I have seen this movie twice now, and I might need to give it a little more thought, but right now I am going to say that The Batman is my favorite Batman movie. I think that Matt Reeves and crew did an amazing job with this movie. I have very little complaints with this movie as a whole. This blog will probably be longer because I want to summarize the movie while also pointing out the things I liked. So I'm assuming that this blog will be more disorganized than past reviews. Also who knows how long this blog will be. SPOILER WARNING
I think that this movie has a very interesting start. It actually almost has two beginnings. There is the beginning of the Riddler and the beginning of Batman. The Riddler's beginning is well done in my opinion because it starts off with his POV and his breathing overlayed with Ave Maria is both disturbing, but interesting. The song Ave Maria fits well because The Riddler's character Edward Nashton was in the choir of his orphanage. On my first viewing I almost thought that the kid we see inside the building was Bruce Wayne, not the mayor's kid. The way that the Riddler kills the mayor is both cinematic and terrifying. On first viewing you don't even notice him until they show him there, but on the second watch you can actually see his shadow just barely peeking out from behind the mayor. Then there is the shot where the tucker tool falls on the floor out of the Riddler's hand and hits the floor. In an average movie the camera would have cut to something different, but the movie keeps the shot close on the tucker and we see the Riddler walk from out of focus to in focus and back to finish the job. This sets up Nashton/Riddler quickly as brutal and not mentally right in the head. The movie wants to make it clear that the Riddler is the bad guy, no matter what he says. I'll get back to the Riddler's philosophy later. After this scene we get introduced to Robert Pattinson as BATMAN. Pattinson did such a great job of portraying both Batman and Bruce Wayne. While narration isn't my favorite way of giving exposition, the exposition that is given speeds us up in the origin of Batman. We know that he is still relatively new to the vigilante thing and that he also is already in his nocturnal animal stage of things and completely obsessed with being the Batman. He's already assimilated as the Batman as his normal identity and Bruce Wayne as his second identity. Batman also talks about how he brings fear with the sign in the sky. The movie tells us that Batman is not to be messed with because it shows us people that are afraid that Batman is in the shadows ready to get them. We then get Batman's target for the evening, the skeleton gang assaulting the man. With this we get an awesome intro to the Batman suit. Everything looks so awesome with this suit, the armor and cape look awesome, the cowl's ears don't look stupidly long or too short. The bat symbol also being the batarang was a cool touch because we get a bunch of looks at the batarang before it's actually used. After we get one of the coolest slow walk reveals ever we then get to see Batman doing what Batman does. Beating people up and looking super badass doing it. I think that the "I'm Vengeance." line was also really well used. Yeah, it might be a little corny, but it would have been more corny if he said "I'm Batman." This scene really gets us into the mindset of both the Batman and the Gothamists. We know that Batman is Batman already, but also feared by everyone. Holy crap 10 minutes into the movie and I already have this much written. I'm excited to continue. We are then introduced to both the detective side of this story as well as Jim Gordon whose actor did an amazing job. We now get to see how Batman is still in his early phases because from all of the other cops reactions. Every cop besides Gordon dislikes him at first both showing that Batman is still viewed as a vigilante, but also who knows how many were on payroll from Falcone and the Penguin. Batman's walk around the room observing different things and already knowing certain things shows that Batman does have some of his detective skills. I like when he looks at the bloody mark on the floor and when he walks away the person photographing the crime scene takes a picture because if the Batman looks at something it must be important. After this we get to the end of the Batman's night and we see some really cool tech. The contact lens that records things is pretty cool. The fact that Batman's narration was his notes in a book threw me off for a second because I thought it was funny and fit the young emo phase that Pattinson appears to be in this movie as Bruce Wayne. Another funny thing is just after this scene where Wayne eats blueberries while Alfred is cracking the cypher and Wayne puts sunglasses on and he just looks funny to me. The cracking of the cypher onto the next clue was nice because we get one of the best jokes in the movie. Bruce and Alfred crack the cypher and reveal DRIVE which takes Batman and Gordon into the mayor's garage and they find a pair of shears in one of the wheels of a car. When they open the car Batman finds a USB drive and guess what... the mayors thumb is attached to the USB. Being in the car this makes it a pun as a thumb drive. This then really gets the