Sarcastic Movie Reviews

Apparently the book by Dan Brown has sold 40 million books worldwide. If my math is correct, then that means that if “only” the people who’ve bought the book go to see the movie it should still make about 400 million dollars (give or take a few hundred million).

Why the hell even advertise for this thing?

You could put Ron Jeremy and Star Jones in this movie and you’d still make bazillions.

I wouldn’t be painting a bullet train to look like Tom Hank’s face and running it from London to Paris for a single afternoon that’s for sure. How much did that little stunt cost? 20 million bucks? Do they think that all the sheep that they passed on the way were impressed? Why didn’t they just rent the moon for week and paint the surface to look like the Mona Lisa? Sheeesh.

Ok, let me ask you a question.

Suppose that you had a secret.

The kind of secret that could get your mom killed.

Not just killed, but tortured and killed.

And as long as we’re killing your mom, let’s wipe out your neighborhood as well.

Would you write a poem telling everyone where to go to find your secret?

Do you think that O.J. has a videotape of himself practicing stabbing motions in a balaclava and that he has a painting hanging up somewhere with the combination to the safe holding it?

I’m pretty sure that the BTK killer is saying to himself  “Maybe that last word puzzle was a bad idea.”

Well, that’s basically what “The DaVinci Code” is all about.

The Knights Templar blackmailed the Catholic church into giving them a lot of money and power until one day the Pope got pissed off and had them all snuffed.

Make a powerful organization look stupid and eventually they crush you like a bug.

Who didn’t see that one coming? (well, besides Saddam Hussein).

If you have to tell your secret I always think that it’s best to wait until the guy you’re trying to bring down has enough money to buy South America and then to say it in a painting.

If you haven’t read the book, borrowed the book, watched a documentary on the book, read a newspaper article on the book or was trapped in an elevator with some loser who has the illustrated hardcover edition then I’ll break the story down for you.

A naked guy is killed in “The Louvre” and he writes a coded message in invisible ink on the floor so that his niece (who is a cryptologist for the Paris Police office) and a visiting professor (who is an expert on ancient symbolism) can run around major tourist attractions in Europe yanking paintings off walls and climbing into basements of ancient churches without anyone stopping them.

It’s pretty bloody convenient that the naked guy was killed when the professor was in town eh?

I’m not sure why he wrote a poem in invisible ink, but I know that I always carry around quill pen and some lemon juice just in case I snuff it in a public place.

Ballpoint pen on my genitals is just so tacky.

Most people are so shocked at seeing a naked elderly man laying spread eagle on the floor that they would never say “I’m sorry, but did you say that your niece has a job as a cryptologist for the Paris Police?!!”

Is there really a demand for puzzle solving at major crime scenes?

How many homicides are there in Paris where the only clue is a half solved Sudoku puzzle from the newspaper?

This has got to be a union job.

Far be it for me to slow down this 2 and a half hour movie with logic so let’s get back to the story.

Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou realize that the riddle on the floor is really directions to a painting in another wing of the museum and that painting is really a clue to yet another painting.

Wow, this guy had a lot of time on his hands before dying. Wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler to shove the key up his ass and then just leave it to his niece in a will?

I know that’s what I’m going to do when I go, but that’s just because I’m a sick bastard.

You want your inheritance? Come and get it!!

From that point on it’s a painting telling them to go and visit a cathedral, telling them to go to visit a parish telling them to read a poem and then it’s off to a temple.

Even Mel Gibson doesn’t go to church that much.

If Tom Hanks isn’t reading some ancient scroll, the audience is forced to read subtitles because everyone is either speaking in Latin or in French.

And the big car chase?!!

It’s a freaking Smart Car in reverse.

Crippled guys with crutches subdue homicidal maniacs holding guns, and it only takes a startled pigeon to distract the killer long enough for Tom to run away.

When was the last time a shit hawk freaked you out so much that you forgot to murder someone?

New York would be the safest city on earth if that was true.

I know that some people loved this movie, but the action is laughable, the conspiracy is preposterous and Tom Hanks looks like the choreographer for “Lord of the Dance.”

As long as it is, it’s still less painful than watching Larry King interview yet ANOTHER representative for Opus Dei.

Nowadays animated movies seem to come out faster than cowboys at a Village People concert. Remember when you were 10 and you used to look forward to seeing a cartoon because it was a big deal?

Rocket Robin Hood ROCKED!!

Now that I’m in my late (very late) 30’s, I realize that the thing is 30 seconds long and they just keep inserting that damn song in it over and over.

