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 Review

     Some of us last night got to watch the first installment in The Hunger Games series and for the most part we have to admit that the direction they took was brilliant. The movie isn't perfect, if you are an avid lover of the books then you might be annoyed at some elements that they chose to leave out from the overall story, and though some of these were important in the books they did not take away from the overall experience of the movie, books will forever have more detail then their movie counterparts, that's just a fact that will never change. Let's begin by addressing some of the brilliant moves the director took in order to make this movie the success that it is.

     It's no mystery that this movie's theme is a dark one, and it's no surprise that this book has been accepted by both guys and girls in a variation of ages, specially high school. Which brings us to the "motion cam" usage within the movie, this was a brilliant move for it answers the question of how does one create a movie about high school students killing each other and not make it rated "R". If the director had sought to follow the book to a T then yes there would have been no way for this movie to be anything other than "R", but doing so would leave out a good half of the audience that loves the book thus the inclusion of the motion cam is a brilliant move for all fight sequences are masked and though while watching you are aware of the gruesome nature of what is going on, you are not being faced with all the gory details.

    Another brilliant move was the soundtrack, the whole movie is either accompanied with an instrumental track or no track at all, in fact there are periods in the movie where there is no background music, just the awkward sounds of real life. What this does is make you nervous, it makes you understand the density of the story, it makes you feel uncomfortable a little thus giving off the very real emotion of "this is wrong" that this movie should give while not relying on shock factor or violence to bring that emotion about. Plus its so nice to have a movie that doesn't have a cheesy pop song in the middle of it, it would have taken away from the whole experience if they had included one in there.

      Another huge deal was the casting for this movie, the casting director should be awarded a medal here the picks were brilliant, well except for Cinna, but even there we all fell in love with his character midway through the movie. Jennifer Lawrence was magnificent, she portrays Katniss perfectly, the nervous girl who gets thrown into a nightmare but rises out of the ashes through willpower and courage. In some sense Katniss is the anti-Bela, she doesn't need a guy to save her, she is independent, she is a hunter, a loyal friend, she holds to her morals and so forth, we could write a whole essay on this topic alone. Woody Harrelson proved to us again why he's amazing and should be in more movies, he plays the role of Haymitch perfectly. There was concern about the casting for this movie when we first heard who was picked, but after seeing the movie we have to admit that the director knew exactly what he was doing.

      This was not a perfect movie, in fact many of the critiques going around about it are valid critiques, while some critiqued the "motion cam" use we found that to be brilliant, that and the soundtrack did not bother us but enhanced our enjoyment of the movie, but if we could critique one thing though we would talk about the the fight scenes. Though we understand the need to keep them PG13 in order for high school students to be able to see the movie as well, we felt like there needed to be more emphasis on the combat, some of it felt forced and did not hold the impact that it should have held, we don't know how one would go about doing that without going to an "R" rating, but some kill sequences just felt lacking in some ways. This is something that could be perfected by the next movie's release.

     The scene with Rue was the one we were the most nervous about (no spoilers promise), it is a delicate scene and a very important one, here we felt the director struck gold. The movie slows down quite a bit during this whole sequence and we feel the whole impact of what is going on through this relationship, the whole construction of this scene was brilliant. We specially liked the fact that they kept switching from "the games" to behind the scenes commentary, to Haymitch and others responses and so on, this was a great addition to the story and made the whole sequence in the arena a fluid one, and filled everyone that did not read the books in to important details in the story.

    "The Hunger Games" is not an easy book to adapt to a movie, and this end result is more than most could have achieved, thus we cannot help but give this movie an B+, there is room for improvement for the sequels that's for sure, but the overall experience was dense and fantastic, the story telling was fluid and the gruesome nature of the story is told without there being tons of gory details along the way. Overall we were satisfied with the end result and look forward to the other two additions to this series, we can't wait to see how they adapt those two to the big screen.

     We recommend that you check this movie out, this might just be the best movie that has come out this month, in fact we would say that yes this is the best movie of the month. We hope your week went well and pray that this coming weekend might be a good 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,