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K-Schultzzz
I use the Grades System in my reviews, and here's it in 10-stars system:
A+ = 9.3 to 10 AVG= 9.6 One of the very best of its genre; a seminal film worth seeing again and again
A = 8.7 to 9.2 AVG= 9.0 Outstanding; any flaws are easily overlooked
A- = 8.0 to 8.6 AVG= 8.3 A flawed gem; excellent movie with minor but noticeable shortcomings
B+ = 7.3 to 7.9 AVG= 7.6 Very good; worth going out of your way to see
B = 6.7 to 7.2 AVG= 7.0 Good; a solid effort–not essential viewing, but worth seeing
B- = 6.0 to 6.6 AVG= 6.3 Good but quite uneven; contains both compelling features and substantial problems
C+ = 5.3 to 5.9 AVG= 5.6 Slightly above average; nothing special but enjoyable
C = 4.7 to 5.2 AVG= 5.0 So-so; average–individual results may vary
C- = 4.0 to 4.6 AVG= 4.3 Mediocre but watchable
D+ = 3.3 to 3.9 AVG= 3.6 Pretty bad, although watchable in parts
D = 2.7 to 3.2 AVG= 3.0 Consistently poor; worth going out of your way to miss
D- = 2.0 to 2.6 AVG= 2.3 Quite awful, albeit with some minor redeeming quality
F = 0.1 to 1.9 AVG= 1.0 Notify Amnesty International–this film is a crime against humanity
Ratings
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Reviews
Frozen II (2019)
An amazing journey Into the Unknown!
Frozen II is directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, screenplay by Jennifer Lee, and story by Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck, Marc Smith, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
Starring Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad.
Frozen II is about Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven who leave Arendelle to travel to an ancient, autumn-bound forest of an enchanted land. They set out to find the origin of Elsa's powers in order to save their kingdom.
Frozen was amazing, I think it's one of the best movie of 2013, it was beautifully animated, deep, emotional, showstopping and amazingly voiced! Frozen II was one of my top 5 anticipating movies, and it definitely delivers, Frozen II -once again- is one of the most memorable and special movies of 2019, I think it's one of the best movies of this year!
Though the plot of this movie is simple, you will find yourself getting something every scene, there was so much happening, and that's something great, to have a simple plot, and to know how to extract entertaining from it without making the audiences feel that the plot is huge, but it fact it was simple.. and that's amazing!
Also the movie has no villain, and that's weird for Disney, and this genre in general, but still the movie was amazing without one, it handled itself very well without a villain to make them do stuff as it happened in How to Train Your Dragon 3, but no, Frozen II survived without a villain, and that made the story compelling, that it's different, it took risks, and also interesting, because what made the journey so good and special is that they went for it not because someone was threatening them, they went for it because they had to but for other motivations, other than a villain, and that what made Frozen II compelling and interesting.
When it comes to improvements over the first one, of course the first thing that will pop up in everyone's mind is the animation, and yeah, Frozen II is appealing to the eyes, it's gorgeous to look at, and the details are so impressive, there are lots of scenes in the water and it didn't feel animated, for the most part the water seemed real, just like how amazing the animation was in Toy Story 4.
The plot is more richer, there is more that's happening, the first one was simple, and the sequel is -as some are saying- the more complex. For me they're both amazingly simple, it's just that the execution in the second one, made it darker and more complex.
Elsa's development made her really good in this movie, and way more interesting than the first one, and there's another transformation scene, which also has some details to notice, that really was chilling and gave her character a deeper and emotional feeling!
Also Olaf is really funny in this movie, he's more often in this movie more that the previous one, but I would say that I liked his character as much as I liked him in the first one, which is a lot! But what made him improved that we got more of him in this movie than what we got in the first one.
When it comes to deterioration I think this movie is not as good as the first movie as a musical, I think the first one has better songs, this one is still great don't get me wrong, but the first one was better in that aspect.
Kristoff's character isn't that good in this movie, all he was doing in this movie is that he wanted to marry Anna and he was trying to propose to her and that's it! He's my least favorite part of this movie. He's not that bad, he still has a couple of gags throughout this movie, but he's not as good as he was in the first one, he's so cliched in this movie, even more than the first one, that's why I didn't like him that much in this movie.
When it comes to flaws, I think this movie isn't as good as the first one, besides the things I said above, I think that the movie was a little rushed, some actions and decisions were made really fast without that much of thinking or discussions, and that's my main issue with this film.. and that's all about it!
To me, what makes this movie really works is the sister-ship between Anna and Elsa, it got deeper in this movie, and every scene they were together the movie got better, I think they're what made this movie beautiful, and their bond what got into my heart and eyes into tears! Also the ending is so beautiful, I don't wanna spoil anything, but the ending is just one of the best ending in 2019!
The movie also can be funnier that the first one from time to time, there's that much of rude humor, but adults can find themselves laughing more than kids, because some scenes were shot in a way that adults can find more funny, but kids won't get it, and that's a good thing, because animated movie nowadays only rely on rude humor to make adults laugh, but Frozen II is gonna be a weapon to defend yourself when you say that rude humor isn't the only way to make adults laugh in animation.
Frozen II is awesome from start to finish, it was never dull, it never dragged down.. it used everything as it could to make this movie as fun as it it, it's so magical to go through this journey with this amazing cast into the unknown!
Yeah, right this movie has a song that's gonna stuck with you for years, goodluck trying to get it out of your head!
I'm gonna give Frozen II an A-, I think it's one of the best movie of 2019, look forward to my spoiler review of Frozen II because there're so many stuff that I loved about this movie, that made it special, but I couldn't talk about them, because you know.. spoilers are bad!
Alright guys, than you as always for reading my review, and if you like this you can click on my name to see some more.
The Farewell (2019)
A great cultural movie!
"Based on an actual lie" that quote is capable of making lots of people on board from the very beginning of this film!
The Farewell is written and directed by Lulu Wang, and starring Shuzhen Zhao, Awkwafina and X Mayo.
The film follows a Chinese family who, when they discover their beloved Grandmother has only a short while left to live, decide to keep her in the dark and schedule an impromptu wedding to gather before she passes. Billi, feeling like a fish out of water in her home country, struggles with the family's decision to hide the truth from her grandmother.
I wasn't so excited to see The Farewell, I haven't even seen the trailer, but I saw Blu-Ray preview and I thought that this might actually be a good movie, and it was! The Farewell is such a great, beautiful and sweet movie, and what makes this movie really works that it doesn't focus on the farewell only, but it discuses some other cultural themes, and that what makes this movie really works, that it has so many other things to do besides it's main storyline.
The Farewell is beautifully shot, Wang did a great job with this movie, MOST of the movie was shot flawlessly! Each scene was combined with amazing soundtrack, and that made this movie so saddening sometimes, and I guess that was the message from this movie, to discuss a true tradition that Chinese people used/or use to do, and it gets to your heart so quickly, because you kinda feel for them, and Wang directed this movie in a way that will make feel for them so quickly.
You'll find yourself crying at least once during this movie, no matter how tough you're, it's hard not to cry throughout this movie, part of it because of the amazing OST and Wang's amazing long scenes and build up, but most of it because of the acting; everyone in this movie did an amazing job, there're no exception, because everyone did his role perfectly, and they showed emotions like if it was a real life documentary, their acting didn't feel like acting, it was so real and that's why it was so heart-touching!
This movie is not only sad, it was funny from time to time, and that gave the movie an even more realistic theme, because life isn't always sad, even in their situation they found a way to add some laughs, and that worked very well, because a movie like this needs a little bit of a positive energy to move forward, Wand understood that perfectly, and she made a great combination between real-life cultural themes, with some slight humor.
This movie isn't just about the Chinese culture, it's not just relatable to the Chinese people only, though it does that for the most part of this movie, but it also did a great job comparing the Chinese culture to our American culture, it was only shown in a couple of scenes only, but I'm so glad that they did that! Also the movie has some relatable themes, either you are Chinese, or American.. or whatever your nationality is, the movie has something else than those themes too, and I won't spoil it for you, because it wasn't shown in any of the trailers, but what I would say about it is "Home is where the heart is", people who watched this movie will get what I mean, and the movie discusses THAT in a great way, deep and emotional!
The movie's not flawless by any means, don't get me wrong, it's not a perfect movie or anything, we'll get to that in a minute, but a movie like that isn't easy to hate, that's what I would say, so before I get into flaws, if you haven't seen The Farewell go check it out, it definitely worth a look.
When it comes to flaws I think this movie has some dull scenes, for instance there's a scene where Billi and her uncle were walking down the street and he was telling what she should do and what she shouldn't do, and went telling her the same things over and over again, I don't know if it was meant to be funny or not, but it was kinda long.
There's also a scene where the main family was playing games at a wedding, it was also long, and unnecessary... Some other scenes were like this, long and unnecessary scenes, though the movie is 98 minutes only, there're some scenes that could have been cut from the movie, and they're not few for a 98 minutes movie!
The build-up of this movie was well-crafted, the first and the third act were amazingly crafted, but the second act kinda drag a little, it took a few turns that only made the movie longer, and some scenes dull, not the whole act though, but some of it made some unexpected choices.
The Farewell is an amazing movie, well-acted, well-crafted and beautifully shot, it's one of the most memorable movies of 2019, though it's kinda not so rewatchable.
I'm gonna give The Farewell a B+!
Go see movies like this, it's really good to see people making these movie in 2019, instead of all those CGI-filled movies, this movie definitely deserves a look.
Thank you as always for reading my review, look forward to more reviews very soon, and if you liked this, and you wanna see more of my work click on my name up above to see more.
Doctor Sleep (2019)
The Best Horror Movie of 2019!
Quick funny thing that I felt sometimes during watching this movie, each time Rose the Hat said "Hi/Hello there" it felt like an Easter Egg to Obi's infamous line "Hello there!".
Doctor Sleep is written and directed by Mike Flanagan, the guy behind Oculus, Hush, Before I wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald's Game ,and The Haunting of Hill House. Starring Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson and Kyliegh Curran.
"Doctor Sleep" is the continuation of Danny Torrance's story 40 years after the terrifying events of Stephen King's The Shining. Still irrevocably scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook, Dan Torrance has fought to find some semblance of peace. But that peace is shattered when he encounters Abra, a courageous teenager with her own powerful extrasensory gift, known as the "shine." Instinctively recognizing that Dan shares her power, Abra has sought him out, desperate for his help against the merciless Rose the Hat and her followers, The True Knot, who feed off the shine of innocents in their quest for immortality. Forming an unlikely alliance, Dan and Abra engage in a brutal life-or-death battle with Rose. Abra's innocence and fearless embrace of her shine compel Dan to call upon his own powers as never before-at once facing his fears and reawakening the ghosts of the past.
The Shining is a great psychological horror movie, I think it's one of the best horror movie, though it suffers from Shelley Duvall's bad performance and Danny Lloyd's mediocre performance.
