Ed's Review Dot Com

Columbia Pictures, Happy Madison Productions, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE),

Adam Sandler, Taylor Lautner, Steve Buscemi, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Milo Ventimiglia, Kevin James, Andy Samberg, Chris Rock, Maya Rudolph, David Spade

Lenny (Adam Sandler) moved to Hollywood and became a big talent agent, but he grew tired of the rat race and decided he wanted to bring his kids back home to grow up in the town where he grew up. But he also wanted to see his friends and their kids. They had a big weekend 3 years ago, and Lenny misses them. So he moves back and plans a little get-together for his buddies but naturally everything gets out of hand. Everything seems to go awry with this bunch every time they get together, and this one is no different in this sequel to the original Grown-Ups.

This movie is pretty funny. This is, of course, Adam Sandler’s version of Hangover where the good old boys who never grew up get together and lose their minds. It’s a similar plot, but this series is nice in a way, as there is also really good talent here, and it’s more down home and friendly compared to the rat race of Las Vegas. The guys are really friends, and stick up for each other, but they are just so incompetent that it’s funny to see how it all goes wrong. Whether it hits the mark or not depends on your own preference. Talk to different people and some will swear this is much funnier than the original and the funniest movie they’ve seen, where other don’t get the slapstick and crude humor and find it a bore. Personally I enjoyed it, but I like these guys. I can agree that it’s not quite as good as the first film, but there are some advantages. We know the characters now, and so they don’t have to spend so much time getting us into who they are. So they get to the humor quickly. Several people really stand out. Salma Hayek is hysterical playing Lenny’s wife, as she does the “foreign chick” so well (much like Sophia Vegara in Modern Family) and he rarely knows what she’s saying to him. Steve Buscemi is hysterical in his role as well. He plays the creepy maniac guy so much, that it was refreshing to see him having a blast playing a quirky (of course) guy who is amused by everything. He was really funny and stood out. Kevin James, Chris Rock, and David Spade all have great moments. Kevin James has to try to do Zach Galifianakis, which he just isn’t as good as, but he tries really hard and is really funny in this film. I enjoyed the humor, though obviously juvenile as any other Sandler movie, but the added depth of the guy’s families made it a lot of fun. Then, of course, there’s Taylor Lautner and his gang of loser college frat boys who think they’re tough, but just go to a small town college. All in all well worth the rental, and if you’re a fan of the first, you’ll no doubt enjoy it a lot.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Summit Entertainment , Temple Hill Entertainment , Sunswept Entertainment,

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning

So Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now a vampire and getting used to her new powers. Of course naturally she’s the strongest vampire in the whole north woods because, uh, we don’t really know, she just is. Her half human baby, regrettably named Renesme, is growing at an alarming rate, and Bella is extremely upset to learn that Jacob (Taylor Lautner) must stay close to “Nessie” because he imprinted on her. So someone sees Nessie, and assumes she is “immortal” and has been turned by the Cullen’s so she’s off to tell the Volturi that the Cullen’s have broken the law of the vampires. Volturi’s are very tough, so they’re coming to kill the Cullen’s and put an end to the abomination. So the Cullins travel all over the world to call in all their friends to vouch for them, and they set out to explain to the Volturi that Renesme is not immortal. But just in case, all the vampires and werewolves prepare for a battle royal.

This movie sucked worse than the Part 1 did. Honestly, I don’t think there was near enough material to break this into two movies, and it’s just the greed motive that caused it. Nothing at all happens in this film. We’re stuck with an hour of people standing around and talking. Werewolves and Vampires are friends now, and the Volturi who are supposed to be so bad assed, are simply standing around with everybody else. There’s a huge battle scene that means nothing, and they take it all back anyway. To make matters worse, I could see the movie was completely out of gas, but when I looked at the DVD time left, it showed over 18 minutes. They used to be able to do a whole TV show in 18 minutes, but I couldn’t possibly imagine what else they had to show us. Well, the answer to that is that someone proposed that the movie was way to short, so they ought to put the names of everyone in each and every film in the entire series in the credits which literally ran over 18 minutes. Holy cow, what a way to give the custodial crew time to clean up the theater before the next showing! Honestly, the only thing going for this final episode is that the scenery in British Columbia is really beautiful. This film is almost 100% shot in the woods.

Truthfully, I know there are the young girls out there who really loved these books, but I do believe that every movie went downhill after the first one. I don’t know if this is true for the books too, as I haven’t read any of them, but the films started out with a half decent story of wolves and vampires that had a lot of interesting possibilities. But as it went on and on and on, it just had nowhere to go. The movie was not quite as bizarre as it was in Part 1, so that was perhaps the only improvement over the last one which was really strange. All in all, I didn’t watch this one for a long time because I knew it was going to be bad, but I had to give it a shot. It was clearly the worst ending to a story in a long time.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Summit Entertainment, Sunswept Entertainment, TSBD Canada Productions,

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Billy Burke, Maggie Grace, Jamie Campbell Bower, Michael Sheen, Anna Kendrick

Bella (Kristin Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) get married, and take off to a private island where the Cullins family has a resort, vacation home. Bella becomes pregnant, but immediately the baby is bad for her, as she is still human. This also alerts the Quileutes of the danger this baby is to them. They set out to destroy this baby and possibly the whole town of Forks.

