Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder (2008)


Directed by: Ben Stiller

Starring: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, Jay Burachel, and Brandon T. Jackson

Other Actors of Note: Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise

Plot: Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.


Ben Stiller's movie directing career hasn't been good. Sure he's had "Reality Bites" which was a fairly decent film, and "The Cable Guy" was a misunderstood cult classic, the less said about "Zoolander" the better. But with "Tropic Thunder" he has not only succeeded he has made the best movie of his career directing, acting, and writing.

The story involves a group of whiny successful actors including Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) action hero and star of such movies as "Scorcher" I-VI and his grab at an Oscar with the much panned movie "Simple Jack" wherein he played a mentally challenged farm hand.

Also it features Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) an 8 time Academy Award winner and method actor who undergoes a treatment to play the African-American squad leader.

Then there's Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) comedian and star of "The Fatties" and "The Fatties Fart 2" who has a heroin problem and a complex over the fact that people only enjoy him for fart jokes.

There is also chauvinistic rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and first time actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Burachel)

When in the first 5 days of shooting the movie becomes a month behind schedule Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) , the writer of the book on which the movie-within-a-movie is based, encourages first-time director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) to send them out into the wild for some guerilla film-making.

So they head off into the jungle with only the 5 actors, the director, Tayback, and pyrotechnics expert Cody (Danny McBride) into the jungle. Well unfortunately the crew runs foul of some Burmese or Laotian (it never specifies) drug runners and the film becomes very real.


Ben Stiller as a director has never had a problem dragging in a star studded cast and he's done the same film. The truly remarkable part is that all of these a-listers are at the top of their games.

Ben Stiller does a lot of what he usually does he's the loveable loser/badass in his own mind. However he plays it in a manner that I haven't seen properly since "Mystery Men." He plays it with charm and depth and emotion and you really feel for Speedman as he struggles to be taken seriously and save his dying career.

Robert Downey Jr. is as always hilarious and brilliant. Even after they find out that there is no movie he remains "in character." (which he maintains he does not break until he "does the DVD commentary") his character takes an interesting turn toward the end of film and appears "out of character" for the first time in the last 15 minutes. (In one of the most confusing performances in history Downey Jr. is an American actor portraying an Australian actor portraying an African American platoon leader pretending to be a Laotian farmer.)

Jack Black is also wonderful as Jeff Portnoy the overweight comedy actor with nothing to his credit but a bunch of movies centering on fart jokes. As such he has a serious drug problem and early in the movie loses his stash. If there was anyone who could make heroin withdrawal funny it's Jack Black and he makes it hilarious.

Brandon T. Jackson as Alpa Chino (sound it out) the peddler of "Booty Sweat Energy Drink" and "Bust-a-Nut Bars" a typical chauvinistic rapper is a well put-together and surprisingly deep character who seems to for the most part be putting on an act.

One of the big surprises here was Jay Burachel who is best known as the socially awkward guy with the Mohawk off of "Knocked-Up." He easily plays the most intelligent and likable character in the movie. I was skeptical that he would be anything but a flash-in-the-pan actor but he shows some real potential for the future.

Nick Nolte takes advantage of his drunken grizzled persona as a drunken grizzled Vietnam veteran who wrote the book the movie the characters are making. His lines are all melodramatic and over-the-top and later in the movie a plot turn comes up that makes him more funny than before.

Danny McBride tops his performance in "Pineapple Express" as the pyrotechnics expert Cody who worked on movies that definitely didn't require explosions. Apparently he "almost blinded Jamie Lee Curtis in 'Freaky Friday.'" His usual rockstar/redneck shtick works perfectly as an idiot with a hard-on for explosions. In fact one of his classic moments is where he exclaims the phrase "Big fuckin' titties." before detonating a particularly large explosion.

Matthew McConaughey plays a surprisingly non-douchey part as Speedman's agent/best friend Rick Peck. He's surprisingly likeable and relatively deep for what amounts to little more than a bit part.

But the big show stealer and the best part of the entire movie, and it hurts me deep within my soul to speak these words, is Tom Cruise. Yes, you heard me. Tom Cruise is a highly over-rated actor with not a whole lot going for him and the fact that he's a complete douche doesn't help. Bu Tom Cruise easily plays the best role of his life. There is not one line that comes out of Les Grossman's mouth that is not pure comedy gold.


This is not something that I would typically talk about for a comedy, but the gore effects are well done. "Tropic Thunder" is probably the bloodiest movie released since "Shaun of the Dead" came out.

