2011 movie roundup, part 4ish: The home game

The first two movies below catches me up on all the reviews I wanted to give you back in the spring roundup. However, just two movies would be short and lame so I’ll give you a couple more released earlier this year that have now made their way to Qwikster Netflix and Red Box.

My scale of film ratings from highest on down goes a little like this: Must-See, Go for it, Rental, Flat, Avoid, Hara-Kiri

Sucker Punch

The movie’s multiple levels of narrative takes some getting used to, and it’s a disorienting introduction to be sure.

But once it gets going, Sucker Punch is little more than a geek-fetish extravaganza. Mental patient prostitutes engaged in power-gaming fantasies with Hot Topic wardrobes. One typical moment involves the main character in pigtails and a schoolgirl uniform slicing through steampunk/zombie WWI soldiers with a katana.

While that might sound awesome, the movie’s base, action girl qualities are unenjoyable because the entire movie is marinated in so much rape fantasy it makes Lifetime movie-of-the-week villains look like saints among men. There is only ONE male character in the entire move who does not try to rape one or more of the women. This is prevalent even in the power-gaming sequences: The only time the action-girls ever get in danger is when a man or a man-substitute stops trying to hurt the girls with weapons and goes for a grapple.

If you can’t get the plot straight while watching it, don’t worry. It’s impossible to not have it click in the end (seeing as they just come out and tell you everything you could only assume up to that point). Not that I expect you to bother getting there.

Zack Snyder (Writer, Director, Producer) is not giving me much hope that he can correct Christopher Nolan’s inability to know what to do with female characters. Lois Lane fans might want to skip Man of Steel.

Verdict: Avoid. You were so, so close to getting this column’s first Hara-Kiri.

Paul

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s third theatrical team-up still brings the laughs, but not quite as many as their prior work.

Granted, Shawn of the Dead and especially Hot Fuzz are hard acts to follow, so Paul shouldn’t feel too bad about itself. It’s still fairly good.

The movie moves fast — you’d be surprised how far it moves in the first half hour — but it doesn’t pay for it with a slow end, staying brisk throughout.

True to Simon Pegg form, the movie has a lot of fun shout-outs to the nerds in the audience by holding up a mirror to nerd culture, including some spot-on scenes at a convention.

If you’re a fan of their sort of work, upgrade my recommendation a step. For everyone else,

Verdict: Rental

Source Code

If you wanted to make Groundhog Day into an action movie, this is how to do it.

Another sci-fi of today flick, Source Code features a U.S. solider using experimental equipment to revisit an 8-minute window of time over and over again to uncover the architect of a terrorist plot. Along the way, some brain-twisty questions about the nature of time and the universe crop up.

The movie is a bit of a slow starter, getting bogged down in the first few iterations, but really takes off afterward.

I wouldn’t mention it in the same breath as Minority Report, but it’s worth a watch. If you liked this movie, I would suggest also seeing Vantage Point for a similar story and storytelling device without the sci-fi elements.

For maximum enjoyment, watch this movie again after playing through Ghost Trick, which you ought to have done anyway.

Source Code is a move that asks a question, and then dares to answer it. Rather refreshing in the time of J.J. Abrams, so no complaining if you didn’t like the answer.

Verdict: Rental

The Adjustment Bureau

Hollywood’s tried-and-true practice of raiding Phillip K. Dick’s cabinet has churned out another winner.

Part romance, part politics and part supernatural, The Adjustment Bureau catches you off guard as it slowly alters the mix over the course of the plot as the mysteries and conspiracies take hold.

Despite the romantic plot, you would do well not to call this a chick-flick. Romance is merely what motivated the story. The movie also enjoys setting up clichés here and there only to fake you out by averting them. It would be a fun movie to watch with a genre-savvy fan of romantic comedies (you could also use Matt Damon’s starring role to trick people into expecting an action flick). You might laugh once or twice, but The Adjustment Bureau is straight-up drama; a sort of film seen less and less these days.

As much as Source Code was interesting, The Adjustment Bureau was gripping. I think it’s the clear winner of this installment of the movie roundup.

Verdict: Go for it

Stay tuned for the next installment featuring The Muppets, Puss in Boots, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas and more.