Tag: Sci-Fi

X-Men, oh X-Men, where art thou X-Men?

This is the seventh film of the franchise. SEVENTH. X-Men: Days Of Future Past. When I first heard about this, I was excited. It was a very ambitions plot and storyline to go for, time travel tends to do that. Couple that with the fact that X-Men: First Class was actually decent meant the series might be headed off in a certain way.

But you know what was terrible? The advertisements for this movie. By having two time lines of cast, we have a shit ton of characters, and Fox decided the best way to advertise it was to give every character its own…thing, whatever. So, magazines would have 30 unique covers, or 30 individual character posters, or whatever. No giant cast pictures, no, just an overabundance of individual character shit.

Here is one of the real reasons this bugs me. Anna Paquin. It was stated a long time ago, in the year of 2013, that she was basically cut from the movie. Then it became a rumor. Then it became true and then changed to say that she would just be a cameo. Just a cameo? And still getting full ad treatment? Boo. That is almost worst than the 47 Ronin ad issues, because she is supposed to be a bigger character.

Finally, in the credits, her name was higher than many other people in the film. Because she is more famous? Than Ellen Page? Fuck that. She was in the original X-Men movies then a shitty TV show, while Page has had a big lucrative film career. It is just nonsensical, and most of this doesn’t matter for the actual movie.

No, but these robots matter. AW YEAH SENTINELS!

In the near future, everything is bad, lots are dead. Mutants. Humans who would give birth to future mutants. The sentinels have destroyed it all. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has an unexplained ability to also let people go back in time with their consciousness to their body and like, change the future. But only for a few days, maybe a week. This is long enough to help their band of mutants survive and run, but not long enough to fix it.

No, they’d have to go back to the 1970’s, before Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) (who’s actual mutant power seems to be very limber leg maneuvers) kills the creator of the Sentinels (Peter Dinklage). But the process to send back a consciousness would tear apart a brain. Unless of course, the brain can heal itself. Hmm.

Enter Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) ready to travel back in time, convince past Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and past Xavier (James McAvoy) to work together, change the future, and fix their stupidity.

Here is where I talk about everyone in the film, but in one giant paragraph. Maybe the new people first? Like, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Toad (Evan Jonigkeit), Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Warpath (Booboo Stewart).

Of course we have Old Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Old Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Storm (Halle Berry), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and of course ROGUE. Just kidding. Bullshit cameo.

Do we get Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), Cyclops (James Marsden), or Old Beast (Kelsey Grammar)? Well, maybe.

I will only advertise one character per picture, as per movie tradition.

Yay Sentinels! Like a lot a folks in my age bracket, the Sentinels were one of the first X-Men plots I was exposed to, thanks to the first two episodes of the X-Men Animated TV Series on Fox. Shit, that is where I learned most of my basic plot lines, and why to fear the motherfucking Juggernaut. They were fascinating to see and I love the changes made to them. They were TERRIFYING and kept the viewers on the edge of the seat.

What else rocked? Most of the movie. Sure, some plot elements could have been explained better. But the Xavier/Magneto back story was great, a good continuation from First Class. Speaking of dickheads, Fassbender as Magneto is a huge one, and it was awesome to see. The best part is, you can easily relate to where he is coming from and he isn’t just a mindless villain.

Speaking of even more awesome, Fox’s adaption of Quicksilver was so entertaining. He didn’t have the bigger role in the movie, but whenever he was on screen, you paid attention to him and no one else. They really went all out to make him stand out, kind of a big middle finger to Marvel, daring them to raise the bar in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

To make this long review a bit shorter, here is the quicker analysis: So many characters, but outside of tiny cameos, they all were great and wonderful. Special effects and action was good. Story and plot was good. Holy shit, give me Apocalypse.

Did this 100% fit the continuity issues between a few of the movies? Heck no, but at least it gave it a good try and an entertaining one to boot.

Yay Sci-Fi movies. I hadn’t heard a lot about Transcendence, outside of seeing the trailer only once or twice. But it looked cool! Even better, it isn’t based on a book and doesn’t star Tom Cruise. I don’t hate him, he just is in a lot of Sci-Fi films lately, and I demand diversity.

