Knight Owl's Review of The Great Gatsby; The first rule about Gatsby is you do not talk about Gatsby.

Let's change it up a bit, shall we?

'Tis the season of the blockbuster, mindless action movies that the Michael Bay fans of the world get off on. I enjoy the hell out of many such films, but I like to think of myself as more eclectic than that. It's been pointed out, though, that my range of taste of films that I actually post about is somewhat limited. Looking back, it's hard to argue that point, so I'll give it a shot reviewing a different type of film. And yeah, The Great Gatsby definitely qualifies as different.

Full disclaimer: I have not read the book. I know it was big in high school English for some, but even if I had read it then I wouldn't have retained anything. I know at some point I read Lord Of The Flies and all I remember is the laughable film version we watched with the hilariously fake rock bouncing off the head of the fat kid. Good times. Anyways, I had no prior knowledge of what the hell I was walking into. Walking out, two things had occurred to me. One, that I was super grateful to have my Mandi there with me to walk and talk me through the damn thing, and two, if I hadn't had her there, there was no chance of me enjoying this film. There is a definite need to have some knowledge of the book or some previous performance thereof in order to appreciate TGG, but even with that knowledge you might not enjoy the film completely (more on that later).

The big sell for getting me to see this film was post-Crisis Leonardo Dicaprio. Had you told me 10 years ago that Leo would be one of my favorite actors working, I'm not sure if I would either laugh hysterically or punch you in the face (probably both). But here we are, and with work like The Departed, Inception, and Django Unchained under his belt, Leo deserves his recognition and continues his great work here. And that's good, because as much as I like Leo, I fucking despise Tobey Maguire. Even if he was the only wrong thing about the Spider Man trilogy (He's not. So much wrong there.), I'd still find them near insufferable. Despite that hatred, he was a good choice for the role he plays as Nick Carraway, a normal shmoe enveloped by Gatsby's world. The performances of Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton were both also noteworthy, if for one specific reason that had to be pointed out to me: these people were not supposed to be liked.

The characters in TGG are, for the most part, horrible people. The film is just jam packed with examples of each person showing various forms of douchebaggery and would have thrown me off had the fact that these displays were meant to do just that not been pointed out. I can see why English classes have a hard-on for this book: anyone could sit back and analyze the behaviour of these assholes all damn day. If I had to throw out a general analysis from what I've seen, it would be that these characters display the true neutrality of a person. How they will change their behaviour in any way necessary to obtain what they want most. Any value, mannerism, knowledge, wealth, whatever is expendable in the face of your deepest desire. A 'fuck these people, I'll do what I want' mentality that really is a huge criticism on the human condition. The problem with TGG is that there is no break from it. It's fucking everywhere, and while it makes the characters more relateable, that relation is in a negative way. Who wants to be reminded that people suck? The only upside is that the focus of the film is on the way upper class, so it turns out that rich people suck just as much as anyone else. Fucking duh.

Is it just me, or does TGG play out a bit like Fight Club? A spoiler-free synopsis might sound like this: A normal, uninteresting guy meets up with a larger-than-life character, who opens up a whole new world to him and changes his life. Hijinks ensue. Throughout the film, I was begging for someone to turn to Tobey and be like 'sir, the first rule about Project Fancy Party is we do not ask questions' or whatever. It would have turned the whole thing around for me because, to be quite honest, not a lot happens in this movie. I imagine that a lot of what makes the book so interesting and such a classic does not translate into film well, and anything that is expressed has probably already been done, and done better. All of the insight on the human condition, all of the allegory and metaphor (holy fuck, is there a lot of it), much better done and more appreciated in literature than a 2 1/2 hour long movie about the killer parties over at Casa de Leo.

Speaking of the allegory in the film, man oh man was it shoved down the audience's collective throat. This is what I was referring to earlier when I said that those who have read the book might not appreciate the film much. You could not go 10 minutes watching the film without hearing being shown something that was an obvious reference to something else, and it began to make my eyes involuntarily roll. I do appreciate methods like this thrown into film of all kinds because it can make you think a little bit. This film doesn't really even give you the chance. It will give you a little allegory, and then go on to beat you over the head with it until you feel like you're looking at the answer page of a crossword book. Hell, they even have one of the characters full out explain what a specific thing represents. Thanks for making it easy, I guess.

