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Wonder Woman: Movie Review

June 3, 2017 Andrew Leave a comment

When Batman v. Superman was first being advertised I was probably more excited at the prospect of the movie than I was about any other comic book movie to date, with perhaps the exception of Captain America 2 and 3 (Winter Soldier and Civil War). Wonder Woman had been teased as a character that would be fighting alongside the Caped Crusader in some of the final trailers just before the films release. This raised my interest but still wasn’t my selling point for BvS. Then when I saw BvS in theaters for the first time I was so incredibly impressed with Gal Godot’s Wonder Woman that she was one of my favorite aspects of the movie. So much so that the then Wonder Woman movie which was still over a year out movie made it on to my must see list for 2017.

While I admit I still enjoyed Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad, none of them were great movies like can be said for some of Marvel’s MCU offerings. The bad part of a movie setting the bar so high for a genre is that it’s almost impossible to reach. The bad part about setting a bar so low is that you can’t help but trip on it, and even when you manage to make a decent movie it’s easy to fall victim to the “well of course it’s a good movie, look what we’re comparing it to” attitude. I worried that would happen with Wonder Woman.

Lucky for me, that didn’t happen. Yesterday my fiancé and I saw Wonder Woman in theaters and I was impressed. I mean thoroughly impressed. DC finally spent some time on a movie and didn’t just rush it into theaters. This movie was thoughtfully put together with a good story, a good set of characters, solid plot, great acting, good pace, and above all else, good action.

I love the slew of comic book movies we’ve enjoyed over the past decade and a half but even I can admit that we run the risk of genre fatigue at the rate these movies are being popped out. Wonder Woman was a much needed breath a fresh air in a genre that was starting to become stagnant.

We can talk about what this movie is, but I think it would be a better idea to first talk about what this movie is not.

It’s not boring. Not even a little. Nor is it rushed. The movie has a great rhythm. They don’t spend too much time on the origin aspect, nor do they rush through it (I’m looking at your X-Men Origins Wolverine). This porridge is juuuuuust right.

It’s not a testosterone fest. I love me some action. Daredevil season 2 has some of the most badass fight scenes to ever grace the television set and that’s great if you want to watch two men kick the snot out of each other. But this movie is different and while Wonder Woman no doubt kicks ass her fighting style is more fluid than it is brutal. She’s quick, she’s graceful, she’s always on point, and she still hits like a ton of bricks. There’s no Civil War chest pumping, no Batman brooding.

It’s not a chick flick. Just because it’s got a female lead doesn’t make this movie a slouch, or make it a chick flick. Diana Prince brings a new perspective to what it means to be a hero. Yes, a more womanly based approach that we’re not used to seeing, but a valid one. Fellas, this is not a movie meant to trick you into seeing an action movie that ends up turning into a romantic comedy.

It’s not a SJW shit flick. This movie is not trying to shove some anti patriarchy, man hating, women rule boys drool propaganda down your throat. It’s not. Don’t worry that you’ll get dragged into this movie to be told how evil you are for having a dick.

It doesn’t look CGI heavy. I say look because there’s no doubt this movie used a ton of Hollywood magic but the movie still appears very clean. The CG is not in your face, it’s very subtle. Basically, this movie wasn’t Avatar. It wasn’t Transformers. It didn’t make your eyes bleed.

It’s hard to believe that the DCEU could make a legitimately good movie. While none of the other three films were commercial flops by any metric, they just weren’t great movies. The DCEU up to this point has been a hot mess, and considering that no movie studio, not even the successful Disney / Marvel studio has made a comic book movie with a female lead, it seemed like very dangerous territory for DC to venture into. But it looks like a female lead and a female director we’re exactly what the doctor ordered for this studio and wow, did it work.

So here’s what we got. This movie had a good amount of action and it progresses with the movie as Diane comes into her own, with the realization of what she is, and what she’s capable of doing. There are many different types of action sequences with scenes so ranging they feel like they came out of Troy, Captain America Winter Soldier, and Saving Private Ryan.

The casting was great. The best of any DCEU movie so far. Gal Gadot is absolutely beautiful, I mean just stunning (and a much better pick than Ronda Rousey). She can pull off the warrior princess, but she can also pull the sophisticated, elegant Diana Prince. Whether she’s flaunting a dress, a pea coat, or a sword and shield, Gadot steals whatever scene she is in. Remember, this is her second debut as Wonder Woman in just over a year and I have high hopes for her third debut in November’s Justice League.

