Movie Review: Horrible Bosses 2 - I think we can all agree that comedy sequels rarely work.

Okay, I wasn’t feeling like doing a review on this, but I decided to anyways, but I'll still try and keep it short. Basically I had some free time and decided to see Horrible Bosses 2 because I can’t see the movies I actually want to see until Sunday. So here we go.

Plot Summary: Having quit their jobs and deciding to start their own company, Nick (Jason Bateman) Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) assume they have it made when the head of a company (I forget the characters name but he’s played by Christoph Waltz) offers to buy an order of 500,000 units but ends up screwing them over, they decide to kidnap his son (Chris Pine) and make him pay up.

Pros – I have never seen anything Chris Pine starred in, but mother of god is he funny in this, playing the perfect arrogant rich kid with daddy issues, he is probably the best thing about this movie. The main three seem like they are having fun as they manage to keep most of the energy from the first film (although it does have its overbearing moments.) The film also does have some pretty funny moments.

Cons – 90% of the film feels like the same joke of Nick having to explain something to Kurt and Dale, as the film kind of makes it feel like they’re trying to go for an arrested development type of feeling and it mostly misses. Also, Christoph Waltz is barely in this, Jamie Foxx feels like he’s only in this because they needed him to solve a plot point in the script, and Jennifer Aniston is basically useless except for fan service because she was so well liked in the last one. Kevin Spacey also shows up a couple of times, including one scene when you think about it really makes no sense and kind of also undoes the results of the first film a little bit (you’ll understand if you watch it) and also the ending works out the way it does based on an instance of insane dumb luck that’s never actually fully explained. The whole film basically tries to act smarter than its predecessor and ends up looking worse for it.

Final Score – 3/10

Chris Pine and the few decent gags keep it from being lower, but the film suffers from three big problems: It’s trying too hard and fails; it relies on cheap fan service, and most of the jokes fall flat. I’d say go watch the first one again, but I don’t think I’ve even done that since it came out.

I think Whiplash will be the next review, and Corner Gas the movie after that, but I might work something in between as well or tack it on with Whiplash I’ll see how I feel.

Movie Review Double Feature: Interstellar (2014) and Birdman (2014) - Yeah, I felt like I needed to make up for the long blank spot between posts.

Forgive the lateness of the reviews; it’s been a busy week for me. Once again I am going to try and keep them short for the purposes of my own sanity more than anything. So here we go.

Interstellar Review Starts Here:

Plot Summary: In the not so distant future, earth is dying, and the people of the world have taken to abandoning the science in the name of survival by getting people to become farmers. Former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) discovers someone is sending him coded messages, which leads him to secret NASA facility run by Professor Brand (Michael Caine) who tells him that he is sending a team out to find a new planet for the human race to live on and that it could take him many earth years for him to find one suitable. And that’s all I want to say because really that’s all that’s worth saying about it.

Pros: The movie’s visuals and cinematography is excellent, as you get these great shots of space and black holes and all kinds of cool looking stuff like that.

Cons: Honestly, for me the jury’s still out on an absolute verdict, but for the most part I don’t like it. No one’s acting is particularly bad, although Michael Caine’s character gets really bizarre as the film goes on, and Matt Damon has a twenty minute cameo later on as an astronaut from a previous trip whose big twist revelation is neither interesting nor logical (in fact I wasn’t sure what he was doing until I read a plot summary for this review). I think the problem is that it’s too long and there was way too much hype built up for it when really it’s just kind of bizarrely mediocre.

Final Score: 4/10

All the visuals are solid, but beyond that, to me it’s kind of a bloated mess. I still haven’t nailed down everything I don’t like about it, but the more I think about it the less I like it.

Birdman Review Starts Here:

Plot Summary: Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is a washed up Hollywood actor mostly known for playing the hero Birdman in a trilogy of films back in the 90’s (I get it!). Twenty years later. He is setting to write, direct, and star, in a stage adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story “what we talk about when we talk about love.” He deals with a cavalcade of characters while also trying to get a new actor for one of his roles after attempting to kill the last one, while the voice of Birdman either mocks or bolsters him throughout the film. Riggan is also able to perform small feats of telekinesis and levitation when he is alone.

Pros: First and foremost, whoever did the editing on this film deserves an Oscar, because they successful made most of the movie feel like one long take say for a few transition shots and it is amazing. Secondly, all the actors in this are extremely on the ball. Keaton is perfectly cast (especially if you remember that he played the original Batman back in ’89), Edward Norton as the overzealous actor is both funny and painful to watch at times (there’s a great bit where he actually gets a very visible erection during a showing on stage), but for me my favorite moment was when Emma Stone as Keaton’s just out of rehab daughter perfectly describes in one great monologue why her dad’s career is the way it is and it’s honestly one of the best moments in her career so far.

Cons: The editing does make the film a little difficult to follow as there is no real cut for the audience to be drawn back in with, but a slight look away helps between scenes. Also, there is one thing about this film that I should mention. If you go and watch and you find yourself getting bored, there is a scene where the movie basically mocks you for it. To me at least I think its part of the reason why the film hasn’t been as widely released as other films.

Final Score: 8/10

It’s not a masterpiece in my mind, but it’s a great film, and I actually might go see it again before it’s out on DVD (which I’ll also get as well.)

