Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

If you read up on the original stories for most fairytales, they're often incredibly gruesome, gory, sexual, disturbing, or just flat out weird. You can thank the Grimm brothers, two German authors with wicked imaginations and amazing research skills, for a lot of the stories (albeit the rated G versions) you grew up hearing.

Extra crispy

The movie gets off to a wonderfully dark start, with the two small children being left in the woods for "unknown reasons" (It's part of the story, just have patience for the movie). They stumble upon, of course, a house made of candy. The witch occupying the house is less than friendly, however. The children are captured and force-fed magical candy, and then escape their bounds. After stabbing, clubbing, and roasting their first witch, the children apparently decide to make this their hobby. With their parents missing and a fairly large chip on their shoulder, the children create a whole new career path. A few credit pages and a montage later, the children have grown up, killing witches all along the way. 

When you lose the first fight, get a bigger gun.

As adults, the two travel the world hunting witches with oddly advanced weaponry (Jeremy Renner loves his ranged weapons) and a mysterious immunity to the witches magic. They happen upon a town where children are being taken in larger numbers, conveniently arriving three days before a holy day to the witches. The town's sherrif is doing an abysmal job of finding the witches, wrongly accusing women and losing men to the search. The mayor hires the siblings to investigate the abductions and to try and find the children, assuming there's anything left of them. 

It's always nice to see characters that have flaws. It makes them more relatable. It's hard to get connected to a person who always does the right thing, who always succeeds in their missions. Hansel and Gretel does a nice job of showing the two improvising on their witch hunts, making mistakes, and having exploitable weaknesses (Apparently the candy that Hansel was forced to eat as a child basically gave him magical diabetes).

With the size of that needle, and the frequency of the injection, it's a surprise he even has any thigh left

Visual: 5 out of 5
  The witches look great in their true forms, very primal and evil in appearance. There's a large amount of combat gore (especially when the troll is involved) that is well done. The environment is also quite vivid, reminding me of scenery from The Hobbit or other fantasy settings. It fits quite well for a fairytale adaptation.

Story: 5 out of 5
  Flawed heroes, a memorable story from your childhood, cool action with guns, crossbows, and magic. There's even a couple of romantic hooks and a loveable sidekick.

Overall:
  Fairytale remakes are very hit or miss, usually divided by the amount of money the movie has to use. With this being a higher funded production, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters falls into the "hit" category. Definitely worth a watch.


Toodles!

Prometheus

The Alien franchise has always been one that I have enjoyed watching (Though the newer ones have fallen far from the originals). One problem with the collection of movies is that they have not been made in chronological order. Prometheus is the prequel of the series.

After discovering a series of ancient artifacts depicting tall beings and a cluster of stars, a team of scientists locate a distant moon in the cluster that could support life. An expedition is funded and the team is sent lightyears away from earth to find out what is so important on this moon.

A very nice example of the CG effects in the movie

That head may or may not be to scale...

Upon arrival, the team discovers a structure that does not appear to be natural (God doesn't make work in straight lines). The team begins exploring and piecing together the events that occurred before their arrival. Extreme weather ends up stranding members of the expedition inside of the strange structure for several hours, and their presence inside sets something into motion.

With their discoveries creating more questions than answers, events quickly begin to spiral out of control. The history of what happened on the moon is pieced together, and the crew becomes divided on what the course of action should be.

This is what happens when you mess with the air conditioning

Visual: 4 out of 5
  The Alien franchise has always done a good job when it comes to special effects, making good use of the technology of the time. The environments are fascinating (though hard to see in the darkness most of the movie takes place in), and the CG effects are great as always. A few of the biological effects are a little cheesy, and reminiscent of the older Alien movies.

Story: 3 out of 5
  A lot is left unexplained (Prometheus 2, maybe?). It also follows pretty closely to the other Alien movies. Team arrives, team gets separated, team member does something stupid, team member gives "birth" to alien, most of the cast ends up dead. It's a little reused of a story arc at this point, but it still works.

