Tag: Fantasy

One of the advertisements for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters basically said “a classic tale with a darker twist!”.

Fuck that. Hansel & Gretel is one of the darkest fairy tales out there. Parents abandon their kids in the wood because they are too poor to eat. Only have some bread. They go to a house, made of candy. They get all excited. Oh no, locks and chains, girl forced to be a slave, boy force to eat. Witch is going to cook and eat the child, but they fuck up her shit and lock her in the oven in an escape. That is dark. I don’t think you can go too darker than that.

But I will say this tale probably has more foul language, nakedness, and blood.

Not to mention 325% more explosions!

For whatever reason, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are immune to witch magic. With great immunities come great responsibilities, I think the saying goes. So they were orphaned in by a local town, as they were now heroes, and kind of just started killing all the witches. Unfortunately Hansel also developed super diabetes from all that candy. If he doesn’t get a shot of (somethingvague) every (someamountoftime) he will fall to the ground and die quickly! All that candy, damn.

They get brought into a new town by the mayor, because 11 or so children have been kidnapped recently and they don’t know by who! The Sheriff (Peter Stormare) doesn’t like the idea of other people doing this in his town, but since he was about to kill Mina (Pihla Viitala), wrongfully accusing her of witchcraft, they really really needed to step in. Also, money.

Eventually they find out that a blood moon is happening soon, and a lot of witches are going to convene for some sort of special ceremony, lead by grand witch Muriel (Famke Janssen). Shit. That is a lot of witches. And you know what they say, witches dig ditches. Okay, no one says that.

Also featuring Thomas Mann as their crazy obsessed super fan and Derek Mears as Edward the Troll.

I am not sure if attached to the back is as effective as they would have hoped it to be.

Whoa H&G, where did this come from? Not only are you rated R, it is a hard R. I was joking on the nakedness, but it is there. Fbombs a plenty, and the death scenes are pretty dang gruesome, for witch and human alike. The blood looks fake as crap, but there is a lot of it, and there is a lot of murder. I was a bit surprised.

In case you are curious, I doubt there is any real difference between 3D and 2D, so save the money in difference.

The movie was less than 90 minutes in length, and it did feel pretty rushed to me. I think they could have explained certain things better. Just because something is called a White Witch, doesn’t mean I should have to think of it as a good witch. Specific lineage plot points were also a bit strange to me, but I don’t know a thing about this world’s genetics, since they didn’t tell me.

In terms of entertainment, the fight scenes are pretty good. The acting from secondary people not as much. Also, H&G seem to make pretty crappy witch hunters. You don’t see a single hunt of theirs that actually works as planned or goes well. Yes, they always survive, but come on, prep better. I don’t want my heroes to barely survive every bout, you gotta be able to take these witches down.

Hey look at that, here we are with 600 reviews for the Website. Pretty snazzy I must say.

Normally here is where I list my other milestone reviews, but fuck that, I realized just tagging them all as Milestone Review was a way easier idea. Because my best milestone review at 500 was Clash of the Titans, basically what this website ends up alluding to, I figured a nice tribute was to do its sequel, Wrath of the Titans for 600!

This bad boy will also spoil the whole thing, so that’s important, you know, if you actually care about this movie.

“I care about spoilers! Don’t let them know what becomes of me!”

Ten years after the death of the Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is just hanging out. He has a son, ten year old boy, but he is a widow because Io went out and died on him. Oh well, being a demi-god is rough I guess, but he don’t care. Not until his dad Zeus (Liam Neeson) shows up being all fucking morbid.

Apparently no one gives shits about the gods. This lack of devotion is causing their world to come undone. If no one cares about them, all they have created will cease to be. Tartarus (a afterlife prison) has its walls coming down and that can be bad! But Perseus has zero fucks to give.

“Yep, I checked the charts. We are lost, and no fucks at all around.”

But Zeus (who no longer has that bitch ass glow going on) goes to Tartarus, and brings with him Poseidon (Danny Huston), Hades (Ralph Fiennes), and his son Ares (Edgar Ramirez).

Turns out Hades is still pissed off from last time, and totally kills Poseidon and injures Zeus. Ares feels like now is a good time to betray his dad, and helps Hades! Since they are kicking ass, they decide to become immortal by draining Zeus of all his power and give it to Kronos, who Zeus defeated way long ago. Somehow this plan works, and can’t possibly fuck up.

Aww, he is just a magician clearly. Needs to work on his ninja escape dust though.

OH FUCK MONSTERS ROAM THE WORLD NOW. AND A CHIMERA COMES OUT OF NO WHERE AND ATTACKS PERSEUS.

Well, that was easy. Chimera are the bitches of the monster world.

Because Perseus has no idea whats up, he tries to ask his dad, but you know. Prisoner. Thankfully Poseidon, with his last breath tells Perseus what is up. Not good things of course. Gives him a cool trident though. Tells him to find his son Agenor (Toby Kebbell). Because his son can help him find Hephaestus (Bill Nighy). Why Hephaestus? Because he knows the way to Tartarus. Seems complicated. Oh well.

Why not go steal Agenor from Andromeda (Rosamund Pike). Easy enough, hell, she will join too and bring soldiers. Eventually they get to an island, where they are attacked by Cyclops!

“And I kill all the humans and eat them for dinner, right? Right?”

Turns out they eventually find Hephaestus. Crazy right? Well, they realize that the three weapons of Hades/Zeus/Poseidon can be combined to form a spear, and that is the only thing that can kill Kronos. Pretty weird, but alright. Looks like time to collect shit. Or just go to Tartarus and find the other two pieces just hanging out. I’m sure Ares won’t try to stop them and fuck some shit up.

Andromeda doesn’t like it when people jinx situations.

Minotaurs die, and look, Tartarus! That was overall pretty easy. Too bad Kronos is about to bust out and fuck up all the shit. The only saving grace is Zeus apologizing to Hades for putting him in the Underworld. Aww, shucks, that is all he really wanted an apology. Too bad Ares is still a bitch, and he totally kills Zeus, and everyone teleports out of the area because Kronos is scary.

But with 2/3 of the spear, Perseus prays to Ares to challenge him to a one on one fight, so he can get back Zeus’ thunderbolt. While this is going on, Kronos’ demonic army of Mikhai are ravaging the planes and generally kicking everyone in the army’s ass.

I think all those limbs give them an advantage. And being demons.

Thanks to using his son as bait, Perseus is able to eventually kill Ares. Kind of serious, but hey, whatever. At that same time, Hades decides to give up his immortality to revive his brother Zeus, and Zeus looks young and stylish. Too bad Hades is old. And both of them are now mortal. Oh well, still got cool powers. So they help drive back the demon army.

“Bitch, I’m fabulous!” – Zeus

Yadda yadda, spear is made. Zeus sacrifices himself again to save Hades, so he can slowly start to die. Perseus rides off into the sunset — wait no, that is Kronos, my bad. He rides off into Kronos and destroys him with a glowing spear. Yay the father of the gods is dead!

Too bad so are all the rest of the gods. Man, Zeus is about to die, Hades is now old and mortal, Poseidon is gone, Ares. Everyone left sucks. Apparently the time of the gods is over naturally, and now maybe demigods can rule the world? Perseus gets it on with Andromeda, and decides to train his son to be a fighter, you know, because they have to deal with their own problems, and the titans that are about to start rising up again, since they are no longer imprisoned.

If I was Kronos in this situation, I would have sprayed Perseus with magma. Yep. Sucks to suck Kronos.

So, I had some big complaints about the first movie. The action, all of it, I just found boring. The look of it all felt wrong. Way too much CGI, not enough realism. Shitty glow of the gods. Well this movie actually fixed a lot of my complaints.

Obviously, the gods don’t have that glow. Easy fix, now they look better.

Better CGI use? I’d say so. The battle with the chimera felt kind of cheesy, but less green screeny. Overall the movie was a lot less just “Always brown”, because the last film had tons of desert. So visually it was better.

Better action? I’d say so. The final fight between Perseus and Ares felt real, two powerful men slugging it out. None of the fights in this film were every “whole bunch of people versus things far too big for them” like the damn crabs in the last movie. A lot more close fights. The giant ass Kronos vs everyone isn’t a real fight either, since it is more of a “just die and stall until the spear is made” tactic, and not an actual battle they think they can win.

Despite the fact that I truly think this is a better movie than Clash, I still wasn’t entirely entertained. It improved though, and might be worth a watch. But when TNT starts to show it in the future, I know I won’t just sit back and watch.

Ted kind of came out of no where for me. I think I first heard about it a whole week before it came out to theaters. Weird huh? And honestly, it seemed like a kick ass idea. I was also willing to ignore the fact that it was a Seth MacFarlane movie, creator of Family Guy and most of the Fox Cartoons, and that the bear sounded identically to Peter Griffin.

Take it you dirty dirty register.

Young John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) had no friends as a kid growing up in Boston. But when he got a teddy bear, he was finally social. With a stuffed animal. But when he wished for him to be alive, his wish came true and he had a new BFF for ever and ever and ever. Ted (MacFarlane) got super famous initially, but then no one cared, and he was just a talking stuffed animal who grew up to be a nice slacker, like John, at 35 years old.

But hey, he has a girlfriend of four years, Lori (Mila Kunis), who really wants him to be something better than an Enterprise car worker. She kind of blames Ted for him still acting so childish, kind of wants him to move out. But if he does, can he actually grow up, or will he still just hang out with his buddy and get high all the time?

While their rocky relationship is going on, Lori also has to deal with her creepy boss (Joel McHale) who keeps hitting on her and Ted has to worry about a grown man (Giovanni Ribisi) who has been a fan of Ted for a long time and really wants to acquire him for his son, and his first long term white trash girlfriend Tammy-Lynn (Jessica Barth). John just has to deal with them.

Holy shit that plot is really simple. We also have Patrick Stewart as Narrator, and Norah Jones and Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon) as themselves.

HOLY FUCK STAY AWAY FROM MARKY MARKS NOSE, YOU MIGHT GET SUCKED IN AND NEVER RETURN.

So this movie did make me laugh a bunch. Sometimes. Occasionally. Mostly through crude and drunk jokes though. As someone who considers themself a pop culture junkie (not Taratino levels or anything), I found a lot of their pop culture jokes falling flat. I mean, most of the current ones don’t have staying power. In the first 5 minutes there was a Justin Bieber and some other people joke. It didn’t feel forced or anything, the joke just felt really lazy. A lot of them were on par with the “Still a better love story than Twilight” joke, which is not only over used, but never really funny. Just people hating to hate.

So that was my biggest problem with the comedy. Similarly there was maybe a bit too much drama, and a bit too much of Marky Mark being a complete dumb ass. I don’t know if I will care about movie at all in a year. I did love the concept, of a talking bear who grew up and became a dick, but just felt like the writers didn’t try enough after that initial concept. Oh well. Moving on.

17 Again is of course not an original plot. A lot of movies have an older person relive their youth, and find out they actually had it good. Sometimes, they get to become old instead. And also other times, they just switch bodies, such as 18 Again! the movie I first heard of when I read about this one.

I got to see 18 Again! when I was about ten, and probably only really remember any of the plot because hey, there were boobs in it (and it was PG?). Score!

Silly kids, you can’t score points in a cafeteria. You have to use a gym!

Back in the late 80s, Mike (Zac Efron) was a stud. Everyone loved him, nice guy, star of basketball team. But during the game when scouts were on hand to see him, it all went to hell. He found out his girlfriend was pregnant, and to comfort her, he left the game and proposed on the spot, pledging to be the best dad to the kid.

Like, 20 years later, and he has turned into Matthew Perry. He has worked for the same company for 16 years and nothing to show for it. He has two kids now, Alex (Sterling Knight), a shy teenage boy who doesn’t have many friends, and Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg), a girl who might be dating a bully (Hunter Parrish). And well, his wife (Leslie Mann) now wants a divorce.

Turns out he blames her for the life he is in. If he didn’t go after he, he could have gone to college and been a star maybe. Way to take it out on your wife, jerk face. So he currently lives with his (now rich) best friend from high school (Thomas Lennon) and has a bad relationship with his family. But due to some random magic he finds himself as his 17 year old self again! After the awkward realization, he now sees it as a way to fix his life. Maybe actually stay as the young version and get a do over.

Or maybe, fix his real life. He is now going to school with his kids. Can he warn his daughter and student body about teenage pregnancy and its effects on life? Can he help his son finally fit in? Can he actually fix his marriage? Why is Jim Gaffigan playing a high school coach, when he is the type of guy who never would work out? Can he help his friend get with the school principal (Melora Hardin)? Okay, that probably isn’t a priority.

“Do you dance with all of your friend’s mothers?”

So what did he chose?! Of course he decided fuck all his responsibilities, time to go to college and get those chicks and money. Right? Who wouldn’t.

But that would be crazy. So instead we got an older guy, trying to not get his daughter attracted to him, and not fuck up his life completely. Overall it did have some interesting moments, but it was pretty easy to tell what was going to happen the whole time. Can’t say I saw any part of the friend/principal relationship coming though, that was weird.

The movie is a decent one, nice resolution, but overall doesn’t offer much new to the genre. So besides that, uhh, watch if you want I guess.

History is written by the victors, definitely something you’ve heard before. If not get some education, damn it.

But it is true. Just like dead men tell no tales. Undead men can tell tales, however.

Alternative histories are usually exciting to watch, as you watch events you know definitely occurred, with other questionable events spliced in between. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is no different. What this movie is, is a ‘biography’ of the secret life of Honest Abe, as he protected America both from itself and from the blood sucking swarm of the night.

Training is best when it is also practical.

Abe Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) grew up in Indiana, with his parents on a plantation. But when his black friend’s family was being sent to the slave trade, despite being free citizens, Abe put himself in harm’s way to protect his friend Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie). This caused his dad to get upset with the plantation owner, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), who then threatened the Lincoln family if they left his services. Which they did.

But that is a shame, because Jack Barts is totally a vampire, who got his revenge on Abe’s mother that night, and pushing Abe to enact revenge. Nine years later, he tries. And motherfucking Jack Barts is a vampire! And doesn’t die! No worries, mysterious stranger Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper) saves him, and after some time, agrees to train Abe in the art of vampire hunting. But only if he ignores his revenge, and is willing to listen to everything he says. Sure.

But then after training he moves to Springfield, to study up being a “lawyer”. Ends up finding a job at a local store run by Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) and falling head over heels in love with a Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). During his vampire killing duties, he develops relationships with people (oh no!) and even becomes more politically involved. Gotta stop the slave trade. Real people. And its run by vampires in the South to eat from.

But if he were to stop the slave trade, the vampires would no longer be satiated and move more north. He’d be putting a hex on the entirety of America if he were to give equal rights to people. Hell, that’d probably cause the vampires to join the South in war. Lead by the head vampire, Adam (Rufus Sewall), will Honest Abe be able to stop slavery, end the vampire threat in America, and maintain his presidential life style all at the same time?

“Bitch tryin’ to kick me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m a muthhafuckin Vampire Hunter!”

Alright, so obviously this is kind of a dumb movie. You know vampires aren’t real, and you know this didn’t happen. But hey, if it was well done and had good action scenes, probably worth it. Why not, right?

Well unfortunately, as a budget saving measure I guess, the action scenes were lacking in luster. They had good ideas, but making them work with CGI? Ehh. Half of the fight scenes, you cannot tell what is going on. Either general blurryness, lots of dust, or fire. Fuck that noise. Movies have proven they can do intense fight scenes and make all of it easy to see. Some movies don’t want to put in that effort, and gimp out when it comes to them. So that is a negative for the movie.

Somewhat slow plot at times, and historical time frame that doesn’t seem consistent with reality. Other things that bug me. But doesn’t change the fact that the idea for the movie was an interesting one, just a poor execution at some of the parts that really mattered.

Dark Shadows!…Did anyone go see this film in theaters? I mean really? I don’t think I heard a single person thinking “Yes! Time to watch a remake of a 60s Soap Opera!”

Not saying that it was a bad decision to turn Dark Shadows into a movie. First off, I’ve actually seen that show. Like, maybe up to 20 episodes. Who cares if it has over a thousand? Shut up. It was eerie when I was a kid. Secondly, 21 Jump Street just happened. It was a movie version of an older TV show, changed the genre, and was awesome. So why not Dark Shadows?

Oh yeah. Erm.

The Collins family moved to New England from Britain way back in the 1700s, and pretty much founded their own town with their richness, Collinsport. Port, yes, because they do fishing business and continued to grow their fortune. Their son, Barnabus (Johnny Depp) was falling in love with a maid, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), but the parents would not allow it. Then the parents were killed. Whoops. Turns out Angelique is a witch, and got pissed off. Didn’t stop Barnabus from falling in love with another woman, who ended up killing herself under a curse. Barnabus tries to kill himself, but whoops, he’s now a vampire because Angelique is a mean mean person, and then becomes imprisoned for the next 200 years.

Hey look, the 1970s. Collinsport is now barely Collins owned territory. The house in shambles, the fortune all mostly gone and shit. Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) is now the head of the house, and has a 15 year old daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz). Elizabeth’s brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) is an asshole, single father after the wife drowned, with a younger son David (Guilliver McGrath). He is kind of messed up, so they have a psychiatrist there, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helan Bonham Carter). Oh yeah, also a housekeeper Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) who has to work too hard for one guy.

Either way, they need a governess for David, and mysterious Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote) answers the call.

BUT WHO CARES, BARNABUS RETURNS. Joins the family, wants to get their business back up, restore the name, and woo Victoria. But witches. And he is a vampire. Oh man, shenanigans.

Dem eyes.

So, from what I can tell, this movie is a lot like the show in many ways. No one really cared about the show too much until Barnabus joined the cast, like 200 episodes in, then it became a huge hit. So much like the show, Victoria was the main character early on, after all the back story, until Barnabus came back, and then she only had a few scenes. With Barnabus, and not too many lines. Bugged me.

Overall, I found the entire movie to be too ridiculous, so maybe that is keeping itself true to its soap opera roots? But found it hard to get in to. It really didn’t feel like Dark Shadows, due to its attempt to be a big comedy. I almost think this would have been better received if it tried again to be its own story that had nothing to do with Dark Shadows characters/names/pseudo-plots.

I thought Helena was aweful in the film, and Jonny Lee Miller was pointless as well. My favorite casting choice was probably Haley as the groundskeeper, he did make me laugh.

But overall, this just didn’t feel entertaining to me, and felt like every other recent Burton/Depp movie.

As promised, Mirror Mirror review slightly after Snow White And The Huntsman. I had to give myself time to fully digest the plot from my system. Because no one wants to see two similar movies so close together.

Unless you really really love Snow White based content, then I don’t know.

If you are that above person, check this shit out. It’s Snow White. Fuck yeah, right?

In this movie, Snow White’s (Lily Collins) mom died during child birth. Very sad. Her dad (Sean Bean) thought it would be good for her to have a mom, so he found a beautiful woman to call Queen (Julia Roberts). Many years after that, there is rumors of a Beast in the forest, to which the King goes to investigate but never returns! Ten years after that, hey look, Snow is turning 18.

She has been shut inside, the Queen making everyone thinks she is afraid of the outside, in order to make her a bad ruler, while she taxes the kingdom to poorness for rich parties. Boo. Well, the Baker Margaret (Mare Winningham) is Snow’s biggest supporter, and lets her know that shit is going bad and she wants to investigate. Well it sucks. Eventually she wanders the forest where she finds Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) and his assistant, tied up, attacked by giants! Or at least dwarves dressed up as giants. They go to the castle and thank the girl.

Oh shit she is a Princess, they find out later, and the Prince likes her a lot. Pisses off the Queen, who demands her death, but instead, she escapes to the forest and finds the dwarves. Queen banished them from the kingdom and they are forced to live alone! And they are all midgets. Like Jordan Prentice and Ronald Lee Clark.

They agree to let her join and train her to fight and steal, and increase her wit so they can steal from the queen the taxes and return them to the city! She is even able to fend off an attack from the Prince and a group (partially under spell). Once the Queen uses more magic to have a wedding, the group steal the Prince and attempt to break the spell. But will the beast that lives in the forest come a knocking? Why does the Queen waste her precious magic on turning her assistant (Nathan Lane) into a Cockroach for a bit, instead of like, some torture.

The fact that she gets trained and is more than one fight makes her arguably more of a warrior than the Snow White in that other movie.

Alright, so that the films are a bit different, Mirror Mirror ended up being the “comedy one” instead of the “Serious one” (which there has been numerous of both in the past). If I judged the latter poorly on being a bad serious movie, then I would have to judge this based on its comedic value. Well, not much was too funny. I thought Julia Roberts was pretty bad in this movie as a Queen. Charlize Theron blows her out of the water (“Just review this movie, damn it! Stop comparing!” – Reader. “Fine” – Me”).

But I felt this was an overall more complete feeling movie, with a bit better plot. Cheesy as all heck, but everyone likes Cheese. The visuals were vivid as shit, because this is done by the same guy who gave us the Immortals, which focused more on visuals than a decent and coherent story. (Alright alright, no more other movie talk). The ending also, out of no where, featured a weird Bollywood number, which I enjoyed, but uh, the lyrics/singing weren’t good.

I think overall the beginning was a bit too slow, but it picked up once Snow White was “killed” and left the castle. Dwarves were sweet, Prince was amusing, and Snow White was more bad ass in this film than the other (Hah! Still did it anyways. Neener neener). But still weak in other parts. Oh well.

In case you didn’t know, there has been lots of Snow White things going on. First one released, Once Upon A Time, a tv show with a fairy tale modern village, with a main character being Snow White. Then Mirror, Mirror (review coming soon!) a more comedic approach. Then finally Snow White and The Huntsman. A more serious or dark version of the Snow White fairy tale.

Allegedly.

All I’m trying to say is fuck the show and movie producers. No one wants this.

So what do we got here? We got a kingdom, with a great king and queen, and they have a daughter. They are kind of white supremacist, so they name her Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Well, queen dies, king is all sad. King defeats a mysterious phantom armor and finds a woman captured by them (Charlize Theron). King is immediately smitten, marries her the next day, and on their wedding night, she kills him and her army invades the castle. Shit goes crazy, Snow White is captured and put into a tower, while the Duke (Vincent Regan) and his son William (Sam Claflin) escape.

Man years later, castle and kingdom turned to shit. Queen Ravenna’s power is getting weaker. It might be based on whether or not she is the “fairest of them all”. Kind of messy with the details there. Her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) is her servant, and when he accidentally allows Snow White to escape she is furious. Apparently if she took Snow White’s heart, she would keep her power forever and no longer have to suck the souls out of beautiful women. Score!

But yeah, she escapes, into the scary forest too, so they hire a Hunstman (Chris Hemsworth) to fetch her in return for the resurrection of his dead wife. Realizes the lies, helps her escape, and agrees to get her to the Duke’s castle to lead a revolt. Also, stuff like Dwarves (including Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, etc), fairies, stags, villages, weird shit. And you know, poisonous apples, true loves kiss, and a revolt.

I don’t even know what is going on here.

The film was inspired by Snow White tale, and then went all sorts of places. I am not mad that it is nothing like Snow White, I am more mad that the designers of the film thought making it a different Snow White was a good thing. Especially with all the Snow White shit. I think this film would have been a lot better if it just tried to make its own fantasy story instead of the kinda Snow White stuff we got.

I read that a sequel is planned. The fuck? Now they will go even further from any source material, making it even worse that the series is a “Snow White” thing.

But that is a minor complaint. The film is also too long, drags, and is kind of lame. They got what feels like the worst person ever to be the Queen’s brother, from everything to acting and costume design. We got vague journeys and scenes, that just seem like Lord of the Rings stuff. Fight plans that don’t make sense, Queen spells and power levels that do not make sense, and a prophecy based on Innocence of a heart, when everything about Kristen Stewart’s character should destroy any “innocence” by the end. Also ends kind of lamely.

Seriously though, the ambush scene involving the fairies and the giant Stag? That scene pissed me off so badly because of how unlikely any of it would have happened. Worst attempt to catch a person ever. For fucking sakes it was stupid.

I think Charlize Theron did decent for what she was given, and Chris Hemsworth as well. But that would be all. I am not a Kristen Stewart hater, but she added roughly nothing to the movie (and it is amazing that she had such nice teeth after being in a tower for 8-10 years! Minor annoyance, since other characters had bad teeth).

Sucker Punch was a highly anticipated movie when I first saw the previews on TV. I mean, it just looked visually stunning. I knew absolutely nothing on the plot, I just knew that I wanted to see it.

And I did! In theaters. Leaving with mixed reviews. Despite that, I knew I still one day also wanted to see it on Blu-Ray. Because man was it pretty.

OMG SAMURAI BEASTS.

I won’t spend too much time with the plot, because it is up for interpretation technically how much of it is real, and how many layers of fantasy are involved. Why is it up for interpretation? Because I said so.

Movie begins with Babydoll (Emily Browning) fighting off her step dad, who wins and puts her in a mental institution, now that the mom is dead, so he can claim the inheritance. But right as she is about to get lobotomized by the doctor (Jon Hamm!) it switches to a brothel of some sorts, with young women dancers, recreating the exact scene. Because Lobotomies are hot. Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) is the star of the Brothel, but Babydoll is a new girl brought in from the Orphanage. She doesn’t talk much and seems upset.

