With 2 strong leads and 2 good supporting characters this movie did not disappoint in the acting department. Dialogue was quite nice too. But the whole story (and especially the ending) left me unsatisfied.
The big reveal is finally here. And pretty early too! A good thing I didn't read the UBW story yet, now I am pretty excited for who is still set to fight who. I hope Archer can humiliate Gilgamesh at some point. But I suspect this route too will end in a Saber victory.
According to this film a Leo is destined to do great things. What they actually mean is you need saving all the time.
I had very high hopes for this movie, but had to adjust them after all the bad reviews and low rating it received. After all it was not as bad as they made it out to be, but definitely not the masterpiece I was hoping for.
To start of with the movie's biggest flaw; The story is as random as it can get. Not only did they fail to set up a good premise (Cinderella in space) but even the arcs have as little connection as possible.
We have a leading cast consisting of a 'renegade' soldier and a damsel in distress that doesn't seem to be able to love anyone until she literally gets swept of her feet by the prince in shining boots. Of course they need an enemy, so the villain is a selfish royalty with a batman-voice that uses the whole universe for its own gain and profit. Actually, he isn't the only one. Everyone else in the universe who can does. And those who cannot, accept it as a fact of life. So why is he a villain again? Oh right, he is the one who is currently threatening earth...
And then there are the sister and brother of the villain who get entangled in the story, although they have no influence on the outcome of the story at all and only prolong it.
Jupiter (Mila Kunis) needs to protect her family and the earth all the while barely making any decisions by herself (besides wanting to go back home scrubbing a toilet.) Even when she does make a decision, it gets her into trouble. It's as if she wants to create a situation where her prince is coming to save her (from the altar and the worst marriage in history of spacetime and movie clichés.)
Through most of the movie she has no idea what is going on, and character development is thin as ice. The same goes for most the other characters.
Some comedic relieve is put in with an (extensive) joke about bureaucrats with our 'heroes' just standing by while some robot goes from one department to another. As well as a spaceship leaving a crop circle in a not so subtle way while lifting off. Really, who wants to see those things?
Also: Why was Channing Tatum the only guy with a shield (or flying boots) in the whole universe? And why does he run through a cornfield, while he can much easier fly over it (and how did he survive the journey through space right after that when he was outside the ship?)
Well, at least they used a decent excuse for a massive destruction of an earth-bound city in a movie.
The cast was a variable success. This might be the first flick in which Sean Bean doesn't get killed off prematurely :P
Most of the actors did what they could with what they got and Eddie Redmayne (playing the villain) probably got the best out of it. He created a pretty convincing bad guy with the moods of royal spoiled kid.
Mila Kunis did a good job on making 'Cinderella' likable and convincing. it is nice to see her do a Science Fiction flick, and I would love to see her do more in the future (hopefully with a more profound role.)
The brother Titus and sister Kalique (Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton resp.) were already pretty irrelevant for the story, but managed to erase themself from memory even more easily by overacting their roles. So they ended up more as eye-candy than anything else.
I am saving Channing Tatum (Cain 'Prince flying boots' Wise) for last. As an action hero he did not disappoint. He also handled the more romantic scenes with the right subtlety even though he and Kunis did not seem to really feel each other.
The only point that was constantly in my mind was: "Why didn't they get Justin Timberlake for his part?" He has proven himself to be a good actor a long time a go (also in Sci-Fi with 'In Time') and even starred with Mila Kunis in 'Friends with benefits' where they showed to have a great chemistry together. It is not that Tatum did a bad job, but Timberlake might have done a better job at getting that connection with Kunis, which frankly was underwhelming.
This is where the movie gets its most points for. It is a space opera after all and the creators of 'The Matrixx' and 'Cloud Atlas' have a niche with trying to do unique things with the action and mood of a movie.
Some extra-slow bullet time is thrown in and (very) fast action with ships spinning around each other which was a real enjoyment.
Somehow the action scenes (like the one named before) are a bit too fast paced though. It goes so fast and gets so chaotic from time to time that it is really hard to follow what is going on and/or to enjoy it thoroughly.
