Tag Archives: review

Movie Review – Warcraft (Warcraft The Beginning)

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4

TL;DR – A film with a lot of promise, held down by too many competing demands.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Warcraft (Warcraft The Beginning). Image Credit: Legendary.

Review –

So there is this stigma about movies based on Video Game franchises, that they simply will never be good, indeed Good Game did a whole episode on this very issue. To be fair, at best we have only ever got passable Video Game movies, and the only good film in this genre was Wreck-It Ralph and it only used Video Games as a setting, and of course the less said about Pixels the better. So with all this, is Warcraft the movie that will break the curse? No, no it won’t. So before we go on I should qualify that I never played World of Warcraft, so I am coming to this movie with only the knowledge that you get from being on the Internet, Alliance and Horde and all that jazz. That being said, for a movie to be good I should be able to understand everything without playing the source material, and a good adaption would make that happen.

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Movie Review – Hunt for the Wilderpeople

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17

TL;DR – A beautifully filmed story, with real depth and heart, a great cast, and more so since the Lord of the Rings makes the most out of its New Zealand setting

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Image Credit: Madman.

Review – Wow, people had recommended ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ to me, but nothing prepared me for just how good it would be. It runs the gamut of emotions from humour to sadness, from absurdity to quiet contemplation, from grief to rejoicing. Wilderpeople tells the story of Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) who is a general problem child and on his last chance when he is sent out into the bush to live with Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill). Bella is a loving woman who takes an immediate shine to Ricky even though Paula (Rachel House) the social worker insists he is a problem case. Hec is a more gruff character that seems to more tolerate than actual like Ricky. It is within this framework that we get the motivation for act two and three when people are propelled forward and have to fight for what they believe in.

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Movie Review – The Nice Guys

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7

TL;DR – A pretty solid buddy/cop film, not something I have seen in a while, it does have a lot of style, but it hasn’t quite got the substance to go along with it.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Nice Guys. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

This is an interesting film in that it is a good old fashioned buddy/cop film, and it has been a while since I have seen a good one, yes I am looking at you Bastille Day, in fact it is a genre that you just don’t see that often anymore, which is a pity because while it can be very cliché, when done well it is a lot of fun to watch.

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Movie Review – X-Men: Apocalypse

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11

TL;DR – Ok straight off the bat this is not as good as the last two, but it is still a pretty good outing for the X-Men, and leagues ahead of the Last Stand

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

P.S. there is a post credit scene

X-Men: Apocalypse. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox

Review –

So here we are with the six main film in the X-Men franchise, we’ve had one franchise killer, we’ve had one reboot, and a resurgence, so can Apocalypse continue the strong trend of First Class and Days of Future Past? Well no. Now I’m not saying it is a bad film, honestly it is just a disappointing one at times.

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Movie Review – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

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2

TL;DR – This is a film I should not like because it has many of the problems that usually frustrate me, but somehow it charmed me, and in the end I have to say I really liked Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a really interesting film for a number of reasons, it has Tina Fey in her first real attempt to move into more dramatic roles, it is dealing with the aftermath of the War in Afghanistan post-Iraq when everyone forgot about it, it is analysing the culture that gets created in such a weird situation of extremes, and also because it engages in so many of the things that I dislike in films yet I still really like it for some reason.

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Bad Neighbours 2 (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising) Movie Review –

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5

TL;DR – This is an interesting film however, it just does not work really well, it is not that the film does not bring up some interesting issues, it’s just that they are overwhelmed by a standard Seth Rogen comedy and everything that goes with that.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Bad Neighbours 2 (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising). Image Credit: Universal.

Review – So well, yer, this is quite a difficult film to review, because there are many things about Bad Neighbours 2 that are really interesting, and I really want to give the film props for talking about them. But, and trust me it is a big but, you have to wade through so much rubbish to get to those moments, and there are other films that do it better.

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Movie Review – Captain America: Civil War

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30

TL;DR – This is without a doubt the Marvel film so far, it gets the action right, the story right, the characters right, it is a fantastic film that I highly recommend.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

P.S. There is a mid and end credits sequence

Captain America: Civil War. Image Credit: Marvel/Disney.

Review –

Ok wow, what a film and so far the best film for 2016 and indeed the only one so far to get a 5/5 score. After the recent poor outing of Batman v Superman, I was wondering if Marvel could actually pull this off. Can they contrive a plausible reason these characters would be fighting, actually manage all the characters in a movie that is totally not Avengers 3, but let’s be honest, this is totally Avengers 3. However, I needn’t have been concerned, the Russo Brothers are masters of their craft and they show it here in spades. Ok to lay out how this review will go, the first part will just give a general spoiler-free analysis, and then in the second part we will be going full spoilers, there will be a warning so you can skip it if you have not seen the film.

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Movie Review – Eddie the Eagle

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4

TL;DR – The next time someone tells me they have made/watched a ‘feel good film’ I will ask them if it is as good as Eddie the Eagle, and the answer will be ‘probably not’.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Eddie the Eagle. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review – Eddie the Eagle tells the ‘true story’ of Eddie Edwards a British Ski Jumper trying to get into the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. As he fights snobbish British officials, snarky Scandinavian jumpers, and an alcoholic coach, the question – is will he make it!, well, of course, you can cheat and Google the answer ‘cause it is history yo, but let’s not for a moment because this is a truly great little film.

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Movie Review – My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

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1

TL;DR – This film has a truly terrible first impression but it grows on you with a good story and amusing characters

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

The first My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a sleeper hit back in 2002 and succeeded because it had a lot of charm, and it was quite different than a lot of the films of that time. So it has been 14 years since the first film so was the sequel worth the wait or do we have another Zoolander 2 on our hands, well, it’s complicated.

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TV Review – Daredevil Season 2 Full Review

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16

TL;DR – A solid season of TV, a little stodgy in the middle but it does pick up into the great end because of the amazing character and fantastic action sequences.

Score – 4 out of 5 Stars

Review –

So we are at the end of the second season and besides getting used to the fact that a whole season of a show just dropped at once, and given what we have seen, it is time to reflect on the full season of Daredevil, did it hold up over the full run? Well yes, mostly. Now of course since we will be discussing the whole season the only practical way to do that is with full Spoilers engaged, so warning Spoilers ahead, it is advised that you don’t read this until you have watched the full season.

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