Movie Reviews

I wanna see that...

So I've been putting off this review. Did I like it? Yeah I did, but if this isn't the most predictable movie I've seen in a theatre then I don't know what is. I don't know what made it so cliche or predictable, but there was something that made me foresee the end of the film so easily that I couldn't put my finger on it.

If you don't know already this has to do with some alien invasion, staying in the usual J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg fashion. I guess if you know what you're good at you should stick to your guns, but there is such a thing as over doing it so hard that I didn't need to see the movie to know what happened.

As much as titles go, I really don't think it should have been called "Super 8" because the super 8 camera has nearly nothing to do with the movie. That and the only super 8 camera breaks at the beginning of the film.

So the story begins with a funeral for a dead mother who died horrifically at a factory accident. Joe, the son of the woman who was killed, has a group of friends working on a movie about the living dead. Four months pass and we see the short movie develop into a project for a summer film festival. When the shooting begins at a train station, extremely bizarre things begin to happen. Since this is where the story takes off I'll leave it at: mysterious alien kidnappings that was never really explained by the ending of the story.

Spoiler:

The film is good. Believe me it is. The story—though predictable—is rather involved between both Joe and his love interest, Alice. Emotions are well displayed through the actors. The actors are young, there are several parts where acting is wooden, but otherwise I'm actually really stunned how well they pulled off their parts. I think J.J. Abrams has a way with kids, because the last several films I've seen with kid actors all pull off exceptional performances. And what's more shocking is that in some of their IMDB's, this is their one and only film that they've ever been in, at this scale.

Spoiler:

Overall, go see the movie. Treat yourself to a matinee showing so you don't have to pay too much, but it's still hard not to enjoy a movie because you're coughing up money for it, you tend to justify the cash by saying it was well spent. 4/5.

I didn't hate the movie, but I didn't enjoy it either. I have mixed feelings about the movie in general, but yeah it was good overall. If you've seen all the good movies in theaters up to date, and you're sitting at the ticket stand wondering what to watch whether it be Zookeeper or Mr. Popper's Penguins, ignore that and just see Green Lantern till a movie with better quality comes out.

For a film that heavily relies on visual effects, it does little in the CGI department, the graphics seemed to me like it was generated from the Nintendo 64 at times. In Avatar, as much as I despise that movie, looked great. The film made me believe that a world like that could exist. In Green Lantern I could tell that 98% of the screen was all fake, and the way the suits were designed made it look like L.A. Noire. Really bad body figures, but realistic looking heads. It gives the movie a somewhat eerie and awkward feeling. I just can't stress enough how badly the graphics bothered me; the opening scene, there was a shot of Sinestro talking with a purple dude, I'm not sure if it's how the graphics was translated to film, or if I needed to see it in 3D, or if there was something in my eye, but that shot looked horrific. All of it was a CGI sequence, the green suits were over saturated, there was too much contrast between the characters and the background, it made it look like they didn't even belong in that setting at all, and the visuals were so distracting, I couldn't even tell what was going on between Sinestro and Purple Alien.

And THIS is what I mean when the colors are over saturated. Doesn't it look like his head is pasted onto a Green Lantern suit? Or at least some fan did a really terrible photoshop of Ryan Reynolds in a Green Lantern suit and just did a piss poor job.

Spoiler:

One thing I did like about the movie was the build up that Green Lantern: First Flight couldn't afford, time-wise. When Hal got the Green Lantern ring in First Flight, he automatically got acquainted with his suit and ring, where as in the feature film Green Lantern, Hal gets taken by surprise by the ring's power. Which was both most fitting, and an edge of your seat experience. Most of the fight scenes are well choreographed and filmed just right to get all the action instead of having extreme close ups of fists and elbows... Batman Begins, I'm looking at you. The final battle sequence was definitely a larger than life moment, though one thing confuses me is.....

