Ye Be Warned Wednesday: Pixels (2015)

This movie took a perfectly awesome premise (aliens attack earth with 1980s video game villains) and turned it into one of the most bogus things I have ever seen.

Now, I knew it was very risky territory going, the movie stars Kevin James and Adam Sandler who I am no fan of, in fact I actively avoid movies that either (or both) of them are in. But when I saw the trailer for Pixels I thought “hmm how could they fuck up a plot that seems to be really fun and action packed?” the answer, my friends, was IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY.

The first of many instances I wish Sandler’s                                 character would die.

This “action comedy” takes 45 minutes (yes I checked) to get to the action and as far as I can tell the comedy element was non existent. I laugh at some really dumb things, the other day I was at the park and I saw some kid eat shit on his bike  (he was fine by the way) and I chuckled to myself. Those five seconds of watching a kid fall off his bike were more entertaining to me than Pixels.

The comedy is low brow, big, scream in your face type comedy, which when done well can be hilarious (I’m looking at you Ace Ventura, hell even Adam Sandler’s 90s movies) but instead of uttering a SINGLE scoff laugh I just found myself cringing the whole way through.

Adam Sandler plays Adam Sandler (as usual) and Kevin James plays the President of the United States. But that’s not the bleak part, there are some actually AMAZING actors in this who utter less than ten lines (Sean Bean & Jane Krakowsi) which drove me absolutely nuts. Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) plays a mullet-rocking, arcade champion / convicted felon who says lines so cheesy it made me want to just hug Dinklage and say “it’s okay mate, we’ve all made mistakes.”

The Dream Team (if you are a middle aged crystal         meth addict having a hard come down)

The special effects are incredible, but don’t get excited there is only about half an hour of “exciting” action, I use the word exciting very very loosely here because in no way was I anywhere near the edge of my seat, in fact I was essentially laying down the entire movie and trying to decide if my time would be better spent having a hobo nap.

The scene from the trailer / poster that everyone seemed excited about starred Pacman, arguably the most iconic and famous of all arcade characters (slightly behind Donkey Kong & Mario of course). This whole section of the movie, fucking sucked. Imagine a giant game of Pacman on the streets of New York city, now imagine someone taking that AWESOME idea and spending 80% of the scene on Adam Sanders face and terrible one liners, it was a huge betrayal.

My face when I realised Sean Bean was in this, then again when they only used him for ten                            minutes of screen time.

In summary: this movie was a complete piece of shit, I regret wasting my time (almost 2 hours of it) and literally asked myself “Jesus Christ what are you doing with your life?” while I was watching it. It was so bleak I contemplated my very existence and felt horribly guilty that I ever thought watching it was a good idea.

Things I would rather do than watch this movie again:
1. Go to the dentist
2. Kick my toe twenty five times
3. Drink olive oil
4. Get salmonella

Ye have been warned.

I’m refusing to add the trailer because I don’t want any of you to be deceived like I was.

Review: Avengers Age of Ultron (2015)

Ah yes, the Avengers – The “Super-Group” of heroes that is nowhere near as awesome as the X-Men and would 100% lose in a fight against Suicide Squad (that’s right I went there). As I am sure you all recall the first Avengers was a bleak slideshow of awfulness that went on way too long and had far too much Iron Man (who I hate with the passion of a thousand suns).

Well this team of bozos returned earlier this year in “Age of Ultron” a story of a determined and genius Artificial Intelligence created to bring peace on Earth. Despite creating this perfect robot capable of wonderful things The Avengers swear to destroy Ultron by the end of the film.

Poor Ultron, I mean really when you create an A.I whose sole purpose is to save the human race from an impending alien invasion you would THINK you would lay down some specific ground rules, for example Asimov’s laws of robotics, but no stupid Tony Stark (Iron Man / Robert Clowny Jnr) just failed and because of his failure Ultron is the “bad guy” when really he is the only good character in this film.

       “We’ve all made a huge mistake.”

I really hate the Avengers, so I am going to give you a character by character run down of why this movie was AWFUL before I get into the actual story, you might want to put on some protective gear because you are about to witness the DEEP BURN of rage.

