Ed's Review Dot Com

Dark Horse Entertainment, Jerry Weintraub Productions, Riche Productions,

Alexander Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou, Christoph Waltz, John Hurt

As we all remember, John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgard) was lost in Africa as a baby and grew up raised by the apes as Tarzan, King of the Jungle. Later he was rescued (?) and brought to England and reclaimed his rightful right as British nobility. This story picks up when he is requested to return to Africa to investigate potential slave trade and the rape and pillage of the Congo.

I must admit up front that I have never been enthralled with the Tarzan stories ever. Even as a kid, my friends loved to spend Saturdays watching Johnny Weismuller wrestle crocodiles and snakes and rescue the poor natives from the evil white hunters. None of the dozens and dozens of attempts to tell this story every impressed me greatly, including Disney’s cartoon version which was destroyed by Rosie O’Donnell. This one I have to admit is done very, very well. This is the best “looking” version of Tarzan I’ve ever seen. It helps that I saw it in Imax I suppose. But the story was really confusing. We kept jumping though time to see Greystoke in Parliament, then a baby in the jungle, then on the trip down to Africa to fight the slavers, then as Tarzan the ape man, then as an Englishman again. Now he’s traveling with Jane, now he hasn’t met her yet, now she needs rescued, but then she’s with him again, then finally he goes back to rescue her from somebody back in time somewhere. It was all very confusing. Furthermore, you don’t really care about the outcome of anything. Cristoph Waltz once again plays a really, really nasty villain, which is he is really good at, and Samuel L Jackson is around for comedic distraction now and again, but the whole thing was so disjointed I gave up. I am really not sure where to recommend you toss your dollars to the theater owners this weekend, but surely there must be something decent out of the mess of films that seem to be foundering. If you’ve got small kids who have not seen Tarzan and they will be impressed with the vicious apes and crocodiles shown in terror-vision, they are really good CGI moments, and the kids my enjoy this. But if you grew up on Tarzan, this is not going to be an impressive trip down memory lane. My best recommendation is to skip this one, or at least wait till the DVD comes out.

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Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Paramount Pictures,

Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Billy Bob Thornton, Nicholas Braun, Christopher Abbott, Sheila Vand, Stephen Peacocke, Evan Jonigkeit, Josh Charles

Based on the memoirs of Kim Baker (Tina Fey) this is the story of a news reporter who is embedded with the Marines in Afghanistan and the dangers and excitement of trying to get the scoop and bet out other reporters while being in harms way every moment. This is the true story of this reporters experiences over a number of years in the early years of the 2000’s.

I was caught off guard by this film. Knowing it’s Tina Fey, and looking at the posters in the theaters, and not knowing anything about the content in advance, I expected a comedy romp through the middle east. This is NOT a comedy by any means. Now I have lots of respect for Tina Fey, and I don’t think she did really bad in this serious role, but still it was a little off putting to have her play such a dramatic and dark role. I ended up having a hard time keeping my attention on this film and found my mind wandering away. The story is interesting enough, but other than a few short episodes, most of it was bad romance and lots of talking and talking. One highlight was Bill Bob Thorton who plays the commander of the team Kim is placed in. He did a really good job, though it wasn’t a big role, playing this guy as tough as nails with a kind streak a mile long. I enjoyed him any time he was on the screen. But for the most part, it dragged and was not really that interesting to me. I was not highly impressed with this movie, and I guess the public pretty much agreed with me as it really disappeared in a hurry and ended up on DVD pretty quickly. If you are really interested in the subject of a female reporter in Afghanistan, the you’ll probably do better reading the book, and if you’re not particularly interested in the subject, then there’s probably not enough substance here to make it worth watching this nearly 2 hour film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Big Talk Productions, Columbia Pictures, Four by Two Films,

Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, Gabourey Sidibe, Penélope Cruz

Two little boys were orphaned at a young age and lived together in an orphanage in Grimsby. They became separated for 28 years, and Nobby (Sasha Baron Cohen) got married and had 9 children and lived a silly life, while his long lost brother, Sebastian (Mark Strong) grew up to become MI-16’s most feared and highly rated assassin. When their paths cross accidentally, the set of on an adventure where every government agent is trying to kill Sebastian while Nobby tries his best to help, but becomes a huge obstacle to Sebastian’s chances to live through this.

Sasha Baron Cohen has built a reputation as the shock jock of modern comedy films. He out-grosses everyone and I don’t mean in the box office, but in just plain gross! This is the third, at least, after Borat and then Bruno. Borat was fresh and a rather clever put on of a movie that was pretty decent. But Bruno was a lot more silly and dumb, and the edge wasn’t there anymore. This is, in my opinion, the worst of the three. Now don’t think my opinion is based on the raunchiness of the gags, it’s that it’s very 14 year old boyish and most of the gags are really recycled old, old jokes. I think perhaps he’s thinking the 14 year old kids (who aren’t allowed in to see this anyway) haven’t heard those old jokes, but I think they probably have. We have scene after scene that is a rip off of old jokes. He seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and I’m not sure why it’s so hard. Perhaps Sasha B is trying too hard to do everything and is falling into the Eddie Murphy trap when he started trying to do everything from start to finish and ended up making a mess of things. And then we got stuff like Norbert! Perhaps he needs to let someone else so some of the work and concentrate on doing the comedy. This guy has a lot of talent, and can be really funny, but this film just seemed overly stupid and boring. The “gross” stuff (instead of real funny gags) are not shocking anymore in this day of porn on every smart phone. He can’t shock us anymore and needs to up the intelligence of his films a little bit. This was a waste of time for him, in my opinion, and I recommend you don’t spend your hard earned money to see this thing. There are a lot of cameos by fairly big stars, and I’m not sure why they chose to do this. Maybe they thought they were making another Borat or something.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog