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Review: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues – to deliver the absurd

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I finally got to see Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.  If you’ve seen the first movie, you’ve basically seen this movie, Ron Burgundy and his news team deliver the news and get in to hijinks, it’s Will Ferrell doing what Will Ferrell does.

The good; they’re back!  They’re all here.  We get the news team re-assembled, it feels like no time has past.  The music is great, really takes me back.

The jokes and humor are there, and we actually get a bit of social commentary this time, say whaaaat?  Yeah that’s right.

Not to spoil it, but we do actually top something from the first movie.

The bad; there’s something missing, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but all the ingredients are there… it’s something I should love through and through.  Yet at the end I felt unsatisfied.  It could be that it was too much like the first film that I’m left with wanting more.

It’s always difficult when your starting point involves a protagonist (who’s basically mentally challenged) with similar friends who do and say anything they want, this includes time and space.  They ended the first movie on top, it was very difficult to build from that.

Overall, it’s worth a rental.  If you like Will Ferrell, then by all means see it.  But there’s something missing from the recipe that left me wanting a mid-night snack.  Don’t get me wrong, the bits are funny, I was laughing throughout the movie, I guess I just wanted more.

Review: 47 Ronin – matrix style

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I saw 47 Ronin, it’s an adaptation of a Japanese tale where 47 samurai avenge their master’s death.  It’s about honor, loyalty, and duty.  Throw in an American sensibility with slick computer graphics, and you get this latest film adaptation.

The good; the action is nice, it sucks that these days, those of us who are old enough, Keanu Reaves always gets compared to The Matrix.  But the action is well done, we get medium and wide shots, not all of it is shakey-cam close ups.  I really appreciate that.

Hiroyuki Sanada usually plays a tough as nails jerk, but here he’s actually a good guy.  He plays Oishi, the default leader of the forty seven ronin.  His stoic devotion is very well delivered.
Continuing on with the acting, we also get treated to Kō Shibasaki as the love interest.  Good to see her in stuff, you may remember her from Battle Royale.

Considering this film is for the average American going audience, the film does a good job with letting us inside eighteenth century Japanese culture.  The cultural rules are set up, the reason for the disgrace, and the reason for loyalty is all done fairly well.  At no point did I feel that there was a large leap in logic taken.

The bad; the character that Keanu Reaves plays is made up, there was no half-breed amongst the forty seven ronin.  I understand why they created this character, but like The Last Samurai, where Tom Cruise is the titular Last Samurai, why are these historical inaccuracies allowed?  It feels somewhat disrespectful to the source material.

This story has endured throughout Japanese culture for a reason, it’s compelling and awesome, why can’t the filmmakers rely on those aspects to sell the story?  Why must they insert something fictional for us to relate to?  I didn’t mind the magical/fantasy aspect, but comeon.

Overall, not as bad as I thought it would be, and I did enjoy the action sequences as well as the fantasy bits that were thrown in.  If you know nothing about the original story, you should be fine viewing this movie, but sometimes one can be too smart for ones’ own good.  Luckily I was able to still enjoy the bulk of the movie.

On another note, there were a lot of people in the theatre for this film… and the audience was very varied, mostly stupid though.  Hearing their comments was like listening to first graders who aren’t able to connect the story threads of See Spot Run.  It’s really hard to enjoy a movie in a theatre these days… shame.

Review: Saving Mr. Banks – winds in the east, misty eyes comin’ in

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Finally got to see Saving Mr. Banks.  I feel like all the people that I would’ve seen this with have already seen it.  The short of it is, Walt Disney tries to acquire the rights to adapt Mary Poppins into a film.  He has to woo its author, the reluctant, P.L. Travers.  Everything’s set in the nineteen sixties.  Now the stage is set… GO!

The good; I love it when movies are about true events, and we know the ending already, yet… while we’re engrossed in the film we care.  We all know that the movie Mary Poppins gets made, who among us hasn’t seen it? Yet while I’m watching this movie, I feel the struggles and the hurdles and then the triumph of actually getting the movie made.

