Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Movies based on superheroes and comic books in general are nothing new, but they have practically dominated Hollywood over the last decade or so. While many of these flicks have been great and I've looked forward to each of their sequels, there was one that I thought would sadly never get a sequel: Kick-Ass. Based on the six-issue comic book written by Mark Millar and illustrated by John Romita Jr., Kick-Ass was a funny, irreverent take on what would happen if someone who loved superheroes tried becoming one in real life.

The movie performed modestly during its theatrical run, but because it wasn't a billion-dollar runaway success like you'd expect out of Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I thought a Kick-Ass sequel would be relegated simply to the realm of comic books. But three years later, Hollywood has proven me wrong. Though it may have taken three years and distribution from another studio, Kick-Ass 2 finally got made. I'm legitimately excited to see these characters back on the big screen, so let's dig in and hope that it holds up as well as its predecessor.

Two years have passed since Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) became the masked hero "Kick-Ass." He's since given up the superhero game and started living the life of a normal teenager, but in that same time frame, others have followed in his footsteps and become real-life heroes themselves. Having once again grown bored with his mundane existence, he decides to resurrect Kick-Ass.

Dave has gotten out of shape during his hiatus and realizes he needs a partner to help him train. To do that, he reaches out to his friend Mindy Macready (Chloë Grace Moretz). Adopted by her late father's best friend, police detective Marcus Williams (Morris Chestnut), she's secretly continued operating as the violent vigilante "Hit-Girl," hiding it from Marcus under the guise of being a normal teenage girl. Mindy puts Dave through a strenuous training routine to get him back into fighting condition, but when Marcus discovers she's still doing the Hit-Girl thing, he forces her to give it up and actually start acting like a regular kid her age.

Dave initially believes that Mindy's forced retirement means Kick-Ass is stuck without a partner. But after meeting and becoming friendly with a fellow hero called Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison), he is welcomed into a band of heroes known as "Justice Forever." Led by Colonel Stars-and-Stripes (Jim Carrey), Justice Forever is a motley crew, but they're an effective one nonetheless.

But community outreach and breaking up the occasional prostitution ring are soon to be the least of Justice Forever's problems. Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) has grown disturbingly obsessed with Kick-Ass since we last saw him, to the point that he accidentally kills his mother while throwing a tantrum brought upon by her deleting a news story about Kick-Ass from the DVR. Vowing revenge on Kick-Ass for the death of his father, Chris abandons his old "Red Mist" persona and rechristens himself "The Motherfucker," the world's first card-carrying supervillain. And with his family's vast wealth now at his disposal, he recruits a number of psychopaths and murderers to eliminate Kick-Ass and his merry band of heroes.

I absolutely loved Kick-Ass, and I'd spent the last three years eagerly awaiting a sequel. And now that it's finally here, I can say that I thought Kick-Ass 2 was very much worth the wait. The movie was everything I'd hoped it would be, full of laughs, fun moments, and an entertaining vibe that doesn't let up until the credits roll. I know the movie isn't for everybody, but those who enjoyed the original Kick-Ass movie will definitely enjoy the sequel.

The movie was written and directed by Jeff Wadlow, who isn't exactly the most prolific filmmaker. His only prior feature-length efforts ― the 2006 thriller Cry_Wolf and the 2008 MMA-centric movie Never Back Down ― were forgettable movies that never really made much of a splash. But his work on Kick-Ass 2 is very solid despite the somewhat jarring tonal shift from comedic to serious during the third act. Wadlow handles the movie in a way that keeps its energy high and the audience engaged for the entire length of the movie.

However, I didn't think Wadlow took as many chances with the movie as Matthew Vaughn did when he made the first one. Vaughn was willing to take some bold steps with his Kick-Ass movie, but one gets the impression that Wadlow is merely dipping his toes in the water before going for the shallow end. He does a fine job, don't get me wrong. But I just felt that he could have stood to push the envelope further.

Wadlow's script, meanwhile, holds together well. Based on Millar and Romita's follow-up to the original comic, the script takes a few liberties with the source material, but they work. The comic's over-the-top finale in Times Square probably would have been too big for a movie with this modest a production, and our villains murdering a number of children and violently gang-raping a teenage girl simply would have been too much. Waslow changes things in such a way that it doesn't hurt the movie in the slightest, allowing it to work as both a good sequel and a good adaptation of Millar and Romita's comic.