I heard Chris Pine’s character as being the ‘damsel in distress’ and that’s far from the truth. This wasn’t about one gender being helpless, and the other having to save them. This movie illustrated that men and women have different qualities that can augment the other. Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor struggles to find the balance between duty and conscience that most men do. At what point do you abandon orders and do what you know in your heart to be the right thing? Diana Prince helps him to see that morality and duty don’t have to be mutually exclusive. At the same time, Steve Trevor tries to teach Diana that things are not always as simple as black and white, and sometimes you must get your hands dirty to clean up a mess.

Robin Wright did a great job as Antiope. Wright is elegant, sexy, poised, and poisonous as Claire Underwood in House of Cards, but she is straight rugged in her role as a badass Amazon warrior. Her role was short lived, but certainly memorable.

David Thewlis as Ares, the god of war was a bit of a surprise to me, so it might be a bit of a spoiler to you. But IMBD has him listed in the role, so the cats already out of the bag.

Danny Huston does a good villain, and he performed as expected as General Ludendorff, the main protagonist of the first two acts of the movie. Fox Studios botched his role in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (as they did most of the entire movie) so it was nice to see him get a role suitable for his abilities.

Wonder Woman will not be a movie soon forgotten. This movie easily gets an 8/10 score from me, and will be the first movie from the DCEU that I care to own on Blu-Ray. Here’s hoping that Gal Godot is not acted out, and can pull off this character a third time in just a year and a half with this fall’s Justice League. I expect this movie will do commercial well. Just like children’s movies result in the parents having to buy a ticket, this movie will probably draw not just the usual male comic book movie crowd, but their wives and girlfriends (if those dorks have any). If you want an action and adventure movie to jump start your summer, I recommend this over Disney’s seafaring five-quel.

Go see Wonder Woman. And bring your wife and kids too.

Movies, Review

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2: Movie Review

May 5, 2017 Andrew 2 Comments

Last night I saw an early screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as part of a 3D double feature of GOG1 and GOG2 back to back. While I am not a huge fan of wearing the 3D glasses, watching both movies back to back certainly was fun and really added to the experience of the second movie. While the sequel certainly time skips a couple years or so, it doesn’t feel like. Right from the beginning you get that gangs all here vibe. Even with that annoying kid who kept kicking my seat, the movie just felt right.

Director James Gunn did a wonderful job with the sequel. That’s doesn’t sound like much but in the world of sequels, sequels of sequels, pre-quels, and side-quels, it’s really easy for a story to get run out. So the simple fact that this was a good sequel is actually a huge freaking deal. We’re so used to sequels and reboots that it’s easy to get jaded, and some Marvel titles are among the worst offenders. I’m looking at you Spider-Man. But fear not, this is a sequel that lives up to the hype of it’s predecessor.

It wasn’t a runaway better sequel like Dark Knight was to Batman Begins, or Winter Soldier was to Captain America 1, but GOG2 was at the very least on par with GOG1. And considering how good the original was, saying this movie was “good enough” is actually a huge complement.

There were a lot of similarities and a lot of differences in this movie, some of which are splitting hairs.

Family

Whereas Guardians was more about friendship, this movie was more about family. Everything from the way the group interacts as a whole and how individual members interact with one another, to how they perceive satellite characters and the world around them. Peter Quill and Gamora have an ‘unspoken’ burgeoning romance and assume a sort of paternal and maternal role in the group, which is hilariously referred to in the mid-credit scenes.

Everyone misses the family they lost, or never had to begin with. Quill’s heartbreak over his mom and his frustration with not knowing his father plays front and center most of the movie. It also focused a lot on his relationship with Yondu. Gamora tries to reconcile her relationship with her estranged and murderous sister, Nebula. Drax misses his wife and child. Rocket who has never had a real family struggles with learning how to embrace his new adoptive family. And Groot… well… ha… you’ll just have to see the movie for yourself.

We see the Guardians start to function as more of real team or family unit, as opposed to ‘a bunch of guys running around shooting guns’ to quote Steve Rogers. In Vol. 1 they were for the most part winging everything. Vol. 2 gives us a well-oiled albeit argumentative machine. The guardians have hit their stride and saving the world is all part of the routine.

