Ang Lee’s The Hulk has to be the most stylish film based off of a comic book. Where Blade went balls out to create the perfect transition, X-Men touched on some origin and gave fans what they wanted, and where Spider-Man delivered the first of many chapters based on the amazing character, The Hulk has the style and story to make it the most memorable of all the comic transitions.

The Hulk tells the story of Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) and his alter-ego The Incredible Hulk. After Bruce’s father, David, experiments on himself with his genetic research focusing on regeneration and such, he impregnates his wife with Bruce and fears that he may have passed certain elements of that research on to his son. Bruce only shows certain signs of this genetic manipulation until a lab accident exposes him to a high level of gamma radiation which unleashes the Hulk inside.

What I believe to be the best part of the film is it is much darker than both X-Men and Spider-Man, but not in such a way as Daredevil where the story is completely destroyed by darkness for the sake of making it dark. The Hulk features a very intriguing story that actually creates characters much deeper than previously created in any of the aforementioned movies. Bruce faces the internal conflict of the Hulk being loose when he loses control of his emotions but also has to deal with the realization that his father isn’t dead and a government contracted organization is looking to take over his research. The screen writers need to be given full credit for bringing yet another intellectual movie to the table this summer without shying away from the popcorn movie many comic book fans and critics where expecting.

Yet another strong point of the movie is the supporting cast. Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) as Bruce’s love interest and, seemingly, the only thing that can calm Bruce down enough to return to normal. The beautiful Connelly delivers a very commendable performance for a film many thought to bring 2D “filler” characters to the table. General Ross (Sam Elliott) as the overbearing father looking to contain this “creature” as a weapon also delivers a great performance and we can see as the film goes on that he feels more and more guilty about what he may ultimately have to do. David Banner played by Nick Nolte (doing his best Whistler impression, no doubt) rounds things out with an outstanding performance as Bruce’s unstable, yet brilliant father looking to obtain the secrets of his son’s transformations to use on himself.

The biggest debate of the film was going to be the CGI no matter now good the actual movie was, but for those looking for a near seamless realism to the character, look elsewhere. The Hulk doesn’t look perfect, but that is how it should be. He is a comic book hero represented on film in the most lifelike manner you could give to a 15 foot, green mass. Overall the computer generated work is excellent, and much better than last year’s Spider-Man. The way the green-meanie interacts with he real world environment (pelted with bullets, running over sand dunes, interacting with other characters) is very well done and you can see a lot of time was placed in making it perfect.

While the story is the best part it also is the biggest drawback in some parts. The movie clocks in at well over two hours which is bordering on the long side of things and there are several points which just seemed to bother me. The film makes a point to show a near zero body count. After The Hulk chucks a tank nearly half a mile into a sand bank the operator stumbles out shaking his head as though he is just dazed. Somehow I think he would be looking for his brain matter scattered all over the interior as the force in which that tank was thrown would have surely done more damage than a simple headache. In fact, as far as I can remember, there is only one causality in the entire film. Somehow this seems like a way to show that Bruce isn’t such a bad guy as The Hulk, he is just angry, but so is Wolverine and he skewered a great many of Stryker’s forces in X2. Also, as you may have heard other places, the ending is atrociously laughable. Going from a heart to heart conversation into a huge battle proved to be the films, “What the?” moment as no one had a clue what was going on. Its just the little things that peck away at your during the movie and bring it down a notch.

What makes this movie so stylish is the cinematography. Utilizing a direct reference to the comic in which the film was ripped, Lee plays with nifty little transitions and the feeling as though you are progressing through “panels” of a comic book. At certain points the camera zooms out to show, seemingly, and entire page of panels and then zooms in on the next appropriate one. Many movies use these types of transitions, and even the multiple camera angles a la “24,” but combined with the panel feel of the film you are left with a giddy sense inside.

You may be surprised that you enjoy The Hulk much more than you want yourself to believe. As the first Marvel comic fully interjected with somewhat believable story and supporting characters to add life you appreciate the work that went into creating such a good film. The action sequences keep you happy, especially the mutant dog attack, and the storytelling draws you in to one of the summer’s best movies thus far. Hold your breath through the completely dumb ending battle and let the rollercoaster slide you in perfectly to the inevitable sequel.

