Tekken

  In the pantheon of video game movies, none are more tailor made for the silver screen than tournament fighters. Yet somehow... they keep dropping the ball. At least Tekken is only a half-fumble. I think the film's design aspect certainly deserves praise, they could've gone totally generic, but I never once got that feel from the movie. Even if everything else about it was cliche, at least the look itself wasn't. Everything from the Tekken arenas to the "stormtroopers" have a bit of originality.
I can see how some of this would forcibly spawn from having a smaller budget, but I still tip my hat to them. Good job there.

  Now seeing as how I don't really give a crap about the Tekken games, I can't really compare any characters beyond Jin and Yoshimitsu (my two favorite characters), and as far as I can tell they're pretty much the same in all ways that matter. Story-wise, the movie isn't as fantastical as Mortal Kombat: The Movie or as stupid as Street Fighter: The Movie but that doesn't mean its original either. The plot and the core story is fraught with cliches and very tired cliches at that. Nothing too original here. The actors fill their roles as much as expected, but nothing truly passionate here.

But, here, I didn't expect passionate performances. I just wanted cool stylized, R-Rated fights, and on that note, the movie delivered. Way more brutal and bloody than either of the aformentioned movies, Tekken really shines when people are fighting, but when it grasps at character development and good story telling, it falls on its face. It is worthy mentioning that none of this is the actors fault, they deal with the script as best as possible. Especially John Foo who seems like he might actually want this to work. He's easily the most charasmatic of the cast and at times he's kind of fun to watch.

   Unfortunately, the movie tries too often to reach higher than it should, and while with any other movie this might not be such a bad thing, Tekken starts to lose focus and it comes off as heavy handed and disconnected. A good dose of humor (i.e. Mortal Kombat: The Movie) and some better, snappier dialog and Tekken might've been easier to recommend. However its nowhere near the much better likes of Mortal Kombat: The Movie. That movie, although the fights haven't aged nearly as well as we'd have liked, the set design, creature effects, wonderfully corny characters (i.e. Johnny Cage, Kano, Goro) and a villain who was in full scenery-chewing mode makes it a B-Movie classic with all the trappings of a good fantasy adventure.

   In Tekken, its best (and pretty much, ONLY) redeeming quality is the fight scenes. They're well edited, pretty bloody, and combined with some pretty cool looking set and character design, they're definately loads of fun to watch. However, this is probably nothing you haven't seen before, and done better too.

So if you want some cool stylish fight scenes, go for it. But know that there are better kung-fu movies out there. And, if you're a fan of the games, I reccomend you stay away, I've heard time and again that it does no justice to the games at all.

In conclusion...

I liked Tekken alot, more than it probably deserves, and if you're in the right frame of mind it's certainly more entertaining than it has any right to be.

Captain America: The First Avenger

   I've been waiting for this exact movie since the last failed attempt around the nineties. Johnston knocks it out of the park with style, and lots of it.  I loved Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, and I love the direction the movie took with him. Instead of an attempt to infuse Steve with flaws and ethical/moral issues in order to make him an interesting and or compelling character and avoid a bland patriotic mannequin, they instead raise the odds against him consistently, making his patriotism and perseverance endearing and admirable. This was a smart move, but not necessarily an easy one. For this I commend Johnston and crew for making Steve Rogers a noble, selfless character with a big heart and an endearing sense of humor and STILL making his journey interesting and entertaining.

  As an action movie, Captain America offers little you haven't seen before, but you'd be hard pressed to find another movie that delivers it with as much style and flair. Its all the charm, wit, and action of a movie like The Mask of Zorro, Star Trek or GoldenEye, but with a comic book flavor and a large scoop of unbridled red blooded patriotism.  Its a good thing that Captain America makes the hero sympathetic and very human, because if had been played up as a literal superhero, he would have been aloof from his fellow soldiers like a Superman or something, it would have disconnected us from him, leaving us with what would seem like a lot of goofy patriotic shlock.
 

  Another thing that's pretty important to fanboys like me, is the costume.  Its entirely implausible, but here, in 'The First Avenger' its factored into the story, making it acceptable. Getting back to how its worked into the movie in a minute, I want to address the actual uniform.  I'm glad that they didn't do a spandex-y feel like Spider-Man, and I'm also glad they avoided body-armor like Batman. They made it look very functional, although its probably merely an abstract, I can't (aside from pockets and such) discern any actual distinct functionality here. Alas I shrug. It looks cool and given the context here, it looks acceptable.

  Next, still, about the costume; its implausibility cannot be completely erased by looking militant and functional, so they balance its overt patriotism with the equally flamboyant "Red Skull", who's scary, perfectly villainous look with a quite literal 'red skull' can be taken completely serious when you take his character's obsession with power and the paranormal into account. 
    So, now that you can firmly take the Red Skull seriously, its no big effort to accept the Captain's very 'comic-book' look.

