rate the last movie you saw!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Enjoyable, but holy shit was the writing bad

Honestly, if you haven't seen this one, you're going to see a lot of rehashed material from the first one. It docks a lot of points for me because of that. But I'll give it credit for an unexpected ending. Spoilers ensue.

Spoiler:

Could rant more, but I think I'm done. I'm hoping Mockingjay is a lot better, since it's going to have a lot more of a focused central plot.

Frozen - Good

Decided to see what all the hubbub was about (that seems to be why I watch a lot of current movies these days). There were quite some unique elements for a Disney film, which gives it points for some expanding their creative minds. The premise was interesting. The only thing is they never explained why Elsa had her powers and how she got them.

The animation was great. Not clunky at all like some Disney films (i.e the Incredibles and any similar animation to that). The animation line that did Tangled and Frozen are by far the best in Disney.

The music was good, but I feel like the beginning was far too clustered with singing. Let it Go was obviously the best of the bunch. But the style of canon singing when the sisters were singing different parts simultaneously in the few scenes were good too.

Speaking of them, the sister dynamic was what made this movie by far. The romance wasn't even needed. That was more of a tag, which is good. It's a step in the right direction for a Disney animated film.

Spoiler:

Comedy wasn't bad.

My only major gripe in the film:

Spoiler:

Other than that, nothing spectacular, but not bad at all.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Rating: 9.5/10
the movie was very good. It had a lot of action, with a scope that made it feel like a mini avengers movie. It definitely makes me more excited for age of ultron if the the movies are this good now.

Spoiler:

Amazing Spider-Man 2: Good

Definitely better than the first one. More of classic Spidey is always good. The directors really understood how to translate comic Spider-Man to a film setting. The only side that they really haven't nailed in this one was his geek side. Yes, he had his moments, but they were overshadowed by some stupid moments as well.

Gotta say, the special effects for electricity were pretty epic.

X-Men Days of Future Past: Awesome

My favorite X-Men film to date, even beating out First Class. I did have a few issues with the plot, but nothing detrimental to the film. Both casts were great. Would have liked to have seen more of Kitty, but oh well.

Spoiler:

Maleficent: Good

As a re-telling of the story of Sleeping Beauty, this was done great to be perfectly honest. As a standalone film, it holds up, but has a few issues that needed ironing out.

Angelina Jolie was perfect. I was skeptical all the way till I saw the first couple minutes of her performance. She nailed it. Aurora's choice was good. Looking it up, I just found out that Elle Fanning, the choice for Aurora, happens to be Dakota Fanning's sister. How 'bout that? Also, it seems like every critic seems to be praising the hell out of Jolie's performance. Rightfully so.

The way the story was re-told made it far better than the original. The dark fantasy was a great touch to the story. Though the original had trace elements, it called for far more and this film delivered that. I swear I saw Hashirama's Mokuryu though in one scene.

This is a mostly all-ages (TBH I'd say 9-10+) film that I recommend seeing. My entire family saw it together, and it turned out that we all enjoyed the film to an extent (we have a large variety of tastes and ages). Obviously I'd recommend this most to old school Disney film fans and to Kingdom Hearts fans LOL.

Guardians of the Galaxy
Rating: 9.5/10

Now I wanted to give it a 10/10 and call it the best marvel movie ever, but I feel like I might be in a post movie hype. I don't want to overly praise it just because it's fresh in my mind. Now having said that, it still was a great film. Amazing cast, great action, and plenty of laughs. Me and my brother really enjoyed it. Marvel took a risk with this movie and it paid off big time. This is just another example of what happens when you put marvel characters in the right hands, *cough**cough* *Sony*. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys movies at all.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome

Yeah, I don't give number ratings anymore LOL. I'm not good with ratings, so I stick with just the review.

Anyway, I loved this movie. I do have my issues and small complaints, but overall it was a great experience.

The narrative was a tad choppy. The opening 20 minutes were the biggest offenders of this, but it kind of smoothed itself out from there. The story was interesting. I enjoyed seeing everything unfold the way it did to get to the conclusion it reached. It did a good job of explaining certain people and certain concepts that we did not get from the other Marvel films.

