Movie Review: Muppets Most Wanted (PG – 107 minutes)

The Muppets were created in 1955 by Jim Henson – you know what they are, I shouldn’t have to explain them.  You probably watched Sesame Street growing up (if you didn’t, you should have) and I you have kids now – chances are they’re watching it too.  You may remember the Muppet Show in the late 70s and early 80s which featured the Muppets doing absurdist variety-sketch comedy with guest stars. 

Over the years, they’ve made many movies:  The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984.  Jim Henson passed away in 1990, and the Muppets slowly built back their legacy.  They had a resurgence of the TV show in the 90s, and then the Muppet Christmas Carol in 1992, Muppet Treasure Island in 1996, and Muppets from Space in 1999. The Great Muppet Caper was always my favorite.

 In 2004, Disney purchased the Muppets, and we got a new movie in 2011, co-written by Jason (and huge Muppet fan) Jason Segel, and directed by James Bobin.  It was fun, featured tons of big-time celebrity cameos, and featured songs (with one nominated for an Oscar) by Flight of the Conchords’ Bret Mackenzie.  Incidentally, James Bobin had also directed many of the Flight of the Conchords episodes. 

This movie is a sequel (you know that because there is a huge song at the beginning entitled, “we’re doing a sequel”) – continuing the story literally where the story from the 2011 movie ends.  Kermit and the gang are thrilled that they saved their theatre, but are unsure what step to take next.  Criminal mastermind Dominic Badguy (it’s pronounced Bad-gee – it’s French) suggests a world tour. 

Unfortunately for them, they do not realize that he is, in fact, a bad guy and has set them up in locations where he wants to rob priceless works of art.  Meanwhile, Constantine, the world’s most dangerous frog, escapes from a gulag in Siberia, slaps a mole on Kermit’s face, sends Kermit to the gulag, replaces him with the gang, and works with Dominic to steal the pieces that will lead to them being able to steal the crown jewels in London.  The gang is slow to realize something is amiss, and Kermit is slowly acclimating to gulag life.  Once they rescue him, they set out to clear his name and make things right - oh, and stop Constantine from marrying Piggy.
In terms of actual humans with notable roles in the movie, there are really only three:

• Ricky Gervais plays Dominic Badguy, and does a great job of being slimy and arrogant.  He’s not bringing anything you haven’t seen him do before – but he’s bringing what he’s great at – and it really works. 

• Ty Burrell from Modern Family plays the Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon – who has most of his scenes with Sam the Eagle.  He is hilarious, and that French accent had me cracking up.

• Tina Fey plays Nadya, the gulag showrunner.  She grows really fond of Kermit, and has him produce the annual gulag spring review.  Her Russian accent is equally hilarious.

• In terms of the Muppets:
• Steve Whitmire performs:  Kermit, Statler, Beaker, Rizzo the Rat, Link Hogthrob, and the Newsman
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• Eric Jacobson performs:  Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle, and Animal
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• Dave Goelz performs:  Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen, Zoot, Beauregard, and Waldorf
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• Bill Barretta performs:  Pepe, Rowlf, Dr. Teeth, Swedish Chef, and Bobo
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• David Rudman performs:  Scooter, and Janice, and others.
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• Matt Vogel performs: Constantine, Floyd, Sweetums, Pops, Robin, Crazy Harry, and the 80s robot.
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• Then there are the extensive human cameos.  The three in the prison get the most screen time, and they include Ray Liotta (who also cameoed in Muppets in Space), Danny Trejo (who seems to be playing himself) and Mackenzie’s Flight of the Conchords partner Jermaine Clement. 

• Some (but not all) of the rest of the cameos are:  Tony Bennet, Lady Gaga, Andres Cantor, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Combs, Rob Corddry, Mackenzie Crook, Celine Dion, Zach Galifianakis, Josh Groban, Salma Hayek, Tom Hollander, Toby Jones, Frank Langella, Ross Lynch, James McAvoy, Chloe Grace Moretz, Usher Raymond, Miranda Richardson, Saoirse Ronan, Til Schweiger, Russell Tovey, Stanley Tucci, Christoph Waltz, and my favorite cameo of the movie – Tom Hiddleston as Escapo.

