The List
Devil (2010)
Skyline (2010)
Unstoppable (2010)
Priest (2011)
Rise of the Apes (2011)
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
The Darkest Hour (2011)
The Roommate (2011)
Unknown (2011)
Battleship (2012)
Chronicle (2012)
Men in Black 3 (2012)
Upside Down (2012)
Man of Steel (2013)
Pacific Rim (2013)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Divergent (2014)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Godzilla (2014)
Into the Storm (2014)
The Maze Runner (2014)
Devil (2010)
Skyline (2010)
Unstoppable (2010)
Priest (2011)
Rise of the Apes (2011)
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
The Darkest Hour (2011)
The Roommate (2011)
Unknown (2011)
Battleship (2012)
Chronicle (2012)
Men in Black 3 (2012)
Upside Down (2012)
Man of Steel (2013)
Pacific Rim (2013)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Divergent (2014)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Godzilla (2014)
Into the Storm (2014)
The Maze Runner (2014)
Devil (2010)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie back in January 2012 and it looked pretty interesting. It’s mostly about a group of people who get trapped inside an elevator, which is the main thing that attracted me to the movie as the idea was so simple. I like watching movies like these, especially if I haven’t seen it before as it’s very easy to understand and get into. According to IMDB, none of these characters have actual names so I’ll just be referring to them by their clothing or hair color or whatever.
To me, it seems the movie has a religious opening, with this guy talking about the devil or whatever. He mentions that the devil likes to torture people and whatnot. As he talks about this, we get an opening shot of the city (I’m guessing New York) in an upside down view. In some ways I felt it being shot this way was interesting, but in another, a stupid way to open a film lol. It would’ve been cool to see the camera start upside down, then flip back over but no. We later find out someone randomly jumped from a building and landed on this truck. It’s investigated later on, that the person was obviously suicidal but also that they left a note behind, saying something having to do with the devil.
There’s probably another religious meaning behind this but I’m not gonna get into that. And so far, all this devil talk is beginning to tick me off lol. We then get a scene of a group of people getting inside this elevator, in the same building where the person leaped from; a black guy, an old woman, a dorky lookin dude, an average lady, and another average lookin dude. I forget what floor their on, but nothing special happens here. Pretty soon though, the elevator begins to jam. Lots of panicking in this scene, and we find out the black guy (the guard) doesn’t have a walkie talkie on him and says it’s his first week on the job or something, which brings everybody’s hopes down.
This shouldn’t come as a shock to guys like me, since in movies like this your not supposed to have easy access to a phone or other. But there’s these 2 guards watching everything from the control room and they have these 2 monitors set up. One for viewing and one, for if they wanna rewind the video. They soon send the maintenance man down to see what’s going on. They can also communicate with everyone inside through these speakers, but they can’t hear anything back, kinda like Panic Room lol. We see the maintenance man in the coming scenes turning on different switches and pulling buttons. He later decides to swing down by this cable wire (which is kinda spooky to watch, as I’m afraid of heights)
But out of nowhere these birds fly out of the sides of the shaft and he ends up falling. Looks to be about 50 feet or so and he lands on the top of the elevator! First time seeing this film, I’d thought the idea was that one of the people on this elevator was the Devil (which I’ll be getting to later on) so I started to wonder who it was. The dorky lookin dude (the salesman) isn’t really that spooked by anything that’s going on, so I’d thought he’d by my first pick. Sometimes the killer in movies is the ones you’d least expect, as not to make it obvious. He’s barely got any fear in him, as he’s making alot of jokes and whatnot, so it says to me that something is up.
Pretty soon the lights begin going out though. This happens alot in the film and everytime they go out, something bad seems to happen. In the first instance, this girl with brown hair (I’ll call her B) gets her back cut by something. In many of these instances, it doesn’t seem the guys watching the camera see this at all. All they see are the results, and they don’t see the lights go off or anything which I also thought was weird. When B gets cut, the salesman puts his hands in his pockets, trying to cover it up. At this point, I was sure he had something to do with her getting cut (again, I’ll get to this later) as he’s just trying to come off innocent. When they ask him why he’s so fidgety, he says “she fell into me” lol.
Pretty soon, one of the officers says he saw a demon at some point when the lights went off and shows it to the other one. He shows him this hideous looking face on the screen. And we can see plain as day, that it’s something that looks like a demons face. Later on, the lights go out again and another victim is taken, this time the dorky salesman. He gets stabbed in the chest, kind of outta nowhere. I guess he can’t go back home and finish his Star Wars movie lol. At this point, a few detectives have arrived and he sees this unfold. He tells the people in the elevator to try and keep calm and whatnot. The one officer at this point begins going crazy about the deaths, calling it “The Devil’s Work” and that he “Comes in many forms, including people” lol.
Of course, only in a movie would you hear a statement like this. I believe in a higher power and everything, but the devil, yea okay. I don’t think everybody that does something stupid or violent is “possessed” if anything, their just crazy lol. With 2 deaths so far one of the FBI agents comes to the conclusion that something doesn’t set well with the people on the elevator, and that it’d be stupid of any of them to kill one another knowing it’s on camera and (at this point in the film) you’ve got 100 cops outside. We later find out that everybody on the elevator, has some sort of criminal record. Not to go into specifics, but some are thieves, some are killers, etc.
Even the old lady has some type of criminal charge, which makes the officers question them even more. Later on, the lights go out and a third and fourth victim are claimed, the old lady and the guard. When the lights come back on, we see her hanging from the ceiling by a cord and the guard, slammed into the corner with his head snapped. It looks gruesome as hell! Again, the officer watching this in the control room thinks one of them is a murderer. Again, I’m not sure what the officers see in this scene as the camera doesn’t show their perspective. They never show what the officers see when the lights go off, which makes it hard to really give an opinion here.
Realistically, I don’t even know if something like this could be pulled off so easily, in a matter of 10 seconds. You can throw someone against the wall but you can’t hang somebody in 10 seconds lol. At the end of the movie, the old lady who was killed earlier rises from the floor in a spiritual sort of way. I forget what she says (alot of spiritual crap) but she convinces the last guy alive to confess that he caused the death, of the family of the same cop that’s watching the whole thing unfold in the control room. We get a few scenes of the officer talking about this, but I’m not gonna get into any of it as some of it is complicated. The guy confesses through the guard’s mic, that it was a “hit and run” and that he never told anybody until now.
The officer hears this and he begins getting emotional, and it’s understandable. I’d always thought the microphone was turned off though, since the guard could’ve used it to communicate with the officers earlier in the movie but, I guess it’s one of those “it’s a movie don’t ask” type things. Overall, this movie was pretty good. I didn’t pay attention to any of the spiritual stuff, but this movie did give me some suspense. Watching it for the first time, I had no clue that the “Devil” would be the old lady, and this movie definitely kept me on my toes. In a way, it reminds me of Phonebooth (2002) in a sense, lots of deaths are happening around the main character, showing him that the same will happen to him if he doesn’t confess his sins, and I like that aspect.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie back in January 2012 and it looked pretty interesting. It’s mostly about a group of people who get trapped inside an elevator, which is the main thing that attracted me to the movie as the idea was so simple. I like watching movies like these, especially if I haven’t seen it before as it’s very easy to understand and get into. According to IMDB, none of these characters have actual names so I’ll just be referring to them by their clothing or hair color or whatever.
To me, it seems the movie has a religious opening, with this guy talking about the devil or whatever. He mentions that the devil likes to torture people and whatnot. As he talks about this, we get an opening shot of the city (I’m guessing New York) in an upside down view. In some ways I felt it being shot this way was interesting, but in another, a stupid way to open a film lol. It would’ve been cool to see the camera start upside down, then flip back over but no. We later find out someone randomly jumped from a building and landed on this truck. It’s investigated later on, that the person was obviously suicidal but also that they left a note behind, saying something having to do with the devil.
There’s probably another religious meaning behind this but I’m not gonna get into that. And so far, all this devil talk is beginning to tick me off lol. We then get a scene of a group of people getting inside this elevator, in the same building where the person leaped from; a black guy, an old woman, a dorky lookin dude, an average lady, and another average lookin dude. I forget what floor their on, but nothing special happens here. Pretty soon though, the elevator begins to jam. Lots of panicking in this scene, and we find out the black guy (the guard) doesn’t have a walkie talkie on him and says it’s his first week on the job or something, which brings everybody’s hopes down.
This shouldn’t come as a shock to guys like me, since in movies like this your not supposed to have easy access to a phone or other. But there’s these 2 guards watching everything from the control room and they have these 2 monitors set up. One for viewing and one, for if they wanna rewind the video. They soon send the maintenance man down to see what’s going on. They can also communicate with everyone inside through these speakers, but they can’t hear anything back, kinda like Panic Room lol. We see the maintenance man in the coming scenes turning on different switches and pulling buttons. He later decides to swing down by this cable wire (which is kinda spooky to watch, as I’m afraid of heights)
But out of nowhere these birds fly out of the sides of the shaft and he ends up falling. Looks to be about 50 feet or so and he lands on the top of the elevator! First time seeing this film, I’d thought the idea was that one of the people on this elevator was the Devil (which I’ll be getting to later on) so I started to wonder who it was. The dorky lookin dude (the salesman) isn’t really that spooked by anything that’s going on, so I’d thought he’d by my first pick. Sometimes the killer in movies is the ones you’d least expect, as not to make it obvious. He’s barely got any fear in him, as he’s making alot of jokes and whatnot, so it says to me that something is up.
Pretty soon the lights begin going out though. This happens alot in the film and everytime they go out, something bad seems to happen. In the first instance, this girl with brown hair (I’ll call her B) gets her back cut by something. In many of these instances, it doesn’t seem the guys watching the camera see this at all. All they see are the results, and they don’t see the lights go off or anything which I also thought was weird. When B gets cut, the salesman puts his hands in his pockets, trying to cover it up. At this point, I was sure he had something to do with her getting cut (again, I’ll get to this later) as he’s just trying to come off innocent. When they ask him why he’s so fidgety, he says “she fell into me” lol.
Pretty soon, one of the officers says he saw a demon at some point when the lights went off and shows it to the other one. He shows him this hideous looking face on the screen. And we can see plain as day, that it’s something that looks like a demons face. Later on, the lights go out again and another victim is taken, this time the dorky salesman. He gets stabbed in the chest, kind of outta nowhere. I guess he can’t go back home and finish his Star Wars movie lol. At this point, a few detectives have arrived and he sees this unfold. He tells the people in the elevator to try and keep calm and whatnot. The one officer at this point begins going crazy about the deaths, calling it “The Devil’s Work” and that he “Comes in many forms, including people” lol.
Of course, only in a movie would you hear a statement like this. I believe in a higher power and everything, but the devil, yea okay. I don’t think everybody that does something stupid or violent is “possessed” if anything, their just crazy lol. With 2 deaths so far one of the FBI agents comes to the conclusion that something doesn’t set well with the people on the elevator, and that it’d be stupid of any of them to kill one another knowing it’s on camera and (at this point in the film) you’ve got 100 cops outside. We later find out that everybody on the elevator, has some sort of criminal record. Not to go into specifics, but some are thieves, some are killers, etc.
Even the old lady has some type of criminal charge, which makes the officers question them even more. Later on, the lights go out and a third and fourth victim are claimed, the old lady and the guard. When the lights come back on, we see her hanging from the ceiling by a cord and the guard, slammed into the corner with his head snapped. It looks gruesome as hell! Again, the officer watching this in the control room thinks one of them is a murderer. Again, I’m not sure what the officers see in this scene as the camera doesn’t show their perspective. They never show what the officers see when the lights go off, which makes it hard to really give an opinion here.
Realistically, I don’t even know if something like this could be pulled off so easily, in a matter of 10 seconds. You can throw someone against the wall but you can’t hang somebody in 10 seconds lol. At the end of the movie, the old lady who was killed earlier rises from the floor in a spiritual sort of way. I forget what she says (alot of spiritual crap) but she convinces the last guy alive to confess that he caused the death, of the family of the same cop that’s watching the whole thing unfold in the control room. We get a few scenes of the officer talking about this, but I’m not gonna get into any of it as some of it is complicated. The guy confesses through the guard’s mic, that it was a “hit and run” and that he never told anybody until now.
The officer hears this and he begins getting emotional, and it’s understandable. I’d always thought the microphone was turned off though, since the guard could’ve used it to communicate with the officers earlier in the movie but, I guess it’s one of those “it’s a movie don’t ask” type things. Overall, this movie was pretty good. I didn’t pay attention to any of the spiritual stuff, but this movie did give me some suspense. Watching it for the first time, I had no clue that the “Devil” would be the old lady, and this movie definitely kept me on my toes. In a way, it reminds me of Phonebooth (2002) in a sense, lots of deaths are happening around the main character, showing him that the same will happen to him if he doesn’t confess his sins, and I like that aspect.
Skyline (2010)
The trailer for this film looked pretty cool and apocalyptic, so I had to check it out. By this point in my movie reviewing venture, I still gotta play it safe cause I’ve come across dozens of movies with awesome trailers but turned out being crappy films. It’s kinda hard to tell from the trailer what exactly this film is about, but from a distance it just looked like aliens were landing and blowing the world up, which was good enough for me. I actually did read a few reviews for this movie before seeing it (which is rare) and alot of people didn’t like it. But I try not to let that go to my head, cause there’s alot of badly reviewed films that I love.
The start of the film opens with this cool intro, showing the city and everything. I’m guessing we’re in New York, which is where all the big movies are made and the buildings are pretty tall. Not even 10 seconds into the movie, this blue-ish light appears from the sky and we see these enormous round things falling from the clouds. This is one of the things that caught my attention from the trailer, these big blue things falling down to the city cause they look pretty amazing. We later meet this woman named Elaine and her boyfriend Jarrod, who are both awakened by the noise these round things are causing.
They don’t really question each other about what’s going on (which is weird) but he walks out of the room, slowly. He enters the living room, where this blue light shines through the window, lighting up his body. It looks like it’s beginning to burn his skin, but we don’t find out what happens next cause we’re now brought 15 hours into the past. So the opening scene was one of those prequel-type things. And I’ll admit, there’s only a few movies out there that use this technique (House of Sand and Fog, to name one) but it just doesn’t work in a movie like this cause quite frankly, it’s not even that good of a movie, but I’ll get to why later on.
So anyway, we see Jarrod and Elaine on a plane, looking at pictures. You can tell from this scene alone that this is gonna be a pretty bland movie, cause neither of them say anything important and there’s just no personality at all. But we find out their meeting this guy named “T-money” who supposedly is some rich artist or something. When I found this out, I immediately put my trash can next to my chair just in case I felt like barfing, but yea, it’s pretty cheesy. We later see him and Elaine getting a ride over in a nice looking black Bentley. They arrive at this huge penthouse and take the elevator up to his room.
We get a few shots of T in the coming scenes but I’m gonna ignore all these cause their so cheesy. He mainly struts around the pool area with his “rich boy” attitude. At one point he claims it’s his birthday, but nobody cares about that (not me anyway) They get inside his room and chat for a bit. T begins talking to Elaine and he asks her how she’s “treating my boy” lol. And then he later suggests “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it” which is one of the cheesiest lines I’ve heard in a movie. We later meet more dull characters, but the only one worth mentioning is this girl named Denise, who I think is pretty cute.
As they sit by the pool and talk, they spot a few helicopters flying over them. T makes a cocky little joke here about them but there’s no need to mention that either. But we as the audience sure know what those helicopters are gonna be used for, hopefully. So we get more scenes of T and Jarrod talking in a club. At one point T asks him to come stay with him in LA, so I guess that’s what state this takes place in. Whenever I see tall buildings in a movie, I think of New York, but no big deal. Jarrod later goes and talks to his girlfriend Elaine in her room. She basically tells him she’s pregnant, which is another one of those cheesy scenes that nobody cares about.
We get more scenes of blue aliens landing outside from the window. Scenes like this are so cool but when we jump back to the boring cast, it makes you wanna fall asleep. One random guy begins walking towards the light, which shines through the hotel window all over his body. Like Jarrod, his skin begins to burn as he walks closer towards the light. I’ll mention this now cause it happens alot in future scenes and I don’t feel like waiting; whenever this happens, the people that this blue light captures, they usually stand still, like their paralyzed. So the blue light might be filled with some type of hypnosis gas or something.
But anyway, eventually this guy (whatever his name is) gets yanked out the room and towards the light. Jarrod and Elaine wake up, and this is where the first scene took place. But again, this technique just doesn’t work in a movie like this cause the cast just isn’t that memorable. So Jarrod walks towards the light this time, and he too looks like he’s about to get yanked off until he’s pulled to the ground by the others. The scars are still on his body, which look like burn marks. When they ask him what happened, he says “It felt like I was being pulled towards the light” Well duh, we all saw that! Pretty soon T and Jarrod decide to take a closer look at these things. So T brings a gun with him and they both run up to the roof of the apartment complex.
When they reach the top, we get a nice view of the city and the clouds. We see about 5-6 enormous spaceships hovering around the city. I’ll admit, this scene is pretty cool, especially the scene of the 2 of them standing in the middle of the roof with the clouds behind them. Eventually, the ships use their suction devices and begin yanking thousands of people off the ground and into their ships. This scene is pretty cool too. Eventually the two of them run off and gather the others. All 6 of them race into the parking lot, taking a total of 2 cars while the other one follows behind.
The first car to reach the front is T and Denise. The second they exit, both of them get stomped on by this huge foot! We don’t see the top, but it looks like a huge dinosaur / alien creature. Like something from Cloverfield lol. This is just one of about 5 other creatures terrorizing the city, but I can honestly say that Cloverfield was so much better, even though there was only one monster. It’s a combination of better actors, and overall just better presentation of the whole movie. What sucks about this scene is that Denise (the cute one) is now gone, so now I got nobody cute to stare at. The other 2 girls are decent but their not that cute, to me anyway.
When the creature lifts the car up, T falls out to the floor and begins shooting at it with his pistol lol. The creature ends up taking him and putting him in (what I guess) is his mouth. But that’s what happens when you try to shoot at a 500 foot monster with a pistol! Sucks for him cause today was his birthday too. Eventually they hookup with this fat guy named Oliver, and the rest of the film is alot of running around and trying to elude the monster. There’s alot of hotel swapping and pointless talking and arguing. A day does go by in the midst of all this boring talk and we don’t even see them eating anything; we see them walking around, talking, and smoking cigarette’s but no eating. I’m surprised Oliver wasn’t the first to ask when he could get a snack, as large as he is.
We later get a few scenes of army planes arriving, finally. We see them flying towards the alien ships and shooting missiles and everything. But they get taken down in a matter of seconds by these little minions that the ship sends off. The last plane destroyed does manage to fire off one bomb, which is magically able to hit the alien ship lol. The amount of cheese in this film is unbearable. So the whole ship explodes (caused by one puny little missile) and it crashes down and pummels towards the ground, which is pretty cool. At this point, I’m thinking the movies over; not only cause I want it to be over by this point, but because the ship is down. But no, the director wants to torture us some more as we later find out the aliens are still alive.
Jarrod and Elaine soon run to the rooftops again. Cause after what we just saw, the rooftop just seems to be the safest place at this point lol. The aliens (which look like blue jellyfish) surround them on the roof. Jarrod gets attacked by one of them, which bites his leg while grabbing his head at the same time. It holds his head up high and puts it’s fingers all over him. It looks like it wants to rip his eyes out, but Elaine stabs it from behind with an axe! The alien then attacks her and Jarrod saves her too (how cheesy) He gets it on the ground and begins punching the hell out of it. The scene is pretty cool but also kinda funny, in a weird way. As he punches it, we see dark blood and flesh popping out, but nothing too graphic.
After killing the alien, the two of them sit together on the roof and hug. She tells him “I’m not going anywhere without you” which is like the 3rd cheesiest line in this movie. The guy that wrote this film probably gathered all the cheesy lines he could find and threw them all in one movie, but I don’t know why. Eventually the 2 of them get sucked into a ship, which looks alot like The Matrix with all these bugs and worms crawling around. Some of them are taking people’s brains out and implanting them in robots, which is probably why they needed humans. Eventually one of them tries to take Elaine’s baby, but she gets rescued by Jarrod (who is now an alien himself) but the ending is pretty cool, for a film that could’ve been so much better.
Overall this was a decent film, but that’s about it. The main thing that killed this movie was the actors. Their not necessarily bad, but their not good either, and (especially T) they just say the cheesiest things. But you can blame all that on the screenwriter. This film would’ve been awesome if the dialogue was rewritten without an ounce of cheesiness, but it sure as hell beats District 9. This is the type of movie I expected District 9 to be, cause they both use the same exact alien ship. But this film uses it the right way and doesn’t give the audience a boring unfunny character walking around silly and being dumb. My version of this film would again remove alot of the cheesiness, and I’d just have the spaceships floating around the city, zapping and destroying buildings while they get attacked by airplanes.
The trailer for this film looked pretty cool and apocalyptic, so I had to check it out. By this point in my movie reviewing venture, I still gotta play it safe cause I’ve come across dozens of movies with awesome trailers but turned out being crappy films. It’s kinda hard to tell from the trailer what exactly this film is about, but from a distance it just looked like aliens were landing and blowing the world up, which was good enough for me. I actually did read a few reviews for this movie before seeing it (which is rare) and alot of people didn’t like it. But I try not to let that go to my head, cause there’s alot of badly reviewed films that I love.
The start of the film opens with this cool intro, showing the city and everything. I’m guessing we’re in New York, which is where all the big movies are made and the buildings are pretty tall. Not even 10 seconds into the movie, this blue-ish light appears from the sky and we see these enormous round things falling from the clouds. This is one of the things that caught my attention from the trailer, these big blue things falling down to the city cause they look pretty amazing. We later meet this woman named Elaine and her boyfriend Jarrod, who are both awakened by the noise these round things are causing.
They don’t really question each other about what’s going on (which is weird) but he walks out of the room, slowly. He enters the living room, where this blue light shines through the window, lighting up his body. It looks like it’s beginning to burn his skin, but we don’t find out what happens next cause we’re now brought 15 hours into the past. So the opening scene was one of those prequel-type things. And I’ll admit, there’s only a few movies out there that use this technique (House of Sand and Fog, to name one) but it just doesn’t work in a movie like this cause quite frankly, it’s not even that good of a movie, but I’ll get to why later on.
So anyway, we see Jarrod and Elaine on a plane, looking at pictures. You can tell from this scene alone that this is gonna be a pretty bland movie, cause neither of them say anything important and there’s just no personality at all. But we find out their meeting this guy named “T-money” who supposedly is some rich artist or something. When I found this out, I immediately put my trash can next to my chair just in case I felt like barfing, but yea, it’s pretty cheesy. We later see him and Elaine getting a ride over in a nice looking black Bentley. They arrive at this huge penthouse and take the elevator up to his room.
We get a few shots of T in the coming scenes but I’m gonna ignore all these cause their so cheesy. He mainly struts around the pool area with his “rich boy” attitude. At one point he claims it’s his birthday, but nobody cares about that (not me anyway) They get inside his room and chat for a bit. T begins talking to Elaine and he asks her how she’s “treating my boy” lol. And then he later suggests “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it” which is one of the cheesiest lines I’ve heard in a movie. We later meet more dull characters, but the only one worth mentioning is this girl named Denise, who I think is pretty cute.
As they sit by the pool and talk, they spot a few helicopters flying over them. T makes a cocky little joke here about them but there’s no need to mention that either. But we as the audience sure know what those helicopters are gonna be used for, hopefully. So we get more scenes of T and Jarrod talking in a club. At one point T asks him to come stay with him in LA, so I guess that’s what state this takes place in. Whenever I see tall buildings in a movie, I think of New York, but no big deal. Jarrod later goes and talks to his girlfriend Elaine in her room. She basically tells him she’s pregnant, which is another one of those cheesy scenes that nobody cares about.
We get more scenes of blue aliens landing outside from the window. Scenes like this are so cool but when we jump back to the boring cast, it makes you wanna fall asleep. One random guy begins walking towards the light, which shines through the hotel window all over his body. Like Jarrod, his skin begins to burn as he walks closer towards the light. I’ll mention this now cause it happens alot in future scenes and I don’t feel like waiting; whenever this happens, the people that this blue light captures, they usually stand still, like their paralyzed. So the blue light might be filled with some type of hypnosis gas or something.
But anyway, eventually this guy (whatever his name is) gets yanked out the room and towards the light. Jarrod and Elaine wake up, and this is where the first scene took place. But again, this technique just doesn’t work in a movie like this cause the cast just isn’t that memorable. So Jarrod walks towards the light this time, and he too looks like he’s about to get yanked off until he’s pulled to the ground by the others. The scars are still on his body, which look like burn marks. When they ask him what happened, he says “It felt like I was being pulled towards the light” Well duh, we all saw that! Pretty soon T and Jarrod decide to take a closer look at these things. So T brings a gun with him and they both run up to the roof of the apartment complex.
When they reach the top, we get a nice view of the city and the clouds. We see about 5-6 enormous spaceships hovering around the city. I’ll admit, this scene is pretty cool, especially the scene of the 2 of them standing in the middle of the roof with the clouds behind them. Eventually, the ships use their suction devices and begin yanking thousands of people off the ground and into their ships. This scene is pretty cool too. Eventually the two of them run off and gather the others. All 6 of them race into the parking lot, taking a total of 2 cars while the other one follows behind.
The first car to reach the front is T and Denise. The second they exit, both of them get stomped on by this huge foot! We don’t see the top, but it looks like a huge dinosaur / alien creature. Like something from Cloverfield lol. This is just one of about 5 other creatures terrorizing the city, but I can honestly say that Cloverfield was so much better, even though there was only one monster. It’s a combination of better actors, and overall just better presentation of the whole movie. What sucks about this scene is that Denise (the cute one) is now gone, so now I got nobody cute to stare at. The other 2 girls are decent but their not that cute, to me anyway.
When the creature lifts the car up, T falls out to the floor and begins shooting at it with his pistol lol. The creature ends up taking him and putting him in (what I guess) is his mouth. But that’s what happens when you try to shoot at a 500 foot monster with a pistol! Sucks for him cause today was his birthday too. Eventually they hookup with this fat guy named Oliver, and the rest of the film is alot of running around and trying to elude the monster. There’s alot of hotel swapping and pointless talking and arguing. A day does go by in the midst of all this boring talk and we don’t even see them eating anything; we see them walking around, talking, and smoking cigarette’s but no eating. I’m surprised Oliver wasn’t the first to ask when he could get a snack, as large as he is.
We later get a few scenes of army planes arriving, finally. We see them flying towards the alien ships and shooting missiles and everything. But they get taken down in a matter of seconds by these little minions that the ship sends off. The last plane destroyed does manage to fire off one bomb, which is magically able to hit the alien ship lol. The amount of cheese in this film is unbearable. So the whole ship explodes (caused by one puny little missile) and it crashes down and pummels towards the ground, which is pretty cool. At this point, I’m thinking the movies over; not only cause I want it to be over by this point, but because the ship is down. But no, the director wants to torture us some more as we later find out the aliens are still alive.
Jarrod and Elaine soon run to the rooftops again. Cause after what we just saw, the rooftop just seems to be the safest place at this point lol. The aliens (which look like blue jellyfish) surround them on the roof. Jarrod gets attacked by one of them, which bites his leg while grabbing his head at the same time. It holds his head up high and puts it’s fingers all over him. It looks like it wants to rip his eyes out, but Elaine stabs it from behind with an axe! The alien then attacks her and Jarrod saves her too (how cheesy) He gets it on the ground and begins punching the hell out of it. The scene is pretty cool but also kinda funny, in a weird way. As he punches it, we see dark blood and flesh popping out, but nothing too graphic.
After killing the alien, the two of them sit together on the roof and hug. She tells him “I’m not going anywhere without you” which is like the 3rd cheesiest line in this movie. The guy that wrote this film probably gathered all the cheesy lines he could find and threw them all in one movie, but I don’t know why. Eventually the 2 of them get sucked into a ship, which looks alot like The Matrix with all these bugs and worms crawling around. Some of them are taking people’s brains out and implanting them in robots, which is probably why they needed humans. Eventually one of them tries to take Elaine’s baby, but she gets rescued by Jarrod (who is now an alien himself) but the ending is pretty cool, for a film that could’ve been so much better.
Overall this was a decent film, but that’s about it. The main thing that killed this movie was the actors. Their not necessarily bad, but their not good either, and (especially T) they just say the cheesiest things. But you can blame all that on the screenwriter. This film would’ve been awesome if the dialogue was rewritten without an ounce of cheesiness, but it sure as hell beats District 9. This is the type of movie I expected District 9 to be, cause they both use the same exact alien ship. But this film uses it the right way and doesn’t give the audience a boring unfunny character walking around silly and being dumb. My version of this film would again remove alot of the cheesiness, and I’d just have the spaceships floating around the city, zapping and destroying buildings while they get attacked by airplanes.
Unstoppable (2010)
I used to catch this movie on cable sometimes, and thought it was good enough to watch. The main reason was the simple concept of stopping a train. So yea, it’s about two men (one of whom is many years younger than the other) who’ve gotta work together to stop a train. They hook up in the beginning and there’s alot of small talk here and a few arguments, but they both soon find out there’s a train headed their way. So they’ve gotta put their differences to the side for the moment, and work together to stop it.
Sometimes I look at the opening credits in a movie, and sometimes I don’t. But at the start of this movie it says it’s “based on true events” which I think is cool. It’s cool knowing a situation like this actually happened, whenever that was. In the beginning we meet a man in his 20’s by the name of Will, just waking up from the couch. Nothing too special about him, but we later find out he and his wife are going through a troubling time, and I get the sense that he’s sleeping on the couch for this very reason lol. He soon hooks up with a man named Frank (Denzel Washington) He’s a pretty good actor, and he’s part of the reason this movie interested me.
He did a great job in his role in Remember the Titans (2000) with his whole take-charge attitude as the coach. And we can definitely see similarities of that in this movie as well; his attitude and how he and Will communicate through the film. It definitely gets cheesy after awhile, cause the take-charge roles that Denzel does take up half of his imdb credits but whatever. I don’t like all of them, but there are a few good ones. So anyway in their first meeting, Will also meets a few of Frank’s friends, who are also in their 40’s I’m guessing. They look at Will as a youngster, not thinking he has what it takes to handle huge trains like this but he rubs it off and we see the two of them beginning to get acquainted.
These beginning scenes with Frank and Will are pretty relaxing actually. They have a few conversations while they ride along in the train, most of which revolve around Will’s bad marriage and Frank’s daughter working at Hooters. It’s a nice balance I’d say; one has a wife and no kids, the other has kids and no wife. Frank is also nice enough to give him a few suggestions later in the film about how to make things right since he’s more experienced, and he also scolds him a few times about managing these trains since he’s much older and experienced. We later meet 2 other men, who I recognize from various other films; The fat one is from Mr Woodcock (2007) and the other is from Cloverfield (2008)
But one of them ends up accidentally mobilizing the train and is too late to jump back in and stop it. Will and Frank have no idea this is going on, and in some of their later scenes we see them arguing a bit. Most of these arguments revolve around Will not listening to him. Frank (being the older and more experienced of the two) tries to give him some tips or whatever but he just brushes them off. Will claims in many scenes to lay off his ass and cut him some slack, which is understandable. He’s in his 20’s and doesn’t wanna feel like a child, kinda like myself when I’m around my mother.
It’s kinda hard to tell what Will and Frank’s jobs are, but I think their job is to ride around in the trains and drop stuff off. But it looks like a pretty simple job to me, and very relaxing since it looks as though they just sit around while the train chugs along and pull a few levers here and there. Soon, a woman named Connie arrives and she finds out from the 2 knuckleheads, that the train is on the loose. So we get a bunch of scenes of her in the control room, communicating with them through walkie talkie, telling Frank and Will where the trains are headed. It’s at this point where all the arguing stops, and they realize they’ve gotta work together to stop this thing before it causes major damage.
I checked online and on average, they say each train cart weighs about 200 tons. But when you include 10 of these, it’s obviously alot more. They later get this old dude named Ned to go over and flip the switch on the train to make it go in a different direction. He’s a country guy with a long ponytail and kinda reminds me of a skinnier version of Mickey Rourke from Killshot (2008) especially his clothes. He goes over to the switch to change the path of the train, but when he gets there, he realizes the train’s already passed. News people soon arrive and they begin their stories and whatnot, with the unsupervised train ending up on the news. We later get a scene of a group of police officers shooting at the train and tryin to hit the off switch, but they soon realize it’s filled with explosives (ironically) and don’t wanna risk anything.
They then try and land this dude on top of it by helicopter, but this doesn’t work either and he gets slammed into one of the windows, knocking him out cold lol. In reality, I wonder how you’d actually be able stop a train that doesn’t have someone at the wheel. But then again there are explosives on the back, so you’d have to be very careful with whatever idea you think up. Frank soon decides to chase after the train himself and after some arguing with Will, he agrees to help. In these scenes, I guess you get the feeling their trying to trust each other, even though Will is still a bit annoyed by him.
The plan is to jump on the top of the train while it’s moving and get inside. There’s alot of suspense in these scenes, most definitely. Frank soon puts a mask and jacket on, and hops on the top of the train, jumping from cart to cart. These scenes give me chills! He’s soon stopped by a huge gap in the middle, but Ned soon arrives in a truck with Will inside. They pull up to the front of the train and Will takes a few seconds to prepare his jump. This is another scene that gives me chills, which is a hard thing to do as I’ve seen countless scenes like this in other movies. After some hesitation, he ends up jumping from the truck to the front door of the train, and slowly bringing it to a halt!
Everybody watching the news (including Will’s wife, Frank’s daughter and other bystanders) cheer them on excitedly once the train is taken control of. Frank also cheers him on, and again you get a feeling of triumph here; cause most of this film is about trust, especially the scenes in the beginning where we see them arguing about how Will handles the trains. It’s obvious now, that they can trust each other, after such a huge obstacle like this. At the end of the movie, we see everybody at this little celebration meeting, being honored for bravery. Overall, this was a pretty decent movie. The suspense is cool and the dialogue is pretty good. I also love the spinning camera work as well.
I used to catch this movie on cable sometimes, and thought it was good enough to watch. The main reason was the simple concept of stopping a train. So yea, it’s about two men (one of whom is many years younger than the other) who’ve gotta work together to stop a train. They hook up in the beginning and there’s alot of small talk here and a few arguments, but they both soon find out there’s a train headed their way. So they’ve gotta put their differences to the side for the moment, and work together to stop it.
Sometimes I look at the opening credits in a movie, and sometimes I don’t. But at the start of this movie it says it’s “based on true events” which I think is cool. It’s cool knowing a situation like this actually happened, whenever that was. In the beginning we meet a man in his 20’s by the name of Will, just waking up from the couch. Nothing too special about him, but we later find out he and his wife are going through a troubling time, and I get the sense that he’s sleeping on the couch for this very reason lol. He soon hooks up with a man named Frank (Denzel Washington) He’s a pretty good actor, and he’s part of the reason this movie interested me.
He did a great job in his role in Remember the Titans (2000) with his whole take-charge attitude as the coach. And we can definitely see similarities of that in this movie as well; his attitude and how he and Will communicate through the film. It definitely gets cheesy after awhile, cause the take-charge roles that Denzel does take up half of his imdb credits but whatever. I don’t like all of them, but there are a few good ones. So anyway in their first meeting, Will also meets a few of Frank’s friends, who are also in their 40’s I’m guessing. They look at Will as a youngster, not thinking he has what it takes to handle huge trains like this but he rubs it off and we see the two of them beginning to get acquainted.
These beginning scenes with Frank and Will are pretty relaxing actually. They have a few conversations while they ride along in the train, most of which revolve around Will’s bad marriage and Frank’s daughter working at Hooters. It’s a nice balance I’d say; one has a wife and no kids, the other has kids and no wife. Frank is also nice enough to give him a few suggestions later in the film about how to make things right since he’s more experienced, and he also scolds him a few times about managing these trains since he’s much older and experienced. We later meet 2 other men, who I recognize from various other films; The fat one is from Mr Woodcock (2007) and the other is from Cloverfield (2008)
But one of them ends up accidentally mobilizing the train and is too late to jump back in and stop it. Will and Frank have no idea this is going on, and in some of their later scenes we see them arguing a bit. Most of these arguments revolve around Will not listening to him. Frank (being the older and more experienced of the two) tries to give him some tips or whatever but he just brushes them off. Will claims in many scenes to lay off his ass and cut him some slack, which is understandable. He’s in his 20’s and doesn’t wanna feel like a child, kinda like myself when I’m around my mother.
It’s kinda hard to tell what Will and Frank’s jobs are, but I think their job is to ride around in the trains and drop stuff off. But it looks like a pretty simple job to me, and very relaxing since it looks as though they just sit around while the train chugs along and pull a few levers here and there. Soon, a woman named Connie arrives and she finds out from the 2 knuckleheads, that the train is on the loose. So we get a bunch of scenes of her in the control room, communicating with them through walkie talkie, telling Frank and Will where the trains are headed. It’s at this point where all the arguing stops, and they realize they’ve gotta work together to stop this thing before it causes major damage.
I checked online and on average, they say each train cart weighs about 200 tons. But when you include 10 of these, it’s obviously alot more. They later get this old dude named Ned to go over and flip the switch on the train to make it go in a different direction. He’s a country guy with a long ponytail and kinda reminds me of a skinnier version of Mickey Rourke from Killshot (2008) especially his clothes. He goes over to the switch to change the path of the train, but when he gets there, he realizes the train’s already passed. News people soon arrive and they begin their stories and whatnot, with the unsupervised train ending up on the news. We later get a scene of a group of police officers shooting at the train and tryin to hit the off switch, but they soon realize it’s filled with explosives (ironically) and don’t wanna risk anything.
They then try and land this dude on top of it by helicopter, but this doesn’t work either and he gets slammed into one of the windows, knocking him out cold lol. In reality, I wonder how you’d actually be able stop a train that doesn’t have someone at the wheel. But then again there are explosives on the back, so you’d have to be very careful with whatever idea you think up. Frank soon decides to chase after the train himself and after some arguing with Will, he agrees to help. In these scenes, I guess you get the feeling their trying to trust each other, even though Will is still a bit annoyed by him.
The plan is to jump on the top of the train while it’s moving and get inside. There’s alot of suspense in these scenes, most definitely. Frank soon puts a mask and jacket on, and hops on the top of the train, jumping from cart to cart. These scenes give me chills! He’s soon stopped by a huge gap in the middle, but Ned soon arrives in a truck with Will inside. They pull up to the front of the train and Will takes a few seconds to prepare his jump. This is another scene that gives me chills, which is a hard thing to do as I’ve seen countless scenes like this in other movies. After some hesitation, he ends up jumping from the truck to the front door of the train, and slowly bringing it to a halt!
Everybody watching the news (including Will’s wife, Frank’s daughter and other bystanders) cheer them on excitedly once the train is taken control of. Frank also cheers him on, and again you get a feeling of triumph here; cause most of this film is about trust, especially the scenes in the beginning where we see them arguing about how Will handles the trains. It’s obvious now, that they can trust each other, after such a huge obstacle like this. At the end of the movie, we see everybody at this little celebration meeting, being honored for bravery. Overall, this was a pretty decent movie. The suspense is cool and the dialogue is pretty good. I also love the spinning camera work as well.
Priest (2011)
I actually saw the trailer for this movie, but wasn’t too impressed. This movie supposedly, is either a prequel or sequel to Legion (2009) so I figured, why not watch it since it’s my favorite horror movie. Although both star the same actor (Paul Bettany) and directed by the same person, neither film looks like the other. This is also a movie in which there’s scriptures and religious stuff passed along every 5 seconds, the kind of stuff that annoys me. I let is slide in Legion (since that movie kicked ass) but for this movie, I can’t let it slide too much. It’s annoying as hell actually. And it took me till the end of the movie to actually realize what the heck this movie was about. But it’s basically about this Priest (P) and his mission to find this little girl.
At the start of the film we get a bunch of religious hocus-pocus talk from this old dude (he’s like, the ruler of this underground place) We later get a scene of this family eating dinner at the table and praying. The daughter in this scene is pretty cute. Immediately when their done, a group of creatures storm through the window and attack, though it’s not shown on camera (dammit) We soon see P talking to these underground rulers again. P tells them he wants to go and find the little girl but they all tell him not to, as that would be “against gods will” or something like this. P shouldn’t be worried about that, cause he did the same thing in Legion. Look at his criminal record lol.
We later find out the guy that took the little girl, his name (according to IMDB) is called Black Hat, which I think is a dumb name. I’ll call him V for Vampire, since he’s got the teeth and everything. I’m not a fan of these creatures either, that’s why I never liked the Twilight series (and this is no disrespect) cause vampires do have this sick look goin on, but there’s also a cheesiness to them that I don’t like at all. So anyway, we get alot of scenes of P killing these big ugly beasts, which I think are the same animals that attacked the little girl’s family. Some of these scenes keep me awake, so that’s a plus I guess. The creatures are about the same size as dogs, but their more menacing and some have no eyes lol.
Most of the fighting scenes are in slow motion too, kind of like the Matrix. He later hooks up with this young guy named Hicks, who I recognize in a few other cheesy date movies. Atleast he finally got one non-cheesy role in his acting career! So we get alot of scenes of them riding around in motorcycles. The motorcycles we see them in look pretty sick I’ll admit, and brings me back to the Terminator series for a moment. I keep thinking this movie is set in the future, though I’m unsure what year. Some of the environments remind me of a video game called Killzone 2; very dark, worn down, dry and gritty looking.
The word “familiar” is used alot too, when the little girl is being mentioned. I only know of this word from playing this computer game called Lands of Lore 3 (1999) and it describes someone who follows you around and helps you. At the end of the movie, P and his team of other priests (whatever the heck their called) chase after this train in these cool looking bikes. This is one of the high points in the film, but it was a 1 hour battle of staying awake to see it lol. P and V battle it out here on top of the train, but it’s nothing more than a decent fight. V has these cowboy clothes on too. He’s like a mix between Wolverine and Indiana Jones or somethin lol. While they fight on top of the train, one of P’s other henchmen (some woman) shows up.
She’s fighting these dudes on bikes and I’d thought this scene would’ve interested me, but it didn’t. She knocks them off their bikes, but we never see them hit the ground, which really sucks! She either shoots them in the air or they disappear or something randomly, which I felt was kinda stupid. There’s about 5 of em, and I would’ve liked to have seen atleast one of em fall off the bike, with no special effects involved and have their head smack on the pavement or something. She eventually ends up blowing the train up by planting these bombs on the tracks and although I’m a fan of explosions, it does nothing to help this film.
Overall, this was nothing more than an average flick. One scene that really stood out though, is my man Brad Dourif. I almost forgot he was in this movie, as I’ve looked at his IMDB filmography about 100 times lol. The second I heard his voice it woke me right up, and he’s still got that low gritty growl of his. But in his short little scene, he (like myself) talks about his hate towards vampires and I agree, they suck! Most of this film just seems to me, like a bunch of running back and forth pointless stuff and I just couldn’t keep awake long enough. The bikes are cool, the explosions are okay, but the film was actually pretty boring to me.
I actually saw the trailer for this movie, but wasn’t too impressed. This movie supposedly, is either a prequel or sequel to Legion (2009) so I figured, why not watch it since it’s my favorite horror movie. Although both star the same actor (Paul Bettany) and directed by the same person, neither film looks like the other. This is also a movie in which there’s scriptures and religious stuff passed along every 5 seconds, the kind of stuff that annoys me. I let is slide in Legion (since that movie kicked ass) but for this movie, I can’t let it slide too much. It’s annoying as hell actually. And it took me till the end of the movie to actually realize what the heck this movie was about. But it’s basically about this Priest (P) and his mission to find this little girl.
At the start of the film we get a bunch of religious hocus-pocus talk from this old dude (he’s like, the ruler of this underground place) We later get a scene of this family eating dinner at the table and praying. The daughter in this scene is pretty cute. Immediately when their done, a group of creatures storm through the window and attack, though it’s not shown on camera (dammit) We soon see P talking to these underground rulers again. P tells them he wants to go and find the little girl but they all tell him not to, as that would be “against gods will” or something like this. P shouldn’t be worried about that, cause he did the same thing in Legion. Look at his criminal record lol.
We later find out the guy that took the little girl, his name (according to IMDB) is called Black Hat, which I think is a dumb name. I’ll call him V for Vampire, since he’s got the teeth and everything. I’m not a fan of these creatures either, that’s why I never liked the Twilight series (and this is no disrespect) cause vampires do have this sick look goin on, but there’s also a cheesiness to them that I don’t like at all. So anyway, we get alot of scenes of P killing these big ugly beasts, which I think are the same animals that attacked the little girl’s family. Some of these scenes keep me awake, so that’s a plus I guess. The creatures are about the same size as dogs, but their more menacing and some have no eyes lol.
Most of the fighting scenes are in slow motion too, kind of like the Matrix. He later hooks up with this young guy named Hicks, who I recognize in a few other cheesy date movies. Atleast he finally got one non-cheesy role in his acting career! So we get alot of scenes of them riding around in motorcycles. The motorcycles we see them in look pretty sick I’ll admit, and brings me back to the Terminator series for a moment. I keep thinking this movie is set in the future, though I’m unsure what year. Some of the environments remind me of a video game called Killzone 2; very dark, worn down, dry and gritty looking.
The word “familiar” is used alot too, when the little girl is being mentioned. I only know of this word from playing this computer game called Lands of Lore 3 (1999) and it describes someone who follows you around and helps you. At the end of the movie, P and his team of other priests (whatever the heck their called) chase after this train in these cool looking bikes. This is one of the high points in the film, but it was a 1 hour battle of staying awake to see it lol. P and V battle it out here on top of the train, but it’s nothing more than a decent fight. V has these cowboy clothes on too. He’s like a mix between Wolverine and Indiana Jones or somethin lol. While they fight on top of the train, one of P’s other henchmen (some woman) shows up.
She’s fighting these dudes on bikes and I’d thought this scene would’ve interested me, but it didn’t. She knocks them off their bikes, but we never see them hit the ground, which really sucks! She either shoots them in the air or they disappear or something randomly, which I felt was kinda stupid. There’s about 5 of em, and I would’ve liked to have seen atleast one of em fall off the bike, with no special effects involved and have their head smack on the pavement or something. She eventually ends up blowing the train up by planting these bombs on the tracks and although I’m a fan of explosions, it does nothing to help this film.
Overall, this was nothing more than an average flick. One scene that really stood out though, is my man Brad Dourif. I almost forgot he was in this movie, as I’ve looked at his IMDB filmography about 100 times lol. The second I heard his voice it woke me right up, and he’s still got that low gritty growl of his. But in his short little scene, he (like myself) talks about his hate towards vampires and I agree, they suck! Most of this film just seems to me, like a bunch of running back and forth pointless stuff and I just couldn’t keep awake long enough. The bikes are cool, the explosions are okay, but the film was actually pretty boring to me.
Rise of the Apes (2011)
I remember seeing this movie when it first came to theaters, around late 2011. Around the time, I barely went to movie theaters cause most of the trailers I was seeing on tv were filled with comedies (I’m more of a horror fanatic than anything) But during one vacation at my aunts down in Virginia, we decided to go to the movie theater and I saw this film. I was actually pretty blown away by the effects and the story that was being told, and it still impresses me to this day how cool this movie is.
At the start of the film, we get a scene in the jungle with all these hunters. We also see a bunch of apes in this scene; some apes, some monkeys, gorillas, etc. I love the effects in this film. All the apes are CGI and I’ll admit, it’s some of the best use of this technology I’ve seen in a film. Usually, big action films like Mission Impossible and Final Destination use CGI for more detail in explosions and whatnot, but very rarely is it used (especially up-close) on animals. 90% of the time it’s used for about 5 seconds when an actor falls off a building or gets hit by something huge, or from far angles where the audience can’t really tell a difference.
Eventually one of the chimps gets takes away, and is brought to this laboratory. In this lab we see a bunch of scientists running experiments, with their main goal trying to make these chimps smarter. I wouldn’t be surprised if tests like these were being done in the real world, since technology is advancing so quickly. Will is the main scientist here, and he brings up a medicine of his called the “112” which can cure a bunch of diseases with a single drop; one of them, Alzheimer’s. In the coming scenes, he repeatedly tries to convince his boss Steven to let him test the cure on humans, but it’s understandable that he doesn’t want Will to do anything drastic.
Later in the film, Will is given a chimp to take care of to I guess see if he can convince his boss if he can test his medicine on it before giving it to humans. The coming scenes are pretty cute, as we see Will taking care of the chimp and seeing him get older and whatnot. He’s given him the name Caesar, but I’ll just abbreviate it from here on. Again, I love the detail they applied to this chimp. You can see every strand of hair on his body, the detail and glare in his eyes and the sway of his pants when he walks. Will’s father has Alzheimer’s and we see a few examples of this in the coming scenes. Good thing none of my grandparents have it. My grandfather is pretty tough actually. Everytime we see him he’s always playfully trying to box with me and he’s a great guy.
In one scene Will tests the 112 on his father, after seeing the effects it’s had on C. His Alzheimer’s immediately disappears and proudly, Will tells his boss about it. All of a sudden, Steven starts acting very excited about the cure and having faith in it. But we all know, the only thing that’s going through his head is making money. In the coming scenes, we see C getting older. In 3 years he’s almost the size of Will lol. I know chimps grow alot faster than humans, but it still amazes me, especially the muscles in his arms. I also searched the internet about this, and most of them say chimps this age are around 5-6 times our strength, which is pretty amazing if you ask me. Also given the fact that apes don’t go to the gym at all, but they do climb trees alot.
I’m also sure it has to do with their genetics. There’s also a scene somewhere in here, of Will’s father (forgetting that he used to drive) trying to take off in the neighbors car lol. One guy finds this out and yells at him, while C watches from the window, angrily. Eventually, C emerges from the house and tackles the angry neighbor to the floor, biting off his finger. Ouch that must’ve hurt! This kinda reminds me of the scene in Iron Man (1999) Not only the severity of it, but the fact that the audience may have forgotten the complexity of this creature, for a brief moment. It’s at this point in the film, where C is taken away to this ape compound for bad behavior. Ape jail I guess lol.
Will is very sad about this of course, and the entire scene is pretty emotional as well, when he leaves him behind. The facility houses about 50 other chimps as well, and in the coming scenes we see C adjusting to this. Alot of the other chimps don’t like him that much, and although there are no words spoken, you definitely get the whole story in their expressions. But in the coming scenes, he gets picked on less and less and he uses his sign language to communicate with them, and explain to them that he means no harm. Meanwhile (I forget how) but Steven gets a hold of the cure and begins testing it on more chimps at the lab. When Will finds out he’s very upset about this, and I agree with him. His whole plan was to test it first and see the results after a few weeks, since it could have side effects and whatnot.
But this idiot did it anyway. Steven even says “You make history, I make money” And again, all this man cares about is making money, and that ticks me off for so many different reasons; for one, there are many people on this planet that only care about money, even at the expense of hurting the feelings of others. Another reason is cause these people are already rich, and they still care about hurting the feelings of others just to make a quick buck. If you’ve got 50 million dollars, an extra 10 million isn’t gonna do you any justice! And it’s safe to say that 50 million would last you a pretty long time anyway, if you don’t spend it like a maniac. And with the importance of the job your doing, your likely gonna get home past 6 so there’s barely gonna be enough time to enjoy what you bought anyway.
Okay rant over, but that stuff ticks me off. So Steven does the test on another chimp, hoping the medicine works and he can become smarter. Eventually, C goes through and empowers all the chimps, looking them in the eye and trying to recruit them. I like these scenes, cause again no words are spoken. But we can definitely guess that he’s saying something like “The humans have taken advantage of us, so we need to work together to defeat them!” And pretty soon, all 50 chimps break out of the facility and run around outside the lab, into the wild! I love this scene, and it’s so empowering. I remember watching this scene in the theater and saying to myself “Wow, people still make these films?” lol. But yea, my ignorance was beginning to fade at that point.
In the coming scenes, we see about 50 – 60 chimps racing across the land and into the city. The first place they go to is the lab, and we see them here running around smashing stuff. I love the destruction here, glass shattering, etc. They then run through the city, and it’s here where the police are called. One guy captures one of the apes in a net. He begins to load him in his car, but the other apes throw spheres at him lol. These scenes are so amazing. Their next destination is the bridge, and I remember this scene from the trailer. Seeing all the chimps race across the bridge gives me chills down my spine! Again more cops show up here so to avoid getting shot at, some chimps climb up top while some go under the bridge.
I’ll always be scared of heights so those high-up scenes will always shake me, but the scenes under the bridge are pretty nerve-wracking too. I know their arms are strong, but if they fall, their pretty much done for lol. We soon get this big brawl between the apes and the cops. Hand to hand, the cops don’t have a choice so some of the apes do get shot at. But alot of the officers get thrown around in this scene; some into other cars, some get thrown off the bridge completely lol. At the end of the film, the apes reach the jungle. I guess this is where their heart lies; in the jungle, where they were meant to be before they were captured. Hopefully they choose a different one though, since it’s likely the same guys will be back to try and capture them again but, hopefully they’ll be better prepared by then.
Will soon shows up, and has a little talk with C about returning home. But C whispers in his hear “Caesar is home” which I think was the perfect way to end this film. Overall, I loved the movie. I love the effects, but also the meaning behind this film. I don’t know much about what’s going on in other countries, but hopefully their not capturing chimps like this in real life. But it basically teaches us to respect animals. And my heart goes out to all the animals out there that’ve been treated wrongly and whatnot. I see many commercials on tv, about abused animals and just seeing the look in their eyes makes me wanna tear up and do something about it. I also think apes were the perfect animals to choose for this film, since they possess the most human-like attributes and are therefore easier to relate to.
I remember seeing this movie when it first came to theaters, around late 2011. Around the time, I barely went to movie theaters cause most of the trailers I was seeing on tv were filled with comedies (I’m more of a horror fanatic than anything) But during one vacation at my aunts down in Virginia, we decided to go to the movie theater and I saw this film. I was actually pretty blown away by the effects and the story that was being told, and it still impresses me to this day how cool this movie is.
At the start of the film, we get a scene in the jungle with all these hunters. We also see a bunch of apes in this scene; some apes, some monkeys, gorillas, etc. I love the effects in this film. All the apes are CGI and I’ll admit, it’s some of the best use of this technology I’ve seen in a film. Usually, big action films like Mission Impossible and Final Destination use CGI for more detail in explosions and whatnot, but very rarely is it used (especially up-close) on animals. 90% of the time it’s used for about 5 seconds when an actor falls off a building or gets hit by something huge, or from far angles where the audience can’t really tell a difference.
Eventually one of the chimps gets takes away, and is brought to this laboratory. In this lab we see a bunch of scientists running experiments, with their main goal trying to make these chimps smarter. I wouldn’t be surprised if tests like these were being done in the real world, since technology is advancing so quickly. Will is the main scientist here, and he brings up a medicine of his called the “112” which can cure a bunch of diseases with a single drop; one of them, Alzheimer’s. In the coming scenes, he repeatedly tries to convince his boss Steven to let him test the cure on humans, but it’s understandable that he doesn’t want Will to do anything drastic.
Later in the film, Will is given a chimp to take care of to I guess see if he can convince his boss if he can test his medicine on it before giving it to humans. The coming scenes are pretty cute, as we see Will taking care of the chimp and seeing him get older and whatnot. He’s given him the name Caesar, but I’ll just abbreviate it from here on. Again, I love the detail they applied to this chimp. You can see every strand of hair on his body, the detail and glare in his eyes and the sway of his pants when he walks. Will’s father has Alzheimer’s and we see a few examples of this in the coming scenes. Good thing none of my grandparents have it. My grandfather is pretty tough actually. Everytime we see him he’s always playfully trying to box with me and he’s a great guy.
In one scene Will tests the 112 on his father, after seeing the effects it’s had on C. His Alzheimer’s immediately disappears and proudly, Will tells his boss about it. All of a sudden, Steven starts acting very excited about the cure and having faith in it. But we all know, the only thing that’s going through his head is making money. In the coming scenes, we see C getting older. In 3 years he’s almost the size of Will lol. I know chimps grow alot faster than humans, but it still amazes me, especially the muscles in his arms. I also searched the internet about this, and most of them say chimps this age are around 5-6 times our strength, which is pretty amazing if you ask me. Also given the fact that apes don’t go to the gym at all, but they do climb trees alot.
I’m also sure it has to do with their genetics. There’s also a scene somewhere in here, of Will’s father (forgetting that he used to drive) trying to take off in the neighbors car lol. One guy finds this out and yells at him, while C watches from the window, angrily. Eventually, C emerges from the house and tackles the angry neighbor to the floor, biting off his finger. Ouch that must’ve hurt! This kinda reminds me of the scene in Iron Man (1999) Not only the severity of it, but the fact that the audience may have forgotten the complexity of this creature, for a brief moment. It’s at this point in the film, where C is taken away to this ape compound for bad behavior. Ape jail I guess lol.
Will is very sad about this of course, and the entire scene is pretty emotional as well, when he leaves him behind. The facility houses about 50 other chimps as well, and in the coming scenes we see C adjusting to this. Alot of the other chimps don’t like him that much, and although there are no words spoken, you definitely get the whole story in their expressions. But in the coming scenes, he gets picked on less and less and he uses his sign language to communicate with them, and explain to them that he means no harm. Meanwhile (I forget how) but Steven gets a hold of the cure and begins testing it on more chimps at the lab. When Will finds out he’s very upset about this, and I agree with him. His whole plan was to test it first and see the results after a few weeks, since it could have side effects and whatnot.
But this idiot did it anyway. Steven even says “You make history, I make money” And again, all this man cares about is making money, and that ticks me off for so many different reasons; for one, there are many people on this planet that only care about money, even at the expense of hurting the feelings of others. Another reason is cause these people are already rich, and they still care about hurting the feelings of others just to make a quick buck. If you’ve got 50 million dollars, an extra 10 million isn’t gonna do you any justice! And it’s safe to say that 50 million would last you a pretty long time anyway, if you don’t spend it like a maniac. And with the importance of the job your doing, your likely gonna get home past 6 so there’s barely gonna be enough time to enjoy what you bought anyway.
Okay rant over, but that stuff ticks me off. So Steven does the test on another chimp, hoping the medicine works and he can become smarter. Eventually, C goes through and empowers all the chimps, looking them in the eye and trying to recruit them. I like these scenes, cause again no words are spoken. But we can definitely guess that he’s saying something like “The humans have taken advantage of us, so we need to work together to defeat them!” And pretty soon, all 50 chimps break out of the facility and run around outside the lab, into the wild! I love this scene, and it’s so empowering. I remember watching this scene in the theater and saying to myself “Wow, people still make these films?” lol. But yea, my ignorance was beginning to fade at that point.
In the coming scenes, we see about 50 – 60 chimps racing across the land and into the city. The first place they go to is the lab, and we see them here running around smashing stuff. I love the destruction here, glass shattering, etc. They then run through the city, and it’s here where the police are called. One guy captures one of the apes in a net. He begins to load him in his car, but the other apes throw spheres at him lol. These scenes are so amazing. Their next destination is the bridge, and I remember this scene from the trailer. Seeing all the chimps race across the bridge gives me chills down my spine! Again more cops show up here so to avoid getting shot at, some chimps climb up top while some go under the bridge.
I’ll always be scared of heights so those high-up scenes will always shake me, but the scenes under the bridge are pretty nerve-wracking too. I know their arms are strong, but if they fall, their pretty much done for lol. We soon get this big brawl between the apes and the cops. Hand to hand, the cops don’t have a choice so some of the apes do get shot at. But alot of the officers get thrown around in this scene; some into other cars, some get thrown off the bridge completely lol. At the end of the film, the apes reach the jungle. I guess this is where their heart lies; in the jungle, where they were meant to be before they were captured. Hopefully they choose a different one though, since it’s likely the same guys will be back to try and capture them again but, hopefully they’ll be better prepared by then.
Will soon shows up, and has a little talk with C about returning home. But C whispers in his hear “Caesar is home” which I think was the perfect way to end this film. Overall, I loved the movie. I love the effects, but also the meaning behind this film. I don’t know much about what’s going on in other countries, but hopefully their not capturing chimps like this in real life. But it basically teaches us to respect animals. And my heart goes out to all the animals out there that’ve been treated wrongly and whatnot. I see many commercials on tv, about abused animals and just seeing the look in their eyes makes me wanna tear up and do something about it. I also think apes were the perfect animals to choose for this film, since they possess the most human-like attributes and are therefore easier to relate to.
The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
I remember seeing a preview for this movie on one of the on-demand segments and thought it was very interesting. I just never thought they’d allow this movie to hit cable so early, but I’m not complaining. I also think Matt Damon is a pretty good actor. I saw him in Good Will Hunting (1997) with Robin Williams and I kinda stayed away from that movie for awhile, but it turned out to be pretty good. I first saw him when he was in his late 20’s but now he’s in his 40’s. It’s kinda odd, cause I still don’t think of him as a 40 year old man, and he still looks young in my opinion. This film is about his relationship with a girl, but he meets these dudes who run this “Fate” group thing in which they decide who you meet and what you do and whatever.
In the beginning, we find out a man named David wants to be a senator. In the opening scene we get alot of business talk and whatnot, but we see him here doing speeches and trying to get the people on his side and vote for him. I don’t know much about congress or the white house or anything, but this is one of his goals. After a little while, he goes in the bathroom and runs into this woman named Elise. She says she was hiding from someone, but it happens kinda randomly. She’s very cute and she’s also from England, so her accent is pretty cute. There’s alot of small talk in this scene but he does manage to get her number here. Weird way to get it I think, but whatever.
Eventually she leaves in this scene but he says he’ll promise to call her. We also get scenes of these dudes walking around in black ties and suits. Their called the Adjustment Bureau (AB) and they make sure things go according to plan with people’s lives and whatnot. Most of the scenes we see with them, their in this little apartment building just waiting around, waitin for people to step out of line I guess. Pretty boring job I think. We later see David getting on this bus and he runs into her again in one of the seats. This is such a cute scene actually, and the two of them seem to light up when they talk to each other. And I’m not saying this to sound cheesy or anything, but this scene just makes me melt!
These two actors definitely seem to have alot of chemistry when they talk, and you definitely see it in their faces. Meanwhile, there this guy named Harry who begins running after him, which (explained later) states that this meeting was never meant to happen. This scene is kinda funny to watch; cause in one shot we see David and Elise joking around and in the other, we see Harry behind them running a marathon to try and catch up to the bus. This scene goes for about 2 minutes straight and he’s running like 40 mph, so he’s gotta be in good shape lol. He and the rest of the AB carry around this little notebook thing, which looks like a mix between a book and an ipad, and they track all his steps.
It also reminds me of that thing in Harry Potter (2003) where Harry gets a hold of that 3D map to track Serious Black. Eventually the AB soon catch David at his office and they chase him around for a bit. They catch him and take him to this big room that looks like a huge car repair shop. They explain to him in this scene that they can read his mind and that they got a plan for him that he needs to follow with what he does with his life and decisions. It all revolves around faith and all that hoopla. I hate fate, I hate thinking that everything happens for a reason, and it’s just a really cheesy thing to imagine I guess.
They also say he was never meant to see Elise and they take the number from him and burn it. It’s a very sad scene and I really feel for him here. They also tell him that nobody knows about them, and if he tells anybody about them they’ll erase his memories and brainwash him. How depressing lol. Now it’s 3 years later. He still goes to work everyday on the bus, hoping to run into her again (against AB’s commands) and she doesn’t show, until one day he spots her walking down the street. So he immediately runs after her and she’s kind of pushing him away a bit, wondering why he hasn’t called her but it seems she’s still got feelings for him.
