Toaster's Summer Movie Round-Up (part 1)

As promised, here is part the first of my reviews (or more accurately thoughts and observations) on the many films I saw in theaters over the summer. So without further ado, here we go:

Furious 7 - Yeah, this wasn't technically a summer movie, but it might as well have been. It had a ton of hype and made a huge amount of money... more than many supposed summer blockbusters like Tomorrowland, Ted 2 and Fantastic Four. Part of the hype was, of course, that this was the late Paul Walker's final film and that the final version of Furious 7 had to be redone after his untimely death while shooting the movie. So the plot is sees the gang avenging the death of one of their own at the hands of the terrorist brother of the previous film's villain. (Big props, by the way, to Luke Evans for getting done up in lots of burn make-up only to appear comatose in the film for maybe ten seconds. That's a team player!)

Jason Statham plays the main baddie, a pretty high profile name for this franchise. He had one of the most bad ass pimp introduction. You see him vowing to his comatose brother to get revenge on his behalf, then tells a doctor and nurse hiding in the corner of the room to take good care of him. Then, Statham proceeds to nonchalantly leave the hospital, revealing the reversed trail of the numerous dead bodies of police and security as well as property damage that he caused getting to see his brother. I was also happy to see Tony Jaa on film again. Oh, and since Gina Carano had a fight sequence against Michelle Rodriguez, Ronda Rousey had to have one too I guess. And like against Carano, I don't think Rodriguez could take Rousey either. That said, Michelle Rodriguez is a bad ass that I'm sure could kick my ass.

Did you like the last installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise, or the one before that, or the one before that? Then you will probably like this one too. It's big, loud and dumb, but it is a lot of fun to watch, full of the usual stunts and action you come to expect from Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner and company. Just know that the ending will probably make you cry... seriously. It's a perfect send off to Paul Walker and you better bring tissues.

Ex Machina - Another movie that wasn't released in the summer, but this one at least gained a following for a few months which led to more theaters showing it and ultimately my seeing Ex Machina sometime in May. I already reviewed this movie here, so I won't ramble on too much about it. This was a great science fiction film and in today's world of over the top sci-fi films (Jurassic World, Prometheus, etc.) a bit of a rarity in that it was somewhat lower budget with a very small cast. Also, Ex Machina was a thriller that moved at a gradually accelerating pace, always keeping the viewer guessing at what was really going on from what tiny pieces of the puzzle you are given.

The story in a nutshell is a low level employee of a technological corporation gets the oppurtunity to test the CEO's secret project... to determine how human his android creation truly is. The main cast is great, three of Hollywood's fastest rising stars in Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander. The special effects were pretty amazing, creating realistic looking synthetic humans, blending artificial parts with human looking features. I highly recommend this film for any lovers of real science fiction, not just blockbusters or reboots or adaptations, but of unique, thought provoking films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States and Metropolis (which Ex Machina, like much of sci-fi cinema, owes a huge debt).

Avengers: Age of Ultron - The first real installment for the summer movie season, I also already did a write up for the movie that you can see here. Therefore, I don't have much to add that I didn't already say, except that the longer that time has passed since I saw Avengers 2, the less I like it. It's not a bad movie, but it has a lot of flaws. I get the idea that Ultron was basically an extended personality of Tony Stark and therefore James Spader was more or less doing a Robert Downey Jr. impersonation. It's just that the Ultron I know and love from the comics was not an impression. It was a soulless, cruel killing machine. The Ultron in the movie dicked around too much, making weird decisions like wanting to be more human by, for some reason, designing Vision. His idea of wiping out humans was needlessly complicated and weird.

In the end, I feel the same way about Avengers 2 that I did about Iron Man 3. I didn't hate it, I will probably get it for Christmas, but I'm not excited. When the first Avengers came out, I bought it the day it was released, even though I was on vacation and had to drive an hour to some ghetto Wal-Mart in Delaware (not realizing Ocean City, Maryland has a Wal Mart just off the strip... Oops!). I wanted to show my wife the movie and see it again for myself. Avengers 2 I'm sort of ho-hum about. It also doesn't help that a friend summarized his thoughts on the movie in the most obvious and ruinous way: Tony Stark and Bruce Banner made a bad guy for the Avengers to fight. Yeah... kind of kills it when it's put into that perspective.

