Lucy

Spooky Eye: The Movie

"She has the Power."

Good afternoon friends, and welcome back to another stirring edition of the Tagline, where movies are still king, or possibly queen as the case might be. Today I will be going back a little bit to talk about the recent Luc Besson film Lucy, a movie that I avoided seeing for a while because I wasn't sure I needed to see Scarlett Johansson hurricanrana another person. As it turned out, I really didn't but she mostly hurts people in different ways, so that was a real relief. Lucy is a movie about a girl, who as you may have guessed is named Lucy. She is kind of a dumbass, For starters, she hangs around with a seedy crowd, including her super awesome boyfriend who essentially sells her as a drug mule so that he can try to get out of a bad debt he owes to some Korean crime boss in Taiwan (where they are). This doesn't really work out great for him or his splattered brains, but he was an asshole anyway so really who cares. Lucy on the other hand... doesn't end up much better off, having her abdomen stuffed full of drugs and then getting kicked in her drug bag, which seems like a dumb plan on the part of her captors. Large amounts of the drug are absorbed by her system, which causes her to freak out and then does what every drug addict dreams about: gives her super powers. Despite her enhanced abilities and telekinesis and other crazy shit, Lucy's body is rapidly deteriorating, and so she attempts to locate the rest of the drug mules so she can juice up some more. Also she contacts well known wise person and maybe god Morgan Freeman so that she can try and figure out a way not to literally disintegrate on an airplane.

Chappie

I'm glad my parents aren't hyper-criminals
who are also Die Antwoord.

"I am discovery. I am wonder. I am Chappie."

I feel like this tagline is a bit misleading in terms of the movie's tone, but then again I've never especially gotten the impression that tagline writers have any idea what movies are about. Welcome back to THE Tagline, where robots get set on fire just to watch them burn. Over the weekend I got out to the movies, because there was something that I actually wanted to see, and that was Chappie, the latest from South African-Canadian pain artist Neill Blomkamp, a man romantically involved with cinematic misery, and also science fiction I suppose. His last fictional foray was the aggressively unpleasant and almost completely unnecessary Elysium, a film where Matt Damon portrays a low-life who enlists the help of bigger low-lifes, to bring down the biggest, meanest, low-lifes of all, who live on a magical paradise in outer space. What you may be detecting is I didn't think much of Elysium. While still kind of a bummer, I found District 9, his first major theatrical release, to be substantially less shitty, and so with these two experiences from the director behind me, I figured that I had a 50/50 shot of either liking or hating Chappie, a movie about a police robot that gains sentience, in the caldera of violence and shittiness that is Johannesburg. How did I end up liking it? Well things went about 50/50. Let's start off with the basics.

Taken 2

Badideas.com

"They want revenge, They chose the wrong guy."

Now there is a true Tagline. Hi folks, welcome to the Tagline, where I needed to take a break to actually watch some damned movies so I could go back to REVIEWING those same damned movies. Today I'm going to do what I do best, and talk about a movie where a guy kills a whole bunch of other guys. Think back a ways, to 2008, and you'll remember Taken, a film where Liam Neeson plays former CIA operative turned private security Bryan Mills. One fine day his daughter goes on an unsupervised trip to godless and lawless Europe (France specifically) where she is abducted by sex traffickers. That probably seemed like a great idea to them, but Bryan happened to be on the phone with her when it happened, and despite the taunts of her kidnapper (who only says "good luck") he DOES in fact have good luck. See sometimes you kidnap a girl and her father is a professional murder man. As a no frills action/vigilante revenge fantasy movie, Taken was wildly successful, grossing well over 200 million worldwide on its 25 million dollar budget. As such, they could hardly be expected to risk making a sequel (or two actually). Taken 2 brings us back into the world of Bryan Mills, trying to be a less shitty dad while still doing security on the side. This film opens as Albanian mobsters, relatives and associates of the MANY people Mills killed in the first film, commend what's left of their friends and family to the earth, and swear revenge on the man who put them there. Now, if you've seen the first movie, this probably instantly strikes you as a not awesome idea on their part, but hey, they're used to having it good and probably don't know any better. But they're going to learn.

Team America: World Police

Here to save the motherfuckin' day.

"Putting the F Back in Freedom."

