Natalie Portman does Marvel

This is the film review for Thor: The Dark World, Marvel superhero Thor returns to the big screen; following the Avengers Thor has been settling the 9 realms to peace, but the ancient race of Dark Elves threatens to disrupt that balance with the mystical Aether and bring darkness over everything. As always, 

Spoilers

Long ago in the way back when Odin's father, Bor, thwarted the evil plot of the Dark Elf Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), attempting to destroy the universe with the powerful Aether. The war lead to the assumed extinction of Malekith's race and the Aether was hidden where noone would ever find it.

Flash forward to the present and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is ending the uprisings that have followed in the wake of the Avengers, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is imprisoned, the rainbow bridge is rebuilt and "the convergence" is approaching, when all nine realms will be aligned. As a result portals that connect the realms are opening, down on Earth Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) find one of these portals and slips between the realms, inadvertently finding, and absorbing, the Aether. Thor retrieves her to Asgard where the Dark Elves, reawakened by the Aether, launch an assault, killing Thor's mother and leaving Loki incredibly sad.

Thor, Loki and Jane hatch a plan to remove the Aether from Jane and destroy it as well. In an incredibly pulled off trick, Loki gets Malekith to remove the Aether and it is almost destroyed. But Malekith escapes, killing Loki in the process. Jane and Thor head back to Earth to prevent Malekith from destroying everything and after some multidimensional fisticuffs they succeed. Thor returns to refuse the throne of Asgard, which is currently seated by a shape shifting Loki, the Aether is delivered to "The Collector" and Thor kisses Jane.

It sounds better than it is. All in all I didn't expect much coming in to the cinema and I wasn't disappointed, this installment in the Marvel universe is darker than the original, a trend that is beginning to show in this set of films. The tone itself is grittier and more mortal than the previous too, as is fairly standard for film series, each being progressively more serious. Unfortunately for Marvel the jovial nature was something that made their films stand out, Thor was, if anything, Man of Steel painted a different shade of super.

Whilst the cinematography was beautiful the score was empty, with no particularly memorable moments. The casting though was again a high point. Hemsworth, Portman, and Hiddleston play the roles beautifully, particularly Hiddleston's performance of Loki. Even some smaller roles such as Hopkins' Odin were played brilliantly, the only negative comment would be Eccleston's villain being rather bland. Granted given the plot of the film there did not appear to be much else to do with the character.

Overall I give it a 5/10, if you want to keep up for the sake of knowing what's going on in the series then that's fine otherwise I would say it's not worth the watch, the positive moments are far outweighed by the monotone grim theme. And the few positive moments are mostly childish humour, with very little cleverness in the jokes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1981115/

#32 Enjoy the little things.

This is a review, my first in quite a while due to scheduling issues, of Zombieland, a 2009 post apocalyptic zombie comedy. One of my favourite films, and one of the best zombie related pieces in quite a while, not to down talk The Walking Dead TV series...even if it's terrible.

Spoilers, as in every half decent review

So, the world has gone "total shit storm" and "Columbus" is just trying to get back to his family, if they're still alive that is. The only reason HE'S lasted this long is because he's a shut in, with a list of rules, and is a little bit paranoid. On his way back to Columbus, Ohio he runs into "Tallahassee", a one man zombie killing machine with an extraordinary vendetta against the infected, who is just looking for one last Twinkie. On their travels they run into "Wichita" and "Little Rock", con artist sisters who are headed to Pacific Playground, the zombie free havenon the west coast. After losing their car to the con artists, twice, Columbus and Tallahassee reluctantly join up with the pair and set out west. Slowly the group begin to bond, and Columbus starts falling for Wichita, and they arrive at the mansion of Hollywood's biggest star, Bill Fuckin' Murray. Stuff happens and Hollywood's biggest star bites the dust, we find out that Tallahassee hates zombies due to losing his child to them, and after an almost kiss Wichita and her sister finish the trip to Pacific Playland. In a bold heroic move Columbus and Tallahassee head after them to save the day, Columbus gets the girl and Tallahassee gets the Twinkie.