Spoiler:

The story is on par with Iron Man, though a lot of things remind me of Iron Man in the movie. I can't say exactly, but it just felt like watching Iron Man for DC. I guess it's how I couldn't really see the change in character from zero to hero, it almost seemed instantaneous. There was even a line in the movie when one of the characters was mocking Hal's sudden change: "It only took the end of the world for you to change." But the similarities still daunt on me. Was it when Iron Man was being chased by fighter jets? I don't know, but it all felt way too familiar. The characters though do happen to have a realistic thought process, and they're not just drones in a movie doing stupid things people in real life would never dare doing.

Spoiler:

I had my problems, I had my quirks, but there are good aspects to the movie too. Some that I feel is worth watching. But I digress. It could have been the movie's translation to film that screwed with the colors. I mean the opening credits was in a greenish yellow. Could be hinting to Yellow Lanterns but I doubt it... 3/5.

I didn't expect much from this film, and let me tell you in one sentence as Ab's did it for Sucker Punch. This is the first film I actually walked out on. And on walking out, it felt good. I felt free after I escaped the movie. I actually had pretty high hopes as I watched the opening credits role and seeing one of my favorite actor's name appear on screen. When Paul Giamatti actually did appear on screen, that was the point I was most disappointed. I sat through an hour and a half of garbage waiting for his face to appear only to get a major let down that he actually agreed to taking the part of the movie.

We were actually set for this movie. We bought $5 cups of sodas, $3 snacks, and smuggled smoking hot quesadillas from Taco Bell in our pants (we just told anyone who asked that we were happy to see them) only to vomit all that food at the possibly the worst scenes ever to grace the silver screen. From what I heard, the last movie was really well done and executed nicely, this one tried to whip out as many wangs as they possibly could, in the most unexpected places, as well as come up with as much cock jokes as they could possibly conceive. The film was trying too hard to be funny but just fell flat on it's face as "one of those movies." Yeah all your friends tell you it's so great because the producers figured out a way to use the "F" and "S" word as a verb, a noun, an adjective, adverb, and pronoun.

Were there funny scenes? Yeah some of them were just unexpected, some of them were just plain out good comedy. But then they would quickly switch back to vulgar comedy because they wanted to spread the good stuff about as thinly across the film as they possibly could; that and they just couldn't come up with anything really that didn't have to do with a dick somewhere. Apparently penises are really funny, they might be, but if I told you the same joke in a different way to you for two hours straight you'd want to punch something that had my face on it really hard.

I sat through the movie, thinking: "okay, so it might get better eventually," and "well I spent my money on it so I have to enjoy it," but of course the number one thing that kept my butt planted to the seat, "I'm with my friends, I gotta look like I'm having a good time." I even had to force myself to laugh at times.

So lets finally begin with the story. Oh and by the way, you should know that I don't care about spoiling bad films to you, though it may be rude I feel that it's my duty to inform you to know how the movie fails to preform in all aspects. It's not as bad as Paranoid Park, but the thing about most movies are that I don't like paying for seeing films. If I do end up paying, I have to enjoy it. So seeing how I spent my money and hated it, this is the only thing that will help you avoid the same mistake I made.

The plot begins with an extremely obscure setting, you can barely pick up anything unless you've seen the last movie in which you know the history behind the characters. But you honestly don't need to see the first one in order to get the proper introduction to the characters. The nerd who's a dentist is getting married, these three or four guys are finally straightening themselves out, but then find themselves getting extremely stoned at the nerd's wedding with the bride's brother getting lost along the way as the three main characters try to trace back step by step what happened that night, find the bride's brother, and fix their wrongs along the way. You cannot believe how badly the characters were portrayed. They might have been interesting in a way but I sense a huge "Die Hard/Die Hard 2: Die Harder" formula going on. If there's a Part III, they might change it up, but even though I haven't seen the first Hangover, I'm sure it's following that type of formula judging by how many times all of the characters everywhere were saying "It's happened again? It happened again! It happened... again. It again happened. Happened it again. It happened again. We screwed up this time cause it happened... again."


