Clash of the Titans would be more entertaining if it were filmed like Remember the Titans.

It would be awesome to see a bunch of mythological beasts form teams and play football. Better yet, have Denzel Washington give a motivating speech to the cast of monsters in a locker room. The kraken could be the quarterback while some centaurs play tackle. Instead we get just a rehash of the 1981 movie, which was shot in the same stop-motion style as Jason and the Argonauts. This version becomes easily forgettable, especially since audiences just endured Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief.

In Greek mythology, the Gods were infamous for their adultery, but it never occurred to them to be discreet. While cheating on their partners and leaving bastard children behind, they never once thought to use Ashley Madison. Perseus is one such example, born due to an affair between Zeus and a human empress. Subsequently, the King discovers the empress has cheated on him and tries to kill baby Perseus out of spite. Luckily he is rescued by a kindly fisherman who raises him as his son. The story jumps forward to when Perseus is a full grown man (Sam Worthington, or “dude from Avatar”).

One day our hero is just quietly fishing at sea, only to come across a giant statue being toppled at the edge of a cliff. Hades then appears in the form of a “smoke monster” and kills the humans who demolished it. It’s the first sign for Perseus that chaos is about to reign in his life as he is pulled into a crazy adventure full of plot holes. All that’s left is for Jacob to appear and give some vague and ambiguous advice and suddenly this is a bad episode of Lost.

The plot revolves around a conflict between humanity and the Olympian Gods. The Gods themselves looks like something that was fashioned by a heavy metal band. Zeus (Liam Neeson) wears armour that displays more chrome than the Silver Surfer. Meanwhile Hades, played by Ralph Fiennes, ends up looking like an uber-goth Rob Zombie combined with Gandalf. Even a minor character, King Cepheus, reappears as a mutated freak, making him look like a reject member of GWAR. Next thing you know, the film will start to use a rock-opera soundtrack and a cameo will be made by KISS.

Based on their stellar costume design and metal attitude, the Gods assume that humanity should act like a bunch of fans for their sheer awesomeness. However, mankind has been somewhat rebellious lately, so Zeus calls a board meeting to figure out how to punish them. Hades then suggests releasing the Kraken, a giant squid monster that’s comparable to Godzilla. Zeus is convinced to go along with this idea, despite the fact that Hades is an obvious villain with a motive for revenge.

This continues to be a big plot hole throughout the movie, since the story revolves around Perseus trying to find a way to kill the Kraken. Several times Zeus keeps sending him kick ass stuff to accomplish this task. Just by wondering through the woods he finds a magic sword, a Pegasus to ride on, a fairy god mother, and a magic coin that acts as a key to the Underworld. If his journey were made any more convenient, Perseus would be riding around in a Helicoptor with a mounted laser gun and heat seeking missiles. Ironically, the hero rejects this arsenal and opts for killing beasts the old fashioned way. Using a rusty old blade, a little elbow grease, and more guts than the army from 300.

The dialgue in this movie is painfully contrived. There is one scene where the female protagonist Io gives the default love confession, as she states something like “As your gaurdian Angel, I’ve loved you all my life Perseus“. It’s merely an attempt to ad some artificial romance to an otherwise manly action flick. In comparison, we get a much more convincing performance out of a badass desert warlock known as a Djinn. He can’t speak normally, so his speech consists only of the occasional “Haa” followed by some demonic gibberish. Yet somehow he seems more interesting than anybody else, although thats not saying much. Sadly, he just seems like a rip off of the Sand people from the Star Wars franchise.

In conclusion, the main story just consists mostly of going from point A to B to C. First Perseus has to find three witches, then decapitate the head of the Medusa, and finally goes back to slay the Kraken. On paper it sounds like the premise for levels of a video game. All that’s really happening is watching the protagonist collecting keys to get to the next dungeon. Hades ends up providing the ultimate boss fight, but it’s over in about a minute. So save yourself the effort of watching this CGI massacre and spend your money on a game rental instead, like God of War 3.

The movie starts out with token black guy Nick (Craig Robinson, the guy that plays Darryl from the Office), working at some sort of veterinary clinic, pulling someone’s car keys out of a dog’s ass. Somehow, I wouldn’t find it hard to believe that’s also where they found this script.

Nick and three of his closest friends (John Cusack, Rob Corddry) are all in some sort of rut. They’re all in their 40s and dealing with a mid-life crises. To escape their depression they revisit a ski resort they frequented in the prime of their youth. Upon arriving, they discover that they have a (insert title here) and can activate it by using a combination of secret ingredients.

