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Strange Magic (2015)
Monstrously stupid
I'm sorry, but I don't understand how people could possibly give this movie anything higher than a 2. It's a bad movie. It's poorly written, ugly, stupid, and nonsensical.
Okay, there is one thing that I liked. The movie takes an interesting turn towards the end. I liked what they did with two of the characters. Unfortunately, it's too little too late. In order to save this monstrosity of a motion picture, it needs to be completely rewritten.
I also detest the fact that they had the audacity to make this a musical, using only top 40 songs about love. It's as if this movie was tailor-made to annoy me.
If you like character inconsistencies, plot holes, unfunny jokes, and uncanny valley faces, then this movie is for you.
Sorry George, but your animated musical stinks.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Not the comeback it could have been.
After the monstrous atrocity that was Pirates 4, Disney decides to laugh it off and give us another Pirates movie. Unfortunately, the only real compliment I can give this film is the fact that it tried to ignore the fourth movie ever happened as best as it could. I can tell they tried...to some degree. But it falls short of the fun and adventure of the first film (and dare I say the second or third.)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a film in which dead men do indeed tell tales. Tales of a young CGI Jack Sparrow outsmarting a Spanish naval officer and causing his ship to blow up somehow. Jack Sparrow is back, this time in the role he is supposed to be in these films: NOT the main character and NOT a hero (one of the great faults of the last film). This time the story follows Will and Elizabeth Turner's son Henry and a spunky (and annoyingly arrogant) young woman who is smart and knows everything. They join Jack and his small crew to look for the trident of Poseidon.
But evil undead Javier Bardem wants revenge on Jack for leading him to his death all those years ago, so he chases after them with a monster ship that bites other ships and zombie sharks. These two things sound a lot cooler than they really are. Oh, and little Henry Turner wants the trident to cure his daddy of Davy Jones Syndrome and there's something about the girl's father.
I think the main problem I had with the film was the action. The strongest aspects of the Pirates movies are the action scenes, but boy did they screw it up here. Every single scene is either way too dark to see anything, or far too bright to see anything. There's never a comfortable in-between. There were several instances in the film where I was squinting at the darkness, trying to piece together the scene in my mind, only for a shaft of light to break out and fry my retinas. The camera is so shaky and the editing is so choppy and abrupt that it's impossible to process all the cool pirate action the movie promised.
The story is boring and the characters are uninteresting. They tried to give us a replacement for Will and Elizabeth (not ultra interesting, either, but at least they were somewhat likable) with their son (who is as boring as a brick wall) and a new character, some chick who people think is a witch because she's really good with astronomy and smart people stuff. She was incredibly irritating, constantly bragging about how much smarter she was than those BIG DUMB MEN she was around. It was clear they were trying REALLY hard to make her a strong character, but it was so blatant that it became irritating.
The whole movie just felt like it was going through the motions: like it had a basic checklist of things that were in the previous movies that people liked and trying to shove it all in there. These things include:
-Jack Sparrow is a ladies man
-Jack Sparrow is funny and drunk
-Undead pirate man who hates Jack and wants to kill him
-Captain Barbossa
-Will and Elizabeth types that serve as a contrast to Jack and his behavior
-a mystical object the characters race to find before the bad guys
-sea battles
-monsters (i.e. zombie sharks)
-mean and pompous British dudes
-Jack Sparrow is a funny guy, isn't he?
-elaborate escape sequences
-crazy supernatural phenomenon related to the sea
-explosions
-swords
-slapstick humor (involving Jack Sparrow)
In listing all these attributes, it becomes clear that the filmmakers were trying WAY too hard. They were clearly desperate to recapture the lighthearted fun of the previous movies, but all they've accomplished is making one big mess of a movie. The movie is shot poorly, the humor feels tired and lazy, and the characters range from bland to irritating. Even the return of our beloved Jack Sparrow feels a bit underwhelming.
I think the whole point I'm trying to make is that this movie doesn't have much of a reason to exist. They should have stopped making Pirates movies a long time ago, but after the stupendous screw up that was On Stranger Tides, I guess Disney wanted to prove they could make a fun Pirate adventure again that didn't suck.
For all its faults, I can still say it's better than On Stranger Tides, but it's still so far beneath the enjoy-ability of the first two or three movies that I can't even recommend seeing it just for the sake of seeing another Pirates movie. It just didn't leave much of an emotional impact, and I can't say that watching it was even that fun. It's not the worst movie ever made, and it's not the worst Pirates movie ever made. But it's so bland and poorly shot that I don't think it's worth seeing. Yes, Jack is back, but who really cares anymore? We don't need any more Pirates movies.
The BFG (2016)
A waste of time if you're under 10 years old.
I was willing to give this movie a chance. It's Steven Spielburg, what could possibly go wrong, right?
Well, to be fair, this isn't the WORST movie ever made, but it's one of those waste-of- time movies that just doesn't instill any kind of coherent emotional reaction. I felt nothing during this movie. There was nothing for me to enjoy.
The visuals were really phony. I know that a movie like this needs CGI if they wanted it to be live action, but the blending of the two was just AWFUL. Every time Sophie and the BFG were in a scene together I could tell she was sitting in front of a green screen.
