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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory Review

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Willy Wonka definitely takes things in a different direction from the other films that I’ve reviewed lately. It is still decently old like some of the other films, but not to the same extent. Also, this is probably the first comedy film that I’ve seen since Abbott and Costello and Wonka pulls it off quite well. The film is very over the top, but does so without being completely ridiculous either, which is a good thing. It could also just be that the writing is good enough for you to be able to take it all in stride. Regardless, I can say that this film definitely did something right!

Charlie grew up in a very poor family. They struggled to even get enough food to eat during the day. It was certainly rough, but one day the world became intrigued by the return of Willy Wonka. The business man had vanished without a trace many years ago, but he has now sent 5 Golden Tickets across the world. They are hidden in his chocolate bars. The 5 lucky individuals who find the tickets will be given a tour of his original facility. Nobody has set foot in there for several years so the whole planet is pumped to finally have some people on the inside.

I have to say that this is definitely a great business idea by Mr. Wonka as well. We see people buying thousands of chocolate bars and whole countries stop to try and grab this. America even got a little worries towards the end as Russia managed to grab a ticket first. Luckily, we still had the most representatives by the end anyway. One lady is not even sure if she should give in to the demands of the kidnappers who took away her husband. They want the chocolate bars her kingdom has and that may be too steep of a price. The world really panics the whole time that the bars are out and it’s great. While I do like the second half quite a bit as well, this first half is what really makes this film a success. It’s very crazy and illogical, but in a way that’s still realistic enough where it doesn’t seem silly. It’s just great writing and world building all around. The hype is handled perfectly and really sets you up for the Hunger Games esque ride that is to come. The only thing that holds it back is how obvious it is that Charlie will come out on top. This film should have gone the “multiple main characters” method so you wouldn’t be sure who would win.

I’d say that part 2 of the film starts off once they actually get inside. Wonka tells the kids that they have to make it to the end to get their prize. This proves to be a very difficult task since the kids want to touch things and gum up the works. Can Charlie resist the temptation of immediate gratification and riches for the ultimate prize or will he finally make a crucial mistake? It’ll be tough since a con man has went up to each of the kids and told them to snag him one of Wonka’s new ultra snacks and he’ll pay them handsomely for it. It’s just one snack right……

There were 5 lucky tickets so that means we have 5 main families. Lets start off with Augustus, the kid who loves eating. It’s easy to see why he wouldn’t last long in this environment since he is constantly surrounded by food. He didn’t play the match up right and went full aggro instead of a calm wait and snatch strategy. It ultimately cost him the gold prize and he wasn’t quite as fun as some of the other kids, but he fully embraced his desire to eat and eat. Trust me, he wasn’t shy about going for seconds. Next up is Mike, a kid who loves TV and even has a fake gun by his side. He has no real patience and when he sees a TV teleporter, he decides to go all in. I think we can safely say that his view is a little more down to Earth now and he actually got off quite leniently compared to some of the other kids. It’ll still be a tough life, but he can also experience some fun positives. A slice of pizza will be super filling now!

We can’t forget about Violet, who was the coolest in the film thanks to her father. He was a car salesperson who didn’t mess around and even told Willy that contracts are for suckers. While the rest of the cast signed their names into the contract that stipulated that they were willingly putting their lives on the line, the father objected. Unfortunately, Violet signed away anyway and basically dug her own grave, but at least her father knew what was up. “I’ll break you” was the best line in the film and I definitely think that the dad would have beaten Willy, had he not needed to go and save his daughter first. Easily the best character in the film. Another kid was Veruca, she always had to have whatever she wanted when she wanted it. This meant that she was perfect for Willy’s death traps that he scattered around the facility. They’re made to defeat individuals just like her. She actually lasted a while though.

As for good ole Charlie, he’s a nice kid. He also broke the rules, but managed to get lucky. That may have been a moment of weakness, but he’s certainly a far nicer and more honorable kid than the rest of the pack. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just had some bad luck. Charlie did everything that he could so he could make the financial situation better for his family. It had been rough for them and I believe the film even mentioned that most of his relatives hadn’t even gotten out of bed in years. It was a tight fit too since it was 3-4 of them squeezed in there. It was certainly emotional. Grandpa Joe was a fun supporting character. He was one of the only guys who dared to talk back to Willy and he made it clear that he wouldn’t be messed with. Grandpa Joe was old, but he had spunk. Charlie’s Mom was also a good influence on him as she encouraged Charlie to follow his dreams. She made the most of a pretty rotten situation.

Finally, there’s also Willy Wonka. He’s certainly a more sinister character than you would first think on the surface. He made a lot of money out of this situation and everything went according to his plans. Now, you can argue that his house isn’t an elaborate death trap and that everyone actually lives, but it seems a little sketchy to me. In this fantastical land, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they all died. It plays out like a family friendly horror film as everyone is bumped off one by one. Again, it’s the Hunger Games and since it is food related, the example is even more fitting. Wonka’s tricks were probably too good though since none of the kids were able to resist the temptations. Ah well, he’ll just have to nerf the place next time, but Charlie holds the keys now. Gene Wilder does a perfect job of showing how quirky Wonka is and making his character have a lot of personality right off the bat. Not just anyone could have pulled that off.

The only disturbing scene in the film is the really trippy car ride. It’s the only thing that could have maybe bumped this up to a PG…or beyond! The scenes definitely seemed rather intense, but it could just be an illusion effect from how fast the images were rolling. Either way, it certainly did a good job of being scary and out of nowhere. No wonder the cast wanted off of that ride. It didn’t help that it kept spitting frosting at them either. Not even Chocolate either, just good ole Vanilla.

Overall, This film was a lot of fun. It’s certainly very crazy and the world is quite spectacular, but it does it in such a serious way that it really works. It’s one of those rare comedy films where the writing is really on point and the pacing is great. It’s a laugh a minute and the cast is quite good. You’ll feel bad for the characters since a lot of them seem doomed in the end, but at least they got to eat some chocolate and have their 5 minutes of fame before going. I’d love to have some free chocolate myself. The movie even has a few songs and also gave the world some cool memes. Prepare yourself for Wonka’s big “You Lose” speech that got a lot of recognition online. This film fairly close to an 8 honestly, but a 7 just seems more appropriate. It’s in that gray area between numbers, but I don’t believe in giving half points so it had to be one of the other. If you want a fun film to check out for Christmas, this is certainly a really good option to roll with.

Overall 7/10

Godzilla Resurgence Review

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Godzilla is a series that I had always wanted to check out, but it took me quite a while to do so. Finally, about 2-3 years ago I went back and checked out every movie in chronological order. To this date, it is probably one of my biggest achievements. This film would be my first Japanese Godzilla film in theaters so I was ready for a blast and a half. It’s definitely a very solid film and Godzilla certainly does appear more than he did in the American film, at least it felt that way to me. While it definitely loses to a lot of the classic Godzilla films as I enjoy the Mega Monster brawls, this will certainly be remembered as a classic.

The plot is fairly standard for a G film. Godzilla has arisen and now the Government must try to find a way to suppress him before the whole planet is put at risk. Japan will have to do this while also keeping the foreign governments happy. America is willing to use their nuclear options and wipe Tokyo off the map if necessary. The old guard is at the end of their ropes so it is time for the next generation-led by Yaguchi, to save the day. The real question is..can they defeat the King of the Monsters?

