Movies One Must See Before They Croak

DOUBLE FEATURE:


The Martian:
This was a very intriguing movie. It was incredibly intellect survival story with a likable sardonic main character that you enjoyed seeing the clever ways in which he worked around the enormous problem of staying alive on mars!

Granted I believe the first half of the movie was much more believable than the second but then again I'm not a rocket scientist...

THAT being said, several people at NASA were actually collaborated with to make sure everything they did in the movie checked out. And for the most part, most of it did surprisingly. In fact the only two major inaccuracies were criticized but both were made to increase the drama of the story. Also for 2 hours and 21 minutes worth of movie to only get two details wrong is impressive in and of itself! 

Definitely check this one out, and judging by the enormous amount of positive reviews you'll probably have a lot of time to.


Goosebumps:
You know those book-to-film adaptations that look remarkably campy and cheesy but it tries to take itself seriously? For one reason or another, Goosebumps looked campy and cheesy but it actually worked for this film.

They embraced the campiness and insanity of their story and that made it a lot of fun! That's one of the greatest flaws in some comedies. Any comedian will tell you that a good joke relies on tragedy, escalation and ultimately exaggeration. Exaggeration was where this movie shined brightest. I'll get back to this point in a second...

Let's talk about the main stars of this movie. Not Jack Black, but I loved him as RL Stein. Not even really the main characters...

I'm talking about the monsters! And this goes right back to what I was saying about exaggeration. Sure you could've just had the mummy, or a yeti, or just a handful of classic Goosebumps monsters come out and been done. But why stop there?! Why not an evil dummy, an army of garden gnomes, insane clowns, mini robots, invisible people,  a giant praying mantis, and an army of other ones... ALL IN ONE MOVIE!!!

I found myself grinning ear-to-ear as a new monster appeared. I was a big fan of the Goosebumps books back when I was a kid and there were tons of throwbacks back to the books. I really loved all the monsters in this movie, how they looked, how they acted and how they terrorized! They were just spot on! Great work from both the animation and prop departments!

 The pacing was frantic and hectic, which just escalated the chaos of the story perfectly! Some people might complain about that and I can understand why, but I personally loved it!

If you haven't seen it yet, go see it! You'll have a lot of fun!

Mockingjay Part 2

So... this one is very very tentative that I put it in the Must See category. The biggest reason why it's here is because the acting was as incredible as ever (thank you Jennifer Lawrence, good luck with other projects!) and it's better than part 1 and the first one in my opinion. I guess ipso facto that makes it the second best in the series. But nothing will beat the swan song that was Catching Fire for me. 

This movie definitely took a few chances with things, and really understood tone. The appropriate moods were felt throughout and even things I should be numb to by this point managed to get me at times. 

My biggest problem (and from what I gather, fans of the book share this view) was with the story. As I like to stress, I've never read the books so I'm purely looking at this as a film. And the film itself is fine but the story is kind of lackluster at the end for me personally. 

SPOILERS AHEAD:

But even so, the action was well done, superb acting and camera work that gets better every time is perfect. It may not have been the ending to the Hunger Games series I was hoping for but it sufficed.

Am I the only one in the current universe who seems to think that the new star wars film was lacklustre, predictable and thought 90% of the characters had less depth than a puddle? There was one I liked. Just one.

I was actually really disappointed and still don't understand what the spoilers are to other people, since I sat with my partner and went "this this and this is gonna happen obviously" and it did.

It was just... A bit shit. Honestly. ((Won't go into detail since hey ho, spoilers.))

I personally really liked it. Sure it's not episodes 4-6 and I'd be lying if I said it was perfect so don't expect me to usher it in as a messiah to Star Wars. but I think it injected new life into the series that the prequels had previously cut off.

I'm open to discussing your opinions over pm if you're interested! I'd like to hear from all viewpoints.

Having not seen ANY other star wars, I went into this one and loved loved loved it. (I know enough of the old ones to understand everything but never seen the whole movies)

ANd I think thats the point- and thats why so many of the older generation have complained, because this one is for the new gen, and the kids who havent seen them before.

It works out well

The way I figure this movie to me is it's a preview for Episode VIII. It's just so they can show the fan base and go, 'Rest easy, there's no Jar Jar or midichlorians here.' 

Personally, I enjoyed the film immensely. I do admit there's problems with it and I'll get to them in a second. But I see it as a welcomed return to the era of Star Wars that's actually good. The effects were great, the characters were great, the script was good, and it opened up so many new possibilities for the franchise.

