A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare On Elm Street, the original Wes Craven film is widely considered across the board a classic. Praised by almost all horror fans myself included , it spawned seven sequels including the slasher team up Freddy Vs Jason. It's fair to say that Freddy Kreuger is a horror icon, so much so, you would think his loyal fan base would be ecstatic to hear he's returning to the big screen after a seven year absence. However, this was not the case. Why, Because they re-cast the comedian serial killer previously portrayed by Robert Englund, for none other then Academy Award Nominated actor Jackie Earle Haley. How dare they, I know.

What was the result? It wasn't an absolutely mind blowing performance from Haley, but still easily the best on screen incarnation of Freddy Krueger to date. He's not so much funny anymore, as he is clever and sadistic.

A group of teenagers living on Elm Street in the small town of Springwood Ohio, all friends, are having the same nightmare. They’re being  terrorized by a man, who’s horribly burned , wearing a tattered red and green sweater, a beaten up brown fedora, and a glove with razor sharp knives at the finger tips.

One by one he stalks them in their dreams, where he controls the rules, and the only way out is to wake up. When one of them dies a violent gruesome death, they soon realize that what happens in their dreams happens in reality, and the only way to stay alive is to stay awake. Turning to each other, the survivors try to uncover how they all became part of this same nightmare.

The opening sequence in the film is amazing, the re-introduction to Freddy Krueger was not at all what I was expecting. The trailers really don't give much away, and in a lot ways really don't do it justice.

We're introduced to all of the main characters within the first five minutes, they're attending a friends funeral, and don't worry I'm not spoiling anything. From here we follow Kris (Katie Cassidy) for the first portion of the film, and where it stands apart from the original, is she has little actual involvement with Nancy (Rooney Mara), aside from talking to her briefly at the funeral. At first it almost feels like Nancy has been replaced with Kris as the main character, as we see very little of her to begin with.

The jail scenes from the original are successfully updated, only hardly taken advantage of. Much like before, this ends fairly quickly.

Nancy then joins forces with Quintin (Kyle Gallner)to help one another stay awake, and find the connection between her friends, and Freddy Krueger  the man from all of their nightmares. She knows her mom is hiding something, so convenient dialogue and plot leads to her soon finding out how she really knows Freddy, and how long her friends and her have actually known one another.

The story moves along fairly quickly altogether, but unlike the original it has far less plot holes. They attempt to give Freddy somewhat of a back story in the form of a few brief flashbacks about half way through, but decided to cram all this into only 102 minutes running time, as opposed to making it a full two hours and fully developing the back story.

The most important aspect, the portrayal of the icon himself Freddy Krueger, is done extremely well by Jackie Earle Haley. The new Freddy is no longer comedic, nor is he fun. He's creepy, weird and disgusting as shit, his face is absolutely nasty. The only real downfall for Freddy is every time we see him, he has a different voice and a new clever quip, sometimes perverted, and others very angry or sadistic. There is no doubt in my mind, Haley is a huge step up from what we were getting with Englund in the past, and I say this as life long fan of the franchise. 

Said and done, Haley brings his A-Game for us, where as Englund brought only his charisma and shitty make up.

Yes, the new make up does actually look really good. Once you see it in action, you'll forget how shitty it looked in almost all those trailers you saw. The same can almost be said for his voice as well, its definitely a lot better then what you've heard yet, but it does change through out the course of the entire film for no apparent reason.

The kills, I would say are a huge step up from "most" everything we saw in the original franchise. Except for the throw backs to the original, the bathtub scene was changed entirely, and the jail "suicide" was very "meh", and not so much of a suicide anymore either.

The dream scenes are done extremely well, Samuel Bayer has brought a whole new take of this aspect to the nightmare franchise. The differentiating between the dreams and reality isn't always seamless like it was in the original, but the dreams themselves are done much better in the remake. Bayer, seems to really capture the feeling of what its like to be sleeping and inside an actual living nightmare.

I think that new fans to the franchise will easily consider Haley to be the definitive Krueger, as he did do a great job, but returning die hard fans of the original may not like the way Freddy looks or sounds, and I'll expect to hear as much from them.

I'll admit that in some ways I went into this with a slightly biased opinion, because I've grown up loving the original franchise for years. But I think that Platinum Dunes and Samuel Bayer have put together a great Nightmare film. I was worried I'd have my expectations set too high and end up disappointed, but I really liked what they did. They have officially succeeded in making Freddy Krueger scary again!

