Twilight: 1 star/New Moon 2.5 stars

The Twilight Saga films, so far, are very accurate to the books (cue the screaming girls with pitchforks and torches).


I’m sorry, but I believe that Kristen Stewart played Bella Swan perfectly: a whinny, buck-tooth, dull, linear, boring, mumbling, retarded (yes, I used the “R” word), multi-personality teen girl who gasps and opens her mouth without saying a lot of words.

The same can be said about Edward Cullen and Jacob Black: they play their characters perfectly. And that is the problem with these movies. The horrible characters from the book are played too perfectly, and so even the teenage girls who love the books are seeing the problems with Bella, whether they want to or not.

I will not get into much of the story (which is REALLY FLAWED), but for those who have no idea what it is about, here it is in a nutshell (SPOILER ALERT): girl meets vampire, girl falls in love with vampire, girl gets threatened by other vampires, good vampires kill bad vampires (with much drama and horrendous dialogue, acting, and cinematography; end of first movie). Girl gets hurt on accident by good vampire, good vampires leave, girl falls in love with werewolf, werewolf hurts girl’s heart, girl forgives werewolf, werewolf tries to protect girl from good and bad vampires, good vampire think girl dies, girl saves good vampire, end of second movie (with more horrendous drama and acting. However the Volturi are quite good, surprisingly). (END OF SPOILERS)

In Twilight, there were only three good things about that movie: Anna Kendrick, who plays one of Bella’s human friends named Jessica; Ashley Greene, who plays one of Bella’s vampire friends; and Billy Burke, who plays Bella’s dad.

I mentioned the cinematography because the director, Catherine Hardwicke, sweeps the camera back and forth very randomly, making it very dizzying. The whole time I was begging the screen to stop, but it didn’t, so I had to shut my eyes. And the DOP, that’s director of photography, thought it would be fun to do many shots of Bella’s buck-teeth expressions and gasping mouth, but it gets tiring.

Twilight Saga: New Moon is not as bad. The dialogue is still terrible, but they had so little to go off of in the first place. The acting of the leads is still atrocious, but now we see Taylor Lautner’s bad acting instead of Robert Pattinson. But what stole the show was the Volturi, the vampire royalty. Michael Sheen was amusing as the soft spoken, but terribly creepy Aro. Dakota Fanning, I was pleased to find out, could do well in one of her performances. She plays an expressionless, sadistic vampire called Jane (perfect role for her). Another improvement on the second was the music. I enjoy Alexandre Desplat’s music very much, however there is always room to improve, and that is why I am excited to hear what Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings) will do for Eclipse.

Overall, if you have not read the books, stay away from the movies and stay away from the books. Don’t touch them. My friends begged me to read them and I regret it very much. However, I am going to see the next installment this summer, just to see if it is an improvement on the book.

Next time: Johnny Depp Marathon: Public Enemies, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow, Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, Chocolat, Sweeney Todd, and Edward Scissorhands.

X2- 4.5 stars & X-Men: The Last Stand- 1.5 stars

X2 has very few problems. The story is an improvement on the first because we now know these characters and back stories. There is good foundation from X-Men. Now we get into more action and plot. The dialogue is less awkward than the previous and the music has what I hoped the first one would have been like.


(SPOILER ALERT) Put simply, Wolverine doesn’t find out who he was and returns to be babysitter when Professor X and Cyclops go to visit Magneto, and Storm and Jean try to find a killer mutant who tried to kill the president. The mansion is attacked and Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro escape with Wolverine while the rest are kidnapped (other than Strom and Jean who do find Nightcrawler, the killing mutant) by Stryker, a human who is bent on killing all mutants. Magneto escapes from his prison and finds Storm and Jean, and Wolverine and his gang. They make their way to Alkali Lake where they free the mutants, but one does end up being killed. (END OF SPOILERS)

The main problem I had with this movie was still Storm. Halle Berry cannot do a good performance to save her life. Many of her lines would not be considered “cheesy” lines or “corny”, but when she says them, they are.

But it is definitely the best in the series and is highly recommended.

On the other hand, the next movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, is the absolute worst in the series. Why did Bryan Singer have to leave the series? It is beyond comprehension. The story was flawed, no emotion went behind the majority of the performances, and the music went back to being horrendous with the addition of John Powell.

