Tag Archives: movie reviews

Jul 5 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Horsemen

Horsemen
(2009) Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci, Clifton Collins Jr, Patrick Fugit, Eric Balfour, Peter Stormare, Liam James

Horsemen

So, this was a pretty good film, better than I’d been anticipating, but still not as good as I was hoping. The premise was simple (a detective is on the trail of a serial killer who is using the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as his inspiration), but very good. The acting was decent to good all round, and the end twist is pretty awesome, and very well acted, even if I saw it coming a mile away. Ziyi Zhang was also very good, and uber creepy (and hot). The gore effects were very well done, and not too over the top save one scene involving a fetus, which I’d rather not think of. It was too much. Speaking of too much, we really didn’t need to start the film with a naked Dennis Quaid. This isn’t 1993, Quaid, sorry :-p I could have used a little more info about the cult, though. The film has a very good ending that I won’t spoil, but I could have used a little more clarity involving the actual group. All in all, it was a very decent piece of film, and gets a very decent score for it. 7/10

This movie is currently streaming on Netflix Canada. Enjoy!

M.

Jul 1 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Jurassic World

Jurassic World
(2015) Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Vincent D’Onofrio, Irrfan Khan, BD Wong, Omar Sy, Jake Johnson, Lauren Lapkus, Katie McGrath, Judy Greer

jurassic-world

So, I actually went to the cinema! More by misadventure than anything else, but I made it, regardless. The tickets were already bought, and I was a little bummed it was this film instead of Mad Max, but I went along anyways. First of all, let me say that I wasn’t all that interested in seeing this, even though I absolutely love all things dinosaur. Jurassic Park was, and remains, one of my very favourite films, but the sequels sucked. Bad. Especially 3. So when I heard of this, I was a little leery. And then I saw the trailers, with the trained raptors, and I was like “fuck this shit”. But, the tickets were already bought when I arrived, so I went. A little begrudgingly, since it was also in 3D, and 3D makes me nauseous.

The first 20 minutes or so are boring as hell. Everyone seemed to be a fucking asshole save the excited little kid. And they just seemed to be cardboard cutouts of clichés: arrogant army guy, tough guy who’s really a softie, asshole older brother who’s only interested in girls, the hard working lady who’s a cold hearted bitch, etc. But then, something wonderful happened. The characters started popping out of their cutout roles, and the dinos appeared. Boy, did they ever! They didn’t look as good as in the first film, a lot of the action is supplemented by CGI, but at least it was good looking CGI, and not cartoony shit that so many films seem to be doing these days (lord knows why…). The new dinosaur, Indominus Rex, is pretty freaking cool, but not cool enough to out-shine the velociraptors, who steal the show yet again (although, they still don’t look like they’re supposed to, where are the feathers, people!) Speaking of the raptors, I was very wary about the whole trained thing, I was expecting something ridiculous after seeing Owen ride his bike along side them in the trailer, but it’s actually well done. They still treat them as dangerous, they’re far from domesticated, so it was acceptable. As for the Indominus itself, I’d argue that humanity could never be that stupid in real life, but yes. Yes they could. All the other dinos were also well done, especially the Mosasaur, holy crap. The long necked dino (I’m not sure what type it was, didn’t look like a Brachiosaur) Owen and Claire held while it died was very well done, and that’s always the case when they use the animatronic dinos instead of CGI (which is why the first one was so amazing). We only get a little bit of T-Rex, but what we do get is pretty epic (and I don’t use that word lightly).

And then there’s the eye candy. Really, all that was missing is a leather clad and oft shirtless Jeff Goldblum to spew his sass all over the place. Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, is absolutely stunning, and gets more so the more disheveled she gets. The older of the boys, Zach, played by Nick Robinson, is so cute that I felt a little skeezy while staring at him (but! No worries! He’s 20 years old now, so it’s all good. Just age 4 or 5 more years, Nick, then Cougar Mel will take good care of you :-p ). And then there’s Chris Pratt,who played Owen. Okay, okay, I kind of get it now. He’s not usually my type, way too much man for me, but he’s positively charming. Rounding out the cast (though not eye candy), is the wonderful Vincent D’Onofrio, as bad guy Hoskins, who’s even more of a douchebag than the first film’s Denis Nedry. Nedry just wanted money. Hoskins wants to turn the raptors into weapons of war. Way to go, asshole.

