Tag: Action

A Most Violent Year is one of those films I tried really hard to say before I made my best of 2014 list, because I had heard a lot of good things about it.

And uhh. That is all I can say about this movie. I mean, I might have gotten it confused with A Most Wanted Man, which became incredibly average despite also hearing great things about it. Shit, I hope this doesn’t go super average.

Super average would describe most of my dinners. Non-violent super average dinners.

There are 365 days in a year and if you killed 365 people in a year, that would be pretty fucking impressive. Like, totally psychopathic or insane, but impressive. That is not at all what this movie is about.

It is about Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), just your average business man. It is the early 1980’s and he is the owner of Standard Oil, a heating oil company in New York City. He has big plans for his business and is working on getting a new location for his plant, right on the river. This will give him access to all the oils, allowing him to get better prices and you know, make more money!

But his trucks are being robbed at gunpoint. People are hijacking his vehicles, taking the oil and costing him thousands each time. And he has no idea who is doing it. At the same time he is being hounded by his “friend” the District Attorney (David Oyelowo), investigating him and others for price fixing, tax evasion, and the normal business stuff. This bad press in the news, plus the dangerousness of being a driver is leading his business down a dark path. The bank doesn’t want to help him get his new place anymore! And…and…he might lose it all!

Plus his wife (Jessica Chastain) really wants him to go after the culprits hard. Maybe kill them all. But he doesn’t want to do that. That would be most violent.

So Abel has to go to his competitors one by one to find out who is fucking him over and threatening his family. All while his drivers (Elyes Gabel) start carrying guns in their cabs and his lawyer (Albert Brooks) has no idea on how to help him. Oy vey, what a year.

And he still has to come home to give foot rubs at the end of the day.

A Most Violent Year is a hard movie to describe. It is like a mob movie, but definitely doesn’t involve the mob to any large extent. The main character is hard to really wrap your head around. You know he is definitely not “clean” in the ongoings of the business, but as to what specifically he did in the past they never really see.

Given he is our protagonist, you just have to assume you should root for him and not against him, given the lack of history. He wants that place for his company? Then by golly, I hope he gets it!

I actually liked Jessica Chastain a lot in this movie, playing the shit out of the housewife role who totally can control her husband and know everything going on in his company. The kind of woman who has a plan for everything and knows how to get things done. Was very subtle and very nice.

It is also the kind of movie I think I can re visit. And by that, I wouldn’t mind a sequel. Just not a direct one. Maybe one set ten years later, in a much less violent year, to see how the choices made influenced their lives. I would totally watch that movie.

I don’t think I am ready for this Jelly.

When I first heard about Jupiter Ascending, I was a bit worried. It seemed too far out there, with questionable stars, and a questionable plot. But hey, summer blockbuster, whatever.

JUST KIDDING. It got switched from June to July. But in June, it got pushed back to FEBRURARY 2015. Whoa! That is intense. Blockbusters don’t exist in February. Shitty terrible CGI movies exist in February. This one is going to have a lot of CGI! Ahh!

Apparently it was to finish special effects. They were behind schedule. Right. More likely they moved it back for some terrible reason, like, no faith that it would make money and they just wanted to hide it. Not to mention their awkward Sundance story, they have everything working against them.

The real reason they moved it back was to not ruin Redmayne‘s chance at an acting Oscar.

Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) always thought she was going to do something with her life. But now she is a grown woman, still living with her mom and extended family in Chicago, technically illegal aliens from Russia. She scrubs toilets and dreams of the big life.

And then, aliens from not Earth are trying to kill her! Oh shit!

Here’s what you need to know. There is some space royalty out there. And the mother, the main ruler just died so her kids have inherited a lot of the universe. The oldest, Balem (Eddie Redmayne), the middle female, Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), and the youngest, Titus (Douglas Booth). They are humans, they have been alive for thousands of years, and they look young as fuck.

