Movie Time: Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance

This week's movie is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Sigh.

Drive Angrier 3D: On Fire Edition

This movie was a complete disappointment, since I really, really enjoy Nic Cage in basically everything. I would go see Space Ass, Starring Nicholas Cage. But this? This was awful and disappointing, to an extent that even Nic Cage didn't save it for me. My dad thought this was Drive Angry 2, i wish it were Drive Angry 2.

In a Nutshell
In this reboot of Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze must save the antichrist from the devil or else... bad stuff will happen. Also Nic Cage is on fire and a skeleton. Thankfully, it doesn't prevent him from making crazy faces.

The Rant
Ooh boy, where to begin here? I guess I'll begin with the points from the movie I liked.

I liked the 3 or so animated featurettes for back story. They were really neat-looking and occasionally, a bit funny. They were a great way to pass back story, too, just narrated by Nic Cage with some moving comic book-style screens illustrating it, it was just so neat!

I also liked the scenes with the rider, the way he moved sometimes was just so nightmarish and pretty awesome, the CG work was pretty good and really sold the Rider as an evil demon-like entity. i just love how he moved and cackled and swung his chains like a madman, incinerating baddies. Those were neat scenes.

Lastly, there's a scene where Nic Cage drives a motorcycle really fast and spazzes out, making crazy faces. That was a highlight. Seriously. I think that says a lot about this movie.

And now, for a summary of the bad. I'll try to be concise because it's always better to focus on the good than the bad, but in this case, the bad vastly outweighs the good. Where to begin...

The main antagonist is completely silly-looking. It's like the people behind the movie didn't bother coming up with anything original and just stole their design for a bad guy off Stargate Atlantis. Seriously, the bad guy is a Wraith from Stargate Atlantis. Except he doesn't look as good.

The camera work. The shots were often weird, starting backwards then going forward again before panning, there was some shaky camera work at times, which is never pleasant in a 3d film. Speaking of which, the 3D was not mindblowing or, you know, necessary. At all. It wasn't noticeable, which is usally a good thing, but it wasn't really used except in a few scenes that were just silly. I did not feel like the extra money for 3D was well spent on my end, that's for sure.

Scenes were often extremely ridiculous, but not in a good way, because they were just loosely strung together. it felt kinda like those video games where you go from the Ice Stage to the Volcano Stage to the Graveyard Stage without any real transition. The movie starts with the kid escaping, then he gets caught, then he gets away, then he gets caught, then he gets saved, then he gets caught again. it's just a constant series of the kid changing hands.

There's a scene where a black Frenchman priest shoots up politicians who are actually satanists while reciting latin verses He's a one dimensional character and yet he shines the brightest in the film as far as characters go. He's black, French, a priest and he likes alcohol. Also he's an action priest because this is a superhero movie. That is the most well-developped character in the film, and he is still one-dimensional as hell.

Speaking of characters, so often the characters just act stupidly. It's annoying when The Devil is outwitted by a stunt jumper and his drunk priest friend. It's annoying when a movie teahces rules at one point only to break them overtly later on as if to say "Ha! You thought that think i said a few scenes back still holds? Wrong, sucker!" It's annoying when a movie relies on a Deus Ex Machina for a happy ending. And this game? It does these three things several times, and it's awful for it.

And finally a minor nitpick: The order of ancient monks tattooed English bible verses on their faces. They lived in Turkey and were Catholic monks...

The Score
This movie is terrible, it's not terrible enough to really be funny, it's just awful. it has a few neat scenes, but it's just completely ridiculous, especially since it tries to be a serious, heavy film about an anti hero. I give this movie one crazy Nic Cage face out of 5.

Not the funniest face from that scene, but the only one I could find.

Movie Time: Chronicle

This Week's movie was Chronicle.

with the power of stable camerawork

Ah, another movie I enjoyed a lot, though i sort of expected to like it, seeing how I have a soft spot for found footage movies, superhero movies and such. I found it to be a very interesting take on a popular genre. Without further ado, the review.

In a Nutshell

Three high school students are given telekinesis powers, including one with a very crappy life who films everything.  The film is presented only with footage from cameras in the scene without resorting to "shakycam".

