Imprisoned for over forty years, illegal alien Boris “The Animal” (Jemaine Clement) escapes a maximum security prison to exact revenge on the MIB agent who put him away: Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). The evil alien’s scheme will exact revenge on his jailer and on the Earth itself, but it requires going back in time to 1969. When all traces of Agent K suddenly disappear from the present, Agent J (Will Smith) is the only person who can remember the correct timeline and his partner being alive. As an alien invasion force begins the systematic destruction of all life on Earth, Agent J time jumps to the past, but can he save his partner, stop the bad guy, rescue the Earth, prevent destroying his own timeline, and resurrect a fifteen year-old franchise before the credits roll?

It’s easy to love the concept and characters of Men in Black; the actual films, however, have always seemed hit and miss. The original film was 98 minutes long but seemed too short, hitting its stride right at the finish line and feeling like there should have been more. The sequel was 88 minutes but seemed too long, rehashing the same bits and leaving the MIB agency feeling slapstick rather than incidentally comical. At its core, the whole concept is a sci-fi police procedural, so why construct scenes solely for the sake of a comedy bit when it could be made to serve the story and remain entertaining? MIB III seems to get this at last, giving the Agency and its characters their due while answering some of the oldest questions about K and J that you probably forgot all about.

If there’s one failing that can be singled out in the film, it’s the assumption that audiences already know who these people are. It kind of demands that you’ve at least seen the original and actually care enough to wonder what these guys might be up to ten years later. For everyone who has, there are rewards, including Easter eggs of previous goings on, a plot device utilized to its fullest that genuinely surprises, a clever production design that embraces its past and present, and of course Josh Brolin’s 1969 dead-on Tommy Lee Jones impression (as Agent K, of course). Real fans of the MIB (including the original Malibu comic and the animated series) already know you can be quirky, weird, and fun without resorting to stupidity and random genitalia jokes. It would almost feel like a love letter to fans if it didn’t also reek of squeezing more money out of a safe bet.

At 103 minutes, you get more MIB than ever, and it goes by quick. Jemaine Clement’s turn as baddie Boris is adequately twisted and threatening, giving our favorite suits a real challenge to keep their feet to the fire. Michael Stuhlbarg plays new alien sidekick Griffin, a walking plot device that you can’t help but like. Keep your eyes peeled for a legion of classic alien monster designs in and about MIB’s 1969 headquarters (just because they could). Of course, no one was really asking for this threequel other than Sony Entertainment, but “no one asking for it” didn’t stop Paramount from recasting the original Star Trek crew and making a bundle. While everyone was surprised by how well the new Star Trek film was received and performed at the box office, will Men in Black fans (new and old) wait with anticipation for another sequel in the same way Trek fans are? Sony certainly hopes so.

(a three skull recommendation out of four)

Meet Hopper (Taylor “John Carter/Friday Night Lights” Kitsch), a troubled young man with a heart of gold. Smart, fit, but rudderless, his older brother (Alexander Skarsgård) makes him (?!) join the US Navy, which he pretty much does to get with a girl (Brooklyn Decker). The girl, of course, also happens to be the daughter of an admiral (Liam Neeson) who doesn’t like Hopper or the fact he keeps screwing up. On the eve of losing everything, a deep space communication project based in Hawaii finally yields results: an alien force crash lands into the Pacific ocean. Faster than you can say Pop-a-Matic bubble, a force field dome cuts off the bulk of the naval fleet from Hawaii, leaving only Hopper, a handful of surface ships, and crack teams of special effects wizards to save the world.

Considering this film was developed for Hasbro as a vehicle to push a board game, it’s the pro-military, all aliens are bad, big and loud and dumb special effects summer blockbuster left vacant this year by Michael “Eat Your Awesome” Bay and his Transformers films (except the ships don’t change into giant robots). What’s frustrating is that the third act and big finish is actually kinda cool if completely implausible, the kind of ending that makes guys enlist in the service to fly jet fighters and kill pirates instead of sweeping compartments and painting bulkheads. For the rest of the film, the narrative is simply all over the place, a pile of excuses to get the characters we want where we want them to be just in time to save the day.

Believability takes a back seat to adventure right from the start. Characters appear everywhere they need to be to keep the headlining stars in on the action instead of what their characters should probably be doing. Couple this with a few Shatner-worthy cowboy diplomacy moments (“Mahalo, motherf*****r!”) and the usual luck-into-intel plot points (“Good thing we just happened to be hiking up the same mountain that the aliens landed on, huh? It seemed kinda random at the time…!”) Finally, the last stand effort for the good guys comes down to something so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh, and at the exact same time, the movie finally exercises its self-awareness bone and has a little fun before the credits roll. This doesn’t make it a good movie, but it might make it worth sneaking into the ending after you see The Avengers again.