Yeah the photography was great, the post production team did well, but it doesn't make up for what the movie is. If you make a mistake, you step out of the ring for a while. Seriously, they should stop making movies for another decade or something.

Four stars. Out of one-hundred.

Okay so I saw all of the Pirate movies. I don't even remember how I saw all the movies but I guess I did, but they didn't seem to really bring us up to speed on Jack Sparrow's life up until now I suppose as new characters were introduced that were supposedly a big part of Jack's life. Yes this movie has nothing to do with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly. Hey those characters were stupid anyway! The one thing I didn't like about the Pirates movies in general was that I never knew who to root for. At first I want this character to prevail, but it ends up he's a total douche, and then he turns around to help and then reminds the other characters and the audience that he's a douche so he douches up the place some more. Other characters side along with each other, who were in the last sequence at each others neck's. Also the story seems believable at first, everything seems extremely realistic and then, BAM! The story 180ºs and says "Haha! You thought this was a GOOD movie didn't you?! Hah! You're forgetting that it's produced by Disney! Lets throw in some mumbo jumbo hokus pokus!" And the movie I thought I loved just turns to diarrhea with magic up the butt and mystical spells and potions. That's the sum of the Pirates movies to me, and what's to be any different in this movie? Just as confusing, just as stupid, and just as "OH MY GOD ROLL THE CREDITS ALREADY!"

So the movie opens up in an unusual setting, it made me wonder what time period we were in, I thought for some reason that the characters jumped to the future for some reason because none of the prior films started as bizarre as this one did. Then a new character is introduced in the most bizarre fashion as well as Jack's father mysteriously appears and disappears with no explanation. Next thing you know half an hour has gone by and I still don't know who I want to turn out victorious in the end. I watched the third movie just to prepare myself to see the fourth one in theaters, it ends up that the third movie had absolutely nothing to do with the fourth one, and I could have lived life without ever seeing it.

Again in this movie, characters are constantly at each others neck's in one scene, then working together in the next. Did I miss some small detail that explained this whole phenomenon in Pirate movies? Or is this just really bad writing? Aside from the storyline being about as thin as wet paper as a replacement for a bulletproof vest, the characters are boring as hell. By the end of the movie when all the characters, and when I say all... I mean ALL the characters, even characters that wasn't even properly introduced, end up in the same place at the same time, I just threw my popcorn at the screen and just said to myself "I give up." There's no way I'm going to lose sleep over what just happened.

The music as always I can appreciate. I did like the side story with the mermaid, though the characters were about as well built in the story as lego men. The visuals were nice, and there's no chance I'm going to see that film in 3D. I didn't like it, I couldn't even follow it, but there are artistic aspects I can always enjoy in films. I don't mind sitting in a theater watching a movie as long as it has some mindless action in it. I don't consider it a real film because a real film is thought provoking. A real film applies all the artistic aspects, not just the visual, and not just the audio, but the writing and the story as well. The movie deserves a 2/5.

Movies to be reviewed
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys and Aliens
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Boiler Room
True Grit
Never Back Down
Hulk vs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Batman Superman: Public Enemies

Mercy wrote:Movies to be reviewed
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys and Aliens
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Boiler Room
True Grit
Never Back Down
Hulk vs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Batman Superman: Public Enemies

Dont bother with Sorcer's apprentice or Never Back Down... they aren't worth the dollar that you'll pay to rent them.

Rain_ wrote:

Mercy wrote:Movies to be reviewed
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys and Aliens
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Boiler Room
True Grit
Never Back Down
Hulk vs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Batman Superman: Public Enemies

Dont bother with Sorcer's apprentice or Never Back Down... they aren't worth the dollar that you'll pay to rent them.

I didn't spend money to see them. Never Back Down was filled with extremely generic characters with extremely generic circumstances. It was possibly the most cliche film I have ever seen. The Sorcer's Apprentice was interesting at best, but I did enjoy it and I think they both at a point where I thought to myself "I can review these..."

