The Fault In Our Stars

Cancer is a rough subject for me, having gone through the death of my father from the horrible disease and having sadly more than one friend who has fought through the disease. During 50/50, a film about Joseph Gordon Levitt fighting through cancer at a young age, I was hysterically crying in a fetal position in my theatre seat. Not exaggerating. True story. So despite the corny premise of this book I haven't read, I was pretty sure at least something would hit home with me. 

Parts of it did. Scenes of Hazel, played by the wonderfully talented Shailene Woodley, dealing with her disease on a day to day basis while struggling to maintain her sense of normalcy did hit home with me. Little things brought a lump in my throat, especially memories of my fathers helplessness and incurable pain. Scenes of treatment and near-death experiences also brought the tears up and let me feel the struggle all over again. It worked on that level, at least. 

But for me, the movie simply didn't carry the emotional weight it could have. Even though we know the cocky side of Augustus Waters, played by Ansel Elgort, I never feel like the movie really opened us up to his character and never gave me a strong reason to connect with him. Thus, his story with hers wasn't important to me.  I wanted to learn about Hazel, everything she loved about her life and everything she tragically wanted to change about it before her own "inevitable death" (not a spoiler, her own personal belief reiterated frequently throughout the film. I'm not gonna say how the movie ends). It always wants to be at a particularly emotional level, but never really gets there. And it's kind of sad, in my observations, as to why that is.

We really never see her relationships grow. We see her relationship with her mother that borders on friend, but never really see the motherly struggle aside from a couple of scenes. But these scenes tell us, rather than show us, the bond that they have. It's not nearly as powerful or meaningful as it could be. Her father is hardly ever on screen, but has an emotional speech himself. But I don't see him as her dad, I see him as another character. His emotional speech's weight doesn't have the power it could have either. 

Everyone in this film is really wonderful in their performances. But relationships feel shallow, a forced deepness that we only accept from our own relationships. It's really like an outsider looking into a story, rather than into the life of a fascinating character. I wish I could have felt more, especially having so much to relate through from my own experiences. But then again, what can I expect? There's no way anyone other than a cancer survivor can understand the struggle Hazel went through.

Rank - 3/5

Maleficent

I didn’t see a point in making a film based off Maleficent. But now I get it. It’s a story that caters itself to trending themes of fairy tales, classic story reboots, and most importantly, newly introduced morals to fairy tale scenarios. Maleficent isn’t necessarily evil, according to this film. She’s broken, looking for healing in the wrong places. I’ll go along with it for now.

Maleficent isn’t a bad movie. Far from it, it’s actually rather good. It takes themes that have been trending and introduces them in an unlikely place - through a villain who to me embodies the classic Disney baddie. It looks great, having some great sequences especially in the air, and some really great fight sequences that include one of the coolest dragons I’ve ever seen on screen. But it’s not without its problems. The biggest being that this magical world isn’t very magical to me. I was very conscious of the movie that I was watching, and the creatures, while imaginative, were too derivative of recent movies such as Oz: The Great and Powerful to feel original or organic.

But obviously no one is going to see this movie for anything except the effects and Angelina Jolie. And both are pretty top notch. In particular, any time Maleficent demonstrates any of her powers, its a special effects marvel. Sure, I’m pretty conscious of watching a movie screen. But it’s not unbearably so, and it works well enough to have a certain amount of my suspended disbelief. Angelina Jolie is dynamite, perfectly embodying the classic Disney villain while allowing her personality to come through enough to show herself having the fun. She’s a great casting choice, probably the perfect casting choice.

But there are problems with Maleficent. My biggest is the complete lack of explanation for Maleficent’s slow turn around. Is it really because of Maleficent’s heart and humanity…or is it the spell cast by the fairies? That leads to a pretty huge distinction in character. Then there’s the fact that the film is called Maleficent, but really didn't do enough to keep it from being Aurora’s story as it went on. Then there’s the admittedly beautiful but unbelievably predictable outcome of the story, and it’s unfortunate considering the potential creativity in this film idea. It all works fine as is, but I was hoping for more.

