Avengers: Infinity War

The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.

---

Avengers: Infinity War is easily one of the best movies that I’ve ever seen overall, with a great story, above-average character development, witty banter, comedy, incredible action, and eye-popping visual effects. It isn’t without it’s problem moments, outlined in the spoilers section below, but is incredibly well-rounded for a superhero movie.

Suicide Squad Sucks! Movie Review

Based on the DC Comic, the government gives a team of supervillains a chance at redemption. The catch: their mission will probably kill them all.

---

Have you heard the word on the street yet? If not, you have probably been living under a rock. The disappointing news that Suicide Squad sucks has quickly travelled down the grape vine.

The Avenger‘s success drove expectations for Suicide Squad through the roof. Unfortunately, while The Avenger’s is a full put-together movie, Suicide Squad is not. It just didn’t work.

The Big Short Movie Review

Four denizens of the world of high-finance predict the credit and housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s, and decide to take on the big banks for their greed and lack of foresight.

---

C’est incroyable!

The Big Short was so good that it has me expressing my contentment in different languages. Easily one of the best movies I have seen in the last several years, it is truly incredible how, what otherwise could have been a relatively boring documentary, is absolutely captivating.

The Unbelievers Movie Review

Renowned scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss cross the globe as they speak publicly about the importance of science and reason in the modern world.

---

What The Unbelievers lacks in entertainment and excitement, it makes up for in brilliance.

The Unbelievers is essentially a compilation of some of the great international appearances of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss as they discuss the importance of science and logic.

The Lego Movie Review | Sarcastic, Random and Hilarious

An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together.

---

The Lego movie is sarcastic, random and downright hilarious. Okay, so you could have gathered that much from the title. Usually, I like to end my posts with the “bottom line” but this time I’m going to start off with it — watch this movie!

The Hobbit Movie Review — The Desolation of Smaug

The dwarves, along with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from Smaug. Bilbo Baggins is in possession of a mysterious and magical ring.

---

The second movie in the Hobbit triology, The Desolation of Smaug, picks up where the first movie left off in reinventing the classic Tolkien story. I use the word reinventing loosely — it is more appropriate to say that the story has been completely rewritten.

The first Hobbit movie brought-on a number of arbitrary story changes; most of which did not significantly alter the story from the original. The Desolation of Smaug, on the other hand, takes this rewriting to a new level by introducing story arcs, events, and characters that were never present in the Hobbit books. Many of these changes dramatically impact the overall story, creating a bastardized version of the original.

Putting aside these major shortcomings, the movie is fairly entertaining. Like the original, one of its biggest strengths is the visuals. The high frame rate, 48fps instead of the standard 24, helps create an immersive world. The animation is also top-notch with many full character computer models being nearly indistinguishable from the real actors.

Bonus: Benedict Cumberbatch motion and voice capture for his amazing work for Smaug

The story seems to rush along at times; a common problem for book-to-movie adaptations. This is particularly odd considering a single 310 page book has been stretched into 3 movies. For some reason they decided to rush certain story arcs and add a great deal of filler for others. The biggest example of filler is the new love story that was introduced — that of the lady-elf and one of the dwarves. This love story was completely absent from the original book and clearly introduced simply to appease audiences supposedly desperate for a love story in everything.

It is these additions that earn The Hobbit a 3-star rating. If they stuck closer to the original story and resisted the urge to hollywood-ify a classic story, it would have been much better. These arbitrary additions are an unwanted distraction for those that are familiar with the story.

The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug, is definitely worth watching in theatres, just be sure to try and forget the original story as much as possible to avoid disappointment.

Gravity Movie Review

A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space.

---

Looking for an intense and brilliant movie? Look no further than Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

Introduced during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Gravity is a story of survival in one of the most perilous situations possible — lost in space. As you might imagine, Gravity is a very intense movie and Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity’s director, does a phenomenal job recreating the atmosphere of space in the theatre (pun intended!).

One of Alfonso’s tactics for creating tension and a feeling of isolation was stripping the movie of music. It was surprisingly quiet throughout — so much so, that I could hear every word spoken by the child that wouldn’t keep quiet in the row in front of me. Inconsiderate parents! But I digress.

Super condensed review, go!

• The visuals were the best part of the movie, with animation so realistic you quickly find yourself drifting out in space. For full effect, see Gravity in 3D AVX.
•  The acting was superb. I would expect nothing less from Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, elite veteran actors. What was interesting was that, other than a few disembodied voices, they were the only actors in the movie. It’s not everyday that the leading actors are the only actors.
• The music was primarily a heartbeat throughout the film that added a lot of underlying anxiety. If you were to record the heartbeat of someone watching Gravity, the resulting graph would be very jagged.
• The plot was very basic, which is why Alfonso made the right choice in restricting the movie’s length to 1.5 hours. Any longer and it would have felt drawn-out. My only complaint is with the overdone religious elements included which seem out of place for what is otherwise a sci-fi / science movie.

Overall, this is a movie you definitely want to see, and it is certainly worth seeing on the biggest screen possible. As I mentioned earlier in the post, be sure to catch the movie in AVX 3D and make sure you aren’t sitting next to any children.

__________

Kick-Ass 2 Movie Review

The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows.

---

Going into Kick-Ass 2, I didn’t know what to expect. The movie has attracted a mixture of movie reviews, with critics primarily disappointed and general audiences primarily entertained. Surely, with these mixed reviews, the movie could never compare with the original Kick-Ass, that was universally liked, right?

Wrong.

