Tag: Cate Blanchett

Alright, fine. Disney is going full money grab. Disney Princess line is a success. Frozen has made multiple billions from sales and merchandise. They have bought Marvel and Star Wars. They want all the money on the planet, that is the only way to describe them right now.

Because if they keep making live action movies of their animated classics, they get to print even more stacks of cash out, keep up any copyrights they have (totally researched argument, this could be a false statement), and re design the character as see fit. After all, most of the early princesses are pretty passive people and terrible role models for women. They can make all of these women stronger independent ladies. They can make the movies more exciting or just tell a better story.

The first attempt was Maleficent, which I thought was terrible. The changes they made (all of it) were terrible, and instead of getting a bamf villain, we got a misunderstood fairy who spent a third of the movie just watching a girl grow up. We are getting Beauty and the Beast which I already have issues with casting wise, but I will tease and not talk about it until that review comes out in 2016 or whenever.

So now we have Cinderella, which for the most part, looks to be the exact same story. Maybe some more details, but exactly the same story with all of the same songs. Wait, what, no songs?

We are just getting fancy dancing? WHO WILL SERENADE ME?

Ah little Ella (Lily James). Living on her slightly big house with servants and shit. A loving family. Her dad (Ben Chaplin) is a merchant w ho goes on trips a lot, leaving her with just her mother. Did I say mother? Just kidding. She died. She told her to always be good and nice to people, because that was her gift.

Eventually the dad was feeling a bit lonely and he also wanted to be nice. So he heard about a lady who needed help, who was also now a Widow with two daughters. He wanted to marry her and move them in so that Ella would have friends and a family again.

Hah. Just kidding. New mother is a bitch (Cate Blanchett). New sisters are whiny bitches (Sophie McShera, Holliday Grainger). And of course her dad kicks the bucket too while he is out on a trip. Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

So they are poor now. They have to let go all their workers leaving just poor old Ella to make the food, clean the dishes, and help her “family” have some sort of luxury. She is too gosh darned nice.

So when the local Prince (Richard Madden) is going to have a ball to find a wife before the King (Derek Jacobi) croaks. Of course Ella can’t go because of bitches. Then we have a fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Carter), transformations, glass slippers, running, big search, and maybe some more shenanigans you don’t even know about.

Also with Stellan Skarsgård as a Duke and Nonso Anozie as a captain! Wait, no, his name is officially Captain it looks like.

Yep, none of them are blonde, therefore they are all evil.

It turns out, Cinderella doesn’t have a lot going on with its plot. I mean, in its basic form, girl is living with step family, doesn’t get to have fun. Some magic happens, she gets to have fun, and a Prince saves her and they live happily ever after. Not a whole lot going on for Ella. She just cleans a lot and is really nice. Fuck, so many times watching the movie, I was just thinking that she should just lock her fucking house doors when they go out to town and be done with it all.

But her niceness meant she just had to get shit on for years or months or however long the time line happened? Man. What a beta.

Okay, boring character aside. Boring plot aside. They don’t really change anything at all from a story sixty five years ago. They have a bit more back story and some more late game scheming, but literally nothing new and so it isn’t a surprise.

The only people who seem to have any amount of personality are the bad guys!

But despite all of it, is is indeed a pretty movie. Visually stunning, outside of one terrible CGI scene involving the pumpkin to carriage (it was gross and the humans looked fake during it), it was just an incredibly beautiful film. They really did great work in the costume and make up department, so you can expect an Oscar nomination there. Overall though, just too much filler and time wasting, especially at the ball.

Also, I feel uncomfortable with Skarsgård having a biggish role in a PG movie after seeing Nymphomaniac.

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.

For those with a lot of courage, you may have seen my review for How To Train Your Dragon. Why courage? because that review is old and weak and it certainly shows. It is weak because it was one of my first 100, which I made in like a month by adding words from my facebook status reviews that they came from. And because I tried really hard to avoid spoilers that basically didn’t exist.

Basically, parts near the end bugged me so much it lowered an overall fantastic movie to a meh movie. I still haven’t rewatched it for that reason.