Overall: 3 out of 5
  The effects are updated, but the story is similar to the other Alien movies. Having seen them first, this one is more of a nostalgic nod to the older movies. Still, if you liked the other movies this is just another way to watch the aliens make mincemeat out of scientists.

Toodles!

Batman Begins

He just had to tick off the boss...

Yet another origin story, Batman Begins is set in a slightly different universe than other Batman series. Christopher Nolan wanted to take a step away from the super-beings present in many other story arcs, and set this series of Batman movies in a more realistic world. Batman Begins follows Bruce Wayne in his training with The League of Shadows, an organization run by Ra's Al Ghul, who are essentially ninjas who strive for balance in the world. In the grand scheme of alignments, The League falls under True Neutral, striving for balance between good and evil, law and chaos, regardless of cost.

After time in harsh physical and psychological training at The League's hands, Bruce returns to Gotham City to find it in a terrible state. Crime and corruption run rampant throughout the society and Bruce begins to take steps to becoming the Batman in order to bring the city back to order. Being a billionaire certainly has its perks when funding a one man assault on crime. Using his company's resources, Batman is born.

This is a very technical Pew-Pew gun. For... spelunking... yeah...

After taking on a crime lord in the city, Batman finds his first rival in the form of Scarecrow, a master of psycological chemicals and poisons. Scarecrow uses a toxin that induces horrible visions into it's victims, chemically induced fear. His true purpose in Gotham is later revealed, as well as his accomplices.

Someone forgot to hold their breath

Visual: 5 out of 5

  The use of fear inducing chemicals plays a fair role in this movie, and the way it is portrayed is very well done. The action sequences are amazing to watch, as should be expected from a Batman movie. Cool gadgets, ninja combat, and high budget explosions. What more could you ask for?

Story: 5 out of 5

  Seeing Batman as a true human, not someone who trained in magic, not fighting alongside Superman, his enemies using chemicals instead of sorcery or mythical powers, is refreshing. He bleeds, gains significant injuries, and is limited to (movie) physics. The story of his training with The League mixes nicely with his first battle for Gotham's soul.

Overall 5 out of 5

I'm always a sucker for Batman movies and Christopher Nolan does an amazing job of creating a Batman series set in a realistic world. If you're looking for a DC movie to watch, this particular trilogy has an amazing start with Batman Begins.

The Grey

Some movies are just better to see them in theatres. There's something about the darkness, the huge screen, the massive subwoofers. It just makes the experience so much different than seeing a movie at home or on Netflix. The Grey is one of those movies. I saw it in theatres when it first came out and really enjoyed it. As someone who doesn't normally enjoy thriller or horror movies, the fact that I liked The Grey was an impressive feat in my mind. I guess it goes to show that Liam Neeson can make anything better.

The Grey follows the story of a man hired to protect pipeline workers in the north. He is a sharpshooter who takes down wolves that try to attack the workers. It is quickly established that the man is a seriously tortured soul, with the story almost ending in the first few minutes.

After surviving a terrible accident, a small group of workers are left to find their way back to civilization and safety. Unfortunately for them, injuries, hunger, freezing weather, are only the first of their problems. A predatory threat stalks them, and the battle between species begins.

Things done well:

  -Uses Liam Neeson quieter voice to draw you in, then scare you back with loud attacks

 -*SPOILER* Once a few of the less likeable characters get killed off, the handful that remain actually get some character development. There are some real moments shared amongst the group, where they get to act like actual people instead of terrified survivors. They share pieces of their past with each other, and you grow much more attached to the smaller group. When one of the characters succumbs to the cold instead of an attack, you can feel the emotion the remaining men experience.

Things not so great

  -Almost all of the characters are total assholes until the second half of the movie

  -There is incredibly bad language (it's a bunch of men working a crap job in the cold, what did you expect?)

  -It can get a little graphic at times, with some gruesome deaths, some emotionally difficult deaths, and if you can't handle seeing animals (even CG ones) hurt then you should be warned now.