Apparently all you need to bend time and space is a Russian soda, some vodka, and a magic squirrel, all which must be followed by some sort of weird acid trip that involves receiving a blow job from a bear. The time machine itself is a shameless rip-off of the “Back to the Future” franchise. The digital display is similar to the controls built into the Delorean. All they are missing is a flux capacitor, 86 mph, and 1.21 gigawatts.

Luckily for this flab-tastic four, time travelling has also resulted in them inhabiting their younger bodies. Fearing the risk of creating a time travel paradox more confusing than the plot of “Lost”,  the friends pledge not to change anything in the past.

Predictably, they begin to become less faithful to this theory and instead seize upon the opportunity to get laid. Somehow they are less concerned for the safety of the space-time continuum than they are about scoring with crushes from two decades ago.

On that note, there is one time travelling mentor involved, but he appears randomly and disappears just when he is needed most. Dressed like a cable repair man, he proves just as unreliable.

“Hot Tub Time Machine” pays an uncalled-for homage to the crappy movie conventions of the 80s, especially the Ski flicks that defined a period of down-hill movie making. A few examples include Hot Dog, Ski School, Ski Patrol, Aspen Extreme, and Better off Dead. Mostly they just involve a bunch of jock-strap wearing bullies who treat the ski resort as their turf, and harass another group of teen skiers for kicks and giggles.

In this story, the paranoid leader of these jocks assumes that the main characters are Russian spies sent from the Soviet Union. Just because they have an energy drink product called “Cheronblyee”, and he cites “Red Dawn” as a plausible scenario. It might not be much to go on, but it is better than the shabby evidence that made the U.S. invade Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.

Eventually the four friends are able to return to the present, but thanks to one friend who stayed behind, everything has changed. By exploiting his knowledge of the future, he becomes a billionaire and enables his friends to become rich and successful as well.

One such exploit involved combining the popularity of Twitter with Viagra. The posts would probably look like this… “OMG, #bonerz has b33n going 4 hours !!!11”

It makes for a good moral to the story, that if you’re poor and miserable, all you have to do is go back in time to change your situation. Then you will be happy when you are rich and powerful.

Hot Tub is nothing more than an excuse to poke fun at the 80s by barraging us with as many pop culture references as possible. Somehow we find it laughable that there was a time when we didn’t know what an email was, phones didn’t play YouTube videos, and our video games came in 8-bit.

In another 30 years they’ll probably do a remake, the only difference being they make fun of this decade. I can just imagine some guy from the future looking at us like we’re a bunch of cavemen. The audience at that premiere will be laughing at us like a bunch of douche bags just because we have obsolete technology.

The background actors would probably be saying cheesy lines like…

“Hey you want to play some Wii or listen to Lady Gaga on my 8GB iPod?”

“Sure, let me just finish watching this Blu-Ray copy of Avatar.”

To us it’s just normal conversation, but by the standards of this film it’s comic genius.

If Jeff Bridge’s character “Bad Blake” wasn’t bluntly established in every scene, you might almost mistake him for a bad impersonator of old Elvis – complete with sweat-stained clothing, folksy attitude and penchant for fried foods. But this movie has set out on just one cowboy-riding-into-the-sunset inspired mission – meet Bad Blake.

Too bad he’s such an insufferable character and the staging done to sell him as a washed-up country singer is hackneyed and predictable. In the opening scene, Blake is headlining a concert in a bowling alley. One where he’s denied free booze and shown up by his supporting band.  Blake must run from the stage to puke in a back-alley garbage can lest he spray the audience with country-fried regurgitation in mid-song.

As if that’s not bad enough, the chick he takes home from the bar is some sort of red-headed pirate hooker.

If there’s any doubt left over the premise of this movie, the first song murmured by Blake drives it home with a bulldozer. “I used to be somebody,” he croaks, “now I’m somebody else.”

Blake is a 57-year-old (going on 80) country singer that is broke and stringing out the dregs of his once lustrous career. But things start to look up for this surly drunk when he meets gorgeous journalist Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who seems romantically interested in Blake despite being half his age. Then again, when has that stopped Hollywood?

While he aimlessly pursues the ill-fated romance, his career is delivered an electric shock to bring it back from the dead. Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), a past muse of Blake’s, has made it big and now wants his mentor to write songs for him. There’s about a five-second window where the audience feels there might be some intrigue as we get an insider’s view of the country music business  – but then Blake just falls asleep while driving his truck and is injured.

