Sunday, June 29, 2014

2014 July Movie Preview

July 2nd
Earth to Echo-A movie about kids finding something from space. A movie that looks a lot like an ET rip of. The only difference this has from ET is it is in the "Found Footage" style. After the movie Chronicle I know found footage movies can be awesome. I'm mildly interested in this movie. Click here for the Earth to Echo trailer
July 11th
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes-The human survivors from the events from Rise of the Planet of the Apes face off against Ceaser's army (the head of the apes) who are a bunch of genetically enhanced apes. I really liked the first movie. I would be looking forward to this movie more if James Franco came back. Now we have Garry Oldman so nobody can complain. People are saying this is the Empire Strikes Back to the Planet of the Apes franchise. That made my hopes and expectations go really high. If this movie is any short of great I know I'll be disappointed. Here is a link to the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes trailer. I think this is one of the best trailers I have ever seen.
July 18th
Planes: Fire and Rescue-The sequel to Disney's planes is coming within a year of the first one. That gets me worried that a sequel came that fast. Here is the trailer for Planes: Fire and Rescue.
July 25th
Hercules-This is not a remake of the Disney animation, but a live action movie thats not done by Disney staring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. I can't think of a better actor to fit the role then he can. I also can't think of a worse director then Brett Ratner. He almost ruined the X-Men franchise with X-Men 3 and I was not a big fan of tower heist. I know this for sure, it will be better then that Legend of Hercules crap. Here is the trailer for Hercules.  

Transformers: Age of Extinction Review

     I didn't expect this movie to be any good. The Transformers movies have gotten worse and worse from the first one. The first one was really fun and actually a really good movie. I expected this one to follow the trend of the movies and this one to be terrible. Transformers 4 is one of the best movies of the year. 
     I'm not on the Michael Bay hater band wagon. I don't mind his style. I like explosions everywhere. Explosions are cool and this movie as a lot of them. Not only that they look good. The visual effects were good as always. It's always amazing to see how far the VFX have come. 
     Mark Wahlberg took LaBeouf's place in the Transformers franchise. He didn't do as good as a job as LeBeaouf did in the first one but he did better than LeBeaouf did in 2&3. Wahlberg was really the only one who was outstanding in it. Nicola Peltz has ben the best actress we've seen in this franchise. The other actors got annoying. You could tell if they were going to be good or bad as soon as the got on the screen. 
     This movie has lots of jokes and laughs that don't work. It also has some racist stereotypes and really stupid jokes. 
     I said Transformers 4 was one of my favorite films of the year and it seems like I'm only saying negatives about it. I came in to it for the Transformers not for a good story and good acting, I knew those things were not going to be great. The things I came for were awesome. It didn't let me down and I ended up really enjoying what I came for. There were dinobots in this movie! How freaking cool is that! That was one of my favorite parts in this fantastic film.
     It's always nice when the subtitle of a movie actually has something to do with the plot. That was a nice touch. Transformers: Age of Extinction was a really fun movie. It has 2hours and 45minutes and it didn't feel like that at all. I still like the first Transformers better but not by much. I give Transformers 4 a 8.5/10. I highly recommend you going to see this movie. It's awesome.   

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

          The 3rd part of Michael Bay's Transformers movie has the dumbest title Dark of the Moon. That right there is a good indicator on how the movie will be. The movie was dumb. 
    I'm going to start out by stating the positives. The score was wonderful. It was fun music and it gave the film the little boost it needed to make it enjoyable. Shia Labeouf was good again. This is his weakest performance in the franchise but he was still the best performance. Megan Fox is not in this one! The script actually seemed good in this one because she was not delivering any lines. She had OK chemistry with Labeouf. It's also sort of a negative to have here gone. She was replaced with first time actor Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. To my surprise she was actually a better actress then Fox. It's always nice to have two out of two of the leads be good actors. Michael Bay really knows how to direct action. The big 45minute action sequence at the end was beautifully done. The visual effects were stunning like always in these movies.  
    The script had some week spots with the dialogue used by the Transformers. It was terrible. Some of the transformers were really annoying. One thing I hate more then anything is comedy relief that doesn't work. This had a whole bunch of that. It got really annoying. This movie is long like the others. This one clocking in at 2hours and 34 minutes. It felt like it dragged on for ever. 
    Transformers: Dark of the Moon was a decent film. It seems like no matter how much the movie sucks, I always seem to like it. I just love Transformers so maybe I'm giving it a higher score then it deserves. I give this movie a 6.5/10.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Transformers Review

