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The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017)
Meh
It's way too much like Safe House:
Same lead caucasian actor of course, and a african american co-lead.
The caucasian one has a French lover in both movies, the 2 head cops are an average built caucasian female and a fat male, which happens to be the mole in both movies... and so on, and so on. Is it on purpose?
I really like the 2 leads, and they had their moments, but it just does not produce anything worth it... Too many events are forced (saving each other, saving the girlfriend, etc...). Maybe if it was lasted less time and was more fun I would have rated it higher, but not like this.
300: Rise of an Empire (2014)
Sorry but as a movie in the 300 universe, no way...
I am not a particular huge fan of the original 300, but I do like it for what it is. I'm afraid this is not up to par quality wise.
I thought this was to be a sequel, but I was wrong, it's more in parallel of the original, with a bit of prequel and sequel around.
I did appreciate seeing some of the original cast back, it was definitely nice, even though the movie is not about them (too bad!).
This movie follows the previous one with its central characters, and unfortunately the comparison isn't good for it, and this is exactly my biggest issue.
* Leonidas is replaced by Themistokles:
I have no problem with Stapleton, he seems a great actor, but unfortunately his character is far less interesting. He's pretty much a good guy that cares a lot for everyone with little humor, I found it somewhat boring to watch compared to our previous lead. I understand that it represents the difference between the Athenians and the Spartans, but it doesn't really work out for me, maybe it would have with a better co-lead.
* Xerxes is replaced by Artemisia:
Now this really did not work. Xerxes was awesome (in limited quantity of course) whereas Artemisia not quite. There was something about her makeup that made me wonder if she was on meth or a goth or something else that did not belong... Forgetting that, her build is not of a warrior, there is no way for her to wield a sword and a shield all day like this. Why are all the guys huge but her, the best warrior of Persia, so tiny? and yet she's the only one wielding not one sword, but 2! (yes yes I understand skills... still I'd expect more a build like Ferris Hellig, especially for a 300 main character!). Some of her scenes were fine, even if not super interesting, but I felt some of her last speeches lacked feelings).
* Dillos was replaced by Aeskylos:
It's not that Dillos is such an awesome character in 300, but he's good enough in most of his scenes and great in his last ones. I never felt anything good about Aeskylos, this time it's probably both the character and the actor. It's like they needed Themistokles to have some discussions so they sort of forced this guy in, but he serves no real purpose.
* The father and son are replaced by... another father and son! The evolution of their relationship is interestingly opposite, as again one would expect between Spartans and Athenians and that was good, but the characters are not that interesting and the boy that needs to prove his worth to his father is not that fun that we needed it. The dad is fine, I think he should have taken over Aeskylos's role and have more screen time.
* The multiple Persian armies are replaced by the Persian Navy: That too was fairly boring in comparison. In the first one you never really know what will be coming next, but here it's always the same... Well it is less insulting to Persians though since it has no demons/monsters this time :)
The main characters, which is what the movie is really about, are unfortunately fairly boring. The sex scene has no purpose but itself... I could understand one of the 2 characters taking part in it, but definitely not the other A few things seem to contradict between the 2 movies as well, but nothing too major. The first battle had so much blood, they even splashed it on the camera, it was annoying.
All in all, nothing to remember.
Shingeki no kyojin (2015)
As an anime watcher don't watch, others meh...
It changes too much from the base material, removes too many things that are important to the plot (for example Marco being the reason why Jean joins the Wings of Freedom, it's a huge deal but there it's different... or how Eren, being such a weak kid, is able to drop Jean to the floor so easily but in the movie they prevented them from fighting... This explained so much what Eren is about. Making Eren the one who thinks that watching the wall for Titans is useless did not help... nor the scarf part, it's completely pointless in the movie)...
To me SnK is a master piece because every scene is meaningful in the long run, even scenes that may look only like action scenes will give out subtle details about the major plot if you pay attention, so removing most of the original scenes is unlikely to work for me unless they are replaced by something as genius the original ones.
So as a major fan of the anime, I say the live action is horrible don't watch it, BUT I tried to finish it not thinking it was part of the SnK world to make it a bit easier on me as it was too painful...
Pros: - Good acting/voicing - Good makeup/costumes - Really good "sounds" - I really enjoyed the transformation at the end (mostly the sound of it though) Cons: - I only liked 2 characters, the sumo-tori with the axe (did we ever hear his name?) and the major, but they both get like 2 minutes total or so... These were great, but minor characters so... The actor for the major totally nailed it, it was impressive, but since I'm not looking at this being in the SnK world let's forget that. Jean and Armin are pretty much my favorites in the show and in the movie they are useless. There's no trace of Reiner who's pretty cool as well, and let's not talk about Levi or Erwin (I think the captain in the movie is supposed to portray Erwin... but he feels more like a mix of Erwin, Levi and Oluo, which doesn't really work for me) - The plot is pretty thin because they try to cram so much in an hour and a half (yet they did include the couple with the half body!) and I'd say the good part of the plot is coming from SnK anyway... - The F/X are just horrible, seriously I felt like I was watching Bioman in the 80s or the old superman movies in the 70s, which is too bad cause everything else graphic wise was really cool! It's like everything else feels like a high end Hollywood movie (I mean that in a good way) but the F/X are like amateurs... so strange... It just pulled me out of it when I was trying to get in the mood...