I loved The Shining and I was highly anticipating Doctor Sleep, based on Stephen King's novel with the same name, and thankfully, Doctor Sleep didn't disappoint.. at all! I think Doctor Sleep is one of the best movie of 2019, and of course it's the best horror movie of 2019, though we didn't get that much of compelling horror movies this year, Doctor Sleep is actually is the best horror movie we got in years, and I could see people arguing about that, fans are kinda nitpicky some stuff about the movie, and critics too, but still, thankfully, people do still appreciate this movie!
There're so many reasons why do I love this movie, and why do I think it's such a perfect movie, and only thing that I could think of now is Mike Flanagan, this guy has a great history of horror movies, and a TV-show too, he's creative and innovative, he made good horror movies, he has a great way of building tension and suspense, which this movie is full of. Doctor Sleep is beautifully shot and written, he did an amazing job filming this movie, and he didn't play on the nostalgic feelings more than creating his own masterpiece, and that's what Kubrick did too in The Shining, but Flanagan did an amazing job with the cinematography, and the editing too, I think Doctor Sleep is one of the best -if not the best- directed movies of 2019! He also respected Kubrick's The Shining with some tributes to The Shining, the water and the island, the car driving on the mountain road, the blood from the elevator, one character approaching the other on the stairs and the hitting with the axes.. some other shots too.
Everything Flanagan did with this movie was amazing, the angles that he used, the movement of the camera, the close-ups, the long-takes.. everything he did was jaw-dropping, even the use of slow-motion, which wan't used often thankfully, was so earned! And I was so happy to see those tributes with The Shining theme!
There are also some scenes from the past, which he had to use the same characters, but he didn't use CGI to show the same actors who was in The Shining, he used other actors to do so, and there're some scenes that was in the first movie that he used in this movie, but he didn't use the same scenes, he used the same angles of shotting, but he changes the actors, and that felt earned, because if he used the same scenes with the same actors of the previous movie, that would definitely take us away from the movie, he built the movie with these actors as those characters in the beginning, so he had to do the same at the end, and he did!
Everything behind the camera was made perfectly, so was everything in front of the camera, Ewan McGregor was mesmerizing as the older version of Danny, he did an amazing job capturing that guy who's having a hard time adjusting in his life, with that power that only brings him fear, he also uses it to comfort elder people, and that's what makes his character so investing, with McGregor's amazing performance, my favorite part of the movie, it's an undoubtedly one of the best performances of the year!
Speaking of amazing performances, Rebecca Ferguson did an amazing job as the main villain of this movie, Rose the Hat, which's one of the best villains of this year, and it's not only that Ferguson portrayed her flawlessly, it's because of the characterization of the whole group of hers, it's really hard to find a villain that you love and hate nowadays, and The True Knot of course is one that you hate and love, you love because of the performances and the motivations, because you understand why they're doing what they're doing, even if it's wrong, and you hate that, and that's why you hate them, because they do terrible things to achieve what they want to achieve, and this's why they're so compelling, not because of the villainous things they do, it's because they're doing this for a very good reason.
Kyliegh Curran is also amazing in this movie, she gave us the best child-performance of this year, she's so great in this movie, and compelling too!
Everything behind and in front of the camera was perfect, let's now talk about the movie itself, how was it as a horror movie, and well, this is a great horror movie, for the fans of Kubrick's The Shining it might disappoint them a little, well I'm a fan of The Shining but I keep an open-mind when I watch movie, this movie relies a little bit on jump scares more than psychological horror, and people who loved how psychologically disturbing The Shining and wanted to see the same in the sequel will get disappointed, yeah the movie doesn't rely on that too much, but it's not as psychological as The Shinning was, but it has some very disturbing moments too, but, for the sake of comparison, The Shining is a better psychological horror movie, but Doctor Sleep is a better modern horror movie, because Flanagan had to upgrade the sequel to live in 2019, he could rely on what Kubrick relied on in 1980, you see where I'm getting there? It's the matter of time differences.
Doctor Sleep is definitely a scary movie, it's so scary, it works very much as a horror movie, but not like how The Shining was, and that's kinda a thing that I like, I like seeing upgrades over the original, and Doctor Sleep is scary, but differently, so don't take that as a flaw, but as a filmmaker trying to make his own movie.
The movie is also amazing at studying alcoholic people, and depression, it was a little bit of a drama movie, and it showed that in a couple of dialogues, and that was amazing to see in this movie, because The Shining also had some marriage drama too, and Doctor Sleep did that but in a different kind of drama too, and it did that amazingly!
Doctor Sleep is an amazing movie, I think it's the best horror movie of 2019, and it's the fourth movie this year that I'm gonna give an A+!
Does that mean that I liked it more than The Shining? Well, sometimes yeah, and sometimes no, I would just say that it's makes a good equation!
Thank you as always for reading my review, look forward for more reviews very soon.
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
A blast from start to finish!
The Peanut Butter Falcon was written and directed by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, and stars Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson and Zack Gottsagen.
The movie tells the story of Zac, played by Gottsagen, who runs from his care home to make his dream of becoming a wrestler come true, in his journey he meets Tyler, played by LaBeouf, who's also running from people who wants him dead.. their road combines with Eleanor's, the nice nursing home employee who's looking for Zac to bring him back home.
I watched this movie knowing nothing but the cast, I only heard of it once or twice, but I didn't know anything about the story, I didn't even watch the trailer for this movie... And I'm so happy to say this: This movie is a blast from start to finish, I had the time of my life watching this movie, it just put a smile on my face during the whole runtime!
The Peanut Butter Falcon discusses some serious actual problems, how simple things we do can effect a guy with a Down syndrome, even if we don't say "that word" it still hurts, our action, the way we deal with them.. our look at them, simple things we might NOT even care of! The movie even has a scene of LaBeouf and Johnson while Labeouf is telling her how her actions were looking like, how she was offending Zac, even though she didn't even call him "that".. the movie discusses that in a beautiful and a deep way, in so many different ways.
The movie also discusses other things about dreams and how we choose to achieve them, even though in some scenes it lost realism, it lost it to show us that we tell ourselves that that is impossible, and I won't achieve that because of whatever I might think my problems are, it lost it on purpose to show the audience that nothing is impossible! There's a scene where The Salt Water Redneck, played by Thomas Haden Church, was talking to Zac about a move he used to do, and how it was fake because it wasn't possible, but it was Zac's dream to learn how to do.. I don't want to spoil anything, but later on we get to know that it's possible, though in real life it's really not that easy to do all of a sudden, but the movie does that in a way that it's beautiful and relatable, more than an illogic thing! That being said because I saw people nitpicking this as a flaw, and I think it's because they didn't get what the movie was trying the say at the end, they didn't get the movie at all, because the movie didn't go in a cliched way to say "hey, nothing is impossible", it chose some kind of a fantasy to show that, and for me that was a good and creative way to show it!
What makes this movie really works is the cast, everyone was outstanding in this movie, especially LaBeouf, he gave us his best performance ever, it's one of the best performances of the year, he was funny, emotional and lovable at times, his character also has a great backstory that was shown in a beautifully shot way! Gottsagen is also amazing in this movie, it's his first movie, but he's so talented, he also was funny, emotional, deep, adorable and lovable too, he makes you feel for him, and routing for him in his journey, and wanting him to succeed on his mission, and that isn't an easy thing to do in your first movie ever, but Gottsagen did that amazingly and with so much talent! Dakota Johnson also gave us one of her -if not the- best performance, her character has also one of these scenes where she tells LaBeouf how her job is hard, and how she feels about it, but even though she keeps doing that... Though she's rich, was mentioned in one scene, and graduated from a very good and expensive university, she still wants to do that job instead of working at well-known companies and getting well-paid, that could also be inspiring, to do whatever you want, no matter how much you get paid, or whoever your family is, you just follow your heart and you'd do great stuff at what you love, that's also mentioned in a scene where Zac was telling Tyler how he loves Eleanor, and how she's great at her job.
This movie is also beautifully shot, Nilson and Schwartz did a great job capturing the countryside, with deep impact, and amazing cinematography! Each scene was so amazing, and it's so good to see and pick those messages -because this movie has plenty of messages- without making characters saying much about them, or making them obvious, that made the movie very impressive and interesting!
It's hard to be nitpicky on a movie like this, because the only thing I was gonna say as a flaw the movie turns out to have something deeper than what it was giving us, and that is the lack of realism during some parts of the movie, but it turned out to be something way more beautiful than what I could actually think of!
The Peanut Butter Falcon is a beautiful movie, well-shot and has one of the best performances of the year by its 3 leads, with amazing messages at the end to get out with, this is definitely one of the best movie of this year!
The Peanut Butter Falcon of course gets an A+! It's the third movie this year that I give an A+ to, 2019 is such a great year for movies, and I'm so happy about that.
The Peanut Butter Falcon, a must-see guys, if you missed it in theaters, it's now on BluRay everywhere, hurry up and get your copy, it's definitely worth your time, because it's really sad to see a movie that great, and that there's no one talking about it and everyone is just talking about movies like Avengers: Endgame or Shazam! and leaving such masterpieces like that, because trust me, there're so many movie like that and you just don't care anymore, because of the over-advertising of the high budget movies!
Thank you, guys as always for reading my reviews, and if you liked this, you can click on my name up above and see all of my reviews.
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
Delightful
Zombieland: Double Tap is directed by Ruben Fleischer, same director of the first movie, and written by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, And starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.
Zombieland: Double Tap takes place a decade after the first one, and in the sequel the four slayers must face off against the many new kinds of zombies that have evolved since the first movie, as well as some new human survivors. But most of all, they have to face the growing pains of their own snarky, makeshift family.
Zombieland was a great movie, I think it's one of the best zombie-comedies, it was really funny, and well-crafted with amazing performances and great cameos!
Zland: Double Tap is another fun movie to add to the first one, it's still funny, charismatic, has good cameos and some cool zombie-sequences.
The performances are great, everyone gave a great performance, all the new characters are welcome, but Breslin on the other hand isn't that good as she was in the first one, she's by far my least favorite part of this movie, I think she did a bad job in this movie, but fortunately she doesn't have lots of scenes as she did in the first one.
Madison's character, played by Zoey Deutch, is that dumb character that could annoy some people, she's so cliched, but still she has some fine laughs during the movie, but most of her screen-time, I couldn't help it, I was so annoyed of her character.
This movie is as simple as the first one was, and that's really good, because what made the first so one a cult classic, is that it wasn't serious nor grim, it was simple, funny and violent... The plot, which is a subplot in other movies, is delightful, it was really good to see them all reunited again on the big screen!
