MAD FREAKING MAX: FURY FREAKING ROAD

Many thought that Mel Gibson’s fall from glory made Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome the last installment in the Mad Max franchise, ending it on a very, very low note. Thank God the director wasn’t gonna be satisfied with that. Now, 30 years after the last and least of the series, a 70 year old George Miller, director of Happy Feet and Babe 2: Pig in the City, as well as the entire Mad Max series, returns to bring the Australian post-apocalyptic action series back to it’s former glory. Mad Max: Fury Road is the perfect reboot, recapturing everything great about Max’s old adventures and leaving out all of the bad. Tom Hardy is flawless in the role of the titular character, just as good as Mel Gibson, Charlize Theron portrayed a powerful and dangerous heroine known as Imperator Furiosa, and Nicholas Hoult played a “war boy” named Nux. The villain, Immortan Joe, was played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who happened to be the same actor as the one who played the antagonist in the first Mad Max. No film is flawless, but, well, I don’t know, maybe this one is. Everything was style and action, excitement and thrills, and yet, it didn’t seem to matter that there wasn’t much else. There were so many different ways the movie showed power and meaning without much dialogue. I mean, I could watch this dubbed in any language and still understand what was going on most of the time. The meaning came from the way each character was presented, what they were trying to do, and how they acted differently from the start to finish. For example, one might start out just trying to make it out alive, and end up saving the day. Then again, who really even cares about that stuff, I mean there’s a character who has bloody jagged teeth and no eyes and is playing a guitar/axe/flamethrower on a truck full of speakers. That’s honestly enough to get me to the theater. No need for a summary or anything like that, it’s another straight-on A+.

Avenge it again!!

The Avengers broke box office records and hooked millions of people onto the superhero genre. Now, Avengers: Age of Ultron is continuing to do the same. Ultron focuses on the evil AI named, you guessed it, Ultron. He challenges the Avengers and tears them apart, so they have to reunite to take down this ever growing threat. There's a lot wrong with this film, and a lot right too. To start with, it perfectly grasped the exciting, colorful feeling we get from the comics, though it felt like it lost a bit of seriousness that it could have used. Ultron, voiced brilliantly by James Spader, is ever threatening and seemingly unstoppable, or at least that's how it should have been. I didn't like the way he joked around and acted like a normal, awkward human. It took away from his powerful and dangerous roots and made him a joke. His plan seemed inconvenient, too, as it would be so easy for a computer connected to the whole world's network to launch all of earth's nuclear missiles. We were introduced to a number of new heroes, all of which I was a huge fan of. I don't need to go into them, but they're all very likable and had strong bonds to each other and the rest of the team. It was a one-of-a-kind experience, with all these colorful characters fighting and making an awesome team based off of their own special selves. One way I judge the quality of a team up movie is I ask myself if I'd enjoy a solo movie of each of the team members. Of course, we've seen a solo Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, and Thor, so the only ones left are Hawkeye, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Vision. The answer is yes. Definitely yes. This movie is an over-the-top thrill ride. It's full of witty humor and some of the best action I've ever seen on film. What it lacks in suspense and tensity, it makes up in fun and nerdiness. It perfectly recreates the mood and spirit of the first with new characters to create a beautiful (possibly not the best use of the word) joy ride that entertains anyone. A+

Ex Machina

I would say Ex Machina falls into the genre of sci-fi, but the science being discussed seemed like the type of theoretical science people talk about in real life. That was interesting to me, the fact that the whole idea of artificial intelligence isn't that outlandish. Of course, a machine with real human emotions is impossible, but it's fun to think about. Ex Machina is the story of a small time coder named Caleb working for a fictional parallel to Google called "BlueBook". He's selected at random to go spend a week working with the CEO, Nathan, in his private home and research center. After going there, he learns that what Nathan is working on is a whole lot crazier than what he expected. The story deals with a very complicated topic that many movies have dealt with before, and that is the question of if it's possible for a machine to feel emotion, and what the dangers of AI are. It's the basis of all sorts of films like I, Robot, Chappie, Avengers:Age of Ultron, and plenty more. What I like especially about this one is the fear and suspense it creates. It was very tense and quite scary at moments, but it didn't have a single jump-scare, I am happy to report. When the film progressed, the mood kept continuing to darken, creating a strong building of tension and unsettlement. Even after it all fell apart and ended, I still wasn't sure what was coming. It also made me question exactly what was going on, who was good, who was evil, and whether or not either of those words can even be used to describe such a complicated set of characters. I can't get into all the things I liked beyond that because there's no way to explain it without ruining the suspense. I will say I was confused by the motives of one of the characters at the end, as the motives of that character conflicted with their decision of how to act on that motive. That sounds really confusing now, and if you see it, it still probably won't make much sense, so I'll explain what I mean in the next paragraph, which I warn you will be infested with spoilers.

