Movie Review Round Up

By @hmsbeefnuts

With all the Autumnal Terror that has been going on here recently I have been neglectful of keeping those interested in my opinion on films, informed of what films I have seen. Now I’m not really sure why anyone in particular would be interested in what my opinion on any given film is, but that is not going to stop me from writing about it. As it has been quite some time I can not remember, or be bothered to look up, what films I have actually written about, but I am pretty certain that the following films have not been written about by me. If I have doubled up, I apologise, perhaps you can see if my thoughts have changed on the film, but as I’m pretty sure I haven’t written anything about these films; that little game will have to remain merely a dream. A fair few Halloween type films this time around, obviously, and a good amount of films to write about too, so lets crack on shall we?

LOOPER

Lots of people have said Looper is great. I am not one of them. I didn’t really see what everyone was making such a massive fuss about. It was well acted, had decent action, a decent premise, but just didn’t really do anything too amazing for me. The major problem was JGL, not his performance, which is always great, but the stupid CGI makeup job they did to his face to make him look like a young Bruce Willis. It just made him look very weird, and it was quite distracting, because he looked so weird. We know what Bruce looked like young, and we know what JGL looks like, it doesn’t matter that they look nothing alike, audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief, instead, this weird thing is on-screen and I didn’t care for it much. Apart from that, the film was fine, just didn’t rock my world. Emily Blunt is sexy as hell though, so extra points for that. Worth seeing, but not worth all the fuss.

TAKEN 2

Lots of hate for this film. I found it alright for what it was. Nowhere near as good as the first, but Liam Neeson is always watchable and some of the deaths were entertaining. The picture I have chosen for this film perfectly illustrates how I feel about the film. Ice cream is fine, but when you go in expecting a steak, it is disappointing. Look at how happy Neeson is in that picture. He should never be that happy in a sequel to Taken, ever. Even if he is fucking Jean Grey and his daughter is safe.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

I saw this film with my Lady friend and her son. He is 4 years old. We all liked it a lot. I liked the references to my beloved Universal Monsters, and the bigfoot cameo’s, he loved the colours and the ‘zany’ comedy. The story is typical of such films, over protective Dad, daughter fancies a stranger, in this case a human, and there is even a ‘race to the airport’ scene. So in no way original. But it amused all of us for an afternoon, and I would watch it again. Loved the Wolfman and Frankenstein characters, all in all worth taking a small child too.

MADAGASCAR 3

Back to the cinema with said Lady friend and small child, and erghhh. Great flaming Zeus on a pegasus, this film was utter shit. It moved at breakneck speed. I hated all the characters, especially the Lemur King, I would watch Madagascar 4: Trip To The Abattoir just to see all these characters die in horrible, horrible ways. I have seen all these fucking movies for some reason, and I fucking hate them all. Small child however, loved it and wanted to see it again. I might have another trip to see this at some point, if we can’t think of anything else to do on a rainy weekend. Please let it stay dry. Circus Afro may be the worst thing I have ever had to endure. Just awful. I know these films aren’t aimed at me, and every other child I know loved the shit out of it, but really, go see Hotel Transylvania instead.

SKYFALL

This was the film I was most looking forward too last month, and it was fantastic. Daniel Craig is for me the best Bond, he brings the nastiness of the character to the forefront, just like my second favourite Bond, Timothy Dalton (shitty films, good Bond). I still think Casino Royal is the better movie, but Skyfall is so damn close. At times it felt less like a Bond movie, and more like a great action movie starring James Bond. But the Bondness was their in spades too. Great title sequence, great pre-title sequence, great action, good villain, sexy girls, M, Q, long may the Craig Bond films continue. Only one slight problem, I hated Naomie Harris, just thought she was totally weak in her role, one which will most likely be repeated, so lets try harder next time shall we Naomie? Apart from that, awesome movie. Go see it, but you probably already have.

