Film

Spoiler alert

The Cabin in the Woods

After sitting on shelves and gathering dust for three years, The Cabin in the Woods has finally made it to movie screens. You know something really strange is afoot when a movie called The Cabin in the Woods, billed as a horror film, starts with two guys having a water cooler conversation about childproof cabinets. When sitting down for this one, be prepared for something very different. This crazy rule-bender comes from writer/director Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon, the father of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and hero to many a geek. It’s quite clever, maybe even a little too clever at times. The setup sees a typical sampling of college students getting ready for a vacation at the lake. They are Curt the Jock (Chris Hemsworth, a.k.a. Thor!), Dana the Almost Virgin (Kristen Connolly), Jules the Whore (Anna Hutchison), Holden the Hot Nerd (Jesse Williams) and Marty the Wisecracking Stoner (Fran Kranz). Meanwhile, we see those two water cooler guys, Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford) heading to work at the same time as the kids are heading to the lake. While their workstation looks like the control room of a factory or power plant, their job tasks consist of a lot more than button pushing. Even though the film, more or less, lets you know what the two men are up to, I won’t reveal it here. Just because the revelation is a fast one in the movie, doesn’t mean some stupid movie critic should let you know it before you sit down in your seat. On the way to their vacation spot, the gang, of course, meets the tobacco-chewing hick who owns a gas station and speaks ominously of

where they are going. The Harbinger (Tim De Zarn) later takes part in the film’s best joke. The cabin where the group vacations looks like it is straight out of Sam Raimi’s original The Evil Dead. And, to no true horror fan’s surprise, it has a basement full of creepy things. The students pick up what appear to be different horror film artifacts—a dusty diary, a Hellraiser-like puzzle, etc.—and one of those items activates a relatively scary horror scenario involving killer by zombies. Bob Grimm As a straight-up horror film, The Cabin in bgrimm@ the Woods is pretty good. The zombies and newsreview.com monsters are fairly well done, and the cast can scream with the best of them. I’d put the horror portion of this film alongside the recent remakes4 of Friday the 13th and The Hills Have Eyes, which were decent genre exercises. The gore is good, and the scares are moderately effective. Fortunately, Cabin is more than just a horror movie. It’s a puzzle movie with many secrets to reveal. Goddard and Whedon let the proverbial cats out of the bag in a progressive and consistent fashion, with the action building up to a rather grand cameo. You might be able to guess some of the stuff, but you are probably lying if you say you figured it all out before the credits rolled. The film’s best moments belong to Jenkins and Whitford, and Goddard must be commended for casting them. I can’t imagine a different pair of actors doing what these guys do in Cabin any better. For me, they make the movie. As for the five students, Hemsworth fares the best, although I half expected him to just throw his mighty hammer at the zombies and end the whole thing right quickly. Kranz has a bit of a Shaggy from Scooby-Doo thing going, and he uses what just might be cinema history’s coolest bong ever. Connolly is somebody to root for as the (almost) innocent girl fighting for survival, while Hutchison looks mighty good making out with a mounted wolf head. The Cabin in the Woods is one of those movies that impress you even more on the ride home when you are thinking it over. It really does have a great premise, and the execution of that premise is often quite brilliant. I’ll go ahead and predict there’s no chance for a sequel. Ω

Ah! Bureaucrats! Horrifying! Help!

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POOR

2

FAIR

3

GOOD

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VERY GOOD

5

EXCELLENT 421 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum team up as an unlikely comic duo for this twisted reboot of the infamous ’80s TV show that launched the career of a little guy named Johnny Depp. The two play former high school enemies who become friends at their new job of being cops. After quickly getting into trouble, they are put into the newly reactivated 21 Jump Street program—with an angry, hilarious Ice Cube as their captain—and must go undercover as high school students to infiltrate a teen drug ring. The two are very funny together, and Tatum displays a surprising amount of comic chops. He actually has the film’s funniest moments. This will stand as one of the year’s funniest and nastiest comedies. It also contains some very memorable cameos.

2American Reunion The reality about the American Pie films is that they were never very good, or even just good. A couple of grossout gags involving deflowered apple pie and tainted beer got some laughs in the original, but the rest of the film was pretty weak, with the sequels getting progressively worse through the terrible American Wedding. This chapter, which might very well be the last, gives Seann William Scott’s Stifler a nice showcase, but it also gives too much screen time to dullards like Thomas Ian Nicholas and Tara Reid. Bad actors manage to sink this one, which tries to pull the nostalgia heartstrings for characters most of us couldn’t give a damn about. As for the gross-out stuff, nothing reaches the level of the original film’s semi-clever nastiness. It’s time to set this franchise out to pasture.

