Movie Review: The Wolverine (2013)

When we first find Logan (Hugh Jackman) he is alone in the Canadian wilderness, living in a cave with only the bare bone necessities needed for survival. He’s still haunted by his past; a vision of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), the woman he was forced to kill in X-Men: The Last Stand, visits him in his dreams, asking the former Wolverine to join her in death. But Logan can’t join her in death. He may never be able to die, thanks to a healing factor that feels more like a curse than a blessing at this stage in his life.

The Wolverine is a personal journey for Logan, who struggles to reconcile the pain he’s caused with the fact that he’ll never answer for it. In this unexpectedly deep character study, Logan will face his past head on, dealing with not only the memories of his tortured life, but the demons he created from the people he chose to save.

Logan finds a bear in the woods that is slowly dying from a poison. Little does he know that the fate of this one animal will soon parallel his own life.  After heading to Japan to meet a man he saved during the bombing of Nagasaki (Hiroyuki Sanada), Logan is given a proposition: transfer his healing factor to the man, allowing Logan to live the normal life he’s always longed for.

Movie Review: The Conjuring (2013)

 

I’m an atheist, a skeptic, and a rational human being. I don’t believe in gods, psychics, demons, ghosts, or other spooky things. That being said, I’m a huge fan of The Exorcist, and I am perfectly capable of employing the suspension of disbelief necessary to thoroughly enjoy a film about demon possession.  I went into The Conjuring with an open mind, expecting to enjoy some classic horror thrills. But what I saw instead was a movie that seemed obsessed with falling into the realm of the completely absurd, destined to just be another forgotten mainstream horror film.

The Exorcist was tempered in its execution, relying on traditional scares, clever lighting, and superb sound design to sell you on its premise, and that’s why it was so effective. The Conjuring starts out following this time-tested formula, but soon devolves into nonsensical crap, stabbing your suspension of disbelief to death with one of the silliest exorcisms ever to haunt a horror movie, floating shotguns and biting demons included.

My Interview with Third Eye Weekly on BreakThru Radio

 

I was interviewed by Molly Freeman of Third Eye Weekly about the use of special effects and CGI in cinema. The interview came about after Molly read my reviews of The Hobbit, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Oz the Great and Powerful, where I criticized the use of computer effects as a replacement for matte paintings and model sets.

Check out the interview here: Third Eye Weekly on BreakThru Radio (MP3)

Follow Molly on Twitter (@MollyRockIt), and I'm sure she'd like you to follow her show, too (@ThirdEyeWeekly)

Movie Review: Pacific Rim (2013)

 

The world we know is being attacked by giant sea monsters called Kaiju, which enter Earth through a portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. After seeing cities destroyed by these massive dinosaur-ish fish creatures, governments have united to come up with a solution: giant robots. These walking tanks, called Jaegers, are piloted by two people who are bound through a Vulcan-mind-meld-ish process called “Drifiting”. After all, commanding something that big has to be too powerful for any one mind to master, right?

Yes, all of this is really farfetched and kind of asinine. But just go with it. Pacific Rim is one of those movies that requires your suspension of disbelief to be pushed to its limits; however, if you can manage to turn off your critical eye long enough to finish the movie, you’re probably going to find the idea of massive monsters fighting mega robots to be more fun than expected. In the same way that Godzilla trilled me as a child, it’s fun for the adult me to watch the Kaiju destroy a city.

These Kaiju come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and power levels, and they just seem to be getting stronger.  Their attacks are becoming more vicious and more prevalent with each passing day, and humanity is on the verge of being completely overwhelmed. The Jaegers are no longer the saviors of the world they used to be, barely able to keep up with the repairs in time for the next beast to emerge from the sea.

PlayStation 3 Review: The Last of Us

The opening scene of The Last of Us drew me in immediately. Playing as a young girl, I felt terror when I woke up alone, exploring a dark house, calling out to my father and getting no response. The newspaper on the sink talked about a new virus spreading quickly, the symptoms of which seemed to be aggression and violent tendencies. It was then that I heard a noise downstairs. If I wanted to progress, I had to go investigate. Pushing the stick forward, I felt like I was walking to my own doom.

The opening grabs you tight and doesn’t let go, but somehow the game manages to become even more compelling as it progresses. Despite a narrative that, on the surface, appears to be riddled with horror clichés, somehow The Last of Us manages to dodge your expectations unceremoniously, becoming more brutal and depressing with every moment that passes by.

The story in The Last of Us works because the characters work. The Last of Us is – for lack of a better term – a character drama, in the same vein as The Walking Dead or Stephen King’s The Mist. Yes, it’s a generic horror setting. But it works because the characters feel so deep, raw, and real. Joel, Ellie, and the supporting cast are as interesting as any characters you’ll find on television, and the superb voice acting is largely to thank for that.

Movie Review: Monster's University (2013)

The short film that preceded Monsters University, The Blue Umbrella, is a beautiful work of visual poetry, using music and rhythm to progress the narrative, with absolutely no dialogue whatsoever. It’s a story about – as you may have guessed – a blue umbrella that develops an attraction to a red umbrella, which happens to be the only other color that stands out amongst the sea of traditional black (there’s some symbolism in there somewhere).

When the blue umbrella finds itself blown away during a rain storm, a world of inanimate objects comes alive, working together to save the helpless little guy from all sorts of peril, all to reunite him with his bright red crush. The animation is absolutely fantastic; perfect rain effects and dark lighting dominate the environment, creating detailed shadows and reflections everywhere. Pixar is a studio that once combined incredible technical polish with a unique approach to storytelling. Their true power is shown during this wonderful little short.

Then The Blue Umbrella ended and Monsters University began. From there on out things seemed fairly run-of-the-mill -- a very sad thing to have to say about any Pixar production. After all, this is the studio that gave the world masterpieces like Ratatouille (2007) and Toy Story (1995).