One last thing before I stop blabbing (I’ll have to change the title of my review if this keeps up, but “Mel’s 100 Second Review” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, hehe). I’ve read in other reviews that people were upset about “all that fucking product placement” in this movie, and in lots of other films too, for that matter. And you know what? I say “get a life”. Did I notice the boy wearing headphones in the car? Yes. Did I notice they were Beats by Dre? Absolutely not. I only found out through another review. When I go to the movies, I’m there to enjoy a film, not sit and scrutinize all the logos that are hanging around. I’m sure there’s lots of them, and that’s fine. Movie makers make money by doing that, and more money (usually) means a better quality film. So if Dre wants his headphones in a frame, if Mercedes wants their logo on a truck, I say go for it. Just don’t pretend it didn’t happen in the first film, too (like the author of the last review I read).

All in all, this was a perfectly fun film, with an unfortunate beginning. So a bit is knocked off for that, and a bit more for relying too much on CGI sometimes, but it still gets a wonderful 8/10 from me.

This film is not currently streaming on Netflix (obviously :-p ). It’s scheduled to be released on DVD and BluRay in October. But if you have a chance to see it in the cinema, I highly recommend it. I don’t think it’ll have the same wow-factor on the small screen.

M.

Jun 26 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Mortal Instruments – City of Bones

The Mortal Instruments – City of Bones
(2013) Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Jemima West, Aidan Turner, CCH Pounder, Kevin Zegers, Godfrey Gao, Lena Headey, Robert Maillet, Kevin Durand, Jared Harris, Jonathan Rhys Meyers

The-Mortal-Instruments-City-of-Bones

I’ve wanted to see this film since it came out, yet at the same time, I didn’t. I’ve read the first two books of the series, and they were pretty darn good, especially for YA fare. It’s been recorded on my pvr for months now, but I kept passing it over for other stuff. But my sister begged to watch it (again), so this time I finally gave in. And I’m glad I did, it was much better than I was expecting. They changed it quite a bit, but that’s ok, since the memory of the book is kinda hazy. I remember certain scenes, but as a whole, it’s pretty much faded away. Which is good, otherwise I’d be more upset at the changes. The acting was alright, nothing really special, but all the actors were competent. The effects were pretty good too, if a little over-cgi’d in some parts, although the werewolves could have used a little more work, especially the teeth, which were atrocious. The characters all look like they’ve just stepped out of a music video, but I guess that’s ok, too. All in all, it was a fun little film, and gets a good 7/10 from me.

This film is not currently streaming on Netflix, but I’m sure it will be soon. Enjoy!

M.

Jun 24 2015

Review Club #4 – Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Sea of Monsters

 

First up is my baby sister, Amanda, over at Isolabella101:

I liked the movie. It was quite interesting on how they had mixed Gods with humans, centaurs, a part-cyclops like Tyson, a cyclops and a son of Poseidon, Percy Jackson, who is half human. There’s another character, Clarisse, the daughter of war god Ares, and then Annabeth, the daughter of Athena. Clarisse is sent out on a quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece when the Talia guardian tree is dying due to a poison that was inflicted by Luke, the son of Hermes. His desire is to bring back the titan Kronos in hopes of destroying the Olympians. Clarisse is sent out on a mission to retrieve the Fleece, but Percy and his friends Annabeth and Grover, who is a satyr, decide to go after it as well. I thought it was quite annoying how Annabeth continued to be harsh towards Tyson, who had only one eye. Yes she had a grudge against the cyclops’ who had killed her friend Talia, but she shouldn’t have taken it out on him. Despite the fact that he was a son of Poseidon and a cyclops who appeared to clearly be ordinary (despite the one-eye thing). I could also tell that Clarisse had a “winning” ego and thought of herself to be the “top dog”. But, as the movie went on, I was pleased to see that her heart had slowly begun to change.

I liked this movie because it showed that you may appear to be different then everybody else, but that does not prove that you are what you appear to be. “Nothing is what it seems” is a quote that fits right in the puzzle of this movie. Percy Jackson is a story of teens going on a dangerous adventure with people they did not wish to be with at first, but had a change of heart in the end. I wish that all teens will watch this movie and take it to consideration towards racism. Appearance is just the cover of the book. You must read the content in order to have full rights to judge.

9/10

 

Next up is Rob, from over at MovieRob:

One of the things that I don’t like about many sequels is the fact that the movies aren’t made to stand alone. It’s perfectly acceptable when a movie in a franchise has some connection to the previous movies, but when watching this one, I felt that it relied too much on the events of the first movie. I realize that this is mainly due to the way the books were written, but had I not watched The Lightning Thief right before watching this one, I think I would have felt completely lost.

