Be Kind, Please Rewind

He’s Endangerous. He’s the…

Vidiot

Week of July 18, 2014

Rarity is a hard thing to find. First up…

 

Rio 2

Rio 2? Isn’t that the colloquial term for the shantytown where they hid Rio’s impoverished children during the World Cup?

My mistake, it actually refers to the continuation of a story, not a cover-up.

Married macaws Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) have started a family in suburbia.

Domesticated and docile, Jewel feels the family needs to return to their roots, so she proposes a trip to the Amazon.

In the tropics they encounter old friends (Jamie Foxx, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez) and new enemies in the form of illegal loggers.

A perfunctory sequel, Rio 2 doesn’t deviate from its mediocre origins or up the ante in any aspect. 

  

Sprinkled with forgettable ditties like the first, the Sérgio Mendes produced soundtrack annoys more than entertains. The same applies to the overworked characters.

Incidentally, we need to chop down rain forests so we can make newspapers for macaws to crap on.  Red Light

Transcendence 

The downside to being a disembodied head is that you’re relegated to the same sexual position for the rest of your life.

Unfortunately for the digitized dome in this sci-fi film, he can’t even offer oral.

With an extremist’s bullet poisoning his body, Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) convinces his wife (Rebecca Hall) to upload his brainwaves into the sentient super-computer he has been designing.

With access to the Internet, Will’s power grows exponentially - much to the chagrin of his contemporaries (Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany), the terrorist leader (Kate Mara) and the FBI (Cillian Murphy).

Their fears are later confirmed when Will’s mind control abilities, along with his dream of singularity, threatens humanity. 

While Transcendence does present some interesting points on nanotechnology, it’s lackluster script and hollow performances dull those points.

Furthermore, if we start downloading our minds onto the web than Heaven had better secure a domain name.  Red Light

Heaven is for Real

If Heaven is a real place than why do all of my letter bombs get sent back unopened?

Despite not having an updated mailing address, this drama still swears Heaven exists.

Pastor Todd (Greg Kinnear) always held the Lord in high regard. That was until his four-year-old Colton (Connor Corum)was stricken by infirmity.

In the hospital chapel, Todd questions God’s action, pleading to take him instead.

Miraculously, Colton pulls through, but something about him is different.

Confessing to have traveled to Heaven while under sedation, Colt recants for his family the folks he met there, including his great-grand father, his unborn sister, and Jesus Christ.

Based on the bestseller, Heaven is for Real is more movie of the week than cinematic marvel. While Kinnear’s turn as the skeptical preacher is believable, the kid’s account of Heaven is not. 

Furthermore, Heaven was a real place up until science came along. Red Light

***Near Deaf Experience***

The Quiet Earth

The worst thing about a near death experience is you already told everyone off.

Luckily for the suicidal man in this sci-fi movie, there’s no one left to apologize to.

Zac (Bruno Lawrence), a scientist who designed a singular electrical grid, awakens to find all of the world’s clocks have stopped at precisely 6:12 A.M.

What’s more, he appears to be the only person left alive.

Fortunately that assumption is proven wrong when he encounters Joanne (Alison Routledge) and Api (Pete Smith).

With the sun endangered by Zac’s ongoing electrical experiment, the three most decide who’ll helm a suicide mission to destroy the device.

A believable doomsday scenario colonized by a progressive love-triangle and philosophical ideas on death, this 1985 New Zealand import ends as inexplicably as it begins.

Furthermore, when you are one of the three humans alive on Earth, it makes remembering your social insurance number so easy.

He Ctrl Alt Repeats. He’s the…

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