Most of the film was also whimsy for the sake of whimsy, with the pretty visuals of the sparkly dreams drifting around the fairytale forest landscape serving no function other than to wave pretty colors in the faces of children to keep them entertained.
The story meandered. Then they introduced a conflict, which could have added a ticking clock element to the plot. And once I thought it was going somewhere, the plot stopped completely to make for hilarious antics of the BFG in Buckingham Palace. "Isn't it hilarious that he's giant and everything else is tiny?" the movie asks. "No," I say. It's not really. Maybe a kid would find it funny, but since I'm not a kid I can't say for sure.
"Isn't it funny that he says weird words in the presence of the Queen of England?" the movie asks. "No," I say again. It's really not. All the humor in this movie falls flat on its face. It's the kind of weirdly delivered humor that I remember movies like The Polar Express have, where there are "wacky" characters who do and say things that are not inherently funny, but based on the other characters reactions, the movie tells us that we were supposed to laugh at it.
What was the point of the magical fart juice? Other than being true to the book, that is. Seriously, it was the most pointless joke in the movie. The delivery was bad, the timing of it was bad, and the execution of it was bad. The moment the BFG reached for that bottle of fart juice the second time (an hour after the movie introduced it and forgot about it), I had to walk out. That was it for me.
I really don't know what else to say other than The BFG was a meandering, pointless waste of time. Nothing was funny, there was almost no tension, the plot goes nowhere, and I left without feeling anything for any of the characters. Maybe a kid of 10 or under would enjoy it, but as an adult in their twenties, I certainly didn't. I walked out of it, so I don't even know if it got better in the last half hour or so.
Skip it. Unless you're young and easily entertained.
The Last Unicorn (1982)
I don't get it.
I've heard of this movie every now and again, and I've only ever heard good things about it. I read the graphic novel, and it was fantastic, so it only made sense to check out the movie. I was disappointed, to put it simply.
Over the course of the opening credits, I got a bit excited to see so many big names: Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin, Christopher Lee, and Jeff Bridges! But the ear-bleedingly bad 80's music started playing and my expectations lowered significantly. As soon as the first moving character came on the screen, they lowered even more.
The animation is just awful. I know it's an older film, but Disney's oldest movies still look better than this! The characters move strangely, and their lips don't sync with their voices very well. The best animated character was the Red Bull, and even that wasn't very impressive.
The story is interesting in of itself, but I don't think it was executed in the best way. The dialogue was hammy and awkward, once again making old Disney animations look superior in comparison. The big name actors didn't seem all that enthusiastic about delivering their lines, not that it mattered because the characters were pretty boring to begin with. Even Christopher Lee, with his wonderful villainous and menacing voice, seemed to be half-assing it. I suppose there was some kind of message or point to this whole story, but I'm not entirely sure what it was.
I've read the graphic novel (which was written years after this film), and it made a lot more sense. The art was also better. I was very surprised to find that this movie had so much praise on this site, until I realized that 90 percent of those reviews were written by people riding on a nostalgia high. I guess I don't feel anything from The Last Unicorn because I didn't first watch it when I was 4.
Should I recommend it or not? I don't know. I'll have to watch this film again, because I need to find something good about it. I wasn't ready to give it a 1 out of 10, because I didn't feel angry or betrayed after watching it. Just confused.
Go watch it if you like childish fairy tales and unicorns, and if you don't mind awful cheesy 80's pop.
Home (2015)
Such a bad movie that the review doesn't deserve a clever title
What baffles me more than the movie itself is the fact that there are so many ten star reviews of it on this website. Do you people like watching crap? Do you enjoy having your soul ripped from your body, mangled, then shoved back in? Are you all mad?
This movie isn't the kind of blatantly bad movie that you walk out of snickering to your friends about. This is a new kind of bad; one that I have never encountered before. There is something so sinister, so manipulative about the way this story was executed that I left the theater confused and horrified.
The movie starts of with our main character, Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory, talking in stupid grammar. Then he meets Rihanna, who is even worse at voice acting than he is. Badger from Breaking Bad is also in there somewhere. Steve Martin also joins this baffling cast, sporting a disturbing mustache. While the latter two did a good job with the awful lines they had to read, our two main protagonists, Sheldon and Rihanna, could not read lines naturally to save their lives.
The plot was really strange; easy to follow, but strange. There was definitely something wrong with the editing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the editor wasn't even fully conscious when he was cutting and pasting the scenes together. The pacing was all over the place. The movie felt like it ended three times before it actually ended. The action scenes had no tension. The emotional scenes came out of nowhere and confused me with their weight. The jokes were forced and felt flat on their faces.
The biggest and most glaring problem with this movie is the music. When they weren't playing EVERY RIHANNA SONG EVER, the movie treats us to the worst orchestral score I have ever heard in my life. Every time a song played, it felt inappropriate. The action scenes were either accompanied by bafflingly quiet Dubstep, or strangely quiet orchestral music. Every time an action scene started, the music got quieter. You don't DO that! Did the aliens IN the movie make this movie??
