Category: Movie Review

John Wick

john wick

John Wick was one of those movies I always heard about but never really had inclination to see. Everyone I knew that saw it praised the hell out of it, many said it’s one of the best action movies of our time and after watching it, I can can tell you much of the praise and acclaim is well earned.

John Wick is a retired assassin who just lost his wife to a terminal illness. He receives a beagle puppy from his wife as a last gift to help him cope. Still hurting, John and his puppy get along and nothing seems so bad…until the son of an old employer, a high stakes Russian mobster, stupidly decides to kill Wick’s dog and steal his car. John decides to come out of retirement and kill every single person in his way until he gets revenge…

Despite the plot sounding blah on paper, it’s executed wonderfully. Keanu Reeves gives the best performance I’ve ever seen from him, being menacing, stalwart, and heartbroken all at once. The action scenes are insane but are predominately practical which is a huge breath of fresh air over many modern movies that relay too much on CGI. The choreography is utterly immaculate, but what I really appreciate is that for how much ass John Wick kicks, he gets the shit beat out of him just as much. The music is pretty cool and the cinematography is interesting and thank god no damn shaky cam during the fights. I found the characters and underworld of assassins intriguing ass. I highly recommend John Wick to anyone who is fed up with modern action movies and wants something old school with real heart and some sweet laughs. May the gaming gods bring you glory, and please no drinking games while watching this movie, you will likely die.

The New Daughter (2009)

the new daughter

The New Daughter proves you can take a premise that has been done to death, add another idea that has also been done to death combine it with more stuff that is highly cliche and still make a pretty good movie. Stop me if you heard this one before. A writer movies his kids to the country after mom leaves/dies ( in this case leaves) only for his kid ( in this case his daughter) to be possessed by an evil spirit because of an ancient Indian burial mound.

Yes that is the story of this movie. That being said the slow progressive change with the daughter is well done and her ever changing relationship with her dad and brother, both of which change differently is nice. The duel twist ending is also a pretty nice change of pace. The acting is great which isn’t a surprise from Kevin Costner. The problem with the movie however and the reason a lot of people dislike it however is understandable. There is nothing in this movie you have never seen before. From beginning to end it is a series of events that other movies have done, The New Daughter simply does them all well. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Goon (2011)

goon

Goon is the story of a bouncer that has a gay brother and a friend with a big mouth at a local hockey game. When a guy from the opposing team gets tossed in the box for fighting in typical fan fashion his friend lets fly with some nasty obscenities and hand gestures only for the player to jump out of the box to attack and calling him a fag. Our man Doug doesn’t like this and demands he takes the word back, and when this demand is denied he beats the ever loving crap out of him. He also discovers a new job as a hockey player.

Good you see is the movie of Doug “The Thug” Glatt, bouncer turned hockey player. His job? Take out those that would get a little rough with his fellow players. and he is damn good at it. He also happens to be one of the nicest guys on Earth, to the point that he at a few points apologizes to a few guys or even a hey nice fight. It was actually nice to see Seann William Scott play someone besides Stiffler and he did it very well. The movie isn’t perfect and honestly being a hockey fan really helps. In fact if you aren’t a hockey fan you should probably skip it since much of the fun comes from being a hockey fan. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Batman: Sub Zero

batman subzero

Subzero is a movie based around the animated series. Victor Fries loved his wife Nora with all his heart and was devastated when she became inflicted with a terminal illness; until he could find a cure, he froze her in suspended animation. After a tragic turn of events, Victor was mutated by his own cryogenic science and became Mr Freeze. With time ticking, he has a final option to save Nora but there seems to be only one match for her: Barbara Gordon. Kidnapping Barbara, Batgirl, it’s up to Batman and Robin to rescue her before Freeze may end up killing Barbara. I always loved Mr Freeze so I was glad he got an appropriate movie (we all know about the other Mr Freeze film). If you loved the animated series, you’ll love this movie. It does feel like a long episode but still has great performances and some sweet action. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Friends with Benefits (2011)

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Friends with benefits is essentially that thing everyone tries at some point that doesn’t work. You know a two friends decide they need a lil something something and help each other out and poof, someone catches feelings and wrecks the whole thing. This isn’t real life tho, so its both of them.

The movie is as you would imagine full of jokes, sexual innuendo and brief nudity. So ladies, ever wanted to see Justin’s butt here is your shot. Men knew about Mila years ago so I feel no need to mention it. But you know…her butt as well.

Another amazing and unexpected part of the movie is Woody Harrelson playing one of the best gay characters in recent movie history. He is fun and hilarious and adds quite a bit to the movie  despite having a pretty limited role.

The actual story is pretty basic. Both have rough breakups , eventually meet and become friends have a few drinks and a bad idea becomes a good idea and things escalate from there. The movie isn’t the best but it is quite good. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Beauty And The Beast (2017)

beauty and the beast

First I have to say I had very low expectations and standards for this movie. Not because I hate the actors, I don’t. They are all very talented. I also don’t hate Disney or have a strange loyalty to the old Disney movies from my childhood even tho I do love them. All I wanted was Gaston to be well done and for his song in the bar to be in the movie and fun. I got Gaston, and my bar scene. Savior was a happy camper. Because truly nobody does it like Gaston. But how was the rest of the movie?