But now Balem has “control” over Earth (and Jupiter, I guess). And he wants Jupiter Jones, specifically, dead. And maybe the rest of the earth. Jupiter has no idea what is going on, just that aliens are real, Caine (Channing Tatum) has weird ears and keeps saving her, and shit’s crazy.

Also featuring Sean Bean, lizard men soldiers, crazy visuals, pew pew pews, bees, and more pew pew pews.

And the coolest (technically still slow) form of transportation sense the hover board.

Jupiter Ascending was weird. And I really can’t tell if that is a good weird or a bad weird.

Easy enough of a solution, let’s get my pros and cons on.

Pros: There is a unique story behind everything. Some of the special effects are really polished and amazing. Sean Bean is in it. Channing Tatum isn’t terrible. Mila Kunis isn’t terrible. The lizard dudes out of no where are pretty well made and bamf. Roller skating/gravity boots. Bureaucracy. And it is definitely more polished than a shitty January/February CGI movie release.

Cons: The entire romance plot feels forced. Some of the special effects are piss poor and terrible. The sound quality in some scenes make a few actors hard to understand (Bean, Redmayne, occasional lizardman). Entire movie feels rushed, like it was actually supposed to be thirty minutes longer. Like some executive said “Fuck this rescue scene. We know they will save em. Let’s just get the plot going!”

And then there is Eddie Redmayne. Every time he was on screen, my head was tilted just trying to get it. Everything about him is just so weird. His character has an awkawrd soft/whisper voice for most of the film, outside of the three or four times he yells completely out of nowhere. Also tons of quick cuts.

Ugh. But also the story was interesting and I cared about what happened.

There are a lot of things wrong with Jupiter Ascending. Acting decisions, editing, cuts, kind of lame ending. But also some really great action scenes, cool visuals, and interesting universe.

Fuck.

Fineeee. I will fucking write this review.

Sometimes it is hard to just get the passion or desire to write a review, even if it has been sitting blank on your draft board for weeks. Weeks! Sometimes the only decision you have made is the rating and pictures but no idea what to talk about or how short or long it will be.

But here we are. Taken 3. The film Liam Neeson said he wouldn’t do, I think, then they offered him like $20 million dollars, so here we are. Taken 3. The follow up to Taken 2, that was terrible, given the unique feel and interesting film that was Taken.

Okay sure, Taken might be bad now too. But it isn’t bad as Taken 2. And when good movies go bad and then get another bad sequel? It feels like the Men In Black series, but thankfully this one didn’t wait a decade for an even older action star.

If he gets any older he won’t be able to hold a gun straight.

Instead of being located half way around the world, Taken 3 is set in LA, California. You know, where they live. Bryan Mills (Neeson) is still divorced from his wife (Famke Janssen), and still has an awkward relationship with his daughter.

His daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who is college or high school right now. She definitely lives on her own or with her boyfriend. And she is pregnant. But it is almost her birthday so Bryan wants to surprise her with alcohol. Jokes on you, Bryan!

Anyways, ex-wife is having relationship problems with her husband (Dougray Scott), kind of wants Bryan back, so does Bryan. Next thing he knows, she is dead in his bed and the police are chasing after him for murder!

Something involving Russians (Sam Spruell), deals gone bad, blackmail, and money. No idea. This guy wasn’t in any other Taken movies, so it is even more unrelated than the other two. Also starring Forest Whitaker as a detective to be on the case, and find the “truth”.

The truth, like why is Bryan Mills smuggling a Panda out of China?

As you all know, I have begun a tirade against Luc Besson, and this movie is no different. Fuck everything he touches. I have never been so angry at a single person’s years of work, but there it is.

This might be the only Besson movie that doesn’t have a lot of events taking place in Europe. Instead we have a guy running around LA, getting chased by cops, destroying public property, killing “bad guys”, and doing a whole lot of crimes, just to clear his name. When he can JUST as easily have not run from the cops, and solved the whole thing much quicker.

We got a terrible plot, with terrible plot twists, and a whole lot LESS action than previous movies. At least before he was killing people who were bad guys doing bad things. Most of this movie is him avoiding the cops and fucking with them.