And all of these white people fill my diversity quota.

Transcendence takes place in the not so distant future. Let’s say, tomorrow or so. A.I. has gone a long way in the last day, and there are many companies trying to make a self-aware computer system. The most famous of these individuals is Will Caster (Johnny Depp), who is almost a celebrity, but not one who really wants it. He just wants a happy life with his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall).

But a terrorist group strikes. They don’t like this A.I. progression. They think humans need to watch out for that shit. That shit is weak, they say. So an attempt is made on Will’s life and it is basically successful. He has about four weeks left, decides to give up the A.I. research and live his life with his wife. But she says fuck that. No. She is going to put his consciousness into their A.I. system to save him. After all, brains are basically just a series of electric impulses right?!

So she gets their other smart friend, Max (Paul Bettany) to help make code and lots of data, and yay it works! Max is freaked out instantly, but not Evelyn. She has saved her husband. They quickly hook him up to the internet in order to provide more power, and then eventually he becomes a threat to the world. Yay!

A few other people in this movie, I guess. Cillian Murphy is a FBI detective, Morgan Freeman is another A.I. genius. Kate Mara and Falk Hentschel play A.I. terrorists, and Clifton Collins Jr. plays a handy man, more or less.

Why does he look so bewildered? Because Morgan Freeman doesn’t understand technology, or his role in this film.

The only reason I am having a hard time writing this review, is because I am having a hard time figuring out where to begin with the list of things bad with this movie.

The idea behind it is not a bad one. It can be a great plot. The problems with the story come from how vague everything is. The trailer sets it up to be a very smart movie, but it ends up being a dumb movie about alleged smart things. Maybe afraid of people picking it apart, they went the extremely vague route for all parts of the science. Now, everyone can be pissed off at them for the same reason!

The flow of time is really weird in this movie. Apparently two years pass without any of the pissed off people doing anything about it. Really?

Acting wise, no one seems to care too much about this film, everyone collectively sailing it in. I guess Rebecca Hall is the only one with emotions in the movie, given her situation, but the robotic feeling from everyone’s a pain. I can’t remember, but Kate Mara might only have five lines in the entire movie.

The issues with the bad science means that the ending doesn’t make a lot of sense. They know how to fix it, but again, it’s hard to know why since everything is so vague. Speaking of vague. There is a point right at the end, where the computer says he only has enough energy for one of the two things. If I told you, it would be a spoiler. But if you heard it, you too would know that it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Fuck. TL;DR This movie is senseless.

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.

Divergent, or as I like to call it, the next fucking recent young adult sci-fi/fantasy series to have taken off, has been turned into a movie. Weeee.

A lot of these lately have been terrible. Did you see The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones? I did, it was ghastly. So was Vampire Academy. The only recent successful one of these was The Hunger Games, which had a dystopian aspect, just like Divergent, and just like this random other movie The Maze Runner later this year.

So, will it actually be a nice parallel of society? Or will it just be made to make teens feel special? That’s the important question with these adaptions.

And here is the main characters ass as promotional material.

Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) is an Abnegation tribe member. What? Okay. This story takes place in Chicago in the future, after a big war, they have built a big wall around the city. They have split members into big tribes, each having a trait. Abnegation people are selfless, run the government, wear grey, simple lives. The Amity are peaceful, hippies, farmers. Not really talked about in this movie. Candor wear white, are honest, and just say whats on their mind. Yeah, another kind of pointless tribe I guess. Erudite are the smart people, doing smart stuff and wearing blue, the smart colors. Dauntless wear black and leather, the brave, the cities police force and protectors.

Well, Beatrice is about to go to her choosing ceremony, where she picks her faction she will live in from then on. Her parents (Ashley Judd, Tony Goldwyn) are big in Abnegation, and want her and her brother (Ansel Elgort) to stay in their area. Well, during her test to see who she actually fits in with most, her results are inconclusive, equally selfless, brave, and smart. It is called being Divergent, and it should be secretive, because people don’t like free thinkers?

