Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Review: Much Ado About Nothing

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(This was movie #4 of my 4 movie marathon day.)

How do I become friends with Joss Whedon?  If this is how he spends his vacations, filming Shakespeare adaptations at his absolutely stunning house with a troupe of enormously talented actors and friends, then sign me up.  Much Ado About Nothing is damn near perfect, the melding of two brilliant minds across 400 years.  It’s clear that both Joss and his cast have a deep understanding both of the subject matter and the Shakespearean dialogue, and I hope we get to see a lot more of this sort of thing from him, once The Avengers 2 is done filming.

Much Ado About Nothing tells the story of two romances that take place as a prince comes to stay with a local governor.   Continue reading →

Review: Monsters University

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(This was movie #3 of my 4 movie marathon day.)

It seems like it would be easy to criticize Pixar for making so many sequels these days.  Between Toy Story 3, the new Monsters University and the upcoming Finding Dory, it seems almost like they’ve forgotten how to make new, original films.  Yet, where other companies would use a sequel as a way to cash in on previous success, Pixar instead gives us creative new stories that use a well known base to tell new, original stories, and never gives us just more of the same.  (Even the generally poor Cars 2 dared to do something different.)  The result with Toy Story 3 was a sorrowful and heartfelt look at aging and the passage of time which was nominated for Best Picture.  And now, with Monsters University they’ve done it again, taking the characters we love and going back to tell a prequel, and giving us a funny new story that fits in with what we know yet stands completely on its own.

Monsters University, as the title suggests, is a college movie, equally Pixar’s version of Revenge of the Nerds as it is a Monsters, Inc. spinoff.   Continue reading →

Review: World War Z

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(This was movie #2 of my 4 movie marathon day.)

World War Z is something of an anomaly.  For starters, it’s a zombie movie rated PG-13, which means no blood, gore or foul language.  Secondly, it stars Brad Pitt, from the top of the A-list.  Then, it’s directed by Mark Forster, known for dramas like Monster’s Ball, the heartbreaking Finding Neverland, the offbeat comedy Stranger Than Fiction, and the worst James Bond movie of recent memory (Quantum of Solace).  It’s extremely loosely based on the otherwise unfilmable book by Max Brooks (son of film-comedy genius Mel Brooks), and had more behind-the-scenes troubles than I could even relate here, involving reshoots, rewrites, and an ever-inflating budget.

All of that is superficial, however, because where World War Z really stands out is its scope.   Continue reading →

Review: Man of Steel

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(This was movie #1 of my 4 movie marathon day.)

The superhero movie as we know it was born in 1978 with Superman, starring Christopher Reeve.  The posters claimed “You’ll believe a man can fly” and we were given a movie that seems very dated by today’s standards.  Reeve, clad in spandex, soared on wires in front of a blue screen in many ways seems silly to modern audiences.  Clark Kent was the squeaky-clean all-American, still standing up for “truth, justice and the American way” 40 years after his introduction in the comics.  It was undeniably goofy, but timeless in a way.  It gave us a modern yet dated world, where reporters dressed like they were in the 1930s yet boarded helicopters from the roof of the Daily Planet.

Of course, superhero films have gone through many incarnations since then. Continue reading →

Not Exactly a Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

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Much as was the case with The Cabin in the Woods, I missed The Amazing Spider-Man when it was released in theaters last year.  There are a bunch of possible reasons for this, but the most obvious was that it just felt too soon to reboot the Spider-Man story.  Sam Raimi’s trilogy had only ended 5 years ago, and the first movie was only 5 years before that, and I just felt that if they weren’t continuing the story that they’d be better off leaving Spider-Man alone for a while.  However, over the weekend I watched it (thanks to a free weekend of HBO) and I generally enjoyed it.  While it’s too far removed from the film’s release to give it a full review (though I’d generally give it a B+), I thought I’d do another “Not Exactly a Review” filled with my disorganized thoughts.

