‘Snow White’ Goes Dark
Mirror Man: My queen, you have defied nature and robbed it of its fairest root. But on this day there is one more beautiful than you. Given the visual wonderment seen throughout this darker take on the Snow White fairy tale, it is too bad there is not more to praise in other regards. Snow White and the Huntsman is a fairly empty film that has plenty to show off on the outside, given the high budget and imaginations at work to create rich fantasy worlds, but practically nothing inside when it comes to showing off the characters involved or a story that makes more sense. This would be less bothersome if the film was at least fun, but it has very little joy to share, instead keeping things quite grim throughout. Despite good looking visuals and a good looking cast (in more ways than one), Snow White is more or less a bad apple.
‘Men In Black’ In Time
Agent K: I promised you the secrets of the universe, nothing more. Everyone nod you heads, because the black suits have come back. Still protecting the earth from the scum of the universe, the Men In Black have returned, but most importantly, they have redeemed themselves with an enjoyable third entry that gets better as it goes along. It has been a while since the last ‘Big Willie Weekend’, but Will Smith and everyone involved have managed to come up with a film that outshines its overblown production troubles. A lot of the same wit and humor that made the first film so enjoyable is present here, along with the strong makeup/effects work that has been present throughout the series. While it does take some time to really get going, the strong finish is what truly makes Men In Black 3 a worthwhile summer sci-fi comedy.
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The Payne Is Back: ‘Max Payne 3’ (Video Game Review)
Max Payne: I now had a hole in my second favorite drinking arm. I enjoy my fair share of video games. I have also been incredibly busy for the last month. Still, I did manage to find time to play and finish Max Payne 3, the latest entry in Rockstar’s hybrid Noir-John Woo infused shooter series. It has been a long time since I was able to jump into the shoes of the rogue cop with a murdered family, grief to deal with, and unlimited ammo for his dual pistols, but I was happy that unlike the terrible 2008 film adaptation starring Mark Walhberg, this return to the Max Payne universe was well worth it. As of late, many games I tend to play in installments, with lots of gaps in between me picking up the controller again. Max Payne 3 fell into the category of games that I could not stop playing, which is a credit to its quality and reason enough for me to put in my two cents about it.
‘Battleship’: The Most Explosive Board Game Of The Year
Old Navy Guy: They’re not gonna sink this battleship! The trickiest thing about writing a review for Battleship, the film based on the popular board game, which now pits Tim Riggins of Mars against a fleet of aliens that challenge the Navy to deadly war games…or something, is capturing why I did not really care for the film as much as I did other, similar films. It is a loud, $200 million, alien invasion flick, with lots of stuff that goes boom throughout its 2-hour runtime. It is perfectly suitable for the summertime, yet I did not have that much fun as I would have liked with it. Having recently seen New York get toppled (The Avengers), Chicago get blasted (Transformers: Dark of the Moon), and Los Angeles become a blown out war zone (Battle: LA), I think I am just a little tired of this. Battleship does not attempt to do anything new with this kind of film and aside from having a higher appreciation for the military, director Peter Berg does little to r make this film really stand ahead of Michael “Boom Boom” Bay’s alien robot adventures. Battleship is less a terrible film and more a film that seems to be hitting me at a point where its type fatigues me.
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