The Lego Movie Review

"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!". It's still stuck in my head from Wednesday...

The Lego Movie is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the men behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, and tells the story of a guy named Emmet in a world made completely out of Lego. Emmet is a construction worker voiced by Chris Pratt and is an incredibly average Lego figure, trying to fit in. That is until he finds the "Piece of Resistance" and finds himself slap bang in the middle of a prophecy which foretells that he who finds the mysterious piece will bring in an end to the evil plan of Lord Business.

The Lego Movie took me by surprise and is the first great 2014 release. All of the people on the creative team behind this movie really have found something great which could in turn lead to more movies and a very successful franchise, both critically and financially.

The plot itself, as described before, is clichéd beyond belief, and that's why it is so brilliant. Movie goers see films about "prophecies" and "being the chosen one" every single year, The Lego Movie satirically and cleverly pokes fun at all of the clichés of Hollywood movies within it's own story. The film works as a satire as well as a family friendly comedy.

While some of the early jokes did fall unfortunately flat for me, the humour did pick itself up as the story progressed to the point where all of the small children in my movie theatre were silent and the older people were gut-busting. It's an awesome family experience, like most great animations. The longer the film goes on the funnier it gets, leading to some really clever jokes and references that will leave an impression on you.

Chris Pratt does an exceptional job voicing lead character Emmet, who as said before, is literally the most bland and generic person in the world, much like most people who become "the chosen one". He is the most relatable and most interesting character to watch, and that's saying something compared to the rest of the cast, which is fantastic.

It's not just that Morgan Freeman does an excellent job as Vitruvius, a clichéd God/wizard figure, or that Will Ferrell is perfect for the villain Lord Business, or that Liam Neeson is downright hilarious playing good cop/bad cop, it's that the voice work is literally flawless. The voices of these well-known actors fit their characters perfectly and in a lot of ways heightened the jokes.

The animation is amongst the best I have ever seen. It is entirely computer generated but its executed in a way that it looks like stop-motion. This is a masterstroke from the animators as the characters move how Lego people would move, they interact with their environment the way that Lego people would interact with their environment.

There are so many small references to pop culture as well as various ones for other movies. They reference all of the ones you'd expect plus a few that only certain people will understand. I won't spoil any of them for you, go in and discover them for yourself if you haven't already.

If I have a complaint about the film it'd probably be about how much is in it. The references and the surrounding world is awesome, but I do think that they did try to pack in maybe a little too much in terms of the places that they visited. For example, in Wreck-it-Ralph, they had a whole spectrum of arcade worlds to chose from yet they still stayed on the "Sugar Rush" game for the longest time, allowing them to focus on the narrative. I understand that they have lots of things to show off, but a little less wouldn't have gone a miss.

The Lego Movie is a solidly good movie throughout, but becomes a truly great one in the final act. A certain revelation happens which not only changes your perspective on the film as a viewer, but also allows some really heartfelt emotional scenes to happen which work and do have an effect on you.

So it's heartfelt, funny, clever and beautifully animated and is a great movie which you should see:


Rating - A-


1 sentence summary - A great animation which utilises cool characters, satirical writing and emotional moments with great effect!


Thanks for reading,
Matt

The Monuments Men Review

I've been looking forward to George Clooney's latest directorial effort "The Monuments Men" for months now, even when it was scheduled for a December 2013 release. However it was pushed back and the reviews haven't been great. Here's my take...

The Monuments Men, directed by George Clooney, boats a terrific cast of actors including Clooney himself, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman and others, and tells a true story based in World War 2. Clooney, a lover of art, decides to set up a small team of soldiers in an attempt to go behind enemy lines and reclaim stolen art from the Nazi's. Clooney states that if you destroy a person's art and culture, then it was as if they never existed, and that is what Hitler wants.

For me the Monuments Men never really came together and was a big disappointment. I don't hate the film by any stretch of the imagination, I feel frustrated because all of those talented people collaborating should have created something so much better than what they actually did.

The greatest flaw of the film is the connection we don't receive towards the main characters. All of the actors that play them are good in their roles and they're enjoyable to watch due to their famous egos and personalities, but I never saw them as characters. I knew hardly anything about any of them, besides the fact that they all like art! That lack of emotional connection really hurt the film when some of the emotional moments were happening, as they didn't really work.