But now we have the sequel, How To Train Your Dragon 2. This one perfectly allows for the crap that happened in the first to not happen again, because now we are based with the assumption that dragons are awesome, and we should train them.

Yeah. So you can stoically sit on top of them doing zero tricks. Good job, guy.

Set five years after the events of the first film, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is still a god amongst mortals in his small Viking town. Although technically not immortal, he does have cyborg parts now and a flame sword. So I mean, basically. He has his dragon, and now he is exploring more and more areas outside of the small town. After all, with dragons they now have the ability to explore, because Vikings rarely explored on their own.

While exploring he finds…dragon nappers! And giant sheets of unnatural ice through a fort. The nappers are lead by Erit (Kit Harington), who is collecting dragons with his crew for the great and powerful Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). A mad man who claims to be able to control all of the dragons and wants to use them to take over the world. Your typical desires from an awkwardly darker skin character than everyone else in an animated movie.

Oh no!

It becomes up to Hiccup to use his excellent cyborg dragon abilities, and excellent sized human heart, to save the day. Especially if he can use the help of the mysterious dragon lady (Cate Blanchett), who you already know everything about if you watched the trailers. But in case you didn’t, you are welcome.

A lot of returning characters, such as his dad (Gerard Butler), the smithy (Craig Ferguson), his lady friend (America Ferrera) and his other friends (Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller). And of course, dragons.

And that is how I met and trained your dragon master’s mother.

First off, after the success of the first movie, DreamWorks starting thinking long term about this as a new franchise. So they put into development this sequel and a third film, at the same time. Which is why there was a four year delay between 1 and 2 (heavy CGI movies take a long time if done right (meaning not Planes)), but only two years before the third movie comes out.

Speaking of DreamWorks, I have hated or thought meh towards their last six movies. That is insane. Literally haven’t had a winner since Kung Fu Panda 2. Thankfully, How To Train Your Dragon 2 turned that downward spiral around. And I don’t just mean clockwise to counterclockwise, I mean up. Like a daring dragon flying maneuver.

This sequel has a lot going on for it. The CGI is extraordinary, which is probably too fancy of a word to describe it, but it really is gorgeous. They spent a lot of time and detail on every character, every scene, every dragon. Speaking of detail, the backgrounds of scenes are rarely pointless. They either showcase great scenes, or have hidden jokes and tomfoolery going on in the background as other characters are talking. It was awesome.

To avoid this wall of text, here is a bonus picture. Just. No. Bonus. Joke.

There is a lot of humor, there is a lot of character growth, there are more than one touching moments, and there is a lot of daring fight scenes. In fact, there were some terrifying scenes, and some darker moments, including some potentially heavy material for a PG movie. One drowning scene in particular still makes me shudder.

I will say there are some issues I found in terms of messages they are trying to convey. I think some parts of the ending directly contradict information said earlier in the film, a similar message given to us by Pokemon: The First Movie – Mewtwo Strikes Back.

But overall? Shit, this thing is enjoyable. Minor moral issues aren’t a big problem. The 3D only seemed blurry in the first scene of the film, so that is good.

For those who have saw it, I made a theory halfway through the movie on how the third one might go, and the ending seemed to solidify it. I’d love to talk to anyone in private about my theory, but if it goes the way I hope, then yeah, it will be epic. But this is all jibberjabber at this point. Awesome flick, and probably going to be one of the top 3 animated movies this year (to go with The LEGO Movie, and The BoxTrolls, based on its fantastic trailers alone).

Finally, it is February, which means theaters are allowed to show good new movies again! Both The Monuments Men and The Lego Movie are out the same weekend, which adds some credit to the theory that studios literally wait to release their movies right outside of January, to separate themselves from the junk.

This movie in particular has an all-star cast, directed by George Clooney (his fifth overall), and a World War II story. Yeah, it has a lot going for them.

Typical rag tag group of men to save the day.

The Monuments Men tells the true story of a group of seven men, mostly art historians, curators, and museum directors, who join up with the Allied forces to preserve culture and art that might be destroyed during World War II. Most of these men are old, or out of shape, but they believe in their goal, and convinced the men in charge to let them help.