When the gore is supposed to look fake it looks fake (like in the opening sequence of the actual movie) and when it's supposed to look real it looks very real. And trust me this movie has no shortage of gore, this movie has a hard R rating for a reason.


"Tropic Thunder" isn't really an original idea per se. The concept of actors being confused for their on-screen counterparts and the actors being confused into thinking that what they're doing is all part of a show has been explored to some degree in "The 3 Amigos", "Fright Night", and the upcoming "My Name is Bruce."

What "Tropic Thunder" does that these other movies don't is does one of the best satires of the Hollywood culture ever made. Before the movie we see previews for Tugg Speedman's "Scorcher VI," Jeff Portnoy's "The Fatties Fart 2," Kirk Lazarus' oscar bait movie about two gay monks, and an add for Alpa Chino's "Booty Sweat."

Remember how in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" the entertainment news looked incredibly fake? This is not the case. They actually look like real previews even using the actual trailer voices.

Of course they don't end there. Each of the three main characters is lampooning one or more real actors. Tugg Speedman seems like a combination of Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal, Jeff Portnoy seems to be a combo of Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams as the screwball comedy actor who just wants to be remembered for something other than fart jokes, and Kirk Lazarus is the most obvious of send-up of Heath Ledger (and before anybody sprains their vagina going "Oh my God that is so offensive!" recall that this movie was penned long before Heath Ledger died) as the upstart Australian actor so consumed with his method acting that he seems to have no personality of his own.

Some of the lines are genuinely hilarious from Kirk Lazarus' speech about how an actor should never go "full retard", to Tom Cruises long fuck-laden speeches, to the fact that TiVO saves the day every moment of the movie is comedy gold.

"Tropic Thunder" is one of the best and ballsiest comedies ever made, It's the best movie Ben Stiller has ever made, and it's the best movie all summer. From Harold and Kumar to Mulder and Scully. It's the best movie I have seen all summer and that's including "The Dark Knight."

Yes that's right. I just said it, Ben Stiller beat Batman and anybody who says I'm wrong can get fucked by a big fucking donkey cock. "The Dark Knight" while great still had about 30 minutes too much tacked onto the end and some questionable decisions "Tropic Thunder" has none of this.


"Tropic Thunder" is easily one of the best comedies in the last ten years.

I give "Tropic Thunder" a 5 out of 5. See it, buy it, keep it in a glass case with a laser grid around it. It is THAT fucking good.

Lost Boys: The Trite

Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008)


Directed by: P.J. Pesce

Starring: Ted Hilgenbrink, Autumn Reeser, Angus Sutherland, Corey Feldman

Other Actors of Note: Corey Haim, Tom Savini

Plot:The sequel to the 1987 cult hit The Lost Boys takes us to the shady surf city of Luna Bay, California, where vampires quickly dispatch anyone who crosses their path. Into this dark world arrive Chris Emerson (Hilgenbrink) and his younger sister, Nicole (Reeser). Having just lost their parents in a car accident, the siblings move in with their eccentric Aunt Jillian and become new prey for the locals way of life. When Nicole unwittingly falls for a local vampire, Chris must locate and destroy the gangs lifeline before his sisters transformation is complete; to do this Chris finds himself relying on the expertise of none other than Edgar Frog (Feldman). Subtle references to characters from the original film, and cameos from returning actors offer homage to the Lost Boys legend and set a sinister tone of impending doom.

Angus Sutherland: Looking like Keria Knightly with stubble since 1982

"Lost Boys: The Tribe" A.K.A. "I'm Corey Feldman and I'm More Talented Than the Entire Cast of This Movie" is a cheesy vampire movie masquerading as the sequel to the 1980s film "The Lost Boys" as a way of validating this they've hired Corey Feldman to reprise his role as Edgar Frog and then made a movie that he doesn't fit into and cast Kiefer Sutherland's functionally retarded younger brother Angus to play the lead vampire and played a bad cover of "Cry Little Sister" by some flavor of the week "My Chemical Romance" wannabe band. Throw in a 10 second cameo by Corey Haim at the end and BOOM! Instant sequel.

The film begins with a group of rowdy surfers breaking into someone's private beach and creating mischief. The owner turns out to be Tom Savini as some sort of yuppie vampire, the problem is that these guys are vampires as well. So after they dispatch us of Tom Savini's bad acted we're treated to an hour and a half of Anguish Sutherland trying to hide his down's syndrome.