As a space opera it did its job with throwing in a lot of extraterrestrial beings (including the famous area51 big heads) and nice designed spaceships. The make-up and CGI of some of the recurring creatures were extremely detailed and so great to look at it didn't feel fake at all. In comparison; LOTR's Gollem looks like a ship of the 70s game 'Space Invaders' next to them.
The visuals of Jupiter, Earth and other planets are astonishing (way better than 'Interstellar' for example) and so are the clouds on Jupiter itself and views of the different cities.
A lot of the long shots of cities and spaceships are a bit cut short and just too distant though, which was a shame since they could've used those moments more so the viewer could enjoy the view and take in the atmosphere. This made the movie feel less 'in your face' and majestic (remember the openings scene of 'Star Wars?)
With a bad plot, good visuals and an average cast 'Jupiter Ascending' makes for a nice looking movie that can be seriously fun to watch, but nothing as special as it promised to be. It has many flaws and downsides but in my opinion the critique and bad ratings are worse than the movie is set out to be. This is probably mostly because of the high expectations the movie had before release. It still is quite ridiculous though.
"Thank you for keeping our secret" they said, while she did her utmost best to reveal everything about them for a news story...
Shitty movie: ugly weird looking CGI, bad plot filled with holes and stupidity, shitty dialogue, no character development, useless characters, dumb origin stories etc etc etc. When will Michael Bay quit making movies?
WIll Arnett's bad jokes are probably the best thing about this movie.
That was pretty pointless...
I expected a drama with heavy character development but with a very minimalistic take. At least I got that last part right. Besides the acting (especially by Elle Fanning) this was a waste of time.
Oh I am so gonna miss Bill Murray when he is gone. But for now we can still enjoy his amazing performances on screen!
I do wish Chris O'Dowd had some more screentime. I could possibly enjoy a whole movie about that teacher character.
Surprisingly good movie, with an extremely low budget.
In this fictional documentary we start of with the surprising news humankind won an alien invasion and survived for a change. In the almost 90 minutes that follow we see the soldiers of a military outpost base battling the remaining aliens in the region and a unique sci-fi war story.
Although this movie wouldn't be considered 'great' by many, it is not as bad as its ratings do make believe. The visuals are pretty nice, but not overdone, the story is surprising at points, and directing choices are somewhat unique.
This makes the whole movie feel very realistic. The Direct Cinema technique (making use of hand-held cameras and the cameraman being a part of the story) amplifies this heavily. The low budget doesn't hurt its realism either.
Having such a low budget does has its downside. The aliens are drawn into the movie pretty late, they couldn't fix the fact that some scenes do feel like being on a set and some of the dialogue and text is a bit corny. The writers even do a (misfired) wink to the Afganistan war. That kind of political symbolism is painfully misplaced in a movie with an overdone amount of macho men.
And even though they do an elaborate effort to make you familiar with the mediocre cast, they don't really stick for the most part. The General might be an exception on this.
However, the aliens do look really badass and so do most of the props used by them and the human props are neat too. The action scenes are solid as well, with a lot of explosions (don't worry, it is not Michael Bay-like) and changing environments.
One of the biggest plot problems is probably on how the soldiers managed to advance, enter and destroy the (most important) base of the aliens with less firepower and more resistance than they had to endure at their own base, but they lost that. Even though they were 1 man down. I have to say they do lose more men at the alien base.
The second problem is the lack of answers the movie provides. You are left wondering why the 'heavy' want to conquer the earth, and they are really teasing you with the 'metal rain' and after-the credits scene they provide us with.
Maybe they hope on a sequel, with a bigger budget. And to be honest, even with all the bad points this movie has, I am all for it.
Pretty disappointing and crappy movie.
I suspected a casual and fun movie with this one, maybe with some puzzles and an interesting premise. However the movie disappointed from the start.
