This is one of those movies that will be viewed 30 years from now, and a must-watch.
The only thing bothering me is the lack of character background. For example: 'What are Neo's motives?' It doesn't hurt the movie though.
Oh, and the Revolution ending movie of course...
Best Disney Movie ever!
Great comedy, great sing-a-long music like Disney did best in the early era and a compelling story.
Love the ratings for 1 and 10 on trakt :D
With this movie, the Bourne Trilogy went instant classic. One of the best chase scenes I know of, a much deeper view on the identity of Bourne himself and the memorable 'magazine weapon' fight scene. Worth of a longer review, but I am too lazy today.
9/10 Better than the first one, as expected.
Warning: Heavy spoilers for people who did not read the 3rd book!
It was better than the first movie on many points, especially the ones I expected it to be. But it still has some flaws, besides the obvious ones the first movie had as well.
First off, the obvious ones: Both movies fail to capture the scale of Katniss' inner stife concerning Peeta and Gale, and the influence of the home front (especially her sister and the role her mother had in the family.) I think this will severely lessen the impact of her sisters death in the final movie in 2015, just like it reduces the relationship Katniss has with her two 'boys' to a more common love triangle than it actually is.
In defence of the screen writers: it is hard to picture this strife on screen without getting long voice-over monologues, drag the movie out too much and make it boring. Since this choice was already made in the first movie, it was only logical they continued on this path for consistency.
- Secondly, the movies lose a lot of strength for people who did not read the books. This is because of the lack (or scarce amount) of background information. For non-readers this makes the basic outlines of the story a bit farfetched. (Why are there hunger games? What does the capitol wants to protect besides its own decadence? How come the districts didn't revolt earlier? These are a few questions that are easily asked, but not properly answered.)
Plot Development:
That being said, the 2nd movie manages to picture the cruelty of the capitol a lot better than the first one. This makes sense from a storyline perspective, since from this moment on Katniss gets more aware of the full scale of the oppresion in all the districts.
They stay true to the book, without getting to much attached to it. Maybe the first half (the victory tour) is a bit rushed, but that's understandable to avoid stretching out the movie too much.
Personally I think the movie needed 10-15 minutes extra to create that extra bit of (emotional) impact and explanation for a few things (like said earlier) or leave out a few scenes completely. Examples are the jabberjails in the arena or the replacement of the old peacekeeper. Also the conversation Katniss has with President Snow in her Victory Road home was too rushed, and lost its impact.
They managed to make some parts of the story even more clear, and the ending is way more satisfying than what Collins did originally. Less open-ended and more of a step-up to the next movie.
Acting:
Except for Donald Sutherland (President Snow ) I thought all the actors did a better job in the follow up movie than in the first one. It was obvious that they grew into their characters over time. Especially Elizabeth Banks (Effie) was exquisit and the faces Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) did were top notch. She might be a bit too sweet and confident for Katniss, but she pulls it off. Also new character Johanna Mason, pictured by Jena Malone, was a really good casting decision.
The actors managed to give strong emotions to their characters, while they impressively managed to avoid overacting. Something that could happen easily in this story. They also got a few whimsical lines and responses in there that will make you smile.
Visual:
CGI were great, as expected of a modern high budget movie. They did not overdo it, which is a compliment for movies with this allure nowadays, and looked realistic, sharp and terrifying. Great job especially on the subtle way how they made the poiseness mist look. The only CGI I did not enjoy was the Tsunami (so the wave ON water, not when it came out of the forest.) This felt a bit cheap.
You notice the movie is by a different director, but nothing changed dramatically. Again, he jumps from 1 situation to the other a bit fast in the first part, and convo's are a bit cramped in because of the relatively fast scenes with information. So this can feel a bit messy. To make up for this, the arena scenes are detailed and beautfull. There are some interesting peek-throughs (deep shots) that keep the direct environment visible, and even one from a first person perspective. Not a fan of some of the close-ups though, they felt a bit cut-of at times.
Oh and costumes, great costumes that is, but A LOT of costumes :P
Sound:
I didn't really get up in your face, but managed to get the theme through to you at the important parts. Since I haven't paid attention to it in particular, that's all I have to comment on it unfortunately.
Enjoyment/Overall:
Great movie to watch, just like the first one. Has a good balance between action, stories, character development and originality. Depending on what kind of movies you like, the first half could be experienced as rushed or maybe uneventful, but the second part makes up for it in both cases.
