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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
An overblown, disjointed start of a franchise
This movie has been something of a milestone in my life in that it has been the first time I've intently followed a film's development and then seen it fall flat. It's honestly a bit jarring to see something with so much hype and so much good material as its basis crash and burn so badly with so many problems.
Continuing the story that began in "Man of Steel", "Batman v Superman" shows a changed world. Superman (Henry Cavill), a god among men, is treated as much with reverence as he is with suspicion. And among those who wants him destroyed is Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), for vaguely defined reasons I couldn't remember with a gun to my head. Meanwhile, in Gotham, Batman is waging a personal war on crime, leaving branded criminals and terrified bystanders in his wake. His violent approach catches the attention of Superman, who tries to tackle him as a civilian through his job at the Daily Planet. Bruce Wayne, on the other hand, witnessed the destruction of Metropolis during Superman's fight with Zod and is concerned that Superman will turn against the world and rule it.
Just to get to the casting you've probably been wondering about: Ben Affleck wasn't at all bad as Bruce Wayne and Gal Gadot was good as Wonder Woman, even if her part in the movie was a bit small and I didn't care for the way Batman was written here. Sure, he has a cool look and good fight scenes and a background faithful to the original story we all know, but he is ridiculously brutal, even by Batman standards. Between his use of firearms during fights and the fact that his Batwing has more heavy weaponry than a fighter jet, plus he actually means to kill Superman, not capture him, he is such a departure from the principled Batman of the comics.
I had very mixed feelings about Eisenberg as Luthor. On the one hand, he gives a very entertaining performance that captures the comic book Luthor's planet-sized ego and contempt of Superman and he adds some humor to many Superman-related scenes that would have been mind-numbingly bleak without it. Unfortunately, Eisenberg's Luthor has a seriously psychotic streak that makes it hard to see him as the head of a major corporation; instead, he comes off as more of a highly funded, slightly saner Joker. While Bryan Cranston, whom many wanted for the role, would probably have been great as the comic Luthor, Eisenberg makes a good fit for whoever the hell the guy in this movie is.
While there were some other acting performances here that I enjoyed, such as Laurence Fishburne as a no-nonsense, tough-talking Perry White, Jeremy Irons as Bruce Wayne's snarky, yet caring butler Alfred, the movie as a whole is a total mess. Many of the scenes are fine on their own, sometimes even good, but they have no real flow when they are played together. It's like Snyder just put effort into a bunch of cool scenes, shot additional scenes based around them and then just patched everything together like a quilt. The scene where Batman takes on a warehouse full of armed thugs, for example, was completely mind blowing. It was intense, it looked amazing, it was elegantly edited and was the kind of action I like to see in a Batman movie. Unfortunately, this scene is clumsily inserted into the middle of the climax, while the big final battle is happening elsewhere. While Batman is fighting for something vital to the plot in the warehouse, that bit could and should have been placed somewhere else in the movie, such as the introduction scenes.
The visuals of the movie also fail on several levels. While I mostly like Zack Snyder's sense of visual aesthetics and some of the more low-key fight scenes, like the warehouse fight scene described above, are pretty good, the bigger ones during the climax are a pure assault on the senses. They are loud, flashy and run more on the sight of buildings being destroyed and violent close-quarter fighting than conflict. The climax basically boils down to lots of flashy blasts and explosions and not much else.
In case you haven't before seen the possible pitfalls of a superhero movie that's setting up way too many sequels (looking at you, "Age of Ultron"), this movie stomps into all of them. In case the subtitle didn't hint it, "Batman v Superman" gives us a first look at the new cinematic Justice League, but it does so in the clumsiest and most ham-fisted way imaginable. For starters, there's the visions that Bruce Wayne has, such as the one of a future where Superman is a tyrant, that obviously teases the future Justice League movie. Then there's the way we are first introduced to the new Justice League members: putting the plot on pause and having Wonder Woman watch a bunch of video clips of the future members. Because what's more fun to see in a superhero movie than a character watching video clips? With its questionable writing and overblown, effect-driven action scenes, "Batman v Superman" is enough to not just make me worry about the future of DC Comics on celluloid, but worry about filmmaking today. The film is everything that's bugging moviegoers and film critics alike about big movie franchises; planning ahead for countless future entries at the expense of the current one, relying on special effects rather than storytelling, and banking on the high profiles of the characters it adapts without concern for what fans actually like about them. If you're still interested, "Batman v Superman" makes for a passable few hours in a movie theater, but not much else.
