QUICK REVIEWS - 'Elysium', 'Butler' and 'World's End'

Once again, I'm a little bit behind in these, so I bunched them together and just put them all on one post.


'Elysium' (R) **3/4
The year is 2154.  The Earth as we know it is way overpopulated.  The very wealthy live on a man-made space station called Elysium, which allows them to have clean air, nice housing, no crime, and free access to health care that can cure any ailment or disability.  After an accident at work gives him days to live, Max (Matt Damon) takes on a seemingly suicidal mission to go to Elysium.  Meanwhile Elysium Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster) has plans of her own, with a very sketchy sleeper agent on Earth (Sharlto Copley) doing her bidding.  The director of this also made 'District 9' (great movie by the way) and both movies aren't exactly subtle with what they're trying to say about society.  Most of the acting, action, special effects and music is great.  For most of the movie I was thinking that this was going to be a four-star movie.  However, the excessive shaky cam during the fight scenes (especially the final fight) makes it hard to tell who is doing what.  I know most other critics panned Jodie Foster's performance, but I thought she was fine.  The one I didn't like was Sharlto Copley as a murderer/rapist/kidnapper/sleeper agent.  His performance and accent was so distracting, over the top, and at times he was hard to understand.  That was a disappointment.  He was great in 'District 9', and he was great as Mad Eye Murdock in the 'A-Team' movie.  Overall, 'Elysium' is a good movie that borders on being a great movie. 


'Lee Daniel's The Butler' (PG-13) ****
Now this is a great movie, and honestly it's the best movie I've seen so far this year.  'The Butler' follows the life of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), from his days working on a cotton field in his youth to his 30+ years of working as a butler at the White House.  It also delves into his life at home, dealing with his relationships with his alcoholic wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey), son Louis (David Oyelowo) who gets caught up in various civil rights movements including the Freedom Riders and the Black Panthers, and well behaved son Charlie (Elijah Kelley).  The cast also includes Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower, James Marsden as JFK, Liev Schreiber as LBJ, John Cusack as Richard Nixon, Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan, and Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan.  It is very well acted by everyone involved, and very well shot.  It's powerful, it's sad, but it does have it's moments of humor provided by Gaine's coworkers at the White House Carter Wilson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and James Holloway (Lenny Kravitz).  The only thing I can say negatively about the movie is that the final 10 minutes of the movie felt very political and biased.  I can understand perfectly why it was in the movie, but let's just say considering how liberal Hollywood already as and the fact that Oprah is in the movie makes the final 10 minutes of it feel political.  Still a great movie that I highly recommend people see.


'The World's End' (R) ***
The third and final installment in the so-called "Cornetto Trilogy" (the other two installments being 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz'),'World's End' finds Gary King (Simon Pegg, who also co-wrote the movie) recruiting his best friends from high school Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Andy (Nick Frost) to head back home to Newton Haven to once again attempt the pub crawl know as "The Golden Mile".  12 pubs in one night.  All appears to be going all right until all of a sudden the reunited friends unwittingly stumble upon a plan to take over the human race.  It is funny (in that British humor sort of way) and it takes some unexpected twists and turns as they go from pub to pub and we all discover more of the plot to takeover the human race and how the friends had previously become estranged.  As far as the "Cornetto Trilogy" goes, I liked this better than 'Shaun of the Dead' but didn't like it as much as 'Hot Fuzz' but at the same time 'World's End' is different than both of those.  'Shaun of the Dead' satirizes and references zombie movie cliches and 'Hot Fuzz' satirizes and references action movies.  'The World's End' isn't really a satire nor does it reference other things.  It's simply about people that go drinking and stumble upon a plot to destroy humanity.  And for what it's worth, I liked it.

REVIEW - 'Kick Ass 2'

'Kick Ass 2' (R) ***

This sequel finds Dave Lizewski/Kick Ass (Aaron Johnson) coming out of retirement to join up with other costumed heroes to become Justice Forever.  Among these other costumed heroes include Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) and his dog Eisenhower, Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison), Battle Guy (Clarke Duke), Insect Man (Robert Emms), Night B**ch (Lindy Booth), and the husband-wife team known as Remembering Tommy (Steven Mackintosh and Monica Dolan).  Meanwhile, Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) is being forced to retire by her guardian (Morris Chestnut) and live life as a normal high school girl. Meanwhile, Chris D'Amico/Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wants vengeance against Kick Ass for killing his drug lord father.

