smashattack

Kung Fu Panda is the kind of movie I've been waiting for all year. It is sad to see that a children's movie is what finally rekindled my interest in venturing to the theaters over the course of the past year. However, Kung Fu Panda is difficult to place in the "children's" category.

We'll get right to the meat of the movie--the action. I haven't seen such brilliant action sequences in quite some time, whether from an animated or live-action film. These were exceptionally choreographed, and the best part is that they didn't quite take themselves seriously in executing these performances. It's always difficult for me to enjoy a fight scene in a movie where people are flying and doing absolutely outrageous things unless it is an obvious attempt at humor. Kung Fu Panda achieves this goal with stunning aptitude.

Not to mention that the humor is top-notch, whether you are six or 26. I had trouble catching all the jokes, considering most of them were laugh-out-loud funny, forcing me to lose concentration on the next perfectly set up situation.

One of the prime aspects of this movie, to me, is the casting. Many well-known actors and actresses came together to put together this finely crafted film, and they really pulled off a performance worthy a golden statue displaying their ultimate worthiness. I can always appreciate an actor/actress typically involved in raunchy comedies (ahem... Seth Rogen) who can flip a 180 and manage to keep it clean for a full two hours. Bravo, you sickos, you gained a few more points in my book of notorious filthy acting! And finally, my favorite part of the entire movie is that the director managed to find THE BEST film composer of our time and put him to work! Hans Zimmer is as brilliant as ever, pulling out all the stops with his amazing themes and intense action sequence crescendos. And he perfectly avoids overusing the cliché Oriental touch, only using it in key moments. I can't get enough of his music. There should seriously be a library full of his music. I'd own it and maintain it FOR FREE, and I'm not even joking. Seriously, I have a shrine dedicated to this man in my backyard which plays music from Gladiator 24/7.

You definitely should see Kung Fu Panda. And don't hesitate to take the kiddos.

Troy is one of those movies that seems like it should be in theaters... but then feels like it shouldn't. Like it's a sort of documentary with little more than stone characters, or a multi-million dollar soap opera.

The very first thing I noticed about Troy was the music. Wow, I have never heard such terrible music in my life. Part of it had some blaring trumpets, which attempted to create a "heroic" feeling, but instead felt extremely corny and made me cringe. The worst part about the music in this movie is an odd, high-pitched wailing woman's voice that seems to pop in every two minutes or so. At one point in the movie I actually got so fed up with it that, right in the middle of the theater, I said out loud, "My God, just SHUT UP." While Gladiator had the same type of music, with the wailing woman's voice, this technique was placed strategically within the movie, and wasn't so interfering. Troy's shoved the movie out of the way, slapped you across the face, and screamed until you couldn't think, feel, see, or hear anything else.

The characters are extremely cliche. We have the bad king--he is evil, of course, and wants more land for himself. Greedy. The usual villain. We have the solo hero, who cares only about his countrymen (and cousin). He is very noble, but also very arrogant. There's the good king--good, but blinded by his own beliefs. A noble gentleman who wants nothing but the best for his people. The good king's son, who believes his father, although having good intentions, is really making some mistakes. Throw in a few more villains, place them in ships heading toward the Trojan empire, and you have Troy.

The battle scenes were quite believable, but it was obvious that they were attempting to beat out Gladiator with some scenes, even resorting to using the same kind of camera movements as Gladiator. But it failed in every attempt, as Gladiator pitted real people and characters in the arena, whereas Troy had a mishmash of simple good guys and bad guys thrown in to fight.

The soap opera comes next. The movie begins simply because the prince of Troy takes one of the kings of Greece's wife back to Troy. The king's older brother, who controls most of Greece, uses this as a means of taking his largest army into Troy to conquer it. Achilles is recruited, he meets a lovely young woman who teaches him new things about life, one guy dies and many are sad, one attempts to avenge his death, and so on and so forth, in an almost endless circle.

Troy really may not have been a bad movie. It just felt really phony, really plastic, or transparent. As if it were almost about to reach the reality of the world, but just couldn't wrap its fingers around tight enough.

My main point in all this? Wait for Troy to come out on DVD. Watch it, and decide for yourself. I won't be watching it again.

SWAT, by all standards, is certainly not a bad movie. It's not one in which you have to "switch off" your brain to enjoy, where the cops chase the robbers and have a stakeout in some abandoned industrial plant. No, this one's a little more realistic, I think.

The movie starts out with a classic scenario--a bank holdup. Kind of cliche, yes, but the SWAT team's tactics are more than just the usual sheriff-and-robber-duel. With the use of special tools and weaponry, a movie focused on a SWAT team can't really go too far in the wrong direction.

There is a major lack in character development. We see each main character for about a day on the job before they join the SWAT team, but other than that we really know nothing about them. Most of them are cliche as well--the quiet guy who is a tactical genius, but who really doesn't want to join back up; the tough black man who respects his fellow blacks, but doesn't have a problem putting them away when they're in the middle of a crime; the hero's rival teammate, who wisecracks at him much of the time; the tough woman who is just as good as the men; and finally, the evil international criminal with plenty of contacts and money who teams up with the main character's former partner. Despite all these noted flaws, there really is nothing wrong in which the way the characters interact with each other. Besides, you can't expect much character background from a movie--that's what books are for.

As far as storyline and plot, it's not all that original, but it's unique in its own ways. The international criminal offers ANYBODY one hundred million dollars as a reward for breaking him out--and this offer is made on live television. Now, from here on, the movie could have been rather exciting. Not only could we have seen the SWAT teams and police fighting off the mobsters trying to get the money, we could have seen the different gangs fighting each other for the money as well. And that chaos could have been very tense and exciting. However, the movie strays from that idea and we don't see any real gang war. Instead, the second villain shows up and adds another hindrance to our heroes.

The movie is, yes, rather predictable, but still entertaining and interesting. While I wouldn't tell somebody they MUST see it, I would certainly recommend it, even if you're not a huge fan of the genre.