After The Sunset is another example of what James Bond does when he retires.Sometimes he becomes Harrison Ford's dad. Sometimes he ends up in The Spice Girls Movie or Boat Trip (+1). Occasionally he ends up being in films co starring The Nanny or Daffy Duck. Or you end up being George Lazenby. So welcome, Pierce, to the pasture that holds all of the former 007's. You'll never live it down (unless you're Scottish).
The film is about a jewel thief (Brosnon) who commits his last heist with his girl (Salma Hayek) so that he can retire to the Bahamas. Of course, we know it won't be his last heist because there's still an hour and a half left in the film. The couple are living the good life to its dullest until the FBI man he ruined (Woody Harrelson) shows up to harass our thief over a cruise ship docked on the island that holds yet another huge, unsellable diamond.
To make a long story short. Sure, the film is way over the top with most of the characters having telekinetic powers. It's like a criminal X-Men because they can plan each others moves like clockwork. The script is ridiculous and knows it. That's what's OK about this film. it knows its borderline crap and goes with it. There isn't much action involved with Brosnon making Harrelson look like a horses ass throughout the film, but it's acceptable because it won't really bore you. And it's better than Mamma Mia.
I Love You Beth Cooper takes the high school standard of "THE" girl that ruled the roost over the four years of education you go through and the infatuations that males had for her and wraps them up in a neat little bow that presents the class geek (Paul Rust) professing his love during graduation. An interesting premise, I must say and it could have worked if the script was written with any kind of sincerity, the direction was worth a damn, and had acting that was above the putrid level of two geeks at a bus stop doing Monty Python skits.
What invariably happens is that the geek and his best friend (Jack Carpenter) end up, through a series of circumstances, on the town with the geeks queen Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere) and her entourage. Of course there's the party that gets crashed and the pissed off boyfriend, but it's what happens during this final night of high school insanity that the geek realizes the Venus-like girl in his head is not the wild teenage girl crashing into his parents Volvo.
As a plot on paper the film sounds pretty good. It's an age old formula for decades, but it sounds like something different compared to most of the teen comedies out there. But then we get the script, which is an atrocious series of misadventures that zig zag without anywhere to land. There's the psycho, coked up, Army boyfriend (I though they gave drug tests) who is this Superman chasing our harem throughout the night, yet is defeated in a towel fight, never to be seen again. The acting is terrible due to the fact that it rests on Panettiere, who isn't the greatest actress in the first place. A poorly acted movie that's only saving grace is Alan Ruck as the geeks father. Yes, Cameron had a kid (see if you can get that reference).
I Love You Beth Cooper is essentially resume filler for the cast with Panettiere being able to say that she had a starring role in a film. This film was directed by Chris Columbus, who quit making the Harry Potter movies after the first two. Now we know why.
So I was going through the video store, looking around at the garbage that Hollywood produces these days and lo and behold I found a film called Midnight Meat Train. Whoa! This movie doesn't belong here! It belongs in the back behind the beaded curtain. Then I notice Vinnie Jones and blood dripping across the window and realized that this is some kind of horror movie.Midnight Meat Train follows the exploits of a butcher by day, butcher by night played by Vinnie Jones who boards a late night subway train, gets a few people alone, then proceeds to slaughter them in some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. I'm serious, Abraham Lincoln would laugh at this CGI. Throw in a photographer (Bradley Cooper) who starts investigating our butcher and you get a film that tries to be a little Hitchcockian, but ends up flat, tasteless, and dull. The photographer's decent into the obsession is supposed to be the intriguing part, but it just comes off as a tedious plot point to climb over as we wait for more Vinnie Jones slaughter. Sure Vinnie is a bad ass, but could they have given him at least one other facial expression. It wasn't much of a stretch for Vinnie. Just tell him his favorite soccer team sucks and you have "the look".Written by Clive Barker, who is still riding the greatness that was the first Hellraiser, Midnight Meat Train is basically a very cool name with a shit movie attached.