All the flaws mentioned earlier are for the most part minor flaws, and do not compromise the movie for the most viewers.
ps. There were 2 'beeps' for the f-word when I watched it in cinema. I am interested if more people had this, and if someone knows if that will be on the DVD/Blu-ray too. Usually those words ain't censored in my country.
More close to a parody than an homage to the original series.
Bad casting choices (the hair colour of Penny alone for example), 2 new irrelevant characters, Dr claw's face, no plot role for Brain (dog), no self-destructing message, Chief Quimby is arrogant in stead of angry and doesn't smoke a pipe, and even Dr claw's catchphrase is done wrong... I can understand why they wouldn't dress the dog up in a disguiss, but this is weak.
And so many non-subtle product placement it hurts.
Something positive? Yeah, it is mildly entertaining if you forget there ever was a Gadget show.
This is an amazing movie.
Sets the bar for 2015, now we just have to see if 'the big ones' (Mad Max, Jurassic World, Hunger Games and ofc. Star Wars) are going to beat it. Maybe I'll write an extensive review later.
Following is a short combined review of the first 5 X-men movies, with the focus (of course) on this last one.
I just did a rewatch of the 5 X-Men movies released so far, this one easily tops all the previous ones.
Even though continuity is something they just don't seem to be able to manage properly in the X-men (cinematic) universe, and this movie also has its issues with that, it does not wreck this movie and is more of a sidenote than anything else. Mostly because the movie in itself (besides some smaller plot holes made for entertainment purposes) is very well worked out.
While the first 3 movies had some superior actors to the last 2, the stories are a lot better thought out. Popularity of the franchise with the mainstream cinema goer has gained a lot too since then, therefore its budget is much bigger as well (except for the 2006 'The Last Stand' which also had a massive budget.) This means bigger and more intense special effects.
I am of the opinion that Avoy and Fassbender are doing a great job on screen with their respectable character, but they do not top the iconic McKellen and Stewart, who are also present in this movie btw. It is hard to compare though, since the former have to play them at a younger age when the characters had a lot less experience than their older versions in the first 3 movies.
Talking about a recast; Mystique/Raven also got a new actress in the previous movie. Where it was first Rebecca Romijn who took up her role, she is now replaced with the (now massively popular) Jennifer Lawrence. I am a big fan of her work, and she does very well in X-Men too. It is only a massive compliment to Romijn that I think of her performance of Mystique as even better.
I found it sad that those 3 older (to me better) performances needed to work with way weaker movies and scripts.
With saying all that I also need to say that with supporting roles from Ellen Page, Evan Peters and Peter Dinklage this cast is without a doubt the better one overall.
The 2 newer movies, and especially this one, get more time in setting up a story and take time in character development and better timed dialogues. The movies are about 30 minutes longer than the first and the third one, but the rushed feeling in the second one proved that this is not a guarantee for a better movie. There seem to be more sets, more changing situations and every shot, scene and setting seems better worked out with more attention to detail. And all this without getting hopelessly lost in a confusing back and forth plot. Which is quite the accomplishment considering it contains time travel!
With a 3rd instalment on the way (2016) I can only imagine what they have in store with us. Apocalypse and his 4 horsemen are coming (already giving us a glimpse of them after the credits) and we will get Jubilee!
I hope the Silver Surfer movie that is rumoured is going to be of the quality of this movie.
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.
Good movie that makes you want to have kids yourself.
May the spoiler be always in your favour (this review contains spoilers.)
A great ending has come to the legendary hunger games series. A most welcome ending because we now finally will discover how the creators handled the death of Prim and the bittersweet ending of the book. Those were the two parts of this film I was curious about the most. My judgement is a 50/50 split between praise and expected disappointment.
After 3 movies and covering 2,5 book we have arrived at the endgame. The rebellion is on the capitols doorstep, and the climax of the story has arrived. During this build up there was a decent lack of focus on Katniss her sister Prim (as I mentioned in an earlier hunger games review too.) The importance Prim has to Katniss is shown a few times, but she did not get the appropriate attention for the average watcher to accept and understand that. Therefore the 'big explosion' didn't hit me as hard as it should have (and it didn't look like it hit many of the rest of the audience in the cinema.) But this was an expected point of criticism, and the actual execution of the big scene was done fairly well and a visual treat.
