Man of Steel

I don't get all the hate heaped on Superman Returns.  Granted, I don't think I've seen it since it was in theaters, but it's not a bad movie.  If you want a bad movie based on a DC comic character, there are plenty to choose from --- ignoring the low-hanging fruit of Superman IV and Green Lantern, do you remember Steel?  Superman Returns' only real crime was being a movie that didn't act as a proper tentpole for a franchise.  It was designed to look and feel like a Richard Donner Super-film, and it succeeded in that regard.  That doesn't make it very exciting to watch, maybe, but it wasn't bad.  DC and the movie producers were not shy about their intentions for Man of Steel; if this movie was successful, it would be the first in a string of DC superhero movies, culminating in a Justice League film.  Basically, they saw what Marvel did with The Avengers and thought, "We should probably do that, too."

Aside from Superman being a hitchhiking hobo and direction from Sucker Punch creator Zack Snyder, the trailer looks pretty good.  I was curious as to whether or not they would explain what Superman uses to shave, since even flames don't affect his body hair, but that is a fairly minor point.

SPOILER ALERT: they don't

Man of Steel begins on the planet of Krypton.  Actually, we spend a surprising amount of time on this world, following Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the preeminent bodybuilding scientist on the planet, as he tries to convince the ruling class that their world is going to end.  They don't believe him, which turns out to mean absolutely nothing because they are promptly murdered by Krypton's preeminent shouting soldier, Zod (Michael Shannon).

"Kee-rist, Zod!  Inside voices, please!"

So what's the point of these scenes?  Well, Jor-El takes some desperate chances while Zod's forces battled the government; he grabs something of great importance to Krypton's people (a skull) and does something questionable with it (dissolves it over his infant son), because science.  Sure of his apocalyptic conclusions, Jor violates almost every FAA rule and sends his baby boy to Earth, via rocket, all by his lonesome.  And then Zod kills Jor and Krypton explodes.  Not before Zod and his forces are overcome and punished by being trapped in another dimension, though.

Zod looks like the sort of guy who types with the caps lock key on

On Earth, that infant grows up to be Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), and his alien physiology makes him different from normal folks in a variety of ways: super-strength, heat vision, super-speed, etc.  You know the super-drill.

Or maybe this super-drill is a little more angry than what you're used to

Clark was taught by his adoptive father (Kevin Costner) to keep his head low and hide his extraordinary abilities.  The logic to this being that people fear what they do not understand and...um...a super being might get his feelings hurt?  Whatever the reason, Clark grows up to be a do-gooding drifter, helping random people out whenever he can and then slinking off into the shadows before they can ask him any questions.  Eventually, Zod and his minions come to Earth, looking for the son of Jor-El.  Their entrance is dramatic, and they essentially offer to spare the Earth if their fellow Kryptonian turns himself over to Zod.  But what does Zod really have in mind for the people of Earth?  And what does this mean for Clark?  Where does Clark fit in, as the child of two worlds?  What kind of "man" is he?  (The answer is "super.") 

The acting in Man of Steel is all pretty much above-board.  Henry Cavill carried the angst of his character very well; this is easily the best acting I've seen from him.  Cavill also looks fairly tough, so the concept of him being able to punch through your face seems a little less far-fetched than some other actors who have played the part.  While Cavill's Superman was certainly sympathetic --- I would argue he gave the most vulnerable Superman performance on film to date --- he doesn't show much personality beyond the angst; but that is more of a script issue than a fault in Cavill's portrayal.

"Alright Henry, for this scene, imagine that your iPod has nothing but Morrissey on it"

Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, is played by Amy Adams, and this is the best Lane we've seen on the big screen.  She actually seems strong and intelligent, like an award-winning reporter should.  Almost as important, her "plucky reporter" bit wasn't obnoxious.  I thought Kevin Costner did a pretty good job as an overprotective parent; Costner can be a little one-dimensional in this role, but it was refreshing to see anyone in this movie look genuinely concerned over Superman's well-being.

"Son, just calm down...and please don't murder me and your mother"

I have some serious issues with the writing of his character, but Costner did a fine job acting.  Diane Lane was also okay as Clark's mother, although her part is pretty conventional.  I will say that it felt odd seeing her play a part that was a touch too old for her.  Russell Crowe was good as Jor-El; he was suitably stoic when he played a hologram, but his action hero turn on Krypton seemed a little un-scientist-like.  Still, he was in a lot more of the movie than I expected and wasn't bad by any means.  Ayelet Zurer had a small part as Superman's Kryptonian mom, but it didn't really amount to much.  Michael Shannon's work as Zod was tough for me to rate.

