Movie: Argo (2012)

In theatres: Argo (starring Ben Affleck, who also directed, Bryan Cranston and Victor Garber)

Please be aware this review will contain spoilers.

I was anxious to see Argo from the time I saw the first trailer because – (a) I like a good political drama and (b) I like Ben Affleck (in a very platonic way). We finally did watch it, weeks after its release and it didn’t disappoint.

For those if you who don’t know, the story is about the rescue of six Americans who went into hiding at the Canadian Ambassador’s house when Iran was going through a revolution and over 50 other Americans were taken hostage.

I thought the filmmaking here was excellent. If you watch this movie, make sure to stay for the credits to see what an amazing job they did with casting, make-up, costumes, etc. Ben Affleck had already impressed me with Hollywoodland and The Town, so I was hoping he’d handle Argo well and he really did.

Argo starts off with a bang and goes right into the hostage taking. It is chaotic, tense, stressful and just sucks the viewer in immediately.

The actual film itself has a real film (not digital), gritty quality to it, which I loved. Upon reading more about the film I found out Affleck actually shot it on film and processed it to gain that gritty film quality. Well done, Mr. Director!

I also loved the use of actual television broadcasts from that time and the way he spliced them in with newly shot scenes. The combination of the two was seamless and it was difficult to pinpoint what was new.

My only qualms with the film are as follows:

– The people being rescued are so unlikeable:
They really are! It was hard to feel sorry for them or even to want them to be rescued at times. The problem arises when you know 50+ other people were taken hostage and held for almost a year and a half, while this group of six are wining (and whining) and dining – literally – at the Canadian ambassador’s house! Worse even, when Ben Affleck’s character arrives to rescue them one of the men doesn’t like the plan, doesn’t want to go along and keeps arguing. How about you realize you’re lucky someone has come for you and that you have a chance at all! I wad very unsympathetic to that group of six and I feel it’s because of the way they are portrayed.

– The dialogue was not strong enough:
This next point ties right into the one above because I felt it was at those scenes when Ben Affleck’s character could’ve said something meaningful and really given us some powerful dialogues to convince these people to adhere to his plan to leave, but there was nothing. That was disappointing.

– Canadian involvement is downplayed:
Let me preface this point by saying I don’t actually know what the Canadians did or did not actually do for this mission, but being Canadian I expected (or hoped) for a bit more Canadian presence in this film. That having been said, those feelings are probably simply because I am Canadian and it in no way detracted from the watching of this movie and was just something I thought of after the fact.

All in all Argo has fun moments, extremely tense moments and is well-done all around. I would definitely recommend checking it out.

Imdb link – Argo

Liam Neeson is (usually) The Man

As mentioned before, there are a few actors who really draw me to movies and Liam Neeson is one of them.  I really like him.  Liam Neeson is The Man!  Well, he usually is, but the next two movies I’m going to review weren’t so great.  Actually, let me rephrase – Liam Neeson is still The Man, even though these two movies aren’t so great.

Movie on TV: The Grey (2011 starring Liam Neeson and Dermot Mulroney)

I was so looking forward to this movie, but it was disappointing.  It wasn’t bad, but I just found it a tad boring.  While watching I realized this was because you spend most of the time waiting for wolf attacks, they come and go rapidly and then you spend the rest of the time waiting for wolf attacks again that everything else that occurs seems to lag and drag.  Also, the ending was a let down.  It was unique to today’s movies and harkens back to early silent movies where things don’t really get resolved and you’re left wondering or when something shocking would happen just before the credits would roll.  All in all I’d say to watch it if you’re a Liam Neeson fan, but if it wasn’t for him this movie wouldn’ t be that good at all.

