Movie Review: Attack on Titan Part 2: End of the World (2015)

Hello all,

Forgive the lack of reviews lately, I’ve been sick with the flu for about a week and it finally overwhelmed me a few days ago and so I needed some time off to recover. Now that I’m feeling up to it, time to tell you about the movie I saw on Thursday night…...Attack on Titan Part 2! Yeah none of the movies this week seemed good enough for me to go to sick so I’ll be getting to those ones later. In the meantime though…..

Plot Summary - Following the revelation that Eren (Haruma Miura) can turn into a titan, he is placed on trial and almost executed, when a second unique titan appears and kidnaps him. Meanwhile, the surviving members of Eren’s squad decide to follow through with the plan to fix the wall, this time by using an old bomb buried into a hill in Eren’s hometown. Meanwhile, Eren wakes up to find he’s been saved by Shikishima (Hiroki Hasegawa) who reveals to him the truth about the titans, and the government's involvement in the destruction of the wall. He then invites Eren to join him for a revolution against the government, but he needs the bomb from Eren’s hometown to do it first.

Pros - Pretty much everything I said about the first movie still stands, the titan designs are creepy and cool, the acting is good, and the story is still compelling. What they manage to improve on though is the way they tell the story, introducing some cool set pieces and ideas not seen in the original anime, which I won’t say here, definitely changes your perspective on the whole situation. They even manage to bring back more of the nice cinematography, especially in the colourfulness of the world.

Cons - If I have one complaint, is that the green screening is still very obvious in some scenes and I still find that pulls me out of the suspension of disbelief just enough.

Final Score - 9/10

While definitely better than part one, on the whole, I say if you can give these a viewing, even if you’re not a fan of the anime it’s definitely worth a look.

So yeah, the new movies for this week, I’ll get to those when I can, as I still need some more time to recover so, yeah, I’ll what I can when I can.

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

Triple Movie Review: Goosebumps (2015) Bridge of Spies (2015) and Crimson Peak (2015)

Hello all,

I know I’m late with the Bridge of Spies review, but I was out later than expected and had to be up even earlier and for that I’m sorry. The reason I was out so late was because I wanted to do a double review of it and Goosebumps as well and so I made a decision and decided to see both only to find out after I had to be up early. After that, I saw an opportunity to also catch Crimson Peak as well, and so to make up for being late, I’ve decided to go all out and do my very first triple review. Now if you want to read one particular review and not the others, I’ll make sure to highlight the beginnings of each one to make them easier to find, because needless to say, this will be a much longer review than usual. That being said, let’s begin.

GOOSEBUMPS REVIEW

Plot Summary - Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) has just moved to a small town, and almost immediately meets his neighbour Hannah (Odeya Rush) and her closed off and angry father (Jack Black.) When Zach one night hears Hannah and thinks she might be in trouble, he breaks into her house with his friend Champ (Ryan Lee) and makes a discovery: Hannah’s father is R.L. Stine, and the original copies of his goosebumps book, when opened, bring the monsters in the stories to life. When the books get opened and the monsters get released, it’s up to them to save the town and stop the monsters.

Pros - Okay, i’ll admit, my plot summary might not give the movie much justice, but trust me, this is probably the best execution of such a meta idea in the past while that I actually hold it up as one of the better examples. The look of the film is really cool too, as it manages to pull off the mysterious small town ouvre at first and then as it gets more intense it captures the dread of the situation quite nicely for a film like this. The cast is also really solid, Jack Black particularly as the oddball Stine. The film has also quite a nice charm about it, and for the most part the humour works, but even when it doesn’t it can still make for a bit of a laugh in the strangeness of it.

Cons - The film plays out more like an adventure film than a horror film, and while I didn’t mind that so much anyone expecting a horror film is bound to be disappointed. The end is also a touch on the happily ever after type ending, and while it was a nice one, there was one particular moment in the film that I hoped would have been seen through till the end.

Final Score - 9/10

I was going to give it an 8, but the film defied my expectations so much I gave it a 9 for effort. Again, the ending was a bit much for me, but overall I’d honestly recommend for anyone young or older.

