Knight Owl's Review of I, Frankenstein; Going Underworld

Wow.

Just Wow with this movie.

It's been a while since I sat down and tore a film apart for being just so bad. If you've seen my SooToday reviews (please do, I'll make sure to post a link to the bottom), you know that I've had to clean up my act a bit and make with the clean language and the full-on liking of the film I'm writing about. It basically means that I have to go out and find films that either I and/or the general public liked or should like and sing its praises as non-aggressively as possible. Not here. Here I say whatever I goddamn please.

And this fucking movie is just so bad, it's good.

So first off, I do hope that whoever owns the rights to Underworld is aware that this movie blatantly stole from the contents of the Vampire-vs-Werewolf series. They aren't similar. No homages or subtle references. Straight up theft. A supernatural being is, through no fault of his own, thrust into the middle of a secret war between two immortal factions. The synopsis pretty well fits either film, only Underworld includes a love story and Kate freaking Beckinsale(!), thus making Frankenstein the inferior film.

And another thing: the 'secret war, waging for centuries blah blah blah' trope. Come on, now. Seriously, how many secret wars can possibly be going on in this post-9/11 hashtag world of ours? The soldiers in this particular war involve ugly fuckers with horns and shit beating on rather large, winged gargoyles wielding huge medieval weapons. And there are several scenes in this film that were just not discrete at all, in the middle of major metropolitan areas. Really? No one is seeing this? I know the trope has appeared in other films such as The Matrix, Men In Black, pretty much every vampire slayer film or series out there. But at least with these examples there was a modicum of subtlety, or at least a flashy-thingy or some MacGuffin designed to keep the war a secret. Not with this movie, and no one seems to give a shit about the flying stone people picking up bystanders and setting them ablaze, or the massive explosion in the middle of town. Don't worry, guys, nothing to see here I guess.

Let's talk about the cast. First off, we have Aaron 'I Believe in Harvey Dent' Eckhart as the titular monster. And by 'monster' I of course mean the handsomest creation to be concocted out of one or more dead bodies since Peter Boyle in a tux in Young Frankenstein. It states in the film that the monster, or 'Adam', is made up of something like eight different bodies. If that's true, then they were the bodies of eight identical people because the pieces fit together more easily than a jigsaw puzzle designed for first-graders (or Justin Bieber).

"Yeah, this all looks fine Igor, but where did you find the butt-chin?"

Oh, and whoever was in charge of keeping Adam's make-up consistent deserves a punch in the neck. There are way too many close ups of Eckhart's handsome face to be fucking up on his make-up as much as these people did. There were scenes where half the scars that were previously present on his face were just not there. Others where it just looked like Eckhart came in off the street, didn't bother with the make-up at all, and did his thing. I don't know who is to blame, but necks need to be punched.

This movie would be nigh-unwatchable if not for the great Bill Nighy returning to his role from Underworld appearing in a role that we have totally never seen him play before. Few are as good at blatant overacting as good ol' Davy Jones here. The steely eyes, the perma-frown and oh, the over-enunciation! Nearly every sentence of his is punctuated by a '~zah!' Anyone who's ever seen a Pirates of the Caribbean film knows what I'm talking about. It's also nice to see Yvonne Strahovski in things, although I have a rocky relationship with her right now. She was delightful in Chuck, but was also a big factor in Dexter becoming the fart noise that was the final episode. Oh well, she's hot. I'll forgive her.

The visuals were pretty much what I expected, same grade as any other genre flick of this nature: kinda cartoony with a little bit of money and 3D to make it look not terrible. The times where prosthetics were used, mainly on the demons in the film, were very reminiscent of Joss Whedon's work with Buffy and Angel, endearing me to the film somewhat. The action scenes were full of the slow-motion, hard hitting, property damaging fare that, like the visuals of the film, are so commonplace in films today that I can't even think of a specific example. Oh yeah, fucking UNDERWORLD.

So yeah, this movie was a laughable good time, in that it was so very bad and had no right to not be a direct-to-DVD B-movie. And if Rotten Tomatoes is to be believed, no one is arguing with me. Hell, it was opening night when I went to see it and the place was desolate. I would have much rather seen the Adam character hornswoggled into the Underworld franchise so that he would fall in love with Kate Beckinsale and have the most beautiful undead babies.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's my quota for fanfic writing for my entire life. You're welcome.

Knight Owl

Knight Owl's Top 10 Films of 2013; Because F*ck 2013!

