If you haven't liberally splrinkled predators on your chicken, now is the time to start!
So I saw a couple movies this past weekend. Salt, with Angelina Jolie, was one of them. At least, I think it was this past weekend. What with being on Unemployment now, I'm going to have to scale back my cable bill something fierce, so I am trying to watch everything I can while I've still got the extra channels. At the rate they show new movies, I figure I've got about 6 months to find a new job before I start missing some good movies. OR, I can be out of work for two years and catch them on basic cable, but then I have to deal with commercials. Ick!
Just as an aside, are commercials really making anyone money? I mean, seriously? Some company spends 20 million dollars on a huge advertising campaign spread over multiple times and channels and they get what... two bored rich dopey housewives thinking a dyson vacuum cleaner is better than a hoover, or whatever? So they buy a couple $100 vacuum cleaners? How is this making anyone money? I don't get it. OH right, the advertising companies, and the cable companies are BOTH being paid to make and air these commercials, so OF COURSE they are making someone money. Just, not the company who is probably being told by the cable and advertising companies that they simply MUST pay for air time with a commercial. Hmmmm. Pretty slick con, there.
So, back to Salt. Spoilers to follow, obviously. Angelina Jolie stars as a CIA agent with a murky past who finds out ... actually you know I am a little confused by this whole movie. Now don't get me wrong, this movie is pretty much all action, and it flows very quickly from one action sequence to the next. I enjoyed watching it, and it even passed the rewatchability test, since I happened upon it again after watching it the first time and immedieately starting watching it again. But here's my problem.
Evelyn Salt is in the CIA. She falls in love with a guy who she was using as a cover on a single mission. She marries the guy. A russian agent comes to the CIA one day, supposedly to defect and give up russian secrets. Why the CIA cares about russian secrets at this point in time, I have no idea. But this russian agent fingers Salt as a deep-cover double agent, and says someone is going to kill the russian president. Apparently, this man's story is so convincing, even as Salt is interrogating him, that the CIA decides to imprison Salt, one of their own agents, just to make sure she's NOT a double agent or mole or whatever. Salt escapes, kills the Russian Premier or president or whoever the hell it is that runs russia, then meets up with the russian agent, who has also managed to escape. Yes, apparently she WAS a double agent all along. Then, she finds out they have her husband captive, and they promptly kill her husband to test her loyalty. Makes perfect sense. She proves her loyalty by NOT slaughtering all of them when she sees her husband killed. Then, apparently moments later, she DOES slaughter all of them, apparently for killing her husband. Makes sense, I suppose. If you love the cardboard cutout guy they have in this movie as "the husband," then she should lull the enemy into a false sense of security, then slaughter them when they least expect it, which is apparently mere moments after they DID expect it. But that's not where my main issue is. We learn very late in the movie that she actually did NOT kill the russian president, only put him into a state resembling death. Now, if her husband isn't actually slain until AFTER she does this, why does she not actually kill the russian president? How does she know in advance that they are going to kill her husband? That's where I am confused.
But anyway, I left most of the good parts out, and Salt is really a decent movie. The only real problem I have with it is Angelina Jolie isn't naked at all, really. Just a short scene at the beginning where she's in her bra and panties, and that wasn't even long enough for me to get half erect, let alone fap to it. But I guess if she's getting older and is less confident about her body, then becoming an action star is probably a decent way to go. Now on to Predators.
I'm a scientist by training. I've also got a minor in anthropology. So I'm understandably interested in alien biology, and the cultures that come along with it. Since I don't have actual alien species to study, I have to make do with the imaginings of other creative people. The movie Aliens, for example, gives me a lot of background on the biology of Aliens. The Predator series of movies has more of a cultural bent to it, hinting at a technologically advanced species that loves to hunt and take trophies, and gives my anthropological interests something to gnaw on for a while. Obviously, the combining of these two species in such movies as Aliens Vs Predator was an awesome idea as far as I am concerned, no matter how badly the two movies turned out. I hope they make more. But for now I have Predators.
So a varied cast of human soldiers / armed villains is dropped into the jungle. Apparently, each of these individuals was going about their normal daily routines when they were "abducted" by the Predators, then dropped into the jungle with the express purpose of being something for the Predators to hunt. I forget the individual actors' names, but I think Danny Trejo was the colombian assassin guy, who I wish had lasted longer since he's such a great character actor, and these was some sniper chick whose name I can't remember but did have a really nice behind, as one of the other guys tells her. And apparently the most badass of all the soldiers is, i think his name is Adrian Brody (imdb.com just confirmed it). Now, having just seen this actor in Spliced as a geeky geneticist, I have a particularly hard time seeing him as some bad-ass special ops guy who's had a life of killing and maiming. Obviously the guys been working out, but his supposedly ripped physique is more reminiscent of a teenage boy whose hormones have finally burned off his baby fat than the scarred, solid body of a trained killer. I don't know how hard he wanted this role to work, but I just couldn't buy it. I hope he's gone back to playing professors and geeky geneticists since this role because seriously, he does not play beefy killers well.
Aside from the completely unbelievable Adrain Brody, Lawrence Fishburne pops up as a survivor who's managed to kill multiple predators and has been living off of scavenged food for ten "seasons," however long that is, since we later discover the jungle is actually on an alien planet. He's also chubby. How a scavenger, living in a place where it's kill or be killed, where almost no one lasts for ONE season, let alone ten, has managed to stay fat as a banker on wall street, well, I have no idea. Since I didn't see anyone eating in the movie at ALL except him, i have no idea where he scavenged enough food. He's also managed to obtain one of the predator's cloaking devices, but isn't smart enough to use it to save his own life. I don't get that. Eh.
However, we do learn a teensy bit more about predator culture, if not the technology, and the music score for the entire movie is EXACTLY the same one used in the original Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger (i hope i spelled his name right), so it wasn't too bad. There was a pretty decent yakuza guy wielding a samurai sword that managed to take out one predator in single combat, which was awesome, but died in the process, which was unfortunate, since he was the only character i liked.
I don't really know what that says about me personally, but I love the guy's only line in pretty much the whole movie. He picks up a samurai sword that Lawrence fishburne apparently scavenged, and comments about how old it is. One of the other guys says "I didn't even know you spoke english. why haven't you said anything before now?" To which, the yakuza guy holds up his left hand, which is missing two fingers, and says "I talk too much." Awesome line. Also, he pulls a "I'm going to engage the predators chasing us in single combat while you guys get away" thing like the indian guy did in Predator, and by way of saying goodbye, he just nods his head to the side, and adrian brody just nods back. Total guy moment. Awesome. lol
Aside from being as much like the first Predator movie as possible without ripping off the same exact plot line, it was a decent movie. I'm hoping they make a Predators 2 or 3 movie (since predator 2 starring danny glover was made years back, and was much better than this movie).
Given the choice, I'd honestly rather see Predators, because I'm a sci fi geek, and totally despite Salt being the better made movie. I haven't even tried rewatching predators again. Maybe I'm worried it won't pass the rewatchability test, because I'll just be picking apart adrian brody's lines because he's acting like a tough guy and it's so totally see through as him just ACTING like a tough guy. Come to think of it, if I had to bet on a fight between Angelina Jolie and Adrian Brody, I'd bet on Angelina Jolie. lol
Anyone want to put a $20 on this? Let's get this fight going. I got twenty on angelina, not that she'll win, because that's pretty much a foregone conclusion, but that adrian is crying like a baby in under a minute. Anyone think he'll last longer?
No comments:
Post a Comment