Sarcastic Movie Reviews

Wolfie Wolfie Wolfie… how we missed you (and by “We” I mean the executives at 20th Century Fox).

Who doesn’t love the tale of an ass kicking character that suffers from amnesia? It opens up all sorts of sequels in which you can sort of hint about what happened without ever actually telling us the full story.

Heck if you name is Jason Bourne you can drag it out over three films…ooorrrr you can just blow your load in one giant special effects crap-fest and get it over with like they did with “Wolverine”.

Here’s a hint though whenever someone with amazing powers can’t remember who they are.

The government did it!!

Wolfie is one of those movies in which it probably makes more sense if the AUDIENCE is suffering from amnesia though, because if you actually stopped for three seconds at any point in the story to maybe mull things over, your head would detach itself from your shoulders and run into the lobby begging for someone to take it to see that Disney documentary about baby bears and spawning fish.

So, let’s begin at the beginning (hey… at least I’m going to try and be logical).

It seems that “James Logan” was born sometime around the mid 1800’s and life really sucks back then.

First of all the kid is sick.

Then his dad is killed for some reason that isn’t really explained, and when James kills the man who killed his father he learns that he actually killed his father (who really killed his step father).

On top of it all he did it with a nifty set of bone claws that sprung out of his hands and it only takes 30 seconds for the town to form a vigilante group and go after him (I guess this was the first gated community).

Fortunately, James is not alone.

He is accompanied by his half brother ”Victor Creed” who just has regular claws and not the “Tommy Lee” version that sticks out by a foot.

Both brothers are immortal, or at least have stopped growing older at around the age of FORTY which seems curious as personally I would have picked twenty six as a good time to stop the clock.

My hair was thicker and my bone claws… were a little … um… “bonier” back then.

Anyway it appears that the only job that two immortal savages can get over the years is “professional soldier.”

Does it concern any of their buddies that these two guys can take a bullet without getting killed or that they tend to bound like cats into the enemy’s trench?

Nahhhh…

More importantly though, I’d like to know who the idiots are that insist of running BESIDE them into battle?!!

Me?

I’d be like: “Yo.. Victor… I’m riiiiight behind you” because I can’t think of a safer position to be in than about ten minutes behind the bullet proof guy with huge claws.

Come to think of it, why even HAVE an army?

James? Victor? Would you mind killing that chap “Hitler” for us? That’s a good old boy. Pip pip and huzzah and all that. We’ll meet you at the polo grounds at eleven for some tea and crumpets wot?

Anyway, after a hundred years or so of killing the enemy (they did a pretty shit job in Vietnam if I might interject) Victor starts to become a little unglued.

He LIKES killing people.

Sure this sounds a lot like “The Comedian’s” shtick from “The Watchmen”, but the difference here is that Wolverine is the one chomping on the cigar, and not the psychopathic Victor.

See? They’re not exactly the same at all!!

Fast forward a few years and now James and Victor are part of an elite team of mutants who go around killing foreigners for a secret branch of the military.

When Victor finally takes it too far, James walks away but Victor chillingly says “You can’t walk away James” (which is the comic book version of subtle foreshadowing).

A few years have passed (not that you’d notice it from looking at the immortal guy with giant claws) and James has built himself a totally inconspicuous log cab at the very top of a mountain with running water and electricity and is living with his uber hot teacher girlfriend.

Hey, since when do logging camps have a school system set up at the base of their clear cutting operations?

I guess when Stan Lee (or whomever) wrote the comic book, they sort of misunderstood what a lumber company does because there’s an entire community in the thick lustrous forest that the lumber company hasn’t gotten around to cutting down yet.

Imagine how pissed you’d be when you fnally got your whole town set up and then the next day you opened your curtains and you were looking at forty square miles of stumpage?

The best (and I mean BEST) part of the movie is when James’ white girlfriend tells him an ancient native story about why the moon is so lonely.

It seems that her lover was tricked into coming to earth and now he can’t go back to her, so he howls at the moon in despair every night like a wolverine.