The movie was not all bad, though. As I said the performances were very effective. More than that, this film was VERY pretty. I'm only familiar with Bax Luhrmann's work on Romeo+Juliet featuring pre-Crisis Leo, which I enjoyed in a 'guilty pleasure' sort of way, but TGG was very stylized and made the film a lot more interesting and easy to watch. That said, I wouldn't necessarily call it a period piece either, as it would be hard to justify a film set in the 1920's using a soundtrack exclusively featuring Jay-Z, Kanye and their ilk. Again, it made the film interesting, but was definitely out of place at times. I could be wrong though. If AC/DC starts playing in the background of Boardwalk Empire, I guess I'm the asshole.

I'm not saying don't give this movie a shot. There were things I enjoyed, but mostly it's just not my thing. At the very least, it's the turned-up-to-11 version of what my thing would be. There's a lot going on and absolute fuck all going on at the same time. This isn't the cerebral movie I was kind of expecting, and sometimes that's what you're looking for: an easy to follow film with some people who are good at what they just being assholes. Hey, it's what I sit through every time I put on Monday Night Raw.

Knight Owl

Knight Owl's Review of Star Trek Into Darkness; A Dish Best Served Cold

In the words of Benedict Cumberbatch's John Harrison: Shall we begin?

Last week I expressed my indecision regarding Iron Man 3 and its quality as the opener to the summer blockbuster season. Although my thought process took the scenic route (as it often does), I arrived at the conclusion that it was indeed a good film and a second viewing has upgraded it to 'good-to-great'. My bones to pick with those responsible are few and a bit arbitrary, but haters will indeed hate. Star Trek Into Darkness, however, has not caused such indecision.

Before jumping into this, there are some things I should point out. First off, I am not a Trekkie by definition. My interest in Star Trek has always been like my interest in hockey or UFC: I pay attention from a distance until something major is happening, and will sit down to it with enough background knowledge to not make an idiot out of myself. Playoffs, a big PPV, or a film for example. I've seen every Trek film several times, have seen many of the highest rated episodes of the original Star Trek, am almost finished watching through TNG, had waning interest in DS9 as it was on, and have never given Voyager or Enterprise a fair chance. I don't even have that much of an aversion to it, and I'm no longer the Star Wars fan that I once was. There's just so much bad mingled in with the good, even with the films. For every Wrath of Khan there's a Final Frontier, and for every First Contact there's an Insurrection. It's hard to justify jumping head-long into canon that's existed for, what, 50 years? It's why I've never gotten into the X-men comics, and why I'm thankful that Doctor Who has shorter seasons.

The other thing is that bias exists for this particular film because of how much I loved the first film, flaws and all. The lens flare thing that J.J. loves to do is something I can overlook, because every director has their quirks and even Abrams has fessed up to it. Do I love that a Star Trek film went to the time travel well once again? No, but it's happened every second or third film released anyways, so I prefer to think of it as a throwback. The biggest selling point for me was the perfect if not inspired casting of the crew, a subject that was touchy to begin with because gods forbid you piss off the internet Trekkie community. Lucas and Spielberg are still feeling backlash from that. Every crew member was cast and performed wonderfully in a mix of homage to the original crew while still making it a new character. There are some holes in the first film, yeah, but at least one that has always bugged me is addressed in STID, which was a big selling point for me. So I was walking into STID knowing there would be at least some things I'd love as long as little was changed. So fair warning to all who didn't love Star Trek 2009: this might not be your thing.

With that, let's boldly go into this review! (shut up, I'm hilarious.)

