Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

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>>: C+

And Toy Story 1 & 2 with wife.

Don't be Afraid of the Dark -

This is almost a perfect horror movie, especially for young kids. The house setting is beautiful, filled with gardens, lakes, and hidden areas both inside and outside. All of the rooms in the house have an old mysterious feel. I like the double staircase with the secret room in between. And the cinematography is nice too. There is a good library scene later in the movie as well with an old manuscripts area. Because of the setting I thought this was England or some European country and not America. I say the movie is almost perfect because it needs a few fixes. Stuff that somehow made it into the movie that I'm sure many see as flaws. And they are mostly character problems like the house worker and caretaker. They are basically the crazy Ralph types but not played as crazy. So when something goes wrong it should be taken more seriously. But it's not. Little things like that happen and you wonder why as it makes the characters look stupid. It's not like the ghost in the house with stupid characters sort of stuff either that lesser movies do. But the people are getting hurt and bad stuff is happening and characters seem to put it off. Also, I didn't like the twist ending that much. It's dark and I don't think it really needed to happen as it didn't fit with the character's development. At least I thought it didn't. I still want to see the original. But I thought this was pretty good.

Europa Report (2013)

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This is another 'found footage' sci-fi, survival-thriller/horror flick but sharing almost a similar premise (moon), Apollo 18 was much...much better. The good cast kinda wasted in this frustratingly slow-burn 'same old' story where an international crew of 6 astronauts embark on a mission to Europa, one of the largest Jupiter's moons and as you can guess, after a technical failure they loses all communications with Earth mission control & then facing a series of deadly crises, the crew still stupidly continues their mission to Europa and encounters something unknown...a baffling mystery...(or who gives a fuck?!)...a bioluminescent predatory creature that's more of a cross between octopus and squid!
Besides, the very usual slow-burn nature of the film with boring 'atmospheric' space ship environment factor & uninteresting characters, another major disappointment comes through the point of disclosure of the creature...there's only a glimpse of it near the very end of the movie. I just don't understand this! If you're making a sci-fi horror flick that's got a mysterious creature, then try to show or reveal it properly...if you got a budget problem, then stop making this. Every unknown/interesting or deadly creature needs a fair amount of screen time in every movie. If you can't make it happen, then that's your off-limit, try something different within your budget, talent or whatever you're capable of showing in a movie.

Not worth your time, IMO. Skip it.

>>: C-

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" 6/10

Together with The Hobbitt this must be the longest build-up to something happening i've seen in many, many years. The entire story was more dull than entertaining and many of the characters just annoyed me, most of all the pathtic character Peeta, who should've been killd off in the beginning of the movie (The first movie, of course).


"Contracted" 7/10

I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one who was thinking "The Fly" during the entire movie.
Really appreciated the originality of the story (for this genre), and i might be a blind moron,
but i honestly didn't see that ending coming.
Contracted has been blamed by alot of IMDB users for being way too slow paced. Well, except for the first 10-15 minutes i didn't find it slow at all. Found it highly entertaining to see all these terribly gross things happening to this poor girl and i thought it was a shame the movie didn't go on half an hour longer, as it kinda ended in a climax.


"Captain Phillips" 8/10

Started out with terrible shaky camera work and constant closeups of peoples faces
for the first 5 minutes. We don't need that. Ever. Tom Hanks isn't that pretty anymore.

Oh well, when that being said..Highly intense movie with terreffic performances all around.

Nothing more to say. See it.

So he's not on your hotties list anymore?

Can't say that he is, no. Maybe in the 80s.

Yeah, I was surprised by this one too. Thought it was going to be awful, but I was pretty impressed.

Finally got around to seeing World War Z. I had pretty low expectations going in, and the movie only managed to just barely surpass them. Spoilers ahead.

What I liked:

Truly epic scenes of zombie mayhem and some well directed action sequences like the plane infection break out.

What I didn't like:

very bland characters, bland resolution, very little done to address the breakdown of social order or the breakdown of infrastructure needed to keep survivors alive.

The only reason this movie managed to surpass my expectations is because it managed to do at least one thing right, and I expected nothing to be done right. The scenes in Isreal and the plane flight out of Isreal were pretty spectacular and well-staged, I have to admit. It had a few other nice touches here and there, like North Korea's solution to the zombie outbreak. The soundtrack wasn't bad either.

The problem was the screenplay- in an effort to make the characters likable, the screenwriters robbed them of personality or plausibility. Particularly bad was the protagonist's wife, with no disrespect to the actress who played her, who did what she could with such poorly written role, emotionally supportive but physically dependent. What an albatross. There is also the standard lapses in logic like, why is there still electrical power? Where is all the food and water coming from? How can professional television broadcasts still be produced after most of the civilized world has been destroyed and the bulk of its population killed?

Reportedly the original third act was to take place in Russia, and it involved the protagonist being conscripted into an army to fight against the zombies which stretched over a time period of months. I think this would have been a more dramatically satisfying ending than the trite solution found at the W.H.O. A brutal slog would have been more plausible and interesting than a magic bullet. All in all, I would say the movie is worth watching as long as you manage your expectations and don't take it too seriously.

A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH with Brendon Fraser. Liked it. Nice blending of original story in new framework.

"Holes" 7/10

Must be the most advanced Disney story to date.
Didn't even feel like a Disney movie most of the time, which is a good thing in my book. :)