The Avengers
I am excited. So excited. My whole body is trembling with it. I am just bursting to tell you how amazing The Avengers is. I want to wrap you in its awesomeness, shake you about a bit so you’re totally covered in it, then pour a bucket of glitter on you and kiss you right on the mouth. That’s how excited I am about this movie. Come on, I know you’re excited about it too.
The Avengers is the new baby of Buffy-famous, genius-writer Joss Whedon, and Marvel, the highly-successful, much-loved comic book-film franchise. Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., calls upon the world’s most ‘special’ humans under The Avengers Initiative to help save the world from evil Loki, the powerful brother of demi-god Thor, and his terrifying alien army. It’s essentially the culmination of at least the last 4 years of Marvel’s work – The Avengers are Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, the Black Widow, and Hawkeye. To be clear, that’s one demi-god, one genetically engineered super-soldier, one smart, giant, green, radioactive rage-monster, two lethal assassins and one genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist. Who can fly.
ARE YOU NOT YET EXCITED? You are. I can see it in your eyes.
The fight scenes were amazing, and the effects were amazing. As an action movie, The Avengers holds up. As a comedy, The Avengers holds up. It’s really very good.
This is the nerdgasm of the decade.
And it’s all because of Joss Whedon. The man behind such amazing productions as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Horrible, and that one episode of Glee with Neil Patrick-Harris in it is the main reason why this movie is so watchable. He is an effortless writer. The screenplay of The Avengers is witty, touching, well-balanced and down with the kids all at the same time. Even if you generally don’t like science fiction (please), or you feel like you’re not familiar with the backstory, I would still recommend that you sit your butt down and watch this. There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and some quite legitimately sad ones. Iron Man in particular has some great lines, and the Hulk has… not so much great lines but definitely some very funny scenes. I think without the light comedy and awareness of reality that Whedon brings to it, the film would be on the too-much-action, not-enough-plot-and-characterisation side of things. So Joss, I salute you.
Speaking of characterisation, it is true that almost all of the main characters – The Avengers Initiative – have had a previous storyline and development in recent Marvel films. Iron Man’s had two movies already (great and great), Captain America has had one (quite good), and Thor has as well (haven’t seen it, but the DVD is in the queue). The Black Widow was in Iron Man 2, but Hawkeye and the Hulk haven’t really had a look in in anything recent. If you haven’t seen some of these, or all of them, and you’re worried you won’t understand the characters or the references in The Avengers, like I said before, you shouldn’t worry. The plot is accessible and really quite simple, in a very satisfying sci-fi/action movie way. It’s totally immersive and you shouldn’t think about it.
The actors are all fairly good. Robert Downey Jr is perfect as usual as Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo is great as the Hulk, Chris Evans is good as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth is fine in his limited screen time as Thor, and Tom Hiddleston is downright sexy as evil Loki. The only actor I had a problem with was Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow. I LOVE her character (arse-kicking, hot female who manages to do all her epic assassin stuff in a no tighter or less practical suit than the male Avengers), and she is very cool and attractive and all that stuff, but she didn’t pull off the character for me. She was too forced and frowny. I didn’t like her. I wish that Emily Blunt, who I love, hadn’t pulled out of the part when it was first offered to her for Iron Man 2. She’s just as hot, just as cool, and frankly a better actor. And English. But quibbling aside, Scarlett is cool, and I’m halfway-glad to have her represent the only major female character in what is already my favourite movie of the year.
Because it really is amazing. AMAZING, I SAY.
4.5/5 stars for you, Nick Fury. Keep up the good work.
xx
Za.
The Hunger Games
As a serious fan of the Hunger Games series (like everybody else on the planet under 25), I was in state of huge excitement for the release of the movie. It’s always very tenuous when a widely-loved book becomes a movie, like the Harry Potter series or the Twilight saga. If the movie doesn’t appeal to the fans the franchise can lose all its credibility, and it’s always very highly anticipated. Luckily for The Hunger Games, it managed hold its head up where Harry Potter and Twilight didn’t.
The Hunger Games is set in a dystopic future where all twelve districts of Panem are forced to offer up two teenagers as tributes to fight to the death in the Hunger Games, a disturbing reality show created by the Capitol as punishment for the past rebellion of the districts. We follow Katniss Everdeen, an intelligent, strong girl from the poorest district, District 12, who volunteers as a tribute in place of her younger sister.
