Life on the Frontier in 1882 is harsh for Albert Stark (Seth MacFarlane who also writes and directs this film), if he's not being hunted by everything around him he's being dumped by his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) after abandoning a gun fight but one day a mysterious woman named Anna (Charlize Theron) rides into town and everything begins to change.
I have to confess that I was not looking forward to seeing this film very much mainly because I am not a huge fan of MacFarlane's work, I mean sure I've enjoyed Family Guy and American Dad on occasion but his 2012 film Ted did not do an awful lot for me but the addition of Theron and more importantly Liam Neeson in the cast had me curious as Neeson was very funny in the Lego Movie, did it rise above my low expectations?
Well actually it did do that for me, this film was not a great film to be sure but I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed the film, I specifically enjoyed the performances by Theron who shows a side to her we've very rarely seen in a film before and Neil Patrick Harris who has great fun being a moustache twirling villain.
However the film does falter in three key areas which I will now outline in more detail:
- The first is the jokes themselves, the general observations about life on the Frontier are fairly clever in and of themselves but like most US comedies there is way too much reliance on toilet humour and those jokes did not make me laugh very much.
- The second is that I really didn't care all that much for the love triangle at the centre of the film as it was yet again the tired old cliché of the down and out geeky loser who is dumped by his heartless girlfriend only to find the woman of his dreams who has so much in common with him they just fall hopelessly in love.
PUH-LEASE! Give me a smegging break first of all this is not how romance works as most women these days probably wouldn't even look twice at dorkish looking blokes instead would probably dismiss them out of hand and second of all this has been done over and over and over again and I just cannot stand it.
- And lastly the film is simply way too long, when it got to the final climax I just wanted the film to be over and done with, this could've easily all been done in 90 minutes instead of nearly 2 hours, smegging hell I am just losing patience with this.
But all in all, I did not hate A Million Ways to Die in the West despite my problems with the film but I also can't say that I would recommend it to people to go and see, your best off going to see X-Men Days of Future Past instead, 2 out of 5.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Film Review - Bad Neighbours (2014)
Bad Neighbours stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as a young couple with a newborn baby who buy a new house when they notice their next door neighbours turn out to be a University fraternity led by Zac Efron but this family and this frat will not be easy to get along with.
I am very much of 2 minds when it comes to this film and by that I mean that I feel somewhat split in regards to it, first though I'll start with the positives and those are the comic performances themselves, Rogen dials down his boorish man child character and is more enjoyable on screen as a result, Byrne finally gets a juice role to sink her teeth into and she takes full advantage of it even if her saying the F word just doesn't quite sound right and Zac Efron gets to prove that he can be a charming and charismatic performer in the right role.
As good as those performances are however the jokes themselves are very hit and miss, the ones that did make me laugh were more of the observational kind in regards to these Neighbours whilst the ones that made me groan the most were to all too typical D and B jokes that have become tradition now in American comedies and boy am I getting really tired of it.
So all in all, Bad Neighbours is kinda fun but it feels very hit and miss on the whole, 2 and a half out of 5.
I am very much of 2 minds when it comes to this film and by that I mean that I feel somewhat split in regards to it, first though I'll start with the positives and those are the comic performances themselves, Rogen dials down his boorish man child character and is more enjoyable on screen as a result, Byrne finally gets a juice role to sink her teeth into and she takes full advantage of it even if her saying the F word just doesn't quite sound right and Zac Efron gets to prove that he can be a charming and charismatic performer in the right role.
As good as those performances are however the jokes themselves are very hit and miss, the ones that did make me laugh were more of the observational kind in regards to these Neighbours whilst the ones that made me groan the most were to all too typical D and B jokes that have become tradition now in American comedies and boy am I getting really tired of it.
So all in all, Bad Neighbours is kinda fun but it feels very hit and miss on the whole, 2 and a half out of 5.
Film Review - Godzilla (2014)
Based off the classic movie monster character, this new version stars Bryan Cranston as a scientist working in Japan in 1999 when a tremor causes a nuclear plant meltdown that kills his wife, 15 years later those same tremors return but they may not be from natural disasters.
