Transformers 3: Definitely More than Meets the Eye

Well readers, it has been some time since my last post, as I was recently soaking in the lovely Miami sun.  But I am back and ready to bring you some reviews of the best (and maybe some of the worst) summer movies.  So, without any further ado, lets get, dare I say it, rollin'.

Trasformers 3: Dark of the Moon hit theaters midnight last night, and I have two words to describe my reaction at the end of this movie: Blown Away.  It had me sitting on the edge of my seat throughout the whole thing and, to the embarrassment of the my friend sitting next to me, even teary-eyed at times.  It had everything a good movie should have: Action, betrayal, honor, emotion, and Decepticons with dreadlocks. Yea, dreadlocks. Apparently Cybertron isn't too different from Earth.  There were even Autobots with British accents. I'll stop with the weirdness there, because this really was an excellent movie.

For those of you who don't know anything about the Transformers, then there's really nothing to see here, because the next few paragraphs will be me talking about how awesome they are.  I will also be mentioning the plot and if you haven't seen the past two films, you will most certainly be lost.

The movie starts off with a very cool introduction about Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon.  But it goes into a top secret mission (fictional, of course) that ties in the crashing of an Autobot spacecraft and Armstrong's mission to discover what it was.  Apparently that was the REAL reason they were sent to the moon.  Anyways, a great story starts to slowly unfold from this discovery and for the first time we see Optimus incredibly pissed at the humans.  Scary robot is scary.  To reveal too much more, because as much as I want to, you simply need to go out and see this one, but Megatron is back and his plan is to bring the remains of Cybertron to Earth through a technology know simply as Pillars. Definitely not a good thing for us humans.

You've also got Sam still, with his new love interest Carly, played by the lovely Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.  

Shia sure does well for himself, eh?

Megan Fox is a thing of the past, but they do a very clever job covering up her disappearance.  Alongside the Victoria's Secret model are some other big name actors, like Patrick Dempsey, who from the moment you meet his character, you just hate the guy.  Also, if you all took my advice and saw Hangover 2, Ken Jeong, or Chow, makes an appearance as well.  Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson also have returning roles in this epic finale.  Leonard Nimoy, or as many know him, Spock, picks up a role as well, as a new Autobot named Sentinel Prime, an ancestor of Optimus.  It should be noted that before you meet him, earlier on in the film there is a scene with an episode of star trek playing where Spock is going crazy.  I found that rather entertaining.

Like I said above, I had many moments where, if I hadn't been surrounded by immature little kids, I would have started crying.  But to save my dignity, I chose to wipe away the tears and complain about my eyes hurting from the 3D glasses. Hey, it works.  But after having come through 3 movies now with some of these characters, it's hard to watch them go. However, I will say this right now, I will definitely cry at the end of Harry Potter.  I'm not ashamed of that.  

I am sad to see the Transformers saga end, but it's a good place to stop.  The ending left me feeling very satisfied and happy at the outcome.  The movie did have some "Oh, shit.." and "Did that really just happen?" moments, but it left me emotionally pleased at the end.  Kinda like Lost.  God I miss that show..

My recomendation, SEE THIS MOVIE.  It was by far the best of the three films and didn't leave any unanswered questions.  It's a long one though, at 2 hours and 40 minutes, so bring snacks! 

"You may lose faith in us, but never in yourselves"

Also with this post I am going to start my own personal rating system.  I will rate movies based on Plot, Effects, Acting, Flow, and other things I can't think of right this second.  It will be a simple 1-10 system, 10 being highly recommended.  

So for Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, I award thee a solid 10 out of 10.

HANNA

Until last night I had never heard of this movie.  A friend and I were bored, so we started looking up movies to watch.  She told me there was this movie that had just come out about this 12 year-old girl that goes around killing people and instantly I knew we had to find this movie.  We typed something along the lines of "young girl assassin" into Google and lo and behold, we found HANNA.  

HANNA is about a young girl who has spent her whole life training under her father, an ex-CIA operative played by Eric Bana. (What movies has this guy even been in lately?)  But all is not well in wonderland, as the villainous Marissa, who's accent seems to change every single time you hear her speak, is looking for Hanna and her father to, well, kill them of course.  

Everything about this movie is so bad-ass, it begs you wanting more at the end.  I mean, it's one thing to watch a grown man take down 6 different, well-trained agents at once, but to watch a 14 or so year-old girl do it is ten times better. 

I would do what this girl say..

I won't revel too much about this one, as there a lot of twists and turns and awesome scenes that simply can't be described.  I highly recommend checking this one out, especially if you're in the mood for a fast-paced, action flick.

It's finally here! Part 2 of the greatest movie franchise ever made.  July 15 is coming, best bring your tissues and come dressed for the occasion!  I know I'll be there at midnight to witness the end of it all.  Here is the trailer, just try and tell me it didn't give you goosebumps. 

Super 8: Out of 10.

I know it has been a while since my last post, as I have been rigorously debating which movie to take a look at next.  But after seeing Super 8 the other night, I felt like I needed to do this movie justice.  I was overly impressed with it in the end.  It wasn't too over-the-top and the acting, especially by a bunch of kids, was actually very well done.

For those of you who have no clue as to what this film was about, I shall now give you a brief synopsis. An alien.  I will now give you a slightly longer synopsis.  As you could tell from the trailer, a group of kids are filming a movie when a massive train wreck occurs right next to them.  Eventually you learn that some freaky ass monster escaped from the wreckage and is killing people, stealing weird appliances, and causing dogs to run away.  Weird, right?  But I won't spoil anything else, because the end is rather surprising.  