The plot of STID is something that its predecessor was not: simple. A criminal breaks loose from captivity, drops some knowledge (also some bombs), and takes off; and it's up to Kirk and company to track John Harrison down. It's only complicated by the typical Star Trek stuff like the prime directive of never interfering with any indigenous life (a rule that is more often broken than followed) and possible war breaking out with other galactic superpowers were the mission handled improperly. Y'know, the little stuff. What's nice about this film and how it plays out is, despite what my synopsis would have you believe, it does not in fact play out like a standard episode of Star Trek. A couple of the films had fallen into this trap (see: Insurrection), and it's easy to do. It didn't happen here though, and it was brilliant. The reason it felt more like a complete and separate film is the presence of subplots with several of the characters involved and how they all mingled together. One such subplot addressed the hole in the first film very well. I had a problem with the fact that a very young officer such as Kirk, who had a notorious reputation for slacking, rash decision making, and was technically still on probation for cheating on tests, was just given command of the most advanced ship in the fleet. It would be like giving Frank 'The Punisher' Castle command of The Avengers. It's awesome, and you'll get results...but it's a horrible decision. Such results play out in STID and becomes a thing that everyone needs to deal with throughout the film. When improperly done, subplots are nothing but filler, especially in blockbusters like this. Here, it was an asset to the film and made the characters, the story, everything stronger.

As I said before, the crew was fantastic in Star Trek '09 and continues to be strong. I always liked Kirk in command because I've always found him the most relateable of the captains of Star Trek lore. Let's look at the contrast: Picard didn't seem to get an emotion chip until after the Locutus incident (ironically enough). Sisko always came off to me as the 'angry black police captain' stereotype of Star Trek. I haven't watched much Voyager but Janeway always looked like the coldest bitch this side of Cersei Lannister. And Quantum Leap guy is just himself, in the same way that Richard Dean Anderson was always Macgyver no matter how many seasons of Stargate SG-1 there are. Kirk is arrogant, hot tempered, and a ridiculous lech. What human wouldn't be in his position? He's a young, charismatic and good looking captain of a state-of-the-art starship with a chip on his shoulder. He's a fucking pimp with a heart of gold, and is portrayed that way. Shatner will always have a special place in my heart, but Chris Pine is a great leader to this amazing cast.

There's a lot of more of the same for the rest of the characters, with new elements mixing with nostalgic qualities essential to each character. Spock is still a cold prick at times, Bones is still a crazy bastard that has always reminded me of Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Chekov still can't pronounce the word 'vessel'...but Scotty has a familiar! Uhura's job description goes beyond 'answer the fucking phone!' It's awesome. Alice Eve's addition as the arbitrary love interest for Kirk was an appreciated one (because she's hot). But the real story here in terms of new cast is the Cumberbatch's turn as John Harrison. There has always been an absence of sympathetic villains in Star Trek, most of which are either alien, cyborg, or psychotic. Harrison was the first antagonist who has had an actual motivation behind his actions that had nothing to do with taking over or destroying the federation. He had a legitimate gripe and just went about it the wrong way. The presentation of Harrison reminded me very much of Tom Hiddleston's Loki in Thor and Avengers. He doesn't start out evil, just...misunderstood. His speaking was slightly annoying, in that he just had to over enunciate every single word he could, but other than that, he was a worthy villain portrayed expertly with lots of nice throwbacks to the original canon.

Speaking of which, I've been hearing a lot of complaints that there are too many references/homages/whatevers to the original show and films from which this reboot is based. I could see how the references could annoy some in the midst of all the changes that have been made to the crew and progression of the story of the Enterprise. Hell, it was exactly this argument that caused my dislike of Skyfall. But the difference here is that a lot of this was not only well done, but it made sense. I've stated in previous posts about my hard-on for continuity in a series of films, and this one really took a lot from its predecessor in explaining some of the plot holes and motivation behind the actions of the characters. You have to remember that the events of the first film drastically changed the course that this group of characters was on, but it was still going the same direction. So yeah, similar things happened here that have happened with the Shatner-led crew, but with some changes thrown in, some subtle, some drastic. It made sense, but is in a nutshell why I HAAAAAAAATE time travel as a story's lynch pin. It will literally explain everything away regardless of how contradictory or plothole-y it is. So Eric Bana, Doc Brown, Marty McFly, John Connor, and their ilk can gooooooooooo fuck themselves.