Speaking of which, the same goes for the next movie:

 

Movie in theatres: Taken 2 (2012 starring Liam Neeson and Famke Jansen)

Again, another movie I was looking very forward to.  I really liked the first Taken movie and thought Liam Neeson was so awesome in it that I was excited for this next one.  I know raised expectations aren’t good when going into a movie, but come on!  It’s Liam Neeson!  So long as he kicks ass all will be good.  Sadly, that’s not true.  Sure, the movie is entertaining and he does kick a lot of ass, but there are so many plot holes and the premise of the movie isn’t strong enough to carry an entire movie that there isn’t enough ass kicking to make up for it.  To make matters worse, the music was very dramatic and distracting and the fight scenes were too close-up and fast to make out what was happening and make me disoriented (that seems to be happening more and more while watching fight scenes in my old age).  However, all of that being said, I’d still say to check it out if you like Liam Neeson because it’s still an entertaining movie and he is super badass.

 

Jury’s Still Out on Channing Tatum

I do not love Channing Tatum as a lot of women seem to.  I like him, but I like him for the charm and personality he brings to his characters, not for his looks.  Actually, I do not understand the attraction to Channing Tatum’s looks.  He’s rather ape-like to me.  lol  That having been said, he does have a certain cuteness and charm to him, which was easily seen in:

Movie on TV: The Vow (2012 starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum)

This was a very sweet movie.  There’s not much to say except if you’re looking for a romantic movie with a few emotional twists with good looking people, then you’ve found the right movie.  The story is simply that these two are young, in love and married, there’s a car accident and she ends up with amnesia.  If the movie was cast differently it may not have been as enjoyable, but these two are cute both together and on their own so it works.  (Except, Channing Tatum’s clothes in this movie really bothered me.  lol)

Movie on in theatres: Magic Mike (2012 starring Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey)

I know earlier I said I don’t understand the appeal of Channing Tatum’s looks, but I do understand the appeal of his hot body and that of his stripper counterparts in this movie.  Yes, that’s very superficial and really doesn’t have a place in the actual movie review, but when the movie is about male strippers you have to give real consideration to the way they look, right?  Getting back to the movie – it’s not very good, but it’s not horrible.  The premise is good, but executed poorly.  I feel as though the casting was a real issue.  Not the casting of the hot male strippers, they were perfect, it was the casting of the lead youngen and the female lead.  Both actors were terrible and really ruined what could’ve been a pretty good movie.  Finally, the movie tries to be way too much than it actually is and once the credits started to roll I realized that was because it was directed by Steven Soderbergh.  He tries to make it all stylistic and overly dramatic at scenes that would’ve been better if they’d been done a bit more simply.  All in all, if you’re looking for a movie to stare at some hot men, with a side of a watchable storyline, then go for it!

(ps. I know the picture of this poster isn’t in English, I saved the wrong one and thought it was funny and kept it.)

Movie: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

In Theatres: The Dark Knight Rises (starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman and many more)

Hello All,

I watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday and have written my thoughts about it, however, I will wait to post it until enough time has passed that I know people will not get mad at me for revealing any spoilers, even though I don’t reveal that much.  So expect it to be posted in a month or so!

Bye!

 

—————–

 

Alright, so it is now November 2nd and I just realized I never actually posted my review on this movie!  Here it is, as it was written when I initially saw it in the summer:

 

Folks, please be aware this write-up will contain a lot of spoilers, so be forewarned and read at your own risk.  That being said, I am writing it the day after watching The Dark Knight Rises, but am waiting until enough time has passed to post it.

I want to begin by saying I like the previous 2 Christopher Nolan Batman movies, but I didn’t love them as so many others did.  I think Christopher Nolan is an excellent film maker.  He has a real stylistic way of making movies, his films are dark, edgy, intelligent and generally well-acted.  After watching Batman Begins I was blown away by how Nolan managed to capture the essence of Gotham, the dark and grittiness of it.  I didn’t think it was possible to capture that on the big screen being disappointed by the Batman movies from the past.  I also loved the way everything looked, with the exception of the Batmobile, which I prefer to be sleek and sexy, but was presented as more of a tank.

