In Flight Movie Reviews - Heading To Indonesia

On my recent excursion to Indonesia, I had the opportunity to spend 837 hours in an airplane. While fending off terminal butt-numbness and smelly Russians (not a code for something else; there really were smelly Russians on the plane) I watched a lot of movies. Korean Airlines, in addition to having some of the hottest flight attendants around, offers up a pretty extensive selection of movies. So, with nothing else to do - I was threatened with tasering if I kept trying to "kill the gremlin on the wing" (come on, Bill Shatner did it...it's fun) - I watched many, many movies. Most of them, not very good.

1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: What a terrible, boring movie. Endless CGI scenes with less dramatic weight than a video game cut-scene (in particular, a terrible interpretation of the escape from the Wood-Elves stronghold in barrels), a painfully stupid attempt to create a romantic sub-plot, needlessly including characters who don't appear in the books until The Lord of the Rings and then putting them in danger, which we know won't result in anything...there is nothing good about this movie. While Smaug does look pretty good, his portrayal is that of senile nitwit, not the cunning, terrible beast from the book. What could have been a good single film has been ruined by Peter Jackson's desire to make a trilogy. Pass, pass, pass!
2. 47 Ronin: The one word best describing this film: meh. Hampered by the inclusion of Keanu Reeves in full-on sleepy mode, it does boast a pretty good villain (the easy-on-the-eyes Rinko Kikuchi) and some decent action scenes. Of course, they are nothing like the awesome samurai action from any Kurosawa film or Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins. The inclusion of supernatural monsters, witches and demons is weird, but kind of works. There is some laughably bad writing. On a couple of occasions, characters use a Japanese word (the film is in English) and then define the word to characters who would know what it means. Why bother using Japanese at all? And, at one point, Keanu pays a visit to a set and characters right out of Pirates of the Caribbean (and this is not a good thing). The story has little to do with the tale of the 47 Ronin or the historical events that gave rise to it. For that, I would recommend checking out The Revenge of the 47 Ronin, Edo 1703 by Stephen Turnbull). While not horrible, it's just such a mess that I can't recommend it.
3. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: I enjoyed this a lot more than I enjoyed the first film. It looks better (the first had a real "SyFy movie of the week" vibe to it), there aren't any scenes that are particularly painful (the original had such groaners as Peta disguising himself as a rock an the moronic scenes with Katniss spending 35 hours collecting flowers from some dead chick) and the story movies along nicely. There are a few head-scratching moments (the last minute reveal of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character's true loyalties makes no sense) and Jennifer Lawrence seems to have one emotional response to everything (she looks like she's about to cry) but it's still pretty good. Check it out.
4. Thor: The Dark World: I put this on, in the hopes it would help me get some sleep. Success! My full review is here.
5. Ender's Game: I saw this a few months ago in the theater, but had missed the first ten minutes or so. Seeing those extra minutes didn't add much to the film; but, I liked it the first time around and still liked it on this viewing. It's not a great film; but it is a solid science-fiction film, has some neat battle sequences and a good performance from Asa Butterfield as Ender. Check it out.
6. Riddick: This was a cut version of the film (lots of hard-asses saying "freaking"...right...) which may have reduced my enjoyment. But, I didn't like it enough to want to watch it again. It wasn't horrible; but after the last film the decision to give this film a smaller scope - more like Pitch Black - was not a good idea. Writer/Director Twohy needed to amp up the crazy-epic feel of The Chronicles of Riddick not retreat from it. There's some decent action and Vin Diesel is fun to watch; but the movie has such a generic feel that I couldn't get into it. I say check it out since it is entertaining; but don't expect too much.
7. Escape Plan: This starts with a good idea. Sylvester Stallone is a security expert who specializes in escaping from prisons to show their weakness. This idea is crushed under the weight of poor characterization, huge and unnecessary plot holes and a questionable moral tone (more on that here). And everyone, stars included, seem bored with the whole thing. I understand why.
8. Satan's Sadists: Okay, so this wasn't provided by Korean Air. However, it was the best movie I saw on the plane (thanks to my iPhone). Russ Tamblyn is a scuzzy, murderous, nut-job biker, his gang is made up of psychos, druggies, rapists and Regina Carrol (yum!) and he spends the film tearing up a little section of the Great Southwest. Scott Brady is the square jawed hero who eventually wipes out the gang and rescues cute Jacqueline Cole from a fate worse than death...well, it would have involved death too...so he rescued her from that as well. A great exploitation film from Al Adamson. It's on Youtube for the moment, so check it out.

Bonus! Here's Regina Carrol looking all "biker mama"...enjoy.