Change Your Image
Hocklife
Reviews
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
The Failures of the Previous 3 Films Bring It Down.
Being a fan of the series (not that big) I've read the series and seen the movies a few times. It was inevitable the longer the books of J.K. Rowling's fantasy world got the more difficult they'd translate to the big screen. Ultimately Harry Potter is a series and this means the stories carry the weight of information learned in the earlier books into the next one. This is where the great fault for the overall dull and butchered adaptation of Harry Potter series lies.
David Yates the director of the last 4 Potter movies is the biggest flaw in the series. While it did create a better continuity directing style it allowed him to change priorities in story. Half Blood Prince the book was about Voldemort's past and his desires, but Hollywood saw fit to turn a small side plot of Harry's love for Ginny into a romantic comedy with a little magic mixed in. By not establishing the details on the horocruxes and other significant charterers everything in this movie and the 1st part seem random , silly and illogical. At points in the narrative it looks like the actors are simply making it up as they go and guessing there way to the next clue using no knowledge.
Now onto the film itself, essentially this is a bank heist ( with a dragon) followed by a battle to end all battles. 99.9% of the story by this time is told and its basically all fighting and destroying horocruxes from here on out. Unfortunately the battles never capture the epic scope of the bigger LOTR battles and are poorly constructed. The main bad guy of the entire franchise Voldemort is a complete bore doing just about nothing until killing one of his henchmen for some silly reason.
Another big problem with this movie is too much attention on Harry, Ron and Hermoine. There are a ton of good characters in Harry Potter and they merely are seen as cameos they have so little screen time ( Lupin , Every Wesley except Ron, Tonks).
While I may make it seem like this movie was awful it really isn't accurate for how I felt. Its only a disappointment but some of what it did was really well done. Snape's character throughout all 8 movies was played and used flawlessly, he ends up having the best scene in the whole film by a mile ( which was done brilliantly). The scene not only steals the audience emotions revealing Snape's past it also does what the rest of the film failed miserably at doing, slowing the pacing down. The visuals are stunning and although the scope isn't as big as LOTR it still feels grand in its own right. Its a massive undertaking adapting books to film and Harry Potter did above average all together.
Overall this movie was a disappointment because of the failures of the previous few movies. But when the director did those himself, ultimately the fault is solely on David Yates. Congrats you have brought the world of Harry Potter to life with your amazing visuals, now how about you bring the story to life? In the meantime one can only hope Peter Jackson comes and does a more faithful reboot this franchise deserves .
Final Vote 6/10
Bad Teacher (2011)
Slow and Only Moderatley Funny (at Times).
This movie has the feeling of being so simplistic it makes the plot of 30 Minutes or Less ( another recent comedy) look sophisticated. The story to sum it up in a few lines is Cameron Diaz must go back to being a teacher after her rich husband leaves her. The rest of the movie is her journey of being an awful person and trying to earn money for her boob job along the way.
Since this movie does more harm then good to itself I'll lay out what it does right up front. If you're a male attending this movie there's a good chance you'll find Cameron Diaz hot in this movie. In fact many shots go out of their way it feels to establish her great looks. She fits her character well because she also plays the role of a jerk well and the volatile combination is used to manipulate multiple characters through out the movie. Another strong suite of the movie is Jason Segal's character as the lazy underachieving gym teacher is always stealing scenes but remains a relatively underutilized. That pretty much describes all I felt was done right in this movie.
Now that we've moved onto what's not so good with this rather dull comedy , I'll begin by saying too many jokes fell flat and some scenes kill the pacing to make a relatively short movie feel much longer then it had to be. The story is very similar to Bad Santa except not nearly being as pleasant. The comedy seemed forced time and time again using many weed and alcohol jokes to push itself along. While the movie goes for the look of being a film with no morals at all I felt the comedy was constrained hardly utilizing the "R" rating it was given.
Overall it was at times fun , never hilarious and annoying quite a bit 5/10
30 Minutes or Less (2011)
Funny. Fast. Forgettable.
30 Minutes or Less delivers on its pretty simplistic premise make the audience laugh by strapping a bomb to the main characters chest and throw every sexual innuendo and hilarious situation the creators could come up with. Some may find this movie an abrasive with its crude humor but it manages to stay true to what it was marketed as and in doing so created a funny , fast and forgettable comedy.