Mercy wrote:

Rain_ wrote:

Mercy wrote:Movies to be reviewed
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys and Aliens
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Boiler Room
True Grit
Never Back Down
Hulk vs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Batman Superman: Public Enemies

Dont bother with Sorcer's apprentice or Never Back Down... they aren't worth the dollar that you'll pay to rent them.

I didn't spend money to see them. Never Back Down was filled with extremely generic characters with extremely generic circumstances. It was possibly the most cliche film I have ever seen. The Sorcer's Apprentice was interesting at best, but I did enjoy it and I think they both at a point where I thought to myself "I can review these..."

Lucky you
I heard Cowboys and Aliens was SICK, and if you want to watch a really funny movie then I reccommend seeing Bad Teacher.

Rain_ wrote:

Mercy wrote:

Rain_ wrote:

Mercy wrote:Movies to be reviewed
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys and Aliens
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Boiler Room
True Grit
Never Back Down
Hulk vs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Batman Superman: Public Enemies

Dont bother with Sorcer's apprentice or Never Back Down... they aren't worth the dollar that you'll pay to rent them.

I didn't spend money to see them. Never Back Down was filled with extremely generic characters with extremely generic circumstances. It was possibly the most cliche film I have ever seen. The Sorcer's Apprentice was interesting at best, but I did enjoy it and I think they both at a point where I thought to myself "I can review these..."

Lucky you
I heard Cowboys and Aliens was SICK, and if you want to watch a really funny movie then I reccommend seeing Bad Teacher.

Cowboys and Aliens was a good film, I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes; thought it would have some idiotic liberal agenda about evolution and all that bogus, but no go watch it. It's actually really good. I'm hesitant on seeing R rated comedy films. The last one I saw was all garbage (refer to Hangover Part II). I heard Horrible Bosses was funny but really trashy. I'd like to stay away from comedies.

Mercy wrote:

Rain_ wrote:

Mercy wrote:

Rain_ wrote:

Mercy wrote:Movies to be reviewed
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys and Aliens
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Boiler Room
True Grit
Never Back Down
Hulk vs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Batman Superman: Public Enemies

Dont bother with Sorcer's apprentice or Never Back Down... they aren't worth the dollar that you'll pay to rent them.

I didn't spend money to see them. Never Back Down was filled with extremely generic characters with extremely generic circumstances. It was possibly the most cliche film I have ever seen. The Sorcer's Apprentice was interesting at best, but I did enjoy it and I think they both at a point where I thought to myself "I can review these..."

Lucky you
I heard Cowboys and Aliens was SICK, and if you want to watch a really funny movie then I reccommend seeing Bad Teacher.

Cowboys and Aliens was a good film, I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes; thought it would have some idiotic liberal agenda about evolution and all that bogus, but no go watch it. It's actually really good. I'm hesitant on seeing R rated comedy films. The last one I saw was all garbage (refer to Hangover Part II). I heard Horrible Bosses was funny but really trashy. I'd like to stay away from comedies.

Horrible Bosses was the opposite of what even I thought it would be... very boring and very stale. Either way, I thought Bad Teacher was hilarious. c:

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Of all the Marvel films it seemed like a teaser to a much bigger film. Captain America was good, don't get me wrong, but most of the fights seemed like a montage, the origin definitely wasn't rushed at all, you sit through more than half the film anticipating for Steve Rogers to finally step into the Captain America suit and when he finally does it throws you off in possibly the most surprising way I've ever seen. Yes, you see Spider-Man in a makeshift costume anyone can make in a day for wrestling. Yes, you see Iron Man with a makeshift suit he made in a cave. They made sense and you could see it happening to the characters without them embarrassing themselves. Captain America, on the other hand was just flat out retarded. I could see it realistically happening, but I couldn't see him agreeing to do what he did. There are ups and downs with the film, it gave me an overall good impression, and you don't have to be a fan to enjoy the movie thoroughly. 

