Prometheus Review: A Solid Addition To The Series

     This will be a tough blog post to produce without giving any spoilers away but no worries no spoilers are contained within this post, so read on without any concerns. This is the fifth movie in the "Alien" series and is a prequel to the series, this is basically Ridley Scott's attempt to close a few loose ends and bring life to this loved series once again. The first thing that must be said is that this movie is directed brilliantly, this is a true Ridley Scott production, from start to finish you are hooked on what is happening on screen awaiting the inevitable scare that always surprises us and never disappoints. The movie looks beautiful, as far as direction goes this movie is a 5/5, casting was brilliant and acting was superb, not once do you find yourself being face to face with bad acting or a dull moment, this is a great addition to the series, not better than Alien or Aliens but a solid third place winner in the series.

     Michael Fassbender plays the role of David, their on ship cyborg, which follows the tradition of all the Alien movies that preceded it, and he does a fantastic job. It is difficult to portray an earlier model of cyborg (in comparison to the later models found in the other movies) and pull it off well, the ability to not portray emotion but still look sympathetic in a very non-human way is not an easy thing to pull off and he does so here. Fassbender is by far the best acting job within this movie, yes Charlize Theron is brilliant as always but even she was no match to Fassbender's brilliant performance. A shout out is deserved to the supporting cast as well, all of which did a fantastic job in bringing the story to life in a non-cheesy manner, which can be hard in sci-fi horror flicks. Ridley Scott proves once again that he is a fantastic director and knows exactly what he is doing, a job well done sir.

    As stated before the movie is beautiful, the worlds constructed are realistic and captivating, the spaceships looked pristine and gave us a feeling of "this could actually be the way things are done in the future". The movie is extremely well scripted, the dialogue and back-stories flow very well and keeps you engaged on what is happening throughout the story the whole time. There were really funny dialogue exchanges, specially between David and the rest of the crew, between him being resented by the rest of the crew as some sort of machine and him trying to be helpful while at the same time having a level of sarcasm hidden within his tone, again we already praised Fassbender but he deserves all the praise he gets, he was brilliant in this film.

    The movie is a sci-fi horror so there will be alien attacks and so forth, but even though the creatures where of alien nature never did they look "fake" or cheesy, Ridley didn't pull any punches in his attempt to make this movie feel real, and even though we are dealing with over the top notions he pulls off delivering a solid story with these creatures being involved brilliantly. The special effects team involved in this movie deserves a round of applause for they delivered a great product that looks real and scary, even if sometimes some elements might seem silly the story is still tied together well and the serious tone of each scene is directly portrayed, again Ridley's team deserves mad respect for their work in this film.

    There are a few problems with the film though, in the process of trying to answer some questions of the origin of the series Ridley does spring up more questions and does create some continuation issues, some small in nature but some pretty significant. This isn't something that most will care about but for anyone that is familiar with the series or is a fan of the "Alien" series mythos these can pose a problem for there are some elements in the movie that contradict scenes from the first Alien, which seems like bad form on Ridley's part being that he wrote the first movie to begin with. This might seem a little sticklerish of us but we feel that if you are to do a prequel to a series that you should try your best to be true to the other movies, and for the most part he was but the parts where he failed at bothersome.

    Prometheus is a great film overall though, it is about time that we got a good sci-fi horror dealing with aliens and outer-space, there hasn't been a good sci-fi horror in ages. In the end Prometheus does what it sets out to do and delivers a solid product, for fans new to the series and for veterans of the series this is a great movie to go watch, we give it a 4.7/5, we can't in good conscious give it a 5/5 due to the continuity failures, besides that though this is a "summer must watch" for sure. We hope you all have had a great week and pray that your weekend might be a safe one.

Love from your humble blogger,

The Road To "Prometheus"

     Generally we are very careful about spoilers within our articles, but this time we will be a little loose on the subject and though we will not contain blatant *spoilers* for every film, there will be some things that will be said that could "spoil" some things within the movie. The purpose here is to prepare you for "Prometheus" which is a prequel to the alien series. There are a lot of people out there who are eager to watch "Prometheus" but either don't have the time or the want to watch all the four movies that follow it, thus the purpose of this post, to aid you in getting a little background so that you might be able to appreciate "Prometheus" more. Don't worry though, we won't ruin the movies, but just warn you about quality, major story premise and so forth, we hope this article might help prepare you for the newest addition to the series.

   Alien

     This original Sci-Fi horror movie came out in 1979 and was directed by Ridley Scott. The story follows a mining ship that intercepts a weird message that seems like an S.O.S. and goes to investigate within a small planet. There they find a ship, a ship that carries some surprises and everyone enters into a horror movie. This ship is important for it is the same ship we see in the preview for "Prometheus" so in the movie "Prometheus" is where we find out who or what that ship was and what happened to the crew. "Alien" is a great movie and we recommend you watch you, but be warned that it is a slow movie, the movie is just under 2 hours and a solid hour and a half (almost) are just back-story. In 1979 slow movies weren't a problem, so if you can appreciate that then you will appreciate this movie. We learn a few important things in this movie, xenomorphs are bad evil creatures, cyborgs exist and are used in all crews, and Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver's character) really loves cats, while being awesome of course.

