G.I. Joe: Retaliation Movie Review (2013)

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION MOVIE REVIEW (2013)

The thing that this movie does from any other is that it follows the #1 rule of film making. If the first one was bad, bring in The Rock. 

Our story begins with our two main men of the film, Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) and Duke (Channing Tatum) after completing yet another mission with their fellow Joes. This celebration however goes south when the "fake" president shown at the end of the first movie orders termination of the Joes. With most of the Joes dead, it is up to the remaining soldiers to find out why the president ordered this assault. During their termination, Snake Eyes (Ray Park) is on his own mission when he discovers the secret location of some of Cobra's men, one of them being Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee). Because of the information that he now knows, Snake Eyes must now join back up with his allies and find out more about the Joe's termination. In comparison to it's predecessor, the story is actually really good. On it's own however, there are some plot holes but the biggest problem with it is that the story decides to slow down, causing there to be less action sequences, but this also makes the action sequences that much better when they actually commence. To sum it up, the story in my eyes was pretty good, though could have been improved. 

So let's talk about the 3-D, yeah.... Like alot of people, I don't see the point of having 3-D in most movies and sometimes, ruins them for me. While this movie's didn't RUIN it for me, it did annoy me when 3-D scenes would occur. So the movie would have been better off without it and did not make it better in any way, and almost made it worse. 

As for the acting in the film, Dwayne Johnson obviously steals the show with his admirable acting ability and gigantic body size. Another good actor in this movie (I thought anyway) was Ray Stevenson as Firefly. The reason I liked him was because he is fairly menacing as well as having a funny and cocky personality and to me, that goes a long way. I'm sorry, but this needs to be addressed, Adrianne Palicki was sexy as HELL in this movie (for the men) and for the woman, I guess they had Channing Tatum who both seem to play eye-candy in any movie (especially Adrianne). So all in all, the acting in the film is good and could not really be improved without going too overboard with it. 

Overall, G.I. Joe: Retaliation really only existed for two reasons. To be better than Rise of Cobra and to be a good action film. To my surprise, it did both of these things well. Although it may sound perfect, it has some flaws. A major one being that it slows down for what felt like at least 30 mins. But overall, the movie isn't going for any awards, it just existed to be an enjoyable movie, which it did well enough to the point where I would defiantly recommend seeing this in cinemas.  

RATING: 6.5/10

  

A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) Movie Review

A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

Although the film in general is enjoyable, it is almost a sin that it even bares the Die Hard name. 

Our story revolves around our favourite movie cop, John McClane (Bruce Willis) who has heard word that his son, Jack (Jai Courtney) who is now apart of the CIA is attempting to stop Russian terrorists from stealing nuclear weapons from a secret location. With Jack in no mood to be annoyed by his long lost father, him and John must now team up and stop the terrorists from stealing the weapons, all the time with John attempting to rein-kindle their father-son relationship. The main problem alot of people had with this movie, including myself, was that everything was very loosely connected and didn't flow together well as a film, let alone a Die Hard movie. Although it tries to have an interesting story, the film's premise just falls flat on it's face compared to it's predecessors. 

One of the biggest plus-factors for the film is obviously the action. As far as action movies go, A Good Day to Die Hard may be a strong contender for best action. The first major driving scene in the film shows trucks smashing into various cars and send at least 50 flying into the air. Never before have I seen any film show that much car debree in a single scene, which is always a good sign. The problem with this is that their is not enough of it. Towards the end of the movie, the action drastically drops and at parts I was just wondering why nobody was shooting anyone. Although it has some great action, there is just not enough to save the film. 

Now for the acting..what can I say? Seriously, it is a Die Hard movie. No one is coming to enjoy the acting but for what it's worth, Bruce Willis does reprise his role of John McClane. Jai Courtney also does a good job of playing his at times, hilarious and cocky son. These two obviously stole the show otherwise, who else would have? Now the chemistry between these two were great and was easily the best part of the film. How these two work off each other is just hilarious too the point were you will quote them from time to time. So to wrap up the acting, it's just as good as the others, but no overdoing them.

To conclude, if your looking for a great action movie and don't care about the story in anyway, this may just be your film. Otherwise, I would actually say pass this up as it really doesn't hold a candle to the four before. As a Die Hard movie, it is pretty mediocre but as a generic action movie, it isn't too bad. Just don't get too invested...