They did left the ending completely intact, with the harsh reality of a post traumatic stress syndrome after a war and poking around in someone's brain. It is an emotionally, nerve-racking but realistic ending, and I loved the books for it. I am thankful the writers had the gut to not change it.
Performance
Performances are once again fabulous. Effie (Elizabeth Banks) her role was mostly played out, so we sadly didn't get to see much of her. Neither did we of Haymitch (Woody Harrelson.) But it wouldn't be the Hunger Games without some of the chart emotional outburst by Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence.) She proves to the world that her fellow generation actresses are miles away from her level of performance. I even dare to say she is the best we've got currently have in all of Hollywood.
Donald Sutherland finally steps it up as president Snow and leaves the franchise with a great final act, giving the evil sceptre to the ever anticipating Coin (Julianne Moore) whome I have yet to see doing a weak performance. Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) are just as great as they always were, even though we do not see enough of Gale to give his character a proper development. They just managed to do enough. Jena Malone as Johanna Mason was a delight, even though fairly irrelevant. The acts of Natalie Dromer as Cressida and the rest of the camera crew & squat underwent the same faith: Fairly irrelevant, but decent nonetheless. Most of the soldiers deaths were less shocking due to their lack of screen time, but there simply isn't enough time to set there character up in this stage of the story, so it couldn't be handled any other way.
Story
The story couldn't have been more relevant to current times. With a massive overlap with the refugees in Europe, the war in Syria and the political pre-election games in the USA, the accidental timing of the movie is perfect. Sometimes it felt like I was watching a speech they took right out of Donald Trump his program, used images from actual war zones and this made it frighteningly applicable to reality for me. The whole story is a fair warning to the current world situation, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly.
Having said that, the script did drop some stitches. Especially with the pacing. The middle part of the movie is going from one event to another lacking some proper motivation besides getting to the end of the movie. It did deepen the drama and gave room for great action scenes, but they had to sacrifice the strategic coherence we saw in the last film. It results in an ending that became fairly predictable, and a feeling that some (major) events were rushed (a weird feeling when you have over 9 hours of film in total.) Using shots during the execution scene, where Snow and Coin are in the same line of sight on multiple occasions, could have been handled differently too. I guess only a few people were surprised by the arrow's direction.
Visual & Music
I can be brief about this, it was phenomenal. The music was a tad less interesting than in the former movies, but still greatly timed and chosen. CGI and SFX was stunning. I was never a big fan of the the underground part, but the mutts were done amazingly well with so much detail and wrath it rightuously felt absolutely threatening. As they truely are one of the capitols most deadly weapons. Even though I knew something would happen in seconds, I still jumped by surprise a few times.
Overall
After all it is a movie with many perks and some tiny flaws that are very understandable. A worthy ending to one of the most important series of its genre.
'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.
The franchise became chaotic and messy from all the backpedaling after fan criticism. Because of this, the 3rd trilogy feels incoherent and without a clear vision, which damages the overall story. This last part is still a good and enjoyable film, especially in the blockbuster 'genre', but it can't rise above (no pun intended) it's competition.
A modern James Bond movie. Very cool to watch, even though the 'Bourne Trilogy' is the exception on the rule that sequels are always worse.
The first movie follows a relatively basic story development, and never realy has a memorable impact on the viewer. It does manage to wrap it up in exceptional action and chase scenes, especially for it's time.
Amazing for the beautiful music, as a documentary however it is not so great. Treat it as a live-coverage of the concert with background stories and 'behind the scenes' material.
3rd and (imho) final installment of the Bourne trilogy. It has the same pace and action oriented directing style as the 2nd part of the movie series. It couldn't keep up with the 2nd one in it's originality and outstanding action scenes, but that's no shame. Nonetheless a great piece of work, with some really nice development, and of course the final closure.
The great acting, good soundtrack and solid storyline alone would already make this film a pretty good one. But the depth of the story and background of the characters gives this movie an extra layer that a lot of 'coming of age' movies lack.
First off, the acting is superb. Every character that has some role in this movie, even those without lines, is casted perfectly. The 'bad guys' and 'bullies' are not played out as villains, or stereotypes (except for the no name students.) There is no ultimate good guy, not even the main character. It looks on screen as if the characters hang out outside of their working hours as well. This resulted in the cast behaving so naturally that it didn't feel staged.