I recommend Maleficent. But It’s definitely not one to have high hopes for. I understand the division of opinions, and while I edge toward the more positive side of the arguments, I can’t think of Maleficent as being as brilliant as it could have been.

Rank - 3/5 

The Railroad Men

I’d seen trailers for this film, but really couldn’t tell you what I was getting into. The Railroad men tells the apparently true story of Eric Lomax, played by Colin Firth, who was captured by enemy forces in the Pacific theatre during World War II and enslaved to build their railroad. The story follows the mans desires for revenge, intertwined with flashbacks to show exactly what happened to him during his incarceration. 

The movie starts off slowly, taking its time to let us meet this man as his wife met him, and see him as a soft spoken but intelligent and witty man, before we see hints of his madness and unfortunate past. The desire to know his story grows with his wife, quickly becoming a story we wish we hadn’t heard. It’s sad, brutal, and emotional to say the least.

And yet I couldn’t help feeling a bit let down by the script. This is the rare example of a script to me where a lackluster string of dialogue could be saved by absolutely dynamite acting between Firth and his wife played by Nicole Kidman. An equally brilliant performance must be given to Takashi Nagase, played by Hiroyuki Sanada and Tanroh Ishida in his younger days. But even with such amazing performances, the obvious morals and point of the script rang through a bit too soon. I was hoping to see more of a struggle, more pain and more reluctance. But even with all of its pain in the beginning, it felt like a sudden ending, too close to the ends of movies we see every day in a story that is as distant from these films as you can really get. 

Even so, there’s no way I can say I didn’t enjoy The Railroad Men. It’s perfect sense of brutality lead to an experience that perhaps even the very faint of heart could enjoy, without ever finding itself forcing blood to fill the screen. It was an interesting balance, and a risky one considering the source material. It paid off, letting us experience a film that even people like my mother, a person who finds herself disturbed and tired of constant violence, can see the beauty and darkness in without putting themselves through more than they can handle.

This film is a beautiful one, filled with richly performed characters and quite a story to take home with you, to tell the people around you who may be going through problems of their own. I just wish the script could have matched it in its brilliant performances and WWII camp sequences. But even so, I have to highly recommend it.

Rank - 3.5/5

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Oh Seth. Seth. Seth Seth Seth. Seth…why Seth? Why?

A Million Ways To Die In The West is an amazing concept - Seth MacFarlane writing, directing, and starring in his own adaptation and parody of classic western films. It’s a match made in heaven, considering past MacFarlane parody and film work. Fresh off fame from Ted and his amazing Oscar hosting, the world was waiting for this movie with a lot of anticipation.

It’s crap. It’s utter crap. And that’s coming from a diehard MacFarlane junkie.

The problem isn’t the sense of humor. It’s mostly predictable MacFarlane raunch and insults. He seems to think that was the dividing factor for the movie. But that wasn’t it for me. It was his pacing. This wasn’t his sense of humor. Every joke was distant, a good three or four seconds too long. There wasn’t enough laughs to make it consistent or funny. Occasionally a laugh would be heard. But his humor works best with speed, and most importantly, confidence. Neither are here. Jokes take forever to finish, or they’re half hearted. 

Even though the cast is obviously a talented one, its kind of hard to respect any of them for their performances. Everyone in this is depressingly boring. It’s clear that the script isn’t doing anything interesting for any of them. Neil Patrick Harris’ normally hilarious self is replaced with a strange, unfunny mustache obsessed jerk. He serves no purpose except to be a jerk to the “nice guy” MacFarlane. And that’s the other problem - MacFarlane isn’t likable. That’s part of his charm; he can play a very likable jerk. But when you’re trying to pass off his asshole character as the nice guy, it falls apart. There’s no real reason to cheer for him, and yet we’re forced to. Add the usually mesmerizing Charlize Theron playing a disgracefully uninteresting character, Liam Neeson being incredibly underused, and a pretty awful ensemble cast, and you got yourself one heck of a messy film. 

