X-Men Origins: Wolverine

There are aspects of this movie that make it seem like it might not be that bad. The director and at least one of the writers have both been involved with some good or at least interesting projects. The last X-Men film was pretty bad, but it could have been the influence of Brett Ratner rather than a trend for the franchise. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are both good actors, and do some solid work in this movie. And really, there are parts that aren't bad at all. Honestly. But then there's everything else. Basically, anything actually related to the fact that this is a comic book movie.

After the opening scene which recreates the most startling moment from Origin but robs it of any emotional weight, they ignore the rest of that story, put Logan and Sabretooth farther back in time so they can fight through a bunch of major wars in the opening credits, and then have them hop on a team of super powered special forces. The movie then embarrasses the shit out of itself with a sequence where several of them show off their powers in ludicrous ways that just look silly rather than the cool effect I'm sure they were going for. Agent Zero still uses guns but is apparently magic now, Wade Wilson is not only skilled with swords but capable of manipulating them faster than the speed of bullets (he's not a mutant yet what the fuuuuuuuck), and instead of a pilot they have Dominic Monaghan playing a dude who can control the plane with his mind because uh... they think it's cool I guess.

So anyway Logan leaves the group after some differences and meets a telepathic chick, but a while later someone starts going around and killing his teammates and blah blah it's Sabretooth obviously and Stryker recruits him for Weapon X. I don't really get it... this movie's supposed to be a prequel for the existing movie series, but they sort of change and ignore things for some reason, changing the cast, adding in the bone claws, mixing up the reasons for things to be happening, et cetera. So then some more stuff happens, a lot of it totally stupid looking, and Logan, now Wolverine, confronts Stryker in his secret lair. There's a pointless plot twist that just adds some artificial drama for a few minutes, a bunch of cameos by some other mutants, and Stryker reveals what he's done to Wade, now Deadpool, for Weapon XI.

Oh my god that is not Deadpool. Yeah they did use what they got from Wolverine to experiment on him, but that was it. What they make him into is completely ludicrous and not Deadpool and I just don't understand the point of changing what a character is THIS much. Who is it serving? It's an uninteresting villain, and one unfaithful to the memories of people who actually know and possibly care about who he is. What an amazing combination of wasting my time and spitting in my face. Also, in case you were wondering, even if you have an incredible accelerated healing power, if you fall from a high enough distance your head will pop off, and any skin grafted over your mouth will be removed. Good to know. So they take away Wolverine's memory as necessary and the movie ends without much of a resolution to anything. God, this could have been a pretty decent movie. Why did this come out of it?

Blade: Trinity

It's sort of hard to believe that the guy most responsible for this mess co-wrote two of the best comic book movies ever with Christopher Nolan. Then again, he co-created FlashForward, so maybe it isn't that surprising. David S. Goyer wrote the whole Blade trilogy, though this is the only time he directed his own work. To be clear, I think this movie is more of a failure on Goyer the writer's part than Goyer the director. If the story wasn't moronic, I would have been fine with the general film work at hand here. Then again though, was Ryan Reynolds such a failed character because he was written poorly or directed poorly? It's hard to tell. He's his general wisecracking self in this movie, and it's only the addition of a beard and muscles that makes him at all different from his usual comedy work. And I usually like that persona for the most part. But I don't here. Really, I didn't like almost anything.

The vampires' big plan in the beginning is to get Blade arrested... because of... something. It all amounts to a hill of beans because his new hip and sexy friends bust him out and introduce him to their merry band of vampire hunters. Jessica Biel obnoxiously listens to an iPod while fighting (good job inhibiting your senses in the middle of combat!) and lets vamps think they've got her for no other reason than to play to the camera when she takes them out. Patton Oswalt puts in the most disappointing cameo of his career, showing little gumption and then disappearing from the film without so much as a death scene. The previously mentioned Reynolds tells bad jokes and shows a bit of pube when he reveals to Blade that he was once a vampire, but had been cured. Wait, what? You can cure vampires? So why are you guys killing all of the ones you come across? Cure more! There are a couple other good guys but the movie didn't care about them so neither do I.

So anyway the vampires resurrect Dracula as a beefy, bald dude named Drake (no really, they do that) who's played by the meat head older brother from Prison Break (the one who can't act at all, not the one who can barely act) and kind of acts like a giant puss the whole time even though he's fucking Dracula. People get captured, stuff happens, and then there's a fight where all the bad guys die. The action isn't really incompetent, but it isn't exciting enough either to come close to saving the movie from its completely ineffectual and uninteresting story. I wasn't invested at all and the only time that changed is when it occasionally managed to downright piss me off. It's just one of those films that I can't imagine anyone caring about and don't really understand why they bothered to make it.

Smokin' Aces

I checked this out for roughly the same reasons as the last two movies, but it's not really that similar to them. Carnahan's script tries very desperately to be smart and stylish, although it only partially succeeds at times. There are a lot of different characters with similar amounts of screen time, and it was a little difficult to even say who the stars were, so I just went with the two "good" guy feds. I think Ryan Reynolds should probably stick with comedy. Part of me wants to say he's fine in a serous role, but I think that's really just thinking he can grow a pretty nice beard. Ray Liotta never did that much with his career after Goodfellas, although he always seems to do a good job when he appears. Plenty of other large and small names make appearances, from Ben Affleck to Jason Bateman to Jeremy Piven to Andy Garcia and a bunch of people you probably don't know by name but recognize when you see them. Common and Alicia Keys also make their acting debuts, and they're not bad enough that I'd want to make a lame comment about sticking to their music careers.

All of these characters lead to a lot of craziness that could turn into a jumbled mess, although it never does. Basically, Smokin' Aces is a movie about a couple of FBI guys going to pick up Piven's character (nicknamed "Aces"), a mob witness, before a plethora of hitmen descend on him to pick up the seven figure reward on his head. They all want to smoke Aces. Get it? Chaos ensues, with lots of shooting and stabbing happening everywhere all over a casino. It's over the top most of the time, with hookers running around, sniper rifles so powerful they can knock you over, and a trio called the Tremors adding plate armor and chainsaws to the mix. A bunch of fairly entertaining stuff happens with the requisite subterfuge and betrayal before the rug is pulled out with a plot twist after all the action's died down. A few plot points seem a little vague, but it's a decent enough story in the end. The movie's never as thoroughly entertaining as it obviously wants to be, but it wasn't too bad. If anything, it does well balancing all the pieces it throws in the air.