88 minutes, 21 ironman, 30000 feet and a middle seat.

Ok, so this is kind of a compilation of reviews after i took a flight to vancouver for work. The flight (air canada) was terrible, being delayed 3 hours and 15 minutes, i got stuck on a standby flight in the back middle seat where the headphones don't work and the seats don't recline (not mine, but the guy next to me). While on this flight (and the one back, where i ALSO got stuck in a middle seat, despite paying in advance for an aisle - fuck you, air canada!), i saw three movies that will knock your socks off... for how terrible they are. In decreasing order of quality, here they are!

21:

A movie about the MIT card counting club (but "white washed", as it were), this movie takes a semi interesting story and fills it with needless romance, needless adversaries and needless(ly) easy math problems to prove the main character is a "genius". I guess i should be happy they used real problems, but still, can't the damned writers do some BASIC research? It's not that hard; if you don't "get" math, find someone who does.

Anyway, the story is pretty solid but strewn with inaccuracies and pointlessness for the sake of "conflict". The acting's not bad, but i really could've done without the constant updating of the count scenes that seem more to distract than add anything to the story. Maybe i'm being biased by my other crappy movie selections, but i'll give this movie a +2.5 out of five.

Ironman:

While i must admit that because my headphone jack didn't work i couldn't hear the entire movie. But, that being said, no amount of dialog, no matter how elequoent and expertly delivered could've saved this movie from the crapfest that it was.

The main character, ironman (tony stark) is a weapons manufacturer who gets captured while on a trip to afghanistan and ends up imprisoned in a squalid looking cave so well equiped that within 20 minutes three miracles of science will be performed within its walls. First, his cellmate performs open heart surgery and saves stark's life, then stark builds a powersource that can last for eons and needs no recharnging (why doesn't his company sell this?) and a preliminary version of the ironman suit. Wow... and yet, the afghanis can't even equip themselves with anything better than archaic cold-war weaponry and camels for transportation. I'm not sure if this is a racist statement (by the movie) or just inadequate writing, but neither would surprise me.

Tony escapes back home a changed man and decides to change his companies focus from weapons to humanitarian pursuits, but still stubbournly refuses to sell that magnificint power generation technology you could build in a cave that could last for a lifetime (THAT'S how you manage a business!). He also builds himself the REAL ironman suit in the basement of his mansion and as unbelievable as this part is, it's probably the best part of the movie, since you've been waiting (by this point) a good 45 minutes to see the titular character.

Anyway, once the ironman character is (finally) established, the movie has some catching up to do and it makes no mistake of this by ramming through the remaining bits of plot until the movie itself climaxes in a fight between ironman and a second ironman that's not bad, but a long time coming given the rest of the movies tone of doing nothing. As the credits role, Ironman the song is played and i can't help but feel like the song should've been played a hell of a lot earlier.

My reviewer senses are tingling and they tell me to give this movie a 1 out of five.

88 minutes:

GARBAGE! As far as quality is concerned, 88 minutes sits somewhere between "the worst movie i've ever seen" (spiderman3?) and "the worst movie ever made". For a movie that's supposed to be going somewhere (it's a thriller) it sure takes forever to get there. The by line of the movie is that a forensic psychiatrist gets a call on his cell phone and is told he has 88 minutes to live... and that's also the entire plot. Really, there's nothing else to it. The writers/directors and everyone spend no time on "needless" things like character development, atmosphere or coherency in the plot and get right into the "action". While the movie is supposed to be about a killer who tortures and kills his victims, the greatest victim in this movie is by far the plot.

The premise is that a serial killer has been imprisoned on death row thanks to the testimony of the main character (dr gramm). 9 years later, his execution date is coming up and copycat murders start to occur with the murderer overtly telling police that they didn't arrest the right person. Of course, the police being gullable idiots just believe this and start questioning dr gramm's original testimony. The plot thickens to the consistency of water when the good dr gets a call on his cellphone telling him he has 88 minutes to live. We later find out the meaning of this odd choice of minutes as the time it took gramm's sister's to be tortured to death, but because of the crappiness of the story and the inadequate delivery of this "bombshell", nobody cares and you start to think "arbitrary" would've been just as good an explination. While you're supposed to feel "pressure" whenever the murderer calls and announces the minutes left (concluding with the silly catch phrase "tick tock, doc"), you only feel relief as you know that soon this horrible, horrible movie will be over.

I should also mention that the acting in this movie is UNBELIEVABLY BAD! I mean, splinters in my eyes, bad. I mean, "sylvestor stallone looks like heath ledger in comparison", bad. I mean, it's so bad, i can't even begin to convey how terrible it was! My mind just doesn't know an analogy for it! I never really found al pacino to be a decent actor before (he's a mafia tough guy and can't play anything else, as this movie clearly proves), but even HE could've done better than this! Hell, sylvestor stallone could've done better even WITH his "droolling out the side of his mouth" acting! I'd believe stalone's an intellectual long before i believe al pacino's character was.

Now, i know what you're thinking. If this movie was so terrible, why oh why did i almost watch all of it (i didn't, btw). Well, the only defence i can give is that it was being played on the plane and i didn't learn (until too late) that kung fu panda was also playing which, no matter how bad, could ONLY be a great movie in comparisson.

As one final fuck you to this movie, i'd like to take this time to give away *all* the elements of the "plot" so that there's no way in hell you'll put yourself through the serious torture that is 88 minutes too long: the killer is the badguy's defence attorney. Short list, no?

As a reviewer, i give this movie a -3.5 out of 5, thereby taking away the previous stars given to the other movies in this compilation review and leaving a net of 0 out of 5 for the lot. Now for a few words for the writer:

There! You happy, gary thompson (writer)? Your shitty movie is SO BAD it RUINED other people's movies! Even Ironman, which really didn't need your help! You suck at life and deserve to be tortured almost as badly as you did this script! It's people like you that take up oxygen and space in hollywood and forever stall my BRILLIANT tv series from ever being produced! I hate you SO MUCH it's unbelievable! You're the reason producers won't take chances on good stuff (like my scripts) because they instead take huge financial hits producing crap like this! I sincerely hope that when you walk down the streets people boo and belittle you and make fun of your small penis size.

I could go on ranting at you, but no... there's really only one insult good enough for someone like you!

You, sir, are a SPOONY BARD! (Thank you, final fantasy iv)