[MasterDragonfly]

Yesterday I watched "Colossus: The Forbin Project". A very nice, thought-provoking thriller from 1970.

LOVED that movie! (It's on my short list of sci-fi thriller classics, along with The Andromeda Strain.)

Hmm... maybe I'll go search on Netflix now....

[rtpoe]

Sadly, we can expect more and more movies like "Battle: LA".

The economics of moviemaking are **77** the studios to go more for the lowest common denominator. We've got many more entertainment options these days (e.g. cable TV, the Internet, the guy on the street corner selling bootleg DVDs of movies still in the theater) that studios have to consider overseas markets in their accounting. And aliens and explosions are things that translate well into any language and culture.

Then there's the similar need to have marketing tie-ins, and brand names that people already know. So we get the Transformers series, the Shrek series, and so on ad nauseum. True, it's not really anything new. Hollywood did have over 40 "Charlie Chan" movies. At least with those, there wasn't any attempt at passing them off as anything special. Of course, back then, they didn't have TV to compete with...

Some of it's our own fault. We keep turning out in droves for TEH EXPLOSIONS, and wait for the more intelligent dramas to come out on DVD... So Hollywood keeps giving us more of what we ask for...

[solvegas]

Went to see Battle : LA just to see what the commotion was about. Movie made hash about science and even about real military. Gaping logic holes. Nevertheless, it was entertaining, true chewing gum for the mind and if you take it that way it ain't bad at all. 

[number3fac]

Some of it's our own fault. We keep turning out in droves for TEH EXPLOSIONS, and wait for the more intelligent dramas to come out on DVD... So Hollywood keeps giving us more of what we ask for...

Well to be fair, TEH EXPLOSIONS and other effects-driven extravaganzas aren't worth watching unless they're projected onto a 30-foot-or-larger screen.  A taut psychological triller, or other dramatic fare (and even standard rom-coms) are just as effective in your living room as they are in a theater.

On the other hand, while I like to believe I'm intelligent enough to appreciate more sophisticated films, the fact remains that my moviegoing standards are REALLY low.  So I'm predisposed to thinking that it's not a bad thing to spend money to go to a theater and see a feature that's little more than TEH EXPLOSIONS.

[Hark]

Rtpoe, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most Americans would rather see a film with over-rated graphics and gratuitous violence, than a drama that might heighten the senses and make the viewer aware of a real world.  If you want enlightenment and inspiration, go to a REAL theater, get Shakespeare, or attend a ballet, etc.  You’re not going to get anything out of a land full of tractor pulls, fast food and reality tv.

Solvegas, I must disagree with your view of how the military was portrayed.  Being an Army veteran, I saw a lot of similarities in how operations were carried out and the actions of personnel.  Given that the movie was FULL of technical and operational jargon, the lack of original dialogue gives the impression of lack of intelligence.

Number3fac, I second your notion.  I, too, refuse to spend money on a drama, comedy or romance flick in a theater.  For me, the big screen is just for action and some horror, even the heavily medicated CGI types.

If I must reveal non-relevant personal information, I DO believe in aliens, and if by some chance they ever show up, if not here already, it’s worth everyone’s while to be beneficial.  I’m a big fan of Erich von Daniken, Graham Hancock, and Robert Bauvall, and the History Channel has a very good series called “Ancient Aliens.”  It gets a little far-fetched sometimes, but I get a kick out of it.  Just saying…

[rtpoe]

Sucker Punch

As with "300," "Sucker Punch" resembles a ripsnorting video game or the longest Super Bowl commercial ever made more than it does a movie. The soundtrack is jammed with "Moulin Rouge"-style modern rawk takes on the Stooges, Roxy Music, Queen, and Björk, and the cinematography drains the movie of all colors except a bilious metallic sheen. For all its noise and supersonic style, "Sucker Punch" is a drab drag.

- Ty Burr, Boston Globe

"The video-game frame of reference is confirmed when Scott Glenn pops up at the beginning of each level to deliver nostrums and mission objectives, sending the girls after “a map, fire, a knife, and a key” (all that’s missing is an inventory menu)."

- Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice

"An indecipherable, hypocritical mess that proves you can fill a movie with scantily-clad women with big guns and it can still bore one to tears."

- Richard Roeper

"There is nothing here to enjoy, beyond the tiny satisfaction in noting that the movie lives up to its name."

- A. O. Scott, NY Times

"In the end, the entire film is a tedious sexual tease of eye candy and slo-mo fight choreography, which is likely what Snyder — "300," "Watchmen" — intended. If the goal was sensory overload and audience stupefaction, he has succeeded indeed. Snyder apparently is offering lobotomies to all. Step right up."

- Tom Long, Detroit News

[Shara]

yeah we get it, rtpoe doesn't like dumb movies. I love watching dumb movies on the other hand, and so do a lot of people, it's a way of unwinding

[SamV]

And if it has some hot looking women in it to ogle then so much the better.

[PregNut]

Battle: Los Angeles is one of those movies I like to see in the theater just for the FX. Given the above reviews, I'll wait until it's in the $2 theater, but not the dollar theater. That one is in the local mall, and I don't think they have mopped the floors in there since they were showing Forrest Gump.

Besides, there's no way B:LA is worse than Skyline.