The characters were very likable. I swear Yandu was literally Merle from The Walking Dead if he was an alien. The main cast was great. Gamorah was the weakest of them, because tbh she was another typical hardass fighting chick who just happens to be a tsundere to the main character. Rocket was done well. I was wondering how they were going to approach him, and they delivered. The cast was great. I completely forgot that Vin Diesel was Groot.

Spoiler:

My other main issue also lies here with the characters.

Spoiler:

Anyway, the soundtrack was good. The 70s and 80s music added a nice touch due to the story with Starlord. I liked the main theme a lot. The soundtrack as a whole worked in the environment.

Speaking of environment, the environmental visuals were excellent. They added some nebulae into the space areas often, which is always a nice touch. The sci-fi touch meshed with the Marvel aspects well, though it felt more like a Star Trek film at some points than a Marvel film. Other visuals were good. In the credits, I noticed that there were so many digital artists. I'd say well over 100 from the looks.

The best part of this film to me was the humor. It was on point for most of the film. A few awkward humor moments that fell a little flat (The beating the grass joke was the most obvious to me). But overall this film was absolutely hilarious. Had me laughing the entire time.

So all in all, this was a great film, despite a few minor issues. Post-credits scene was interesting. A must see for Marvel fans, and a high recommendation for anyone looking for a funny film to see. You don't necessarily need to be following the Avengers arcs to get into this film. It might be a bit difficult to understand everything that is happening at first, but you'll soon get it.

Dolores Claiborne - 8.5/10

Yes, I know, old film, but I only now had the chance to watch it though I've been meaning to for a very long time.

A great adaptation of King's novel. Kathy Bates is amazing in her role, even better than she was in Misery which is yet another King adaptation she stared in. She is much more subtle and complicated here and the acting is so good. She really brings all points of the character across to the watcher. Everything feels very realistic. The only reason I'm not giving it a 10/10 is that dialogue is strained at times and doesn't flow as it should which is a great minus for me.

We're the Millers - 9/10

I've been recently watching a lot of comedies and this movie was probably one of my favorites. The concept idea is pretty simple however the execution of the idea was well done. Had me laughing through out the movie and the actors were really likeable imo. One of them movies that I can re-watch every now and then without getting bored.

Plus the scenes with Jennifer Anniston were great.

Easy A - 8/10

A hilarious comedy while at the same time being a commentary on the workings of a high school rumour mill. The cast is great, but Emma Stone is really the one who carries the movie with clever witticism. It reminded me a lot of "10 things I hate about you" with Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger in that regard. It isn't an otherworldly movie, but it is funny nonetheless and a good comedy to pass some time. It also has some moments of surprising depth, but it doesn't feel cheesy because it lampshades it pretty well and fits it into general tone.

I should also note that Amanda Bynes plays a "Jesus freak" which I find hilarious considering Amanda post that movie.

AVGN The Movie: Good

So, the wait is over. We've finally been given the movie that AVGN fans have been asking for, for years. Despite all the fan support, this still only made a low budget title. So how did it hold up for that? Let's jump into it.

The nerd is being badgered to review ET, the one game he actually doesn't want to review because of how infamously bad it is. But he cracks down and follows the ET legend about the landfill and tries to prove it false. But on his endeavor, he attracts some military attention who are interested for another reason.

The story writing was good enough. The premise works and the details seemed to go well. I have no particular complaints about the plot itself.

The humor was pretty good for its genre. If you don't like the AVGN humor style, you won't like this film. But if you like it, then you will like the film's humor. It's as simple as that. There are a few callbacks to AVGN episodes and some easter eggs, like the Glitch Gremlin being in a couple frames.

The casting was pretty on point. Cameo from Lloyd Kaufman and a few others that you might recognize from AVGN episodes or otherwise. Of course, Mike and Kyle had their cameo. It wouldn't have felt right otherwise. I recognized the main girl from a Street Fighter web series.

The characterization was okay. This was one of the weaker aspects of the film though. The main girl was just okay. The sidekick kid fell flat. He added very little to the film. He tried to provide the voice of reason for the nerd, but most of the time there wasn't any real reasoning coming from him. He didn't exactly help the nerd much at all. He was just there and quite honestly kinda annoying. At least the main girl added something constructive to the plot, though not much.

