TheSpoiler Reviews: Every Movie I Watched in March, April, and May of 2017

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TheSpoiler

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Hello everyone. I’m The Spoiler and back with another one of my “Reviewing every movie I watched in _____” things for the three or four of you who actually read them. This is a little later than I wanted, but I ran into some complications and decided to just wait to add May onto the other two months. On the plus side, that means you get even more of my words of wisdom.

If you’re confused, the title is just what it says: I’m going down every movie I watched in March, April, and May of this year and giving reviews of them (some are in-depth, others are just quick thoughts). I watched a lot recently, so strap yourself in; this will probably be long.

Logan

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“Logan” is the tenth film in the X-Men film series, and the final appearance of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan. People adored this movie and wouldn’t stop praising it, and that’s one of many things that led to me going to see it excited. I walked out feeling very underwhelmed and a little disappointed. I didn’t dislike it; it just didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I was going to write a review immediately after I saw it, but I just didn’t have the passion to do one at the time. That’s led to me writing this a couple months after actually seeing it, so apologies if my memory isn’t the best or if this feels all over the place (I have a lot of thoughts on it)

“Logan” takes a lot of inspiration from Mark Millar’s “Old Man Logan” comic, but thankfully only the good stuff and not the goofy nonsense that made that story a tonally inconsistent mess. It focuses on an older, past-his-prime Logan (played once again by Hugh Jackman) going on one last journey across the country to get a girl named Laura (played by Dafne Keen) to a safe haven. That’s pretty much it; it’s a journey like that broken up with some action scenes and random plot points existing to extend the movie’s length. A simple plot is fine if everything else is good enough to still hold the movie afloat, but this movie was lacking in some areas which we’ll get to later.

There’s a few highlights of this movie, but I think the acting is the main one, mainly from Hugh Jackman. He easily could have phoned it in since it’s his final time, but he’s still giving high-quality performances. There’s not much to say about him; he gives the same usual great performance he always has as Logan but managed to darken it a little to fit in with the film’s darker tone and the character’s more depressed mood. Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier again did well with what they gave him, even if I wasn’t a big fan of the material. Dafne Keen as Laura was solid too. Someone who I thought was a highlight but barely anyone mentions is Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce. The guy had a certain charm and presence to him that a lot of villains in these movies seem to lack, and Boyd fit the character pretty well. I also really enjoyed Stephan Merchant as Caliban, but he’s another one I hear barely anyone brought up.

Unfortunately, when it comes to characters in the movie, really only Logan stood out. The five I just mentioned are the only ones with any real role, except for a woman early on who only exists to jump-start the plot. There was a farmer and his family that pop in at about the half-way point, but they don’t add anything other than a bit of a distraction. Various kids in the final act are just background characters and plot details, nothing more. And of the five I named, two of them barely do anything. Caliban only existed as a plot device to set up some conflict, and Donald didn’t get anywhere near as much screen time as I would have wanted and didn’t get very fleshed out. Laura played a big role, but didn’t have much of a character; she didn’t even speak for half the movie. I know this fits in with her character and any potential future movies would be able to add more depth to her (like with the comics; X-23: Innocence Lost didn’t have her be some highly fleshed out person), but I can’t judge her on what she might become if featured in future films. If I wasn’t already a fan of her in the comics, I would have no reason to care about her in this, which isn’t good when she’s the main catalyst of the plot.

There is one other thing in the movie that could arguably count as a character. I wouldn’t, but they are at least humanoid. It’s presented as a twist about mid-way in, so I won’t spoil it, but I will say that they came off very forced in-film and the entire concept just seemed really dumb and gimmicky to me. It led to me not caring about any of the action scenes, because they just seemed overly ridiculous. Ridiculous stuff can work in the proper movie if the film presents itself that way (I enjoyed all the Spidey vs. Green Goblin stuff in the original movie, and that was pretty ridiculous), but Logan keeps trying to push itself as super serious and otherwise feels fairly grounded (for X-Men standards).

Back to the plot, some more details involve Logan’s healing factor slowly fading away, making him vulnerable. Just like the last Wolverine solo film (the highly underrated “The Wolverine”). I know that they have to do something to make fight scenes with him more compelling since he can heal from so much, but it feels really cheap to have the same plot detail two movies in a row. That’s actually a common issue in Logan: it borrows a lot from previous movies. You have Logan losing his healing factor from The Wolverine, you have Logan trying to help a bunch of mutant kids be set free from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, you have Logan fighting basically an evil version of himself from X-Men, X2: X-Men United, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It reminds me a lot of X-Men: Apocalypse in borrowing a lot from previous films, and seemingly not even as a cool reference; they’re just out of ideas. While I’d hate to see Marvel get the franchise, I honestly think it may be time to end these if they can’t do anything new.

One of the bigger issues with the movie is that the more emotional moments didn’t have anywhere near the impact they should have. One happens about mid-way through the movie and we should be really sad about it, but they mix it with a big plot twist/reveal and follow it up with a huge action scene which leads to us not having any time to react or respond to what should have been a hard-hitting, emotional scene. There’s one at the end that handles it much better, and has some amazing presentation in how it was paced and written. But it’s so predictable that I found myself not caring, as I wanted pretty much anything to spice it up and not give us exactly what I expected. Again, it’s amazingly well-presented and I respect the work, but I didn’t feel much of anything.

Really, all the issues I had with “The Wolverine” were still present in “Logan”. There weren’t many interesting characters besides Logan (though The Wolverine had Yukio, which is more than Logan did. Plus The Wolverine was set in Japan so there’s a bit of a culture barrier; what’s Logan’s excuse?), the final fight is overly ridiculous compared to what came before, and everything is predictable. I like James Mangold, but he didn’t learn anything between films.

On the positive side, I really liked all the barren, desert scenery that was in the film early on. It stood out as looking unique, and fit the style they were going for. I was really disappointed by the end when it was just boring forest scenes.

The action was overall very well-done in the movie (outside of the most cliche thing imaginable happening in the climax) and looked good, but it relates to an issue: The R Rating. What was the point of it? There was some blood and chopped limbs (nothing graphic, thankfully) in the action scenes, but overall they were basically what we saw in previous movies; they went further than was necessary. There was a bunch of cursing and f-bomb droppings (mainly from Charles) that was forced and didn’t need to be there. One time a woman briefly showed her breasts, and that was really pointless. There was absolutely nothing in the plot that required R rated content (they possibly could have had that if they went into more detail over Laura’s creation, but they skimmed over it). So again, why was it R rated? It felt like a desperate attempt to get approval from comic fans who wanted it for some reason and to seem more artsy for the critic crowd.

I have more I could say, but I don’t want to spoil anything. I know I’m really negative towards Logan, and I apologize for that. I did genuinely walk out saying I liked it; it was just underwhelming. The plot had issues and a lot of unoriginality, and most of the characters didn’t stand out. But the cast was great, there were some good moments, I liked the atmosphere of the whole thing, the action was good, etc. I do think Logan is a good movie; it’s just not as great as I thought or hoped it would be.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

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Beauty and the Beast is an adaption of the 1991 animated film of the same name. It features a woman named Belle (played by Emma Watson) taken prisoner in the castle of The Beast (played by Dan Stevens), where she meets the Beast’s staff of talking objects and eventually starts forming a romance with The Beast himself, all while a guy named Gaston (played by Luke Evans) tries to do whatever it takes to get Belle to be his wife. I know this movie causes massive “What’s the point of this?” and “Cash-grab” thoughts in your head, and I’m not going to say the idea behind it wasn’t a cash-grab, but the actual work put into the film is amazing and it clearly had passionate people behind it.

It’s a little hard to praise the movie for its story since the original movie already perfected it, but for what it’s worth, I really enjoyed it. It was very well-paced and pretty faithful to the original. There were some changes to the original, the most notable one I remember was that they added a little more backstory to the Beast and made him a big fan of books, which is one of the things he and Belle bond over. They also add a little bit about Belle’s mother that added some more emotion to things. Apologies if these were in the original; it’s been a while since I watched it, but I don’t remember those and can’t find anything about it online.

The thing that really makes this movie is the cast. Emma Watson is fantastic as Belle, as is Dan Stevens as the Beast. They work well together and just felt right. The main highlight to me was Luke Evans as Gaston; he was phenomenal. He’s less chartoonish in this version, seems far more unhinged, and does some bad things that go beyond the original. Evans pulls it off perfectly, from the cockiness early on to being more obsessed and deranged. Basically, Luke Evans is fantastic and needs to be in more movies. For other stand-out cast members: Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen as Lumiere and Cogsworth, respectively, sounds completely random but somehow manage to steal most of the scenes they’re in. Especially McGregor. Aside from Gaston, I think Lumiere was my favorite character. Special shout-out to Josh Gad as Le Fou; I really enjoyed him.

Beauty and the Beast looks fantastic. I had some concerns about how the Beast’s staff would work in live action, but I thought they were pulled off really well. Some changes were made to their design from the animated version, but I thought they looked good. I was especially impressed with how Lumiere turned out. The Beast, while fairly different from the animated, also looked pretty good; I think they tried making his face more human so you could see the emotion, but it worked well. Aside from their designs and effects, all the sets and costumes looked amazing and just like you’d hope. From a production standpoint, the whole movie is great.

What helps the production be so good are the music sequences (it’s a musical, so they were expected). They went all out with these and they were incredible. The songs were performed very well, with Emma Watson, Luke Evans, and Ewan McGregor showing some surprisingly good singing skills, were memorable (my favorites were “Be Our Guest” and “Gaston”), and I was in awe multiple times at the visuals over the music (“Be Our Guest”, again, “The Mob Song”, and the dancing scene which I forget the name of stand out for me in that aspect). Again, the production on this movie was amazing.

In terms of criticisms of the movie, I don’t have any major ones. There were some jokes that I didn’t find funny, but nothing that ultimately hurt the movie. I thought that Madame de Garderobe (The Wardrobe) really didn’t work well in live action, but she’s such a small part of the movie that she didn’t hurt anything. That’s about all I recall in terms of complaints with the movie; it was just that well-made.

As I’ve probably let on, I loved Beauty and the Beast. It was great and better than it had any right to be. It actually gives me some hope that Disney’s future live action attempts won’t turn out to be the epic failures I was expecting (except for Tim Burton’s Dumbo. Did anyone ask for that?). I’m very happy this is doing so well; I had a fantastic time watching it. Of the two films I’ve seen, definitely my favorite of the year so far and it has a good chance of still being my favorite when the year’s over (if/when I make a list in December or January and Beauty and the Beast is at the top, don’t say I didn’t warn you).

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10

Cloud Atlas

A foreign poster was all I could find on short notice; sorry
A foreign poster was all I could find on short notice; sorry

Keep in mind that I have not read the Cloud Atlas book; I’m only judging this on its own.

Describing “Cloud Atlas” is a bit hard. It doesn’t have one single plot; the film has six different plots that it rotates between. These six plots take place across various time periods and tell very different stories and are also pretty much different genres, mainly only being connected by some of the same actors & actress and some common themes the stories share. There’s one in the mid 1800s involving a lawyer discovering a stowaway slave on a ship he’s using, one that’s kind of a love story in the 1930s about a composer, one in the 1970s involving a journalist trying to investigate & uncover a story others are trying to hide, a more goofy, comedic one in 2012 London about a guy unknowingly getting trapped in a nursing home, a sci-fi story set in a far future South Korea about what’s basically a clone telling her backstory and learning about a government conspiracy, and one in a post-apocalyptic future about a guy being haunted with visions. The plots certainly have more to them than I’m describing, along with some stronger connections, but I’m doing my best to not spoil anything.

Trying to balance that many unrelated stories that aren’t even the same genre easily could have been a mess, but everything in the movie fit together perfectly. I think the credit for it working so well goes to the editing. I have some trouble describing a film’s technical aspects, but I have to praise them here; the transitions from one story to the next were timed extremely well, and everything just flowed together naturally.

If we’re talking about more technical aspects, then I also have to give credit to the make-up. I mentioned that the stories share some of the same actors & actress, and the make-up does an amazing job at differentiating them between their roles yet still make sure they look similar enough that I could recognize them like they intended. At least I could usually recognize them; there were some I didn’t, and I was amazed at some things when I saw the credits and they showed all the characters who each single actor/actress played (I specifically recall one with Halle Berry that left me speechless). Also, on a technical note, the CGI looked pretty great when they used it.

Back to the cast, I thought they did a really good job. Jim Sturgese and Ben Whishaw delivered what were probably my favorite performances, but there was also some excellent acting from Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, and Keith David just to name a few. There’s not much to say; they just all delivered really well.

And back to the stories themselves: They need to be good for the film to be good, and I would say that they’re all great for the most part. They were all intriguing, entertaining to watch unfold, paced well, and pretty well-written. I was going to say what my favorite was, but I honestly can’t decide. I liked them all and never found myself wanting one to be over so I could go back to watching another, with one exception: I wasn’t that big a fan of the post-apocalypse one with Tom Hanks. It’s really a shame, as it has arguably the most interesting setting, arguably looks the best (some of the designs & make-up were phenomenal), and has a great performance from Hanks. But I just found it the most boring out of all of them and, except for a cool action scene, I found myself just wanting it to end so I could watch one of the interesting stories. Still, I won’t let that one take away from how great the others were. The post-apocalypse one wasn’t even bad; I just wasn’t as interested in it as the others.

In terms of negatives, I don’t have much to say outside of what I said earlier about the post-apocalypse one. I have a minor nit pick with the 2012 London one, in that it starts off with what looks to be the main plot but turns into something very different and near unrelated. It’s not even like the movie was trying to shock us with a twist; how we got there made sense, it just felt a bit unrelated to the initial set up that I don’t even remember being carried on with. Still, this story was still a lot of fun and provided some nice levity to the serious stories, so I won’t complain too much.

Outside of that, my only issue is that I thought it got a bit too violent/gruesome at times. Like I remember one scene where a character visibly gets their head bashed in. You don’t see real guts or anything outside of blood, but it still felt a little overboard and un-needed to me. Though as someone who loves the Saw films, I don’t know why this was an issue for me to watch.

Overall, “Cloud Atlas” is one of the few times I can say I was blown away by a movie. I would probably have already praised it for how ambitious and creative it was, but the fact it was all executed near flawlessly just made it even more impressive to me. I got this and a few other movies from the library (yes, people still use those), and at the time of writing haven’t watched any of the others yet. I’m honestly scared to since I’m not sure any of the other three can compare, which should say a lot. I’ve spent a decent portion of the day after I watched this (today, going by when I’m writing) trying to come up with reasons I may be overhyping it so I don’t sound like a fangirl, but I can’t think of any strong criticism I have; I’m too blown away by some scenes, the editing, and how enthralled I was with the stories as I watched. Like I said, this is near-flawless to me and is one of the strongest reactions I’ve had to a movie in quite some time.

Overall Rating: 9 out of 10

Moonlight

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My fears of Cloud Atlas being so good that it altered my opinion on other movies have thankfully been put to rest, as Moonlight was completely lackluster and underwhelming on its own merits without having to be compared to anything. See? I’m unbiased.

“Moonlight” is a coming of age movie that goes through three eras of a guy’s life as he discovers himself or his sexuality or whatever. There’s not much of an actual plot; it’s just scenes connected to each other. I don’t think trying to be character-driven and just explore one person without a big plot is a problem for a movie, but it is a problem when they don’t do anything interesting with it. The second part of the movie is kind of decent, but I think I only feel that way because of how flat and boring the first and third parts were.

None of the characters were interesting, and the cast’s performance didn’t help things. With a few exceptions, the only time they were able to express any emotion is when they were trying to be rude, angry, an a-hole, or a combination of those. When they weren’t doing that, pretty much every line was delivered really blandly; everyone did that thing where they’re quiet and flat to try and sound like the movie is more serious and deep than it actually is. The last time I saw this done was in Fant4stic, because ripping off that movie’s decisions is clearly a wise move. I don’t blame the cast for this though; I think it was just the direction they were given.

Speaking of the direction, the camera work in “Moonlight” is terrible. Less than three minutes in, and I was put off twice at how bad it was. The camera was shaking at several points for no reason, which I think it was to create a chaotic feeling (like a lot of action movies try for, or the Saw series), but there was no reason for it to feel chaotic. There was also an obsession with twirling the camera around characters when they’re standing there and talking, which was just disorienting.

I feel like I should focus on the “story” and writing more, but I don’t have a lot to say. The first and especially third parts just felt flat and boring. The second part was slightly better as at least some stuff was happening but, outside of one scene where a guy is hit with a chair, none of it managed to draw me in. Wasn’t helped by some bad pieces of writing, like a sex scene about half-way in that felt really forced.

I just don’t have much to say about “Moonlight”. It wasn’t bad; it was just underwhelming.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10

Room

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“Room” is about teaching me why I should write notes as I watch; I finished it about two minutes ago and already forget some points I know I wanted to make. But to legitimately talk about the movie’s premise, I have to break it up into Movie 1 and Movie 2, as the whole thing got bored with itself half-way through and completely changed at that point.

Movie One’s premise is about a mother & son (played by Brie Larson and Jacob Trembly), who are held in captivity in some guy’s shed. It focuses on their lives there and the affects the living conditions have, and eventually the mother decides to try some escape attempts. That’s about it really. It’s a good premise, but that’s all it is: a premise. There wasn’t enough here to carry a whole movie, and it shows. I’m fine with a slow moving movie, but this felt like it dragged on a few times and felt worse when the movie started deliberately wasting my time. Despite that, it still couldn’t get a proper run time and pretty much ended half-way in. Which led us into Movie Two:

I won’t spoil Movie Two’s premise, but any draw that Movie One had is gone here. It feels like a bad sequel that was never planned and only made because the first one was successful, except it was tacked onto the first movie’s release before they knew its success. They reference the plot of Movie One, but it doesn’t have much of anything to do with it. It doesn’t even do much of anything with itself. It runs into the same problem as “Moonlight” in there’s no real plot or point to anything; we’re just watching things happen. I was going to complain that this one just stops without even getting an ending, but I guess it’s hard to have a real ending when you don’t have a real plot. I was sort of on board with “Room” during the first half, despite complaints, but this is where they lost me.

On the positive side, the movie was very well presented. The cinematography looked good, it had a pretty good soundtrack, and managed to be manipulative enough that I almost thought I felt something towards it a couple times. Though even here there’s some issues, like that there were several shots (like the final moment) that went on way too long for no reason. Or how during Movie Two, they add narration that I don’t think was there before. The narrator just tells us how they’re feeling at certain points, because the movie isn’t allowed to show us for some reason.

So cut out Movie Two, and fix Movie One’s length so it doesn’t feel dragged or like it’s wasting my time, and there’s a movie I’d find kind of decent.

The last major thing I want to talk about is the kid, Jack. I won’t bash the actor too much since he’s just a kid, but the character could be really annoying. He was tolerable for the most part, but I felt like my skull was being ripped open every time he started screaming (which was several times). Is this realistic for a five-year-old? Maybe. Is this good for a film? No, no it’s not. Same thing for when the kid would just say something irritating, though he was too boring for that to happen most of the time.

The rest of the cast is pretty un-noteworthy. Brie Larson did a solid enough job I guess, but nothing spectacular.

I feel really bad about bashing “Room” so much. I didn’t feel any strong dislike towards it, and I was fairly interested in Movie One. But once it was over, pretty much all I could think about were the negative aspects while any enjoyment I got just faded away from memory. Flaws about a film do sometimes not register with me until thinking about it later on, but it never really impacts my overall like of a movie (The Dark Knight Rises is a great example of this). So when any like I had for something fades away within a few minutes, that’s not a good sign. It’s also why I’m deciding to give “Room” a 5 rather than the 6 I was considering; as more time goes on, I just feel frustration towards it.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

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“Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children” is a name I hate. It’s long and doesn’t flow well, leading to it being awkward to say aloud. Plus I keep forgetting how to spell her name when I have to write it. But I can forgive that, because I enjoyed the movie itself.

The movie’s set-up reminds me a lot of the X-Men. It involves Miss Peregrine (played by Eva Green) running a closed-off home/school for kids who were born with strange powers and often look bizarre physically. The plot of this movie involves a kid named Jake (played by Asa Butterfield) meeting Peregrine and the peculiars after hearing stories of them from his grandfather and discovers a threat endangering them. While my terrible description didn’t help, trying to explain that highlights my biggest issue with the movie: The basic structure of it is kind of off. I thought the set-up went on for too long, we didn’t get to experience as much of the home in a standard state as I wanted, and it’s not until about half-way in that the main threat/conflict of the movie is introduced.

Despite that, I did enjoy a lot of the movie individually. The part of the movie where Jake finds the home and we’re introduced to all the characters and how things work was something I really liked. There was a lot of creative stuff going on there and it was presented well. The climax of the whole thing is also pretty great; there’s more creative things going on and all the characters get a chance to shine.

Visually, the movie is really impressive. It does get really creepy and kind of scary at times, which is odd since it’s not horror, but I was still amazed at the design on pretty much everyone that wasn’t a regular human. Aside from character designs, there several scenes and sets that also really impressed me (like the bomb dropping or the sunken boat). I’m underselling it, but this movie was a marvel to look at.

The cast wasn’t anything special overall, but I really loved Eva Green and Samuel L. Jackson. Saying I loved Jackson probably doesn’t mean much, but he was really enjoyable in this and seemed to be having fun. Not much to say about Eva; she was just great, fit the role, and had good presence. Can we get here in more movies?

The only character/actor I wasn’t really into was Asa Butterfield as Jake. Which isn’t good when he’s the protagonist. He just came off as fairly boring compared to everything else. I had no interest in what happened to him; I just wanted to see the interesting stuff the movie offered.

There was a funny exchange that happened in the movie: “You can continue to live in 2016 “Why would I do that?” I know it’s not what the movie was going for, but I found it funny since it fits with pretty much declaring 2016 a terrible year.

I apologize for this not being that great; I’m not in the best state of mind at the moment. But I did really enjoy this movie, despite its faults, and I’d recommend it.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10

Taken

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Taken is about a former CIA agent name Bryan Mills (played by the always awesome Liam Neeson). While on a trip to France, his daughter Kim (played by Maggie Grace) is kidnaped (or “taken”, thus the title) which leads to Bryan going on a journey to get her back. That’s about it in terms of plot; it’s simple, but it manages to make everything work.

The first thing I have to say is that Liam Neeson is awesome as Bryan. He’s really the main thing holding the movie together and I’m not sure it’d work without him. He gave a good performance, was believable, and brought good intensity to the role. I also liked Bryan himself, even if he is kind of a d*ck. He still comes off as more sympathetic than anyone he’s going after.

I enjoyed all the action in the movie. It was a bit over-edited at times, but overall was well-shot and fun to watch. It felt pretty tense at times, especially in the climax.

The movie also managed to create some emotional investment with me, which I was surprised by. They did a good enough job setting everything up that I was concerned about Kim and wanted to see Bryan succeed. They only had about 20 minutes at the beginning before she was taken, so I was impressed they could get something done in that time.

My biggest issue with the movie is that the plot is really predictable. I know the plot wasn’t anything with much depth to begin with, but it has a couple twists in it and I called them long before the film got around to even hinting at them.

I was also surprised at the movie having multiple moments I found funny. They’re played so straight that I don’t know if they were even meant to be humorous, but I didn’t think any of them took away from the movie, so I didn’t mind.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Taken. It’s not some cinematic masterpiece, but it does a good job at what it sets out to do and I found it pretty enjoyable.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10

Les Misérables

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I was a huge fan of Veggie Tales when I was a kid. I remember an episode “Lyle the Kindly Viking” that was a musical, and there was a moment where Larry kept singing his lines after a song had already stopped. Bob told him to stop, Larry sang “But it’s a musical” and Bob said, “Yeah, but not every line in a musical is a song”. Well Les Misérables didn’t take Bob’s advice, as pretty much every piece of dialogue was part of a song. I say pretty much all of it and not literally all of it because there was one moment where I couldn’t tell if a guy was actually trying to speak regularly or he just sucked at singing and it came out as talking.

I admit I haven’t seen many musicals, but I’m used to ones where they have big singing set pieces with regular film scenes in between just showing the characters talking to progress the plot and give context to the songs, similar to what I saw with Beauty and the Beast. But since Les Misérables doesn’t do this and has to get the plot & characters explained entirely through singing, which makes things pretty hard to follow. It also leads to there being no breathing room in between the songs & plot points, leading to me feeling like I’m watching a summarized version of the story. I don’t mean that in the same way as I say The Hunger Games or The Fault In Our Stars feel a little rushed in spots after reading the books, as they still tell the entirety of the story properly just without as much detail; I mean I feel like I was seeing the cliffnotes to the story someone was telling me to prove they read the book. It’s especially bad it feels this rushed when you remember it has an ungodly 158 minute runtime.

