Tuesday, July 24, 2012

summer movies update!

It's been a while since I've made a post, if only because I've been doing SO MUCH stuff since I last posted about going to Washington, back in June. We're now near the end of July, and quite a lot has transpired. I've been doing the radio show pretty steadily, Beyond the Classroom, and I've also gone to see quite a few movies off of my summer list. Orientation Week has been coming along pretty nicely, with the mailing booklet going to print (a month or so late, for various reasons) today. But, I like to take breaks every now and then, since my vacation plans keep on getting derailed by various other things, and so here we are. Movies! I adore movies. Perhaps it is because they allow viewers to escape for a few hours...or, at least, that's MY reason. Some people enjoy being presented with profound movies, pieces of art that make you think about life and why things exist. I find all that incredibly boring, to be quite honest. I mean, I can enjoy a good 'deep' film, but for the most part, life is too busy to watch depressing or boring movies in my spare time. Hence, the summer blockbusters! While there are some films that accomplish both being fun and thoughtful, I enjoy the summer season because they are far more the former than the latter.

Here is a list of movies that I wanted to see, back at the beginning of the summer:

"The Avengers (obviously) (May 4th)
Men in Black III (May 25th)
Prometheus (June 8th)
Brave (June 22nd)
G.I.Joe: Retaliation (June 29th)
The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3rd)
The Dark Knight Rises (July 20th)
The Bourne Legacy (August 3rd)
The Campaign (August 10th)
The Expendables 2 (August 17th)"

We are now at July 24th, and I have seen all of the ones on that list released to date, with the exception of G.I.Joe: Retaliation, which has since been pushed back to March 2013. A shame, but ah well, I crammed the rest of those movies in there. I already posted about The Avengers, which is still my favourite movie of the summer so far, as well as Men in Black III, but I have been remiss in posting about the other ones. Here goes with some quick reviews!

Prometheus

This movie was fun. I saw it with my best friend, and he had mostly the same thing to say about it that I did. It was very visually stunning, and Michael Fassbender had a great turn as the android David, but other than that, it kind of was just...there. It wasn't bad, and at the end there's a little bit that is almost as if Ridley Scott decided to say 'HEY, THIS MOVIE IS RELATED TO ALIEN! GET IT?!' It was somewhat unnecessary, but there you go. Honestly, though, it's really nitpicky of me to say those things; the movie was fun, I enjoyed it, and was entertained for the duration of it. The ending is one of those things where a sequel CAN be made, but if there isn't one, well, it's up to your imagination!

8/10

Brave

Pixar, as many people have said over the years, has made quite a few absolutely fantastic movies. Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, the Toy Story trilogy, and many others, they are all fantastic. Having said that, Brave continues the tradition of having excellent visuals; it is easily up there as one of the prettiest Pixar movies, ever. The animation is superb; there must have been a team of animators devoted to the main character's hair, it was so fluid all the time. But, apart from that, it was merely...okay. That is to say, I enjoyed it, and I laughed a LOT, but that seemed to really be all there was. The plot was predictable, and the villain wasn't very much of a villain. It was more about the relationship between the main character, a teenage girl, and her mother, the queen of the realm. Not being a girl myself, I feel as if females would probably get more out of this movie than I, which is probably why Savannah and Carrie (one of my very good friends), both girls, enjoyed it more than myself and Carrie's boyfriend. For me, this seemed to be a kids movie. There's no problem with that at all, not even one bit; I LOVE those kinds of movies, and I greatly enjoyed this one. It just seemed to me that the overarching message in Brave was not quite as complex as Pixar is used to conveying. Disney and Pixar are used to making family movies; there's a difference between that, and a kids movie, which (in my opinion) is what Brave is. Still, a super fun one!

8.5/10

The Amazing Spider-Man


The Spider-Man trilogy has been rebooted. The problem with this new reboot is that...well, we've seen it before. There's not much different about this movie when compared with the Tobey Maguire version of several years ago. I should say, though, the initial (and best) difference is the fact that Tobey Maguire is...well, not in it. Instead, the titular character is portrayed by Andrew Garfield, who is perhaps the most convincing Spider-Man I've seen in a while. He nails the character, and Emma Stone does the same for her own Gwen Stacy, though I had quite a bit of trouble suspending my disbelief when the movie tries to tell us these two adults are supposed to be 17-18 years old each. They're young, don't get me wrong (my age? Maybe a few years older?), but not grade 11-12 high school age. Apart from that minor complaint, the Lizard, played by Rhys Ifans, was awesome, but...even he felt recycled with his 'talking to himself as he goes crazy' scenes, which conjured images of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin. The movie was just kind of recycled in general, and there's one scene involving construction workers in NYC near the end of the film where it was clearly supposed to be heartwarming, and ended up just being silly and funny. Again, it's not a BAD movie. I don't think I've seen any BAD movies this summer. It just wasn't 'blow you away' good. If I could change one thing, it would probably be the title: The Average Spider-Man.