30 Minutes starts off promising establishing each pair of main characters ( the good guys and bad guys) and keeping a rather low humor profile only throwing funny and some not so funny racial and sexual slurs. After the low life pizza driver Nick (Eisenberg) is abducted and gets the bomb strapped to his chest by the free loading son of a millionaire Dwayne ( Mcbride) the movie begins to escalate quickly. With Nick's predicament causing his emotions to spike he seeks his friend Chet (Ansari) for help. This causes crazy anxiety between the two friends and the movie wisely runs up the pace considerably. In this lies 30 minute's greatest strength (being fun and crazy) and weakness because although the movie picks up a lot of speed it also concludes itself way to early to leave you feeling satisfied (under an hour and a half run time for sure). This leaves a few well constructed characters left literally to die
All in all there isn't much to say about this movie. Its short , unoriginal and doesn't really reach to be great by any means. However this movie knows it is all these things and presses onwards regardless. At times the jokes are very well placed and had my audience and myself in an uproar, while others some jokes completely missed and fell flat on there face. The ending came way to quick and felt way to simplified and unfinished. What the movie nailed for me was all the big four actors stepped up and kept the main story funny (Mcbride, Eisenberg, Ansari, Swardson).
Overall rating 6/10
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Stereotypical, yet Good
I'll begin by saying the only Planet of the Apes movie I've seen prior to this was the Tim Burton Reboot of 2001. While that movie focused on its own style and a minimalist viewing window of its characters , Rise on the other hand strives to create a more personal story presented in a realistic manner for its audience to soak in and in doing so creating a much more meaningful film. Despite this being a good movie I will say ahead of time it seems the studio aims to market off Rise as something its not. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a character film first and foremost not a summer action flick as its trailers dressed it up as.
Set in present day San Francisco the movie premise circulates around two chief characters, Caesar the Ape (Serkis) and Will (Franco) the scientist . Will, passionately searching for a cure to his father's Alzheimer's and is doing everything he can to stop the degenerative disease forever. Leading a team of scientists he is conducting experiments with an antidote on apes. Caesar is his star pupil for the project. Not to diverge any further into story but I will shoe in that if you can read the title then you already know the direction this movie plans on going
On a technical level this movie is fairly well done. The characters are all fairly stereotypical ( scientist who dangerously pushes the boundaries of science, animal lover to act as a counter point to the progression of science, person who abuses animals solely for the purpose of amusements , etc the list goes on). However all these underdeveloped ,cardboard characters are merely a small distraction from the true hero of this film, the ape Caesar. While not saying more then a few words throughout the film he easily captures the emotion of being beaten down and held as a prisoner. Andy Serkis who also played Gollum and King Kong before this nails every small gesture he does to portray what's going on in Caesars head. To give more credit where it is due I believe Weta did a great job with their top notch CGI and really brought all the Apes performances to very sympathetic levels. Meanwhile Franco's character is driven by the obsession of curing his father and stopping the inevitable at points it really makes what he's doing seem necessary.
Unfortunately the same can't be said for many of the human characters who were lazily created to pawn the audiences hatred towards them and not all of humanity. Yes I'm referring to you Brian Cox and Tom Felton who play the role of bad for the sake of bad and spew out some of the worst dialogue this film has to offer.
Overall the film was good . I would recommend it to anyone not looking for the usual summer of action Hollywood has grown more then accustomed to. This movie breathes life into CGI characters in ways I've never seen before. By the end of it I was really cheering for Caesar's success and I knew everyone else in the theatre was.
7/10
X: First Class (2011)
A Reinvigorated Franchise
When I first heard another origin story was being crafted for the X-Men franchise I instantly felt weary. It has only been 2 years since Wolverine got a chance at his very own prequel and it failed for me on many different levels. Leaving a profound feeling of an ailing franchise refusing to let itself and a business looking to suck every last dollar out of the consumer's veins before heading the way of Atlantis. It brings great relief to say with the fullest confidence that not only does this movie reinvigorate the X-Men movies with a prequel reboot it also redeems itself on its last two predecessors.
Summary First Class aptly set during the political and social unrest of the 1960's gives director (Vaughn) a chance at showing this era in a very stylish way. Dealings with the real world event that was the October crisis of 1962 ( Cuban Missile crisis) which is used as a visually stunning but at times cheesy rewrite of history. However, this was merely a very cool backdrop for the climax of the movie. Sebastian Shaw (Bacon) is attempting to ignite World War 3 by pushing the sides of both governments (Soviet Union and The United States to make aggressive moves towards one another. Let me state this plainly, this is without doubt the best action in all the five movies , easily and theirs a ton of it to boot!