Controversially, this film was confirmed to not have any antagonist for Godzilla from early on. That was a shame in my opinion because the monster fights are the main reason why I love the Godzilla films so much. There are many films that only have a single monster like the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms or King Kong, but the battles are what separates Godzilla from the pack. Not to mention that in my very controversial opinion, the films where Godzilla has no antagonist are typically the weaker ones. One day I want to come up with my personal list of where I would rank each Godzilla film. It’ll be difficult though since there are so many and you can make a great case for most of them. Sometimes I can barely put Final Wars as my favorite because GMK and the classic Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster are so good.

Lets launch into the positives. I was expecting this Godzilla film to be really serious and over the top dark based on the title. “Shin” usually means that something is going to be dark and dreary. The film is serious, but Resurgence has a lot of light hearted moments. I got to see this in a fairly packed theater with an energetic crowd and people were laughing constantly. The film feels just as comedic as the original Showa films at some point. It may not always be intentional, but I think it definitely was for at least 80-90% of the scenes. It’s good to be able to mix these tone shifts and the film does it quite well.

The humans never come across as annoying. Yaguchi is a good lead. He may panic from time to time, but he also comes up with a lot of good ideas and never gives up. The American representative Kayoko is also pretty likable. I always like having an American character step into the fray and she feels American right from the start. She is very direct and quippy as opposed to the other serious characters. I also appreciated the film’s restraint with not pushing for a very unrealistic and sudden romance and keeping things professional instead. Friendship isn’t dead quite yet and people can get along without having to take the next step. The Prime Minister was also fun as he was clearly out of his depths, but tried to keep on a tough face. Watching him and the group switch from room to room was definitely entertaining.

The film showed how having a lot of bureaucracy can be a very bad thing. It’s hard to act on a situation when you have to jump through so many hoops. The film portrays America in a very good light as a result as the country does whatever it wants whenever it wants too. America promotes young people who have fresh ideas and it has led to them becoming a global power. America was also portrayed with the might that is appropriate for them as their missiles are the first thing to actually injure Godzilla. They dealt quite a lot of damage and while I don’t think a nuclear missile would have finished Godzilla off, they are one of the only placed to have such an arsenal up their sleeve. I was definitely very satisfied.

Naturally, seeing Godzilla was also a blast. Shooting Atomic Breath out of his spikes and out of his tail was awesome and the whole crowd cheered quite a bit during this moment. It’s a little morbid since he basically took out an entire city, but who wasn’t rooting for Godzilla? I was definitely on Team Kaiju from the start. Godzilla keeps the army at bay for quite a while and he looks fairly tough as you would expect. However, I wasn’t completely thrilled with his portrayal as I had some negatives.

My first gripe is that they went with CGI for Godzilla instead of a suit. CGI can work decently well at times I suppose, but this wasn’t one of them. This is easily the worst Godzilla design of all time aside from the 1998 film which barely counts. People chuckled when Godzilla first appeared in his Rooster form and I was fairly shocked. Luckily, it was just something to throw us off, but I don’t think that Godzilla’s first stage should look like that. Even once he turned into his final form, Godzilla felt fairly off. I’m not crazy about the fact that it always looks like he is bleeding when he walks and that he has to shoot out blood in his first form.

While I don’t mind the narrow stream of Atomic Breath, it certainly looks more impressive when it is a wide blast. Also, I don’t like the way his face has to completely open up in order to shoot the blast. It looks a little gross and disturbing like the Predator’s true face in the classic horror series. It almost makes it seem like a weakness as he will be very vulnerable during that time. The back rays are still cool as they can react in time to stop high speed missiles, but Godzilla shouldn’t run out of energy so quickly. I always have to mention moments that I deem as “plot hax” in these films and Resurgence is no exception. The humans obviously have to come up with some kind of plan at the end, but I would have been more content with Godzilla just walking away like in the 2014 movie. Without going into detail, the plan should not have worked. Godzilla seemed to lose all of his smarts as he walked into every trap and expended energy when he did not need too. It should have been game over for the humans right from the get go and even knocking him down was a bit of a stretch. Either this Godzilla is less durable than some of the others or he just underestimated them. If the film was trying to portray the latter, I didn’t quite buy into it.

The soundtrack for the film is definitely pretty good. There were one or two themes that were memorable like the opera esque tune. Seeing the original Godzilla theme return with a new remix was definitely a lot of fun as well. I was actually expecting more homages to the original films, but I suppose you don’t really need them since the film holds up so well on its own. I really would have liked a good cliffhanger to end the film though. I suppose you could count a certain scene as a possible cliffhanger, but I wanted another monster to roar or something. This film seems like it isn’t really leading up to a sequel so maybe we’ll the next live action film will be another take on the classic franchise.

While listing all of the films in order is tough, in order to celebrate Godzilla’s latest film I thought I’d give it my best shot in this review. Tentatively here’s how I rank them and each row is in order. Keep in mind that these ranks are comparatively so just because a Godzilla film is in D rank doesn’t mean that I consider it to be remotely as bad as films like Pixels and I Know What You Did Last Summer. I’m doing this list off of my head so I’m not looking at my older reviews or blog posts for reference. As a result, the list may look a little different than it would if we went purely by the scores that I gave. It’s been a while since I saw these films so I may remember them differently, but I also didn’t have time to look at all of my posts so this was a little simpler.

S Rank Godzilla Final Wars, GMK, Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs Hedorah, Godzilla vs Mecha Godzilla II, Godzilla (2000), Terror of Mecha Godzilla

A Rank Godzilla vs King Kong, Godzilla vs Mecha Godzilla, Godzilla Against Mecha Godzilla, Godzilla Tokyo SOS, Invasion of the Astro Monster, Godzilla vs Destoroyah, Mothra vs Godzilla

B Rank Godzilla vs Space Godzilla, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, Godzilla vs Ebirah, Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs Mothra, Godzilla vs Megalon

C Rank Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla (2014) Son of Godzilla, Godzilla Resurgence

D Rank Godzilla Raids Again, Gojira (1954), Godzilla vs Biollante, Godzilla (1998), The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs Megaguirus

It’s definitely tough to list them all and my feelings on the films can be really contradictory. Take Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla Resurgence as they are the two latest films. On one hand, I feel like Godzilla was easily the more intense film. The action scenes were great and the Muto made for a really good villain. The mythos around the film are more interesting and the ending was much better. On the other hand, the human characters in Resurgence were far superior as well as the writing and the pacing. Resurgence never drags on or has any real filler scenes. It captures the impact of Godzilla’s first appearance a lot better and the comedic tones work really well. So…should Godzilla really beat Resurgence? Both films are just so close that it is really hard to stick with one over the other for long, but alas decisions must be made at some point.

Overall, Godzilla Resurgence is definitely a fun film. The humans are easily some of the most interesting and least annoying ones that I have seen in a very long time. I also haven’t seen a Japanese live action film in a very long time so it is interesting to see how they film the movie as opposed to the ones that I’m used too. There are a lot more close ups on the characters, which worked well for comedic effect, but I don’t think I would want that to happen too often. The only real weak point of the movie is the fact that there are no other monsters and that Godzilla’s design isn’t all that good. Still, I definitely recommend it to all Godzilla fans and to anyone that likes a good creature feature. The pacing is very quick so the film never drags on. I look forward to seeing the new Godzilla animated film or the American one coming up. Either way, I will be awaiting them at the theater.