The movie was certainly enjoyable, and fun, and the cameos kept me paying attention.  It’s always fun to see people interact with Muppets, you never see them as puppets, they are legitimate characters, and the human actors always interact with them as such.  I do think I wanted a little more from it that it provided.  It was very Kermit-centric – which is not a problem if you are a huge Kermit fan, but if you prefer one of the other Muppets, there’s just not as much of them.  The songs were great, I particularly enjoyed the “I’ll Give It To You” number than Constantine (pretending to be Kermit) sings to Piggy – although it is clearly a Flight of the Conchords number, and you can completely picture Bret and Jermaine singing it.   Overall I liked it, I didn’t love it, and it certainly wasn’t as good as the Lego Movie.

7 out of 10 – certainly entertaining.  Gained points for Constantine attempting to use Kermit’s “Hi-Ho” catchphrase and turning it into “Hi-Lo”.  Lost points for not enough Pepe.  Gained points for not using Rizzo – I am not a Rizzo fan.  Gained points for the badge size battle, Lost points for that tiny car, that will give you claustrophobia – was Ty Burrell really driving that?  Gained points for the line, “Goodnight, Danny Trejo!”

Bonus Video 1:  Try getting this out of your head...

Bonus Video 1:  Flight of the Conchords – just a couple of songs…

Bonus Video 2:  The Star Wars Muppet Show

Bonus Video 3:  Cast Interviews

Movie Review: About Last Night (R – 100 mins)

If there is one genre of movie that you want to be predictable, it’s the Rom-Com.  A good Rom-Com has the meet-cute between the couple, they fall completely head over heels, everything seems great – then there’s trouble, and then there’s some dramatic demonstration of love that brings them back together in the end.  It’s a pretty basic formula, but it works well, so why change it?  What can make your standard Rom-Com stand out is a great cast, great writing, and a small twist here and there.

The original About Last Night was released in 1986 and starred Rob Lowe, Demie Moore, James Belushi, and Elizabeth Perkins.  It was actually based on a David Mamet play.

It was well done, and certainly entertaining enough to be updated.  This new version is directed by Steve Pink, who has also directed several episodes of New Girl, as well as Hot Tub Time Machine (sort of funny!) and Accepted (hilarious!). 

The story is the same, Bernie and Danny are friends who go out often, Danny is attempting to bounce back from ending a relationship with a crazy woman.  Bernie meets Joan, who can match his motor-mouthed craziness, and the two start a passionate affair.  Joan’s friend Debbie comes along and starts a slow-burning relationship with Danny.  Bernie and Joan flair out quickly, but as Danny and Debbie get closer together, Bernie and Joan have to keep encountering each other.  Danny and Debbie move in together, do well – but then encounter a speed bump or two just as Bernie and Joan realize they are meant for each other. 

The movie is fairly fast-paced for a Rom-Com, and is paced out by the seasons in terms of passage of time.  Each character has some growing to do in their own stories, and the cast is really what elevates it.

• Kevin Hart plays Bernie and is one of my favorite stand-up comedians and he is attacking his movie career with fervor.  He’s great in this – but he’s basically playing Kevin Hart.  In fact, this character is almost exactly the same as his character in Ride Along.  If you’re a Kevin Hart fan, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and in fact, it helps make the movie more enjoyable.  He does show some talent in the more dramatic scenes, and I would not be surprised if much further along in his career we see him do some gritty dramas and get recognized for them.

• Regina Hall plays Joan and is an exceptionally talented comedienne, and you will probably recognize her from Scary Movie 1 through 4, as well as many other movies and TV shows.  She is hilarious, and is genuinely capable of keeping pace with Kevin Hart’s improvs.  She’s fire-y and funny and the perfect pairing for him.  The relationship between Bernie and Joan would not have worked nearly as well with a different actress.

• The unbearably handsome Michael Ealy plays Danny (the industrial accident line fit Rob Lowe perfectly, and it also fits Michael Ealy perfectly).  He’s been working very hard for a long time, but lately with the TV show Almost Human (which is fantastic!) and this movie, hopefully he’ll being getting his due.  He has the biggest character arc in the movie, and the most backstory.  He plays Danny as a bit mopey at the beginning, but then really grows into learning what he really wants to do with his life. 