The film is LONG. Way too long. We had a nice glimpse into the slow pacing of MacFarlane screenplays with Ted, a movie that took its time with its story and let it breathe, rather than shoving joke after joke down our throats like his Family Guy scripts. But this takes it too far. MacFarlane humor can take its time, but the last thing it can ever be is slow. Especially with jokes that insult. There can’t be time lingering after these jokes. And (I can’t believe this happened at one point), he tries to let explaining a joke be the joke. Wow, does it not work. At all. In the slightest. 

A Million Ways to Die in the West is a complete misfire. It completely falls flat as a comedy, and fails to evoke any emotion at all - funny or serious. I love Seth MacFarlane, and it will take more than one movie to pull me off his bandwagon. But this film had potential that was blatantly squandered by him. I hope he recognizes his blunders in time to fix his upcoming projects.

Rank - 1/5

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Ya gotta give it to the franchise that just won't die. After Origins, we were all worked about the future of the franchise. After The Wolverine, even, I was worried about the direction being taken. But this series based off First Class is constantly impressing.

I really enjoyed First Class, but it had its problems. Days of Future Past completely fixes every single one of those problems. The X-Men I love are back, while introducing new ones for me to get to know. The new members aren't the X-Men I didn't really care about, they're all given great personalities and a fun demonstration of powers. Everyone in it is a lot of fun to get to know, and the film perfectly balances its humor with its darkness. The darkness in particular. This is a far darker film than past X-Men films, at least as far as I can remember. But the darkness is poignant, appropriate, sensible and brutal. It makes sense. And moments that made my jaw drop were effective, without ever really being so brutal as to be jarring. 

Acting obviously is all great in this. But particularly I have to give props to James McAvoy. who at first unimpressed me as Charles Xavier. Now, he fully encompasses the younger version of the man played by Patrick Stewart, a hard headed and broken man who has a lot of growing up to do, but we know that the growing will come. He was phenomenal, and managed to really impress me. Michael Fassbender as always is magnificent, blending his anger and hostility perfectly with likability and charisma. We can see why people are following him, why they want to be on his side. Jennifer Lawrence is amazing as always, too, playing the emotionally ravaged Mystique, topping her performance from the last X-Men film she was in. Heck, I even have to give props to Ellen Page for her 10 minutes of screen time. I thought she was really great! 

The action and effects of this film are top notch, never ceasing to impress and captivate the audience. I have to especially mention the disjunct future/past relationship, one that is immediately jarring but also strangely relatable. It seems to be using some thematic material left over from ideas in the Captain America sequel. That's not a bad thing in the slightest - the commentary works very well to this films advantage, showing no clear cut positive outcome from one side or the other - only the option to undo what was already done. It works super well.

X-men has never been my favorite franchise. I thought X2 was great and First Class was really good, but aside from those I always felt rather unmoved by the films. Now, with these new X-Men films getting better and better, I might soon be finding myself to be an enormous fan. I have high hopes for X-Men: Apocalypse.

Rank: 4.5/5

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Throwback Review)

I love the new Spider-Man reboots. I understand why people see it as inferior, but personally I find the stories way more interesting, a perfect balance of cartoony with gritty, awesome villains compared to the campier villains, a more interesting Peter Parker, and a much more interesting love interest. I loved the originals as a kid, but I think this is a great update for the older members of the audience to really get into. So yes, I'm biased. I love the new series.

But if there was one reason to get excited, and one reason that I knew I was going to have at least one thing to enjoy, it was the inclusion of Dane DeHaan, my favorite up-and-coming talent. He played the updated Harry Osborn. Now Harry hasn't seen Peter for many years, and are reunited by the death of his father (that's not a spoiler...it happens like 3 seconds into the damn movie). A few people complained about the relationship between the two, that it was unrealistic that they would meet up after years and not miss a beat. But to that I say...really? I've been surprised at who I've connected with years on. Heck, one of my best friends for many years out of high school was a so-called "popular girl", someone I wouldn't have ever seen myself talking to. And that happened. I have no problem believing that they play off each other incredibly well.