That leads me to my final point: there are things that happen in this movie that are just pants-on-head ridiculous. No amount of movie science jibberjabber is going to explain some of the elements of this plot, even despite the time travel precedence. There will be moments where you will find yourself just chuckling and muttering 'bullshit' under your breath. The thing is that this is not a compliant. Anyone who's ever watched a single Star Trek episode, much less a Trekkie, can not only excuse shit like this happening, they should fucking expect it. Pretty much every episode ends in Scotty or Wesley-fucking-Crusher or the god damn BLIND GUY spouting off nonsense about a made up many-syllable word like 'superultracapacitor' or what the fuck ever and poof, problem solved.  I mean, Christ, the computer consoles aren't even in braille, how in the blue hell does Geordi get anything done? The shit pulled in STID is standard fare for an outing on the Enterprise. Far worse films have attempted to pull off far more ridiculous stunts. Basically, if anything silly done in this movie turns you off of it, you were never going to enjoy it anyway so rest easy.

STID was a great in-your-face follow up to Iron Man 3 in terms of summer blockbusters, and will probably make my top 10 this year. J.J. Abrams delivered on a successful sequel to a uniquely great reboot of a treasured franchise. It's been announced that he will not be taking the direction on the next Star Trek entry, and that makes me sad, but the near perfect combination of fanservice and homage with Abrams' own style and fresh feel make me feel really good about his taking on Star Wars Episode VII. I think the Star Wars universe is in safe hands after watching this film, and most Star Wars fanboys should feel the same.

But seriously, J.J. If you manage to fuck Star Wars up any further than it has been, then from Hell's heart I will stab at thee.

Knight Owl

Knight Owl's Review of Iron Man 3; Inner Turmoil

I've been having a really hard time with this one.

This is one of those movies that I so desperately want to like, that had many good-to-great moments, but I just can't. There are  too many problems, too many voices in my head screaming at me that there is something wrong with Iron Man 3. Hopefully, when I'm done here, I'll be able to give a straight answer.

IM3 had a lot riding on it, which couldn't have helped. Not only is it a follow-up to a very weak Iron Man 2, but it also had to contend with the surprisingly great Thor and Captain America films, not to mention The Avengers. Now, to say IM3 is a sequel to The Avengers would be VERY WRONG in the same way that Thor was not a sequel to IM2. Same universe, common characters, but not the same movie series. And thank the gods for that, because holy shit, would IM3 fall short by comparison to Avengers. It's not IM3's fault there, and it would be laughable to even attempt to compare to Avengers in terms of greatness in scope, or even just general importance. I've said several times that Avengers was a huge accomplishment across the board, WAY too much to be compared to a second sequel of one of the several main characters. That being said, it doesn't excuse IM3 from having the kind of  problems it has.

I'll start with inarguably the strongest element of this string of movies, and maybe of all the Marvel films thus far: Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, he's freaking awesome as Tony Stark, no argument here. He's been damn-near-flawless since donning the armour in 2008, and was one of the more endearing parts of Avengers (which is saying something). He's just as good here, creating a constant source of levity in what has the potential to be a very dark film. His wit is sharp and quips are lightning-fast, and barely a minute of Stark on-screen goes by without a chuckle being had.

Here's the problem: there's just too much of him.

Iron Man was great because it was an introduction to the character, and RDJ's performance instantly made the audience fall in love with him. IM2 had its problems, but RDJ wasn't one of them. Here, it's as though director Shane Black expected the film to succeed or fail solely on RDJ's back, so he had the character turned up to 11 the entire film. In many ways Stark was the same guy we saw in Avengers, but with one staggering difference: there was no Thor, no Cap, no Banner, and at the end of the day, no Joss Whedon. Anyone familiar with Whedon's work can testify that while the stories may be centric to one character, his work is very much focused on ensemble casts. Buffy, Angel, Firefly; they're not great just because of Sarah Michelle Gellar or whoever, they're great because of the chemistry that Whedon seems to constantly magic together out of a group. He did that with Avengers, and RDJ came out looking like a star. He rode that momentum into and through IM3, but with no one to play off of. No other protagonist was on screen with him long enough to benefit from any interaction. All we got was Tony Stark throwing out one-liners at ludicrous speed at anything that moved, sometimes even when he was all by himself. I'm reminded of the Pirates of the Caribbean films in that the more they focused on Captain Jack Sparrow, the less effective he was as a character and the worse the films became. The difference is I don't give a fuck-and-a-half about Captain Jack or POTC, but R'hllor be merciful if the Marvel films get fucked up because Disney thinks the world needs to be force-fed more Stark.

