Month: October 2014

There are documentaries of all sorts of varieties. There are historical documentaries (technically, most if not all fall under this?), political documentaries, biased documentaries, science/learning documentaries, scary/thriller documentaries and more.

And then every once in awhile, they have documentaries about movies, which is of course extremely appealing to someone who likes watching movies. The movie makers can be subjects of documentaries themselves, it isn’t weird!

And then every once in a longer while, we get a documentary that doesn’t worry about fitting it all in one tiny package, but giving you as much info as they can, all the info they can, with as many people as they can, and saying “fuck your time constraints, you fascist time Nazi!”

That’s right, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy is a whopping 240 minutes long. That is about four hours for your math inept bastards out there. This documentary doesn’t cut any corners, unless you count the recent reboot of the franchise, A Nightmare On Elm Street. It isn’t featured in this one, most likely because it came out the same year as the documentary, and because who cares about that title? No one. It is a reboot, it is different, it isn’t Robert Englund.

So what does this cover? Well, of course the original concept of A Nightmare On Elm Street with Wes Craven and New Line Cinema, while also going over the start of New Line Cinema, because they made it big off of Freddy. We get the “gay” second film, the really great return of Craven for Dream Warriors, the second highest grossing 4th film which jump started director Renny Harlin‘s career, the clusterfuck of a fifth film, the “final” sixth film with Freddy’s death, and second return of Craven with the brilliant New Nightmare, a lot of info on merchandising and the TV show and it ends with Freddy vs. Jason.

Freddy’s arms have been elongated to encompass everyone in this documentary.

That is a lot of material to go over, and now you know why it is so long. The best part about the length? I didn’t feel like a torture session trying to get through it. It was very entertaining hearing the stories behind scenes, how shots were made, how decisions were decided upon, how casting/directors were chosen. Everything. Including snide comments with Craven and Englund throughout. Hey, they even had a small interview with an actor who had the role of Surfer in one of the movies. He had a say. They talked to people who wrote scripts that were ignored. They talked to everyone. I think the coolest part is when they talked to someone who played one of the roles, they also had them read their script description of the character when they first enter the movie. Made them relatable?

But here is one annoyance. When you hear about stars in these movies, a lot of people will think back to Johnny Depp and Patricia Arquette. The Elm Street series were each of these heavy hitters first roles, and Patricia in particular was the lead in the third film. Yet they don’t get interviewed for this movie? Were they too busy for the franchise that gave them their eventual millions?

Either way, this documentary is an information overload, and only biased in the sense that a lot of the people who worked on one movie will over hype their own work, obviously, or blame others for any failures. If you were a fan of any movie of the franchise, you will enjoy aspects of this documentary. If you are curious about it, you will enjoy this. You can watch it over days and in sections quite easily, and it is on Netflix and will probably stay there forever.

Overall, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy is a fantastic documentary. I learned a lot, and I will forget most of it. I was worried about finding time for the four hours, but it was a very easy documentary to watch, it ended up not even being a big issue.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking. “Didn’t you just review this movie?” Nooo, that was The ABCs Of Death! This is the sequel! You see, The ABCs of Death came out like, last year or 2012, depending on who you ask. This one is new, it is fresh, and that is why I had to rush it out before Halloween. On the same week as the original.

The concept is of course exactly the same. In The ABCs Of Death 2, we have 26 new short stories, one for every letter of the alphabet, with some repeat directors, some new people, and overall, a lot less subtitles.

If the man on the left represents this franchise and the woman represents the average film goer…

With the second iteration, I feel like I should note that the overall tone of the movie seems to have changed a lot. Technically it is still a horror comedy, but there is a lot lot less comedy and a lot more tales going for a serious horror/thriller short. Like, a lot of them.

For instance, guess how many of these shorts are about farting and dying from farts? Well, 0, which is definitely less than the first film.

