QUICK REVIEW: Tom and Jerry

Howdy ladies and gentlemen of the internet, how’s it going? So earlier this week I had the misfortune of watching the latest film adaptation of Tom and Jerry and now I am here to share my pain with you through a review via my podcast Film Focus.

In episode 116 of Film Focus, I review for one of the worst films I’ve watched for a while; Tom and Jerry. Now I’ve never been the biggest fan of the OG Tom and Jerry cartoons, it was like one of those cartoons you watched in between your favourites or when nothing else was on. That being said, when it was good, it was really fun and watched a lot of it in my childhood. I even watched that animated film from 1992 on TV numerous times, and while it’s not a great film by any means, it does have its quirks. So I know what the source material is, and this film… Is not the one. It does a massive disservice to the original cartoons. So how bad is this film? Well, check out this episode to find out!

Anyway here’s the review:

Film Focus · Episode 116 – Tom and Jerry Review

If you haven’t checked out my podcast before you can find it here: https://soundcloud.com/film_focus

So have you been unfortunate enough to see Tom and Jerry and if so what did you think of it? Drop your thoughts in the comments section below and I’ll see ya in the next review, laters! 😀

 

LATE ONE PARAGRAPH REVIEW: Bad Neighbours 2

Howdy ladies and gents people, time for another single paragraph review and today I’m finally, FINALLY getting around to talking about Bad Neighbours 2 (originally titled Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising in the US). Now I enjoyed the first film, and while I didn’t love it, I really enjoyed the carnage and humour that came from Zac Efron and Dave Franco especially. So when I heard there’d be sequel I knew I’d have to give it a shot.

In a way Bad Neighbours 2 is essentially a retread of the last film with a few variations of the basic plot. In this film Mac and Kelly end up living next door to a new sorority who prove to be more troublesome than their previous neighbours, so they team up with their former enemy, Teddy, to bring the girls down. And what I liked about this film was that besides the fact that the humour was order-the-top, silly and full of all sorts of ridiculous situations, there was some heart and emotional themes relating growing up, friendship and finding your place in the world, and as someone who has experienced some of these same issues/anxieties it was pretty effective. With all that being said, not all of the humour worked and some of the emotional moments weren’t as effective as they could have been. When it comes to the cast the returning members did well and some of the new cast were cool too. Firstly Zac Efron (who was my favourite dude from the last film) returned in full effect as Teddy Sanders, and Efron had the same charisma and likability that made him so fun in the last film. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne also returned as Mac and Kelly Radner, and they were just as strange and good as they were last time. Ike Barinholtz was also as Jimmy Blevins and seeing Dave Franco again as Pete Regazolli was nice even if his role was much smaller. Chloë Grace Moretz did really as Shelby, as she was not only fun and charming, however similar to Teddy, she had a pretty interesting and emotional character arc. And finally Kiersey Clemons as Beth and Beanie Feldstein as Nora had their decent individual moments, but weren’t as funny as some of the other cast members. In conclusion Bad Neighbours 2 was a good follow-up the original film and while not all of the humour and story elements worked, on the whole it was worth a watch in the cinema.

So that was my review, have you seen Bad Neighbours 2 and if so what did you think of it? Please leave your comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀

 

The Actors & Actresses Rumored to be Up for Cyclops and Phoenix in X-Men: Apocalypse

Howdy ladies and gents, time for some big rumoured news that’s gone down this week that’s relating to the potential actors and actresses that will be in X-Men: Apocalypse. The roles in question being a younger version of Cyclops and Phoenix. I know I’m a bit late to this rumour/news story but I had to comment on it and pass on my thoughts. The following information comes from superherohype:

Although the casting net appears to be quite preliminary, TheWrap today names three actresses and three actors up to potentially play Jean Grey (aka Marvel Girl/Phoenix) and Scott Summers (aka Cyclops), respectively, in Bryan Singer’s upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse. According to their sources, Elle Fanning (Maleficent), Chloe Grace Moretz (If I Stay) and Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) are all being looked at for Jean while Timothee Chalamet (Interstellar), Ben Hardy (“EastEnders”) and Charlie Rowe (“Red Band Society”) are all up for the Scott role.

Cylcops and Phoenix were previously played in the X-Men films by James Marsden and Famke Jensen (with Tim Pocock playing a younger Summers in X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

It’s uncertain exactly how much of a role the mutant pair will have in the 2016 feature, although the original story notes that casting will be taking into account the fact that both characters will appear in subsequent X-Men films.