The Rant
Again, I don't have much to rant about negatively, this is gonna be a mostly positive rant. Although, I guess I can start with the negative. I felt uncomfortable about how Andrew, the main character and cameraman, was treated. I really empathized with him, I guess. Some scenes were a bit difficult to watch, even. It made the third act a bit heartbreaking, to see the character grow and then just go in the wrong direction...

First of all, I think the way the movie was filmed is great. Every camera is a physical camera, either operated by Andrew, Casey or just security cams at some points, to follow the action. It's a really neat way to present a movie, at any rate. It's sort of how they should've gone with District 9, all the way. Second thing about the camerawork is that there is very little "shakycam" and some scenes with what looks like standard camera work, framing and such, because Andrew uses his power to operate the camera and does it very well.

I really liked how the characters had nice arcs, were well played, interesting. This was a very good movie acting-wise, I thought.A movie with believable characters that grew, had motivations, were well-rounded... It was nice. There's not a moment where you think "Why would he do that?", everything is presented in a way that makes sense.

One of the problems with the film, though, is the CGI. It was a bit conspicuous at times. It didn't really fool me when they were moving some stuff or juggling. The flying, though, wasn't bad at all, it's mostly when dealing with small objects they had trouble, I thought. Maybe they didn't focus on those as much as the big stuff. It's not a very big flaw, at any rate.

Another thing I liked a bit less about the movie is how it ends, I thought the conclusion could have been a bit longer, a bit more explanatory, but on the other hand, it was well done nonetheless. It was an ending I was not satisfied with but worked for the movie.

Lastly, I think the powers were neat and the way they developed them was cool, it wasn't like you'd see in other similar movies where they basically master the powers off-camera and then use them to fight crimes. This was all about learning how to use them, what they could do, what they couldn't. It's not like other superhero films, and I liked that. It was original, it was really a "What if people really did get powers" sort of deal.

The Score

This is a very entertaining movie with believable, interesting and well played characters, and it's about super powers, something everyone fantasized about. I give it a "Very Entertaining" out of 10 and suggest you see this movie if you like teenagers with powers and don't hate found footage, even without the shakycam. Probably my favorite movie of the year so far.    

Movie Time: The Grey

This Week's movie was The Grey, starring Liam Neeson.

Taken, now with wolves!

Don't you just love it when you go see a movie with certain expectations, and then find out you were wrong about the movie? I do, especially when the movie exceeds my expectations. I was kind of expecting a regular old "people stuck in the wilderness, they survive on grit and courage alone", but instead, I got The Grey, a movie about Life, Death, Redemption and with wolves somewhere, but they're only important as a framing mechanism. And it's great, it's really working great, it's a tense movie that explores themes very well, with characters that feel real, even if sometimes the wolves don't.

In a Nutshell

Liam Neeson works for an oil company in deep Alaska to kill wolves while the workers toil. He has lost his wife, is alone and without a will to live. However, a plane crash he survives changes all that, putting the lives of the few survivors in his hands as wolves attack the intruders in their hunting grounds. Leading the survivors towards what he feels might be salvation, they are picked off one by one, all the while, the themes of life, death, their meanings and consequences are discussed candidly by men about to die, alone and cold in the Alaskan wilds.

The Rant

I don't have a lot to rant against here, i really enjoyed this movie, and the only real flaw is that, in some scenes, the wolves looked really fake. i don't know if they were CG, enhanced by CG or what, but they seemed fake. On the other hand, the wolves are often not seen at all, but merely made their presence felt, which was very unsettling. I liked the parallels between the wolves and the survivors, how it was made clear that, in order to survive, they needed to become wilder, more like wolves, but still clinging to their humanity.

I liked that no character was safe, that from point one, people died. in the crash, from wolves, characters were often developed and killed off without warning,either unable to go on or succumbing to an accident or their own failings. And yet, the movie did not feel distastefully morbid, the way death was treated in this film was very interesting. The way we see so many people die on screen, and yet it never felt gratuitous. It's always foreshadowed, the survivors are all, in a way, dead men walking.

