Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
“Your Highness” Your Lowbrowness
Apr 18th
(“Your Lowbrowness”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Your Highness looks like a stoner comedy, walks like a stoner comedy, and quacks like a stoner comedy, but the only way that audiences would laugh while watching this mess of a movie would be if they actually were on drugs.
Sure, James Franco is listed in the credits, but I am more inclined to believe that it is his evil twin, Frank Jameso, who is in this failure of a film. You know, the one who hosted the Academy Awards in 2011.
In fact, Franco doesn’t even get top billing in the credits. That dishonor goes to Danny McBride, who also wrote the movie and not so coincidentally gave himself the bigger role.
And rounding out this trio of turpitude is Natalie Portman, whose two distinguishing characteristics in this film are reminders of what she lost in order to make her next film, the excellent 2010 Black Swan.
But I procrastinate.
The story begins with a mildly amusing sight gag of a hanging that fails to succeed because the hangers are little people and they forgot to adjust the gallows for the height of the normal-sized hangee.
He is Prince Thadeous of the Kingdom of Mourn, played by McBride, younger and less accomplished brother of Prince Fabious, played by Franco–I mean, by the evil twin Jameso.
In fact, Thadeous is so weak that when he eventually expresses his overpowering obsession, it comes out only as the tepid, “It would be nice to be king.”
The main plot is that Belladonna, the bride-to-be of Prince Fabious and who is played by Zooey Deschanel, is captured by an evil wizard, and so Prince Fabious goes on another quest to rescue her, this time taking his stumbling, bumbling brother, Prince Thadeous, along with him, which is the second prince’s first quest.
Along the way they encounter Isabel, played by Portman, who is on her own quest. And so they join forces.
In other words, this is a sword and sorcery spoof.
However, mostly it is a waste of time that is lowbrow, knuckle dragging, tasteless, overblown, too over the top and too gross. No, make that three over the top and three gross and therefore four tedious and five unfunny.
Your Highness could even be called “Your Lowbrowness,” but then that would give it more credit than it deserves.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Source Code” Expect a Tweak
Apr 7th
“Expect a Tweak”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SOURCE CODE is a science-fiction, action-thriller version of the 1993 GROUNDHOG DAY, except each return to the past lasts only eight minutes apiece.
And yet it is still worth watching, especially for the work of star Jake Gyllenhaal and director Duncan Jones, who previously directed the excellent 2009 MOON.
However, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief at least nine times, if my count of the trips back in time are accurate.
And we are told that these events are not time travel; they are time reassignment. Also, the program that is called “Source Code” and allows these events to take place is not designed to alter the past. It is designed to affect the future.
It all begins when Capt. Colter Stevens wakes up one morning on a commuter train to Chicago. A woman sitting across from him says, “I took your advice. It was good advice. Thank you.”
And yet Stevens doesn’t know where he is, what is happening, or who this woman is, whose name is Christina.
Eight minutes later a bomb on the train explodes and everyone on it is killed.
Then Stevens finds himself in a crashed helicopter in Afghanistan, and a woman is talking to him over a video screen. She is Capt. Goodwin, and she tells Stevens that he is part of a mission designed to prevent that bomb explosion.
Eight minutes before the explosion, Stevens’ mind can be inserted into the body of another man on that train, and his mission is to find the bomb, find the bomber, and report the results.
Nice work if he can do it, especially in only eight minutes, but each time he goes back, he knows a little bit more which will allow him to find the bomb, find the bomber, and complete the mission.
We learn that Stevens is a born hero and saving people is what he does best, but he is also told by Capt. Goodwin that he can’t save the people on the train, because they are already dead.
This causes conflict in Stevens, because he becomes more and more fond of Christina each time he meets her for the first time.
However, the ending is all wrong and expect some changes to it when the DVD comes out.
SOURCE CODE is entertaining, but expect a tweak.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Lincoln Lawyer” Surprise Endings
Mar 30th
“Surprise Endings”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE LINCOLN LAWYER stars Matthew McConaughey as Mick Haller, a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles who works out of the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Lincoln town car.
Earl is Mick’s chauffeur, because Mick lost his driver’s license, but at one point in the movie, Mick tells Earl that he got his license back three month’s earlier.
So, is Mick kind? Vain? Flush with money?
For all we know, Mick might be all three, because at the beginning of the movie, his Lincoln is pulled over by a motorcycle gang whose leader pays Mick $10,000 on top of a previous $5,000 he had paid to get one of the gang’s members out of jail.
The leader of the gang is played by country-music singer Trace Adkins, and the gang will play an important part in the story later in the movie.
And as Mick says, “Rule 1: I get paid, or I don’t work.”
However, the important case of Mick’s that makes up the bulk of the movie is defending a wealthy kid, Louis Roulet, who is accused of assault and attempted rape of a woman he met in a bar.
Mick takes the case even though his investigator, played by William H. Macy, tells Mick that the kid feels “wrong” to him.
Marisa Tomei is also in the movie as Maggie, Mick’s ex-wife who is also a prosecuting attorney. However, Maggie doesn’t have much to do with Mick’s big case, but is more there as someone Mick can go out with at night and they can have a drink together.
So, you can see that Mick has a fairly complicated personal life, and it gets more complicated when the case goes to trial and Mick discovers that his client, Louis, is playing mind games with him.
Louis refuses to take the deal that he is offered by the prosecutor, and everything gets even more interesting when Mick starts playing mind games with Louis after Mick learns some information that might have some bearing on the current case.
At one point you will even ask yourself whose side is Mick on, anyway?
To say that the movie has a surprise ending is an understatement.
THE LINCOLN LAWYER is very entertaining, and it has two surprise endings– no, make that three surprise endings–no, make that four.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
