Category Archives: Reviews
First Class Deserves Every X-Pun, Especially ‘X-Cellent’!
When I first learned of X-Men: First Class and watched the pre-production roll in, I scoffed at the obvious cash-grab. I knew that Fox Studios needed to keep making X-Men movies in order to hold onto the license, so I believed they would just churn out crap in order to keep making money. I thought First Class would be a bloated, stink-pile of the cheapest Hollywood tripe.
I was wrong.
X-Men: First Class is an incredibly emotional and action-packed superhero adventure. It never gets bogged down in all of its various plots and creates movie magic with its portrayals of Charles Xavier and Magneto. This movie is bloody brilliant.
This history, the depth, the friendship are all perfect.
This prequel is a triumph, and puts the other three X-Men movies to shame. While clearly part of the same movie continuity (for the most part), First Class carves out its own world with its own characters, and I want more. Leaving the theater, I wanted to see the sequel immediately. I want to see what happens next – and I don’t mean the original trilogy or the comics. I want to see more of the First Class world. Even though it covers the same ground as the original trilogy, and features a few of the same characters, it is a new and different beast all together. It’s a prequel in name only, creating its own franchise rather than worrying about fitting into the previous films.
At least I hope that’s the case. Though it does help deepen some of the stories and emotions in First Class if you’re familiar with the original trilogy, and vice versa. I imagine Mystique’s character and Beast’s appearance in Last Stand will now have an added depth.
At the heart of First Class is the friendship and eventual split between Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, the man who would be Magneto. Despite everything else that’s going on, this is the good stuff, and the movie does not disappoint. The acting is phenomenal. Xavier is a fun, lively character, and Magneto is hard, ruthless and yet incredibly human. Their friendship absolutely works. And when it all comes crashing down in the film’s climax, you feel the pain and loss between these two men. You feel their friendship as well throughout the film. They are a pleasure on screen together.
Hats off to James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. They make you forget about Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, though it’s fun to link them with the older actors facing off from the original trilogy. I kept flashing back to the “We are the future Charles, not them. They no longer matter” scene from X-Men as I watched McAvoy and Fassbender together. That was a blast.
Yellow, blue and gray are not his colors.
Beyond the Xavier/Magneto stuff, there’s a lot going on in this movie. But despite that, it never got bogged down or bloated. I felt that everything and everyone got exactly the sort of attention that was deserved. Chief amongst these is the action plot, about Xavier and Magneto teaming up and stopping Sebastian Shaw’s plot to destroy the world. The tension builds nicely throughout the film, with both sides gaining in strength, power and understanding until we have an epic showdown in the very middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The historical context works, and the final battle stands on its own as an action-packed superhero adventure.
I will avoid spoilers since there is a lot happening that you may not expect. I know I was surprised and excited with certain scenes.
Shaw is a suitable bad guy, just don’t go expecting the Hellfire Club from the comics. He’s villainous and definitely dangerous, and Kevin Bacon plays him well. His link to Magneto and their final confrontation is especially good. Emma Frost does much more than look pretty, though I wasn’t floored with January Jones. Her performance was fine, but she wasn’t as drop-dead sexy or sultry as one might want Emma Frost. She looked kind of uncomfortable in the lingerie. Not impressive.
Nothing needs to be said about Azazel or Riptide. Despite being two of the oddest choices to make it into an X-Men movie (A plague upon The Draco!!), they serve their function as Shaw’s henchmen. Though I did feel the link to Nightcrawler in X2 was unnecessary and takes away from Kurt’s unique style.
The first class of the X-Men are all pretty cool. Banshee is a lot of fun, but none of the others stand out. The recruitment montage seems to come out of nowhere, as if someone along the way realized they needed an actual team of X-Men rather than just letting Xavier and Magneto handle everything. We’ve got Banshee, Havok, Angel Salvatore and Darwin. None of them are among my favorite X-Men, so there was no fanboy glee for me. They were all just cool and served their purposes. Moira MacTaggert was there too.
Here comes the yellow spandex...
As I mentioned before, two characters who really shine are Mystique and Beast. We learn where they came from and how they came to terms with who they are as mutants. Mystique has an especially fun character-arc, while Beast’s is more thought-provoking. Learning what we do about them in First Class, re-watching them in the original trilogy will be especially fun. One might even be able to say that Beast now has a fully-realized character arc from First Class to Last Stand, perhaps even including his tiny cameo in X2.
So in closing, X-Men: First Class is a fantastic film. It’s exciting and action-packed in all the right ways, and definitely has a special sort of feel to it for a superhero movie. It’s uniquely its own. The characters were all good, some more than others, and the character arcs are all delightful to watch on screen. I left the theater wanting more.