The one issue I had was with Batman himself.  Don’t get me wrong, they did a great job bringing Batman to life in that movie, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this is supposed to actually be Batman.  At one point in the film he was holding a guy over a ledge threatening to drop him if he didn’t provide answers and I remember thinking to myself, “hee hee, that’s like something Batman would do…oh wait, he’s supposed to be Batman!”  So although they did everything right, I still felt a disconnect, probably because Batman is so awesome that I just can’t accept anyone trying to be him.  He’s too iconic!  It’s kind of like watching a biopic of someone you love.  Sure, they can get the mannerisms, voice and look down, but some part of you will always think, “meh, they did alright, but they’re just not SoAndSo.”  These are my own issues, and nothing to do with how well or not Christian Bale played Batman.  That being said – I HATE his Batman voice!

Now onto The Dark Knight Rises.  I liked this movie.  I didn’t love it as I had hoped to or as much as I’ve heard others raving about it.  Part of this is my own fault as I didn’t really care as much about its impending release and thus didn’t try to remain spoiler free as I usually tend to, so parts that should’ve wowed and shocked me were expected or already known.  There were things I liked, things that (should have if I was spoiler free) surprised me a bit and things I was pleasantly surprised about.  On the flip side, there were a few things I didn’t like at all and wished could’ve been a bit better.

The film was written in an excellent way to wrap the series up nicely and to connect back to Batman Begins and the origins of Batman as shown in this movie trilogy.  However, I didn’t really like the end of this movie.  I’m a stickler on certain things and the implication that Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character goes on to become Robin or Nightwing was not to my liking.  I know they did this to show that Batman can always live on and that a hero can be anyone, but “No Sir, I don’t like it.”  While I’ve mentioned Joseph Gordon Levitt, I should also say that I didn’t like the shift of focus of detective work from Commissioner Gordon to him.  Gordon is one of my favourite Batman characters and I love watching him do what he does best, especially as played by Gary Oldman, but we are left to follow around the youngen, mostly to set him up as being someone worthy to be the Batman’s successor.

While we’re on the topic of actors in this film and the various characters they portrayed, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t hate Anne Hathaway.  I loved that Nolan didn’t go the contrived Catwoman route.  They focused more on the Selina Kyle story than the Catwoman angle and it worked well.  I LOVED that it was her goggles that made her cat ears, and not just some headband.  It did take me a while to get used to her trying to be all seductive because I just kept thinking, “hahaha, yeah right, come on, Princess Diaries!”  All in all, I expected her to do horribly, but she wasn’t bad.

The casting of Tom Hardy as Bane could’ve been anyone, really, but I was glad it was him as I like him ever since he played Shinzon in “Star Trek: Nemesis”.  As my sister said, Christopher Nolan tends to reuse the same actors in his movies and he did the same in The Dark Knight Rises.  Bale and Michael Caine worked with him in The Prestige, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard were all in Inception together.

Back to Bane, he was so hard to understand at some points!  I had no clue what he was saying.  I don’t understand why they had to make his voice like that?  Was it because Batman’s voice is so annoying so they had to have an equally annoying voice for Bane?  I did love the way Bane would hold the tops of his coat or jacket like an olde tyme prosecutor holding his suspenders in court.  I also love the inflection of certain things Bane would say.  That is so typically Tom Hardy and I loved it.

I did not like the confrontations between Bane and Batman at all.   We know Batman and Bane have both been trained by the League of Shadows and we know Batman is capable of so much, yet when he confronts Bane he tries a straight on fist fight tactic?  Hello?!  Have you seen Bane’s arms?!  (I know my sister has! Hi-oh! :P)  Batman is capable of so much more and after the first few attempts at a boxing match, you’d think he’d get it into his head to try something else, but he doesn’t!  It was aggravating to say the least.

Never mind that, what about the fact that this movie is called The Dark Knight Rises, but he barely even does!  We find out that The Batman has been gone for the past 8 years and that Bruce Wayne as become a recluse during that time.  So Batman has been gone for 8 years, but then comes back once Bane enters town and threatens to destroy everything.  EIGHT YEARS people have been waiting for Batman to make his triumphant return and when he does, he manages to cause a lot of destruction, but little else.  I was glad when Alfred called him out on that exact fact.  Then, he faces Bane, in a fist fight remember, and then gets taken away.  He comes back for the final fight and that’s the end.

