Green Lantern (2011)

There's more than a few comic books that I follow on a regular basis, but among my favorites are the ones featuring the Green Lantern Corps. While the name "Green Lantern" is most commonly associated with the group of heroes who've called themselves that since the '60s, it's been around for a lot longer. It was originally coined in 1940, when Martin Nodell and Bill Finger created Alan Scott, who wielded a magical green ring and lantern in his fight against crime. Adopting "Green Lantern" as his superhero pseudonym, Scott became popular enough with readers to be one of five DC Comics characters created during the decade to receive a comic book all to himself. He was even a charter member of DC's original superteam, the Justice Society of America.

But as the "Golden Age of Comics" ended and comic book sales sagged in the period following World War II, DC pulled the plug on Green Lantern's book in 1949 and cancelled the Justice Society's book in 1951. That didn't mean he was forgotten, though. After DC successfully brought back The Flash with a sci-fi twist, DC editor Julius Schwartz charged John Broome and Gil Kane to do the same with Green Lantern. Broome and Kane reimagined the character as Hal Jordan, an Air Force test pilot whose ring wasn't magic, but a piece of intergalactic technology entrusted to him by a dying alien.

As time has passed, we've gone from one Green Lantern to a literal army of thousands. Hal Jordan is far from the only character currently using the name, but he's one of the most famous. So when the Green Lantern franchise was adapted into a live-action movie, it was Jordan who was pegged to be the star. I've been eagerly anticipating the movie since it was first announced, since the Green Lantern Corps have become some of my favorite superheroes since I started reading comics a few years ago. It's too bad, though, that the movie is less than impressive.

Centuries ago, a group of beings known as the Guardians of the Universe harnessed the green essence of willpower. Forging this essence into rings that grant their bearers superpowers, the Guardians created an intergalactic police force, the Green Lantern Corps.

With thousands of members recruited from all across the universe, the Corps has managed to defeat every threat that has challenged them. But a new foe has arisen in the form of Parallax (the voice of Clancy Brown), quite literally the living embodiment of fear. Parallax is a seemingly unstoppable monster, destroying entire worlds and killing multiple Green Lanterns as he heads for the Corps's home planet of Oa.

Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison), one of the proudest members of the Corps, is mortally wounded during a battle with Parallax. He crashes on Earth and instructs his ring to find the most suitable person to replace him. The ring finds Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a cocky and irresponsible test pilot who is unprepared for induction into the Corps. The ring whisks Hal away to Oa for his training, though the various Corps he meets aren't pleased with the idea of a lowly human being among their ranks.

The training is so rough that it ends up convincing Hal that he doesn't have what it takes to qualify for the Corps. He returns to Earth to discover that he's got a huge mess on his hands. The government has obtained Abin Sur's body and brought in xenobiologist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) to study it. During the initial autopsy, Hammond is infected by a lingering piece of Parallax's energy. This infection drives him insane while giving him both advanced telepathy and telekinesis, allowing him to take petty revenge against people he doesn't like. It also catches Parallax's attention and sends him straight for Earth. But because the Guardians themselves fear Parallax and cannot find a way to defeat it, Hal takes it upon himself to save Earth alone.

The last two decades have been really rough for live-action adaptations of DC comic books. Christopher Nolan's Batman movies have been successful, but the rest have either been absolutely terrible or underperformed at the box office. Green Lantern itself has been up against a tremendous amount of negative reviews. And while the movie isn't terrible, it is disappointing. It could have been a whole hell of a lot better, but it's only okay. It's really just kinda there, to tell you the truth.

But it's not the fault of the director. Martin Campbell, probably best known for his work on the James Bond flicks GoldenEye and Casino Royale, is at the helm for Green Lantern, and I thought he did an okay job. I didn't really know what I was expecting out of his direction for this particular movie, since those two Bond movies, despite their ties to the action genre, don't exactly make me think he'd be the guy to direct an effects-heavy comic book movie. But Campbell was not a bad choice to direct Green Lantern. The movie is lively and well-paced, and any errors within it are more than likely due to the editing process than any fault of Campbell's during production.

But while I thought Campbell's direction was adequate at the very worst, I should point out some of the more talked-about elements of the production. One is the much-maligned CGI. A lot of people have been ragging on the CGI, and I will concede that there are parts of it that look really fake. I mean, it looks like Ryan Reynolds had his head edited onto a Pixar cartoon when he's in the Green Lantern uniform. But considering that the costume and Hal's weapons are energy constructs created by the ring, it can be understood why these things would look not quite real. It still doesn't explain why Oa looks unconvincing, though.