SINISTER

I saw Sinister with a friend of mine. She was terrified throughout the film. I didn’t really know what to make of it. I jumped, but I was never scared. The movie uses cheap scares for many of its big moments, and whilst there is nothing really wrong with jump scares, they shouldn’t be your only port of call. There were a few nice set pieces in the videos, but the idea behind the film was a bit too ridiculous, something about a Babylonian God who can haunt you through images. It was OK, and delivered one gory and shocking moment, even though it was obvious it was coming. I much prefered the film below.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4

I like the Paranormal Activity films, and I’m not bored of them yet, even though the formula is getting a bit familiar in this fourth one. My favourite of the franchise is a toss up between 2 and 3, and whilst this installment is the worst yet, I still liked it. It advances the story slightly, and makes good use of laptops, and the XBOX Kinect sensor to raise some chills, although nothing is quite as good as the camera mounted on a moving fan scenes from number 3. The main couple, a young girl and her boyfriend, are very likable and I cared for their welfare, and Katie Featherstone is back as the horrible, yet very sexy, demon/***** (censored) next door, and the scares are quite effective. Stay until the end of the credits and see a confusing spanish/mexican flavoured scene that doesn’t make much sense, but is promoting Paranormal Activities Latin flavoured off shoot. I will be watching the inevitable 5th entry, but feel that things need to be changed a little for the next entry. If you liked the first 3, and are not fed up with the concept, it is worth a look, and I enjoyed it.

WEDNESDAY WHIMSY

By @hmsbeefnuts

This weeks Wednesday Whimsy will be an ode to holidays. Not the kind of holiday where you board a plane and jet off to exotic places for a week or two, and certainly not a celebration of some religious event (for that is where holiday gets its origin, holiday/holy-day, your welcome fact fans). This year I have a week off, one whole week away from work, where I get to do exactly what I want for a whole week, exciting huh? Well it is for me. So far, we are a day in, and I have slept in and gone to the cinema and made some nice food, and taken my dog for long walks. Pretty good so far. But I thought I’d let you know about what else I have planned for the week, at least in a geek context, let the Summer of Jon commence!

As I mentioned above, I saw Brave yesterday. A lot of people are hating on this film, but for me, Brave is one of, if not the, best Pixar film. The animation is obviously stunning, as usual, but the theme of the film is right up my alley. The ancient Scottish wilderness is simply beautiful, stunning hills and mountains, picturesque forests and castles and brilliantly rendered characters, many of which are memorable. The protagonist herself, Merida, is a strong female role model, and one of the most likeable animated characters in a while. Sure, the story is pretty basic, we all learn a valuable lesson in the end, but then it must be remembered that this is a kids film, and although it doesn’t stray far from typical fairytale plot points, including a witch, although, not all that wicked, this is no bad thing. Sometimes the simplest stories are the best.

Perhaps the most ‘Disney’ of the Pixar films, Merida should fit nicely into the Disney Princess Sorority, even if she is very ballsy and would destroy Katniss Everdeen in an archery competition. I’m a fan of fairy stories, myths and legends, and Brave defiantly feels like it belongs in such illustrious company. I saw Brave in a room full of excited kids and not so excited parents, but everyone left the theatre smiling. The film had good action scenes, was scary enough just to put an edge on proceedings, and I’ll admit it, quite heart warming at times. I went to see this with my Mum, and there is not a better person you could take with you to see this, go take your Mum now. I’ll admit it, I’m not a fawning Pixar fan, I like The Incredibles, Nemo and Monster Inc. but hate Toy Story, Cars, Wall-E and Ratatouille. Brave however, did it for me, top marks Pixar.