Um...well...as far as positives go most of the action scenes are awesome, but more on those in a bit.  It has it's fair share of funny one-liners, but nothing too special.  I did have some fun watching it, but the negatives about the movie bugged me.

Now I haven't read the comics so I can't really compare it to those.  But having seen the first movie, everything honestly just feels downgraded from the first movie.  It isn't as funny as the first, and since Chloe Grace Moretz is a little bit older the shock factor from the first movie of her swearing worse than anybody I've ever met and committing all kinds of brutally violent acts is gone. The shaky cam used during the fight scenes also doesn't help much.  The shaky cam isn't as bad as 'Quantum of Solace' but it does get distracting.  The middle part of the movie practically turns into 'Mean Girls' as Chloe Grace Moretz is attempting to fit in to high school with the "help" of three popular girls.  And now we get to what probably is the worst part of the movie:  Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka McLovin from 'Superbad', as the main villain.  His super villain name is a certain 12-letter compound word that I won't type here, but he is so whiny and annoying that his character tiptoes the line between entertaining and just being downright unwatchable.

The first 'Kick Ass' honestly was one of the best movies of 2010 in my opinion.  It basically turned the whole "superhero movies are for kids" concept on it's head and upped the ante with extremely brutal violence, enough foul language to make a military person blush, and giving (kinda) real life consequences to being a superhero/supervillain in the real world.  It was excessive, but hilarious.  

So does 'Kick Ass 2' live up to it's title?  Not completely.  It is nowhere near as good as the first nor is it anywhere near the level of brutality that the first one reveled in.  So do I recommend it?  Well, if you've seen the first 'Kick Ass' then yes I do recommend it.  There is fun to be had in watching it, but it's not as good as the first.  Of course if you can't tolerate excessive amounts of foul language, don't go anywhere near this.  

REVIEW - 'The Conjuring'

'The Conjuring' (R) ***1/2

Paranormal investigators Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) come to the assistance of the Perron family, who start experiencing spooky things happening around the house.

Now, it's hard to write a review for a horror movie.  Like any movie, it's subjective.  What I find to be creepy and scary other people may not find to be creepy or scary.  Prime example of that:  I don't think that "The Exorcist" is scary.  I even purposely watched that at night, with it being pitch black in my room.  But I was not scared at all.

With that aside, I found 'The Conjuring' to be very creepy.  From the opening scene featuring an investigation of a possibly possessed, broken, creepy, almost life size porcelain doll it sets in motion a feeling of dread and tension that for the most part never lets up.  With the creepy atmosphere, it earns the jump scares when things do start going bump in the night.  And that greatly helps a movie like this:  atmosphere.  Sure, a loud noise or a loud orchestra sting can make me jump, but that doesn't make for a creepy movie.  Atmosphere and mood does.  If a horror movie doesnt have those and just has loud noises, well, then it's trying too hard and it just isnt scary or even remotely creepy (EXAMPLE:  'Paranormal Activity 4', which is so bad that it retroactively makes the other 'Paranormal Activity' movies worse.  And I liked those other movies).

And along those lines, yes 'The Conjuring' does follow the usual cliches of any haunted house movie or any exorcism movie so in a sense in retrospect it is predictable.  But since the movie is so well made I was invested in the story and felt this feeling of tension and dread inside me I was able to overlook those cliches that might ruin the movie for some.

Cliches aside, it is refreshing to watch a horror movie that you are able to actually get invested in what is going on and care about the characters and not just wait impatiently for them to die a horribly gruesome death.  This is a simple haunted house/exorcism movie.  There is some disturbing imagery and gore, but it's not excessive.  There isnt any sex or nudity in this movie at all, which is another change of pace from other horror movies that just pile on the gratuitous sex and nudity for no reason whatsoever (Hence why the 'Friday The 13th' remake is practically a porn movie).  No sex, no nudity, no graphic violence, no excessive amounts of gore.  It's horror like how it used to be made.

Okay, enough rants on the horror genre.  What else is good about the movie?  The performances are all very strong, particularly Patrick Wilson (from 'Watchmen' and 'Insidious') and Vera Farmiga (from 'Up In The Air' and 'Orphan') as the husband and wife team of paranormal investigators.  Ron Livingston (from 'Office Space') also does well as Roger Perron, the father of the family being terrified by the many demons and spirits in the house.  There is an extremely minimal amount of CGI in the movie, relying mostly on practical effects.  And that adds more to the creepy atmosphere.

Any negatives I can think of?  The main one I can think of is early on in the movie it'll go back and forth between spooky things happening to the family or spooky things happening in other investigations to the Warrens giving a lecture concerning their investigations.  It does slow the movie down a little bit but that pretty much stops after the mother of the family Carolynn Perron (Lili Taylor, from the remake of 'The Haunting') attends one of these lectures and gets the Warrens to investigate.  But that's the only negative thing that comes to mind.

If you are able to look past the cliches, 'The Conjuring' is a well made, very creepy horror movie that is bolstered by strong performances and a consistently creepy atmosphere that for the most part never lets up.  And honestly is one of the better movies I've seen this year. 

REVIEW - 'The Wolverine'

"The Wolverine" (PG-13) ***

Set years after the events of "X-Men:  The Last Stand", "The Wolverine" has Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) wandering the wilderness and being haunted by his past.  While at a bar he is visited by a woman named Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who was commissioned by her employer Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) to bring back to Japan the one they call 'The Wolverine'.  Yashida's life was saved during World War II during the Nagasaki bombing by Logan/Wolverine and currently he is on his deathbed.  In addition to wanting to finally give him his sword as a Thank You gift for saving his life during the war, he also has an offer for Logan:  He can make Logan a mortal again and end his eternity.  While that is going on, there is a power struggle in the business as gangsters come after Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto), who is set to succeed her grandfather as the head of the business.  There's a lot going on here for a superhero movie, but at least it doesn't get as complicated or convoluted as "Spider-man 3".

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is always fun to watch and once again he delivers a great performance in his 6th time playing the role.  All of the other actors also do well in their roles.  The action scenes are thrilling and fun for the most part, and it does something that "X-Men Origins:  Wolverine" failed to do:  Focus on Wolverine!  "Origins" has a lot of 'X-Men' character cameos scattered throughout the movie and every side trip to point out the next cameo gets a little tiresome after a while before it jumps the shark with a mostly CGI Patrick Stewart reprising his role as Professor X, digitally enhanced to make him look younger.....yeah.  But enough about "Origins" for now.  "The Wolverine" is also well scored and something else I have to point out is that this is a dark movie.  Most of the action, except for a fight atop a bullet train and at a funeral, is set at night.  And rather than being distracting, it helps the movie out.  Think of the fight in the skyscraper in Shanghai in "Skyfall".  You could only see the silhouettes of Daniel Craig and Ola Rapace against blue lights from an advertisement on a nearby building.  Sure, you can't see much, but it's so well shot and so great to look at that it helps the movie rather than hinders it.  Much is the case with the nighttime action scenes in "Wolverine".

As far as negatives go, some of the action scenes are a little hastily edited so sometimes I couldn't really tell what was happening.  It is a little bit long, and my last nitpick is a bit spoiler-heavy so I'm going to save this last bit of negativity for when I do that blog post.  It involves something towards the end of the movie.

Now, I have never read any of the X-Men comics so I cannot compare this to how faithful it was to the comics. But I have seen all of the live action 'X-Men' movies and comparing this to all those, well,  this is the 6th one so it'll just be better if I listed out the others and gave my opinion on them.
            "X-Men" - Special effects don't really hold up well, but it's an all right movie.
            "X2" - Once again, the special effects don't really hold up well.  It's an okay movie.
            "X-Men:  The Last Stand" - I've only seen this once, but I thought it was a lot of fun.
            "X-Men Origins:  Wolverine" - It's dumb, but it's watchable.
            "X-Men:  First Class" - This is a great comic book movie, bolstered by the lead performances of James McAvoy as Professor X and Michael Fassbender as Magneto.
So where does "The Wolverine" fall in with the others?  It's a lot better than "Origins" that's for sure.  Heck, the opening scene of "Wolverine" in Nagasaki is a lot better than anything in "Origins".  I do like this better than the trilogy, but this is not as good as "First Class".