X-Men franchise begins with the story of two very different people. Charles Xavier(McAvoy)and Eric Lehnsherr (Fassbender). Both destined to be best friends (if you've seen the original trilogy) both destined to be archenemies. With that knowledge already present the movie to succeed for me had to keep the characters interesting and make their progression from who they are to who they will be believable. Thankfully the movie doesn't miss a beat here and the situations that drive these two characters are powerful and outstandingly acted that they alone can carry this film. After two great performances by the young Professor X and Magneto the two other most well developed characters are Raven (Lawrence) and Beast(Hoult) who strive to find normalcy in their looks. This is a great component of the movie because although they start with a common goal their ideals won't remain the same (very similar to the main two characters of the film). The definition of what is beauty is constantly brought up throughout the film by the main four characters and their takes on it.
Unfortunately while these four characters are great it leaves the rest of the films super heroes (and villains!) completely neglected. The films main antagonist Shaw (Bacon) is the only developed baddie in the whole thing everyone else is only cardboard with a superpower and little dialogue. Even Shaw though is merely just a man with the same vision as the soon to be Magneto which leaves him feeling cheap and recycled.
The problems of characters is also prevalent on the heroes side as well. With the exception of the big four I named earlier all the other characters of the X-Men team are only given a scene or two of good characterization, in comparison to the villains though this is a treat (they actually have full sentences!).
Aside from the problem of too many characters for it own good ( same problem as Wolverine Origins) and at times a cheesy plot First Class handles its development of its main four people ( Raven, Eric , Charles, and Hank) skillfully. All these people are brought back in large roles in the later X-Men films which only bolsters the strength of those films as well. The action of the movie is always awesome (Magneto comes to mind for so many reasons) and at times even awe inspiring. The action wasn't in the end the factor that kept me invested in this long movie.
In the end it was the simple story of two men becoming friends who are torn apart by what they believe in desperately trying to change each other to see the world their way , while still holding a mutual respect for each other ( this works especially well when the film reaches its ultimate climax).
If you liked any of the previous X-Men movies you will like this a lot. If you've never seen the others the foreshadowing of this prequel won't have the impact it has on those who have but the movie will still be good entertainment.
Rating 7.8/10
X-Men (2000)
Enormous Undertaking
Background
Let me begin by saying I've never read a single X-men or better yet any Marvel comic book when I saw this film. Having no die hard fan anger over the liberties taken on this first installment of the franchise , I found this film to be good and in some parts even great. The story is about people with mutated dna ( mutants) having special powers that differentiate them from society and label them outcasts. There are three sides to the conflict in Xmen . The mutants who see themselves as the next stage in the evolution of humanity and believing they should rise up and seize the power of the world (revolution). Then there's the mutants who feels they should work with humanity towards some sort of common ground ( peace). The last aspect of the conflict are the humans who are afraid of the capabilities of mutants powers.
Story/ Characters
Xmen lives and dies primarily by its characters in this movie. While many different people are brought to the table only a select few are given any depth. The two chief characters that carry the weight of the film are Magneto ( Sir Ian Mckellen) and Wolverine ( Hugh Jackman). Magneto being the mutant supremacist leads to his group called the Brotherhood trying to take the power from humanity. Wolverine is a loner with living in Canada who can't remember his past. Coming across a special school for mutants ( Xmen) he begins to become an activist in the mutant conflict of the world . There are many many more characters introduced during this movie ( so much so that it seems to be its entire purpose) that many are left undeveloped in turn making them less interesting. Overall very well done with what they had to work with and setups possible plots and subplots for the sequels.
The story easily being the weakest component of this movie should only be an after thought in the mind's of the viewer. What sounds like a cheap comic book story Magneto and his group of badies built a convenient machine that can turn all people it affects into defective mutants. Naturally it is the Xmen's job to stop them. I don't want to write to much on the flaws of the story because it will diminish the already feeble attempt to make a good story more.
Miscellaneous
This section is for all aspects of filmmaking I haven't covered yet. The acting in Xmen is well done Magneto Proffesor X ( Patrick Stuart) and Wolverine really standout for me in the film mostly due to their very different opinions on the overall conflict. The director handles the movie well never letting it get to boring and his shouldn't be taken for granted since its an introductory story into a much larger world. The action sequences are surprisingly weak and only one or two scenes ever standout in the whole thing. The special effects were good for their time and don't really feel that dated with the exception of the mutant shape shifter mystique. The setting and atmosphere of the film is pretty large with a worldwide conflict focusing on the issues of minorities and the different ways to handle a problem (through revolution or peace) . With the exception of the story nothing feels cheesy and it all seems rather believable because of solid acting across the board.