Mad Max: Fury Road - Possibly the best movie of the summer. It's the only one I saw twice and loved it just as much the second time as I did the first. The way I described the trailer to people is the same way I describe the movie itself... it's like if The Road Warrior was given a case of Red Bull. Fury Road was insane and just bursting with imagination and absurdly amazing ideas. Why did the War Boys spray their mouths silver before commanding their brethren to "Witness!" their glorious death in battle that will send them to Valhalla! It doesn't matter because it was awesome. The stunts were cool, the bad guys were twisted and amusing (Immortan Joe was epic), Tom Hardy makes for a great Max Rockatansky and Charlize Theron made for a bad ass female protagonist as Imperator Furiosa. Oh, and Holy shit, it was hard to believe that Nicolas Hoult was under that make-up as Nux.

It doesn't seem like Mad Max: Fury Road should have been as good as it was. I never would have thought I would see a highly rated and well reviewed Mad Max film, especially a reboot with a different lead thirty years after the last installment which... well... sucked. (Yes, the fight in the Thunderdome was awesome, but then the movie just kept going after that!) In fact, Jonny Prophet's one sentence review of Fury Road was that "it makes me hate Thunderdome so fucking much." Oh what a day, what a lovely day!

Spy - I did not originally want to see this movie. It didn't seem like something I would like. However, Spy had great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and it was a slow movie week so, lo and behold, I found myself watching Melissa McCarthy, the world's least likely spy. Truth be told, it wasn't bad. It was a pretty funny movie, had a decent story and a great cast which also included Jude Law, Alison Janney, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannivale and Jason Statham.

Jason Statham, by the way, stole the show for me. He played this hard ass CIA operative that would boast about having done ridiculous and impossible feats such as reattaching his own arm. Of course he was more talk than anything else, but he worked well opposite McCarthy.

It's funny, this is the first movie starring Melissa McCarthy I have seen. I wasn't necessarily opposed to seeing her movies (except Tammy). In fact, I liked her on Gilmore Girls. I find it funny that at an age when most women in Hollywood find it hard to find work, her career is red hot.

So Spy was good, but I wouldn't call it great. It wasn't even the funniest spy movie I have seen this year (that goes to Kingsmen). There are times when it feels a little forced or has a level of contrived cheesiness, usually regarding making a middle aged overweight woman seem like a highly effective bad ass secret agent or how in the end everything works out so well for everyone despite the overwhelming odds against such a thing. That said, it was funny and entertaining, definitely worth the price of admission (matinee as it was).

Jurassic World - The biggest movie of the summer and possibly the year (we'll see what Star Wars has to say about that!) was exactly what I expected. It was a loud, fun, slightly stupid popcorn flick. It was also the best Jurassic Park since the original... though it didn't surpass that one. The magic just wasn't there, the thrill of seeing an island of dinosaurs... twenty years later it seems like old hat. I think the filmmakers knew that and implied such in the film, making a similar statement about patrons no longer being wowed by regular dinosaurs. Thus was the motivation for the creation of the plot device known as Indominus Rex.

Make no mistake, Jurassic World is a science fiction monster movie not unlike the original Alien, Predator or even some kaiju movie like Cloverfield or Godzilla. The film is spent trying to stop the Indominus Rex from slaughtering everyone and everything. Yes, the other Jurassic films had their share of monster movie moments, but in Jurassic World the other dinosaurs were not really threats (except the flying ones, which aren't technically dinosaurs, but I digress).

