May has been a faboo month for movies.
I rewatched Rio. I liked it even more the second time! That movie is very beautiful. I know it sounds corny, but I love it.
I also saw Fast Five. The dialogue was so corny it was hilarious. But the action scenes were killer awesome! I’m glad I saw it.
I can’t wait to see The Hangover Part II and Pirates.
I’ve been meaning to see this solely because I hear it’s so bad. 
Sorry you had to endure it! I’m fine with naturalistic themes in movies, like in WALL-E, Princess Mononoke, Avatar etc etc but there has to be some sort of underlying plot like those two movies have. I hate feeling like I’m watching a lesson…
TDIT’s Mega Movies Review Roundup (23 April - 7 May)
Over the last two weeks, I went to the movies for a grand total of five times, and watched five diverse movies, one of them twice and another for the second and last time.
I rewatched Rio with a bud for the second time on Wednesday, and it looked just as awesome in 2D on a smaller screen. I’ll post a detailed review if I have the time, but this is simply my favourite film of the year, mainly because it appealed to my ‘inner child’ and every character is utterly lovable. Rango is just as good, only it is more daring and less sentimental. As I’ve mentioned on Twitter, if Rango is a technical masterpiece in the likes of Legend of the Guardians, then Rio is a storytelling charmer in the vein of How to Train Your Dragon.
I also had a similar sensation comparing Source Code with Fast Five. Source Code is very intellectual, and you have to pay attention or you won’t understand the ending. Fast Five is just a ‘put your brain on cruise control and just let it rip’ kind of movie, and it is a very well-done genre picture (by genre, I mean action racing movies). But both movies have very emphatic characters that you will care about; Source Code being a ‘love story across time’ like Deja Vu (one of my favourite movies) and Fast Five being a tale about family, trust, and friendship, much like Rio (except with plenty more explosions). Both also have equally exciting action setpieces; Source Code literally being Speed on a train-meets-Groundhog Day, and Fast Five boasting the most spectacular vehicular destruction I have ever seen in my entire life (it’s even better than The Bourne Supremacy and Bad Boys 2 in gutwrenching carnage).
Hoodwinked is a passable spy spoof, but we already have another one by a more well-known studio coming out in June, so why bother with this one? For starters, it’s a decent sequel, if a little underwhelming in comparison to its superior predecessor, which had a clever ‘Rashomon’ narrative of multiple perspectives and subjective truth. Here, the espionage genre is sent up mercilessly, as well as various movies that you won’t know about unless you were born before the 90s or you’re a film buff. I chuckled many more times than my less pop-culturally aware friends, but I didn’t experience as much pathos or emotional connection as I had for the other movies I’ve seen lately. Pixar fans, though, would be delighted to know that there is a Ratatouille cameo in there. Yes, I’m not kidding, pay attention during an antagonists’ flashback sequence and you might just spot one of the characters in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.
I watched Thor for the first time with my bro the Saturday before last, and a second time with two of my mates when we snuck into another theatre after Source Code on Sunday (shh… it’s illegal, you know). Thor’s also a pretty good alternative, but it tries to be grand and kitsch at the same time, instead of going for all-out cuteness like Rio or all-out drama like Rango. And that kinda threw me off a bit. You see Thor throwing ice giants around and smashing them with his hammer, and then in the second act, he’s eating cornflakes and walking around topless. It makes for nice contrast between his world and ours, but I just felt they could’ve grounded his realm in more believability instead of making it a spotless, right-angled, not-a-single-trash-piece in sight Utopia. It’s like they sent a platoon of M-Os to clean up Asgard.
Needless to say, I spent my two-week school holiday fruitfully in terms of cinematic outings. In fact, I think this might have been the most number of movies I’ve seen in theatres in a fortnight.
Rio (rewatch) - 9/10
Source Code - 8/10
Fast Five - 8/10
Hoodwinked Too! - 4/10
Thor - 6/10
You should. Pe4rsonally, I take joy in seeing dreadful movies, because that makes the truly great ones seem even more significant and lovable, and hey, not everyone is a winner. It was one of the worst movies I ever saw, but that happens. And I agree. I love Wall-E, Mononoke, and Avatar! Even though you don’t love Avatar, it’s better than Ferngully, I promise. 
And I agree, a “moral” movie that is in no way entertaining is no fun. Morals? Good. I like it. But the story and characters should be just as prevalent.
