Category Archives: Reviews

Mirror Mirror

I saw Mirror Mirror… you all know the story of Snow White.

The good; Lily Collins is pretty? I honestly don’t know.

The bad; everything else. All of it? I mean, it’s Tarsem Singh, who did a great job on The Fall. So I don’t know what went wrong here. The movie was slow, with a run time of 106 minutes, it felt like a three hour tour. I was adjusting and squirming in my seat, I wanted the movie to end. It was slow for no reason at all.

Overall, skip it. I can’t find any reason to watch this movie. It ends with a celebratory Bollywood dance number, but it didn’t earn it. Two Snow White live action movies, and nary a good one to be found… booo Hollywood, booo…

Snow White and the Huntsman

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So I saw Snow White and The Huntsman after much anticipation. I would like to correct myself and say that I endured Snow White and the Huntsman. We all know about this fairy tale right? Snow White, Evil Queen, Apple, castles, a Prince, a Huntsman… and so forth.

The good; the look, I highly enjoy the look. It’s grimy and gritty, makes it believable. It also reminds me of movies that I grew up on, there was a sense of imagination and risk that’s almost gone these days. Here’s some of the movies that come to mind; The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, Willow, Princess Mononoke…
There’s a scene in the forest where the Spirit greets Snow White, it’s almost right out of Princess Mononoke, the plants have eyes, there are little spirits flying around –

Charlize Theron makes a great villain. The Dwarfs were great too, who knew the names that would fill out their group? Also, the technology that made them short, amazing.
They had some wonderful wide shots, loved it. A portion of these shots was also to showcase the beautiful locations or sets.

The bad; ohhhhh where to begin. I don’t say this much, especially about bad movies, but I want more story! The film relies too much on the assumption that everyone knows the details of the tale, so there are a lot, A LOT, of things implied and not explained, we need more exposition of why things are happening.
The fight scenes, urghhh, more close ups, why?

Overall, skip this one. Mirror Mirror might be the better movie, I guess I’ll have to see, it was supposed to be the other way around 🙁

The Avengers

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Like most anyone out there, I saw The Avengers this weekend. It’s about the superheroes in the previous Marvel movies coming together to save the world… go see this movie.

The good; go see this movie.

Overall, it’s unlike any of the previous Marvel movies, it’s not overly sad or angsty, there’s a LOT of humor in it, exactly like a comic book. Oh and go see this movie.

And stay all the way through the credits, as you should always do.

There’s nothing else in this review, go to where tickets are bought and sold for seats in a large dark room and feast on The Avengers!

The Raid: Redemption

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I just saw The Raid: Redemption. Why did we wait this long to see it??
It takes place in a slum of Indonesia, in this particular apartment building lives the mob boss, and all the tenants are under his rule/employ. A SWAT team goes in to take out this boss, little did they know that they’ve entered a hornet’s nest.

The good; wall to wall action, in the age of close up shots and shaky camera action, this Indonesian film knows how to cover an action and covers it well. I get a sense of geography with the wider shots, I get the impact of punches and kicks from close ups, I get a sense of training and skill from the medium shots and I appreciate that I can see things without getting dizzy.
The film starts off with gun fire and as they ditch the guns for obvious reasons they have to switch to hand to hand combat, which is beautifully choreographed and executed. The skill of all the bodies on camera is very apparent and appreciated. Makes me think that everyone in Indonesian knows the martial art of Silat.

There’s also a lack of a love story, the film opens with Rama, played by Iko Uwais, praying before he goes to work as he then says bye to his pregnant wife. Here we get that he’s a family man, expecting a child, and he’s Muslim, it’s a nice way to introduce this character and get the who love interest thing out of the way. If this were an American movie there would’ve been a “hooker with a heart of gold” that’s in the apartment building and she’d want to help the Police, thank you for not having that archetype.

The bad; ummmm, not much in this department. The movie’s a lean one hundred minutes, it’s a meat and potatoes type of movie that showcases martial arts skills. Oh, they use they forearms to block a lot, A LOT, of hits from enemies, and yet they’re arms remain unbruised or bloodied. Some wounds there would’ve made it more believable, but maybe they train so their forearms are like leather??

One very bad thing… they’re remaking this in America… go watch the original and learn to read, cause this movie is subtitled. You just might learn a new word or two, or heaven forbid, learn what some words are in another language.

Overall, The Raid does not disappoint. It’s directed by Gareth Evans who’s Welsh, and this is his second film with Iko Uwais. Please make more like this.

