Sick Day Movies

Was down with the sickness last weekend. Ended up watching four movies. Some new some old.

A Night at the Roxbury ** (out of 4 stars)

Old SNL humor from a decade ago. It was kind of funny ten years ago, but it seems to have lost whatever charm it once had. On the up side, it made my girlfriend laugh, so it was worth renting.

Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen **

The story and the action was pretty much exactly what I expected. Nothing new and nothing exciting. The only aspect of TF2 I liked was the "robo martial arts". The Transformer hand to hand combat was pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the "messy" designs of the Transformer robots made it difficult to watch. There were a ton of military equipment references in TF2, which might make it interesting for modern weapon buffs. Other than that, it was pretty ho hum.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra *

I didn't find any redeeming qualities in this movie. Perhaps the bits I did possibly enjoy are the nostalgia and nods to the old cartoon series. The action is over the top, but not creative or exciting. All the CGI looks obviously fake. The plot makes no sense, but that is to be expected. The characters are not memorable, and the constant flashbacks to tell the history of the characters is not done smoothly and became quite annoying. However, the absolute worst aspect of this action flick is the writing. The cringe inducing dialog is very cheesy and I don't think they did it on purpose. I will most definitely not watch the sequel to The Rise of Cobra.

The Game ****

This David Fincher gem from the late 90s starring Micheal Douglas is still good today. Douglas does a great job at portraying an asshole millionaire, then a whiny millionaire, then a helpless millionaire, then finally an ex-millionaire hellbent on revenge. He probably channeled some of his Falling Down rage for the last 15 minutes of the film. The story, soundtrack, and visuals are just the right amount of creepy. You'll see San Francisco in a light like never before. Just plain awesome storytelling.