Top 5 Movie Villains of All Time

So since Maleficent just came out, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the villain's perspective, I've decided it's relevant to tell you guys about my top 5 favorite movie villains of all time. This is just my opinion, so don't freak out when HAL-9000 or Norman Bates isn't on here.

5. Michael Corleone

The Godfather Part II (1974)
Although Michael Corleone is the main character you follow in The Godfather trilogy it's no doubt that once he inherits the title of "Godfather" at the end of the first movie, he means business. From the last act of the first film, you see how relentless Michael Corleone is. But in the second film, he's evil and merciless throughout, even ordering the killing of his own brother for not siding with the family. That is a serious Mafia man.


4. Keyser Soze 
The Usual Suspects (1995)

The Usual Suspects is one of my favorite movies of all time, and to me it has the greatest ending of all time. For some reason, I just really like when a film has the guts to have the villain win in the end, and this film fits that. You only hear rumors of Keyser Soze throughout the whole movie and he's such a mysterious character that the ending reveal is even that much more fulfilling. If you thought Corleone was vicious, know that Keyser Soze killed his own family just to prove a point that he means business. And throughout the movie, you know he's pulling every little string.




3. T-1000
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Arnold Schwarzeneggar in the original Terminator is a great villain as the T-800, but the T-1000 in Terminator 2 is what always caught my attention. Robert Patrick really sells the fact that he's a relentless android. He's so set on his mission and will stop at nothing to kill John Connnor, ya just gotta love that about a villain. And the way he runs looks so cool, you really believe he's a robot. Plus, he's liquid metal, that was the coolest thing ever when this movie came out.

2. Hannibal Lecter 
Silence of the Lambs (1991)
I was tempted to put Hannibal as #1, because Anthony Hopkins is just so chilling and menacing in the role. In just 15 minutes of screen time he was awarded the Oscar for best actor. Almost every line of that comes out of this characters mouth is gold, and I could quote Hannibal for days. You really buy into it that he really is smarter than everyone else in the room, but that he's also extremely psychotic. Hopkins is amazing as Hannibal in Red Dragon and Hannibal, but he really outshines everything in this movie.

1. The Joker
The Dark Knight (2008)
Heath Ledger as the Joker was legendary, and after watching this movie for the first time, I absolutely became obsessed with his portrayal. He conveys the menace, dark humor, and crazy of Joker but adds his own interpretations of grit and chaos. Though it's unfortunate that Heath Ledger passed shortly after finishing this movie, I'm glad he was able to give us one of the most memorable performances in cinema history because his Joker is extremely unique while retaining the best elements of the original comic book character, and is endlessly quotable; making him my definitely my favorite movie villain of all time and quite possible one of my favorite movie characters of all time.

Godzilla 2014 - Noodles Review

If you haven't already been to my new YouTube channel, do so! Here is my video review of the new Godzilla movie, so check it out! Don't forget to like and subscribe! Thanks and stay tuned for future video reviews. 

(if the video above doesn't work, use this link: Godzilla - Noodles Review)

X-Men: Days of Future Past - Noodles Review

X-Men: Days of Future Past - Noodles Video Review

I've started making video reviews on YouTube so click the link to watch my latest review of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YiPmrIxqJc

Neighbors - Noodles Review

8 out of 10 Noodles

    Surprised by that rating? Me too. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't have high expectations for this movie. I am a guy who will admit when he is wrong though, and I'm happy to admit that I was kinda wrong about this movie. It's a not a comedy classic, but it was still actually really good! The premise of this movie is really simple and sets up for some great laughs that you almost feel like could happen (although they're greatly exaggerated). Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are a young married couple who have baby daughter that's about six months old maybe. They just moved into a new neighborhood and they love it. And then the house next door gets some new tenants, too. A fraternity from the nearby university moves into the house next door. And basically, you know exactly where that's gonna go because it's a partying frat house next to a married couple with a baby. Neighbors could've gone one of two ways, the first of which being a stupid comedy filled with immature humor that doesn't end up good or funny. However, I'm happy it ended up taking the alternate route, even though it retained some immature humor. Mainly what was great about this movie was the chemistry between the actors. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne were really great together. They really played off of eachother in every scene and you really got the feeling that they're married. Zac Efron, too, had great chemistry with Seth Rogen, as well as with the rest of his frat brothers.