(SPOILER ALERT) Short version: a cure to mutation is found. Magneto tries to destroy the source of the cure. Jean Grey is brought back to life (yes, she is the one that is killed at the end of the last movie) and is now evil because of her alter ego. She ends up killing Professor X. And, as always, Wolverine saves the day and kills Jean for good. (END OF SPOILERS)

They incorporate one of the greatest mutants in the comic books poorly. I was so excited when I heard that Angel would be in it, but he was in it for four scenes. Also, WHAT HAPPENED TO NIGHTCRAWLER? He’s the greatest mutant from the last movie and he’s not in it? COME ON! Even Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart were not fantastic like the other two films. With all of the poor acting and horrible use of the actors, Halle Berry didn’t seem as bad (but she was).

The only great thing about this movie (other than Hugh Jackman) was Kelsey Grammer as Beast. At first, I thought that he would be horrendous as an action hero because he has never done an action movie before (not to my knowledge, at least). But he kicked butt in the movie.

But even seeing Kelsey Grammer doing back flips and killing a few bad mutants isn’t worth seeing the movie. It isn’t worth the money to see it unless you find it at a cheap, second-hand store.

Next time: Twilight Saga.

X-Men- 4/5 stars

It has been hard for the past few years to think of the time when the X-Men films were great. It is hard to think of them when they were well made. When Bryan Singer left X-Men to do Superman Returns, the producers and fans were upset to say the least. 20th Century Fox should have stopped making them until he was available to do it again, because frankly, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine were not very good. They had very little emotion and story.


X-Men was a great start to the franchise. Bryan Singer brought many real world aspects to the sci-fi world of Marvel, he was one of the first to do so. Singer incorporated politics and the main theme of the comic books beautifully.

(SPOLIER ALERT) The main premise of the movie is that Magneto (Eric Lensherr) wants to change the world leaders at a summit into mutants, then the way people deal with mutants is the way they treat their leaders as well. Professor Xavier, an old friend of Eric’s, is the head of a school of mutants who is trying to protect Wolverine (Logan) from Eric, believing he is the key to this plot. In actual fact, it is Rogue, a mutant girl who Logan befriends, who Eric wants. How he intends to do it is by a machine that uses Magneto’s power that rapidly evolves normal humans. Rogue’s power, to take another mutants power, is perfect for this. She runs away after she is stabbed by Wolverine and takes his power to heal. Magneto takes her and brings her to the summit where he plans to fulfill his plan. (END OF SPOLIERS)

All of the actors were phenomenal in this movie. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine truly did show off his acting ability in this film. James Marsden did a great job as Cyclops, this being one of his first major films. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan (Professor X and Magneto) are good in almost everything they do. Where the acting bar fails to deliver is Halle Berry as Storm. All of the worst lines were delivered by her.

There were very few flaws in terms of the technical side of the movie. David Hayter, the screenplay writer, wrote a very good beginning to the X-Men universe. He introduced all of the characters perfectly. The length was also perfect, not too drawn out and not too rushed.

The flaw was the score. Not many people care about the score, but I do. I like hearing a theme throughout a comic book movie; not necessarily a suite like Superman, but something memorable. I felt very disappointed by the random mish-mash of sounds in it.

X-Men is very well made and a great action flick. Not very many flaws and a great foundation for X2: X-Men United, I strongly recommend the first movie. Next reviews: X2 and X3.

The Dark Knight- 5/5 stars

There are very few exceptions to this rule: sequels and prequels are not as good as the original. But every now and then, a director comes along and is the exception. The Dark Knight is one of those exceptions.


The Dark Knight exceeds Batman Begins in every imaginable way. I thought that Liam Neeson was spectacular in Batman Begins but Heath Ledger re-creates the persona of the Joker and portrays one of the greatest serial killers/mass murderers/anarchists/terrorists in cinema history.

(SPOILER ALERT) Batman is still struggling to bring in the escaped inmates of Arkam and the remains of the mob. The new district attorney, Harvey Dent, comes into the picture as the white knight of Gotham, legitimately cleaning the streets. But then a terrorist, known only as the Joker, starts to wreak havoc on Gotham and the only way to stop him is for Batman to reveal himself. In one of these events, Bruce’s love interest, Rachel Dawes (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), is killed (at this time she was dating Harvey). Harvey becomes severely burned on one side of his body during this attack. The Joker confronts Dent in the hospital and “pushes” his mind into madness. (END OF SPOILERS)

One of the improvements to the previous film is Rachel Dawes. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a breath of fresh air from Katie Holmes. She does a much better job at portraying the emotion and conflict than Katie Holmes’ vacant expressions. There is more enthusiasm in her portrayal than Holmes, as well.

