'Skyfall' movie review

WOHOOO! I actually managed to review a movie pretty early in my stuck up country (just for comparation, we're getting Cloud Atlas on November 22nd)! Oh, wait, nobody cares because Disney bought Lucasfilm. Anyways, Skyfall is the 23rd James Bond movie and I've been having real jumps in the expectation. I've seen all of the Bond films except Diamonds Forever and Quantum Of Solace (don't ask me, how I remember that) and I generally liked the campy Pierce Brosnan Bond movies the most. The image of Bond with flying cars, Bond fucking random girls, Bond drinking his drinks shaken, not stirred, that image of the character simply burned itself into my head. I've seen Casino Royale, the dark, brutal and realistic feel to Bond and I've liked it, but was simply too used to youknowwhat. So I actually haven't been expecting this movie (I've actually never planned to see it until a few weeks ago) much, because I tought it would simply a dark, brutal and realistic James Bond movie. I also haven't heard a lot of good stuff about Quantum Of Solace, so I didn't really give a shit. Thank god the excellent trailers made me change my mind.

So Skyfall blasts off with an intense chase scene in which, as we all saw in the trailers, a female agent accidentally (or unaccidentally, muahahaha) shoots Bond and causes him to fall into a river. Our minds are then slown down with an mesmerizing, vintage opening title sequence and then again thrown back into a 2-hour-and-20-minutes, but never boring Bond adventure. Skyfall somehow manages to create a perfect mix of the classic Bond and the Daniel Craig Bond. For an example - I've always hated Judi Dench as M. I don't know why and not really in that usual way, but describing the way I hate her can only be explained with a metaphore, only fewer people will understand, but I'll try. I feel the same to M in the Bond movies as I feel to Phillip Broyles in Fringe. You know he has to be there, you know the actor's doing a good job, but he just pisses you off and you know he shoudn't. In this movie, they actually made M relatable and a human character. They've also made Bond human and actually sentimental, which isn't exactly common.

So at one hand you have these humanized and realistic characters, but Skyfall still is no Casino Royale. You also have humour, effective, but not too cartoonish, you have a few gadgets and technology thingies, but not too much. You also have these great references to the franchise itself, so Skyfall really feels like the James Bond movie of the 21th century. It's fresh, it's modern, it has innovative and cool action sequences, you have humour and characters, you just have it all. I don't exactly think that Judi Dench deserves an Oscar for this like some people say, but she was standable, which is an improvement for me (again, not saying she does the job badly, it's the character's fault). Javier Bardem is an amazing villain, on an unsteady mix of creepy and funny at first, but menacing right in the next scene. The movie is action-packed, but not mindless, intelligent, but not artsy, entertaining, but not campy and unarguably one of the best (if not even the best, I don't remember all of them so good) James Bond movies of all time.

Total rating: 9 / 10

So what did you think of Skyfall? Do you prefer the dark or the campy James Bond? Who is your favourite actor to play him? Comment below, let me know!

'Iron Man 3' first trailer review

The first (if you don't count the trailer for this trailer ) trailer for the third Iron Man movie has arrived with huge blast-off and here are my toughts about it. Now I enyoyed both Iron Man and Iron Man 2, having to admit the second one was worse, but still fairly enyoyable and I am really curious about how will they do the third part, as it's actually set after the events of The Avengers. One of the more notable changes was switching director Jon Favreau with Shane Black, a guy mostly known by writing the Lethal Weapon franchise and directing the comedy-noir film Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Doesn't really sound like the obvious choice to direct an Iron Man movie, but the trailer itself is cool and gives a good impression to look forward.

The trailer shows Tony Stark's world falling apart (literally, sometimes) and shows that the events in The Avengers left a mark on him and that he is only concentrated to protect Pepper Potts, which of course, doesn't go by plans. The epic part of the trailer is when the suits start blowing up and we hear the monologue of the mighty movie villain: The Mandarin. His epic voice saying "some people call me a turrrist" makes a cool villain impression, but the way he looks doesn't. I don't know anything about Iron Man outside of the movies, so I don't really know anything about Mandarin, but as Ben Kingsley, he just seems like that classic old-guy villain. I more prefer younger actors as villains in roles of more untypical villains, like Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow, Heath Ledger as The Joker and similar. 