The music is great, it’s got hints of the Mary Poppins movie woven in, not just as the Sherman Brothers are creating the songs, but it’s also used in the score, I couldn’t have imagined it any other way.

Everyone in the cast deliveries brilliant performances.  We’re allowed the “happy ending” because we’ve gone through the emotional roller coaster.  The film manages to hit all the right beats on a subject that is all to familiar, yet clouded and shielded from us.  Saving Mr. Banks lifts the veil behind the magic and allows us to journey to the past.

The bad; the marketing may be off on this one.  This film goes through a range of emotions, it’s not all happy and magical.  Be prepared to cry, or tear up.

Overall, I highly recommend this film.  The target audience for this movie are the kids that grew up with Mary Poppins, both live action and in print.  Here we’re allowed to take a peek at what occurred behind the scenes and how hard people worked at creating something magical that has endured all these years.  I see some Oscar noms in the future.

Wardrobe from the movie

Walt’s office

 

Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – my interest goes up in flames

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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is the continuing story of the first movie in this trilogy.  Whence we last left our friends, they were on their way back to the Lonely Mountain to bring the Dwarves back to their home.  It’s the Lord of the Rings world, if you don’t know what that is, well, you probably shouldn’t be jumping in to the second movie of a trilogy, let alone a movie in the middle of a franchise.

The good; Smaug looks amazing, we finally get to see the dragon that’s made his home in the Dwarven kingdom.  The CG on Smaug is just so life like, if dragons do exist of course.

The bad; I was bored.  Much like Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Hobbit 2 is way too long.  This movie didn’t really do anything for me.  Every fight/battle scene was the end all be all, so you go from climactic scene to climactic scene… you’ve got no where to go from then on.  So everything fell flat and mundane.  Which is a shame.

Overall you can skip this one.  A trilogy that didn’t need to be, and whatever story they’re trying to tell, they could’ve done it in one movie.

Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – catches fire with $161m opening weekend

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Saw Hunger Games: Catching Fire this weekend.  It’s the second installment in the Hunger Games film franchise, which pretty much picks up right where the last one left off.  Katniss and Peeta have won the hunger games, they live back at their district where things aren’t the same.  The citizens of the district aren’t so happy, so stuff gets real.
The good; I really like this world that we’re in, and not the depressing dystopian stuff, but the way the world works and how it’s consistent, even though we’ve got a new director (Francis Lawrence) on this one.
The characters are still there and they’re still good and compelling.  They managed to make Katniss more innocent, if that’s possible.  Her life as she knew it is gone, she’s now this public figure, and what ever she does, no matter how small, ripples through out her world.

There’s a nice twist to a seemingly tertiary character, which I love.  It’s Effie, her little bit of… say “team work” was very well done.

They managed to make the new games interesting.  It wasn’t just the first movie over again, they threw in some stuff that changed it up and still kept my interest at all times.  When the movie was over, there was no point that I thought, “so that was two plus hours gone by…”
That is something good films accomplish.

The bad; I still need wider shots on the action.  Granted we didn’t have that over-used shakey-cam stuff here, but still… I want to see the action.  Things weren’t as brutal as the first film, but there was still a sense of disorientation and claustrophobia.  We’re not watching helmet cam footage, so be a movie and move me… what?!
*POSSIBLE SPOILER* This movie doesn’t end, it’s not a standalone movie.  I know that there are more movies/books to this series, but make a movie, don’t make part of a movie. *END POSSIBLE SPOILER*

Overall I had a lot of fun going back to visit Katniss, “Hey girl, what’s up?  How’s life after being the winner… oh not soo great?”  Oh and I like how an older white-bearded male is the bad guy, who would’ve seen that comin’??  There more story to tell and I’m ok with there being more movies.  I look forward to the next films.

Review: Ender’s Game – insert coin(s) to continue

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Saw Ender’s Game, it’s about a future world where Earth has been ravaged by an alien invasion, Earth barely repels the attacking forces and since then they’ve been working against another attack.  The International Fleet prepares for this upcoming attack by recruiting and training children, Andrew Ender Wiggin is one of those children.

The good; the world is set up very well.  We’re given the history of why these kids are trained for combat so early on.  Then we’re in the world and it’s  great getting to know the school and the pecking order.