story kicking. The USB reveals that the mayor wasn't always honest and there are pictures of him with a girl leaving the Iceberg Lounge. We then get to see Batman go to the Iceberg Lounge and start to beat up on some guys in some more creative ways. We also get to see the Penguin and he's played by Colin Farrell. I had no idea Farrell played Penguin in this, and I don't know Farrell a lot from the movies, but his costume and makeup are well done so he is hidden very well. During this scene we also meet Selina Kyle/??? (we'll learn about this later). Selina is a part of this crime because a girl that the mayor was with is Selina's roommate and friend. Batman notices this and follows Selina to the mayors house because the mayor stole Selina's friend's passport. I will take this time to appreciate Zoe Kravitz's performance in this movie. Among the stellar acting performances in this film, she also did a very nice job in this movie. The only complaint I have about Catwoman is that her costume is perfect except for her mask. It's a nice detail that her burglar mask looks like it has cat ears, but her eye holes and mouth holes look not great. I want to talk more about the Riddler, because he was actually awesome in this movie. Now, by him being awesome I don't agree with what he says. I don't want to put duct tape and wrap on my head and go shoot anyone that has money, but I think that the Riddler was an awesome character that rivals Heath Ledger's Joker in my opinion. He challenges the Batman and its awesome that the Riddler thinks that the Batman and the Riddler are working together. Later in the movie they capture the Riddler and Batman talks to him at Arkham Asylum and while Batman is talking to Riddler its one of the coolest performances. Batman yells at the Riddler what he did, and Riddler just starts singing Ave Maria and I can't really explain it, but that moment was really cool in my eyes. The movie was really well done all the way through. The only real complaint I had with the movie was the music played a little too often to my liking, but other than that I thought lots of things were done very well. The cinematography was incredible, there are plenty of really well made and meaningful shots and its really cool to see them and their implementation into the story. We see a few of these really good shots in the trailers, but I don't think that really changes how cool some of them are. I wanted to do the summarize thing, but I think that I've talked about most of what I want to talk about. It's hard to give any movie this, but this movie for me is an easy 10/10
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Good Will Hunting in my eyes is very similar to Se7en in the fact that I know the movie is good and regarded by many as one of the best, but it was just kind of average for me. Although Matt Damon and Ben Affleck did an excellent job in writing this movie.
After a little while I can realize more about what is good about the movie, but the movie is a bit more than average. I'll start how I usually do and talk about the characters. Damon as Will Hunting was really freaking good. He played a genius and someone that doesn't know what they want incredibly well and his confidence in being so smart is weird to see, because whenever you do see someone that is incredibly good at something and they are confident in that skill you don't always like them. However, I thought that Will was a pretty good character all the way through. He isn't the greatest when he is first getting treated by the different psychiatrists, but other than that I think that they are a likeable genius. Affleck wasn't the star so it's a little harder to view his performance, but I really enjoyed how he played off of Damon. They were really good in the scenes they were in together and the part where Affleck says that one day he wishes that Will isn't there is a really good scene. Robin Williams is Robin Williams so there isn't a whole lot to say that can't already be said, but from what roles I've seen him in, this was a different role where he isn't just the funny guy that is doing voice impressions and being some comedic relief. The rest of the cast did very well. Will's love interest did a great job and the relationship between the two seemed very genuine through the storytelling. I'll say this now if it hasn't shown, but the more I remember about this movie, the more I like it. At first I thought the movie was kind of average. I'd say this is mostly because the introduction is a little slow and not my favorite. As soon as we get to where Will is found doing the problem on the board the movie starts getting better. I think that the story here is really excellent. A genius that both doesn't realize their potential, and doesn't know what to do with it, but also knows that they could do a lot with the knowledge they have. I think the realizing who you are message is really hit on the head because multiple characters in the movie find out who they are. Damon, Williams, the other smart math guy as well. This movie is very good and no longer average, but much above average. 8.5/10 Se7en was an interesting movie. I realize the movie is good and very well made, but something about it kept me from thinking it was spectacular and better than anything else.