Then there's the 3D effects, which didn't really do much for me. It didn't add any real atmosphere, and not much popped. I'm pretty sure this is one of those cases where a 2D movie was converted into 3D after filming was completed, which could explain a lot. Green Lantern's conversion isn't terribly awful, since there are a couple of moments where it looks really cool. But those moments aren't enough to justify the movie having to be in 3D.

But let's move along to the acting, which is hot or miss. Ryan Reynolds isn't the first guy I'd have picked to play Hal Jordan, mostly because Green Lantern isn't a straightforward comedy (even though it does have its humorous parts). But Reynolds does as good a job as he can. He's charming and likable as always, but he has a few odd moments where he comes off as bland. I don't know what it is, but there are a couple of scenes where he's very unlike the Ryan Reynolds everyone is familiar with.

And I have to admit that I enjoyed Peter Sarsgaard a lot. He approaches the role in such a way that makes both he and the character fascinating to watch. Sarsgaard also approaches Hammond in much the same way Tom Hiddleston played Loki in Thor, only the character runs out of steam near the end due to some lousy writing. But for much of the movie, Sarsgaard plays a great villain that I wish had been treated better by the climax.

Mark Strong is also very good as Sinestro, the proud Green Lantern who in the comics would become one of the Corps's greatest villains. His role is sadly way too small, which I can also say for Angela Bassett and Tim Robbins. Michael Clarke Duncan and Geoffrey Rush are in the same boat as well, providing fine voice work as Green Lanterns Kilowog and Tomar-Re yet having roles that are way too small. It's like they're barely in the movie at all.

But the worst performance comes from Blake Lively, who plays Carol Ferris, Hal's primary love interest. She's terrible, exhibiting very little in the way of personality. Lively is so flat and wooden that she actually made me pine for Kim Basinger's Vicki Vale from Batman. It's one of those awful performances that you can actually watch the trailer for the movie and immediately know that she's gonna suck. To her credit, she's not as bad as January Jones in X-Men: First Class, but she's still horrible. Just because Lively is cute doesn't mean she was the right person for the part.

But worse than Lively's acting is the script, written by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Michael Green and rewritten by Michael Goldenberg. And when I say the script, I mean this thing sucks out loud. It's terrible. I fell in love with the Green Lantern comics because of the absolutely awesome stories that Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi have been writing over the last couple of years, but the writers of the movie pretty much said, "Screw that, we're slapping together some hunk of emerald-colored crap and calling it the script for a Green Lantern movie."

There is practically no character development to speak of; what is there is treated poorly. A lot of the gags are way too corny. The romance between Hal and Carol is handled tepidly at best. And why were characters like Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar-Re diminished to the point of having only a few scenes each? Just because Ryan Reynolds is the star of the movie doesn't mean that Hal Jordan has to be the only Green Lantern to get more than three scenes. I just... wow, the more I think about the script for this movie, the more frustrated I get. How hard would it have been for the writers to do a straight translation of the "Secret Origin" story arc that Johns wrote in 2008? Or at the very least, couldn't they have hired Johns and Tomasi to write the movie? Would that have been so hard?

All that yammering and I still don't feel I've scratched the surface of how barely adequate Green Lantern is. It isn't the offensively horrible waste of film that a lot of professional critics are claiming that it is, but it could have been a lot better. I'd probably put it in the realm of comic book adaptations like Ghost Rider or Batman Forever, where they're okay movies but nothing special. And that really breaks my heart, too. I love the Green Lantern comics, and I was hoping for a movie that I could hold up and proclaim that this was one reason why I loved them. But unfortunately, all I've got is disappointment. The movie is probably worth checking out on DVD or on HBO, but don't feel like you have to rush to see it right away

Final Rating: **½

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Of the thousands of characters that have appeared in the pages of Marvel's comic books over the years, some of the most prolific have been the X-Men. Though their book wasn't the hottest of sellers when it debuted in 1963, the X-Men have since become one of Marvel's biggest cash cows. There are at least ten different X-Men comics currently in publication, and they've been adapted into cartoons, video games, toys, and most recently, a series of live-action movies.