Woody Harrelson is once again the MVP of this movie, just like how he was in the first movie, he's so funny and his character is still the one that has depth, even if it's lower than what we saw in the first one, but it's still so good to see that character again, and to see how they developed him, because sadly, there isn't that much of development in this movie over the first one when it comes to characters, there's even another runaway from the same characters, but I loved what they did to Tallahassee, and I'm so happy to see more of him!
Fleischer did another great job directing this movie, he made some cool shots, for instance, there's a shot when a couple of moneybags were shot, and money started to flew in the air, and the character just passed beside it and didn't care, because it's Zombieland, what could money do to them? I think he really did a great job capturing this apocalyptic world, just like how he did in the first movie.
There isn't really that much to say about a movie like this, it's just a zombie-comedy movie, and it did that really well, but it's not as cohesive as the first one, nor as good as it was, but still really enjoyable!
The reason why the first one works better than this one is that the first one wasn't that much about zombies, they were there, but the movie focused more on our 4 main characters, and showed us how they're acting during those situations, this one here, cared more about zombies, and it gave them more character than what we needed.
When it comes to flaws, beside the stuff I said above, I think it's not as sick, weird or silly as the first one was, it got a little bit self-aware, and that's not what we wanted to see from a zombie-comedy.
Still Zombieland: Double Tap is a an enjoyable movie, if you liked the first one you would probably enjoy yourself in this one too, even though I would watch the first one over this one.
I'm gonna give Zombieland: Double Tap a B.
Thank you, guys as always for reading my reviews, and if you liked this, you can click on my name up above and see all of my reviews.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
A great action movie!
Terminator: Dark Fate is directed by Tim Miller, director of Deadpool, story by James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee, Josh Friedman, David S. Goyer and Justin Rhodes, and screenplay by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes and Billy Ray. And starring Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes and Gabriel Luna.
This movie is a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgement Day, after more than two decades since Sarah Connor prevented Judgment Day, changed the future, and re-wrote the fate of the human race. Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is living a simple life in Mexico City with her brother (Diego Boneta) and father when a highly advanced and deadly new Terminator -- a Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) -- travels back through time to hunt and kill her. Dani's survival depends on her joining forces with two warriors: Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an enhanced super-soldier from the future, and a battle-hardened Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). As the Rev-9 ruthlessly destroys everything and everyone in its path on the hunt for Dani, the three are led to a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from Sarah's past that may be their last best hope.
The Terminator was a very cool movie, filled with amazing performances and inventive story. T2 continued the awesomeness of its predecessors, and even added more greatness to it, T2 is one of my all-time favorite, Hamilton and Schwarzenegger were astonishing, and the story got more intelligent and interesting!
Terminator: Dark Fate started off where T2 left us -the theatrical version, not the extended cut or the director's cut- with cool special effects of young Sarah and John Connor and T-800, and it changed and throw every other sequel that came out after T2, starting its own new timeline, and here's where fans and critics got divided, some say it's a terrible idea, and complaining about what the movie did to the rest of the franchise, and kinda did to the previous two films, and some say that it's really cool to have a movie on its own, telling us what would have happened if "THAT THING" happened to that character instead of what actually happened in T2, and the rest of the franchise.. and for me, I'm with the part that says that it's a cool idea!
Let me tell you why I think it's a good idea, it's good to see a movie taking the risks and do something different than what anyone expecting, to go out of its shells and makes a new one, with a different idea, deleting all the other mediocre sequels, saving the franchise with this good sequel/reboot movie! Though the movie suffers from the very obvious similarities between it and the original Terminator movie, and I saw lots of people complaining about that, and yeah it's a flaw, the movie is not flawless, and it reminds me very much of what happened to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and how it was familiar to A New Hope, but people got over that quickly with Star Wars, but I see people trashing Terminator: Dark Fate for that, and it's just not fair, because, even though its similarities can be a little bit annoying, the movie did an amazing job still as a Terminator movie, and as an action movie!
Let's settle this down once and for all, Terminator: Dark Fate is very similar to The Terminator, sometimes it felt like it was not its own movie, because of the steps they took, that the original took too, but the plot in general and the cast are enough to keep you invested, interested and caring for them very much. So it's a flaw, but not as people are saying it is!
As we're talking about flaws, let's talk about Dani Ramos played by Natalia Reyes, I didn't find her interesting, not like John Connor, or Sarah Connor, her performance was OK, but her character won't make you invested enough, but because of her fellows, who have more screen time than her, they made the movie investing.
The action sequences were made very well, the movie was great as an action movie, it was adrenaline pumping, it was really good to have Hamilton and Schwarzenegger back, they did an amazing job, alongside with Davis, the pack gave us a stunning action sequences, combined with a very exciting score by Junkie XL.. yeah, Terminator: Dark Fate is one of the best action movies of this year, but Miller used lots of slow motions, and he relayed so much on CGI, the CGI was amazing, but some scenes could have just been made with double-stunts instead of CGI, but he chose the easiest way of making action scenes nowadays, over the one they used back then in The Terminator and T2, but still, Terminator: Dark Fate was very exciting, and visually impressive, with a villain that we've seen ones like him, but Luna made REV-9 a good villain, and scary from times to times!
The performances were mesmerizing, everyone did a great job, even Reyes, though I wasn't so invested in her character, but her performance was still fine, but the MVP definitely goes to Linda Hamilton, she's my favorite part of this movie, she was so cool and her script was well-written, they truly honored the past with that amazing upgrade, because that's what I call and amazing character arc, she was my favorite part in T2 and now she's once again my favorite part in Dark Fate! Hamilton is such a great actress, and she's so impressive, also she gave the movie an amazing sense of humor, and she was great in action too, her performance is A+ in this movie, just like T2! Speaking of amazing actors, Schwarzenegger is my second favorite part in this movie, though he didn't have much screen-time like Hamilton, but whenever he was in the frame, he added so much to the movie, especially in action! I loved what they did to his character, he's now settled, more human, just like what we were briefly introduced to in T2, he's now a new character than what we have seen before, and that's why this movie is so good, it added so much to the franchise, more than any other sequel that came out after T2, it did its best to be its own movie, and in one way or another, it did that alright! Also Davis did an amazing job in this movie, and her scenes with Hamilton were great, funny.. her character in general was really interesting, and she did great in action too.
The movie over-relayed on CGI, that could be a flaw, but the CGI was well-made, the scene at the beginning of young Sarah, John and T-800 was flawless, but during the movie, you CAN tell that some of the scenes were CGI-ed, but it's hard to tell most of the movie, so I think it was visually impressive actually!
Terminator: Dark Fate is a great Terminator movie, and an action movie too, with amazing performances and similar yet interesting plot, T:DF got into my top 10 movies of this year so far, because it didn't only give justice to the famous characters in this movie, but it also succeeded at the risk it took of trying so hard to give the fans something new! It also was great at its own genre, and I'm so confused of how people really trashed this movie, just because of that change they made at the beginning, just see this movie open-minded, and you might see this movie as I did, because this movie does NOT deserve all that hate at all! If they decided to make another sequel, I really hope to see them taking other risks like that again.
I'm gonna give Terminator: Dark Fate an A-!
Just go and watch the movie with no mentality or anything.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019)
Mediocre
The Secret Life of Pets 2 is directed by Chris Renaud, the director of the first one, but this time the co-director isn't Yarrow Cheney, but it's Jonathan del Val. Written by Brian Lynch, one of the writers of the first one. Starring: Patton Oswalt as Max, it's not Louis C.K. anymore, Kevin Hart, Harrison Ford, Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Tiffany Haddish, Lake Bell and Dana Carvey.
Continuing the story of Max and his pet friends, following their secret lives after their owners leave them for work or school each day.
Now, the first movie was fun, the animation was pretty cool, the story was very much Toy Story, but with pets, that was an issue, but the way the movie was executed with very colorful animation.. the movie was good!
Now I was really looking forward to see the sequel, the characters' trailer were really good, but the final trailer actually wasn't that good, at all! I knew that it wasn't going to be a great movie, or a decent one.. because the trailer showed almost everything about the plot, which is not the movie's fault, but even the plot isn't interesting or catchy, it was really disappointing, because the movie tried to be something more than what it is, it sometimes took itself seriously, not all the time, but more often, but the plot was so weak to do so, so the movie suffered a lot from that!
I was disappointed after watching The Secret Life of Pets 2, it was so much like 3 mini-movies combined together until the third act that reunites all of them again for a plot that really wasn't that interesting at the first place! The movie is not terrible, don't get me wrong, it has some few good things too, still, not enough to save this movie.. unfortunately, 'cause I really wanted this movie to be good.
Let's start with the pros of this movie: The animation is good, not that much improved, but it's fine.
The "plot" of Max and Duke is really good, I really wanted more of it. Harrison Ford is just.. AMAZING!! I loved him, he added so much to this movie, he's my favorite part of this movie, every scene Roster (voiced by Ford) was in it, it was really impressive! He was really cool, I really loved him!
Let's move to the cons:
Some of the jokes were flat, kids in my theater were laughing so hard sometimes, but for adults, it didn't work out very well.. there were a couple of good scenes though, but the rest, it wasn't that funny. The movie had one target, to make kids laugh, and it did that very well, but for adults, it really dragged down on that!
There's a character named Daisy in the movie, and I hated her!!!! It's her script, the character is so flat, nothing good about her, and it being said, because she's there for quite sometime!
As I said the story wasn't that good, the movie isn't for all the family actually, it targets the kids and that's it! But I enjoyed myself sometimes! Overall The Secret Life of Pets 2 was disappointing but still, I enjoyed some of it. I'm gonna give it a C+.
Alright, guys.. thank you for reading my review, look forward to more reviews really soon... Thank you.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
A terrible movie!
Happy Halloween, and welcome to my review of the movie that took the whole franchise down, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers was directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard, written by Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard and Shem Bitterman. And starring Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris and Ellie Cornell.
H5 takes place One year after the events of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), the Shape returns to Haddonfield once again in an attempt to kill his now-mute niece.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is such a disappointing movie, and I'm not here just to trash this movie, and talk about how this movie is disappointed me, or any other fan of this long-dead franchise, I'm here to talk about how this movie is a failure, not from a fan's perspective, but from a reviewer's perspective.
H5 is made the franchise officially a supernatural franchise, yeah I know it always was, Michael Myers never died, not by fire, not by six shots, not by anything.. but now his's psychologically connected to his niece, which made her do what she did in the previous movie, which wasn't also explained well enough, but just that.. they're connected in a way or another, and that's not just it.. Jaime is doing some weird stuff throughout the whole movie, it's just because of a touch, so whoever who touches Michael Myers turns into a killer like him and do some weird things too? Michael Myers is what now.. a disease? The plot couldn't get any weirder!
The Shape's mask is once again changed, but now the movie takes place right after the events of H4, so how did he suddenly change his mask? I mean he wasn't in the town yet, a guy saved him and he took off his mask, and The Shape wakes up and all of a sudden, he wore the mask that he was supposed to be wearing in the previous one, but this time, it's different! What were they thinking about? They just wanted to change the mask after all the criticism they got because of it, I understand that, but there were million ways to do that, at least a one that makes sense.
