Movie Review #15 The Book of Eli

     I had very high expectations for The Book of Eli, and it met every one of them. Action, story, and maybe if we're lucky, a good plot twist is what I wanted, and prepare to get every one of those elements. I really enjoyed the movie for the action, but the action was really just the carrier for the wonderful story that actually has a great message. I am not very religious, but the religious tones certainly struck me.
     The Book of Eli follows a man named Eli through a postwar Earth on a mission to get the last bible to safety. All the bibles had been burned; blamed as the cause for the war. He reaches a small "town" that some survivors had put together, there the leader of the "town" is looking for the specific book that Eli has in his possession. Eli leaves and actually even gets another companion for his journey all in one action. Hi ultimate mission though is to save humanity. Once you see it you'll understand why it's saving humanity, believe me.
      Now the basics were great, acting [Denzel's always convincing], the music is haunting and perfectly fits it, the scenery is eerily beautiful, the bits of action well played out, and the story very well developed. Now the only problem I had was with the ending, I won't give it away, BUT it could have ended about five minutes before it did, thats all I'll say.
     Go in with pretty high expectations, the plot twist will not disappoint, although you'll question its plausibility it will also make the message even stronger.

Rating: 9/10  - Those able to should go see it, although again, if you have a problem with any sort of blood or gore, and partial and very brief nudity, then be cautious.

Movie Review #14 The Final Destination

     I have seen and pretty much enjoyed the Final Destination series, they are called horror, but in some cases they are not very "scary" but are very gory. Whilst they are not scary, yet gory, they should never be laughably horrible. This is unfortunately the case with the 4th installment of the Final Destination series.

     The story starts out with a bunch of friends at a race track, many of them are materialistic and annoying. So one of the kids has a premonition of how they'll all die in an accident, which by the way is such a stretch that it hurts. The kid realizes that he was only having a premonition and he manages to get some of his friends out of the accident before it happens. But then, they start being killed by some even more elaborate and laughably unreasonable ways [squirt gun + "drain pool" lever = blood fountain... Yeah, that bad. [and besides... who even has a "drain pool" lever for their pool...] I probably should also mention that the movie was presented in 3D in theaters, it may have been even worse in 3D, I have to say.

     So are there redeeming qualities of the movie? Acting, music, special effects? No. No. No. The acting was not convincing whatsoever, the music was unnoticeable, and the special effects... oh the special effects. For a movie that involves tons of things that would obviously need some good special effects, it seriously lacks. The opening accident will probably make you laugh, no joke. The rest of the special effects are a little better, but the opening scene MUST have made some people leave the theater laughing and demanding their money back.

     Go in looking for just some elaborate death scenes, you will get them, go in looking for anything deeper... look elsewhere. I can't even say its good for what it is, I could say that for FD 1 and 2, not so much for 3, and certainly not for 4. Indefinitely the worst of the series.

Rating: 2/10 - If you liked the rest of the series, go ahead and rent it. If you don't even like horror, gore, or the series, don't even think once.

Movie Review #13 2012

The previews looked good, the premise sounded horrible, it was outsold by New Moon, I loved it. The action is non stop, the story is surprisingly intelligent, and there's actually a pretty good twist too. The only thing I didn't really enjoy was how... impossible everything seemed. I mean, millions upon millions of people died in the catastrophes and this one guy and his family escapes... COME ON. But still, it's fun to pretend!

2012 uses science to explain why the Earth is ending, and it explains it well, its pretty believable, especially if you know nothing about science, and even if you know a little about it. Whether you agree with the 2012 theory or not you should give it a chance, the visuals were just stunning, but they helped the story! Visuals are sometimes used as padding for a horrible story, *cough cough* Transformers 1 and 2, but 2012 blends the two elements together to make a pretty good movie!

Bottom Line: Personally I didn't think I'd like it, but I did. give it a chance, put your cynical-ness aside and go see/rent it.

Rating: 8.5/10

Movie Review #12 The Stepfather

I was really looking forward to this movie, the preview looked great... but it seemed in the preview that it should have been rated R, and it should have been, but they took out the parts that looked so good [swinging circular saw]. I thought The Stepfather wouldn't be a Disturbia wannabe like many people were saying, but that's exactly what it was.

It had the same general plot-line as Disturbia but with more semi-naked people and more scenes that tried to be scary but ended up being funny. The former was not exactly a good thing, it was supposed to be horror.

I did sort of like it in a way, but I realized that I really only liked it because it reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Disturbia. Also, the ending was just... so horrible, they could've come up with something a LITTLE better. Plus, he just wouldn't die, I mean he got hit with SO MANY THINGS and ended up surviving. It was the Stepfather, not Iron Man.

Bottom Line: I would watch it again, but probably not again after that. Rent it if you like suspense and horror!

Rating: 6/10

Movie Review #11 The Blind Side

I saw this more recently so I remember more about this movie, especially that I enjoyed it for the most part.
I liked that it was mainly lighthearted, I didn't like that it got extremely childish "just-for-laughs" at some parts. Now let me just say, I really don't like dramas, but I enjoyed this one.

The Blind Side followed Michael Oher on his journey to becoming a star football player. It was pretty inspirational, eye-opening, etc, but it did get a little boring and dragged on at some parts. Although, the movie does try to be funny, and sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails miserably.

Another thing that wasn't so good about it was that some parts were really... predictable. When you see it you'll completely understand what I mean. It's almost as if the director wanted to eliminate any suspense that may or may not have built up, which could have been the intention now that I think of it... but still.

Overall it was a nice change of pace for me, being all nice and uplifting, considering that the last movies I had watched was the Saw series... which were not happy and uplifting to say the least [although good].

Bottom Line: I think this one is actually still in theaters, so go ahead and see it!

Rating: 7/10

Movie Review #10 The Fourth Kind

I haven't updated since... October, so I need to catch up, I've seen a lot of movies since October, so I don't remember all of them, but I have my review score for each one written down. I'll write all that I remember and the review score.

The Fourth Kind is supposedly based off of a true story and it even has clips of "real" footage, whether it is real or not is up to the viewer to decide. So basically there are these alien things that look like owls and they abduct people, blah blah blah. There's this lady who studies hypno-psychology and she ends up working on the study of the owl alien... things.

It wasn't bad, it wasn't good. I think it's out of theaters, but if it were, I would have recommended to see it. Not because it was good: because it was pretty bad and it ended up being funny [it was supposed to be horror]. To some people it may be scary-ish but it wasn't bad at all. There were like two moments that made me jump, and I jump at everything. Now that I think back on it, I wouldn't recommend renting it, but that doesn't make much sense cause its more expensive to go to theaters than to rent something.

Bottom Line: Hmm. Rent it if you like sci-fi or horror.

Rating: 5/10

Movie Review #9 Couple's Retreat

     Well, I went in with extremely low expectations, and this movie did not even reach my already low expectations. I went in thinking it would be mediocre at best, but no, it was beyond mediocre, it was beyond horrendous, it was... appalling. I admit there were a few laughs to be had, but most of them weren't THAT funny, and you could really tell where they meant for people to be laughing cause there is a deliberate pause in some lines that indicates where laughter is usually expected... but it wasn't funny, so no one laughed.
     So basically these four couples, I forget the names of... actually now that I think of it, almost ALL of them [I think one of them was Jason and another was Joey, but I really don't remember (there were 8 main characters total!)]. Completely forgettable characters, unfunny jokes, etc. are what made this movie so bad.

Bottom Line: Terrible. Horrendous. Utter crap. Appalling.

Rating: 3/10