I also enjoyed how Wadlow not only kept the straightforward "good guys vs. bad guys" superhero story, but made it a coming-of-age tale for Hit-Girl as well. Hit-Girl is by and far the most interesting character in both the comics and movies, and allowing the character to have a compelling story arc helps the movie shine. The whole concept of this 15-year-old kid who's spent her whole life being trained as an assassin essentially replacing Lindsay Lohan's character in Mean Girls makes me wish they'd just ditched Kick-Ass altogether and made a Hit-Girl solo movie. That's a movie I want to see!

But when it comes right down to it, the best part of Kick-Ass 2 is its cast. In the title role, Aaron Taylor-Johnson isn't actually required to do much heavy lifting. He's basically doing the same thing he did with the first movie, only playing the character as more confident and self-assured this time around. Taylor-Johnson is very good in the part, though, playing Kick-Ass as being very likable, which is what the character needs.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse, meanwhile, is actually rather off-putting. He plays his character as a whiny, immature goof for the entire movie, but he bounces between that and being a crude, vulgar maniac so much that I had a hard time gauging what he was going for. Mintz-Plasse can be great, and he's trying his hardest here. He's actually pretty funny for much of the movie. It's just that the character is so all over the place that taking the character seriously is nearly impossible.

And much like the last movie, the sequel is completely stolen by two people. One is Jim Carrey, who approaches Colonel Stars-and-Stripes with a charisma and earnestness that scenes without him feel like they're lacking something. Carrey has distanced himself from Kick-Ass 2 due to the movie's violent content coming so soon after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which is a shame because it's some of its best work. He's nothing short of hilarious here, and the movie is better for having him in the role.

The real star of the movie, though, is Chloë Grace Moretz. Moretz brings a depth and wisdom to Hit-Girl that is belied by the character's snide, uncouth demeanor. Hit-Girl's story is the most interesting, intriguing part of the movie, thanks largely due to how Moretz chooses to approach it. She's caught between Hit-Girl and Mindy Macready, between her life of vigilantism and crime-fighting and the normal childhood her father deprived her of. Moretz brilliantly displays this internal struggle as she tries to figure out just who she truly is and what purpose she serves in the world. She owns both the roe and the movie, and makes Kick-Ass 2 worth seeing just for her.

Perhaps the best thing I can say about Kick-Ass 2 is that it's a legitimately fun movie. You can tell simply by watching it that being entertaining is all it wanted to be, and I think it succeeded. Granted, the movie doesn't have the original's subversive sense of humor, but then again, it doesn't need to. It goes its own way while still maintaining the original's heart and soul, and is a damn fine movie because of it. And if by some strange miracle Hollywood turns Millar and Romita's Kick-Ass 3 comic into a movie, I'll totally be there, front row center.

Final Rating: ****

The Wolverine (2013)

Dozens of characters have appeared in Marvel's "X-Books," the multitude of comics published under the X-Men banner. But out of them all, Wolverine is far and away the most popular. Originally created in 1974 as a one-off opponent for the Incredible Hulk, the clawed Canadian antihero joined the X-Men a year later and soon found himself in the upper echelon of Marvel's A-list players.

The character has followed the X-Men into practically all of their adventures outside of the comic book realm, joining them in cartoons, video games, and eventually in the series of live-action movies. Wolverine's popularity skyrocketed even further after that, to the point that 20th Century Fox gave him his own solo movie in 2009. The downside to that whole thing was that X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn't exactly all that great, and it would be four more years before 20th Century Fox would dare try giving Wolverine anything more than a cameo in another movie. But they would try again, as evidenced by the new flick The Wolverine. So let's dive in and hope for the best, shall we?

It's been a few years since the X-Men made their last stand. A traumatized Logan (Hugh Jackman) has spent that time roaming the Yukon wilderness as a hermit, haunted by visions of Jean Grey (Famke Jansson) and wracked with guilt over his role in her death. He's approached one day by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a mutant with precognitive abilities who has been sent on a mission to bring Logan to Japan.

It is there he is reunited with a dying elderly man named Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi). Decades earlier, at the end of World War II, Logan rescued and protected a younger Yashida during the bombing of Nagasaki. His death quickly approaching and looking to repay his debt, Yashida offers to transfer Logan's healing factor into himself and end Logan's immortality, allowing him to have an honorable death. Logan, viewing immortality as a curse only he should have to bear, refuses the offer, and Yashida dies the next day.

