The Last Legion (*)

THE LAST LEGION

Even worse than expected, The Last Legion plays fast and loose not with actual history, but with the pseudo-history borrowed from other bad movies to create a patchwork quilt of bullshit. Follow along: In 480 AD, the last Caesar, a boy named Romulus Augustus Caesar (sure), watches Rome fall to the Goths, and is charged by his wizard mentor Ambrosinus, who it turns out is Merlin (of course), to find the sword forged for Julius Caesar, which turns out to be Excalibur (no kidding). Romulus, guarded by his loyal band of interchangable, stock Roman legionnaires and a hot Saracen chick, then head to Britannia to hang out at Hadrian's Wall and swipe from the King Arthur movie that came out a few years ago. All of that tripe can be swallowed if the movie were well-made and entertaining. The Last Legion has an abominable script with every character spouting blunt exposition and insipid one-liners, horrible direction, and schlock action edited so that you'll just have to take their word that whatever happened happened. The too-good for this cast, including Ben Kingsley, Colin Firth, and Kevin McKidd have good cause to fire their agents.

28 Weeks Later (*1/2)

28 WEEKS LATER

Despite an excellent opening sequence, the chilling imagery of empty London post-zombie infection, and an intriguing setup of the US Military slowly repopulating London with ex-pats, 28 Weeks Later quickly falls apart from a story and logic perspective. The first 20 minutes of the picture are actually worth seeing, until the two kids discover their zombie mother, then the Idiot Plot kicks in full-charge. Characters behave in the stupidest manner possible in order to enable a new zombie outbreak, then the rest of the picture is run run run from the running zombies! The US military, despite being specially deployed and equipped to deal with the zombies, get buttfucked by the zombies in near-record time. The talents of Idris Elba, Rose Byrne, and Harold Perrineau are largely wasted. Meanwhile, Robert Carlyle as big bad daddy zombie seems to know what his kids will do before they even do it. The truly fantastic soundtrack by John Murphy is worth owning. The main lesson to be learned from 28 Weeks Later: Don't make out with your zombie wife. You turn into a zombie.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (*1/2)

THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2

Don't you hate pants?!

Because I'll watch anything if it's on HD cable (Blake Lively being in it doesn't hurt.) Excruciating sequel about four BFFs who don't seem to like each other or themselves very much. When not yelling at each other while in each others' presence, each girl goes off to have her own generic subplot including pregnancy scares, parental abandonment issues, and copious heapings of general bitchiness. They all struggle and fail to find meaning or happiness in what to the casual observer would seem like otherwise ideal situations, until reuniting in Santorini and jumping off a cliff magically solves all their petty little dilemmas. America Ferrera is incredibly unpleasant here, scowling at everyone with an enormous chip on her shoulder. Meanwhile, Amber Tamblyn is determined to wrest the crown of Queen of the Harpies from Ferrara. The other two, Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively, sure are pretty, especially Lively with the hair and the boobs (xoxo). The magical pair of jeans themselves are an afterthought. My theory is the pants were actually trying to get away from these broads.

Defiance (***)

DEFIANCE

A cross between Schindler's List and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Defiance is the true story of the battlin' brothers Bielski. They saved the lives of 1200 Russian Jews by shepherding them out of the ghettos, outlasting the Nazis for years in the forests. Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell play the three Bielski brothers. Everything they do, they do it for Jews. When Craig romances Alexa Davalos in the forests, I half expected to hear the Bryan Adams song. Joking aside, Defiance's screenplay feels sloppy and unfinished. Numerous times, subjects are pointedly mentioned, telegraphed, and then hammered home immediately: Pregnancy is forbidden in the camp, so a character quickly is discovered to be pregnant. An elderly scholar teaches the children in the camp the story of Moses - right before the camp is attacked by Nazis and Daniel Craig has literally act like Moses and lead the survivors across the Red Sea/green swamp. The conflicts and changes of heart of the main characters are so predictable, at one crucial point Schreiber might as well have looked right at the camera and announced he would save the day right when he's needed the most. Though earnest and well-meaning, Defiance looks and feels like a TV movie that just happens to star James Bond and Sabretooth.

The Hangover (***1/2)

THE HANGOVER

The Vegas movie for everyone who's grown tired of the ultra cool Ocean's Eleven crew breaking every bank on the Strip. The biggest surprises were the coherent story that held the Vegas gags together and how likable and relatable the four leads were. Bradley Cooper's reaction shots to everything Zach Galifianakis said and did were especially funny. The Hangover is a hilarious all-inclusive checklist of everything a gang of buddies would and wouldn't want to happen during a Vegas bachelor party: Marry a stripper, wrangle a tiger (no). Hang out with Mike Tyson (yes). And yet The Hangover surprises with a very nice message about friendship and loyalty between the four leads. The picture slideshow over the credits filling in the blanks of what actually happened that night were worth the price of admission on their own.

Queen of the Damned (*)

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

The Vampire Lestat awakens from his coffin and decides to conquer the world as a douchey goth vampire rock star. Somehow, Lestat's douchy goth vampire rock music awakens Akasha, the Queen of the Vampires (or something) and she decides to make sweet undead music with Lestat. The douchey goth humans in the movie decide this isn't a good thing and try to stop them in a conclusive confrontation where I didn't understand what the hell was going on. Or give a damn. As long as the movie ended. Stuart Townsend made me miss Tom Cruise in his poofy blond wig but the late Aaliyah was pretty hot slinking around in her vampire getup.

30 Days of Night (*)

30 DAYS OF NIGHT

Shitty. Vampire violence descends upon an isolated Alaska town in the middle of their month-long night. It's the opposite of the circumstances of Insomnia starring Al Pacino, except with vampires instead of Robin Williams. The latter is more terrifying, though not as soaked in viscera. Danny Huston, a great actor, slums it as the head vampire while Ben Foster plays the exact same nutjob he played in 3:10 to Yuma and no one seemed to notice. Here's a fun exercise: count the number of times you can actually see squinty Josh Hartnett's eyeballs during the movie. (It's like counting sheep and you go right to sleep. It works. Try it. Spare yourself having to watch the whole movie.)