To make matters worse, the audience is forced to actually listen to country music at several points throughout the film. As if seeing Bridge’s hairy, naked belly wasn’t torture enough.

The potentially more interesting plot is exchanged for one in which the ultimate moral message seems to be “don’t get drunk around kids”. Unfortunately, any sober person forced to witness this entire movie will be driven to drink soon afterwards in order to erase the image of a half-naked Jeff Bridges. Since he is half-naked for much of the film, much drinking is required.

We watch Blake hobble around on crutches, collapse on a bathroom floor in a hangover, and go fishing as he also bumbles his way through a long distance romance. Craddock’s character seems to suffer development at the expense of Blake’s, as she swoons and falls into his arms as he takes a swig from his flask.

Crazy Heart is at times shot like it was put together by a high school A/V club – the camera sways around and the lighting is too dark to make out any details.

After making a mistake involving Craddock’s four-year-old boy that puts a great divide between them, Blake decides to sober up. He attends an alcoholics anonymous meeting and once again sums up the point of the movie. “I’ve been drunk most of my life,” he says, “lost a hell of a lot.”

Sobering up seems relatively painless for Blake once he decides to do it. A couple of fried biscuits and packs of cigarettes later, he’s trimmed his beard and washed his shirt to signify his-new found sobriety.

The movie ends on a bittersweet note as Blake’s career is rekindled, but his romance is snuffed out.

Then the cheesy temptation of putting the movie title into the script proves to be irresistible for the script writers, as “Crazy Heart” is the song Blake writes as a result of his recent experiences.

It’s a wonder Bridges managed an Oscar win for this tumbleweed of a film. He acts just as we expect he does in real life – surly, unshaven and drunk.

Since the rodents are so inconspicuous, they are able to sneak into an enemy base and escape without detection. Not only that, but they are assisted by other animals, with insects doing recon, while a mole does the tech support.

The premise may seem far-fetched, but not if you consider that Morocco offered bomb-sniffing monkeys to the “coalition of the willing” for the Iraq War. The leader of the G-Force team is an unconventional human scientist named Ben. The guinea pigs are cast as racial stereotypes, with Tracey Morgan contributing his gangsta ‘tude, and Penelope Cruz parodying her Spanish accent more than the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

There is quickly a dispute between Ben and the FBI pending a budgetary review. As “cool” as the concept of spy guinea pigs may be, the federal government doubts that they offer any practical contribution to preventing terrorism. Perhaps they fear a reprisal from terrorists who’ve seen Snakes on a Plane.

So Ben decides to execute a pre-emptive infiltration of an evil corporation which is suspected of illicit activity. The ominous bad guy is a computer hacking CEO of the Saber Corporation. His evil plan involves using some sort of blue-tooth type technology to allow home appliances to be susceptible to a computer virus. At first, the team isn’t able to comprehend how manipulating home appliances would be used for evil. Clearly, these guys have never had to endure drinking a cup of burnt coffee. Anyways, they fail to obtain the data they need, and the sorely disappointed FBI shuts them down. Next thing you know, they’re in a pet shop – likely just avoiding a Chinese food kitchen.

Eventually two bratty siblings come to buy them, who seem to be the poster children for animal abuse. The brother throws one guinea pig into a cage with a hungry snake, and another is forced into daredevil stunts with a remote controlled car. The sister takes the girl guinea pig and dresses her up in more pink than Princess peach. The SPCA would gasp at such horrors, and should do everything within their power to arrest these monsters.

Luckily the G-Force escapes and gets back to the “plot”, as they discover the main purpose of the virus. Apparently, the appliances were robots in disguise, which transform into a mechanical army determined to exterminate humanity. A blatant rip off of Transformers ensues, and mechanical abominations made out of toasters and microwaves walk the earth. The only thing that would make it any tackier is if a few Cylon Centurions and Terminators started running around.

The film wraps up as they shut down the mechanical revolution with a counter virus. They prove themselves to the FBI as an essential asset and proudly celebrate their success with a disco party.

In conclusion, this movie seems like it was based on two lame franchises that were combined into one irritating hybrid. Disney probably realized it had lost the gravy train with its annoying Spy Kids sequels. So they decided to meld it with the recent popularity of the Alvin and the Chipmunk movies produced by Fox. So they end up with a ridiculous ad-lib script about Guinea-pig spies. They could’ve just as easily made it about Ninja Dolphins or Acrobat Koalas.