There wasn’t enough Batman at all in this movie and the Batman parts we were given were lame.  Then again, that may be good because, as you remember from the beginning of this post, I didn’t really like Bale’s Batman and equate him more as a close Batman imitation than the Bats himself.

A few final things that bothered me about Batman himself – I HATED his cape!  It looked heavy and velvet.  I kept thinking about George Costanza and his love for velvet whenever I saw it.  In his first fight back he uses a stun gun.  I was shocked!  He shouldn’t use a gun!  Not only that, but during one moment he was fighting off a guy and then used that attackers on arm to point at another bad guy just as he shot off the gun in his hand.  I did not like that either.  Also, too many people knew he was Batman for my liking.  If Joseph Gordon-Levitt could figure out he was Batman as a kid in the orphanage, then he’s not doing a good enough job hiding it.

Finally, I can’t pinpoint even one memorable part in this movie.  It was a good movie, made very well, good story and looked amazing, but there wasn’t one part that would call memorable where I could turn to someone and say, “Remember the part when….”

So there you have it, my thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises.

Movie: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

In theatres: The Amazing Spider-Man (starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone)

Friends, be forewarned this review will have spoilers, so do not read if you have not watched the movie yet.  Now, onto my thoughts about:

In the words of J. Jonah Jameson in Spidey 2 – “Crap, crap, megacrap.”

That’s right, I did not like it.  That’s not to say I hated it, though the more and more I think about it the less and less I like the little bits I did like.  I had no expectations going into this movie, which may be hard to believe considering I love the 2000’s Spiderman films with Tobey Maguire, so it stands to reason I’d have either very high or very low expectations for this reboot version, but surprisingly I had no expectations at all.

Let’s dissect this little by little.  First off, the casting.  The casting in this film was actually not bad.  I thought Martin Sheen (Uncle Ben), Sally Fields (Aunt May), Denis Leary (Cpt. Stacey), Rhys Ifans (Dr. Connors) and Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy) were all great in their respective roles.  Notice, missing from that list is this version’s Spiderman himself, Andrew Garfield.  The young Mr. Garfield looked great for this version and he even started out well enough, but he lacks the charm and charisma to hold your attention for an entire movie.  His mannerisms and antics became tiresome as the movie dragged on.  And it did drag on and was rather long at 2 hours 17 minutes, not counting the trailers and commercials at the beginning.)

I also had issue with the character of Peter Parker and his lack of growth through to the end of the film.  Any good story follows a young hero through his journey towards maturing and actually becoming the hero, but I didn’t feel or see that at all in this movie.  This Peter Parker/Spiderman seemed to fumble his way through the sequence of events.

I didn’t connect emotionally at all with any of the characters in this movie, which is a huge problem because you have to care about this down on his luck, poor kid Peter Parker who’s thrust into this role of superhero.   During the scene of Uncle Ben’s death it occurred to me that I only cared for his passing because it was Martin Sheen  and it had nothing at all to do with Uncle Ben being shot or because Peter has lost the only father he’s really ever known.  There’s something wrong in that!

In fact, throughout the film it felt as though it was some cheesey stage play redux of the Spiderman story and I didn’t connect it back to actual Spiderman at all.  It all felt fake and contrived.  When the Stan Lee cameo finally came I was pleasantly surprised and didn’t really expect it.  The fact that I forgot there should be one and that I didn’t anticipate one means there’s some major disconnect here.

Some major problems I had with the film:

Uncle Ben doesn’t even say “with great power comes great responsibility”!!!  What’s up with that?!  He said something to that affect, but in a very convoluted way.  While watching it, and this was one of many points when I just wanted to yell out at the screen, I actually thought to myself, “WHAT?!  JUST SAY THE EFFIN LINE!” (Yes, I swear in my head, except I actually said “effin” in my head and not the F word, so I guess I don’t really wear.  Lol)

I had a major problem with scene where Peter begins to explore and learn about his powers.  He didn’t nearly explore them enough or properly and I was enraged by the way he constantly kept going back to his skateboard.  Fine, I get it, he’s a teenager and loves his board and they want to appeal to the angsty teens out there that like to board.  Great, then show what Spidey powers can really make him do and make Peter do the most unbelievable skateboarding tricks!  The scene they showed was just lame!  And the swinging back and forth on those chains and the little bit of climbing in the warehouse?  What is that?!  Show us what he can really do.  Show us Peter exploring and really finding out what he’s capable of.