Hi gang, and welcome back to The Tagline. Originally I had intended to review a different movie tonight, but the recent withdrawal from theaters of The Interview, followed by the withdrawal by Paramount of Team America: World police, prompted me to change my plans, and instead review Team America, which I realized I had not done. If you find that offensive somehow, the idea of me reviewing a movie where a team of American puppets attempt to thwart the plans of terrorists and Kim Jong Il to blow up the world, well fuck you, too bad. Here at the Tagline we don't respond to threats, only generous bribes. Since Paramount and Sony have refused my generous offers to be bribed, I will instead review the greatest masterpiece in puppet existence, TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE. From the genius duo that brought us South Park, Orgazmo, and who starred in BASEketball, the thing my girlfriend always gets mixed up with actual basketball, Team America is the movie that Matt and Trey said they weren't going to make. After the South Park movie, the guys were pretty disdainful about doing another movie. Despite this, they were inspired apparently by how stupid the idea of The Day After Tomorrow was, and originally planned to re-shoot the whole movie only in puppet form. They were informed that this could have legal difficulties, so instead they opted to just make a puppet movie that was a send up of all manner of big action movies. Team America is about a stage actor named Gary who is recruited to be part of Team America, an elite Thunderbirds-esque team that fights terrorists around the world, by shooting them and blowing them up and stuff. Awesome right?

Mockingjay: Part 1

Get ready for more dead children.

"The courage of one will change the world."

Hello all, welcome back to the Tagline! Today is finally that magic day, the day I will be reviewing the Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1:The Almost End: Subtitles Forever. No but seriously what the fuck we get it, maybe consider a bit more of concise of a title? At any rate, Mockingjay picks up right after the conclusion of Catching Fire (check out my thoughts on that one over here) with Katniss coming around inside a bunker beneath the bombed out ruins of District 13. Naturally the first thing she does is freak out, because she recalls that during the final fateful moments of the Quarter Quell, Peeta was left behind, as the District 13 rebels extracted Katniss, who is valuable to them above all others as a symbol and inciter of revolution. Katniss of course is a wreck of human being, having been now in not one but two hunger games, and separated from the only person that allowed her to hold herself together through it all. That said, the leader of District 13, President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore in one of her less insane recent roles, I mean compared to Carrie's crazy mom for instance) doesn't have time for any of that nonsense, and so together with Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman, this movie together with its part 2 were his final performances) and so go to considerable lengths to motivate Katniss.

Batman (1989)

Classic.

"..."

It's that time again! Welcome back to The Tagline, where movies are queen and I'm also a queen and we're all queens I guess. I don't know look... it's been a long week okay guys? Don't worry about that stuff though with queens, because really what it's all about today? Is fucking bats. Listen, I know it's an upsetting subject no one wants to talk about, but bats are all around us. Flying around at night? Those aren't just weird night birds, those are fucking bats okay? That guy driving the weird car he parked in the middle of traffic? Bat. The weird airplane shooting missiles at parade floats? Also a bat. That's right, those the Batmans are all around us, and we don't even notice it all the time! Recent years have been good to the Dark Knight, but it wasn't always that way. I can direct you to my grisly review of Joel Schumacher's war crime Batman & Robin. Then again, Batman Begins wasn't the first good Batman that ever happened either. There were some very different, but still good times with the Batman under the direction of Tim Burton believe it or not. I know I find it tough to believe too. Even more surprising is that neither of the Batman movies directed by Burton feature like... a Riddler played by Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham-Carter as... Poison Ivy? Catwoman? I don't know I'm gonna try to put it out of my mind. At any rate, today I want to talk about the very first Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the Bat, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. This movie just recently found its way to Netflix, and so naturally I wanted to check it out and see how it stood up after all these years.

Small Soldiers

He looks kind of sad actually.

"The few, the proud, and the small."