Bridge of Spies Review

Plot Summary - Based on the true story of James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks), the film tells the story of him defending accused Soviet Spy Rudolf Abel in court, and how he later organized a trade of Abel for two american prisoners.

Pros - Honestly, the easiest way to say this is that I liked pretty much everything about this film. Even some of the things that people think usually would ruin movies, when they do it in this one they manage to do it well, particularly introducing new characters later and later into the film.

Cons - Now, as with any american historical film, there’s always bound to be minor blemishes on the story for the sake of the storytelling and dramatic tension and such, so before watching films like that I always like to keep in mind that the version of the story I’m watching is still just that, a movie. I encourage anyone who has more interest in this story after seeing it to do there own research into it to find out the whole story.

Final Score - 10/10

I find myself really liking this movie regardless of any historical edits. At the end of the day, it’s just a movie, and one I particularly enjoyed.

Crimson Peak Review

Plot Summary - In the late 19th century, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is a believer in ghosts and an aspiring writer. She falls in love with and eventually marries Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and after the death of her father, moves into his old dilapidated house where he lives with his sister Lady Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain.) Things are not all that they appear to be, as ghostly apparitions appear to Edith, and she begins to unravel the mystery of the house and it’s occupants.

Pros - The film is gorgeous. The cinematography in this is fantastic, and manages to keep you in suspense throughout most of the film, and manages to maintain it’s on point atmosphere. The acting is really on point here, my favorite being Chastain as the creepy and mysterious sister who's clearly hiding something. The story of the film for the most part is interesting and keeps you guessing and invested in the outcome.

Cons - The third act of the film is, admittedly, a bit of a let down. I won’t spoil it here, but while it wasn’t bad, it sort of makes you change your way of thinking about what’s going on in the film with mixed results. The film also never really rises above being creepy, as it never really has any moments where you’d find yourself sitting there completely drenched in fear like more intense horror films.

Final Score - 7/10

I would’ve given it an 8, but the ending is a bit rough and hampers the rest of the well done film quite a bit.

Holy crap that took me a long time to write, and with that I also find myself not immediately knowing what I’ll be seeing next, so I might do something else in the meantime. Also, seriously debating doing something drastic for review number 100, I have some ideas bouncing around so you’ll have to wait and find out.

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

Double Movie Review: Attack on Titan Part 1 (2015) and The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? (2015)

Hello all,

So Hyena Road continues to elude me scheduling wise, but a couple of special showings have come across my path in the past couple of days that I thought should deserve some mention as well. So let’s get started on these shall we?

Attack on Titan Part 1 Review

Plot Summary - One hundred years ago, giant beings called titans landed on earth and wiped out most of humanity. Those who survived built three walls designed to keep them out and lived peacefully for another hundred years afterwards, until an attack from a mysterious colossal titan breaks a hole in the first wall, Causing Eren (Haruma Miura), Mikasa (Kiko Mizuhara), and Armin (Kanata Hongo), to flee for their lives and become separated, with Mikasa presumably having been killed. Two years later, Eren and Armin are reunited when they join the scout regiment, task with going into titan territory and fixing the hole in the wall and saving humanity.

Pros - Right off the bat, the Titan designs are phenomenally awesome. They’re not given  too much variation in the original anime but in this the designs stand out above all else. The acting and cast are pretty solid, although they did have to condense the massive cast down to a much more manageable size by combining characters together into new characters which works well overall. The look of the film overall is pretty good, most of the look of the show is there and looks really cool.

Cons - Okay, in the anime, they have these things called 3D Maneuvering devices that they use to kill titans that they use to fly around the titans. When they do this in the movie, it’s looks really fake, like you can almost see the green screen they’re filming in front of and it kind of takes you out of the film. Also, the world of the film looks alright in the beginning, but it gets kind of overly dark and grim looking as it goes on which kind of robs the film of the colour and look it has in the beginning.

Final Score: 8/10

Now some people have complained that this doesn’t follow the anime 100%. My only argument is is that they’re trying to condense an entire season into two films and for the most part they get it mostly right. Just be glad it’s not airbender levels of bad.

The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?

