Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

Conan (2011) - 7/10 - Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be after the negative postings I looked at when it was released. Best thing I can say in its favour was that Jason Momoa was basically channeling Kal Drogo minus the facial hair. Basically, I've seen worse, much worse - Uwe Boll, I'm looking at you here...

 

Jason is good at playing ruthless savages.

 

Ender's Game - 8/10

First, I'm someone who strongly believes that movies that are adapted from books should be judged on their own merits. Making comparisons between the two often leaves both the book and the movie suffering for what the medium itself is not good at doing.

That said, I've read Ender's Game at least nine times and it was nearly impossible to just sit and watch the movie without thinking about the book.

First, all of the changes/abridgments from the book make sense in a storytelling standpoint. There are a lot of things in the movie that really are better than I imagined while reading the book. The command school sequences look amazing. The battle room is much cooler (and completely unrealistic, but who cares). The one thing I'll fault them for is the extensive use of the Razer Nostromo without modifying it at all. It totally broke my suspension of disbelief.

However, I think that a viewer of the movie will ultimately like and appreciate it more if they've read the book first. There are things, like the use of the rope in one battle and the Mind Game in particular, that aren't given any real context or meaning in the movie. It's shown, the Book->Movie box is ticked, and it moves on. It leaves the movie feeling a little thin.

Ultimately, I liked it very much, but I really only think it's because I love the book so much. I remember seeing Aeon Flux at a dollar theater with my wife when we were dating. I had never seen any of the TV series or read any of the comics that preceded it, and my wife and I were both underwhelmed. While I think Ender's Game is better than Aeon Flux in its own right, it may suffer from the same issues that Aeon Flux did.

 

Gravity: Lots of space, excellent visuals and superb feeling of freefall. Didn't quite like the characters enough to really like this film though. 7.5/10

Captain Phillips: WATCH IT. Seriously, this is an absolutely excellent film. I may be slightly biased with the job that I do being heavily involved in this but Tom Hanks was brilliant in it. If you've seen it and I mention the final scene and say Oscar-winning, I'm sure you'd agree with that judgement.

 

Planes 5/10

worth a punt but this "underdog wanting to win a big race" formula is getting seriously old.

 

Iron Man 3 7/10

ehmmm, well, my wife and I both seem to have forgotten what happened in "The Avengers", so the plot was partially mysterious.
Did the life-long-bodyguard-pal show up in any of the former movies?

 

only iron man... and iron man 2....

 

The Warrior 9/10

Absolutely tremendous film. Loved every minute. Just wished we learnt a bit more about their childhood.

 

Totally agree with you and I've watched it loads. One of Tom Hardys best

 

Turbo 8/10

After planes didn't really wana watch this but my boys both love F1 and motor gp insisted we watch it. Despite the predictability of it all we really enjoyed it.
And the sound makes excellent use of the subwoofer!!!

 

Bad Grandpa (jackass) 8/10

Brilliant comedy, kept me and my partner laughing throughout the whole movie. I'm not generally one for comedy's but this made me burst out quite often.

 

Dead Man Down - 6.8/10

Fairly standard shooter fair with Colin Farrell being himself, but somehow also Hungarian. A reasonable way to pass the time... with some shooting and explosions.

 

1
7.5/10
Yes, it's a movie about F1. And yes, it's probably more of a documentary. It also follows the "look - all these people died" recipe we've seen before (F1- The killer years springs to mind). But it offered some new people in the mix, and it was ultimately quite good.

Trainspotting
7.5/10
I know I am about 17 years late to the party here. It's highly overrated, but a good film ultimately.

 

Now You See Me 7/10

Really enjoyed this, reminded me a lot of Hustle where everything comes together in the end and you start to see where all the little bits that you thought were inconsequential actually had a point.

Dead in Tombstone 6/10

A western with some (not very) supernatural elements.

Spoiler

A gang leader (Danny Trejo) gets killed by his own (half) brother, Red, while trying to steal gold from a small town (Trejo just wanted to take the gold and go, his brother had plans to take over the town and gold mine).

Trejo makes a deal with the devil (Mickey Rourke) to trade his own soul for those of the 6 members of his gang (they sided with Red) and the clincher is they must die by his hand within 24 hours of his return (if someone else kills them the deals off)...

I liked it, but it's definitely a typical low budget western no-brain-popcorn-movie, (and not particularly well acted at that). The supernatural element is pretty much ignored and the film is a pretty standard western revenge flick (Except for the fact that Trejo keeps returning after he's shot or otherwise taken out).

 

Wolverine. Before they get to the last castle - solid 7/10. Fun to watch, bit of good action and story.
Last castle - 4/10. Falls apart in the last mile like so many other Xmen movies. So many obvious errors, so silly, so cliche.

Generally though, don't people get tired of the Japanese cliches? Everyone in the Far East is not a martial arts expert by birth.

End credits scene: OMFGFANBOYSAUCE/10

GroundHog Day: Win/10

Story, acting still fantastic! However this time I noticed the cinematography was actually pretty rough in parts.

 

The Worlds End: Shite/10

Pegg should have stopped making movies at Hot Fuzz. Action scenes are the only redeemable quality in this movie, otherwise it's an utter waste of time. Can't understand how people find it funny. Pegg's obsession with 'small town weird' humor is beyond tiresome, and has always been second rate to The League of Gentlemen (British series, not the average-at-best 00s superhero movie).

 

I don't mind Simon Pegg the person, but 'Simon Pegg' the actor is not my cup of tea either. Whereas with most actors I'm quite able to accept them playing different roles in different productions, each time I see Simon Pegg on the screen it totally ruins the suspension of disbelief and each time I find myself asking, "How did this cock get a part in this film?".

I read a rumour recently that he might be in the next Star Wars trilogy. I'm still mildly confident it's just lazy speculation, but if it really happened then it would really have to go some for me to get into it in the same way as the previous trilogies.

 

I remember reading a Tweet from him stating that he wouldn't be going in for the new Star Wars films as he just wants to see them and to give other fans a change to get in on them.

 

There's a lot of this "Nick Cage" syndrome.

I don't mind him in Star Trek at all when he plays totally extravagant roles, but in his own movies he tries too hard and it doesn't really work.

 

Don't watch Siege of the Dead then..