Heheh, definitely. I think it might be on YouTube, so I’ll try watching it sometime. I may not adore Avatar, but I thought it was quite good for what it is.
Although, I only enjoy really bad movies if the quality is actually laughable. When it’s just bland and boring like Space Chimps, I can’t make myself watch it.
I thought the last movie was ‘The Final Destination’, but apparently Death has other plans.
Accupuncture, anyone?
I thought Thor was the best Marvel movie by far. But then again I’m one of the few people who prefers Iron Man 2 to Iron Man. So my opinion doesn’t really count for anything.
I also found Source Code to be incredibly disturbing and actually more than a bit dark. I know it was supposed to be, but I wonder if anyone else caught on to just how creepy everything ended up being by the film’s conclusion.
I’d say more but I don’t feel like pouring my heart out into another one of these replies only to have them erased by the site a few hours from now. I might say something in the Thor thread.
Leirin: Well, you wouldn’t like Ferngully at all, then!
City of Ember: C: This movie was okay. Not great, not hated. I don’t know what to say, because I really didn’t care.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame(1939, Charles Laughton): B: This was pretty good. A little boring, but after watching it, I see that the Disney version is nearly identical to it. Still prefer the Disney version, though. 
You always have the right to an opinion and for it to count! My friends and I didn’t really like Iron Man 2 and preferred the first, but hey, that’s just our opinion as well.
Not really for me. It was just ‘WTH’ kinda weird like Deja Vu and Inception, but reading the explanations online, it kinda makes sense. I got Inception’s plot after my friend explained it to me upon our first viewing. Deja Vu, I sorta got the logic, but there were little clues dropped throughout the film which I realised upon reading the IMDB explanations. Source Code was sort of in between Inception’s ease of understanding and Deja Vu’s clue-dropping, and I only had to read the Wiki to fully grasp the conclusion.
Yes, it’s kinda bittersweet, but it’s satisfying in the end. I just kinda wished they ended at the ‘freeze-frame’ and left it open to the viewer’s interpretation instead of that cheesy epilogue with the violin strings (kinda reminds me of another movie from last year, but I don’t wanna step on fans’ toes here 
).
That’s why I have a backup archive of my lengthier posts on my blog. You should try the same thing too!
…
This movie was made for me. 
Always been fascinated by marketing and advertising tactics.
The cheesy epilogue is actually what’s so dark about the film. In fact leaving it at the freeze-frame would’ve been a much lighter conclusion.
We not only learn that because of Source Code there are now quite a few parallel universes where people died where they wouldn’t have otherwise because they’d have never existed in the first place, but there’s a nagging question, why does no one care about what happened to Sean Fentriss? Fentriss is dead. He KILLED him. And for the rest of his life he’ll either be lying to everyone who knows the real Sean, or be put away as a crazy man. He willingly sacrificed two lives for what could amount to nothing more than a day of bliss. And this is played off as a happy ending. And I’m not misinterpreting either. This was the director’s intention. So it’s more than just a plausible fan theory.
As for Thor. That film was just one of the best comic adaptations I’ve ever seen. So many comic book films either try to poke tons of fun of the fact that they came from comics so people could take them seriously, or remove the more fantastic aspects of superhero comics almost entirely to feel more gritty and just a number of other things that work to various levels of success. But this film didn’t. It pretty much embraced all it could from its origins and streamlined everything possible into a film.
From the ridiculous costumes, to the family melodrama, to even the rather unsellable concept of a burning rainbow bridge, they were able to sell all of this in about two hours and did it without shame.
No silly quips like, “This is like something out of a science fiction movie” or “This is just like a comic book” or really anything of the sort. If you weren’t going to buy the film without it telling you how crazy and impossible everything was you just weren’t going to buy the film. And thankfully many did.
I loved how they took the Chariots of the Gods/Stargate approach to Norse gods. Even though Thor pre-dates both by a number of years. In fact they were actually quite unclear on who or what Asgardians actually were. There’s no real explanation as to if they were actual gods or interdimensional aliens or something else entirely. All that was said was that they’re high tech beings from some other realm who inspired the stories of old.
