(film review) - Interstellar

Christopher Nolan flew onto the scene for me when he directed Batman Begins.  Who is this guy?  People were talking about Memento, something I had never heard of and how he is a good director.  Up and coming, I think I heard somewhere, "could be the new Spielberg.  Having seen Batman Begins, then The Dark Knight (in which I really enjoyed), then Inception (a film I LO VE!!!), Christopher Nolan was a house hold name at this point and I surely wasn't going to let this film slip by me.  I heard about The Prestige being a great film, but I was already invested with this movie from the moment I saw the trailer.  Space, futuristic space travel, saving humanity or something, vague first initial trailer, but I was going to see it regardless.

Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is an ex NASA Pilot and now farmer, living with his two children, daughter Murphy Cooper (Jessica Chastain), son Tom Cooper (Casey Affleck) and father in law Donald (John Lithgow).  As the world is slowly becoming inhabitable due to servere dust storms, Cooper embarks on a journey instructed by Professor Brand (Michael Cain) to travel to inhabitable planets with Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), Romilly (David Gyasi) and Doyle (Wes Bentley).  However, when one of the scouting trips going horribly wrong, the crew are now racing against time, desperate to find a planet to colonise before it becomes too late for those living on Earth.

This film was a lot!  I loved it just like how I love Inception, but I also hated a singular moment in this film which now has me hating Anne Hathaway.  I know it's a character and I know it's a role, but there is something she does in this film that infuriated me to no end that even now as I am typing this, I'm getting angrier and angrier.  The film also touches on love and how love can transcend space and time, the future of humans and the need to live/survive no matter the cost.  Towards the end of the movie, it does get really confusing and abstract that you may not understand what is happening, but Nolan has definitely directed this film in order to have repeat viewings.

The sound, the cinematography, the acting, everything was beyond superb.  The tension in this movie is at a very high scale and moments in this movie will have you on edge whilst other moments may have you hating an actor forever! I joke, although right now she isn't in my good books.  The film isn't JUST set in space either, so the dynamics on the ground, well...Earth also contributes to the overall story and the ongoing mounting pressure.  Lies, betrayal, love and will, is littered throughout this movie and for me, I will need to watch it again, but not because i didn't get it, well the end, a little maybe, but it is such a good film, it deserves a rewatch.

(film review) - Guardians of the Galaxy vol.1

Marvel Studios took a huge gamble with Guardians of the Galaxy by making this comic into a film. If you did not know, in which you ought to, the over arching storyline regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are, Thanos wants to destroy EVERYTHING! I'm not entirely sure if it is all life on particular planets or all life as we know it, but he wants to destroy EVERYTHING. This is the nature of his character. In order for him to do that, I believe, would be to Ashley Catchem the 6 or so Infinity Gems/Stones, attach them to the Infinite Gauntlet and he would be able to do whatever he pleases. He would be unstoppable.

So, to understand this a touch further over the films, Captain America: The First Avenger and Avengers Assemble, deal with the Tessaract which is a Infinity Stone. There are rumours that there is another Infinity Stone in Avengers Assemble, but we will not see that, I'm assuming until Avengers: Age of Ultron. The other Infinity Stone was seen in the Thor: The Dark World movie, so that could be 3 so far, and the rest remains to be seen over the background story arc over the next few films.

Guardians of the Galaxy, is a film which is to bridge the gap between Earth and the cosmos. Although this was achieved with Thor, in this film, you get a better sense of a wider and greater existence of space, spaceships and aliens along with an imminent threat which spans across not only Earth, but the Galaxy as we know it or not know it. I'll explain.

The film starts off with a young Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) who is seen being abducted from Earth with his little backpack and Walkman. You then see him 20 years later exploring a derelict planet for an artefact. Think of it as Tomb Raider meets Indiana Jones, but in space. He Stumbles across Korath the Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou) in which he narrowly escapes, heads to Xander, the home of the Nova Corps in which he gets into a situation which leaves him imprisoned. At this point, he teams up with 4 other guys, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) & his friend Groot (Vin Diesel) who decide to work together from that point onwards for a greater cause, sort of. There is a lot more to the film, but I would be spoiling it. Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), along with Nebula (Karen Gillian), under directions from Thanos (Josh Brolin), go after the artefact, currently being held by Star Lord and they find themselves in an entanglement between Ronan the Accuser, Yondu and the significance of the artefact in their possession. The Guardians of the Galaxy must come together and make the right choice.

