Short Reviews from January 2014

I haven't gotten the time to write up reviews lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen the latest films of the past month. However, I somewhat feel I like I shouldn't have made time to see January releases, because we know January to normally have the cinematic diarrhea of the year. In spite of that, though it's not usually fun to have to watch them, sometimes it's fun to review a crappy movie; so I've compiled some short reviews for the movies I saw in January. So here are the 5 films I saw this past month, in order of when I watched them.

Legend of Hercules
2 out of 10 Noodles
This was one of the first movies of 2014. And the only way that this year could start off with a bang is if somewhat shot themselves after watching this film. This is movie is actually sort of laughable, because it attempts to convey a sense of epicness, but completely misses that mark. And I knew even from the trailers that it would miss that mark. Legend of Hercules started off terribly. It was stupidly cheesy and had awful CGI/special effects. And the tone of it didn't improve or change at all. The writing, acting, and lighting never seemed to go right in this movie, as there was always something bad about it that I could point out. The set was sometimes cool or felt like it matched the time period. But the costume design absolutely ruined that. This movie is supposed to be filled with grit and action, but virtually everyone's outfits are clean and ironed. It seriously looks like they literally bought them from a party store and were wearing their togas and armor for a history project. And the acting, too, seems like that which would come from a mentally retarded student presenting the aforementioned history project. It's so offbeat, and many of the characters grunt for no reason whatsoever. It's horrific. Watching this movie, I was thinking that it could be given some slack because it was probably a low budget movie that was trying to show it had artful value or whatever. But after looking up this movie, I came to find out that it had a budget of $70 million. 70 MILLION DOLLARS went into a movie with 1980s CGI, elementary school acting, and costumes from Party City. There's pretty much nothing to like about this movie. My mom wanted to see this movie because it looks like a cool action movie. Oh, I forgot to talk about the action! Literally every single fight scene is drowned in slow-mo. Maybe the first use of it was cool because it was obviously ripping off of the stylistic action from 300, but then they just started overdoing it and using it every five seconds. It grew increasingly irritating, just like everything else in this movie. I wouldn't recommend it at all, and it gains its few Noodles because I liked Liam McIntyre, the actor who played Hercules's buddy; and that's expected from him because he's Spartacus. Other than that bright spot, Legend of Hercules doesn't have anything going for it.

Her

9.5 out of 10 Noodles
Her is officially a 2013 movie, but it came out at my theatre in the beginning of January, so I didn't get to see it until recently. But better late than never, because Her is one of my favourite movies of 2013. This movie is a gem, and it's so impressive because it seems so simple, yet it's so profound and layered. The premise is that of Joaquin Phoenix's character, Theodore, who is a recently divorced writer. Well not exactly a writer; he writes love letters from a client's perspective. And he lives in the recent future; not very distant, but they have a little more advanced technology and architecture. Theodore purchases a new OS system that organizes his stuff, reads him his emails, sets alarms and schedules, etc., and has an artificial intelligence (voiced by Scarlett Johanssen) in that Theodore can have conversations with it. However, as he spends more time with this OS, he starts to sort of develop feelings for it; and the computer, via it's artificial intelligence system, starts to do the same for him. They start to date. You might be thinking right now: wait, this movie is about a guy who starts dating his computer? Um, yes. The genius of this film is that it makes you believe it all. All these characters seem so real and you get so invested in them. You see this love story from many perspectives, and you actually kinda get into Theodore's head. He's falling in love with a computer, and you're totally behind it. Watching this movie, I was just so invested in this relationship and it's truly compelling and emotional. The writing is so perfect, wherein everything that takes place seems so fluid and has purpose. The conversations are real, and the way they're spoken have enthusiasm and feeling to it. The acting is on point. Joaquin Phoenix gives one of the year's best performances; he was so great at playing this eccentric guy while retaining such an immense amount of likability. And his loving computer, Samantha, was voiced with such awe by Scarlett Johanssen. It's amazing how just her voice actually brought so much to this movie Then we have the supporting cast which was all great: Amy Adams, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde. But a star in this movie was the director, Spike Jonze; he really put his stamp on this film and shows that he's really a great filmmaker. He sprinkles in great commentaries on things like love, misunderstanding, and humanity; it had a nice little share of big Hollywood moments; and his direction makes this movie so vivid and engrossing. Her is one of the most original and unique movies I've seen in awhile. It had a really fresh feeling to it, but was also enticing and sucked me into the world and the characters. I really wish more movies could be like Her.

