Cynical Evaluations of Cinema: Movie Reviews

[Reply #80 on:]

Edit- Just found out there is going to be an American remake of the Troll Hunter, why Hollywood? Why? Also really not sure how that work being how Norwegian the film is in almost every aspect.

This makes me angry. Really angry.

The codecs I found were valid for the file, but not supported by the software itself. I don't really get it, to be honest. All I know is, I couldn't play the damned thing. I tried three different players. All now rage-uninstalled.

Because you downloaded a crap torrent. As you said it was several gigs. Even if it was a blu-ray rip it should not have been more than 2 gigs.

Also for subtitles simply use VLC.

[Reply #81 on:]

sucker punch

i paid money to see this and for that i should be mocked relentlessly.

there is not a number low enough/10

[Reply #82 on:]

Don't you just love Zack Snyder....

[Reply #83 on:]

And he's directing the next Superman film, aww hell naw!!

The Eagle
Another film more or less about the disappearance of the Roman Ninth Legion (the other one I've seen being Centurion) and I think I preferred that one.
This one has prettyboy Channing Tatum (as the son of the General of the Ninth who lost the Eagle standard 20 years before) and Jamie Bell (as a Briton slave whose life he saves and swears an oath to him)
So they go off together into North Briton and look for the Eagle and find the Seal people have it, one of whom is played by Tahar Rahim (Une Propheté) who does a pretty good job at the Gaelic language.
The rest of the casts accents are all over the place, Donald Sutherland, Mark Strong and Bell, not sure where they're supposed to be from.
It was shot in Scotland but they obviously used a few filters to make it look visually appealing because it's way too colourful.
Anyway, they get the Eagle back after a last stand and they bromance it up and walk into the sunset.

Forgettable really.
C

Orcs!
Low budget indie film about a miner who accidentally unearths a troop of orcs from a mountain in a National Park and begin terrorizing the place, so it's up to lazy park Ranger Cal and his new rookie partner to stop them and save the day.

Good cheesy laugh, some good LOTR references: "A golfer lay here..."
B+
Poster is pretty cool too:

[Reply #84 on:]

Would you ever consider having sex with me Fazeshift?  You can be on bottom and/or top... whatever you prefer.

[Reply #85 on:]

I would not sir!

[Reply #86 on:]

What if I offered you some of this chloroform?

[Reply #87 on:]

Am I the only one who saw Super 8? While cliched it was well directed and acted. There were many things I could poke fun at but the overall experience was good.

B+

[Reply #88 on:]

I saw it. I'm still working over the words I want to use when I review it...I'll just say for now, I was disappointed.

[Reply #89 on:]

Who needs words when you can express your feelings so much more accurately with baby pictures?

[Reply #90 on:]

The last time I posted baby pictures I was banned.

True facts.

[Reply #91 on:]

I didn't mean dead babies josh!

[Reply #92 on:]

I didn't dislike the movie quite THAT much.

[Reply #93 on:]

I wanna see Super 8 so bad!!

Anyways I saw Green Lantern. It was okay, kinda lame..but it entertained me.

C

[Reply #94 on:]

I also saw Green Lantern tonight. Better than Thor, still had it's problems but I was much happier with the outcome and more of the characters.

B

[Reply #95 on:]

Bridesmaids
Pretty decent comedy for a buncha wimmins, nah just kidding, it's great.
Kristen Wiig plays an everywoman sort of character who sort of goes a bit crazy when her BFF is getting married and nothing seems to be going right for her in her own life, add in a even prettier richer more awesome competing BFF and some other crazy bridesmaids and the lols are many.
Also the love interests (one douchy: John Hamm, and the other nice guy: Chris O'Dowd) had some good parts too.
Skip The Hangover 2 and see this instead.

B+

[Reply #96 on:]

Cars 2

I am definately going to to go back and see this again

 …because I really can't seem to make up my mind about how I feel about this film and I'm hoping that a second viewing will help clarify things a bit.

For me there are parallels between this movie and Hoodwinked too!:

• I really liked the original films (Cars slightly more than Hoodwinked!).
  
• The elements that endeared me to the originals are largely missing from the sequels (though at least Cars 2 doesn't flanderize it's returning characters to anything like the extent that Hoodwinked too! did, which is, perhaps, why it isn't quite as much of a let down).
  
• The stories go much bigger in comparison with the (relatively) intimate settings of the original films, and they come across as trying too hard in the process.
• In servicing the expanded storyline there seems to be an overabundance of set pieces at the cost of plot (and/or, heaven forbid, character) development.
• Call-backs to the original are rather limited and fairly cosmetic in nature.
• Neither sequel is able to resist telling you what it's moral is, rather than letting you figure it out for yourself.
  
  

I don't love Cars 2 but I don't hate it either. I'm going to have to think about it some more.

Rating (for now): Meh ± Hmmm

[Reply #97 on:]

Super 8

Finally getting around to this...

This movie looked really promising, a sci-fi family film directed by JJ Abrams paying homage to Spielberg movies (Spielberg also produced Super 8) of the 90s such as ET. Unfortunately it is a bit of a letdown.