I believe Aaron Eckhart is one of the most under-appreciated actors in this movie. Most reviewers talk about Maggie or Ledger, but hardly ever does someone praise Eckhart which is really upsetting to me. Harvey has been seen in both of the previous directors’ movies: Billy Dee Williams in Tim Burton’s Batman and Tommy Lee Jones in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, but this performance surpassed both, giving a more realistic tone than the other two. Admittedly, he does lose some affect when he yells and screams, but that is who Aaron is and in actual fact he adds more to the character.

However, this movie is not without its flaws. I do give it five stars, but there are a few lines and story plots that I have not understood since I first watched it. First of all, I am still confused about what Bruce Wayne was trying to do with the gun and bullet (he was trying to get fingerprints off of a shattered bullet but the process is surprisingly complicated). Secondly, there is a line that the Joker says that I don’t agree with. He says in his confrontation with Harvey: “Nobody panics when everything goes according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I say a gangbanger will get shot, or a truck load of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it is all part of the plan. But if I say one little old mayor will die, then everybody loses their minds.” And lastly, (SPOILER ALERT) at the end of the movie Gordon said to Batman that there were five dead and two of them were cops, I only counted three that Dent killed and one of those was a cop. (END OF SPOILERS).

So see this movie. Rent it, buy it, it is worth the money. But don’t watch it without seeing Batman Begins first. The two go hand in hand.

Next time, X-Men.

Batman Begins- 4/5 stars

Batman.

That name brings many things to mind, but the greatest of the Batman films are Christopher Nolan’s.

Batman Begins brought Gotham’s knight back out of obscurity. An instant hit and many hailed it, rightly so, the greatest Batman film ever made, even better than Tim Burton’s original Batman. With an all-star cast, showing the likes of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, and Tom Wilkinson, this movie showed what a superhero movie can be. In a time of horrible comic book films, Christopher Nolan brought a new take on this genre.

For those who have not seen this movie (SPOILER ALERT), as Bruce Wayne is mourning the loss of his parents, he tries to take revenge on their killer. He is too late when that man is killed outside a courtroom. Bruce runs away after he faces Gotham’s biggest mob boss to observe the life of crime. He makes his way to China where he meets a group called the League of Shadows. Here he is trained to fight against injustice. He passes their tests but learns that they plan to destroy Gotham, the “heart of criminality,” and told to lead their men to the city to destroy it. He kills their leader and makes his way back to Gotham to take up his mantle as Batman where he fights the mob and faces the last members of the League of Shadows who try to finish what they started. (END OF SPOILERS.).

What I liked most about it was the fact that Christopher Nolan incorporated real life problems cities face, such as the mob and corrupt cops, into the films and he didn’t turn it into a bizarre sci-fi film with unrealistic technology. All of the villains were mellowed down and not larger than life characters. He used Arkam Asylum in a way that a real asylum is like. Many of my friends felt that the Microwave Emitter (a device that evaporates water in a certain radius; a key part in the ending of the film) was used too much and it was unrealistic. However, one unrealistic aspect compared to the rest of the film is pretty good.

Another great aspect of the movie is the screenplay, written by Christopher Nolan and his friend David S. Goyer. The first hour of the movie goes into flashbacks of the death of Bruce’s parents and the trial of their murderer. This gives tremendous depth and story that no Batman film had yet delivered. It isn’t a simple linear story that goes from Point A to Point B. There is more heart and feeling in the movie than in past adaptations, which is partly due to the acting as well.

Overall this is a great movie. Batman Begins has great action, great story, great acting, and great directing. If you have not seen it yet, make it the next movie you rent as well as The Dark Knight, which will be the next review.

Here There Be Monsters

Who ever is reading this, I hope you enjoy my posts and will continue to look me up in the future. I have a varied interest in films: I like horror (if it is done right), I like fantasy, action, thriller, drama, comedy (also if it is done right), romance, epic, sci-fi, and documentaries. here I will be reviewing almost every movie that I watch, whether it be old or new, at my house or in theatres. I also will right my thoughts of directors and actors, writing down what there best and/or worst movies are. This is not a commentary on how the movie was made or trivial things that occurred during filming or production (unless it has some baring on the movie). I will start the first review in a week. The first posts will be on the greatest superhero movies of our time: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, X-Men, and X2- X-Men United. By the time I have written these posts, Iron Man 2 will be in theatres and I will review that movie. And finally I will compare these six great movies. I hope you will follow along and bare with me. It will be awhile before I will have several movies on here. But during the summer there will be many reviews here. So continue to come back here for new reviews each week. And thank you for supporting my blog.