May, 2009

Review in a Hurry: Take a handful of popular Marvel Comics characters, cast them with solid actors (be it Hugh Jackman as Wolvie, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool or Taylor Kitsch as the card-throwing Gambit) and you can’t go wrong, right? Well, you can if you make them spout dreadful dialogue, your effects look cheap and you hire a director who’s totally wrong for the material.

The Bigger Picture: A big part of Wolverine’s appeal as a character was his mystery, but hey, Marvel finally decided (ill-advisedly) to spill the details of his origin in comic books. So Hollywood has followed, equally ill-advisedly.

Little is revealed about Jackman’s metal-clawed mutant that we didn’t already gather from the other three X movies, and what is revealed often comes off as downright silly. (He got his name from a stupid faux Indian story his girlfriend made up? Really?)

The movie, which is mostly set sometime in the ’70s, starts intriguingly, with a plot that looks like it’ll be similar to Watchmen: Someone is picking off former members of a secret military team of mutants, and Wolverine, who quit when the team’s methods went too far, must figure out who…and get revenge when somebody close falls victim.

This involves signing up for metal skeleton injections courtesy the villainous Col. Stryker (Danny Huston), who apparently also invented the Bush doctrine of preemptive war on possible terrorists.

The original team includes the likes of Fred Dukes (Kevin Durand), an immovable object who will eventually be known as The Blob; super sharpshooter Agent Zero (Daniel Henney); wisecracking sword master Wade “Deadpool” Wilson, who can cut flying bullets in half; teleporter Wraith (a surprisingly good will.i.am); and of course Wolvie and Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), the latter of whom turned evil during the Vietnam War for no particularly good reason.

Internet fanboys have been demonizing Fox’s Tom Rothman, but the real reason that what ensues is so poorly executed is most likely director Gavin Hood. The obnoxious sentimentalizing and clichéd execution (characters stare up to the sky and cry out in grief-stricken anger more than once!) were also evident in his inexplicably overrated Oscar winner Tsotsi.

Also, screenwriter Skip Woods wrote the videogame-based bomb Hitman. What did you expect from these two?

The cast gives it their all, but they’re wasted in what is essentially an infomercial for potential future spinoffs. And the special effects don’t even look finished—are we sure it wasn’t the leaked workprint that was screened for press?

The 180—a Second Opinion: Audience members who can truly turn off their brains and just be entertained may be satisfied by the colorful characters having a few cool fight scenes. But remember when the X-Men films actually stimulated our brains instead of deadening them?

Review in a Hurry: Ghosts mischievously fulfills your vengeful wishes against exes, with surprising sensitivity and humor. It also helps that the whipping boy is Matthew McConaughey, who earns his smirk this time around.

The Bigger Picture: Every jilted woman harbors a potent revenge fantasy. It looks a lot like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and goes like this: You force the lover who’s wronged you to relive all of the moments where they took you for granted. Every one of their callous gestures witnessed in perpetuity until they tearfully repent and insist that they’ll want another chance.

Though Ghosts may look indistinguishable from the dozen other McConaughey paycheck rom-coms, this time we’re not meant to be charmed by that honey-dipped Southern tongue. In Ghosts, McConaughey plays a loathsome narcissist, Conor Mead, with a merciless “no strings attached” policy that leaves an unfathomable amount of women in despair.

The weekend of his baby brother’s (Breckin Meyer) wedding, Conor runs into his first and most passionate love (Jennifer Garner, who is so sallow and brittle in this movie that she has the warmth of a stick insect). Thrown off his game and soused in Scotch, Conor is then visited by the ghosts of relationships past, present and future.

Predictable? Of course. But the filmmakers dole out the pop psychology and payback in creatively cheeky ways so that you’re genuinely bought into Conor’s redemption.

Now, McConaughey has done us all wrong with his tortuously lazy career choices. The man has clearly made a decision to put his feet up, take his shirt off and let the money roll in.

And though he butters himself thickly with that cocksure shtick this time, too, here he honestly earns your heart. Conor has the flamboyant confidence of a matador, but McConaughey draws out the right amount of sleaze and tenderness to transform Conor from a bullfighter to a rodeo clown. Witnessing him suffer the reprisals of an estrogen lynch mob and humble himself before his childhood love is cathartic and pleasurable.

The 180—a Second Opinion: You may not be ready to forgive McConaughey for his sadistic crimes against cinema, in which case do not set foot into this movie. He lays it on thick and you could feel smothered by all that that coco-buttered charm.

Review in a Hurry: Obsessed would be an ordinary, cheap seduction thriller if it weren’t for its extraordinary mix of stars. The immaculate Beyoncé Knowles and devastatingly handsome Idris Elba attack their silly parts with a ferocity that gives this dumpy little movie the spark it needs to be compelling.

The Bigger Picture: There are there two types of bad movies. There are bad bad movies, the kind that leave you resentful for having time wasted and your emotions bullied. And there are good bad movies.

These happy few don’t pretend to be anything besides entertainment and commit themselves to making every mistake a movie can.

Obsessed is a great bad movie. It shamelessly hand-feeds viewers exactly what they ordered: Beyoncé looking fabulous while she kicks. Ass.

Obsessed is little more than a 90-minute prelude to a remarkably well-choreographed final fight scene between a sweaty, grunting, voluptuous Beyoncé and a home-wrecking bombshell named Lisa (Ali Larter). Both ladies are, in case it needs to get better, outfitted in impossibly high heels.

Lisa is psychotically obsessed with the infinitely dashing Derek (Elba). The first two-thirds of the movie focus on Lisa, an office temp with a big mouth and a penchant for revenge, attempting to seduce Derek, some type important business muckety-muck.

Fearful that he may offend his domestic goddess, Sharon (Knowles), by mentioning any of Lisa’s advances, Derek continually lies to his wife. Big mistake: No mortal can make a fool of Beyoncé.

Now there’s little reason to extol on Knowles’ talent or fierceness. It’s a proven mathematical theorem that Beyoncé + spotlight = razzle-dazzle fun.

Instead, let’s throw some light on the next big thing you may not be aware of yet: The untouchably cool Idris Elba. He usually plays a strong second to a more animated lead man (The Office, The Wire), but in Obsessed, Elba makes his star turn. He’s pliable and playful. He harnesses his natural gravitas to effortlessly fill the lead role.

The script is tedious and the story predictable, but watching the chemistry crackle between Elba and Beyoncé is like watching Greek gods flirt. It’s fantastic, scrumptious fun.

The 180—a Second Opinion: It’s a great bad movie, to be sure, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that Obsessed is fundamentally, at its core…bad.