Movie Reviews 2.0

I have to say that the special effects and rigs in Mad Max were jaw dropping and the CGI when it was used was seamless. Everything in the movie felt kinetic, it felt real and with heft.
 
I grabbed Transformers Age of the Extinction for 5 bucks on Saturday. Good lord, who ever thought that turning a silly toy line into a 3 hour movies would be a good idea? Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon were at least so aggressively bad it made them fun to bitch and moan about, whereas Age of Extinction was just a whole lot of nothing. The silly dinobots where just about the only somewhat enjoyable part, but those were in the film for like 10 minutes. Similar to the Chris Nolans and Gore Verbinskis of this world, Bay is in dire need of a merciless editor.

I also watched Everly. Thankfully the perfect Antidote to the Transformers Bayham. A lean and inventive grindhousey blend of Kill Bill and Die Hard. Every is basically stuck in her apartment while a sadistic Yakuza boss is sending wave after wave of mobsters, crazed prostitues, sickos wearing kato masks and special forces units her way. He's also threatening her mother and daughter. It's a wonderfully unhinged experience in pretty much every way. Hayek's thick Spanish accent is on full display, and the many over-the-top kills range from darkly humorous to bonified nasty. It's a film that's perfectly content with inhabiting its revengesploitative niche. What makes it something special is Salma Hayek's emotional, fearless and believable performance. She's not some trained killer like The Bride in Kill Bill was. Instead she's forced to pick up the necessary skills on the fly. She's basically a cornered mama bear and exceptionally easy to root for. I also wanna mention how much I enjoyed the rather video-gamey conceit which sees the selection of available killing tools ever expanding as more and more bodies are piling up in the film's singular setting.
And god damn, Hayek is one amazing looking 48 years old woman.
 
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I thought the action scenes were just dull and interchangeable. Colorful gasoline explosions, super-slow motion, and wall to wall effects. The direction was incredibly bland and tired. Compared to something like the Hong Kong battle in Pacific Rim the action scenes in AoE were just boring. Credit where credit is due, though. Unlike in the first 3 movies, the action scenes weren't quite as over-edited, had a decent sense of space, and were easy enough to follow. The more distinct looking robots which weren't exclusively shot in close-up helped a great deal as well. On the flip side the movie simply had none of those crazy XXXL set pieces. No sand eating metal monster with robo testicles and no skyscraper devouring robo worm either. It was just scene after scene of medium sized shiny things shooting and/or punching each other.

By the time the movie arrived at its Beijing setting, my patience had long since expired anyway.
 
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Sigfried1977 said:
I thought the action scenes were just dull and interchangeable. Colorful gasoline explosions, super-slow motion, and wall to wall effects. The direction was incredibly bland and tired. Compared to something like the Hong Kong battle in Pacific Rim the action scenes in AoE were just boring. Credit where credit is due, though. Unlike in the first 3 movies, the action scenes weren't quite as over-edited, had a decent sense of space, and were easy enough to follow. The more distinct looking robots which weren't exclusively shot in close-up helped a great deal as well. On the flip side the movie simply had none of those crazy XXXL set pieces. No sand eating metal monster with robo testicles and no skyscraper devouring robo worm either. It was just scene after scene of medium sized shiny things shooting and/or punching each other.

By the time the movie arrived at its Beijing setting, my patience had long since expired anyway.
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I didn't even finish watching it which is rare for me and practically unheard of for a big budget "blockbuster" like this.

On the other hand I saw Mad Max over the weekend and it is indeed as good as everyone's been saying. Awesome, non-stop action from start to finish.
 
Yeah great read, thanks. Very impressive on both the real and cg work.
 
Watched Enders Game the other day and wow... I can't believe this manages to score a 6.5 on IMDB because the whole thing just doesn't make any sense. 12 years old are being trained to annihilate a alien race because apparently 12 year olds make better battlefield generals than adults? Some half assed attempt at a Full Metal Jacket bootcamp? Whats even worse is that at no point you really feel like the aliens are actually bad.

Oh and having a 12 year play war games, telling him its just a game but after finishing the game telling him actually killed a complete species? WTF... seriously WTF

Exodus: Gods and Kings: Action movie with a biblical theme. Doubt its very historically correct but its entertaining enough. Too bad I spent the whole movie waiting for Christian Bail to but on a Batman mask :LOL:

Black Sea: Submarine movie. A half american half russian crew gets onboard a old sub to try and steal Nazi gold from a sunken sub in the black sea while the russian navy is patrolling above them. Obviously the rednecks and communists don't get along very well and stuff progresses from there. Not the most sophisticated story in the world but its nicely filmed and if you just want to watch something that will keep you in some suspense without having to think too much this is your movie. I enjoyed it for what it was.
 
I saw San Andreas. The most hilariously cringy dialogue I've seen in a long time and I'm pretty sure they were going for comedy there...
Anyway nothing new, California destroyed, broken family reunited by the tragedy, big destruction, big tsunami, yadda yadda yadda.
Entertaining couple of hours that's for sure.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
Watched Enders Game the other day and wow... I can't believe this manages to score a 6.5 on IMDB because the whole thing just doesn't make any sense. 12 years old are being trained to annihilate a alien race because apparently 12 year olds make better battlefield generals than adults? Some half assed attempt at a Full Metal Jacket bootcamp? Whats even worse is that at no point you really feel like the aliens are actually bad.
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The book is actually pretty good (though Orson Scott Card, the author, is a bit of a shit). The movie did dumb it down a great deal.
 
Just saw Spy the other day. I had extremely low expectations (hadn't seen reviews, which are now quite good), but it was absolutely brilliant. Hilarious, silly and amazing. Go see it.
 
Ever since The Heat I've been wanting to see another R rated Melissa McCarthy movie.
 
Jason Stratham was by far the most annoying part of the movie. Completely repetitive and redundant. Stopped being funny after his first scene.

But when things get going and McCarthy finally has a few exchanges with Byrne, that's when the film really shines. It goes from very funny to suddenly laugh out loud hilarious.
 
Watched John Wick. I love myself a straight forward revenge movie. If it's a well choreographed one like John Wick unquestionably is, then that's all the better. Still didn't really do it for me. I loved the first major action set piece at the night club, but then the film sort of petered out. The scene was never matched, let alone exceeded. Basically every action set-piece was another take on John Wick surgically dishing out head-shots on an ever decreasing scale. At first he did it in awe-inspiring, borderline balletic fashion, then in a more and more by-the-numbers approach as the film progressed. John Wick basically regressed from the Matrix's Neo to a Call of Duty grunt, pop-and-shoot mechanics and all. Overall the experience was just rather anti-climactic. After a while the whole thing basically felt like it was going through its slickly choreographed motions because there were still 30 minutes of film left in the can. In good old 80s action movie fashion, the narrative tissue holding the thing together was kept at a bare minumum obviously. Usually that's something I very much welcome, but it only works as long as the action stays inventive from start to finish and remains tight as a drum. A feat that is probably a lot harder to pull off than snooty film critics would have you believe. That I watched the exhausting Mad Max not too long ago didn't help matters of course. Heck, I thought the rowdy Everly pulled it off a lot better as well.
 
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London-boy said:
Just saw Spy the other day. I had extremely low expectations (hadn't seen reviews, which are now quite good), but it was absolutely brilliant. Hilarious, silly and amazing. Go see it.
Click to expand...

And it also takes place mostly in Budapest, as I've heard ;)
 
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