Trailer Reviews 8

Monsters University

I was excited out of my mind for this movie at the teaser trailer, then from the first trailer, and I continue being excited during this trailer.  While I do now essentially know the ENTIRE plot, I don’t care, it’s a kids movie, it’s not going to be that hard to figure out anyway.

 

The Philosophers

Despite the fact that this trailer pretty much tells you the whole movie – I don’t care. I want to see it.  I like the psychological mind game type things, and my sister and I always talk about our post-apocalyptic or zombie apocalypse survival plan (basically, she’s screwed), so I will love this movie.  Of course, my sister and I will both be yelling as to who they should/should not take the whole movie, but whatever.

 

Planes

I normally like animated kids movie but have zero desire to see this one.  Looks like Cars (obviously).  Might be good for people with kids that like planes….  but I won’t be seeing it.  It’s Disney trying to make a Pixar movie, without Pixar (ie like Cars 2, which didn’t do so hot).  So, I call skip.  Also, I just noticed who a ton of the voices are…. which should be… interesting…. Val Kilmer, Dane Cook (the main one, actually), Brad Garrett, John Cleese, Gabriel Iglesias, Cedric the Entertainer… very random assortment and I’m not sure I like it…

 

Prisoners

This trailer essentially tells you the whole movie, and looks really good, until about 1 min 50 seconds in.  It does take the completely predictable and been done way too many times turn at that point, but it doesn’t matter, I will still see it.  Paul Dano looks incredible as the creepy kidnapper.  I love the very psychological movies and watch people crack under pressure and how things effect them.  So I would have liked it better if they didn’t take the predictable route (one parent goes rouge and kidnaps the kidnapper)…. but still, I’ll see it because of how amazing the cast looks.

 

We’re The Millers

This looks hysterical, and I normally don’t like funny movies.  I will definitely be seeing this movie.  Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis? Yes.

Review – The Divide

Movie Title: The Divide

Director: Xavier Gens

Date Released: March 13th, 2011 (SXSW Film Festival)

Date Seen: May 5th, 2013

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

A complete waste of time – the movie begins with a decent explosion scene, but then gives us the most unlikeable characters in almost any movie ever to contend with.  They are so hateable that within 10 minutes I already wanted all of them but a couple to die, and by 20 minutes I had to turn the movie off because I didn’t care what happened to these people.  I even got to a little twist, or really just, I finally got to where the actual plot started – but it was too late.  I already hated everyone so much that I just didn’t care to try and wait and see what happened.  That’s bad, when your main weird selling point the movie starts to happen and even that can’t keep a viewer engaged.

Now, normally I like these type of psychological movies, but not when EVERYONE is SO unlikeable, whiny, and idiotic.  They make some of the stupidest decisions and say the dumbest things in just their first couple of days, that I can’t even imagine what happens when they actually start to go crazy.  It’s just a big fat waste of time and so PLEASE skip this movie.  If you want a very nice psychological film, go watch “The Exam” instead.  It’s so good.

 

Part 2 – In-Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis

There’s an overview synopsis here.

The very first scene everyone goes to the basement, and is huddled down there, randomly in definitely not safe at all places…. but there’s a couch… in the basement… and no one is sitting on it.  No one.  That makes no sense, if they are all going to be in stupid places anyway.  The woman that has the child is a little scared of the dark pussy… screw bombs….. and gets made at “Uncle Mickey” for telling her daughter the truth about what’s going on outside.  Dear god this woman better die soon…. then her kid whines about being hungry.  Oh my god. I WILL SLAP THAT CHILD.  She’s old enough to know to stfu right now, while the grownups try to figure out if everyone outside is dead or not…. oh wait, now she’s whining about the guy smoking…. “hey, I know you kept us safe and all, and fed us, etc., but if you could not smoke, that’d be great…”  Now, you might think I’m overreacting, but all this happens in the first 10 minutes of the movie… and 2 of them were the opening credits, and about one was the actual explosion.  So.  Oh. My. God.

Later, in about 16 minutes in, while the little brat whines about how she wants to go home, it shows one of the guys wasting time by riding a stationary bike.  Way to go dude, waste energy in a limited food environment… that’s smart.  Not.  Then everyone starts bitching at the guy, Mickey, 1. saved their asses, 2. let them into his basement, 3. gave them food, 4. has given them light, beds, etc., and whine at him for only having beans to eat.  Then keep bitching at him for being a dick and not respecting the fact that they just lost everything and that they’re not living in a shit hole….  He slaps the main guy, shuts him up, the whiny mom then makes a passive aggressive bitch joke about getting rid of the cigar again.  Ugh.

By now I was turning off the movie as the people blasted in and took the little brat, but it was too late.  I already hated everyone and was glad they took her.  I didn’t want to have to listen to all them whine anymore, especially not the annoying mom now so it lost me, and I turned it off.  That’s not good, that even after your weird little twist, you still can’t keep people interested.  Fail.

 

Overall: 1/10

Perhaps if you can get past the exceedingly unlikeable characters and get to the actual psychological stuff, rather than just the idiocracy the first few days, it might be better.  But, it made me hate everyone from the get go and didn’t get me sucked into the weird stuff fast enough, and thus did not care.  Definitely skip, unless you’re masochistic.

 

Review – Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

Movie Title: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

Directors: George Miller, George Ogilvie

Date Released: July 10th, 1985

Date Seen: March 6th, 2013

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

I’d definitely say this is the worst, plot wise, of the three Mad Max films, but I enjoyed it more than the first one.  I hated the first one.  You can find my review of Mad Max here and Mad Max 2 here.

