The Dark Knight Rises Review "Mind Blowingly Awesome"

    Leaving the movie theater and processing this movie is no easy feat, your legs don't want to move and your head is spinning with amazement and curiosity, your heart is pounding with excitement and the lingering emotions brought on by the movie are still ever present, this movie is just that impacting. Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" changed the Batman game forever, there is no going back after this one, of course when adding this movie to the other two preceding it this statement becomes even more true, but honestly after seeing this trilogy reach its end one can't imagine a better combination of movies put together by any other director, in fact there is a part in all of us that saw this movie that wish that Nolan will continue this story, that he'll change his mind and take the project further, the movie is just that good.

     Prepare yourself though before going to watch it, if you couldn't tell already by what they showed us on the previews this movie is dark, very dark, not Joker dark, but very human dark, mental even at times. The movie messes with your psyche and your understanding of not only how Bruce embraces the world but how you yourself look at the world. This movie moves you to ask some tough questions, it's as if Nolan is including some personal truth time between you and him within the movie, there has not been a more engaging movie than this one in a long time, and yes saying that about a superhero movie was something many would never have said in the past but those days are over, this movie is just that amazing.

    The first person that needs to be praised is Tom Hardy for his performance as Bane. There will never be a better representation of the psychotic mercenary, Hardy hit the target in every way possible, he was fearsome, loathsome, and represented pure evil in such a pure and crude way that you couldn't help but to look away whenever he was on screen, in fact some people within the theater would place their hands to their eyes whenever he came on screen for fear of what he might do next, here's the kicker though, nothing he did was overall too gruesome or barbaric but he did it in such a raw fashion that you couldn't help but be scared of him, there is something in him that just brings out that emotion. Bottom line, Tom Hardy was a boss, no lie, this man did what many thought no one could ever do, he successfully captured the Bane of the comics within a movie.

    Anne Hathaway is delightful throughout this flick, she is everything we all want her to be, she is seductive, she is fierce, she lies like a villain, but expresses care for those around her like a saint, she is a master thief and the way Nolan spun her story is freaking amazing, no one was expecting a Selina Kyle the way that Nolan depicted her, many even brushed her off as some side character before seeing the film, but Anne Hathaway would not have things be that way, Anne stole the show in many scenes throughout the movie, she was so good at playing Selina that it made some people want a Catwoman movie to come from this flick, meaning, her performance was so good that it made people forget how bad the last Catwoman movie was, that is quite a feat indeed.

    And finally how can we not mention the great Christian Bale finally giving us the performance we have been wanting to see from him since the beginning, don't take me wrong Christian Bale did well in the first two movies but he wasn't great, it was in this film that he really pulled through, he pulled no punches in his performance as the Bat and kicked some serious ass. This movie was a lot more challenging of a role for him for he needed to play a broken bat who gets even more broken before coming back to evolve into something new, it was a masterful performance and one cannot help but wish an encore performance by him in the future. Though Nolan and Bale have both stated that this will be their last Batman movie one cannot help but wish that this is not the case, that they change their mind and bring us another film, this film was just that good.

    Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, and Morgan Freeman were fantastic as well, especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I've purposely not talked much about these characters in order to not give anything away, anyone who spoils this movie for another person should be punished, this movie is just that good.

  Love from your humble blogger,

The Comic Books That Inspired Nolan's Trilogy

The reason behind the Nolan films being so good is that all the movies are based off of some of the greatest Batman comic books ever written, most people are not aware of that but if you were to read the books prior to watching the flicks you will actually learn to appreciate the movies even more than you had before. As it turns out the last installment in the series is coming out this Friday and it is hosting Bane, one of the most infamous Batman villains, though most people have no idea who Bane is and thus I've had to sit down often with people and explain the significance of his character and why this movie is going to be amazing, thus inspiring this post. It felt wrong to not mention the first two movies as well thus we'll be focusing on the three comic series that inspired Nolan and changed the comic book movie game forever.

Batman: Year One

     The first Nolan film set the scene for what was going to be one of the best concepts ever, basing a comic book movie off of a comic...yeah, one would imagine that more directors would have thought of this sooner but Nolan was the first and by sticking to the comic he created the best Batman film at that time. Batman Year One follows more or less exactly like the movie did, the comic is obviously better but Nolan did do a good job illustrating the main story on the big screen. It doesn't matter if you love comic books or not, every comic book that inspired the series is fantastic, this one is equally great, one you should definitely think about picking up and giving it a read.

  The Killing Joke

     There are a ton of Joker stories out there, a ton no joke, but none of them are as good and as well presented as The Killing Joke. This was the comic that inspired Heath's performance in "The Dark Knight", the movie is not necessarily based off of the comic but it is inspired by the comic, which was a pretty cool deal being that this was by far the most "real" presentation of the Joker in the series. Most of the time directors have done the Joker in the past has been a more carefree silly villain and not his psychotic self that we see in the comic books, the feared and maniacal Joker, it was refreshing to finally see the infamous villain being played correctly on the big screen. Needless to say "The Dark Knight" was the best Batman film ever made so far, it blew every other Batman film out of the water.

