hollywoodgirl-1

I went into this movie not having seen a single Friday the 13th movie all the way through. I originally didn't want to see this one, not because it looked bad, quite the opposite: because I thought it looked genuinely scary. And I scare easily.

As 2/13/09 drew closer and I began watching the trailer more and more I decided that I really did want to see it. Overall, I liked it. I couldn't help but compare it to My Bloody Valentine 3- D which I saw a little less than a month ago, and this was without a doubt a more technically sound movie. The storyline was better, the cast was better, the dialogue was better by a slight margin. That leads me into what I liked. Director Marcus Nispel gave the movie a great atmosphere; things were almost always tense or creepy. Jason was imposing and definitely quite frightening. The situation was believable for the main group of characters.

Now for what I think hurt the movie. First of all, I am not a big fan of the decision to have two sets of characters. I understand it was necessary to introduce Whitney's predicament but I thought it really hurt the main group. The movie is only one hour and thirty-five minutes so the first set of characters drastically depletes the time we have to get to know the second set. We know them for less than a day before they all start getting picked off. I think Willa Ford's character had maybe five lines, the Nolan character less than that. I just really didn't care about the characters that much. The second thing I disliked was the backstory/captivity of Whitney. The Mrs. Voorhees part in the beginning felt jarring and tacked on and then I just felt that the Whitney in captivity part was preposterous and weird. Also, it is simply not feasible for Jason to appear everywhere completely unnoticed. He is a huge guy, there's no way you wouldn't see or hear him coming, yet he appears completely out of nowhere so many times. Jumpy? Yes. Plausible? Not at all. These elements combined unfortunately made the movie not scary. I jumped a lot during it but I was not scared afterward, not at all.

I really did like the movie, for me the detractors were not so bad that I came out hating it. It was well-done in my opinion with effective jump scares and I liked the different take on the series. Now let's see if a sequel comes out in this same vein.

You generally go into movies like this one with the feeling that it will be genuinely, horribly awful or so horribly awful that it's good. Rarely ever do you expect it to actually be a good movie. Given the awful critical reviews of the movie in conjunction with the rabid approval and overwhelmingly positive moviegoer reviews I was expecting a Rocky Horror-so-bad-it's-good movie. Repo way exceeded my expectations. Right from the opening sequence of comic book frames setting the scene to the climatic blood-bathed opera sequence, it captivated my attention and blew me away. It is an opera so every word is sung, or at least spoken in rhythm. The style is futuristic with soft-edged dark colors that match the mood perfectly. And the performances are all top-notch fantastic. Alexa Vega carries the movie as the main character, Shilo Wallace, proving that she can sing and act quite well. I loved Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag, it was awesome seeing as acclaimed an opera singer as her having a blast in this movie. Contrary to what some may think, Paris Hilton was great, I even found myself wanting to see more of her character. While not understated, she's not a scenery-chewing showboat either, she knows the scope of her part and plays it within those confines very well. The music is fantastic and while the movie is bloody, I (who has a weak stomach) found the violence just sparse enough to not make it hard to watch. This is a fantastic, visionary film that deserves more recognition/publicity/of a release than it's getting right now, please go see it.

Step Brothers was basically exactly what I expected it to be. I went in with my expectations set somewhere between good and bad, that way if it exceeded them great, if not oh well. It met them right where I had them. The idea of two forty-year-old men still living at home forced to cohabitate when their single parents marry is interesting, though I thought it played out a bit one-note, I mean there's only so much you can do with the direction they chose to take the plot. I thought Will Ferrell was a bit sub-par, he kind of gets swallowed up and doesn't stand out to me as much as usual. Plus he's doing his umpteenth version of the outrageous man-child. For me he just does better when he's creating a character, like Ron Burgundy, Buddy the Elf, Chazz Michael Michaels, Jackie Moon, etc. Here he's just...Brennan Huff, the unemployed, homebound 39-year-old. John C. Reilly is good and plays off Ferrell well, but like Ferrell he's just not as good on his own in this movie. This all being said, the movie is funny; I was entertained. There were several great lines and situations, though I don't think this is destined to be as quotable as say Anchorman. The movie definitely benefits from its R rating, I don't think a toned-down Step Brothers would work as well. All in all, the movie succeeds as a light, entertaining, and funny adult comedy.