Trick r treat

I'm sitting here having watched this movie last night trying to think of the correct words to describe it.
Terrible? It's not quite correct, horrible isnt right either. Its just bad. Its not the worst movie I have ever watched but I will likely never watch it again.

 This is in no way a horror movie, its not creepy, it's not gore filled, its not action, there is no suspense or feeling of "this could happen to me" because the things that happen in the movie even if they did happen to you in real life would not be scary. Now you need at least one of those to even begin to classify as horror and so I have filed this movie under "arty" even under the arty category it doesnt shine.

There are some scenes that might have been scary if it had a better soundtrack, or had put even a little effort into building suspense but it just seems to be shoving "look this is what scary should be" in your face the whole movie and it fails. Its like the writer read a book once twenty years ago that had a villain and thought to himself, I could make horror right? WRONG.

Now scary is hard to do, but even non scary horror movies can be entertaining. This is not entertaining and for most of it I just wished it had ended.

It is four quite poorly written stories crammed into a movie with a "creepy boy" who is the least creepy halloween monster i have ever encountered.

I have been reading rave reviews of this movie and i don't think anybody who watched it understands that arty and good are two seperare things. The visual style is good I'll even concede that the writing is average. But the whole premise is not scary or original.

3/10

Honestly you shouldnt buy it, its not worth watching.

Star Trek: into darkness

So i feel i should preface this review with I am not a Trekkie by any standard, I've seen a few episodes here and there I have seen most of the movies however I have not seen the original movie this movie was based on (I intend to watch it over the next few days)

Two of the people I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness with have seen the original and they both loved the original (I will not tell you which it is for fear of ruining the plot), one even citing it as the best star trek movie ever made. As such in my group alone we had a few differing opinions to me on this movie, the resounding vote between us was that of the two new ones, this is easily better than the first.

I would also like to note that I saw this at the IMAX theater and holy hell was it worth it. Seeing a movie in REAL 3D made me remember why people try and make movies in 3D, feeling like you might get slapped in the face by a warp trail, a stray phaser swings just past your head, grass and trees so close you could touch them. That is what 3D is meant to be and Star Trek was the perfect movie to highlight this.

 

The plot was sadly very predictable, within moments of the movie starting I had correctly guessed two of the twist's and my friend had a bet placed for the identity of benedict cumberbatch which he won. If you have seen the original movie this is a "how would this movie have gone considering that the universe has changed" it is not a new movie it is a retelling of the previous movie in a new universe, so many elements are the same. However the predictability of this movie is not all that detrimental to the enjoyability of this movie because it makes up for it with many awesome space battles including the enterprise taking a serious beating a few times. the warp effect and the beaming effect straight out of the gate look incredible and in IMAX 3D where literally out of this world.
The fight scenes are great its not a kung fu movie but when there is action it feels like action, when there is drama it feels like drama, the moods the film want you to face are correctly captured in every scene.

Also having never seen the original I didn't know what would happen in the final scene and it brought some manly tears of sorrow and brolove to my eyes. Sure you know everything will be ok in the end but honestly it was so well done you forget that and just feel like you have taken a major blow to the feel.

This movie does what star trek should. It tugs at your heart explodes your eyes raises some questions and incites your sense of adventure.

Over all i give it 8.5/10.

Worth seeing in imax? Yes! Yes! Dear god YES!
Worth buying on bluray? I will be there day one to get this movie on bluray, its just so pretty.
Worth seeing in 3D? Imax 3D is so different to regular 3D I cannot make a call. Im going to go with yes though because there are some scenes that just wouldn't be the same without 3D.

Lincoln

Lincoln has recently won a ton of awards even beating the hobbit at set design, and honestly after watching it you can see why. This is not a hollywood movie, this is a high budget experience. You do not watch this movie to pass time, you watch this movie to transport yourself into the white house as lincoln finishes the war and amends the constitution.

The movie takes place after the emancipation proclamation and every scene is as if you where there. This movie has quite a large amount of assumed knowledge which I believe had I not been taught American history in school I would not have known. However I did have all the assumed knowledge and this movie was exactly as I had imagined Lincoln to be, A kind, honest man who just wants to move the world forward.

A caution for this movie, it is LONG totalling two and a half hours for a movie I would put into my documentary collection it is not something you watch lightly and unless I was going to formally learn about Abe in some way, I would not watch this again. Many scenes went on for a really long time and that helped with empathizing with lincoln, he was old and weary and just wanted the war to be over which is how I feel about this movie. Another problem I face is that the death of Lincoln is well known (after all he isnt alive anymore) and so the movie doesnt even try to have a build up to his death (not that there was one in real life) and in fact it does come as a shock.. or it would if i wasnt two hours and twenty minutes in and it hadnt happened yet.

If you want to be Abraham Lincoln for a few hours, watch this movie, if you don't well I guess don't watch it. I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends but I don't know many people that are history buffs.

Also Large shout out to Tommy Lee Jones, who went a whole movie without killing anyone. Although a fight scene between him and Vampire hunter Lincoln would have been hilarious.

4/10
Movie? This is a movie for lincoln fans, I wouldnt watch it but if its your type of movie then its spectacular looking.
DVD? I wouldnt buy it on DVD
BluRay? Buy it on Blu Ray if its your sort of movie, skip the dvd and go straight to HD for this one, the set design is stunning.

Sinister

Sinister achieves something most horror films do not in my mind, Perhaps its because as a child I was graced by movies like Ju-On and The red shoes in the cinema. The local cinema near my house used to have friday night horror and they would bring in the latest korean horror movie subtitled every friday one night only. Well since then nothing has been scary. Until Sinister.

This movie isnt some cthullu scared for days type horror movie. But lots of very jumpy scenes, I believe at one point my friend watching it with me fell out of his chair.

We have here a story of a man who moves his family into a house where a family had been hung in order to try and write a "true crime" novel about the former residents however  he quickly discovers he has bitten off more than he can chew as he discovers tapes in his attic of previous murders by the same person. These tapes get progressively more gruesome with more than one of them requiring the main character to reach IMMEDIATELY for the whiskey. His family life starts to suffer and bad things begin to happen.

It was a scary movie and it will continue to be scary on multiple playings, its only short coming is that they failed the element of "this could happen to me" that they were trying to go for even still the characters are relatible and more than once he did exactly what I told him to do moments after i had thought it.

Movies? I wish I had seen it in the movies it would be great.

DVD? Yes, keep it handy for your horror movie nights, its scary and good but lets you recover enough after to watch another scary movie, i recommend The red shoes (2005)

BluRay? Im undecided. It is worth buying because its good and bluray would look good but I normally reserve bluray for shiny movies. Im undecided but I think you can get away with just the DVD.

Overall? 7/10

Warm bodies

Warm bodies
Im going to preface this review with a simple fact. I am a sucker for heartwarming movies done right. I am also a sucker for zombies.
So when a trailer came across my desk for someone attempting to both I new I would have to see it.

And you should too.

This is not a movie that will go down in the history books as shaping a generation but it has been added to my personal list of must have feel good movies. A place in my heart so far only taken up by the mighty ducks.


The plot is solid Zombie falls in love, love cures zombie, love spreads starts curing all zombies. You get that much just from the trailer, There are evil zombies known as bonies and John Malkovitch as a militant leader.

However this movie really shines at its ability to make you feel good at every moment. You really do fear the bonies, you really do get attached to the characters.

The main characters monologue is witty, funny and clever whilst bringing some new ideas to the table about zombies and what they live through every day.

I give this movie an 8.5 out of ten. Not because its spectacular but because it will make you feel really REALLY good about the world.

Cinema? Doesnt need it.
DVD? Most definitely go get it, keep it on your shelf, watch it whenever you need a pick me up.
Also as a note, great to watch with your significant other.
Blu-Ray? This movie isnt that pretty, its just very touching. So no.

Iron man 3

Ive literally just walked out of iron man 3D. Honestly it could have been better my main problem is that it is very difficult to review without giving away spoilers. There are some excellent fight scenes, the one at the end is a pretty good NerdGasm for Ironman Fans.

Good performance by the kid he had some witty lines and was a good replacement for pepper pots in the scenes she didnt get screen time. 

Believable bad guy they set him up well but sadly the "twist" was to easy to guess and was revealed very early in the movie, I will say the twist did have some comedy value which they seemed to glance over because they had realized they didn't have enough fight scenes.

6.5/10

Just as a note this is the second worst score I have given to any movie in the avengers Set. Beating Thor by .5 which I didn't like. This does not include the hulk movies which are not included as none of the hulk movies are good (its a sad fact coming from a hulk fan but its true). Not saying IronMan is not good. I just really want another avengers and sadly this is not what I wanted, I was excited for the extremis storyline but honestly I felt that the main point of that storyline got glanced over, yet again hard to review without spoilers. but it is good. In terms of 3rd in the series id watch this over spiderman 3.

How does it stack up to number 2 and 1?
Well this is a difficult one. Number 1 was basically the movie that started this whole avengers being feasible thing so it doesnt begin to compare, but 2 and the story of war machine, whilst integral to this movie (because war machine) I feel felt a little short. Number 2 is slightly better than number 3 receiving a 7 and Iron man 1 receiving an 8.

Should you see it in theater" yeah and if you do go see it in 3D the explosions look awesome.

If you are a comic buff it's not good enough. If you are an iron man fan it's good great if you love Tony stark if you want more avengers it falls short. But maybe that's just post avengers sickness.

Keep an eye out for the credits they actually look really awesome and with all marvel movies there is a scene after the credits which is quite funny.

6.5/10