Official Movie Review Thread

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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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My complaints are just that Scott could've made it tighter and could've focused at least more on the characters' reactions to events unfolding in the movie, (for example the tighter focused aspect of Alien and Aliens were due to how the plot and characterization were not as sprawling as Prometheus) but yes the themes it touched on and overall I enjoyed it quite a lot.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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True, there was some stuff in there that had me scratching my head thinking "did we need to spend three minutes watching zombie whatshisname tear through a bunch of nameless mooks". On the other hand, without that Vickers' decision to go flamegrilling would have stood as an act of apparent villainy instead of, well maybe not the right decision, but at least correct from a psycho point of view. I rather liked how in this movie the stone-cold corporate suit who in the previous Alien films was always the badguy turned out to be, in the end, completely correct. Also, how her nature remains sort of ambiguous. Her brother is an android, she looks just like him, and is apparently completely unaffected by the fucked-up-ness of cryosleep? What's up with that? Pity she got crushed by the metaphorical stand-in for daddy's ambition...
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Yeah, there is that. But... aside from zombie attacks, there were just some things there just made me think that Scott being able to do everything he wants might not be that good a thing. At least he didn't pull a Lucas on us.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Green Lantern: First Flight

Behind the times on this one. But this is one of DC's DVD animated featues. And out of the three I've seen (this one, Crisis on Two Earths, Under The Red Hood) this one is probably the best and most entertaining. Why? Possibly becuase the lack of Batman.

Anyway, the plots quite simple. Hal Jordan, finds a dying alien gets given a green ring of power that creates constructs and is recruited into intergalactic space police. Fun times, except no-one likes him because he's a smelly primitive human replacing one of their greatest members. Still someone sticks up for him and takes him under his wing: spoiler alert this is the villian of the peice. Who is trying to kill off the space cops and rule the galaxy through the power of his yelow ring of fear.

Hal Jordan saves the day and is accepted by his peers. Roll credits.

Anyeay, this has passable voice acting (mostly actual proffessional voice actors. but Tricia Helfer and Micheal Madsen are there as well) some humour and surprising lots of quite vicious violence. It's like Titan AE. The characters getting stabbed and crushed and bleeding to death are all aliens so censors just don't care. Holes get blasted through bad guys, others get sucked out of holes in space ship hulls half their size. And the cheif bad guy has an interogation scenes where he force feed someone drugs and later gains infomation through technological necromancy.

So this is very much recomended above the live action version. Because well cartoons get away with alot more silliness without it detracting from the film. In a cartoon you don't blink twice when Hal Jordan uses his ring to great a baseball bat many times bigger than him to whack a bad guy with. And that allows you to use the Green Lantern powers to full effect with out it affecting the film.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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speaker-to-trolls wrote:
Last weekend my beloved and I saw Brave, which follows the usual formula of princess-who-has-to-get-married-but-doesn't-want-to-and-is-misunderstood, but makes it about her relationship with her parents rather than all about her finding herself. It's a very nice film with great animation, a nice storyline and lots of funny touches that don't, in my opinion, go too over the top. The story is incredibly predictable and the moral is very simple and basic, but, well, if you are, like me, the kind of person who watches films for children you shouldn't really complain about that.
Well I just saw Brave as well. Pretty much dead on. Found it entertaining enough, possibly not as brilliant as some of Pixar's other stuff but entertaining enough.

Weirdly was in their with a few families with kids, and seem to be the only person laughing out loud at this film. Twas weird. I mean all reserved and british and shit that doesn't usually mean we don't laugh at films.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Since I've been using this thread as the movie news thread anyway...
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Bilbo's Berry Smoothie!

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Dwarves Turkey and Dressing Dinner !

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Gandalf's Gobble Melt!

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Hobbit Hole Breakfast!

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Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies!

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And finally, the Ring Burger!
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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That gobble melt doesn't look half bad.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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DISNEY TO ACQUIRE LUCASFILM, RELEASE STAR WARS EPISODE 7 IN 2015
The last Star Wars movie release was 2005's Revenge of the Sith – and we believe there's substantial pent up demand. In 2015, we're planning to release Star Wars Episode 7 – the first feature film under the "Disney-Lucasfilm" brand. That will be followed by Episodes 8 and 9 – and our long term plan is to release a new Star Wars feature film every two to three years.
For those among us who are keeping track, Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars now.
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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The only obvious solution to all this is Kingdom Hearts 3 with Star Wars and Marvel sections.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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It is time, time for CJ Motonow.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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My face exploded when I saw the news about Disney and Star Wars. I'm hoping Disney considers resurrecting Star Wars Galaxies, at least as an emulation.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Siege wrote:It is time, time for CJ Motonow.
In Motonow's version, Darth Vader was not a cyborg but a golem, who decapitated himself to let his disembodied soul possess a robotic humanoid body.