At the funeral shortly thereafter, Logan foils an attempt by Yakuza thugs to kidnap Mariko (Tao Okamoto), Yashida's granddaughter and heir to his influential technology company. Fleeing with Mariko, Logan finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy that involves Mariko's father (Hiroyuki Sanada), a band of ninjas led by Kenuichio Harada (Will Yun Lee), and a toxin-creating mutant called Venom (Svetlana Khodchenkova). And to make matters worse, something has suppressed Logan's healing factor, making his fight to protect Mariko harder than he'd expected.

I approached The Wolverine with a bit of trepidation, afraid that the problems of X-Men Origins: Wolverine would repeat themselves. But I was pleasantly surprised by just how good this new movie is. It's not the best movie in the X-Men saga, but it's both a stark improvement over the last Wolverine solo adventure and a pretty good flick in its own right.

The movie sat in developmental hell for a few years, with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky attached to direct at one point. But the duty eventually fell to James Mangold, who ended up doing a fantastic job crafting the movie. Mangold approaches it in such a way that it doesn't really feel like a typical superhero movie. He isn't making the kind of movie one would expect with a character like Wolverine in the lead role, instead making it more in the vein of a film noir. Mangold actually plays up drama and intrigue as much as he does the prerequisite action sequences, which makes The Wolverine a bit more captivating to watch.

But don't get me wrong, the action scenes are also totally worth seeing the movie for. The Yakuza shootout at the funeral is a lot of fun, while the fight on the roof of the speeding bullet train is one of the most entertaining and exciting action sequences I've seen in a while. Mangold handles these scenes with care, and though there are a few instances of that fast-edited shaky-cam nonsense I complain about frequently, they're all great in their own ways.

The script, on the other hand, isn't quite as consistent as Mangold's direction. Credited to Mark Bomback and Scott Frank (who rewrote an earlier draft by an uncredited Christopher McQuarrie), I thought the script stumbled in a few places, particularly in regards to the characters. Yukio is given a very cool introduction, but is sadly given very little to do after that. The Viper character is given even less, despite apparently being the movie's primary antagonist. Anyway, I'm guessing Viper was supposed to be the movie's main villain, since Bomback and Frank never really make it 100% clear until the climax. Viper only has a handful of scenes, and the Yakuza/ninja/government ends up being frustratingly convoluted.

Fortunately, the movie not only had a decent director, but a very good cast as well. Among the supporting cast, I really enjoyed Rila Fukushima, though I wish she'd been given more to do. Outside of her awesome introduction, all she really does is pop up once in a while and look cute. Fukushima does a great job in these scenes, which makes me wish her role had been beefed up more.

I can also say the same for Tao Okamoto, who I thought did a fine job despite a few instances where her role seems to have been written as "generic love interest." That's more a fault of the script than Okamoto, since she can only work with what she's given. But she does a fine, likable job regardless.

The rest of the supporting cast also contributes good performances, with the exception of Svetlana Khodchenkova. Her character has even less to do than Fukushima's, but unlike her, Khodchenkova doesn't do anything to make her worth watching. She just shows up and recites her dialogue, playing the part like a more boring version of the Batman villain Poison Ivy. It's a dull performance that the movie could have done without.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum is Hugh Jackman. This marks the sixth time he's played Wolverine (that's assuming you're counting his 10-second cameo in First Class too), and his enthusiasm for the role that's defined his career for the last thirteen years continues to be readily apparent. This time around allows Jackman to stretch his acting chops and give Wolverine a level of vulnerability the character usually doesn't get to show. Jackman still gets to play the character as a total badass, but he's not as hardened and rough around the edges as we've seen him before. He makes Wolverine feel as much human as he does beast, which is a nice change of pace.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the movie's 3D effects. It seems like Hollywood's convinced itself that most summer blockbusters have to be in 3D, no matter if it helps or hurts the movie. And for the most part, all 3D does for The Wolverine is add an extra few bucks to the ticket price. I often talk about how movies that are converted into 3D often look flat when compared to movies that are shot natively in the format, and The Wolverine is one of those cases. Some moments, like the bullet train sequence I mentioned earlier, look really cool. But not much is gained by converting the movie into 3D. You honestly aren't missing much by watching the movie in standard 2D.

