DVD Review: Snowpiercer (2013) - Into the cold we go

(I will try my best to remain spoiler free.)

Forgive the lateness of this review, as I have been busy with my new job. I finally got a free night to finally watch it, and I can’t wait to talk about it with you all.

I’m not 100% familiar with South Korean cinema, but I do know I have seen at least four movies from there now and I own three of them on DVD. Hell, the original Oldboy is number two on my top ten personal favorites list (a list which I will finalize and post on this blog one day.) But I think a second South Korean might just join that list in the form of Snowpiercer. Now I have been waiting on this film for a while, unfortunately The Weinstein Company wanted the film cut, the director resisted, so it got a very limited release which did not include where I live. When it finally came out on DVD I snatched it up first day. The question is now, was the wait worth it? Let’s find out.

Plot Summary – In 2014, a plan to counteract global warming fails as it instead causes an early ice age that kills nearly all life on earth. The survivors are put on the titular Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe with a perpetual motion engine at the helm. A class system is established, with the elite at the front of the train, and the poor inhabiting the tail section of the train.

In 2031, the citizens of the tail car are planning the latest in a series of rebellions, led by Curtis Everett (Chris Evans.) Everyday, guards come to the back the deliver protein bars for the passengers and take away children based on size and age. With the help of his friend Edgar (Jamie Bell) and the head of the tail section Gilliam (John Hurt) the break into the prison section of the train to free security specialist Namgoong Minsu (Song Kang-ho) and his daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung) and get them to help the rebellion take them to the front of the train.

Pros – Gee, I don’t know maybe everything about it. This film is basically a blockbuster without the over egregious special effects. Instead it relies on a non-complicated story, stunning visuals, some amazing acting, and a unique take on not only humanity but how people rebel and why.

Cons – Didn’t you read? I said everything was awesome.

Final Score – 10/10

If I had seen this film in 2013, and was also doing this blog at that time, this would be my number one film of that year. It unfortunately doesn’t qualify for this year’s list though because as far as I know this got wide released in Korea. It is a really great film.

So on Sunday, I will try and see something, I don’t know what yet but when I figure it out I will post a review. I might repost the Nightcrawler review I did earlier this year for those interested as well.

So until then I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Movie Review: John Wick (2014) - When it comes to 2014's one man army films, third times the charm I guess.

(Even though I will do my best not to say them, spoiler alert just in case.)

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Keanu Reeves in a leading role. How do I know this? Because everyone on the internet still talks about him being in The Matrix, and while the first one was pretty awesome actually, the sequels dropped the ball massively. I’m not sure if it was those movies that sunk him, but even Keanu has stated that the offers to star in blockbuster films have dried up, so it wouldn’t surprise me. I for one am glad to see him back in action, as after watching Bill and Ted again recently I realized that he is actually quite a good actor. Yes he kind of does the whole, I wanna call it the blank stare thing a tad often but be honest it basically works awesomely for him (Kristen Stewart needs to take some notes.) So how does Keanu do in this latest offering? Let’s find out shall we?

Plot Summary – John Wick (Keanu Reeves (obviously)) is a retired hitman who has just lost his wife to disease. When her final gift in the form of a dog shows up, John welcomes the animal and the next day takes it out for a drive. At a gas station, the son of a Russian gangster makes him an offer for his car, which John declines. He and his goons break in that night and both take the car and kill the dog. When the rest of the gang finds out what he did, they plan on how to stop John who vows to come after him.

Pros – Where to start? Keanu is awesome first off. The death of both his wife and the dog are close enough to the story that you can see it from space just how pissed off he really is. The cinematography is great too, as it makes very heavy use of darker colours with some occasional bright spots as to not feel too stale. The rest of the cast is pretty good too, normally in films like these they are either underutilized or overly used but under developed, and with the back story given to John in the film and how everyone acts both to and around him, it sort of makes up for any minor blank spots by having you basically just fill in the blanks yourself as to who they are and how they know him. There’s only really one secondary character that gets used very briefly but even then his usage doesn’t feel cheap. The way the world works too is very cool, as its all underground places and services that use these mysterious gold coins as currency. It sort of makes you feel like he’s living out an arcade game and he just keeps using tokens to keep going. Come to think of it, even though this isn’t based on a video game, its hyper kinetic, colourful, and smartly written enough that it does make me think of a video game type story (all of a sudden now I understand why John Wick was made a playable character in pay day 2.) Shit if they ever give this movie its own game I’m playing it just on principle alone.

Cons – Cons? We don’t have any stinking cons here.

Final Score – 10/10

Out of the three one man army movies I’ve personally seen this year (the other two being The Equalizer and A Walk Amongst The Tombstones) this is not only the best one, but the film that they both should’ve been (you can also bet Tak3n’s bar has just been raised.) And you know what? Even though you can see where the story will go, this movie is just smart and well done enough that any minor hiccups can be forgiven. Once in a while, you just need to see a film about a man kicking a lot of ass, and this is the movie that does that this year.