From what I could make out of the plot behind the terrible structure and mediocre singing: Hugh Jackman plays a former convict, has some sort of tension with a guy involved in the police, and does something with a prostitute played by Anne Hathaway and her daughter. It jumps all over the place in time, and I think eventually gets involved in the Paris Uprising. The story just isn’t told in a very good way and it made it hard to get any sort of investment in, I see ideas that could make a good story, so I’m sure the book is good, but I’m judging the movie and I didn’t like the plot as it was presented.

It’s hard to really judge the acting since it was mostly singing. I sort of liked Anne Hathaway, and Hugh Jackman just has a certain presence to him that makes me always enjoy him. That’s about it though. I want to say I liked Russel Crowe, but I don’t even remember what he was like singing, and I don’t remember much of anyone else besides Hathaway’s daughter (who I have nothing to say on).

I really didn’t like Les Misérables. It is a pretty impressive from a production standpoint, but none of that really mixes well with trying to tell a coherent or interesting movie. Again, I’m sure the book and original play is good. But none of it translated well to film. I was torn between a 3 and 4 for this, but I’ll give it a 4 since I didn’t hate watching it; I was just bored, confused, and wanted it to end.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 10

Taken 2

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Warning: Potential spoilers for the first movie are in this section. I don’t think it’s anything surprising, but I still want to give the warning to be safe.

Even though I enjoyed the first Taken, part of me questions why this exists. I really didn’t see what more they could do with the premise. I still sort of feel that way after watching, but I will say that this is probably the best a sequel to a stupidly fun but ultimately un-notable action movie could be.

Taken 2 focuses on Bryan again, who is now being threatened by relatives of people he killed in the first movie. That was immediately my biggest issue with Taken 2; I can tolerate simple motives for bad guys (the first movie was just people kidnaping girls to sell them into sexual slavery) if it’s believable, but in addition to being bare-bones simple it felt kind of forced here.

While on vaction, Bryan and his ex-wife Lenore (played by Famke Jansen) are taken by the mentioned-above bad guys in trying to get revenge. Then it’s just about Bryan trying to get himself & Lenore out alive while guiding his daughter to try and help them. That’s it for plot; it’s not even as complex as the first movie. I thought the plot also had some pacing issues; a lot of it feels like the first act of a movie to provide a set-up for the rest of it with higher stakes, but it’s almost time for the climax by the time that sequence is over.

However, I did like some things in the plot. I enjoyed seeing Kim having a bigger role and contributing. I really liked sequences of her trying to hide/escape from some people and Bryan guiding her to do things to help, even if a lot of it felt very contrived.

Unfortunately, gaining that meant losing some of what I liked in the first movie. I really enjoyed that the first movie wasn’t just Bryan going places to shoot (even if that did happen quite a lot); he did a lot of investigation to find where Kim is/was until finally getting to her. Investigative aspects aren’t present in Taken 2 at all. It’s literally just them being kidnaped towards the beginning, Kim hiding, Bryan guiding her over phone calls, and eventually shooting starts.

As for how the shooting is, since it was fun in the first one: I said it was a bit over-edited in the first one, but they go way overboard here. There are so many constant changes in views and cutaways that it got incoherent to watch at times. It was alright when they cut down on that, but nothing spectacular. They did kept a lot of the tense feeling the first one had, and actually improved on the tense aspect in a lot of scenes. I found myself on the edge of my seat more often here than in the first one.

Despite me not praising the action too much, they made up for that with a pretty incredible car chase scene. At first it seemed just cool, but as time went on they kept adding more to it, made it more over the top and exciting, and it was just glorious. It kind of felt like something out of Saints Row or Grand Theft Auto. Just a great sequence that hasn’t left my mind.

Liam Neeson still does a good job, even if at times I felt Bryan was getting a bit too over-the-top ridiculous in some stuff he was doing. I liked Famke Jansen, but I feel like most actresses could do well in her role. I sorta feel the same way about Maggie Grace, but there’s something about her that draws me into caring. The rest of the cast is fine & serviceable, but not noteworthy.

I know I’ve sounded pretty negative towards Taken 2, which is sad. I did enjoy watching the movie, even if I see the obvious problems it has. During the final scene & credits, I felt very content & satisfied with what I just watched and how it all unfolded. I want to give this a 7, but I’m going to do my best to be unbiased and give it a 6. But I still really enjoyed it, and I’d recommend it if you liked the first one. Just don’t go in expecting some masterpiece.

Overall Rating: 6 out of 10

Taken 3

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Taken 3 is barely a Taken movie. The bad guys have nothing to do with the first two, there’s none of the foreign locations or scenery like the first two, and most importantly, nobody’s actually taken.

The basic plot involves Bryan (once again played by Liam Neeson) being framed for a murder he didn’t commit. I know he’s innocent of this one, but he killed dozens (probably into the hundreds) of people in the first two movies. Shouldn’t he still be arrested for that? Or at the very least, the constant cases in this movie of him assaulting cops and resisting arrest?

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Taken 3; it really didn’t leave me with feeling much of anything. There was still some decent stuff with his daughter in there, but nothing that compelling. I’m not sure Maggie Grace even wanted to be here, which led to something feeling off about the scenes, even if something did emotionally touch me. Outside of Liam Neeson, who was still enjoyable, I don’t really remember anyone’s performance standing out much.

As for the plot: I already pointed out my issues with it not feeling like Taken and the idea of Bryan being innocent of murder is kind of ridiculous, even if he was in this specific case. I liked that they tried doing something a little different, but it wasn’t that interesting and the setting led to the movie lacking the spectacle of the first two. I also liked that they tried adding some of the investigation stuff back in this one, but they didn’t go all the way with it and, again, it just wasn’t that interesting.

I keep saying it wasn’t interesting or compelling, which is a perfect description of Taken 3. It didn’t do anything specifically bad, but it just didn’t do anything great or very compelling. I still got some enjoyment out of it, simply because it’s Liam Neeson in a Taken movie, but I won’t lie and say it was that good or anything. I’ll give it another 6, because I did like some parts to it. Again, I recommend it if you’re a fan of the series, but don’t go in with high hopes.

As much as I enjoyed the trilogy, I am glad it’s over and they’re done trying to milk this franchise longer than they should have.

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Oh come on!

Overall rating: 6 out of 10

Let The Right One In

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If this sounds familiar, it may be because you’ve heard of “Let Me In”. This was the original Swedish version; Let Me In was a remake. I loved Let Me In, but did a poor job reviewing it in the past, so hopefully I do better here.

“Let The Right One In” is based on a novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist. John also wrote the screenplay to this movie, so I assume it’s an accurate adaption. It focuses on a 12-year-old boy named Oskar (played by Kare Hedebrant), who meets a vampire girl named Eli (played by Lina Leandersson) and primarily focuses on their relationship. There’s also some stuff in there about Oskar being bullied and Eli killing a few people in town and their reactions to that. I can already tell I can’t describe this one properly either.

I already knew from the American version that I loved the plot, but it needs to be stated here again: I love the plot to this movie. I found it very compelling, and the relationship between Oskar and Eli is very well-written and escalated naturally.

The acting is hard to judge, because it’s a Swedish movie. The whole movie was in Swedish and I watched a version dubbed with English language. So I really can’t praise or criticize the acting, since the voices I heard may have been delivered completely differently than the original actors & actresses did. I will say that I thought all the movements and facial expressions looked good.

I apologize for having barely anything to say here, but it’s 1) a character-driven film where I would spoil it to describe what they do, and 2) a foreign movie where I didn’t hear the original voices and can’t judge the acting. What I can talk about though is the filmmaking itself. The atmosphere this movie creates is amazing, just always having a feeling of uneasiness to it that really helped the horror film, yet never going too far into the uneasy/creepy feeling that the emotional and sentimental scenes feel out of place. The cinematography looked fantastic too.

Again, I apologize for having so little to say here. Basically, if you have even a slim interest in a romantic horror film: Watch Let The Right One in, you’ll love it. If you don’t have an interest in those genres mixed, then don’t bother. I personally loved it, but I think I’ll probably watch the American version in the future if I want to revisit it (simply for convenience).