Humor

Everyone knew this movie was going to be funny. If the original movie didn’t clue you off, the marketing campaign should have made it abundantly clear this movie was going to have you laughing, but the ads didn’t do the movie justice. This movie delivers the laughs. Chris Pratt needs no introduction to comedy. Bradley Cooper’s Rocket of course brings foul mouthed comedy and that was no shocker.

To my surprise, Dave Batista’s Drax the Destroyer stole the show in terms of pound for pound comedy. Drax had me about to cough up a lung I was laughing so hard. But don’t worry, you’re beautiful on the inside.

The jokes and moments are too many to list, but if you want to laugh, go see Guardians 2, you won’t be disappointed.

Heart

What you probably didn’t expect was that this movie has some serious heart. More so than any other movie I’ve seen in a long time, and certainly more so than any other comic book movie. At one point in the movie I was borderline crying. Like seriously, about to cry.

This wasn’t some thrown together chemistry like that awkward ‘romance’ between Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley in Pirates. James Gunn very carefully laid the framework for real characters you could relate to, and real connections you can commiserate with, and the actors did an amazing job making this all believable. When the characters laugh, you laugh with them, and when they cry, you feel it too.

This is what makes GOG2 so much more than just ‘another comic book movie’. This isn’t just thrashing and shooting and blowing shit up, even though that does happen too. There’s a huge reservoir of emotion beneath the surface. The movie is galactic in scale but it doesn’t have to be. It wouldn’t make any difference if took place in Nebraska. GOG2 wasn’t using eye boggling graphics and CGI scenes as a crutch for good story telling like some other movies starring robots. Guardians stands firmly on two feet with the cast, story, and directing alone. The graphics are just a welcomed bonus.

Graphics

But yeah, about ‘dem graphics. Like I said before, I don’t like wearing those 3D glasses but if you can spare a couple bucks to see Volume 2 in 3D it’s certainly worth doing at least once. The graphics in this movie really are something else. Avatar was incredible when it came out for it’s vibrance and surrealism. Guardians 2 is incredible for it’s vibrance and realism. Despite the fact that I know none of this stuff is real, it actually feels real. One particular scene that takes place on the ‘planet’ Ego comes to mind, where Disney/Marvel literally made a planet in outer space and synthesized their own new alien vegetation just to film this scene. I’m pretty sure. Like 99% sure that was actually filmed on an alien planet….

I swear to God if you kick him one more time I’ll sue Disney.

Soundtrack

Everyone had to be looking forward to the soundtrack and movie score. The retro 80’s esque band poster and the amazing soundtrack of the first movie had me curious to see what the sequel had in store. It definitely had some nice tunes, specifically Fleetwood Mac, but sSadly this is the one aspect of the movie that was not as good as the original.

Summary

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cheer, you’ll get an adrenalize rush. This movie has everything you need. It had everything you liked about the first movie without feeling redundant. And it has a bunch of really cool new stuff without feeling avant-garde and forced. The cast as expected did an amazing job turning a ragtag bunch of Marvel’s bottom of the barrel characters and turning them into generations of memorable heroes and millions of dollars of brand merchandizing for Disney.

It might not sound like I’m singing praise for this movie because I keep likening it to the first movie. Because I don’t have to. Guardians of the Galaxy was, in my opinion, one of the best movies ever made, and this movie is equally good, if not just a tad better. So if you know how much I loved the original, that alone should tell you how great I thought Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 really was.

I give this movie a 10/10. Run, don’t walk, to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Movies, Review

Movie review: Deadpool

February 22, 2016 Andrew 1 Comment

I had been waiting for Deadpool since Fox officially announced they would make it back in 2014. I was waiting before then, since the idea of a Deadpool movie first came about in 2009 when a horrible rendition of the character appeared in Fox’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the shittiest X-Men movie in the franchise to date. In fact, XMOW was so shitty Fox literally made a sequel where they go back in time to undo the events of the movie, effectively making it non-canon.

Look two faces right of Wolverine, and who is that?! Gasp, you should! Reynolds as Wade Wilson the first time, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

As tangential as that may have sounded, it wasn’t. It’s the shittiness of Fox’s earlier comic book movie endeavors that produced the colossus (ha, get it?) of a movie that is Deadpool.

Deadpool is a wisecracking mercenary who has healing powers similar to Wolverine, and who uses swords, knives, guns, and chimichangas to hilariously kill his way through life. He’s also cognitive of the fact that he’s a comic book character and often “breaks the fourth wall” meaning he addresses the audience directly.

Fox’s 2016 Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular character Deadpool / Wade Wilson. What you may not know is that is technically the second time Reynolds portrayed the character. As previously mentioned, Reynolds played a version of the character, albeit a very much under done and poorly written version, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. So that fact that Fox doubled down and went balls out to make a solo, R-Rated comic book flick about a character known for cussing up a storm and killing people actually got me a little hard.

If you haven’t seen Deadpool, SEE IT. Based on how many records it’s broken it’s hard to imagine there’s a soul left on this earth who hasn’t seen it. Ya know what, if you’ve seen it already, go see it again, smart ass.

Lets be honest, Fox took a bigger gamble with Deadpool than Marvel/Disney did with Guardians of the Galaxy. Which do you think is easier to market to children, talking raccoons in talking trees, or burn victim, foul mouthed, sex addicted mercenaries?

The movie was everything I expected and much more. It wasn’t just the above. Despite cramming in the character’s core persona and mythos, they managed to make the character relatable in and out of the spandex. Wilson talks like us. He walks like us. He drinks like us. He loves like us. He jokes like us. He’s not a choir boy, and he does fuck up every once in a while, but despite the fuckups he’s still a good guy, not a villain. And just like all of us, sometimes bad things befall him, for no wrongdoing of his own. And this movie did a fantastic job of showing what extremes a good people will go to in order to save themselves, and more importantly to better the lives of those we love.

Despite how much I love Marvel and their titles like Iron Man and Captain America, Wade Wilson is 10x more relatable to the audience than Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

I don’t need to review this movie. The movie was great, and honestly you should see it. The only, and I mean only bad thing about the movie that I say actually has nothing to do with the movie itself. It has to do with the marketing. Fox was so worried about filling seats that they over marketed it. Leading up to the movie there were so many different teasers, trailers, clips, commercials starring Deadpool and viral marketing that by the time I first plopped my ass in the theater seat, I felt as if I had already seen the movie. And to be honest, I kinda did. Spend 20 minutes on YouTube and watch all the aforementioned and you’ve basically seen the movie. But just because I got filled up on Costco free samples doesn’t make the movie any less enjoyable.

Despite having blown most of its load in it’s advertising campaign, I still thought Deadpool was an amazing movie, and it definitely did not disappoint. It was funny, no, it was gut wrenching hilarious. On several occasions I thought I needed a respirator because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, which is sort of ironic once you’ve seen the movie. I particularly loved the jab about KFC sporks, especially since I thought I was the last person on earth to remember the fabled tool of the ancients. Just as Deadpool riddles his enemies with bullets, the entire movie is riddled with dick and fart and sex jokes and Mexican food. Comical jabs abound. The film has plenty of in your face comedy, but it also has tons of more subtle comedic moments that you have to pay attention to in order to appreciate. Tonally, the movie felt a lot like Archer.

The movie played very fast and loose with the whole breaking the fourth wall bit. Reynold’s Deadpool not only did so, but the movie also was self-aware and made plenty of references to out of movie productions that Reynolds and his former co-stars had participated in, such as Green Lantern, the Blade series, and the overall X-Men franchise even going so far as to name particular actors like Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, and Hugh Jackman.

It also goes without saying that the movie had plenty of action. Which is interesting now that I think about it because despite centering around a guy with swords and knives and things that go boom, the movie put comedy in the drivers seat, drama in shotgun, and action in the backseat. The X franchise was so dry and dull and comedy-less with over the top action that it was refreshing to see a change of formula. Deadpool, besides his healing, really doesn’t have “super powers”. He can’t fly or control the weather or shoot red crap out of his eyes or lift the entire Golden Gate Bridge. He can run, jump, and shoot, and he does ‘em all with style. This is definitely not an action movie the likes of Michael Bay.

Most of all, I am happy for Ryan Reynolds. He seems like a nice guy who just kept getting shafted career wise. Everyone loved him in Waiting and Van Wilder, but as iconic and memorable as those roles were they probably didn’t pay too well. Blade 3 was okay, but nothing compared to Blade 2. Then he had a series of mega flops like Green Lantern and R.I.P.D. So it’s great to see him getting a stab at a role that’s finally on par with the weight his name brings to a movie.

If you want a hilarious movie, with relatable characters, excellent dialogue, a healthy dose of action, the occasional insensitive remark, and a possibly CGI’ed super suit, then this is the movie for you. Or if you’re just tired of apocalyptic (irony again!) superhero movies.

Movies, Pop Culture, Review

Creed: Movie Review

November 11, 2015 Andrew 2 Comments

It’s 9:53pm, I just got home from a sneak preview of the upcoming hit, Creed, the latest movie in the decades long running Rocky series. Yes, I said the upcoming hit, because this movie truly delivers.

Late as it, and as tired as I am, I’m not going to bed tonight until I get this review wrapped up. Most of the time when I go to the movies, I sit down, kick back, sneak in a beer to relax a little, then ride home and don’t think a whole lot about the last two hours.

Not this movie.

This time I sat down, kicked back, snuck in a beer, and never got around to drinking it. I didn’t want to relax. I didn’t want to lose my edge. Creed was so damn enjoyable the only way I wanted to watch it was stone cold sober. You know how EDM sucks so bad you need to be drugged out of your mind to tolerate your own existence while listening to it? This movie was the exact opposite.

The story centers around Adonis Creed, son of famed belated champion boxer Apollo Creed. Yes, the same Apollo Creed that squared off against Rocky Balboa. Given that Rocky IV is now 30 years old it should come as no spoiler to anyone that he died in the ring during an exhibition match against Drago, a Russian cyborg.

Young Adonis grows up knowing who his father is, but never tells anyone and prefers to go by his mother’s maiden name to prevent unwanted attention, and fades away into the noise of life. With his mother and father both deceased, he is raised by the state and develops some aggression. Some years later an older Adonis works a desk job in Los Angeles, moonlighting as a backdoor boxer. Adonis doesn’t wait for fate, he pursues it, and moves to Philadelphia with the sole purpose of befriending an exhausted Rocky Balboa. Through a series of (very well written) events, one thing leads to another and Adonis ends up biting off more than he can chew, coming face to face with the legacy of his family name.

If that seems cliché, it’s only because I can only give away so much information without spoiling the movie. Adonis did not want to piggy back off of the fame of his father’s name. Similarly, the movie could have easily polished up a recycled B-list script, piggy backed off the success of the Rocky franchise and titled this movie Rocky 6, or Rocky: New Beginning, made a couple million and called it a day. Again, not this movie. I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of detail that went into this movie, from the story, to the script, the acting, the casting, the setting, and most importantly how this new story artfully wove itself into the existing canon. Creed very easily fits into the legacy, but would also be entirely enjoyable having never seen a Rocky film in your life.

Something I have been waiting to blurt out is that Michael B. Jordan knocked this role out of the park, or I should say the ring. Apparently his comic book action adventure Fantastic Four totally flopped in theaters both critically and commercially this year. After having watched Creed, I in no way attribute whatever failure Fantastic Four was to Jordan’s performance.

Something about Jordan’s portrayal of Adonis just feels right. From the moment the audience is introduced to the character, he latches on to and grows on you. I’ve seen a bunch of the recent fighting movies like Warrior, The Fighter, Southpaw, and although those are good movies, the characters are all kinda meh. You root for the guy, but only because you sort have to root for the main character, right? In Creed you genuinely want to root for the guy. Michael B. Jordan plays the role so well you forget you’re watching a fictional movie and start to feel like you’re a fly on the wall of a real person’s life, and his character is so damn likable you just want to reach into the screen and give the guy a hug. He was orphaned, is prone to fighting, and portrays that well without the stick-up-his-ass stench that makes it hard to warm up to characters like Tom Hardy’s in Warrior. I appreciated that Adonis wasn’t a walking stereotype. He wasn’t the brooding, he wasn’t angry, he wasn’t depressed, he wasn’t down on his luck, he wasn’t a rebel. He was a true to life character with a real, believable balance of emotions and personality traits that is damn hard to find in a modern cinematic character. I hope to see more of Jordan in future films.

Sylvester Stallone featured more heavily than I thought he would. From the advertising it seemed as though Stallone would cameo in the movie for a few minutes, have a second or two in trailer to create some buzz, put his name on the billboards to draw crowds, and then be all but absent in the film. Instead he had a very fair amount of screen time, and performed a very important supporting role to our central protagonist. Stallone is also more known for his iconic roles than for his acting prowess, but this may have very well been his best performance ever. The famed actor brought real heart and passion into his 6^th and possibly last portrayal of the Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa.