Tonally, The Monuments Men suffers consistent inconsistencies. The transition between light-hearted dialogue scenes to "effective" emotional moments just doesn't work, meaning that one of the two tones feels completely out of place.

The film also suffers because it struggles to grasp time. The film chops from one scene to the next with a gap of 3 months, months that could have been used to flesh out characters to the point where we could make an attachment to the band of misfits.

The pacing is incredibly odd in that it feels incredibly slow and as a result, boring. The film takes forever to get going, and then it just never starts. The structure of the story is odd in that I would have rather seen them go after one big piece of art instead of the group splitting off and finding numerous pieces. An ultimate goal at the end of the movie which the characters were trying to pursue would have increased the tension and made the film feel more as if it had a purpose.

However as said before the actors are good in their roles and are very watchable. The music is good and technically its a well shot movie that does look good on screen. The movie does have good intentions and I can see why Clooney wanted to tell it, because the initial part of the story is intriguing. It's not a terrible film and large portions of it are watchable indeed, but as a whole the film never really comes together for me, which is a big shame:


Rating - C

1 sentence summary - Watchable, but numerous issues mean that the potential is never fully realised!


Thanks for reading,
Matt

RoboCop Movie Review

January releases are finally out of the way, so let' sit back and pray that February has more to offer in terms of quality. First up is Robocop...

Robocop is the science-fiction remake movie which retells the story that had become so popular due to the success and cult-following of the 1987 original. This time the story is re-mastered and given a new spin. The film follows enthusiastic cop and family-man Alex Murphy, who unfortuanetly sustains fatal wounds when a group of criminals try to kill him using a car bomb. In order to survive, the remnants of his body are combined with a mechanical suit, thus he becomes Robocop. He is half man, half robot, all cop.

To my surprise Robocop isn't actually that bad! I was shocked to find myself enjoying this movie so much, despite all of it's flaws. The movie excels when it doesn't take itself too seriously when it becomes a fun action movie, which is refreshing to see because my expectations for this flick were initially very low.

Boasting a very creditable cast with the likes of Samuel L Jackson (who brilliantly plays a satirical news reporter), Michael Keaton (the villain and owner of Omnicorp; Robocop's creators) and Gary Oldman (a scientist), who actually delivers the movie's best performance in my opinion. All are good in their respective roles because they don't take things too seriously, and have fun with the film.

Robocop himself has an awesome looking suit and the action sequences all play out pretty well. What I was also surprised with was the amount of detail they went into to flesh out the characters. Their motivations are always understood, plus Robocop himself is a more complex character in this movie. The plot explores the balance between how human/robotic Robocop is. If he's too robotic, his family and friends are completely ignored and he becomes an emotionless vessel, yet he becomes an incredibly efficient cop (access to the entire city's CCTV and criminal records doesn't do him any harm either!). The same can be said vice versa. All in all, it makes the movie more interesting from a character stand point, which makes up for the lack of initial emotional attachment.

However this brings me on to my first criticism. I was never really that emotionally invested in the struggles of Alex Murphy or is family. Rather, I was enjoying the concept of the story along with the fun action sequences. Also, the film does slow down in the middle and the plot accelerates without it ever really progressing for about half an hour, which is irritating because you want to see Robocop fighting crime on the streets!

The directing is fairly good and some of the action is nice to watch. However, the movie could have benefited more from a steady directing style as some of the sequences are nauseating to say the least! I understand that they want to make the movie feel hands on as if you're following Robocop through hallways taking out the bad guys, but for me a steadier hand would have been much appreciated.

Joel Kinnaman plays Robocop and he's ok. However, at times it does show that this is his first major role in Hollywood as some of his reactions are pretty darn bad. He'll improve with age, but in this movie sometimes it is unfortuanetly laughable some of the acting he delivers.

The beginning 10 minutes of the movie was fantastic, with Samuel L Jackson reporting to us (as a TV presenter) about the use of robots to police people in other countries. Then the classic Robocop tune kicks in, which I really thought should have been used a lot more in the film because there are some musical choices which detract from the film in some scenes.

