Sarcastic Movie Reviews

This latest installment makes “The Ring” look like the feel good movie of 2002.

I still have a problem with Christian Bale being Batman, and it’s not because he’s not a good actor. It’s because he has a freaking speech impediment.

Is it a lisp? I’m not quite sure, but if there is another living actor that it’s more recognizable from the nose down then his name must be Daffy Duck.

Here’s how a typical exchange between Batman and a criminal would go down in Gotham if Christian Bale was really The Batman.

“Thtop evil doer, or elth I’ll toth you into the thee.”

“Heyyyy….You sound an awful lot like that millionaire with the lisp, Bruce Wayne.”

“That’s just a coninthadenth.”

“Ok Brooth, whatever you say.”

Batman either needs a speech coach or he needs that mask to cover his whole face because merely talking with a deeper lisp ain’t gonna cut it.

Anyway, let’s not get bogged down with casting choithes… er… choices.

The movie opens with “Scarecrow” (from the previous movie) trying to make a drug deal with a local crime lord, when from the shadows a group of fat men dressed like Value Village versions of Batman attempt to stop the illegal transaction.

It seems that Batman is inspiring imitators and when things start to go bad for the part time crime fighters, it’s up to the real McCoy to swoop in and save them from themselves, which of course only pisses the vigilantes off.

“How come you get to save all of the bad guys?” they whine, not taking into account that Batman has a three hundred million dollar budget not to mention his extensive martial arts training.

We’re not talking about Georges St. Pierre wearing a balaclava here people. Batman has a sweet ride with more gadgets in it than Bill Gate’s iPhone (oh, you KNOW he has one).

Anyway, there’s the phenomena going on lately with the super hero movies that’s getting annoying.

I call it the “ungrateful bastard” syndrome.

Some guy in a suit saves your bacon, but because (in the ensuing battle) your car gets wrecked or your Aunt Tilley gets squashed by falling masonry, you blame the guy who was fighting the psycho in the giant robotic spider.

Ya, because if he had just ignored him things would have been SO much better eh?

That’s basically the main story in “Batman, The Dark Knight.”

The Joker is played brilliantly by Heath Ledger and unlike Jack Nicholson’s previous version, JK is a total psycho. We’re talking whack job. Nutter. This is the kind of guy who put kittens in the microwave.

The Joker isn’t interested in money. He wants to prove that people are as ugly inside as he is outside.

His excuse for blowing up hospitals?

It’s Batman’s fault for not revealing his true identity.

Naturally, the city turns on Batman as the body count climbs and they demand that he unmasks.

Ok, so once he goes public and the Joker (or The Penguin, or Shaka Khan for that matter) kills him, are things going to get better?

The movie should have been called “Backstabbing Bastards who Betray the Batman” because for the next two and a half hours it’s a non stop betrayal orgy.

Anytime someone goes out for a coffee a bomb is planted in their briefcase.

Toilets explode. Halloween apples are filled with razor blades. Ontario convenience store clerks steal you lottery tickets. Madonna takes in a baseball game or two.

You can’t trust no-one!!

Actually it gets to be a bit much.

How does the Joker kidnap all of these people, rig bombs all over the city, plant poison, steal an eighteen wheeler or two (filled with rocket propelled grenades) and no one notices a guy in pancake makeup with a horribly disfigured face?

The answer is “who cares?”

This is a movie that needs to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Rhode Island.

It looks great, the performances are top notch and the stunts are fantastic.

Iron Man was fun. Batman is disturbing. Both are great films.

In the end though, I have to deduct one point for length of film and way too much treachery. One dirty cop is acceptable. Two is stretching it a bit. Seven thousand dirty cops?

What is this… New York?

Four out of five.

I think we should take this phenomenon to the next level.

Fight every living organism on the planet.

You start off slow, maybe have the Hulk battle something like hayfever and then you gradually ramp it up.

“Hulk SMASH goldenrod!!”

But as usual I’m getting off topic.

