Age of Ultron I think I liked this one more than the first Avengers movie, and this is one of the better movies in the MCU. It didnt spend the time introducing you or bringing you up to speed on the characters in case you were one of the 5 people who havent seen any of the previous movies. It wasn't without its problems, but it was entertaining. Pros- -Vision was really cool, the theater lost its shit when he picked up Thor's hammer. Paul Bettany did a great job. -That Hulk vs Hulkbasher scene was really well done.-I liked the inclusion of the other second-tier Avengers in the climax battle -More screen time for Hawkeye was surprisingly good, I enjoyed his character development -Elizabeth Olsen, hot damn Cons- -Ultron. The character was rushed and a bit underwhelming. In the comics hes Hank Pym's creation (who they havent introduced yet), so I didnt really dig him taking on parts of Starks personality. Also, hes supposed to be made of adamantium instead of vibranium, which they literally cannot do because the X-Men dont exist in the MCU. Spader did a good enough job, but Ultron could have (and should have) been so much more. -Hulk and Black Widow, who cares? -Where did the yellow infinity stone come from again? Was that even explained? What about that pool of water that Thor goes into? Overall, I think Id give it a 6/10. Its one of those movies thats fun to see in a packed theater.
Avengers, Age of Ultron First, I can't tell the difference between Jude Law and Paul Bettany. Sorry. This movie has a lot of shit going on in it. I think the first one was slightly better, since it was more straightforward and didn't have a dozen major characters to explain. Spoiler: Spoilers Ahoy I second a lot of what Juice said: some elements of the plot are underdeveloped in the interest of time (Thor's bath, the Infinity Stone, Thanos, Ultron's power source, etc.). I thought Vision was half-assed, because every time I saw him on screen I was asking myself why he did anything/gave a shit. The twins were cool, but the X-men movie did Quicksilver way better. Finally, too many plot points were unresolved (Iron Man...retired? took a vacation? became a tranny?), all in the interest of setting up the next films in the series. Was it good? Yes, if you like the gist of the other Marvel movies. Does it live up to the hype? Not really. I can't believe I'm saying this, but for a dozen superheroes, two and a half hours simply wasn't enough time.
Avengers, Age of Ultron I thought this movie was as good as it could be considering the number of characters it had to balance. Once again Joss Whedon did a great job of balancing characters plot, action, and humor. Concerning some of the complaints above: The whole Hulk/Black Widow romance thingy. - They are both incredibly damaged people that gravitate towards each other. Banner feels as though he can't let anyone be a part of his life because of the kind of damage his other half can and will do. That's why he leaves, so he doesn't hurt her. And as far as the advanced tech thing, Banner is a genius and I think having The Hulk pilot this ship shows that he's starting to take control over The Hulk. Where did the yellow infinity stone come from again? - Did I miss something because I thought Ultron broke the glowing Gem in Loki's staff and it was in there. too many plot points were unresolved (Iron Man...retired? - I'm guessing this was left unresolved on purpose. I believe RDJs contract is up and this was their way to explain away Iron Man if they can't reach an agreement with him. I can't tell the difference between Jude Law and Paul Bettany - Paul Bettany has always been the voice of Jarvis, Jude Law has never been a character in the Marvel universe.
Avengers Age of Ultron: IMAX 3D Took the kids to it on Saturday. We all loved it, but some parts were tough for the kids to follow along with... Not that they gave a shit, they just wanted to watch Hulk smash everything and Iron Man blow shit up. As far as Iron Man, I know he's in Captain America: Civil War. I wouldn't mind a full Scarlet Witch movie.... Hotness.
