Scream 4 is the most average movie I’ve seen in awhile. The concept and parts of the execution are good and they work. But the parts that don’t are really terrible.

Taking place 10 years after the last movie, Sidney Prescott comes back to Woodsboro for a book tour and this is of course starts a new copy cat killing spree. The essential cast from the previous movie make it back with a whole batch of new kids to murder.

First and foremost, this movie isn’t scary. It has basic jump scares and orchestra hits to get some sort of reaction from the audience. There’s a good idea for a movie here, changing the formula of a horror movie in the new film landscape of reboots and re imaginations that are all the rage. But for every good idea, there’s a bad one at work. You can tell the script was being worked on all through filming as it feels very piece meal in execution.

The opening sequence which has always been a trademark for the series is just stupid and unnecessary. There are two false starts with some god awful dialog (something about the word “meta” in any context drives me nuts) that never should have made it on film. When the real beginning actual starts it feels completely unoriginal and boring. Another problem is that every attempt at humor fails. There’s a movement near the end of the movie that got a big laugh, but it wasn’t intentional (and to be fair was probably unavoidable).

The death toll is high for a Scream movie, but only one death really had any weight to it. I constantly questioned the believability of the movie as I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. There’s just so much stuff that I don’t think the killer could really do and the amount of forensic evidence left behind was downright silly. That might seem like nitpicking but you can’t leave a barn door wide open and not expect people to look in. Finally, the movie went on for one scene too long. The reveal of the killer was good, the reasoning behind it was as well (watch out for some shit dialog and acting though) and there was actually a good ending there. But it was extended out to another scene for some reason. If they just cut to black at this one perfect spot I would have thought much better of the movie, but the last 10 minutes are a fucking mess. Completely derailed the movie into a cartoon and it mimicked parts of the trilogy for no good reason. They wanted to set up another potential 2 movies but just this goofy rehash ending ruined that.

If you don’t see this movie you really didn’t miss anything.

Source Code is director Duncan Jone’s 2nd feature movie and he’s got another winner on his hands.

U.S. Solider, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaul) is selected for the governments new “Source Code” anti-terrorism project. This new tech allows a person to go back in time for 8 minutes and re-live the events of a person who was present there. Here, a bomb blows up a train and the race is on to find the person(s) responsible so their next attack on the US can be stopped.

Source Code is a smart sci-fi movie, much like Moon, Duncan’s last movie. It’s a simple story with a few characters and locations (3 or 4 really) that is fascinating and fun to watch. It’s a lot like the movie Groundhog Day, but here Colter is forced to live just 8 minutes on the train, the clock ticking down to the next attack. Like any good movie, things aren’t as simple as they appear. In his investigation Colter must find out how to stop the terrorist and learn about how he got involved in the project. The ending is even well done if a bit confusing.

I’m a big fan of Duncan Jones, he’s got a great eye and vision and the special effects are great too. A real treat in a genre that is usually more bad than good.

I wanted to like Sucker Punch a lot more than I did. I like Director Zack Snyder a lot. Big fan of his previous movies, I love his style and direction (ease up on the slow-mo would be a good move though). Sucker Punch is a passion project for him. It’s his own creation, he had the idea for awhile and he got the chance to make it with a shit load of money and talent behind it. Something seems to have been lost in the production though.

They story of Sucker Punch is about a young girl nicknamed Babydoll who is institutionalized to a insane asylum by her step father after accidentally killing her younger sister. At the asylum she befriends a few other girls and hatches a plan to escape. Now the hook of the movie is that she uses her imagination as a coping mechanism to her situation which allows these crazy anime inspired action set pieces to dazzle the audience. It’s a neat idea that lets Zack come up with some really great and interesting action scenes. Reality doesn’t really matter in this fantasy…the real world goal is to obtain an object that is needed to escape (Map, fire, knife, key) so each action scene is for each item the girls are trying to get. Watching this it felt like something was missing either from the script or from editing. It’s an hour and 45 minutes long but it really looked to me that big chunks had been taken out for whatever reason (probably time) that made things way more confusing then they should be.