But you are, however, missing out if you don't see this movie. Flaws aside, The Wolverine still manages to be one of the high points in an otherwise lackluster summer blockbuster season. It's a fun, exciting movie that more than makes up for that less-than-stellar previous Wolverine movie. The movie's uniqueness and lack of over-reliance on popular mutants from the comics sets it apart from the others and allows it to do its own thing, letting it be a far better movie for it. And after seeing that scene during the credits, I can't wait X-Men: Days of Future Past to come out. Next summer can't get here quick enough.

Final Rating: ***½

R.I.P.D. (2013)

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last fifteen years, you've surely noticed that movies based on comic books have proven to be huge for Hollywood. Well, movies based on superhero comics, anyway. Movies based on comics from other genres don't always turn out so well. Either they're good yet crash and burn at the box office or they end up being frustratingly mediocre. That's why I was intrigued to see how the new movie R.I.P.D. would turn out. Based on Peter M. Lenkov's four-issue comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 2000, R.I.P.D.'s advertisements made it look like one of those movies that could either be really fun or really hokey. It still got my attention anyway, which is why I had to check it out.

Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds) and Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon) are two of the finest detective among the Boston Police Department's ranks. But everyone's got skeletons in their closets. For Nick, his skeleton is the pile of gold he and Bobby secretly stole from a crime scene. His conscience eating away at him, Nick mentions to Bobby that he's considering turning in his share. A call about a drug bust interrupts Nick before he can tell his superiors about the gold, and in the ensuing shootout, Bobby guns down his partner before he can rat them out.

But as his spirit ascends into the afterlife and approaches the light at the end of the tunnel, Nick is yanked into the office of Mildred Proctor (Mary-Louise Parker), the director of the Rest In Peace Department. A paranormal agency that recruits cops after they die, the R.I.P.D.'s officers are tasked with catching "Deados," monstrous ghosts that have returned to Earth. Proctor offers Nick two choices: join the R.I.P.D. for one hundred years, or face his eternal judgment.

Naturally, Nick accepts and is partnered with Roy Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges), a U.S. Marshall who died in the days of the Wild West. Returning to Boston for their first case together, Nick discovers the suspect they're after is in possession of gold similar to what he and Bobby stole. Nick and Roy investigate further and learn that numerous Deados have been using these gold pieces to assemble an ancient artifact that, once activated, would reverse the tunnel that transports the dead into the afterlife and allow Deados to run wild on Earth. And we can't have that, can we?

I noted earlier that non-superhero comic book movies usually tank at the box office. R.I.P.D. was no exception, and I can't really say I'm surprised. The movie is basically what would have happened if Men in Black ripped off Ghostbusters. I know that description has been thrown around quite a bit by film critics and reviewers, but it's the truth. R.I.P.D. is not a particularly bad movie, but it's not charming or creative enough to rise above mediocrity. Most of the things I liked about R.I.P.D. were things I'd already seen and enjoyed more in other movies. It's just an ultimately forgettable movie that does nearly nothing to stand out.

The movie was directed by Robert Schwentke, who actually does a decent enough job with the movie. His efforts were strong enough to hold the movie together relatively well, but the movie's trailers alone are proof enough that Schwentke wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. He keeps the movie rolling and it's rarely dull, but if you've seen any movie with a similar premise, you've seen what Schwentke ultimately did with this movie. His direction is serviceable while you're watching the movie and not putting a lot of thought into it, but once the credits roll and you have a little time to reflect upon the movie, you realize just how generic it felt.

But Schwentke's direction is certainly better than the script deserves. Writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi have pretty much stolen the plot from Men in Black wholesale. Look at it this way: a hotshot cop is drafted into service for a secretive agency that polices otherworldly entities who walk among us in disguise. He's teamed with a cranky veteran and they uncover a diabolical plot that puts the whole world in danger. Can you tell which movie I just described? Seriously, watch the first Men in Black movie, swap out aliens for ghosts, and you have R.I.P.D.! The movie plays out in almost exactly the same way, and I got the feeling that this is how The Asylum would do their mockbusters if they had access to multimillion-dollar budgets and A-list talent.

Even the cast has some ups and downs. Ryan Reynolds is a good actor when he has material that compliments his strengths, but it just feels like he's on autopilot here. The fact that the character is poorly written doesn't help matters much, but Reynolds comes across like he just wanted to collect a paycheck. Kevin Bacon, meanwhile, does the best he can in his role, playing the character like Bacon is having a ton of fun just being there. Like Reynolds, Bacon's character isn't exactly well-written, but he does make a decent enough go of it.

