Review: Jack Reacher

Year: 2012
Genre: Action, Thriller
Director: Chris McQuarrie
Key Players:  Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike and Richard Jenkins 

In a Nutshell:
Tom Cruise tries to prove a guy he hates isn’t a mass murderer… with his fists!

The Bottom Line:
I have a huge thing for Rosamund Pike, she’s got a natural beauty to her. I will marry her one day (with Anna Kendrick, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis).

Now that I got that off my chest, I was pretty entertained throughout Jack Reacher. But first let’s address the elephant in the room; It was a poorly timed film and I’ve read reviews which go on at length about how insensitive it is to the victims of the recent massacre, but it’s really not the studios fault and I wont hold it against them.

I loved Tom Cruise in this movie, he has a sense of having a bit of fun playing the tough guy that he usually plays these days but he looks comfortable in the role and really hams up his lines in the movie and it’s his character that really keeps this movie as entertaining as it is.

The villain of the movie played by Jai Courtney was also good and probably deserved a little more screentime.

The action scenes were well shot enabling the audience to see what the hell was going on and the fight scenes were well choreographed (especially a more lighthearted fight scene in the middle of the film).

My only problem with the film was the ending after everything wrapped up and they did the whole “Wherever there is injustice, he’ll be there” moment, it was cheesy and lame. But apart from that it was a good time killer.

A bit of Trivia:
Jack Reacher in the books is 6”5’ and 250 pounds.

Review: Life of Pi

Year: 2012
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Director: Ang Lee
Key Players:  Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan and Adil Hussain 

In a Nutshell:
A novelist asks a man to recount his story of being shipwrecked with a tiger.

The Bottom Line:
I usually hate sitting in the front row of a cinema, but I loved sitting so close to the screen during Life of Pi. The movie was so full of imagery and visual wonder that I loved the colour to wash over me.

I loved every minute of Life of Pi, the story was fantastic and for a film that many directors burnt out on it looked like Ang Lee accomplished this adaptation easily.

The main drawing point of the film, the tiger, looked fantastic. In fact all the cgi was amazing and provided the sense of true wonderment as this story unfolded. 

The film easily made the audience laugh and then drawn into the drama.

I loved the hell out of this movie and it restored my faith in Ang Lee after his horrible adaptation of Hulk (Seriously, what the hell was that?).

A bit of Trivia:
Suraj Sharma had never even seen a Tiger until promoting the movie in Australia.

Review: Pitch Perfect

Year: 2012
Genre: Comedy, musical
Director: Jason Moore
Key Players:  Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow and Rebel Wilson

In a Nutshell:
A college student aspiring to become a DJ signs up with an acapella group.

The Bottom Line:
I went into this movie expecting a standard ‘Glee’ style sugarcoated musical movie but ended up laughing my ass off.

I enjoyed it for the pacing of the songs (Playing enough of a song to have fun but not playing the entire song to fill the movie) and the sharp wit of all the characters. Rebel Wilson again makes us Australians look like we wrestle crocodiles in our backyard but still provides a likeable character.

The Acapella commentators provide a howling commentary whenever they show up and the weird crazy Asian girl in the group made me shoot coke out of my nose.

And I will marry Anna Kendrick one day.

I urge every comedy fan to watch this, don’t let the musical background of the film detract you from it.

A bit of Trivia:
Everybody needs to watch Workaholics

Review: Wreck-It Ralph

Year: 2012
Genre: Animated, Comedy, Adventure
Director: Rich Moore
Key Players:  John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer and Jane Lynch

In a Nutshell:
Sick of being the bad guy in an arcade video game, Wreck-It Ralph leaves his game to seek heroism.

The Bottom Line:
I saw this with a friend and wer both agreed on one thing: This movie was boring.

It started out well enough and with a great premise. It had video game cameos and gaming jokes but then just degenerated into an average animated adventure.

The idea of a video game villain jumping into other games to try and find acceptance is a great idea and showed promise of a character getting into situational hijonks with each game he dove into. But in the end he only went into two other games, one for seemingly 5 minutes before the rest and majority of the movie took place in a candyland style kart-racing game. It felt like the writer got bored of the whole video game thing and decided to make a game where candy characters made candy jokes. It grew insanely boring.

Sorry to everyone that gave it really high scores but this movie almost put me to sleep.

Random bit of Trivia:
Look out for the infamous Konami Code

Review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey


Year: 2012
Genre: Adventure, Action, Fantasy
Director: Peter Jackson
Key Players:  Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen and Richard Armitage

In a Nutshell:
After a dragon takes control of a Dwarven city, a party of Dwarves and one Hobbit set off to reclaim it.

The Bottom Line:
As a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings I knew that I would be seeing this on release day. But now that I’ve seen it I’m still unsure as to whether I want to see it again in theatres, and there is a huge reason for this… Talking.

This movie is incredibly slow to start off and the amount of exposition that is thrown at the audience is amazing. It seems like every time Bilbo opens his mouth another Dwarf has to tell a long winded story about something. It got so frustrating that I was almost yelling at Bilbo to hurry up and get out of Hobbiton. Once they do leave Hobbiton (And a couple of unnecessary expositions later) the movie picks up it’s pace and becomes an incredible fantasy adventure film.

Peter Jackson had the right idea of sticking with a few key characters (Gandalf, Bilbo and Thorin) and leaving the rest of the cast as mostly background characters who have their moments but aren’t fleshed out much at all which allows the main characters to be thoughtfully fleshed out.

The action scenes are incredible and the fantasy elements are wonderfully realised from the book. The scene featuring Gollum was done accurately from the book and impressed me by not doing more than was required (Since Gollum was a major part of the LotR trilogy I was expecting Peter Jackson to increase Gollums screentime).

However at 3 Hours the movie does seem incredibly long and I pin this down to the long start in Hobbiton and the amount of exposition that it hurled at the audience, especially with content that wasn’t in the book. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Directors putting their own spin on an adaptation but I believe that the Hobbit already had enough scope and imagination that adding in Radagast the Brown was entirely unnecessary. Also as much as having an Orc leader in each of the LotR movies gave the enemy a face, making a feud between Thorin and the White Orc added about 20 minutes of the movie that probably wasn’t needed.

I don’t know if the Hobbit really needs three movies to tell it’s story and from the amount of content that wasn’t in the book it does reek a little of being fleshed out for cash. If they removed Radagast and the White Orc they would have cut about 30 minutes of the film to properly pace the film and the whole story could probably be told in two shorter movies. 

My point is I enjoyed this movie once it picked up it’s pace, but it certainly wasn’t as good as any of the Lord of the Rings films.

Random bit of Trivia:
Because the studio don’t have the rights to “Unfinished Tales” Gandalf “Can’t remember” the names of the last two wizards.

Do you like Lana Del Rey?  Her early work was a little too indie for my tastes, but when “Born to Die” came out in 2012, I think she really came into her own, both commercially and artistically.  The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost.   She’s been compared to St. Vincent, but I think Lana has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.
Pop-upView Separately

Do you like Lana Del Rey?  Her early work was a little too indie for my tastes, but when “Born to Die” came out in 2012, I think she really came into her own, both commercially and artistically.  The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost.   She’s been compared to St. Vincent, but I think Lana has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

(via toocynicaltospeak)

Source: chuckbass