Escape to the Movies: Red 2

[Quiotu]

Honestly I'm not really surprised by MovieBob's take on the summer so far. I don't agree with most of it, but I get why.

MovieBob... you're getting old.

Just accept it. Accept that shit is not going to be as shiny as you remember it when you were young. Accept that sometimes things in your childhood get rebooted or rebranded. Sometime they cater to what once made them awesome, like Pacific Rim, but most of the time they're going to be changed for the current era, because they actually want the movie to sell well. Sure there's been some horrifying bad examples of rebooting; Lone Ranger doesn't even star the Lone Ranger, WWZ is plain old doing zombies wrong, and I'll even go out on a limb and say that splitting The Hobbit into three movies is just Peter Jackson spanking the movie market out of every dollar he can, but sometimes movies get rebooted and changed for the right reasons.

Man of Steel is exactly what every Superman movie ever made was missing; its only flaw was missing some of the components that most Superman movies got right: chemistry, for example. I dislike Sony Pictures about as much as anyone else, but the Spiderman reboot was actually good and catered to the actual comic book Spiderman more than the previous trilogy. Oh, and Star Trek was DEAD before Abrams brought it back to life; you don't have to like what he did with it, but doing nothing would've caused the franchise to just fizzle out and be forgotten.

You're gonna have to start calling yourself a Nostalgia Critic here pretty soon if you can't reign in your nerd rage a little more.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I don't get why The Conjuring is even getting a July release aside from no "scary" movies have been released in months. I would have expected something like that to be released in August/September or January

 

[Woodsey]

Sorry, Bob, but the last Iron Man was not good. It was the messiest of them all and outright silly.

As a non-comic reader I had a lot of trouble accepting fire-breathing, supposedly human antagonist - even if he was played by Guy Pearce. I can forgive all the dumb shit in Iron Man because it still has the aesthetic of technology: nuts, bolts, metal, etc. etc. You can't just say, "Oh it's science," and then show me a man's face recovering from a laser blast.

 

[Norix596]

Hey look it's my absolute least favorite character from The West Wing.

 

[Merklyn236]

I guess this means R.I.P.D didn't screen for critics. :shrug: Was just curious.

I'd Netflix'ed RED (1) and enjoyed it, much to my surprise - though I agree with MovieBob that the plot was somewhat forgettable as the characters kind of stole the show (even Ernest Borgnine in a small cameo). So this one already had me curious (though if I had time this weekend something in me wants to go see Pacific Rim again...).

 

[MB202]

You know, I was hoping for Bob to say that this movie was "meh" and you should just go see Pacific Rim again (which you should). But whatever, he definitely has a point about upcoming movies... but what's "Butler" about, and why is it being saddled with Smurfs 2 and Planes?

Also, HOLY SHIT, IT'S HERE ALREADY?! EarthBound for the Virtual Console, holy shit, I've been waiting most of my recent life for this!

 

[Scarim Coral]

Sooo are you not looking forward to Kick Ass 2 since that's coming out in Augest? Yes that is pretty much the last Summer film I will be watching after Pacific Rim.

 

[Brundlefly]

I'd bet a shiny new penny that Bob felt left out of the 'internet critics piss on Man Of Steel' bandwagon and has since decided that swaying from consensus on this is just too much.

This is it exactly.

"There's nerdrage on the internet and I'm not a part of it? Arghhhhhh! I've evolved! My position's evolved now, I hate it more than you!"

 

[RTK1576]

Let's see:

- RED 2: you know, I can't remember much of the plot to the first one, either. It was fine as a movie, but nothing to write home about.

- What, no love for R.I.P.D.? Or would we just copy-paste a bad review of Men In Black and call it a day?

- Man of Steel: You know what has really soured me on this movie? Its defenders. It's not a terrible movie, but it's got a lot of problems. It's divisive, and that means you get a lot of fans lumping all critics into the same corner (despite the 57% RT rating... which means there were actually more positive reviews than negative) and accusing guys like Bob and I of wanting the same Superman as before, having nerd rage, or the usual blather about critics "not getting it."

So, yes, MoS fans, your righteous vitriol has made me want to chuck the film into a trash can, because it has brought out the worst in you. And I didn't even think it was that bad a film initially (and the score by Hans Zimmer is rather nice, but he always makes things exciting).

 

[daxterx2005]

So now Bob doesn't like Man of Steel....color me surprised.

 

[MatsVS]

Hilarious that people who through some herculean mind gymnastics have managed to convinced themselves that MoS was "good" are getting their feathers so ruffled because Bob listened to reason and finally saw it for what it was.

 

[Muspelheim]

This movie does remind me of a strange comic I read once. It was about an eclectic group of old folks from various countries arming up and fighting another group of old enemy farts that have formed a terrorist group. The "Red" comes in to it since they're all sistas and bros from the Spanish Civil War volunteer brigades. Old people sharing a gunfight does have a weird charm to it, I can't say why.

To be fair, what I like about this flick from what I've heard so far is the honesty of it. They wanted to bundle a few grey old wolves up again and sprinkle some Asian spice over it, and I can respect that. Open simplicity by heart isn't so bad.

Not to mention, seeing Bruce Willis' bald head bob up and down between some explosions just feels right.

 

[Chris Mosher]

Fair enough.

I imagine I'm probably one of the few whose primary Supe exposure is actually cartoons rather than films OR comics, and the film is much closer to a big chunk of cartoon series than it is to previous movies or comics, so I can see why I'm in a niche. And you do indeed expound on the points further. Good work.

I was actually looking forward to Superman but the middle act which seemed like it want to have me connect with Clark and Lois just never connected with me. I personally think that Amy Adams and Henry Cavil would have been brilliant in the rolls if there was bit more meat on the script and if the movie had given them lines that were expositiony and more like real people talking. I think that it could have been a grand film with the theme of bringing hope to a world where hope was passe which have a perfect way to keep Superman as the earnest boy scout I read about as a kid and still make him fit with today's expectations. So basically I am judging MOS for not being the film I wanted but I just can't help myself. Same thing happened with Star Trek imo.