• Joy Bryant plays the conservative Debbie, and does a great job in this as she slowly falls for Danny, then realizes he might not be in line with what she wants, and then realizing how much she needs him.  I really enjoyed her in Hit and Run in which she played a completely different character, and she’s currently on Parenthood.

• Christopher McDonald, who has been in everything, but you probably remember best as Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore, plays Casey, Danny’s friend.  This is the most understated role I’ve ever seen him play – he’s usually best in an over-the-top comedy (see the superhero movie spoof – Superhero Movie), but he was really great in this as a struggling bar owner who helps Danny see what he was meant to do.
• Adam Rodriguez from Magic Mike (and CSI Miami) plays Debbie’s boss (and ex?) Steven.  He’s just enough rich and seductive to make you worry, and to certainly give Danny some hesitation, but he does seem to be a good guy as the story goes on.

• Paula Patton plays Danny’s crazy ex, Alison.  It’s the role Patton has always excelled at – the crazy super-beautiful chick.  She has one scene, but she’s pretty hilarious in it.  If you want to see her take that role through a whole movie, watch the Queen Latifah/Common Rom-Com, Just Wright.

• Joe Lo Truglio has a couple of truly hilarious scenes as Danny and Bernie’s boss, Ryan.  He tries to walk the line between friend and boss, and fails epically –but it’s hilarious.
• Oddly enough, Terrell Owens has one scene as Terrell Owens.  It’s pretty fantastic.

The movie is rated R, for both the language and sex, but really – it’s a well-crafted piece of Rom-Com fluff that’s well worth the watch.  It’s precisely the right length for a movie of this type, and I really enjoyed it.  Check it out – I think you’ll find it really funny!

7 out of 10:  Gained points for Lo Trulio and his loudspeaker, lost points for that dog growing up into a different breed of dog?  Gained points for Hart running wild through every scene, and getting emotional when necessary – lost points for not having outtakes over the credits…seriously, this movie needs outtakes. 

Bonus Video 1:  Just Wright – the movie’s not that great, but it’s charming here and there.

Bonus Video 2:  Think Like A Man – another hilarious movie with both of these stars – rent it before the sequel comes out later this year.

Bonus Video 3: SuperHero Movie – it’s terrible, but funny here and there…

Bonus Video 4: Cast Interviews

Movie Review: 300 Rise of an Empire (R – 102 minutes)

The first 300 was an epic translation of the 1998 Frank Miller Graphic novel.  He based some of it loosely on the 1962 movie The 300 Spartans and some of it loosely on pieces of the original ancient Greek legend, which tells the tale of King Leonidas of Sparta, who in 480 BC took 300 of his best soldiers to fend off the incoming Persian invasion led by Prince Xerxes. 

The movie itself was beautifully shot, and there were many sequences that were frame for frame images from the comic, which I read prior to seeing the movie.  This resulted in the movie being exceptionally stylized with a unique and new look and feel.  It’s true to the comic, so, like all Frank Miller works (see Sin City), was very graphically violent and gory.  It was a fairly opened and closed story -  Leonidas leads his men into a bit of a Kobayashi Maru, in which they battle the 8 foot god-king Xerxes and his hordes, including all kinds of nonsense and monsters.  They hold them back for some time – then eventually lose. 

This new movie is directed by Noam Murro, an Iraeli director, as his first big-time movie.  It is produced by Snyder, and uses some of the same technological flashy pieces that the first had. The main issue with that is that when the first one came out, the super-stylized gore and alternation between super slo-mo and fast action was new, and people hadn’t seen it before.  Since then, it has been used and over-used in all kinds of movie and TV shows.  The advantage is that this one changes the scenery, and takes place mostly on the Aegean Sea.

The timeline is a little strange, it is not a prequel or sequel to the original 300 – it takes place at the same time.  The movie opens with Leonidas’s wife Gorgo telling her men about the Battle of Marathon, and the death of the Persian King Darius by the Athenian Greek hero Themistokles.  Darius dies in front of his son Xerxes, and his father, as he is dying, tells him to pull back, saying that “only the gods could defeat the greeks.”  Well, Darius’s creepy as hell naval commander Artemisia tells Xerxes to become a god – thus creating the 8 foot god-king that we are familiar with.  