Having said all that, I have to give a special shout out to Ezra Miller who did such a good job that he probably would have played everyone from the screen whith any other cast.
The storyline is very realistic, even though there are a few turn of events that might make you wonder if you would've done the same. But remember this is a coming of age story, and making mistakes are a big part of growing up.
It does not often get predictable. Even the 'does he get the girl' part was not set in stone for me. The first schoolball is probably the most cliché part in the movie, and some of the camera techniques used. But hey this is not an art house film. :P
Every character has it's own complicated background story, but because they do not spell it out for you in full detail it makes the characters more human and appealing. It is as if you are getting to know them while the main character is getting to know them, and the obstacles within himself too.
This realistc setting and chemistry between the actors made me memorize my own time in High school and the friendships I have made there and how we/I used to be.
There is a line at the end of the movie that made this even more relevant since realized I thought something along those lines too back in those days:
"I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening."
I guess if you had a bad time in High school you wouldn't have had those feelings of course. But in the end it makes saying goodbye (and especially the goodbyes in this movie) more emotional. The characters are aware of the future, and what awaits them. Luckily the movie lets you fill in what could happen afterwards for yourself.
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.
In 'The French Dispatch' director Wes Anderson goes all out with his characteristic aesthetic, beautiful visuals, use of colour and attention to detail. The music is great, fantastic even at times. There are more top actors than you could find at an average Oscars party. And visually most of shots are works of art all by them self. It is rather unfortunate that Wes his attention to detail do not translate to a more coherent story as a whole, holding the movie back.
'The French Dispatch' contains three separate stories, only trivially connected by a fourth overarching story about a newspaper and its journalists (based on the origins of a real newspaper.) On their own, each story is serviceable, but unfortunately the guiding story is lacking enough substance to make it work as a whole. The at times rather dense dialogue, riddled with puns and metaphors, also do not help with avoiding confusion. Especially for the average cinema visitor. However, the jokes and puns are often positively unexpected and with a great show of comedic timing, even during otherwise non comedic scenes. And this is without having to resort to the type of subversive humor we so often see nowadays in blockbuster films.
The three stories on their own, especially the rather quirky first one about the convicted murderer, are all interesting and fun enough to make the viewer invested. And although each story is not likely to be strong enough in its current form to carry a whole film, I think they could have benefited from some more time. To give the characters some more and/or better introduction. It would also have the benefit of seeing some more from all the fantastic actors.
I would recommend to watch this movie at (a somewhat larger screen) at home, where you have the option to rewind. That way it is also possible to appreciate the many details in many shots and scenes.
With every movie Wes improves his meticulous and almost obsessive attention to detail in every shot. Considering the visuals; In 'The French Dispatch' he once again trumps every movie Wes Anderson has made before, including the well received 'Budapest Hotel' and his critically acclaimed stop motion films 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and 'Isle Of Dogs'. Of course there is an ample amount of his characteristic centered camera work, straight angle moving and panning, and the painting-like sets in almost every shot. He plays with aspect ratio and switches between colour and black and white for significant portions of the movie. And there is even a fully (drawn) animated section, which is a lot of fun.
If a movie was only visuals, this one would have been rated a 10/10.
I absolutely enjoyed the music and music timing in this. Composer Alexandre Desplat (who often composed for Wes Anderson his films) made a score that was often subtle, while still reinforcing the atmosphere of the movie and the scene. I also noticed some parts where video and audio were carefully timed to match one another. On a few occasions the music felt like a temporary extra character in the scene, leading the atmosphere instead of only enforcing it, and I found myself actively appreciating it more than I usually do when watching a film.
With all the actors involved, and the limited time they are given, it is difficult to properly discuss acting as a whole. There are so many fantastic actors in this, but the lack of screentime for each of them makes none of them award worthy. I have to mention Benicio del Toro for his acting though. With his menacing performance he outshines most of the other actors. And that is with a cast like this very difficult to do.
Overall I enjoyed this movie a lot, but even though I would like to recommend it, it is difficult to recommend to most people except for people already familiar with Wes Anderson his work. It might be not accessible enough for the average person, with the separate stories and visual style. While for a film fan the story issues can be problematic. Its shortcomings are especially unfortunate, because it likely will be a cause for less people to watch it.