For a adaptation from a book I sure hope this was a bad one. You get thrown into the middle of a stoy where suddenly all kinds of stuff happens. I hope this wasn't the case in the original work, because it is one of the major flaws of this movie, and could be explained as the cause of many of its other faults.
The acting was luckily pretty ok, but many of the characters don't add to the story at all and are just filling up empty screen. The sound was to cry off as well. Soundtrack was ok, but many scenes had no music and felt like a soap because of it.
I am all for being creative with sound, but this was just done badly.
Since I won't bore you with pages of irrelevant texts, like the movie does, i will just make a list of the cons and pros.
Cons:
- Paced way too fast
- No build up for a climax (the film was more of a constant climax actually)
- Not getting time to get acquainted with the characters, therefore not caring about there faith.
- Very little character development, except maybe for Gally (Will Poulter)
- Stating many things as impossible without many explanation
- Revealing the endgame in the first act of the movie with a flashback/memory which makes the whole movie unnecessary,
- Also making the whole story as predictable as a Japanese train schedule.
- Inappropriate absent of sound
- Too much unimportant characters
- Did we really need another Hunger Games movie?
- etc.
Pros:
- Nice environment
- Funny but cool looking cyborg creatures
- Doesn't need many attention to follow, so you can check your twitter or facebook feed in the meantime.
Update from my first comment:
I really enjoy this show, especially after the 1st season (which had some startup problems with the acting and stories.) It is not the best or most witty out there, but it (usually) isn't very bad either.
However, now the 4th season has reached its end I think the show is running at its creative end. I'll give it one more season where they need to reinvent themselves or make a nice exit story. If this doesn't happen it could become boring quick and is at risk of turning into one of thos uninspired run of the mill sitcom. That would be a sad end for this show imho.
Felt very awkward and staged. I understand how they wanted a literal translation of the work, but it didn't really work in this case. Couldn't watch it through and turned it off after 1/3 of it.
Felt a bit rushed overall.
Surprising entertainment with a Mexican mythology background. Besides that it is a one time watch only movie with a basic unsurprising story.
It even needs a few familiar songs to make it more appealing. Didn't feel like a movie where the creators really put in their heart, and were more concerned with the artwork and animation than the rest of the movie.
I like Bateman, but why does he always play in these kind of weak movies?
Even with him, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda and Kathryn Hahn (great comedy cast) this movie was mostly pretty boring and did not feel realistic.
It tried to achieve a mix between comedy and drama, but even while it did make me smile at some points it wasn't that funny and failed completely as a drama with the silly flat characters and plot.
From Tropic Thunder:
Kirk Lazarus: Everybody knows you never go full retard.
Tugg Speedman: What do you mean?
Kirk Lazarus: Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, "Being There." Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, "I Am Sam." Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed...
This is a great movie though.
A more adult & futuristic version of 'Ruby Sparks'
This small, incomplete review holds no real spoilers.
Jennifer Lawrence turned up the acting switch a notch. Might be her best performance till date overshadowing 'winter's bone' while showing her great talent and potential of her becoming a movie superstar (if she isn't already bc of her internet popularity and looks.)
This part was more balanced as the last movie, and sets the emotional trigger on sharp for the finale next year.
Again a compliment to Elizabeth Banks who captures the role of Effie amazingly well. Even though she originally wasn't supposed to be on screen until the finale, the creators and writer Suzanne Collins decided to let her replace Plutarch's assistent so she could be in this movie, which was a wise decision imho to use a familiar face in stead of a unknown side character.
I was a bit disappointed about the lack of influence of Natalie Dormer, but we might have to wait for the last movie for that to happen.
Sidenote: It is harder to find a movie without Julianne Moore nowadays, than one with her lol.
There is a lot of conversation, the biggest part due to this being the politics part in the story. This is a big part of stories base after all, and is important in its message.
I really was surprised they used the 'Hanging tree' song in the movie, I kinda suspected they would skip it, and it was a great surprise and a good decision the didn't. It has a lot of importance for Katniss, since it depicts the struggle of the districts against the capitol, and her relationship with her family (mainly her dad) and later with Peeta.
