Weekend at the Movies

I'll keep this brief, but I saw two movies over the weekend. I was really excited to see The Good Shepherd, and not so excited to see Night at the Museum. Before I get too far into this, I'm revising my scoring system. From now on, every movie is going to get a "thumbs up" a "thumbs down" or a "whatever" rating. I think it's pretty self explanatory.

First up was Night at the Museum. Am I the only one to notice that Ben Stiller can only play one role in a movie? He's usually a bumbling kind of guy who deadpans some funny stuff at various points throughout the movie. Of course, he deviates from this sometimes, like with Dodgeball, but for the most part, his role here is the same that we saw in Meet the Parents. Anyway, he's playing the role of a divorced, down on his luck, out of work dude who ends up netting a job as a night-shift security guard at a museum.

Anyway, at night time, the musuem exhibits come to life, and there are quite a few laugh out loud moments to be found. I personally enjoyed Owen Wilson as the miniature cowboy who feuds with the miniature Roman exhibit that is nearby. Attilla the Hun was pretty entertaining too. All in all, it's a funny movie that the entire family can enjoy. A very solid "thumbs up."

Unfortunately, The Good Shepherd was quite a letdown. I was stoked to see this movie. It has all the things I like...CIA, Robert DeNiro, Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon (ok, that might be a stretch, but he's done some good movies). Yet, at almost three hours in running time, it wasn't exciting enough to warrant the time investment. The main problem I had is that Matt Damon's character was so boring. I guess they were trying to play him off as the super-spy that hides all his feelings or whatever, but they overdid it. Even the twists at the end of the movie weren't worth the time it took to get that far.

If you're going to make a 3 hour movie, there better be a lot of twists and turns along the way, or at least some explosions or boobs. There was nothing like that going on here. It ended up feeling like they didn't know where they wanted to go with the storyline. It starts up with the bungled Bay of Pigs invasion, then they flashback to Matt Damon's college years, some work with the FBI, which gets him invited into the CIA. Then he's doing WW2 work, then spying on the Russians...just too much going on. You almost lose sight of what you need to concentrate on, and by the end of it, you just want it to end. An extremely disappointing "thumbs down" for The Good Shepherd.

In Bauer We Trust