For a movie with so much plot, Dreamcatcher fails to provide any substance to any of the movie’s characters to make anything meaningful or heartfelt. Imagine a gallon jug of water filled up to the brim. This would be a movie with so much plot, it is almost too much, but you know a lot about each of the characters, you know how they feel, why they feel what they feel, and you know why they do things they do. Now image a gallon of water poured into an empty swimming pool, this is how watching Dreamcatcher feels. From time to time you might get wet, but it is nothing more than a puddle at your feet.

I’m reviewing this movie without having read Stephen King’s best selling novel of the same name, but I can only hope that the book is much, much better than the movie, or Mr. King should seriously think about retiring earlier than planned.

Dreamcatcher centers around four friends who are always thinking of each other and share a gift given to them by a mentally handicapped boy, Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg) whom they came to the rescue of when they were children. Now they can communicate telepathically, and see things that could happen, as well as pinpointing car keys, interstates, and lost little girls. Hell they even get to have Johnny Smith-like visions a la The Dead Zone. Henry (Thomas Jane), Pete (Timothy Olyphant), Jonesy (Damian Lewis), and Beaver (Jason Lee) make their annual trip to a cabin where they have been coming for 20 years, but when a couple of strangers show up it takes each of them to try and use their gifts and get out of a bad situation alive while an elite combat team attempts to contain a crashed alien spaceship.

The biggest problem with Dreamcatcher is it doesn’t feel original. Previous Stephen King movies have had original thoughts and ideas that gave you something new when you stepped into the theatre. Dreamcatcher feels like a rehash of King’s previous work, namely The Dead Zone, and an added aliens-taking-over-the-world storyline ripped from Signs and Aliens. They even go as far as naming a skin rash caused by this invasion “The Ripley.”

Hollywood must have this thing about not having interesting characters in films anymore, because two of the best, more realistic characters are dealt away with as nothing more than sentimental plot devices, while the third, Owen Underhill (Tom Sizemore) is so drastically underdeveloped he appears as fast as he disappears from the movie.

Dreamcatcher turns into a race to see how many character’s storylines we can throw on to the screen and let the audience un-jumble them before a frightfully anti-climatic climax where nothing is explained and the movie ends. There are a few cool points. The visualization of the “memory warehouse” is nice, and gives you some insight into how your memory can work for, or against, you given the situation. But even this cool visualization, the movie still fails to impress on a higher level.

Somewhere I can see the screenwriter adapting this from King’s novel and thinking that he can easily cram hundreds of pages into a two hour movie that loses it’s wheels in the first half, and completely rusts over in the second as you are left wondering just what in the hell is going on. The entire relationship between troubled commander Abraham Kurtz (Morgan Freeman) and Sizemore’s Underhill is barely touched upon, as well as their pasts, and apart from a few fleeting lines about Underhill’s father, you get absolutely no justification for his actions in the movie.

I could go on, but it would prove useless because I’m trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but Dreamcatcher is nothing but a semi-funny, semi-horror movie that mixes fart gags with big grey aliens and expects us to fill in the blanks for most of the characters. Unexpected, to the audience, these blanks are the size of a Hummer. And unlike a Hummer being filled on the inside with all the amenities you could want while driving, Dreamcatcher is empty with no viable incentives for purchasing, or watching ever again.

Something just doesn’t sit right with me when I think about watching Daredevil. Where X-Men and Spider-Man came onto the scene with nice origin stories, especially Spider-Man, Daredevil’s origin is nicely explained, but the other characters just happen. Where did Bullseye (Colin Farrell) come from, what is his origin, where is his back story? He, along with The Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) just seem to be bit characters in a shameless promotion to get another Marvel character on the big screen. Even Elektra (Jennifer Garner) just feels like she was on the set because they wanted her there.

I know bringing years of comic background and information into a 90 or 120 minute running time is a lot for screenwriters to do, but going into Daredevil, and not knowing anything about the character, you leave with the same feeling. The script blatantly options the sequel, in more ways than one, and you are left with the feeling that you just watched a 90 minute trailer for a trilogy of movies. You don’t take anything away with you.

Daredevil stars Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, the man without fear. A childhood accident took Murdock’s sight away but heightened his four remaining senses including his hearing which gives him a sonar-like sense that allows him to “see” the world by using sound. Murdock goes up against the Kingpin after he learns that he is going to kill Matt’s new love interest’s father. Bullseye is brought in to kill that man and becomes obsessed with Daredevil after he makes him miss a shot, something he never does.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie. I liked the fact that they set up the characters in some ways, but then completely removed a relevant back-story to them. Bullseye is the man who never misses. Good. How did he get this way, what is his story, why is he working for bad? Even The Kingpin is glossed over with the cliché “head of crime in the city” no explanation as to why and how he got there. You find yourself grasping for information that isn’t there, and when you aren’t a fan of this particular comic book you may be left behind.