Where do I begin with this one as quite frankly I didn't think an awful lot of this film at all and I'll now go into the reasons why:
- The first and key one is that I just found an awful lot of awful boring as so much of the film is based around characters we do not care about and just droan on and on and on in military speak and it just becomes so boring to watch.
- The second is that the action scenes after a while just becomes mindless loud noises that resemble more the Transformers movies with its BWAMPPP! SMGGGGG! SWWWWRAAAAAA! noises that seemed turned up to 15 and just give you a throbbing headache afterwards and here it's very similar with the loud screaming, the semi close up editing and dark grey colour palette, during those scenes I kept asking myself "Where are the Jaegers from Pacific Rim when you need them?"
- And the third and final reason here is that the script here is a mess, trying to do at least 2 different films (1 interesting and 1 not) and blend them together to make the 1 and it doesn't work, this movie needed a major rewrite to focus more on Godzilla himself and Bryan Cranston as that story was interesting instead of this mess unfold with endless scenes of young children being paraded around that just made me thinking "This is blatant emotional manipulation of the worst kind."
The one thing I did like about this film is Cranston himself who is a brilliant actor and here he gives everything that he has in his role but the script just tosses him aside when it should've been the chief focus along with Godzilla himself, Ken Watanabe is also good here but doesn't get a lot to do as well apart from make siliquas.
So all in all I did not care very much for this new Godzilla film as the story, characters and action all bored me in a big way and Cranston and Watanabe deserve so much better than the thankless roles they've been given here, 1 out of 5.
Where do I begin with this one as quite frankly I didn't think an awful lot of this film at all and I'll now go into the reasons why:
- The first and key one is that I just found an awful lot of awful boring as so much of the film is based around characters we do not care about and just droan on and on and on in military speak and it just becomes so boring to watch.
- The second is that the action scenes after a while just becomes mindless loud noises that resemble more the Transformers movies with its BWAMPPP! SMGGGGG! SWWWWRAAAAAA! noises that seemed turned up to 15 and just give you a throbbing headache afterwards and here it's very similar with the loud screaming, the semi close up editing and dark grey colour palette, during those scenes I kept asking myself "Where are the Jaegers from Pacific Rim when you need them?"
- And the third and final reason here is that the script here is a mess, trying to do at least 2 different films (1 interesting and 1 not) and blend them together to make the 1 and it doesn't work, this movie needed a major rewrite to focus more on Godzilla himself and Bryan Cranston as that story was interesting instead of this mess unfold with endless scenes of young children being paraded around that just made me thinking "This is blatant emotional manipulation of the worst kind."
The one thing I did like about this film is Cranston himself who is a brilliant actor and here he gives everything that he has in his role but the script just tosses him aside when it should've been the chief focus along with Godzilla himself, Ken Watanabe is also good here but doesn't get a lot to do as well apart from make siliquas.
So all in all I did not care very much for this new Godzilla film as the story, characters and action all bored me in a big way and Cranston and Watanabe deserve so much better than the thankless roles they've been given here, 1 out of 5.
Film Review - X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Combining the original X-Men series and the recent First Class reboot, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) finds himself sent back in time to 1973 to prevent the assassination of Dr. Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage) as that will lead to a very dark future for mutant kind but Magneto (Michael Fassbender) may make this hard to complete.
Days of Future Past along with Captain America: The Winter Soldier have been my 2 most anticipated films for 2014 after Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, I also really loved the first 2 X-Men films director Bryan Singer made before (he also directs this new film) as well as 2011's First Class which excellently rebooted the series, does this new film stand up to those heights?
Well no it doesn't but that's not to say in any way at all that this is a bad film as it most certainly is not, this is a very good film and there are multiple reasons for that, the first is that the film expertly combines the cast members from the original films with the key cast members from First Class and all of them for the most part deliver the goods, it's so great to see Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen sharing the screen again as their chemistry is so good to watch as is also the case with James McAvoy and Fassbender, Hugh Jackman (Australia's Ace Rimmer) is good as Logan once again, Dinklage is very good also as Dr. Trask though while Evan Peters as Quicksilver almost runs away with the movie all on his own.
