Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)

Plot: The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father’s legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

JJ Abrams is a fine modern science fiction director.  He’s been behind the success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Fringe and Armageddon to name only a few. He’s also the creator for Alias (2001-2006), which as I slowly progress through the series impresses me even further. It’s not his best work, but it shows the variety of fields to which he can apply himself to.

2009 feels like yesterday, though it is almost – gasp – ten years ago now. Star Trek was successfully rebooted by JJ, and a clever tactic of combining old with new worked out particularly well. Starring Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin and Leonard Nimroy, the reboot is entertaining. I’ll inform you that I’m not as versed in Star Trek as I should be, yet I didn’t feel as if I was lacking information and could follow without too much prior knowledge.

The decision to cast Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk is only questionable until you witness him in the role. He is charming, cocky, reckless and brave and he is pivotal in the success of this remake.  Leonard Nimroy provides substantial impact, and seeing him return as an older version of Spock was surely a big moment for established fans. Zachary Quinto embodies what I always imagined of Spock – like I said my knowledge here is rudimentary – but I thought he did a great job. He is also able to portray the level of feelings Spock experience, even though his race is seemly unfeeling. I enjoyed the blatant dislike Spock had in Kirk, and how that changed throughout the film to becoming first a grudging admiration and then a tentative friendship.

The film is quite long, but it also doesn’t feel stretched out. There is naturally a time where they set up the film, and to get everyone on the same page. It provides enough insight into the characters and the events so that the film can progress at a good pace and get to the plot as it should. I wouldn’t call the story a generic one, as it is littered with interesting information, races, visuals and action, but as a Sci-Fi we have all heard the tale of planets being wiped out and its terrestrial force seeking (somewhat uncalled for) vengeance. The end is also just slightly convenient and quick, but overall not something that deducts from the experience of the film. I know it kept me entertained throughout, which is quite the feat these days as everything seems to bore me.

I am ready to venture more deeply into the world of Star Trek, starting with the newer films and someday going back to the older ones.

Rating: 8/10

January 26, 2018January 24, 2018 by Natasha Categories: Movies, movies, Review, Reviews, UncategorizedTags: Anton Yelchin, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pin, JJ Abrams, Leonard Nimroy, movie, Movies, Review, Romulan, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, Star Trek 2009, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana 3 Comments

Series Review: Stranger Things Season 1

Plot: When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief, and his friends must confront terrifying forces in order to get him back.

I can begin this review by telling you that there is no way I will properly be able to express quite how much I liked Stranger Things. More than one person had told me I really should watch it, that I’d like it, that it was fantastic. Did I immediately listen? Of course not. It is me we are talking about here. When I finally got to it, well, everyone turned out to be right. It turned out to be a good decision at least on my part to only watch it recently – we are now closer to the release of Season 2 than I would have been if I watched it when it came out, and I would have suffered for months on end like the rest of you.

Let’s first talk about the music. It is so 80’s pop. I loved it. The tracks perfectly create a nostalgic feeling, and they highlight each situation for maximum effect. It reminded me so much of the music in The Guest, which is also rich in 80’s nostalgia and also sums up my vastly inferior knowledge of this interesting genre.

The cast is incredible, and mostly led by kids at that. Kids, entertaining me?! The majority of the cast still buy clothes in the infant section, and that is usually a safe indicator that the show is not for me. Gallen Matazarro with his amazing lisp, Caleb McLaughlin already being cooler than I will be, Finn Wolffhard working his nerdiness like a pro, Noah Schnapp as the missing kid– can we please have more of him in Season two? These kids are adorable. They have excellent dialogue, and their 80’s innocence of bikes and tapes and technology is refreshing and unexpected. A favorite scene is where Eleven accidentally starts taking off her shirt because she doesn’t have social cues and they are all like WHOAH. So.Sweet. It is a refreshing change from the children we now have that are on phones all the time and have lost all innocence.