They were brought together by Frank Stokes (George Clooney), who had the idea after they almost lost The Last Supper when the UK bombed a city. His hand picked team included James Granger (Matt Damon), a painter, Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), an architect, Walter Garfield (John Goodman), a sculptor, Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), a historian. They also have Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) and Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin), a British officer and a French man, for culture purposes. They are later joined by Sam Epstein (Dimitri Leonidas), a German translator.

These men split up around the war front from 1943-1945 searching for lost and stolen treasures. The Germans hid the art in their country and intended to destroy them should Hitler be killed. They also are racing against the Russians, who have lost so many men in the war that any stolen art they find they will steal right back and keep for themselves as a sort of reparations.

Also starring Cate Blanchett, as a very convincing French art curator, who really enjoys a nice painting. Like. A lot.

Bill Murray looks like a fucking giant in this movie.

Well drat. Turns out, The Monuments Men ended up being the antithesis to That Awkward Moment. If you remember, That Awkward Moment looked bad, but turned out to be decent.

Clooney took an interesting piece of history, put in great actors, and gave us a mediocre movie overall. It is incredibly disappointing that this movie wasn’t amazing, but I have to make sure my review still accurately reflects the overall quality, and not just say it is bad because I am feeling betrayed.

This movie did surprise me in a few ways. One, I saw Murray give a real and convincing cry, which I definitely did not see coming. I don’t think I have ever seen that man cry, it was heartfelt, and I almost teared up as well. Two, I did learn about some famous art pieces in Europe, and it is awesome how close they came to being destroyed/lost forever. Three, there isn’t a number three.

All of the funny moments made it into the trailer, leaving not a lot more for the movie. That is incredibly disappointing, as it was advertised a comedy, with not a lot of laughs. The rest of the movie was slower and more dramatic, but most of the times I didn’t really care enough about the individual characters to care what was happening to them.

The Monuments Men will be forgotten with time. It was a decently acted movie, certainly not bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, it just didn’t have a lot more going on for it.

Woody Allen sure is an interesting man. He is now 77 years old (This is a 2013 review, for you future readers ten-twenty years from now), and still churning out interesting and diverse movies. I personally find it hard to watch some of his films, usually the overly romantic ones. I have rented You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger now twice, and you know, still haven’t seen it. Very apathetic.

So while the trailer for Blue Jasmine didn’t appeal to me right away, I went anyways, because it is easy to finally see something if you pay money and sit in a public room with others.

Ah, bliss. Being rich. Not love.

Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) has recently left her husband. Hal (Alec Baldwin) was a real estate tycoon in NYC, who was into some shady tactics. Eventually he got arrested, and so all of their wealth was frozen and taken by the government. Shady shit. Jasmine was left with nothing thanks to this, so she is moving to San Francisco to live with her sister and her kids.

Her Sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) is also recently divorced. Her former husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) seems to be in a rough shape, with most of their money “stolen” by Hal and Jasmine, apparently. But Ginger says family is family, and even if Jasmine wasn’t really there for her at all throughout her wealth, she would be with her now. Ginger is now dating (Bobby Cannavale), who looks like a younger, funnier version of Hal. He wants to move in with her, but now Jasmine is there. Ugh.

Jasmine has a “plan”. She wants to go back to school to finish her degree, but she has no money. So she found out she can take interior decorator classes online, clearly her forte, but she also doesn’t know anything about computers. So she will have to take a class on that. Jeez. She also has to find some horribly job, possibly serving others, in order to help buy food, rent, and classes. Life is horrible.

Jasmine is in a rough time of her life, yet she also still feels above even the smallest of tasks. Will she be able to get back on her feet through hardwork and dedication, or will she get lucky again?

Also starring Louis CK and Peter Sarsgaard, but I don’t want to tell you who.

I bet Louis CK said yes to this role as soon as he found out Woody Allen was calling.