I think maybe three times he survived some sort of car crash. One time the car went off a cliff and exploded, out of nowhere, it was ridiculous. That is like a bad 80’s action movie. I mentioned confusion as to where his daughter went to school, because everything seemed to imply college, but when we got there it was clearly a fucking high school. Lockers and all.

And then it ends with the stupidest plane / runway scene I have ever seen. Completely ridiculous. More ridiculous than the ten minute runway in Fast Six.

I am glad this came out the first week of January, because films must be all uphill from here.

Normally when movies get pushed back, I wonder and worry. Sure, sometimes it is as simple as not being able to compete with a bigger movie coming out that same day. Sometimes it is due to a production company not wanting to compete with its own product.

I have no idea why Kingsman: The Secret Service got moved from November 2014 to February 2015. February/January are generally deader months where a lot of shit goes, so it feels like the studio just didn’t think it would be good enough to make it. So they put it at the beginning of the year to hide it.

That is clearly what is going on with Jupiter Ascending, which got pushed out of Summer to February, which means they don’t think it will succeed as a blockbuster.

But this is Kingsman, and the trailer actually looked interesting. Damn it. WHY DID THEY MOVE IT?

I can only hold on to my butts so long in anticipation!

Back in the day, Great Britain decided it needed to protect the world. That is a bit of paraphrasing. Either way, they made a secret service, based on the Knights of the Round Table. Each soldier is incredibly well trained, combat, spy gadgets, code names, Gentleman as FUCK, and lives a thankless life as they can never let their existence be known.

Galahad (Colin Firth) didn’t notice a bomb one time, and one of the new recruits died saving his life. He wanted to help out his family, so he gave them a medallion with a number on it to call if he ever needed help.

Now, seventeen or so years later, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is in trouble. Sure, he is a smart lad (British terminology), but he has wasted his life living on the streets. His mom never got over his dad’s death and is now dating an alcoholic. He is involved with gangs. He runs from the cops!

And guess what, he needs help. Quite obviously, Galahad thinks he has what it takes. They need a new member as one of their own was slashed down by rich tech billionaire Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) and his assassin Gazelle (Sofia Boutella).

So you know, training, spy stuff, gadgets, a shit ton of action, and everyone talking super funny.

Also with Jack Davenport as Lancelot, Mark Strong as Merlin, Michael Caine as Arthur, Sophie Cookson as the female main lead/training rival, and Mark Hamill as a professor. I normally wouldn’t even bring him up, but I mean, come on. Mark Hamill.

“I came here to drink tea and give someone a good going over, and the Americans dumped all of my tea.”

Right before the movie started, I found out it was 129 minutes and thought it was way too long. Now that it finished, I found myself only wanting more.

Kingsman is based on a comic by Mark Millar, the same man who wrote Kick-Ass. Hey. Matthew Vaughn, the director, also did Kick-Ass! How quaint! Matthew Vaughn had to leave Days of Future Past to do this movie, and that is fantastic, because it made it so we got two pretty awesome movies instead of maybe two terrible ones. I can’t believe how entertaining Kingsman ended up being. The action was high octane and firing on all cylinders, and the movie built a bigger body count than you would probably expect.

Samuel L. Jackson was in it, and of course he kicked ass as the villain. He had so much personality, I was almost rooting for him by the end. Colin Firth is usually fantastic when he isn’t in a super serious role as well, and I wonder if he backed out of Paddington to build up his R-Rating persona. Another movie with questionable things going on.

I mean. Honestly, the only thing I found super disappointing, was some really awkward stuff that happened at the end. It just felt so forced and childish. It felt like a 13 year old wrote the last minute, almost. It will be very off-putting to people, even if they enjoy it.

Kingsman may be truly the first very entertaining movie of 2015, and it helped kick start my hope for some unique things to come through the pipeline this year.