The movie was amazing in theatres when it first came out. The massive sound system and darkness of the theatre really added to the atmosphere of the movie. Seeing it again on Netflix wasn't quite the same experience. It might have been the different setting I saw it under, or the fact that I wasn't surprised by the jump-scare attacks by the wolves

All in all, the second half of the movie was immensely more interesting and engaging than the first half. I will warn the faint of heart though. The way that some of these characters die is heartbreaking. I don't want to give anything away, but more than a few die without being attacked by wolves and those ones are honestly the most emotional deaths.

Visual: 3 out of 5

The wolves are a little fake looking, and the rest of the movie is about guys in the frozen middle of nowhere. Some of the scenic shots are beautifully done, but a lot of the movie takes place during a snowstorm. Not a lot to see there.

Story: 3 out of 5

It's hard to get far enough into the movie where you connect with the characters without getting a little bored. The jump scares are front loaded into the movie, so you get a weird combination of a thriller at the beginning and sort of a heartbreaking adventure at the end.

Overall: 3 out of 5

While the first viewing was certainly the best, with the environment of the theatre adding to the pure surprise of the wolf attacks, the second viewing at home was still not a bad time. The second half of the movie makes up for the lack of depth at the beginning, in my opinion.

Toodles!

Priest

Movies about vampires go back for decades, and having a sect of holy men leading a fight against them goes back almost as long. Priest is a movie set in a post apocalyptic future where animalistic vampires have been fighting with humans for generations. Despite technological advances, humankind slowly is losing the war. They create giant, walled cities to protect their remaining numbers, and discover their only hope of defeating the vampires lies in their training of priests, ironically. These priests somehow attain supernatural speed and strength and use the generous funding of the church to gain specialized weapons for taking out the vampires. Once the priests succeed in single-handedly winning the war, the vampires that remain are herded into reserves. With the war over, the priests are sent back into the general population, where they fade into obscurity. For a time, everything seems peaceful. (Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked...)

Face, meet Stabby McStabstab. Stabby, meet Face.

The movie has some decent action scenes, which it should for a movie with so many plot holes. The origin of the superhuman priests is never discussed, other than that they a chosen by the church and trained to fight the vampires. The characters have just enough depth to keep the viewers attention, but have little history or development.

The opening animation. The whole movie should have been done like this.

The graphic nove

Honestly, the best part of the movie is the opening animated sequence. It give the most story, has well animated action, and would make for a more interesting movie, in my opinion. This is probably because the movie is based on a Korean graphic novel, Priest by Hyung Min-Woo.

Story: 2 out of 5
Really. There's not a lot explained for backstory and the characters lack depth. Certainly an action movie, and that's all.

Visual: 4 out of 5
The opening animation is cool, some of the fights are cool, and I've definitely seen worse CG monsters.

Overall: 3 out of 5
Priest is an action movie to the core. The story is fairly weak, but the action scenes are pretty good. I think it's worth one watch, but don't go in with huge expectations.


Toodles!

Batman: Year One

I've always been a fan of the Batman series. Something about having an entirely mortal man fighting crime in a city with chemically, magically, and cosmically enhanced heroes and villains. However, it's easy to look over the fact that as a human, Batman didn't always kick as much butt as he does now. He's come a long way from his first days as a crime fighter. Batman: Year One is an animated movie that shows exactly that, his first year of being Batman in Gotham.

In a style of production that reminds me a lot of the Sin City movies, Year One is supported by a large amount of narrative. Bruce Wayne covers a fair amount of it but surprisingly, this movie focuses more on James Gordon. It shows a lot of James' struggle with the corrupt police force and his first interactions with Batman. It also is an interesting view of Gotham, pre-Batman. It looks incredibly dirty, shady, and sad. 

She knows that long hair is how you get dead

The movie tweaks a lot of details that are different than what I know about the Batman universe (HUGE disclaimer: I haven't read the comic books, so I don't know that mythos. Don't rip into me for this please). One example is that the idea for using a bat as his symbol comes to Bruce when a bat literally crashes through his window instead of from a traumatic interaction as a child. Another small detail (That could be comic-accurate, I don't know) is that Batman trusts Harvey Dent before he trusts James Gordon, or the fact that Catwoman is a prostitute before becoming a master thief.