Robocop to my surprise is still a fun movie to watch. It has many flaws but when it gets good it borders into greatness at times, and is strongest when it avoids being overly dramatic and becomes a fun action flick:


Rating - B-


1 sentence summary - Flawed but fun, a good time once you see past it's flaws!


Thanks for reading,
Matt

I, Frankenstein Movie Review

After sitting through this movie the first thing that came to my mind when it ended was, "Why did that happen exactly?"

I, Frankenstein is written and directed by Stuart Beattie and is based off a popular graphic novel. The film sees Frankenstein's monster in the 20th Century, where a secret war is waging between Gargoyles and Demons, which sees Adam (who the monster is referred to in the film) stuck in the middle.

I first saw the trailer for I, Frankenstein in December and my first impressions of it were not good. Unfortunately, these impressions have not changed because I, Frankenstein is a bad movie. However, there are a few things in there which amount to a certain degree of enjoyment.

First off Aaron Eckhart really acts his ass off in the lead role and he isn't exactly bad. In fact, I liked watching his true commitment towards his performance even if the movie's script doesn't allow his full potential to become apparent. What did annoy me was that its obviously clear that he is not Victor Frankenstein, but his creation. So why do people still call him Frankenstein?

The whole mythology about the Gargoyle and Demon war was handled really badly to the point where it just became choppy and overly-complicated. After all the introductions are made, the story plods along at an awkward pace where we see hardly anything happen in terms of character development. Instead, we just see a load of CGI creatures fight.

Which brings me on to my next point, the CGI in this movie is horrendous, truly terrible. All these effects of blue light, fire and Gargoyle's flying about looked fake as anything. I honestly thought that the CG in The Legend of Hercules was terrible, but I, Frankenstein told me that with a bigger budget CGI can look just as worse.

The costumes look really bad. Frankenstein's monster himself doesn't remotely look like a re-animated corpse of flesh which has been stitched together, he just looks like a normal man with a load of scars on him.

The rest of the cast all try their best and they aren't bad in their respective roles. However, with a plot filled up with cinematic clichés and a messy script really don't help their situation. You could tell that the writers had some really good lines of dialogue which could be used in the movie so they decided to chuck them in aimlessly. Most of the dialogue is just the wrong line at the wrong time.

Other complaints I have involves Frankenstein's female companion. First, their relationship is rushed beyond belief, within 20 minutes of their first encounter they are sacrificing themselves for one another. Secondly, she learns about the Gargoyle VS Demon war and just accepts it like that. Really? Not a single ounce of surprise? No? Ok.

Some of the fight scenes were pretty enjoyable and what I will say is that it looked as if the director used some of the source material to create some choreographed action sequences, before bloating it with terrible CGI!

I, Frankenstein is a mess from start to finish, and it bored me a lot:


Rating - D


1 sentence summary - The actors try, but the story is messy, complicated and boring and is not worth seeing!


Thanks for reading,
Matt

The Legend of Hercules Movie Review

Oh wow.

The Legend of Hercules is directed by Renny Harlin, the man behind Die Hard 2, and stars Kellan Lutz in the title role of Hercules. The story follows the son of Zeus from his exile into slavery all the way to his return, where he must take back his homeland from a corrupt King.

This is one of the worst movies I have seen in my life. It really is going to take a film that's either horrendous or incredibly aggravating to replace this one for worst of the entire year. Only a month in and my first 2014 release review and I'm already saying things like this!

The acting is horrendous. Kellan Lutz proves that anybody to come out of that stupid Twilight saga can't act to save their lives. Every word the man says is excruciating to listen to and his wooden performance of an iconic character is lazy and unforgiveable. Mind you, he couldn't really offer much with a script that is so emotionally all over the place and at times, hysterically bad!

Hercules' brother is the most blatant attempt at creating a "Loki" like character. Mind you Loki is fun to watch, this guy isn't. The only purpose this character poses is to act sneaky and slimy throughout the entire movie and after laughing at how terrible it was for about 10 minutes, it started to numb me and make me angry.