There are so many things I want to say about the movie, so many questions about WHO made these creative decisions and WHY they are still allowed to roam freely on this earth. This was just abysmal! It's terrible! There are very small fleeting moments of genuine emotional weight, and there are a few slightly clever lines, but it's all wrapped up in a flurry of terrible jokes, and terrible music, and terrible voice acting that it's CONFUSINGLY bad. I wanted to like the main characters, I really did! And there were moments when I did feel genuine sympathy for them, only for all that sympathy to fly out the window and into space because the editor quickly cuts to a completely different scene with a very different emotional feel to it. Or a terrible Rihanna song starts playing and ruins the mood.
The one good thing about the movie is the animation. I enjoyed the effect of the aliens' skin color changing based on their emotions. I liked the design of the "evil" aliens, for the most part. The main character girl's hair was very well rendered. The movie looked beautiful, just like a turd looks beautiful when you polish it.
Overall, this movie is an absolute train wreck. It's kind of funny how Rihanna voices one of the main characters, and most of her music is featured in--WAIT A SECOND. BACK UP. BEEP BEEP BEEP
Rihanna plays one of the main characters and her music is featured prominently in the movie. HMMMMMMMMMMM SEEMS A BIT OF A STRANGE COINCIDENCE, DOESN'T IT???!!
I digress. This is a bad movie. One out of ten, would never watch it again.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
What a Lovely Day to Write a Review
There is hope for Hollywood yet. In an endless storm of sequels and reboots, finally a group of people came together and said, "Hey, let's make the most amazing entertainment experience of the decade. Let's take Mad Max, and AMP IT UP." And that's exactly what they did. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mad Max: Fury Road is a movie for the ages. Yes, it is a reboot, but it's probably the best one in recent history.
Mad Max and The Road Warrior are enjoyable films. But I think this movie is way better. Mad Max: Fury Road wastes no time with explanations. It's all about the action, and the pure suspense. We understand the setting, the character motivations, and how much the world has changed for everyone without having to sit through a history lesson. It doesn't matter how the Apocalypse happened. It doesn't matter how the main villain Immortan Joe built his citadel. It doesn't matter what exactly happened to Max before the movie starts.
All the necessary information is there: The movie takes place is the post-Apocalypse where humanity had no choice but to go nuts. Max is haunted by the innocent lives he was unable to save. Furiosa's goal is to save the oppressed wives of Immortan Joe from a lifetime of being used as objects that give birth to future warlords. And let the madness begin!
The plot may be simple, and Max might not be the center of the story, but the movie works. We understand everything that we need to know, and we are able to care because the characters and the setting are so visually unique and interesting. I think the acting was superb, and the shining star was Charlize Theron as Furiosa, the one woman army who drives a truck called the War Rig, and can hold her own in a fight against even Max. She is a fearless badass, but also a compassionate and noble soul; she risks her life to betray Immortan Joe and steal away his prized wives so they can find a better life elsewhere.
Also in the mix is Tom Hardy as the titular Mad Max, who is a man of few words. He carves his own path, but will still stop along the way to help the innocent. Another notable performance was Nicholas Hoult, who plays a rabidly devoted follower of Immortan Joe, who insists on driving off to war even though he doesn't have long to live. The villainous Immortan Joe is also notable due to his incredible design and the mystery surrounding his strange cult of freaks, fighting in hopes of being reborn "shiny and new."
I would also like to note that this movie features REAL vehicles that the filmmakers built in REAL LIFE, along with REAL explosions and REAL fire.
If this explanation isn't enough to get you to see the film, then here's a list of other awesome things that are in it:
-A great, big, beautiful dust storm with lightning and tornadoes inside it
-A vehicle rigged with men playing the drums, large speakers, and one dude hanging on chords playing a custom electric guitar that shoots fire
-A man wearing a hat made out of bullets whose teeth are also bullets
-Spears that explode on impact
-Old warrior women on motorcycles
-One beautiful thirty-second shot of strange humanoids on stilts
-Lots of stabbing, punching, and exploding
-Did I mention AWESOME vehicles that were built FOR REAL?
I can't fully explain just how amazing this movie is. Everything about it is so enjoyable, not to mention METAL AS HELL. Go see this movie. Take your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, friends, your teenage kids! It doesn't matter that it's not exactly like the old Mad Max films. This blew the originals out of the water and into space!
After Earth (2013)
An Abysmal Failure
I'm amazed that in the world of captivating cinematic adventures, movies like After Earth slip through the system and end up in theaters. Everything about this movie was absolutely horrendous, from the poor acting to the laughable writing.
I think from the moment the movie started, I was dreading having to sit through the whole thing. The very beginning was choppy and abrupt, seemingly pointless as we later watched the exact same things happen later in the movie. Jaden Smith's voice-over in the beginning also worried me. He sounded dead, like Will Smith was actually forcing him to be in the movie. Unfortunately, it only got worse from there.