Lately, Hollywood has gone a bit overboard with their love of YA books being turned into films. Ever since Harry Potter became such a success, they have been churning out adaptation after adaptation in order to try and find the next YA franchise that they can milk for as many movies and money as possible. Few have been overly successful (with The Hunger Games being the most successful so far).

This movie and its franchise is a retelling of the history of the Greek Gods and some scenes work much better than others. I can’t say I was bored with this movie, but I also can’t say that I was overly entertained either.

The characters were ok, but when comparing this to the previous movie in the franchise, this one just doesn’t pull its weight at all and feels quite mediocre.

The effects aren’t done so well and some of it really looks and feels like they used archaic FX methods which detracts from the believability of the story and brings us back to reality instead of keeping us in this magical world on screen.

I’m not sure if they plan to continue the franchise or not, but I still would be interested in seeing where the story goes because there is potential here.

5/10

 

Continuing on, here’s my dear hubby, Francois (who’s French accent you can just hear while reading, hehe), from over at FrankishNet:

Not having seen the books, everything that happens in the Percy Jackson movie is always a surprise to me. And generally speaking, the story told by Sea of Monsters was really good.

What I liked about the movie? First, the fact that it layers the myths and legends of the Greek gods with our own world and reality. And they do touch the concept that these supernatural creatures are veiled from normal mortal eyes, without going at length to explain it. It’s quick, subtle, and works very well. One reference here is the scene in Washington when the barista was making the coffees with 6 arms in the the satyr’s point of view, but only 2 arms seen from a regular customer.

I also liked the struggles of personalities for each characters, and their development. Although, being a double-edge blade, this also made some characters seem fake in their reactions. The Scion of War being overly aggressive and rude was obviously destined to learn some humility by the end of the movie. Percy’s gorgeous follower suddenly turns out to be a foul racist, to later on realize that not all cyclops’ are alike. A lesson that should have been learned given their very nature (scion of gods, and all…), but a teenager movie calls for character development and personality struggles, so there…

I loved the humor (Aye Aye!… Huh… sorry) and loved the amount of it.

What I did not like is what you usually expect from this class of movie. That “class” being Fantasy movie based off novels and destined to younger audience, like Narnia (bullet points incoming!!).

Plot Holes! Small but frequent:
  • After Percy conjured a storm to shake the boat around… the manticore beast is still sleeping… Really?
  • Also… Why did Luke hang up their bag there? WHO DOES THAT? You capture a good guy with a backpack, who happens to tell you he swung by Hermes before coming… And you DO NOT SEARCH THEIR BELONGINGS? No… Luke is not that dumb. That is a huge plot hole… I assume it could only have been in the book too.
  • More of this. Last combat scene. Why does Percy have his sword in his pocket? Luke knows what the sword looks like. They tied him up, and did not take the sword? These bad guys were really asking for it…
  • Percy conjured a storm and a minute after the sky is clear blue. Why? Shouldn’t they be slowly retracting, going back where they came from, as clouds do? That would have been more realistic.
  • And Luke… He got a sense that something was going wrong, since there was a scene of him looking up and going “Why the heck the boat is rocking?” Yet… They don’t go below deck to check it out. No. “The sea is going nuts… It is probably not related to the 2 scions of Poseidon I got below deck. SURELY NOT”. Dumbass…
  • Kronos… Didn’t you learn the first time around to CHEW your FOOD. Idiot titan, you deserve to be cut in pieces.

Last thing I didn’t like… SO MANY HOT LADIES, NOT A SINGLE KISS. I was saddened by the last scene… I guess Percy doesn’t get involved with his sidekicks just yet…

So all in all, very nice movie. If you can overlook plot holes here and there, and survive the satyr satires (hee hee), I was rightly entertained. I would rate it a solid 8/10 in its category (PG13 Fantasy based on novels), and a generous 6/10 overall movie.

 

And closing out, as always, is mine:

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters
Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T Jackson, Douglas Smith, Leven Rambin, Jake Abel, Anthony Stewart Head, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion

percy-jackson-sea-of-monsters-clip-my-other-boat-is-a-hippocampus-video-639x360

What a fun little film this was. Not as good as the first one, but I wasn’t really surprised by that, they rarely are. While it’s true that movies based on YA books need to pretty much die out now (I stopped paying attention after the first Hunger Games film), I enjoyed these books very much, so I really couldn’t help myself. And I’m glad I finally got around to it. It’s not perfect, there are some groan-inducing moments, some “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” moments, and at least one moment where what happened shouldn’t have happened (to be as vague as possible, I’ll just say the healing waters moment near the end). I missed Pierce Brosnan in the role of Chiron, but Anthony Stewart Head (Giles!!!) filled his hooves perfectly. The boys were cute, the girls pretty, the action fun, and the villains villainous. All in all, a fun teen fantasy film. I give it a solid 8/10.