Today I returned to the Cinema, this time for The Bourne Legacy. I had enjoyed all The Bourne films thus far, and am happy to say this continued with this new direction for the franchise. Taking place during the events of the previous films, The Bourne Legacy widens and enhances the Bourne Universe, revealing that the secret goings on of Treadstone etc. go way beyond Mr. Bourne. Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner is our hero and he handles himself superbly, even coming close to a certain Mr Neeson in one specific wolf fighting scene. It seems that wolves are the go to animal for putting main characters in danger. As is usual in these kind of spy films, characters all talk very quickly about secret organisations with amazing names and codewords, I love all that stuff. Ed Norton is the man charged with bad guy duties, and he does a reasonable job of trying to track Renner down. The beautiful and amazing Rachel Weisz is on hand to scream a bit, then lend a hand, and maybe become a bit of a love interest at the end. The action is typical of The Bourne Franchise, all parkour running about, bike chases and slick taking people down with no fuss.

The film is perfectly watch-able and enjoyable, but I do think that I should have perhaps re-watched the previous films, just to keep things fresh in my mind, however, if this is your first Bourne film, it wouldn’t be too confusing, although you may wonder why Matt Damon is reduced to a few black and white picture cameos. By no means a great film, but I enjoyed it and would watch a further sequel, and isn’t that all a film really needs to accomplish. Worth my time and money.

Later on this week I plan on seeing The Expendables 2, and that should be enough cinema for anyone in one holiday. Anyway, that’s enough chatter about me, I would also like to comment on All Geek To Me as a whole. Geeky Gem and I would like to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who has read, commented or licked a link to All Geek To Me over the past 8 months. On Sunday we hit a huge landmark of 25,000 views, we broke our weekly view record with a very respectable 1,921 views and also beat our previous daily record of views with a fantastic 368 in one day. So a massive thank you once again. I really don’t think either Geeky Gem or I ever thought we would get 1,000 views, let alone 25,000 so we are very grateful to you all. I’ll catch you next week with some more rubbish about something I haven’t thought of yet, catch you guys later.

 

WEDNESDAY WHIMSY

By @hmsbeefnuts

Hello Wednesday fans, and welcome to some more Whimsy. I must admit, Wednesday is my least favourite day of the week, it doesn’t know what it is really does it? Smack bang in the middle of the week, too far away from Saturday, yet far enough from Monday to be truly tedious. Yet in Britain, it is Orange Wednesday, where customers of Orange Phones can get 2 cinema tickets for the price of one!! Unfortunately, this means the cinema is full, and thus, not a good day to go. Damn you Wednesday, damn you to the very pits of Hades, from whence you emerged, all boring and joyless. Hmm. Excuse me.

Now next Month here at All Geek To Me, we will mostly be getting very excited about The Dark Knight Rises and will be celebrating this fact in our Summer Knights celebration. As such, my usual round up of the films I watched during the last month, will now take the place of this weeks Wednesday Whimsy. So I hope you look forward to some of the articles etc. we have coming up, and hope you enjoy my following look at the films I deemed worthy of a trip to the cinema this month.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

 

This feels like ages ago now, having seen Snow White on June 1^st. I did like it very much, despite Kirsten Stewart being in it. Someone needs to cheer her up, perhaps buy her a happy meal, and a chocolate shake, because she seems to have one acting mode, look depressingly off into the middle distance, and bite her lip. The fact that clearly she is not the fairest in the land, especially when that land is ruled by Charlise Theron, can be passed by, as in all other aspects, SWATH was pretty damn good. The production design on this movie was fantastic, and the Troll in particular is surely in with a shout as top cinematic monster this year? I liked that the film had quite a retro feel, it seemed to be reaching into the 80’s, to movies such as The Princess Bride and Legend. The dwarfs were quite good too, even if they were used sparingly. Theron was a good big bad, and the only weak point was the Wicked Queens pathetic brother, not menacing enough to be a threat, and with a very stupid hair cut. The first movie this month to promote the axe as the weapon of choice, SWATH, is well worth your time.

