Category: Uncategorized

TMNT

Milestone Milestone Milestone Review!

Welcome to my 1200th review for my website. Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. I have had a hard time finding general themes to go with for some of these bad boys. My attempt to do a good milestone review for Trapped In The Closet was met with large yawns. My best ones have been taking arguably well known shitty movies and going indepth over them. Like the Twilight movies.

But more recently I have noticed that a few of my last milestone reviews have been live action remakes of child hood classics that have left the fans angry or confused. Namely, Dragonball: Evolution and Speed Racer. So why not the reverse?

A CGI “remake” of live action child hood classics? Namely, the 2007 TMNT. Sure, there was cartoons too, but the movies were hugely successful and everyone I knew watched them.

How many people did I know that watched TMNT?

Empty Lot
The same number you see here in this picture!

New York City…

Just kidding. This movie doesn’t start in the Big Turtle. We are going to Central America, where April O’Neal (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is looking for some artifacts. That is what she does now. Looks for relics for rich people, because fuck journalism. She hears some rumors and lo and behold, that sneaky sanchez Leonardo (James Arnold Taylor) is out and about. Apparently he was sent down to work on his leadership, by Spliter (Mako) for some reason or another.

I heard it was cause some guy was running around NYC with a mask and fighting crime, not the turtles!

Nightwatcher in Mask with Casey
Oh shit, there are two people running around with masks!

What are the rest of the Turtles doing? Well, not a lot. They beat Shredder some point before the movie, so they have free time. Donatello (Mitchell Whitfield) is working from home as an IT specialist. Michelangelo (Mikey Kelley) works for kids birthday parties where he gets beaten with bats! And Raphael (Nolan North)? Well, he sleeps all day and does nothing.

Because he is roaming the streets at night as Nightwatcher battling crime.

Nighwatcher Unmasked with Casey
Well shit, that mystery didn’t last long.

April is working for this man, Winters (Patrick Stewart), who really loves statues. Just kidding, Winters is secretly this ass hat Yaotl, an immortal being from 3,000 years ago in the Aztecs. He opened up a portal to another universe to get his power on, making him immortal, but his generals were turned to stone. Then, after that, 13 immortal beasts come out of the portal and fuck up his enemies and his own armies. Everything is lost. He is not an immortal being, his staff are stone, and he kind of wants to open the portal again to get some more shit done.

So the ancient relic was actually a stone statue and one of his generals. Aw yeah. Time for shenanigans.

Group of 4
Don’t look so fucking shocked. Bad guys do bad things.

He actually is able to use his future tech rich company to make them alive again! But they are still stone. Awkward. Doesn’t matter.

In order to bring some relevant Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action into this movie, they have the foot clan! No longer led by Shredder, cause Shredder is gone, but now ninja Karai (Ziyi Zhang) is running things. They were hired to find and contain the 13 mythical beasts.

Apparently they have been running amuck on Earth for the last 3000 years and no one noticed? Really hard to say.

Well, Leo returns and they are told to stay hidden until they can be a team again, so they don’t. They find one of the beasts and a foot clan, help and then get knocked the fuck out by some stone generals who appear. Awkward. So they are forced to stay put this time for serious. Except one team member refuses.

Team Anger
And he is an angry one, that Ralph.

Nightwatcher goes out and Leo finds him. He doesn’t want Nightwatcher to be a vigilante. So they fight, shirtless, in the rain, and HOLY SHIT IT IS RAPHAEL.

Through the fight, Leo gets captured by the bad guys and Raphael feels totally bad you guys. Especially since the bad guys might offer up Leo as a sacrifice to the portal in lieu of one of the monsters. All sorts of fucked up there.

Bad Guys
We already went over this. Bad guys gonna be bad.

Except not. This Winters/Yaotl fellow doesn’t want to wreck havoc. He wants to stop being immortal and free himself and his generals. But the generals? They like being immortal, and they like even more their powers and movement. So, despite Winters actually secret good intentions, they aren’t down with it and want to get their fight on.

