NO WAY none of this crap was just NEVER brought up that whole time Bug was growing up!

After that we see Alex again for the first time in about a half hour. He comes in and talks to Bug about some stuff and then casually mentions, near the end of the conversation, that he just got back from murdering his stepfather. Yeah…wouldn’t have mentioned that FIRST THING, would he? I guess he just didn’t think it was very important.

Bug goes to get him a drink, sees his dead religious girl friend in the mirror, gets his father’s knife with ‘Vengeance’ written on it back somehow, and then goes downstairs and finds his mom dead. One cop comes in – yes, one cop; I guess sending more would have been a stupid idea – and tries to arrest him, angry that Bug would kill his mom NOT because he killed his mom, but because he was a symbol of hope for the town after his father killed his actual mother in the opening scene. Yes, HOW DARE HE HAVE A SERIAL KILLER FOR A FATHER AND COME OUT SCREWED UP BECAUSE OF IT! What an inconsiderate little shit.

The cop then gets killed by the actual killer a second later.

Bug and the killer fight a little bit and the killer apparently has teleportation powers, avoiding every gunshot fired at him somehow. Bug goes upstairs where it’s revealed that Alex was the killer the whole time, because the killer’s soul randomly picked his body at birth 16 years ago to transfer into…I don’t know, just go with it. Alex goes outside while he internally monologues about how he isn't the hero the city needs, but the one it wants right now, and that he can fake it FOR THE SAKE OF THE TOWN…

Actually on second thought, no.

Yeah, this movie was special. I don’t even know what to say about it. Craven conjures up, somehow, some decent drama with this thing, but there are so many plotholes, stupid scenes, terrible acting and horribly inconsistent storytelling moments that I can’t overlook them all. My Soul to Take is honestly a trainwreck of a film that you could probably miss and be a better overall person for it, and if you really want a GOOD 'troubled teen' movie, go watch Chronicle instead. But if you want something so terrible and so ridiculous that it's actually hilarious, well, My Soul to Take will do the job. Happily, in fact.

None of the images or videos here belong to me. They are copyright of their original owners.

REVIEW: Hulk (2003)

Well, with The Avengers finally out and winning worldwide acclaim, it looks like superhero films have finally hit their stride and become worth talking about again – it’s been a long time coming with a lot of steep roads, but finally we have some viable superhero flicks to lead the genre and prove that it isn’t a big half-assed joke just made to cash in on the comic books. Indeed, we certainly have come a long way since movies like the 2003 Hulk film with Eric Bana, a movie so lame and so boring that it feels like you yourself are getting a radioactive zap straight to the brain. And yes, I did just use a joke that bad. I should be ashamed, but then again, I’m still better than the people who made THIS.

Director: Ang Lee

Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286716/

I mean MAN this is a dull, plodding, hackneyed piece of nothing. Who knew you could make The Hulk so boring? It’s got all the elements you’d expect a Hulk film to have, but they’re done incredibly poorly, and mostly it will just put you to sleep. Eh. Let’s…try and get it over with, I guess…

We start off with a guy named David Banner doing illegal experiments without the government’s permission like experimenting on his own son – what a douchebag. He gets sacked rightfully, as what he’s doing is highly illegal. He starts to freak out and break shit and then immediately runs home to kill his son; what a champion father. We don’t exactly see what happens next, because the movie is as incoherent as your average meth addict, and just fades into another scene with main character Bruce Banner as a teenager about to go off to college and leave Woody, Buzz and all the other toys behind for the last time:

Maybe I got the wrong movie franchise...

Okay, seriously, what’s up with the flashbacks? Does this director just not think we’ll be able to understand The Hulk’s plot without showing us Bruce Banner’s past? And for that matter, why change the story like this? Bruce Banner was a normal guy who got caught up in radiation and became a big green monster. THAT’S IT. What is all this nonsense about his father conducting secret experiments on him and trying to kill him as a little kid? It’s just needlessly complex and dark.

So we finally get to the present day as we see Bruce Banner played by Eric Bana and his ex-girlfriend Betty, played by Jennifer Connelly, neither one of whom ever seems to give a shit about any of their lines throughout this thing. I’m serious, you could get cardboard cutouts to play these characters and you’d have the same level of emotional attachment. These two are ex boyfriend and girlfriend and it seems like this is supposed to be a point of contention between them, but the way Bana and Connelly act, it’s just a minor inconvenience to laugh about. So glad THAT riveting emotional character development was avoided!