Hello my fair friends, welcome back to the Tagline, a land of whimsy and wonderment. Or profanity and boobs. I never remember which one it is, I need to work on that. It's not important though, because it is time for more movies! Today I am going to dip once more into that deep well of inspired cinema, the Netflix. I couldn't HELP but notice that Small Soldiers was cropping up in the like... popular with stoners on Facebook feed or something, and I mean, really how could I say no? So I loaded it up (the movie duh) and sat down to relive one of history's greatest cinematic triumphs, a movie with a action figure that sounds like Tommy Lee Jones attempting to kill the kid from Everwood. It's sort of like a Terminator thing, robotic being goes back in time to try and kill Gregory Smith before Everwood can ever even happen. Just like Terminator though, the robots were doomed to fail (spoilers the main character kid in this movie is not brutally murdered by action figures). Small Soldiers was a 1998 movie aimed at I am not honestly sure who, kids I guess, but like, slightly older kids... tweens? I guess so. Anyway it features Gregory Smith as a reformed-ish juvenile delinquent named Alan whose father runs a super lame toy store. In an effort to drum up some sales, he conducts a shady deal with a delivery truck driver to "acquire" some new fancy action figures. What baby Ephraim doesn't realize is that these toys are totally fucked. See Jay Mohr is an idiot who works for Denis Leary, who is in this movie Gil Mars, owner of Globotech, which is a massive corporation that has recently opened up a toy division because petrochemicals and military weapons weren't keeping him entertained or something. Did I mention Jay Mohr is an idiot? Well he is, and he decides to make the toys super cool by installing crazy learning military grade microchips in all of them. This is swell and all, except that their programming makes that sort of... let's go with problematic. That's nice.

Nightcrawler

Red car seems like kind of an eyegrabber.

"The City Shines Brightest at Night"

Hello all, welcome to a new month with the Tagline! Today I said I'd finally put down the horror for a few minutes, but that doesn't mean that I promised not to horrify you. As such, we will be looking straight into crazy land and talking about Nightcrawler today, a movie featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, a nobody lowlife living in LA, stealing fencing and copper pipes to try and turn a buck, when he stumbles over a new means of generating income: taking photos and video of dying people at crime scenes and selling them to TV stations. That is the setup that leads us into this film, as much about the darker side of life as it is about the darker side of human impulse. Nightcrawler follows Lou as he uses his spooky wacko personality and singular drive to go from street level no one to slightly higher street level no one. After witnessing some guys (mostly Bill Paxton) filming a fiery car crash, Lou gets it into his head that he could make some serious scratch by doing the same thing, and so steals a bike and sells it so he can buy a handheld camera and start filming crime and accidents. Naturally this starts out kind of rough, because it's a rough job that requires you to be a heartless shithead, but eventually Lou starts to find his footing, and becomes singularly obsessed with obtaining success as a crime scene photographer, freelance of course. This isn't really a one man job though and so using all of his bullshit spinning powers Lou hires the desperate loser/near hobo Rick to be his navigator and extremely underpaid assistant on his nightly prowls for shocking happenings worthy of the news.

John Wick

Gonna be a looot of gun pointin!

"Don't Set Him Off!"

Hello friends, welcome back to The Tagline. Today we're taking a brief break from the frightfest to talk about Keanu murdering dude, because that's what I decided to spend my Saturday afternoon watching. This particular movie is perhaps a return to form for Reeves, who spent a healthy amount of time as an action star before kind of falling off the edge of the world (though I recently reviewed Man of Tai Chi, which Reeves directed and also starred in as the primary antagonist) and now he seems to slowly be coming back into focus (I mean he's been in a steady clip of movies I just mostly didn't care about them, and I didn't care about HIS role in 47 Ronin). Reeves stars as the eponymous John Wick, a man who we're introduced to at a very vulnerable moment, as his wife has just passed away from cancer. He receives as a post mortem gift from his wife, an adorable little puppy named Daisy, and bonds with the little monster while going about the process of grieving his wife. This portion of the movie lasts just long enough that you start to wonder if you're in the right movie theater, or whether there was another Keanu Reeves movie playing right next door about a sad guy bonding with a puppy. Just around that point though, Theon Greyjoy shows up and murders John Wick's puppy and steals his '69 Mustang (okay so obviously it's not Theon Greyjoy, it's Alfie Allen playing the son of a Russian crime boss names Iosef but I found his character more or less the same). Iosef tries to sell the stolen car to Aurelio (John Leguizamo), and much like Theon might, he gets bitch slapped for doing something dumb and is sent out of the shop. Iosef's father, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist, probably most famous for portraying Michael Blomkvist in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies, the Swedish ones) calls up Aurelio asking why he did such a thing, and Aurelio explains how catastrophically Iosef has fucked up. Viggo responds simply by going "oh..." 