I think the idea about the Seven deadly sins was very cool and watching the mystery develop was incredibly cool. The movie has a very cool feel, but is also incredibly disturbing and not for those that dislike disturbing images. I didn't know Morgan Freeman was in this movie. All I knew was Kevin Spacey and Brad Pitt were in this movie in a couple clips. Other than that Morgan Freeman was really good in this movie as an older and veteran detective that knows what they're looking for. The contrast between him and Brad Pitt has been done before with a older cop and a new rookie. However, the chemistry between Freeman and Pitt is very well done and interesting. Kevin Spacey is a great antagonist and although his stuff is incredibly dark and creepy is cool seeing how he did things. He is incredibly smart and I think that if he didn't reveal himself that Freeman and Pitt would be searching for him for a long time. Everyone knows the meme of Pitt saying what's in the box, but I think because I've seen it so many times, that when this scene showed up it didn't really hit me as hard as it probably should have. I don't know if the reveal was supposed to be easy to guess, but I knew that Pitt's wife was going to die and Spacey and Pitt would also die in someway as well. Solid movie, but didn't really do anything for me. 8/10 Die Hard is one of my favorite movies of all time. It is also one of the best action movies of all time in my opinion.
This movie does just about everything right. The characters, the story, the comedy, the action and suspense are all done masterfully. We'll start with the characters being just the coolest or fitting their part perfectly. John McClane is an insanely cool hero because he is different from the Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies with the biggest and buffest dudes around. Willis is a down to earth guy that is basically a representation of the audience with his jokes, sayings, and his monologue that he speaks out loud to himself. Hans Gruber is a cool and collecting villain that is a mastermind and smart, but his own confidence is the thing that becomes what gets him killed. The other side characters are also very good. They fit into the narrative very nicely. Mostly everyone in the building is serious, while those on the outside are idiots that don't know what they're doing. This includes the news reporter, the FBI agents, and the Police Chief. This praise goes towards the characters in the next 2 movies as well. The next thing to praise is the story, because gosh darn it, is it so simple but done so expertly. You have almost seen a story like this before, but the way that they do things in this movie is so well done that you realize the care that went into directing the movie. Another great thing is the comedy. Whether it be Hans and his crew making murder jokes. "Unfortunately he won't be joining us for the rest of his life." Or whether it be McClane's inner monologue. The absurdity of the cops plans to get into the building. The movie sometimes feels like a comedy at times when the movie moves outside of the building. Also another joke that I thought was pretty subtle is the joke of gas prices. Gas was less than $1, HA! That's impossible. The action is done very well, it starts off very mild in the action department, but as the situation escalates so do the stakes and action sets. First John is just avoiding a single goon, but then he's tying a fire hose around his waist and jumping off the roof of a building. This then all builds to the final confrontation between John and Hans. This movie is just so freaking good, there is to much for me to talk about. In my opinion this movie is an easy 10/10. Fast and Furious 9 was an entertaining movie, but outside that it has nothing going for it. It's got the now expected craziness of a fast and furious film, but it still is nice to see them pull it off.
With what the Fast Crew (Furious Crew?) has done now, they are basically superheroes so they are all in their secret base coming up with a plan to stop the bid bad guy. This big bad was used in the last movie, so that's one thing they have over Marvel movies. The movie also has 2 smaller villains. The first is a Star Wars referencing rich guy who is supplying the big bad with the tech to take over the world. His references are cheap, but he's so clearly evil that it doesn't make sense when he reflects on Star Wars quotes to decide that he actually sees himself as evil rather than good. The other smaller villain is John Cena who is actually Dominic Toretto's brother, that I guess has never been brought up in 8 PREVIOUS MOVIES! None of these villains are particularly interesting, but John Cena is a bad guy turned good guy by the end of the movie, so everything is alright. I've only seen one other Fast and Furious movie and it was the 8th one. But from what I can gather from watching the movie, there was a couple callbacks from previous movies. There was the main character from the first few movies, then there was an Asian guy who showed up that was from the 5th movie? This person was shown to have died, but they came back in this movie. I guess for die hard F&F fans this would have been cool to see these guys, but I was just "oh, I know that person was in older F&F movies." The movies also have some comedic bits. The movie isn't very funny, but it does have one bit that is somewhat funny. I have no idea what the actor's name is, but he goes through a similar revelation to Jules from Pulp Fiction. In the opening action sequence, the character is in a bad situation and will most likely die, however he gets shot at a whole bunch, but survives and manages to escape. Later he mentions it to the other members of the Fast Crew and gets ridiculed for it, but it was a decent bit. I knew exactly how the bit was going to go, but it was still ok. They go to space. As an entertaining movie, the movie gets a 5/10. As an actual movie this gets a 3/10. The LEGO Batman Movie is actually one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. This movie is a gem and probably my favorite of the LEGO movies. I just find that the formula of the LEGO Batman movie worked better than in the Lego movie. Batman is just funnier and also has a really good Batman story in it.