“Band of brothers, marching together ….”

Mind you, my generation was amused by a freaking spring that fell down the stairs as well so what the hell do I know?

“Over The Hedge” is yet another crappy film in which we see something with big eyes fart while a group of out of work actors get a stupid amount of cash for 20 minutes of actual work.

What’s the difference between them and hookers?

One word.

“Talent” (and I’m NOT talking about the actors).

The cast of “Over The Hedge” includes, Garry Shandling, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Thomas Haden Church, Eugene Levy, Steve Carell, and Bruce Willis sounding EXACTLY like …Garry Shandling, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Thomas Haden Church, Eugene Levy, Steve Carell, and Bruce Willis.

I thought that cartoon characters were supposed to have… uh… CHARACTER!!?

Why are you hiring Gary Shandling to make a turtle sound like Gary Shandling?

This guy’s voice has all of the emotion of an ATM machine.

They even hired Avril Lavigne because clearly there isn’t an actor out there who can use the word “Like” as if it was an adverb, pronoun and adjective all at the same time.

“Like, playing a possum, like, so totally rocks.”

Mel Blanc must be rolling over in his grave.

Did anyone actually enjoy “Madagascar” other than the few scenes with the lemurs or penguins? What did you find funny about the movie “Ice Age?” It was that ratty lookin’ squirrel who doesn’t even have anything to do with the story wasn’t it?

Wake up people!! These movies are nothing but animated shorts with a lot of filler inserted in them.

“With fiery blasts, our roaring rockets rise….”

The story is basically about how a raccoon named RJ pisses off a hibernating bear when he steals all of his food and then has exactly one week to replace everything he stole or else the bear will eat him.

Gary Shandling plays a turtle who leads a band of dim witted outcasts. One day after awakening from hibernation they discover that their forest has been torn down and turned into a housing development. When RJ shows up, Gary becomes upset and jealous as the group becomes enamored with RJ’s antics.

Does this sound a bit like “Toy Story” to you?

RJ scams the group into stealing food for him but something happens along the way…

(all together now)

He discovers that deep down, he really CARES about this group of characters.

Wow, who saw THAT coming?!

Don’t get me wrong. Kids will love this film.

Then again, kids eat paste and blow bubbles of snot out of their noses.

As an adult you’re going to laugh exactly twice.

You’ll smile 8 times and if you’re a man you’ll adjust your nutsack 3 times.

It’s not a bad movie, but it’s just so typical of the animated crap that gets released every 6 weeks.

Is this movie going to become a classic?

Let me put it this way:

“At the sight of Robin, take your stand,
With the gallant leader of our band.
Send a joyous shout throughout the land!
For Rocket Robin Hood!”
 

Remember movies back in the 70’s?

If you went down to the local Bijou, the odds were that the marquee would be showing you something burning, plummeting, exploding, capsizing or there would be a monkey with a rifle riding on a horse.

It wasn’t a pretty time in Hollywood.

I’m half surprised they didn’t make “Escape from the Towering Inferno of the Apes.”

Fast forward 30 years.

Well, we just had a remake of the talking monkey movie so guess what time it is?

For those of you who are disaster film virgins let me explain a few things.

The cast of these films must always (and this is a rule) include a cherub faced little kid with a bowl shaped haircut who has usually has snuck a puppy on board and is hiding it in his sweater when the… ‘ship, plane or building’…‘sinks, plummets or catches fire.’

This is so that his frantic mother can scream when she notices that her kid has run off into the worst possible scenario (i.e. the creakiest most teetering corner of a room that is on fire next to where they store the explosives) to look for his missing pet.

If you ever find yourself in a disaster situation and there’s some gutter urchin in the group then my advice is to handcuff yourself to him.

A comet could streak from the heavens and lay waster to an entire neighborhood and  “little Timmy” will always emerge from his bedroom holding a chew toy and a frisky poodle with little more than a dirty face.

The same of course can’t be said for “the asshole.”

Every disaster movie needs a dickhead.

He’s gonna die, and the only question is how fast, and how gruesome will the demise be?

Fortunately, he’s easy to spot.

He’ll be white (because assholes are never visible minorities), he’ll be Protestant, and he’ll be rich. If he’s poor, then he’ll be a misogynist.

Listen for the New York accent.

Whatever you do, don’t stand next to the asshole because a piano will drop on his head.

Other than that try as much as possible to not have an interesting back story. If someone asks you about yourself, reveal NOTHING.

It’s the guy who has the compelling story that is next in line for the Steinway.

