"Hercules" Review

Hercules

2.5 out of 5 stars

Family appropriateness rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Rated PG-13

-Brutal action violence. 

-There is blood, but it is mostly shown after the fact. It is never seen leaving the body.

-Some frightening images.

-Brief backside female nudity for less than a second. There is also a part in which a breast is almost shown, but the woman covers herself before it is.

If Dwayne Johnson did not play the title character in "Hercules," it would have probably been a made-for-tv movie. 

Hercules is a demigod who goes on various missions with his group of friends to make money. They get hired by Cotys (John Hurt), the king of a Greek area called Thrace, to help him overthrow his enemy, Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann), who has been causing a lot of destruction in the land. The movie is about how Hercules trains an army and leads them to find and capture Rhesus. 

There is not much more to say about the film. It is a very simple movie, and frankly it is bland. When there is not any action, it goes into some boring dialogue with boring characters about where they came from. Some of the backstories are interesting, but you also have to sit through some dry banter before hearing them. 

With Hercules, the sky is the limit. The filmmakers could have given us an epic tale from his life. What we get is some generic plot that seems like a bad Syfy Channel Original Movie. The characters are bland, and there is very little that distinguishes them from one another. The only ones that I find remotely interesting are Iolaus (Reece Ritchie), the storyteller, and Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), the man who can see pieces of the future. 

Dwayne Johnson's performance is what anyone would expect from him. He is not exactly an Academy-Award-worthy actor. He is a muscle head who was once a professional wrestler. His acting ability reflects his previous career, and there were times I thought I was watching World Wrestling Entertainment. 

To make his role worthwhile, he should have talked less and fought more. Some of the action scenes brutal, hard hitting and cool. When there is a throw down, it is very entertaining. However, the action scenes are so few and far between, that it is ultimately not worth seeing.

This movie gets half a star more than I thought it would because of the third act. There is a twist at the end of the second act that was unexpected and interesting. The last part deals with Hercules's backstory, and the resolution is well-executed.  

Like my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/criticalchristopher

Follow me on Twitter: @ChrisCampbell02

"Lucy" Review

Lucy

2.8 out of 5 stars

Family appropriateness rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Rated R
-Moderate amount of sexual content. There is a brief shot of sexual activity in the back of a car. No nudity is shown, but the motions make it obvious what they are doing.
-Depictions of blood as a result of violence and surgery. No gruesome camera shots of blood coming out of the body.
-There are some disturbing images.
-Little to no profanity. The f-word is almost said, but it is cut off.
-Pretty light R rating.




The "science" is flawed and the characters are poorly written, but "Lucy" gets its entertainment value from moments of interesting dialogue and off-beat direction.

Scarlett Johansson plays the title character, Lucy. After a chain of events, she is captured by a Chinese mob, which is testing a new drug. It is a highly concentrated dose of a woman's hormone that   speeds up the growth process in the womb. For fully-grown adults, the drug speeds up neural activity in the brain. The mob surgically inserts a bag of it into her body, and she develops a higher level of brain power as it enters her blood stream.

The film is based on the premise that we as humans only use 10 percent of our brain. When Lucy first takes the drug, she starts using 20 percent. As the movie progresses, the percentage gets higher. The problem with this concept is it is completely false. In reality, we use every part of our brain, and it is constantly working. Different parts are used for different things: some are used for memory, some for judgement and some for breathing. The whole thing may not be activated all the time, but every part is used.

Even with a suspension of disbelief -- which is required by most of this film -- there is no definite limitation to the percentages. When she is at 20 percent brain capacity, she already seems invincible. She can understand Chinese, manipulate waves and even read minds. The only difference in her progression is near the end, her powers get so advanced that nothing can hurt her.

Scarlett Johansson does a good job with what she has in this movie. In the beginning, Lucy goes through an intense situation, and Johansson does a great job conveying the emotion required to make it realistic. Even though we do not know anything about the character, she is at least relatable because she is well acted.

This is in direct contrast to what happens to her personality when the drug is administered. She becomes monotoned and flat. This happens because as she gains more knowledge, she becomes detached from all emotion. She cares little about human lives as she seeks her goal to get more of the drug. The character is dependent on it to survive, and she must get it from other people who also had it inserted into their bodies by the mob. For some reason, none of these people actually had the drug enter the blood stream. It just stayed in the bag.

Even though the movie is flawed, it is surprisingly engaging. Part of this has to do with the dialogue. It is written well enough so when the false-scientific claims are explained, it is still interesting to listen to. The speeches are done by Morgan Freeman who plays Professor Norman, a scientist who has spent his life developing his theory about what would happen if humans unlocked more of the brain. His voice combined with visuals of nature also help carry the entertainment value of the explanations.

The direction of this film is odd but fun to watch at the same time. When Lucy gets into the situation with the mob, writer/director Luc Besson intercuts a cheetah hunting its prey to foreshadow what will happen. Though this choice seems forced, it succeeds at making the scene more interesting.

