CraBlogged

Going back in time, a couple weeks: Hulk

Seriously though. I mean, I knew it was going to be blegh, I fully knew it as I picked it up. I joked to Maryl, Let's get this one! But she called my bluff, saying she missed it too.

For an action film it had surprisingly little action, but what's worse, is though the movie was all around boring, it held the best 5 minutes of movie screen history!!! Hulk fighting off 3 rabid mutant dogs? And one of them's a poodle? Priceless, absolutely priceless. Well, 3.99@Blockbuster

I was ok with the boringness of it all until I became outraged at the ridiculousness of it as it approached the ending. What's interesting is I'm happy to stow away sound reasoning and allow the idea of a gamma-induced monster running around in purple underwear and bulging, angry biceps. But I'm not ok with it jumping the grand canyon and it standing 20 feet taller than I think it should. So what's the difference? Why is it ok in my mind if it's unreasonable for one reason but not ok in my mind if it's unreasonable for another? What's the difference of a few dozen feet; the thing is a monster. What's the difference if it can jump grand canyons instead of just rooftops? It's all fiction and make-believe, so why can't I allow it to be just that more unbelievable?

Because it's freaking ridiculous is why. Maybe it's true to the comics or something or other, but all I know of the Hulk is from video games and the tv show. He was 7 feet maybe 8, not 40+. And he couldn't freaking happily skip across thousand-yard canyons. He was just big and angry, not a green super-man.

So nyah.

Oh, we also recently saw 300. Now that was a film I could sink my teeth into. I didn't know much going into it, except from the tidbits of rememberences in history class and the Civilization game. I was really surprised at how dumbed down this film was - how the movie seemed to get run through a "wtf" filter of comical absurdity. But I liked it all the more for it, I'm sure. I'm tired of movies like Troy, where you have 2 hours of boring drama and dialogue and a few good battle scenes. You go to see Troy for two reasons: lots of big battle montages, and brad pitt shirtless. You don't go there to listen to shakespeare for two hours. Amirite?

300 knew that. They got progressively more outrageously ridiculous as the movie progressed, but it was almost adorably done so. I echo Ben's complaint of there needing to be more than 2 minutes of actual phalanx tactics before it boiled down into Conan.

But I liked Conan, so I wasn't disappointed.

Though Maryl was a little disappointed to not see pretty pink bowties in the cocoa-fairy-boy spartan hairdos. She said one of their historical taunting tactics would be to openly groom and beautify their hair before battle, to show the enemy that they were so well trained and so prepared for battle at any moment, that they had all the time in the world for personal hygiene and grooming.

If only we were all so lucky!