Themistokles asks all of Greece to lend him what they can in the way of navies, so that he can meet Artemisia’s forces on the sea.  Most city states give what they can, except for Sparta, who feel they are already stretched thin, in dealing with the Persians at the hot gates.  Themistokles uses some ingenious naval tricks and wins a few battles, impressing Artemisia, who brings him on board her ship for some negotiating…and by negotiating, I mean some really rough sex.  

He still refuses to surrender to her and rule at her side, so she kicks him off her boat and sends some explosive ancient navy seals over to his fleet, destroying almost everything.  Themistokles is just about out of ideas, and heads to Athens to try to get more help, learning that the 300 have fallen.  He once again asks Gorgo for help, who refuses one more time, then heads back out to face Artemisia one more time.  We see Gorgo giving the speech she was giving at the beginning, and finally she and the Spartan navy (which seems to be huge, where did they get all those people?) show up to help the Greeks. 

• Sullivan Stapleton, an Australian actor, plays Themistokles.  He does a fine job, but does not have the charisma of Gerard Butler.  In a way, that works, because Themistokles is a different type of person than Leonidas, but in another way, it doesn’t quite work, because he has to carry this movie.

• Stapleton’s averageness is all the more obvious because Eva Green as Artemisia steals this movie.  She’s manipulative, evil, and incredibly watchable and charismatic.  She looks like she’s having a blast in this and she makes Artemisia an unapologetic badass.  Fantastic.  Also – the armor she wears at the end has what I would describe as a dragon-y sort of spine to it?  Impressive.

• Speaking of unapologetic badasses, Lena Headey gets a bit more to do in this movie as Queen Gorgo than she did in the first.  Once she finally decides to help Themistokles, she comes in angry and fully armed.

• Hans Matheson plays Aesyklos, one of Themistokles’s top men.  He does a good job of attempting to remind Themistokles that they may not have a chance in this, but then supporting him anyway.

• David Wenham is the other returning character from 300 – which makes sense, since he’s the one who made it out of the first.  He’s very intimidating in his eye patch, but if you want to see him really out of character, re-watch Stephen Sommers’s Van Helsing – he’s pretty hilarious in that.

• Rodrigo Santoro gets a full couple of scenes not in the Xerxes get-up before Artemisia sends him to wander the desert, and he enters a mystical cave pool, then exits as the god-king that we remember from the first movie.  

Because that’s usually how mystical desert cave pools work, right?  Apparently they hook you up with crazy facial piercings as well.

• Andrew Tiernan is back as the hunchback Ephialtes – and if there was a character I did not want to see more of, it was that crazy hunchback.  But, props to whoever put together the prosthetic – because it’s impressive.

Overall – it’s short, it’s entertaining, and it looks great in 3D.  Check it out – if you liked the first one, you’ll like this one, but it’s not as good, just because it’s not as new.

6 out of 10.  Gained points for Artemisia and her navy seals.  Lost points for the hunchback.  Gained points for Gorgo finally showing up with the Spartan navy, but lost points for her taking way too long to decide to help.  Gained points for all the fancy naval maneuvering that Themistokles put together, but then lost points for the one scene with insane sea monsters.  This whole movie takes place at sea – why is there only one scene with insane sea monsters?

Bonus Video 1:  Everything wrong with the first 300!

Bonus Video 2: Sin City – the other frame for frame Frank Miller movie - the sequel will be out later this year, so check this out if you haven't already.

Bonus Video 2:  Van Helsing, just because.

Bonus Video 3: Cast Interviews.

Movie Review: Non-Stop (PG13 – 106 minutes)

It would seem that within the last half-decade or so, Liam Neeson is on a quest to become the new action badass in town.  He certainly proved it with Taken.  Unknown was pretty great, I have been told The Grey is watchable.  Taken 2 was a bit of a dud, but it really was almost the same as the first. 

Unknown was a movie that saw Neeson wake up from a coma to learn that someone has taken his identity, and no one believes he is who he says he is.  He then has to set out to figure out what is going on.  It’s very twisty, and a little more psychological than a straight forward action movie.  It was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who has also directed Non-Stop.