Certain concepts that this film tries discuss are confusing. Besson seemed to have been going for a science-fiction experience comparable to "The Matrix," which is both a thought-provoking and action-packed film. He does not succeed at the same level. Yes, some of the concepts make you think, but they are not as clear and relatable as the 1999 classic nor are the characters as well-written.

With that being said, there is a scene in the end that utilizes some very impressive visuals to explain the confusing concepts. It depicts space, time and the creation of earth. The visual effects team deserves to be commended for it.

Like my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/criticalchristopher

Follow me on Twitter: @ChrisCampbell02

Quentin Tarantino Month: "Django Unchained"

Django Unchained

4.5 out of 5 stars


Family appropriateness rating: 2.3 out of 5 stars
Rated R
-Graphic bloody violence, often unrealistic, but not as comedic as the "Kill Bill" films.
-Quite a few uses of the n-word, and a moderate amount of other strong profanity including the f-word.
-Brief female nudity. It is only shown for a second and is not intended to be pornographic in any way.






Most films about slavery deal with how helpless black people were during that era. While there is a sense of this in "Django Unchained," the film flips the issue on its head by introducing a slave hero who successfully fights back.

Former dentist, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), is an officer of the law who kills wanted men and takes the bounty placed on them. He is searching for three brothers who used to be slave drivers in the Carrucan plantation. With no idea what they look like, he buys a slave who knew them named Django (Jamie Foxx).

Schultz is German and very different from most Americans living in the Southern United States in 1858. He is a progressive who believes slavery is wrong and that Django is a human being. The two make a deal that if Django helps Schultz find the former slave drivers, the doctor will set the slave free.

Django agrees to this, and they form a friendship. Schultz finds out Django has a wife named Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is enslaved somewhere in Mississippi. They have been separated for years, and Django misses her. After finding the men Schultz was looking for, the doctor promises to help Django find his wife if he helps catch more bounty for the winter, to which Django agrees.

Upon arriving in Mississippi, they find out that Broomhilda is in an enormous plantation run by the charming, yet downright racist Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). The two come up with scheme to get into the plantation and free Broomhilda so her and Django can live happily ever after.

One of the criticisms I have heard about this film is the story is very simple. It is straightforward. There are some twists, but how it all ends is predictable. This is all true, but everything is done well in the hands of a writer/director who knows what he is doing.

Even though it is a very simple concept, Tarantino knows how to write strong characters. They are all distinct individuals who are interesting to watch. The Django character has an arc that is pulled off very well by Jamie Foxx. In the beginning, he is a submissive slave. He has lived in the world for a long time and knows the consequences of insubordination. Even though Schultz is nice to him in the beginning, he still seems suspicious that the doctor will treat him like every other white person does. As the film progresses, he gets more and more used to the freedom he is given. He speaks up for himself and demands respect. This comes off as unexpected and surprising to a lot of white people he comes in contact with.

There is a strong antagonist in this film. To white Southerners living during that time, Calvin Candie is a very charming person. He is hospitable especially to people who can further his interests. He seems to think of himself as a good guy who deserves all the success he gets. However, his attitude towards black people is that they are a completely different species. In his opinion, they deserve to be forced into submission by white people. In an interview on "Meet the Press," Leonardo DiCaprio said that the reason Candie has this ideology is a way to justify in his mind that what he is doing is okay.

As in a lot of other Tarantino films, Samuel L. Jackson plays an important role. He plays an older house slave working for Candie named Stephen. Whenever his master is away, it is Stephen's responsibility to oversee the plantation and make sure it is running. He is feared by all the other slaves, and it appears that he has forgotten that he himself is black. In a way, he is just as racist as his master.

This is not Tarantino's best film, but it is still a very good movie. For the most part, it maintains the same quality of writing and creativity that one can expect from the director. He still uses interesting dialogue to establish his characters, but there is not as much of it and it is not as thought provoking as "Pulp Fiction" or "Kill Bill: Vol. 2."

Like his other films, there are also very interesting camera shots. A couple of them involve someone being killed while riding a horse. Rather than simply showing some blood come out of a man getting shot, Tarantino finds another creative means of presenting it.

The main aspect that should have been better is the Broomhilda character. Tarantino is good at writing strong, female characters, but he misses the mark with this one. She is simply there to be saved and is not given very much characterization aside from being a slave. It would have been nice to see her fleshed out a little more.

Though it is not his best film, it is among his most important. It follows the classic fairy tale formula in which a hero saves a damsel in distress. There is a twist to it in that the hero is a black man living in the pre-Civil War South. He fights against the tyranny of those who oppress others to save the woman he loves. It is empowering to watch considering the fact that even in modern-day cinema, slaves are powerless.

Like my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/criticalchristopher

Follow me on Twitter: @ChrisCampbell02

Quentin Tarantino Month:

Introduction
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
Pulp Fiction
Inglourious Basterds
Jackie Brown
Reservoir Dogs