The Hunger Games

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I saw The Hunger Games this weekend. I did not read the book prior to seeing the film, but here’s the short of what it’s about. Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss who’s from the mining District 12. Ever year each district sends a boy and a girl to the Hunger Games where they battle it out and whomever is left standing at the end is the winner.

The good; for knowing nothing about this world, they did a great job in creating it and making it believable. It’s a future world where a terrible war/event ravaged the people and to maintain unity/obedience among the survivors they created the hunger games, which take place every year. And there’s this wonderful tone and atmosphere around the lottery where the kids get picked at random, almost like a draft, some foreboding spectre that hovered and consumed all those kids. Just well executed.

*SPOILER* when we get to the capital city… Capitol you can tell the difference in wealth and how displaced it is among the districts. The color palate changes once we’re in Capitol, not just in the sky and the buildings, but in the clothes. It worked very well for me. *END SPOILER*

The movie runs about two hours and twenty minutes, at no point during the movie did I feel like looking at my watch, this movie utilized its time well and I appreciate it for that. When you’re able to engage me for that amount of time and have me solely focused on the film, that’s an achievement.

The bad; I hated the beginning in District 12, the movie opens with useless hand held shots. Lock the tripod down, it’s the beginning of the film, I want to soak in the ordinary world, let me look around and see what’s going on and how it’s going on. Why is it that they chose the documentary style?? Totally unnecessary.

I have this beef with most films, and how they cover action sequences… give me a medium or a wide shot. Would it kill you do pull out just a little? I want to see and understand how they’re fighting, if I had that I would appreciate the why of their fighting all that much more. It seems today that all action has to be covered by someone who’s fighting there with them… I don’t want that. Especially in the climactic moments of the fight, I want the frame to breathe. A good example of something done well is the climax of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…,
and I’m sure there are discrepancies with the book, but I don’t know them yet… so yeah. Those are my big two gripes.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The emotional beats were placed right and they built up to them. When characters die you feel for them, that’s good movie making and great story telling. The film garnered $153 million opening weekend, and $20 million from midnight sales alone… if you don’t believe my opinion of the movie, take a look at the numbers.
Another thing I enjoyed about this movie is that it made me want to read the novel, anything that makes you want to read afterwards can’t be bad, those entities are few and far between these days…

Casa De Mi Padre

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Casa de mi Padre opened this weekend. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. It’s about Armando Alvarez who’s a rancher in Mexico, his brother comes back home and not only brings along a soon-to-be wife, but criminal trouble. Now put Will Ferrell and an overly dramatic telenovela (soap opera), in the spirit of Black Dynamite and you get the greatness that is… Casa de mi Padre.

The good; Will Ferrell, doing what Will Ferrell does. You either love it, or you hate it. For some, this might be classified as part of the bad, for me, it certainly is not. Ferrell hams it up and plays to the audience, and he does it in Spanish. What more could you want?

Well, you get Bernal and Luna who are typically serious dramatic actors, but now they’re doing that in a comedy and it just adds to everything. I won’t ruin the ending, but there’s a slow-mo death scene that is hilarious.

One more thing, that won’t ruin the plot, there are a number of mannequins throughout the film, it’s both creepy and hilarious.

The bad; I seriously can’t find any. But if you’re not a fan of this type of comedy then you’ll have more to add to this section than I do.

Overall, a thoroughly entertaining comedy. They make the film scratchy, the editing is jumpy, there are numerous continuity errors and it’s just a whole lotta fun. If you hate reading and atypical comedies, don’t see Casa de mi Padre, but if you enjoy awkward laughing and over the top humor coupled with guns and Mexican drug lords, go see this masterpiece.

Act of Valor

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Last night I went to a screening of Act of Valor, with Q&A from the writer of the film, Kurt Johnstad, who you may know from his previously penned script for the film adaptation of 300.
Act of Valor is about a team of Navy SEALs and a mission they go on. That’s really all this movie is about, and what else would you want? Charlie Sheen? Let’s try to forget that movie shall we?