At first glance, Non-Stop seems to be another straightforward action movie starring Neeson.  He’s an air marshal, and he’s got some issues – I love the 5 minutes in the car as the movie starts – it’s all the character development you need for Neeson’s portrayal of Bill Marks.  He gets on his most recent assigned flight, makes small talk with a few passengers, then promptly gets a text that threatens to kill a passenger every 20 minutes until $150 million is delivered to an account number.  Things get more complicated when his partner starts looking shady, and the account number is revealed to belong to him, and then people start dying. 

It’s a very simple plot, but it’s carried out very well.  Collet-Serra does a great job of building the suspicion and tension by quick camera shots of different passengers.  Wait - those two shared a knowing glance!  Oh, wait, maybe they didn't.  Aha!  This guys is suspicious!  No, wait, he's not.  I found myself starting to suspect all the passengers, and all the crew, but still not really being sure who was responsible.  The reveal of the villain is surprising, and gets slightly preachy (understandably so) for a few minutes, but the movie is tense, claustrophobic, and very entertaining.   Because you’re stuck in this plane the whole time, the point is to try and figure out which of the friendly, but suspicious, passengers and/or crew is involved.

• Liam Neeson as Bill Marks is very determined, slightly drunk, and extremely grumpy.  But he does have a certain set of skills, and he puts them to good use in this movie.  As things start to go more and more awry, he slowly goes from completely in control to almost completely out of control.  He’s really great at these tense suspense thrillers, and I am glad his career has bent in this direction.

• Julianne Moore plays Jen Summers, a regular passenger (or is she?) on the plane who happens to end up next to the Marshall.  She’s got her own nonsense backstory, and she’s certainly capable in this, making Jen perfectly friendly while also slightly suspicious.

• Scoot McNairy continues to have one of the most entertaining names in movie-dom and plays Tom Bowen in this.  Bowen is another perfectly friendly but slightly suspicious passenger on this cross-Atlantic flight.

• Michelle Dockery plays Nancy, a perfectly friendly but also slightly suspicious flight attendant.  Apparently she’s in Downton Abbey, but don’t take my word on that, I haven’t seen it.  I know, I know, it’s all the rage – it just sounds really boring to me.

• Nate Parker plays Zack White – and while you may remember him from Red Tails and The Great Debaters, he’s pretty fun in this as a friendly but slightly suspicious passenger who is also a computer/cell phone programmer.  That comes in pretty handy eventually.

• Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong’o plays a friendly but slightly suspicious flight attendant – I will assume she did this after 12 Years A Slave, and it’s fun to see her in something more lighthearted, even if she is barely in it.

• Omar Metwally plays the obligatory mid-eastern passenger who everyone starts to suspect.  After all, he’s a friendly doctor, but he’s also slightly suspicious.  I love the turn for his character as he suddenly has to start helping out – because apparently he’s the only doctor on the plane, and I’m pretty sure he said he was a microbiologist or something like that, so I’m not sure how helpful he would be if people just started passing out, but hey – he’s the only doctor on the plane.

• Jason Butler Harner plays the friendly but slightly suspicious co-pilot, Kyle Rice.  There’s a bit of flirtation between him and Nancy the flight attendant, and he does get a heroic moment or two when he has to come up with a way to land the plane without upsetting their military escort.
• Thomas Wayne – I mean, Linus Roache, plays the confidently friendly but also slightly suspicious pilot David McMillan.  After years pretending to be American on Law and Order SVU, he finally gets to use his own British accent here as he establishes, but then loses, control over his plane.

• Anson Mount plays the other Marshal on board, Jack Hammond.  He’s friendly, but he’s also super suspicious.  What is in his briefcase?  Who is he talking to?  What’s with his hair?  Surely that’s not Air Marshal regulation hair?

• Corey Stoll plays Austin Reilly – a grumpy and slightly suspicious NYPD officer who happens to be on the flight.  You’ve seen him recently in House of Cards, on Law and Order LA, and he’s been in multiple action movies, so he is going to look really familiar.

• Corey Hawkins plays belligerent and suspicious passenger Travis Mitchell – he’s the one who gets to complain about everything constantly. 

• Frank Deal is another SVU vet who plays a very grumpy and very suspicious passenger, Charles Wheeler.  There’s a lot of Law and Order people on this plane.  He and Stoll and Hawkins’s characters all decide to work together, or do they?