And, at times, identify

Yes, he was suitably intimidating.  Yes, he provided a physical threat to Superman, something that most Superman villains do not do.  I think my issue has less to do with Shannon's performance than with how the character was written; when given the opportunity, Shannon made this awful monster sympathetic --- but we have to wait almost the entire movie to get to that point.  Until that moment of insight, he comes across as a gigantic asshole.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Antje Traue was Shannon's right-hand-woman, and she was decent; I liked what I saw, but she didn't really do much more than glare.  Christopher Meloni had a fairly substantial part and he played an aggressive authority figure.  Go figure.  I like Meloni, but his movie roles have been pretty bland lately.  Richard Schiff and Laurence Fishburne did very little aside from lending their familiar faces to bit parts.

I have to admit that Zack Snyder didn't do a terrible job directing Man of Steel.  Snyder curbed his tendency to throw needless slow-motion in every scene and instead played to his strength: visuals.  This is a fantastic-looking film.  The set and costume designs were good, the cinematography felt epic, and the super-battles were suitably huge.

Above: epic super-fart

Snyder still can't direct his actors to do much more than shout, but that's less noticeable in a superhero movie.  I did start to get bored during the action sequences, though.  Superman and Zod knocked created a lot of collateral damage, but a lot of it looked awfully similar.  The important thing is this: Snyder is a director with visual flair, and he made a gorgeous Superman movie.  He didn't write the movie, though.

That was the work of David S. Goyer and, to a lesser extent, Christopher Nolan.  This screenplay certainly achieved one of its goals; I can definitely see this film spawning sequels and tie-ins, just as Iron Man set the stage for the films leading to The Avengers.  It also told a solid origin story and left some plot threads dangling that will doubtlessly be used in the inevitable sequel.  From a branding perspective, I suppose this script also sets the DC movie universe apart from that of the Marvel universe; there is a distinct science fiction vibe to this superhero movie, and that could open a promising door to some of DC's other characters.  Having said all that, I must admit that I didn't actually like the writing in Man of Steel.  For every character that was done well (Lois Lane, Jor-El), there were three or four that took everything with straight-faced indifference.  I don't blame the actors or the director for that.  The script leaves very little for them to do, aside from pose and look upset.  The worst case of this was Zod, who was a raving lunatic for 90% of the movie and then, finally, had a humanizing moment, although it came an hour too late to make up for his behavior in the rest of the film.  But that's not the biggest problem with Man of Steel.

My biggest problem with Man of Steel is with the tone.  To say that it is "dark" doesn't do it justice.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Superman's Earth-Dad straight up tells his son to not save people.  Hell, his character basically commits tornado-assisted suicide just to teach his son a lesson.  What's worse is the fact that our Superman-to-be lets it happen.  He could have easily saved the life of his adoptive father, but he opts not to.  That is not exactly the sort of thing you typically see in a movie with a hero in it, super or otherwise.  Of course, the back story is also pretty bleak.  The Kryptonians had colonies spread across the galaxy, equipped with terraformers to make hostile environments suitable for their settlers.  When Krypton decided that they did not want to expand their empire, they sent out a bus to pick everyone up and bring them home cut off provisions to those colonies, and everybody died.   Later, when Zod is preparing to end the human race by terraforming the planet, he ignores the fact that Kryptonians can, over time, get used to Earth without killing every living creature on the planet.  Why?  Because he would rather eliminate an entire species than be patient.  Of course, he also could have used the terraformers on any of the other dozen former colonies that he visited, but that would have robbed him of the chance to destroy all human life.  That's pretty bleak stuff.  And then there are the approximately three million civilian casualties from the Superman/Zod battle.  The city of Metropolis is ruined.  Completely.  Most of those collapsed buildings had to have people inside them, and that ignores all the people running for their lives as their world fell on top of them.  

Yeah, hold on to your coat.  That will help you.

