The Grey (2011)

Every Lliam Neeson movie should just be titled Lliam Neeson vs. (fill in the blank).

Batman Begins = Lliam Neeson vs. Batman
Star Wars = Lliam Neeson vs. The Dark Side
Schindler's List = Lliam Neeson vs. Nazis

This one would be titled Lliam Neeson vs. Computer-Generated Twilight Wolves. This movie took a lot of heat upon its release for not depicting wolves in an accurate light. The people who make this complaint are jackasses. This movie is not a film about a bunch of dudes in Alaska getting picked off by wolves; no, this is a nihilistic movie about how God hates us and all you can do is flip Him the bird and fight until you can't fight anymore.

Lliam Neeson is up to his usual tricks in this one. Let's see, he starts out the film by trying to eat an entire gun. When that doesn't work out, he falls out of a plane instead. He shakes that off and then gathers the other survivors who don't do anything but bitch and moan most of the time. Then, in addition to the freezing temperatures and harsh conditions, the giant wolves from Twilight show up and start ripping out people's intestines. Lliam Neeson then recites a poem, walks into the wolf den, and bare knuckle boxes the Alpha male. Apparently the battle is so intense we're not even allowed to witness it because the movie ends right as the fight starts...which is really the only part of the movie I really, really wanted to see.

The movie is super depressing and bleak (like the chances of anyone facing off against Lliam Neeson) and it certainly isn't the typical man vs. wolf thriller I was expecting going in. As much as I enjoyed it, there are two ways this movie could have been even better.

1) The movie should have just been Lliam Neeson locked in a room with a pack of real-life wolves. Only one creature is allowed to exit the room. The movie basically writes itself.

2) The pack of wolves should have TAKEN Lliam Neeson's daughter and attempted to sell her into an illegal white girl sex ring in Paris, forcing Lliam Neeson to use a particular set of skills to get her back.

In conclusion, if you want to be depressed and feel like life is controlled by a mean-spirited and indifferent God who will send a pack of wolves to eat you after you survive a plane crash, then fall into THE GREY!

Why It's Awesome: It's Lliam Neeson vs. Wolves.

Best Quote:

Ottway:  I'm going to start beating the shit out of you in the next five seconds (classic Neeson).

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Hollywood remake commandment #1: Thou shall not remake a Schwartzenegger film!

How many times must Hollywood break this commandment before everyone realizes it is LAW?! Why even try? He is such a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable actor that no one can ever...EVER...replace him. It's just that simple. Go ahead and try to justify remaking these films by saying you're going to make them "more similar to the source material," it really doesn't matter. It's just a bomb in the making.

Take last summer's Conan the Barbarian for example. It showed up on my Netflix streaming service and since new movies only appear once every six months, I thought I'd give it a look-see. I watched the emo barbarian take on impossible odds in a classic revenge tale (I'd be pissed if Ron Perlman was my father and someone killed him, too) and everything seemed to be in place. There were some awesome fight scenes (the sand monster fight stood out) and some interesting bad guys (Rose McGowan's balding sorceress stole the show) and in the end Conan stood victorious with some hot virgin slut.

And ten minutes later it was as if someone took the Men in Black mind eraser stick and flashed it in front of my eyes because I couldn't remember a thing about the whole damn movie.

And there lies the problem. The main issue I have with modern popcorn movies is they're so damn forgettable. They're so by-the-numbers they turn into nothing but clones of every movie we've already seen a thousand times already. Who could forget The Goonies or Back to the Future or E.T.? These are popcorn movie masterpieces and they've survived the test of time.

And this takes us right back to the Arnold dilemma. You remember Arnold. You see a roided up wall of muscle with a weird accent, you're gonna remember that guy. He was all that was man in the 80s and early 90s. This guy playing Conan now wears guy liner. Let's compare:

In conclusion, movies now are terrible. Stop trying to remake movies that were good. Remake shitty movies instead. That way no one will care when you ruin them.

Why It's Dog Shit: The worst sin for a movie is to be forgettable. Conan The Barbarian...is a sinner.

Best Quote (Nuts to this new movie. There's only ONE best Conan quote):

Mongol: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Piranha 3D (2010)

If there's one thing Hollywood has proven time and time again it's that you can't purposely make a bad movie.

Take Piranha 3D (or 2D if you're not lucky enough to see all the boobs in 3D) for example. It's a contemporary tribute to the B horror movies of the past, but, unfortunately, it lacks all the charm of those movies that attempt to make a decent movie and just fail...in epic fashion. This movie just fails.

An earthquake opens up a cave housing a species of prehistoric piranhas during Spring Break. Perfect story for a B horror movie. Sounds like an alley-oop for an easy slam dunk, right? WRONG!

This movie contains all the elements of a great bad movie: cheesy special effects + scary creatures eating stupid kids + boobs. It even sports the greatest cast of any B horror movie ever with the likes of Richard Dreyfuss (in a tribute to Jaws), Christopher Lloyd (in full Doc Brown mode), Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Jerry O'Connell (Sliders is still one of my favorite TV shows ever), and a plethora of porn stars. With all these arrows in its quiver, how could this movie not be good, right?

The only problem is it's not...not even close. I feel like this movie was made for teenage boys to whack off to, and that's its only purpose. It has all the elements of a bad movie, but it has too much of them. The cheesy piranhas look almost too good. The dump of decent actors makes me think the acting should be better. There are plenty of creative, gory deaths, but there are so many creative, gory deaths that eventually they just stop having any kind of effect at all. There's like a 20 minute massacre of spring breakers that I actually left in the middle of to go to the bathroom and get a snack and when I came back it was STILL going on and I STILL didn't care.

The truly perplexing part of Pirahna 3D's failure is that (and I can't believe I'm actually going to write this) there are too many (seriously, I NEVER thought I'd write this)...sigh...boobs. There are too many boobs in this movie! How could that be possible?! But strangely, impossibly, it is! I remember watching the old Friday the 13th movies where there would often be a topless young woman skinny-dipping or having sex with some guy with a perm and there'd be a few seconds of bare booby. And I remember my breath catching in my throat and my hand instinctively rubbing the inside of my thigh, and that image would stay with me for weeks. Piranha shovels boob after boob after boob onto the screen without any discretion or shame, and, like the gory deaths, there just came a point where I didn't care anymore and for that, I can never, ever forgive this film. It made me indifferent to boobs.

Of course, I can't mention this film without mentioning the underwater lesbian nude scene set to opera music. The scene is the movie's only salvation and indifferent is the last word I would use to describe my feelings toward it. So for that, Piranha 3D, and that alone I salute you...from the waist down!

Why It's Not So Awesome: It tries to be a good bad movie and just ends up being a bad bad movie...which is as bad as it gets. And too many boobs! Boobs should be shown with discretion to maximize their impact. Think Fast Times at Ridgemont Hight, which uses boobs better than any movie in cinematic history.

Best Quote:

Andrew: It's never cheating when it's with another chick.