Zombieland

It isn't like that at all.

"Nut up or shut up."

I honestly can't believe this, but I guess I really never reviewed one of my favorite zombie movies! Anyway, welcome back to The Tagline! Congrats you've survived another week. Unless you work weekends, in which case congrats, the worst part of your week is just beginning! So... sorry for that I guess! Today I'm going to reach back into the past to talk about Zombieland, a 2009 horror/comedy film set in a zombie apocalypse wasteland, starring Jessie Eisenberg as the fearful shut-in Columbus, who meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) a badass zombie killer who begrudgingly lets the meek Columbus tag along with him. The two are first conned and then later also join up with Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and Wichita (Emma Stone, I'm still not over Spider Man 2) who are travelling to some amusement park because why not I guess pretend an amusement park won't be full of zombies, not like there's anything better to do right? Everyone needs to have a goal in life after all. Tallahassee's is to find a Twinkie before the last of them expire. The problem is it seems like all he can manage to find are snowballs, and I mean, who wants to eat that shit? Just not tasty, unpleasant texture combination, ugh the worst. This movie isn't about Twinkies though... well I guess it kind of is, but mostly it is about surviving in the very worst situation imaginable. Zombieland is full of those runner-type zombies, and you guys know how I feel about that shit.

Life After Beth

She seems like a nice girl right?

"Til Undeath do Us Part."

Hello friends, welcome back to the Tagline! Today I'm keeping the spook rolling with a movie about zombies why not, in this case Life After Beth, starring Aubrey Plaza (you know) as Beth, the recently deceased girlfriend of Zach (Dane DeHaan) who is deeply distraught about it. Beth went hiking alone and died from a snakebite I guess, so that's all very sudden and tragic, except then after spiraling into a weird depression and hanging around her parents' house for a while, Zach notices Beth wandering around inside. This discovery leaves Zach understandably upset, and after some more stalking and almost breaking & entering Zach finally gets Beth's dad Maury (John C. Reilly) to explain what's going on, as best as he understands it. Which is to say he has no idea what's going on, just that Beth rose from the dead and showed up at their house, and doesn't remember dying. This is all very exciting for Zach, who was deeply distraught about Beth's dying, but it is clear from the get go that something isn't quite right with Beth, who seems constantly confused and thinks that she has a big test coming up or something. It isn't long before she begins to visibly decompose, become freakishly strong, and starts experiencing insane mood swings and tries to eat Zach. Those are all totally reasonable reactions to rising from the dead I guess, even if you don't know that's what happened.

Van Helsing

Look at his awesome hat.

"Adventure lives forever."

Adventure DOES live forever, man that tagline has a really good point. Welcome back folks, as always I am your host on this breathtaking tour of the underworld of cinema, and today I'm going to be digging deep into the past to 2004, with the release of Van Helsing, a kind of Universal Studios monster orgy that happened somehow and was gifted with an absolutely insane 160 million dollar budget. Yeah that's right, watch that movie and try to guess where they dumped 160 million smackaroos, because I can't quite figure it out. Anyway Van Helsing is not about Abraham Van Helsing, the character from Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it does involve Dracula prominently. In this iteration Hugh Jackman is Gabriel Van Helsing, an agent of the Vatican who is dispatched to kill Dracula. That seems pretty reasonable, because I'm sure that no one in Rome is a big Dracula fan, on account of him being a vampire and all. So Van Helsing travels to Transylvania with his loyal ammo monk in tow (the guy who played Faramir in the Lord of the Rings no less!) to try and deep six Drac. The Holy Order also charges Van Helsing with helping ensure that the Valerious family doesn't end up ever getting stuck outside of heaven's gates, because I guess they don't get to go to heaven unless they kill Dracula or something who fucking even knows. Of course Dracula isn't the only thing that can kill you in Transylvania. There's also werewolves, and Dracula brides, and... gross baby vampires that explode because they need different kinds of batteries or something... stay with me here guys.

Repo Men

Certainly looks edgy right?