Mary-Louise Parker and Devin Ratray also contribute some fun performances in their minor roles, but R.I.P.D. belongs to Jeff Bridges. He makes the movie worth seeing, playing his character as a comedic version of how he approached Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. Bridges is the best part of the movie,w ith every second he's on the screen leading to something funny. R.I.P.D. might not be much, but it at least has Bridges going for it.

That, and the 3D effects aren't that bad either. The movie went through a conversion into 3D during post-production, and while some scenes still look flat (like with most converted movies), the 3D actually looks pretty decent. There's a scene where Nick and Roy chase an overweight ghost through the streets of Boston, and the 3D adds a nice bit of depth. It's not the best conversion, but it isn't the worst either.

And truth be told, that's how I could sum up R.I.P.D. in general. It's not great, but I've seen worse too. The movie has a few fleeting flashes of brilliance, and I actually enjoyed it for the most part. It's biggest problem is its lack of originality, but to its credit, it's still a better Men in Black movie than either of the Men in Black sequels. So it has that going for it, right?

Final Rating: **½

The Lone Ranger (2013)

While many of the fictional heroes who've infiltrated American pop culture over the last several decades have come from comic books, one cannot overlook the influence of radio dramas from the pre-television era during the 1930s and 1940s. Believe it or not, Superman's notorious weakness, Kryptonite, was a product of the radio shows based on the Man of Steel. But radio dramas also gave us one of pop culture's most famous cowboys, the Lone Ranger.

Created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, the creators of the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger debuted in 1933 in a radio play broadcast on Detroit's WXYZ. The show proved so popular that it was soon being syndicated nationwide. The Lone Ranger himself has endured since then, having appeared in comic books, film serials and feature-length movies, novels, and a TV show that ran on ABC from 1949 to 1957.

But the Lone Ranger's popularity hasn't been what it used to be lately. While there are comics starring the character still in publication, the Ranger's become something of a cultural footnote who'd left the spotlight by the time the '60s started. And similar to his contemporary, the Green Hornet, Hollywood tried reviving the character with a big-budget blockbuster that ― like the Green Hornet movie ― could have been better.

Let's go back in time to the year 1869, where lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) is taking a train to his hometown of Colby, Texas. Unbeknownst to him, also on the train is notorious outlaw and cannibal Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), who is being transported to face his execution after being arrested by John's Texas Ranger brother Dan (James Badge Dale). Before they can make it to Colby, though, Cavandish's gang hijacks the train and ultimately derails the train as they break out their leader.

Barely having survived the train wreck, John is deputized as a Texas Ranger by Dan and recruited into his posse as they try to track down Cavandish and bring him to justice. Things end up taking a deadly turn when the posse is ambushed and killed. John, however, manages to barely cling onto life, seemingly revived by a mystical white horse that roams the desert. He is nursed to health by Tonto (Johnny Depp), a Comanche outcast who explains that the horse brought him back from the dead because he is to be a great warrior. Both of them holding a grudge against Cavandish for different reasons, John and Tonto hit the trail to bring their quarry to justice.

The history of this movie is a complicated one. It spent years in development, suffered from numerous production delays and problems with its budget, was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics upon its release, and has been classified as a flop after underperforming at the box office. And while one can make an argument that The Lone Ranger is a flawed, imperfect movie, I still thought it was a fun, entertaining flick that I actually really liked, Rotten Tomatoes score be damned.

I've seen the movie described as what would happen if the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were Westerns, and I can't say that's an inaccurate description. The movie feels an awful lot like one of the Pirates movies, due in large part to the fact that producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, the writers, and the star have all reunited for this particular adventure. From a directorial standpoint, Verbinski's work is much in the same vein as his efforts on the first three Pirates movies, with a stylistic flair and an exciting energy that keeps the viewer engaged in even the silliest moments. The movie's faults aside, Verbinski does a fine job holding it all together.

My biggest complaint is that I wish Verbinski had spent a little more time in the editing room, jettisoning some of the useless fluff that populates the movie. The Lone Ranger didn't need to be two and a half hours long, and getting rid of some of the filler could have streamlined things a bit.