The Shape now is a guy who's killing random people, the point that bugged me in H4 and Halloween 2018 is now all over the place, Michael Myers is now less scary, and the movie lost all the suspense that the first and the second one had, even the fourth was even more suspenseful than H5, even the thrills are so lost, you can say that they even poorly tried, because the third one had a better suspense, because they at least tried to make a thriller, but this one is so lost in its supernatural connection and that aimless plot that took me off the movie!
Even the performances are cringe-worthy, everyone in this movie did a terrible job in this movie, especially Donald Pleasence, he's now officially obsessed with Michael Myers, and whenever he's in a scene it's full of bizarre dialogue and weird performance, Dr. Loomis, the once-was my favorite character is now a weird guy, screaming everywhere, and now he know's everything about Michael Myers, he knows that he's connected with Jaime, and we don't know how does he know all of that, he just does, because that's his character... What have they done to this franchise??
This movie is filled with cringe-worthy performances, and a terrible script, this movie is so poorly written, the script is so bad and the dialogue is so bad, with the actors' acting, the movie was so hard to bare, the movie is incredibly boring, and so hard to watch!
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is a terrible movie, it brought down the whole franchise with its embarrassing plot, and its laughable dialogue and with its cringe-worthy performances!
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers of course gets an F! This movie makes the previous 2 look good, and I'm so sad to say that, but in a way this movie is entertaining to watch, but in all the wrong ways!
Happy Halloween, everybody.. enjoy your Halloween night with your family and friends... But most importantly, choose your movies wisely. Thank you for reading my review, and as always if you liked this, you can click on my name up above to read my reviews if you liked this one.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
An entertaining horror movie
Happy Halloween, and welcome to my review of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, based on the bestselling series of books, a horror movie for younger genre enthusiasts.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was directed by André Øvredal, screenplay by Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Guillermo del Toro and story by Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton, based on Alvin Schwartz's novel.
The movie takes place on Halloween 1968, reclusive Stella and her two friends meet a mysterious drifter, Ramón, and uncover a sinister notebook of stories.
I wasn't really anticipating this movie, the books are fun, like Goosebumps, but scarier with less sense of humor, and the movie did justice to the source material. Actually this movie surprised me, I think it's a good horror movie, good performances -not from everybody-, and good sense of humor.
Let's start with the performances, most if the young actors were great, Zoe Margaret Colletti as Stella Nicholls stole the whole show, she's so talented, yet her character is so predictable, but she managed to make her very entertaining to watch, sometimes even emotional! Also Austin Zajur did a very good job as Chuck Steinberg, he gave the movie an amazing sense of humor, though he wasn't that great in some of the serious moments, but he's funny, and that added a great humor to the movie.
Michael Garza as Ramón Morales is the worst aspect of this movie, he was so soulless, I didn't feel, even a little bit, his character, though it has a good twist towards the end that felt bad and misplaced because of his acting, he wasn't convincing enough to make you at least care for him, I don't like trashing an actor's performance, but Garza her did a terrible job in this movie, and sadly, there's a lot of him in this movie! Also Natalie Ganzhorn as Ruth Steinberg didn't quite deliver, but this time, it's not Ganzhorn's problem, it's the character, it's so cliched and predictable, and so boring, but fortunately there's not that much of her character in this movie, and I hope they redeem her in the sequel, if they decided to make one, which is very likely there's going to be one.
The movie is as creepy as it can get, though it might not reach that much of creepiness, even for a PG-13 movie, but this is a good horror movie, it has some good sequences, such as the pale fat woman, which is my favorite part, that sequence is so scary, though it didn't last much, but the make-up and everything about that woman was so scary, even for adults, I'm saying this because lots of people are trashing this movie for its concentration on the younger audiences, and on a way it does, but also it didn't bore or humiliate the "intelligence" of the adults as well!
The movie is very predictable, and you could tell that you've seen this before, and to be honest it was annoying sometimes how this movie is so like some other movies, but the movie has a few unexpected things that occurred, if you didn't read the books, you'll be very surprised by it, and also the movie is still fun, besides all of its predictability, because of the tension and the cinematography of this movie, it's very entertaining, and pretty good to look at, but not from the CGI perspective, from the cinematography's perspective!
The CGI in this movie is very distracting, it's really poor, and they tried to hide that, by showing those CGI-ed creatures in the night, but even though, it was still very obvious and very distracting.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark isn't going to scare most of the adult moviegoers, but it's going to entertain them, and be spooky from time to time, but it's going to be really creepy to the younger audiences, and that was their target at the first place, just like the book.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark isn't a flawless or a perfect movie, it's even hard to call it a great movie, but it's fun enough to keep you entertained. while it suffers from lack of good performances from some of the actors, distracting CGI and some of the dialogue, but still well acted by its lead, well-shot and also creepy.
I'm gonna give Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark a B.
Happy Halloween, it's so close, get your costumes and your pumpkins ready and enjoy the holiday with your family and friends. And as always, thank you for reading my review, and if you liked it you can click on my name up above and see all my reviews.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Another disappointing entry in the franchise!
Happy Halloween, and welcome to my review of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, the fourth installment in the franchise, that brings back the white masked slasher to the fold, after the huge disappointment of Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was Dwight H. Little, screenplay by Alan B. McElroy and story by Dhani Lipsius, Larry Rattner, Benjamin Ruffner, Alan B. McElroy. And starring Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris and George P. Wilbur.
This fourth entry in the Halloween franchise focuses on Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), the niece of ubiquitous masked killer Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur). Jamie tries to lead a normal life, but she can't escape the vengeance of her uncle, who once more escapes from the loony bin.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is another disappointing entry in the Halloween franchise, worse than Halloween II, but a little bit better than Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Bringing back Michael Myers didn't bring back life to the franchise, also it brought him with a really funny mask and weird character!
We start off with the protagonist of this movie and the next 2, Jamie, Laurie's daughter, after Jamie Lee Curtis declined to play the role of Laurie Strode, they tried to find another way to bring this movie to life, and to be honest the movie's not all bad, it has some good parts, let's start with those:
The thrills are better in this movie, though the movie is not really scary, but at least -overall- it's not terrible as the third one. The building is good, they built all the events very well to that terrible ending, and that's what's disappointing the most, the movie had built something OK, and they just throw it away with that weird ending!
Michael Myers is kinda creepy in this movie, though his mask is funny, and he was weird towards the end, but a little bit scary.
The movie is well-directed and well-photographed too, also some of the performances were OK, just OK.. the characters are predictable, but the only character that really was annoying is Loomis, DR. Loomis once again is doing nothing but screaming "We have to find him" and "Nothing is gonna kill him" the entire movie, and he does nothing but that, yeah we got a scene where he explains how evil is Michael Myers and that he's Evil on two legs, and those scene are fine, but mostly he's so annoying, and he adds nothing to the movie at all.
Those are the only fine parts I found with the movie, everything else was terrible!
The movie took itself too seriously and that's what made this movie drag down so much, is that they didn't know how silly the movie is, and they tried to make it dark and serious!
Also they didn't know what to do without Laurie, so they killed her in a car accident and they brought her daughter, because they don't know what to do without the Myers family-issues, and here is where the franchise was going for 3 movies, they made a trilogy about the daughter because they just wanted to make movies with Michael Myers, and that's it! They took all the wrong steps that most of the other slasher movies took.
The movie is filled with some illogical things, I don't want to spoil anything, but for instance is Jamie dreaming of The Shape without seeing him. Also the ending! There're a lot of stuff like that, things that doesn't make sense, but I don't want to spoil it for you.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is another disappointing entry to the franchise, with bad characterization -but with OK performances- that I could help but not to care about ANYONE at all, not even a little, but I would recommend seeing this movie over the third, fifth and sixth ones, because this movie has some OK scenes, well constructed and directed, that's why I'm gonna give it a D+.
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Not as good as the first one
Happy Halloween, and welcome to my review of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the movie that got spoiled by its trailer, not the movie's fault though, it's all the marketing's fault!
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil was directed by Joachim Rønning, screenplay by Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster and Linda Woolverton. And starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Harris Dickinson and Sam Riley.
The sequel to the global box office hit, continue the story after 2 years where the first one was ended, now Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies and dark new forces at play. The years have been kind to Maleficent and Aurora. Their relationship, born of heartbreak, revenge and ultimately love, has flourished. Yet the hatred between man and the fairies still exists. Aurora's impending marriage to Prince Phillip is cause for celebration in the kingdom of Ulstead and the neighboring Moors, as the wedding serves to unite the two worlds. When an unexpected encounter introduces a powerful new alliance, Maleficent and Aurora are pulled apart to opposing sides in a Great War, testing their loyalties and causing them to question whether they can truly be family.
Maleficent was a really cool movie, I really liked it, so I was super-excited to see the sequel, and it was OK, it's not as good as the first one was, but still mediocrely-OK.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil has its own story, it gives Maleficent a whole new backstory, and just like the first movie, it's a different story than what we saw in Sleeping Beauty, and as it was in the first one, the changes were welcome!
Let's talk about the improvements over the first movie:
The movie's visually stunning, the colors, the cinematography.. everything with the visuals was just perfect, if it got nominated for an Oscar for the best special effects this year, I wouldn't be surprised.
Aurora aka Sleeping Beauty, played by Elle Fanning, is getting involved into things now, she finally does something other than just being fascinated with everything around her!
The plot is predictable, but it gave Maleficent a great backstory, I got even more interested in her, even though the movie didn't give her justice by not giving her enough screenplay.
The drag-down from the first one:
Maleficent was my favorite character in the movie, if you read my review of Maleficent you would know how much I loved her, and all thanks goes to the A+ performance by Angelina Jolie! Unfortunately the sequel cut out the character that elevated the first one, Maleficent isn't there much in the movie, she didn't have enough screenplay, she doesn't talk much in the movie, and that's massively disappointing, because in every scene she's in it, I was so entertained, and that was not more often in the movie, though Angelina Jolie kills it once more as Maleficent!
Harris Dickinson as Prince Philip, for some reason Brenton Thwaites didn't want to do it, is terrible, Dickinson is there more often and his acting was cringe-worthy, I didn't enjoy his part in this movie at all, he was so soulless and stiff, and the chemistry between him and Fanning wasn't also good, I prefer Thwaites over him, he's more talented and funnier, he didn't get his chance in the first one, but I think he could have been way better than Dickinson.
As I said earlier, the marketing for this movie spoiled almost everything, but that's not the movie's problem, but a voice came at the beginning of the movie that spoiled some of the following events too, so why it that? Why would you spoil the movie at the beginning?
There was a voice to explain their feelings and all those stuff in the first one too, but they didn't spoil anything, unlike this one.