In accordance with the 'too much Stark' complaint, there isn't enough Iron Man. The scenes of the actual hero in costume are few and far between, with only one of those scenes sticking out in my mind as truly memorable. And to me, the worst of it is there wasn't much point to him not being in the suit when he wasn't. Now, there was a film last year that came out with the same kind of pacing, and it was also the third/final instalment of a superhero trilogy. It would be ignorant of me not to say that bias exists when it comes to the Dark Knight Trilogy, but there are reasons why this pacing worked in DKR and doesn't in IM3. First and foremost, Bruce Wayne is Batman regardless of whether or not the suit is on, which is something you can't say about Stark and Iron Man. Second, the lack of Batman in DKR was much more organic and reasonable, as well as necessary to the story. It's not so much in IM3. Stark has some personal shit going on throughout the film, sure, but in no way does he face the same turmoil that Wayne faces. I would very much hate to come out and say that IM3 straight-up stole ideas from DKR so I'll just infer it, but the similarities in my mind take away from IM3 on several levels, not the least of which is being remarkably similar in any way to a far superior franchise.

Also, throughout the bulk of the film where we don't get Iron Man, Stark gets to show off what makes him, well, him: his intelligence and ingenuity. He just starts Macgyver-ing shit all over the place in lieu of having his armour (which, it turns out, he could have easily gotten to anyway). It was a neat revelation of Stark's abilities...except that it wasn't anything new. Lest we forget how he made the armour in the first place: by making a goddamned electromagnetic heart out of a scrap yard of bullshit while being held captive IN A FUCKING CAVE, and then building himself a giant suit of armour, again, IN A FUCKING CAVE. I think it's safe to say that Stark is a bona fide genius and no more screen time should be devoted to proving it.

RDJ's dominance of screen time leaves little to go around for the supporting cast. Characters we are led to believe are essential to the story, such as Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts or Don Cheadle's Jim Rhodes, don't stay on screen for long and don't do much when they are, at least not until the climax of the film. The only other character that has nearly as much time on-screen is Guy 'Where the hell have I been since Memento?' Pearce, who was incredible as antagonist Aldrich Killian. The slow burn downplaying of the Mandarin character was a neat approach to a mysterious man-behind-the-curtain type big bad for the first two thirds or so of the film (sigh, but more on that in a bit). For me, the most notable characters to address are the ones that weren't even fucking there. Where in sweet blue hell was SHIELD when this mess was happening? I understand that maybe vanilla human terrorists are a bit whatever for a SHIELD-calibre organization, but when said terrorists are singling out one of your golden boys that damn near killed himself to save Earth? Yeah, maybe the helicarrier could swing around for a drive-by, make sure things are cool. I get having the bad eye, but Samuel L. Fury had to have had some idea what was going on. I get no Avengers interference, but seriously? If I were Stark, next time the world was in danger, I'd tell Fury and Agent Robin Sparkles to go fuck themselves.