    One of the main questions that'll be asked about this movie is: how was Zac Efron. Well I have one word to answer that: awesome. He has really succeeded in getting away from Disney and High School Musical because this movie will make you forget he was ever part of those. He's got some very funny scenes and he plays his character very well. And every male human being that watches this movie will probably feel bad about themselves once they seem him shirtless in this movie, so the ladies get a treat there. Nonetheless, I actually was pleasantly surprised by his talent, his ability to take on this potty-mouthed, douchy, immature, leader-type role all at the same time, and most of all his chemistry with the other actors. You got Dave Franco in this movie as the vice president of the fraternity and he's good too (although it's a little hard to get used to his accent or the way he talks) and McLovin is in the frat as well, along with a really funny black guy whose name escapes me. Seth Rogen plays Seth Rogen, just like in every movie he's in, and in real life; but there's nothing wrong with that because it still works for him. Rose Byrne is really great, I'm glad to see her hold up a comedy role because she was hilarious. A great thing about all this though is that these characters have depth. Most comedies nowadays don't really care to add depth to their characters, but this movie took the time to do so. Zac Efron's character has to face the reality of what life really is after he graduates college because it won't just be about being a legendary party-boy anymore. Dave Franco's character somewhat realizes that and actually looks for his future opportunities. While we have the adults, Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, who have back stories and are sort of fleshed out so you can sympathize with them. Some other minor characters though were pretty unrealistic and annoying though, like the police officer or the dean of the college.

   It's not a laugh-a-minute type movie but it's nonetheless extremely funny and really entertaining all the way through. It's really outrageous and it's efficient with it's 90-minute runtime, which I'm glad of because it knew what it wanted to accomplish. This is an R-rated comedy, and it utilizes that because it's really raunchy and very vulgar; but, hey, we all know you're not planning on going with your grandma to see it so it does its thing for the people who actually wanna watch it. It also toed the line of too immature really well, it didn't quite go too far but it went the right length to make you laugh. Not all the jokes in the movie ended up punching all the way through but it was still entertaining regardless. There are some great scenes also that shoutout to some hollywood classics like a scene where Zac Efron and Seth Rogen are high and end up arguing over who's the better Batman (Christian Bale or Michael Keaton), and then a scene where the fraternity is having a Robert DeNiro party; they're hilarious. Like I said, Neighbors isn't perfect and it's not a comedy classic, but it was still really funny and entertaining throughout, I was pleasantly surprised. With 8 out of 10 Noodles, Neighbors is gonna be the comedy to beat this summer.

New Batsuit Revealed!!!

   Today, Zack Snyder tweeted this picture of Ben Affleck as the new Batman! If you go to one of my very old posts, you'll see my thoughts when Ben Affleck was first cast as the caped crusader for the sequel to Man of Steel which is tentatively called Batman vs Superman. A lot of people like that Affleck was cast, a lot of people don't. No matter who they would've chosen, there would still be debates whether it's a good choice or not and we can never know until this movie actually comes out. I was pretty skeptical but I really wanna see him do well in the role. Nonetheless, this is the internet, so there will ALWAYS be haters out there no matter who gets cast for whatever; I'd just like to think that these filmmakers know what they're doing..But I'll just start off by saying that this picture actually makes me feel a lot more confident about this movie.
    The batsuit looks very reminiscent of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, which is one of the comics that the film is drawing inspiration from, as well as being a very awesome Batman story arc that any Batman comic fan should check out. This Batman is older and weathered by fighting crime, you can kinda see that the suit looks a little worn out, which I like. It actually also sorta reminds me of the suit from the Arkham video games, so that's cool. He also looks really built so kudos to Ben Affleck; that man has got the Batman body now. And I think this suits him well. I mean, some people might say that the ears on the cowl look too short, but that's keeping true to Dark Knight Returns and might even be more practical for Batman himself. He's in his 40's so maybe he's learned a thing or two. Also, we get a nice look at the batmobile in this picture, and although we don't see the whole thing, it looks pretty damn sweet from what we do see. Now there are fan's of the Tumbler from the Nolan series and fans of the batmobile from Tim Burton's movies, but I think this one kind of brings the best of both worlds: it looks like it's got the big tank-like structure but also retains the cool-looking visor-like windshield. This whole picture looks pretty epic and it kind of encapsulates the ideal that this Batman has been through a lot. Overall, it is a great picture, I am very glad we got it. I can't say it got me more hyped for this movie because I'm already at the maximum level wherein my only reason for continuing to live up to May 2016 is because this film will be released then. I cannot wait to see a new iteration of Batman on the big screen; a lot of people may have trouble getting used to it after being used to Bale's Batman but, hey, characters get rebooted all the time. The Dark Knight Trilogy is fantastic and it's its own condensed Batman epic. That being said, I am ready to see where the new Batman character goes in Batman vs Superman and absolutely cannot wait to get my ass in that theatre seat at midnight.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Noodles Review

6.5 out of 10 Noodles

    Our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man swings in to start off summer movie season for 2014. I was highly anticipating this film because I felt it could really bring us a great Spider-Man movie. It's predecessor rebooted the Spider-Man movie franchise, and I didn't love that movie. It did a good job of establishing Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man but it didn't fulfill on its promise to "bring answers to the mystery of Peter Parker's parents;" which was essentially the main reason to go and see the same origin story of the web-slinger again, even though the Sam Raimi version did a good enough job. So while that movie was underwhelming, I was very hopeful for this film. I really wanted this to be the definitive Spider-Man experience. Fortunately, and unfortunately, that is all it does. And by that I mean that you really get the sense that this is a Spider-Man movie. Say what you want about Andrew Garfield, but this movie has sold me that he IS Spider-Man. He's got the whole tone and comedic manner, yet serious and heroic nature, that Spidey should have, and that's where he beats Toby Maguire's version. He's also got a tall sleek figure, that really suits the hero more similarly to the comic book iterations. As Peter Parker, he's also good, I don't exactly buy that he's a dork because he seems like an attractive and cool guy, but I'm willing to suspend belief to a certain degree. Peter Parker's little jokes didn't always click with, I kinda felt like they were overdoing it. But when Spider-Man would joke around while fighting bad guys, I was laughing out loud sometimes.

     The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a funny and action-filled movie, but it's also serious sometimes. It focuses a lot on the romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. The chemistry of the two actors is tremendous (probably because they're a couple in real life) and you really get the vibe that they love each other. However, a lot of the teen touchy-feely moments felt like they were in the way. While I do feel that their back-and-forth seemed genuine and gave depth to their characters, it started to feel a bit repetitive for me. There was too much of their will-they-won't-they type thing going on, which I imagine Spider-Man would have a complicated love life; but I feel it really could've been condensed. Nonetheless, both of their acting is great, as is almost the whole cast. Jamie Foxx is great with what he's given, despite that his character seems a little too naive at first. When he becomes Electro, he looks and feels like a threat to Spidey, which is a great vibe to get from a villain. Also we have Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborne, which was one of the main reasons I had hope for this movie. He is really good in the role, giving at first a friendly feel to the character but becoming more and more chilling as the movie progressed. However, I feel that some aspects of his character were shoehorned into this movie. I think that the movie could've had just Harry or just Electro as the villain, because it the movie started to become tonally inconsistent and cluttered (although there is one great scene where Harry recruits Electro and then uses him as a personal bodyguard). Then there's also our third villain, which was too heavily marketed. Rhino is barely in this movie. He's basically one of those generic bad guys in the movie that Spider-Man catches in the first 10 minutes of the movies (like those random bank robbers, thieves, etc.). This movie was very mis-marketed. It gives too much away in the trailers. And the last shot of the entire movie is in every single trailer. Additionally, one thing that really pissed me off, was that the most exciting scene in the trailer wasn't even in the movie! That scene in the trailers where Harry tells Peter that Oscorp has him under surveillance, and then Peter asks why and he responds, "Isn't that the question of the day?" That's not at all in the movie, nor is anything related to that plotline.

    The villains in this movie were cool and underwhelming at the same time. Let's just scratch Rhino off that list already, because he's barely in this movie at all, despite having an accent that sounds like Gru from Despicable Me. Having Rhino on the poster for this movie would be like if you had Scarecrow on the poster for The Dark Knight. On to our other two villains, the setup for them were great. There was a lot of buildup, capitalized by great acting. You even felt sympathetic towards them. Electro's first scene in time square is fantastic. But the final battle's are underwhelming and end rather abruptly. This movie was showing that it had so many villains and I was hoping that it could handle that better than the abysmal Spider-Man 3; and while this is way better than that, it didn't do complete justice to that aspect. I feel like this film was trying to be too many things at once, and lacked a central focus. It was trying to tie together a summer blockbuster with a romantic comedy with a smart villainous plot with a mystery of Peter's parents with etc etc etc. So it just piles up to the point where the movie has no natural flow of events; instead feeling like just a string of entertaining events. But boy were they entertaining! The special effects were incredible and the actions scenes were greatly done. They also gave us a lot of Spidey's trademark poses with his webs. The whole Spider-Man saving the day aspect of this movie was fantastic. There are scenes that I absolutely loved (like a scene that really shows his spider senses and time stops so you can see what's about to happen), and there's even classic Spider-Man humour in there along with the action.

    You get a great Spider-Man vibe from this movie and I feel like there was I lot to love about this film. However, for almost everything that I loved, there could also be something that I disliked. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is undoubtedly a fun movie theatre experience and will entertain most. The action and witty jokes are great, and the actors are spectacular. There's also tons of little easter eggs for fans to find. But there's still some downfalls about this movie, with the main one being how sloppy and cluttered the films feels as a whole. The filmmakers were trying to fit too much into this movie, and it stripped the movie of its focus. In the end though, it was definitely better than the first movie, and a very fun Spider-Man movie, earning 6.5 out of 10 Noodles.

Transcendence - Noodles Review

4.5 out of 10 Noodles

    So Transcendence is the directorial debut of Wally Pfister. He's one of my favourite cinematographers and is mostly known for doing the cinematogrophy of Nolan films like The Dark Knight trilogy andd Inception. This is his first movie in the director's chair, helming the whole project, and you can tell he's sort of trying to emulate that Nolan-esque vibe of thought-provoking and visual stuff. He's also got a couple of Nolan staples in Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, and Rebecca Hall; all being led by Johnny Depp. I'm happy to see Johnny Depp not doing his whole quirky Jack Sparrow thing that he's been doing in like The Long Ranger and Alice in Wonderland\, here he plays a scientist who's researching artificial intelligence with his wife. Then there's this anti-AI terrorist group and they shoot him so ultimately the wife decrees that they should upload his mind into the computer so that he becomes an AI and can stay with us. Now we have our movie, and it's essentially the tale of men becoming computers, his consciousness lives on in a virtual world that sort of manifests itself in reality. And it's actually really.... boring. I was actually looking forward to this movie, I like the cast, I think the premise is actually pretty cool and I was interested to see how Pfister could handle it. You could tell this was directed by a cinematographer because there are some cool shots and some pretty ones too. But you could also tell it's his first time because the pacing is all over the place, and the story-telling becomes too convoluted for its own good. The premise is cool but I'm not exactly certain that the director could handle its high concept.

     The beginning is sort of dull, but it's mainly buildup. There is action and suspense taking place to convey the tragedy that befalls Johnny Depp's character Will, and then it really looks like the high concepts are gonna pick up because they have to figure out the consequences of turning Will into this AI and whether or not that would affect his humanity. That was one of the main things I looked forward to in this movie: that element of him losing his humanity and becoming only the computer like HAL9000, whether or not he's actually Will. It takes its toll on his wife, who's played by Rebecca Hall and she was fantastic in the role, it's practially her movie. The emotion of the film is carried by her; she wants to keep holding on to Will and still does as he asks while he's a computer because she believes her husband's still in there. There's some cool things that they do together, like uploading him into the Internet, and getting money off of stocks, but eventually they go to this desolate little town in the middle of nowhere, and that's ironically when the movie falls apart even more. Just when the movie seems like it's gonna pick up after all that's happened, and I'm thinking okay now the real movie I came to see is here; it completely just gets boring and hard to get invested in. And not for the reason that they're in a boring little town. It sort of becomes a different movie, whereas we were first watching a contemperary sci-fi drama about holding on to someone even after they're gone; the second half doesn't know what it is, trying to mix together to many movie elements in a sloppy manner. I'm not unhappy that it tried to go for all these big concept things, I just thought it was dull storytelling and a lack of blending aspects together. The movie is really boring at points, and then it'll pick up and get interesting but then become way too preposterous. And once it gets too outrageous, you just can't stay invested anymore.

    The acting all around was pretty good, Paul Bettany was probably my own favourite out of the characters. We all know Morgan Freeman is gonna be great no matter what, and Cillian Murphy is great actor too; but the two of them have virtually nothing to do in this movie. The only character I didn't really like was Kate Mara's character who was part of the terrorist organization, but that was also because I thought the whole anti-AI terrorist coup thing was just silly. You gotta blame the writing there, because it's a cool premise that could've been awesome but they get too crazy with it and it just gets dumb. The directing was visually nice, but a movie like this probably needed someone who could better handle the themes and sophistication AI and humanity. The movie did tackle some pretty big concepts but fell short. Once the movie was setup and the climax was ready to be put in motion, nothing really happened and you didn't really care either. There was a shocking lack of emotion in this film, and there was really no one character for viewers to identify with on this ride. I wanted to like this movie a lot, but honestly I was so bored and can only give credit to the acting and potential of this movie, but that doesn't complete a movie so it gets an incomplete score of 4.5 out of 10 Noodles.