Plot Summary - In the late nineties, a film called Superman Lives was almost ready to go into production until it was cancelled three weeks before they were ready to film. The film explores the evolution of the script and the production and it’s ultimate cancellation by the studio.

Pros - It’s a really detailed film to start. They actually manage to get interviews with pretty much everyone involved and they manage to tell us a lot about the story of the film and the potential looks of the cast and characters involved in the movie. It basically nails the two key things a documentary has to do well, be entertaining and informative.

Cons - Honestly, I got nothing.

Final Score - 10/10

It may not make the top ten list of the year, but it’s at least getting an honourable mention, as I would consider this a must see for any movie fans out there, yet any non movie fan might also find some entertainment in this.

I will have a Bridge of Spies review up late on Thursday.

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

Movie Review: Pan (2015)

Hello All,

So, I forgot that Pan was coming out this week when I went in to work and found out it was playing just as my shift ended, so on a whim I decided to check it out. How does the reimagined origin of Peter Pan…..pan out, I guess.

Plot Summary - Peter (Levi Miller) is a orphaned london boy living through the war, when one day he’s snatched up by pirates and taken to neverland to mine for Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman). After escaping with the help of Hook (Garrett Hedlund), they find the natives who are at war with the pirates and the tribe chief’s daughter Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara). Together they must stop Blackbeard and save neverland.

Pros - For his first major role in a movie Levi Miller is actually pretty great in this. He knows to capture an emotion and hold your attention and I can honestly see a really bright future in acting ahead of him.

Cons - Oh boy this is going to be a long one.

First off, the story is trying way to hard to have Hook be like Indiana Jones, going so far as to even have him dress like Jones, even though his story line and his love story with Rooney Mara’s Tiger Lily comes off as a bad ripoff of the love story of Han Solo and Princess Leia. Also, wasn’t Tiger Lily originally a child? Yeah they made her an adult in this but it’s still super fucking creepy. Not to mention Rooney Mara looks bored the whole time no matter what she’s doing. Her character design is questionable too, where she’s basically what look like ugly throw rugs that have been cut up to make ugly dresses and headdresses. Seriously it looks like a rug exploded on her head. Finally, Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard is trying, but my god it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s dressed like a goddamn foppish chicken. Seriously every outfit he’s in makes him look like a giant chicken, if it’s supposed to be symbolic it’s certainly doesn’t work.

Speaking of design, almost everything about Neverland looks as bland and fake as you can get. There’s one scene where Hook has to fight a native warrior, and the warrior does this thing where, it’s hard to describe, but he’s supposed to be hanging by his feet from a pole horizontally and it looks fake as shit. Almost everything about this film looks bad with the only exception maybe being the never birds who are basically skeletons, but even then if you think about it it’s just a visual pun. The kingdom of the fairies looks like a miserable place, and Tinkerbell who's in the film for all of five seconds, looks like a bad cgi glass figurine.

There are also some other baffling choices in other parts of the film as well. Three times in this film people sing, not like musical sing more like chanting, but out of the three songs, two I can confirm are Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana and Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones…..in 1945…..Why?! The seem so out of place that it took me out of the film completely. Who thought that Nirvana and The Ramones would be good pirate songs? and then we don’t hear anymore singing after like the first thirty minutes of the movie, so why even have them do it in the first place and why with those songs?

The way people die is odd too, and kindly off weirdly off balance in terms of portrayal. At one point Blackbeard literally throws a kid off of his ship which is hovering over the deepest part of the mine. We don’t see him hit the ground but we never see him again in the movie. Also, Tiger Lily’s axe can be seen hitting a pirate’s back, causing him to fall and hit the ground, we never see him again. Yet when (Spoiler Alert but trust me who cares?) when Blackbeard raids the native village, when the Natives die they turn into coloured powder. Peter even watches the chief die and the next time we see him he has the chief’s powder on his face (wow that sounds even worse than it did in my head.) You’re basically showing him wearing the blood on his face why not just make it actual blood, it wouldn’t look any more real than anything else in this movie.