Now I know I said I’d do a Snowpiercer review on Thursday, but a meeting came up so that’s been bumped to Monday. I also want to say that now that I’m working at a theatre, unless I get lucky with my schedule, I might not be able to get new movie reviews out until later in the week, but I will always let you know when they will come out and will do my best to tell you if those times change. I think my next review will most likely be Horns next weekend but I’m not sure if it’s playing nearby yet. But until then, I’ll see you folks, at the movies.

Movie Review: The Boxtrolls (2014) - At least you don't have to look under any bridges.

(Spoiler Alert, as I do have to talk about a major plot point.)

I have mixed feelings when it comes to animated films. On one hand you have the giants of Disney and Pixar, who for the most part make good movies but, and I have this problem with Disney more so, they just can’t help feel too manufactured. No not in the snooty art house sense that it’s just a corporation pumping out easy to digest films for the masses, it’s just more in the sense that they all feel too similar. It’s like what I said about John Hughes when I did a review of Uncle Buck for this post, (Link here for Tumblr) while they are for the most part good films, they just tell practically the same story except in different ways. Pixar is a bit better for this (although there’s no forgiving the absolute milking to the last drop of the subpar Cars movies) and then you have the various other studios like Studio Ghibli from Japan, and the one we will be talking about today Laika, LLC and their latest film The Boxtrolls. I’m aware this came out a while ago but I only just got to it. Laika is the same company that brought us Coraline in 2009 (which I really like) and Paranorman in 2012 (which I really love, seriously Paranorman is fantastic.) So I was really looking forward to it this time, and the result? Well, I’ll get to it in a moment, but before I do I already mentioned the spoiler warning above, consider this your second warning. If you continue reading, you’ll know why I have to spoil part of it.

Plot Summary – In the town of Cheesebridge in 1805 (yes that is the actual name of the town) the town is dodged with rumours about creatures known as Boxtrolls, who are said to kidnap and eat children. When they do actually kidnap a child one night, the towns Exterminator Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) makes a deal with the mayor Lord Portley-Rind (Jarred Harris): if he exterminates all the trolls, he can join the town council’s cheese loving council known as the white hats. You read that correctly, and it gets weirder when it is later revealed that Snatcher in fact has a severe cheese allergy which causes him to swell up massively. The Boxtrolls are then revealed to be a peaceful group, whose main interest is inventing things made from garbage, and they are also revealed to be raising the boy they kidnapped earlier, who they name Eggs (based on the egg box he wears, played by Isaac Hempstead-Wright.) One night while scavenging, Eggs’s caretaker Fish gets kidnapped by Snatcher and Eggs comes up to the surface to save him. Along the way he meets Winnie (Elle Fanning) the neglected daughter of Lord Portley – Rind, and realizing Eggs is the kidnapped boy, who has since become folklore that’s used to promote Boxtroll hatred, decides to help him stop Snatcher and save the Boxtrolls.

Pros – The animation is done with Laika’s very well crafted stop motion, and the world they make is very well done. The voice acting is pretty spot on as well, as well as the character designs.

Cons – There is a major problem with this movie that I just can’t get over. It’s the fact that the whole film basically revolves around both the Council’s and Snatcher’s obsession with cheese. Winnie is constantly neglected by her father cause he’s always eating cheese with his fellow white hats, Snatcher’s whole plan of exterminating the Boxtrolls is actually revealed to be that he’s catching them so that they can make him a robot that he’ll use to basically force his way into the council so he can eat cheese, even though is severely allergic to it. In fact at one point in the film it’s revealed that the council used fundraiser money that was supposed to build a children’s hospital that they instead used to buy a giant wheel of cheese and nobody bats an eye. I get that they were trying to use this for comedic effect, except, it’s not funny. Most of it is played so straight that any jokes they make fall completely flat. I guess maybe they were trying to be closer to the original book it’s based on, but I honestly can’t imagine how they expected it to go over. So the whole motivation for everything that happens in the film feels like such low stakes that you really can’t get too invested. Even how it ends is just stupid (I’m not going to say what happens specifically, but you might be able to guess.)

Final Score – 5/10

I was going to give it a 6 based on the animation and the voice acting, but I just can’t get over the cheese obsession plot line as it really just makes the whole point of the film feel extremely low risk and barely worth it. If you’re looking for a good animated film, go see book of life instead.

My next review will be John Wick, although I’m not sure what day yet. In the mean time I’m hoping to do a DVD review of Snowpiercer most likely on Thursday.

So until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.

Movie Review: The Book of Life (2014) - The Usual Story Told Uniquely

(Minor Spoilers Ahead)

Anyone who knows me knows that I am on top of movie schedules like a hawk. I’m the guy who managed to see four films at two theatres in one day once (after only three or four hours of sleep.) So believe me when I say The Book of Life came out of bloody nowhere. I think I only first heard maybe a week or two before release which in terms of movie promotion is a really short amount of time (for comparison the first teaser for Interstellar came out last year.) So after work today, I decided to go check it out and see how it was and even before I went in I had people admitting that they didn’t know much about it. Well, let me tell you about it now.