   When you hear Transformers you think of awesome. It does not sound like a stupid idea. It sounds like an idea that you can't possibly screw up. I watched re-runs of the Transformers animated series and grew a love for the robots. This movie made my love grow even bigger. It was awesome. Its the true definition of a summer block buster. 
    When you talk about a movie like Transformers, you have to mention the special affects. It takes lots of work to make a movie look as good as this one did. One thing that can ruin a movie really fast is bad Visual Affects (VFX.) It's very hard to think of a movie with better visual affects then this one. The dialogue of the robots could have been better but, I didn't care what they said because they looked so great. 
    The script was good, really well written. I didn't have a problem with what was being said. Sometimes in movies like this the dialogue is just something they through away because that's not what's important. It was actually pretty good you can tell they put some decent effort. There were some comedy parts where I laughed. This movie tried to be funny and it was.  The only thing that made the script look bad was Magen Fox. She is a bad actress but, I'm still glad she was in the movie. Shia LaBeouf was really good in this. It reminded me how good of an actor he really is. He didn't ruin the show, he made it. It wasn't the Transformers that made this show (they were a big part of it) it was LeBeouf.
    I was a fan of Transformers and a big fan of this movie. It did not disappoint me. I give this movie a 9/10. It was wonderful.  
     

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Bears Review

Bears is the latest installment to Disney's set of films they call "Disney Nature." This one fallows a mama bear and her two cubs on their first year journey. I really enjoyed the past 3 Disney Nature films. I just enjoyed this one. It was narrated by John C. Reilly. I had 2 problems with the way Reilly handled it. One it was hard to picture Wreck-it-Ralph narrating a documentary about bears and he did nothing special to engage me. He was to silly. My favorite parts of the films were when he was not talking. 
The movie was beautifully shot. It's amazing how awesome it was. The style and the choices they make were a perfect fit for the film. 
I generally like documentaries. This one was a really good and really well done documentary. I give this film a 7/10. I recommend this movie.  

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Maleficent Review

          The latest Disney live action film is Maleficent. I have not been a big fan of the recent live-action Disney films. For example Alice in Wonderland (my worst movie of all time), Prince of Persia, On Stranger Tides, John Carter, Lone Ranger and Muppets: Most Wanted. Maleficent is no different. 
    I was extremely excited for this. And I came away disappointed. I expected this film to be an origin story. A story about how Maleficent came to be in the carton we all know and love. And I should've known it was going to be different. It was a re-imagining. This film wasn't an origin story it was a retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty Story. The story was not what I expected it was going to be. The trailers made me believe it was going to be about something else. 
    The performances for the most part were ok or terrible. This movie has some of the worst acting I've ever seen. An actors purpose is to make you feel for the character. I could've cared less for what was happening. They made me bored. The worst of the worst were the 3 good fairies. They were so annoying. I wish they would die or get killed. I've never seen anyone so annoying in a film before. The one redeeming quality to the movie's acting was Angelina Jolie and she was good. Just barley good enough to make sure this movie was not sitting in a pile of crap.
    This film was beautiful to look at. The special affects were breath taking. I guess thats what you get for having a principle photographer as your director. There is also a negative for having that. You get one beautiful shot of the castle. It takes your breath away. Then you see it again around 15 more times. Give me some diversity so I don't get bored (I got bored). And don't get me started about how bad Maleficent's wings were. They were some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. 
    Maleficent is a strong candidate to be one of my most disappointing films of the year. It was a film that was dependent on Jolie and didn't care about any thing else. I give maleficent a 3.5/10. If you really want to see this wait till it comes to Redbox or Netflix. You shouldn't see it for more then $4.00.       

Friday, June 6, 2014

Vampire Academy Review

       One of the latest teen book to film adaptations is Vampire Academy. And this is the worst one. If I was to describe it in 3 words IO would use terrible, crap, and horrible. I couldn't tell if it was a comedy or a drama. It was unintentially funny. I laughed so many times in a film that was supposed to be dramatic.Here are some quotes from the movie "Be like every other teenage girl and dream about named men on unicorns" and "You mean Oscar, I gave him treats, I would never hurt a kitty." Laugh out laud moments in the climax.
    This was the longest 1 hour an 45 min of my life. It felt like 6 hours. It was boring. There was nothing to move the story forward. This movie should be in a museum of torture devices. I'm mad I watched this movie. Time of my life was wasted watching garbage. Every movie has at least 1 redeeming quality. Adn that for this movie was the main girl was attractive. 
    I didn't expect this movie to be good. I expected it to be crap and it was crap. The end of this movie set up for a sequel. It won't get one. On a 30 million dollar budget and it made 15 million. Losing the studio around 25 million dollars. I give Vampire Academy 2/10.
    

