Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Public Enemies Review

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Public Enemies was a good movie, that’s all it was though. It wasn’t spectacular or even great, but it was good. I haven’t seen a movie in theaters since Up and I had been anticipating this movie for a while. What I got was good, but I’m disappointed to say that I expected a lot more and there’s not a doubt in my mind that a lot of people will say the same. And when I use the word ‘people’ I didn’t just mean the public, I also meant critics as well. Most of the public will be expecting to see a well acted action movie. Most critics, and myself as well, will be expecting a cat and mouse drama, which it was, it just wasn’t as great a one as it could have been.

After viewing Public Enemies, I walked out of the theater a little disappointed, mainly because of my abnormally high expectations, and I was trying to think of the best word or phrase to describe the film. After a few days I came up with a single word. I found Public Enemies to be rather dry. It seriously lacked in the innovation that this film needed in order to be great. There are so many crime dramas out there and this one was telling a story that needed to be told. It had great characters and events to work with, but throughout the movie, it just seemed that they weren’t using them to their advantage.

I mainly blame this on the writer. The dialogue and tension was lacking to the point of extreme boredom at times and this is not a story I should be bored in. The director did a pretty good job in my opinion through detail and camera work. Michael Mann did succeed in making this movie very realistic and moody, and where you were bored in some scenes because of the writing, you felt very involved in others.

Now I’ve talked a lot about what I didn’t enjoy in this film, but there was a lot I did enjoy about this movie. First of all, I found the movie visually very appealing. The colors were vibrant and moody and you were really brought to the era. It certainly was a period piece. I also mentioned the camera before. Most might tell you the camera work was amateur and shaky, but there really wasn’t a point in the film where I was bothered by it. I actually found the camera work quite professional. I felt much more involved in each scene because of the camera work and it seemed as if a lot of time was spent making each one worth watching.

The greatest pro I can point out when it comes to this movie is the many memorable performances. Johnny Depp was spectacular and exceeded my expectations, his performance was the best part of this film. Christian Bale was another leading man that exceeded my expectations. They weren’t that high for this character, because by the trailer it just didn’t seem like he had much to work with, but he truly put his all into this one and I enjoyed his screen presence very thoroughly. Marion Cotillard was also a force to be reckoned with along with almost every other supporting actor and actress.

So all and all, when you look at Public Enemies you get a good movie. It is one worth a view, but not one you need to rush out to the theater and see immediately. Their were certainly pros and cons to this movie and many of them. This is one of those movies that will be all across the board. Some will love it, some will hate it, and some will find it ok. You should see it and be the judge for yourself.

Grade: B+

Up Review

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I would like to start by pointing out that Pixar has never once let me down and they certainly haven’t with their tenth film. At this point I seriously doubt I’ll ever be disappointed with a Pixar movie. No matter what it is, whether it’s about colorful and funny monsters or even a rat with a keen sense for food, you can always expect a masterpiece and it’s no different here. Up was a fantastic movie and I can’t wait to own it.

It’s the story of an old man whose lost a loved one and can never let her, or the house where they grew old together, go. When he’s deemed a menace to society and is sentenced to a retirement center he decides to take a trip to South America like he promised his wife he always would with her. He does so by attaching millions of balloons to his house and using bed sheets as sails. When Carl is finally away from the many people that don’t understand him and his love for the person that is no longer around he gets an unexpected visitor. A young wilderness explorer named Russell whose trying to get his “Assisting the elderly badge”.

The relationship that unravels between this grouchy old man and this excited young boy is nothing short of beautiful. Like all Pixar movies there are a wide variety of characters that we meet along the way and a brilliant moral to be learned at the end. The movie was brilliantly colorful and the ideas were fluent and innovative. I loved this film as I do all Pixar movies. Sure this wasn’t their best, but it was still a fantastic movie worthy of praise.

Grade: B+

Terminator Salvation Review

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Anyone who has a passion for movies must have been noticing all the reviews around for Terminator Salvation. It’s average grade has gotta be something around a D+ on a grading scale, while we got   Rotten Tomatoes projecting it at a 33%. Let me begin my review by saying that yes, this was not that great of a movie, but it certainly doesn’t deserve the terrible reviews it’s getting. I think most critics are grading this film by comparing it to the movie it could’ve been other than just grading it as the movie it is.

What I mean by that is, obviously McG had the right idea when you look at the trailers. Taking a classic series n putting it into this crisp and gloomy post-apocalyptic wasteland. Then having a good well-known actor play as the main character. All looked well in the world of Terminator, and of course the movie wasn’t able to deliver as much as you would have hoped, but nonetheless, the film was better than critics are saying.

Like I said about the trailer, the movie throughout was visually pretty awesome. The action sequences were intense and fun to watch and threw in some very new ideas to action scenes, which nowadays most films aren’t very intuitive with their action scenes. The acting was nothing spectacular and I expected more from Christian Bale and instead just got a bunch of unmotivated anger. I actually preferred Sam Worthington’s performance to Bale’s. And Sam Worthington was a no named actor for me, some of you might have seen him in others, but I haven’t.

My biggest problem with Terminator Salvation is that there was no story of its own at all. It just expected us to have known everything about the series and just built off of that. Then at the end, the film has gotten no where. At the beginning, a war is going on and at the end, a war is going on. Not much is accomplished and it seemed that they weren’t even trying to throw out a good movie, they just wanted to give audiences a movie with a lot of action, robots and explosions and they wanted to make a lot of sequels just so the can make a quick buck. I’ll leave you with this comment; you don’t really need to see this film, it’s not that great, but it is better than most are saying.