Milly Bobby Brown is Eleven, and I am sure that you’ve heard everyone say that she’s amazing. I am here to tell you that it’s true, she’s amazing. Eleven is such a sad character. Immensely gifted and supernatural, she’s so sad with all that power. No one ever really loved her; she’s had zero exposure to the outside world and no peers to play with, and everyone she’s ever met up until the diner guy (still mad about that) has betrayed her trust. Her friendship with Mike is so sweet and innocent and hurt my poor little heart. The trailer for season 2 has shown her face again and for that I am so thankful – she’s a key point in this show’s power.

Natalie Dyer (Nancy), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan) and Joe Kerry (Steve) are the slightly older age group in Hawkins who are involved in the Upside Down. Nancy is the pretty and smart girl, who is frustrated by her suburban existence and the knowledge that the marriage her parents have is one of convenience. Dating Steve must be an exciting thing – he’s handsome and popular and a bad boy who isn’t so bad when you take a good look. It took me a while to actually like him, but there is a great amount of character growth for him through the course of the show. Jonathan is also a great character, and he is an impressively okay result of that horrendous father of his.

Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers and David Harbour as Jim Hopper lead the adult portion of the show. Joyce is frantic about her son, and it is only a mother’s obsession with keeping her children safe that enabled her to find what she fount. Jim Hopper starts the show by appearing as a useless cop, but his progression in the show is amazing. His story is back breaking and the more you get to know about Jim the sorrier you feel for him. He has one of the best quotes in the show, which I will use for years to come.

The first two or three episodes I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I’m actually looking at, but even while not knowing; it is too good to not watch. I would have watched the entire show in one sitting if I had 8 hours of leisure at any given time. It’s unique, creepy and flat out gross at stages, and the fight of pure innocence against disgusting darkness and meanness will keep you glued to your seat and routing for the good guys.

I actually moped when this show was done, and am not above watching it again. The show is a fantastic adventure, a tribute to old school thrillers and one of the most inventive shows Netflix has produced. I simply can’t wait for the second season, and can only cross my fingers that they create something similarly amazing.

Have you seen Stranger Things? Talk to me about it in the comments!

PS: Can we just discuss how incredible Netflix opening sequences are?!

Rating: 9/10

September 20, 2017September 19, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2017, Review, Reviews, SeriesTags: Caleb McLaughlin, Charlie Heaton, D, David Hopper, demogorgon, Eleven, Finn Wolffhard, Gallen Matazarro, Hawkins, Joe Kerry, Milly Bobby Brown, Natalie Dyer, Netflix, Noah Schnapp, Sci-Fi, science fiction, Stranger Things, Supernatural, The Upside Down, Winona Ryder 7 Comments

Movie Review: Passengers (2017) – CONTAINS SPOILERS –

Plot: A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.

Rating: 6.5/10

– CONTAINS SPOILERS –

When a movie gets trashed second after it was released, it is safe to assume that it is either:

• The movie is legitimately a terrible film
• The movie didn’t live up to its’ expectations and delivered something else
• The critics hated the film because of some petty reason

Passengers is somewhere between two and three. The film’s last hour and half (perhaps more than that) is a romantic drama film set in space. I’m sure that upset a number of people who might have expected a Sci-Fi film. I also think the hate train might have been loaded to capacity with people reacting unnecessarily harsh to a moderately decent film because everyone was doing so.

The majority of the film is spent exploring Jim Preston and Aurora Lane’s horrified realization that they woke up on their spaceship way too early to reach their destination, Homestead II – 90 years too early. Aurora suffers another setback when she’s made aware by the barman-robot Arthur (Michael Sheen) that Jim (Chris Pratt) deliberately woke her up and that her pod didn’t malfunction. She’s understandably very upset with this death sentence but is forced to put it aside when the ship starts acting erratically and it becomes clear that no one on the ship will arrive at Homestead II if they don’t find the source of the problem. Captain Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburn) wakes up in time to conveniently steer Jim and Aurora in the right direction.

