Cabin in the Woods (2012)

 

I wanted to give Joss Whedon another chance after that abomination that was The Avengers (if for no other reason than Buffy) so I watched Cabin in the Woods, his other 2k12 offering. Did he redeem himself? Well...you're damn right he did. CitW is classic Whedon, a perfect blend of horror and comedy. It's unique, innovative, and damn funny at parts, too.

It's tough to describe CitW's genre. The best way to describe it is as a horror satire. It basically does what the original Scream did, using common horror clichés to comment on the genre as a whole. Five stupid college kids (a jock, a virgin, a slut, a nerd, and a stoner) go to an isolated cabin in the woods to get baked and bang...which always turns out well. They uncover a hidden cellar that contains all sorts of weird artifacts. In true Evil Dead fashion, they read from a strange book and resurrect a family of evil redneck zombies. You can guess what happens next.

Of course, if that's all this movie was, it would be every other horror movie ever made...but it's not. From the beginning, it's clear the entire situation is being manipulated by a strange organization who seem intent on making certain these kids get killed. This is where things get interesting. When the kids decide to stick together, the manipulators pump gas into the cabin to alter their judgment and convince them (like every other horror movie victims) it's better to split up. When Thor and his slut girlfriend go out into the woods, the manipulators alter the lighting to get them in the banging mood. This is why everyone in horror movies is retarded...they're being manipulated to make poor decisions.

The twist is that this organization is part of a world organization that is in charge of making human sacrifices to the Old Gods. If the sacrifices fail, the Old Gods return and destroy the world. Oh yeah, spoiler alert...

The characters are horrible clichés...like most horror movies. The main character (the virgin) doesn't really have much personality at all and you never really care about her. The only character who is interesting at all is the stoner...and he's the second character who gets killed. After his death, I thought, "Man, what a poor decision to kill off the only interesting character so early." And then...he comes back and my faith was totally restored in Joss. Make the stoner the hero. How often does that happen?

The best part of the movie happens when the virgin and the stoner make their way into the secret organization's headquarters and discover what's going on. They find an entire prison full of horror movie monsters ranging from vampires to werewolves to Hellraiser-esque S&M monsters to yetis to the dreaded merman. And of course there's a giant red button that releases all these monsters into the facility (why wouldn't there be?) and all hell breaks loose...literally.

It's scary and funny and I can even forgive it for the horrible CGI effects at times because of its originality. I haven't enjoyed a modern horror movie for a long time, but I enjoyed this. Of course, like Scream, it also makes it impossible to ever enjoy a cliché "stupid kids go into the woods" movie ever again.

Why It's Awesome:

It's innovative, smart, and different. Do you know how often I use those adjectives to describe a modern movie? Answer: not often. Good job, Joss. When's the next season of Buffy coming out?

Best Quote:

Mordecai: Cleanse them. Cleanse the world of their ignorance and sin. Bathe them in the crimson of...wait...am I on speakerphone?
Hadley: No, absolutely not. Speakerphone, no, no, I wouldn't do that.
Mordecai: Yes I am. I can hear the echo.
Hadley: Oh, my God, you're right. Hang on one second, I'll take you off.
Mordecai: That's rude.

The Avengers (2012)

If this is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, then we need more than The Hulk to save us...

I was one of the ten people who didn't go see The Avengers last summer. It was a wise decision. I've been superheroed out since about 2008. I'm certainly a fan when they're done well (The Dark Knight, X-Men: First Class), but most are just blindingly mediocre bullshit for stupid kids or adult nerds. This was, by far, the most blindingly stupid uber-bullshit I think I've ever seen. This movie made Independence Day look like a legitimate Oscar contender.

Here's the problem with superhero movies: people like underdogs. They're relatable, they're sympathetic, they're vulnerable. You can't help but cheer on Indiana Jones as he faces off against THE ENTIRE NAZI ARMY or John McClane as he battles an entire building of terrorists WITHOUT ANY SHOES. These are underdogs. A super invincible robot billionaire is not relatable. A godlike indestructible alien with a hammer is not sympathetic. A giant, green, bullet-proof rage beast is not vulnerable. It's the reason people hate Superman and love Batman. We need to believe the hero is in actual danger so we can care about them.

So if you're going to assemble a half dozen invincible superheroes, you need to pit them against a force that is soooo powerful that it makes even them look vulnerable. So who do they choose? Loki...the guy who Thor beat single-handedly in his own movie. WHAT?! How was Loki, who couldn't even beat ONE Avenger, ever going to beat ALL the Avengers? Loki is bitch tits. He sucks. In fact, he gets beat not once but TWICE in this movie! And then when he's defeated at the end, it takes The Hulk all of FIVE SECONDS to squash him.

Of course, Loki does have some assistance from a moderately-sized alien army that poses ABSOLUTELY NO THREAT to The Avengers...like, at all. They're appropriately named, too: the Shitauri. At no point during the 40-minute (not an exaggeration) marathon final battle in New York does it EVER look like The Avengers might lose...not ever. The Avengers dominate from the very start of the battle and just totally pwn the fuck out of the skull aliens with their little air go-karts and their flying alien whales to the point I actually felt bad for them. The Avengers made me feel bad for the invading aliens trying to take over Earth...that's quite an accomplishment.