Rounding out the cast was Tessa Thompson as the beautiful Bianca, who despite playing the again “cliché” love interest to Adonis Creed, is a very strong, modern, female role. The movie would have suffered a huge void without her, and she made a great addition to our family of characters. I loved that she wasn’t the typical nagging female character I’ve grown to loath. Lori Grimes from Walking Dead, Madeleine Swann from Spectre, Margaret Schroeder from Boardwalk Empire. Haven’t we had enough of these nagging anchors that call themselves women? Thompson as Bianca was a breath of fresh air, and reaffirmed that you can be a strong woman, and still be beautiful, kind, and loving, without being annoying, or a lesbian.

As do most of the movies that I love, Creed has real heart. I almost cried. I laughed more than I expected to. I commiserated with all the characters. The fight and training sequences were so intense and heart pounding my hands were sweating, my heart was pounding, my legs were shaking, and my hairs literally stood on end. Never since the original Rocky has a fight movie pumped you up so much. The movie was fresh, but it had plenty of nostalgia. True to form, what Rocky movie would be complete without a montage? And this movie managed to pull it off without the cheesy 80’s garb.

Creed was more than a sequel, it was a heart felt and worthy addition to the Rocky franchise.

Now, shall I be so bold… It is my opinion that this was the best movie of 2015. This was the best movie since Winter Soldier. And get this… Creed was the best movie in the Rocky franchise. I will probably see this movie once more in theaters, I will buy this on DVD, and I will anxiously await a sequel.

I give this movie a 10/10. Go see Creed in theaters, you will not be disappointed.

Culture, Haterade Series, Movies, Pop Culture

Why Current YA Movies Suck

August 21, 2015 Andrew 4 Comments

Oh yeah, I’m going there.

It is time to stir the pot. I’ve been doing reviews about specific movies, and the occasional TV show, and I’m usually pretty polite. What’s the saying again? If you ain’t got nothin’ nice to say then don’t say nothin’? As Eminem put it, fuck that shit.

This is going to be my first of many blog entries in my new Haterade Series. Look for the Haterade tag in future posts.

YA is short for young adult. Not teen, not tween, but young adult. Which at this point is pretty much a blanket term for teens and tweens… and people with poor taste in movies. Can you believe someone actually thought “young adult” – a whooping 11 characters – was so long that it needed to be turned it into an acronym? That’s lazier than condensing “do you know what I mean?” into “na’mean?”

But seriously, these YA movie suck. Balls. Big balls. Here we go.

Dystopian Futures that Make No Sense

Not no sense in the fact that they are fantastical, like Avengers or Harry Potter. No sense in how could such communities ever come to exist at all? Harry Potter, despite its magic actually seems plausible. We’re magical, we need a place to stay since humans are assholes, so let’s make a VIP magical land and oh, let’s put a boarding school there to teach kids about magic. Even Twilight for all of its Kristen Stewart shortcomings had a decent premise, just a horrible story… act acting… and staring.

Divergent Plot

But take a look at Divergent. Teens are categorized into factions based on personality traits, except for that one little caveat, oh yeah… they are ultimately allowed to choose which faction they join. So now it’s optionally compulsory? Who designed this system, the Obamacare team?

Despite the fact that you can be suited for one faction, but choose another, if you actually exhibit traits of multiple factions, they kill you. Oh, and if you don’t exhibit any traits of the five factions, you become a hobo and starve to death in the streets. They really got this perfect totalitarian utopia thing locked down tight, don’t they?

I mean seriously, I’m a libertarian and communism makes more sense than this system. I can see Stalin sitting down, mustache n’ all, and pitching communism. “Comrades, dees is our plan. Everyone gets equal pay. Agreed?” But I would love to sit in on the sales pitch for Divergatopia.

“So guys, check this shit out, we’re gonna like…. split everyone into like… five groups, one for every finger. Oh, and like, all the losers go farm and hand out blankets n’ stuff. And then like all the nerds go read sciency stuff. And like, maybe someone should make laws or something? Oh, and the rest of us will just run around and do parkour and jump off buildings. EXTREMMMMEEEEE!!!!”

Or as Leo Sun put it,

“In Divergent, dystopia is simply replaced by a bloodier version of high school drama.”