Iron Man: I thought I would kick this off with the most annoying, least charismatic, most infuriating character. Iron Man was never taught to speak properly, every line that comes out of his smug mouth is mumbled to the point I had to turn my TV up to volume 40 just to hear him (11 is normal volume). I instantly regretted bothering because he also talks so god damn fast it just meant all I could hear was “mmmmmummmble” at maximum volume. Between his mumbling and failure to specify ONE SINGLE RULE for his AI to live by I found myself praying for his death ten minutes into the movie.

Captain America: Credit where credit is due Captain America does have some pretty sweet moves with that crazy shield of his during the fight scenes, and I appreciate that. What I didn’t appreciate was how lame this guy is. Yes we know you come from a “different time” and you didn’t choose to have superpowers / were experimented on but come on buddy, you really need to learn that it’s okay to swear when you are fighting an army of robots. Captain America is the superhero equivalent of that racist grandpa you have who gets away with everything because he’s “from a different time.”

“Lord forgive me, I hate myself”.

The Hulk: Casting Mark Ruffalo to play the Hulk would have to go on my top ten “What the fuckitty fuck were you thinking list.” The Hulk is an emotional guy, yes I know he resents his superpower of being able to turn into a giant green killing machine that can’t tell right from wrong (which in itself is annoying, I wish I could do that when I got angry). Mark “walking rom-com teddy bear” Ruffalo has too many feels. The only feels I want to see from the hulk is violent rage, and what’s up with the romance between him an black widow – BLEAK. The Hulk does punch in the face of Iron Man in one of the highlight fight scenes of the movie  though so I have to give him a few points for that one.

Black Widow: Oh Scarlett “how the might have fallen” Johanssen. You can just tell she regrets the life decision of signing on to do these movies in every single scene. Between the dead pan expression and monotone voice there really isn’t much to say about her character. The crazy thing is, she is an actually a good actress, everyone who saw “Her” is aware that her voice can indeed be used in many emotional ways but I think giving absolutely zero fucks about this film kind of takes the need for emotion away.

ScarJo starring as her current career all time low.

Thor: Thor is the only good thing about the Avengers, but he too is afflicted with THE MUMBLES. Every time this guy spoke I would sternly shout “SPEAK UP AN ENUNCIATE YOUR WORDS THOR” the Australian accent really does not help by lowering his voice about a thousand octaves (I’m Australian so this shouldn’t be an issue). That being said Thor’s zingers were the only ones that made me laugh and he does some pretty sick moves with THE HAMMER OF THOR. He is an actual superhero so he has my respect, even if I had to be his grandma the whole time telling him to “SPEAK UP LOVE.”

Hawkeye: This fucking guy. Hawkeye has ZERO superpowers, his “thing” is that he is good with a bow and arrow and he loves to complain about the fact he doesn’t have cool powers like the other ones. STOP REMINDING US YOU SUCK HAWKEYE, WE ARE FULLY AWARE THAT YOU SUCK. “wah I want to retire to go live with my pregnant wife in peace, but wah the Avengers need me too much” – NEWSFLASH they don’t. Get out of my life.

So having covered how much the protagonists suck I would like to point out how much the antagonist Ultron kicks ass.

Ultron: Voiced by James Spader Ultron is by far the best thing about this movie. An artificial intelligence with a glorious robot body, an army of drone robot slaves and the power to realise the reason the human race is going to die if aliens invade is because the human race is too busy killing each other to get their shit together to unite. This guy knows what’s up but he is foiled at every turn by the god damn shitty avengers!!!

                        All hail Ultron!

So now you know the lay of the land, the main story of this movie is “will the Avengers kill the one thing this movie has going for it and save the human race from a fate they (let’s be real) probably deserve?” Well…

Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy) is responsible for this absolute monstrosity of a film, I don’t know what went wrong. Part of the charm of Buffy was the hilarious and over the top zingers but in this film the characters aren’t appealing enough to get away with them and they are so over used it just becomes cringe worthy. Please Whedon, see the error of your ways and return to your former glory, for the good of the industry.

In summary, this movie sucked, I hate everyone in it except the robots, robots rule, death to the Avengers.

