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 – Pontypool

Movie Title: Pontypool

Director: Bruce McDonald

Date Release: September 6th, 2008 (Toronto International Film Festival)

Date Seen: July 1st, 2012

 

Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review

I LOVED this movie.  L.O.V.E.D. it.  I started watching it thinking that was just kind of like a slightly-out-of-the-ordinary zombie flick.  I say out of the ordinary, because (not spoiling anything) the movie takes place in a radio station.  We discover the crazyness that is going on outside as the radio station people do as well, and then the movie evolves into something completely different than just a plain people turn into flesh eating monsters as result of some mutated strain of chicken pox type movie.  It’s pretty cool.  I will admit, towards the end there does end up being some a couple of moments I found cheesy, but since it was a life/death situation, I’ll let them slide.  They were over pretty quick.  I’d definitely recommend this movie – especially for the surprising twist on the zombie movie.

 

Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review

So why did I love this movie?  Well, the radio station setting is so important for multiple reasons.  Why?  For one, we just start out by getting to know the radio DJ, manager, and engineer/helper girl.  Then, we start to get calls and information coming in from outside the station about something crazy going on outside.  We never know ANY more than the radio people know.  We are craving for more information just like the radio people are.  We have to imagine the scenes going on outside, just like the radio people do.  I think this allows for each audience member to have their own experience.  If you want to envision the people as crazy psycho zombies, or slow dead zombies, or just crazy people with blank stares, at this point, you have the freedom to do that.  You can scare yourself as much as you want to be scared.  I LOVE that idea.

Later we see what is happening to the people – they slowly become crazy, first just staring and repeating words for a bit, then back to normal.  Then they “subconsciously” start to hunt you by following your voice.  Then they just straight up try to get to where the voice is coming from, to turn them into a “victim”.  It never really explained what the purpose of finding a victim person was, but I don’t really care.  They didn’t really eat them, that it showed or mentioned, just that they would rip you to part.  One woman does get lunged at and it looks like the girl was starting to scratch the woman…. but they kill her before we can really find out what would have been done to her.  So again, you get to imagine what would have happened.

So that whole setting just makes it fabulous.  But what takes this movie even more out of the ordinary is the “virus” isn’t what you’re thinking of.  The way this virus is spread is through words.  Understanding a word causes you to go this crazy.  For the most part, I was totally ok with this.  If you really think in depth about it, I don’t think it makes much sense how a virus would come about like that and how it would cause other people to go nuts without some type of chemical problem going on as well… but whatever, it was still a nice different look on the “infection” or “sickness” going around.  It’s presented in a decently thought out manner, but executed fabulously.

In the end, do we know if they lived or died?  Again, it leaves it up to the audience to (sort of) have a choice.  I think it’s pretty clear they died at the end, but it does leave a little bit of wiggle room.  If you want to believe they lived, you’re certainly allowed to.

 

Overall:  7.5/10

Great film.  Different than what I expected, sucked me in in the first half, and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire second half.