THE GOOD
It’s action packed. I mean there’s a gun firing almost every minute, and if there isn’t, they’re preparing to shoot something, somewhere, somehow. It’s almost like the movie version of 24, in that one small mission turns in to a larger scale threat than they had previous imagined.
The film was mainly shot on the Cannon 5D, for those who don’t know, it’s a still picture camera that can shoot vide0. And it’s amazing the images that came out for this movie, especially what it can do in low lighting situations. Another aspect of this movie that makes it almost feel like a documentary is that the filmmakers worked around the SEALs’ deployment schedule, Johnstad talked about this in the Q&A portion.
Previous to this film the Bandito Brothers did a documentary about Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen, so their next project was to do one about the SEALs, but they decided to use active duty SEALs. There’s a scene where two members have to board a Nuclear Submarine, the sub can only surface for forty minutes, longer than that and it’ll be detected, so the filmmakers at a moments notice had to film the SEALs dropping from the helicopters, using a Zodiac raft to get to the Sub and then entering the Sub before it submerges. That’s an amazing feat, both by the Navy and the filmmakers.

Act of Valor is comprised of more scenes like this, and that’s what makes it a sort of documentary, in that these are training exercises that SEALs do all the time, but there just so happens to be a film crew documenting it. And there’s a narrative that these scenes are cut to.

THE BAD
We all knew this was coming, the actual acting chops of the active duty SEALs. You can tell they’re not actors, but that’s ok, cause when they’re at their best is during the mission briefings and the missions, which is most of this movie.
Other than that, I’d have to say the camera angles. There’s an interrogation scene where it’s mainly out of focus, that was a shame. Makes me wonder why that happened?
Then in some of the action scenes the angle was too close for my taste, I get the first person shooter aspect of it, but when they cut to the reverse angle, I would’ve appreciated a medium or wide shot.

Overall, a real fun flick. With the stipulations Johnstad was given as a writer he managed to craft a story that drew me in, as well as the audience at this screening. It’s quite the feat that you feel something at the end for these characters, there were a couple sniffles in the audience.
Lots of guns, action and just great shots with a new medium of filming. This film had me from the beginning, it starts out in San Diego and then goes to the Philippines. If you like all the Call of Duty, Battlefield games and other first person shooters, definitely give this film a view.

War Horse

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I saw War Horse last night, I didn’t get to see this movie before last year ended, but I did get around to it. It’s about a horse in England who’s bought by a rather poor farmer, but his son Albert Narracott (played by Jeremy Irvine) trains and bonds with this horse, Joey. Then World War I hits and they have to sell the horse to the army to help pay for their farm. The story follows Joey through this war.

The good; the horse, I’m sure they used multiple horses, but you care for this character. That can be said for the other characters in the film as well. From Albert and his family, you just get drawn in to their struggle and their family structure, it’s almost as if you’re growing up with Alby, even though you don’t see him for a good portion of the film. Then there are the other characters, from the Captain that buys Joey to the young German Soldiers who find Joey, to Emilie and her Grandfather who also find Joey. Every time Joey meets someone new you’re drawn in to their world and honestly care for what happens to them.

John Williams scores this film, among others in Spielberg’s normal crew, and it’s great. I just enjoy how the music carries you through the scenes and punctuates the grandness of things.

Janusz Kamiński does the cinematography, and boy are the images beautiful. Almost everything looks like photo, but ya know, it’s moving in the frame.

Another good thing about this film is that there aren’t very many names in it, the casting was mostly unknowns, which really helped.

The bad; I have to put something here. War Horse is based on a children’s book, and then based on a play, then adapted in to a film. The movie feels like a play, granted it’s about two and a half hours long, but there are definite scene/act breaks. The use of dissolves doesn’t help this feeling any, there’s just a very present sense that this was a play. It makes me want to read the book to see where scenes where expanded upon.

Overall, an excellent movie. Only Spielberg can put out two movies in the same month, this is also Spielberg’s first digitally edited movie. Go see this in the theatres, it’s one of those movies that was meant to be viewed on the big screen.

The Adventures of Tin Tin

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I saw The Adventures of Tin Tin, the short of it; Tin Tin’s a reporter in Europe and he stumbles upon a quest for the Unicorn, a ship. In the process he meets Captain Haddock whose ship has been hijacked/shanghai’ed by the villainous Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine. Tin Tin must play catch up to Sakharine in a globe trotting quest for a family secret of Haddock’s.

The good; the animation is amazing. There are a lot of shots where it looks so photo-realistic, then you have the characters walk in, which I love by the way. They look like the comic book that they’re based on, which is a great way to adapt it to the feature film realm. The characters’ renderings look almost real, but then there’s the touch of the cartoony nature of their facial features.

The tone is very balanced between the life or death situations to the comedy relief supplied by the bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson. And only in the animated world can you bring about such over the top, almost slapstick, action sequences.