The first movie's OST was better than this one's, that doesn't mean that this one's OST is bad or anything, but the first one was better.
The villain in the first movie to some was Kind Stefan, and to some it was Maleficent, Stefan or Maleficent, they both were interesting, but this one's villain was not that interesting at all, it was dull actually sometimes, and her motivations are so weak, but her character was a little bit likable, but that's because of Pfeiffer's likable performance.
The first act was fun, it has some cool Maleficent scenes, a great confronting scene, which sadly was spoiled in the trailers.. the narrative was going in a good way actually.
The second act was okay, the narrative issues started to show, but it was okay, we got introduced to some new characters, who some of them are actually dull, Borra, played by Ed Skrein, who's the entire movie is wanting war, or just growling in a weird way, who also represents the villain but in those dark-fairies' world, just like the one in the humans' world, also Conall, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who represents the one who wants peace and harmony, just like King John in the humans' world, but overall the second act was OK.
The third act though is my biggest issue with the movie, I'll try to be as less spoily as I can get. The third act has some weird things, the spindle can give now memories to Aurora, the villain has the ability to make a fairy forgets who he is by removing their win,gs and it's also so very rushed, the movie is almost 2 hours, and yet the third act is rushed, they could cut some scene out from the second act or make the movie a little longer, because the movie got really rushed, people got convinced by some stuff really quickly without asking questions, and you could feel that rushing in some of directions that the movie took in the third act. It also has a very dumb death-relive scene, it was a great scene, with some powerful performances, it's one of my favorite scenes in the movie, but the execution of that scene was very dumb!
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is not as good as the first one was, but it's still OK, though it suffers during some of the second act and the third act.
I'm gonna give Maleficent: Mistress of Evil a C+.
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Worst of the franchise!
Happy Halloween and welcome to my review of the third installment in the Halloween franchise, that doesn't deserve to be in that franchise at all: Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch was written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, and starring Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy.
Halloween III is not a follow-up to the previous 2, and that was shown in the movie, where Halloween 1978 was broadcasting on the TV, and this time the killer isn't Michael Myers, it's a punch of satanic Halloween masks which kill the children who wear them, Daniel Challis and Ellie Grimbridge are investigating the recent murders which are connected to those masks in a way or another.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a bizarre movie, it holds the name of the franchise but it actually shows that the 1978 Halloween movie is just a movie, so nothing that happened in the previous 2 happened in that movie, so it's NOT a movie in the franchise, but it has the name of it, and that's massively disappointing, because when you hear the name "Halloween franchise" the first thing that comes into your mind is the white masked killer, Michael Myers, if you were gonna make a movie without him under the name of the franchise, at least don't show the movie on the TV and make a minor connection to the original!
Halloween III isn't only bad because of the absence of Michael Myers, the movie is so poorly written, and all the characters are so bland, except for Conal Cochran, played by Dan O'Herlihy, and his character is also flawed! I found myself so not caring about any of the characters at all, not even the main leads, and that also be said because of the performances, Atkins and Nelkin were so not good, and the chemistry was so weird and bizarre, the only one was okay in the movie is Dan O'Herlihy, and that's about it!
The idea of this movie is not bad, the execution though is terrible, the thrills are barely there, and the plot is just damaged and confusing, towards the end it even felt more like the whole movie was just a mistake, because our villain is so flawed, and that's because of his motivations, it could've been so much better if they didn't use any motivation at all, like the original Halloween movie, but Wallace decided to give him a very unconvincing motive that really drove me off the movie!
The movie had a couple of good scenes in it, for instance the scene where the first kid was murdered by one of those Halloween masks, and the first act wasn't that terrible too, it's just everything after that was terribly terrible!
Towards the end there's a scene where the leading character was trying to escape from somewhere, and the way he did it was one of the dumbest way that you could see in a movie! This is how this movie is so bad!
The twists aren't there, because from the first act we got to know our villain, and the leading characters knew that too, so the thrills weren't there at all, nothing surprising happened in this movie, it even failed to be a horror movie, there were no good horror scene in this movie except for the first murder scene.
There was like a final fight towards the end, and boy how was it funny, the problem is that they're insulting the people who are watching this movie with most of their action!
The ending of this movie made the movie even more confusing, because you can't find out why this movie was even made at the first place if the ending is like that and we already knew the murderer from the first act, it will really get you questioning about what were they thinking about.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch could have survived even without Michael Myers, but if the movie was a little bit self-aware, and the creator thought about it more seriously.
I'm gonna give Halloween III: Season of the Witch a D, I think it's one of the worst, if not the worst of the franchise, though I find it a little bit hard to call it a part of the Halloween franchise.
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Maleficent (2014)
An arguably a Halloween movie
Happy Halloween, and welcome to my review of Maleficent, a movie that people don't really believe that it's a Halloween movie, but still, it has the theme, and the vibes of a Halloween-Family movie.
Maleficent was directed by Robert Stromberg, and written by Linda Woolverton. And starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning and Sharlto Copley.
Maleficent is a re-imagination to Disney's infamous classic movie "Sleeping Beauty", "Maleficent" explores the untold story of Disney's most iconic villain from the classic "Sleeping Beauty" and the elements of her betrayal that ultimately turn her pure heart to stone. Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king's newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever.
Sleeping Beauty is one of my all-time favorite animated movie, it was beautifully animated, well-written, so self-aware and of course it has lots of memorable characters, and an iconic and memorable villain, Maleficent.
Disney understood very well what does Maleficent mean to everybody, and they decided to make a whole movie to tell us the other-side of the story, which wasn't told before, or was told but from another perspective. Of course the movie has its own differences, some people liked it and some people didn't, but loved it or hated it, Angelina Jolie's magnetic performance is the best thing in this movie, she captured the character very well, she knew what she was doing, and you can tell that she did her best to honor the character, and she definitely did, every scene she was in, it was a blast, and fortunately there's a lot of her in this movie!
The movie's main focus is on Maleficent, the movie's called Maleficent anyway, so I don't really understand why people didn't like how the movie didn't care about Aurora aka Sleeping Beauty that much, yeah her character isn't that interesting, she was always being fascinated by anything around her, and you could say that it's cliched, and it is, but still the movie is trying to make you feel and care for Maleficent, not Aurora.
What makes the movie also works, is that it's visually appealing, the OST also is really cool. The movie is an eye-feast, it's so chilling!
Maleficent is nothing near to a flawless movie, they tried to make its flaws so hidden, by Jolie's amazing performance and the visuals, but if you focus a little, the flaws are really obvious, mainly the cliched changes, I don't say that they're not welcome, but they're still so cliched that you could see what's coming a miles away.
The young actors, who played young Stefan and young Maleficent, weren't good, also the creatures design was a little bit annoying... Also the three fairies, I didn't like them at all, and unfortunately, there's a little bit too much of them in this movie!
I'll be nitpicking too much if I say that sometimes the direction wasn't great, most of the movie, it was beautiful yeah, Stromberg captured lots of scenes right, but some, not that great though!
Maleficent is a good movie, with an outstanding performance by it's lead, still so cliched and kinda uneven sometimes, but it's good to watch it around Halloween times with your family, and it definitely has found its fans, and I'm gladly one of them!
I'm gonna give Maleficent a B.
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Halloween II (1981)
Mediocre, yet disappointing!
Happy Halloween, and welcome to my review of the sequel to the amazing 1978 Halloween, the sequel that didn't live up to its predecessor at all, and tried to make sense to somethings that already didn't need any explanations at all!
Halloween II isn't directed anymore by John Carpenter, this time it's directed by Rick Rosenthal, and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, same writers of the original. And starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence and Dick Warlock as The Shape.
Halloween II picks up where its predecessor left off, Laurie Strode is taken to the Haddonfield Hospital for observation, while Dr. Sam Loomis continues his desperate search for his monstrous patient. After slashing his way through the town
Halloween 1978 is my favorite Halloween movie, it's a must-see each Halloween, and of course it influenced and inspired lots of other slasher movies, and even the low-budget filmmakers too.
So when the first one ended I was confused, did that movie really needed a sequel, or it just should have ended right there? And the answer was no, til the 2018 Halloween movie came out, which I really loved, and I reviewed it, if you're interested go and check it out.
Back to the 1981 sequel, Halloween II unfortunately didn't live-up to any of my expectations, it took a way that changed and explained the first one, which was so unnecessary, killing for no motive at all was always creepier than having a motive to kill for, not always working though, but in the case of Michael Myers, it was better with no motivation, because if he was trying to kill Laurie because of THAT reason, then why did he kill the others? It will make you question the first one a lot, and that what a sequel shouldn't do! A sequel should follow the steps which the first one made, but Halloween II didn't, and that's my biggest issues with the movie!
The movie also left some questions unanswered, like Myers going to a school, writing a word on the board with blood, and it leaves Loomis to explain to us what does that mean, and that what Loomis was in this movie, mostly going "I shot him 6 times and he didn't die!" or explaining some supernatural stuff, which is disappointing, because he was my favorite character in the original, but we don't get cool scenes like the scene where he explained how does it look like in The Shape's eyes, we don't get that from him anymore!
The Shape is still cool and creepy, he has like a truly final fight where where he was fighting Loomis and Laurie, and I think it was cool, but the sound effect though.. not that great!
Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is so bland in this movie, I found her, with all those updates, so uninteresting, her character in this movie is just all about staying in hospital until Myers arrives and then running away, it was only that moment when Loomis told her the truth about Myers and that was it!
Still, you could find somethings to enjoy, the movie is still creepy, amazing atmosphere, we get an amazing scene where The Shape was moving in the street all in blood, but it's Halloween so no one cared, The Shape is still amazing, the score is haunting, and the some sequences were fun, but the structure wasn't well-handled, they took all the wrong steps and built a movie about it, yeah it explained a little, but messed up a lot, so it's a flaw more than a pro.
The movie is still well-shot, Rosenthal did a great job filming this movie, and building a good atmosphere, and didn't mess up The Shape as some of the other sequels did.
Halloween II is not a terrible sequel, actually it's better than some of the other horror movies sequels in that era, but it fails to follow the original and it took a terrible turn, and with some unnecessary twists, so it fails to be a good movie, and that was disappointing!
I'm gonna give Halloween II a C.
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Halloween (1978)
Best of the Franchise!
Happy Halloween and welcome to my review of the movie that inspired all the slasher movies, the original Halloween movie, which came out in 1978 and it's still holding itself to this very day!
Halloween was directed by John Carpenter, and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Starring Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle as The Shape.
And it's about a young boy who kills his sister on Halloween of 1963, and is sent to a mental hospital. After 15 years he escapes and returns to his home town in order to wreak havoc.
There's no doubt that Halloween 1978 set the standard for modern horror films, no CGI, low budget.. but it had John Carpenter behind the camera to direct and build a scary -one of the scariest- slasher-horror atmosphere!
What makes this day holding up like this, are the true suspense and tension which were there throughout the whole movie, combined with the infamous OST, composed by Carpenter himself, and maybe that's another thing that made this movie so scary, because Carpenter knew what could go on with his scenes, so he composed it the way he directed it.. he was very clear about those stuff in his interviews.
And what makes this movie really scary is The Shape himself! His mask, which became iconic and nightmarish, his slow moving style, because actually, and that what most of the slasher-directors forgot nowadays, is that rushing wasn't scary, the suspense was never there when the killer ran or moved quickly, it was all about the slow-moving style, that what could build an intense atmosphere! But above all, his silence, nothing is scarier that a guy standing right there, not saying a word, no reaction.. nothing! Thinking about that only makes you scared, and that movie does use that tension pretty well to create its own atmosphere.
Donald Pleasence as Loomis, who's my favorite character in this movie, alongside with The Shape, has an amazing scene describing how do The Shape's eyes look like, and how soulless is he, that scene is just simply scary, because it's just not words, you could see that in The Shape's actions, and that what makes him so special, and iconic!
What makes him also iconic is his backstory, which is shown briefly, and that what makes it good, that he's just a psycho, no other motive shown throughout the movie, not until the sequel, but him having no motive to kill, except being a psycho is just amazing, that what the sequel didn't understand, neither did the two remakes.
This movie is so amazing and catchy from start to finish, but unfortunately it's not flawless, my biggest issues with the movie is Annie, played by Nancy Kyes, sometimes she acted well, but most of the time she was terrible, there's a specific scene when she was talking to Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, by the telephone, and that scene bugged me so much, if you watched the movie you will know what I mean.
Also towards the end when The Shape started his attack on Laurie, she started screaming, and she wasn't good at that at all, it was one of worst screaming I ever heard, besides that she did a great job in this movie, but screams.. NO!
Halloween 1978 is a classic horror movie to watch each Halloween and get yourself a blanket, and get yourself some good scares.
Halloween is definitely a great horror movie, and the best of the franchise, and maybe the best Halloween-Special movie, the movie that inspired and influenced all slasher movies, if not all horror movies, it still has a couple of flaws, but still a great movie, and close to perfect!
I'm gonna give the 1978 Halloween an A!
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
A Great Halloween-Movie!
Halloween is coming, and the Halloween marathon is coming too.. and it's time to watch lots and lots of horror movies, and get our pumpkins ready! Happy Halloween, everybody.. and welcome to my review of Trick 'r Treat.
Trick 'r Treat is a straight-to-DVD movie, which was released in 2007, and it was written and directed by Michael Dougherty. And starring Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and lots and lots of many other actors.
And it's about five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband; and a mean old man meets his match with a demonic, supernatural trick-or-treater.
Trick 'r Treat is massively underrated, maybe that's because it wasn't released in theaters, but still, it could've found its audiences behind all of that, but unfortunately not a lot of people do know this movie.
Trick 'r Treat is directed in a Tarantino-Style of direction, and that could be a flaw, because it's very similar to Tarantino's movies, and after a while it gets annoying because of how Dougherty directed this movie... It's not like this movie isn't its own movie, but its similarity to Tarantino's movie is pretty obvious and after a while it gets really annoying!
This movie is constructed of 5 different stories that are somehow connected, and that connection CAN be revealed towards the end, and the movie is going back and forth between what happened earlier and what happened later, and from a story to another just like how Tarantino directed all of his movie! Some people won't even notice, or won't even get bothered, but it's so noticeable. And again, this movie is still its own movie, so if you don't care about the similarities between some movies and the others, you won't get bothered or annoyed at all.
Each story -as I said- is connected in a way or another, and a couple of them has a pretty good twist in it, the structure is pretty well-made, and that what made us care about the characters very much, and what made this movie really really works is that it used the Halloween-myths and combined them together in a twisty way!
The main character of this movie, the demonic kid in all the posters of the movie, is pretty scary, he's in every story, even if he didn't do much, but he was there, and his presence throughout the movie gave it a creepy atmosphere, and that was pretty well-handed, and towards the end, he changes the way you think of why the movie was named "Trick 'r Treat".
All the performances were really good, the script is so well-made, you could just quote some of the lines, mostly from Steven Wilkins played by Dylan Baker, his character is what gave this movie a good sense of dark-humor, which made him my favorite character in the movie, along side with that demonic kid, though that kid didn't have much screenplay, but, as I said, his presence made the movie so scary, and it built a great tension til the climax, and I guess that was pretty well-handed!
All the five stories are great, the school bus story is very sad and disturbing, though it wasn't graphic, the girls' twisty story was really cool and well-made, and of course Mr. Kreeg's final story is my favorite!
Trick 'r Treat is a great Halloween-movie, it was really well-handed and made, though its similarity to Tarantino's movies was annoying.. this movie is still really underrated!
I'm gonna give Trick 'r Treat an A!
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Child's Play (2019)
Surprisingly good!
Child's Play is the latest horror movie remake, and it's directed by Lars Klevberg and screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith. And starring Aubrey Plaza, Mark Hamill, Gabriel Bateman and Brian Tyree Henry.
Child's Play is a re-imagination of the 1988 horror classic, and it's about a mother gives her 13-year-old son a toy doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature.
The original Child's Play was a very silly movie, but still a fun horror movie, for me, I like watching it, but its silliness is a little bit too much, so when I heard about the remake, and that Chucky is gonna be a robot, I thought that it's gonna a fresh start, and it's a little bit easier to turn Chucky into an evil doll, because he's a robot, and we all know about the prediction of the robot apocalyptic future. But this movie is not about this, this movie is not about the artificial intelligence, I don't wanna get into spoilers, because the trailers didn't show anything about how he turned into that evil doll.. anyways, I didn't like that much the way the first 5 minutes of the movie, but then it became so clear how he turned into evil, and I liked that way, but early on, it wasn't that good. Something happened in the first 5 minutes in the movie, somebody killed someone, and it was misplaced, it happened so quickly, and it was never mentioned again
The performances are great, Gabriel Bateman is really good, he did great as a kid who lost his dad in a very young age, but sadly the movie didn't show us any of that, except for once. Also the relationship with his mom, played by Aubrey Plaza is so amazing, by the way Aubrey Plaza is great in this movie, once more, and it's good to see her in a horror movie, instead of the comedies that she participated in the last few years! Mark Hamill as Chucky is MVP, just like what everyone was expecting, he was terrific as Chucky! Brian Tyree Henry as Detective Mike Norris is good, he is really funny, I enjoyed his part in this movie. There are some other kids in the movie I didn't like, they were just there, like in most movies, the typical group of kids.
There are lots of things to love about this movie, it doesn't take itself to serious - not like some of the previous Chucky movies did- it even has some sequences which are only for fun, and I liked that, the movie is creepy and funny.
The design of Chucky that everyone was completely trashing on was actually one of my favorite things in this movie, he's adorably terrifying, I loved it! While the original was meant to me scary, this one understands that it's actually a doll for kids, but a little bit upgraded to control all of your products by the same company, I thought that the design is actually better than the original, it's just my opinion.
Actually I think this one is better than the original, yeah, it lacks some of the narrative, it cared too much about Chucky more than the human characters, even though, the human characters could have added way more to this movie, if it was a little bit longer enough to show us more about this family, I could have cared more and more. But still it's a really fun, horror and entertaining movie, the score was really cool, great acting from everyone, and Mark Hamill delivers as Chucky.
I'm gonna give Child's Play a B!
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Midsommar (2019)
One of the best horror movies of the year!
Midsommar was written and directed by Ari Aster, the writer and the director of Hereditary. And starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren, William Jackson Harper and Will Poulter.
And it's about a couple travels to Sweden to visit a rural hometown's fabled mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
Hereditary was one of my favorite movies of 2018, I think it was an amazing psychological-horror movie,and I couldn't wait to see what Aster's going to do next! Hereditary was a different movie, and Midsommar is way more different and ambitious!
Midsommar is a great horror movie, which takes so much time to build the proper atmosphere, the movie is 147 minutes, so it took its time to create the tension, but sometimes you can feel that time, it felt stretched a little bit, but still it didn't go dull, and that's why this movie is so special, it's not flawless or anything, but it did live up to the expectations, at least it lived up to my expectation.
I didn't expect a gigantic jump scares, which are pretty expected nowadays, I knew that it's gonna be mind-disturbing and unsettling, and it was, it freaked me out, but the issue with the movie is, that every unsettling, or scary -psychologically- was in broad daylight, and that's my biggest issue with the movie, that it failed to reach the same atmosphere as Hereditary did, yeah the movie was scary, but it was always in daylight, I understand why it was in broad daylight, but there was a couple of scenes in the night, and they could use more of that to build an even scarier tension, but unfortunately they didn't, and that dragged the movie down!
But still, Midsommar is so freaky and scary, and I think it's one of the best horror movies of 2019 so far, this genre didn't get a lot of good movies this year, it might be the weakest, but Midsommar did justice to the genre, and to the fans of Hereditary.
The tension was there, and the grief was also there, and you can feel their fears and emotions in every scene, and thanks go to Florence Pugh's amazing performance! I watched lots of her movies, Fighting with My Family recently, and she's an amazing actress, but her performance in this movie definitely takes the cake, she does deliver every and each emotion, her agony, loss, suffering and fear, she was terrific in this movie! But there's a twist to her character towards the end that was so rushed, it made sense, because some of the action made during first and second act, but still rushed... BUT still it was welcome and unexpected!
As I said earlier, the movie is a little bit stretched, and you can tell that sometimes, there were some scenes that did not add anything to the movie, there was a dream sequence, which it felt it was so unnecessary, but still the movie didn't go dull, but what was bland was some of the casting choices, Vilhelm Blomgren as Pelle was my least favorite performance of this movie, his character is so important to this movie, but his acting was so bad and soulless, he didn't deliver any of his emotions well, he felt something for Dani, played by Pugh, and it didn't add anything to the movie, and they never got back to that point again! He was bad in this movie, and unfortunately there is a lot of him in this movie.
All the other foreign characters were so good and scary, sometimes even unsettling!
Midsommar is definitely a great psychological-horror movie, that discusses grief in a deep way within its unsettling disturbing presence, beautifully shot, though it failed to achieve its full horror potential.. and led by a mesmerizing performance by Florence Pugh, but let down by some of the others.
Midsommar is worth your time, and I think most of the horror fans are gonna find somethings to enjoy in it, not only to enjoy, but to love! I'm gonna give Midsommar a B!
Happy Halloween, guys, it's getting close, I'll be reviewing a lot of horror and Halloween movies a lot til the end of October, so stick right here if you liked this review! And as always thank you for reading my review.
Joker (2019)
Another Perfect Movie in 2019!
Joker was directed by Todd Philips, screenplay by Todd Philips and Scott Silver and Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro and Zazie Beetz.