Before I get too shitty with IM3, I'll talk about something I actually liked. After a series of events as fantastic and otherworldly as what happened in Avengers it was nice to see one of the characters be brought back to real life. The story of this film was as realistic and relateable as Marvel gets without getting dark (see: alcoholism, racism, infidelity, goddamn domestic abuse). What makes it better is that the film cites the events of Avengers several times as being the cause of real fuck-off problems for Stark, the most normal human of the bunch. The apparent changes made to the Mandarin character (again, during the first two thirdsof the film) were effective in making him a more realistic villain, as opposed to the magical being he is in the comics. While maintaining this realism, the film stays true to its predecessors' use of ridiculous super-science to remind the audience that, yes, this is a movie about a man in a huge, heavy suit of armour that flies, fires weapons out of literally everywhere, and now is about as well trained as a golden retriever to the point that it comes when you call it. Iron Man is one of the more broken superheroes out there, to the point where it risks making any encounter trivial, and therefore boring and predictable. This film did a decent job of levelling the playing field between good and evil. I just wish there was more Iron and less Man.

 An obvious best goes to the actual look of the film. If the Marvel films have done one thing right across the board it's been the look. The atmosphere of the films have been captured by the tone, setting, and effects used to create these larger than life heroes. I don't think Marvel would have gotten this far without the first Iron Man looking the way it did. Yeah, the armour is fantastic and completely unrealistic in and of itself, but the look of it and of the film in general was real enough to have us believe in it. Thor was more fantasy, but the setting of Asgard and its contrast with Earth made it work. Captain America was more of a WWII period piece, but I never felt like it was out of place at any point in time, considering it was also a Comic Book Movie. Marvel does their shit well, and IM3 is no exception. IM3 was pretty dark at times, in tone and atmosphere, so much so that there were times where I felt sympathetic towards a character that normally I would have no sympathy for whatsoever. The honest truth is that I've never really liked the Tony Stark character, but these films, along with RDJ's performances, have made him one of the best comic book characters to make the jump onto the big screen.

Now that I've got some good in with the bad, I'll jump into what bothered me most about IM3: change for change's sake. This bullshit bothers me to my very core wherever I see it, any kind of adaptation or remake of a source material of any sort, where significant points are altered for no fucking reason. It doesn't happen a lot here, but it happens. This is where I may lose some people because I do get nitpicky as the stereotypical nerd that I can be, and that's fine. Opinions are subjective and that's why I started this blog business in the first place. I just feel the need to point out the inconsistencies here to make people aware of why this film bothers me SO much considering it was a pretty good film.

Let's start with the Iron Patriot. There was literally no reason for the pimp-my-ride version of the Iron Man suit to be present other than to make the fanboys swoon. That shit drives me nuts, and it gets pulled all the time. The X-Men movies are the worst offenders: they basically tried to stuff as many random mutant references as they could into each film but didn't do so properly, leading to a goddamn clusterfuck. X-Men 3 glossed over some pretty big deal mutants (Angel, Juggernaut, the Morlocks) and had a sentinel as a fucking cameo. The Wolverine movie was just a hot mess of random muties that I can't even begin to understand. Now IM3 has gone and done the same with Iron Patriot. In the comics, Iron Patriot was a big deal and representative as a big bad not just to Iron Man, but the Marvel Universe as a whole. The presence of the suit as used in the film would have been just as effective if it were, say, fucking Iron Man! 

The biggest change made in IM3, and consequentially the biggest problem I had with it, came in the presentation of one of Iron Man's traditionally big player antagonists. There has been an uproar between critics, fanboys, and personal friends of mine in regards to what happened in the beginning of the third act of this film. For the sake of spoilers, I'll try and keep this as vague as possible, but I make no promises. Basically, the first two thirds of the film do a tremendous job of establishing a global threat and menacing terrorist in The Mandarin. In the comics, The Mandarin is the be all, end all for Iron Man baddies, a rogues gallery that's not necessarily all-star talent. For bad guys, there's pretty much just Mandarin, MODOK, and a whole bunch of motherfuckers in armor not unlike Iron Man. Mandarin is a master scientist, martial artist, and wielder of alien tech in the form of ten rings. The film presents Mandarin with a more realistic approach of a terrorist, along the lines of Osama Bin Laden. I felt this was a good move especially to link the third IM film to the first a la Dark Knight Trilogy. Hell, there was already a Mandarin reference in the first Iron Man (The terrorist cell holding Tony in IM1 is part of an organization called 'The Ten Rings'. Continuity is boss, and I'm thrilled when it's acknowledged in films). However, with the third act comes a drastic shift in the tone of the film that more or less takes a lot away from that build-up. It wasn't awesome, it wasn't even terrible...it was just so out of fucking nowhere that I had no immediate reaction to it. I was a deer in the headlights. Some films are able to pull this off and have it work, sometimes it makes the fucking movie. This was not one of those times. As I said earlier, I had no idea how to feel about this film and this is the biggest reason why. First off, it's an even bigger change to a major player in the Iron Man mythos, the equivalent to Ra's Al Ghul for Batman, Magneto for X-Men, or Norman Osborn for Spider Man. Secondly, it wasn't necessary at all. I almost feel as though it was done just for the reaction of it, just for the laugh or surprise or confusion it would inevitably receive from the audience. If so, then congratulations Shane Black, and also, gooooooooooo fuck yourself.