    Kightfall

    So finally we reach the third movie where we are introduced to Bane who was made famous by the great "Knightfall" series. The Knightfall series has three parts, Knightfall, Knightsquest and Knightsend, there is a ton of speculation going around about how Nolan is going to join all three epic arch's together into one movie, but we do see various elements of each one of the comic books within the preview, thus enforcing that Nolan did in fact decide to follow some of the core elements found within this story arch. Keep in mind that we're talking about the comic books so this is not a spoiler to what is going to happen in the movie but it is a guide to what might happen in the movie and why it is a big deal that Bane is going to be the villain within it, so take this as your warning, if you are worried that knowing what happened in the comics will spoil the movie then stop reading this post now.

    Knightfall opens with Bane getting a group of villains together to take over Gotham, he explodes the entrance of the Arkaham Asylum (as seen in the preview) and lets loose the scum of Gotham into the city. He later makes brilliant moves in order to strike fear into the people of Gotham and not only fights Batman but wins and breaks his back leaving Batman half-for-dead in the streets of Gotham City. The second volume is Bruce choosing Azrael as being a suitable replacement to go and take on the mantle as Batman in order to clean up the city a bit, this seems to be working well but in the end the mantle goes into Azrael's head and he goes crazy. The third volume is Bruce recovering, picking up the mantle of the bat once again and reclaiming himself as the one true Batman by defeating Azrael and then Bane.

    The movie will obviously not have all that in it, but a few things will probably follow from the comics, things we see in the preview, first Bane is a feared criminal mastermind just like in the comics, he will defeat Bruce and humiliate him, Gotham will fall, and Bruce will have to evolve as a man in order to rise and defeat this threat. If you are interested in more details on Bane and his background I recommend that you pick up the graphic novel and give it a read, it's a good read for sure, and will give you a better appreciation of what Nolan is trying to do for the last movie, more or so bringing it to life. All we can hope is that this movie will not disappoint and that it will live up to its hype, you never know, but personally I can't wait to watch this flick.

  Love from your humble blogger,

"The Dictator" Surprises and "Battleship" Sinks

  Sacha Baron Cohen's new production "The Dictator" was expected to be a bust, it was expected to be Sacha going even more over the top than what he has done before, and oh were we mistaken. If you followed Sacha's career you know that his beginnings weren't exactly shocking (as far as material goes) but that the more he released movies the older his characters became and thus the more he felt that he needed to "shock" people into liking him, which led to him putting himself in dangerous situations offending powerful people at times. For the most part we enjoyed these antics ("Bruno" aside of course), but this new addition to his collection came as a surprise to many in that we were expecting something even more absurd than "Bruno" but instead he gave us something fresh and enjoyable.

   Keep in mind that this is a Sacha Baron movie so there are very strong scenes within this movie, but they are more in the "Monty Python" spirit and not the gross stunts he was attempting to sell to us earlier. The story is making a good social critique about our interactions with the middle east and plays on various silly jokes. There is a possibility that we are being bias here because we thought this movie was going to be wretched but this movie was pretty funny, as funny as you would want a Sacha film to be, it is worse than "Borat" but better than "Bruno", it has gross mature content but for the most part it's not done in a horrible manner, so though we are cautious in recommending anything by Sacha we say if you like his work then go watch it, if you don't don't go, it's as easy as that. In the end this movie is a 3/5 in its genre, it is surprisingly not as offensive as we thought it would be but also at the same time it is not as good as it could be content wise. We cringe as we say this but we hope Sacha makes another one and an "evolution" is seen following the steps of this production.

      With all this being said here is the negative things about this movie, Sacha is offensive to everyone, we mean everyone, he is not "as" offensive as his previous productions but still offensive, no one escapes being offended or made fun off. Some things he talks about are witty and humorous  but many are under the belt shots that are sure to offend anyone that has a hard time being picked on, so he doesn't quite reach the "Monty Python" level of comedy yet, but he is on his way to producing something more along those lines, soon we hope. So if shows like "South Park" or "Family Guy" offend you then know that this movie will be incredibly offensive to you, this is not a movie for everyone just like those shows are not for everyone. One thing is a fact though, Sacha has stepped up his game a bit with this movie and this might be the beginning of something new in his career, for that we are thankful and look forward to what he will try to bring to us next.

   One would have imagined that we would have spent three paragraphs on "Battleship" instead of "The Dictator" but color us disappointed when it comes to "Battleship". Going in we knew this movie was going to attempt to be the brashest movie of the summer, much like "Cowboys and Aliens" was last year, but take it from us this movie didn't even come close to being comparable to "C&A". "Battleship" has a lot of guns, some explosions (nothing like Michael Bay delivers but still nice), no character development, almost no plot, tons of sub plots which almost all don't come together or matter in the end, and you never find out much about these aliens, just that humanity is awesome and we would win a war even if it was against an advanced civilization.