Daredevil does feature some nice fight sequences, especially the much hyped romp in the bar, but the camera is shaking so much in keeping up with the action that you simply can’t see what is going on. And the cutting back and forth between the real setting and Daredevil’s sonar sense just adds to the confusion.

I found myself liking the character much more than Spider-Man and the X-Men in certain ways. I like how the movie was given a much darker tone, and how the main character isn’t afraid to distribute justice. At one point Daredevil lets a man be sawed in half by a subway train after he was falsely acquitted of raping a woman. On the flipside comic relief is adequately spread out by Kevin Smith’s cameo as well as Jon Favreau’s portrayal of Franklin Nelson, Matt Murdock’s law partner.

For bit characters Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell and Michael Clarke Duncan do a reasonable job setting up characters that will undoubtfully return in further sequels.

At the end of the movie we, the Entopia Staff, were discussing how to grade it on our system and many different answers erupted. Anything from an A- to a B- were given and I had originally given the movie a higher score, but then I had time to reflect. I went back and related the movie to other’s I have seen and found that I was somewhat disappointed in this clearly average effort to bring a comic book hero to life. I think Ben Affleck was the right choice for Daredevil, as he does a great job, but I also think the characters could have been developed so much more. By the end of the movie you feel as though nothing has happened, in all actuality, very little has. The movie starts, stuff happens, and it ends, but that stuff in the middle is merely a glazing of an actual story that story is construed with underdeveloped characters and lots of rain.

The bottle of common sense that I have talked about in so many of my reviews over the years must be completely out, or at least the folks over at Sony must have lost the bottle in the washing machine, because I Spy, while a kind-of-cool spy movie, is just so utterly dumb that it pains me to watch.

I Spy, a remake based loosely on the 1960s series of the same name, stars Eddie Murphy who is going for a record of how many flops he can have in one year, right now he is tied with Antonia Banderas for that honor, and Owen Wilson, who has been teamed up with just about everyone in the entertainment industry for buddy picture after buddy picture, fails to capitalize on his Shanghi Noon success.

The films premise is as follows. Wilson is Alex Scott and elite (loosely using the term here) secret agent who is given the task of finding a stolen top secret jet called the Switchblade that is currently in the possession of an arms dealer played by Malcolm McDowell. In order to get close enough to plant a tracking unit on McDowell’s character Scott and the Bureau of Nation Security (BNS) have him team up with Kelly Robinson a famous boxer, whom the arms dealer loves. The real problem is after the tracking bug is planted, why the hell does Eddie Murphy’s character stick around. His job is done, yet he just stays around for the hell of it, and the terror of the audience.

Overall the story is weak at best, and more cliché than any sappy love story you will seen on the big screen this year. From plot points that you can see from a mile away to the most lame-brained story ever, the movie just doesn’t do much for you, which is good in a way, because the people who were in the theatre with me could have used some help figuring things out rather than think about it on the drive home to their trailer park.

The biggest flaw of the movie is it isn’t overly funny, in fact, aside from a few parts where you get a good chuckle or a big hearty laugh, there isn’t a single time when you are cracking up continuously. Even with the James Bond spoofing and the campy action that makes no sense, the movie just isn’t that humorous at all. Maybe I have seen too many comedies this year, but most of the material is just stale when compared to some of the other stuff to be released this year.

Sticking around for the climax of the movie is like drilling a rusty drill-bit into your knee. This comes from the fact that the ending is just so utterly stupid, so utterly dumb, and so utterly infeasible that you just want to cripple yourself so you wouldn’t have to watch it. With the paper thin story and plot holes large enough to drive a Volkswagen through I-Spy just fails to impress when so many better comedies have come out this year. Stick with Undercover Brother or Austin Powers: in Goldmember for the laughs you are looking for.

I don’t think I have ever had to write a harder review, and it isn’t because I saw a movie I knew was going to be great and it wasn’t, or because I saw a movie made by a good friend and didn’t want to give my honest opinion, it was because I saw a movie so out of the mold of movies that I don’t know where to begin as far as a review, or scoring the damn thing.