Not really a massive amount of plot, but for a film with a run time short of 90 minutes it's rather filling, and even though it's rife with cliches, it plays on them rather well. The zombie film cliches of a safe haven is immediately shot down by Tallahassee, and ironically turns out to be the worst place they could have gone. The classic romantic comedy angle of a runt like Columbus getting the beautiful Emma Stone is mocked openly by Tallahassee the entire time. Even the low budget film cliche of a single big star cameo is there with Bill Murray.

So the tone of the film, it's fun, it's funny, and in places it's quite heart warming, with moments of awkward humour that's actually laughable and doesn't make you cringe hopelessly, see anything by Miranda Hart, it really delivers as a film. Plus the tonne of memorable quotes and the text overlay onto the action is awesome. Before I critique the actors and close up I'd like to mention something that reminds me of Fight Club, you can read my review of that as well, they don't use names, except for obviously Bill Murray, in Fight Club Tyler Durden isn't technically real, the narrator uses Jack as a pseudonym, names have serious power and these films play it well.

So, the actors, Emma Stone is wonderful, albeit somewhat lacking for the main love interest of the film, Jesse Eisenberg plays his usual role but as with Now You See Me, another review of mine, the chemistry between him and Woody Harrelson is amazing, the two get on so naturally I often wonder if half the lines were improvised, and the performance of Abigail Breslin is very good for a child actor, equal to if not greater than that of Emma Stone. The choice of music was good, but much like a few other films it wasn't massively noticeable, the choice of Metalicca at the beginning was very appealing though.

8 out of 10, it's a comedy so I can't completely guarantee that everyone will agree, definitely worth the watch and maybe a few repeats...anyway, I'm hoping the plans for a sequel pull through, I'm out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156398/

Kick Ass 2

Apologies for the unoriginal title, I am somewhat tired. So, Kick Ass 2, a film adaptation of a graphic novel sequel. We once again meet Dave Lezewski, the eponymous hero, as he attempts to quell crime in NYC with the help of some rather unorthodox characters, meanwhile his arch rival "The Motherfucker" raises an army of "super villains" hellbent on revenge.

Spoilers, you should know this by now

We pick up a short while after the events of the first film, Big Daddy is dead, Hit Girl pretends to attend school but keeps going in secret, Red Mist is distraught and seeks to kill Kick Ass for the death of his father, and Kick Ass is all but retired. That is until the news of ordinary citizens donning a mask and fighting crime, inspired by Kick Ass himself. Dave begins to train with Hit Girl, albeit briefly as Hit Girl, or Mindy McCreedy, is caught by her adoptive father and reduced to the life of an average schoolgirl. From there Dave joins Justice Forever, a group of heroes doing good deeds, among whom are Dave's friend Marty, Colonel Stars and Stripes and Night Bitch. Mindy gains popularity among other girls by assimilating, and Red Mist accidentally kills his mother. This leads to one of the most awkward scenes imaginable as he kits out in her S&M gear to become a super villain.

The film progresses quickly from here on, The Motherfucker, formerly Red Mist, recruits a strong team to intimidate and track down Dave, killing Col. Stars and Stripes and hospitalising Night Bitch. Mindy is humiliated by the popular girls, which leads her to retaliate and make them spew from both ends. The police begin to crack down on the vigilantes, arresting Dave's father who falsely confessed to being Kick Ass leading to his death. At his funeral Dave and Justice forever are ambushed, narrowly escaping capture thanks to Hit Girl. From there the two sides gather numbers and move towards a mass brawl in which Hit Girl fights an opponent twice her size, much blood is shed and Dave faces off against the Motherfucker. This leads to the villain being mauled by a shark. Hit Girl shares her first kiss with Dave before leaving New York.

A large point of appeal for the film is similar to that of Watchmen, that these aren't really Superheroes, they lack actual powers and their violence, whilst more believable, is hammed up by the excessive blood and comic style charm. Both sides of this come across, Kick Ass is the real human fighter, akin to Batman, his only gift is the damaged nerves, but he fights realistically, Hit Girl is shown to be insanely gifted in combat and skill, a fight scene features her moving faster than should be possible while her opponent is frozen. This mixture of the Ultra Realistic with the comic book hero makes the action seem better.

