Sunday, April 25, 2010

Jurassic Park 3

Picture me in 2001. Top of the world, I just graduated high school somehow, school was out for summer, and the second sequel to my favorite movie, Jurassic Park, was out in theaters. Life couldn't get any better, but then I saw the movie.

Jurassic Park 3 broke my heart in a way only the most evil woman could do. E.L.O. know what I am talking about. This was a movie I had waited 5 long years for, or possibly my whole life for. Or so I thought. Jurassic Park 3 is so bad I am convinced it was only made to punish me for something I did wrong. I'm sorry Jesus, I didn't know you were watching me all those times. And if you were, shame on you!



This commercial is actually way sweeter than the movie.


Here is a plot summary of the movie, presented in a totally unjaded way. The movie starts out with a dickish looking man and a young boy chartering a boat off the coast of Isla Sorna, site B to the actual Dinosaur Park on Isla Nublar. Turns out these two want to do some parasailing over the coast of the island in an attempt to get a look at some dinosaurs. So the boat guys strap them in, and they proceed to soar over the island, all the while hooked into the harness together in a way that just screams wrong. Something eats the guys driving the boat, man and boy crash on the island. Cut to Alan Grant claiming that if not for the dinosaurs being wipped out, raptors might be the dominant species. After a Q&A session, Grant states no force on Earth could make him return to a dinosaur island, and returns to the site of a dino dig, where his funds are almost completely diminished. Tia Leonne and always mustached William H. Macy, known as Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, show up and ask Alan Grant to serve as a guide on a plane they chartered over the island, he accepts after being told they will pay him whatever he wants.
Grant, his assistant Billy, and the Kirbys and some macho men arrive on the island and land, despite Grant's strong objections. Soon, all the macho men are dead at the hands of a rather large dinosaur, and we learn the Kirbys are actually looking for the boy who went parasailing, who turns out to be their son. They do some searching, and discover he is still alive, 8 weeks later, because that would totally be possible on an island inhabited by the world's most dangerous predators, especially considering in the last movies, the world's foremost dino experts couldn't survive a weekend there. Anyway, family is reunited, dinosaurs are scary, and they make it off the island with the help of Elle Sattler, the botonist Grant apparently never popped the question to. The end, but not before we see a bunch of pterodactyls flying off into the sunset, and essentially their doom, because all the dinosaurs are licine deficient, which means they can't survive easily outside of the island. So here is to hoping they found a soybean farm to spend their remaining days on, otherwise that shit doesn't make any sense.

Where to start. First off, the Jurassic Park movies have always featured kids in them. The books have them too, and they can add an interesting dynamic, and help the films appeal to a younger audience and keep it at a PG-13 rating. My beef is with the kids' increasingly amazing survival abilities. Let's face it; kids are retarded, that's why they need babysitters and everything done for them. There were parts in the other JP movies where the kids were able to overcome the odds, and I know these are movies, but COME THE FUCK ON. The fucking kid in this movie, Eric, survives in an overturned truck for 8 weeks. Along the way, he managed to collect a bunch of food and supplies, as well as T-Rex piss. T-REX PISS. And just to remind you how stupid the movie thinks you are, throughout the course of the film the characters traverse across every location where this kid would have had to collect this stuff, and all the while are pursued by giant fucking dinosaurs. This kid would be eaten alive in no time. First off, he is like 12, so he isn't going to overpower anything. Second, by returning to the same place day in and day out he is letting the dinosaurs know exactly where is is going to be. They can smell you, dummy. Third, he is probably the first human to be on the island in like 5 years. His flesh would probably be like a delicacy to the dinosaurs. Or at least be like how we feel about stuff we haven't eaten in forever. Like right now I am thinking, "Man, I haven't had a Fizzoli's breadstick in forever, those things sure were tasty!" That's how the dinosaurs feel about Eric. They will eat the shit out of him, because they are sick of eating dinosaurs.
8 WEEKS! Off hand, here are the known carniverous dinosaurs I can name that are on the island: Tyrannosaurus, that big fucking one, I don't remember the name, I am just going to call it Megasaurus Egypticus. Velociraptors(TONS), Compys, pterodactyls, and Allosaurus. Plus, considering the island was site B to the main island and they did most the breeding and stuff here, there were probably Spitters and a whole buttload of other dinosaurs too. You are going to tell me he evaded all these species for that long? COME ON...

