Movie Reviews 2.0

Just saw Star Trek into darkness. Mostly everything I hoped for, good action, Still not 100% sure of simon Pegg as scotty, but the rest of them seem like the roles were made for them naturals. Some decent character development. I did think the juxtaposition of a certain story element from one in a previous film was a bit contrived.

The guys that did the scoring of the main theme (as per the first film) did a fantastic job, I really think its the best ST music yet.

Surely, Surely,Surely they can't leave this franchise there.

Update...yes, I meant to add that he is still using that stupid lens flare. Less than last time, but still its there an annoying. What is the point of it other than to totally dispel that you are actually there, but rather watching the whole thing through a camera that sometimes causes light distortions.

Did anyone tell the director at directing school that the point of a film is to get the audience to believe they are part of the experience and not just a viewing something through a window.
 
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Dresden said:
Awesome review, thanks for writing that! Is this out on DVD yet? I didn't catch it in the theater. I like the original Evil Dead movies, 1 and 2 and really good but 2 is basically a re-telling of 1. From what I've heard, the remake lost a lot of the black humor that the original was rife with. In fact, I heard it's not funny at all. Just...bloody. Which is fine. I'm pretty accustom to mainstream horror movies; I can't stop watching the damn things.
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Thank you. I watched it on a Blu-Ray which I'd imported from the UK (Amazon). I know it's been out for a while in the US, but it's definitely not yet available where I live (Germany).

As for the black humor. I think it's still kinda - sorta - there. It's just so thoroughly pitch black now that it becomes easy to miss. That said, maybe it isn't humorous at all and I'm just twsted enough to see comedy in what might be pure and utter nastiness.

Humorous or not, I think it's one of the best - maybe even the best - hard-edged mainstream horror film in years. I think the last horror flick I got a similar kick out of was Clive Barker's "The Midnight Meat Train" (which is really fucking good. Bradley Cooper's finest work)
 
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Pressure said:
Iron Man 3 is probably the worst movie I've watched all year, a solid 3/10. In stark (yes yes, a pun) contrast to the first Iron Man, which is very good.

You just can't hide a bad script with millions and millions dollars worth of special effects.
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I really liked that one to be honest. I thought the twist was fairly clever and certainly unexpected. And while the allegorical nature of the plot was a little bit heavy-handed, I was still pretty happy it's made its way into a "dumb super hero flick" of all places. I also adored Gwynneth Paktrow in this.
 
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Pressure said:
Iron Man 3 is probably the worst movie I've watched all year, a solid 3/10. In stark (yes yes, a pun) contrast to the first Iron Man, which is very good.

You just can't hide a bad script with millions and millions dollars worth of special effects.
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I found it enjoyable from an action pov but I do agree the story was a bit weak. Certain elements of the story seriously weakened Iron Man as super hero IMO which by extension weakens the rest of the Avengers who he's supposed to be on par with.
 
tangey said:
Just saw Star Trek into darkness. Mostly everything I hoped for, good action, Still not 100% sure of simon Pegg as scotty, but the rest of them seem like the roles were made for them naturals. Some decent character development. I did think the juxtaposition of a certain story element from one in a previous film was a bit contrived.
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A bit?? Horribly contrived to the point of cringeworthyness (yep I'm using that as a word) would be closer to the mark IMO. On the one hand I appreciate the nods to the previous film series but I did find them the weakest elements of an otherwise really good film.
 
The Dark Knight Rises

I'm a bit behind on this one as I've only just seen this film on Sky but WOW! Absolutely f*cking amazing is all I can say. A masterpiece from start to finish and easily one of the best films I've seen in years. I'd rate it on a level with Troy and 300 and a little better than the Avengers which were my recent top 3 favorite films.
 
I thought it was extremely overblown and a bit comical in parts.

I especially had to laugh at the ridiculous overacting from Tom Hardy.

Chris Nolan really, really needs to start taking himself less seriously.
 
I liked the ending and that's about it I think. All told I think I preferred the first. The second was ... Too dark for me.
 
Arwin said:
I liked the ending and that's about it I think. All told I think I preferred the first. The second was ... Too dark for me.
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I think they got better as they went along although the first 2 were also excellent films IMO. Its the darkness of them that I enjoy, especially compared to the last series of Batman films which were just cheesy.

I didnt really get batman until the new trilogy. Now I do.
 
Caught the Life of Pi on HBO this weekend and really enjoyed it. Some beautiful imagery, though I could done without the animal menagerie scene. Probably give it a 8 out of 10.

Watched Man of Steel at a 2nd run theater for $3 and, man, that movie doesn't hold up. I still enjoyed the Smallville fight, but the rest of it was bleh.
 
