The movie is the mostly fictionalized story of Domino Harvey (Keira Knightly), the child of a movie star who supposedly gave up modeling to become a bounty hunter.  There are some ridiculous things in this movie you could explain away as being mildly possible, considering pretty much every boy tries to learn to use nunchucks and throwing knives at some point it’s not too out there to imagine this woman succeeded in mastering both when she was 12.

The rest of the movie is a typical pulp story about a bail bondsman trying to steal some money and blame it on some patsies, but unfortunately gets wrapped up in the mob and the FBI.  It’s straight out of 1995… sadly it was written and filmed in 2005 without any sort of irony.

The implausibility was actually one of the least awful things about this movie, as it turns out, the directing (by Tony Scott, Top Gun, Man On Fire) and editing leave a lot to be desired.  In fact the whole movie is probably ruined solely by the editor, who cut in such an odd way with lots of repeating of lines and scenes (sometimes flipped, sometimes in reverse).  In fact the editing bothered me so much I’m going to look up his name right now and attach it to this movie.  Wow, William Goldenberg and Christian Wagner are to blame.  William Goldenberg may have edited some crap like Coyote Ugly and Miami Vice but he also did Heat and Pleasantville.  Christian Wagner did movies like Mission: Impossible 2, The Island, and Fast & Furious, but also did Bad Boys, Face/Off, and Spy Game.  Maybe editing is not as powerful a position as I assumed, but the movie could have at least been shorter than 2 hours.

The rest of the movie equalled itself out, the awesomeness of Christopher Walken helped diffuse the awfulness of Mo’Nique and Macy Gray.

Summary: This was a waste of 2 hours, and I might not have disliked it as much if it was shorter and had a lot less flashing scenes and repeats.

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This is where the movie basically begins…

So the “fresh” inner city youth who is all about popping and locking has to some janitorial work at a school trying very hard in the first 10 minutes to be the school from Fame.  Walking through the hall Tyler (Channing Tatum, in three movies this year: Fighting, Public Enemies, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) passes by people carrying artwork, dancing in the halls, walking down the hall singing “A Capella” in groups, and playing violin, all in the one stretch of hallway.  We get it, it’s a school for talented people.

Through some creative plot devices, Nora (Jenna Dewan) is forced to ask Tyler to practice with her for her big senior performance.  This of course leads to Tyler adding just enough street into Nora’s routine to make it really stand out so she isn’t forced to go to Cornell like her mother so desperately wants her to, phew crisis averted.

The story is very derivative of many other movies where a prissy ballerina learns something from a rough kid from the streets.  In fact I really thought this movie was Save The Last Dance when I started to watch it, but realized when Julia Stiles didn’t show up that it must be a different movie.

Overall the movie isn’t terrible, the dance scenes are well choreographed and the scenes between Tyler and Nora are believable enough.  There are just some nit-picky things that movies like this always seem to think the audience will not just forgive, but actually expects.

For instance, when dancers go to a club a spontaneous ultra-choreographed d, ance number will be performed by what seems like total strangers.  Also everything works out in the end… except one person dies, but that is just the sort of push the secondary characters need to move on with their life and stop boosting cars.

Basically the entire friends from the hood storyline should have been dropped, along with most of the foster parent strife which doesn’t add much to the movie after it’s established Tyler’s life isn’t all that great (which I guess is what you need to explain why a nice young Irish boy would fall into trouble with inner city hoodlums).

One thing I thought was very interesting and different was the credit sequence.  Instead of a simple credit scroll, it waved back and forth and in the free space that was created they played what appeared to be audition video’s (possibly from all the people who didn’t make the cast).  I found that very interesting and caused me to stay until the end of the credits, I think more movies should consider the credits as part of the movie, not something tacked on at the end to show while people are leaving the theater.

Summary: Don’t go out of your way to see Step Up, but don’t go out of your way to miss it either.

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The movie is as good as a cheerleader type movie can be, about on par with Bring It On.  The wit in this movie was something I wasn’t expecting, about as good as any witty comedy I’ve seen lately.  Judging by the outtakes at the end, they were given a chance to show off their comedic freestyle.

I legitimately laughed out loud a lot during this movie, and I think it’s worthy of watching a few times (like when people come over who, no doubt, haven’t seen it).

Sarah Roemer, who plays the cheer captain and love interest, is great as the only girl at the camp who sees through the guys’ bullshit.  This role could have easily been cast to someone less talented and it wouldn’t have hurt the film, but luckily this woman was chosen (she’s super sexy too).

After looking up Eric Christian Olsen and Nicholas D’Agosto (The two jocks) I was shocked to see they are 32 and 29 years old respectively.  I honestly assumed they were in their early 20s and was going to extoll their virtues, as it is I’m a little surprised I haven’t noticed them in other movies before.  They were fantastic and it makes me think I look older than I am, seeing how young they look.

Summary: This is definately worth renting, especially if you have some people over.

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I think where Chronicles separates itself from Pitch Black, and possibly why it’s not so well recieved, is that Pitch Black seems a bit more grounded in some form of reality.  Granted it takes place on another planet which somehow orbits a binary star and a separate blue dwarf, and it has flying beasties that only come out at night (every 22 years) and murder the place, but the rest of the story is so very human.  It’s about how people make assumptions about a person’s worth, and how everyone is flawed in some way.

Chronicles breaks that a bit by making it seem as though Furians are somehow basically different (better?) than any other human, and to make matters worse, there are half dead people from the underverse with special soul stealing abilities and elementals.  Add in a bunch of new equally strange planets (how exactly does the planet Crematoria go from -300 degrees to 700 degrees just by having the sun come up), strange new animals, and fantasticly destructive weapons and it’s a wholly different universe to the one we live in.

That said, I think it’s still a fun movie to watch (along with the animated Chronicles movie which details the story between Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick) and look forward to any sequels this franchise produces.  I have heard that there were originally 3 scripts written as a trilogy and Chronicles of Riddick was the first in that trilogy, so we’ll see if they ever get around to making them.

Summary: I think it’s imperative to watch Pitch Black first, and if you like the Riddick character and want to see him do even more bad-ass killing, then definately see this movie.

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I forgot how much this movie rocks, there are so many greate scenes and fantastic special effects.  I just now had to look up how the shoulder dislocation scene was done because of how real it looks, apparently it’s because Vin Diesel actually did it for the crew while holding chains, but wasn’t able to do it with manacles on so special effects were added for that part.  Knowing the outcome changes some of the excellently played twists, but it’s still a remarkably enjoyable film to watch and it holds up really well 9 years later.

Summary: I always tell people who have never seen it to borrow my DVD and watch it, I think it’s a must see.

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Summary: It’s worth renting if you like this sort of movie (Sin City), but you could easily skip it and no one will ever bring it up.

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Summary: Skip this movie, see virtually anything else instead.

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Summary: If you are interested in graffiti then find this movie, it’s pretty interesting.

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Summary: Skip this movie and watch The Jackal or Leon (The Professional) instead.

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I think the story is based on a book, and that would probably be ok, the story wasn’t terrible, the action sequences weren’t that bad, it was mainly the acting from everyone involved.  One remarkably bad actor (as always in my opinion) was so heavily made up I didn’t recognize it was Gerard Depardieu until the credits.

Summary: You can skip this movie and see Chronicles of Riddick instead and have way more fun.

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