Pretty soon, the AB find out about this and they begin chasing him again. When they catch up to him, they explain to him that he broke the rules but also, that he was never meant to see her again. The term “ripple effect” is used a bit in this scene and I’ve read about this a few times; A ripple effect (in my own words) is when something is supposed to happen, but you make one wrong decision and it effects your next decision, and about 10 others after. Again, this all goes back to fate, which I don’t like. Again, they have the 3D map looking thing where they can see where he’s been, where he’s going, what he’s gonna do next, etc. And this one old dude named Richardson (the boss of the group) does this thing where he makes people say and do things to stop a situation from happening.
An example of this is in a scene where David and Elise are on their 2nd date. They know by the 3D map that he’s gonna kiss her at the end and if he does, it’ll mess up his future election thing cause he’ll be too focused on her and all that. So right before he kisses her, one of the men sends a text to this dude and he interrupts him. It’s kinda funny actually, but at the same time kinda sad. These dudes would definitely bug the hell outta me if I was David lol. A few of em do get punched in the face later in the film, so hurray for those moments. Again I think it’s kind of a depressing job, to sit around and watch people’s actions all day. They must’ve lived a pretty sad life lol.
Around the middle of the movie, they all find out there was some confusion or something with “The Plan” and they say that David and Elise were meant to be together after all! So everything they’ve been doing thus far; trying to keep him away from her and chasing him through alleyways (keep in mind this dude looks to be about 80) was a waste I guess. Richardson explains to him a little later, that he has a choice; he can either stay with her, or he can continue his campaign thing. But if he stays with her, he’ll hurt both their lives. It’s kind of like a double edge sword, since he loses with either option. I have no idea what I would do, but Elise is so darn cute! He later runs into Harry again and he works for AB, but he helps him in a few scenes in the movie.
David soon finds out she’s getting married, kind of outta nowhere and they both work together to stop it. I like this scene; he takes David to this room and they whip out the 3D map. They work out a plan, seeing how he can get past the AB without getting caught. And since the AB are always wearing hats, in one scene David goes “But what if I knock off his hat and run past him” lol. The next day he makes a break for it and runs in the rain towards the wedding. He meets her in the bathroom again, just like the first time they met and he tells her he loves her, but he also reveals AB. They told him in the beginning of the movie, that if he revealed them that they’d erase his memory. We see them finding this out and they immediately chase after him and the Elise, even though she’s kind of iffy about the whole thing.
Up until this point, she knows nothing about them or the whole “Plan” thing. She’s soon convinced when she sees their being chased by about 10 dudes up the stairs and around the building. Lots of the places in this movie are familiar to me, New York (Statue of Liberty, skyscrapers, etc) but mostly, they remind me of Grand Theft Auto IV. At the end of the movie, they finally reach him at the top of one of these buildings. And they explain to them that they were meant to be together and that they’re gonna leave em alone now, so that’s cool. Overall I love the film and it’s always great to discover a movie such as this, with such a gripping plot. It kept me on my toes from beginning to end and the relationship between both of them was so cute.
I remember seeing a preview for this movie on one of the on-demand segments and thought it was very interesting. I just never thought they’d allow this movie to hit cable so early, but I’m not complaining. I also think Matt Damon is a pretty good actor. I saw him in Good Will Hunting (1997) with Robin Williams and I kinda stayed away from that movie for awhile, but it turned out to be pretty good. I first saw him when he was in his late 20’s but now he’s in his 40’s. It’s kinda odd, cause I still don’t think of him as a 40 year old man, and he still looks young in my opinion. This film is about his relationship with a girl, but he meets these dudes who run this “Fate” group thing in which they decide who you meet and what you do and whatever.
In the beginning, we find out a man named David wants to be a senator. In the opening scene we get alot of business talk and whatnot, but we see him here doing speeches and trying to get the people on his side and vote for him. I don’t know much about congress or the white house or anything, but this is one of his goals. After a little while, he goes in the bathroom and runs into this woman named Elise. She says she was hiding from someone, but it happens kinda randomly. She’s very cute and she’s also from England, so her accent is pretty cute. There’s alot of small talk in this scene but he does manage to get her number here. Weird way to get it I think, but whatever.
Eventually she leaves in this scene but he says he’ll promise to call her. We also get scenes of these dudes walking around in black ties and suits. Their called the Adjustment Bureau (AB) and they make sure things go according to plan with people’s lives and whatnot. Most of the scenes we see with them, their in this little apartment building just waiting around, waitin for people to step out of line I guess. Pretty boring job I think. We later see David getting on this bus and he runs into her again in one of the seats. This is such a cute scene actually, and the two of them seem to light up when they talk to each other. And I’m not saying this to sound cheesy or anything, but this scene just makes me melt!
These two actors definitely seem to have alot of chemistry when they talk, and you definitely see it in their faces. Meanwhile, there this guy named Harry who begins running after him, which (explained later) states that this meeting was never meant to happen. This scene is kinda funny to watch; cause in one shot we see David and Elise joking around and in the other, we see Harry behind them running a marathon to try and catch up to the bus. This scene goes for about 2 minutes straight and he’s running like 40 mph, so he’s gotta be in good shape lol. He and the rest of the AB carry around this little notebook thing, which looks like a mix between a book and an ipad, and they track all his steps.
It also reminds me of that thing in Harry Potter (2003) where Harry gets a hold of that 3D map to track Serious Black. Eventually the AB soon catch David at his office and they chase him around for a bit. They catch him and take him to this big room that looks like a huge car repair shop. They explain to him in this scene that they can read his mind and that they got a plan for him that he needs to follow with what he does with his life and decisions. It all revolves around faith and all that hoopla. I hate fate, I hate thinking that everything happens for a reason, and it’s just a really cheesy thing to imagine I guess.
They also say he was never meant to see Elise and they take the number from him and burn it. It’s a very sad scene and I really feel for him here. They also tell him that nobody knows about them, and if he tells anybody about them they’ll erase his memories and brainwash him. How depressing lol. Now it’s 3 years later. He still goes to work everyday on the bus, hoping to run into her again (against AB’s commands) and she doesn’t show, until one day he spots her walking down the street. So he immediately runs after her and she’s kind of pushing him away a bit, wondering why he hasn’t called her but it seems she’s still got feelings for him.
Pretty soon, the AB find out about this and they begin chasing him again. When they catch up to him, they explain to him that he broke the rules but also, that he was never meant to see her again. The term “ripple effect” is used a bit in this scene and I’ve read about this a few times; A ripple effect (in my own words) is when something is supposed to happen, but you make one wrong decision and it effects your next decision, and about 10 others after. Again, this all goes back to fate, which I don’t like. Again, they have the 3D map looking thing where they can see where he’s been, where he’s going, what he’s gonna do next, etc. And this one old dude named Richardson (the boss of the group) does this thing where he makes people say and do things to stop a situation from happening.
An example of this is in a scene where David and Elise are on their 2nd date. They know by the 3D map that he’s gonna kiss her at the end and if he does, it’ll mess up his future election thing cause he’ll be too focused on her and all that. So right before he kisses her, one of the men sends a text to this dude and he interrupts him. It’s kinda funny actually, but at the same time kinda sad. These dudes would definitely bug the hell outta me if I was David lol. A few of em do get punched in the face later in the film, so hurray for those moments. Again I think it’s kind of a depressing job, to sit around and watch people’s actions all day. They must’ve lived a pretty sad life lol.
Around the middle of the movie, they all find out there was some confusion or something with “The Plan” and they say that David and Elise were meant to be together after all! So everything they’ve been doing thus far; trying to keep him away from her and chasing him through alleyways (keep in mind this dude looks to be about 80) was a waste I guess. Richardson explains to him a little later, that he has a choice; he can either stay with her, or he can continue his campaign thing. But if he stays with her, he’ll hurt both their lives. It’s kind of like a double edge sword, since he loses with either option. I have no idea what I would do, but Elise is so darn cute! He later runs into Harry again and he works for AB, but he helps him in a few scenes in the movie.
David soon finds out she’s getting married, kind of outta nowhere and they both work together to stop it. I like this scene; he takes David to this room and they whip out the 3D map. They work out a plan, seeing how he can get past the AB without getting caught. And since the AB are always wearing hats, in one scene David goes “But what if I knock off his hat and run past him” lol. The next day he makes a break for it and runs in the rain towards the wedding. He meets her in the bathroom again, just like the first time they met and he tells her he loves her, but he also reveals AB. They told him in the beginning of the movie, that if he revealed them that they’d erase his memory. We see them finding this out and they immediately chase after him and the Elise, even though she’s kind of iffy about the whole thing.
Up until this point, she knows nothing about them or the whole “Plan” thing. She’s soon convinced when she sees their being chased by about 10 dudes up the stairs and around the building. Lots of the places in this movie are familiar to me, New York (Statue of Liberty, skyscrapers, etc) but mostly, they remind me of Grand Theft Auto IV. At the end of the movie, they finally reach him at the top of one of these buildings. And they explain to them that they were meant to be together and that they’re gonna leave em alone now, so that’s cool. Overall I love the film and it’s always great to discover a movie such as this, with such a gripping plot. It kept me on my toes from beginning to end and the relationship between both of them was so cute.
The Darkest Hour (2011)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie on tv, and being pretty interested in it. I had no clue what it was about, but it just had a very dark (pun intended) mysterious vibe to it. To me it just looked like some unknown force going around the city just ripping it to shreds and crushing anything in it’s way, which looked pretty cool, so here we go.
I like how the movie opens up, with this cool orange looking intro. It opens with a shot of space and this big circle in the middle with the stars behind it, very cool. We immediately zoom into a plane, where we meet 2 of our main characters, Ben and Sean. I’ve never been in a plane, but I’m not really scared of them cause they shouldn’t be any different than a roller coaster. So anyway, they have a short little chat with the attendant here, who’s pretty cute, and we later see them land.
We later see them talking for a bit more as they travel around the city in business suits. My guess is they graduated college and are very smart teens. Some of their conversation revolves around their business, but some is about hooking up with women, it’s only natural. They mention their in the city of Russia, and I just did a film yesterday called Chernobyl Diaries (2012) which took place in London, which is pretty ironic.
Again I’ve never been to any country outside America, and don’t really plan to, not now anyway. As they get driven around in a taxi, we hear some Russian music over the radio. Up until now, I haven’t really heard alot of songs by Russian people, or anybody outside America with a thick accent or anything. I’ve heard Spanish and French songs, but none in a completely different language like that. But it was always cool to find out that even people who didn’t speak our language, listened to alot of American music and understood the lyrics and everything, that’s cool.
Eventually they arrive at this business where they meet this French guy named Skyler (cool name by the way) So they try and impress him with their ideas, but come to find out he stole their idea and is actually presenting it to a group of people when they meet in one of the rooms here. You already wanna hate the guy, and they do also, showing frustration outside the meeting. I probably would’ve walked over and smashed his little overhead thing all over the floor if he stole my idea!
So anyway, to blow off some steam we see the two of them going to this Russian club. We see alot of cute women dancing around, no surprise there. Eventually they spot this one girl across the room, who’s later approached by Skyler not even 10 seconds later (what a small world these people live in) So the two of them confront him and call him out for a bit in the middle of the dance floor. At one point he makes an insult on Sean’s shirt and he fires back, saying his mom left it in his room lol.
They later meet these 2 cute girls sitting by the bar, and begin talking and flirting and all that. The blonde isn’t all that entertaining but the other girl is, who’s name is Natalie. Eventually all the lights in the club go out, oh how spooky! So the 4 of them and all the people in the club go outside, to see what all the fuss is about. They immediately see these big yellow flower looking things falling from the sky, and I’ll admit the imagery is pretty neat. One of them lands in the middle of the road, so they all walk around it.
I remember this scene from the trailer. But one cop decides to be brave and walk up to it with his little night stick. He reaches out his arm to see if he can swat at it, but it gobbles him up immediately! It’s a pretty cool scene I’ll admit. I don’t know what these things are, but I’m gonna refer to them as orbs cause it’s such a cool word. But yea, it gobbles him up in a matter of seconds. It looks like it swallows him, and then sprays his ashes everywhere, but it’s so cool looking!
So they all run off screaming and everything, running back into the club to finish dancing (I’m joking, obviously) The last ones to get inside are Sean and one of the security guards. So the two of them lock the door but the orb busts in anyway, knocking them both on the floor. Surprisingly Sean gets up with no bruises or anything but the security guard looks knocked out cold! He’s twice the size of Sean but he ends up slipping and dying, what a wimp lol.
In the coming scenes we see alot of people running around the place, hopping over furniture, hiding under things, etc. A few of them even get taken by the orb, which is cool to see. Eventually the 5 main characters all hide in a room together, while everybody outside is pretty much screwed lol. So it’s 3 guys and 2 girls; Ben, Sean, Skyler, Natalie and Anne, the boring blonde girl. She’s not really that boring but she’s not as good looking as Natalie, but yea.
So they hide in this room for a bit. We later get this big montage of all these days going by; Saturday, Sunday, etc all the way to Tuesday. But all we see is them walking around doing nothing. But I think they could’ve easily just made them wait a few hours, they didn’t need to turn it into days. And turns out they were able to survive off cans of food conveniently stuffed back here. At first I was wondering why food would be in the back of a club but then I remembered, that’s probably where they make it lol.
It’s also probably where they get their drinks from, I don’t know. I’ve never really been to a club cause they just annoy me; too much noise and running around. But I have no problem with loud music, cause I blast it in my room all the time as I exercise. So anyway, eventually the 5 of them decide to go outside after they believe the orbs have vanished. We get many shots of the city here, where we see alot of empty cars on the road. I kinda like these scenes, very apocalyptic and everything.
So they walk around some more, and soon come across a bridge that’s cracked in the center, preventing them from getting across. We also get a shot of a boat, split right down the middle in between the bridge. It’s kind of cool looking, but then you try and imagine how something like this would’ve happened. Like who was driving the boat, and what made them crash. It obviously had something to do with these orbs, but I still can’t put it together. Later on they all run into a police car, which is sitting conveniently in the middle of nowhere.
And I mean, in the middle of nowhere, literally lol. I’m surprised I didn’t see a camel walk by. Ben and Sean tell the others (including Skyler) to go inside the building while the 2 of them race over to the car. Over the course of the film, Skyler gets more and more wimpy as the movie goes on. It’s kind of a cheesy character plot though; cause we saw him in the beginning acting all brave after he stole their idea, and now their bossing him around lol. I love the revenge aspect but it’s still kinda cheesy.
So anyway, the 2 of them race over to the car while the other 3 go inside. They both find guns, ammo and other useful items packed in this police car, and it’s so cheesy lol. One car, in the middle of the road, surrounded by nothing, with the keys in the ignition, doors unlocked, with all the supplies you need, give me a break! I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a full tank of gas either, ugh. So anyway, as their gathering supplies, we see a random dog in the background run by.
Way in the distance, the dog starts barking at something, though we can’t see what. But Ben and Sean look up, and see it barking at an orb, and after a couple barks, the orb gobbles him up too! I kinda felt bad for it though, cause I like pets. But the 2 of them run off and end up inside the building with the other 3. They walk around the mall for a bit, and come across an airplane in the middle of the mall. It’s pretty huge, and it’s just laying here in the middle, covered in rubble. It’s another random but cool scene they threw in here for amazement, so I’m not complaining.
Later on, it’s night time again. They start talking for a bit more about where to go next and what to do. But to be honest, alot of these characters are pretty boring. Their not bad actors or anything, their just very dull, and they never say anything important. Skyler starts crying in this scene about something, but we don’t care about him. Your not gonna get sympathy from the same people you stole ideas from, dweeb. Later on he ends up running off on his own in the street, probably feeling bad for himself. So Ben and Sean chase after him.
But it’s too late, as an orb catches him on the street. It grabs him at his feet first, them flips him on top of a car lol. But right before he lands on the floor it gobbles him up! It was a pretty cool way to kill him, I think. Later on they bump into this Russian girl named Vika, who’s pretty cute I’ll admit. She does know a little English though, so that’s good. Minutes later Anne gets eaten, but we don’t care about her; one less bland character to worry about. And atleast we still got Vika, so we haven’t eliminated all the blondes yet lol.
They soon run into a bunch of Russian soldiers on horses, who protect them from the orbs. In alot of the early scenes, we see these orbs getting shot at but they simply take the bullets and chew em up. But I guess this scene is different, cause there’s 5 soldiers shooting at once, so maybe it’s strength in numbers, I don’t know. But it’s good to know there are still people in the city and it’s not completely deserted, atleast. They run through this building and it’s here where Ben is attacked by more orbs, so he’s gone too!
Eventually they make it to this big boat. And low and behold, it actually works! So far the films been pretty intense, lots of running, hiding, but not alot of waiting, so it’s nice to see them relax for a bit even though the movie’s almost over lol. Vika and Sean are laying down, probably exhausted from all this running I can imagine. So Natalie goes over to each of them and talks for a bit. She tells Vika “Everything’s gonna be okay” and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that line in movies like this, it’s so cheesy lol. She talks to Sean too but I forget what they say, cause it’s pretty boring.
Pretty soon this massive explosion happens out of nowhere right next to them! A building blows up and people get lost, somehow. Sean and the soldiers are still together but Natalie is nowhere to be found, surprisingly. So now it’s time for Sean to be a hero and go rescue her. We see them emerging from the bus, with these huge weapons in their hands, and it kinda looks like Ghostbusters lol. I used to be a fan of those movies when I was younger but, eventually I grew out of em.
So anyway, he finds Natalie in this bus. But as he tries to save her, an orb appears on the bus and makes things more difficult! She begins driving the bus while he starts shooting bullets, which I can imagine must be a pretty hard task. Eventually he runs out of bullets, but he reaches into his backpack, pulls out some black rock, and throws it at the orb and it blows up lol. You couldn’t have come up with a dumber ending if you got a 2 year old to write this movie with a crayon, it was lame! Before the movie ends, Sean is about to give a little hero kiss to Natalie, but he’s interrupted by Vika, who says “Eww!” as they lean in lol. So instead they just end the movie with a little hug, which is fine by me and I’m glad they didn’t make it too cheesy.
Overall this was a pretty decent movie, but nothing special. I love the effects and some of the guns are pretty cool. I kinda wish it was explained where this stuff came from and what started this whole orb empire, but whatever. I guess the biggest problem I had with this movie were the characters. Like I said it’s not about acting or anything, but alot of their conversations are kinda boring and their just dull! Their pretty cool in the beginning but as the film rolls on, they become just average Joe’s. But I do like the fact that they move around alot, so the lack of character development really doesn’t show that much.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie on tv, and being pretty interested in it. I had no clue what it was about, but it just had a very dark (pun intended) mysterious vibe to it. To me it just looked like some unknown force going around the city just ripping it to shreds and crushing anything in it’s way, which looked pretty cool, so here we go.
I like how the movie opens up, with this cool orange looking intro. It opens with a shot of space and this big circle in the middle with the stars behind it, very cool. We immediately zoom into a plane, where we meet 2 of our main characters, Ben and Sean. I’ve never been in a plane, but I’m not really scared of them cause they shouldn’t be any different than a roller coaster. So anyway, they have a short little chat with the attendant here, who’s pretty cute, and we later see them land.
We later see them talking for a bit more as they travel around the city in business suits. My guess is they graduated college and are very smart teens. Some of their conversation revolves around their business, but some is about hooking up with women, it’s only natural. They mention their in the city of Russia, and I just did a film yesterday called Chernobyl Diaries (2012) which took place in London, which is pretty ironic.
Again I’ve never been to any country outside America, and don’t really plan to, not now anyway. As they get driven around in a taxi, we hear some Russian music over the radio. Up until now, I haven’t really heard alot of songs by Russian people, or anybody outside America with a thick accent or anything. I’ve heard Spanish and French songs, but none in a completely different language like that. But it was always cool to find out that even people who didn’t speak our language, listened to alot of American music and understood the lyrics and everything, that’s cool.
Eventually they arrive at this business where they meet this French guy named Skyler (cool name by the way) So they try and impress him with their ideas, but come to find out he stole their idea and is actually presenting it to a group of people when they meet in one of the rooms here. You already wanna hate the guy, and they do also, showing frustration outside the meeting. I probably would’ve walked over and smashed his little overhead thing all over the floor if he stole my idea!
So anyway, to blow off some steam we see the two of them going to this Russian club. We see alot of cute women dancing around, no surprise there. Eventually they spot this one girl across the room, who’s later approached by Skyler not even 10 seconds later (what a small world these people live in) So the two of them confront him and call him out for a bit in the middle of the dance floor. At one point he makes an insult on Sean’s shirt and he fires back, saying his mom left it in his room lol.
They later meet these 2 cute girls sitting by the bar, and begin talking and flirting and all that. The blonde isn’t all that entertaining but the other girl is, who’s name is Natalie. Eventually all the lights in the club go out, oh how spooky! So the 4 of them and all the people in the club go outside, to see what all the fuss is about. They immediately see these big yellow flower looking things falling from the sky, and I’ll admit the imagery is pretty neat. One of them lands in the middle of the road, so they all walk around it.
I remember this scene from the trailer. But one cop decides to be brave and walk up to it with his little night stick. He reaches out his arm to see if he can swat at it, but it gobbles him up immediately! It’s a pretty cool scene I’ll admit. I don’t know what these things are, but I’m gonna refer to them as orbs cause it’s such a cool word. But yea, it gobbles him up in a matter of seconds. It looks like it swallows him, and then sprays his ashes everywhere, but it’s so cool looking!
So they all run off screaming and everything, running back into the club to finish dancing (I’m joking, obviously) The last ones to get inside are Sean and one of the security guards. So the two of them lock the door but the orb busts in anyway, knocking them both on the floor. Surprisingly Sean gets up with no bruises or anything but the security guard looks knocked out cold! He’s twice the size of Sean but he ends up slipping and dying, what a wimp lol.
In the coming scenes we see alot of people running around the place, hopping over furniture, hiding under things, etc. A few of them even get taken by the orb, which is cool to see. Eventually the 5 main characters all hide in a room together, while everybody outside is pretty much screwed lol. So it’s 3 guys and 2 girls; Ben, Sean, Skyler, Natalie and Anne, the boring blonde girl. She’s not really that boring but she’s not as good looking as Natalie, but yea.
So they hide in this room for a bit. We later get this big montage of all these days going by; Saturday, Sunday, etc all the way to Tuesday. But all we see is them walking around doing nothing. But I think they could’ve easily just made them wait a few hours, they didn’t need to turn it into days. And turns out they were able to survive off cans of food conveniently stuffed back here. At first I was wondering why food would be in the back of a club but then I remembered, that’s probably where they make it lol.
It’s also probably where they get their drinks from, I don’t know. I’ve never really been to a club cause they just annoy me; too much noise and running around. But I have no problem with loud music, cause I blast it in my room all the time as I exercise. So anyway, eventually the 5 of them decide to go outside after they believe the orbs have vanished. We get many shots of the city here, where we see alot of empty cars on the road. I kinda like these scenes, very apocalyptic and everything.
So they walk around some more, and soon come across a bridge that’s cracked in the center, preventing them from getting across. We also get a shot of a boat, split right down the middle in between the bridge. It’s kind of cool looking, but then you try and imagine how something like this would’ve happened. Like who was driving the boat, and what made them crash. It obviously had something to do with these orbs, but I still can’t put it together. Later on they all run into a police car, which is sitting conveniently in the middle of nowhere.
And I mean, in the middle of nowhere, literally lol. I’m surprised I didn’t see a camel walk by. Ben and Sean tell the others (including Skyler) to go inside the building while the 2 of them race over to the car. Over the course of the film, Skyler gets more and more wimpy as the movie goes on. It’s kind of a cheesy character plot though; cause we saw him in the beginning acting all brave after he stole their idea, and now their bossing him around lol. I love the revenge aspect but it’s still kinda cheesy.
So anyway, the 2 of them race over to the car while the other 3 go inside. They both find guns, ammo and other useful items packed in this police car, and it’s so cheesy lol. One car, in the middle of the road, surrounded by nothing, with the keys in the ignition, doors unlocked, with all the supplies you need, give me a break! I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a full tank of gas either, ugh. So anyway, as their gathering supplies, we see a random dog in the background run by.
Way in the distance, the dog starts barking at something, though we can’t see what. But Ben and Sean look up, and see it barking at an orb, and after a couple barks, the orb gobbles him up too! I kinda felt bad for it though, cause I like pets. But the 2 of them run off and end up inside the building with the other 3. They walk around the mall for a bit, and come across an airplane in the middle of the mall. It’s pretty huge, and it’s just laying here in the middle, covered in rubble. It’s another random but cool scene they threw in here for amazement, so I’m not complaining.
Later on, it’s night time again. They start talking for a bit more about where to go next and what to do. But to be honest, alot of these characters are pretty boring. Their not bad actors or anything, their just very dull, and they never say anything important. Skyler starts crying in this scene about something, but we don’t care about him. Your not gonna get sympathy from the same people you stole ideas from, dweeb. Later on he ends up running off on his own in the street, probably feeling bad for himself. So Ben and Sean chase after him.
But it’s too late, as an orb catches him on the street. It grabs him at his feet first, them flips him on top of a car lol. But right before he lands on the floor it gobbles him up! It was a pretty cool way to kill him, I think. Later on they bump into this Russian girl named Vika, who’s pretty cute I’ll admit. She does know a little English though, so that’s good. Minutes later Anne gets eaten, but we don’t care about her; one less bland character to worry about. And atleast we still got Vika, so we haven’t eliminated all the blondes yet lol.
They soon run into a bunch of Russian soldiers on horses, who protect them from the orbs. In alot of the early scenes, we see these orbs getting shot at but they simply take the bullets and chew em up. But I guess this scene is different, cause there’s 5 soldiers shooting at once, so maybe it’s strength in numbers, I don’t know. But it’s good to know there are still people in the city and it’s not completely deserted, atleast. They run through this building and it’s here where Ben is attacked by more orbs, so he’s gone too!
Eventually they make it to this big boat. And low and behold, it actually works! So far the films been pretty intense, lots of running, hiding, but not alot of waiting, so it’s nice to see them relax for a bit even though the movie’s almost over lol. Vika and Sean are laying down, probably exhausted from all this running I can imagine. So Natalie goes over to each of them and talks for a bit. She tells Vika “Everything’s gonna be okay” and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that line in movies like this, it’s so cheesy lol. She talks to Sean too but I forget what they say, cause it’s pretty boring.
Pretty soon this massive explosion happens out of nowhere right next to them! A building blows up and people get lost, somehow. Sean and the soldiers are still together but Natalie is nowhere to be found, surprisingly. So now it’s time for Sean to be a hero and go rescue her. We see them emerging from the bus, with these huge weapons in their hands, and it kinda looks like Ghostbusters lol. I used to be a fan of those movies when I was younger but, eventually I grew out of em.
So anyway, he finds Natalie in this bus. But as he tries to save her, an orb appears on the bus and makes things more difficult! She begins driving the bus while he starts shooting bullets, which I can imagine must be a pretty hard task. Eventually he runs out of bullets, but he reaches into his backpack, pulls out some black rock, and throws it at the orb and it blows up lol. You couldn’t have come up with a dumber ending if you got a 2 year old to write this movie with a crayon, it was lame! Before the movie ends, Sean is about to give a little hero kiss to Natalie, but he’s interrupted by Vika, who says “Eww!” as they lean in lol. So instead they just end the movie with a little hug, which is fine by me and I’m glad they didn’t make it too cheesy.
Overall this was a pretty decent movie, but nothing special. I love the effects and some of the guns are pretty cool. I kinda wish it was explained where this stuff came from and what started this whole orb empire, but whatever. I guess the biggest problem I had with this movie were the characters. Like I said it’s not about acting or anything, but alot of their conversations are kinda boring and their just dull! Their pretty cool in the beginning but as the film rolls on, they become just average Joe’s. But I do like the fact that they move around alot, so the lack of character development really doesn’t show that much.
The Roommate (2011)
I used to catch this movie on cable all the time, and figured it was decent enough to sit through. It’s actually one of those simple films that remind me of so many others, where one character thinks they know another character but they turn out to be a bit devilish. It’s actually a pretty cheesy concept, and these aren’t really the films that I go for but, I’m nice enough to sit through the same lame old story. Although a decent flick, it actually has it’s cheesy moments; some of which made me take a nap, some of which made me giggle, and some, which made me question whether or not Hollywood has officially run out of original ideas.
At the start of the film, we see this girl named Sara getting dropped off at college. I’ve been to college a few times, but took some time off to do movie reviews. But the one I go to is a community college that doesn’t involve dorms or anything. But it was expected, since my mother rarely lets me out of her sight (yes, she’s one of those mothers) But Sara is pretty cute, and decent looking. She later finds out her room is Room 3:16, which reminds me of Stone Cold Steve Austin lol. So we mostly see her here unpacking and getting comfortable, taking out her clothes, etc. Later that night she’s invited to a party with her friends and they go clubbing.
I barely go to parties, personally. I just don’t have the energy to walk around and dance all night. I’d rather either stay home, or chill at that person’s house, and relax and talk. She later meets this guy named Stephen, and this is where the cheesiness begins. I’ve seen this guy in 2 films so far (this and Burlesque) and he basically plays the same one-dimensional pretty-boy character. It gets old very quickly, and so do the scenes involving the two of them. When he first meets her, he spills beer all over her shirt and later explains to her that it’s his way of getting her attention. But if you ask me, it’s probably the best way to get yourself smacked (if of course, this wasn’t a scripted movie)
We later see him dropping her off at her room, telling her to keep the jacket he gave her (how romantic, and cheesy) But he also says she can keep it until the next time they see each other. In which he’ll probably spill another drink on her, what a goof. The next day Sara meets her roommate, named Rebecca. She’s not all that attractive, which is probably why she got the role. She shows alot of awkwardness in the coming scenes, being kinda closed-off, not wanting Sara to see her drawings or anything. Drawing and fashion is part of the sup-plot in this film, but it’s mostly brought up in the beginning. I know nothing about fashion, being a guy and all. I wouldn’t say I’m a lazy dresser, but I usually choose anything that looks good with the skateboarding shoes that I wear 90% of the time lol.
In the coming scenes, we see them buying books for classes, showing off drawings, looking at paintings, and Sara introduces Rebecca to a few of her friends. Watching these scenes, I couldn’t help but get this weird vibe from them though, like something wasn’t right (besides of course, the girl who we all know is mysterious) It took me awhile to pinpoint this weird feeling, but the main thing I don’t like about these scenes, is that they all happen in 10 minutes; Sara arriving at school, going partying, meeting Rebecca, taking her to the art gallery, meeting her friends, etc. We’re only 10 minutes into the film by this point, and yea, the pacing is very fast and it feels like the director was having a bad day and wanted these scenes over with as soon as possible.
We later meet Sara’s art teacher, Professor Roberts. He’s the same guy who plays Rose’s husband from Titanic, a very monumental film. This is another example of the fact that the director didn’t know he was shooting a film, and not a commercial; Sara talks with him about taking his class or something, and shows him this note. He turns it down, saying he’s turned down many others and that she’s no different from them. Disappointingly she walks away, but 5 seconds later he calls her back and signs it lol. If that’s all it takes to convince a teacher, I wanna meet more guys like him!
Sara later finds a kitten on the street and takes it home. I want a kitten so bad, but we can’t have them where we live, which really sucks. But of course, being the movie that this is, it was obvious something bad was gonna happen to the kitten (which also sucks) She and Rebecca share the kitten in their room, even though I wouldn’t let Rebecca touch it at all. In some scenes, you can tell that Sara is beginning to pick up on Rebecca’s weirdness, but she never outright addresses it or brings it up. Sara later meets some other girl, who I think is a friend of hers and offers her to come live with her. Again, these scenes are so predictable. So when Rebecca finds out, she of course gets jealous (surprise surprise!) But what she does next is unthinkable!
She takes the kitten, and puts it in the laundry machine. And even though nothing graphic happens (thank goodness) I had to turn my head, cause it’s kinda sad. The good thing about the film as it goes on, is that the pacing begins to slow, which is how it should’ve been all along. Scenes actually last more than 30 seconds now lol. Again the boyfriend makes alot of appearances in the film, but he’s kind of irrelevant, to me anyway. He owns a band (as if that wasn’t predictable) but from my point of view, his band isn’t all that great and at one point in the film, even he says that his band sucks. Good job bro, I can’t wait till you guys next album so I can (not) buy it.
In one scene, one of em can even be seen on a keyboard, which is so laughable. Keyboards and guitars do not mix! Sara’s ex eventually shows up, which is again, another cheesy plot in the movie. Her ex is the typical blue eyed football player. Okay, I made the “football player” part up but you can definitely assume it was part of the script, since their involved in about 90% of the teen films out there. He didn’t bring his football jersey but I bet he left it home. Later, Rebecca finally turns devilish but we’re at the end of the film by now. She’s got some woman tied to the bed but I don’t know who it is. There’s a few girls that make appearances in the film (none of which are cute) but one of them has curly hair.
But the girl strapped to the bed has straight hair, so I don’t know where she came from. She probably came in at the end, just to get a quick paycheck for being tied up. Later, Sara arrives at the house where Rebecca holds them both hostage. She starts to freak out a bit in this scene and it kinda makes me crack up, rather than feel the suspense. They both try and choke each other in the room, until Sara somehow either slips or gets thrown (I can’t remember) out the window. Pretty-boy Stephen shows up and tries to rescue her, but gets knocked over the head with a pipe by Rebecca! Eventually, Sara gets the upper hand and ends up stabbing Rebecca in the back!
At the end of the film, Sara decides to move out of her room with the help of pretty-boy. But it’s weird how neither of them have any scars on them after the battle they just went through. Especially Stephen, who was knocked over the head with a bat, I’m surprised he can still push the bed out the room! Overall I knew what I was getting myself into when watching this film, so I didn’t set my hopes too high. It was a decent flick, but the main problem I had was the pacing in the beginning. Especially for a film like this, you don’t wanna edit the scenes too quickly cause your supposed to set that eerie mood. When scenes happen too quickly, you can’t set any mood because you don’t give the audience time to become familiar with the character, but I’ll admit it did have it’s unintentional humorous moments.
I used to catch this movie on cable all the time, and figured it was decent enough to sit through. It’s actually one of those simple films that remind me of so many others, where one character thinks they know another character but they turn out to be a bit devilish. It’s actually a pretty cheesy concept, and these aren’t really the films that I go for but, I’m nice enough to sit through the same lame old story. Although a decent flick, it actually has it’s cheesy moments; some of which made me take a nap, some of which made me giggle, and some, which made me question whether or not Hollywood has officially run out of original ideas.
At the start of the film, we see this girl named Sara getting dropped off at college. I’ve been to college a few times, but took some time off to do movie reviews. But the one I go to is a community college that doesn’t involve dorms or anything. But it was expected, since my mother rarely lets me out of her sight (yes, she’s one of those mothers) But Sara is pretty cute, and decent looking. She later finds out her room is Room 3:16, which reminds me of Stone Cold Steve Austin lol. So we mostly see her here unpacking and getting comfortable, taking out her clothes, etc. Later that night she’s invited to a party with her friends and they go clubbing.
I barely go to parties, personally. I just don’t have the energy to walk around and dance all night. I’d rather either stay home, or chill at that person’s house, and relax and talk. She later meets this guy named Stephen, and this is where the cheesiness begins. I’ve seen this guy in 2 films so far (this and Burlesque) and he basically plays the same one-dimensional pretty-boy character. It gets old very quickly, and so do the scenes involving the two of them. When he first meets her, he spills beer all over her shirt and later explains to her that it’s his way of getting her attention. But if you ask me, it’s probably the best way to get yourself smacked (if of course, this wasn’t a scripted movie)
We later see him dropping her off at her room, telling her to keep the jacket he gave her (how romantic, and cheesy) But he also says she can keep it until the next time they see each other. In which he’ll probably spill another drink on her, what a goof. The next day Sara meets her roommate, named Rebecca. She’s not all that attractive, which is probably why she got the role. She shows alot of awkwardness in the coming scenes, being kinda closed-off, not wanting Sara to see her drawings or anything. Drawing and fashion is part of the sup-plot in this film, but it’s mostly brought up in the beginning. I know nothing about fashion, being a guy and all. I wouldn’t say I’m a lazy dresser, but I usually choose anything that looks good with the skateboarding shoes that I wear 90% of the time lol.
In the coming scenes, we see them buying books for classes, showing off drawings, looking at paintings, and Sara introduces Rebecca to a few of her friends. Watching these scenes, I couldn’t help but get this weird vibe from them though, like something wasn’t right (besides of course, the girl who we all know is mysterious) It took me awhile to pinpoint this weird feeling, but the main thing I don’t like about these scenes, is that they all happen in 10 minutes; Sara arriving at school, going partying, meeting Rebecca, taking her to the art gallery, meeting her friends, etc. We’re only 10 minutes into the film by this point, and yea, the pacing is very fast and it feels like the director was having a bad day and wanted these scenes over with as soon as possible.
We later meet Sara’s art teacher, Professor Roberts. He’s the same guy who plays Rose’s husband from Titanic, a very monumental film. This is another example of the fact that the director didn’t know he was shooting a film, and not a commercial; Sara talks with him about taking his class or something, and shows him this note. He turns it down, saying he’s turned down many others and that she’s no different from them. Disappointingly she walks away, but 5 seconds later he calls her back and signs it lol. If that’s all it takes to convince a teacher, I wanna meet more guys like him!
Sara later finds a kitten on the street and takes it home. I want a kitten so bad, but we can’t have them where we live, which really sucks. But of course, being the movie that this is, it was obvious something bad was gonna happen to the kitten (which also sucks) She and Rebecca share the kitten in their room, even though I wouldn’t let Rebecca touch it at all. In some scenes, you can tell that Sara is beginning to pick up on Rebecca’s weirdness, but she never outright addresses it or brings it up. Sara later meets some other girl, who I think is a friend of hers and offers her to come live with her. Again, these scenes are so predictable. So when Rebecca finds out, she of course gets jealous (surprise surprise!) But what she does next is unthinkable!
She takes the kitten, and puts it in the laundry machine. And even though nothing graphic happens (thank goodness) I had to turn my head, cause it’s kinda sad. The good thing about the film as it goes on, is that the pacing begins to slow, which is how it should’ve been all along. Scenes actually last more than 30 seconds now lol. Again the boyfriend makes alot of appearances in the film, but he’s kind of irrelevant, to me anyway. He owns a band (as if that wasn’t predictable) but from my point of view, his band isn’t all that great and at one point in the film, even he says that his band sucks. Good job bro, I can’t wait till you guys next album so I can (not) buy it.
In one scene, one of em can even be seen on a keyboard, which is so laughable. Keyboards and guitars do not mix! Sara’s ex eventually shows up, which is again, another cheesy plot in the movie. Her ex is the typical blue eyed football player. Okay, I made the “football player” part up but you can definitely assume it was part of the script, since their involved in about 90% of the teen films out there. He didn’t bring his football jersey but I bet he left it home. Later, Rebecca finally turns devilish but we’re at the end of the film by now. She’s got some woman tied to the bed but I don’t know who it is. There’s a few girls that make appearances in the film (none of which are cute) but one of them has curly hair.
But the girl strapped to the bed has straight hair, so I don’t know where she came from. She probably came in at the end, just to get a quick paycheck for being tied up. Later, Sara arrives at the house where Rebecca holds them both hostage. She starts to freak out a bit in this scene and it kinda makes me crack up, rather than feel the suspense. They both try and choke each other in the room, until Sara somehow either slips or gets thrown (I can’t remember) out the window. Pretty-boy Stephen shows up and tries to rescue her, but gets knocked over the head with a pipe by Rebecca! Eventually, Sara gets the upper hand and ends up stabbing Rebecca in the back!
At the end of the film, Sara decides to move out of her room with the help of pretty-boy. But it’s weird how neither of them have any scars on them after the battle they just went through. Especially Stephen, who was knocked over the head with a bat, I’m surprised he can still push the bed out the room! Overall I knew what I was getting myself into when watching this film, so I didn’t set my hopes too high. It was a decent flick, but the main problem I had was the pacing in the beginning. Especially for a film like this, you don’t wanna edit the scenes too quickly cause your supposed to set that eerie mood. When scenes happen too quickly, you can’t set any mood because you don’t give the audience time to become familiar with the character, but I’ll admit it did have it’s unintentional humorous moments.
Unknown (2011)
I remember seeing a preview of this movie on-demand, and it caught my eye instantly. It’s a very simple story I think, which was the big thing that got me interested. It’s kinda hard to describe what this movie is about, but it’s mostly about a man named Martin Harris who (after a car crash) gets his identity stolen by another man, claiming to be him.
At the start of this film, we find out Martin and his wife are going to Berlin, which is the capital of Germany. I’m guessing their on vacation. I’ve never been out of the United States, personally. The farthest I’ve been would be Delaware and Virginia to visit my aunts. Most of (if not all) this movie takes place in a different country though. They eventually arrive at the hotel but soon, we see Martin quickly heading back to the airport cause he forgot one of his bags, I’m guessing it was clothes though I’m unsure. He quickly jumps back into a taxi to go back and get it, and steps into a cab with this cute looking girl. But as their heading back, a collision up ahead stops them.
The driver quickly pulls off to the side of the road, but they crash and head into the lake! This is definitely a scary scene, since I still can’t swim lol. But hey, that’s why we have life jackets. Turns out the driver is a great swimmer and ends up rescuing him, pulling him from the car to the street. We now see him in the hospital, 3-4 days later. The doctor begins asking him questions and whatnot and it seems he can remember a few things. Eventually he remembers that he left his wife behind in the city, still at the hotel. He makes his way over to the hotel to find her and with some prying, gets security to let him speak with her.
She’s at this little diner in the living room area. But she looks at him questionably, as if she never saw him before in her life and of course, he looks at her the same way. She calls the other Martin over and it’s at this point where he believes he’s being fooled, or that the whole thing is a joke. The fake Martin even got a nametag with his picture and name on the front lol. She actually looks alot prettier in this scene, as opposed to when she was with him in the beginning. Maybe this tells us that she was better off with his clone, who knows. We later see him going over to visit the taxi driver who drove him into the river in the crash, Gina. Again, she’s very cute but when he arrives at her job at some diner, she’s very distant from him and comes off kind of annoyed.
I guess cause it was a pretty traumatic experience, but I feel there’s another reason why she’s so distant. We later see him going to meet up with this professor in his room about a project they’ve been working on. This scene is pretty interesting, and atleast I think would’ve worked alot better if it was happening in real life. When he reaches the professor, the imposter is here and they both try and convince him that their both Martin Harris. The real Martin (the main character) begins telling him about the conversations they’ve had and about how many kids he has and the imposter begins doing the same thing, so it’s hard to really tell who’s telling the truth.
But realistically, how would the real Martin know anything about the professor’s kids or the conversations they’ve had over the phone if he knew nothing about him. That’s the question I wanna ask, but of course this is a movie so all realism gets put to the side. The professor just sits there looking puzzled and doesn’t really say much. When Martin visits the doctor later on, he asks him “How do I know so much about Martin, if I’ve never met him?” and the doc tells him, that maybe he read about him somewhere. Though you can’t really read about a conversation someone’s had over the phone, so this scene makes no sense either.
The psychiatrist he visits later on poses some interesting thoughts though; He asks Martin, about the reason a guy like (the imposter) would wanna take his place to begin with and also, that it couldn’t have been planned out. If they planned to take his place, they would’ve known through some psychic way that he was coming to Berlin and they’d have to have the girl set the cab up to crash, which doesn’t make sense cause she eventually ends up saving him. Lots of questions about how something like this could happen, and I still don’t know how it was planned up. For the next 20-30 minutes or so, we get alot of chasing scenes from these men in suits, chasing Martin around.
I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I’m guessing their security for the imposter, since he felt he was being followed. Later in the movie, Martin finally figures out why he’s in Berlin in the first place, as some of his memory comes back to him. Gina finds his real I.D (there’s about 3 of them in the movie, each with different names lol) and he realizes, that he and his wife came over not for vacation, but to kill a guy named Martin Harris. Both he and his wife are detectives. Basically, he and Gina make their way to the hotel and try and stop the attack. His wife is already over there planting the bomb, but he races over to interfere. He and Gina end up making it over, but find out their too late as the bomb ends up exploding!
It creates a huge explosion, wiping out alot of the top floor of the building, killing her in the midst of it. At the end of the movie, we see Martin and Gina making their way to a train. I guess this scene takes place months after, and it seems their in a different mindset now. I’m guessing their dating as well, now that his wife is gone. This was a decent ending I think, atleast he’s got someone to talk to now. Overall this was a pretty cool movie, and such a simple, yet beautiful idea. I kinda feel after Martin had the crash, that he was somehow transported to an alternate universe in a way. Maybe, wherever he was, was some type of afterlife and I’ll end it on that note, as I don’t wanna get into any type of religion stuff. There’s still some scenes in this movie that confuse me but whatever, it still had its moments.
I remember seeing a preview of this movie on-demand, and it caught my eye instantly. It’s a very simple story I think, which was the big thing that got me interested. It’s kinda hard to describe what this movie is about, but it’s mostly about a man named Martin Harris who (after a car crash) gets his identity stolen by another man, claiming to be him.
At the start of this film, we find out Martin and his wife are going to Berlin, which is the capital of Germany. I’m guessing their on vacation. I’ve never been out of the United States, personally. The farthest I’ve been would be Delaware and Virginia to visit my aunts. Most of (if not all) this movie takes place in a different country though. They eventually arrive at the hotel but soon, we see Martin quickly heading back to the airport cause he forgot one of his bags, I’m guessing it was clothes though I’m unsure. He quickly jumps back into a taxi to go back and get it, and steps into a cab with this cute looking girl. But as their heading back, a collision up ahead stops them.
The driver quickly pulls off to the side of the road, but they crash and head into the lake! This is definitely a scary scene, since I still can’t swim lol. But hey, that’s why we have life jackets. Turns out the driver is a great swimmer and ends up rescuing him, pulling him from the car to the street. We now see him in the hospital, 3-4 days later. The doctor begins asking him questions and whatnot and it seems he can remember a few things. Eventually he remembers that he left his wife behind in the city, still at the hotel. He makes his way over to the hotel to find her and with some prying, gets security to let him speak with her.
She’s at this little diner in the living room area. But she looks at him questionably, as if she never saw him before in her life and of course, he looks at her the same way. She calls the other Martin over and it’s at this point where he believes he’s being fooled, or that the whole thing is a joke. The fake Martin even got a nametag with his picture and name on the front lol. She actually looks alot prettier in this scene, as opposed to when she was with him in the beginning. Maybe this tells us that she was better off with his clone, who knows. We later see him going over to visit the taxi driver who drove him into the river in the crash, Gina. Again, she’s very cute but when he arrives at her job at some diner, she’s very distant from him and comes off kind of annoyed.
I guess cause it was a pretty traumatic experience, but I feel there’s another reason why she’s so distant. We later see him going to meet up with this professor in his room about a project they’ve been working on. This scene is pretty interesting, and atleast I think would’ve worked alot better if it was happening in real life. When he reaches the professor, the imposter is here and they both try and convince him that their both Martin Harris. The real Martin (the main character) begins telling him about the conversations they’ve had and about how many kids he has and the imposter begins doing the same thing, so it’s hard to really tell who’s telling the truth.
But realistically, how would the real Martin know anything about the professor’s kids or the conversations they’ve had over the phone if he knew nothing about him. That’s the question I wanna ask, but of course this is a movie so all realism gets put to the side. The professor just sits there looking puzzled and doesn’t really say much. When Martin visits the doctor later on, he asks him “How do I know so much about Martin, if I’ve never met him?” and the doc tells him, that maybe he read about him somewhere. Though you can’t really read about a conversation someone’s had over the phone, so this scene makes no sense either.
The psychiatrist he visits later on poses some interesting thoughts though; He asks Martin, about the reason a guy like (the imposter) would wanna take his place to begin with and also, that it couldn’t have been planned out. If they planned to take his place, they would’ve known through some psychic way that he was coming to Berlin and they’d have to have the girl set the cab up to crash, which doesn’t make sense cause she eventually ends up saving him. Lots of questions about how something like this could happen, and I still don’t know how it was planned up. For the next 20-30 minutes or so, we get alot of chasing scenes from these men in suits, chasing Martin around.
I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I’m guessing their security for the imposter, since he felt he was being followed. Later in the movie, Martin finally figures out why he’s in Berlin in the first place, as some of his memory comes back to him. Gina finds his real I.D (there’s about 3 of them in the movie, each with different names lol) and he realizes, that he and his wife came over not for vacation, but to kill a guy named Martin Harris. Both he and his wife are detectives. Basically, he and Gina make their way to the hotel and try and stop the attack. His wife is already over there planting the bomb, but he races over to interfere. He and Gina end up making it over, but find out their too late as the bomb ends up exploding!
It creates a huge explosion, wiping out alot of the top floor of the building, killing her in the midst of it. At the end of the movie, we see Martin and Gina making their way to a train. I guess this scene takes place months after, and it seems their in a different mindset now. I’m guessing their dating as well, now that his wife is gone. This was a decent ending I think, atleast he’s got someone to talk to now. Overall this was a pretty cool movie, and such a simple, yet beautiful idea. I kinda feel after Martin had the crash, that he was somehow transported to an alternate universe in a way. Maybe, wherever he was, was some type of afterlife and I’ll end it on that note, as I don’t wanna get into any type of religion stuff. There’s still some scenes in this movie that confuse me but whatever, it still had its moments.
Battleship (2012)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie when it was coming out in theaters. It was released right around the time of Prometheus, and I was kinda happy to see a trailer for something entertaining for once. I’m not too big on action movies, but the trailer did blow me away. I love the explosions and the sheer intensity that it brought. I definitely would’ve seen this in theaters if it had some horror elements mixed in but, no big deal.
At the start of the film, we get this little intro by a group of scientists talking about space. I always had a thing for space and things that involved the universe. There’s just something very mysterious and dark about the universe, and I find myself watching the science channel all the time and listening to different theories of it’s origin. I don’t care much for the solar system but I always had a thing for black holes too. But anyway, it’s a good intro into the subject of this movie.
We later meet 2 brothers at a bar, one named Alex and the other, Stone. I’m guessing one is the smart one and the other is the bratty rebellious one, kinda like myself. Before I continue, one thing that really irritated me about this movie was the camera work. I don’t talk about this much cause there aren’t alot of directors that do this, but the camera work in this movie really annoys me. They zoom so close to the characters faces, it’s so frustrating to watch. I even have a blog on this particular subject where I discuss the 4-5 other movies that do this.
So anyway, some cute girl named Sam shows up. And of course, Alex walks over and begins flirting and showing her some attention. The whole scene is pretty cheesy. So he hits on her a bit and eventually offers to get her a chicken burrito lol. If this is the fastest way to a girls heart, I’d better take notes huh. So he races off to the nearest store and tries to get her burrito. The store is closed so he ends up breaking in through the roof. The scene is kinda funny but it’s so random and silly. In one scene he falls from the roof and lands on one of the counters in the store, so he must have some type of stunt training.
Now that I think of it, this scene kinda represents something in regards to the movie, which I’ll bring up later on. But he ends up getting chased by police and tazered with the burrito in his hand, and I laugh just thinking about it. She’s probably like “Dude this isn’t even warm” lol. The next day his brother Stone gets mad at him for causing a scene, and also says the girl he tried to hit on was his generals daughter. What a small world these bozo’s live in huh. I bet he sent her there on purpose.
Eventually his brother invites him to the Navy with him, to teach him some discipline I guess. We later find out we’re in Hawaii, a place I’ve never been. I’ve only been to Virginia and Delaware where my aunts live, but never any farther than that. But you kinda forget what state their in cause alot of this movie takes place in the ocean, so who cares. We later get this random short little scene of them playing soccer, where we meet Rihanna for the first time. They try and portray her as some tough soldier chick but she’s kinda awkward looking in this movie, to me anyway. It’s always weird when they cast random music artists in movie like this.
Later in the game, Alex gets accidentally kicked in the face by some Asian dude. So they give him a chance to score a penalty shot. I think that’s what they call it in soccer and hockey, cause for football it’s called a field goal. I never played sports like this myself, besides high school track. I had to practically beg my mother to do that one lol. So anyway, he misses the penalty shot and the Asians win I guess. It must be some country vs country game. Another example of how much the director likes to zoom in this movie, you don’t even see the edge of the soccer goal net, all you see is the middle.
And like I said not alot of directors do this but when I see it, I wanna strangle somebody. Back the hell up dude, let us see the entire field for cryin out loud! Later on, we meet Admiral Shane (Liam Nelson) who I think is a pretty good actor. He’s the general in this movie and the father of the girl Alex was tryin to hit on earlier. It’s a small world after all. The coming scenes are pretty boring, as all we see are a bunch of guys walking around on the boat as it sets sail. We don’t get that many shots of the boat itself but with a director like this, it’s kind of expected.
I’ve personally never been on a boat, or a plane for that matter. But I’m not really afraid of them as they can’t be any worse than a roller coaster. My mother on the other hand is a complete wimp when it comes to these things, and she won’t let me get on one without her lol. So as Alex is on the boat, Sam stays behind to tend to her job at this rehab facility. In our first glimpse, we see all the soldiers here, exercising and rehabbing. I don’t really read up on soldiers and what they do for our country, but I’ll always respect and appreciate what they do. They definitely sacrifice alot for this beautiful country that we live in.
We later meet this big guy named Mick, who’s an amputee, which means he’s lost both his legs. I don’t really like the word amputee personally, it’s just a silly word to me. I usually refer to them as handicap or disabled, but go figure. In one scene we see him on some treadmill as a group of guys try and get him to use his legs more. He comes off kinda depressed in these scenes and it’s definitely understandable, cause I wouldn’t wanna be in his situation. He later has a little talk with Sam about his progress so far, and we get more examples of how close the director likes to zoom on the actors faces. I seriously wanna choke this guy lol.
Pretty soon, we find out that something is falling from the sky. We get this cool scene of what looks like fire balls crashing down to earth. I remember this scene from the trailer and it really blew me away, cause I haven’t seen explosions like this in a long time. One of them crashes into the water and creates this huge tidal wave, and it looks so amazing. Reminds me of the scenes from Godzilla vs Mothra where they fought in the water. I used to watch those movies with my dad alot and I loved seeing explosions and water and all that. Another one crashes into a building and again, I love scenes like this, very intense.
When Alex and the guys on the boat find this out, they prepare themselves. But as they keep on traveling, they spot something up ahead in the water. It looks like some type of monument or something, and Shane sends some of his troops down to check it out. He sends Alex, Rihanna and some other guy. Alex gets up close to it and touches it, and it sends him hurling backwards lol. And with that, the monument immediately springs up, and produces this big dome looking thing above them, about 1000 feet around. They give the specific measurements in the movie, but I can’t remember exactly. But the image itself is kinda cool looking.
Pretty soon this huge, monstrous looking machine emerges from the water below them. It’s so badass looking, I can’t even lie. It’s like a 300 foot long robot looking thing. It immediately begins firing grenades from it’s machine gun, which lands on a couple boats nearby and blows em up. Scenes like this give me goosebumps! The guys in the boat try and speed off while Rihanna tries to shoot at it. Like that’s supposed to work. Reminds me of the scene in Skyline (2010) where the one guy tried to shoot at the monster with a pistol, these people are so dumb.
She’d be better off trying to distract the machine with one of her songs, though I’m not saying I hate her music. My favorite song of hers is Rehab, which was produced by Timberland. Other boats try and shoot at the machine but they get blown to bits easily. But it’s kinda hard to take all this in when the camera zooms so close. When the boats blow up, the camera has to be atleast at sea level so we can see the darn explosion, is the director that dumb! I’m surprised the camera he was using didn’t catch fire.
We later find out some general died, and now Alex is in charge of the whole ship. When they said general I thought they were talking about Shane but we later find out he’s still alive. But their actually referring to Alex’s brother Shane, who I assume is a few ranks higher than him. And if I have the time correct, Alex was just hired a day ago after his brother was sick of seeing him screwing around at the bar, so I don’t know what rank he’s gonna obtain after one day’s work. So anyway, Alex is now in charge of the ships, great. Alot of the guys wanna back down cause they realize how powerful this machine is, but Alex tells em to keep goin.
Later on, the monument thingy opens up and begins hurtling out these spiked, sharp red round looking things and flinging them through the city. This is definitely one of the best scenes in the movie, it’s so badass lol. These spiked round things are so ferocious and they rip through the city like butter. They first hit the airport, where they rip through a couple helicopters. Then they spin through this highway, where they literally slice the roads in half! We later get a scene of these space shuttles landing somewhere in the woods, which obviously belongs to that big machine thing in the water.
One of them apparently tries to sneak into the ship with Alex and his men, but they catch him and lay him down on the floor. It looks like it’s passed out or something. And it looks like a mix between one of those soldiers from Halo or Dead Space, but it looks so darn cool lol. I always had a thing for that robotic look. So about 5 of em look over this thing, trying to figure out what it is. Weird thing is, they kinda defeat the mystery cause you can see the robots hands while their in the suit. And in some scenes, you can see their face. There’s nothing really specific or original about their look, but they look like regular alien creatures, no big deal.
For some reason, aliens inside a robot suit like this just doesn’t look right. They should’ve had zombies in there instead lol. But anyway, as they look over the robot, Rihanna says something kinda silly in this scene. She says her dad told her “They’d come for me” referring to the robot, and “I wouldn’t wanna be around when they came” I’m paraphrasing but yea, it’s kinda silly. Reminds me of the scene in Legion where Percy says he knew the apocalypse was coming but didn’t think he’d be around for it. It’s only in movies where people get to express these made up fantasies, but one things for sure, Rihanna you got a weird father lol.
It’s hard to really remember what happens next, but eventually the robot gets taken away by about 2 other robot friends. You can blame alot of this on the director cause the camera is fixed on the wrong places at the wrong time, and it’s really shaky. Later on, one of them comes down the steps. And again, I remember this scene from the trailer and it’s so badass. But the camera work sucks! In one instance you see it’s feet, then you see it’s head, but you never see it’s entire body in one frame from top to bottom. For all we know there could be 2 different robots in this scene, what the hell!
A couple guys arrive and they try and fight the robot, but I honestly don’t even wanna talk about this scene. You can’t see squat, all you see is chest and head, chest and head. You never get a full shot of the robot from head to toe, and it just looks awkward. If I ever met the director, I’d strangle him for screwing up a scene that could’ve been so much better if he backed the hell up! Even Rihanna tries to take a swing at this thing but she gets smacked out the way, back to the dance floor sweetie. Eventually they lead the robot outside where they take it out with a missile, knocking it off the boat to the ocean below.
The coming scenes are kinda boring, to be honest. I love the action but this movie kinda drags on a bit at the 2 hour mark. I don’t care how good your movie is, if it’s this long, somebody’s gonna end up falling asleep at some point. Later on Mick (the handicap guy from earlier) ends up getting in a fight with a robot. But before I get into this scene, let me backtrack for a bit. You don’t see much of Mick or Sam through the movie, except for little glimpses here and there. Alot of their scenes take place on this mountain, where he and Sam do this therapy walk up the hill to build strength in his prosthetic legs.
But there’s a scene that happens earlier, where she and Mick find out the robots have landed. But I immediately predicted (what I thought would be) the ending of this movie. And I’m not entirely correct, but I’ll get to this later. So anyway, we see her driving him through the jungle, until they eventually hit a rock or something (I can’t remember) But Sam ends up getting her leg stuck under the wheel somehow. They crash near a couple robots, so Mick gets out and fights one of them. I knew there was gonna be a scene like this in the movie; an empowering scene where a disabled soldier still has the heart to do battle.
It’s inspiring yet so predictably cheesy. And it’s even funnier cause Sam had to obviously have a reason to stay behind so Mick could do battle on his own, but the way she got stuck in the car was so stupid lol. But the fight between Mick and robot is kinda lame too, as all you see is head and chest. And I’m not saying this cause he’s got a disability and I wanna see his legs (cause I already mentioned this earlier) but you get what I mean, the scene is lame. I’m surprised the director didn’t get kicked in the face while they fought, as close as he’s zooming.
Eventually Alex and his team end up winning though, blowing all the ships up and removing the barrier. They have this big celebration scene at the end where all the soldiers get medals for their courage and all that. In the last scene, we see them taking pictures and posing. Even Rihanna is here, and she only killed one robot, what a wimp. Eventually Alex has a talk with Sam’s father, and I’ll admit this scene kinda made me giggle. I think he asks if he can marry his daughter, and Shane goes “No” and then he goes “No means no, I’m getting a sandwich” lol. But he ends it by saying he’s getting a burrito, which we all remember from earlier in the movie. And I’ll admit, when I heard him say that line I couldn’t help but smile. It’s so cheesy yet so cute.
Overall this was a pretty average movie. I love the action, I love the explosions and the water and all that. The main thing I hate about this movie is the darn camera work by Peter Berg. I don’t care how cool your movie is, if amazing scenes are happening you don’t need to zoom so close that I can’t see what’s going on, bone head! Berg also did The Rundown (2003) which is one of my favorite movies yet there’s no hint of this type of camera work, what’d he do abandon his camera skills for one movie. I used to think this movie was called Battleship cause they did like a movie version of the board game, but it’s nothing like that. It’s called Battleship for the simple fact that it’s ships battling each other.
My original prediction for the end of this movie was kinda different though. I knew Mick was gonna fight someone and show how brave he was even though he was handicap, so I got that part right. But my prediction for the end was that he was gonna be the hero and at the end of the movie, do a little pose with Alex and Sam. Like I said earlier, I think the scene in the beginning has another meaning though, where he steals the burrito. I think this scene was trying to show us that Alex is a pretty determined guy, which we saw examples of when he and his men battled the ship. Makes sense, but still pretty lame.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie when it was coming out in theaters. It was released right around the time of Prometheus, and I was kinda happy to see a trailer for something entertaining for once. I’m not too big on action movies, but the trailer did blow me away. I love the explosions and the sheer intensity that it brought. I definitely would’ve seen this in theaters if it had some horror elements mixed in but, no big deal.
At the start of the film, we get this little intro by a group of scientists talking about space. I always had a thing for space and things that involved the universe. There’s just something very mysterious and dark about the universe, and I find myself watching the science channel all the time and listening to different theories of it’s origin. I don’t care much for the solar system but I always had a thing for black holes too. But anyway, it’s a good intro into the subject of this movie.
We later meet 2 brothers at a bar, one named Alex and the other, Stone. I’m guessing one is the smart one and the other is the bratty rebellious one, kinda like myself. Before I continue, one thing that really irritated me about this movie was the camera work. I don’t talk about this much cause there aren’t alot of directors that do this, but the camera work in this movie really annoys me. They zoom so close to the characters faces, it’s so frustrating to watch. I even have a blog on this particular subject where I discuss the 4-5 other movies that do this.
So anyway, some cute girl named Sam shows up. And of course, Alex walks over and begins flirting and showing her some attention. The whole scene is pretty cheesy. So he hits on her a bit and eventually offers to get her a chicken burrito lol. If this is the fastest way to a girls heart, I’d better take notes huh. So he races off to the nearest store and tries to get her burrito. The store is closed so he ends up breaking in through the roof. The scene is kinda funny but it’s so random and silly. In one scene he falls from the roof and lands on one of the counters in the store, so he must have some type of stunt training.
Now that I think of it, this scene kinda represents something in regards to the movie, which I’ll bring up later on. But he ends up getting chased by police and tazered with the burrito in his hand, and I laugh just thinking about it. She’s probably like “Dude this isn’t even warm” lol. The next day his brother Stone gets mad at him for causing a scene, and also says the girl he tried to hit on was his generals daughter. What a small world these bozo’s live in huh. I bet he sent her there on purpose.