Lawrence is definitely not a singer though, she doesn't have the voice for it hehe. Good thing they have computers nowadays.
Depending on how part 2 will turn out, I think they made a good choice in splitting the movie in two, even though it is probably done just for the cash and not for storytelling.
A brilliant '2001 space oddisee'-like real science fiction movie we haven't seen since the first Matrixx movie.
This show had so much potential, and already had a great first season.
Worst cancellation of 2014
A really fun show that never got the chance to develop itself.
The characters have great chemistry with each other, and each and every one of them has its own unique side without being cliché.
The writers managed to get some very good jokes into the show, and the timing of the actors is pretty decent too. Max is one of the highlights of the cast, and I think that if this would have run for a few more seasons it could've been as popular as New Girl or better.
The weak point is the stale position everyone is in, some of the characters are a bit overdone which leaves not a lot of space for different situations and jokes. It also happens from time to time that a scene is very forced and all actors are literally repeating their lines in stead of acting them out.
"Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others."
This was a much anticipated movie for me, so I really wanted to give it a proper sit down and give it my full attention. It turned out it needed it too. The movie falls into the category 'hella long' and with the different story lines, sometimes difficult to understand accents and philosophic punch it feels even longer.
With it being based on a book (which I didn't read) that has 6 separate stories with a specific order, this could not have been translated to the big screen without changing the structure of the stories. So it got chopped into many different smaller pieces and throughout the movie the viewer jumps from one story to another.
It makes for a more proper build up, but it unfortunately also created a big mess that must've been hard to follow for at least a part of the viewers. You can see even the actors having some difficulty with it at times.
It is obvious right from the start that this movie is aiming for a more intellectual public and wants to deliver a wide spectrum of ideas and views. It tries its very best, and succeeds in a multitude of ways, but never grasps the feeling of completion. As much as it brings out a message of everything is connected, the script might have needed a few more rewrites to make it more interconnected itself.
You could argue it is either too long with no strong red line, or too short to succeed in making the connection between stories and between audience and characters. There are the obvious crossovers; like a flashback to a previous story in time and the recurring actors, plus some (broad) recurring themes. But besides that it doesn't link the stories together well enough.
There are many great actors in many different roles they handle quite well. I was especially surprised by Hugh Grant as an oil company executive. Hugo Weaving is, unfortunately, type-casted as the villain in every storyline. He does a great job of course, but with such a diversity of stories and settings I expected him to get a good guy out of it as well. (Besides maybe during the very last scene as an interrogator.)
Also Korean actress Bae Doo Na was a treat playing a sort of 'ghost in the shell' girl in futuristic Neo Seoul. I think something the Wachowski's had a lot of fun with.
It is an interesting and entertaining movie to watch, and I think it is best to watch it at least two or three times. But doing that would just take too much time for making it really worth your while.
There probably will be people who will absolutely love this movie completely, but it is not me. Seeing the 75% rating on trakt is about the best it gets on the internet I am fairly confident to say it isn't for the masses either.
As a big Fate fan I love to see the Fate routes back on screen. This series has a more 'stepping in' pace and is clearly aimed at both existing fans and viewers new to the franchise.
This makes a very balanced series, but it can be a bit repetitive and boring at times for the older fans.
Luckily Ufotable throws in everything they got and artwork is so amazing you don't really get the time to get bored.
ok show, but understandable it got canceled. I thought it would be a 26 eps 1 season thing with the title though.
If a movie could be rated a 0, this one would get it
The first one was fun, this one was dumb.
This was a waste of time.
With all the great reviews I suspected a hidden jewel, and it kinda was. However it annoyed me a lot.
Especially the dialog was extremely hectic and kind of retarded in the first 30 minutes. It got a bit better after that, but never really good. The actions and decisions were of people that just did not think, something that doesn't fit in a movie with a smart setting like multiverses. imho it only fits with comedy and some exceptions here and there, but that's just me.