Well, Beatrice, now Tris, chooses Dauntless, as she always liked them. Now she has new friends (Zoe Kravitz), and has found out that just because she chose Dauntless doesn’t mean they have picked her. Of the recruiting class of like 40-50 students, half will be cut after weeks of training based on physical skill, and then another half will be cut after emotional/mental training. So only like, 10 or so people will actually make it. Yep. This movie is mostly a training movie. Ha ha! Fooled you guys!

This gives us characters like Four (Theo James), her main trainer and probably love interest. Or Eric (Jai Courtney) a much meaner training guy. Kate Winslet is a mean smart woman, Miles Teller is a mean new Dauntless recruit, and Ray Stevenson is a mean Abnegation leader.

And shit, this movie has ninjas too!

So I felt like again, if I had read the book, parts of this movie would make a lot more sense. Just like every other damn young adult adaption. Here are brief thoughts about my ramblings, that as far as I can tell didn’t get answered in the movie. Some are just world building questions that would have been very helpful.

How often does this choosing ceremony take place? Multiple times a year? How old are you when it happens? I guess the main character and her brother are not twins, but born close enough that they have to choose the same year? Does every faction have a long ass training process for when people join? I wonder how strict it is to train to be a hippie. Why did Tris not learn about what a Divergent is until her test, and only because she was one, but as soon as she does, it seems to be common knowledge for every other person what it is? With all the cuts the Dauntless people made, they literally only gained like what, ten recruits? How the fuck is that helpful? Did the plot really need to wait for the ten new recruits for something other than training to start taking place?

If the point of the faction system is to keep people in their place and get rid of human nature, why even let them choose what faction they live in after some random age? It seems like it’d be better to have the false notion of a choice, but in general, make everyone stay where they came from. Honestly, how does early life in other factions like Dauntless even work? Are there any parent type people there at all? It seems very messy to have people trained in a faction type for blah many years, and switch to a different faction, giving them awkward skill sets, that clearly they never lose after switching factions.

Really, this movie is literally just a high school movie, put into a Sci-Fi setting. We have cliques: jocks, nerds, hippies, normal people, and I guess gossipers or something. We have a high school girl, Tris, who feels like she doesn’t fit in with just the normal people, so she tries sports. She tries to also be smart. So she is a nonconformists, and all the conformists want to get her for being different. Or something like that. That is what the movie boils down to.

It was a cool concept, but I also feel like the writer has no idea what the fuck she is doing. Just making an interesting story and hoping it works out. There is a good chance the second movie is better, given that it will take place outside of Chicago. Wait, why is Chicago now bad? They beat the main bad guys? It should be easy to fix now? Eh, whatever.

I guess I should also note the trailer is pretty misleading. It makes it look like because she is Divergent, she joins some group of underground fighters who train her and then they attack the government or something. Nah. Well, she gets trained, but the Divergent-ness seems to be mostly pretty pointless overall.

I do not know how to write this review, so expect a lot of rambling. I first heard about Mr. Nobody from one of my students. A girl from China said it was her favorite movie, and when I tried to find it, couldn’t. Apparently it was made in 2009 but didn’t come out on DVD until 2014? That’s all sorts of fucked up.

In fact, I just assumed it was a foreign movie because of the circumstances, and this one was a remake. Nope, just one movie. One very intense movie.

Also, you get a really really old dude. Check out those wrinkles!

A movie about choices. That is what we get with Mr. Nobody.

The main character is named Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto), and trying to figure out what is going on with his mind will be a bit of a struggle.

He was always special, as a kid, and he kind of got to pick his parents before he was born. He can see the 4th dimension, time, basically. Let’s say that. In it, he knows that every big decision he makes could have dire consequences on his life. Like, his parents (Rhys Ifans, Natasha Little), when they eventually get divorced. Who should he live with? They let him make that decision at a quite young age. A lot of responsibility comes with it too, way too much for a kid.

Also, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, and Linh Dan Pham play his potential love interests.

White rooms, for your enjoyment.

See, I already feel like I gave too much away.

This movie deals with string theory. In the directors cut, we are given a 2.5 hour movie with a LOT going on. I mean it, a LOT. If you don’t pay attention, you will miss out on information. And paying attention is actually really hard, because again, a lot is going on. But if you give it a go, I assure you, it won’t fly by either. It was a mentally taxing movie. But if you pay attention, watch all that you can, and get to the end, I think you will find yourself rewarded.

In fact, this is the type of movie that once you understand what is really going on, you will probably find a more rewarding 2nd and 3rd watch of the movie. I definitely feel like it would get better.

I mean, I feel completely overwhelmed, having watching it, but I remember thinking how much of it was cool. How different it all was. I guess it is sort of Sci-Fi based. Definitely not a comedy and not a lot of action.

There isn’t a lot here, to let you delved your own experience. I can guarantee there is no other movie out that is like this one. Give it a go. Do it.

Ah, love and former Buffy cast members.

Wait, back up. TiMER. That is what we are talking about. A science fiction romance movie, yeah!

This is a movie I have walked by plenty of times, definitely recognize the cover. Just never felt like watching it on my own. But hey, coworker really wanted me too, so I will, damn it!

Alright, back to former Buffy cast members. Emma Caulfield plays our main character Oona, and she is looking for love. Thankfully, at this point in human progression, there is a new technology that let’s people find their soul mates. I would go into how the science works, but I forgot all of that mumbo jumbo. Basically, it is something installed into your wrist, and it will countdown to the day when you will meet your soul mate! At midnight it will beep and the countdown will go away, and when you meet your soul mate for the first time, they will beep again.

Yay! There is a twist of course. Your wrist might not say a damn thing. It only works if both people have these attached to them. So you might see that your mate is years away, or might never know when it will pop up.

So what is a girl like Oona supposed to do, with a blank wrist? I guess try a lot of guys and make them get the technology! She doesn’t even have to bother with the men who have it installed, because clearly it isn’t true love. But after awhile, Oona says fuck it! She is going to sleep around.

Starring Michelle Borth as her best friend/sister who has years before she meets her man, John Patrick Amedori who plays the clerk, and Desmond Harrington another love potential. Also a few other people like these people: JoBeth Williams and Hayden McFarland.

To me, it never lived up to the premise. In fact, I thought the premise was ignored for about a third of the film when Oona went off the reservation and started banging the supermarket clerk.

The end was supposed to be this suspenseful thing, when we finally see who she meets, and they set it up that it might be between two different individuals. But, following the laws of the movie, only one person made any sense. The other wouldn’t work at all.

Emma Caulfield also just felt all over the place. I don’t think she is a good actress on her own anymore (if she was during Buffy? Hard to say, nostalgia and all).

However I didn’t hate the movie, just thought it was okay. For a few reasons! One, the concept was a great concept, just didn’t feel like it was explored enough. I loved the plot line with her younger brother and the getting of his implant. That was totally adorable and cute. The sister had some nice moments as well.

But in the end, TiMER felt just like a wasted concept. So sad.

Motherfucking RoboCop.

The Hero of Detroit.

Why he doesn’t have a statue yet, I still do not know. Fucking politicians, corrupt as always.

Anyways, when I heard there was a remake, I was fine with it. When I heard it was PG-13, I was confused. Do they understand the point of that franchise? Besides the satire, of course.

He is black, because black is cool and sexy.

Needless to say, no, RoboCop remake isn’t as bad as everyone said it was before they gave it a chance. I even had a popular tweet a few months back claiming it would suck, and really, it wasn’t super terrible, it just also wasn’t super amazing.

Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is a Detroit detective, and working on uncovering a huge drug and weapons king pin. The detectives meant to monitor him are on his payroll, lots of corruption everywhere. During an encounter, his partner (Michael Kenneth Williams, for authenticity) gets injured.

Murphy really wants to bring him in. So they bomb his car to kill him. Unfortunately they only really leave him super badly disfigured.

At the same time, Omnicorp is making robot police men! But America doesn’t want them to patrol the streets, no trust for whatever reason, so instead they are used to keep peace in the Middle East. Their owner (Michael Keaton) is at war with the government, to overturn their policy making robot guards no longer illegal. Eventually he gets the idea. Why not put a human in a robot, and win the public that way?

Yes…yes…that will allow him to make lots of money. As long as the Robot Human Cop is as good as just a Robot of course. Yet also somehow maintain his human characteristics. Can it be done?

Gary Oldman plays the bio-scientist who has the capabilities of putting a man in a robot body. Jackie Earle Haley is a militaristic trainer. Abbie Cornish is the wife. Jay Baruchel is in here for some reason. And Samuel L. Jackson plays some sort of Bill O’Reilly motherfucker, with a nightly TV show that can warp the American point of view.

He is black because of genetics.

There are at least 3-4 references to the Detroit Red Wings in this movie. This is excellent. In this universe, the Red Wings still exist in all of their glory in like 20 years.

One other amazing thing happened to me in this movie. They played the song Focus by Hocus Pocus. It is a song I have been trying to find the name of for the last 4-5 years, but as it is an instrumental with yodeling and other weird noise, can’t exactly look it up. Thank you for your contributions to my sanity.

Oh you wan’t actual review? Okay.

Well, RoboCop wasn’t completely sucky. It wasn’t completely amazing either. They spent a lot lot lot of time before we actually got RoboCop into the streets. We had to watch the set up, the idea, the training, the tests, everything. Once he was about to hit the streets, he had another quick breakdown that they had fix again. Far too much of the movie was given to these factors, probably as they were trying to keep it PG-13 and not have him, you know, being a Cop.

I do think the film did capture the spirit of the original. Corrupt corporations and what not, so that is fine.

It had its entertaining moments and they increased the intensity of the ED-209, those big two legged walker robots.

I also really enjoyed the ending. And by that, I mean that they ended it on a nice note and didn’t automatically set up a sequel. That happens a lot more in movies nowadays. Fuck that.

Without a doubt, Her was one of my most anticipated movies of 2013 to watch. That is why I was disappointed I had to wait until 2014 to see it! It is one of those rather annoying ideas by the guys trying to win Oscars. They release a movie on a limited run near the end of the year, then wide release in early January after it has built up steam.

Living in the middle of Iowa, where they have zero movie previews, you will always get the short end of the “limited release” stick.

Despite the wait, Spike Jonze has made some great movies in the past (Being John Malkovich/Adaptation), so I was hoping he could deliver on his first major release that he both wrote and directed.

Especially with a topic as serious as this one.

Her is set sometime in the distant future. In this world, human interaction is basically nonexistent. Everyone is attached to their computer devices that they carry around with them, more extreme than it is now. In fact, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) works at a job where he writes hand written letters for people, because people really don’t know how to do that anymore. They’d rather leave their intimacy to strangers.

He is also going through a divorce with Catherine (Rooney Mara), but he is reluctant to sign the papers because he doesn’t want that part of his life to end.

Regardless, Theodore decides to upgrade his computer’s operating system, as it comes with a new artificial intelligence software that will adapt and learn over time. His new operating system, which gives herself the name Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), immediately makes his life more organized and better. In fact, he now has someone he can talk to who seems real. Yay, human-ish contact!

Then, Samantha and Theodore fall in love.

The only other main character is Amy (Amy Adams), his long time friend (who he once dated), who is also currently married (Matt Letscher). She provides an actual human constant experience to his life. Chris Pratt and Olivia Wilde also make appearances.

I bet overall, Theo is actually in love with himself.

The basic concepts of Her are not entirely unique. Futuristic society and very smart computers who have human personalities. See, even Disney had a made for TV movie, Smart House along the same lines. But rarely is love touched upon.

Phoenix, like we have come to expect, did phenomenal in this role. He was a dreamer, but alone, a lover, but afraid. The movie is mostly dialogue based, most of which is between Theodore and Samantha, leaving the camera on Phoenix for most of the film to react and talk. Since Samantha doesn’t have a face, the film just falls on his shoulders. Despite his crazy good performance, he will probably fall short of Best Actor Oscar thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

I thought the writing and dialogue in the movie felt incredibly realistic for what was going on. It was also quite beautiful. You could tell that the main character had a lot bottling up inside of him, so every time he started to talk with Samantha, he could let it all out and be real to himself. The love between him and the operating system was by far one of the more heart felt performances of the year.

Because the subject matters of Her are so serious, I can say that after one viewing I don’t think I was really able to understand and get everything I needed out of the movie. This is the type of film that might require multiple viewings, not because of plot twists or surprise endings, but to really capture and appreciate everything that happens subtly through facial expressions and dialogue.

Her is by far one of the more relevant films of 2013. I don’t even have to go into detail about how it relates to modern day life. I’d suggest watching with an open mind and an open heart.

I have a confession to make. I really really enjoyed the first Thor movie. I enjoyed it far more than everyone else I know.

It gets a lot of negative attention compared to the other Phase 1 Marvel films, and personally I disagree. I enjoyed it probably the third most out of all of the films, after The Avengers and Iron Man. It had comedy, it had action, it had Norse mythology, and well, it had Thor. Like a lot of people my age, I first heard about the God of Thunder from watching Adventures in Babysitting, which lead to discovering the Marvel version. I think that film was received as well only because he wasn’t as well known as the rest of the Phase 1 heroes.

So, Thor: The Dark World has an upward battle to climb.

“But we will make that climb, together, brother!” – Loki, in a very specific genre of Thor fanfiction.

This film takes place just as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is proving why he deserves the “Mighty” adjective, by bringing peace again to The Nine Realms after the Bifröst was destroyed in the first film. He has been very busy, and could not return to Earth except for exceptional circumstances for that reason.

Unfortunately the Convergence is about to occur, where the nine realms line up perfectly. It happens every 5000 years, and causes all of the realms to be a bit wonky, creating portals to each other and messing with gravity/physics. It has also awakened an old threat, King Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) of the Dark Elves, who tried to destroy the universe at the last Convergence. He used an ancient magic source called the Aether, which has been hidden for thousands of years. But guess who found it? Oh that meddling Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her team (Kat Dennings, Jonathan Howard)!

At the same time, monarchy based drama in Asgard is occurring, as Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Frigga (Rene Russo) are planning on making Thor the next king, given the recent actions of Loki (Tom Hiddleston). But Thor’s love for a mortal is worrisome, and a cause for concern that he might be focusing too much of his attention on just one realm.

It isn’t too bad for Thor I guess. He just has to save his very fragile love from the powers of the Aether, watch out for Loki while he is imprisoned in Asgard, deal with potential enemies on all sides, and try to stop an ancient race from destroying the universe. Probably just another Wednesday for him.

Thor: The Dark World features a whole lot of other actors, including the returns of Sif (Jaime Alexander), Heimdall (Idris Elba), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and The Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano). Well, Asano really wasn’t in this movie much, and Levi replaced Josh Dallas, but hey, Stevenson is still there! Also introducing Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as the second in command to Malekith.

Also, the Dark Elves in general reminded me of really strange Putties.

One thing I learned from watching Thor: The Dark World is that Chris Hemsworth definitely helped cement himself as the only man who can play the God of Thunder. Over the summer, huge contract negotiations were taking place between Hemsworth and Marvel, the latter who claimed that they don’t need him in The Avengers 2:Age of Ultron, they could just hire someone else, and refused to budge. Well, eventually they budged, thanks to the help of Robert Downey Jr., so presumably both sides reached a worthwhile agreement.

Thor: The Dark World more or less gave me everything I wanted in a sequel movie, expanding on a lot of areas that the first film established. It still has the same level of comedy, so we aren’t just dealing with a serious space fantasy drama. The chemistry between Hemsworth, Portman, and Hiddleston is electric, allowing the story to flow just a little bit better. The film also takes place a lot more off Earth compared to the first film, allowing the use of new landscapes and helping separate the franchise from the rest of the Avengers movies.

The does come with a downside, however. With a lot of the film set off world, we are given many more scenes that are heavily CGI’d in order to create the scene, which gets tiresome after awhile. I’d like more of it to be grounded in areas that aren’t created by green screens.

My biggest issue from the film actually has to do with the editing. I found the scene transitions really distracting, as on more than one occasion it felt like we were cut far too quickly to another scene, almost cutting off lines by the characters. We weren’t always allowed the appropriate time to even acknowledge what was just said, before having to focus our attention elsewhere. It made the pace of the film seem a bit off to me, and not what I would expect from a film at this scale.

Most likely Thor: The Dark World won’t get anywhere as close to touching the amount of money that Iron Man 3 brought in. I hope that doesn’t detract Marvel Studios from eventually bringing us more Thor outside of The Avengers.

This film had an excellent amount of drama, action, and comedy to help create a fantastic theater experience, but has some technical aspects that distract me from giving it that perfect rating overall.

Hey look, a movie based on a book! You know. Like most movies.

But this isn’t any book. This is Ender’s Game. A very famous sci-fi novel from the 1980s, that is required reading in some/many schools now! So, that can mean a few things. It can mean angry mobs of book fans when the movie of Ender’s Game turns out unfaithful, or it can just mean a buttload of money.

That’s right. Buttload. Not even getting into the personal thoughts and opinions of the author, Orson Scott Card, but there are 20 separate books/collections/short stories that he has published in this story. Ender’s Game was the first one to get published, but it is now like, the middle book. Jeez.

Apparently his games just involve very large octahedra dice.

In the future, shit is all bad. Big alien force came and killed a lot of people, but a hero was able to think on the fly and saved the day for everyone. Hooray!

Well now, almost fifty years later, the alien forces are building again and the threat of a new attack is high. They have begun to train children to become their new generals and commanders. Due to growing up with realistic war video games, they are not as afflicted by things like morals or death or killing. Heck yeah!

Our hero is Ender Wiggan (Asa Butterfield), third born from his family, and taking a stab at joining the academy. Well, he is good. He just has to march through rank after rank, school after school, to be deemed good enough to eventually, finally, maybe, go against an actual alien fleet. But until then, it is really just a series of…games.

Harrison Ford is a commander, Viola Davis some sort of…officer. Abigail Breslin is Ender’s sister, Nonso Anozie a sergeant, and a bunch of other kids are played by Aramis Knight, Suraj Partha, Moises Arias, and Hailee Steinfeld. Hailee, who of course starred in True Grit and was called a supporting actress back then! Whoa.

Yes of course Ben Kingsley is in this movie. Just in the last third.

I decided to sleep on the analysis part of the review, and not write it all in one sitting like usual. After watching the movie, I still had so many questions. Ones I would bring up here, but I can’t spoil them because I am not a dickface.

I am really surprised this movie was under two hours, because it felt a lot longer. Here is why. Most of the movie is Ender training at consecutive harder and harder levels. He has to go through a fleet academy thing, he has a break down, then battle school, then battle school at the next tier, he has a break down, then battle school leading his own group of “soldiers”, then he has another break down, then he has to go to commander school, then another breakdown, then his final test.

Just. So many god damn tiers. It felt long because I knew that even though the beginning felt super rushed, the ending confrontation with the evil bug aliens would also have to be potentially rushed. So it felt like a lot of waiting to me.

Outside of that annoyance, and certain inconsistencies near the end that really had me confused, I did enjoy many parts of this movie. It dealt with emotions and morals that are very important and need to be discussed, but it didn’t delve on them as much as I would have liked. Aka, it was just quick, like a lot of the movie. Nothing really felt dealt with, and I don’t want to wait for another movie for things to be dealt with. Probably won’t happen. It didn’t make a ton of money, and Thor 2 is next week. Sooo, yeah. Probably going to be considered a flop, unfortunately, because acting was good.

I am sure that if I read the book a lot more would make sense. Presumably a lot was left out, and I hate it if I have to read a book to fully understand what a movie is trying to convey.