In case anyone missed the first “Hellboy”, imagine combining “Men In Black” with “Xmen”, which would make it, “Xmen in Black”, or “Men in Xmen”.

I can see the gay porno industry casting the film now.

Anyway, what you have here is a secret organization of mutants that the government uses to battle monsters that live undetected amongst us.

Trolls… Aliens… all that you need is the correct set of eyewear and all will be revealed.

A quick word of warning though, don’t buy your Troll finding glasses from an ad in the back of a comic book. My Xray specs worked like crap, I couldn’t beat up anyone on the beach after two weeks, and my Sea Monkeys looked like bacteria that was scraped from the armpit of a Pilipino fisherman.

Hellyboy 2 was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro which of course means that all of the creatures have their eyeballs in their hands, or their wings or their asses.

Guy (can I call you Guy?)… It was pretty cool in “Pan’s Labyrinth”, but it’s getting old. If there are sightless monsters in your next film I will sentence you to spend 3 years in Japan working on one of those big eyed anime cartoons with M. Night Shyamalan (and it can’t have a twist ending).

Instead it appears that Gilly must have spent a summer or two chugging Slimfast at Peter Jackson’s house because the story in Hellboy 2 sounds a wee bit familiar.

See if this brings back any memories:

“A terrible war waged between the ancient race of Elves and Man. A Troll creates a remorseless army of indestructible metallic robots to help the Elvin King, but after the battle the king breaks his crown into three pieces and scatters them across the world. Whoever collects the three missing pieces of the crown will rule the world.”

Rings, pieces of a crown… those damn elves are always creating something magical and then tossing them around like confetti hoping that no one will be able to find the missing parts.

Here’s an idea you long eared freaks. Melt the crown at the BEGINNING of the movie. No crown? No problem.

Too obvious? Then turn the magical items into Abba. No one can put them back together!!

Badum bum. Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal!!

You know what else is getting old? The old reversal treasure map thing.

You can be jet skiing around a water filled planet, Kung Fu fighting with talking snow leopards or jamming an amulet onto the end of a stick, and the freaking map never actually points to where the treasure is unless you roll it in cookie dough or look at it in a mirror.

Like a vintage wine that’s been stored in a piñata, this cliché has been time tested and beaten to death.

I love the part where the bad guys go off running in the wrong direction looking for the treasure. Even a drunken tourist could figure out that Alaska isn’t on the east coast or North America.

Wait, you mean that lake that’s to the left of the mountain is actually to the RIGHT of the mountain? But, I’m standing beside a similarly shaped body of water in the exact same location over here!!

Find me a totally symmetrical country with circular landmarks and I’ll buy it, but until treasure hunters go looking for something in the land of Tetris it’s time to think of something else.

Well, in that Gitmo Del Tuba is a fanboy’s wet dream with all of the monsters, and the creatures and the “Hey ladies” (you really have to read that line like you’re Jerry Lewis), I have to ask one simple question.

Have you TOTALLY run out of fresh visual ideas? It’s bad enough that I have to look at a bunch of rejects from Pan’s Labyrinth with the eyes in the hands, or the wings or the “hey ladies” (really, the Jerry Lewis voice thing is golden. Try it at parties.), but did you have to resurrect “Kuato” from “Total Recall”?

It’s hard to forget a guy that’s growing out of someone’s stomach even it was twenty years ago.

And Kuato? You’re looking younger than ever. I can’t wait for your next buddy movie with Jackie Chan called “Chernobyl Tuxedo.”

Here’s a question I can’t figure out.

Is Hellboy is indestructible or not?

Somewhere in-between fighting tooth fairies, plant elementals, and trolls, and while getting tossed through walls, and buildings and (you thought I was going to say “hey ladies” didn’t you?) mechanical gears all that ever happens to Hellboy is he loses a cigar.

Ya, but then there’s this scene where he has a scratch on his face and he’s acting like a big baby.

I’m confused. My brain was so numb from special effects that I must have missed the face scratching scene.