Asa Butterfield as Ender is very good, he conveys the inner turmoil and frustrations amazingly.  Hope to see more from this kid.

I really just like this story, much like Starship Troopers, children are asked/demanded to give up their childhood for the greater good.  There’s something about the loss of innocence in a story that resonates with me.

I would’ve liked to have spent more time in this world, getting to know its ins and outs.  Exploring it and all that.  This book should’ve been two movies.

The bad; there’s too much crammed in to this movie.  Having not read the book(s), I could already tell that there were things that the movie had to gloss over.  Unlike The Hobbit films, Ender’s Game is an example where I want more than one movie per book.  There’s just so much going on here, especially in the training scenes, that I want more MORE!

I don’t feel like Harrison Ford is acting anymore, in his old age he just plays himself, this old bitter, crusted man.  It’s as if we’re just waiting for him to get angry and yell at someone in the movie.

*SPOILER* The transition of Ender’s team from underdog to topdog is something that I could’ve had more of.  I want to see more of the Dragons rising in the ranking to beat the Salamanders.  *END SPOILERS*

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.  I realize there’s a lot missing from what’s in the book, but what we were given in the film is entertaining and great.  The ending is very final, but yet open, hopefully the box office results will give us another movie.
Unlike most of the book adaptations that Fox does, Ender’s Game actually makes me interested in reading the source material.

Review: Gravity – “is working against me…” you got that right Mister Mayer

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Waited to see Gravity, worth the wait.  This is a movie truly worth seeing in IMAX 3D.  See it that way and see it often, well maybe not often cause it’s already made $50 million on its opening weekend.

The short of it, astronauts on a routine expedition get caught in a debris storm that leaves them stranded in space, dun dun dunnnnn…

The good; the visuals are amazing. the opening shot goes on for what feels like forty five minutes.  Technically stunning.  This is how filming a mostly CG film is supposed to be, not like those Star Wars prequels.

The only two on screen actors you have are Sandra Bullock, who plays the bio-medical engineer Ryan Stone, and George Clooney, who plays veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski.  Other than that, everyone else is a voice over.  It’s compelling that all you have on screen are these two actors and you’re still right there with them.

The soundtrack is amazing, very driving and atmospheric, pun intended.  With a film like this where they do portray space as the vacuum it is, there’s no sound, leaving a lot of room for the soundtrack.  It’s booming, almost deafening, and yet can be triumphant and moody.

Gravity leans more to the scientific aspects of what would happen in a space disaster.  Reminiscent of movies like; The Perfect Storm, Open Water, Castaway, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In its leaning to the hard science stuff, the film uses imagery from 2001, but doesn’t attempt to touch the philosophy aspects of it.  An example is the shot where Bullock is curled up in the fetal position while in zero gravity, the tether line is the umbilical cord and the craft is the womb…  I like the nod to 2001.

The bad; you should see this in IMAX 3D, there’s no way about it, seeing this film in regular 2D isn’t worth it.  Allow yourself to be immersed completely in a movie.
The trailer… it portrays the film as more high octane action by using sound effects in space, the marketing is mis-leading here.  Those morons expecting a big explode-y type movie shouldn’t be watching this film, so why market to those cavemen?

There isn’t much to put here, but I’ve got to put something.  If anything, the story is nothing new.  But it’s so well done.

Overall, Gravity is one of my favorite movies this year.  It should be nominated for best picture as well as all the technical nominations that it’s eligible for.  This is basically a disaster film but set in space, it’s man against the elements, in this case the lack of elements.  It’s another technical feat brought to us by Alfonso Cuarón.  Bravo!

Review: The World’s End – it’s not like a lion eating houmus

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Finally got to see The World’s End this weekend. It’s about old friend reuniting to finish a pub crawl from their youth, but little do they know that their hometown has changed… (dun dun dunnnn).

The good; Edgar Wright reunited with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (among others) for the third installment in the unofficial “cornetto” trilogy.  The three aforementioned  individuals, along with the frozen dessert, being the connective tissue.  I’ve been anticipating what the third movie would be for some time, and here we get it, like seeing some old friends.

