Identity Thief (2013) Movie Review

IDENTITY THIEF (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

I think the absolute worst thing about this movie is that they made a Jason Bateman movie so unoriginal and uninspired. Never the less, let's see how Jason Bateman's latest film Identity Thief stacks up.

The movie begins where we are introduced to accountant Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) who seems to be having mysterious problems financially as many of his credit cards are strangely becoming invalid and worthless. After being mistakenly arrested, he explains to the police that his identity has been stolen and attempts to plead to them to stop the criminal responsible, Diana (Melissa McCarthy). Because he may face legal charges for the constant crimes that his thief has been doing, his boss Daniel Casey (John Cho) is threatening to fire him. That is unless he can travel from Denver to Miami, restrain Diana and bring her back to Denver to bring her to justice, all in one week. This may prove to be more difficult than he expected as with an identity thief, nothing is too crazy. Now to be completely honest, I was very much interested in the whole premise of the movie and I for one was really hoping they would take this idea to strange and hilarious places. While they didn't completely do this, they did go on a route with it that still had me interested and at times, had me caring about the various characters that these two meet in the film. Overall, I had no real qualms with this story at all.

One of the things that unfortunately made it an easily shunned by critics as well as the public is that nothing in the film seems realistic and just isn't very well paced. Basically, the movie doesn't flow very well as a movie. For example, in one scene Sandy and Diana will be talking and literally the next scene there is a car chase with debree flying everywhere. Another problem with the film is how the movie is the characters mixed into the plot. While I had no worries with Sandy and Diana's whole story, around the middle of the film is where things start to misdirect to weird and messy places. At this time, we are introduced to two mobsters named Marisol and Julian (Genesis Rodriguez and T.I.). These characters just seemed very pointless and during the movie you just forgot they existed. It is not until they appear on screen again is when you remember their whole story and why they are in it. However, there is one character that in my eyes had some relevance as it made it sense for him to be in the film. That is man that is only known as a Skip-tracer (Robert Patrick). The reason it had sense for this character to be introduced was because he is a skip-tracer, who is basically a person who brings in a bail jumper and is since Diana has been missing court dates, it makes sense for him to be hunting her. 

As for the acting in the film, I actually thought it was really good considering the circumstances. Jason Bateman is basically himself in every movie, which is never a down. Melissa McCarthy basically re-enacts her role from Bridesmaids but instead of a bridesmaid, she is a criminal. However out of every single person in this film, Eric Stonestreet included, there is one man that absolutely steals the show for me and that is Robert Patrick. Although some people may not know who this man is, EVERYONE knows him as his portrayal as the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The reason I liked his character so much was because of how he was showed towards the end of the film and how dedicated he is to his job, which I always admire. Overall, the acting was actually really surprising for a film that is centred around identity theft.

To conclude, I felt that although the film clearly does not deserve to be deemed as fantastic and Oscar-worthy, I feel it does at least deserve to be watched. While I certainly did not like it per say, I defiantly did not loathe and despise it as it was genuinely a movie that had me laughing in parts, and most of these jokes hit the nail on the head. Anyhow, the film really is not getting a good enough review from the public and critics as it does deserve at least an above average rating, and nothing less nor more. 

RATING: 6/10 

Oblivion (2013) Movie Review

OBLIVION (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

I was probably the only person who pictured Top Gun in Space when they saw this wasn't I...

Oblivion begins with our main protagonist in the film, Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) doing a monologue explaining what happened to Earth in 2077. According to Jack, the Earth was forced to launch nukes across the planet, stopping the aliens but forcing humanity to relocate to one of Saturn's moons known as TITAN. During this, he explains that he and is co-worker/love interest Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are the clean-up crew and scavengers of what remains on Earth. However, things start to take a turn in the wrong direction when Jack finds a survivor who has been haunting him in his dreams (Olga Kurylenko) as well as even, including Beech (Morgan Freeman) and Sykes (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Now with all of these events occurring  Jack must now discover what really is going on in the wasteland on planet Earth. Many people start to doubt the plot every time it reveals something big but for me, I felt it was a really interesting plot and manages to take some elements from Looper, which is never a bad thing. 