The film also has some very impressive action sequences that I felt were better but not by much than the action in the Winter Soldier mainly because the action felt big, it feels very coherent to watch and most important of all I actually cared about the people in it whereas the action in Winter Soldier felt very Bang! Crash! Boom! at times plus the fighting here feels like it has a real impact on the characters whereas in the Winter Soldier they go through the gauntlet and part of you just thinks "This is nice action but I don't care all that much."
The film is not perfect however and the reasons for this are as follows:
- The first is that I didn't really care for the female performers this time, Lawrence is a strong and compelling actress as she's proven in the Hunger Games and American Hustle but here she just seemed to be in neutral and at times she shows a little bit of disinterest in the role, of no doubt she's done this film in between other huge projects and was just exhausted by this point, hopefully after she has a nice vacation she'll be back to her best form.
The other part of this is the near absence of Rogue (Anna Paquin) from the film, here was a major character in the first 2 films and here she's nowhere to be seen and she should've been in the future world scenes as she could've very easily been added there without impacting on the script too much and if anything might have enhanced the future world battles but oh well these things happen.
- The second part is that I left film wanting more, now technically this isn't a bad thing but I would've been more than happy to have had this film run 20-25 minutes longer as at 132 minutes the film does cram in too much into a tight running time and that extra length would've allowed me to spend more time in that dark future world which I would've loved to have seen more of.
But with those fairly minor quibbles out of the way, Days of Future Past is my favorite blockbuster so far this year and I very highly recommend it, 4 out of 5.
Days of Future Past along with Captain America: The Winter Soldier have been my 2 most anticipated films for 2014 after Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, I also really loved the first 2 X-Men films director Bryan Singer made before (he also directs this new film) as well as 2011's First Class which excellently rebooted the series, does this new film stand up to those heights?
Well no it doesn't but that's not to say in any way at all that this is a bad film as it most certainly is not, this is a very good film and there are multiple reasons for that, the first is that the film expertly combines the cast members from the original films with the key cast members from First Class and all of them for the most part deliver the goods, it's so great to see Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen sharing the screen again as their chemistry is so good to watch as is also the case with James McAvoy and Fassbender, Hugh Jackman (Australia's Ace Rimmer) is good as Logan once again, Dinklage is very good also as Dr. Trask though while Evan Peters as Quicksilver almost runs away with the movie all on his own.
The film also has some very impressive action sequences that I felt were better but not by much than the action in the Winter Soldier mainly because the action felt big, it feels very coherent to watch and most important of all I actually cared about the people in it whereas the action in Winter Soldier felt very Bang! Crash! Boom! at times plus the fighting here feels like it has a real impact on the characters whereas in the Winter Soldier they go through the gauntlet and part of you just thinks "This is nice action but I don't care all that much."
The film is not perfect however and the reasons for this are as follows:
- The first is that I didn't really care for the female performers this time, Lawrence is a strong and compelling actress as she's proven in the Hunger Games and American Hustle but here she just seemed to be in neutral and at times she shows a little bit of disinterest in the role, of no doubt she's done this film in between other huge projects and was just exhausted by this point, hopefully after she has a nice vacation she'll be back to her best form.
The other part of this is the near absence of Rogue (Anna Paquin) from the film, here was a major character in the first 2 films and here she's nowhere to be seen and she should've been in the future world scenes as she could've very easily been added there without impacting on the script too much and if anything might have enhanced the future world battles but oh well these things happen.
- The second part is that I left film wanting more, now technically this isn't a bad thing but I would've been more than happy to have had this film run 20-25 minutes longer as at 132 minutes the film does cram in too much into a tight running time and that extra length would've allowed me to spend more time in that dark future world which I would've loved to have seen more of.