I enjoyed the scarcity of people in Passengers. Chris Pratt and his female equivalent Jennifer Lawrence make a charismatic team. Pratt is able to accurately portray the loneliness of Jim’s life in the year before he wakes Aurora up. Aurora (Lawrence) is different in nature than Jim. She’s a writer and immediately begins to report her life on the ship. She initially refuses to believe their fate and is forced to accept eventually that Jim is speaking the truth. Michael Sheen is able to be a convincing robot, keeping his facial expressions carefully contained. Fishburn is the last character that enters the film was a good captain if you are able to look past the fact that it is amazing that the captain woke up and not someone else. The film is scarcely populated and it works well.

The film also looks really good. That spaceship was something to behold inside and out. It looks modern and is one of the films that bring spaceships to the new century. The swimming pool was mind boggling – I wouldn’t go close to that mass of water that is kept in its’ place by such fragile means. The robots on the ships look great – and a dash of cuteness is mixed into the plot with the housekeeping robots.

What didn’t work? Well, the holes in the plot is bigger than the holes in the spaceship. Are these two really choosing to live on that ship for the remainder of their lives with only the other as company? How will they prevent children? What about the finite amount of food on the ship? Are they dooming their fellow passengers to a journey without food? How did the asteroid not immediately destroy the ship? It is extremely convenient that the fire started becoming unmanageable when they found it? Speaking of extreme convenience, how about the third passenger that woke up is able to access secure locations?

Despite the numerous unanswered questions, of which I’m sure many other bloggers can add more to, I actually ended up enjoying Passengers. I think that the leads were compatible. Jim can be forgiven his selfishness by considering his loneliness. Their heroic antics are heart warming, especially for the following passengers. If you keep your eyes closed and ignore all the questions, I’m sure you will enjoy Passengers too. But what I will end this review with one more question – Why did they change the ship into a swamp at the end?

January 9, 2017January 8, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2017, Movies, movies, Review, Reviews, UncategorizedTags: 2017, Arthur, asteroid, Aurora Lane, Chris Pratt, Drama, Homestead II, Jennifer Lawrence, Jim Preston, Laurence Fishburn, Michael Sheen, Movies, Passengers, Reviews, robot, Romance, Sci-Fi, space travel, Spaceship 11 Comments

Blindspot 2015: Interstellar (2014)

Plot: In the near future, Earth has been devastated by drought and famine, causing a scarcity in food and extreme changes in climate. When humanity is facing extinction, a mysterious rip in the space-time continuum is discovered, giving mankind the opportunity to widen its lifespan. A group of explorers must travel beyond our solar system in search of a planet that can sustain life. The crew of the Endurance are required to think bigger and go further than any human in history as they embark on an interstellar voyage into the unknown. Coop, the pilot of the Endurance, must decide between seeing his children again and the future of the human race.

Rating: 8.5/10

Dr. Brand sets the somber tone for Interstellar with his rendition of Dylan Thomas’ famous words: “Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”The devastating wasteland that earth has become has had a profound effect of the human race – Earth has finally revolted against the never ending abuse it received and is slowly getting revenge – the human race is dying out.  NASA, nearly defunct, searches desperately for a planet that can sustain human life; as well as a way to get there alive.

That is how Cooper, a retired astronaut, gets to go into space again. His daughter Murph never forgives him, even as time passes in its strange pattern and she grows older.

I expected to hate Interstellar. I actually hoped I would – nothing is more annoying than the hype big movies generate. Sure, it is great for their budget, but it is so conformist. I thought it would be fussily intellectual – which I hate – but it wasn’t. There were some big concepts but it didn’t go overhead. The concepts weren’t constantly being discussed on screen either, which helped move the story in understandable lines. Interstellar managed to march towards three hours without killing the storyline. It was needed to properly illustrate the story.

 

The graphics were amazing. Christopher Nolan and his team did a phenomenal job. The vast emptiness of space was beautiful and in stark contrast with the destructive zone Earth has become – there is a feeling that at least the human race didn’t destroy space yet. The wormhole – can I just say WOW? That doesn’t sum it up accurately but it was the only feeling I felt, awe. The water planet and then crazy Matt Damon’s planet, and I will get to him in a moment, was absolutely beautiful to behold.

