X-Men Origins: Wolverine: 4/10
If not for the fact that it's X-Men, this would have been like a 2 or 3. For such a good cast, they really missed the mark here. The action is boring, the story is ridiculous (which is ok, it is a comic book movie after all), but worst of all, the special effects are atrocious. I'm talking fresh-out-of-film-school-low-budget bad. For a movie with a pretty sizable budget, I am appalled that the effects were as terrible as they were. Obvious and poorly modeled CGI, terrible use of green screen, even the goddamn environmental bullet hits looked bad. I didn't think it was possible to make a bullet hitting dirt look bad, but they succeeded. Here's hoping X-Men Origins: Deadpool is better.
Sidenote: The unnecessary cameos by a few fan-favorites (Gambit, Emma Frost) were just garbage. Poorly integrated, made no sense, and miscast.
The Girlfriend Experience: 6/10
Steven Soderbergh's low-budget art house movie about the life of a high-class New York call-girl. This is a total non-movie. No plot really to speak of, very wooden acting (which was probably on purpose), no resolution, just a camera following this call-girl and her boyfriend through a few days in their lives. However, it kept my interest for the whole thing and is definitely worth watching once. It is short enough (72 minutes) that you wont feel like you wasted your time. Had it been longer, it probably would have been boring, but somehow it was not.
Hellboy: 5.5/10
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army: 6.5/10
The first Hellboy is plagued mostly by a weak-ass, incoherent story and an inability to flesh out a bunch of interesting characters. Guillermo del Toro still hasn't found his visual style yet either, so the visual design isn't all that great either. Still fun to watch and really, really well-casted.
Hellboy 2 on the other hand, pretty much goes the opposite direction. Characters are fleshed out much better, the plot is interesting and easy to follow, and the visuals are phenomenal. The set and character design this time around are cool as hell (one particular scene shot with leaves falling constantly is amazingly well-done). However, the cast isn't nearly as good. David Hyde Pierce is sorely missed as the fish-dude Abe, especially considering how much bigger Abe's role is this time. John Hurt is missing this time around (for obvious reasons) and his lack of presence is felt as well. There are way too many scenes were I thought "oh man, this is good, but would have been so much better with [some other actor]
Observe and Report: 4/10
I honestly don't know how I feel about this movie. It wasn't really funny, but I don't know if it was necessarily supposed to be. It wasn't very compelling either. The characters were mostly stereotypical (sans one awesome character, a food court cashier) and for the most part the movie was pretty boring. Maybe I just didn't get it, but I don't have much to say about this movie.
Friday the 13th (1980): 6.5/10
A classic slasher movie that I never got around to seeing. It feels a bit dated today and isn't really scary, but it creates a good atmosphere, the kills are cool and the twist is pretty damn cool (even though I had been spoiled ahead of time). If I had been alive in 1980 and seen the movie then, it probably would have scared the pants off me. The only thing that hurts the rating is the desensitization of today's youth.
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Fun as fuck/10
I feel like I can't give this movie a numerical rating, due to the fact that it has flaws that I couldn't care less about and that I watched the movie wearing nostalgia goggles. Despite a stupid love story (that is the 3rd or 4th most important story, so it stays in the background), the movie is balls-to-the-wall, in-your-face, over-the-top and completely ridiculous, which is exactly what I wanted from a movie based on a series of toys from the 80s. Why this succeeds where Transformers fails (and oh boy does Transformers fail) is that the lameness of this movie is the correct kind of lameness: over the top acting, ridiculous and asinine weapons and gadgets and Dennis Quaid. Transformers had sex jokes. Way to go Michael Bay. The casting in this movie was perfect. Absolutely perfect. It really felt like GI Joe should and I had a blast watching it. Oh hell, I give it a 9/10.
