Movies Opening This Week: Dark Side of the Moon

It's hard to classify anti-heroes. Are they just badass heroes? Protagonists who don't happen to care about fatalities? Guys who don't give a crap but suddenly save the world? Or is an anti-hero like the guy in...

Despicable Me
Steve Carell stars as a supervillain named Gru who happens to be the movie's protagonist, which somewhat confuses me. I mean, Gru wants to take over the world but in the process he'll have to eliminate other threats who are, on their own, threats to the world as well, so he's saving the world so he can conquer it. But then again, Gru fails a lot of the time, so the only thing he'll have to do without much resistance by other supervillains is to... take the moon.

Yeah, you heard me right.

Fine, fine, it's an innocent enough motive for evil. Good for kids since it doesn't involve much death, since well, it's just the moon. Hell, if Gru wants to establish his own Death Star, maybe getting the moon would have a point, but maybe I'm just overthinking things.

Whatever the case, the movie looks decent enough. Okay, but not great, not even good. It's probably more about the money that's gonna be raked in by the 3D, and the stuffed toys (minions, duh) and so on and so on. Who knows though? It might be better than the trailers make it out to be. I mean, for me, the premise is too much like a Jackie Chan movie, if you know what I mean. Hell, maybe even a Vin Diesel or an Arnold. Case made short: the plot is a bit too familiar. But maybe, just maybe, the movie might actually be good... although the last few Ice Age's weren't too good.

Predators
What does look good is this movie, produced by Robert Rodriguez, and it's pretty much about a few people who have to survive the onslaught of the titular monsters, or die. The cast is rounded up with some pretty good names: Laurence Fishburne and Adrien Brody, especially. I'm a bit uneasy about Nimrod Antal in the director's chair, but I'm pretty sure Rodriguez' script and creative control will do the trick and hit a home run in the reinvention of what may well be a potential new franchise.

The movie feels visceral, and the trailer is actually pretty well-cut together. It actually got a few chills down my spine for me, so it's hard not to be excited about this cool-looking movie. I recommend staying tuned for this one.