The Movie Critic: June 2012

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Haywire

Haywire was one of the most boring action movies I have seen. Even with an all star cast, the movie was destined to fail because of its director. Nothing against Steven Soderberg. I loved Traffic and the Oceans movies, but Steven does not make fast paced movies. Even with an all star cast with Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, and Bill Paxton, the movie fell very short of entertaining.

Gina Carano plays a private firms assassin who is set up and then hunted down by her own company. Its like a female version of the Bourne Identity. The fight scenes were cool and she was very convincing as an expert assassin.

The acting was of course very good. I would expect nothing less than the best from this caliber of cast.

However it was the slowest action movie I have ever seen. For example there was a chase scene on foot for about 10 minutes with very little other than showing Gina running and a few wide shots of both of the actors running. There just wasn't anything happening during this chase. It also did not help that rather than suspenseful music trying to impress the importance of catching the guy upon the audience, we listened to basically the Oceans 11 theme song, leaving us bored and uninterested. This chase scene was also a whole in the story that made no sense and did not serve the overall purpose of the film.

I really wanted to see this in theaters and am now very glad I did not. Unfortunately I still spent $5 renting it. I wouldn't even recommend seeing this for free because it would still amount to a waste of time. 1 star- and that's generous.

Snow White and the Huntsman

Snow White and the Huntsman is a new vision of the classic Snow White story starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron. The movie was a solid 2 hour plus action event. The story itself was very interesting. I loved the changes and how they made the story more adult but kept the basic elements still there. Overall the movie had a good pace and stayed intriguing the entire 2+ hours.

Visually the movie was stunning. Wherever they shot this movie, they picked some amazing locations. Aside from the breathtaking natural scenery, I found the sets to be very detailed and added depth to the story. The troll bridge in the dark forest was absolutely incredible.

In regards to acting, it was not bad. Everyone, including myself, had concerns going into this movie with Kristen Stewart. The movie looked great but was Kristen going to be the annoying, angst filled, vampire lover that annoyed us all so much in the Twilight films? The answer is not quite. Her acting was much better and she did not annoy me very much at all. She did have her classic open mouth constantly. Maybe she just has really bad allergies and cannot breathe with her mouth closed. The action and acting from Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron hid her shortcomings which were few and far between.

While the movie was very entertaining and had many high points, there were a few things that bothered me. There was one fight scene with the dwarves in which one of the Queen's henchmen pulls a Matrix style move. I know the director is trying to make impressive fight scenes, but a man wearing chainmail and armor simply cannot do crazy leaps and aerial acrobatics. That annoyed me. The other was the end of the film. In an effort to stay spoiler free, I will just simply say, the end was not satisfactory and did not feel like a real ending. Not in the sense that there could be a sequel, just in the sense, it left things untied. There was also a massive failing of continuity with a door being closed and then showed closing.

Overall the film was good and entertaining. The story was incredible and interesting, the cinematography breathtaking and impressive, and the acting was decent. I give the movie 3 stars. Entertaining summer blockbuster, but definitely not one of the bigger summer movies. It would be possible to save a few bucks and enjoy this at home.