M.

 

And that’s it for this outing! Join us again in 2 weeks when we review Jessabelle! 🙂

Jun 15 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Would You Rather

Would You Rather
(2013) Brittany Snow, Jeffrey Combs, Enver Gjokaj, Sasha Grey, Eddie Steeples, Robin Lord Taylor, Charlie Hofheimer, Robb Wells, Jonny Coyne, Lawrence Gilliard Jr, John Heard

would you rather

SPOILERS AHEAD

Definitely not for the faint of heart, this film really delivers on all fronts. The story is interesting, if simple, most of the acting is very good, and the villain is played by Jeffrey Combs, what more could you ask for? Checking Rotten Tomatoes, I was very surprised to see that it only garnered a score of 37% from the audience. I really liked it, and expected other horror fans to be in the same boat as me. Guess you never can tell. It was pretty predictable, but it didn’t take away any of my enjoyment of the film. And while there is obvious torture, it wasn’t done in such a way that it turns out to be just pure exploitation. It was pretty impressive how they managed that. The only thing that I had some trouble with the the completely abysmal ending. I wasn’t expecting a happy ending, a film like this shouldn’t have one anyways (it would simply undo everything that the film had been trying to accomplish in the first place), but having the sick brother commit suicide because he felt himself to be nothing but a burden hit just a little too close to home for me, and it upset me for a long time even after the movie was over. That plus Sasha Grey’s atrocious acting knocked the score down to a still very good 8/10.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix. Enjoy!

M.

Jun 15 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Les 7 Jours du Talion

Les 7 Jours du Talion (7 Days)
(2010) Claude Legault, Rémy Girard, Martin Dubreuil, Fanny Mallette, Rose-Marie Coallier, Dominique Quesnel, Pascale Delhaes

7 days

I generally don’t watch Quebec movies. I don’t like the acting style, and everything (save one or two exceptions) I’ve watched from here, well, sucks. Same with books. But one day I happened to pick up a book by author Patrick Senécal, and from that moment I was hooked. This is one of his books turned into film, and since it was one of the roughest to read, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. But when I saw it was passing on TMN, I couldn’t help myself. I can’t say watching the film was an enjoyable experience. The acting was surprisingly good, they stuck almost exactly to the book, everything was great. And yet I’ll never watch it again. It was one of those films that was just really hard to watch. Unless you’re a major fan of the torture porn genre, in which case I imagine this will be nothing for you, you freak. 9/10.

This film isn’t currently on Netflix, but there is a full version on YouTube. I highly recommend it.

I also recommend the book, cause it’s awesome. Other Senécal books worth reading are Oniria, 5150 rue des Ormes, Aliss, and, especially, Sur le Seuil.

M.

Jun 11 2015

Review Club #3 – Dracula Untold

DraculaUntold

 

First up, here’s Rob from over at MovieRob:

I am by far not the biggest fan of movies in the horror genre, but ever since I was a kid, I’ve enjoyed the “generic” stories of the “original” four; Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman and of course Dracula.

When this movie came out, I avoided it like the plague because I had heard so many crappy things about it that it just didn’t sound worthwhile to give it a watch.

…But then came Review Club

So I decided that worse comes to worse, I wasted 90 minutes on a movie (which happens now and again)

Instead, I found myself sucked in to the story, because it wasn’t a horror movie, it was instead a historical action/drama with a supernatural element to it.

I could empathize with the characters and although this isn’t a Braveheart or Gladiator, it was still a compelling movie about love, honor and protecting one’s family and loved ones.

This really is an interesting take on the Dracula myth and I liked how it all comes full circle at the end in order to open up the possibility of continuing the storyline.

It’s too bad that it seems that this will be the last of the series because the idea to reboot the “monster” franchises of days of old is a great idea.