Though to tell you the truth, I'd blame the script for that just as much as I would Verbinski. Writers Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio have cobbled together a script that is bloated, unfocused, and overlong. Did we absolutely need that little subplot with a one-legged brothel madam played by Helena Bonham Carter? And was a cannibalistic outlaw not enough of a villain for them that they had to add some dumb conspiracy surrounding silver mines and the Transcontinental Railroad? Did they have to include a poorly-done love interest and a kid that don't contribute very much to the movie? If Haythe, Elliott, and Rossio had left out all this extraneous stuff, the movie might have been a little better. But all it does is show that Rossio and Elliott didn't learn their lesson after writing Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

Another problem I had with the script is how the Lone Ranger is depicted. For the first two hours of the movie, he's an ineffectual ninny who constantly needs to be saved or at the very least pointed in the right direction by Tonto. It isn't until the climax that he finally comes into his own and acts like the hero the Lone Ranger is supposed to be. I understand that this is an origin story and John Reid isn't necessarily going to be the Ranger right away, but you'd think that he'd be less of a wimp. Then again, the writers seem to be somewhat aware of this, considering how often Tonto and other characters mock his seeming ineptitude. It still doesn't change the fact that Tonto has to practically drag him into heroism kicking and screaming, though.

But at least the cast contributes some decent performances despite the flaws with the material. William Fichtner makes for a great bad guy, even though I wish his role had been written stronger. I'd have liked to see him be the movie's sole bad guy, since that might have given him a little more room to work with, but I guess it's too late to go back and change that now. And I can say the same for Tom Wilkinson, who plays a corrupt railroad tycoon. The character is dull as dishwater for much of the movie, but that's no fault of Wilkinson's. He does as good a job as he can with what he's given, weak as it may be.

And even though I've complained about how the character was a wuss for much of the movie, I thought Armie Hammer was still great as the Lone Ranger. He's funny and charming, and when he finally gets to engage in some heroics, Hammer does a fine job. The choice to cast Hammer as such an iconic character has been hotly debated in some of the other reviews I've read online. Not everybody thought he was the right fit for the role, but I actually thought he did the absolute best he could. And had the character been written more genuinely heroic for a longer portion of the movie than just the climax, Hammer's portrayal of the Lone Ranger could have possibly gotten more acclaim.

Everyone in the cast, however, is overshadowed by Johnny Depp as Tonto. Going into the movie, I thought it was somewhat perplexing that Depp got top billing even over Hammer, despite Hammer being the movie's title character. I figured it was just because Depp is more famous, similar to how Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were billed higher than Christopher Reeve in Superman. But after seeing the movie, I'm guessing it's also because Depp stole the movie and ran away with it. He's basically playing Captain Jack Sparrow if he were a Native American, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It makes his scenes more fun, more engaging. And getting to see even a little bit of Captain Jack in a movie that doesn't totally suck (I'm looking at you, On Stranger Tides) is okay by me.

The fact that The Lone Ranger tanked is disappointing, but not surprising. The movie was marketed towards younger audiences, but how many people under the age of 30 have even heard of the Lone Ranger and Tonto? It's a shame too, because the movie actually left me wanting to see a sequel, one that will probably never happen now. I enjoyed the movie a lot, warts and all, and if there's never another Lone Ranger movie, then I'm satisfied with this one. Hi-yo, Silver, away!

Final Rating: ***½

V/H/S/2 (2013)

Late last fall, I stumbled upon V/H/S, a horror anthology that used the "found footage" gimmick to craft a very unique premise. Not every segment was up my alley, but at the end of the day, I really dug the movie. That's why I got excited when I heard that a sequel would be coming sooner rather than later. That excitement only grew further with reports that V/H/S/2 was actually better than the original. So let's not drag this out any further and jump right into V/H/S/2.

Much like its predecessor, V/H/S/2's segments are all connected by one overarching story. Private investigators Larry (Lawrence Michael Levine) and Ayesha (Kelsy Abbott) have been hired to track down a missing college student, filming their every move as they conduct their search. They sneak into the student's seemingly empty house and, much like the first movie, discover a pile of TVs and an even bigger pile of VHS tapes. They also find a laptop with a recently-recorded video of the kid they're looking for, who rants about the tapes and how bizarre they are. Larry elects to continue investigating the house while Ayesha combs through the tapes for clues. But watching these tapes will expose her to a dark evil that neither she nor her partner are prepared to deal with.

The first tape, "Phase I Clinical Trials," features a young man named Herman (Adam Wingard), who lost one of his eyes in an accident. He has a camera implanted where his eye had been, trading a little bit of privacy for sight. But when he returns home, he begins experiencing what he believes are hallucinations where malevolent spirits are after him. Herman is contacted shortly thereafter by Clarissa (Hannah Hughes), another client of the doctor who installed Herman's eye implant. She explains that much in the same way her cochlear implant allows her to hear ghosts, his new eye allows him to see them. And as is always the case in horror movies, these supernatural entities are not only very real, but very mean.

