Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Not a great movie.
The ending of this movie sucked. If you haven't seen this film, don't read this review.
At the end of this movie Batman ripped off his mask in front of Max Shrek. That was stupid. Batman would never take his mask off and expose his secret identity to a criminal. The reason why he wears his cowl is to prevent others from knowing that he's really Bruce Wayne. If he had only removed his mask in front of Catwoman that wouldn't have been bad because she had already discovered his secret identity. But removing it in front of Shrek was ignorant.
The beginning of this movie was awesome when Batman was fighting the bad guys in his batmobile. When I saw this, I thought that this was going to be an awesome movie. But the ending ruined the movie for me.
When I bought this movie on VHS at Wal-mart, I had a feeling that Batman would lose his mask in it. But I had no idea that they'd be so stupid as to make him remove it himself.
I was so irritated after watching this film that I thought about taking it back to Wal-mart and getting my money back. I later learned that stores won't give refunds on opened movies. The original Batman movie rocked. This did not.
Could've been a great movie
This movie didn't suck but it did have several problems. Here they are. When Bruce Wayne told Dick Grayson that Alfred was dying, Clooney had a smirk on his face. Alfred is like a father to Bruce Wayne. A man wouldn't have a smirk on his face when a father figure is dying. That was bad acting on Clooney's part and bad directing on the director's part.
Another problem was that Robin had a different costume. He should've had the same costume that he wore in Batman Forever. The costume that he wore in Batman Forever was the same costume that he wore in the comic books.
Another problem was with Batgirl. She wore the wrong kind of mask. Her mask looked a lot like Robin's mask. Batgirl is supposed to wear a cowl like Batman.
Yet another problem was when MR. Freeze froze Gotham City by shooting ice through a telescope. A telescope can't shoot ice through it. But when Batman tried to thaw the city by shooting sunlight out of the telecope, that would've been possible.
One great thing that I liked about this movie was when MR. Freeze saved Alfred's life at the end. This could've been a great movie. It's sad that they blew it.
Every couple of years or so a film comes along capable of turning the most ardent arm-chair viewer into a temp cinema-goer. Avatar is one such film. Scores of people continue to brave the harsh winter in a bid to catch a glimpse of this year’s ‘Event’ movie.
“If you haven’t already seen it, you’ve got to” – at least that seems to be the general consensus of the movie-going public.
And the numbers don’t lie. Since storming into cinemas late last year, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic has become the largest grossing film of all time – sinking the director’s own world-box office record set by Titanic.
Things can’t be bad for the self-proclaimed “king of the world”.
Is it worth a watch…?
In a nutshell: definitely. Like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, Cameron manages to usher in a new age of special effects. As with its predecessors, it’s hard not to be blown away by the detail and depth of imagery on display. To this extent, Cameron surpasses the dubious post-film buzz, and delivers above and beyond expectations.
The plot and characterisation, on the other hand, is a whole different story.
We are thrown into the world of Pandora through the eyes of Jake Sully, a former Marine restricted to a wheelchair. The planet, which rests light years from Earth, is consumed by an atmosphere toxic to humans. This is where the Avatar Program comes in. Our reluctant hero, Sully, plugs into a machine that links his consciousness to an avatar – a remotely-controlled biological body blending human DNA with DNA from Pandora’s indigenous, the Na’vi.
Given the complexities of convincingly rendering such imagery on the screen, it’s no surprise Cameron waited 15 years before executing his pet-project.
And watching Avatar, 3-D glasses glued to my face, I can say the results – for the most part – were worth the wait.
The photorealistic CGI technology seamlessly brings the Na’vi to life in a world so full of texture that at times it threatens to drip off the screen straight into your popcorn. And while I remain sceptical about the ability of 3-D to “save” cinema, Cameron’s rendering of the technology is a delight. Rather than promiscuously splashing it all over the screen, the director opts for the ‘less is more’ approach – a move allowing the fourth wall to remain intact.
Style over substance…?
The ‘style over substance’ question is one that I found myself asking about halfway through its 162 minute runtime. Once the initial shock and awe of the visuals had subsided, I felt sort of the same way as when I watched 2012 earlier in the year. The creaking screenplay and thinly drawn characters quickly floated to the surface.
