Posts Tagged ‘flick’
Ted: Review
Seth MacFarlane co-wrote, produced, played the voice of the title character as well as this being his live action full length directorial debut. Mark Wahlberg stars as John Bennett, a kid that no one seems to like or get along with. One Christmas Day he receives an adorable stuffed teddy bear that instantly becomes his best friend which he names Ted. He then makes a wish that changes everything. He wishes that Ted was real. Word spreads fast and next thing you know he becomes a celebrity. Fast forward 27 yeas later and Ted’s celebrity status went downhill. He and John are still best friends that do what most lazy slackers do: get drunk and get high. Its not until John’s girlfriend of four years (played by Mila Kunis) gives him an ultimatum that things being to change in the relationship between a man and his bear.
I haven’t seen a whole lot of MacFarlane’s animated shows (Family Guy, American Dad) but the bit that I have seen made me a fan of the randomness of it all and Ted is nothing different. The humor is raunchy if not more raunchy than anything you would usually see from MacFarlane and smart as well. Although in a packed theater some of the jokes went over the crowds head and all I heard was crickets. For the record, I thought they were funny. The other glorious thing that was so random was the two characters (somewhat crazy) love of Flash Gordon. The dream sequence involving Mark Wahlberg is hilariously cheesy. Wahlbeg hasn’t done too many comedy roles but I feel like this might be one of his strong points. He has great comedic timing and he is believable in his role as a doofus/slacker type. Mila Kunis has also proved that she can hang with the guys when it comes to disgusting comedy but still coming off as a voice of reason to John. I recommend this movie only if you want to laugh your butt off and are not easily offended.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Review
In this reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise directed by Marc Webb (I think they picked him purposely…lol) Andrew Garfield stars as the web-slinger Peter Parker and Emma Stone as his love interest Gwen Stacey. This film retells the origin of Spider-Man starting from Peter Parker being your run of the mill brainy, nerdy high school kid to him getting bit by a spider and gaining superpowers after taking a trip to a research facility. He quickly realizes that having that kind of power does require a certain sense of responsibility.
I have been exposed to Spider-Man’s origin story many times over the years (comics, tv and in film) so I wasnt looking forward to seeing it again but as the movie began and it started to build up into it I was fairly surpirised to see that it wasnt the same thing that I’ve seen constantly. The outline to his origin is still there and intact but they tweaked it in certain spots and made it feel fresh and new. I was happy that they included his parents into the story because there is a great little backstory that happens with them in the comics that looks like it may happen in this series of films. The other thing that I was fairly critical about with the previous Spider-Man films was Peter’s lack of actual mechanical web shooters. This film brings that to the table and I couldn’t be happier to have a big, important part of the comic worked into this version. Rhys Ifans plays Dr. Curt Conners perfectly in this movie. You end up sharing a bit of sympathy with the character and all he has been through. The only thing that bothered me a bit was the way Andrew Garfield played Spider-Man. He played Peter Parker exactly the way he should be played but Spider-Man was a different story. In my opinion he was a bit too lanky and very casual with the way he was Spider-Man. I kept looking for that “superhero moment but it fell a bit short. I thought they did a great job at this reboot and it has tons of potential to tell a really great story. I’ve heard that they plan on making this a trilogy, I just hope that if they decide to make more movies after that they at least keep the same continuity with or with or without the same actors. There are plenty of stories out there that can be told without seeing another origin story again. Go check this out in theaters now!
The Avengers: Review
An unlikely group of heroes (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow) are recruited by S.H.E.I.L.D director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to take part in the “Avengers Initiative” when the world is threatened by Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and an army of alien beings known as the Chitauri.