The critical and financial success of the first X-Men movie in 2000 helped to spark the massive amount of superhero movies studios have released since then, among them two sequels and a spinoff detailing the origins of the franchise's most recognized character. And rather than follow them up with X-Men 4 or a sequel to the Wolverine movie, Twentieth Century Fox decided that the next movie in the saga would be a prequel to the whole franchise and show us how the X-Men came to be. And as poor as the last two movies in the X-Men franchise were, X-Men: First Class is one hell of a fun movie.

The year is 1962, and the Cold War is heating up. As the movie begins, we're introduced to Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), a mutant with an intense hatred for traditional humans. This hatred was fostered in him at a young age, as both his Jewish heritage and his magnetism-based mutation made him a target of Nazi experimentation during the Holocaust. Since then, he has been consumed with seeking vengeance against Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), an ageless scientist who made a rather vicious attempt to harness Erik's powers while he was locked up in a Polish concentration camp.

Erik's hatred for humanity starkly contrasts with the idealism of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), a dashing, Oxford-educated ladies' man with advanced telepathic abilities. Xavier believes that he and his fellow mutants can peacefully coexist with humanity in spite of their differences, even publishing a thesis about human mutation. This thesis catches the eye of CIA agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne), who contacts Xavier and tells him of her suspicion that a mutant is fanning the flames of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.

As fate would have it, this causes Xavier and Erik's paths to cross. Xavier follows a trail of clues and discovers that Shaw trying to instigate the Cuban missile crisis into a full-blown nuclear war. Shaw reasons that if humans nuke each other into extinction, then mutants can take over and claim the world as their own. Xavier and Erik meet while hunting tracking their mutual quarry and after an incident which allows Shaw to escape, the duo begins recruiting a team of mutants to combat Shaw's own team.

After the last two lackluster entries, I was beginning to think that the X-Men movie franchise was beginning to run out of steam. But X-Men: First Class proved that there's still some life in it after all. It's a fantastic movie that almost makes up for the disappointing mediocrity of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It's a tremendous film that for all its pathos never gets what's important: being fun. It's an immensely entertaining movie that I can't help but enjoy.

In the director's chair for First Class is Matthew Vaughn, who previously jumped into the world of superheroes with last year's Kick-Ass. Although Kick-Ass was an irreverent quasi-parody of superheroes, this movie is more serious fare. Vaughn is up to task, though. His direction is slick, focused, and very much suits what the movie needs. Vaughn doesn't take things to any sort of flashy extremes, but he crafts the movie in such a way that it doesn't feel like he has to. He actually crafts the movie as if it were a '60s-era James Bond movie, making a really cool-looking flick in the process. I don't know if the whole Bond-like style was intentional on Vaughn's part, but his direction — combined with the setting, the set design and costumes, and John Mathieson's cinematography — gives the movie that kind of feeling. And you know what? It works.

The script (credited to Vaughn, Jane Goldman, and Thor co-writers Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz from a story by Sheldon Turner and Bryan Singer) is also solid, with a focused narrative that knows exactly what it wants to accomplish. But it also falls into the same trappings as the other four X-Men movies: it introduces more characters than it plans to follow. Some of the young mutants that Professor X and Magneto recruit for their team barely have any time to shine, leaving them so underdeveloped that we just don't care about them at all.

There's also more than a few inconsistencies and plot holes cause by setting the movie in the '60s. Take, for example, the presence of Emma Frost. She appeared as a teenager in the Wolverine movie, which takes place in the late '70s or early '80s. But in First Class, she's obviously an adult. How does that work? And then there's Beast, who develops his blue fur and feline appearance here despite having a cameo as a regular person in X2. There are more than a few little things like that in First Class; most of them could be called inconsequential, but it's distracting if you notice them. Maybe First Class is supposed to be a reboot instead of a prequel? I could get behind that, since the existence of both this movie and the Wolverine movie leaves the franchise's continuity rather muddled.

At least it benefits from some stellar acting. There are a few bad apples among the bunch, specifically Zoë Kravitz (who is unbearably, unforgivably dull) and January Jones (who is not only forgettable, but so wooden that they could have replaced her with a tree and I wouldn't have noticed). But the less-than-great performances are the exception, rather than the rule. For example, Jennifer Lawrence's turn as the shapeshifting Mystique is very sweet and charming, providing a lot of heart to the role. But the best acting in the movie comes from three people in particular.

One is Kevin Bacon, who radiates evil and megalomania in every scene he appears. His performance as the villainous Sebastian Shaw is about as perfect as one could hope for. Bacon makes for a fantastic bad guy, which helps make the movie a lot more fun. I also really liked James McAvoy as Xavier. I thought I'd have a hard time accepting anybody other than Patrick Stewart in the role, but McAvoy gallantly makes the role his own. McAvoy doesn't try to replicate Stewart's performances, approaching it in his own way and is better for it. He's great in the role, bringing a sense of playfulness to it at first before transitioning into the compassionate nobility that we'd expect from Professor X. Though I won't deny that I miss Stewart, McAvoy is still wonderful.

But the best performance of the whole movie comes from Michael Fassbender. Like McAvoy, Fassbender had some pretty huge shoes to fill. Sir Ian McKellan's performances as Magneto were some of the best parts of the first three X-Men movies, but Fassbender takes the role and completely owns it. There are so many layers and nuances to his performance; you can see all the rage, sadness, fear, and the hope for a better world for mutants all over Fassbender's face. You're practically compelled to keep your eyes on Fassbender for every single frame in which he appears. And through a combination of fantastic writing and brilliant acting, Magneto is without a doubt the best part of First Class. I'd actually heard that the movie was originally intended to follow in the footsteps of the Wolverine movie and be X-Men Origins: Magneto, but it evolved into the movie I'm currently reviewing. I bring that up because Fassbender was so awesome that I wish they'd made the Magneto solo movie with Fassbender as its star. That movie would have been awesome.

That isn't to say that X-Men: First Class isn't good, though. It's a damn good movie. As disappointed as I was with The Last Stand and the Wolverine movie, I'm just as satisfied with First Class. It's been a while since there's been an X-Men movie this awesome, perhaps due to Bryan Singer's absence from the franchise. But with him returning as a producer and a co-writer, it feels like the franchise has gone back to the good ol' days when it didn't suck. First Class is definitely worth seeing as soon as you get the chance, so if you haven't seen it already, go do it now. It's definitely worth the effort of checking out. If they end up going with the idea I'd heard that First Class would be spawning a new trilogy, I'm all for it.

Final Rating: ****

Monster (2003)

Maybe it's me, but it always seems like biographical movies and those based on true stories are usually inspirational stories. They're tales of well-respected people who've left lasting marks on society as a whole, in the process conquering personal demons or overcoming tremendous adversity. A lot of them are either critical darlings or box office successes, but there are some that don't really come up in conversation. Some are made for TV or select markets, but others don't have a very mainstream subject matter. These are the ones that focus on serial killers.

Notorious murderers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein, and the BTK Killer have had their crimes turned into movies, either as biographies of the killers or as docudramas about their activities. And practically all of them have flown under the radar with direct-to-video releases. Some of them do reach wider audiences, as evidenced by Spike Lee's Summer of Sam and David Fincher's Zodiac. But I'd go as far as to say that the king of them all is Monster, Patty Jenkins's Oscar-winning movie about a hooker who murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990. It's an absolutely captivating movie that's well worth the watch.

Our story focuses on Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron), a prostitute whose life has been one long, rocky road of abuse and tragedy. As the movie begins, we find her sitting beneath a highway overpass contemplating suicide. But she figures she might as well spend her last five dollars before she does the deed, with the reasoning that if she doesn't, her last john would have practically gotten her services for free.

Aileen stumbles into a nearby gay bar and finds a friend in Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), a meek, lonely young woman whose family has shunned her for being a lesbian. And despite Aileen insisting she's straight, they quickly fall for one another. But because she doesn't have much money to support them, Aileen's inability to find a legitimate job means that she has to keep selling her body to passing motorists to score some cash.

This leads to a moment that will change not only Alieen's life, but many others in the process. One john in particular rapes and brutally beats her, forcing a terrified Aileen to snatch his gun and shoot him to death in self defense. She steals his car and money, enough to get her and Selby a motel room for a week. But soon the cash will run out, prompting Aileen to start murdering her clients so she can rob them.

Though very good, Monster is also an odd film. It doesn't go as far as to fully excuse or justify Aileen Wuornos's crimes, but it does depict her with a certain level of empathy. Writer/director Patty Jenkins obviously wants us to feel for Wuornos, seeming to imply that while she was a stone cold killer, she probably wouldn't have ended up that way it weren't for all the hell she'd gone through in her life. And it's kinda hard to ignore that the real Wuornos was at least slightly mentally ill (though deemed competent enough to stand trial), but Jenkins appears to want we the viewer to see Wuornos as someone who could never catch a lucky break. Wuornos was unloved, sexually abused, turning tricks at the age of 14 years old. Her whole life was a downward spiral from practically day one, and I think Jenkins captured that.