Eventually his brother invites him to the Navy with him, to teach him some discipline I guess. We later find out we’re in Hawaii, a place I’ve never been. I’ve only been to Virginia and Delaware where my aunts live, but never any farther than that. But you kinda forget what state their in cause alot of this movie takes place in the ocean, so who cares. We later get this random short little scene of them playing soccer, where we meet Rihanna for the first time. They try and portray her as some tough soldier chick but she’s kinda awkward looking in this movie, to me anyway. It’s always weird when they cast random music artists in movie like this.
Later in the game, Alex gets accidentally kicked in the face by some Asian dude. So they give him a chance to score a penalty shot. I think that’s what they call it in soccer and hockey, cause for football it’s called a field goal. I never played sports like this myself, besides high school track. I had to practically beg my mother to do that one lol. So anyway, he misses the penalty shot and the Asians win I guess. It must be some country vs country game. Another example of how much the director likes to zoom in this movie, you don’t even see the edge of the soccer goal net, all you see is the middle.
And like I said not alot of directors do this but when I see it, I wanna strangle somebody. Back the hell up dude, let us see the entire field for cryin out loud! Later on, we meet Admiral Shane (Liam Nelson) who I think is a pretty good actor. He’s the general in this movie and the father of the girl Alex was tryin to hit on earlier. It’s a small world after all. The coming scenes are pretty boring, as all we see are a bunch of guys walking around on the boat as it sets sail. We don’t get that many shots of the boat itself but with a director like this, it’s kind of expected.
I’ve personally never been on a boat, or a plane for that matter. But I’m not really afraid of them as they can’t be any worse than a roller coaster. My mother on the other hand is a complete wimp when it comes to these things, and she won’t let me get on one without her lol. So as Alex is on the boat, Sam stays behind to tend to her job at this rehab facility. In our first glimpse, we see all the soldiers here, exercising and rehabbing. I don’t really read up on soldiers and what they do for our country, but I’ll always respect and appreciate what they do. They definitely sacrifice alot for this beautiful country that we live in.
We later meet this big guy named Mick, who’s an amputee, which means he’s lost both his legs. I don’t really like the word amputee personally, it’s just a silly word to me. I usually refer to them as handicap or disabled, but go figure. In one scene we see him on some treadmill as a group of guys try and get him to use his legs more. He comes off kinda depressed in these scenes and it’s definitely understandable, cause I wouldn’t wanna be in his situation. He later has a little talk with Sam about his progress so far, and we get more examples of how close the director likes to zoom on the actors faces. I seriously wanna choke this guy lol.
Pretty soon, we find out that something is falling from the sky. We get this cool scene of what looks like fire balls crashing down to earth. I remember this scene from the trailer and it really blew me away, cause I haven’t seen explosions like this in a long time. One of them crashes into the water and creates this huge tidal wave, and it looks so amazing. Reminds me of the scenes from Godzilla vs Mothra where they fought in the water. I used to watch those movies with my dad alot and I loved seeing explosions and water and all that. Another one crashes into a building and again, I love scenes like this, very intense.
When Alex and the guys on the boat find this out, they prepare themselves. But as they keep on traveling, they spot something up ahead in the water. It looks like some type of monument or something, and Shane sends some of his troops down to check it out. He sends Alex, Rihanna and some other guy. Alex gets up close to it and touches it, and it sends him hurling backwards lol. And with that, the monument immediately springs up, and produces this big dome looking thing above them, about 1000 feet around. They give the specific measurements in the movie, but I can’t remember exactly. But the image itself is kinda cool looking.
Pretty soon this huge, monstrous looking machine emerges from the water below them. It’s so badass looking, I can’t even lie. It’s like a 300 foot long robot looking thing. It immediately begins firing grenades from it’s machine gun, which lands on a couple boats nearby and blows em up. Scenes like this give me goosebumps! The guys in the boat try and speed off while Rihanna tries to shoot at it. Like that’s supposed to work. Reminds me of the scene in Skyline (2010) where the one guy tried to shoot at the monster with a pistol, these people are so dumb.
She’d be better off trying to distract the machine with one of her songs, though I’m not saying I hate her music. My favorite song of hers is Rehab, which was produced by Timberland. Other boats try and shoot at the machine but they get blown to bits easily. But it’s kinda hard to take all this in when the camera zooms so close. When the boats blow up, the camera has to be atleast at sea level so we can see the darn explosion, is the director that dumb! I’m surprised the camera he was using didn’t catch fire.
We later find out some general died, and now Alex is in charge of the whole ship. When they said general I thought they were talking about Shane but we later find out he’s still alive. But their actually referring to Alex’s brother Shane, who I assume is a few ranks higher than him. And if I have the time correct, Alex was just hired a day ago after his brother was sick of seeing him screwing around at the bar, so I don’t know what rank he’s gonna obtain after one day’s work. So anyway, Alex is now in charge of the ships, great. Alot of the guys wanna back down cause they realize how powerful this machine is, but Alex tells em to keep goin.
Later on, the monument thingy opens up and begins hurtling out these spiked, sharp red round looking things and flinging them through the city. This is definitely one of the best scenes in the movie, it’s so badass lol. These spiked round things are so ferocious and they rip through the city like butter. They first hit the airport, where they rip through a couple helicopters. Then they spin through this highway, where they literally slice the roads in half! We later get a scene of these space shuttles landing somewhere in the woods, which obviously belongs to that big machine thing in the water.
One of them apparently tries to sneak into the ship with Alex and his men, but they catch him and lay him down on the floor. It looks like it’s passed out or something. And it looks like a mix between one of those soldiers from Halo or Dead Space, but it looks so darn cool lol. I always had a thing for that robotic look. So about 5 of em look over this thing, trying to figure out what it is. Weird thing is, they kinda defeat the mystery cause you can see the robots hands while their in the suit. And in some scenes, you can see their face. There’s nothing really specific or original about their look, but they look like regular alien creatures, no big deal.
For some reason, aliens inside a robot suit like this just doesn’t look right. They should’ve had zombies in there instead lol. But anyway, as they look over the robot, Rihanna says something kinda silly in this scene. She says her dad told her “They’d come for me” referring to the robot, and “I wouldn’t wanna be around when they came” I’m paraphrasing but yea, it’s kinda silly. Reminds me of the scene in Legion where Percy says he knew the apocalypse was coming but didn’t think he’d be around for it. It’s only in movies where people get to express these made up fantasies, but one things for sure, Rihanna you got a weird father lol.
It’s hard to really remember what happens next, but eventually the robot gets taken away by about 2 other robot friends. You can blame alot of this on the director cause the camera is fixed on the wrong places at the wrong time, and it’s really shaky. Later on, one of them comes down the steps. And again, I remember this scene from the trailer and it’s so badass. But the camera work sucks! In one instance you see it’s feet, then you see it’s head, but you never see it’s entire body in one frame from top to bottom. For all we know there could be 2 different robots in this scene, what the hell!
A couple guys arrive and they try and fight the robot, but I honestly don’t even wanna talk about this scene. You can’t see squat, all you see is chest and head, chest and head. You never get a full shot of the robot from head to toe, and it just looks awkward. If I ever met the director, I’d strangle him for screwing up a scene that could’ve been so much better if he backed the hell up! Even Rihanna tries to take a swing at this thing but she gets smacked out the way, back to the dance floor sweetie. Eventually they lead the robot outside where they take it out with a missile, knocking it off the boat to the ocean below.
The coming scenes are kinda boring, to be honest. I love the action but this movie kinda drags on a bit at the 2 hour mark. I don’t care how good your movie is, if it’s this long, somebody’s gonna end up falling asleep at some point. Later on Mick (the handicap guy from earlier) ends up getting in a fight with a robot. But before I get into this scene, let me backtrack for a bit. You don’t see much of Mick or Sam through the movie, except for little glimpses here and there. Alot of their scenes take place on this mountain, where he and Sam do this therapy walk up the hill to build strength in his prosthetic legs.
But there’s a scene that happens earlier, where she and Mick find out the robots have landed. But I immediately predicted (what I thought would be) the ending of this movie. And I’m not entirely correct, but I’ll get to this later. So anyway, we see her driving him through the jungle, until they eventually hit a rock or something (I can’t remember) But Sam ends up getting her leg stuck under the wheel somehow. They crash near a couple robots, so Mick gets out and fights one of them. I knew there was gonna be a scene like this in the movie; an empowering scene where a disabled soldier still has the heart to do battle.
It’s inspiring yet so predictably cheesy. And it’s even funnier cause Sam had to obviously have a reason to stay behind so Mick could do battle on his own, but the way she got stuck in the car was so stupid lol. But the fight between Mick and robot is kinda lame too, as all you see is head and chest. And I’m not saying this cause he’s got a disability and I wanna see his legs (cause I already mentioned this earlier) but you get what I mean, the scene is lame. I’m surprised the director didn’t get kicked in the face while they fought, as close as he’s zooming.
Eventually Alex and his team end up winning though, blowing all the ships up and removing the barrier. They have this big celebration scene at the end where all the soldiers get medals for their courage and all that. In the last scene, we see them taking pictures and posing. Even Rihanna is here, and she only killed one robot, what a wimp. Eventually Alex has a talk with Sam’s father, and I’ll admit this scene kinda made me giggle. I think he asks if he can marry his daughter, and Shane goes “No” and then he goes “No means no, I’m getting a sandwich” lol. But he ends it by saying he’s getting a burrito, which we all remember from earlier in the movie. And I’ll admit, when I heard him say that line I couldn’t help but smile. It’s so cheesy yet so cute.
Overall this was a pretty average movie. I love the action, I love the explosions and the water and all that. The main thing I hate about this movie is the darn camera work by Peter Berg. I don’t care how cool your movie is, if amazing scenes are happening you don’t need to zoom so close that I can’t see what’s going on, bone head! Berg also did The Rundown (2003) which is one of my favorite movies yet there’s no hint of this type of camera work, what’d he do abandon his camera skills for one movie. I used to think this movie was called Battleship cause they did like a movie version of the board game, but it’s nothing like that. It’s called Battleship for the simple fact that it’s ships battling each other.
My original prediction for the end of this movie was kinda different though. I knew Mick was gonna fight someone and show how brave he was even though he was handicap, so I got that part right. But my prediction for the end was that he was gonna be the hero and at the end of the movie, do a little pose with Alex and Sam. Like I said earlier, I think the scene in the beginning has another meaning though, where he steals the burrito. I think this scene was trying to show us that Alex is a pretty determined guy, which we saw examples of when he and his men battled the ship. Makes sense, but still pretty lame.
Chronicle (2012)
I remember seeing the trailer for this film when it came out, and it looked pretty cool. But I’m really not a theater person, so very rarely do I go to theaters. The main reason is cause I don’t like doing half-ass reviews of films and not describing every scene like I normally would. And I’m very afraid of being disappointed in the new films that come out, since I’m more comfortable sticking in my own genre of horror and not this paranormal crap! The main scenes that attracted me to this film, were the scenes where the kids push the cars out the way, and I thought those were pretty neat.
At the start of the film, we get a scene of this teen named Andrew in his room with his camera. At the moment he’s being verbally abused by his father, who we don’t see till later on, so I’ll get to him later. But he makes a point in this scene that he’s “filming the abuse” that he’s gotta deal with on a day to day basis, and it’s actually pretty sad (yet smart) My heart goes out to anybody who actually has parents like this, who get drunk on most nights and just yell at their kids for no reason. We later find out Andrews mother is sick as well, and we see her in a bed with the hospital tubes and everything. My guess is she has cancer, but thank goodness she’s not losing her hair yet.
We later meet a friend of his named Matt who takes him to school. We also get the impression in these early scenes that Andrew is a nerd. He’s very awkward in alot of these scenes and he even gets bullied a few times, which I think is cheesy. It especially makes me cringe when I see the football player teens here with the jackets and everything. Matt later offers to take him to this party but Andrew doesn’t wanna go, which is understandable since he’s the nerd. Truth is I’m not too fond of parties either. I’d rather just chill at home and have a very toned down party, without all the dancing and jumping around.
We later get this little scene of Andrew in his room, still filming himself with the camera. The camera itself is a key point in this film, since the movie is mostly shot from his point of view and everything. And thank goodness this is one of those decent hand-held movies, nothing like that Paranormal shaky-camera crap. But his father breaks in his room in this scene and kinda pushes him around a bit. We don’t see his face in the first scene when he’s yelling at Andrew, but we clearly see it here. He’s the same guy from Dawn of the Dead, which is a movie I literally just did the day before this one. He’s basically just an un-employed nobody, sitting inside all day torturing his son.
I think that’s the main thing people need to understand when it comes to these nerd-type characters; some are nerds (outcasts) just cause they love being nerds, but some are outcasts for specific reasons. Speaking for myself (especially in my high school years) I was mostly trying to figure myself out. Cause I was going through alot of stuff between my mother and I, and I didn’t have the tools to put my finger on why I was so sad. But long story short, my mother has a very tight leash on me, so I missed out on alot of things kids my age got to do, especially when it came to vacations. So yea, I had a reason to be an outcast. But I think I’m fine with how I handled things cause I never lashed out or took it out on anybody.
We later meet this black kid named Steve who’s another main character here. He later takes Andrew and shows him this underground temple near the party house. It’s kinda random, and he and this other kid just jump inside. At the bottom, they find this big, blue ice-starfish looking thing. We don’t get a clear shot of it, but eventually Steve starts to bleed from his nose and one kid flies backwards! It looks like they get zapped by the starfish but it’s hard to tell. We later get this scene of them in someone’s backyard, testing out these powers that they now have. This scene actually comes a bit too quickly if you ask me. You never get a scene of the moment they figure out they have the powers, nor do we know how long it took for them to find out.
But we see them here with a baseball, throwing it back and forth at each other. The ball is obviously CGI, and it kinda reminds us how far we’ve come technology wise. To me this movie is just a big CGI experiment, and that’s mostly what alot of these gags consist of. Two of them don’t get the focus right I guess, and they both get smacked in the face with the ball lol. But the only one to get it right is Andrew. He’s able to stop the ball right in front of his face and levitate it. In the coming scenes, we see them testing out the powers they have but I’m not gonna get into all of them. The main ones that I like, are the ones where they move the vehicles off the road, and I think powers like this would be pretty cool to have.
Steve later asks Andrew about his father while their driving in the car, and Andrew tells him his father was a firefighter. Which means squat to me, but being a firefighter is alot better than being a security guard (or posing as one) like in Dawn of the Dead. This guy has a tough time finding jobs in movies, it’s ridiculous. We later see Steve and the others using their powers to fly in the air, and this is where the movie gets pretty stale for me. I just hate seeing people flying in the air, it’s so cheesy. If they don’t have wings like Superman, they just look very cheesy in the air. They later somehow find a football and begin playing catch high up in the sky. The entire scene looks like a big audition for the next Hancock film lol.
We later see Andrew in this talent show and this scene could’ve easily been predicted once they found out they had powers. Yea, it’s cheesy. Later, we see Andrew traveling to the pharmacy to get some prescription for his mother. He talks to the guy at the front desk and he’s basically told that he needs some license or something to get the pills, which is understandable. So we get a couple scene of him using his god-like powers to rob a couple punk kids and another mart. It’s kinda weird cause he could’ve easily used his powers to knock that doctor out the way and get the pills, but I honestly don’t know how that would’ve worked out. Maybe in respect for his mother he wanted to do it without hurting anybody, who knows.
But as he’s leaving with the pills, some guy tries to shoot him (very random) But he turns around and in trying to deflect his bullets, slaps them into a tank and blows himself up lol. Not the smartest thing to do but it was entertaining. So now he’s in the hospital all stitched up. His father comes by to check up on him and I’m guessing he took a taxi, since he’s without a job. He bends down over Andrew and starts cryin like a little girl. But he does say that the mother passed away, so that’s pretty sad. Eventually Andrew awakens from his coma I guess and busts out the hospital, holding his father 1000’s of feet in the air! Matt and this other girl named Casey somehow find this out on the news and they race over in a Beetle.
It’s all the way across town but Matt is fast enough to get there just as Andrew drops his father. Matt then flies out the car and rescues the father before he hits the ground, so that’s cool (not really) Atleast now he can get back to the fictional security job that he had in Dawn of the Dead. So Matt gets back in the car and Andrew’s gone mad by this point, at one point even picking up the car their in and placing it on top of a tall statue. But Andrew is still in his hospital outfit while he does all this, so it’s pretty hard to take him seriously. We get a bunch of scenes of Andrew talking alot of useless crap and fighting with Matt; which involves alot of flying around and lame auditions for some future Matrix sequel. Eventually Matt ends up killing Andrew by using a sharp pole from a statue, and impaling this lunatic dork right through the heart!
Overall this was a pretty cool movie with some pretty neat moments. It does get a little stale towards the end, but the beginning is probably the best part. I love seeing the objects and cars being pushed out the way, even though it’s never explained how they got the powers in the first place. A few other things in this movie that aren’t explained, is the mention of winter break by Steven in one scene. Winter break is coming up, but in most scenes it’s pretty sunny and you can clearly see people jogging outside lol. Another thing I don’t understand is when Casey mentions that their in 8th grade. I hate movies like this that always place characters that look like their in their mid 20’s in these middle school roles. They could’ve atleast made it believable and put them in college, or high school for crying out loud.
I remember seeing the trailer for this film when it came out, and it looked pretty cool. But I’m really not a theater person, so very rarely do I go to theaters. The main reason is cause I don’t like doing half-ass reviews of films and not describing every scene like I normally would. And I’m very afraid of being disappointed in the new films that come out, since I’m more comfortable sticking in my own genre of horror and not this paranormal crap! The main scenes that attracted me to this film, were the scenes where the kids push the cars out the way, and I thought those were pretty neat.
At the start of the film, we get a scene of this teen named Andrew in his room with his camera. At the moment he’s being verbally abused by his father, who we don’t see till later on, so I’ll get to him later. But he makes a point in this scene that he’s “filming the abuse” that he’s gotta deal with on a day to day basis, and it’s actually pretty sad (yet smart) My heart goes out to anybody who actually has parents like this, who get drunk on most nights and just yell at their kids for no reason. We later find out Andrews mother is sick as well, and we see her in a bed with the hospital tubes and everything. My guess is she has cancer, but thank goodness she’s not losing her hair yet.
We later meet a friend of his named Matt who takes him to school. We also get the impression in these early scenes that Andrew is a nerd. He’s very awkward in alot of these scenes and he even gets bullied a few times, which I think is cheesy. It especially makes me cringe when I see the football player teens here with the jackets and everything. Matt later offers to take him to this party but Andrew doesn’t wanna go, which is understandable since he’s the nerd. Truth is I’m not too fond of parties either. I’d rather just chill at home and have a very toned down party, without all the dancing and jumping around.
We later get this little scene of Andrew in his room, still filming himself with the camera. The camera itself is a key point in this film, since the movie is mostly shot from his point of view and everything. And thank goodness this is one of those decent hand-held movies, nothing like that Paranormal shaky-camera crap. But his father breaks in his room in this scene and kinda pushes him around a bit. We don’t see his face in the first scene when he’s yelling at Andrew, but we clearly see it here. He’s the same guy from Dawn of the Dead, which is a movie I literally just did the day before this one. He’s basically just an un-employed nobody, sitting inside all day torturing his son.
I think that’s the main thing people need to understand when it comes to these nerd-type characters; some are nerds (outcasts) just cause they love being nerds, but some are outcasts for specific reasons. Speaking for myself (especially in my high school years) I was mostly trying to figure myself out. Cause I was going through alot of stuff between my mother and I, and I didn’t have the tools to put my finger on why I was so sad. But long story short, my mother has a very tight leash on me, so I missed out on alot of things kids my age got to do, especially when it came to vacations. So yea, I had a reason to be an outcast. But I think I’m fine with how I handled things cause I never lashed out or took it out on anybody.
We later meet this black kid named Steve who’s another main character here. He later takes Andrew and shows him this underground temple near the party house. It’s kinda random, and he and this other kid just jump inside. At the bottom, they find this big, blue ice-starfish looking thing. We don’t get a clear shot of it, but eventually Steve starts to bleed from his nose and one kid flies backwards! It looks like they get zapped by the starfish but it’s hard to tell. We later get this scene of them in someone’s backyard, testing out these powers that they now have. This scene actually comes a bit too quickly if you ask me. You never get a scene of the moment they figure out they have the powers, nor do we know how long it took for them to find out.
But we see them here with a baseball, throwing it back and forth at each other. The ball is obviously CGI, and it kinda reminds us how far we’ve come technology wise. To me this movie is just a big CGI experiment, and that’s mostly what alot of these gags consist of. Two of them don’t get the focus right I guess, and they both get smacked in the face with the ball lol. But the only one to get it right is Andrew. He’s able to stop the ball right in front of his face and levitate it. In the coming scenes, we see them testing out the powers they have but I’m not gonna get into all of them. The main ones that I like, are the ones where they move the vehicles off the road, and I think powers like this would be pretty cool to have.
Steve later asks Andrew about his father while their driving in the car, and Andrew tells him his father was a firefighter. Which means squat to me, but being a firefighter is alot better than being a security guard (or posing as one) like in Dawn of the Dead. This guy has a tough time finding jobs in movies, it’s ridiculous. We later see Steve and the others using their powers to fly in the air, and this is where the movie gets pretty stale for me. I just hate seeing people flying in the air, it’s so cheesy. If they don’t have wings like Superman, they just look very cheesy in the air. They later somehow find a football and begin playing catch high up in the sky. The entire scene looks like a big audition for the next Hancock film lol.
We later see Andrew in this talent show and this scene could’ve easily been predicted once they found out they had powers. Yea, it’s cheesy. Later, we see Andrew traveling to the pharmacy to get some prescription for his mother. He talks to the guy at the front desk and he’s basically told that he needs some license or something to get the pills, which is understandable. So we get a couple scene of him using his god-like powers to rob a couple punk kids and another mart. It’s kinda weird cause he could’ve easily used his powers to knock that doctor out the way and get the pills, but I honestly don’t know how that would’ve worked out. Maybe in respect for his mother he wanted to do it without hurting anybody, who knows.
But as he’s leaving with the pills, some guy tries to shoot him (very random) But he turns around and in trying to deflect his bullets, slaps them into a tank and blows himself up lol. Not the smartest thing to do but it was entertaining. So now he’s in the hospital all stitched up. His father comes by to check up on him and I’m guessing he took a taxi, since he’s without a job. He bends down over Andrew and starts cryin like a little girl. But he does say that the mother passed away, so that’s pretty sad. Eventually Andrew awakens from his coma I guess and busts out the hospital, holding his father 1000’s of feet in the air! Matt and this other girl named Casey somehow find this out on the news and they race over in a Beetle.
It’s all the way across town but Matt is fast enough to get there just as Andrew drops his father. Matt then flies out the car and rescues the father before he hits the ground, so that’s cool (not really) Atleast now he can get back to the fictional security job that he had in Dawn of the Dead. So Matt gets back in the car and Andrew’s gone mad by this point, at one point even picking up the car their in and placing it on top of a tall statue. But Andrew is still in his hospital outfit while he does all this, so it’s pretty hard to take him seriously. We get a bunch of scenes of Andrew talking alot of useless crap and fighting with Matt; which involves alot of flying around and lame auditions for some future Matrix sequel. Eventually Matt ends up killing Andrew by using a sharp pole from a statue, and impaling this lunatic dork right through the heart!
Overall this was a pretty cool movie with some pretty neat moments. It does get a little stale towards the end, but the beginning is probably the best part. I love seeing the objects and cars being pushed out the way, even though it’s never explained how they got the powers in the first place. A few other things in this movie that aren’t explained, is the mention of winter break by Steven in one scene. Winter break is coming up, but in most scenes it’s pretty sunny and you can clearly see people jogging outside lol. Another thing I don’t understand is when Casey mentions that their in 8th grade. I hate movies like this that always place characters that look like their in their mid 20’s in these middle school roles. They could’ve atleast made it believable and put them in college, or high school for crying out loud.
Men in Black 3 (2012)
I’ve always been a big fan of the Men in Black movies, so there was no way in hell I was gonna miss this one. I didn’t see this movie in theaters, but I already knew it was gonna be something special. One thing I liked about the trailer, was how sharp it was. The effects in these movies were always great, but the trailer looked sharper than a blu ray disk, which kinda surprised me. It looked like they shot it with a 4K camera or something. The first movie is definitely my favorite in the series, but I kinda feel the 2nd movie had too much comedy in it, so I’m glad they set the series straight with this one.
At the start of the film, we get this little scene of some woman walking down the isle with a cake. One thing I wanna point out before I continue, was the intro text in this movie. I don’t remember much about the 2nd film (cause it was pretty lame) but they use the same exact text in this movie as they do the first one. I personally hate it, cause it’s super thin and you can barely read the words, even the title. But back to the movie, I recognize her as one of the members from Danity Kane, and she’s got a nice body no doubt about that. She visits this guy named Boris, who’s locked up here with chains and everything.
This is actually my first time seeing this guy, cause I don’t remember him from the trailer and I don’t think they showed him. His design isn’t too impressive if you ask me, and he’ll never come close to Edgar from the first movie. He looks and talks like a skinnier version of Tim Curry from Home Alone lol. But she helps him break out of the facility, whatever. We later get this big zoom-out scene, which shows us his location on what looks like the moon. But this scene wasn’t really the best intro they could’ve done, it was almost cool lol.
We later meet up with Will and K, after all these years. First time seeing this movie, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw these guys again. It felt like they’d never left us. Will always looked good in his suit, and I love his mustache in this movie. I can’t really remember what happened behind them, but Will gives this big speech about what went wrong that day. He’s like “Just turn ya damn cell phone off” lol. In the coming scenes, K and Will talk a bit more as they stroll through the city. Alot of their conversation revolves around K and his grouchy attitude, which is a big theme in these movies.
I kinda think it’s humorous, and alot of it shows in the first film. But I kinda feel they screwed it up in the 2nd movie, and drowned it down with all these lame jokes. But they bring it back the proper way in this movie, and that’s good to see. So anyway, K changes the subject to Zed, who was the general in the first movie. We later find out he died, and K decided to give him this big speech at his funeral. But being the quite and low key guy K is, he doesn’t really say much in his speech.
I haven’t laughed out loud in a long time, but this scene really did it for me, seriously. Looking at Will’s reaction to K’s speech is so humorous. He’s like “Don’t you wanna say more than that” lol. And then some lady named Agent O comes up and gives her speech. But she starts making all these weird noises and Will’s reaction is priceless. We later see them at a restaurant, where they have a small little detective scene with some Asian guy in the back room. Minutes later they get into this big shootout scene with a bunch of aliens in the dining room, and it’s pretty cool. I like the one scene where K takes a pan and beats the little aliens head in, making it look all flat and small lol.
They later get into a little argument about something, but I forget what exactly. But K ends up walking off. I kinda knew something like this would happen, cause it’s the same thing that happens in Rush Hour 3 between Chris and Jackie. Will then goes back to the facility with all the aliens and bugs running around. It’s different from the one in the first 2 movies, but I’m fine with it. But it’s not as immersive as the first one though. You see a few aliens walking around, but we don’t get that many shots of them.
If you look closely, we do however get a quick shot of Lady Gaga on the tv screen way in the back. I actually noticed this the first time seeing this movie, which is cool cause she’s only shown for about 2 seconds. They had a scene like this in the first movie where they showed us all the aliens on this big tv. One of them was Sylvester Stallone lol. Will goes to this little info ball (my description anyway) and looks up info on K and Boris. He finds out K arrested him in 1969, but that’s about it since everything else is classified or whatever.
Whenever I think of the year 1969, I think of Austin Powers lol. And I used to be a big fan of the movies when I was a kid, but I could never review them or even watch them now. Their littered with lame fart jokes and jokes that were written by 8 years olds. Their funny when your 15 but not when you’re 22, which is the age I’m at now. So anyway, 1969 was about 40 years ago, which is a damn long time. We later see Will relaxing at home playing video games to calm his nerves, with a PS3 controller in his hands.
If you look closely, the light on the controller isn’t on. But I’m sure there’s some form of licensing involved with that. But he gets a call from K, as they quietly argue some more. It’s kind of emotional on Will’s part, but it’s really hard to feel sorry for K sometimes cause he never has a good sad face. I also noticed Will’s arms in this scene as he plays the game. I know he’s alot older in this movie, but he looks like he’s got some muscle on him here. But when you see him in a suit, he still looks a bit thinner, so I don’t know how that worked out.
After hanging up the phone, K takes this gun out. It must be some teleporting gun, cause he uses it to blast him back to the past. Will has no idea of this after the phone call, but we see him walking back to the facility the next day. When he gets on the elevator, some dude runs up on him and starts talking to him like their pals. I love Will’s reaction in this scene, it’s priceless lol. And again, I haven’t laughed out loud in a long time, especially while watching a movie. But this scene really made me chuckle. Will is funnier in this movie than he is in the first one.
He starts looking for K but nobody knows who he’s talking about, so he starts pushing them out the way lol. Eventually Will finds out there was some break in time travel, and sets out to stop Boris, the guy from earlier. He goes to radio shack and talks with this fat guy who sent Boris back in time. This scene is pretty funny too. He takes Will to the top of this cliff and teaches him to use this time jump device. The guy who gives it to him is kinda clueless about the device and Will is pretty funny in this scene. But he ends up jumping off the roof and teleporting back to 1969.
I was actually pretty shocked by the jumping scene though. Usually when they do scenes like this, they’ll use a CGI version of the person as their falling. But they barely do it in this scene, and I guess alot of it was done using a green screen. But it looked cool either way. When he gets outside, he sees all these people walking around in their 60’s outfits. I’m a 90’s guy personally, since that’s the year I grew up in, so alot of these outfits are kinda weird to me but, different era, no big deal. But I think alot of the women in the 60’s were very beautiful, cause they have them emo-like haircuts.
Will ends up stealing a car later on and speeding off. Again it’s one of those cars from the 60’s. I don’t know what it’s called but it looks cool. On his way over, he gets pulled over by police in the middle of the desert. They start questioning him left and right about where he’s going, and less about his speed. But I kinda think they pulled him over cause of his race, which he makes a point of at the end of the scene. He says something like “Just cause I’m black don’t mean I stole a car… except this one” lol. But yea, I can see where he’s coming from.
Another thing I wanted to point out in this scene, is the police officer on the left. I think I noticed this my second time viewing the movie, since you always spot something new the second time around. If you look at his police shirt, in the first frame he’s got this patch of sweat under his right arm. But in the second frame it’s gone. So maybe this scene was filmed on different days, I don’t know. But I like to notice little things like this. Eventually Will arrives at the amusement park where Boris is at, and there’s lots of people in this scene walking around in their funky colorful outfits.
I used to like amusement parks when I was younger, even up until my late teens. Then stuff began to happen between my mother and I and I just lost the passion for it. We see Boris strolling through the park on his motorcycle though. And I’ll admit he looks pretty cool. But when he opens his mouth, he just doesn’t look or sound that ferocious. Eventually Will ends up in an alley at the park, where he runs into the young K. It’s surprising that he recognized him on sight, but then again I think K would be easy to spot. A dull expression like his wouldn’t be hard to miss, especially at an amusement park where 90% of the people are smiling.
He gets tazered by K and taken back to the facility. I remember this scene from the little previews they showed online, when Will meets young K for the first time. This scene is so cute yet so natural, and I think they chose the right guy to portray the younger K. Truth is, I never recognized this guy until about a week after first seeing the scene online. But he also plays one of the scientists in Hollow Man (2000) one of my favorite movies. He actually has the same hairstyle in that movie, though I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him on first sight like I usually do.
So anyway, he and Will talk for a bit in this scene, while K gives him that dark looking stare lol. He thinks Will’s dangerous cause he had a gun on him, but it’s also more-so a race thing I guess; why a black guy in the 60’s wearing a suit like his would be at an amusement park with a gun. I didn’t pay attention much in high school but I think racism was still pretty big in the 60’s. But I’m definitely the farthest thing from a racist, and I think anybody who still bases their opinion off someone based on their skin color are messed up people, especially given the time period we’re in.
Eventually K and his men take Will away. They place him in this big machine which we later find out is a bigger version of that memory device the 2 of them carry around. This is obviously cause everything in the 60’s was retro and huge, especially computers. Will begs him not to erase his memories and after some prying, K gives in and lets him loose. He then goes into that long scene where he explains the whole story about Men in Black, their mission, who their supposed to kill, etc.
When I saw this scene on youtube I couldn’t stop laughing. But K takes a moment to process the whole thing before going “Alright” lol. I’ve actually seen 2 versions of this scene, and the one that made the movie is so much better; in one version, he says “Alright” but stands still, but in the other version, he walks off right after saying it. The one that made the movie looks so much better. So they get in a car, while Will kinda checks him out for a moment. Young K even calls him “slick” and “sport” and it’s so funny. In their first stop, they go to a bowling alley.
They question these 2 guys, who we later find out are both aliens. This is another scene that literally made me laugh out loud. Will takes one of their heads off and throws it down the aisle, and you see the front of his face hitting the floor over and over lol. But I like how his body is still standing behind K, and you see him punching the air and yelling like a maniac. They later stop by this fashion party, with lots of women walking around. Like I said, alot of these outfits are kinda cute, mostly on the women. But anyway, they talk with this guy dressed as Andy Warhol, though I don’t see how this deals with the story.
They take him to a back room and this is another scene that really made me giggle. Before K begins questioning him, he asks Will to step outside. But Warhol calls him a “dumbass” for some reason. Will goes “Call me a dumbass one more time” and he goes “…dumbass!” lol. It’s just the way he says it that makes me crack up. Later on Will meets this short guy named Griffin, who can apparently predict the future. It kinda feels like this guy doesn’t belong in the movie, though. He goes into this long monologue where he predicts the movements of a bunch of people at the party and it kinda looks cheesy, to me anyway.
His character just doesn’t seem to fit the vibe that this movie has, and it kinda feels outta place. Even Will looks at him like he’s crazy. Boris soon arrives in this scene, busting threw the window and shooting at a few people. Will tries to chase him but he speeds off on his motorbike. This guy is nothing compared to Edgar in the first movie, he’s not menacing or interesting at all. Will chases after him and even hops on top of a car, but the car budges and he ends up falling off. I can’t remember if it was someone inside or not, but this scene reminds of the scene in the first movie.
There’s a scene in the first film where Will jumps on top of a car and tries to shoot at Edgar. But the tiny (yet powerful) gun K gave him flings him backwards. It was nice that they included a similar scene in this film, but I guess Will is too old to be flung backwards at his age lol. He even yells at K after this scene, exactly like the last movie. But young K doesn’t look intimidated at all by what just happened. He even offers they eat some pie lol. I swear, just writing about this scene makes me smile. Old or young, K always knows how to end a scene.
Will of course goes along with it, even though he’s probably like “Dude, you can’t be serious” I personally can’t stand pie. The only pie I like are pumpkin and sweet potato. I hate apple and blueberry and all those other ones. So anyway, they eat for a bit and chat. K even smiles a little in this scene, and that’s good to see. We later see them get on these huge, shiny looking futuristic bikes. These things look so cool, I’m not even gonna lie. The bike that Boris is on looks cool too but he’s such a boring character, especially at this point in the movie. If you’re not thinking about a particular character this long into the movie, they obviously aren’t that memorable.
The two of them stroll through the city, chasing after Boris. You get a good view of him in this scene and his, what look like swim goggles. We’re not goin swimming bro, put those away. But eventually he escapes, like we care. We later see the 2 of them getting on jetpacks in order to meet Boris at this space station. Again this was in 1969, which I believe was the year they put the first man on the moon. So far all I know is their trying to stop Boris, but I think there’s another goal that this movie has. But I think their trying to stop the rocket from launching or something, I honestly can’t remember.
But eventually they reach the desert in their jetpacks. It’s heavily guarded by officers, though it’s hard to say why. I know it’s a high tech facility, but I don’t know who’d be trying to stop the process of a man trying to land on the moon for the first time; “He’s trying to land on the moon, stop him!” lol. But anyway, Griffin decides to stay behind. I don’t even know why they brought him on this trip, he’s like a 3rd wheel lol. There’s this big structure looking thing that they gotta climb up, so the 2 of them get in the elevator and take it to the top floor.
K and Will have a little chat on their way up, and I think it’s a cool scene. K tells him he’s a “good man” and they shake hands. And I’ll be honest, I got a little emotional inside. As different as they guys are, young or old, they both make a good team. Now there’s 2 versions of Boris, one from the past and one from the present. You see these guys throughout the film, but I really didn’t wanna focus on them cause their not really that memorable. But I think they could’ve chosen a different villain for this movie.
So anyway, they chase the 2 of them around up on the building. I was disappointed by this scene actually, as it’s not really that memorable either. The buildup to this scene was okay, but it just doesn’t deliver. One of them knocks Will to his feet, and he makes a little joke about him getting a pedicure, but that’s about it. Actually reminds me of the scene from Wild Wild West (1999) where Will fights the guy with the metal head. That movie sucked, but that scene alone is better than what’s in this movie. Eventually the 2 Boris’ get knocked off the building and the space shuttle goes off, so hurray for that.
Back on the ground, we see K talking with the general. He says something like “I’m impressed, I think I’ve got a job for you” or something. But immediately after, one of the Boris’ arrives and shoots the guy in the chest with some type of nail. I guess they did this to keep the pg-13 rating. Soon after he dies, some little boy exits the vehicle up ahead of them near the beach. So K goes over to him, kneeling by his side. At this point, Will has reached the bottom of the tower and is looking at the two of them.
The little boy asks where his father is, but K takes a long time to give him an answer. At first, I thought the guy who’d just gotten shot was the father. But we get shots of Will and the boy back to back in that epic slow-motion way. So they make it obvious (to me anyway) that Will was the father. It kinda looks like K thinks Will died, and is trying not to break the kids heart. But, he takes the little memory thing out, and flashes him in his eye. He then tells the little boy, that his dad is a hero. And I’ll be honest, this scene kinda made my heart drop, it’s so cute. And it’s one of the few times where they used the memory device in a cute way that felt necessary.
At the end of the film, Will goes back to the present time. He meets up with K at a diner, where he’s ordering coffee. He asks him about what he does and doesn’t remember, but K doesn’t look like he knows what he’s talking about. The scene ends with K paying the tip and the two of them bickering randomly as they exit the diner. In the last scene, we get a shot of Griffin from earlier. He says something about the future or something I can’t remember, and the movie ends after his useless scene. Will left him behind at the desert, so I don’t know why they included him here. They should’ve ended the movie with Will and K walking out the diner together, since they’re the stars of this movie.
Overall this was a pretty decent movie, and a good way to end the series. One thing I liked about this movie, was the dog wasn’t in it. I liked him in the first one but he was pretty useless in the second. There’s lots of references to the first film throughout this movie, but I think true fans of the series will be able to easily pick those out. But I think I picked most of them out. The big thing I loved about this movie, was how much it made me laugh. Usually when I put “lol” down, I’m laughing on the inside. But this movie really made me laugh out loud, and I was very proud of that, cause I haven’t laughed in a long time. And considering how lame the 2nd movie was, I think they brought the series full circle with this one.
I’ve always been a big fan of the Men in Black movies, so there was no way in hell I was gonna miss this one. I didn’t see this movie in theaters, but I already knew it was gonna be something special. One thing I liked about the trailer, was how sharp it was. The effects in these movies were always great, but the trailer looked sharper than a blu ray disk, which kinda surprised me. It looked like they shot it with a 4K camera or something. The first movie is definitely my favorite in the series, but I kinda feel the 2nd movie had too much comedy in it, so I’m glad they set the series straight with this one.
At the start of the film, we get this little scene of some woman walking down the isle with a cake. One thing I wanna point out before I continue, was the intro text in this movie. I don’t remember much about the 2nd film (cause it was pretty lame) but they use the same exact text in this movie as they do the first one. I personally hate it, cause it’s super thin and you can barely read the words, even the title. But back to the movie, I recognize her as one of the members from Danity Kane, and she’s got a nice body no doubt about that. She visits this guy named Boris, who’s locked up here with chains and everything.
This is actually my first time seeing this guy, cause I don’t remember him from the trailer and I don’t think they showed him. His design isn’t too impressive if you ask me, and he’ll never come close to Edgar from the first movie. He looks and talks like a skinnier version of Tim Curry from Home Alone lol. But she helps him break out of the facility, whatever. We later get this big zoom-out scene, which shows us his location on what looks like the moon. But this scene wasn’t really the best intro they could’ve done, it was almost cool lol.
We later meet up with Will and K, after all these years. First time seeing this movie, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw these guys again. It felt like they’d never left us. Will always looked good in his suit, and I love his mustache in this movie. I can’t really remember what happened behind them, but Will gives this big speech about what went wrong that day. He’s like “Just turn ya damn cell phone off” lol. In the coming scenes, K and Will talk a bit more as they stroll through the city. Alot of their conversation revolves around K and his grouchy attitude, which is a big theme in these movies.
I kinda think it’s humorous, and alot of it shows in the first film. But I kinda feel they screwed it up in the 2nd movie, and drowned it down with all these lame jokes. But they bring it back the proper way in this movie, and that’s good to see. So anyway, K changes the subject to Zed, who was the general in the first movie. We later find out he died, and K decided to give him this big speech at his funeral. But being the quite and low key guy K is, he doesn’t really say much in his speech.
I haven’t laughed out loud in a long time, but this scene really did it for me, seriously. Looking at Will’s reaction to K’s speech is so humorous. He’s like “Don’t you wanna say more than that” lol. And then some lady named Agent O comes up and gives her speech. But she starts making all these weird noises and Will’s reaction is priceless. We later see them at a restaurant, where they have a small little detective scene with some Asian guy in the back room. Minutes later they get into this big shootout scene with a bunch of aliens in the dining room, and it’s pretty cool. I like the one scene where K takes a pan and beats the little aliens head in, making it look all flat and small lol.
They later get into a little argument about something, but I forget what exactly. But K ends up walking off. I kinda knew something like this would happen, cause it’s the same thing that happens in Rush Hour 3 between Chris and Jackie. Will then goes back to the facility with all the aliens and bugs running around. It’s different from the one in the first 2 movies, but I’m fine with it. But it’s not as immersive as the first one though. You see a few aliens walking around, but we don’t get that many shots of them.
If you look closely, we do however get a quick shot of Lady Gaga on the tv screen way in the back. I actually noticed this the first time seeing this movie, which is cool cause she’s only shown for about 2 seconds. They had a scene like this in the first movie where they showed us all the aliens on this big tv. One of them was Sylvester Stallone lol. Will goes to this little info ball (my description anyway) and looks up info on K and Boris. He finds out K arrested him in 1969, but that’s about it since everything else is classified or whatever.
Whenever I think of the year 1969, I think of Austin Powers lol. And I used to be a big fan of the movies when I was a kid, but I could never review them or even watch them now. Their littered with lame fart jokes and jokes that were written by 8 years olds. Their funny when your 15 but not when you’re 22, which is the age I’m at now. So anyway, 1969 was about 40 years ago, which is a damn long time. We later see Will relaxing at home playing video games to calm his nerves, with a PS3 controller in his hands.
If you look closely, the light on the controller isn’t on. But I’m sure there’s some form of licensing involved with that. But he gets a call from K, as they quietly argue some more. It’s kind of emotional on Will’s part, but it’s really hard to feel sorry for K sometimes cause he never has a good sad face. I also noticed Will’s arms in this scene as he plays the game. I know he’s alot older in this movie, but he looks like he’s got some muscle on him here. But when you see him in a suit, he still looks a bit thinner, so I don’t know how that worked out.
After hanging up the phone, K takes this gun out. It must be some teleporting gun, cause he uses it to blast him back to the past. Will has no idea of this after the phone call, but we see him walking back to the facility the next day. When he gets on the elevator, some dude runs up on him and starts talking to him like their pals. I love Will’s reaction in this scene, it’s priceless lol. And again, I haven’t laughed out loud in a long time, especially while watching a movie. But this scene really made me chuckle. Will is funnier in this movie than he is in the first one.
He starts looking for K but nobody knows who he’s talking about, so he starts pushing them out the way lol. Eventually Will finds out there was some break in time travel, and sets out to stop Boris, the guy from earlier. He goes to radio shack and talks with this fat guy who sent Boris back in time. This scene is pretty funny too. He takes Will to the top of this cliff and teaches him to use this time jump device. The guy who gives it to him is kinda clueless about the device and Will is pretty funny in this scene. But he ends up jumping off the roof and teleporting back to 1969.
I was actually pretty shocked by the jumping scene though. Usually when they do scenes like this, they’ll use a CGI version of the person as their falling. But they barely do it in this scene, and I guess alot of it was done using a green screen. But it looked cool either way. When he gets outside, he sees all these people walking around in their 60’s outfits. I’m a 90’s guy personally, since that’s the year I grew up in, so alot of these outfits are kinda weird to me but, different era, no big deal. But I think alot of the women in the 60’s were very beautiful, cause they have them emo-like haircuts.
Will ends up stealing a car later on and speeding off. Again it’s one of those cars from the 60’s. I don’t know what it’s called but it looks cool. On his way over, he gets pulled over by police in the middle of the desert. They start questioning him left and right about where he’s going, and less about his speed. But I kinda think they pulled him over cause of his race, which he makes a point of at the end of the scene. He says something like “Just cause I’m black don’t mean I stole a car… except this one” lol. But yea, I can see where he’s coming from.
Another thing I wanted to point out in this scene, is the police officer on the left. I think I noticed this my second time viewing the movie, since you always spot something new the second time around. If you look at his police shirt, in the first frame he’s got this patch of sweat under his right arm. But in the second frame it’s gone. So maybe this scene was filmed on different days, I don’t know. But I like to notice little things like this. Eventually Will arrives at the amusement park where Boris is at, and there’s lots of people in this scene walking around in their funky colorful outfits.
I used to like amusement parks when I was younger, even up until my late teens. Then stuff began to happen between my mother and I and I just lost the passion for it. We see Boris strolling through the park on his motorcycle though. And I’ll admit he looks pretty cool. But when he opens his mouth, he just doesn’t look or sound that ferocious. Eventually Will ends up in an alley at the park, where he runs into the young K. It’s surprising that he recognized him on sight, but then again I think K would be easy to spot. A dull expression like his wouldn’t be hard to miss, especially at an amusement park where 90% of the people are smiling.
He gets tazered by K and taken back to the facility. I remember this scene from the little previews they showed online, when Will meets young K for the first time. This scene is so cute yet so natural, and I think they chose the right guy to portray the younger K. Truth is, I never recognized this guy until about a week after first seeing the scene online. But he also plays one of the scientists in Hollow Man (2000) one of my favorite movies. He actually has the same hairstyle in that movie, though I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him on first sight like I usually do.
So anyway, he and Will talk for a bit in this scene, while K gives him that dark looking stare lol. He thinks Will’s dangerous cause he had a gun on him, but it’s also more-so a race thing I guess; why a black guy in the 60’s wearing a suit like his would be at an amusement park with a gun. I didn’t pay attention much in high school but I think racism was still pretty big in the 60’s. But I’m definitely the farthest thing from a racist, and I think anybody who still bases their opinion off someone based on their skin color are messed up people, especially given the time period we’re in.
Eventually K and his men take Will away. They place him in this big machine which we later find out is a bigger version of that memory device the 2 of them carry around. This is obviously cause everything in the 60’s was retro and huge, especially computers. Will begs him not to erase his memories and after some prying, K gives in and lets him loose. He then goes into that long scene where he explains the whole story about Men in Black, their mission, who their supposed to kill, etc.
When I saw this scene on youtube I couldn’t stop laughing. But K takes a moment to process the whole thing before going “Alright” lol. I’ve actually seen 2 versions of this scene, and the one that made the movie is so much better; in one version, he says “Alright” but stands still, but in the other version, he walks off right after saying it. The one that made the movie looks so much better. So they get in a car, while Will kinda checks him out for a moment. Young K even calls him “slick” and “sport” and it’s so funny. In their first stop, they go to a bowling alley.
They question these 2 guys, who we later find out are both aliens. This is another scene that literally made me laugh out loud. Will takes one of their heads off and throws it down the aisle, and you see the front of his face hitting the floor over and over lol. But I like how his body is still standing behind K, and you see him punching the air and yelling like a maniac. They later stop by this fashion party, with lots of women walking around. Like I said, alot of these outfits are kinda cute, mostly on the women. But anyway, they talk with this guy dressed as Andy Warhol, though I don’t see how this deals with the story.
They take him to a back room and this is another scene that really made me giggle. Before K begins questioning him, he asks Will to step outside. But Warhol calls him a “dumbass” for some reason. Will goes “Call me a dumbass one more time” and he goes “…dumbass!” lol. It’s just the way he says it that makes me crack up. Later on Will meets this short guy named Griffin, who can apparently predict the future. It kinda feels like this guy doesn’t belong in the movie, though. He goes into this long monologue where he predicts the movements of a bunch of people at the party and it kinda looks cheesy, to me anyway.
His character just doesn’t seem to fit the vibe that this movie has, and it kinda feels outta place. Even Will looks at him like he’s crazy. Boris soon arrives in this scene, busting threw the window and shooting at a few people. Will tries to chase him but he speeds off on his motorbike. This guy is nothing compared to Edgar in the first movie, he’s not menacing or interesting at all. Will chases after him and even hops on top of a car, but the car budges and he ends up falling off. I can’t remember if it was someone inside or not, but this scene reminds of the scene in the first movie.
There’s a scene in the first film where Will jumps on top of a car and tries to shoot at Edgar. But the tiny (yet powerful) gun K gave him flings him backwards. It was nice that they included a similar scene in this film, but I guess Will is too old to be flung backwards at his age lol. He even yells at K after this scene, exactly like the last movie. But young K doesn’t look intimidated at all by what just happened. He even offers they eat some pie lol. I swear, just writing about this scene makes me smile. Old or young, K always knows how to end a scene.
Will of course goes along with it, even though he’s probably like “Dude, you can’t be serious” I personally can’t stand pie. The only pie I like are pumpkin and sweet potato. I hate apple and blueberry and all those other ones. So anyway, they eat for a bit and chat. K even smiles a little in this scene, and that’s good to see. We later see them get on these huge, shiny looking futuristic bikes. These things look so cool, I’m not even gonna lie. The bike that Boris is on looks cool too but he’s such a boring character, especially at this point in the movie. If you’re not thinking about a particular character this long into the movie, they obviously aren’t that memorable.
The two of them stroll through the city, chasing after Boris. You get a good view of him in this scene and his, what look like swim goggles. We’re not goin swimming bro, put those away. But eventually he escapes, like we care. We later see the 2 of them getting on jetpacks in order to meet Boris at this space station. Again this was in 1969, which I believe was the year they put the first man on the moon. So far all I know is their trying to stop Boris, but I think there’s another goal that this movie has. But I think their trying to stop the rocket from launching or something, I honestly can’t remember.
But eventually they reach the desert in their jetpacks. It’s heavily guarded by officers, though it’s hard to say why. I know it’s a high tech facility, but I don’t know who’d be trying to stop the process of a man trying to land on the moon for the first time; “He’s trying to land on the moon, stop him!” lol. But anyway, Griffin decides to stay behind. I don’t even know why they brought him on this trip, he’s like a 3rd wheel lol. There’s this big structure looking thing that they gotta climb up, so the 2 of them get in the elevator and take it to the top floor.
K and Will have a little chat on their way up, and I think it’s a cool scene. K tells him he’s a “good man” and they shake hands. And I’ll be honest, I got a little emotional inside. As different as they guys are, young or old, they both make a good team. Now there’s 2 versions of Boris, one from the past and one from the present. You see these guys throughout the film, but I really didn’t wanna focus on them cause their not really that memorable. But I think they could’ve chosen a different villain for this movie.
So anyway, they chase the 2 of them around up on the building. I was disappointed by this scene actually, as it’s not really that memorable either. The buildup to this scene was okay, but it just doesn’t deliver. One of them knocks Will to his feet, and he makes a little joke about him getting a pedicure, but that’s about it. Actually reminds me of the scene from Wild Wild West (1999) where Will fights the guy with the metal head. That movie sucked, but that scene alone is better than what’s in this movie. Eventually the 2 Boris’ get knocked off the building and the space shuttle goes off, so hurray for that.
Back on the ground, we see K talking with the general. He says something like “I’m impressed, I think I’ve got a job for you” or something. But immediately after, one of the Boris’ arrives and shoots the guy in the chest with some type of nail. I guess they did this to keep the pg-13 rating. Soon after he dies, some little boy exits the vehicle up ahead of them near the beach. So K goes over to him, kneeling by his side. At this point, Will has reached the bottom of the tower and is looking at the two of them.
The little boy asks where his father is, but K takes a long time to give him an answer. At first, I thought the guy who’d just gotten shot was the father. But we get shots of Will and the boy back to back in that epic slow-motion way. So they make it obvious (to me anyway) that Will was the father. It kinda looks like K thinks Will died, and is trying not to break the kids heart. But, he takes the little memory thing out, and flashes him in his eye. He then tells the little boy, that his dad is a hero. And I’ll be honest, this scene kinda made my heart drop, it’s so cute. And it’s one of the few times where they used the memory device in a cute way that felt necessary.
At the end of the film, Will goes back to the present time. He meets up with K at a diner, where he’s ordering coffee. He asks him about what he does and doesn’t remember, but K doesn’t look like he knows what he’s talking about. The scene ends with K paying the tip and the two of them bickering randomly as they exit the diner. In the last scene, we get a shot of Griffin from earlier. He says something about the future or something I can’t remember, and the movie ends after his useless scene. Will left him behind at the desert, so I don’t know why they included him here. They should’ve ended the movie with Will and K walking out the diner together, since they’re the stars of this movie.
Overall this was a pretty decent movie, and a good way to end the series. One thing I liked about this movie, was the dog wasn’t in it. I liked him in the first one but he was pretty useless in the second. There’s lots of references to the first film throughout this movie, but I think true fans of the series will be able to easily pick those out. But I think I picked most of them out. The big thing I loved about this movie, was how much it made me laugh. Usually when I put “lol” down, I’m laughing on the inside. But this movie really made me laugh out loud, and I was very proud of that, cause I haven’t laughed in a long time. And considering how lame the 2nd movie was, I think they brought the series full circle with this one.
Upside Down (2012)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie around early 2012, and being pretty impressed by it. I’m not really into cheesy, romantic movies but this one blew me away. I loved the visuals and the buildings and everything, and I knew there was gonna be something special about this film. It also reminded me of the first time I saw the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau (2011) which was another cheesy romantic movie but had an interesting twist. I think if your gonna make a good romance movie there’s gotta be some sort of twist or unpredictability to it to really make it stand out from the others.
At the start of the film, we of course get the credits and the usual intro. But one thing that surprised me about this movie, was how quickly it began. Usually before a movie begins, they tell us the name of the distributor like Paramount or Dreamworks or whoever. But for this film, we don’t get any of that and the intro begins literally right off the bat. We also find out that the movie is made by some company called “Upside Down Films” which I think is a pretty cool and unique name, given the title of this movie. So anyway, as the credits roll we get this little voiceover by this guy named Adam. He talks about an abundance of things pertaining to the universe and double gravity and things like that.
I’ve always had a fascination with the universe actually. I don’t ever read about it, but sometimes I’ll catch the little documentaries on tv and I’ll watch em for a couple seconds. I always had a thing for alternate universes and portals as well. There’s just something about the unknown that intrigues me. And not only that, I know the universe is huge and it’s mind boggling trying to imagine what else is out there. I also love the music that plays in the background in this scene, and I’ll probably mention this a couple times throughout this review. It really adds to the immersion and it’s pretty neat. So anyway, as he talks we get some shots of the city and houses around here.
I don’t know what state this takes place in, but it’s pretty run-down and gritty. There’s lots of trash lying around and there’s also lots of kids running across the streets. In the background we can see alot of buildings in the sky as well. I gotta say, these are probably the best shots in the movie. It’s so mesmerizing to look at! It also rains alot in Adams world, as we see in a couple scenes. And when you see shots of the upper world, its easy to see the contrast between the two worlds and how different they are. I guess the only thing I have a slight problem with, is that his speech goes on for about 3 minutes straight. And it kinda feels as though he reveals too much, too soon but I can’t really say.
Eventually he meets this woman named Eden, which I think is a silly name for a girl so I’m just gonna call her K for Kristen since it’s her real name. I haven’t seen Kristen Dunst in alot of movies, but she’s a pretty beautiful actress. She’s most known for her role in the Spiderman movies, but other than that I haven’t seen her in much. I will say though, that she looks exactly the same in this movie as she did in those, even though it’s 10 years later. But anyway, he meets her up on this hill, which separates the 2 of them from these upside down worlds. I remember this scene from the trailer and I gotta admit, its pretty cute. He says he’s been waiting all day for her, and he throws her a rope to catch on to.
He then pulls her from her world down to his, and again it’s a pretty cute scene. When she gets down there, they talk for a bit by this curved rock. She lies upside down on the top of the rock as they talk and eat. They later go down to his world, and hop around the forest with her on his back. It looked like a silly scene at first, with her on his shoulders. But after thinking about it more, its pretty obvious why he does this; to keep her from falling up, duh. I mean, the concept of the movie is pretty easy to understand by this point but it literally took me a few minutes to understand this one, gimme a break lol. Eventually a few cops arrive, and they chase after the 2 of them through the woods.
It’s pretty evident at this point, that these guys don’t like outsiders (or upsiders… bad joke, bad joke) but yea, they don’t like people from up top coming down to their world. So the 2 of them run back to the ledge, and she climbs back on the rope. As she’s climbing down (or up, gimme a break) they begin shooting at them. But Adam gets hit by one of the bullets, and he lets go of the rope! So K falls and hits the ground on her side, which thankfully isn’t that hard. If I were to guess, it looks like a 30 foot gap between both mountains. But I’m not sure about the gap between the 2 worlds, since I suck at rounding. Whenever I round in my reviews, I always say 500 feet cause it’s the first number that comes to mind but I really have no clue.
But the gap between the cities is pretty big, about 1000 feet. And that’s land to land, cause some buildings almost touch each other. We get many shots of this throughout the movie, and like I said, their beautiful! To me it looks as though the movie was based off New York, though I’m unsure cause it’s never mentioned. So anyway, she falls and hits the ground, and you can see some blood coming out of her head. But trust me it’s not that graphic. It’s now 10 years later, but no exact year is given so I’m guessing it’s 2022. We see him at home working on some pink liquid, which we later find out is used to diagnose the ageing process by altering the persons face to make people look younger. And I don’t mind this procedure in reality (even though I’d never get one) but it’s kind of a boring sub-plot they added.
We later see him taking his bike and riding it to work. Like I mentioned earlier, Adams world is pretty dark and musty compared to the upper world. He actually does explain this in the little intro in the beginning, but I didn’t feel the need to write it down cause I didn’t wanna be too technical or whatever. But he says something about the upper world taking energy from the bottom world or something. Which I guess explains why nobody in this world is driving any cars, and their all on bikes. Maybe the upper world robbed them of their energy, I don’t know. In the shot of him and the other bikes, you can see a couple cars parked on the road but nobody is in them. It’s also raining in this scene, which again helps with that musty run-down atmosphere.
I don’t even know where this rain comes from, cause above Adam’s world is the upper world. So it must come from that little section in-between (if that makes any sense) Eventually he gets to his shop and begins to work. He has a couple other guys in this scene who help him, and give him advice or whatever throughout the movie. While they walk around the room, Adam is in the background working on his ageing cream that I could care less about. But there’s also this one guy in the background who’s name I don’t know cause he’s not on imdb. But I think I recognize him from the Lord of the Rings movie. I don’t know why, but those movies instantly popped into my head when I saw him. I was never a fan of those movies, but I used to watch em cause Brad Dourif played Wormtongue in Two Towers and I used to always watch his scenes.
I don’t even know what the heck those movies are about. But anyway he’s working on some old tv, which to me looks like one of those tv’s from the 40’s or whatever cause it’s so small and ancient. I even got confused at one point as to what year this movie is set in, which kinda happens when the exact year is never given (blame that on the director) but like I said, I think it takes place in present time. And I think the reason why they have old tv’s is cause again, the upper world took everything from them, so now their stuck with old and ancient technology. But at one point, the tv pops on and we see K on some game show. It looks like jeopardy or something, but Adam sees her here and realizes that she’s alive and works at some corporation that I forget the name of.
Ironic enough, it turns out Adam is going to that same corporation to sell his clay mold ageing idea. So he goes to the same building the next day, wearing a suit and walks around. Eventually he gets inside, and I love this shot; we see business people on the upper and lower floors of the room, walking about with papers and notebooks and whatnot. I just love the imagery! In the many shots of these buildings that we see, none of the upper and lower buildings connect but obviously this one does. And hypothetically had this building been real, I wonder how they built it lol. The building also looks like the place my mother works at. I’ve only been there a few times as a kid, but I still remember it. She used to work late, and she’d let me run around the place on my own.
Come to think of it, I don’t even think there are any computers in this scene. I know he sits down at his desk and drinks something, but we never see him or anybody else on a computer, which I thought was odd. But anyway, he meets this guy named Bob who’s on the floor above him in this scene. Everything above him is pretty much identical to everything below, besides of course the different people. But I recognize Bob from Harry Potter (2003) who plays Peter Pettigrew. And I’m not the biggest fan of Harry Potter either, but I like them more than Lord of the Rings. I’m more familiar with the first 3 movies, and their a cheesy but touching series. I think it took me awhile to recognize this guy, cause he’s pretty far away in this scene as he and Adam talk.
But it’s pretty easy to recognize him once we get closer, and that’s not a compliment at all cause the guy is butt ugly! No diss to people from England, but people over there have the worst teeth ever lol. Which is probably how he got the character in those films, cause the director was probably like “We need a short, fat, buck-toothed dude for this role” lol. Later on, Adam also talks with the boss of the whole organization; some bald dude named L. His office is right in front of this huge plexiglass window, in which we can see all the workers in the background moving and walking around. Sometimes I wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on in the foreground cause I was so absorbed by the world in the background.
But anyway, when Adam enters the bosses room, he sees L upside down on the ceiling lol. I’m actually wondering how they pulled this scene off. I’m pretty sure they used some sort of green screen or split screen for this scene, or a combination of the two but it’s pretty cool. But Adam sits in the chair and L presses a button, which raises him up (or down, gimme a break) to his level. He basically tells Adam that he’s interested in his clay mold thingy and to sign a deal, that I guess gives him permission to use it if he finds it useful. He also tells Adam there is to be no contact between the upper and lower worlds. Unless of course it’s in the business world cause we do see some of them passing stuff to Adam from up top.
I think this all goes back to what Adam mentioned earlier, about the whole energy thing, and how the upper world gives energy to the bottom world. And I think that any non-business interaction disrupts that whole energy process. When Adam gets home, he tells his buddies about how the boss accepted his project. But this one guy named Albert isn’t too excited about it. He says something about them taking advantage of him or something, I can’t really remember. But I think that’s one of the first problems I had with this movie, and I’ll get more into this later on. But whenever 2 characters in this movie would argue, you didn’t really feel for them. We as the audience are always supposed to feel that “Hurray” moment when the main character argues with someone.
We’re supposed to think to ourselves “You know something, he could be right” but when Adam argues with some of these people, I honestly don’t feel anything. And he’s not a bad actor at all, I just can’t put my finger on him. But to say the least, its a pretty boring argument lol. We also see K in a meeting right after this, where she sits in a circle with a bunch of people and they talk about why she’s there. She talks about her memory problem, which was caused in the scene when Adam dropped her. But again, you don’t really feel for her as a character and I feel this scene could’ve been so much stronger. Eventually Adam decides he’s gonna try and see her, so he calls her job and talks with a friend of hers.