• Shea Whigham plays the TSA head agent on the ground, and since he’s not on the plane, you really only hear his voice for the majority of the movie, until right at the end.  He’s also slightly suspicious.

 Overall, it’s worth checking out, not only because Key and Peele will be disappointed if you don’t, because it’s a really decent action flick that will keep you guessing until the end.  It’s the perfect length for a movie like this.  Grab some popcorn and go be entertained.

8 out of 10:  Gained points for the suspense, who was it and why?  Surely I have it right!  No!  I was wrong!  Okay, now I know who it is!  Crap – that person is dead now – I was wrong again!  Lost points for the long speech the villain gives while explaining the reason for doing this.  Similar to a Bond villain or even a Scooby Doo villain, “I would have gotten away with it too – if it wasn’t for you, Liam Neeson, and your particular set of skills!”

Bonus Video 1:  Key and Peele and Neese’s Pieces.  Out of context - you may be befuddled by this - watch the other sketches with the two valets, then it will make more sense.  Or - just understand that these two valets really, really, really love Liam Neeson.

Bonus Video 2:  Even Taken had a few blips

Bonus Video 3:  Lego Movie Trailer – Just in case you haven’t seen this yet – go see it, Neeson steals the half of it that Will Arnett doesn’t.

Bonus Video 4:  Cast Interviews

Movie Review: Pompeii (PG13 – 105 minutes)

You know how this one ends.  Pompeii was an ancient Roman city near what is now Naples.  It, and a neighboring city, Herculaneum, and many villas in the surrounding countryside were destroyed and buried under 13 to 20 feet of ash and lava during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  At the time of its destruction, Pompeii had a population of 20,000 with a complex water system, an amphitheater, and a huge port.  There were several eye witness accounts of the destruction from those a distance away who managed to survive.  The citizens were used to minor earthquakes, and knew they came from Vesuvius. 

In terms of the event itself, there were small fissures along the mountain, and rumbles through the area and in the afternoon of the first day, Mount Vesuvius violently exploded, blanketing the area with ash.  During the night and early the next day lava began flowing very quickly and very fast.  It incinerated everything in its path.  The quaking also caused a tsunami in the bay.  By the evening of the second day, the eruption was over.  The city was preserved for centuries under hardened volcanic pumice, which preserved everything and allowed the site to become an incredible architectural find.  The forms of humans that were left are the result of filling plaster into the holes in the pumice that were once human remains.  This allows for the very eerie ability to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died.

This movie tells the tale of a few people in those last few days of the city.  The story is centered about Milo, who was captured as a boy in Britannia where he and his family where members of the ancient Celtic horse tribes after watching Romans slaughter his family.  He was sold into slavery, and taken to the Roman city that would become London.  There he becomes a very successful gladiator known only as ‘The Celt’, because the super-civilized Romans viewed the northerners as barbaric and wild, and why bother learning their real names?  The gladiator pimp (I’m sure there’s a better name for it than that, but it’s accurate) takes some of his stock down closer to Rome to make more money. 

Milo ends up arriving in Pompeii at exactly the same time young Cassia has arrived.  She’s the daughter of the richest man in Pompeii; he’s sort of the mayor.  She’s returning from a year or so in Rome, where she has grown tired of the new emperor’s extravagance, and lack of focus on his people.  She encounters Milo on the street, where he’s being dragged along with a bunch of other slaves.  They have a meet-cute over a dead horse (seriously - yikes).  He goes on to the gladiator holding pits, where he promptly gets in a fight and meets Atticus, who will be his only friend; she goes on to go back to her parent’s house to unpack and gossip with her handmaiden about how handsome that slave was.  Her father, Severus, is expecting company from Rome, and is hoping to get investments in some building ideas for Pompeii – a new aqueduct and such.  Conveniently, a big time festival is coming up, which will have some big time gladiator matches.  The rep from Rome is Corvus; who has basically come to Pompeii chasing Cassia.  It’s implied that he sexually harassed Cassia so much she fled Rome, and conveniently he’s also the one who was posted in Brittania and was responsible for the elimination of Milo’s tribe.  Meanwhile, the volcano begins to rumble.  It starts to go crazy, and takes out Cassia’s groom, sending her horse back home alone.  Milo and Atticus team up to win in the arena, much to the chagrin of Corvus, who then shows his true colors by turning on Severus and demanding his daughter in marriage, or else!  The volcano explodes, Milo has to rescue Cassia from Corvus, while ensuring that he and Atticus can get their freedom.  Everyone tries to escape, but listen – you know how it ends.