I have to question why they would even make the Indominus Rex. It's like in the movie Deep Blue Sea when they made the brain capacity of sharks bigger and where shocked when they became smarter and more efficient at killing. Scientists for Jurassic World decided it would be a good idea to combine the genes of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, a whole bunch of other dinosaurs as well as cuttlefish and some sort of tree frog. The end result is a huge intelligent carnivorous dinosaur with horns, functional arms with opposable thumbs, massive claws, the ability to camouflage itself and control it's body temperature. Yeah, nothing bad could possibly happen there.

I also have to question how Jurassic World would have even been funded. Surely everyone had found out about the massacre that occurred right before the original Jurassic Park was set to open. If not, I'm pretty damn sure they heard about a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex wreaking havoc in San Francisco. I guess you could argue that "when there's money to be made..." of course they would find funding. The question then comes down to the tourists... which is more dominant, the desire to see an actual living dinosaur or the desire not to be eaten by an actual living dinosaur. Strangely, up until the scientists decided to play God, it seemed like Jurassic World actually did have decent control over the animals.

The special effects were good. I heard some grumblings about dinosaurs looking less real than in the original film... they didn't seem that fake looking to me. I really liked the design of the park itself, the interactive displays and rolling ball cars... it seemed appropriately high-tech and made it more plausible that they could actually raise and contain dinosaurs rather than in the original where all they had were fences.

So before I close this review, I want to point out a few tidbits from Jurassic World. Chris Pratt is now an official A-lister super star in Hollywood. Vincent D'Onofrio is absolutely wasted in this movie, but it's still fun seeing him. Finally, the end battle of the Indominus Rex versus the Tyrannosaurus and the Velociraptor was total fan service, like a dinosaur equivalent of The Avengers. Still, dinosaurs running amok make for big, loud, fun movies.

Inside Out - On Rotten Tomatoes I read on of their review snippets that said: "Welcome back Pixar. You've been sorely missed." Truer words were never spoken. To me, Pixar was always a cut above the rest, setting a bar that few could match and seemingly nobody could surpass. I had a feeling that Inside Out was going to be a return to form for Pixar, which as of late had strayed from their usual level of excellence with what I would consider 'Dreamworks level' movies like Brave and Monsters University... in other words decent but nothing special.

Before seeing Inside Out, the premise excited me. Past Pixar films had been able to make amazing stories from eccentric ideas, such as a virtually dialogue free movie about two small robots that fall in love or an elderly widower rediscovering his love of life and adventure after turning his house into makeshift air balloon. The idea of Inside Out exploring the beings representing our emotions that live in our heads seemed right up Pixar's alley.

Inside Out did not disappoint. It was funny, imaginative, touching (yes it made me cry and yes, I have already established before that I'm a sissy... moving on) and like the best Pixar films, it delved into ideas far deeper than what is on the surface. In this case, the film explores what it means to grow up and, much to TivoGirl's revelation, what use there is for sadness. I only hope that The Good Dinosaur is as good as Inside Out... because I don't have a lot of confidence in Finding Dory. 

I should have Part 2 of this up soon. Until then, Stay Strange.

Some More (and very late) Movie Reviews

Summer is a really busy time for me and unfortunately my schedule has had me fall behind on things such as blog posts, especially movie reviews. So here are the last four films I saw in theaters... some have already left theaters.

Warning: Some Spoilers

The Rover (aka Don't Ever Steal Guy Pearce's Car!)

This past week I saw The Rover, without virtually no knowledge of what the film was about save for seeing a commercial and reading a few of those review snippets from Rotten Tomatoes. Just going by the general feel of the movie, I figured it was something I might like, not to mention some positive buzz for the performances of Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson.

The Rover is the kind of movie you watch at 2 in the morning. It's like a cross between Mad Max and The Road (another film Pearce was in). It is set in the Australian Outback in a vague post-apocalyptic setting (text at the start of the movie read "10 Years After the Collapse") adding to the Mad Max feel. The resemblance to The Road is that the film chronicles an uncertain journey between Pearce and Pattinson, with the former leading and sometimes protecting the latter.

One of the biggest triumphs of The Rover is it's atmosphere, this unsettling sense of danger and desperation. This feeling is further amplified by the jarring and disturbing musical score, though at times I'm not sure it's music so much as the instrumental equivalent of nails screeching against a chalkboard. 