Anyhow we're introduced to Chris (Ted Hilgenbrink) and Nicole (Autumn Reeser) a brother sister duo that are waaaaaaaaaaay too close. (Seriously, it's more disturbing if they're NOT fucking.)

They go to a party held by Shane (Angus Sutherland) who turns Nicole into a vampire and Chris goes and finds Edgar Frog: Minister/Surfboard Shaper/Vampire Hunter (Corey Feldman) and they try to take down "the tribe" (apparently 4 people constitutes a tribe) and get Nicole back.

This picture is so much creepier if you don't think about this being a vampire movie.

Performance ratings won't take long here. Ted Hilgenbrink (Best known as the first guy who was trying to make up for the lack Sean William Scott in an "American Pie" sequel if that tells you anything.) is slightly charming and not much else as Chris. He's a poor subsitution for Corey Haim in the first movie but he's a fairly capable protagonist.

Autumn Reeser is very cute and 90% of her lines are either "Stop it!" or "You ass!" and that's about it with her. She does a pretty good job of convincing us that someone like her would actually find Angus Sutherland attractive.

And speaking of Angus Sutherland, how bad is he?

He's so bad that Donald Sutherland loses a year off the end of his life for every line Angus read.

*Ba-Dum Pssh*

He's so bad that I wish Tom Savini had been the main villain.

*Ba-Dum Pssh*

He's so bad that I wondered what the guy from the "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell" comercials was doing in this movie.

*Ba-Dum Pssh*

But seriously, Angus Sutherland is horrible. He sounds somewhere between a Donald Sutherland impersonator and somebody trying to sound like a stereotypical surfer. He also makes Russel Brand look manly. He's all the annoying prickishness of Kiefer in the original without any of the charm.

And finally Corey Feldman. First of all, if you didn't like Corey Feldman's performance in this film then fuck you! His performance is supposed to be over-the-top and cheesy and is probably the only thing that's the same as the first movie. Edgar Frog has reached Ash and Reggie levels of tongue-in-cheek badassness and it really shows, when Feldman was a kid it was awkward, now that he's an adult it's hilarious.

Edgar Frog explains garlic suppositories.

You shouldn't take my annoyance with "Lost Boys: The Tribe" to mean that this is a bad movie. It's a fun gorey b movie along the same lines as "From Dusk Till Dawn" and "John Carpenter's Vampires." What it isn't is a sequel to "The Lost Boys" not even close, sure you can have Corey Feldman and crank "Cry Little Sister" all you want but when it all comes down to it the movie is still nothing more than "Point Break" with vampires. (You can go ahead and imagine Edgar Frog as played by Gary Busey now if you want)

The gratuitous sex, the excessive use of the word "fuck," and the over-use of blood and gore effects are just not in the spirit of the original film. The feel, the style, the point is missing entirely and for anyone who's even seen the original it's going to hurt their opinion.

No less it is a worthwhile cheesy b-movie with campy thrills and plenty of bloody gore and screwball humor to keep you enjoying yourself till the end-time. It's fun if nothing more.

Home-made potato guns, they need to be in more horror movies.

While I recommend that you take this movie with a grain of salt if you're a fan of the first one it's still a fairly fun and enjoyable film.

I give "Lost Boys: The Tribe" a 3 out of 5. Rent it.

Stuck

Stuck (2007)

Directed by: Stuart Gordon

Starring: Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Russel Hornsby

Other Actors of Note: Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and Jeffrey Combs

Plot: A young woman commits a hit-and-run, then finds her fate tied to her victim. Based on a real event in 2001. Chante Mallard, a woman in Fort Worth, Texas, was believed to be driving drunk when she struck Gregory Biggs, a homeless man, who became lodged in her car's windshield. She then drove home, locked the car in the garage, and left Biggs to die. Mallard was convicted of murder and evidence tampering, and sentenced to fifty years in prison. Taken from www.imdb.com

Nick Nolte after a night on the town.

While the news story served as the basis for this film, it is not how this movie goes down. The film introduces us to Brandi (Mena Suvari) a prissy self-important 20-something white girl with a self-appointed gangster drug dealer boyfriend (Russel Hornsby) who also serves as her ecstasy dealer.

Meanwhile we meet Tom (Stephen Rea) a down on his luck middle aged man who was the victim of downsizing and can't seem to catch a break. He's kicked out of his apartment with only as many clothes as he can grab in his arms and run from his landlord with. The temp agency he applied with has lost the record of his application. And finally he has no place to even stay the night.