So the Turtles, April, and Casey (Chris Evans) (Who I don’t feel bad not mentioning until now), along with the Foot Clan show up to help save the day. They have to find the last monster, defeat new monsters, defeat generals and hope the shenanigans are stopped in time!

And of course they do. They are able to find the last monster and have it push itself and the generals into the portal, which is sealed forever. Yay, fuck those generals.

Group with Splinter
Not literally nor all at once.

Welp, day is saved, everyone wins, and time to go home.

The End.

So I guess I can start talking about the film now?

Like the recent live action version,this film does stay true to the general characters, their attitudes, and made them feel individually cool. Because it is animated and not the 1990s, they were able to actually use their weapons. And the fact that it didn’t get bogged down with an origin story is awesome.

However, outside of those things, most of which are expected, there was only one entertaining scene in the whole film. Just one. The rooftop battle between Leo and Ralph in the rain. It was super sexy and a bit gorgeous.

Sexy Rain Leo
This picture does it justice, just doesn’t save the film.

One sweet scene doesn’t a good movie make.

The humor was shitty, the CGI outside of that scene felt old, even by 2007 standards, like a very cheap CGI TV show.

I am fine having a plot without Shredder, really, but they picked such whogivesashit villains with a lot of pointless attributes that at no time is it exciting, nor is it ever really sensical. I remember the cartoon. Give me that giant dude with the brain storage in his stomach. That guy is cool. These guys are not, especially when the main villain isn’t even a villain either.

Even kids would be bored with this movie, and it is flashy animation.

The recent remake was not a great thing for this series, but this CGI version was an even worse slight to the franchise. I bought a bootleg version of this film in Greece from a Nigerian in 2007 and forgot to ever watch it. I only picked it because I knwe it was still in theaters. My 2007 self knew it would be a disappointment. And now all of you do too.

1 out of 4.

Please Subscribe: A Documentary About YouTubers

I would consider myself a journeyman on the internet. I like being on the internet. It is like a home IN my home.

But in some people’s homes, they use the internet to make the internet bigger. Big internet users make money by putting themselves inside the internet. Personally, I put some stuff on the internet, like these websites, but not a video of me moving and talking. That is too intense. I want to just keep making my like, $30 a year on this website. That is my level of commitment.

For some of these people, they pull in six figures a year, but also work every day to do it. Inspiring actors, comedians, and even chefs, have taken to making their own web TV shows and mac software to entertain literally dozens upon dozens of individuals every day.

And this documentary, Please Subscribe: A Documentary About YouTubers talks to a lot of them, including these shows people: My Drunk Kitchen, Livelavalive, Seannaners, Wheezy Waiter, Daily Grace, Mystery Guitarman, Will to DC and Dan Brown.

Basically I have heard of one of these things/people ahead of time (My Drunk Kitchen), maybe two (Mystery Guitarman). None of these other people, so I guess I learned a lot?

That Guy
Like Chicago is a scary place to go to find actors.

A few of these people got more spotlight than others. Like this Livelavalive fellow, who apparently used his YouTube show to help break free from his extreme OCD shut in self. Some of these individuals do weekly shows, some 7 days a week. Most of them edit their own videos, do all of their own production and are a complete one person show. Not all of them, but whatever.

I found Dan Brown to be the most interesting story. He was an early YouTube success, but he kept trying new things and apparently he pissed people off by under performing, and then people didn’t give a shit anymore. YouTube is fickle, so it requires a lot of work.

A lot of these people were pretty similar though and I was kind of disappointed by how many of them were just weird daily talk about their lives people. I want people who do cool things. Where the fuck is my Epic Meal Time?

I didn’t even feel like linking to their pages. If you want to find out about them, go crazy. This is just an okay documentary about random people on YouTube. I wanted to see actual dollar amounts as to what they made, so we can see if their effort is actually worth it. A nice cute story, but an indifferent one at the end of the day.

2 out of 4.

Rage

Rage starring Cage.

