Say what?!

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2 ... 396639013/

He's always good value in the X-Men flicks, but the Wolverine films are dire

CA2 - loved it! By far the best film I've seen in the past twelve months and certainly would rank to as on par with the original IM film. Far superior to Thor or the Hulk films, though I did enjoy the first CA film too. The action scenes were beautifully done and I didn't get the feeling that things were set up for the sake of a single "iconic" scene and certainly they weren't "Bayfests". I thoroughly enjoyed them! There were some twists and turns but nothing that was unbelievable (as much as can be in a comic book film), or ridiculous. My only real nitpick is that Johanssen didn't look as hot with straight hair - I much preferred her shorter wavier hair from the Avengers film where she came across a bit more femme fatale. The introduction of the new ally was nicely done and something I appreciated. The credits scene was something I enjoyed - it had beautiful animation and artwork. The mid-credits scene wasn't anything special IMO, and I forgot to stick around for the post-credits scene.




Everything else herein contains spoilers. You were warned.




I loved the intro, especially how Rogers infiltrated the ship, especially early on. Struck from the shadows, struck hard and fast. I can see why Batfans want to see this kind of thing in the new Batflick. We saw a little of shadow lurking in Batman Begins but that was about it. There was no fast close-quarter hand-to-hand combat. I also loved how Black Widow used a grappling hook thing to launch into an attack - something I've seen in the Arkham games but not in TDKT. The elevator scene was good but I did expect Rogers to pick up on it earlier. Zola's scene was reminiscent of The Matrix which was a little odd.

At one point, Rogers strangles Bucky. It felt more like a build up and had more emotional content in it than the comparable scene in MoS.

I loved Fury's final scene but I'm sure I've seen it somewhere before. Was Fury dressed like that in Thor 2 or something?

CA2 should be shown as a teaching aid to the other directors/writers making superhero films. Things like 'make sure your action scenes are watchable by those NOT on amphetamines', and 'don't just cameo a boatload of characters who aren't established' etc.

So earlier I wrote fairly short snappy reviews of the movies I've seen of late - then lost the post in a fumble with my mouse's back button and gave up on the idea... but after just watching what I just watched feel it important (to me) to go over it all again.... so here goes....

It's been a while - and I know I'm late to the game on a lot of these - (I know, I should be reviewing a cinema-seen-Raid 2 but seeing as I've yet to see that...


American Hustle
Really don't know what all the fuss is/was about. Bale does a bad job of playing De Niro circa Raging Bull & Bradley Cooper plays Bradley Cooper - so I was never going to be too enamoured. The "plot", or at least the direction, aspires to atypical New Jersey gangster/conspriracy schlock - but fails (for me) all over the show - even the cinematography is a poor effort at "vintage" 70's filmmaking (watch Mesrine for how's it done) and only Amy Adams' acting (and side-boob) saves the show, despite the woeful lack of her character's depth/development (goes for everyone really) - and weell, it's all a bit meh. Maybe its just me, maybe I've watched too many Bronx-based movies, but after a while they all start to look/sound/feel the same? I mean, seriously, the DA (?) who wanted to be Christopher Walken? What's all that cr4p about?

The Wolf of Wall Street
Meh. Leo (playing Liotta circa Goodfellas) stars alongside Jonah Hill (who insists on inviting his buddies along) for a "high" japes couple of hours that follows the formulaic descent-of-drugs tale. Sure, some scenes were good - but by no means the ROFLMAORFOLCOPTER rubbish being spouted out on the interweb... I couldn't help but think it was all Goodfellas for 2014 (i.e. replace mobsters with bankers)

The Hobbit : The Desolation of Smaug
NOTHING happens. One whole big setup for Part 3. I don't mind Jackson stealing 4 hours of my life (I've watched the extended King Kong maybe 5 times!) but come on now... fight scenes are far far too drawn out, (and v.fake looking in places) - Evangeline Lily does nothing - Bloom looks too fat (these days) to be an elf, the Orcs are even more mockney and there was simply a lack of "WOW!" - although the whole dark/light fight was well done (visually).

Gravity
SFX + VFX + Sandra Bullock+ Hot Pants = does not a good film make.

Escape Plan
Totally forgettable. Arnie + Sly + Vinny Jones (in rollerskate gear) w/ oil tanker set (prelude to Waterworld) ? Shut up now. Still, good to see Amy Ryan in a bigger production.





....and so to my reasoning for returning to these reviews.




World War Z
Critically panned (unlike much of the above) but you know what..... it was actually quite fun. FUN. Not clever or condescending (despite pokey nods at Korea & Israel) - but, well thoroughly enjoyable. At no point does Pitt's character succumb to super-human abilities, (ala John McClane circa-Di(r)e Hard post #03) and it's got no problem killing off characters, or introducing strong bit-parts and interesting venues (Cardiff!!!?) in a mega-budget movie. I even liked, yes liked, the castaway glibness of the end - because, come on a moral message in movies ain't such a bad thing if the message is a (morally) good thing - and well, I'd basically rather that (with "zombies") than sit through the 2-3 hours of (self-serving) self-indulgent "entertainment" of the aforementioned titles. At least this one felt like it was purely trying to entertain me.

Oh well, apart from WWZ all a bit meh lately. I'll probably not even get round to seeing The Raid 2 in the cinema at this rate - so the next one on the horizon (from/for me) is Matthew Barney's The River of Fundament - seeing as I have tickets for it's one-time-UK screening and all!

No argument from me on any of that.
I thoroughly enzoyed World War Z too.

Mark

I enjoyed the movie but it did destroy the book. If only they had called it something else.

I am not a fan of WWZ. Very middling AFAIC.

I had no experience of the book so I went in to the film totally without expectations.I was aware that people were comparing it to the book before I saw it, and I knew a lot of those that had read the book thought it a poor film adaptation, but I still enjoyed the film a lot.

Mark

The Hobbit nothing happened? I don't know how they can make three film out of it, it was, for Talkies, a short story!

I gave up after about 20 minutes of the first film, because they had already managed to butcher it to pieces.

They took a lot of material from other Tolkein scribblings for the Hobbit trilogy. The second one did drag on, and, yes, I felt that very little really went on. Some people went somewhere and met other people. I think this is a studio wanting to make another trilogy, and to distract Jackson from his model Lancasters.

I'd agree with all of that.

I don't think you can compare books to films. It's best to completely forget the book and look at the film as a new entity. I've been so dissappointed in the past wirh casting or changes to the story that I have a more open mind now.

I mean Tom Cruise as Reacher? No he isn't but I did watch the film and it was OK, just OK. As long as I wasn't sat there thinking it was the film version of a Lee Child novel.

*shrugs*

That is the problem. They take the name of the book and film something almost but not entirely unlike the book, which just leaves you wondering what the hell just happened.

The new Jason Bourne films are a case in point. Apart from the name and the fact the main character has amnesia, the film has absolutely nothing to do with the book.

If they had called it something else, it would have been a good spot romp. As it was, I felt cheated. The original TV film with Richard Chamberlain and Jackie Smith was much better in that respect.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 1020 using Tapatalk

Well we know it's hard to adapt a 300+ page book in to a film. There's no way you can fit everything in. You can't show what a character is thinking so a lot may be 'dumbed' down for the film version. Also little nuances will be missed out and character development suffers.

What really pisses me off is when they change the ending when the book ending was great. I remember they did that in The Pelican Brief and it ruined the whole film for me.

I guess us book readers are just clever sods and have high expectations

Unfortately Hollywood doesn't see the population like that and are only interested in what will being in the cash.