Now I’ve long been a believer that special effects should first and foremost serve the progression of plot and character. Even the granddaddy of CGI George Lucas agrees with this thesis – which fails to explain why he embraced style over substance in the most recent instalments of the Star Wars saga.
But Avatar is a rare cinematic case that should be viewed as an experiment in the visual. Cameron’s attention is clearly focused first and foremost on furthering the technological tools of the cinematic and producing a visual opera of epic proportions.
To put it in the same cannon as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey would be remiss. The two movies are worlds apart in terms of their mastery, Kubrick’s magnum opus operating gracefully on both a visual and intellectual level. But where Avatar lacks 2001’s mind-bending pretence, it successfully creates a world which in itself is filled with profundity. The attention to detail is such that it all but renders the clunky and repetitive dialogue irrelevant.
And despite a lack of originality in the storyline and the tired reluctant hero device, Cameron displays brains as well as brawn. He subtly builds in a strong Green and anti-war message, as well as inventing a new language, Na’vi, adding to the film’s authenticity.
A cultural milestone…?
Say what you will about Avatar, but Cameron’s brainchild unquestionably raises the bar five-fold for any CGI/3-D films that follow. Avatar has planted its hefty feet in the cinematic landscape and will surely be looked back on as a turning point in the filmic revolution. Talk is already sounding round the back-lots of Hollywood studios concerning the ability of this new motion capture techonology in bringing, for example, James Dean back to the screen or making Alec Baldwin look thin again.
Flawed, but fantastic in all its grandeur, Avatar invites you to step into the world of Pandora; the only question is: will you want to leave?
What are you getting?
Inception has visuals that were really cool, but that's about it.
The story was very confusing. It's like going on a roller coaster in the dark - there are thrills, but we don't see where we're going.
The viewer definitely goes on a ride, but he does not know where.
Action/Sci fi thriller from director Christopher Nolan that has Leonardo DiCaprio obtaining information from your dreams..
Of all the summer movies this summer, this was the one I had been waiting for since I viewed the trailer in early May. I hit up Studio on the Square on Sunday afternoon in Memphis,TN, and it was packed. Lines out the door. I overheard a few patrons say that they were seeing Inception for the second time, so I was pretty pumped to see it. I've always been a big fan of Leonardo DiCaprio(from a teen crush to now just a respect for his acting and his movie choices). The director, Christopher Nolan, isn't too bad either.
Without giving too much away, Inception is a sci-fi action thriller also starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Berenger(yes, Tom Berenger, hello Major League), Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Caine, and Marion Cotillard. Lukas Haas makes a brief appearance, too. It centers on DiCaprio's character, who essentially is in charge of a team who enters the dreams of people to obtain information and also to plant a "seed" to change an outcome in reality. We see how the "seed" is created, implanted, and carried out with DiCaprio's team of capers. A lot of the time Leo, JGL, and Cillian Murphy are in tuxes-not too shabby:)
From every review I've read, it has been an A +plus, four star film--and yes, I can agree. BUT...it did leave me with a lot of questions. I got about 90% of the film, but went home to do research on the internet about what I just saw and had to think over everything. It does make you think about how we dream, how the brain works, and how our dreams can help us through problems. It sounds hoky, but I'm a big believer in dream decoding and having the "so, guess what I dreamt about last night" conversations. I loved in the movie the influences of MC Escher and the ideas of lucid dreaming.
Overall, Inception is fascinating, thought provoking, and will surely be up for awards next year. Just be prepared for a lot of head scratching and lively discussions.
A thief invades other's dreams to steal information...or implant ideas.
INCEPTION Movie Review by C.S.: 3.24 stars out of 10 (Knowing everything about this movie cannot spoil it, but, just to let you know, this review reveals some plot details...)
I had uncontrollable high hopes for this movie.
Director Christopher Nolan is good at what he does (MEMENTO, THE PRESTIGE).
Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor.
Tons of money was poured into this picture--and into the advertising campaign.
Unfortunately, it all went awry.
I have some questions:
Was there extremely loud and overbearing, threatening music through way too much of the movie?
Does DiCaprio play the same character in every movie?
We all know that zillions of dollars can't improve a bad script, right?
You want more than guys fighting on ceilings and walls in zero gravity for entertainment, right? Right?!!
You want more than the streets of Paris folding themselves over your head like in a TV commercial for pizza, right?
Could they have left out the 45 minutes of James Bond rip-off skiing scenes? (Please, God.)