An out of the box character driven movie with amazing performances all over. The movie is carried by the philosophical debate about (the hypocrisy of) how society is raising and viewing kids, so for the ones not interested in some deeper themes this movie will fall flat or could even be misunderstood. It is not so much a critique on society as it is thought provoking, and you might end up somewhere in the middle of the two positions of the argument. You could argue both against and in favour of the main character (played by the always amazing Viggo Mortensen) where every character in this movie has been written and portrayed as realistic as they can be.
At its core the movie is about parenting, education and the way society places itself superior to the outcast, and how the outcast always has to fight these conformist systems. Since (western) education and way of life has almost become a religion in itself, it isn't easy to live in (or raise your kids in) when you disagree. Something this movie illustrates the best in its more extreme moments.
Its runtime is a bit longer than you'd think necessary, however the slow pacing of the movie makes room for the rather big cast to breathe a little and not hastily skip over the decision points or thought process of the characters. It rotates intense emotional moments with moments of light heartedness and world building. This makes time for actually taking the audience along with the thoughts of the people that have the most development.
Oh and the cinematography is surprisingly well done too. I found myself both laughing and almost tearing up in 1 single shot. The emotions are very well captured and the use of light, costumes and props is exceptional.
The end really left me wondering if the kids could fly out and become these promising people their parents set them out to be, but something tells me that it won't be that simple.
"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him."
Ender's Game is a movie with many flaws, but many qualities as well. Keep in mind that it is hard to just categorize it as a good or bad movie because of that.
No real spoilers ahead.
Story:
Like someone pointed out here before me, the reason why kids are necessary and why that's humanities only hope is left completely unexplained. The lack of other commanders, besides the one in training school, is pretty odd to say the least as well. In 50 years not 1 trainee from the academy passed the test. So what happened to all those failed kids? Especially the ones that did get to the final test. They know a secret that cannot be known to society (about the hero commander.)
There was no real character development in this movie at all except for the main character, and his development was very thin. The 2 friends he made do not have much in common with him, nor do they have any reason to like him. Especially the girl, since she is in a winning team for a while. After Ender's 'problem' with the Salamander leader, he feels bad about it. But as soon this part is over he never seems to look back at it or takes any lesson from it.
On the brightside, the massive plottwist in the end was surprising. After watching a movie with a rather unsurprising (but not boring) story development, I did not expect that. They could've singled out the emotional/psychological aspect after this part a bit more to make up for some lacking character development earlier.
Visuals:
Special Effects were lovely. A real sci-fi feel with great spacey environments that didn't feel unrealistic or cheap. The funniest thing was how they could've had computer games with about the same graphics we have now :P
I really loved how they did the battle scenes between plains and fighters, both in air as in space. You really got sucked into the battle field, and lost the feeling you were watching at a screen like happens so often with big battle scenes with lots of SFX.
Music:
This has to be adressed. I think this was probably the best part about this movie. Steve Jablonksy was the one who composed it. He also composed the music for the game Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, where he surprisingly managed to not dissapoint after stopping Frank Klepacki's monopoly for the franchise. And that's while Klepacki set the stakes very high for him. And in mainstream modern movies he is probably best known for doing some music for the Transformer movies, too bad those movies suck too much.
He did an amazing job on the score for Ender's Game. Bombastic, classical and majestic music that made every scene way bigger and impressive. Something you could easily listen to and enjoy without looking to the film, but just play really loud on your speakers.
Acting:
This is always something that falls a bit short when kids are the main characters in a movie. Remember the golden rule: Never work with children or pets when you are making a movie.
Not that it was bad, I was actually positively surprised with the acting job most of the younger characters delivered. The worst acting came from the adults xD But even so, the acting was not something award-worthy. Just don't expect big personal acting extravaganzas and you will be just fine.
Enjoyment/Overall:
I really had a lot of fun watching this movie, therefore the end(er) ordeal from me falls into the category good movie. It has enough speed, nice visuals, great music and it is just fun to watch.
Great Miyazaki film with a lovely fairy tale storyline. If only the kids voices weren't so screamish. This made my overal enjoyment of the movie drop :(
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.
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.
This is 'Primer' for dummies.
The movie frustrated me from time to time because of massive plot holes and bad writing. The idea is challenging, and complex enough to have fun with, and not too complex to get lost in. However too many things did not add up.
For such smart kids they sure were reckless and rushed everything as if they were for the first time in a chemistry class. Every guy who has even the slightest idea of timetravel knows that messing with stuff in the past is going to get you in trouble (butterfly effect) and if you are going to do something you have to plan it out carefully.