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10

Arrival

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Arrival is one of those movies that’s really hard to explain and still make it seem appealing, but I’ll do my best. The premise to Arrival involves several space ships landing around the Earth. Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams) is brought in to help Ian Donnley (played by Jeremy Renner) learn how to communicate with the aliens and find out while they’re there. While the movies are very different, the basic plot structure reminds me a lot of The Martian; there’s a core problem introduced early on and the majority of the movie is about scientists working on how to solve that problem. It’d be very easy to screw this up and make it boring, but like The Martian, they made it work fantastically.

As I probably just gave away, I really enjoyed the story. I thought it was well-paced, interesting, built a lot of intrigue (especially when they first go onto the ship and how long it takes), and was very well-presented. I also enjoyed the bits where they’re showing news reports and some public reaction to the aliens; it didn’t take over the film but felt like a realistic portrayal of the events. While less story focused, I thought it was really interesting to see and hear a lot of talk about language, such as Louise trying to explain how difficult it is to explain the language to them to communicate. And while it’s a minor detail, I loved how they portrayed the aliens’ language; it was more of a shape that changed rather than an alphabet. It was just really creative to me.

“Arrival” has a twist at the end that I think will determine what a lot of people think of the movie overall. I won’t go into it to avoid spoiling anyone, but I will say that I personally really liked it. It fit into the movie’s narrative amazingly well, and looking back I’m kind of amazed at how well the whole thing was executed. I’ve heard some complaints that it was only there for the writers to show how clever they are, but I really don’t get that; considering what a big role it plays in the movie, it’s a cental part of the story. You’d need to have it in mind when making this. Maybe the entire movie was made just for a few people to show their cleverness, but I really doubt they’d spent a few dozen million just for a few people to show off how clever they are.

I thought the acting to the movie was very good. Jeremy Renner came off as kind of boring in the Avengers movies to me, but I thought he did well here and showcased some nice personality. Amy Adams was pretty fantastic; there were a few times I thought she was a little flat, but it fit that scene very well and she pulled off other emotions very well at different points. The rest of the cast did a good job, but nothing I feel is worth noting.

From a pure film-making standpoint, this was still very good. The soundtrack was great, and the cinematography looked good. I’m a bit confused by the shape of the ships and how they worked, but they did look good.

My biggest issue with the movie is that I never felt quite as strongly attached to the characters as I could. I was very interested in what they were doing, but I was never too interested in them themselves if that makes sense. I think the movie maybe could have used a little more time to show the main characters a little more outside of their work so we could get to know them a bit more. But I was happy with where they ultimately ended up, so it wasn’t too bad.

While not the movie’s fault, I don’t quite get what the “questions it makes the audience think about” were that I heard some critics hyping up. I’m admittedly not smart enough to get stuff like that, so maybe that plays a role, but I thought there’d be a little something more. But we still got an excellent story with good presentation, pacing, and acting, so I can’t complain much.

At the time of writing, I finished Arrival about two hours ago. As that time’s gone on, my opinion of it has gone up more and more. It’s the kind of movie that you like as it’s going on, but really appreciate more once it’s over and you can see the whole picture. Between that and the fact it’s still so heavily on my mind afterwards, I feel pretty confident in saying Arrival is great. I was going to declare it my favorite movie of 2016, but something else came along I liked even more that we’ll get to in a bit. I was torn on what to give this, but in the end I decided to go with a very strong 8.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10

Prisoners

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The plot of Prisoners involves the daughters of Keller Dover (played by Hugh Jackman) and Franklin Birch (played by Terrence Howard) going missing. Detective Loki (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) begins an investigation to find them and who took them, but Keller eventually decides Loki isn’t doing enough and tries to take matters into his own hands.

There is more to the plot than that, involving some plot twists and several potential suspects, but I won’t spoil it since a lot of the plot is built on a mystery and reveals. I will however say that I found the plot to be really good. It has a simple hook, kept me enthralled and intrigued throughout the whole movie, everything made sense, and it ended perfectly. The story reached a logical conclusion that wasn’t too happy or too sad and, while I was a little unsure what to think at first, the final moment of the movie was the perfect place to stop it. I’ve heard some criticize the plot for being too predictable, but I personally I didn’t think that.

Even if the plot is predictable to you, I still think the movie can get past that since the real focus of the movie is on the characters. The plot is mainly there to give us a reason to follow these characters and see their emotional and mental state affected by the whole situation, which I think was handled beautifully. You see characters kind of go too far and lose their morality, get caught up with and obsessed with finding the girls, become a complete mental wreck, and sometimes a combination of those. It can be kind of sad to watch, but the execution was great and it was very compelling and emotional.

I think the main reason all of that was so good was the fantastic acting. Hugh Jackman was the stand out in my opinion, giving my favorite performance from him I’ve ever seen. He perfectly showcased the anger and intensity you’d expect from the character, while still showing the emotion, sadness, and desperation behind it. Just a fantastic performance from him. A close second for best performance is Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki. I don’t have quite as much to say about him, but he came off as very believable in his role (especially in one scene where he gets frustrated and just starts hitting and throwing things around his desk) and like Jackman showed the emotion you’d expect.

Aside from the big two, I really enjoyed the performances from Terrence Howard and Viola Davis (as Nancy Birch), with Maria Bello (as Grace Dover) also doing pretty well. While his character didn’t speak too much so it’s hard to judge completely, I also loved Paul Dano as Alex Jones (not that one), even if he wasn’t the most interesting character.

The reason I’m not going into as much detail about these people as I did Jackman and Gyllenhaal brings me to my biggest problem with the movie: For something that was trying to focus on the characters, I don’t think it gave enough focus to all of them. I understand that Keller and Loki were the main characters, but I still feel like they could have done more with the Birches than just give both of them almost the same character arc. Did I mention that the Dovers also have an older son and the Birches have an older daughter? No? That’s because the son (Ralph, played by Dylan Minnette) is pretty much irrelevant to the movie outside of two scenes. That’s still more than the other daughter (Eliza, played by Zoe Soul) added to the movie. I literally only know her name because I looked it up on Wikipedia.

The other big issue I have with the movie is the first ten minutes or so. It’s not bad, but it’s pretty much exactly how you’d think this movie would start: It shows both families getting together for Thanksgiving, having fun, and just being happy. Then the girls go missing, everyone panics, and the movie begins. Again, this wasn’t bad; it was just an uncreative way to open. It obviously improved, but it didn’t leave the best first impression.

The only other complaint I have is that the movie is set in the real world and features a guy named “Loki”. No one ever questions this, brings up how unusual his name is, or points out he’s named after the Norse god/Marvel villain. I also once read a manga that had a character named Loki and no one questioned it. Is “Loki” just a common name and I’m unaware of it?

Back to the actual movie though: There was one piece of music used throughout the whole thing that sounded incredible. I’m listening to it as I write and, while it’s not quite as impactful without the scenes to go with it, it’s a good piece of music. Just another little detail to add on to this movie’s greatness. The movie also had some really great cinematography (despite a couple weird angles for shots), leading to it looking gorgeous despite not really having any special sets.

If I haven’t made the point yet through me praising the acting, characters, plot, music, and everything else, Prisoners was a phenomenal movie. I was enthralled while watching it, and it seemed to get better as time went on. I’m currently working on a Top 25 favorite movies list and have decided Prisoners is getting in the top 10 (unless I’m somehow able to find & watch enough movies I love enough that they’re ranked that highly, which seems unlikely), so that should say how much I liked it. And that’s with some scenes that were a bit hard to watch due to the subject matter, which should showcase how well made the movie is. I’d strongly recommend Prisoners as you can tell; I called it a masterpiece once it was over.

Overall Rating: 9 out of 10

I got this from the library at the same time as Arrival, without even realizing they’re from the same director (Denis Villeneuve). After how good both of them were, I think I’m gonna keep my eyes out for more movies from this guy.

Predestination

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I wasn’t sure whether or not to include Predestination in this list, simply because I think it’s impossible to talk about properly to someone who hasn’t seen it. Aside from not wanting to spoil anything, your brains would probably explode when I start describing the second half. Before I badly describe it and drive people away, let me just say that this was a fantastic movie that I strongly recommend. Make sure to not read much of anything about it, its plot, or even cast before going in; it’s better going in blind.

As for the movie itself: The set-up (I wouldn’t call it a “premise”) is that Ethan Hawke plays a guy who works for an organization that uses time travel to prevent various crimes and disasters happening before they happen. This sounds like the premise for a fun, decent action movie, but it’s not that. It starts with him working as a bartender in New York in 1970. While he’s working, someone comes in (played by Sarah Snook), starts talking with him over various things, and eventually starts telling him their life story. It follows that story for about half the movie, showcasing Snook’s history being raised in an orphanage, applying for a space program, and a relationship with a guy, while the movie has some cuts to the two talking in a bar. It gets into the time travel stuff after that and basically a giant, surreal mind-screw (trying to keep this PG; hopefully you get what I mean).