Cate Mother Fucking Blanchett. She is in a lot of things, and is often considered a great actress. This is by far the best performance I have ever seen her give. Really fantastic. This is (in August) the best performance by a lead actress I have seen all year, so right now I have to assume she is going to win an Oscar for her role. Seriously. Just seriously. Fucking fantastic. I can’t even describe how great she did at this role.

I am not sure what is psychologically wrong with her character. Maybe she is a sociopath before the divorce, but afterwards (/during it) she seems to have a nervous breakdown, which messes her up for most of the movie. Talking to herself, having an inability to relate to any other person or her own situation, it is just out of control. But Cate Blanchett owns that role.

I am also impressed with Andrew Dice Clay, who had to play a purely dramatic emotional role. I like that Bobby Cannavale is basically a younger looking Dice Clay, it says a lot about the sister character, without using any actual words.

Overall, this movie is incredibly depressing and at some points heart warming. But that is great, given its drama category. I was able to laugh occasionally, but those moments weren’t the main focus. The arguments between couples felt real, and it made it almost painful to watch. I also like that the story was broken back and forth from “now” and pre-marriage.

My biggest problem with this movie is that in the second half it feels very repetitive. Arguments and dialogue repeat themselves pretty often, despite the ever advancing story.

Outside of those gripes, this movie ended up being way better than I expected, and I find myself against surprised at what Woody Allen can do.

Watch out everyone, movie event of the year coming through.

Sure, that is debatable. After all, Twilight Ended, the year isn’t over yet, and the end of Batman Trilogy and Avengers went down. But The Hobbit still may have been a greater buildup. After all, the previous LOTR movies were all nominated for Academy Awards, and the last one won!

This is a new trilogy, taking in more than just the Hobbit book, with tons of lore, and stretched into three movies. I AM ALLOWING MYSELF SPOILERS IN THE SECTION IN BETWEEN PICTURES, BECAUSE WELL, most people know this story anyways. The Animated Movie was a thing, after all. That middle section is normally reserved for plot anyways, and I feel like its hard to really give away shit, because its so well known.

Either way, spoilers in the middle warnings!

Spoiler: Only one hobbit is really focused on in this movie. That’s 75% less Hobbits than LOTR.

As most of you know, The Hobbit takes place before LOTR. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a simple Hobbit, who doesn’t like adventure. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) comes by, fucks it all up, and without warning, thirteen dwarves have crashed the place and are eating all his food! Oh noes!

Why? Because they want to reclaim their ancient kingdom, that a terrible dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) has taken over! Thorin (Richard Armitage) is the last line of Dwarven royalty, and technical king of a home they don’t control. He sent out a call for dwarves to help him take back the mountain, and only 12 answered. But according to Gandalf, they also need a Burgler, and he has decided that Bilbo will fit the bill.

The first hobbit movie ends after the encounter with Gollum (Andy Serkis) and the escape from the Goblins, and then the further escape from the orcs by Eagle Power. We also get an appearance of Frodo (Elijah Wood), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and a pre-evil Saruman (Christopher Lee). Balin (Ken Stott) is the next main dwarf, Azog (Manu Bennett) is the pale orc main antagonist, Figwit is now Lindir (Bret McKenzie). AND THEN WE HAVE RADAGAST THE BROWN (Sylvester McCoy). A mother fucking druid/crazy wizard?

Don’t remember him? Because like I said, this is more than the Hobbit. A lot of the Tale of the Necromancer is in here too, and was only set up in this movie. Gandalf left the Hobbit a lot to do his own shit, and he was doing the necromancer stuff. This added a lot to the movie that I wasn’t expecting.

One other thing I liked? Well, as most of you know the story, you know that Gandalf and the Eagles are a Deus Ex Machina on a stick. Rarely do they solve their own problems without one or both of the groups coming to save the day. Same thing happened in LOTR, and it was pretty annoying. One of the biggest examples is when they are in the trees with the orcs and worgs attacking, then the Eagles come and carry them away. Well, in the movie, that scene is QUITE longer and a bit more inspirational. Yes, it ends the same way, but damn it, the Dwarves don’t just sit their crying. They fight back, they give it their all, they show courage and bravery. I loved that change. Same result at the end, but I think the way they got there was a little bit better.