Holy shit, 2013 sucked.

While the loss of Jandy ('grandmother') would be enough for me to claim that, it was just the most significant of an impressive list of shit to go wrong on my end. The month of December felt like it went on forever for me just waiting for the year to end. Well, it has. Thank God. 

On top of the stack of crap my personal life went through, the year wasn't great for film either. It certainly pales in comparison to the previous year, which gave us Django Unchained, The Avengers, and the conclusion to my beloved Dark Knight Trilogy. It wasn't all bad this year, but I was at a loss to find a top 10 list of films that I loved and would be excited to write about.

At first. Then came the new year, and with it a new outlook of the year past. Objectively there is nothing really new about the transition from one year to the next. There is no real change. But that kind of thinking is just plain not fun, and this will be the year of the Knight Owl. And January has been my rallying point. 

So, here we are with the 10 movies I hold high above the rest, featuring similar ridiculous and fictional awards to last year's top 10. Some are objectively great films that have or will win significant awards for their efforts, while others are more appealing to me personally. I'm sure some of you will agree with me, or else what the hell are you doing reading an excessively long blog laced with nothing but my opinion?

Still here? Good. Here we go...

10. The "Every Young Actor Who Has Ever Made You Laugh Is In This Movie" award for most cameos in a film goes to...

THIS IS THE END

This movie is fucking hilarious. The concept of the best that young Hollywood has to offer playing themselves during the apocalypse made for easily one of the funniest movies this year. It actually made me like actors like Jonah Hill (more on him later), Danny McBride, and Jay Baruchel. It also got me watching Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared again, the Apatow shows that got most of these guys started. It's even better now after seeing The Roast of James Franco, by far the best roast that Comedy Central has put on. And seriously, more cameos than what should be possible in a film: Emma Watson, Rihanna, Michael Cera, McLovin (because really, that should be his real name), Channing Tatum, Aziz Ansari, Jason Segel...so many faces of awesome people. Just watch out for demon dicks...they're everywhere in this movie!

9. The "Tommy Guns Are Super Cool" award for best crime film set in the 1940's goes to...

GANGSTER SQUAD

This film has a special place in my heart for reminding me of two favourite movies of mine: Dick Tracy and The Untouchables. Like Untouchables, this is a period piece set in the early 20th century loosely based on a true story about renegade cops fighting the mob. Like Dick Tracy, this film has some flash, some style, and in no way takes itself seriously. Josh Brolin is a total badass here, Ryan Babygoose does the asshole with a heart of gold schtick pretty well, and Emma Stone does that thing where she's really hot. Also, Sean Penn eats scenery for three meals a day here, bad makeup and all. I was seriously waiting for him to tell Dick Tracy to eat lead. 

8. And winning the "KAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHN" award for the film who best tried to sneak in being a remake when no one was looking...

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Damn, this movie was fun. It carried over much of what I loved about the first Star Trek film and got rid of that time travel gimmicky crap. Even the light flares that JJ Abrams has become famous for didn't bother me so much. Also, count me in as a Cumberbatch fan because he was amazing in this; believably evil yet sympathetic, imposing, with just the right amount of overacting and over-enunciating to remind everyone that this is still Star Trek we're talking about here. This psuedo-remake of probably the best Star Trek film to date was one of my faves of the summer. Could always do with more Chekov, though. 

7. The winner of the "I Didn't Even Know I Missed It" award for a Disney animated movie returning to form is...

FROZEN

The songs. The romance. The silly slapstick comedy. The entirely unnecessary yet entertaining sidekicks and animal companions. Ladies and gentlemen, Disney is back. The tried and true formula that was part of so many childhoods seemed to go away with the string of Pixar films over the past decade or so. Don't get me wrong, some of them are amazing (INCREDIBLES), but what made Disney what it is fell by the wayside. They made attempts at regaining that 'magic' with films like The Princess and the Frog and Tangled, but the former missed the mark and the latter was missing the songs, which prove to be an important part of what makes a Disney movie what it is. Getting back to Frozen, this movie had all of that and more. It takes maybe the biggest Disney trope and turns it right on its ass. It was funny, adorable, touching, and dare I say magical. Welcome back, Disney, I'm sure I'll be sick of these movies again soon.