Overall 7/10

Collateral Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would be more negative and may have a different score

It’s time for an action film where Tom Cruise is actually the main villain. It’s definitely an interesting switch to see him play the antagonist and it is handled very well. Typically, you’d expect the film to purposefully make the character as evil as possible to show us that the actor can handle different roles, but Collateral allows Cruise to still play himself…he’s just on the side of evil this time. Collateral certainly destroyed my expectations and proved itself to be a great film. I dare say that it may just make my top 5 non franchise films when it comes to live action. It would lose to The One, but that’s pretty much all that comes to mind and it’s been a while since I saw that film so…who knows.

Max is a cab driver who one day wants to open his own business. Working as a cabbie is just something that he is doing to earn some money first. Unfortunately, his plans are thrown for a loop when he ends up carrying a dangerous assassin by the name of Vincent. After being tricked into driving Vincent to his first target, Max quickly realizes that there is no easy way out of the situation. If he tries to leave, he’ll die along with his mother and anyone else that he knows. His only chance is to take Vincent out, but Vincent seems to be a complete pro at anything relating to violence. Can Max make a move before Vincent targets someone that he knows?

From the start of the film it is shown that Max is a nice guy. He’s the kind of cab driver who will have fun holding a discussion with the passenger and ensure that he gets you to your destination as soon as possible even if that isn’t economically preferable to him. Max helps a prosecutor out with some advice and also visits his sick mother regularly. He’s not used to violence and panics quite a bit once Vincent shows up. The situation is handled fairly realistically as well as there isn’t a whole lot that Max can do to escape. His best bet would have been running as soon as they hit the second target. Max halfheartedly tried, but that was it for him. Vincent took more extreme measures to ensure that the driver wouldn’t get away. Max stepped up when it counted though and the whole time he did his best to put a dent in Vincent’s plans. The film did a good job of not making it cheesy when Max started to actually resist more and more.

Vincent’s easily the standout character here though. He has the confident personality that most of Cruise’s characters possess. Vincent is great in a hand to hand fight and a crackshot with his gun. He takes out normal joes and professional gangsters alike. One of his best scenes is when he walks into a night show and takes out multiple gangsters, cops, and random joes. Vincent is just very good at his job to the point where he is typically very relaxed. He makes jokes and quips and even tries to give Max some life advice. The film still makes you wonder how serious he is about this though. On one hand, it is hinted that Vincent was always going to destroy Max once he finished off his targets as a similar case happened in the past. On the other hand, he does say that he will let Max go and acts like your average protagonist at times. Personally, I believe the former. I think it’s all just a big act and he’s a lot more cruel than he lets on. Vincent is just really good at keeping the mask on at all times. After all, who says that a villain can’t have a sense of humor and a positive disposition? If anything, it helps Vincent blend into the crowd more.

Annie is the prosecutor that Max helps out at the very beginning of the film. Naturally, the film wouldn’t have had her appear if she wasn’t going to return right? Initially, I was expecting a very different film. I thought she had appeared because Vincent was going to escape or die and then Max would be framed for serial murder. Annie would then help him out in court. Instead, the film goes in a very different direction and one that is just as effective. The writers also did a great job in avoiding the cliched romance between her and Max. Instead, they acted as competent partners in the end. If I had a minor gripe, it’s that the incident shook Annie up a little too much. Of course, who knows how I would act in a similar situation. It’s an extremely minor nitpick and Annie’s still a good character. Ironically if Max had followed her lead, the heroes would have made it out of the climax a lot sooner.

Ray is a police officer who talks a good game and acts like he is going to be a major player in the film. The writers certainly had a lot of fun with him and the way that his plot plays out is perfect. Seriously, Collateral had a fun time destroying the usual cliches and giving out red herrings. Ray’s definitely a likable guy and his role was direct and to the point. There were a few other cop characters who showed up, but they were mostly just bit roles to give Vincent someone to shoot. Ray was the only one who really felt like a full fledged character.

The film had a good amount of night scenes. The camera settings were definitely solid though as it was never hard to see what was happening. The only scenes that were fairly dark were typically for suspense reasons. For example, Vincent looked as if he was Wesker from Resident Evil at times with his dark shades and mysterious attire. I’d say that he probably draws quite a lot of attention that way, but maybe it’s one of those “So obvious, nobody would ever suspect” kind of things. I can roll with that.

I don’t really remember the film having much of a soundtrack. Whatever tunes were there fit well with the scenes though as I definitely don’t remember any moments where I would need to shake my head. The violence in the film never gets too gruesome. People are shot and they die, but it never goes out of its way to be all that graphic. It may be thanks to the TV version, but regardless, I’ll chalk that up as a positive here. Restraint is always a good thing for an action thriller.

Collateral moves at a great pace and is anything but dull. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easily one of the best thrillers. You can feel the tension whenever Vincent is around and especially after he subtly threatens Max’s mom. That’s when things get a little more serious for Max. The film’s action scenes are great, which almost goes without saying. The gun fights are handled well and it makes you wish we could have a Bourne vs Vincent match someday. I think Vincent would actually have the edge in a gun fight although Bourne could win a fist fight.

Overall, Collateral is a great movie. There is almost nothing negative to say about it. The characters are all likable for a change and the fight scenes are great. If you’re looking for a good action film, then this is definitely the one for you. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular, but maybe it’ll eventually be known as an obscure classic. The ending has some mild plot hax, but don’t most thrillers? You can also make the case that someone’s heart wasn’t in it by the end. The film gives you a lot to think about so it’s fun to come up with your own deductions.

Overall 8/10

Constantine Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version. All thoughts below should be read as such as a review of the unedited version would be even more negative.
Constantine-2005
Well well, it’s time to look at a horror film that also happens to be a comic book film. I’m not sure about this combo and it certainly didn’t work out this time. Constantine ends up being a very weak title which contradicts its own message and spends a lot of time wondering just where the plot went. One thing’s for sure, this isn’t the sleeper hit of 2005 and it even makes the recent Ghost Rider film look good.

The film’s about a guy named Constantine who exorcises demons. He wants to be allowed into Heaven since he has done a good job of keeping the demons away, but the angel Gabriel reminds him that one cannot enter into Heaven on good works alone. Constantine shows his contempt for this by slamming a Bible on the ground, insulting and berating a lady who is trying to save her sister, and then torturing a spider that he found in his house. Yeah….I wonder why they aren’t letting this guy into Heaven….It’s impossible to root for Constantine from this point on, but one thing leads to another and he’s the only guy standing in the way of a mad quest for power with human lives in the balance. Looks like it’s time to fight again!