Final Opinion
There was so many ways I could see this film failing from the artistic taste of the costumes to the special effects not holding up. Surprisingly though this film does work and at times it works very well. This is a character driven film not story! I can't stress enough how silly I find the first Xmen's story , between that and the action are the only reasons I didn't give this film a higher rating. Overall the varying array of characters saves this movie with their uniqueness although some don't get enough screen time. Another twenty minutes of building a firmer base and understanding of the different Xmen would have done this film well not just snap shot glimpses.
Final Rating 7.2 /10
Dumb and Dumber (1994)
Timeless
I am writing this review 8 years after I saw it the first time. this easily holds up to time its so amazing and over the top. YOU WILL NOT ENJOY THE MOVIE IF U Don't TURN MIND OFF The pacing of the movie is relentless. There is a joke or prank that are hilarious in every scene! Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are so dumb I can understand why certain people hate on this movie. All in all great movie with HUGE laughs its entire mentality is its so dumb its funny.
The movie delivers so many laughs of sheer stupidity that it hurts to laugh. Unfortunately the sequel is horrendous stay away from that heretic of a film
Dumb and Dumber 10/10 excellent
Valkyrie (2008)
Good War movie very accurate
Valkyrie is a great enchantment of the coup to overthrow Hitler and replace the Nazi party with a shadow government... the plot fails Regardless of knowing where the story would lead me I still found it suspenseful and most enjoyable. Everything felt authentic minus few German actors and no German accents. Tom Cruise plays his part fine and with some solid passion and performance. The supporting cast hold ups good although I found it hard to keep track of the many Nazi officers in involved in the coup.
All in all this movie delivers a very accurate and very good experience. The ending is dark and bleak but still leaves a feeling of accomplishment maybe not that day but soon.
Valkyrie 7/10
Rounders (1998)
Great Movie so unknown ..so underrated
Rounders is a very good movie. It has many things going for it Damon, Norton and Malkavich all fantastic. The movie follows the life of a gambler who's cleaned up his act after losing his bankroll to a Russian mobster. After 2 years of playing safe Worm(Norton) is released from jail and Mikes turns back into the gambler he always was.
The movies really fun mostly do to the great lines and chemistry between Norton and Damon. The finale is well worth it this movie may go down as a box office flop but its very underrated and very very enjoyable
I rate this movie 9.5 out of 10 mostly due to how the movie dropped the character worm without much closer with him in the end
D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994)
If you like hockey stay away!
This movie is just about rock bottom. It spits in the face of the great sport of hockey. Every game scene is unrealistic or just to dam slow to be real.The characters are dull and forgettable and I know the movie is a comedy but guess what it fails at that to.
*To hockey players a few scenes imparticular bug me are the shoot out scene because no one does any of those moves or the goalie takes slapshots form 50 feet. Its annoying to see terrible actors playing even worse hockey players. Also the scene where Russ Tyler comes 40 ft out of the net takes his helmet of and shoots a knuckle puck(Fakest shot ever) and scores a terrible goal to tie the game. The final scene that takes the cake is when the cowboy hockey player from Texas takes goes into the shoot out he does two moves both used in real hockey unfortunately there so out of context they look pointless and accomplished nothing.
The first move was the Michigan where he picks it up on his stick. This move is used usually to pick the puck up from behind the net and score. The second move is the "through the legs" which is normally only used to get around a defensman.
All in all this movie is terrible the only reason it isn't given one star by the decent performance of Emilo Estevez
The Dark Knight (2008)
The best super hero movie ever
Let me start off by saying that I will always be able to determine whats hype surrounding a young actors death and whats not. Yes the Joker is the best villain I have ever witnessed on screen period.Heath Ledger absolutely dominated the screen with his presence and his Oscar award winning performance
Other great performances were by Aaron Eckhart,Christian Bale,Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman
Pros - Great Acting no weak links - Ridiculously complex moral views/decisions - The Joker - Many twist that keep the story edgy and exciting
Cons - 2 hours and 30 mins is long but is justified by how much is going on in the movie -
All in all this was a great movie one of the best of all time no doubt 10/10