She basically tells him that he can come over tomorrow and he accepts. According to imdb, they refer to her as Executive #2 but I’m just gonna call her E since they were too lazy to give her a proper name. Just call her Sally for crying out loud! So we see Adam at his shop again, and we see his friends helping him with his gear. I can’t get into specifics, but they basically just give him alot of weights to keep him from falling and I think they use some fluid as well. The Lord of the Rings dude argues with him a bit here, claiming K is never gonna recognize him after her head injury but Adam tells him not to worry. But it’s just another boring, pointless argument that goes nowhere. The arguments in this movie really suck lol.
So Adam puts some weight in his shoes, and he also wears this body-armor looking vest to keep his weight down. Come to think of it, even with all this gear it never really shows when he’s done; you never see it poke through his clothes, and you never see him slow down in regards to its weight since I’m assuming this stuff must weigh about 10-15 pounds. So he goes to K’s office and meets her in this little room. She’s standing by this rack of metal objects that I can’t even see, but they look like sunglasses or something. But he’s excited to finally see her again, and he walks up to her excitedly. He tells her how happy he is to see her, but she doesn’t seem to recognize him. So she walks past him towards her rack of sunglasses (whatever the heck they are)
But once she walks by him, her friend E tells him that she has amnesia. But it’s the way she says it that kind of annoys me. Because it comes off like so much is revealed in such a small amount of time. He goes “What’d I do” and without questioning him, she says something like “Don’t worry, she doesn’t remember you. It’s her amnesia and that’s why she forgets stuff don’t worry about it” like damn, you had to reveal all that in one breath lol. To me it just comes off as lazy screenwriting. So he walks over to her again, and tries to get her to remember him. But it doesn’t work, and she just looks at him confusingly. And again there’s something about this scene that I don’t like. It’s just very bland, and not as heartfelt as I wanted it to be.
Later on, we see Adam and Bob in the upside down room again. Eventually L the boss calls a meeting and everybody in the room stands up. Again, I love this scene; not only the amount of people on screen, but also the people up top. But I’m pretty sure 90% of the people on screen are CGI, and they just made copies and duplicated them lol. But L tells them all that some people need to be fired. He names off about 5 people, one of whom happens to be Bob. I’m guessing he was fired cause they found out he was talking to Adam without being in the work area, but I wonder why the other 5 people were fired. Later that day, we see him packing up his things with Adam. The two of them are the only ones in the building at this point, surrounded by about 100 empty tables.
It reminds me of one of those scenes from The Matrix lol. I remember playing the game, and in one level there was this long hallway that went on forever. But scenes like that were always cool to me. We later see Kristen at her job (wherever that is) calling the place. When she calls, Adam picks up the phone but she goes “Hey Bob” which thinking about it now, really doesn’t make any sense. Cause Adam and Bob do switch ID cards somewhere in this movie. So I’m thinking that she thinks Adams real name is Bob, but I won’t complicate things. But she eventually asks him on a date to lunch. The next day, he meets her in this restaurant near these huge glass windows. And it’s pretty beautiful, when compared to where he comes from. She asks him a couple questions, like why hasn’t she seen him around and things like that.
But after about 2 questions, the scene just gets really goofy. I forget what he says, but she ends up walking off irritably towards the door. So he runs after her and tries to beg her to stay. But it’s just a really goofy scene to me. They could’ve just sat there and flirted and joked around. And as cheesy as that would’ve looked that’s kinda what I expected them to do. I expected them to be cheesy lol. He even goes “Please don’t leave. Remember when you dropped your papers and I helped pick them up” lol. But after begging her to stay, she agrees and we see them talk for a bit. It’s kinda one of those scenes where it’s in silence while the music plays in the background, and we as the audience just assume that their getting along or whatever. Pretty soon Adam begins to feel his foot getting warm, which is caused by the gear that he’s wearing.
I think I mentioned this before, but I think it’s caused by the friction between the gravity and the weights in his clothes or something. And this is all explained in the opening scene of the movie but alot of it is pretty technical. But eventually he runs off, as his foot becomes so hot that he runs off out the restaurant! I think the police are chasing him in this scene too, though I can’t remember. But for him to be able to outrun them with 10 pounds of equipment on is pretty amazing. And eventually he jumps into the river and is immediately transported back to his world. I like how the camera rotates from upside down to right-side up, as he falls from that river to his. And I gotta say, I love how this movie is directed. And it’s one of the reasons why I don’t go after specific directors when I choose movies to watch / review.
Cause alot of these guys are pretty unknown. And when I see a movie like this that was made by someone I’ve never even heard of, to me looking for specific people is pretty pointless. If an absolute nobody can create shots like this, than I wanna see more movies by people like this. The next day, Adam is back at the facility. This time he’s in this big theater room, and he’s testing his invention in front of a group of people in suits. Who I assume are the ones who are gonna grant it’s permission if it’s good. So they bring an old lady out and he puts the cream on her face. But not even 10 seconds into this scene, K walks into the room and sits down in one of the seats. One of the people in this scene asks him something and he speaks into the mic, and K recognizes his voice. So she stands up and asks him what his name was, in which he reveals is Adam.
I didn’t understand this scene at first, cause it came off like a random scene they threw in here with no real reason. But this goes back to the scene I mentioned earlier about them on the phone, where she answers the phone and thinks she’s talking to Bob. So I guess it makes sense now, and she obviously knows now that his name is Adam. That’s one of the cool things to find out, when you’re writing a review for a particular movie, cause writing it out does help sometimes. So they spend a couple days away from each other, and we get a few scenes of them thinking about each other and stuff. And some of it is pretty cute but alot of it is still pretty bland. Besides the amazing visuals this movie possesses, its kinda lacking in the story department and I can’t really pick out a cute moment between the two of them.
And at this point, I really don’t care if they get back together lol. Eventually they do get back together though, and they meet in this little ballroom. And apparently, all of K’s memory came back and she remembers all the things they used to do, how cute (not really) More cops show up in this scene and Adam takes off. He jumps out the window and later leaps onto a trolley lol. It’s a pretty cool scene, but not mind-blowing. We later see the two of them running from police through the woods again. They eventually jump into the sky and start jumping across these wooden obstacles in space, but again these scenes aren’t that mind-blowing. And I didn’t wanna be too technical, but how these characters get from point A to point B is pretty lazy.
It’s visually stunning but how they traverse around the world / how they get there in the first place, it just feels like scene after scene with no purpose in mind other than to show off visuals. And coming from a guy who’s pretty much seen it all, it ain’t that impressive. Eventually Adam falls, with K holding him by one arm while they hang onto one of the plates. He then asks her to drop him, which I thought was cute (not really) cause I thought he was trying to sacrifice himself for her. But I think he knew that he’d fall right down to his world anyway, so sacrifice is out the window here. But she drops him, and he falls down to his world. She doesn’t even yell or cry when she drops him, paranoid he doesn’t hit the water. He actually ends up falling in a tree, but gets no bumps or bruises.
He was probably protected by the 10 pounds of weight he was carrying to keep him from falling up (or down, gimme a break) Later on, Bob comes by the shop and shows Adam and his friends that he can fly. He gets in the room, and stands on his toes and floats in the air. And it’s obvious by this point that Bob figured out a way to go to his world without the weights. At the end of the movie, Adam and K meet on this little balcony in her world. And it’s obvious at this point that he used the same technique to keep him on the ground in her world. So we see the two of them hugging in this scene, happy that he’s able to stay in her world longer. She also tells him in this scene that she’s pregnant with twins, when did that happen lol. You don’t even see them get that close in the movie, but now she’s pregnant, holy crap!
Overall this was a pretty decent movie. I love the environment, I love the visuals, and I love the buildings and the futuristic vibe it gave off. My only problem with this movie was the story, and the lack of connection between the 2 characters. And I felt the story wasn’t strong enough to accompany a movie like this and didn’t help to balance it out at all. And like I said, I think both actors are great, but their relationship in the movie just didn’t shine through. Another thing I didn’t really like was the pointless subplot with the ageing cream. You kinda get the feeling the invention was made by Adam, to help him get out of the crummy environment he was in and give himself hope, but they definitely could’ve done without it. If you’re looking for visuals, this is your movie. But if you’re looking for visuals and story, you might wanna skip it.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie around early 2012, and being pretty impressed by it. I’m not really into cheesy, romantic movies but this one blew me away. I loved the visuals and the buildings and everything, and I knew there was gonna be something special about this film. It also reminded me of the first time I saw the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau (2011) which was another cheesy romantic movie but had an interesting twist. I think if your gonna make a good romance movie there’s gotta be some sort of twist or unpredictability to it to really make it stand out from the others.
At the start of the film, we of course get the credits and the usual intro. But one thing that surprised me about this movie, was how quickly it began. Usually before a movie begins, they tell us the name of the distributor like Paramount or Dreamworks or whoever. But for this film, we don’t get any of that and the intro begins literally right off the bat. We also find out that the movie is made by some company called “Upside Down Films” which I think is a pretty cool and unique name, given the title of this movie. So anyway, as the credits roll we get this little voiceover by this guy named Adam. He talks about an abundance of things pertaining to the universe and double gravity and things like that.
I’ve always had a fascination with the universe actually. I don’t ever read about it, but sometimes I’ll catch the little documentaries on tv and I’ll watch em for a couple seconds. I always had a thing for alternate universes and portals as well. There’s just something about the unknown that intrigues me. And not only that, I know the universe is huge and it’s mind boggling trying to imagine what else is out there. I also love the music that plays in the background in this scene, and I’ll probably mention this a couple times throughout this review. It really adds to the immersion and it’s pretty neat. So anyway, as he talks we get some shots of the city and houses around here.
I don’t know what state this takes place in, but it’s pretty run-down and gritty. There’s lots of trash lying around and there’s also lots of kids running across the streets. In the background we can see alot of buildings in the sky as well. I gotta say, these are probably the best shots in the movie. It’s so mesmerizing to look at! It also rains alot in Adams world, as we see in a couple scenes. And when you see shots of the upper world, its easy to see the contrast between the two worlds and how different they are. I guess the only thing I have a slight problem with, is that his speech goes on for about 3 minutes straight. And it kinda feels as though he reveals too much, too soon but I can’t really say.
Eventually he meets this woman named Eden, which I think is a silly name for a girl so I’m just gonna call her K for Kristen since it’s her real name. I haven’t seen Kristen Dunst in alot of movies, but she’s a pretty beautiful actress. She’s most known for her role in the Spiderman movies, but other than that I haven’t seen her in much. I will say though, that she looks exactly the same in this movie as she did in those, even though it’s 10 years later. But anyway, he meets her up on this hill, which separates the 2 of them from these upside down worlds. I remember this scene from the trailer and I gotta admit, its pretty cute. He says he’s been waiting all day for her, and he throws her a rope to catch on to.
He then pulls her from her world down to his, and again it’s a pretty cute scene. When she gets down there, they talk for a bit by this curved rock. She lies upside down on the top of the rock as they talk and eat. They later go down to his world, and hop around the forest with her on his back. It looked like a silly scene at first, with her on his shoulders. But after thinking about it more, its pretty obvious why he does this; to keep her from falling up, duh. I mean, the concept of the movie is pretty easy to understand by this point but it literally took me a few minutes to understand this one, gimme a break lol. Eventually a few cops arrive, and they chase after the 2 of them through the woods.
It’s pretty evident at this point, that these guys don’t like outsiders (or upsiders… bad joke, bad joke) but yea, they don’t like people from up top coming down to their world. So the 2 of them run back to the ledge, and she climbs back on the rope. As she’s climbing down (or up, gimme a break) they begin shooting at them. But Adam gets hit by one of the bullets, and he lets go of the rope! So K falls and hits the ground on her side, which thankfully isn’t that hard. If I were to guess, it looks like a 30 foot gap between both mountains. But I’m not sure about the gap between the 2 worlds, since I suck at rounding. Whenever I round in my reviews, I always say 500 feet cause it’s the first number that comes to mind but I really have no clue.
But the gap between the cities is pretty big, about 1000 feet. And that’s land to land, cause some buildings almost touch each other. We get many shots of this throughout the movie, and like I said, their beautiful! To me it looks as though the movie was based off New York, though I’m unsure cause it’s never mentioned. So anyway, she falls and hits the ground, and you can see some blood coming out of her head. But trust me it’s not that graphic. It’s now 10 years later, but no exact year is given so I’m guessing it’s 2022. We see him at home working on some pink liquid, which we later find out is used to diagnose the ageing process by altering the persons face to make people look younger. And I don’t mind this procedure in reality (even though I’d never get one) but it’s kind of a boring sub-plot they added.
We later see him taking his bike and riding it to work. Like I mentioned earlier, Adams world is pretty dark and musty compared to the upper world. He actually does explain this in the little intro in the beginning, but I didn’t feel the need to write it down cause I didn’t wanna be too technical or whatever. But he says something about the upper world taking energy from the bottom world or something. Which I guess explains why nobody in this world is driving any cars, and their all on bikes. Maybe the upper world robbed them of their energy, I don’t know. In the shot of him and the other bikes, you can see a couple cars parked on the road but nobody is in them. It’s also raining in this scene, which again helps with that musty run-down atmosphere.
I don’t even know where this rain comes from, cause above Adam’s world is the upper world. So it must come from that little section in-between (if that makes any sense) Eventually he gets to his shop and begins to work. He has a couple other guys in this scene who help him, and give him advice or whatever throughout the movie. While they walk around the room, Adam is in the background working on his ageing cream that I could care less about. But there’s also this one guy in the background who’s name I don’t know cause he’s not on imdb. But I think I recognize him from the Lord of the Rings movie. I don’t know why, but those movies instantly popped into my head when I saw him. I was never a fan of those movies, but I used to watch em cause Brad Dourif played Wormtongue in Two Towers and I used to always watch his scenes.
I don’t even know what the heck those movies are about. But anyway he’s working on some old tv, which to me looks like one of those tv’s from the 40’s or whatever cause it’s so small and ancient. I even got confused at one point as to what year this movie is set in, which kinda happens when the exact year is never given (blame that on the director) but like I said, I think it takes place in present time. And I think the reason why they have old tv’s is cause again, the upper world took everything from them, so now their stuck with old and ancient technology. But at one point, the tv pops on and we see K on some game show. It looks like jeopardy or something, but Adam sees her here and realizes that she’s alive and works at some corporation that I forget the name of.
Ironic enough, it turns out Adam is going to that same corporation to sell his clay mold ageing idea. So he goes to the same building the next day, wearing a suit and walks around. Eventually he gets inside, and I love this shot; we see business people on the upper and lower floors of the room, walking about with papers and notebooks and whatnot. I just love the imagery! In the many shots of these buildings that we see, none of the upper and lower buildings connect but obviously this one does. And hypothetically had this building been real, I wonder how they built it lol. The building also looks like the place my mother works at. I’ve only been there a few times as a kid, but I still remember it. She used to work late, and she’d let me run around the place on my own.
Come to think of it, I don’t even think there are any computers in this scene. I know he sits down at his desk and drinks something, but we never see him or anybody else on a computer, which I thought was odd. But anyway, he meets this guy named Bob who’s on the floor above him in this scene. Everything above him is pretty much identical to everything below, besides of course the different people. But I recognize Bob from Harry Potter (2003) who plays Peter Pettigrew. And I’m not the biggest fan of Harry Potter either, but I like them more than Lord of the Rings. I’m more familiar with the first 3 movies, and their a cheesy but touching series. I think it took me awhile to recognize this guy, cause he’s pretty far away in this scene as he and Adam talk.
But it’s pretty easy to recognize him once we get closer, and that’s not a compliment at all cause the guy is butt ugly! No diss to people from England, but people over there have the worst teeth ever lol. Which is probably how he got the character in those films, cause the director was probably like “We need a short, fat, buck-toothed dude for this role” lol. Later on, Adam also talks with the boss of the whole organization; some bald dude named L. His office is right in front of this huge plexiglass window, in which we can see all the workers in the background moving and walking around. Sometimes I wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on in the foreground cause I was so absorbed by the world in the background.
But anyway, when Adam enters the bosses room, he sees L upside down on the ceiling lol. I’m actually wondering how they pulled this scene off. I’m pretty sure they used some sort of green screen or split screen for this scene, or a combination of the two but it’s pretty cool. But Adam sits in the chair and L presses a button, which raises him up (or down, gimme a break) to his level. He basically tells Adam that he’s interested in his clay mold thingy and to sign a deal, that I guess gives him permission to use it if he finds it useful. He also tells Adam there is to be no contact between the upper and lower worlds. Unless of course it’s in the business world cause we do see some of them passing stuff to Adam from up top.
I think this all goes back to what Adam mentioned earlier, about the whole energy thing, and how the upper world gives energy to the bottom world. And I think that any non-business interaction disrupts that whole energy process. When Adam gets home, he tells his buddies about how the boss accepted his project. But this one guy named Albert isn’t too excited about it. He says something about them taking advantage of him or something, I can’t really remember. But I think that’s one of the first problems I had with this movie, and I’ll get more into this later on. But whenever 2 characters in this movie would argue, you didn’t really feel for them. We as the audience are always supposed to feel that “Hurray” moment when the main character argues with someone.
We’re supposed to think to ourselves “You know something, he could be right” but when Adam argues with some of these people, I honestly don’t feel anything. And he’s not a bad actor at all, I just can’t put my finger on him. But to say the least, its a pretty boring argument lol. We also see K in a meeting right after this, where she sits in a circle with a bunch of people and they talk about why she’s there. She talks about her memory problem, which was caused in the scene when Adam dropped her. But again, you don’t really feel for her as a character and I feel this scene could’ve been so much stronger. Eventually Adam decides he’s gonna try and see her, so he calls her job and talks with a friend of hers.
She basically tells him that he can come over tomorrow and he accepts. According to imdb, they refer to her as Executive #2 but I’m just gonna call her E since they were too lazy to give her a proper name. Just call her Sally for crying out loud! So we see Adam at his shop again, and we see his friends helping him with his gear. I can’t get into specifics, but they basically just give him alot of weights to keep him from falling and I think they use some fluid as well. The Lord of the Rings dude argues with him a bit here, claiming K is never gonna recognize him after her head injury but Adam tells him not to worry. But it’s just another boring, pointless argument that goes nowhere. The arguments in this movie really suck lol.
So Adam puts some weight in his shoes, and he also wears this body-armor looking vest to keep his weight down. Come to think of it, even with all this gear it never really shows when he’s done; you never see it poke through his clothes, and you never see him slow down in regards to its weight since I’m assuming this stuff must weigh about 10-15 pounds. So he goes to K’s office and meets her in this little room. She’s standing by this rack of metal objects that I can’t even see, but they look like sunglasses or something. But he’s excited to finally see her again, and he walks up to her excitedly. He tells her how happy he is to see her, but she doesn’t seem to recognize him. So she walks past him towards her rack of sunglasses (whatever the heck they are)
But once she walks by him, her friend E tells him that she has amnesia. But it’s the way she says it that kind of annoys me. Because it comes off like so much is revealed in such a small amount of time. He goes “What’d I do” and without questioning him, she says something like “Don’t worry, she doesn’t remember you. It’s her amnesia and that’s why she forgets stuff don’t worry about it” like damn, you had to reveal all that in one breath lol. To me it just comes off as lazy screenwriting. So he walks over to her again, and tries to get her to remember him. But it doesn’t work, and she just looks at him confusingly. And again there’s something about this scene that I don’t like. It’s just very bland, and not as heartfelt as I wanted it to be.
Later on, we see Adam and Bob in the upside down room again. Eventually L the boss calls a meeting and everybody in the room stands up. Again, I love this scene; not only the amount of people on screen, but also the people up top. But I’m pretty sure 90% of the people on screen are CGI, and they just made copies and duplicated them lol. But L tells them all that some people need to be fired. He names off about 5 people, one of whom happens to be Bob. I’m guessing he was fired cause they found out he was talking to Adam without being in the work area, but I wonder why the other 5 people were fired. Later that day, we see him packing up his things with Adam. The two of them are the only ones in the building at this point, surrounded by about 100 empty tables.
It reminds me of one of those scenes from The Matrix lol. I remember playing the game, and in one level there was this long hallway that went on forever. But scenes like that were always cool to me. We later see Kristen at her job (wherever that is) calling the place. When she calls, Adam picks up the phone but she goes “Hey Bob” which thinking about it now, really doesn’t make any sense. Cause Adam and Bob do switch ID cards somewhere in this movie. So I’m thinking that she thinks Adams real name is Bob, but I won’t complicate things. But she eventually asks him on a date to lunch. The next day, he meets her in this restaurant near these huge glass windows. And it’s pretty beautiful, when compared to where he comes from. She asks him a couple questions, like why hasn’t she seen him around and things like that.
But after about 2 questions, the scene just gets really goofy. I forget what he says, but she ends up walking off irritably towards the door. So he runs after her and tries to beg her to stay. But it’s just a really goofy scene to me. They could’ve just sat there and flirted and joked around. And as cheesy as that would’ve looked that’s kinda what I expected them to do. I expected them to be cheesy lol. He even goes “Please don’t leave. Remember when you dropped your papers and I helped pick them up” lol. But after begging her to stay, she agrees and we see them talk for a bit. It’s kinda one of those scenes where it’s in silence while the music plays in the background, and we as the audience just assume that their getting along or whatever. Pretty soon Adam begins to feel his foot getting warm, which is caused by the gear that he’s wearing.
I think I mentioned this before, but I think it’s caused by the friction between the gravity and the weights in his clothes or something. And this is all explained in the opening scene of the movie but alot of it is pretty technical. But eventually he runs off, as his foot becomes so hot that he runs off out the restaurant! I think the police are chasing him in this scene too, though I can’t remember. But for him to be able to outrun them with 10 pounds of equipment on is pretty amazing. And eventually he jumps into the river and is immediately transported back to his world. I like how the camera rotates from upside down to right-side up, as he falls from that river to his. And I gotta say, I love how this movie is directed. And it’s one of the reasons why I don’t go after specific directors when I choose movies to watch / review.
Cause alot of these guys are pretty unknown. And when I see a movie like this that was made by someone I’ve never even heard of, to me looking for specific people is pretty pointless. If an absolute nobody can create shots like this, than I wanna see more movies by people like this. The next day, Adam is back at the facility. This time he’s in this big theater room, and he’s testing his invention in front of a group of people in suits. Who I assume are the ones who are gonna grant it’s permission if it’s good. So they bring an old lady out and he puts the cream on her face. But not even 10 seconds into this scene, K walks into the room and sits down in one of the seats. One of the people in this scene asks him something and he speaks into the mic, and K recognizes his voice. So she stands up and asks him what his name was, in which he reveals is Adam.
I didn’t understand this scene at first, cause it came off like a random scene they threw in here with no real reason. But this goes back to the scene I mentioned earlier about them on the phone, where she answers the phone and thinks she’s talking to Bob. So I guess it makes sense now, and she obviously knows now that his name is Adam. That’s one of the cool things to find out, when you’re writing a review for a particular movie, cause writing it out does help sometimes. So they spend a couple days away from each other, and we get a few scenes of them thinking about each other and stuff. And some of it is pretty cute but alot of it is still pretty bland. Besides the amazing visuals this movie possesses, its kinda lacking in the story department and I can’t really pick out a cute moment between the two of them.
And at this point, I really don’t care if they get back together lol. Eventually they do get back together though, and they meet in this little ballroom. And apparently, all of K’s memory came back and she remembers all the things they used to do, how cute (not really) More cops show up in this scene and Adam takes off. He jumps out the window and later leaps onto a trolley lol. It’s a pretty cool scene, but not mind-blowing. We later see the two of them running from police through the woods again. They eventually jump into the sky and start jumping across these wooden obstacles in space, but again these scenes aren’t that mind-blowing. And I didn’t wanna be too technical, but how these characters get from point A to point B is pretty lazy.
It’s visually stunning but how they traverse around the world / how they get there in the first place, it just feels like scene after scene with no purpose in mind other than to show off visuals. And coming from a guy who’s pretty much seen it all, it ain’t that impressive. Eventually Adam falls, with K holding him by one arm while they hang onto one of the plates. He then asks her to drop him, which I thought was cute (not really) cause I thought he was trying to sacrifice himself for her. But I think he knew that he’d fall right down to his world anyway, so sacrifice is out the window here. But she drops him, and he falls down to his world. She doesn’t even yell or cry when she drops him, paranoid he doesn’t hit the water. He actually ends up falling in a tree, but gets no bumps or bruises.
He was probably protected by the 10 pounds of weight he was carrying to keep him from falling up (or down, gimme a break) Later on, Bob comes by the shop and shows Adam and his friends that he can fly. He gets in the room, and stands on his toes and floats in the air. And it’s obvious by this point that Bob figured out a way to go to his world without the weights. At the end of the movie, Adam and K meet on this little balcony in her world. And it’s obvious at this point that he used the same technique to keep him on the ground in her world. So we see the two of them hugging in this scene, happy that he’s able to stay in her world longer. She also tells him in this scene that she’s pregnant with twins, when did that happen lol. You don’t even see them get that close in the movie, but now she’s pregnant, holy crap!
Overall this was a pretty decent movie. I love the environment, I love the visuals, and I love the buildings and the futuristic vibe it gave off. My only problem with this movie was the story, and the lack of connection between the 2 characters. And I felt the story wasn’t strong enough to accompany a movie like this and didn’t help to balance it out at all. And like I said, I think both actors are great, but their relationship in the movie just didn’t shine through. Another thing I didn’t really like was the pointless subplot with the ageing cream. You kinda get the feeling the invention was made by Adam, to help him get out of the crummy environment he was in and give himself hope, but they definitely could’ve done without it. If you’re looking for visuals, this is your movie. But if you’re looking for visuals and story, you might wanna skip it.
Man of Steel (2013)
I guess you can say I was pretty excited to see this movie. I don’t know much about the old Superman movies, nor have I seen any of em, except for a few clips here and there. But I know the old Superman was played by Christopher Reeve. I also heard he went paralyzed in the mid 90’s after an accident where he fell off his horse. Chris Rock did a joke about this during one of his stand-ups at the time, saying “Christopher Reeve can’t walk. What’s next, is Aqua-man gonna drown in the tub” lol. I’m not the biggest Superman fan but once I saw the trailer for this movie, I was instantly hooked. It just looked so dark and serious, yet intriguing to me.
At the start of the movie we get the usual credits, and we find out that the movie was produced by Legendary, the same people who made Pacific Rim and Godzilla. And just like those movies, there are alot of deep themes in this movie that I wanna get into. We also find out the movie was made by DC Comics, who I assume also made the Batman movies. At the end of the movie we find out the story was written by Christopher Nolan, who I could care less about. Boo me if you want but I hate the Dark Knight movies and I hate Christian Bale. The dude looks like a straight-up clown in the movie, and he talks with that annoying lisp, drooling everywhere. He reminds me of Dean Ambrose from WWE with that stupid face of his, and he always looks like a clown when he gets angry.
Now I grew up with Batman Returns (1992) but I can’t really say I’m a fan of Superhero’s in general. I mean their cool and everything, the whole superhero thing and all that stuff is cool, but I’m not the biggest superhero fan. Hulk is probably my favorite, from the 2003 film. I hate his look in Incredible Hulk (2008) and I hate that movie, Spiderman is okay, Electro from Amazing Spiderman 2 is pretty badass, but I think Dark Knight is probably my most hated superhero cause he looks like a dweeb. So yea, Christopher Nolan gets no respect from me with his involvement in this movie, and I could honestly care less.
So anyway, at the start of the movie we see this woman delivering a baby. Reminds me of the opening scene to Carrie (2013) and we obviously know who this is. His father is also in this scene, and here we hear him talkin about their planet Krypton and how it’s falling apart. I’m not gonna get too deep into this whole thing, but Krypton is basically another planet in this fictional universe and its falling apart cause they didn’t take care of it. Eventually this dude named Zod arrives and says it’s their fault the planet is blowing up. So the 2 of them end up fighting here for a bit. Eventually the father runs outside to see the world around them falling apart. This scene is pretty badass, and we see alot of explosions and fire and stuff.
Eventually he hops on this bird creature and flies back home. They take Superman (as a baby) and place him in this machine, and send him out into space. Zod is in cuffs now, but he tells them he’s gonna find S. I think there’s more to these scenes than I’m getting into, regarding the story but this I really just the simplified version of what I see going on. I mean I’m still gonna dig deep when I need to, but for the most part I’m gonna keep this stuff simple. I mean I don’t really know much about Superman’s history, besides the fact that he’s very similar to alot of the other Superhero’s out there. The big similarity all of these hero’s have: Spiderman, Batman, Hulk, Superman, is that they were all dorks at one point, and / or don’t get along with their parents.
Peter Parker was a dork, Bruce Banner was a dork, Clark Kent was a dork, and so was Batman, or more specifically Christian Bale. That dude was a dork as Batman and a dork in real life, so you know he was the right choice for the role, lucky bastard lol. So anyway, later on we get a scene on this ship, and its here that we see S for the first time. I honestly think they chose the right guy for S though. I mean up until this point I’ve never seen this dude in any other movie, but he’s definitely got the look. So anyway, the boat is on its way to this little platform out here in the ocean. It’s like this big platform out here in the middle of nowhere lol. So they call helicopters and this boat over to come rescue the people here, but S flies to the rescue.
He rescues the people here and stops the little tower here from falling on anybody. I wonder why Batman never did something like that in Dark Knight, oh yea cause he’s a dweeb! Now in the coming scenes we get alot of flashbacks of S as a kid. We get about 5-6 of them and most of them are pretty cool. The casting directors must’ve had their hands full, casting like 3-4 different boys who had the same blue eyes and brown hair lol. I’m not gonna talk about all of em, but for the most part we see him as a kid discovering his power and wondering why he was chosen and all this. In one of these memories, he runs out of the classroom into the hallway closet. So the teacher runs after him and tries to talk to him through the door, Rocky style lol. Eventually she tries to open the door but he uses his power to heat the door knob and she burns her hand.
Reminds me of the scene from Home Alone, you know the scene where Harry burns his hand on the door. When I saw it for the first time I was like “This chick got Home-Alon’d” lol. In another scene we see him outside here talkin with his dad. We get alot of shots out here, and at certain parts in the movie they mention that S lives in Kansas. And it goes along with what I said earlier, about these superhero’s being outcasts / living in states nobody would recognize lol. But anyway, he and his dad talk for a bit out here. He’s about 12 in this memory, and his dad tells him that he has to keep his powers a secret cause he doesn’t know how the world would react, which makes sense. I mean the way they reacted to Spiderman was cool, but when people found out how powerful Hulk was, these guys tries to extract his DNA so they could pump their soldiers with it.
I guess you could say Hulk works in these examples too, with how people react when they don’t understand something. Later on we see S at a bar, all grown up. My first guess was he was about 30 years old but he reveals it in a later scene. He says something like “I haven’t hurt anybody in 33 years” so we can assume he’s 33. So anyway, we see him at the bar here and this one guy is being rude to one of the ladies. So he comes over and tries to calm the guy down, but he spills a drink on him lol. Reminds me of the scene from The Rundown (2003) where dude spilled a drink in Rock’s face, then he came back and whipped em lol. But anyway, it looks as though S wants to do something here but the girl here tells him it’s not worth it, so he walks off. Women are always messing up these scenes with their sensitivity lol.
But later on, dude walks outside and finds his truck out here. It has like 5 different trees impaled all through the windows, making it pretty un-drivable at this point. And it’s safe to say S got his revenge. You don’t spill a drink on Superman and think your gonna get away with it lol. We later meet this reporter chick named Lois and I recognized her name instantly. You don’t even have to be a fan of the original movies to recognize the names of Louis and Clark. I mean I’ll be honest, whenever I hear those names the first thing that pops into my head is Indiana Jones, and I don’t know why cause I’m not even a fan of those movies, but they just sound like country names to me. So anyway she’s out here in what looks like Alaska, with all this snow. I’m probably wrong cause Kansas and Alaska are like 10,000 miles apart.
At one point you see the two of them unloading bags into this little house, and she tells him to be careful cause one of the bags is heavy. What is she talkin about, its Superman, he could probably lift the Helicopter if he wanted to lol. Later on she sees S and follows him into this cave. She almost gets attacked by this little detective robot they got here, but S saves her. So when she returns to the city, she tries to tell her boss that she saw Superman but he doesn’t believe her. But she takes the story and gets one of her friends to run it online. I keep thinkin we’re still dealing with newspapers in this scene, but we’re in the digital era now. A majority of the news now is online, and I could be wrong but I don’t think people read newspapers anymore, atleast I don’t. I hate reading lol.
Eventually we get to the scene alot of people were waiting for, we see Superman in his costume for the first time. And I gotta say, he looks pretty badass in it. Now I have seen photo’s of the old Superman costume in the 1978 version. But I gotta say, the suit looks pretty lame. But you know, lame in a good way, cause I know it looked cool back when the movie first came out. But the suit he’s wearing now is pretty badass. I also like that it’s dark blue and has this glow to it, and not light blue like the original. The dark blue makes it more gritty lookin. So anyway, he takes off and starts flying around out here. His dad told him he needs to practice his skills, so he starts to fly. And at one point he ends up crashing, but he tries again and flies all over the place, all up into the sky! I bet Dark Knight is feelin pretty jealous right now, cause I know he didn’t fly that much in those movies, dweeb.
We later see Lois the reporter chick, walkin around town trying to get info on S and where he’s at. Eventually she finds him at a graveyard out here in Kansas. She tells him she wants him to come clean about who he really is, but he doesn’t wanna do that yet. And come to think of it, he actually has an advantage. He lives in Kansas, and (atleast from what I know) there aren’t alot of famous people in Kansas (unless you’re a country singer or something) but there’s definitely no celebrities there, so he’s very unlikely to be swarmed by paparazzi. Later on we get another dream sequence. S and his father are arguing in the car, but at one point they see a storm up ahead. So they get out the car and the rest of em run to safety, while the father stays here and tries to rescue the people still stuck in their cars. I guess he thinks he’s Superman now lol.
But this scene is pretty badass, seeing the cars being lifted off the road. You don’t see this happen alot in movies, and I don’t know why people don’t do it (probably cause they don’t have the balls) but when I see cars being lifted off the ground like this, the hair on the back of my neck stands up, its so cool lookin. So anyway, S tries to help but his father tells him to stay put, but you sorta get what’s going on here. His father wants to protect him, by refusing him the ability to showcase his powers. Now (and I forgot to mention this earlier) he nor the mother are his actual parents. In the beginning of the movie his father put him in the little machine thing and sent him out, and he eventually landed on Earth. He landed next to these people and they adopted him, so they’re his foster parents basically.
But they still had feelings for each other, and S was still gonna save him, you know. But like I said, he didn’t want people to know about Superman’s power. Eventually I guess he figures it’s too late, and let’s the storm take him away. It’s a pretty sad scene, and you can see the pain in Superman’s face. So now his real dad is gone and so is his foster dad, damn lol. His real dad is gone but he does appear in a couple scenes in ghost-mode to kinda talk to S and give him hope and stuff. In one scene (right before we see S in the suit for the first time) he talks to him about some stuff. And at one point he talks about the people on Earth and says “you can embody the best of both worlds, power and humanity” and it didn’t take long for me to figure out what he means by this, or what I think he means.
Earth has human life, and Krypton has alien-superhero life. The people with all the power (Krypton’s) lost their planet earlier in the movie, so his father tells him that hopefully he can teach the people on earth about both, and how to balance power and humanity. You can have all the power in the world, but if you don’t know how to control it you’re gonna fall apart. I think that’s what this scene was supposed to signify. Eventually Zod arrives in this spaceship-looking thing, and the whole world finds out. We see him on the news and the headline says something about it being a UFO lol. Not to sound racist or anything, but only white people believe in that crap lol. They believe in UFO’s Bigfoot and all that other crap, but I don’t. And I know it’s just a movie but people believe in that stuff in real life too.
But anyway, he makes an announcement and says he wants Superman. He says he has 24 hours to reveal himself or he’s gonna destroy the planet lol. In the coming scenes there’s alot of debate going on about what he should do, but eventually S gives in. He’s still in the Superman costume, but he gives himself in, and they cuff him and bring him into this room with Luis. I remember watching this scene on youtube and just thinking how witty it was. But they sit down and she asks him about the S on his chest. You get the feeling she’s about to say the S word but then the little intercom rings and interrupts them in this scene lol. But we all know what she wanted to call him, the Superbug! No I’m kidding, but its pretty obvious.
But the dude rings in and says something and S gets up. He tells him he’s not here to hurt them, but you get the feeling their still pretty suspicious about him. Later on we see these ships arrive, and this Russian chick gets out. You can tell she’s from either Russia or Germany cause she’s got that 1 expression the entire movie, like she’s about to fall asleep lol. Turns out according to imdb she’s actually from Germany but same thing. But as I said before, about Godzilla and Pacific Rim, it seems as though this is a big thing with Legendary. The whole society thing is very present in these movies, especially now that we have a Russian chick. There aren’t alot of Asian people in the movie but in one scene you can see a group of Asian’s watching tv, I think in the scene where the supposed UFO arrives.
But to me this movie is trying to tackle themes like that, by having people of all races in the movie: Whites, Blacks, Russians and Asians. And the thing about Superman’s father trying to keep him a secret cause he doesn’t know how the world would react, I guess you can say that goes along with Society. We don’t know how people would react, once they find out there’s a man with all this power running around, so I’m assuming that’s the message their trying to deliver here. Now realistically I really don’t know how people would react if they found out there was a guy (whether he was named Superman or not) running around with all that power. I mean I know how I’d react. I’d be like “this dude is pretty badass” and “I want his powers” lol.
Eventually Zod arrives at his mother’s house and asks her where her son is at. And obviously she doesn’t tell him, but S arrives in this scene and he and Zod’s men (and the Russian chick) fight for a bit here. There’s the usual explosions and all that stuff here and it’s pretty cool. S gets doubled teams alot in this scene by the Russian chick and his men, so it’s kinda sad. It’s always sad seeing the hero get beat on, I mean I hated seeing Godzilla get beat on when I was younger, and still do. You also get the feeling in these scenes that S is weaker than these guys, which the Russian chick brings up in one scene. She says he possesses something they do not, morality, which is the distinction between right and wrong.
He’s a hero but I’m assuming he thinks what he’s doing is wrong. I mean earlier in the movie you get the feeling in alot of scenes that he doesn’t wanna fight, especially in the scene where the guy pours the drink in his face. I mean it’s a pretty common trait in these Superhero’s. Not only are they all nerd / outcasts (sorta like me, cause I’m an outcast as well) but none of them ever wanna fight unless their forced: I remember Peter Parker didn’t wanna fight the dude in the hallway in the 2002 movie, and Bruce Banner didn’t wanna fight the guy at his house in the 2003 movie, atleast until they were both forced. So yea it’s a pretty common trait in alot of these guys. Eventually this huge ship arrives in the city, and in all honesty, everything I’ve seen up until this point was pretty much everything I sorta expected from this movie, but this scene literally blew my mind!
But before I get to this scene there’s something else I wanted to touch on. S is from Kansas, where a majority of the land is pretty country and flat. But now we’re in the city. I highly doubt there are any cities in Kansas, so I’m pretty sure we’re in a different state by this point, but I didn’t catch the name or know if it was mentioned or not. But for arguments sake, it looks like New York to me, which is where most big movies take place anyway, with all the tall buildings and stuff, so I’m sayin New York. But anyway, it arrives and immediately starts blasting the city with this little force field thing, and I gotta say I was pretty impressed. It sends out a blast and all these cars get blasted out the way and a couple buildings get destroyed, its pretty badass lookin.
It’s not really just a gun that blasts and blows up buildings (which would’ve made me faint) but its really this gravity gun thing. One dude calls it a “gravity weapon” and you can clearly see what it’s really doing: its blasting the cars, and then sucking them back in. Eventually S gets into this big fight with Zod and it’s pretty badass. They grab and throw each other through these buildings while all this stuff is blowing up around them, and I gotta say, this scene was blowing me away. I mean I’ve seen my fair share of action movies, but I’ve never seen this. Usually when you see action movies with CGI buildings, you never see anybody get close to em, and their always in the background just standing there like placeholders.
But finally we get a movie where people are actually having interaction and getting thrown through them, so I give em alot of respect here. There’s one scene where Zod takes Superman and throws him through about 5 buildings in a row, and its so cool looking. Nobody has the balls to do that in Hollywood, trust me I’ve seen alot of movies. I guess the only thing that annoyed me about this scene was the fact that if you listen closely, you can hear a couple Wilhelm screams. If you don’t know what the Wilhelm scream is, its some stupid scream from some old movie that alot of directors use in their movies. I still to this day have no idea why they use it, and don’t allow the actors to do their own screaming but, its a question I’ll probably never have answered. I personally think the scream is dumb is hell and should never be used, ever.
But eventually Superman catches Zod in this little building. Zod uses his laser and points it at this family with their kids, and Superman tries to stop him from hurting them. And I’ll admit the scene was pretty hard to watch, cause you see the pain and fear in Superman’s eyes trying to stop him, and eventually he does, snapping his neck! Superman saves the day, as always lol. Later on you see the government looking for him, but he destroys one of their drones. He says their never gonna find where he stores his cape, and you get the impression here he’s happy being with his family. At the end of the movie you see him getting this job at some business here, where he meets Lois. He’s got on these dorky glasses, and I remember seeing him in this outfit at some point in the old movies.
Cause like I said all of these hero’s are dorks lol. But I guess wearing the glasses and the suit make him go unnoticed. I guess Superman has to try harder to go unnoticed since all he wears is the cape. Spiderman sorta has an advantage cause he wears the mask, so it’s easier to hide your identity. He meets Lois here as well but you can tell she recognizes him, but also wants to help him hide his identity. I’m guessing this is where the sequel is gonna pick up, if and when they make one. I thought up some ideas about the sequel to this movie, based on what I saw and how impressed I was. The sequel should obviously pick up right where this one left off, with Superman and the Lois.
Now the guy they chose to play Superman was a very good choice, and good thing their not replacing him in the coming movies. The guys name is Henry Cavill and according to imdb he’s gonna be playing Superman all the way up until 2019. I’m not a big Marvel fan but I remember reading somewhere that they had movies planned all the way up until like 2028 lol. But I like this guy, and think he was a good choice. I actually had 2 ideas for a sequel: My first idea for the sequel (Man of Steel 2) is that it picks up right where the first one left off, with all the same actors, but with a different story, which is how most sequels should be. But another idea I had was the sequel should take place 10 years later, with an older Superman.
I wanna see the older Superman in his 40’s flying around, beatin people up, maybe that’s just me. Now the guy they chose was cool, but I don’t think he’d be able to pull off the 40 year old version. But he could play him for half the movie and then get the older Superman to come in when the story need him. So those are my ideas for a sequel, and this is coming from someone who isn’t even really a fan of Marvel movies. But like I said, the trailer for this movie was so good and it had that dark vibe that I like in movies, and I instantly knew it was gonna be good, and it was. So my idea is they should go with a Man of Steel 2 but of course, Hollywood always has a way of screwing things up. The next movie is supposedly Superman vs Batman lol.
I honestly don’t even know how I feel about this one. I mean at first it sounds cool, but I don’t know if its gonna be a fight to the death or what. The first thing that comes to mind my, is why the hell did they get Ben Affleck to play Batman lol. The dude is a cornball. I mean I’m glad they replaced Christian Bale, cause he was always drooling over the suit everytime he talked with his stupid little voice. But now we have this clown. I actually remember reading when Ben Affleck was first cast as Batman, alot of people hated it and some people actually signed petitions against it. Some say they like Ben but just don’t think he’s right for the role. I hate Ben, and don’t think he’s right for any role lol. The guy is a clown to me, and to see him in a Batman suit would just make me laugh, even if he got in shape for it.
Overall I loved the movie, and I gotta admit it really blew me away. I mean I went into it expecting pretty much everything you’d expect from action / superhero movies like this, but the ending really blew me away. I just loved the scene of the city getting blasted to bits, cause nobody has to balls to do scenes like that and nobody has the balls to actually touch the CGI buildings. For the most part when you see CGI buildings in movies (Divergent, I Am Legend, etc) their just there for show, and you never see a camera fly past them or get close to em, mostly cause its all green screen. But this movie actually had to balls to not only get close to em, but touch em and throw people through em, and that impressed me.
I just checked the review scores and I knew this movie was gonna have atleast a 7.0 on imdb and it does. But I was surprised to see that the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low, and so is the Metacritic score. Sometimes that happens though: the critics hate the movie but the general public loves it, and I loved this movie, so critics can kiss my butt. And if Superman vs Ben Affleck-Batman is really the next movie their planning instead of a Man of Steel 2 then we mind as well enjoy it, cause this is gonna be the last good Superhero movie for awhile once they put that clown in there.
I guess you can say I was pretty excited to see this movie. I don’t know much about the old Superman movies, nor have I seen any of em, except for a few clips here and there. But I know the old Superman was played by Christopher Reeve. I also heard he went paralyzed in the mid 90’s after an accident where he fell off his horse. Chris Rock did a joke about this during one of his stand-ups at the time, saying “Christopher Reeve can’t walk. What’s next, is Aqua-man gonna drown in the tub” lol. I’m not the biggest Superman fan but once I saw the trailer for this movie, I was instantly hooked. It just looked so dark and serious, yet intriguing to me.
At the start of the movie we get the usual credits, and we find out that the movie was produced by Legendary, the same people who made Pacific Rim and Godzilla. And just like those movies, there are alot of deep themes in this movie that I wanna get into. We also find out the movie was made by DC Comics, who I assume also made the Batman movies. At the end of the movie we find out the story was written by Christopher Nolan, who I could care less about. Boo me if you want but I hate the Dark Knight movies and I hate Christian Bale. The dude looks like a straight-up clown in the movie, and he talks with that annoying lisp, drooling everywhere. He reminds me of Dean Ambrose from WWE with that stupid face of his, and he always looks like a clown when he gets angry.
Now I grew up with Batman Returns (1992) but I can’t really say I’m a fan of Superhero’s in general. I mean their cool and everything, the whole superhero thing and all that stuff is cool, but I’m not the biggest superhero fan. Hulk is probably my favorite, from the 2003 film. I hate his look in Incredible Hulk (2008) and I hate that movie, Spiderman is okay, Electro from Amazing Spiderman 2 is pretty badass, but I think Dark Knight is probably my most hated superhero cause he looks like a dweeb. So yea, Christopher Nolan gets no respect from me with his involvement in this movie, and I could honestly care less.
So anyway, at the start of the movie we see this woman delivering a baby. Reminds me of the opening scene to Carrie (2013) and we obviously know who this is. His father is also in this scene, and here we hear him talkin about their planet Krypton and how it’s falling apart. I’m not gonna get too deep into this whole thing, but Krypton is basically another planet in this fictional universe and its falling apart cause they didn’t take care of it. Eventually this dude named Zod arrives and says it’s their fault the planet is blowing up. So the 2 of them end up fighting here for a bit. Eventually the father runs outside to see the world around them falling apart. This scene is pretty badass, and we see alot of explosions and fire and stuff.
Eventually he hops on this bird creature and flies back home. They take Superman (as a baby) and place him in this machine, and send him out into space. Zod is in cuffs now, but he tells them he’s gonna find S. I think there’s more to these scenes than I’m getting into, regarding the story but this I really just the simplified version of what I see going on. I mean I’m still gonna dig deep when I need to, but for the most part I’m gonna keep this stuff simple. I mean I don’t really know much about Superman’s history, besides the fact that he’s very similar to alot of the other Superhero’s out there. The big similarity all of these hero’s have: Spiderman, Batman, Hulk, Superman, is that they were all dorks at one point, and / or don’t get along with their parents.
Peter Parker was a dork, Bruce Banner was a dork, Clark Kent was a dork, and so was Batman, or more specifically Christian Bale. That dude was a dork as Batman and a dork in real life, so you know he was the right choice for the role, lucky bastard lol. So anyway, later on we get a scene on this ship, and its here that we see S for the first time. I honestly think they chose the right guy for S though. I mean up until this point I’ve never seen this dude in any other movie, but he’s definitely got the look. So anyway, the boat is on its way to this little platform out here in the ocean. It’s like this big platform out here in the middle of nowhere lol. So they call helicopters and this boat over to come rescue the people here, but S flies to the rescue.
He rescues the people here and stops the little tower here from falling on anybody. I wonder why Batman never did something like that in Dark Knight, oh yea cause he’s a dweeb! Now in the coming scenes we get alot of flashbacks of S as a kid. We get about 5-6 of them and most of them are pretty cool. The casting directors must’ve had their hands full, casting like 3-4 different boys who had the same blue eyes and brown hair lol. I’m not gonna talk about all of em, but for the most part we see him as a kid discovering his power and wondering why he was chosen and all this. In one of these memories, he runs out of the classroom into the hallway closet. So the teacher runs after him and tries to talk to him through the door, Rocky style lol. Eventually she tries to open the door but he uses his power to heat the door knob and she burns her hand.
Reminds me of the scene from Home Alone, you know the scene where Harry burns his hand on the door. When I saw it for the first time I was like “This chick got Home-Alon’d” lol. In another scene we see him outside here talkin with his dad. We get alot of shots out here, and at certain parts in the movie they mention that S lives in Kansas. And it goes along with what I said earlier, about these superhero’s being outcasts / living in states nobody would recognize lol. But anyway, he and his dad talk for a bit out here. He’s about 12 in this memory, and his dad tells him that he has to keep his powers a secret cause he doesn’t know how the world would react, which makes sense. I mean the way they reacted to Spiderman was cool, but when people found out how powerful Hulk was, these guys tries to extract his DNA so they could pump their soldiers with it.
I guess you could say Hulk works in these examples too, with how people react when they don’t understand something. Later on we see S at a bar, all grown up. My first guess was he was about 30 years old but he reveals it in a later scene. He says something like “I haven’t hurt anybody in 33 years” so we can assume he’s 33. So anyway, we see him at the bar here and this one guy is being rude to one of the ladies. So he comes over and tries to calm the guy down, but he spills a drink on him lol. Reminds me of the scene from The Rundown (2003) where dude spilled a drink in Rock’s face, then he came back and whipped em lol. But anyway, it looks as though S wants to do something here but the girl here tells him it’s not worth it, so he walks off. Women are always messing up these scenes with their sensitivity lol.
But later on, dude walks outside and finds his truck out here. It has like 5 different trees impaled all through the windows, making it pretty un-drivable at this point. And it’s safe to say S got his revenge. You don’t spill a drink on Superman and think your gonna get away with it lol. We later meet this reporter chick named Lois and I recognized her name instantly. You don’t even have to be a fan of the original movies to recognize the names of Louis and Clark. I mean I’ll be honest, whenever I hear those names the first thing that pops into my head is Indiana Jones, and I don’t know why cause I’m not even a fan of those movies, but they just sound like country names to me. So anyway she’s out here in what looks like Alaska, with all this snow. I’m probably wrong cause Kansas and Alaska are like 10,000 miles apart.
At one point you see the two of them unloading bags into this little house, and she tells him to be careful cause one of the bags is heavy. What is she talkin about, its Superman, he could probably lift the Helicopter if he wanted to lol. Later on she sees S and follows him into this cave. She almost gets attacked by this little detective robot they got here, but S saves her. So when she returns to the city, she tries to tell her boss that she saw Superman but he doesn’t believe her. But she takes the story and gets one of her friends to run it online. I keep thinkin we’re still dealing with newspapers in this scene, but we’re in the digital era now. A majority of the news now is online, and I could be wrong but I don’t think people read newspapers anymore, atleast I don’t. I hate reading lol.
Eventually we get to the scene alot of people were waiting for, we see Superman in his costume for the first time. And I gotta say, he looks pretty badass in it. Now I have seen photo’s of the old Superman costume in the 1978 version. But I gotta say, the suit looks pretty lame. But you know, lame in a good way, cause I know it looked cool back when the movie first came out. But the suit he’s wearing now is pretty badass. I also like that it’s dark blue and has this glow to it, and not light blue like the original. The dark blue makes it more gritty lookin. So anyway, he takes off and starts flying around out here. His dad told him he needs to practice his skills, so he starts to fly. And at one point he ends up crashing, but he tries again and flies all over the place, all up into the sky! I bet Dark Knight is feelin pretty jealous right now, cause I know he didn’t fly that much in those movies, dweeb.
We later see Lois the reporter chick, walkin around town trying to get info on S and where he’s at. Eventually she finds him at a graveyard out here in Kansas. She tells him she wants him to come clean about who he really is, but he doesn’t wanna do that yet. And come to think of it, he actually has an advantage. He lives in Kansas, and (atleast from what I know) there aren’t alot of famous people in Kansas (unless you’re a country singer or something) but there’s definitely no celebrities there, so he’s very unlikely to be swarmed by paparazzi. Later on we get another dream sequence. S and his father are arguing in the car, but at one point they see a storm up ahead. So they get out the car and the rest of em run to safety, while the father stays here and tries to rescue the people still stuck in their cars. I guess he thinks he’s Superman now lol.
But this scene is pretty badass, seeing the cars being lifted off the road. You don’t see this happen alot in movies, and I don’t know why people don’t do it (probably cause they don’t have the balls) but when I see cars being lifted off the ground like this, the hair on the back of my neck stands up, its so cool lookin. So anyway, S tries to help but his father tells him to stay put, but you sorta get what’s going on here. His father wants to protect him, by refusing him the ability to showcase his powers. Now (and I forgot to mention this earlier) he nor the mother are his actual parents. In the beginning of the movie his father put him in the little machine thing and sent him out, and he eventually landed on Earth. He landed next to these people and they adopted him, so they’re his foster parents basically.
But they still had feelings for each other, and S was still gonna save him, you know. But like I said, he didn’t want people to know about Superman’s power. Eventually I guess he figures it’s too late, and let’s the storm take him away. It’s a pretty sad scene, and you can see the pain in Superman’s face. So now his real dad is gone and so is his foster dad, damn lol. His real dad is gone but he does appear in a couple scenes in ghost-mode to kinda talk to S and give him hope and stuff. In one scene (right before we see S in the suit for the first time) he talks to him about some stuff. And at one point he talks about the people on Earth and says “you can embody the best of both worlds, power and humanity” and it didn’t take long for me to figure out what he means by this, or what I think he means.
Earth has human life, and Krypton has alien-superhero life. The people with all the power (Krypton’s) lost their planet earlier in the movie, so his father tells him that hopefully he can teach the people on earth about both, and how to balance power and humanity. You can have all the power in the world, but if you don’t know how to control it you’re gonna fall apart. I think that’s what this scene was supposed to signify. Eventually Zod arrives in this spaceship-looking thing, and the whole world finds out. We see him on the news and the headline says something about it being a UFO lol. Not to sound racist or anything, but only white people believe in that crap lol. They believe in UFO’s Bigfoot and all that other crap, but I don’t. And I know it’s just a movie but people believe in that stuff in real life too.
But anyway, he makes an announcement and says he wants Superman. He says he has 24 hours to reveal himself or he’s gonna destroy the planet lol. In the coming scenes there’s alot of debate going on about what he should do, but eventually S gives in. He’s still in the Superman costume, but he gives himself in, and they cuff him and bring him into this room with Luis. I remember watching this scene on youtube and just thinking how witty it was. But they sit down and she asks him about the S on his chest. You get the feeling she’s about to say the S word but then the little intercom rings and interrupts them in this scene lol. But we all know what she wanted to call him, the Superbug! No I’m kidding, but its pretty obvious.
But the dude rings in and says something and S gets up. He tells him he’s not here to hurt them, but you get the feeling their still pretty suspicious about him. Later on we see these ships arrive, and this Russian chick gets out. You can tell she’s from either Russia or Germany cause she’s got that 1 expression the entire movie, like she’s about to fall asleep lol. Turns out according to imdb she’s actually from Germany but same thing. But as I said before, about Godzilla and Pacific Rim, it seems as though this is a big thing with Legendary. The whole society thing is very present in these movies, especially now that we have a Russian chick. There aren’t alot of Asian people in the movie but in one scene you can see a group of Asian’s watching tv, I think in the scene where the supposed UFO arrives.
But to me this movie is trying to tackle themes like that, by having people of all races in the movie: Whites, Blacks, Russians and Asians. And the thing about Superman’s father trying to keep him a secret cause he doesn’t know how the world would react, I guess you can say that goes along with Society. We don’t know how people would react, once they find out there’s a man with all this power running around, so I’m assuming that’s the message their trying to deliver here. Now realistically I really don’t know how people would react if they found out there was a guy (whether he was named Superman or not) running around with all that power. I mean I know how I’d react. I’d be like “this dude is pretty badass” and “I want his powers” lol.
Eventually Zod arrives at his mother’s house and asks her where her son is at. And obviously she doesn’t tell him, but S arrives in this scene and he and Zod’s men (and the Russian chick) fight for a bit here. There’s the usual explosions and all that stuff here and it’s pretty cool. S gets doubled teams alot in this scene by the Russian chick and his men, so it’s kinda sad. It’s always sad seeing the hero get beat on, I mean I hated seeing Godzilla get beat on when I was younger, and still do. You also get the feeling in these scenes that S is weaker than these guys, which the Russian chick brings up in one scene. She says he possesses something they do not, morality, which is the distinction between right and wrong.
He’s a hero but I’m assuming he thinks what he’s doing is wrong. I mean earlier in the movie you get the feeling in alot of scenes that he doesn’t wanna fight, especially in the scene where the guy pours the drink in his face. I mean it’s a pretty common trait in these Superhero’s. Not only are they all nerd / outcasts (sorta like me, cause I’m an outcast as well) but none of them ever wanna fight unless their forced: I remember Peter Parker didn’t wanna fight the dude in the hallway in the 2002 movie, and Bruce Banner didn’t wanna fight the guy at his house in the 2003 movie, atleast until they were both forced. So yea it’s a pretty common trait in alot of these guys. Eventually this huge ship arrives in the city, and in all honesty, everything I’ve seen up until this point was pretty much everything I sorta expected from this movie, but this scene literally blew my mind!
But before I get to this scene there’s something else I wanted to touch on. S is from Kansas, where a majority of the land is pretty country and flat. But now we’re in the city. I highly doubt there are any cities in Kansas, so I’m pretty sure we’re in a different state by this point, but I didn’t catch the name or know if it was mentioned or not. But for arguments sake, it looks like New York to me, which is where most big movies take place anyway, with all the tall buildings and stuff, so I’m sayin New York. But anyway, it arrives and immediately starts blasting the city with this little force field thing, and I gotta say I was pretty impressed. It sends out a blast and all these cars get blasted out the way and a couple buildings get destroyed, its pretty badass lookin.
It’s not really just a gun that blasts and blows up buildings (which would’ve made me faint) but its really this gravity gun thing. One dude calls it a “gravity weapon” and you can clearly see what it’s really doing: its blasting the cars, and then sucking them back in. Eventually S gets into this big fight with Zod and it’s pretty badass. They grab and throw each other through these buildings while all this stuff is blowing up around them, and I gotta say, this scene was blowing me away. I mean I’ve seen my fair share of action movies, but I’ve never seen this. Usually when you see action movies with CGI buildings, you never see anybody get close to em, and their always in the background just standing there like placeholders.
But finally we get a movie where people are actually having interaction and getting thrown through them, so I give em alot of respect here. There’s one scene where Zod takes Superman and throws him through about 5 buildings in a row, and its so cool looking. Nobody has the balls to do that in Hollywood, trust me I’ve seen alot of movies. I guess the only thing that annoyed me about this scene was the fact that if you listen closely, you can hear a couple Wilhelm screams. If you don’t know what the Wilhelm scream is, its some stupid scream from some old movie that alot of directors use in their movies. I still to this day have no idea why they use it, and don’t allow the actors to do their own screaming but, its a question I’ll probably never have answered. I personally think the scream is dumb is hell and should never be used, ever.
But eventually Superman catches Zod in this little building. Zod uses his laser and points it at this family with their kids, and Superman tries to stop him from hurting them. And I’ll admit the scene was pretty hard to watch, cause you see the pain and fear in Superman’s eyes trying to stop him, and eventually he does, snapping his neck! Superman saves the day, as always lol. Later on you see the government looking for him, but he destroys one of their drones. He says their never gonna find where he stores his cape, and you get the impression here he’s happy being with his family. At the end of the movie you see him getting this job at some business here, where he meets Lois. He’s got on these dorky glasses, and I remember seeing him in this outfit at some point in the old movies.
Cause like I said all of these hero’s are dorks lol. But I guess wearing the glasses and the suit make him go unnoticed. I guess Superman has to try harder to go unnoticed since all he wears is the cape. Spiderman sorta has an advantage cause he wears the mask, so it’s easier to hide your identity. He meets Lois here as well but you can tell she recognizes him, but also wants to help him hide his identity. I’m guessing this is where the sequel is gonna pick up, if and when they make one. I thought up some ideas about the sequel to this movie, based on what I saw and how impressed I was. The sequel should obviously pick up right where this one left off, with Superman and the Lois.
Now the guy they chose to play Superman was a very good choice, and good thing their not replacing him in the coming movies. The guys name is Henry Cavill and according to imdb he’s gonna be playing Superman all the way up until 2019. I’m not a big Marvel fan but I remember reading somewhere that they had movies planned all the way up until like 2028 lol. But I like this guy, and think he was a good choice. I actually had 2 ideas for a sequel: My first idea for the sequel (Man of Steel 2) is that it picks up right where the first one left off, with all the same actors, but with a different story, which is how most sequels should be. But another idea I had was the sequel should take place 10 years later, with an older Superman.
I wanna see the older Superman in his 40’s flying around, beatin people up, maybe that’s just me. Now the guy they chose was cool, but I don’t think he’d be able to pull off the 40 year old version. But he could play him for half the movie and then get the older Superman to come in when the story need him. So those are my ideas for a sequel, and this is coming from someone who isn’t even really a fan of Marvel movies. But like I said, the trailer for this movie was so good and it had that dark vibe that I like in movies, and I instantly knew it was gonna be good, and it was. So my idea is they should go with a Man of Steel 2 but of course, Hollywood always has a way of screwing things up. The next movie is supposedly Superman vs Batman lol.
I honestly don’t even know how I feel about this one. I mean at first it sounds cool, but I don’t know if its gonna be a fight to the death or what. The first thing that comes to mind my, is why the hell did they get Ben Affleck to play Batman lol. The dude is a cornball. I mean I’m glad they replaced Christian Bale, cause he was always drooling over the suit everytime he talked with his stupid little voice. But now we have this clown. I actually remember reading when Ben Affleck was first cast as Batman, alot of people hated it and some people actually signed petitions against it. Some say they like Ben but just don’t think he’s right for the role. I hate Ben, and don’t think he’s right for any role lol. The guy is a clown to me, and to see him in a Batman suit would just make me laugh, even if he got in shape for it.
Overall I loved the movie, and I gotta admit it really blew me away. I mean I went into it expecting pretty much everything you’d expect from action / superhero movies like this, but the ending really blew me away. I just loved the scene of the city getting blasted to bits, cause nobody has to balls to do scenes like that and nobody has the balls to actually touch the CGI buildings. For the most part when you see CGI buildings in movies (Divergent, I Am Legend, etc) their just there for show, and you never see a camera fly past them or get close to em, mostly cause its all green screen. But this movie actually had to balls to not only get close to em, but touch em and throw people through em, and that impressed me.
I just checked the review scores and I knew this movie was gonna have atleast a 7.0 on imdb and it does. But I was surprised to see that the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low, and so is the Metacritic score. Sometimes that happens though: the critics hate the movie but the general public loves it, and I loved this movie, so critics can kiss my butt. And if Superman vs Ben Affleck-Batman is really the next movie their planning instead of a Man of Steel 2 then we mind as well enjoy it, cause this is gonna be the last good Superhero movie for awhile once they put that clown in there.
