Thursday, August 29, 2013

Pacific Rim (2013)

Rating: 65%
I know this was about a month ago and most of you guys have probably forgotten about it, but I've seen it myself and I want to give my two cents about it. So here's my review for The Transformers vs. Cloverfield. *audience boos* Okay fine! Pacific Rim!

Plot: The world is being attacked by these giant alien creatures called Kaijus and their only defense has been by creating giant robots that have to be piloted by two people called Jaegers. The story mainly focuses on a pilot named Raleigh who lost his brother during a Kaiju and Jaeger fight and is recruited by his commanding officer, Pentecost to come back and find another pilot to assist him as they make their final stand. So Raleigh tries to get back in the game while he tries to have Pentecost's assistant Mako to be his co-pilot.


Now what really makes this movie is in fact the action and what they come up with for the aliens and at least some of the robots. When it comes to the cinematography, the choreography in the fighting, and with the creativity that they did with some of the features that the robots and mainly the aliens had, Pacific Rim stands as something Michael Bay and Hasbro can learn from for if they ever wanted to actually try to make a Transformers movie that works to go with good story and character development. (That’s the only time in this review that I’m bringing in my personal feelings about how The Transformers has been majorly raped. I promise.)  The movements were slow to show how big and massive the robots and aliens were, the camera movement was very still, you can basically see every single thing that was happening. And I really liked what they did with the aliens - especially with how they gave some of them some different abilities. There was one especially that had three different abilities and how they surprised you with its third was is probably the bestpart of the movie in terms of having a very good sense of timing and illusion. I actually saw this movie again with one of my best friends only in IMAX 3D and it came out as one of the VERY few movies like Avatar and Titanic 3D where the 3D really made it a very fun experience. On top of that, it actually had some funny moments. That’s not to say that any joke that was made was beyond hysterical or anything, but it did manage to have a few jokes – usually the ones pulled by Charlie Day - that actually did come out a little funny. I was not really interested in the idea of comedy relief in this movie, but for what they had, it was actually nice. But what really drags this movie are the main characters and the subplots and dialogue that goes with them. Granted, not every single thing about them was a complete cliché, but a lot of what they did was very cheesy and frankly ridiculous in some areas.  The first time I saw this movie was with my dad and my youngest brother and the first thing that my dad said after the movie ended that he even put up on Facebook was “Please, oh please, film makers, stop trying to put dialogue in action movies!!!”  Now that’s not to say that there aren’t action films that have genuinely good dialogue and characters. I know there are good films that have good dialogue. But sadly, they didn't create characters that were different from the kind of characters you've heard of before and some of the things they say and do you can just predict without a care. I mean Pentecost made this big speech that was just so cliched that it particularly left my brother snickering. All around, they need to actually have truly creative, and memorable characters and dialogue to go with them, or otherwise people who make films like these need to bear in mind my dad's request and close to never bother with them at all.

And that's my review for Pacific Rim. It's by no means memorable with its characters, but it proved to have very smart action, the right kind of cinematography, actual comedy here and there, and some fairly well thought of creativity with creating the design and features of the Jaegers and especially the Kaijus that make it a nice film worth watching at least once or twice.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Love Actually (2003)

Rating: 90%
Hello everyone. It's H.A.K.  Sorry It's been over a month since my Godfather part II review, but I've been very busy with two jobs and just enjoying what was left of my summer. But I'm back for hopefully more reviews, and I would like to start off with a film that was shown to me on the first day of my Editing Aesthetics class at film school: Love Actually.

Plot: This film consists of nine different stories all set in Britain that are being told during the weeks before Christmas that all have to do with love. First one is about a rock and roll legend Billy Mack trying to make a comeback with his manager. The second is about  Mark who secretly has feelings for his best friend's newlywed wife. Then we have a stepfather who has just lost his wife  trying to help his stepson get a girl he's in love with to notice him, a managing director having trouble between his wife and his secretary, a server who just wants to find a woman to be with, and...screw it, there's just so many, it's probably better not to name them all.

Now for quite some time, I've believed that there really are only three romantic comedies int he 21st century that are not only original (for the most part in some areas), but ACTUALLY ROMANTIC AND FUNNY!!! Those three being Once, Easy A, and Crazy Stupid Love. In my point of view up till now, these three seemed to be the only ones that actually were well thought off and lived up to their genre during the past 13 years - part of why Easy A and Crazy Stupid Love are one of my favorite films. So I thought there weren't anything else...at least until I saw this move. Not only does this film have some enjoyable acting from a completely British star class, but it has very clever writing with some funny jokes, well thought of characters, and a series of good stories that they give us that all focus on giving us the same message about love. And since this was seen in a class about editing, I will say that I agree with my teacher that the editor does his job very well with giving us all these stories with some very good transactions through cuts and even music at times, and just giving a good amount of balance between them. This is almost 35 minutes shorter then Cloud Atlas and is tackling more stories then that film did, and that makes all the more impressive that way. Granted it's not perfect as how one of my fellow students thought that some stories should've been cut, and I would agree that some of them are rather thin and you seem to forget some of them very quickly. But whenever some of them are seem to be forgotten, it's rarely for too long and they make it so that you can instantly remember them once they're brought back.

And that's my review for Love Actually, it's a well written film that actually succeeds in being a genuine romantic comedy with it's clever jokes an stories that are all connected to state its message about love. You may be lost at some point and forget/dislike some stories depending on your particular experience, but it is otherwise a great romantic comedy, another of the very few I've seen in this century, and is a film from that genre that I would recommend.