But with those fairly minor quibbles out of the way, Days of Future Past is my favorite blockbuster so far this year and I very highly recommend it, 4 out of 5.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Film Review - The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Written and Directed by Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel stars Ralph Fiennes as Gustave, the owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel in a fictional European republic but when he gets caught up in a mystery regarding a painting, This Hotel is going to see a sharp increase in attendance.
Grand Budapest Hotel is just that, Grand and a lot of that credit first off has to go to Anderson's script and direction, he packs the frame with a lot of visual information and it all ticks along with the script like a Swiss watch, this is one film that requires your absolute attention and it more than rewards you for doing so in many of its visual quirks.
The film is also littered with some terrific performances most notably from Fiennes himself who is just marvellous in this role, he slips right into the world of the film and also gives the film a heart and soul in a way that makes you want to watch him in every single scene he's in, I also really loved Jeff Goldblum with his Persian Cat, Willem Dafoe was a great villain as well as Harvey Keitel in a small role and I also loved Saoirse Ronan as the love interest of the Lobby Boy played by newcomer Tony Revolori who is also very good.
So yeah, Grand Budapest Hotel is one of the real highlights of the year and it's well worth seeing more than once in case you missed some details the first time around, 4 and a half out of 5.
Grand Budapest Hotel is just that, Grand and a lot of that credit first off has to go to Anderson's script and direction, he packs the frame with a lot of visual information and it all ticks along with the script like a Swiss watch, this is one film that requires your absolute attention and it more than rewards you for doing so in many of its visual quirks.
The film is also littered with some terrific performances most notably from Fiennes himself who is just marvellous in this role, he slips right into the world of the film and also gives the film a heart and soul in a way that makes you want to watch him in every single scene he's in, I also really loved Jeff Goldblum with his Persian Cat, Willem Dafoe was a great villain as well as Harvey Keitel in a small role and I also loved Saoirse Ronan as the love interest of the Lobby Boy played by newcomer Tony Revolori who is also very good.
So yeah, Grand Budapest Hotel is one of the real highlights of the year and it's well worth seeing more than once in case you missed some details the first time around, 4 and a half out of 5.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Film Review - The Amazing Spider-Man: Rise of Electro (2014)
Picking up where 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, this story sees Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) facing off against Electro (Jamie Foxx) as Peter also tries to get behind the mysterious Oscorp and how it might link to his late father Richard (Campbell Scott.)
I was greatly looking forward to this sequel since I saw the big 3 poster banner in my cinema earlier this year and also, I really enjoyed the first Amazing Spider-Man film despite its story problems.
But alas my time to see it had to wait a couple of weeks but the time had finally come where I held my ticket in my hand and I got to take my seat and see the movie, could it swing a web of satisfaction or simply fall of a large building to its death?
Sadly, it is much more a case of the latter as this film is a very very very sad disappointment, nowhere near as sad as the bitter disappointment that was Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit but still a rather sad one afterwards.
But before I delve into the key reasons why I want to talk about what I did like about this film and that is the duo of Garfield and Stone primarily, both of them have a wonderful chemistry and their scenes together give you so much in terms of on screen value and it really makes you care about them when they get into jeopardy.
However almost everything around them in terms of the storyline and script is a near complete mess, the film was primarily written by Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman the two primary writers behind the first two live action Transformers films and the JJ Abrams Star Trek series and they pretty much treat everything in the film as cannon fodder simply waiting to be blown or smashed to kingdom come in an action sequence which by the way are poorly made as its the close up quick cutting that goes by so quickly that you don't know who is who or what is happening.
The script also has two other major sins going against it:
- The first of these is not actually taking advantage of the chemistry between Garfield and Stone as every 2nd scene for the most part is wanting them to split up when it should've been the beating heart behind this story instead like most things Kurtzman and Orci write it's just there to be thrown away as an inconvenience without a 2nd thought, they showed it in their work on Star Trek and Transformers and they show it yet again here.
- But probably the biggest sin of all and its one I come to time and time again with these Superhero films and it is the Villains, all three of them here are just awful, Foxx as Electro comes across as a blend of Mr. Freeze from Batman and Robin and the Gatekeeper from Nightmare: The Game Hosted by a Video and has no real impact on the story, Dane DeHaan a brilliant young actor is criminally wasted and Paul Giamatti is pretty much blink and you'll miss him.
