Ed's Review Dot Com

Marcy Media, Olive Bridge Entertainment, Overbrook Entertainment,

Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne, Jamie Foxx, Bobby Cannavale, Quvenzhané Wallis

This musical remake of Annie is a nod to the original movie musical, but modernized and brought into today. The story is a bit similar of a kid, Annie (Quvenzhane Wallis) who’s been from Foster Home to Foster Home who is cared for by a rich businessman, Will Stacks (Jamie Fox) who is trying to improve his image, while his accountant is planning to make a deal with Ms Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) to have fake parents claim Annie to rip off Mr. Stacks.

There are movies that should never have been made. This is one of them. There was absolutely no cause to destroy this story. They have completely changed the story, and changed a lot of the songs around so that they are not recognizable. Many are lost completely, and the whole charm of the original comic strip was lost. First of all, Annie was an orphan, and it’s not Little Foster Child Annie. Jamie Fox is a good actor, but he was completely wrong for this film. Ms. Hannigan was also badly damaged, being more of a nice lady who is in an unfortunate situation. Cameron’s not about to play a nasty old lady who hires her brother to pretend to be Annie’s father to get Stacks’ stack of cash for a reward. But the updating of the music and changing the songs, and blowing away most of the story to where it doesn’t resemble the original musical is unforgivable. It would be like taking The Sound of Music and updating it to Rio in 2015 and filling it with salsa music. This would have been a good idea were they to do this as a TV special, change and update the cast, but keep the story and the music the same. But when I found out they were going to update the story and the music and make this into a movie, I knew that even releasing it in December couldn’t save it. I was sure this would be a disaster, and I was right. This was one that I wish I had not watched and I recommend you run far away from this one!

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Marvel Enterprises, Avi Arad Productions, Columbia Pictures,

Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti, Dane DeHaan, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Colm Feore, Sally Field

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is back, along with Gwen (Emma Stone), but Spidey is keeping his distance as her father asked him to do. But his old enemies are back, and now led by freak, Electro (Jamie Foxx), all of New York is at dire risk, unless Spiderman can save them one more time. But this is the hardest fight Spiderman has ever had to fight, and this time the whole city is at risk of being wiped out.

When the Amazing Spider-man came out, I thought to myself, why do we have to do this all over again? How can you possibly do it better than the first time? As I was watching this, I expected the same feeling, and I was surprised that I was blown away. So I went back and read my review of the first remake [The Amazing Spider-man (2012)] I found I was blown away by that one as well. I have to admit, this movie was very well made. I also went in expecting not to care for Jamie Foxx very much either, as the villain did not seem a fit role for him, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out his bad guy was awesome. His role starting out as the feeble, nearly invisible Max who was stepped on by everyone in the company on their way to the top, and his change to a ultra powerful villain Electra, was extremely well done. He played a kind of sad, if pissed off powerful guy who you almost feel sorry for. It’s a lot like Peter Parker’s story as well. The story was really well constructed, and I have to take back all the negativity I expected to feel. It was very well done, special effects are great, the soundtrack is very good, and the actors did an awesome job. All in all this is one of the best superhero films I’ve seen, and I was really impressed. Even if you’ve seen the Toby Maguire/Kirsten Dunst versions, you ought to check these out as well. For sure they’re very much worth the effort.

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Twentieth Century Fox Animation, Blue Sky Studios,

Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Jesse Eisenberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Jemaine Clement, Jake T. Austin, Jamie Foxx, Kristin Chenoweth, John Leguizamo, Amandla Stenberg, Andy Garcia, Rita Moreno, Bruno Mars, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez

You may remember from the first film, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) thought they were the last Blue Hyacinth Macaws left, so when they find out there may be others deep in the jungle along with their 3 children, they set off to find others of their species. The find their family, including Jewel’s father, and her ex-boyfriend, Nigel (Jemaine Clementa) who goes to head to head against Blu all the way. The Blu family are happy to find others of their kind, but there is trouble in the Jungle and Blu finds himself in the middle of it. It seems like there are too many problems to go around.

This sequel to the original Rio, Rio 2 was probably not as good as the first, but it was nice in many ways. This was more about the birds and much less about the humans which I found refreshing, and it is beautifully drawn. The scenery and colors are truly splendid, and the sound track was typically nice and tropical sounding. There’s an awful lot of Bruno Mars, so that’s a plus or a minus, depending on how you feel about that, but I couldn’t find fault with the music. The story is a little weaker. The battle between sides of the jungle is a lot like many of the old Our Gang shorts, and is nothing new, and we get preached at about the environment and taking care of the Earth which I find annoying, but I was able to enjoy the story and get past that. All in all, it was really well put together, and though they could have used a bit more work on the script, the voices, not only the ones who returned, but all the new characters, added a lot to the story. This is a who’s who of animation voice over characters. I really enjoyed watching this, and I think the folks at Blue Sky Animation did a good job for a sequel.