Left Behind is a serious of movies books that I remember hearing about when I was a kid. They were about The Rapture from the Christian Bible, where those who were judged holy enough got to go to Heaven, and the rest of the yokels on Earth had 7 years of destruction, sadness, whatever, before…I dunno, the apocalypse or something.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, one would imagine. At that point everyone would realize that Jesus was real, and start being super super religious and good. I couldn’t imagine any amount of chaos after like, a week, because people would generally prefer Heaven to Hell.

But it was a successful franchise, it had at least ten books and a couple movies that people enjoyed enough to enter our American conscious. And this…this is about the same thing? Maybe a reboot of some sort? Maybe a one off? Who knows.

Get on the phone and tell me all the information!

The Steele family is going through hard times. The dad, Rayford (Nick Cage), is a pilot and away from a home a lot because of it. A year ago, his wife found Jesus and got super awkward with the rest of her family. The daughter, Chloe (Nicky Whelan) is away from college and not home much. She is now! But her dad had a last minute flight thing, so she figured she’d see him in the airport before going home.

And look at that. He is fucking a flight attendant (Cassi Thomson). He even lied about the flight being last minute as he got concert tickets weeks ago for a concert in their location! He is avoiding the family. Must be from the weird mom.

Anyways, she also meets Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), a TV correspondent of something. They hit it off too, and he will spy on her dad when she goes home. OMG RAPTURE. Hey, all the kids are missing and super religious people. Stuff starts to crash, people loot, people freak out.

But more importantly, people take a very very long time to figure out what is going on.

Long enough for a quick fly and fuck though.

I didn’t find out til after watching the film, but not only is this is a reboot of the franchise, but it was done by the same people who did the other Left Behind movies. So hey, they are trying. I guess. At least someone is famous in it!

And let’s talk about how annoying this movie was. Very. First of all, it took too long for the characters on the screen to figure out what was happening. Even the strongest of Atheists would figure it out in a couple of minutes. Honestly. If things like that start to happen, things that are magical in nature, the human being will go to the explanation that can cause everything the simplest way. All of your Christian friends and kids missing kind of feels like a dead give away. They turned the movie into a lot of scene changes whenever someone would exclaim they figure it out, just for them to come back and be wrong. It was totally annoying.

Follow up, the rapture wouldn’t be that bad. After like, a day or two, people would stop looting and doing terrible shit. You know why? Because then there would be a proven God. At that point they know that if they sin they go to Hell, and they have seven years of pious ness or whatever before the final shit goes down. The bad people would be quickly wiped out and hey, everyone would be too scared to do anything outside of the Bible and it would be peaceful.

That is just general thoughts. The second one not really based on this movie, but maybe based on future ones. Either way. Acting in this one was shit, drama was stupid, and the plot felt like a lot of filler. Pass.

Time to start a movie with some controversy. Maybe two levels!

First of all, I remember when the book American Sniper came out. I remember a lot of people getting it and loving it too. Biography of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in military or something like that. I also remember all the controversy after that about all the lies in the book. He lied about several things, Jesse Ventura even won a lawsuit about the lies in the book, and the fact that he lied about seemingly random things, brings the whole truthfulness of the book into question.

How much of it is exaggerated? Apparently there isn’t even a stat of confirmed kills, so that part might have no merit either. Basically, a curve ball into the biography thing if it is based on a fictional book.

Second controversy? Oscars. American Sniper got nominated for a lot of awards and people are angry for some reason. Mostly people clamoring for diversity. Or that the Academy is old pro-war people. I dunno. I think it was mostly people who hadn’t seen the movie. Like me, until now.

Guns, America, Yee-haw, and patriotism!

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) came from humble beginnings. Texas. His dad told him he needed to help and protect others. He was a cowboy in the rodeo, but thought about going into a more noble career after seeing war news on TV. No, not 9/11. Some 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in Africa.

He became a Navy SEAL, which lead to him becoming a sniper, and he went off to fight some wars. Namely, four separate tours of duty, which I have been told is quite a lot. He had a few important missions there and had to kill a lot of people, but he also saved lives. And some he did not.

Hey, and between these, he also met his future wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), who he had kids with. Being away a lot really caused a strain on the family, but at least he was doing something America.

