The POP-ED - No More Sequels for Saw, No Solace for Bond's Script, and Please No More of Will Smith's Children in Movies!

This past month has seen me at the theater three times. Each film was marketed well, and I fully expected to be entertained regardless of the actual quality of each film. They were each tops at the box office in their respective opening weeks, and they each had some history to them. I felt like I knew them rather well. That said, at least two of the three failed miserably, while the other failed in a rather important aspect of filmmaking.

I suppose I'll start with the movie that I felt to be the worst of the three: Saw V. Let me preface this by saying that I've been a Saw fan since the beginning. I've found all of their movies to be quite entertaining, even cutting edge in a couple of instances, and even though I was able to realize that they were pushing the limits in regards to storyline, I still told myself to enjoy them. The original Saw had a plotline and birthed a serial killer by the name of Jigsaw (although our antagonist would never admit he actually was a killer; he insists on splitting hairs) that audiences had simply never seen before. The movie was released around the same time as Hostel and held viewers to their seats with an anticipation and suspense that few had seen since perhaps The Ring. The sequel, Saw II, had a different plotline, with the same killer, that followed a group of people who were challenged by Jigsaw collectively. Here, we saw how Jigsaw was able to directly effect the police force that had been attempting to nab him. The third and fourth installments can in fact be seen as one film and were frankly an excuse for gore and blood. And then, there was the fifth. Saw V was the biggest stretch of a sequel that perhaps I had ever seen (The one I can remember being as absurdly desperate was Predator 2, but I can't say I've seen all of the Jason Voorhies installments). The film resembles Saw II the closest, in that it followed a group of victims who were urged to work together to survive their situation. Otherwise, the film attempts to delve into the police force wayyyyyy more than humanly tolerable and fails at its attempt to weave new characters and plots into the main story. Also, while I'd normally say that the bad acting and poor script were negligible because of the entertaining, new ideas, now, I can only drop my jaw at some of the predictability and redundancy. The bottom line here is the sequels should've probably stopped a year ago at four. Frankly, I'm embarrassed that one of my favorite horror classics has been relegated to this. I'm even more embarrassed that I'm giving this movie a 5 out of 10 simply because I still have a particular place in my heart for the original story. Somehow, I can still get off to this: the most blatant attempt at a genre horror film in some time. 5/10

The following week I walked into the theater, excited to see The Day the Earth Stood Still, featuring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, and Jon Hamm of Mad Men (my favorite show on television by the way). I had heard nothing but good things about the film it was based on: the 1950s sci-fi tale of an alien and his robot. I expected something of the same, with a storyline geared for today's audience and dazzling special effects. I actually imagined it to be quite similar to War of the Worlds, the Tom Cruise remake of a few years prior. And for the first thirty or forty minutes or so, I was quite right. The effects were spectacular, the plot and back-story (which was plain old cool for any movie fan) picked up right away, and I was excited to see what would happen next. Then entered Jaden Smith, the child actor and son of star Will Smith. I can honestly say he ruined the final hour and thirty minutes of the movie. He played the role of the naive child who wanted all of the aliens dead. He came off as whiny and annoying. After convening with my compadres, they all felt the same. Smith was the major downfall of the movie. Each scene he took part in was simply unnecessary and bothersome. It was clear that this kid only got the part because of his name. It was clear that this kid did not belong on the big screen. Keanu and Connelly played their parts well enough though. I had always felt that Keanu was an underrated actor due to his ne'er do well, surfer-boy mystique that he so well earned as a young guy. But he has made some decent movies as of late (The Matrix Trilogy, Speed, Street Kings, A Scanner Darkly, Devil's Advocate, Constantine) and he plays his parts well. Make no mistake, I'm not saying he merits an Oscar or even Oscar consideration, but he makes entertaining movies nonetheless. Connelly is an esteemed actress in her own right (Blood Diamond, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream) and she pulled her weight. But a deviance from the original story, including the sheer neglect of many major details of the aliens' motives and some predictability in regards to run-of-the-mill sci-fi flicks, had this film teetering on mediocrity. Ultimately, it was the overbearing overacting of Smith did us all in. Combined with the fact that as the movie went on, it strayed from the original plotline, Smith took this movie under. It was an unstoppable duo. And because of these two problems, I give it a 5 of 10. See War of the Worlds instead. 5/10

The third and easily the best of the movies I was lucky to see this month was Quantum of Solace with Daniel Craig as the new James Bond. When I say that this was an action film, I mean it was THE action film. Immediately, the film starts off with a car chase, with multiple European sports cars flying around, between, and off of bridges. From there, we see a foot chase, similar to that of the foot chase in Casino Royale, where bond hunts a man who has information about his lover's murder. Next, there's a boat chase. A few boats get blown up over here. A few more over there. And then, on to the plane chase. I kid you not. There were three chase scenes in the first half hour, capped off with a plane chase somewhere in the middle of the movie just for kicks. It was absurd action. Daniel Craig IS James Bond. Let's get that straight. He embodies him in every way, and carries himself with a ruggedness that Pierce Brosnan was unable. Craig did what he was expected in his role, as did the Bond girls Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton (why do they always find the difficult names for the Bond girls), but there was one simple problem: lack of story and script. This movie was a true-to-form revenge flick. Very little important dialogue and loads of mindless action to entertain the viewer. And in this aspect, it did its job. Action. Action. Action. Cut. Nice shoot everybody. Go home. And wait until we destroy box office numbers with its release. I can only imagine that that's what producers had expected. And it worked. I walked out of the theater confident that I spent my ten bucks well. As a guy, I loved Bond and I loved the action. And as a fan of genre films, I got what I wanted. I gave it 7.5 of 10. I can't wait to add it to my James Bond DVD collection.

With ratings of 5, 5, and 7.5, I actually was surprised to see that the voters of IMDB.com agreed with me. They graded the films 5.9, 5.8, and 7.1 respectively. Maybe I should keep up with this kind of stuff. Haha.