Jeepers Creepers 2 - 1 out of 5 (third or fourth viewing) At least the reactions are more reasonable this time, but there are a couple minor loose ends in terms of characters' fates. Plus, since when does The Creeper kill without purpose and/or kill when it doesn't need anything from the person? Salva deciding to retcon the rules of his own creation is more detrimental than fun.
The Raid 2 - 9/10 - Yes. Oh yes. This greatly improved on the first film story-wise, offering great performances, unique shots, and thrilling tension. It gave me a reason to care and sympathize for these characters. Sure, Mike's score in the first film was better, but the new score is pretty cool too. But of course, the real star, other than Iko Uwais, is the action scenes. Not just punching and shooting. The car chase scene was well-executed. The finale is great.
I agree. It's good, but not as great like Edgar's other films... except The World's End. That one was meh.
You're Next - 4 out of 5 (second viewing, review is from from the first viewing) Although it begins slow, minus the cold, murderous open, the film relies on real fear and suspense to build tension, and forces the audience to continuously ask "who is it?!"; then, once you find out the who, you're itching to know the why. There is a very simple plot, but director Adam Wingard tells that same story in a new, very disturbing way, and that's really how movies should be made. To top it all off, it's really great to finally have a female lead who isn't completely moronic and does the exact opposite of what every other movie chick would do - the gory, bloody deaths are incredibly clever and fun, too.
The Dark Knight Rises 7/10 Haven't gotten a chance to see this again since 2012. Still as convoluted as I remember, yet somehow I found myself enjoying the flick a lot more this time around.
Honeymoon (2014) - 3.5/5 Quite a suspenseful horror film. Well shot, well acted. The premise is dope and most of the suspenseful moments work. Although I wish they'd amped it up a bit more. There were some surface level parallels I found with Under the Skin, although the latter is a far superior and a more unsettling watch.
Bloodsport (1988) - 2/5 The acting was shit, the narrative extremely predictible, filled with clichés, and the acting abysmal. This is a very poorly made movie. Please stay away from it. Even the action sucks. and its an action movie!
Frank (2014) - 2/5 It had certain moments which drew me in but overall it sure was a disappointment. Most of the film felt like it was processed through an "indie film" machine. The quirks and offbeat nature felt like they existed simply for the sake of it. Most of the characters were wooden and served no real purpose. Besides the ending, I took away very little from this film. The Departed (2006) - 5/5 - Rewatch. Frickin perfect. Better than Wolf imo.
Hercules : The Thracian Wars : 3/5 An entertaining movie. Much action and some "funny" moments make it really entertaining. Story... well just meeeeh in my opinion. Many actions are so foreseeable, that was a bit boring. A good movie , but more of a once life experience.
I watched X-Men: Days of Future Past last night for the first time since I saw it in theaters. I still have a big problem with the story. Mostly just with the time travel aspect, since its whole purpose is to basically just merge and semi reboot both past and future franchises. Basically the only storyline that didn't get wiped from the franchise is First Class since that preceded 1973. Everything else is reset and is of no consequence anymore. At least that's what it seems like. The future X-Men in this movie were utilized only for cheap tension. They weren't developed at all and were only there to get slaughtered so we'd feel more anxious about what was happening in the past. And here we have Sir Ian McKellen almost definitely portraying Magneto for the last time ever, and he goes out with a fizzle instead of the blaze of glory that he and his character deserve. Such wasted screen time and a giant disappointment from the writers. But overall, the future X-Men didn't leave any impact at all. We saw them get killed multiple times in the same movie. Why should we expect any of them to die permanently when they can keep resetting time? And half of the mutants we barely even knew their names. It's just hard to feel any emotional tie to them. But with all the hate, I still really liked the movie. The production was amazing. Despite not caring about any of the future storyline, those fight scenes were incredible. I still wish we'd get an X-Men movie where they didn't fight like complete idiots, but that's probably not going to happen ever in any superhero movie. It's tough to just watch badass mofos like Storm and Magneto act like they don't even know how to use their powers and get totally owned for really no good reason other than they had to die. What I was impressed about was the effects, not the actual fighting. Blink teleporting shit left and right was a joy. Again, she could have used those powers and saved everyone's life easily, but the writers had to make her stupid like the rest of them. But whatever. The effects on the sentinels were mind-blowing. The acting was top notch. Fassbender had a crap script to work with since they turned Magneto back into a one-dimensional character, but he was great. Jackman seems to get more fun to watch every movie. There was nobody that felt flat. The biggest problem I see with X-Men: Apocalypse is that we're already caught back up to the future by the end of the movie. We know they already beat Apocalypse since that takes place in the 80s I believe. The only way we'll feel any suspense is if Apocalypse messes around with time travel and screws timelines up again. That would be awesome because Apocalypse is the bomb, but then again, TIME TRAVEL! That was the whole problem with DOFP to begin with. Get some different writers. And on a way better note, Guardians of the Galaxy was incredible. That was probably the most enjoyable movie I've seen in well over a year. Seeing Chris Pratt go from Andy Dwyer (Burt Macklin) to Star-Lord pretty much made my life.
I kinda feel the same way around the future guys. I expected this to happen since the writers kept saying that it focused on Professor X. They finally unleash Storm's full potential in the movies, but no, she had to be killed off immediately after that. I thought Blink and Bishop had the most potential. I'm glad Fan Bingbing as Blink is back in Apocalypse, but how, I don't know. The strongest point of the movie was the focus on Professor X and Wolverine being the mentor/supporting character instead. As I remember, Simon Kinberg from DOFP and X3 will return alongside Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris of X2, which is always a good thing.
travz: I liked how they kept the time travel very straight forward and easy to understand. For a film that has so many characters and is trying to meld two separate franchises together using something as sensitive as a time travel plot, things could've gone horribly wrong for this film. All things considered I thought they did an absolutely amazing job keeping things plot-hole-free and straightforward. I didn't mind the old franchise stars not doing a lot either. We've already seen those dudes kick ass for 3 straight films. Fleshing out the new cast members to me was far more interesting. And why wouldn't you when you got talented people like Fassbender and Mcavoy? I thought they were excellent in the film.
Godzilla -3.5/5 Saw it for two reasons. a) Bryan Cranston, and b) cuz Godzilla. Was a little disappointed in how Bryan Cranston was utilized, but he did really well as always. The lead actor was pretty decent. Okay story and pretty good effects. The monsters' time on screen was pretty short really, and it felt like it just accomplished the minimum length of time to be acceptable. But damn, the fights were pretty sweet. Intense moments in the movie. Pretty worth the download
Godzilla was pretty sweet. I wish they didn't bother with that crappy story and just had a monster brawl the whole movie. Those monsters were amazing. The Godzilla kamehameha got me hard.
The film would've been more effective had the story not been quite boring/uninteresting/borderline-soapy.
Anyways, I enjoyed Godzilla, saw it 2 times in theaters. It was very well done. However, if they're going to do a more human story, they need a great lead, which they didn't. Had Bryan Cranston been lead/co-lead with Aaron Taylor-Johnston in a sort of rekindling of their relationship story, the movie could have gone from good, to great. For what it was, it was a pretty great disaster movie. Bryan Cranston was fucking fantastic in the scenes he was in though, and the monster fights were TOTALLY worth the wait.
The Maze Runner - 8/10 This movie was awesome. It was scary and intense the whole time. I didn't understand the ending, but hopefully the second film will make it clearer.