Movie Review – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

TL;DR – An utter mess of a film, disjointed, nonsensical, and a very poor foundation for DC to build their Justice League series on

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review

You know I wanted to be surprised by Batman v Superman, it looked rushed, it looked like they had not given enough thought before rushing ahead with their Avengers competition, it looked like they were making all the same mistakes Sony made with Spiderman, but still, I wanted to like it, but alas this is an incoherent mess of a film with only momentary glimpses of being any good. To get us started, Batman v Superman starts with us experiencing the climax of the last film from Bruce Wayne’s (Ben Affleck) perspective, we then jump forward to two years later where a bat vigilante is attacking criminals in Gotham across the bay from Metropolis, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is in Africa being the damsel in distress (a role she will be stuck in for this film) and everyone else is politely pretending that Clark Kent and Superman (Henry Cavill) are not the same person.

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Movie Review – Zootopia

TL;DR – A beautiful movie that is well acted, well animated, and has a very thought provoking story, whilst still being amazingly funny.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Zootopia. Image Credit: Disney.

Review
For a while it seemed that the only good movies coming out of Disney were from its partnership with Pixar, but then something changed and we got Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and Big Hero 6 which have all been outstanding, and now we have Zootopia which we can add to this esteemed group.

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Movie Review – London Has Fallen

TL;DR – One of the better action films I have seen in a while, grab your popcorn and sit back, just don’t expect it to have a nuanced view on world politics.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

London Has Fallen. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review

London Has Fallen is a good little action film, it’s not the greatest I have seen, but given the poor showing so far this year, bar Deadpool, it was refreshing to see something done really quite well. So it should be no surprise that London is falling is about stuff blowing up in London, and since the film knows that you know, then it is able to really push the tension.

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Movie Review – 10 Cloverfield Lane

TL;DR – Wow, just wow, this film has just 3 actors, is basically filmed in the one set, and yet it is one of the most tense films I have ever seen.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

10 Cloverfield Lane. Image Credit. Paramount.

Review

Tension in films is a very difficult thing to pull off, if you keep things tense for too long the audience gets exhausted, but if you try to apply the brakes you can shatter the suspension of disbelief and you can’t get that back. I bring this up because 10 Cloverfield Lane is a masterpiece in managing tension, and is a testament to what you can do with such a small budget.

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Movie Review – Grimsby (The Brothers Grimsby)

TL;DR – An abomination of film with no redeeming qualities, don’t waste your money on this drivel

Score – 0.5 out of 5 stars

Grimsby (The Brothers Grimsby). Image Credit: Sony.

Review

Oh Mark Strong, you are a good actor, a really good actor, by why, oh why do you end up cast in these truly terrible films. Grimsby tells the story of two brothers split up in their youth, one moves to London and becomes a spy for the MI6 and the other stays in Grimsby a post-industrial decline town in the coast of England. After being apart for thirty years they crash into each other’s lives and mischief occurs, and just now you are thinking ‘hey wait that actually sounds like an interesting premise to a film, it has all the makings of a solid narrative’, and you would be right, it could have been a great film, but it’s not, to put it in perspective it is –

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Movie Review – Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

TL;DR – At this point I think we are clearly one film too many in this series, so we do we get for our wait?, a kind of meh ending and a poor film

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. Image Credit: Lionsgate

Review

So here we have the conclusion of the four movies series and more specifically part two of the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay. So I should start out with the proviso that while I have seen all the films, I have not read the books, so I can’t tell you how good of an adaption of the book the film is, though I am reliably informed that Part One was much better without the constant inner monologue droning on. So I should say, because I know I am not one of the target audience for these films, that I genially enjoyed Hunger Games and Catching Fire, and while I didn’t enjoy Part One as much as the others, I saw it as an interesting set up for the finale. But honestly, Part Two just annoyed me from start to finish.

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Movie Review – Hail Caesar

TL;DR – Hail Caesar is an interesting film, with a lot going on, but that is much of the problem, its scattershot nature means the film lacks real substance, but it still has a lot of spectacle to make up for it.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Hail Caesar. Image Credit: Universal.

Review

This is an interesting film, but it is also a very flawed film and that makes it quite difficult to review, or at least score. There are some really interesting ideas at play here, and there are also some amazingly wonderful set pieces throughout which are a joy to watch. However, it is trying to do so much, that it just can’t do any of the ideas justice, so it just feels like a scattershot of a film, which is a bit a disappointment.

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Movie Review – Gods of Egypt

TL;DR – You will forget this movie within moments of watching it, I mean I had to take notes so I didn’t forget, average in every possible way.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Gods of Egypt. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review

Ah Gods of Egypt, you are the very embodiment of mediocracy, you are the ‘slice of white bread’ of cinema, nothing wrong with white bread, but it is inherently lacking in substance. So before I go ahead and rip into the film for the next few paragraphs I should make it clear that Gods of Egypt is just average, not necessarily bad, but just tremendously average. So what I am going to do is use Gods of Egypt as a case study on how an expensive film can come out just so bland.

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Movie Review – Zoolander 2

TL;DR – It’s not the worse film I have ever seen, but it’s not that great, the last third is even pretty good, it is unfortunate that you have to sit through the rest of the film to get to it.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Zoolander 2. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review

So at the start of this film, you are reminded that the first Zoolander came out in 2001, wow, it has been a long time between sequels. So the question is, was it worth the wait? did we need a sequel to a reasonably good comedy from 2001?, will the fact that they killed of Justin Beiber in the first 5 minutes of the film absolve it of all wrongs? well not really. With that being said it’s not the worse film I have ever seen, it is just, well, to be honest, a bit of a disappointment.

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Movie Review – Deadpool

TL;DR – Is it as good as its marketing campaign, no, that was pure genius, but it is still pretty darn good and a fun film to watch, though so so so so so not for kids.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

P.S. yes there is something after the credits

Deadpool. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review

This is a really interesting film for a number of reasons, firstly most (if not all) comic book movies stick hard and fast to the American PG-13 rating, it’s safe and opens it up to a wider audience, instead, Deadpool went for its American R rating with gusto. It’s also a film that has to fit in the X-Men universe, but then it also has to stay true to the source which has a unique style that destroys the 4th wall at times. It has Ryan Reynolds as its lead, and unfortunately he doesn’t have many more chances left to be a headliner (after The Green Lantern, which to be fair was not his fault), it is also a film that has been in development hell since the early 2000s, taking a ‘leaked’ proof of concept trailer for people to greenlight the film. So here we are after a simply brilliant advertising campaign, what kind of film do we have? A pretty good one, but also a very adult film, I mean a very adult film, like seriously the whole 9 yards, like how did they get away with that, adult film.

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