Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” Pirates Be for You
May 28th
“Pirates Be for You ‘n’ Me”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Arrrghhh! Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides be the fourth movie about pirates in the Caribbean Ocean, an’ if ye be askin’ yourself how can it be better than the first three, the answer is it’s not, but it be just as good as the third one, which be better than the second one, which be better than the first one, goin’ all the way back to 2003.
Arrrghhh! An’ as sure as there be fish in the ocean and stars in the sky, there already be talk of a fifth movie in the works starring Johnny Depp as the lovable rap-scal-lion Cap’n Jack Sparrow.
Arrrghhh! Surely ye be hearin’ that some re-cur-ring characters in the first three movies be gone, but others be remaining, such as Geoffrey Rush as Cap’n Hector Barbossa, an’ there be good-as-gold-tooth new characters, such as Ian McShane as Cap’n Blackbeard an’ Penelope Cruz as Blackbeard’s daughter, Angelica, easy on the eyes and who can buckle her swash, fight with a sword, an’ do a double-cross with the best of ’em.
Arrrghhh! Now, the main story be about a race to be the first to find the fabled Fountain o’ Youth, but the beginning o’ the movie has a dramatic, comical, and prolonged sequence in London of an escape that doesn’t advance the story any, an’ seems to exist only to introduce Jack’s father, Cap’n Teague, as played once again by Keith Richards in a brief cameo.
Arrrghhh! But once we get onto the high seas, Cap’n Jack finds hi’self shanghaied on the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of Cap’n Blackbeard, whom Jack at one time calls “Mr. Beard.”
Arrrghhh! An’ the first mate o’ the ship be Angelica herself, who has a history wi’ Cap’n Jack, an’ I don’t mean just when she was im-per-son-a-tin’ him to get a crew together.
Arrrghhh! They be searchin’ for the Fountain o’ Youth, the British be searchin’ under the command o’ ol’ Cap’n Barbossa, and the Spanish also be havin’ an army in the race.
Arrrghhh! An’ one par-ti-cu-lar aspect o’ the story be the presence of beautiful mermaids, whose tears are needed to activate the Fountain, as it were.
Arrrghhh! Pirates of the Cribbean: On Stranger Tides proves that pirates be for you and me.
As sure as my name be Dan Culberson and as sure as this be “Hotshots.”
“Bridesmaids” All Very Funny
May 19th
Bridesmaids is one of the funniest movies you will ever see if you are a gal and also one of the funniest movies you will ever see if you are a guy, because contrary to what you might think at first glance, it is definitely not a “chick flick.”
In other words, it is not rated “R” for “Romance.”
No, if anything, it is rated “R” for raunchy, ribaldry, repartee, regale, revelry, romping, roughhousing, rattlebrain, roguery, rascality, ridiculing, razzing, raillery, ragging, and ribbing, not to mention rude. Kristen Wiig stars as
Annie, and Maya Rudolph plays Lillian, Annie’s best friend, who is getting married.
So, Lillian asks Annie to be her maid of honor and to handle all the duties that a maid of honor takes care of, which Annie enthusiastically agrees to do.
Unfortunately, Annie doesn’t have any experience with being a maid of honor, and she has to look up what the duties are on the Internet.
In fact, Annie’s own boyfriend recently left her, and although she works selling rings in a store, her sales technique leaves a lot to be desired. She tells one couple who want to buy wedding rings, “You cannot trust anybody, ever.”
Then Annie meets Helen, one of the other bridesmaids, whose husband is very wealthy and who is very competitive. At the engagement party, Annie and Helen get into a “dueling speeches” contest trying to outdo each other, which escalates into a “dueling songs” contest.
Lillian asks Annie to hang out with Helen just once, hoping that they will become friends, and so they arrange to meet for tennis at Helen’s country club, but before they start playing, they can’t resist getting into a “dueling philosophies” contest, and the tennis itself quickly becomes a “dueling tennis” contest.
One of the other bridesmaids is Megan, and to say that she is unique would be stating the obvious. She is overweight, but completely unselfconscious about it, she is not afraid to say anything or to do anything in public, and she does.
Meanwhile, there is a policeman that Annie keeps having encounters with, some public and some private, and there is an especially funny scene when Annie tries to get arrested because she wants the policeman to help her.
Bridesmaids is all this and very much more, and all very funny.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Hanna” Bad Premise, Worse Execution
May 12th
(“Bad Premise, Worse Execution”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Hanna is one of those movies whose filmmakers believe they are being clever by making the movie come full circle from beginning to end, just as they must have believed they could make the story more interesting by omitting important details.
And the premise is so simple that the one-sentence pitch to studio executives could easily have been “Sixteen-year-old girl as James Bond.”
Then just to turn the story on its head even more, the Bad Guys in this movie are usually the Good Guys in a James Bond film.
Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, who received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of the “evil sister” in the 2007 Atonement.
When we first see Hanna, she is living with her father, played by Eric Bana, in a cabin in the wilds of northern Finland, where they have been living for 15 years and he is training her for some sort of life-or-death mission.
In fact, he tells her, “She won’t stop until you’re dead. Or she is.”
“She” is Marissa Wiebling, played by Cate Blanchett using a Texas accent that is so phony it is laughable, and Hanna’s father and Marissa have a history that we get only a glimpse of in one flashback.
We eventually learn that Hanna’s father used to be a CIA agent until something went wrong, and that is why he and Hanna are hiding out in northern Finland, because Marissa and her fellow CIA agents are still searching for them.
However, when Hanna believes she is ready, she activates a signal that identifies her location to Marissa, and Hanna’s father then takes off after confirming with Hanna where they will meet in Berlin.
So, Hanna is captured, and then the movie gets even more ridiculous.
Hanna escapes from Marissa in a gruesome and unbelievable scene, but she discovers that she is in Morocco, and she must somehow get to Berlin without any money.
In other words, the movie becomes an absurd chase movie.
As a matter of fact, the movie goes from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous and then to be so ridiculous that it is laughable and finally forgettable.
The premise is bad, and the execution is worse.
Hanna is a quite elaborate rendition of a simple story made more complicated by the omission of significant details.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