The cast did a wonderful job. Matthew McConaughey as Cooper – his apathy with being on earth, his decision to leave, his role as an astronaut – it was wonderful.  I love his slow Texan drawl so much. It makes him sound lazy and hurried at the same time, and it worked for the character. I wasn’t jumping around when I saw Anne Hathaway, but it is a testament to the excellence of Interstellar that she didn’t annoy the living hell out of me. Both McKenzie Foy and Jessica Chastain as the young and older Murphy did great – the two meshed their actions well enough that they ended up looking as the same person. Murphy’s story was really sad; losing her mother and her father and then having to watch the years pass knowing he was out there and never getting to see him. I also enjoyed Timothee Chalamet and Casey Affleck as young and older Tom Cooper, although the character took a backseat compared to Murph’s story.

Now, let’s just focus for a few seconds on the MAD Matt Damon. I think he did a really good job in here, that his role was well done and that he was great in his part here – not a big one but an important one, showing the perils of being alone too long as well as being crazy. Why anyone would let him back into space (i.e. The Martian), I don’t know, but I’m worried.

Now, it has to be mentioned why I haven’t rated this movie at least a 9/10 – the quality certainly justifies it. I cannot for the life of me understand why LOVE had to be brought into a movie that is pure, wonderful science, and by one of the only TWO women in the movie. Anne Hathaway’s amazing Brand was totally killing it, and there she went, her choices being influenced by her silly little love story. It didn’t gel and deducted awesome points from the character and the storyline. It is a movie about SCIENCE. Done.Love is a human emotion and thus not quantifiable, idiots. If it was Anger, Jealousy and Hate would also be quantifiable.

 

Apart from that one slight, Interstellar was a jaw dropping, humbling experience. I will gladly watch it again – it seems like the type of movie where you will always notice something new. The great concepts, the wonderful score by Hans Zimmer, the graphics and the acting makes for a masterful movie that can now live with the greats.

 

PS: I will post two Blindspots in October, as I had no time to review one in September 🙂

October 9, 2015October 6, 2015 by Natasha Categories: 2014, Blindspot, Movies, ReviewTags: Anne Hathaway, Blindspot, Blindspot 2015, Casey Affleck, Christopher Nolan, Earth, Interstellar, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, McKenzie Foy, Michael Cane, Sci-Fi, Space, Space Movies, Timothee Chalamet 12 Comments

Movie Review: Ex Machina (2015)

Plot: A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breath-taking female A.I.

Rating: 8.5/10

2015 is turning out to be such a mediocre year for entertainment. I’ve only seen four (including this one) movies that I thought to even deserve consideration for ending up in my top ten at the end of the year (and yes, I fully realize how pretentious I sound with that sentence).

Ex Machina is the so far the best thing that waltzed out of Hollywood that wasn’t an animation. It is original, brilliantly directed, thought out and produced and is an all-round excellent watching experience. I don’t even particularly enjoy sci-fi because it often has great pace then collapses at the end or contains too much romance. Ex Machina did neither. I wouldn’t want to spoil it to anyone who hasn’t seen it, but it keeps pace throughout the movie, is well thought out and intellectualized and is exactly how I think AI would pan out if it ever happened.

The cast is small and all gave stellar performances. Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaacs have the three available leading rolesand Sonoya Mizuno with the only other cast member as the particularly odd Kyoko. Gleeson plays Caleb, the lonely programmer who wins the chance to intern at a research facility for AI started by Nathan, the CEO of the world’s largest search engine company, Bluebook.

Caleb is introduced to humanoid robot Ava. She seems to have every single human emotion and interactive skills a human might possess, and Caleb is tasked to check if she can pass the Turing test.

I can’t really say more of the plot without ruining it, but it is tightly written and well thought out. Oscar Isaacs is phenomenal as Nathan – he is so weird and isolated and it is obvious that his seclusion from society has messed him up.

Ava’s design is fascinating and the way they brought her together is impressive. Everything about that research facility is thought provoking out of this world.

Ex Machina is a movie that stays at the back of your consciousnessand returns to make you think about the consequences of technology should we ever progress to that level. I would highly recommend a watch if you can get your hands on it.

August 17, 2015August 16, 2015 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: 2015, AI, Alicia Vikander, Artificial Intelligence, Domnhall Gleeson, Ex Machina, Future, Movies, Oscar Isaacs, Reviews, Sci-Fi 9 Comments

Movie Review: Lucy (2014)

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is twenty five and lives in Taipei as a student. Her new boyfriend asks her to deliver a case to a Mr. Jang (Choi Min-Sik), and she refuses multiple times, but he cuffs the case to her arm and she is forced to enter the hotel and deliver the package.

Her boyfriend is shot before her eyes and Mr. Jang’s henchmen drags her to a suite, where she is forced to open the case. The case contains a new synthetic drug CPH4, and before she knows it, the drug is implanted in Lucy’s abdomen, and she must deliver within 24 hours or die when the plastic bag inside her disintegrates. Lucy is kept captive while waiting for the flight, but one of her captors kicks her and the bag breaks, opening it and pushing all those drugs into her system.

The effects are remarkable; something Professor Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) has hypothesised about but never had a hope to witness. Lucy contacts him and tells him what is happening to her and agrees to meet with him in twelve hours.

Lucy: We’ve codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible, we’ve created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale

Meanwhile, there are still men with CPH4 in their bellies on the way to different countries. Lucy contacts Police Captain Pierre Del Rio (Amr Waked) in France to tell him what is happening, and he is convinced to take action. All three men are taken by the police and rushed to hospital, but the Taiwanese drug cartel takes also arrives to take the drug. Chaos ensues, but Lucy is able to get all three packets of CPH4 from the now dead drug mules.

As Lucy’s access to her brain capacity increases, she becomes telekinetic and able to manipulate people and matter. With these mind-blowing powers comes the knowledge that her body cannot bear the drugs infinitely and that she isn’t infinitely strong enough to survive all the mental capacity she is now subjected to. As she races to Professor Norman, Mr. Jang is still on his pursuit to get his drugs back. Can Lucy share her knowledge before her face off with Jang or her meeting with her own death?

Rating: 8/10

I saw this movie over this weekend thinking that we were actually going to watch Sex-tape because some of my friends claimed they were too scared to watch Lucy. I am so happy that I got to see this instead because yet another Jason Segal and Cameron Diaz movie is not at the top of my to-do list.

Lucy is a movie that is actually worth the hype. I get why people would want to see it. Gripping story plus good action usually wields excellent results.

I really enjoyed Scarlett Johansson, and Analeigh Tipton wasn’t enough on screen to irritate me. The story had an excellent pace and I really thought that even though the hypothesis was far-fetched, the story did what it could to remain believable. As Michael said in this blog post, we need more female leads in action movies that don’t constantly send out sexual innuendos and need a man to save her. Lucy did everything herself, she kicked ass, her tale didn’t revolve how tight her clothes was (ahem, Black Widow, Scarlett) and the men ended up awed by her powers.

Thoughts while watching:

Firstly, don’t trust the Taiwanese. I did not spot any Taiwanese in Lucy that had a smidgen of dignity.

Can Morgan Freeman please, please do the voice over for my life?

I need Lucy’s super skills for traffic every Monday morning.

Don’t date guys you meet in a drunken adventure in a club at night, and more importantly, leave the first time when he asks you to do something questionable outside a high powered hotel.

Spanish/French/Whatever cops with crooked noses are surprisingly hot. Maybe it is the accent?

Even though there are some questionable scientific discoveries, I really had fun watching this. Morgan Freeman looks and sounds like the highly qualified professor that he portrays, and then the man dumbstruck with the fact that what he has hypothesised has happened.

Reasons why I really liked it:

Female kicks ass – there are not nearly enough action movies, or any genre of movies for that sake, that hosts a female lead who seriously kicks everybody’s ass, finds a way to save herself and not need a man to do it.