Of course things only serve to get worse when Brandi, who is drunk as well as incredibly high, hits Tom lodging him in the windshield on the passenger side. She then locks him in the garage and then just hopes he'll die eventually taking matters into her own hands when he proves too stubborned and makes several attempts to escape.

Stephen Rea reaction to hearing about "The Scorpion King 2"

Stephen Rea is great in this movie. You really feel for his character and though he doesn't do much more than spend the bulk of the movie lodged in a broken car windshield you feel for this poor down-on-his-luck bastard.

Mena Suvari is fittingly bitchy and just annoying. She is the epitome of self-entitled rich girl with no sense of accountability. Throughout the entire film you want nothing more than for her to get her comeuppance.

Oh no I'm going 30 miles an hour on an empty street, what do I do to miss this guy?

"Stuck" is a story that is very relevant to today. Each character is a carefully crafted social archetype with Tom Bardo representing the middle aged generation that is being slowly phased out by the self important whiny 20-somethings like Brandi, as well as the Mexican family across the street who know bout Tom's situation but won't do anything for fear of being deported.

The film plays like a Stephen King novel along the lines of "Misery" only focusing more on the tormentor more than the tormented. The brief moments with Tom are filled with suspense that will keep you at the edge of your seat as you truly want him to escape from this crazy bitch and go to the hospital.

It's a very simplistic movie and doesn't leave much to talk about other than that it's wonderful. It manages to be suspenseful and very darkly humorous at the same time. It does what "Teeth" attempted to do and actually succeeds.

And for those of you who are just reading this going "DO WE GET 2 C MENA SUVARI TITTIES?!" *sigh* Yes. There's a sex scene midway and so long as you don't mind Stephen Rea's bloodied wrinkled face popping into frame and going "HELP ME!!!" Also if that's your only reason for reading this review then you probably wouldn't like this movie because it doesn't have a character named Stifler or a fart joke. Sorry.

White Girl + Corn Rows = Douchebag

"Stuck" is probably Stuart Gordon's best feature-length film since "Re-Animator"

I give "Stuck" a 5 out of 5.

Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express (2008)

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Starring: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride

Other Actors of Note: Gary Cole, Rosie Perez

Plot: Lazy stoner Dale Denton has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver: to purchase weed, specifically, a rare new strain called Pineapple Express. But when Dale becomes the only witness to a murder by a crooked cop and the city's most dangerous drug lord, he panics and dumps his roach of Pineapple Express at the scene. Dale now has another reason to visit Saul: to find out if the weed is so rare that it can be traced back to him. And it is. As Dale and Saul run for their lives, they quickly discover that they're not suffering from weed-fueled paranoia; incredibly, the bad guys really are hot on their trail and trying to figure out the fastest way to kill them both. All aboard the Pineapple Express. Taken from www.imdb.com.

The look on James Franco's face will haunt my nightmares for eternity.

This is a hard review to do... mostly because I saw it and I'm still not really sure if this is a bad movie or a good movie.

"Pineapple Express" is a Judd Apatow movie version of "Pulp Fiction" in the style of "Cheech and Chong." If that makes any sense to you then could you explain it to me please? Because I'm still not sure I get it.

No less, it's about Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) a stoner who serves subpoenas to people. He's dating an 18-year-old high school student (Amber Heard) and dodging a meeting with her parents. In his free time he visits his dealer Saul (James Franco) who has the monopoly on a special and extremely potent brand of marijuana known as "Pineapple Express" (Hey! That's the title of this movie!)

So anyway Danny gets in trouble when he goes to serve a subpoena to Saul's supplier's supplier Ted Jones (Gary Cole) and sees Ted and a female cop (Rosie Perez) killing a rival dealer. As he makes his escape he alerts both of them to his existence by hitting two parked cars several times and dropping a joint on the ground of guess what? The rarest strain of weed in the city that's only sold by one person.

So Danny goes back to Saul's and they talk about how the only way that Ted could know that Saul has the Pineapple Express is through the middleman supplier Red (Danny McBride) what they don't know is that Red has already been contacted by two inept hitmen, Budlofsky (Kevin Corrigan) and Matheson (Craig Robinson), who are in the process of hunting the two men down.

"Shh... I think I see the plot. Don't talk or you might scare it away. "

Seth Rogen plays the type of character Seth Rogen always plays. He's the lovable dumpy loser who does basically nothing and has some growing up to do. If you've seen "The 40 Year Old Virgin", "Knocked Up", or even "Superbad" to a degree then you've seen it before.

