By Jeff
I don't know why, but I have a strange need to see as many comic book movies as possible. This would make sense if I read a lot of comic books, but I own all of two. So really, there is no reason for this obsession that usually leads me to see meh movies that I would avoid if they weren't based on comics.
With this in mind, I checked out "Captain America: The First Avenger". Aside from my need to see comic movies, I was drawn to "Captain" because Hugo Weaving was cast as the bad guy, Red Skull. Weaving is an awesome bad guy. He looks like a bad guy, he talks like a bad guy and he can act. He doesn't disappoint and has the best performance.
Chris Evans was a curious choice as the Captain, simply because he was already in the atrocious Fantastic Four movies. In Evans' defense, he was good as Johnny Storm, the writing was just terrible. Anyway, Evans made a good Captain. He didn't really have a lot of lines once he dawned the suit and persona, but he looked and played the part of a hero well.
Now the main problem I had with the film was the ray guns the bad guys had. Actually, I was OK with these weapons, it was the fact that they disintegrated people, yet a group of unarmed POWs escaped a prison camp loaded with bad guys toting these weapons.
The story was solid enough. Red Skull leads a terrorist cell within the Nazis called Hydra, they find an artifact that gives them the power to make ray guns and other weapons that Red Skull plans to use to take over the world. I actually giggled because they do a "Heil Hydra" salute that resembles the Nazi salute, but they use both arms. You know, because the hydra has multiple heads. I giggled because I imagined them and the Nazis then doing the chicken dance.
It wasn't "Iron Man" or "The Dark Knight", but "Captain America" gets a B.
Now I told readers last week that I've read the Harry Potter books after years of refusing to do so, now I've caught up with the movies. I'm just going to give you my thoughts on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2".
Whenever you see movies based on popular books, you have to go in telling yourself it's OK if they don't follow the book to the letter. In fact, it's better if they don't. The movie can never be exactly like the book, so give the filmmaker a break and just enjoy it as a different entity.
The last Harry Potter movie was the best. Not because it had the most action, but because it didn't have to try and squeeze 700 pages of material into 140 minutes. The plot wasn't rushed and the movie was paced very well, unlike the majority of the other Potter movies. Remember the first two movies in the series and how they took what seemed like forever for anything to happen?
The acting was solid and it's really amazing to see how far Daniel Radcliffe and the other child actors have come during the course of the franchise. Alan Rickman was excellent as always, but just never seems to be on the screen enough.
The action sequences were a lot of fun, but not as satisfying as the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort in "The Order of the Phoenix". It was really neat in that action scene to see how the wizards were using all of their surroundings like water from a fountain and glass from the windows. There was no utilizing the environment and any neat ideas during the duels in this movie, just lots of lights and "Stupefy!", but it was still entertaining.
The final battle of Hogwarts was grander in scale than the movie, but the movie still did a nice job of adding its own elements, like blowing up a bridge with a ton of werewolves on it.
Now I know I said you can't get mad at a movie for not incorporating everything from the book in the movie, but there are some plot details that were left out that should have been included here. The one that stands out to me is that the movie audience never learns how the death eaters knew when Harry was being moved from the Dursleys (This scene occurs in Part 1, but the reveal doesn't happen until near the end of the book and during the events of Part 2). They talk about having a traitor in their midst in Part 1, but then it is never discussed again. I also think it silly that you never see what happens to Wormtail in the movies. He gets stunned in Part 1 and is never seen again.
OK, so I explained how the movie lacked some vital scenes from the book, now I have one big issue with what the book left out and the movie could have improved on. There are two main characters that meet there demise during the battle for Hogwarts. Both in the book and in the movie, you never see how they meet their end. At least one of these characters deserved a more honorable end than just Harry seeing them dead on the ground. The movie could have added a quick scene showing these characters losing duels or sacrificing themselves or something. Instead the audience just sees them lined up with the rest of the bodies. Lame.
With that being said, the movie was still very entertaining and was a great end to the franchise. It gets a B+.
And I saved the worst for last. I had high hopes for "30 Minutes or Less". The cast was full of funny people and the previews had me laughing my ass off. Too bad those were almost the only funny parts of the movie.
Usually I enjoy Danny McBride, he wasn't funny at all in this film. His character just spouted out obscenities that weren't funny. Aziz Ansari was the only thing that went right in this movie. Jesse Eisenberg wasn't bad, but he was nothing special. That's really all I have to say. It was just really disappointing. C-.
Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
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