The diamond in the rough...

I saw two new movies last week from two different ends of the movie spectrum. The first is like the black velvet that makes the diamond that much more brilliant. Let us first discuss that black velvet...

G.I. Joe: Rise of Quaid

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 38%

My Score: 3/10

I'm sorry I have to address this one first. It was such a bad one! And yes, the title is really "Rise of Cobra," but Dennis Quaid played a much more pivotal role for my movie experience than Cobra did! I laughed my tuckus off every time he was on screen! He's such a goof, and I refuse to take him seriously! He provided infinitely more comedic relief than Marlon Wayans, who was just about as funny as I expected he would be. No, wait, I'd like to correct that. Despite my dismally low expectations for him, he somehow managed to disappoint me.

Allow me to provide an example. As he's chasing a bad guy in his Master Chief suit, all the while dodging missiles like an Autobot, Wayans chases Stormshadow into the kitchen of some random office building. In a desperate attempt to flee, the villain throws a pot of hot tomato sauce all over Marlon Wayans' helmet, rendering him temporarily but deliciously blind. When Wayans reunites with his purely scientifically-oriented (and therefore initially not believing in emotions) love interest, she asks him, "Is that blood?" In order to avoid an outrageously long, horrific, and otherwise embarrassing story, Wayans simply replies, "Tomato sauce. Don't ask!" All I can say is, thank goodness for Dennis Quaid!

Now, G.I. Joe does get some props, for its imagination. The action sequences had a lot of special effects, and had some cool ideas, but absolutely nothing in the entire film is believable. Nothing! It starts with Christopher Eccleston introducing this ridiculously dangerous "nano-bot" weapon, with the power to eat through any material and even destroy an entire city unless deactivated, to the UN, and absolutely no one objects. NO ONE! Not a single person points out the potential catastrophic consequences of such a super weapon. The only reaction, other than awe, is that Dennis Quaid leans forward slightly in his seat and seems to be thinking about something. None of the CG effects are even remotely convincing, and the technology is completely bonkers! Yes, I just said bonkers! I can't think of any other adjective to appropriately describe it. The events are supposed to take place in the 'near future,' but it's all so ludicrously beyond what we currently have!

Now, I don't want to leave you with the impression that you shouldn't see this film. By all means, with the right people, G.I. Joe's a riot! I enjoyed myself immensely! The laughs just kept on coming, but not as the filmmakers intended. Nothing, however, can top the amazingly appropriate brief cameo. If you're going to see this movie and you don't want to spoil the surprise then just wait and see. For anyone else, click here, and your reaction will be something like, "Oh yeah, I could see him appearing in this!" And now, for the diamond...

District 9

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

My Score: 10/10

That's right, folks, I gave District 9 a ten out of ten! It was THAT good! I was excited from the moment I saw the first trailer several months ago, and from then on, my excitement continued to increase. So, I had really high expectations when I finally saw it, and the film only exceeded them! It was SO GOOD!

The premise for District 9 is that an enormous alien ship arrived on Earth, hovering several hundred meters above the ground, about 20 years ago, and were for some reason unable to leave. The ship stopped above Johannesburg, South Africa. Eventually, the aliens were "rescued" from the starving conditions on the ship, and were integrated with the human population below, until tensions grew to violence, and the aliens were forced into a specific area within the city. So, the story starts 20 years after that, with the alien presence no longer new and novel. In fact, there's no gradual build-up to a dramatic reveal of the aliens at all, rather they're present from the beginning and filmed naturally, as if they're just people on news footage. The film was made documentary-style, with interviews from various residents of South Africa, and has that handheld, slightly grainy look throughout.

The special effects are completely flawless! The aliens are so cool-looking, and they really look like they could actually be there! I don't know if they were all done completely CG, or if some of it was practical, but it all looks real. The action keeps you extremely interested to whole time, not knowing what will happen next. This is lead actor Sharlto Copley's first role ever, and he's so good! He plays a rather goofy South African guy who's somewhat of a leader in the company that, to some extent, governs the aliens.

One of the most impressive things about District 9 is that it only had a $30 million budget! I mean, yeah, that is a rather hefty sum of money, and I wouldn't consider it small if someone just handed it to me on the street, but comparatively speaking, that's a small budget! It made the first-time director, Neill Blomkamp, get very creative in order to tell the story he envisioned, and to do it well. The thing is, the film isn't impressive simply because it had such a small budget. The effects don't look spectacular only considering how much money they had to do them. It holds up to any other movie, even those effect-crazy blockbusters that have all the money and big names in the world. I can't think of how this film could have been made better, hence the ten out of ten. Just as a warning, though, the violence is quite intense, and there is a slew of profanity. The good thing is that most of the time, the f-bomb sounds more like "fook" with that crazy South African accent. Go see it!