And I guess I could overlook all this if I thought this movie was just trying to be a big, stupid clusterfuck, but it attempts to be more than that. They kill off Agent Coulson as a means of inspiring all the superheroes to work together and AVENGE him...but any impact that death created was obliterated seconds later with a string of horrible, juvenile jokes and then the fact that when they do finally capture Loki, it, too, is a big joke ("I think I will have that drink now."). They don't avenge anybody! Hell, they don't even kill Loki. They just capture him politely. Aren't they pissed that their friend died? I can't wait for the moment in the sequel  when Nick Fury is telling the Avengers they need all the help they can get and a door opens and Loki walks in smiling and someone (probably Thor) says something like "You've got to be kidding me..." or "You can't be serious..." or something equally shitty. God I hate superhero movies!

But worst of all, The Avengers is guilty of committing the most heinous sin an action movie can commit: it bored me. I was bored. There was a moment when all the heroes were bickering on the stupid flying aircraft carrier where I turned to my wife and said, "This is boring." And then I was bored again during the final battle that lasted so long I started and finished watching another movie during its duration. Shame on you, Avengers.

Now don't think I'm just a mindless hater. I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan (Buffy is one of my favorite shows ever and I'm still pissed Firefly didn't get a second season) and I was rooting for him, but this was just an absolute dinosaur turd. It was stupid and I think Joss knew it was stupid and it just proved how many stupid people there are in this world...and that they're stupid. And that makes me sad...or maybe I'm just too old for this bullshit.

Why It's Quite Possibly the Most Overrated Movie since Inception:

And another thing, why can Bruce Banner all of a sudden control The Hulk at the end of the movie? Wasn't that the point of everything we've been told about The Hulk throughout the entire film? That he's just a mindless destroying machine? Then why can he follow orders and participate in complex combat maneuvers when it's necessary for the plot? Just forget it...

Best Quote:

My Wife: Where's Batman?

Independence Day (1996)

"Welcome to Earth!"

This may just be the greatest movie ever made..by man...ever. Don't get me wrong, it's dumb. It's straight-up retarded by movie standards. Cheesy dialogue. Suspect acting. A total disregard for common sense and reality. But goddamn does it know it's dumb! And it bathes in its own stupidity. This is the definition of a "popcorn movie." It's not trying to be anything but entertaining. And in that endeavor, it succeeds.

Aliens have come to strip mine earth because instead of funding renewable energy sources, they allowed Republicans to convince people that fracking the shit out of their planet was the best thing to do. So they show up on Earth and just blow the holy fuck out of every imaginable landmark possible - the Empire State Building, the White House, and whatever they blow up in Los Angeles. Because the logical thing to do if you're there to mine natural resources is to blow the fuck out of the entire planet. The only hope for the human race is a black guy, a drunk, and a bunch of Jews. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

I just love how unapologetically stupid this movie is. After Will Smith (hot off his Fresh Prince stint) crashes with the alien spaceship, the alien (who is a brine shrimp in a suit of armor) emerges from the ship and Will Smith punches it in the face...while it's wearing ARMOR...and knocks it out. What? Its armor protected it from a plane crash, but it couldn't protect it from Will Smith's fist? That's how they roll in Bel-Air, bitch!

Then there's the great moment in Area 51 where President Bill Pullman (who keeps voting for this guy for president?) gets attacked by the brine shrimp telepathically and it allows President Pullman to see its thoughts and quickly blurt out an attempt to create a storyline. "I saw its thoughts. They move from planet to planet blowing up miniatures of important landmarks." Again...WHAT? Why would the alien be thinking of that at that moment? Wouldn't it be thinking, "I'm totally going to kill this guy because he'll probably stop being cast in movies anyways after the 90s and just do shitty TV shows?" That alien knew what it was talking about.

And then there's the ending...WOW! Dumbest ending ever? Possibly. Jeff Goldblum, super-Jew, invents a COMPUTER VIRUS that corrupts the aliens' defense systems, shuts down their force fields, and allows a drunk Randy Quaid (who didn't even know he was shooting a movie) to kamikaze into their spaceship's giant wang and take the whole thing down. SERIOUSLY? What, these aliens don't have Norton anti-virus where they're from? Did they forget to download the latest updates?

This is a constant problem in alien movies. If aliens are smart enough to create intergalactic space travel, something we are centuries from achieving, then everything they do has to be on that level. They can't be taken down by a COMPUTER VIRUS (or locked in a closet, M Night). They would have a fucking firewall, bitch! They would have Norton version 4000 + 1. It's dumb. It's so, so dumb.

Still, despite this movie riding the short bus to school, it's still a fun movie. I could watch that White House blow up all day long, and when that alien spaceship first emerges from the storm cloud...that's a great movie moment. This movie will forever hold a special place in my heart because after I saw it on opening weekend with my sisters, I went home and basically recreated the entire movie with Power Rangers and Barbies...and my version contained less plot holes than the original.

Why It's Awesome: Aliens show up and blow shit up. End. Oh, and Will Smith punches an alien wearing a metal exoskeleton in the face and knocks it out. "Now that's what I call a close encounter."

Best Quote:

Russell: All right, you alien assholes! In the words of my generation: Up Yours!!!