Devil's Due

1 out of 10 Noodles
Hollywood just needs to stop making found footage movies, because they just have absolutely no cinematic value anymore. The last found footage movie to actually work well was the first Paranormal Activity, but Hollywood realized that a lot of people (normally teenagers and date-goers) like to watch these "scary" movies, so with such a small budget that found footage films cost, they can definitely make big money. But even then, they should at least try to make these movies have plausible stories, instead of just throwing in possessions and apparitions for shits & giggles. The writing in this movie is so bad, and the characters are so unrealistically stupid. The movie centers around a newly married couple, but before I get to them I have to speak about the totally unrealistic cop. The guy calls 911 because of all the shady and creepy stuff going on and the cop comes but literally is no help at all. He just leaves and says he'll write a report, instead of giving any type of solution to this helpless guy. I dunno, that just got to me how unrealistic this cop was, but anyway, back to the main couple. The main couple of the movie is on their honeymoon, and a really shady cabdriver tells them he'll take them somewhere special. He takes them to a creepy alley in the middle of nowhere, and it looks so sketchy. But they still continue to follow him! If it even got that far, any sane individual would turn around and get the hell outta there. But nope, this is a found footage movie; our characters have to be dumb enough for our scary stuff to happen. Anyway, they go into this underground club. Let me tell you, this whole creepy club and society there was actually a tad interesting in how it existed, and was honestly scarier than the actual happenings in this film. That's another flaw of the writing, which I cannot seem to bash enough. Also due to the writing, and probably the directing, was that this movie was unbearably boring. It's an hour and a half, but still felt so long. Sure, it was had a couple of scares, but all of them were predictable and cliche, much like this whole movie. And while a cliche found footage is bad, Devil's Due absolutely sucked.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
6 out of 10 Noodles
This is technically a prequel to the previous Tom Clancy movies, The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Sum of All Fears. All of these movies are centered around the character, Jack Ryan (portrayed by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck, respectively) and his ongoing espionage conflicts. The first is considered a classic, and the others are also considered excellent spy thrillers, so Shadow Recruit had a lot to live up to. Does it? Eh, kinda. This movie chronicles the genesis of how Jack Ryan became a CIA analyst and ended up getting caught up in international crises, it's an origin story. But in spite of that, it's a pretty generic spy movie. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit tended to play it safe in that it didn't try anything new that could end up being only either great or bad; it just stuck to what most people like to see in a spy movie. You like intense chase scenes? It's there. How about conversations between the protagonist and the bad guy? We got it. Cliche secret spy life that the main character can't tell his girlfriend? Yup. There's nothing really bad to say about this movie, but nothing very great either. It's entertaining and it's a cool spy movie that sticks to the roots of spy movies. Plus, I really liked Kenneth Branagh as the Russian bad guy. Gotta love Russian bad guys. It's a good movie but not one that's highly memorable. I'd say it's the best movie of January, but is that even saying much?

I, Frankenstein 

4.5 out of 10 Noodles
Let's get something straight. Frankenstein is NOT the monster. He's the guy who created the monster, he's the crazy scientist. The monster is simply Frankenstein's Monster. Or in this movie, his name's Adam. However, some people still call him Frankenstein. You think that's sloppy? Wait till you actually see this movie. It is sloppy from the start; the tone, the story, it's all sloppy. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. I'd say that I, Frankenstein is purely just a guilty pleasure movie. It has some pretty cool action sequences, among them that have somewhat bad CGI, but it's still entertaining. Aaron Eckhart, as Frankenstein's Monster, you can tell he's acting his ass off in this movie. He's trying hard; is he overacting a lot? Yes, of course, but it's a guilty pleasure movie so it's fun. His character's morality was interesting too, probably the best point of the writing in this sloppy script. He's sort of a wild card in this ongoing war between Demons and Gargoyles. The Gargoyles looks really cool sometimes, especially one scene where they fly to a rooftop and change into human form. The Demons, though, looked really weird; the makeup done on them was almost laughable and they didn't look intimidating at all. Even their first scene where they try to gang up on Adam, it's cheesy and unformidable because you know the main guy is gonna look badass and then beat all these guys. That's what we get for a lot of this film. Coming out at the end of January, though, was a good marketing scheme for this film, since it came out after all the shit movies so it would comparatively seem better. I, Frankenstein is by no means a gem, or even a remotely good film; but it's definitely a guilty pleasure.