Similarly, Smallville will take a decade to recover from Zod's visit.  The nameless Asian city off the coast of where the terraformer was probably took a lot of damage in the form of tidal waves, too.  Some people have issues with Superman killing Zod, but it makes sense in the context of this movie.  Zod was going to kill those stupid people in the railway station, and Superman did all that he could to stop it, because those random people were more important than the several hundred he punched Zod through during their battle.  Actually, I was a little surprised at Zod's execution, but there weren't many options, and that thematically confirmed Superman as a citizen of Earth.  Still, the presumed off-camera body count in Man of Steel is mind-boggling.  And that sort of destruction could work in another movie.  But in a Superman movie...?  I'm not so sure.  Hell, I'm not sure that more than one of those depressing-ass factoids makes sense in a Superman movie, much less all of them.  There is usually a sense of hope and optimism accompanying this character that can sometimes come across as corny Americana.

Not this time.  Man of Steel feels like someone saw what a gritty tone did for the Batman franchise and decided "If they like gritty Batman, they'll love gritty Superman!"  And I suppose they gave the people what they wanted, if the box office numbers are to be believed.

As a standalone film, Man of Steel is decent.  It was a relief that this movie didn't completely suck, and I hope to see more DC movies in the future, thanks to the success of this film.  Amy Adams and Henry Cavill are a solid core for this franchise and I wouldn't even mind Zack Snyder returning for another movie.  I honestly believe that they're going in the wrong direction with this, though.  Sequels have to up the ante, and the angst, death and destruction in this movie are already turned up to eleven.  Man of Steel was well-executed and impressive, but the questionable thematic choices kept me from truly enjoying it.

Brian's Best and Worst of 2012

This is not an end-of-the-year list.  I forfeited that right when I didn't make this at the end of 2012.  I never get the chance to see all the biggest movies of the year in time for the end of the year anyway, so I am continuing my annual tradition of posting my own "best of" just before the Oscars.  That is not because the Oscars (don't call them Academy Awards this year!) are the end-all, be-all of movie awards.  They're just the biggest, and nothing good ever comes out in January or February, so it's okay to still focus on the previous year's releases.

I'm not a Top Ten sorta guy, though.  These are just my personal and highly subjective choices for the best and worst of the year.

What was considered for this list? Obviously, the movies of 2012 that I have already reviewed up to this point.  I do cram in a lot of movies right before the Oscars, too, and am suffering a backlog of recent reviews.  Here's what I watched before coming out with this list:

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  Alex Cross.  The Amazing Spider-Man.  Amour.  Argo.  ATM.  The Avengers.  Battleship.  Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  The Bourne Legacy.  Brave.  The Cabin in the Woods.  Coriolanus.  The Dark Knight Rises.  The Devil Inside.  Django Unchained.  Dredd.  Drew Peterson: Untouchable.  The Expendables 2.  FDR: American Badass.  Flight.  The FP.  Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  Goon.  The Grey.  Haywire.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The Hunger Games.  Iron Sky.  John Carter.  Lawless.  Les Miserables.  Life of Pi.  Lincoln.  Lockout.  Looper.  Moonrise Kingdom.  Nazis at the Center of the Earth.  Prometheus.  The Raven.  Red Tails.  Resident Evil: Retribution.  Seven Psychopaths.  Silent House.  Silver Linings Playbook.  Skyfall.  Total Recall (2012).  Underworld: Awakening.  V/H/S.  The Woman in Black.  Zero Dark Thirty.

Best Bit Character
While Michael Fassbender's charming/bad-ass turn in Haywire shouldn't be ignored --- he would make a good 007 if we were in the market for a new one --- nothing amused me as much as Jason Schwartzman in Moonrise Kingdom.  A lot of actors (okay, maybe not Bill Murray) merely play "dry" when working with Wes Anderson, but Schwartzman embraces the dry humor with just enough excitement to make him stand out, even in the most star-studded cast.

This needs to be a mass-produced Halloween costume

Worst Supporting Actress
There were some pretty good possibilities in this category in 2012.  Catherine Dent was noticeably bad in the noticeably bad Drew Peterson: Untouchable.  Perhaps one of the lovely ladies from Battleship?  No, I'm going to have to go with Bingbing Li in Resident Evil: Retribution.  She was so bad that all of her dialogue was redubbed.  In a Resident Evil movie, a franchise famous for not giving a crap about acting or coherence.  Ouch.

But hey, she can do...this.  That's something.

Best Supporting Actress
Look, I know that Anne Hathaway is going to win everything for Les Miserables.  And maybe she should; she was good in a I'm-singing-at-the-camera sort of way.  That's not my style, though.  That's why my favorite this year was Judi Dench in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It's been a while since I've seen Dench play anything but a cold-hearted bureaucrat, and it was a pleasure to watch her in a warm, relatable role.  Definitely the best part of a quality ensemble cast.

