Dragon Wars: D-War

Here's a bit of wisdom I learned from the beginning of this movie: "Every 500 years, a young woman is born."  End of sentence.  Thank you for the insightful information, Dragon Wars.

Dragon Wars is a South Korean movie that actually received a theatrical release in the United States, which is pretty rare.  It was called D-War in most other countries, but I guess Americans associate "D" with "douche" when the rest of the world apparently thinks "dragon."  I wonder why that is?  And no, I do not know why the "war" is pluralized in the American title.

This movie gave me a rash inside my brain, so I'm going to try and blow through the plot pretty quickly.  In modern times, a reporter, Ethan (Jason Behr), manages to get in close to a disaster scene.  This leads to Ethan remembering something, and we flash back twenty-five years, to a day when Ethan's dad left him alone in a curiosity shop with an unsmiling man (Robert Forster) named Jack.  Don't worry, this isn't the molestation episode of Diff'rent Strokes.  Jack wants Ethan alone so he can tell him a special story.  You see, around the year 1500 AD, the Yuh-Yi-Joo --- the woman who is born with the ability to change an Imoogi dragon into a different kind of dragon, obviously --- was faced with a problem.  There are two Imoogis that want to transform, one good and one evil.  And apparently, she either didn't know which one to pick, or had stage fright, or something dumb like that.  Anyway, her guardian/boyfriend decided that the best option was for them to jump off a cliff to their deaths.  And Ethan is that guardian reincarnated.  Obviously.  It is up to Ethan to find the reincarnated Yuh-Yi-Joo and help her, I don't know, not transform the mean Imoogi?  It's not that I don't understand the plot of this movie, but he's never really given very good instructions, so I'm not sure what his master plan is supposed to be aside from not letting the bad guys win.  Back in modern times, Ethan manages to track down the new Yuh-Yi-Joo, Sarah (Amanda Brooks), just in time for a dragon-worshiping army to invade their city looking for her.  Good luck protecting Sarah from bad guys who look kind of like Uruk-hai riding giant lizards.

Promotional still from the CBS Fall replacement comedy, I Will Rape the Corpses of Your Family.

Here's first sign that this is an awful movie: any character that hears the back story to this film asks, "What are you talking about?"  It's not like they were genuinely reacting to the nonsensical story; that is what the screenwriters wanted them to say.  Another bad sign: the police in this movie refer to a giant dragon attacking a skyscraper as a "Code 3."  Really?  Three?  It's that common?  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the police are prepared for any eventuality, but that just seems unlikely.  Another clue that this isn't the great fantasy/action movie the filmmakers probably (but not definitely) had in mind?  It has this guy playing a dramatic supporting role:

Personally, I like Craig Robinson.  His presence in a comedic movie or television show doesn't guarantee quality, but I generally enjoy him when I see him.  He hasn't done much in the realm of dramatic acting, though, so his casting here is kind of puzzling.  And this isn't one of those comedian-trying-to-earn-an-Oscar roles, either; he's just Ethan's co-worker.  Robinson isn't bad in this movie, it's just that he is obviously not being used for comic relief, and yet he is not being used for dramatic effect, either.  Well, as far as comedic actors in fantasy/action movies go, it could have been a lot worse.

'Nuff said.

But enough about how weird it is for Craig Robinson to be in a Korean dragon movie.  What about the rest of the cast?  Uniformly awful.  Jason Behr does his very best Dimitri Martin impression,

Pop quiz: is he from a cancelled Comedy Central or WB show?

but his expression-free acting and ridiculous dialogue made me wonder if the part was written for Keanu Reeves.  His Yuh-Yi-Joo was played by Amanda Brooks, who adds adds a much-needed strong female role her own specialty to this film: a look of confusion that mirrors that of the audience.  I would say that Robert Forster looked embarrassed as the creepy old man that explains the back story, but that would require him to show any emotion at all, something he has never excelled at in his forty-plus years of acting.  Of course, more than a little of the blame should be given to director Hyung-rae Shim, who spent years on this movie and still ended up with final takes from his actors that other directors wouldn't include in their blooper reels.

But is anyone really interested in the acting found in Dragon Wars?  Of course not!  Dragons are the name of the game here, and this movie delivers in...um...snakes with antlers?

Okay, I get it.  Just because I think of fire-breathing dinosaurs with wings when I think of "dragons" doesn't mean that's how they are seen in Korea.  This movie opts for the more snake-like charm of traditional Chinese dragons.  They don't breathe fire and they don't fly.  Except when they do, which appears to be arbitrary.  And none of them look like European dragons.  Except for some of them.