I think both Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson gave good performances. Pearce channeled his inner Clint Eastwood, often letting his menacing glare deliver his lines for him. We never get a lot of back story for his character, but he pulls off a world-weary man, not necessarily a good one, with little to lose in a world with even less to offer. Pattinson gave what may be the performance of his young career (though I did not see his Cronenberg film). If ever there was a point where he shed away the heart-throb Twilight image, this role does it. Pattinson plays a simpleton with a blurred sense of morality, a by-product of the violent world he lives in. It makes me think he has a great acting future in front of him.

To me, The Rover was an artistic take on the post-apocalyptic b-movie. The plot is simple, the character motivations even simpler. However, what sets this film apart from the various Mad Max rip-offs is the attention to detail; the underlying angsth-filled themes, the atmosphere, the all around feel of a world teetering on the brink.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (aka Monkey Vengeance 2: Hail to the Chimp)

Before I say anything else, I think the title for this movie should have been used for the James Franco predecessor, as "dawn" indicates the beginning and what we saw in this movie is clearly the "rise" of the Planet of the Apes.

This film joins the ranks of 'sequels better than the original.' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (or DPA as I don't want to keep typing that long title out) had much more action and in some ways a more cohesive plot. Strangely, though, while the apes were given more time to develop characters, the humans were given a lot less. Most of the humans had basic plot devices in place of proper origins to save time. As a result, we have a father (Jason Clarke) trying to move on from the death of his wife with a nice new woman (Keri Russel) but his son doesn't like her, but warms up to her amidst the drama of the film.

The one human that seems lost in the shuffle is arguable the best actor in the movie, Gary Oldman. He's not a bad guy, but he has no qualms about doing pretty evil things. He apparently lost his family from the Simian Flu (as we saw from the trailer) but what does that mean? Does he blame the apes and want revenge? Is he trying to hold together the human race because it's all he can do to keep his family's memory alive? Does he lead to give his life purpose as otherwise he would have nothing to lose? It's never revealed, but in the end (SPOILER) the guy who sought survival at all costs was more than willing to sacrifice himself to take out the apes. Oldman's character deserved more development.

What I liked most about DPA is that it examines the ideas of what it means to be human. Some humans try to rise above while others can't help but succumb to their violent nature. Meanwhile, the apes that had thought themselves superior to humans and incapable of their errors discover they too are very human. The special effects were pretty great as well. The CGI combined with the brilliant Andy Serkis made Caesar come to life, right down the slightest expression.

Overall, I enjoyed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I am curious to see where the franchise goes from here as with the success of both films, there will surely be a third. I wonder if the story will still follow Caesar or if the franchise will jump ahead to an Earth truly run by apes. Also, some may have forgotten, there was a quiet little subplot in the first movie about a mission to Mars that gets lost. That is surely setting up a similar plot to the classic original Planet of the Apes.

Lucy

I was initially going to skip this movie until I found out it was written and directed by Luc Besson, the filmmaker that did Taken and Leon, The Professional (a personal favorite). Lucy had the earmarks of your classic Besson thriller with lots of gunfights and a gritty underworld, but it also had a massive science fiction theme going on, something I like to call "exploring the unexplorable."

What I mean by "exploring the unexplorable" is when a science fiction film delves into hardcore weird shit, the kind of thing that we may never be able to understand let alone accomplish. Movies I lump into this theme are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States and to a certain extent Inception and Donnie Darko. Lucy has a really interesting concept and when combined with Besson's penchant for violent stories it makes for a very unique experience.

However, I wonder if that same experience of weird sci-fi and gun violence meshes very well. Inception gave a reasoning for gunfights in the subconscious that for the most part worked, even adding a level of intrigue. (Corporations can place mental defenses into one's mind in case of dream theft? Neat.) In Lucy, the gunplay seems to serve two purposes. The first is to display how amazing Lucy's powers become with each increase in her brain capacity. The second is to give a point of urgency to the plot. (Imagine if in 2001 that Dave is followed into the trippy monolith by a vengeful mafia boss.) It feels off somehow but sort of works at the same time.