There's a lot to love about the movie...the acting, the not overly-complicated plot, some nice emotional scenes...but overall none of the different aspects of this movie work together as a whole. Instead it feels like a lot of half-baked stories thrown together. While each individual aspect of this film (the story of children making a zombie movie, the police officer father who needs to reconcile with a no-good drunk, the alien coverup) has an excellent basis, none of them are fully developed, leaving the finished product feeling hollow. All the different parts technically fit together in the grand scheme of the film, but they don't fit together well...they fit together in a way that doesn't make you care about any of them too much by the end, even if you might have started to at the beginning of the film.

Most of the scenes with the group of kids, who are essentially the stars of the film, are excellent. However, there are several scenes in this film where the kids are running around scared, making snappy retorts to each other off-camera (actually this sort of thing seems to take up a fair portion of the film)...sometimes it works, but most of the time the deliveries feel awkward and/or forced.

Even though I said the plot was in general not too overly-complicated, there are still a few major parts of the story, especially near the end of the film, that don't really seem to have any obvious explanation or reason behind them. There's one scene where

Show spoiler

all the dogs run out of town

that's never really truly touched upon (although I suppose one could make a simple guess)...and perhaps it was just me, but I didn't at all understand why

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the alien was taking the townspeople and stringing them up at all...perhaps I missed a line? The entire scene in the garage is very confusing.

While there are a lot of decent action scenes in this film, the alien itself, as a creature, is a big disappointment. I'd like to compare to Abrams' last monster film, Cloverfield - regardless of whether you think Cloverfield was a good film or not, the way it dealt with how much you saw of the monster at what times worked very well...showing small bits (although different parts each time) to pique your curiosity, eventually leading to the big reveal, was exciting and satisfying, at least for me. In Super 8 the creature is treated in a whole different fashion...through the entire film you not once get a very good look at this entire creature up close...you never get a satisfying reveal. Here is how the alien is revealed step by step, I'll put it in spoilers for those who don't want this detailed:

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The first few times we are exposed to the creature, it's completely off-screen, and these scenes are particularly cheesy in how they deal with that. Eventually you start to see legs, and that happens many times over the next part of the movie...just seeing legs. Finally, in the garage scene, you get to stare at its face up close for a long period of time...however, it's very shadowy, and even though you're staring right at it you never really feel like you can actually see it or make out too many details. At the very end you see its entire body, but only from far away, while it's moving quickly...again, you don't see much detail.

The movie seems to use darkness to cover up its CGI a lot, and it can be a bit frustrating.

In the end, I wouldn't call this a BAD film, and in fact it has many good things going for it...it just doesn't work overall. I wouldn't spend money to see it in theaters.

B-

[Reply #98 on:]

Re: Super 8 - if you haven't seen it yet, stay for the credits.

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They play the finished zombie movie that the kids were making. Big props they thought of doing that, and it's hilarious.

[Reply #99 on:]

I didn't get to see that...dammit. Now I'll have to find it.

[Reply #100 on:]

I am dying to see Bridesmaids

[Reply #101 on:]

I'm not

[Reply #102 on:]

Super 8 is def great if josh didnt like it

[Reply #103 on:]

I liked it, just not enough to recommend it.

[Reply #104 on:]

Midnight in Paris
Zomg, this movie was fantastic. When I saw the preview, I was worried that they put all the good jokes in there, but they really didn't. The entire movie was hilarious, and I was happy that the trailer didn't reveal the plot twist of the film. I really loved it and I don't really want to spoil the twist (although it makes up the majority of the plot, it's a twist in the sense that you don't see it coming and are like "WTF?" when it does), so I just suggest you all go see it right now. Owen Wilson was fantastic, and the twist characters were great fun to have. The world created in the film is one I love so much and I can find myself rewatching this film again and again and not getting tired of it at all. I rank this in my top 5 Woody Allen films, and definitely top 10 favorite films ever, possibly top 5 there too.

A+

[Reply #105 on:]

I'll assume I already know the "twist" you're referring to since it's likely in every single synopsis and review of the movie I've seen so far.

But ya, I've been wanting to see it since I heard about it.

[Reply #106 on:]

I didn't read reviews before I saw it, and none of the synopses that I read mentioned it whatsoever.

[Reply #107 on:]

The God Who Wasn't There

It's obnoxious but mercifully short.

[Reply #108 on:]

Cars 2

It was fine but here are my two main problems with it:

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1. Why would they play a Toy Story short right before? Honestly, that was so mean, no one will want to see Cars after that, they'll just want more Toy Story!
2. As much as I liked this movie I honestly do think it would have been better if they had just focused on the spy aspect. If it had to be in the Cars universe, that's fine, but they should have just left the characters of the first movie out of it and focused on the spy cars.
3. Next Pixar movie better have Bruce fucking Campbell in it and he BETTER NOT DIE!