Pictured: Actual Trolls picking apart the Hobbit.

First off, no I didn’t get to see the movie in 48 fps. They decided to can the wide release idea, and only have it in select theaters. Sucks to suck, I might get to see it next week that way, all depends on if I want to see it again. The 3D on its own, was very nicely done, rounding out the movie in a good way, like Life of Pi did.

Martin Freeman felt really good as Bilbo. I understand the direction they took the character is a bit more witty and awesome, versus kind of a selfish asshole. Same with the dwarves, but really, I think it made the story better. There were like, three songs in this movie, maybe a throw back to the animated movie. None as silly as those songs, unfortunately.

I also read an article telling me the main 19 differences between the book and the film, and honestly, it mostly seemed like harmless fluff changes that didn’t matter. But when I left the theater, I heard lots of grumblings in regards to changes from the book still. Oh well, one day people might not have a shit. Just kidding, it will never got away.

It had its flaws, and some pacing issues in it. Personally the rock giant fight scene came completely out of nowhere for me, and didn’t really make…any sense. Just happened in the middle of traveling, no explanation, no buildup, and then it was done. Really disliked that scene.

It has taken a long time for me to see the newest Robin Hood movie, and honestly, I blame the internet. When I first saw a preview, looked awesome. Ridley Scott, on average, is an awesome director. What could go wrong? Apparently everything.

I heard tales that it wasn’t anything like Robin Hood. But that is probably a good thing. We’ve all heard the tale enough to know what happens, if it was the same, it might be boring! But because of that dang internet, I also know the truth of the script. You know what it was called originally? Nottingham. Why? Because it was going to be from his point of view, in a more sympathetic light. Yes! I love switches like that!

Some jerk Outlaw named Robin messing up shit, stealing his Marion and all? Why not?!

But Scott didn’t like that angle. So it was changed. To a more traditional, yet oh so familiar Robin Hood tale. Damn it, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Well, that is a reason. The other main reason is war.

AHH CRUSADES AND STUFF. Robin (Russell Crowe) is over there fighting, because that is all he does, around the world. Just a simple archer. But then something bad happens. He speaks his mind, King Richard (Danny Huston) gets pissed off, and he gets a bit imprisoned. Oh well, thankfully he can get himself free once King Richard gets killed. Wait what?! Richard gets killed early in the movie during the Crusades? Well fuck!

So Robin decides to book it, when he sees a group of men kill the man in charge of bringing the King’s crown back to England. They wanted to kill the king, but he was already dead. The new dead guy? Robin of Locksley. Wait what? Yes, Crowe is a different Robin. But now dying Robin has a request, to return his sword to his dad’s estate for him. Not weird at all. They just have to pretend to be knights and he pretends to be the other Robin to make it less weird.

Too bad the French people were lead by Godfrey (Mark Strong), another English Knight working for the other side? It can’t be true! Well it is, mostly because Prince John (Oscar Isaac) is a little bitch and ordered it.

Either way, Robin delivers the sword to the dad (Max von Sydow) and is met with an unusual request. Pretend to be the other Robin, live in the home, and marry Marion (Cate Blanchett). Or else they might lose all the land to the government when he goes, because a woman can’t hold the deed. Huh, alright then.

But don’t worry, if you are afraid of too much change, you still have some marry men to look forward too. Little John (Kevin Durand), Friar Tuck (Mark Addy), and Will Scarlet (Scott Grimes). The Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) is in here too, just not really that important.

Invading French army, working with the traitor king, and maybe some Sherwood forest bandits if we are lucky.

Personally, I think this picture looks like he is attacking with a water scimitar.

Totaling at about 2.5 hours, the Director’s Cut is a monster of a movie. I could be getting trolled, since clearly the Theatrical Cut was basically a DC too with the amount of cutting from the original script Scott did. I am not bitter, I swear.

Actually, the acting in this film felt pretty good, as did the pacing. For me, the 2.5 hours went by without a hitch. There were slow parts sure, and they didn’t do enough that I wanted, but it was kind of enjoyable on its own.