Uh… except that wolverines are basically a cross between a weasel and a bear, and they don’t howl at the moon.

That would be a wolf and not a wolverine you shmucks.

Holy crap, who wrote this story?!!

It sounds like something an Italian guy dreamed up while banging a hooker in a Vegas casino.

I’m surprised that Canada wasn’t spelled with a “K”.

Well, back to the story.

One day James’ former commander shows up to warn him that his former squad mates have been showing up dead.

Let’s scare the immortal guy with tales of people dying!!

Hey, I have another story for you and it involves a grilled cheese sandwich that was left on the dashboard of a Lexus.

As I said before… it helps to dead from the eyebrows up while watching this.

So, to speed this review along a bit, Victor shows up and kills James’ fake native girlfriend for absolutely no reason and when James gets beaten in a fight with him, the military decides that the best thing to do to an immortal guy is to infuse his skeleton with “space metal” so that he’s even more indestructible.

Are these the same assholes who trained Osama Bin Laden how to use a rocket launcher? I think so.

Well… anyway, just as the final drop of “adamantium” (named for Adam West  I hope) has bonded to his skull, Colonel Stryker announces in a clear voice that it’s probably a great time to betray Wolverine which sort of upsets the guy with the newly forged METAL claws.

In one of the great moments of stupidity in film history Wolverine, rather than saying “Hey… I’m indestructible and the asshole who wants to kill me is twenty five feet away” flees naked into the woods (that never seem to get cut down) where his presence promptly leads to the death of two innocent senior citizens who give him sweet looking leather jacket and motorcycle.

Vowing revenge, Wolverine tracks down some of his former colleagues and learns of a mysterious “island” that Stryker works out of.

There is only one man who knows about “The Island” and it’s Ewan MacGregor’s former agent who was fired after convincing his client that it was a can’t-miss summer blockbuster.

Oh wait, that was a “different” stupid movie.

Uh.. Oh ya.. the man who managed to escape from the island is named “Gambit” and if you ask me he didn’t escape, but rather they kicked his lame ass out because as mutants go he’s only slightly more menacing than Richard Simmons.

What can Gambit do? 

Check it:

As a mutant, Gambit is skilled in card throwing, hand-to-hand combat, and the use of a staff.

Card throwing?!! 

Can he guess my weight while he’s at it?

Wow, who would win in a fight between Wolverine and Gambit?

The indestructible guy with claws made out of space steel, or the guy who can nick your bottom with the ten of hearts?

I look forward to when Wolverine battles the guy who make balloon animals.

Annnyway… I probably shouldn’t go into this any more just in case you actually want to see it.

Somehow if you can manage to just completely not question anything (and I mean ANYTHING) it’s a passable summer action flick.

Sure it’s stupid, but I’m sure you can make a drinking game out of it somehow.

So, I’ll give it three claws out of five.

Man, I tell you, there’s NOTHING that gets me more excited when I’m thumbing through the newspaper ads looking for a movie to see and I come across an adaptation of some “Dostoevsky”.

Does it get any better than that?

“Two Lovers” is an adaptation of “White Nights”, that famous short written in 1848 that still flies off the shelves at pretentious bookstores everywhere.

If this isn’t the perfect story to adapt then I don’t know what is.

Sure, some of you might prefer reading about cloned dinosaurs or a Vatican conspiracy, but for me it’s all about “a nameless narrator who lives alone in a city and suffers from loneliness and the inability to stop thinking.”

Where the hell is my Lithium?

First the good news.

After reading that set up, we can safely conclude that Paris Hilton will NOT be appearing in the movie.

An added bonus is for those of you who wondered what Gwyneth Paltrow’s boobs look like (all that I’m going to say is that you’ll be 50% satisfied), and for those of you who wondered what Joaquin Phoenix’s boobs look like… well, let me just say that they’re only slightly smaller than Gwyneth’s.

Now unfortunately I also have some bad news.

Russian existentialism is about as much fun as a family reunion at the Charles Manson ranch.