Oculus (2013)
Too brainy for its own good
A good horror movie can frighten us simply by going for the most basic survival instincts we have. A lunatic with a hatchet can make us check our door locks a few extra times. A killer shark can make us spend all summer on dry land. And for reasons I've never been able to fully relate to, ghosts and demons can also scare the hell out of movie watchers. Unfortunately, Oculus throws most of that conventional wisdom out the window and instead takes a more cerebral approach to horror that doesn't quite pay off.
Eleven years ago, Tim and his older sister Kaylie witnessed the deaths of their parents under bizarre circumstances, with Tim being convicted of their murders and put in a mental institution. In the present, he is declared sane and released. In the meantime, Kaylie has acquired a mirror she believes is related to what happened to their parents and several other suspicious deaths over many years. With Tim's help, she intends to prove that the mirror has genuine paranormal properties and exonerate him. She returns the mirror to their old home, fitted with cameras and other safety measures to protect them, but the power of the mirror proves difficult to fight.
In some ways, Oculus works great. Gillan and Thwaites play a sibling couple well and it's kind of enjoyable to see a horror movie protagonist take such a proactive, clinical stance to fighting a paranormal foe. One thing that works particularly well is the use of a non-linear story. The present-day story is interspersed with scenes of Tim and Kaylie's life when they and their parents moved into the house. As the film goes on, we jump between the time periods, culminating in the night that put Tim in a mental institution.
However, for me, the film failed in the worst way a horror movie can fail: it simply wasn't scary. There are one or two scenes that are genuinely creepy, but they don't really amount to anything that leaves a lasting impression. The other scares are too badly delivered to work, either because the timing is way off or because anyone who has ever seen a horror movie can see them coming from a mile away. The jumping between time periods is well done and ambitiously thought out, but sadly it doesn't really deliver enough genuine frights to fit into a horror movie scenario.
The fatal flaw of Oculus is that it spends so much of its runtime showcasing the nonlinear story that it fails to deliver any truly visceral scares. Simply put, it tries to scare you in the mind when it should be going for the gut.
The 5th Wave (2016)
Generic YA sci-fi, but Moretz makes it watchable
In a time when sci-fi-oriented young adult stories of teenagers being forced to fight as soldiers are practically an annual tradition, we get The 5th Wave, a watchable movie that somehow stands out even less than any of the YA movies that came before it.
Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Cassie Sullivan, a high school student, whose life is changed when a race of aliens known only as "the Others" invade the planet. After they cripple the population with a series of blackouts, earthquakes and a deadly disease, the first three waves, the survivors find out that the Others have become able to infect human hosts and seize control of them. When Cassie's brother is separated from her and taken to a military training facility to become a soldier in the war against the Others, Cassie finds herself on her own in the wilderness and goes on a journey by foot to find him.
While Moretz's performance and decent action sequences make The 5th Wave watchable enough, it's not a remarkable movie. Far too much of the plot, including the first four waves described above, was given away by the very first trailer. The scenes of Cassie's life before the invasion are too painfully teen drama-like to mix with the story of an alien invasion. Much of the dialogue feels like it was written as a placeholder dialogue and never polished. And the storyline with the military never properly addresses the obvious ethical issues of sending teenagers into armed combat.
To its credit, the film has some solid performances, mostly notably Moretz, who does a good job portraying someone in Cassie's situation. There are also enough decent action sequences and somewhat tense moments to keep you from losing interest, but only barely. Odds are your enjoyment of The 5th Wave is directly correlated to how much you like YA fiction in general.