And this is why I have no problem with how Asgard looks. The Norse had never seen Asgard. All they had ever heard was tales from these beings. The most they had ever seen was Bifrost, which has been thought by real scholars to either represent the aurora borealis or actual rainbows. So the fact that these gods seem more Norse and down to Earth and gritty and such in the stories of our world and the world of the films isn’t really a mark against Asgard but rather a humanization of concepts that couldn’t be grasped at the time. Much like our own incredibly different takes on more earthbound people that we’ve built our religions upon. So to summarize, yes I’m not too thrown off by the fact that Asgard seems utterly alien, removed from human and Norse influence to a point, and happens to be impeccably clean. First thing we did once we started moving up technologically was clean up stuff. That may be the same all over the Nine Realms.
I need to give a shout out for morally grey characters. Typically Loki is presented as an out and out villain in the comics. He’s evil just because he’s evil and sorta upset or something. But here in this film you even feel sorry for the guy. And though you may not agree with what he does, you can understand why he did it and would probably do it all over again if given a chance. And you can’t even really say he was wrong to have thought he should’ve done it. Only that he was wrong that he did go through with it.
I was bit miffed that the Bifrost wasn’t an actual rainbow bridge like in the comics, but the more I saw it in action the more I loved it! Somewhere between science and fancy lies this beautiful concept that just works perfectly for the film.
I quite enjoyed the Earth scenes. Fish out of water stories can be boring if not done properly. But this one hit all the right notes. Sure we’ve seen this kind of thing before, but not with Norse gods and not through the Marvel lens.
This movie shouldn’t have worked at all. It really shouldn’t have. It was everything that people feared would happen when they introduced Thor into the MCU. But even those fears were realized it turned out that being scared was pretty awesome and I can’t wait to be terrified in this sort of way again.
My biggest nitpick is that the score wasn’t striking or memorable at all. I actually can’t think of a single superhero score worth writing home about since 2004 with the double whammy of Elfman’s Spider-Man 2 and Beltrami’s Hellboy. I don’t count Superman Returns because that was mostly recycling, though very well done recycling, and the Batman films have nothing that you can hum in public without getting punched in the face.
As for Iron Man 2, it just hit more notes with me. Iron Man was a fun film but a bit of a non-starter. Iron Man 2 was incredibly ridiculous but it seems like everyone was having fun. And the way they were slowly building the Marvel universe was incredible. Like Stark meeting the real-life inspiration for his character, Elon Musk, in Monte Carlo. And Musk trying to pitch the Quinjet to Tony was just a stroke of genius. Or Rockwell’s wannabe rock star industrialist take on Justin Hammer which I thought was much more interesting than even RDJ’s turn as Stark.
I have an affinity for World’s Fairs, particularly the ones in New York. So the retconning of the 64 Fair in Flushing to have actually been a Stark endeavor from the get-go made me geek out like you wouldn’t believe.
And there were the smaller touches like the SHIELD map that was recording incidents in places like Wakanda and Antarctica, or that any of the newer things introduced in the film could easily be explained to have larger implications in the Marvel Universe. Like I could see Hammer’s drones having been partially designed by man named Henry Pym, or the new element Tony found being a certain element known as Vibranium.
The first film showed off why it was okay to like comic book films. But the second film showed off why it’s really awesome to be a geek who watches these films. And that’s why I find it kind of disheartening that so many geeks rejected it and just didn’t think it was anywhere near as good as the first. But I guess to each their own.
I hope the 3rd one will be good. Shane Black writing AND directing? I like the sound of this.
And hopefully I can score a small part in the Avengers. They’re holding auditions for bit parts and extras in Cleveland this July. And Cleveland is only 90 miles, or one 1 dollar bus ride, away.
Excelsior!
The Sean Fentriss dilemma kinda bugged me too, but I saw him as never existing in the branched-off alternate reality after the freeze-frame. This effectively wipes him off the face of the Earth, but it is possible that while there are different versions of someone in different worlds, so too exists the possibility that that someone doesn’t exist in some worlds. So in the ‘new alternate world’, Coulter Stevens and Sean Fentriss are one and the same, although that still doesn’t explain the ‘residual memory’ Coulter will have of his past life, and whether he will be able to adapt to his new life as Mr Fentriss.
Source Code was brilliant for me because it didn’t have an easy ending and raises all sorts of moral dilemmas. There is, of course, the more blunt one being implied by Dr Rutledge (played by Jeffrey Wright, a pleasant surprise since I like his world-weary portrayal of Felix Leiter in the new Bond films). Issues of national security, the abuse of human rights [spoil](even in death)[/spoil], how far will you go to save the lives of others, etc.
