The Raid 2 (2014)

The-raid-2-final-fight

Director:

Gareth Evans

Starring:

Iko Uwais

Yayan Ruhian

Arifin Putra

Plot:

Only a short time after the first raid, Rama goes undercover with the thugs of Jakarta and plans to bring down the syndicate and uncover the corruption within his police force.

Review:

First off have you seen The Raid? I mean the original? If you’ve answered no to that question than I’m going to need you to stop reading and immediately go buy it, not rent, buy it. Watch it then come back and thank me for introducing you to quite possibly the best action movie ever.

If you’ve already watched The Raid, then unless you happen to be watching it while you’re reading my blog, you probably want to watch it again now that you’ve been reminded of it.

Okay since we’ve all watched The Raid I will move on to my review of the sequel.

At 150 minutes it’s considerably longer than the first movie, even with that length there isn’t much down time. I wouldn’t say the story is very complicated, it’s an action movie you should never go to an action movie and expect a complicated story. That’s not to say that there aren’t any action movies with complicated story lines, I just mean that the majority are pretty basic.

What makes this series awesome is the action and how it is shot. Gareth Evans knows how to showcase skilled fighters and display their talents on the screen. There’s shaky cam but not to the point where the action is obscured. That’s because all of his actors can kick ass, it’s not stunt people doing the fight scenes, so there are nowhere near as many quick cuts. In fact I believe there were a number of long cuts, which considering all that was going on I’m sure it was very difficult to accomplish.

My only complaint, and it’s not much of a complaint, is that it might have been just a little bit too long. I don’t know which fight scene I would cut out though.

4.5/5

Monsters University (2013)

monsters-university-alternate-opening

Director:

Dan Scanlon

Starring:

Billy Crystal

John Goodman

Steve Buscemi

Plot:

A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at Monsters University — when they weren’t necessarily the best of friends.

Review:

I hate prequels. I already know what’s going to happen so why bother?

Having said that, I did not hate this movie. It was actually really cute. Liked the ending and the fact that it didn’t end with them winning the games.

Nathan Fillion plays a great cocky asshole and the monster that was the dean would scare the shit out of me if I ever saw it in real life.

Still wasn’t the best Pixar movie I’ve seen. Better than Brave, but not on par with their best movies.

3/5

Blackbirds
Such an awesome cover

Such an awesome cover

Blackbirds By: Chuck Wendig

Plot:

She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides. But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

Review:

So this book is fairly dark. A few times I wondered what I was doing reading it since I don’t normally like anything this dark. However I stuck it out and it paid off.

The ending was good, made me immediately want to buy the next book in the series. The characters were very well developed, and the plot was complicated enough that I wasn’t able to guess what was going to happen.

Ending wise if he’d gone in a darker direction, like I was afraid he was going to do, I probably would have hated the book. Just to be clear the ending was not rainbows and unicorns, it was still morbid.

4/5

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Captain-America-The-Winter-Soldier-Trailer-and-Plot

Director:

Anthony Russo & Joe Russo

Starring:

Chris Evans

Samuel L. Jackson

Scarlett Johannsson

Plot:

Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and battles a new threat from old history: the Soviet agent known as the Winter Soldier.

Review:

Seriously I’m starting to feel like Stan from South Park in the episode where he thinks everything is shit.

To be clear, I did not think everything in this movie was shit. I was however incredibly disappointed in how this movie was shot. It didn’t help that the projector in the theater was out of focus, just enough for you to doubt whether or not it was, but anyway. My problem was the fact that it looked like a dad with a camcorder recorded this movie.

Shaky Cam!!!!!! Why must you show up and ruin movies?????

The camera was even moving around during non action scenes. What the hell was with that?

The story was pretty good. Though I didn’t get why Black Widow was trying to hook him up the entire movie, yet there was some chemistry going on between them. Black Widow was also more emotional in this movie than in the past. So instead of a Borg, maybe a half Vulcan.

If I was rating just on story it was a solid 4 stars, but I’m not.

3/5

That Guy… Who Was in That Thing (2012)

that guy who was in that thing

Director:

Ian Roumain

Michael Schwartz

Starring:

Xander Berkeley

Bruce Davison

Craig Fairbrass

Timothy Omundson

Plot:

Documentary about sixteen actors who detail their ups and downs as they struggle to forge careers in Hollywood. They’ve played cops, lawyers, bosses, best friends, psychopaths, politicians and everything in between. Now you’ll know who they are.

Review:

This was a great documentary. So much information and I enjoyed figuring out where I’d seen everyone. I also noticed a parallel between character actors and mid-list authors. A lot of the time they have to work part time jobs while pursuing their passions.

Timothy Omundson looks younger with a beard somehow and super sexy.

Everyone’s in Star Trek.

4/5