Also with some other bros, like Kyle Gallner, Sam Jaeger, Luke Grimes, and Jake McDorman.

And here is the now infamous fake baby scene!

Since them movie is based on a book based on lies, it is probably okay not calling this a biography. Right? Yeah, if we just examine this as a work of fiction, it becomes easier to judge and biases can be ignored.

Nice and simple. On its own, it is actually a pretty good war movie. It has the training, the motive, the childhood story. We have several different war plot lines with some moral ambiguity. It isn’t just about “getting the brown people!” and never even gets close to implying that. It examines PTSD and ways to work through it. It covers the whole spectrum.

I didn’t get super emotional near the end, especially since I knew kind of how it was going to end, but I can see how it tear jerks.

Cooper still looks like himself, but like, a fatter, slightly more buff version. He also has a killer Texan accent. I can say he definitely acts really well in this movie. I can understand why he is considered for Best Actor, but he has no chance of winning. At least three or four people I can think of who acted better, unfortunately only a couple of them also got nominated for that category.

Despite the controversy, despite the lies, Clint Eastwood makes a pretty good modern war movie with a character people might find relatable, that examines a lot of issues with war. It also isn’t inherently pro or anti war. Just pro soldier. That is a fine enough message.

Ding dong the mother fucking witch is dead. That is how I am starting to feel about this franchise. In college, I wanted to do a semester abroad in New Zealand because it is a beautiful country, but now I think I have seen enough of it.

Everyone knows the Lord of the Rings are incredible, so I won’t mention them. I was really excited with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, it was a bit longer, more CGI, but hey, let’s return to Middle Earth.

I completely hated The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug. It was far too long, and it was a completely filler movie. I mean. FUCK. It didn’t end with the Death of Smaug. The obvious end point at least. It was just a long tease that made me bored and tired.

So, here we are, at The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. Two things of note come up with the last part. First off, I really hate the title. I booed so hard and long once they announced the title change. It was originally The Hobbit: There and Back Again, a title taken from the book of his journey. Great title. This one is as lame as The Desolation Of Smaug (given that Smaug doesn’t get desolated).

Two, this one is going to be a lot more exciting than the second film. That much is certain. It is pretty easy to do when you leave like one cool aspect into the second film and delay the rest for the ending. The third film gives the end of the dragon and the big battle, so it will be super awesome. But at what cost? A shitty second movie. Given the connectedness of these films, it is important to look at them individually and as parts of a whole. So I don’t know if I can really enjoy this movie as much knowing that it was essentially delayed a year because the movies were broken up from two films into three films.

I think I am allowed to be a little biased and peeved going into this film, as I believe the second movie was 160 minutes of my life wasted.

But this one has tiny men on rams! Yay rams!

Okay so. Battle of Five Armies. Before that, we got a Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) to kill. And then they do that. Moving onnn.

Humans are all pissed off because their water town is destroyed. They have lost everything, their wealth, their homes. They need a place to go. Making Bard (Luke Evans) their de facto leader, they decide that they kind of want to head to the near by Dwarven stronghold for safety. And to get some of that gold that was promised to them.

Speaking of people who want to go to the stronghold, the wood elves are dicking around too. Apparently there is some priceless treasure in there that they want back. And that is all. A bunch of the elves are played by these people (Lee Pace, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom). Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett are elves too, but they are in another part of the story. I don’t really understand what they are doing with Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen, so I won’t talk about it.

Oh yeah. Dwarves. Like Thorin (Richard Armitage). He is now a real King because he has a real Castle, but he is after his special stone and is kind of going mad. Mad enough to go to war with the humans and the wood elves. But also, the orcs that no one know are coming. And Bilbo (Martin Freeman) is kind of just hanging around.

There are also non Dwarven actors, like Ryan Gage and Stephen Fry. But also all those Dwarves? I still don’t feel like tagging most of them. Just Billy Connolly, Aidan Turner, and Dean O’Gorman. I think I am done talking about the plot. And actors.

