Posts tagged movie review

When the fan-made posters (like this one) are all a million times better than every single poster that professionals were paid to create, that should be a red flag to know that the movie probably isn’t gonna be great.

The Basic Plot:

Some of Superman 1 + some of Superman 2. Reboot of the Superman film series. Based on the book published by DC Comics.

The Break Down:

Welcome to the distant planet of Krypton! It’s a dark, craggy, magical place where (regardless of having a very different atmosphere than Earth) the inhabitants look exactly like humans (…because God loves consistency)! The people here are much more technologically advanced than us Earthlings, though, you can tell by the fact that they wear wet suits.

Meet Jor-El (Russell Crowe). He’s a brilliant scientist whose hobbies include doomsday prediction and gynecology. Look, as soon as his newborn son takes his first breath, Jor-El is gone and hard at work yelling exposition at his planet’s elders (which is a trio of people who wear silly hats and talk fancy), complaining about how Krypton is going to blow up soon. Uh oh, the villainous General Zod (Michael Shannon) is here to stage a coup! Watch out Jor-El!

Watch as Jor-El flies around on a…wolf-ish…dragonfly… animal…uh…whatever, they have those on Krypton! Watch has Jor-El swims through a pond filled with….fetuses…wuh…um…whatever, they have those here, too! Watch as Jor-El collects a…magical…computer…skull… thing…what the fuck is going on?!?!

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Do you think Iron Man makes eye contact during sex? Those soulless eyes…

The Basic Plot:

A terrorist known as The Mandarin unfolds a fiendish plot to kill the President, part of which involves eliminating Iron Man. Can Tony Stark gather himself from the brink of destruction and defeat his most dangerous adversary yet?

The Break Down:

We open with a flashback where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is hanging out with Rebecca Hall (her character’s name isn’t important). He then gets unprofessionally accosted by Guy Pierce (doing his best impression of almost any character from Revenge of the Nerds). Stark is his usual douche-y self and manages to sever all ties with both characters in a matter of minutes (because casual sex and being an asshole to a brilliant scientist couldn’t possibly come back to haunt you, right? Keep in mind that both characters are brilliant scientists…)

Fast forward to the present (six months post-Avengers) where Stark finds himself in a bit of a depressed funk. He now lives with his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) but they don’t interact much. He doesn’t sleep for days on end and spends almost all of his time building different models of his Iron Man armor (which, I guess, is better than masturbating and playing XBOX all day).

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You know you’ve made it when you don’t even have to put your film’s title on the promotional material…

The Basic Plot:

A bounty hunting former slave sets out on a mission to rescue his wife from a plantation owner.

The Break Down:

“Nerdy Awesome Guy, what’s a spaghetti western?”

That was a very good question, dear reader. I’m glad you asked.

A spaghetti western is a (semi-racist) term used to describe Italian films, popular in the 60’s, that portrayed the American West.

This particular film is an homage to that very sub-genre and it blatantly steals its title from one of the most popular of all spaghetti westerns, Django (…the stories share no common elements…except that lots of people get murdered in both…which I’ll just chalk up to pure coincidence).

This movie starts off with Christoph Waltz shooting a horse in the face (which turns out to be a roundabout way of freeing Jamie Foxx from slavery). It’s an opening that not only surprises (because who saw that coming?) but also does a great job of giving the audience the perfect idea of what to expect from the next two hours (which is lots of talking and gratuitous, cartoonish-ly over-the-top violence).

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I’m pretty confident the purple rhino wasn’t even in the movie…or even a video game for that matter…

The Basic Plot:

When an arcade game’s villain decides that he’s tired of being the bad guy, he leaves his game in search of something that will prove that he can be a true hero.

The Break Down:

The movie begins by covering the history of its main character: Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by the talented John C. Reily) is a large-fisted baddie in a Donkey Kong-esque arcade game. His job within the game is to use his mutant-like hands to wreck an apartment building that is inhabited by eight diminutive people (who all look like Duplo characters). As he’s busy wrecking, his rival, Fix-It Felix Jr. (voiced by the often irritating Jack McBrayer), does exactly what his name implies (……..fixes! c’mon!).

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The people behind this poster don’t seem to put much stock in that fact that actual people are in the movie…

The Basic Plot:

The unbelievable story of a how a teenager survived being lost at sea with a Bengal tiger as his only companion. Based on the novel I’ve never read by Yann Martel.

The Break Down:

Have you ever seen Forest Gump? How about Big Fish? Because this movie is exactly like those…except worse.

Rafe Spall is a British actor with a familiar face (you might recognize him from his bit parts in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Prometheus). He plays a Canadian writer who is in search of some inspiration for his next book (…but the part could’ve, very literally, gone to anyone with a North American accent, so why they specifically picked a random British actor is a bit perplexing to me). His search leads him to a man named Pi (it’s a nickname…and he’s played by Bollywood gem, Irfran Kahn), an Indian professor living in Canada.

(Like with both of the movies I mentioned above) This movie is a story within a story that begins with Pi’s life as a child. We see the little guy go through a handful of silly misadventures and we learn exactly how he got his nickname (…it’s because he can accurately calculate the number pi to, like, a million decimal places…because that’s not ridiculously lame, right?). Pi grows up learning about and following several different religions (which is a really odd thing for an eight year old to do) and gets into trouble with his father, who manages a zoo (because holding raw meat in front of a tiger will often lead to you not having hands).