Oh, science. I enjoyed Morgan Freeman as the Professor and I just enjoy movies where science is celebrated and explored.

Good acting, lady. My usual range of comments about Scarlett Johansson is not always flattering, but she deserves accolades for Lucy. I thought she coped exceptionally well with having an unimaginable amount of life threatening drugs in her system. SJ was a superhero at the end of the day, and I didn’t even feel sorry for anyone she took out of her way – they truly deserved that.

Good recipe of drugs, drama, action and sadness. What do you do when you realise that you have unimaginable knowledge for a short time and then you will die? You contact the leading academic in the field, lure the madman out who is responsible for your upcoming death, give the police of France a day they will never forget and kick serious but. I wasn’t bored even once, I didn’t wonder when it would end and the action scenes weren’t boringly drawn out till I wanted to cry.

Recommendation: You won’t be ruining your day by watching this, but if you are scared easily I won’t recommend it. Go give it a try!

September 16, 2014September 15, 2014 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: action, Amr Waked, Analeigh Tipton, Choi Min-Sik, CPH4, Lucy, Morgan Freeman, Movies, Pierre Del Rio, Professor Samuel Norman, Reviews, Scarlett Johansson, Sci-Fi 9 Comments

Movie Review: Pacific Rim (2013)

*contains spoilers

Colossal beasts, the Kaijus, attack coastal cities in 2013. They rise from a portal on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The nations on the Pacific Rim beats back the destruction of the human race by building huge war machines, the Jaegers, which are co-piloted by two humans, as the neurological strain is too intense for one person to carry. The two humans’ brains are linked, causing each other to see memories, and fight together. The Jaegers are highly effective, but the attacks from the Kaijus increase and the Pacific Rim governments discontinue the Jaegers in favor of building coastal walls to keep the Kaijus out. The remaining Jaegers are deployed to Hong Kong to protect the city until its wall is built.

Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) is the commander of the Jaeger forces. He makes a plan to end the war by sending a nuclear weapon through the portal. He recalls pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) to return to his Jaeger, the Gipsy Danger. Becket used to co-pilot with his brother Yancy, who was killed during a mission. Becket suffered a huge loss, not only because he lost his brother, but because they were still linked, and experienced his death. When Raleigh arrives at Hong Kong, he meets potential candidates to pilot with him. He demands to pilot with Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) when he realizes she is the strongest candidate. Pentecost initially refuses, as he sees her as his daughter. He eventually relents, but needs to pull Mako from the mission after their initial test run nearly ends in disaster when she relives her childhood trauma.

The Jaegers leave to protect Hong Kong against two Kaiju that are heading for the city. The Gipsy Danger gets sent in after the Kaiju’s destroy two Jaegers and disabling the third. They become heroes after successfully saving the city.

Scientist Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) is as fascinated with the Kaijus as he is repulsed by them. He assembles a machine allowing him a mental link to one of the Kaiju’s brain fragments. The strain nearly kills him, but he learns that the Kaijus are actually engineered weapons fighting for a race of alien invaders.

Newton sets out to find an intact Kaiju brain. His only hope is finding Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman), an underground trafficking king in Hong Kong. Upon the attack of the city, Hannibal realizes that Newton is the reason for the Kaijus’ attack, and deserts him. Afterwards, when both monsters are killed, Hannibal and his team strip the parts. The one monster was pregnant, and its spawn eats Hannibal.

Newton and his partner Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) merge with the newborn Kaiju’s brain and realize that the portal will only open for a Kaiju.

The remaining two Jaegers are sent to execute the destruction of the portal. Pentecost co-pilots the Jaeger carrying the weapon, but they are forced to detonate early, killing themselves and the Kaijus guarding the portal. Raleigh and Mako seize the remaining Kaiju with the Gipsy Danger and enters the portal. Raleigh releases Mako to safety, and goes into the portal. The Gipsy’s portal detonates, destroying the portal and the would-be alien conquerors.