Grade: C

P.S. There was a little cameo that made me extremely happy with this film.

Star Trek Review

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Walking into Star Trek I wasn’t expecting much. I actually didn’t know what to expect, I hadn’t seen a trailer and I hadn’t once seen a Star Trek episode or movie. All I knew was the names Captain Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and Scotty, and a few of the alien species names. I had no knowledge of the show other than a few names and a few famous quotes. I was just never that interested, but I was interested to see why there was such a following and I thought this would be a good place to start. As it turns out, I was right.

My expectations were certainly exceeded for many different reasons. First of all, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the actors mainly because the two main characters were being played by actors I had never heard of. I thought the acting was actually pretty top-notch, nothing oscar worthy of course, but very entertaining and believable. Chris Pine was able to perform fantastically with Kirk’s huge ego and same goes to Quinto with Spock’s highly intelligent dialogue, also more minor characters that I loved were Simon Pegg as the famous “Scotty” and Eric Bana did a fantastic job as the menacing Captain Nero, the main antagonist of this film. 

Everything about this movie was very colorful and visually appealing. It told a story that needed to be told and it told it very well. Everything about the film was just exciting, the action was big, colorful, and fun, while the dialogue was quick and executed very well. I have never seen a Star Trek episode or movie before this one and I most certainly will see the many sequels that will follow this one. I would recommend it to anyone who’s in the mood for entertainment. You don’t have to be a fan of the series, I’m can attest to that.

Grade: A-

Watchmen Review

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Watchmen was one of those movies that you walk in expectations. It wasn’t a movie you were dragged to knowing that it would be terrible, and it wasn’t a movie (atleast not for me that it) that you’ve been anticipating for half a year expecting greatness and nothing short of it. It was a movie that could’ve been terrible, amazing, or decent. And for me, it hit the latter category straight on the nose. Watchmen was a decent movie, that’s all it was. Its not amazing like the die-hard comic book loving fan might tell you, and its not terrible like the average blockbuster movie watching guy, who was expecting an action packed superhero movie and got something completely different, might tell you.

I enjoyed Watchmen because it wasn’t your average super hero movie. It was a 2 hour and 40 minute movie that did have some action, but also it told a story that had many philosophical points to make. It also, while throwing much intelligent imagery and symbolism at you, formed itself as a criticism on both society and comic book movies. It sort of did to comic book movies, what Scream did to slasher movies, if you can understand what I’m trying to say. I did enjoy that aspect of it.

While being a very different comic book movie, I still had many reasons I didn’t enjoy it, which is why, even with its creative ideas and writing, it still wouldn’t be very high on a top comic books movie list because movies like The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Sin City, and V for Vendetta, still pass this movie by leaps and bounds. During this extremely visibly long movie, a very well-thought out story was told that I’m 100% sure was better in comic book form, but my problem was that it was a very inventive story that was told through characters that I did not enjoy watching on screen (for the most part). For a movie thats almost three hours long you have to enjoy almost all of the characters that have a lot of screen time and I only enjoyed two of them.

Don’t get me wrong, the two characters I enjoyed were great, and acted well, but one of them didn’t even have much screen time. Those two characters were Rorschach and The Comedian. Now Comedian was certainly not a character you were supposed to like because he was the definition of an ass hole, but I loved the guy, he ate up every scene he was in with a passion. Rorschach was another great character. Rorschach was by far the best character in the movie and one of the main reasons the movie was worth watching. I enjoyed every second he was on screen.

Unfortunately there were some characters that I absolutely could not stand. Particularly Dr. Manhattan a.k.a. the glowing blue guy who could literally do anything. The delved way too far into this character and a few others that just didn’t do it for me. All and all Watchmen was probably one of the greatest graphic novels ever written, I can tell that from watching the movie because it was a movie that would work so well in comic book form. Because of its praise, it had to be made into a movie and it was decent. It was good, but Its not one of those movies that I’m jumping to see again anytime soon.

Grade: B-

Friday the 13th Review

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Friday the 13th was a great homage to not just the orignal series that basically started a hybrid of horror films (Friday the 13th and Halloween are what basically started the slasher genre), but also all classic slasher films. A clever and entertaining genre that is able to still bank today. There are two different types of horror movies. Movies that try to scare you long after the films credits through mental terrorism (The Shining, Exorcist, Poltergeist) and slasher movies that just entertain you in a way that makes your heart pump, they try just to make you jumb out of your skin and make you wonder what you would do in a situation like this.

I don’t know why, but I was expecting a lot out of Friday the 13th. I was expecting a dark, moody, realistic homage to what make this genre watchable. Well, Friday the 13th wasn’t nearly as good as it could’ve been, but it also wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been if it was directed by Rob Zombie or someone. The movie started off exactly how I would’ve hoped and if it kept that same momentum that it instilled in the first 25 minutes, I would’ve enjoyed this movie just as much as any of the classics. The first half hour of the movie brought with it such a dark and moody tone, I was loving every second, but I just couldn’t say the same about the rest of the movie except for the end.

If you love the genre as I do, you’ll think the movie was enjoyable at times, and most of all, you’ll love both the first thirty minutes and the last minute, but the rest won’t be nearly as good as it could’ve been. The rest of the movie followed the brother of one of the victims of the first 30 minute slaughter and a different group of rich attractive teenagers. This hour is the hour the brought the corny deaths, the corny lines, and the above all else, campiness that could’ve been avoided this time around, but wasn’t. This entire movie was full of parts that I love and parts that I hated so it was what it was, average, while it could’ve been exceptional.

Grade: C