Ahoy, squirts. Quint here... Damn these flicks look painful. Absolutely painful. Although, I must admit that the first review up for CATWOMAN is the most positive review I've seen to date and quite possibly the only not completely negative review I'm likely to see. Stink alert! The litter box is damn near overflowing!!!
OK, before I get into Halle Berry (I wish!) I just wanna say "WhooHOO!" for the Talisman news! I honestly believe it was all you, Quint! Great job!
(Seaman sidenote: I thank you for the words, but it doesn't take a genius to look at the script I did and see it needed work. Common sense prevailed is all.)
Now, first of all, I went to this movie screening thinking I was going to be seeing the Exorcist prequel. It was at the Warner Lot, and it was too early for it to be Batman (and I'm just not that lucky), and for some reason, I never thought it might be Catwoman. Probably because I try not to think about that movie too much, because I am a huge DC fan, and when movies are made about DC characters that have absolutely nothing to do with the comic it's based on, I get very angry. Krypton's not destroyed, Lex is an alien, why the hell call the movie Superman?
ANYWAY, the fact that Catwoman wasn't Selina Kyle just made me not want to see this movie, and the trailers just convinced me that this was going to be a disaster. And I bet you are expecting me to say right now... "But it was actually great!", but I'm not. It just wasn't the train wreck I was convinced it would be.
Harry likes to review movies by explaining every scene in detail and talking about how every smile or camera angle made him feel. I'm not. I will say that the first half of Catwoman was mostly bad, in some parts laughably bad, but the second half... well, I liked it. And that's the part of a movie that really needs to be good. I thought it took way to long for her to finally become Catwoman. The first third is actually quite annoying. There is this woman, I don't know her name, but she does that short Asian character on MAD TV, well she's Patience's (that's Halle Berry) best friend in the movie, and I just could not stand her or her character! And she is in this flick quite a bit. In the questionnaire after the movie, I could not stress enough how much I wanted her scenes to be cut out completely.
Finally, Halle, or Patience, sees something she wasn't supposed to see, and is rubbed out (or washed out!), very similar to what happened to Selena in Batman Returns. And again, like in Burton's sequel, she is revived, or actually resurrected by a bunch of creepy cats. This scene in particular I didn't like, in fact this is one of the laughable scenes I alluded to. A bit over the top. This scene was followed by a much too long scene of newly revived Patience being chased by dogs. But whatever, it's at this point where the movie starts to get watchable.
Halle is wonderful, of course, but then I'm in love with her, so that probably doesn't make me a good judge of her acting, but I could watch her in anything, so that is a definite plus for this flick. When she becomes Catwoman, she acts very cat-like, and I have three cats, so I know what I'm talking about. She actually acts like she's on acid, but then so do cats.
One of the main differences between the real Catwoman and this one (other than the fact that they are completely different people) is the Egyptian supernatural angle. Patience meets a Cat-Lady, who explains the origins of the Catwoman. It's apparently very similar to the mythology behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in that every once in awhile a woman is "chosen" by the creepy Egyptian-powers cats, who I guess can sense when someone is fated to die an untimely death, to become Catwomen. the catlady shows Patience pictures of many past Catwomen, some really old pictures, some very... new. (hint hint, wink wink).
Another difference is the superpower thing. She has the powers and abilities of a cat. When I first heard about this, I was angry, but seeing her in action is unquestionably cool; THIS Catwoman could give Spidey a run for his money. In fact, her powers are about the same level as Spidey (movie), and they make more sense. Spider agility? No, CAT agility! Here is where this movie really shines! The effects were still early, yet those cat fights were breathtaking. I won't spoil it, but there is a scene in a jail cell that shows the extent of her cat abilities.
I realize I'm taking up a lot of space here for an OK movie, so I'll rap up. The Good: Great action scenes, beautiful star, good third act, sexy Halle Berry. The Bad: The acting from most is pretty bad. Did you know Sharon Stone was in this? I didn't, and she acts almost as bad as Jeremy Irons in Dungeons & Dragons. That MAD TV chick needs to have a piano dropped on her career. The basketball scene! The resurrection scene!
So I barely recommend this flick. Take your girl to see it. She'll enjoy the female empowerment, you'll enjoy Halle's swingin butt.
Samurai Rabbit
Now for KING ARTHUR... I was hoping this movie would rule. I love TRAINING DAY from Fuqua, Clive Owen is a badass and Keira Knightley is adorable. From all advance word, this one's a huge stinker. I hope the below reviewer is wrong, but I can only imagine taking the Fantasy out of KING ARTHUR would be akin to taking the Fantasy out of LORD OF THE RINGS or STAR WARS... very uninteresting.