6. The "It's About Time, Was That So Hard?" award for best film featuring giant robots and/or giant monsters goes to...

PACIFIC RIM

I can't stand how fun this movie is. It's like the best of Independence Day, Godzilla, Power Rangers, and Del Toro's madness all rolled into one. A nice simple story, amazing visuals, and fight sequences that are basically the antithesis to the Michael Bay-style, hard to follow nonsense I was expecting out of a film with really big robots make this maybe the best popcorn film this year. 

5. The winner of the "Jennifer Lawrence Bandwagon" award for film to feature Jennifer Lawrence the most is...

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE

Seriously, who doesn't love this girl?. She's awesome. Forget her roles in film for a second and watch her just be her. It's fucking amazing how cool she is. And also hot. She's hot. I would just write a paragraph about her, but hey, this is a really good movie on top of that. Another really close adaptation of a Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire sets up a lot of pieces for the next part of the series. I'm less thrilled about the third book being split into two movies (Deathly Hallows needed two movies. Breaking Dawn didn't and The Hobbit sure as shit don't need three.), but that just means more Katniss. So fine, I'll be there. You don't have to twist my arm. 

4. The film winning the "JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE IS HAPPENING!" award for best Comic Book film of the year is...

MAN OF STEEL

This year had a lot to live up to with last year's releases of Avengers and DKR. Iron Man 3 was borderline garbage, and there was no way that Thor 2 could be taken seriously. Man of Steel took a character I don't care for at all and made him watchable for nearly three hours. Many have issue with this movie for one reason or another, and I've been meaning to revisit this film and go over said problems. But here's the short version: DC Comics had one successful franchise. It ended last year and made ALL OF THE MONEY with those three films. Man Of Steel was a Superman movie for Batman fans, and it worked, obviously, because here comes Batfleck in all his glory, AND Wonder Woman to boot! If I could buy my ticket now, I would. 

3. The winner of the "Fuck Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck" award for best film to use the F-word over 500 times in the course of three hours is...

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

This was, surprisingly enough, the funniest movie of the year. Probably my favourite Scorsese picture, other than The Departed, this movie plays out like a goddamn fever dream and is fun the whole way through. Dicaprio is straight up amazing in this, deserves that fucking Oscar, and he's not the only one. When the hell did Jonah Hill become an actual actor instead of the fat kid from Superbad who drew dicks all over the place? He is AWESOME in this. Another Oscar nomination, and one he totally deserves. The only reason this bad boy of a movie isn't higher is because it is three goddamn hours long, and can feel like it at times. But it's a hell of a ride.

2. The "Amy Adams' Cleavage" award for the best display of actresses and their assets in a film goes to...

AMERICAN HUSTLE

First off, yeah, Jennifer Lawrence again. And she is objectively amazing in this movie, as is Amy 'Enchanted' Adams, Batman, Hawkeye, and Guy from Hangover. The 70's-set con artist film by David O. Russell (a director with a hell of a winning streak with The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and now this) is almost as fun as Wolf of Wall Street with a more coherent plot and one hour shorter. Bale shows that he might be the only Batman to not disappear into mediocrity (don't count Clooney. Just don't.), and sports a rocking comb-over while doing so. The setting itself is so well put together, too. It was very, VERY 70's. 

And also, Jennifer Lawrence. 

1. The best film of the year and winner of the "Holyshitholyshitholyshit" award for forever fucking my life up is...

GRAVITY

This fucking movie. Sure, there are films on this list that have better plot, action, laughs, demon dicks, whatever. But Gravity did something that nearly no other film has done: it did something TO ME. No film has affected me in the same way that Gravity did, and for that alone, it's one of the best films I've ever seen. Not to mention the fact that the trailers made it look like the most boring thing in the entire damn world. I don't think I blinked for the two hours this movie was on for. I strongly believe that Alfonso Cuaron earned the Golden Globe for best director for this and deserves the same at the Oscars, because he may have revolutionized film with Gravity. Too bad I'll never watch this fucker again. PEACE!

So yeah, 2013 happened and it was bad. The Niners lost spectacularly at the Superbowl, CM Punk lost the WWE Title to Dwayne fucking Johnson, Dexter ended with a whisper and a fart, and that's just the most trivial of it. But fuck it, we got some decent movies out of it. Now we're almost a month into 2014 and it's been going good so far. I'm back where I belong on the night shift, getting some good quality time in with my family, friends, and Mandi. Mom has an incredible new house in Thessalon. I'm still getting married (eventually). And I'm already thrice published in a local news site for writing more clean, wholesome movie reviews. 

Welcome to the Year of the Knight Owl. 

Knight Owl