The Film Projector

movie reviews for the fans, by a fan

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise hit theaters on Thursday May 22nd 2008, and it delivered an awesome adventure with many memorable moments.  In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana (Harrison Ford) is under intense pressure from the Soviets to help them find a crystal skull.  As the legend goes, the one who returns the skull to its origin will take hold of its immense power.  Along the way, Jones meets Mutt Williams (Shia Labeouf), a tough kid who needs Jones’ help to find the skull so that the Soviets will release his mother from captivity.  Find the skull they do, and when it comes time for the Soviets to release Mutt’s mother, it’s none other than Jones’ ex-girlfriend Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).  Audiences start to put two and two together as we eventually find out that Mutt, is, surprise, Jones’ son.  Intense action sequences make the film enjoyable for all audiences, and Jones’ finding out he has a son is only one of many surprises.  My analysis of the film is below.  Here are some pictures from the film:

Having not seen, and/or not remembered the other three Indiana Jones movies, and therefore solely grading this film by itself, I think this really delivered a great experience.  First of all, director Steven Spielberg understood that you could not just resurrect Jones’ character and make him as young as he was in the first three.  Secondly, the introduction of Mutt into the franchise was nearly flawless.  Spielberg understands that Jones’ isn’t just a person, he’s a character, and to introduce another person into the film would also mean that that person needs to be a character.  Shia Labeouf does exactly that, he understands that Mutt is a character.  The final thing that makes this movie great is the reintroduction of Karen Allen’s character Marion Ravenwood.  It seems that everyone involved with the movie knew that they wanted to connect the generations.  This was the quintessential father, son type of movie.

Overall this was an awesome movie, and because Spielberg and writer David Koepp connected people across generations, I give this film 4.5 stars out of 5.  This film is definitely up for my award for Best Movie of the Summer.

May 25, 2008 Posted by cinemaguy | Movie Reviews | | No Comments Yet

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

In the second installment of C.S. Lewis’ epic masterpiece, the Pevensie children journey back to the land of fantasy to help Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) overthrow his evil uncle, King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto). Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) realize that Narnia is not the same place they knew when they were younger. For the four main characters, it has been only a year since they left Narnia, but in Narnia’s time, 1300 years have past. King Miraz has taken control of Narnia, and the Narnians have been pushed into the forest where they live in fear of the ruthless King. There is one hope for the Narnians, and that lies within Prince Caspian, who should rightfully inherit the thrown. The problem, however, is that King Miraz’s wife bears to him a son, and therefore, if King Miraz kills Caspian, than King Miraz’s son would then inherit the thrown.

Caspian flees the kingdom in the dark of night and ends up in the forest with the Narnians. Meanwhile, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have found passage to Narnia via a subway tunnel. The four heroes have a reality check when they notice that part of Narnia lies in ruins, something that they did not leave behind. The audience also notices that Peter has lost faith in Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson), while the other three cling to a glimmer of hope that Aslan will one day return. The four soon meet up with Caspian, and together, decide to take King Miraz’s castle by force. When that plan fails, however, Caspian and Peter end up at odds with each other over the struggle to find who the true leader of Narnia actually is. Caspian consults the Ice Queen (Alicia Borrachero), but decides that he would rather not resurrect the tyrant and make matters worse. Peter finally squares off in an epic battle with King Miraz with unconditional surrender at stake. When Peter defeats King Miraz, the perception is that all is well. Both good and evil, however, will square off in one final epic battle, and all will ask, where’s Aslan? To find out more about the movie, head on over to a theater near you, my analysis is below; here are some pictures from the film:

This film was solid. The main themes of the series were apparent throughout, but I really liked how the cast portrayed the characters getting older. Peter was no longer going to blindly believe in Aslan, and that makes him easily paralleled to people in today’s society. Aslan continues to serve as a God-like figure in the story, and I think Peter relates to regular people in the fact that he loses faith. Lucy, however, does an excellent job portraying the innocence and simplicity of a child. She believes in Aslan quite simply because Aslan is one of the few things in her life that give her hope. Ben Barnes provides a memorable performance as Prince Caspian, but honestly I think the reason this movie could be considered for Best Movie of the Summer is its special effects. Everything from the animals to the moving trees to the amazing battle sequences solidifies this movie as one of the top movies of the summer, as well as one of the top special effects efforts of the summer. Overall, it gets a 3.9 out of 5 in my book, and the only reason I’d say it loses points is because of what seemed to me to be on long battle sequence after another starting half way into the movie and running until the end. I’m a fan of battle sequences, but in my mind, they should be broken up with storyline.