If there was one thing about this entry into Motonow's remake of the Star Wars trilogy which did not disappoint anyone, not even the purists, it was the climactic lightsaber duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. In addition to the intense and energetic swordplay, which many considered to be better choreographed than that in Lucas originals', Motonow included psychic duelling which culminated in Darth Vader tearing off Luke Skywalker's hand by such powerful telekinetics that the arm was turned to pulp as it was torn off.
while it made sense to introduce more characterization of Emperor Palpatine, not many considered it necessary to show a scene of the Emperor defecating, nor did everyone like the purple mohawk hairstyles sported by the Crimson Guard in Motonow's version. Others did not even know what to think about Motonow's decision to portray the Ewoks as winged, bird-like creatures which lived in great sylvan cities built in the tops of mile-high trees. A visually impressive fantasy culture if there ever was one, and far more original than the teddybear-like Ewoks in Lucas' ROTJ, but they had only the name in common. A visually impressive scene of the Battle of Endor was when the avian Ewoks duelled in mid-air with Imperial Stormtroopers mounted on futuristic versions of Da Vinci's ornithopter.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Skyfall was a damn good movie. Right up there with Casino Royale and Goldeneye, to use more contemporary comparisons, for my Philistine lack of old school Connery-cred.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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It is indeed a seriously good movie. One of the best Bond movies, definitely. It somehow manages to simultaneously be old school and modern, all at the same time. It's like a seamless merging of ye olde gadget-infested and modern gritty realist Bonds, and it very much leaves me eager to see where they're taking the series next.
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Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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I also add my major support to Skyfall. It was a truly brilliant movie, as well as a great example of how not every Bond film needs to feature world shattering events or international conspiracies. A much more personal storyline with a villain equipped with absolute genius, all consuming hatred, and sheer insanity really did wonders. With all the pieces in place now in terms of the setting and a fresh start of sorts, it will be interesting to see how the setting progresses.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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So I finally took a day off today and went to see this latest James Bond 007 flick. And... I guess I have mixed feelings. There's not much I can point to and say this was bad. And there was lots of action and some fun dry humour here and there.

But it still seems a little... off tonally. It's not like classic James Bond but its not like Craig's previous two outings either. They've dropped the Quantum arc sadly. And have a new villain who more focused on attacking MI6 directly rather than a take over the world bid.

It seemed a little slow in places but some more classic Bond Elements are creeping back in as well. And there are references in the film to 'old ways being the best' and given the final scene... well no spoilers but there's a real sense that they might want to get rid of this gritty real stuff they did for CR and go back to classic late connery/moore stuff.

So well, I'll be interested in what the new film is like
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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NEON GENESIS PACIFIC RIM

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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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I don't know, I could escape the feeling through that trailer that it was a fake parody trailer or something.

I think it was the glados voice
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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The Bourne Legacy was a disappointment. Not a big one 'cause I didn't go into it expecting much, but it sure couldn't live up to what had come before it. I kind of liked the initial angle, that there was a big pharmaceutical company full of ethically questionable research backing the CIA supersoldier gig, because that made a certain kind of sense. Also, an entity like that going into full damage control mode throwing its money and influence around to make sure the shareholders don't find out what they've been up to could have been a neat change of pace from the stone cold CIA assassins we got before. It'd make for a nice transition from the Cold War world of spy agencies and black ops killers to a post-modern world of sterile corporate cyberpunkish bio-enhancement shenanigans, and simultaneously make it apparent how the actions of Jason Bourne reverberate farther than he might have imagined.

Unfortunately that's not what we got. After some initial ado about pills and bio-augmentations that part of the plot goes mostly out the window in favor of set piece action bits that never approach the intensity of the previous three films. It isn't as tightly scripted, as intensely filmed or as well written as its predecessors and I suppose Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz make do with the material they're given but it's quite obviously lacking.

Then there's Edward Norton playing a guy who at first I thought was some kind of shark-in-a-suit corporate troubleshooter but as the film progresses it turns out he was also in some kind of black ops or something and his team has access to attack drones, Manila PD computers and air traffic databases so at the end I didn't know what the fuck he was supposed to be that he could do all of that. His schtick also never connected with Renner's and Weisz', which in my opinion is a major fault: the previous three films always were about Bourne starting out with little and then dismantling the webs of security around CIA shot caller types who'd get progressively more antsy as the movie goes on. Norton is always this guy in an office ordering things done, and at the end neither he nor any of the guys in the office with him have ever been within a hundred miles of the fugitives, which pretty much completely detaches them from what's going on. In the other films the guys in charge always got to a point where they knew the price of failure would be that one night they'd wake up and Bourne would be in their bedroom. Here, Norton seems to have everything pretty much under control: there's no stake in him not getting what he wants as far as I could tell.

