Tag Archives: Three-Stars

Hot Tub Time Machine (Theaters)

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Time travel movies are very hard to pull off. There are so many rules established by previous movies, not to mention a little something called the “space-time continuum” that make it a bit difficult to make a believable time travel flick. Thankfully, Hot Tub Time Machine is nowhere near realistic and seems to make up its own set of rules as it goes along.

The story follows three best friends: Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Lou (Rob Corddry). After Lou has an accident that is mistaken for a suicide attempt, his two friends and their nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) decide to cheer him up by taking him on a weekend getaway to an old ski resort that used be one of their favorite party spots growing up. After another accident in the resort’s hottub changes it into a time machine, the four of them find themselves back in Winterfest ’86 with a chance to relive their past. The only catch is that they must relive everything exactly as they originally experienced it in order to not affect the future/present they came from.

That is pretty much the story in a nutshell. While the movie deals with the theme of time travel, it conveniently side steps many of the pre-established time travel rules from other films. For instance, the old rule that your future self and your past self can never occupy the same space is thrown out the window. The future versions actually replace their past selves. When ever anyone sees them, they are seeing the younger versions of the characters. The other rule about changing the past is pretty much scrapped also. While at first they try to leave the past as unaltered as possible, there comes a point where the characters just decide to change whatever they want to change at will.

While these minor details don’t really hurt the movie, the real star is the 80s setting. Anyone who grew up in the 80s or is at least familiar with the era will find alot to enjoy about this film. The entire movie is just filled with old school references and it is hilarious to see how much things have changed from a decade that really doesn’t seem like it was too long ago.

The cast is overall pretty solid. John Cusack plays the love sick regular guy role to a tee, something that he has had the chance to perfect as he has portrayed this same character countless times in his career. Craig Robinson is hilarious in the movie, but I can’t help but feel that his performance is a bit toned down, even for him. Clark Duke is great as the young voice of reason among the 4 of them. Expect to see Duke in more and more films starting with Kick Ass, due out this week. Then there is Rob Cordrry, who plays Lou the likeable asshole of the group. It is nice to see Cordrry in a role where he can finally be as offensive and vulgar as he wants to be.

The film is a fun walk down memory lane with some solid laughs thrown in. I was a little disappointed by the humor in this movie. The movie is very funny but nowhere near the laugh a minute fest that the previews or the movie’s title would have you believe that it is. Still, this is a funny movie and most of its appeal ccomes from just reliving the 80s through the eyes of the characters.

Ninja Assassin (DVD)

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Like most people, I am a sucker for ninjas. Take some of the most God awful movies and throw in a ninja or two and I’m there. I have sat through some horrendous films all for the sake of catching a glimpse of some idealized brutal ninja violence and often times I have wound up dissappointed. After seeing the trailers for this film, I felt like my search for quality ninja action had finally come to an end.

Ninja Assassin is nothing more than a bloody action flick with a fairly basic plot. To be perfectly honest, if anyone is expecting more from this film, you will be sorely dissappointed. Fortunately, the movie is VERy bloody and VERY action packed. Right from the get go, the movie opens with a crazy assassination scene complete with severed limbs and people being sliced in half.

We are then introduced to Raizo (played by Rain), a ninja assassin who has been banished from his clan and is doing freelance assasination work. Unlike the other ninja in his former clan, Raizo has developed a bit of a conscience. This is explored through various flashbacks in which Raizo reflects on his ninja training. The film cuts back and forth between Raizo’s training days and the present. In the present, Mika, a reporter, and a group of interpol agents have been tracking the ninja clan and have linked them to numerous assasinations throughout the years. When Mika discovers too much information, she is marked for death by the ninja clan. Luckily, Raizo happens to be in the right place at the right time and manages to rescue her from the onslaught of assassins. Eventually, this leads to the ultimate showdown between Raizo and his former clan family.