The film really reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie, it also being a period piece adds to that. Tin Tin was surrounded by thugs wielding German weapons, another giveaway that they’re baddies, also like Indiana Jones, yet he hardly had a weapon to him, he used his wits.

The bad; the story. In all honesty, as much as I enjoyed the film, it was a little off. The action was so over the top that there wasn’t escalating action, if everything is life threatening an outlandingish, then there’s nothing to really outdo one another. I would rather the film had started with smaller, tamer, action and built up to larger more fanciful sequences.

Another problem I have is the climax of the movie, *SPOILER* it’s between Haddock and Sakharine. Tin Tin almost had nothing to do in this scene, which I get… but he is the main character, he should help Haddock somehow. The fight could’ve still been left to the men, but Tin Tin should’ve had more of a role in the climax *END SPOILER*. Another reason that the climax felt so anti-climactic was of all the action, as mentioned above, if they would’ve saved the most over the top sequence and lessened the others, the ending wouldn’t have been so tame. Moffat contributing early as one of the writers actually does scream out at me, maybe because I know him from Doctor Who, but in this case he had to leave the project early because he became head writer for Doctor Who. His essence of fast talky scenes remained though. Makes me wonder why I don’t sense Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead) style bleeding through the film? He and Joe Cornish (Attack The Block) took over the writing tasks whens Moffat left.

Overall, very enjoyable. Visual eye candy if nothing else. I hope to see more in this animation style. It felt like a good old film that brought us on a journey, Spielberg being behind the helm doesn’t hurt this vibe at all, and this is his first animated feature. Well done sir!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is the sequel to the 2009 film. Again we join Sherlock and Watson on an eve of mystery and intrigue, this time with the infamous Professor Moriarty as the antagonist. The short of it; the newly married Watson has to cut his honeymoon short to help Holmes stop Professor Moriarty from inciting a war, simple enough?

The good; I love Guy Ritchie’s use of slow motion, it works well with how Sherlock Holmes’ mind works. There’s some beautiful shots while they’re running in a forest.

I’m unfamiliar with the Sherlock Holmes books, but this film seems to be on its own, which is something I’m totally ok with. And to add a little bit of history with the Germans being pitted against the French is great. There’s even a bit of an almost World War I there with the peace summit, loved it.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are once again great. They’re joined by Jared Harris playing Moriarty, and he doesn’t disappoint either.

The bad; the slow motion, I know I mentioned this above, but there were some scenes that I didn’t think deserved the slow motion treatment. It was more of Ritchie showing us what he could do. There were also a couple of times where the lighting was too dark, a good portion of this movie does take place at night, but still, that couldv’e been fixed.

Then there’s the plot, this time around the powers of deduction with Holmes felt too easy, they weren’t peppered in throughout the movie like before, instead we just get things explained to us rather than allowed to figure it with him. It’s a small thing really, but it felt like a Family Guy cutaway, rather than part of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed the first film more, but this sequel is very entertaining. Go check it out.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

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I saw Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the Irvine Spectrum in true IMAX. The reason for this, was to see the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises. It’s quite the experience, mostly to showcase Tom Hardy as Bane. I won’t go too much in to it, but it involves two planes in flight and amazing use of the IMAX camera.

On to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, it’s about Tom Cruise in pretty much his only well to draw from these days. He again dons the guise of Ethan Hunt on an impossible mission. This time it directly follows MI:3, but now the team faces the threat of nuclear war, a premise long since defrosted. Throw in some great action, BMW cars, spy espionage, and Cruise’s trademark running, then add Brad Bird taking the director duties (live action) and you get a pleasant action movie.

The good; action, action, action. The action is very well executed. Modern action films should take a page from Ghost Protocol in that we can see things, there’s a sense of direction and coverage to avoid any confusion or nausea. In no way are any actions scenes shot in a way that leads you to believe that they are hiding the lack of physical dexterity of the actors on screen. I guess what I really like is that there are wide shoots, lovely lovely wide shots.

The story is placed in to the continuity of the film franchise, after the third one, but you can also jump directly in to Ghost Protocol with no problem. In addition, there’s a real sense of urgency and danger, I care for their mission and if they succeed or fail. That may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised how some movies miss this.

The hardware, they gave us what we expect, tons of gadgets. Especially in the skyscraper climbing scene, no words can describe it. From cameras in contacts, to the magnets, right down to the cars… it delivers what I want and expected.