The problem is that at some point the gun-fighting is meaningless. It is clear that nothing can stop Lucy once she reaches a certain level (though I must admit that it's pretty satisfying to see ruthless mobsters get taken down by one woman). Near the end there is a huge shoot-out by the Triads and the Parisian police... but it really only serves as a stalling device so that Lucy can try to achieve 100% brain capacity.

Scarlett Johansen gives a good performance, starting the film as a regular, if naive, young woman and practically becoming a robot. Morgan Freeman... I'm not going to say he gives a great performance as it is the same performance that he (almost) always gives... and we always love. (Like a Twinkie... like a Twinkie) Actually, he kind of seems like he was playing a version of himself from hosting Into the Wormhole!

 As Jonny Prophet points out, humans actually do use more than 10% of our brain capacity... something I actually knew. Honestly, I am willing to let the absurd science fiction go (again, exploring the unexplorable) in exchange for an entertaining movie. And while I am pretty sure that human brains do not have the untapped potential to control electronic devices or grant super-hearing, I was entertained thoroughly throughout the movie.

My bigger complaint is actually some unanswered plot points. For instance, the drug given to Lucy is meant to be distributed world-wide as a narcotic... but why would a cartel want to give people a drug that increases brain capacity? It didn't seem to give any significant satisfying high to Lucy. Then there is the plot point of Lucy's motivations. Once having her brain awakened, her goal seemed like revenge, but then shifts to stopping the drug distribution, but then she starts taking all of the drugs herself to further unlock her potential! I guess maybe she was willing to sacrifice herself to make sure everyone else isn't given the curse of more brain function? I don't know.

I do know I really like Lucy. It's not perfect, but it is original, innovative and entertaining.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Being a fan of the comic, this is the movie I was most looking forward to this summer. While it wasn't without it's flaws, it didn't disappoint either. But perhaps my being a fan going in, I gave this movie more leeway. Then again, most of my complaints are fanboy nit-picking that average theater-goers wouldn't have a problem with. That said, I guess I will begin with my problems with Guardians of the Galaxy.

First, the Nova Corps were just weird. They were like... cops, literally space cops with uniforms and space ships. They didn't fly or fire gravimetric energy blasts or anything like it. I do, however, hold out some hope of getting the proper comic interpretation of Nova. I noticed that all of the cops, including John C. Reilly's Rhomann Dey (AKA the guy who passed his power onto Richard Ryder) all had the rank of Denarian or less. I don't recall seeing any Centurions, like the rank Richard Ryder had in the comics. Maybe the Centurions are the only ones who have super powers in the movies. I hope so at least. With Marvel having to do without Spider-man in it's cinematic universe, Nova (whether it's Ryder or Sam Alexander) would make a great replacement. After all, upon Nova's debut in the 70's, he was touted as the next "Spider-man."

I also notice that there were a lot of alien races absent in GotG, such as the Skrulls and the Shi'Ar. Maybe they need to be formally introduced or maybe Fox owns the rights to both from their licenses to X-Men and Fantastic Four. Either way, if neither show up in the Marvel Films universe, you are missing some major characters like Super-Skrull and Gladiator.

This was pointed out by another reviewer, but I realize that it's true. The Infinity Gems are becoming the Infinity MacGuffins. GotG are now the fourth Marvel movie to center on bad guys wanting or possessing a powerful magic trinket that ends up being confiscated by the good guys and placed in a vault somewhere. You had the Tesseract in the first Captain America and the Avengers plus the Aether in Thor 2. The problem is, if this pattern persists, we still have 3 more gems, that is potentially 3 more movies with the same predictable plot elements. Now I hope Ultron has no use for a magic stone, but I am pretty certain the planned Dr. Strange movie will feature one of them, possibly as the Eye of Agamotto.

