Showing posts with label fun summer movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun summer movies. Show all posts

Friday, June 8, 2012

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,

Friday, May 25, 2012

MIB 3 Does Not Disappoint: This Weekend's Must See Movie


     Though I am generally against it, I decided to read some reviews prior to watching MIB 3, all of which spoke negatively about the movie. The critiques were hitting every point of elegance the movie had to offer, from acting, to humor, to action sequences and after reading said reviews I was expecting this movie to be wretched, I'm glad they were wrong. For those that thought that there weren't many parts in the movie that were funny I have no idea where your sense of humor was the day you watched this for it was funny, and cute, it was everything one could want from a MIB movie, this was everything we wanted from the second movie but never got. MIB 3 did not disappoint, it was fun and engaging, leaving us with a thirst for more.


    Josh Brolin was brilliant in this movie as the young agent K, he breathed life into the character of K while at the same time keeping all the facial features and sound bites that the older K has gotten us used to. It is a tough performance to pull off, to pull off a young and spirited K while not making him cheesy and making it realistic, well as realistic as you can when it comes to a movie like this. I was surprised at how much I started to like the old K based on his younger self, after meeting the younger self you'll even start to like K from the first two movies, looking at him from a different light. So Josh did very well, more than expected and brought life into K's character, a job well done.


    Tommy Lee Jones performed brilliantly as always, you can't expect anything else from the guy, he's a brilliant actor with 65+ titles under his belt, this was a great addition to an already impressive career. The toughest thing here was the transformation in the beginning of the movie from a hard headed, "I'm cold K" to a "things just got real K". There is a point in the beginning of the movie where you realize that K is not a bad guy, nor is he an angry guy, he's just a tired guy with a ton of secrets that would make anyone be less talkative and more to themselves. This portrayal is not an easy one to convey, so in keeping in mind that he had a small amount of screen time and conveyed this, one can make the assertion that Jones performed brilliantly.


     Will Smith was awesome. There are so many ways one can complement Will Smith's performance in this movie, he was funny, engaging, he was young and cool, he was the Will we fell in love with in "MIB" and "Independence Day". (A side question does arise, how does Will Smith not age?) There is a good maturing to Will's character J in this movie as well, we go from standard good old J to "gotta make stuff happen J" and end with a more mature, more well rounded J, so we follow Will's character through a very real evolution that ties us even more to the character. Will Smith was everything we wanted him to be and more, bringing this movie to life in ways that only his swagger allows.


  This movie also had a stellar villain, Jemaine Clement from the great comedy band "The Flight of the Conchords" played our illustrious villain, doing a fantastic job in the process. Out of all the villains in the MIB series Boris the animal might be one of my favorites, though the MIB 2 villain might have been hot she was not an intimidating villain, Boris in the other hand steals the show a bit just by being a straight up horrible being. Jemaine outdid himself here by keeping Boris funny while not lovable, thus retaining the very real evil element that his character needs to have. It was a great performance, one meriting acknowledgement.  


    Keep in mind that this movie should not be reviewed in the same way one would review "The Artist" or "Braveheart", this is an action comedy about a fictional alien crime fighting secret organization, meaning that for what it does and attempts to do it does well, so well that I would rated it a 4/5 without a second thought. This was a fun summer movie, this is everything one could want from a MIB movie. MIB movies are not meant to be super serious or super comical, they have their own way about them, their own swagger, if you will. MIB 3 is a great movie to go watch this weekend, you will be entertained for sure, so grab some friends or family, buy some popcorn and have a good time.

   We hope you have had a fantastic week and pray that you might have a safe weekend,

Love from your humble blogger,