Movie List

July 23, 2011
One thing I can say about international travel – you have a lot of time on your hands. On a trip to Malaysia, I had enough time to finish two books and watch two movies. This is the two movies:

Despicable Me

A cute little movie. It focuses on redemption of a person whose goal was to be the most despicable villain around. A pretty predictable plot, but with nice characterization along the way. And you just have to love the Minions. I liked the movie, but only enough to say it is average – I give it a 2.5 on the scale

Battle: Los Angeles

Aging marine seargent – reputation for losing his men in battle. A strong fight on his hands with an enemy and his new squad. That about sums up the humanity of the story, and it is pretty trite. Still, I liked this movie. It is a good action war movie, and when all of the traditional foes are not in vogue, you have to have a new foe, so why not go for aliens. Of course the hero is really the hero and he and his squad find out how to "take the suckers down", and you can figure all along that it will happen (a la "Independence Day") I liked the portrayal of the marines and especially because I have been at Camp Pendleton and recognized some of the scenery (there was ever a very short scene at the San Onefre gate onto the base). I thought the fighting scenes were well done. It truly gave a sense of battle and the mayhem that goes with it. So I can ignore a lot of the trite story line, and the rough language, and say that it wasn't too bad – not for little kids, however. I can even say I had a favorite line from this movie – "We've already had our breakfast, sir." I give this movie about a 2.5, again just average.