Either way, while no adult wants to see this CGI-rendered eye candy, no doubt their hyperactive kids will. Unfortunately, it holds no comparison to 007 or even MacGyver.

As if we didn’t get enough of Christian Bale’s coughing shouts as Batman in The Dark Night, or Rorschach’s grating and harsh dialogue from Watchmen, this film serves up the left-overs of the tired narrative monologue. The film starts off with the protagonist hero “the Spirit” running around on rooftops while describing his city through metaphors. If you can get past the voice that sounds like sandpaper rubbing up against a cheese grater, you hear about his beloved city and his fetishism for its gritty and concrete features. Now all he has to do is pose epically next to some Gargoyle statues in the rain and a lightning bolt in the background completes the cliché.

The Spirit’s powers feature an enhanced recovery time from injury. He could be shot in the head and have several bones shattered, yet still be able to heal within a few hours, if not minutes. All he’s missing now are steel claws that come out of his fists and some yellow spandex to become the next Wolverine.

Spider-Man gets ripped off also, with Samuel L. Jackson playing the lead antagonist simply known as the “Octopus”. He is thus named because he has an obsessive compulsive tendency to own 8 of everything. Although at first this seems convenient for his villainy, wielding 8 guns, it raises the question as to how practical his compulsion would be. Would this mean he has to wash his hands 8 times after each fight? Does he own 8 toasters and insist on having 8 slices of bread for breakfast each morning? With comic book logic like that he might as well identify himself with a more formidable name like “Dr. Octagon”.

As for the villain’s motive, he seems determined to gain immortality and then take over the world. In the meantime, he runs a drug cartel with a gang of cloned goons that have laughably low IQs. It’s like an episode of Pinky and the Brain, with the mad scientist’s intellect being frustrated by his bumbling imbecile henchmen (nARF).

There is a lot of back story as to how he plans to accomplish this goal of world domination. In a nutshell, he has to invent some magic juice that has more power than Redbull and Gatorade combined. This involves a mystical vase which contains the blood of Hercules, which when combined with the power of a serum he’s developed, will turn him into a God. The Spirit is his only competition, since he was a test subject of the same serum, if he drank the magic potion he would gain the same Godly power.

There are also several romantic sub-plots whereby the Spirit has a number of conflicting emotions on the women involved in his lifetime. This involves a hot nurse, a sexy diamond thief, a French belly dancer, and a leather clad policewoman. Oddly enough he even scores with death incarnate, represented as a mythological temptress. Sadly these tacky fantasy women only made me wish for my own death.

To wrap things up, the good guys and the bad guys duke it out in the end, the sub-plot of the romance is somewhat resolved, and vague indications are given at the possibility of a sequel. To help bear the burden of that possibility, it would be better to go home and drink spirits rather than watching the movie with the same name.

Unfortunately Hollywood has no regard of fans’ cherished memories and routinely produces horrid remakes that are completely unfaithful to the original premise. To see an example of a superhero flick gone wrong, just look at anything made by Joel Schumacher, who made the notoriously bad Batman and Robin.

The treatment of the fabled Dragonball franchise by James Wong is no different, as it is a completely inaccurate rendition of what made the original manga comic great. The original story involved the epic journey of a young warrior named Goku. A classic hero’s tale about a boy with incredible strength, sent from an alien world to live out a relatively normal life on earth.

But in the course of his lifetime becomes the most powerful hero in the history of mankind. Sound familiar? Well in a nutshell, it’s a Japanese version of Superman (except he is not from Krypton, and he doesn’t have a cowlick in his hair). The twist is that Goku must collect 7 testicles mystical orbs that summon a wish-granting dragon. No, the dragon is not named “Puff” – though it is magical.

This sorry excuse for anime has too many inaccuracies to count. No doubt fanboys all across the web have already made a sufficient list. No doubt, they’ve been blogging their contempt for this movie from their parents’ basement, while playing Xbox and eating pizza pockets. So the following list has been prepared to briefly summarize what injustice has been done.