How did it not get hit by the propeller?

If you think this is going to be a dumb action movie, you're only half right.  The action isn't worth tuning in for.  The CGI effects would have been astonishing, if this film had come out before the first Jurassic Park.  For a movie that was released (in theaters!) in 2007, this isn't what you would expect.  Even if you enjoy foreign movies (and I do) that are more than a little ridiculous (that's me again) this movie still disappoints because it's just life-suckingly bad at what it wants to do.

Now, if you're in the mood for a bad movie, Dragon Wars is certainly worth a thought.  Do you enjoy laughing at repeated acts of poor filmmaking?  Then keep an eye out for the single car that spins out whenever a CGI snake dragon is supposed to be tearing down a street; it's easy to spot, since it is the only car driving on the roads --- of Los Angeles, mind you --- in any of these scenes.  Do you like seeing huge armies that are seemingly intimately familiar with a variety of dragon-like creatures, despite having 500 years in between the last time these secret armies last rode to war?  Then you will love the lumbering, rocket launcher-carrying monsters that are equipped with old-timey football helmets for their safety.

Who forgot to fix the dinosaurs' chin straps?

It's interesting that the movie never addresses who this evil army is, or how they became such a military precision machine.  I can suspend my disbelief for a cult army of a few hundred creepy guys, but this is an organized military group, complete with uniforms, armor, and weapons --- not to mention dragons and dinosaurs, equipped with goddamned rocket launchers.  Who are these people, and where do they practice?  Of course, it's even more interesting that the movie never asks the question "Why didn't the good dragon fight the bad one 500 years ago?" 

Perhaps the greatest question comes at the end.  Ethan and Sarah are kidnapped and brought to the evil base, which is an enormous castle complex located in what appears to be Mordor.  Why they brought Ethan with is beyond me, but it's probably the same reasoning they used to attack Sarah with dragons and rockets, when they needed her alive.  Anyways, the whole climax thing happens and suddenly Ethan is left all alone, with no bad or good guys left.  He's just alone in Mordor, with fire-cracked plains stretching out in all directions, as far as the eye can see.  How is he supposed to get home?  Is he supposed to walk?  Is that supposed to be a happy ending?  The hero is going to die of dehydration and exposure.  Actually, that does make me feel a little better about watching this. 

 Of course, I love asking questions about dumb movies.  It gives me pleasure.  So, I grant Dragon Wars Lefty Gold status as entertainment despite awfulness.

Hot Tub Time Machine

I guess the big question with Hot Tub Time Machine is why anyone would ever need a review to tell them about this movie.  If the title doesn't explain it all to you, then what can I do to help?  It's a stupid title for a movie that has no intentions of being anything more or less than a stupid comedy.  To be completely honest, the gloriously stupid title (the best since Snakes On a Plane) would have been enough to convince me to watch this movie.  Adding in John Cusack and Craig Robinson is just icing on the cake.

The premise is that three one-time best friends are now eking out sad existences.  Adam's (Cusack) girlfriend has just moved out and apparently taken most of his belongings.  The only person he sees regularly is his nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), who spends all his time in his basement room playing video games.  Nick (Robinson) is married to a controlling wife (who insisted he hyphenate his last named when they got married) and his job includes cleaning the feces out of rich people's dogs.  They are brought together when Lou (Rob Corddry), an alcoholic party animal, makes the mistake of revving his engine in time to Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home" with the garage door closed.  Someone (who could this possibly be?  It's late at night, he lives alone, and the garage is closed!) saves his life and the hospital assumes that this was a failed suicide attempt.  Since Lou's family hates him and he has no real friends, his childhood buddies, Adam and Jacob, rally to his hospital bedside.  They don't talk to Lou any more because "he's an asshole," but they agree to take care of him because "he's [their] asshole."  If you don't have someone like that in your circle of friends, chances are, you're that guy.

Lou assures them that it was just an accident, but they decide that the best way to cheer up a hard-drinking forty year-old adolescent is to relive their youthful debauchery by visiting their old stomping grounds.  These stomping grounds happen to be a ski town that has all but been condemned; the town's stores are all out of business and their formerly hedonistic hotel is now filled with the elderly and their cats.  The group (which includes Jacob, for some reason) gets their old room, which comes with a broken hot tub.  The hotel repairman (Chevy Chase) fixes it so that glows with a yellow light that makes the water a suspicious shade of urine yellow, but the group strips down and gets hot tub drunk right away.

