mad_mike1211 Reviews

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Good movie, but lots lacking in comparison to IW

[6/10 · 20 July 2022]

So I decided to watch Infinity War and End Game again, after previously being somewhat dissatisfied with End Game. Unfortunately my opinion did not change much.

Infinity War was in my opinion a masterpiece. The characters, story and flow of it was perfect and did exactly what it needed to. End Game started off good but really fell short many times throughout. I thought back in 2019 that maybe I was being harsh, being that it was the end to the phase and It's always difficult to be objective, but I stand by it on my rewatch. Characters and story were fillers and did not serve enough to the story like it felt in IW. Final fight was not that satisfying and felt underwhelming. I did like Steve's ending though, even though many don't like time travel as a feature. Overall it was a good effort, many good moments throughout particularly the ones that coincided with Avengers 2012, but many moments did not serve well enough. CGI was perfect and the cast did their best often carrying the movie through its problems so props to them. I give it a generous 6 out of 10. This sits behind IW, Avengers 2012, and Civil War.

Kidnap (I) (2017)

Not that bad

[7/10 · 18 July 2021]

Okay so this movie was not perfect by any means and there are without a doubt some terrible script writing in this, but all in all this was a fun movie.

A few things I didn't like was the script (at times) and the pacing. The script , particularly in the first quarter of the movie was pretty bad, many things were said that just didn't make sense at all and took away from the situation. The pacing was weird too. The intro was far too long, and there were many scenes throughout that were just drawn out wide angles or other camera shots that were unnecessary. Comparing this movie with 'The Call', Halle's other movie which was very similar, I would say The Call was better made overall, but don't discount this one because its still a decent flick.

Mortal Kombat (2021)

Gore, One Liners, good action and good backstory. A tribute to Mortal Kombat fans

[9/10 · 23 April 2021]

Best bits: -The backstory and story telling of the characters was great- Sub Zero and Scorpion had some of the biggest focus in terms of this as you will have seen for the release of the first 7 minutes. The back story gives you enough to go off as a newcomer, but if you are a new comer that asks questions about specifics, you wouldn't get the answer (about the clans) but that doesn't take away anything really.

-the gore was right- Understandably, this was something that they never really got right in previous telling's of Mortal Kombat, so it was refreshing to see actual gore and violence that they inherited from the games. This was absolutely necessary to make the story telling feel real. You needed this to understand the seriousness of what was happening.

-Sub Zero and Kano- These two were by far the best casting and talent showcasing of the movie. The trailer doesn't give much away about Kano, so his part was a big surprise in the movie. He was witty, funny, pulled out some brilliant one liners including one about a low kick. Sub Zero really gets showcased in the movie as a villain, and his screen presence was brilliant. You felt that anyone who came across him was in danger, and rightly so.

-Cole- I am all for Cole. The trailer didn't really give him justice and many fans were wondering "well, who the hell is this guy, and why should be care?". But I felt his character brought a sense of grounding to the story. AS much as characters like Jax and Sonya are regular people, we still know them as video game characters being brought to life in a movie. I think the addition of Cole was smart to help make the story and what was happening around you feel like it could all be real.

Bad? Bits:

Okay so there weren't really BAD bits as such, just things that maybe id want different in some way.

-Pacing- The movie felt short and everything happened so quickly. It felt like they wanted to tell so much in a short space of time that it felt like it interrupted the pacing. In sequels, i'd like to see a longer movie, between 2 and 2.5 hours. That may seem crazy, but i feel like we really need that length to help pace the movie, control the dialogue and allow for more development between the characters etc.

-fight scenes- I loves the fight scenes, they were brilliantly choreographed and the cast did an awesome job. However, again i felt like many of these scenes were shorter than they should be. It might be that I've become accustomed to longer fight scenes because of films like The Raid and im a big fan of Jackie Chan's fights because they have a good length of time.

-Casting?- While I believe that 90% of the casting was perfect (it really was!) I'm not sure how I feel about Raiden. I may be overthinking it, but I didn't feel like he was presented in the best way. He felt annoying, arrogant and didn't have much to say. It might be that the writers didn't pay too much attention to his script for this movie but will for sequels, so I don't want to pass too much judgement on the casting for that reason.

Conclusion: This movie in my opinion is the best video game adaption and easily beats the first movie. The issues needing to be ironed out are the pacing and length of the movie. You can easily add 30-60 minutes to this movie filled with dialogue and you wouldn't be bored of it. It needed it as some characters felt disconnected from others in a way. The movie stays true to the law of MK, and the character design and casting felt near perfect. The action was great but could be longer also. The gore was perfect. The Comedy aspects were perfect.

