What A Movie Weekend . . . Or, What Do The Wolverine, World War Z, Red 2, and Monsters University Have In Common?

This last weekend I binged on movies.  Matinee pricing is too good to pass up and I was stuck in town.  So I decided I'd check out some movies that were just opening, one that I wanted to see despite the objections of fan-boys and my own sense that the book was probably better, and one that earned its place on the strength of its predecessor. 

Let's start with World War Z.  We'll start there mostly because that's where I started.  First movie out of the gate.  Based on the cult-hit novel by Max Brooks (author of the Zombie Survival Handbook) which takes familiar zombie tropes and ponders what it would look like on a world-wide scale, told from multiple perspectives in documentary fashion.  Documentary in book form means something different from documentary in movie form.  In book form, it means "pertaining to documents."  It's usually just a compendium of documents which relate to the given topic.  On film it's a whole other beast and Michael Moore and Ken Burns tend to pop up a lot. 

The film version of World War Z is not documentary in any way.  It's an efficient, competent action film without anything to speak against it.  But it also doesn't have a lot going for it, either.  Brad Pitt does a fine job as some sort of UN gopher: hopping from hot spot to hot spot putting out fires.  We're never really told what he does, just that he's the best at it and it gives him an insider's look at mass panic.  The zombies are fast, which they were not in the book, but I don't think it matters.  We're given a glimpse of a world-spanning epidemic and the human response varies from garrison-states (literally) to nuclear bombs, to whole countries ripping out their teeth in a single day to prevent disease vectors. 

It was fun, but wasn't particularly compelling.  And if you really want the book, go read the book.  The movie is fine on its own.

Following that was The Wolverine.  It was okay.  Hero (and his abs) faces an existential crisis.  Has a call to adventure from a spunky Japanese girl with a sword called "The Separator" because it separates head from torso, or limb from torso or what have you.  She uses it to cut beer bottles in half.  Wolverine glances at it, decides his are better.  Anyway.  It's basically what you'd expect.  Some of the acting was spotty, but the movie as a whole was well plotted and well executed.  Of special note was the remarkable decision to look at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the perspective of the Japanese people themselves, though it was necessarily downplayed in the movie.  One of the better X-Men movies I've seen recently.

Red 2 sucked.  It had moments of mediocrity, but I felt like it wanted to be Mr. and Mrs. Smith and simply failed.  Bruce Willis was Bruce Willis, and John Malkovich was the only reason to watch this movie.  He's Martin Freeman thirty years older.  With only a single action piece that was genuinely fun to watch, this movie was as tired as the actors struggling to muddle through a scene. 

Finally, let's talk about Monsters University.  What a great film.  It's easy to come to expect greatness from Pixar, but with news that Finding Nemo is getting a sequel (a movie that is a lesser candidate for a sequel I can't imagine) it seemed as if Pixar had mined its creativity to exhaustion.  This proved that fear absolutely unfounded.  Sequels are hard, prequels harder (ahem . . . George).  Monsters University handled that challenge with aplomb and heart.  In fact, I was never really a fan of the first Monsters Inc., but this one seemed all the better.  And with Nathan Fillion as a voice actor, what's not to love?

Remarkably, the movie ended on a note that I hadn't expected.  In fact, as the credits started to roll the three year-old boy behind me turned to him mother and asked "why?"  She offered him a great explanation which I'll try to keep spoiler free.  Basically, "Because that's how it happens sometimes."  And she was right, and I left the movie feeling as though Pixar really had something to say; as much as they had an interest in entertaining three and thirty year-olds, they wanted us to reflect on how life actually is.  And they succeeded. 

Of all the movies I saw this weekend, Monsters University was the only one I recommend you see.  It was simply fantastic. 

How To Be Awesome and Have Fun Doing It . . . Or, Weekend Round-out

I've decided that Fridays are going to be devoted to a brief synopsis of cool things that happened in the last week, or cool things to do over the weekend.  These could be up-coming, or recently released movies, or movies you just plain need to see; these could be upcoming author signings; these could be books I'm currently reading and excited about . . . the list continues!  But regardless, it's a quick and easy way for me to let you know what happening in the wider world of awesome.

First.  Go see Argo.  You can read my review here, but suffice to say it's my favorite movie out at the moment.

Then, go see Skyfall.  It's the 27th James Bond movie and it's been getting incredible reviews.  It's on my agenda this weekend.

I'm in the middle of Christopher Buehlman's Between Two Fires and so far it's great.  It's the story of an excommunicate knight, a priest and a young girl who sees angels trying to make their way in fourteenth-century France.  Set during the Hundred Years War and not far on the heels of the disaster at Crécy, it has everything you could want in a historical fiction, but it's not entirely historical fiction.  It's also horror, fantasy and that weird blend of Gothic that Buehlman did so well in Those Across the River.

I also have The Twelve by Justin Cronin on my shelf.  The sequel to The Passage, it continues the story of the end of the world after a viral plague has turned most of the population into vampires.  The Passage, with its sudden and inexplicable conclusion distressed me enough to recommend no one read that book, but I've mellowed in the meantime, and now I recognize just how awesome (most) of the book actually is.  Now that the second in a planned trilogy has been released, I think you should give it a look.

Also, since the buyout of Lucasfilm to Disney has sent shock waves through the geek community, I thought I'd temper that with news of the merger of Random House (who publish Christopher Paolini, Dan Brown, and Jean Auel, among others), and Penguin Group (who publish titles by Patricia Cornwell, Tom Clancy, Laurel K. Hamilton among others, and who recently published No Easy Day), two of the largest book publishers in the world.  They're hoping to use their combined powers for good, offering brick-and-mortar stores a new vitality.  While they're not the juggernaut either Disney is, or Lucasfilm was, they nevertheless come in at a whopping $4 billion in yearly profit; that's some clout to throw around, and the resources a publisher needs to make some innovated but risky decisions.  I'm looking forward to seeing what they come out with.

And since I seem to be on a zombie kick this week, the new trailer for "World War Z" has been released to the internet.  World War Z is the documentary-style book written by Max Brooks (of The Zombie Survival Guide fame) that details the last days of humanity, and the reconquest of the planet by small pockets of human beings.  Based on the trailer, it seems like that documentary style has been completely abandoned; instead we're treated to the usual paint-by-numbers action flick starring Brad Pitt.  The movie does, nonetheless, depict some truly terrifying zombies.  Still excited to see the movie, but not quite as excited as I was two years when I heard about this being made into a movie.  Take a look: