Tag: Fantasy

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).

Ah, another re-imagining. I think the last one recently was Jack the Giant Slayer, but I probably forgot a few other ones recently. This time, Maleficent, we are tackling the Sleeping Beauty tale. Instead of just telling the story a different way, we are getting it from Maleficent’s point of view.

So, at this point, the movie could go two directions. They could show us that Maleficent was really a good/misunderstood character (which is hard, being one of the more evil Disney villains ever), like what Wicked did, or they could give us a movie about a bad ass mother, who don’t take no crap off of nobody.

Do we get the awesome force of evil doing awesome things? Hell no, this is a Disney related property. You are getting a PG movie, Maleficent won’t be evil, tables will be turned. I mean. Wicked did it. Of course it is going the Wicked route.

But now there are some changes.

This film begins when Maleficent is but a young girl. She is also a fairy. Some dumb war between the fairy kingdom and human kingdom going down. She meets a human boy, finds him sweet, they frolic, he leaves to do human things and they grow old apart.

Now, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is an adult fairy, protector of the forest because she is better than the other fairies. The human kingdom is at war now with the magic land. Maleficent pisses some people off. Long story short, a metaphor that strongly resembles rape occurs, and her long lost child hood friend, is now the new King Stefan (Sharlto Copley).

So that curse thing happens, basically just like in Sleeping Beauty. But now, instead of Maleficent searching for Aurora (Elle Fanning) for sixteen years, she finds her like right away and becomes her silent guardian, protecting her from harm. Why? Not really sure.

Then a whole bunch of events happen, nothing at all like the events in Sleeping Beauty, and everyone lives happily ever after.

We have the three fairies again, but they have different names now, for some reason. They are now Thistletwit (Juno Temple), Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), and Flittle (Lesley Manville). We also have Sam Riley as the raven boy thing and Brenton Thwaites as Prince Phillip.

Oooh, there is the Maleficent we know. Even if it is for just a short while.

Here is one difference between Wicked and Maleficent. Wicked, more or less, took the aspects of the original story, kept them all basically the same, and added in a lot of new material and made it great. Maleficent had one aspect of the original story the same (the baby girl scene), then changed everything else about Sleeping Beauty and called it a day.

If it was a “misunderstood villain” story and they actually did it in the context of the original story? Great. If they decide that she is misunderstood because someone told the story wrong? Boring and pathetic almost.

“But movie reviewer! You don’t take the source into context!” Well, that is true. Unless they bring the source material into context for me. Thankfully this movie includes in the actual film one of my least favorite things of the last few years, telling me the story I heard was wrong and this is the real way. Or that I don’t know the truth. It is one of the worst things to hear, and it just keeps happening.

Maleficent had some cool special effects. Her awesome magic powers were vague with what she could actually do. Sometimes really awesome creation magic and spells? Cool! Destruction? Yeah! But that was like, only once, all used for the trailer. Her magic became something that could do basically anything for her, unless it would have made the plot lame. The movie isn’t really dark like the trailer suggests. The middle chunk of the movie is just Maleficent standing around, peering behind bushes while the theater sleeps.

There is a lot wrong with this film, in my eyes. They took a beloved villain and made her a metaphorical rape victim. They made her really powerful, with out displaying any of this power. They made her wear a catwoman like jump suit at one point.

I think that last line really makes my points clear.

Milestone review. MILESTONE REVIEW. MILESTONE REVIEW!

This review is my 1100th from the site. I know, after 1000, what is the big deal? Eh, having a special longer review every 50 reviews gives me something to look forward to. It allows me to save particularly famous movies for ridicule. But not every one of them is actually bad. For instance, I last checked out Teen Beach Movie and it ended up being okay. So there is always hope. Maybe the hate these movies get is all internet hooplah.

Which is why I have decided to look at Dragonball: Evolution today. I, like every male in my age group, have seen Dragonball Z on Toonami as a youth. A nice anime, despite the 75 hour fights. Lots of story and backstory, and for what it’s worth, the show makes sense in the universe it created.

So when they decided to make a movie, clearly there would be an army of neckbeards furious if any part of it strayed from the anime, like any of their sacred source material. They don’t believe in movies telling their own similar story. I will do my best to avoid that in this review.

Well, so far the villains look power rangers quality bad. This should actually be good for my demographic.

This movie takes place on an Earth. But in this earth, two thousand years ago, this alien Piccolo (James Marsters, yes, Spike from Buffy) tried to destroy the earth with a giant monkey, but some people sealed him in the Earth. Now, Goku (Justin Chatwin) is a teenager. He is getting training from his grandfather (Randall Duk Kim). He knows how to fight, channel his Ki and all that. But why is that important? Hard to say. Buy kicking the butts of bullies at school is always fun.

Woo beating up regular school kids!

Anyways, his grandfather gave him a Dragonball, with four stars in it. He told them there were seven overall. These do stuff. We all know what they do. Get all seven, get an immortal dragon to come down and grant a wish! Yay! But not so fast. While Goku was trying to get his Chi Chi (Jamie Chung) on, this Piccolo fellow and his woman assassin friend Mai (Eriko Tamura) came by grandpa’s house and killed the old man, looking for the ball! Oh no! Sad times.

Anyways, those sad times don’t matter, because then some bitch comes into his house with a gun trying to take his ball! He beats the girl up, her name is Bulma (Emmy Rossum), and somehow she made a device that can sense local dragonballs. Of course, lucky timing. Yes, this is the same Emmy Rossum from Phantom of the Opera.

I honestly couldn’t find many more good pictures then generic character ones.

So they team up and go to find Master Roshi (Yun-Fat Chow)! Oh yeah, that is a guy that Goku’s grandpa told him to go and find before he keeled over. He can learn how to fight better with him maybe.

They actually find him next on accident! Yay dragonball locator. Mini fight happens, oh shit, he is Roshi. Big happy times. He joins them on their journey to help train and stop Piccolo.

Despite the age difference, this might be the closest good casting decision in the movie!

Then what? I dunno. Some training and shit. Let’s take a moment to talk about other things. Like about how un-exciting the Piccolo character is in this movie. He isn’t even scary, he just looks awkward. Let’s also talk about how our male lead and Bulma both went on to be major characters in the American remake of Shameless.

Anyways, while looking for another Dragonball, they fall into a pit trap from this fucker Yamcha (Joon Park). He doesn’t want to help them until he gets cash. Eventually he helps them and they fight off Mai and get another Dragonball!

Yay!

That’s the fucker, right there.

Did I tag everyone who was important by now? Good. Because no more new characters.

So, the rest of this movie is Goku training under Roshi, doing crazy things and feats of strengths, while Piccolo for whatever reason isn’t fighting them.

Speaking of Piccolo, why do they have such a hard time getting the dragonballs? He knew where some were, like Bulma’s, but couldn’t find Goku at the party? That seems strange. I am even more confused that he didn’t reach the Roshi or Yamcha ball before them either.

Bullshit training stuff.

Blah blah, training and stuff. Oh hey, Piccolo’s team has stolen the dragonballs and will now summon the dragon! Oh wait, Goku and friends crash the party and start to fight. Turns out, Goku is actually the big monkey demon that is supposed to be on Piccolo’s side, but that seems to be just a minor issue. Because he remembers his destiny and frienship and decides to not be a demon anymore.

They really dodged that demon monkey bullet, didn’t they?

Goku then uses the Kamehameha wave, takes out Piccolo and saves the day! But now they have a dragon to summon. They can wish for basically anything what will they do?

He wishes Roshi back to life. That’s it. Dragon says sure, then gets the fuck out of the way, and spreads his balls all around earth. I mean, he could have wished for all lives lost by Piccolo back to life or something, including his grandpa, but yeah, sure, just Roshi.

Man, Goku sure is a fuck face.

Does that not look like a fuck face to anyone else.

How about that analysis?

Well, Dragonball Evolution indeed was terrible. Not even basing it off of the cartoon, but you know, it’s own plotline and movie was just absolutely dreadful. Sometimes the internet is right about these things (although they always choose their opinion before it comes out).

The plot is all over the place, mostly nothing is explained, things happen so fast, and none of it in any way is believable. The villain is never seen as scary. The threat doesn’t feel real because it is accidentally too stupid. The fucking demon monkey scene took only a few minutes to begin and end! That should have been way scarier and had a bigger impact than what we got.

Acting was awkward too. Goku as a hero wasn’t relatable or really heroic feeling. Kind of felt like a whiny kid at times. Chi Chi is maybe the only character to be given a bigger role and expanded into someone you might actually like.

It also had no fun elements. Dragonball Z is kind of funny. The humor in this movie was practically nonexistent. If they attempted some humor in it, it would be a wildly better movie, because the plot is impossible to carry the serious tome without being overtly ridiculous.

Please, movie makers. Don’t do another live action anime anytime soon. Unless it’s Sailor Moon. I would watch that one easy.

Sometimes life is hard. I get that. Life is hard over here sometimes too.

But movies tend to be great escapes from life, telling great stories, increasing your imagination. But then we have documentaries that bring reality crashing back down. They remind us that things aren’t always easy in the world, or that things aren’t so bad.

Rotisserie Chicken is a Netflix original movie that was only available for one day through its services. Personally I think that is because people couldn’t deal with the truths that were being shown. It created such a broad range of emotions. Anger. Apathy. Giddiness. Confusion. Hysteria. Glee. Depression. I have never seen such a polarizing movie, not since Napoleon Dynamite or something by Terrence Malick.

Speaking of that, I heard Terrence Malick hates chicken. Get him!

The story itself is relatively simple. You have a cooked turkey, almost at the end of its journey in the afterlife. It is basically a retelling of the end of the journey, but in reverse, so you know the outcome before you begin. Never has a backwards story been so real (after all, a documentary), yet so relevant to the lives of almost everyone in the world.

The chicken, that was set up and forgotten in its prison, roasting.

You want character development/change? You get that in this movie! It is slow/gradual, but if you pay attention you can see the changes as they occur. If you look away, you might have missed a lot and are left wondering how you even got to that point in the first place. Definitely a film that commands your full attention.

For those unlucky enough to have missed this opportunity, I am not sure what I can say. I guess I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass some day or cause you to live in regret. That would be terrible.

But really, you should feel regret if you missed it.

A score of “religious” movies have come out recently. A month ago we had Son Of God, God’s Not Dead somehow elevated from made for TV B-Movie status to a wide theatrical release and next month is Heaven Is For Real.

But Noah is something completely different. It is directed by Darren Aronofsky and he was given complete directorial control over the picture. That’s right, the guy who directed The Fountain and Black Swan is taking on the Bible.

This won’t be a simple story and in all likelihood, it won’t be like anything you read before.

Hah. The joke implying that I have actually read a book before.

For one thing, the entity that created the world pre-flood is always referred to as “The Creator.” I won’t tell you all the differences because that would ruin the fun.

Let’s just say that the Adam and Eve story is basically the same, and the Cain and Abel happened the same way too. Noah (Russell Crowe) is a descendant of Seth, the third son of Adam, while the vast majority of civilization is a descendant of Cain.

These men have pillaged the world, draining it of its natural resources and animal friends. Noah has tried to protect his family from their corruptness, keeping them to a mostly nomadic lifestyle. Then he gets a vision. He believes the world will be cleansed by water and he must build an ark to save the animals upon it.

But if Man is the problem, can he save others? Is he even allowed to save his family or himself?

Jennifer Connelly plays his wife, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth and Leo McHugh Carroll are his three sons, Emma Watson his adopted daughter he finds along the way, Anthony Hopkins his grandfather, and Ray Winstone his main enemy.

There is also a very strange massive man wet dance number in the middle.

Here is a pro-tip. Don’t drink a lot of fluids in theaters while watching Noah. It is a movie about a giant flood, which also occurs about halfway through the movie. Given the length of the movie, you might have some uncomfortable feelings before you reach the end.

Since the flood occurs so early, the second half of the movie is mostly human drama aboard the ark. Because of the drama, the ending does seem to drag on a little bit.

I thought Noah was awesome. The movie was visually stimulating. It was beautifully shot and the CGI elements weren’t terrible. The acting from the leads felt great on all accounts. In particular, I really loved the story of how Man came to be from the Creator in six days. It is a famous tale, but the way it was shown from start to finish in this movie was pretty unique.

However, at times I still felt the movie was just a tad bit too long. There are also certainly going to be people upset with the movie due to its loose interpretation of the source material.

Noah was definitely a much better movie than I thought it would be. It told a good story, wasn’t pushy with any messages, had great acting, and was visually pleasing.

One thing the movie could have used? More puns. Just imagine this ending. The family finally makes it to land. The wife says “Now we can spread out and repopulate the earth!” Her husband turns to look at her and says: “Yeah, I Noah.”

When I look at Son Of God, I see a movie with a bit of history behind it. Technically, this is one of many remakes that have existed. But more importantly, this movie is based on a miniseries based on a book. The miniseries was on The History Channel in 2013, titled The Bible. It broke the book of the same name into ten episodes, giving five each to the first and second halves.

Much of this movie is actually taken from the second half of the series to tell the same story in a shorter way. A lot of cuts were made, but they also promised bringing in a lot of deleted scenes.

I am a bit worried this movie just ends up feeling like a made for TV movie. I am also worried that if you start with 4-5 hours of material, add in deleted scenes, and cut it to just above 2 hours, they might accidentally create a lot of gaps in the story making it hard to follow.

Super white. With a name like Jesus I would have expected a more Hispanic look.

The beginning of this story are a bit of a mess as it quickly runs through a lot of large events to bring you to “now.” From what I could tell, the only important event of note is that this dude Jesus (Diogo Morgado) was born. The actual movie takes place about thirty years later with Jesus wandering around Israel. It is important to also note that he has some sort of magical/divine powers.

A lot of these powers are similar to Aquaman, in that there seems to be some affinity to fish, like when he meets Peter (Darwin Shaw). He can also heal wounds and diseases with a touch. Eventually he gathers more followers, like John (Sebastian Knapp), Mary Magdalene (Amber Rose Revah), his only woman follower, Judas (Joe Wredden), and Thomas (Matthew Gravelle). They really think he is a cool dude.

This apparently pisses off some local clergy members in Jerusalem, claiming he is being blasphemous towards their god. They get the local Roman senator Pilate (Greg Hicks) to try and put an end to him, before they lose more worshipers to this Jesus fellow.

All of this sets up the final third, which I won’t go into detail, because that would be a lot of spoilers. Oh yeah, Roma Downey plays Jesus’ mom, Mary.

Satan was removed from the film for looking too much like Obama, apparently.

Son Of God clocks in at 138 minutes, and honestly, it only has about 45 minutes of material, max. One of my main thoughts while watching this movie (outside of boredom) was wondering what the point of all of it was and where it was going. After seeing the movie, that question is still hard to answer.

The acting was all over the place, but they didn’t have a lot to work with because the characters didn’t have a lot to do. Not until the final third, that is. The final third is where a lot of the action and build up took place, but the ending seemed like a complete cop out with what happens to Jesus.

Also, his mother isn’t a part of the story at all until the final third, outside of a small glimpse when he was born. It felt awkward to see them apparently have such a strong connection and bond together as it came out of no where. If I had to guess, it looks like Jesus left home at an early age. He also never talked about his mother in any capacity, just his father. The movie makers must have cut out some important information that would have helped explain their connection.

Despite its long run time, the ending feels pretty unsatisfactory, as if they didn’t finish the story they were trying to tell. They may have been setting it up for a sequel, but I really hate it when a movie doesn’t finish its story. Especially when the story itself already contains so much filler.

I never try to compare a movie to its source material, but I have a feeling the movie would make a lot more sense to someone who has seen the mini series or read the book. Then there wouldn’t as much missing detail to really understand the point of it all.

Overall, Son Of God tries to tell a tale about a man, but forgets to put in any amount of entertainment.

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

That is the question I ask myself, heading off to see Pompeii. But first, maybe some back story!

When I was an undergrad, I majored in Geology and History, with a focus on Ancient Rome. Clearly, the perfect crossover for research on both subjects would be in Pompeii, Italy, where Mt. Vesuvius exploded in 79 AD, wiping out an entire city and basically freezing them in place like statues. It is perhaps my FAVORITE historical event ever and I have been waiting forever for a movie version of it.

Unfortunately, Hollywood has churned out a few “historical” tales lately and they have been some of the worst movies I have ever seen. I am looking at you, The Legend Of Hercules! So, no, I don’t know how I will be an optimist about this.

Mr. Eko, why must you die in everything?

Hmm, where do we begin? The rubble or the sins? The sins of course! The rubble is the second half!

Pompeii is a strange movie in that we already know how it ends. Everyone dies right? Huge explosion. It is sort of like a disaster movie, but also a historical film. They have an advantage here too, where they can kind of just tell any story they want to and then end with everyone dying and no one can say they are wrong.

In this story, a Roman Senator, Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) in 62 AD takes out an entire Celtic village who were showing resistance for a trade route, with his bodyguard Proculus (Sasha Roiz). Well, they missed a kid, who later gets caught my slavers, and 17 years later he is now a really good fighter. He was trained as a gladiator, because why not.

As luck would have it, this Celt, Milo (Kit Harrington) is packaged up from his small time market and sent to the bigger leagues in Pompeii! There a lot of coincidences happen, such as meeting the fair Cassia (Emily Browning), basically a Pompeian princess. Her parents (Jared Harris, Carrie-Anne Moss) want to expand Pompeii with Roman money, so they have to put on a show for a senator, which just so happens to be Corvus.

So, Milo is in the same city with the people who murdered his whole tribe! Too bad he has to also fight Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who is about to earn his freedom if he gets one last victory.

Oh, and of course, while all of the human stuff is happening, Mt. Vesuvius decides to get its boom boom on and explode for a ridiculously long time, causing a lot of destruction. During the climactic finale, the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we learned to love. There were great great clouds that rolled over the hills, bringing darkness from above.

Then a lot of people died.

Oh look, Kiefer is in a movie where shit is going down in less than a day. Huh.

I was left to my own devices to really analyze this movie.

So let’s start with the story! Gladiator redemption is always a nice story to choose, just like in Spartacus and Gladiator. Most of those movies give our heroes a lot more time to work with, in terms of training, and battles, and eventual redemption, so time was the real enemy here given the explosive finale. I think it did a decent job at conveying it all quickly, with the appropriate motivation for most of our main characters. The battle scenes themselves were generally pretty awesome, although some felt a little bit too close to Gladiator.

The effects from the volcano were also decent, not amazing, just decent. During the ending, it became more of a hindrance as there were possibly “too many effects” going on at once, that it all felt choppy and a bit blurry, so that was disappointing.

In terms of acting and dialogue, it kind of went all over the place. A few scenes felt repetitive and the quick love didn’t feel right to me. Sutherland appeared to actually be acting in this movie, so he stood out more than normal playing the pompous jerk.

I think it would have been a sexier movie if they added some other historical relevant material. Maybe a cameo involving the only real story we know associated with this eruption with Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.

Overall, Pompeii didn’t blow me out of the water as much as I hoped it would. I am also grateful that it didn’t poop all over the walls either. I plan on visiting Pompeii in my life, hopefully sometime in the next year. When I get there, I hope I can just close my eyes and have it almost feel like I have been there before. But until then, I can only speculate and use this film as a source for how it might have felt.

Eh. Eh oh. Eh oh.

Winter’s Tale has the honor of being the only movie released this week of four that is not a remake. No, but it is based on a book that came out from the 1980’s (The three remakes all come from 80’s movies too!).

This one also had the most advertising of the four, with a trailer that just…well, was just weird. It looked messy, or vague. It was either about magic, or religion, or coincidences. Really had no idea going in.

Yo, Colin, why is your hair so weird in this movie?

Winter’s Tale is definitely a hard movie to really describe. But let’s just say some of the basics.

Peter Lake (Colin Farrell) came to America from (German?) immigrants who weren’t allowed in. So they floated him in on a tiny boat.

He grew up on the streets, so he became a master thief, raised by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe), who now wants to kill him. Apparently Peter isn’t evil enough.

While on the run, Peter decides to rob one last house. There he finds Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), a sick girl who is literally too hot. Her sickness is killing her, because she is so hot, she can literally melt the cold winter snow around her. She is so hot, she has to sleep on the roof of her house in a tent, or the whole thing might burn down and kill her. She is so hot, she is a virgin, because sex would be her hotness squared.

Anyways, she is sick, Peter is in love, Pearly wants to kill him or her (he is kind of unsure), people are agents for angels and demons, miracles and chaos, the universe loves everyone, and eventually Peter goes 100 years into the future.

Kevin Corrigan (and later, Kevin Durand, but much shorter time frame) plays a lackey, William Hurt plays Beverly’s dad, Jennifer Connelly is the future adult female, and Will Smith is the man in the very very black shorts, Lucifer!

See? She is wearing white. That’s how you know she is innocent.

A-ha! This movie is slightly religious and magic based! A-ha!

That means nothing to me though. Because to me, this movie was a lot of confusing. Unfortunately anything that might be considered a plot hole or vague area can be wiped away with “magic” which plays a huge deus ex machina element. So I won’t complain about the inconsistencies that I saw.

The acting itself was okay mostly. I thought Connelly was terrible in it though. Thankfully her role was much smaller.

I think the movie wanted to go for this huge, philosophical and magical plot line, but just never reached its extremely lofty goals. I can’t tell if it was meant to be a comedy, but moments had me laughing out loud with how “bad” it all was, including the drawing of the red haired girl that was floating around. The vaguest, most nondescript image ever, leading to such big conclusions.

To me, this just goes to show my point. Colin Farrell is still a 50/50 hit or miss good movie actor. No middle ground, just good or bad.

I am probably going into Vampire Academy with some biases. I am fucking tired of all these mother fucking vampire movies in my motherfucking queue. All of them, trying to modernize vampires, to make them the stars, to not make them evil, to make them just like us but blood sucking, to make them as normal teenagers or college students. Fucking tired of all of it. It is no longer original.

But this one is based on a book, so it gets a pass? Nah, the first of the six book series was made in 2007, so it was just riding the supernatural romance wave that Twilight had created, like all of the other similar books and stories.

“LOL we are totes unique right?”

Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) is a totally weird teenager. We know this, because she says so, and people who say they are weird are usually the weirdest people. (That is a joke). She is a Dhampir, which has small amounts of vampire associated with it. Not a full fledged blood sucker. No, those are the Moroi, and they are the best of the vampire types. They have royal bloodlines, and generally the Dhampirs serve as their protectors. Like her best friend, Lissa Dragomir (Lucy Fry), a vampire princess.

Both of these types are mortal. There is a third type, the Strigoi, who are undead and evil and immortal. They are much stronger and cause a lot of havoc, and can advance their species through their bites. They hate the Moroi. There you go, the plot in a nutshell.

The movie begins with them having escaped from the Vampire Academy for some reason. They felt unsafe there, and would rather live in the real world with the Strigoi. But then they get captured and brought back. Lame. High school. Cliques. Prom. Ugh!

Unfortunately, when they get back to school, everyone hates her, including one adulterous whore, Mia (Sami Gayle) who is hopefully behind the threats coming after Lissa at school, and not someone more sinister.

Starring Danila Kozlovsky as Dimitri, a powerful Dhampir bodyguard, Gabriel Bryne as Victor Dashkov, a royal, and Sarah Hyland plays his niece. Dominic Sherwood plays the dark and brooding love interest, Cameron Monaghan a friend vampire who never gets the girl, Olga Kurylenko as the headmistress, and Claire Foy as a missing teacher no one cares about.

Technically not prom, because they are their own school thing, we all fucking know it is just prom.

Vampire Academy, the movie, was directed by the man who directed Mean Girls. Fun fact! When I first saw Mean Girls, I knew it was an amazing movie, and it has held the test of time. This director does not mean instant success, although I guess there were some similar thematic moments between the two. In terms of how people react to people.

But the entire plot felt rushed. Everything happened so fast, time changed so quickly. The entire point of the movie was “Hey Vampires! They are just like people, being all catty and shit”. But, as I said already, it has been done to death before. The characters don’t feel unique. Our main gal Ruth is a fast talker, but she never really does enough early on to earn that cocky attitude. Who am I kidding, by the end, she really still doesn’t do enough to earn that attitude.

Certain plot lines began in the movie, and then they just kind of felt forgotten about by the end. I guess they are hoping this six book series becomes popular enough to turn into seven movies (because you will have to split the last one in half), and in books stuff like that happens. But is almost unforgiveable in a movie, in my opinion. The ending itself was a sort of cliff hanger, and it made me feel robbed of an actual story line. Clearly, the story line that was hinted at was way cooler than the one this movie actually gave us, where at no point did anything feel serious or threatening.

Let me just say, having the relationship between student and old dude was also super awkward. Why are you doing this movie? Why?

Maybe the movie was actually okay and I am a bitter old man. Or, or, hey hey, listen. Or maybe. Maybe it just sucks.