They mosey around for a while exchanging some nonsensical dialogue and the scenes are transitioned horribly through schizophrenic drug induced hallucinations that look like stuff you’d see in a 1995 computer game. The whole thing is just too cluttered and claustrophobic, with short scenes broken up by tons of bright, flashy colors enough to give small Japanese children seizures. How am I supposed to be invested in this? It’s practically the cinematic equivalent of a hyperactive little girl on too much sugar!

So Banner and Betty do some more experiments until their dumbass friend accidentally breaks the machine and gets Banner infected with the radiation. It should kill him, but instead, mysteriously, he’s OK, and even better than before. He then gets visited by a creepy old Unabomber impersonator, his own crazy father who escaped from a mental ward and disguised himself as the janitor of the building, played by veteran actor Nick Nolte. How did they get him to do this? Well, I imagine a lot of horrible, horrible blackmail was involved. And what’s up with the three random dogs he has with him all the time? Is this supposed to be taken seriously?

The true picture of villainy; a crazy homeless man from your local subway with a bunch of weird dogs around him for no reason.

Nolte hams it up in front of the camera as he’s going to do for the entire movie – this guy is seriously just terrible here, and it’s baffling because I know he can do good in other movies. What happened, was he just told to act as poorly as possible? I also love how he tries to get all self righteous and finger-pointing at Banner for not being a good scientist or whatever when HE was arrested for malpractice and experimenting on humans and then put into a mental ward. Not exactly in the position to chastise others, are you pal?

And what is also so strange about this is…HOW THE HELL DID HE GET HIRED BY A GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCIENTIFIC BUILDING? He has a criminal history! Do they just not do any background checks on their employees? “Hey, I know this guy was arrested thirty years ago for doing illegal experiments and has been in a mental ward ever since, but I really think he’s perfect for our scientist building as a janitor! NOTHING BAD could possibly result from this!” USE YOUR BRAINS YOU MONGOLOIDS.

Banner turns into the Hulk and destroys the lab, causing everything to get shut down by the government and Banner to be arrested the next morning. Betty’s father the military general (Sam Elliott) comes in and arrests Banner despite Betty’s pleas otherwise – he’s ONLY a danger to all mankind as long as he’s free, after all! Why do some parents have to be so inconsiderate?

That night we see David Banner’s most diabolical plot yet…three rabid super-dogs, one of which is a French poodle. I swear I am not making that up:

Reminds me of The Breed...

Or, no, wait. It's like Cujo II:  Who Let the Dogs Out! There we go!

I…can’t tell if this is stupid or genius. But we get a pretty decent action scene I guess, remarkable enough for the fact that it involves a demonic French poodle, but decent enough otherwise, too. Then they go back and we find out that Betty really wasn’t so loyal after all, as despite the fact that Banner helped her, she tranquilizes him and lets the military take him. What a whore.

They take him to some compound where of course they NEVER do anything stupid like…just letting him walk around all he wants with his ex girlfriend with no guards or protection, thus putting everyone in danger…oh wait, they DO do that. What a bunch of morons! But at least they’re prepared for a Hulk break-out in case they do some experiments on him underwater and he gets angry and breaks out…oh, wait, they’re NOT prepared at all, and have to run around like their heads are up their asses just to make sure he doesn’t kill them.

Aren't you glad the US is paying taxes in this world to fund idiotic experiments like this, which could have literally been orchestrated better by a five year old? How is it THIS HARD to NOT waste valuable resources? If you want to make The Hulk come out, how about actually getting prepared for it, and setting up damage-proof settings where he won't destroy anything? But I guess that would make too much sense. Instead these guys just love to run around like turkeys with their heads cut off while The Hulk demolishes all their hard work. But hey, whatever works, ya know?!

Is anything these guys do sensible or smart AT ALL? I’ll just spoil that for you and say no, no it isn’t.

So the Hulk breaks out of the compound and goes on a rampage all around the desert and even through the Grand Canyon. And okay, even I have to admit, this is the only good part of the movie, with some excellent scenery and even some decent action for once. Seeing the Hulk jump around the Grand Canyon is pretty awesome.