Plotwise- there isn’t too much going on in this movie other than your standard revenge storyline. This is actually a good thing as Raizo has all of the acting ability and personality of a concrete block. However, despite his personality shortcomings, like many other people I prefer my ninjas to be slicing and dicing more and talking less. The action in this film is very well done for the most part. Ninja stars are constantly whizzing by while swords are heard clanging together as severed limbs fly left and right. While the acting is pretty dismal overall, the flick’s saving grace is that they action scenes are excellent.

This is the bad ass ninja personification that audiences have been waiting for. I can’t even begin to count the number of wussy ninjas that have appeared on screen in other movies that have left me waiting in vain for them to just hack somebody in half. If you want bloody, visceral ninja action- this movie delivers that in spades. Unfortunately that is about all the movie delivers. Main character Raizo, as played by actor Rain, will most likely not be nominated for any academy awards anytime soon. He is entirely believable as a killing machine and he manages to pull of this role fairly well.

Overall, this is a very entertaining movie but definitely not for everyone. There is a considerable amount of violence that is not for the squeamish. The bad acting, substandard plot, and over emphasis on action are all the trappings of a B movie, yet the one thing that manages to elevate this movie above that level are its tremendous special effects and action sequences. The movie is worth seeing for the action alone, which to be honest is perhaps the only reason someone would go to watch a movie called ‘Ninja Assassin.’

Surrogates (DVD)

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After watching the trailers for Surrogates, I couldn’t decide whether this was just another rehashed, tired sci fi plot or whether it had the potential to take these familiar elements in a new and unique direction. The movie came and went in theaters without as much as a whimper, but as many people know the time a film spends in theaters isn’t always indicative of the quality of the movie. Surrogates recently arrived on DVD and I decided to check it out. I went in with little to no expectations and sadly I still wound up being dissappointed.

The film starts out very promising with an amazing introductory credits sequence. The opening credits feature a bit of a montage that brings you up to speed with the whole technology behind surrogacy. Surrogacy is when humans use a matrix type chair to control their robotic counterparts, whom they use for all of their interactions in society. The technology was originated for military use in which soldiers could command their robotic counterparts to fight their battles for them, successfully reducing the number of human casualties in wars. Perhaps the single greatest benefit of surrogates is that there is no risk to the human operator. If the surrogate is damaged or destroyed, the operator is left unscathed. In the future, humans have become entirely dependent on surrogates. People have become overly reliant on using their surrogates to go out in the real world and basically live their lives for them.

Not all humans support the use of surrogates. There is a faction of humans who refuse to use surrogates, seeing them as an abomination. They choose to be segregated from ‘mainstream’ society, choosing to live on the outskirts in “human only” areas. When someone starts murdering surrogates, resulting in their individual owners dying as a result, Detective Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is called in to investigate. What starts off as a fairly original take on a familiar premise soon turns into an exercise in uninspired repitition.

While the opening credits showed quite a bit of promise, what follows is a predictable, murder by numbers mystery that is easily given away within the first hour of the movie. There are a few plot twist, but nothing to really make you care about any of the characters. The movie features Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, and throwback villain James Cromwell. Not many will recognize Cromwell by name alone, but once you see his face you’ll immediately identify him with one of his previous “conspiracy” characters. In fact, his character here is incredibly similar to the character he played in the also similar and far superior ‘I-Robot’. Its a pity that Cromwell has been used so often in these type roles, as once he shows up you already almost instantly suspect him of wrong doing. Overall, the acting in this film isn’t bad, but the movie is just the mediocre sum of a bunch of mediocre parts.

I didn’t expect this film to be life changing or anything in fact I had the bar set relatively low. Unfortunately, the movie was way below my already low expectations. Maybe it is because I have seen so many other films with similar ideas that have been executed so much better than Surrogates. I would only recommend this as a rental if you are really looking for something to watch. If not, you may want to wait until it finds its way to cable unless you have a surrogate who can sit down and watch this movie for you.