"For a price, any organ in your body can be replaced. But it can also be repossessed."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline, where it's all pulp sci-fi all the time apparently. Today I am going to be talking about Repo Men, a movie that is not Repo: The Genetic Opera. Are they similar? I don't know, I haven't seen that, because I didn't want to so sue me. This movie has Jude Law in it, so that instantly made it more interesting to me, also it looked pretty violent. I was not disappointed in THAT regard for sure. Repo Men is another science fiction story set in a dystopic future where artificial organ technology has advanced wildly, so that virtually any organ can be replaced. The caveat is that distribution of these organs is controlled by a company that charges astronomical prices for them, because its the shitty future, and people often are coerced into getting these organs because otherwise they'll die. Then again, the average person can't pay 750,000 dollars for a new heart, and so they end up going into delinquency and then it gets kicked over to collections. As you've probably deduced, that's where the repo comes in, If someone misses enough payments, the property gets repossessed. Out of their chest cavity. You might have guessed that having a guy stun you and literally carve your heart out often results in a distinct case of death. They have that whole Temple of doom thing going on, ripping the heart right from your chest, only with less lava I suppose.

Johnny Mnemonic

There's that cyber slam again.

"A pulse-pouding cyber-slam."

Now be honest, that kind of sounds like some sort of robot sex act doesn't it? Yeah I thought your silent agreement would be forthcoming, but that's beside the point! The point is that today I continue my aimless trek through the empty expanses of cyberfilms of the 90s. Today I go out of the hacker films all the way into full blast cyberpunk, with Johnny Mnemonic, a movie based on a William Gibson short story of the same name. If you don't know, William Gibson was one of the major voices of the cyberpunk sub-genre and also later of what would be known as post-cyberpunk (some of my all time favorite novels were among his later works) Johnny Mnemonic is relatively common of the genre however, and features a data courier who uses his own head for storage. Now me personally, I feel like if I were going to be a courier of stolen data who might be pursued by criminals, I wouldn't want brain to be the receptacle. I guess it guarantees that for a while my head is safe from bullets, but I feel like it sort of increases the chance of the rest of me getting torn up. At any rate, Johnny (played by the ever expressive Keanu Reeves who is 50 today, happy birthday Neo) seems less concerned with this, and more worried about getting enough money to have his implant removed. See while trafficking some guy's data is maybe lucrative, it comes at a serious cost. In this particular case, Johnny has lost all his memories of his childhood, and so is saving up to have that damage reversed, which I don't know how it's possible but apparently it is. So there's Johnny-boy's motivation, but what about the job? Well he's supposed to pick up some obviously hot merchandise from some nerds, and then carry it for them to their potential buyer. The problem is that it's way too much data, substantially more than johnny can carry safely in his noodle (I guess that isn't so surprising given the person we're talking about). Repeated warnings don't stop him from doing it anyway though, and moments later ole' Johnny is running for his life after his employers are shot to pieces and diced up by the Yakuza.

Tombstone

Back in black?

"Justice Is Coming."

Hello friends, welcome back to Tagline: Guest Suggestion Edition! On Tuesday we all had the great pleasure of experiencing Hackers, a movie that had about as much in common with real hackers as I have in common with a Tyrannosaurus. Today we're going in the total opposite direction, back to the old west with Tombstone, a movie about Wyatt Earp (Played by Kurt Russell, maybe the only man to live who looks MORE ridiculous with that mustache than the ACTUAL Wyatt Earp) that has as much historical truth to it as more or less any other Wyatt Earp movie or story I suppose, which is to say not very much. This particular film focuses on specifically Earp's time in the eponymous boomtown of Tombstone, where people mostly seem to busy themselves by getting drunk and then shooting each other, which doesn't seem like a sustainable enterprise. Meanwhile, leaving behind life as an officer of the peace in Dodge City, Wyatt and his brothers Virgil and Morgan are trying to go into business for themselves. They decide to do this in the most obvious way they can think of, by becoming promoters at a saloon, and (presumably) this includes things like running the in-house gambling and also being pimps. Sounds like good old-fashioned American heroes to me! Along with the Earps Doc Holliday (Portrayed here in an awesome performance by Val Kilmer) rolls into town as well, to be sickly and look like he's about to die from Tuberculosis, but still scare the ever-loving crap out of everyone because he's so great at shooting people (Historically he mostly seemed to have a record of challenging African-Americans to gunfights with little to no provocation so try not to think about that I guess)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Shadow Recruit? Look how bright it is!