Now I have a Master's degree in hating James Franco. I'm the president of his anti-fan club (call me for an "I hate James Franco" t-shirt) but Franco is the shining star of this picture. Playing a stoner isn't particularly hard and just about everybody has done it, but James Franco does it really well. You can almost see individual thoughts slowly enter his head and appear on his face. Many of the conversations between Franco and Rogen are the most hilarious portions of the film.

Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson are simultaneously the most entertaining and bizarre characters in the film seeming to be a parody of Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) from "Pulp Fiction." Their dialogue is nonsensical, off-the-wall, and most of the time just strange.

Gary Cole (AKA Harvey Birdman) and Rosie Perez (AKA "that really annoying woman from "White Men Can't Jump") have a fairly good on-screen chemistry as a drug lord and a corrupt cop. They have a sort of antagonistic relationship which makes for one of the more interesting small plot points of the movie.

Then of course there's Danny McBride as Red. Danny is probably the most unkillable character in the history of cinema, he gets shot at least 7 times, breaks a sink off the wall with his neck, gets his head plowed into drywall, and is in a building when it explodes and still seems to get back up and be able to walk and talk with little trouble. Danny is also one of the most bizarre and quirky characters of the film who bakes a cake for his now 3-years-dead cat on its birthday and talks about how the lack of armpit hair makes him more aerodynamic when he fights.

"Hey remember that Judd Apatow movie where they they said fuck a lot? That was great..."

For a comedy, "Pineapple Express" is surprisingly bloody and even gory at times. It is in special effects very much in the spirit of a Quentin Tarantino movie with just about everybody except James Franco having taken a bullet before the end and everybody getting at least a little bloodied up.

This is also not to mention well made fight scenes, a car chase, and a myriad of gunfights and explosions that really don't really seem to belong but are awesome none-the-less.

Assume tired "end of action movie" pose.

Now stoner films while a vastly over-used genre have had some truly greatsubmissions like "Up in Smoke", "Rolling Kansas", "Dazed and Confused", and "Half Baked" ("The Big Lebowski" doesn't count because having a movie where the main character smokes a joint every now and then doesn't make it a stoner movie, fuckheads... also your mother's a whore.)

But "Pineapple Express" tries to be what to the best of my knowledge is the first stoner action movie. The results are a bit skewed.

The opening starts like any other Judd Apatow productions film. The loveable loser, lots of profanity and inane and offensive yet funny dialogue, and then the movie seems to take a strange turn into some sort of action comedy ala "Lethal Weapon" and it's just as jarring as the second act of this summer's "Hancock."

The humor is funny and the action is good they just don't seem to belong together. The movie seems to end only because it doesn't know what else to do.

In many ways, "Pineapple Express" is like the little known Bill Murray comedy "The Man Who Knew Too Little" or the immature Tom Arnold vehicle "The Stupids" where a less than intelligent person winds up in a deadly situation and through nothing more than his own bumbling accidentally ends up being mistaken for some sort of professional assassin by the film's "bad guy."

Pretty much all of the action that Danny and Saul end up partaking in is entirely coincidental. The end makes sure to toss in a subplot with the villain's Asian competition throwing in a death squad just so there's some gunfighting going on around the climax. And a prologue to the plot taking place in 1937 has no bearing on the story except to tell us that there's a bunker in the middle of nowhere that the government once grew weed in even though the only time this scene is even vaguely referred to is when we see the same bunker under the ownership of Gary Cole later in the film with no reference to it once being government owned and run. Making the plot-point absolutely moot and unnecessary.

One of the plot lines with with Seth Rogen and his teenage girlfriend is broken off abruptly and one wonders why it wasn't expanded on more. The only semblance of plot seems to be with Seth Rogen finally realizing he's best friends with his pot dealer which is pretty weak. There's echoes of a possible plot point of realizing that maybe smoking weed all the time makes you a bit useless but that seems to have been shitcanned in favor of not offending the sort of fucktards clogging up the imdb.com message boards with "Marijuana isn't bad for you" and "Those who hate pot just haven't tried it" topics. (Yes yes, I know, it's not addictive, you quit six times last year. I'm impressed... really. Hey maybe you should crack a dictionary and look up the definition of the word "quit" sometime.)

Of course the odd thing is that even recognizing these glaring flaws I didn't dislike the movie. Sure there were several moments where I just sat and watched in confused awe, but the thing was, I had fun. I found myself laughing along to the profane and usually juvenile humor. Even the violent scenes are rather funny (the fight scene between Danny, Red, and Saul is pure gold) and enjoyable.