The acting is great, I love the chemistry between everyone, it looked like a lot of fun to be on set.  The humor also seems to come along very organically.  The dialog had me laughing out loud, here’s an excerpt, “A man of your legendary prowess drinking f**king rain! It’s like a lion eating houmous.”

The pacing is very spot on, it starts off as a “bringing the team back together” type of movie and then once they’re together it’s an awkward family reunion sort of thing, then once things get going it’s an end of the world survival movie.  The movie just doesn’t let up, the transitions between the moods of the movie are woven in beautifully.  Lately movies have not been blending their scenes, this could be an editing issue, but with The World’s End the writing has to be credited here.
The story moves along with what the characters are going through, so these seemingly different movies can meld in to one and I don’t mind it.

The bad; no one’s seeing this movie?  Could this be attributed to the whole Firefly – Serenity thing?  Where the film was screened for the audience that would pay to see the movie anyway?
This could also be because of the R rating, scaring people from theatre seats.

Overall the wait was worth it.  I enjoyed every minute of this film.  Wright and Pegg manage to pen another script that’s ripe with characters and extreme circumstances, yet allowing it to be relate-able and endearing.  I find it odd, yet refreshing, that I’m able to sympathize with situations and motivations in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and now The World’s End.  Probably the best movie of the summer that no one is watching.

Review: R.I.P.D. – Rent In Peace Dudes

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Finally got to see R.I.P.D. last night, luckily it was at the second run theatre.  It’s about a division of dead cops that continue to enforce laws, this time it’s the laws of the universe, keeping the dead out of the world of the living.  Easy enough right?

The good; the movie doesn’t take it self too seriously.  It’s a fun filled action ride.  Lots of humor and great special effects.  The movie reminds me a lot of the first (and best) Men In Black film.  It’s a standard story, rookie cop gets introduced to a new world and is partnered up with a veteran.  Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, coupled with Mary Louise Parker, is where this movie shines.  You can tell they had a lot of fun during the filming.

The bad; it’s nothing new.  I can see why this failed to capture audiences when it came out.  The script is very on the surface, there’s not much to it.  This is a case where the script could’ve used another pass, perhaps subtext and subplots?  The cops have a mission and they complete the mission, which is to save the world.  Perhaps the stakes could’ve been more personal.

Overall definitely worth a rental, a lot of fun, if not to just watch the actors… act with each other.  We get another comic book adaptation, but not one that the mass public would instantly recognize.

Review: Elysium – where Matt Damon shoots things, not as Jason Bourne

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Elysium made it’s way to number one at the box office this weekend, it was a close call.  The short of it… Earth is ravaged, the wealthy move off world and on to Elysium.  The poor working class dream of getting up to Elysium, while the privileged class there work on keeping them out.

The good; Neill Blomkamp’s new film after District 9 keeps in the sci-fi genre.  He’s again created a world in which the sci-fi genre is a social metaphor.

The film looks amazing, it’s shot beautifully, the special effects are top notch.  The world is populated with droids that do the law enforcing, to security detail, to medical assessment/aide, you name it they do it.  Limiting the human jobs to manufacture of these droids, keeping the poor… well, poor.
Insert Matt Damon, I really like this social commentary, Damon plays Max, the film’s protagonist, he’s an orphan who grew up with some nuns and fell in to the wrong crowd, he’s got a bad record and now working at a factor which makes the droids that keep him on parole.

Much like District 9, the action and violence is both graphic and well executed (pun intended).  Seeing a man eviscerated as he flees has never looked so good.

The bad; Jodie Foster’s in this movie, why?  She’s under utilized.  The pacing of the film is much faster than Blomkamp’s previous one, I don’t think that’s a good thing here.  We didn’t get enough time to live in this world that he’s created, it’s very well thought out and has a system of its own, I wanted more learning how this world works.
I wonder if the script could’ve benefited from another draft or two.

Overall I had fun, the ending is much happier than District 9, a little too happy actually.  And there are a lot of logic flaws that are usually reserved for horror movies and why characters are making these seemingly bad decisions.  The ending is basically in favor of universal health care.   Hopefully Blomkamp’s next team up with Copley will be more “on track.”