The story opens up with Steve Rogers as a puny nobody who can't even properly talk to anyone of the opposite sex, he often gets himself into fights he can't win, and he's trying to get into the army to "kill nazis." He eventually finds himself talking with a German scientist promising him power he couldn't possible imagine. He finally finds himself an outfit and then you sit in anticipation. "Get a move on already! This is taking forever!" From the get-go, the filmmakers were teasing us with Steve Rogers using different items as a shield. When he finally does get the super soldier serum he uses a car door with a star on it as a shield. When he gets a fake shield he uses the fake shield to beat up nazis. It takes forever. Then everything goes fantasy. Shooting lasers and magic this and that. Then back to realism. I often get confused where the filmmakers wanted to go with this movie, but it seemed to me that they clearly wanted to rush this film out as at the end of the credits the filmmakers treat you to an actual trailer of The Avengers. The only other movie I know that has a trailer of the sequel to the next film was Back to the Future 2. Believe me, if this entire film sucked, watching the trailer would have been worth it. After all, I paid $10 to see The Dark Knight Rises trailer at the latest Harry Potter film. Captain America gets a 3 out of 5. Harry Potter gets a 2 out of 5. 


Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

I thought this film was going to suck major. I actually went in hesitant to sit through some evolutionist's propaganda for two straight hours. I thought "Oh hell no. Monkeys taking over the world? That's like a hairy midget zombie outbreak." All of my first impressions of the film were dead wrong. The movie was spectacular, and I ended up saying to everyone who touched me "Get your dirty paws off me you damn dirty ape!" for the entire day. 

I saw the original, I saw the remake, yet I didn't know what the big deal was about Planet of the Apes to begin with. There are a lot of Planet of the Apes references in movies and television shows that I kept noticing and it never made sense to me, but I have to say if there's any film to get me into Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes was definitely the film to catch my attention. 

So Harry Osborne's alien father--Dick Solomon--seems to have forgot to send in his report to The Big Giant Head and has alzheimer's disease and he has been experimenting on apes for a cure. When it comes time to present his progress to the board their prize ape goes ... Apeshit. Haha. The board denies the commercial use of the drug and orders all the apes to be "decommissioned." But one ape remains. The story focuses on The Hobgoblin (sorry, James Franco will always be Harry Osborne from Spider-Man to me...) then it splits over to Caesar--the monkey named by John Lithgow's character as James Franco's character brings back the one baby ape home--when he attacks a neighbor who he seemed to be as a threat. Both seem to fit well perfectly together, it was a blend of both great screenplay and direction. Rise of the Planet of the Apes gets a 5 out of 5. My only problem with the movie is the name. Too many "of the"s

Never Back Down (2008)

Talk about the most generic film I've ever seen. By gum, this film was chock-filled with movie cliches. Dead father, fighting this doing that, handsome hero, ugly rival, family problems, you end up watching the movie asking yourself "Is this a joke?" It seems so tacky, so cheesy, so bad, you wonder why you're still watching it. It has a certain element to it that makes you want to keep watching once you started, but by the end you sum up your thoughts and decide it wasn't good after all. 

The movie begins with a fight on a football field and cameras catching the fight and it ends up getting posted on YouTube. The video becomes extremely popular seeing how the movie never was, at least the characters in the story were. 

It honestly felt like a film that tried to copy Fight Club but failed miserably with the most generic and cliche story they could possibly conceive. I mean both the protagonist and the antagonist looked like young versions of Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. Oh and before I forget the love interest also has a deal with both Sean Faris and Cam Gigandet Sort of like what  Helena Bonham was to Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. But her name isn't as snazzy like Marla. Her name was Baja. Baja is a salad we sell at Wendy's that has chili, tomato, and guacamole so you couldn't imagine how I was picturing this girl. 