Aside from the story moving almost too quickly, and the dialogue being repetitive and convenient at times, A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) is arguably the best incarnation of Freddy Krueger yet.

My one real complaint for the remake, would be re-using a line from Freddy Vs Jason. I won't say what line, or where it's used, but when you hear it you'll know right away what I mean. Of all the movies to take from, why Freddy Vs Jason?

Now lets just hope that the sequel gets the green light from NL/WB, assuming it will be more then successful at the box office. Fingers crossed.

I'm giving 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' 3.5/5

"A Nightmare On Elm Street" opens everywhere this Friday

The Losers

The Losers was definitely a fitting title.

They’re like the low-rent version of the A-Team, Special Forces soldiers that are pissed and seek revenge with the shady CIA boss that attempts to wipe them out, before the opening credits even roll.

An Extremely “original” concept, isn’t it?

The story starts out in the Bolivian Jungle, where the “losers” are setting up an air attack on a drug king-pin’s compound.

Every member of the “losers” has one “thing” about them, and nothing in common aside from being on the same team. Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is the Leonardo to their Ninja Turtles. Roque (Idris Elba) is the all business killing machine. Pooch (Columbus Short) fly’s helicopters and just about everything in between. Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) is the sniper always wearing a leather cowboy hat, he’s the Indiana Jones of snipers. Jensen (Chris ”Captain America” Evans) is the dorky computer guy and comedic relief, because every Special Forces team needs one.

While a couple dozen kids are being rescued from the drug lords, via helicopter , a voice known as “Max” comes on the radio, talks some shit, and then blows it up thinking “the losers” are on board.

At this point everyone thinks they’re dead, so they assume a low profile. Then out of nowhere the super sexy and mysterious Aisha (Zoe Saldana) shows up, starts screwing our leader Clay and for no reason other then her own personal revenge, gives the boys a shit load of money and helps them re-enter the states so they can take out their revenge on the evil voice from the radio “Max”.

The bad guy is played by none other than Jason Patric, who I’m not sure if he was trying to be sarcastic and funny and just isn’t, or if that’s how the characters is supposed to be portrayed, I’ve never actually read the source material before.

The direction being a huge miss didn’t come as much surprise, Sylvain White is best known for ‘Stomp the Yard’, for obvious reasons I never cared to see this movie.

Peter Berg being one of the writers, and having the story come off so generic, did come as a bit of a shock. I would have expected more from him, hopefully ‘Battleship’ turns out better.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan looks like the very cool gun toting smooth talking 5 o’clock shadow bearing “man’s man” from what you see of him in the trailer’s, however this is a far cry from what he really brings to the table. He gave a very ‘who gives shit, lazy’ performance over all.

Chris Evans seems to be the only one to really bring his "A game" to the table this time around, he served as primarily what seemed like a comic relief, but he did a good at this none the less. Can’t wait to see what he does as Captain America next summer

‘The Losers’ opens in theatres this Friday, but for a much better attempt at basically the same thing I'd wait for the 'A-Team' to come out June 11, 2010.

Not horrible for a generic non-original action flick, over all I would give ‘The Losers’ 2.5/5

The Back Up Plan

Jennifer Lopez is back from her career hiatus with the romantic comedy 'The Back Up Plan' hitting theatres this Friday.

After years of dating, Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) has decided waiting for the right one is taking too long. Determined to become a mother, she commits to a plan, makes an appointment and decides to go to it alone. That same day, Zoe meets Stan (Alex OLoughlin) a man with real possibilities.

Trying to nurture a budding relationship and hide the early signs of pregnancy becomes a comedy of errors for Zoe and creates confusing signals for Stan. When Zoe nervously reveals the reason for her unpredictable behavior, Stan commits fully and says he's in. Never before has love seen a courtship where a wild night of sex involves three in a bed; Stan, Zoe and the ever-present massive pregnancy pillow. Or, where date night consists of being the focal point at a near-strangers water birth which does for kiddie pools what Jaws did for swimming in the ocean. The real pregnancy test comes when both of them realize they really don't know each other outside of hormonal chaos and birth preparations. With the nine month clock ticking, both begin to experience cold feet. Anyone can fall in love, get married and have a baby but doing it backwards in hyper-drive could be proof positive that they were made for each other.

trying to use nothing close to your regular formula for most romantic comedies 'Back Up Plan' starts off with Zoe meeting Stan while stealing one anothers cabs, then running into each other several times after by "coincidence" until Stan convinces her to a date, shortly there after they're dating and she tells him about the pregnancy she self induced from a doner, at which point he decides to come on full board. Little does he know she's not carrying just one baby but actually twins.

