Monday, August 15, 2011
Larry Crowne Review
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Rise of the Planet of the Apes Review
I’m kind of on the fence with Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I liked the story. I liked the special effects. My problem was the characters. I did a great job in explaining the origins of the original Planet of the Apes, but for movies like this to seem plausible, it requires dumb main characters making dumb decisions. It was these dumb decisions, which annoyed me enough to not like the movie as much as I would like to like it. Let me break it down.
The story. Was it a good story? For Planet of the Apes fans, it was a great story. For non-Planet of the Apes fans, it was ok. One of the best approaches of this movie was humanizing the monkeys. It told a great story of how this genetically enhanced intelligent monkey came to existence and why in the future, the monkey’s dominated the earth, and the humans eventually became extinct. The monkey side of the story was the best part of this movie. The writers took cues from the past regarding slavery and mistreatment, which eventually became the monkey’s angst toward human beings. As time went on, the monkey’s unite, escape their shelter-like prison, and find refuge in the redwood forest. The other side of the story is the humans who used monkey’s as guinea pigs with kind hearted scientist that wanted cure mankind of Alzheimer’s disease. It was the human part of the story and the stupid decisions they made which is why this movie was ridiculous. Mesh the two together, you have a great monkey movie with stupid humans.
The characters. Did I like the characters? The main character is Ceasar, a born-intelligently-enhanced chimp who was born by a mother chimp on whom the scientist experimented. The special effects used to create this monkey were amazing. The filmmakers used the Avatar computer generated technique whereas they used an actual human (played by Andy Serkis) to create the movements and facial movements of the CGI-monkey. Him and the other monkeys out-acted the humans. The scientist played by James Franco was stupid. The girl-friend played by Freida Pinto was a pointless character that did nothing. The CEO of the drug company was stupid. Practically all the human roles were stupid people. Further explanation on this will be in my Chazztastic Thoughts. But I understood why they had to be stupid with stupid decisions, but because if they made the correct decision, the apes would never had risen.
The special effects. Though special effects were the best part of the movie, I don’t think it was more cool than fighting robots, magical children, or an American superhero icon. As cool as these intelligent monkey’s looked, acted, and moved, one problem I had with the special effects is trying to keep the size and scale of the monkeys consistent. Sometimes they looked bigger and sometimes they looked smaller. Unlike fighting robots whereas as long as they are as big as houses and buildings, they will look real, but the intelligent monkeys can’t realistically be taller than humans (except for the gorilla). And, to me, how big and small they were when compared to humans had some inconsistency. Why does that matter? Because consistency in a movie adds to the plausibility of the movie which I look for in movies like this.
Now for some Chazztastic Thoughts:
• The Scientist. The scientist was played by James Franco. Did he ever look like a scientist to get this role?
• The Veternarian. His love interest was played by Freida Pinto. Besides the 2-min where we see her as a veternarian, did her character even matter in the story?
• The Lab Assistant. He gets sick. He works for a multi-million dollar drug research facility. You know he has health insurance. Why didn’t you just go to the doctor?
• The CEO. Did bother any of you that the CEO of DRUG research facility was a black man?
• The Neighbor. If you were really scared for you children that a monkey was living next door, why didn’t you just constantly complain to Animal Control to get the intelligent monkey taken away? If he did that while the intelligent monkey was young, the movie would’ve been done a long time ago.
• The Intelligent Monkeys. The drug they were exposed to was for intelligence. Why did they eventually have super strength and near-invulnerability?
• The Police. Now, if you get 911 calls of monkeys running wild in the city, wouldn’t first reaction be that they must be rabid, a threat to humanity, and should be killed on site.
• Where were the news helicopters?
I can keep going on with my Chazztastic Thoughts. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m really on the fence with this movie. Though I liked the special effects and was ok with the story, the characters in the story was too stupid for me which was an insult to my intellect. On that note, I rate the movie: BlueRay rental or HD Cable TV. As for paying for it on the movie theaters, if there’s nothing else to watch and you really want to watch a movie, then it’s watchable. But the feeling you get from the movie theater is the exact same feeling as if you watched it on Blue Ray/HD Cable.