And though it may still be a cash-grab to hold on to the X-Men license, I’m perfectly fine with that now. As long as they keep making movies this good, I’ll be happy.
Pirates 4 is Not Worth Its Weight in Booty
They should have just let the Pirates franchise sink. Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides, is a bloated, worthless extension of the franchise that basically just throws familiar characters into action sequence after action sequence until they arrive at the end. The familiar faces of Jack Sparrow and Mr. Gibs are surrounded by cliched new characters that just serve to pad out the money-making experience.
Because that’s all this movie is about: the money. More after the jump.
'On Stranger Tides' doesn't even mean anything, I don't think.
I understand the power of franchise, it’s not that difficult a concept to grasp. The brand name that the movie-going sheeple see is much more powerful and lucrative than trying a new idea – like Pirates was in the first place. Everybody loves Jack Sparrow, so let’s just keep throwing Jack Sparrow into new movies! And it works, it totally works. Pirates 4 made a butt-load of money. And there will be a Pirates 5 and probably more. It’s why the people behind Kung Fu Panda already have the series plotted out through movies 5 and 6.
Is this wrong? I dunno. Frankly, I’m not someone to argue in favor of trying new ideas over old ones. When the old ideas are just regurgitated crap, then yeah, I’m against it. But say Pirates 4 was a really good movie with some fun ideas and adventures. Then I’d be all in favor of it! TV shows last for multiple season with the same characters and premise; comic books have been going for years like that. Why not movie franchises?
The answer is because the creative forces in Hollywood rarely plot something out beyond the first movie. Those who hold the purse strings simply want the same movie over and over again. If it worked the first time, it will work every other time, in their opinion. Hence why Hangover 2 has the same exact plot.
So that brings us to Pirates 4, in which we get rid of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann (whose fate at the end of 3 is something I truly hate). That leaves us with Jack Sparrow (with Mr. Gibs as a sidekick), so the idea is to throw Jack into his own adventure, and to give him his own supporting characters and whatnot. The problem is that the movie does nothing for Jack Sparrow as a character. He doesn’t change, he doesn’t learn anything, we don’t learn anything new about him. It’s just Jack Sparrow going through the motions.
Jack Sparrow Going Through the Motions
They give him a random love interest played by Penelope Cruz, because she’s super hot. We’re told they have this grand back story together, and in the movie Jack expresses that he has feelings for her. But he’s never brought her up before and she is little more than a hot pirate chick. Too hot, frankly. She’s super model hot in a movie franchise that goes to great lengths to show its pirates as the grungy lot they really are. But here Penelope Cruz is super hot because that sells tickets.
The villain is Blackbeard for name recognition only. He’s not very intimidating and doesn’t have nearly the same villainous energy of Barbosa (who also shows up in the British Officer role). Blackbeard is basically just an evil pirate. There’s no real emotional connection between him or any other character. Salma Hayke claims she’s his long lost daughter, but we’re told right away that she’s just conning him. So the villain isn’t very interesting and doesn’t provide any emotional mirror to Jack Sparrow.
There’s also a new version of Will and Elizabeth in the form of a young missionary and the mermaid he falls in love with. It’s a boring pile of meh that is obviously just an attempt to keep female interest afloat. Because the movie-makers realized, for whatever reason, that Jack Sparrow couldn’t carry the movie alone.
My girlfriend Alyssa had this idea: Pirates 4 is essentially Star Wars without Luke and Leia. If you get rid of Leia and the Rebellion, as well as Luke Skywalker’s emotional battle with Darth Vader, you’re left with Han Solo getting hired to blow up the Death Star right under the Empire’s nose. It’s a caper flick. And Pirates 4 is essentially Han Solo getting spun off into his own wacky adventure.
The plot is a search for the Fountain of Youth. Spoiler: There is no Fountain of Youth, at least not what we normally perceive as the Fountain of Youth. This version is essentially two silver cups, one of which needs to be filled with a mermaid’s tear. Then two people drink from either cup, and the one who gets the tear is healed while the other is killed. This is incredibly convoluted! And after you watch the movie, you realize it’s only this convoluted for the scene where someone has to choose between selfishly healing themselves or healing a ‘loved’ one.
And it’s not Jack Sparrow who chooses!
So Pirates 4 is basically Jack Sparrow’s spin-off movie. Except that the movie-makers don’t want to take any risks with Jack as a character so that they can keep making movie after movie. Jack doesn’t change over the course of the story, doesn’t learn any lessons or experience anything too emotional. He doesn’t connect with any characters on anything more than the surface level and barely effects the plot.