Ava, the AI character shows that she obviously has emotion throughout the film, as her motive is to learn what it's like to be a real woman. She also desires to see the real sun and walk on the real earth, and fall in real love with somebody. These are all desires driven by emotion. The way she tries to get these things, as revealed in the end, is to manipulate Caleb into helping her escape. It works, she escapes, and she leaves him for dead. If she really did have emotion, which is definitely true, why didn't she at least feel remorse after leaving this guy who saved her life? I thought this could be called a continuity error, and it seems like it could easily have been avoided. It was probably because the creators wanted to show AI with emotion, but they also wanted to make the point that machines don't have the ability to love or care for anyone. These two ideas conflict, they can't both be used in the same story.

With this one weak point I still loved Ex Machina. It was powerful, scary, suspenseful and heartbreaking. Continuity errors aren't that big of a deal. A.

Unbreakable

Unbreakable is a superhero film by M. Night Shyamalan. It isn't a superhero film in the normal sense, though. It isn't based off any comics and the there aren't any costumes or masks. The story is one of a relatively normal man named David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who, after a tragic accident, learns something incredible about himself; he's indestructible. He is encountered by a man with the exact opposite condition, Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who wants to turn Dave into superhero like in the comics he collects. He has incredibly brittle weak bones that can break easily. The story strips down all the action and other unnecessary scenes, pulling out all of the basic underlying messages superhero movies are about. It spends equal time developing the hero as it does the villain, showing exactly how they reached their places in the world. What I thought was really special was the motive of the villain. Most of the time, the main antagonist is two-dimensional, or, even if he is deep, he's driven by a predictable motive like money or revenge. Instead this villain is driven by the simple need to know what his place in the world is. What was best was the tense mood throughout, which was enhanced by very sufficient directing. My favorite scene was when Elijah was trying to chase down a man, but with his condition, running can be very dangerous. When the man runs down into the subway system, Elijah decides to risk it and go down after him. I was on the edge of my seat, as the stairs looked very steep, and as he walked down, the camera zoomed in on his feet. I was just waiting for him to misstep and fall. The two weak points were the pointless romance, and the ending. It was very abrupt, without any closure. I liked the closing dialogue, but once it ended, there were some words about what happened next, then the credits rolled. We never actually saw what happened to the characters, we were just told. Everything before that was perfect, but the ending means a lot. I don't want to judge it all for one moment, so I'll say I still loved it as much as hoped, but I guess I didn't hope it would be flawless. B+

Reservoir Dogs

It's been said that Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino's most disturbing film. It's not the most violent, or the most realistic but it's at a certain middle point. I'm not sure I totally agree, because although movies like Kill Bill and Django Unchained are more outlandish and not as dark, they still obviously have much more death and pain. I was personally more disturbed by Inglorious Basterds, but I guess that's just my opinion. One thing I found especially interesting about Reservoir Dogs was that it's a heist movie where you never see the heist, but rather, all the before and after parts. We just have to imagine the robbery that went totally wrong. I can't exactly tell what type of film it is, but I can say that it's not easy to watch. It's full of people getting shot, and there's also one scene where a guy gets his ear cut off. I wasn't especially scarred mentally by this because in both Watchmen, and The Big Lebowski, people get their ears bitten off, so it's not the worst I've seen. I liked how each of the main characters had their own small segments of which they were the focus. We got to learn each of their pasts and what type of person they each were. When they all interacted, it felt like I knew each of them in depth and it was all just a matter of how these personalities would collide. Then we got to see what happened after their first mission as a team. It's safe to say it didn't turn out too great. One thing I didn't like was the way these super professional people who seemed to know what they were doing were so unprofessional so often. They weren't acting like the characters they were made out to be in the beginning. I couldn't understand their actions in that way. I wanted to see all these different people act together and try desperately to keep their professionalism, as it's a good way to make a story, but I didn't really get that from Reservoir Dogs, though it was still excellent in many other ways. B+

Goodfellas

I remember first seeing The Godfather Part I, and Part II, and I thought Goodfellas, being a mob movie, would be very similar. Boy, was I wrong. Goodfellas is much more street-level crime film, and it's also kind of funny at the beginning, but eventually spirals into more serious topics. We get to see a kid with a head start in the crime business rise to the top, then, over time, fall, due to drugs, rats (not the rodents), and a hunger for power. I loved learning about the ins and outs of the criminal underworld, and how an insult can take you all the way to lying in a ditch on the side of the road.
   