So there you go, two for the price of one. I have no idea when or what the next review will be about.

But until then, I'll see you guys at the movies.

Retro Review: Dumb and Dumber (1994)

I’m going to try to keep this one short, it’s later than I’d like it to be and I have to get up early tomorrow. But Basically Dumb and Dumber To (yes that is how it’s spelt) is coming out tomorrow and I had not yet seen the original from start to finish in one sitting. So I decided to finally watch it and do a review. Let’s begin shall we?

Plot Summary – Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunn (Jeff Daniels) are two friends who live together in Providence Road Island. When Harry drives a woman named Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly) to the airport and notices she left a bag behind, he sets out to find her and return the bag along with Harry, while being unknowingly pursued by the people who Mary intentionally left the bag for.

Pros – For the most part it’s actually pretty funny. It doesn’t try and go for the obvious gags most of the time, and both Carrey and Daniels are pretty good in this.

Cons – For me at least, while the beginning had its moments, the humour didn’t pick up better until about halfway through the film.

Final Score – 7/10

It didn’t have me rolling in the aisles, but it did have quite a few good laughs.

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to see the sequel, as I have two other films I planned to see ahead of it.

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

Movie Review: Big Hero 6 (Plus Bonus Short Film Review: Feast)

Man it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I apologize for my absence but I do have a reason for the unannounced hiatus. See, with only Nightcrawler getting realised on Halloween (at least where I live anyway) and since I had already done a review for it, my plan at first was to simply repost it. I ended up not doing that however mostly because I thought it’d be a lazy move on my part. Those of you still needing my perspective on it however, go see it, like immediately. I also ended up doing a couple of jobs on set for a couple of days and that was immediately followed up by a cold and a scheduling snafu at my theatre job. So you can say I’ve had a bit of a busy week. But I finally managed to see something today, although my original plan was to see Interstellar on Sunday (which a review will be coming up next week most likely) I ended up seeing Big Hero 6 instead, the first animated film from Disney animation studios based on the Marvel comic of the same name. But before I can review that, I have to review the short film that played before it called Feast.

Why was there a short film attached to Big Hero 6? Well, it’s Disney they do that sometimes, plus they were the same guys who made Wreck it Ralph two years ago and that also had a short film attached to it by the name of Paperman (which went on to win the Oscar for best animated short that year.) So you can basically count as that as the reason for Feast being attached to Big Hero 6. Now since Feast is a short film, I’ll be reviewing it a little differently. See, short films are way different in the sense that they have a lot less time to tell the story; mostly they like to get in and get out quickly while still being effective. In the case of Paperman, they mostly told the story through the actions of the characters. So for Feast, this will be how I do the review:

Plot Summary:

Interesting Points:

Good or Bad:

I won’t give it a numbered verdict mostly because I don’t think the scale would accurately reflect the worth of the film. Instead it’ll be more like a thumb up or down type of thing. That being said, let’s review Feast.

Plot Summary: After a stray puppy is adopted, the story of himself and his master’s life together is shown by what the dog is given to eat.

Interesting Points: For such a silly concept, it’s actually told surprisingly well. You get a decent variety of food shown showing the various stages of the dog’s life with his owner. I do get a sense it’s trying too hard to be like Paperman though.

Good or Bad: I think it’s good. Maybe a bit basic but it’s a pretty solid little film, definitely worth sitting through.

Now, for Big Hero 6

Plot Summary: Hero Hamada (Ryan Potter) is a 14 robotics prodigy already out of high school. He spends his days doing robot battles, until his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) inspires him to go to college to use his gift. To get in, Hero must make a presentation of something he made. He ends up making nanobots, and gets accepted to the school while simultaneously turning down an offer from Alistair Krei (Alan Tudyk) to sell them to his tech company. Later, when the presentation hall is set on fire, Tadashi runs in to save his teacher Professor Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell) but tragically dies before he can do so. After Tadashi’s death, his final project, a robot healthcare companion named Baymax (Scott Adsit) tries to help Hero recover while simultaneously finding out the Hero’s last nanobot is acting up. They follow it only to find Hero’s other nanobots were stolen by a mysterious man in a kabuki mask. Together, they enlist the help of Tadashi’s friends and set out to stop him.

Pros – The biggest thing by far is the animation, particularly of the city of San Fransokyo. No they don’t tell you why it’s called that. I particularly liked the combination air turbine/Japanese lantern you see occasionally throughout the film. The voice cast is solid too, particularly Scott Adsit as Baymax, who does possibly the best calm robot voice since the robot from the movie Robot and Frank a few years back (it’s on Netflix, it’s great.)

Cons – While we do get introduced to them, we really don’t learn too much more about Tadashi’s friends who end up becoming the rest of the team. I suppose they had to focus a lot more on the setup and decided to leave those details till the inevitable sequel, although we do get the see the house of Fred (T.J. Miller) where I won’t say who, but you get to see possibly the most subtle cameo yet in a Marvel film.

Final Score – 9/10

I only wish we could’ve gotten to know the rest of the team better, but unlike the avengers they didn’t get that much time to explain who everyone is. Like I said they will mostly likely make up for that in the next one, but it’s still a fault with this one.

So, Interstellar will most likely be next week, I might also throw in Dumb and Dumber to as well, but I want to do a DVD review of the first one first (and also because I’ve never seen it from beginning to end.)

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