Here’s the trailer:

Review: Insurgent (2015)

So ICYMI the film “Divergent” came out a few years ago and was the first in this series of films based on the Young Adult novels by Veronica Roth. Insurgent is part two, and let’s just say, it’s very underwhelming.

This is my reaction face, it never changes, it never falters.

So the plot centers around a dystopian “end of the world” scenario (recurring theme in YA fiction these days) where the remaining citizens of the world are crammed into one city protected by a giant wall. The people are divided into “factions” and your faction is determined when you come of age as a teenager.

The first film (Divergent) revealed our protagonist “Tris” (Shailene Woodley) does not fit into any one faction but is in fact a “divergent,” this makes her kind of a superhero (who has the inherent skills of all factions but ZERO awesome powers), but like all superheros the big lady in charge (Kate Winslet) is not a fan.

Still with me? Look it seems complicated but it’s one of those things where two seconds into the movie you understand.

This second installment “Insurgent” picks up where the first film ended, which means Kate Winslet has decided she wants to reign supreme and tries to kill anyone standing in her way ala Hitler. But look out, a bunch of teenagers are coming after you on their god damn youthful high horse to ruin everything.

Teenagers, I’m honestly surprised none of them have slurpees.

This movie…. sucked.

I am not a fan of YA fiction, simply because I can’t stand teenagers in real life and in movies they are always portrayed as wiser, braver, more heroic and generally better than adults, when let’s all be real, teenagers are the worst. We were all teenagers once, and when each of us looks  back on that time we cringe and think of what obnoxious assholes we all were.

Anyway aside from the major downside of yet another end of the world movie where teenagers save the day there really isn’t much to note about this movie. As always Kate Winslet is a shining beacon in a bleak world of expressionless acting, monotone dialogue and a sea of  CGI. Worth noting this is the only sequel Winslet has ever appeared in, and we can forgive her for this because for twenty years she has consistently appeared in much more interesting films.

Winslet on Twitter – “This movie is so boring                               #GirlsGottaEatTho”

While watching this movie I was just waiting for something cool to happen, I mean in theory this has potential to be a really cool SciFi story! I have heard the film is nothing like the book it claims to be based on (as always) so I can’t help but wonder if it’s worth reading to tap into the potential glory.

I was so bored. I just.. I can’t express how boring this was for me. I’m not even mad, I can’t even get mad enough about this movie to write a funny review because the whole thing was just cardboard.

Look, if you have kids, this is probably a good movie to watch with them. It’s generally harmless, they will probably love the action scenes, it’s easy for them to follow and it won’t make you AS MAD as a lot of other kids movies. But if you’re a grown up looking for a decent movie, don’t even bother, may I suggest you stare at a wall for two hours instead because in all honesty that would be just as entertaining as Insurgent.

I don’t like writing blunt mean reviews but Insurgent really missed the mark for me.

Here’s the trailer (that is actually awesome and totally tricked me into seeing the movie)

Review: Inside Out (2015)

Disney and Pixar have unleashed yet another animated rollercoaster of emotion for kids to stare at with wonder while the adults cackle and ugly cry the whole time.

Inside Out is set inside the mind of 11 year old girl Riley as a few big changes are taking place in her life. Right from the get go the emotion of Joy (Amy Poehler) takes the lead and leads us all on an adventure that is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

In the “Headquarters” of Riley’s mind we also have Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). These guys control all of Riley’s reactions as well as the processing of thoughts and general brain admin.

Literally all the feels.

This movie was an absolute joy to watch (pun intended) it is exciting, emotional and full of adventure as well as being a wonderful representation of mental health and that all feelings have value and are important. It shows the way your mind grows up with you and how drastic these changes can be to a little kid, I thought it was beautiful.

To say I cried would be an understatement, this movie (like most Pixar movies will really bring out the child in all of us, they are so easy to relate to and pinch the nerves and bring out the feels BIG TIME, it was ugly cry central while I watched this movie.

Ermagherd Riley Noooo!

All of the voice acting is fantastic, especially Amy Poehler as Joy. Everything she says will force a huge goofy smile on your face.