The cast were all fantastic, especially Jim Carrey who gave his best performance, arguably, for a long time. It was less Jim Carrey AS Jim Carrey, more like Jim Carrey plays a moving character. And that was another highlight, the characters, they suffered less from the criticisms that usually fall on Superheroes, these were relatable characters, they had good stories and you could empathise with them. One hero talks about being bullied his whole life for being gay and so he explicitly doesn't wear a mask because he doesn't want to hide. A point made to me was that when we see a small group of characters in danger, we care more than if it's the world in danger.

A downfall for me was the humour, yes there were a lot of funny lines,there was wit and dry humour, but some of it felt half hearted, there was some physical humour "he tries to loosen a cord and it looked like he was jerking off, then his dad walked in" and the example given sums it all up. There was some quite bad awkward humour, which lost all appeal to me after ten minutes, and some toilet humour, literally at one point.

I felt the film was getting across a message, mainly because it basically fucking said it, that you don't need a mask to be a hero, and honestly I'm reasonably okay with it, it was relevant and fairly to the point. Definitely worth the watch, 8/10, probably not one you'll want to watch with the kids, even if they're old enough to watch it. I'm out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650554/

Half Human, Half God, All Hero

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, after a reasonably disappointing first film and news of the sequel paying more attention to the source material I was pretty hopeful when I walked into the cinema. 2 hours later and I want to brutally murder the production team for defecating over MY fandom. Today you are going to bear witness to my first negative review.

Spoilers ahead

So we see our hero, Percy, roughly a year after he reclaimed the lightning bolt of Zeus, and not much has happened, he believes himself to be a "One Quest Wonder", we are told of how years ago another powerful demigod named Thalia Grace gave her life to save Annabeth, Grover and Luke. She was turned into a tree, which is now dying, poisoned by Luke, the baddy. Meanwhile rival Clarisse is given a quest to retrieve the golden fleece, an artifact which could potentially save the tree, and so the gang set off with Percy's newly emerged cyclops half brother Tyson. They ride the chariot of damnation, Grover is captured, they meet Hermes, have a stand off with Luke, who is attempting to raise Kronos (the evil titan), they narrowly escape and are quickly swallowed by a sea monster. They reunite with Clarisse in the belly of the beast and make it to Circeland, where they fight Polyphemus, Luke, and a form of Kronos. They return home and the Golden fleece works so well it brings back Thalia.

Granted that all sounds weird, and in fairness it is, a jumbled up mish-mash of what the hell am I watching? So my first problem is with the plot, specifically the beginning and the end. Percy is told "The great prophecy" in this film when he isn't meant to hear it until the last installation in the series, that's just a picky point for me, the ending was terrible though, the part at Circeland. It didn't happen in the books, nowhere near anything like that happened, it's tragic. I was particularly annoyed at the point where death lost meaning, "Oh no Tyson died, but he fell in the water and was healed by Poseidon.", "Oh no, Annabeth died, but we have a magical item that'll heal her right back up", "Oh no, Grover was eaten, literally, but it's alright because Deus Ex Machina..." and to top it all off they seem to have killed off the central villain, AGAIN, seriously FOX, chill out.

I actually would like to give some credit to the actors, the main cast; Lerman, Daddario, and Jackson (the coincidence in last names amuses me) have wonderful chemistry on screen, and even if his caricatured version of child-like Tyson wore thin at points Douglas Smith's acting made me chuckle through most of the film. I strongly approve of Anthony Head adopting the role of Chrion, he is an amazing actor and suits the role well, although he may be a bit typecast. Stanley Tucci as the ever amazing Dionysus is brilliant, I'm glad they actually put this character into the films.

This brings me to my next points, things that were/were not shown in the films. Now as it has been made clear time and time again even Hollywood cannot recreate the magical world inside a book, the Harry Potter films were kind of thrown together in a way that attained some of the great parts of the book with less of the annoying Hollywood crap, that might just be the effect of the British though, just saying. In any case this film attempted to make up for the lack of any relevant details in "The Lightning Thief". But the problem was in their attempt to recover they overshot it a little, I spent at least 45 minutes listening to them explain what they missed out in the first film, I felt sorry for the people who didn't read the books as they must have been so completely overwhelmed.