• Goku is no longer a care-free kid living in the wilderness, instead he is a bitchy high school student who has about as much masculinity as a backstreet boy, deservingly nick-named “Geeku.”
• The quest for the dragon balls ended in a bloody battle only 2000 years ago… yet no civilization remembers it, nor is it mentioned in any history book, I guess Jesus must have performed a miracle and solved that problem.
• Bulma Briefs is no longer a scientist, but instead a leather-clad, gun-toting assassin who looks like she was a rejected cast member from better action movies. She’s also lacking blue hair.
• Piccolo looks okay, but lacks his signature antennae, and for some reason has force-powers similar to Darth Vader, and for some reason rides around in a blimp as opposed to just flying.
• Significant rip-offs or similarities to other movies, including but not limited to, Mortal Kombat, Star Wars, Spiderman, Twilight, Karate Kid, Pokemon, and Not another Teen Movie.

Not only is the movie unfaithful, its just plain stupid, making ridiculous leaps in logic even by anime standards. In one scene, our heroes get trapped in a hole for several hours, until one character decides “Hey, I can just jump out! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

Another scene sees our heroes battling some random ogre monsters, and decide to use their corpses to build a bridge over a pit of lava. What is this, some grotesque version of Frogger?

There is also a training scene where Goku is trying to master the Kamehameha (patent pending). This is a technique that requires throwing a ball of pure energy, that usually takes decades of training to master (like the Hadu-ken from Streetfighter). While initially unsuccessful, Geeku is somehow able to perfect it within seconds, all because he gains a slight boner from his motivational love interest Chi Chi.

If the awfulness of this movie were converted to a power level, it would be over 9000! (inside joke )

Unfortunately, the dragon balls do not exist in real life. If they did I would find them with the sole purpose of granting the wish that DB: Evolution would be wiped out of existence.

Since that’s impossible, I’d rather just get kicked in the balls instead of watching this movie.

There’s way too much sucking happening in Daybreakers, even if this movie is about Vampires.

The first vampire movie of 2010 could only have been worse if it were the new installment of the Twilight Saga. But this one comes close to that abysmal level of film making by imagining a world ruled by Vampies that is somehow pretty boring, allowing random accidents to drive forward the plot, and rely on cartoon-like gore scenes when all else fails.

The movie opens and we’re introduced to a girl writing her suicide note in April of 2019. Just as we are musing over whether the fact she’s not posting this to a social network is a hint at the real reason for her loneliness, she bursts into flames. It’s the first taste of overcooked vampire barbeque we get, but there’s plenty more to come.

Next we’re introduced to Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), who works at a human farm. Vampires are in charge of this world and any humans left over are only good for providing blood. This provides for some scenes where we see naked men and women strapped into place in large industrial farms that feed an inhuman society. It’s almost a cool idea, but The Matrix thought of it first, and KFC is doing this in the real world with its “chickens” anyway.

We’re introduced to a Vampire society that seems much like our own except there are inexplicably more bats flying around. The masses drink blood in their coffee as they ride the subway to work, and chain smoke because they’re immortal and hell, they can get away with it.

It seems like this Vampire society should have been more awesome. With everyone having vastly improved strength and speed capabilities, you’d think there’d be more extreme sports – perhaps a variation of basketball with human heads replacing the ball, and replaced by spikes. The vampires could go up for a slam and squeeze the blood out like juicing a lemon.

Seriously, more could have been done with the Vampire society theme. There wasn’t even an easy laugh like having someone sit down to a bowl of Count Chocula for breakfast, or count things in the style of The Count from Sesame Street.

The vampires are running out of blood as the human population dwindles to extinction. Dalton works for a predictably evil corporation that is looking to solve that problem by creating a blood substitute. If they don’t find it fast, everyone will turn into a mindless succubus creature that act similar to fans of the Twighlight Saga.

One chance encounter with a succubus establishes a healthy vampire can degenerate to this putrid mutant in a matter of days. The promising action sequence disappoints when it transforms into a grotesque kitchen knife demonstration as Dalton’s G.I. Joe brother filets the creature and then decapitates it.

The gore scenes in this movie are so excessive that they are more comical than gross. Vampires instantaneously explode into a fluid burst of redness that resembles a Pizza Pops commercial.

It’s surprising just how much innards do explode out of these paper thin characters. Sam Neil plays the blood-sucking (literally and figuratively) executive who becomes the main villain. He is nothing but pure evil as he plots to turn his own daughter into a vampire, and then hide a cure from society so he can assure his company “repeat business.” All the while, he wears a power suit and drinks blood out of a wine glass.