The plot is barely worth mentioning because it’s every generic fantasy plot you’ve seen before. There’s a prophecy, the chosen one doesn’t believe even though everyone else does, he eventually finds the courage to realize his destiny and save the day. He even really doesn’t do much in the end, all Peter does is just direct the fairies to attack Blackbeard and his crew while Tiger Lily does 99% of the work and Hook kills one guy and crashes and ship. They even didn’t really need Peter there they made Peter Pan pointless in a PETER PAN MOVIE! How did you even manage to do that?

Final Score - 1/10

As an early showcase of a potentially great child actor, this is all it’s worth. For anything else, skip it. I can only imagine parents of really young children might see this, but when they inevitably tell there kids the original Peter Pan story I think they’ll end up forgetting this one.

I will still probably do a review of Hyena Road just don’t know when yet.

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

Movie Review: Sicario and The Walk (2015)

Hello all,

I know I’m late on the Sicario review but I have a reason for that. Last weekend was brutal for me, and I needed a few days afterwards to recover. But now that I’m recovered and got another movie under my belt, it’s time to get back into it, so let’s do that shall we?

Sicario Review

Plot Summary - Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) and her partner Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) are FBI Special Weapons and Tactical Team agents, and after raiding a house full of corpses killed by a cartel, volunteers to help Matt Graver, (Josh Brolin) a Department of Defense advisor whose leading a team on a mission to find the men in charge of the cartel with the help of Matt’s partner Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro).

Pros - The acting is fantastic, especially Emily Blunt as the idealistic, by the book, law abiding police officer. Benicio Del Toro is also really good and it’s just as much his film as Emily’s. The story moves along well too, telling you exactly what you need to know at the time, just like Emily learns in the movie. It’s also a really cool looking movie too, as it manages extremely well to capture the look and atmosphere especially of some of the more dangerous places in the film.

Cons - Although this didn’t personally bother me too much, the film is super intense and for some people that might make it super hard to watch.

Final Score - 9/10

While it might be too intense for some, for the rest is a thrill ride not to be missed.

The Walk Review

Plot Summary - The film is based on Professional Acrobat Philippe Petit’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) journey from 1973 to 1974 to walk a high wire between the newly constructed world trade center towers.

Pros - Joseph is really good in this film as Philippe, managing to capture the range of emotions he felt from the beginning to the end of his journey. It’s also a good looking film as well, starting out with a black and white opening narration for Philippe and then switching to the colourfulness of the seventies. But the key thing they nail in this film is the sense of height during the high wire scenes on the towers and my god they were amazing. Me and the other two people in the theatre were gasping and aweing as the film progressed. The pacing of the film is good overall, the manage to tell you enough about the walk before hand so that they have a good amount of time to show you the actual walk in almost near moment by moment recreation.

Cons - I guess the only kind of negative thing I can say is that while the side characters were good, we really only get to know some of them as the rest are only there for a short time or don’t do too much.

Final Score - 9/10

I went out of my way to see this in Imax, but in any theatre it should be good to see and feel the height of it all.

For any readers in Canada, Hyena Road is coming out this week so I’ll try and see that. For anyone else, think of my next review as a chance to learn about Canadian Cinema.

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

Movie Review: The Martian (2015)

Hello all,

I'm actually super excited for this one, so I'm going to skip over this opening and go straight into it.

Plot Summary - In the near distant future, The Mars Crew of the Ares III prepare to evacuate after a massive storm heads towards their encampment. During the evacuation, Astronaut and Botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets struck by debris and presumed dead. When he recovers, he finds himself stranded alone on Mars without a way to contact NASA.

Pros - Right off the bat, it’s a gorgeous looking movie. The Mars scenes are super cool to watch and all the scenes on earth manage to capture the mood of every scene near perfectly. The cast is phenomenal and every role is balanced out perfectly enough for every character, which they do by making smaller roles more memorable and the bigger roles more involved in the whole story. The story is also told with a surprising amount of humor as well, and it manages to balance out the few but very heavily dramatic and tense moments placed throughout the film.

Cons - I got nothing for this one.

Final Score - 10/10

I’m going to say this right now, top three for this year at least guaranteed. This is one of the best films so far this year and it deserves all the hype.

Sicario will be next, don’t know when just yet.

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