When they wake up, it is 1986.  The three friends now inhabit their eighteen year-old bodies and are at the bustling ski resort in the prime of their lives.  Jacob has also gone back in time, although no explanation is given as to how or why he is in his own modern day body.  The group is warned by the repairman not to change anything in the past, but that plan gets old fast.  Adam has the chance to avoid dumping the perfect girlfriend, Nick can redeem his musical dreams, Lou can drink a lot and try to get laid, and Jacob can try prevent his existence from being wiped out by the group changing the future.  There are a lot of 80s jokes, some gratuitous breasts, a few shots of Corddry's naked butt, and a lot of slapstick comedy.  Some of it works, some of it doesn't, but it's all pretty stupid.

For being so obviously dumb, this movie had some pretty solid direction.  Steve Pink is better known as a screenwriter (he wrote High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank), but he has a gift for catching humor with his camera.  Some of that is obviously due to him giving the cast some leeway with their lines, but I'll give Pink credit for making this ridiculous movie not come off as amateurish.

The main cast is pretty good, too.  John Cusack is always likable in his movies, even though he hasn't made a great one in a while.  Craig Robinson is rapidly becoming a reliable quality gauge for stupid comedies.  His deadpanning into the camera the phrase "hot tub time machine" is worth seeing the movie for, just by itself.  Clark Duke plays a chubby nerd this time, expanding on his varied film credits that include "chubby dork," "chubby dweeb," and the adjective-less "nerd."  What will make or break your enjoyment of this movie is how much you like Rob Corddry.  Most of the film's humor comes from him, including every single cheap or gross-out joke in the script.  Personally, I got tired of him pretty quickly, but he still made me laugh on occasion, which I found impressive.  Usually, when I am turned off by a comedic character, there is no way back into my good graces (I'm judgmental like that), but his timing was good and some of his lines are brilliant.  He's really, really obnoxious, though.

The supporting cast is surprisingly full decent performances.  Of course, Chevy Chase has fun as the nutty/supernatural repairman, so he's decent enough.  Crispin Glover gets some laughs as a bellboy doomed to lose his arm...somehow.  Thomas Lennon has a cameo that is a little funny, I guess, but nothing special.  The young cast was surprisingly decent, too.  Sebastian Stan overacted as the stereotypical 80s movie ski jerk, but this isn't a movie that requires subtlety, so it worked well.  Similarly, Lyndsy Fonseca and Collette Wolfe played their ditzy snow bunny slut roles as well as the roles demanded.  Lizzy Caplan did well as Cusack's "true" love interest, and they managed to give the movie something a little deeper than a stupid slapstick comedy deserves.

Are there any flaws in this film?  Well, yeah.  But to detail the film's scientific and logical flaws is missing the point.  You don't think a movie titled Hot Tub Time Machine really cares do you?  If this sounds like a stupid movie, you're absolutely right.  It's dumb and embraces that level of cleverness fully.  It's definitely better than the title implies, but a lot of the jokes generate chuckles instead of laughs.  Admittedly, a big part of that for me was because I didn't really have fun with Rob Corddry's character, even though he had some of the film's best lines.  This movie's biggest flaw was in giving the bulk of the humor to the least likable character.  Corddry carried this film's humor, even though there were several other actors capable of chipping in.  I thought Craig Robinson was underused, despite his theoretically main character status.  Chevy Chase, Thomas Lennon and Crispin Glover could have done more, too.  As far as stupid slapstick goes, there are certainly worse movies to watch, but this just isn't funny enough to satisfy me.

Miss March (Unrated)

Okay, I will be the first to admit it: this movie looks stupid.  Really, really stupid.  Like, Scary Epic American Pie Movie Film 4.25 stupid.  And yet, after watching previews for this movie, something inside me said "Well, it might not be so bad."  Don't get me wrong...this movie hits the stupid button like it's a whack-a-mole game.  I still laughed.  Why?  Because I find some things funny, jerks.

