Tag: Jennifer Garner

Elektra

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:37 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

Elektra
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Jennifer Garner
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: 2005
Kiddie Movie: Nope.
Date Movie: Nope.
Gratuitous Sex: Just some skimpy outfits.
Gratuitous Violence: Lots of people get their asses kicked.
Action: There’s lots of running around.
Laughs: Unfortunately most of them are supposed to be funny.
Memorable Scene: Nothing.
Memorable Quote: Nothing.
Directed By: Rob Bownan

“Daredevil” wasn’t that well received by critics, but it did do alright at the box office, so you would naturally assume there would be a sequel. Now I’m not sure this is how it worked out, but I see the movie people listening to every horny guy out there who couldn’t get enough of Jennifer Garner and her Elektra costume. I hear it now “We need to make a movie with that Garner chick. Is Elektra a real comic? Is there a back story or forward story we could use? I don’t like that story, let’s make another one but we can keep that ‘Hand’ thing to keep it real. Okay, get to it.”

Now, not being a comic book person, I have no idea if the story in the movie “Elektra” ever sort of took place in the comic version. My history with her story is based on the history of Elektra on the Marvel comic’s site, and the comic story is so much better, has much more potential, than the crap story they churned out for this film. For the movie we get re-introduced to Elektra, who has no ties to Matt Murdock (Daredevil) anymore, nope, now she has become a well-paid assassin. She has also honed many of her martial arts skills because now she is pretty much able to run around with super speed, and see a little bit into the future. Well, she gets hired to kill a father and daughter, but in the end she can’t do it. Now she turns from assassin to protector, because the Hand (some evil martial arts group with all kinds of weird powers) still wants the little girl dead. A fight here, a fight there, wolves coming out of some dude’s chest, a dudette who can kill you by blowing you a kiss, and eventually Elektra is back in her skimpy red outfit for one last battle.

Sure, there’s a little more to the story than that, but I’d really rather not bore you, if you go and see the movie you’ll get enough of that.

Like I said before, I don’t know if the storyline in movie Elektra was an actual plot line from the comic books, but I don’t think so, or if it is, they really messed it up (or it was a horrible comic). The best comic book movies don’t try to re-invent the story, the story has already been written (hence the fabulousness of the ‘Spider-Man’ series and the better ‘Batman’ movies). All you need to do is faithfully transfer that story to the big screen. And it’s too bad, because I liked Jennifer Garner as Elektra in “Daredevil,” and in reading the history of Elektra, there was tons of potential, but for me, they blew it. My suggestion – they should have used this movie to develop Elektra, give us more of an insight into how she went from pretty much being dead in “Daredevil” to becoming an assassin. That could have been a good enough movie in itself. Instead, they give you bits and pieces of Elektra’s history in flashbacks, and try to tie it with this nice film of Elektra finding herself.

Well, enough of this review. “Elektra” has a lot of potential but really fails in trying to be too nice of a movie. Garner looks fabulous in her red outfit, and really does great in the fighting scenes, but the story just lacked so much and had such dorky moments (Elektra, waiting for the big fight with her nemesis, in a big, old overcoat, stripping off the coat to reveal her skimpy, red, fighting suit) that I couldn’t get past them. It’s 1 ½ stars out of 5 for “Elektra.” Wait for video, or better yet, wait for cable for this one.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Daredevil

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:43 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

Daredevil
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: 2003
Kiddie Movie: Not too young.
Date Movie: Only if she has the hots for Ben.
Gratuitous Sex: There is a scene, but we still don’t get to see Jennifer Garner’s boobies.
Gratuitous Violence: People die in bad ways.
Action: People get chased in bad ways.
Laughs: Mostly lines from Bullseye.
Memorable Scene: Nothings stands out.
Memorable Quote: Bullseye: “I never miss.”
Directed By: Mark Steven Johnson

Growing up I was a fan of comic book heroes, but only if they were TV stars. I wasn’t a reader, I was a watcher, and although he might have had a cartoon on TV, I don’t remember Daredevil. Pretty much if you weren’t a part of the Justice League of America, I don’t remember you. And so it is for me with the Daredevil character. I really didn’t know anything about him other than listening to Howard Stern talk about him, so going into the movie all I really knew was that Daredevil was a blind dude whose other senses became enhanced to make him capable of being a superhero. The baseline for the story sounded fine, kinda like a Batman only blind, but when it was announced that Ben Affleck was picked to play Daredevil I began to get skeptical. I saw Ben Affleck as able to play the blind lawyer part well, but there is just something about him that didn’t seem to fit the part of the dark-sided superhero, and for me, I was pretty much right, that and the fact that the movie as a whole was pretty much crap.