Harry
Im sure you will get a buttload of these reviews... but here goes. Tonight there was a screening for King Arthur at the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences building in LA. Jerry Bruckheimer intoduced the film and said it was now the final cut. They had just finished locking the picture last night... so they said. The score was done and you couldnt tell anything visually was missing... all that really was missing was a good story.
You know how this movie is sort of being sold on being the "real" story of Arthur and his Knights? Well, imagine if you took the legend - stripped away anything good about it and all you had left with was a bunch of mopey britts bitching about freedom in a very pale Braveheart attempt.
It really is just not worth going into any detail at all about the story... because it was mostly non exsistant. The effects were terrible, the battle scenes were horribly shot and directed... there really was nothing good about the film at all. The audience I was with did clap when the bad guys got killed... but i just clapped when it was over... i clapped because it was over... not because it was a good movie...
Nothing really can save this film. It was a horrible movie. I much prefer the legend to the "real" story....
If you end up using this.... call me.... Mr Bootles...
Yikes. Now to finish it up, we got WHITE CHICKS, the flick from the Wayans brothers... Doesn't appeal to me... Also looks like a bit of hypocrisy. If this film is successful, can we have a sequel called BLACK CHICKS with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn in black face? I think not. Anyway, here's one poor soul who subjected himself to this film:
By now we’ve all at least experienced the horror that is the WHITE CHICKS trailer or seen a commercial for the film. We’ve all gotten a taste of what two of the Wayans brothers looks like in white face drag. Now let’s be honest, if you were walking down the street and saw either of these “white chicks” what would be the first thing that popped into your mind?
Burn victims wearing artificial facemasks?
Wax figures come to life?
Aliens from a late 70’s Italian STAR WARS rip-off in blonde wigs?
Darkman isn’t even trying anymore?
Albino transsexual Sleestaks?
I mean, come on! This is one of the worst make-up jobs in the history of cinema. The plot, the gags, everything in WHITE CHICKS is inconsequential because if you’re like me you’re going to spend the entire movie put off by the hideous make-up job that makes it absolutely impossible to buy into the film’s premise for a single second. I’m supposed to believe that these girls’ friends can’t tell the Wayans in disguise from the actual women they’re impersonating. I’m supposed to believe that men are falling over themselves for these gorgeous ladies that look like something out of a freak show. And that’s exactly what WHITE CHICKS is – a freak show. Every second that they’re on the screen in make-up I couldn’t stop staring at them like I would the Lobster Boy or Bearded Lady at a sideshow attraction. Try to imagine watching Ace Ventura as played by Gary Oldman in his HANNIBAL make-up and you get the idea what this experience was like. If the Wayans had made the movie as a horror film it just might have worked but instead we’re supposed to laugh and they’re just too damn creepy looking to bring about laughter. Whenever there’s a close-up of their faces it is just one of the most off-putting things I’ve ever seen. Even the blue-eyed colored contact lenses they wear are unpleasantly unnatural looking. Yet I and everyone else in the audience am supposed to believe that nobody notices that these “white chicks” look like the kid from MASK after overdosing on Botox injections.
In any of the movies starring The Muppets, there’s an unspoken acknowledgement between the Muppet and human characters that the Muppets are just that and thus the interaction between person and puppet works. WHITE CHICKS does not feature such an unspoken acknowledgement. The characters are supposed to believe that these two black men in latex white face drag are the women they claim to be and we the audience are supposed to believe that they believe this. Suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far and the first time the Wayans appear on-screen in make-up that suspension of disbelief reaches it’s breaking point. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT, Jonathan Brandis in LADYBUGS, Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in Bosom Buddies, and even Jonathan Silverman in the atrocious LITTLE SISTER have portrayed less than convincing men in drag with varying degrees of success. But at least there was some possibility of being able to suspend your disbelief because at the very least they still appeared human. The same cannot be said of Marlon and Shawn Wayans in WHITE CHICKS. I swear the animatrons in Disney’s Hall of Presidents are more lifelike than these two.
In his rubber-faced Caucasian gender-bending persona, Shawn Wayans does look disturbingly like a wax figure of Matthew Modine in drag from PRIVATE SCHOOL. Marlon Wayans has this icky frog-faced Alexis Arquette thing going on made all the more unsettling by the fact that he/she is supposed to be the object of lust for another character. If the Golden Raspberry Awards don’t invent a special new award this year for Worst Make-up just for this movie then they should just pack it in. This really is one of the most embarrassingly inept make-up jobs in the history of cinema.