The rest of the movie was full of forced, unnatural dialogue, paired with terrible acting and an insultingly stupid yet confusing plot. I and others in the theater with me laughed aloud as we heard actors delivering lines such as, "Both my legs are broken, one very badly," and "I hear something! I think it's water--a lot of it." When I step back at look at both the dialogue and the story, I'm convinced that a thirteen-year-old wrote it. And poor Jaden, that poor poor kid, he really didn't look like he wanted to be in that movie. His face was screwed up in a painful grimace the entire time. The scene where he yells at his dad is particularly bad; he was delivering those lines like someone was holding a gun to his head. Poor kid. I don't blame him for any of this, to be honest.
There were also too many awkward pauses in the movie. Often times, the actors would stop what they were doing to stare into space for about five minutes before delivering their next lines. Jaden's scenes consisted of mostly of him looking worried and sleeping. All Will Smith did was sit around and tell him what to do. Scenes were also dragged out for no reason. With that and the abrupt scene changes, the pacing in this movie was as consistent as if it were told by a hyperactive child.
In the case of the special effects, I was unimpressed. The weird tiger-leopard things that attack Jaden halfway through the movie? I think the saber-toothed tiger from Ice Age looked more realistic. The scenery was just meh, for lack of a better word. Something about the way it was put together just made it seem quite unspectacular.
Another thing this movie lacked was logic. Two details in the movie particularly bothered me: One, Will Smith's philosophy on fear, and two, the nature of the monsters now inhabiting Earth. Will Smith tells his son that fear isn't real, and that we need to choose to be afraid. Well, I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that fear is a natural biochemical response in humans and animals that triggers the survival instinct that we all need in order to, well, survive. People don't choose to be afraid, it just happens. As for the monsters living on Earth, Will Smith says they have evolved to kill humans. First of all, how is that possible? As far as I could tell, humans have not lived on Earth for thousands of years, so how could those monsters adapt and evolve to specifically kill humans if they don't live around any humans? It's simple evolution, people. Get your facts straight.
The overall experience of watching the movie felt like I was in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I actually felt as if an evil scientist had forced me and my friends to watch this movie, and in order to keep from going insane, we made fun of it mercilessly during the whole thing. It did work, I survived the movie unscathed, thought it doesn't change the fact that the experience was still quite unpleasant. The movie lowers the I.Q. of those that watch it.
Please, for the love of human dignity, don't go see this movie. Everything a good movie does right, After Earth does wrong. It's such a waste of time and space, and it's really not worth watching, even if it provides for some good comic material. Save your money, stay home, and watch a good Will Smith movie like Independence Day or I, Robot.
The Hunger Games (2012)
Faithful to the book, and that's good!
With Harry Potter over (sadly), and The Twilight Saga coming to a close (thank goodness), America needed a brand new franchise to go crazy over. And here it is, The Hunger Games! A brilliant adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling series (and far better-written than Stephanie Meyer's Twilight books). This movie delivers in almost every aspect. Despite its one flaw, The Hunger Games was definitely worth the wait.
The one flaw I was talking about is the over-use of shaky-cam in a few scenes of the movie. It gets less abundant later in the movie, but it can be mildly distracting at times.
But don't let the camera work ruin the movie for you! This movie is full of good things: superb acting, thrilling action, great story, and genuine heart. The movie was very well casted, with Katniss, Primrose, Gale, Peeta, Cinna, Effie, and Haymitch's characters all flawlessly portrayed by the actors. I also enjoyed the girl who played Rue: she was perfect! The action was very well choreographed (despite the iffy camera-work) and I felt as though I was experiencing the same thrill I did when I first read the book. I was on the edge of my seat, even though I knew exactly what was going to happen. I cared about all the characters.
There were a couple of alterations in the movie's script that left out some details from the book, but it didn't ruin the story for me at all. There is no need to be worried about the movie screwing up the book; the changes are rather small and inconsequential.
This movie is also very emotionally charged, just like the book. You can feel the characters' devastation, their happiness, their sadness, their defeats and triumphs. Again, thanks to the acting and the well-written script.
Overall, this movie did a fantastic job of bringing the book to the big screen. It was enjoyable, exciting, and satisfying. Even if you haven't read the book, if you like action movies and movies about triumph and standing strong, then this is the movie for you.
Titanic (1997)
Most Overrated Movie of All Time, as well as the Biggest Waste of Time
To this day, I have been unable to figure out why people like this movie so much. It infuriates me how people are seduced by big-budget special effects and cheesy romance, and how they can't see past the eye candy to see that this movie had almost no true substance. James Cameron's good movies are The Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens, and The Abyss. Titanic is not included in the list.
The one good thing I will say about the movie is the special effects. The big turning machinery in the bottom of the ship, and the ship sinking and people falling all over the place was fun to watch, but got old very fast. Basically, the special effects were the only thing that made the movie. Another positive thing that I have to say about the movie is that Leonardo Dicaprio was the only character in the movie that I liked.
Now on to the negatives of this movie, and bear with me because there are A LOT of them.