Promo for M: Lost in Delhi

Worst Supporting Actor
This was a tough one.  I seriously hated a lot of supporting actors this year.  50% of the enormous cast from V/H/S were annoying douchebags.  The Ionut Grama was annoying in the truly awful The Devil Inside.  And how about Frank Grillo as the jackass who bitches about everything and fixes nothing in The Grey?  All are compelling choices, but I have to go with someone who has been irritating me for most of the year: Rafe Spall as the world's stupidest biologist in Prometheus.

You see a creepy alien and you smile and get close?  Death is too good for you, sir.

Best Supporting Actor
There were a lot of supporting actor roles that I loved from the past year: Javier Bardem in Skyfall, Sam Rockwell in Seven Psychopaths, Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises, Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln, CGI Hulk from The Avengers, Michael Fassbender in Prometheus, etc.  The runner-up is definitely Fran Kranz as the best stoner in movie history in Cabin in the Woods.  As good as all those guys were this year, I can't overlook just how much I enjoyed Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained.  Is the role similar to his character from Inglorious Basterds?  To an extent, although I would argue switching the good/bad dynamic makes it different enough.  I just can't get over Waltz speaking Tarantino's dialogue, though --- they're so damn good together!

You're welcome.  Next round's on you.

Worst Actress
I'm going to go with the tough-as-nails Gina Coreno in Haywire for this one.  What makes her worse than any of the lead actresses wearing tight leather and shooting stuff this year?  Coreno had some amazing fight scenes in Haywire, but the movie didn't work because she gave an awful performance, even with the benefit of a good director.  If she was even halfway competent, she would have been on my shortlist for Best Actress.  THAT's how bad she is.

Example: I'm pretty sure this scene was supposed to be all dialogue

Best Actress
This one was easy.  Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games Silver Linings Playbook.  She carried that movie, and she wasn't even the main character.  She was funny, had levels and development, and showed some heart?  Come on!  What's not to love?  Besides, what are the other choices this year?  Jessica Chastain?  Ugh.  Pass.  This is the second time I've given this completely nonexistent and useless award to Lawrence, and it's getting to the point where I might actually watch movies because I have faith in the starring actress.  That's a big deal.

I like the scenes where Bradley Cooper is blurred best

Worst Actor
For as many bad movies as I watched this year, there were not many lead acting roles that I absolutely hated.  Sure, Rob Lowe was hilariously bad in his SNL-sketch-gone-horribly-wrong portrayal of a Chicagoan in Drew Peterson: Untouchable, but at least Lowe outperformed the material.  Taylor Kitsch --- who isn't really a bad actor --- played a role that emphasized all of his shortcomings in Battleship.  When your character is frequently described as being smart or talented, you should probably not come off as a complete moron, even when defeating board game-obsessed aliens.

That had better be your agent on the phone

Best Actor
This was a rough year for outstanding lead actor roles.  Of the nine Best Picture Oscar nods, only three of the films had Best Actor nominations!  I think 2012 was far stronger in the Supporting Actor category than the Lead Actor one.  Yes, Denzel Washington was terrific in Flight.  But the character and actor I would choose to watch or listen to again would be Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln.  I've always liked Lincoln as a historical figure, but Day-Lewis was perfectly cunning and warm; he commanded the screen with a soft voice, stooped posture, and anecdotes where other actors would have gone in a completely different direction.  Making America's (arguably) most legendary President into a human again was rather impressive.

The President apparently disagrees.  Or smells a fart.

Best Director
This is less about who was the best and more about what directors I liked that didn't have huge flaws in their finished products. I love Quentin Tarantino, but Django Unchained needed a damn editor. Cabin in the Woods was great, but Drew Goddard managed to make a great horror movie that was missing scares.  Competence narrows down the field considerably.  While Ben Affleck did a great job with the humor and pacing of Argo, I'm going to go with Sam Mendes and Skyfall.  He made a James Bond movie that was actually a legitimate film!  I don't like it because I'm comparing it to Bond movies --- I like it because it's awesome!  This is the first time anyone has tried to make a James Bond flick with character development, good cinematography and very good acting, and he was still able to film some great action sequences.  Mendes' work is sorely underrated on Skyfall.  Any decent director can make a prestige picture look good; making a series known for corny action and one-liners into an actually good movie in far more difficult.