The movie opens with Leonard (Phoenix) attempting to commit suicide, but chickening out only after he’s jumped into the harbour and has to be rescued.

Naturally it’s a gloomy autumn day (do they have Summer in Russian literature?) and thus, wet and humiliated, Leonard shuffles home which turns out to be his parent’s run down apartment in the bowels of Brooklyn.

There’s nothing like a thirty eight year old suicidal loser who still lives with his parents to bring in the crowds during a recession eh folks?

Anyway, Leo has attempted this sort of thing before, but his elderly parents are more concerned that he gets cleaned up because they’re having “dinner guests” who are VERY interested in buying the dry cleaning business from them.

Now, I know in the past that I’ve complained about how no one in movies ever has a regular boring old job (they’re always architects, or lawyers, or executive chefs on Air Force One) but we’re ten minutes into the story and I would have given my left nut to see a drafting table in the corner.

All that was missing was a diseased cat siting on a broken wheelchair.

Things get a bit better when “Sandra” (Vinessa Shaw) shows up as the sexy daughter of the “would be purchasers” of the business and confesses that she came along to dinner because she secretly has a crush on Leo.

Being an avid amateur photographer, he takes her into his room to show her some photos that he’s taken.

Now we’re talking!

Who hasn’t used that line on the ladies at least once in their lives?!!

Ya, I’m a “photographer”. Why don’t you come up to my room and I can show you my equipment? Oh what a surprise… there seems to be a bucket of ice cooling a bottle of wine beside the tripod. Why is that some Barry White on the turntable? What are the odds?!!

Ya, well… forget that.

This loser blows a golden opportunity to shag a girl while her parents are in the other room, because he has a framed photo of his ex fianceé beside his bed next to the facial tissues.

What? He has scars on his wrist as well?

Well, get in line Leo because I’m starting to look for something sharp in my bag of popcorn because I think I might join you.

Somehow Sandra isn’t spooked by the depressed loser who lives with his parents and the two make a date to go out.

Hey, what a depressing Russian love story without some complications eh?

No sooner has Sandra left when Leo’s bumps into his new hot blonde neighbour Michelle (Paltrow) who has a bus ticket to “crazytown”.

Leo falls madly in love with Michelle who is having trouble with her boyfriend (a married lawyer cheating on his wife) and things get bleaker and more pathetic as the movie rolls along.

How many sides can a love triangle have anyway? Is this a love hexagon?

All that I know is I’ve never cared less for a group of people in my life.

Leo is a loser, in love with a loser who is in love with a asshole, and is loved by a loser who can’t see what an asshole Leo is.

Is there a documentary on the seal hunt, or cancer that I can watch? I could use some laughs.

So here’s the deal.

The movie is well acted and if bleak, grey depressing movies about a pack of bleak, grey depressing losers is your bowl of borscht then do I have a movie for you!!

For everyone else who is not taking a “film appreciation” course at the local community college I’m going to have to warn you against seeing this.

I’ll give it a three razor blades to the wrist out of five.

Anyone else need a drink after seeing this?

People were SHOCKED a few weeks ago to hear that Stephen Hawkings had been rushed to the hospital with an undiagnosed illness that threatened to end his life.

Do you want to know what REALLY happened?

Stephen saw an advanced screening of Star Trek and fell to the floor while attempting to pull the hair out of his head.

Screw science. You want reality? There are fat people sitting beside you carrying broomsticks painted silver with the words “Klingon Pain Stick” written in red magic marker so that it looks like dripping blood.

Just wait. In fifteen years the Harry Potter losers will make these guys look cool!!

This was a battle for ‘Style over Substance‘, and Style showed up looking like Chuck Liddel in biker gear, whereas Substance had a yoga mat and some Lululemon tights.

Let me give you an example.

Very early on in the movie a young James Tiberius Kirk is speeding down a dusty Iowa road in a vintage Corvette Convertible while being pursued by a highway patrolman on a “hover bike”.