Pacific Rim (2013)
I guess you can say I’m a pretty big movie monster fan, so when I saw the trailer for this movie I was pretty pumped. They don’t make many monster movies anymore, which is pretty sad cause movies like these still have a decent fanbase. Nowadays the only giants that are ruling the box office are Marvel movies, but I could care less about those. I just wanna see 2 giant monsters battle it out in a city, and this movie delivered on that. And I waited a long time to see this movie and see what it was about, and finally the wait is over.
At the start of the film we get the credits as usual, and we find out that the movie was distributed by Legendary Pictures. They’re the same people who distributed the new Godzilla movie, so their pretty cool. And being that their both monster movies, its obvious that these are the kinda movies that Legendary makes. So anyway, we get alot of scenes in these opening shots and we also get this little voice-over by this guy who we later find out is named Raleigh. His name is gonna get annoying to spell out throughout this review, so I’m just gonna call him R. I just checked imdb and it appears this dude is from England, but he uses an American accent throughout the whole movie.
I always liked how people were able to hide their accents like that. So anyway, he talks about alot of stuff in these opening scenes, and about the monsters in the movie. Half of em are giant monsters and half of em are giant robots, which is pretty badass. At one point you get this short clip of one of the monsters destroying a bridge, and I swear, its the exact same bridge from Godzilla lol. It looks exactly the same, the wires are the same, and they destroy it the exact same way as they do in that movie, and from the exact same angle lol. I checked imdb and found out that both movies were actually written by 2 different people, but both these shots are exactly the same, and not only these shots, but the shots of the destroyed city with the birds flying by lol.
Their also both directed by 2 different people, Del Toro directed this and Gareth Edwards directed Godzilla. Their both written and directed by 2 different people, yet both movies use some of the exact same shots. So my only guess is that Legendary (the company who distributed both films) told them to add these shots in somehow, cause it ain’t no coincidence that’s for sure. So anyway we get alot of news coverage here and media. There’s also alot of Japanese media, which goes back to my point about Godzilla. This is a monster movie, so my guess is they added in Japanese people as sort of a reference to him. Cause I mean Godzilla pretty much started the monster genre, and inspired not only this but films like Cloverfield.
Besides any of the Marvel movies, Cloverfield is like the only other giant monster movie I can think of other than Godzilla that has that sci-fi theme going on. And I don’t know why people don’t make alot of monster movies, cause I make millions of em in my head lol. But to me I just don’t think people have the balls or the creativity anymore. So anyway, we later meet these 2 brothers, one of which is R, the guy who was doing the voice-over. I gotta say though I hate this guys voice, no joke. He has like 1 raspy mono-tone voice the entire movie, and it’s annoying as hell. Now I just found out he was from England, so maybe this was his way of hiding the accent but damn bro, way to hide it. So anyway we see them getting suited up and getting into these robots.
They get into these little controlled suits with gadgets and knobs and stuff, and it looks pretty cool. They get into the robot and start moving him through the city and through the water. The water is obviously CGI but I always enjoyed watching it when I saw it. Speaking for me personally, even with the amount of movies I’ve seen, I don’t see water that often in movies. I mean if you’re talking about seeing people on boats going through the water, sure, but most of the time they can do that naturally cause they don’t need to CGI the boat, or the water. But in a movie like this, you have a giant CGI rendered robot moving through the water, its all fake basically so you gotta digitally add in the water.
The only other movie I can think of that uses CGI water is probably Final Destination 5 in the scene where the bridge collapses and all the bad actors fall to their death lol. But I think that was the first time I remember seeing digital water, but I gotta admit, CGI water is pretty boring. It’s not shiny or attractive looking when it moves, and like most of these movies, every scene takes place at night so you can’t really see much. So anyway they move through the water and battle a little creature here. They throw some punches here and there, and ultimately end up blasting it to death! Later on we see a little boy and his grandfather on the beach, looking for gold I guess. But all of a sudden the giant robot appears and lands dead right in front of them!
Oh the irony, they were lookin for gold and a robot appears, lucky bastards lol. After the thing lands, R comes out the ship all bloody and battered. During the fight, whenever the robot gets hit, he takes damage too, somehow. So he’s all bloody and battered and just drops on the beach here. Now its 5 years later, and we see R at his new job I guess, doing construction. I guess he got fired after his robot broke and landed on the beach. We later see his boss Mr Pentecost (P) in this room talking to a bunch of people on tv monitors. He’s the same dude from Prometheus, the black guy that they kept in the background the entire time (atleast he didn’t die lol) But they kinda scold him about how many people he’s lost, putting them into robots and sending them out to battle these other monsters.
Later on we see Mr P going to R’s construction job, asking him to come back to their little robot facility. At this point R has been fired for 5 years, and they’ve sent countless guys out to battle these monsters and alot of em are failing. And even though R failed, they know he was better than alot of em, so they want him back. Atleast this is what I’m getting from this. So P asks him to come back, and eventually he agrees. We later meet a bunch of dork scientists and this Asian chick named Mako. When I saw her I instantly thought of Godzilla again, cause I mean this is a giant monster movie and we’ve already seen some Japanese-related stuff in the news (Japanese handwriting on the tv screen) and now we have this Asian chick. So again to me this looks like their trying to do the same thing they did in Godzilla.
We later see them go into this large robot room where they build the robots, but we never get a good shot or any info on how exactly these robots are built. My guess is they just take alot of steel, mold it, dry it and slap it together lol. At some point in here, one of the dorks who they met earlier with the Asian chick (can’t remember his name and don’t care) meets up with this dude named Hannibal (I wonder where they got that name eh) and they talk about the robots and the brain and stuff, but it’s so confusing I don’t even wanna get into it, so I’m gonna skip most of these scenes. The only cool thing about the Hannibal dude is that he’s got these shiny gold shoes, but that’s about it. So they walk around and Mako shows him his room.
They talk about the robots and she mentions how skilled she is with the robots, and how she has a 51 score kill-streak or something. But even though she’s good, she says Mr P doesn’t want her to control the robots. My first thought was cause she’s a woman but I thought about it more, and it took me awhile to understand why but I’ll mention this later. So we later see them eat and get settled. There’s a Scottish dude in this scene who tells R not to slow him down, cause he’s experienced or whatever, who cares. Later on we see them get hooked up again, and R enters the little room where they get into the little robot control suits. But at the last minute, Mako enters the room. So it’s safe to say that Mr P changed his mind about them working together.
So they both hook up and start moving these robots. A few moments into it though, she kinda zones out and you get this scene with this little Asian girl, which is obviously supposed to be her. I totally forgot this scene was even in the movie, but then I remember it was in one of the teaser trailers. This scene also kinda reminds me of the scene in Silent Hill, with the little girl in the middle of the city. And it’s sad cause at this point, this is probably one of the few scenes that takes place in the daytime, cause alot of this movie takes place at night where you can’t see nothin. So anyway she walks around for a bit, until some giant monsters pop up and destroy the city a little, and I think one of em tries to grab her. The little girl is a pretty good actor though and I kinda felt for her, seeing her cry and duck down outta sight.
R is in this scene too but I don’t think they can see each other since it’s just a dream. Eventually the dream ends and back in the real world, Mako faints. Later on we see them in the boss’s office, and Mr P kinda gets angry at them cause she fell asleep and they almost died. So he gets mad at her and sends her back to her room. He later tells R that she can’t control her memories, and that’s why she kinda nodded off in the robot suit. I say who cares, cause her dream was pretty badass, especially for a little girl. I wish I had dreams like that, most of my dreams are just boring. Most of my dreams involve me being back in high school lol. I graduated in 2008 (about 7 years ago) so I don’t understand how I keep having em.
After she leaves the room, P and R have a little argument here. R says he saw him in the dream and says P is holding her back, but he disagrees. We then get an extended version of the same dream, this time the monster gets beatin by a robot and it lands here, right in front of Mako. I like how she’s all shocked here, and it’s so cute lol. She looks at the ship and P steps out, and smiles. And nothing is said in this scene, but you sorta understand what’s going on here. She was a little girl so let’s say this took place about 20 years ago. So 20 years ago he saved her from a monster, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t want her to go out, cause he feels he needs to protect her. It’s never explained what happened to her parents but it’s safe to say, both her parents are dead.
My theory is during this scene, both her parents died. So she’s out here wandering the streets by herself and then he saves her, but that’s just a theory. Later on we see some more fight scenes with these robots, and their pretty okay. I’m not really into action movies so, I see scenes like this and I know their cool looking, but its whatever to me. Eventually they reach the city and I remember this scene from the trailer. The trailer for this movie was so annoying though, and I remember it pretty clearly. This was one of the big scenes in the trailer, and everytime the robots would jump at each other they’d cut to something else, like what the hell lol. We know they’re gonna hit each other, just let us see it! I know your trying to you know, build the movie up and stuff but it just didn’t work for me, and the trailer was whack.
So we have this big fight scene in the city between the robot and the monster. They throw each other around alot, into the buildings and through the glass and such. It would’ve been nice to get atleast 1 shot up above of the entire thing, so we could really get an idea of how big these monsters are. I mean it’s a cool scene and everything but I’m not really that impressed. So they crash into the buildings here and all that. Eventually the monster morphs into a bird and pulls the robot high into the air. But while their in the air, they make the robot slice the bird with a giant axe, and they fall to the ground. So they killed the last monster, and we see them celebrating later on. If it were up to me, the movie should’ve ended here. But big monster movies like this have to be atleast 2 hours long, ugh lol.
We later get a scene of the dead monster on the ground here, and we see the scientists going in and checking it out. They says their checking the brain cause the 2 dorks wanna take the brain for some reason, and I think I know why but I don’t wanna get into that cause it’s kinda boring, and at this point I wasn’t impressed enough by this movie to pay attention to everything lol. So anyway we see the scientists in here checking out the monster body, and we only see them in here for like 5 seconds. But one thing I noticed was that they wear the exact same outfits as the guys wore in the Godzilla movie, those thick suits with the little head screen in the front. And like I said earlier, this had to have been a tip from Legendary, cause both these movies were written and directed by different people.
At one point we see Hannibal and one of the dorks in this scene down here near the body, and a baby pops out of the monster. But once it pops out, it ends up dying like right after cause it got choked by the cord, how cheesy. So Hannibal starts to joke about it, saying it wouldn’t have stood a chance, and stands right in front of its mouth. And I’m not gonna lie, I totally knew what was about to happen, and it did: he turns around for a split second and the baby monster instantly comes to life and eats him lol. I thought it was gonna look like Deep Blue Sea (1999) where he gets eatin from the front, but they filmed it from the side, which I thought was stupid cause you barely saw him get eatin. Some directors just don’t know how to film things lol.
Eventually we see Mr P getting into a suit, getting ready to get into these robots after all these years. Atleast their putting a black guy in one of these things and not keeping him in the background like they did in Prometheus, I hate that crap. Before he gets into the robot, he gives this little speech about how we have to face the monsters and how they’re gonna “cancel the apocalypse’ and it’s pretty cool. So they go underwater and have another big fight scene, which I’m not gonna get into cause it’s so damn dark I’m just gonna get annoyed talkin about it, but stuff blows up, and ultimately the black guy dies (like always) and R and Mako end up surviving, as if we didn’t see that coming. They both float to the top of the water, and when the soldiers see this, they all celebrate. And they send helicopters after them but they don’t wave them down, so I guess they didn’t wanna be found, morons.
Overall I mean it was a pretty okay movie. I basically got everything I expected to get: giant robots fighting each other. I guess the big thing that annoyed with this movie is (besides the giant monster thing) this movie reminded me so much of Godzilla, from them using like the exact same scenes, to the Japanese people, etc. And there’s not only Japanese people there’s also English people, Russian people (who control one of the ships) and one of the dork scientists is Scottish. It came off like they were trying to make a movie about society like Godzilla did but, whatever. I mean they could’ve easily made this like Cloverfield and just did it with American actors, they didn’t need to go the extra mile. It was just a decent movie, nothing more.
I guess you can say I’m a pretty big movie monster fan, so when I saw the trailer for this movie I was pretty pumped. They don’t make many monster movies anymore, which is pretty sad cause movies like these still have a decent fanbase. Nowadays the only giants that are ruling the box office are Marvel movies, but I could care less about those. I just wanna see 2 giant monsters battle it out in a city, and this movie delivered on that. And I waited a long time to see this movie and see what it was about, and finally the wait is over.
At the start of the film we get the credits as usual, and we find out that the movie was distributed by Legendary Pictures. They’re the same people who distributed the new Godzilla movie, so their pretty cool. And being that their both monster movies, its obvious that these are the kinda movies that Legendary makes. So anyway, we get alot of scenes in these opening shots and we also get this little voice-over by this guy who we later find out is named Raleigh. His name is gonna get annoying to spell out throughout this review, so I’m just gonna call him R. I just checked imdb and it appears this dude is from England, but he uses an American accent throughout the whole movie.
I always liked how people were able to hide their accents like that. So anyway, he talks about alot of stuff in these opening scenes, and about the monsters in the movie. Half of em are giant monsters and half of em are giant robots, which is pretty badass. At one point you get this short clip of one of the monsters destroying a bridge, and I swear, its the exact same bridge from Godzilla lol. It looks exactly the same, the wires are the same, and they destroy it the exact same way as they do in that movie, and from the exact same angle lol. I checked imdb and found out that both movies were actually written by 2 different people, but both these shots are exactly the same, and not only these shots, but the shots of the destroyed city with the birds flying by lol.
Their also both directed by 2 different people, Del Toro directed this and Gareth Edwards directed Godzilla. Their both written and directed by 2 different people, yet both movies use some of the exact same shots. So my only guess is that Legendary (the company who distributed both films) told them to add these shots in somehow, cause it ain’t no coincidence that’s for sure. So anyway we get alot of news coverage here and media. There’s also alot of Japanese media, which goes back to my point about Godzilla. This is a monster movie, so my guess is they added in Japanese people as sort of a reference to him. Cause I mean Godzilla pretty much started the monster genre, and inspired not only this but films like Cloverfield.
Besides any of the Marvel movies, Cloverfield is like the only other giant monster movie I can think of other than Godzilla that has that sci-fi theme going on. And I don’t know why people don’t make alot of monster movies, cause I make millions of em in my head lol. But to me I just don’t think people have the balls or the creativity anymore. So anyway, we later meet these 2 brothers, one of which is R, the guy who was doing the voice-over. I gotta say though I hate this guys voice, no joke. He has like 1 raspy mono-tone voice the entire movie, and it’s annoying as hell. Now I just found out he was from England, so maybe this was his way of hiding the accent but damn bro, way to hide it. So anyway we see them getting suited up and getting into these robots.
They get into these little controlled suits with gadgets and knobs and stuff, and it looks pretty cool. They get into the robot and start moving him through the city and through the water. The water is obviously CGI but I always enjoyed watching it when I saw it. Speaking for me personally, even with the amount of movies I’ve seen, I don’t see water that often in movies. I mean if you’re talking about seeing people on boats going through the water, sure, but most of the time they can do that naturally cause they don’t need to CGI the boat, or the water. But in a movie like this, you have a giant CGI rendered robot moving through the water, its all fake basically so you gotta digitally add in the water.
The only other movie I can think of that uses CGI water is probably Final Destination 5 in the scene where the bridge collapses and all the bad actors fall to their death lol. But I think that was the first time I remember seeing digital water, but I gotta admit, CGI water is pretty boring. It’s not shiny or attractive looking when it moves, and like most of these movies, every scene takes place at night so you can’t really see much. So anyway they move through the water and battle a little creature here. They throw some punches here and there, and ultimately end up blasting it to death! Later on we see a little boy and his grandfather on the beach, looking for gold I guess. But all of a sudden the giant robot appears and lands dead right in front of them!
Oh the irony, they were lookin for gold and a robot appears, lucky bastards lol. After the thing lands, R comes out the ship all bloody and battered. During the fight, whenever the robot gets hit, he takes damage too, somehow. So he’s all bloody and battered and just drops on the beach here. Now its 5 years later, and we see R at his new job I guess, doing construction. I guess he got fired after his robot broke and landed on the beach. We later see his boss Mr Pentecost (P) in this room talking to a bunch of people on tv monitors. He’s the same dude from Prometheus, the black guy that they kept in the background the entire time (atleast he didn’t die lol) But they kinda scold him about how many people he’s lost, putting them into robots and sending them out to battle these other monsters.
Later on we see Mr P going to R’s construction job, asking him to come back to their little robot facility. At this point R has been fired for 5 years, and they’ve sent countless guys out to battle these monsters and alot of em are failing. And even though R failed, they know he was better than alot of em, so they want him back. Atleast this is what I’m getting from this. So P asks him to come back, and eventually he agrees. We later meet a bunch of dork scientists and this Asian chick named Mako. When I saw her I instantly thought of Godzilla again, cause I mean this is a giant monster movie and we’ve already seen some Japanese-related stuff in the news (Japanese handwriting on the tv screen) and now we have this Asian chick. So again to me this looks like their trying to do the same thing they did in Godzilla.
We later see them go into this large robot room where they build the robots, but we never get a good shot or any info on how exactly these robots are built. My guess is they just take alot of steel, mold it, dry it and slap it together lol. At some point in here, one of the dorks who they met earlier with the Asian chick (can’t remember his name and don’t care) meets up with this dude named Hannibal (I wonder where they got that name eh) and they talk about the robots and the brain and stuff, but it’s so confusing I don’t even wanna get into it, so I’m gonna skip most of these scenes. The only cool thing about the Hannibal dude is that he’s got these shiny gold shoes, but that’s about it. So they walk around and Mako shows him his room.
They talk about the robots and she mentions how skilled she is with the robots, and how she has a 51 score kill-streak or something. But even though she’s good, she says Mr P doesn’t want her to control the robots. My first thought was cause she’s a woman but I thought about it more, and it took me awhile to understand why but I’ll mention this later. So we later see them eat and get settled. There’s a Scottish dude in this scene who tells R not to slow him down, cause he’s experienced or whatever, who cares. Later on we see them get hooked up again, and R enters the little room where they get into the little robot control suits. But at the last minute, Mako enters the room. So it’s safe to say that Mr P changed his mind about them working together.
So they both hook up and start moving these robots. A few moments into it though, she kinda zones out and you get this scene with this little Asian girl, which is obviously supposed to be her. I totally forgot this scene was even in the movie, but then I remember it was in one of the teaser trailers. This scene also kinda reminds me of the scene in Silent Hill, with the little girl in the middle of the city. And it’s sad cause at this point, this is probably one of the few scenes that takes place in the daytime, cause alot of this movie takes place at night where you can’t see nothin. So anyway she walks around for a bit, until some giant monsters pop up and destroy the city a little, and I think one of em tries to grab her. The little girl is a pretty good actor though and I kinda felt for her, seeing her cry and duck down outta sight.
R is in this scene too but I don’t think they can see each other since it’s just a dream. Eventually the dream ends and back in the real world, Mako faints. Later on we see them in the boss’s office, and Mr P kinda gets angry at them cause she fell asleep and they almost died. So he gets mad at her and sends her back to her room. He later tells R that she can’t control her memories, and that’s why she kinda nodded off in the robot suit. I say who cares, cause her dream was pretty badass, especially for a little girl. I wish I had dreams like that, most of my dreams are just boring. Most of my dreams involve me being back in high school lol. I graduated in 2008 (about 7 years ago) so I don’t understand how I keep having em.
After she leaves the room, P and R have a little argument here. R says he saw him in the dream and says P is holding her back, but he disagrees. We then get an extended version of the same dream, this time the monster gets beatin by a robot and it lands here, right in front of Mako. I like how she’s all shocked here, and it’s so cute lol. She looks at the ship and P steps out, and smiles. And nothing is said in this scene, but you sorta understand what’s going on here. She was a little girl so let’s say this took place about 20 years ago. So 20 years ago he saved her from a monster, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t want her to go out, cause he feels he needs to protect her. It’s never explained what happened to her parents but it’s safe to say, both her parents are dead.
My theory is during this scene, both her parents died. So she’s out here wandering the streets by herself and then he saves her, but that’s just a theory. Later on we see some more fight scenes with these robots, and their pretty okay. I’m not really into action movies so, I see scenes like this and I know their cool looking, but its whatever to me. Eventually they reach the city and I remember this scene from the trailer. The trailer for this movie was so annoying though, and I remember it pretty clearly. This was one of the big scenes in the trailer, and everytime the robots would jump at each other they’d cut to something else, like what the hell lol. We know they’re gonna hit each other, just let us see it! I know your trying to you know, build the movie up and stuff but it just didn’t work for me, and the trailer was whack.
So we have this big fight scene in the city between the robot and the monster. They throw each other around alot, into the buildings and through the glass and such. It would’ve been nice to get atleast 1 shot up above of the entire thing, so we could really get an idea of how big these monsters are. I mean it’s a cool scene and everything but I’m not really that impressed. So they crash into the buildings here and all that. Eventually the monster morphs into a bird and pulls the robot high into the air. But while their in the air, they make the robot slice the bird with a giant axe, and they fall to the ground. So they killed the last monster, and we see them celebrating later on. If it were up to me, the movie should’ve ended here. But big monster movies like this have to be atleast 2 hours long, ugh lol.
We later get a scene of the dead monster on the ground here, and we see the scientists going in and checking it out. They says their checking the brain cause the 2 dorks wanna take the brain for some reason, and I think I know why but I don’t wanna get into that cause it’s kinda boring, and at this point I wasn’t impressed enough by this movie to pay attention to everything lol. So anyway we see the scientists in here checking out the monster body, and we only see them in here for like 5 seconds. But one thing I noticed was that they wear the exact same outfits as the guys wore in the Godzilla movie, those thick suits with the little head screen in the front. And like I said earlier, this had to have been a tip from Legendary, cause both these movies were written and directed by different people.
At one point we see Hannibal and one of the dorks in this scene down here near the body, and a baby pops out of the monster. But once it pops out, it ends up dying like right after cause it got choked by the cord, how cheesy. So Hannibal starts to joke about it, saying it wouldn’t have stood a chance, and stands right in front of its mouth. And I’m not gonna lie, I totally knew what was about to happen, and it did: he turns around for a split second and the baby monster instantly comes to life and eats him lol. I thought it was gonna look like Deep Blue Sea (1999) where he gets eatin from the front, but they filmed it from the side, which I thought was stupid cause you barely saw him get eatin. Some directors just don’t know how to film things lol.
Eventually we see Mr P getting into a suit, getting ready to get into these robots after all these years. Atleast their putting a black guy in one of these things and not keeping him in the background like they did in Prometheus, I hate that crap. Before he gets into the robot, he gives this little speech about how we have to face the monsters and how they’re gonna “cancel the apocalypse’ and it’s pretty cool. So they go underwater and have another big fight scene, which I’m not gonna get into cause it’s so damn dark I’m just gonna get annoyed talkin about it, but stuff blows up, and ultimately the black guy dies (like always) and R and Mako end up surviving, as if we didn’t see that coming. They both float to the top of the water, and when the soldiers see this, they all celebrate. And they send helicopters after them but they don’t wave them down, so I guess they didn’t wanna be found, morons.
Overall I mean it was a pretty okay movie. I basically got everything I expected to get: giant robots fighting each other. I guess the big thing that annoyed with this movie is (besides the giant monster thing) this movie reminded me so much of Godzilla, from them using like the exact same scenes, to the Japanese people, etc. And there’s not only Japanese people there’s also English people, Russian people (who control one of the ships) and one of the dork scientists is Scottish. It came off like they were trying to make a movie about society like Godzilla did but, whatever. I mean they could’ve easily made this like Cloverfield and just did it with American actors, they didn’t need to go the extra mile. It was just a decent movie, nothing more.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
I guess you could say I was pretty excited to see this movie. I never saw any of the original Planet of the Apes movies but these movies always looked cool, thanks to the advanced CGI tech we have these days. I also saw and reviewed Rise of the Apes, which was pretty cool. It still comes on cable every now and again but the only reason I don’t watch it anymore is cause of how its edited. The guys who edited the movie just edited it too fast, taking alot of tension out of certain scenes, and its so bad I just can’t watch the movie anymore. Thankfully this movie has a new editor so I won’t be cringing too much.
At the start of the movie we get the usual intro, and we get some audio that tells us what’s been going on since the last movie. They say there was a virus that broke out and infected everybody, sounds like a zombie movie lol. Their referring to the last movie, where Caesar (C) and the apes broke out of the facility and roamed the streets, which is definitely one of my favorite scenes in the movie. At one point they talk about the scene on the bridge and say it was a “6 hour standoff” but I don’t understand what they mean. The scene in the movie only lasted about 5 minutes with them on the bridge, where the police arrive, and the dude in the helicopter gets pushed into the ocean lol.
It definitely wasn’t 6 hours cause if it was it would’ve been night time by the time they got off. So maybe I’m just not understanding this but no big deal. The first shot we get in the movie, is right in front of C’s face. I remember this clip from the trailer, but I actually thought this scene came towards the middle-end of the movie. Like the humans betrayed him and this was the look he gave em, the revenge look. But here it’s the hunting look, and he waves his arm and all his ape friends start swinging through the woods after these deer. Eventually they catch and kill one, and C rolls up on em. Out of nowhere a bear tries to attack them but C gets help from one of his ape buddies Koba, who impales the bear with a sharp spear through the back!
We get the impression here that C was trying to teach his son how to hunt, but he somehow messed up and almost got attacked. We later see where these apes live, out here in the woods on top of some hill. A majority of the movie takes place here in the woods, unlike the first movie where a majority of it took place in the city. I actually prefer the city more cause the CGI city actually looks cooler than the jungle. The reason why their in the jungle is explained later though. So anyway, we see about 100 apes out here on the hill, way more than in the first movie. But anyway, C and some of the other apes meet up in this little hut, where we find out the mother is delivering a baby. Maybe this is why they were hunting, to get food for the baby. But as we saw earlier, big bro almost screwed that up lol.
But she delivers the baby, a small little chimp. And I’ll admit these were some of my favorite scenes in the movie, just watching the little chimp move around, so cute lol. Later on we see C and this other ape talking. They mostly talk about humans and how much they’ve grown over the years. They talk by using sign language, something they learned in the last movie after being infected by that gas that C gave em. The ape also mentions how they haven’t seen humans in 10 winters, which I’m assuming also counts as years, so 10 years have gone by since the last movie. C still looks the same though. In the beginning I thought he looked older cause he had this white stuff on his fur, which I thought was grey hair but it was actually some war-like symbol they put across their face and chest.
But I really don’t know much about chimps or apes. I’m just doin this stuff for the review, I don’t know how they age or if they get grey hair or even if that’s how they really hunt. I know lions hunt in groups but I think apes just sit around alot. I can only judge based on what I see on tv, and usually when I see apes on tv their sittin around lookin clueless scratchin each others backs lol. 3 years has passed since the last movie but the CGI apes still look the same. One thing I was afraid of though, was since alot of this movie is darker than Rise, if we were gonna be able to see how detailed these apes are. It’s alot harder to tell than the first movie but if you look closely you can tell how photorealistic these creatures are.
A majority of the apes are black, but there is this one big brown ape. Realism-wise he looks the best, but only cause he’s brown and you can see the hair on his skin better. So anyway, later on we see a couple chimps out here in the woods, probably about to go hunting some more. But they run into this one guy, who is so startled by them that he takes out his gun and points it at em. So the apes get angry and a couple other people arrive, and this brought me to another thing I found interesting about this movie. In Rise, alot of the beginning of the movie is centered on the humans. We see them talkin about the apes and capturing a couple of em. But in this movie, a majority of the beginning is on the apes, and only now are we finally seeing humans. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of the first movie which I think is cool.
But eventually this guy shoots one of the apes here, and a group of other apes arrive. They get angry at these people, but they don’t attack and let them run off. We later meet this dude named Dreyfus (D) who I’m assuming is like the mayor of the town. He gives this big speech about how they need food and water and all that stuff. But he also says they need power and stuff to get them back into the city, and I guess I can get a little into that now. 10 years have passed since the last movie, and since then alot has happened. C and the apes busted out of the ape cages and went back to the woods where they used to live. But a virus also broke out and alot of people got infected. The people in the movie aren’t infected but the city they are in still suffered the impact of it.
The apes are also dealing with the impact but I’m assuming their used to it, being in the woods for so long. But humans on the other hand are used to a clean house and a safe environment and stuff like that. Atleast this is my take on what’s going on. So anyway, I instantly recognized D though, who played Serious Black in the later Harry Potter movies. And I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan but the movies are pretty cool, especially the first 3. It’s funny cause he speaks to the people using this microphone which is attached to this bullhorn, which I’ve never seen before. So anyway, later we see D and this guy Malcolm talking in some room about supplies. D says they’re gonna run out in a couple weeks, so Malcolm decides to go back into the woods. He speaks to C and tells him he needs to allow them in to fix the generators so they can get power through the city.
And C and the apes seem to think he’s sincere, so he lets em stay. But Koba (one of the apes, the one that saved C earlier) still doesn’t think they can trust the humans, so he takes a couple apes with him and they cross the bridge. There’s about 3-4 shots like this in the movie, of them either on the bridge or us getting shots of the bridge from a distance. I just love CGI buildings and could stare at them all day. Nobody has done it yet, but I just want 1 movie to take the camera and just run through the entire city, cause as cool as they look, directors never really get close to em. So anyway, Koba gets down into this little room here where the humans are. He looks around the room and we can see what looks like missiles and bombs. So he gets the impression that the humans are gonna blow the place up.
Eventually a couple guys catch him in this scene and point their guns at him. But instead of flipping out, he starts goofing off and acting ape-silly. I’ll admit this scene was pretty funny. And the two guys here fall for it, thinkin he’s harmless and let him go. We later see C and his ape buddies on horses, which we see alot of throughout the movie. It’s kinda funny seeing an animal ride another animal, but it looks pretty badass in this movie. So anyway, he, his mate and his baby son are here. I don’t know whether it’s a girl or guy so I’ll just call it a he. But he’s here clinging onto the mother and it’s pretty cute. He later jumps off and we see him walkin around here on the table and a couple of the characters here start petting him, so cute!
One of the characters here is this kid named Alexander, who I remember from one of my favorite movies Let me in (2010) I know 4 years has passed since then but he got so tall, like he had a growth spurt or something. But it makes sense why he’s in this movie, cause the director is this guy named Mat Reeves, who also directed that movie. So its safe to say the 2 of them are pals. And its weird cause this guy really has no pattern when it comes to what stuff he does. I’m looking at his imdb page, and 3 of his movies are Cloverfield, Let me in and Dawn of the Apes, the movie I’m doing now. Cloverfield is one of those shaky-camera movies, Let me in is very soft and subtle, and Dawn is very average. And this is why I don’t really pay attention to directors anymore when it comes to what movies I watch.
Some people only do horror movies, some people only do comedy, and some people are like this guy, doing 3 completely different camera styles. So anyway, I always wondered if you could actually adopt a chimp, but their very different than dogs and kittens. Eventually they reach a certain age and start thinking they’re the boss and it could get dangerous after that lol. I’d love to have a pet, preferably a kitten but I think I’m allergic. My mother on the other hand hates pets, so I probably got my love of pets from my dad. So anyway, he playfully rolls around here for a bit and stumbles upon this suitcase. He accidentally finds a gun in here, and C kinda flips out on everybody for bringing a gun around his son. It’s a pretty intense but cute scene, and the apes get angry at the humans here but eventually they all calm down again.
Later we see Koba again at the faculty. I remember watching this scene on youtube for the first time lol. He rolls over, and the same 2 guys see him and think he’s being playful again. So he goofs off some more and starts waving his arms and stuff, till eventually he grabs one of their guns. Everything goes from messing and joking around, to dead serious in a matter of moments. So he points the gun at em and shoots both of em at point blank range! We later get this little scene here in the jungle and the apes turn on the music. I thought this was one of those random scenes they threw in here but no, their showing us that they got some of the power in the city working again. I really don’t know what they do specifically but they twist a bunch of wires around and do stuff underground, so yea atleast their making progress now.
Later on, we see C and his family up on the cliff here. Koba arrives with a gun in his hand, and ends up shooting C right here on the cliff! I wasn’t really sad though, but I’ll explain why later. So he gets shot and falls off the cliff here. It’s not as violent or bloody as you may think though. So now that C is gone, Koba begins to control the apes. I guess he thinks he’s vice president of this ape army. Ever since the very beginning of the movie when he found out all the weapons and bombs that were in that room. So with that in mind, and now that C is gone and he can control the herd, he takes the apes to the human facility. It’s dark now, and they arrive on horses and have this big shootout scene with shotguns and it looks pretty badass. At one point one of the apes even jumps in a tank lol.
Some humans die but a majority of the apes get killed as well. Later on, Malcolm and the others find C laying in the grass here near the home. He’s alive, but very weak. And I knew he wasn’t gonna die, cause movies like this are franchises and killing the main character like that would spell disaster for Hollywood execs lol. But yea he’s alive, so they pick him up and take him into this little house. Later on they find his son and they bring him here to let him know his dads okay. We see his son alot throughout the movie, and he’s still got those scratches on his face, arm and chest from the earlier scene where he was attacked by the bear. I think they did this so the audience could easily recognize him in the crowd of other apes.
They did the same thing in the first movie with Koba, the ape with the scar on his eye. Eventually Malcolm finds out D and his buddies wanna blow the place up. They say C and the other apes are right where they want them, so they’re gonna take em all out in one hit. They want Malcolm to help but judging from the look on his face, you kinda know what he’s gonna do, but I won’t spoil it yet. Eventually we get to one of my favorite scenes in the movie: C vs Koba on this metal bar tower. I remember this clip from the trailer and I really wanted to see it, cause I just love CGI buildings and stuff. But it sucks cause the clip in the trailer is like a half-second long, which is sort of understandable cause I guess they didn’t wanna spoil the ending. But yea I’ve been waiting for this scene.
C and Koba throw each other around up here while the other apes watch. It’s still pretty dark up here, but you can still see what’s going on. Half my attention is on the tower in this scene, I love watching the bars break as the apes toss each other around. Meanwhile D is still arguing with Malcolm, and it gets so heated that he ends up grabbing the remote and clicking the detonate button! So the entire tower blows up, and everything above them begins to fall down, including the CGI tower! The blast actually ends up helping C cause it knocks Koba towards the middle of the hole here. And they have that famous scene where he’s hangin here and C has a choice whether or not to pull him back up or let him fall.
The choice is obvious, he lets him fall! He falls like 500 feet down this little hole so its safe to say he’s gone. Reminds me of the scene in Rise where he let the dude in the helicopter fall, the scientist who only cared about money. At the end of the movie we see all the apes here in this big room with C. Malcolm also shows up and he and C kinda talk for a bit. They both say that they wanted a change to occur after all this fighting, but unfortunately nothing came of it, so he leaves. The last shot we get is a close-up of C’s eyes which is pretty cool. And you can sorta tell that he’s sad, but still a pretty brave ape.
Overall this was a pretty cool movie. It’s alot darker than Rise (both visually and story wise) but you still get the same message by the end of it. I didn’t think the CGI could get any better but obviously it can. It kinda reminds me of Godzilla actually, about how we treat our planet. We carelessly destroy the environment and bully these animals, until we find out that we need their help and try to act all nice. I guess the only thing I didn’t like about this movie was that a majority of it took place in the jungle, and I hate the jungle lol. And besides the ending, we only got a couple shots of the city here and there. Forget the jungle, put the next movie in the city again.
I guess you could say I was pretty excited to see this movie. I never saw any of the original Planet of the Apes movies but these movies always looked cool, thanks to the advanced CGI tech we have these days. I also saw and reviewed Rise of the Apes, which was pretty cool. It still comes on cable every now and again but the only reason I don’t watch it anymore is cause of how its edited. The guys who edited the movie just edited it too fast, taking alot of tension out of certain scenes, and its so bad I just can’t watch the movie anymore. Thankfully this movie has a new editor so I won’t be cringing too much.
At the start of the movie we get the usual intro, and we get some audio that tells us what’s been going on since the last movie. They say there was a virus that broke out and infected everybody, sounds like a zombie movie lol. Their referring to the last movie, where Caesar (C) and the apes broke out of the facility and roamed the streets, which is definitely one of my favorite scenes in the movie. At one point they talk about the scene on the bridge and say it was a “6 hour standoff” but I don’t understand what they mean. The scene in the movie only lasted about 5 minutes with them on the bridge, where the police arrive, and the dude in the helicopter gets pushed into the ocean lol.
It definitely wasn’t 6 hours cause if it was it would’ve been night time by the time they got off. So maybe I’m just not understanding this but no big deal. The first shot we get in the movie, is right in front of C’s face. I remember this clip from the trailer, but I actually thought this scene came towards the middle-end of the movie. Like the humans betrayed him and this was the look he gave em, the revenge look. But here it’s the hunting look, and he waves his arm and all his ape friends start swinging through the woods after these deer. Eventually they catch and kill one, and C rolls up on em. Out of nowhere a bear tries to attack them but C gets help from one of his ape buddies Koba, who impales the bear with a sharp spear through the back!
We get the impression here that C was trying to teach his son how to hunt, but he somehow messed up and almost got attacked. We later see where these apes live, out here in the woods on top of some hill. A majority of the movie takes place here in the woods, unlike the first movie where a majority of it took place in the city. I actually prefer the city more cause the CGI city actually looks cooler than the jungle. The reason why their in the jungle is explained later though. So anyway, we see about 100 apes out here on the hill, way more than in the first movie. But anyway, C and some of the other apes meet up in this little hut, where we find out the mother is delivering a baby. Maybe this is why they were hunting, to get food for the baby. But as we saw earlier, big bro almost screwed that up lol.
But she delivers the baby, a small little chimp. And I’ll admit these were some of my favorite scenes in the movie, just watching the little chimp move around, so cute lol. Later on we see C and this other ape talking. They mostly talk about humans and how much they’ve grown over the years. They talk by using sign language, something they learned in the last movie after being infected by that gas that C gave em. The ape also mentions how they haven’t seen humans in 10 winters, which I’m assuming also counts as years, so 10 years have gone by since the last movie. C still looks the same though. In the beginning I thought he looked older cause he had this white stuff on his fur, which I thought was grey hair but it was actually some war-like symbol they put across their face and chest.
But I really don’t know much about chimps or apes. I’m just doin this stuff for the review, I don’t know how they age or if they get grey hair or even if that’s how they really hunt. I know lions hunt in groups but I think apes just sit around alot. I can only judge based on what I see on tv, and usually when I see apes on tv their sittin around lookin clueless scratchin each others backs lol. 3 years has passed since the last movie but the CGI apes still look the same. One thing I was afraid of though, was since alot of this movie is darker than Rise, if we were gonna be able to see how detailed these apes are. It’s alot harder to tell than the first movie but if you look closely you can tell how photorealistic these creatures are.
A majority of the apes are black, but there is this one big brown ape. Realism-wise he looks the best, but only cause he’s brown and you can see the hair on his skin better. So anyway, later on we see a couple chimps out here in the woods, probably about to go hunting some more. But they run into this one guy, who is so startled by them that he takes out his gun and points it at em. So the apes get angry and a couple other people arrive, and this brought me to another thing I found interesting about this movie. In Rise, alot of the beginning of the movie is centered on the humans. We see them talkin about the apes and capturing a couple of em. But in this movie, a majority of the beginning is on the apes, and only now are we finally seeing humans. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of the first movie which I think is cool.
But eventually this guy shoots one of the apes here, and a group of other apes arrive. They get angry at these people, but they don’t attack and let them run off. We later meet this dude named Dreyfus (D) who I’m assuming is like the mayor of the town. He gives this big speech about how they need food and water and all that stuff. But he also says they need power and stuff to get them back into the city, and I guess I can get a little into that now. 10 years have passed since the last movie, and since then alot has happened. C and the apes busted out of the ape cages and went back to the woods where they used to live. But a virus also broke out and alot of people got infected. The people in the movie aren’t infected but the city they are in still suffered the impact of it.
The apes are also dealing with the impact but I’m assuming their used to it, being in the woods for so long. But humans on the other hand are used to a clean house and a safe environment and stuff like that. Atleast this is my take on what’s going on. So anyway, I instantly recognized D though, who played Serious Black in the later Harry Potter movies. And I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan but the movies are pretty cool, especially the first 3. It’s funny cause he speaks to the people using this microphone which is attached to this bullhorn, which I’ve never seen before. So anyway, later we see D and this guy Malcolm talking in some room about supplies. D says they’re gonna run out in a couple weeks, so Malcolm decides to go back into the woods. He speaks to C and tells him he needs to allow them in to fix the generators so they can get power through the city.
And C and the apes seem to think he’s sincere, so he lets em stay. But Koba (one of the apes, the one that saved C earlier) still doesn’t think they can trust the humans, so he takes a couple apes with him and they cross the bridge. There’s about 3-4 shots like this in the movie, of them either on the bridge or us getting shots of the bridge from a distance. I just love CGI buildings and could stare at them all day. Nobody has done it yet, but I just want 1 movie to take the camera and just run through the entire city, cause as cool as they look, directors never really get close to em. So anyway, Koba gets down into this little room here where the humans are. He looks around the room and we can see what looks like missiles and bombs. So he gets the impression that the humans are gonna blow the place up.
Eventually a couple guys catch him in this scene and point their guns at him. But instead of flipping out, he starts goofing off and acting ape-silly. I’ll admit this scene was pretty funny. And the two guys here fall for it, thinkin he’s harmless and let him go. We later see C and his ape buddies on horses, which we see alot of throughout the movie. It’s kinda funny seeing an animal ride another animal, but it looks pretty badass in this movie. So anyway, he, his mate and his baby son are here. I don’t know whether it’s a girl or guy so I’ll just call it a he. But he’s here clinging onto the mother and it’s pretty cute. He later jumps off and we see him walkin around here on the table and a couple of the characters here start petting him, so cute!
One of the characters here is this kid named Alexander, who I remember from one of my favorite movies Let me in (2010) I know 4 years has passed since then but he got so tall, like he had a growth spurt or something. But it makes sense why he’s in this movie, cause the director is this guy named Mat Reeves, who also directed that movie. So its safe to say the 2 of them are pals. And its weird cause this guy really has no pattern when it comes to what stuff he does. I’m looking at his imdb page, and 3 of his movies are Cloverfield, Let me in and Dawn of the Apes, the movie I’m doing now. Cloverfield is one of those shaky-camera movies, Let me in is very soft and subtle, and Dawn is very average. And this is why I don’t really pay attention to directors anymore when it comes to what movies I watch.
Some people only do horror movies, some people only do comedy, and some people are like this guy, doing 3 completely different camera styles. So anyway, I always wondered if you could actually adopt a chimp, but their very different than dogs and kittens. Eventually they reach a certain age and start thinking they’re the boss and it could get dangerous after that lol. I’d love to have a pet, preferably a kitten but I think I’m allergic. My mother on the other hand hates pets, so I probably got my love of pets from my dad. So anyway, he playfully rolls around here for a bit and stumbles upon this suitcase. He accidentally finds a gun in here, and C kinda flips out on everybody for bringing a gun around his son. It’s a pretty intense but cute scene, and the apes get angry at the humans here but eventually they all calm down again.
Later we see Koba again at the faculty. I remember watching this scene on youtube for the first time lol. He rolls over, and the same 2 guys see him and think he’s being playful again. So he goofs off some more and starts waving his arms and stuff, till eventually he grabs one of their guns. Everything goes from messing and joking around, to dead serious in a matter of moments. So he points the gun at em and shoots both of em at point blank range! We later get this little scene here in the jungle and the apes turn on the music. I thought this was one of those random scenes they threw in here but no, their showing us that they got some of the power in the city working again. I really don’t know what they do specifically but they twist a bunch of wires around and do stuff underground, so yea atleast their making progress now.
Later on, we see C and his family up on the cliff here. Koba arrives with a gun in his hand, and ends up shooting C right here on the cliff! I wasn’t really sad though, but I’ll explain why later. So he gets shot and falls off the cliff here. It’s not as violent or bloody as you may think though. So now that C is gone, Koba begins to control the apes. I guess he thinks he’s vice president of this ape army. Ever since the very beginning of the movie when he found out all the weapons and bombs that were in that room. So with that in mind, and now that C is gone and he can control the herd, he takes the apes to the human facility. It’s dark now, and they arrive on horses and have this big shootout scene with shotguns and it looks pretty badass. At one point one of the apes even jumps in a tank lol.
Some humans die but a majority of the apes get killed as well. Later on, Malcolm and the others find C laying in the grass here near the home. He’s alive, but very weak. And I knew he wasn’t gonna die, cause movies like this are franchises and killing the main character like that would spell disaster for Hollywood execs lol. But yea he’s alive, so they pick him up and take him into this little house. Later on they find his son and they bring him here to let him know his dads okay. We see his son alot throughout the movie, and he’s still got those scratches on his face, arm and chest from the earlier scene where he was attacked by the bear. I think they did this so the audience could easily recognize him in the crowd of other apes.
They did the same thing in the first movie with Koba, the ape with the scar on his eye. Eventually Malcolm finds out D and his buddies wanna blow the place up. They say C and the other apes are right where they want them, so they’re gonna take em all out in one hit. They want Malcolm to help but judging from the look on his face, you kinda know what he’s gonna do, but I won’t spoil it yet. Eventually we get to one of my favorite scenes in the movie: C vs Koba on this metal bar tower. I remember this clip from the trailer and I really wanted to see it, cause I just love CGI buildings and stuff. But it sucks cause the clip in the trailer is like a half-second long, which is sort of understandable cause I guess they didn’t wanna spoil the ending. But yea I’ve been waiting for this scene.
C and Koba throw each other around up here while the other apes watch. It’s still pretty dark up here, but you can still see what’s going on. Half my attention is on the tower in this scene, I love watching the bars break as the apes toss each other around. Meanwhile D is still arguing with Malcolm, and it gets so heated that he ends up grabbing the remote and clicking the detonate button! So the entire tower blows up, and everything above them begins to fall down, including the CGI tower! The blast actually ends up helping C cause it knocks Koba towards the middle of the hole here. And they have that famous scene where he’s hangin here and C has a choice whether or not to pull him back up or let him fall.
The choice is obvious, he lets him fall! He falls like 500 feet down this little hole so its safe to say he’s gone. Reminds me of the scene in Rise where he let the dude in the helicopter fall, the scientist who only cared about money. At the end of the movie we see all the apes here in this big room with C. Malcolm also shows up and he and C kinda talk for a bit. They both say that they wanted a change to occur after all this fighting, but unfortunately nothing came of it, so he leaves. The last shot we get is a close-up of C’s eyes which is pretty cool. And you can sorta tell that he’s sad, but still a pretty brave ape.
Overall this was a pretty cool movie. It’s alot darker than Rise (both visually and story wise) but you still get the same message by the end of it. I didn’t think the CGI could get any better but obviously it can. It kinda reminds me of Godzilla actually, about how we treat our planet. We carelessly destroy the environment and bully these animals, until we find out that we need their help and try to act all nice. I guess the only thing I didn’t like about this movie was that a majority of it took place in the jungle, and I hate the jungle lol. And besides the ending, we only got a couple shots of the city here and there. Forget the jungle, put the next movie in the city again.
Divergent (2014)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie a couple times when it was coming out, and it looked pretty cool. From what I hear it’s based off some book series that sold alot of money, so Hollywood (like they always do, cause they don’t have anymore ideas) made a movie about it. I personally have never read the books, nor do I know anything about the series or the characters. I also wouldn’t consider myself a fan of these kinda movies, like Twilight and Hunger Games, or any of those other novel-based teen romance flicks. Trust me I’m not in that group lol. But I saw this movie and thought it looked cool so, I checked it out.
At the start of the film we of course get the credits, and we find out that the movie was made by this production company called Red Dragon Entertainment, which I think sounds pretty badass. If you’re gonna have a company name like that, you gotta make some pretty badass movies right lol. So anyway the credits roll but I noticed something here, about how fast they roll (I’m getting technical here but forgive me) cause they roll pretty fast, faster than most movies. They reveal everybody’s name in like 5 seconds, which I thought was funny, like they just wanted to get it over with. So anyway we get this overhead shot of the city, which was a big reason why I chose this movie.
I just have a thing for CGI cities. Whenever I see them in movies, I just imagine what they’d be like if they were turned into video games lol. Right now the PS4 and Xbox One are pretty early in their lifecycle but hopefully we get some CGI looking games by the end of this gen. So anyway the city looks cool, and it looks alot like I Am Legend. But I’m not into CGI as much in that I look for the best digital effects in movies for my reviews. When I play games I look at graphics, but when I watch movies, I look at story. If I was drivin purely by CGI alone I would’ve done all the Transformers movies but now, but I haven’t. Mostly cause they all suck and I hate Michael Bay, but that’s another story.
So anyway I’m gonna get to this later but this is probably the best shot of the city in this entire movie. We later find out we’re in the city of Chicago, New York. I live in Jersey (which is right next to it) but I’ve only ever been to New York a couple times in my life. The last time I went was probably like 10 years ago on some school field trip so, I guess you can say that doesn’t really count cause it was so long ago. But I do visit my cousins every now and then who live in Virginia, which is farther away so go figure. So anyway, we get this little voice-over by this woman (the main character, who I’ll get to in a bit) and we see all these people walking around the city, bust most importantly, people with colored robes on: their in what they call “clans” and there’s about 5 of em but I’m not gonna get into all of em.
So anyway, in the voice-over she talks about the clans and how the city was destroyed by some faction or something (trust me I tried to pay attention) but basically it was destroyed. She talks about the different clans and how you’ve got happy people, bad people, and people who aren’t in clans at all, and are considered faction-less. If I were in a faction I guess that’d be me, cause I’m not a follower. We then see her in her room, getting her hair fixed up here by her mother. Her names Tris but her real name is Shailene Woodley. I never had a problem with this chick, until Hollywood started spamming her movies on my tv screen. She did this one movie called The Fault in Our Stars, which was spammed all over my tv screen and drove my crazy!
I swear, in the many years I’ve seen trailers on tv I’ve never seen a movie trailer spammed on my tv screen as much as that movie. And then they had the stupid “Boom clap” song in the background which also drove me insane. What also annoyed me is they showed that trailer more than the Godzilla trailer, which also got just as good reviews, so I don’t know what was up with that. To me I don’t care how good your movie is, when you spam it like that on tv it just doesn’t look right, and it kinda makes me hate the movie. I mean FIOS looked okay and sorta cute, and I actually was gonna see it (when it hit dvd of course) but after they spammed the movie like that, I didn’t wanna see it at all. So anyway, whenever I see her face I just think of her as “the girl who got her cheesy movie spammed on my tv more than the Godzilla movie” and it just irritates the heck outta me, no joke.
Which is ironic cause in this scene she goes “my faction has taught me something, never look too long in the mirror” and you got that right, you ain’t even cute! So anyway, we later see them all at this little group meeting where their all gonna be put into different factions and such. It looks alot like Hunger Games lol. And again I just wanted to make this clear, I only did this movie cause it looked cool, I didn’t do it to fit in with this little teen-novel geek squad, people that like these movies cause they read the book and wanna be part of that little fanbase, I could care less about that. I did this movie cause of the CGI buildings, which so far I haven’t seen much of. This also kinda reminds me of the first Harry Potter, where they all get put into the little teams and such. So she meets up with her parents and her brother, and I swear her brother is the same dude from Fault in Our Stars, the same movie that came out the same year, are you kidding me lol.
I mean c’mon you clowns couldn’t hire a different guy. I wonder what happened after FIOS was over, his agent was like “Wait dude don’t go anywhere, we got another movie for you with the same girl” like c’mon. But the guy is whack, so I won’t be mentioning his name. I mean the girl is whack too so I guess they had to give her a dorky brother, no surprise on that one. So anyway, she visits this Asian chick to get her brain scanned. They gotta scan her brain to see what kinda faction she’s gonna choose. So they put her down in the chair and put the little attachments on her face (whatever the heck their called) and she goes into this virtual world I guess. Its kinda like the Matrix lol. You see this more later on, but here you just see her in the same room, surrounded by mirrors. A dog pops up, and depending on how she reacts, will determine where she’s placed.
She just ducks down, and the dog turns into a non-attack dog (should’ve turned into a poodle) but she survives. At this point the Asian chick pulls her out the Matrix and tells her that she had failed the test, but then tells her that she’s Divergent. This chick is bad lol. I mean she can’t even turn a dog into a puppy, but by the Asian chicks standards she’s Divergent, so whatever. So she goes home that day and talks with her parents. Her parents ask her what her test results were but I think she says she skipped it. Then her parents talk about how there was some war going on and how people were getting hurt over in some other faction, I don’t know. I mean at this point there’s alot I don’t know, and I’d probably know more if I read the book but, I hate books lol. Stephen King once said to be a great writer you have to read alot and write alot, well all I did was write alot, and I think I’m doing okay.
So anyway, the next day we see all these teens get into this big ceremony room. The headmaster here is the same chick from Titanic (Kate Winslet) which was a cool movie. She’s in this suit with this blonde hairstyle, and I never knew she was English till like 2010. But I always found it cool how people from England and other countries would hide their accent in American films like this. I mean sometimes you can tell and sometimes you can’t. There’s a movie called One Hour Photo (2002) which is one of my favorite thrillers, and there’s this woman in there (I think she’s from Romania) and she hides her accent too. But later in the movie you see her on the phone, and you hear her yell and it’s here where you can tell her accent kinda changes. Colin Farrell kinda does the same thing in Phonebooth (2002) cause I know he’s really from Scotland or something.
So all the teens come up, slice their hand and pour the blood into these little kitchen pots lol. I think whatever color the blood turns into is what faction they go to, I don’t know cause they never explain it. The kids from Harry Potter had it good though, all they had to do was put on that hat lol. But this must be a big deal for them I mean, some of the teens are crying in the audience. I say who the hell cares, I barely even know what the heck is goin on. So eventually Tris goes up and she puts her blood in the little tea cups, and they tell her she’s in the Daughtless clan, atleast that’s what I think they say. They could’ve said she was “thoughtless” for all I know lol. So she goes with her clan and we see them outside.
There’s like 20 of em and we see them all out here hopping around and climbing the little train rails up to the top. They climb these things so effortlessly like chimps lol. Eventually a train comes by and they all jump on it. Tris is slow to react but eventually she hops on. And like I said earlier we’re obviously outside now, but (atleast speaking for myself) you don’t really get a sense of the environment. I swear the entire time this scene was going on, I wasn’t even looking at her, I was looking at the background and the buildings, and I just didn’t feel immersed in the environment like I did in let’s say something like I Am Legend. Now I Am Legend isn’t a favorite of mine by all means (and I hate zombie movies, boo me if you want lol) but I still felt pretty immersed in the environment in the beginning of that movie.
And they both use the CGI buildings and stuff so, I should’ve felt the same at this point, but I don’t. So anyway, she jumps on the train and here she meets this other chick named Christina. She’s light skin like myself, and she’s so cute. I actually read that she’s Lenny Kravitz daughter, and I’m not a fan of him either but still. So I’m pretty happy at this point, cause now I got somebody cute to stare at instead of this chick, thank goodness. Later on we see them jumping out the train onto a building. Tina is shocked to see this but eventually they all jump out and so does she. It’s weird cause she hits the ground but then she starts laughing. I don’t know, maybe jumping out a train is funny to her. But I let it slide cause she’s cute.
So anyway, the leader of the little pack here then tells them their next challenge, to hop from this ledge down like 50 feet into this little hole. Tina is like “We just jumped and now they want us to jump again” well it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. If jumping out a train was funny to you imagine how funny this’ll be, weirdo lol. So they ask who wants to go first, and none of the teens put their hand up, until eventually Tris does. I mean it was pretty obvious, you know, the main character in movies like this is supposed to be the brave one, and she’s supposed to be the Divergent one too so, she better boss up. So she climbs on the ledge here and jumps down like 50 feet into this little hole, and lands on some bungee rope down here. More people jump down after her, I call them CGI bodies cause I’m sure that’s what they are when they fall.
So after she jumps down, she meets this dude named Four (stupid name) and calling him that is just gonna annoy me, but he looks like James Franco so I’m gonna call him James. He’s really just this skinny tall dude but he also has this deep voice, which doesn’t fit his physic so it just makes him look even funnier. Tina even makes a comment on his voice, and he walks over and tells her to keep her mouth shut, oh how tough you are. I say make her drop down and do pushups! So he takes the teens here and shows them around the place. So far that’s basically what this was, a set of challenges: They get their faction, jump out the train, jump down this little hole and this is their little hut or home or whatever you wanna call it. The first place we see is something they call the pit, which just looks like a little room with a bunch of rocks and stuff, pretty boring though.
Later on we see them eat, and talk about the factions they were in before they got put into this one. I forget the one their in now (cause there’s like 5 of em) but we all know at this point that Tris is a Divergent, the rest of em are in a different faction. Later on we see them go into training, and we meet more of the guys here. There’s this one guy who looks pretty cool. He’s got all these tattoo’s and stuff and everytime I see him I think of a lead singer for a rock band lol. But yea, dude is pretty badass. He explains the training and basically says they’ve gotta give everything they can if they wanna succeed. He also explains this chart they use, where everybody is ranked according to how well they do.
There’s like 50 numbers but you gotta make it to the top 30 if you wanna stay, and the losers are sent home. At first she’d probably be like “well go ahead send me home” but later you hear them talk about this. Tris says her parents wouldn’t want her to come home and / or wouldn’t accept her home, and so do a couple of the other guys here. It’s like a code of honor or something, like if you get sent home it’s like a diss to the family or something I don’t know. But that sounds harsh, how your parents wouldn’t want you home cause of some stupid game. There’s probably more about this in the book but I didn’t read it, sue me. So anyway, they have their first fight. And I was gonna mention this later but I’ll mention it now since this is her first fight. They don’t even teach these people how to fight lol.
There’s a later scene where she fights this dorky kid, and James Franco walks up to her and goes “he likes to step forward before he jabs” but that’s it, no karate training or anything like that. I’m guessing it’s safe to say they already knew how to fight up until this point. So anyway her first fight is against this fat chick, and the fight is okay. Tris mostly gets smacked around alot, and it looks like she gets smacked in the ear cause she holds her ear at one point, god damn lol. They don’t even fight with their hands in front of their face, their hands are by their chest in this very funny way, like they have no idea how to box. I don’t box either but I know where to put my hands, in front of your face, dummies!
So anyway, the fat chick ends up beating Tris. She knocks her to a ground a couple times so she gives up. It could’ve been an easy fight though, you could’ve just gave her a sandwich lol. After this fight they check the scoreboard, and right now Tris is #32. She’s only got a couple more blocks to move up before she’s safe. Later on we see them at a club, where Tris sees the Asian chick again. She tells Tris that since she’s Divergent, that people are gonna be after her cause I guess they don’t like her kind. She also gets a tattoo in this scene, but it’s not even a real tattoo. It’s one of those fake water type sticker tattoo’s that kids get, the ones that you just glue on, but damn this girl is tough, not. We later see her training some more in the gym, shooting little targets and doing some boxing here.
At one point James Franco comes up and tells her she’s doing it wrong, well we all know that. I mean look at how she was boxing earlier. He says she’s not using her core, then he puts his hands on her belly, oh how cute, not. And dude quit with the deep voice, it doesn’t sound good on you. Later on we see them go outside towards the gates, finally. I’ve been waiting for this scene ever since the movie began, just to see these CGI gates. But this movie has such a crappy director, we barely even see em. They also do this thing where they point the camera so low to the ground, you just see the ground and you don’t even see the horizon, which annoys the hell outta me. Battleship (2012) did the exact same thing. They point the camera either so low or so close, you can barely tell what’s going on.
Seriously, people who do this should be fired. Now I’m probably like the only person that mentions this, cause there aren’t alot of people who bring this up. I mean lack of dialogue annoys me, bad acting annoys me, bad movies in general annoy me, but bad camera-work like this annoys me the most. It makes me not even wanna watch the movie, its like damn bro back the hell up, let the audience see what the heck is goin on lol. So anyway, Tris brings up the gates and James Franco says the gates were put up to block out something, but I forget cause I was so annoyed by the fact that we can’t even see the gates in this scene. So we’re back inside now, great. And yea I’ll get to this later but a majority of this movie takes place inside, and it sucks!
They go back to training and now we have this scene where their throwing knives at the wall. At one point, the rock band trainer dude tells one of the guys here to go stand by the wall, and he does. He says he wants to test how brave he is when knives are being thrown at him. But right before he does, Tris interrupts them and takes his place. What a brave chick, but it’s no surprise I mean she is the Divergent one. So she stands against the wall here while James Franco throws knives at her. A couple of them land next to her shoulders and the third one clips the side of her ear, ouch lol. Earlier she got punched in the ear and now she gets a knife wound on the ear, today ain’t her lucky day. I like how Franco goes “you want me to get a little closer” and dude goes “yea maybe just a little off the top” lol.
But I mean, if he wanted to get so close and take some strands of hair off, go for it. I mean she shaves her head in the next movie anyway, they could’ve got it done now and saved her a haircut. Later on we see them go inside. Alot of the teens in this scene congratulate her for standing up to him, big whoop. She took an ear for the team. Eye for an eye, ear for an ear. Let’s celebrate with an ear of corn. Okay enough with the ear jokes lol. So anyway the dork pops up in this scene and tries to joke on her, but it doesn’t work. I hate this guy. He’s in alot of the earlier scenes and I skipped alot of em, but I’m mentioning it now, I hate this dude. He’s in one of those lame teen comedies but he’s not funny at all, just very nerdy looking. And through the movie he’s always trying to come off like a bully and a know-it-all. Dude you don’t know nothin, go sit your ass down somewhere bro, with those lame jokes.
We later get another shot of the score board, and at this point Tris is #22 and she’s got 1 more block to go before she’s out of the red. Her next challenge is to fight the dork, the guy with the lame jokes, and she better kick his ass, cause this dude is annoying. Now, up until this point she’s only fought 1 person, a chick. But now she’s fighting a dude, and he smacks her around alot. But I’m not gonna make any jokes about this, cause this is just wrong. I mean if they were wrestling then fine (and even then it’d just look weird) but she gets thrown around alot by this dude, and I really don’t wanna talk about it. After she loses, she ends up in the hospital here. Tina and this other dude come and visit her and she’s all bruised up.
I mean I can’t really feel bad for her cause it wasn’t like she was cute, but still. So they both tell her that because she lost she’s out of the competition cause her score dropped below 20 or whatever. The guy here tells her that maybe her dad might talk to the people and get her back in the game, but she shouldn’t be ashamed. I mean, she got beat by a guy. What’s she gonna say “Sorry I lost dad, I got beat up by a guy” like damn. And what’s the dork gonna say “I beat up a chick and I’m still in the game” like no bro, you whack, and you still a dork. So the 2 of them walk off while she stays in the bed. But a few moments later you see her running for the train, and she catches it and they pull her in. And they accept her, even though she lost. So whatever, I guess that score board didn’t really mean anything.
Later on we see them at this carnival / circus whatever you wanna call it. And I knew what was gonna happen here, cause I saw it in the trailer. Tris and James Franco climb this ferris wheel, and it’s another scene that I really wanted to see, besides the scene with the barrier that we saw (or if your like me, you barely saw it) earlier. Thankfully the crappy director we have didn’t mess this scene up, and we see them climbing the ferris wheel here. It’s hard to say how they pulled this scene off. They probably used green screen with little ropes attached to them, which they later edited out with their digital effects. They did the same thing in Freddy vs Jason where the girl got yanked backwards into the tree. They used a rope to pull her back then edited the rope out, stuff like that.