It’s basically the less racist version of public school where different cliques of kids are easily identifiable. Or was that just my high school?

Maze Runner Plot

I think the Honest Trailer sums it up about right. So a meteor crashes into Earth and turns people into zombies and the world becomes a desert, and in order to save humanity from the desert zombie apocalypse, evil adults maroon a bunch of teenage boys in what I can only imagine is a 300 foot tall booby-trapped maze the size of Australia, with a bunch of man-eating monster robot spiders that then kill the teenage boys. They built alllll this, instead of, ya know… trying to like find a cure for zombism, or maybe investing in drip irrigation?

Oh, and then they drop one girl in a group of like 20 horny guys to get gang raped. Sounds legit.

Hunger Games Plot

Okay, they can literally make fire, and weather, and trees, and killer animals out of thin air. And they can’t make food? And then Katniss goes to war with a recurve bow? Not even a fucking compound bow? And what’s up with the people in the Capitol dressing up like Johnny Depp knock offs?

Stupid Vernacular

You know what I’m talking about.

So in Divergent, the factions are called what now? Dauntless, Amity, Erudite, Candor… Abne-what now? Abnegation? 4 ½ words you never used or even heard of before this movie.

Where’d the author find these words? The deleted scenes of Mary Poppins? Supercandorfragilisticexpiabnegation! Come on, erudite sounds like a gem you’ll hear about on the jewelry channel at 3 a.m.

jewelry channel — And Becky here we have an astonishing 13 carat Erudite necklace adorned with matching blood diamonds.

Oh and Maze Runner. I’ll just rattle ‘em off:

griever,
glader,
med-jacks,
shank,
klunk,
schuck,
slim it,
slinthead,
good that,
jacked,
and like 10 more.

You’d think I bashed my head against the key board and made this up, but no joke. Look this up. It’s called glader slang.

Stupid Weapons and Gear

I can get reinventing systems of government or society. But if you’re going to have guns and body armor, why go through the trouble of reinventing the wheel?

You gotta love the Hunger Games sperm suits, complete with rib cage chest armor ribbed for her pleasure. This is almost as bad as putting nipples on the Batsuit.

Remember that movie Host by the Twilight author, where aliens took over earth by inhabiting human’s bodies, and the aliens also randomly decided to hire Xzibit to paint all the cars silver?

Yo dawg! I heard you like silver helicopters while taking over the world!

And what’s up with Katniss going to war with a bow and arrow? She can carry about 30 arrows total, and that’s it. It’s not like anyone else is using them so once she’s out, she’s out for good. Bows and arrows are all fun n’ games… til’ someone Chris Kyle’s your ass from 1,900 yards away.

And then of course these YA movies always have to reinvent weapons, because we don’t have enough existing weapons to choose from apparently. Check out these guns from Divergent? It literally looks like someone superglued a super soaker to a pogo stick and spray painted it silver. What, the future doesn’t have Glocks and AR15s? Are those LEDs?

divergent-guns — Don’t make me shoot you with this flashlight!

God, I can’t wait for the next season of Game of Thrones.

Alright, I’m done for now, but I’ll be back with another episode of Haterade here shortly. Thanks for reading and letting me vent.

Culture, Life, Movies, Review

Trainwreck: Movie Review

July 29, 2015 Andrew Leave a comment

It’s about fucking time! Trainwreck is the raunchy, inappropriate, horrible, tasteless, repulsive, guilty-pleasure, gut-busting comedy I have been waiting all my life for.

I’ve written quite a few movie reviews recently about all types of movies; action, horror, comedy, drama, satire, crime thriller, sci-fi, and cult classic. Sometimes you get movies you thought would be great, but greatly disappointed *cough* Ultron *cough*. But other times you get movies you thought would be a train wreck, and instead you get Trainwreck. Despite the title, this movie is anything but.

No duh, I thought the movie would be funny. A comedy movie starring Amy Schumer and Bill Hader, how could it not be funny? But I didn’t expect it to be the funniest movie I have seen in years. I dare to say it’s the funniest movie of the decade, maybe this century.

The combination of Judd Apatow directing and Amy Schumer writing as well as starring in the movie is amazing. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time! The entire movie is over the top funny from the get-go, but somehow never crosses that line into campy territory. Trainwreck walks that fine line of as funny as you can possibly get without being stupid.

