Playing Catch Up - Bullet Reviews (Prometheus, Ted, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter)

Two weeks ago, the Roanoke area was pummeled by a straight-line windstorm known as a Derecho.  During that storm, a tree in my back yard split in two and took out the power and cable lines running from the mainline on the street to my house.  No one else in my neighborhood experienced anything more than a flicker of lights, but mine was completely wiped out.  12 days later (this past Wednesday), power was finally restored at the house.  And now, four days later, I am still waiting to get my cable/internet fixed (I am currently leeching off of a neighbor's connection).  Anyway, long story short, I wasn't able to post my already late Prometheus review, nor was I able to post reviews for the couple of movies that my fiancee and I saw while we were dealing with the power outage.  I don't like reducing movies to just a couple sentences worth of a review, but I don't have the time (or the memory) to go back and write up something proper for these.  Maybe in the future I can go back and do a more in depth rental review on them.  So here we go...in order of when they were seen:

Prometheus (2012), R, 124 minutes - Prometheus was this year's movie of choice on the annual day trip down to Charlotte, NC for HeroesCon.  I enjoyed it quite a bit and really enjoyed the fact that Noomi Rapace (the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) got her first shot at a leading role in an American film.  Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created for Alien with a prequel that answers some questions and presents others that will presumably be answered in subsequent installments.  If you are a fan of Alien, or the Sci-Fi genre in general, this is a definite must see.  Just beware that you won't get a nice clean ending like one might expect from a prequel.  I can't forget to mention Michael Fassbender's excellent turn as David, the android in this installment in the franchise.

Ted (2012), R, 106 minutes - Ted is an absolutely hilarious movie about a boy who wishes his teddy bear to life and what happens when the boy grows up and has to actually mature.  While 95% of the movie was extremely entertaining and funny, the other 5% really bothered me.  Ted (the living teddy bear) on two occasions makes a comment to someone that he 'hopes they die of Lou Gehrig's Disease'.  Those who know me probably know that my Uncle was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) a few years ago.  It's an awful disease with no cure that - sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly - deteriorates one's muscles and hinders the immune system.  This film is full of adult humor and while I did not like the inclusion of the ALS comment, I also realize that due to the nature of the humor in the film, there's a very good chance that something that didn't offend me probably did offend someone else.  Because of that, I'm not going to stand on a soap box and scream out to the world not to see this film.  But what I will say is this: if you do choose to check Ted out, do so knowing that its content could be offensive.  If you can go in with that mindset, it is worth giving a shot.  Oh yeah, Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, and Seth MacFarlane (writer, director, the voice of Ted) are all pretty good in this flick.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), R, 105 minutes - I'm going to go ahead and drop this film in the guilty pleasure category.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I could see how people might not.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a mash-up of historical fact and supernatural fiction based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote the screenplay).  Imagine if vampires were the cause behind the rise of the South and their succession from the Union causing the Civil War - that is the kind of battle that Abraham Lincoln must overcome in this story.  It is directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who brought us the unique visual styles behind Night Watch, Day Watch, and Wanted.  He loves his slow-motion action sequences, and there are a couple that are even a little over the top for my tastes, but in general the action is pretty well done (especially an axe wielding scene between Abraham Lincoln and one of his associates).  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter also boasts a pretty decent cast including Benjamin Walker (good old Honest Abe himself), Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, and Anthony Mackie.  This may be a rental for a lot of folks due to its oddities, but I enjoyed the book that it was based on, and enjoyed the big screen version enough to add it to my collection when it gets a blu-ray release.