Sarcastic Movie Reviews

You know, as I sat in gridlock on my way to the movie theatre tonight I realized that if Martians ever decided to invade my city we’d be easier to smoke than a ham in a forest fire. I had to crawl by two fender benders and I’m pretty sure I saw the seasons change as I idled aimlessly in my car.

Serenity now mutherfuckers!!!

The irony didn’t escape me in the first few minutes of the film as the aliens knock out all of the power in New Jersey. Cars stopped, watches stopped and yet Tom Cruise runs home to grab some food and some batteries. Even Martians can’t stop that damn Energizer bunny. It’s nice to know that right before you’re vaporized your vibrator will still be working.

Tom rounds up his children to flee the city and manages to find the only car in New England that is still working because he told the mechanic to “change the solenoid.”

The aliens may have been watching us for millions of years but they obviously never tuned into an episode of “Monster Garage”. Next time they should just put sugar in our gas tanks.

As Tom races onto the highway he finds that people have conveniently pulled their stalled cars off the road or at least left enough room so that he could weave through the tangle of abandoned cars like an Italian skier at the Playboy mansion. Well, I HAVE heard that people in New Jersey are courteous and responsible drivers unlike the bastards here… *ahem*

I have to admit that the first half of this movie is pretty terrifying  (and not in a Tom Cruise on a talk show kind of way).

The aliens lurch along the cities evaporating people and knocking down buildings and  start scooping bodies up for “nefarious deeds.”

Think of a pickup truck filled with rednecks holding flame throwers driving into an open field of chickens. The only difference is that the aliens don’t shout “yee haw.”

For the next hour or so Tom runs from one city to another trying to find something to eat or a place to hide only to find out that the aliens have planned the same vacation as him.

Here’s an idea dipshit. Go into the countryside!! Sheesh, he’s as bad as the guy in the wheelchair going off with the broken flashlight. Besides, when you have the only working car in America it’s a bad idea to drive by swarms of panicked people. You might as well be pushing a hot dog cart through a fat farm.

Tom is a very lucky guy though. If the aliens shoot someone, it’s the guy in front of him, beside him or behind him. If a plane falls out of the sky, it’ll get his neighbour’s house. If he hides in a basement the aliens step on, or set fire to everything around him.

In short, don’t be anywhere near Tom Cruise when the tripods start marching. He’ll be ok but YOUR shit is going up in flames.

I was kind of hoping that they might try a different spin on the ending since we all know how the story plays out but it stays true to H.G. Well’s original plot. At least they didn’t hack into the alien’s computers in the last 15 minutes like that steaming turd of a flick called “Independence Day.”

I hate to admit it, but this was a very good movie. A summer blockbuster for sure.

Lesson one on how to alienate a potential audience for your movie.

Give it a fruity title.

“Cinderella Man” is a movie about a boxer struggling through the great depression trying claw his way back from the edge of the abyss and into a title fight at Madison Square Garden.

So why does it sound like a biopic on Richard Simmons?

Give Sylvester Stallone credit. He knew to enough to call his movie “Rocky” instead of something really gay, like… oh “Sylvester” for example.

Next to the “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” this will be the number two chick flick of the summer because no man I know will be caught dead standing in a line full of people and booming out:

“Yo, gimme two tickets to that Cinderella thing.”

Listen to the tagline:

“When America was on its knees, he brought us to our feet.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I think the marketing department wears tight cut off jean shorts and ribbed undershirts.

The movie is the true story about Jim Braddock, the depression-era fighter and folk hero who fought heavyweight champ Max Baer in a 15-round slugfest in 1935. Fortunately the only ones who remember how the fight ends are sucking steak through a blender, so you unless you’re an idiot and google Jim Braddock you won’t know how it turns out.

The story opens when Jim is nothing but a sperm swimming around in his dad’s nut sack. Well, actually it begins with him as a successful boxer but trust me, by the time you get through this 170 minute monster you’ll think that you’ve been in the theatre since 1935.

What the hell happened to the 2 hour movie? I’m a fidgety guy and I don’t want to be sitting anywhere for two and a half hours unless I’m getting off a plane and there’s a beach waiting for me as I go out of the door.

Jim breaks his hand and is forced to retire right about the same time that the Great Depression hits. Timing is everything of course, and the only work available is working the dock lifting heavy bags. Did I mention that he has a broken hand?

Let’s fast forward through the next hour shall we?

“Daddy, I’m hungry”
“Jim, we’re behind on the bills”
“I can’t get any work”
“Daddy, I’m hungry”
“I love you Jim”
“Daddy, I’m still %$#@ hungry..”

I’m getting the fidgety legs like crazy. Can we get to the action please?

FINALLY, Jim gets a fight. It’s a one time deal but he wins (oh, did I give something away here?), which leads to another fight and another and another.

In between fights Jim goes home to his wife Mae (played by Renée Zellweger) who doesn’t approve of what he’s doing for a living.

Can someone please shoot Renée Zellweger? This woman looks like she was breast fed lemons as a baby. She has two expressions on her face: “Constipated” and “Constipated while eating a sour candy”.

Imagine if she had a baby with Christian Slater? The resulting offspring would be like some black hole in which roughage and fibre couldn’t escape forcing everyone’s colon to explode within a 5 kilometer radius.

Sorry, I got off track.

Basically this movie is “Million Dollar Baby” but without any twists in the plot, or if you prefer, Rocky without the crusty trainer and any twists in the plot, or if you prefer, Oliver Twist except that they beat the hell out of each other.

It’s well acted but really, REALLY long and like a washed up boxer it was beaten to the punch a few months ago when Clint released a better film.

Maybe Ron Howard will release a movie about an alien invasion this Christmas once the buzz from “War of the Worlds” has died down.