Kick-Ass 2 blew my expectations out of the water. It was on pretty much the same level as the original Kick-Ass, maintaining everything that made the first one great such as:

• Ironic comedy
• Witty and hilarious dialogue
• Gruesome action
• A smart script that pokes fun at itself
• Hilariously unique characters (the names are so good I don’t want to ruin them by listing them here)
• Chloë Grace Moretz (you can’t not like her in the Kick-Ass series)

If you enjoyed the original, you will thoroughly enjoy this one as well. Whether it is quite as good as the first one is certainly up for debate but I would say they are certainly of comparable quality.

Kick-Ass 2 is jam-packed with references to modern culture, which makes it seem real despite its absurd elements. The movie’s biggest strength, aside from the performances by Chloe Grace Moretz and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is the breadth of characters introduced. Each of the new heroes brought into the story are unique, interesting and out-right hilarious. Jim Carrey‘s character is particularly good. It is great to see him back on-screen.

In summary, Kick-Ass 2 kicks ass. Set your expectations slightly lower than the first and you will be sure not to be disappointed.

After the credits: Stick around after the credits for an interesting scene . . .

Even the music during the credits was amazing. The song Hero by Jessie J, recorded for the Kick-Ass 2 soundtrack is particular awesome:

Man of Steel Movie Review: 1 Spoiler — It Sucks

A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.

---

I found it completely shocking that some people actually liked this movie, although I attribute it to the hype and the action that overshadowed the actual meat of the movie (or lack thereof). Of course, many people also share my sentiment that Man of Steel sucks.

Man of Steel falls down on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. The biggest hole in the movie was the cast: failing to create any believable characters. The “Man of Steel” (Henry Cavill) was very dull, delivered lines robotically, and was just absolutely unlovable. He certainly lived up to his name in the movie though, with no more personality than a steel girder. The same went for Lois Lane, played by Amy Adams that failed to create any spark on-screen between herself and Superman. She was hot, yes, but a great movie that does not make.

By far the worst scenes were between Superman and his parents as they try to explain who he is and what is happening to him. It is always interesting to see how a movie will approach these difficult aspects but they did not handle it well. “Son, you are an alien. No big deal” was essentially their approach. It was awkward. It was bad. It felt like the directors just wanted to deal with it quickly like ripping off a band-aid.

What was good about the movie? The action — kinda. There was a lot of it, but it was senseless. The movie was too long and yet it was full of action scenes that stretched on forever. Superman is basically invincible and so are his enemies. So why are they punching each other around for 10 mins? Don’t they realize they are not accomplishing anything? Neither Superman nor his enemies seemed to take any damage throughout their “epic” battles but they kept punching each other anyway. The graphics were really good though, that’s about it.

The way they explained Superman’s powers was also bad. See the spoilers for details.

To spare myself an essay, I’m going to stop here. If you liked the movie, I don’t blame you but you might want to get your eyes and ears checked 🙂 Give the movie another watch and pay attention to the things I have mentioned and I am sure you will understand my pain. Of course you can always just look at the pretty explosions.

Spoilers below

____________

_________

______

I actually laughed out loud when Superman let his dad die in the tornado. It was a huge stretch for him to let his dad die just to conceal his identity but on top of that, they felt the need to spell it out for us by him specifically saying that he let his dad die for that purpose. Laugh out loud ridiculous.

His powers were explained by atmospheric differences between Krypton and Earth which was great. Except that no amount of atmospheric differences gives you the ability to fly. Jump high? Sure! Fly? No. Laser vision? Where did that come from? Near invincibility? You’re going to have to try harder than “atmospheric differences”. I actually love it when super hero movies use plausible explanations to bridge reality but when it’s not plausible, it is painful.

Iron Man 3 Movie Review — “It Kinda Sucked”

When Tony Stark’s world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.

---

I may get a lot of flack for this review but it has to be said: Iron Man 3 kinda sucked.

Before everyone freaks out, the keyword is “kinda”. The movie was very entertaining and had elements of what has made the Iron Man series so great but also included a lot of cheesy moments and ludicrous scenes.

I have not read the Iron Man comics, so I do not know if the movie has stayed true to the originals, however, my main complaint with Iron Man 3 is that it throws whatever semblance of realism existed in the series. One of the things that puts Iron Man and Batman at the top of the super heroes list is the fact that they are at least somewhat realistic. In a previous review of The Dark Knight Rises, I wrote about how refreshing a semi-believable hero is. Batman and Iron Man are great examples of extraordinary people that use technology to accomplish even more extraordinary feats. Unlike Superman, a powerful alien with outright superpowers . . .

See spoiler section for more on the movie’s unbelievability.

Luckily, most of the other great elements of the Iron Man series remained intact. Robert Downey Jr.‘s dialogue was not as sharp as usual but still great and the movie had plenty of funny scenes and didn’t take itself too seriously. Several action scenes were also unrealistic but overall, Iron Man 3 was an action-packed adventure. The visual effects were fantastic as usual and seemed to be very present in every single scene of the movie. If you watch the credits, pay attention towards the end for the EPIC chunk of names attributed to the movie’s visual effects. It’s quite impressive.

Overall, Iron Man will entertain (as it is doing for the masses) but it is a farcry from the quality of the first two movies in the trilogy. It’s worth a watch in the theatres because of its visual effects but don’t fret too much if you can’t make it out for a couple weeks.

P.s. There is a scene after the (particularly long) credits but is highly unnecessary so feel free to head home and not wait for it.

Scroll for spoiler section

___________________

_______________

________

____

Unlike previous enemies of Iron Man, the enemies in Iron Man 3 are particularly unbelievable. I mean, c’mon, fire people? The regenerative biological process was interesting, but the fact that it turned people into fire demons was excessively stupid. The most hilariously bad scene in the movie was when Aldrich Killian breathed fire. It was included as a bit of comedy but was just plain ridiculous. Dragon people? I expect so much more of Iron Man.