2The Hunger Games For a big blockbuster based on an extremely popular novel, director Gary Ross’ film looks mighty cheap. Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss Everdeen, forced to represent her district in a televised contest where young people must battle to the death. While Lawrence is a great actress, she doesn’t fit the role of starving teen very well. Josh Hutcherson plays her fellow district rep, Peeta, and he suits the role just fine. I just couldn’t get by the drab look of the movie, and the horrible shaky cam that manages to destroy the action visuals instead of enhancing them. Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson are all saddled with silly getups for their roles, which might’ve played OK had another director filmed them. The movie is just a strange clash of tones, never has a consistent feel, and is surprisingly boring considering the subject matter.

2Lockout Guy Pearce, sporting a droll and mumbling American accent, stars as a man sentenced to prison who gets a chance to gain his freedom if he can rescue the president’s daughter (Maggie Grace) from a space prison. It’s sort of like Escape from New York set in space minus Kurt Russell and all of the fun. Pearce labors hard to be an action hero to be reckoned with, but he can’t even rise to the level of mediocre action heroes like Jason Statham or Gerard Butler. He gives a flat performance that’s due in part to a flat script that offers nothing new. Grace still hasn’t done anything all that worthwhile since her stint on Lost. The villains, a band of prisoners released from some sort of hypersleep, are cartoon characters that provide no true sense of menace. The look of the movie is drab, and the pacing is mighty dull. So, yeah, don’t go see this one. 2Mirror Mirror Director Tarsem Singh, who made last year’s awful, horrible Immortals, does a little better with this wacky take on the story of Snow White. Julia Roberts does her best as the evil queen looking to rid herself of the beautiful Snow White (a charming Lily Collins). Armie Hammer gives it a go as the handsome prince, while Nathan Lane tries to provide comic relief. The film looks good, with lush visuals and costuming. The seven dwarfs are toughed up and amusing. Yet, the film struggles to find a consistent tone that it never quite achieves. Tarsem is capable of making a good-looking movie— it’s just that his movies are usually kind of irredeemably silly. The film rips off Ella Enchanted during its credits by having Collins lip-synch a pop song. Stupid.

2The Three Stooges Peter and Bobby Farrelly have been trying to get this thing made for many years. There were times when high profile actors such as Sean Penn and Jim Carrey were attached to the project. What finally makes it to the screen is a cast of talented people giving it their all with a script that lets them down. Sean Hayes is especially amazing as Larry, while Chris Diamantopoulos and Will Sasso do good jobs as Moe and Curly respectively. The problem here is that the writers rely on dumb jokes involving Jersey Shore, and most of the cast surrounding the Stooges—with the exception of Larry David doing fine work as a grouchy nun—has nothing worthwhile to do. The slapstick hits are often quite good, but there’s just no story worth watching, and things get a little tedious by the time the credits roll—too bad, because there’s actual potential for consistent fun with the new Stooges. As performers, the three new guys do the originals proud, even if their movie falls short.

5Titanic in 3D Don’t even hesitate to catch this on the big screen again, and don’t let the 3-D deter you. James Cameron and his crew have done a great job “enhancing” what I consider to be one of the greatest films ever made. The 3-D images, especially in the opening, actual footage of the Titanic wreck, are mesmerizing. While I don’t need to be reminded how great an actor Leonardo DiCaprio is, it’s a cinematic rush to see him in his star-making moment again. One of the main differences between Cameron’s Titanic and his Avatar is that, in this film, he had DiCaprio and Kate Winslet masterfully delivering his corny dialogue, as opposed to Sam Worthington in the other. Even Billy Zane’s performance has aged incredibly well; what I once found to be annoying has grown into a great, all-time classic screen villain. The film still hits all the right notes. The 3-D intensifies the experience. It’s a solid time at the movies.

2Wrath of the Titans Bad beards, an especially drab actor, and a whole lot of messed up Greek mythology nonsense make their return in this bad film that is, nonetheless, a marked improvement over 2010’s inexcusable Clash of the Titans. There are enjoyable, even exciting stretches in this film where the action and pyrotechnics overwhelm the fact that the movie is anchored with the dullard that is Sam Worthington. As Perseus, son of Zeus aspiring to be nothing but a human fisherman with awesome fliphair, he registers zero on the charisma meter. Being that he’s onscreen more than anybody in these Titan pics, it’s a little hard to endorse them. This has some pretty decent explosions and a couple of neat creatures. The 3-D, while not extraordinary, is better than it was in chapter one of this hopefully finished franchise.

Reno

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