So yea they climb the little ferris wheel here, and it’s pretty scary, but kinda cool looking. The only thing I hate about this scene is it’s at night, so you can barely see anything. They should’ve done this scene in the daytime where we could actually see what’s going on but, some people are dumb. I don’t care how cool your scene is, if I can barely tell what the heck is going on, you make the scene kinda pointless and the scene just isn’t amazing. Later on we see them do this thing where they slide down these little cords. I forget what it’s called, but I don’t feel like looking up the name cause this scene wasn’t cool either, mostly cause you can’t see anything. They also bring the camera close to the edge of the building, but the camera doesn’t even show you the buildings.
You see em for like a split second, then the camera does this stupid shot up above that barely shows anything, like damn lol. It’s safe to say I hate the director. But you know I’ve seen so many movies up until this point, you gotta really blow my mind. So if your not even gonna fly a helicopter and get those overhead shots then I’m not gonna be impressed. Later on we get a shot of the scoreboard again and we see that now Tris is at #20 and so far she isn’t doing that well. One dude said she started slow but she’s excelling faster than anybody, but so what. She’s Divergent, she should’ve been in first place by now lol. We later get a scene of her finding her mother, and they talk for a bit here. Her mother says she knows she’s Divergent, and not to tell anybody cause they’ll be after her. Later on James Franco brings her in for a test, and he hooks her up just like the Asian chick did earlier.
He says he wants to run some tests on her and see what kinda personality she is. So he hooks her up to all the matrix-type machines and they run the test just like last time. The test is supposed to be filled with her greatest fears, so my first thought is like spiders and stuff like that. But she gets into this alternate world and she’s in the middle of a bunch of grass, which looks like its right outside the facility where they were with the gates. But she’s out here surrounded by grass, and pretty soon the grass lights up into flames and these birds come out. They fly towards her and she ducks down. So my guess is so far, her fears are fire and birds. The birds don’t even look that dangerous, if it were me I’d probably just punch em as they were flyin at me lol. Eventually she dives down and swims under some water here.
After this, the scene ends and she’s yanked out of the portal. Franco questions her here about her abilities and says he’s impressed that she was able to figure it out so well, cause most people mess up. But he says “next time it’ll be easier” which doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, if you were surprised by her ability to figure it out, why not make it harder and really test her. I mean usually when you complete a challenge, the person makes it harder to really test you, but whatever. We see her in the little waiting room and most of the teens here are pretty impressed, including Tina. The dork from earlier (the same one who beat her up) even appears in this scene and says something’s up. Dude go sit down somewhere you’re startin to annoy me. But you know, none of em know she’s got that special ability.
We later see her back in the facility, where she’s trapped in this little glass chamber and she’s gotta get out. It kinda reminds me of a scene from one of the Saw movies, where the dude had the glass box on his head lol. But the glass fills up with water and she struggles to get out. It fills up to the point where she’s gotta take a breath and duck under. So she does, and she kinda just taps the edge of the glass and it busts open. I remember this scene from the trailer, and it’s pretty cool. And as intense as it may have been, it definitely looked easier than her first challenge, which again was kinda weird. Later on we see her meet up with her brother, the dork. I think he knows that she’s Divergent but knows that they can’t tell anybody, so they keep it a secret.
She later talks with the faction leader again, the chick from Titanic, Kate Winslet, and we get more boring faction talk. Eventually she meets up with Franco for a 3rd time, and he takes her back to the same room. But this time he tells her he wants to take her inside his mind, and into his own fears. So they get hooked it up and go into matrix-mode. We immediately see them standing on this thin wire, like 500 feet in the air. And like the scenes I mentioned before, this was probably the last scene that I really wanted to see, cause so far this is really the last big scene where you see the CGI buildings, and I gotta say, at this point I became pretty disappointed in this movie. I mean that’s really all I wanted to see, them doing all this risky stuff on these buildings, cause atleast that’s how the trailer made it look.
But so far I haven’t seen much, and the scenes we do see are either too dark or too short. But they make it across the rope and get down. We now see them back at his house, or wherever they’re at, up on some balcony. Cause like I said, the camera is so close you can’t tell where their at, if their on the ground or high up in the air, so I don’t know where the heck their at. But they talk for a bit, and she asks to see his back tattoo. He shows her, and reveals that he has all the different faction symbols tatted on his back, oh how romantic! And they kiss for a bit, so good for him, he scored with a chick who ain’t even that cute. Later on we see them back inside again, and they ask Tris to sit in this chair again, matrix style! They hook her up for like the 5th time and run the little test, but this time she’s in front of everybody.
The headmaster Kate Winslet is here and so are all the trainers. So they hook her up and send her into the matrix world again. She’s basically back in the same environment as before, with the grass and the birds, and the little glass room. She uses different techniques to escape them all but she passes em all. When she comes back, her last challenge is to shoot her parents. And I swear I was like “wtf” lol. Her dork brother (the same one from FIOS) was there too, and she should’ve shot him, dork. But I guess she knows it isn’t real, so she does, and she’s instantly brought back into reality. Later on, they find out she’s Divergent, and James Franco gets taken away. But she meets up with her mother again and they stick together for a bit.
At this point everybody knows she’s Divergent and they start attacking her and her mother. And it’s sorta cute seeing them work together and have shootouts. Eventually her mother gets shot and killed, and that’s kinda sad, but not really. It was more painful watching Tris cry cause she’s not a cute crier. Eventually she meets up with her dad, and she tells him they need to go back to the facility. So she, her dad and her dork brother (who she should’ve shot) all travel across the city towards the facility. So they do the same thing they did in the beginning, jumping out the train and jumping down the little rabbit hole. They go through the little tunnels here, and Tris gets the dork to show her where the facility is.
They later run into some guards and she gets her dad to fire on em. He fires a couple bullets and it looks like their winning and everything, but then he dies like 5 seconds later lol. I swear, no joke, its literally like 5 seconds. So now both her mother and father are dead and you see the pain on her face here, but I kinda don’t even care. I mean her mother was cool, but her father died in such a ridiculous manner that it wasn’t even sad. Eventually she makes it into the control room with the headmaster and James Franco. He’s hooked up to all these machines and I guess they were trying to control him to do dangerous stuff. So Tris (not knowing he’s basically mindless at this point) tries to un-cuff him and rescue him, but he comes to life and starts throwing her around in this scene.
He’s basically acting like he’s Terminator in this scene, just throwing her around not really giving a damn. And I mean it’s kind of a cool scene until you remember that you’re basically just watching a guy throw a woman around the room, which isn’t good. So this big fight breaks out in the little office area here, people get thrown around, punched, kicked, and thrown into objects. One dude gets clotheslined by James Franco and that was cool. But ultimately they catch the headmaster and convince her to take the spell off these people. They make her press a button and it releases this spell and everybody wakes up. At the end of the movie, we see the two of them get on a train, off to their next adventure I guess. But we end the movie with this stupid camera shot. The train heads out, and the camera pans up just above the city, like their trying to show us the horizon but it just looks so lame, like damn bro bring the camera down so we can see some damn land!
Overall this movie was pretty cool. I didn’t understand most of it but whatever, I was entertained. I think my biggest gripe with this movie is the camera work, but more specifically, the fact that you have these cool digitally generated buildings but the director didn’t even film them, and it just didn’t feel as immersive as I thought it would. And for the most part, the camera is always at ground level. Besides the scene where they walk across the wire in Franco’s fear dream, the camera never zooms across the city and you never get a sense of how big this world that they’ve created, really is. And to me it was a wasted opportunity and just wasted talent: you have artists who take the time to build this stuff, then you get a director who doesn’t even show it off properly.
But as I continued watching this movie, I learned something else. And I think this also applies to movies like Harry Potter and Hunger Games, which is really the same thing: this movie teaches us not to be controlled by others. I mean when it comes to the factions, you have the brave ones, the dorky ones, the brainiacs, the bullies, etc. You basically have all the different social groups of high school. And the thing about choosing who you are (in these factions) and facing your fears (in the matrix world) are all different challenges of life, which I guess most people learn in high school. So yea, to me that’s basically what it is, a big metaphorical high school movie that’s supposed to get us to open our minds.
Another thing I wanted to mention was the sequel to this movie, which is called Insurgent. At this point I still wasn’t a fan of these movies but I thought it looked cool. And after seeing this movie, I knew it was directed by someone different, just by looking at the teaser trailer. There’s a cool scene where her mother is in this little house and it floats away towards the sky, and Tris runs and jumps on the rope that hangs from it. And while I was watching this movie, I just kept thinking to myself “There’s no way the guy who did that, made this movie” cause that trailer captured more environment in that 1 minute teaser than this entire movie. So I checked imdb and turns out I was right: Divergent was directed by some dude named Neil and Insurgent was directed by some dude named Robert, but yea I pay attention to that stuff, and I can tell when one director does a better job than the other.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie a couple times when it was coming out, and it looked pretty cool. From what I hear it’s based off some book series that sold alot of money, so Hollywood (like they always do, cause they don’t have anymore ideas) made a movie about it. I personally have never read the books, nor do I know anything about the series or the characters. I also wouldn’t consider myself a fan of these kinda movies, like Twilight and Hunger Games, or any of those other novel-based teen romance flicks. Trust me I’m not in that group lol. But I saw this movie and thought it looked cool so, I checked it out.
At the start of the film we of course get the credits, and we find out that the movie was made by this production company called Red Dragon Entertainment, which I think sounds pretty badass. If you’re gonna have a company name like that, you gotta make some pretty badass movies right lol. So anyway the credits roll but I noticed something here, about how fast they roll (I’m getting technical here but forgive me) cause they roll pretty fast, faster than most movies. They reveal everybody’s name in like 5 seconds, which I thought was funny, like they just wanted to get it over with. So anyway we get this overhead shot of the city, which was a big reason why I chose this movie.
I just have a thing for CGI cities. Whenever I see them in movies, I just imagine what they’d be like if they were turned into video games lol. Right now the PS4 and Xbox One are pretty early in their lifecycle but hopefully we get some CGI looking games by the end of this gen. So anyway the city looks cool, and it looks alot like I Am Legend. But I’m not into CGI as much in that I look for the best digital effects in movies for my reviews. When I play games I look at graphics, but when I watch movies, I look at story. If I was drivin purely by CGI alone I would’ve done all the Transformers movies but now, but I haven’t. Mostly cause they all suck and I hate Michael Bay, but that’s another story.
So anyway I’m gonna get to this later but this is probably the best shot of the city in this entire movie. We later find out we’re in the city of Chicago, New York. I live in Jersey (which is right next to it) but I’ve only ever been to New York a couple times in my life. The last time I went was probably like 10 years ago on some school field trip so, I guess you can say that doesn’t really count cause it was so long ago. But I do visit my cousins every now and then who live in Virginia, which is farther away so go figure. So anyway, we get this little voice-over by this woman (the main character, who I’ll get to in a bit) and we see all these people walking around the city, bust most importantly, people with colored robes on: their in what they call “clans” and there’s about 5 of em but I’m not gonna get into all of em.
So anyway, in the voice-over she talks about the clans and how the city was destroyed by some faction or something (trust me I tried to pay attention) but basically it was destroyed. She talks about the different clans and how you’ve got happy people, bad people, and people who aren’t in clans at all, and are considered faction-less. If I were in a faction I guess that’d be me, cause I’m not a follower. We then see her in her room, getting her hair fixed up here by her mother. Her names Tris but her real name is Shailene Woodley. I never had a problem with this chick, until Hollywood started spamming her movies on my tv screen. She did this one movie called The Fault in Our Stars, which was spammed all over my tv screen and drove my crazy!
I swear, in the many years I’ve seen trailers on tv I’ve never seen a movie trailer spammed on my tv screen as much as that movie. And then they had the stupid “Boom clap” song in the background which also drove me insane. What also annoyed me is they showed that trailer more than the Godzilla trailer, which also got just as good reviews, so I don’t know what was up with that. To me I don’t care how good your movie is, when you spam it like that on tv it just doesn’t look right, and it kinda makes me hate the movie. I mean FIOS looked okay and sorta cute, and I actually was gonna see it (when it hit dvd of course) but after they spammed the movie like that, I didn’t wanna see it at all. So anyway, whenever I see her face I just think of her as “the girl who got her cheesy movie spammed on my tv more than the Godzilla movie” and it just irritates the heck outta me, no joke.
Which is ironic cause in this scene she goes “my faction has taught me something, never look too long in the mirror” and you got that right, you ain’t even cute! So anyway, we later see them all at this little group meeting where their all gonna be put into different factions and such. It looks alot like Hunger Games lol. And again I just wanted to make this clear, I only did this movie cause it looked cool, I didn’t do it to fit in with this little teen-novel geek squad, people that like these movies cause they read the book and wanna be part of that little fanbase, I could care less about that. I did this movie cause of the CGI buildings, which so far I haven’t seen much of. This also kinda reminds me of the first Harry Potter, where they all get put into the little teams and such. So she meets up with her parents and her brother, and I swear her brother is the same dude from Fault in Our Stars, the same movie that came out the same year, are you kidding me lol.
I mean c’mon you clowns couldn’t hire a different guy. I wonder what happened after FIOS was over, his agent was like “Wait dude don’t go anywhere, we got another movie for you with the same girl” like c’mon. But the guy is whack, so I won’t be mentioning his name. I mean the girl is whack too so I guess they had to give her a dorky brother, no surprise on that one. So anyway, she visits this Asian chick to get her brain scanned. They gotta scan her brain to see what kinda faction she’s gonna choose. So they put her down in the chair and put the little attachments on her face (whatever the heck their called) and she goes into this virtual world I guess. Its kinda like the Matrix lol. You see this more later on, but here you just see her in the same room, surrounded by mirrors. A dog pops up, and depending on how she reacts, will determine where she’s placed.
She just ducks down, and the dog turns into a non-attack dog (should’ve turned into a poodle) but she survives. At this point the Asian chick pulls her out the Matrix and tells her that she had failed the test, but then tells her that she’s Divergent. This chick is bad lol. I mean she can’t even turn a dog into a puppy, but by the Asian chicks standards she’s Divergent, so whatever. So she goes home that day and talks with her parents. Her parents ask her what her test results were but I think she says she skipped it. Then her parents talk about how there was some war going on and how people were getting hurt over in some other faction, I don’t know. I mean at this point there’s alot I don’t know, and I’d probably know more if I read the book but, I hate books lol. Stephen King once said to be a great writer you have to read alot and write alot, well all I did was write alot, and I think I’m doing okay.
So anyway, the next day we see all these teens get into this big ceremony room. The headmaster here is the same chick from Titanic (Kate Winslet) which was a cool movie. She’s in this suit with this blonde hairstyle, and I never knew she was English till like 2010. But I always found it cool how people from England and other countries would hide their accent in American films like this. I mean sometimes you can tell and sometimes you can’t. There’s a movie called One Hour Photo (2002) which is one of my favorite thrillers, and there’s this woman in there (I think she’s from Romania) and she hides her accent too. But later in the movie you see her on the phone, and you hear her yell and it’s here where you can tell her accent kinda changes. Colin Farrell kinda does the same thing in Phonebooth (2002) cause I know he’s really from Scotland or something.
So all the teens come up, slice their hand and pour the blood into these little kitchen pots lol. I think whatever color the blood turns into is what faction they go to, I don’t know cause they never explain it. The kids from Harry Potter had it good though, all they had to do was put on that hat lol. But this must be a big deal for them I mean, some of the teens are crying in the audience. I say who the hell cares, I barely even know what the heck is goin on. So eventually Tris goes up and she puts her blood in the little tea cups, and they tell her she’s in the Daughtless clan, atleast that’s what I think they say. They could’ve said she was “thoughtless” for all I know lol. So she goes with her clan and we see them outside.
There’s like 20 of em and we see them all out here hopping around and climbing the little train rails up to the top. They climb these things so effortlessly like chimps lol. Eventually a train comes by and they all jump on it. Tris is slow to react but eventually she hops on. And like I said earlier we’re obviously outside now, but (atleast speaking for myself) you don’t really get a sense of the environment. I swear the entire time this scene was going on, I wasn’t even looking at her, I was looking at the background and the buildings, and I just didn’t feel immersed in the environment like I did in let’s say something like I Am Legend. Now I Am Legend isn’t a favorite of mine by all means (and I hate zombie movies, boo me if you want lol) but I still felt pretty immersed in the environment in the beginning of that movie.
And they both use the CGI buildings and stuff so, I should’ve felt the same at this point, but I don’t. So anyway, she jumps on the train and here she meets this other chick named Christina. She’s light skin like myself, and she’s so cute. I actually read that she’s Lenny Kravitz daughter, and I’m not a fan of him either but still. So I’m pretty happy at this point, cause now I got somebody cute to stare at instead of this chick, thank goodness. Later on we see them jumping out the train onto a building. Tina is shocked to see this but eventually they all jump out and so does she. It’s weird cause she hits the ground but then she starts laughing. I don’t know, maybe jumping out a train is funny to her. But I let it slide cause she’s cute.
So anyway, the leader of the little pack here then tells them their next challenge, to hop from this ledge down like 50 feet into this little hole. Tina is like “We just jumped and now they want us to jump again” well it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. If jumping out a train was funny to you imagine how funny this’ll be, weirdo lol. So they ask who wants to go first, and none of the teens put their hand up, until eventually Tris does. I mean it was pretty obvious, you know, the main character in movies like this is supposed to be the brave one, and she’s supposed to be the Divergent one too so, she better boss up. So she climbs on the ledge here and jumps down like 50 feet into this little hole, and lands on some bungee rope down here. More people jump down after her, I call them CGI bodies cause I’m sure that’s what they are when they fall.
So after she jumps down, she meets this dude named Four (stupid name) and calling him that is just gonna annoy me, but he looks like James Franco so I’m gonna call him James. He’s really just this skinny tall dude but he also has this deep voice, which doesn’t fit his physic so it just makes him look even funnier. Tina even makes a comment on his voice, and he walks over and tells her to keep her mouth shut, oh how tough you are. I say make her drop down and do pushups! So he takes the teens here and shows them around the place. So far that’s basically what this was, a set of challenges: They get their faction, jump out the train, jump down this little hole and this is their little hut or home or whatever you wanna call it. The first place we see is something they call the pit, which just looks like a little room with a bunch of rocks and stuff, pretty boring though.
Later on we see them eat, and talk about the factions they were in before they got put into this one. I forget the one their in now (cause there’s like 5 of em) but we all know at this point that Tris is a Divergent, the rest of em are in a different faction. Later on we see them go into training, and we meet more of the guys here. There’s this one guy who looks pretty cool. He’s got all these tattoo’s and stuff and everytime I see him I think of a lead singer for a rock band lol. But yea, dude is pretty badass. He explains the training and basically says they’ve gotta give everything they can if they wanna succeed. He also explains this chart they use, where everybody is ranked according to how well they do.
There’s like 50 numbers but you gotta make it to the top 30 if you wanna stay, and the losers are sent home. At first she’d probably be like “well go ahead send me home” but later you hear them talk about this. Tris says her parents wouldn’t want her to come home and / or wouldn’t accept her home, and so do a couple of the other guys here. It’s like a code of honor or something, like if you get sent home it’s like a diss to the family or something I don’t know. But that sounds harsh, how your parents wouldn’t want you home cause of some stupid game. There’s probably more about this in the book but I didn’t read it, sue me. So anyway, they have their first fight. And I was gonna mention this later but I’ll mention it now since this is her first fight. They don’t even teach these people how to fight lol.
There’s a later scene where she fights this dorky kid, and James Franco walks up to her and goes “he likes to step forward before he jabs” but that’s it, no karate training or anything like that. I’m guessing it’s safe to say they already knew how to fight up until this point. So anyway her first fight is against this fat chick, and the fight is okay. Tris mostly gets smacked around alot, and it looks like she gets smacked in the ear cause she holds her ear at one point, god damn lol. They don’t even fight with their hands in front of their face, their hands are by their chest in this very funny way, like they have no idea how to box. I don’t box either but I know where to put my hands, in front of your face, dummies!
So anyway, the fat chick ends up beating Tris. She knocks her to a ground a couple times so she gives up. It could’ve been an easy fight though, you could’ve just gave her a sandwich lol. After this fight they check the scoreboard, and right now Tris is #32. She’s only got a couple more blocks to move up before she’s safe. Later on we see them at a club, where Tris sees the Asian chick again. She tells Tris that since she’s Divergent, that people are gonna be after her cause I guess they don’t like her kind. She also gets a tattoo in this scene, but it’s not even a real tattoo. It’s one of those fake water type sticker tattoo’s that kids get, the ones that you just glue on, but damn this girl is tough, not. We later see her training some more in the gym, shooting little targets and doing some boxing here.
At one point James Franco comes up and tells her she’s doing it wrong, well we all know that. I mean look at how she was boxing earlier. He says she’s not using her core, then he puts his hands on her belly, oh how cute, not. And dude quit with the deep voice, it doesn’t sound good on you. Later on we see them go outside towards the gates, finally. I’ve been waiting for this scene ever since the movie began, just to see these CGI gates. But this movie has such a crappy director, we barely even see em. They also do this thing where they point the camera so low to the ground, you just see the ground and you don’t even see the horizon, which annoys the hell outta me. Battleship (2012) did the exact same thing. They point the camera either so low or so close, you can barely tell what’s going on.
Seriously, people who do this should be fired. Now I’m probably like the only person that mentions this, cause there aren’t alot of people who bring this up. I mean lack of dialogue annoys me, bad acting annoys me, bad movies in general annoy me, but bad camera-work like this annoys me the most. It makes me not even wanna watch the movie, its like damn bro back the hell up, let the audience see what the heck is goin on lol. So anyway, Tris brings up the gates and James Franco says the gates were put up to block out something, but I forget cause I was so annoyed by the fact that we can’t even see the gates in this scene. So we’re back inside now, great. And yea I’ll get to this later but a majority of this movie takes place inside, and it sucks!
They go back to training and now we have this scene where their throwing knives at the wall. At one point, the rock band trainer dude tells one of the guys here to go stand by the wall, and he does. He says he wants to test how brave he is when knives are being thrown at him. But right before he does, Tris interrupts them and takes his place. What a brave chick, but it’s no surprise I mean she is the Divergent one. So she stands against the wall here while James Franco throws knives at her. A couple of them land next to her shoulders and the third one clips the side of her ear, ouch lol. Earlier she got punched in the ear and now she gets a knife wound on the ear, today ain’t her lucky day. I like how Franco goes “you want me to get a little closer” and dude goes “yea maybe just a little off the top” lol.
But I mean, if he wanted to get so close and take some strands of hair off, go for it. I mean she shaves her head in the next movie anyway, they could’ve got it done now and saved her a haircut. Later on we see them go inside. Alot of the teens in this scene congratulate her for standing up to him, big whoop. She took an ear for the team. Eye for an eye, ear for an ear. Let’s celebrate with an ear of corn. Okay enough with the ear jokes lol. So anyway the dork pops up in this scene and tries to joke on her, but it doesn’t work. I hate this guy. He’s in alot of the earlier scenes and I skipped alot of em, but I’m mentioning it now, I hate this dude. He’s in one of those lame teen comedies but he’s not funny at all, just very nerdy looking. And through the movie he’s always trying to come off like a bully and a know-it-all. Dude you don’t know nothin, go sit your ass down somewhere bro, with those lame jokes.
We later get another shot of the score board, and at this point Tris is #22 and she’s got 1 more block to go before she’s out of the red. Her next challenge is to fight the dork, the guy with the lame jokes, and she better kick his ass, cause this dude is annoying. Now, up until this point she’s only fought 1 person, a chick. But now she’s fighting a dude, and he smacks her around alot. But I’m not gonna make any jokes about this, cause this is just wrong. I mean if they were wrestling then fine (and even then it’d just look weird) but she gets thrown around alot by this dude, and I really don’t wanna talk about it. After she loses, she ends up in the hospital here. Tina and this other dude come and visit her and she’s all bruised up.
I mean I can’t really feel bad for her cause it wasn’t like she was cute, but still. So they both tell her that because she lost she’s out of the competition cause her score dropped below 20 or whatever. The guy here tells her that maybe her dad might talk to the people and get her back in the game, but she shouldn’t be ashamed. I mean, she got beat by a guy. What’s she gonna say “Sorry I lost dad, I got beat up by a guy” like damn. And what’s the dork gonna say “I beat up a chick and I’m still in the game” like no bro, you whack, and you still a dork. So the 2 of them walk off while she stays in the bed. But a few moments later you see her running for the train, and she catches it and they pull her in. And they accept her, even though she lost. So whatever, I guess that score board didn’t really mean anything.
Later on we see them at this carnival / circus whatever you wanna call it. And I knew what was gonna happen here, cause I saw it in the trailer. Tris and James Franco climb this ferris wheel, and it’s another scene that I really wanted to see, besides the scene with the barrier that we saw (or if your like me, you barely saw it) earlier. Thankfully the crappy director we have didn’t mess this scene up, and we see them climbing the ferris wheel here. It’s hard to say how they pulled this scene off. They probably used green screen with little ropes attached to them, which they later edited out with their digital effects. They did the same thing in Freddy vs Jason where the girl got yanked backwards into the tree. They used a rope to pull her back then edited the rope out, stuff like that.
So yea they climb the little ferris wheel here, and it’s pretty scary, but kinda cool looking. The only thing I hate about this scene is it’s at night, so you can barely see anything. They should’ve done this scene in the daytime where we could actually see what’s going on but, some people are dumb. I don’t care how cool your scene is, if I can barely tell what the heck is going on, you make the scene kinda pointless and the scene just isn’t amazing. Later on we see them do this thing where they slide down these little cords. I forget what it’s called, but I don’t feel like looking up the name cause this scene wasn’t cool either, mostly cause you can’t see anything. They also bring the camera close to the edge of the building, but the camera doesn’t even show you the buildings.
You see em for like a split second, then the camera does this stupid shot up above that barely shows anything, like damn lol. It’s safe to say I hate the director. But you know I’ve seen so many movies up until this point, you gotta really blow my mind. So if your not even gonna fly a helicopter and get those overhead shots then I’m not gonna be impressed. Later on we get a shot of the scoreboard again and we see that now Tris is at #20 and so far she isn’t doing that well. One dude said she started slow but she’s excelling faster than anybody, but so what. She’s Divergent, she should’ve been in first place by now lol. We later get a scene of her finding her mother, and they talk for a bit here. Her mother says she knows she’s Divergent, and not to tell anybody cause they’ll be after her. Later on James Franco brings her in for a test, and he hooks her up just like the Asian chick did earlier.
He says he wants to run some tests on her and see what kinda personality she is. So he hooks her up to all the matrix-type machines and they run the test just like last time. The test is supposed to be filled with her greatest fears, so my first thought is like spiders and stuff like that. But she gets into this alternate world and she’s in the middle of a bunch of grass, which looks like its right outside the facility where they were with the gates. But she’s out here surrounded by grass, and pretty soon the grass lights up into flames and these birds come out. They fly towards her and she ducks down. So my guess is so far, her fears are fire and birds. The birds don’t even look that dangerous, if it were me I’d probably just punch em as they were flyin at me lol. Eventually she dives down and swims under some water here.
After this, the scene ends and she’s yanked out of the portal. Franco questions her here about her abilities and says he’s impressed that she was able to figure it out so well, cause most people mess up. But he says “next time it’ll be easier” which doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, if you were surprised by her ability to figure it out, why not make it harder and really test her. I mean usually when you complete a challenge, the person makes it harder to really test you, but whatever. We see her in the little waiting room and most of the teens here are pretty impressed, including Tina. The dork from earlier (the same one who beat her up) even appears in this scene and says something’s up. Dude go sit down somewhere you’re startin to annoy me. But you know, none of em know she’s got that special ability.
We later see her back in the facility, where she’s trapped in this little glass chamber and she’s gotta get out. It kinda reminds me of a scene from one of the Saw movies, where the dude had the glass box on his head lol. But the glass fills up with water and she struggles to get out. It fills up to the point where she’s gotta take a breath and duck under. So she does, and she kinda just taps the edge of the glass and it busts open. I remember this scene from the trailer, and it’s pretty cool. And as intense as it may have been, it definitely looked easier than her first challenge, which again was kinda weird. Later on we see her meet up with her brother, the dork. I think he knows that she’s Divergent but knows that they can’t tell anybody, so they keep it a secret.
She later talks with the faction leader again, the chick from Titanic, Kate Winslet, and we get more boring faction talk. Eventually she meets up with Franco for a 3rd time, and he takes her back to the same room. But this time he tells her he wants to take her inside his mind, and into his own fears. So they get hooked it up and go into matrix-mode. We immediately see them standing on this thin wire, like 500 feet in the air. And like the scenes I mentioned before, this was probably the last scene that I really wanted to see, cause so far this is really the last big scene where you see the CGI buildings, and I gotta say, at this point I became pretty disappointed in this movie. I mean that’s really all I wanted to see, them doing all this risky stuff on these buildings, cause atleast that’s how the trailer made it look.
But so far I haven’t seen much, and the scenes we do see are either too dark or too short. But they make it across the rope and get down. We now see them back at his house, or wherever they’re at, up on some balcony. Cause like I said, the camera is so close you can’t tell where their at, if their on the ground or high up in the air, so I don’t know where the heck their at. But they talk for a bit, and she asks to see his back tattoo. He shows her, and reveals that he has all the different faction symbols tatted on his back, oh how romantic! And they kiss for a bit, so good for him, he scored with a chick who ain’t even that cute. Later on we see them back inside again, and they ask Tris to sit in this chair again, matrix style! They hook her up for like the 5th time and run the little test, but this time she’s in front of everybody.
The headmaster Kate Winslet is here and so are all the trainers. So they hook her up and send her into the matrix world again. She’s basically back in the same environment as before, with the grass and the birds, and the little glass room. She uses different techniques to escape them all but she passes em all. When she comes back, her last challenge is to shoot her parents. And I swear I was like “wtf” lol. Her dork brother (the same one from FIOS) was there too, and she should’ve shot him, dork. But I guess she knows it isn’t real, so she does, and she’s instantly brought back into reality. Later on, they find out she’s Divergent, and James Franco gets taken away. But she meets up with her mother again and they stick together for a bit.
At this point everybody knows she’s Divergent and they start attacking her and her mother. And it’s sorta cute seeing them work together and have shootouts. Eventually her mother gets shot and killed, and that’s kinda sad, but not really. It was more painful watching Tris cry cause she’s not a cute crier. Eventually she meets up with her dad, and she tells him they need to go back to the facility. So she, her dad and her dork brother (who she should’ve shot) all travel across the city towards the facility. So they do the same thing they did in the beginning, jumping out the train and jumping down the little rabbit hole. They go through the little tunnels here, and Tris gets the dork to show her where the facility is.
They later run into some guards and she gets her dad to fire on em. He fires a couple bullets and it looks like their winning and everything, but then he dies like 5 seconds later lol. I swear, no joke, its literally like 5 seconds. So now both her mother and father are dead and you see the pain on her face here, but I kinda don’t even care. I mean her mother was cool, but her father died in such a ridiculous manner that it wasn’t even sad. Eventually she makes it into the control room with the headmaster and James Franco. He’s hooked up to all these machines and I guess they were trying to control him to do dangerous stuff. So Tris (not knowing he’s basically mindless at this point) tries to un-cuff him and rescue him, but he comes to life and starts throwing her around in this scene.
He’s basically acting like he’s Terminator in this scene, just throwing her around not really giving a damn. And I mean it’s kind of a cool scene until you remember that you’re basically just watching a guy throw a woman around the room, which isn’t good. So this big fight breaks out in the little office area here, people get thrown around, punched, kicked, and thrown into objects. One dude gets clotheslined by James Franco and that was cool. But ultimately they catch the headmaster and convince her to take the spell off these people. They make her press a button and it releases this spell and everybody wakes up. At the end of the movie, we see the two of them get on a train, off to their next adventure I guess. But we end the movie with this stupid camera shot. The train heads out, and the camera pans up just above the city, like their trying to show us the horizon but it just looks so lame, like damn bro bring the camera down so we can see some damn land!
Overall this movie was pretty cool. I didn’t understand most of it but whatever, I was entertained. I think my biggest gripe with this movie is the camera work, but more specifically, the fact that you have these cool digitally generated buildings but the director didn’t even film them, and it just didn’t feel as immersive as I thought it would. And for the most part, the camera is always at ground level. Besides the scene where they walk across the wire in Franco’s fear dream, the camera never zooms across the city and you never get a sense of how big this world that they’ve created, really is. And to me it was a wasted opportunity and just wasted talent: you have artists who take the time to build this stuff, then you get a director who doesn’t even show it off properly.
But as I continued watching this movie, I learned something else. And I think this also applies to movies like Harry Potter and Hunger Games, which is really the same thing: this movie teaches us not to be controlled by others. I mean when it comes to the factions, you have the brave ones, the dorky ones, the brainiacs, the bullies, etc. You basically have all the different social groups of high school. And the thing about choosing who you are (in these factions) and facing your fears (in the matrix world) are all different challenges of life, which I guess most people learn in high school. So yea, to me that’s basically what it is, a big metaphorical high school movie that’s supposed to get us to open our minds.
Another thing I wanted to mention was the sequel to this movie, which is called Insurgent. At this point I still wasn’t a fan of these movies but I thought it looked cool. And after seeing this movie, I knew it was directed by someone different, just by looking at the teaser trailer. There’s a cool scene where her mother is in this little house and it floats away towards the sky, and Tris runs and jumps on the rope that hangs from it. And while I was watching this movie, I just kept thinking to myself “There’s no way the guy who did that, made this movie” cause that trailer captured more environment in that 1 minute teaser than this entire movie. So I checked imdb and turns out I was right: Divergent was directed by some dude named Neil and Insurgent was directed by some dude named Robert, but yea I pay attention to that stuff, and I can tell when one director does a better job than the other.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie at some point and being pretty into it. It wasn’t because of the action or the explosions or anything, but more-so the plot looked pretty interesting, the whole time travel thing. I’m not the biggest Tom Cruise fan but it seems as though these are the only types of movies he does nowadays, being so well known for his action roles. But with all do respect I would’ve chosen this movie whether he was in it or not.
At the start of the movie we get the usual credits, and the rating. I usually don’t pay attention to ratings but I did notice that they mentioned there’s some brief nudity in the movie. I usually watch these movies twice for the review but I’ll say this, I didn’t see any nudity, brief or not. But anyway, we get shots of this news coverage thing and there’s some panic attack going on. We later find out there’s an outbreak against these things called Mimics, which I’ll get to later. But we get the idea that alot of people were killed here. We later find out we’re somewhere in London, and we get a couple shots of the town here.
I’ve seen alot of movies, so I pickup on this pretty quick. But not even 10 seconds into this scene I knew I was gonna get annoyed with the camera work. They use what I call the “cropped camera” or the “Divergent camera” which makes it look as though the director doesn’t wanna show off the environment. Cause 90% of the time when we get overhead shots, the camera is always pointed towards the ground, and you never really get a sense of how big the town is cause we never see the tops of any of the buildings. Stuff like that irritates me, back the hell up dude. I call it the “Divergent camera” cause they did it alot in that movie too. Or you could call it the “Battleship camera” cause that movie does it alot as well.
So anyway, crappy camera-work to the side we meet this guy named Cage, played by Tom Cruise. And like I said I’m not the biggest Cruise fan but I’ll admit the guy looks pretty good for his age. I had no idea (until doing this review) that he was 52 years old lol. My guess was late 40’s but damn. But anyway, he goes into this one building and talks with the general here. The general wants to ship him out so he can fight in the war against the mimics but Tom doesn’t wanna go. Eventually the guy orders these guards to arrest him and he tries to escape, but gets tagged by one of the guys with a taser. Moments later he wakes up here at some facility with all these other soldiers, so its safe to say their forcing him to fight.
He gets up and meets the guys here, specifically this one guy named Master Farell. I recognized this guy instantly, but for all the wrong reasons: Bill Paxton. I don’t know about you but I hate this guy lol. He also plays the main scientist in Titanic and I love the movie but I always hated this guy. I hate the way he looks, I hate the way he talks, I hate his voice, everything lol. Now in the movie he looks way different than he does in most of his other roles: Now he’s got a mustache and he actually looks about 20 times older than normal, but who cares. At one point he says he’s from Kentucky. Probably from some town nobodies ever heard of, what a clown. So he takes Tom around the facility and we meet the other people here.
Some of em are pretty cool but some are the usual cardboard cut-out characters. There’s this one fat guy (who’s name I won’t mention cause I don’t really care) but at one point he gets into this suit butt naked, thinkin its funny. Dude there’s nothing funny about a naked fat guy, believe me. My favorite of the bunch is this one chick with the black hair cause she look pretty bad. But anyway, dude calls em the J-squad. I don’t know whether the whole name is revealed in the movie and I don’t know what the J stands for, but I don’t think it matters. So anyway, Tom is basically one of them now. He went from Captain to Soldier in a matter of seconds lol. We later see them getting into a bunch of these robotic suits and strapping themselves into the plane here.
The suits themselves are okay but not mind-blowing. Their so thick and bulky looking and you can still see their bodies when their in em. Which is kinda dumb if your going into war where people are gonna be shooting at you. It’d be cooler if they got into some Iron Man looking suits though. So anyway they strap themselves in and prepare to get dropped out the ships. The little door below their feet opens up, exposing the ground below but the stupid director barely shows us anything. He flies over it for half a second then puts it right back on Tom, what a moron. But eventually people get dropped down and we see them fighting down here. There’s the usual fire and explosions you’d see in these kinda movies and its pretty cool I guess.
We later get a shot of these aliens and their okay looking. It’s hard to describe them cause they don’t look like a certain bug or anything, they just look like a bunch of shiny black dust with eyes lol. Meanwhile we see Tom walking around here aimlessly. While people around him are getting killed and blown to bits he’s still trying to figure out how his weapons work. It’s pretty embarrassing for a Captain to not even know how to shoot, so yea he’s lookin pretty silly right now. He does manage to fire off a couple of the bullets here and hit a couple of the monsters, but only by luck lol. Eventually he kills one of em, and the explosion causes the monster to explode into a ball of acid, which hits his face and kinda melts on his skin, killing him instantly!
And I’ll admit I’ve seen alot of death scenes but this one was new. Immediately he wakes up again in the same spot, gets up and meets the same people. He talks to Farell again and I’ll admit these scenes were pretty funny. Before Farell has a chance to introduce himself and tell him his name, Tom tells him, and he looks at his nametag and goes “Uh yup, that is my name” lol. So there’s obviously some Final Destination premonition thing going on here, which I thought was cool. Out of all the horror series movies I’ve done, Final Destination was probably my favorite. I remember catching the 2nd one on cable and being so taken back by it, how badass the death scenes were and how simple the concept was.
Another movie that’s sorta like this was Source Code (2008) I couldn’t wait to see that movie when I heard about it, and its sorta the same thing, with the dude repeatedly waking up and saying what’s gonna happen next and all that. But I’ll admit I hated the movie. I think the big reason why I hated it was cause of Jake G (not gonna spell his last name lol) cause he always had that high school pretty-boy face that I just hate. No matter how old this guy gets he always looks like he’s 15 lol. And I hate his face, so I guess that was enough for me to hate the movie. One of my favorite actresses Vera Farmiga was in it though, and I loved all her scenes. So anyway, basically the same thing happens in this movie: he gets brought into the same room with the characters and they all say the same thing, etc.
In one of the scenes, Farell lifts up a bed blanket and finds out the soldiers are gambling, which is against rules. So in one of the scenes, Tom runs in and tells them all that he knows all about them, and says there’s a deck of cards under the sheet. So Farell lifts it up, and one dude goes “thanks alot asshole” lol. But yea he comes here, says the same thing, goes back into the battlefield, and gets killed over and over. That must suck lol. The gear that they got on looks pretty heavy though, and my guess is probably about 40-50 pounds. I remember watching some documentary on the September 11th attack and the soldiers talking about how heavy their suits were. Before I saw it, my original guess was like 10-15 but their obviously alot heavier than they look.
Now the suits that they wear are nothing like the suits they wear in this movie, but I’d say it’s a rough estimate, so atleast 30 pounds. So I’m assuming they had to go through alot of training for the movie, in order for them to not only wear the suits but be able to run in them. At one point they see the fat guy out here, the guy who had his pants down. But he gets blown up in one of the scenes here, and I couldn’t stop laughing. He dies in one scene but Tom saves him in a later scene, knowing exactly what’s gonna happen to him. I’m glad they took him out early though, cause he was startin to annoy me. But yea, every time Tom dies he comes back better and better, knowing exactly what to do and where to go without being killed.
At one point he meets this woman named Rita who’s played by Emily Blunt. I don’t even remember her name being said in the movie. I mean I pay attention to everything else, but names are something I never write down, I just call them dudes and chicks lol. Thankfully imdb helps me out, so I don’t really need to remember their names. But anyway, I recognized her from Adjustment Bureau (2011) which is one of my favorite movies. She’s so cute, and I guess the reason why they chose her for this role was cause it was set in London and they needed an English actor. So Tom sees her and tries to save her in a couple scenes, and he almost does. I don’t think he knew her before these scenes, so I’m assuming the reason he’s saving her is cause she’s pretty lol.
But I think the scene where he first saw her is before this. At one point he sees her training in this little room and she’s in this little crouched yoga position. It immediately reminded me of her in Adjustment Bureau doing those dancing moves. I mean I’ve only seen her in these 2 movies so far but its safe to assume she enjoys these physical roles. At one point he saves her from these monsters, and she walks over to him. He thinks she’s gonna thank him but she just takes his battery pack for her machine lol. But after about 5-6 deaths, he reaches her again and saves her. He tells her about the visions he’s having and she tells him to find her when he wakes up. I remember that scene from the trailer.
So in the coming scenes he tries to escape from Farell and his guards so he can find her, and again these scenes are pretty funny. At one point he sees these trucks driving by and comes up with a plan to roll under the truck and escape. So they go down for push-ups and he tries to roll, but he misses and gets run over. Farell sees him and goes “what the hell were you trying to do” lol. But eventually he makes the roll and finds her. They talk for a bit and she tells him a little about this thing. He says one of the aliens melted on his face and that’s how he got the premonition thing. So when it melted on his face it must’ve transferred it’s premonition powers to him. She later takes him to meet this guy named Griff, who tells him all about these Mimic aliens.
Come to think of it, there was a character named Griff in Men in Black 3 who also knew alot about aliens. And not only that, he could also see the future, just like the Mimics can. So anyway, its alot of confusing information here, but the guy calls it “mimic biology” and says they basically wanna take over the world. He also says they control time and they can predict everything you’re gonna do, making them pretty much invincible. I get the feeling there’s more to these Mimic’s and more to why they do what they do then what I’m describing. I also get the feeling there’s a deep layer that this movie is trying to get at, a metaphor for something else but so far I haven’t come up with anything. But eventually Emily tells him that the only way to kill them, is he has to die over and over and figure out how they work and move and how to get by em.
She says they have to find this thing called the Omega which is gonna kill em all. I looked up the word Omega and it basically means the last in the series, or the end. And in this case it’s the end of these Mimic’s. We later see them training together for the first time in the same room he found her in. He fights against these cool looking yellow robots, who are alot smaller than the Mimic’s but they still slap him around the room with ease lol. The yellow robots are pretty cool looking though, obviously done in CGI. So he trains here, fails, goes into battle, and fails, many times over. Eventually after all these deaths and failed attempts, he finally sees the image they want him to see. It’s some tower, which is where the Omega is at.
But before they make it there, he has to get them away from the battle and off the beach, which is pretty hard with all these Mimic’s following them and knowing their every move. So they die about 20 times before they make it off the beach and eventually they get into a car. Eventually they make it to a house, where they kinda relax for a bit. She’s pretty hasty in this scene, and you get the feeling he’s trying to keep her there and keep her calm. At one point she asks what’s going on, and how many times they’ve been here. And he tells her that she’s gonna die the second she exits the house, so its safe to say he’s seen this all before. And its also safe to say that he’s developing feelings for her. But she ignores him, and goes outside towards the helicopter anyway.
The house has been blown to bits but there’s a working helicopter outside lol. But you get the feeling here that she’s pretty brave and determined. It’s kinda silly though cause we see her early in the movie training in that one room for who knows how long, and you get the feeling she really wanted to protect herself against these things. Now he’s literally telling her she’s gonna die if she gets back into the helicopter but she does it anyway. Eventually one of the Mimic’s appears in this scene and they crash the helicopter and it falls and blows up. I’m not gonna dig too deep into the coming scenes cause alot of it is actually kinda boring, but I’ll try my best to summarize what happens.
Eventually Tom gets the visions that tell him where the Omega thing is, and he gets it from this dude. To me it looks like some camcorder thing. But he gets it and they follow it somewhere to some tomb. It’s super dark by this point so it’s hard to tell what’s going on, along with the bad camera-work. But eventually Tom and Emily make it to what looks like this giant blue ball in the water. I don’t know what the heck is going on, but Tom dives underwater and reaches it, and it sends out this huge blast, so I’m guessing it’s mission complete lol. At the end of the movie he’s back in the soldier uniform, back in the helicopter like nothing ever happened. This time he’s able to enter the building just like before, this time without being stopped by Farell. And the first place he goes is back to Emily (who doesn’t recognize him) but the movie ends with him just smiling at her.
Overall I loved the movie. I guess I have a thing for sci-fi premonition movies like this, where the one character knows what’s going on but the others don’t. We could definitely use another Final Destination movie at this point too. It kinda slacks and gets confusing towards the end but whatever. And I think the camera work could’ve been way better, cause the guy acted like he didn’t wanna capture the environment and kept pointing the camera at the wrong places at the wrong time. But this movie was cool, and very witty and sharp. It was one of the few movies that actually made me laugh out out, especially in the beginning with Sergeant Farell. I hate Bill Paxton but he was cool in this movie.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie at some point and being pretty into it. It wasn’t because of the action or the explosions or anything, but more-so the plot looked pretty interesting, the whole time travel thing. I’m not the biggest Tom Cruise fan but it seems as though these are the only types of movies he does nowadays, being so well known for his action roles. But with all do respect I would’ve chosen this movie whether he was in it or not.
At the start of the movie we get the usual credits, and the rating. I usually don’t pay attention to ratings but I did notice that they mentioned there’s some brief nudity in the movie. I usually watch these movies twice for the review but I’ll say this, I didn’t see any nudity, brief or not. But anyway, we get shots of this news coverage thing and there’s some panic attack going on. We later find out there’s an outbreak against these things called Mimics, which I’ll get to later. But we get the idea that alot of people were killed here. We later find out we’re somewhere in London, and we get a couple shots of the town here.
I’ve seen alot of movies, so I pickup on this pretty quick. But not even 10 seconds into this scene I knew I was gonna get annoyed with the camera work. They use what I call the “cropped camera” or the “Divergent camera” which makes it look as though the director doesn’t wanna show off the environment. Cause 90% of the time when we get overhead shots, the camera is always pointed towards the ground, and you never really get a sense of how big the town is cause we never see the tops of any of the buildings. Stuff like that irritates me, back the hell up dude. I call it the “Divergent camera” cause they did it alot in that movie too. Or you could call it the “Battleship camera” cause that movie does it alot as well.
So anyway, crappy camera-work to the side we meet this guy named Cage, played by Tom Cruise. And like I said I’m not the biggest Cruise fan but I’ll admit the guy looks pretty good for his age. I had no idea (until doing this review) that he was 52 years old lol. My guess was late 40’s but damn. But anyway, he goes into this one building and talks with the general here. The general wants to ship him out so he can fight in the war against the mimics but Tom doesn’t wanna go. Eventually the guy orders these guards to arrest him and he tries to escape, but gets tagged by one of the guys with a taser. Moments later he wakes up here at some facility with all these other soldiers, so its safe to say their forcing him to fight.
He gets up and meets the guys here, specifically this one guy named Master Farell. I recognized this guy instantly, but for all the wrong reasons: Bill Paxton. I don’t know about you but I hate this guy lol. He also plays the main scientist in Titanic and I love the movie but I always hated this guy. I hate the way he looks, I hate the way he talks, I hate his voice, everything lol. Now in the movie he looks way different than he does in most of his other roles: Now he’s got a mustache and he actually looks about 20 times older than normal, but who cares. At one point he says he’s from Kentucky. Probably from some town nobodies ever heard of, what a clown. So he takes Tom around the facility and we meet the other people here.
Some of em are pretty cool but some are the usual cardboard cut-out characters. There’s this one fat guy (who’s name I won’t mention cause I don’t really care) but at one point he gets into this suit butt naked, thinkin its funny. Dude there’s nothing funny about a naked fat guy, believe me. My favorite of the bunch is this one chick with the black hair cause she look pretty bad. But anyway, dude calls em the J-squad. I don’t know whether the whole name is revealed in the movie and I don’t know what the J stands for, but I don’t think it matters. So anyway, Tom is basically one of them now. He went from Captain to Soldier in a matter of seconds lol. We later see them getting into a bunch of these robotic suits and strapping themselves into the plane here.
The suits themselves are okay but not mind-blowing. Their so thick and bulky looking and you can still see their bodies when their in em. Which is kinda dumb if your going into war where people are gonna be shooting at you. It’d be cooler if they got into some Iron Man looking suits though. So anyway they strap themselves in and prepare to get dropped out the ships. The little door below their feet opens up, exposing the ground below but the stupid director barely shows us anything. He flies over it for half a second then puts it right back on Tom, what a moron. But eventually people get dropped down and we see them fighting down here. There’s the usual fire and explosions you’d see in these kinda movies and its pretty cool I guess.
We later get a shot of these aliens and their okay looking. It’s hard to describe them cause they don’t look like a certain bug or anything, they just look like a bunch of shiny black dust with eyes lol. Meanwhile we see Tom walking around here aimlessly. While people around him are getting killed and blown to bits he’s still trying to figure out how his weapons work. It’s pretty embarrassing for a Captain to not even know how to shoot, so yea he’s lookin pretty silly right now. He does manage to fire off a couple of the bullets here and hit a couple of the monsters, but only by luck lol. Eventually he kills one of em, and the explosion causes the monster to explode into a ball of acid, which hits his face and kinda melts on his skin, killing him instantly!
And I’ll admit I’ve seen alot of death scenes but this one was new. Immediately he wakes up again in the same spot, gets up and meets the same people. He talks to Farell again and I’ll admit these scenes were pretty funny. Before Farell has a chance to introduce himself and tell him his name, Tom tells him, and he looks at his nametag and goes “Uh yup, that is my name” lol. So there’s obviously some Final Destination premonition thing going on here, which I thought was cool. Out of all the horror series movies I’ve done, Final Destination was probably my favorite. I remember catching the 2nd one on cable and being so taken back by it, how badass the death scenes were and how simple the concept was.
Another movie that’s sorta like this was Source Code (2008) I couldn’t wait to see that movie when I heard about it, and its sorta the same thing, with the dude repeatedly waking up and saying what’s gonna happen next and all that. But I’ll admit I hated the movie. I think the big reason why I hated it was cause of Jake G (not gonna spell his last name lol) cause he always had that high school pretty-boy face that I just hate. No matter how old this guy gets he always looks like he’s 15 lol. And I hate his face, so I guess that was enough for me to hate the movie. One of my favorite actresses Vera Farmiga was in it though, and I loved all her scenes. So anyway, basically the same thing happens in this movie: he gets brought into the same room with the characters and they all say the same thing, etc.
In one of the scenes, Farell lifts up a bed blanket and finds out the soldiers are gambling, which is against rules. So in one of the scenes, Tom runs in and tells them all that he knows all about them, and says there’s a deck of cards under the sheet. So Farell lifts it up, and one dude goes “thanks alot asshole” lol. But yea he comes here, says the same thing, goes back into the battlefield, and gets killed over and over. That must suck lol. The gear that they got on looks pretty heavy though, and my guess is probably about 40-50 pounds. I remember watching some documentary on the September 11th attack and the soldiers talking about how heavy their suits were. Before I saw it, my original guess was like 10-15 but their obviously alot heavier than they look.
Now the suits that they wear are nothing like the suits they wear in this movie, but I’d say it’s a rough estimate, so atleast 30 pounds. So I’m assuming they had to go through alot of training for the movie, in order for them to not only wear the suits but be able to run in them. At one point they see the fat guy out here, the guy who had his pants down. But he gets blown up in one of the scenes here, and I couldn’t stop laughing. He dies in one scene but Tom saves him in a later scene, knowing exactly what’s gonna happen to him. I’m glad they took him out early though, cause he was startin to annoy me. But yea, every time Tom dies he comes back better and better, knowing exactly what to do and where to go without being killed.
At one point he meets this woman named Rita who’s played by Emily Blunt. I don’t even remember her name being said in the movie. I mean I pay attention to everything else, but names are something I never write down, I just call them dudes and chicks lol. Thankfully imdb helps me out, so I don’t really need to remember their names. But anyway, I recognized her from Adjustment Bureau (2011) which is one of my favorite movies. She’s so cute, and I guess the reason why they chose her for this role was cause it was set in London and they needed an English actor. So Tom sees her and tries to save her in a couple scenes, and he almost does. I don’t think he knew her before these scenes, so I’m assuming the reason he’s saving her is cause she’s pretty lol.
But I think the scene where he first saw her is before this. At one point he sees her training in this little room and she’s in this little crouched yoga position. It immediately reminded me of her in Adjustment Bureau doing those dancing moves. I mean I’ve only seen her in these 2 movies so far but its safe to assume she enjoys these physical roles. At one point he saves her from these monsters, and she walks over to him. He thinks she’s gonna thank him but she just takes his battery pack for her machine lol. But after about 5-6 deaths, he reaches her again and saves her. He tells her about the visions he’s having and she tells him to find her when he wakes up. I remember that scene from the trailer.
So in the coming scenes he tries to escape from Farell and his guards so he can find her, and again these scenes are pretty funny. At one point he sees these trucks driving by and comes up with a plan to roll under the truck and escape. So they go down for push-ups and he tries to roll, but he misses and gets run over. Farell sees him and goes “what the hell were you trying to do” lol. But eventually he makes the roll and finds her. They talk for a bit and she tells him a little about this thing. He says one of the aliens melted on his face and that’s how he got the premonition thing. So when it melted on his face it must’ve transferred it’s premonition powers to him. She later takes him to meet this guy named Griff, who tells him all about these Mimic aliens.
Come to think of it, there was a character named Griff in Men in Black 3 who also knew alot about aliens. And not only that, he could also see the future, just like the Mimics can. So anyway, its alot of confusing information here, but the guy calls it “mimic biology” and says they basically wanna take over the world. He also says they control time and they can predict everything you’re gonna do, making them pretty much invincible. I get the feeling there’s more to these Mimic’s and more to why they do what they do then what I’m describing. I also get the feeling there’s a deep layer that this movie is trying to get at, a metaphor for something else but so far I haven’t come up with anything. But eventually Emily tells him that the only way to kill them, is he has to die over and over and figure out how they work and move and how to get by em.
She says they have to find this thing called the Omega which is gonna kill em all. I looked up the word Omega and it basically means the last in the series, or the end. And in this case it’s the end of these Mimic’s. We later see them training together for the first time in the same room he found her in. He fights against these cool looking yellow robots, who are alot smaller than the Mimic’s but they still slap him around the room with ease lol. The yellow robots are pretty cool looking though, obviously done in CGI. So he trains here, fails, goes into battle, and fails, many times over. Eventually after all these deaths and failed attempts, he finally sees the image they want him to see. It’s some tower, which is where the Omega is at.
But before they make it there, he has to get them away from the battle and off the beach, which is pretty hard with all these Mimic’s following them and knowing their every move. So they die about 20 times before they make it off the beach and eventually they get into a car. Eventually they make it to a house, where they kinda relax for a bit. She’s pretty hasty in this scene, and you get the feeling he’s trying to keep her there and keep her calm. At one point she asks what’s going on, and how many times they’ve been here. And he tells her that she’s gonna die the second she exits the house, so its safe to say he’s seen this all before. And its also safe to say that he’s developing feelings for her. But she ignores him, and goes outside towards the helicopter anyway.
The house has been blown to bits but there’s a working helicopter outside lol. But you get the feeling here that she’s pretty brave and determined. It’s kinda silly though cause we see her early in the movie training in that one room for who knows how long, and you get the feeling she really wanted to protect herself against these things. Now he’s literally telling her she’s gonna die if she gets back into the helicopter but she does it anyway. Eventually one of the Mimic’s appears in this scene and they crash the helicopter and it falls and blows up. I’m not gonna dig too deep into the coming scenes cause alot of it is actually kinda boring, but I’ll try my best to summarize what happens.
Eventually Tom gets the visions that tell him where the Omega thing is, and he gets it from this dude. To me it looks like some camcorder thing. But he gets it and they follow it somewhere to some tomb. It’s super dark by this point so it’s hard to tell what’s going on, along with the bad camera-work. But eventually Tom and Emily make it to what looks like this giant blue ball in the water. I don’t know what the heck is going on, but Tom dives underwater and reaches it, and it sends out this huge blast, so I’m guessing it’s mission complete lol. At the end of the movie he’s back in the soldier uniform, back in the helicopter like nothing ever happened. This time he’s able to enter the building just like before, this time without being stopped by Farell. And the first place he goes is back to Emily (who doesn’t recognize him) but the movie ends with him just smiling at her.
Overall I loved the movie. I guess I have a thing for sci-fi premonition movies like this, where the one character knows what’s going on but the others don’t. We could definitely use another Final Destination movie at this point too. It kinda slacks and gets confusing towards the end but whatever. And I think the camera work could’ve been way better, cause the guy acted like he didn’t wanna capture the environment and kept pointing the camera at the wrong places at the wrong time. But this movie was cool, and very witty and sharp. It was one of the few movies that actually made me laugh out out, especially in the beginning with Sergeant Farell. I hate Bill Paxton but he was cool in this movie.
Godzilla (2014)
If you know me, you know I’m a big Godzilla fan, so there was no way in hell I wasn’t gonna get my hands on this one. I’ve been a Godzilla fan ever since I was kid, and I’ve probably seen about 80% of em. My dad and I used to watch these movies when I was younger, before he and my mother broke up (he and I are still cool, btw) but I’ve grown up with the old ones ever since I was a kid. Now as a kid, seeing Godzilla was pretty cool. I mean he was monster, and big monsters like him are always gonna have that fanbase. But as a kid that’s all I saw him as, a monster. But not until I was older (and until I reviewed the movies back in 2011) did I really understand who Godzilla was, as a pop-culture icon, and what he really means to the world.
I’ll get to all this later, but I’ve always had respect for him as a character. He was first conceived in 1954 and ever since then has made 28 Japanese movies, 2 American movies and inspired so many other monster movies like Cloverfield and Pacific Rim. I love and respect him not only as a monster but as a movie icon and a legend, but also a reflection of our world, which I’ll also get more into in this review. Even though we haven’t seen much of him up until this point, the trailers were pretty cool and I was anxious to see him. I also stopped reading reviews cause I was afraid that it’d fail. This is one of those movies that needs the kinda long reviews that I usually do, cause there’s alot to talk about and get into, so let’s get to it.
At the start of the movie we get the usual credits, but we also get some images in the background. We get images of stuff blowing up, images of war, people crying, etc. Alot of this is I guess reference to what went on back to the 50’s when the original movie came out, which I also saw as a kid. It’s alot of complicated stuff so I’m gonna try not to dig too deep into this stuff and turn it into this big science review, cause I know that’d be boring to read. But eventually after all these images are done, we get the title. Now this movie came out in theaters on May 16, 2014 so if your wondering if I saw this movie in theaters, well. I don’t go to the theaters that often, but when it came to Godzilla, he was obviously an exception, so you bet your ass I saw it in theaters lol.
The last time I went to the theater (before this movie of course) I saw a movie with my cousins called Dark Skies, which came out the year before in 2013. It was another one of those stupid paranormal movies, and I knew at this point the horror genre was pretty much dead cause movies like this would come out like 5 times a year. But I saw it anyway, cause it was directed by Scott Stewart, the guy who also made Legion, one of my favorite horror movies and the movie that brought me back into the horror genre after so long. And sure it was a paranormal movie, but I felt that since he made Legion, that he’d put some special touch on the movie. Unfortunately I was wrong, and it was just like any other crap ghost movie that comes out these days, and it was a waste of my money and time cause we drove all the way to Virginia to see it, where my cousins live.
So anyway, ever since then I told myself that if I ever went back to the theaters it’d have to be for a good reason, and thankfully this movie was good enough to go again. This time I went by myself. I went like 2-3 weeks after it came out, so probably late May early April. I sat right in the middle of the theater and couldn’t wait to see this movie, I mean I think Godzilla was made for the theater. His image, his size and his presence just belongs in the theater and on a big screen. So anyway, being in the theater was a cool moment. And I remember seeing the first 5 minutes of the movie, and the title pop up on the big screen, and thinking to myself “I’m about to have my mind blown” lol. So anyway the title appears in front of this white smoke, and it’s pretty cool.
So anyway, we later see these scientists flying over this jungle. We’re now set in 1999, a year after the last Godzilla movie. Yea, that movie. To me that wasn’t even a Godzilla movie, it was a lame sequel to Jurassic Park lol. The only cool thing about that movie was they kept Godzilla’s roar, which I think should never change. So anyway the scientists all walk around here and investigate this little cave. They later say that something broke out of the cave, which we later see outside. We see this big mud track where it looks like something crawled out, back into the ocean. We later see a son and his father. The son’s name is really Ford but I’m gonna call him Brody. And the father’s name is Joe but I’m just gonna call him the father.
He’s like 10 years old but his father looks like he’s 50 lol. So he hears him in his room talkin on the phone about stuff. We later see them outside and his son runs off to school. He catches the bus which stops right outside his house, lucky kid. My mother would actually drive me to the bus stop, even when I was in high school, she was that protective. And she’d wait there like 20 minutes till the bus came. So anyway, its his dads birthday, and in the car you hear his wife tell him she’s gonna get him a cake, how cute. Later on we see them at their job at the lab. Their radiation scientists and study graphs and stuff like that. So they talk about radiation and graphs and stuff. There’s one guy in this scene that I wanna mention though. He’s only in this scene for a couple seconds, but I recognize him from Freddy vs Jason.
He’s in the one scene where the cop bugs out and he goes “If this gets out I’m gonna lock you up!” We later see the wife getting the gear on with the head masks. I think they’re gonna go and check the radiation levels but I don’t know exactly what they do. But anyway, something messes up and we see all this smoke moving through the hallways. The smoke is obviously digital but I’m not gonna lie, it looks pretty cool. I’m not a digital expert, but I think smoke would be hard to do on a computer. Cause I think when they use CGI they scan stuff. Like if they’re gonna use a CGI car, they scan the car into the computer. But you can’t really scan smoke so it’d probably be harder to do. So anyway, we see all the scientists including the wife, running away from all the CGI smoke. At one point, we see the father down here by the door button, trying to wait for his wife to run through the gates before she’s exposed.
It’s a pretty intense scene, and we see the pain in his eyes. Eventually the smoke gets too close, and he’s forced to close the doors, trapping his wife inside. We see them stare at each other through the little glass in the door here, and it’s pretty sad. I remember this scene in the trailer, and I knew that this was gonna be a good movie. I don’t know what’s in the smoke but they said it’d be harmful if it reached the city, so it was good that none of it got out. But he lost his wife, and what a crappy way to lose her. And not only lose her, but watch her die, happy birthday dad huh lol. Outside we see some explosions here, and some buildings fall and stuff. We see kids in school panicking and running outside. We’re obviously in Japan here, so most of the kids are Asian but Brody is here, probably one of the few American kids.