It’s a pretty gruesome idea, having children kill each-other on national television, and I’ve heard many parents (including mine) express their discomfort with the idea, but I think it needs to be realised that it’s not just about over-exposure to violence, The Hunger Games is a coming-of-age story of friendship, pain, oppression, and right and wrong. Although concerning gore, I do question the suitability of it having an M-rating on this movie. Yes, of course the makers want it to appeal to and be watchable for their young-adult audience, but a lot is lost because of the rating. The use of shaky-cam was a bit over the top when it came to the action scenes, which was frankly just annoying and way too obviously covering for the rating. You could hardly tell who was killing who. With an MA-rating they could have shown a lot more violence and gore and dispensed with the nauseating camera work, and kept it truer to the feel of the original story.
Even though I thought they nearly murdered the violence in comparison to the original plot, what really impressed me about The Hunger Games was that in general, I think the movie stayed true to the book. I’ve said before that in translating a book to the screen you can and should expect a lot of the story to be changed. It’s unreasonable to expect what is good in a book to work on the screen. But having said that, this film managed to keep nearly all the important elements of the book and have it exciting and cinematic at the same time. Maybe that’s a testament to the filmic quality of Suzanne Collins’ writing, but I was impressed nonetheless. I even thought the transferral from first-person in the book to a third-person film worked well, although Margaret Pomeranz would disagree with me. Katniss, the main character, still came across as a brave, headstrong, smart young woman who was extraordinarily capable, just as she did in the book.
I was hugely amazed at the sets and the landscape. So much of it was exactly how I imagined it would be. The characters too looked quite like how I expected, and if they didn’t they made up for it by being played by talented actors. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are very good as Katniss and her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta, and I think they’re both great representatives for modern young Hollywood talent.
I did really enjoy myself overall, as demonstrated by the fact that I cried myself silly for the first fifteen minutes or so just because I was so overwhelmed by the awesomosity of having one of my favourite books on the big screen. SO MUCH EMOTION. Nggggghhggn. I would definitely recommend this to mid to old teens, and would probably recommend it to young teens depending on maturity level. I think parents largely have to make the call on whether they’ll let their kids watch this one. I certainly wouldn’t say it was for anyone younger than about eleven. 3.5/5 stars from me.
The Help
HI GUYS.
Please excuse my short break from the blogosphere (Short? You call THREE MONTHS short?!), we will now be resuming normal programming (one post each Wednesday). Hope the year’s been going well for you so far, and may the rest of it be very long and very prosperous! Or not prosperous, because hopefully you’ll be seeing as many movies as me.
Let’s kick off 2012 with a neglected review from the end of last year, shall we?
The Help was, of course, one of the most highly appreciated films of 2011, pulling in a couple of Oscars and the like. This was mainly because it explored the highly contentious American issue of race. Which is interesting, but then again, sort of… not.
We can all agree that racism is an important issue, can we not? Yes, we can. If we cannot agree in this situation please go away and never return.
Now all the nasties have gone, let’s talk about it. Racism has always been a huge problem in America, and was just coming to a head in the southern states in the 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr was busy doing his thing, and black maids in the south were highly discriminated against. Racism in this period is a very intriguing subject to address, but The Help did it in a way that I found marginalised the issue it was exploring.
The Help is, first of all, about a white girl. Yes, it is about two black women becoming empowered and standing up for themselves and their race, but in reality it’s the white girl who gives them the tools and the inspiration to prove themselves. I may be being very cynical, but it’s almost as if The Help is saying that black women couldn’t and can’t start a movement without the help of a white one. And they certainly can. This isn’t a true story, so really it’s very questionable to have Miss Skeeter’s character in the story at all. Of course, it shows how there can be mutual black/white acceptance, and it shows how difficult it was (is?) for black people and white people to be friends, but it still sits very oddly with me.
Aside from this little issue, I found it fairly enjoyable. The acting was great (Emma Stone, who plays Miss Skeeter, will be in the movie of my life), and I really enjoyed the art direction. The couple of scenes in the drug store were so perfect for the time period. I always think it would be fun to design food packaging or book covers or advertising for films set in the past. The 60s was such a cool era for design. The sets themselves were also lovely – I’m heading to the southern American states at the end of the year, and it was great to see the kind of scenery I should be expecting.
Still, I would recommend it, and I have no doubt it will be adopted into many schools’ curricula sometime in the future. It is a good study of racism in the 60s. And an enjoyable study, too. 3.5/5.Overall I found The Help pretty entertaining, although not as amazing as it was hyped up to be. I certainly did not think it was worthy of a Best Picture Oscar nomination. It was lacking in editing and camera work, and just didn’t move me in the way that some of the other Best Picture films did. I think in America they’re very ready to accept a “racism film” as a great film simply because of its message, but if there’s anything that’s sure about great films it’s that they’re not all about the message. Films are great because of their multi-layered, complex components. One of those components is the message, but it is by no stretch of the imagination everything a movie should be.