I absolutely adored the story. The second half when it gets really weird with time travel had some incredible stuff happening and its style is one I adored. I know some found it predictable, but I thought they struck a good balance between predictable and shocking; I correctly predicted some things but never all the details. And given the nature of what the movie tries to do, being predictable is kind of unavoidable. It was kind of convoluted and hard to follow if you weren’t completely paying attention, but I thought it was all well done.

While the second half is what stood out the most afterwards (mainly due to the “WTF” twists), as I was watching it, I really liked the first half with Snook giving all the backstory. It was intriguing, and made even better by the great writing between Snook and Hawke at the bar (their interactions with each other were great). Honestly, they could have cut out the time travel stuff and just made the movie those two talking and I’d still love it (though some of the flashbacks probably wouldn’t make sense then).

While I loved the plot and all the odd stuff, the main thing that made this movie to me was the acting. Ethan Hawke did a great job; I’ve got no complaints there. But the real highlight was Sarah Snook. I never heard of her prior to this, but I really hope she gets a lot of work, as she was fantastic. She showed amazing range in her performance, nearly playing two different characters with very different personalities. She still managed to pull it off flawlessly, and really got my invested in every second she was on screen. Just a great performance, and again, I hope she gets a lot of work.

I apologize for my lackluster description, but it’s hard to discuss Predestination without spoiling it. Like I said, I thought it was fantastic, and the fact it successfully pulled off its plot is incredible (it easily could have been botched). I don’t have much more to say; go watch it and avoid reading anything more about it (aside from my score here).

I’m really torn on giving it an 8 or a 9. I was leaning 8, but I did love it, it improves the more I think about it, and it accomplishes everything it tried to pull off, which should all give it a 9. But another part of me is saying it’s lacking that something to make it truly special and deserving of that high. I’ll go with my gut and give it an 8 for now, but don’t be surprised if I talk about it again in the future and regard it more highly.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10

You know what makes this movie especially cool? It’s directed by the Speirig Brothers. You know what’s one of their upcoming films? Saw: Legacy, aka the next installment of my favorite horror franchise and one of my most anticipated movies of 2017. I know the Speirigs aren’t writing it like they did with Predestination, but after how good it was, I’m happy just to have them involved in any major role.

La La Land

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At the time of writing, I just watched La La Land last night before I went to bed. I had about an hour to think about it before I fell asleep, and so far today I’ve had about several hours to think about it while cleaning. Despite all that time, I’m not entirely sure what to say. La La Land was an emotional ride I still haven’t quite gotten off of yet to formulate my thoughts. It ranged from putting me in a happy, content state of mind to just being very upsetting and having me on the verge of crying (I’m like that now just thinking about some things). My head keeps pointing out nagging issues with the movie that should keep me from regarding it too highly, but my heart loved it so much that I want to scream praise from rooftops and declare it my favorite movie. This is a hard film for me to gather my thoughts on, but I’ll do my best.

La La Land is a musical written and directed by Damien Chazelle (who also was the guy behind Whiplash. He’s quickly becoming one of my favorites). It it’s about an aspiring actress Mia Dolan (played by Emma Stone) and musician Sebastian Wilder (played by Ryan Gosling). It focuses on them meeting, developing a relationship, and trying to pursuit their dreams. It’s a pretty simple idea, but the execution is what really makes it.

There’s two main things that really made the movie to me. The first was Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Both did a great job in their roles, especially Emma. They both had a natural presence that drew you in and felt very natural in the roles, with the exception of Emma Stone at one point saying that there’s people out there prettier than her. The main thing that made them work so well though was the chemistry Gosling & Stone had. They both just worked really well with each other and drew me into everything going on. What also helped was that I found their characters generally likeable and compelling. I felt a genuine connection there Mia, Sebastian, and their goals.

The other main thing about La La Land that worked is really vague to say, but it’s just an amazingly made and put together movie. It looks beautiful visually, with some excellent cinematography and their color choices made everything really stand out and look appealing. And then you just had some scenes like the planetarium that I can’t describe and give it justice.

There’s just something about the whole presentation I adored. I don’t know how to explain it, but the movie had a welcoming, upbeat mood to it that I found myself getting really into. There were a lot of times I found myself just having fun with the movie and forgetting about all problems. Despite this presentation, it’s mixed very well with some serious and dramatic stuff that didn’t feel too out of place or anything (it is more serious than I’m letting on, but I don’t know how to describe it without spoiling the plot). And while I wouldn’t call it a funny movie, the jokes always got a good reaction from me when they were fired out. You can just tell there was a lot of heart and effort poured into this, which is where I think a lot of its charm comes from.

As much as I loved La La Land, I unfortunately have some issues with it. The biggest being that none of the songs were very memorable, which is a big problem for a musical. That’s not to say I didn’t like them; they were mostly pretty fun to listen to as they were happening (especially with how gorgeous everything looked). But they just didn’t stand out in anyway to me. I know that they happened, but the only one I remember anything about was “Someone’s in the crowd”, which was only because it was in the trailer and I watched it on Youtube a few times. Even then I struggle to remember all the lyrics, and it’s not that long or complicated. I wanted to be singing the songs to myself while cleaning today, but they stood out so little that I just went back to singing some Beauty and the Beast songs to myself.

I also had an issue with the first song in the movie at the beginning. The voices were quieter than the background music, which led to me having a hard time hearing it. The rest of the movie was fine, so I don’t know what happened there. The first song also had nothing to do with the plot or any characters featured in the rest of the movie, so I don’t know why it’s here.

Speaking of the beginning of the movie, while it wasn’t bad, it didn’t do a whole lot to draw me in in terms of plot (the atmosphere of it was still great). It picked up within 15-20 minutes, but I wish it had a stronger opening; I’m scared of recommending this to someone and them phasing out of the rest of it due to not being invested at first.

Back to the music of the movie: While the song scenes themselves didn’t stand out to me, there were some great music-themed scenes. I know nothing about Damien Chazelle other than he’s done La La Land and Whiplash, but I can tell from both of these movies that he’s very passionate about music in addition to film. There’s still some scenes of people playing instruments that look fantastic and remind me a lot of Whiplash. Sebastian also had a piece of music he played on the piano that sounded beautiful and I can’t stop thinking about.

My other major complaint is that the movie’s structure is a little off. There’s a few points where it jumps forward in time a few months/years and it felt a little jarring. All we’d get is the screen telling us “Spring” at the beginning of a scene with the next one saying “Summer”; there was no real transition. I don’t mind the jumps in time, but they could have been executed better. Maybe a little song or basic montage of clips to showcase the passing of time until the film resumes normally? Wasn’t a deal-breaking issue, but it was a gripe I had with the movie every time it came up.

This is a very minor & petty complaint, but it still bugged me: La La Land didn’t have enough of J.K. Simmons. He only appeared in one scene early on and had a little cameo towards the end; that’s it. It feels like more of a tease than anything. I know his character had no reason to be in the movie more, but couldn’t they have cast him as someone who did have a larger role? J.K. Simmons makes everything better. Though I did see a cool theory on reddit that Simmons in this movie is the twin brother of J.K. Simmons’s character in Whiplash (Fletcher) and hates jazz because of his brother’s attitude towards it, which makes his lack of time in this movie tolerable. So I’m going with that theory, which also means there’s a whole Damien Chazelle Cinematic Universe now. I look forward to more from that.

I also want to mention the ending. I overall thought it was amazing, with its presentation being one of the greatest executions of of an ending I’ve ever seen on film. I personally found it really sad, but I’m not sure everyone would; I think it depends on how you look at things and felt about the rest of the film. I personally almost cried, but again, not everyone will. I do question the logic behind one part of it that could have had a solution that the film never even mentions, but that’s probably more me clinging to what I wanted than an issue with the film. Again, I do find the ending incredible (seriously, there’s one sequence that’s just amazing), even if it was sadder than I would have wanted.