It’s hard to know where to start on how bad this film is. We may as well get the ball rolling with Constantine since I’ve already started taking shots at him. He’s just a horrendous main character. Constantine doesn’t seem to even pretend to follow the Bible’s teachings. He spends the entire film being mean to just about everyone and his opening scene where we’re supposed to be impressed with how he handles the exorcist just makes him look bad. He’s not even that good at his job and barely manages to scratch out wins. Constantine loves smoking as well and even after he gets lung cancer, he decides to keep on smoking anyway. Once he gets a sidekick, Constantine tries to be a little more heroic when he’s not pulling guns at demons at a bar where there’s a truce, but it’s too little too late. I’ll never forget the spider incident. Sure, he had a bad day, but taking it out on another living creature is way past crossing the line.

There’s also this subplot in the desert where a guy finds a spear which mind controls him and forces the guy to come over to the city. Not only does this plot go nowhere until the very end of the film, but it is immensely boring and just slows the film’s pacing down even more. The film never really gets good or exciting so it may not matter all that much while you’re watching, but it doesn’t help matters.

The film can also be pretty violent at times and also just grotesque with the various demons running around. Supernatural films like this one love going for those crazy visuals. There were some good ones here like when Constantine went into hell. I liked how the place looked and the film had potential with some of the fight scenes and other special effects. It was one of the few positives that this title had to offer.

Back to the negatives, the film decides to make God (Yes, the film actually decided to go with the real God in this film. Big mistake considering that they decided to make him look terrible) look incredibly unintelligent and he spends the entire film getting tricked by everyone around him. Part of the premise in this film is that God and the Devil are having a chess game with humans being the pawns in it. Neither one of them can affect the humans directly, but they can tempt them. The Devil tempts them to do wrong things with his demon hybrids while God has the half angels. Full fledged Demons and Angels are forbidden from interfering. Aside from the moral ambiguity of this game, you’d think that God would ensure that the match is fair right? Nope, he doesn’t realize it, but the Devil has rigged the match from the start.

He’s not even subtle as he just summons a bunch of Demons to Earth and directly attacks people. His allies even go to bars and start indiscriminately murdering people. They also murder one of Constantine’s allies and an angel can do nothing but watch since he’s heavily outnumbered. Of course, the fact that the angel was watching and doing nothing the entire time is another negative. It gets even worse as one of the higher ranked Angels turns out to be crazy and evil. God appointed him as one of the 4 big Angels so you’d think that the interview process would have been more rigid. The Angel believes that he’s still a good guy and that genocide will help the human race turn to God before they die. He believes that suffering always has this effect, but you can see how crazy he is.

Also, the Devil is portrayed as incredibly strong and while God won’t set foot on Earth, he has no qualms about it. He shows up and wrecks everybody. The final straw is the fact that he can mess with Heaven as well. So, remember the part where Constantine can’t earn his way into Heaven with actions? Yeah…the film forgot about that. By being heroic and helping someone out, he was able to earn his way into Heaven, but the Devil can’t have that. He literally reaches up and just pulls Constantine back to Earth. Wow…..I can’t even….

So…yeah, this movie had a very warped idea of how Heaven and Hell works. It’s always nice to see a film actually bring Christianity to the forefront and tackle these concepts, but it was done so horrendously that it backfired completely. I don’t believe we even got any lines where the characters remind Constantine that he can only get into Heaven through Jesus Christ. It seemed to completely revolve around being a nice person instead, which is 100% false. No matter how many good deeds you do or how nice you are as a person, it will never be enough to get you into Heaven without accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. The whole point of faith in Christianity is that you know that you can’t make it to Heaven on your own. You need Jesus, but this film decides to go around that. Also, the concept of an Angel being evil is pretty terrible. Lucifer was an angel once and there are other Fallen Angels, but they are fallen. There aren’t any evil Angels still lurking or anything like that. That’s just Hollywood trying for an epic plot twist, but there isn’t any to be found in Heaven. I don’t think for one minute that any bad guy can trick God into letting him in.

As for the rest of the supporting characters, the main heroine was decent. Angela was certainly a big improvement over Constantine and she goes through a lot of trials in order to help her sister out. Her sister committed suicide, but Angela knows that she would never do such a thing and it finally helps her to believe in the supernatural. This brings another negative to light which I almost forgot about. All right, stay with me here since the film decides to use its crazy logic again.

So, a demon possessed Isabel and forced her to destroy herself. That wasn’t her own free will so she surely wouldn’t be penalized for it would she? Nope…she actually is. See, as part of the match, this falls into the whole “Satan influencing people” part so it’s actually a legitimate victory for him with Isabel now being doomed to Hell for eternity. Now you can see how this whole game is so rigged right? Luckily, Isabel ends up having a happy ending, but once again, the Devil was just portrayed as way too powerful here. Essentially, he was the one with power over Heaven and Hell in this version given how he can influence the game to such a degree.

So, Angela’s a good character. I also liked Chas, who’s the comic relief character of the film. He did a good job in the role and helped out as best he could. Things didn’t go too well for him, but he does get a big plot twist in the post credits scene…which may or may not be canon as I also read that it was an alternate ending. I’m pretty sure that it is canon though, but I don’t really care enough about the film to do any searching. If you see the film you can stick around past the credits and tell me if it’s there. None of the villains were particularly likable and the demons didn’t have great designs. The final fights were pretty decent, but Constantine was so far out of his league that it was scary. He’s a human with a gun….there’s only so much he can do against a very fast/powerful demon. Plot hax is really his only weapon at this point.

Overall, Constantine is pretty terrible to be honest. I’d stick far away from this film if I were you. The film defies its own logic and the logic is already super flawed and fake from the get go. You won’t learn anything from this film because there is nothing to learn and the actual movie isn’t well made anyway. Constantine is a very unlikable main character and even the edited version can’t save the film’s writing and the excessive violence that shows up at times. All of Constantine’s allies (One of which is a priest who likes to drink a lot. Gee….the film had to fit that in didn’t it?) are doomed to painful and unfortunate ends at the hands of the demons and since the heroes never had a shot from the beginning…what’s the point? If you want a better comic book film, I recommend Batman V Superman, the original theater version. That film has it all, hype, action, and an epic soundtrack!

Overall 2/10

In a Lonely Place Review

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It’s time for another sad “classic” that doesn’t end up aging well at all. The film definitely leaves you in a lonely place and you have to wonder if the film’s solid reputation is only fleeting at best. The characters once again aren’t all that likable and the film ends up dragging on for quite a while. Well, I suppose that the title is fitting, but that’s the only compliment that I can ultimately give the film. It fails at everything else.

Dixon is a guy who has a very bad reputation of losing his temper and starting trouble. His movie scripts have also not done very well in a while since he tends to have writer’s block and refuses to make any more remakes. One day, a girl he invited home to read a manuscript is murdered on the way home. He is placed under suspicion due to how uncaring he is and the suspicious circumstances surrounding her murder. Meanwhile, Dixon’s neighbor, Laurel is brought in and the two very suddenly get attracted to each other. Unfortunately, Laurel may have picked the wrong man as Dixon seems to get further and further gone with each passing day.

Let’s start off with the fact that none of the characters here are likable. Dixon is obsessed with murder to the point where he doesn’t mind cracking a few jokes upon learning that the girl was murdered. He doesn’t really care even though it’s indirectly his fault for inviting her to his home. I say indirectly because you can’t totally blame him there and she seemed to be in a relationship with a pretty crooked fellow. This result may have happened either way. You’re supposed to sympathize with Dixon, but he’s too far gone. He makes no real attempt to control his anger and nearly murders a guy for simply shooting off an insult. The fact is, he would have murdered the guy had Laurel not stopped him. He injures his manager as well and then tries to strangle Laurel until the phone stops him. That’s two murders that he would have committed had he not been stopped.