Oh wait, he gets stabbed in the chest too.

Well damn. Now I have no idea what the hell is going on.

By the way, I thought that the “tooth fairies” got their name because they ate a person’s teeth first, yet I clearly saw them devour a guy down to the skeleton and he had his teeth intact!!

So much for continuity bitch.

I could go on but really this movie is nothing but a special effects orgy.

We’ve seen the story before (in many different versions), seen the special effects before, and for a wise cracking super hero he was a lot wittier in the first version (Bruce Campbell would kick his ass… “Say hello to my BOOM STICK.”)

It’s a pretty mediocre summer fare and it’s about thirty minutes too long.

I give it three stars out of five.

These are the stories that are so incredibly stupid that you could say something like “Suddenly they ride the elastic band from a giant pair of underwear to safety” and it would fit right in.

Somewhere in the Hollywood hills there is a neighborhood of mid level mansions that people like Pauley Shore inhabit. Perhaps your neighbor is the guy who invented Blu Blockers. I call these places “The house that Deuce Bigalow built.” They’re nicer than anything you or I could hope to buy, but you’ll never find Will Smith slumming it here.

Well, guess who just moved in? Brendan “I have no career without The Mummy” Fraser!!

“Journey” is one of those films in which an older “father” figure is saddled with the surly teen who resents being force to put down his iPod for 2 seconds so that he can grunt out a greeting to anyone.

In other words, a kid that any normal parent would slap manners into instead of just grinning at like a spineless stripper wired on crack.

I have a great idea for a reality show.

Take the surly kid from “The Spiderwick Chronicles”, and put him on an island with the surly kid from “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and maybe add in the surly kid from “Are We There Yet?” and see how long it takes before monkeys climb out of the trees and beat them to death with a mango.

The best part about this genre of film is how quickly an incompetent guardian will take them on an adventure to a tropical island, a drug infested ghetto, or some laboratory with volatile chemicals that are slowly cooking next to the soda machine.

Me? I’d do what every other babysitter does. Order a pizza, rent a video game, and give them a shot or two of grape flavored Nyquil.

I’ll be back on Tuesday you snot faced brat!!

I won’t bore you with the pointless details, but basically Brendan is a volcanologist whose brother disappeared ten years ago. One day (while looking after his dead brother’s nephew) there is some activity that is similar to the events that happened a decade ago so (naturally) he packs everyone up and flies to Iceland to “investigate.”

Didn’t your brother disappear the last time? Do you think bringing his only child to the exact spot under the same conditions is a good idea?

That’s like a group of Hillbillies rebuilding a still after the last batch of corn mash exploded, and placing the nursery next to the hissing copper pipes.

Yeee haw!!

Now, what’s an adventure without a hot chick to either fall down while running away from danger, or to save the surly kid when HE trips while running away from danger?

You KNOW that someone is going to trip sometime (damn those unsightly cankles).

Insert the prototypical “daughter of the guy who has (or had) all of the answers”.

Depending on the cliché, she’s either there because she’s actually smarter than her scientist dad, or because she knows the location of the cave, or the probe, or probe in the cave, or the cave that’s beside the probe.

I just like saying “probe”. It sounds like a cape that the Pope wears.

Annnyway…Look for her to get wet at some point in the movie.

Mmmmm… clingy scientist’s daughter’s shirt.

My parabola shifted just thinking about it.

Faster than you can say “Don’t touch that button” disaster strikes and the hot chick, the hero and the annoying kid all fall down a deep chasm into the center of the earth.

Fortunately their decent is slowed by water and instead of finding their limbs yanked off like a test dummy on Mythbusters, we get our first introduction to the moistened scientist’s daughter scene that will be repeated later on (but without the annoying rucksack and lab coat).

When I think of the center of the earth I think of lava, but even without the molten inner core, I’m thinking “dark” right?

You know what I’m not expecting to see?

Gentle breezes, glowing sunsets and palm trees.

All that was missing was a RUI hotel and Mexican pool boy.