I always feel these first scenes of the utmost importance.  The first time you see a character, the first time that character demonstrates an ability, the first time that character shows up in their signature costume.  Ohhh the costume, yet another thing they botched.  Not only does the suit not look appealing, but the revelation of the suit was terrible!  The first time we see Spiderman in his full gear is through a reflection in a building window, which is fine, but he’s wearing his backpack!  And I know fully why they did this, to remind us behind this cool suit is that high school kid whose story we’re following and it makes the scene funnier when Aunt May calls him to run an errand and he has to fumble through his backpack like a normal kid to get to his phone.  But COME ON!  This is the FIRST time we get a good look at Spiderman in all his glory.  They shouldn’t have messed with that.

As I keep writing I realize most of my problems with the film have mostly to do with how they handled Spiderman.  That being said, I did not like the way The Lizard looked at all.  He looked very fake and CGI and most of all, he looked like Killer Croc from Batman.

Lizard:

Croc:

If you don’t want to know what happens at the end of the film, do NOT read this bit.  The end is stolen straight out of Batman Begins!  Just as Batman had to quickly spread a vaccine for some horrible threat Scarecrow unleashed onto Gotham, so did Spidey.  He had to quickly spread a vaccine for some horrible threat Lizard unleashed onto New York.  What a copout!  Come up with something more original!

Spidey gets his mask taken off – HIS MASK TAKEN OFF! – in the middle of the street and no one manages to see him?  This annoyed me to no end.  He had his mask off one too many times and this was the last straw!  In this day and age with all the cell phone cameras abound are you telling me turning his face into his shoulder is enough to stop people from seeing and plastering his face all over the internet?  Maybe I could believe that if Peter himself hadn’t said earlier in the film that he watched an internet video someone posted of Spiderman.  Come on now!

One last complaint about the final climactic battle and then I’ll stop.  Spidey becomes injured and is unable to websling properly to rescue Gwen Stacy and the rest of New York City.  He’s literally bumping into buildings and hobbling around.  Construction workers see this and help out by moving their cranes in a direction that will help him to websling to Oscorp faster.  This is what I mean about Peter/Spiderman not growing or maturing or coming into his own during the course of the movie.  Instead, he fumbles his way through.  He was too injured to make it there without help, but he’s good to go to take on Lizard.  This was an opportune moment to show off his unbelievable webslinging skills and we’re left with nothing!  We barely get to see it showcased in this movie and that really bothered me.  The only thing I kept saying before seeing this movie was that I though it may look amazing considering what they did with the effects in Spiderman 3 and how far they’ve come with computer graphics these days.   I was wrong.

I understand this reboot is supposed to be more about Peter Parker than it is about Spiderman.  Sadly, they should not be mutually exclusive and the story of Peter is well told when the story of Spiderman is told properly.  Just because they want us to remember this is a young teenager still in high school with a penchant for skateboards, a crush on a cute girl and errands to run for his family, it doesn’t mean his journey into becoming Spiderman has to be portrayed as anything less than what we have already seen or already know it to be from past versions.  Does this make any sense?  There’s no need to belittle Spiderman to showcase Peter Parker.

If you’ve made it this far you’re going to laugh now when I say that the movie is still worth checking out.  I seem to be in the minority in my thoughts about this movie, so please make up your own minds yourself.

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/

Movie: The Hunger Games (2012)

In theatres: The Hunger Games (starring Jennifer Lawrence)

I had intended to review movies on this blog as I watched them, thereby saving myself from writing posts upon posts about all the hundreds of movies I’ve watched over the past 34 years of my life.  Then, I started reading The Hunger Games book and realized I should probably jot down my thoughts on the movie before reviewing the book as a lot of my thoughts on the book go back to my thoughts on the movie.