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You know you have a shitty title when French people replace it with something simple and generic…

The Basic Plot:

Two people suffering from mental issues begin a friendship as they navigate the complexities of their illnesses and life itself. Based on a book I’ve never read by Matthew Quick.

The Break Down:

The film opens with Bradley Cooper (…who, as far as acting goes, seems to be just as average as possible) in a mental hospital. Like any loony bin cool guy worth his salt (step your idiom game up), Bradley refuses to actually take his medication and has a multicultural friend (Chris Tucker…who apparently isn’t dead). His mom (Jacki Weaver…who I didn’t know was an actress until now) suddenly shows up and takes him home, much to the surprise of his father (Robert De Niro…a relative unknown actor).

Bradley’s return home brings a lot of information to the surface. We find out that before his eight month stint in the institution, his wife was cheating on him. After a violent encounter with her side piece, which is the specific reason for his time away, she filed a restraining order against her hubby. Also, the school Brad worked for wants nothing do him with him (even though they still employ the man who ruined his marriage), leaving him without a job and nothing to do but read books, go jogging and act like an asshole to his parents (whom he lives with).

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I like how the poster features zero hobbits….

The Basic Plot:

A young hobbit joins a group of dwarves on a journey to reclaim their home that was stolen from them by a dragon. Prequel to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and based on a book that I’ve actually read by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Break Down:

I really liked the LOTR series of movies. Was I obsessed with them? No (…maybe with Viggo Mortensen a little bit…but he was rugged and badass, so shut up!). As someone who was a big fan of Peter Jackson before those movies, I was more impressed with the fact that he made three movies that weren’t campy gore-fests (step your pre-fame director knowledge game up). It’s fair to assume that I had a solid tingle of excitement for the big-screen treatment of the prequel to those films. In fact, I was so excited for this movie that I made the ultimate sacrifice and saw it in 3D (because the High Frame Rate version was only available in 3D…step your “seeing movies the way they’re intended to be seen” game up).

Like the first film of the preceding trilogy (in terms of theatrical release, not in terms of the movie world’s timeline), this one begins with a flashback sequence that covers the important bits of the story so far. We learn that a ton of dwarves lived inside a mountain, that they mined gold all day, were greedy and then got chased out of their underground home by a dragon (…turns out that dragons are total assholes).

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Only two of these characters are important…let the guessing game begin!

The Basic Plot:

After a near death experience, 007 goes after his most dangerous foe yet, a tech-savvy former agent who has a vendetta against Bond’s boss.

The Break Down:

Before we get into the gritty details here, I’d like to cover a bit of ground and share some thoughts about the Bond franchise in general.

To begin, there is a certain formula for making a James Bond film and it (more or less) goes like this:

1. Opening action sequence, often on the ridiculous side, has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

2. Psychedelic title sequence that alludes to certain aspect within the movie, usually features a song by a popular recording artist.

3. Bond flirts with a secretary, M gives him a mission.

4. Bond gets outrageous gadgets, travels to exotic locations, meets villainous mastermind, and rails a girl he just met.

5. Girl dies, Bond doesn’t really care.

6. Action sequence, several nameless henchmen die.

7. Mission gets complicated, villain knows who Bond is.

8. Action sequence involving a car and/or gadgets, several nameless henchmen die, one-liner.

9. Bond bones another girl.

10. Over-the-top action sequence, dozens of nameless henchmen die, at least three things blow up, at least two one-liners.

11. Villain dies in a ridiculous manner; Bond bangs a girl in an outrageous setting.

12. Everything is fine.

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I like how the only thing about the movie being conveyed through this poster is that Ben Affleck is in it…

The Basic Plot:

Set during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, a CIA “exfiltration specialist” uses a fake Hollywood movie as a cover for rescuing six American citizens trapped in Tehran (which, we all know, is the capitol city of Iran). Based on a declassified true story.

The Break Down:

The film opens with a quick history lesson about the Shah of Iran (which is basically a fancy term for “king”). We learn about how the OG Shahs liked to murder people for no reason and their wives sometimes bathed in milk (which is more gross than anything). In more modern times, the U.S. and Britain joined forces and overthrew a particularly shitty Shah (because our countries like starting drama) and put a brand new one in his place. That guy (the one we hand-picked to not be a total shit head, mind you) turned out to be a total shit head and did his best to ruin the country…until the people of Iran decided to violently revolt (like whoa).

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That’s exactly how The Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz died…true story

The Basic Plot:

The story of Uday Hussein, the psychotic, eldest son of Sadam Hussein, and his body double, Latif, who has been forced into the role against his will. Based on the book I’ve never read by Latif Yahia (yeah, the same guy the movie is about).

The Break Down:

This little adventure starts in the desert where a soldier, Latif (played by Dominic Cooper, who has had a ten year career but is still basically unknown), is being taken to meet Uday Hussein (…also played by Dominic Cooper).

Because the men look nearly identical, Uday asks Latif to be his full time body double (so no one knows who the real one is…until they murder them, I guess). Latif doesn’t want to (because turning down offers from wealthy psychopaths always leads to good things, right?), so Uday threatens to murder Latif’s family and he promptly changes his mind (like a pussy).

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