The actor who plays his father is guilty of the worst over-actor in history, plus wears the worst fake beard in movie history. He would literally yell every single fucking word he said, like every single word! The entire cast is guilty of this as well. Normal people would just be sat there having a normal conversation but the characters in this mess decide that shouting at everything and injecting in a load of forced testosterone is the way to go!

The movie does do well at doing what its trying to be, terrible. The script is ludicrous, the plot fast-paced in a bad way and it narratively makes no sense, the romance in the movie is portrayed so poorly to the point where I started laughing my ass off. That's what I did for the first half an hour, laugh. However, that didn't make up for the slow and painful torture I had to bear for the 60 minutes after that.

If the actors didn't already look like a load of idiot models and porn stars overacting to the point where it's unbearable to watch, they look like idiots as well! The clothes they wore look like towels, the special effects are terrible and the green screen looks like a 1960s "made for TV movie". Its among the worst I have ever seen.

Its also horrible to watch because its trying so hard to be like Gladiator and 300. It isn't remotely like those two films. It tries to trick itself into thinking its cool and stylistic with  painful use of slow motion during every single fight scene. That got on my nerves after the first 2 minutes, and trust me when I say that it never stops. It made the movie feel 5 hours long, and it was only on for about 90 minutes!

The Legend of Hercules is just a bunch of models and porn stars grunting at each other in a movie which is a sloppy mess in every single way imaginable. I hate this movie:


Rating - F


1 sentence summary - As dull as it is laughably bad, this is one of the worst movies in recent years!


Wow. Just wow.

Thanks for reading,
Matt

Jesse Eisenberg will be Lex Luthor in the Batman vs Superman Movie (2016)

This project really intrigues me. It seems that at the moment in terms of movie news I only talk about Zach Synder's sequel to last year's Man of Steel. Yet more news has broken out so let's talk about it...

Warner Brothers have announced that Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Zombieland, Now You See Me) will play Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor in the now 2016 release. Also announced was that Jeremy Irons will play Alfred.

First things first, I am aware that they've pushed the movie back a whole year, which frankly I was initially very upset with. However, once I stopped grimacing at not having an Avengers VS Justice League 2015 box office showdown, I started to think more positively. If it takes them an extra year to produce a better script, then that is fine by me.  Many people believe that this movie is going to be  a sloppy mess and I hope that the writers prove those people wrong. I know it's easy to hate something if you're crushed by your own expectations and it's even harder when Batman and Superman are going to be in the same movie.

Other announcements like Ben Affleck as Batman and Gal Gadot as Wonderwoman I was generally positive about. The Internet is making too much of a thing with Affleck and as for Gadot as Wonderwoman, if she changes her physique to fit the role then she'll be absolutely fine. Now, I am a little sceptical..

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor just doesn't look right when I type it? He's an ok actor and I do like him in the roles that he's in, but as Lex Luthor? Superman's arch nemesis? The DC Universe's most menacing villain? I just don't know...

I honestly hope the guy proves me wrong. Do a Heath Ledger, completely own the role and capture the essence of what Lex Luthor is, a greedy, power-hungry insane businessman who will do anything to get what he wants. If Eisenberg can play this role differently to how he usually plays the roles he's cast as, we could be in for a pleasant surprise.

However, at the moment I think that Zach Synder is either casting Eisenebrg to try and seriously shock the community or is doing it because he sees him as the right man to play the Lex Luthor that he has envisioned for this franchise.

Its true that I would have preferred other people to Eisenberg in the role. Mark Strong would have been good, but If it had been Bryan Cranston (Lord Heisenberg himself) or Joaquin Phoenix (one of the best actors we have), I would have been more happy. Still, Cranston could probably find a role as Jim Gordon in this movie or the next. That would be awesome.

On to more positive news I really like the idea of Jeremy Irons as Alfred. It gives opportunity for the filmmakers to take that character in a direction we haven't seen before, which isn't a bad thing.

So what does everyone else make of all of the Batman vs. Superman announcements so far? Do you like them all? Do you hate every single one of them? Or are you a little on the fence? This is probably the first announcement I'm not entirely settled on, I hope this is the only one when future announcements are made!


Thanks for reading,
Matt