Movie: Into The Storm

Hey, it's no Twister, but once it gets moving, it's a real ride.

I have to admit that I am a huge fan of natural disaster movie: the afore-mentioned Twister, Volcano (yes, the one with Tommy Lee Jones), and Dante's Peak.

Like I said, this one isn't bad once it gets going. It doesn't have the humour of Twister, but the visuals, and especially the sound make up for that somewhat.

It doesn't really have an all star cast like Twister has, or even a good soundtrack (the Twister soundtrack is one of my favourites). There is only one actor whose name I recognised, and that is Richard Armitage. I didn't recognise him at first, because the last thing I saw him in was The Hobbit, where he played a four feet tall dwarf. In this film, he is his full height, which has got to be at least six feet.

Some of the dialogue was heavy handed at times, but most of that was at the start, and was passed by relatively quickly. The plot is fairly simple. This movie is about trying to recreate the experience of being inside a tornado, and it does that very well. The movie proves that special effects technology has come a long way since the tornadoes of Twister. If you've seen the trailer, then you have seen a pretty good sample of what the film contains.

One thing that I thought was odd is that this film was not shown in 3D. If there was ever a film that cries out for 3D, it's this one. I think a golden opportunity was missed there.

Movie: The Inbetweeners 2

These four guys are our generation's version of the Marx Brothers, sort of...

I think this film is easily better than the first one, but I put that down to the fact that it is set in Australia. Well, it's the English version of Australia, which as an Australian, I find hilarious.

This film is definitely not for the faint of heart. This movie makes Kevin Smith look like a boy scout. For example, there is one scene at the beginning of the film where one the characters dresses up as Hermione from the Harry Potter films, sans underpants. They end up in a pub, where the said character is bent over a pool table, playing pool of course. Dangling in full sight beneath the skirt are a pair of rather large testicles (probably rubber...), and a dog comes up and starts to lick them. It actually works better in the film than I can adequately describe here, but that's the kind of humour that this film is all about.

You probably need to see the first movie before this one (well, it does have a 2 in the title after all...), because some of the plot points are linked directly to stuff that happens in the first film.

Movie: 3D Guardians Of The Galaxy

This is an excellent movie. Easily better than I expected.

I had great reservations when I saw that one of the lead characters was an animated racoon. I had unpleasant flashbacks to Jar Jar Binks in the Phantom Menace, but this racoon fits in well with the universe and the other main characters. This is a film that does not take itself seriously, and the film benefits a lot because of that. Well done James Gunn and friends.

I wonder how much Vin Diesel got paid for his turn as the walking tree, Groot. He says a total of four words "I", "Am", "Groot" and at the end, "We". Mind you, Chewbacca doesn't have much in the way of dialogue, but Han Solo seems to understand what he is saying.

The rest of the casting is very well executed. Ex Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan is total unrecognisable as one the the lead bad guys. She also gets to kick some serious butt:

I also like the actor who plays the chief bad guy, Ronan, a guy called Lee Pace, who I actually have never seen before. He has a real big screen presence.

The movie starts out very depressingly. I actually checked my ticket because I thought the cinema was showing the wrong movie.

The 3D in this movie was very well executed. I am a huge fan of 3D, almost verging on addiction. I'm almost at the point of not seeing a movie if it isn't 3D.

You need to hang around for the now traditional Marvel teaser after the credits. This one concerns a certain bird, which George L tried to bring to the screen in the eighties with such ineptness. That would be a hoot if he actually turned up in Guardians II, but I don't think it would happen.

And finally, a shout out for the soundtrack. They have used classic seventies tracks as a backing for some of the scenes. In one scene, they used Cherry Bomb by the Runaways, and at that point I zoned out and didn't actually hear the dialogue. I was grooving away to Joan Jett's guitar.

"Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways

There's also a CD of the songs used in the film (actually 2 CD's, the songs on one and the score on the other). It's quite a good selection:

1: Hooked On A Feeling - Blue Swede
2: Go All The Way - Raspberries
3: Spirit In The Sky - Norman Greenbaum
4: Moonage Daydream - David Bowie
5: Fooled Around And Fell In Love - Elvin Bishop
6: I'm Not In Love - 10CC
7: I Want You Back - Jackson 5
8: Come And Get Your Love - Redbone
9: Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
10: Escape (The Pina Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes
11: O-O-H Child - Five Stairsteps
12: Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

As of today, August 23, 2014, this soundtrack is at number 2 on the Australian album charts.

I'll race you to the CD shop right now....


Here's a great review I just found: "Guardians Of The Galaxy" review

I keep finding all these links on YouTube. Here's another good one, a Q and A with Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana and Vin Diesel: Cast Q and A

Movie: 3D Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

This is a great movie, easily the best I've seen this year so far.

I wasn't much of a fan of the previous Ape movie. I can't put my finger on the exact reason why, I just didn't connect with that movie. I'm glad to say that was not the case with this latest installment.

This is almost a perfect movie. The story line is really strong and engaging, and because I couldn't tell the difference between the CGI apes and a man in a costume (we're there any?), I was totally absorbed in it. It was so compelling that even the 3D didn't draw attention to itself. It felt all very natural.