BUT WHO IS THE FIFTH ARMY?

Orlando – “I heard you got a role in another franchise. Lucky. This one is finally owner.”
Luke – “Dude, no one is going to watch the Monster Avengers movies.”

Yeahhh, dead dragon and big army fights!

And some of that was really cool. Well, the dragon death felt kind of rushed and awkward. Like, somehow, the cartoon version of The Hobbit had a more intense dragon death scene than this movie. It kind of just happened, exactly as one would expect too. So that was actually disappointing. Just that it ended so quick and easy, they could have made the death way more awesome and also, you know…put it in the fucking second movie?

Now the army fight was pretty bamf. So that is good. Entertaining fight scenes, although it was hard to follow just how many humans were actually in the war and how the battle grounds were laid out. You just kind of had to go with it and accept it, although I doubt it was planned out. Martin Freeman still made a good Bilbo, so that was good. But of course, the focus wasn’t really on him this whole movie, despite the title. He gets super pushed to the side.

The love story is not as bad as the second one I guess, because of all the fighting going on during it.

And as I said above, I have no idea what the point of the necromancer story line was. Like, they resolved it I guess, but it was totally unexplained and felt incredibly pointless. It was really shitty.

Overall, that makes this movie just okay. Not the weakest of the series, maybe the best. Hard to say. None of these match the LOTR quality and I don’t think that was their goal. But I can’t help but feel the entire franchise was a let down. I haven’t bought any of them, because I know I want to wait for the cool extended package with all of them bundled. But also, will I actually watch any of these again? Probably not. I will probably watch the cartoon Hobbit more.

I am not going to get into the same old tirade of how I randomly picked this movie on a whim on Netflix. Mostly because I just gave you all that information in one sentence. Boom. Roasted.

No. Instead I want to talk about how surprising it is that I never heard about this movie Stretch, given its mostly big list of famous actors. This shouldn’t be some straight to DVD shitflick you find in the nonexistent $3 Wal-Mart DVD bins.

Well, Stretch was supposed to come out in March of this year, full on theatrical release, trailers, everything. But Universal Pictures decided to fuck that release date and kind of not want to do it anymore. So the director was able to look for other people to release it and nothing happened. So it wen’t back to Universal who decided to release it in “creative ways”. So early October it hit iTunes and Amazon, mid October it hit VOD services, and then onto Netflix, where of course, I first stumbled upon it, in order to give you this review.

I am not putting a gun to your head to see it, I just wanted to review it, jeez.

Let’s talk about Stretch (Patrick Wilson). He is a limo driver and yes that is his official name. Stretch wants to be an actor, why else would he live in LA? But life is going bad, and he blames it all on Candace (Brooklyn Decker) for breaking his heart after a year of dating. They met on a car crash, sure, he was still a limo driver then. Apparently she wanted more. He just wanted to gamble and do cocaine. But he is better now. He is going to turn his life around. Or else!

Because he also still owes gambling debts, and the piper is calling. He needs $6,000 by tonight, but life doesn’t just ever really hand him opportunities. He can’t even get acting gigs, after all.

Maybe if he just does his job really really really well, like Karl (Ed Helms) did. The best limo driver ever. Maybe he can get some high powered actors who will tip like crazy?

Well, luck is about to be on his side. An eccentric rich person! He just has to comply with all his demands, while his entire life is crumbling around him. Joy.

But who plays the eccentric rich person? Who?! Well, maybe it is one of these people: James Badge Dale, David Hasselhoff, Randy Couture, Chris Pine, Jason Mantzoukas, Norman Reedus, or Ray Liotta. Or maybe it is a woman, like Jessica Alba. Women can be eccentric to you know!

(Yes, all of those people are in this movie).

We will never be able to see a COCK like this on the big screen.

Holy poop in a limo (not a spoiler). Stretch was far more entertaining and interesting than I gave it credit for. I mean, straight to Netflix movie? Who gives a crap! Stretch is full of intense scenes, funny moments, darkly funny moments, and kind of action heavy. A lot went into this movie and I found it really hard to look away.