Plot Summary – A group of children arrive at a museum, where a tour guide takes them to a hidden exhibit about Mexico’s day of the dead. There she tells them the story about a town called San Angel that begins with three friends. They are Manolo (later voiced by Diego Luna), who’s the son of a bullfighter but wants to play music, Joaquin (later voiced by Channing Tatum), who wants to be like his fallen general father, and Maria (later voiced by Zoe Saldana), daughter of the current general and the object of the two boy’s young affection. Two Gods, La Muerta who’s the ruler of the land of the remembered, and Xibalba who rules the land of the forgotten, see the trio and decide to make a wager: La Muerta bets that if Manolo can win Maria’s heart, Xibalba must leave humanity alone. If Joaquin can win Maria’s heart, Xibalba and La Muerta much switch ruler ship of the realms. After an incident forces Maria to leave town, upon her return the two boys begin to vie for her heart. Xibalba decides to interfere, first by giving Joaquin a medal that will make him immune to death and will fill him with courage as a boy and then, after Manolo attempts to win over Maria with a romantic gesture, sends out a snake to bite Maria and makes her appear to have died. When Manolo is blamed for Maria’s death, Xibalba offers him the chance to reunite with her in the afterlife, to which he accepts. When he discovers the ruse, he must find a way to return home. (Man this was a long paragraph, sorry about that folks but there is a lot to cover here.)

Pros – Right off the bat, first time director Jorge Gutierrez shows off a classic day of the dead motif animation wise and it works pretty much overall, as the character and the world designs are easily the best thing about this film. The voice acting is well done too, as the characters do genuinely sound Mexican (aside from Channing Tatum, although he does a good job, he sticks out like a sore thumb,) and I would be remiss not to mention the music. Mexican culture has its own style of music, which they use in effect to cover American pop songs (Including but not limited to: I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons, Creep by Radiohead, and Just a Friend by the one and only Biz Markie) and all of them are done extremely well. The story is also well told and done with a lot of heart.

Cons – I stand by what I said about the story being well told and full of heart, but in it are also the movies two biggest faults. It’s thinly written, and it’s predictable. How thin is it? They throw in almost every element of these kinds of stories you can think of, and since Joaquin and Manolo are both good guys, sometimes it happens twice. That’s where the problems lies, cause if you’re going to use every story element out there but don’t change them around too much then you’re going to see what’s going to happen from a mile away.

Final Score – 8/10

If they had tried to shake up things story wise, the score would be much higher, but the visuals, the music, and the way they tell the story mostly make up for it. Hell I’m actually tempted to get the album (and yes there is an album for the music thank god.)

I’ll most likely be covering John Wick next weekend, but seeing book of life actually makes me go back and watch the other animated film out right now I missed on release. So on Tuesday (most likely) expect a review of The Boxtrolls.

Movie Review: Fury (2014) - I'm drawing a blank when it comes to a joke for this.

(Potentially Minor Spoilers Ahead)

Man the theatre was packed for this one. It’s like Fury was one of the few films to have a decent marketing campaign recently. I really can’t blame them though (really though what is there to blame) aside from a somewhat decent summer season 2014 overall has been not a great year for movies. It hasn’t been bad though, more around mediocre I think, although some people might call it just slow. We did have the slowest box office since 9/11 this year though so there is some merit to that. Anyways getting to the point of the article, let’s review Fury

Plot Summary – Our story begins in April 1945, the last month of fighting in Europe during the Second World War, as we follow a 2^nd armored division sergeant nicknamed Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) after a battle where he has lost one of his crew members. The replacement, Private Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), arrives and tells the Sergeant not only has he only been in the army eight weeks, but he was trained as a typist and was mostly likely sent there by mistake. After some trial by fire while taking a town, the crew is assigned to hold a crossroad to prevent a German SS battalion from attacking their supply lines.

Pros – The cinematography first and foremost is damn near perfect aside from some hard to see moments, as Fury tries to paint a more brutal version of the war in both detail and story (including one moment where we see a body that has been run over by tanks so many times he is literally flat as paper.) It doesn’t hold back on the horrors of war angle either, as it’s not trying to paint anyone as too much of a hero, and it’s full of these moments were you really have to question just what the hell is happening in front of you. The whole thing is done well by an excellent cast, including Lerman who we follow throughout most of the movie.

Cons – You can kind of sense that this film is trying to be this generations Saving Private Ryan, but it really doesn’t pull it off 100%. Whereas Saving Private Ryan had moments of brutality followed by really emotional moments, since Fury is trying to be more brutal than Ryan the emotional moments tend to fall flat more often than not, including a few that are supposed to be the most important of the movie. Also, at 2h 15m, while the movie doesn’t feel long, it also doesn’t feel like there’s much behind it, making it feel shorter than it actually is.

Final Score – 8/10

It’s not the grandmaster piece it’s clearly trying to be, but it’s a refreshing take on the horrors of war in a time where I think most of us are just pretty sick of the concept. If you’re looking for a more heroes in the line of duty type thing I’d recommend Saving Private Ryan over this.

Now I didn’t get a chance to see The Book of Life today, but I am going to try and see it on Sunday after work (which will be at the theatre closest to me luckily enough.)

So until then, I’ll see you guys at the movies.