I think that the opening of this movie is perfect. The movie doesn't even start and the movie already lets you know what kind of experience you're going to have. The movie rips on every movie by having Batman narrate over what you see before things happen. The logo dialogue is very funny and it just keeps going by hitting all of the tropes for movies. Long logos, narration, reading a quote. It hits us with like 10 different jokes before we even get to the actual story of the movie. When we get to the plane its just a continuation. A large exaggeration of the amount of explosives on the plane with 2 best friends. You can't really get over how funny the movie is because of the amount of jokes per minute that happen. But if you don't pay attention to the comedy, which is hard, you actually realize that this movie has a really great Batman story. It's all about Bruce/Batman and his fear of being apart of a family, but not just being apart of a family. There is a fear of losing a family again. That is what Batman is afraid of and trying to prevent. All the characters in this movie are great. Batman acts like a literal child for most of the movie and it is funny when Alfred acts as the parent. Dick and Barbara Gordon are also good characters to join the Bat Family. The Joker and Batman's lovers dilemma is also a funny way to show their conflict through the years. Overall, I think that The Lego Batman is my favorite Lego Movie. The Lego Movie is still pretty good, but I think that I enjoy Lego Batman better 8.25/10 Did you know that the plural for LEGO is still just LEGO and not LEGOs? Anyways, The Lego Movie is a genuinely funny movie while also being a good story about finding your place in the world. I watched this with my brother because I wanted to watch both The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie because I knew how good they were, but it had been a while since I've seen them.
It's hard talking a lot about a comedy movie, but I think that the LEGO Movie is very funny. It combines the physical comedy very well with comedic dialogue. There aren't as many jokes as in the Batman movie, but there are still a fair amount of jokes and visual gags that are nice to notice. The detail with those visual gags is insane because I bet that if you just looked at the background whenever there is a large amount of characters you will most likely spot some background character doing something weird. Now this movie also has an important message of everyone is special. We've seen this story done plenty of times, but it is still pulled off well in the movie. Emmet goes most of the movie being told and thinking that he has nothing special about him and that he is just a regular face. When he realizes that he can make a difference he becomes special in everyone else's eyes, but he's been special from the start because he is unique. This makes the payoff of Emmet becoming a master builder so much nicer because of all the negatives we are shown of Emmet and the awesomeness of master building. Besides visual gags in details, the actual detail of animation for this movie is also insane. Every piece has there actual number on them. When you see a close up of a character's face you see little scratches and show its been worn down and used a little bit. The visuals are just crazy because all the bricks exist and you can actually build a lot of the things that you see in the movie and the scale is crazy. The Lego Movie is a very solid movie and should have won the Oscar for best animated feature. It wasn't even nominated. 8/10. Ramirez!
