Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Re-watched this. I'm really liking the characters more each time I watch it, although I always skip past that really sad part.
I hope the Dark Side stops making bigger and bigger Death Stars though, in these movies. That's the only thing in this movie I ihink is 'meh ... is this the best you could do, writer guy ?'

Premium Rush rating: 3/5

New York bike delivery guy getting harrassed by a corrupt cop. This would have been better had the bad guy actually seemed intimidating or dangerous in some way, like the crazy guy in the Hitcher movie(s). Instead, his character is way too timid.The bike stunts and all that were very entertaining though, it's not something you see in your average action movie.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Well, here's something I wasn't expecting - I loved this movie. It's great. Sure, it has barely anything to do with the arthurian legends, but I could hardly be angry with that it was so entertaining. Besides, the perfect movie rendition of the legends already exists (Excalibur) so why not get something entirely different?

The cast is really good, especially Jude Law who really nails being an evil, drunk on power bastard, with plenty of sinister presence. The soundtrack is just excellent. I'll be listining to it for days. The action is exciting, the chaacters likeable, the viallains villanous - what's not to love? The movie actually manages superbly well to balance moody, atmospheric moments of proper high fantasy (often quite dark) with the more usual Guy Ritchie trademark action and banter. It's just tons of fun for anyone who likes a fantasy or an adventure movie like Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Sure, there are some weak points - the final fight is too much CGI when a more traditional duel with the bad guy, especially one with such great presence, would be more welcome, and Ritchie does the "out of chronological order montage" trick (sorry, don't know if there's a proper name for it) a bit to often. And the CG is often rather underwhelming for a movie with 175 million budget. But none of that spoils the fun of the action nor the mood of the "fantasy moments".

I'm really, really damn pissed off this movie turned out to be box office bomb, because I would love to see the promised sequels. I'd be first in line to see the next one.

Oh, and Uther taking down a giant elephant is actually a way cooler scene here than when Legolas did it.

Chips

I was a bit disappointed, I expected to much I guess. I wanted some change but it was more funny than the original show. Loved the actors, they did it well, just don't watch it with high expectations. It was decent, glad I did not pay to go and see it though.

A couple of days ago I saw two movies one after another on TV that by the desciption sounded very interesting, but both fell flat. I could have used that evening (4 hours) for gaming!

<span class="bold">Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues</span> (2013)

I loved the original Anchorman movie (2004), so I was very eager to see this when I noticed it will be aired. Meh. It just wasn't overall even near as funny as the original one. For the most part it just felt quite contrived, like that they just decided the first Anchorman, which I presume was quite successful, should have a sequel to make some moneys, and then they fast try to come up with some kind of story and script.

Many of the jokes were reused from the first movie (The fight scene at the end? The jaguar perfume/condom? Please...), and even the actors (which was the same cast as from the first movie, and then some) seemed to feel they just wanted to get over it fast. They certainly had gathered lots of big name actors to this sequel, it started to feel like a comedy version of Expendables.

In a way it felt similar as when I saw Robocop 2 the first time. It had similar ingredients and ideas as the first movie... but it just fell flat as a sequel. It just didn't have the same spirit and freshness, and you felt all the time they were trying too hard to be like the first movie (and failed).

Right after that on the same channel, came another movie:

<span class="bold">The Paperboy</span> (2012)

I didn't know anything about what I was going to see, even the description of the movie was so vague, and I love starting to see new movies "blind" because then I will be all that more stunned when it turns out to be a gem. The big name actors/actresses raised my interest too, surely they would sign up only to good movies?

But what the heck was this movie? For some reason I had very hard time trying to understand the point of it all. Things just happened without any good reason, then something else happened... what what whaaaat? Some young hunk is sexually attracted to a 40 year old tramp who is trying to get his "boyfriend" out of a prison, the hunk goes to swimming and gets hit by jellyfishes, the tramp saves his life by peeing on him... what was the point of e.g. that swmming/peeing scene, why was it there? Did it have any purpose for the rest of the story?

And then there was that afro-american maid who apparently had raised that young hunk, it felt odd to me why she seemed to be in such a central role in the movie... but then it dawned to me that wasn't she some kind of big-time(?) singer who had apparently now got a movie role, a bit like Madonna? Yeah sure enough, it was Macy Gray.

I admit it might have felt confusing because I was already quite tired having seen the boring Anchorman 2 before it, and I fell asleep at some point of this movie. Did I miss something? I am not even sure what genre this movie belongs to, maybe drama but then it was quite boring drama, I couldn't care less for any of the characters in it.

This movie also had lots of big name actors and actresses, which made me all that more puzzled. Why would they all act in such a boring movie? McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack etc.