No wonder Johnny Depp is bored with playing him.
It was THORbulous!
*****WARNING!!*****POSSIBLE SPOILERS*****
I believe it's specifically in all caps.
With the legendary hammer Mjolnir at his side, the Mighty Thor smashes his way into movie theaters with an alright flick that could have used more time to flesh out its characters and narrative. It was a good movie, no doubt, and fun to watch; but I wasn’t blown-away or truly immersed in the adventure like I was hoping. THOR tells a nice story, has a lot of fun characters, has a lot of fun in general and definitely didn’t let me down.
It could have just been more.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Thor as a comic book character. He’s just never interested me. The concept is cool, that these myths of legend are real, and in a world of superheroes, they become superheroes as well. I’ve just never cared about Thor. So I didn’t have any fan-love going in to see this movie. Just excitement about the upcoming Avengers, and Marvel-love in general. I absolutely loved both Iron Man films, so I was hoping for more of the same.
THOR sticks very close to the comics, with Thor and the gang almost lifted directly from the page. They even recreated Loki’s giant horned helmet. While this is a good thing, I rarely complain about changes made from comics to movies; especially if they’re just cosmetic. So if you’re a stickler for that sort of thing, worry not. THOR is righteous.
Quick story recap: Thor and Loki are the sons of Odin in Asgard, a mythical kingdom where magick and science are the same thing. Thor is set to inherit the throne, but he’s arrogant and starts a war with Asgard’s ancient enemies, the Frost Giants. An angry Odin strips Thor of his godly power – and mighty hammer – and casts him down to Earth to learn humility. With the help of a hottie scientist, Thor learns to appreciate other people and gets his power back in time to stop Loki from taking the throne and stabbing Odin in the back.
First the good: THOR is a fun film. All of the actors are great, and all of the characters are a lot of fun. The standouts are definitely the leads: Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, the love interest. I read online somewhere that this movie gives us a nice glimpse at how much fun Natalie Portman can have in a movie when she’s not stifled by George Lucas and the crappy dialogue of the Star Wars prequels. I’d have to agree. She had spunk and personality, and was very very cute.
Likewise, I’m told, Hemsworth was a dreamboat to all the ladies in the audience. Kudos to him. As Iron Man proved, you’ve got to have a competent leading man, and I think he did the job well. Thor commanded the screen. Hemsworth was arrogant and cocky as Thor, and I believed the transition into a more caring person – though it came about much too quickly. It feels like Thor learned his lesson over the course of a weekend. But Hemsworth does such a good job as Thor that he pulls it off. He definitely enjoys his time on Earth, and the friendship of Jane and the others. Thor is definitely a friendly guy.
Women love him, men want to be him.
All of the characters are a lot of fun in the movie. Loki is a pretty good villain, though he doesn’t stand out as particularly great. The actor does a fine job, and there are a few twists. But he wasn’t nearly as mischievous or evil as I would have liked. Anthony Hopkins is great as Odin, very kingly. He even looks rather badass in the Odin at War scenes. Heimdell was probably the coolest character in the movie; he was a blast. A real surprise there.
Both Thor and Jane Foster each have a supporting cast of friends, and all are fun. Though I think Darcy and the professor are a lot more fun than Sif and the Warriors Three. Seeing the previews of Darcy’s wittiness, I was worried she’d be just uneeded comic relief. But they used her well. It’s important that both main characters get a supporting cast because it helps to flesh them out as real people. Thor isn’t just price of Asgard, he and his pals also hang out and go on adventures and drink. Though here’s a good place to start nit-picking.
The movie is too short. There is a lot of ground to cover, but the film is constrained by a less than 2-hour time limit. There isn’t enough time to flesh everything out as much as it deserves. The Warriors Three are a fine example of this. We meet them, they each sort of get a line or two about their personality, but little more than that. We don’t get to spend much time with them as people; they’re window dressing. The crucial scene when they rejoin Thor on Earth doesn’t have the impact it should because we don’t know them or their relationship to Thor well enough.
And they sort of rush through the nature of the gods and Asgard in the beginning. I was worried that people might not understand, but one must have faith that movie-going audiences will get it. I’m grateful that they had Anthony Hopkins read out the exposition rather than forcing people to read text. I’ve come to hate opening scrolls, except in Star Wars…maybe.