May 16, 2008 Posted by cinemaguy | Movie Reviews | | 6 Comments

Coming Soon: Red Velvet

At first glance, Red Velvet looks to be a half horror-half comedy hybrid which might confuse audiences with the way it combines the two genres. Upon taking a further look at the film however, it seems like it could transcend it’s cheap production quality and possibly deliver a quality scare. After all, the first Saw movie was done on an extremely limited budget, and now its become a somewhat overdone horror saga.

Red Velvet is the story of a storyteller named Aaron (Henry Thomas) sitting down to write a horrifying masterpiece. He has just one problem. He keeps getting interrupted by his upstairs neighbor named Linda (Kelli Garner) knocking at his door. After another chance encounter with Linda, Aaron and Linda get to talking about their professions, and Linda starts begging Aaron to tell her a story. So Aaron begins to tell Linda the story he’s been trying to write down. They begin to form a bond vicariously through the story. Linda begins adding suggestions to make Aaron’s story better and soon after that (although unknown Linda), they begin planning the murders that happen in the story. They plan what the killer will look like, how he will kill his victims; every last detail.

What Linda doesn’t know is that Aaron is very troubled. They soon travel back to Aaron’s apartment and the lines between fact and fiction get blurred until there are no lines at all. Linda realizes she’s become one of the victims in Aaron’s story.

You can find out more about Red Velvet by clicking here. The trailer is a little racy, so I’m not going to embed it into this post, but you can watch the trailer by clicking this link.

May 15, 2008 Posted by cinemaguy | Coming soon | | No Comments Yet

Coming Soon: Quarantine

Quarantine is set to hit theaters on October 17th 2008, and it looks to be one of only a handful of scary movies in the horror movie “season.” (Basically all of October). It’s a remake of the Spanish horror film “Rec,” and if the American version is anywhere near what the Spanish version was, it looks to be on that next level of horror film, and REALLY deliver some chills. A preview of the film is below:

May 10, 2008 Posted by cinemaguy | Coming soon | | No Comments Yet

Iron Man

Iron Man officially begins the summer movie season, and it does it with a bang. The film starts with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), begin captured by terrorists somewhere in the vast desert mountains of Afghanistan. We then rewind to 36 hours prior to that event, and learn that Stark is the leading advanced weapons designer/manufacturer in the world. Fast forward back to the capture scene, where the terrorists command Stark to build for them his famous missile “Jericho.” Stark instead builds the first Ironman suit, giving rise to the superhero. How can he build such things? A. Because he is a genius, (Graduated Magna Cum Laude from MIT), and two, the terrorists have all of Stark’s necessary equipment.

Stark builds the suit, escapes from the camp, and returns home. When he does return home, Stark calls a press conference and announces that the weapons division of his multi-billion dollar company is being disbanded. His top adviser, (played by Jeff Bridges), and the board of trustees for the company do not take lightly to this decision, and Bridges character locks Stark out of the company.

Stark then wages a one man war on world terrorism and his company. Destroying all of the weapons that were sold to terrorists (without his permission), and dealing with the corrupt company he once led, in his own…special way.

C’mon, I’m not gonna give away the ending to you, that would be bad blogging! To find out the rest of the plot line, go spend the nine bucks to see it, and believe me, its worth full price. Oh, and you’ll definitely want to stay until after the credits. My analysis of the film is below:

The casting company who worked on Iron Man did the BEST job of casting that I have ever seen. People can talk about the casting for James Bond or Superman all they want, but Robert Downey Jr. is the ONLY man who could play the somewhat narcissistic and overconfident superhero. Robert Downey Jr. is simply excellent at portraying a man who thinks and acts with conviction. Tony Stark knows who he is, and is completely comfortable with the man that he becomes in the film. He realizes that he can’t just sell weapons, he has to make sure his company sells them to the right people with the right intentions. Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow make valuable additions to the film and make this an all-star cast. Some screen shots from the film are below:

Ironman clocks in 2 Hours and 6 Minutes. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Overall it’s an extremely solid movie with which I was pleasantly surprised. At the end of the summer I will rate the movies in this exciting summer season, but so far, Iron Man is definitely in the running for my award for Best Movie of the Summer. Of course, this is May. We’ve still got blockbusters such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Strangers, Get Smart, Wall-E, Wanted…you get my drift. It’s gonna be a great summer to go to the movies folks, so take advantage of it!

May 10, 2008 Posted by cinemaguy | Movie Reviews | | No Comments Yet