Probably my other biggest problem with the movie is the fact that it really serves no purpose, and doesn't add anything new and interesting to the series. Once again Alan Grant is roped into going to an island for the sole purpose of funding his dig site. Once again the movie returns to the same island as the last movie, with nothing changed. Once again some tourists get attacked by dinosaurs on the island while vacationing, just like the last movie.
In Jurassic Park, we got to learn about the park, how it came to be, what it took to make these creatures, and what they were capable of. In The Lost World, we learned that there was another island where everything actually happened, and we learned that the control of the company had been seized from John Hammond, and a group of mercinaries were called in to move the dinosaurs forcefully from their home to a new park in San Diego. This movie does nothing of the sort, instead just retreading the ol "Ahh! There are dinosaurs after us, we gotta get the fuck out of here!" theme of the last movies, without giving us anything new to consider. Sure, there is the whole bullshit Grant theory about the raptors being about to communicate with each other, but we have known that since the first movie. Remember the big speech he gave to that fat kid about him still being alive when they start to eat you? I do, and it made me afraid to go in my backyard for fear of getting eaten by raptors.

Another thing that sucks about this movie is the lack of new interesting characters. Besides the token survivors we all know from the first two movies, there have been plenty of others that added significantly to the story in each of those movies. In the first we had Ray Arnold, played by Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson. We had Robert Muldoon, the badass hunter who knew raptors were no joke, and they will eventually kill us all. He even complimented a dinosaur on being so good at hunting him right before it ate him. Clever girl indeed! We also had Dennis Nedry, played by Newman from Seinfeld.
In The Lost World, we got Julienne Moore, who, while I have never wanted to fuck her, added a lot to the film, and helped flesh out Ian Malcolm as a character. We also had Peter Stormaire, who may believe in nothing, Mr. Lebowski, but he did meet an almost hilarious bloody end at the hands of a bunch of tiny ass dinosaurs. We also got a new dickhead to hate in the form of John Hammond's nephew, and a new hunter to love in the form of Roland Tembo. Not to mention Vince Vaughn during one of his skinny phases.
In the Third movie, we get nobody. We get Billy, Grant's assistant, who gets very little screen time and doesn't do much of interest, besides steal some raptor eggs and apologize for it later. He did do some sweet parasailing though and got fucked up by dinosaurs, and that was cool. Besides him, everybody sucked. The Kirbys were annoying, and the one guy who was cool, Michael Jeter from fucking Evening Shade, dies like right away. God I hate this movie.

I guess in reality, my expectations for a JP movie are just always going to be so high that I will be dissapointed no matter what. I can live with being a little dissapointed, but the level of it that I get from Jurassic Park 3 is just too much. It is unbelievable even for a movie about dinosaurs, it isn't interesting and it adds nothing to the Jurassic Park canon. Man, fuck this movie. Fuck it hard, and fuck anyone responsible for it's creation. I'm going to write a 4th movie and every kid will die. Well maybe one will live, but he/she will still get pretty fucked up.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

I know, I wasn't aware this movie had a subtitle either, especially one so horrendously bad.

Battlefield Earth is a movie widly viewed as the worse ever made. I haven't seen this movie since a couple years after it came out, which was ten years ago now. I remember watching it and liking it, but this was also during a time period when I was on a lot of vicodin due to a recent surgery. Besides watching Battlefield Earth and thinking it was awesome, I also played Animal Crossing for a month straight and cried while watching Joe Dirt over and over again. I also apparently slept sitting up while talking, the memory of which still gives my mom the creeps. The point is, I was a little messed up, so perhaps I am offering that up as an excuse as to why I liked a movie so many others absolutely hate. I am actually a little worried that I might still like it, and that scares me the most. Besides land sharks.

117 minutes later:
Yeah...maybe it's not so awesome.

The plot goes as follows: In the year 3000, man is an endangered species. What is left of the population have all reverted back to a caveman like state. The people are all dirty and have long hair, and use phrases like "Piece of cake", which is odd to me, because according to this movie cake is probably even more endangered than man, so the chances of anyone even knowing what cake is anymore is beyond me. Anyway, the people are all cavemen, and are convinced the stars are gods watching them, and they turned every human into statues. Then some monsters show up who are aliens, and they all laugh in a very snarky way. The aliens enslave the humans, and eventually let a particularily brave human played by Barry Pepper, who was the fucking sweet-ass sniper from Saving Private Ryan, learn their ways. He finds out the aliens kicked the humans' asses a long time ago, and he also finds out about the aliens themselves and figures out a way to beat them. The humans all stage a riot, and figure out a way to destroy the aliens' home planet and save their own.