I’ve always believed that films should be appreciated on their own merits, and that it’s unfair to judge a film either positively based on the reflected glow of other films (The Dark Knight Rises benefitting from the praise for The Dark Knight) or negatively simply because it is being compared to something universally loved.  However, it is fair, and in this case unavoidable, to compare this film with the Raimi trilogy, given the close time frame and wide appeal of the previous films.  The Amazing Spider-Man tries to blaze its own trail, succeeding in some ways and failing in others. Continue reading →

Not Exactly a Review: The Cabin in the Woods

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It seems a bit silly for me to review a film that came out over a year ago, just because I finally got around to watching it.  So instead of a traditional review, I’m instead going to offer up some disorganized thoughts about The Cabin in the Woods.  (For the record, I give the film an A.)  I didn’t see it in the theaters mostly because we generally don’t go see horror films, both out of personal taste and a general lack of quality.  I’ve never been one for the sort of “jump out and get you” scares, but prefer more cerebral horror.  Give me Hitchcock or The Exorcist over Saw any day.  (We also don’t see a lot of comedy in the theater, but that’s a story for another time.)

Obviously I should have known better, considering the script was by Joss Whedon and one of his frequent collaborators, but the trailers didn’t help the situation.  They presented it as a standard “cabin in the woods” type thriller with a sci-fi/conspiracy twist.  That sort of thing has been done before.  So after it was released I read the plot on wikipedia and it seemed more creative than I had originally supposed, but still not enough to get me to go see it.  However, I recently read the script online out of curiosity which changed my mind, and I finally rented The Cabin in the Woods.  Here are my thoughts: Continue reading →

Review: Now You See Me

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Now You See Me is a bit of an oddity.  It’s a movie about magic that’s not really about magic; it’s a heist movie where we never see the heists being planned.  These days I’m always on the lookout for something unique, whether it’s a story, a character, a film style, a setting, or anything else.  Now You See Me fits the bill, on several levels, and even if it’s not exceptionally deep it’s a lot of fun and a hell of a ride.

Now You See Me follows four struggling magicians as they team up to create a never-before-seen act. Continue reading →

Review: Epic

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Epic is almost exactly what you would expect from the trailers.  In many ways, it’s a ripoff of Ferngully, minus the obvious environmental message (one of Ferngully‘s most endearing attributes).  It varyingly hints at or downright copies elements from that movie, from characters, to story, to design.  It also borrows from a slew of other films, including Arthur and the Minimoys, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Spiderwick Chronicles and Happy Feet.  I knew all of this going into the theater, and had already begun to write my review in my head when something unexpected happened.  Epic won me over.

I’m not entirely sure when or how it happened, all I know is by the final act I was genuinely enjoying myself. Continue reading →

Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

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As I’ve said in previous blog entries, I’m a die hard Star Trek fan, but I’m going to do my best to write this review as a neutral outsider (the spoiler filled analysis, on the other hand, is fair game for my inner Trekkie/Trekker).

Star Trek Into Darkness picks up a short time after the events of 2009’s Star Trek.  Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the crew are still on the Enterprise, and we first meet them as a mission involving the primitive inhabitants of a planet goes spectacularly awry.  It’s a fun sequence, which was heavily shown in the trailers, and we get a sense of the way in which the crew has bonded since that first intense mission that drew them together.  The cast shines early and often in this sequel, and is by far the film’s highest strength.  The (often frustrated) interplay between the crew is consistently funny and heartfelt, and goes a long way towards convincing us of the bonds they share. Continue reading →

Review: The Great Gatsby

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I feel like most people’s ability to enjoy The Great Gatsby will depend on how they respond to Baz Luhrmann’s style as a director.  In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I’m a huge Luhrmann fan (I even loved Australia), and I think he was the perfect choice to direct the first truly great adaptation of The Great Gatsby.  He manages to capture the feeling of the book and to make the story compelling in a way that the last attempt at adapting the book, in 1974, failed to do, despite its stellar cast.

Most people are probably familiar with the story, from either high-school or middle-school English classes. Continue reading →