"The Wolverine" is a dark, action filled, character filled, plot heavy superhero movie that is actually good with another great performance from Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine.  "Wolverine" doesn't get convoluted in it's own plot, nor does it dumb things down.  In the middle of the end credits there is a teaser for next year's "X-Men:  Days of Future Past".  Not exactly a title that rolls of the tongue, but I'm looking forward to it.  But at the same time, I'm a little weary about it.  But more about that later.

CAPSULE REVIEWS - 'Monsters University', 'Lone Ranger', 'The Heat', 'Mama'

Catching up on reviews for movies that I went to see on my nights off from camp, as well as a movie I got from Redbox a few days ago.

'Monsters University' (G) **1/2
Pixar's first prequel puts Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James P. 'Sulley' Sullivan (John Goodman) in college, meeting each other for the first time and being forced to team up.  While funny with bright and colorful animation, this is nowhere near as good as 'Monsters Inc.' and doesn't pack an emotional punch that 'Monsters Inc.' did.  And don't see this in 3D.

'The Lone Ranger' (PG-13) ***
An aging Tonto (Johnny Depp) tells the tale of how he and John Reid, AKA The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) started riding together and seeking justice in the Old West.  It gets a little confusing with the random jumps back and forth in time, but that's the only negative I can think of.  It's a fun movie.  The performances are all good and the action is exciting.  It's genuinely funny without forcing it for the most part (apart from a horse poop joke).  Apart from seeing the commercials and trailers for it this was a movie that I went in without having read any reviews of it whatsoever.  Afterwards, I looked up on Rotten Tomatoes and found that the reviews it had been getting were extremely scathing.  It's also bombing at the box office.  For what it's worth, I liked it.  It's fun.  Just goes to show how subjective movies are.

'The Heat' (R) ***1/2
Uptight FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is forced to team up with extremely foul-mouthed, bold Boston cop Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) to take down a drug lord.  Sure, it follows the stereotypical buddy cop movie tropes, but it's entertaining enough and it's very funny.    If you have a problem with hearing a constant barrage of foul language over a two hour time frame, well, you've been warned as there are very few sentences in this movie where Melissa McCarthy does NOT drop the f-bomb.  

'Mama' (PG-13) **3/4
Two young children that have been missing for five years have been discovered in a cabin in the woods.  Their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) take them in, and they keep talking to some unknown entity that they call 'Mama'.  Creepy things start happening around the house as Annabel, Lucas, and psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) try to figure out who or what 'Mama' is.  For the most part it's a creepy movie and as a rental I liked it.  It is a little long and sometimes the CGI is poor, but the creepiness of the movie overcame those flaws.

Updates and Random Stuff

Well, it's been a little while since I last posted but with camp being over for the summer I now have a little bit more time on my hands to write about things.

As far as movie reviews go, well I have a little bit of backtracking to do.  "Monsters University", "The Lone Ranger" and "The Heat" I saw on my nights off at camp and didn't quite have the time to write full fledged reviews for each, so whenever I get around to these I'll just write up some quick thoughts about them and then carry on.  This month will be another busy one for movies if I have the time and resources, including "We're The Millers", "Kick-Ass 2", "Elysium", catching up on "The Wolverine", "Despicable Me 2", "The Conjuring", and whatever I find on Redbox (just watched 'Mama', still need to watch "The Last Stand" and "Gangster Squad") or Netflix (still trying to find time to watch "Braveheart" and "Pulp Fiction").

As far as Summer break posts go I just have to write up about June, July, and the half of August that I still have left for break.  I had been meaning to do these at the end of the respective months, but camp and sleep took precedence over it.  And speaking of camp, I will also be continuing to blog about various things about camp, from Staff Week to Boy Scout Resident camp to Cub Scout Resident Camp and anything and everything in between (to a certain extent - camp drama stays at camp and doesnt need to be aired here).

I'll have a post a day until I'm all caught up and can go back to my usual schedule of 1 or 2 posts a week.  Once again, I'm asking for feedback.  I need to know how my writing is, what works and what doesn't work, other people's thoughts on whatever I'm writing about, etc.  This is a nice creative outlet for me, but I want people to tell me how I'm doing and what I can change if necessary to make this better.

All right, enough for today.