It's weird, I almost want to thank the makers of this movie for making it 117 minutes long. But that's because if it wasn't shot so bad, it would have been a whole lot fucking longer than that. There is no concept of time in this movie. There is a part where Barry Pepper is trying to rally his fellow knuckle draggers and teach them the ways of war. In only seven goddamn days, he teaches them algebra, how to operate complex mining equipment to be used in alternative ways, and oh yeah, not to mention he teaches a whole gang of cavemen how to fly fucking Harrier Jets. No goddamn way. They flew them really well too, reminded me of Independence Day. Welcome to Earf, indeed.

Another thing that boggles the mind is John Travolta in this movie. This is his movie, he wanted to make it and be the star and what have you, but he is easily the worst part of the movie. He overacts, sometimes has a weird British accent thing going on, and substitutes other opportunities to act with bouts of maniacal laughter. Yeah cool dude, you want to play the villian, but you need to at least make your character likable, even if it's in the character you love to hate kind of way. He just plays the biggest douche, and it's hard to care about anything he is doing.

One bright spot for me was motherfucking Ghost Dog himself, Forest Whitaker. While he didn't really get a chance to add much substance to the film, he did manage to really look like Chewbacca in his make-up, and that made me smile.

During the end credits, I discovered that the movie is based on an L. Ron Hubbard novel. Hubbard is the shithead behind Scientology, and finding out this was based on his book brought the movie down an additional couple of notches too. I should have known though, damn Travolta and Tom Cruise always trying to get people to like Scientology.

From what I remember, Battlefield Earth was supposed to be an incredibly expensive movie, and after watching it, I gotta wonder where all the money went to. None of the costumes are that impressive, half the movie is filmed in locations like dairy barns and factories, and all the major battles are done using miniature models of buildings and super crappy CGI airplane battles. It looked less like a big budget movie and more like an episode of Stargate.

The last thing that I am having trouble with is the way they portrayed human civilization in the future. When you think of how far the human race came in 1000 years, to think that Aliens attacking us now, and as a result in 1000 years we will all regress to a primitive state, that just doesn't sound believable.

In conclusion, after viewing this movie again for the first time in about 8 years, I can't say that I hate it. The premise of the movie, although paced badly and ridiculous, was pretty cool. It was just the acting, the plot, and the special effects that make me say Fuck This Movie.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Wicker Man

While watching this movie, I find it hard to believe it isn't directed by Uwe Boll. No, The Wicker Man manages to be a complete piece of shit without that douchebag's involvment. Although I wouldn't rule out the director being a fan of his work.

This film tells the story of a horrible California bike cop, not to be confused with the way awesome bike cops from CHiPs, who patrols the highways and is generally a dick. He is played by the always reliable Nicholas Cage, who demands that you "Give me your license and Registration!" Shut the fuck up, bike cop. Anyway, he witnesses a car with a mom and a little girl getting hit by a semi and blowing the F up, and then his life gets crappy, or something. The movie didn't really explain that part very well. Anyway, he is all moping, and then he gets a letter from his ex-fiance, which is written in impossibly good handwriting, telling him her daughter has gone missing and she needs his help. Spoiler alert that even the ghost of Helen Keller could have figured out: It's his fucking daughter too. Of course it is, wow what a twist! So he goes off to help the woman who broke his over-acting heart, and it turns out she lives in some strange convent/amish town which frowns upon outlanders. Hilarity ensues

Nothing beats a movie with dialoge that sounds like it was written for a 5th grade Japanese play and then translated to English. For example, Nic Cage opens a desk and a big crow flies out. Instead of exclaiming "HOLY SHIT!" or "WHOA!" like Joey Lawrence, he yells out "WHAT???" Come on, nobody gets almost pants shittingly scared and screams that. Especially when it involves big scary birds.

A re-occuring trend in this movie is Nic Cage imagining he is seeing that little girl getting splattered by a truck. Who would have thought that this horrible imagery would be so damn HILARIOUS? This is a sight gag that those assholes who keep making the Scary Movie films need to rip off.