I will start with the Romance. The romance aspect of the movie is probably what most people like about this movie, but believe me when I say it is one of the corniest, shallowest love stories I have ever suffered through (although it is not nearly as bad as Twilight). Jack, or Leonardo Dicaprio, is completely infatuated with Rose, or Kate Winslet. I mean, I can tell that she is pretty, but come on dude, you couldn't have picked a more selfish, emotionally imbalanced girl.
Which brings me to the thing I probably will rave about the most: Kate Winslet's character Rose. I hated her. ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HATED HER. She is a selfish, spoiled little brat, who in the beginning of the movie, decides to jump off the ship to kill herself simply because things are not going her way. As soon as she is out on the ledge outside the railing of the ship where she can't get back by herself (especially since she was smart enough to wear high-heels), she decides that she is too scared to go through with it, and has to have Jack save her sorry butt. So after a while, the movie drags on, and finally Jack declares his love for her. And all she does in response is that she tells him that she "has to go, now." Are you kidding me? If an amazingly cute boy declared his love for me, I'd at least thank him for his compliments! A lot later, Rose finally decides to fall in love with him, too. Alright, okay. But what about her fruitcake of a fiancée (who looked like he was wearing eye-liner)? Well, something else happens that infuriated me. The fiancée tries to make it look like Jack stole a diamond. This is at the point where Rose pretty much loves Jack, and trusts him with her life; so why didn't she defend him when the fiancée says he stole the diamond, and Jack asserts that he didn't do it, and brings up the fact that Rose knew him well enough to know that he didn't steal it? I don't know. She is an all-around moronic little skank. Also, I got irritated when she asks Jack to draw her naked. They've known each other for... two days? And she is already offering herself to him?! What is wrong with her??!! She was only seventeen!!! Ugh, the movie drags on and on and I get more and more annoyed until the end, (SPOLIER) when Jack dies (END OF SPOILER). It was horrifyingly disappointing to see the only good character in the movie die, and the most infuriating character live to tell the stupid tale! All in all, I would have given the movie two more stars if Rose had died, preferably by falling off the ship and into the propeller.
All the other characters, except for Jack, I hated, though not as much as I hated Rose. Her mother was a straight-up b-word. Her fiancée was a total fruitcake, and a mean fruitcake at that. Every other background character was flat, and unmemorable. The acting was so cheap, and I really couldn't feel any sympathy for any of the characters, even when they drowned and froze to death, which is indeed terrible, but I don't care. When I don't like the characters or the movie in general, I always wish for the movie to end with all of them dying.
Besides being an overblown Hollywood special effects showcase, some smaller details of the movie seemed a little far-fetched. First of all, The elderly woman in the beginning was there at the Titanic when she was 17. That was in 1912. It is now 1997 in the movie. That would make her 102 years old. One hundred and two, and still living on her own and taking care of herself? Is that even possible? Also, how did the drawing of her naked survive all those years underwater? One last thing: the treasure hunters in the beginning of this three-hour movie ask the old lady where the Diamond is, and she tells this long stupid story, only to pull out the necklace from her drawer at the end of the movie. Why didn't the stupid hag give it to them in the very beginning?? What was the point of that three-hour, cheesy, infuriating, boring, stupid story??!!
When I heard this movie was being re-released in 3D, I felt the rage at this movie coming up again. I don't care if I'm the only one who absolutely LOATHED this movie. All I know is that I know what a good movie is, and Titanic is NOT a good movie.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
This movie makes Batman and Robin look good.
I can honestly say that this movie is what you would call an "Epic Fail" from beginning to end. Absolutely everything about it was terrible. The story was incomprehensible, the characters were lame, the action was blurry and confused, and the cinematography was trash.
If anyone told me that this movie had a good story, I'd punch them in the face. There was absolutely no story! I had no idea what Nicolas Cage was doing. I couldn't make out any of the characters' motives for doing whatever it was they were doing, for that matter. I couldn't even understand half of what they were saying! The pacing in the movie was so choppy, it made me wonder what kind of drunk, screwed-up people wrote this piece of garbage. Also, the whole sequence about the "angel of justice" left me completely confused.
The characters were half formed, flat, cardboard cutouts. None of them had any depth. None of the emotions they portrayed were believable. Some little things I noticed about them left me thinking, "What the heck?!" For example, in the first fight scene where Nic Cage's character attempts to defeat a group of thugs harassing a woman and her son, he jumps in, and instead of taking them out easily like he could have done, he stands there for ten minutes straight, swaying back and forth for no reason whatsoever. Then he starts fighting, and the thugs kick his butt way too easily. Later in the movie, he is facing a group of enemies again, and this time, he kills them all immediately with one swipe of his chain. How does this make any sense? I had no feelings of sympathy or understanding for any of the characters. It was one of those movies that I sat in, wishing that all of them would die in the end.
The action scenes could have been exciting, but they weren't. Something was weird about them, like something was missing: like maybe some good motives for the characters fighting, or maybe a way to tell who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. Also, while the special effects improved from the last movie, there was still something quite unremarkable about the fiery explosions. Even now after thinking about it for a while, I still can't fully explain why everything about the action seemed so... lame.