Worst Director
There are movies that never had a chance of being good, and then there are the blockbusters that failed, in large part due to their direction.  Peter Berg took a stupid concept and did a terrible job with it, and Battleship was the nauseating result.  Timur Bekmambetov did a decent job with his cast, but pieced together a soulless abomination that sucked harder than any Twilight movie: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  The absolute worst direction this year, though, had to be Rob Cohen's work in Alex Cross.  He made a police procedural that was less competent than a third-rate CSI knockoff AND the acting wasn't great AND the editing was occasionally incoherent.  Stick to Vin Diesel movies, Mr. Cohen.

Biggest Disappointment
There were a lot of choices this year, primarily with sequels and reboots, but the one that stuck to me was Prometheus.  It's not bad, but it is intentionally obtuse and refuses to deliver on anything that its shared universe with the Aliens franchise has to offer.  Again, it isn't awful, but I was expecting a hell of a lot more.

These guys?  Seriously --- fuck these guys.

Biggest Surprise 
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year was me not noticing Joseph Gordon-Levitt's makeup while I was watching Looper, but as far as feature films go, Dredd is the winner.  It should have been bad.  It's a remake of a crappy movie, and it has a lead actor who specializes in not emoting.  And yet, Dredd managed to get its core concept just right.  I was hoping for a movie so-good-it's-bad, but ended up genuinely enjoying it.

...because this is totally sweet

Bottom 5 Movies
5. Iron Sky - How do you screw up a movie about Nazis living on the dark side of the Moon?  By assuming that the concept was funny enough to last for an entire movie.  This one had promise, but then dropped the ball when it tried to be clever, funny, or serious.  So, yeah, it sucks.

Above: my reaction

4. Battleship - I still have trouble understanding how this made it past the conceptual stage.  A board game about stealth transformed into an alien invasion action movie?  The guy who came up with that concept must have balls the size of Death Stars.  Battleship must have run an "obnoxious actors wanted" ad in Variety, too, because the supporting cast is about two peanuts shy of being 100% crap.

John Carter vs. Master Chief?

3. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - I like the source material and the director, and yet this turned out to be an unholy mess.  I am okay with the chocie to not play this concept for laughs.  I am not okay with it feeling like it was 2/3 exposition, 1/3 Abraham Lincoln running on top of a herd of stampeding animals.  Be funny or be darkly awesome.  Anything else is failure.

Get it?  The bad guy's using the horse as a pommel --- you know what?  Screw this movie.

2. The Devil Inside - Possession horror movies are oftentimes terrible.  With the advent of the found-footage horror sub-genre, possession movies have gotten a little worse.  The Devil Inside has a lame concept, irrational characters, and poor direction; none of those earmark it for being hate-worthy.  What separates it from the pack is its ending.  This is the worst film ending I have seen since the director's cut of The Butterfly Effect.  I only wish The Devil Inside strangled Ashton Kutcher, too.

This for ninety minutes would have made for a better film

1. ATM - This is the single dumbest concept for a film I have seen in a long time --- and I watched FDR: American Badass and Nazis From the Center of the Earth this year.  There are no redeeming qualities with this film, and then it gave me a nosebleed by inferring that the villain --- who had the most unbelievably idiotic victims I have ever seen on film --- was some sort of criminal mastermind.  Crap...I'm bleeding out my eyes now, just thinking about it.

They're looking at the world's largest bottle of scotch, AKA what you need to get through this movie

Top 10 Movies:
10. Lincoln - I absolutely love Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones in this film.  My biggest concern was how it would handle the whole "vampire hunter" angle, but I think Spielberg addressed the issue subtly.

9. Seven Psychopaths - Not a perfect movie by any means, but I adore the dialogue and I thought the supporting cast was stellar.  There are not many scripts that give Sam Rockwell license to be as crazy as he can be, but he was so odd that Christopher Walken looked...well, not normal, but sane by comparison.

8. Looper - I was concerned when this movie was being advertised.  Not only did it have a weird time travel concept at its core, but it contended that the Future Mob had sole control over time travel.  Add that to the incomprehensible choice to cover Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face in silly putty to look absolutely nothing like a young Bruce Willis, and this looked like a movie destined for the "mock" pile.  Looper surprised me, though.  It made some interesting and tough choices with its characters and delivered a movie intriguing enough for me to stop focusing on JGL's makeup.

