Tag: film

Oz the Great and Powerful review

Director:
Sam Raimi
Cast:
James Franco
Michelle Williams
Zach Braff
Joey King
Mila Kunis
Rated:
PG

This movie can be used as a lesson on how to correctly make a prequel.

“Oz the Great and Powerful,” tells the story of the title character, Oz, who we know from the beloved 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.” In this film, we find Oz, played by James Franco to be a rather selfish, prankster of a magician and yet seems to have a heart of gold somewhere inside. Through a series of events of being chased out of a traveling carnival and ending up in a hot air balloon, Oz finds himself sucked into a twister and ends up in the land of Oz.

As he begins to explore his surroundings, Oz meets Theodora (Mila Kunis), who tells him where he is and that she is a witch. Oz is trusting of her and is led to the Emerald City and is told that he is a wizard of prophecy that will eliminate the threat of the wicked witches. Oz decides to take on the task so that he can be rule the land. However through his journey, he begins to become a better man as he makes new friends.

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Jack the Giant Slayer review

Director:
Bryan Singer
Cast:
Nicholas Hoult
Eleanor Tomlinson
Ewan McGregor
Stanley Tucci
Ian McShane
Rated: PG-13

“Jack the Giant Slayer” is another retelling of classic fairytales, a genre which has picked up steam the last few years.

In this adaption, Jack (Hoult) ends up getting some beans through a series of events.

What’s different in this version is that an evil aid to the King, Roderick (Tucci), wants the beans because they lead to the beanstalk which has access to the giant’s kingdom in the sky. Roderick has a plan to use the giants to take over the kingdom, however, before he can thrust his plan in to motion, Jack gets a hold of the beans.

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A Good Day to Die Hard review

Director:
John Moore
Cast:
Bruce Willis
Jai Courtney
Sebastian Koch
Yuliya Snigir
Radivoje Bukvic
Rated: R

I don’t know if I want to hear Yippee Kay Ye any more.

“A Good Day to Die Hard” takes place some unknown amount of time after the fourth film. In this one, John McClane (Willis) finds out that his son Jack (Courtney) is in trouble in Russia. John decides to travel over to find out if he can somehow help his son in any way. What he finds out is that his son is actually a CIA agent working a major case.

Through a wild course of events, John becomes involved with the operation his son is working on and the two have to work together to bring down a large organization of terrorists.

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January 2013 Mini-Reviews

Texas Chainsaw 3D – 1 out of 5
This movie to me, basically ruins the lore of the original film from 1974. They give the Sawyer family, the psychopaths all of this backstory and history that just doesn’t blend with what the original film did. The only reason I didn’t give this a 0.5 is because at the very least they tried something a little different, the problem is that what they tried was just bad.

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Warm Bodies review

Director:
Jonathan Levine
Cast:
Nicholas Hoult
Teresa Palmer
Analeigh Tipton
Rob Corddry
Rated: PG-13

“Warm Bodies” is your basic modern day re-telling of “Romeo and Juliet,” except in this case, Romeo happens to be a zombie.

The film follows the character “R,” played by Nicholas Hoult who starred in the 2011 film “X-Men First Class.” R is a zombie who knows his name started with the letter “r” but can’t remember anything after that. On the outside, R is just an average zombie slumping around an airport in an post-apocalyptic future. However, on the inside R is able to give a monologue of what’s going on and provides the movie a narration.

Eventually, through a chance encounter, R meets a survivalist named Julie, played by Teresa Palmer. She is with a group looking for supplies. This meeting happens to be love at first sight for R as the encounter restarts his heart. Because of this, R saves Julie and Julie begins to learn that R is slowly coming back to life.

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Top 10 Best Movies of 2012

1. Argo
It was difficult putting this above “Lincoln,” however I think that “Argo” really was ahead in a few ways. It’s intense, it’s funny, it’s interesting and it is very well put together by director Ben Affleck. “Argo” was a really nice follow up to “The Town” and shows that Affleck can take on different sorts of films and pull them off. I was really impressed with the acting, the portrayal of Hollywood and especially the exciting climax.

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Zero Dark Thirty review

“Zero Dark Thirty” is based on the true story of the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, starting with the attacks on 9/11. It takes an in-depth look at the tracking of Al Qaeda during a 10-year period through the eyes of a CIA operative who is part of the task force to find its leader and the No. 1 target of the United States.

The CIA operative, Maya, is played by Jessica Chastain. Maya travels much of the Middle East in the movie, interrogating a number of different detainees and using the extent of U.S. technology to try and put the puzzle pieces together. Through the film, she sticks to the hunt and becomes obsessed with Bin Laden.

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Django Unchained review

Director:
Quentin Tarantino
Cast:
Jamie Foxx
Christoph Waltz
Leonardo DiCaprio
Kerry Washington
Samuel L. Jackson
Rated: R

Leonardo DiCaprio should consider playing a villain more often; he’s quite good at it.

“Django Unchained” follows the title character played by Jamie Foxx. At the beginning of the movie Django is a slave being led to an unknown location. However the caravan that he’s in is stopped by a man named King Schultz (Waltz). Schultz, a bounty hunter, ends up freeing Django and asks him in return to help him identify a trio of criminals for their bounties. Django agrees and the two end up working together as a bounty hunting duo.

As the two work together, Django informs Schultz that he has a wife who is still a slave and aims to get her free. The duo discovers that Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Washington), is owned by a rich plantation owner named Calvin Candie (DiCaprio). The heroes then decide to try and get into the plantation and rescue Django’s wife.

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Les Miserables review

Adapted from the 1862 novel written by Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables” follows the story of an ex-convict named Jean Valjean, played by Hugh Jackman, whom upon leaving prison tries changing his life and becoming a better man than he was before. He breaks parole though and because of this, the law-obsessed inspector Javert, played by Russell Crowe, goes to no ends throughout the movie to try and capture Valjean.

After getting his life back on track and avoiding Javert, Valjean meets a woman named Fantine, played by Anne Hathaway who has had to sell her body to support her young daughter, Cosette. Upon her death, Valjean makes a promise to protect Cosette and raise her as his own. The rest of the film is about his struggles of raising Cosette and an envisionment of France in the early 1800s.

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review

Director:
Peter Jackson
Cast:
Ian McKellen
Martin Freeman
Richard Armitage
Hugo Weaving
Rated: PG-13

The return of the franchise was like re-visiting an old friend.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is a prequel story to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy that came out a few years ago, all based on the books written by J.R.R. Tolkien. In this film, the story surrounds Bilbo Baggins (Freeman), the uncle of the LOTR protagonist Frodo, who gets a visit from the wizard Gandalf the Grey (McKellen). Gandalf informs Bilbo about an adventure he and a group of dwarves are going to attempt and asks him to be a member of the company.

Bilbo is at first reluctant to join in however the call of adventure brings him out of there and he joins with the dwarves and Gandalf. The leader of the group is Thorin (Armitage), a dwarf king who is trying to retake his home and reclaim his birth right. Through the adventure, Bilbo begins to earn more trust from the group.

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