But the movie RUINS it soon after by having David Banner, Bruce’s father and now a crazy Unabomber wannabe, talk to Betty alone and try to get her to let him talk to Bruce again, even offering to turn himself in. Now, in any rational universe, the military’s response would be “No, you crazy freak, we’re just arresting you and putting you back in that mental institution for the rest of your life.” However, in THIS MOVIE, the military just goes along with his demands and agrees to them!

…

…….

…………….

ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR MINDS? What kind of military is this? They ACTUALLY let him see his son after everything he’s done? I mean, he’s only an escaped mental patient locked up for doing dangerous experiments on human beings. It’s not like he’s, oh I don’t know, CRAZY or anything, right? This makes no sense! What kind of military organization would ever negotiate with a hostage like this? What do they gain? Brownie points for reuniting a son and his father, even though the father is a known lunatic and could do anything to activate his son’s Hulk persona and sabotage everything the military themselves is working for? Are they just TRYING to screw up as much as possible? Is that the experiment they're doing; how to royally mess up everything as much as possible? I’m sorry, I don’t get it, and this movie has officially crossed the line into complete WTF territory, never to return. Movie, YOU NEED HELP.

So anyway, now we have a second climax which involves David Banner biting on a big electric wire and turning into, well, what looks like a big pile of Transformer droppings:

Noogie noogie noogie!

They fight some more and David turns into…oh, do you even care anymore?

I really don't, so I'm not going to bother explaining this part.

Then the military bombs them and leaves them for dead without even checking to SEE if they’re dead or not – have I mentioned I’m not exactly enthralled with the way the military acts in this movie? – and we’re done, right? No? There’s still another ’1 year later’ epilogue scene? Oh come on, JUST END ALREADY, you big pile of green garbage!

Sigh. So apparently a year later, Jennifer Connelly still can’t act, as when she says she still loves Bruce, she sounds like she’s just saying she lost her shoes or something – don’t get TOO emotional there honey; don’t want to actually make us give a shit there or something! And we see Bruce himself in the jungle with some native tribe, getting robbed by some thieves. He glares at them and says, in a foreign language, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

So, just to recap that, the signature line of the Hulk series is only uttered in a foreign language at the very end of the movie – it’s not THAT BIG of a deal or anything, but it just points out how much this movie utterly fails.

And fail it does! This was crap. Aside from the awful special effects, acting and storyline, it was just so cluttered with nonsensical transitions and too many plotlines for what should have been a relatively simple movie. I didn’t really get a chance to mention it in the review, but this movie is also really, really friggin’ pretentious and ponderous, with far too many faux-philosophical ramblings from Nick Nolte’s character that just get on my nerves with how self-indulgent they are. For psychological superhero movies, The Dark Knight was still a long ways off.

So yeah, this sucks. Go see the 2008 one instead. It isn’t anything amazing, but it’s at least a real movie, unlike this haphazard collection of psychedelic music video images and pretentious college-student speeches. And I think that’s a big plus!

Images copyright of their original owners.

The Avengers (2012)

Starring: A bunch of people

Director: Joss Whedon

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(2012_film)

Many of you have never heard of this small independent film that explores the deep realms of the human psyche by analysing the most intellectually intriguing phrase of our time: "HULK SMASH!!!!!"

Or it just might be about something completely different...

The movie starts off with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) coming to Earth with the intent of becoming its supreme ruler. It is up to a familiar group of superheroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye (respectively played by Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner) under the guidance of Nick Furry (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop him. However, they first have to learn to work together as their conflicting personalities soon become apparent.

Umm...it's awesome! Nope, I don't have anything to add to that; I think I've made myself pretty clear. Okay, fine, if you insist...

I was expecting this movie to be pretty good even though I have mixed feelings about the previous Marvel movies that preceded it. "Captain America" was great and "The Incredible Hulk" was enjoyable. The "Iron Man" movies were pretty good though I feel like they could have been better. "Thor"...was okay, but I say that generously since it had major flaws. Still, I figured this movie would take enough of the best elements from each of them and be able to create a competent story. And...it did! It really just goes all out: it makes the most of the characters and how they interact with each other, it has a number of funny moments that are actually funny, it has some good serious moments, and (perhaps most importantly) it has lots and lots and LOTS of action!!! What more can you want?!!!

