Category → Movie Reviews
Review: Splice
![Vincenzo Natali's Splice [Photo - Warner Bros.]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Splice_wall04_1024x768.jpg "Vincenzo Natali's Splice [Photo - Warner Bros.]")
What we pass on to the next generation is not only what we find encoded in our genes. We pass on our memories, legends and aspirations. But we cannot forget that we also pass on our failures, our fears, and the darker sides of humanity. At least, this is what I gathered from the ending of Metal Gear Solid 2, the only Metal Gear game I’ve played. I stopped paying close attention to the plot after I got in a swordfight with the President of the United States who is dressed in a biomechanical tentacle suit in front of a statue of George Washington.
Vincenzo Natali, the mind behind the brilliant and underappreciated Cube, plays with the same themes in Splice. It dabbles in ideas like nature versus nurture and the question of what we do as parents to our offspring and our families. Splice takes these ideas, tosses them into a centrifuge, and fucks the result on the cold barn floor.
Oh by the way, there will be spoilers in this review. Sexy spoilers. READ MORE!
Review: The A-Team
![The A-Team [Photo - 20th Century Fox]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ateam_wallpaper3_1024X7681.jpg "The A-Team [Photo - 20th Century Fox]")
The A-Team looked like crap. It looked like the worst kind of excessive, remake-happy Hollywood tripe. The trailer, in all of its CG-idiocy, coasted on nostalgia-bombing the audience with Mr. T references and playing the original theme song.
So it came as an enormous surprise when I walked out of the theater completely stoked. The movie is an incredibly satisfying blast. The trailers made this seem much more serious than any summer movie ought to be, which is a shame because the movie’s playful tone is pretty great. Much of this is due to director/writer Joe Carnahan’s electrifying script and sharp pacing; just as much praise needs to be heaped upon the delightful work done by the entire cast. There’s not a flat note in the entire enterprise. READ MORE!
Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
![Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time [Photo: Disney]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PrinceOfPersia_Poster1-692x1024.jpg "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time [Photo: Disney]")
Here’s the main problem with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – it’s already been done about as impeccably as can be done in its 2003 video game incarnation. The movie never comes close to achieving the greatness that that game achieved; then again, Sands of Time is quite literally one of the ten greatest gaming experiences ever, so failing to reach so high a bar isn’t so bad for this movie.
What Sands of Time the film is, however, is a serviceable action-adventure that lasts too long and relies too heavily on very ugly CG and up-close camera angles. READ MORE!
Review: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
The Human Centipede is a great movie.
It is a fucking great movie.
It is precisely what a horror movie should be, and that is horrifying. Lately, way too many horror movies have been taking the easy Saw/Hostel route READ MORE!
Review: The Losers
The Losers is the first of a trio of similar mercenary team movies due this summer, along with the nostalgia-stroking A-Team and the all-star lineup of The Expendables. Compare this to the ménage à trois of Mr. and Mrs. Smith-style action comedies (to wit: Date Night, Killers and the atrociously-titled Knight and Day). It seems as though the old Armageddon/Deep Impact summer head-to-heads have evolved a third head.
Speaking of all-star lineups, READ MORE!
Review: Kick-Ass
Matthew Vaughn has crafted the best superhero movie this side of Watchmen in Kick-Ass. The movie’s tone is all-at-once hilarious, relentless and violent in all the right ways.
Dave Lizewski is your average comic-book nerd dreaming of something better. He spends the movie narrating for us in much the same way Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus guides us through the rules and wackiness of the world of Zombieland, or the Fight Club-style lecturing and posturing of James McAvoy in Wanted. Dave is a mere socially inept nerd and nothing more. By his narrative’s admission, if you’re looking for clichéd tales of vengeance for the death of a loved one, you’ll have to look elsewhere. READ MORE!