The film has taken a beautiful first person narrative and smeared teenage drama all over it, it's not a drama, it's supposed to be fun, like all films are. These characters are meant to be surprisingly naive and positive about everything despite the messed up situation. I don't know why whoever in charge decided to have the MAIN CHARACTER mope around for half the film, the small moments of weakness Percy shows in the books are just that, and most of them don't appear until the later books. But I digress, the constant use of some form of CGI was a little tiring, especially in 3D, however for the insane creations the team have to create, they looked fairly cool. The score was fitting I suppose, but could have been better.

In closing, if you are a fan of the books you have to watch it, it is expected of you, and then we can all cry about Fox ruining our favourite series. If you've got kids, take 'em to see it, it's got fish ponies and bear scorpions, if you want a good quality, well put together film, watch something else. I give it 5/10 for trying, I'll watch any other films in the series because I'm so into the books, but so far "The Lightning Thief" is the better film. I beg you Riordan, write the next film, I'm out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1854564/

The Golden Mile

So, The World's End, the last film in the Blood and Ice Cream (or Cornetto) Trilogy. Last sequel to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, this film is the science-fiction, and a good one. The film follows Gary King, played by Simon Pegg, as he re-unites his old school friends in the hope of finally completing the golden mile, a pub crawl through Newton Haven, but unfortunately the town has had a small invasion by robots, shit happens.

BEWARE SPOILERS ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

So the film starts off with Gary regaling the story of the original attempt at the golden mile, he introduces himself, the "Bad-boy King", Andy Knightley "The Best Friend", Steven Prince "The Rival", Peter Page "The Young One", and Oliver "O-man" Chamberlain. O-man makes it to the sixth pub, Peter gets Benched in the park, but King, Knightley, and Prince almost make it to the end but fall short. Fast forward 23 years and everyone has grown up...except Gary.

They repeat the crawl with a tee-totaled Andy, reaching The Cross Hands where they meet the Robots-that-aren't-actually-robots. Or, the Blanks. Deciding the only way to survive is to finish the crawl without saying a word they continue. To shorten things I'm going to bullet point now, O-man is assimilated, the gang learn about the Blanks, Steven meets an old fling and fights Blanks, the gang are seduced by Blanks only to escape, SHIT GOES DOWN, EPIC FIGHT, OMAN-BLANK DESTROYED, the remaining four are suspicious of each other and some character development is had, Peter gets assimilated, Gary refuses to leave, Steven is overwhelmed by Blanks, Gary and Andy belt it to the World's End, Gary is in a pretty bad way and shares his feelings, where the baddy (Bill Nighy) is revealed as some Space Age Alien entity, who decides "fuck it" and leaves, the world ends and humanity goes back to the dark ages. Simple.

The acting is what you'd expect from the trilogy, it's not Oscar winning but it's snappy the actors have chemistry, it's a good laugh and it IS a good laugh. This films comes across as more comedy based than the other two, during the screening myself and everyone viewing were laughing throughout. To those saying it's "Just a drinking film", it isn't, it's a film about the night, the journey, and the morning after. There isn't much character development outside of Pegg and Frost's characters, as per usual, but what they did have was effective.

As with the other films there is a butt-load of hidden meanings, I'm not gonna spoil them all but I have three things to say; 1) there would appear to be far less premonitions in terms of the ending compared to the previous films, 2) the Pub name are Tarot Cards as to what happens in them, 3) The feel of the film makes me think of Arthurian legend, real middle-ages type stuff, partly because it's a small town and takes place mostly in pubs but the names of the characters, King, Knightley, Prince, Page, Chamberlain. It seems to be a hidden message.

Music was good, lots of fluidity in the camerawork, ESPECIALLY during the fights, there are a few running gags which help keep pace, there is a lot of Hollywood in the film. It's a little disappointing, you can feel it in some of the action, and the ending to the film is not the best, think like Assassin's Creed type bad endings, other than those choice elements it still has Wright's classic directing choices with Pegg and Frost's classic chemistry.