So as the final show down commenced, I easily predicted what was going to happen. Our handsome hero was going to get injured in the ribs because in all fighting movies that's for some reason the best place to get injured, then Salad Bowl would yell and scream like a little b*tch "stop stop! You're hurting him." because the antagonist found out his weak spot. Well of COURSE he's hurting him, they're FIGHTING b*tch!! Wait thats what actually happened? 2 out of 5. 

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Conan the Barbarian was so raw. As in I just ate twelve pounds of raw chicken and I'm going to die of salmonella. As a general rule, if any film starts off with the protagonist's childhood you know it's going to be long as hell. As the opening credits rolled by and Morgan Freeman finally shut his mouth, we started off with the most disgusting birth of a hero I've ever seen. The only way they could have made it more disgusting is if Conan's mom was giving birth to a little vomiting troll... Which actually isn't very far from that. And apparently, they live in world where women hate shirts. I was wondering what the deal with all the topless women was but then realized it's for all the lonely men and teenage boys, I should really stop being so selfish, but why on earth would anyone spend $10 to get hard in a crowded movie theatre? At least the quality of the film and the effects that were pulled off made everything extremely believable. If anything this is the only thing that I like about the movie.  

So the story basically boils down to Conan saving this "pure blood" who happens to be a smokin' hot babe. Really the film isn't that involving at all, but since so much is going on at the same time, it could get confusing and make you wonder what the hell is going on in the first place and what relevance does any of what's going on in the giant screen you're watching have to do with what happened prior. The story's integrity is jumpy but straightforward when it gets an hour into the film. 

Wait. Wait what? It took an hour to get the film started?! 2 out of 5. 

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Finally! James Bond and Han Solo in a western film! But to be honest I wasn't really excited about either of them. I was excited about Sam Freakin' Rockwell (Moon 2010). Yes, I really like Sam Rockwell, and Moon was the first movie I saw with him, I liked his character in the movie but in the end his character hardly mattered if he was apart of it or not, despite how much more screen time I wish he had. Still the film was a treat, a real roller-coaster ride through the Western, but still by the end of the film I found myself wondering how the hell did the main character lose his memory? What's up with the dog? And how did they get down from that alien ship so fast?! Still, the movie pulled off a great story and an excellent movie. 

At times I wishes that Iron Man was made sort of like this. Both Iron Man films seemed to have extremely minimal action sequences, but the short little action scenes they did have are so epic and so amazing, that you feel like it was a good movie just because of those one or two scenes. Cowboys and Aliens seemed like it was great action sequence after great action sequence, on top of that; the character construction was so well done I wondered how they pulled it off so seamlessly without being unrealistic. 

There is a scene in the film where Indians try to restore our hero's memories. That seemed way off. I mean, sure there are aliens flying around and stealing GOLD in the 1800's but still it seemed a little off. It was like that one scene in "The Hangover Part II" where they went to a buddhist temple to restore their memory and they do by meditation. What..? Makes no sense. How did smoke and hands waving around our hero's head restore his memory? 

Despite my problems, I think I'll always enjoy this movie. 4 out of 5. 

Colombiana (2011)

It's sh*t. Don't watch it. 2 out of 5. 

Apollo 18 (2011)

So I walked in 10 minutes late, and we thought it just started because the film wasn't even taking up the entire screen. In fact the whole movie didn't take up the entire screen. I was waiting and waiting for the movie to get out of their own cameras but it didn't happen. I'll tell you now, it has so much slow scenes, the camera, no matter what camera it is, it's always jumpy with lots of scratches ingrained in it on purpose to make it look like it's actually made by people with no talent in filmmaking. In other words you can't watch the movie without getting a little sick in the stomach. 

Let's talk about some film etiquette now. The first rule of film etiquette is don't talk about the movie. The second rule of film etiquette is don't talk about the movie. Seriously, I'm just talking about all the spoilers. It's rude and it's just not right. The third rule of film etiquette is no cell phones, no text messages. Fourth rule is one film at a time fellas. No one likes a film hopper, you're stealing from the producers of the movies and you're stealing from your theatre. Fifth rule of film etiquette is clean up your mess. Think about the next guy who sits where you are. The sixth rule is no outside food or drinks. The seventh rule is respect others around you. Don't kick their seats, don't talk to your friends, don't scream unless told to, don't laugh unless told to, and don't start a fire unless told to. The eighth and final rule of film etiquette: if this is your first time at the movie, you have to watch it. 