Into the Woods (2014)
Good songs, strong cast, crappy adaptation
Just so it's said: I had no idea that Into The Woods was a stage musical before I watched the film and I still haven't seen the stage version. It still became pretty obvious that it was an adaptation less than half an hour in.
Int The Woods is a a hodgepodge of classic fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel, all united into one single, oddly written story. It begins when a witch, played by Meryl Streep, comes to a baker and his wife and tells them that she once cast a curse on his family to keep him from having any children and that it can be reversed by combining a collection of items within a few days. As the baker and his wife gather the items, their paths intersect with the other fairytale characters.
As a film, Into The Woods is probably one of the most awkward stage-to-screen adaptations I've ever seen - and that is obvious even if you haven't seen the stage show. Most of the dialogue is filmed in very wide and sometimes distant shots, just like they were shot on an actual stage. The fact hat the film chooses not to show a lot of events that could NOT have been done on Broadway, but COULD have been done on film feels like a missed opportunity. And while Johnny Depp, playing the Big Bad Wolf, looks more like a character from Cats, an actor of his skill deserved a bigger role than this. But the biggest flaw in the screenplay is the narrative itself. The second half feels more like the start of a whole new story than a continuation of the first half. Some major plot points (can't say which without spoiling) are simply glossed over while more minor events are highlighted.
That being said, the film has some strengths. The pacing has an intensity many writers can only dream about creating. The Cinderella portion of the story, starring Anna Kendrick, is a more interesting take on Cinderella than the last actual Cinderella movie. And while the cast is full of talented actors and singers alike, Meryl Streep stands out in pretty much every scene she's in.
In conclusion, Into The Woods offers a lot of great songs performed by a well-chosen ensemble. It's worth watching for that and for the good acting performances. And as long as you can sit back and enjoy that without trying too hard to apply logic to the story, it's enjoyable enough.
Ant-Man (2015)
A surprising and entertaining entry in the Marvel franchise
Ant-Man felt like something of a gamble when I went into the theater because I worried that a superhero with nothing but the powers of shrinking and controlling ants wouldn't be able to carry a whole movie. It didn't take long for it to convince me otherwise.
Paul Rudd stars as Scott Lang, a convicted thief fresh out of prison and struggling to make an honest living and get visitation rights to be with his daughter. He is recruited by scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the inventor of the original Ant-Man technology, to break into his old tech company and prevent its new CEO, Pym's former protégé Darren Cross (Cory Stoll) from turning the technology into a weaponized suit called "the Yellowjacket". They are aided by Pym's estranged daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lily), Scott's former cell mate Luis (Michael Peña) and two small time crook friends.
Scott's comparatively normal background and sympathetic personality makes him a more relatable and refreshingly down-to-earth character than most other Marvel heroes. He isn't a millionaire, a demi-god or has any superpowers, he is just a normal guy with an empowered suit. And while the name "Yellowjacket" may sound a bit silly, Stoll's performance, which sometimes dips into over-the-top territory, and the menacing design of the suit make Darren Cross a surprisingly intimidating villain worthy of the Marvel franchise. However, the hero-villain relationship between him and Scott lacks some punch since Cross' hatred is more directed at Pym than him, making his animosity towards Scott more by proxy.
While Edgar Wright isn't directing Ant-Man, the script, which he co-wrote, has his fingerprints all over it. The story begins fairly mundanely, but gradually escalates further and further before exploding in a colorful and more than satisfying finale. Because Ant-Man introduces an almost whole new set of characters to the Marvel movies, the first part of the film contains a lot of backstory. While this bogs down the plot somewhat, the story keeps a consistent pace with regular doses of action that keeps the more explosive, special effect-filled second half from coming completely out of the blue.
With Ant-Man, Marvel has not only introduced an exciting, if smaller than usual, new angle to its cinematic universe. They have taken a character nobody thought could be cool and made a hugely entertaining movie about him and I look forward to seeing Ant-Man's role in the upcoming third phase of the Marvel saga.