Here’s the basic run-down of the movie. We get introduced to Daredevil, collapsing in a church, seemingly injured to the point of no return, or at least a long recovery back. It’s now flashback time and we get introduced into the psychological making of Daredevil, and as usual it has to do with a childhood tragedy – in this case young Matt Murdock finds his father murdered after just winning his boxing match, a victim of the bad guys who wanted Dad Murdock to take a dive. And so young Matt vows to fight crime and has a problem loving women.

Let’s come to the present day, and as Matt goes about representing the less fortunate victims in court by day, by night he plays justice seeker for those who, well, pretty much can hire lawyers better than he is. Meanwhile he is finding a deep underworld, controlled by Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan), and sets it upon himself to take out the bad guys. As the story goes he finds a girl, in this case Elektra (Jennifer Garner), who kicks as much ass as he can, and Matt is now in love. As his luck would have it, Elektra’s dad gets set up, a hit put on him by Kingpin, a hit to be carried out by Bullseye (Colin Faffell), and when Daredevil tries to save the day, Bullseye carries out the dirty deed in such a way that Elektra thinks Daredevil killed her dad. Alright, enough of the crap about the story, it’s pretty much cookie-cutter, you can figure out most everything that is going to happen, and mostly every episode of the story gets dragged out so you just wait for the next scene to come. It is this, and the fact that I didn’t really buy Affleck in the superhero mode, that made me anxiously await the ending I figured was going to take place. And, oh yea, for most of the movie Daredevil had this entire ritual to heal himself, in a human sort of way, but at the end, without any explanation, he miraculously overcomes a through-the-shoulder, life-threatening puncture wound as if it never occurred.

There was a reason the first two installments of “Batman” worked, and that was pretty much Michael Keaton. Christopher Reeve was a great Superman, and lately it was Toby McGuire playing a near-perfect Spider-Man. Why did these movies work? Because the lead character was someone who fit both roles. You could believe Keaton as an eccentric millionaire and a slightly devilish Batman; Reeve was great as the clumsy Clark Kent, but not so over-the-top Superman; and McGuire had the perfect boy-ish charm for Spider-Man. Sadly Affleck failed on the superhero side, the side that is probably more important if we want to believe the everyday person can be a superhero. As far as the rest of the crew, Michael Clarke Duncan could have been a better bad guy if they only would have let him; Garner is hot, kicks some major ass, but gets trapped in a predictable role looking to avenge her father’s death; and the only saving graces are Joe Pantoliano as the inquisitive reporter, Ben Urich, looking to figure our the Daredevil story, and saving every scene he was in, Farrell was great as Bullseye, making him a totally over-the-top bad guy, much the way a comic book bad guy should be.

I’m not sure who would have been a better fit for Daredevil, and even if there were someone, I don’t know if they could have saved the movie anyway. Like Batman, Daredevil seems to be more of a dark character and that’s fine, but Daredevil seems to be too confused with whether what he is doing is right or wrong (hence the scenes of him seeking advice from a priest) rather than just realizing that there are bad guys in this world and he has been given a gift to save the people from those bad guys.

In the world of superhero movies I thought Daredevil failed. It wasn’t that you look for something new because you know the underlying story, that the superhero can’t really love someone, that they will get the bad guy, and that there will always be an opening for a sequel, but you just want it to be action-filled, you want a great villain (Bullseye was great in this one but Duncan wasn’t given the chance), and you want to leave rooting for the good guys. In Daredevil I was almost sad when Bullseye fell out of the window, he was the only thing fun about the movie adventure. Sadly it’s 1 ½ stars out of 5 for “Daredevil.” Wait for the rental, wait for cable, or maybe a matinee. It didn’t come across as a movie that you really needed to see on the big screen.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Dude, Where’s My Car?