   Aliens

     The second movie within this franchise is directed by James Cameron in 1986, when watching this movie we recommend watching the special edition, it does make the movie be 2 hours and 39 minutes but it is worth it for sure, this is the best in the series in our humble opinion. Here we follow Ripley's character again as she is again confronted with "the company" and xenomorphs. The big two things we learn from this movie is that cyborgs are your friends, xenomorphs hunt at night, they hunt in packs, there is a mother who gives birth to them, and although marines are no match for them Ripley is because she is awesome. Another important plot point is Ripley's love for "Newt", without a cat around Ripley had to protect something (silly joke :p). James Cameron knows how to entertain his audience and "Aliens" is no different, Cameron delivers a great spectacle throughout the whole production, this is a solid movie to watch.

   Alien 3

     This is by far the worst movie in the series, it is done 6 years later 1992 and is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Social Network, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) so one would imagine that this would be equal to or at least on a similar playing field as his other movies, specially being that there is very little time lag between this movie and his other creations, so there is no excuse to how much this movie sucked. David Fincher must have been drunk when he made this movie, it has the worst dialogue, the worst sound, the worst picture quality, special effects, acting, and continuity, in fact there is very little good about this movie. This movie reminds us of bad British television, and the amount of curse words in this movie would make a sailor blush. *SPOILERS* Things to learn from this movie, there is such a thing as too many curse words, Ripley is still awesome and is now a host to a xenomorph queen, which makes no actual sense (who cares right?....what's a script, anyone ever heard of that?), and Ripley kills herself in order to prevent "the company" from getting their hands on the xenomorph growing within her. There is a level of applause deserved here, I can't see how someone would ever be able to make a worse movie, so job well done.

  Alien: Resurrection

    Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed this film in 1997 and did a fantastic job, well not really fantastic, more like made for television fantastic, but better than Alien 3, everything is better than Alien 3. The true motive for watching this movie and the thing that makes this movie so awesome from beginning to end is that it was written by Joss Whedon. If you are familiar with Whedon's work you'll recognize his signature moves from beginning to end and will come to appreciate this movie. This isn't the best directed movie, there are issues with lighting and set, but it is definitely one of the best scripted of the 4 movies. The major points here is that humans never learn from past mistakes, the movie takes place 200 years after "Aliens 3", and Ripley is brought back to life and is now part xenomorph. If you don't find any of that too absurd then do watch this movie, if nothing else this is a fun movie, and Joss Whedon is the man, so if you're a Whedon fan definitely watch it.

    And there you have it, all four movies reviewed and major points given. We've attempted to avoid as many spoilers as possible, except for the third movie, only because we want to spare you the pain and agony. "Prometheus" hits the big screen on Friday and is being directed by Ridley Scott so you can expect big things from this movie, we'll have a full review for you on Friday. We hope your week has been great and pray that it might finish well.

Love from your humble blogger,

Snow White And The Huntsman: Review

   Yesterday we got the chance to go watch the new movie "Snow White And The Hunstman" and for the most part we have to admit that we enjoyed the film. The film is brilliantly directed, the script is very well written, the set was beautiful, and the acting was superb, that is except for Kristen Stewart, but we'll get to more on that a little later. This is the first movie directed by Rupert Sanders that has hit the big screen, in fact IMDB has this being the only film he has ever directed, that's doubtful for this was a job well done and usually good jobs only occur after some experience. Sanders took a cheesy story and made it raw, he stripped all the elements to the bone and gave us a different take on the famous story with a darker twist, in the end this was one of the best Snow White adaptations we have ever seen.

    Snow White isn't an easy story to attract guys to, but Sanders' Snow White is full of action and adult themes throughout the whole film. This is not a children's movie, remember that, there are very strong adult elements throughout this movie either seen or implied, thus don't take this movie as been a children's movie, that's just simply not the case. Sanders did deliver us a good strong retelling of the Snow White tale and his casting, save Kristen Steward, was brilliant. The world that Sanders created was gorgeous and is one of the big high points within this movie, we feel confident that you will feel the same way as you watch the movie.

   Chris Hemsworth stole our hearts as usual, there is a definite future for Chris we can't wait to see where his career takes him. You never know how strong an actor is going to be until you place him in a movie where his acting alone saves it from being a catastrophe. True, the movie is not saved by Chris' acting alone but he did a fantastic job as the huntsman, he was rough and tough, he was sexy and lovable, he has all the characteristics one would want when watching this movie for a huntsman. He made carrying axes look awesome, towards the end of the movie I myself was beginning to be convinced that an axe is better than a sword, true it does resemble a hammer, and true maybe I have some loyalty to him cause he is Thor, but he did a fantastic job, you can trust that for sure.

   Charlize Theron stole the show, that's a fact, no fight there, Charlize is beautiful and sexy, she is a brilliant actress and knows exactly how to seduce an audience, her casting as the evil queen was brilliant, simply brilliant. No one can hold Kristen Stewart accountable when it comes to competing against Charlize, that's an unfair battle, Charlize is a woman, she is mature and knows how to capture your heart, but Kristen Stewart is just a little girl still, she's got one expression and is not seductive at all throughout the whole film, it's an impossible competition, who can compete against Charlize? That's a tough one, only a handful of actresses would have done the trick, Stewart is not one of them.