American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules (2020 Video)

Not as bad as it's made out to be

[6/10 · 9 October 2020]

So I will be the first to say it. This movie is not as bad as it's been made out to be. I will clear up a few points before I start though: 1. The execution of the story wasn't great 2. The casting was mixed. Good and bad choices all round. 3. It has the American Pie name, but apart from about 5% of it, it's not really American Pie at all. So the story starts off pretty shaky. You don't really get a feel for any of the characters, there's not really any character building other than basically naming some people, which is useless until you get to the Stifler girl. The characters feel pretty empty and you don't feel like you know or care about them at all. There are a couple of boring/annoying characters too and for me that didn't change throughout. For example, Kayla and Tim were probably the most uninteresting and useless characters of the whole film. They didn't feel believable, they weren't likeable and their acting was awful. We move on to Annie, the 'main' character if you will. At first I didn't feel like much was going on with her, but I do think that's partly the execution of story/script. Annie for me became the most likeable character, and actually the most believable in the end. The next girl, Michelle, was pretty boring, and the character's interests were pretty ridiculous ( she masturbates to speeches from John F Kennedy) although there were a few funny(ish) moments from her. Stephanie Stifler is the next girl. She's got high expectations to live up to as she's obviously a Stifler, but I found her to be lacking in the deliverance of the character. I will say though, she was probably the most likeable Stifler of the series after Sean William Scott. Grant was the main guy that all the girls were after, and to be honest, they could have cast him better. I didn't feel like actor really had much going, maybe its the script/story, but I didn't care for him at all. The story was all over the place at first. Like I said with the characters, you didn't feel like anything was going on in the first place, no connection with them, not much to feel etc. However I feel like it redeemed itself like half way through, where they started to develop the characters a bit more. All in all I didn't find myself laughing as much as I thought I would. I feel that the moments that they tried to use to make you laugh were just sex related, or swearing, but it just didn't work for the most part. Overall I think the premise behind the movie was good, but the execution was just not as it could have been. The casting was good for the most part but awful in some areas. They stuck the American Pie label on it, but other than the School, and Stephanie Stifler character (and the mention of band camp) there wasnt anything else really American Pie-esque. There was no nudity, the humour was either a bit forced or not very believable, although better than some of the other american pie spin offs. I think if you go into this with low expectations and don't think of it as an American Pie film, its not an awful film at all. Would have I felt ripped off going to the cinema to see it? probably yes, but as a free viewing on Netflix when I can't be arsed to watch anything else, its a quick watch that isn't awful, so I've given it a generous 6/10

The 100: Blood Giant (2020) Season 7, Episode 13

Great turn of events

[10/10 · 13 September 2020]

Well, that was unexpected. This episode showed a great display of love and protecting the ones you love, even if it means stopping others who you love. It's also a great display of what faith can do to someone. Making choices for the greater good, but that can come at a sacrifice as we see at the end. Please, ignore the 1 star reviews by bitter fans wanting a different outcome. This right here, is the hard truth of decisions, we've seen it since the very start, and no one is safe, minor or major characters, the decisions made have a way of catching up. Clarke has had some of the hardest choices to make in the whole show, but I can understand every one of them. Great episode, anxious what the next episode brings as we loom closer to the end of the show for good.

House M.D.: House Training (2007) Season 3, Episode 20

An episode that deserves more appreciation

[10/10 · 16 April 2020]

This episode deserves more appreciation than it's gotten. Foreman makes a decision that ultimately kills a patient. The patient is a black woman who is a con artist, never stays in one job for long, never really makes much of herself. Foreman takes an initial dislike to her as he sees a black woman who choses a life like this and blames the system for everything. When it comes to delivering the bad news to her, he opens up, and sits by her bed in attempt to comfort her until she dies. Not alot is said but the emotions displayed give us everything we need. Foreman also sees his mother in this episode (reluctantly) but opens up to her in the end about what he did to the patient. she understands and forgives him, however, she doesn't really understand who he is as she explains that her sons name is eric.

Game of Thrones: The Bells (2019) Season 8, Episode 5

Amazing

[10/10 · 13 May 2019]

Well..... What an episode that was. Very dramatic and very hard hitting. A lot of anger by many of the characters and a lot of sadness from others. Lots of deaths and lots of destruction . Loved it and I can't wait for next week to tie everything up and end it all .