I give the film an 8/10, it's good for comedy, it's fast paced once it gets going, if you liked the previous films it is definitely worth watching, same as if you didn't watch the previous films. Keep an eye out for the Cornetto, I'm out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213663/

Now You Don't.

Now You See Me, awesome film, saw it a couple of days ago and I'm sorry for the delay, let's jump right in! So, the film is about a group of struggling magicians who form a super-group called "The Four Horsemen" and pull off a series of increasingly impressive heists, meanwhile FBI agent Dylan Rhodes follows their every move in an attempt to stop whatever crime they are leading up to. Starring; Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman and Mark Ruffalo. As ever I would like to point out

THERE WILL BE SOME DAMN HUGE SPOILERS

so yeah, keep an eye out for that...

Magic is always a fascinating topic, for most people, it's a rare chance to be completely mystified by sleight of hand and trickery, and I'll be damned if I couldn't figure out some of the real magic tricks performed in the film. Director Louis Leterrier stated for filmireland.net that,

"What I wanted was 100% real magic. Nothing fantastic or supernatural, I wanted it to be real"

This meant having Harrelson trained in the art of mentalism, or "targeted guessing", and it worked fantastically. Whilst the premise of the film is original, the style certainly isn't, after watching it you might think to yourself, "I haven't watched Ocean's Eleven in a while.". The way the film is set up is very reminiscent of the Ocean's franchise. A group steal from wealthy tycoon/business in a way that is excruciatingly well planned out, then we are shown how they did it. Don't get me wrong, it worked fantastically, but it was a little disappointing considering the original material.

The acting annoyed me slightly, they all played their parts well but it was THEIR PART, Jesse Eisenberg was basically a more charming version of his character from "The Social Network" and "Zombieland", Morgan Freeman was the wise older guy who seems to know exactly what's going on, Woody Harrelson plays the slightly-goofy-but-rough-around-the-edges nice guy. It's not new terrain for these guys and they're all good actors, I'm a little miffed to say the least. If that wasn't enough the other two horsemen, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco, didn't get much time for expression AND THEY WERE INTERESTING!! However Mark Ruffalo and his french companion, Mélanie Laurent, gave a beautiful performance and had brilliant onscreen chemistry.

The camerawork was brilliant, the film looked beautiful throughout, both in the action sequences 
and the delicate parts, the CGI was noticeable bordering on being too much, however it was so 
fucking cool that I can forgive it, that machine they had AAH, SO MUCH WANT. The music 
probably fit, I have to admit I didn't really notice it, it didn't leave that much of an impression, 
interpret that as you will.

Lastly the plot twist, wow, it was fantastic. Throughout the film we are guessing at the potential
"fifth horseman" we are introduced early on to the idea of a vengeful magician whose body was 
never found, but this was too obvious. Then we're left with Morgan Freeman who has been 
scuttling around the edges the entire time, the beautiful foreign interpol agent, or a member of 
"The Eye" who has yet to step forward. It was none of them, it was the protagonist, Ruffalo. I am 
so incredibly impressed by this, DAYS AFTER WATCHING IT, this may not be such a big thing
to you reading but I didn't see it coming. As twist endings go this takes the crown, a wonderful 
change, admittedly a little cliche that he's the son of the magician but all the same it was well 
done, there are very few hints, his portrayal of a man completely oblivious to magic is 
extremely beliveable, and THE PROTAGONIST, I have never seen that done, it was sooo good.

All in all, 9/10, the issues, although they nag at me, are minor, thoroughly enjoyable to watch
and I hope you enjoy it, now the poster and the IMDB link, I'm out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1670345/

Man of Steel

Yes, at last it crash lands on the face of every half good to spectacular cinema/box office EVERYWHERE, definitely one of the most anticipated films of the year, MAN OF STEEL, the Superman super reboot. And let me tell you, it was fucking good. The following review contains

spoilers

So if you don't want anything ruined, LOOK AWAY NOW.