Spoiler:

On the other side of the coin, I enjoyed the "villains". And the nerd was great as always.

The music was great. The retro gaming feel to it was excellent and then we had a bit of rock influence. James is a big fan of rock so I'm sure he had that put in there himself.

The effects for a low budget title worked in some areas and didn't in others. Part of this film's aim was satire for the cheesy special effects that a classic monster movie would give back in the day. So to that extent, it did its part. The film was self-aware that its effects were obvious and cheesy. However, I think that they could have done a little better zooming into the miniature vehicles. It was a little too obvious where I feel it shouldn't have been. It kind of broke the moments if you will. Some of the effects were just plain good though. The lasers were generally good and some of the effects worked well.

For what action we got, it was mostly okay. The only fight that outright sucked was the girl fight. We had maybe 2 or 3 seconds of the fight at a time between scenes. That's just lazy. You're telling me they couldn't pull off an actual fight scene?

So overall, it had its issues, but the enjoyment was definitely there. Many things worked and they overshadowed most of the poorly done things. Objectively, for its genre and budget, I would definitely say it's a good film. But in terms of enjoyment, I would say that I had a lot of fun watching it.

The Lego Movie: Okay

Don't really have much to say about this one. Nothing was above or below average really. It was just average across the board with a couple legitimately funny moments.

Big Hero 6- 9/10

I enjoyed it very much. Good laughs, good heart, and decent action. Some plot points were predictable but there was still some surprises. The characters were all likable and played off each other very well. Overall it was a great movie and I looking forward to more because Disney doesn't need much to green lite sequels. I mean they have even green lit a toy story 4.

Good to see this old thread is still being used!

Ouija: 2.5/5

Nothing to write home about...

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 - Good

After the awful but enjoyable Catching Fire, I feel that they bounced back a bit with this film.

As I anticipated, the plot has been centralized and more focused. This allowed for the story to not be all over the place like the last one. We had a few major plot points that developed over the course of the film, all in good time and placement. To put it simply, this movie was structured waaaaay better than Catching Fire.

Spoiler:

In terms of the scope of Part 1, it was handled pretty decently. The pacing was fine, despite this being only half of the book. There was enough material to cover the two hours, and it kept things interesting throughout. But one gripe I have with this is that the material seemed to follow a similar formula, seeming like a bit of rehash.

Spoiler:

So, I think I've praised Jennifer Lawrence enough for her superb acting in the first two. But once again, she nailed it. But this time, she had slightly different emotions to portray, and she did it perfectly. I like Liam Hemsworth as well.

Characters were pretty decent. There weren't a lot of introduced characters, but the major one was the president of district 13. And she was good. She was skeptical in the beginning, but whenever she was wrong, she knew it and corrected things immediately. She made tough decisions that paid off. Also, seeing Natalie Dormer was a pleasant surprise. But seeing her with that haircut threw me off.

Spoiler:

Snow wasn't as bad as in Catching Fire, but he still wasn't great. I think Snow treats this too much like a game, and should be focusing more on trying to win.

Spoiler:

Soundtrack was decent. Nothing standing out to me particularly, but nothing bad.

Overall, this was an objective improvement from Catching Fire (in movie form at least). I enjoyed this more as well. Compared to the first? I have to think about that. I kinda do miss the actual hunger games, but by this film, it has outstripped its purpose, so I'm not complaining.

Theaters: Night at the Museum 3 - 4/5

DVD: VHS Viral - 1.5/5

Kingsman: Good

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, even though some of it was a bit strange. There's a lot of English slang involved, but I understood a fair bit of it. But I think I understand more English slang than the average American, like "taking the piss". Some of the accents were pretty thick, so if you're not used to it, it might be hard to get used to at the beginning. I was fine with it, though. Speaking of accents, if you want to hear an English Mark Hamill Joker, watch this film. The voice he uses sounds like his Joker.

The plot progressed pretty well over the 2 hour length. There was a lot of room for plot development and I think it paid off. I enjoyed the plot, though some of the points were a bit weak. The dog sub-plot was ultimately pretty weak.