One of the flaws that showed itself a couple of times was the time flow. Time is not really consequent throughout the whole movie. In 1 scene someone drinks up a bottle of wine within a minute, and on a few occasions people were gone for a longer period of time (10-20min) while in the house itself no more than 5 minutes were passed at best. This could be explained by the major plot twist in the end, but it would be nice if there were made 1 or 2 remarks about it if that was the case.
The movie is also not giving the viewer time to make their own construction of the situation but making a few emotional scenes right after an info-dump and repeating this process.
And when the characters finally start to understand how complex the situation could be, they decide to pop open the alcohol and get wasted.... seriously?
It brings the movie to a dramatic impasse that is completely unnecessarily and just slows down the mystery.
Luckily the movie manages to get some points in after that. More focusing on story development, having some very interesting plot twists and using the mystery to its benefit in stead of for the drama.
Those last 15 minutes are a good home run, and the movie sets up a completely other pace and setting. Suddenly moving from a group of people with no clue what's going on, to one main character with an objective.
Maybe they should've done this from the beginning to make it more interesting. The girl (Emily?) who took on this role was from the beginning one of the few actors I did not have many complains about, and was doing a good job.
Usually I am a big fan of the 'quantum multiverse' theory worked into a movie, and the concept in this one is very nicely done. But even though they tried (and to be fair the creators have a good grasp on the subject) it kinda failed with the overly dramatic setting and insulting the viewer by letting characters make dumb decisions.
Since it is a low budget movie, I decided not to be too harsh on the rating itself (it really is a movie that can match itself with the high budget ones) and I definitely would upvote for a remake with some better scriptwriting for dialog and some actions. Because I think that this flick could be even better.
'Let's Be Cops' a.k.a. New Girl tribute episode to 'The Other Guys' with Nick and Coach.
A pretty fun movie, even though it is written with not enough room left over for the actors to work with for more improvisation (or so it seems.) There are also a lot of scenes that are just not necessary and kinda over the top (the dancing of coach being a perfect example of it) for a movie like this. It makes for a few good smiles, but it also feels a bit forced into the film.
However, Jake and Damon are having a good chemistry on screen since they have been working together for a while with New Girl now, and this makes the movie highly enjoyable. The physical humor especially is worked out great. Adding Rob Riggle (as the backing 2nd 'straight man') makes them stand out even better.
This movie is not it's best in making you laugh out loud with witty comments or crazy jokes, but it definitely makes you light-hearted and kind of happy throughout and after the movie from watching these two 'silly smart guys' save the day.
The worst is the soundtrack of the film though. In the opening scene it is still funny to hear the guilty pleasure song from Backstreet Boys, but soon you'll discover that the whole movie is drenched in bad trap meets hiphop (I expected 'Beez in the trap" during almost every scene xD) and this bothered me a lot. Couldn't they use some more neutral les disturbing tracks if they didn't want to get cliché songs?
Anyway, the movie will not disappoint most of its viewers and even though it won't go to the top of the comedic genre either. It is great for some nice entertainment for (almost) everyone.
Love the ratings for 1 and 10 on trakt :D
The movie lives in no way up to it's 9 year old predecessor.
Yes, the visuals are still stunning, yes the acting is overall still pretty good with many big names, yes the violence is still very overdone without turning into a Tarantino movie and yes it still takes place in the same universe as before and even some familiar characters make a comeback.
But it is very obvious they tried to recreate the first movie, but with a different story and characters. There was no real intention in building something new, innovative or unique with this one. It is perfectly described in a review one of the comments here already shared: "Unlike its first incarnation which had an artistic execution and vision, this version is literally all execution without any artistic vision."
Talking about story. You do keep wondering what will happen next, but it is in no way as interesting as it could be. The timeline is very straightforward, and the connection with characters from different storylines are a bit too easy. And in the end it is just 1 guy who does the heavy lifting and finishes everything (HULK SMASH!) oh, but we don't know how he ends up...
If you did not liked the first one, you won't like this one either. And if you liked the first one, there is not a big chance you like this one too (unless you just want to gaze at boobs and enjoy mindless violence.)