     Our protagonist, played by an actor I only recognize from a commercial for 1800 tequila, leads a successful life, making it pretty far, but learns that most don't get a chance to go out on top. Instead, they fall and see themselves fail before death. Throughout, the film gives us a glimpse at how tough even the high crime world really is. Although they wear expensive suits and tip doormen hundreds of dollars at a time, they're very venerable. They're all insecure, insane, or just very, very touchy, and that leads to them killing the wrong person. That's where they always fail. They think they can do whatever they ant and get away with it, but are very often wrong. I had an issue with the change of tone being very abrupt, and uneven too. The whole first half was comedic and fun, the second half was dark and depressing. I think, though, that maybe this was to add effect. Maybe we were supposed to see the fun side of crime, the life which so many young men chase, then see all the repercussions later on. It's like a tsunami, everything's fun in the sun, and before you know it, a huge wave of bad stuff is upon you.

    I used to think all of the characters had weak judgment, but I guess that's what power does to you. The human mind is a fragile thing, and it's hard to keep it from breaking. Anyway, Goodfellas is a comedic-turned depressing crime drama, with all sorts of twists and turns that takes you on a journey to and from success. A-

Struck by Lightning

After I finished watching the only four seasons of Glee available on Netflix (saddest moment of my life), one of the three watch suggestions was Struck By Lightning, which starred Chris Colfer, who was also one of the leads in Glee. The guy has lots of wit and always acts like he's smarter than everybody else, which is a little against his character in the TV show, but in Struck By Lightning, he was perfect. He's a high school senior who rightfully feels superior to everybody around him. This doesn't necessarily make him cold or condescending, but he just always tries to make his own life and school a better place, as he works towards his dream school. He also has to deal with a bad mother, grandma with Alzheimers, and an awful school experience. There's no main story, as it's more of a document of a few weeks of his life, but there are a few subplots, such as when he blackmails classmates to write for his literary magazine, and when he tries desperately to preserve student rights at school. There are some comedic moments, but it's mostly serious, as we watch him deal with everything thrown at him, and in the end, we wonder if it was even worth it at all. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we can't change things, and sometimes we don't have a second chance after we fail once. I thought it was quite powerful and heavy to see him go through this, trying, failing, and then realizing it was all for nothing, but maybe success isn't everything, is it? The whole movie was fun and made me think about the years ahead where everything will change. Although it was a tough subject, it wasn't humorless. I laughed out loud at moments, yet the changes of tones were smooth and I easily transitioned into a serious scene without any abrupt switch. I've seen other reviews, and they all hated Struck By Lightning, but, by my opinion, it was severely underrated, and I highly recommend it. A

Kingsman: The Secret Service

I was very excited to see Kingsman: The Secret Service because the director, Matthew Vaughn pleased me with his previous work, such as Kick-Ass. Both are based of graphic novels by Mark Millar, too. I will say, this had a good beginning. I loved the introduction to all of the tough but classy main characters. I also enjoyed the stylized violence, as I always do. There were some great ideas, but I felt that, overall, it only catered to one side of me. It was full of crazy action, hilarious comedy, explosions, and one scene where a character did what we all kind of refuse to accept that we sort of want to do too. Which I loved, but I'd have enjoyed more interesting subjects too. I wanted to explore more of our protagonist's family life, which wasn't good. I also wanted to explore the incredibly awesome villain, played by Samuel L. Jackson. He had an assistant who had metal prosthetic legs with blades on them, which was cool and one of the redeeming factors of the movie. I can't say it wasn't a whole lot of fun to watch her jump around and duel suit-wearing umbrella-wielding British spies. I can say that's what's good about Kingsman. It's enjoyable and very entertaining but I only really liked that. Everything else was uninteresting. Kick-Ass was good because is was stylish and violent, but we also got to focus on the protagonist's struggle to try and be special, and to be a hero. Kingsman was just like any other action-blockbuster, with just a little bit more style to make it slightly better. C+

Relatos Salvajes (Wild tales)

I love dark comedy. It's funny, yet scary. Comedic, yet psychopathic. Amusing, yet disturbing. Some movies go too far in one direction or the other. Sometimes I end up being depressed, not laughing, and sometimes it's not dark enough and just gets boring. Relatos Savajes (translated: Wild Tales). Is an Argentine-Spanish dark comedy, involving six unrelated stories about people who just LOSE IT. After being struck with bad luck, each of these people want revenge, and they get it, whether it involves a hammer, a knife, rat poison, a car, a mirror (strangely, yes) or even a jet plane. Surprisingly, not all of these incredibly tense psychopath stories end sadly, but they all have many very dark elements to them. One of them got too dark, and I didn't really find it very funny because it wasn't a very interesting situation that might cause one to laugh. Comedy = tragedy + time, but some tragedies are just so boring and normal I wouldn't be surprised to find happen any day in the real world. Basically, the whole point of this film was that sometimes,
    “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” 
― Alan Moore, The Killing Joke.

