Movie Review: Brave

Not the best Pixar film, but still pretty good. Brave is about a young Scottish girl named Merida who is upset with her mom who wants to marry her off to one of these three guys she doesn't like. After the two get into a fight, Merida runs off into the forest and stumbles upon a witch's hut. She pays the witch for a potion that she hopes will change her mom for the better. Instead it changes her into a bear.

The plot... not terribly generic, although once you got the gist of the story down it was pretty easy to see where it was heading. The characters were alright. Not as original or memorable of some of Pixar's other characters, but still pretty likable. The soundtrack was pretty great, one of the movie's strong points aside from fantastic-as-usual animation.

That being said, I was also disappointed with a couple things in this movie. First off, although they picked a beautiful location for the setting of the movie, they hardly took advantage of it. Most of the movie it seemed like you were looking at the inside of an extremely bland castle, even though there were sparkling waterfalls and majestic mountains just outside.

The second thing was that the movie had no real antagonist. Is it just me or are the Pixar films with actual set-in-stone antagonists always better? Toy Story had Sid, A Bugs Life had Hopper, Monsters Inc. had... that purple lizard guy. This movie just had... the mom I guess? Except you were kind of supposed to like the mom, and the mom was good most of the time, and... I don't even know.

If you like films like these I say give it a go. It's enjoyable and pretty well made. If you usually don't like films like these I doubt this will be any exception seeing as though it's not particularly amazing or anything. I give Brave a 7.5/10. A good movie with a .5 bonus for a great soundtrack.

Movie Review: Prometheus

Prometheus... I went into this movie with low expectations. I'm usually not really into this kind of movie. Turns out this was no exception. Prometheus is about a group of people who board a spaceship in search of a group of aliens thought to be mankind's "engineers." When all was said and done, the results weren't quite what they expected.

So the plot was pretty interesting I guess, not really my thing. The characters... all pretty undeveloped and forgettable. I'm not even sure this movie had any music, just really loud sound effects. Those were pretty cool though. Also the special effects were really good. Probably my favorite part of the movie.

Let's see, anything else to say about this movie... It was pretty freaky. Went in expecting a sci-fi film with some mild thriller elements and it turned out to be a fairly gory horror/sci-fi movie. I wouldn't recommend watching this movie if you're susceptible to nightmares, it will probably induce them. So yeah, pretty bland aside from the special effects. I give Prometheus a 5/10.

Movie Review: Men in Black 3

You know, this was honestly my favorite Men in Black movie. The other ones were good, but they both had quirky characters like the skinny alien guys and the talking pug. I felt this one took itself a little more seriously, and I respect it for that.

Men in Black 3 is the third in a series of movies starring Will Smith as Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, two members of a top-secret government organization that hides the existence of aliens as well as dealing with extraterrestrial affairs. In this film, Agent J goes back in time to prevent Agent K from being killed.

This movie was pretty good. My only really complaint was with a certain inconsistency near the end of the film. Highlight over the following text with your mouse to view spoilers: In the scene where Agent J memorizes the attack pattern of Boris the Animal, then goes back in time to dodge his attack, it heals his wounds, completely conflicting with how the movie had already established time travel worked. When Agent J had originally gone back in time, his body stayed completely the same regardless of what time he went to. Now when he went back in time, his body healed because he went back to before he was hurt.

Despite this one flaw, the movie was still quite enjoyable and entertaining. Nothing special, but still good. I give Men in Black 3 a 7/10.

Wreck-It Ralph

Well, I was planning on talking about E3 this week, but seeing as though this year's E3 kinda sucked, I'm talking about this instead. Wreck-It Ralph is an upcoming Disney film about an old video game character who wants to improve his image. Here's a trailer for it that was just released today.



Holy crap, they used actual video game characters from real video games? DIIIISNEEEEEEEYYYY!!!!

But seriously, yes. So much yes. A Disney movie about video games that has Bowser and Dr. Eggman in it? I can't wait for this.

Movie Review: Chronicle

Another crazy movie. Chronicle is a fairly recent movie (2012) about a group of angsty teenagers who acquire telekinesis after stumbling upon a mysterious glowing rock underground. Some of them abuse their powers and things eventually get out of hand leading to some pretty bizarre results.

I'm still not quite sure what type of genre this was. Drama/action I guess? Sort of like a super hero movie, without the super hero. There wasn't much music in the movie, but there were a lot of crazy sound effects that were used pretty well and really helped add to the atmosphere. There were three main characters that were all pretty much douchebags, especially the "main" one.

The special effects were pretty cool, even if it was pretty obvious that they were special effects. I thought that the scenes where they flew around the sky were especially entertaining to watch. The plot... pretty good. Decent pacing, plenty of drama, kept you entertained. So yeah, I liked it. A little weird though. I give Chronicle a 7/10.

Movie Review: The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Not a bad kid's movie. Not a bad kid's movie at all. From the makers of Wallis and Gromit and Chicken Run comes clay-mation film The Pirates! Band of Misfits. The movie is about the Pirate Captain and his band of misfits who are down on their luck after a series of unsuccessful raids. After almost giving up hope, the Pirate Captain stumbles upon Charles Darwin during a raid and finds out that his fat parrot is actually a Dodo bird. The pirate, his crew, and Charles Darwin then face a number of wacky hijinks in attempt to get the glory and the gold.

The plot's not too bad for a kid's movie, certainly not on Pixar's level, but still well enough to compete with the likes of some other Disney films. The animators do an excellent job, so no complaints there. There were actually quite a few recognizable songs throughout the movie, nothing like most of the subtle background tracks and occasional top 20 songs you usually hear in movies nowadays.

Some of the characters were pretty clever, while others seemed extremely one-dimensional. One of the pirates was a woman dressed up as a man, and they never really built on that. It seemed like an unnecessary plot-point, but I guess it wasn't really a plot-point in the first place since it had nothing to do with the plot. But I digress, the three or four main characters had plenty of personality, so that was good.

Overall, it was pretty good. Not the best, but definitely not bad either. I give The Pirates! Band of Misfits a 7/10.