Boyhood (2014)
A long series of unconnected happenings
At first glance, the coming-of-age drama "Boyhood" seemed to have an intriguing premise. Take the same, undeniably talented actors playing the same characters over the course of 12 years and have their characters age as they do. It's not hard to tell that director Richard Linklater and the most prominent actors, such as Ellar Coltrane as Mason, the boy in question, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as his divorced parents, put a lot of heart into the project. Which made me sad to find out that the final result was such an unmitigated failure.
The story, if it can be called that, is about Mason, who at the start in 2002 is six years old and living with his single mother and his sister Sam (played by Linklater's own daughter), spending time with his easygoing father on occasion. The same year, the mother moves the family to Houston so she can get a college degree. This becomes the start of a two and a half hour long series of largely disjointed events. As the years go by, Mason grows up and he goes through puberty, high school and eventually goes to college. In the meantime, his mother remarries, as does his father, and other things happen. And sadly, none of it has any noticeable effect whatsoever on Mason.
The biggest, and ultimately fatal problem with "Boyhood" is the fact that nothing that happens ever seems to make a difference. When Mason is ten years old, his stepfather turns into an abusive alcoholic who starts beating his mother. She later leaves him and takes Mason and Sam with her. What happened to this stepfather and his biological children? We never find out, because the drinking and the beating never comes up again a single time in the whole film. Pretty much everything that happens gets the same treatment in Linklater's script, which seems to have been written as the filming went along without a plot or concrete ending in mind. We see Mason get bullied at school, he goes to watch a Harry Potter movie, his friends show him nude pictures of women online, he visits his grandparents and fires a rifle, he sets up Obama-Biden posters during the election.
All of this just flows by without ever really sticking or leaving a mark at all, not from one year to the next, the one after that or any time in the plot at all. You'd think that Mason's mother, who was married to a violent, reckless alcoholic, would take some issue with her son drinking in high school and smoking weed, but she doesn't. Nor does watching nude pictures affect his view on women, or using firearms change his views on guns or the bullying make him throw gay slurs around. At almost every scene, I felt like "This will be relevant later", or "This will teach Mason something", but nothing like that ever happened.
Linklater writes his story very much the same way an average person's life tends to play out - a lot of everyday moments with little to no real connection and with no concrete final goal in sight. And there's nothing wrong with living like that, but when you take the time to put so many inconsequential happenings into a script, shoot them on tape and present them as a film, it makes for horrible storytelling.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Great movie, but "The Best Ever"?
The Shawshank Redemption is based on a short story by Stephen King. Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is imprisoned in Shawshank Prison for killing his wife and her lover. Inside, he befriends Red (Freeman), another inmate, and keeps making changes around the place, which worries the prison warden.
I watched the film when I found out that it had beat "The Godfather" to the top position on IMDb's Top 250 movies list. It was great, but I don't quite think it deserves the Nr 1 position. Don't get me wrong, the film is more than worth watching, but there's a lot of movies out there, just as good as this one and there's nothing outstandingly special about this one. It's great, nonetheless, and I can strongly recommend it.
9/10
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)
Truly a fantastic game
After 21 years of great games, Hideo Kojima manages to surpass himself and create a terrific ending to the Metal Gear series.
MGS4 takes place in 2014, 5 years after the Manhattan Incident (MGS2). Since then, the restriction of military intervention on foreign soil has been eased, creating the need for a number of private military companies, PMCs, fighting proxy wars. The five largest PMC:s are owned by Liquid Ocelot (Revolver Ocelot with the mind of Liquid Snake) who is planning to start a war against the Patriots, a mysterious organization which has secretly been controlling the USA since the 1970s. Solid Snake, who is experiencing rapid aging similar to Werner's syndrome, is deployed by Campbell, who now works with the UN in a PMC regulation committee, into the Middle East to assassinate Liquid and save the US once again.
The game is a worthy ending to the series. A lot of glitches have been removed, the game is no longer played from overhead perspective and the cut scenes are better merged with the game and feel almost like movie scenes.
The only thing that I didn't like about the game was the fact that there was no cut scene theater available, like in MGS3. I still think it deserves a full 10, though.