There are also multiple occasions when they travel back in time for a 2nd time to the same time and place, but do not meet their 'earlier' time traveling selfs there. This was especially awkward with the kiss scene. Arguably the most important scene of the movie. Even if the device somehow canceled out earlier jumps to the same time, they didn't have to interfere but just had to jump and wait.
For the story it might have been much more interesting if they didn't focus so much on the main actor during the final act of the movie and prevent such a boring cliched ending.
There is more, but lets leave it with this
There is 1 interesting detail in the ending though; the papers David throws in the garbage bin after the talk with his father date 2025. I wonder what that implies....
Still, there are way worse movies out there.
Edit: there is another thing I really liked about the movie btw. It used a track by Mark Sixma. :D
There is a reason why I don't write movies, it is because it would result in movies like this.
What an amazing movie. This movie lacks a lot of media attention probably because of its subject. Chess doesn't get a lot of attention these days because a lot of people find it boring. Calling this movie boring would be the biggest lie of 2015 though.
It is one of the best performances, if not the best, from Tobey Maguire I have seen so far. And he has a phenomenal adversary in Liev Schreiber. The movie did not get very creative in its story, but chose a more literal setup from the actual events. This makes for a straight on drama movie without any melodramatic or emotional depth exaggerating the facts, but that is certainly for the best.
It is hard not to compare the 2021 Snyder's Cut to the 2017 release, which was generally perceived as a messy film due to its problems during production. There is definitely more coherence and structure in this version, with less plot holes and more time for the characters to breathe (not in last place because of the significantly increased -doubled- run time.) However, in many moments it is clear the movie has been edited together from incomplete and/or unfinished material. This is especially noticeable in several of the (many) CGI scenes, which look outdated and unpolished. It makes (some of) the choices made in the 2017 version more understandable, even though it does not make them any better. The hated reshoots that ended up in the 2017 version were clearly not unnecessary, just the execution was poor.
Light Spoilers ahead (marked.)
The antagonist is clearly one of the main improvements. Steppenwolf is relatively well fleshed out, and no longer a completely forgettable generic bad guy (and I thought his costume looked awesome! No idea why that was changed in the earlier version.) It remains a problem that he is just a henchman, and the big bad guy boss (Darkseid) plays no real role in the story. Darkseid appearance has not much added value because of that. It adds significantly to the antagonist motivation, but his appearance is mostly used to make way for a next movie.
We also spend more time on Cyborg and his character, which is deserving and rewarding and makes him a more interesting character to watch.
The dynamic within the team is also much more balanced, with less awkward forced moments.
That being said, the main focus clearly never was the characters themselves, which is not unusual for a blockbuster (superhero) movie. There are scenes that feel out of place because of sudden shifts of tone and focus. Also, several events, plot lines and choices or alternatives are never explored or given a pay off.
There are several setups that are never paid off, especially with the introduction of additional characters. This pads the runtime unnecessarily and often makes the movie feel like a set up for later movies (which will probably never see the light of day.) Secondly, their are so many endings, it could compete with LOTR's Return of The King for most endings in a major film release, and unlike RotK, it is not to finish up those aforementioned loose ends, but rather to set up new plots.
Of course this has to be mentioned. The choice for 4:3 ratio has been done for creative reasons, and it has already caused division among the viewers. Their are many shots where the 4:3 ratio is exceptionally impressive, and it is justifies the choice for that aspect ratio. However, in just as many scenes the lack of widescreen makes the experience underwhelming. This is (logically) mostly the case with wideshots and the big battles. When the ever present but lacking CGI meets those wideshot angles, this negative effect is even more increased, and it made me feel like watching an episode of Friends or other old television show.
In conclusion, the chosen aspect ratio has both its merits and demerits. The difference between 4:3 and Widescreen is not impossible to overcome to use in 1 film, but it is significant which makes it tricky to naturally switch between them. The choice to stay dedicated to an unchanging Ratio is logical.
This is an average but fun epic superhero movie that is enjoyable to watch if you have the time and patience for it. The movie is split into several distinct sections, with headers, so it is possible to watch it as a mini-series. It does not rise to the heights of Infinity War, but it also does not steep as low as Suicide Squad.
Not as funny as I hoped it would be. The ending was a (good) slap in the face though, nicely done.