From his humble days of getting solidly decked by a hooker, to dodging the unavoidable death beams from Darkseid, Batman has certainly come a long way.

Look at that hook! Not like she just jumped out of a two story building...

Story: I'm a sucker for Batman stuff, so getting a larger view of what Gotham was like before Batman cleaned it up was a great time for me. It's also somehow satisfying to see Batman get his butt kicked in a street fight, no super villains involved.

- 5 out of 5

Visual: Some of the scenes are a little disorientating because of the older style animation getting crossed with more modern movement animations for backgrounds. It does do a very good job of emulating the old style of animation.

- 4 out of 5

Overall: It's a nice addition to the Batman universe, and worth the time to get a little more background on just how cool James Gordon is.

- 5 out of 5

He holsters the gun and gives the other guy the bat. Because he's awesome.

Toodles!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Some movies are just bloody amazing (The Princess Bride), some are intentionally awful (Sharknado). So of course, there has to be movies that exist in the middle ground. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is one such movie. The storyline is fairly interesting, taking the classic life of Lincoln and adding in the fantasy of destroying vampires. He fixates on one particular monster who killed his mother, and pursues training in order to become strong enough to fight against the vampires living in America.

As far as a movie goes, there are some clear ups and downs. When the fight scenes use a bit more CGI than normal, holy crap, is it obvious. Like, Neo-spinning-on-a-pole-to-kick-people levels of bad. On the other hand, Lincoln's signature axe serves as a primary weapon in his fight against evil, and the fight scenes that use the axe are really cool to watch. It's incredibly flashy, and makes the fighting interesting to watch.

Story: 7 out of 10 silvered axes
It's about a president fighting vampires with an axe. That's amusing.

Visual: 6 out of 10 stretchy bodies
The horse scene is so bad...But the axe scenes are so cool...

Overall: 7 out of 10 outrageous hats
It's worth a watch, maybe even two. It made for an entertaining evening. I've certainly seen worse movies.

Inside Out

Pixar is one of those can make you care about anything. A crow, a lamp, and now they make you care about a volcano. When I went to see Inside Out in theatres, I was warned that the movie gets very real on an emotional level and that s lot of people cried during it. No one warned me about the roller coaster that was the Lava Song. I cared about a talking (well, singing) volcano. I shared in his hope and pain and joy. A VOLCANO. Darn you Pixar, for making me almost cry during your short, and right before an entire movie about emotions.

Inside Out follows a portion of the life of a young girl, where her family moves away from her hometown to live in New York. A large portion of the movie takes ace inside the girl's head, where her core emotions of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust are given personifications. These emotions go about their daily life and essentially "run" the girl.

The movie does a very good job of showing how major life changes, like moving as a child, can alter one's personality, how depression can entirely shut down someone, or how memories change over time. It's a great movie for kids (though a lot will go over their heads), and Pixar never fails to make its movies entertaining for adults as well.

Inside Out is definitely worth going to see. Bring a cuddly friend and some tissues. 

Plus, singing volcanos!

Toodles!

The Princess Bride

Sorry for the late post, the Internet is spotty at best here. I often need to wait for people to leave and take their devices with them in order to get enough bandwidth to even connect to the Internet.

Now, onto a movie that EVERYONE should see. The Princess Bride. Holy crap, what a movie. The characters are smartly written, well acted, and charismatic. The story is captivating for everyone. If you like action, there's tons of sword fights. Romance? Basically the central theme. Horror? Have you ever seen a machine that literally sucks the life from you, because this movie has it. Comedy? Uhm, tons.

Seriously, this movie is a classic for a reason. It's amazing. Stop reading this and go watch it. Then go buy it. Then buy it for your friends. Even your friends that already have it. It's okay to have two copies. 

WATCH THIS MOVIE

Toodles!