There were a lot of very nice, unexpected scares. At some point after the plane crash, there's one obvious jump scare building, it's the only one you get in the movie. Every other scare is unexpected, or, rather, not telegraphed. A lot of times, you feel like everything is going to be more or less okay, but then BAM! everything goes wrong so quickly, it's startling, and it's something I feel we don't see often enough in movies. It's like in conventional American cinema, startlings and jump scares need to be telegraphed. Not in The Grey. After all, wolves don't announce that they're going to maul you beforehand.

Lastly (I shouldn't have waited this long before reviewing), I guess I liked the ending, even though a lot of people may find it unsatisfying. I feel that it really worked amazingly, it really, in a way, summarized the entire movie, and without really showing anything, just letting us understand how it ends while the credits roll. A sort of... natural ending, I guess i'd call it? One that doesn't need to be shown to be understood, one that really summarizes the whole film by itself. And the scene after the credits really makes it seem like the credits covered the rest of the ending, letting us play it in our heads. Like I said, some might find it unsatisfying, I found it perfect. 'Course, it's not a good ending, but it's the one the film needed.

The Score

The Grey was a very entertaining, surprisingly deep movie where the titular wolves are not the main attraction but a framing mechanism, a means to have the story move forward. it's a movie about people, not wolves. I give it a "Surprisingly deep" out of 10.

Movie Time: Underworld Awakening

I go to the movies very often. It's become sort of a weekly ritual with my dad, every Sunday, we go to the movie theater and watch a movie. I know we're thursday, but we were both free today and we saw this film:

Vampires vs Werewolves: Rise of the humans

I found it to be fairly entertaining if a bit silly and a bit short. i must admit that I didn't see any of the other films in the series, so I came in knowing only that it's about a crazy vampire chick who kills vampires and werewolves. The following entry will contain spoilers for the movie. So, y'know, if you want to be surprised by the scenes in which Kate Beckinsale in a black leather suit kills a bunch of people, don't read this.

In a Nutshell
Vampires and Werewolves are a thing. Humans finally wake up and discover them in the 2000s and kill them. Some vampire lady that's good at killing people is captured. She escapes and kills people and werewolves.

The Rant

Of course, i can't help but rant about this movie! After all, this is the point of this post!

firstly, maybe it's explained at theend of the previous film, but... Why didn't humans know about vampires and werewolves? They've been active for centuries and suddenly humans realize that werewolves and vampires are "A Thing" and successfully purge most of them? i don't know, it's kind of weirdly convenient. As soon as people learn of vampires BAM, no secret shit, no team of elite vampire hunter, just full-on purge.

Secondly, I found it really funny how the vampires have a culture that apparently revolves around dressing in black leather and moping around in castle replicas. I found it kind of hilarious. The vampires are just so stereotypical in that and apparently it's their culture. i mean, come on, they build their hideout in caves and it just looks like the inside of an old Gothic castle, with chandeliers and candlesticks everywhere even though their hideout is in a hydroelectric dam. And they're proud of their Gothic cultures, of course.

Moving on, I liked how this movie had a mix of practical effects and CGI, but at the same time, i couldn't decide which looked fakest, the weird werewolf costumes or the obviously CGI werewolves. The metamorphosis effects were pretty neat, though, but I feel movies ought to stick to practical effects OR CGI, not, like, use both because then you get scenes where the werewolves look completely different from those in a previous scene. 

I didn't like how the Vampires were all so easily killed by the werewolves. it's like Selene is a super special vampire that's nigh invincible and can heal from a bullet to the head with a gulp of blood, but every other vampire is just a regular dude in goth clothes. I don't think just getting their throats nibbled on should've killed all the vampires in the lair fight scenes. Then again, maybe werewolves are vampire kryptonite in the Underworld movies? I liked the lair fight scenes, especially against the giant werewolf, that had a real Castlevania feel to it, I found. 

My Score

It was entertaining, I must've burst out laughing at least three times at the sheer ridiculousness. There was lots of action, lots of violence, and there is characters that are not completely one dimensional!

I give it a "Fun" out of 5.