I fell asleep during the movie. 1 out of 5. 

Okay, I'll admit it, I've been wanting to review this, but I've been putting it off. It's not like anyone would read it, I just like to get my own output on the movie on words, and the first thing I have to say is that no one can talk about Marc Webb's iteration of Spider-Man without talking about Sam Raimi's version of Spider-Man (2002), so as a disclaimer, I will be referring a lot to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, like a verses match. Spider-Man use to be my favorite superhero as a child, and it's good to see that filmmakers are still making Spider-Man movies, because I think that's the only way I can really enjoy him anymore as the comics aren't really that great anymore, and I don't watch television to watch The Spectacular Spider-Man.. or Spider-Man and Friends, or whatever television show he's doing now.

You sit in the theatre and watch The Amazing Spider-Man, and you immediately start to compare the film with the 2002 version. So lets start off with an obvious one; Peter Parker. How does Tobey Maguire compare to Andrew Garfield? When Tobey does a crying scene he looks like he's laughing, I never liked that about the Spider-Man movies because Sam depicts Peter to be some emo whiney b*tch, that's mainly toward the end of the franchise, so one point for The Amazing Spider-Man. One problem I have with Andrew Garfield playing as Peter Parker is that he doesn't look like Peter Parker, he looks more like Harry Osborne. Tobey really does look like Peter Parker from the comic books, can't they give Garfield a haircut? So that's one point for Spider-Man (2002). Both are great actors, so I'm not going to comment on their talents, they both had their moments. Also, Peter Parker is muscular after he gets bitten, Andrew Garfield stays skinny, but I won't hark on that because he's in highschool in this film and in the 2002 film he's graduated and living in his own apartment.





The next most obvious and basic thing is the costume. Yes the costume. I think everyone agrees that the point goes straight to Spider-Man (2002). I mean, how hard is it to mess up Spider-Man's costume? I know that The Amazing Spider-Man is trying to deviate from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man but it's kind of impossible since it's a reboot of the 2002 film. I can't remember when Spider-Man's eyes were ever yellow, or golden, the yellow and blue designs are weird on The Amazing Spider-Man costume, it doesn't properly resemble Spider-Man from the comics at all. I would have been fine if they even reused the same costume. I did like the fact that The Amazing Spider-Man had home-made web-slingers like the comics. If Peter Parker had web-slinging powers, they would mimic an actual spider and be coming from his ass. But of course, who would watch that? A Point for the Amazing Spider-Man.

Speaking of canonical substance and sticking with source material, Spider-Man (2002) is nearly to the letter of Spider-Man's origin; from wrestling matches with his powers, to catching Uncle Ben's killer, and avenging him, Spider-Man (2002) is a love letter to Spider-Man fans when it comes to his origin. The Amazing Spider-Man seems to move too quickly through the origin, it's hard to get the emotional same response as the 2002 film, even though there's going to be The Amazing Spider-Man 2; set for a 2014 release. So they had plenty of screen time for origin. In my opinion, The Amazing Spider-Man was trying too hard to stay away from it's predecessor, though it's kind of hard to when you're both working on the same source material.

Even though Spider-Man (2002) has three points and The Amazing Spider-Man only has one point, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the movie, and that's also not to say that Spider-Man (2002) didn't have it's faults. Whenever Willem Dafoe played as Green Goblin he sort of had this Tommy Lee Jones effect that he had when he played in Batman Forever; it's as if he thought "Because this is a comic book movie, and I'm playing a supervillain, I must play as campy as I possibly can." But when he switches to Norman Osborne, he's a good actor all of a sudden. When Rhys Ifams plays as Dr. Conors he's an amazing actor, when he plays as Lizard, he's an amazing actor. No pun intended. The Amazing Spider-Man gets a point for this round.