   While watching this movie you got a feeling that they wanted to please everyone with what they were putting on screen, they didn't even have time to give us one concrete character due to this approach, it is always dangerous to put 20-30 subplots in a shotgun and hope for the best when constructing a movie. The movie would have been awesome if they had let go of all the multiple story lines and just focused on one or two of them allowing us time to fall in love with a character, maybe even adding more depth to the alien attack would have been nice as well, a few lines here and there can go a long way. This isn't a "theater movie" this is a "Oh, 'Battleship' is on HBO, let's give it a watch" movie, we give it a 2/5, even with explosions. You know a movie is bad when we would rather watch "The Dictator" again in order to wash the horribleness out after you finish watching it. Might sound harsh, but this movie is deserving of the harshness.

   We hope you find yourself having an amazing weekend, for those graduating this weekend we tip our hats to you, Congrats! Have a fantastic weekend and be safe over this summer.

Love from your humble blogger,

2012: Sequels And Remakes Strike Again

    If you have been reading us for a while you know how we feel about sequels and remakes, 9/10 times sequels are wretched and disappointing, and though some remakes are good others are either remade too soon or they are done so while destroying the awesomeness of the original product. This year's movie list is no better than last year, though we have a lesser amount of sequels coming out this year movie theaters will still be hosting a plethora of sequels, remakes and sequels of remakes, some of those we are looking forward to, but these are the ones we are skeptic/worried/mortified about or disappointed with:

   Underworld: Awakening

    Underworld 4 just got released in theaters, and though the movie was enjoyable it was nothing new. Fans of the series will enjoy it and find it stimulating but for the most part there isn't anything in this movie that we haven't seen in the other three. This movie does beg the question though as of why would a fourth release be something that producers would ever feel like would be a good idea when the third one did so badly. I fear they thought that if only they added some good fighting sequences and added scenes of Kate Beckinsale looking hot that the movie would do well, and that's about all we get in this movie. What the fans wanted was a good story progression, a maturing of Kate's character, we longed for an evolution of the first two movies not a remake, hence this movie was a disappointment, but if you are a fan of the series you will still enjoy watching it, if nothing else just to get a little closure from the series, we give it a 7/10.

Ghost Rider 2

     Nicholas Cage needs to stop this, the amount of wretched movies he is in is astounding, and the fact that he releases one per year, sometimes two, is equally mortifying/astounding. Why they thought making a sequel to ghost rider was a good plan I have no idea about, even the comic book fans cringe when they see the preview, it's that bad. The whole thing makes no sense though, honestly, why would they ever think that this was a good idea, and Cage, how is he not tired of being in the same movie over and over again. Last year Cage released "Drive Angry" which basically was "Ghost Rider 1.5: Now He Drives A Car", meaning he has done three movies with the same premise that all require him to be the same character and all are horrible, yeah, one would imagine that he would learn at some point; that's too much to ask I guess.

Total Recall

     The original movie came out in 1990 and hosted a solid cast of Arnold, Sharon Stone, Rachel Ticotin, Ronny Cox and so forth, it wasn't a fantastic movie but it was fun and had a great original feel to it, now 22 years later they decided to remake the movie with Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Ethan Hawke and other great actors, which intrigues us but also worries us at the same time. The remake has an astounding cast of actors, a legit group that could stand up to the original cast, Farrell is no Arnold of course, though still it worries us when we see these remakes of movies that aren't even old enough to rent a car yet, it again begs the question of how young does a movie have to be for it to not be allowed to be remade? This is one of the remakes we are looking forward to, but at the same time we cannot help but be skeptical about, I guess we'll find out in August. 

Taken 2 "Taken again"

    Lol, that is not the subtitle though it should be, "she was taken once, now its their turn to be taken, this summer Liam Neeson is, Taken 2: Taken Again *insert explosions*", one cannot express how much we would die laughing if when the preview for this movie comes out it is said even slightly along those lines.  There cannot be any other reaction to the news of this sequel other than pure wholesome skepticism, we just hope they don't ruin the series completely, lets not forget that Liam has been in a few movies lately that were basically Taken 2, like "Unknown", the success of this movie was probably why the producers thought a sequel to Taken was a good idea, we sure are hopeful for something good, but at the same time cannot help but understand that no sequel to this movie could ever compare to the original and thus it will disappoint us, guess we'll find out soon enough.

   Wrath Of The Titans

    So here's a concept let's remake a movie, make it worse by removing all the great things about the original and then lets make a sequel to the remake by adding more explosions and big monsters to it, brilliant! No, not really brilliant, cringe worthy performance guys. The brashness contained within this movie is palpable, *deep movie announcer voice* "one man, one destiny, against all odds, against the gods, will kill every titan, this summer you will be blown away by this sequel of a remake, Wrath of the Titans: Maybe We Shouldn't Have Annoyed The Gods After All *explosion*".  There are very few redeeming factors to this movie, the story is horrible, the acting will be mediocre, the action sequences will be cool, the explosions will be fun, so bottom line is, this movie's brashness is the only redeeming factor saving it, smh.

  In order to be fair we will be mentioning all the good remakes and sequels coming out this year on our Friday post, this year does hold a few good surprises to look forward to, like MIB III.

   We hope your week has been going well, its one of em' slow weeks this one, so brace yourself and face it like a champ.

Love from your humble blogger,