The Expendables (2010)

Okay before I review Paul, I want to get my thoughts about this particular movie out of the way. Basically, Blaine also suggested that he'd show me the first two Expendables so I can be ready for the third movie when it comes out next month. So let's take a look at my review for the first Expendables movie.

Plot: The Expendables are a group of mercenaries who are lead by Barney Ross. Ross gets a job from a man named Mr. Church who wants him and his team to overthrow a dictator named General Garza in Vilena. So the mission is on with The Expendables going off to fight Garza with the help of Garza's daughter Sandra.

Now let me start of with pointing out that this movie clearly is meant to be made just for the big mindless action with a whole bunch of action stars. So naturally I watched this movie expecting to just enjoy the action and try to not even bother with the story like I often do. The result...was almost in no way as enjoyable as I would have liked. For a movie that is meant to be just for the action and nothing else, it seemed to bother with its so-claimed stories and characters a lot more than it bothered to give us the action. All I really remembered from watching this movie was Sylvester Stallone talking to Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in one scene, then a whole bunch of him talking to Mickey Rourke, some of the action, some forced betrayal thing between Stallone and one of the Expendables...and that's kind of it. I remember some other bits, but every time I think about this particular film, all I really remember is little bits of the action, and mainly just Stallone talking to someone. Maybe they were trying to go with giving us at least something of a story so that it's not too much of the action or something... key word there being maybe. And that idea would be somewhat fine with if it wasn't so dull, and hallow, and lazy and altogether boring! I mean you could be drunk and yet be capable of writing a more entertaining screenplay than this. The closest thing that interested me in terms of what was happening in the movie that wasn't the big action was the character, Christmas' brief storyline about him and his girlfriend, but after that, nothing. It was just a hallow script with hallow characters, a bland reason to go after the antagonists who have a very cliched reason to be evil, a forced relationship between Ross and Sandra, a forced betrayal story line, that are all in little to no way interesting. And I know it's stupid to talk about all of that in a movie where focusing on any of the story or characters is pointless, but I'm only talking so much about it in this review because they put so much of it in this movie. And what's worse is that even with the mindless action, they barely take any advantage of what they can do with it using these stars. The majority of the Expendables group are basically sidelined in just appearances alone between the beginning and the end, and any other action star that's not and Expendable (Rourke, Schwarzenegger and Willis) are mostly there to just...talk. I mean for heaven sakes what's the point of putting Schwarzenegger and Willis in a movie that's made to be just a group of action stars in a big mindless action film if they're not even joining the fight? As for the action itself, the majority of it was just forgettable with the exception of the climax. The climax is where things got interesting with the Expendables just killing a bunch of bad guys with guns, explosives, machetes and so on. It was an enjoyable big climax and I was glad to have finally gotten to it when I did watching the movie.

And that's my review for The Expendables. It's made to be just for the mindless action with a bunch of action stars, and so I watched it with Blaine expecting to enjoy the movie for bringing me just that. But what I found instead was a movie that gave us more of it's very hallow story and characters, a lack of taking advantage of certain cast members, and only some action that took until the climax to be entertaining in any way. If you can enjoy the movie as it is anyway, good for you and please continue to do so. But to me, this was a disappointment that generally failed almost miserably in really using the content it has. Now The Expendables 2 on the other hand...stay tuned for that review.

Rating: 10%  

The World's End (2013)

Alright, let's finish the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy before getting to Paul with the final film: The World's End.

Plot: Gary King is a middle-aged alcoholic who regrets the time he failed to complete The Golden Mile with his old school friends where they do a pub crawl in the 12 pubs in their hometown Newton Haven, ending with the last pub, The World's End. So he tricks his old friends, who all have moved on and have their own jobs and/or have families, into coming back into Newton Haven to try to succeed where they failed all those years ago. But Gary's plan becomes a little more difficult when he and his friends start to notice some strange changes in their old hometown.

