Movie Reviews from Movie Nights

October 28, 2007

So I’ve been rather bored over the past two weekends that I rented (yes, rented) movies from the Blockbuster near my house. Picked up a few selections and some were good, but others weren’t that great…here’s a rundown:

Codename: The Cleaner - rating: **
Starring Cedric the Entertainer and Lucy Liu, this movie is all about this video game chip that is supposedly able to contain top secret information that can’t be hacked. Cedric plays this guy who wakes up in a hotel room without any knowledge of who he is and that’s the whole premise of this movie. And when he finally admits that he’s a janitor (hence the cleaner reference), he starts to do all sorts of kung fu action with his “tools”. It has maybe a couple of funny parts, but overall this movie was probably better to watch on a bet, as torture, or when horribly drunk and you’ve seen every movie in the whole world…well okay, maybe that was a little bit mean.
Fearless - rating:***
I think this movie falls in line with the latest Chinese movies to come to the theatre…like Hero and House of Flying Daggers and was “supposedly” Jet Li’s last martial arts movie - until they released War. Nevertheless, I think this movie is pretty good and I’d recommend it. It’s an interesting balance of martial arts and storyline where Jet Li plays this historic Wushu master and becomes so enamored by his Wushu abilities he loses his family in a vendetta and leaves for a few years to find himself. He then returns to battle the foreigners who want to crush the Chinese spirit and more action ensues.
Smokin Aces - rating: ***
Talk about Quentin Tarentino. My goodness, this movie has it all: a good cast, great action, and vivid blood and gore. You need to pay attention to the characters, but be sure that you’re not squeemish over the violence because it can get kind of gruesome. Basically the plot centers around these bounty hunters and assassins trying to kill this mob boss type guy who is turning snitch. You can imagine what happens next.
TMNT - rating: ***
Not a bad version of the 90’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it definitely looks better than the live action ones that most recently played on ABC Family stations. This animation is well done and there is some comedy in there. I was pretty sick hearing about this movie with those Verizon commercials kept playing every 5 minutes promoting it on their On Demand network. Interesting twist as it follows up on the heroes after their archenemy was ultimately put away. I think there’s a hint at being a sequel if you listen carefully, but let me go check. But anyways, the turtles fight monsters and immortal stone statues and save New York. So cliche, right?
Rocky Balboa - rating: ****
This movie is probably better than some of the old Rocky movies. I don’t think it’s the best, but the plot line is pretty good. The fight at the end is outstanding and it almost seems like HBO is actually broadcasting it.