Now in the trailers, it looked like this movie was advertised as a straight up sci-fi action movie. However, this is not the case with this flick. While there are some parts where gun fire is occuring, these scenes are often either fast paced or do not go for very long, which I loved. I loved how the film made me expect the complete opposite upon taking my seat. 

As for the visuals, while I did not see this movie in 3-D, I wish I did because visually, this movie looks extremely impressive. Everything looks very real and although at times you can tell that something is fake, it occurs very rarely and never takes you out of the movie entirely. Also it must be touched on, Tom Cruise looks like he is growing and shrinking from each shot. Now although this is most likely the case with most of his films nowadays, every time he is by himself in a shot, he looks like an average sized man. But when you put him next to another actor, he looks about half their size. For example, when he is standing next to Olga, they are the exact same size which I will admit got me to chuckle. Anyway, the movie looks amazing, even without 3-D.

Acting wise, the film went both ways but at the end, made me go to the admirable side. Tom Cruise obviously steals the show with his witty and wise dialogue. Morgan Freeman also steals the show as Tom's second/third hand man with his more wise banter. Surprisingly for me however the star of the show every time he was on screen was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Although this is most likely because of the fact that he plays Jamie Lannister on the ever popular TV series Game of Thrones, you cannot deny that he was the silent bad-ass that everyone wanted to either be or be with. Anyway, the acting was really good and surprised me respectively.  

Overall, Oblivion really surprised me and showed me to never judge a movie by its poster, or book by it's cover...whatever. Anyway, Oblivion had an intense soundtrack, great acting, superb visuals and an interesting plot to boost, there is no denying that this Tom Cruise may just be the best movie of the year at the moment, that is until I see Star Trek: Into Darkness.

RATING: 8/10

 

    

 

I Give It a Year (2013) Movie Review

I GIVE IT A YEAR (2013) MOVIE REVIEW 

Isn't it ironic that Anna Faris wasn't in Scary Movie V but she is one of the leads in this far superior comedy that came out at about the same time, coincidence?

Our story revolves around the lives of two newly weds, Nat (Rose Byrne) a hard working business woman and Josh (Rafe Spall) who is a struggling, laid back writer. Friends and family have been recommending that they split up as they are two totally different people, though these two are determined to prove everyone wrong, though this way prove more challenging with the appearance of Josh's ex girlfriend Chloe (Anna Faris) and a man named Guy (Simon Baker) looking to form a contract with Nat's company. I think the aspect I liked about this story is that it goes places that typical romantic comedies are afraid to go and that gives it it's own personality. And as I say, personality goes a long way. So overall, the plot is fantastic as it is completely unpredictable and all around entertaining to watch develop.

Now let's discuss the main aspect I was looking forward to in this movie, and that's the comedy. Given that this was a British comedy, I was expecting hilarious things to erupt. And they did. Most of the jokes hit the nail on the head as they are so perfectly timed and relevant. Most of the humour comes from the obvious pointless but necessary character, Danny (Stephen Merchant). Now I'm a giant Stephen Merchant fan so I was just waiting for my sides to split halfway through the movie, but that didn't happen. It happened at the beginning. This man kills every joke and manages to overshadow everyone else in terms of humour, but that's not to say that everyone else isn't funny. Simon Baker delivers some witty and funny lines here and there, Rafe Spall also delivers some funny lines at perfect parts and of course, Anna Faris makes some really questionable and down right hilarious jokes every time she is on screen though most of the time, she requires someone else to talk to to do this, but this is not a negative in any way. 

If there were any downs I could say about the film it's that the main characters Josh and Nat while deliver funny lines here and there, I felt they didn't make any stand out jokes and this is mainly being directed towards Nat. She doesn't really say any funny lines throughout the movie but instead relies on someone else's joke to get her comedic screen time, which I felt was a little disappointing. 

Overall, I Give It A Year is easily the most overlooked movie to come out in 2013 and it's a real shame that this came out around the time of Scary Movie V as that shit movie is going to be seen more than this sharp and witty British comedy. If you have a choice between this and Scary Movie V, I think the decision all ready speaks for itself but go see this instead. You shan't be disappointed. 

