Wknd Box Office: Red Riding Hood, Battle: Los Angeles

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/  reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and  THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed!  This all  follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: Red Riding Hood, Battle: Los Angeles


By Debbie Schlussel



Nothing too good at the movies, this weekend. I did not see “Mars Needs Moms,” as it was screened on the Jewish Sabbath, so I couldn’t go.







* “Red Riding Hood“: This movie is being billed as “not your father’s Little Red Riding Hood” and “a darker version of Little Red Riding Hood.” But let’s be accurate. It’s just NOT Red Riding Hood–Little, Big, or Otherwise. The movie has no resemblance at all to the fairy tale your parents told or read to you. Not at all. The only connection is that the “Red Riding Hood” in this movie (Amanda Seyfried) wears a hooded red cloak that her grandmother (Julie Christie) made for her for her upcoming arranged marriage to a rich guy (instead of the poor guy she’s loved since childhood). Also, in one brief scene, Seyfried repeats a few of the memorable lines from the fairy tale (“Grandmother, what big eyes you have,” etc.).



But other than those two remote connections to the actual fairy tale, this movie is just a dark, silly, slow, boring excuse for blood (just a little) and werewolves. Yup, the wolf in this story is a human who becomes a werewolf and kills people in the small medieval village where Red Riding Hood a/k/a “Valerie” lives. Valerie is in the midst of figuring out what to do in a love triangle–where she is set to marry someone other than the man she loves. She also learns that her own mother was in a similar love triangle and that her dead sister (killed by the werewolf) is the illegitimate daughter of her mother and that man, not her mother’s husband. Yup, “Red Riding Hood” is more a dull soap opera (albeit set in the Middle Ages) than anything having to do with a fairy tale. Oh, and it’s anti-Christian, as one of the chief villains in the movie is a fraudulent werewolf fighter who is a Catholic crusader. Think they’d ever do a movie like that where the charlatan is a Muslim imam? Ha.





Seyfried’s “acting” is wooden and consists mostly of her pouting, looking sullen, and staring very intensely with her big eyes made bigger. That’s not acting. I fell asleep a couple of times and missed nothing. Yup, it’s that interesting. Don’t be fooled by the PG-13 rating. This movie isn’t for kids. Or for adults who have a life, instead of two hours and ten bucks to waste.



ONE-HALF MARX



* “Battle: Los Angeles“: I love a good U.S. Marines versus outer space aliens flick as much as the next American patriot. But this ain’t it. With so much action and so many special effects, it was still so boring and long. Over and over again, you see Marines fighting aliens who’ve invaded Los Angeles (and several others major cities across the U.S.) and losing. We’re told the aliens have invaded earth to colonize it and take its natural resources. To that end, they’re trying to wipe out the human race.



A Marine platoon headed by Aaron Eckhart courageously battles the aliens to the end, and after losing to them the entire movie (kinda like the U.S. in Afghanistan, which is mentioned in the movie as being not as bad), they finally figure it out (which is decidely NOT like Afghanistan, where we don’t kill and destroy to win and save American lives, but pass out candy and build mosques to hardcore Muslims to no avail).



I like the patriotism and very positive portrayal of U.S. Marines in this movie–a military portrayal that is all too uncommon from Hollywood, these days. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that the movie just has no spark and is just lots of fighting and action with no story to go along with it.



Also, was it really necessary to add to a PG-13 movie, which otherwise was fine for kids, a disgusting joke about oral sex and a scene in which a Marine is harassed about being a virgin?



That I’m giving this any Reagans is only because it’s somewhat patriotic and spares nothing in showing our Marines to be the good guys. But other than that, it’s really not a good movie. There’s just no “there,” there.



ONE REAGAN