Friday, February 24, 2017

The LEGO Batman Movie

Plot-
Bruce Wayne/Batman (Will Arnett) must once again save the city of Gotham from the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) while at the same take care of the orphan boy he adopted (Michael Cera). 

Pros:
•Best interpretation of Batman since the Nolan movies. 
•Like The LEGO Movie, can be enjoyed by both kids and adults. 
•Really sweet message. 
•Nice animation. 
•Great voice acting, especially Will Arnett and Zachary Galifianakis. It's funny how Galifianakis was a better Joker than Jared Leto. Not that that was hard to do. 
•Pretty badass soundtrack/score. I love how they incorporated a lot of the old Batman themes. 

Cons:
•Dragged a bit, especially in the middle. 
•To me, the story wasn't as strong as The LEGO Movie. It's very good don't get me wrong (I highly recommend the movie), but it didn't quite hit me as much in the feels as the other one did. 

My Rating: 8/10

Get Out

Plot-
Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African American man, and his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) go home to meet her family. When they get there, things seem very off. Little does Chris know that his worst nightmare is about to come true. 

Pros:
•When I first saw the trailer for this movie months ago I thought it was some kind of joke. I mean I still wanted to see it anyway, hoping it would be one of those movies that was so bad it was funny. Turns out that Get Out is actually really good. Seriously. Not only is it one of the best horror movies I've seen recently but it's easily one of the best I've seen this year so far. 
•Strong directorial debut of comedian Jordan Peele. You can tell he is a huge fan of horror movies. This was so fucking creepy and not in a blood and guts and jump scares sort of way. I mean there is some of that but it's never overkill. It really messes with your head, which I think is way more effective. Also, unlike most movies of this genre, the characters are well developed and you actually give a crap about most of them. I can't wait to see what Peele does next. 
•Soundtrack is a bit odd but it really fits. 
•One of my favorite characters was Chris' friend Rod (LilRel Howrey) who stole every scene he was in and provided some much needed humor. 
•Felt very much like the Twilight Zone in a lot of ways. 
•Moved at a good pace. 

Cons:
•NONE! Everyone please go out and support this amazing movie. 

My Rating: 10/10

Friday, February 17, 2017

The Great Wall

Plot-
While searching for black powder, William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) become embroiled in the fight to protect The Great Wall of China from a group of monsters. 

WARNING: Be prepared for lots of ranting and cursing. 

Pros:
•Ummm.... hmmm.... (I'm trying here) I'll give the director this much, he is really good at visuals. It's a gorgeous looking movie. 
•Powerful score
•Matt Damon was nice to look at. 
•William Dafoe. Always great to see him pop up in a movie. 
•At least they had the sense to keep this short, unlike Gods of Egypt. This movie was about an hour and forty minutes.  

Cons:
•Can anyone tell me what the fuck was happening in this movie?!? It felt like I walked into this an hour late. I don't need everything spelled out for me but god damn they could've at least attempted to develop this story. And the characters for that matter. I didn't give a shit about any of them. 
•Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal... two amazing actors yet their performances were so wooden and the dialog given to them was laughably bad. Did the director have some dirt on them and used it as blackmail? There's no other explanation I can think of as to why they agreed to do this. What the fuck were they thinking??
•Slow motion
•I swear not even ten minutes into this movie I said out loud, "What they fuck have I gotten myself into?!?" I could've been watching LEGO Batman. 
•This had potential. Could've been a really bad ass action movie but nope. They had to go and fuck it up. 
•I could go on all night ranting about this shit  but I'm tired. Plus I don't feel like spending anymore time on this movie than I already have. I'm begging you, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD- don't watch this. This was bad. Like, this close to being Gods of Egypt/Transformers level bad. Now if you'll be excuse me, I need a drink. Better yet just give me the whole damn bottle. 

My Rating: 4.5/10

Friday, February 10, 2017

Fifty Shades Darker

Plot (HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!)-
Ana (Dakota Johnson) & Christian (Jamie Dornan) work on having a "normal" relationship. However, Christian is still struggling with his inner demons. As for Ana, she must deal with the jealous women who came before her. 

Pros:
•This.... was not as awful as I was anticipating. Don't get me wrong, it's not great by any means. But I don't think it's 8% on Rotten Tomatoes bad. I had a blast watching this and laughed out loud several times. So much unintentional humor. 
•This at least had a "plot", unlike the first movie. 
•Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson do a decent job in their roles. I give them credit for trying. It can't be easy to do this with a straight face. Both are way too good for this shit, especially Jamie Dornan (for a better idea of his acting abilities, I highly recommend his World War II movie Anthropoid). 
•Movie Ana is way more tolerable than book Ana. No inner goddess thank god!
•James Foley is a competent enough director. He does the best he can given the material he has to work with. He shot both this and the third movie (Fifty Shades Freed) back to back. Can't wait to see how that turns out. 

Cons:
•I still have all the same issues that I did with the books and the first movie. This is NOT romantic and any woman who thinks otherwise is a fucking idiot. Christian Grey is NOT the ideal man. He fits all the characteristics of a psychopath. If he was just a regular guy and not a billionaire, you'd be calling the cops instead of wanting to jump into bed with him. 
•Speaking of that, I'm sure you all want to know how the sex scenes were. Honestly? There weren't as many as you'd think. And what was there..... ehhh, didn't do much for me I'm sorry to say. Pretty dull actually. 
•Some of the storylines were resolved way too quickly. 
•The dialog was terrible and cheesy, but in a fun sort of way. 
•The guy that they got to play Ana's boss Jack Hyde was not a good actor at all and that's saying a lot in a movie like this. Doesn't pull off the villain role very convincingly. 
•When they first announced that Kim Basinger would be playing Elena, I was like okay, I can see this. After seeing the movie though, I don't know if it was the lighting or what but she looked awful! Can't really comment as far as her acting goes since she's not in it all that much. 


My Rating: 6.5/10