Stan Helsing (2009)

From bad to worse

[2/10 · 8 December 2017]

This movie starts out average and gets bad pretty quickly. When you realise what it is, you try to accept it for what it is. That doesn't prepare you for how bad it really gets though. Overall plot is interesting but they do nothing with it and butcher it at every moment. acting is average at times but shocking at others. Script is horrible from start to finish and the cringe moments get worse as the movie goes on. Put it this way, I would avoid watching this if I were you. 90 minutescould be spent doing better things, like watching paint dry, orcounting the grains of sand on your local beach

Daddy's Home 2 (2017)

Very funny and surprisingly great as a sequel

[9/10 · 22 November 2017]

Watched this tonight at the premier in my cinema and I've got to say I thought it was great. The chemistry between Will and Mark showed in this one very well, they played off each other perfectly as did Mel Gibson and the rest of the cast. Started off funny and kept me laughing throughout with some pretty unique humour in there too. Had many clichés that it played off well but also some originality. My only downside was there needed to be more John Cena in it. He was great but there wasn't enough of him. Either way I would totally recommend and I hope to see a 3rd!

Trainwreck (2015)

Boring for the most part, extremely slow for the rest.

[4/10 · 8 April 2016]

I don't know where to start with this... Can't believe how much of a let down this movie was for me. The trailer gave away 95% of the funny parts to this movie, I was extremely hyped to watch it.

I'm not one to dislike many films, I can see enjoyment in any film and it's enough to make it a good film in my eyes. But Trainwreck was nothing but a trainwreck of a film.

The only reason I gave this 4stars instead of 1 star was literally because of John Cena. Every single moment he was in a scene, I was laughing from start to finish. The movie theatre scene had me and my mates laughing for ages. After that scene though, it slowly got worse and worse until we were bored out of our skulls.

So my verdict is, don't rush to watch this, but give it a go sometime for the scenes with John Cena, because he was the only great part about an otherwise boring movie.

12 Rounds 3: Lockdown (2015)

Not bad for a rainy day

[5/10 · 12 September 2015]

I will start by saying that I enjoyed this film as I do most action films, I am not too fussy.

However I gave 12 rounds Lockdown only 5 out of 10, I think mostly due to it being a bit of a let down compared to the previous 2 in the series.

I really enjoyed 12 Rounds With John Cena and the same with Randy Orton in the 2nd one. But the 3rd film lacked everything those two had.

The script in this film was pretty awful at times, I don't think it had anything to do with the actors, they just did the best they could.

The story line seemed like a good one going into it, but soon started loosing its rhythm quickly as the movie progressed, with some holes here and there.

The action and intelligence of many parts of what actually went on was actually pretty good, it's just a shame there wasn't enough of it, I guess I was expecting more because of the previous 2.

All in all it's a decent watch for a rainy day, don't expect too much and you wont be disappointed, I still hope for a 4th one though regardless.

Barely Lethal (2015)

A good watch, if you go in knowing what it is

[10/10 · 23 August 2015]

I'll start with what you need to expect..

This film is meant to be an easy watch high school comedy adventure. Which is exactly what it is.

If you go in with this mindset, This is actually a really good film.

There are many new faces in the film, Sophie turner (Also plays Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones) is really good in this. She shows how versatile she can be in a different sort of role.

Hailee Steinfeld is also great as the main character in this. I think she does a good job in the action role but is also pretty funny too.

There are a few other big names in this film too with some smaller roles like Jessica Alba and Sam L Jackson, however they provide good entertainment.

All in all I rate the film 8/10 ... If you like high school comedies aimed around 15 years of age, then you can't go wrong with this. If you are expecting the next Oscar masterpiece, then you may want to skip this.

The Game Plan (2007)

loved it,I'm 14 years old , cool film , best 2 main actors !

[10/10 · 17 March 2008]

The first time i heard of this film i thought " the rock.... making a youngsters film?"i wasn't completely sure what to expect but after i watched it I really did love the film.a lot of funny parts, the rock and Madison played the whole thing very good. p's. she is doing well for herself and will be a great star . At first i thought that was his daughter because they do kinda look alike ^_^ they really did pull of a good movie and i love the whole story and backgrounds well done to all the actors . this is a film anyone can enjoy !

~~~~~~ GREAT FILM ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ GREAT FILM ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ GREAT FILM ~~~~~~