The bad; Ethan Hunt seems a bit too smart. This can probably be attributed to the fact that it’s Tom Cruise’s character. Don’t get me wrong, he does get physically beat, but he always comes out of it glowing. The other team members do get their moments to shine though. Tom Cruise runs, and he runs well, there’s even a shot with what appears to be a specially built “run cam” that keeps up with his strides at a low angle.

Oh and they all have tailored suits, it’s ridiculously sickening and covetous at the same time, I don’t know whether to applaud or shake my fist.

Overall, definitely worth watching in the theatre. Good job Brad Bird on your first departure from the animated medium. I can’t say more without spoiling, but go see it for the action, stay for the espionage.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

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The Green Lantern: The Animated Series debuted this weekend. For those who are unfamiliar with the Tales of the Green Lantern, here’s a short snap shot – fearless test pilot Hal Jordan is chosen by the ring of a dying Green Lantern to be the first human inducted in to the Green Lantern Corps. The Corps is comprised of beings throughout the universe that are chosen because they have the ability to overcome great fear. They maintain order in their sector of the galaxy, in short, intergalactic cops. The Guardians of the Universe are their “bosses” who are the oldest beings in creation, and have designed the GL Ring to be the most powerful weapon in the universe. It allows its bearer to create anything that their mind can will in to existence.

Here’s the short of what happened in the hour long pilot episode; Hal (voiced by Josh keaton) is testing a jet for Ferris Aircraft when an earthquake happens, he loses the jet to save a train. Carol Ferris gets mad at him, he promises to make it up to her with a dinner date, but then his ring calls him to OA. Hal transforms in to Green Lantern and is space bound. He’s being reprimanded by the Guardian council when a GL Ring flies in, it’s the ring of a now dead Frontier Lantern. Who are they? The Guardians give a quick explanation and dismiss the hearing. Ganthet shows Kilowog (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) and Hal this experimental spaceship that’s got artificial intelligence and a power battery. Hal and Kilowog then “borrow” the ship and go in search of what killed the Frontier Lantern.

They discover that there are Red Lanterns and they combat them while saving Shyir Rev (voiced by Kurtwood Smith), another Frontier Lantern, from certain death. Returning the wounded Shyir to his home planet they’ve accidentally led the Red Lanterns to this peaceful colony planet. The Red Lantern leader, Atrocitus (voiced by Jonathan Adams), sends down a probe that will destroy the planet unless the inhabitants hand of the Green Lanterns. A valiant fight is fought that ends with *SPOILER* Shyir’s death and Kilowog saving the inhabitants.

The AI ship along piloted by Hal and Kilowog have a captured Red Lantern named Razer. They set out to find more Red Lanterns in the cosmos.

The good; the fight scenes were great, once they started going. This being mainly a kids’ cartoon, it got a lot more violent that I thought it would. Much like The Clone Wars of late, so that was surprisingly unexpected. The sound effects are great and the use of constructs really complimented the excellent sound. Having Kurtwood Smith voice a GL was a nice treat, almost casting against type for me, but it worked.

Shyir’s death caught me by complete surprise, I mean – it’s a cartoon for kids, they would find a way out, but nope, they didn’t. And what’s more, they brought in Kilowog’s backstory, which you’d only know from reading the comics. That was a great emotional moment coupled with a nod to the comics, wonderful.

The action – once the fighting and combat started, they had some nice sequences.

The bad; Hal goes in to space way too quickly, and it seems like the whole series will be space bound. Which I’m not too keen on. The whole relate-ability to a character will be gone. It should be about Hal trying to balance his day job with his romantic interest in Carol coupled with space emergencies and Coast City dangers.

This is just the pilot episode, but it looks like we’re losing the who secret identity thing, which to me is a kid’s fantasy, to be completely passed as having no impact in anything, while actually saving the world. With the Green Lantern you not only have that but you also have the will to create anything you can imagine, which is essential for growing kids where they play in their imagination almost everyday.

From a production standpoint I see why they went in to space though, space is easy to animate, and when they land in a “combat zone” it’s usually rocks and desert like. For some reason the animation still looked flat to me, overly simple and not detailed. Which makes me think that Hal will spend all his time as GL in space fights.

One more thing, and this is way too nitpicky, but they really really simplified Hal’s hair. Much like Superman, Hal has a certain hair style. Which makes me think that they’re going for a medium between the comics and Ryan Reynolds…

Overall, I will have to give this a couple more episodes before an official verdict is rendered. But for now, I’m leaning toward passing on this series. It needs to decide what it wants to be. Go all the way like Justice League Unlimited with the serious aspects or go for tongue and cheek the way of Batman: The Brave and The Bold.