See you next week!
xx
Za.
New Trailer for Madagascar 3!
I’m so excited for this movie – it looks as good as ever, don’t you think?
xx
Za
New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is the latest from the makers of the extraordinarily original (not) Valentine’s Day. You may be thinking, “wow, this is going to be stunningly lacklustre.” Well, you would be right. Joy of joys, deck the halls, auld lang syne, this movie is more mind-numbing than anybody could wish for.
Just like Valentine’s Day (and Love Actually, but we’ll get to that), New Year’s Eve is a rom-com that aims to top all rom-coms. It isn’t just one rom-com, but MANY rom-coms ROLLED INTO ONE. It’s a bunch of different love stories from different people all over New York, and they’re all intertwined in some way. One person from each story knows another person from another story, and they know someone from another story, blah blah blah. Apparently everybody in New York celebrates New Year’s Eve by falling in love. Apparently that’s how it works.
I am normally on top of rom-coms. I am all over them like a cat on a baby. I love them. They’re great. I’m having trouble finding nice things to say about this rom-com, though.
First off, it’s not really a rom-com. There are two parts to romantic comedies – romance. And comedy. Romance, it’s got. Chocablock full. More romance than you can shake a cheese at. Comedy? Hm.
Don’t get me wrong, I did laugh. At Abigail Breslin’s self-conciousness. And Katherine Heigl’s badly-done hair. And the fact that Jessica Biel kept pushing her fake belly IN, making it very very obvious that it was just a sack of lentils.
No, I am being a little bit mean. There are in fact some funny moments. But you’ll only really giggle half-heartedly at them, and you’ll only really do that if you’re in a cinema that’s quite full, and everybody else is giggling half-heartedly, and you just don’t want to stand out from the crowd.
But the lack of actual humour isn’t even my main problem with New Year’s Eve, it’s that it is, without a doubt, an exact copy/paste of Valentine’s Day. Just pasted onto a different holiday. The same cast, the same crew, the same format, the same storyline(s), the same heart-squishing sugar cuteness – only this time it’s getting a bit old. And they’ve added a couple of vomit-worthy musical numbers (I kid you not). And Valentine’s Day was just a poorly-Americanised Love Actually, so really NYE is just a copy of a copy. A bad copy of a bad copy. It’s unbearable.
And such a wonderful cast too, just wasted on an unchallenging script and poor direction. Their are “more celebrities than rehab”, and with some exceptions (can I get a Hilary Swank-induced shudder) they all have measurable talent. But their performances are heartbreakingly poor in New Year’s Eve. Michelle Pfeiffer is the most uncomfortable to watch, which is so sad, but on the plus side Zac Efron as her character’s young protégé is pleasantly surprising. I think people expect far less of Zac Efron than he is capable of, me included, but we’re seeing him come further and further out of his tweenie shell all the time.
All this aside, it can’t be denied that in some ways this movie is perfect. I went to see it with my mum after she’d had a tiring day, and it was a perfect girly thing to do to cheer her up. It’s a fun sleepover movie. It’s got a certain lack of intelligence that means it’s not confronting, or challenging, and it serves its purpose of pure escapism. It’s fun to name the stars and to wonder at how big Abigail Breslin’s gotten. It’s nice to perve on Zac Efron and Ashton Kutcher (even if his beard does make him look a bit homeless). It’s the definition of chick flick. On pure enjoyment, it rates pretty high. That’s why I have to give it a 2.5/5.
I know, I know. I’m hopeless.
xx
Za.
New Clips from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Some great new clips have been released for the new Tintin movie! I thought I share two of my favourites:
This first one has one of my favourite scenes from the book, in which some men kidnap young journalist Tintin and Snowy, Tintin’s dog, rushes after them to save him! I remember the scene in the book vividly and they’ve done a great job with it.
The second one is a favourite of mine because it has the voice talents of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who I clearly love (Hot Fuzz is quite possibly the best movie ever), as the charmingly frazzled Thomson and Thompson.
I can’t wait to see this movie, can you?
xx
Za.
The Inbetweeners
Note: The Inbetweeners is rated MA15+.
As staunch supporters of the television show, my stepdad and I were busting to see The Inbetweeners movie. Once we had in fact seen it and been suffocated with the vulgarity and immaturity that I should really have expected, we were not really busting to re-see it, but fairly satisfied nonetheless.
