MONDOmagazine

By Isaac Mills

BDSM: Ur doing it wrong.

1. Poor Adaptations That Change Things That Didn’t Need to be Changed in the First Place

The Last Airbender changed how you pronounced characters names- this is a movie based on a TV show - everyone knows how the names are pronounced. If you think the names should be said differently (Shyamalan) and 100% of your audience think they should be pronounced the same, maybe you should not mess around with the names?

But it doesn’t end there: Jonah Hex. An awesome bounty hunter cowboy. Is this hard? Take from the source material – there are a couple decades of good stories to pull from. I don’t think Megan Fox made any comic appearances either.

Then there’s Yogi Bear. Yogi is about my favourite Hanna Barbara character, so I scanned the trailer to try and figure out what was so off about it, and I realized that the static animation of the old cartoons was very essential to how it communicated its humour. I realize this is a more of a personal issue, so feel free to disagree, but the point in general still stands. Adapt things better! Read the rest of this entry »

TRON: Legacy
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Walt Disney Pictures, 2010

By Sean Kelly

It has been exactly one year since Avatar was released and pretty much revolutionized 3D films. However, the entire year since has seen studios go the cheap route and make post-converted cash-ins, instead of taking advantage of James Cameron’s camera technology and making original 3D films. I can confidently say that TRON: Legacy is the best 3D film to come out since Avatar. It also takes full advantage of IMAX (with many scenes shot in the format), so the film is definitely best seen on an IMAX screen.

The original 1982 TRON (which I have yet to see) is nearly as old as I am. At the time, the film had state of the art CGI effects, though by today’s standards it looks quite dated. How appropriate then that nearly 30 years later, a sequel has been made that can now more credibly show a world inside a computer. Read the rest of this entry »

Faster
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
Alliance Pictures, 2010

By Caesar Martini

You know, if you’re a huge, intimidating dude, I think there is a finite amount of time you can spend in an environment intentionally set up to be the diametric opposite of your appearance and personality (such as a family movie) before that juxtaposition ceases to be funny or interesting (re: anything in the 80’s starring Hulk Hogan). In my humble opinion, that finite amount of time is about thirty seconds, which is why it’s annoying that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has done no less than three full length family films. He wore a tutu in one, for god’s sake.

Thank Odin that The Rock has chosen Faster as his most recent project; a film where his only job is looking angry and being terrifyingly well muscled while he shoots people in the face. And he does this job very well. The first thing I thought when I saw the opening of the movie as The Rock paced menacingly in his prison cell was, “Holy shit he is HUGE.” I was legitimately afraid of him because he was so very big and so very angry. Read the rest of this entry »

Unstoppable
Directed by Tony Scott
Twentieth Century Fox, 2010

By Caesar Martini

I went into this movie half-thinking, “Why am I going into this movie again?” The answer is because my friend wanted to see it. I wasn’t particularly interested, as I had just seen Tony Scott direct Denzel Washington in a movie heavily involving trains last year (The Taking of Pelham 123). In fact, I’ve seen Scott direct Washington in five movies now. It’s as if he can’t direct anyone else in a lead role. Or maybe he looked at how his brother, Ridley Scott, has directed Russell Crowe in five movies and said, “Hey I want one too! Only, you know… black.” Perhaps the Scotts are prone to man-crushes on talented actors. Anyway, groundlessly speculated director-actor homoeroticism aside, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Unstoppable. Read the rest of this entry »

Resident Evil: Afterlife
Directed by Paul WS Anderson
Sony Pictures, Sept 2010

By Caesar Martini

Why do I keep going to see Resident Evil movies?  They’re so consistently terrible.  The first one was adequate, the second one (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) was as close to a crime against humanity as a motion picture can come, and the third one’s (RE: Extinction) main virtue was that it wasn’t as bad as the second.  Sigh.  Well here we go. Read the rest of this entry »

Monsters
Directed by Gareth Edwards
UK
Part of the Vanguard Programme

By Sean Kelly

When I first heard of the independent sci-fi film Monsters, it almost sounded like District 9 meets Cloverfield. After seeing the film, I also found myself recalling the sense of isolation felt in 28 Days Later.

The set-up is quite simple, six years ago a space probe carrying alien samples crashed in Mexico. The area of the crash site was quarantined, and in the present day of the film, attacks from giant squid-like alien monsters have become a part of life. Read the rest of this entry »

The Expendables
Directed by Sylvester Stallone
Lionsgate, 2010

By Sean Kelly

There was a lot of hype behind The Expendables. Sylvester Stallone had assembled what some may call a dream team and the film seemed like it was going to be the action film to end all action films. However, while I thought the film was decent enough, it came off with more a whimper then a bang.