Mary-Jane Watson (Kristen Dunst) vs. Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone.) I'll just say this right now, Kristen Dunst is a horrible actress and poorly portrays Mary-Jane. Emma Stone totally stole the show for me, I feel that her performance makes the movie way better than the 2002 Spider-Man film. Even though I like Mary-Jane as a character more, Gwen Stacy really does shine in this film, way more than she did in Spider-Man 3 (2007.) One point for The Amazing Spider-Man, though I feel like deducing a point for Spider-Man (2002) for Kristen fucking Dunst.

Though another thing that annoyed me about The Amazing Spider-Man was that he kept taking off his mask and revealing himself, Mary Jane didn't know that Peter was Spider-Man until the end of the second movie. Again, I think they're moving too fast, but that's probably me just nitpicking. I'll settle the score, it's 4 to 3, in The Amazing Spider-Man's favor. Though it's not as canon as the first Spider-Man film, it really was an excellent ride. From the visuals to the performance, the film was just down right amazing. I'll even go as far as to say that-.. wait a second. The music was better in the 2002 film, I could actually hum the memorable theme to myself right now even though I haven't seen it in years. One more point for Spider-Man 2002, it's a tie.

What can I say? The movies are just going to be the movies. Who can say which one is better than the other? Obviously technology allows the later movies to look prettier than the older films, but the substance is all basically the same, as long as they don't completely abandon the source material.

Looking forward to see Spider-Man in the next Avengers movie.

Vandal wrote:Note: This review has spoilers, if all you want to know is that the movie is good, don't read this. Watch the movie, it's worth your time. It's an excellent film, and I highly recommend it.

If you don't pay attention to the dialog, the film is about a bunch of naked chinese men screaming at each other. Read the subtitles and it becomes a wonderful film. In china they can't afford such luxuries such as a bar, so they all go to the bathhouse. What better way of male bonding than flashing your dong at other men? The bathhouse really does act in many ways as a bar would in any real life situation. A gay bar that is. No ladies allowed.



Anyway, the story begins when the son of the bathhouse owner comes to visit, thinking his father had passed away, no thanks to his blatantly retarded brother. Almost disappointed that his father isn't dead he takes his brother to the airport to book his ticket back home to his job and wife when the brother gets sidetracked and goes missing. This creates a huge conflict between his father, that it opens up his eyes and realizes that he hasn't been the son nor the brother he should have been, and he soon finds himself wrapped up in the bathhouse and the family business. He often finds himself vomiting in his mouth, but who wouldn't if they were around that many naked men?



Though the acting is in a foreign language, you know it's good. From the facial features carved into the actors, to the empathy they have in their voice, it makes you believe that what's happening is actually happening. Its good that when you watch a story it should be believable, jumping into this new culture, it's all the better. And for the record this is the first film I've seen that has legit Chinese people who can act. In the buff. Cinematography wise, it was rather impressive. Each shot conveyed a certain emotion, and the music (or in some cases, lack of music) that coupled with the shot only made it more astounding. Believe me when I say that this comedy can go deep with emotion.

Click if you have a sense of humor. You have been warned.

Spoiler:

The bathhouse seemed to not only bring a bunch of men together, but the relationships they were tied into. It would seem as if by the end of the movie it would greatly improve everyone's lives. The Bathhouse gives courage to the shy, it treats a broken marriage, and is the social hub for the entire family to watch. There isn't any trailers I can find on it, but believe me when I say, this movie is a remarkable treat, though on the downside you can never tell when a flashback or a vision occurred. It made it hard to understand and conveys the question: "What does this have to do with the movie?"

I actually watched this the other day xD It was great! Thank you for the review!

It was a pretty good movie, I enjoyed it!

I was so

Spoiler:

But I was so glad I watched it!