Movie Review Monday

Every Monday from now on I will review movies I have seen in the last week. This week there are 4 movies to be discussed, Blades of Glory, Pursuit of Happyness, The Prestige, and The Illusionist.




The First movie is Blades of Glory with Will Ferrel. I am a big fan of Anchorman and Talladega nights so I was excited to see this movie. I needed a good laugh after a bad Friday. The movie just didn't hook me like the other two movies did. It had some really good laughs but they were few and far between. I agree with my wife that Will and Jon Heder just didn't have a good chemistry to make it work.

Will Arnett was excellent in the film. Amy Poehler was iffy. I just find her better suited for the lame skits on SNL rather than on the big screen. She is an excellent overacter that might pass on SNL but should not be allowed to do it when I have to pay $10 to see it.

Jenna Fischer was the best part of the movie for me. She is so cute. Her and Will were the main reasons I wanted to see this movie and it was well worth it to see the scene between her and Will. I won't spoil it but it was pretty funny.

All in all I would wait till DVD to see this or possibly even wait till it hits HBO or whatever. Cute, funny in spots, but no real cohesiveness to it.


The next film is Pursuit of Happyness


This got a lot of hype when it came out and obviously good enough to get some Oscar nominations. Maybe I was expecting more than what I got. I have to admit I didn't give this movie my full undivided attention. It again, just didn't hook me. Don't get me wrong though, it was an good movie. But many told me it was GREAT and AMAZING and it just fell short in my opinion. But that usually happens to me when movies are hyped up and I wait too long to see them and then I get disappointed.

Will Smith was excellent and his kid, Jaden Smith, was just as good. It's a story about a salesman who is having a hard time making ends meet. His wife leaves him and he takes his kid and starts and internship at Dean Witter. It's a pretty basic movie and doesn't thrown any surprises, just straight to the point. I would see it if you haven't yet, even if you don't think it is the best movie ever, you will still enjoy yourself.

Next on the list is The Prestige


This was a good movie. This was far superior to The Illusionist which I will bash soon enough. This movie was enjoyable from start to finish. The characters were well developed, the actors were good, the writing was great, and even though it through twist after twist at you, when it was over you felt satisfied.

I cannot find anything bad to say about this movie other than I think it was vastly underrated. It seems to me that people either like the Illusionist or this and rarely both. I have to agree 110% with the people that liked this movie over the Illusionist. It did everything right that the Illusionist failed at. So why not get into the Illusionist then...




This might contain spoilers and I will try and warn when it does.

This movie fails on so many levels. The movie crawled at a slow pace and barely kept my attention. It was so slow that it took me 4 or 5 tries to get through it without falling asleep. This movie had so much potential but for some reason it tried way too hard to pull off what it wanted to pull off that it missed the mark by a mile. Watching this and then thinking back on how they tried to set up the twist made me think about the movie The 6th Sense. The formula that M. Night used was attempted here but when it was all said and done it didn't work. When the final twist was presented the motivation of the character who figures it out was missing. It was just a, "okay, this has gone on way too long, we need to wrap this up so let's just show the whole twist and call it a day". And that is exactly how it comes across. There is no rhyme or reason on how Giamatti's character figures it all out when he does.

I like Edward Norton. But I don't like Edward Norton in this. Bad writing and bad directing clearly made this one of his worst performances. He was dull, unemotional, cold, and monotone throughout the movie that it made it painful to watch almost the entire movie.

This movie was a waste of my time and I will say with no reservations that if you haven't seen it yet, do not bother. You didn't miss anything. Unless you are sick and/or have insomnia, then go right ahead and watch it as it will help you sleep.