This happens often.

The violence is 100% gratuitous, the movie has only the vaguest hints of plot, the characters aren't particularly well-written, and the movie seems to have no real point or purpose and the only message it seems to be delivering is "Be best friends with your drug dealer." But it still manages to make you laugh in spite of yourself and have a fun time.

I begrudgingly give "Pineapple Express" a 4 out of 5. You'll enjoy it, you just won't know why.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)


Directed by: Rob Cohen

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Luke Ford, and Michelle Yeoh

Plot: In the Far East, trouble-seeking father-and-son duo Rick and Alex O'Connell unearth the mummy of the first Emperor of Qin -- a shape-shifting entity who was cursed by a wizard centuries ago. Taken from www.imdb.com.

"Hello, I look absolutely nothing like Rachel Weisz and you're going to spend the movie feeling awkward because of it."

The third movie in the "Mummy" series (4th if you count "The Scorpion King" but nobody who likes good movies does) starts with an overly long tale of Emperor Han, a ruthless man who wished to conquer the world (as any good dictator does) he builds the great wall of China and buries all of his opponents beneath the wall. (Because dead bodies make a wonderful foundation) he is cursed by a witch and he and his army end up covered up in terracotta making him "immortal."

Flash forward to the future where Evy O'Connell (Mario Bell0) has turned the past two adventures into trashy romance novels and her publisher wants a third but she can't manage to find the inspiration for a third. Meanwhile husband Rick (Brendan Fraiser) isn't dealing well with retirement either, desperately wanting to get back into things. Meanwhile still, son Alex (Luke Ford) tries to excavate the tomb of Emperor Han.

Of course the tomb is full of traps and everyone but the principal characters gets melted or shot before they get to the emperor's tomb. Alex is then attacked by a ninja but escapes, taking the sarcophagus of the emperor to a museum.

Back in England Rick and Evy get contracted for one last mission to take a jewel to the same museum that Alex has dropped out of college to excavate dead emperors for. So they meet up in a nightclub called "Imhotep's" in China owned by Evy's brother Jonathan (John Hannah) because China is the perfect place for an Egyptian themed night club owned by an Englishman.

Naturally there's some evil general who wants to bring the Emperor back to life and the O'Connell family gets wrapped up in another adventure with mummies.

"Oh my God... my son is a moron."

First of all for those wondering if this movie would suffer from the lack of Arnold Vosloo and Oded Fehr; the answer is FUCK YES IT SUFFERS! It burns in fucking movie hell because of this.

Brendan Fraiser is as always good. Anybody who disagrees can eat a dick. He plays Rick just as well as always, though he seems a bit young to be playing the geezer-type character that Harrison Ford played in the new "Indiana Jones" movie. No less he delivers a satisfying performance.

Unlike Rick is Luke Ford as Alex, the inquisitive kid from "The Mummy Returns" who has dropped his intelligence and British accent in favor of becoming a complete douchebag. If this film wasn't set in 1946 he would be wearing a pink polo shirt with a popped collar. Though he does manage to be far too tan so he's partway there. If you thought Mutt Williams was annoying, then you will really hate this cocky man whore who gives a performance like the cheap man's Christian Slater.

Mario Bello does a fine job as Evy and doesn't fall short by any standard. The problem is she's not series mainstay Rachel Weisz, and though the two actresses sound nearly identical they look nothing alike. You wouldn't imagine this would be so distracting but it feels like a member of your own family has been replaced by a cheap imitation and it will bother you the whole time.

John Hannah does as well as he ever has and being the only person other than Brendan Fraser to return for movie number 3 he's a welcome addition to the cast. Though Jonathan's apperance in the movie makes about as much sense as having Imhotep and Ardeth Bay return would have been.

Jet Li being called the "star" of this movie is like The Rock being called the "star" of "The Mummy Returns" though Li does get a good 20-25 minutes more creen time than the Rock did, but still doesn't come back into the film until the last 30 minutes. It shocks me how much Jet Li's career has fallen to where he's considered a suitable replacement for Arnold Vosloo. It's like he's back to early his days when his biggest roll was as the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 4.

Michelle Yeoh (of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon") is absolutely wasted as Zi Juan the immortal witch who cursed Emperor Han. She's very good in what little part she gets (She manages to drop lines like "The Yetis can help" without making me giggle) and it's a shame that she's held to a few small lines and one very uninspired fight scene between she and the emperor.