Here are some other notable differences – Every short is a story, and there are no meta stories unlike the first film. I think there are more animated/claymation/etc shorts than the first film, of which I think only had a couple. This one didn’t have a lot either, but there were more. And of course, one of the shorts made me want to throw up, everywhere, and still makes me feel comfortable.

And it definitely wasn’t the bros versus hoes segment.

Seriously. I am going to do my best and not tell you what any letter means. And it will be simple, because I am typing this and not talking directly to you. Z. The ending of this film is fucked up. Super fucked up. Like. Really really cringe inducing, gross, yucky yuck, bllaarrrghghghghg. I had to send my loved one out of the room when it was happening so that she wouldn’t experience any of it and refused to tell her about it. It was just that bad and even describing it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.

And you know what? I guess that makes it kind of awesome. They wanted to freak me out, they did, and that is hard for a lot of horror films to do. Z will unfortunately stick with me for a long time, but that also speaks out to its uniqueness.

In other news, on a whole, I think I technically disliked this one more than the first. I thought the first was okay, and overall, this one too was okay. There is so much diversity and stories, it is hard for a single bad one to drag it all down, or a great one to elevate it. There is just so much average, that after watching it, I can only really remember a few of them anymore. The extremes.

I know I am mostly alone when I say I disliked this one more than the first, as most people liked how it was less humorous, but I thought the humor aspects gave the first one some sense of identity. I think it has to either embrace the comedic element more fully and equally, or get rid of it completely and go straight 26 tales of fright and terror. That is what I think a future movie needs to do. With the time constraints, they should’t have issues actually making tiny terrible tales, I just don’t want half of them to feel half assed.

Another V/H/S movie, another year. I liked the first two installments. They offered me a lot of variety, some bad, some really good, at least most of them were okay tales and pretty dang unique. I like the anthology format, as a lot of these stories you wouldn’t expect to last a full movie.

There isn’t a lot I can really say about V/H/S: Viral ahead of time. A few short horrors, one that plays between them that somehow branches them all together. Like before, this one was released on V.O.D. before a small theatrical run, in order for people to watch at their home for Halloween I guess.

Turn around bright eyes.

For this part of the franchise, we have an astounding FOUR short stories that make up the entire movie, including the one that is spread throughout the film. The main story, I guess, is Vicious Circles, and involves a police chase of an ice cream truck throughout Los Angeles. It interests a lot of the community, hoping to grab shitty cell phone footage to place it on youtube.

We have Dante The Great, a story about an illusionist who finds a magical cape that grants him real magical power, but one that needs to feast on the blood of others.

There is Parallel Monsters, about a man who builds a portal into an parallel universe, right when his parallel universe does the same. Everything seems identical, so they agree to explore the others side for 15 minutes, but of course, not everything is as similar as it seems.

And finally, Bonestorm, about a group of people wanting to film a skateboarding video, who head to Tijuana where there are big ditches that no one would care if they did tricks there. And then they also get involved with a Mexican cult.

There was supposed to be a story called Gorgeous Vortex, which was apparently cut for some unknown reason. I just know it was sixteen minutes long and it did not make it to the final movie (but I think I even still saw it mentioned in the credits, awkwardly enough).

First thing of note, this is incredibly disappointing in terms of number of stories. I feel cheated, like I barely got enough diversity.

The main story is terrible. For whatever reason, despite the good technology to capture all of the events, was full of class video tape stylized cut and screech noises, and it got totally annoying. It didn’t make any sense until the end, where it was kind of cool, but very disappointing leading up to it.

Dante The Great didn’t match the V/H/S style at all. It was very shitty and I don’t even want to count it as a short on this movie. It would have been better without it.

Parallel Monsters was the only good story of the bunch. It had a nice sci-fi concept and told a bizarre story. I still think it had too much filler in the middle, where it was just being weird without advancing the plot any forward.

And Bonestorm? I think it had a good concept, but the main characters were very annoying, it took too long to get to Mexico, and then when the cult appeared, it became incredibly confusing as to what was happening, who was dead, who was dying, and a lot of chaos made the end almost unwatchable and not exciting.

This is the worst addition to the franchise, by far. And based on the Vicious Circles story, it kind of gave the whole thing a bit of closure. But I assume they will still keep trying to milk this franchise, because it is cheap, and they don’t need to come up with 90 minute plot lines. I have no issues with the anthology horror genre, but this one is so much worse than the other two, it is incredibly disappointing.

Almost universally agreed upon, Leprechaun is one of the worst franchises known to man. It has always been known for its more comedic elements and campy atmosphere, but a lot of people just seem to loathe it. Most of knowledge of it came from Wayne’s World and seeing the first one as a kid, which kind of creeped me out. But then we also got Leprechaun 4: In Space and Leprechaun In The Hood. The series kept going because, presumably, no one puts Warwick Davis in a corner.

But now that part of the Leprechaun franchise is presumably dead. Now Leprechaun: Origins, serving as a series reboot, is being made by the very prestigious WWE studios.

The company who brought us character studies such as The Condemned, Oculus, and The Day.

Let’s not forget the filter. How else will they know it is dark and brooding?

Ireland, because that’s where leprechauns live. Two couples, one adventure to discover the richness of the land in front of them. What secrets may they find? What hidden gems?

Well, Jeni (Melissa Roxburgh) is looking to get her Masters in History next year, but not sure what she wants to do it on. So why not look around Ireland? Her boyfriend Ben (Andrew Dunbar) more or less supports her theories, although he wants to see cooler less boring things. They also have the less important couple (Brendan Fletcher, Stephanie Bennett), who are expendable.

They go to town, hearing good things, and find out artifacts that are super old. Just a 7 hour trip from the town. They had planned to stay there just an afternoon, but when offered a free cabin to stay in over night and a tour to the site? Well, sure.

But it turns out the town has pact with an ancient leprechaun. It wants to kill the town, as they stole his gold, but they have instead let them have human sacrifices in the form of out of town visitors. Yay, appeasing leprechauns!

Some townsfolk include Garry Chalk and Teach Grant, while the leprechaun himself is played by Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl, who I have been told is a professional wrestler.

Oh yeah, you can tell this is leprechaun, because of his…uhh. Um…Uh.

I was being a bit too hard on WWE studios earlier. They also helped give us Dead Man Down, which I absolutely loved. This is not one of those glorious times.

First off, no comedic elements. Okay, fine, straight horror. I can do that. But don’t give me a leprechaun movie without anything that resembles a leprechaun. You see that picture up there? That is a hideous fucking C.H.U.D. That is not a leprechaun. It looks like they took the C.H.U.D. costume, reduced the eyes, and just said fuck it, leprechaun.

Not only that, but a lot of the “Fear” early on, involved an unseen force rushing through the tall wheat or grass or whatever, and grabbing people. That shit is straight out of Jurassic Park, is it not?

Despite going for straight horror, this movie is not scary in any way. It is just dumb. Bad acting, bad plot, bad reboot, bad characters, bad “villains”, and it feels like it drags on forever. I’d rather watch the original Leprechaun film than watch Leprechaun: Origins again. I am also confused as to why they even bothered to have someone “famous” playing the leprechaun? He has no discernible features, doesn’t talk just growls, and is a complete waste.

It is hard to say that, but this reboot is a disgrace to the already pitiful Leprechaun franchise.

Every once in awhile, a new movie concept comes out, and people liked it. In this case, I am talking about V/H/S, which decided to add outdated technology plus short horror films into one. It was an anthology. Made up of five or six smaller horror stories, good ideas that wouldn’t have been good if dragged out over 80-90 minutes. Brilliant!

Shorts are hard to make and require you to do a lot in a short amount of time.

Well, The ABCs Of Death took the idea of a horror anthology and went several steps further. Five to six shorts? Fuck that. Twenty-Six shorts is what people really want.

Yes, in case you didn’t get the gimmick, that is one for every letter of the alphabet.

Like Stab. Or Betrayal. Or Fetish.

This is really a hard series to really describe. After all, I could just tell you what each clip is called, as they each have the alphabetic name/theme going on, but that kind of gives it away. The movie shows you the short and then tells you the name afterwards. The titles themselves kind of give things away and ruin a lot of the surprise.

However, there are sill some awesome titles. Like Hydro-Electric Diffusion, WTF, and Toilet.

Given 26 directors, these range in many different ways. We have one animated short, and a claymation short. Two of the shorts are meta and aware that they are a specific letter / feature the people making the short. I guess both wanted to be original, and bam, now they are not unique.

And the genres range as well. Some of these are entirely humor based, some are going for creepy and weird, some are going for horror, and others? Well, others are just down right disgusting.

And arguably, some people would consider some of these “hot”.

I am talking super disgusting. I am talking I had to pause it after a short and come back to finish the movie an hour later. I just didn’t expect some things to happen. Some people with fucked up imaginations out there is all I really have to say about that.

I definitely think 26 is too many shorts in one package to get a real good feeling about this movie. Because they range so dramatically, you might have a dramatic thriller piece, followed by something completely absurd, followed by a slasher, and it can be exhausting.

However, on the flippy side, because of it is format, it is one of the best movie types ever to let you take breaks if you feel like it and come back days later and not feel like you will forget things. You could watch one a day and you will still get the same basic experience. So that is cool.

I will note that going into it, I didn’t know so much of it would go for strange/humor, I thought this would be a straight horror film like V/H/S. So at least that differentiates it from that series as well. Overall, it is an average film with a bold concept. And also very fucking weird. This is the type of film that may be more enjoyable in a group, with everyone trying to guess what the word theme may be.

No, don’t worry. This isn’t another dang review about another movie about doppelgangers. But if you want to see those check out The Double, Enemy, or The One I Love.

No The Imposter is something much more sinister, much more creepier, because The Imposter is real. That’s what a documentary is, folks.

This is a story about the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay, a 13 year old boy from San Antonio, Texas. This was in 1994, so you probably didn’t hear about it. Which is why you also might not have heard about it 3 years later when he was reportedly found alive in Spain. Kind of messed up and traumatic, but alive.

However, no one could have guessed at the time that it was actually Frédéric Bourdin, a 22 year old French man.

Typical French smug look on his face too.

What can drive a family to think that a complete stranger is actually their missing son? Especially when traits such as eye color, accent, and body type are all different. That is what this documentary strives to answer.

The documentary uses some actual footage from the 1990s, both in terms of hand held cameras from VHS tapes and news footage about the incident. But for the most part footage and narration comes from two ways. From Bourdin himself, and from the family members of Nicholas who are telling their versions of the events of that story.

They also recreated some scenes to add a sense of tension to it all, to recreate the initial call in to police and all of that. And man. EVERYTHING IS SO INTENSE. I was captivated throughout the documentary, I wanted to absorb all of the information. The music they used and the scenes created such an eerie vibe that I was able to label this a Thriller and a Documentary.

Who is to say that documentaries cannot make you scared? Not like someone is going to come out and get you. But at the lengths a person, a real person, might go to in order to get away.

I don’t want to talk more about it, because it is such a unique discovery and journey that the film takes you on. Definitely one that came out of nowhere for me and is highly recommended.

Judging movies by their title is a time honored tradition.

Like All Cheerleaders Die. K. This sounds like a slasher horror. Because it is going for girls, probably has a lot of naked girls, probably a B grade film, and probably excessively gore-y for whatever reason.

Well, turns out I was completely wrong about this movie. Almost every single aspect that I could derive from the title. Still a horror, just not a slasher. High quality feeling film with only some meh special effects. Not really super gore-y. Kind of amusing at points, but no where near the end. And only a little bit of eye candy.

So basically I was wrong. Dead cheerleader wrong.

Bet you I can’t go through this whole review without a Heroes reference.

Everyone liked Alexis (Felisha Cooper). She was going into the summer of her senior year, ready to take over the cheerleading squad and lead them to victory. But while performing a hard stunt for Maddy’s (Caitlin Stasey) video project, she smacks hard to the ground on the head. And you know. Dies.

This tears everyone up, but not everyone equally. Aka, Tracy (Brooke Butler) is now dating Terry (Tom Williamson). Terry apparently isn’t missing Alexis too much, because they were hardcore dating too. And Tracy was Alexis’ best friend! So Maddy wants to get back at them, because she used to be friends with Alexis a long time ago, and really hates Terry. Her plan is to join the cheerleading squad, destroy it from within, and also ruin Terry’s life while she can.

But that might not be the main plot of the film. Jealousy can be a serious thing, on all accounts. So when Maddy, Tracy, and two other girls (Amanda Grace Cooper, Reanin Johannink) are killed from a traffic accident caused by Terry, shit starts toget serious. Especially when Maddy’s ex girlfriend, Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) is close by when it happens. Since she practices paganism, she attempts to bring them back, and well. It works. Just, they are different now. They are undead. And things are about to get a lot more hectic.

Also featuring more dudes as football dudes. Leigh Parker, Chris Petrovski, Nicholas S. Morrison, and Jordan Wilson.

Who knew Geology could be used for such diabolical purposes?

As I already mentioned, thus spoiling the end of my review, I definitely found this to be a lot better than I thought based on title alone. It has its issues, most movies do. But here is what it had going for it:

An original plot. Interesting characters. Multiple important plot lines. A villain who seemed like a huge dick, but also someone anyone could imagine. Funny at times. Not low budget and not going the easy way out at any point. And characters I could actually care about.

Go figure. I don’t have a lot to say after the fact either. I do hope they try to do more of these and continue the story line. I think the end left that open, or it could have just been their way of saying shit is still weird.

A pretty decent and newer film, perfect for the Halloween season. Watch the cheerleaders, save the world. (Fuck! So close!)

I have wrote before about the secret feud that must exist between Zach Braff and Josh Radnor. They both were the stars of long running comedy sitcoms that were ingrained in pop culture. They also both directed movies, Braff had Garden State and Radnor had HappyThankYouMorePlease. Both, very indie drama/comedies.

But then Mr. Radnor changed the rules. No longer willing to just copy Mr. Braff, he went and directed a second movie called Liberal Arts. Not only that, but the very indie movie dealt with sex. That is a huge game changer.

So Braff looked at Radnor, knowing he had to direct another movie to get back at Radnor’s arrogance by jumping the line. He decided to direct and write a film called Wish I Was Here, trying to out indie the latest indie movie of Radnor. Braff just had to use the power of Kickstarter to do it. On plot alone, he might have done it too. Braff was attempting the very rare, and usually very good, indie family road trip movie.

With at least one Turkleton by his side.

Now, this is a story all about how Aidan Bloom’s (Zach Braff) life got flipped-turned upside down. Hmm, not entirely true. One could argue it happened after his mom died and left a sizable sum of money to his brother (Josh Gad) who seems to be wasting it all. One could say it has been bad for the last couple years, as he is a struggling actor, unable to find work in LA, living in a shitty home. His wife, Sarah (Kate Hudson), is working at a shitty job with annoying coworkers and is taking out her frustrations on her husband who isn’t providing income.

But at least his kids (Joey King, Pierce Gagnon) are going to a good school. They are in a private Jewish school, thanks to funding from his father (Mandy Patinkin). But even that is about to change. Looks like his cancer is back, and he wants to use the rest of his savings for a risky procedure to maybe get rid of the cancer for good. Maybe.

Well, Aidan didn’t have a good life in public school, so agrees to home school his kids. But does he know how to teach them? They are quite different, and he wasn’t the smartest in school either. But with so much in his life going sour, Aidan really doesn’t even know what to do. According to the Rabbis he is failing, that is for sure.