There are a few things in the trailer, that are making me ask questions (in a positive way).  We get  a glimpse at Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, which I am also not sure if he's a villain or not. Personally, I'd rather see Guy Pearce play a real villain  in this movie, but I think the trailer is trying to fool us. His image appearing while Tony Stark saying "there's a hundred people that wanna kill me" is just a bit too obvious. There's also that insanely cool red-blue Iron Man in the middle of the trailer (which is not Tony Stark). I see people calling him "The Iron Patriot" or something in the comments (as I've said, Iron Man n00b here), so what is he, an Iron Man/Captain America merge? I read a bit about him on the Internet and realised, he's actually supposed to be Norman Osborn...wait what?! That left even more confused, as the trailer doesn't really answer if he's good or bad, but I like that, as even if he's a villain, I'll root for him. Just look at the guy!

 'MERICA!

One of the things that also makes me scratch my head, is figuring out the tone of the movie. The first two movies were fun, a bit serious in parts, somewhere above The Avengers and below The Amazing Spider-Man (on a superhero darkness scale from Batman & Robin to Watchmen), but this movie looks far darker, actually a bit resembling TDKR. Which is slightly weird, going into a completely different direction after the light and fun Avengers, but we'll see. After all, the movie does come out in May, and this trailer was just here to highlight some new things and show us, that they're not laying back and letting it sweep money and actually doing something to conclude a solid movie trilogy. Or not? 

So what did you think of the trailer? What do you think of Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin so far? What roles do you think Aldrich Killian and The Iron Patriot (or whatever he is) will play? Check out the trailer here, comment below, let me know!

'Get Smart' (2008) movie review

I saw this movie yesterday and decided to review it, because all of the negative reviews it's been getting. So Get Smart is a spy-parody-movie, based on a spy-parody-series from the 70's of the same name. Never seeing the series, I cannot tell you, if they butchered the characters or anything like that, as for me this was simply a spy-parody-movie. The plot is pretty simple: Steve Carell plays Maxwell Smart, a brilliant analyst, who dreams of being a field agent and is finally able to live his dream, after something-something-that-makes-all-the-other-agents-unable-to-do-it occurs. Sort of like Johhny English, I tought and I liked Johnny English. But did I like this?

First of all, I was very disappointed when I saw the commercials for this movie. It made it look so stupid, just full of horrible slapstick, that will surely satisfy masses, but disappoint anyone, who needs a bit of brains to laugh. Then I also read the bad reviews and tought to myself, 'what kind of braindead shit would this be', but I was actually pleasantly surprised. One of the reasons I had some hope was Steve Carell. I seem to be one of the rare people who actually like this guy and think of him as a good comedic actor. He's got great comedic timing and a weird voice and all that, maybe making him only able to play losers or idiots - but he plays losers or idiots awesome. And Steve Carell was as always - great in this movie. Alan Arkin and James Caan are pretty hilarious in their side/extended cameo roles, while the rest of the cast doesn't have much space to show good acting, but still do their work solid.

The movie is predictable, to be honest. The story isn't anything, because it doesn't really matter. But it's a lot funnier then I tought it would be. All those slapstick scenes in the trailers are actually pretty funny in the actual movie and the rest of humor is a whole lot brighter then expected, as I genuinely laughed my ass off a couple of times while watching. The only gripe I have about it are a few shots. It's a spy movie, so it has to have action. And it has action, and that action isn't that bad, but just a couple of shots in between, not really scenes, but actual shots (you'll see it) look like, they are filmed with a phone. Sounds weird, I know, but you'll notice it soon. Altough it doesn't affect the movie much, it makes it look like a cheap TV-spy movie sometimes (which it isn't). So in conclusion, Get Smart comes pretty close to actually being smart and was bashed for no reason..


Total rating: 7 / 10


So what did you think of Get Smart? Do you like Steve Carell? Do you hope they will going to make a sequel? Comment below, let me know!