RATING: 7.5/10

 

 

 

Top 10 Movies of All Time

Top 10 Movies of All Time

So it's another lazy Sunday and I figured, why not post something on the blog? And because of me being bored senseless, here are my Top 10 movies ever created. Now there are obviously going to be people asking why wasn't this movie on here and why is this movie on there, it is because this is all completely my personal favourites and while some world renown movies may be on here, I think some shockers will show up somewhere on this list. Anyway, let's begin with...



#10 - Kick Ass (2010)

So here's the thing about Kick-Ass, this movie is in no way meant to be taken seriously at any stage as the movie just makes fun of any superhero you can think of, from Batman to Spiderman. The movie is about a teenager who loves comics, so much so that his friends and him wonder why no one has ever become a superhero, then enters our hero Kick-Ass. I think the thing that I love most about this movie is not Kick-Ass, but his allies and villains. There are two other superheroes who help him, one named Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and the other Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) who I believe steals the show whenever he is on screen. I also loved the villains in the film, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) who is the leader of the mob and Chris D'Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who is Frank's son but later adopts the super villain name of Red Mist. Kick Ass is a fantastic parody of comic books and with a sequel that is sure to be even more Kick-Ass, I believe it deserves to be somewhere on this list, even if it is only #10. 

#9 - Inglorious Basterds (2009)

So I couldn't have made this without putting at least one Quentin Tarantino film on here. I put Inglorious Basterds at #9 because I thought it was very interesting, comedic and down right gruesome take on WWII. Our plot revolves around Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who leads a group of american soldiers who have been sent to assassinate Adolph Hitler but to do this, they first must get intel from various German soldiers. If I told you anymore, I feel it would ruin the film for you. So with any Tarantino movie, each actor has relevancy and two or three actors steal the show and that can be said for this film as the two men who stole the show was Brad Pitt who is really cocky and loves to cut the scalps off of every German they find. The other actor who does a superb job and even won an Oscar for his role was Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa who is in person is a very kind German Col. but when he isn't playing nice, he is killing any American or Jew that he can find. Overall, Inglorious is the second best Tarantino film made and is a dark, comedic and violent imagining of France while it was occupied by Germans. 

#8 - Monty Pythons Life of Brian (1979)

While thinking of movies to put on here, this was the one I completely forgot about and for good reason. This extremely comedic take on various bible stories happens to be very underrated among Monty Python fans and movie goers in general. So our story revolves around Brian (Graham Chapman) who was born next to the stable that Jesus Christ was born in and years later, he has grown up and he has been mistaken as the messiah and from there, it just goes to funny and weird places. The reason I love this movie so much is that it follows the thing I look out for the most in any comedy movie and that is delivery and timing and this movie follows that rule almost perfectly. There are so many hilarious scenes in Life of Brian that I couldn't even tell you myself because of the lack of timing. Anyhow, Life of Brian (in my opinion) is Graham Chapman's best movie and I believe to be even better than The Holy Grail.

 

#7 - Se7en (1995)

Oh the irony of Se7en being #7... This film is one of the most interesting and disturbing films I have ever watched. The plot more or less revolves around two detectives, David Mills (Brad Pitt) who is a rookie and a little head-strung and William Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) who is a veteran and is very careful about everything. These two have now been partnered together to take down a serial killer named John Doe (Kevin Spacey) who themes all of his murders around the Seven Deadly Sins. I love this film for the sole reason of the way they handled the villain. Kevin Spacey turns this serial killer into not only messed up, but smart and plans out everything ahead of time. I also love the chemistry between Freeman and Pitt, a cocky rookie and cautious veteran can lead to some interesting and intense scenes (especially the ending). The ending is easily one of the biggest shocks in any movie I have ever seen. I also loved the movie for the idea of basing each murder around the Seven Sins which can lead to some creative and gruesome scenes, which it does. So as much as I hate the irony of it, Se7en easily deserves #7. 