Confirmed to star James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult (with more names expected to be confirmed shortl), X-Men: Apocalypse is scripted by Simon Kinberg, Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris. Said to be the conclusion of a trilogy started with X-Men: First Class and continued with X-Men: Days of Future Past, cameras will start rolling on the next adventure in Montreal beginning April, 2015 for a May 27, 2016 release.

Well this casting is certainly interesting. Sure this is all rumour at the moment, but it definitely raises some eyebrows, in a good way, but also in a concerning way.

When it comes to the women, great choices, all of them good actresses, however there are two that stick out and they are Chloë Grace Moretz and Hailee Steinfeld. Why those two? Because they are actresses that have been in great films and I feel like they have the charisma, charm and versatility to pull off a role like Jean Grey/Phoenix. Personally I would go with Moretz, she’s been Hit-Girl and Carrie, and in recent films she’s proving to be a capable actress with emotional range. That being said, I would not like her to be typecast as an action chick though. That’s why Steinfeld would be a good option, she’s a great actress, I loved her performance in True Grit and even her part in Begin Again was fun. If she joined the league of superhero film people then that would get her noticed tenfold.

As for the men, that’s a trickier subject. Timothee Chalamet seems like the best choice for me, he was good in Interstellar and while I haven’t seen any of his other work, it does seem like he’s had a fair amount of experience in TV and film. Charlie Rowe seems like another good candidate as he has a pretty decent filmography in film and TV. While both of these actors are very young-looking and don’t have what I believe is “the right look” for someone like Cyclops, but hey if they can act and get good make-up, I can dig it. The only one I’m not down for is Ben Hardy, he’s only been in Eastenders and I can’t see him in the role of someone as cool as Cyclops. He hasn’t done anything fantastic acting-wise to warrant getting such a great role. Sorry, but no.

In conclusion the rumoured casting for this film is definitely surprising, but also promising, at least for the actresses. While it does seem odd to see such young-looking faces taking on these major characters, for the time period of X-Men: Apocalypse it would seem appropriate. Let’s see if this pans out or if other people get cast instead.

 

The Equalizer Mini Review

Howdy people, time for me to give you my mini review on The Equalizer. From the time I saw the trailer for this film I knew it was something I was going to watch and it was purely based on Denzel Washington’s involvement. So how does the end result fare? Well, read on and find out!

The story can be described as the following:

“Robert McCall is a man who believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and has dedicated himself to beginning a new, quiet life. But when he meets a young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters, he can’t stand idly by – he has to help her.“

I thought the story was good for the most part. I thought from the trailers that the story would revolve around Denzel’s character being friends with Chloë and then avenging her after she gets beat up by the Russians, but there was a lot more to it than that. We get to know Robert a little a bit and there were a good few people involved with the guy when it comes to his friends and enemies. Plus the scale of the story expands a lot further than I thought and to that degree I felt like the film went on a bit too long, especially towards the end when it really went from being a thriller and changed into something resembling a comic book film. The ending really took me out of the film’s normal tone and was totally setting up for a sequel and while that could work, I feel like that would work better as a TV series kind of thing. This film is more of a “one and done” kind of thing.

When it comes to the performances it was all pretty good for the most part, but in the end the only person you’re interested in is Denzel Washington and luckily he does his job just fine as Robert McCall. Robert is a man who comes across as the nicest guy ever when in the company of other people, but he is also very particular and accurate about the way he lives his life and you can see that he is a man who also has a strong sense of justice and will do things on his terms to help people in need. The guy is a badass, he’s not only really smart and methodical, but he can not only mess someone up with hand-to-hand combat, but also knows how to handle guns and can turn most objects into weapons. And while we’ve seen cool men in action thrillers before, Denzel performs with a sense of style and coolness that only he could pull off, this film is primarily about him and Denzel sells the character well.

Marton Csokas as Teddy was pretty as well, while his character was painted as one of those standard “silent but deadly” kind of bad guys, I feel like Csokas performed in a way that made me believe that he was an aggressive and no-nonsense kind of man who was very smart and diligent about his work. Csokas made for a pretty cool bad guy and I would like to see him in more roles like this in the future. As for Chloë Grace Moretz as Alina/Teri she was fine, in a way this role could have been played by any actress, but I feel like I cared for the character more just because I knew it was Moretz in the role. And lastly, it was nice to see appearances from Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman as Brian and Susan Plummer.

So in conclusion The Equalizer is a good film with a great central performance from Denzel Washington, it is a bit generic and goes on a little longer than it should have. But I cannot deny that I had a lot of fun watching Denzel being a badass and dishing out the pain with a sense of style and charisma that only he can pull off.

Rating: 7/10

So have you seen the The Equalizer and if so what did you think of it? Be sure to leave your comments below and I’ll see ya on the next film review yo 😀

 

Kick-Ass 2 Review

Howdy people, it looks like its time to review a new film again and today’s film is the sequel to 2010’s Kick-Ass in the form of Kick-Ass 2. Now this is a film I’ve been cautiously interested in for a while now. I really liked what Matthew Vaughn did with the first film and when I heard he wasn’t coming back for the sequel I was gutted. The trailers also only made me mildly hyped for the film, so man was I glad after watching the film today to find that it was WAY better than I expected. Thank god.

The plot in this film goes a little something like this:

“Inspired by Kick-Ass and the events of the first film, other people don masks and begin to fight crime. One of these, Colonel Stars and Stripes, forms a team and asks Kick-Ass to join them. Meanwhile, Hit-Girl’s choice to “retire” and try to have a normal life as a schoolgirl backfires when Red Mist is reborn as The Mother Fucker and plans to create a super-villain army to exact revenge on Kick-Ass for his father’s death. The superheroes face threats from their allies and get thrown into prison for wearing masks.“

I really enjoyed the story in this film, it felt like a nice progression from the previous one and had a lot of new challenges for all the character involved and cranked up the danger level by ten times. There’s really three main story arcs in the film:

• The first involving Dave wanting to become a hero again as Kick-Ass and become some more than a regular person.
• The second involves Mindy trying to come to terms with who she is, dealing with life as Hit-Girl but also dealing with high school for the first time.
• And the third involves Chris D’Amico wanting to get vengeance against Kick-Ass and becoming to The Mother Fucker.

All of the key characters from the previous film develop which leads to some wonderfully emotional and really great moments throughout. The great thing about this film is that it has everything you loved about the last one, Kick-Ass 2 retains its sense of humour, style, drama, violence and unashamedly blunt nature. There’s bound to be stuff to offend people from the violence to the profanity and racism too, but hey it’s not meant to be serious, it’s just a movie and the way its used is effective and hilarious. Now obviously for the comic book fans a good deal of things have been changed for the live-action adaptation and I feel like they work for the most part, but obviously some may be disappointed with the changes.

When it comes to the characters they are all on top form and the cast do a brilliant job. Let’s start with Aaron Taylor-Johnson with is still badass as David Lizewski/Kick-Ass. In this film Dave has a great journey that we experience in this film, he’s been out of action for a while but then dresses up and joins a group of costumed heroes and is really enjoying himself, until things get complicated. Johnson is still odd, hilarious and cool as the title character. And then there’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D’Amico/The Mother Fucker. Bloody hell, The Mother Fucker is one of the strangest creations any person has come up with, the guy is a nutcase with some stupid and weird tendencies, but that also makes him a frigging awesome character. Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays this character to great effect being charismatic and naturally funny throughout. But the real star as per usual is Chloë Grace Moretz as Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl. Mindy has the strongest of the character arcs in this film for me, her character has a lot of things on her mind and has to deal with new challenges as both herself and her alter ego. Chloë burst into the world of film as Hit-Girl and continues to be amazing as this crazy acrobatic fighter, but also as a girl who doesn’t know anything outside of the world that her father put her into.

Now let’s talk Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes. I was REALLY looking forward to seeing Carrey in this film and I can report that he did a great job in the film. His character was funny and has a great sense of justice and knew how to throw down, he was really badass. HOWEVER I was really gutted with the amount of time he was in the film, I felt like his character exited the film far too soon and I felt like his character wasn’t as integrated into the main cast as the trailers made me believe.

I also want to give a shout out to Donald Faison who was totally great as Doctor Gravity, he provided some wicked moments of humour. Also Olga Kurkulina should really be highlighted for her work as Mother Russia, she was the definition of badass, she was like a human tank of beastliness! And John Leguizamo (who I remember as Tybalt from Romeo + Juliet) does a great job as Javier, he’s funny, relatable and cool. And finally Lindy Booth as Night Bitch and Claudia Lee as Brooke were great in their roles but were also total hotness, I had to say it!

In terms of presentation its pretty cool, visually the film is done very well with some nicely shot scenes and wonderfully choreographed action scenes and sequences. The best element of the action comes in the awesome fight sequences involving Hit-Girl, Mother Russia, Kick-Ass and the epic battle between hero and villain groups towards the end of the film. As for the soundtrack by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson its great, it retains the heroic, distinct and soft themes from the last film while adding some nice new ones in this film. The soundtrack also works thanks to its choice of music tracks too, the best example of this is use of “Korobeiniki” which is the Type A music from Tetris covered by the band Ozma. It is a frigging awesome cover of the original and is used SO well in one sequence in the film which is just beastly!