The story. Was it a good story? For Planet of the Apes fans, it was a great story. For non-Planet of the Apes fans, it was ok. One of the best approaches of this movie was humanizing the monkeys. It told a great story of how this genetically enhanced intelligent monkey came to existence and why in the future, the monkey’s dominated the earth, and the humans eventually became extinct. The monkey side of the story was the best part of this movie. The writers took cues from the past regarding slavery and mistreatment, which eventually became the monkey’s angst toward human beings. As time went on, the monkey’s unite, escape their shelter-like prison, and find refuge in the redwood forest. The other side of the story is the humans who used monkey’s as guinea pigs with kind hearted scientist that wanted cure mankind of Alzheimer’s disease. It was the human part of the story and the stupid decisions they made which is why this movie was ridiculous. Mesh the two together, you have a great monkey movie with stupid humans.
The characters. Did I like the characters? The main character is Ceasar, a born-intelligently-enhanced chimp who was born by a mother chimp on whom the scientist experimented. The special effects used to create this monkey were amazing. The filmmakers used the Avatar computer generated technique whereas they used an actual human (played by Andy Serkis) to create the movements and facial movements of the CGI-monkey. Him and the other monkeys out-acted the humans. The scientist played by James Franco was stupid. The girl-friend played by Freida Pinto was a pointless character that did nothing. The CEO of the drug company was stupid. Practically all the human roles were stupid people. Further explanation on this will be in my Chazztastic Thoughts. But I understood why they had to be stupid with stupid decisions, but because if they made the correct decision, the apes would never had risen.
The special effects. Though special effects were the best part of the movie, I don’t think it was more cool than fighting robots, magical children, or an American superhero icon. As cool as these intelligent monkey’s looked, acted, and moved, one problem I had with the special effects is trying to keep the size and scale of the monkeys consistent. Sometimes they looked bigger and sometimes they looked smaller. Unlike fighting robots whereas as long as they are as big as houses and buildings, they will look real, but the intelligent monkeys can’t realistically be taller than humans (except for the gorilla). And, to me, how big and small they were when compared to humans had some inconsistency. Why does that matter? Because consistency in a movie adds to the plausibility of the movie which I look for in movies like this.
Now for some Chazztastic Thoughts:
• The Scientist. The scientist was played by James Franco. Did he ever look like a scientist to get this role?
• The Veternarian. His love interest was played by Freida Pinto. Besides the 2-min where we see her as a veternarian, did her character even matter in the story?
• The Lab Assistant. He gets sick. He works for a multi-million dollar drug research facility. You know he has health insurance. Why didn’t you just go to the doctor?
• The CEO. Did bother any of you that the CEO of DRUG research facility was a black man?
• The Neighbor. If you were really scared for you children that a monkey was living next door, why didn’t you just constantly complain to Animal Control to get the intelligent monkey taken away? If he did that while the intelligent monkey was young, the movie would’ve been done a long time ago.
• The Intelligent Monkeys. The drug they were exposed to was for intelligence. Why did they eventually have super strength and near-invulnerability?
• The Police. Now, if you get 911 calls of monkeys running wild in the city, wouldn’t first reaction be that they must be rabid, a threat to humanity, and should be killed on site.
• Where were the news helicopters?
I can keep going on with my Chazztastic Thoughts. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m really on the fence with this movie. Though I liked the special effects and was ok with the story, the characters in the story was too stupid for me which was an insult to my intellect. On that note, I rate the movie: BlueRay rental or HD Cable TV. As for paying for it on the movie theaters, if there’s nothing else to watch and you really want to watch a movie, then it’s watchable. But the feeling you get from the movie theater is the exact same feeling as if you watched it on Blue Ray/HD Cable.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Captain America Review
Captain America Review
Captain America: The First Avenger – I loved it. One of the major problems that movie companies had until the 2000s was how to make comic book fighting sequences look realistic. Take a look at the 80s version of Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man. Just Youtube some of their clips and you’ll see how hilarious these characters looked, acted, and fought. If you would throw those characters in the middle of Compton trying to pull off their superhero antics, they would die. But that was the limitation of film making back then. In comic books, though the action is a literal freeze frame, your imagination went wild on how they fought the enemy. Now fast forward to the present. Because of CGI, chromakeying, and other advancements of technology, filmmakers are no longer limited to what they can do, and when it came to Captain America, they put their creativity all on the table for the audience to enjoy.