Also featuring Braff’s friends. You already knew Donald Faison was in here, but what about his Garden State buddies, Jim Parsons and Michael Weston? Natalie Portman was presumably busy.

Braff literally carried around his Kickstarter money until the film was finished. Every last scene.

I know a lot of people were disappointed with this film, calling it “Not Garden State” but this film wasn’t going for Garden State at all. Garden State was about depression, this film just has depressing subject matter. I was completely wrong with the genre though, the trailers made it seem like a road trip movie, and there is some traveling, but most of it takes place around LA.

It is about a man trying to cope with his existence, with what his family expects of him, with what others expect of him, and whether or not he truly is the reason that everything in his life is falling apart.

The film also has a strong indie feel, especially when Braff gets caught up in his imagination (not like JD). But it doesn’t feel so indie that I am pissed off by the end, wondering what the entire movie was about. That’s an indie stereotype. This film sort of celebrates the bizarre of every day ordinary life and of raising a family. And it does a decent job at the story it wants to convey.

Funny and serious, Wish I Was Here was better than I thought it would be, and certainly better than Liberal Arts, which I have to compare it to. Just arguably both of these gents had better first films than their second films.

What if I told you that sometimes movies are called different things in different countries. That wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest. You knew that.

After all, it is Gojira in Japan, and Godzilla in America. “Hey that doesn’t count, that is just another different language!”

Alright fucker. How about Frozen? We got the clever/unique title, while countries in Europe got stuck with the generic The Snow Queen, which the movie is “based upon” (aka, both have a woman with ice powers and…?). “Well, that one changed its name to appeal to different cultures where The Snow Queen story originated, to get more money!” Okay. Well, I don’t blame them for that I guess. I do blame them for saying it has anything to do with The Snow Queen, but I digress.

That leaves us with the movie for the day, What If. No question mark. It’s original title in Ireland/Canada was The F Word, and for whatever reason that title was found to be too risque or something for American audiences, so we get a much more romantic comedy-esque name to maybe get the ladies in? I don’t know. It is fucking stupid. If I hear it was the MPAA’s fault for alluding to maybe the word Fuck, I will be angry though.

See, there isn’t even any fucking in this scene. That would be impossible for them in their positions.

Relationships are hard. Just ask Wallace (Daniel Radcliff), who is finally getting over his ex girlfriend Megan after like, 3 years. So he is going to Allan’s (Adam Driver) party, his best friend. That is where he meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan), Allan’s cousin. They have some intense conversations, both of them a bit awkward, but it is nice.

Also, Chantry has a long term boyfriend of course, Ben (Rafe Spall), which throws Wallace off guard. Normally that information is given earlier in a conversation. But he is fine with being friends. She believes a man and a woman can be friends with no hidden motives. And you know what? Wallace is fine with that too. Fuck it.

Basically, this is a retelling of The Wedding Singer. Chantry even has a sister (Megan Park) interested in Wallace. Wallace is heartbroken after a long relationship ended. Chantry things she is in a relationship forever, but one that might start having issues. And there is at least one wedding occurring, when Allan hits it off hard with Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis).

It just has a lot less music and singing and no Broadway musical adaption yet. I say yet, because we all know Mr. Radcliffe loves Broadway.

He also loves diners, if you look at every poster for this movie.

This isn’t your grandmothers romantic comedy. This is a a romantic comedy for a more realistic newly mature movie watching crowd. Wait. It is only PG-13? Hmm. I figured it was R, but now looking back, I guess no real cursing or other adult stuff happened.

I say realistic, but in the end, this is similar to a lot of other romantic comedies, just with slightly different approaches. After all, the F word in questions ends up either being “Friendship” or “Friendzone” depending on how you look at the movie. Friendzone is a rather ugly word now, because it is pretty sexist in most cases, and used by people who think that being nice to the sex they are attracted to should eventually lead to a relationship and of course sex. Because not every relationship starts with friendship, a lot start romantically first. Unless its the movies.