B-

[Reply #109 on:]

Kung Fu Panda 2

After being surprised by Megamind last November I really started taking DreamWorks a bit more seriously. While I felt the plot was predictable

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Finding inner peace? Well DUH Po was gonna use that to defeat the villain. Obvious foreshadowing was obvious.

and the end was a MAJOR seque into a possible (and more than likely) third installment I liked it. It had a load of action, and that's what I wanted from this movie. It had a bit of family-oriented heart and THAT always gets me near tears (thanks Toy Story 3... >.> ). I enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the use of 2D animation (probably digitally made) thoughout the film, and it felt like it belonged. My only major gripe was that the ending wasn't entirely as kick-ass as I wanted but I suppose I'm at that point where I want bloody murderous revenge and I can't have that from a PG film. Or a really elaborate and awesome one-on-one battle that lasts half an hour. Oh well. I really liked Gary Oldman as the peacock villain and liked the design. It seemed a bit far-fetched how Po defeated Shen but since it's related to old Chinese lore and such (I'll assume) I can let it slide. Kudos to DreamWorks for making a sequel that does what it's supposed to do.

80/100 wolf soldiers

[Reply #110 on:]

Vanishing on 7th Street

Creepypasta in Detroit  the movie! Too bad this movie doesn't have an ending to speak of.


B-

[Reply #111 on:]

借りぐらしのアリエッティ (The Borrower Arrietty)

Another beautiful movie from Studio Ghibli.
Background artwork and animation are again top.
Story and characters are very well developed and it ends again (no surprise there) without a real final ending, that leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Which fits the movie well.


Great director's début by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

[Reply #112 on:]

I have no idea what that movie is called from your review.

[Reply #113 on:]

Isn't the English title written right there in parentheses?

[Reply #114 on:]

X-Men: First Class

I loved this movie so much I'm not going to go into any deep analysis...I'm just gonna recommend the crap out of it. I'm calling it, best action/superhero movie of the summer right here. Go see this movie while you still have the chance because it is simply fantastic. It's the best X-Men movie, hands down...in fact it makes the other ones look like pure shit in comparison. The acting is all-around superb, the writing is excellent (there are so many great lines in this film, I wish I had written some of them down), the action set-pieces are amazing while also being visually unique from other films...everything works. It's a long film but it doesn't feel like it...every moment is fun, or amusing, or meaningful, or simply epic. The other X-Men films had touched on the big issue of being different and not fitting into society, as well as the main divide between the mutants who want to work with humans and those who want to fight the humans, but none explored them even close to as fully or as well as this one does. Bottom line: Simply one of the best superhero films there are...up there with Spider-Man 2, Iron Man, and Batman Begins (in case you're curious, I'm not putting The Dark Knight here because First Class isn't THAT good, of course).

I think the question to ask here is why did it take the director of Kick-Ass to make a truly great X-Men film??

A

[Reply #115 on:]

Isn't the English title written right there in parentheses?

It is indeed.

[Reply #116 on:]

Josh: it also has BLUE BOOBIES.

BLUBIES!

[Reply #117 on:]

The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made
Make that 51.

[Reply #118 on:]

Stan Helsing

Make this 52.

[Reply #119 on:]

The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made
Make that 51.

I think I tried to watch that instantly on Netflix once. Isn't it just a super-brief countdown of 50 really shitty black-and-white horror movies?

Anyway, a review of my own...

Tangled Do I have to include a spoiler alert if the movie in question isn't brand new? If so, consider this it.

I'm not normally into CG (which could explain why I am seemingly one of the few people alive who cannot sit through most Pixar movies, excellent writing be damned), but this movie was downright beautiful to look at. Rapunzel's hair alone was a thing of, like, shimmering ethereal beauty. Rapunzel herself was a really great character (this may be a sign of what is wrong with my generation of women, but I adore Mandy Moore, and thought she did a great job), not the typical, boring damsel in distress. Euge--er, Flynn was kind of a jerkwad at the beginning (though a funny jerkwad), and his 180-degree emotional turn halfway through the movie seemed a teensy bit forced (but then, you know, the Magic of True Love has turned many a Disney character into a new man), but overall he was charismatic and, you know, smoldering and stuff. The animal sidekicks were pleasantly not annoying, and the villain was actually pretty vindictive and creepy and awesome. So, yeah, good characters.

The love story was...expected, of course. Like I said, it was a little forced (the jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold thing has been done so much; that said, it's handled entertainingly enough), but I did like how the scene of Flynn's "death" was a bit reminiscent of the Beast's death in Beauty and the Beast. (And the locked-in-a-tower, possessive-caretaker stuff was reminiscent of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.) And, hell, the movie's really funny. I loved a lot of the visual gags (Rapunzel getting tangled in her own hair while practicing ballet; the sequence of trying to shove an unconscious Flynn in her closet), and pretty much everything Flynn said (his reaction to the magic hair was great), and also the bipolar I-never-want-to-leave/I-must-go-back scene.

Oh, and the songs were also really catchy, which helps. This is probably the first Disney film in a long time that, well, works as both a separate entity and as a Disney film adhering to a certain formula (namely, a musical fairy tale). So, yeah. Really well done.

A