That's pretty much it. I really can't elaborate on it any further, at least not without spoiling it. Too be honest, I can't really criticize it either. The only part I really questioned was how the characters seemed be clued in on a bunch of the major details about each other and the situation at hand. But they explain how the film takes place about a year after the other ones ended and given how persistent Nick Furry has been about keeping tabs on people (and how high profile some of their individual circumstances were in the media) its seems logical that they would all have a basic idea of what was going on. Which is good because it minimizes the number of scenes needed to do all that explaining and cuts straight to the good parts!

So...yeah! It is a really solid, excellent movie. Most of you who are reading this are probably going to see it anyway or have already done so, but if you are on the fence for some reason, I definitely recommend it. I can't think of any other superhero movie that will be able to beat this one this summer...

Hmm...forgot about that one...

P.S.: As you would expect, there is a scene after the main closing credits that...okay, I will not spoil it. And if you wait until the end of rest of the credits, there is something else. Just in case you wanted to know.

REVIEW: Kill Katie Malone (2010)

This movie is bad. Whatever kind of bad you're thinking, this is worse. This one’s going to hurt – I mean, it’s going to hurt a lot. Like, getting your wisdom teeth pulled-levels of hurt. I mean...I…ugh. I just…eugh. I can’t even….this movie’s tagline is “Never Buy a Demon on the Internet.” Never Buy a Demon on the Internet…that’s so dumb I can barely even form a coherent sentence around it! Ugh. Kill Katie Malone, people.

Director: Carlos Ramos Jr.

Starring: Dean Cain, apparently, and nobody else according to the DVD box! I'll go with that!

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1523485/

“I teach Shakespeare! I don’t frighten easily!”

-A Shakespeare Teacher

The movie begins at some house where a girl is about to star in Hellraiser 17 and a half, with the window open and the wind blowing and everything as she’s standing over a black box. Her father comes in and shouts at her to get out of this script while she still can, but she says no, being an edgy and rebellious teen. Unfortunately their acting is so over the top that it causes flour to jump up and make the girl’s face all white. Then the father gets blown out of the room and the door closes, and that’s the scene!

Was that confusing enough just reading it? Well, that’s because it made about as much sense watching it, too. You know what, I miss the Hellraiser movies.

Then we see a Halloween party with some prissy douchebag, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer knock-off and a Nick Cannon wannabe walking around exchanging putrid dialogue. The prissy douchebag, whose name is Jim, goes to talk to some girl he likes, but apparently he’s such a terrible catch that she prefers the Insane Clown Posse’s head groupie over him:

Pre-etty low standards there, girl.

Then back in their dorm room, Jim is searching eBay and comes across a listing for a ghost. Thinking it’s really an awesome idea, he begs and pleads his two friends to pitch in 40 dollars so they can buy the ghost. Because they’re also dumb as a box of rocks, they give in with a minimal amount of prodding. Seriously, am I supposed to care at all? A bunch of 30 year old “college kids” (ha ha…right…) have seriously got nothing else to do except sit around on eBay and pool their money to buy “haunted ghost boxes”? Whatever happened to the days when kids did drugs and drank alcohol all the time? I miss those days.

"Hurrr durrr let's look up ghosts on the internet and buy them off ebay, we're so cool!"

Also, are we supposed to believe that the father from the beginning lost his daughter and then said, “Hmm, I don’t have any use for this evil demonic black box…better sell it on eBay”? Seriously?

So they get the box and there’s nothing in it but a little locket thing. They for some reason make wishes for things like roses and money, and for some random-ass reason, the box grants them and leaves these things on their bed while they’re not there. Why? I have no idea…I just want to get this over with.

Jim and his Nick Cannon lookalike roommate, Dixie, just goof around, I guess, until later that night when they’re sleeping and then they start to hear loud noises as an invisible force knocks stuff around their room. They hide in the bathroom like idiots for a few minutes only to come out and find something in Gaelic written on the wall, so of course they think someone broke into the room and did it – even though they were in there the whole time. I guess you could argue that they’re just making sense the only way they can out of something that cannot be explained, but I think that’s giving the movie too much credit. They’re just incredulously large dipshits.