I saw Vampire Hunter D (1985), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090248, and it was very good, just like the later one called Bloodlust (2000). I really like that D is a mostly silent character, very good at what he does, but feared and hated by others. It reminds me of Geralt, although that's where the similarities end.

The animation is very imaginative and it's a pure joy to watch all the fantastic sceneries and creatures. I'm definitely going to watch more like this.

<span class="bold">Meeting Evil</span> (2012)

Now this was a good and enjoyable thriller. The story was logical and I liked how the characters were not so black and white in the good-evil scale.

Over the years, I've kinda grown tired of seeing Samuel L. Jackson in different movies (esp. those where IMHO he doesn't really fit, like the Star Wars movies or some Tarzan movie or whatever), but in this movie he shined and was in his element.

For some reason I first thought I have seen the movie before, the premise where Samuel comes to ask for help from the man etc. felt so familiar, but nothing in the rest of the movie rang any bells so I presume either I have seen only the very beginning of the movie, or maybe some trailer somewhere.

Nothing.

(And it's official, I am now a fan of Vincenzo Natali.)

Dunkirk

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie by any stretch, but I was expecting so much more from Nolan.

From a technical standpoint it's great and impressive. The cinematography is excellent, the sound is almost too good - every shot is a terrifying, loud, disturbing noise. The score has moments of brilliance, and together with the great visuals provides some truly spectacular moments, especially in the parts of the movie focusing on the airforce. I also have to applaud the unique decision to pretty much never show the enemy. We see planes, we see shots going through the hulls, but never the actuall enemy soldiers. It's just a deadly force encroaching on the british troops. Death from above and below, faceless and terrible.

But through it all the movie never quite gripped me. We never get to really know the characters we follow or care about them. Kenneth Branagh has plenty of acting talent and charm, but not nearly enough screen time to make a great use of it, pretty much the same goes for Tom Hardy, and really the only character that I got to really like was the civilian boat captain played by Mark Rylance. Eventually all that I described in the above paragraph is just not enough to provide tension anymore when we realise we'll never learn anything more about those characters, we'll never see them do more than get on ships and then jump off them when they sink, or fly around and shoot another fighter and then another. I get it that Nolan wanted to avoid contrivances, wanted to make a very visecral movie about war, but damnit, in that case it should have been a good 20 minutes shorter.

There's still enough here to make Dunkirk a worthwile movie to see on the big screen, but after how truly great I thought pretty much all of Nolan's previous movies were, this is rather disappointing, an impressive spectacle that sadly lacks characters and emotions to provide it with substance.

Alien Covenant.

The Alien series did not need prequels in my opinion, I was perfectly fine with the mystery behind the first Alien movie; where the Aliens came from and who the mysterious Alien ship belonged to. Thus I will conveniently pretend that Covenant and Prometheus are not part of the "true" lore, in the same way the Alien vs Predator movies are.

The cinematography of Covenant was really good though, and the acting was OK. The clear stand-out being Michael Fassbender, he was awesome.

However the storyline and plot is fully predictable and quite boring. The movie doesn't know whether it wants to be a sci-fi action horror in style of Aliens, or a slow-paced thriller in vein of Sunshine.

To be honest I would rather watch Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection than watch Covenant and Prometheus again, at least those movies were really entertaining to me.

I've just watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2239822. It's the most expensive movie ever made in France (figures vary, but 177 million US dollar is often mentioned). From its box office results, perhaps the last French attempt on a big budget movie for a long while.

That's a shame, because it's really well made, with lots of details and energy put on bringing the world to life. If you want a sci-fi spectacle, best viewed on a big screen, then go see it. If you want entertaining action, characters and humor, then go see it.

While the story is far from as dazzling as the visuals, it's not as clear cut or generic as most and I found it interesting. Then again, I have a tendency of liking big budget disasters, like Jupiter Ascending or John Carter.

Watched the first Starship Troopers movie. Never could get into the sequels.

What did you think?

Good that it happens to be at the top of the page for the moment :) This film completely passed underneath my radar until a cousin happened to mention it.
favorite part from the beginning : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP9Xw2KxvwM

I was engaged three times. I haven't been allowed to think for eons.

A lot different from the book but looking at it as just the movie, I didn't think it was that bad like some folks make it out to be. No, it's not gritty. Reminded me of Star Trek TOS.

Granted my dead grandmother could come up with better military tactics than folks running around in tight groups like that.

Call it more of a satire?

I am glad that they cut the scene of "Johnny" grabbing "Carmen" like that. Always wondered why it was there in the first place. No, I'm not linking to it.