While Jenkins does take a few liberties with the known facts for the sake of drama (and some for legal reasons, such as Wuornos's girlfriend having her name and appearance changed for the movie), she does craft a rather compelling story. Though her script is rough around the edges, her direction is more sound. Monster is Jenkins's only feature film, and I'd actually like to see her make another one because she shows a lot of promise. It's apparent that the movie was a low-budget affair, made for less than ten million dollars, but Jenkins puts it together like a pro. She manages to get some great cinematography from Steven Bernstein and gorgeous music from BT (the stage name of musician Brian Transeau), creating a movie that is stellar from a production standpoint.

But Jenkins's work is drastically overshadowed by her two primary actresses. Though her character could have been written stronger, Christina Ricci still puts forth a very credible performance as a naïve young woman who gets in way over her head. But the true star of the show is Charlize Theron as Aileen. Theron's performance is fascinating to watch, as if she actually became Aileen Wuornos. While much was said at the time about her makeup and weight gain for the movie (trading her gorgeous appearance for a more homely one), what's more impressive is how much effort she puts into her performance.

Theron is absolutely captivating to watch, playing the role with an intensity that nobody guessed the actress had in her. She had previously been just some pretty blonde lady that happened to be in some movies. But once the movie gets rolling, you'll feel like you're actually watching the real Aileen Wuornos instead of an actress portraying her. It's like they actually brought Wuornos back to life and dropped her off at the set. Theron has all of her tics and mannerisms down to a T, and plays the role with such an unrelenting ferocity that she is unstoppable. It's a powerful bit of acting, worthy of the Oscar that Theron was awarded and worthy of being called one of the best performances of this young century.

Monster would have probably faded into obscurity had it not been for the strength of its lead actress. There's absolutely no doubting that Theron carries the entire movie. But even beyond her absolutely amazing performance, Monster is still a damn fine movie. The movie definitely isn't a fun movie to watch, but it's a movie that won't let you turn away from it once you start. And I'm going to give the movie a recommendation to see it just to see how amazing Theron's performance is. If you want evidence that one person can make a good movie an awesome one, it's Monster.

Final Rating: ****

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

I can't say that I expected Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to be the runaway success that it was. It was a movie based on a ride at Disneyland, for crying out loud. But the box office success, critical acclaim, and Oscar nominations proved that I really don't know anything about movies. And the fact that its back-to-back sequels — Dead Man's Chest and At World's End — grossed a combined two billion dollars worldwide further hammered that point home.

And though the franchise's story seemingly ended with At World's End, you just can't argue with buckets of cash. So Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer teamed up one more time to make the fourth entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Taking its title and the basic plot outline of Tim Powers's 1987 fantasy novel On Stranger Tides, this fourth movie is a real disappointment. It's quite simply nowhere near as good as it could have been.

As the movie begins, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has arrived in England after hearing that someone claiming to be him is assembling a crew to search for the Fountain of Youth. He's arrested after breaking his former first mate Joshamee Gibbs (Kevin McNally) out of jail and is and brought before King George II (Richard Griffiths). The king has also heard that someone named Jack Sparrow is hunting for the Fountain, and wishes to recruit him to find and claim it before the Spanish can.

But Jack's not exactly happy to discover that he won't be leading the expedition to find the Fountain. Instead, King George has chosen Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), now a one-legged privateer for the British Navy, for the job. Jack makes a daring escape and starts searching for the person claiming to be him.

It turns out that the impostor is Angelica (Penélope Cruz), Jack's former lover and daughter of the infamous pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Still upset over their rather acrimonious breakup, Angelica has Jack kidnapped and thrown onto her father's ship. It turns out Blackbeard himself is searching for the Fountain of Youth as well, fearing a story that that he will have a fatal encounter with a pirate with one leg. The hunt for the Fountain will take Blackbeard's crew, Barbossa's crew, and the Spaniards through dangerous jungles, sunken ships, and teams of man-eating mermaids.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is one of those sequels where it's obvious that the only reason it was made is because somebody wanted to make a quick buck. The plot is all over the place, yet is constructed in such a way that it doesn't necessitate a 137-minute movie. Most of the actors don't seem like they're really trying either, and the whole thing gives off the feeling that they were just going through the motions. It's a watchable movie, but it's a disappointing one too.