That's the good. But here are the things I HATED about it. Kylo Ren and Voldemo- I mean Snoke. 
Kylo: Think about the dark siders we've seen so far. A badass martial artist, a duelling prodigal count, an armored agent of badassery, and a hooded lord of evil. And now we can add whiny brat with granddaddy issues to that list. I mean good god. Why out of everything you could do with him did you have to make him suck this bad? He's built up to be this Vader-esque villain. But here's the problem. VADER WAS FUCKING INTIMIDATING! He could walk into a room and without even speaking, you knew he owned that space. You'd be afraid to blink wrong in this guys presence. 
But then there's Kylo who honestly just strikes me as a guy trying to act tough. You know what Vader calls the task of getting a droid and killing two untrained people with  a lightsaber? A SLOW MORNING.  When Tarkin and Vader talked, Tarkin knew not to piss off Vader. When Hux and Kylo talked to Snoke, it kind of felt like two children fighting for dad's attention. 

Volde- Snoke: Star Wars has some of the most iconic designs one could possibly imagine. Even at it's worst, they made characters that had completely original designs. And then you have Snoke aka Star Wars Voldemort. There's just not a thing that's unique about him. He's every dark lord we've ever seen in every film. The bald gray skinned guy who sits on a throne and barks orders. I take it back, only unique thing about him is the ridiculousness of his name. 
Darth Maul... Count Dooku... Darth Vader... Darth Sidious... SNOKE. 
One of these things is not like the others! 

But for all the sucking that the villains did, to me, they made up for it in full with Rey. Rey to me is exactly what Anakin from the prequels should have been. Anakin is built up to be this force Jesus, but what do we really see him do with the force that justifies this? Nothing. 
But with Rey, it felt completely different. I know many gripe about how she seemed to learn the force out of nowhere but here's my theory on that. I can't prove it but I think many years of Star Wars knowledge gives me a bit of authority here. The force can guide people right? Well firstly, before I get into that, I think when Kylo Bitch was using his interrogation technique on her she inadvertently learned the mind trick. But back to my point. What if it was the Force guiding her on how to do those powers? It felt like she was truly a conduit of the force in this movie. Like I said, I can't prove it at all but it would make her rapid learning make a bit more sense. Also is it really so difficult to believe that someone can be just, naturally gifted in the force? We never really see Anakin's training so for all we know, he could've picked it up like that too. 

I know I am hyped for Episode VIII and while yes there are issues, I still deem it a great movie! Is it better than the originals? No not at all, but it's years ahead of Episode I-III.

*mic drop*

*subtle applause and thumbs up*

Rogue One

FINALLY! A prequel that DIDN'T suck! 

Perhaps the highest praise I can give this film is it was the first Star Wars movie (Episode VII notwithstanding as it's it's own storyline) that really felt like it added something to the Originals. And added something good on that note. I can't say the film is flawless though. I'll get into that in a minute. But here's everything I loved about it.

To get the elephant out of the room first, this film had the single, best Darth Vader scene since 'I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing'. Looking back on the originals, I know Vader was a badass, just based on everything I know about him from the Expanded Universe and so forth, but we've never truly seen Vader going all out. In episode V he was holding back because he truly didn't want to kill his son as per his scheme. In VI I believe he was similarly holding back. So therefore we've never truly seen Vader bring his full weight to bare in the Originals...

And then Rogue One happened and... I'd pay just to watch that scene on a loop for hours. Moving on...

There was a familiar feeling of adventure with this movie like in the Originals and the continuity lined up like a perfect stack of dominoes. It was very well researched in that regard. I loved when original characters appeared on screen, the majority being CGI admittedly but good CGI. 

The characters were mostly enjoyable. K2 has now become my third favorite Star Wars droid. The action was a lot of fun too!

But here are the problems I found with the film. SPOILERS AHEAD:

To learn the Death Star's infamous weakness was purposefully engineered to me kind of cheapens the feat of destroying it. I always considered it this engineering marvel that had the smallest inconceivable weakness that the Rebels through their own ingenuity found and exploited. But because it was intentionally made, it kind of weakens how impossible it's destruction seemed. 

I believe there were a few too many characters in this. None of them were bad per say but the movie felt very cluttered. In the Originals, and hell even the Prequels, they kept the story mostly focussed on a few key individuals. I understand why they did this as they're representing a team but even still.

There were a couple of scenes that REALLY stretch your suspension of disbelief. I'm sorry but no ship can ram into a star destroyer and crash it with another one.

SPOILERS OVER

All and all though, I enjoyed seeing it and would recommend a viewing to anyone!