Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Charlie)

I am slacking on my reviews.

I went to see this movie with a person who has read the whole Percy Jackson series. I recommend doing this. About three quarters into the movie i leaned over and said "We need to have a long talk when this movie is over." What i was told after the movie is that this movie is nothing like the books. They also seemed to think that the people that made this movie did not even read the books.

With that aside i thought this movie was terrible. I am a big fan of Greek Mythology and i was hoping they would do something creative with this story. Nope, this was just another attempt to find the next Harry Potter. If they plan on making the rest of the books into movies then i do plan to skip them.

This movie also had a huge cast. Sean Bean, Pierce Bronsnan, Brandon T. Jackson (the guy in love with Lance in Tropic Thunder), Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Mckidd (my doppelganger), Joe Pantoliano (who is a really nice guy to work with), and Uma Thurman. None of them bring anything to the movie. Uma Thurman was painful to watch. She plays Medusa and the clay animated Medusa from the Original Clash of the Titans was more convincing.

I am told the books are really entertaining and clever. This movie was a waist of time.

And the Greek Underworld is not the same as Christianity's Hell. Hollywood gets this wrong all the time.

Date Night (Brodie)

(Quick synopsis: A couple feeling their marriage was in a bit of a rut find more adventure than they bargained for when they try to spice up their date night.)
Let me preface THIS review by saying, I laugh when Tina Fey breathes; therefore, it should be no surprise that I loved this movie.  I was laughing consistently throughout.  I think Carell and Fey are great together.  This movie has the funniest car chase and the funniest strip club scene I've ever seen.  "Sex robots", "fart in a shoebox".... I love the randomness of their humor.  There were also some fun cameos I wasn't expecting.  I highly recommend this one.

Kick-Ass (Brodie)

First, I've gotta say that I thought this was a superhero movie meant for teens, so I was kind of horrified by the amount of violence, even moreso after I realized that it WAS a movie meant for teens--three of the four main characters were all under 18.  (I'll leave my Brodie Buzzkill diatribe about our society's ills for another blog.)

It was entertaining; definitely had me laughing.  In truth, none of the characters were all that likable, but that's not why we go see superhero movies.  The action was good--more of that over the top load-gun-clips-in-midair nonsense we've come to expect.  There was definitely one character who was unlike our action flick cliches, and I do appreciate certain elements of that.  However, that same character, the most bad ass of them all, whose life was constructed around revenge, was denied the formulaic climactic kill of the bad guy.  If you're gonna be a violent, vigilante movie, at least do it right.

So in summary, if you're prepped for violence and nothing too clever, you'll enjoy this movie.