Gore Verbinski isn't around to direct the movie as he did the first three, being replaced by Chicago director Rob Marshall. Marshall's direction seems indicative of the entire movie itself: it feels like it's just going through the motions. He's just going from Point A to Point B without injecting any of the adventure or the whimsy the other Pirates movies had. You get the feeling that Marshall came into the production viewing himself as having been hired to a job with as little effort as possible. Only once — the scene where Blackbeard's crew is attacked by the commandos — does Marshall come close to replicating the fantasy world that Verbinski crafted. All he manages to do is build a feeling of disinterest in the viewer.

But he isn't helped by the script, written by series veterans Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott. You'd think that after writing the first three movies, they'd have gotten the hang of things. But oddly enough, the script for On Stranger Tides is seriously lacking compared to the others. There are so many plot holes and unimportant characters that it becomes frustrating. Why include the "Spaniards go after the Fountain" subplot if they're only going to be in three scenes and have no bearing on the movie at all? Why didn't they explain why Angelica was impersonating Jack? Why did that useless romantic subplot between the mermaid and the missionary have to eat up so much screen time?

And honestly, there's not much happening in this movie. The first three were packed with intrigue, action, characters constantly shifting their allegiances. On Stranger Tides does have some action, but outside of that, the movie's actually kinda plodding. I hate to see it, but it actually borders on boring. I didn't think too highly of At World's End, but at least things actually happened in it. But not in On Stranger Tides! If Rossio and Elliott couldn't be bothered to try, why should I be bothered to care?

Even the cast is disappointing, which is a damn shame. Ian McShane tries his hardest in the role of the villainous Blackbeard, but the character is written so poorly that McShane's performance suffers because of it. Try as he may, he sadly cannot top Bill Nighy's Davy Jones. I also wasn't that impressed by Penélope Cruz. She and Johnny Depp have a fine chemistry together, but beyond that, she plain and simply didn't do anything for me here. And for saying's sake, I suspect that the only reason she was cast in the movie at all is because they couldn't get Keira Knightley to come back.

I will say, though, I did like some of the cast. Kevin McNally is likable as Captain Jack's first mate Joshamee Gibbs (getting a meatier role than he had in the first three), and I absolutely loved Geoffrey Rush. Rush doesn't play Barbossa as hammy and over-the-top as he had previously, but he is still a tremendous amount of fun to watch. And Johnny Depp puts forth another fantastic performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, but he seems like he's on autopilot for significant portions of the movie. It says a lot about Depp's ability when he can half-ass it and still be great.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the movie's disappointing 3D effects. There is absolutely no reason for this movie to be in 3D, especially since it's never put to good use. Nothing pops, and the moments where things are pointed at the camera aren't very impressive. It's like the whole 3D thing was forced upon the movie to squeeze a few more bucks out of each ticket sale. You could probably see it in 2D and not feel like you're missing anything. So if you haven't seen it yet, don't feel pressured to see it in 3D.

I'm still convinced that On Stranger Tides was made for the sole reason of making Disney a bunch of money. But they got so busy backing the truck up to the bank that they forgot to make a good movie. I certainly wasn't expecting the movie to top or even equal The Curse of the Black Pearl, but I was expecting more out of it than this. It has its moments, but I can't give On Stranger Tides anything more than two and a half stars. You just know that they'll end up making a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so here's hoping that they've learned their lesson.

Final Rating: **½

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Toys have long been separated into two categories: dolls and action figures. And if there's anyone to thank for the term "action figure," it's Hasbro's G.I. Joe toys. G.I. Joe debuted in 1964 as a series of 12-inch action figures representing different branches of the American military. The toys were successful, but most people will more than likely associate the G.I. Joe name with the "Real American Hero" line that Hasbro launched in 1982. Reimagined as 3¾-inch figures after the success of the Star Wars toys, the "Real American Hero" toys were widely popular, spawning a Marvel comic book and the famous syndicated cartoon.

But while the "Real American Hero" toy line, comics, and cartoon had all come to an end by 1994, they haven't been forgotten. After the success of Michael Bay's live-action Transformers movie, Hasbro and Paramount Pictures teamed up once again to make a live-action G.I. Joe movie. Most critics didn't like it and its box office receipts were modest (needing to rely on the international markets in order to fully recoup its budget), but was it really a good movie after all?