I thought the cinematography in Battle: Los Angeles was bad, but this movie just beat it by a lot. I could not make out what was happening in about 75% of the movie. The camera was jerking and shaking uncontrollably almost the entire time! Even in the more calmer scenes, the camera still moved around like we were supposed to expect something to happen suddenly. The characters jumped everywhere on the screen, with no regards to the laws of physics, or even reality. In one scene, Nic Cage and some other guy are fighting on top of a car. At one point, one of them flips the other one over, and the camera flies around with them, and somehow they both end up on the top of another car. I don't even know what happened!
One last thing: the locations of the characters was unknown to me the entire time, and they jumped from place to place in every scene with no explanation of how they got there and why they went there in the first place.
This has to be the worst movie I have seen to date. The only reason me, my brother, and his friend stayed the whole time was because I had paid $30 for our tickets. Although, even after staying for the whole movie, I still felt like my money was completely wasted. This movie is the worst thing ever. The "story," the characters, the action, the cinematography, EVERYTHING about this movie was terrible, and a complete waste of time. Do not see this movie. If you can believe it, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance makes the famously crappy Batman and Robin look like movie-making genius.
Invader ZIM (2001)
So good...and so addicting!
I discovered this show on Netflix a few months ago and after watching the first episode, I was hooked! I love absolutely everything about this show: the characters, the animation, the stories, the humor, and the portrayal of school systems and human society.
All the characters seem to have something going for them. There are many reasons for you to laugh at and enjoy them: Zim's incompetence, Dib's logic, Gir's pure stupidity and adorableness, Gaz's fury, and Ms. Bitter's undeniably evil disposition. They are all likable in their own way.
The animation is great! The CGI and cartoon animation blend very well together; in fact, the CGI never seems to look out of place.
The stories are very creative, and surprisingly elaborate, though they are still easy to follow. Whenever I watch an episode, I actually feel excited about what will happen next. One of the main reasons I am very upset that the show is not on anymore is because I want to see more stories about Zim's evil schemes and strange occurrences in his world.
The humor is the perfect blend of light-hearted and dark. Much of the humor can get dark, but that's what makes it so great! Even when it isn't dark, it is still so clever and funny in every way. I am not kidding when I say that I laugh so hard every time I watch this show.
I love how human society is portrayed in this show. Everyone except some of the main characters seem to be totally oblivious to many of the strange events that take place in Zim's wake. I also love how the public settings, like the school and fast food restaurants are drawn: dirty, grungy, slimy, and smelly. I think this is very accurate, since most of those fast food restaurants in real life are pretty nasty. The school in the show (or "Skool," as it is spelled on the sign in the front) is very close to how the schools in this country run. For example, in the episode where the school needs a new class president, the old class president is practically arrested for saying something negative about the school. This is pretty close to how seriously school spirit is taken sometimes, and I laughed pretty hard when I saw it.
In summation, this show is pure GOLD; no exaggeration. Everything about it is so funny, dark, charming, and engaging. If more cartoons were something like Invader Zim, the world would be a better place.
SpongeBob SquarePants (1999)
Someone needs to take a stand and end the show before it is degraded even more.
Once upon a time, Spongebob Squarepants was the largest jewel in Nickelodeon's crown. It was charming, clever, and genuinely hilarious. It was a huge part of my childhood. My friends and I recite lines from the old episodes all the time, and we still laugh at them! Then, the movie came. Oh, don't get me wrong; the movie was pure gold! But since then, the great Stephen Hillenburg left the show and allowed it to rot away.
Nowadays, our favorite undersea sponge has been cut down, degraded, and utterly destroyed. That obnoxious, overly-emotional yellow square in the newer episodes? That is not Spongebob. It can't be. I really feel that kids should not be allowed to watch him anymore. It is a widely-known fact that kids imitate what they see; and believe me when I say that you DON'T want them imitating "Spongebob." He is far too emotionally disturbed. One minute he is unbearably and obnoxiously ecstatic for no reason, and the next he is screaming and crying like a particularly difficult baby. And he doesn't cry for a few seconds in a funny way, he cries for minutes on end like an unfortunate soul burning in hell; meaning that it is mentally painful to watch. Yeah, no one should let their kid mimic this kind of behavior. On top of all that, his voice has become incredibly high pitched and nerve-grating. Maybe Tom Kenny's overused the voice and now he's losing it. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't change the fact that it is incredibly annoying.
And speaking of annoying, the show itself has simply lost it's touch with the humor. The old episodes were incredibly witty, and appealing to all ages. I still laugh at the jokes to this day. But then, one day I decided to watch a newer episode of Spongebob. I was horrified at what I saw; there was no actual humor, just attempts at humor that fell extremely flat. None of the jokes were funny! I found myself sitting there, trying to FORCE myself to laugh. But nothing at all was even a tiny bit amusing. The verbal jokes were incredibly lazy and dry, and many times felt forced. The physical humor was not any better. The writers for the show were running out of ideas--I could tell.