So to conclude, Kick-Ass 2 is a lot of fun. It’s just about as awesome if not more so than the original, its violent, over-the-top, ridiculous, hilarious and doesn’t care about who it offends. I wasn’t expecting the film to be as good as it was but it exceeded my expectations and was a lot better than a lot of the films I’ve seen this summer. I can only recommend this film for those who are fans of the first film or those who don’t mind a bit of violence with their action and comedy, but yeah Kick-Ass 2, good stuff. 🙂

Rating: 8/10 (A solid sequel fun of all the good carnage that made the first film rock!)

Now I wanna here your thoughts on the film in the comments below! Did you enjoy Kick-Ass 2? Did you like it more or less than the first film? Also if you’re a fan of the comics do you like the changes or despise them? Whatever your thoughts drop them below and I’ll see ya on the next review yo! 😀

 

Kick-Ass 2 Red Band Trailer Review!

Finally, finally, FINALLY! I have been waiting for the bloody trailer for Kick-Ass 2 for ages, I just wanted to see some form of footage to see what kind of film we were gonna get with this sequel. The first film was a largely successful prequel film adaptation of the Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. comic book, even if it was a little overhyped in my opinion, so know we have the sequel’s first trailer and to be honest while it’s interesting it doesn’t make me jump for the skies in excitement.

Anyways if you haven’t taken a look at the trailer have a look below:

So what can we see here? Well I know what I saw. It was an interesting trailer with moments of awesomeness however this trailer wasn’t all that fancy to me. From what I can see here we’re picking up right where we left off in the last film, Kick-Ass saved the day and he’s still running around and kicking ass, his crazy actions have even inspired other crazy people to start parading around in costumes too.The trailer also reintroduces us to Hit Girl who has a school life to deal with, but also has to train Kick-Ass too and she can still dish out the pain as well. Yay. And then there’s appearance of Colonel Stars and Stripes who adds some new flavour to this masked superhero scene and of course Red Mist know as The Mother F%&*^r (Mother Fucker for those who hadn’t guessed) and you have a recipe for chaos and good times with violence.

The humour still seems to be intact straight from the beginning, Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass still seem to have their funny moments together and the addition of Jim Carrey is definitely looking interesting. This is a very different character from anything I’ve seen him in before especially when it comes to his voice, it sounds to different. And The Mother F%&*^r just look great, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is normally great in all the roles he’s in so I can’t wait to see what kind of evil and humour he’ll bring to this sequel. In terms of the fighting and violence it looks like there will be plenty of that with flipping and kicking and some crazy set pieces including Hit-Girl attacking people from on top of a van! Damn she’s hardcore. It also looks like the people in masks are in trouble because the police are after them and it also looks like Kick-Ass’ dad found out who he is already (which must happen in this film because there was no indication of that before).

Now I’ve watched the trailer twice now and it seems cool but I’m probably either gonna wait for another one or just wait until the summer to see Kick-Ass 2 in full to pass judgment, I liked the first one here’s hoping that this one is better.

 

New Images From Kick-Ass 2 Including Hit-Girl!

Alrighty so we finally get to see more images from Kick-Ass 2 but the most important part is we get to see Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit-Girl. The following info and images comes from superherohype:

“The first official image from Kick-Ass 2, revealed last week, featured Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Kick-Ass with Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes. The ferocious Hit-Girl was noticeably absent, but now there are a few images from the film as featured in the upcoming issue of Empire with the first look at Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) in the sequel as well as the rest of Kick-Ass’ newly formed ‘super group,’ Justice Forever.

In the sequel, after Kick-Ass’  insane bravery inspires a new wave of self-made masked crusaders, led by the badass Colonel Stars and Stripes, our hero joins them on patrol. When these amateur superheroes are hunted down by Red Mist—reborn as The Mother F%&*^r—only the blade-wielding Hit Girl can prevent their annihilation.”

As we can clearly see Chloë Grace Moretz has clearly gotten a lot taller and grown up since Kick-Ass back in 2010. Obviously for the sake of the comic book source material she is still considered a girl, but Chloë is clearly old enough to register as a teenager. But other than Chloë’s age, it is great to see her back in the uniform and hopefully she’ll still be laying waste to everyone around her in this film just like before. You can also see in the second picture that Kick-Ass and Colonel Stars and Stripes are forming some sort of alliance, I just hope that in this film Jim Carrey will be put to full use and be badass!