PROMETHEUS

 

Oh Boy. The most controversial film for quite some time, and one that has split critics and audience members alike between those who loved it, and those that didn’t get it. Well I saw this film twice, and I loved it both times. Clearly this is a prequel to Alien, although not a direct prequel. Yes, the film is engineered to make you think, it is not a film that gives away all it’s motives. Yes there are curious things that don’t quite seem to fit. For example, the scientists in this film seem extraordinarily stupid, there is a character played by a young man, who is in some very odd old age make up, and certain things are glossed over, character’s actions don’t always seem to fit 100 %. However, I don’t think that Prometheus is any different from any number of films, especially Alien, where scientists act in stupid ways (why would anyone put their face over an opening Alien egg sack?). It is part one of a purposed new trilogy. Things aren’t going to be spoon fed to you, questions will be posed, and not necessarily answered right away. I liked this film more than the original Alien, but not as much as Aliens. I can’t wait for a sequel. The film was beautifully shot, well acted and had a great fan pleasing final shot. This film is a great conversation starter. Go see it with a few friends, and prepare to talk about it for the next few days.

RED TAILS

 

I hadn’t really expected very much from this film, apart from some impressive dog fights and aerial combat scenes, Red Tails hadn’t had a great time of it when it was released earlier this year in the US. I have to say, that I enjoyed this film quite a bit. Yes, the cgi battle scenes were very good, a bit like a more earthly Star Wars, however, I also enjoyed the story, characters and acting. It was not a story I was familiar with, but it was one of bravery and courage in the face of battle, and oppression. It was refreshing to see a Hollywood movie that starred an almost exclusively black cast, and it really made me wonder why Cuba Gooding Jnr. Doesn’t get more quality roles. If you see Red Tails, go for the awesome battle scenes and daring do, but you might be surprised that you start to really care about the characters, seeing as this is a Lucas Film production, and lets be honest, it was very hard to care about most of the characters in the Star Wars Prequels, or Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Red Tails is a good movie, perfect Sunday afternoon watching.

JAWS

 

I have written about JAWS before, and some of you will know that it is one of my two favourite films ever made. Until a few weeks ago, however, I had never seen it in a cinema. It was worth the trip. I always think that films are meant to be shown theatrically, that no matter how big your TV, how booming your surround sound, it will never compare to the cinema. I have seen JAWS hundreds of times, but I never saw it fully before. The picture popped, the sound was crisp, the viewing was tense and exciting and the best I had ever seen JAWS look. I am a massive fan of these re-releases, and hope that they continue, the classic films of the past need to be experienced the way they were supposed to be experienced, on a huge screen with pristine sound, and in the pitch black, that draws you further into the story and the drama. JAWS was the best film I saw this month, but that isn’t exactly fair, as it is the best film I have ever seen in a theatre, until Raiders of the Lost Ark gets re-released.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER

When trailers for this movie were showing in front of films I have seen, a collective groan could be heard, barely audible, but still very much there. The groan always annoyed me. Yes I had read the book this movie was based on, and enjoyed the hell out of it, but that still didn’t account for the majority of people thinking this looked stupid, and me thinking it looked amazing. Turns out they were wrong and I was right. This was a very entertaining, and exciting thrill ride, with a touch of real history, that included some of the coolest vampires seen on screen for a good while, and two very inventive action sequences that whilst slightly ridiculous, fit perfectly into the universe of the film. I thought the acting was of a good standard, the production design was outstanding, and for the love of all that is holy, Abe had a gun axe. Even the 3D, which I was forced to view it in, didn’t bother me at all. Easily the best movie Tim Burton has been involved in since Sleepy Hollow, I enjoyed this very very much.

Mulling Over May

By @hmsbeefnuts

I really can’t believe that May is over, where is the time going? Anyway, in our May preview, I was not very enthused by the quality of films that were set to be released this month, however, in fact, May didn’t really turn out so bad, at least when it comes to the films I saw. Lets delve deeper shall we?

