This movie has guts, plain and simple. Ordinarily, I would have been outraged at some of the decisions that were made in this film. To see certain X-Men characters killed was unthinkable when I entered the theater, and had these deaths not occurred in just the way they did, I probably would have hated this movie. But they killed unthinkable characters in simply mind-blowing ways and never looked back. I repeat: this movie has guts.
Unfortunately, Bryan Singer (who directed the previous two installments of the series) chose to walk away from The Last Stand to direct Superman Returns. The joke would be on him, however, as X-Men would out-earn Superman and also got more love from fans. In Singer’s absence, we have Brett Ratner, of Rush Hour fame, who could have ruined this film, but does a surprisingly good job.
The story is a little all over the place, throwing in shout outs to fanboy favorite mutants just for the sake of including fanboy favorite mutants. The inclusion of more mutants comes at the sacrifice of character and story depth, which the first two films were chock full of. While it’s neat to see mutants like Juggernaut, Beast and Angel, it’s a shame that the story was more or less as deep as the Saturday morning cartoon version from the 90s. An alleged cure for the mutant gene is found, causing the humans of the world to demand mutants all “cure” themselves and rejoin “normal society.”
There are some substantially silly-looking special effects and the series wraps itself up almost too neatly in the end. The best part about X-Men stories is that things are always left a little bit open. There are two “shockers” at the end (one before and one after the credits) that keep potential sequels on the board, but some course correction is never a bad thing.
The little things add up to be a minor nuisance, but the boldness of the film helps you forget about it. X-Men: The Last Stand is a good way to end the series without closing the book on the characters.
Johnny Depp fans, drug users, and existentialists alike have been raving about this movie ever since it came out. There was some serious buzz generated around it when I was in high school, and everyone seemed to imply that A) it is a must see movie and B) it will change your life.
It’s not, and it won’t. Unless of course you happen to be a Johnny Depp fan, a drug user or an existentialist.
Maybe it fell victim to nearly a decade’s worth of hype, but I was disappointed with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Johnny Depp really creates his character with vivid, almost disturbing, realism. His commitment to the character is the strong point of the film. The story has its moments of strengths, but grows tiresome at the end. Depp plays real-life “writer” Hunter S. Thompson as he wanders through the wastelands of America to cover some story for a newspaper or magazine (I don’t honestly recall which). To help cope with his assignment, he and his partner have a case full of narcotics, a veritable who’s who of psychoactive substances.
They shoot up, get high, wander around, and barely remember to cover their assignment. The film reaches a breaking point in which the two become so hopelessly strung out on drugs that they don’t remember what’s happened for some period of time, which is probably a good thing. The film shows how drugs distort and ultimately destroy one’s mind, and yet, while Depp’s character sobers up and seems like he’s getting off the horse, he’s reassigned and restocks his stash for another merry adventure in semi-unconsciousness. Roll credits. The End.
The film doesn’t try to validate the irresponsible abuse of drugs, but it also certainly doesn’t attempt to tell its audience to steer clear of them. It’s a semi-biographical movie about a quasi-remembered trip. The final half hour plods along with uncertainty as to whether Depp’s character is going to resolve this mess and whether there needed to be an additional 30 minutes to the story.
The movie doesn’t have a statement to make, it doesn’t stand for anything, and there’s not much plot progression outside of a couple of strung out junkies. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is simply there to be there, which it does quite well.
Director Jack Ferry seems to try his hardest to emulate some of today’s edgiest and most inventive directors- Darren Aronofsky, Danny Boyle, M. Night Shyamalan and Christopher Nolan. However, in trying to emulate these great minds of modern film, Ferry loses his sense of individuality, leaving the film to feel like a mish-mash of styles. It takes a lot of hard work to make dark humor, suspense, horror, science fiction and intellectualism mesh together in a standard length film, so it’s no surprise that Ferry comes up short of the Promised Land in his lofty attempt to do all this in a 20 minute short.
The film is a dark tale of what could happen if we could clone ourselves and transmit our memories to said clone shortly before we die, thereby sending our consciousness into another body. A young man discovers he is an experiment in such new procedures and struggles to deal with it. While the plot itself is fairly far-fetched, it’s pure sci-fi pulp at its heart. It may not be terribly original, but still a neat idea to expound upon.