And it's about a man struggling to find his way in Gotham's fracturedsociety. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night...but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty.
"Joker" centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips' exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix.
"Joker" is a completely different comic-book movie, which is not about laughs and big fights and superpowers and stuff, no, Joker is a gritty character study, perfectly shot by Todd Philips -despite the similarities between it and The Kind of the Comedy and Taxi Driver-, beautifully written, visually attractive and gives it more depth, amazing OST and of course, memorable performance by Joaquin Phoenix, and amazing performances by everyone else in fact! We'll get to each point in depth.
Let's start with the cinematography, which is really different for a comic-book movie, even if it's a psychological character study comic-book movie. The whole idea of this movie is new and different for a comic-book movie, but the cinematography is really gorgeous, it captured his emotions in a perfect way, his transformation... everything, Philips did an amazing job capturing all of his emotions, and his mind-disturbing moment, sometimes wide and sometimes narrow, and all for a good reason, depending on Arthur's feelings! Still the movie has a little similarity to 2 of Philips's previous movies as I mentioned above, but they weren't much of them... With that being said, the movie finds its way to be on its own, despite the similarities, and thanks goes to Philips, that's way it didn't effect my grade at all.
And also, the similarity to The King of the Comedy is so well-placed because De Niro is playing a comedian in this movie too!
Moving to the screenplay - which is so quotable just like Ledger's Joker- which is so flawless, every line was well-placed, convincing, heart-breaking, even sometimes scary of how real it felt while coming out of Phoenix's mouth! It also has a scene of The Joker explaining his perspective of his crimes, as Ledger did in TDK... The whole sequence of The Joker with Murray towards the end was amazing... The whole third act was so so perfect!!!
The plot is so interesting, it also shares some real mental issues, and some serious society problems, and it's also different from the comics, which is good, I don't like copy-paste movies, it losses the element of surprise which is super-important, and gives the movie something more to admire!
The movie's visually dark and catching, sometimes fitting the scenes, and sometimes it even revealed in a great way what he really felt, which gave the movie even more depth!
The score is really good, its presence gave each scene something dark and sad... catchy! There's a scene where The Joker was dancing on the street, there was a song fitting his dancing, but suddenly the score faded into a sad, broken tune, and it shows that he's happy and Joker from the outside and broken from the inside!
Let's move to the last point, which is the performances, everyone did a great job in this movie, everyone owned his role in a way that makes you hard to think about anyone else replacing them! Everyone was amazing but Phoenix, he was astonishing, mesmerizing, fascinating, Oscar worthy performance... I can't describe his with words, he's the only Joker who we can, finally, compare him to the legend Ledger, in fact sometimes, he surpassed him! Some scenes show him laughing so hard but his face was sad, in tears.. you kinda feel the laughter is out of someone else, and then he coughs and clears his throat hardly, it's painful for him to laugh that hard, but he laughs anyway, that's how broken and sad he was... For some that might be disturbing, but that's not a bad thing, we're talking about a mass-murderer, what did you expect? The controversy about this movie being so dark, disturbing and even sometimes depressing is really bothering me, because it's The Joker we're talking about, we know how psychologically crazy he's, and how violent he's, even this movie isn't graphic as we expected it to be, the violence in this movie is kinda mild, but people are still talking about violence in a movie like Joker, and that's weird! Joker is official the most controversial movie of 2019, and I can't wait to see how the rest of the reviews are going to be, because so far, it's pretty good!
I'm gonna give Joker an A+! It's a perfect movie in all meanings!
Just go and watch the movie with no mentality or anything. Thank you, guys as always for reading my reviews, and if you liked this, you can click on my name up above and see all of my reviews.
It Chapter Two (2019)
Entertaining, yet flawed
For 2 years, I dreamed of IT, I craved IT, I missed IT!
IT Chapter Two is once again directed by Andy Muschietti, screenplay by Gary Dauberman and starring Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, James Ransone, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan and Bill Skarsgård.
Twenty-seven years after the Losers Club defeated Pennywise, he has returned to terrorize the town of Derry once more. Now adults, the Losers have long since gone their separate ways. However, kids are disappearing again, so Mike, the only one of the group to remain in their hometown, calls the others home. Damaged by the experiences of their past, they must each conquer their deepest fears to destroy Pennywise once and for all.
IT was a great horror movie, and it was faithful to the source material.. it was a great adaptation to part of the novel! So clearly IT Chapter Two was one of the most anticipated movies of 2019, I was so excited to see how Muschietti will make it, and after the cast was announced, I was even more excited! And there's a lot to admire in this movie, but still, the first one was better, and there're a lot of reasons why the first IT was better than the second chapter.. but let's start with the things I liked about this movie:
The movie was so epic, especially the third act, which was insane, I LOVED IT, the way it was directed, the performances.. Pennywise! Everything was amazing about it!
The performances were also great, the two Bills stool the whole movie, especially Skarsgard, once again he's my favorite part of the movie, even though he's not in the movie that much compared to its duration, which is a problem, but we'll get to that point later... Anyways, McAvoy did a great job too, also Chastain, but my second favorite is Ransone as Eddie, he did a great job to capture the humor very well, and he was amazing as scared Eddie too!
If it comes to the scary scenes, the movie wasn't scarier than the first one, that's because back then, they were kids, they were in grave danger, but now they are adults, so you don't feel like they're in danger or anything till the third act, but it had some good scares to keep the audiences entertained enough.
The movie also has a great message, the second chapter is even deeper than the first one, and funnier too!
Let's move to the cons:
Starting with the duration, the movie is almost 3 hours, the plot is good and everything, but if you think about it for a second, the movie could have been shortened a bit, yeah the performances were great, it was so good to see them that great that long, but still, some scenes weren't necessary, they just added time to the movie... The first 15 to 20 minutes felt rushed and you kinda feel like there are a lot coming at you, but then the movie moved slowly, but the cast managed to make the 3 hours worth watching and rewatching from time to time.
And with that length, Pennywise wasn't there that much, that could be disappointing to some, and some could be good with it, I'm right in the middle.
The movie is kinda filled with flashbacks, and the young actors are older now, so they don't look the same, so they had to CGI their faces and digitalis their voices to look the same, sometimes it was distracting, and the bigger problem here that they used so much of these flashbacks, sometimes for horror's sake and sometimes for the plot, and I understand that they had to do it, but they didn't do it good enough.
So IT Chapter Two might disappoint some of the fans of the first one, but still it was so well made, and it's emotional too, and sometimes people can relate to it.. with a great message at the ending, all of these thing made IT Chapter Two deeper than the first one, and with that amazing cast, the humor did hit even harder than the first one, but still as a horror movie, the first one wins the round, and as the length, lots of scenes could have just been cut and shortened, because the plot felt a little bit stretched to fit the length, but it didn't always hit! Also Pennywise lost his mystique a little bit, and there's not that much of him too. But still IT Chapter Two is so watchable and entertaining, and I think lots of the fans are gonna love it, and find themselves so satisfied too.
I'm gonna give IT Chapter Two a B!
Thank you guys, for reading another review of mine, if you liked this, click on my name up above and see all my reviews, look forward to my review of the first IT. Thanks again!
The Lion King (2019)
Great Live-Action Remake!
The Lion King is directed by Jon Favreau, the director of The Jungle Book 2016, screenplay by Jeff Nathanson and starring Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen, Beyoncé Knowles and James Earl Jones once again as Mufasa.
The Lion King is Disney's 3rd Live-Action remake this year. And in case you haven't watched the original, the plot is about Simba, a lion prince, after his father's death takes an adventure, and during this adventure he finds out that there's more in life than what he expected.
The original Lion King movie is my favorite animated movie of all time, and it's in my top 3 movies of all time too, I think it's a masterpiece in every way possible, so I was super-excited to see how could they turn that masterpiece into a Live-Action remake, and I find it a little bit weird to call it "Live-Action", because technically, it's animated but in a very realistic way! We'll get to that point later.
I was also afraid, because The Lion King is so close to my heart, I grew up watching it, so I was afraid to see this movie fail or something, but fortunately it didn't!
The Lion King has an impressive visual effects, it never felt CGI-ed or anything, it was so real, the details were very impressive, I like that very much, because the original was richly drawn with amazing colors, it's the best 2D animated movie ever made, and it was revolutionary, so it's good to see the Live-Action remake revolutionary too! But as it was impressive and pleasant to the eyes, it was also emotionless! That's my biggese with this movie, that there's no emotion is this movie, every scene it's just lions moving their mouths and words coming out, or just animals doing stuff, you never get attached to them the same way you did in the original, because in the original you saw them smile, cry, laugh.. you saw their emotions, and that touched us so deep sometimes, but in this movie, it wasn't even near to the original.
The movie was also shot-by-shot a remake, for some that could be a huge problem, for me that all I wanted to see from this movie, I didn't expect anything more, though the movie adds 30 minutes, it didn't add enough to the story, it's just the plot of the original, and I'm okay with that, even the soundtrack was almost the same, same songs -only one new-, same OST by the same composer, so technically, they didn't do anything creative, or more than what they did back in 1994. It was all about nostalgia, to feel nostalgic to your childhood, and it did that perfectly, but there's no point to make this move, except for making somethings more clearer than the original, more animals talking, because that was weird to see only the main characters talking in the original, things that can make more sense than the original.. and money!
The casting choices are amazing, everyone made a great job, to see James Earl Jones back as Mufasa, it added something more to the movie, Donald Glover was amazing as Simba, JD McCrary as young Simba too.. Seth Rogen as Pumba was magnificent, unfortunately, there's a so little of him in that movie, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar was the MVP of this movie, though he wasn't that great as Jeremy Irons, but he was so good as a villain! Billy Eichner as Timon is the worst, he didn't add anything to his character, and he was so emotionless, he wasn't that funny, even though, Timon was the hilarious part of the original, but Billy Eichner didn't do it right!
The movie has 30 min more, and -as I said- they made added more sense sometimes, but sometimes they added scenes just to make it to almost 2 hours, and they even deleted some scenes of Rafiki, there were so little of him in this movie! The original has a great scene between Simba and Rafiki, and it's not in this one anymore.
The Lion King gave justice to the original, though it did lack of emotions, and added some unnecessary scenes, and deleted an important scene, some of the changes were welcome, some not very, but still it was very good to see a great Live-Action remake from Disney again!
I'm gonna give The Lion King an A-!
Thank you guys, for reading another review of mine, if you liked this, click on my name up above and see all my reviews, look forward to my review of the original Lion King. Thanks again!
Toy Story 3 (2010)
One of the best movies ever made!
Toy Story 3 was directed by Lee Unkrich, screenplay by Michael Arndt and starring the same cast from the previous 2 movies, alongside with Ned Beatty and Michael Keaton.
This time the toys are mistakenly delivered to a day-care center instead of the attic right before Andy leaves for college, and it's up to Woody to convince the other toys that they weren't abandoned and to return home.