Before I continue on, we should first understand that there are no novels (and even, graphic novels) that can translate perfectly to film. Plus, with different Marvel comic book storylines, Captain America’s history has always been slight tweaked on how Steve Rogers became Captain America. The movie did a great job in picking the best parts of Captain America’s history to make the most coherent story for all the characters involved. For true comic book purists, they may have caught all the discrepancies between the comic book and the movies, but when looking at the whole cast, every big and small character had the right size part and screen time to make you believe that this story could have actually happened.
The special effects were amazing. Everyone who watched Chris Evans in the Fantastic Four knows that that boy got a fit, yoked body (no homo, guys), but when you see the pre-transformed Steve Rogers with a Chris Evans face, it looked real. Even in the trailers, you can see the little runt Steve Rogers trying to fight the bully, and you’re thinking, “Is that really Chris Evans? How did they do that?” Back in the 80s and 90s, the only way filmmakers could pull this off would be to get a smaller Chris Evans look-a-like, and then after the transformation, change him to the real Chris Evans. Now, if they did that with this movie, I probably would have not liked the movie as much, but they didn’t. They used current technology to make Chris Evans look puny and it looked real. And when it came to the action scenes, Captain America moved just like you would imagine as he did in the comic book. Jumping around, throwing his shield, and beating up the bad guys looked like a comic book story pane came to life.
One of the awesome surprises that I didn’t notice in the trailer was the appearance of the Howling Commandos. In Marvel Universe folklore, the Howling Commandos were the original Nick Fury’s special team to fight the Nazi’s. I admit I had to Wikipedia to further learn about the Howling Commandos, but when I watched the movie, I started to remember that there was a special WWII combat team that Marvel created, but I never remembered that that team was with Captain America. After some research, lo and behold, it was the Howling Commandos. I thought that it was cool for the producers to include them in the movie. Another cool thing was that one of the Howling Commando’s was ASIAN-AMERICAN, and he was from FRESNO. How often in white America do you see a film showing an Asian-American playing a role in defeating the Nazis? Me being a Filipino born in America, I found that to be great!
Now for some Chazztastic Thoughts:
• Why is it that after all Captain America has done, he never got promoted? Wouldn’t you think that after defeating the bad guys, he would’ve had some accommodations and be promoted in rank?
• I was never in the military, but isn’t it that when you get promoted, you get a raise in pay? So, he did all he did and still got the same pay as other Captains? WTH?
• Since the military refers to the personnel with title and then last name (like General MacArthur), does the Captain America have a first name? I think his first name is called White.
• Now at the end when the plane goes down and he “dies”, did anyone realize that he died a virgin? His whole story is being the small fry that sucked with the women. As Captain America, it’s implied that he still sucked with the women. So when he went down with the airplane and “died”, he apparently died without knowing the love of a beautiful woman!
So, who do I rate this movie? I rate this movie: Movie Theater and 3D. It was well worth the money.
Now here's the video review:
Captain America: The First Avenger – I loved it. One of the major problems that movie companies had until the 2000s was how to make comic book fighting sequences look realistic. Take a look at the 80s version of Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man. Just Youtube some of their clips and you’ll see how hilarious these characters looked, acted, and fought. If you would throw those characters in the middle of Compton trying to pull off their superhero antics, they would die. But that was the limitation of film making back then. In comic books, though the action is a literal freeze frame, your imagination went wild on how they fought the enemy. Now fast forward to the present. Because of CGI, chromakeying, and other advancements of technology, filmmakers are no longer limited to what they can do, and when it came to Captain America, they put their creativity all on the table for the audience to enjoy.
Before I continue on, we should first understand that there are no novels (and even, graphic novels) that can translate perfectly to film. Plus, with different Marvel comic book storylines, Captain America’s history has always been slight tweaked on how Steve Rogers became Captain America. The movie did a great job in picking the best parts of Captain America’s history to make the most coherent story for all the characters involved. For true comic book purists, they may have caught all the discrepancies between the comic book and the movies, but when looking at the whole cast, every big and small character had the right size part and screen time to make you believe that this story could have actually happened.
The special effects were amazing. Everyone who watched Chris Evans in the Fantastic Four knows that that boy got a fit, yoked body (no homo, guys), but when you see the pre-transformed Steve Rogers with a Chris Evans face, it looked real. Even in the trailers, you can see the little runt Steve Rogers trying to fight the bully, and you’re thinking, “Is that really Chris Evans? How did they do that?” Back in the 80s and 90s, the only way filmmakers could pull this off would be to get a smaller Chris Evans look-a-like, and then after the transformation, change him to the real Chris Evans. Now, if they did that with this movie, I probably would have not liked the movie as much, but they didn’t. They used current technology to make Chris Evans look puny and it looked real. And when it came to the action scenes, Captain America moved just like you would imagine as he did in the comic book. Jumping around, throwing his shield, and beating up the bad guys looked like a comic book story pane came to life.