The movie ends where both Mako and Raleigh arrives safely at sea in enclosed caskets.

Rating: 7.5/10

I have to say that I did not expect to enjoy it this much. Pacific Rim may be one of my favorite movies this year. It is a compelling mix of drama, science, aliens, humor, terror and heroism.

The best scene possibly is Mako’s flashback where she witnessed her family’s death by the Kaijus. It perfectly portrays the fear of a terrified little girl – so well that you can almost feel her fear.

Sadly, the excellent acting of the young Mako was not mirrored in the actress that played the adult version of her. Rinko Kikuchi’s performance was sadly lacking. So much more could have been brought to the character than she did. She is completely stilted, and her acting seems very 1960s. I enjoyed that the character in itself was a good idea – an independent woman who isn’t the sexed up doll usually written into moves.

The movie focuses on the budding relationship between Becket and Mori. Both are messed up humans who choose to hide their weakest part. Part of their relationship is the trust and respect they have for each other, being in each other’s minds. The relationship never fully turns romantic, but I found that it was just fine for this movie.

The end relieved me – who doesn’t both the hero and heroine to live? The more I thought of it, the more it seemed unrealistic that Raleigh could survive his travel into the portal and come out alive.

Since starting on Sons of Anarchy, I have wanted to watch another piece of work from Charlie Hunnam. He really did well, much better in fact; than he does in the first season of SOA (I am only there now) He has certainly grown into a better actor. He fits into his character – he appears broken, loyal and fearless.

Seeing another SOA actor was pleasantly surprising. It seems that Ron Perlman can either be completely scary (SOA) or very ridiculous. He appeared as this dangerous type of joke in Pacific Rim. The gold tipped shoes were perfectly revolting and really appropriate.

All in all, this was a fantastic way to spend some money and time, and I think most people would at least find something good in the film.

August 6, 2013 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: Charlie Hunnam, entertainment, Idis Elba, Jaeger, Movies, Pacific Rim, Review, Reviews, Rinko Kikuchi, Ron Perlman, Sci-Fi 3 Comments

Movie Review: After Earth (2013)

Thousands of years after the human race has abandoned earth, General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) comes into conflict with S’krell, aliens intent on conquering Nova Prime, where the human race has settled. Their weapon of choice is the Ursas: blind monsters that hunt by sensing fear. The Rangers fight a losing battle until Cypher learns how to destroy them. He learns that by repressing his fear, the Ursas cannot find humans at all, thus making it possible to be killed.

At home, Cypher’s son Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) blames himself after his sister is killed by an Ursa. Kitai’s application as a Ranger is rejected because of his own recklessness, and his father considers him a failure because.  Kitai sets out on a mission with his father after his mother manages to convince Cypher. During the flight, the spaceship is caught in an asteroid shower, causing the ship to crash-land in the now quarantined Earth. The only intact beacon to send off a distress signal is in the other half of the ship, a hundred miles from the half where Cypher and Kitai is in. Kitai must venture into the habitat alone, as both Cypher’s legs are broken. Kitai is warned of the evolved fauna and flora that will kill humans, and also the drastic temperature changes. He is given six capsules that enhances oxygen intake so that he is able to breathe in Earth’s low-oxygen atmosphere.

Kitai travels through dangerous terrain, and some of the capsules gets broken. When he finally confesses to Cypher, he is ordered back to the ship. Kitai refuses, and a disagreement ensues. He sets off to the ship, miraculously makes it there alive, and kills the Ursa when it attacks him. He manages to fire off the beacon, and they return to Nova Prime with a better relationship.

Rating: 4.5/10

For a movie with tons of potential, it turned out to be a bitter disappointment. It is a sentimental sci-fi stint designed to push Jaden Smith in as action hero, and his acting capabilities sorely fail him. He simply isn’t at the standard where his father is, and I doubt he could ever mature to that level. A word to the young: you don’t have to follow in your father’s footsteps.

June 26, 2013 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: Jaden Smith, Movies, Nova Prime, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Ursa, Will Smith Leave a comment