Toy Story 3 is not only one of the best animated movies ever made, it's also one of the best movies ever made in general! I'm not surprised that it got nominated to the Best Motion Picture of the Year at the Oscars back in 2010!
This movie is absolutely a blast from start to finish, the minute the movie started and you feel invested. And the movie did pay off to every single one who had a slight anticipation for this movie, and it's of course the best of the franchise, including TS4! Actually, TS3 is my favorite Pixar movie so far, not only because of the beautiful animation or the blending comedy, it also has got heart in it, it's full of honest emotions mixed with a great adventure with our beloved characters!
It's very rare to find an animated franchise that works in that perfect way, actually the Toy Story franchise is my favorite animated franchise of all time, it just keeps getting better every time they release a new TS movie!
The animation is flawless, it's so eye-pleasure! The sense of humor is once again hilarious, works for kids and adults. I really don't need to talk about the characters or the actors, they are amazing once more! And all the new characters are so welcome, they all did a great job, and their actors also were fascinating, especially Michael Keaton as Kin.
The movie is so entertaining for all ages, I mean it has one of the best prison breaks ever made, and they are just toys in an animated movie, but you can feel something towards them, and that's an achievement actually, to make us care so much about toys! Thanks goes to the amazing casting choices, the amazing production, the perfect build up to the characters and of course to the amazing plot and the flawless screenplay!
The plot is so rich and full of great messages for ALL ages, literally! I watched it when I was 9, and I got some great values, and I watched it over and over again till I was 17, and I was impressed of how it touched me so deep, anyone could actually related to some of the decision that some characters made during the movie. The movie also has a perfect ending, with so much heart in it, I guess everyone cried so hard, myself included!
Toy Story 3 found a way to be an amazing movie, not only in its franchise or its genre, but in general, TS3 is definitely one of the best movies ever made, and credit goes to everyone who participated in that amazing movie!
Toy Story 3 of course gets an A+! If you haven't seen this movie before, or the whole franchise, do yourself a favor, and go watch them, they are really worth your time.
Thank you guys, for reading another review of mine, if you liked this, click on my name up above and see all my reviews, look forward to more reviews really soon. Thanks again!
Toy Story 2 (1999)
An amazing sequel!
Toy Story 2 is once again directed by John Lasseter alongside with Ash Brannon and Lee Unkrich. Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin and Chris Webb.
Starring all the original cast alongside with Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer and Wayne Knight.
The movie takes a place after the landmark 1995 computer-animated blockbuster, but this time Woody is stolen by a toy collector, Buzz and his friends set out on a rescue mission to save Woody before he becomes a museum toy property with his roundup gang Jessie, Prospector, and Bullseye.
I loved the first TS movie, I think it's one of the best animated movies of all time, though I didn't give it an A+, but grade is not everything. Anyways TS2 is a very rare sequel that took the success of its predecessor and added something on it, yeah, it has the same pattern of the first one, a toy is lost and the others are looking for them, but as I said, they added something on it, and it definitely worked!
TS2 is my least favorite of the franchise, though I think it's an amazing sequel to an amazing movie, and there are many reasons why this movie is so good, let's see:
As I said the movie was like the first one a little bit, the concept itself, but it added something more, every toy from the first one here was involved at the searching for Woody, they weren't just watching from the window. And they took their screentime, and they were hilarious. The movie has some very cool Easter Eggs, some are easy to notice and some aren't, but still hilarious.
The movie also has a more of a plot, not like its predecessor, only a couple of toys trying to find their way home, no! This time a character has a back story, that effects the whole movie, and adds more depth to it!
It also has an amazing animation, which is still, to this very day, timeless! IF you didn't like the animation in the first one, or you think it wasn't that great, you will definitely like this one! The movie also has a very sense of humor, but the first one was funnier to me. The characters are so charming once more, and there are some new characters, some don't have that much of screentime, but some has a lot.
Woody and Buzz once more are the best part of this movie, their friendship inspired me as a kid, and it keeps inspiring me til now! And that's a great thing about this movie, it works, once again, for kids and adults.
The casting choices are once more, brilliant, all of them were so much alive, you never feel like they are just cartoon characters, the actors added so much live and depth to their characters!
The plot is so good, the first one was simple, but this one is a little bit deeper and with more storytelling, but still not perfect, some scenes didn't make sense. I know, it's a movie about talking toys, there's one scene in particular that didn't make sense at all, spoilers ahead, if you haven't watched TS2!
Alright, the scene when Woody was trying to get his arm from Al, the Prospector turned on the TV and put the remote under Jessie's box, and she didn't notice AT ALL!
Back to business, another flaw bugged me a little, is the Prospector's character, he didn't have any motivation to do what he did, I mean he hates humans and he doesn't want to me played with, he didn't get abandoned by someone before, he only saw Jessie and heard her story, and that's really it, I know he doesn't want to get abandoned, but it wasn't enough for me.
There are my only issues with this movie, otherwise that was great movie, and some said it improved on the first one, for me.. no, but I understand why do they think that.
Toy Story 2 is once again impressive and charming, with amazing animation and good sense of humor, and an entertaining adventure for all ages! I'm gonna give Toy Story 2 an A! If you haven't seen this one, go check it out, it definitely worth your time.
Thank you guys, for reading another review of mine, if you liked this, click on my name up above and see all my reviews, look forward to my review of Toy Story 3. Thanks again!
Toy Story (1995)
Classic
Toy Story was directed by John Lasseter, screenplay by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow. And starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn and John Ratzenberger.
And it's about Woody, a traditional pull-string talking cowboy, has long enjoyed a place of honor as the favorite among six-year-old Andy's menagerie of toys. Quick to calm their anxieties about being replaced by newer arrivals, Woody finds his own confidence shaken, and his status as top toy in jeopardy, upon the arrival of Buzz Lightyear, simply the coolest space action figure ever made. Woody plots to get rid of Buzz, but things backfire and he finds himself lost in the outside world with Buzz as his only companion.
I think we all agree that Toy Story saga is the best animated franchise ever made! Even after it ended in TS3, TS4 found a way to make the audience really happy. And the original Toy Story is no difference than the rest of the franchise, it started a whole new era of animated movies, TS is the very first CGI animated movie ever made. And guys, as I promised I'm gonna review the first 3 TS movie, starting with the original.
Toy Story is one of the best animated movies ever made, every time I rewatch it, I never felt bored or anything.. even though it has a couple of issues.
Let's start with those issues:
Alright, firstly, how did Buzz freeze every time a human walked by, and he doesn't know that he's a toy yet? I know he said that he adapts to the current environment, but it didn't seem so right.
Also what was he doing under his box, there was nothing but his picture and his job in the galaxy?
Those are my only issues with this movie, everything else was so perfect, starting with the cast:
Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are so memorable as Woody and Buzz Lightyear, I mean it's so hard to think about Woody and Buzz without thinking of Hanks and Allen!
Everyone else was amazing as their characters, but those two did an outstanding job as their characters, they even gave them depth and a way more chemistry!
Also this movie is so quotable, the screenplay has been made perfectly... Also the movie is super funny, for kids and adults, it also had some very good adult humor!
Alongside with the screenplay, the characters gave this movie something more than just words, you feel like they are so real, and it gives every kid a great message about friendship, and accepting the others, no matter how they're different!
And also it gives them something that every single kid hoped to see, their own toys moving and having a life just like humans.
The story is pretty amazing, with an amazing villain that will make you hate him as soon as you see him, it's an amazing adventure to live, with amazing messages during the whole movie.
The animation is still, to this day, timeless, you can watch it after 24 years of its release, and you still can be amazed of how did they do that back at the time!
Also it has a great score, and a song that never left the franchise, you all know which one I mean, yeah, "you've got a friend in me".
Toy Story is a great animated movie, with memorable characters and amazing score, only those issues that bugged me a little bit, but it still, it's one of the best animated movies ever made!! IF you haven't watched yet, and I doubt it, go see it, right now!
I'm gonna give Toy Story an A!!!!
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)
"Well, that's disappointing"
The Angry Birds Movie 2 is directed by Thurop Van Orman and John Rice. Screenplay by Peter Ackerman, Eyal Podell andJonathon E. Stewart. And starring Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Leslie Jones, Bill Hader and Rachel Bloom.
And it's about The flightless angry birds and the scheming green piggies take their beef to the next level in The Angry Birds Movie 2! When a new threat emerges that puts both Bird and Pig Island in danger, Red, Chuck, Bomb, and Mighty Eagle recruit Chuck's sister Silver and team up with pigs Leonard, his assistant Courtney, and tech pig Garry to forge an unsteady truce and form an unlikely superteam to save their homes.
I still remember watching the first Angry Birds movie, it was okay, maybe I should rewatch it... But I was super excited to see this movie, I wanted to know how they gonna extract a story from a story-less mobile app, and sadly, it didn't live up to my expectations!
The movie has some plot issues, firstly the motivation of Zeta, when I watched the trailers I thought that she wants their islands because of her island is freezing, although I thought that she could've just asked to join them and that's it, or just attack one island, but anyways her motivation in the movie was not that only, she had a bigger one, and it was TERRIBLE.. no spoilers though.
Secondly, the three little chicken thing, I won't spoil anything, but during the whole movie they had some kind of a plot, which was totally unnecessary, just to get them to a PLACE to help our heroes. They added nothing to the movie, and it felt more like a mini movie in the main movie.. yeah they have a little message behind, but the message from the main plot was enough for kids too... Again, because they added nothing to the movie!
Thirdly, the movie was NOT funny, I laughed only a couple of scenes or something, even kids in my theater didn't laugh that much... The first movie had some good adult humor, and it made kids laugh too, but this one was lame and didn't care that much for adults anymore! Yeah I know, it's a kids movie, young adults are not the target audience, but the first movie was a kids movie too, but it worked for adults too.
Don't get me wrong, there are some sequences that were okay, I mean the movie didn't insult or humiliate adults, it was entertaining sometimes.
Fourthly, the movie was incredibly expected, I saw everything coming! Nothing surprised me, I know it's not a Pixar movie, but still, this movie was full of "oh, saw that coming"
That doesn't mean that this movie is so terrible, or there's nothing good about it.. no. As I said, the movie, sometimes, was entertaining, the animation was cool, the casting choices is once again great, it had a couple of scenes that I laughed a little bit and it's good how they extracted this story from an app, even if it has some issues in it.
I think that kids are going to enjoy this movie, maybe more that me, but people at my age, I don't really recommend this movie.. but if you enjoyed the first one and see how did it go with the creators of this movie, then go and enjoy yourself, because as I said, the movie wasn't terrible or anything, it's at least watchable.
I'm gonna give The Angry Birds Movie 2 a C-.
Alright, guys.. thank you for reading my review, look forward to more reviews really soon, especially the Toy Story saga reviews which is really soon... Thank you.