I have to give some credit to J.J. Abrams and Spielberg here.  They took a lame, monster movie idea and turned it into something interesting and thought-provoking. Seriously.  This monster actually has feelings!  Unlike this guy:

This is the Cloverfield monster, who likes to tear shit up and eat people just because he can.  It should also be noted that J.J. Abrams also worked on this movie too, which leads to a rather striking resemblance between this monster, and the one from Super 8.  But as there are no pictures ANYWHERE for him, I can only provide you with a lovely artist rendering:

On a closing note, I highly recommend seeing this movie.  It's got a little of everything, which keeps you interested in not only what the alien is doing, but what the characters are doing as well.  It's very suspenseful at times, leaving you on the edge of your seat, but there is a deep personal back story for the characters, that adds a nice little emotional appeal.  So go see it, you will enjoy it. Unless you don't like monster movies, in which case go see Hangover 2. :)

I Hate Snakes, Jacques!

I found another awesome video this morning.  I was just meandering about on the Tube and I came across the top 100 movie lines in 200 seconds.  I thought, hey this could be cool.  And indeed it was.  So I now present you with a short video of some of the best and most memorable movie lines in history. Enjoy.

I Guess I Just Don't Get It?

I'm gonna take a break for a second to post a link to a quick video.  While it isn't a movie that can be reviewed, it is a hilarious mash-up of a bunch of different movies to make the point that Hollywood is full of clichés and they are incredibly overused.  I have come across many different movie mash-ups, and in the future, I will be sure to post them here, as they are delightfully entertaining.  (Unfortunately I am unable to just embed the video here, as it is not a YouTube video and this lovely blog site only allows for those types of videos.)

Super Awesome Video Link

Hangover 2: It Happened Again!

Well folks, I can honestly say this one got me.  I was laughing around every corner and some of the things that happened... holy shit.  I'm still laughing at some of this stuff and frankly, my cheeks hurt. 

It happened again! The Wolfpack is back in a second night of forgotten memories, wrong people, and butt sex. No, I didn't stutter.  But I'll let you wonder if you haven't seen it.  This time, Stu is getting married and the big event is to take place in Thailand, or Thighland if you're Alan.  But this time, the gang is joined by Stu's lovely fiancée Laura's brother Teddy, who takes Doug's place as the missing person.  Oh, and did I mention there's a monkey that handles drugs for the dealers so nobody is caught? Awesome.

The thing that made this movie great was the combination of story elements from the first film, with a new twist and new scenarios.  Stu thankfully retains all of his teeth, but instead finds a badass tattoo on his face, which, needless to say, he tried washing off with water.. Alan's head is shaved and Phil, well, looks like hell.  

Also joining the Wolfpack in this installment is Chow, Leslie Chow, the super gay Asian guy from the first movie.  He is exactly as we all remember and also provides for, let's just say, some "small" laughs throughout the movie. I had to stop for a moment to laugh at that, but I'm better now.

I have read a lot of bad reviews for this movie, saying the jokes are stale and everything pretty much happens the way you would expect it to.  These people obviously have no sense of  humor.  Hangover 2 is loaded from beginning to end with funny shit, and it'll have you laughing the whole time.  This one is definitely a must-see, so get out there and see it!

I've included the trailer simply because it's funny, enjoy!

Thor: God of Thunder or Total Blunder?

I’m going to start things off with a movie that recently made its way to the big screen: Thor.  Thor, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the Avengers.  The Avengers are some random group of comic book super heroes that go out and save the world. What else do heroes do? 

I guess the plan is to introduce each member of The Avengers in his own separate movie and then bring them all together in 2012 when The Avengerscomes to the big screen. Confused yet? Yea I don’t blame you.

Anyways back to this joke of a movie.  Thor is the story of the Norse God Thor. Redundant statement is redundant, no? Thor and his brother Lokey, are sons to Odin, who is basically God or Zeus.  The story starts off in Valhalla, or Heaven, where we find Thor about to be named Odin’s successor, but alas, nothing ever goes as planned.  Enter the Frost Giants. (Seriously? Frost Giants? Couldn’t they be any more creative than that?) The Frost Giants are the sworn enemies of Odin, blah blah blah, we get it, we’ve seen this scenario a hundred times.  

To not give away much more, Thor ends up disobeying his father and gets banished to earth, stripped of all his godlike powers. How sad. But wait! Who should find him but Natalie Portman! I don’t even remember what her name was in the movie, because, let’s be honest here, does it really matter?  But what totally distracts from her attractiveness is the scientific mumbo jumbo she constantly utters throughout the whole thing.  Not to mention her somewhat disturbing liplock with the thunder god. Yea, it happens.  Oh yea, and her god awful acting. Seriously, this girl hasn’t had a good performance. Aside from her lustful role in Black Swan, which I will admit, I thoroughly enjoyed. But yea, I provided an equation below for those visual learners out there:

(Natalie Portman) - (Bad Acting x Science) = Not Hot.

How ‘bout a picture?

So for those people who had the thought, “Yea, this movie is going to suck, but I’ll go see it cus Natalie Portman is in it,” rethink your decision. Thor is an overly boring movie with very few action scenes.  I oftentimes found myself drifting off or wondering when the damn thing would end. 

But, if you’re the type of person that’s into the whole comic book to movie trend, then by all means, pay $10 to go see this thing. But if you’re just looking for a fun and exciting movie to see, go see Hangover 2. Or Bridesmaids. Or Hangover 2.