So what did I think about the final installment to this franchise that so many people seemed to instantly love? It's... not as good as the other two movies, but that in no way keeps it from being good. In fact, I was rather pleased with how it turned out when giving us a very different story and kinds of characters, particularity with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. With Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the difference between their characters in a generalized sense was kind of the same. Pegg's character was the more realistic or serious character as Shaun and Angel, and Frost was more the (for lack of better terms) immature or more laid back character as Ed and Danny. But here it's reversed with Frost's character, Andy is the more serious one because he moved on from Newton Haven like the rest of Gary's friends, whereas Pegg's character, Gary can't let go of the past, and so is the one that's more immature and/or laid back. And Pegg is very enjoyable as Gary King. Jeremy Jahns pointed out that this is a very different role for Pegg to play and...yeah I would agree with that. I may only know him mainly from the first two films, Paul and the Star Trek films, but I think I know enough of him to know that yes, this is very different from what he normally plays. And he does such a good job with this role, and I may go so far as to agree with Jahns in saying that this may be his best role that he's done because it's so different and he pulls it off so well. Nick Frost does a good job as the more serious one out of the two of them, but he's kind of downplayed. In fact, one of the kind of downs I have this movie when comparing it to the other two films is that we don't really get a whole lot of just Pegg and Frost together. This is of coarse understandable seeing is how you have Gary and Andy and their other old school friends to focus on which is all fine and good - I'm especially fond of Martin Freeman getting a much bigger role in one of these films, since he's starting to grow on me as an actor because of the Hobbit films and the Sherlock series - but the main focus on these films is supposedly suppose to be just Pegg and Frost, and we don't really get that until the last half hour or so. But maybe they meant it as just another way of making this film different from the other two films, and that's fine too. Anyway, the story is also very interesting just with what Gary's goal in the whole film is alone. I mean I really like how The World's End is actually this pub that he's trying to get to on this pub crawl, it was just so different from what I expected. And this film also has a big reveal about halfway through the movie. I won't give it away, but let's just basically say that, like Hot Fuzz,  the reveal as to who or what is behind what is happening unique. So for all the the reasons why to like this movie, what keeps me from liking it as much as the other two? Well... surprisingly the comedy didn't do a whole lot for me. Now that in no way means that I didn't laugh at all, I want to make that clear, it give give me some funny moments. But I guess they just didn't make me laugh as much or where as memorable as the comedy in the other two films. But that's probably me comparing it too much to the rest of the trilogy based on what how I expected this movie to be like.

And that's my review for The World's End. The comedy, while there, may not be as big for me as it is for other people, but all in all, this film is a good final installment. It gave us different characters, it gave us a different story, it gave us different performances from Pegg and Frost, and they do it all very well. I think this movie is the weakest of the trilogy, but it's not weak enough to keep it from still being very enjoyable. If you haven't seen it, definitely give it a try and take it for what it's worth. 
     
Rating: 80%

Hot Fuzz (2007)

Alright, I got my feelings about Tranformers: Age of Extinction out of the way, so let's get back to reviewing the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (and Paul) with Hot Fuzz.

Plot: Nicholas Angel is a skilled and dedicated police officer who is transferred from London to a small quiet town called Sanford. He eventually befriends his new partner Danny who is the son of the Chief Inspector of the town, but things get uneasy when people are getting killed by co-claimed accidents. Angel believes that the accidents are actually murders, but no one believes him, so it's up to him and Danny to try to find out what is happening.

I think it's okay to say that if you couldn't enjoy Shaun of the Dead because of how it hit the horror genre pretty well, this movie should be more comfortable to watch. This time we have Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost take on the buddy cop genre which gives us a more likable movie. Now when I say that, I'm not going back on the praises I gave Shaun of the Dead, I want to make that clear. But I also understand if people who aren't into horror films can't get into the movie even with it's comedy that helps balance things out. Now with this movie, we are tackling the genre of buddy cob movies, which is more inviting to the general audience and gives us a more fun experience. And that's pretty much what this movie gives. The characters are very likable - Pegg and Frost give us more great performances as Angel and Danny - the story gets more and more exciting as it progresses, and when we get the actions, it's a whole bunch of fun to watch. As for the comedy, I think Doug Walker probably says it best how there's so many jokes that there's a lot that you don't get the first or second or third time around. While I don't exactly notice a new joke every time I watch this movie, there are a couple that I easily did not notice the first time I watched it. Heck, when I was watching this movie so I could review it, I noticed how this classic joke in the big reveal is quietly put in a lot of times long before there was even the first death. And just like Shaun of the Dead, a lot of the jokes are very memorable and they are very well acted by the cast. I won't give away the big reveal, but let's just say that not only does it give us a lot of jokes, but it also makes the premise very unique and helps make the big climax all the more fun. If there was anything that I would imagine would still make people uneasy about watching this movie, it would be that some of the deaths along with how one of the antagonists is defeated are done rather gruesome. But other than that, there really isn't a whole lot to disturb you with like with Shaun of the Dead.


And that's my review for Hot Fuzz. It's a brilliant take on the buddy cop genre with great humor, fun action, memorable characters, and a unique story that makes Hot Fuzz a fun, funny, clever, exciting and action packed movie to easily enjoy. If having any problems with the brief particularly gruesome moments are all that I can think of that would be wrong with this movie, than all I can say is that if you have not seen this movie, I recommend it.

Rating: 100% 

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Michael Bay has made a fourth Transformers movie unfortunately. Anyone who has watched my videos of my problems with the Transformers films, knows how much I want to see Transformers rebooted and finally become something more than something for Bay to ruin or Hasbro to use only to sell toys. And how does this film turn out? Let's find out on my 550th review, Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Plot: It's been four years since the events of the third movie, and since then, the U.S. government has marde the Autobots fugitives and have been hunting them down with the help of a Transformer bounty hunter named Lockdown. But shortly after Optimus Prime is found and rebooted by a failed inventor named Cade Yeager, he rounds up the remaining Autobots and is off to stop Lockdown while also stopping a business tycoon Joshua Joyce from creating his own Transformers, including one named Galvatron.

So did this film deliver in being another Bay film where everything that's good about the Transformers franchise - namely characters, lore and so on are poorly used, had explosions everywhere, too much focus on the humans, dumb comedy, and had a plain terrible script to top it all off? Oh yeah! While it may not have Revenge of the Fallen's so-called comedy with things like Wheelie humping Mikaela's leg or Devestator's nuts showing and things like that, Age of Extinction regardless is the worst out of the films with having too many story lines, remarkably terrible dialogue - even for Michael Bay arguably - and probably caring for the Transformers lore and being loyal to the characters even less than practically the first three films put together. Ultimately, there's an article I read before going to see the movie where Bay basically stated how he truly doesn't give a rats whether or not people will hate the movie, and it shows. It truly, deeply shows. The plot was so all over the place that I would argue that the first three films (yes, even Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon) had something of a flowing narrative compared to this movie. Most of the story lines had interesting ideas, but where way too many to properly use any of them or even have any real screen time. People who thought The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a mess can stop their whining and complaining after seeing this movie. I mean first we have Mark Wahlberg's character and his family trying to save their farm, then we have the Autobots being on the run because they're blamed for what happened in Chicago, then we have Lockdown trying to capture Optimus Prime, then we have Joyce trying to create with his own Transformers with this mineral called Transfornium, which leads to this whole thing about creating Galvatron and what he tries to do, and then (you see where I'm going at with this?) you have the government guys who are trying to kill the Autobots try to get some Cybertronian relic called a Seed, and then finally somewhere into all of that, we get the Dinobots...sort of. Oh! And did I forget to mention that somehow along with all of that, there's suppose to be this storyline of how we have the "creators" of the Transformers to worry about even though the past three movies stated that they were just created by the Allspark? See, even when I saw Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon for the first time, I was invested in the movies well enough to wonder what was going to happen and I wasn't getting impatient to find out. But with this movie, I think somewhere halfway through the movie I started wanting them to wrap things up and eventually became more and more eager for them to just finish it and started to get irritated. That almost never happens to me when I'm watching a big movie like this for the first time. That's...not a good sign to say the least. And of coarse, there almost nothing done right with the actual characters. Hound just had this commando kind of personality where he has all these big guns and acts like he's smoking a cigar, then you have Brains somehow still alive despite dying in the last movie, and then you have Crosshairs who... is just completely pessimistic throughout the majority of the film. Though what somewhat stroke a nerve for me personally when it came to the Autobots was the misuse of Drift. Now granted, he probably has the least focus among the Autobots next to Brains, but Drift is one of my all time favorite Transformers because of how he's probably one of the most complex and interesting characters of the franchise in recent years, and yet just because he uses swords in the comics, they have him become this complete Samurai stereotype while being voiced by Ken Watanabe who is not a stereotypical Japanese actor, but Micahel Bay used him to that effect anyway. Thankfully from knowing all this in advance, I didn't get pissed off watching the movie like I somewhat thought I would... but they still used one of my favorite characters to just be a mechanical version of something from one of our history books, so naturally I am really, really, really REALLY am not okay with that. Bumblebee was kinda downplayed too. He had some moments, but he basically had almost the exact opposite amount of focus has he did in the other films. As for Optimus? *sigh* He had some decent lines, and it's always a pleasure to hear Peter Cullen do his voice even in these films somewhat, but regardless, what we got was...really a messed up, sloppy shadow of the lovable Optimus Prime at the end of the day. The Dinobots were not in the movie for very long, and they had no personalities or any real development to the point where despite how fun it is to see them in action, we still don't really get the real Dinobots that fans know and love. Galvatron would've been a nice addition to the story, but he really had only three or four very brief scenes, and had only 4-5 ish lines in the entire movie, so he was generally pointless. And the human characters where just plain hallow. While no one was as bad as Judy Witwicky or the roommate from the second film or anything like that, they where just really uninteresting. The only ones that were close to that were Cade Yeager and Joshua Joyce just because it's Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci, and even that doesn't hold a lot of water. Other than that, there was barely anything really special with the action even with the Dinobots and some of the designs for things like the robots in Lockdown's ship where really embarrassing. Now before I wrap up this fairly long review, let me quickly talk about what's good about what's good with the film, cause there where some things I kinda liked. Firstly, there's Lockdown. While his development as a character was strangely all over the place, I still kind of found him to probably be the most interesting part of the entire movie. How he's neither Autobot or Decepticon and has this bounty hunter army (or something) and there's this mystery about who sent him to earth. Plus, he can transform his face into a giant assault rifle (I've heard it called a cannon, but it has more of an assault rifle look), which was a very clever idea. And when it came to the final battle, the Autobots (specifically anyone who isn't Optimus or Bumblebee) did more of fighting and killing the Decepticons without any help from any military at all. That is actually a major improvement from the first three films. And the use of showing of the bodies of the women was downplayed. I think the worst that happened where two points where the camera focused on a woman wearing short shorts. It's still using them as eye candy, but let's face it; having Bay focus more on women's legs than their chest or butt? As far as giving us less of the putting-women-in-the-movies-just-to-be-eye-candy cliche, that's almost a mature big boy step for the guy.

And that's my review for Transformers: Age of Extinction. I liked Lockdown for what they had for him, and there were some minor improvements compared to the other three films, but that aside, what we have here is Michael Bay giving The Transformers even more shame with less interesting action, more misuse of the Transformers as characters, too much focus on hollow and uninteresting human characters, and a terrible script that gave us way too many things with not enough time to give us time to really understand them, making the film a major, crowded mess. It doesn't have the terrible stuff from Revenge of the Fallen like The Twins, Wheelie humping Mikaela's leg, Devestator's nuts and so on, but somehow this movie still makes itself out as the worst thing that could ever have been created in the entire franchise.