7/10

Moonrise Kingdom


This wasn't on my list at all, but Savannah really really wanted to see it, and who am I to deny her? Any way, this is a movie by Wes Anderson of 'The Royal Tenenbaums' fame, along with 'The Darjeeling Limited' and 'Rushmore'. He makes quirky, well-written, almost indie movies, and Moonrise Kingdom was definitely all of the above. It was, actually, very very good. The dialogue was very intense, and the performances (from actors such as Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and a host of young kids) were absolutely fantastic. It was, without a doubt, one of the best movies I've seen this summer by far. It caught me off-guard how much I enjoyed this movie, and I'm glad I saw it.

9/10

The Dark Knight Rises


Let me just preface this by saying this movie, after The Avengers, was my most anticipated movie of the summer (probably even the year). It did not disappoint. It wasn't, in my own opinion, as good as The Dark Knight, but I enjoyed it more as a conclusion to the story of Batman than I enjoyed Batman Begins as an origin story. They're all excellent films, as Christopher Nolan is an excellent director, but I greatly enjoyed this one. Bane, as the villain, had his problems, minor as they were. He was still a little garbled, via the mask, and apart from that, he was just...bland. Bane was never the most interesting character, even as far as the comic books went, but he did the trick. Catwoman/Selina Kyle was actually fantastic; I was a little worried about how they might portray or use her in the movie, and really, as far as I am concerned, they absolutely nailed the delivery of the character. Anne Hathaway = awesome. Christian Bale was, as usual, good as Batman (and he even had another one of those hilarious growly lines in this one! In the first, it was 'WHERE ARE THE OTHER DRUGS GOING?!'; in the 2nd, it was 'I'M COUNTING ON IT.' and in this one it's 'WHERE'S THE TRIGGER?!'...oh Batman), though the best actor in this movie, by FAR, was Michael Caine. He absolutely stole every scene he was in, as Alfred, and I loved every moment.

Joseph-Gordon Levitt was also pretty fun as the straight laced, idealistic cop working for Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon. Both of them were pretty awesome. Honestly, at this point, I was surprised Leonardo DiCaprio didn't make an appearance or something, given all the Inception actors in the movie (Marion Cotillard was here as well, and we all know Tom Hardy was playing Bane). Ah well. The movie itself also relied a little too much on exposition directly to the audience (i.e. a character would say something, and instead of letting the audience imagine it themselves, they would just SHOW you what the character was thinking in a little mini dream flashforward), though I think it was necessary in some parts, and not in others. It ended on a perfect note, however. The fate of Batman, of Gotham City, of Bruce Wayne, of Alfred, of Bane, it was all tied up pretty nicely, and left it open enough that you can understand easily what would happen next. There were some nice nods to fans of the comic book, and there were some fun cameos as well. All in all, a very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Will I see it again in theatres, as I did for The Avengers? Maybe. But, I'll be damned if this isn't one of the best movies of the year. With the ten Best Picture awards, Nolan better at least get nominated for an Oscar, haha.

9.5/10 (I wanted to give this movie a 10, and immediately after seeing it, I would have, but now that I've thought about it, it's not as good as The Avengers, which I DID give a 10. It's a different feel and tone than Marvel's movie, so it's unfair to compare them, but there were some glaring flaws with energy and pacing in this movie that IMO were not present in The Avengers, so I'm going with 9.5...not that's bad by any stretch of the imagination.)

There you have it. My reviews of the movies I've seen so far this summer. Recap of this post:

Prometheus: 8/10
Brave: 8.5/10
The Amazing Spider-Man: 7/10
Moonrise Kingdom: 9/10
The Dark Knight Rises: 9.5/10

Men in Black III, btw, got an 8/10 from me, whereas The Avengers got a well-deserved 10/10. Obviously, this is my opinion (as I've said many times in my blog, haha), but with these subjective things, I figured I would say it one more time. I hope you enjoyed at least a small part of my reviews!