Finally there is Isabella Leong as Zi Juan's daughter and Alex's ninja love interest. She shows some promise as an actress and I wouldn't mind seeing her in a few more movies.

Jet Li breaks new ground this time around by kicking a guy in an over dramatized slow motion action sequence.

The special effects are just as good as in "The Mummy Returns" and considering that they were trumped by "Lord of the Rings" waaaay back in 2001 it's a bit disappointing to find out they couldn't do something more.

The fight sequences are mostly horrible but some of the action sequences like a gunfight in a temple in the Himalayas with a group of Chinese soldiers and 3 fairly competent looking CGI yetis that's rather well choreographed and the final showdown between Rick and crew with The Army of Darkness... I mean uh, the re-animated enemies of Emperor Han having an epic battle with the emperor, his Terracotta army, and a group of Chinese soldiers while not Lord of the Rings epic is still rather well done.

What suffers the most are the typical hand to hand fight scenes which are almost all terrible with the exception of the final fight between Jet Li, Brendan Fraiser, and Luke Ford which echoes the brutual fight scene between Jet Li, Mel Gibson, and Danny Glover at the end of Lethal Weapon 4.

"*GASP!* My Axe body spray just ran out."

The story for this movie is a bit weak in comparison to the last two. Evy's struggles with writing a third "Mummy" book seem to echo the screen writer's troubles with making a third "Mummy" movie and unfortunately just like Evy the story never lives up to the previous chapters.

Rick is under-utilized and too much emphasis is put on Alex. I'm told this is because Alex will take over for the series from this point on. I hope not as Alex is more akin to the annoying cowboys from the first "Mummy" movie than Rick. At this point I'd feel more satisfied if Jonathan became the hero of the series with Beni as the plucky sidekick.

There is a well done plot point put together about the father-son dynamic between Alex and Rick as well as the romantic plot between immortal Lin and he. The problem is that Alex is such an unlikable twat that you can't take your mind off of bludgeoning him with burlap sack filled with doorknobs long enough to feel compassion for him.

The first act is horrific with juvenile attempts at humor and just shoddily written storyline, and people who are prone to walking out of movies probably will, and while the second act picks up a little bit it's still fairly weak. It's not until the third act where the movie picks up and redeems itself but this could have just been because it reminded me so much of "Army of Darkness." Rick even borrows Ash's "Welcome to the 20th century" line. But even as the poor man's "Army of Darkness" the third act is what redeems the rest of the movie and takes it from crap to actually pretty good.

Brendan Fraiser fails to notice he's not actually holding a gun.

While it's the worst of the 3 films it is a worthwhile action film with a lot of flaws, but it's certainly not a "bad" movie, just the kind you don't want to think about too hard.

I give "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" a 4 out of 5. If you're a fan of the series it is worth your time to at least see it.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008)


Directed by: Chris Carter

Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connolly

Other Actors of Note: Xzibit, Amanda Peet, Mitch Pileggi

Plot: When a group of women are abducted in the wintry hills of rural Virginia, the only clues to their disappearance are the grotesque human remains that begin to turn up in snow banks along the highway. With officials desperate for any lead, a disgraced priest's questionable visions send local police on a wild goose chase and straight to a bizarre secret medical experiment that may or may not be connected to the women's disappearance. Its a case right out of The X-Files. But the FBI closed down its investigations into the paranormal years ago. And the best team for the job is ex-agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully, who have no desire to revisit their dark past. Still, the truth of these horrific crimes is out there somewhere...and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it! Taken from www.imdb.com.

So do Mulder and Scully finally do it? Like hormone doped rabbits!

For those of you that didn't see the season finale of the "X-Files" you could go see if you can find it, or alternatively you can stare at a picture of David Duchovny whilst blasting Styx's "Renegade" and drinking knob creek whiskey straight from the bottle and that will tell you what you need to know and be a lot more fun.

But for those who just have to know basically Mulder gets framed for murder and hunted by the FBI. He goes into hiding and we no longer have to watch John Doggett (Robert Patrick) try to replace him.

"I Want to Believe" picks up six years after the events of the series finale. A woman is depicted getting out of her car and tearing at some would-be attacker with a garden claw before running away and being grabbed by attacker number two. During this scene we're treated to shots of FBI agents prodding at the snow with pointy sticks whilst Billy Connelly waddles ahead like a penguin with Asperger syndrome. Turns out Father Joseph (Connelly) has visions and quickly unearths a human arm with, get this, garden claw marks.

