Belated Airplane Reviews

During our travels in the past couple of months, we watched several movies on airplane trips, and I would be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts on them.

From Hong Kong back to the US, we took Cathay Pacific, which was a nice change from American Airlines, our usual carrier. I am loyal to American, frankly, because that's where all my frequent flyer miles are, and for no other reason. I'm happy when I get to fly British Airways, Cathay, or another One World Partner because when it comes to comfort, service, and all around experience, American is really lacking.

We began the trip with... The Trip, a British film starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. We had heard really good things about it and from the reviews, we anticipated something absolutely hilarious. In reality, it was pretty slow, but had its moments. There was a lot of humor in there that we didn't get that I'm sure others would appreciate more. Not knowing the background of the two actors worked against us as that seemed to play a lot into the story and the comedy. It was also a lot more serious and introspective at points, which we did not expect. If you like Michael Caine impressions, you will love this movie. The camera shots of the food were oustandting.

We followed it up with Super 8, which we had wanted to see in the theater, but never got around to it. This movie had so much potential, but it didn't quite do it for me. The train accident at the beginning was pretty awesome, but unless it was carrying a bomb, it made no sense why there were explosions and train cars going all over the place. The movie continued to not make sense for the next hour or so and after a while, I just got bored. It seemed like it was trying to appeal to viewers who were nostalgic for ET and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, but JJ Abrams seemed to concentrate all of his time on the visuals instead of putting together a decent script.
 
By the time we flew back to Europe, it was October, which meant the new slate of movies was out on the plane. We watched the Hangover 2, which was a big mistake. One may ask, was it a mistake to have watched the movie or to have made the movie, and the answer to both questions, is yes. The stuff that monkey could do was amazing, but besides that, the movie was an absolute waste of time. They caught lighting in a bottle once. Why can't Hollywood just leave well enough alone?

As a bonus, we have also watched Horrible Bosses and Contagion since we've been back. We enjoyed Horrible Bosses. It was funny. Jenifer Aniston should take more roles like this where she isn't trying to be sweet and do cute Jennifer Aniston type things. It's much more enjoyable to watch her like this. It didn't hurt that she wore very little clothing. Contagion played like a documentary and was believable in that it's exactly what I think would happen if there was a deadly virus outbreak today and captured how people more than likely would react. In that respect, it scared the shit out of me. I already am overly aware of germs when I travel, so this didn't help. It was cool seeing Gwyneth Paltrow get de-scalped. The most horrifying parts of the movie though are the close-ups of Jude Law's teeth, which I had no idea were that bad.