CRAP FILES

Contrary to popular belief, I don't blindly love every movie that I come across.  I just prefer to focus on the "Good Ones" and forget the "Bad Ones".  Nevertheless, I've decided to start a new semi-regular section dedicated to highlighting the ones that have left me feeling like I've wasted my time, you know, just to mix things up a bit.  They will be shorter reviews, because I don't want to think about these movies for too long - they make my brain hurt.

TAKERS (2010)

Wanna see a really great heist movie?  Then please move along.  Actually, if you've never seen a good heist movie in your life, you will really, really like this.  It sure looks and sounds great (gee, just like a big budget, action-packed hip hop video), it has some pretty good performances in it (even from walking cardboard cutouts Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen).  Heck, even T.I. ain't bad.  Unfortunately it's filled with horrible dialogue (tries too hard to be Quentin Tarantino), more heist movie cliches than a "Heist Movie Cliche Convention", annoyingly distracting subplots and, worst of all, it's just plain devoid of any depth or heart whatsoever.  It's a great big Poser, soulless filmmaking from the Hollywood cookie cutter machine.

Wow, do I sound like an asshole movie critic or what?  Heh, heh. . .

Basically, it bored me.  I seem to have a good nose for movies that are made without any passion or love for the material at hand, movies that are produced merely to fill a quota.  This feels like one of them.  There are worse movies you can see out there, but it's still pretty bland.

Here's a much better heist movie also starring Paul Walker.  Well, okay, it doesn't come out until April and I haven't seen it yet, but the word on the street for this one is really, really good (it's been screening all over the country, recently).  I must admit, this series of movies is a total guilty pleasure for me.  Screw that, I don't feel guilty at all.  It's the "hip" heist movie that I want to see, and it's part five of one of the best "car porn" movie sagas of all time . . .

FURRY VENGEANCE (2010)

"But it's for kids!"  I have no kids of my own, but I still think that's a lame excuse.  Besides, I know of at least one kid who was bored stiff by this movie.  So there's that.

Let it be known that I will give any movie a chance to surprise me.  A movie where Brendan Fraser plays an unscrupulous land developer who gets his butt kicked, Home Alone-style, by a bunch of pissed off woodland critters?  Sign me up!

Don't sign up.  Even more soulless and empty than "Takers" (at least that one looked good), it's also just plain tired and played out.  It's dumb fun, minus the fun.  Cue the poop jokes, Mr. Annoying Trailer Voice. . .

As a Special Crap Bonus, here is the end credit sequence, featuring a truly awful cover of Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Brain".

The horror. . .

If there is ever a "Furry Vengeance 2", I want to see Brendan Fraser go up against the killer mutant bear from the 1979 "be-kind-to-Mother-Nature-or-she-will-literally-bite-you-in-the-ass" horror movie "Prophecy".

Look, there's Brendan Fraser right now!  Go get him, boy!