Clever fan poster found on the Looper tumblr

7. Beasts of the Southern Wild - When you take semi-Artsy direction and some of the rawest acting talent around, you run a chance of creating something truly special.  This was easily the Academy Award-nominated film that I connected to best on an emotional level, and I am so disassociated with these characters that I cannot believe I live in the same country where it was shot.  And the editing and post-production work needed to make 6 year-old Quvenzhané Wallis this great was beyond impressive.

6. Argo - It is difficult to make a movie about a historical event suspenseful.  It's almost as hard to pace it well.  Ben Affleck managed to do both, and he still balanced it with humor.

This guy says he was in Argo.  I don't recall, but it's an awesome pic

5. The Dark Knight Rises - A fitting end to Christopher Nolan's trilogy, this was everything needed to thematically bring Batman's story to a close.  Bane was not quite as classic as Heath Ledger's Joker, but Tom Hardy was good enough to make me forget about the Joker while I was watching --- and that is damn impressive.  If this had more Batman and less Bruce Wayne, it might have been perfect.  It will tide me over until the next reboot (I'm calling 2017 right now).

4. The Cabin in the Woods - This was such a fantastic homage to the horror genre that I can overlook the fact that it is not scary in the least bit.  A smart script that goes in directions that you would not guess from the promos and a great script make this a personal favorite.

This movie also finally gives stoners their own action hero

3. The Avengers - I'm a huge fan of the Marvel super hero movies, so the one where all the heroes team up and are directed by Joss Whedon, with a script he co-wrote?  Yeah, this was a no-brainer.  What makes it special, though, are the unexpectedly great moments, like when Hulk smashes Loki.  More of this, please.

Do you have this poster?  It was free w/purchase of the Blu-Ray.  FYI.

2. Skyfall - This is easily the best James Bond movie since Connery got bored with the role.  It has the best direction and cinematography of any Bond movie, and the best villain in decades.  This is the James Bond movie to show to people who (somehow) don't like James Bond.

Fan art poster taken from here

1. Django Unchained- Yes, it could have been better with thirty minutes less run-time, but Django scratched so many itches that this year's film crop failed to.  It was gory as hell, it had Tarantino's famously foul humor, and universally good acting.  There were a few movies about slavery in 2012, but this was the film that was fun to watch and I will come back to time and time again.  Bless your enormous chin (which houses your ego), Quentin Tarantino!

Sorry.  This was better than any Django posters I could find

ATM

31 Days of Horror

Do you ever hear about a movie, or see a trailer or something, and just know you will see that movie?  I'm not talking about movies that you're excited to see, I'm talking about ones that you know will be inescapable?  It doesn't matter how good or bad the movie looks, you know that you will eventually watch it.  I feel that way about the Resident Evil and Underworld franchises; I don't like either, but I'm pretty sure I've seen every single one of them, usually because someone else says, "Hey, do you want to watch the new ___?"  This is how I felt about ATM.  The trailer made it look bad.  But I knew I would be watching horror movies all October, and I knew it went straight to video-on-demand (always a good sign), so this was a date made by destiny.  The question is whether destiny likes me or not.

ATM begins with David (Brian Geraghty) and Corey (Josh Peck) being awful at their day trading job.  No worries, though; tonight is the office Christmas party, which means that the night is full of fancy cocktails and expensive whiskey!

Or...maybe it means "just like a frat party, but while wearing suits."  Red cups?  Really?  David recognizes the party is his last chance to hit on Emily (Alice Eve), because it is her last day at the company, so he makes the most of it, in a clumsy and mostly ineffectual fashion.  He does convince her to let him drive her home, since it is below zero outside and she can't seem to catch a cab.  And she lives pretty far away, and it's pretty late, so she'll probably feel obliged to invite him in and, you know, ease his throbbing man-passion.

A guy going out of his way to help her?  That's the most realistic part of ATM

There's just one hitch: Corey is a cheap bastard and a cock blocker, so he insists on David driving him home, too.  Even though he lives in the opposite direction.  And he wants to stop for food.  But he has no cash, so they'll have to stop at an ATM.

"I know, I know.  I'm a bastard.  I've got a reservation for the ninth circle of Hell."