The writing is genius, as we go on this adventure of emotion each area of Riley’s brain is so beautifully illustrated and clever. From the world of abstracts that is the subconscious to the halls of stored memories being vacuumed up to make more room each location is so well thought out and designed that it will stir feels in everyone watching. It just encapsulates the complex world of thought and emotion in such a positive and fun way, I can’t stress how great I thought this movie was!!

I highly recommend Inside Out, kids will love it for the adventure, and there are A LOT of jokes for parents / grown ups. If anything I would say this movie was made especially for parents while throwing in all the things kids love as a bit of an afterthought.

It’s a short movie though, when the end came I found myself wanting more, but I think that may be because this movie made me feel like a kid again, and who doesn’t want to be back in their glory days of childhood every once in a while.

Here’s the trailer! Even watching this gave me all the feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels!

Review: Going Clear, Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

This documentary was OUTSTANDING.

Academy Award Winning documentary maker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) made this documentary with HBO based on Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wrights novel of the same name. That sentence alone should give you an idea of the brilliance, production value, weight, research, time and skill put into this documentary.

Going Clear is a brutal expose of Scientology, from it’s creation by L. Ron Hubbard all the way up to 2014. The things revealed in this documentary are shocking, confronting and beyond what I had ever even imaged this “church” was capable of. I started watching this late at night and it gave me the heebie jeebies so bad I had to postpone watching it until daylight. It will get under your skin, give you the creeps while simultaneously have you asking yourself “how do people believe this shit?!”

Interviews with top ranking ex-scientology members including Mike Rinder, Marty Hathbun, Paul Haggis and Jason Beghe narrate the journey of Scientology from a thought bubble in science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard’s mind to an organisation that has a net worth of over $3 Billion dollars.

Dear Diary, today I invented a really insane cult!

If you like documentaries or have ever had any interest in learning about the cult-like behaviour and actions of Scientology you NEED to see this film.

It is brilliant. Every minute of this feature had me staring open mouthed in shock or crying at the outrageous things that have taken place within this organisation since it’s creation in the 1960s.

There is not a lot else that can be said about this documentary except how incredible it is. I implore all of you to see it if possible because it is shedding light on one of the darkest and most secretive (not to mention dangerous, destructive and abusive) organisations of our age.

Tom Cruise; Renowned couch molester and the                    “Spoilt Child of Scientology”

Through testimonials of ex-scientologists, archive footage, court records, high budget reconstructions, home made videos and original footage this documentary is everything that Scientology hates. It explains the foundations of their belief, the tools they use, how they use them, the lengths that they have and will not doubt continue to go to to keep their secrets safe and sound.

This was a brave piece of film making from Gibney and I have absolutely no doubt that he is going to get hell back from Scientology.

“I’m sure I’ll never regret this dictator style portrait” – David Miscavige aka Head Honcho

The current leader of the organisation named David Miscavige is revealed to be a truly sadistic man who will go to any lengths necessary to protect Scientology. The sooner you can see this film the better because I can guarantee he will be making his best efforts to attempt to wipe out any source for viewing.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is out now in selective theatres. Or if you are that way inclined it is also available online, I don’t mention that option often but I imagine there are a few people who may even fear to see this at a cinema.

Any Scientology goons reading this, you probs shouldn’t bother with me I’m really poor and unimportant.

Here’s the trailer…

Ode to Independence Day

The year was 1996, NASA still had a budget each year, The X-Files was on TV and the only way to watch movies at home was on VHS (or laser disk if you were rich) and aliens ruled supreme as the theme for blockbusters.

We were given a gift that year, the epic, mind blowing and revolutionary film; Independence Day.

Will Smith had made his way to the big screen alongside 90s favourite and all around loveable (or hateable) goofball Jeff Goldblum. The tagline was simple, yet effective poetry of cinema;  “We’ve always believed we weren’t alone. On July 4th, we’ll wish we were.”

Independence Day has always been there for me. When I was a child and didn’t know what movie to watch, it was old faithful. The tape my sister and I received for Christmas one year was so worn down from days and nights of staring at wonder and hiding behind blankets at the terrifying Area 51 scene. And remember how the VHS cover had that awesome “3d” image, fuck, times were so good.