Stan is somewhat of an unrealistic character as are most male leads in rom coms, he's Good-looking and unhitched with a cheese-making farm upstate, he dreams of opening his own grocery store with local, sustainable farm goods. This and he was once married to a Swedish nymphomaniac that makes him distrustful of women.

Meanwhile, she was deserted by her father, which makes her distrustful of men. But these are screenwriting tricks to extend the courtship through nine months of pregnancy. There seems to be a real lack of dramatic conflict, but filling that void is the supporting cast made up of her shitty advice giving best friend (Michaela Watkins) her pregnancy pillow, and a cute but handicapped Boston terrier who uses a tiny dog wheel chair to get around.

One of the funniest parts is Anthony Anderson's cameo in the park with Stan. After that the comedy really seems to fall flat. What with the single-mother support group that Zoe impulsively joins, which is where they experience the over the top water birth, which I'm sure was supposed to be funny, but ended up more disturbing then anything.

It's obvious that the focus is on Lopez' re-launching her career as she's given extra dialogue and clever things to say where they're clearly not needed in the story, however her performance, is good, well certainly a lot better then what I was expecting.

Overall what you end up with is, the same rom com formula after all. By the third act everything becomes very predictable, but I'm sure the core demographic for these films will be happy with the outcome.

Not bad for the romantic date night movie, but not very good as a comedy on its own. 

I give 'The Back Up Plan' an overall 2/5

Opening in theatres this Friday April 23 2010

Theater Review: American Idiot

Yeah, you read that right:  theater review.  Don't worry, we're not trying to turn this place hideously uncool. But at the request of our movie reviewing/reporting wunderkind, Mitch Anderson, we've decided to include an ocassional theater review when something theatrical is actually worth including in this column.  Like a certain punk rock opera by Green Day opening on Broadway this week...so here we go:

Released in 2004, American Idiot was Green Day's first attempt at a rock opera in the style of The Who's Tommy and musicals like West Side Story and Jesus Christ Superstar.  The critically-acclaimed album tells the story of a disenfranchised youth (aka: the "Jesus of Suburbia") trying to find his place in a post-9/11 world. 

The album was a huge success, selling 14 million copies and winning a Grammy for Best Rock Album.  So a stage version was inevitable.  The question was...would they do it justice?

The answer is definitely yes.  The new stage version of American Idiot, which opens on Broadway tonight, is every bit as good as the original album.  In some respects, it's even better.

The story remains the same, with a few added characters to flesh out the story a bit more.  Instead of one Jesus of Suburbia, we now have three:  Johnny, Will, and Tunny.   

These Ritalin-addicted, 7-11 parking lot-dwelling teens are getting ready to escape from their dull suburban town.  Immediately, things do not go as planned:  Will is forced to remain behind when he learns his girlfriend is pregnant, Tunny joins the Marines after being swayed by a slick media campaign and heads off to Iraq, which leaves Johnny to head alone into the city, where he finds a girlfriend (known only as "whatshername")...and a raging heroin addiction (embodied by a punk rocker called "St. Jimmy").  All three are left to find ways to deal with all of their potentially self-destructive paths and learn how to deal with a world that is just always going to be screwed up.

Now anyone thinking this is American Idiot: The Musical with a bunch of cheesy dance numbers and sung by people who have no idea what rock music is, relax.  This is American Idiot as was it was intended:  loud as hell with an amazing cast that sings the crap out every song.  Green Day was completely involved in the production, and even invited the cast to perform with them at the Grammys this year, where they performed a killer version of "21 Guns."  The album is presented on stage in its entirety, as well as several B-sides from the original album, and a few tracks from their newest album, 21st Century Breakdown. 

The show was directed by Michael Mayer, who also directed Broadway's last rock musical, Spring Awakening, and stars that show's Tony winner, John Gallagher Jr., as Johnny, who I think is well on his way to his second Tony win.  Not only does he have a great voice, but during songs like "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends, he plays the guitar as well.  