Naturally, since David wants to get his friend home as quickly as possible, he stops at any one of the hundreds of drive-thru ATMs attached to banks the last freestanding ATM in America.  And I'm not talking about an ATM that is on a city street, or one that is in the lobby of a bank, or one that is inside a convenience store --- this one is a booth in the middle of an enormous parking lot.  It's not even close to the road, so how did David know it was there?  That's not important.  What is important is that, to punish Corey for being a complete dick, David parks the car a few hundred feet away from the ATM entrance.  So that whole "let's hurry" thing?  Not as important as it seemed a few moments ago.  Oh, but it turns out that Corey's ATM card isn't working, so David has to get out of the nice, warm car and loan his douchebag friend money so he can maybe get Emily home before she realizes he's incredibly boring.  So he does.  And then Emily joins them, because David turned the car off (Really?) and it got cold.  Once they get the cash, they are about to leave, when...

...they see someone else in the parking lot.  Holy.  Fucking.  Shit.  And he's just...standing there, like a psychopath!  Are they overreacting?  Yes and no.  Right when common sense was about to shame these morons into walking to their car like adults, the dude in the winter coat murders a guy who was taking his dog for a walk (through a parking lot?).  This winter coat guy clearly means business, and by "business," I of course mean "murder."  Thankfully, the ATM enclosure has heat, lighting, bulletproof glass, and a security door.  But can that stop someone who is capable of such horror?

Look into the face of appropriately clothed evil and despair!

There are only three real characters in ATM, so breaking down the acting here will be thankfully brief.  Brian Geraghty was timid and whiny when his character was supposed to be shy and likable.  I don't ordinarily dislike Geraghty, but he took a role that should have at least been sympathetic and instead played the part like a little bitch.  Alice Eve was more likable, but so is the killer.  Eve was decent before the trio stopped at the ATM, and once she was there, her character played the weak link in the group.  Her dialogue indicates that Eve did a decent job with the part, but her character was unrealistic and annoying.  This is the first movie I have seen Josh Peck in, but I will congratulate him for making it out of Nickelodeon-child-actor-hood and not being a ham.  He doesn't have nearly the weaselly charm that his character is supposed to have, but I thought he was a slight improvement over Geraghty's impression of a six-year-old girl with bladder problems.

"Why don't we have winter clothing, like that guy in the parking lot?"

While it is certainly not good, the acting is not the main problem with ATM.  Is it the direction, though, or the writing?  Let's look at the direction first.  This is David Brooks' first attempt at directing a feature film.  With a limited cast of characters, enclosed in a small space while someone tries to kill them, it would make sense for the director to have a firm hand on the tone of this film.  He does not.  There is no suspense in this movie.  There is no tension.  When a character tried to escape the ATM and wound up being clotheslined by some fishing wire in the parking lot, it should have been startling, or it should have elicited a gasp.  I laughed until I couldn't stop coughing, and then I rewound and played it again to make sure I didn't miss anything. 

...and this should look like terror instead of Alice Eve saying "hello" with a Kennedy accent

I blame Brooks for not seeing some of the problems in this script and trying to overcome them.  Three people are willingly staying inside an ATM vestibule because a killer is outside, and yet they constantly lose track of where the killer is?  How is that not a priority?  Wouldn't someone be assigned to lookout duty?  That is a very visual problem with this movie, which makes it a problem for the director.  As for the technical bits, Brooks was uninspired.  Aside from occasionally cutting to the ATM security feed, his style was boring and commonplace.  He did make an odd editing choice during the opening credits to intersperse shots of the crime scene at the end of the film with the introductory scenes at the very beginning of the movie. It basically served the same purpose as having the survivor of a horror movie recount the events in a flashback, but without singling out any particular character as a survivor.  It's not a terrible way to hint at the horror to come, but not give away the plot; of course, that horror movie trope is cheap and completely unnecessary to begin with, but at least he did a halfway decent job with it.  One thing that you will notice about ATM is how boring it is to watch. 

The action scenes suck, too.  Just sitting through a fire?  BO-ring.

That is only partly due to the subject matter.  The rest if dull cinematography.  How many times can you show the same camera shot?  I understand that the story takes place in an enclosed space with a small cast, but you have to mix things up to keep the viewer interested!  Buried takes place exclusively inside a coffin and used more interesting camera angles than ATM.

