Week 2: The Matrix

The Matrix...when I first heard about it, I expected just another sci-fi action thriller. Good and filled with insane stunts, but not terribly intelligent.

Boy, was I wrong. Oh, the stunts are there in spades, all right, and yes, they are awesome. And the special effects are absolutely amazing (even if similar ones have been used in other movies as a result- and not explained as well).

But the movie has plot as well. It has characters that I cared about, from Keanu Reeves' excellent portrayal of Neo, the man trying to come to grips with his own identity, to Lawrence Fishburne's mysterious Morpheus, and even the creepy Agents, everyone does a stellar job of making their characters more than just the usual action "hero that kicks butt" and "cannon fodder" roles. I cared about each and every one of the heroes, and hated the villains with a passion. It has a plot, and it has a meaning...and lo and behold, a plot does help the fight scenes! Just try it, if you haven't seen the movie before. Watch one of the fight scenes. Then watch the whole movie. There's a big difference in the feeling and excitement of the scenes- sure, they're great as standalones, but the whole thing put together is an experience unlike just about everything else that's come to the theaters. Think about it next time you're watching one of the more brainless action flicks...think how much better it COULD be.

All I can say is WATCH THIS MOVIE. If you haven't, you're missing out on one of the best films of all time. It isn't just special effects.
Rating: 10 out of 10

Week 1: Man of Steel

I know what the critics have said. They complained about too much action, superman being too serious, lack of romance, etc. Since Zack Snyder directed this movie, I don't think he cared about the critics. Don't get me wrong, he DOES care about the fans' opinion.It seems like he really wanted to really satisfy the fans. I can see why critics complained about too much action. For me it's just his way to satisfy the viewers. This is the kind of movie that is just really satisfying. When the movie ended, I got that 'satisfying' feeling instead of the 'wanting more' feeling.  

Even Snyder's best movies (before this) which were 300 & Watchmen had mixed critic ratings. I think the fans should have anticipated the bad reviews. His style is actually what critics hate. The over the top action and CGI is his trademark. So, even from the beginning, I think this is actually the kind of movie the producers wanted. About the lack of romance, I really do think it's saved for the sequel. The sequel will definitely explore more about the relationship between Clark and Lois and introduce Batman, Wonder Woman, and Lex Luthor. This film focused on 2 aspects: the origin (krypton,his struggle finding his place) & the action (Zod and his army). Don't expect much humor or romance.

The visuals were spectacular! The best about this movie is its action scenes. The action was just relentless. I think the fans won't be disappointed at all, especially after Superman Returns. Yes, I know there are only a few comedic scenes this movie but that actually doesn't even matter. The battle between Superman & Zod will definitely 'wow' everyone but the critics. I mean who cares about the critics opinion? A superhero movie MUST NOT be judged by the critics opinion, what's more important is the audience's opinion about the movie and especially the fans'. I think the movie really delivered. Most people will probably like this movie. I am really sure that many fanboys will consider this as the best superman movie. This is a MUST SEE for people who like action movie. The action was on par with 2012's The Avengers. 

The sequel really has great potential. Considering the minimum amount of romance in this movie (since they just knew each other, and superman was also more focused on Zod), the next movie could explore more of that. One of the things missing from the movie was also the presence of Clark Kent at the daily planet. It's one of the trade marks. But, I believe the sequel will show more scenes in the Daily Planet which is interesting to see. They could also explore the Dc universe with future movies.

In conclusion, I think Man of Steel is so far one of the best the action movies from 2013. This movie really is a Snyder movie. But it also has a quite lot of Nolan-esque feel to it especially in the around first 45 minutes.This is a must own on Blu-Ray, and i can't wait for the sequel in 2016!

Rating: 9.5.

Week 8: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug connects you better to the characters than the first in an entertaining ride with more danger, excitement, and humor. The action is well done, and the 3D adds to it, especially in the "water rafting" scene. That part and the whole movie has good editing and amazing visuals. In this one, two of the non-King dwarfs' presence is stronger (Balin and Kili). The she-elf warrior Tauriel and what comes with her works, adding some heart to the film. 
Besides Richard Armitage leading the way as the King under the Mountain with his great chemistry with fellow cast members, there are three actors who give specially noteworthy live-action performances. Lee Pace is one of the true highlights as Thranduil, who is an Elf King that deals with foreboding in a way that is different from Elrond. Ian McKellen's acting is comparable to him in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as he takes advantage of Gandalf getting his own storyline and heart-pounding action scene. Martin Freeman is good once again as the brave titular character, and actually slightly better. 
The confrontation with Smaug is very enjoyable. It is a long movie, but the finale is the high point. Benedict Cumberbatch does an excellent job with the arrogant beast's voice, continuing to be one of my favorite actors , and the dragon looks really cool in 3D. I personally think that they ended it at the perfect place. When they divide a book up, it will inevitably result in a cliffhanger feeling, which is the second time in a row that this has happened. But, I am satisfied with how they handled it here, and it makes me excited for the third movie, "There and Back Again."

Score: 9 out of 10

Week 5: End of Watch

      This week we watch the movie End of Watch is a 2012 American Thriller drama film written and directed by David Ayer. And this movie is one of the best Police movies we  have seen. This movie is about Jake Gyllenhall and Michael Pena are Taylor and Zavala, two Los Angele's street cops that bend a few rules. And as the movie begins Taylor is filming a video documentary about his job. But then they discover a secret that makes them the target from the most dangerous drug cartel. They've been partners for years and are so close that Zavala's wife, Gabby, and Taylor's girlfriend, Janet, have become like sisters. But the two cops are transferred to a tough Mexican American district where their the scent of a Mexican cartel operating in Los Angeles. This is a work for a detective but they don't care and take the risk, but they have become so dangerous to the cartel that a hit is ordered against them.

                                                                                                         

Week 4: World War Z

Just about every zombie movie I can think of is set, for the most part, in tightly spaces where groups of survivors huddle to fend off the flesh-hungry hordes outside. World War Z, which may be the most entertaining and accomplished zombie movie since George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1979), has touches of that suspenseful high-tension claustrophobia. Yet it's a very different sort of zombie feast (far more than, say, The Walking Dead). It's vast and sprawling and spectacular; it's the first truly globalized orgy of the undead. The director, Marc Forster, is a filmmaker whose work I've never particularly cared for (he made Bond dud Quantum of Solace). Here, though, working from the 2006 Max Brooks novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, he shows a new audacity and flair. World War Z is epically scaled, but it's not a messy, noisy, CGI-bogus, throw-everything-at-the-audience sort of blockbuster like i originally thought it was going to be. It's thrillingly controlled, and it builds in impact.
The film opens with music that's meant to remind you of the chilling theme music from The Exorcist, and that's followed by a collage of actual TV news snippets cleverly edited together to suggest a world already tilting toward rock bottom. In Philadelphia, where Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), his wife (Mireille Enos), and their two daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) are driving from their home toward the center of town, we're plunged into the first disquieting evidence of the zombie virus, the warning signs of breakdown: giant traffic jams, a street-corner explosion, cops whizzing by, and, finally, a zombie — or is it just an angry, desperate civilian? — crashing up against the windshield.
When people in World War Z get bitten and turn into rabid undead freaks, the conversion happens frighteningly quickly, without a lot of fuss. They lie on the ground for a moment, then get all twitchy, as if they're receiving an electroshock treatment, and their eyes bulge up to the heavens in rage. Gerry, a former U.N. investigator, spends most of the film traveling around the world, searching for the origins of the virus (and a possible cure), yet metaphorically speaking, we're already cued to see what has brought about this onslaught. World War Z is rooted in the current mood of economic panic and terrorist fear and impending chaos. It presents the zombie army as a culmination of what it's going to look like if and when the bottom falls out of our society.
An early scene set in South Korea, where Gerry looks over the dusty remains of Patient Zero, has a hushed creepiness, but World War Z finds its own unique atmosphere of large-scale disorder after Gerry arrives in Jerusalem, where the Israelis have erected a wall around the city to keep the zombies out. The wall doesn't work. As the zombies — and there are thousands of them — shimmy up the side of it, in a squirmy hill of bodies that spill over the top of the edifice, the action hits a raw nerve of peril, a feeling that nothing can keep them out.
World War Z lifts some of its vérité-apocalypse mood, as well as the terrifying speed with which the zombies move, from Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2003). Yet this is a much more varied and surprising movie, built around a calm commanding performance by Pitt as the family man who must leave his wife and daughters on a U.N. command ship as he hops from one trouble spot to the next. As Gerry, Pitt is cool, fearless, tense, compassionate, and brutally tough (at one point, he chops off the hand of a soldier to save her from going zombie). He's feral grace under pressure.
The stakes for survival keep getting raised. A zombie attack aboard an airplane has a nightmarish "this is really happening intensity" (though it does give the film a semi-preposterous moment, when the plane starts to go down). Then Pitt arrives at a World Health Organization facility, where he must brave sterile white corridors dotted with zombies to get inside a lab vault. The film lets us linger for a bit on what the zombies look like — one's a gnashing Miles Davis clone, one clicks its teeth in close-up like a demented gopher — and the story's blend of terror and ingenuity attains an intoxicating, jittery finesse. World War Z turns the prospect of the end of our world into something tumultuous and horrifying and, at the same time, exciting. It's scary good fun.