We’re now 15 years later and we see Brody again. I’m guessing he’s about 25-28 now cause he looked about 10 earlier. I’m actually pretty bad at being able to tell how old people are, forgive me. I don’t even know how old my cousins are, and I don’t even know their birthdays. So let’s just say he’s 25. We later find out his son and girlfriend threw him a welcome back party back home, celebrating with a cake. I’m not gonna lie, this scene is pretty cute. His girlfriend (Elle) is played by this woman named Elizabeth Olsen and she’s so cute. The only other movie I’ve seen her in was Silent House, which was okay but not that memorable. But he hasn’t seen them in almost a year so they hug and kiss and stuff. He later gets a call in this scene, and we find out his dad needs him back at the facility.
So he packs his bags and gets ready to head out again. And it’s sad I mean, he just got back after 11 months and can’t even spend a day with them, and now he has to go back. But she hugs him and goes “it’s not like it’s the end of the world” lol. Oh what a cheap pun lol. We later see him with his dad. I don’t know if he knew he was alive though. Cause when he was a kid and all those buildings were falling down earlier, we got a shot of his eyes and he looked pretty sad. So I’m thinking he thought his dad died down there, but I don’t really know. So anyway they talk here in his room. He’s in this little bunker and he’s got all this paper and stuff taped on the wall, stuff about Godzilla. In one scene you can see one news headline says “1954 cover-up”
So they took inspiration from that and put their own fictional spin on it. So the two of them talk here for a bit, and his dad says he’s been doing alot of research on Godzilla, and there’s more talk about the radiation and stuff. He later says he was recently arrested for trespassing at the facility cause he was trying to find more info on what was going on. His wife died but their not giving him any info on it, trying to keep it secret like the government always does. It’s weird though cause he used to work there, but they fired him now I guess cause he knew too much and / or was a liability. He later talks about his wife and says “I don’t even have a picture of her” and at first I was like “Wait you don’t have a picture of your own wife” but then I remembered, he was referring to their house that got destroyed.
When the blast occurred, you just see buildings falling down, you don’t see any houses. But it’s safe to say that anything within a 20 mile radius was affected by it. But even after getting arrested, he still wants to go back to the facility to get more info. Brody doesn’t want this but eventually agrees, and we later see them at the facility. I love these shots of the CGI buildings with the birds flying by, their so apocalyptic. So they arrive here and go into his house, where he collects the data discs. Brody also picks up an action figure here, which I’m guessing was his when he was younger. At first I thought it was his sons, but I keep getting the 2 houses confused, and it wasn’t their house that got destroyed it was his dads.
Eventually the Asian police catch them here and arrest them. But instead of taking them to jail or back home, they actually take them to the facility. It’s kinda like if you’re trespassing on someone’s yard, the police don’t take you to jail they just take you in the person’s house lol. But they take them in and we see all these soldiers here, surrounding this big oyster looking object. I remember seeing this in theaters and thinking to myself “It’s big, but its not Godzilla so I don’t care” lol. So they take the father into a room and question him about why he came back, and he goes into this little rant. He talks about how his wife died and how their not telling him what’s going on, pretty much the same thing the government does when something like this occurs.
Eventually the power goes out, and this giant oyster thingy starts to shake. It breaks its little shell, and this giant beetle-looking monster pops out! It’s pretty unoriginal for a monster though, cause it looks just like the monster from Cloverfield lol. And I loved that movie, so I’m just gonna call this the Cloverfield monster. They call it the MUTO but I’m calling it the Cloverfield monster, deal with it. This name was actually conceived before the movie even came out, cause I remember reading about it on some site. It obviously stood for something, and my first guess was Monster Under The Ocean, but it actually stands for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism so whatever. But it’s basically this giant bug with long legs and it climbs around the city, knocking stuff over.
At one point we see Brody’s father on the balcony here and the monster knocks it over, taking him down with it. We later see the 2 of them in a helicopter, probably going to a nearby hospital. But he’s laying on a bed here and looks pretty beat up. Brody is upset, but his dad just tells him to go be with his family. You definitely get the feeling that his dead was very dedicated in finding out more about this thing. Half of it might be cause he’s just naturally a determined person, and the other half might be because of his wife. But I feel for Brody I mean, not only is his mom dead but now his dad. Another thing I wanted to mention was I think alot of his dad’s dedication goes back to the first movie with Serizawa (who’s son is also in the helicopter with them)
He’s the scientist who spent the whole movie coming up with ways to kill Godzilla, testing out all these methods. And at the end of the movie, he planted the bomb at the bottom of the sea to kill him. He was also so dedicated, that he died right along with Godzilla at the end. And I said this in my review, my theory on that is if he survived, alot of people were probably gonna try and buy the bomb off him. So maybe he didn’t want the fame, I don’t know. So they bring Brody in this room with all these scientists, and they talk and pass along all these theories on Godzilla. They also talk about how they tried to kill him in 1954 by using a submarine and bombs and stuff, which again is a re-imagining of his whole story. I mean I’ll admit it sounds pretty real. And I’ve seen alot of interviews with Gareth the director.
And I remember him talking about how he wanted to treat the movie as if it were actually happening, and that’s cool. Eventually the Asian scientist (Serizawa) goes “We call him… Godzilla” and its so cool. I mean at this point we haven’t seen much of him yet, but so far I’m pretty pumped, and I was pretty pumped in the theater then I first saw this. So they question Brody and try to get as much info about the creature as they can. At one point he asks them why they didn’t kill it when they found him but they say because their afraid its body will send out radiation. I read up a little on radiation and they its when a bunch of energy gets released. They say Godzilla and other dinosaurs like him all existed back when the Earth was young and how sure their animals, but their (atleast from what I heard) made out of energy, heat, radiation and all that stuff.
So whenever we see Godzilla in alot of these early scenes, we just see his spikes but we also just see these 2 boats next to him, making sure he doesn’t go crazy lol. We later see Brody in the same Helicopter, and he calls his wife. He tells her he can’t make it home but now he’s going to Hawaii to help them with Godzilla. He’s still in his street clothes at this point and like I said it still kinda sucks how he just got yanked from his family. I sorta know where Japan and Hawaii are, but I just checked a world map to make sure, and their pretty far away from each other. So this isn’t an overnight trip we’re talkin about. So anyway, he calls her phone and she can’t hear him cause she’s in the bathroom, but her phone is pretty cool which is why I brought this up. She’s got one of those curved phones, which I didn’t even know existed yet.
I’ve seen them before in those futuristic videos on youtube, where they show off all the technology we’re gonna have by 2020. I know Samsung has one, and there’s actually 2 kinds: There’s the curved phone which I think is supposed to make the screen look better or something, and then there’s the bendable phone. And their pretty I’m not gonna lie, I just didn’t know they existed yet, I thought they were just concepts. For me personally I just want a phone / ipod that has a scratch-less screen. Like you can rub it against a brick wall but no matter what, you won’t damage the screen. The ipod I have now used to have a screen protector but I took it off cause it was annoying. My nit-picky mother is always telling me to put one on though, but I ignore her lol.
But I’ve had an ipod without a screen protector since like 2014 and it doesn’t have 1 scratch on it, so I’m not worried. I even lay it on the counter when I eat, which annoys my mother but still, not 1 scratch, I love my ipod! So anyway, we later see Brody get on a train, which I’m guessing is supposed to take him to the airport to Hawaii. There’s this Asian kid who pops up and I think his parents were about to hop on with him. But they were too late, so the train pulls off without him and he starts cryin. But Brody takes him and keeps him company, so it’s a pretty cool scene. He even gives him the action figure to kinda calm him down. And like I mentioned earlier, this scene would’ve been cuter if it was his son’s action figure. Like if his girlfriend and son went missing, and he went by their house, and all he had left to remember him was his sons little toy.
That would’ve made this scene a little cuter but whatever. Later on we see soldiers out here in the jungle, and they find one of the Cloverfield bugs out here. He’s got a missile in his mouth, which I’ll get to later but I think it’s where they get their energy. So they start shooting at the creature and everything, but he doesn’t look too threatened by these guys, and it doesn’t look as though it damages him at all. At one point it slams down its metal hand, which sends out a fierce gust of wind, which not only knocks the helicopters back a little, but also knocks out alot of the power in the city! I’ve seen this movie about 3 times now, but in doing this review, I realized something. Now I’m definitely gonna get more into this later about Godzilla and what he means, but let’s talk about this scene for a bit.
Not only does Godzilla reflect us, and our society and how we treat the planet, but so do his enemies. I also realized this back when I did my review of Godzilla 1984, which was really a remake / sequel to the first movie in 1954. My theory was they spent the entire movie shooting bullets at him, which really got them nowhere. But until they were able to sit down and really think it through, did they realise that to defeat someone like him, you have to be smart. And really that’s just a reflection of society I guess, and about how we too have to be smart when it comes to solving big problems. If you have a problem, be smart about it and think it through. When they fire bullets at these creature, sure their smart in that they wanna protect the city, but in a way their also trying to sweep the problem under the rug.
Think of it like this, and don’t think of Godzilla or these Cloverfield bugs as monsters, but any regular problem in the real world, lets say taking out the trash. You can’t be lazy about that, cause the trash will just run over. If you ignore it and try to take the easy way out, its gonna backfire. And to me when I see this scene, basically the same thing happens. They didn’t respect the environment, and now their shooting at these creatures, trying to quickly destroy them and swipe the problem under the rug, but you can’t do that, which is why they get a blast like that. But let me make this clear before I go on, in no way am I an environmentalist or anything like that, and this isn’t me shoving theories at you trying to get you to recycle more or anything lol.
This is just me putting theories out, and trying to really get the most out of this movie by theorizing about its meanings. I also wanna talk about why the electricity goes out, and I think this also goes along with society. I mean I don’t know much about society, so again don’t take this as me trying to preach or anything lol. I don’t pay attention to the news, I don’t donate money, I don’t listen to Obama, I don’t do none of that stuff. But when the electricity goes out, I think that’s telling us again, if we don’t take care of our environment, stuff like this can happen. And again, trying to sweep problems like this under the rug just isn’t gonna work. So the electricity goes out, and so does the power to the trains, which Brody and the Asian kid are in.
Pretty soon we get a scene of people checking out some spikes in the water, and their getting pretty close to land. The CGI water floods the city, and its pretty cool looking how it rolls into the street and over the cars. You see a dog bark at the water but he just runs off scared lol. Most people run and hide into buildings, reappearing at the top to see what’s going on. But we all know what this is, sharks! No I’m joking, its the big man, the monster, the icon, Godzilla! I remember sitting in the theater during this scene and getting goosebumps on my neck, cause like I said, Godzilla was made for the theater. So they shoot at him here, but none of these bullets do anything to him, and he kinda disappears behind some buildings. We only see the end of his tail here and it’s cool and everything, but I would’ve liked to see his face.
Later on we’re back in the train with Brody, and at this point the lights come back on. I’m gonna mention this later but this also goes along with society. The electricity going out was supposed to reflect how we treat the planet: if we mess it up by polluting and doing stuff that hurts the planet, it will shut down, but eventually it’ll come back on and life will go on. To me that’s basically what this scene means. No matter how much we mess up, eventually stuff will work again, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any damage done. So anyway, the lights are back on but one of the Cloverfield creatures reach the train and breaks the rails! So the train tilts a little and Brody and the Asian kid slip a little, but he catches him. It sucks though cause the train was supposed to be Godzilla’s scene. In 1954 he puts a train in his mouth, and in 1984 he picked one up and dropped it, so he’s always had the train scenes.
But in this movie, since Godzilla barely appears, they give the train scene to the bugs, what the hell lol. We later see the bug at the airport, and he destroys a plane here. Godzilla appears in this scene by putting his foot down, but I hate his feet lol. His feet look nothing like his feet in the other movies, and they literally look like square boxes lol. But he puts his foot down and the camera zooms up, and we finally see his face. And I gotta say, having seen as many Godzilla movies as I have, I hate his face. His abdomen and his legs are so much bigger than his upper body and he just looks so awkward. Add to that the fact that we’re almost an hour into the movie and he really hasn’t appeared all that much. And yes I’m bringing up the fact that Godzilla hasn’t appeared that much yet in his own movie, but trust me I’m gonna get to that later, I mean this review isn’t even half-way done yet lol.
So anyway, we later get a scene back at the Brody house. We see their son here watching tv, and we see these action figures on the table here. And he’s watching the news here, where we can clearly see Godzilla and these monsters battling it out, but he goes “Look mommy, dinosaurs” lol. And Elle looks at the screen too but you know, she knows what’s really going on. There’s alot of little humorous scenes like this in the movie. There’s also a scene right after this, where we’re in this Las Vegas casino. Everybody is gambling, having a great time not paying attention to the news. On the news monitor here we see another Cloverfield monster has arrived, which they later confirm to be a female. Now, I literally just thought about this, in regards to this scene and the casino.
Maybe this is another society scene, here in the casino. To me, the monster crashing the casino through the ceiling while their gambling tells me they shouldn’t have been there. It’s telling us, that we’ve treated the world bad and now we’re here goofing off and earning money without any hard work, just throwing dice. But anyway, now we have a female monster. We later see both of the monsters meet up, the little one giving the big one a missile. I forget what’s inside these missiles but I know it goes along with my talk about radiation and society and all that. Maybe these missiles are bad, and these animals are supposed to represent us. Their stealing all these missiles, destroying the city (like us) but Godzilla stops em, so that’s one theory.
This is mentioned later but I’m gonna mention it now, since we now have 2 monsters. I think this one came from the same tunnel they were at in the beginning of the movie, the one with the egg sacks. Now, later in the movie we find out that the big one is pregnant, which kinda reminded me of the 1998 Godzilla. But obviously their reproducing, which I also think goes along with my talk about society. It’s telling us, that again these 2 giants are representing the problems we face in the world today, and what will happen if we don’t take care of it. And seeing them reproduce is telling us, that if we don’t fix it, its gonna grow and grow. The problem is growing but we’re still trying to sweep it under the rug, and so far it isn’t working. Later on we get a scene between the troops and Serizawa.
We’re now in this little control room, and the general here and his troops realise that Godzilla is following the Cloverfield monsters, so their plan is to lead them away from the city, before they try and destroy them. Serizawa says there’s nothing we can do and wants to let the monsters fight, but the general says that it’d be too dangerous for the city, which is understandable. Eventually Serizawa lets them do their plan, but they have a little talk here. He talks about his father, and shows him this watch he gave him, and says it’s from Hiroshima. He says the watch is from 1945 but he died in the first movie in 1954. So maybe he gave him the watch in 1945 but didn’t see him for 10 years, who knows. But this was a cool scene cause they made a little reference to the first movie. I remember seeing this in theaters and going “Wow…” cause at this point I knew that they did their homework and actually watched the old movies.
It kinda reminds me of the scene in Curse of Chucky with Brad Dourif. Cause when I first heard they were making a new Chucky movie, it didn’t hit me till I saw that scene. And in this movie, it didn’t really hit how serious they were taking it till they said his name. I guess I just have a thing for nostalgia. We later see Elle in the hospital again, which is like her 3rd scene in the movie. I would’ve liked to see more of her by this point cause she’s so cute lol. But one lady tells her Brody is on the phone, so she gets on the phone and they talk for a bit, and tell each other they miss each other, and its so cute. I also remember this scene from the trailer, and I remember she goes “Are you okay, your scaring me” and I couldn’t wait to hear her say it cause it was so cute, but she doesn’t say it. I was so mad cause they should’ve kept that in there, but it was cute, even though I hate seeing her cry.
We later get shots of the city, and we hear this news feed going on. And I’m paraphrasing, but the guy says “It’s dangerous out there, so its best if you stay off the road” but you immediately see the highway jam-packed with CGI cars lol. This is actually one of my favorite shots in the movie, the highway full of cars. Another one of my favorite shots is the one with the building with the hole in the middle that looks like a bomb hit it, its in like all the trailers. I honestly didn’t even know they’d get a big budget for this movie though. I know Gareth made another movie before this called Monsters (2010) which I also saw. It’s called Monsters and there is a monster in it, but to me it had nothing to do with monsters at all. It had more to do with us, which is sort of what Godzilla is, a re-imagining of our society and all that.
So maybe that’s why they chose Gareth for this movie, who knows. So anyway, it was critically a hit but Monsters was a low budget movie, so I didn’t think this movie was gonna get that big a budget cause they didn’t have faith in him (not yet anyway) Like he had 1 hit movie and now he’s making a Godzilla movie, lucky bastard lol. We later get a scene at night, with soldiers on the train tracks. They bring this bomb with them, saying even though all the power is out, its basically wireless and doesn’t need power or electricity to detonate. Eventually while their up here, a train comes speeding down the tracks towards them! Reminds me of the famous scene from Stand By Me (1986) but before they all get run over, one of the Cloverfield monsters just crashes through the tracks, stopping the train and knocking these guys to the floor!
This is the 2nd train to be knocked over by these creatures, what the hell lol. So far the score is 2-0 when it comes to train attacks, and Godzilla is losing. We later get a scene inside the control room again, and they realise that Godzilla isn’t following the monsters anymore, and he’s doing his own thing, I just love that lol. But what I don’t love is the fact that this is his movie and he hasn’t really appeared much in it, like seriously what the hell. We later see Elle at the hospital again, and she’s told the kids are being taken away to another part of the city to be safe. So she puts her son on a bus with a bunch of other kids and stays in the city, waiting for Brody to arrive. She’s so cute in this scene. Eventually we get this big scene on the bridge, and we see this big roadblock where none of the cars can move, oh how convenient.
The school bus with the kids is here as well, and they can’t move either. Eventually we see some more spikes, so it’s obvious that the big man wants to do something. He stands up, and they shoot at him. And it’s a cool shot but we really only see his hand in this shot. His hand kinda grabs the edge of the bridge support beams, but that’s it. He should’ve just yanked it and knocked the bridge down lol. We finally do get a full body shot of him in this scene, but the camera is like 500 feet away so you can’t really see much. And not only that, its raining and its foggy lol. I read in an interview about the movie and read that Gareth was trying to make the movie like Jaws, where you build it up and build it up, but only show a little bit, and that’s cool. But we’re already halfway through the movie and you really haven’t shown us anything dude.
So they continue shooting at him, and not even 5 seconds later, they all get this big gust of wind thrown at them! They said they weren’t gonna shoot at him cause something like this might happen, and it did. And it goes with what I said earlier, about how their trying to sweep the problem under the rug and you can’t do that here. Eventually we start seeing stuff fall from the sky, which we later find out are airplanes. I remember this scene from the trailer, and it’s another one of my favorite shots. I like this one shot on the boat, where the camera does this little turn and you see all these planes hit the water, its so badass. And moments later we see this giant bird falling from the sky, and landing in the water near them!
When this trailer came out, I remember reading up about this on some sites, and some people said it might be Rodan, one of Godzilla’s enemies in the old movies. But none of the monsters (besides Godzilla of course) are names we’ve heard of before. Which isn’t saying much cause these Cloverfield monsters are really just giant bugs, their not anything out of the norm or creative. It’s now night time again, and we see the soldiers gearing up for their next attack. I wasn’t counting, but we’re probably about 2-3 days into this movie by now. Last time it was night time, was the train scene, and the scene where Rodan shows up it was day time, so that was already 1 day. I can’t believe people went to sleep while these monsters were wreaking havoc cause that might’ve been scary lol.
I can just imagine them fighting the monster, then being like “Okay guys its 10pm my wife wants me home, so we’ll come back tomorrow and fight them again” lol. Another thing I wanted to mention was at the beginning of this scene, you can see a group of CGI pigeons fly by. Pigeons were a big theme in the 1984 movie, and we saw Godzilla follow them when they arrived in the powerplant scene. And they ultimately used the pidgins to lead Godzilla to the volcano where they end up killing him. That scene used to always make me sad, seeing him fall into the volcano. But anyway, I think the birds in these movies mean something. They were trying to show us that as powerful and dangerous as Godzilla may be he’s still part of the planet, and part of us.
So anyway, they all gear up and their next plan of attack is to dive out onto the city near them, plant a bomb and blow em up. They mentioned in an earlier scene how the blast that these monsters give knocks out all the power, so they’ve gotta use a plane and do this stuff on foot. So we get that famous scene of them on the airplane and jumping out. It’s a pretty cool scene, seeing them jump out, with the red smoke behind them. They land and setup to try and plant these bombs. So the monsters are back in the city and so far, nothing these guys have tried, has worked. So the general gives in and let’s Serizawa do his plan. He asks what they should do, and he goes “Let them fight” Well finally. I’ve been waiting for a fight of some sort ever since this movie began!
And at this point, having them fight is okay. Their fight will keep them distracted while Brody and his guys plant the bomb. So they fight, and they throw each other around the city. It’s a pretty decent scene but I wouldn’t call it amazing. Godzilla controls the fight for most of the beginning, but then the second flying monster appears and they both double team him. And I’ll admit it’s pretty sad. I used to hate seeing Godzilla get beat up on when I was younger, and I still kinda do. Even though he’s a CGI creature I still feel for him, especially when he gets ganged up on. He got ganged up on a little in Gigan (1972) by Gigan and Ghidorah. Eventually Brody and his men get into the lower part of the city, and they find all these eggs.
The eggs carry all the babies, and there’s literally 1000’s of them. But they set the bombs up down here and blow em all up. The monsters are still beating on Godzilla at this point, but once they blow up the eggs, it gets their attention. One of the birds (the bigger one) fly over and you can tell she’s pretty upset. And even though they were ganging up on Godzilla, I still sorta felt bad. But eventually Godzilla gets up and comes back over. You see his tail light up blue, and his spikes, and he uses his fire breath on the creature! At this point I honestly didn’t think they were gonna let him use it, cause we’re pretty much at the end of the movie at this point. But his fire breath isn’t even that impressive.
In the first movie it was very early on so they didn’t really have the technology (let alone the color) so they just used smoke. But ever since the 70’s 80’s and even the 90’s they’ve always used this blue blast beam (whatever you wanna call it) and I would’ve liked to see that. The one in this movie doesn’t even look like a beam, and when it hits the creature it doesn’t even create a blast of any sort. It just pushes the creature backwards, which is also lame. After defeating him, we see this giant building fall of top of Godzilla! There’s a scene just like this in Space Godzilla (1994) but it’s more sad cause they didn’t use any CGI. But it was more sad in the earlier movies, when I was a kid and even still today. When I was a kid it was sad cause I always wanted Godzilla to win, like most of us.
But as I got older it was still sad, cause I knew even though it was a movie, there was still a dude in a costume who got a building dropped on him. But that’s another thing I wanted to mention, the CGI. The Cloverfield animals in this movie look pretty good, and pretty photorealistic by CGI standards. And the buildings are okay, especially the ones in the beginning where they check out his fathers destroyed house. Putting the Godzilla look itself to the side and just focusing on the digital effects, Godzilla still doesn’t look that sharp in this movie. He just looked very low quality and sorta pixelated to me. I read somewhere that he was made up of around 500,000 pixels, which really isn’t all that much. There’s a video game out now called The Order 1886 and the characters in that game use 100,000 pixels, and that a game came out within the first couple years of the consoles lifecycle.
The company that made the digital effects for this movie probably didn’t have artists from Avatar, but they still should’ve made something photorealistic looking, cause I know they got more than 8GB’s of RAM in those big buildings they have full of computers where they render this stuff. So anyway, the building falls on Godzilla here and it’s pretty sad. You see him drop down here at ground level where Brody is, and the 2 of them kinda look at each other here for a second. Now obviously this scene here is supposed to signify something, but this scene could mean anything to anybody. He could be saying “I was trying to protect you, and look what you’ve done” or “look what you’ve done to our planet” or something like that. We destroy the planet, but then we destroyed the planet even more firing missiles and rockets at these monsters.
It’s like we destroy the planet even more, the more we try to ignore the problems that are right in front of us, and this is what Godzilla is showing us. Now I’m not saying this because Godzilla is a legend, but he does show us this in some of his other movies, especially 1984 which I mentioned earlier. But I don’t think you’d be able to do this with any other monster movie, such as Cloverfield or Pacific Rim. And I love Cloverfield, and Pacific Rim was okay. But to me those are just monster movies, without any big theme or message attached to them. But Godzilla is different, and he’s not just a monster. Later on we get more shots of these soldiers shooting at another monster. The bullets don’t do anything and it just smacks em all out the way.
In their head they’re like “Ugh these soldiers are so annoying, scram!” lol. And I remember this one interview, where one of the producers were talkin about the movie, and he used a pretty interesting quote. And I’m paraphrasing but he said something like “We are just flies on the back of the dogs neck. We’re not really any threat to these creatures, if anything we’re just bothering them” and it was a very big eye-opener for me. So after smacking these soldiers out the way, the monster eventually spots Brody. He’s on the ground here and points his gun at him, thinking that’s actually gonna do anything. But all of a sudden Godzilla grabs the monster from behind, and uses his lame fire breath and shoots it into its mouth! It’s an okay scene but not that impressive.
He ends up killing the creature here, but when he does, he ends up falling to the ground. But when he does, all the electricity turns back on. This goes along with what I said earlier: we can mess the planet up, but eventually we’ll get everything back and running again. We later see Brody and his son here in what looks like a baseball field. You see everybody gathering with their families and then Elle comes out. It’s such a cute scene, seeing them hug and kiss and she’s so cute. And since we’re in a baseball field, its safe to say we hit a home run! At the end of the movie we get all these shots of Godzilla on tv. We’re surrounded by soldiers and now its morning, thankfully. I would’ve been pretty angry if they ended this movie at night. It’s a pretty cool image of him laying here lifeless, but I think we all know he’s not dead, especially after he just killed the enemy.
But eventually he gets up, and we see people here clapping. He’s obviously the winner here, and the king of all monsters, as he should be. I was actually wondering how this movie was gonna end, and whether or not he was gonna die, and if he did, how he was gonna die. They killed him in 1954 and 1984 but in this movie they let him live (so they can make a sequel of course) He gives 1 final roar, and it sucks! I hate his roar in this movie, and it sounds nothing like the old movies. I read somewhere they use like a violin and some other instrument to make the sound but, it just sounds like mush in this movie. But to me, his muddled roar was like his way of telling us “Listen up, I came, I saw, I conquered, my mission is complete, now it’s your job to keep this planet safe” And it goes along with what the Asian dude said earlier, about how Godzilla was here to restore balance to the world.
We mess it up, and Godzilla comes along and restores balance. Now in the other movies where he’s fighting other monsters, those are kinda like bonus movies. But the main ones I’m referring to were the big ones: 1954, 1984 and 2000. The one that came out in 1954 was mostly their interpretation of war. But they didn’t wanna make a movie about war, so they made a monster movie. But it’s really the same thing, our city getting destroyed over nothing. The last shot we get is of him swimming off into the water, back below the ocean. I mean they barely showed him in his own movie, the least they could do was give him the last frame of the movie, he deserved it.
Overall I mean it was an okay movie, but that was it. If you wanna compare it to the American version that came out in 1998 then sure, it was way better. And I’m glad the version in 1998 came out, cause it showed us what NOT to do lol. But by itself it was really just an okay movie. Besides Godzilla himself (when he did appear) alot of my attention was also on Elle, cause all her scenes were cute. But I’ve read my fair share of reviews and alot of people (including fans like myself) seem to say the same thing, that Godzilla wasn’t in the movie enough, and I totally agree. Now, back when I first saw the movie in theaters, I didn’t realise this at all. I guess I was just so taken back by being in a movie theater in such a long time.
But after awhile and seeing the movie again after so long, I agree, he just wasn’t in the movie enough. And I mentioned this earlier, about how Gareth was a fan of Jaws and how he wanted to build this movie up by showing Godzilla a little here, and little there. And they definitely pulled that off, especially with the countless trailers they showed of the movie. I swear this movie had more teaser trailers than any other movie I’ve ever seen, no joke. This movie had like 10 different teaser trailers, where they show him here and there. So you get to the theater thinking “Well this is it, I paid my money and I’m finally gonna see him face to face” but even after you see the movie, they still barely showed him lol. You can only keep him in the background so much, until eventually the audience just gets bored.
They spent more time building it up and less time actually executing anything. Fact of the matter is this was his movie, and he was barely in his own movie. The bottom line is, if you’re a fan like me, you expect more from a movie like this. I mean I’ve seen Godzilla do it all: I’ve seen him jump in water, fall into water, knock over buildings, fall into buildings, destroy the city, everything! And he did none of that in this movie. This movie would’ve been better if they just removed Godzilla completely and named it after the Cloverfield monsters. Speaking of the trailers, this movie had more youtube trailers and teasers, but I barely saw the trailer on tv. I only saw the trailer like once on tv, and they also showed these stupid little Doritos trailers where Godzilla picks up the Doritos truck.
And then there was the stupid Snickers commercial where Godzilla is on a surf board, like seriously lol. We got more trailers like that than actual regular trailers where they actually showed the movie and showed how critics felt about it. They also showed the trailer for this movie called Blended more than this movie, which actually got worse reviews. Hollywood is so dumb, and they play trailers for a movie that failed more than the movie that got good reviews. Another thing I hated that goes along with this promotion thing, is Godzilla didn’t get any dvd trailers either, or any of those videos on-demand trailers. I see those trailers all the time, I know they did alot for Lucy (2014) and a couple other movies, again movies that bombed that Hollywood stupidly loves to promote.
To me its just ridiculous. Regardless of how I feel about this movie, it still should’ve been promoted on tv more, and it could’ve atleast gotten 1 dvd commercial I mean damn lol. Now I also heard their making a sequel in 2018 which is right now called Godzilla 2. Hopefully they take what they learned on this one and put more of him in this movie. Besides seeing what improvements they make to the sequel, I also can’t wait to see Elizabeth Olsen again lol. I also heard that now Japan is making a new Godzilla movie for 2016 which should be pretty cool. The last movie they made was Final Wars, which came out in 2004 and I heard they were burnt out on the series, but its nice to know their back now. They probably won’t go the CGI route like these movies though, so they’ll still have a guy in a suit.
Hopefully they make him look the way he did in the 70’s again, cause I hate the millennium look. They make his legs all fat and chunky looking. So yea the millennium series is probably my least favorite, an era that started around 1995 with Destroyah. The only movies they show on cable now are those movies, and I hate em all. I also heard they were thinking about making a Godzilla vs Pacific Rim crossover, and I also hope that doesn’t happen. Pacific Rim was okay, but in no way is that movie on the same level as Godzilla. These people don’t even respect the creature or the franchise, all their thinkin about is box office numbers. All they do is go “Well this movie made 100 million, and this movie made 300 million, lets put em together and see what happens” yea okay, retards.
There’s also a Godzilla video game that comes out in mid 2015 but I saw it, and it’s pretty lame cause they use PS2 graphics lol. I guess it’s understandable why they got such a cheap company to make this game. Maybe because they know that people who make movies aren’t really into video games, so they don’t put down any money for it and don’t want the video game to represent the movie any sort of way. So far this is the longest review I’ve ever done. Evil Dead was 11 pages and this one is 12 so I’m pretty proud of that. With Evil Dead I was actually trying to make it long by just talkin about random stuff. But for this one, there was just alot of interpretation and theories that I just tossed around, so that’s mostly why it’s so long. I mean this’ll probably be the biggest movie I do for the next couple years so I guess it’s worth it.
If you know me, you know I’m a big Godzilla fan, so there was no way in hell I wasn’t gonna get my hands on this one. I’ve been a Godzilla fan ever since I was kid, and I’ve probably seen about 80% of em. My dad and I used to watch these movies when I was younger, before he and my mother broke up (he and I are still cool, btw) but I’ve grown up with the old ones ever since I was a kid. Now as a kid, seeing Godzilla was pretty cool. I mean he was monster, and big monsters like him are always gonna have that fanbase. But as a kid that’s all I saw him as, a monster. But not until I was older (and until I reviewed the movies back in 2011) did I really understand who Godzilla was, as a pop-culture icon, and what he really means to the world.
I’ll get to all this later, but I’ve always had respect for him as a character. He was first conceived in 1954 and ever since then has made 28 Japanese movies, 2 American movies and inspired so many other monster movies like Cloverfield and Pacific Rim. I love and respect him not only as a monster but as a movie icon and a legend, but also a reflection of our world, which I’ll also get more into in this review. Even though we haven’t seen much of him up until this point, the trailers were pretty cool and I was anxious to see him. I also stopped reading reviews cause I was afraid that it’d fail. This is one of those movies that needs the kinda long reviews that I usually do, cause there’s alot to talk about and get into, so let’s get to it.
At the start of the movie we get the usual credits, but we also get some images in the background. We get images of stuff blowing up, images of war, people crying, etc. Alot of this is I guess reference to what went on back to the 50’s when the original movie came out, which I also saw as a kid. It’s alot of complicated stuff so I’m gonna try not to dig too deep into this stuff and turn it into this big science review, cause I know that’d be boring to read. But eventually after all these images are done, we get the title. Now this movie came out in theaters on May 16, 2014 so if your wondering if I saw this movie in theaters, well. I don’t go to the theaters that often, but when it came to Godzilla, he was obviously an exception, so you bet your ass I saw it in theaters lol.
The last time I went to the theater (before this movie of course) I saw a movie with my cousins called Dark Skies, which came out the year before in 2013. It was another one of those stupid paranormal movies, and I knew at this point the horror genre was pretty much dead cause movies like this would come out like 5 times a year. But I saw it anyway, cause it was directed by Scott Stewart, the guy who also made Legion, one of my favorite horror movies and the movie that brought me back into the horror genre after so long. And sure it was a paranormal movie, but I felt that since he made Legion, that he’d put some special touch on the movie. Unfortunately I was wrong, and it was just like any other crap ghost movie that comes out these days, and it was a waste of my money and time cause we drove all the way to Virginia to see it, where my cousins live.
So anyway, ever since then I told myself that if I ever went back to the theaters it’d have to be for a good reason, and thankfully this movie was good enough to go again. This time I went by myself. I went like 2-3 weeks after it came out, so probably late May early April. I sat right in the middle of the theater and couldn’t wait to see this movie, I mean I think Godzilla was made for the theater. His image, his size and his presence just belongs in the theater and on a big screen. So anyway, being in the theater was a cool moment. And I remember seeing the first 5 minutes of the movie, and the title pop up on the big screen, and thinking to myself “I’m about to have my mind blown” lol. So anyway the title appears in front of this white smoke, and it’s pretty cool.
So anyway, we later see these scientists flying over this jungle. We’re now set in 1999, a year after the last Godzilla movie. Yea, that movie. To me that wasn’t even a Godzilla movie, it was a lame sequel to Jurassic Park lol. The only cool thing about that movie was they kept Godzilla’s roar, which I think should never change. So anyway the scientists all walk around here and investigate this little cave. They later say that something broke out of the cave, which we later see outside. We see this big mud track where it looks like something crawled out, back into the ocean. We later see a son and his father. The son’s name is really Ford but I’m gonna call him Brody. And the father’s name is Joe but I’m just gonna call him the father.
He’s like 10 years old but his father looks like he’s 50 lol. So he hears him in his room talkin on the phone about stuff. We later see them outside and his son runs off to school. He catches the bus which stops right outside his house, lucky kid. My mother would actually drive me to the bus stop, even when I was in high school, she was that protective. And she’d wait there like 20 minutes till the bus came. So anyway, its his dads birthday, and in the car you hear his wife tell him she’s gonna get him a cake, how cute. Later on we see them at their job at the lab. Their radiation scientists and study graphs and stuff like that. So they talk about radiation and graphs and stuff. There’s one guy in this scene that I wanna mention though. He’s only in this scene for a couple seconds, but I recognize him from Freddy vs Jason.
He’s in the one scene where the cop bugs out and he goes “If this gets out I’m gonna lock you up!” We later see the wife getting the gear on with the head masks. I think they’re gonna go and check the radiation levels but I don’t know exactly what they do. But anyway, something messes up and we see all this smoke moving through the hallways. The smoke is obviously digital but I’m not gonna lie, it looks pretty cool. I’m not a digital expert, but I think smoke would be hard to do on a computer. Cause I think when they use CGI they scan stuff. Like if they’re gonna use a CGI car, they scan the car into the computer. But you can’t really scan smoke so it’d probably be harder to do. So anyway, we see all the scientists including the wife, running away from all the CGI smoke. At one point, we see the father down here by the door button, trying to wait for his wife to run through the gates before she’s exposed.
It’s a pretty intense scene, and we see the pain in his eyes. Eventually the smoke gets too close, and he’s forced to close the doors, trapping his wife inside. We see them stare at each other through the little glass in the door here, and it’s pretty sad. I remember this scene in the trailer, and I knew that this was gonna be a good movie. I don’t know what’s in the smoke but they said it’d be harmful if it reached the city, so it was good that none of it got out. But he lost his wife, and what a crappy way to lose her. And not only lose her, but watch her die, happy birthday dad huh lol. Outside we see some explosions here, and some buildings fall and stuff. We see kids in school panicking and running outside. We’re obviously in Japan here, so most of the kids are Asian but Brody is here, probably one of the few American kids.
We’re now 15 years later and we see Brody again. I’m guessing he’s about 25-28 now cause he looked about 10 earlier. I’m actually pretty bad at being able to tell how old people are, forgive me. I don’t even know how old my cousins are, and I don’t even know their birthdays. So let’s just say he’s 25. We later find out his son and girlfriend threw him a welcome back party back home, celebrating with a cake. I’m not gonna lie, this scene is pretty cute. His girlfriend (Elle) is played by this woman named Elizabeth Olsen and she’s so cute. The only other movie I’ve seen her in was Silent House, which was okay but not that memorable. But he hasn’t seen them in almost a year so they hug and kiss and stuff. He later gets a call in this scene, and we find out his dad needs him back at the facility.
So he packs his bags and gets ready to head out again. And it’s sad I mean, he just got back after 11 months and can’t even spend a day with them, and now he has to go back. But she hugs him and goes “it’s not like it’s the end of the world” lol. Oh what a cheap pun lol. We later see him with his dad. I don’t know if he knew he was alive though. Cause when he was a kid and all those buildings were falling down earlier, we got a shot of his eyes and he looked pretty sad. So I’m thinking he thought his dad died down there, but I don’t really know. So anyway they talk here in his room. He’s in this little bunker and he’s got all this paper and stuff taped on the wall, stuff about Godzilla. In one scene you can see one news headline says “1954 cover-up”
So they took inspiration from that and put their own fictional spin on it. So the two of them talk here for a bit, and his dad says he’s been doing alot of research on Godzilla, and there’s more talk about the radiation and stuff. He later says he was recently arrested for trespassing at the facility cause he was trying to find more info on what was going on. His wife died but their not giving him any info on it, trying to keep it secret like the government always does. It’s weird though cause he used to work there, but they fired him now I guess cause he knew too much and / or was a liability. He later talks about his wife and says “I don’t even have a picture of her” and at first I was like “Wait you don’t have a picture of your own wife” but then I remembered, he was referring to their house that got destroyed.
When the blast occurred, you just see buildings falling down, you don’t see any houses. But it’s safe to say that anything within a 20 mile radius was affected by it. But even after getting arrested, he still wants to go back to the facility to get more info. Brody doesn’t want this but eventually agrees, and we later see them at the facility. I love these shots of the CGI buildings with the birds flying by, their so apocalyptic. So they arrive here and go into his house, where he collects the data discs. Brody also picks up an action figure here, which I’m guessing was his when he was younger. At first I thought it was his sons, but I keep getting the 2 houses confused, and it wasn’t their house that got destroyed it was his dads.
Eventually the Asian police catch them here and arrest them. But instead of taking them to jail or back home, they actually take them to the facility. It’s kinda like if you’re trespassing on someone’s yard, the police don’t take you to jail they just take you in the person’s house lol. But they take them in and we see all these soldiers here, surrounding this big oyster looking object. I remember seeing this in theaters and thinking to myself “It’s big, but its not Godzilla so I don’t care” lol. So they take the father into a room and question him about why he came back, and he goes into this little rant. He talks about how his wife died and how their not telling him what’s going on, pretty much the same thing the government does when something like this occurs.
Eventually the power goes out, and this giant oyster thingy starts to shake. It breaks its little shell, and this giant beetle-looking monster pops out! It’s pretty unoriginal for a monster though, cause it looks just like the monster from Cloverfield lol. And I loved that movie, so I’m just gonna call this the Cloverfield monster. They call it the MUTO but I’m calling it the Cloverfield monster, deal with it. This name was actually conceived before the movie even came out, cause I remember reading about it on some site. It obviously stood for something, and my first guess was Monster Under The Ocean, but it actually stands for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism so whatever. But it’s basically this giant bug with long legs and it climbs around the city, knocking stuff over.
At one point we see Brody’s father on the balcony here and the monster knocks it over, taking him down with it. We later see the 2 of them in a helicopter, probably going to a nearby hospital. But he’s laying on a bed here and looks pretty beat up. Brody is upset, but his dad just tells him to go be with his family. You definitely get the feeling that his dead was very dedicated in finding out more about this thing. Half of it might be cause he’s just naturally a determined person, and the other half might be because of his wife. But I feel for Brody I mean, not only is his mom dead but now his dad. Another thing I wanted to mention was I think alot of his dad’s dedication goes back to the first movie with Serizawa (who’s son is also in the helicopter with them)
He’s the scientist who spent the whole movie coming up with ways to kill Godzilla, testing out all these methods. And at the end of the movie, he planted the bomb at the bottom of the sea to kill him. He was also so dedicated, that he died right along with Godzilla at the end. And I said this in my review, my theory on that is if he survived, alot of people were probably gonna try and buy the bomb off him. So maybe he didn’t want the fame, I don’t know. So they bring Brody in this room with all these scientists, and they talk and pass along all these theories on Godzilla. They also talk about how they tried to kill him in 1954 by using a submarine and bombs and stuff, which again is a re-imagining of his whole story. I mean I’ll admit it sounds pretty real. And I’ve seen alot of interviews with Gareth the director.
And I remember him talking about how he wanted to treat the movie as if it were actually happening, and that’s cool. Eventually the Asian scientist (Serizawa) goes “We call him… Godzilla” and its so cool. I mean at this point we haven’t seen much of him yet, but so far I’m pretty pumped, and I was pretty pumped in the theater then I first saw this. So they question Brody and try to get as much info about the creature as they can. At one point he asks them why they didn’t kill it when they found him but they say because their afraid its body will send out radiation. I read up a little on radiation and they its when a bunch of energy gets released. They say Godzilla and other dinosaurs like him all existed back when the Earth was young and how sure their animals, but their (atleast from what I heard) made out of energy, heat, radiation and all that stuff.
So whenever we see Godzilla in alot of these early scenes, we just see his spikes but we also just see these 2 boats next to him, making sure he doesn’t go crazy lol. We later see Brody in the same Helicopter, and he calls his wife. He tells her he can’t make it home but now he’s going to Hawaii to help them with Godzilla. He’s still in his street clothes at this point and like I said it still kinda sucks how he just got yanked from his family. I sorta know where Japan and Hawaii are, but I just checked a world map to make sure, and their pretty far away from each other. So this isn’t an overnight trip we’re talkin about. So anyway, he calls her phone and she can’t hear him cause she’s in the bathroom, but her phone is pretty cool which is why I brought this up. She’s got one of those curved phones, which I didn’t even know existed yet.
I’ve seen them before in those futuristic videos on youtube, where they show off all the technology we’re gonna have by 2020. I know Samsung has one, and there’s actually 2 kinds: There’s the curved phone which I think is supposed to make the screen look better or something, and then there’s the bendable phone. And their pretty I’m not gonna lie, I just didn’t know they existed yet, I thought they were just concepts. For me personally I just want a phone / ipod that has a scratch-less screen. Like you can rub it against a brick wall but no matter what, you won’t damage the screen. The ipod I have now used to have a screen protector but I took it off cause it was annoying. My nit-picky mother is always telling me to put one on though, but I ignore her lol.
But I’ve had an ipod without a screen protector since like 2014 and it doesn’t have 1 scratch on it, so I’m not worried. I even lay it on the counter when I eat, which annoys my mother but still, not 1 scratch, I love my ipod! So anyway, we later see Brody get on a train, which I’m guessing is supposed to take him to the airport to Hawaii. There’s this Asian kid who pops up and I think his parents were about to hop on with him. But they were too late, so the train pulls off without him and he starts cryin. But Brody takes him and keeps him company, so it’s a pretty cool scene. He even gives him the action figure to kinda calm him down. And like I mentioned earlier, this scene would’ve been cuter if it was his son’s action figure. Like if his girlfriend and son went missing, and he went by their house, and all he had left to remember him was his sons little toy.
That would’ve made this scene a little cuter but whatever. Later on we see soldiers out here in the jungle, and they find one of the Cloverfield bugs out here. He’s got a missile in his mouth, which I’ll get to later but I think it’s where they get their energy. So they start shooting at the creature and everything, but he doesn’t look too threatened by these guys, and it doesn’t look as though it damages him at all. At one point it slams down its metal hand, which sends out a fierce gust of wind, which not only knocks the helicopters back a little, but also knocks out alot of the power in the city! I’ve seen this movie about 3 times now, but in doing this review, I realized something. Now I’m definitely gonna get more into this later about Godzilla and what he means, but let’s talk about this scene for a bit.
Not only does Godzilla reflect us, and our society and how we treat the planet, but so do his enemies. I also realized this back when I did my review of Godzilla 1984, which was really a remake / sequel to the first movie in 1954. My theory was they spent the entire movie shooting bullets at him, which really got them nowhere. But until they were able to sit down and really think it through, did they realise that to defeat someone like him, you have to be smart. And really that’s just a reflection of society I guess, and about how we too have to be smart when it comes to solving big problems. If you have a problem, be smart about it and think it through. When they fire bullets at these creature, sure their smart in that they wanna protect the city, but in a way their also trying to sweep the problem under the rug.
Think of it like this, and don’t think of Godzilla or these Cloverfield bugs as monsters, but any regular problem in the real world, lets say taking out the trash. You can’t be lazy about that, cause the trash will just run over. If you ignore it and try to take the easy way out, its gonna backfire. And to me when I see this scene, basically the same thing happens. They didn’t respect the environment, and now their shooting at these creatures, trying to quickly destroy them and swipe the problem under the rug, but you can’t do that, which is why they get a blast like that. But let me make this clear before I go on, in no way am I an environmentalist or anything like that, and this isn’t me shoving theories at you trying to get you to recycle more or anything lol.
This is just me putting theories out, and trying to really get the most out of this movie by theorizing about its meanings. I also wanna talk about why the electricity goes out, and I think this also goes along with society. I mean I don’t know much about society, so again don’t take this as me trying to preach or anything lol. I don’t pay attention to the news, I don’t donate money, I don’t listen to Obama, I don’t do none of that stuff. But when the electricity goes out, I think that’s telling us again, if we don’t take care of our environment, stuff like this can happen. And again, trying to sweep problems like this under the rug just isn’t gonna work. So the electricity goes out, and so does the power to the trains, which Brody and the Asian kid are in.
Pretty soon we get a scene of people checking out some spikes in the water, and their getting pretty close to land. The CGI water floods the city, and its pretty cool looking how it rolls into the street and over the cars. You see a dog bark at the water but he just runs off scared lol. Most people run and hide into buildings, reappearing at the top to see what’s going on. But we all know what this is, sharks! No I’m joking, its the big man, the monster, the icon, Godzilla! I remember sitting in the theater during this scene and getting goosebumps on my neck, cause like I said, Godzilla was made for the theater. So they shoot at him here, but none of these bullets do anything to him, and he kinda disappears behind some buildings. We only see the end of his tail here and it’s cool and everything, but I would’ve liked to see his face.
Later on we’re back in the train with Brody, and at this point the lights come back on. I’m gonna mention this later but this also goes along with society. The electricity going out was supposed to reflect how we treat the planet: if we mess it up by polluting and doing stuff that hurts the planet, it will shut down, but eventually it’ll come back on and life will go on. To me that’s basically what this scene means. No matter how much we mess up, eventually stuff will work again, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any damage done. So anyway, the lights are back on but one of the Cloverfield creatures reach the train and breaks the rails! So the train tilts a little and Brody and the Asian kid slip a little, but he catches him. It sucks though cause the train was supposed to be Godzilla’s scene. In 1954 he puts a train in his mouth, and in 1984 he picked one up and dropped it, so he’s always had the train scenes.
But in this movie, since Godzilla barely appears, they give the train scene to the bugs, what the hell lol. We later see the bug at the airport, and he destroys a plane here. Godzilla appears in this scene by putting his foot down, but I hate his feet lol. His feet look nothing like his feet in the other movies, and they literally look like square boxes lol. But he puts his foot down and the camera zooms up, and we finally see his face. And I gotta say, having seen as many Godzilla movies as I have, I hate his face. His abdomen and his legs are so much bigger than his upper body and he just looks so awkward. Add to that the fact that we’re almost an hour into the movie and he really hasn’t appeared all that much. And yes I’m bringing up the fact that Godzilla hasn’t appeared that much yet in his own movie, but trust me I’m gonna get to that later, I mean this review isn’t even half-way done yet lol.
So anyway, we later get a scene back at the Brody house. We see their son here watching tv, and we see these action figures on the table here. And he’s watching the news here, where we can clearly see Godzilla and these monsters battling it out, but he goes “Look mommy, dinosaurs” lol. And Elle looks at the screen too but you know, she knows what’s really going on. There’s alot of little humorous scenes like this in the movie. There’s also a scene right after this, where we’re in this Las Vegas casino. Everybody is gambling, having a great time not paying attention to the news. On the news monitor here we see another Cloverfield monster has arrived, which they later confirm to be a female. Now, I literally just thought about this, in regards to this scene and the casino.
Maybe this is another society scene, here in the casino. To me, the monster crashing the casino through the ceiling while their gambling tells me they shouldn’t have been there. It’s telling us, that we’ve treated the world bad and now we’re here goofing off and earning money without any hard work, just throwing dice. But anyway, now we have a female monster. We later see both of the monsters meet up, the little one giving the big one a missile. I forget what’s inside these missiles but I know it goes along with my talk about radiation and society and all that. Maybe these missiles are bad, and these animals are supposed to represent us. Their stealing all these missiles, destroying the city (like us) but Godzilla stops em, so that’s one theory.
This is mentioned later but I’m gonna mention it now, since we now have 2 monsters. I think this one came from the same tunnel they were at in the beginning of the movie, the one with the egg sacks. Now, later in the movie we find out that the big one is pregnant, which kinda reminded me of the 1998 Godzilla. But obviously their reproducing, which I also think goes along with my talk about society. It’s telling us, that again these 2 giants are representing the problems we face in the world today, and what will happen if we don’t take care of it. And seeing them reproduce is telling us, that if we don’t fix it, its gonna grow and grow. The problem is growing but we’re still trying to sweep it under the rug, and so far it isn’t working. Later on we get a scene between the troops and Serizawa.
We’re now in this little control room, and the general here and his troops realise that Godzilla is following the Cloverfield monsters, so their plan is to lead them away from the city, before they try and destroy them. Serizawa says there’s nothing we can do and wants to let the monsters fight, but the general says that it’d be too dangerous for the city, which is understandable. Eventually Serizawa lets them do their plan, but they have a little talk here. He talks about his father, and shows him this watch he gave him, and says it’s from Hiroshima. He says the watch is from 1945 but he died in the first movie in 1954. So maybe he gave him the watch in 1945 but didn’t see him for 10 years, who knows. But this was a cool scene cause they made a little reference to the first movie. I remember seeing this in theaters and going “Wow…” cause at this point I knew that they did their homework and actually watched the old movies.
It kinda reminds me of the scene in Curse of Chucky with Brad Dourif. Cause when I first heard they were making a new Chucky movie, it didn’t hit me till I saw that scene. And in this movie, it didn’t really hit how serious they were taking it till they said his name. I guess I just have a thing for nostalgia. We later see Elle in the hospital again, which is like her 3rd scene in the movie. I would’ve liked to see more of her by this point cause she’s so cute lol. But one lady tells her Brody is on the phone, so she gets on the phone and they talk for a bit, and tell each other they miss each other, and its so cute. I also remember this scene from the trailer, and I remember she goes “Are you okay, your scaring me” and I couldn’t wait to hear her say it cause it was so cute, but she doesn’t say it. I was so mad cause they should’ve kept that in there, but it was cute, even though I hate seeing her cry.
We later get shots of the city, and we hear this news feed going on. And I’m paraphrasing, but the guy says “It’s dangerous out there, so its best if you stay off the road” but you immediately see the highway jam-packed with CGI cars lol. This is actually one of my favorite shots in the movie, the highway full of cars. Another one of my favorite shots is the one with the building with the hole in the middle that looks like a bomb hit it, its in like all the trailers. I honestly didn’t even know they’d get a big budget for this movie though. I know Gareth made another movie before this called Monsters (2010) which I also saw. It’s called Monsters and there is a monster in it, but to me it had nothing to do with monsters at all. It had more to do with us, which is sort of what Godzilla is, a re-imagining of our society and all that.
So maybe that’s why they chose Gareth for this movie, who knows. So anyway, it was critically a hit but Monsters was a low budget movie, so I didn’t think this movie was gonna get that big a budget cause they didn’t have faith in him (not yet anyway) Like he had 1 hit movie and now he’s making a Godzilla movie, lucky bastard lol. We later get a scene at night, with soldiers on the train tracks. They bring this bomb with them, saying even though all the power is out, its basically wireless and doesn’t need power or electricity to detonate. Eventually while their up here, a train comes speeding down the tracks towards them! Reminds me of the famous scene from Stand By Me (1986) but before they all get run over, one of the Cloverfield monsters just crashes through the tracks, stopping the train and knocking these guys to the floor!
This is the 2nd train to be knocked over by these creatures, what the hell lol. So far the score is 2-0 when it comes to train attacks, and Godzilla is losing. We later get a scene inside the control room again, and they realise that Godzilla isn’t following the monsters anymore, and he’s doing his own thing, I just love that lol. But what I don’t love is the fact that this is his movie and he hasn’t really appeared much in it, like seriously what the hell. We later see Elle at the hospital again, and she’s told the kids are being taken away to another part of the city to be safe. So she puts her son on a bus with a bunch of other kids and stays in the city, waiting for Brody to arrive. She’s so cute in this scene. Eventually we get this big scene on the bridge, and we see this big roadblock where none of the cars can move, oh how convenient.
The school bus with the kids is here as well, and they can’t move either. Eventually we see some more spikes, so it’s obvious that the big man wants to do something. He stands up, and they shoot at him. And it’s a cool shot but we really only see his hand in this shot. His hand kinda grabs the edge of the bridge support beams, but that’s it. He should’ve just yanked it and knocked the bridge down lol. We finally do get a full body shot of him in this scene, but the camera is like 500 feet away so you can’t really see much. And not only that, its raining and its foggy lol. I read in an interview about the movie and read that Gareth was trying to make the movie like Jaws, where you build it up and build it up, but only show a little bit, and that’s cool. But we’re already halfway through the movie and you really haven’t shown us anything dude.
So they continue shooting at him, and not even 5 seconds later, they all get this big gust of wind thrown at them! They said they weren’t gonna shoot at him cause something like this might happen, and it did. And it goes with what I said earlier, about how their trying to sweep the problem under the rug and you can’t do that here. Eventually we start seeing stuff fall from the sky, which we later find out are airplanes. I remember this scene from the trailer, and it’s another one of my favorite shots. I like this one shot on the boat, where the camera does this little turn and you see all these planes hit the water, its so badass. And moments later we see this giant bird falling from the sky, and landing in the water near them!
When this trailer came out, I remember reading up about this on some sites, and some people said it might be Rodan, one of Godzilla’s enemies in the old movies. But none of the monsters (besides Godzilla of course) are names we’ve heard of before. Which isn’t saying much cause these Cloverfield monsters are really just giant bugs, their not anything out of the norm or creative. It’s now night time again, and we see the soldiers gearing up for their next attack. I wasn’t counting, but we’re probably about 2-3 days into this movie by now. Last time it was night time, was the train scene, and the scene where Rodan shows up it was day time, so that was already 1 day. I can’t believe people went to sleep while these monsters were wreaking havoc cause that might’ve been scary lol.
I can just imagine them fighting the monster, then being like “Okay guys its 10pm my wife wants me home, so we’ll come back tomorrow and fight them again” lol. Another thing I wanted to mention was at the beginning of this scene, you can see a group of CGI pigeons fly by. Pigeons were a big theme in the 1984 movie, and we saw Godzilla follow them when they arrived in the powerplant scene. And they ultimately used the pidgins to lead Godzilla to the volcano where they end up killing him. That scene used to always make me sad, seeing him fall into the volcano. But anyway, I think the birds in these movies mean something. They were trying to show us that as powerful and dangerous as Godzilla may be he’s still part of the planet, and part of us.
So anyway, they all gear up and their next plan of attack is to dive out onto the city near them, plant a bomb and blow em up. They mentioned in an earlier scene how the blast that these monsters give knocks out all the power, so they’ve gotta use a plane and do this stuff on foot. So we get that famous scene of them on the airplane and jumping out. It’s a pretty cool scene, seeing them jump out, with the red smoke behind them. They land and setup to try and plant these bombs. So the monsters are back in the city and so far, nothing these guys have tried, has worked. So the general gives in and let’s Serizawa do his plan. He asks what they should do, and he goes “Let them fight” Well finally. I’ve been waiting for a fight of some sort ever since this movie began!
And at this point, having them fight is okay. Their fight will keep them distracted while Brody and his guys plant the bomb. So they fight, and they throw each other around the city. It’s a pretty decent scene but I wouldn’t call it amazing. Godzilla controls the fight for most of the beginning, but then the second flying monster appears and they both double team him. And I’ll admit it’s pretty sad. I used to hate seeing Godzilla get beat up on when I was younger, and I still kinda do. Even though he’s a CGI creature I still feel for him, especially when he gets ganged up on. He got ganged up on a little in Gigan (1972) by Gigan and Ghidorah. Eventually Brody and his men get into the lower part of the city, and they find all these eggs.
The eggs carry all the babies, and there’s literally 1000’s of them. But they set the bombs up down here and blow em all up. The monsters are still beating on Godzilla at this point, but once they blow up the eggs, it gets their attention. One of the birds (the bigger one) fly over and you can tell she’s pretty upset. And even though they were ganging up on Godzilla, I still sorta felt bad. But eventually Godzilla gets up and comes back over. You see his tail light up blue, and his spikes, and he uses his fire breath on the creature! At this point I honestly didn’t think they were gonna let him use it, cause we’re pretty much at the end of the movie at this point. But his fire breath isn’t even that impressive.
In the first movie it was very early on so they didn’t really have the technology (let alone the color) so they just used smoke. But ever since the 70’s 80’s and even the 90’s they’ve always used this blue blast beam (whatever you wanna call it) and I would’ve liked to see that. The one in this movie doesn’t even look like a beam, and when it hits the creature it doesn’t even create a blast of any sort. It just pushes the creature backwards, which is also lame. After defeating him, we see this giant building fall of top of Godzilla! There’s a scene just like this in Space Godzilla (1994) but it’s more sad cause they didn’t use any CGI. But it was more sad in the earlier movies, when I was a kid and even still today. When I was a kid it was sad cause I always wanted Godzilla to win, like most of us.
But as I got older it was still sad, cause I knew even though it was a movie, there was still a dude in a costume who got a building dropped on him. But that’s another thing I wanted to mention, the CGI. The Cloverfield animals in this movie look pretty good, and pretty photorealistic by CGI standards. And the buildings are okay, especially the ones in the beginning where they check out his fathers destroyed house. Putting the Godzilla look itself to the side and just focusing on the digital effects, Godzilla still doesn’t look that sharp in this movie. He just looked very low quality and sorta pixelated to me. I read somewhere that he was made up of around 500,000 pixels, which really isn’t all that much. There’s a video game out now called The Order 1886 and the characters in that game use 100,000 pixels, and that a game came out within the first couple years of the consoles lifecycle.
The company that made the digital effects for this movie probably didn’t have artists from Avatar, but they still should’ve made something photorealistic looking, cause I know they got more than 8GB’s of RAM in those big buildings they have full of computers where they render this stuff. So anyway, the building falls on Godzilla here and it’s pretty sad. You see him drop down here at ground level where Brody is, and the 2 of them kinda look at each other here for a second. Now obviously this scene here is supposed to signify something, but this scene could mean anything to anybody. He could be saying “I was trying to protect you, and look what you’ve done” or “look what you’ve done to our planet” or something like that. We destroy the planet, but then we destroyed the planet even more firing missiles and rockets at these monsters.
It’s like we destroy the planet even more, the more we try to ignore the problems that are right in front of us, and this is what Godzilla is showing us. Now I’m not saying this because Godzilla is a legend, but he does show us this in some of his other movies, especially 1984 which I mentioned earlier. But I don’t think you’d be able to do this with any other monster movie, such as Cloverfield or Pacific Rim. And I love Cloverfield, and Pacific Rim was okay. But to me those are just monster movies, without any big theme or message attached to them. But Godzilla is different, and he’s not just a monster. Later on we get more shots of these soldiers shooting at another monster. The bullets don’t do anything and it just smacks em all out the way.
In their head they’re like “Ugh these soldiers are so annoying, scram!” lol. And I remember this one interview, where one of the producers were talkin about the movie, and he used a pretty interesting quote. And I’m paraphrasing but he said something like “We are just flies on the back of the dogs neck. We’re not really any threat to these creatures, if anything we’re just bothering them” and it was a very big eye-opener for me. So after smacking these soldiers out the way, the monster eventually spots Brody. He’s on the ground here and points his gun at him, thinking that’s actually gonna do anything. But all of a sudden Godzilla grabs the monster from behind, and uses his lame fire breath and shoots it into its mouth! It’s an okay scene but not that impressive.
He ends up killing the creature here, but when he does, he ends up falling to the ground. But when he does, all the electricity turns back on. This goes along with what I said earlier: we can mess the planet up, but eventually we’ll get everything back and running again. We later see Brody and his son here in what looks like a baseball field. You see everybody gathering with their families and then Elle comes out. It’s such a cute scene, seeing them hug and kiss and she’s so cute. And since we’re in a baseball field, its safe to say we hit a home run! At the end of the movie we get all these shots of Godzilla on tv. We’re surrounded by soldiers and now its morning, thankfully. I would’ve been pretty angry if they ended this movie at night. It’s a pretty cool image of him laying here lifeless, but I think we all know he’s not dead, especially after he just killed the enemy.
But eventually he gets up, and we see people here clapping. He’s obviously the winner here, and the king of all monsters, as he should be. I was actually wondering how this movie was gonna end, and whether or not he was gonna die, and if he did, how he was gonna die. They killed him in 1954 and 1984 but in this movie they let him live (so they can make a sequel of course) He gives 1 final roar, and it sucks! I hate his roar in this movie, and it sounds nothing like the old movies. I read somewhere they use like a violin and some other instrument to make the sound but, it just sounds like mush in this movie. But to me, his muddled roar was like his way of telling us “Listen up, I came, I saw, I conquered, my mission is complete, now it’s your job to keep this planet safe” And it goes along with what the Asian dude said earlier, about how Godzilla was here to restore balance to the world.
We mess it up, and Godzilla comes along and restores balance. Now in the other movies where he’s fighting other monsters, those are kinda like bonus movies. But the main ones I’m referring to were the big ones: 1954, 1984 and 2000. The one that came out in 1954 was mostly their interpretation of war. But they didn’t wanna make a movie about war, so they made a monster movie. But it’s really the same thing, our city getting destroyed over nothing. The last shot we get is of him swimming off into the water, back below the ocean. I mean they barely showed him in his own movie, the least they could do was give him the last frame of the movie, he deserved it.