Overall, I absolutely loved and adored La La Land. It’s yet another movie that grows on me the more I think about it. Aside from tearing up at the content itself, I remember tearing up as the credits were rolling simply because it was over. Yet that was combined with the joy and bliss I was feeling just from how much I enjoyed it. It brought a lot of emotions out of me and was just an amazingly well-made movie. I keep going back and forth on how much I loved it, and eventually decided to let it sit for a few days. After doing that and coming back now, along with a re-watch, my adoration of the movie has more grown than faded at all. Even my earlier comment about the movie’s structure didn’t bother me the second time. As I keep saying, I loved La La Land and would consider it one of my favorite movies.

Overall Rating: 9 out of 10

Black Swan

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Prior to last week, all I knew about Black Swan was that it was about Natalie Portman doing ballet and she had a sex scene with Mila Kunis, neither of which were enough to make me want to see the movie. But it seemed intriguing when I actually learned about it, so I watched it and actually quite liked it.

The movie is about a ballerina named Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman). She’s attempting to get the lead part in an upcoming production of Swan Lake, and sort of gets into some conflict with new arrival Lily (played by Mila Kunis) who’s also in consideration. It mainly focuses on Nina being overwhelmed by the pressure of everything, leading to her losing her grip on reality, hallucinating, and enter a nightmare world (as the DVD box puts it). I know the original description of the ballet and such make it sound like a drama, but it’s more of a psychological thriller.

The main focus of Black Swan, Nina’s descent into the nightmares and such, is luckily what the movie does the best job with. I loved the execution of her hallucinations; they all looked good and flowed into the movie perfectly. I also really liked them slowly getting worse over time, eventually blurring the line between reality and hallucinations. I also thought the pacing to getting to these parts was very good. Some may say the movie was too slow, but I thought it worked. It did enough early on to establish the characters and situations without feeling like it only existed for set-up, and they naturally got to the nightmare stuff without it feeling forced.

I also really enjoyed the tone to the movie. It had a darker feeling throughout the entire thing that escalated as the film went on. Created a bit of an uneasy feeling, but it fit perfectly with the story. The scene that got to me the most was one at the end between Nina and her mother in her room.

I thought the acting in the movie was pretty strong. Natalie Portman did a pretty good job as Nina, but the real highlight to me was Mila Kunis as Lily. Part of the film’s plot is that the lead role of Swan Lake involves having to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan, both of which are very different roles, and while Nina fits the White Swan perfectly, she struggles to play the Black Swan. Lily is pretty much the opposite; she fits all the traits of the Black Swan perfectly. So she’s basically set up as a bizarro Nina, that I thought she played very well and created an interesting dynamic for their interactions (I especially thought the club stuff was neat). I also thought Vincent Cassel did well as Thomas Leroy, the director of the whole production. I also like how they executed his character; he wanted perfection from everyone but never came off as the angry, strict teacher you’d expect from this role (not that that character type can’t work; Whiplash was fantastic. I’m just saying it’s nice they didn’t go for the obvious).

When we actually see Swan Lake happen, I thought it looked really good. I really don’t get ballet, so maybe someone knowledgeable could point out inaccuracies with it, but I thought was interesting to see and was shot very well.

Probably my biggest issue with the movie was some of the camera work. It got better as the movie went on, but early on it looked odd. One of the first shots of the movie is Nina’s face as she’s getting out of bed, and the camera’s slightly shaking for no reason. Did they not have anything there to hold it steady? It just seemed either pointless or unprofessional.

Black Swan didn’t leave me in awe like the last few films I watched, but I still thought it was really good. That’s with me still having La La Land on my mind; I may like this more if I re-watch it down the line with a clearer mind. But even under the circumstances, I can still say Black Swan is good. It had good acting, presentation, and execution of its main concept. It’s just a good movie.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

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Well, I guess the string of high quality films had to end at some point.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is, as the name implies, a Star Wars story. It takes place before the original movie/Episode IV/A New Hope, and focuses on a group of people wrapped into helping get plans for the Death Star and sharing them with the Rebel Alliance so they can destroy it in Episode IV. There’s kind of a problem with the core premise there that’s really felt when watching the movie: With how heavily the plot is tied to the original, we know what’s going to happen and all tension in the movie is gone. This isn’t to say prequels and side stories in films can’t work; even if they weren’t very good, the original Star Wars prequels had a purpose to exist. They explored an era in time the movies hadn’t touched yet, and Vader’s backstory was just vague and unknown enough that they could go into more depth about it without it feeling 100% predictable. But Rogue One is a direct lead-in to Episode IV; it doesn’t explore anything new in the timeline and its plot is just a long explanation to the set-up of New Hope. This also leads to the movie not feeling like it truly ends. Instead it just gives us a cliffhanger to be resolved in a movie that came out 40 years ago.

All that could have still worked if they gave us some nice characters to follow that we could get invested in, but spoiler alert: They don’t do that. Every single character had no real depth and felt one-note, and some of them didn’t even reach that. The main character Jyn is a prime example of this; she starts not saying a whole lot or being very interested in the whole thing, has an argument with a guy, and then is giving speeches to the Rebels about hope. Where was the transition here? Where was her character arc? I honestly would have preferred it if she was one-note and didn’t change the entire movie; at least then they’re being upfront about things and not giving the illusion of good writing.

As for the other characters, I didn’t even remember their names and had to look them up online. But as for my thoughts on them: K-2SO seems to be the break-out star of the film, and I think I get why. He’s the closest of the team of heroes to having a personality, though I didn’t find most of his humor that funny (I chuckled a couple times early on; that’s it. The jokes felt really manufactured and phony otherwise). Cassian Andor was boring and didn’t add much. Chirrut Imwe’s only traits were being blind, believing in the Force, and being good at fighting when he needed to be. He conceivably could have been interesting with the right backstory, but they gave him none. It’s the exact same case with who appeared to be his friend, Baze Malbus. I would have liked to see some backstory to them to show how they met and flesh them out more, but we don’t get that; Baze’s character is that he’s big and has a gun that shoots really fast. Bodhi Rook is the worst case though. He was an Empire pilot that switched sides and joined the Rebels, but we never get much insight to his history with the Empire, what drove him to switch, his thoughts, or anything like that. Like I said, all of them are one-note and it’s frustrating to see nothing done with them, especially since the actors looked like they were really trying.

Speaking of the actors, I do think all of them did a solid job with what they were given. I like Felicity Jones as Jyn. Diego Luna didn’t have a chance to showcase much of anything, but he had some charisma to him. Same with Donnie Yen as Chirrut, though it was more of a presence than pure charisma. Everyone else did fine, but nothing worth really commenting on.

To be positive, I did like the soundtrack a lot. It was about what you’d expect from Star Wars, but it sounded good to my ears and stood out as decent.

For the most part, I thought it was a good looking movie. Not La La Land good, but it did well with what it set out to do. The costumes were well-designed, and all the environments looked good. There’s one scene that stands out in my mind where they’re on a rocky planet at night in the rain that I do think looked gorgeous. Probably the high point of the movie for me.

I was going to praise the movie’s pacing, as everything moved pretty smoothly and it never felt like it was dragging. Then the final battle happened and I had to take that praise away. It went on far too long and was just really boring. There was far too much of the ships fighting in space, not helped by the lackluster CGI on them, and there weren’t any interesting or fun character moments to give a break. The stuff happening to the main characters was a lot of over-the-top shooting and explosions and a ton of contrived situations to create more conflict.

I heard that this was meant to be a more grounded Star Wars movie and different in tone than the others, but I never got that. Like I said, it felt over-the-top most of the time. Rey and Finn vs. Kylo Ren at the end of Force Awakens and everything between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi fit the descriptions I heard better (and are part of much better movies).

I don’t want to talk about this too long since there’s much bigger problems, but the film is loaded with a few cameos that weren’t needed and would make the people behind Batman V Superman say that they went too far with them. Makes me feel bad for complaining about the old cast members in Force Awakens; at least Han had a role in the story and fit in pretty well.

You know how with past movies, like Predestination and La La Land, my opinion of them went up in time? This is the opposite; it’s more of a Room situation where my opinion goes down the more I think about Rogue One. I found very few things to like about this movie, and none of them could overtake my lack of interest in the plot or the bland characters. While I haven’t seen enough for this to mean a lot, I genuinely think this is my least favorite movie of 2016. It just frustrates me the more I think about it, and is a bit upsetting after how much I liked Force Awakens. Hopefully Last Jedi captures the fun & charm that one had and not catch whatever Rogue One was infected with.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 10

The Edge of Seventeen

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The Edge of Seventeen is a coming-of-age comedy about Nadine Franklin (played by Hailee Steinfeld), an awkward 17-year-old who starts feeling more alone than ever when her friend Krista (played by Hayley Lu Richardson) starts dating her brother Darian (played by Blake Jenner). The plot’s kind of generic, especially when seeing it as a brief description like that. But somehow the whole thing manages to work.