Rating: 10%

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Well my friend Blaine let me borrow his copies of Paul and The World's End, and so I planned to use this oppertunity to go through the entire Three Flavous Cornetto trilogy. That was a few months ago, and I've been busy and more or less forgot that I even had the films in my possession. But he recently reminded me that I had Paul and The World's End, so I quickly went through the trilogy and Paul before I hung out with him next and returned those movies. So let's finally go through this trilogy (and Paul) starting with, what else? Shaun of the Dead.

Plot: Shaun is a electronics shop employee who seem to have no direction in his life. He pretty much just goes to work and hangs with his best friend Ed, while taking his girlfriend Lilly to his favorite pub, The Winchester every night. But thing start to change when people in the neighborhood turn into zombies. So Shaun and Ed come up with a plan to take Lilly, Shaun's mom and step-dad, and Lilly's roommates David and Dianne and bring them to the Winchester for safety.

This film delivers very well in being both a comedy and a horror. Most of the jokes are pretty funny, and the actors do an excellent job delivering a lot of them. And it leads to some pretty memorable scenes and lines that I will often think about when I think of this movie. But it also follows very through in being a horror. I mean they don't make it really cheesy just because it's also a comedy, they give us the blood, gore, and the drama of being in a zombie apocalypse. In fact watching it again, I kind of found this movie to have more drama then there was any gore or jokes. Which is good because it really helps with what is happening with the characters, especially Shaun who is trying to grow from who he was before all of this happened and is trying to do something about it while dealing with his relationship with his best friend, his girlfriend, her roommates, his mother, and his stepfather. So you're rooting for him and the people he cares about, like you should in a movie that does give us some very intense and serious scenes about surviving. Now I've heard some people debate that this movie goes a little too far with the drama; that it becomes too intense or that it takes itself too seriously. And...yeah I can see where they're coming from. The third act of the movie - while still giving us some good jokes here and there - does give us some very dark and intense moments with the characters. And while I don't know if I would call it too far, the comedy does start to lack as the climax goes on. But I think even with that said, Shaun of the Dead can work for people who aren't fans of horror films in roughly the same way the Scream films work for people who aren't a fan of slasher films in that you may not be a fan of the genre, but the comedy helps you to enjoy it anyway to some degree.

And that's my review for Shaun of the Dead. It succeeds as both a comedy and a horror for people who like either one or both. The third act can be argued as being more horror than comedy, which might not be for everyone. If you don't like horror films but might be okay with this one because of its humor, give it a try. If you're fine with both but have never seen this movie before, it's an enjoyable film that I would recommend.

Rating: 90%

Dumb and Dumber (1994)

Okay so a couple weeks ago, Candra recommended that I see this movie. And seeing as how I hear about this movie a lot when it comes to movies and how some of it scenes where shot in the Stanley Hotel, which I've been to, I decided to finally settle the matter and find out what makes this movie so fairly known. So here's my take on Dumb and Dumber.

Plot: A pair of friends named Lloyd and Harry live together in an apartment in Rhode Island, and because of their dim-witted personalities, struggle at finding jobs. But when Lloyd falls in love with a woman named Mary during his previous job, and find out that she left her briefcase at the airport he took her too, he and Harry decide to go on a cross-country road trip to find Mary and return the briefcase. But they are also being chased by a group of criminals who are after the briefcase, knowing that it's full of money that is suppose to be used as ransom money.

Now as I've stated before in my review for Rat Race, it's very hard for me to genuinely laugh at something, even if it's one of the funniest things I've seen. And it's even harder to laugh at a comedy when you know that they expect you to get a laugh. So how does this movie hold up for me? Well...it's funny, but if we were comparing it to Rat Race, this movie made me laugh the least. Did I laugh so little that I think that it's a bad movie? No, not necessarily. Even if I wasn't laughing hard on the floor from the jokes they had, I did see the appeal as to why this particular comedy seem to be very commonly known. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are giving fun performances, and the dialogue has some jokes that were very well delivered. But while some jokes where good, the rest of it was just plain stupid. And I know, that's what they're going for, I mean it's in the title, but by knowing that, most of the jokes just did nothing for me in the slightest. Maybe if I was younger and less experienced in seeing these kinds of films it would leave a better impact on me, but for what it has right now, it's just not doing anything.

