X-Men: Wolverine

X-Men: Wolverine is a prequel to the X-Men series, of which I have only seen the first one. I only watched Wolverine because of Hugh Jackman and he turned out to be the only good thing about the film. The story, apart from the usual X-Men setting of having mutants with special powers living on earth, is fairly ordinary. Two brothers drift apart because of differences in opinion and realize later that blood is still thicker than water when it gets really bad. I just think they could have come up with more than that. They created this entire world which is actually really cool (who wouldn’t want to have special powers?) and then write a story that a hundred other movies have already used. Weak! The special effects are quite good and Jackman certainly brings a cool-factor into the film, but the story-line and dialogues ruin it completely. I do agree with Rachel on Rachel’s Reel Reviews though, seeing Wolverine naked makes it almost worth watching this film .

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The basic story: Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born old and ages backwards until he is a baby. He falls in love with a young girl named Daisy (Cate Blanchett). This movie was so hyped with all its Oscar nominations and awards and its star cast so that I was really looking forward to seeing it. But I have to say that I found it extremely boring. The introduction with the old Daisy and her daughter is too long, Benjamin’s old age (or childhood), after he is born is even longer, his middle age still longer and once he gets really young (at the end of his life) it is hurried as if the filmmakers needed to end the movie quickly. The idea of the story (adapted from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald) is quite fun and quirky, but the script just didn’t milk it enough. The scriptwriters Eric Roth and Robin Swicord  didn’t seem to realize that the special thing about this film is that Benjamin ages backwards. How could they have missed this little detail? The main story and the longest part of the film is about his middle age, when he is basically just doing what everyone else is doing. He gets work, goes to war, falls in love, gets his girlfriend pregnant, things don’t work out, and he leaves. Great, well done… What they should have focused on are his differences to regular people. Especially the beginning of his life and the end. To be fair, they did put quite a big focus on the beginning of his life, but there is nothing really special about it. Instead of being a normal child he is born old and grows up in an old people’s home. But nothing ever happens. And the end of his life when he gets younger is so hurried and mostly about Daisy that it seems irrelevant. Plus, Brad Pitt hardly had to act, why is everyone so dazzled by his performance?

Twilight

Alright, so I knew when I watched Twilight that I was in for a teen-movie. But I thought, great, Clueless, for example, is on my top 100 list, plus I adore vampires. But again, the art of scriptwriting seems to have faded into oblivion. So, the main vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) is supposed to be extremely cool and to have lived for hundreds of years (I assume that this means he has accumulated some sort of wisdom), but the writers just make him say the most stupid things. After saving the lead girl Bella’s (Kristen Steward) life by pushing a big car away from her with his bare hands, she confronts him about it. His first reaction is “Oh, you don’t know what you saw, you were in shock and confused at the time.” She doesn’t buy it so he says “Well, nobody is gonna believe you anyway”. What?! What kind of vampire wouldn’t have a better excuse? And the dialogue just goes on like this throughout the entire movie. Do I really want to watch a film about a moron vampire? Well, that sounds like a fun comedy but not a wannabe serious teen movie. My advice to all screenwriters: Think, then write!

The latest Coen Brothers movie is the complete opposite of their last film No Country for Old Men. It is almost a slap-stick comedy.

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) quits his job at the CIA after being demoted for what he calls ‘political reasons’. His wife (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with George Clooney’s character Harry, and now that Osbourne is not bringing any more money home she decides she wants to divorce him. Her lawyer tells her to get as much information about her husband’s income as possible. She therefore burns a disc of top secret stuff (or ’shit’ as it is referred to in the movie) to give to her lawyer.

The lawyer’s secretary loses the disc at her gym. This is where the second story begins. Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Francis McDormand), who are working at the gym, think they can get a reward if they return the disc to its rightful owner.

There are several stories that all come together in very strange ways (mostly through Harry’s affairs). The film has an absolute star cast which, I guess, will get the audience to the cinemas. Burn after Reading is funny but falls short of being great. It is a light-hearted comedy with a few twists (nothing really unexpected though, oh, apart from a rather dodgy chair that Harry builds for his wife) and a couple of strange and unnecessary deaths.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt seem to enjoy playing the clowns (similar to the Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen films) which is fun, but especially Pitt is not very believable.

There is no real point or moral to the story (apart from: don’t get involved in things you know nothing about) which makes it peculiar enough, in my eyes, to watch. Why not watch a film just to be entertained for once?! But wait until it is out on DVD and rent it.

(Photo: flickr/Michael Heilemann)