The Bounty Hunter Delivers

Gerard Butler? Um, hot Scottish actor? I’d watch any movie with him in it. From The Phantom of the Opera to The Ugly Truth. And Jennifer Aniston? She is sassy and sexy and determined in all her movies. What a genius idea to put these two hot people together in a movie.

The Bounty Hunter is an action-romantic comedy directed by Andy Tennant, starring Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston.

The two play a couple who have previously been married and divorced. Milo Boyd, played by Butler, is a bounty hunter, and Nicole Hurley, played by Aniston, is a reporter who assaulted a cop. When Nicole skips a court date to meet a contact on a suspicious suicide case, Milo is hired to retrieve her and bring her to jail. Right off, I could tell this would be interesting because Milo was overjoyed to hear that Nicole was his next assignment. There is no doubt Butler enjoys locking Aniston is his car trunk, chaining her to a bed, or ragging on her for no reasoning. But Aniston, being the feisty, sassy woman she is does not put up with it. She gives him a run for his money. Milo realizes nothing is ever simple between him and Nicole. I certainly believe these two hated each other most of the movie, but in some twisted way you can tell they are madly in love with each other. Throughout the movie, the exes continually try to one-up each other. They are no longer running after each other– they are running for their lives now. The couple get one fun scene together in Atlantic City, but that is not what brings them back together– it is solving a crime. The Bounty Hunter is all around good. Great actors, great plot, great theme.

New “Alice in Wonderland” film is audience pleaser

Disney has for a second time re-done Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” but rather than paying attention to the book’s whimsical attributes like the studio’s original film in the 50′s, the Disney team let Tim Burton bring out the book’s dark side with this new incarnation.

First off, Tim Burton’s rendition of Lewis Carroll’s classic is not essentially just one of the two books in the series, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” or “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.” This time the film fuses them both, adding a little Burton twist. Neither of the books had a real story arc, rather just lists of events, so Tim Burton basically created a story that was influenced by the two books and poems by Carroll that existed in the “Wonderland universe.”

This film follows up more from the first movie, not the book; Alice Kingsley played by Mia Wasikowska, is now 19 years old and is betrothed to a young bureaucrat named Hamish. A white rabbit in a waist coat distracts Alice, and she eventually escapes falling into yet another rabbit hole which takes her back into the realm of “Wonderland,” which happens to be a false name that Alice gave to the strange world–this time the land is called “Underland.” Alice re-meets old friends from the original Disney movie who are attempting figure out if she is “The right Alice.” As the new plot unfolds Alice is informed that she must slay the Red Queens Guardian, the “Jabberwocky” on Frabjous Day. Incidentally the only way Alice can slay the Jabberwocky is to use the “Vorpal sword” which is hidden away inside the Red Queen’s castle.

The trailers for the new “Alice in Wonderland” film led the audience to believe that Tim Burton was going to completely base the story around Johnny Depp’s character The Mad Hatter since the two have a good friendship and Depp has been in more then a few of Burton’s movies. However Depp was very seldom seen. In fact, the Red Queen who is the main antagonist was much more frequent than the Hatter. All in all the trailers gave the film a bad image, including the worst acted out scenes, only including two or three of the central characters, and not clearly explaining anything about the story.

But don’t let that fool you, “Alice in Wonderland” is a fantastic film. It may not be the next Disney classic but it is definitely worth the ten bucks.

Unlike many other 3D movies, this one won’t make the viewer want to keel over or hurl. The 3D actually contributed to quality of the film. The new Real3D doesn’t feel in your face or over-dramatic, but blends with the movie. There aren’t just a few scenes that really need the glasses that feel absolutely ridiculous, the whole film is in 3D and fits together seamlessly.

Tim Burton pulls “Alice in Wonderland” completely out of nowhere, and what may have looked like a complete disaster turned into a good two hours of entertainment. The movie is great, not perfect by any means, but the bang is definitely worth the buck.

The Road Shows Human Strength

2012 Deserves an Award: Worst Movie Ever.

Although there are many other movies that I could rant on that deserve no place within the Oscar’s list, there is one that failed to escape the clutches of this review. The most undeserving movie of the year would absolutely have to be “2012”. While watching the catastrophe of a film I couldn’t help but think I was watching a sequel of “Poseidon” or “The Day After Tomorrow.” In the movie a cruise ship is tossed around by a rogue wave. Sound familiar? It should. This is the exact plot line of the movie “Poseidon.” “2012″ didn’t even bother with plot. Instead of a movie about the supposed end of the world, movie goers were “treated” to a catastrophic chain of events that could kill many people and change the face of the earth. This isn’t a tale of trying to survive the inevitable, but instead gathering people on Noah’s Ark AD to survive a massive flood where the earth is still in tact and able to sustain life that can survive the climax of events.