Taylor Kitsch spends most of the film looking frustrated before they finally let him step up and play hero. Liam Neeson does his serious-cool thing for the few moments of screen time afforded him. And Petty Officer Rihanna (seriously, why did they even bother making up a name for her character?) looks great whether she wet or firing a gun and amazingly never loses her cover (read: hat). There were other people in the film (mostly running or screaming into microphones or whatever), but a lot of the extras are reportedly the real deal, from new recruits to old salty dogs. They say if you can’t handle the big guns that you should stay below decks, but never underestimate a retired gunner’s mate who remembers how the trigger mechanism works.

(a two skull recommendation out of four)

His Excellency, Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen), supreme ruler of the Republic of Wadiya, is ordered to appear before “the jackals” who run the so-called United Nations. It seems Aladeen is intent on developing nuclear weapons and, of course, refuses to let UN inspectors in to see if he’s really about to do so. Unfortunately, the world’s last dictator has envious enemies around every corner, and a vile betrayal in New York City finds Aladeen on the streets, penniless, and unrecognizable. When a local activist (Anna Faris) takes him in out of pity, Aladeen is given the means to take back his regime, but will he still be the kind of kindly, iron-fist ruler his beloved oppressed people have come to pretend to love?

Most Americans know comedic actor Sacha Baron Cohen as the voice of King Julian in the Madagascar movies, but they may also know him as Ali G, Borat, Bruno, and a host of other egotists who are so distinctly different that they are virtually unrecognizable as the same person. Cohen is a brilliantly metamorphic comedian that is rarely ever caught breaking character, but one similarity that most of the characters demonstrate is a complete disregard for anyone outside of their closed-off little worlds. Where most of Cohen’s films exploit non-actors falling for his ruse, this dictator has been banished to one of those flash-in-the-pan SNL movies, the ones that probably sounded funnier on paper and where the filmmakers had more fun than their intended audience.

If a character is clueless that the despicable things they do are truly heinous, is there any way they can be redeemed, even in the name of comedy? The first atrocity committed by The Dictator is trying to force a fish-out-of-water stock plot where our “hero” eventually realizes (over a girl) what an ass he’s been. Unfortunately, it’s tough to absolve someone who believes they’ve been born to the rights reserved for Egyptian Pharaohs as an excuse to sodomize boy bands and lament over how long it’s been since visiting a rape camp. If these kinds of references are meant to be humorous because of the cluelessness of the main character, they too often fall short. Any viewers with a sensitivity to these subjects (isn’t rape hilarious?!) should steer clear of this film.

The story itself lacks any believable flow from one event to the next; you can practically see the gaps in continuity on the screen, and it’s distracting. There’s also a political subtext to the storyline, culminating in a clever speech that’s fully self-aware. In between these stretches, however, a few gems of hilarity can be found in places you’d least expect. These R-rated bits are everything they couldn’t spoil in the trailers, and it isn’t as much as one would hope considering the film’s less than ninety minute running time. Even poor Ben Kingsley seems out of sorts by the entire thing, essentially reduced to reprising his role from Prince of Persia.

Interestingly, Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess with the Zohan covers most of the stereotype and racial observations presented herein (and with a few of the same actors) as well as being a sharply more entertaining film as a whole. Still, there were things that worked for The Dictator, such as Bobby Lee’s Mr. Lao (a man of many appetites), a couple of celebrity cameos, a soundtrack littered with re-imagined-yet-recognizable songs revolving around Aladeen himself, all the outtakes at the end of the credits, a birthing scene you won’t believe they made, and every heated conversation between Aladeen and his royal bomb maker (it might have been a better film just to have those two verbally assaulting one another for the running time). Both regrettable and forgettable, the best bits are really the free publicity stunts Cohen has been spreading around as the title character, but you don’t have to waste a ticket price to enjoy those.

(a one and a half skull out of four recommendation)

Over two hundred years earlier, the Collins family moved from England to the “new world” and settled in Maine, increasing their holdings in the fishing business. Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) was just a young man when Collinsport was established and their hilltop manor of Collinwood was built. After spurning the advances of Angelique (Eva Green) as nothing more than a fling, the wronged woman indulges herself in witchcraft to not only turn Baranabas into a vampire but curse everyone with the name Collins for all time. Fast-foward to 1972 where a chained coffin is found buried with the undead Barnabas still inside. Rising in a new century, Barnabas finds his former family name tarnished and the estate in shambles, vowing to restore it all to its glory days once again. Unfortunately, the witch who cursed the Collins isn’t quite done with them yet and, worse yet, still hasn’t gotten over Barnabas.