It felt like this movie they just sat down and thought “OK, now, let’s think of some ridiculous characters…. pig killer…. midget riding the back of a big special guy…. gang of kids….. Tina Turner…..”  “OK, now let’s throw them all in a movie together…. somehow….”  It didn’t work very well.  And felt like parts of the movie had NOTHING to do with the rest of it.  It was just meh.

It was a fun watch for some ridiculous scenes, however, such as the Thunderdome scene.  Two men enter, one man leaves.  They fight to the death in an arena while attached to bungee cords that bounce them around it – grabbing weapons at various places in the dome at the same time.  It was a bit ridiculous but awesome at the same time.

Mel Gibson played Mel Gibson with Braveheart hair in the beginning of the movie.  Tina Turner’s character was hilarious, but she did a good job at it.  The kids were a bit ridiculous, especially their manner of speaking.    Overall, meh.

 

Part 2 – In Depth/Spoiler Ridden Review

There’s a good synopsis here.

I had a few random thoughts in Barter town.  Did anyone else notice that all of Aunty’s laws rhyme?  I kept thinking to myself “Hey, I’m Tina Turner, I do what I want… bitch.”   Her laws also focused around the most ridiculous death battle I’ve ever seen.  It was like those giant trampoline battles without  the trampoline.  They were connected to bungee cords and bouncing around to try and get weapons.  Really?  Oh and then, if you don’t follow the rules (well, the one rule), you play wheel of fortune to determine your fate.  Not exactly Wheel of Fortune, but basically.  It just had death things on it instead of money.

When Max gets banished out into the desert as per his Wheel of Fortune fate, he meets the Lost Boys from Hook.  There’s even a scene where a kid flies in kind of like Rufio.  Ha.

Now, we’re supposed to believe that the people still remember what they used to do – ie it’s not too far after the atomic bomb event. So, when we meet the gang of children… they just make no sense.  The majority of the children appear to be 10 – 12.  The world looks to be in WAY worse shape than stuff happening 10-12 years ago. Even if it’s less than that, it’s definitely been a number of years, so these kids could have been babies and raised here.  But it doesn’t make sense why there’d be like 30 babies all in the same place, being raised by two kids like 5 years older than them.  The two oldest kids also have the dumbest language skills out of all the kids. So yeah, this was just stupid.  And totally took me out of the movie because I just kept thinking about how time wise it made no sense at all.  Also the kids have supposedly lived there for a LONG time, in that cave – and they’ve never experienced a wind storm?And the first one happens literally moments after Max denies being that Walker guy? Really?

Another great part is when the kids and Max are escaping on the train.  They notice all the motorized vehicles catching up to them – as well as the one guy on the manual railroad push cart.  Again, that makes sense. Not.

And so at the end, it didn’t appear that they ever went to pick up the other kids in the airplane?  It appears they just flew to Sydney – but never went back to get the whole other half of their group.  That’s not rude at all.  They also mention that they leave their light on for Max… but not for the other half of their group.  Suckers, you on your own!  No, the chick does say “and the others”… but still rude. They probably could have gone and got them since they’ve all been living together for so damn long.

 

Overall: 5/10

This one took me out of the movie multiple times with the sheer stupidity of it – but was still a fun watch, especially the hilarious Thunderdome scene.

Review – Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Movie Title: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Director: George Miller

Date Released: May 21st, 1982

Date Seen: January 8th, 2013

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

While significantly better than the first movie, I still wouldn’t recommend watching this movie.  This movie, unlike the previous, did NOT try to character develop AT ALL.  It’s like they were trying to make up for their attempt at over-development in the last movie with none in this movie.  Oh well.

Max is a bad ass in this movie, and this movie has significantly more action than the first I thought.  About the same amount of plot as the last one, which is relatively none, but I did find this one more enjoyable.  I thought the biker gang this time was crazier in the whole costume arena, while idiotic.  So that did keep me entertained a bit longer.  The movie beings en media res, which is actually good considering how slowly the first move took to get going.  There’s a lot of car chases, of course, a feral kid, horrific deaths, a flame thrower, an absurdly beautiful warrior woman, poisonous snakes, and Cindy Lou Who (not really, but a girl with a very “Who” like hairstyle).

This movie I found a significantly more enjoyable watch just for the sheer fact of more explosions, less dumb characters (although they are still rampant, don’t worry!), and it didn’t bore me to tears.  So this one you could watch if there was *absolutely* nothing else on.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

There is an incredibly detailed synopsis here.

First off, let me just say – ass chaps while riding a motorcycle, what are you thinking, Wez (Vernon Wells)?!  That’s just a whole lot of chaffing in inappropriate places waiting to happen.  Similarly, Lord Humungus and his skimpy bondage outfit.  That can’t be good desert wear nor good combat wear.

Now, some plot points were very confusing, partly due to the lack of dialogue in a good part of the movie.  At the gas place, I didn’t realize that the first day, the motorcycle gang was trying to get into the gas place.  I just thought they were dicking around outside.  So just like one line of dialogue would have fixed that.  Also, again, like the last movie, people are stupid.  Why would you send out scouts literally the day after you had a huge motorcycle gang trying to break in? that wasn’t very smart.  So once again I’m kind of on team bad guys for being smarter than the good guys.  Also, the pilot type guy – I’m unsure why after Max was so much of a dick to him that he ended up helping Max.  I guess if you’re lonely.  Whatever.

One of my favorite scenes was when they are yelling across the compound about how the truck is – the two guys that were doing the actual yelling were pretty hilarious in both costume and just in what they were saying.

 

Overall: 5.5/10

Significantly better than the first one, although that’s not saying much.  Still a completely shitty movie with no plot and idiotic main characters.  But this one has a feral kid, so that pumps it up, right?