And it is a very philosophical movie. Reincarnation, redemption, how love conquers all (as sappy as it sounds), forgiveness, “If you had 8 minutes left to live, what would you do?” yada yada yada
I personally enjoyed it, and it is a worthy cerebral counterpart to Fast Five’s ‘dumb fun’ for best movie of the year so far for me.
I think one of the most admirable aspects of Thor is how sincere they were in paying tribute to the source, even at the risk of sounding kitsch. My brother, who loves all the over-the-top and totally-serious swords and sandals epics lapped this up. My more cynical self was more cautious, but I got to hand it to them about how they tried (and succeeded) in making a space opera for the summer season.
I wouldn’t have minded self-reflexivity, myself. I’m a fan of parodies, spoofs, and self-aware ‘break the fourth wall’ Monty-Pythonesque comedies, but it would’ve killed the serious ‘Battle of the Worlds’ mood they were going with here. So I’m grateful they didn’t go with that. Maybe for something of a smaller scale or light-hearted like Spiderman or Fantastic Four, but for something this grand, they need to take it seriously and not destroy the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
I need to give a shout out for morally grey characters. Typically Loki is presented as an out and out villain in the comics. He’s evil just because he’s evil and sorta upset or something. But here in this film you even feel sorry for the guy. And though you may not agree with what he does, you can understand why he did it and would probably do it all over again if given a chance. And you can’t even really say he was wrong to have thought he should’ve done it. Only that he was wrong that he did go through with it.
Loki for me is sort of hit-and-miss. I kind of like the moral ambiguity they’ve painted him with, and even though deep down I had a gut feeling he was ‘playing’ Thor all along, the plot kept me second-guessing right up until [spoil]the meeting with the Frost Giants to discuss how to kill Odin.[/spoil]
But what I don’t understand is [spoil]if he was planning to oust his brother all along, why was he so shocked when he was touched by the Frost Giant and realised he was not born of Odin?[/spoil] I don’t get the sequence of events and revelations. So is it:
Loki just wants to kick his bro out → Goads bro into fighting Frost Gians → Realizes he’s a Frost Giant after he doesn’t get frostbite → Gets mad at Odin, unintentionally causing Odin to pass out → Comes up with idea to double-cross Frost Giants into killing his father, then stopping them and having a ‘just cause’ to attack them → Lies to Thor → Tells Frost Giants assassination plan, leaving out fact he will stop them → Stops Frost Giants → Thor stops Loki
Because I’m wondering whether Loki planned his [spoil]double-cross assassination plan[/spoil] from the very start, or whether he really intended [spoil]his dad to have a heart attack with his verbal rant and all that[/spoil]- how much of his reaction is real emotion and how much of it is an act?
If you’re talking old Batman, maybe, but new Batman has some pretty good themes that have been reused in various medium like a few ads I’ve seen and in Top Gear, so Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard have my kudos.
I actually thought the Thor score was remarkable (as another P Planeteer who so wishes Brave to be scored by the same composer will tell you). It really has a very memorable ‘hook’ for me, and I wouldn’t mind having a relisten to the soundtrack (though the same can’t be said for Iron Man 2 or Toy Story 3 for me).
Can’t remember much about Hellboy, but I did dig Spider-Man 2, so I gotta give the former a relisten if you say it’s that good.
The old Batman also had a very good soundtrack (the ones scored by Danny Elfman). And the Zimmer-Newton Howard collaboration is also top noch.
And yes, Superman Returns also had a good recycled score. The best instance of that I remember right now (but I’m a little biased since Williams’ Superman score is one of my favorites)
I find the Zimmer-Newton Howard collaborations to be fitting for the films but rather boring on their own. I also don’t think Zimmer is as good as JNH. I didn’t get interested in Zimmer until Sherlock Holmes and Inception, while JNH will make even the most reviled of movies palatable. I don’t hate these films, but I know a lot of people do. Like the Hermann-esque score for Signs in which JNH was able to pull off what Elfman had attempted to do for years but never quite achieved.
There are no real strong or epic superhero themes anymore. The ones we do get are usually attached to films nobody likes much like Hellboy or X-Men: The Last Stand. Say what you will about the latter, but the theme for the Dark Phoenix was astounding, and the film never lived up to it. John Powell should be scoring more superhero films.