I also have a few things to say about the animation. I don't know what happened, but I think the older episodes looked a lot better, and more rugged like other cartoons such as The Angry Beavers (great show, by the way). The newer episodes' animation features brighter colors, rounder, thicker characters, and obnoxious details that really should have been left out. Spongebob's face, for example, conveys far too much happiness and ecstasy, to the point were it gets a tad frightening. In fact, all the characters express far too intense emotions at times that are either very annoying, or borderline scary. In summation, if the look of a show is important to you, maybe you should stay away from the newer episodes of this far too long-running TV series.
Someone needs to take a stand against Nickelodeon, for subjecting us to watch this garbage that used to be gold. If this show had stopped after the movie was released, every individual who grew up with Spongebob would have been a lot happier. Please, only watch the old episodes. The new ones are so awful, it actually fills me with pain to think about them. Also, keep your kids away from the show. Spongebob has become a terrible emotional influence. Unless you want your kids to become horrible bipolar monsters, STAY AWAY FROM THE NEW EPISODES. Only let them watch seasons one through three. Nickelodeon needs to end the reformed Spongebob's reign of terror.
Chronicle (2012)
An intense movie, definitely worth seeing
Finally a different kind of superhero movie! This movie does not involve super villains, spandex outfits, or a love story. This is the story of three normal high school kids who gain extraordinary powers, and begin using them for their own pleasure. This is a story of how great power can lead to great corruption. It also shows you what bullying, isolation, and ridicule could do to a person.
The movie starts out fairly well; it sets up the everyday life of the main character who holds the camera for most of the movie. He comes from a broken home, and is harassed and bullied in school. You go through the whole movie feeling sorry for him, no matter what happens. The main character, his cousin, and their friend discover something that grants them amazing telepathic abilities, and the movie really begins to open up.
The great thing about the middle portion of the movie is its light-hearted tone. As the three guys fool around with their new abilities, you smile, laugh, and gasp in awe along with them. And then the tone darkens. It's amazing to see the character developments later on, and it's easy to feel sympathy and pain for the characters. As certain things start to go bad, it's not hard to feel a sense of desperation and intensity as the events unfold.
Along with the characters and the story, the camera work and special effects really add another dimension to the movie. It's easy to see what is going on, as the shaky-camera technique is not abused in this movie. The dark tunnels, the cloudy skies, and the emotional interactions between the characters were very well done. In the scene high in the clouds, you can actually feel a sense of weightlessness. The action scenes are very intense, and will keep you on the edge of your seat.
I won't give anything from the end away, but I will say that it was a very good wrap-up for all the events that had occurred before. It seemed like the best way to bring the conflicts to an end.
I definitely recommend this movie for all who want to see something fairly new among movies about superheroes. There are no super villains, no costumes, and no love story, rather it's a story about being at war with yourself, friendship, and strength. It also teaches you a lesson: don't ever ridicule someone for being different, especially if you have no idea what kind of background they come from. It's worth every dollar and every minute of your time.
Avatar (2009)
Complete and Utter Stupidity.
James Cameron's Avatar is the embodiment of what makes Hollywood bad. While the movie captivates its audience with some stunningly realistic-looking visuals, it lacks in almost everything else. Do not listen to the people who say it was one of the greatest movies ever made. They have very limited intelligence and no sense.
The one good thing I will say about this movie is the special effects. They were very good. But that's really about it. The story and characters that were supposed to fill these stunning landscapes fall short of acceptable.
The story is a painful, recycled, lazy, piece of writing that has ever appeared on the screen. The story follows the exact format of movies like Disney's Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves. A man fighting for one side befriends and falls in love with his enemies and ends up fighting for them. Completely unoriginal and unbearably lazy. Cameron, the man who brought us The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss obviously didn't try to come up with something new.
I found the characters to be entirely unlikable. The main character must be mentally challenged, as he is told to sit still when he first goes into his Avatar, and he gets up. They tell him not to walk, and he walks. They tell him not to run, that its dangerous, and he runs. The blue alien lady he falls in love with was not very charming or likable either. She spends most of her time yelling at him in a fake-sounding, broken accent. Everyone else in the movie was so bland that watching a puppet show would have been more engaging.
The emotionally-charged scenes were rather laughable. When the blue couple began to make out in that one scene, I and several people in the audience could not help but laugh at how ridiculous it looked. Whenever a person died, or when the blue aliens were being attacked, I felt no sympathy for them, and no thrill at the action. Which leads me to my next complaint: The ending action sequence was unbearably long. I actually drifted off in the middle of it, because I do longer cared who was fighting who, and I couldn't help but wonder, "When is this stupid movie going to be over?!" SPOILER: And why did the main antagonist take so long to die? According to the rational laws of science, he should have died from the FIRST arrow in his heart. Instead, he gets shot in the heart twice, and yet manages to stumble around for about ten minutes more before finally collapsing. END OF SPOILER.
One more thing, the whole thing about the blue aliens being able to "connect" with nature using the tentacles in their hair? Did anyone else find that a bit disturbing? The only aspect of this movie that had real effort put into it were the special effects. Hollywood needs to learn a lesson here: that special effects alone don't make a movie. They make a very elaborate slide show. All the key components for a good movie were missing from Avatar: an original, well-written story, meaningful emotional connection with the characters, and an overall engaging, and satisfying experience. Avatar fails to deliver in many ways. I am only glad that this atrocious film didn't win the Best Picture Academy Award. The future of movies looks bleak, if films like this are praised as being something of an artistic achievement.