The premise is pretty weak, I'll admit.  Eugene (Zach Cregger) has been abstinent throughout high school, but his girlfriend, Cindi (Raquel Alessi), has finally talked him into having sex after their senior prom.  Nervous and not very sure about his decision, Eugene looks to his best friend, Tucker (Trevor Moore), for advice.  His advice is to do some shots of whiskey.  Drunk and confident, Eugene leaves his friend to finally lose his virginity...but opens the wrong door, falls down some stairs, and ends up in a coma instead.  Four years later, Eugene finally wakes up from his coma, only to find that his family has moved out of state and his girlfriend is MIA.  The only friend that stuck around is Tucker, who has modeled his entire life after the model set by Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine.  Thanks to his Playboy subscription, Tucker realizes where Cindi has gone; she's the centerfold in the March issue!  And to think, I assumed nothing would ever reference the movie's title!  The two friends make the only logical conclusion they can: they must take a road trip to the Playboy Mansion so Eugene can find Cindi and Tucker can fulfill his lifelong dream of visiting the Mansion.

If you think that the premise is just a sad excuse to make as many tasteless jokes as possible, you aren't completely wrong.  There's a lot of dumb, gross jokes here.  Honestly, a lot of the jokes are borderline for me.  If they were delivered or written just a little differently, I probably would have hated half of this movie.  Luckily, Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore (who both co-directed and co-wrote the film) are masters of walking the line between stupid-funny and stupid-annoying.  These two are (only slightly) better known as part of the Whitest Kids U' Know comedy troupe.  If you have the opportunity, check them out; they are punchline-based sketch comedy (like my hilarious friends in Big Dog Eat Child), and are more than willing to be really, really stupid for the sake of a joke.

The characters are pretty basic here; Eugene and Tucker are just opposites as a sensitive virgin and a sex-crazed egomaniac.  The supporting characters are just as basic.  The girlfriends don't do a whole lot; Tucker's girlfriend, Candace (Molly Stanton) gives a solid performance as a crazy girl and Raquel Alessi isn't required to do much more than be pretty as the title character.  Only Craig Robinson's performance as rapper Horsedick.mpeg moves beyond a broad stereotype into the realm of complete ridiculousness.  As Robinson's character's name might indicate, this is still a stupid, stupid movie.  Aside from that, there are a couple of aggressively sexual lesbians, crazy firemen, some random sluts, and (of course) Hugh Hefner himself.  This is actually the best movie I have seen Hefner in, barely edging out The Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie.  I'm not criticizing the supporting cast, mind you.  They exist as fodder for jokes, and they do the job they were hired to do.  Who should hang out on Hosedick.mpeg's tour bus?  Whores?  Done.  Who do you want to play insatiable lesbian lovers?  Two hot chicks that are willing to do nudity?  Double done! Who should play a bit role as a doctor?  Cedric Yarbrough?  Excellent choice, my friends.

Believe it or not, a movie with a character named Hosedick.mpeg has some offensive jokes.  Most notably, this movie has some disgusting bathroom humor (I'd say it's the best of its kind since Dumb and Dumber) and has two odd running gags, one at the expense of epileptics and another aimed at firemen.  I guess the epileptic and fireman gags aren't really offensive so much as they are snowball jokes; they start out only kind of funny, but get better as the movie goes on.  Another one of those is the T-shirt that Eugene ends up wearing for the entire movie.  It's a dumb, cheap laugh, but it's never referenced again, which helps undercut the movie's supposedly sincere moments.  You might notice something odd when Eugene is being talked into sex by his girlfriend at the beginning of the movie; I don't know if the theatrical version has this, but the dialogue is dubbed over in parts.  I did a little research and found that they replaced the word "retard" with "crackhead."  That was what went over the line for the producers.  Not a black man called Horsedick (dot-mpeg!).  I guess that's what they refer to as a "judgment call."

 It's difficult to write a review for a comedy that actually makes people want to watch the movie.  You don't want to describe the jokes in detail.  The plot and acting are both going to be, almost necessarily, universally poor.  All that really matters is the writing, timing, and delivery.  In those three important areas, this film delivers.  Sure, Miss March has gotten scathing reviews across the board.  Yes, Hugh Hefner was nominated for a Razzie award for his supporting role.  I think those critics missed the point.  This was never going to be that romantic comedy with heart that will function as a date movie.  It's not a coming of age tale (not really) that has an out-of-left-field emotional ending, like most sex comedies.  These characters do grow a little, but not much.  Instead, this movie goes for the funny.  Sometimes, they swing and miss.  Badly.  Like, corkscrew into the ground badly.  But, once it gets you laughing, you will find even the stupidest moments endearing.  Or, at the very least, you will feel smarter than the characters.  Still not sure if this movie is for you?  Check out some Whitest Kids U'Know clips on youtube.