Lastly, and I warn this spoils the ending for those who have still not seen the movie, Ronan the Accuser is killed. This is kind of a big character in the Marvel universe. While Ronan has sometimes been a villain and others a hero, he represents a major aspect of the Marvel space universe and the Kree in general. I would have preferred him to have lived to show up later on, in perhaps movie versions of major storylines such as Annihilation, Conquest, War of Kings or even The Annihilators (though Marvel would need Silver Surfer and Gladiator to do that right). However, with how he betrayed Thanos, it would have been difficult for Ronan NOT to have been killed at some point. His final battle did feel a little underwhelming to me too. I think they built Ronan up too much so that the only way to defeat him is through some existential method. I mean, he beat Drax's ass like nothing. Drax is not a featherweight.

As for the good... the movie was very fun to watch. I was highly entertained. The humor of the film, far more comedic than any other Marvel film including the Iron Man trilogy, really matched the tone of the Guardians of the Galaxy comic, especially the Abnett and Lanning run. The special effects were great. I am glad the action scenes weren't just a bunch of blurry jump cuts and for the most part the characters were shown accurately to the comics in terms of personality and skills.

Chris Pratt was great as Star Lord, as I knew he would be given his performance in Zero Dark Thirty and as Andy Dwyer on Parks & Recreation. Zoe Saldana made an awesome Gamora, like I once again knew she would. Dave Bautista made for an interesting Drax the Destroyer, the movie version diverting pretty far from the original character. The film Drax seemed aloof and a little naive, really just driven by his quest for revenge and his violent nature. I'm wondering if his origin will align more with the comics in future films (and we may get another Guardians member in his daughter Moondragon).

Of course, Rocket Racoon and Groot really stole the show. I initially had my reservations about Bradley Cooper providing the voice of Rocket, but he really hit it out of the park. He gave Rocket the tough New Yorker accent he needed and brought a bunch of the humor to the movie. Some of the most hilarious and memorable segments involved Rocket. With Groot, I knew Vin Diesel was perfect. He was the Iron Giant after all. The movie excellently captured Rocket and Groot's weird and funny friendship.

Lee Pace and Karen Gillan made for memorable villains. Pace's Ronin did come across as a scary bad ass and Gillen's Nebula was creepy and just plain cool looking. Karen Gillen is well on her way to being the new Geek Queen, joining the likes of Sigourney Weaver and Milla Jovovich. It was nice to see more of Thanos. Josh Brolin was a brilliant choice to provide his voice. Hopefully we will see more of the Mad Titan sooner rather than later.

I have to add that I was overjoyed to see Cosmo make a cameo. I hope in the sequel we see him interact with the Guardians with his telepathy and make Rocket's life miserable. The inclusion of Blue Merl... I mean Yondu... was interesting. They obviously altered Yondu quite a bit for the film, but it worked... even if Michael Rooker basically just played him like Smurf colored Merl Dixon from The Walking Dead.

In all, Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't perfect. It doesn't dethrone Avengers or the first Iron Man in terms of quality, but it was a lot of fun. Clearly the writers felt some freedom by using more obscure characters and it showed. I definitely look forward to Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

Hey! We Saw... LOTS of Movies!

Ugh. Kind of got back-logged with these movie reviews... so much so that one of them is already out on DVD! So here is a few movie reviews all in one big wallop.

Warning: There are a few spoilers... but not so much that it will ruin the movie.

Inside Llewyn Davis

So... Inside Llewyn Davis... I didn't really like it. That assessment really just comes down to opinion. Like most Coen Brothers films, it was virtually flawless from a movie-making standpoint. It had a great soundtrack (I was especially happy to see Justin Timberlake perform folk music!) and they found a cast with great voices. That was the one standout of Oscar Isaac's performance, he can sing really well. The guy's got some great talent. I also must point out how great Carey Mulligan is as an actress. I have never seen her give a bad performance... she continues to amaze me. I didn't even know she could sing!

I think my biggest problem with the movie was that I found Isaac's character Llewyn Davis extremely unlikable. He was a total asshole. (I want to take a moment here to point out that I have never seen Oscar Isaac not play a dick on some level... Drive was the least asshole role in which I have seen him, yet he was still a bit of one.) 