Ok. Here I go making enemies of all the die hard Twilight fans. I’ve never read the books, and I’m not invested in the story where it rules my life. I have stayed up with the tale since the beginning, but I’m not one of those who camps out for 3 days outside the theater to be the first in line to see the movie, obviously, since I waited till it was out on DVD. I truly feel the films have been getting weaker and weaker as the series moves on, and this one was rather pathetic as adventure movies go. There is nothing happening here that makes much sense. Bella gets pregnant, as a human, by a vampire. Now, according to the story, this is supposed to be impossible. Well I guess so. Vampires are dead. They’re cold, and they have no heartbeat, and I guess no blood or other bodily fluids, yet she’s able to get pregnant. Then, of course, because of the superhuman powers of the vampire, a perfectly looking human baby is fully developed and born in one month, cutting the standard time of gestation 9 times. Now this is a fantasy, so we have to suspend the normal laws of science, I understand. There really aren’t sparkly people. But if we do that, then how are we supposed to get involved in the drama of the difficulties of this miraculous pregnancy anyway? And there’s not much action here either. Yeah, the Wolf people are a bit ticked off, but nothing really happens. Besides, as tough as the wolves are, it’s hard to believe that they’re much of a threat to vampire people with ultra human strength (If a wolf tries to bite you, you’re not going to bleed, and you can just thrown them into the next county! And if all else fails, you climb the highest tree in five tenths of a second anyway, and wolves don’t climb trees. All in all I found this to be by far the weakest story of all, and though I know many people are truly invested in the beautiful wedding and love story between Bella and Edward, I didn’t find that worthy enough of a huge blockbuster film like this.

I guess that the film maker had a tough call, as they could probably have made the story better by compressing part one and part two into a single film and cutting out the fluff, but there are two major reasons not to do that. First, the Twi-hards are going to be extremely pissed off if they skip any of the canoodling between Edward and Bella as they’ve been waiting for that forever, and secondly, mega-$$$$$$$$$.

Then another thing I just didn’t get? What was with the horrible music in the soundtrack? I made the mistake of turning on captioning, so I got to see the words to these strange pieces of music. What they hell was that?

For example, this is the lovely lyrics to the beautiful wedding scene:

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth
Big pill looming

[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/flightless-bird-american-mouth-lyrics-iron-wine.html ]
Now I’m a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold
And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth
Big pill stuck going down

Now if I were getting married, this would certainly not be a prime choice for the wedding dance. 🙂

Some other great musical moments:
And if I was you
I’d use the loo
Before the long drive
We compliment each other
Just like Satan and Christ
I wear my hair fizzy
I don’t copy no style
Cause kissin and a scrubbin
Has consequences
You’re on the bus again
Past big ben
With your rip off oyster card
Tell your A.S.B.O. friend
To sling his hook and “go make your girl smile”

Then one last complaint, and then I’ll shut up. I was shocked at the closing credits. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of the great jokes is how the people who created the credits have been sacked, and the people who were responsible for sacking the people who created the credit have also been sacked. What we’re left with is crappy put together credits that look like any 5 year old could have put them together. This is what the closing credits looked like to me. It was like they spent 3 dollars on creating these red and yellow text flash cards. It was like one of the old 1960’s spaghetti western credits which were done in English to overlay the original Italian credits or something. I thought it really weird.

So basically I’m going to stop and open the gates for the people who love Twilight to attack me for not getting this, and I probably deserve it, but I have to admit that I was really sorely disappointed after watching the last two Potter films to see this as the end of Twilight. I could have skipped it and not missed anything worthwhile. Sorry.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Lionsgate, Gotham Group, Vertigo Entertainment,

Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello, Michael Nyqvist, Sigourney Weaver, Antonique Smith, Denzel Whitaker

Nathan (Taylor Lautner) is a teen in a simple family. His father is tough, and expects him to be able to defend himself. But when surfing the internet, Nathan runs across his baby picture on a missing persons website. When he inquires from his parents, he’s faced with shock and surprise, but no denials. Then all hell breaks loose as Nathan is sent on a wild chase with Karen (Lily Collins) with no one he can trust, and everyone trying to get him. As he realizes that nothing he thought was true really is, he’s running for his life in a breathtaking adventure.

I wasn’t expecting a lot from this film. I expected another spy movie, which in it’s face, it is. But it was a lot better than I expected going in. Taylor Lautner did a good job of portraying a fearless and reckless abandon, along with a soft touch and a soft spot. He wants to do what’s right, but there’s just no one he can trust. The suspense is totally immersive, and there is a number of twists and turns to the story that caught me completely by surprise. I thought this was a very well done film, which is why I rated it as high as I did. If you like suspenseful dramas with lots of action and extreme chases, this fills the bill perfectly. This is one that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Summit Entertainment

Kristin Sewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard

The third installment of the Twilight Saga has been out.  The wifey wanted to see it, so off we went.  Well, I was impressed by the first film, and disappointed in the second.  This one was much better.  There was some real action in this movie, and the story moved along.  Victoria finally made it clear what she’s really up to, and a tentative and fragile truce between Team Edward and Team Jacob seems to be holding a bit.  Bella still can’t make up her mind, and it makes it clear why there’s no Team Bella.  Because Bella is annoying and turns everybody off.  The only one more annoying is Bella’s Dad, but he’s not important anyway.

I started out after Part Two as a Team Edward fan, but I think I just switched.  Jacob has much more to offer Bella, and he’ll take care of her.  I don’t trust Edward.  But that’s just me.   I did notice that the Team Edward T-shirts were on sale at the theater for $5.00, but there were no Team Jacob shirts to be had at any price.  But that could be because the Jacob fans don’t wear shirts, I’m not sure.

Ok, so it wasn’t great or anything, but it was decent, and a darn site better than the last one.  It was worth it to watch it in a theater filled with people to see their reaction to some of the classic lines.  I don’t know if Bella is ever going to make up her mind or not, but it doesn’t really matter at this point.  As long as someone kicks Jane (Dakota Fanning) in the backside.  That girl deserves it!   Guess I’ll have to stick around for the next one to see if someone finally does.