      That's one of my favorite Joker quotes, and it goes so perfectly with the theme of Wild Tales. I wouldn't say this movie is a masterpiece, with slightly too-dark parts, yet I wouldn't say it shouldn't be watched by anyone who has a good sense of humor. I personally loved it, but many will be grossed out by the violence and dark content, I think those people know who they are. Take the opportunity to see it in theaters, too. The suspenseful and tense moments where you don't know what's going to go wrong are much stronger in front of a large screen rather than a laptop or whatever people watch movies on nowadays. A-

What we do in the Shadows

I'm not usually into movies from other countries. I don't enjoy reading subtitles, as it prevents me from fully viewing what's going on. I obviously liked What we do in the Shadows more than most foreign films because not only was it from New Zealand, where English is spoken, but it was also a comedy. It seems as if all the foreign movies I've ever seen are about a girl who's family was all murdered, or a mother who killed all of her young kids, or a brother and sister living on their own because their parents died (all examples based on real movies). I don't go to the movies to be sad, I go to see something exciting, interesting, funny, or special. If all I see is death and pain, what's the point? Anyway, the film I'm focusing on is a comedic mockumentary about a group of vampires living together as flatmates. It shows us what the daily lives of vampires would be like if they really existed in the modern world. Throughout the film, they do things you'd expect a real vampire to do, and it can be funny simply due to the absurdity of it all, but that type of humor only works for so long. After a while, the audience begins to get used to the situation, and it stops being funny. It takes work to make a feature-length film amusing the whole way through, and you can't just rely on the absurdity of the situation to make the audience laugh for two hours. I think it got a bit dull towards the end as I stopped being interested in watching their daily lives, but at a few moments it picked up again. These moments alone make it worth watching. The originality of the story is what I like most about it, though. There are vampire movies, documentaries, comedies, vampire documentaries, documentary comedies and vampire comedies, but I don't think I've ever heard of a vampire-documentary-comedy. Wow. That got a bit complicated, didn't it? What I'm trying to say is that What we do in then Shadows is unlike anything else I've seen, and it keeps it's comedic value up most of the time. It may lack a real meaning, but I'm sure something can be dug up somewhere in the script. It also has a lot of character depth that isn't shoved in your face, so you can slowly digest each vampire's history and point of view on the world. A-.

Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man!

True, this is only my opinion on The Big Lebowski, I'm sure there are people who don't find a weird satisfaction in this movie like I do, or like the millions of fans out there. I would say this is more than just a Coen Bros. film. It has a large fan base who know huge portions of the script word-for-word, celebrations all over America, known as "Lebowski Fest" ( https://lebowskifest.com/ ) and even a religion, I kid you not. Jeff Bridges obviously holds this movie as one of his greatest achievements, I mean, he named his band "The Abiders". I can't really say there's anything wrong with The Big Lebowski, in fact, there isn't anything that isn't absolutely brilliant about it. Everything has some sort of meaning that sometimes only the most devoted fans notice. Everything about it has comedic value, too, it just takes a few views to fully understand some of it, and it depends on how you watch it. While other Coen Brothers movies are sort of fun like O Brother, Where art thou? or downright terrifying like No Country for Old Men, Lebowski is a little bit of everything, but again, it depends on how you view it. It's about a lazy man who does nothing with his life, until he gets caught up in a kidnapping case due to having the same exact name as a millionaire. A hilarious series of unfortunate events follow, as you watch our protagonists face off against bowlers, nialists, evil porn stars, and an insane sheriff. There isn't much else to say, besides that I think everyone should see this movie, and whether or not they like it, they'll at least know that about themselves. A+

The Green Mile

 I've seen The Shawshank Redemption, which is a prison movie by the director, Frank Darabont, and I expected The Green Mile to be the same, but it wasn't. It was quite a bit heavier, as it dealt with people on death row who didn't get out in the end, well, at least not exactly. As you'd expect, it was very tragic, and there were a lot of religious metaphors. Throughout, I felt that the story lacked structure, and seemed like a bunch of events that didn't really connect enough. They all meant something for the message the story conveyed, but it could've been done a little bit better. Sometimes, a story without any structure is good, such as in Fury, which I complained had too much of a plot, but that was because I wanted to get an authentic experience of what life was like in the situation those characters were in, as their situation was shared by many people like them in their time, but in The Green Mile, this is a very specific situation, which should have had a very specific plot to go with it. Apart from that, it was a perfectly good film. Michael Clarke Duncan's portrayal of John Coffey (like the drink, just spelled different) was spectacular. He was the perfect gentle giant character, and I can understand why he won his only Academy Award for this role. I loved the symbolism and meaning with these people, how it perfectly portrayed the injustice even the best of people face in this world. I also especially like sad movies, so this really got to me. I don't want to see a total tragedy, I don't want to be depressed for a week after watching it, I just want to connect to the characters on screen, which is easy when you share their sorrow. I liked Transformers: The Movie, a little animated Transformers movie for kids from 1986 not just for it's amazing voice cast of Peter Cullen, Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy (R.I.P.) and a few others, but also because it killed of Optimus Prime, who everyone loved, including me. It made me feel all the hatred of Megatron that the heroes had. In the comic book mini-series Forever Evil, in which an evil warped version of the Justice League called the Crime Syndicate kills off just about every hero on earth. I saw so many of my favorite characters try so hard to save the day and just end up dying, so when the Crime Syndicate fell in the end, I was overwhelmed with joy. What I'm getting at here is that tragedy pulls the audience into the story and makes them feel all of the same emotions as the characters. I felt very connected to this story because I knew there was no chance John Coffey was going to survive. It's not even a spoiler. I love the emotion, symbolism and acting, though the story lacks any sort of developed plot, but it doesn't matter too much. A-