A VERY interesting take on what was wrong with Age of Ultron, and why it's going to continue to be wrong with the MCU... http://www.wired.com/2015/05/marvel-killing-the-popcorn-movie/?mbid=social_fb
Ex Machina I knew almost nothing about it going in except that it was about robots. The basic premise is that a reclusive tech genius builds a functioning AI and has one of his employees come to his estate to administer a Turing Test. This movie was really good, one of the best sci-if films I've ever scene. It was smart, well-written, and didn't treat the audience like idiots. Oscar Isaac did an excellent job as an unconventional tech impresario and Alicia Vikander was mesmerizing as Ava, the AI. I wasn't quite sure where the movie was going, but when the ending comes, you realize it's been right under your nose the whole time. I feel like it could have ended 15 minutes earlier than it did, but overall it's such a layered, subtle film I'm going to have to see it more than once to pick up on the nuances now that I know what happens. Spoiler: Spoiler When you realize that Nathan was right and Ava is fucking with Caleb the whole time just to escape, God damn. 9.5/10
I've seen more movies in last 3 weeks than I've seen in the last year... Mad Max: Fury Road Caught it at a late Thursday night showing with my dad. This is easily the best action movie of the last 10 years, and maybe one of the top 10 ever made. I don't know if I've ever seen a movie quite like this one, the only one that comes to mind is Road Warrior which obviously shouldn't come as a surprise. I'm not going to explain the plot because it's pretty obvious from the trailers and it essentially doesn't matter. When I walked out it took me ten minutes to process everything from sheer sensory overload. Max Max almost takes a back seat to Charlize Theron's character, who is extremely good in her role. I'm not going to say anything about specific scenes, even spoilers, because you'll need to see for yourself. 10/10
Winning:The Racing Life of Paul Newman Would have gladly paid to see this in a theater, hell of a flick even if you know nothing about racing. I know NASCAR but nothing of Formula or the smaller circuits, this is an excellent film. 9/10
Terminator Genisys Terminator 1 and 2 are some of my favorite movies of all time. T3 was alright. Terminator Salvation was... meh. After seeing the new one at an early screening last night, I think the Forbes review put it perfectly when they said "Terminator Genisys makes Terminator Salvation look like Terminator 2. This movie was painful to watch. The plot made little sense, and this is from someone who knows a nerd-level amount of the series canon. A terminator goes back in time to kill Sarah Connor (as in T1) but she is already aware of this occurring and that machine is swiftly stopped by another Terminator that came to her when she was a kid to protect her from a T-1000 that arrived in the 1970s or something. Then it just gets dumber and weirder from there. Despite her decent work in Thrones, Emilia Clarke is a shitty actress. She's horribly unconvincing as Sarah Connor and her trying to speak with an American accent is pretty terrible. Lena Headley (Cersei Lannister) did a much better job in the Terminator TV show. I dont know who Jai Courtney's agent is, but dear god hes the luckiest guy in Hollywood. Hes in Die Hard, Suicide 6, Terminator, etc. and hes still such a forgettable, generic actor. And as for Arnold, as much as it breaks my heart, he just doesnt have it anymore. Hes 68 and he doesnt have the charisma and screen presence he had when he was 45. Not everything in the movie is terrible. The effects were decent, some of the action scenes were well done, and the cinematography was good. Overall though, were now 3 movies deep after Terminator 2. Its pretty clear that only James Cameron can really pull this series off, everyone else should stop trying. 3/10.
Jurassic World- The most successful brainless nostalgia rehash Hollywood has produced yet. That's dollars we're talking about, there is zero substance in the movie. I can't tell if it is truly poor writing or the producers were just pulling a huge meta joke about the movie industry in general. The Admonious Rex is a monster of the week needed in (for?) the movie to raise sluggish park (movie) sales. Beyond that it is just a sort of prehistoric Macguffin that has comic book super powers that appear as each scene requires. He can change his body temperature to fool Infrared Cameras, camouflage himself like a chameleon, the latter we find out when you see him change colors in front of your eyes then have a guard scream "he can camouflage himself!" at the audience right before he is bitten in half. Subtly in this film? I think no. The rest is just CGI action trying to outdo CGI action scenes of today. It really is a Fast and Furious movie minus Vin Diesal blabbering on about the bonds of family. Even Chris Pratt doesn't come off as fun as the behind the scenes video clips and everyone and their mother would leave you to believe. I think it's probably due to the movie just being so meh in the story and characterizations departments. The new Indian park owner and an under utilized Vincent D'onofrio are the only two people that actually try to establish fun characters. Everyone else just seemed to show up for the check. Couple of useless subplots, D'onofrio's raptor weaponization aspirations and the kid's parent's divorce, trying to add depth but fail entirely. By the final climactic scene you'll feel that laser eyed calvary mounted velociraptors are easily within the bounds of reality for the next movie. Mindless fun I guess, I didn't feel my time had been wasted. Just forget ever getting anything but pandering to the lowest common denominator out of this series ever again. 4/10
Spy This is a really funny and well executed movie. It avoids a lot of obvious tropes and, like the Get Smart movie did, doesn't make the main character massively incompetent. It's hilarious and the action is good too so it works in several ways. I do like how several times the flow of an action sequence is just violated by some kind of mishap (though that's not a new comedy bit) but other times they just let it roll on through. I did find Nancy, basically the main character's sidekick, to be excessively useless and annoying, but I liked her moment of redemption towards the end a lot. If they focused on that side of her when paired with Melissa McCarthy they could do a pretty credible sequel. I'd recommend it. I like longer movies for in theater watching and this is 2 hours so it's not a waste of money, but it's also perfectly fine to see at home. But definitely see it.