In the near future, weapons manufacturer James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) has created a nanotechnology-based weapon that can disintegrate anything it is fired at. His company sells four warheads to NATO, who enlists some American troops to escort them to their destination. But the convoy quickly finds themselves ambushed by a group boasting advanced weaponry. They are rescued by the G.I. Joe Team, a top-secret military team comprised of the best soldiers from around the world.

The convoy's only survivors, Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans), are taken to the Joes' subterranean base in Egypt, where they are debriefed and dismissed by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid). Duke, however, convinces Hawk to let them join the team when he reveals he had dated one of the convoy's attackers. He knew her as Ana Lewis, but she has since taken the name Baroness Anastascia DeCobray (Sienna Miller). It turns out that she was sent to steal the warheads by McCullen himself, who has his own nefarious purposes for them. He and his mysterious associate known only as "The Doctor" (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) seek to create a new world order, and it's up to the G.I. Joe Team to stop them.

Okay, I have to confess that G.I. Joe was one of the few '80s toy lines I wasn't into when I was a kid. I never watched the cartoon, I never read the comics, and outside of owning two or three of the figures, I never really cared for the franchise. That lack of nostalgic affection is one of the big reasons why I skipped this movie during its theatrical run two years ago. That and I thought the commercials and trailers for it looked stupid. And after having seen it, I can tell you that yeah, it's pretty dumb, alright. It's one of those movies that you'll completely forget about as soon as the closing credits roll, but it's still entertaining despite its rather glaring flaws.

At the helm is Stephen Sommers, who no stranger to CGI-driven summer blockbusters, having directed Van Helsing and two of Brendan Fraser's Mummy movies. And if there's anything truly positive I can say about his work on The Rise of Cobra, it's that at least he didn't go the standard route of having super-shaky camerawork during the action scenes. You can actually tell what's going on, which is refreshing. But other than that, the direction is okay, but not really great. It's just enough to get by. It's sadly not the most exciting action movie, but it's not a boring one either. It certainly holds one's attention. The chase scene through Paris is actually a lot of fun. But Sommers's direction would have been better had the CGI been more convincing. The CGI looks like it'd be better suited for a Pixar movie than for live action. It can actually get distracting on more than one occasion, which is a damn shame.

And the script isn't all that great, either. Credited to Stuart Beattie, David Elliot, and Paul Lovett from a story by Sommers, Beattie, and Michael B. Gordon, the script doesn't have a whole lot going on in it. The movie's two hours long, and yet I seriously got the feeling that not much is happening. It's just "generic action scene, boring dialogue, generic action scene, boring dialogue, generic action scene, the end." It's pitiful. There's nothing going on, there's no memorable dialogue beyond the attempts to work in some of the cartoon's catchphrases, and there's practically no character development at all. It's like if Beattie, Elliot, and Lovett had their kids play with some G.I. Joe toys for two hours and turned what they did into a script, Throw in some extraneous background noise regarding Duke and the Baroness having been engaged in the past, and you have G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

And then there's the cast, who are watchable yet not very memorable. The fact that their characters are very poorly defined probably didn't help, but none of the actors really stand out. But I can at least discuss some of the performances while I'm here, I guess. I thought Marlon Wayans and Rachel Nichols were amusing enough, while Sienna Miller's portrayal of the Baroness as a catty sexpot provided a few funny moments.

Christopher Eccleston is a fun kind of hammy, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts forth a decent performance in a weak role. I should credit him for not attempting to replicate Chris Latta's Cobra Commander voice from the cartoon, but he unfortunately doesn't have much time to establish any sort of lasting presence. Dennis Quaid also falls victim to the same lack of presence, thanks to his disappointing lack of screen time. Brendan Fraser almost had more screen time, and the guy had an uncredited cameo! And as for Channing Tatum... well, nobody's ever accused him of being a talented actor. He comes off as stiff at times, forgettable at others.

But for all its flaws, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra isn't a totally awful way to spend two hours. It'd make for an acceptable diversion during a boring weekend afternoon. And at the very least, it's certainly not as bad as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. When it comes right down to it, I can't say I hated the movie. It's not a particularly good movie, but it's not bad enough for me to give it a wholly negative review. It's a shame it wasn't as good as the animated G.I. Joe movie, though. Maybe The Rise of Cobra should have had that same kick-ass opening sequence. That could have totally redeemed it.

Final Rating: **½