One big surprise in this dumpster of a movie has been the presence of Leelee Sobieski. Jesus christ this bitch fell off the map. She was in Deep Impact, the............sorry, got distracted, just watched that little girl get hit by a semi for the 4th time. Anyway, she was in Deep Impact, Joyride, a very underrated movie starring Steve Zahn and that dumpshit Paul Walker. She was also in a movie called Glass Houses, which I never saw, but I assume it is about how when you live in one, you shouldn't throw stones. And on top of all that, she looked like she had a good enough 5-head going to make her the next Helen Hunt. Somehow though, she lost her way and ended up in this shitshow, and barely a supporting character in it no less. Okay, so I just IMDBed her, and she was also in the Uwe Boll movie In The Name Of The King, as well as the kinda shitty Public Enemies. These both came after Wicker Man, so it appears she still hasn't found her way. It's a shame, some of her new pictures make her look kinda hot.

The clip below pretty much sums up what this movie is all about



Thanks again, Nicholas Cage, for once again reminding all of us what it takes to be a good actor, or rather, how to spot a horrible actor.

Man, fuck this movie, but I would still recommend seeing it if you enjoy seeing Nic Cage in a bear costume punching out women. And it's not quite boring enough to fall asleep to, so I guess that is a plus too.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

An Essay about Brendan Fraser

First off, I know I haven't blogged in a LONG time. Times are tough. Or maybe Netflix has been adding way too many awesome tv shows to Instant Watch and I haven't really got around to watching any shitty movies.
Since it has been awhile, I figured why not return to the blogosphere with something a little different. The idea came to me while watching a movie that really was pretty shitty, but I still had to like it because it featured baseball and some dimwit with supernatural athletic skills. This shit is like Hamlet to me. That movie was The Scout, and this essay is about Brendan Fraser.

Here at Man Fuck That Movie, I don't really like to research anything, and don't really like to cite my sources either. So this is just one man's opinion on a troubling matter. HOW THE FUCK IS BRENDAN FRASER A MAJOR HOLLYWOOD ACTOR???

This dude is fucking dumb. I mean just look at the guy. He has big ass bug eyes, and he always looks all pale and flabby. I don't really know if he ever graced the pages of Tiger Beat or Seventeen magazine, but I am willing to bet he did since girls are fucking stupid. How is he hot, ladies?

What got me on this whole kick in the first place involved me watching The Scout for the first time. Upon viewing it, I realized that this stupid bastard has been playing the same role in every movie. "Oh really, Nate?" is what you might be saying. "Shut the fuck up" is what I might be saying. Check the sorta-facts:

Encino Man - Plays caveman unfrozen in modern day (1990's) California. Hilarity ensues while he tries to fit in with the high school youth. Later he freaks out and has a panic attack, and almost runs away.

Blast From the Past - plays youth of the cold war trapped in bomb shelter only to be let out in the 1990's. Hilarity ensues when he realizes how much society has changed in 30 years. Tries to woo a girl and sell his sweet baseball cards. Also meets a real live negro. Has panic attack when this big new world proves to be more than he was ready for, almost locks himself back into bomb shelter. (P.S. I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOVIE)

The Scout - Plays pitching phenom from Mexico who is brought to New York to play for the Yankees. Hilarity ensues when he behaves like a damn moron at a press conference and when he steals Tony Bennett's closing song from him at a concert. Freaks out after confronting daddy issues and nearly bitches out of pitching in the World Series, just like a little bitch.

The Mummy - Plays a combination of Indiana Jones and Han Solo who is in Egypt to dig up tombs. Hilarity ensues when he pisses off a mummy who chases him all around the desert. Freaks out when he realizes this is the biggest movie he will ever star in, and nearly walks away from movies for good, but unfortunately doesn't. Instead makes two Mummy Sequels, Bedazzled, George of the Jungle, Dudley Do Right, Muppets take Manhattan, and that boring looking movie with Harrison Ford where they play doctors.

So, in closing, Fuck Brendan Fraser. The jig is up, you fish-out-of-water fuck. If you want to make a sequel to Blast from the Past, though, please do. You should try to get Alicia Siverstone in it too, although by now I am sure she weighs like 900 pounds or some shit.