The rest of the cast, including Rebecca Naomi Jones as Whatshername (who sings an outrageous version of "Letterbomb"), Michael Esper and Stark Sands as Will and Tunny, and Mary Faber as Heather (Will's pregnant girlfriend) are all fantastic.  Tony Vincent is great as a crazed St. Jimmy, and Christina Sanjous has an amazing scene with Stark Sands which has both of them flying (yes, flying) around the stage while singing "Extraordinary Girl."  How they managed to stay in tune while being flown around the stage on wires, I will never know.

The staging is wild - the walls are covered with flatscreens that blast clips from the news and random TV shows, there's a scaffolding that gets rolled around like a bus for "Holiday" while a projected highway flies by in the background, and there's a 'shock and awe' Iraq battle scene.  You're just bombarded by images as soon as the curtain goes up.  The band is on stage for the entire show, which is awesome, and definitely stick around for the curtain calls - there's a surprise encore song that the audience went crazy for the night I saw it.

As a fan of the album, I thought the show was fantastic.  It's a real rock musical.  I thought it was an even better adaptation than The Who's Tommy was back in the early 90s, and I saw that show 4 times when it was on Broadway.  I'm a big fan of rock musicals like Hair, Rent, and Spring Awakening - and this show was just as good as any of those.  This show could have gone wrong in a whole lot of ways, but thankfully it succeeded in a whole lot of ways instead. 

I wasn't sure I needed the cast album (which also releases today), since the Green Day version is usually in constant rotation on my ipod, but after seeing the show, I'll definitely be getting it.  In fact, I saw quite a few people checking the theater's souvenir stand to see if they had early copies available (they didn't).  Hopefully that bodes well for a good long run on Broadway, it certainly deserves it.

American Idiot officially opens tonight on Broadway at the St. James Theatre.  However, if you're nowhere near New York and want to see what the show looks like, check out this clip of the opening number from the soundcheck fans were invited to see just before previews started (and fair warning - like the album, it contains some R-rated language):

 Not a bad way to end our first theater review.  Awesome show!

Extraordinary Measures

Based on Geeta Anand's book The Cure, Extraordinary Measures is inspired by the true story of John Crowley (played here by Brendan Fraser), whose dogged attempts to find a cure for a neuromuscular disorder known as Pompe were nothing short of heroic. Crowley's interest in Pompe was personal: two of his three young children suffered from the potentially fatal disease.

Extraordinary Measures begins on the day of Megan Crowley's (Meredith Droeger) eighth birthday party. This should be a festive occasion, but her father's red-ringed eyes say otherwise. As the movie explains, most children diagnosed with Pompe don't survive past age nine, and both wheelchair-bound Megan and her ailing younger brother, Patrick, have less than a year to live.

At night, after his wife, Aileen (Keri Russell), and a team of private nurses have put the kids to bed, John pores over stacks of medical research in his study. He keeps coming back to a phone number for Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), a scientist who's been experimenting with enzymes that might hold the key to treating Pompe. Out of desperation, Crowley ditches his flourishing business career in order to devote his energies to funding Stonehill's radical research.

Extraordinary Measures is clearly well intentioned, and the remarkable real-life story will undoubtedly put lumps in the throats of viewers who shed tears over similar movies. But director Tom Vaughan (What Happens in Vegas) seems hell-bent on portraying the Crowley family's struggles in the flattest, most predictable manner. There’s the ridiculous score which up and down through the first half of the movie, not being able to match the tone of  the film at all, and crappy dialogue from some of the no-name actors involved like Megan’s “some fighter” says their doctor. What doctors talk like this to the parents of dying children, right after they tell them it would be a “blessing” for her to die and no longer need to suffer.

The performance Keri Russell gave was something straight out of a direct to video or TV movie, which is what CBS really should have done with this. I can almost garuntee that a large portion of the 30 million dollar budget was used to pay Ford’s and probably Fraser’s salaries.

It's up to Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford to save this movie. They almost do, but Frasers acting was very lackluster and really no better than Russell’s. The only person who seemed really ready to show up and prove was Ford, and maybe even Droeger who play little Megan. Ford’s performance as Stonehill was the only thing keeping me interested in this movie long enough to finish watching it. I won’t ruin what happens, but as these movies are, I’m sure you can already guess how it ends.

My rating is 2.5/5 the extra half point being for Harrison Ford’s involvement.

Extraordinary Measures comes to DVD and blu ray May 18 2010.