Review: Europa Report – no not how the euro is doing

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The Europa Report is about a manned space mission to Europa, for those of you who don’t know, Europa is a moon of Jupiter.  These astronauts go there in hopes of finding life, in the form of bacteria and stuff, and not the little green men type.

The good; I love sci fi, and I love this hard sci fi stuff.  Europa Report reminds me of these other movies; Moon, Silent Running, Sunshine and 2001.  And to a certain extent Mission to Mars, everything before they actually get to Mars.  There’s something about man facing the elements, or lack of, in space.  Europa Report follows in that tradition.

The science fiction of this movie makes me believe that a mission to Europa could actually happen.  Adding to the science of it is the way the movie was filmed.  We’re watching an uploaded report, inter-cut with talking heads from the team on Earth and other things.  There isn’t much that feels staged, it’s as if we’re just watching the surveillance footage from their mission, just edited together.  It’s using the tricks found in Paranormal Activity but in a sci fi world, and for that I love it.

The bad; it’s predictable.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion… I don’t think that added anything to the experience.  It makes me wonder how the film would be if it were edited chronologically?  I’d like to think that the impact of certain scenes would still hold up, if not more so.  Oh well.

*SPOILERS* When the first victim (Sharlto Copley) bites it, the moment is simple and not an action scene with huge explosions.  Very similar to Tim Robbins’ death in Mission To Mars.  Really liked how they covered that scene.
The end… like with the director’s cut of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind we’re shown too much.  I would rather the film footage be consumed by a bright light than to be shown a glimpse of an alien… *END SPOILERS*

Overall I had fun going on this journey, but was left very in the middle when the credits came up.  The music is done by the great Bear McCreary.  If you like hard science fiction, I would recommend Europa Report, but look past it’s flaws.
But it feels like there was a missed opportunity for a great movie here.

Review: Pacific Rim – giant robots and monsters, oh myyyyyy…..

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Pacific Rim is about a near future where monstrous aliens have come from the pacific ocean, and the only way to combat this threat?  Giant robots, that’s right, THE ONLY way is with giant robots.

The good; everything looks great.  The closest thing I can remember to live action giant robots is Robot Jox, and that was a hot mess of a movie.  Here we get massive machines and they’re all CG, but there’s a weight to the way they move, with every punch and step I could feel all that metal moving.  The ILM peeps did a great job.

The action is clear and in focus!  I can actually see what’s going on, it’s clear that a robot is throwing a punch and hitting a monster.  Every other movie today, please take note of how to cover action sequences here…

Hong Kong looks amazing in this movie, so much color, like a more vivid version of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles.

Not really a spoiler, but there’s a little girl in this movie (you see this from the trailer), and she is amazing.  George Lucas needs to take a page from del Toro on how to direct actors in a green screen environment.  Bravo little girl!

The bad; what bad?  If anything, I only have minor things, so here goes.

The film doesn’t feel like a del Toro movie to me, I mean yes, it does have Ron Perlman.  But there are story points that I would’ve liked to be fleshed out a little more.  I won’t go into them, they’d be spoilers for those who haven’t seen the movie.

More robots, I wanted more Jaegers fighting, they covered the action so well that it felt like a breath of fresh air and I wanted more and more.

*SEMI-SPOILER* the ending was too happy for a del Toro movie, there’s some logic reasoning that I thought of afterwards.  Mainly, why did those pilots have to die?  When in the next scene we see that there’s an ejection pod system? *END SEMI-SPOILERS*

Overall, go see this marvel in the theatre.  Cloverfield was supposed to be the new monster movie, nope, it’s Pacific Rim by far.  This film knows what it is and goes with it.  People complain that most of the action takes place at night, in the rain, or underwater… so?  Despite all of that, I can see what’s going on, the shots are in focus and on a tri-pod.  What novelty these ideas are.  I’ll take an underwater fight scene where I can clearly see everything over a Michael Bay sunset silhouetted shot that’s hand held and in extreme closeup.  As soon as Pacific Rim ended, I wanted it to start all over again!