  However if you're actually interested in a movie named "Captain America", odds are you aren't going to quibble over his unbridled patriotic appearance.

   Furthermore, we have Johann Schmidt, ominously dubbed "the Red Skull", a power hungry scientist with a flare for the supernatural.  He's played by Hugo Weaving who delivers a great performance full of great classic villainy. It reminds us why Nazis will always make the best bad guys that you love to hate.  Its a brooding character thats even scarier when we realize he's brash enough to (mild spoilers) break off from Hitler's rule, and branch out Hydra (Hitler's R&D division) into its own powerful faction bent on world domination.  This could be played with a smidge of self-aware grandiose, but it isn't. The Red Skull isn't campy, corny, over-the-top or anything... he's a pitch perfect, evil to the core baddie who's an excellent villain for Captain America.

  Lastly is Stanley Tucci and Hayley Atwell as Dr. Abraham Erskine and Peggy Carter, respectively.  Erskine is as endearing as Rogers as he's the first person to believe in Steve and give him a chance.  His role, although is measurable small, has a massive effect on Steve's character and is truly touching when seen through to its conclusion.  Then there's Peggy Carter, the Captain's love interest. She's a strong character who comes to respect Steve, but whats really cool is the dynamic between them.  It provides some of the movie's best scenes and most honest moments. Very skillfully handled.

 In conclusion, Captain America is a big blockbuster movie with great engaging characters, a lot of heart, a handful of cool thrilling action scenes, and an undeniably endearing hero.

It has the perfect combination of adventure, humor, and romance to put magic back into Saturday matinees. Definitely recommended for a thoroughly fun time.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

   Many, many people have bashed this movie like no other, putting it down for everything from lack of direction to being downright childish, however, I have a different take on it. Everything about this movie, the simply adequate acting, the dialog (which ranges from simply passable to downright awful), the special effects, the setting, the story... all of it; It made me want to go out and buy G.I.Joe toys.  The movie even reminded me of actually playing with toys, using your imagination to blow up the Eiffel tower and epic car chases with hot wheels and action figures, and the bad guys always had rockets, misses, spaceships and secret bases.

   The movie is by no means 'good'. It takes the book of "Movie Cliche's" and then shoehorns in all the worst ones. The forced romantic triangle, the "surprise" twist ending and many more.  But it does all this without any creativity. No B-movie flair, no big budget flair, just... dull obligatory scenes that seem to plod on and on and on. The movie also lacks physical depth and presence in a way that makes even Michael Bay's Transformers look like real world Oscar winning material. Anyone over 12 will have a hard time swallowing most of the gunk here.  However, I do have a soft spot for this movie. It reminds me of simpler times.

I don't remember ever focusing on coming up with coherent plots, and good dialog when I used to play with my toys. It was always just shooting, kissing, driving, crashing and everything in sight would explode.  Good times right?  As an actual movie, its frequently dumb, sometimes spectacularly retarded, and offers little more than subjective nostalgia and cool special effects, but AS a nostalgia trip with cool special effects, it works wonderfully in a campy/corny kind of way. The design and look of this movie is pretty cool, the 'Joes are like awesome shiny action figures loaded with extra guns, gadgets, and little blinking lights. Again, I really wanna go out and buy some of these dudes.

   Snake Eyes (seen above) is pretty awesome here as well, as enigmatic and deadly as ever he steals the show on more than one occasion, his sword fights and super-stunts are impressive and sheer awesome eye-candy. Just like the rest of the movie: awesome eye-candy.  The movie makes a few good decisions, it doesn't bog everything down too much trying to be all intellectual with long talky scenes, (mainly cause the few short ones they have feel painfully long anyway) its pretty obvious that it wouldn't be smart to do that in a movie like this.  The second good decision is the non-stop action. Say what you will about the ludicrous plot, the butt-ton of errors, the wooden acting or the horrendous dialog... the action scenes, which comprise 89% of the movie, are indeed really freaking cool.

     Ray guns, hover crafts, stuff blowing up, buildings falling down, underwater action scenes, maniacal bad guys, "accelerator suits", secret lairs and stuff, man...  they took this stuff straight from my childhood backyard. And trust me, my childhood backyard was a fun place to be.  So in short, 'Rise of Cobra' is a missed opportunity. They could've had a decent blockbuster on their hands.
Instead we have what feels like 'Power Rangers' fueled by a gargantuan budget. Does that make the acting any less bad, or the plot make any more sense? No. But the special effects and the action scenes sure are slick, polished, fast, and adequately exciting. So its your call.  I still happen to get nostalgic over Power Rangers. How 'bout you?