One of my favorite parts about the movie was some the acting, with the highlight being Woody Harrelson as Mr. Bruner, a teacher at Nadine’s school. Harrelson is someone I really need to see more of; he was fantastic in The Hunger Games, very fun in Zombieland, and pretty darn good here. He felt believable, had good comedic timing, and managed to merge the comedy with the sentimental moments pretty well. He also had great chemistry with Steinfeld, who I overall also liked. Like Harrelson, she had fantastic comedic timing. My biggest issue with her is that she’s meant to play a socially awkward character without a lot of friends, but there’s several times where she just doesn’t fit that description. At times she pulls off the awkwardness very well and in a believable way, but other times she just has some natural charisma & likeability to her that makes me confused why she isn’t more popular. Overall I really liked Steinfeld, but there’s a few scenes where she could have come off better. The rest of the cast did well, but weren’t outstanding or anything.

Not all of the jokes hit for me, but there are some pretty funny moments in the movie. Most of them come from the great delivery & chemistry Harrelson and Steinfeld had, but there’s funny stuff outside of their scenes. There’s also plenty of serious scenes, which were well-executed, but create probably my biggest problem with the film: I don’t think it knows what it wants to be. On the one hand it sells itself as a comedy and presents itself like that a lot, but other times it wants to be a fairly serious character-based movie and be emotional. I’m fine with a comedy having serious moments, with Deadpool being a good example. But Deadpool still managed to keep the goofy feeling running throughout with some serious moments spliced in; it never felt like it was caught between two genres, which I felt like The Edge of Seventeen was. I think it would have been better if they cut back on the comedy a bit and evened the tone out some more.

When I was watching The Edge of Seventeen, I thought it was a flawed but very well-made film that I just couldn’t get into and I was wondering how I should grade it. But something happened as I was watching: I got into it. I can’t pinpoint when, but at some point I starting feeling invested in the story and characters and wanted to see everything play out. Part of it was just the great presentation everything had and the good cast, but I think the main thing was how relatable some of the situations and Nadine were to me. Aside from being in the same age range (I’m literally on the edge of 17; when this goes up, I’ll be just over three weeks away from turning 18), I have a lot of issues with social awkwardness and opening up, I really don’t have much in the way of friends (I only really talk with one or two people), I have some mother issues, etc. Even when Nadine’s overreacting or doing something that she really shouldn’t be, she still had that relatablity and felt like a real person. Even some of the conflict with her friend, while a very different backstory for me, really reminded me of what I’ve done this year of starting to ignore a close friend due to being overly-dramatic in response to something. The movie actually inspired me to contact him again, which I think is going well, so think you The Edge of Seventeen.

Like what happens with a lot of movies, I like this the more I think about it. It’s not perfect, but it’s a very well-made and well-presented movie with good acting and managed to get me invested. Really, what more can you ask for? It’s not my favorite of last year, but I still quite liked it.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10

Conclusion

So that’s it for my reviews. I hope you enjoyed them. It was a pretty great few months for films overall; I got lucky for the most part. I probably have a few controversial opinions here, which I apologize for. Everyone has different opinions, and mine just happen to be better. For proof of that, just look at comic films from last year: My favorite was Academy Award winning film Suicide Squad, and most people’s favorite was Captain America: Civil War which wasn’t even nominated.

As for the best movie I watched in this bunch: I’m torn between Cloud Atlas, Prisoners, and La La Land. I’m leaning towards La La Land, but I should probably be refreshed on Cloud Atlas before saying which I liked more. Arrival and Predestination are also pretty high up.

For worst movie, I want to go with what frustrated me the most, which I think was Rogue One. Room is up there, but there was at least some stuff in Movie One that I liked. I considered Moonlight, but the only thing frustrating there was that it stole La La Land’s Best Picture Oscar; otherwise it was too boring to be frustrated by. Honorable mention to Les Miserables, which was a chore to watch, but I could respect it from a production standpoint. So, again, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the worst movie I saw in these three months. I’ve been very lucky at viewing things.

Again, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. I’m TheSpoiler, and I’ll see you guys and gals later.

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amazing_webhead

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awesome blog :)

(loved that burn toward Civil War XD )

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black_wreath

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#2  Edited By black_wreath

Logan: I felt similar to you on Logan, I think I liked it more than you but I never thought I was watching a masterpiece like so many others claimed.

Beauty and the Beast: Total agreement that Gaston steals the movie and that's from someone who previously had a grudge against Luke Evans for being the worst Dracula ever. However, I thought Belle severely under reacted to living crockery (which I found creepy-looking and not the least bit charming) and added elements like the teleportation book were pointless. Overall I'd say it's a fine remake, not as good as Pete's Dragon but nowhere near as bad as Alice in Wonderland. Gaston raises it up a notch.

Moonlight: I just saw this for the first time the other night and thought "that's it?" I honestly believe it ends way too soon like the story was unfinished.

Room: I didn't expect Room to be as dark as it was but I loved it, full marks from me I thought it was magnificent.

Miss Peregrine: Burton is my favourite director and I'm super happy he's making decent films again and yes Eva Green and Sam Jackson are the highlights. You mentioned you're not excited for his Dumbo, how can you not want to see Tim Burton's take on Pink Elephants on Parade? :D

Prisoners: Great movie, I love this kind of dark thriller. Funny how so many seem to feature Jake Gyllenhaal.

Black Swan: Not enough Winona Ryder! But other than that I love this film.

Edge of Seventeen: One of my favourite coming of age movies, possibly the one I find most relatable. Loved it from start to finish, my number 1 flick from last year.

Awesome blog dude, keep it up! :)

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removekebab

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Caught Predestination last week. It should have a lower score because of the shit ending.

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I thought Logan, Xavier, and Laura all stood out pretty well in Logan, but it does seem to get a little too much praise imo.

I thought Black Swan was great. I like that psychedelic stuff.

Those are the only two that I've seen. I don't watch very many movies.

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MadeinBangladesh

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#5  Edited By MadeinBangladesh

Nice write up Spoiler. Some opinions I don't agree with. Moonlight and Room both were by favorites from each year they were released in but interesting you didn't like them. They are not for everyone. Can be slow for some people since they are more Oscar type films but I was loved them.

Prisoners, Room, Moonlight, Logan, La La Land, Predestiantion, Arrival are all either 5/5 or 4.5/5 for me.

Others are whatever. Edge of Seventeen was pretty good though.

Still need to see Cloud Atlas, Let the Right One In and Black Swan.

~MiB

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deactivated-097092725

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That's a lot to take in. You did a wonderful job, just in the writeups. Well done.

I've seen a few of these films over the past month and I think we're sympatico for the most part except for Beauty and the Beast. I found it awful. Oh, and I did enjoy Rogue One, a lot.

It was a pleasure reading this. Thank you.

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Nice write up Spoiler. Some opinions I don't agree with. Moonlight and Room both were by favorites from each year they were released in but interesting you didn't like them. They are not for everyone. Can be slow for some people since they are more Oscar type films but I was loved them.

Prisoners, Room, Moonlight, Logan, La La Land, Predestiantion, Arrival are all either 5/5 or 4.5/5 for me.

Others are whatever. Edge of Seventeen was pretty good though.

Still need to see Cloud Atlas, Let the Right One In and Black Swan.

~MiB

Hey, a film I saw and you haven't! I can't believe it. The end is nigh.

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MadeinBangladesh

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@ms-lola said:
@MadeinBangladesh said:

Nice write up Spoiler. Some opinions I don't agree with. Moonlight and Room both were by favorites from each year they were released in but interesting you didn't like them. They are not for everyone. Can be slow for some people since they are more Oscar type films but I was loved them.

Prisoners, Room, Moonlight, Logan, La La Land, Predestiantion, Arrival are all either 5/5 or 4.5/5 for me.

Others are whatever. Edge of Seventeen was pretty good though.

Still need to see Cloud Atlas, Let the Right One In and Black Swan.

~MiB

Hey, a film I saw and you haven't! I can't believe it. The end is nigh.

I have like 800 movies on my watchlist. I will get to them someday.

~MiB