And that's my review for Dumb and Dumber. While it doesn't leave such a memorable impact on me as it seems to for a lot of people, it does have good performances, and some decent jokes. If you haven't seen this movie, it really depends on your sense of humor as to whether or not you would like it. But for me, It's just okay. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I would see it again.


Rating: 60%

Malefiecent (2014)

Well this has been out for a while, but as I more or less implied when I started my X-Men: Days of Future Past review, I don't have a lot of free time because of work. But I finally got the time and my friend Megan wanted to see this with me for the longest time, so here's how this turned out after finally seeing it.

Plot: Maleficent is a fairy who lives in this magical realm called The Moors which separates itself from the kingdom of the humans. She befriends and eventually falls in love with a boy named Stephan, but when the human king is dying and declares that the person who kill Maleficent will take his throne, Stephan drugs Maleficent and cuts off her wings and gives them to the king claiming he killed her and thus takes the throne. So when Stephan has a daughter named Aurora, Maleficent puts her on a curse that Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and forever sleep unless she is given true love's kiss.

So, how was this movie that was trying to give us a very interesting, Wicked-like, point of view of one of the most memorable Disney villains? Well... the key word to that sentence is "try". So what I'm basically saying is that for what it was trying to do in terms of basically giving us a Maleficent version of Wicked, it had some nice ideas - some of it fit and/or was beginning to fit - but unfortunately it was, what I felt, a few re-writes on the script away from really reaching its potential. Like it a lot of moments where it was beginning to be clever and interesting, but their execution of its ideas - while not ' holy crap' awful - either could've been given more time to explain why this is the case or just could've taken a better direction altogether. For example, you have her motive of cursing Aurora because she was in love with Stephan before he cuts off her wings. So with that, she has a more deep and personal reason to curse the baby, compared to her motive in Sleeping Beauty. And that's a good idea. But, then it gets jumbled when you have problems like how they don't really show what makes the human kingdom really hate The Moors - I mean they show that they hate it in the beginning, but their motive is completely non-existent - and to top that off, they don't go into detail as to how that kingdom seemed to corrupt Stephan to the point of taking her wings and then - without spoiling the movie - goes on this one direction for the remainder of the film that, while also a good idea, barely makes a lick of sense. All of this is just stuff from the first half hour of the movie, and it unfortunately continues this path for the remainder of its time. We'll get other ideas like making the raven, Diaval more of a character or the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora that, by concept, could've really strengthened where the movie was going, but either by choosing a poor direction or not allowing those ideas to really breathe, they make the film come out as more of a mess. Now thankfully, the movie doesn't come off as completely awful, because there are some nice elements to the movie despite ideas that just weren't' used all that well. Firstly, there's the style of the CGI. And don't get me wrong, they don't do a swell job in hiding that it's all fake, but at the same time, they stylized it well enough that I still enjoyed it when watching things like the fight in the beginning of the film, or just the creatures in The Moors. And there's of coarse Angelina Jolie as Maleficent. While she obviously is not going quite to big in terms of movement or voice as the Maleficent in the original (yeah I know I'm comparing, but that's kind of unavoidable for this kind of movie), she does hold her own in her performance and does indeed show that she looks the part almost flawlessly.

And that's my review for Maleficent. It does have some decent stylized CGI, a good performance from Angelina Jolie, and as far as story goes, had some ideas that could've worked with some adjustments. But those adjustments were never made, and so while I liked it for what it was trying to do, it still didn't succeed, making the movie a bit of a mess. If you just want a nice time watching a movie, you're probably going to like this fine, but it you wanted something deeper and darker with a well thought out plot, this movie is not really there, so you probably won't care for it.

Rating: 50%