So as it's a reboot the film is allowed to contain an origin story, they show Krypton's destruction, they reveal the antagonist ZOD, played fantastically by Micheal Shannon, and they show off the beauty that is Zack Snyder's Kryptionian armor. Whilst I enjoyed this prologue I felt it perhaps lasted a bit too long even if it was fairly vital to the plot, also, it introduced what is THE ONLY THING I truly hated about this film, the "pin board" display. One of these...

Oh my rage... Back to the review, so far it's holding up, in the cinema there was dead silence as we saw Krypton die. Moving onto Earth, Snyder and the writers took this in a way I hadn't expected, I was prepared for half an hour of what would essentially be Smallville, instead we were treated to scenes of Superman trying to fit in as an adult. This I liked, honestly after watching it I thought the film did a better job than Smallville of outlining the origin story. The way they managed it was that whenever "Clark Kent", played by Henry Cavill, reached a point in adulthood that related to his childhood we would see a flashback, it was perfect, there wasn't enough time for the child actors to screw up and the scenes were kept succinct and to the point. Well done here.

Introducing Lois Lane, now I'm not going to criticise the choice of actress, maybe she isn't as amazingly hot as Smallville's Lois Lane but DAMN IT, Amy Adams is a brilliant actress and she fits the bill. Weirdly for a film the title character doesn't actually speak more than a few words until now, there's a Smallville cameo Alessandro Juliani, he thought we didn't catch him, but we did. The film naturally progresses from there on, Lois meets Superman, Superman meets military, Zod resurfaces, there's some light hearted banter, a fight, a plan is made. Then we reach the terra-former. I have no problem with this as a concept in what is clearly science-fiction, I actually thought it pieced together really well. And then there's more fighting and Superman kills Zod. HOLY FREAKING SHIT, THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

So, before we analyse the Superman Mythology of this I'll look at the normal review stuff, The acting was brilliant with the exception of Kevin Costner, talk about emotionless fucking delivery, this guy had one good scene and it's when he dies, it's the only thing that saved his portrayal of Jonathon Kent. His death is honestly one of the most tragic deaths I've ever seen. The four-way lead between Zod, Superman, Lois and Faora (Zod's sidekick) was impressive, it's rare to see such good female leads and they both played their part, even if Faora was a little bit weak. Shannon more than does justice to Zod's character, he put his own brand of madness into an excellent biography, the same can be said of Cavill, he clearly shows the passion for the role and he plays it well.

The score fits perfectly with the imagery, Zimmer does not disappoint, I was just annoyed my favourite bit of music was for the credits :(, ah well. The CGI was fairly decent, I'm never sure about it in films, but it was well done in this, the choice of camera shots definitely helped, obviously the exception to this was the pin-board *sigh*. You will most likely see from other reviews that the film kind of tanks half-way as it gives in to a showdown between Superman and Zod, I've already seen one state the ending was anti-climatic which, putting it somewhat indelicately, is a MASSIVE FUCKING LIE.

So the Mythology behind this film is actually pretty sound, the radiation gives him the weird powers and the change in planetary gravity gives him the strength/speed/flight. Douglan, my friend, thought he was telekinetic, what an idiot. I was a little bit annoyed with the second half in the way that Superman apparently forgot about all the people who would be killed through his fight with Zod, there's normally an attempt to save people as he's fighting in the comics. Finally we reach the end, Zod dying, this one hit me in the cinema, I audibly gasped, I was so shocked, partly because Superman pretty much always let's the baddie live, but mainly because it was Zod he killed. Still kinda speechless. From what I understand Zod being killed has not been done before, please correct me if you can, and jeez, I just can't, aaaah. Lastly is Lois knowing about Superman's identity, as much as I'd like to rage, it fits. Granted it's a rare move for Lois to know Superman's identity but it works in this, I guess we'll see in the sequel, if there is one.

Nine out of ten, if you were a fan of the Dark Knight series you might like it, it's a good film, one about being the person you want to be, even if half the film he is being told that people aren't ready yet. As usual the poster and the IMDb link are below. Enjoy, I'm out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770828/