Ted 2 If you liked the first one, and like Seth McFarland's humor from his TV shows, you'll enjoy this like I did. If you don't, you won't, it's simple to figure that much out. The humor falls in the same category. I had quite a few good hard laughs. I'd say it's as funny, if not a bit funnier than the first, and I enjoyed the first. 2 things I didn't like: The stoner stuff I felt wasn't needed and seemed a bit forced. Maybe that's just because I don't smoke weed anymore, but I didn't when I saw the first one either and it didn't seem as out of place as it did in this one. The exception being when the 'Jurassic Park' theme plays as they discover a huge weed crop (not a spoiler as it has very little to do with the plot). Also there are some recycled Family Guy jokes I noticed, but they still played well so it wasn't a show stopper for me. 7.5/10
I thought it was good but I got bored towards the end. Not that I'm not compelled by an emotional angle/story, but I just lost interest in the last 20 min or so. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood. Cumberbatch was great and the story itself is fascinating. Similarly, The Theory of Everything. Incredible acting. Eddie Redmayne was fantastic and Felicity Jones is stunning, but towards the end I was running low on interest. Knowing the story might have caused that, but it just got a bit long for me. Also, I had worked out earlier and take a preworkout that tends to keep me a bit jittery and feeling a bit detached. So I think feeling those effects while watching Hawking begin to lose control of his body left me feeling rather uncomfortable.
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Off the top of my head I cant think of a Tom Cruise movie Ive seen where I havent been entertained. Maybe Born on the Fourth of July since it was pretty depressing? Nevertheless, the guy has made very few, if any flops over the last 30 or so years. This movie was really fun, probably the best in the series since the first one. And for a fifth movie in a franchise, thats saying a lot. The only other franchise I can think of with the same kind of forward momentum is the Fast and Furious series. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt and has to stop a group called The Syndicate which was nefarious plans for whatever. The Syndicates motivations are never really made quite clear, but seems very similar to Skyfall. But at the end of the day, who gives a shit. Like the Bond movies, you watch these for entertainment value, action scenes, funny quips, and the crazy stunts. I thought it was about 15 minutes too long, and should have ended a bit earlier, but overall it was very enjoyable. At 50+ years old, Tom Cruise is in crazy good shape. Simon Pegg was really good. Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames were great too, and has some funny lines as well. The femme fatale was also excellent, and Im glad the director didnt succumb to the trope of making her a love interest. The best part of the MI series is that each one is made by a different director and has a completely different feel than the others. This is my favorite movie this summer after Mad Max. Really good, and worth a theater visit. 8.5 / 10
Count yourself lucky that you didn't see Knight and Day. And, despite the fact that I really like Cameron Crowe, I thought Vanilla Sky sucked all kinds of ass - but, I guess it had some entertainment value. I agree with your assessment, though. I enjoyed it and want to marry Rebecca Ferguson.