I think that was the reasoning behind this entire movie. It is a tagline that I don’t think anyone ended up using though. Come on guys, it was right in front of you.

Nick Cage has been in a lot of movies, always. He is the type of guy who never says no, going for the intense indie numbers like Joe, and for the straight to DVD shitty action movies like…well, a lot more of his recent stuff.

So why did I watch Rage? Well, I needed to watch a movie and wanted something about 90 minutes. One of the first random ones I saw on Netflix at all. Knew nothing about it outside of my fictional tag line, so I was ready to be surprised either way.

Face
The good news is we still get some intense new CageFaces.

This story is about Paul Maguire (Cage), an honest business man who cares about an honest days of work. He earned an empire starting a construction business in Alabama and is pretty successful now. Good job! But of course he had mob help. He used to be in the mob with his buddies Danny (Michael McGrady) and Kane (Max Ryan). They got a lot of cash from the Russians, thanks to some thievery, and he used it to help finance his business a few years later.

Well, on a night out, a couple of thugs break into his house. His daughter Caitlin (Aubrey Peeples) is taken (not like the movie), and her two friends (Jack Falahee, Max Fowler) were beat up and left behind to tell the tale. Shit. Look’s like Paul’s past has caught up with him. Now he has to figure out if the Russians finally figured out what he did or not, before his daughter pays the price!

Just kidding, they later find his daughter dead. Too late. No, this is not a rescue mission like Taken. This is a revenge flick.

So Cage is mad, and he won’t let anything stop him from getting revenge. Not his wife (Rachel Nichols), not his former boss (Peter Stormare), not the Russian mob boss (Pasha D. Lychnikoff), and not even Danny “Getting Too Old For This Shit 27 years ago” Glover.

Glare
His face just looks like an angry plastic mask the entire film.

Ah, see. This isn’t just an action shoot em up revenge movie. There is a some drama/thriller stuff too. And twists and turns! And mob warfare.

And it is still incredibly boring. The plot twists I couldn’t see coming, mostly because they were pretty fucking stupid. Strong words, strong opinions. All true.

Man, was this movie stupid. I couldn’t believe how much of a waste of time this 90 minutes felt to me. It offered nothing new and had some shitty action. It also had some shitty backstory plots.

So why not a 0? Because of one dang scene. Cage was yelling at a friend and being all intense about things. I felt real emotion from Cage during this one scene and thought it would have taken a lot of takes to get that sort of intensity. That one scene saved this boring as fuck movie.

1 out of 4.

The Judge

Judge not lest ye be judged.

That is a quote I think, from some book or movie. Hard to remember these days. Maybe Lyndon B. Johnson said it? Either way, whoever said it must have really hated Judges.

Because Judges judge people. But who judges the Judges? Well, usually, the people in a trial I guess. They will assume he is a good or bad judge based on the outcome of their trial, both technically judging the Judge’s judgement.

Why yes, typing this all has been fun, but really has nothing to do with The Judge movie, outside of the obvious symbolism and role reversal the name offers.

Symbolism
Speaking of symbolism…

Indiana is home to a lot of nothing. Which is why Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) had to leave it en route to becoming a hugely successful lawyer, going to the closest big metropolis (Chicago) to get his law on. He isn’t a defender of the people or anything like that. Nah, he can help guilty men walk. He is that good. Sure he had a troubled past, and that past involves hating his family at home, but now he is a decent human being! Almost.

Well, then his mom died. He liked his mom too. So now Hank has to head back home, where his family lives. You know, like his brothers Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio), who had his future taken away from him, and Dale (Jeremy Strong), who isn’t all there in the head. And of course his dad, Judge Palmer (Robert Duvall) who hates his son. For reasons.

But troubled times can lead to troubled driving, which is what the Judge soon finds out. Getting into a minor accident, turns out he may have hit someone. Someone he has a history with. And that someone died. Shit. Now the Judge of this small community is being charged with murder. If only he knew any great lawyers, that he didn’t currently hate. Gahhh.