And the best part is, because it is so widely available right off the bat, I can recommend it to people. Stretch might finally be my next Flypaper. Flypaper was a completely unknown movie, with some people I recognized in it, that I figured would suck. And hey, I liked it a lot. It is my favorite reason for watching probably bad movies. It is all about finding those that rise above their cover and actually present something worthwhile to watch, hopefully multiple times.

Maybe it is a bit disconcerting that I can now only think of two titles that really fit the build, but eh, fuck you for thinking about numbers that I brought up.

Stretch was highly entertaining and way more unique despite what may seem from its premise. Patrick Wilson carried the movie through his narration and humorous acting. Sure, parts of the ending you can see come from miles away, and that leads to some weaker moments. But I think this limo ride is totally worth it.

Rawr Dracula! Vampires! So hot right now, of course we need to revisit the main man behind the bat, the one, the only, Vlad.

Dracula Untold (I promise I won’t get into how much I hate “this is the real story” nonsense for fictional stories that keep happening, I swear) wants to talk about how one man came to be the Dracula that people fear today. A real vampire. Not a sparkly boring person. Not a bunch of kids in private school. Just a guy who has standard vampire powers and standard vampire weaknesses.

But before we get into that, in case you didn’t know, this is becoming a franchise. Not just vampires. But all the classic Universal monsters. It was originally starting with a 2016 remake of The Mummy, then Wolfman, then eventually a Frankenstein thing, but they tacked this one on too. They are going to bring all the monsters into a movie and have them fight other monsters I guess. And it might fail terribly. And yes, it is a lot like Avengers. But I mean, it might be cool, as long as these movies are good, right?

Well, some bad ass armor could help, but why doesn’t it glow and shimmer?

This movie isn’t set in the modern day. I already told you it is about Vlad The Impaler (Luke Evans), the real inspiration for Dracula. Not that Vlad in real life was a vampire, it looks like Bram just took his name and hierarchy and ran with it.

Either way, Mr. The Impaler got his name for being a bad ass. He was recruited at a young age in the army and killed killed killed. Now he is a Prince of his own area, Transylvania, and wants to live life in peace. There is also a local vampire in a cave nearby, but ignore him. Either way, some Turks come knocking on his door, asking for the normal payment. But because some of their scouts were found dead, they assumed the Transylvanians came out and killed them. Now they payment is some cash and 1,000 boys to fill their armies. What! No!

So he goes to Mehmed the Conqueror (Dominic Cooper), the Turk leader to appeal to his better nature. Well, he ain’t having it, even when he offers up himself instead of the boys. Now they want 1001 boys, with the additional one being his son, Ingeras the Young (Art Parkinson).

Well, shit. What’s an Impaler going to do. Sell his soul to the devil for temporary vampire powers to defeat an entire army? Yeah. Thank goodness he knows where Master Vampire the Vampire (Charles Dance) is to get his powers on. As long as he doesn’t drink blood in 3 days, they will be temporary. If not, well, full on vampire.

He also should keep it secret. Very Catholic lands here. They don’t like Vampires. Maybe his lady, Mirena the Woman (Sarah Gadon) will find some parts of it interesting though.

Also featuring Diarmaid Murtagh as Dumitru the Untitled.

Shit, they also got Patsey from Holy Grail in here?

This might be one of those movies that would be better not seeing the trailer? That is my guess. If I didn’t see literally every cool thing a dozen times from trailers, I would have enjoyed the movie more. But Dracula didn’t do anything cooler than those few scenes. Namely the bat attack related scenes.

Other than that, it is mostly a poorly acted period movie. We got accents, we got swords, horses, chivalry and more. And just a lot of bad overly dramatic acting.

And if that is what you want in your “NO THIS IS THE TRUE STORY” films, then you might actually love it.

Unfortunately, no matter what happened with this movie, we were getting the next two anyways. Universal is going to make this Monster Avengers thing happen, damn it. Maybe the final outcome will be cool. Maybe the next movies will be good. But this is not the Iron Man of the Monsters universe, unfortunately.