Birdman, played by Batman

The first movie I ever saw with Michael Keaton was Batman from 1989, directed by Tim Burton. I'd say it's what got me on the path of becoming a superhero fan. In Birdman, the main character, played by Keaton, used to be the lead in a blockbuster superhero franchise called "Birdman", which I feel might be a reflection of the actor's history with the Batman franchise, though I would say the two Batman films Keaton starred in were good, despite being a little bit cheesy. Either way, Birdman shows a real challenge I'm sure many real actors face. I can imagine in the future, Liam Neeson or Dwayne Johnson might try to become more than just an action hero known for a bunch of blockbusters. Even if they are good actors, which at least one of them is, no one's going to take them very seriously if they try to make a stage drama or anything like that. I like the way it was made to look like one continuous shot. I'm not exactly sure what it was supposed to bring to the story or the idea of the movie, but I still like to see directors experiment with different filming styles. I also had fun watching the magic-realism scenes (those parts where Riggin flew, used telekenesis, or talked to Birdman himself). These were obviously just his hallucinations and dual personality disorder, but it was integrated into the story quite well. It was nice to see that no matter what happened, he always knew it didn't matter what people said about him, and he floated above them (literally) to show how much self confidence he had that people would worship him one day, and they kind of did. Of course, it came at a cost. I spent a long time thinking about this film after I finished it because of it's artistic side, but I also enjoyed watching it because it was exciting in it's own way. A

Fury

I'm not a huge fan of war movies because they're always the same thing every time. A few exceptions are 300, Zero Dark Thirty, and Fury. Now, I'm obviously only going to go into detail with Fury because that's the title of the review, but what I'll say about all of them is that they're all very unique. Fury is a WWII film about a small group of soldiers and their tank. The tank is why I love this movie so much. The tank is their little home that they all share as they ride across Germany and kill people. They built a bond with the tank, just as they built a bond with each other, naming it "Fury" as the title suggests, and putting little posters up because it really was their home. A new addition to their team arrives in the beginning, totally unprepared for battle, and he has to learn to get comfortable in that home and with those people. At the beginning, they went through that whole process where the new guy had to learn how to kill people, and of course he was very hesitant. He didn't want that on his conscience, but he did and got over it surprisingly quickly. It's as if the writers created a good moral conflict for the story, then thought of a better one and forgot to take out the old one while completing the script. At one point, there was a break from the action, and all the guys got together in a lady's house to calm down for a bit. I liked seeing them try to get back to a normal life and settle down for a bit, but have it all blown up and lost in an instant. The acting was great, full of people you could really tell had been changed by the war. Each of the guys seemed to have too much experience in tank warfare. They all had tons of grit and looked toughened up by years of battle. My favorite thing about this was the thought that this is what every tank was like in that time. I wanted to believe that all the tank operators had a sort of brotherhood built up within their tank, but as time passes, it shows that isn't the case. This wasn't just a day in the life of a World War 2 tank operator, this was a special war hero tank and I didn't like that. I want to see what it's like to just be a part of the crowd, the everyday experience of an everyday soldier. I've seen too many scenarios where the protagonists are outnumbered, I just want to view the real experience. I think that's why I liked the beginning and not the end. The beginning was just a soldier getting used to living and fighting in a tank, the end was the small band of brothers fighting off a ton of enemies and saving the day. It's safe to say the last quarter ruined what was an almost flawless film. You should still see it because it's 75% good, and the last 25% actually did have some cool moments, so it totals about 80%. B-