 

#6 - Inception (2010)

Further showing that 2010 was one of the best years for movies, Inception delivers an interesting and down right mind boggling experiences filmed on the big screen. Inception revolves around a man named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is an extremely skilled extractor and his offered a his old life back, but in order to get it back, he must complete a task that is considered to be impossible for anyone. That basically is the plot as the story just goes everywhere without losing track of the actual point of the plot. Inception is known for being one, if not, the most mind bending and confusing movies in history. And it is. At the end of it, I wasn't sure what to believe and what to think. It has an impact on you after seeing it as you don't know what to think of it, but everyone agrees, it is phenomenal. With my favourite actor being in the film (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), it got some points there as well. With critically acclaimed director Christopher Nolan making it, you know you are in for a good time, even if you don't know it at first. 

 

#5 - Star War: Episode IV - A New Hope (Star Wars, 1977)

I'll be completely honest, this film is here just for the fact I love Star Wars. But other than that fact, the film is really good and is easily the best Star Wars film ever made. So at this point, I think everyone knows the story of Star Wars. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) joins rebel forces to rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from Darth Vader (David Prowse) who plans to use his weapon/base, the Death Star, to take over the universe. So the film is completely filled with both epic and funny moments, which is what the ORIGINAL trilogy is known for. Amongst this comedy and action is some great acting including Harrison Ford as Han Solo and Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. So with superb acting, great action and hilarious dialogue, this movie really does show why there is an enormous fan base and a whole day dedicated to it. Use the force Luke...

 

#4 - Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989)

For the longest time I couldn't decide what deserved #4 more, Raiders of the Lost Ark or this. Ultimately, I had to go with the film that has the 2nd best on screen chemistry and the film that put an end to a great trilogy, until the fourth one came along.. When Indiana's father (Sean Connery) goes missing on his pursuit for the legendary Holy Grail, Indiana must follow in his father's footsteps and put a stop to the Nazis that have apparently kidnapped the professor. Easily the best aspect in the film is the way it changes from comedy and action, and even manages to blend the two in seamlessly. Speaking of the comedy, the funniest two people in the whole movie are unexpectedly Harrison Ford as Indiana and Sean Connery as Henry. These two manage to deliver some fantastic on screen chemistry and have apparently shared some sort of off screen friendship. So what can I say? Indiana Jones is the ending to my favourite movie trilogy of all time and here's hoping that they can somehow not ruin the fifth instalment. 

 

#3 - Back to the Future (1985)

Without question the best time travel film yet, Back to the Future delivers everything you would come to expect in a time travel movie. Action, Drama, Comedy and of course, Michael J. Fox. The story is that a teenager named Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is sent 30 years into the past by using his good friends time travelling DeLorean after his good friend Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) is killed by unknown forces. Although after going back in time, he meets his younger parents and realise that he has altered the past so that his parents never fell in love. Now Marty must reunite his mum and dad all while making sure he gets back to the future on time to save Emmett Brown's life. The plot although may sound extremely simple, it eventually becomes very complex but never to the point where you judge the film in the slightest. Before I mentioned that The Last Crusade had the second best chemistry in any movie, that is because that the best comes from this movie. The chemistry between Marty and Emmett is both hilarious and heart warming as you believe the two have a genuine friendship. Overall, Back to the Future really is the best of it's kind and can't wait for it's 30 year anniversary in two years time. 

#2 - Pulp Fiction (1994)

Yeah it's pretty hard to make a Top 10 Best Movies and not at least mention this near-perfect film. So the main premise in the film is that there are four stories about two mob hit men, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), a boxer named Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a gangster's wife named Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and two diner bandits named Yolanda (Amanda Plummer) and Ringo (Tim Roth) all intertwine in a series of intense, comedic and unfortunate events. The reason this film works so much is that they got the perfect director to bring this film to life, Quentin Tarantino. The movie has everything that makes a perfect Tarantino movie. An all-star cast, hilarious and realistic dialogue and the story just feels like something that only Tarantino would come up with, let alone make it work on the big screen. With perfect casting, characters and dialogue, this film shows us everything that makes Tarantino the greatest director in Hollywood. 