Final Verdict: 8.5 out of 10

Week 3:Insidious 2

  For my 20 percent project we have  decided to do it on movie reviews, we are going to be  reviewing  on new movies  that come out, for example the last new movie that came out and I saw was Insidious 2. We are going to be uploading every movie that comes out every month and we are going to comment about the movie  and you can comment too about the movie. Every month we are going to be commenting about a movie and uploading another movie that we review.
                                                                            



  
This goes a long way in a film where characters constantly explain why and how supernatural happenings occur."Insidious: Chapter 2" starts where the last film left off. The Lambert family is still haunted.
The body of Josh Lambert Patrick Wilson is possessed by the spirit of a mysterious bride in black, and his wife Renae Rose Byrne   doesn't know it.

         

Week 2:Pacific Rim review

Working on his biggest budget to date, the director of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth introduces an entirely new world to audiences with a robots-versus-monsters scenario that includes the same sort of nerdy details and Sci-Fi jargon as its over-complicated brethren, but under del Toro it all makes sense — and even better, he makes us care about it.The film takes place in the not-too-distant future, where a portal unexpectedly opens at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, unleashing a wave of monstrous, building-sized beasts called Kaiju upon the world. In order to combat the Kaiju , humankind overcomes its geographic and political differences to create Jaegers, robots of equivalent size that are piloted by two people via a sort of mindmeld called a “neural bridge.” The fraternal bond between Raleigh Becket  and his brother Yancy  makes them the best monster killers in the Jaeger program — that is, until Yancy is killed in battle, prompting Raleigh’s early retirement.Five years later, the Jaeger program lives on as a shadow of its former self: only a handful of the machines remain, and even fewer pilots. But when commanding officer Stacker Pentecost  turns up to re-enlist Raleigh for a final all-out assault on the portal in the hopes of saving humanity once and for all, the disillusioned soldier finds himself paired up with ambitious novice Mako Mori , whose own past traumas may prove to be the key that unlocks the program’s greatest partnership yet. Now for my opinions.The film is great, in fact it's my second favorite movie of the year, but it doesn't have the greatest story or the greatest dialogue, but it does have a very interesting world and likable characters and some great action scenes. Now speaking of the action scenes, here comes one of my only complaints about the movie is that two specific "characters" die to fast. My other minor complaint is i wanted this movie to be longer, but that's just me craving more. Now i hope that the film gets a sequel since it made over $407 million worldwide. Now that the Blu Ray is out, i recommend that everyone go out and buy it, you will not regret it, unless your inner child is dead.

Score: 9.5 out of 10