Would it have been better (and cheaper and easier) for them to just have murdered the heir, thus causing the breakup of the business monopoly?
There was no doubt that the ending was the subconscious of DiCaprio's character, not reality, right? If it wasn't, it was not worth spending any more time to find out, right?
Would this movie actually have been better without all the endless complications--this is real--this is not real?
If you go back and forth too many times with this is real and this is not real--the audience starts not to care, right?
Would it have been more satisfying to focus on the similarities of ~dreams, hopes, and memories~?
My answer to all of these questions is, "yes."
See for yourself.
Movies need more than effects, loud music, and ridiculously complicated stories.
Even in commercial entertainment movies, we need characters who come to irrevocable ~inner transformation~ because of things they are forced to endure in order to get what they want. That's what makes an emotionally satisfying story.
Movies also need to create emotions that transport the audience through character and story ~meaning~--not through special effects--no matter how cool, and they need stories that thrill while not disconnecting the audience's commitment to suspend disbelief.
Directors who write their own movies need to hire writers to write good and satisfying stories if they are going to just resort to rehashing key moments from the star's last five movies to create fake resonance in the movie:
The dual lover suicide scene from DiCaprio's ROMEO AND JULIET is played again.
The "You jump, I jump" scene from TITANIC is played out in Paris with another suicidal girl asking DiCaprio's character to jump-- this time off a windowsill instead of the back of a ship.
The waterfront scenes from DiCaprio's THE BEACH and the waves-crashing-on-the- rocks-scenes from SHUTTER ISLAND are played again. (Why not just paste the scenes from the original movies into this film? Why go to all the trouble of filming new scenes of the same thing?)
I was hoping this movie would push me into emotional excitement or intellectual wonder.
Neither happened from the inception to the end.
To use a word repeated in the movie: "disappointed."
God bless you in Jesus' forgiveness, love, joy, peace, and grace.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life" -Jesus, in John 6:47.
The Bible says that God loves all people.
Unfortunately, we have been alienated and separated from God because of our breaking of God's Moral Law (sin). This is what has caused all of the evil, pain, disappointment, emptiness, meaninglessness, despair, soul-craving, confusion, fear, war, sickness, and death in the world.
Jesus Christ is the sinless and holy God-man, prophesied thousands of years in advance in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Jesus loves you and died on the cross to pay for your sins.
He rose from the dead on the third day, showing that God the Father accepted His sacrifice for our sins.
Salvation, also known as redemption, is a free gift from God, received instantaneously, through believing in Christ.
The Bible says that if you believe in Christ, even for a moment, then you will not be punished for your sins in Hell (even future sins).
Rather, you will be given the permanent guarantee of Heaven, you will have meaning in your life, you will have God's love in your life, and a new holy identity in Christ, and you will immediately receive the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, forever.
You will be able to have a spiritual fellowship relationship with God every day.
God loves you, and I love you, too. Please believe in Christ right now and become part of God's family today. -Curtis
A thief invades other's dreams to steal information...or implant ideas.
INCEPTION Movie Review by C.S.: 3.24 stars out of 10 (Knowing everything about this movie cannot spoil it, but, just to let you know, this review reveals some plot details...)
I had uncontrollable high hopes for this movie.
Director Christopher Nolan is good at what he does (MEMENTO, THE PRESTIGE).
Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor.
Tons of money was poured into this picture--and into the advertising campaign.
Unfortunately, it all went awry.
I have some questions:
Was there extremely loud and overbearing, threatening music through way too much of the movie?
Does DiCaprio play the same character in every movie?
We all know that zillions of dollars can't improve a bad script, right?
You want more than guys fighting on ceilings and walls in zero gravity for entertainment, right? Right?!!
You want more than the streets of Paris folding themselves over your head like in a TV commercial for pizza, right?
Could they have left out the 45 minutes of James Bond rip-off skiing scenes? (Please, God.)
Would it have been better (and cheaper and easier) for them to just have murdered the heir, thus causing the breakup of the business monopoly?
There was no doubt that the ending was the subconscious of DiCaprio's character, not reality, right? If it wasn't, it was not worth spending any more time to find out, right?
Would this movie actually have been better without all the endless complications--this is real--this is not real?
If you go back and forth too many times with this is real and this is not real--the audience starts not to care, right?