As I said, Dixon is way too far gone to be even remotely likable. There’s no way a positive relationship could have ever occurred if he doesn’t respect Laurel enough not to force her into things. Even the marriage proposal is only accepted because of the very implied threat had Laurel not accepted. Laurel isn’t great either. Refusing in the beginning would have been the safest choice, but why did she get involved in the first place? She went from being a rather cold individual who claimed not to rush into things only to get serious about the relationship the very next day. It was a very fast turnaround and the romance really made no sense from the get go.

Now, we’ve also got the cop who seems to be a friend of Dixon’s although just barely. He invites Dixon over for the guy to help explain the murder. Dixon is fascinated with murders and writes about them a lot so he’s sure to be an expert. Sure enough, Dixon figures it out and has the cop use the murder method on his wife as part of a demonstration. All right, there’s nothing bad about that as it’s all pretend right? Wrong, the cop gets so much into it that he starts to seriously squeeze until his wife lets him know that it’s hurting. Even then it takes the cop a few moments to notice before he stopped. Once again, we’ve entered crazy town. You’re not seriously tell me to consider the fact that the murder is so interesting that you would start to seriously use the method on your wife for even an instance right? I mean, the wall between fake and real is quite large and anyone with a speck of common sense would not apply the squeeze at all past safety limits. The cop was doomed from there.

Dixon’s manager wasn’t bad even if he probably shouldn’t have put up with this abuse for so long. He’s just being a good friend so I don’t hold that against him. He’s probably the best character by default although he really shouldn’t encourage Laurel so much since it’s all right to put yourself in a dangerous position, but never anyone else. That’s where you’ve got to draw the line.

As a result, the film is just not enjoyable in the slightest. That’s what happens when a film has a bad plot or commits any of the big 3 errors. (excessive violence, fanservice, animal violence) There are two kinds of bad films by the way. Ones that are simply hard to watch like this one and those that you can enjoy watching in the moment while recognizing their flaws and placing it as a bad movie. I’ll give you all an example of this.

Pixels also got a 1 like this movie. The big difference is that the film was still a lot of fun. I had to stifle a laugh many times, there were great action scenes, and the characters could be likable. Why was it terrible? Well, there were a lot of inappropriate jokes and terrible writing. That may not sound like enough to give the film a 1, but trust me…it was. When the writing is overloaded with those kind of jokes you can bet that I’ll give the film a terrible review. It’s a shame because the film could have been good with so many solid moments, but that’s how it goes. Regardless, I’ll take that kind of film any day over one like this. Pitch Perfect, Bring It On, Tower Heist (to a lesser extent), etc are examples of films like this. I don’t like them and I certainly don’t plan on watching them again, but if I had to choose between them or films like this one, (Sucker Punch, In A Lonely Place, Haunting in Connecticut, Amityville Horror, etc) I would definitely go with the former.

That’s because films are made for you to have fun. I still say that is the purpose of all forms of media. If you’re not even having any fun in the movie and it’s just dragging on and on with content that is not enjoyable, then it has failed. For films that are not enjoyable intentionally, then it is a failed film right from the start. Criterion seems to like approving films like this, which is definitely regrettable. They’ve had some good films in the past, but it seems to be rare.

Overall, I definitely do not recommend In A Lonely Place. It’s not a fun film and it’s probably the first Bogart title that I really did not like. It’s a shame since he typically plays likable characters. This may have come out before Godzilla, but the writing is surprisingly not engaging mainly due to the plot. Instead of checking this film out, look up some classic Hitchcock titles that will engross you in their plots or look for Superman and the Mole Men. A true classic that can appeal to all film fans with its good humor and solid climax.

Overall 1/10

The Manchurian Candidate Review

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Considering a certain event in the new Captain America series and the general plot of the Civil War film, it’s a good time to look at this film. Unfortunately, it was quite terrible so don’t go in expecting me to tell you how great it all was. It’s a very sad film where the characters continue to make mistake after mistake. The brainwashing is advanced enough that it completely clobbers a whole group of people and America doesn’t realize how many undercover fighters are around. Can the country stop these guys before it is too late…or is it already too late!?

Marco was with a platoon behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, his group was captured and brainwashed by the Soviets and forced to murder each other. One member of their group was turned into a sleeper agent (Raymond) while the others were allowed to return to the country. Why weren’t they all turned into sleeper agents? Who knows! Anyway, Marco starts having odd dreams and realizes that something is not right. He starts to uncover the truth behind Raymond, but what can he do about it. Few believe him and even fewer have enough power to do anything about this. Marco’s going to have to go with his gut instincts here, but it may not be enough.

Typically, you’d think that the film would try to make Raymond likable so we’d actually be sympathetic to his plight right? Well, this film decides to take the opposite approach and makes him a guy who is not likable in the slightest. This is why Marco suspects that something is up since the brainwashing forces every member of his platoon to like the guy. Even once Marco finds out that playing cards are the key to stopping Raymond, he decides to leave the agent alone for one more night with his fiance. Big mistake.

As a result of Marco’s blunder, Raymond destroys her along with her father and claims many more innocent victims along the way. He even gets one last murder as the film ends because nobody was fast enough to stop him. One subplot that is also grating from the start is that he and his mother don’t get along at all. This leads to a series of insults and sob stories as we find out that she is the one controlling him. Raymond can only watch as she takes out the playing cards and brainwashes him once again. No worries, he is partially cured by the end so he remembers enough to take her down, but naturally he doesn’t take any prisoners.

Not that this film needed any more subplots to destroy the momentum, but after a “Miller Time” moment (Downing a lot of beers) Raymond remembers an event from the past. He met a girl and instantly they fell in love, but his mother warned him to get away from her and he made sure to listen. The flashback felt like it just kept on going for ages and ages. It barely even mattered in the end and just added two more individuals for Raymond to murder in the end. Civil War definitely handled the concept better, but I suppose that this goes without saying. Even the fight scene between Marco and the guy who worked for Raymond wasn’t any fun, but I suppose that I should be grateful to have a fight scene at all.

The bottom line is that this film just wasn’t any fun in the end. My films need to at least have some entertaining aspect to them, but there was none of that to be found here. I felt bad for everyone that Raymond destroyed, but not quite as much for him. The police should have had the election guarded a lot better, especially considering that Marco knew that Raymond might try something. Letting him go on his own was definitely not their best strategy. Of course, they did foil the Soviet plan, but apparently there are many more of them hiding in the country already. The film doesn’t end with a whole lot of hope for the Americans, but at least we know that they won in the end. I tried to think of a silver lining here, but I really can’t. This is the kind of film that will have you staring at the clock on the wall for its entire duration. There are no positives or saving graces here. I suppose you could at least make the argument that it could have been worse though.

Overall, The Manchurian Candidate is another critically acclaimed film that ends up falling completely flat. None of the characters are likable and most of them are only introduced so they can be destroyed later on. The brainwashing was way too complete and unbreakable. Especially since it has already been years that have passed, I find it hard to believe that it would be so effective. Just looking at a deck of cards is basically enough to stop Raymond. The whole thing was just too easy for the Soviets from start to finish. I don’t really blame the government for not believing Marco since this is all a rather unbelievable story, but it didn’t make his job any easier. I definitely do not recommend this film so watch it at your own peril.

Overall 0/10

A Few Good Men Review

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This review is of the edited TV 14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such since a review of the unedited version would likely be more negative.
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It’s time for a classic film and one that’s more critically applauded when compared to Galaxy Quest. Even the title can be seen as deep because you have to decide who the title is referring too. I personally think that it shouldn’t really go towards the two guys who choked the poor victim so I’d place it on Daniel and his partners, but I suppose that it’s ultimately your choice there.

Dawson and Downey are two U.S. Army Marines who have been charged with murder of another cadet in a hazing incident. They have pleaded innocent as the other cadet was murdered, but they claim to have been ordered to haze him. Their superior officer has given another story so it is time to go to court. Daniel has been assigned to the case, but while he is known as a skilled lawyer who can reduce a client’s sentence quite easily, he likes to take the easy way out. If a deal is offered, he’ll take it. JoAnne doesn’t want this to happen since she thinks the two guys are totally innocent and assigns herself as Daniel’s partner. There’s also a third partner who is involved, but he’s not thrilled at the prospect of helping these two bullies.

Before getting into anything else, I will say that I definitely agree with the third guy. Dawson and Downey are in the wrong here and spending a lifetime in prison is essentially what they deserve. Knowingly or not, they did murder someone and took away his chance at a future. They may say that they were ordered to put him into a suffocating position long enough to strike fear into him, but that’s essentially torture and any amount of common sense will tell you that this isn’t okay. When you’re in the Marines you’re expected to follow orders no matter what. Well, then you’ve got to set the example for the others or allow yourself to be discharged from your post. Assaulting a defenseless person is definitely not the right choice to make in any situation. It doesn’t make it any better when you consider that it was 2 vs 1 and the fact that these guys were supposed to be friends. Yeah, Dawson and Downey got no sympathy from me.

It doesn’t help that they don’t make it very easy for Daniel either. They hide crucial bits of information from their allies until the prosecutors bring up the evidence in court. (It’s way too late by then of course) They also don’t seem all that sorry about their actions either. There is basically no remorse for a while. They even say that they have a code. “Units, Corp, God, Country.” So, God’s third on that list and your Unit is above your Country? The priorities are really messed up here and when you put the Unit above morality then you know something is going to go wrong. As it stands, I was basically rooting for the opposing team although naturally I wanted the lie about not giving the order to come out.

Nathan is a pretty good villain and I instantly recognized the villain from the Shining. The actor’s voice is certainly iconic and he does a good job of playing the role here. Nathan is pretty confident and in his old age he really wants to command respect from just about everyone that he talks to. He has no respect for anyone but himself and he is committed to doing things his way. His personality is ultimately his downfall, but this was a villain that I could get behind.

Daniel’s a pretty good main character. I like the overconfidence and the fact that he treats everything like a game. It’s ultimately a front as he shows on different occasions that he actually has a good grasp on everything so it seems like he just has fun trolling everyone. His superiors clearly see his talent as they chose him…or that’s what he wants to think. They probably just wanted someone who would roll over when they attacked in court. Daniel’s only downfall is the fact that he panics a lot. When he panics, Daniel gets drunk and then he’ll start running around and yelling. This happens to a lot of main characters to be honest, they’ll just panic and then try to get sober in time for the climax. It may have been discouraging as the case had a lot of set backs, but getting drunk won’t help.

JoAnne’s a good heroine and she certainly does a good job of digging up a lot of info on her own. Without her prodding, the heroes would have definitely lost the case as she is the one who started to make Nathan look suspicious and Daniel would have given up several times if not for her. JoAnne is strong willed and you always need that in a lawyer. I’m also glad that the film avoided the predictable romance between her and Daniel. They ultimately stay in the friend zone and that’s the realistic way to handle this. Getting together after a few days of working on a case would have been dicey.

Daniel’s rival was a pretty interesting antagonist and he was actually reasonable, which is something that usually doesn’t happen. They were fighting as part of the case, but off the record they were still pals and even went out for drinks. They would feed each other info and the banter was always good. Meanwhile, the hardened secret agent was a bit of a let down. He talked tough and he got a lot of hype as well, but when the going got tough he decided to get out of there. By “there” I mean life and it was a rather anticlimactic way to go. There was really no point to doing any of that and it just made the guy look weak.

Of course, the main reason why this film was a lot of fun was the court room scenes. I always enjoy those and a good part of the film took place in court once the action started. The Judge kept them all honest as he overruled some of the objections. He also wouldn’t stand for any insults and not even Nathan could get away with any rudeness here. The court scenes were where you could really see what the characters were made of. Who had the skills and who simply did not. Daniel snatching away the rule book and bringing up the lunch room question was certainly one of the highlight moments in the court. He certainly did a great job debating even if the evidence was stacked against him from the start.

Overall, A Few Good Men is a solid film. There really isn’t much negative to say about it. The ending was satisfying since Dawson and Downey didn’t get a super happy ending. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just as guilty as anyone else. The characters were all pretty charismatic and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of Nathan at the base. A few more scenes over there would have definitely been a blast. If you want a solid strategic film with good dialogue throughout, this is the film for you. You know that Nathan is lying from the start so you just have to wonder how the heroes can prove it. To an extent, the ending involves plot hax since there is no other way that the heroes could have made it, but it’s still pretty fun and the debate doesn’t use any hax until the very end so the rest is all very legit. We need more good court room films.

Overall 8/10

The Perfect Storm

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The Perfect Storm is based on a real life event where two storms of immense proportions clashed and a boat was destroyed along with its crew. I don’t remember hearing about this event before so I suppose that it was before my time. (After all, I hear about all the big news….sorta) There are a few big sideplots to try and pad out the time, but I’m afraid that they certainly don’t contribute anything to the narrative.

One of the subplots is about a little boat that also got caught in the storm. The Captain reminded his passengers that he’s never needed a map before and he doesn’t need one now. As a result, they’re tossed around in the waves for a while. I like the Captain’s gusto, although he is endangering everyone else just to prove his gusto. That’s certainly not the wisest course of action and he’s pretty much just there for comedy. He was a well done character though so I’ll give him some props there. Another subplot is that the Captain of the main ship is warned by the Captain of another one that he is in a dangerous zone. He barely listens to her though and while she almost saves him in time by calling in a chopper, it was too late.

Naturally, the main plot is where the meat of the story is, but unfortunately the characters do drag it down. The beginning is pretty sad and reminded me of Cloverfield to an extent. Especially considering that these guys are based on real individuals, you’d think that they would try to make the characters look better. One guy’s a flirt who only really cares about one night stands and never develops into a likable person. Another one doesn’t listen to his wife’s warnings about going to see and decides that the adventure is worth the money. The Captain yells at his crew quite a bit to remind them who’s in charge and to stop any betrayals before they can occur.

Without any likable characters, any film would have an issue being good. The characters constantly getting into fights with each other just makes you wait for the inevitable storm so that something can advance the plot. I also think that the film put too much emphasis on random fish scenes to pad out the time. We saw so many fish get chopped up that I was starting to feel in the mood for a good Salmon. We don’t need excessive animal violence in any film. The excuse of fishing being a sport just won’t cut it here. We don’t need that to be featured in the movie.

I’d also argue that the situation made the characters look a little bad, but naturally there may have been different circumstances in the real life event. The characters have to choose between their fish going bad and heading into the super storm that’s directly in front of them. Their boat’s good, but it’s not exactly military grade so the mission is effectively suicide as soon as it is mentioned. If you ask me, they should just let the fish spoil. A really inconvenient moment was definitely the fact that the characters ran out of ice, which meant that they couldn’t get any more fish. Returning home empty handed would have been humiliating and some of them would have probably been fired, but at least they’d be alive. It’s a tough personal choice to make, but when you have friends and family back home waiting for you, it’s time to make the tough calls.

If anything, it’s very impressive to see the military get involved and ride into the storm. I’m sure that it was the last thing any of them wanted to do since it was a dangerous situation. They’re probably wondering why everyone was out in the middle of the storm when it had been predicted for a while, but that’s how it goes. I feel like they could have been able to refuel in the film. They kept missing the shot, but why not try and try again until you literally can’t? I didn’t agree with the decision to just give up.

Overall, The Perfect Storm could have been a much better adaption. Based on the Wikipedia section of possible errors, it could have been more accurate as well. Although I’m sure that people would have been tackling them with denials and such no matter what so I can’t really comment on the accuracy. A lot of the padding could have been removed and the characters should have looked a lot better. Just as it’s said “Don’t speak ill of the dead” they should be portrayed as fairly good characters. They don’t have to be perfect, but I doubt the families would be thrilled about how some of these guys looked. Well, getting caught in a double storm would certainly be dicey so I advise you to stay ashore and if you have to choose between fish and your life…I trust that you’ll really think about the options before making a move. I don’t believe in going outside to find adventure or anything like that so when the next storm hits, I’ll be in bed with a chocolate chip cookie playing a nice round of Super Smash Bros.

Creed Review

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I saw this film quite a while ago when it first came out so this review has been on the shelf for a while. Well, no longer! It’s time to discuss this film, what it did right and what it did wrong. I can say now though that Creed did live up to my expectations for the most part. It’s a fun film and I liked some of the modern twists that the film added to the franchise. Conversely, there were some modernizations that didn’t turn out so good. Rocky lived up to the hype as being the best character in the film by far and it’s good to see him get his props.

To think…I started this review in November, but it was placed on the backlog for a very long time. That’s how it goes I suppose, but let’s wrap this up. Adonis has had a troubled past and is no stranger to being in fights. He is eventually adopted and treated to a very luxurious life. He even gets a nice financial job with a lot of money, but it’s not enough for the guy. Adonis wants to fight so he quits his job and gambles away his car on a match where he is soundly defeated. The main character was forced to move into a very small apartment building, but also decides to meet up with Rocky. Rocky is reluctant to train the kid, but eventually relents and now Adonis must work to become the strongest fighter of all time!

Well, let’s talk about one of the modernized techniques that I did like a lot. Whenever a fighter would walk into the ring, the screen would quickly freeze and show off the guy’s rankings. It was like a little power level system that you would expect to see in a Shonen Jump crossover film or something like that. It was definitely a lot of fun and I hope that they keep this in for the sequel. It’s the little effects like this that can really amp a film up.

Unfortunately, another effect of modernization is that there is definitely more language to be found here than in the original. It can definitely get a little tired. The boxing matches are solid as you would expect. They’re not as good as the original Rocky films, but few fights are right? They can be a little violent with one random blood scene, but they’re still relatively tame when compared to the average fight. Certainly nothing that should frighten you if you’ve seen any action film recently. Since this is boxing, there are rules to the fights, which helps a lot. The fights feel real and have no cheap shots.

My other big complaint with the film would certainly be the romance. It’s a textbook example of how you should not do a romance plot. It makes both characters look rather bad. Adonis hears some music coming from a downstairs apartment so he goes there to tell the occupant to keep it down. Turns out that the occupant is a girl who appears to either be rude or simply doesn’t realize that her music is super loud. Turns out that it’s partially the latter, but he has no way of knowing that. Doesn’t matter though since looks apparently do and he asks her out on a pseudo date almost immediately. He claims that it’s not a date and that they’re just friends, but I don’t think either one of them bought that for an instant. It’s a sad stereotype. After all, there are probably some guys and gals who just want to be friends, but you can never trust anyone who says that because 90% of the time, there are ulterior motives. Adonis clearly did not want to be friends from the get go even though he acted as if he was. They knew each other for a few minutes before effectively going out and then they show no restraint as we have some wince worthy romance scenes later on. You never saw this stuff in the original Rocky scenes!

Still, romance aside, this was a good film. I still enjoyed it as I was watching and I could see it again easily enough so I’d say that it deserves to be in the positive side of the scale. As mentioned earlier, Rocky’s easily the best character in the film. The film did a good job of keeping his character true to himself and making Rocky defeat all of the other characters in verbal battles. I’m fine with his decision not to fix himself either since when I’m old, I won’t bother pulling out all the stops. Why prolong the inevitable if you’re super duper old? Of course, I’m sure our treatment plans will be better by then. If they are and there’s a high success rate, then I’ll go for it. If not, I’ll upload a final blog post about the end of my era.

Adonis has some good qualities, but he was ultimately lacking as a character for me. Obviously, the romance played a large role in this. Aside from that, I just felt that he was a little unrealistic in how extreme he took his love for fighting. Ditching his super high paying job and mansion for a broken down apartment in a sketchy neighborhood so that he could fight a little? A love for fighting is great and I’m glad that he bet the car away since it showed some confidence, but he definitely did not need to quit his job. At least let them fire you if you show up with a lot of scrapes! Still, aside from the constant drama with Bianca, he was fine I suppose. In the next film, I hope they focus on his love for fighting and the drama can take a backseat.

Bianca is about on par with Adonis, I’m not really a fan of hers either. Obviously she’s just too easy and ignoring the romance plot, it was a little rude to have the noise so loud. A less charitable neighbor could have filed some big complaints and gotten her into a lot of trouble. I’m also wondering if her hearing loss is going to be a big plot point in future films. Hopefully not though. She’s supportive at least. Conrad was the main villain and while they try to make him seem like a nice guy at the end…he seems pretty sketchy. There’s a reason why he’s going to jail after all, but at least he got to have one last fight.

The ending of the film definitely isn’t very satisfying, but it’s how it goes I suppose. Even real boxing battles have anticlimactic endings like Floyd Money Mayweather and Manny. While I may not have been the biggest fan of this film, it was still a good one even if it sounded like there were more negatives than positive. The training scenes were a little more soulless than the original Rocky’s, but that’s because newer films can rarely grab that S rank soundtrack to help push things along. This one borrowed a tune or two, but for the most part it was definitely a step below in that regards. It was cool reliving the Rocky vs Creed fight on the big screen at the beginning of the movie of course and we even got an ESPN homage on the IPad. Those moments were definitely a blast and we also got to see that Rocky’s restaurant is still doing well.

Overall, If you enjoyed the Rocky films, then I think that you will like Creed. It’s essentially a modern take on the franchise and has a lot of good fights. More drama than you may have expected, but that’s how it goes. The main way that the sequel can improve upon this one is with a better main cast and that could easily be achieved by introducing the President of the USA…as a fighter. That would be a very ambitious plot, but it can maybe be done. Give us a likable President like in Airforce One and we’ve got ourselves a solid sequel!

Overall 6/10

Inside Out Review

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Inside Out was a fun animated film. I’d say that it was a bit better than I expected although I did find one of the main characters to be pretty annoying and the moral at the end of the film was pretty iffy. I can’t say that I agreed with it or at least the way that it was handled. Still, Inside Out holds its own here and the writing is solid.

Imagine a world where humans were actually complex machines which had their emotions become tangible beings that can control the person’s actions. Each emotion had a role to play and they worked in harmony to control every decision that you made. If they were to ever have a big disagreement and split up, then the human robot would shut down for a brief amount of time. The film goes into the details of how the human machine works in great detail, which is pretty fun. The actual plot of the film follows Joy as the main character.

Joy is essentially the ideal character. She’s extremely optimistic and always tries to see the positives in a situation. It’s easy to root for her and she does her best to ensure that every day is a good one. Unfortunately, Sadness wants to corrupt everything that she touches and gets Joy into a lot of trouble as the two of them fall away from the control center. They must now make it back to the human robot quickly or the girl’s social life will be ruined. After all, how can a person have a good life without any joy or sadness? The only emotions left are disgust, anger, and stress. Definitely not a good way to live there. Can Joy make it back or will Sadness continue to hold her back?

It’s probably obvious from the summary, but I do not like Sadness. She’s a debbie downer and the kind of person who doesn’t even enjoy Christmas. Essentially every line that she has is a complaint or a sigh where she tries to make everyone feel bad. Not content with just making herself sad, she tries to bring down the mood for everyone else as well. Sadness even goes as far as to corrupt the human’s happy memories and turn them into sad ones. In case you think that this is all just an accident and Sadness doesn’t mean it…think again. She does this on purpose. There are several times when Joy tells Sadness not to touch anything, but she does anyway. She ignores the warnings and causes as much damage as possible. Typically, she’ll do this immediately after being warned, which makes the whole situation even worse.

Joy is the opposite and ends up being a very good character. She’s essentially perfect. A character who’s always determined and likes to do things the right way. I’ve already talked about her so let’s move on to the next character. Disgust probably gets the smallest role out of the emotions and I can’t say that she’s a good character either. I don’t even consider Disgust to be a primary emotion, but I suppose that we were running out of them by this point. She doesn’t help out at all either here so the group would have been better off without her. At least she doesn’t openly try to put the team in jeopardy though.

Nervousness or whatever the emotion is officially called is decent. He’s always stressed out about everything that’s happening in the world so he’s on top of his game. He was even one step ahead of Joy when she asked him to write down a list of the things that can go wrong. Stress always brings his A game and he’s not afraid to go for the win. Finally, we have Anger, who’s another solid character. It’s always fun to see him grab the controls and blow up as he goes for the win. He tends to lose, but he talks a good game and Anger has more character than most of the other emotions. He certainly doesn’t let himself get pushed around although he tends to make the situation worse for his human.

Aside from the emotions, we’ve also got the other humans who have emotions of their own. We typically don’t see the other emotions, but it’s always interesting to see their other views. This even applies to dogs, cats, and just about anything else. The parents get a decently large role here. They’re pretty nice and the whole situation with the house can be a bit dicey, but they weren’t over the top as far as being unreasonable goes so the main character had no reason to be mad at them. It’s all because Joy wasn’t there of course, but you’ll just feel bad for them. That being said, there’s no logical reason why a pizza store wouldn’t have pepperoni. I think that was a bit iffy if you ask me and the scene could have been written better if we needed a situation to give the main character some tension. Bing Bong is an imaginary friend who couldn’t keep up with the opponent which goes by the name of age. I definitely didn’t mind him leaving the film as he was another character that I didn’t like. He nearly destroyed Joy by not thinking about what his secret short cut really was. His rocket was decent, but if you were supposed to cry for Bing Bong at the end..I can safely say that it didn’t happen in my case. He wasn’t the kind of character that you would get very attached too and he was just too much. If only Bing Bong had been cooler as I did like the name.

The film isn’t too short, which is good since it gives us some time to see all of the characters and explore this concept. I like the concept behind the idea that our emotions are actually sentient beings who control the human shells from within. A whole movie can be made about that…and it was! That being said, I didn’t agree with how the moral was presented as mentioned above. Basically, we are supposed to wrap our heads around the fact that our happy memories have sadness with them and that makes them even better. LOL No!

Let me give you an example. Brace yourselves here. I remember a few years back when I managed to acquire pounds and pounds of chocolates to save for my birthday. Dozens of different bags of chocolate chips, cookies, brownies, ice cream, and more were assembled. Seriously, we probably spent over 200 dollars on snacks alone for the Birthday, but it was worth it! I grabbed a huge Turkey container (Think of a big pan for pasta, but deep enough to fill in 3x that) and I stuffed the snacks inside before eating. I ate for hours and hours until my stomach was so full and I was so stuffed that my teeth began to hurt. Do I want to remember my teeth hurting? No, I block that out and just remember how amazingly good the pot of snacks was. My point is that happy memories are epic because they are happy. We don’t need any sadness messing that up.

Sadness does help us develop our character and make us better people, but it doesn’t mean that we have to corrupt our happy memories. That’s exactly the train of thought that makes people so miserable in day to day life. Whenever someone says that they aren’t looking forward to Christmas or always has a pouting expression on their face, I feel like facepalming myself. Enjoy every day folks because that’s the point of life. While we’re living, we may as well be having a blast. So, I feel like Inside Out dropped the ball on that, but it’s fine…we can’t win them all.

The animation is all right. It’s not really my style and I’ve seen animation from a decade ago and even older than that, which looks better. Still, this American Animation is really well liked and gets good reviews, but give me something a little flashier and I’ll be happy. The human characters are drawn in that intriguing CGI style that lets you immediately know that this is an American film. While we are way ahead of Japan in Live Action, they are decades ahead of us in animation. At this point, I’ve accepted the gap as a fact in life, but maybe we can change that someday.

Overall, Inside Out is a good film and it deserves the positive reviews. I had fun watching it and the film does a good job of world building. It’s an interesting film from start to finish and it never drags on. Good films don’t need action scenes to be enjoyable as this one proves, but then the writing has to be on point. Luckily that was the case here. I’m not ready to say that it’s as good as Frozen as the ice themed film still has the edge, but this one is on the same level. It just needed a super catchy song to keep up with Frozen and that didn’t happen. Take Sadness away from the film completely and who knows…maybe it could have won! I don’t think a sequel would be as good though. Certainly not if we had any hintings of romance. The emotions inside of the mom were already pretty iffy and it was an unnecessary scene that they had. The ending helped to stop that, but things could have been dicey. I still want a sequel though, but let’s make it a direct to DVD futuristic robot action adventure story to shake things up.

Overall 7/10