SHIELD suffered from the speed as well. Agent Coulson is cool in the Iron Man films, but he doesn’t get nearly as much screen time in Thor. He’s very much the straight man, but not with the skill and quirkiness he has in the other movies. And Thor choosing to join his side in his last scene is, likewise, rushed. Hawkeye was a waste as well, just a quick cameo that amounted to very little; not even much of a tease for Avengers. Who’s going to remember him from this film? No one!
Though there was one fun cameo: the Eye of Agamotto!
Teasing a Dr. Strange film.
The only parts of the movie that I simply didn’t like were the endings. That’s not to say they weren’t good endings for this movie, in fact they were. Thor is victorious, and they are appropriately epic. My problems with the ending are that they don’t line up with the Avengers. Like the end of Iron Man 2, where Fury tells Tony that he’s not suitable for the Avengers, this movie ends in a way that’s going to add an extra, unnecessary step to the start of the Avengers. How does Thor get back to Earth? This movie would have been exactly the same had it ended with Thor getting the girl, is what I’m saying.
And the teaser at the end of the credits was a complete waste. Nobody cares about the macguffin they introduce, even if it will appear in Captain America and/or the Avengers. Nobody cares about it right now. It’s just a macguffin. And that the macguffin is introduced using that professor character is just stupid. Beyond this one movie, that professor shouldn’t matter. Not even with the Loki tease. Considering the other post-credit teases and how much fun they were, this one teases nothing. Considering Captain America is coming out in two months, and the Avengers in one year, so much more could and should have happened at the end of the credits.
How awesome would it have been to have Thor meet Iron Man? A 3-minute scene were the two have some interaction, or Thor recruited into the Avengers Initiative (like the end of Iron Man 1) would have been brilliant! But they wasted it!
It was the perfect opportunity to get us fans salivating for what was to come. Or they could have properly teased the Thor sequel with a glimpse of…
Beta Ray Bill!
Portal 2 Review…for You
This is the name of the game
I’m hoping to do a lot more reviews on this blog, of movies, video games, comics; whatever. Personally, I like reading reviews online because it involves someone of critical skill writing in depth about something I love. So maybe if I start giving my opinion, I can get some conversation going.
Portal 2 was awesome. I definitely need to play Portal 1.
It’s a rare event in any media these days to deal with an original property. Everything is remakes, sequels, reboots, adaptations and whatnot that an original idea rarely gets any traction. But Portal wowed the gaming world when it came out a few years ago as part of the Orange Box, a collection of several games. And it earned a sequel that I finally got around to playing, and I loved it.
Portal, for those of you who don’t know about video games, is a quirky little puzzle game with an incredibly sarcastic and hilarious sense of humor. It’s a basic game that is boosted up several levels thanks to the writing and dialogue. As a writer myself, that sort of thing is the bee’s knees. Anyway, the hook to Portal is the title weapon, the portal gun. With this you can open two holes in space, one orange and one blue, and then step into one and come out the other. Let’s say you have to get across a large chasm in a room. Well you put a blue portal on the wall on your side of the chasm, and an orange portal on the wall on the opposite side of the chasm; then you step through the blue hole and come out the orange hole. Simple, but so much fun!
Portal 2 takes that basic gimmick and gives it a variety of different uses, all in the quest to get from Point A to Point B. Like I said, it’s simple, but that simplicity is fun. Some of the puzzles are real brain-burners, and you feel really smart when you figure them out. I found the puzzles to be tricky, but I never lingered too long before solving them. They were just hard enough to get me thinking, and then rewarding enough to allow me to believe that I’m actually clever. Lucky me!
I beat the single player in a week or so, and it was fun. Like I said, the writing is superb. The story is that you’re a young woman trapped in this ginormous laboratory, and this diabolical/sarcastic AI is putting you through tests because that’s what she’s programmed to do. And she’s not above making snide remarks about your weight while she’s running the tests.
The best part about Portal 2 was the co-op mode. It featured two players with their own portal guns, and required Alyssa and I to work together to solve the puzzles. It was a lot more fun having someone on hand to share the joy of puzzle-solving with. I’m looking forward to some DLC stuff this Summer.
Not a great review, I know…but I’m working on it. I’ll leave you with some fun quotes from the game so you can see just how witty the dialogue can be.
– “Well done. Here are the test results: You are a horrible person. I’m serious, that’s what it says: A horrible person. We weren’t even testing for that.”
– “Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to pack on a few pounds.”
– “Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we’re postponing those tests indefinitely. Good news is we’ve got a much better test for you: fighting an army of mantis men.”
-“The two of you have formed an excellent partnership, with one of you handling the cerebral challenges and the other ready to ponderously waddle into action should the test suddenly become an eating contest.”
Henchman-4-Hire 