But the worst is Willem Dafoe’s unfortunate attempt at a Southern accent as Elvis, a human with the secret that will save vampires from themselves. No, it’s not a deep friend peanut butter and banana sandwich. The audience must indulge embarrassing attempts at wit such as: “about as safe as bare-backin’ a $5 whore.”

The plot seems to progress through accidental coincidences. Dalton meets the human rebels because he’s distracted while driving, the cure is discovered by a botched suicide attempt, and an even-better cure is similarly stumbled upon. The real accident is that someone let this script make its way to a final cut.

My advice, if you do find yourself forced to watch this forgettable Vampire flick, entertain yourself by exclaiming in the style of The Count every time a vampire is gored to death.

“One! One, bloody vampire explosion!… Two! Two, bloody vampire explosions…”

This movie is set in the future, where humans no longer go out in public for any reason. Instead, a robotic “Surrogate” is piloted by the humans and society has benefitted as a result – there’s virtually no crime and everyone is attractive. You have to wonder if the film’s producers did their research before deciding on the timing of this release. There was another, slightly bigger budget sci-fi epic about humans interacting via “avatars” that sort of stole the spotlight on this concept.

Surrogates is such a waste of two hours and so obviously bad that it’s not even worth typing about. Instead, let’s imagine how much better this movie would have been if instead of robots, humans interacted using 8-inch tall Barbie and Ken dolls.

Bruce Willis dons his familiar action hero role as Tom Greer, and adorns a silly bleach-blonde wig as a surrogate. The parted hair, suit, and plastic expression that Willis wears through much of the movie is already a spot-on impersonation of a Ken doll, so you might as well go the whole way and film the movie Robot Chicken style using the toy figurine.

Instead of saving money by driving around present-day cars like a Ford Taurus and Toyota Prius (apparently this society wasn’t affected by the recall), you could film all the car chase scenes using futuristic looking toy cars. Hell, you could even have them turn into flying cars if you wanted to.

The movie’s gorier action scenes would be infinitely more entertaining as we watch doll limbs fly off and paint scratched off to reveal colourless plastic. Surrogates goofy twist gimmicks would also take on a whole new meaning when Ken’s paints were yanked down to reveal he has no real genetalia.

Surrogates movie trailer.

This movie was such a box office bomb that it’s unlikely people would even consider sending their robot servants out to see it. That makes a sequel unlikely, but if they do one – let’s hope for two hours of hearing Willis do his raspy voice-over for Ken.

With cult classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas and pop-culture mediocrity like Batman Returns, Burton has managed to attract a wide fan base that include both sad emo-goths and pathetic comic fanboys. It’s too bad the suffering inflicted by this putrid movie isn’t just limited to those isolated groups, but must be felt by everyone looking forward to a unique remake of this classic Disney tale.

However, there is only one thing to deem this latest work, a “DEMAKE”. By definition, a DEMAKE is basically when Hollywood decides to rehash older movies with a more modern style, but end up tarnishing what made the original unique.

With Alice, the result is that it perverts the nostalgic memory of the classic fairy tale with Burton’s abstract fetishism. The only thing to look forward to after watching it is to follow the plots main message. Take a bunch of random pills, drink from any bottle you can find, and hope things will work out for the best.

Alice is now age 20, and is going through a period of angst where she cannot escape the confines of her mundane life. The good news is she is able to revisit Wonderland. The bad news is the Red Queen has taken control of Wonderland with an iron fist of fascist rule. Thanks to the power of the Jabberwocky, a generic dragon monster, her claim to the throne has gone unchallenged. Meanwhile, you could say the power has “gone to her head”…literally. Her head is freakishly large, resembling an abomination of Valentine’s Day merchandise fused with a cancerous tumour. Not unlike most Hallmark cards denoting this crassly commercial holiday.

Not only has the story been recycled, but the style is aggravatingly cliché. This is no surprise, since Burton’s movies are stamped with his brand of over-the-top gothic flare. Johnny Depp has become part and parcel of this tired old hand ever since Edward Scissorhands. He is basically just type-cast into replaying the same role – an effeminate and creepy man-child.

Depp may play the part of the Mad Hatter, but looks like he just walked off the set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (another Burton “demake”). He has a similar top hat, the same Victorian style attire, and more clown make-up than an army of Cirque du Soleil performers.

Seriously, he’s powdered with so much white face paint he makes Albinos look like they’ve been soaking up sun on an equatorial beach.