This film for me was NOT the best Marvel film of this year, as I do believe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is, but is most definitely a great film. The film doesn't take itself too seriously and the characters are weird and wonderful with a lot of depth. The film is visually, stunning and you really do get a feel of space and the many different worlds you see. A little bit like Thor, but greater. Most of all, the film is very funny. The characters work very well together, although their dynamic is weird and with their depth, they more or less bounce off one another as they work as a team.
My only faults I found with this movie, was that, the villain could have been explored a little more have been a bit more villainy. Also, although everyone more or less had a back story, it would have been nice to go that little bit deeper with the back stories of the Guardians and I did feel that Gamora, being the universes most deadliest assassin was watered down and I just didn't see enough from her.

But with that said, A great film to watch. Very entertaining. It is like watching Avengers: Assemble again but with a weird looking cast and a barrel of laughs. Go out and see it before the sequel comes out.

(film review) - Transformers 4: Age of Extinction

There is a cult following of people who watch Transformers because a) They loved the cartoon series when they were younger and NEED to see the films. B) There are the NEW following of people who either never heard of the Transformers or didn't really follow the cartoons but they do like the new film franchise. And c) The people who have watched the previous Transformers, thought they were good, passable or shiet but keep getting hooked by the new trailers which promote the film and now they have to see the new one. Me?! I'm a little bit of both. I have liked or found the films passable but these films do definitely have their drawbacks. Plus those trailers be catching me EVERY TIME!

Michael Bay is a great director, but a lot of people do not like him and I understand why. A lot of people also jump onto the "Michael Bay is a sh*t director" Band Wagon, but often forget the greats. Bad Boys 1 & 2 along with The Rock and more recently, Pain & Gain, just to name a few. Michael Bay knows exactly how to sell a film to you with no real storyline, dress it up as the most amazing thing in the world with great special effects to make you run down to the cinema at full pelt and throw your money at the cashier..."Take My Money!"...The trailers do this. But when the film is finished, sometimes you feel empty and cheated.

With the Transformers franchise, bar the first film, Michael Bay successfully delivers everything you want, well mostly, until you watch it and then feel like you have been cheated. That you have wasted almost 2 hours of your life you simply cannot get back. Imagine buying a burger from a burger bar and the picture looks excellent, the ingredients sound great. You get the burger and half the ingredients are there and the burger tasted a little flat. The ingredients didn't jell well and what you initially expected was light years away from what you actually got. Although you enjoyed the burger because you were hungry, you can't help to think it would have been a lot better if all the ingredients were there or maybe straight out buy a completely different burger. Transformers 4 is like this.

The film is about a single parent inventor who is struggling or simply just getting by trying to earn a honest wage. He is raising his daughter who he is trying to send to collage but is trying to raise the cash. Pretty much down on his luck with failed inventions which haven't taken off,  jfjdjr (Mark Whalburg) stumbles across an old banged up truck he tries to fix to for money, but unknowingly, he wakes up a old Transformer and gets drawn into a fight between the humans and the robotic aliens from space.

The beginning was cool and everything seemed to go well-ish for a Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay. I got a heads up from a friend saying that the new film was better than the rest, so I guess I had high-ish expectations. It got to a point where the film turned from good, to mediocre to garbage. Don't get me wrong, robots in disguise is always great and can never get old. They even swiped that in The Lego Movie when the Pirate turns into a photocopier, but this NEW material they were using made the storyline garbage.
You could tell that this Transformers film was trying to be different from the previous incarnations and there was some really cool moments and special effects, but unfortunately, this is what the Transformers franchise has become; a bunch of cool moments, some funny moments and great special effects. You can't knock Michael there. We'll on the special effects.

I really felt the film was lacking when it had a great intro and like all the other Transformer movies, was simply a let down due to story. If the Story was executed better and a few elements of the movie were taken out and maybe replaced with something else, then this could have been a great movie. Otherwise, the film is just watchable.

Acting was stiff. Dialogue was ridiculous. Storyline was pants. Special effects were superb. But all in all, it wasn't great and was simply passable. If you enjoyed the previous movies, then you may love this. If you didn't, then you may not. You might just want to watch it because you have seen the previous ones and regardless of how you feel about them, will just watch it because it is a Transformers Movie. Lord knows I did.