Would it have been more satisfying to focus on the similarities of ~dreams, hopes, and memories~?
My answer to all of these questions is, "yes."
See for yourself.
Movies need more than effects, loud music, and ridiculously complicated stories.
Even in commercial entertainment movies, we need characters who come to irrevocable ~inner transformation~ because of things they are forced to endure in order to get what they want. That's what makes an emotionally satisfying story.
Movies also need to create emotions that transport the audience through character and story ~meaning~--not through special effects--no matter how cool, and they need stories that thrill while not disconnecting the audience's commitment to suspend disbelief.
Directors who write their own movies need to hire writers to write good and satisfying stories if they are going to just resort to rehashing key moments from the star's last five movies to create fake resonance in the movie:
The dual lover suicide scene from DiCaprio's ROMEO AND JULIET is played again.
The "You jump, I jump" scene from TITANIC is played out in Paris with another suicidal girl asking DiCaprio's character to jump-- this time off a windowsill instead of the back of a ship.
The waterfront scenes from DiCaprio's THE BEACH and the waves-crashing-on-the- rocks-scenes from SHUTTER ISLAND are played again. (Why not just paste the scenes from the original movies into this film? Why go to all the trouble of filming new scenes of the same thing?)
I was hoping this movie would push me into emotional excitement or intellectual wonder.
Neither happened from the inception to the end.
To use a word repeated in the movie: "disappointed."
God bless you in Jesus' forgiveness, love, joy, peace, and grace.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life" -Jesus, in John 6:47.
The Bible says that God loves all people.
Unfortunately, we have been alienated and separated from God because of our breaking of God's Moral Law (sin). This is what has caused all of the evil, pain, disappointment, emptiness, meaninglessness, despair, soul-craving, confusion, fear, war, sickness, and death in the world.
Jesus Christ is the sinless and holy God-man, prophesied thousands of years in advance in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Jesus loves you and died on the cross to pay for your sins.
He rose from the dead on the third day, showing that God the Father accepted His sacrifice for our sins.
Salvation, also known as redemption, is a free gift from God, received instantaneously, through believing in Christ.
The Bible says that if you believe in Christ, even for a moment, then you will not be punished for your sins in Hell (even future sins).
Rather, you will be given the permanent guarantee of Heaven, you will have meaning in your life, you will have God's love in your life, and a new holy identity in Christ, and you will immediately receive the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, forever.
You will be able to have a spiritual fellowship relationship with God every day.
God loves you, and I love you, too. Please believe in Christ right now and become part of God's family today. -Curtis
The third installment of Stephenie Meyer's The Twilight Saga, Eclipse.
It's a little unnerving to admit that the first movie I have seen in about a year is the third installment of the Twilight Saga. Sigh, this Eclipse did not however block out the sun and leave me in darkness, in fact it did quite the opposite.
Any post-pubescent "token tween" such as myself will admit that by the third attempt someone in Rob Pattinson/Kristen Stewart world got it right. Sufficiently lacking the cringe worthy love scenes of the hollywood heavyweights frolicking through meadows, Eclipse does Stephenie Meyer's words justice. Perhaps it was David Slade's direction (which at first struck me as a strange fit after Hard Candy), or perhaps everyone on set has just grown up a bit but the acting seemed better. Kristen Stewart managed to smile twice and the new man-candy provided by whoever it was that played Riley made for easy watching. A standout for me, as she was in her 30 minutes of screen time in the last film, was the demonic child Dakota Fanning. If that kid (now a shockingly tall young adult) wasn't destined to play a corrupt vampire, I don't know who was.
Although I know there are many "twilight haters" out there who will disagree with every word I have spewed in praise of this film, think if anything Eclipse sets high expectations for Breaking Dawn.
For more of my reviews visit my blog, http://blushingbirdcages.blogspot.com/.
The third installment of Stephenie Meyer's The Twilight Saga, Eclipse.
It's a little unnerving to admit that the first movie I have seen in about a year is the third installment of the Twilight Saga. Sigh, this Eclipse did not however block out the sun and leave me in darkness, in fact it did quite the opposite.