The entire movie is pretty much a fantasy sequence. The opening is told like a play, so even that doesn’t feel real. It’s clear what happens and how Babydoll gets thrown away by her step dad, but that fantasy world never really subsides. Maybe when she first gets to the hospital is that moment real, but Babydoll quickly changes her surroundings to look like a brothel/dance studio. The catalyst for the action scenes is when Babydoll dances, everyone is enthralled by her moves. This technique has apparently been taught to her by the resident shrink, Dr. Vera Gorski even though you never see that, only hear it in passing. But when Babydoll dances, it’s shown with her slowly moving her hips side to side and then closing her eyes which is when everything around her changes, she gets super powers and she brings the other girls into the mission with her. The way this is shown, I couldn’t shake the idea that the marks watching her, weren’t entranced by her dancing, but shocked and bewildered at how she looks like a retard with hip dysplasia.

I think the movie spends too much time in Babydoll’s fantasy world. You hear about real events (a doctor is coming in 5 days to give Babydoll a frontal lobotomy, which gives her a time limit on when she can get things together and escape) in some dialog but it’s impossible to even tell the amount of time that is passing in the movie. There’s not enough grounding to make the events and consequences make enough sense. You have no idea of what is actually happening during the action scenes in the real world so it doesn’t work as well as intended. It might have sounded great on paper but it just feels like a half baked idea when the filmmakers went through with it.

There’s also an idea of feminism and other wise “girl power” at play here. The main cast is all girls and they band together to get out of their sad reality. I’ve read a lot of moaning that there is more exploitation at work here then real feminism, but I never saw anything really gratuitous. There’s obviously sex appeal at work here, but it didn’t look obnoxious to me. The costumes are all ripped from the anime world and burlesque shows like Chicago. In fact the action scenes are really an American filmmakers take on making an anime with real actors. They defy gravity and time, they have huge weapons, everyone knows kung fu and weapon training.

An amazing amount of work went into making this movie. Everything was clearly worked on with a purpose and a vision, taking cues and cliches from all sorts of entertainment mediums. The action scenes are truly spectacular, but all the important parts linking them are too weak. There is some bad dialog here and there which is made worse by some downright terrible acting (Vanessa Hudgens, I’m looking at you. Thankfully she was barely in the movie).

I expect the home release with a directors cut to make this movie much better, I gotta say wait for that instead of seeing it in theaters.

Bradley Cooper is really hitting his stride, isn’t he. Limitless is Mr. Coopers first leading man role and judging by the response it’s received at the box office and by critics, his star power will continues to rise. Special mention for BC’s role on Nip/Tuck as Aiden Stone, which I think is the first time I really noticed him.

I found Limitless to be an enjoyable movie, if a bit on the safe side. It’s the story of a crumb bum of an author named Eddie who comes in contact with an exotic mind expanding drug by way of an old acquaintance. This translucent little wonder unlocks the mind, making the person more focused, creative and active. “It works best if you are already a smart person” and the effects have a drastic affect on Eddie. He can recall long forgotten facts that have been tucked away in his brain, learning anything becomes easy. He quickly gets his life into a new stratosphere of class and opportunity in Manhattan. But it’s obviously not that easy, all drugs have side effects and this unclassified wonder doesn’t come cheap or from the nicest people.

It’s a great concept and it’s put to great use in the film. There’s a lot of fun scenes, Bradley Cooper is a perfect fit for Eddie and it’s a really well put together movie. It’s edited quite well and didn’t overstay it’s welcome. They kept it from being too predictable too which was very welcome. You might think you’re on the right track early on but they tweak the characters and interactions here and there to keep you on your toes. My only real critique is the end, which I actually liked. It just felt a little too convenient and easy, the time frame of those last events didn’t seem that plausible to me. Great matinee movie.