RATING: 5.5/10

The Croods (2013) Movie Review

THE CROODS (2013) MOVIE REVIEW 

So here we have an extremely hyped up movie which stars a group of cavemen and Nicholas Cage as Himself, so does the movie live up to it? You bet it does!

The story begins with a family of cavemen who have been living inside a cave for a large time of their life as the father (voiced by Nicholas Cage) believes discovering is bad and can only lead to death. His daughter on the other hand (voiced by Emma Stone) believes in the opposite and wants to go out and explore. One day however, the odds go into her favour when she meets a man named Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who is basically like her in every way.  Then horror strikes when they learn the world is learning and in order to survive the end, all of them (especially the family) will need to learn to adapt in order to survive. All in all, the message of the movie was what really got me interested in the story as the whole message about learning to face your fears to survive can really be influential as kids especially, can easily relate to this message. If I had to gripe about one aspect of the story, it's that the end of the world (in my opinion) just comes out of thin air as Guy mentions it in between sentences. Other than this, the story was excellent, especially for an animated movie. 

When I reviewed Oz, I said that that had the best visuals in a film this year. Those dreams for that film have been all abolished. The Croods shows off what is in my eyes, the most beautiful and obscure visuals in film so far, even better than Avatar. Every creature looks like something a young child came up with. For example, towards the middle of the film there is an animal that is a mixture between an elephant and a mouse. Those two together would be expected to be a horrid mistake of nature, here, it is cute as all hell. For this, the film gets massive points for originality.

Now for the characters, and let's get this out of the way right now. Nicholas Cage steals the show. Every scene I saw the dad in, all I imagined was Cage's face and in some occasions, I burst out laughing at the shear thought of it. Besides him, there is only one character that really stands above the rest and that is Guy/Ryan Reynolds. For the majority of the movie, he actually delivered some humour appropriate for kids, but only teenagers and adults will understand. For that reason, I loved this character. Another aspect of each character was that every character was surprisingly funny in their own respects. Even the mother of the family has little funny lines sprinkled throughout.  

So overall, The Croods is a great film that both kids and adults will enjoy. While at times the movie feels it is going longer than it need to, the movie is still a blast and is the perfect family movie for the long year so far. 

RATING: 7.5/10 

21 & Over Movie Review (2013)

21 AND OVER MOVIE REVIEW (2013)

Is turning 21 that big of a deal? According to this movie and basically everyone, it is a massive deal. 

For anyone that actually cares about the story in these films, it is that two friends (Miles Teller & Skylar Astin) here that their old friend, Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) has just turned 21. Because of this, they vow to Jeff to get him as drunk as possible. These leads to complications as Jeffrey has an interview for medical school the next morning. Agreeing that they try to have a quiet and good night, this soon spirals out of control as Jeff becomes insanely drunk and is now his friend's job to get him home by 7:00am, the only problem being that they don't remember where he lives. They now have to ask around and find out where Jeff lives, and fast. I think the main problem I had with this story, and movie in general, was that it seemed like I heard this exact same predicament at least twice with The Hangover movies. While it is from the writers of these films, this is no excuse as they could have easily came up with a different idea or at least something more original. 

To be entirely honest, the main characters of the film seemed extremely boring and generic in any duo movie. One wants to find him and the other wants to have fun along the way. I usually don't like the chemistry between this kind of duo in any movie, and this one is no exception.

Most of the humour from the movie manages to come from not the main characters, but the smaller but relevant characters, like Jeff Chang. Considering he is in a drunken state, the directors had to milk all the humour from this as possible. And they do this perfectly. Once Jeff appears on the scene, you just know something outrageously hilarious is going to occur. Another character that is shown in some parts is The Chief  played by Russell Hodgkinson. I think what really makes this character is the interaction between them and the pair of friends. Somehow, this relationship works better than the these two as these are some of the only parts where they express some kind of comedy. Jeff and The Chief were easily what made this movie, as well as other satirical humour.

To rap up, if you decide to see this film by yourself, I would at least recommend doing it drunk as your going to enjoy it more. However if you see this with a group of friends like I did, this film can be enjoyable and can create for a good night for everyone. 

RATING: 5.5/10