And that's it, this film gives us 3 Villains and doesn't even bother to make any of them central to the story but to yet again be thrown away as an inconvenience if it's required.
What this film should have been is the mystery of Oscorp with Peter digging into their past and how it linked to his father's work and one villain becoming his big bad at Oscorp's behest to get him out of the way before their secrets are released and THEN you could with that make the relationship with Gwen matter and become some sort of driving motivation for him in the film but no that would be too easy to do as we have a franchise to build first and foremost.
Well sorry guys but when compared with Joss Whedon's work at Marvel and Bryan Singer's work with the X-Men series this is just not fucking good enough and Spidey as a character who has a good rogues gallery to work with deserves as such and not the heartless, cynical and disposable treatment he's been given here.
With all of that out of the way, I cannot in any good conscience recommend Rise of Electro as much as I would love to but I just cannot, Garfield and Stone are wonderful as a screen pair but this is not a script they deserved and neither did their fans, 1 out of 5.
I was greatly looking forward to this sequel since I saw the big 3 poster banner in my cinema earlier this year and also, I really enjoyed the first Amazing Spider-Man film despite its story problems.
But alas my time to see it had to wait a couple of weeks but the time had finally come where I held my ticket in my hand and I got to take my seat and see the movie, could it swing a web of satisfaction or simply fall of a large building to its death?
Sadly, it is much more a case of the latter as this film is a very very very sad disappointment, nowhere near as sad as the bitter disappointment that was Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit but still a rather sad one afterwards.
But before I delve into the key reasons why I want to talk about what I did like about this film and that is the duo of Garfield and Stone primarily, both of them have a wonderful chemistry and their scenes together give you so much in terms of on screen value and it really makes you care about them when they get into jeopardy.
However almost everything around them in terms of the storyline and script is a near complete mess, the film was primarily written by Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman the two primary writers behind the first two live action Transformers films and the JJ Abrams Star Trek series and they pretty much treat everything in the film as cannon fodder simply waiting to be blown or smashed to kingdom come in an action sequence which by the way are poorly made as its the close up quick cutting that goes by so quickly that you don't know who is who or what is happening.
The script also has two other major sins going against it:
- The first of these is not actually taking advantage of the chemistry between Garfield and Stone as every 2nd scene for the most part is wanting them to split up when it should've been the beating heart behind this story instead like most things Kurtzman and Orci write it's just there to be thrown away as an inconvenience without a 2nd thought, they showed it in their work on Star Trek and Transformers and they show it yet again here.
- But probably the biggest sin of all and its one I come to time and time again with these Superhero films and it is the Villains, all three of them here are just awful, Foxx as Electro comes across as a blend of Mr. Freeze from Batman and Robin and the Gatekeeper from Nightmare: The Game Hosted by a Video and has no real impact on the story, Dane DeHaan a brilliant young actor is criminally wasted and Paul Giamatti is pretty much blink and you'll miss him.
And that's it, this film gives us 3 Villains and doesn't even bother to make any of them central to the story but to yet again be thrown away as an inconvenience if it's required.
What this film should have been is the mystery of Oscorp with Peter digging into their past and how it linked to his father's work and one villain becoming his big bad at Oscorp's behest to get him out of the way before their secrets are released and THEN you could with that make the relationship with Gwen matter and become some sort of driving motivation for him in the film but no that would be too easy to do as we have a franchise to build first and foremost.
Well sorry guys but when compared with Joss Whedon's work at Marvel and Bryan Singer's work with the X-Men series this is just not fucking good enough and Spidey as a character who has a good rogues gallery to work with deserves as such and not the heartless, cynical and disposable treatment he's been given here.
With all of that out of the way, I cannot in any good conscience recommend Rise of Electro as much as I would love to but I just cannot, Garfield and Stone are wonderful as a screen pair but this is not a script they deserved and neither did their fans, 1 out of 5.
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