Transcendence (2014)

Transcendence

Transcendence (2014)

Director:

Wally Pfister

Starring:

Johnny Depp

Rebecca Hall

Paul Bettany

Morgan Freeman

Plot:

A scientist’s drive for artificial intelligence, takes on dangerous implications when his consciousness is uploaded into one such program.

Review:

The movie doesn’t make me think very highly of extreme activists. If they’d never tried to kill all the techies they never would have uploaded his consciences to computers. They created their enemy and he wound up not even being all that bad, just misunderstood.

The movie had a very interesting subject but it made a very boring movie. Maybe as a book it wouldn’t have been quiet as dull. I don’t need guns and explosions to make a movie interesting but I need more than long shots of a woman walking down a sterile hallway.

Evelyn, Rebecca Hall, started as a strong female character and then she just lost it. She fought to save her husband and then as soon as he was uploaded she just became this weak, passive creature. It wasn’t until the end that she regained some of her strength.

I wasn’t expecting much with this movie and it didn’t give me much. Just another post apocalyptic scenario caused by evil technology or love, whichever you feel like blaming.

2.75/5

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind (The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy #1) By: Terry Pratchett

Plot:

It’s just a game . . . isn’t it? The alien spaceship is in his sights. His finger is on the Fire button. Johnny Maxwell is about to set the new high score on the computer game Only You Can Save Mankind. Suddenly, a message appears: We wish to talk. We surrender. But the aliens aren’t supposed to surrender—they’re supposed to die!

Review:

This book leaves a lot of questions unanswered, really making me wish I already had the second one. Great story and would highly recommend to anyone, not just the kids this book was written for.

The setting is during the first Gulf War, I was pretty young at the time, but since my dad was over there I remember watching a lot of news. The images he comes back to over and over in the book are images I remember seeing.

There’s a lot of mystery around Johnny. His parents are getting a divorce and forgetting about him during the process. He thinks he’s smarter in his dreams than in real life, but I think it’s more of a confidence issue. He’s a kid that’s going through a Trying Time and getting lost in the shuffle. It’s sad.

That’s not the main focus of the book, though. While playing a video game the aliens he’s killing surrender to him. What’s amazing is that Johnny lets them. They’d tried surrendering before but none of the other players would accept, Johnny was the only one. It reminds me of the video game Fable where you can choose to be good or evil. This world is too early to have played Fable though so they’ve never had options. It’s always been kill the aliens.

The premise is interesting and there’s more than just the video game issue going on, Johnny’s friends and family life are complicated too. Good amount of depth in the story and I’m really hoping the library has the next one in the series when I go in.

4/5

Think Like a Man Too (2014)

think like a man too

Think Like a Man Too (2014)

Director:

Tim Story

Starring:

Kevin Hart

Gabrielle Union

Wendi McLendon-Covey

Michael Ealy

Plot:

All the couples are back for a wedding in Las Vegas, but plans for a romantic weekend go awry when their various misadventures get them into some compromising situations that threaten to derail the big event.

Review:

Wow this movie is a whole bunch of romantic comedies rolled up into one. It’s like they couldn’t decide which one to do so they just did them all.

Are you looking for a commitmentphobe who learns to commit?

Or maybe you would like to see a wedding ruined because of Bachelor night hijinks?

How about a couple having issues trying to have kids but finally succeeding?

What about a couple that’s gotten boring and finally learns how to liven things up?

 

That isn’t even all the situations, I just got tired of writing them down.

It was amusing, sometimes, but not something I would ever watch again or even recommend. Maybe it would mean more to me if I’d seen the first movie, but I doubt it.

2/5

Untimed

untimed

Untimed (Rules of the Regulator #1) By: Andy Gavin

Plot:

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates. As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem. When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it. And there’s one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!

Review:

I believe this book was written in first person present tense, at times, and it’s not a tense I’ve spent a lot of time reading so every now and then I was taken out of the book because a sentence sounded wrong. I would have to re-read to make sense of it and that took me out of the story.

There were also some pacing issues. For the most part it was a smooth pace but it would sometimes slow down and I found myself skipping some paragraphs.

A few reviewers had issues with the teen sex going on, but I kind of thought that was realistic, and it didn’t really bother me. It’s not like he was going into graphic detail it was more of a fade to black.

The story was interesting and I’m curious to see what happens next but I wasn’t overly fond of any of the characters. I liked the fact that the time travel had rules and he didn’t just give Charlie or Yvaine special powers that made them different. Charlie had to work with what he had, and he was able too.

Yvaine was my least favorite character and I realize it’s because Gavin wrote her true to life. I’m fairly certain she is how a girl from her time would act, which just makes me sad , and glad that I live when I do.

3.5/5

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Good Morning Vietnam

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Director:

Barry Levinson

Starring:

Robin Williams

Forest Whitaker

Tung Thanh Tran

Plot:

An unorthodox and irreverent DJ begins to shake up things when he is assigned to the US Armed Services Radio station in Vietnam.

Review:

I’ve known about this movie, of course, and seen parts on television, but it wasn’t until Netflix added it that I was finally able to watch.

The Vietnam war is such a tragic part of history, both what happened during and after. I thought this movie did a great job showing that tragedy and Robin Williams portrayal was perfect.

I did think the parts with his “romance” were a little weird, but it’s probably just me. I knew when the kid got him out of the cantina that something was going to happen, but I still couldn’t help but feel Williams’ shock at seeing first hand the horror of war.

This was the first Williams film I’ve watch since his passing and it made the movie that much sadder. I couldn’t see him without feeling his loss.

4.5/5