The issue is that Llewyn was part of the blossoming folk scene in early 60's Greenwich Village of New York City. It was shown to be a community where friends helped get each other gigs or to scrape by when times were tight. And repeatedly Llewyn Davis acted to burn bridges and treat everyone like shit. Any sympathy I had for him, as he tried to be a solo act after the suicide of his partner, was squandered as he would behave like a self-absorbed, privileged jerk to everyone who tried to help him.

I also think the film missed a large opportunity with a subplot that ended up going nowhere. Davis discovered that a girl he had impregnated didn't go through with the abortion that he paid for. She never told him and was at that point living with her 2 year old offspring of Llewyn Davis in Akron, Ohio. So logically you would think that Davis would confront her and try to connect with his child... but no. He came close in one scene when he was driving through Ohio, but chose not to go to Akron. What was the point of including that, then? To me, that's just bad storytelling.

Furthermore, the climax felt underwhelming. Despite dealing with a myriad of bullshit and disappointments (which I will again add that he brings on much of it himself), I kind of feel like Llewyn Davis should have addressed his partner's suicide. I envisioned a scene where he was standing on the edge of the same bridge his musical companion had hurled himself from. Davis contemplates doing the same for a moment, but instead speaks to his dead partner, saying that he is stronger than him, he won't give up. Something along those lines. It would have shown me that there is something more to him, that keeps driving him to be a better person.

Instead, the movie has a cyclical plot, and in turn accomplishes something similar. It ends where it began. In doing so, you get the impression that each go around, Llewyn does a little bit better than the time before. This time he didn't let his friend's cat escape the apartment where he had crashed the night before. (Something that became a theme throughout the film that he was always trying to get the cat back... SYMBOLISM!) At the club, he sang the same song as at the start of the movie, but this time his performance was much better. You get the feeling that each time he takes this journey, Llewyn Davis learns from some of his mistakes and in turn does a bit better in his life. That aspect of the story I do like; there is an artistic element at work there that is relatable to all of us, even evoking the old adage that 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it'... and maybe someday he will learn the lessons he needs to be successful both as a musician and a person. But until then, Llewyn Davis will still be an asshole.  

And now for Jonny Prophet's contribution... heaven help us.

Jonny's Contribution - The entire time I had to watch this whiny asshole, I kept asking myself... what is that cat up to. You know, the cat that escaped the apartment? Man, I bet that cat went on some amazing adventures... and how could he not? It was New York City? Maybe the cat went to the Statue of Liberty or learned to drive a taxi! That was a great cat. So much better than that Llewyn asshole. I bet the cat was also a great folk singer too. I wish I could have seen those feline adventures, chasing squirrels and running from dogs and getting it on with other cats. That would have been a great movie. For shame, Coen Brothers, on throwing away such an amazing oppurtunity to make a movie about a cat.  

I like cats.

Thanks for that Jonny... wait, did you say you wanted to see a movie where cats do it? 

****

The Lego Movie

I freakin' loved The Lego Movie. It's about time we got another good movie in February (the first since Coraline!). The movie was really funny, had an original story, a great twist and a fantastic voice cast featuring Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman and Will Ferrell.  

The animation was really good. I am a fan of anybody doing stop-motion animation, which sadly feels like a dying art. I can't imagine how long it took to shoot the movie, but the animators did an impressive job. There were also a lot of great little inside jokes about Legos themselves, such as the main character, Emmet, trying on different "looks" like new hair or hat accessories or different bodies until he finds the right attire.

The overall plot was amusing. The main characters traversed various Lego 'worlds' such as City, The Old West, Pirates, Space and the cleverly named Middle Zealand! There were lots of character cameos from the many Lego licenses like Ninja Turtles, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars,  Harry Potter and of course the DC Superheroes (as Batman was one of a main characters). I guess Disney didn't allow them to use any of the Marvel characters.   

