Saw a few flicks on the plane on the way back from 'Murica.
The Conjuring - The dude from Insidious stars as '70s demonologist, Ed Warren, opposite a wonderfully believable and subdued Lily Taylor. This movie eschews computer effects and sticks with traditional effects, beautifully composed shots, slickly timed editing, and creepy-as-hell sound design to work the heebie-jeebies to the fullest. I know it's supposedly based on a real case the Warrens investigated, but emphasizing the undeniable proof shown in the footage they manage to take makes it hard to take seriously. If such footage actually existed in 1971, well, we'd live in a different world now. Then again, it appears the Warrens were also involved with the highly questionable Amityville haunting. The movie's great though.
The Lone Ranger - Gore Verbinski turns another Disney ride into slick visual tourism over handheld storytelling. There is nothing new here: The hero is shown to be a Perceval type: good-hearted but naive. Johnny Depp is a sidekick who steals the show with humorous physical antics, speech affectations, and possible insanity. The bad guys are really bad. The action finale isn't nearly as over-the-top as the whirlpool pirate ship battle from PotC3, but is still pretty outlandish. In the end, though, when the William Tell Overture begins to play, I got chills and hype and all kinds of excited about watching The Lone Ranger kick butt. The only bit which really stuck in my craw was the bookending device with Tonto as narrator of the story, attempting to ground The Lone Ranger in our last-century reality, telling the story of his life with the Ranger to a boy attending the circus which ostensibly employs Tonto. The entirety of the movie's main story takes place in an idealized white-hats-vs-black-hats Old West, is as mythic as anything in the PotC series; bringing the sad, real-world narrator in as a device is as useless and frustrating as Suckerpunch's conversely confounding decision to put the entirety of the movie into a fantasy realm.
Escape Plan - Arnie and Sly return to their '80s action movie roots as antiheroes with an attitude, while Sam Neill picks up a rent payment as his Jurassic Park payouts have begun to slow down. The biggest surprise in this movie was how much I wished Fiddy Cent had more screen time. It feels like there was a bunch of additional footage with his character left on the floor, along with whatever side story was originally included with Sly's conspicuously missing child, which would have otherwise neatly tied into Arnie's reveal at the end. I spent most of the movie thinking Jim Caviezel was Joseph Fiennes, though his performance was much more uneven than either Fiennes would ever provide. If you like '80s action movies, this is a great movie. If you don't, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Marvel's Iron Man and Hulk: Heroes United - What a crapfest. This was listed with the new releases, and I didn't realize it was a kids movie. Crap animation, crap visuals, crap dialog -- I lasted five minutes. Disney is really stress testing how far they can milk that Avengers' success. Man, seriously, this just made me sad.
The Dark Knight - I was afraid I would dislike this movie on my third review of it, but it really works. That whole opening scene, and The Joker just running roughshod over all of Gotham's criminal underworld, so good. The buildup over Harvey Dent also works so well, and is even more mean-spirited for fans who know how this must inevitably end.