And hey, random Asian girl locked in her room with a computer who has nothing else to do but look up historical information and foreign language translations for the main character!

That’s not stereotypical or racist at all!

The Buffy-like girl, Ginger, also has some strange stuff happen in her room, like books flying around. Even though she never leaves the room or turns away and can CLEARLY SEE that it’s some invisible force knocking her stuff around, she thinks it was Jim who did it, even though CLEARLY he was not there at all, nor was ANYONE. Was this girl dropped on her head as a child? Or is she just blind? Of course she’s angry at Jim for it, even though there is no conceivable way it could have been him, and she storms off angrily when he tries to talk to her.

Of course the next day, she’s completely over it and acts like it never happened, probably because the writer of the movie can’t concentrate on anything for longer than three seconds and literally just forgot the character was supposed to be mad. Stunning. We find out that Dixie apparently plagiarized something for a paper he did and is about to get expelled. He says he wishes she wouldn’t talk, so then we cut to a later scene where the teacher is walking all alone at night…gee, I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen in this scene

That's the face people made when they advance-screened the film for the first time.

She hears some noises and shouts, “I teach Shakespeare! I don’t frighten easily!” What? What does that mean? Is she related to that Mo guy from The Stuff? They both sure know how to spout the most non-sequitur, nonsensical crap ever…oh well, anyway, she bites off her own tongue in a really over the top fit of “acting,” and the scene fades out before any gore can be shown. Wonderful.

The next day, after some very poor shots of the backs of everyone’s heads that go on for way too long, we see Jim and Ginger sharing a cement-flavored energy bar together when Ginger’s roommate Misty comes up wearing a sweater of Ginger’s. Ginger bitchily chastises her for wearing the sweater and then gets mad at Jim when he makes a light crack at Misty, because THAT makes a lot of sense…ugh. Well, at least no kittens were harmed in the making of THIS roommate-themed scene.

Then outside, a big crowd is formed as the body of the Shakespeare teacher is found. Wait, so she’s just being found NOW, after at least one class is already done for the day? What, did the entire school just walk past the bloody tongueless body on the ground and shrug at it until someone put it into context for them that it was a dead body? Or are dead, bloody tongueless bodies just the norm at this school? Frankly neither one would surprise me. I also love how when they’re rolling out the body in a bodybag after Dixie tells them the teacher is dead, Ginger says “Is that the teacher?” No, you idiot…it’s the other dead body they found at school this morning! Gosh.

Just your average day at Kill Katie Malone school.

After that we see Misty messing up the sweater, and since the ghost is now an advocate of sweater protection, it pushes a big paper cutting thing all the way across the desk and forces her arm onto it. I love how Misty is obviously in distress, yet all the teacher does is scream at her to stop disrupting the class. It’s not exactly a special needs class, you jackass – she’s PRETTY OBVIOUSLY in trouble and most likely wouldn’t just randomly cause a scene if she wasn’t. Though, with the way people in this movie act, I don’t blame the teacher for thinking his students are mentally incapable retards.

She loses her arm via ghost paper cutter machine AAAAND we still don’t get to see any gore. Would it kill the filmmakers to at least try to entertain us? If your writers can’t write, at least throw some silly gore or tits in to give us SOMETHING to enjoy!

So she gets her arm cut off by a paper cutter because Ginger "wished" that she wouldn't mess up the sweater...wow...and I can't get over this with the teacher. "HOW DARE YOU GET MORTALLY WOUNDED BY AN EVIL GHOST! YOU'RE SO INCONSIDERATE!" This is stupid! I feel stupid for watching it!

After that we see Jim going over to that hot chick’s house where her dumbass Insane Clown Posse boyfriend pulls him aside in the kitchen and loudly and physically threatens him for the horrible crime of possibly thinking about making a move on his girlfriend…even though he hasn’t actually done anything. Also, wouldn’t the girls in the other room hear him shouting at Jim and pushing him up against the cabinets? Of course not, this is Kill Katie Malone! We can’t have anything make sense!