This place had better beaches than Cuba (better food I can understand, but better beaches?!!).

Hang onto your empanda gringo, because all is not well at “Occidental Underground “ (and I’m not talking about watered down drinks).

It seems that the molten mantle of the earth is rising again and temperatures will soon get to the point where everything will be cooked.

How will our heroes get back to the surface?!!

Well, since physics pretty much went out the window at their arrival, how about by riding a steaming geyser to the surface?

Wouldn’t that just cook you?

Not if you ride a giant dinosaur’s skull to the surface, it won’t.

Wait a minute. Didn’t you just say that all living things get cooked down here on a regular basis?

How come there are sea monsters, fish, dinosaurs and glowing birds everywhere?

Don’t even get me started on the underground thunderstorms.

Mind you, this is also a place where you can paddle a giant skull boat to get around.

Aren’t there EYE HOLES at the bottom of the skull boat?

Boats and soup bowls are two things at the top of my list called “Things that skulls aren’t very good for” (bowling balls are totally kosher though).

So is anything good about the movie? Well, if you’re watching it in 3D you get free Buddy Holly glasses.

Of course if you’re NOT watching it in 3D then you’re going to wonder why the characters spend so much time spitting water at the camera and dropping things like Michael J. Fox at a dinner party.

I rate this movie two waterproofed skulls out of five (one skull if you watch the non-3D version).

It almost makes me want to see the version with Rick Schroder and Peter Fonda!!

Nothing annoys me more than watching a story where a star gets paid a bazillion dollars to sound like themselves. Does anyone think that Hank Azaria actually speaks with an Indian accent in real life? Then tell me why the hell an overweight Chinese panda should sound like an overweight American actor?

Praise the lord and hallelujah!! My prayers have been answered.

Let me ask you a question?

Who stars in Wall-E?

Exxxxxxxxxactly!!!

No one.

Well no one as far as we know.

You’ll have to stick around and read the credits if you want to find out who croaks the words “Walllllllleeeee or Eeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvah”, (which by the way are about the only things he says).

Ok, so the little bastard looks like cross between “ET” and the robot from “Short Circuit” and the story is about a post-apocalyptic earth.

Unless the Statue of Liberty is half buried on a beach, we’re all pretty bored with the concept, but what the hell.

This movie is about the story and we can forgive it, if it rips off some stuff we’ve seen before.

At least the robot doesn’t sound like “Mini Me” which is a total surprise.

Guess what else is missing?

Pop culture references!!

Wow, what a concept. You mean there aren’t any jokes about American Idol, Paris Hilton, or anything else that will make the film unwatchable in twenty years?!!

Wow, so this movie will be timeless in a way that Shrek won’t be!

Basically this story is about how R2D2 (call him what you want, he’s R2D2) and C3PO finally get their robot love thang goin’ on.

Admit it, you always thought that those Star Wars robots bickered like a married couple (and trust me… the gold one was the bitch).

Wall-E is the last functioning robot on the planet and it’s his job to clean things up until mankind decides to return.

Somewhere along the line, Wall-E developed emotions and now he ends each lonely day watching an old musical on a VHS tape he discovered in the garbage.

With nothing but a solitary cockroach as a pet he longs for companionship, or dare I say… love.

Hang on. I need a facial tissue. I’m getting all choked up.

Anyway, one day Eve lands on the planet and Wall-E falls for her like a lonely robot on a barren planet.

Wait, I can think of a better description than that…

uh… ah, nevermind.

Of course Eve is all business at first (like a little naughty robot librarian), but Wall-E knows just the right buttons to push (insert Cleveland’s voice right now… “Allllll Riiiight”).

Anyway, Eve is basically a probe that’s looking for signs of life and when she finds it she returns to the mother ship leaving Wall-E behind.

Or does she?

The chase is on!!!

This is a charming film, with an original story and it’s the best animated film I’ve seen since “Monster House.”

I have to give it five out of five stars.

Oh wait… that’s not right… lol