[rtpoe]

yeah we get it, rtpoe doesn't like dumb movies. I love watching dumb movies on the other hand, and so do a lot of people, it's a way of unwinding

The dumb movies I like at least attempt to tell a rational story. Like "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" or "House on Haunted Hill" (the original, with Vincent Price). And you can be a simple, straightforward effectstravaganza without having to insult the intelligence of your audience (like "Star Wars").

[rtpoe]

Anyone see The Green Lensman Lantern?

I gather it's doing OK at the B.O., despite generally negative reviews. I haven't seen it, nor do I intend to. But I do have three questions:

1. Given that Ryan Reynolds was most definitely in shape (the credits list a trainer for him!) to play Hal Jordan, was it really necessary to do his "Lantern" suit entirely in CGI? It makes him look weird... They could have easily rigged up something with flourescent dye or glow-stick chemicals, I'm sure, instead of something that makes him look like Skinless Man...

2. When did it become a rule that every superhero has to have some sort of psychological trauma to overcome?

3. How come none of the reviews I've read so far mention that the whole "Green Lantern" thing is a direct rip-off of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series? They'll mention a whole bunch of other sci-fi movies, but not the archetype Space Opera....

[Shara]

Anyone see The Green Lensman Lantern?

I gather it's doing OK at the B.O., despite generally negative reviews. I haven't seen it, nor do I intend to. But I do have three questions:

1. Given that Ryan Reynolds was most definitely in shape (the credits list a trainer for him!) to play Hal Jordan, was it really necessary to do his "Lantern" suit entirely in CGI? It makes him look weird... They could have easily rigged up something with flourescent dye or glow-stick chemicals, I'm sure, instead of something that makes him look like Skinless Man...

2. When did it become a rule that every superhero has to have some sort of psychological trauma to overcome?

3. How come none of the reviews I've read so far mention that the whole "Green Lantern" thing is a direct rip-off of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series? They'll mention a whole bunch of other sci-fi movies, but not the archetype Space Opera....

probably because no-one ever heard of that series

[DruulEmpire]

Sometimes the worst thing you can do for a written or graphic work is make a movie of it.  The Steve Gerber Howard the Duck comics are hilarious -- but you would never guess that from the movie.  The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics crackle with character and wit, but none of that really registers or resonates in the movie.  Any attempt to convert those weird little Aeon Flux cartoons to live action was probably doomed (though I still love Charlize Theron unconditionally).  And on and on, and so it goes.

I always loved the concept of the Green Lantern (rtpoe, your critique isn't even so much of the movie as the original comic).  The idea of a "beat cop" belonging to a kind of galactic police force always made rather compelling sense to me.  But I doubt I'll catch this.

I do agree with rtpoe, though, about how silly a movie gets when its wild action MUST tie in with the protagonist's internal trauma.  This is why my own nickname for "Super 8" is "Closurefield."

[rtpoe]

Speaking of "Super 8", you might want to check out David Denby's piece on that movie (plus "The Green Lantern" and "X-Men: First Class") in the current issue of The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2011/06/27/110627crci_cinema_denby

"But one reason that C.G.I. has become so widespread is that it makes the fantastic available not just to the artists but to the unimaginative and the graceless as well. Any plot difficulty can be resolved by turning a man into a beast, or a beast into a man, or by having a character vanish altogether, or by hurling someone across a room and smashing him against a wall without his suffering more than an itty-bitty bruise."

He liked (I guess) "Super 8" because in the end, the kids made their movie. And that movie, with "its threadbare, sincere trashiness is more touching than the whoosh and slam of the epic fantasies."

Maybe that's why I'd rather watch an early Roger Corman cheapie than a contemporary CGI effectstravaganza...

[number3fac]

My two best friends are Green Lantern fans, so I had to go see it.  Though to be fair, I'm a sci-fi fan who enjoys the superhero genre so I wasn't exactly kicking and screaming.  I've never heard of that "Lensman" series, but it's not like Green Lanterns would be the only ripoff/homage, as Marvel Comics have the Nova Corps which fulfill a similar function.

I'll agree that "hero overcomes psychological shortcomings" is a theme that can get tiresome, but it's certainly not out of place with the Green Lanterns.  Their rings function with the user's ability to focus his mind and will, and in doing so materialize pretty much any solution to a problem, so disrupting a GL's concentration or preying on his insecurities is the basic means to seriously threaten one, and if the movie's hero isn't seriously threatened at some point then it's not much of a story.  While some of their rogues' gallery will do this with purely physical tactics (like sonic attacks, if we're ignoring the "yellow impurity" problem that's been mostly dropped anyway), their more dangerous villains will generally be those whose power comes as much from intimidation or other psychological factors as they do cosmic energies or whatnot.

All that said, I don't think the GL movie did a particularly good job of portraying those elements.  Sure, the CGI was cool and it was nifty to see the constructs and all the aliens and the cosmic scope of the Corps, but the character-based stuff that would've made the story good wasn't really there, or perhaps it just wasn't represented well.  There was a flashback to the tragedy of Hal's dad, various allusions to his problems with Carol, and his "hotshot" stunt with the planes at the beginning...but I didn't get much of a sense of Hal's internal struggles, or how his introduction to the Corps was helping him with them to the point that he could defeat the villains.  That may have had to do with Reynolds' acting, or the meager dialogue, but it certainly didn't help that there was a ton of the Corps' mythos being thrown at us with everything else.

I've seen better comics/superhero movies, but fortunately I liked the ideas and subject matter of the GLCorps enough that it didn't bother me that this one didn't achieve much beyond eye candy/popcorn flick standards for a couple of hours.