This movie is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who I love – from Mortal Kombat to Resident Evil and he does silly action movies better than most, but this one does struggle.  It’s not his fault, the movie looks good and moves well, but there’s just no interest in any of the characters, and Kiefer, while still awesome, is more pompous and bored than threatening.  The volcano explosion looked impressive, and seems to follow the documented actual progression of the real explosion.  There are a couple of good gladiator fights, an entertaining chariot race, and Atticus running exposition while the gladiators pose on pedestals.  Thank goodness that watching the TV show Spartacus prepared me for that.  Of course, this movie is rated PG13, so it’s much more tame than that show was.  You know, rent that – and the TV show Rome – they are both better than this movie – but there’s no volcano explosions in them.

• Kit Harington tries to prove that he does know something beyond Jon Snow from Game of Thrones.  He may have a future in action movies, but he is physically a little small to be a world-famous gladiator.  He counters that by being fast.  He has really sad eyes, which have always worked for him on GOT, and in this movie, work well again since he had lost his family.  The character is virtually the same as Jon Snow – so who knows yet if he’s more talented, but I’m sure we will see.

• Emily Browning plays Cassia – and she plays a damsel in distress pretty well – which we previously had to deal with in the absolutely horrifically terrible SuckerPunch.  What I did enjoy was her absolute contempt of Kiefer’s character.  She never tries to hide it, which is pretty fun.  Of course, he never lets that bother him. She also manages to balance her character’s richness and sense of entitlement with a genuine desire to help those around her and her family – which is interesting.  She could have come off as a spoiled brat – and she works it just well enough to make it more powerful young woman.

• Carrie-Anne Moss and Jared Harris play Cassia’s parents.  Harris played the creepy scientist in the second Resident Evil, and though he’s mostly a good character in this – he’s still creepy.  They both do a wonderful job of trying to do the best for their city, and finally realizing they’ve signed a deal with the devil, then dying romantically together after being crushed by a collapsing stadium.  Spoiler alert – they get collapsed in the stadium during an earthquake.

• The gorgeous Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays the mighty Atticus.  He seems to be one of the only actors having a good time in this.  He’s playing the same noble gladiator character you’ve seen over and over again.  He’s of the opinion that the Romans will stand by their word to free him after he’s won his required number of fights in the arena, so you can imagine his shock when they don’t.  You know you can’t trust Romans.  He and Milo try to help each other out of the mess – but again, you know how this ends.  At least he gets a noble end.  By the way – see Thor 2 if you haven’t.  He’s awesome in that too.

• Kiefer Sutherland does his best to be the very annoying baddie in this.  Corvus is a pompous dick who is used to getting his own way.  He’s fine, he’s not nearly as good as he was as the villain in the Lost Boys.  I wish he would have chewed the scenery a little bit more.

• Sasha Roiz, who pops up on Grimm, plays Bellator, who essentially is Corvus’s henchman.  He doesn’t have a ton to do, but look really intimidating in his armor and carry out Corvus’s orders.

All in all, the movie is not terrible; it’s just not very good.  The volcano explosion is very impressive, and the effects are certainly entertaining.  The human performances are way more stiff (it’s tough to be stiffer than a CGI volcano).  In a movie like this, it would be way more fun if everyone in the movie embraced how cheesy it was and had a little bit more fun, and let go a little bit more.  Everyone is taking it just a little too seriously. 

6 out of 10 – Gained points for the CGI Mount Vesuvius – really the best character in the movie.  Lost points for Milo killing that horse – yes, he’s putting it out of its misery, but geez.  Gained points for Adewale trying to have fun, lost points for no one else having any fun. 

Bonus Video 1:  Even though I loved Mortal Kombat – Paul W.S. Anderson's first movie, it's not perfect.

Bonus Video 2: Lost Boys – Kiefer as a better bad guy.

Bonus Video 3:  Cast Interviews…