This shot is 80% of ATM's storyboards

As sub-par as the directing is, it is the writing that sinks ATM.  Chris Sparling (who wrote Buried) received the writing credit for this movie, although I don't see anything to indicate whether he turned in a traditional script or if he handed in a stack of papers covered in crayon scribbles and boogers.  This is easily the worst produced script I have seen in a good long while.  Sucker Punch was better written than this movie, that's how dumb this script is.  How is this script idiotic?  Let's run down the list:

• Three young professionals live in what appears to be the Wisconsin/Illinois area (judging by the killer's maps) in Winter, and yet none of them have a real Winter coat?  Or gloves?  And only the girl has a hat, and it's one of those fluffy ones that are more for looks than warmth?  That's not how it works in the American Midwest.  Nobody looks sexy outdoors in December in Chicago.  Everyone bundles the hell up.  Everyone.  Even those assholes who wear shorts all year long will wear a puffy down jacket when it gets below zero.
• Every other character in the movie is wearing the exact same Winter jacket with a fur trim on the hood.  I live in Illinois, and I don't know a single man with fur trim on his jacket.  I also rarely see people with their hoods up, unless it's sleeting.  Hats, yes.  Hoods, not so much.  A string of men, all indistinguishable from each other because they all own the same damn coat and have their hoods up?  That's about as likely as three people failing to have Winter jackets at the same time.
• All three twentysomethings left their phones in the car (or let their battery die).  All three?  I am just outside the smartphone generation, and I rarely leave my phone in another room, let alone get out of the car without it.  You're telling me that these three all did it at the same time?
• Emily left her purse in the car (which was not her car, and was out in the open) when she got out to go to the ATM.  I'm no expert on women, but I give that a zero percent chance of happening.
• The killer shows up with no weapons.  What the hell?  His original plan was to look menacing, until someone gave him the means to find a weapon?  Hell, he couldn't have done half of the things he did to the ATM vestibule without the tools he conveniently found in the trunk of David's car.
• Who leaves a fire hose out overnight, let alone around Christmas?
• David has a fully-stocked toolbox in his trunk.  He trades securities or something like that.  Why would he keep a few hundred dollars of non-tire-changing tools in his trunk?

There are several more examples, but those are the most mind-numbingly stupid instances of the writing in this movie.  In the other cases, you can blame horror movie logic for their choices, but these are  inexcusable.

"Now I have machine gun tire iron.  Ho ho ho."

It is also worth pointing out that the movie portrays the killer as a mastermind that planned all this.  Before the opening credits, we saw him writing on some schematics, planning his attack.  But here's the thing: while the killer was "clever" enough to SPOILER ALERT: not get caught on camera, his foolproof plan apparently depended on having the stupidest three people alive do exactly the right things to allow this plan to work.  Three people that decide not to overpower one person, even when they have proof that they could?  Check.  Three people with cell phones who all happen to leave their cell phones in the car?  Double check.  Three people who are made more desperate by the fact that they don't know what to wear when it is ridiculously cold out?  Triple check.  A group who parks their car just far enough away to have no chance of reaching it without the villain reaching them?  Quadruple check.

Finally!  Somebody parks their damn car close to the ATM machine.  He's helping!

If you change any of those conditions, all of which are extremely unlikely, this dastardly plan falls apart.  And if you think about any of those conditions, the movie falls apart.  But let's not be completely negative.  When David and Corey were having bro time, talking like normal guys, the dialogue was awkward and not terribly clever.  So there's a silver lining.

As bad as ATM is, I couldn't help laughing at its ineptness.  It takes itself so seriously that the obvious mistakes and plot holes feel utterly ridiculous.  I can't imagine a modern movie with recognizable actors that is stupider than ATM.  More pretentious?  Sure.  More frustrating?  Easily.  Simply worse?  Yes.  But dumber?  The only thing that could be dumber than ATM would be a sequel.  By the way, the ending clearly sets up a sequel.  Since this movie made about forty-two cents against a budget of three million dollars, it probably won't happen, but how sweet would it have been for ATM 2: The ATMining to have had the same villain, with the same MO, against someone who wasn't fatally moronic?

Even better: same coat, but in Florida

The fact that ATM got made is an insult to any unpublished screenplays out there.

That doesn't mean it's not fun to watch, though.  This movie has just enough stupidity to keep me interested in pointing out what the next mistake will be.  It was close, though.  There is a fine line between Lefty Gold and utter trash sometimes, I will admit.  ATM straddles that line for much of the film.  Thankfully, the fate of each character and the reveal of the killer as a "mastermind" was enough to make me belly laugh.  I wouldn't advise watching this sober and/or alone, but in the right state of mind, it's pretty solid Lefty Gold.