The biggest problem comes from the lack of coherence between the many facets of such a procedure’s consequences. The only credence given to the medical ethics of it all comes in the form of flashbacks of an overbearing, doom-and-gloom priest warning us not to play God and tamper with the human soul. At film’s end, an overzealous doctor calls an associate and enthusiastically brags about this new procedure and how it can be beneficial to many, which makes it difficult to tell which side of the coin Ferry really stands for. Is he for or against cloning? In a short story, the reader (or in this case, viewer) needs to be able to understand the author’s intentions. Here, we don’t.
Also, some of the rapid-fire montage clips are very out of place for a story about cloning. Shots of surgery and open body cavities are needless shock tactics and do not belong. Cloning the man wouldn’t result in massive surgeries if all that is necessary is to transport memories through a wire to the brain. The use of these clips serves only to make viewers jump, confuse us and to get some adrenaline pumping. I found it to be a cheap tactic that took away from the story.
Other incongruities include his visions of the snarling doctor (Why would he look so mean if this was his pet project? Can his mind be read? If so, how and why?), the seeming Oedipus complex developed by the nurse who birthed his clone, and issues involving aging (If he was born and raised in the hospital, why doesn’t he have any new memories of his new childhood? If he was aged to the point where he attempted suicide, then the original mind would have countless years of blank memory space, so how would this affect the clone?). Not to mention the issues of funding, or the man’s mother’s whereabouts.
A good what-if film will leave you asking questions that are intriguing and possibly illuminating. In the case of A Reasonable Hypothesis, asking questions ultimately deconstructs the mystery and merely showcases its shortcomings. Jack Ferry was only a film student when making this film and, given time, he ought to be able to come up with his own directorial style and refine his ability to maintain focus and integrity throughout a film. This is the kind of weak, film student experiment that several accomplished filmmakers had to cut their teeth on early in their careers and get a good chuckle from watching it years later. Ferry may never hit it big, but he does show signs of potential.
The Lethal Weapon catchphrase “too old for this sh*t” is about as tired as Danny Glover and Mel Gibson look in this film. Riggs and Murtaugh are older- eleven years older than when they paired up in the first installment of this “buddy cop” franchise.
The film adds yet another supporting character with Chris Rock as the fiancé of Murtaugh’s daughter. Rene Russo returns in her role from 3 and is pregnant with Riggs' child. Joe Pesci is back and is, well, Joe Pesci.
The bad guys are Chinese, so we get to see old cops fight kung fu masters (and win!). A bit recycled and repetitive, Lethal Weapon 4 brings the series to a close in a fitting manner. It entertains, but one has to wonder if they really needed to make this one.
Detectives Riggs and Murtaugh have a habit of saying that they’re “too old for this sh*t.” By the end of Lethal Weapon 3, I’m starting to believe them. While it’s still entertaining, most of why this movie works comes from our familiarity with the characters and their quirks.
Joe Pesci returns as a supporting character and Rene Russo joins the party as a government agent. She’s a feisty one, so naturally there’s some sexual tension between her and Riggs. The plot isn’t so memorable, but it’s the further adventures of Riggs and Murtaugh. If you liked the first two, you’re bound to watch this one, right? That’s basically the filmmakers' hopes with Lethal Weapon 3, and they’re more or less right.
This movie has guts, plain and simple. Ordinarily, I would have been outraged at some of the decisions that were made in this film. To see certain X-Men characters killed was unthinkable when I entered the theater, and had these deaths not occurred in just the way they did, I probably would have hated this movie. But they killed unthinkable characters in simply mind-blowing ways and never looked back. I repeat: this movie has guts.
Johnny Depp fans, drug users, and existentialists alike have been raving about this movie ever since it came out. There was some serious buzz generated around it when I was in high school, and everyone seemed to imply that A) it is a must see movie and B) it will change your life.
The Lethal Weapon catchphrase “too old for this sh*t” is about as tired as Danny Glover and Mel Gibson look in this film. Riggs and Murtaugh are older- eleven years older than when they paired up in the first installment of this “buddy cop” franchise.
Detectives Riggs and Murtaugh have a habit of saying that they’re “too old for this sh*t.” By the end of Lethal Weapon 3, I’m starting to believe them. While it’s still entertaining, most of why this movie works comes from our familiarity with the characters and their quirks.