I found the cast to be very likeable. Jason Clarke, who I discovered later is an Australian, is the good guy human hero. The always good Gary Oldman plays the leader of the human colony, who wants to wipe out the apes, and who almost succeeds in doing just that. I did have a small amount of sympathy for his character. After all, he was trying to protect the future of the human race by doing what, in his own mind, was absolutely neccessary. Andy Serkis does a great job with Caesar, but my favourite ape character was Maurice, who plays a breed of ape that I haven't identified as yet (I'll google it). The bad guy ape was also well done, being played by an English actor called Toby Kebbell, who's actually going to play Doctor Doom in the next Fantastic Four movie.

I just want to add that I am a big fan of the original four ape movies. Roddy McDowall will always be my ideal Caesar. I'm probably one of the few people on the planet who actually considers Battle For The Planet Of The Apes as one of their favourite movies. I also quite liked the TV series as well, although it was a long time ago and I can barely remember it.

In summary, this is an outstanding movie, brilliantly executed. To me, it's 99% of the way to being a perfect movie ( there was just a few seconds where the wind blowing through the hair of an ape didn't look quite right!). I very much look forward to the DVD and the "Making Of" DVD extra (I hope there is one, and a Director's commentary as well).

Movie: 3D Captain America - The Winter Soldier

Watch out! There be spoilers ahead (potentially)!

I may be getting jaded, but these superhero movies, especially the Marvel ones, are all starting to look the same. There's a superhero, a really evil bad guy, the world is about to end, superhero pummels bad guy in the last scene, world lives to see another day. Really, the superhero is interchangeable with these story lines. This could be a Thor movie, or an Iron Man movie.

That's not to say this isn't a good movie. I liked it very much. Chris Evans is a very likeable hero. It's just that there were no surprises in this movie. It really is a by-the-book superhero movie. If it was up to me, every superhero movie would be under the control of Joss Whedon, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. I can't wait for the next Avengers movie.

If you are a watcher of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show (and if not, why not? It's excellent), then the plot of this movie will be familiar. It's pretty much the same as this movie. Bad guys Hydra take over S.H.I.E.L.D., and Captain America has to save it. That's what I meant earlier when I said there were no surprises in this movie.

The highlight of this movie for me was the performance of Sebastian Stan as the bad guy. This guy is really charismatic, and I've got no doubt we'll see him in more movies. It was really great to see Robert Redford as the chief bad guy as well. He adds a certain gravitas to this movie. I also thought the Captain America uniform was superbly designed, even the one at the end that he took out of the museum.

The ending of the movie sets up the next Captain America movie, and because of the box office popularity of this current Captain America, there's no doubt it will becoming in a couple of years time.

My summary, Winter Soldier is an ok movie, I liked it, but it's not the best movie I've seen so far this year. It's certainly not as good as the Avengers, but who's going to compete with the sharp mind of Joss Whedon?

Movie - The Trip To Italy

This is a very pleasant little movie.

There is no plot to speak of. It's just Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing fictionalised versions of themselves, driving from one restaurant to another, with the backdrop of some spectacular Italian countryside.

Not a lot happens, action wise, but the dialogue is hilarious in places, especially when they start talking about movies and doing impressions. The part where they were talking about the Dark Knight Rises, and how Michael Caine wasn't going to "bury another batman", almost caused me to leave the cinema so I could have a really good belly laugh without interrupting the other cinema patrons.

Movie: 3D X Men: Days Of Future Past

Bryan Singer is back where he belongs: making great X Men movies. His last foray into the X Menu universe was 11 years ago. Has it really been that long? Seems like only yesterday....

The plot of the movie itself is nothing original. It's been done in lots of movies. Basically, the world has gone to hell. Mutants are being hunted down and killed by giant human engineered robots who can detect mutants and adapt to their powers. The robots were created back in 1973 by a scientist, who was subsequently killed by mutant Raven, who is also known as Mystique. Of course, this killing has spurred on the government to continue working on the giant robots, with the aid of the soon captured Raven's DNA, to make the robots adaptable. Wolverine is sent back to 1973, in a fashion, to prevent Raven/Mystique from killing the scientist, and thus preventing the mutant/human war. Just like Marty McFly going back to 1955 to prevent terrorists from killing Doc Brown.

The movie is in 3D, but it didn't seem all that noticeable (I see a lot of 3D movies so maybe I'm becoming immune to it's effects). I don't think it would have made much difference to have seen the movie in 2D. I think I'm quite lucky. I have no problem with watching 3D movies. The difference in the lighting level is barely noticeable to me, and I don't get headaches like I know some people do. Maybe it's because the cinema I go to has all their machinery set up correctly (I only ever go to one cinema).

All the usual cast are back from previous X Men movies. According to IMDB, Hugh Jackman still holds the record for the most times an actor has played the same character in films, seven. He's also the only person who has been in all the X-Men films, if you count the little cameos as well. One great addition to the cast is Peter Dinklage, who was in one of my favourite movies, The Station Agent.

Wait for the end of credits, there's a little bit extra. I have no idea what it means though. I'll guess I'll have to wait till 2016 and X Men Apocalypse.