Tag: Oaklee Pendergast

The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death

Are you excited? They made a sequel to The Woman in Black!!

Why do I hear crickets? Must be my refusal to try to buy more bug spray. I personally have no idea what anyone else thought about The Woman In Black, and I am far too lazy right now to look something like that up, but I thought it was a dull. Harry Potter did nothing for me. Just was an period piece British film, with a shitty ending, and a shitty everything else also. I would have never guessed a sequel could have happened.

Because now we have The Woman In Black 2: Angel of Death. I have to assume Great Britain went bananas over the first film. I am pretty sure it was a remake or a book or something first, and they probably like anything set in their country.

From what I can tell this thing isn’t even really related to the first movie. Different actors/characters. Maybe a different ghost, but that would be Troll 2 levels of dumb. Honestly, if it has anything to do with the first film, I wouldn’t even remember.

boyyy
Oh it’s a creepy looking doll that a kid likes. That’s normal in horror now, I guess.

This sequel takes place in World War II, which is either before or after the first film. Again, I remember jack shit about it. We have a very universal concept here. Britain is getting bombed occasionally, so a lot of kids have lost family. Orphans and double orphans. Eve Parkins (Phoebe Fox) is a teacher of orphans, and their school is going to go leave the bustling city of London to live in the countryside instead. You know, where the Nazis should not be bombing. Her headmistress (Helen McCrory), Eve, and a bunch of kids head out to live in an abandoned building, to be safe.

But of course they won’t be safe. This is a horror movie sequel. And it is the country so we have inherently creepy looking people like Hermit Jacob (Ned Dennehy) running around. Thankfully there is a hunky man, a pilot, Harry (Jeremy Irvine), and another guy, the air raid warden (Adrian Rawlins). Gosh, could they be anymore safe?

Anyways. Haunted mansion type movie. Little kids going missing. Mute kid (Oaklee Pendergast) is of course involved, cause that bitch can’t talk.

Scream
But oh nelly can he scream. Suuu-eeeee! Suuuu-eeee!

Yawn yawn yawn. No surprise. A sequel to a movie I disliked I didn’t find great. But man, it was just so dang boring. And British. Not that British things can’t be scary. But this doesn’t at all feel like a concept worth even creating. They didn’t add anything new to the horror genre.

It just seems like a ham fisted concept, that vaguely is related to another film, to make money. It is literally Troll 2ing us. Right in front of our eyes. Oh, the ghost is a woman in black, who hates kids? Fits. Done.

Fuckkkk. It is just. It is full of boring characters, boring plot, boring scares, and nothing new. Throwing in a bad ass subtitle doesn’t make a bad ass film. It makes it generic.

Generic horror is maybe worse than generic comedy. Maybe. It’s just the level of mediocrity that we should all avoid in order to make it through the night, actually entertained. Boooo boring. Yay entertainment.

1 out of 4.

The Impossible

On December 26, 2004, a tsunami rocked the Indian Ocean and destroyed many islands and coastal communities. Over 230,000 lives were lost in a matter of minutes and it is one of the biggest natural disasters ever recorded in human history.

Honestly, I am surprised it took 8 years for a major movie to be made on the subject. After all, it only took 1.5 years to make a movie about the death of Osama Bin Laden, and a few months for a documentary on Michael Jackson.

Surfs Up
Don’t tell those people in the Chasing Mavericks movie. They would surf the fuck out of this surge.

The Impossible is specifically about a family from Spain vacationing in Thailand for Christmas. Henry (Ewan McGregor) is a businessman who works in Japan, and his wife Maria (Naomi Watts) is a doctor, but no longer practices to take care of their three boys. Their boys are Lucas (Tom Holland), then Thomas (Samuel Joslin), and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast).

Then you know, huge ass wave. Maria and Lucas get swept down the current, while Henry and the younger boys get stuck in the resort area.

Turns out the acting in this movie is pretty darn great. Naomi Watts? Definitely deserves her best actress nomination. From a loving stay at home mom, to a weak and powerless person, the transition was quick and amazing to watch. Her survival rested solely on the shoulders of her oldest son,as the two were now equals while they were alone in the desecrated landscape. Tom Holland has been in theater for awhile, but this was his first movie role, and it was similarly knocked out of the park. Large portions of the film were left to him to carry, and he made it his bitch.

Finally, Ewan McGregor acted pretty strongly in the film as well. Despite the disaster in front of him, he continued to try and fit into his role as protector and provider for the family. He had to make multiple hard decisions before they were reunited, separating himself from his children, looking for his wife and other son, and helping others along the way. Plus, as a bonus, his sob sounds identical to how it did in Moulin Rouge, even after eleven years.

Trees
First, this log. Tomorrow, the world!

Despite the strong acting from the main three, the film suffered elsewhere. I loved the realism in term of the flooding and its lack of heavy CGI to get the effect they needed. But I think the film took too many liberties when it came to the actual story. Most notably, before the reunion, there was a pretty long scene of the multiple groups wandering around the same hospital, but continuously missing another party by a few seconds. It really cheapened it for me, for a film that was priding itself in its realism.

I also didn’t like that it seemed to create false suspense by only showing a couple character for long periods of time…even though the trailer and true story aspect give away certain “secrets”. We can’t not know that members of the family survived the initial onslaught thanks to the trailer, so stop trying to make it seem that way.

The rating for this movie I also felt should have been an R. Based on similar scenes in movies, I think it all of it is a bit too much with all of the injuries that occur. I almost threw up on a quick flash of a leg injury, given the detail in the makeup.

As expected, The Impossible is an incredibly sad film, but at the same time, a bit of an inspiring one.

2 out of 4.