Marvel has been setting this movie up for the past four years through careful planning and weaving stories together. Since the special clip after Iron Man have people been waiting for the day that The Avengers would arrive in theaters. Well finally the day arrived……..and it was glorious. Each film that led up to this provided a small piece of The Avengers puzzle and it all fit together nicely. From the very start of the film it was full of action with Loki making his presence felt. Little by little the other characters were reintroduced (not that they really needed to be) with the most time I think being given to The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). I had my hesitations with Ruffalo seeing as this is the third incarnation of The Hulk in recent years but that quickly went away after seeing the chemistry between him and the rest of the cast. Especially Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). I’m not going to go as far as saying he stole the show but he came pretty damn close. I did like that they did show a bit of a “alpha dog” situation with Iron Man and Captain America (Chris Evans) like the way they would show in the comics but by the end of the movie Cap was throwing out orders and plans of attack like a true leader. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was again fantastic as the God of Thunder (even though I believe they referred to him as a demi-god). He was a perfect fit to spit out the Joss Whedon one-liners that were given to him. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) were a perfect pairing. Seperate they were fantastic but when they shared the screen together you could see the sparks fly. There are rumors of individual films for Hawkeye and Black Widow but I think I “team-up” film would be waaaay better. I only have two (very small) issues with the movie. One of them being the burying of Loki. I feel like they built him up to be this huge villian and he essentially just got used for comic relief on a few occasions (it did provide some really funny moments though) and the focus kind of strayed from him. The second one was the lack of any sort of elaboration of Captain America being thawed out in the present time. From the looks of it the movie picked up a short time after the Cap movie and they showed in a brief moment flashbacks what happened but didn’t really go into the way he felt at all. I mean, a guy being suddenly thawed out in modern times would probably mess with his brain a bit. Maybe they’ll do that for CA2 but I still think they should’ve addressed it a bit. Other than that the movie did really well at giving each hero enough screen time and their “hero moment”. I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan and I felt like the writing was really solid and the film was a Marvel film with little Whedon moments thrown in here and there. That was nice. As of this moment of me typing this up everyone should have already seen The Avengers once if not a few times. If not, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!
Side Note: Something you should already know. Stay until after the credits.
The Hunger Games: Review
Based on the young adult novel written by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta and Liam Hemsworth as Gale. This movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic nation known as Panem where it is also divided into districts. Every year a televised battle to the death known as The Hunger Games occurs that pits a boy and a girl (picked from a lottery) from the ages 12 to 18 from each district against each other. The battlefield is vast and the children’s survival skills are put to the test. There can only be one survivor.
I purposely stayed away from reading the books because when I did get to see I wanted to watch it with a clean palette so to speak. Usually everyone always comes out of the movie saying the same thing “The book was way better”. After giving you that small disclaimer I have to say that I really enjoyed this movie. It took a premise that had been similarly done before (ex: The Running Man and Battle Royale) and did it on a much bigger scale. I was pleasantly surprised by it and personally cant wait for the rest of the movies to come out. The ONLY thing that made me cringe just a bit was a moment when the “gamemakers” started to manipulate the battle environment and 3 words slipped from my mouth. The Truman Show. It reminded me so much of that movie but a lot less funny. Everything else in the flick was action packed and suspenseful and had a great blend of it being a primitive land but with an obvious futuristic twist. The action sequences were great and smart as well but had ALOT of camera movement. I’m sure it was to hide the child on child violence but it did get a bit annoying at times. Jennifer Lawrence did a really fantastic job as did Josh Hutcherson (which was the real curveball for me). Jennifer is already skyrocketing and look for the same to happen with Josh as well. I give this a big two thumbs up and check it out if you haven’t already!!
The Darkest Hour: Review
Emile Hirsch stars in this sci-fi/action movie about a pair of friends that take a business trip to Moscow Russia. When the deal goes sour the decide to go out on the town to drown their sorrows. As the evening progresses and they leave an establishment, they see glowing alien creatures coming from the sky that soon turn invisible. As the surrounding citizens get closer to inspect the creatures they find out quickly that they didn’t come in peace. Now all that matters is their survival and to find how to stop them.
I enjoyed this flick quite a bit. I think mainly because I’m a big fan of sci-fi movies. This isn’t the best sci-fi movie I’ve seen but it was still pretty interesting. The fact that the threat is invisible added a certain amount of suspense to it as well. The aliens themselves were unique also. They weren’t seen at all for the most part but when they were revealed their look was a cross between the aliens from Independance Day and a some sort of glowing ball of energy (sorry, that’s the best I could come up with….lol). At times it did kind of feel like a big budget SyFy Original movie but I think the thing that did keep it afloat was Emile Hirsch. His acting ability really did help make this movie enjoyable as well and I thought he did really good in an action environment. Too bad there wasn’t a sweet Eddie Vedder sountrack to go along with it (I kid, I kid). This movie had a very ambitious ending and left it open to a sequel but I think thats asking for a little too much. Either way, if you dig alien invasion movies then it won’t hurt to “Redbox” it and give this a view.
