Mega Mini Movie Reviews!!! February Edition!
By Jessica Dwyer

It’s that time again. Time to catch up on the movies I’ve seen and to bore you with my thoughts on them. With the swell of new flicks just around the bend its time to catch you up on the movies that you’ll have to go to when the new ones are sold out. So without further ado, here’s my Mini Mega Reviews:

Sherlock Holmes:

I loved this flick. Robert Downey Jr. conveys the snarky, action oriented Holmes perfectly. He and Jude Law have a great chemistry which Guy Ritchie made sure to get right before the cameras rolled.

The film is a throwback, at least to me, to the old school period action flicks (Time After Time and Young Sherlock Holmes are two fine examples as is the ORIGINAL Wild Wild West TV series). It was very prettily filmed, had a nice plot (that could have used 100 percent more Moriarty) and an amazing score.

We already know that a sequel is in the works which I hope will fix that lack of Moriarty problem. But the rumors of Brad Pitt being the arch-enemy of the detective were just that, rumors. I personally put my vote in for Peter Serafenowicz or Anthony Head.

If you can’t get into Avatar or Alice due to the 3D theater being full, go to this instead. You’ll be glad you did.

Daybreakers:

Another good one. The movie hides the message of mankind’s devouring of resources and its impact on itself and the planet and transforms it into a tale of vampiric plague. It works well, and the filmmakers don’t try to hide it. It’s plain to see for everyone. But the movie makes no pretense about what it is either. Its fangs and blood and splatter mixed in with some black humor and that’s what makes it a fun ride.

Sam Neil steals most of the show alongside Willem Dafoe as the two best characters, both on opposite sides of the battle for humanity. The special EFX are good and the visuals are slick. The film is made by the same brother directing team behind the zombie flick Undead. And that same style comes through in this flick.

Worth a look if you are in the mood for a fun vampire film sans sparkles.

Avatar:

Really, do I need to say see it? Just go already.

Book of Eli:

I was sadly disappointed by this one. While it’s a solid film, there are just too many instances of nothing happening. It drags and there are only so many instances of walking along a post-apocalyptic landscape you can take.

Denzel Washington is stolid as the man with the book. But he’s not really stretched to do much more character wise than we’ve seen before. He could do this part on autopilot. Gary Oldman does a good job with a character that with a lesser actor would have been just window dressing. But he brings nuances and depth to the part, once again showing why even though he would look like a plucked chicken naked (his own words and I disagree) he plays some of the best villains out there.

The story is a worthy one, but in the end it becomes a bit of a rip off. It does have a nice twist, but…it just sort of ends. I feel there could have been more there, and I would have liked to learn more of the world it took place in. But sadly that didn’t happen.

Legion:

Oh…wow. Well I went into this film really wanting to like it. But what I had expected to be a Prophecy redo turned into…I don’t know what it was.

Doug Jones minute and a half cameo was the best part of the film. I’m not sure what happened with the script and I don’t think the filmmakers really knew either. It became a cobbled together mish mash of things that didn’t make much sense, and dialog that made me ache for a Lifetime movie of the week or even better, a SyFy special presentation. Other than the brilliant idea of casting Paul Bettany as an angel, I’m not sure what motivated the people behind the film into actually making it.

It’s sad because the movie I saw in the trailer looked FAR better than what wound up on screen. These Legions of angels never really show up to attack the girl and her unborn child. It’s really just the one angel with the roto-mace. And the amount of just insane, crazy randomness of deaths and the actions that the characters take defies belief.

I really don’t know what they wanted to do with this film. Actually, I sort of do. I think it was supposed to have a positive message behind it. But characters who are flatter than a pancake in terms of development and a plot that veers away from its own logic (and its own genre) every five seconds does not make a good film or a happy viewer. If I sound confused, just think what the movie itself is like.