   

#1 - The Dark Knight (2008)

This movie is perfect. It brings out everything that I come to love when I picture my favourite superhero on the big screen. The plot revolves around Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) who is working with Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to stop all crime in Gotham City, which they successfully do, until a new face arrives on Gotham. The Joker (Heath Ledger) who insists on turning Gotham into a hell on Earth and attempts to bring any good man down to his level of insanity. Now it must be mentioned first up, Heath Ledger kills as the Joker. While I don't believe he is the best Joker (as that honour goes to Mark Hamill), he certainly comes close to the overall craziness that the Joker is renown for having. Another superb actor in this film I thought was Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, but his acting doesn't really show until the third act of the film. Just watch it and see for yourself. The plot I thought all around was extremely realistic and was ultimately what Christopher Nolan was trying to achieve and he did. The Dark Knight is the best superhero movie, the best Batman movie and the best movie of all time. 10/10. 

So that about wraps up my Top 10, so that begs the question, what is your favourite film of all time? Thanks for reading! 

   

Iron Man 3 (2013) Movie Review

IRON MAN 3 (2013) MOVIE REVIEW 

I will give someone all my savings if they can tell me how many times Robert Downey Jr. has made me laugh.

Our story begins with our main protagonist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) who is not himself at the moment. He begins to have nightmares and panic attacks about the events that occurred during The Avengers (I mean who would blame him, he got sucked into orbit). This stress soon leads to him building more and more suits because of the paranoia that aliens may return again, this however begins to have an affect on the relationship between him and Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). Of course with all of this going on, this couldn't be a worse time for the antagonist in the film, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) to declare war against the country and Tony.  Now with the Mandarin at large as well as a seemingly nice but mysterious man named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) arriving amongst all of this, Tony must now decide whether its the suit that makes the man, or the man that makes the suit. For the most part I had very little wrong with the plot at first, but then around the middle of the film, there is a reveal where people in the audience will either hate this film or just roll with it and accept it. Thankfully, I rolled with it and accepted it. Besides this near-plot destroyer in the film, the plot is both intriguing and exciting.

Now in the past two Iron Man films, Tony was a happy go lucky, cocky billionaire. In this one however, it reveals more about Tony's darker and emotional side which I for one was glad to see. I felt the past two films didn't express Tony's emotions well enough but this film more than makes up for the lack of heart in the previous ones. Now although this film may sound like a drama more than anything, let me assure you that there are countless of hilarious moments in the film, alot of them having to do with Tony and a kid he meets in the middle of the film named Harley (Ty Simpkins).

Now unfortunately, this is yet another film that features the dreaded use of 3-D. But to be honest, the 3-D in this film didn't bother me in the slightest. While I was annoyed by it towards the start, once the action picked up, I was extremely engaged in the imagery. For a film that is littered with explosions, it looks gorgeous. In one scene especially where Iron Man must save falling civilians from a plane, it looks to good to be real (though this is defiantly because of the fact this scene was filmed by professional sky divers)

During the scenes where Robert made me laugh, he had me convinced he was the best actor in this entire film, but then I began to look closely at the supporting actors in the movie. Towards the end of the film, I finally made a decision on who the best actor was in the film, and it was without a doubt Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian. This guy nailed the charisma and charm this man was meant to have and to be completely honest, they couldn't have picked a better person to play the role. Other actors were also compelling during the movie like Ben Kingsley did a great job intimidating Tony as well as the audience and Don Cheadle did well in..well...making Iron Man look good. Overall, the acting is some of the best I have witnessed in any Marvel film to date. 

So now here's the hard part. I was originally going to give this movie a 7 because of the plot. While I did say it made sense in parts, I must be honest that at times it was all over the place and I did get lost in one part. Although this was a fairly big flaw, I remembered the superb acting, incredible visuals and hilarious dialogue. Because of those elements alone, I just had to give this movie a better rating. Anyway, overall, Iron Man 3 is the best Iron Man yet because of it's witty dialogue, perfect casting and humour. 

OVERALL: 8/10