Alright, I've done it. I've made my decision.

Wait for it....

Yeah, I liked this movie. In the grand scheme of things, it was still quite inferior to IM1 and Avengers, but it fit the story arc of Tony Stark fairly well. The story told in it is really good, actually, and grounds the Marvel films in a way that Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever aren't going to be able to do. It capitalizes on the fact that Stark is the only hero in the Avengers that the audience can even come close to relating to. RDJ continued to do his thing, even though I thought he was doing it too much here. if the rumours of him being done with Iron Man after Avengers 2 are true, I will definitely miss him. As for the changes made along the way, a second viewing tends to make everything clearer and better, in a hindsight 20/20 kind of way, so I'll give it another shot. Sometimes the change works in retrospect, and not so much as it's happening. It's how I felt about Dark Knight Rises, and I didn't love that movie after the first viewing either. Yeah, it's another comparison between Iron Man and Batman, but a good one. Both films were fitting and real endings to their respective stories. Like Tony himself, the film had flaws. What do you expect? Not everything can be perfect.

Well, The Avengers came close.

Knight Owl

Knight Owl's Review of Pain & Gain; Stranger Than Fiction

Michael Bay, you magnificent and terrible bastard.

Bay has been getting a lot of hate in recent years, a lot of it deserved. His movies of late have become the worst kind of summer popcorn movie: bad acting, horrible editing, with either a barely-there story or plot holes galore. Just lots of loud noises and shiny things on screen. Michael Bay films are the jangling keys of cinema. That's sad for me because I actually like his earlier work. If I had to rank my favourite Bay films before seeing Pain & Gain, it would look a little something like this:

1. Armageddon
2. The Rock
3. Bad Boys II
4. Bad Boys
5. Every fucking thing else
6. Pearl Harbour

 Considering this, it confused me when I heard that Bay had gone on record to apologize for Armageddon as it's probably the last movie that he should feel bad about. But then he recanted his apology saying he misspoke and would never apologize for anything, following that up with, and I quote: "I don’t change my style for anybody. Pussies do that." So never mind, Bay goes back to being an misogynistic, racist, arrogant douchebag and all is right with the world.

When I first heard about Pain & Gain, I was excited mainly due to two of my favourite Hollywood people being in it: Marky Mark and The Rock. Having that followed up by 'A Film by Michael Bay' made me cringe a little bit. And then it was stated to be based on a true story. Now, based on Bay's penchant for having things explode frequently, there are only a few types of real world events that Bay should be making into movies, and he REALLY shouldn't be allowed to (see: Pearl Harbour); but the more I saw of Pain & Gain, the more I was reminded of Bay's work on the Bad Boys movies. Yeah, they were flashy and unrealistic and such, but they were fun buddy cop movies, not to mention decent R-rated action. It was enough for me, with Marky Mark and The Rock in tow, to give P&G a chance. And I'm glad I did.