THE FUTURE IS NOW

When I was 18 I worked in a video (DVDs by now) store, I was fired after three days but as a consolation gift I got a free rental, and you know what I chose; Independence Day. Ironically I kept it so long I ended up with a $180 fine that I am pretty sure I never paid. Now that’s what I call a close encounter.

Now almost 20 years after it’s release, if I am ever feeling sad, hungover, lazy or exhausted I know I can put this movie on and stare at it for two hours and have a great time doing it. Some people like to fall asleep to music or a nice romantic comedy, but for me nothing soothes my soul like punchy Will Smith one liners and heroic dog leaps through firey tunnels (not to mention the ever mumbling Goldblum).

The great thing about this movie is, shit gets real from the get go. There’s no boring precedent while we are forced to learn about characters before stuff gets awesome. From the first scene the aliens are coming and within 15 minutes those  big ass nuclear cloud ships are appearing above cities all over the world. We learn about the characters WHILE the world gets exploded.

This was an age where action heroes didn’t have fifteen feet of muscles covering their bodies and huge popping veins. They were scrawny, they wore flannos, they were alcoholics  or they were the President.

          May our Children Forgive Us.

There was no overblown plot with attempts to add a new twist every 30 seconds. Aliens came, aliens wanted to use up all our resources, aliens didn’t give a fuck about humans, aliens did’t engage in debate. The scene in Area 51 where the President asks the alien (who speaks through that gross long haired guy) “What is it you want us to do?” and they fucker just cocks his head and says in the creepiest way ever “Diiiiiiiiiieeee” that is the kind of shit that aliens did in the nineties. They didn’t ride around on futuristic rollerskates, we didn’t have giant robots to fight them with, we couldn’t rewind time to the start off the battle again every time we died. All we had were a group of rag tag smart mouthed bozos, AND WE STILL KICKED THEIR ASSES.

                   Peace? No Peace. Idiots.

So thank you Independence Day, you are hero to us all.

Soon they will be releasing a sequel, set in real time 20 years or so after the original invasion attempt. Bill Pullman (The President) and Jeff Golblum (Dave Levinson, I know right who even knew his name until just now) will be returning to their original roles but sadly there will be no more Will Smith. Only time will tell if it stands up to the glory of the original.

Featuring:
Analogue Televisions
Huge flip-phones
Nineties heart throb accents saying “duuude”
Flannos EVERYWHERE
ZINGERS left right and centre
The winner of the MTV awards “Best Kiss” category – epic romance

And now I present for your viewing pleasure, the original 1996 trailer for Independence Day.

Review: Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)

Don’t you dare aca-judge me.

So, for those of you who somehow missed the majestic guilty pleasure that was the first Pitch Perfect all you need to know is this;

The Barden Bellas, an on campus acapella group are a bunch of misfit bozos who just want to have a good time and sing while Elizabeth Banks releases a steady stream of lols from the commentators box.

Pitch Perfect 2 returns to this scenario, but the stakes are higher after the Bellas royally fuck up while performing for the President, now they need to win the World Acapella Championships because apparently that’s a thing that happens, but logic doesn’t really matter here. Meanwhile Becca (Anna Kendrick) is trying to juggle both the Bellas and a future career as a music producer, high stakes shit.

Misleading Christopher        Nolan style poster.

Let’s be real… most people are secret aca-philes, who doesn’t love an upbeat mash-up of popular songs and a simple story every once in a while? Heartless, cold bastards – that’s who.

This movie was pretty funny, I had quite a few lols throughout, in fact I would go so far as to say it made me chuckle. It’s got all the charm you can expect from a movie about a bunch of gals trying to defeat a cliche German nemesis group. However, there is something missing…

The first one was good because they kept it reasonably simple. I think they went way too wide with this second film, there’s just too many bells and whistles and not enough eighties power pop.. I mean.. not enough reality.

For those of you who loved the pseudo-knife fight mash-up contest in the abandoned pool (I know right) from the first one, that same battle style is back again. Thank you Elizabeth Banks (Director and all around awesome person). And obviously there is a large scale singing contest where EVERYTHING IS ON THE LINE.

In Soviet Russia; Pitch Perfect 2 watches you.