The entire cast pulls their weight in this movie and I was blown away by the sheer number of cameos and guest appearances.

It goes without saying that Amy Schumer was amazing. If you like her comedy skits and her television show then you’ll go crazy over Trainwreck, which is Amy Schumer x 10, her magnum opus. Amy Schumer essentially plays a parody of her cinematic self, named Amy, naturally. As a young kid her father (perfectly played by Colin Quinn) warned her and her sister about the dangers of monogamy after a failed marriage with his wife/Amy’s mother. The young Amy took her father’s advice to heart and heeded his warnings well into adulthood, purposefully avoiding lasting relationships. Her shameless romp through New York comes to a screeching halt when she falls in love with Aaron (Bill Hader), a nice guy doctor who is the centerpiece for her latest work assignment at a sleazy tabloid company. The story follows Amy as she struggles to find a meaningful relationship while still heeding her father’s warning.

Most movies feel like the Breakfast Club, where you have the jock, the princess, the nerd, the bad boy, the outcast, etc. What I appreciate about Judd Apatow is his ability to craft a well-rounded ensemble of characters without resorting to caricature archetypes.

Bill Hader brings a solid performance. Hader looks like a normal guy and maybe he is, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still be funny, charming, smart, sincere, emotionally intelligent, and occasionally score a shot on LeBron James. The onscreen chemistry between Hader and Shumer is awesome, and it feels fun and natural to see them spar and dance on screen.

When I said there were a lot of cameos, I meant it. The movie features Colin Quinn, LeBron James, John Cena, Dave Attell, Tilda Swinton (who looks nothing like Tilda Swinton), Randall Park, Daniel Radcliffe, Marisa Tomei, Method Man, Tim Meadows, Matthew Broderick, Marv Albert, and Chris Evert. And every single of one of them killed it!

Colin Quinn plays an aging, philandering, swearing, drunk Irishman marvelously.

LeBron James might not be Oscar material but despite playing himself he’s still 10x the actor Kristin Stewart will ever be, and had some of the funniest lines in the entire movie and somehow managed them without so much as a smirk.

(Call me an asshole but) This is the first time I’ve seen a movie where I would say Tilda Swinton looked bangin’ hot. She too fabulously plays her role as a bitchy New York columnist.

John Cena, John Cena. Where do I even begin with John Cena… Mad props to Cena for taking on this role as he’ll be the butt of his friend’s jokes for years to come. If you’ve ever seen the movie, think Eminem in the opening scene of The Interview.

They couldn’t have picked a better title for the movie. Trainwreck describes the movie and Amy perfectly, as her life careens out of control from one disaster of a relationship to the next. And just like a train wreck, the movie is horrible but you just can’t help but look on. The movie really is horrible. By that I mean that the acting is great, the directing is great, the story is great, but the humor is devious and I’m probably going to hell for enjoying it.

The movie is so hilariously offensive to everyone, but so innocently portrayed that you can’t help but love it, like Cartman. Men, women, straights and gays, kids and the elderly, blacks, whites, Puerto Ricans, Asians, effeminate men, millionaires and street beggars, no one was spared and no mercy was given. The movie was a parade of profanity, stereotypes, and other things mere mortals dare not whisper in public, like Voldemort. Trainwreck is everything that’s wrong in the world but throughout the entire movie I was busting up laughing begging for more, MORE!!!! You do get more, plenty of it. In fact it’s also super long for a comedy, stretching just over two hours. I usually relegate comedies to movies I only watch when they are at Redbox or rerunning on TV, but this movie is the exception. This movie is officially on my list of guilty pleasures, but as Billy Joel once said, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.”

Despite the outlandishness of it all, the movie comes together amazingly well. The weight of real life doesn’t get lost in the story, and the characters all deal with very real problems that the audience can relate to. In true Apatow fashion the movie delves into the inner sanctum of modern life such as arguments with your loved one over trivial things that won’t matter in a couple hours, kids, step kids, marriage, death, pregnancy, family, parenting, careers, friendship, and occasionally snorting lines of adderall off peoples foreheads.

I want – nay – I must see Trainwreck again. It was just that good! In fact, I might even buy it when it comes out on DVD. Mom and dad if you’re reading this, Christmas is just around the corner. Can you say stocking stuffer?

I give it a solid 9/10.

Can You Believe That Guy?!