Also starring Billy Bob Thornton, Dax Shepard, Vera Farmiga, Leighton Meester, and Emma Tremblay (as his daughter).

Court
Spoilers: He might end up picking his son! Eventually.

I don’t want to describe The Judge as predictable, even though, kind of, it is. It predicted a lot of the film based on a tiny tv spot or two I had seen, and I was surprised how much of it I guessed right before the movie started.

I don’t want to say The Judge felt too long, even though, kind of, it was. The ending felt like it dragged, as it wanted to finish all of the plot lines it started and didn’t leave anything to chance. My mind compares it to Gone Girl, not based on quality or theme, but just because they are the last two movies I saw in theaters and both about the same length. Gone Girl flew by, The Judge dragged.

The acting in it was actually great, I thought all the leads did nicely. Billy Bob Thornton felt a bit underused on the grand scheme of things, but maybe I just want more of him thanks to his recent role on Fargo.

I laughed through a lot of amusing parts, but this film is definitely far more of a drama. And to me, it played it relatively safe and didn’t strive for anything truly awesome. So I am a bit disappointed. We had a lot of talent in this movie and if the story was just a bit tad better and shorter, it would have been amazing.

The only famous Robert D missing is Robert De Niro, so I assume that also had something to do with it.

2 out of 4.

The Dirties

I am pretty sure I first saw a trailer or heard about The Dirties sometime in the early half of 2013. The only reason I remember it is because it was endorsed by Kevin Smith and I saw a featurette for some reason. I was interested in seeing it, because Kevin Smith told me to be, but just not interested enough in seeing it to go find it right away. Or anytime soon at that.

But hey, that is why dicking around on Netflix is a good thing.

Which is why I found myself laying down last Thursday night on my living room couch bed, watching a very meta movie, and eating my Americone Dream Ice Cream.

Cops
Because I was born into this lap of luxury.

Matt (Matt Johnson) and Owen (Owen Williams) are you typical shitty high school students. They think they are cool, but they’re not. They think that they are funny, but they’re not. They think girls should like them, but they shouldn’t. Matt in particular is kind of a huge ass face. He is just projecting though. Because they get bullied. By bullies. Some, sure, uncalled for harassment, but other times, their own fault.

They are in a film class, which involves learning film techniques and of course making their own movies. Their dream project is called The Dirties, a hard R picture, full of violence, swearing, violence, and vulgaralities. However, the extreme low quality and edits they had to make just make them seem like even more laughing stocks.

Fuckers. Someone should teach them a lesson. For real.

And boy howdy. Wouldn’t it be hilarious and fun, if for their movie, they actually killed the biggest bullies in their school? People would understand. They’d get the joke that the movie became reality. They wouldn’t care if they ensured people they were only going for the bad guys. Yeah. Ha ha ha. That’d show them.

Also Krista Madison as the love interest of Owen, who really finds her a cootie patootie.

Killer
Holes in your jeans mean you mean business.

The Dirties was an uncomfortable movie throughout its run, but for many different reasons. There was the awkward teenage aspect which is almost always cringe worthy. There is the unsettling transformation as our friends start to drift further and further apart. And then there is the school shooting, still with a twinge of teenage awkwardness to make the entire thing hard to watch. I can only think of using the term “unsettling” again.

Its very low quality gives a more realistic approach to it all, as it is a fake documentary of them making movies and makin plans. Given that, we have a guy always watching them with a camera, who isn’t a character we get to interact with. Was weird in that regard.

But not as weird as the ending. Oh man, that was shocking and brutal. Such a realistic portrayal of the school shooting, watching a twisted revenge fantasy play out in all of its glory. It was just messed up man. Awkwardly shocking to the final scene.

Other interesting aspects are that the characters are pop culture fanatics, so there are tons of references to other movies and tv shows in here. Hell, they even made the final credits interesting because of it.

The Dirties is not a movie with everyone, and a lot of people will find the style very strange. So I’d suggest just trying to watch it, and if you don’t think you’d like the low budget narture of it it all, then just move on, no worries. But if not, finish it and maybe you will feel uncomfortable.

3 out of 4.

Gone Girl

It is October, and apparently what that means is some highly anticipated films are finally coming out. I feel like every week of October that there is something I define as a must see.

Gone Girl has had a lot of buzz, rightfully so. After all, it is a David Fincher movie, and everyone fucking loves David Fincher. Fight Club, Se7en, The Social Network, Benjamin Button.

Okay, maybe not that last one.

But more often than not, he is hotter than hot, in a lot of good ways.

Boy
And yet this is really the only picture they gave us to advertise the bad boy ahead of time.

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) have been married for five years. How wonderful. They don’t have the perfect relationship, not anymore. Things have gotten bad and Nick is sick of her shit. She is miserable and judges him. He isn’t perfect either. But on this, the morning of his anniversary, he can only find himself bitching to his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon).

Unfortunately, when he gets back to his home, he sees a table overturned, Amy missing, and a lot of confusion.

So of course he calls the cops, and based on the scene and some blood spatter, Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and Officer Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit) have determined that despite the little time missing, it is a full fledged missing person case. They want to do a press conference and get people on it pronto. Thankfully, Amy’s parents (Lisa Banes, David Clennon) are rich from a children’s book series, so they bank roll the entire thing. Flyers, advertisements, posters, websites, volunteer centers, phone lines. The whole nine.

But as the clues start to get unraveled, and secrets about Nick’s life get revealed, the signs begin to point that Nick did it and is undergoing a cover up. But did he? Did he?

Also starring Casey Wilson, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Missi Pyle, and Emily Ratajkowski.

Girl
Maybe she is just upset because she was cast in a movie with the main naked girl in the Blurred Lines music video?

I find myself at a loss of words.

Gone Girl was awesome, amazing, awesome, and amazing. Synonyms are hard.

The movie is about 150 minutes in length and the time flew by. It flew by so fast, I was left just wanting more. I went from edge of my seat to cackling in laughter to holding my hands over my mouth. You know, because it opened in shock and I couldn’t believe what was happening.

Everyone acted so well in it. I heard Affleck was chosen because he was used to public scrutiny from being Batman to J-Lo. I really liked the detectives. Neil Patrick Harris was interesting. Tyler fucking Perry did great as his role. And holy shit Rosamund Pike. That is some Oscar winning stuff right there, so expect to see her name being thrown around a lot.

I want to throw money at this movie. And awards. And watch it again and again.

This was a book first, so I can’t wait to read the book later. That’s right. Me. Books. Aggghhhh. Go see Gone Girl.

4 out of 4.

Citizen Koch

What is there to say about the Koch brothers that I already assume everyone already knows?

What? You haven’t heard about them? Have you not watched Season 1 of The Newsroom? I’m not saying I take all of my facts from a fictionalized news station, but the show is more or less about real events and when I heard about them, I was really surprised.

So I did some of my own research (internet research!) and found it to be mostly true. Rich dudes who created the Tea Party movement which is seen as a grassroots campaign, when it is actually nothing like a grass roots campaign at all.

Awesome, does that mean this documentary is going to talk about the tea party movement and how it is basically just the whim of these two gentlemen who have ulterior motives? Kind of. Mostly. You are also unfortunately going to get a lot more.

Koch
Shit, this guy has got everything he needs to survive in the wild now.

The biggest problem with this documentary is it feels like it has a lack of focus. It takes awhile to really get into what the purpose of it is. It starts with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision. It helped allow corporations to donate more money to government campaigns. Yayyy~ (sarcasm).

Just like that, the Tea Party Movement basically began, funded by several groups, most of which were owned by the Koch brothers who were the primary money givers as well. It notes of course that two of the judges who helped the corporations gain these powers had biases that directly affected the outcome of the case through their past. Impartiality is for chumps though.

This is where the documentary starts to get hazy. Turns out the majority of it is focusing on the problems in Wisconsin. The new Governor (a tea party member) who immediately set out to destroy the unions, which were the biggest monetary backers to the Democratic Party. There was a ton of bad things going on there, including representatives fleeing the country, secret bill signings, and of course, a recall election against the governor in which a lot of money was being thrown around.

This documentary seems to touch on a lot of different issues and it seems to be lost because of that. Like a little kid trying to tell a story and jumbling it all up. Does it have good information? Heck yes. I remember being very confused during the Wisconsin shenanigans, and now I would place myself at “only slightly confused” now.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this is that the documentary was supposed to be shown on PBS originally. Why wasn’t it? Because of the rich sponsors of PBS apparently exerting too much pressure on the network. Ain’t that about a bitch.

2 out of 4.

The Two Faces Of January

Oooh, a movie with a mythology theme.

For those not in the know, Janus was a Roman God who had two faces, one to look in the past and one to look in the future and January was named after Janus. This is just a simplification of that reference, because who would go see a movie called The Two Faces of Janus? Actually, who would go see a movie called The Two Faces of January? On its own, it is very nonsensical.

Oh yeah, the people who see everything. They’d be interested. Maybe the people who like the cast.

Or just people who appreciate a nice Greek or Roman Mythology reference. I know we here at Gorgon Reviews always think they are snazzy.

Yes A Couple
Indubitably, I would declare it down right dapper.

The Two Faces of January is set in the 1960s in Greece. A bit odd, given that Janus is an entirely Roman god with no Greek equivalent, but hey, I don’t make movies, I just judge them.

Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and Colette MacFarland (Kirsten Dunst) are enjoying the scenery, living a life of luxury touring around Europe.

While there, they meet Rydal (Oscar Isaac), an American tour guide who is also visiting. He knows Greek, so why not make some cash on the side. He is drawn to Colette, because clearly she should have nothing to do with that Chester fellow.

But things go from regular stranger awkward to abnormal stranger awkward when Chester kills a man. To be fair, the man was in his house and threatening to kill him first. Apparently Chester did some money scamming and ran with his girl to Europe. Well, some rich people have powerful friends and they found him. And Rydal saw him with the body.

Now they need to go in hiding and they are forced to get help with Rydal, to get new passports, to get out of the country, and to hopefully get away free. But Rydal doesn’t want money, he just wants Colette.

Not A Couple
Jealousy tends to add necessary tension to a murder cover up.

When I first tried to watch this movie on Video on Demand, I saw the first minute and was really excited. Maybe a con movie. Oscar Isaac. Greek stuff. Let’s do it. But I had to wait awhile and came back to it. The movie did not live up to my expectations of entertaining me in any grand level.

There isn’t a big cast, so a lot of weight is held on their three shoulders, all of them bringing something different to the table. And they were fine.

Just. Argh. The story. I got so bored with it. So little seemed to happen despite the story always moving forward. It became mostly about jealousy and a pseudo love triangle getting formed. It wanted to explore the lengths people would go to in order to not get sent to jail. After all, anyone can rat out the other and it is all based on hearsay. Mutually assured destruction.

But I just couldn’t get into it. I wanted to like the movie a lot more, but to me it was just okay.

2 out of 4.

The One I Love

Although the words are completely different, whenever I read the title The One I Love, I think of the final song from Grease.

You know. You’re The One That I Want. It bugs me so much that I try to sing the movie title to the same tune and it just falls apart so badly that I feel sad and wonder why would my brain betray me like that.

Either way, I went in knowing this was similar to a romantic comedy, but in no way like a romantic comedy. What a great description!

Surprise
And it stars the guy from The League and the girl from Mad Men. No, the other girl.

Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) are having marriage problems. Their love seems to have floundered. They used to feel great in each others company and spontaneous, but now they argue all the time and don’t know how to rekindle their relationship. Also, Ethan did cheat on her in a moment of weakness. That is important.

So now they are seeing a marriage counselor (Ted Danson), who recommends to them a weekend getaway in a house in the middle of nowhere that he knows about. He has told them it has helped many couples find their love again there and saved many marriages. It has a 100% success rate and is just a magical place.

When they get there, it is okay and they try to give it a shot. And then they have sex!

Or at least they think they do. Sophie says it was great but Mark says he doesn’t remember it. Whatever, it must be some dumb perverted joke of his, always messing around. Oh that Mark.

But the next morning, Mark goes to the guest house and sees Sophie making breakfast with bacon which she is totally against. This can’t be real. Especially when he goes back to the regular house and sees Sophie there as well.

Yep. Things are getting weird. Are clones involved? Evil spirits? Magic? Aliens? Voodoo? Why are they seeing replicas, damn it?! And how can multiple versions of your loved one help you love them more?

Clones
I am not talking about increasing the frequency of love here.

MOTHERFUCKING DOPPELGANGERS. This came out of no where! I just liked the somewhat uncomfortable artwork. But another movie to come out this year about Doppelgangers? We had Enemy and The Double? How many more can there fucking be? Doppelgangers of Doppelganger movies. If there are more, seriously, let me know so I can watch them.

This movie was full of surprises. It just seemed to keep getting weirder and creepier the more it went along. It had some great paranoia / jealousy going on, along with fantastic conversations about relationships. Given some sort of magical element, it adds philosophical talk too, in terms of what constitutes as cheating / lying when there exact duplicates running around.

I was very entranced watching this movie and loved every minute of it. Yes, even the parts pre-magic. They were interesting as well damn it. The best part of it is that despite these fantasy elements, it still felt incredibly realistic of its portrayal of real people in a really odd situation.

This movie was a complete surprise for me to watch and I am glad I did.

4 out of 4.

The Rover

If I named a movie The Rover, I would make it about an alien dog. One who knew how to speak and chose to live on the human world in disguise to learn and scout for his home evil dog planet. That seems like an aptly named movie title in my mind.

But instead we get one about a guy who wanders, who roves. And it is a subtle dystopian film?

And it is Australian?

Fine. You got me. I will give it a shot.

Gun
Hah. Looks like he will give it a shot too. Right? Right?

Set in Australia, this takes place ten years after a large economic collapse of the world that has changed a few things. That’s right, lawlessness won out not after nuclear war or global warming, but the fall of the economy. A whole bunch of different people moved to Australia to get away from it all, bringing more culture and more weirdos.

Three criminals are on the run after a robbery goes wrong. Henry (Scoot McNairy) and his two friends (Tawanda Manyimo, David Field) are arguing over something that went wrong and get into an accident because of it.

They need new wheels and stat, so they hot wire a car and skedaddle. But that car belonged to Eric Rover (Guy Pearce), who doesn’t actually have that last name. That’s a joke. They don’t tell us his last name (so I guess it could be Rover?). Eric really likes his car so he chases them down, they knock him out, and he is fucked. He really wants his car…

So he does whatever he can to find it damn it. And when he finds Henry’s brother, Rey (Robert Pattinson), all bloodied and angry, he uses the kid to find out Henry’s whereabouts. You know. To find his car.

Face
One day I hope I can look so grizzled yet charming.

The Rover, despite its subtle nature, is in your face with its dark nature and completely unforgiving. By far more drama than action, it focuses on the mysterious characters and is vague on details on purpose.

Gritty in many ways, as a lot of these people are ruthless. People die without a second thought. The economic collapse did a lot to people. People lost their livelihoods, maybe their families, their jobs, their purpose for existing. Hard to not turn to crime, especially when no police force.

I liked the world that was built in the film. It was a unique way of looking at a world gone mad while also keeping it simple (stupid).

Guy Pearce is an interesting individual. He picks usually such unique and interesting roles, and for the most part, knocks it out of the park. He was the best part of Lockout and he was so good in this as well. This might be the best acting Robert Pattinson has done, but I still really liked him in Water For Elephants.

I think the most important aspect of The Rover is that it feels entirely unique without going to such grandiose scales to present itself. Despite it being pretty good, it is also a movie I can’t see watching too many more times in my life or even buying. So that is probably a notable factor.

3 out of 4.