Generally, if you liked the first one you will like this one. It’s a feel good, pretty funny and toe tapping (good one grandma) journey that doesn’t require much emotional investment or concentration. However, I will admit it was a pretty dumb movie.

Beyonce and Nineties hip hop were a major plus, but honestly aside from that the songs were not as great as the first one.

IN SUMMARY
I enjoyed myself, I came, I saw, I laughed, I may have even come close to shedding a small tear. Was it the best movie I ever saw? No, but who really gives a shit. To all you serous hipsters who rag on popcorn flicks, come back to me after you’ve seen some real life shit and then decided of your own free volition to only watch movies that make you think 100% of the time. ACA-BURRRRRRRRRRRN. We all need a break from real life every once in a while.

CablaGoobla OUT.

Here’s the trailer!

Review: Ex Machina (2015)

Wow.

Just need to start with that one, having just finished the movie I am still in open mouthed awe. Ex Machina was the breath of fresh air Science Fiction needed this year after a string of batshit horrible movies.

Written and Directed by Alex Garland (writer of 28 Days Later and The Beach) the film has one location, four characters, a lot of dialogue, a fantastic original soundtrack and some outstanding acting from its female lead Alicia Vikander.

A young computer programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is selected  to take part in a revolutionary Artificial Intelligence experiment being undertaken by his boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac) who happened to invent the worlds number one search engine. Flown to a mysterious, isolated and beautiful location he is introduced to the AI named Ava (Alicia Vikander) and for the sake of all of you I will not go on with the plot, it’s a journey you need to take for yourself.

Two guys who thankfully are not Channing Tatum

This isn’t a laser filled, action packed, fist pumping SciFi, it’s psychological, confronting, shocking and keeps you guessing the whole way through. If you have seen the writer / directors other films (especially 28 Days later) expect that vibe. A slow yet edge of your seat thriller where you never quite know what’s going on or where it’s going to lead you with a small cast of brilliant actors.

The character of Ava is (typically) a gorgeous female robot but this isn’t all “weird science” thankfully, she has a lot of depth, a quick wit and takes you on quite the journey!

This movie left me staring at the end credits rolling, listening to the beautifully composed music and literally saying out loud “it’s been a while since I’ve seen a film like this,” the kind of film that doesn’t try and blow your mind with bells and whistles or crazy unexplained bullshit but taps you on the shoulder every once in a while and smirks at your big dumb face while you slowly begin to piece things together.

If you like a thriller that doesn’t treat you like a complete dumbass this is going to be right up your alley. It’s a slow paced, well thought out dramatic scifi / psychological thriller which is TECHNICALLY (cinematography, editing, music, directing etc) superb.

I do have a few thought bubbles, but they relate heavily to the plot so I will return to that in a separate post a little ways down the road so I don’t ruin the movie for you, because let’s face it, those reviews with sneaky spoilers are a real pain in the ass.

Go see it for yourself, or don’t, you know, who am I to put thoughts in your head….

Here’s the trailer!

Review: Kidnapping Mr Heineken (2015)

Alfred “Freddy” Heineken, I personally owe you a lot considering your beer is one of my favourites, so natural I was delighted to see there was a movie about you! Turns out, Freddy was kidnapped by a bunch of bozos in Amsterdam and had the highest ransom in history paid for his return; this movie is based on the true story of that kidnapping (obviously).

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, the acting… Anthony Hopkins is up to his usual standard of brilliance in the role of Heineken, who it seems was a complete smart ass / hard bastard throughout the entire kidnapping process. The gang of “down on their luck” career criminal bozos are Sam Worthington (that pretty Australian guy), Jim Sturgess (the main dude from Across the Universe), Ryan Kwanten (Jason from True Blood), Mark Van Euewen (not a guy I recognised from anything) and Thomas Cocquerel (ABC dramas).

                   Pew, Pew, Pew

The gang of bozos are… well.. decent. There was an issue where I wasn’t sure if the Australian actors were playing Australian characters or if the director just said “don’t even try to do an accent.” Kwanten slips between British and Australian accents for the entire movie though and it is extremely annoying. Generally the criminals hold their own with their acting throughout the movie especially considering not a single one of them is a likeable character.