2014 June Movie Preview

          2014 June Movie Preview
    June is the second month in the summer movie season. It's not as packed as May was but, it has some really interesting movies in it. 
JUNE
June 6th-One of the movies to come out on this day is The Fault in Our Stars. John Green's best selling novel stars Shailene Woodley as Hazel Lancaster and Ansel Elgort as Agustus Waters. They meet in a cancer support group. I didn't read the book and the trailer got me mildly interested.  Click here to watch The Fault in Our Stars Trailer

The more interesting, the one I think will be the surprise of the year also comes out on June 6th is a Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt thriller The Edge of Tomorrow. Directed by Doug Liman (who did The Bourne Identity which I was a big fan of)it's about soldiers who must relive their last battle over and over again. It looks a lot like Oblivion which I was not a big fan of at first, than I watched it again and loved it. I'm very interested in this film and I have some expectations for it. I want it to land in my top 15 of the year. Click here for The Edge of Tomorrow Trailer 

June 13th-The only animated movie I see being any good this year (and really the only one)is How to Train Your Dragon 2. It's been four years since the first installment in this animated franchise. The first one was awesome. I loved it. It was in my top two animated movies of 2010. I love the fact that they used the time to their advantage. They made Hiccup look 4 years older. In this one the two (Hiccup and his dragon Toothless) find a Ice cave home to new dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider. This movie will do awesome at the box office. It has no other animated film that it's competing against. There is literally no other summer animated film to come out that looks good. There is no PIXAR or DISNEY (besides Planes 2) film to compete with it. Families are going to go to this. That means lots of money. Click here for the How to Train Your Dragon 2 trailer

June 27th-The last film in June that is note worthy or mentionable is the fourth film in Michael Bay's Transformers series Transformers: Age of Extinction. The first Transformers was awesome, the second was cool, the third was stupid. The Transformers movies have declined in quality. I have a really good feeling about this one. I don't know what is attracting me to this movie but, I'm getting some pretty good vibes from this one. There are the dinobots! They are dinosaur looking robots. In the trailer you see Optimus Prime riding Grimlock with a Giant Sword! It looks awesome. I'm excited to see what new things Mark Wahlberg (the person staring in it) can bring to the table. This is supposedly going to start a "new franchise" in the Transformers universe but, still going to be called 4, 5, and 6. Click here for the Transformers: Age of Extinction trailer. This is the movie I'm looking forward to the most in June.


X-Men: Days of Future Past Review (Spoiler Free)

          Bryan Singer is back to his home. That home being X-Men. X-Men 1 and X-Men 2 were awesome. Then we had X-Men 3 and that was trash. That was not by singer. X-Men: Days of Future Past prove singer is a genius when it comes to X-Men.
    X-Men: First Class was my favorite X-Men before this film and that was due to the cast. James McAvoy and Academy Award nominated Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence. They brought more depth and more feelings then the original cast. Don't get me wrong, I love the original cast, I just like the first class cast better. I'm so glad the two casts are mixed. Everyone did great. Going into the movie I was worried about there being to many characters.  I don't know why I worried .They were used so well. No one was wasted, no one was dead space. They were all developeda and they all helped the movie progress forward. Even the people who were in it for 5 minutes.I want to highlight Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Hugh Jackman, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page, Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender. The one I'm going to praise is James McAvoy. He's the best part of the movie. If he doesn't get an academy award nomination I'll be out raged. He was that good. I even think he's better then Patrick Stweart. Yes I just said that.
    This story could have been so confusing with time travel and having the same character being played by 2 different actors. Singer seamlessly made it work. It could've very easily been really confusing but it wasn't. 
    X-Men: Days of Future Past was not only a great comic book movie but it was a good sci-fi film and a good movie. People are always worried about there being to much villains. There were 4 villains in this and it was still awesome. It's just the way you use them that makes them bad. 
    X-Men first my 3 requirements for a good comic book film. 1.) Its grounded in reality. 2.) The love interest is not the main focus and 3.) The Villain(s) are represented well. I give X-Men Days of Future Past a 15/10