Anyone who has lost a love, or is trying to get home in time to accept a large novelty cheque from “The Publisher’s Clearing House” is a marked man. You want to be the guy who just gives everyone else a boost up the elevator shaft. Let them take the fireball in the kisser when they open the sealed door.

Ok, so everyone understands how a disaster movie works now?

Let’s get into the story.

Big ship. A huge wave hits it. It capsizes.

I’m sorry. Did you want more detail?

The ship has many rooms filled with crystal chandeliers, swimming pools, discos, large dining rooms… pretty much anything that would look really cool when you hang it upside down. There are plenty of corpses in each room and a few of them are impaled on things like the chandelier for effect. There’s also the person who’s still alive and is laying underneath a pile of other guys in tuxedos who thrusts his arm out and grabs someone suddenly.

Since he’s always in these films, I like to give him a name. Let’s call him ”Rufus”.

After the brief introduction of the characters the story focuses on 3 groups.

There’s the gambler who decides that it’s not a great idea to stay in the ballroom with the large glass windows and wants to climb up the boat to the overturned hull. There’s the group of sexy young people trapped in the disco, and finally there’s the captain who seals everyone else in the ballroom with large glass windows.

Did I mention the large glass windows?

You don’t have to be Nostradamus to know where THAT’S going.

I’ve always said that in order to be a successful gambler you must have a bachelor’s degree in naval engineering.  How else do you explain it when a guy can grab a rudimentary cross section diagram of the ship that’s bolted onto the wall and figure out where all of the ballast tanks, air ducts and elevator shafts are located?

The map of McDonald’s Land on a Happy Meal is more detailed than this freaking thing, but he knows what valves to open, what shafts to climb and the atomic weight of the metal in the salad forks.

Meanwhile back in the ballroom…

Ahhh, let’s not go there. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for the intellectually challenged.

Pretty much the rest of the movie is spent opening doors that either lets in more water, a wall of fire, or oily water that’s on fire (geeze, you can’t win for trying), then add in an endless series of narrow escapes by a group of people that have the lung capacity of Lance Armstrong and Dolly Parton and you can roll the credits.

The kid with bowl cut? Don’t worry. He makes it.

Don’t you love master criminals? They’re always trying to destroy the freaking world.

What’s up with that? What’s wrong with simple global domination? You don’t have to kill everyone you psychotic bastard.

Having a sack full of cash doesn’t do you much good if everyone at the Sony Store has their brains leaking out of their ears, plus all of that cheese in the grocery store eventually goes bad.

Well, I guess there just isn’t the same sense of urgency if the bad guy is holding up a liquor store.

Tom Cruise is master spy “Ethan Hunt”.

Actually Tom is the FORMER master spy “Ethan Hunt”. He’s retired now and is planning on getting married.

I’m not giving anything away when I tell you that Ethan’s wife eventually gets kidnapped by the bad guys, because that’s how the movie opens. Well, that and you’d have to be a moron to not see that one coming.

Got a child?

Kidnapped.

Got a pet?

Killed.

Got a partner?

See “Got a pet”.

We all know how these stories play out. What we want to see are cool gadgets, cool explosions and maybe a car chase. If you can write them all into the same scene that’s even better. Bonus points for nudity.

Lately the James Bond franchise has really bored the hell out of me.

Lately is what I call “the last 30 years”.

The villains have sucked, the gadgets are boring and you can only watch a senior citizen bungee jump off something while wearing a tuxedo so many times before you just want to stab the guy at the popcorn stand over and over.

Uh, sorry. I had an incident with some “golden topping” last night and my mind is wandering.

That’s why I liked the first “Mission Impossible” so much. They had exploding chewing gum and a story that was interesting. Unfortunately, John Woo directed the second movie which meant that we were stuck watching his ballet of bullshit for 2 hours.

I’m all for suspending my disbelief for a movie, but I’ll believe that Rob Schneider is actually a male escort before I’ll buy into a scene in which a helicopter explodes and throws Ethan onto the back of a speeding bullet train.

Fortunately, in this version the stunts aren’t totally out of the realm of possibility.

Yeah, yeah, we all know that you can’t jump through a plate glass window without severing an artery, but at least you’re not tackling a guy racing towards you on a motorcycle that’s doing 200 miles an hour.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is such a damn good actor that I can almost forgive the scenes in which he battles Tom in hand to hand combat.

It’s sort of like watching Steven Segal bitch slapping Mike Tyson, but you buy into it.

This is the best movie of the trilogy so far and it’s going to be the movie the beat this summer.

I think I might even become a Scientologist now.