TO THE PLOT. These guys are small time criminals, they decide that they are going to kidnap the richest man in Amsterdam and get paid a huuuge ransom (biggest one in history), get away with it and live happily ever after. They were very smart about it, I have to give you that! The way they go about the kidnapping is clever and surprising, but once they have Heineken things get pretty stagnant for a long time. DULLSVILLE.

“I’m tired from carrying this movie”

The only redeeming scenes in the middle of this movie were the few short moments we saw Hopkins, he absolutely crushes it and carries this film solo for about an hour. Towards the end things pick up a bit more and we get to see some more well thought out, clever crime but there is also a very strong moral message which is thrown in your face over and over, subtlety is not even considered. And I can’t stress this enough, NONE of the criminals are guys you will want to succeed, there was one guy I liked for a while but then I realised that was just because he barely spoke..

If you like watching a clever crime unfold, give this a whirl. It’s reasonably entertaining has a few twists and turns and Hopkins as Heineken will give you quite a few lols, such a smart ass. It isn’t some huge blockbuster heist movie though and is a bit of a slow burn, which usually I like. The only reason I am down on this movie is because I just did not like the main characters, so I didn’t invest that much emotion.

Kidnapping Mr Heineken – “Meh, it was okay”

Here’s the trailer!

Review: Fast and the Furious 7

So, I wasn’t going to see this movie but considering it has smashed many box office records (including the fastest film to make $1 Billion (yes BILLION) dollars) I thought I should check it out. Plus who doesn’t love a few ridiculous action sequences every now and then.

This movie was RIDONKULOUS. I have never seen such blatant defiance of the laws of physics in my entire life. There are multiple instances of cars flying through the air from great heights (I’m talking out of a plane, out of a building and more), people flying through the air, basically anything that should not be flying through the air does so in this movie. It is relentless and utterly hilarious! I don’t even necessarily mean that in a bad way, it was so over the top that I just laughed and laughed, this movie brought me great joy. It was one of the dumbest things I have ever seen, yet I found myself thoroughly enjoying it, which is…. embarrassing to say the least.

So the plot is pretty thin here, all you need to know is there is a bad guy (Jason Statham) who is after “The Crew.” The Crew is Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (RIP), Michelle Rodriguez as it has been since the very beginning a zillion movies ago. But there is also Ludacris, The Rock and Tyrese Gibson who have been added over the last few years. There’s a whole lot of man muscles, testosterone, douche-baggery and arrogance here, which I am not going to go into that much. Also crucial, Jordana Brewster plays Paul Walkers wife and they have a kid now in the movies… I know right? There’s a lot on the line.

                     Classic Dwayne

You don’t see these movies for the poetry, you see it because you want to zone out, not think about life, watch really dumb shit happen, carnage and just stop being so uptight. I find action movies are an incredible way to not care about anything for the whole time they are on. BUT if you don’t share this weird thing with me or hate action movies, do not waste your time, because it will leave you absolutely furious and / or disgusted.

Cinematography has some quality action technique but mostly looks like a music video from the early 2000s. The script is 100% terrible, dialogue between explosions is short and very to the point, mostly consisting of tough guy one liners and bad jokes, that is right up until the last ten minutes when things get way too real and very sweet.

As everybody knows Paul Walker died shortly after filming, and thankfully rather than some obscene over the top insanity, the film gave him a touching tribute. A tribute which I admit, took me by surprise and was very well done. It made me feel way more than it should have, as it did many people (twitter is full of people crying about the ending just FYI).

ALL IN ALL this movie was entertaining, I ate my popcorn, laughed at the obscenity and just chilled out for two hours, it wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, it’s pretty low on the score card but I still enjoyed it enough to maybe secretly want to watch it again, for the lols of course….

                              Pipe fight.

Highlights include:
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson doing his signature infamous wrestling move on a bad guy.
A drone… yes.. drone shooting the shit out of everything.
Anything VIn Diesel says being extremely difficult to understand on account of the bass in his voice box being turned up to maximum.
Shameless product placement.
Shameless close ups of boobs and booties.
The gang go to Dubai and rack up an impressive amount of property damage.
Street fights.

Fast & the Furious 7 is in theatres now and making an absolute shit tonne of money.