Well honestly, it was pretty damn good. Emma Watson played Belle great which shouldn’t surprise anyone since really Belle and Hermione Granger are similar characters anyway. Both are bookworms that most people considered kind of odd that liked to do their own thing, and that is a role Emma spent half her life perfecting. And the Beast isn’t exactly some hard character either, he starts out as kind of a dick then turns out to be a pretty decent guy which Dan Stevens did well. The hardest part of that job really is something that can’t be taught and that is would Dan Stevens and Emma Watson have the right chemistry to make people believe that occurred naturally, which they did.

The biggest surprise for me tho was how close to the original they kept it while changing it enough to be its own thing. All the major scenes you would want are still very much there and they took the time to make them as accurate as they realistically could which was nice. As a person that liked the original but never loved it, this remake that I admittedly wanted very little from surpassed even my most optimistic expectation. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

The Details (2011)

the details

The Details is an odd movie in the sense that it is a comedy, but not really in that ha ha this is funny sense, but more in the huh, its funny how things work out sense. The movie starts out with a doctor having the grass in his yard fixed. Just a regular guy, with a regular wife and child. Sure the usual marriage problems are present and the day to day stuff is going on. Everything is pretty average tho. The next morning he wakes up to discover the new grass is messed up and he sets out to discover why, and the answer is a raccoon.

Everything in this movie can be traced back to this. One mans desire to fix his lawn and a raccoon doing raccoon things for food. One mans choice will change the lives of families. I won’t give away the details since obviously it would spoil the entire movie since the entire plot revolves around what happens after this. The movie is far from perfect, but then again so is life and the movie does an excellent job at showing that even with the best intentions things can easily go very differently than one would want. There are some good laughs to be had as well, but the real bread and butter of this movie is simply that on some level you will both love and hate the characters while empathizing with them. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Witch: a New-England Folktale

The Witch

This is one of the most decisive movies I’ve seen in a long while, much like last year’s It comes at night . Some will love it, some will hate it, many will ask WTF did I just watch. First, like It Comes At Night, don’t watch the trailers. They set you up for a movie you aren’t getting.

The Witch is about a family in 1630 banished from there village because of there beliefs and sent to rebuild there lives in the woods. Life isn’t easy as food is scare, crops aren’t taking, and they have no money. The youngest, baby Sam, suddenly disappears under oldest Tomasin’s watch. The family begins to break as mother Katherine loses her mind and starts taking it out on Tomasin and the pressures of the family’s problems eat at father, William. Strange things begin happening like the dog is found murdered, oldest son, Caleb disappears, and the young twins Mercy and Jonas keep singing and conversing with the family goat, Black Phillip. Is this family’s misfortune there own, or the work of something else, as Caleb reappears after finding a mysterious woman lurking in the woods…

As I said. this is a weird case but regardless, I loved this movie. It is slow with some disturbing imagery throughout but I love the daring move to set it so faithfully in the 1600’s and I like that it is, at its core a fairytale in Grimm fashion. The atmosphere and score is amazing; the actors are splendidly genuine and feel genuine. I know many will disagree and honestly I can’t debate them on this film but it can’t be argued the effort and love put into the project, which definitely shows. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is both vastly different from the first and yet quite similar to the first. It starts out with an epic battle to protect, oddly enough, batteries from a huge creature. Yes they are being paid, and as this goes on baby Groot is dancing and proves he may be the cutest little hero to ever exist. After all this they receive payment for a job well done and leave, but of course Rocket Raccoon steals some of the batteries and all hell breaks loose.

The story itself is sort of an origin story of sorts for Star Lord as you will learn more about his mom and meet his dad. While the movie is as well made and beautiful as the first and easily just as funny if not more, the story itself for me was not as good. It lacked that same level of excitement and had quite a few down trends where it wasn’t very exciting or even interesting. The movie is good, don’t get me wrong. Any fan of the Marvel movies will enjoy it, but don’t expect it to be as amazing as the first. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

May (2002)

may

There’s times there are films that are special and different, that sadly don’t get the recognition they deserve. In the fifth grade I started experimenting with horror movies and this was likely the first psychological horror film I can remember and it still affects me today…

May follows a shy, strange, lonely young woman who simply wants a friend. As a girl she was bullied for her lazy eye so she received a beautiful doll to be her friend. Grown up, May works as a vet’s assistant and has gotten her eye surgically fixed. She begins talking to a handsome guy named Adam and May is immediately smitten with the guy, but she discovers that while you like pieces of someone, you hardly like the whole thing, and so May decides to build her very own friend…

I really really liked this movie because it didn’t feel like a horror movie. On the contrary, I felt her pain, being alone then seeing the asshole side of new friends. Angela Bettis is fantastic as the titular character, and a highly underrated actress (she also played my favorite rendition of Carrie, I highly recommend also). The movie is slowly paced and there isn’t much in the ways of gore or action but the music, atmosphere, and cinematography are unsettling. The conclusion is sad but eerie. I recommend checking it out if you can track this movie down. May the gaming gods bring you glory and best wishes everyone.