The movie returns us to the four boys we left at the end of the last TV series – romantically disabled Simon, uninhibitedly stupid Neil, revoltingly dirty Jay and self-absorbed, nerdy Will. The boys are finishing their last year of high school, and things couldn’t be looking better for them – Simon has the girl of his dreams, Neil actually has a girlfriend, Jay’s grandfather has died, leaving him a lot of money, Will is going to a good university, and they’re all going away to Malia for the summer. Things go inexplicably bad for the boys on their holiday, but their friendship manages to fix it all up, and they come out the other side not quite men, but you could say slightly less disgusting than when they began.
The Inbetweeners relies almost entirely on your average teenage boy humour, and as its stars have grown up the jokes have become harder to stomach, and you can see this in the film. Not that the jokes aren’t funny, they absolutely are (if you like that kind of thing, which I do), but the movie is two or three times the length of a regular Inbetweeners episode, and the jokes keep coming and keep coming. You don’t get a break between them, it’s a torrential rain of disturbing, filthy jokes. Even I found some of it difficult, and I certainly know some people who would absolutely NOT find any of the movie funny. However, there are some nice moments of friendship and coming-of-age that give the humour depth that would otherwise leave it severely lacking.
The boys do have great friendships with each-other and it’s nice to see a cast that seem as if they’re very close off-screen as well as on. They are all good actors (or else they have an extraordinary casting director), and no matter how unpleasant they get you do always end up caring about the characters. They’re disgusting in a loveable way, and if they weren’t loveable the entire film would fall to pieces. They were directed well, too – The Inbetweeners is a well-directed venture. Well-directed and well-pitched. If there’s one thing that can be said about this movie it’s that it knows its target market. More than 75% of the theatre occupants when I went were 20-year-old males. The other 25% were their dates.
The plot is sometimes predictable and awkward in places, but overall not too bad. It was what was expected, no more and no less. That pretty much applies to the whole film. No more and no less. I wasn’t disappointed, but I guess I was hoping for more than just a 97-minute rehash of the TV series. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic. Who knows. I had fun, but this movie is certainly not for everybody. 3/5 stars.
xx
Za
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1
Teenage girls everywhere, rejoice! The time has come for the latest venture in the Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part 1. And boy, is it the pile of manure I hoped it would be!
In Breaking Dawn Part 1 we rejoin the grimacing Bella (played by Kristen Stewart) and the literally sparkly vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) for the next chapter of their relationship – marriage. They are quite happy until, by some incredible feat, Bella becomes pregnant by her undead husband, thus creating a half-vampire, half-human baby.
There are so many things wrong with this film. Just so many. Let’s start at the top.
I have never been a fan of Twilight. I can’t stress that enough. I think Bella is a mundane, self-obsessed character who teaches young girls ways of going about relationships that are just so misguided in this day and age. Bella is seventeen when she falls in love with Edward, and eighteen when they get married. Edward is her first boyfriend, she has no other point of reference when it comes to relationships, and yet she is so sure that she is ready to give up everything at the age of eighteen for this creepy, dangerous, dull guy. And I mean, she is ready to give up everything for Edward – her family, her virginity, even her mortality. In the second Twilight movie, New Moon, Edward leaves Bella because he knows he’s too dangerous for her, and she just can’t cope without him. What kind of message is this sending to teenage girls? That when someone you’ve been going out with for about six months dumps you you’re expected to fall to pieces? For months? That men are everything? It’s revolting. Young women of today need to and can be strong and independent without love.
But morals aside, the actual plot of Breaking Dawn Part 1 is pretty poor. The lead-up to the wedding and the actual wedding drag on and on, and it seems like it takes half the film to get to the complication (the pregnancy). It’s pure fluff, and it’s practically unbearable. Once you get to the pregnancy, the Edward/Bella angst that we know and love really sets in, and it just becomes a grump-fest. There is a small worry about whether Bella will survive carrying her baby, but it’s terrifyingly obvious from the get-go that there’s no question of a less-than-happy ending for the less-than-happy couple.
One problem in particular I had was that in the movie, they didn’t explain the concept of imprinting very well. In the book, imprinting is described as when a werewolf meets the one person they are meant to be with and forms an unbreakable connection with them. It is possible for a werewolf to imprint on a child, but in the book it implies that imprinting on a child means you don’t really fall in love with them until they grow up. Until then, it’s more like you’re their brother or bodyguard or something. In the movie, this isn’t clear. And then Jacob, Bella’s werewolf best-friend, goes and imprints on a baby. It’s super-creepy, because it looks exactly like they’re falling in love. It’s sick, really.
