Wow, who would've thought "Swashbuckling Pirate Queen Steals a Time Machine to Save her Friend and Mend a Broken Relationship between Two Queens" would be such a good movie!
...oh yeah, that's what it is, but it's actually called "Alice Through the Looking Glass."
In the same vein as Tim Burton swiping somebody's edgy fanfic of Alice in Wonderland, this new director takes an imaginative story, with interesting characters and intriguing mechanics of time-travel, but with one major problem: has absolutely NONE of the Lewis Carrol spirit. None of the characters are consistent with how they were depicted in the original novels, somewhat consistent with the previous movie's depictions of them, but really?
Sasha Baron Cohen is an interesting take on the personification of time as some sort of clockwork cyborg German with shades of the Grim Reaper as well, so not really a malevolent entity, but one who is slightly antagonistic all the same.
And we get the most tired of cliches with the backstory that the Mad Hatter's father didn't approve of the way he did things...almost exactly like Johnny Depp's other daddy issue from another Tim Burton retelling of a classic children's story. >_<
Overall, pass this unless you really want to see the characters from the previous movie show up in all their CG weirdness glory one more time.
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| Bit of a trip seeing him as a doctor in an asylum... |
The movie poster tagline already took the best synopsis of "Central Intelligence" that anyone could muster: "Saving the world takes a little Hart and a big Johnson"
When one act of kindness in high school leaves the recipient like those three eyed aliens in "Toy Story 2," Kevin Hart is surprised that the Rock owes his newfound confidence to that act of kindness. What's even further baffling though, is how the Rock is still essentially a grown-up kid, and whether or not he is the culprit behind some horrible espionage crimes.
Crazy good chemistry between the two leads, and Dwayne Johnson really shows off his best psychopathic man-child act. Intriguing story since like any good spy tale, you don't know who to trust. Definite recommend for crazy action and crazier hijinks.
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| I have the nagging feeling that the Rock with a fanny pack has become an ascended meme because this old pic was comedy gold. |
Legend of Tarzan
So what happens when you try to bring a civilized Tarzan back to the jungle to save Africa from the invading whiteys? He gets his ass kicked and you need to resort to bringing Samuel L. Jackson playing a naturalist/sharp-shootin' cowboy to help him out.
"The Legend of Tarzan" has Christoph Waltz forging an alliance with some tribe whose chief is angry at Tarzan for reasons and so lures him back to the jungle with the feigned offer of friendly diplomatic relations. Of course Jane gets kidnapped, Tarzan and a bunch of buddies, animal and human, must save her and stop a madman from enslaving the people of the Congo and getting more dangerous foreigners to their shores.
Pretty good movie but since it relies so heavily on the fact that the audience already knows the story of Tarzan and Jane, it would've really been helpful to have cued us in somehow without the use of random intermittent flashbacks to their past that broke up the flow of the story and the action. As usual, Samuel L. Jackson kinda steals the show a bit, being a fictionalized depiction of a real life person who brought about humanitarian change in the Congo, but we can forgive him for that since he livens up the movie tremendously. The Tarzan and Jane they got for this movie weren't bad, but seemed a little reserved and awkward at times.
Check it out if you're a fan of swinging from vines, fighting with wildlife, and yodeling calls of bravery.
Truly Tarzan's most superhuman of powers that most stories ignore.
It's funny. I was going through the Chinese video store and they changed the title of this movie to "The Sticking-out Spy." Which is certainly a more apt title than simply "Spy" starring Melissa McCarthy.
Due to double agents in the CIA, the tech support character Melissa McCarthy plays finds herself thrust into the field because nobody would suspect a person of her stature and demeanor to be a secret agent. And while this is both a humorous deconstruction and a straightforward spy flick, it really shows off the amazing cast of characters and their over-the-top performances.
Our main protagonist delivers as she can do almost all the stuff Bond can, Jason Statham is a grown-up version of that bragging kid on the playground who claimed to do impossible stuff, Jude Law plays the suave spy very well, and a whole host of other colorful characters make this film a treasure trove of funny.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Funny how I watch one movie about mutants that defend a world that fears and hates them and then watch another film about mutants that defend a world that fears and hates them.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows" is the film every ninja turtle fan has been waiting for. The best part is that you don't even need to see the previous major failure of a movie (Not even as a Ninja Turtles film, just a bad movie in general). They only make two references to the previous film and for all intents and purposes, they can be ignored, and you could see this film by itself and have just a crazy fun time watching the cartoonish antics of everyone involved.
Therein lies the double-edged sword of its success though. While the former movie was trying its darnedest to twist and pervert everything you loved about these unlikely heroes, this one does all it can to just check off what the fans wanted on a giant checklist without any actual idea what these elements should have and how it'll make sense to tie in to the world they've previously crafted. Albeit, while there is a lot of the ugly and stupid elements removed from the previous iteration, new things pop up to bother both fan and casual moviegoer alike.
As mentioned before, its strength is in how much it borrows from the X-men factory of getting audiences to care, what with the turtles getting "outed of the shadows" and seeing baseline humanity have the worst reactions to them. Its secondary and third strength is a greater emphasis on the humor and the cutback on Megan Fox as April O'Neil screentime.
All in all, entertaining but a requirement is either turning off all logic centers in your brain or copious amounts of alcohol.
For funny yet spoilery synopsis disguised as a trailer, go here.
For a more condensed and entertaining (spoiler-filled) review, go here.