Mad Max: Fury Road After a 30 year series hiatus Miller re-invents his series with an all-out assault on the senses that never takes a breath. Loaded with strong characters and painstaking invention, this is essentially one long chase movie that utilizes a lot of old-school stunt work that Miller used to such frightening effect in Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior). This movie is a fantastic companion piece to The Road Warrior: over-the-top, thrilling and mean as fuck. I thought Beyond Thunderdome kind of sucked and the original is a VERY dated classic. As far as this one goes, you won't have a better time watching a movie this year. This one just plain tears the roof off. 9.5/10
The Drop I'm not sure when it came out, but it was probably within the last year. Stars Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini in his last film. Two guys working at a bar in Brooklyn that fronts as a Chechen mob drop off point. It's hard to say what this movie is about without giving away the ending. A group of thugs come in to rob the bar and the rest of the movie is tracking who did the hit. There's also a side story of a crazy guy who is obsessed with Hardy's character's girlfriend, and the two stories eventually merge. It's a slow burn, but the ending was very intense and totally worth it. Hardy completely throws himself at every film he does, and this is no different. The effort and indiosyncracies he puts into this character are great. Gandolfini is excellent in this as well. It's on HBO Go right now and worth seeing. 8.5/10
Sicario Saw this while I was away but I don't think it's had a wide release in North America yet. First off, it's very good. The look and feel is a hybrid of No Country for Old Men and True Detective and its suspenseful as hell, but nearly as action packed as the trailers make it seem. There are 3 sequences which are pretty tense. As for the acting, Emily Blunt was probably the weakest link. She's not bad, but she's not great either. However Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin are great. As for the plot (below spoils the end): Spoiler: Ending It's not a huge shocker that Del Toro's character turns out to be a Medellin hitman working with the CIA, you kind of see it coming about 1/3 the way through. But the way his character operates with callous violence is almost as chilling as Anton Chigur, especially at the end when he assassinates the cartel's bosses wife and children right in front of him. Overall this movie was surprisingly good, my wife's jaw dropped at the end and she hadn't seen trailers or anything. So I would say go into it without seeing much of the previews. 9/10
Crimson Peak Resounding meh. Let's cut to the chase. Everyone had high hopes for this. It is painfully beautiful, and expertly shot. This is Skyfall-level amazing. The colors are insane, like a Van Gogh palette, everything burns. Assumedly, the script was written with the camera action in mind instead of an original plot. Del Toro threw in every gothic cliche ever written. When some dingus says they figured out the twists in the first 10 minutes it's safe to assume he's a flippant dipshit. As soon as Jessica Chastain's character is introduced you figure out the plot points. It is that predictable. There are also a few superfluous things just casually thrown in because it looked cool, instead of serving the story*, which really bugged me. It was just so damn flat, boring, done before. I feel really cheated having spent $11 on it. The CGI is pretty cool, presented in a novel, new way. But that's about 3 minutes worth of film in a 2 hour movie. Charlie Hununmamunuam, Sons of Anarchy guy, has the screen presence of paste drying. He looks ridiculously out of place in a period piece. * Spoiler They make a big deal about the black moths living in the house. Except that's it. They're never explained, never used to advance some plot point. They're just introduced because it's cool and "eerie symbolism" OOooOOOoo. Also, the house sits on a clay mine. For some reason the clay oozes from the walls in the attic. Gravity, how does it work? Another subplot of ghost photography, mentioned once, never brought up again; so it is not even a subplot, it just looked cool and ate up screen time. 6/10 because Tom Hiddleston is a fantastic actor, and for the sets/camerawork.
Spectre Enough with the origin story bullshit. Bond movies are only good when the approach is over the top action (like in Tomorrow Never Dies) or camp and humor (i.e. the late Connery films and most of Moore's). First, the positives: I liked Daniel Craig's performance here better than in Skyfall. He looked tired of the role the last time around, and although he still probably is I actually thought that he gave a solid performance. Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux were both really nice to look at, though the former had very little screen time. Also, like in Skyfall, the scenery was beautiful. Naomie Harris was also fabulous with what little she had. Now, the bad: I hated the theme song. The movie was also overlong and overplotted. Aside from the beginning and the ending there were about 3 action scenes, and they were all the standard fight and chase scenes that we have seen before. Nothing new was brought to the table in those regards, and in fact the train scene will remind you of a scene from an earlier Bond film (no prizes for guessing which one). I also thought that Christoph Waltz was underutilized in his role as the villain. And as gorgeous as I thought that Lea Seydoux was, I just did not care for her character and did not think that she and Craig went well together. Whether or not Craig continues as 007 it seems that this is the direction that the franchise will continue to take. I know that the series needed a reboot after the last two abortions that Brosnan had, but I just don't think that the Craig films were the answer. It's a shame that it came to this, because I like Craig as Bond and really wish that he was the one who played the role in Brosnan's first two films. Unfortunately, Tomorrow Never Dies is still the last Bond film that I found to be really enjoyable--and it has been nearly 20 years since its release! 5/10