Jackass is just that kind of movie, where to begin? If you are going to this movie looking for plot, suspense, action, drama, or comedy, you aren’t going to get all of that. The comedy is there depending on your area of low brow humor and fun and some suspense is there waiting to see who is going to get reamed next and by what, but this isn’t your traditional movie, it is something better.

Jackass started as a two season series at MTV where it was versed to criticism and outcry from parents who made the TV their child’s babysitter and then got their panties in a bunch when it did something they didn’t like. Even after several children (obviously the dumb ones with negligent parents) tried to recreate some of the stunts on the show, the warnings went in place and Johnny Knoxville and company kept on entertaining America.

So the movie is basically an episode of the show times three in the length department and times 10 in the gross, weird, and fun actions they perform. Stunts range from the hilarious like Rent-A-Car Derby and Air Horn Golf  where in the latter the gang hides on a golf course in camouflage gear and blows air horns when prissy country-club folks are about to take a swing. This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

You also get into the gross where one cast member messes himself in his pants in preparation of going into a hardware store and using one of the display toilets, for real, which also proves to be one of the grossest things you have ever seen on the big screen. Nothing has to be grosser, and more vomit inducing, then the “pee-snow-cone” in which a cast member proceeds to eat the yellow snow our parents warned us about. This was the only point during the movie when I wanted to gag, because just watching it was so gross.

The movie itself isn’t trying to be a movie, but a series of skits and stunts that rely on the fan base of the show to bring in the audience. While the movie is full of warnings, cops at the entrance to the theatre to confirm your age, still parents brought in kids that must have been as young as five years old. Politicians scorn video games and movies like this for corrupting America’s youth, well your argument is about to eat crow when you realize that parents are bringing children into these movies you stuck up pricks!

Jackass is not about acting, plot, or story, it is about going to have fun, and I really think the movie gives you just what it promises, stuff you would never see on TV and a way to escape the terrors of real life to just have some fun. It succeeded on all accounts in my opinion, and when you read other reviews from “big” publications that claim it to be the “worst movie of the year” remember that the reviewers there don’t have the perspective to see this movie for what it really is, and while they try to make it stand up to cinematic standards, this movie can’t be handled that way, in my opinion this was a great movie, and there is no arguing that.

Mr. Deeds was a great movie, and there was heated debate on the way out of the theatre if it can top Happy Gilmore as Adam Sandler’s best performance, and best movie, while Mr. Sandler may never win any awards, at the very least he isn’t trying to hard to break from his comedy roots to do drama (cough Jim Carrey cough cough Will Smith cough cough). Man there must be something in the air around here.

Mr. Deeds is a remake of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The movie features on Sandler’s character, Longfellow Deeds, who inherits $40 Billion dollars from his rich, dead Great Uncle. It seems though the CEO of this company that Deeds’ Great Uncle owns wants to take full control and sell it off in little bits and pieces. While rather predictable (right down to the way Deeds’ reconciles with his love) the movie is enjoyable for a good show, and trying to pick out instances when it looks like Winona Rider is picking Sandler’s pocket.

What works so well with the movie is Adam Sandler himself, he is such a charismatic and great actor, it is no wonder he can come back from a stink-bomb like Little Nicky and still be welcome to take money for our tickets. Any other actor would be scrubbing the crap stains off of the toilets in the restroom rather than starring in a movie playing in one of the biggest theatres in the joint.

And then there was Winona Rider trying to steal things, or we presume.

Oh, yes, Miss Rider whom has had some very troubling conflicts with the law up until this movie does a decent job as Deeds’ love interest, and keeping us on our toes to see what she is stealing from the set, we half expected her to be shown walking off holding all the props she could in one hand while shoving smaller objects in her handbag, and, well other places.

The star of the entire movie falls upon the foot-fetish butler, Emilo, whom has a “sneakiness” way to him and seems to be faster than light when he wants to appear in places. It becomes increasingly funny as the movie goes on to see just how he can move around so much, as well as Winona Rider stealing things (will this ever get old…hmmmm…No).

Mr. Deeds ranks right up there with Sandler’s best performances, but not quite the very best (which still belongs to Happy Gilmore). If you are looking for a good way to waste a couple of hours and don’t want to see Sandler in one of those annoying “accent-driven roles,” go out and see Mr. Deeds, but if you were alive for the original release, be sure to bring extra colostomy bags, because this is one funny movie.