I watched this movie back in March when it came out.  I didn’t know much about it except Jennifer Lawrence was in it and I like her.  Jennifer Lawrence played young Mystique in X-Men: First Class, which is now one of my favourite movies.  Other than knowing she was in this movie, which was enough to make me want to watch it, all I knew was that the story had something to do with a bunch of young people being thrown into some reality show/Survivor type setting.  I was only about half right.

Let me begin by saying I had very mixed feelings during and after watching this movie.  The movie itself was good and interesting, but the entire concept was too disturbing for me to stomach.  What is the concept?  Kids killing kids.

I felt very stressed while watching the entire movie.  People who know me, know this is not at all like me.  I can watch the gory, ridiculously violent fight scenes in movies.  I can even stomach horror films if I have to (though I don’t like to), but this?  This was disturbing to me on an entirely different level.

The problem I had with this entire concept is that it’s just a hop, skip and a jump away from happening in our own reality.  Am I being too facetious?  Not at all.  Look at what the most popular genre of television programming is at the moment.  Reality television.  Survivor has been a long running, popular series where people are thrown into a jungle and forced to backstab, not literally…yet, each other to win.  I’m sure the audience today would love to see a group of kids thrown into a jungle atmosphere and having to fight the odds to be the sole survivor.  Take it one step further and we’re at The Hunger Games.

My problems with the story being too close to reality aside, this was a good movie and had a gripping storyline.  The main character of Katniss, as played by Jennifer Lawrence, was strong and courageous.  Jennifer Lawrence has great screen presence and basically held the movie on her own.  I didn’t much care for her counterpart, the character of Peeta.  I found myself wishing he was bigger, stronger, better looking.  Of course, that’s not how his character is written and so we’re left with the Peeta we get on screen, which now that I’ve read the books I can see is perfect.

All in all I had very mixed feelings about The Hunger Games while watching it and still, after months to let it settle with me, I continue to have mixed feelings about it.  When I’ve been asked whether it was a good movie or if people should watch it, I make sure they are aware what the story is about and then, if they are fine with it they should give it a go because it is a visually appealing and very different movie.

One finale comment about the movie – Liam Hemsworth…wow.  That is all.

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/

Movie: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

In theatres: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Starring Benjamin Walker and Dominic Cooper)

This is a fun movie, mostly because it’s supposed to be serious.  The idea that Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter is ludicrous, but intriguing all at the same time!  This movie is made from a book of the same name and I would be interested to see how this translates over into a novel.

The story line is ridiculous, but the movie looks good.  I loved the sets, the costumes, the make-up.  There were also a few good action and fight scenes, although I had a problem with the camera angles and close-ups on most of them.  I will never understand why directors choose to stay focused close in during fight scenes rather than panning the camera out so we can get a wide shot to see the fighters doing what they’ve trained to do.  Makes little sense to me, other than it’s supposed to incite a feeling of stress and panic in the viewer, but I’d much rather watch the fight in its entirety.

Now, back to the movie itself.  Yes, the vampire thing is overdone of late, but I was happy with the way the vampires were portrayed in this movie.  I generally like when movies try to intertwine real historical events with their own fiction.  Thankfully, I knew the bare minimum about American history and the civil war to get me through and to understand what was happening.  That being said, I really don’t think you need to know anything about real historical events and if you think you do then you’re watching this movie for the wrong reasons.

The lead actor looked like a good Abraham Lincoln, but I didn’t care for him very much.  He lacked screen presence and needed a better voice for narration.  The character of Abe Lincoln wasn’t as much of a badass as I would’ve liked him to be either.  (I know, that’s a weird sentence.)  However, all of that being said, it’s still an enjoyable movie.

If you take this movie for what it’s worth and go into it with no more expectations other than knowing it will be a super campy, ridiculous movie then you will have a grand ole time!

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611224/