There's also a final dude who's called in as an ultimate boss augment badass kind of guy, or at least that's what I took away from it, but then he never really does anything except chase after our heroes on a motorcycle, which was a thorough letdown. Also I couldn't figure out why a biomedical company would have an experimental bionic commando chilling in Bangkok to be called in at the whim of whoever; that doesn't seem like the sort of thing a company would do, you know?

In the end it feels like somebody started writing this movie with a desire to go full-blown cyber or rather biopunk, with big corporations with undue influence over government, unethical experiments, biological augmentations and questions about what makes a human and all that... And then at the last minute figured oh shit, we're making a movie with "Bourne" in the title, so better toss all that out the window in favor of some shoot-outs and lengthy chase sequences and a final minute tie-back to the CIA that really doesn't have anything to do with anything in this movie at all (except retcon the shit out of the ending of Bourne Ultimatum, thus cheapening it massively). It's like halfway through the movie everybody working on it forgot that the bad guys were a company who would presumably do things for businessman reasons, not the CIA who do things for spyguy reasons. Also an open end because gotta get in that sequel hook, y'dig?

Blah. It's one of those movies that the more I think about it the less sense it makes. I'd recommend popping one of the original trilogy movies in the DVD player instead of seeing this, really.
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Off naked Chatham show,
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Manila PD has computers? Holy shit, that's some cutting edge science fiction going on there. :P
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Yeah man, they had traffic camera's and motorcycles and really shiny cars and everything. At least I had no trouble buying into Edward Norton buying them :D.
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Off naked Chatham show,
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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So over the holiday season. I have seen two movies.

First. The Hobbit. Three hours of dwarves running. Actions scenes that were surprisingly unsuspenseful and cinematography that as ever makes we want to go to New Zealand on holidays. And there on strongs points; the dwarves are visually varied with interesting costumes, Radgast was really good for someone they had to mostly make up and Gollum and Bilbo's battle of wits was very true to the book.

So umm... my stand ambivalent opinion for that film.



The other film is one I saw on telly yesterday and I am not ambivalent about in the slightest. How To Train Your Dragon. That's right, silly little kids film. Packed with AWESOME. Vikings and Dragons and everything. The nerdy little untypical viking gets the hot girl at the end. And they've got stunning flying scenes, mechanical flight aides for a tail less dragon, massive fire breathing aerial battles.

There's nothing in this film not to love.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Not a review, but shit.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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So I really don't know what to think about this movie. It really does things different from the previous Iron Man films and Avengers and it build itself up a sort of finale to Tony Stark's tale.
So basically the stress of the attack on New York and nearly dying in the Avengers, I guess is the straw that broke the camels back for Stark and his PTSD. The Iron Man suits are his crutch and he's got issues and everything and at the end he blows up all his suits, gets the reactor out of his chest (out of nowhere), and basically calls it quits.

Big problems here:
1) He calls it quits. Along with Dark Knight Rises last year this really bugs me. Since when do good superhero films have to end with the message that to be a superhero, you have to be psychologically scarred and you should give it up to be better. You should stop being heroic people. Urgh.
2) I don't think the PSTD arc really flows from how he was presented in Iron Man 2, or in the Avengers. It just doesn't scan for me.

So he spends a big part of the middle of the film not in a metal suit, not really superheroing it up but investigating the old fashioned way. While superpower bad guys are after him. It's not really bad persee, quite action packed and exciting in places and RDJ is charasmatic as ever.

But it all just feels off to me. Like I say big mixed feeling on this one.
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Re: Official Movie Review Thread

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Booted Vulture wrote: He calls it quits. Along with Dark Knight Rises last year this really bugs me. Since when do good superhero films have to end with the message that to be a superhero, you have to be psychologically scarred and you should give it up to be better. You should stop being heroic people. Urgh.
Well, let's be honest here. If you lack any real superpowers at all and rely on your intelligence, physical training, and equipment, sooner or later you WILL have to call it quits or you'll just die. There shouldn't be any shame in recognizing that you've reached the limits of what you can do and bow out so that others can continue the struggle. Nor should someone keep selflessly giving everything in the name of heroics until they reach the point that they're a burnt out shell of a human that's only risking the safety of others. In the case of Bruce, he's always been psychologically scarred - why else would someone decide to dress up and wage a one man war on crime? If anything, I think the message of TDKR was the need of balance in regards to superheroics. Bruce was truly a great person who gave so much for others, but he's still human. He ultimately recognized that others can do the same acts of good as he did and that there was nothing wrong with bowing out and letting others fight on. Nothing about that suggests that Bruce is no longer heroic. I think Tony has a similar situation going on, though that's a separate piece of analysis. Obviously, this can be muddled a bit by people like Superman who don't have to worry about many of these issues, but even then its realistic to conceive a time when they decide its best to hang up the costume. Really, I think the reason this seems more pronounced is because of the ending of the storylines to two prominent superheros who would be most affected by these issues.
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