The story follows a team of mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Stallone). Ross is joined by second in command Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), as well as Ying Yang (Jet Li), Gunner Jenson (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews).

Probably the most hyped scene in the film is the scene that united the three biggest action stars of the 80s, Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger onscreen together for the first time. It is essentially an extended cameo for both Willis and Schwarzenegger, though I do have to admit that the film gave the latter a chance to properly – and somewhat literally – walk off into the sunset. Read the rest of this entry »

Predators
Director: Nimrod Antal
Twentieth Century Fox, July 2010

By Caesar Martini

You know, this film is not getting the attention it deserves, and I don’t understand why, because if you’re a fan of the 1987 Predator film, you should be a fan of this one too. And if you’re a fan of the Alien vs Predator films that we’ve been punished with in the past few years, then what the hell is wrong with you? Those films were terrible disgraces to their original properties. Instead of treating us to an awesome alien-killing-machine throwdown, they decided to shoot fight scenes that you could recreate by tossing Alien and Predator action figures at each other in a dark room.

One of the criticisms of Predators is that it’s not terribly new or inventive. Well Christ, the antagonist of the movie is an alien being whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill people, what more do you want? Read the rest of this entry »

The Book of Eli
Directed by The Hughes Brothers
Warner Brothers, 2010

By Miles Baker

The future is sad because it’s grey and brown, but — if it’s any consolation — it’s also really well lit.

The nukes have landed and society has gone to shit. Gangs roam ruined highways, preying on passersby; others have sought shelter in the bombed out remains of small towns; food and water are scarce. But, worst of all for people like myself who work in publishing, books are rare and there are only a few people left who can read. In roams Denzel Washington, a post-apocalypic samurai who caries the most rare book of all, a King James Bible.

Enter slumlord Gary Oldman, who seeks the unifying/controlling power of the sacred text; and cue fight scenes. Mila Kunis and Ray Stevenson round out the cast (with a super sweet cameo from Tom Waits). Read the rest of this entry »

Robin Hood
Directed by Ridley Scott
Universal Pictures, 2010

By Sean Kelly

If there is anything I can say about Ridley Scott’s take on the classic legend of Robin Hood is that it was very brave of Scott to throw away the familiar plot and create an all-new story. Scott’s reimagined epic encompasses the origins of Robin Hood in a true historical context.

The classic Robin Hood villains – the Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) and King John (Oscar Isaac) are given a backseat in this story. The Sheriff only appears in 3 or 4 scenes and John, the newly crowned king, is more akin to a spoiled brat than a true villain. Instead, the main villain of this story is John’s traitorous aid Godfrey (Mark Strong – who seems to have a lifetime membership to “Villains ‘R Us”). Godfrey has joined forces with the French to create civil unrest in England aiming to pave the way for a French invasion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Smith's cell-out?

Cop Out
Director: Kevin Smith
Warner Bros Pictures, February 2010

By Caesar Martini

Do you like Tracey Morgan? Specifically, have you ever watched Tracy Morgan’s character on 30 Rock, Tracy Jordan, and thought, “This guy is hilarious, but I wish I could see him play the same character with a slightly better grasp on reality for 107 straight minutes while Bruce Willis stands nearby and struggles to tolerate him,” then brother, have I got a movie for you!

The movie is Cop Out, the first film that Kevin Smith has directed without also writing. It is so named as a poke at the movie studio for not accepting Smith’s original idea for the picture, “A Couple of Dicks.” The film follows partners Jimmy (Willis) and Paul (Morgan) as police officers who are tracking down Jimmy’s stolen baseball card, so he can sell it and pay for his daughter’s upcoming wedding.

Read the rest of this entry »

Legion
Director: Scott Stewart
Sony Pictures, 2010

By Caesar Martini

Dear reader: are you like me? Did you see previews of Legion, a movie about God waging angelic warfare on humanity in order to eradicate our species, and think, “Dear heavens, that looks quite terrible.” If you are like me and you had the same snarky thoughts, prepare to have your opinion take a 180 degree turn, and then another 180 degree turn so it stays utterly and completely the same.

The basic story is as follows: God is right pissed with humanity because we’re all a bunch of twats. Fair enough. Instead of sending a flood to tidy things up, he sends his angels to Earth as a sort of biblical pest-control force. Except the angels don’t physically come down and start laying a heavenly beat-down on us, because that would be too expensive and not what the filmmakers decided to do. Instead, the angels possess weak minded humans and use them to attack whoever they can’t control. So in a way, humanity destroys itself.

Read the rest of this entry »