Ugh. So here we go.

Brief recap of the series from my POV. Hunger Games – Too much training, not enough games. Too much shaky cam, not enough actual action. It is okay. 2 out of 4. Catching Fire – Figured the plot would be contrived and forced to be similar, but it wasn’t. A much better movie, less shaky cam, better acting. 3 out of 4.

So that is some of my biases coming in to this movie. Or should I call it half a movie? After all, The Hunger Games Mockingjay, the final book, was split in half for movie sake. Oh joy. Just like Twilight. Just like Harry Potter. I am sure Divergent will split the final book into three parts. Hell, this is becoming so annoying, The Maze Runner got praise for saying it wouldn’t split up any of the books! Yay!

It should be noted, I really really really fucking hate this. It is just a franchise milking more money before it becomes irrelevant. If they can fit the other X books into one movie, they can do it for the final one too. And the first of the two always ends up being weaker. It was the worst Twilight film, and a more boring Harry Potter. That is because it is all set up for the final more exciting part, and usually bullshit.

But at least Harry Potter had the decency to release the films within a year of each other, about 7 months apart. Part 2 of Mockingjay won’t come out until next November, a whole year later, making it seem like another complete movie and not a continuation.

I guess I am mostly mad because for a movie, I want a complete story and not just crappy tv show cliffhangers. Catching Fire ended on a crappy TV show cliff hanger, and this one will give me only part of a story and make me wait a whole year to see the second half. That is abusing the part 1 and part 2 system and is malarkey. The only reason to wait that amount of time is to make more money, and unfortunately it will make it too.

Rough plans for their new conference center to discuss ways to make money once this franchise is done.

For those that aren’t in the know, Catching Fire ended with The 75th Hunger Games ending prematurely. Shit broke, lot of chaos and anarchy, people got left behind, and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself in the once thought destroyed District 13. Looks like they have had a rebel group in here for some time. And so many people are a part of it!

Like, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman)! And Gale (Liam Hemsworth)! And Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) and Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks)! Although their involvement may have been less than voluntary.

Katniss has been brought here for one main reason. To help lead a revolution to take down the capital, to unite the districts as one, and to be the face of PR and propaganda. However, when they rescued her, they notably left a few people behind, including Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and a couple other tributes. She doesn’t want to get involved in this war, she just wants to save Peeta. But she gets sucked into it anyway once she finds out that all of District 12 was basically destroyed.

And that’s that! Let the PR campaign begin! Yay warring governments,even if the District 13 President (Julianne Moore) is kind of boring.

Also featuring a whole lot of other people of course. Most returning. Like Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci, Sam Claflin, Jeffrey Wright and Willow Shields. But there is also Mahershala Ali and Natalie Dormer guys. Don’t. Forget. About. Them.

They asked the extras who wants to be Jennifer’s BFF.

I don’t want to sound like a self fulfilling prophesier, but…

I think Mockingjay Part 1 is easily the worst film in the series. And the good news is I gave the recap on top of the other two, so I don’t have to explain their advantages, just talk about this film! The good news is that this film is only 2 hours long, not 140 minutes like the last two. It makes sense, as it is only half of a book anyways. And another good aspect of this movie is that it actually tells a complete story, more or less. We have goals at the beginning of the movie, and by the end, those goals are accomplished in a few ways. They just create a couple more issues and lead up to a bigger and more intense thing.

My issues with the film still relate to the parts though, I guess. Despite its shorter run time, this felt like 30-45 minutes of plot spread out over 2 hours. Everything felt slow, much slower than normal. I can only watch so much angst.

In additional, I cringed quite a few times at lines and actions of characters. They felt so unbelievable or unrealistic given the circumstances that I had to roll my eyes. I found it had at times to really get lost in the movie and allow time to go by easily.

It is still not a terrible film or anything, I just think it didn’t get anywhere close to its full potential. Oh well, we will see how I feel a year from now when I can finally get the end to the story.