This movie was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. I knew the movie was funny, but I was expecting a lot more "kids" humor like poop and fart jokes. The movie deserves a watch. Unfortunately as a comedy it will be harder to write more detailed notes about the movie. The easiest thing to talk about would be the comedy and jokes, because a lot of them land. There is a bit where Dave calls his henchmen by name and tells them an action and his lines match up to a famous actor's name. Another funny bit is that when Dave reveals his name Skipper messes up his name progressively worse and worse. Every attempt is a D name, but the bit comes to an end when he finally calls Dave, "Ramirez!" I already knew this bit was coming, but it was still very funny. Another joke that is really funny is when Classified is trying to explain what the North Wind is and Skipper keeps interrupting him. All these parts I knew about, but they were still funny to me and the people I was watching with, which I think means something when you know a certain part is coming and you still laugh. Now characters wise there wasn't a whole lot to be impressed by since this story was more comedy based. Dave was very funny as a villain even though his plan almost seemed like a plot that Dr. Doofenshmirtz would come up with. The main character parts are with Skipper. He constantly and unknowingly brings Private down without realizing it and has a hard time giving a reason as to why Private is special on the team. Skipper doesn't realize what he's done until he loses Private. This is actually a very interesting thing to happen and I think that it was effectively done in this movie. You could do a very similar story in a more serious tone and I think that it could work just as well. As I mentioned earlier it is hard to talk about comedies past saying the movie was funny, but I still think that the movie is more than that and should be given a watch when looking for a laugh. quick 7/10. Perfect Blue sucks.
You get zero explanation. Also for John's sake please just watch the movie. Spirited Away was a... movie. I'm going to be completely honest and say that this movie did not meet my expectations at all. I have heard countless times that this movie is up there for the best animated movie of all time, but I find it hard to put it in my top 5-10. This movie does have it's nice moments, but with the astronomically high bar that was set it unfortunately brought down my opinion of the movie.
Even though my expectations were not met story wise, I thought that the film stood out very well in the visual department. The colors of everything were very well used and extremely beautiful. This also translates to shot selection as well and the wide, outside shots were very well done and extremely detailed. Not only were the shots very pretty, but the character designs were very creative and interesting. The frog people were interesting, and the humans also looked very interesting, but the other spirits looked especially odd, but in a good way. There were some designs I hated though. The witch was extremely uncomfortable to look at, and while that might be the point of the design, it wasn't just uncomfortable to me it also wasn't good in my opinion. Haku's design wasn't bad, but for some reason I felt odd whenever he showed up. He just looked out of place with the other characters. Yeah he was a human, but he didn't fit in to me. I also hated the baby. I didn't need to see the baby. With an extension of the character design is the actual characters and their personalities. I did watch this in dub so that might have had some effect on my opinion. Chihiro was a nice protagonist even though she was a little whiny for a little while. I did watch this in dub so that might have had some effect on my opinion. As I mentioned about Haku earlier his personality didn't really fit in my opinion. He was very flat and not interesting, I didn't really see the connection between him and Chihiro and I didn't even feel bad when he was injured. Yubaba's appearance wasn't fun, but her character was a nice antagonist. I also liked the split between her and her sister being opposites. The No-Face was an interesting character, but after it joined Chihiro on the train I almost forgot about them. If I were to say my favorite character it would probably be either Kamaji the boiler guy or Lin who helped Chihiro. They both had great personalities and really fit into the setting. The mom and dad sucked, but that was because they didn't do anything. We don't talk about that stupid baby either. Another absolutely great thing with the movie is the star studded cast. The amount of voices I recognized was insane. The ones that I recognized were Lilo from Lilo and Stitch, Meg from Hercules, The abominable snowman from Monsters Inc, Grandpa Tennyson from Ben Ten, I know that there are a whole lot more, but hearing those iconic voices was a very big surprise. Now onto the part that I was dreading to talk about. With the amount of good things I've seen about this movie, I was expecting a massive and insane story, but I didn't get that. Now with how much I've seen I also had no idea how the story was going to progress in the slightest. When Chihiro's parents turned into pigs I was very surprised because I had no clue what was going on or what was going to happen. I also thought that No-Face was going to be the main antagonist of the movie with their design. That also didn't happen. Now without all of the surprises I had I felt that the story was a little lackluster with the expectations set. The movie was 2 hours long and although I don't think that it was necessarily slow paced for the whole time, but when the movie ended I found myself thinking "that's it?" I wouldn't say that I 100% agree with this, but it almost felt like nothing happened at times. It's hard to back up this point, but it did feel like the story didn't really amount to anything in my opinion. I wish I enjoyed this movie more. I think now that I now what the movie is about and what happens in the end a rewatch would probably have me like the movie more. Expectations 10/10 Actual Rating 8/10 |
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