Overall I mean it was an okay movie, but that was it. If you wanna compare it to the American version that came out in 1998 then sure, it was way better. And I’m glad the version in 1998 came out, cause it showed us what NOT to do lol. But by itself it was really just an okay movie. Besides Godzilla himself (when he did appear) alot of my attention was also on Elle, cause all her scenes were cute. But I’ve read my fair share of reviews and alot of people (including fans like myself) seem to say the same thing, that Godzilla wasn’t in the movie enough, and I totally agree. Now, back when I first saw the movie in theaters, I didn’t realise this at all. I guess I was just so taken back by being in a movie theater in such a long time.
But after awhile and seeing the movie again after so long, I agree, he just wasn’t in the movie enough. And I mentioned this earlier, about how Gareth was a fan of Jaws and how he wanted to build this movie up by showing Godzilla a little here, and little there. And they definitely pulled that off, especially with the countless trailers they showed of the movie. I swear this movie had more teaser trailers than any other movie I’ve ever seen, no joke. This movie had like 10 different teaser trailers, where they show him here and there. So you get to the theater thinking “Well this is it, I paid my money and I’m finally gonna see him face to face” but even after you see the movie, they still barely showed him lol. You can only keep him in the background so much, until eventually the audience just gets bored.
They spent more time building it up and less time actually executing anything. Fact of the matter is this was his movie, and he was barely in his own movie. The bottom line is, if you’re a fan like me, you expect more from a movie like this. I mean I’ve seen Godzilla do it all: I’ve seen him jump in water, fall into water, knock over buildings, fall into buildings, destroy the city, everything! And he did none of that in this movie. This movie would’ve been better if they just removed Godzilla completely and named it after the Cloverfield monsters. Speaking of the trailers, this movie had more youtube trailers and teasers, but I barely saw the trailer on tv. I only saw the trailer like once on tv, and they also showed these stupid little Doritos trailers where Godzilla picks up the Doritos truck.
And then there was the stupid Snickers commercial where Godzilla is on a surf board, like seriously lol. We got more trailers like that than actual regular trailers where they actually showed the movie and showed how critics felt about it. They also showed the trailer for this movie called Blended more than this movie, which actually got worse reviews. Hollywood is so dumb, and they play trailers for a movie that failed more than the movie that got good reviews. Another thing I hated that goes along with this promotion thing, is Godzilla didn’t get any dvd trailers either, or any of those videos on-demand trailers. I see those trailers all the time, I know they did alot for Lucy (2014) and a couple other movies, again movies that bombed that Hollywood stupidly loves to promote.
To me its just ridiculous. Regardless of how I feel about this movie, it still should’ve been promoted on tv more, and it could’ve atleast gotten 1 dvd commercial I mean damn lol. Now I also heard their making a sequel in 2018 which is right now called Godzilla 2. Hopefully they take what they learned on this one and put more of him in this movie. Besides seeing what improvements they make to the sequel, I also can’t wait to see Elizabeth Olsen again lol. I also heard that now Japan is making a new Godzilla movie for 2016 which should be pretty cool. The last movie they made was Final Wars, which came out in 2004 and I heard they were burnt out on the series, but its nice to know their back now. They probably won’t go the CGI route like these movies though, so they’ll still have a guy in a suit.
Hopefully they make him look the way he did in the 70’s again, cause I hate the millennium look. They make his legs all fat and chunky looking. So yea the millennium series is probably my least favorite, an era that started around 1995 with Destroyah. The only movies they show on cable now are those movies, and I hate em all. I also heard they were thinking about making a Godzilla vs Pacific Rim crossover, and I also hope that doesn’t happen. Pacific Rim was okay, but in no way is that movie on the same level as Godzilla. These people don’t even respect the creature or the franchise, all their thinkin about is box office numbers. All they do is go “Well this movie made 100 million, and this movie made 300 million, lets put em together and see what happens” yea okay, retards.
There’s also a Godzilla video game that comes out in mid 2015 but I saw it, and it’s pretty lame cause they use PS2 graphics lol. I guess it’s understandable why they got such a cheap company to make this game. Maybe because they know that people who make movies aren’t really into video games, so they don’t put down any money for it and don’t want the video game to represent the movie any sort of way. So far this is the longest review I’ve ever done. Evil Dead was 11 pages and this one is 12 so I’m pretty proud of that. With Evil Dead I was actually trying to make it long by just talkin about random stuff. But for this one, there was just alot of interpretation and theories that I just tossed around, so that’s mostly why it’s so long. I mean this’ll probably be the biggest movie I do for the next couple years so I guess it’s worth it.
Into the Storm (2014)
Having seen so many boring and sloppy found footage movies over the recent years, it was definitely a breath of fresh air to see a trailer for a movie like this. I check the movie trailers blog on youtube about a couple times a week, mostly to see if anything interesting pops up. But most of the time it doesn’t and most of the trailers on that site are for Channing Tatum movies, Denzel movies, cheap found-footage nonsense and unfunny comedies. But then one day I saw the trailer for this movie and it really blew my mind. I’ll get to it later in this review but it was this one scene, that convinced me that this was gonna be a good movie, and it was reason enough to see it in theaters.
The last movie I saw in theaters was Godzilla (2014) way back in May of that same year, and it was a pretty cool movie. The movie I saw before that was Dark Skies (2013) which I thought was gonna be scary cause it was directed by the same guy who made Legion (2009) one of my all-time favorite horror movies. But it was actually just another garbage paranormal movie, so I told myself I wouldn’t go to the theater again till I was 100% sure the movie was gonna blow me away, and being the big Godzilla fan that I was, that was reason enough. So after Godzilla I told myself again that I wouldn’t hit the theater again till I had a good reason, and that scene (which I’ll get to later) was the scene that changed my mind.
So I went all the way to Virginia where my aunt lives to see it. I mean I could’ve easily saw it in Jersey but I don’t see my cousins that often, so I felt it was worth the drive. My mother and I don’t talk much so we kinda just ignored each other the entire bus ride over. But I remember we got to the theater around like 10pm and I was scared I was gonna miss the first couple seconds of it but thankfully I got there in time. My 2 cousins were there but they were with their girlfriends and saw a different movie. One of em saw the new Hercules movie with The Rock and the other saw As Above, So Below, one of those stupid found footage movies. But of course, I saw this movie and it was worth the money, seeing a movie like this on the big screen.
So anyway that’s my theater experience, and I love movies but I don’t go to the theaters much cause alot of what comes out these days is pretty lame. So at the start of the movie we get the credits as usual and we find out the movie was made by New Line Cinema, the same people who produced the Freddy Krueger movies. They produced the movie, but they didn’t write it (Wes Craven did) so they get no respect from me. In the opening scene, we see these teenagers in the car chillin for a bit. But at one point a tornado appears in the distance and starts tearin stuff down! The teens start to panic but they can’t make it out in time, so they get sucked up by the tornado lol. So far I’m pretty impressed, and what a cool opening scene. It kinda sucks (no pun intended) that nobody has the balls to make these kinda movies.
I saw the other movie Twister (1996) which got some pretty good ratings but I hated that movie. I honestly can’t even remember much about it. The only thing I remember is Bill Paxton, who I hate with a passion. I swear everytime I see that guy I just wanna punch him lol. But that movie didn’t do what I wanted it to do, and the tornados didn’t really destroy anything. So anyway, we later meet these other people, who are considered “storm troopers” or investigators or whatever you wanna call em. They travel in these jeeps and they document storms around the town: one documents and tracks where their going and the other films it. They say alot of technical stuff about storms but you don’t need to know much about them in general to enjoy this movie, all you need to know is that tornados hit the town and destroy stuff lol.
The characters themselves are pretty boring, but I gotta say the dialogue was pretty good. It’s kinda hard to explain, but I just kept thinkin to myself “half the stuff they say would sound a whole lot better if someone else said it” lol. I mean you get that sometimes: bad actors with nice dialogue, or vice versa, and this is one of those movies. One of the dudes here is named Daryl who I recognize from Final Destination 5 but trust me he’s nothing special. He was just as bad as the main character in that movie, oh my lord just thinkin about it makes my head spin. So I have a feeling Steven Quale (director of both movies) is somehow friends with this guy, but who the hell cares. I mean what’d he say: “dude you were such a bad actor in my last movie that I want you in my next one” lol.
So yea, alot of the characters in this movie are about as interesting as your grandparents. We later meet this other kid named Donnie, who at the moment is making a video for some school project. He has to talk about stuff he’s into and document it for himself 25 years from now. What a dorky project. I remember doing something like this back when I was in school. I remember the first day of high school (2004-5 for me, graduated in 2008-9) and we had to do this 1000 word essay on where we’d be in 10 years. I put down that I was gonna be a boxer, which I really wanted to be at the time. And I used to work out in those days but I’m so different now, I don’t even touch my weights. I’ll never get rid of em, but I’m not touching them anytime soon. Exercise just became so boring to me ever since I got into writing stories and now reviewing movies.
So anyway, we also meet his dad (who’s also pretty boring) and also his little brother Trey. I recognize this kid from that Teen Nick show I Carly. I never watched it but I used to see clips from it, cause I used to watch Drake and Josh. But I don’t really care for this kid, and he blends in with alot of these 1 dimensional characters. He’s also the one character who carries a camera with him everywhere he goes. And I’ll probably mention this later, but this movie definitely has a big “shaky camera” theme. To me they gave him the camera so it’d go along with the whole found footage thing that’s all the rage these days. What these idiots don’t realise is that alot of those found footage movies aren’t even that good and don’t even make alot of money.
I mean unless your James Wan (who I hate with a passion) you might be able to pull that stuff off, but 90% of the found footage movies that come out these days, regardless of how small the budget is (cause people feel as though they don’t need to work hard anymore) they don’t make alot of money. But yea, to me everytime I see this kid with the camera I just see them trying to blend in with these movies. And its not working. We later see this dude named Pete (one of the storm troopers) out here talkin about his tank. He talks about all the stuff it can do, how strong it is, etc. It’s basically tough enough to get close enough to these tornadoes so we can get a good movie lol. We later meet this chick named Allison, and we mostly see her in the van here checkin on the tornadoes on these monitors.
She’s just as dedicated as the rest of these guys, desperate to get footage of these tornadoes. But she’s also just as dull as the rest of em, speaking in this low monotone you can barely hear unless you turn the volume way up. At one point she gets on the phone with her daughter and she’s kinda in the distance, so you can barely hear what she’s saying. You get the feeling here that she misses her daughter and stuff, but you really don’t even care cause she’s so boring to listen to. We later see the school, and we see all these kids going to class. Sucks for them, I hate school lol. Trey and Donnie are here and Trey is trying to get his brother to talk with this girl, but he’s all nervous. What a wimp lol. Trey is pretty nerdy though. He tries to act like he’s a wiz with the girls, trying to get his brother to hit on this girl but he dresses and acts like he’s never been with a chick in his life.
And alot of the stuff he says doesn’t even sound like it’d come out of a person like him, so you laugh at what he says but for all the wrong reasons. But this goes along with what I said earlier, about how alot of the stuff these kids say would sound better if someone else said it. So anyway, eventually Donnie talks to the girl here at the library. Before I get to her, I just wanted to point out that I noticed the Apple logo on her laptop. You can also see the Apple logo on Donnie’s computer earlier in the scene where he’s in his room. This always interested me cause usually in movies when someone is on a laptop, they kinda cover the image for license reasons, which makes sense. They don’t want another movie or show to profit off of their logo. I know they cover it in the tv show Bates Motel, so some movies do it and some don’t.
But when you actually see the logo, its safe to assume that they paid apple some money to use the logo. I don’t really know why it ever matters since the laptops don’t really play a role in the movie, but whatever. So anyway he sits down and talks with this girl, and she’s pretty cute. Her names Kait and I love her hair lol. She’s also the same chick who was in the opening scene in the movie in the car with the teens, where the tornado hit and (atleast I’m assuming) killed everyone, so I don’t understand how she’s alive unless that scene came afterwards. But she basically says she needs help with some school project and Donnie says he’ll help her. We later see the researchers out here again. At one point, one of the guys here (don’t know his name and don’t care cause he’s a minor character) gets scolded about some equipment.
And Daryl says something like “C’mon dude your making me look bad” dude shut up, your making yourself look bad just being in the movie. Later on we see them watching the weather report on tv, which basically tells them a storm is coming. And moments later we hear noise outside and we see these giant white rocks falling from the sky. I remember this scene from the trailer and its pretty cool. They call it hail and its raining thousands of em out here near the swimming pool. On the topic of hail and rain, we don’t get alot of hail out here in Jersey (atleast not where I live) I mean it rains alot, but it doesn’t really snow much. It’ll snow for like 1 day and then it’ll rain the next day and dry it all up, which I think is kinda pointless lol. My mother hates the snow but I love it, and back when I was in high school I couldn’t wait for it to snow so we could get days off lol. It used to snow alot in those years, but not anymore.
So anyway, this scene was pretty cool, seeing the pool get loaded with hail lol. We later get a scene at this graduation ceremony, and we see all these kids outside with blue hats. The teacher actually looks like Obama lol. Kinda reminds me of when I graduated back in 2008. Thankfully we were inside, but it was cool. I remember being in the hallway though and this kid behind me told me that my little dash thingy on my hat (the little flap thingy, whatever the heck its called) was on the wrong side, and he told me to turn it to the other side. I found out later you’re supposed to turn it to the other side after you graduate. But I just kept thinkin “wow what a nerd” cause he was behind me, so he had to have a good angle on me to see where my little dash thing was. It still makes me laugh to this day though, how dorky some people can be.
For the most part I was a pretty quiet kid in school and I hated school like anybody else, but I was kinda sad when it ended, for a split second. I mean some of my teachers were cool, especially my English teacher. He was the one that introduced me to Misery and Storm of the Century, 2 of Stephen King’s greatest works. So anyway, meanwhile we see Donnie and Kait in some warehouse out here where her project supposedly takes place. It’s some water project thing where she believes people aren’t getting enough clean water. She mentions it earlier but I wasn’t paying attention cause she was so pretty. But they have to record it with the camera, which goes along with what I said earlier about Trey always having the camera with him. To me these scenes are just excuses for them to add in these little scenes of the character holding the camera.
I mean at this point, half the movie is shaky-camera and half is natural, but also half the time you don’t even know who’s holding the darn thing. To me these scenes just comes off very forced, like they just came up with a random excuse to put some found-footage element in the movie to go along with all the other stupid movies that get released nowadays. Director Steven Quale is starting to turn into Scott Stewart at this point. You do this badass movie and then out of nowhere you follow cliché and do something stupid like this. But anyway, the tornado hits and all the kids run inside. I know their in high school but I’m just so used to calling them kids, probably cause its faster. Except for the researchers in the van and the high school principle, everybody in this movie is a kid to me lol. But they all run into the school, which probably sucked for most of em.
Some of em were probably like “Damn I just graduated now I’m running back inside” lol. But they all run in and duck down. Eventually the tornado reaches them and rips the top the school roof off! I remember this clip from the trailer, and its so cool looking. I mean besides Marvel movies, you don’t see stuff like this in regular movies, probably cause nobody has the balls these days. They’d rather make a movie with someone running around with a camera lookin retarded as hell. Eventually the tornado gets to Donnie and Kait, and also rips the room off the little Warehouse here. But thankfully they both have a little hole to jump in here, conveniently placed like 2 feet next to them, so they jump down here before they get sucked into the funnel.
At one point Donnie’s dad calls him on the phone, and its here that you can really tell what kinda actors we got in this movie. I mean both these kids are pretty boring, but the father just puts me to sleep. He’s alot like his son Trey, cause his voice doesn’t even match his body. He’s in a business suit for most of the movie but he talks in this low, boring tough guy monotone, funny as hell. He calls his son but judging from how he acts, you never really get the feeling he even cares. The expression on his face just says “Okay lets get this movie over with” lol. Later on, we see the father and Trey out here driving. This is after the first couple tornadoes hit, so out here we see destroyed houses and objects thrown everywhere. At one point you can see a little girl’s bike thrown through someone’s car. Just the image makes me laugh lol.
At one point they drive along and meet these 2 crazy dudes who’s names I don’t really care to mention. You see them a few times through the movie up until this point. Their mostly goofing off and showing how excited they are about seeing a tornado, and its sorta funny but not really. At one point in the movie you see one of em recording the other one trying to jump and land his bike into a swimming pool. They try and record it so they can put it on youtube and get all these views. They act like the type of people I’d get frustrated with on a daily basis. And I’m glad I’m not like this, some guy who takes risks like that just to get a certain amount of views on some site. I’m not driven by views or subscribers. I’m just driven by my love of writing itself, and really that’s all that matters.
When people let that subscriber nonsense get to their head, they start doing anything to get page clicks, whether it be exaggerating a video title to get a certain amount of clicks or doing something stupid like this or begging people to click the “like” button. To me people who try to get famous off youtube are just nerds to me, plain and simple. But anyway, they all meet up here, which I actually thought was cool. There’s like 3-4 different perspectives being told in this movie: 1 is from the school, 1 is from Donnie and Kait, 1 is from the tornado researchers, and 1 is from these 2 clowns. And throughout the movie you get clips from each one. I always had a thing for seeing the same situation through different perspectives, so that’s cool. Eventually they all get back into their cars and head off, but we later find out that we have about 4-5 different tornadoes coming at us now.
They just appear from the sky outta nowhere. Besides mentioning them a couple times, I haven’t really talked much about the tornadoes themselves, but I will now. I mean up until this point they appear every 10 mins or so, destroy a building and leave. But now that we have about 5 of them all at once, I guess we can get really get into it. I’m not the biggest tornado fan, nor have I seen one in real life, but that’s besides the point. When it comes to making a movie like this, all you really gotta do is destroy stuff, and so far they’ve been doing a pretty good job of that. One of my favorite scenes is seeing the tornado hit the power lines and seeing the sparks as it begins to rip them apart.
And I gotta say, the CGI and effects in this scene really blew my mind. It’s so realistic and it doesn’t even look digital, but that’s a good thing. I remember being in the theater watching these scenes, and just cursing at the screen lol. But not out of anger, just cause I was so impressed by what I was seeing, I wanted more and more of it. When the tornadoes would hit, I just kept saying “F that up, F that up, break it, smash it, wreck it!” over and over lol. And like I said, unless it’s a Marvel movie, you don’t really see stuff like this in other sci-fi movies. You don’t even see this in Spielberg movies lol. But the digital effects in this movie are so real looking, it doesn’t even look CGI. I mean I’ve seen alot of movies, so 90% of the time when stuff is being blown up or thrown across the room, you can tell it’s CGI cause it always has like that smooth-cartoonish look to it.
Earlier in the movie where Donnie and Kait are in the warehouse, you could tell the warehouse was all CGI. It’s hard to describe but CGI always has this smooth-cartoonish look to it, and if your good enough (or you’ve seen enough movies like myself) you can spot it like 90% of the time, regardless how far away it is. But I definitely give them credit for the CGI smoke, cause I’m pretty sure smoke is hard to do, digitally. I mean if you wanna CGI a car, you either draw the car and make a digital replica of it or you just scan it. But you can’t scan smoke, so I wonder how they pulled that off. So anyway, we have about 5 of em now and we see them swirling over the city. At one point, one of em hits this little car park and picks up like 20 cars, and I swear this scene blew my mind!
It picks up like 20 of em and throws em all over the place, and its so badass lookin. I guess my only problem is you never see any of the cars hit the ground. You just see them being lifted off the ground, and they get thrown, but they don’t land anywhere. I would’ve liked to see like 10 of em get picked up and thrown, and then like 8 of em land in a field with this big explosion lol. At one point, one of the camera dudes here gets caught by one of the tornadoes here and get gets sucked in all the way to the top and you see his body spinning around lol. Eventually they all run into this little church, and its safe to say why they put a church here. One theory is the storm was an act of god, so that’s one theory. Earlier in the movie you hear Kait talkin about her project, and she mentions how nasty water is getting into our water, so that’s another theory.
I do remember reading somewhere when I was younger that if we don’t recycle, that stuff gets into the air and that’s what causes storms. I read that somewhere when I was younger, but I don’t know if its true or not. We later see Donnie and Kait still stuck underground. At one point they each share the camera and make this little apology thing where they apologize to their parents and stuff. And at first it looks kinda lame, but you almost feel bad for these kids, especially Donnie. I mean I wasn’t counting but his apology speech goes on for like a minute lol. And he’s emotional and crying but you don’t know if the water in his eyes is tears or its part of the water that’s dripping on his head as the rain pours in from above, who the hell cares. Eventually his father and the others drive over and they try and rescue these 2 clowns.
They grab the girl out but Donnie somehow gets his leg stuck on some hinge down here, I swear the kid is clumsy as hell. But eventually his father dives under and drags him out too, oh what a hero. We’re later back at the school and the kids here are still panicking. Eventually the father arrives and tells them its not safe here, in his deep monotone voice. So the Obama-looking principle orders the kids to run outside and get on the bus. After they do, moments later the tornado hits and destroys the school lol. The one that hit the school earlier and ripped off the roof must’ve been a smaller one. Later on everybody reaches what they call a “storm drain” which is basically some underground little hut here under the road. And they hide in here away from the storm.
Meanwhile, we get to one my favorite scenes in the movie, the one that made me so badly wanna see this movie in theaters. The storm hits the airport and starts lifting these airplanes and trucks into the air! And like I said, there aren’t alot of movies that have the balls to do this, so I give em respect. I mean they probably do something like this in a Marvel movie, but I’ve never seen Spielberg or Cameron do it. It’s just so Godzilla-esque and powerful I guess that’s why I like it. I just love seeing big objects like a car or building or truck getting thrown about, not in an action-movie kinda way, but in a sci-fi kinda way, if that makes sense. Eventually Pete (dude from earlier who I barely mentioned) gets some bravery and goes back outside into the storm.
He somehow manages to get back into the tank and uses it to block the gate so none of em get pulled through I guess. Throughout the movie you get the idea that Pete only cares about himself and getting footage of the tornado so he can make alot of money off it. There’s a scene earlier in the movie when their in the church, and Allison goes “is that all you care about, your stupid camera” lol. So I guess this scene towards the end shows us that he doesn’t just care about his camera, how cute.
But eventually the storm lifts his truck into the air, and this was another cool scene. They end up in what they call “the eye of the tornado” and you just see the thing spinning around, and you see all the cars it picked up. But eventually the storm picks the truck up with the dude inside and we get a shot up above of the clouds. It’s cute for a split second, until it brings the truck all the way back down with a loud smack, and we all know he didn’t survive that lol. So out of all the 5-6 main characters, only 1 of em died, and we had to wait till the end of the movie to see it, what a waste lol. But at the end of the movie, all the survivors are happy and we get the usual ending where everybody is smiling and they talk about how brave they were.
Overall besides some of the monotone acting that sounded like half the people in this movie had strep throat and the other half didn’t wanna be in the movie at all, I loved it. I mean even with the few flaws that it does have, it was still entertaining and it’s still better than half the crap that gets released these days. I was also impressed by the dialogue, cause it was pretty witty. The big problem though is that the characters are just so boring and bland that it just doesn’t sound right coming out of their mouths. It was basically witty dialogue delivered by crappy actors. But again I loved the movie and think it was shot pretty well. Some shots were captured with the camera on the side of the car and near the tires, which looked pretty cool.
Kinda reminded me of Final Destination 2 cause that movie had the same shots on the side of the car. The good parts in this movie overshadow how bad the acting is, so you kinda ignore it cause movies like this don’t come out that much. And to be honest I wouldn’t mind a sequel. I just checked imdb and unfortunately their not making one, so that sucks. But I’d really love if they made a sequel, and had the tornado hit like a nearby city and just destroy the buildings lol. But even if they hired the same monotone cast I’d watch the sequel, and I’d cringe the entire time but I’d still enjoy it.
Having seen so many boring and sloppy found footage movies over the recent years, it was definitely a breath of fresh air to see a trailer for a movie like this. I check the movie trailers blog on youtube about a couple times a week, mostly to see if anything interesting pops up. But most of the time it doesn’t and most of the trailers on that site are for Channing Tatum movies, Denzel movies, cheap found-footage nonsense and unfunny comedies. But then one day I saw the trailer for this movie and it really blew my mind. I’ll get to it later in this review but it was this one scene, that convinced me that this was gonna be a good movie, and it was reason enough to see it in theaters.
The last movie I saw in theaters was Godzilla (2014) way back in May of that same year, and it was a pretty cool movie. The movie I saw before that was Dark Skies (2013) which I thought was gonna be scary cause it was directed by the same guy who made Legion (2009) one of my all-time favorite horror movies. But it was actually just another garbage paranormal movie, so I told myself I wouldn’t go to the theater again till I was 100% sure the movie was gonna blow me away, and being the big Godzilla fan that I was, that was reason enough. So after Godzilla I told myself again that I wouldn’t hit the theater again till I had a good reason, and that scene (which I’ll get to later) was the scene that changed my mind.
So I went all the way to Virginia where my aunt lives to see it. I mean I could’ve easily saw it in Jersey but I don’t see my cousins that often, so I felt it was worth the drive. My mother and I don’t talk much so we kinda just ignored each other the entire bus ride over. But I remember we got to the theater around like 10pm and I was scared I was gonna miss the first couple seconds of it but thankfully I got there in time. My 2 cousins were there but they were with their girlfriends and saw a different movie. One of em saw the new Hercules movie with The Rock and the other saw As Above, So Below, one of those stupid found footage movies. But of course, I saw this movie and it was worth the money, seeing a movie like this on the big screen.
So anyway that’s my theater experience, and I love movies but I don’t go to the theaters much cause alot of what comes out these days is pretty lame. So at the start of the movie we get the credits as usual and we find out the movie was made by New Line Cinema, the same people who produced the Freddy Krueger movies. They produced the movie, but they didn’t write it (Wes Craven did) so they get no respect from me. In the opening scene, we see these teenagers in the car chillin for a bit. But at one point a tornado appears in the distance and starts tearin stuff down! The teens start to panic but they can’t make it out in time, so they get sucked up by the tornado lol. So far I’m pretty impressed, and what a cool opening scene. It kinda sucks (no pun intended) that nobody has the balls to make these kinda movies.
I saw the other movie Twister (1996) which got some pretty good ratings but I hated that movie. I honestly can’t even remember much about it. The only thing I remember is Bill Paxton, who I hate with a passion. I swear everytime I see that guy I just wanna punch him lol. But that movie didn’t do what I wanted it to do, and the tornados didn’t really destroy anything. So anyway, we later meet these other people, who are considered “storm troopers” or investigators or whatever you wanna call em. They travel in these jeeps and they document storms around the town: one documents and tracks where their going and the other films it. They say alot of technical stuff about storms but you don’t need to know much about them in general to enjoy this movie, all you need to know is that tornados hit the town and destroy stuff lol.
The characters themselves are pretty boring, but I gotta say the dialogue was pretty good. It’s kinda hard to explain, but I just kept thinkin to myself “half the stuff they say would sound a whole lot better if someone else said it” lol. I mean you get that sometimes: bad actors with nice dialogue, or vice versa, and this is one of those movies. One of the dudes here is named Daryl who I recognize from Final Destination 5 but trust me he’s nothing special. He was just as bad as the main character in that movie, oh my lord just thinkin about it makes my head spin. So I have a feeling Steven Quale (director of both movies) is somehow friends with this guy, but who the hell cares. I mean what’d he say: “dude you were such a bad actor in my last movie that I want you in my next one” lol.
So yea, alot of the characters in this movie are about as interesting as your grandparents. We later meet this other kid named Donnie, who at the moment is making a video for some school project. He has to talk about stuff he’s into and document it for himself 25 years from now. What a dorky project. I remember doing something like this back when I was in school. I remember the first day of high school (2004-5 for me, graduated in 2008-9) and we had to do this 1000 word essay on where we’d be in 10 years. I put down that I was gonna be a boxer, which I really wanted to be at the time. And I used to work out in those days but I’m so different now, I don’t even touch my weights. I’ll never get rid of em, but I’m not touching them anytime soon. Exercise just became so boring to me ever since I got into writing stories and now reviewing movies.
So anyway, we also meet his dad (who’s also pretty boring) and also his little brother Trey. I recognize this kid from that Teen Nick show I Carly. I never watched it but I used to see clips from it, cause I used to watch Drake and Josh. But I don’t really care for this kid, and he blends in with alot of these 1 dimensional characters. He’s also the one character who carries a camera with him everywhere he goes. And I’ll probably mention this later, but this movie definitely has a big “shaky camera” theme. To me they gave him the camera so it’d go along with the whole found footage thing that’s all the rage these days. What these idiots don’t realise is that alot of those found footage movies aren’t even that good and don’t even make alot of money.
I mean unless your James Wan (who I hate with a passion) you might be able to pull that stuff off, but 90% of the found footage movies that come out these days, regardless of how small the budget is (cause people feel as though they don’t need to work hard anymore) they don’t make alot of money. But yea, to me everytime I see this kid with the camera I just see them trying to blend in with these movies. And its not working. We later see this dude named Pete (one of the storm troopers) out here talkin about his tank. He talks about all the stuff it can do, how strong it is, etc. It’s basically tough enough to get close enough to these tornadoes so we can get a good movie lol. We later meet this chick named Allison, and we mostly see her in the van here checkin on the tornadoes on these monitors.
She’s just as dedicated as the rest of these guys, desperate to get footage of these tornadoes. But she’s also just as dull as the rest of em, speaking in this low monotone you can barely hear unless you turn the volume way up. At one point she gets on the phone with her daughter and she’s kinda in the distance, so you can barely hear what she’s saying. You get the feeling here that she misses her daughter and stuff, but you really don’t even care cause she’s so boring to listen to. We later see the school, and we see all these kids going to class. Sucks for them, I hate school lol. Trey and Donnie are here and Trey is trying to get his brother to talk with this girl, but he’s all nervous. What a wimp lol. Trey is pretty nerdy though. He tries to act like he’s a wiz with the girls, trying to get his brother to hit on this girl but he dresses and acts like he’s never been with a chick in his life.
And alot of the stuff he says doesn’t even sound like it’d come out of a person like him, so you laugh at what he says but for all the wrong reasons. But this goes along with what I said earlier, about how alot of the stuff these kids say would sound better if someone else said it. So anyway, eventually Donnie talks to the girl here at the library. Before I get to her, I just wanted to point out that I noticed the Apple logo on her laptop. You can also see the Apple logo on Donnie’s computer earlier in the scene where he’s in his room. This always interested me cause usually in movies when someone is on a laptop, they kinda cover the image for license reasons, which makes sense. They don’t want another movie or show to profit off of their logo. I know they cover it in the tv show Bates Motel, so some movies do it and some don’t.
But when you actually see the logo, its safe to assume that they paid apple some money to use the logo. I don’t really know why it ever matters since the laptops don’t really play a role in the movie, but whatever. So anyway he sits down and talks with this girl, and she’s pretty cute. Her names Kait and I love her hair lol. She’s also the same chick who was in the opening scene in the movie in the car with the teens, where the tornado hit and (atleast I’m assuming) killed everyone, so I don’t understand how she’s alive unless that scene came afterwards. But she basically says she needs help with some school project and Donnie says he’ll help her. We later see the researchers out here again. At one point, one of the guys here (don’t know his name and don’t care cause he’s a minor character) gets scolded about some equipment.
And Daryl says something like “C’mon dude your making me look bad” dude shut up, your making yourself look bad just being in the movie. Later on we see them watching the weather report on tv, which basically tells them a storm is coming. And moments later we hear noise outside and we see these giant white rocks falling from the sky. I remember this scene from the trailer and its pretty cool. They call it hail and its raining thousands of em out here near the swimming pool. On the topic of hail and rain, we don’t get alot of hail out here in Jersey (atleast not where I live) I mean it rains alot, but it doesn’t really snow much. It’ll snow for like 1 day and then it’ll rain the next day and dry it all up, which I think is kinda pointless lol. My mother hates the snow but I love it, and back when I was in high school I couldn’t wait for it to snow so we could get days off lol. It used to snow alot in those years, but not anymore.
So anyway, this scene was pretty cool, seeing the pool get loaded with hail lol. We later get a scene at this graduation ceremony, and we see all these kids outside with blue hats. The teacher actually looks like Obama lol. Kinda reminds me of when I graduated back in 2008. Thankfully we were inside, but it was cool. I remember being in the hallway though and this kid behind me told me that my little dash thingy on my hat (the little flap thingy, whatever the heck its called) was on the wrong side, and he told me to turn it to the other side. I found out later you’re supposed to turn it to the other side after you graduate. But I just kept thinkin “wow what a nerd” cause he was behind me, so he had to have a good angle on me to see where my little dash thing was. It still makes me laugh to this day though, how dorky some people can be.
For the most part I was a pretty quiet kid in school and I hated school like anybody else, but I was kinda sad when it ended, for a split second. I mean some of my teachers were cool, especially my English teacher. He was the one that introduced me to Misery and Storm of the Century, 2 of Stephen King’s greatest works. So anyway, meanwhile we see Donnie and Kait in some warehouse out here where her project supposedly takes place. It’s some water project thing where she believes people aren’t getting enough clean water. She mentions it earlier but I wasn’t paying attention cause she was so pretty. But they have to record it with the camera, which goes along with what I said earlier about Trey always having the camera with him. To me these scenes are just excuses for them to add in these little scenes of the character holding the camera.
I mean at this point, half the movie is shaky-camera and half is natural, but also half the time you don’t even know who’s holding the darn thing. To me these scenes just comes off very forced, like they just came up with a random excuse to put some found-footage element in the movie to go along with all the other stupid movies that get released nowadays. Director Steven Quale is starting to turn into Scott Stewart at this point. You do this badass movie and then out of nowhere you follow cliché and do something stupid like this. But anyway, the tornado hits and all the kids run inside. I know their in high school but I’m just so used to calling them kids, probably cause its faster. Except for the researchers in the van and the high school principle, everybody in this movie is a kid to me lol. But they all run into the school, which probably sucked for most of em.
Some of em were probably like “Damn I just graduated now I’m running back inside” lol. But they all run in and duck down. Eventually the tornado reaches them and rips the top the school roof off! I remember this clip from the trailer, and its so cool looking. I mean besides Marvel movies, you don’t see stuff like this in regular movies, probably cause nobody has the balls these days. They’d rather make a movie with someone running around with a camera lookin retarded as hell. Eventually the tornado gets to Donnie and Kait, and also rips the room off the little Warehouse here. But thankfully they both have a little hole to jump in here, conveniently placed like 2 feet next to them, so they jump down here before they get sucked into the funnel.
At one point Donnie’s dad calls him on the phone, and its here that you can really tell what kinda actors we got in this movie. I mean both these kids are pretty boring, but the father just puts me to sleep. He’s alot like his son Trey, cause his voice doesn’t even match his body. He’s in a business suit for most of the movie but he talks in this low, boring tough guy monotone, funny as hell. He calls his son but judging from how he acts, you never really get the feeling he even cares. The expression on his face just says “Okay lets get this movie over with” lol. Later on, we see the father and Trey out here driving. This is after the first couple tornadoes hit, so out here we see destroyed houses and objects thrown everywhere. At one point you can see a little girl’s bike thrown through someone’s car. Just the image makes me laugh lol.
At one point they drive along and meet these 2 crazy dudes who’s names I don’t really care to mention. You see them a few times through the movie up until this point. Their mostly goofing off and showing how excited they are about seeing a tornado, and its sorta funny but not really. At one point in the movie you see one of em recording the other one trying to jump and land his bike into a swimming pool. They try and record it so they can put it on youtube and get all these views. They act like the type of people I’d get frustrated with on a daily basis. And I’m glad I’m not like this, some guy who takes risks like that just to get a certain amount of views on some site. I’m not driven by views or subscribers. I’m just driven by my love of writing itself, and really that’s all that matters.
When people let that subscriber nonsense get to their head, they start doing anything to get page clicks, whether it be exaggerating a video title to get a certain amount of clicks or doing something stupid like this or begging people to click the “like” button. To me people who try to get famous off youtube are just nerds to me, plain and simple. But anyway, they all meet up here, which I actually thought was cool. There’s like 3-4 different perspectives being told in this movie: 1 is from the school, 1 is from Donnie and Kait, 1 is from the tornado researchers, and 1 is from these 2 clowns. And throughout the movie you get clips from each one. I always had a thing for seeing the same situation through different perspectives, so that’s cool. Eventually they all get back into their cars and head off, but we later find out that we have about 4-5 different tornadoes coming at us now.
They just appear from the sky outta nowhere. Besides mentioning them a couple times, I haven’t really talked much about the tornadoes themselves, but I will now. I mean up until this point they appear every 10 mins or so, destroy a building and leave. But now that we have about 5 of them all at once, I guess we can get really get into it. I’m not the biggest tornado fan, nor have I seen one in real life, but that’s besides the point. When it comes to making a movie like this, all you really gotta do is destroy stuff, and so far they’ve been doing a pretty good job of that. One of my favorite scenes is seeing the tornado hit the power lines and seeing the sparks as it begins to rip them apart.
And I gotta say, the CGI and effects in this scene really blew my mind. It’s so realistic and it doesn’t even look digital, but that’s a good thing. I remember being in the theater watching these scenes, and just cursing at the screen lol. But not out of anger, just cause I was so impressed by what I was seeing, I wanted more and more of it. When the tornadoes would hit, I just kept saying “F that up, F that up, break it, smash it, wreck it!” over and over lol. And like I said, unless it’s a Marvel movie, you don’t really see stuff like this in other sci-fi movies. You don’t even see this in Spielberg movies lol. But the digital effects in this movie are so real looking, it doesn’t even look CGI. I mean I’ve seen alot of movies, so 90% of the time when stuff is being blown up or thrown across the room, you can tell it’s CGI cause it always has like that smooth-cartoonish look to it.
Earlier in the movie where Donnie and Kait are in the warehouse, you could tell the warehouse was all CGI. It’s hard to describe but CGI always has this smooth-cartoonish look to it, and if your good enough (or you’ve seen enough movies like myself) you can spot it like 90% of the time, regardless how far away it is. But I definitely give them credit for the CGI smoke, cause I’m pretty sure smoke is hard to do, digitally. I mean if you wanna CGI a car, you either draw the car and make a digital replica of it or you just scan it. But you can’t scan smoke, so I wonder how they pulled that off. So anyway, we have about 5 of em now and we see them swirling over the city. At one point, one of em hits this little car park and picks up like 20 cars, and I swear this scene blew my mind!
It picks up like 20 of em and throws em all over the place, and its so badass lookin. I guess my only problem is you never see any of the cars hit the ground. You just see them being lifted off the ground, and they get thrown, but they don’t land anywhere. I would’ve liked to see like 10 of em get picked up and thrown, and then like 8 of em land in a field with this big explosion lol. At one point, one of the camera dudes here gets caught by one of the tornadoes here and get gets sucked in all the way to the top and you see his body spinning around lol. Eventually they all run into this little church, and its safe to say why they put a church here. One theory is the storm was an act of god, so that’s one theory. Earlier in the movie you hear Kait talkin about her project, and she mentions how nasty water is getting into our water, so that’s another theory.
I do remember reading somewhere when I was younger that if we don’t recycle, that stuff gets into the air and that’s what causes storms. I read that somewhere when I was younger, but I don’t know if its true or not. We later see Donnie and Kait still stuck underground. At one point they each share the camera and make this little apology thing where they apologize to their parents and stuff. And at first it looks kinda lame, but you almost feel bad for these kids, especially Donnie. I mean I wasn’t counting but his apology speech goes on for like a minute lol. And he’s emotional and crying but you don’t know if the water in his eyes is tears or its part of the water that’s dripping on his head as the rain pours in from above, who the hell cares. Eventually his father and the others drive over and they try and rescue these 2 clowns.
They grab the girl out but Donnie somehow gets his leg stuck on some hinge down here, I swear the kid is clumsy as hell. But eventually his father dives under and drags him out too, oh what a hero. We’re later back at the school and the kids here are still panicking. Eventually the father arrives and tells them its not safe here, in his deep monotone voice. So the Obama-looking principle orders the kids to run outside and get on the bus. After they do, moments later the tornado hits and destroys the school lol. The one that hit the school earlier and ripped off the roof must’ve been a smaller one. Later on everybody reaches what they call a “storm drain” which is basically some underground little hut here under the road. And they hide in here away from the storm.
Meanwhile, we get to one my favorite scenes in the movie, the one that made me so badly wanna see this movie in theaters. The storm hits the airport and starts lifting these airplanes and trucks into the air! And like I said, there aren’t alot of movies that have the balls to do this, so I give em respect. I mean they probably do something like this in a Marvel movie, but I’ve never seen Spielberg or Cameron do it. It’s just so Godzilla-esque and powerful I guess that’s why I like it. I just love seeing big objects like a car or building or truck getting thrown about, not in an action-movie kinda way, but in a sci-fi kinda way, if that makes sense. Eventually Pete (dude from earlier who I barely mentioned) gets some bravery and goes back outside into the storm.
He somehow manages to get back into the tank and uses it to block the gate so none of em get pulled through I guess. Throughout the movie you get the idea that Pete only cares about himself and getting footage of the tornado so he can make alot of money off it. There’s a scene earlier in the movie when their in the church, and Allison goes “is that all you care about, your stupid camera” lol. So I guess this scene towards the end shows us that he doesn’t just care about his camera, how cute.
But eventually the storm lifts his truck into the air, and this was another cool scene. They end up in what they call “the eye of the tornado” and you just see the thing spinning around, and you see all the cars it picked up. But eventually the storm picks the truck up with the dude inside and we get a shot up above of the clouds. It’s cute for a split second, until it brings the truck all the way back down with a loud smack, and we all know he didn’t survive that lol. So out of all the 5-6 main characters, only 1 of em died, and we had to wait till the end of the movie to see it, what a waste lol. But at the end of the movie, all the survivors are happy and we get the usual ending where everybody is smiling and they talk about how brave they were.
Overall besides some of the monotone acting that sounded like half the people in this movie had strep throat and the other half didn’t wanna be in the movie at all, I loved it. I mean even with the few flaws that it does have, it was still entertaining and it’s still better than half the crap that gets released these days. I was also impressed by the dialogue, cause it was pretty witty. The big problem though is that the characters are just so boring and bland that it just doesn’t sound right coming out of their mouths. It was basically witty dialogue delivered by crappy actors. But again I loved the movie and think it was shot pretty well. Some shots were captured with the camera on the side of the car and near the tires, which looked pretty cool.
Kinda reminded me of Final Destination 2 cause that movie had the same shots on the side of the car. The good parts in this movie overshadow how bad the acting is, so you kinda ignore it cause movies like this don’t come out that much. And to be honest I wouldn’t mind a sequel. I just checked imdb and unfortunately their not making one, so that sucks. But I’d really love if they made a sequel, and had the tornado hit like a nearby city and just destroy the buildings lol. But even if they hired the same monotone cast I’d watch the sequel, and I’d cringe the entire time but I’d still enjoy it.
The Maze Runner (2014)
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie at some point and being pretty into it. The main thing that caught my eye was the giant sliding doors. I didn’t even know what the movie was about, but those CGI doors was enough for me. I also heard this movie was based off a book, which I never read or care for. I love to write but I hate reading and I hate books, so my only interest in this movie was the doors lol. I’ll get to this later on but alot of this movie reminds me of those other “based on a novel” movies like Divergent and Harry Potter. And I’ll get to this later on but alot of these movies have very similar themes.
At the start of the movie we immediately see this dude on what looks like an elevator, slowly rising to the top. We never really get a proper introduction as to who this kid is, which kinda bugged me but whatever. So he’s being brought up in the elevator and eventually the doors up above open up and we see about 20 kids here. Most of them look like their in their 20’s and they stare and giggle at him, while he looks up at them sorta confused. Eventually he tries to run off, but he trips and falls like a nerd out here on the grass. Pretty soon he gets up and we get our first shot of the walls here, and they look pretty cool. Later on the boys take him and throw him in this little room here, which basically looks like a straw house.
He hasn’t said 1 word yet, but I gotta say, I already hate this kid. I just hate the way he looks, and he’s always got this puzzled, ugly look on his face with his mouth all open. Even after stuff is explained to him later on about where he’s at, he still has this ugly puzzled look the entire movie, and it annoys the heck outta me. Well I gotta get used to it, I mean the chick from Divergent was ugly too and I had to stare at her face for 2 hours. So anyway, he later meets this dude named Alby, which is a stupid name so I’ll just call him A. But its safe to assume he runs the place. He asks the dude here what his name is and he says he can’t remember. Eventually A tells him not to run, and begins to take him around the place.
They’re in this big circular looking dome place, surrounded by thick walls, but also the maze itself. There’s about 50 dudes here and he says they’ve lived here for 3 years and they all grow their own food. Every month a new person comes up, and they don’t know why, but they gotta stick together to figure out the maze and get out. At one point he looks at the walls and asks what’s beyond them, and A tells him that its dangerous and only the “Runners” can go out there cause they know the place. He later meets this fat kid and later, this other dork with a long neck named Newt, which is another stupid name so I’ll call him N. Later that night we see them eating and messing around, and we see the dude and N sitting out here drinkin something.
N gives him a drink and goes “drink this it’ll put hair on your chest” and the only thing I could say was “dude the only hair you have is on your head” lol. It’s always funny watching dorks try to act tough. Later on this one guy named Gally challenges him to a wrestling match, and I pretty much knew how this was gonna end. Dude gets thrown around alot out here on the sand, and its pretty funny. Eventually he gets thrown on the ground so hard, he finally remembers his name. He shouts “I remember my name, it Thomas!” and I’m like “Who the hell cares” lol. At one point we find out some guys went through the maze and that their on their way back. So about 20 of em wait and watch outside the doors for them to run through.
By this point in the movie you get the idea that the doors open up every morning and close every night at some specific time. So they wait here and eventually they see a couple guys on the far end of the doors like 50 feet away, so they yell for them to hurry up. Eventually they realise that these guys aren’t gonna make it, and so does Thomas, so all of a sudden he becomes a hero and dives through the walls before they close and makes it to the other side. Before I go on, I gotta say those scenes always scared me. I’ll probably mention this later but those scenes with the walls kinda remind me of The Mummy (1999) At the end of that movie when Benny is locked in the building, the walls start to fall and he almost gets crushed under them at some point. Those scenes always scared me cause they look so claustrophobic.
So anyway, he makes it across and now he’s on the other side of the walls and into the maze. It’s very plain looking but also very cool looking, if that makes sense. I mean walls in general are pretty boring but giant walls like these are just cool looking lol. So anyway he’s here with this black dude and this Asian dude named Minho which is another stupid name that I don’t feel like spelling so I’ll call him M. I swear, where did they come up with these stupid names lol. I guess they chose these names to make the book sound cool for people who hate the read but it actually has the opposite effect, and it just makes them all look even dorkier that normal. Which isn’t too bizarre cause alot of the people in this movie (even the main character) looks like a dork to me.
But I guess that’s one of the key things these books have, having dorky main characters. But not dorky main characters who act like dorks (which would’ve made more sense) but people who look like dorks, but try so hard to act tough or brave. I mean Harry Potter was sort of a dork, and so was Bella from Twilight. FYI I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan but I like that series more than Twilight. Twilight is really a chick flick, and so is Hunger Games. Their all made to make money, and their all made for teenage girls to drool over. So anyway, they pick the black dude up and carry him through the maze. Eventually these giant spider robots come out and chase them around for a bit. At first they look sorta cool, but its so dark you can barely see em. But eventually they make it out the maze safely.
Later on we get a new arrival at this little maze facility, and we find out it’s a girl named Teresa. They find her laying here on the little elevator, the same way they found Thomas. I remember seeing the trailer but I don’t think I remember there being a girl in the movie, so I was hoping they were gonna bring someone cute in. But the girl isn’t really that cute. When I first saw her, the first thing that came to mind was where she was from, cause she has this dorky lookin face, so my guess was she was from Australia cause I know people over there are dorky lookin (no offense) But according to imdb, turns out she’s from England. So I got that part right, sort of. I mean you can sorta tell when someone’s from a different country just by lookin at em, atleast I can.
People from England and Australia always have nasty lookin teeth, and / or weird lookin faces. And people from Russia always have that 1 expression on their face, like their ready to fight you, like Drago from Rocky IV lol. And I’m not trying to sound mean when I say that but, its true. And not only that, they also walk and move a certain way too. There’s a scene somewhere in here where they check up on this black dude (its always the black people getting injured in this movie FYI) and Teresa is standing here with this look on her face, and she just looks so English to me. And even though she uses an American accent, she ain’t foolin anybody lol. So anyway she’s probably thinkin the same thing I’m thinkin “Look at all these nerds” lol. Later on, M takes Thomas into this room and shows him this maze replica he made.
He says in the past 3 years they’ve been there he’s ran through the maze over and over and mapped out all the areas. It’s a pretty big replica, and kinda reminds me of the one from The Shining. I’m not the biggest fan of mazes in general but I guess they look pretty cool from up above. They also look pretty confusing, with all the little doors and openings and stuff. Later on we see the 2 of them going back towards the maze. This time they go further, and they get to these super tall rotating walls. These things look so cool lol. So they check some stuff out here but eventually stuff starts to shake and the walls begin to close. They run outside and we see these huge walls starting to close and we see them running through em trying not to get crushed!
We actually get a couple overhead shots in this scene of the spinning walls, something that other “based on a novel” movie Divergent didn’t do. I love the movie but damn, that movie would’ve benefited with shots like this, cause that director didn’t know what the heck he was doing. Stuff was happening up above but he kept pointing the camera towards the ground like an idiot. Later that night, some more robot spiders come out. And just like before, these scenes are okay but its so hard to see what’s going on cause its so dark. Later on, Thomas gathers up some people and decides to try and get through the maze. He and M have been making alot of progress these last few days and think that they’ve figured everything out.
So they go through the maze again, and they end up in this one room where they get attacked by more robotic spiders. Atleast this time the lights are on and we can actually see stuff. For the most part they keep em off, but 1 of em gets taken and eaten, this black kid. It’s a basic tradition in these movies, kill the black kid. I mean the first person to die in this movie was white, so I’ll give em that but still. Whenever I see 8 white people and 2 black people and 1 of the black characters gets killed, it always irritates me cause they go for the minority. It irritates the heck outta me, no joke. So anyway, eventually they make it to this big room with all these touchscreen computers, and it looks all futuristic and stuff. It reminds me of the scene from Divergent.
At the end of that movie they also reached a room with touchscreen computers, where they also figure out that they were being controlled and / or watched by someone. There’s alot of similarities between this movie and Divergent, which is probably why it was good enough to get the Hollywood treatment. I mean alot of the movies that come out these days are either remakes or movies that are based off novels where probably most of the creativity is at. Eventually some old chick (who I assume was one of the scientists here) appears on one of the monitors here and tells them that they’ve completed the maze and gotten to the end. She also goes into this monologue where she talks about what happened to the planet before they arrived and how there was famine (lack of food) and war and stuff.
I think society is one of the big themes of this movie, especially seeing all the different races they have in here: They have white people, Asians, blacks, you see an Indian dude in a couple scenes. And this probably doesn’t count but even though Teresa is playing an American actress she’s actually from England, so there’s a bonus for ya. Whenever I hear about war and stuff like that, and notice that there’s atleast 5 different racial groups in the movie, I get the feeling the movie itself has a bigger theme to it. And like I said, alot of this movie is just like Divergent: you have the different classes of kids but you still gotta be brave to reach your goals. It’s basically the same thing. So anyway, eventually after her somewhat boring speech, she takes a gun from outta nowhere and shoots herself lol. The poor old woman.
Right after she shoots herself, Gally arrives. He starts moaning and complaining, confused as to why they wanna leave. He says the maze was more safe and all this other crap. Eventually one of the kids throws an arrow and it catches him right in the chest, eventually killing him! Immediately after killing him, the fat kid here starts to faint and they all huddle over him. Ever since the start of this movie I’ve tried hard to figure out why they even added this kid to the movie. He looks about 12 but everybody else looks in their 20’s. So it just looks awkward seeing him follow them around. The only theory that I have about this kid, is that just like the teens, he too is supposed to represent something. The teens were supposed to represent all the teens who watch these novel-based movies, and this fat kid was supposed to represent all the kids his age.
But the fat kid is dead, who cares. He’s probably in heaven right now eatin happy meals. Eventually they make it out the maze and get picked up by a helicopter. It takes them high up into the air, where we finally get this huge shot of the maze from up above. I bet the guy who made Divergent is gettin pretty jealous right now, cause he never did any overhead shots, and if he did, he kept pointing the camera in the wrong direction like an idiot. At the end of the movie, we see the old chick again in some office somewhere, so I guess she didn’t really die, tricky old lady. But she says that the “maze trials” are complete and its time for Phase 2. I actually just checked imdb and it turns out their making a sequel called The Scorch Trials. I’m not super exited about it but when it comes out and hits dvd I’ll check it out. I’m guessing the “scorch” part means there’s gonna be some fire in there so that’ll be cool.
Overall I guess this was a pretty good movie. Like I said its basically like a direct clone of Divergent, except of course with different characters. And even with the crappy camera-work, Divergent was actually way better than this. I guess the big thing that annoyed me about this movie was they hired the wrong people to play certain roles. I don’t know if it was done on purpose or not, but they hired too many dorks. And they tried to make the dorks act all tough, and it just looked lame, especially Newt. But even with the cool looking tall walls, the cool looking maze and even the robot spiders, the movie itself was still sorta bland and predictable.
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie at some point and being pretty into it. The main thing that caught my eye was the giant sliding doors. I didn’t even know what the movie was about, but those CGI doors was enough for me. I also heard this movie was based off a book, which I never read or care for. I love to write but I hate reading and I hate books, so my only interest in this movie was the doors lol. I’ll get to this later on but alot of this movie reminds me of those other “based on a novel” movies like Divergent and Harry Potter. And I’ll get to this later on but alot of these movies have very similar themes.
At the start of the movie we immediately see this dude on what looks like an elevator, slowly rising to the top. We never really get a proper introduction as to who this kid is, which kinda bugged me but whatever. So he’s being brought up in the elevator and eventually the doors up above open up and we see about 20 kids here. Most of them look like their in their 20’s and they stare and giggle at him, while he looks up at them sorta confused. Eventually he tries to run off, but he trips and falls like a nerd out here on the grass. Pretty soon he gets up and we get our first shot of the walls here, and they look pretty cool. Later on the boys take him and throw him in this little room here, which basically looks like a straw house.
He hasn’t said 1 word yet, but I gotta say, I already hate this kid. I just hate the way he looks, and he’s always got this puzzled, ugly look on his face with his mouth all open. Even after stuff is explained to him later on about where he’s at, he still has this ugly puzzled look the entire movie, and it annoys the heck outta me. Well I gotta get used to it, I mean the chick from Divergent was ugly too and I had to stare at her face for 2 hours. So anyway, he later meets this dude named Alby, which is a stupid name so I’ll just call him A. But its safe to assume he runs the place. He asks the dude here what his name is and he says he can’t remember. Eventually A tells him not to run, and begins to take him around the place.
They’re in this big circular looking dome place, surrounded by thick walls, but also the maze itself. There’s about 50 dudes here and he says they’ve lived here for 3 years and they all grow their own food. Every month a new person comes up, and they don’t know why, but they gotta stick together to figure out the maze and get out. At one point he looks at the walls and asks what’s beyond them, and A tells him that its dangerous and only the “Runners” can go out there cause they know the place. He later meets this fat kid and later, this other dork with a long neck named Newt, which is another stupid name so I’ll call him N. Later that night we see them eating and messing around, and we see the dude and N sitting out here drinkin something.
N gives him a drink and goes “drink this it’ll put hair on your chest” and the only thing I could say was “dude the only hair you have is on your head” lol. It’s always funny watching dorks try to act tough. Later on this one guy named Gally challenges him to a wrestling match, and I pretty much knew how this was gonna end. Dude gets thrown around alot out here on the sand, and its pretty funny. Eventually he gets thrown on the ground so hard, he finally remembers his name. He shouts “I remember my name, it Thomas!” and I’m like “Who the hell cares” lol. At one point we find out some guys went through the maze and that their on their way back. So about 20 of em wait and watch outside the doors for them to run through.
By this point in the movie you get the idea that the doors open up every morning and close every night at some specific time. So they wait here and eventually they see a couple guys on the far end of the doors like 50 feet away, so they yell for them to hurry up. Eventually they realise that these guys aren’t gonna make it, and so does Thomas, so all of a sudden he becomes a hero and dives through the walls before they close and makes it to the other side. Before I go on, I gotta say those scenes always scared me. I’ll probably mention this later but those scenes with the walls kinda remind me of The Mummy (1999) At the end of that movie when Benny is locked in the building, the walls start to fall and he almost gets crushed under them at some point. Those scenes always scared me cause they look so claustrophobic.
So anyway, he makes it across and now he’s on the other side of the walls and into the maze. It’s very plain looking but also very cool looking, if that makes sense. I mean walls in general are pretty boring but giant walls like these are just cool looking lol. So anyway he’s here with this black dude and this Asian dude named Minho which is another stupid name that I don’t feel like spelling so I’ll call him M. I swear, where did they come up with these stupid names lol. I guess they chose these names to make the book sound cool for people who hate the read but it actually has the opposite effect, and it just makes them all look even dorkier that normal. Which isn’t too bizarre cause alot of the people in this movie (even the main character) looks like a dork to me.
But I guess that’s one of the key things these books have, having dorky main characters. But not dorky main characters who act like dorks (which would’ve made more sense) but people who look like dorks, but try so hard to act tough or brave. I mean Harry Potter was sort of a dork, and so was Bella from Twilight. FYI I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan but I like that series more than Twilight. Twilight is really a chick flick, and so is Hunger Games. Their all made to make money, and their all made for teenage girls to drool over. So anyway, they pick the black dude up and carry him through the maze. Eventually these giant spider robots come out and chase them around for a bit. At first they look sorta cool, but its so dark you can barely see em. But eventually they make it out the maze safely.
Later on we get a new arrival at this little maze facility, and we find out it’s a girl named Teresa. They find her laying here on the little elevator, the same way they found Thomas. I remember seeing the trailer but I don’t think I remember there being a girl in the movie, so I was hoping they were gonna bring someone cute in. But the girl isn’t really that cute. When I first saw her, the first thing that came to mind was where she was from, cause she has this dorky lookin face, so my guess was she was from Australia cause I know people over there are dorky lookin (no offense) But according to imdb, turns out she’s from England. So I got that part right, sort of. I mean you can sorta tell when someone’s from a different country just by lookin at em, atleast I can.
People from England and Australia always have nasty lookin teeth, and / or weird lookin faces. And people from Russia always have that 1 expression on their face, like their ready to fight you, like Drago from Rocky IV lol. And I’m not trying to sound mean when I say that but, its true. And not only that, they also walk and move a certain way too. There’s a scene somewhere in here where they check up on this black dude (its always the black people getting injured in this movie FYI) and Teresa is standing here with this look on her face, and she just looks so English to me. And even though she uses an American accent, she ain’t foolin anybody lol. So anyway she’s probably thinkin the same thing I’m thinkin “Look at all these nerds” lol. Later on, M takes Thomas into this room and shows him this maze replica he made.
He says in the past 3 years they’ve been there he’s ran through the maze over and over and mapped out all the areas. It’s a pretty big replica, and kinda reminds me of the one from The Shining. I’m not the biggest fan of mazes in general but I guess they look pretty cool from up above. They also look pretty confusing, with all the little doors and openings and stuff. Later on we see the 2 of them going back towards the maze. This time they go further, and they get to these super tall rotating walls. These things look so cool lol. So they check some stuff out here but eventually stuff starts to shake and the walls begin to close. They run outside and we see these huge walls starting to close and we see them running through em trying not to get crushed!
We actually get a couple overhead shots in this scene of the spinning walls, something that other “based on a novel” movie Divergent didn’t do. I love the movie but damn, that movie would’ve benefited with shots like this, cause that director didn’t know what the heck he was doing. Stuff was happening up above but he kept pointing the camera towards the ground like an idiot. Later that night, some more robot spiders come out. And just like before, these scenes are okay but its so hard to see what’s going on cause its so dark. Later on, Thomas gathers up some people and decides to try and get through the maze. He and M have been making alot of progress these last few days and think that they’ve figured everything out.
So they go through the maze again, and they end up in this one room where they get attacked by more robotic spiders. Atleast this time the lights are on and we can actually see stuff. For the most part they keep em off, but 1 of em gets taken and eaten, this black kid. It’s a basic tradition in these movies, kill the black kid. I mean the first person to die in this movie was white, so I’ll give em that but still. Whenever I see 8 white people and 2 black people and 1 of the black characters gets killed, it always irritates me cause they go for the minority. It irritates the heck outta me, no joke. So anyway, eventually they make it to this big room with all these touchscreen computers, and it looks all futuristic and stuff. It reminds me of the scene from Divergent.
At the end of that movie they also reached a room with touchscreen computers, where they also figure out that they were being controlled and / or watched by someone. There’s alot of similarities between this movie and Divergent, which is probably why it was good enough to get the Hollywood treatment. I mean alot of the movies that come out these days are either remakes or movies that are based off novels where probably most of the creativity is at. Eventually some old chick (who I assume was one of the scientists here) appears on one of the monitors here and tells them that they’ve completed the maze and gotten to the end. She also goes into this monologue where she talks about what happened to the planet before they arrived and how there was famine (lack of food) and war and stuff.
I think society is one of the big themes of this movie, especially seeing all the different races they have in here: They have white people, Asians, blacks, you see an Indian dude in a couple scenes. And this probably doesn’t count but even though Teresa is playing an American actress she’s actually from England, so there’s a bonus for ya. Whenever I hear about war and stuff like that, and notice that there’s atleast 5 different racial groups in the movie, I get the feeling the movie itself has a bigger theme to it. And like I said, alot of this movie is just like Divergent: you have the different classes of kids but you still gotta be brave to reach your goals. It’s basically the same thing. So anyway, eventually after her somewhat boring speech, she takes a gun from outta nowhere and shoots herself lol. The poor old woman.
Right after she shoots herself, Gally arrives. He starts moaning and complaining, confused as to why they wanna leave. He says the maze was more safe and all this other crap. Eventually one of the kids throws an arrow and it catches him right in the chest, eventually killing him! Immediately after killing him, the fat kid here starts to faint and they all huddle over him. Ever since the start of this movie I’ve tried hard to figure out why they even added this kid to the movie. He looks about 12 but everybody else looks in their 20’s. So it just looks awkward seeing him follow them around. The only theory that I have about this kid, is that just like the teens, he too is supposed to represent something. The teens were supposed to represent all the teens who watch these novel-based movies, and this fat kid was supposed to represent all the kids his age.
But the fat kid is dead, who cares. He’s probably in heaven right now eatin happy meals. Eventually they make it out the maze and get picked up by a helicopter. It takes them high up into the air, where we finally get this huge shot of the maze from up above. I bet the guy who made Divergent is gettin pretty jealous right now, cause he never did any overhead shots, and if he did, he kept pointing the camera in the wrong direction like an idiot. At the end of the movie, we see the old chick again in some office somewhere, so I guess she didn’t really die, tricky old lady. But she says that the “maze trials” are complete and its time for Phase 2. I actually just checked imdb and it turns out their making a sequel called The Scorch Trials. I’m not super exited about it but when it comes out and hits dvd I’ll check it out. I’m guessing the “scorch” part means there’s gonna be some fire in there so that’ll be cool.
Overall I guess this was a pretty good movie. Like I said its basically like a direct clone of Divergent, except of course with different characters. And even with the crappy camera-work, Divergent was actually way better than this. I guess the big thing that annoyed me about this movie was they hired the wrong people to play certain roles. I don’t know if it was done on purpose or not, but they hired too many dorks. And they tried to make the dorks act all tough, and it just looked lame, especially Newt. But even with the cool looking tall walls, the cool looking maze and even the robot spiders, the movie itself was still sorta bland and predictable.