The other major complaint I hear is that there are too many villains. Yes, there are three, just like in Spider-Man 3. But there is one huge difference. These villains are not equal. They are not given the same screen time or the same significance to each other. Rhino is only in at the very beginning and very later on. People call this a wasted opportunity. I call it an amazing plot device to show that Spider-Man isn't just living in our world littered by the occasional super-villain. Because of his existence, villains with Rhino's significance come and go. Just like any other super villain. I think that's actually really really brilliant, and a welcome addition to the Spider-Man universe. As for Goblin, his story is far more intriguing from a character development standpoint than Electro's (although Electro is a lot of fun too). He serves a purpose, although it's not nearly as large as a super villain as Electro. None of this bothered me, and in fact I really enjoyed every villain involved.

Finally, there are the complaints that there's too much story for it to be cohesive. Again, I have to disagree. I didn't see any problem with the romance and action clashing. In fact, making Gwen Stacy helpful really helped take away from any disconnection. It all worked really well for me, successfully showing how actually difficult and emotionally tolling doing what Peter Parker does in high school actually is. There was always the questions of drama and romances in any superhero story. But this shows the stress of growing up in a far my intriguing, thoughtful way.

I loved The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It was gritty, funny, sad, beautiful, well acted and well written. As always, the biggest successes with these films have to go to the actors. Andrew Garfield is an unbelievable Peter Parker. Dane DeHaan is a thoughtful, desperate, creepy, and sheltered interpretation, and he absolutely nails it. Emma Stone is strong, smart, and thoughtful, an amazing Gwen Stacy. And then even Jamie Foxx, who plays a character who jumps between maniacal and comic relief, manages to have a great balance of the two. This is absolutely a movie that I will recommend, knowing full well people will have their problems

Rank - 4.5/5

Transcendence (Throwback Review)

Transcendence had a trailer that looked awesome. It featured some amazing talent, including Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, the often overlooked Paul Bettany, Cillian Murphy, and of course, Johnny Depp. It looked part surreal, part science fiction, part romance, part horror film meshed into one. It looked too good to be true.

Well, if there's one thing taught to us over and over again by Hollywood, if it looks too good to be true...it probably IS too good to be true. Transcendence is a mess, never using its moments effectively and never really bringing me to any sense of emotional distress as it so badly wanted me to be at. It never had the sense of excitement that science fiction needs to be interesting. It was never frightening or suspenseful, needed for the horror implications. Its romance was bland and forgettable, lacking any drama despite the obvious opportunities to be taken and used. And it was never so surreal that I could defend it as experimental, always just sitting on the edge of that line and hoping someone will accept that as enough.

Transcendence is about a man who, after learning he has minimal time left on earth, has his consciousness uploaded into a computer. There are a ton of implications here - can it really work? Is he really human? Can he love? Can he sympathize? Even though all of the implications are there, none of them are answered suitably enough. But more importantly, it seems like the entire cast doesn't really recognize the situation they're in. Rebecca Hall is wonderful as always, but her motivations seem to be based solely on reasons of Hollywood romance. I simply can't believe that a scientist would do things this rashly, without an ounce of thought. It was too jarring with the rest of her demonstrated character.

But perhaps more frustrating was the setup for the antagonist/antihero group. As if a giant super computer wasn't enough of a villain, there's also a terrorist organization against technology for the fear that it will go out of control. I guess there would be some form of group. But why terrorism? With such high themes of romance and humanity, why tire your plot with gun fire and explosions? It feels like something Michael Bay would do. 

Transcendence has cool ideas, and great thematic material to work with. But it's definitely weighed down by its desire and inability to please everyone watching. If only it had taken more of a stand for one smaller set of themes, one main antagonist, and really developed a romance, it would have been far more stimulating. As is, it's a pretty huge disappointment.

Rank - 1/5