One could call this a film about obsession, but it would more correctly be called a mess. For the uninformed, “Dark Shadows” was a soap opera of the supernatural about a vampire patriarch trying to hold his beloved family together. It was played straight in spite of poor production values and cheap effects but still earned its place in television history with five seasons of spooky storytelling. Forty years later, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp tried to resurrect this undead idea, but the problem is in the execution. For all the beautiful, creepy atmosphere and set pieces, the story is a series of hollow plot points without any real flow. If you forgive all the dangling threads and plot holes, what remains could be assembled in any order and still not tell a better story. Did the producers believe this forgivable as long as the movie was funny, or were they thinking at all?

Everything starts to go awry shortly after Barnabas arrives in 1972. Initially, the idea of an eighteenth century man in the twentieth century has merit, because 1972 must seem as alien to modern audiences as it does to Depp’s vampire out of time. Barnabas kills when he must but not in an evil way; it’s all about family. Had the film continued like this, it might have worked, but there are too many set pieces (mostly shown in the trailers) that only seem to exist for a gag and completely take you out of what might have been a compelling yet quirky film.

Case in point: Depp’s Barnabas backs into a ray of sunlight streaming through a window, causing his skin to smoulder and eventually setting his back on fire. Depp pretends he doesn’t notice the heat but wonders where that burning smell is coming from (really?), prompting Willie (a grossly underused Jackie Earle Haley) to douse him with a bucket of water (hilarious!) At the same time, this is the reveal to the other characters that Barnabas is a monster, who are all backing away from him (horror!) These scene treatments undermine the potential drama with gags that aren’t funny, and that’s one of many such offenses. It’s also odd how many times “the vampire” is in the sunlight and doesn’t start to smoulder except when it’s convenient to the plot or a gag.

Barry Sonnenfeld may have hit the proverbial coffin nail on the family’s head with The Addams Family movie, but there are too many moments in this incarnation of Dark Shadows (especially at the end of the film) where all of the characters seem to be sitting around waiting for everyone else to do something while the audience is waiting for ANYTHING to happen. When something finally does, it’s sadly pathetic or doesn’t make any sense. Most of the characters are a waste of the actors portraying them, living props no more important to the story than background extras.

Why cast Michelle Pfeiffer and Chloë Grace Moretz if they have nothing to do? The character of Roger Collins isn’t worth the two throwaway scenes he’s in. Even cameos by Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper fall flat. Only Bella Heathcote (as Victoria Winters / Josette DuPres) has anything more to do than stand around (meaning she falls off of things quite a bit). Also, if you’re going to have magic and the supernatural in your fantasy story, establish the ground rules and don’t break them unless there’s a good reason. This is one of those movies when one wonders if the better story was left on the cutting room floor (and who to blame for that). From the first trailers, fans of the original series were already worried, but after watching the finished film, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that all the funny bits are in the trailers and what’s left is a beautiful production design in need of a worthy plot.

(a one and a half skull recommendation out of four)

After trying to unlock the secrets of the Tesseract (first introduced in Captain America, The First Avenger), the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (aka SHIELD) receives a visitor: Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who in typical arch-villain fashion promptly steals the Tesseract for his nefarious plans of global domination. The top guy in charge of SHIELD, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), then begins assembling a dream team of super heroes to counter the threat, including Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) aka Black Widow, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) aka Captain America, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) aka the Hulk, and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) aka Iron Man. As the film progresses, they also recruit Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Clint “Hawkeye” Barton (Jeremy Renner) to the cause, but before they can battle Loki and an army of alien invaders, they’ll have to figure out how to stop fighting among themselves first… and we get to watch.

Joss Whedon understands. Whether you’re a comics fan from back in the day or new to the superhero party once Robert Downey Jr. suited up, writer and director Whedon knows not only what makes an ensemble film of heroes work but also what we want to see. He already knew what it took Michael Bay three Transformers movies to figure out: give the good guys a reason to fight and let them get to it in the most entertaining way possible. Mix well with a little witty banter and clever character moments to keep the exposition moving along so there’s a good reason for all the violence, and all the production problems solve themselves. Even at its most heroic, the characters still feel very human and relatable, right down to the last frame after the end of the credits. Mr. Whedon was reportedly given advice from Iron Man director Jon Favreau that “the machine will not let you fail” since teams of fantasy filmmaking experts would do or create whatever was needed to make his vision of the film work (and does it ever). Oh, and there’s a helicarrier! Woo hoo!