Interstellar

     Christopher Nolan is known for making very epic, large movies. He directed The Dark Knight, which happens to be #6 on my top 50 movie list, as well as a few other smash hits such as Inception, and Memento. Interstellar, his most recent production, is obviously no different, but at the same time, is completely unique. None of his movies are alike in any way, but his style always carries over, which is something I like about the best directors. I love when they all have their own special types of camera movement, dialogue, action, among other elements. This movie is exactly what I was looking for from Nolan, with the loud music and majestic shots, yet, like all his other work, it delivered something unique and new. Interstellar is a space exploration movie about a team of daring astronauts trying to find a new planet for humans to live on. Our main protagonist, played by Matthew Mcconaughey, was forced to leave his two kids to try and save the human race, on a voyage through a mysterious wormhole to somewhere far, far away. Throughout the movie, a higher force is hinted at and I enjoyed the way it pondered what was beyond our plane of existence. My favorite part was when we are shown how time is relative, and one hour on one planet could count as 17 years on earth. It's crushing to see how much everything changes in such a short time. We get to see lots of cool planets and feel exhilarated by all the adventure and action. I felt very hopeless at points, too, as it seemed things couldn't get any worse in the mission. It took me on a great journey through time and space, quenching my thirst for adventure for a long time. Sometimes, it almost got too crazy and I didn't have time to try and understand all of the mind blowing moments, which was annoying, but not necessarily a bad thing because it gave me something to think about afterwards. I wouldn't recommend this for people who like calmer, smaller movies, but the overall grandeur and brilliance of Interstellar makes it my favorite film of 2014 and one of my favorites of all time. A

Spider-man (not the amazing one)

Contrary to the title of this post, the movie I'm reviewing today is technically called The Amazing Spider-man 2, though it isn't amazing really in too many ways. I never enjoyed the Sam Raimi Spider-man movies for their lack of respect to the source material, uninteresting story lines, and the fact that Tobey Maguire doesn't look like a believable teenager, so I actually liked this better than any of the old ones, but I still didn't like many aspects of it. The first movie in the series was a great fresh start for the character of Spider-man, and I had really high hopes for this one, until I realized how overcrowded it was with villains, and how it took away all the mystery from the story of the first one. I really loved Electro for his creepy voice and look, as well as green goblin for being quite scary and slightly more like the comic book version of the character. I wish I felt the same way about Rhino, who was added into the script for absolutely no reason besides attracting more people to see the movie. Marc Webb is a good director, it definitely wasn't his fault that his movie felt like nothing but a big-budget cash in on a polar character. Sony tried to milk all the money possible out of the franchise, so they made Webb include too many villains to attract an audience. I will say, there's one moment that made me almost cry in the end. some major spoilers ahead........
     When Gwen Stacy died, I wasn't exactly surprised. I totally saw it coming, as many did, but I was still shocked. Webb perfectly recreated the effect of the comic in which she died, and it really got to me. Another one of the things I disliked about the old Spider-man movies was that Peter Parker and his girlfriend, Mary Jane had no chemistry at all. They were always fighting, and being awful to each other. Over the three movies, Mary cheated on him twice, which is totally uncool. She even got engaged to one of the guys she cheated on Peter with, then was awful to him too, leaving him at the altar to go back to Peter. In The Amazing Spider-man, and it's sequel, Peter and Gwen are really good to each other, and you can tell they care about each other. The audience cared about Gwen just as much as Peter because she completed him, she didn't just act as an annoying lady following him around and causing him trouble. When she died, it actually meant something. I bet if Mary Jane died in her second movie, I would just shrug it off and continue with my day after the movie had ended. So yes, it may seem like I'm raving about the movie for just this one scene, and I kind of am, but unless you saw and liked the first Amazing Spider-man, you probably won't care for this as much as I do. I can't give this a grade because it really depends on the viewer.

Avenge it!

Just the fact that The Avengers exists already makes me love it. No comic book fan, including me, could ever say anything bad about this because it did what no franchise has ever done before. For most people, it was just a summer blockbuster from 2012, but to me, it was something much, much more. I counted down the days to it's release, and couldn't stop thinking about it because this was the first time a comic book universe had been fully developed on screen. All these amazing characters were stars of their own, but now they were all getting teamed up just like it happened in the comics 52 years ago. Now, they're getting ready to team up again later in 2015 to take down Ultron, and again after that in 2017 for the Infinity War. If you went back in time to the 90's or before, and told a fan that, he wouldn't believe you if you gave him a million bucks. It was a gamble, trying to popularize these guys on the big screen, but it was worth it. Marvel and Disney really scored on this one, and now I hope DC has the same success. The combined star power of RDJ, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, and plenty of other acting heroes made it a complete success along with great direction, perfect special effects, well written script, and all the exciting feeling taken directly from the comics themselves. I don't know what else to say. I loved this, but I have no idea what it's like to see this film from a neutral point of view. A+++++