So should I punish the movie for going the technically same cliche route of friendship with the intention of friendship leading to something more? Or should I ignore it and enjoy the acting, the chemistry, the comedy, and the ridiculousness of it all?

I like the ridiculousness route. Woo romcoms! Woo What If! A bit of it seemed forced, but I loved how uncomfortable everyone acted when they were forced into slightly romantic situations. I literally live off of awkwardness, and this movie may have extended my life at least 4 days.

Fury. Finally. I have said a few times I wanted more TV shows and movies based around basic human emotions. We had Glee, and we had Rage? What about Fear? What about Sorrow? And so now we get Fury.

In all honesty, I feel like it has been a good while since I have seen a really good war movie. Too many things focused on Iraq and Afghanistan that are all over the place in terms of quality. I guess I enjoyed Lone Survivor, but that wasn’t a super long epic war movie, a la Saving Private Ryan.

I mean, the last thing we got was The Monuments Men, and everyone know how great that ended up being. Just saying, a lot of pressure on Fury, and they have to start with an uphill battle, because they put Shia LaBeouf in it.

There he is, hiding in the back, behind that mustache.

War is hard. Just ask the former assistant driver of the Fury tank. Well, you’d be able to if his face wasn’t blown off. That sucks. They liked him. He has been with them for years. Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt) promised his team that he would always keep them safe and he has finally broken his word. It was only a matter of time. Sure, it is now April fucking 1945, the war almost over. But the Germans keep fighting back, despite the allied forces on their doorstep in their country.

So now they are a man down, but only temporarily. Their replacement is the young Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman). Eight weeks into the army, hardly a man, he is going to have to learn to grow up and quick. Especially with a bunch of Germans surrounding them, and four pissed off Americans sharing a cramped space with him. Like other assistant driver/gunner Gordo (Michael Pena), main gun shooter guy Bible (LaBeouf), and big missile loader crazy man Coon-Ass (Jon Bernthal).

Oh and hey. The Germans have better tanks. Better defended, better missiles. And they aren’t as spread out. And their equipment isn’t outdated. So yeah. The tank, Fury, has a lot going against it. And now they got a kid who hasn’t even killed a man. Basically a death wish keeping him around.

But war is hard and surviving it is even harder.

And don’t worry, there are other tanks. And other soldiers. Some of which are acted by Jim Parrack, Kevin Vance, and Brad William Henke. For diversity sake.

But Americans have some lasers on their tanks, so it should all even out in the long run.

Not many war films glorify war, and this one is not an exception. In fact, so few war films glorify war that it seems silly that I even have to mention that. Should only mention it when a film actually does glorify war at this point.

But this one has exceptional acting talent behind it as well. From the bottom up. LaBeouf? Eh. He is better at pieces set in the past. I didn’t hate him by the end. Bernthal? Probably his best work. Pena? It is surprising how well of an actor he has been over the last few years, given his start. No difference here. Lerman? Not just a Percy Jackson looking kid anymore. He conveyed a huge range of emotions. Pitt? I’d watch Pitt watch paint dry for 2 hours and probably give that film 2 thumbs up. I’d watch him make tea and then refuse to drink it for five hours. Does he make bad movies? I mean, even Mr. and Mrs. Smith has some redeeming qualities.

This is an extremely violent film, as you would imagine based on title and plot. I personally only thought “Boom! Headshot!” once or twice throughout the whole film, despite the large number of them. They were just so shocking and gross.

The film isn’t just war torn countryside and fighting. There are periods of downtime, including one extremely long scene in a conquered German city. The type of scene that reminded me of something Quentin Tarantino would do. That could just be because of Pitt/Inglourious Basterds though.

I honestly went in expecting a movie that might have gotten a bit too anti-war preachy. One that didn’t give me the best acting. I don’t know what I was smoking. Fury is now one of my new homeboys.