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| Joke made by Nostalgia Critic years and years ago, and boy does the right theme song make you leave the theater feeling better about the whole experience. |
Having never seen "Snow White and the Huntsman" (in its entirety; I really did try to sit through it but gave up not even a quarter of the way through), I believed I could still enjoy "Huntsman: Winter's War" without having to think back on a previous movie.
WELL LOOKS LIKE I'M GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE THAT NOTION AND "LET IT GO!"
We start off in a bizarre twist, as a prequel Charlize Thereon and Emily Blunt play sister queens who, through great tragedy, Emily Blunt finds out she's essentially Elsa from "Frozen," and retreats to the northern half of Europe, kidnapping children along the way, and turning them into an elite fighting force. Chris Hemsworth reprises his role as the Huntsman known simply as Eric and he is the best of the best; unfortunately due to a meshing of love, magic, and good ol' fashioned stupid, he is banished from the frozen kingdom and the events of "Snow White and the Huntsman" play out.
Then the movie cuts to sequel time with the Huntsman now having to fetch the lost magic mirror with some dwarves, all the while fighting goblins (who resemble more horned angry gorillas than goblins) and his fellow badasses from olden times.
Quite honestly, this film lacks sense and good humor, but it certainly was tolerable to watch. Watching all the actors ham it up, enjoying their time in a fantasy adventure flick with such gusto, especially from Hemsworth, Thereon, and Blunt, was a good time. So good, you can almost forget this was a half-assed attempt to make this dark fantasy re-telling of the classic Snow White story a film franchise.
An easy way to enjoy this odd duck of a prequel/sequel is to imagine this as Chris Hemsworth's theme song.
The Imitation Game
I usually wonder about the kinds of actors that can portray the socially inept and whether or not they're just that good at their craft or if they got actual machines to play them.
Thankfully, I've seen several Benedict Cumberbatch works now and can safely assume he is not actually a thinking machine...erm, a mechanical man. But it sure is familiar seeing him play an arrogant intellectual dude with very little social graces in "The Imitation Game."
Mr. Cumberbatch plays a mathematician that takes it upon himself to be the puzzle solver to break the biggest Nazi puzzle to the Allies: the Enigma code machine. So Britain assembles a team of smarties to figure it out, but due to previous circumstances of Cumberbatch's character, he doesn't work well with others and wants to create a machine to figure out the secret for him. Along the way, he comes across Kiera Knightly who helps him be more social and helps him figure out not only the secret to the codes, but also to himself and how he can crack the code of interpersonal communication.
Plenty of good performances, deep and dramatic story, and lots of anxiety from the interpersonal tension.
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| Quite an uncanny likeness...except I'm sure Mr. Holmes has a bit more fierceness in his visage that just can't be denied. |
The Angry Birds Movie
The worldwide gaming phenomenon finally has their big-screen debut! And as Forrest Gump so delicately put it, "Lieutenant Dan...you've got legs!"
"The Angry Birds Movie" shows us the power of social pariahs and giving into the Dark Side for righteous causes...notably stopping infanticide.
A group of misunderstood, "passionate" dudes in a society of humanoid flightless birds is sentenced to anger management class after their shenanigans cause them to be the outcasts in their almost too idealistic community. When a kingdom of pigs come to their island and seem to be on a goodwill mission but in reality just want to eat their eggs, it's up to them to rally their avian brethren into using the pigs' own technology against them and regain what they stole.
Humor out the wazoo, some a little too inappropriate for its target audience, ridiculously gorgeous animation and graphics, and some top-notch vocal talents, with plenty of easter eggs (har har) for fans of the game.
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| Since it's never explained why the Birds of this universe have gained super powers but no flight, I'm just going to speculate in the same way Stan Lee did when he came up with the X-men: mutation. |
A deeply disturbing and hella artsy-fartsy look at what it means to be human, to have created life, what is love, and all that other Frankenstein jazz, "Ex Machina" shows us hot woman and it sparks in the viewers a bunch of conflicting emotions because it's a robot woman...and possibly slavery.
A not!Google employee is offered a chance to go to their boss's hideaway in the wilderness to see his latest project: an android. The boss needs him to help the android learn to be more human, and while that seems like an innocuous enough project, the robot is modeled to resemble an attractive and shapely young woman. Thus begins the long and complex relation-building between the man, the machine, the machine's creator, and the tension between them all becomes thick enough to cut with a knife.
The entire time watching, there's always an edgy feel to the atmosphere. The small cast and the small homey complex gives a bit of a claustrophobic feel as well. And while this might be turn offs to some, it certainly gives the movie an amazing darkness without broadcasting it.
A brief bit of levity in an altogether way too serious movie. When Oscar Isaac passes away, please let this be his Oscar in-memoriam clip.
When it comes to Illumination animated movies, it's very hit or miss. While there are moments and scenes in any of their movies that are golden, there can also be flat characters, uninspired story, and wonky decisions regarding art style.
Despite all that, "The Secret Life of Pets" is a wonderful collection of scenes that any person who's owned a pet, or enjoys the stereotypes of animals we've come to care for, can laugh and appreciate.
But storywise, it's essentially "Toy Story" with two dogs at each other's throats, the group of friends trying to save them like in "Toy Story 2," and, of all things, an antagonistic force of abandoned pets who are La Revolution against humanity...and this is all played up for laughs.
For funny yet spoilery synopsis disguised as a trailer, go here.
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| Throw some yellow on this thing; they didn't even disguise the fact this was a Minion voice. |
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