Moneyball (2011)
Just Like Watching Baseball With a Story
I am a baseball fan (Go Yankees!) and I found this film very interesting. It balances good humor, intelligence, and suspense almost perfectly. Its a perfectly smart movie that keeps you watching until the very end.
What really impressed me was the baseball game sequences. The lighting, the intensity, and the suspense made it more entertaining than a normal game you would watch on the sports channel at home. Even if the A's aren't your favorite team, you still feel a desperation for them; you want them to come out of their slump and succeed.
Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill made a great sort-of duo. Brad Pitt's character was charming and sarcastic, and Jonah Hill's character was quietly funny and surprisingly intelligent. I enjoyed their conversations very much.
Most of the movie, I thought, was like watching a very close baseball game at home. You sit on the edge of your seat, and hope that everything can work out for this team, and that they can score a couple of runs before the game is over. You can also enjoy a few well-placed laughs in between. It's a pleasantly intelligent movie, with good characters, a good portrayal of a true story, a baseball-game-like suspense, and if it loses to Hugo in the Oscars, I will be very upset.
WALL·E (2008)
Anyone Who Doesn't Love this Movie Has No Heart
This movie is yet another Pixar classic and a true masterpiece. Future generations will look back at it and they will still marvel at it's artistic brilliance and its emotional sweetness.
WALL-E, in every sense, is an unrivaled, downright lovable, character. Who would have thought that Pixar could make a little rusty robot adorable? Well, of course they did. They also gave him a completely endearing personality: quirky, creative, reflective, hard-working, loyal, and heart-breakingly sweet. It is almost impossible not to fall in love with him within the first ten minutes of the movie.
The story, like all of Pixar's stories, is very creative and completely engaging. The events are evenly paced, and all of our questions are eventually answered. We laugh, we cry, and we stare in complete awe as the movie unfolds into a spectacular display of pretty visuals, as well as emotional depth.
Many viewers have complained that this movie has very little dialog, and get boring because of it. These people are normally very narrow-minded. Don't listen to them. While the main characters rarely talk except for when they call out each other's names, there really is no need for dialog, if you think about it. The story is told through the well-orchestrated music, the characters' expressions, their actions, and the stunning visuals and landscapes. You don't need a ton of dialog to tell a story. Just look at the old silent films!
WALL-E is an incredible, beautiful movie. It has everything Hollywood should be striving for every time a movie is in production: great story, lovable characters, true emotions, and lovingly-crafted visuals. After watching this movie five times, I am still mesmerized by the pure magic it creates. It is worth every minute of your time. Those who did not like this movie: shame on them.
Hugo (2011)
A Visual Masterpiece, but Lacking in Everything Else
Martin Scorsese's first kid's movie falls short of its expectations. After seeing the trailers, my family and I had very high expectations for this movie, and we eagerly went out and saw it in the theaters. We walked out extremely disappointed.
First of all, the trailers were completely misleading. My first impression was that the movie was about a boy trying to uncover a great mystery left behind in the wake of his father's death. I thought the movie was going to open up into an enchanting adventure, complete with suspense, action, and magic. I didn't get any of those things. This movie starts out will a long build-up, with the audience waiting for this magical adventure to get underway, only to keep them waiting for another hour or so, where nothing interesting or magical happens.
The pacing in the movie is terrible. The movie opens with some stunning visuals, the camera panning over the Paris cityscape and eventually showing us around the train station where the protagonist, Hugo, lives. We get the story of his father's death, and are left with a sense of wonder. We want to know what the automaton is for, why Ben Kingsely's character is so bitter, and what this adventure Hugo promises his little gal-friend is and when it's going to happen. The movie starts and stops, then drags for a bit, then starts, and drags for a long time before grinding to an unsatisfying halt. The adventure doesn't happen. All that waiting around... for nothing.
I don't really know what to say about the acting in this movie. Most of the actors had good moments and bad moments. The dialog was lacking. The characters spent more time staring at each other than actually talking. Some of the facial expressions and emotional reactions were a little on the melodramatic side. (POSSIBLE SPOILERS)Ben Kingsley gets pissy because the two kids find out that he used to make movies? Hugo throws a fit because the automaton didn't work as he expected to? I don't think these were appropriate responses to their situations.
The one good thing I have to say about this movie is that the visuals were absolutely gorgeous. From the cold blue lighting in the snowy outdoor scenes, to the orange-y warmth of the train station, to the powerful metallic essence of the gears and clockwork in the tower, this movie has some of the best 3D effects that I've seen since that awful, shallow Avatar. The problem is, the magical visuals cannot make up for the drab and very UN-magical story.
Overall, the magical, engaging adventure the trailers promised does not exist. The movie's pace is very slow. Some of the acting is questionable. The visuals were good, but they didn't save the movie. Do not go to this movie expecting something with substance. And definitely do not bring your kids to this movie; they will be bored to tears.