Giacchino’s Incredibles score is a given so I don’t have to get into that. But nobody’s really had anything that I want to listen to over and over again, nor do they have something that I imagine people still humming to their children a decade from now. I found Doyle’s score for Thor to be painfully generic. There’s no hook as catchy as the eight note introduction Elfman used every time Doc Ock showed up in Spider-Man 2. Nor was there anything as sinister as Evil Doers in Hellboy or melancholy as Father’s Funeral, or quirky as BPRD, both of those also featured in Hellboy. (Elfman actually dropped the ball in Hellboy 2, swapping out all the originality of the Beltrami score but offering nothing too new from his own repertoire)
Superman Returns had one new theme that I loved. Lex Luthor’s theme. I’m not sure why I liked it. By itself it’s rather bland, but when combined with how it’s first introduced it’s simply perfect. The first time Lex is seen in the film it’s by an old lady’s deathbed and we hear this almost lullaby-like tune as he comforts her. It’s almost as if he’s a different man. And the music builds to this climax of sorts as the woman shuffles from this mortal coil as if to ask “Has Lex Luthor Changed?” The melody then shifts into his villain theme and the question is answered with a resounding aural “NO” and I just can’t separate his main theme from how it’s introduced. It’s stuck in my head. And there’s been pretty much no other superhero movie since then that’s done that. And I miss that. A lot.
Hopefully that’ll change with Silvestri on Captain America and of course JNH for Green Lantern.
As for Loki in Thor, the double-cross was in it from the beginning. Loki’s a quick thinker though and this actually shows how in the grey he truly is. By all rights he could’ve betrayed Asgard and never feel terrible about it because of the truth. But he didn’t. All we will ever know and should know is that the fix was in from the start.He’s the ultimate trickster and even called the God of Lies in the comics, so just how much he knew will probably never be certain. But if you pay attention you’ll notice that he never kills an Asgardian even when he had a chance to and only tries to kill Thor as a last resort. Meaning that his allegiance was clear throughout the entire film.
Your conclusion to Source Code sounds a lot more pleasant than my own interpretation and Duncan Jones’ as well. I rather like yours. Much like I prefer the ends of Taxi Driver and Minority Report as they are portrayed but probably not as they’re meant.
I wonder who’ll they get to score the Amazing Spider-Man. Or the new Superman film for that matter now that the Williams template has been completely discarded and Zimmer turned the offer down. I sincerely hope it’s not Tyler Bates. I’d love Michael Giacchino to do it, but Giacchino on Superman seems like a pipe dream. Especially considering that Matt Reeves isn’t helming the project. We’ll see I guess.
The Runaways: D: Well, this movie was okay, but I didn’t like it at all. It was dirty(they could have been more subtle with certain parts), it had the incapable of acting Kristen Stewart, and it was very boring.
Thirteen Assassins: B: I very much enjoyed this movie. Thank God, I needed a pleasant movie…
It was Japanese, and had another crumby ending, but it was fun along the way. It’s an acquired taste, but I like it.
Bridesmaids - A-
I liked every moment Kristen Wiig was on screen, but the not-all-that-funny grossout and creepout humor from Melissa McCarthy’s character dropped my grade a notch.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End - 8/10
Watching the final scene on Free-to-Air. “Egregious!”
A lot of people didn’t like it because it was too confusing. A lot of people found some bits cheesy like ‘Giant Calypso’ and ‘Will taking off LIz’ boots on the beach’ (Yes, I read these comments before). Some people still can’t get over the denied Jack x Elizabeth pairing.
But I think the sets and costume design are impeccable, the CGI still breathtaking four years on, and the score by Hans Zimmer as unforgettable as ever.
It’s the kind of movie like ‘The Dark Knight’ or ‘Inception’ which bears multiple viewings to appreciate the character nuances, shifting alliances, conflicting loyalties and motivations, and the intricate (though again, convoluted) plot. And I love it.
It was the best cinema experience I ever had with my mates (the shared anticipation, our biggest group, we actually arrived on the cinema on time, we had a great post-viewing discussion), and much like the finality the movie had on the trilogy, it was our last one before most of my friends started moving away or going to greener pastures.
I love ATW too, TDIT. It’s not my favorite, but I don’t understand the general disliking of it.
I just dislike Calypso’s treatment. I have a couple of other problems with it, but nothing serious.
As everyone here knows, I’m a fan, and I agree with everything else you said.
Sherlock Holmes:B: The circumstances of viewing were less than ideal, but I really liked this movie. I found Holmes’ “genius moments” quite entertaining.
The Guy Ritchie’s version of Sherlock Holmes?
It was pretty decent, even for me, and I am a fan of the original source.