I got yer film reviews right here!

Well kids, I’ve been quite busy with going to more films than you can possibly imagine, so I’m going to run down a few of them now for you all. these films include: The Visitor, Swing Vote, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and a few others, but I’m going to limit this post to these three. I actually enjoyed all three of these films The first is an Indie film with an unnerving (and unexpected) political twist, the second is a broad but slightly goofy political satire; while the last is an entertain (if somewhat lackluster) action/adventure blockbuster wannabe.

So, without any further adieu, I’ll jump right into my mini reviews (as always, longer form reviews can be found on Pop Thought.

The Visitor: Rated “PG-13”: This is an Indie film that revolves around a Professor from a small New England college who travel;s to New York City to deliver a paper to a teaching seminar and discovers that there is a couple of people illegally living in his all-but-abandoned apartment.

Staring Step Brother’s Richard Jenkins as Professor Walter Vale who has been settling further and further into a rut as he drifts aimlessly after the death of wife. It certainly doesn’t help that Vale has been teaching the same course for the past 20 years. Now he’s being forced to deliver a paper to a seminar in NYC and he is understandably resistant, especially as he reveals to the Dean that he really didn’t co-write it as much as he lent his name to a colleague who did all of the work. Needless to say the Dean won’t take “no” for an answer, so off Prof. Vale goes.

After arriving at his apartment, and discovering the couple (a Syrian man — Tarek and his common law Senegali wife — Zainab). As soon as Vale realizes that the couple have no place to go, he grudgingly allows them to stay ‘til they can find something. Needless to say, they don’t, and the three of them wind up growing closer, even to the point where Tarek (a musician) teaches Vale how to play the drums.

The film takes an unexpected and dark turn when Tarek and Vale are stopped at a subway station and Tarek is unceremoniously carted off by the transit authority. This is when we learn of the couple’s illegal status. Now Vale is drawn ever deeper into their world as he attempts to negotiate for Tarek‘s freedom. This winds up not being the film that it started out being, and this is what makes it work so well. As we are witness what it is like to be an innocent illegal caught up in an uncaring governmental system designed to keep everyone out.

Swing Vote: Rated “PG-13”: Yes, boys and girls, it is election time, and because of this, we are now getting politically aware films hitting the theaters. In Swing Vote we are presented with a comical turn of a statistical improbability that plays off the 2000 Florida fiasco. In this film, we have a dead-heat election where the fate of the nation rests — not so much a single county, but on a single miscast vote, in a critical swing state.

Bud Johnson (Costner) is the average everyman, (only moreso), in that he is (barely) High School educated, with a dead-end, low-paying factory job (he sorts chicken eggs in some backwater town in New Mexico), where his job is about to be insourced (not so much sent to Mexico, as it is that he is about to get replaced by lower-waged, Mexicans who have been imported to do the work). Forced by his (much smarter and socially aware) daughter, Bud gets (unwillingly) caught up in the election process.

Ultimately, the spoiled ballot and the media circus uproar that surrounds it is played for laughs, turning the entire election process on its ear as each candidate bends and twists his way around in order to endear himself to the one lone voter that will determine the course of history for the next four years. Sure, it is a highly improbable, series of events, but – upon reflection, how much more improbable than a scientist who was exposed to massive doses of gamma radiation and didn’t die, but was turned into big green galoot, or a super-powered immortal who looses his strength when he is near his one true beloved? Ultimately, it does works.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Rated “PG-13”: Rick and Evelyn O’Connell have — after their years of adventure and service to the British Crown, have finally taken up the role of the bored British aristocracy as they putter around the house pretending to enjoy their retirement all the while pining for the days when they actually did stuff. So they fairly jump at the chance to deliver a priceless antique to Taiwan, and drop in on Evelyn’s brother Jonathan who runs a nightclub there.

What follows is your typical slam-bang Mummy action film, unfortunately, the problem with this film is that it takes nearly an hour to get to the good stuff, and that is simply way too long for a Summer SPFX action/adventure blockbuster to get from zero to 60.

The slow start certainly puts a damper of sorts on this film, perhaps the newly-released Scorpion King 2 plays better, only its status of having been dumped directly to DVD is something of a clue. Too bad, my son and I have really enjoyed this series.

Well, that’s it for this time out. More films are coming, and don’t forget to drop by my film column, and view the long-form reviews.

The Perfessor