Probably because she is in a brothel. The other main girls there are Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Amber (Jamie Chung), taught by the dance instructor (Carla Gugino). But when she is made to dance, she goes on a weird fantasy adventure, where the Wise Man (Scott Glenn) tells her how to escape, and the items she needs to collect, along with a secret item.

So Babydoll makes it her mission to go and collect these items, while every time she dances, she goes into one of these fantasy trances, whether it is versus the steampunk nazi federation, and robot trains, and etc. But what is really going on the whole time? And how the heck does she look when she dances? Also, Oscar Isaac plays the Brothel owner / main bad guy.

Lot of action violence, all done by tiny women!

Some will say that the only reason this exists is for men to have things to oogle. But pfft, people don’t make movies like that. More specifically, to make nerd guys go crazy. But nerd guys realize they also want a good plot with their crazy action fantasy movies featuring a cast of mostly women. The plot is obviously the weakest part of this movie. It is incredibly nonsensical and hard to explain.

That isn’t the only problem. Some of the fantasy scenes are just WAY too long. I think the first one with the full group of women, I feel like it drags on forever. I was thinking we’d never go back to the main plot line of the movie, escape from the Brothel. These scenes could have been editted down a lot more, to make the pacing better and probably more enjoyable.

But also, this CGI fest is just…so pretty.

Just to prove a point, here is a third picture.

And it is so fucking stunning. Just think, if the plot was better and edited it down, this could have been the coolest experience ever!

Let Me In is the American Remake of Let The Right One In, a highly rated Swedish movie. I do own Let The Right One In, on Blu-Ray, just haven’t seen it yet. I kept putting it off for no reason, and meant to review/watch it before the American version, but at this point, the American version had to come now with my opening to watch it closing.

But if Hank Hill has anything to say on the matter, he’d say if a foreign film was any good, they’d remake it for America. While kind of an insult, it is kind of also a compliment. So I expected good things with this movie.

Good, probably creepy, things with this movie.

Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a small young, probably Minnesotan boy. I am guessing the state, but there is snow a lot, and these guys go out to play hockey on a lake once, and Minnesota has a lot of lakes. He is weirder, so he gets picked on by the bullies at school, lead by Kenny (Dylan Minnette). His parents are also getting divorced, so he pretty much only lives with his mom.

Then, one night, a girl, Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her dad (Richard Jenkins) move in next door. Abby tells him they cannot be friends, but they do so anyway. Even talking in Morse code through the walls. The bully problem is getting worse, so she tells him to defend himself and she will help. He ends up fighting back, with a quick swing, and manages to slice Kenny’s ear open…right at the same time a body is found under the ice!

If you didn’t know, Abby and her dad are vampires. The dad character tends to go out and feed and bring back blood for Abby. When one encounter goes wrong, the dad is left badly burned and in the hospital, with the detective (Elias Koteas) very confused and suspicious of everyone. Eventually the little girl.

The ending of the movie includes Owen trying to finally, maybe, overcome the bullies, the realization of vampire-ness, escaping the detective and more. I kind of want to spoil stuff, but wont this time.

Vampires be crazy.

This (remake of a foreign movie) was so very good! It was deep and felt heartfelt the whole time. Kind of a slow paced movie, it is also equally about bullying as it is about vampires, I’d like to think. And yet everyone does so good. Owen was also the little kid in The Road, so he knows a thing or two about being in horrifying situations and not freaking the heck out.

Chloe also did a great job. Despite the fact that their characters were “going steady” eventually in the movie, and that vampires are usually all about sex, I never felt like a creepy “oh god, pedophilia?? (or necro)” thought in my head, even in one “bed” scene. Mad about quotation marks yet? Too bad. It all felt more like child curiosity, even though Abby is a lot older than Owen.

It also didn’t try to change vampire mythos. All of it seems to be based on the facts we knew growing up, which is all everyone wants. Most new vampire movies try to change them. But in this movie, sunlight is bad, holy water is bad, need blood, can’t go into residence without being invited (thus the title), and etc. Since that stuff doesn’t have to be explained, the movie can just be enjoyed and felt. Pretty much, this is like Flipped, but less for kids.