Switch over to Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who is working at a Catholic hospital where a young boy with a fatal disease is under her care. The hospital staff wants the boy to be allowed to die peacefully but Scully wants to try a radical (and painful) new treatment to give the boy a second chance at life.

Shortly after this Agent Dakota Whitney of the FBI (Amanda Peet) shows up asking about Fox Mulder (David Duchovny.) Apparently the kidnapped woman at the beginning was an FBI agent and with the father's visions, Whitney wants the expertise of someone familiar with paranormal cases and promises all of Mulder's "crimes" will be forgiven if he helps. Eventually Mulder reluctantly agrees and you can guess where things go from there.

"Sure I'm an a-list actor I did uh... 'Evolution' and um... that one soft-porn show."

First of all let me say how great it was to see the "X-Files" on a screen again. David Duchovny falls back perfectly into his role as the stoic, monotone, and dryly humorous Fox Mulder. It leads you to wonder why he hasn't been in more stuff since the show ended several years ago.

Gillian Anderson proves that some women really do age like wine as she's twice as sexy as she was in the 90s. Scully seems to be a bit more emotional and less reserved now, but this is a change for the better. Anderson and Fox get to explore the more emotional sides of their characters in this movie as well as the romantic aspect of their partnership which is a very welcome addition.

Billy Connelly and Amanda Peet are capable in their roles, but it's hardly the best that either of them have done with movies like "The Boondock Saints", "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events", and "The Whole Nine Yards" under their belts respectively. No less they give good, if not very memorable, performances.

Xzibit does about as good as you would expect the star of a reality show called "Pimp My Ride" to do. He doesn't talk a lot though, which is good. Film makers are starting to learn.

A nice addition to the cast is the villian of the film in the form of Callum Keith Rennie, a particularly violent and volatile (not to mention creepy looking) character who seems to have quite the temper. He plays the part compassionately and never fails to be scary when needed.

"Don't look now Scully, but the 'Pimp My Ride' guy is pretending to be an actor now."

My biggest disappointment with this film was in the special effects department. Sure it showed that they had some new stuff, but some of the other bits look like they're on a tv-show budget.

For example the 2-headed dog that is glimpsed for just a split second in the trailer is never clearly shown with two heads until it's dead. Any time it's in motion it remains a cheaply done (and scary as shit) silhouette.

"The truth is out there." "Are we going to do it already, or not?"

"The X-Files: I Want to Believe" is one of the most maligned movies of this summer but it is not deserving of such. What it has going against it is false expectations. In early production Chris Carter said that this would be a monster-of-the-week episode if it were an episode of the show. This was a poor choice of words as the only monster present is aforementioned 2-headed dog who has roughly 4 minutes of screen-time.

It's not a monster movie, it's not a werewolf movie. It's a thriller with some religious overtones and viewed as such it is a very damn good one. Billy Connelly plays a disgraced priest (He's a pedophile accused of 37 different cases of abuse) who for reasons unbeknown to himself is receiving visions, he sees this as maybe some sort of sign of redemption.

The plot unfolds with talk of illegal organ harvesting, stem cell research, and surgical methods the likes of which only Dr. Herbert West are familiar with. But the underlying story of Mulder and Scully's relationship and Scully's fear of confronting the darkness they faced as partners serves to be the truly captivating story.

Father Joseph tells Scully at random to "Never give up." and she is confused, not knowing if he meant on the child in her care or in helping Mulder. Scully's inner-turmoil is the real story here while a disturbing and utterly sick tale weaves its way in and out of this plot thread.

The key thing to realize is that this movie was not made as a balls to the wall action movie like some of the monster-of-the-week episodes tended to be. This is a Mulder and Scully story tied together with some of the best filler I've ever seen.

It has it's flaws, it's a bit slow paced, and the story doesn't go to a lot of places leaving a lot of questions unanswered. But it's still far from the piece of shit that everyone else makes it out to be, if you want a shitty "X-Files" move more concerned with the paranormal than the characters go check out 1998 "X-Files" movie. But if you want a movie that's more concerned with characterization and weaving a good story than eliciting "oohs" and "aahs" then catch this one.

"Oh God, I just found the lost 'Lone Gunmen' scripts. Burn them before the internet sees them."

If you go in knowing what to expect, there's no reason you shouldn't enjoy this movie.

I give "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" a 4 out of 5. It's not a "must own" but you really should see it, particularly if you're a fan of the series.