But even if the Wayans did look passable as young white women it still would do little to help this tired attempt at comedy. The actual plot has to do with Shawn and Marlon Wayans playing FBI agents who screw up a bust and find themselves on babysitting duty protecting two vacuous heiresses, clearly patterned after Paris and Nicky Hilton going so far as to name them the Wilson’s. The heiresses are the target of potential kidnappers and when one thing leads to another the Wayans find themselves undercover in the Hamptons masquerading as these two women to catch the potential culprits and nobody suspects the wiser. There’s even a scene towards the end where one of the Wayans and the woman he’s impersonating appear side-by-side and we’re supposed to believe that the on-looking crowd is doing double takes as if these two are identical twins despite the fact that one of them is about a foot taller, 50 pounds heavier, and has Robert Z’Dar’s chin. Again, it all goes back to the inability to buy into the main premise of the movie.
Six different screenwriters are credited and I can only assume it was the job of each of them to select a different and better movie to recycle jokes from. The vacuous dumb blonde jokes were funnier in CLUELESS. The rivalry between young bitchy females was done better in MEAN GIRLS. The explosive bowel movement gag was better executed in DUMB & DUMBER. There are even two separate gags lifted straight out of THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, one involving comedic animal cruelty and the other involving a knock down, drag out fight with a dog. Heck, even the opening scene where they’re disguised as ethnic racial stereotype mini-mart clerks was done better by their very own brother Damon back on In Living Color. There’s also moments in the movie that mimic BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE and YOU GOT SERVED. Yes, I said YOU GOT SERVED. There’s a dance fight scene that’s comes from out of nowhere where the punchline is apparently that we’re supposed to laugh uproariously at the site of these two men disguised as young uptight women doing old school breakdancing moves. Plus, we get all the conventional trappings that go along with the man in drag comedy scenario – trouble wearing women’s clothes, fighting off potential male suitors, talking in their natural masculine voice, being caught off guard out of costume and having to change back as quickly as possible. It’s all there and it’s all lame.
The fact that the explosive farting scenes were the only jokes that got any big laughs from the tiny, mostly pre-teen audience I saw the movie with says a lot about both the quality of the writing and the mentality of the film’s target audience. There was this one young Bobby Hill look-a-like going on and on about the explosive fart jokes in such a manner that I think it may very well have been one of the defining moments of his young life. Truth be told, the trailer for ANCHORMAN that ran before the movie generated more uproarious laughter than anything in the movie itself did. WHITE CHICKS is the Wayans family’s latest step into the downward spiral that leads into painfully unfunny Chevy Chase territory. It’s an 8 minute skit stretched out to 108 tedious minutes and frankly if it was just an 8 minute In Living Color skit it still wouldn’t even be a memorable one.
About the time the movie featured the laugh-free bachelorette auction scene I noticed that my drink cup had an odd bulge on the side. Turned out it was a peel off game piece and I spent about 5 minutes more concerned with trying to decipher this tiny waterlogged piece of paper than paying attention to anything happening on the screen. This really was one where I had to fight the urge to walk out. Lame, unfunny comedies are the worst kind of bad movie and WHITE CHICKS was giving me some very unpleasant flashbacks to the time I saw JERKY BOYS: THE MOVIE, one of the only movies that I have ever actually walked out on.
The movie is so desperate for laughs that it even has scenes where basic logic ceases to exist just to try and create an allegedly comical situation. The worst offender is a scene where Marlon Wayan’s wife shows up at his hotel suite unexpectedly while Shawn is there in full drag. The wife is convinced he’s having an affair but rather than tell her the truth about the operation he’s working on he’d rather play hide and seek with Shawn so that the wife doesn’t catch another woman in the room. There is no logical reason why he couldn’t tell her the truth and even a screwball comedy has to have some semblance of logic working within it.
And if you’re going have a character that’s supposed to be an NBA player then at least cast a guy that looks like a basketball player and not someone who looks like an NFL linebacker. Maybe I’m watching the wrong games but I don’t see too many basketball players built like Lou Ferrigno.
The movie also makes the grievous error of trying to be sentimental at times. You’ll know when the scene is heading in that direction because the emotional Hallmark Hall of Fame music will begin to play in the background. They even tacked on a romantic subplot with Marlon Wayans and a local reporter that clearly exists for no reason I could discern.
Personally, I laughed 4 times the entire movie and none of the 4 laughs the movie got out of me had anything to do with the actual gender bending premise or explosive flatulence. Only two of the funny lines even came out of the mouth of either Wayans and you know a comedy is in trouble when a “Your momma…” putdown fight is one of the comedic highlights. Still, those 4 laughs are 5 laughs more than GARFIELD got out of me so I can’t even go so far as to call WHITE CHICKS the worst comedy I’ve seen all summer.
Unless you are under the age of 12, just really easily amused, or an actual member of the Wayans’ infinitely large family then you’re better off skipping WHITE CHICKS. If it’s a comedy you’re looking for that can provide you with some actual laughs then you’re better off going to see DODGEBALL, SHREK 2, or THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.