Then he goes home and this happens:

What?! WHAT?! No, you can't be serious with that! That's barely even a finished death scene; go back and finish the editing process and make it look better! And besides that, what's the reason behind this anyway? Most of the deaths so far have been connected to what a character "wishes" or something, but as the film goes on, they just seem to get more and more random. Did Jim really think in his head "Gee, I really wish that douchebag would meet a little ghost girl on the side of the road who would scream at him so loud that he would evaporate into thin air"? I'm sorry; I just...don't think that's very plausible! Mostly because he has the imagination of a goldfish. THINK, WRITERS! THINK!

The next day, the hot chick Jim has a crush on calls him to ask where her boyfriend is. He says he doesn’t know. He then says, “Hey, I was wondering…” and she cuts him off right there without even letting him finish and says “No, Jim…maybe if I was single.” Of course he was about to ask her on a date, which would have given her the right to be a bitch to him, as she is taken, but…he didn’t even finish the sentence! He could have been asking to borrow a textbook for class for all she knew! God, okay, whatever, she gets blown up randomly by the ghost for no reason:

Are they even trying with these deaths anymore? You might as well just jump-cut them off screen and then have one of the characters say they just ceased to exist. That’s how little effort you’re putting into this shit now!

So at the hospital, Ginger and Dixie are there because of Ginger’s roommate, who they say “cut off her own arm.” Uh, so that’s what they’re saying happened? Not “the paper cutter mysteriously, on its own, slid across a desk and then cut her arm off in front of an entire class,” but “she cut her own arm off”? IT HAPPENED IN FRONT OF A BUNCH OF PEOPLE. HOW DID EVERYONE GET THAT WRONG? WHY IS NO ONE INVESTIGATING IT? WHY IS THIS MOVIE SO STUPID? Gaaaaaggggghhhhhhh….I’m seriously reaching my breaking point, guys. It’s almost here. I’m just going to wrap up this shit fast and get it over with.

After that Jim comes up with the brilliant plan to “set the ghost free.” He opens the box, says she’s free and then throws it in the garbage, and that’s it. Riveting, Kill Katie Malone…riveting. This apparently gives him the license to date Ginger spontaneously for no real reason. They go back to have sex in her room, but he gets jump scared by a ghost for like a second, and she tells him to get out.

Seriously, movie?! Seriously, that's the ghost scare you're going for now? Get the hell out of here.

The next day she’s over it again, because again, her character is so poorly written that she can't even stay consistent in a two-minute interval between scenes. She and Dixie team up for the climax until the ghost freezes some stairs Dixie has his hand on and he rips it off and gets all bloodied up and stuff. This somehow renders him into a blubbering crying mess for the whole rest of the movie (until he gets turned into a smear of red paint on the floor a few scenes later, never to be mourned or even mentioned again). I know yanking your hand off ice like that hurts, but...God, the way this guy is going on, you'd think he just got his hand amputated or something! Man up, you pussy!

Meanwhile Jim is locked in his room by the ghost and gets a call from a mysterious girl who says the only way to get rid of the ghost is by buying it in an online auction apparently - stupid, but hey, it's almost over; bear with me.

WILL HE GET THE EBAY BID ON TIME?!? My heart is racing!

Oh no Dixie, don't cry! Your mortal wounds will have such a heart-rending effect on us all that I DON'T THINK WE'LL BE ABLE TO TAKE IT! NOOOOOO!

Yeah, grown men crying and eBay bids, truly Kill Katie Malone knows how to bring the thrills to life. Is the ghost just going to stop whatever she’s doing when the girl wins the bid and go “Oh, sorry, my bad. I’m leaving now!” I guess so. Because that’s what happens! What an obedient ghost!

There’s another scene after that, but screw it, I don’t even care. As far as I’m concerned this movie is over.

I seriously have not hated humanity after watching a movie like this in a long goddamn time. If there was ever proof of Satan’s existence and involvement on Earth, this movie is it. Do I even have to go over what sucked about this? I mean, it's pretty friggin' obvious if you're even half-paying attention while watching it! Going over what was good about it would be easier: nothing! There was nothing good about this movie! At all! Jesus H. Christ in a box of crackers this was an unwatchable mess. I walked away from this depressed, angry and more cynical at the world – but hey, at least it gave us the timeless advice, Never Buy a Demon on the Internet! Yes, truly now I’ll be a better person for that! GOD THIS MOVIE SUCKS.