"Trust No One."

That's good advice no matter what you're doing! Hello everyone and welcome back to another exciting week at the Tagline! Today I would like to take a moment to detour back into the land of those damn dirty commies trying to attack Amurka the beautiful, and really who knew how to do that better than the late great Tom Clancy himself (This was actually the last movie he wrote before passing away last year). For those who are not familiar, because really why would you be, Jack Ryan is a character who is not new to the silver screen. As the central protagonist in a large number of Tom Clancy's novels, Ryan has been featured in film a total of five times if we count this movie, and portrayed by four different actors. In the Hunt for Red October he was portrayed by Alec Baldwin, and later in Clear and Present Danger AND Patriot Games by Harrison Ford. Though we'd like to try and forget, in The Sum of All Fears Ryan was portrayed by Ben Affleck, that last one being a generally pretty crap movie. Each movie takes a look at Jack Ryan at a different point in his career, working as a CIA analyst to thwart various plots to destabilize the American government and also as a result the rest of the free world. This latest entry puts our new Captain Kirk, Chris Pine, in the role, as a sort of re-imagining of Jack Ryan's origin story. Because the original Ryan was born in like 1951, this tale was updated to incorporate the 9/11 attacks as the inspiration for Ryan's urge to serve, and then get shot down in a helicopter. At that point it's looking like ole Jackie boy is done barely after he begins, but his determined physical rehabilitation, coupled with a pattern he'd discerned in enemy movements before his helicopter was shot down, attracts the attention of Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner, keeping busy this year) who recruits Jack into the CIA, placing him in a Wall Street firm as a covert agent, looking for suspicious financial transactions that could indicate terrorist activity. Eventually something really suspicious crops up, and then it's off to Russia for some good old fashioned espionage.

The Purge: Anarchy

Of course these guys aren't that important.

"An American tradition"

What a tradition it is! Welcome to the Thursday evening installment of the Tagline, where I unveil the second feature presentation of the week. Today it's going to be The Purge: Anarchy, a sequel to 2013's The Purge, a mostly home invasion movie about a family trying to survive the night during a government sanctioned 12 hour period of murder and mayhem, where nearly anything goes (except killin' the government elite OBVIOUSLY). That film, while presenting an interesting original concept, was still a fairly paint by the numbers home invasion movie (unlike say You're Next). In contrast, the sequel is a much more ambitious and adventurous entry, giving a wider, roaming view of the devastation and insanity that is part and parcel of The Purge. The film principally deals with Sergeant Leo Barnes, a police officer heading out into the purge festivities armed to the teeth, with a singular mission that is clearly revenge, though we don't learn exactly what kind until later in the movie. As he cruises down the streets in his armored pimpmobile he comes across a scene where Eva and her daughter Cali are being dragged off by high-tech armed paramilitary agents. Despite his need to accomplish his own grisly end, Leo stops and in a spectacular show of precise violence kills the men attempting to abduct the two women. He then returns to his car to find he's picked up two more lost and scared individuals, Shane and Liz, who for some COMPLETELY UNFATHOMABLE REASON decided that they needed to do some fucking grocery shopping or something like an hour before this bloodbath started. Leo attempts to lead these four to safety, so that he can then resume his mission (he is promised a car by Eva in return for his help, because his gets shot up). Along the way he takes them on a merry tour of the darkest corners of the human psyche.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

This would be hotter with Jeremy Renner
in front.

"Revenge is sweeter than candy."