SAFE

Probably my favourite film this month. All out action with Jason Statham, what more could anyone ask for. Stath plays a super cop turned trash man, who falls foul of old friends, the Chinese Mob and the Russians. He manages to play all three factions off against each other trying to protect a little girl with a photographic memory, who has memorised some very important numbers. Stath almost manages to pull of a New York accent, but that isn’t really what you came to watch the film for. It may not bean acting master-class, but it kicks a hell of a lot of ass. If you ever kill Stath’s wife in a film, better run far, far away, can I suggest perhaps The Moon? Because he will find you, and you will wish he didn’t. A great action film starring the current King of action cinema. How long before Stath and The Rock team up?

DARK SHADOWS

I was kind of looking forward to this film. The trailer looked interesting, Johnny Depp is always quality and Eva Green looks fantastic. Oh boy. I was very disappointed. Tim Burton seems like he didn’t quite know what to do here, moments of comedy are bookended with moments of misplaced horror, perpetrated by Depp’s Barnabus Collins, the person we are supposed to be cheering for. It felt a little uneven and a little lifeless. It was very melodramatic, well it is based on a soap opera, and characters were not given enough room to breathe and grow. Relationships felt forced and things seemingly just happened for no particular reason. Depp was good, Eva Green was sexy, the film was not very good.

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

Mel Gibson. Sexist, racist and mad. I do not like Mr. Gibson. However, Mel the man and the characters he plays I suppose are different, and despite myself, I did very much enjoy Mel going mad in a Mexican Prison. The action was good, especially good use of two grenades, and the plot was nice too. It wasn’t quite as enjoyable as Safe, but it defiantly had it’s moments. If you can stand Mel Gibson, I would defiantly recommend it.

PIRANHA 3DD

I loved Piranha 3D. I thought it was perfect popcorn entertainment. Ridiculous plot, sexy girls, great cameos and plenty of death and destruction. I was looking forward to the sequel, although, it didn’t look quite so good, but then it was bound to still be fun in a cheesy B-movie way, and if everything else went wrong, we still have boobs to look forward too. Well, the film wasn’t very good. There was no point in it being in 3D, the plot was worse, the acting worse overall, the film was worse. However, I still enjoyed it, but wouldn’t recommend it to most people. A certain character’s return to the franchise however was very amusing, and who can turn down gun legs? The cameos were also a lot of fun. Check it out if you like that sort of film, but beware, I am in no way saying this film is any good.

THE DICTATOR

I found myself laughing despite my misgivings, at the trailers for this film. It is broad and silly, but you know what? I laughed all the way through. If your a fan of Baron Cohen’s usual brand of humour, there is a lot to like here. It’s not as good as Bruno or Borat, but it seems that Cohen is adept at more scripted comedy as well as his usual improvised shtick. I went with two friends, we all laughed all the way through, and if I’m not mistaken, that is all a comedy is supposed to provide. Job done.

MIB 3

The big film in May, and the one I was expecting nothing from. I didn’t like MIB 2, I’m not a huge fan of Will Smith any more to be honest. I was expecting nothing, I was wrong. There was a lot of fun to be had in MIB 3. Will Smith was likeable, Tommy Lee Jones was grumpy and Josh Brolin did an awesome impression of Jones. Bad guy duties were excellently performed by Jermaine Clement, and I loved the time travel plot. It made me want to see more MIB adventures, but perhaps Smith and Jones have gona as far as they should. Set future instalments in the 60’s, have Brolin and another partner investigate the scum of the universe and I’m down to rock and roll. MIB 3 was a whole lot of fun, perfect blockbuster entertainment for a bright sunny Sunday morning. Even a little heartfelt at the end. My second favourite film this month. I was not expecting to type that.

So there we are. I saw a fair few films this month. I did have plans to watch American Pie: Reunion and The Raid, but it just didn’t transpire this month, perhaps I’ll catch them at a later date. So much for May, June promises an even more exciting time at the movies.