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:30 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

Dude, Where’s My Car?
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Seann William Scott, Kristy Swanson, Jennifer Garner,
Marla Sokoloff, Fabio, Stuttering John
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: 2000
Kiddie Movie: Not too young, lots of pot, sex, and drinking talk.
Date Movie: If she’s got a twisted sense of humor.
Gratuitous Sex: Lots of talk and girls in tight shirts.
Gratuitous Violence: Maybe just the “Super-Hot Giant Alien” blowing up.
Action: Nah.
Laughs: I laughed a lot. Maybe I’ve just gone crazy.
Memorable Scene: Nothing totally stands out.
Memorable Quote: The little boy looking up the Super-Hot Giant Alien’s skirt to his dad: “I want to go on that ride, daddy!” which the dad replies “Me too!” and this exchange:
“A barn?”
“Is it red?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not a barn.”
Directed By: Danny Leiner

I think I’ve now finally secured it – I’m going to hell. Why? Because at 10:30 on Sunday morning, when I should have been at church, I was at one of the worst movies I have seen and I found myself enjoying it – “Dude, Where’s My Car?”

The story starts out simple, Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott) wake up not really knowing what happened the night before. They attribute this to being totally wasted and it’s easy to see how that could happen. So the movie begins with our duo trying to put back the pieces to what must have been a fabulous night, especially as they begin to find out some of the things that have happened, starting with Greg (Stuttering John Melendez), peeing in their plant. They meet up with Christie Boner (Kristy Swanson) who let one of our duo feel her up, they stumble into the nudie bar where they find they were the kings of the bar, and then things really get weird finding out that they were in charge of a suitcase full of money, gave a couple aliens a ride back to their spaceship, and played some pretty good miniature golf. And if you think that’s weird, it’s their day after, when they found out what happened the night before, that things really start taking twists and turns by adding the bubble-wrap people, the continuum transfunctioner, and the Super-Hot Giant Alien.

This is the kind of movie that most reviewers won’t give two cents worth of their time to watch, and you know what, I don’t blame them, but for some reason all of the lame, stupid, obvious, and childish jokes made me laugh. From the exchange of Jesse and Chester describing their tattoos, to the Chinese drive-in, to the Rubik’s Cube, to the bubble suits the space cult people were wearing, I laughed. Maybe sometimes I need mindless fun, and “Dude, Where’s My Car?” provided me and the four other people that blew off church in favor of a movie that simple pleasure.

I won’t take any more of your time with this review for this movie except to say if you go into this movie expecting what you think the trailers show, well, you’ll probably enjoy it a little. If you go to this movie thinking this will be one of the most thought-provoking comedies of all time, well, you’ll probably leave by the time the dog smokes his own one-hitter. I’m giving “Dude, Where’s My Car?” 3 stars out of 5. It’s stupid fun – expect that.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

13 Going on 30

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:38 Long
A Preview by:
– The Dude on the Right

13 Going on 30
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Jennifer Garner, does anyone else really matter?
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: Columbia Pictures
Directed By: Gary Winick
Produced By: Gary Winick

The ever beautiful Jennifer Garner who should do herself a favor and hook-up with a man like me, or better yet, me, stars as Jenna. She just turned 13 and was also humiliated, so her wish is that she was older. The next morning she wakes up and finds herself 30 years old and living with her boyfriend. Her problem is that she thinks she is 13, and has no recollection of the past seventeen years. She has a job, friends, and needs to find her old best friend to figure out what the hell is going on. That’s about the gist of things.

Now, a lot of people are comparing this to the wonderful movie “Big” where Josh wishes he were big, and then next day he is. The difference here is that Josh wakes up the next day still being a little kid but now in a grown-up body. With this movie Jenna wakes up acting like a 13 year old in a 30 year old body, yet has built a life getting to 30, only she doesn’t remember it. I’m guessing something traumatic happened the night before, or maybe a few too many margaritas, and this has blocked her memories transporting her back to being 13. Too much to think about, but it’s got Jennifer Garner so I plan on being there.

That’s it for this preview! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!