'Looper' movie review

I finally managed to see the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller Looper. The movie really intrigued its audience with a cool trailer and a cool premise. The film is set in the near future, where time-travel has already been invented, but quickly became restricted and is only used by large criminal organizations. Because everyone in the future is under some kind of control, it's basically impossible to kill someone or dispose a body, so these mobs have to kidnap their victims and send them 30 years back into the past onto a point, where a hired gun, known as a looper is waiting to kill them. But the moment in the trailer that really intrigued everibody was where Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a looper is waiting for his next target to show up, only to discover - his target is Bruce Willis, himself from the future.

When I saw the trailer, I was kinda worried that the movie really blowed of its trick, its twist or basically the intriguing plot point. But when I saw the great reviews coming in, I realised there's a whole lot more to Looper then its premise, and I was right. The story is original, mind-bending, and at the same time - has heart. But the screenplay is not only great in terms of the storyline, but also in the realistic and witty (but not too funny) dialogue between the characters. I don't know who really to thank here, was it make-up or special effects or whoever made Gordon-Levitt EXACTLY like Bruce Willis. He doesn't look a bit like himself and also delivers some great acting. He really nails Bruce Willis's mimics and way of speaking, but still doesn't work like a cheap copy or an impersonator, but an interesting and amazingly portrayed character. Howewer, the thing that really makes the movie is Rian Johnson's directing.

Looper is incredibly more stylized then I tought it would be. There are these minor details that spark around the world of the future. For an example, the movie never really explains how time-travel works in it, how the world is under control and all those things, but rather just concentrates on the story and the characters, so these details really just work like sparkling gems, scaling the futuristic scenery. Johnson's directing style is great and somewhere (as weird as it sounds), a mix of J.J. Abrams and Wes Anderson. You have Abrams's enyoyable and effective shaky-cam scenes and lens flares and Anderson's ironically-artsy camera spins and turns that make the innovative action scenes even more enyoyable. The original score by a first-time-hear composer who is quite probably the director's brother or something and is like a mic of that annoying electronic trailer music (but not annoying in this movie) and a few minimalistic piano pieces.

                                              

But no matter to all of these good things, I cannot deny that I just expected the movie to be more, then it was. It's actually quite slow in parts, has a few amazing visuals, but still works more of an artsy movie sometimes. Perhaps my expectations were simply too high, as I tought of all the hype and raving reviews, this would be some kind of Inception, but it simply wasn't. I don't want to compare the two movies too much, since they are completely different, but the film just didn't reach my expectations. But in conclusion, Looper still is an original, intriguing and entertaining film, and quite probably the best sci-fi movie I've seen for some time.

Total rating: 8 / 10 

So what did you think of Looper? Did it reach your expectations? Were you satisfied with the mixed-felt ending? Comment below, let me know!

'The Lone Ranger' first trailer review

The first trailer for the 2013 action-adventure film, The Lone Ranger has appeared out of nowhere and normally, I woudn't even consider writing about this, but since I am dealing with the diseases known as bordom and a need to practice writing, I have decided to review this trailer. Now the movie is actually coming out in July, so you could probably expect a teaser trailer, but this is basically looks more like a second half of a real trailer, and it's pretty decent. The first half of it are studios showing off their logos and then you see some kind of a typical Western-ish town and people talking about powerful people and then some cool music with Johnny Depp as some Indian shaman (refreshing to see him as a weirdo, isn't it?) and Armie Hammer as some kind of a Cowboy Zorro and that's practically it. You don't really know much about the story, but it looks like you don't really need to. 

If Armie Hammer is The Lone Ranger, why are Johnny Depp's eyes on the poster?