Images copyright of their original owners, despite whether anyone would actually ever want to own anything in this movie or not.

REVIEW: The Roommate (2011)

Hey, guys, I’m here today to talk about the great new PG-13 lighthearted comedy, The Roommate! I don’t know why it has 4% on Rotten Tomatoes! It’s such a fun-filled romp! It’s got charmingly pretty characters, a nice college setting that will show your pre-teens what college is going to be like and lots and lots of hi-larious jokes and slapstick/body humor, as well as a nice romance on the side to keep you hopeless romantics suckered in. What could possibly go wrong?

Director: Christian E. Christiansen

Starring: Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1265990/

The Roommate starts out with some happenin’ modern rock music as our main character Sara gets to college in her shiny yellow car on a bright, sunny day with lots of other smiling, hair-gel-infested Dawson’s Creek rejects. She’s so cool that she goes to a party the first night and turns some guy down at first, yet kisses him anyway when he helps her drag her drunk friend to the elevator:

He goes so far as to spill beer on Sara just to talk to her, then has to help her carry her drunk friend away and he STILL doesn't get laid!

I’d call her a slut, but The Roommate takes a twist and has these two become boyfriend and girlfriend for the rest of the movie! Because every romantic comedy needs a couple to focus on and nothing says romance for a college frat boy like drunken debauchery and the girl turning him down and yet teasing him in a really bitchy way anyway...well, actually I shouldn't be sarcastic about that, because it's probably really true.

Then we meet Rebecca, Sara’s roommate. Rebecca doesn’t want to have a nickname, so that must mean she's insane:

"We oppose anyone who doesn't like nicknames!"

Sara starts going out with the other girls to clubs and parties and stuff, and hijinks ensue when one of the girls leaves her there on her own even though she doesn’t know the area! Rebecca comes to meet her later, and she and Sara go walking around town, taking pictures for their Facebook profiles (which will never actually be shown, considering the makers of the movie could not pony up enough money to use Facebook’s likeness in the film). Then Sara reveals that she tattooed her sister’s name onto her chest in remembrance of her tragic death several years earlier! Ha ha ha! Oh, how silly…wait, I think that was supposed to be a serious part…maybe…?

Rebecca then takes things into her own hands and attacks the one preppy partier girl in the shower, threatening her if she ever comes near Sara again. Gee. This scene could have almost been in a horror movie if she had actually done anything harmful to the girl, but all she does is pull out her belly ring and say “You’re a bad influence on her!” Ha ha! Oh, man, that is over the top.

Then Sara finds a cat outside and takes it back to her dorm, naming it Cuddles, because every romantic comedy needs a good cute animal. After that, Rebecca starts to do all sorts of nice things for Sara to show her affection, like putting up posters of her favorite movies and buying tickets to see art shows she likes. However, Sara already has plans – romantic plans!

Don't worry, it's a PG-13, so you won't actually see anything during this scene...

This leaves Rebecca alone in the room to call Sara's ex boyfriend, pretending to be Sara and telling him to stop calling her all the time, which he has been doing all movie up until now. Oh the hijinks that could possibly ensue from this...got to admit, though, it is pretty stupid how the ex boyfriend can't seem to tell that it isn't really Sara on the phone. That's stretching things a little too far.

And then because Sara wants to move in with some other friend of hers, Rebecca kills the cat by putting it in a dryer:

The Roommate: it advocates the killing of kittens!

You know, I would cite this part as one of the movie’s flaws, except frankly I’ve seen worse in Will Ferrel movies anyway.

Then it’s statutory rape fun time as their teacher Billy Zane puts the moves on Sara and kisses her, and as she tells Rebecca very calmly, Rebecca forms a plan. She then immediately goes and seduces him, records the whole thing on a random tape recorder she happens to have on her at the time and twists things around to make it look like he came onto her instead of what actually happened. This is clearly one of the cleverest scenes in the film, showing Rebecca's almost Bugs Bunny levels of trickery as she gets the teacher to quit his job the very next day! Odd. This could almost be a serious plotline, if handled in a more dramatic film, but The Roommate just uses it as a comedic device to make us laugh.

The Roommate: it advocates statutory rape!