   If you read any reviews on this movie and they don't talk about the side characters then that particular reviewer has done this movie a massive injustice. The side characters within this film where brilliantly casted, the king and his wife were awesome making the intro for this movie be amazing, Charlize's brother is a creep and repulsive, he was brilliantly portrayed as well. The toughest part in the Snow White story are the dwarves, to make dwarves not be cheesy but warriors is no easy feat, and thus they deserve our recognition for sure, even their songs where brilliantly done, they brought that bit of humor that the movie needed and they stole our hearts truly tying the movie together. 

    To recap, the huntsman played by Chris Hemsworth was brilliant, the queen played by Charlize Theron was sexy and evil, the side characters stole our hearts and tied the story together, Rupert Sanders brought the Snow White world to life and had brilliant writers work on the script and thus on these elements alone the movie is a 4/5, a sure summer blockbuster, but Kristen Stewart somehow manages to ruin this movie anyway. Kristen has one look, the opened mouth "I'm confused, where am I, I'm so high right now" look, her inability to do a serious monologue does not help her case out at all. For the most part the movie did not suck because she only had minor lines, but toward the end she has a motivational monologue which she butchers and brings the movie down from a 4/5 to a 2/5, it hurt to watch.

    Being harsh with Kristen Stewart while she is being surrounded by such an amazing cast feels wrong though, so in the end we feel that this was all Rupert Sanders' fault, he should have known better and casted someone better for the role, Jennifer Lawrence should have been the most obvious pick, she would have saved this movie, that's a fact. When you walk out of this movie and think "man that movie sucked" or "eh, it wasn't great but it was fun" take a second to imagine the movie without Kristen Stewart and you'll agree, this movie was awesome, super awesome, we loved it but Kristen Stewart killed it and made us leave with a bad taste in our mouths, this might sound harsh but it's the truth, someone has to say it, so we will.

   We hope you have had a great week, and pray that this weekend will be a safe one for you,

Love from your humble blogger,

The Hunger Games who is Brave and loves Snow

    It saddens us a bit to report that there are just a few movies coming out (that have been announced so far) that contain a strong female role within it, but we are happy to report that these movies all look amazing. This year we are blessed to have various interesting characters making an appearance or re-surfacing with a new look, did someone say reboot? Yeah, not all reboots are bad, let us hope that more great titles surface as the year progresses and we see more movies like "The Help" or even something like "Columbiana" surface, both of which, in their own styles, hosted strong female characters and were good movies overall.

     Starting with the reboot, or should we say the competing reboots, one cannot start a post about changing the scene without talking about "Mirror Mirror" and "Snow White and the Huntsman" which both look promising in their own way. "Mirror Mirror" is taking the more light hearted approach but still offering a different take on the story, one where Snow White isn't helpless and weak but knows how to hold her own, this movie not only has an amazing cast but is attempting to change the game a bit by offering a new perspective and bits of fun in between, a sure one to look forward to. Our other contender is "Snow White and The Huntsman" which is appealing to the mature ambiance of the story, still hosting a very strong female role and keeping a dark atmosphere about itself. Both these movies will give us a new twist in the story, but the most important part is that both of these movies are hosting a strong female figure instead of the helpless princess, it's about time, we were starting to think that "Mulan" was going to be the only one.

         We know we covered this already but it bears mentioning again that Pixar's new movie "Brave" will be coming out this summer and it will surely blow our minds. A point that we felt we should make about our post on Monday is that we are not saying that being a "stay at home" princess is a bad thing, no, what we are saying is that we as a society should support all roles of women in society, we should affirm everyone by what they choose to do, but at the same time we should encourage people to strive for excellence. So we felt that the latter side, have not really had a lot of movie inspiration going their way, thus the importance of pointing out that "Brave" is doing just that. We should always strive to affirm all people and everyone deserves a voice, we should strive to encourage people to pursue their dreams, whatever that might be, and hence the importance of the message of the movie "Brave" which is exactly that, that we should strive to aid one another to reach our goals instead of putting each other down, encouraging one another to aim for the sky, and be all that we can be.

   This brings us to the last movie that you should check out, this is one that we are very excited about, "The Hunger Games". We mentioned "The Hunger Games" in December and boy does it deserve to be talked about more and more, this movie is pushing the boundaries, it is giving us something we have never seen before, and is showing us a strong "everyday" girl who through willpower overcomes great obstacles. We were excited about this movie months back but with the recent previews that have been coming out for it, our excitement tripled if not quadrupled. Here is a story of love and loss, of courage and fear, of pain and regret, of courage and cowardice, this movie has it all and more. If you didn't have this movie in your "must watch" list before then do yourself a favor and do so now, this is the "must watch" movie this month, and if you find yourself with some free time do pick up the books, you'll love them, they will surely entertain you intensely.

     We hope that you have had a good week and pray that you have an even better weekend,

Love from your humble blogger,