The story of P&G follows the true story of Daniel Lugo (Mark), a Miami body builder and personal trainer who, alongside fellow trainers Paul Doyle (Rock) and Adrian Dorball (Anthony Mackie), aim to make that money by kidnapping a wealthy client and, because they are tragically stupid, things go awry. Without spoiling anything, some of the events of the film that take place are truly over the top and have that taste of ridiculous that Bay is so famous for, so I did some looking into the true crime story that the film is based upon, and it seems that truth really is stranger than fiction sometimes. Yes, there are scenes thrown in to quicken the pace of the movie, some scenes are over-sensationalized, and in reality the group of criminals this is based upon was slightly larger (in number, not in physical size. Because damn Rocky's huge), but all-in-all this movie stuck pretty close to the stories published in the 1990's regarding the incident. If/when you go see this movie, there are some straight-up silly scenes in it. That shit actually happened.

If there is a single reason to see this movie, it's the people in it. Just fantastic performances all around, all of which are basically real people with their personalities turned up to eleven. Marky Mark Wahlberg is turning into a real Hollywood heavy, and I love it. His performance in The Departed stuck out the most for me, and that was amongst DiCaprio, Damon, and Jack Fucking Nicholson. His 'dumb but handsome' routine is one of the better things going for him in comedic roles like Ted and The Other Guys (also known as Channing Tatum Syndrome), and he's a good-to-great action guy. He got to be both funny and serious business in P&G and it suited him well. The film has been criticized for making the criminals too sympathetic and that might be true in Marky Mark's case. There were several times throughout the film where I didn't necessarily dislike the character, but just went 'Aww Marky Mark, no. Just no.'

I have a love/hate relationship with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Love him in movies, hate hate hate him in wrestling. Thanks to John 'Wrestling's Marky Mark' Cena, Rocky shouldn't be back in the ring any time soon and I can go back to liking him. This movie took a huge leap in that direction for me. Now, Marky Mark is a pretty built guy and probably put on some more pounds for this, but he looked like a fucking Baggins compared to Rocky, so that didn't hurt his presence in the film. Add to that his performance as a naive, herp-derp drug addict who found Jesus was fucking hilarious and endearing. There were times during Rocky's film career that I questioned his choices of funny kid-friendly films over action, but in reality he's just too funny to be squandered on Walking Tall 2: Running Tall or whatever.

Anthony Mackie's role as the third member of the gang was much more subtle than Mark's or Rocky's, but was just as over the top and was probably the most relateable character in the film. Tony 'That was a hell of a thing' Shaloub as the victim here was priceless, in that it would normally take a lot to straight-up hate someone who suffered through this madness, but here it seems natural. Ed Harris did his thing as the only real protagonist of the film, the PI hired to find the gang; he did it well, and without his calm and somber presence the film would have gone out of fucking control. Bay hasn't done characters this well since Armageddon, but it's nice to know he can still pull it off without Shia LeBeouf screaming in the background.

Visually, the film looks exactly like Bad Boys did. Also set in Miami, the setting was just as bright and warm as the city itself, but with a type of grit that fit the tone of the film. The R rating is earned here with language alone, but some strip club-centric nudity and a decent amount of the real-world kind of violence (as opposed to Will Smith in a Ferrari with a fucking MP5 violence) really hits it home. The only real inconsistency of the film lies in the pacing and tone of the film. The first 2/3 of the movie is a real good time, a comedic crime film along the lines of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Just three idiots trying to make it big and not knowing what the fuck they're doing. The fun stops nearly dead in the third act and we're brought headlong into a true crime film rehashing the events of the story in a very different light. It was well executed, and really emphasized the true story element of the thing, but the change is both sudden and drastic. The fun dies hard here.

If you're uninterested in this film purely based on Bay's involvement, stop being so fucking pretentious. This was an overall good time, and one of the funnier movies I've seen in a while. This doesn't change my mind about Michael Bay as a person, but I'm a firm believer of liking someone's work does not mean you have to like them (see: Tom Cruise, Michael Vick, Chris Benoit). The summer season is upon us, and this film is not long for that season so go and see it when you can. It's a good comedy while also actually having a point, as opposed to a good comedy about three guys who are hung over AGAIN!!! Rocky and Marky Mark are worth the price of admission alone.

Also: Rocky has the most bitching, 90's-est skateboard ever. It's awesome.

And if you need me, I'll be in the gym forever.

Knight Owl