Superman: The (boring, cheesy, lazy, overrated) Movie

It seems as if the large majority of adults love the original Superman: The movie, but I find no reason to enjoy it. In the 70's, when the film was released, it was loved because it was good fun for the whole family and the effects were great for it's time. Nowadays, it's not in any way the same, so I don't like seeing people who still rave rave about it. I probably would like this movie because of it's witty dialogue, good acting, and iconic character moments if it weren't for a horribly written story. At the end of the movie, Lex Luthor shoots two missiles to blow up all of the west coast, and tells Superman he couldn't possibly fly fast enough to catch both, which makes sense, and one of the missiles does hit, killing lots of people including Lois Lane, Superman's love interest. Then, Superman goes into space and flies super fast around the earth, reversing it's spin, and turning back time. If he can fly around earth that fast, he should have been able to catch both missiles. Also, flying that fast around earth wouldn't reverse it's spin, and if it did, it wouldn't turn back time, it would just send everything on the planet flying at approximately 1000 miles per hour. Anyways, after earth is saved, Superman magically captures Lex and takes him to prison, without explaining how he was able to beat Lex if he couldn't do it last time. I don't understand why everyone regards this so highly if they hate on things like Transformers for having badly written stories. It just boggles my mind. I feel like it may have something to do with the fact that many adults saw Superman as a child, and it sort of shaped their life in many ways, therefore, they can't bear to say anything bad about. I was raised on the Transformers movies, so is it such a crime that I like those? Not if anyone can get away with liking Superman: The Movie. The least I can say is that you should see this movie if you want to laugh at the incredibly large plot holes and conveniences in the last 30 minutes of it. If you want something quality, I'd say you should see Man of Steel, which is gold, at least in comparison to this. D

Bill must DIE!!!! (vol. 1 and 2)

Kill Bill is unlike any of Quentin Tarantino's other movies. I count both part 1 and 2 as one because the scripts were written as one. Before Kill Bill, all of Tarantino's popular movies took place in L.A., and were about normal modern crime issues. After Kill Bill, he only made crazy action movies about revenge and/or general violence. He kept the same basic cinematic style, but the stories were about nazi hunters and escaped slaves rescuing their loved ones, including the upcoming "H8ful 8" as it is spelled. I think Kill Bill is where he changed it all. Kill Bill is a crazy swordplay-action-revenge flick involving all sorts of unusual characters and events. The first part is mostly setup to the big plot twists of the second part, though vol. 1 does have a lot of great stuff in it. I actually liked part 1 a little bit More than the second part because the whole end of vol. 2 is a big pile of exposition, plot conveniences, and a guy who obviously lied when he said he was keen on comics. It's hard to explain exactly what I meant by that last part, but some of you might understand what I'm talking about if you see the movie. I was actually okay with the final fight with Bill only being about 15 seconds long, because it was the best 15 seconds of the last chapter of vol. 2. Of all the reasons I have to like, or in some cases dislike these films, the thing that stands out to me the most is the villains. "The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad" is a team of the most badass, dangerous, and scary killers you'll ever see on screen. The team consists of Vernita Green (AKA copperhead) who retired to become a housewife, O-Ren Ishi-i (AKA cottonmouth) who's one of the most powerful crime bosses in all of Japan, Budd (no last name known AKA sidewinder) who lives in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, and Elle Driver (AKA California mountain snake) who's basically a female version of Deathstroke (comic book character). The main character, Beatrix Kiddo, used to be on the team and was known as black mamba, but, like vernita, tried to retire. It didn't go over too well with Bill, the leader of the team. Bill is an amazing character, with a creepy voice and killer moves (literally). Along her journey for revenge, our hero encounters more enemies that she fights to the death, like a rapist, a crazy bald dude in a black mask, and a japanese schoolgirl, but they aren't important. In a flashback sequence, she also encounters a rude old man who teaches her how to make a person's heart explode. This man's name is Pai Mei, and he is the wise sensei who teaches the main character, just like in every other martial arts movie ever made. (Star Wars as well). Although he was a cool character, he was just too cliché for my tastes. With all these upsides, and only a couple downsides, I still highly recommend Kill Bill, and it is one of my favorite movies of all time for many reasons. A-

Boom! Headshot.

A couple of hours before I went to see American Sniper, I saw a Facebook post about how Seth Rogen had related the film to nazi propaganda. I didn't understand what he meant. After watching it, I understood that he felt it glorified the military, and tried to make us not feel bad for the deaths in the Iraq war. I didn't totally agree, because the post traumatic stress disorder the main character, Chris, went through after his intense experience in the military was conveyed in a very scary manner, and made me want to join the army even less than I already did. You could also tell that he really felt bad about the deaths he was responsible for. He filled his mind with the teachings of his father, who said that you could justify violence if it was to protect the lives of the "sheep" as he called the innocent people who couldn't protect themselves. The predators were the wolves, using their power to prey on the innocent, and the sheepdogs were the ones who used their power not to prey, but to protect the flock. Sometimes, Chris felt bad about having to kill to protect his flock of sheep, because the ones trying to prey on the sheep were kids who you could say had bad influences. I liked how Bradley Cooper was magically able to erase his natural charm for this role. After The Hangover, Silver Linings Playbook, and Guardians of the Galaxy (as the voice of Rocket), I wasn't sure I would be able to see him play a serious role, but I was wrong. I was also afraid I wouldn't be able to hear people say the word "sniper" without thinking of this sniper:

But I pulled through. Don't go into American Sniper thinking it'll be a generic military action movie because it's not. It takes us on a tour of the effect war has on people who have seen way too much heavy stuff, for instance, kids throwing grenades, kids getting shot, kids picking up bazookas, kids getting holes drilled in their heads, etc. There were a few issues I found in it, though. For one, the special effects were bad. I could easily tell the blood, sand storms, birds eye view cities, and helicopters were all CGI. Another problem was the fact that it took place over a few years and Chris changed a lot off screen so we couldn't exactly see his PTSD develop, which was a huge part of the story. The last issue I found in it was the lack of a plot. I couldn't exactly tell if it was about taking down the evil sniper dude, or if it was about the PTSD and how it affected his relationships. With all of those downsides, I could only give it a B. Remember, if you're looking for a more lighthearted sniper story, just watch this:

Guard it!

When people get tired of superhero movies, you make a space opera. It's simple. After the Marvel cinematic universe had brought popular heroes like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor to the big screen, it was time to give smaller characters the glory they deserve. The Guardians of the Galaxy aren't exactly heroes anyway, but they exist in the Marvel universe and needed big screen adaptations, so Marvel risked it all and spent a whole lot of money to make a movie they weren't even sure would be successful. The first thing I'd like to say is that they totally did the right thing when they copied the outlandish and over the top feel from the comic books, for instance, they introduced us to multiple crazy alien races, and had them interact in ways you might notice are similar to the way humans of different races and religions act. Some are radicals who want to kill off a whole species, while others are tolerant and trying to bring equality to all, no matter if your skin is white, black, pink, furry, and/or green. Another thing perfect about Guardians of the Galaxy was the use of Marvel comics lore. The Collector talked extensively about the infinity stones, and how there are six of them, each with the power to destroy planets. These stones are seen throughout all the Marvel films, including but not limited to, the Aether from Thor:The Dark World, The Tessarect, mainly from Captain America: The First Avenger , and The Avengers, and, of course, the stone depicted in this film, which was never given a specific name. It was fun to see these outlaws trying to get along to get some money, then saving the galaxy on accident. I also really liked Peter Quill holding on to his only memories of life on Earth. After watching this, I couldn't get over my excitement to see the team back in action when the sequel comes out in 2017 or something like that. All five of these funny team members did exactly what was necessary to make the audience laugh at their dysfunctionality but still root for them in the end. (also Dave Bautista again) A+

Iron Fist! No, not the Marvel superhero

It's 2015! My most recent post was way too long ago, so here I go, restarting my blog. I looked at my older posts, and I realized how bad of a writer I once was. I know that in a year or two, I'll look back on this and facepalm, but for now, I'll just appreciate my improvement. Now, let's get to the actual review.

     Every week, my friend Max and I hang out and watch a movie. One week, it'll be a movie he likes that I haven't seen, then the next week, vice versa. Over the time we've held this tradition, I've seen some good movies and some....... interesting movies. Once, we watched a strange Thai fighting film called The Protector, about a young man who's elephant gets kidnapped and taken to Australia, where the man goes and breaks a bunch of people's arms to get it back. As the credits rolled and I was speechless, thinking of the film's strange plot and awkwardly translated dialogue, a certain name rolled over the screen. Quentin Tarantino produced The Protector and I soon learned that it wasn't the first bad martial arts movie that had his name slapped on the cover for publicity purposes. The Man with the Iron Fists is the picture I speak of. While Iron Fists isn't in any way a good movie, it holds a dear place in my heart. On one of the movie nights following The Protector, my friend and I sat down to Iron Fists, although I had never seen it. I had seen the trailer, and thought it looked cool so we watched it. The next couple hours were strange, full of badly developed characters, weak plots, Dave Bautista, inexplicably weird moments, and more Dave Bautista. Additionally, RZA was featured, which was a strange casting choice thinking the same cast featured greats such as Russel Crowe and Lucy Liu. The one redeeming factor was that it was full of style. It seems as if the creators had brilliant concept art and ideas but didn't care about acting, story, or anything like that. Each of the numerous badass characters had really stylish weapons and/or powers, such as fans used to cut people's throats, the ability to turn into metal, armor that could shoot spikes, giant gatling guns, iron fists (of course), and strangest of all: rapid fire crossbows with seemingly infinite ammo that make me wonder if they're even crossbows at all. So, besides these amazing fight sequences and epic looking designs, the movie was a total bore.

     I guess you could say that it's kind of so bad it's good. For example, in one scene, an assassin comes to kill a dude. The dude looks up and says,

"Your journey ends here, and by that I mean your life's journey." At that moment, Max and I both burst out in to laughter and we did end up enjoying ourselves by the time the film had ended. So I can say that The Man with the Iron Fists was enjoyable and is worth watching if you don't take the quality of your movies too seriously, but it still isn't good.

                                                                F- but at the same time, A+