The characters were likable for the most part. The cast was pretty good.

One thing this film did was poke fun at old spy movies (mostly the James Bond films). I think a lot of the jabs were pretty on point. The humor in general was good in my opinion. I am a fan of British humor, so this was a good fit for me.

Oh, speaking about humor, there was one scene that was pretty controversial at the end. This will have the only spoiler of the film.

Spoiler:

Anyway, the action was pretty good. The cinematography for it was very good, so that you could see everything that was happening. Not just this close up action where it's suggested that someone got elbowed. No, if someone got elbowed, you saw the whole thing. They went to great lengths to keep it honest.

The score was fine. One particular track I noticed was pretty good that fit the scene perfectly. It's called "Manners Maketh Man". Anyone who has seen the movie will know where this plays of course.

Special effects were decent, though a few of them were a bit sub-par. Though to be fair, some of it did seem intentional.

By the way, the word "fuck" is said a lot, so if you don't like that, this may not be the movie to see.

Overall, it was pretty good. I enjoyed the hell out of it, as it was more of a fun watch than a well-constructed film, though it had several components of the latter. I saw it with three people: Two guys, one girl. The girl seemed to enjoy it a little, but was more weirded out by it, whereas the other guys seemed to enjoy it much more. Take that data as you will. I would say that maybe it's more geared towards men than women. Definitely don't bring any children to this (or any R rated movie damn it). If you can't appreciate satire, this is likely not the film for you.

Age of Ultron: 8/10

great summer blockbuster, but like all films there were some flaws.  However it was still a very enjoyable movie that I could watch again and again.

Jurassic World: 9.5/10

Fantastic movie!  Plenty of great action and tons of callbacks and Easter eggs from the previous films.  Yes there were minor character and plot issues, but we watch movies for fun, and that is exactly what I had.

Inside Out: 9/10

A very enjoyable and funny children's film.  I have to give props to Disney/Pixar for a very original film that continues there legacy of great films that aren't just for kids, but for the kids at heart.  To this day I have yet to see a Disney/Pixar film that I didn't like.  Sure some were better then others, but I enjoyed them all just the same, minus Brave which I have yet to see but hopefully I will soon.

Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F - Objectively bad, Subjectively good

To find out more detail, stay tuned for an audio version sometime soon.

Pixels - 6/10
Passable, I guess. Painful to sit through, though.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - 9.5/10
Incredible. Some of the twists were predictable as to when they would happen, but it wasn't apparent what would happen. Kept the viewers on their toes.

Ted 2 - 7.5/10

This movie was pretty hilarious and better than the original imo, the jokes in some scenes were very well executed. It has a simple story of Ted trying to prove he is a person in court but if you liked the first one, you should like this as I went in for the comedy. Definitely recommending for those who wants a good laugh.

Minions - Ehh

For a children's film, it was fine. But it had no appeal for adults like a lot of pixar films tend to have. No, I haven't seen Despicable Me yet, so I don't know if the other two are like that. A few funny jokes, but otherwise it was just okay.

The Cabin in the Woods - 4

This movie was pretty lackluster. It had a interesting concept but the execution was crap, half the things in the movie was predictable and it lacked the true 'horror' aspect of it. I found myself laughing more than actually being scared. Also not to mention how they fucked up the ending. Would not watch again.

Spoiler:

Lately, I hadn't really had time for sitting down and watching movies and films so this is mostly what I came upon on TV.

S.W.A.T. - A very lovely time killer. I enjoyed it for what it's worth. I don't think it a very good movie as the focus was running wild for the most of the movie and there were just so many WTF moments and the plot felt like something I've seen done better many times before, but it held my lackadaisical attention. It served its purpose of wasting a few hours when I didn't have anything to do and didn't feel like doing anything else.

An Education - I liked it save for the ending. I wanted the ending to be a bit harsher and less forgiving, but eh. Should have expected it. It was a brilliant film though. A very nice cast with very strong performances especially from the lead even though I wanted to punch some sense into her at some moments, but since I do think that role is such that it should make you want to punch some sense into the girl, it is a positive type of wanting to punch.