And we get to watch Winona Rider…well you know…

Minority Report features two of Hollywood’s biggest stars looking to grasp back on to the greatness they once held. Steven Spielberg is looking to make up for the horrible A.I. Artificial Intelligence (I don’t care what you all think, it sucked) and Tom Cruise is looking to make up for the god-awful Cameron Crowe soaked Vanilla Sky that stunk up the box office during the holiday season. Luckily for both of them, Minority Report (although having little to do with the actual title) is one of the greatest movies of the year, and while it may never break records like Spider-Man, it is sure to become a classic in it’s own right.

The story of MR is very well developed, and the plot is a fresh blast in the face from the cookie-cutter plot points (and holes) used in a lot of the movies this summer. Tom Cruise is Detective John Anderton, head of Washington D.C.’s Precrime division which can catch murderers and prevent their crime from even happening using the skills of three “people” called the Pre-Cogs. When Anderton is accused of a murder on a man he has never met, he goes on the run and tries to seek his Minority Report which could prove his innocence.

This movie is a  special effects laden broadcast of the greatest proportions. From the cops on jetpacks to the awesome cars of the future, everything about this movie screams style and cinematic eye-candy. Spielberg does a wonderful job bringing the year 2054 to life in a way that could be taken as fact. During the movie Greg Elliott leaned over to me and whispered, “I can totally see this in fifty years.” While I whole-heartily agree with our resident short-person, there are some far-fetched points we may never see in our lifetimes.

Cruise does an excellent job as John Anderton, his character lost his son six years ago, just before the institution of Precrime, and has dedicated his life to the enforcement of the laws to keep what happen to his son from ever happening to anyone again. He is a drug addict, addicted to his work, and is so engrossed that it costs him his wife and a happy life together after the death of their son. Many parallels have been drawn to Johnny Depp’s character in From Hell, but the solving of the crime isn’t necessarily Anderton’s undoing.

Spielberg’s direction shows that the man has the pills to do another sci-fi movie after the A.I. fiasco. Camera angles are very cinematic in nature and bring out the different aspects of the movie very well. From the wide angle shots of the ships dropping cops, to the slightly humorous shots of Anderton having some delicious food from the refrigerator, that is something they won’t show you in the trailers.

All in all, I really, really enjoyed Minority Report, it may not be the biggest blockbuster of the season, but opening up against stiff competition in the way of Disney’s Lilo & Stitch it holds it’s own very well. While the movie’s only shortfall is a very weak, weak ending, it does manage to keep you entertained for it’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Go see Minority Report, you won’t be sorry.

Even with lackluster reviews, previous to our own, and opening up against Windtalkers and Scooby Doo and with Spider-Man and Star Wars still at the box office, The Bourne Identity still managed to haul in close to $30 million dollars in it’s opening weekend.

While Identity falls into the cliché following of James Bond and other action spy movies, serious or not, it still manages to make a name for itself for a number of reasons.

The biggest draw to the movie is the fact that it has been a highly successful novel for sometime. Updated for the big screen, Bourne Identity features Matt Damon, sans Ben Affleck, as Jason Bourne a covert-ops agent who has lost most of his memory and is found floating in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Europe. The movie focuses on Jason’s employers attempts to capture and subdue what they believe to be a rogue in the system.

While the movie tries to bring Matt Damon into the role of an action hero, leaving behind chose rolls in independent films, he is never really that believable, but it still works for Universal for the women. Besides the off-color attempt to bring Damon into new roles, Bourne doesn’t really fail terrible on any levels. The biggest problem is the fact that the plot is very loose, and seems almost too open ended, like the director and screenwriter want the audience to figure out what is going on, rather than telling you, the problem with this is, they never give you enough information to figure it out on your own.

Two standing achievements shouldn’t be missed, and one is worth the price of admission alone. The fight sequences are some of the very best seen on the big screen, they totally rock. While the sound effects may seem as far fetched as they come, it adds to the atmosphere of the movie.

The second achievement, the one worth admission, is the car chase scene halfway through the movie. Seeing Matt Damon pilot a manual POS through the streets of Paris was amazing. The abuse this car took, corners at 90 degrees, going the wrong way on an express way, it was amazing, it took my breath away, it made the movie for me. Although I have a hard time picturing Julia Stiles as a covert agent, let alone know how to even use a computer.

So in the end, The Bourne Identity managed to steal some of my hard earned money for the weekend, and I’m glad I decided not to give it to Scooby Doo. If you want something to hold you over till Die Another Day, Bourne Identity will surely do.