7/10

 

Next up is Eric, from The IPC:

When I first saw the trailer for this, I blew it off as PG-13 CGI horseshit and never gave it another thought. Then I saw a couple of positive reviews from some writers I believe in and I was all “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” You know – I dropped to my knees and aimed my head at the sky and screamed “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” much to the alarm of my co-workers. Eventually I composed myself and went on about my business and forgot that anything like that had ever happened and then Melanie started Movie Club and she took out her whip and snapped it a few times and said we had to watch this movie and I was all, knee dropping again and I screamed “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” But, I am loyal and faithful to my friends so I ordered it up and it wasn’t too bad, actually. But I wasn’t really in love with this:

DU1

The opening and first third of the film was pretty good and I was buying into it. I thought it got a little dodgy when he killed 1000 men by himself but…. OK…. the rest of the thing wasn’t too bad – that part where someone falls off of the tower was pretty good but there were too many “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” moments for me. Would I recommend it? MEH. It’s better than I thought it would be, for sure, but it’s still a movie about how Dracula became Dracula filled with lots of CGI and melodrama. It’s a better vampire movie than that one Twilight movie I watched.

3 out 5 Men Screaming NOs

DU2

 

We continue with Abbi, from abbiosbiston:

Luke Evans plays Vlad, a fifteenth century Transylvanian prince who was once part of the Turkish army after being offered up by his father as a kind of hostage (like they do in Game of Thrones) as a child. During his rule his kingdom has been at peace with the Turks, mostly by paying them off. When the Turkish king, Mehmed (Dominic Cooper) – or I think he was the king anyway – decides he wants a thousand boys for his army, including Vlad’s son (again played by the kid who played Rickon Stark – he’s everywhere), Vlad cannot bring himself to acquiesce. He’s outmanned and outmatched though so he makes a deal with a vampire (Charles Dance) to receive his powers for three days. If Vlad can stay off the old claret for that time he’ll go back to normal if not he’ll be forever changed and the vampire will be released from the cave he’s imprisoned in. Vlad finds himself almost unbeatable but also tortured by an unslakeable thirst. Will he be able to resist and will it all be enough to hold off Mehmed’s horde?

So Luke Evans is super hot and Vlad has some pretty epic powers – infrared vision, sonic hearing, star gazing, he can turn into a fleet of bats… but that is about all that is good about this lacklustre film. The dialogue is stilted, most of the acting is wooden and there is zero character development. This movie is only 92 minutes long but it feels like it goes on forever, probably because it’s hard to give even a single fuck about any of the characters. I didn’t care about Vlad or his inspid wife or Rickon Stark and I half wished the Turks just mowed them down in the first 10 minutes. Oh and what was up with Dominic Cooper playing a Turk? He’s about as convincingly Turkish as I am, and it didn’t help that he’s been taking accent lessons from the Tom Hardy school of sounding not very Russian at all. What a load of batshit. 1/5

 

And lastly, here’s mine:

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Dracula Untold
(2014) Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance, Diarmaid Murtagh, Paul Kaye, William Houston, Noah Huntley, Ronan Vibert

sunburn

This film was torn apart by the critics, getting the abysmal score of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience liked it a bit more, but still only gave it 59%, and only slightly better on IMDB, with a score of 6.4. And I truly don’t understand why. I thought it was great. No, it wasn’t Shakespeare, but really now, it wasn’t trying to be! Taken as what it is, a vampire action film, it succeeds very well. This origin story starts with the same base as a lot of the films, that Dracula was born from Vlad the Impaler, but everything else is rather new, and interesting. Most of the acting was quite good, the action scenes were fun (if a little over-CGI’d at times), and the characters were engaing enough to keep us caring about them. And yes, the two leads were plenty pleasant to look at. I’m a bit sad that then open end took us all the way into the present, I’d have liked another period piece as a sequel (if they do indeed decide to make one), but then again, Dracula films in the present are relatively few, so it’ll (hopefully) be something fresh. All in all, I thought this film was great fun, and it receives an equally great score of 8.5/10.

This film isn’t currently on Netflix, but is rentable on On Demand. Enjoy!

M.

 

And that’s it for this round! Join us again in 2 weeks for reviews of Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters! 😀

Jun 2 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Annabelle

Annabelle
(2014) Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola, Eric Ladin, Joseph Bishara

Annabelle film still

Ah, what a sad disappointment this was. Especially since The Conjuring was so good. The doll was massively creepy in that film, but only ugly in this one. Most of the actors were alright, but Annabelle Wallis was downright difficult to watch sometimes, emotionless save for a look on her face that looks like she’s desperately trying to remember her lines. The story was so generic that it almost hurt, and far from being creepy, that demon was just funny. The film had a few good, tense scenes, but on the whole, was mostly a yawn-fest. And it gets an equally dull score from me, a very meh 5/10. Avoid unless you really have a hard on for possessed dolls.

This film is not currently playing on Netflix.

M.