In the second tape, "A Ride in the Park," a man (Jay Saunders) sets out for a fun round of biking in the local park, documenting his trip with a helmet-mounted camera. But a strange encounter with a hysterical woman leads him to some hungry zombies. Unable to escape them, the biker is quickly attacked and added to their ranks, joining them as they attack others in the area.

Tape number three, "Safe Haven," follows a documentary crew as they travel to a remote area of Indonesia to film a report on a cult that supposedly exploits the women and children of their congregation. While the crew bickers amongst themselves for petty reasons, they soon find that they're in deeper trouble when the cult's leader (Epy Kusnandar) begins a ceremony that starts with a mass suicide and sparks what appears to be Hell itself being brought into our world.

And in our final segment, "Slumber Party Alien Abduction," some adolescents have invited a bunch of their friends to their secluded lake house to have a good time while their parents are out of town. Much as the segment's title implies, however, their fun comes to an end when extraterrestrials make their presence known and start picking everyone off one by one. Yep, the setup is that simple and straightforward.

I noted earlier that I'd heard V/H/S/2 was better than the first movie. And believe it or not, it actually is in a few ways. It's by no means a perfect movie, but it still manages to be oddly satisfying with some legitimate spooks and scares amongst its segments. Like all anthology movies, some segments are stronger than others, but they all congeal together to make V/H/S/2 a solid whole.

The movie's first tape, Adam Wingard's "Phase I Clinical Trials," is basically The Eye but shorter and faster-paced. Wingard, who also plays the segment's main character, doesn't waste any time with character development. He gives us only the briefest of exposition before shoving the ghosts right in our faces. That's not a bad thing, though, as it gets us into the action right away. Wingard's direction makes for a segment that I thought was genuinely creepy, but because of how short it is and the breakneck speed at which it moves, it's already over by the time it really gets going.

Let's move along to "A Ride in the Park," directed by Edúardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale. Like I said in my World War Z review, I'm suffering from a little zombie burnout. But the segment approaches the whole zombie thing in a unique way, which I thought was really cool and I liked it a lot. It helps that Sanchez and Hale are no strangers to the "found footage" style, both having worked on The Blair Witch Project as co-director and producer respectively. They've created something that is equal parts gross, clever, and scary, doing more in thirteen minutes than most zombie movies in the last few years had in two hours.

But there's just no topping V/H/S/2's third segment. Every review I read beforehand, every critique I saw called "Safe House" the best of the bunch. Those reviews and critiques were absolutely right, because it's one of the best pieces of horror cinema I've seen in a while. Directors Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans build a real feeling of dread and foreboding throughout the entire segment, making it tense almost to the point of being oppressive. It all adds up to an insane climax, a blood-soaked attempt by the film crew to escape the cult's compound. It's a thrilling way to end a segment that was already as tense as it possibly could be and it makes V/H/S/2 worth checking out just to see "Safe Haven."

It's just a shame that it was followed by "Slumber Party Alien Abduction." Directed by Jason Eisener, it's definitely the weak link in the movie's chain. There are no real scares, no tension or suspense. And if you're epileptic or hate strobe lights, then you'll loathe "Slumber Party Alien Abduction." It's frustratingly difficult to tell what the hell is happening during the climactic alien abduction because of it being lit with strobe lights (which ends up causing the segment to look like it was edited with a chainsaw). The ultra-annoying characters don't help matters either, and really, the whole segment comes off as something of a waste.

If you're wondering why I haven't talked about the wraparound story, it's because there isn't much to talk about. Director Simon Barrett does a decent enough job using it to tie everything together, but it's pretty much the exact same story as the one that connected the stories in the first movie. It doesn't particularly add anything here, but the good news is that it doesn't eat up too much time.

So not everything about V/H/S/2 is great. But I thought it was a pleasant improvement on the "horror movie mixtape" idea the first movie brought us. The disappointing elements are easily drowned out by the stuff that works, leaving V/H/S/2 as a mixed bag that's good but not great. I'll definitely recommend it to the curious and people who liked the first V/H/S, so if you want to see it, check it out if you have the chance. And I'm honestly interested in what they'll do with a third V/H/S movie. They can only go up from here, right?

Final Rating: ***