21 Jump Street

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

by Frederick William Springer III

 

21 JUMP STREET

Release Date:  16 March 2012                                                                                      Runtime:  109 Minutes              

Review Date:  24 June 2012                                                                                          Rating:  2 (of 6)

 

     I never saw the original, but I'm sure 21 Jump Street does it a gross disservice.  I don't have much else to say.  I may have chuckled twice and cracked a smile half as many times. 

     There is nothing likable about the two main characters.  They joke twice that Canning Tatum looks too old to be in high school, once saying he looked in his 20s, another time in his 40s.  Really?  Of the two, Tatum's the one who looks most passable.  Nothing is ever said of Jonah Hill's character, yet he is the one that looks 40.

     I know the characters are supposed to be incompetent but receiving text messages under their real names ("Schmidt" instead of "Doug") when they're supposed to be undercover seems even more amateur--which does go with their characters but also should lead to them getting caught early on.

     **SPOILER:  What doesn't ring true--DEA agents under deep cover for 5 years losing their lives while chastising this group rather than completing the task at hand, knowing full well guns are trained on them.

     The drug they're trying to get off the streets, H.F.S, has an appropriate logo to sum up the film--a heaping pile of shit.  It's apropos that they speak of recycling 80s programming because there are no original/creative ideas.  The joke is on them, though, since this was just such garbage.

Chimpanzee

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

by Frederick William Springer III

 

Chimpanzee

Release Date:  20 April 2012                                                                  Runtime:  78 Minutes              
Review Date:  24 June 2012                                                                    Rating:  3 (of 6)

     Chimpanzee centers around a group of chimpanzees, particularly baby Oscar's place in their community.  While the scenery is enjoyable, it often unnecessarily lingers on, ruining the pace of the film.

    The narration also suffers.  From the Toy Story franchise, we know Tim Allen is a capable voice over artist but here his performance as narrator falls flat.  This is perhaps coupled with weak scripted dialogue to begin with.

     While not a bad movie, it's not one I'd spend money seeing in the theater or renting.  Wait till it's on TV, than tune it out or change the channel if you get bored.

Cabin in the Woods

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

by Frederick William Springer III

                                                                  Cabin in the Woods

Release Date:  13 April 2012                                                                  Runtime:  95 Minutes              
Review Date:  5 June 2012                                                                       Rating:  1 (of 6)

     The most concise review:  Do you remember The Happening?  Yea, well, I'd rather sit through a second screening of that than one of Cabin in the Woods.

     The parts that were supposed to be scary weren't scary (and, for the premise of the movie to work, they really ought to have been).  The parts that were supposed to be funny just about always fell flat.  Anything else I'd like to say would be considered in the realm of SPOILERS so STOP READING now if you're still inclined to see it for yourself.

     The characters weren't developed enough to really care about any of them, which is sort of ironic because one of the voyeurs makes a point of saying he feels for the surviving girl soon to meet her doom.  Really?  Why?  What did she encounter or experience that those slaughtered did not?  In fact, of the group, she had it easiest--she wasn't stabbed by knives or daggers, she wasn't caught in a bear trap, she sustained no notable injuries.  And let's not forget, she was the reason they were all being killed in the first place.

     The revelation that past deities now live beneath the earth's surface and they remain complacent only as long as periodical human sacrifices take place to appease them seems very much unbelievable.  If you were a mighty, powerful God that once ruled the Earth, would you acceptingly move beneath it?  Can you imagine any person with a position of power doing so?  Hell, even a person with no power at all, someone like myself, wouldn't agree to that.

     Then there's the fact that this situation is playing out almost simultaneously all over the globe.  Statistically speaking, how likely would it be that every single experience elsewhere would meet in failure and everything then hinge on the American scenario?  We know this has been going on for thousands of years, so it's not like this is something new and the proctors don't know what they're doing.  For all the other locations to bomb doesn't seem realistic within the confines of this movie.

     This smells very much of writer Joss Whedon with the Hellmouth on one hand and a government conspiracy on the other.  The thing is, Buffy was an entertaining bouquet of fragrant, blooming flowers--till season 4 anyway, but I digress-- whereas this is a stinking, rotting corpse.

     The writers did have a chance to give an unusual twist to their story at the end (though, it would have hardly redeemed them), but opted to let it fall by the wayside.  Much is made of the importance of "the virgin" being the last to be killed, if killed at all--"virgin" here meaning more innocent and pure, if it really means anything at all, as we know the character isn't a virgin sexually.  Yet the girl tries to kill the character regarded to as "the fool," though he has risked his own life to save her and even does so again after her transgression.  The more satisfying twist would have been for him not to save her after she tried to kill him and for her to consequently die, only to find out that the assumptions were incorrect--she was the fool and he is actually the virgin, order restored to the world, and the door open to many crappy sequels.  In how many horror movies does the guy wind up being the virgin?  It would have been a nice play against stereotype.

     On an end note, it's also good to remember that CGI usually doesn't make a story good.  In this case, it makes a bad story worse.  Fortunately, I wasn't too upset about this heaping pile of shit ripping me off--I only paid $1.50 at the bargain theater to see it.  If you pay anything more for Cabin in the Woods, you're paying way too much.