But I feel like something was missing from it to give it that extra wow factor. Really, I think it was just okay, which is probably what pissed off the internet more. They kind of demand perfection, especially from Scott and Crowe. It is an interesting Robin Hood story, that allows for even more tales, but definitely not the best one.

I will admit, this movie also took me quite a long to watch. Why? Because it takes quite a long time to watch. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button clocks in at about 160 minutes, so watching it late at night or if you have a short attention span seems like a bad idea.

Bad idea? Like starting a relationship with someone who ages weirdly?

The movie begins with an old lady, probably about to die. Oh just hanging out in New Orleans, in the mid 2000s. Sure it won’t turn into a big deal. This woman, Daisy (Cate Blanchett) wants her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond) to read to her from the diary of Benjamin Button

He grew up under abnormal circumstances. Haven’t you heard? He was a creepy wrinkled baby. His dad Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) was scared, the birth killed the mom, so he leaves him at an orphanage/old folks home thing. Weird enough. But once he gets bigger, his old body shall fit in nicely. Especially when a worker there, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) agrees to raise him as her own.

Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) begins to learn about the world, but disguised as an old guy. That’s good, just makes him seem forgetful. He grows up more and more, learns to walk, discovers sex, love, and sin. Including on and off again meeting of Caroline. I am sure that will lead to something. He also gets a boat job, with a Monsieur Gateau (Elias Koteas) which gives him a skill, a hobby, and even puts him involved with post Pearl Harbor World War 2 shenanigans.

But love. Love is all he really needs and wants, and only a few people know about his condition, thankfully one kind of is his same age. Kind of. Maybe they can figure something out and make it work.

Like all young kids, he became fascinated with himself in the mirror as a teen.

This movie took me forever to get in to it. I mean, it was odd and weird obviously, but he beginning when he was just an old man learning stuff for the first time? I just didn’t seem to care at all. Was just weird. Setting the narration during Katrina was more or less pointless.

I don’t think it became truly interesting to me until he was attacked on the ship. From then on I was pretty much hooked. And the last third? I might have been accidentally emotional last night, but it seemed like the saddest of all sad things in sadville. SUPER SAD. I can’t even describe the sadness. But it took so long for that plot line to really develop. Not until BB was at least distinguished gentlemen old looking.

Also, the whole thing sort of felt like a reverse Forrest Gump. Kind of weird. Follow follow up, I thought about this movie. Would it be interesting at all, his life, if he wasn’t aging backwards? Would the events without that warrant a movie? Probably not. So overall its just okay. Not the best. Should have been a lot better, and maybe a better hook at the start. But damn, something.

Hmm, a movie about a girl who is good at killing people? That sounds pretty Kick-Ass.

The eye slits are bigger for when she gets older. Because your eyes widen with age.

So all I knew about this was that some girl was a super powered assassin, for some reason, and people had to die. Great concept right? Super swedish looking killer, killing some things, and maybe a plot too? Speaking of plot, I heard it was a smart action movie too. Great! I could use an action movie that doesn’t make me rage from simplicity. Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, who has been in some things. Cate Blanchett has also been in a few things, I guess. Also Eric Bana, who plays a lot better in this role as grizzled former CIA, as opposed to Hulk.

Some things I enjoyed? The soundtrack. It was pretty spot on in terms of the whole movie. Ronan acted like a confused little girl pretty well.

But overall I really didn’t enjoy the movie. The plot was super weak. Exactly as I expected from an action movie nowadays. Not sure where the smart aspect of it came from. Was hoping for a new Bourne like movie and was all, ehhh. The camera work seemed like the director just wanted to try out a whole bunch of different artsy ways of showing a scene and could never settle on one. The rotating camera for the escape out of the facility was just ridiculous. The plot really didn’t consist more than “lololDNAtesting”, which also isn’t a spoiler. To me, it seemed like an action movie, with a bad plot, and not much action. It is probably just over-hyped because people are interested in a young girl killing people.

Who needs DNA enhancing in the womb when you are the daughter of the Hulk?

1 out of 4.