All Style, No Substance

Yesterday, I doubled up on Wanted and Hancock. I found myself underwhelmed by both. Now, I know it's the summer, and the movies TEND to be mindless ventures chock full of explosions and car chases, but I found both of these movies to be so lacking in substance I was hungry afterwards.

Now Wanted at least was pretty to look at. This is what I took away from it: James McAvoy is hot. Angelina Jolie is breathtakingly hot (for real, there was a collective gasp in the theatre the first time she came on screen). And despite the fact that she weighs about 90 pounds soaking wet (seriously, Angie, don't lose all that baby weight, you look better with some meat on you), she can totally kick anyone's ass.

Now, I will admit that the action scenes looked really cool and were shot very well. But anyone who knows me, knows that I have a low tolerance for crazy ass action sequences where said characters fighting should have been dead from the very start (see why I was not a fan of the Pierce Brosnan Bond flicks). Well, that was a good bit of the action scenes in Wanted. While there is a SPECTACULAR sequence with a train crossing a bridge and going off the rails, I found myself going "REALLY?! Come on!!". But maybe that is just me. I also think I was unable to suspend my disbelief because I just didn't care too much about anyone in the movie. If there is substance to the story, then I am willing to go with them where ever the movie takes me (e.g. Iron Man). But with Wanted it was ALL style, and no substance, so I left the movie and forgot all about it 10 minutes later. Except for how hot Angie is. And congratulations to her, as her twins were born yesterday...AND she gave them normal names, Knox and Vivienne. Well done.

I had been hesitant to see Hancock from the beginning. The previews were never really to appealing to me and I was always like "What is this story here?". Well, my instincts turned out to be right on. Sadly, I also knew the major twist going into the movie (thanks alot EW!), so there was alos no "Aha!!" 'moment for me. However, the planting of the twist was so blatantly obvious, I would have guessed ten minutes in.

Let me set this straight. I like Will Smith. I find him very enjoyable as an Actor, and I tend to really enjoy all his films. He is one of the few universal movie stars left in this flash in a pan era of celebrity. And that is why I was disappointed in this movie, cause to me it seemed he was blatantly phoning this performance in, Maybe it was the script (which among other things, gave zero insight into why Hancock was such an "asshole"), maybe it was the direction, but I haven't seen such a one note performance from Smith in a long time. Jason Bateman delivered more of the same for him recently. I think he's great, and I am really glad he's made such a comeback, but I am leering on the side of wanting more from him, cause I know he is capable of it. We all saw it in Juno, so go there, Jason, go there! Again, I really think it was the combination of the script and directing. If it was the directing, I find it odd, cause the director was Peter Berg, creator of the wonderful Friday Night Lights television show...and that show has deeply layered characters. So I am blaming the script for this one. It was really bad. It had little to no driving force or conflict, and it was incredibly heavy handed and lacked subtlety.

I guess movies like Iron Man, and the upcoming Dark Knight (omg can't waaaaaaaait) have raised my expectations for summer popcorn flicks. Yes, they are fun, and don't expect you to put too much into them, but I find I like my blockbusters with a side of substance.