Saw Elysium on Sunday. I definitely went into the thing with a huge baggage of good will because I absolutely loved District 9, but this movie just bummed me out for the most part. Like District 9, Elysium's story is a rather overt allegorie. It's about something and it really wants the audience to know it too. It's about IMMIGRATION!!! and HEALTH CARE!!! and CLASSISM!!! in case you didn't realise. I generally prefer a bit more subtlety, but I'll also go with just about anything if the stuff happening on the surface is exciting enough, and initially that was definitely the case for me. Neill Blomkamp's vision of near-future earth isn't exactly new, but it's stunningly well realized. The LA slums, the robot factories, the mechanized police force - probably the film's best moment involved a robotic parole officer - to the gun porn (this director played some video games in his life) - everything looked incredibly tactile, weathered and believable. I would've loved to spend more time with beefed-up Matt Damon and his very real issues back on shithole earth, but unfortunately Elysium is in a real hurry to have the contrived plot kick in. Damon plays an orphan who always wanted to go to Elysium when he was a kid. Elysium is a man-made paradise with magic medical pods orbiting our polluted world. The place is ran by a cold-hearted, weirdly accented Jodie Foster who seems to be gunning for her first ever Razzie. Her first and last line of defense is the murderous earth-bound sleeper agent Kruger (Copley) who's of course also a rapist because why wouldn't he be.
Of course things don't quite pan out as little Max had planned. Grow-up Max isn't a citizen of Elysium. He's a criminal out on parole, working the assembly line of some rich Elysian suite's robot factory instead. One day he gets into an accident that leaves his body irradiated beyond repair and he's going to die within approximately 5 days. His only chance is to get his ass up to Elysium and into a med pod. Since a ticket to Elysium is way beyond Max's paygrade, he agrees to having a metal exo-skeleton drilled into his flesh and joins a bunch of freedom fighters on a risky mission: extracting the data stored in the brain implant of Max's boss on earth. Of course he gets way more than he bargained for and things quickly get out of hand.
I really wanted to like this movie, but there were just too many nagging issues I couldn't quite look past: Why go through all the trouble of putting a man into an awesome exo-skeleton if the most superhuman feat he ever does with it is pry open a safety harness? In Disctrict 9, Neill Blomcamp strapped Sharlto Copley into a super advanced alien mech so he could lay waste to an entire mercenary battallion. It was a huge payoff scene, both visceral and excellently choreographed. He didn't waste the mech on opening a garage door. Speaking of Copley's character. Was wanton destruction his entire deal or did I miss something? And why was he even there at all? Considering how Elysium is both run and populated by billionaires, who would even think about putting the safety of the station into the hand of a madman with a giant rocket launcher who isn't even on the thing. Also, why go through all the trouble of creating truly first rate visual effects if you're just going to obscure them with nauseatingly shaky camera work? I also thought Max's redemption at the end was incredibly cliched, entirely unearned and also rather unneccessary. Unlike Vikkus in District 9, Max doesn't really have much of an arc, so it kinda felt like they've thrown in a last-minute moral dilemma simply because of reasons. Or maybe because the story of the Hippo and the Mercat sounded way to cute to pass up.
 
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Zenova said:
Hi all! This is my first post here, nice to see you all!

I just wanted to comment on the movie The Dark Knight Rises. I found it to be a very spectular and intruiging, I've actually seldom been so fascinated with watching a movie for so long. For the people that haven't seen it yet, they should definitely do so!
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Agreed! And welcome!
 
zed said:
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) 5/10 what a let down to a (until then) fine trilogy
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Yeah, that trilogy peaked with The Dark Knight for sure.

The intellectual and manically twisted is for all purposes much scarier than a brute force opponent. I genuinely felt that The Dark Knight Rises were a weaker story. This pertains especially to the whole "rises" part, which I feel could have been much better told and happened a bit too fast for my liking.
 
Meh. The day that the villain in Batman doesn't need to rely on an endless number of suicidal flunkies with no sense of self-preservation to achieve his aims, I'll appreciate the movie a lot more.

As for the new Superman and Batman movie which has been announced, I can't help but think of the following (British) comedy skit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw
 
Mariner said:
Meh. The day that the villain in Batman doesn't need to rely on an endless number of suicidal flunkies with no sense of self-preservation to achieve his aims, I'll appreciate the movie a lot more.

As for the new Superman and Batman movie which has been announced, I can't help but think of the following (British) comedy skit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw
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Fantastic :) I love Mitchell and Webb.

Speaking of Superman and Batman:
 
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