See, this is the problem with reviewing a movie that I like... outside of a few sentences of praise, I don't have much more to say. I don't want to give away the twist, but I did think it was brilliant and fit extremely well with the very concept of Legos.

Could there be a sequel? I guess... the movie did leave it open for a sequel, but that could have been more of a joke than anything else. My guess is that there will be more Lego movies given the huge success of this one, but in a way I hope this one will be it. If another Lego movie has to be made, I hope they go with something completely original... new characters and new worlds. The Lego Movie was self contained and great for what it was... but unnecessary half-hearted "make-a-buck" sequels could ruin the franchise and sour the taste of the original. Making sequels to comedies run the risk of re-using jokes and wearing the very premise so thin that nobody cares anymore. (Sort of like what happened with Austin Powers.) Sometimes Hollywood just needs to know when to tell a joke and then leave the stage. 

And here is the Jonny response...

Jonny's Contribution: Legos are awesome.

Really? That's it? That's your review?

No. Also... What the hell is a Kre-o? 

Moving on. 

****

The Wing Rises 

So I have caught the latest final film from Hayao Miyazaki. I mean no disrespect by that, the man is a genius. It's just that he has said repeatedly that such and such film was his last, but his workaholic style always kept him returning to the drawing board. But who knows, maybe The Wing Rises will truly be the final one? So how was it?

I think The Wind Rises was uneven. It had the amazing animation you come to expect from Studio Ghibli, some great characters, good dialogue with plenty of humor thrown in... all of that was good. The problem is The Wind Rises suffers from the same problem that most biographical films are afflicted with... trying to cover too much with too little time.

You see, the lifetime of a person, broken down into the most important events and passions to drive a narrative, is still usually a lot longer than 120 minutes can adequately explain. So what you end up with is a choppy, jumbled mess of a plot. This one was better than some biographical plots I've seen, but it had some major problems.

The movie centers on Jiro Horikoshi, the man who pioneered Japanese aviation and invented the Zero plane, which ended up being used in the Second World War. But the story doesn't glorify war in any way, but instead the freedom, beauty and imagination of flight and the creation of the machines to take one into the sky. Most of the plot revolves around the rise of Jiro's career as well as the trial and error of designing a working aircraft. 

The subplot is what I have the biggest problem with. This of course is about the romance between Jiro and his love Naoko. The two plots really have no balance with each other. The love story feels stunted and skimmed over. It seems Jiro barely knows Naoko when he declares his love and desire to marry her. The script writer tried to tie both plots together, using her as the inspiration for Jiro's eventual success, but Naoko really seemed like an after-thought compared to the amount of time spent on Jiro's education and early years in aviation. 

There was one odd character. A German man, who came across very creepy, whom bad-mouthed Nazi Germany to Jiro while in Japan. He disappeared from the story almost as quickly as he came. I don't get his purpose to the overall story, except maybe to counter balance the idea that our hero was designing planes for use by the Japanese Empire, who would end up on the wrong side of history. I think the German was unnecessary. Jiro makes it clear his distaste for war and laments that the only way his creations will have enough funding to be built is if the military funds their enterprise. I will also add that Miyazaki has never been one to glorify war, represented often in his other films such as Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. 

One important thing that The Wind Rises got right was the imagination and wonder that has made Studio Ghibli's so cherished. Even this film, based on reality, found a means to create amazing dream sequences and fantastic imagery. Through these fanciful moments, one could understand the drive, passion and inspiration that Jiro felt about flying and creating works of brilliance to take to the skies. Despite my criticisms, this aspect alone makes The Wind Rises worth a viewing, as much as any other film Hayao Miyazaki has blessed us with. 

Jonny's Contribution: What was up with that German guy? He had these weird eyes. He haunts my nightmares! Germans are all creepy people! 

What the hell, man?! I'm German!

And furthermore, the very basis of this movie was flawed! Everyone knows that zeppelins are the way of the future! 

Please note, Jonny's comments are his alone and don't represent mine or any sane person's point of view.

There will be more reviews to come... soonish. Until then, Stay Strange.