Before this trailer we didn't really have much info on the movie. We knew it was directed by Gore Verbinski, produced by Disney, had the title The Lone Ranger and was starring Depp and Hammer as a Cowboy and an Indian, as the only possible teaser picture on the planet illustrated us. And we that info, I was kind of thinking to myself, that the movie could really go into two directions. It could either take itself too seriously and try to be some kind of a western-throwback or it could just be a slightly ironic and entertaining   western-y adventure movie a.k.a. "Cowboys of the Caribbean". I think they will probably go for the second direction, since the movie is produced by Disney, for god's sake. I also hope so, since it could turn out to be quite a fun film. Just as a piece of interesting trivia, the movie is actually based off an old TV-series, in which the main character's (Lone Ranger's) nephew's son eventually became The Green Hornet in a spin-off series. I'm pretty sure this will not tie with the entertaining 2011 Green Hornet film, but it could relate to it in "butchering" and at the same time, ressurecting a dead franchise.

So what do you think of the trailer? Are you interested in seeing the movie? What kind of movie do you think will it turn out to be? Check the trailer out here, comment below, let me know!

'Skyfall' Adele promo review

The newest trailer (I'd say it's a trailer, officially it's an "Adele promo"?) and quite possibly the final one for the upcoming James Bond movie, Skyfall has hit the web and I am here to write about it. Now this trailer/promo/whatever it is, is basically a montage of different scenes with no dialogue, no sound effects, only featuring the brand-new-revealed title song, Skyfall by Adele. We see some of the shots we saw from the previous trailers, like Daniel Craig trapping scorpioms with a glass in an obscure Bolgarian bar, M standing next to a bunch of coffins with english flags on them, Javier Bardem's hair menaciously walking around and overall it's a very cool trailer, but at least for me, it had something more.

Now to be honest, I wasn't exactly eagerly expecting this movie, as I am simply not a fan of the Daniel Craig James Bond. I don't mean Daniel Craig as James Bond, I think he's okay, but the style of the movies, he stars in. As much as I love the dark, brutal and realistic feel to Batman, I grew up watching the cartoonish and humorous Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies and they just burned that image of James Bond into my head, even tough knowing, this interpretation is actually more 'true' to the original books. I saw Casino Royale and it was good, but nothing spectacular for me, I didn't see Quantum of Solace (or heard a lot of good stuff about it), so I wasn't even planning to see Skyfall. The first teaser that came out was extremely cool, especially because of that awesome James-Bond-theme-techno-riff-remix, that was used in it, but was just a cool trailer and nothing more for me. The second trailer was okay and revealed a lot more about the story, but it still didn't made me want to see the movie. 

And now this came out. I don't know why, but it just has more of that Bond-tastic feel to it. The first two trailers had the Daniel-Craig-Bond-tastic feel to it, but this one, with all the explosions and the title song and Bond fucking random girls and Bond adjusting his sleeves after falling onto a train and similar stuff, which reminded me of the cartoonish Pierce Brosnan James Bonds. I am not saying, that this will be a cartoonish Pierce Brosnan James Bond, I'm just saying, this trailer made it look more like that, then the first two did. And as much as I know, this will be a dark, brutal and realistic Daniel Craig James Bond, this trailer just lit a bit of that spark, that spirit of the movies that I'm used to. One of the things, that also made me interested, was this guy.

I remembered, I've seen him before somewhere and realised, it was Ben Wishaw, the guy reading the letters and playing the piano in the epic Cloud Atlas trailer, but I was even more shocked, when I discovered, he was actually playing Q. Q, James Bond's old and cool gadget supplier! Then I remembered, that these movies are basically sort of prequels and that Casino Royale was based on the very first book, so they are actually introducing young, hipster-ish Q, which is awesome! So then I took a look at the old trailers and realised...all of these things were in the second trailer already. There is nothing particularly new. But I did see the second trailer and saw all the same things, but they just didn't have the same effect on me. I actually saw this guy introducing as Q, but it just didn't attract my attention. I don't know what it is with this trailer, but I have to assume it's the very good Adele title song, that just pulled all of these elements together and actually attracted my attention with the same things, things that I already saw. In conclusion, I am just really thankful to this trailer/promo, as if I would probably never plan to go see the movie, if I hadn't seen it. 

So what do you think of the trailer/promo? Are you going to see the movie? What do you think of the title song? Check the trailer out here, comment below, let me know!