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Columbia Pictures, Mythology Entertainment (II), Centropolis Entertainment,

Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Jason Clarke, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Woods, Richard Jenkins, Joey King

John Cale (Channing Tatum) is a policeman who is applying inside the White House today for his dream job in the Secret Service guarding the President (Jamie Foxx). The interview turns bad and he fails to get the job, and is quite disappointed. His daughter, Emily (Joey King) is with him so he can join with her to tour the White House. Coincidentally while he’s there, a group of terrorist attack the White House and take the President hostage, and while Cale didn’t get the job, he’s the only one who can possibly save both his daughter and the President who are being held hostage.

This film, on its own, is a pretty good action adventure film. Unfortunately it didn’t do that great in theaters, probably because it’s very close in subject matter to the Die Hard series, and a number of other great terrorist-hostage films. Air Force One springs to mind. So, though it was not worth spending big bucks to see this in the theater, it’s a really good popcorn/movie night film on DVD. The action is good, and the tension is really high. Edge of your seat excitement, and suspense is the order of the day. There are some minor weaknesses (other than stealing the plot if you hold that against them) like the fact that Jamie Foxx is not really a great President (although I guess with the entertainer we have currently in the White House, maybe it’s not too far off.) He’s certainly not Harrison Ford. Likewise, Channing Tatum is good enough as the cop/good guy, but he’s not nearly able to pull it off like Bruce Willis did in Die Hard. Still, I enjoyed the movie, it caught and grabbed my attention throughout, and it was an exciting film. I would definitely consider this a rental film, but it’s a good distraction for a little while.

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The Weinstein Company, Columbia Pictures,

Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, Don Johnson

Django (Jamie Foxx) is an escaped slave who is in trouble. He’s chained and being taken back for sale when German dentist/ bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christop Waltz) shows up looking for him and wanting to purchase his freedom. Django set out as a team to capture the bad guys and turn them in for cash, while Django’s ultimate goal is to find and rescue his wife who was sold to another slave owner and reek havoc all along the way.

This is a homage to the spaghetti westerns of the 70’s from the music and ambiance all the way down to the cheesy titles in the beginning. It truly succeeds at that. I fondly remember the days when these movies were really exciting. This film mixes that genre with the Kill Bill/Pulp Fiction style which is prevalent in other Quentin Tarantino films, and gives the film the unbelievable gun fights that make very little sense and the ultra slow motion views of bodies blowing apart and such. This is exactly what you’d expect from a Tarantino homage to the previously stated films. Jamie Foxx does a pretty decent job of playing the Clint Eastwood guy who’s supposed to be a hero, but that is one thing I think fails a little bit in this film. Clint Eastwood’s hero/good guy thing is perfect because he has a strong understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, and so on. Eastwood is a really hard guy, says little, and still you know and understand his sense of right and wrong. Django, on the other hand, is a little tougher to read. We understand that he’s had a horrible life, and has really been wronged. We also feel for him that he has a right to go after the guys that did him wrong, but somehow there’s just a little too much glee in the revenge angle. He had a bit too much fun killing these guys. Then again, it may be just a bit of resentment I bring to the movie after Jamie Foxx’s Saturday Night Live performance which was so over the line. The whole monologue bit about “I got to kill all the white people! How awesome is that?” bit kind of struck me as a bit over the line. I was a fan of Jamie’s since the In Living Color days which was one of my favorite comedy shows back in the day, but he’s gotten a lot more militant in his “I hate white people” rants in recent years. I’m sorry he hates me so much when I don’t even know him. So perhaps some of that has tainted my enjoyment of his glee in killing white people in this movie.

Christoph Waltz was really good in this film. He brought a lot of humor to the movie, and was a really good, yet quirky guy, that is perfect for the film. I think the homage to the westerns of old is very well pulled off. Certainly Jamie Foxx does a very good job of the hard edged, cool headed angel of death as well. The camera work was very well done, and the setting was very good. For Tarantino fans, this is every bit as good as his other top notch work, and I can see why it was up for so many awards. There is not a lot wrong with this movie, and it deserved all the nods that it got. Remember, however, that if you’re turned off by violence and gore, this, like any other Tarantino work is very graphic. But if you can look past it, this is very well worth watching.

I have not mentioned the original 1966 Django film starring Franco Nero. It’s a similar story, and one many attribute the entire spaghetti western genre. It is a totally different film though, and has no relation to this story at all (other than the general feel to it) so there is no reason to really compare the two. This is not a remake. However, Tarantino says he was researching the director of Django (Sergio Corbucci) and decided to make what he called a “southern” which is a “western” staged in the deep south. Franco Nero, who starred in the original Django actually had a cameo role in Django Unchained.

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