One of the awesome surprises that I didn’t notice in the trailer was the appearance of the Howling Commandos. In Marvel Universe folklore, the Howling Commandos were the original Nick Fury’s special team to fight the Nazi’s. I admit I had to Wikipedia to further learn about the Howling Commandos, but when I watched the movie, I started to remember that there was a special WWII combat team that Marvel created, but I never remembered that that team was with Captain America. After some research, lo and behold, it was the Howling Commandos. I thought that it was cool for the producers to include them in the movie. Another cool thing was that one of the Howling Commando’s was ASIAN-AMERICAN, and he was from FRESNO. How often in white America do you see a film showing an Asian-American playing a role in defeating the Nazis? Me being a Filipino born in America, I found that to be great!
Now for some Chazztastic Thoughts:
• Why is it that after all Captain America has done, he never got promoted? Wouldn’t you think that after defeating the bad guys, he would’ve had some accommodations and be promoted in rank?
• I was never in the military, but isn’t it that when you get promoted, you get a raise in pay? So, he did all he did and still got the same pay as other Captains? WTH?
• Since the military refers to the personnel with title and then last name (like General MacArthur), does the Captain America have a first name? I think his first name is called White.
• Now at the end when the plane goes down and he “dies”, did anyone realize that he died a virgin? His whole story is being the small fry that sucked with the women. As Captain America, it’s implied that he still sucked with the women. So when he went down with the airplane and “died”, he apparently died without knowing the love of a beautiful woman!
So, who do I rate this movie? I rate this movie: Movie Theater and 3D. It was well worth the money.
Now here's the video review:
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Harry Potter and My Review!
I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. I watched the first 3 movies, skipped the next the next 4, and since Harry Potter and the Death Hallows - Part 2 is the very last movie ever to be made about Harry Potter (unless the series follows the Star Trek saga and Star Wars saga where fanatics and business people want to do a spin-off series because MONEY TALKS), I decided to watch it... then again, nothing else was on the theaters that I haven't already watched. So what did I think? Overall, I liked it. Not knowing much history than what I've watched in the first 3 movies, it was nice to have seen that the little boy has grown to become a young man, more wise than his peers as well as a strong leader rallying up the troops against the eminent evil that is to take over the magical world.
The movie was a fun roller coaster. It had the race against time, the cloak and dagger of getting behind the lines, the major battle between good and evil, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I love special effects that feel realistic to me. When they battle with their "stick" (yah, I know it's called a wand), it really felt like energy really flowed out of it. When they fly through the air on their broom or when Harry holding on to the One Whose Name Should Never Be Spoken and flying through the air, I really felt like I was a part of the action. And in the end when Good defeated Evil, you have this happy feeling that good finally prevailed. It was a good movie for family and friends.
Now it wouldn't be a Chazztastic blog without giving my Chazztastic Thoughts. Here they are:
The movie was a fun roller coaster. It had the race against time, the cloak and dagger of getting behind the lines, the major battle between good and evil, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I love special effects that feel realistic to me. When they battle with their "stick" (yah, I know it's called a wand), it really felt like energy really flowed out of it. When they fly through the air on their broom or when Harry holding on to the One Whose Name Should Never Be Spoken and flying through the air, I really felt like I was a part of the action. And in the end when Good defeated Evil, you have this happy feeling that good finally prevailed. It was a good movie for family and friends.
Now it wouldn't be a Chazztastic blog without giving my Chazztastic Thoughts. Here they are:
- Is it just me or does a story about killing little children just feel wrong?
- Do they ever learn stuff like Math or Economics at that school?
- What kind of job do they have when their students graduate?
- If you can create anything out of nothing, then is there such thing as a poor wizard?
- If 19 years passed by, then why do they still use a old steam driven train?
- Can't they just magically appear at the school?
These are just mere Chazztastic Thoughts that make you go... HMMMM?
Well, if you want to go out and watch a good movie, then Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 will not disappoint you.
I rate this movie: 3D-Movie Theater! (if you follow this blog, you'll discover how I rate movies)
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