Alice in Wonderland – Trailer #2 [HD]
Uploaded by theanimationblog. – Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

As for his “acting” his emotions seem to be limited to two different settings of crazy. When he is happy he prances about flamboyantly with whimsical charm. When he is angry he incites rebellion against the Red Queen in a harsh and guttural Irish catchphrase. “Down wif’ the bloodee Red Queen!”.

On that note, the “rebels” of this movie are the lamest ever seen on film. It seems that since Alice has been absent, the Hatter has decided to wait at the same Tea Party for the past 13 years. Apparently the mercury poisoning has eroded any of the Hatter’s ability to plan beyond the dessert course, let along mount a grassroots rebellion.

Meanwhile, the magic cake that makes Alice become larger isn’t used to its full potential. Why not just eat the whole thing and become the size of Godzilla? She could just step on the Queen and her little dragon too. End of movie – Wonderland is saved and the audience is put out of its misery.

Unfortunately the audience is made to sit through the tedium of the predictable plot arc until finally Alice does what everyone was telling her to do in the first place and confronts the Jabberwocky. The only missing ingredient from this formulaic tripe was a training montage in which Alice bench presses Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, then runs up a bunch of steps and jumps around victoriously.

As if to add insult to injury, the movie ends with a CG-powered dance from Depp. The awkward and unavoidable wince reaction to this scene is the same emotion you’ll feel every time you recall this sorry “demake” of a movie.

So if The Blind Side was a movie version of that book, choosing to replace the big red dog with a large black football player, it’d be pretty good. But no, this is a failed attempt at fictionalizing a true story. This movie is so devoid of real conflict and so literally black-and-white in its view of the world that it makes the underlying story seem preposterous.

The film is named after a football term – the side of a quarterback that he can’t see, and therefore is unprotected from except for his offensive line – but by the end of this movie you’ll want to take the title literally and gouge out your own eyes to avoid witnessing one more agonizing moment.

Sandra Bullock plays lead character Leigh Anne Tuohy, a Tennessee suburbanite who has it all – a high-paying job as a home designer, a husband that owns several local restaurants, and two obedient children (though one may be an evil leprechaun.) One night on a drive home, she spots lonely and aimless Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron) walking along the streets, with nowhere to go.

Forgetting this is a person and not a lost puppy, she pulls over and picks him up. What looks like a one-night arrangement quickly turns into something more long term, as Tuohy’s pet project fully takes hold.

Starting with the scene where Tuohy sheepishly asks her husband if they can keep Michael, the uncomfortable comparison to a family pet becomes more obvious as this movie ambles along without thought. Tuohy learns that Michael scored well in his “protective instincts” section of the aptitude test and hastily proceeds to treat him as a watch dog. She even encourages him by saying “good boy” at one point.

It’s almost a surprise Michael didn’t lick her face in response, with the stupid happiness of a border collie.

The Tuohy family trains Clifford – I mean Michael – to excel in school and on the football field. His freakish size also helps with the latter part, and he actually just sort of scrapes by with a bare minimum grade. Still, the achievements are put forth as nothing short of miraculous.

The racist undertones of the movie also cause a general uneasiness. The film sells the American dream as some sort of weird mix of Catholic-brand Christianity mixed with guns, football and SUVs. It also implies the ticket to that dream is exclusive to being white – if not in colour, then certainly in lifestyle.

Michael’s only progress in the movie is made when he conforms to the white society around him – first at a Christian school, then in the Tuohy household and on the football team. The only time his success is remotely threatened is when he returns to his old “ghetto” and his black past threatens to ruin his white future.

To really hammer home the thin race stereotypes in this movie, here are some clichéd utterances delivered with straight-faced earnest by the cast:

• “Lord help that child,” bemoans Michael’s mother Denise. “I couldn’t even remember who the boy’s father is.”
• “I will bust a cap in your fat ass,” threatens gangster Marcus.
• “Watchu packin’? .22? A little Saturday night special?” another gem from Marcus.

What makes matters worse is the clichés don’t even hold up a story that seems worth telling. Michael’s bumbling but assured progress to NFL stardom is assured through the movie, without any real agitation to his unique predicament.

When tension does arise, it is for a ridiculous reason. Michael’s major personal introspection is triggered by a paranoid NCAA regulation about where he plays college football. There were so many other worthy opportunities for conflict that using red tape as the catalyst seems like the writers were lost.

When it comes to The Blind Side, see no evil and avoid watching this movie. Instead, check out a couple of Clifford books.