Afterwards, Rebecca cons Sara into going back home with her by pretending to get stabbed and beat up – hilarious! – and they go to meet her parents. There we see that in another wacky twist, even though they’re her parents, they’re scared shitless of her. She also takes Sara out around the town and we see that every other kid in town is scared of her, too, even this one girl who she drew a ton of pictures of and stalked, or something, I guess...maybe. I don’t exactly know what this scene is going for, it's incredibly confused and poorly explained, but since it’s got almost no drama or weight to it, I’ll assume it’s a funny scene again just so I don't have to think too much about anything. Hallelujah for that!

Also note that Rebecca’s mom asks Sara if Rebecca has been taking her medication, which Sara and her new boyfriend find later hidden in a drawer! Apparently she hasn’t been taking it at all! So yeah, this crazy girl who goes around killing kittens in dryers and manipulating everyone around her while obsessing over various girls who give her attention, SHOULD HAVE been on medication this whole time! Is the movie suggesting that anyone who is on medication, if taken off, would become a psychotic serial killer? And for that matter, how did she even get into college if she was this ready to fly off the hook for no reason, without being provoked or anything? Shouldn’t she have been in a mental ward somewhere? This movie had better handle these delicate matters tastefully. Hmph. I expect nothing less from a teen comedy film.

Back at school, Sara’s ex boyfriend who has been harassing her over the phone the whole movie comes to visit her. How suspenseful; a love triangle! Finally the more romantic side of The Roommate comes to light. I was beginning to think this was one of those movies where the romance was just phoned in and contrived…can’t imagine that with The Roommate though.

So long story short, Rebecca kills him with a knife while pretending to be Sara, imitating a scene from Single White Female as much of the movie has done so far…ew, what are these horror elements doing in my teen comedy? That's just grotesque and not funny at all.

Reminds me of a scene in Black Christmas. Odd for a teen film...Black Christmas was pretty brutal at times.

But what is funny is lesbian sex!

What, you really think it’s cheap to use this as a throwaway gimmick this late into the film? Pfft. You PC wimp. Don’t be such a prude.

Sara gets a text from her friend who she’s living with, who is also the same woman Rebecca was hitting on at the nightclub, telling her to come to the apartment. There, she and Rebecca end up in a hilariously over the top shouting match in which Rebecca shouts at Sara for not appreciating her wonderful attempts at friendship like killing Sara's cat and ex-boyfriend…see what I mean? This movie is the cutting edge of ludicrous, bizarre comedy. It's almost like some kind of weird black indie comedy or something. It's nice to see the movie playing around with genre conventions a bit and giving us at least something new.

The fight that ensues is almost as funny, with a lot of it centering on having Sara dangling from an open window ledge…somehow, I guess. Sara tells Rebecca they aren’t friends, stabbing her in the back metaphorically, followed by stabbing her in the back physically with a knife! Oh The Roommate…always playing with my expectations. Then the movie ends with happy music and Sara deciding that she “doesn’t want to have a roommate for a while”…get it? She's underplaying the seriousness of the situation by giving a lighthearted ending quip! That's a considerate way to end the film, as now we won't be depressed due to the deaths of several people as well as an innocent kitten.

So yeah, all in all, The Roommate wasn’t bad and actually took a few risks for a teen comedy, like having dark almost horror-movie-esque lighting (in fact it's...almost hard to see anything at times) and introducing some deviously placed scenes that could have possibly been tense or dramatic, but playing with our expectations and making them lighthearted and comedic instead. The film also sneaks in some more risque jokes, like trying to make us think it's believable for Rebecca to think the terrible things she did to Sara are signs of a good friendship. That's pretty daring for a teen movie intended for kids who aren't even old enough to drive yet.

But most of the movie is still pretty conventional, and tells the classic story of a crazy girl falling over her feet and going to ridiculous lengths to please her dense and un-knowing new roommate. It's got some light laughs and a few pretty clever moments. Sure, the acting isn't great and there are a few plot holes, but mostly it's passable enough. I mean, it's not like this movie was trying to be serious or anything! Imagine if The Roommate was intended to be a horror movie, for example. Then it would have just been a horribly cliched, emotionally stunted, poorly written and hacked up pile of steaming wretched manure with no taste or class.

Luckily it isn’t intended to be serious at all. Luckily.

All images copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.