As summer 2013 concludes, film studios released many blockbusters, some more divisive with audiences and critics than others. For the people who are unwilling to take chances with films that scored middling to mixed reviews on RottenTomatoes.com or Metacritic.com, The State Press presents five tested alternatives to the summer’s most controversial entertainment.
Don’t see “The Hangover Part III”; see “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (2005)
It takes a great screenwriter to straddle the line between film noir and comedy, and because of the results of his efforts, writer-director Shane Black might be such a writer.For a film almost shot exclusively at night and where people’s deaths are followed by jokes, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” is a very funny movie, a capacity that “The Hangover Part III” envies.
Despite their best intentions of living in the real life, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), seem to be living in a noir film, where everyone is a walking stereotype and lives by the counter-intuitive logic of action flicks.
Don’t see “World War Z”; see “Contagion” (2011)
What’s more frightening? Zombies or an unseen virus? "Contagion’s" hook is simple yet disturbingly effective: It sketches a world paralyzed by the threat of infection, where government ineffectuality reigns, society unravels and the smart ones hunker in their houses.Director Steven Soderbergh’s documentary-like direction leads to many powerful unnerving passages of the titular contagion’s societal and physical devastation; no shot more disturbing than when he lingers over the rapid deterioration of Gwyneth Paltrow’s body.
Don’t see “Man of Steel”; see “The Rocketeer” (1991)
Whether too freewheeling, as in the case of the “The Lone Ranger,” or too solemn, as in “Man of Steel,” some of this summer’s tent-pole films stewed in their own bad tendencies.Made during a time before superhero films reigned supreme and CGI rendered anything possible, “The Rocketeer” exists in the wake of classic Indiana Jones, when action was simpler, and it benefits for it.
Although, the action scenes lack some of the visual panache of those earlier flicks, the film exudes breezy entertainment from it’s All-American hero, played by Billy Campbell, to cartoonish Nazis led by a swashbuckling Timothy Dalton. It’s a comic book movie diluted into its purest form.
Don’t see “White House Down”; see “Commando” (1985)
The original “Die Hard” proved such a viable formula that countless knockoffs (and four sequels) tried to reproduce the magic with middling results. But before John McClane killed bad guys barefoot, some quite silly action films preceded him. Such is the case with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Commando,” where he plays a former soldier attempting to rescue his daughter from a deposed dictator.The plot of "Commando" doesn’t matter though, when every plot point exists only to reach the next action scene (filmed in typical over-the-top 1980s fashion) sprinkled with self-consciously quirky dialogue. At about 90 minutes, it’s mercenary in pace and ends before it overstays its welcome.
Don’t see “R.I.P.D.”; see “Men in Black” (1997)
Buddy comedies were around long before the original Men in Black entered onto the scene in July 1997, but few produced a more fertile pairing than of Tommy Lee Jones, as the cantankerous veteran agent, and Will Smith, as the green rookie.Both actors were at pinnacles in their respective careers, and it shows in their interplay as they hunt for Edgar, the interstellar cockroach, played, with captivating otherworldly qualities, by Vincent D’Onofrio.
It helps they’re surrounded by a clever (and funny) subversive universe where anyone (including Dennis Rodman) can be an alien. A perfect genre film.
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