Breaking Dawn has a few animated effects, and I found them a bit unsettling. They were easily identifiable and just not up to the standard that they should have been, except for one. Bella loses a lot of weight when she’s pregnant because she can’t eat, and the effects they used were great. She looked gaunt and just awful. My friends swore to me after we’d left the cinema that she’s lost the weight in real life, but apparently not, which, I have to say, was pretty impressive. She looked horrific and very real.
Kristen Stewart is less than astounding as Bella, and the same for Robert Pattinson as Edward. It’s a shame, really. These two are capable of some decent acting if put in the right situation (Stewart was good in The Runaways, Pattinson was fine in Harry Potter), but with a lack of substance in their characters and their only defining features being smarm, the pair do the best they can. Taylor Lautner as Jacob on the other hand, is just ridiculous. Lautner is proving himself more and more often to be the worst actor in history. On the plus side, his terrible acting does give the movie some pretty funny moments, no matter how unintentional. I giggled myself silly in some parts.
But, even with all these flaws, I was somehow satisfied with Breaking Dawn Part 1. Like, I really wanted it to be bad. If it had been a good film, I would have been disappointed that the filmmakers had succeeded in making such a dull story and such unappealing characters somehow interesting. I’m quite glad they didn’t really. I can continue being haughty and above this saga for the time being. 2/5 stars from me.
xx
Za.
(By the way, have you entered our Puss In Boots 3D competition yet? Go now!)
Puss In Boots 3D Competition!
ONLY AT THE MOVIES DECEMBER 8th
COMPETITION NOW CLOSED
Hi guys!
We’re really excited for the release of DreamWorks’ Puss In Boots 3D, starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris. It’s coming out really soon (December 8th), and it looks fantastic. To celebrate we’re offering you the chance to win one of 25 boot stockings (below) for the holiday season!
Puss In Boots – our suave and furry feline hero goes on a swashbuckling ride, as he teams up with mastermind Humpty Dumpty and the street-savvy Kitty to steal the famed Goose that lays Golden Eggs.
To enter the competition, all you have to do is answer this question in the comment section below: if you had a Goose that laid Golden Eggs, what would you do with it? The best 25 answers win!
www.PUSSINBOOTSTHEMOVIE.com.au
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Puss In Boots © 2011 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Let me just say before we begin that anything and everything I say in this review may be tainted by my bias towards the UNBELIEVABLE HOTTIE Michael Cera, who stars in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Got that? If you totally and utterly disagree with me, there’s a chance that in fact you’re right and I’m wrong, because I as a fifteen-year-old girl am influenced in unspoken ways by the attractiveness of dorky b-list celebrities. Capisce? Great. Let’s begin.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is undeniably a film for nerds and hipsters, and all variations of people in-between. It’s about Scott Pilgrim, an unassuming, 22-year-old bassist from Canada. He becomes romantically involved with a girl who is far too cool for him, Ramona Flowers, and discovers that if he wants to date her he has to defeat her seven evil exes, each more evil than the last. Scott learns many lessons along the way about life, friendship and love. Can I get an “awwwwww”.
It takes a little getting used to the idea that it doesn’t really seem to be set in our world, but in one where it’s possible for a Michael Cera-grade weakling to out punch the guy who plays Superman, and parts of the movie seem a little too cheap and easy plot-wise, but I won’t ruin anything for you. I think the fight scenes with the 7 evil exes mostly hold the weight of the film, much like the musical numbers do in musicals, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just interesting. And the fight scenes are incredibly cool, so it’s excusable.
But all these minor negatives are out-shined by the awesome effects, the incredible cast and the overall EPICNESS of the whole thing.
Scott Pilgrim is based on a series of comic-books, and my one huge point of praise for it is that it retains that kind of comic-book feel. The visuals in Scott Pilgrim are exquisite and exciting and funny. There’s onomatopoeia popping up everywhere all the time, and the fight scenes are like a video game. There’s no blood or anything, it’s all got a kind of other-worldly, Super Smash Bros. Brawl kind of feel to it. The effects are seriously gorgeous and they make the film. Without them, it would run the risk of being a poorly-plotted mess, but it seems to save it a little bit.
The cast has Michael Cera in it. Need I say more. But no, seriously, the cast does an incredible job in this movie. They’re perfect in their roles and they represent their comic-book versions so well. The soundtrack is awesome too, Scott’s band is pretty good.
But the best thing about Scott Pilgrim is the feeling of epicness you get. You know when you watch a movie and you feel like you’re IN the movie when you’ve finished watching it? Yeah? Well, I got that feeling from this movie. It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s hard to do in a movie, and so I’m giving Scott Pilgrim 4/5 stars.
xx
Za.
