30 DAYS OF NIGHT
49%/57%
I wish I didn't have to make apologies for this one. These vampires are pure evil. No sparkling in the sun, no romance. These guys want to tear you apart with fangs and claws and soulless eyes. They attack during the first part of the month-long night in Alaska, and the rest of the movie is one of the best horror/thriller movies in recent years. This is what vampires were meant to be. And Josh Hartnett's final fight with the lead vampire is pretty gruesome. It's also got one of my favorite, and underrated actors, Ben Foster in a terrifically creepy role. He shows up in another movie on this list...
THE GREEN HORNET
44%/46%
I had no expectations for this, so I left the theater content. It's funny, often outright silly, but intentionally so. And the more visual scenes involving Kato or Black Beauty are very well done. Seth Rogen plays on his own oafishness, only accidentally becoming a hero thanks to his so-crazy-it-has-to-work plan and Kato's over-efficiency at...everything. Bloodnovsky is the ridiculous and funny mid-life crisis response to Green Hornet, and Christoph Waltz does nonchalant murder better than anyone. His death by table legs through the eyes is one of a few surprisingly brutal moments in the movie.
WATCHMEN
64%/68%
It's long, tedious, talky, and heavy with information that all fits together into the greater scheme. Just like the book. It has its flaws for sure, but it's also as close as anyone was going to get to the book and still make a cohesive, entertaining, genre-redefining story. Which I think Snyder did. He sacrificed very little from the book, and the new ending was better for the movie anyway, and a welcome twist on a film that's only real drawback was that I had seen it all frame-for-frame before.
BLADE: TRINITY
26%/70%
This movie has gotten more repeat viewings from me than I ever anticipated after the first viewing. It's the bastard sequel in most people's eyes, but I find that it holds up better than Blade 2. Ryan Reynolds is humorously ineffective, has some great scenes getting his ass kicked, Jessica Biel is wooden but not awful, and the story couldn't be more final than Blade's last stand against Dracula in attempt to destroy the vampire virus. The ending felt a little forced, but it worked nonetheless. It lacked some of the more imaginative fight scenes of the first 2, and wasn't as bloody, but beyond that it is a more than decent film. Look at the difference between the 2 ratings...
THE PUNISHER(2004)
29%/68%
No Punisher movie has hit all the nails on the head, but this one comes closest. While it was rated PG-13 when any true Punisher movie should be R, it had its moments. The devious and well-plotted revenge on John Travolta's mob boss wasn't particularly violent, but it was satisfying. Thomas Jane brought humanity to a character that really isn't known for showing much. We still wait for our true Punisher, but this one deserves more than 29%. But the casual audience seemed to like it much more, which was the case in several of these.
X3-THE LAST STAND
57%/73%
OK, hear me out...
I accept this movie for all it is and isn't and damn well should have been. But I feel like that's what we have done with all the X-Men movies, with First Class being a step away from that. We've sort of just accepted this series, while quite good overall and pitch-perfect here and there. But as a long-time X-Men fan, I think we have yet to get the X-Men film we all TRULY want. So, that in mind, my point is that X3 was the weakest of the series, but it wasn't so below standards of the first 2, or so removed in tone and story, that it became a Batman and Robin or even a Spiderman 3. Iceman iced up Pyro's shit, Wolverine walked through flesh-melting phoenix fire to save the world and the woman he loved. Cyclops was sadly underused in the entire series, so it was a little pointless for him to die, at least so soon in the story. But we did get a danger room scene, a hint at sentinels, and the fastball special. Far from perfect, but far from series-ruining. Magneto's ambiguous ending couldn't have been a more suitable one. Wolverine has been the fan-favorite X-Men for decades, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that it became his movie, but some folks don't seem to agree.
I was actually surprised at the ratings for X3 based on what I've read from fellow comic book fans. Do non-fans like the movie more than I realized?