Hey everyone, welcome back to The Tagline, with a fresh week filled with movies about shooting things for reasons. Today, as long promised I will be delving into less than stellar cinema once again, this time with the obviously dubious looking Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. This was the sort of movie that I was honestly surprised was getting a wide movie theater release, but then again I suppose it has actors in it who need to be paid in real money so I shouldn't be too shocked. Even then you're almost surprised they'd even attach themselves to a movie about Hansel & Gretel that looks like Van Helsing. That in itself is pretty damning, as Van Helsing was a total train wreck of a movie, even when compared to other pulpy cinema. So with all of that weighing on my mind I didn't enter into this movie with very high expectations. Let me set up the premise for you, parts should be familiar. Hansel & Gretel are left in the woods by their dad. They find a gingerbread house, a witch who lives their plans to eat them, but they get the drop on her and burn her in her own stupid oven. Following this event, Hansel is left Diabetic and has to take regular injections or else he'll die (Naturally. They didn't have insulin shots in the 1800s but I guess I have no real idea or really where this movie is taking place so probably don't let that trip me up). Together he and his sister become renowned witch hunters, killing tons of witches in no small part because they seem to be immune to the dark magic they employ. At the movie's outset the two arrive in who-the-hell caresville where the sheriff is a real dildo, and the mayor is less of one. The mayor hires Hansel and Gretel to try and find out why children are disappearing (hint it's witches). Before they do that though they have to take a moment to stop sheriff jackhole from executing some hot chick that they think is a witch. Hansel explains that witches can only pretend to be hot, and are actually gross, whereas this girl is actually hot. This is all really advanced high-class stuff so try and keep up guys.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Horseape Gun: The Movie.

"One last chance for peace."

I mean, they say that but really was there EVER a chance for peace, for anyone? I sincerely doubt it, if people were looking for peace they'd probably have fewer tanks. Anyway welcome back to The Tagline! As promised, today is honorary emotional about primates day, and I will be talking about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the sequel to the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which you can read more about here. If you recall (or just read that link) Rise of the Planet of the Apes covers how the apes become super smart, and makes you really depressed in the process. This movie details the growth of the fledgling ape civilization, even as human society is crumbling in the wake of a devastating virus (the same one that made the apes so damned smart). Before I actually talk in earnest about the movie, I first need to quibble about the notion that a very small population of super-intelligent apes would proliferate and survive in the wild, as a species. incidental illness alone would make them genetically unviable as a population, and machine guns killing them by the hundreds would definitely make their dominance super unlikely. YES in a movie about super smart apes my problem is that I find the number of apes and their opposition to make dominance an unlikely outcome. Otherwise I am totally on board with these apes learning to talk and building a community based on mutual trust. Well, for the most part that's true.

3 Days to Kill

Wyatt Earp pose.

"From the Planet that Brought You Waterworld" (I made this tagline up because there were none)

Hey folks welcome to a new week and more thrills from the Tagline! As I had subtly threatened last week, I'm going to start off this week right, with some Kevin Costner action. As many of you know, I have on at least one occasion been an apologist for a Kevin Costner movie  (and I stand by my position, people need to get a fucking grip) but that doesn't mean that I think every movie he's in is cinematic gold. That said, I do regard him as a trustworthy, father-figure who makes the most of sometimes very bad situations, and that is I suspect what happened with 3 Days to Kill, one of the more perplexing movies I watched this month. This film stars Mr. Costner as Ethan Renner, a CIA Cleaner (that's code for person killer) who is assigned as part of the team cornering and eliminating "The Wolf." Renner's part of this job is to kill a creepy dude with no hair or eyebrows called the Albino, so you know he's a bad guy. We get to watch him crush a lady's head under an elevator car too, so that cements his bad guy status pretty firmly, I mean look how weird and evil he is! Anyway, Renner's kicking this dude's ass into next Tuesday when he suddenly collapses. He wakes up and is told he has like hyper-cancer or something, and that he has only a few months left to live. The CIA gives him a cheap looking watch and tells him his pension is on the way, and then tell him to piss off. Deciding that he needs to make the most of the time, Ethan returns home to Paris, to try and make amends with his estranged wife and daughter. Just as he is awkwardly trying to do that, he is approached by Vivi (Amber Heard, stringing together cinematic disasters one-after-another but hey at least she's pretty right?) a super-sexy assassin that wants Ethan to help her take out The Wolf, because he is the only person who has ever seen him. To try and entice him into this job, Vivi offers a Mcguffin: a experimental magic drug that will help him live longer. naturally, with such an enticing and totally ridiculous reward on offer, Ethan is obliged to accept, if only to get more time to spend with his pathological liar daughter (Hailee Steinfeld, who you can see also in True Grit and Ender's Game). Who would want to miss out on that.