Naysayers for this critic-proof spectacle really don’t have much of a leg to stand on here. Sure, you’ll get more enjoyment out of the movie if you know who these people are, but you don’t have to be a Marvel comics fan or even a comic book fan to “get” it. After ensemble shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly,” and “Dollhouse,” Joss Whedon knows how to juggle characters and squeeze the most character out of a small scene or even a few words. In addition, the film effortlessly flows from one action piece to another, taking just enough time between money shots to set up the next treat. At no time do you get the impression that anyone is standing around waiting to say a line; in fact, most of the time, our poor heroes are terribly overwhelmed, creating a genuine feeling that, for all their super powers and experience, they’ve been set up to lose, and yet they keep fighting because no one else can. It’s all in there, every reason a great comic or popular comic book character exists, and Whedon makes it look easy.

While the entire cast is exemplary and perfectly cast for their roles, a few standouts are due for mention. After two recent previous attempts to bring the Hulk to life onscreen, Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of Joss Whedon’s take on the character finally brings the big green guy out we’ve all been waiting to see. After playing second banana to Nick Fury in Iron Man 2, Scarlett Johansson gets a meaty part to go with her black jumpsuit and adds another strong female character to the Whedonverse stables. Finally, there’s the man who can be credited for bringing the Avengers together, SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who’s only super power is doing his job and never taking no for an answer. The ending is also the perfect setup for all the planned and announced sequels for future Marvel comics movies while suggesting the villain for another Avengers film (who didn’t see that one coming?), but the real question many fans have is this: when are we going to get a Mark Ruffalo/Hulk film?

(a four skull recommendation of out four)

G.I. Joe: Retaliation Exclusive Theatrical Trailer #2 [HD]
Director: Jon M. Chu
Release: 6/29/2012
Studio: Paramount
Website: http://www.GIJoeMovie.com
In this sequel, the G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence. The film stars D.J. Cotrona, Byung-hun Lee, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce, Ray Stevenson, Channing Tatum with Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Jon M. Chu, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Brian Goldner, from a screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe® characters.

Source: Reader’s Digest (and the IRS)

Five friends set out for a weekend of fun, heading to that perfect of all places: an isolated cabin in the woods with an RV stocked with beer and swimsuits. All is not as it seems, however, and as sinister clues begin to drop, a few in the group begin to suspect that everything isn’t cool. Meanwhile, a pair of technicians working at a state-of-the-art facility finish preparations to make sure that their special project goes off without any glitches. Unbeknownst to the happy campers (but beknownst to us), they ARE the project, and it isn’t going to end well for anyone.

Joss Whedon fans have a certain level of expectation, and besides this summer’s The Avengers movie, The Cabin in the Woods has been unleashed upon the world after sitting too long on the shelf. “Buffy” and “Angel” fans won’t be entirely surprised by how many levels Cabin‘s plot delves down into (and we’re talking DEEP), but they’ll still be happily rewarded with the kind of movie budget effects that lets viewers actually see the promised consequences for the actions of characters onscreen (and that alone is worth the price of admission). While the creators have said in interviews that anyone can enjoy it, it’s the true fans of horror that will be most rewarded.

While the film is directed by Drew Goddard, the writer of Cloverfield, both he and Whedon collaborated on the script (Whedon himself is credited for some second unit directing). Every element has been thought through, from props to characters to location; in other words, blink and you’ll miss something (repeat watching to catch every horror reference may be required when this thing hits Blu-ray). It’s a love letter to the “woods” genre and horror in general, including some brilliant nods to many of the most successful and infamous franchises around. While it doesn’t have to be viewed in theaters, horror fans will kick themselves for not seeing it with all their friends before this thing explodes across social networks.

The sad part is that no one can talk about this without giving too much away, even as little as mentioning some of the particular films being looted for source material. Rest assured that everything that has gone before has been marked, ‘membered, and lovingly rolled up into the plot to end all plots. In fact, the film ends with such finality as to not only destroy any believable possibility of a sequel but is also pretty much the last word on the subject. This means that anyone trying to follow this is going to be sorely tested to break fresh ground, and that’s not a bad thing. So, if you call yourself a horror fan or a Whedon fan, get thee to a theater this weekend and celebrate the true end of an era.

(a four skull recommendation out of four)