The nerds gave out a throaty cheer as Jim sped towards the Grand Canyon a la Thelma and Louise while I sat there and thought to myself:

“Hang on… if there are hover bikes then why the hell are they still paving roads?”

I think Style bitch slapped Substance and told him to sit down or the next one was going to be a boot to the nads.

I’m kind of curious though.

Why is this series called “Star Trek” when every single freaking story is about “time travel”?

I guess “Time Travel Trek” is more accurate but then Style showed up cracking walnuts in his hands and Substance hid behind the frogurt machine.

Personally, I’m just happy that they didn’t discover “Data’s head” in a cave somewhere.

I guess Brent Spinner has finally reached the age when all of the CGI effects and and Vaseline can’t hide the fact that he looks fifty seven now and not Twenty six.

So much for the ageless android!!

If you’ve ever seen the original series then you will LOVE this movie.

Every cliché, every facial tic, every plot line that was sort of mentioned in passing  now has a dedicated team of seventeen writers working tirelessly on a joke that might explain it (or at least exploit it).

I think the only thing I didn’t see were Styrofoam rocks and Tribbles.

Oh how the nerds jiggled with joy when a guy in the landing party showed up wearing a red shirt.

Wait a second…. where’s Style?

He’s getting a prescription filled with Manny Ramirez?

PERFECT… let’s get Substance in here because he wants to apologize for a gianormous plot hole that even Helen Keller couldn’t miss.

So, if a black hole is really just a portal through time, then technically if you created a black hole in the middle of a planet, wouldn’t that just “move” the planet to a week from Tuesday instead of destroying it?

Ok. We’ll let that one go.

Maybe this gravity crushing force of physics needs a snack before the doors open up.

There’s something else that’s bugging me.

For a cosmic anomaly that swallows everything (including light) I’d just like to say that it works about as fast as a postal worker on a civic holiday.

“Hey man, there’s like… a black hole forming in your planet dude. You like… have twenty minutes to get the hell off the planet…Oh and can you bring me a bean burrito before you go?”

And why does farting in the direction of a black hole give you just enough thrust to push your free of the event horizon?

Farting… detonating a warp core. Really, the results would be the same wouldn’t they?

This thing EATS LIGHT.

I don’t think setting off a few firecrackers is going to help.

Oh shit… Style just came home. Everyone look busy.

Um… here’s a quick Winona Ryder joke to change the subject:

When I heard that Winona landed a role in the film I was sure that the plot was going to be about someone stealing the Enterprise.

bwahahahahahahaha.…. sniff….I kill me.

Ok, so the plot in a nutshell is that some Romulans have traveled back in time so that they can destroy the planet Vulcan and then destroy the planet Earth.

It doesn’t matter why, it only matters that we get to hear Chekov say “Wulcan” about fourteen thousand times.

How come a mining ship is armed to the teeth like the freaking Death Star you ask?

Well because as long as you’re going to “borrow” a few ideas from another successful science fiction movie, you might as well bring a big shopping bag to steal as much as you can carry.

Winona… can you come in here please?

There’s a WHOLE lot of “Star Wars” raping going on in this film from the jumping spinning light saber duels, to the nail biting showdowns on the Death Star’s precarious “catwalks” (honestly… would it kill you to put some handrails on the precarious catwalks? How about you just do away with them altogether and build some floors?!!), to the saber toothed snow beasts that chase you into an ice cave on the planet Hoth, and to the Ewok engineering mascot that doesn’t talk as much as it makes funny monkey sounds.

George Lucas is going to be PISSED.

Well, that’s if he can pull himself away from masturbating in front of a mirror long enough to see this.

Still… I gotta say… despite the dodgy science, the (cough) homage to Star Wars and the thirty minutes of actual plot (filled in with ninety minutes of character back story), this is actually a fun movie worth seeing even if you aren’t wearing Superman underwear and Devo style sunglasses.

I’ll give it four stars out of five.

And Winona… it’s good to have you back even if you aren’t wearing a tight sweater (but next time wear a tight sweater).