Any post-pubescent "token tween" such as myself will admit that by the third attempt someone in Rob Pattinson/Kristen Stewart world got it right. Sufficiently lacking the cringe worthy love scenes of the hollywood heavyweights frolicking through meadows, Eclipse does Stephenie Meyer's words justice. Perhaps it was David Slade's direction (which at first struck me as a strange fit after Hard Candy), or perhaps everyone on set has just grown up a bit but the acting seemed better. Kristen Stewart managed to smile twice and the new man-candy provided by whoever it was that played Riley made for easy watching. A standout for me, as she was in her 30 minutes of screen time in the last film, was the demonic child Dakota Fanning. If that kid (now a shockingly tall young adult) wasn't destined to play a corrupt vampire, I don't know who was.
Although I know there are many "twilight haters" out there who will disagree with every word I have spewed in praise of this film, think if anything Eclipse sets high expectations for Breaking Dawn.
Avatar is a futuristic movie set in 2154 on a foreign planet, Pandora. Humans ("Skypeople") arrive and go to great lengths to exploit the planet's resources, using every means of violence and destruction against the peaceful natives there.
From the beginning, James Cameron’s Avatar immerses you into a world of inexpressible splendor and untamed adventure. First, we meet the protagonist, ex-marine Jake Sully, who refuses to be encumbered by his paralysis and accepts type of “spy mission” to the planet Pandora. What he does not realize is that this mission will alter life as he knows it.
On Earth, all nations are experiencing the most severe economic depression in history, driving leaders to find some sort of outlet for relief and, possibly, the beginnings of prosperity. The discovery of Pandora and its abundant supply of the rarest, most expensive mineral in the universe, plutonium, was the answer to the prayers of humankind. However, the strange, foreign land and its seemingly bellicose natives make obtaining the mineral much for difficult than expected.
But a potential solution arrives with recent scientific innovations, which resulted in the ability of a person to both have a clone and shift his or her conscious mind to and from the clone if inside a special sleeping chamber, called a link (the intricacy and logic of the scientific knowledge, although fictional, is amazing!). In order to coerce the natives, the Na’vi, into allowing humans access to their plutonium, scientists developed clones (called Avatars) for the spies, like Jake, that look exactly like the Na’vi.
Once connected with his avatar, Jake sets out on a mission with other scientists in order to establish a relationship with the Na’vi. But in the dense, fantastical jungles of Pandora a fierce creature ambushes the group, scattering them. Jake is again attacked by monkey-like creatures drawn by his torch light, but a beautiful Na’vi female rescues him. Here, we receive our first glance into the innocence and harmony that marks the Na’vi way when the female, named Neytiri, apologizes to the souls of the creatures she killed to save Jake. At first she is infuriated with Jake for his foolishness and ignorance, but when floating creatures, sacred to their goddess, Eywa, show an affinity for Jake, Neytiri takes him to their village.
After being interrogated by the village’s chief, Neytiri’s father, Jake is allowed to learn the ways of the natives, keeping his true identity a secret. As he spends more time with them, Jake becomes completely won over by the gentle, adventurous Na’vi. The audience, too, undergoes a transformation from the perspective of human to Na’vi as Cameron’s Pandora reveals its breathtaking landscapes, fluorescent flora, and its complete harmony between nature and the natives. Jake even falls in love with Neytiri and they become mated for life in the sacred garden of Eywa.
However, Jake’s eternal bond to the Na’vi is jeopardized when the human invaders use the information he gave them to commence with their plan to obtain the plutonium, nestled beneath the Na’vi’s gigantic Home Tree, which connected the Na’vi to the planet. In one long, heart-wrenching scene, humans attack from the sky and manage to completely destroy Home Tree, along with the sacred gardens of Eywa. Suddenly, the audience realizes that their overwhelming sense of anger and devastation is caused by the atrocities committed by their own race! They’ve turned away from supporting the human quest to save the economy to empathizing with the natives, the innocent victims of human greed.
The epic battle and gripping suspense continue to the very end. Jake redeems himself from his betrayal by uniting all tribes on Pandora and leading the war against his race. After much devastation and many more action-packed scenes, the Na’vi forces are victorious and finally force humankind off of their planet. However, even after this there is one more scene filled with anticipation as Jake is the first to make the treacherous transition from human to Na’vi. After many long moments, Eywa grants him a new life in his avatar’s body and the entire Na’vi population rejoices with Jake’s conversion.
With constant suspense, fantastically imaginative scenery, and mind-boggling science, Avatar rose to the very top of my favorite movie list. I’m praying for a sequel!
