Raphael Suter’s Blog

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part 2

Part 2 is a satisfying close to a a series that has been running for the better part of 10 years now. I’m pretty amazed that they have been able to keep up the quality through the years with only a few stumbles. After watching the Part 1 of this 2 parter I was concerned. Part 1 felt unfocused and awkward and if Part 2 was to provide more of the same it would be a most unfortunate way to cap off the franchise. Thank goodness it wasn’t. The Deathly Hallows part 2 is a great movie that answers questions, and does a great job of recalling the past entries and tying everything together. It is also the darkest of the Potter films not shying away from death and loss. There are a few moments that I wish were made a little more clear, some moments I felt could be a bit more epic, and some questionable writing, but nothing that constitutes a deal breaker. The overall result is solid, and a great way to end the culmination of 10 years of unique film making with all Potter films rated positive on Rottentomatoes (78-97%) and only one actor replacement due to his passing – Richard Harris.

How many year’s before the reboot?

Transformers 3

A complete mess of a film, from it’s acting to it’s editing and it’s subsequent continuity of emotional arcs, story arcs, and timing) Transformers 3′s starting premiss and first 30 minuets are actually not that bad but after you cross that line it’s a down hill ride into a realization that Michael Bay really doesn’t give a shit and is already jacking off into a pile of your money. Megan Fox’s replacement its a waist of screen space, and Shia La-Douche is a nonstop whining machine who I keep praying will transform himself out of movies. I couldn’t even really enjoy the effects – which as usual – were the best part of the movie, because of the juvenile way it was put together. I know i’m going to be a a minority here but I liked the 2^nd one more then this. Both 2 and 3 have logic gaps and contradictions, but at least the Transformers 2 didn’t have all the whining and the action sequences were edited and paced with a sense of build and pace. 3 was simply more disappointing because the concept was better, and had the promise of no Megan Fox, raciest robots, or robot heaven, and still couldn’t deliver.

Xmen first class

Xmen first class was a nice surprise. It wasn’t quite as good as Xmen 2, but it was not even close to as bad as Xmen 3. For the most part the cast was great. I did find the acting of most of the side characters like, Raven, Beast and Angel to be unfortunately weak. However, the main cast of Xavier, Magneto, and Shaw we fantastic. It did a great job of getting the viewer reinvested in the Xmen universe and even though it wasn’t a knockout, it has set the stage nicely if they ever want to do another one. If they follow the super hero movie pattern then the next one is sure to be full of badassery, but let’s prey they halt it there. (pattern: 1 = good, 2 = amazing, 3 = garbage…….. wait a few years…. reboot and start over.)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

A wholly disappointing entry into the franchise. On Stranger Tides lacks the FX budget of it’s predecessors that was able to help mask their equally week structure leaving it’s shortcomings woefully exposed. It also lacks a convincing and threatening villain. I believe Ian McShane did the best with what he was given in his interpretation of Black Beard, but the end result was a antagonist who’s ship was scarier then it’s captain.

Thor

A fun, but typically crafted super hero romp. Thor, doesn’t do anything overtly offensive to the senses, but it also doesn’t do anything to make it stand out from the onslaught of hero moves that – as of late – feel like they’re being crammed down our gullets.

Source Code

Source Code is a well constructed film with fairly good acting save a few characters whose performances I thought were a little on the cheesy side. It also suffers from feeling like it’s based on a concept that was stretched out a little to long, and makes the movie feel a little like a long episode of The Twilight Zone.

Here is my hyper abbreviated movie reviews for films I watched in theaters from October 2010 though March 2011. I was busy at work, and did not have the time or energy to post this…. ahhhhhh. in all reality I just got super lazy.

Jackass 3D

Some funny, and horrendously disgusting gags are on display but minus some of the creativity, and it’s simply not as entertaining of a package as Jackass 2 was.

Harry Potter: ATDH Part1

An ok romp though Harry Potter land, but it felt oddly accelerated, and very much incomplete. This makes sense since it’s basically a setup film for part 2. Perhaps part 2 will make the exposition of part one feel more fulfilling and by contrast give it more validity then it has as a standalone movie.

Tangled

A well executed though somewhat safe and formulaic return to Disney Musicals. While the songs are fun, it’s the character animation that shines. (for a combination of both of these things see the song “Mother Knows Best” with Mother Gothel.

Black Swan

It’s a dark and uncomfortable look at the decomposition of a ballerina’s sanity, with awkward sexual tension, and surprising violence….. Not my favorite of the nominees this year but I can see why it’s up there.

Tron Legacy

It’s what a rave would look like with fighting instead of dancing, and bad writing instead of drugs. (The music would pretty much be the same.) oh yeah…. Creepy uncanny CG Jeff Bridges AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!  I’ll still give it 3 for the eye candy.

The Fighter

A thoroughly entertaining well constructed story, with an amazing performance given by Christian Bale. It goes a little Hollywood at the end, but it’s forgivable.

True Grit

An fun revenge tale, with the Coen brothers usual assortment of colorful side characters. There was one I felt was unnecessary. I don’t remember his name but he made farm animal noises. This moment was a little to WTF for me and took me out of the film briefly. I would say the writing was good but between Jeff’s mumbling, Damon’s hurt mouth slurring, and Brolin’s “i’m a bad guy” cotton ball grumble, I could really only understand the girl. On a side note, I thought she did a good job, but I think the praise for her acting is a little exaggerated. I say this because she really only has one attitude for the whole film. Theres not really a range of emotions on display.

Battle Los Angeles

This is what you get when you breed “Black Hawk Down” with “District 9.” and then take the baby and drop it on it’s head so it can’t talk right anymore.  It’s a 2 and a half rating with flickers of 3 and a half if you like military action. Also the effects were pretty cool, so…. I guess for me…. as went Tron, so goes Battle LA.

Rango

An interesting venture into the world of spaghetti westerns with a cast of the most god awful ugly creatures I have seen collected into one film. The water, and environments, and effects were all amazing, but holy hell. I was excited for the movie to be over so I could see things that didn’t look like a hairball, or a monstrous pile of crap. The exceptions to this were Rango, and the Snake. All in all it was a pretty good film, and it’s nice to see a venture into the world of American CG animation that’s not directly marketed to kids. It could have done with some more action though. Anyone else notice that Gore Verbinski really like’s to use white deserts with creepy crawly’s as a metaphor.

Paul

I can best describe Paul, as being a fairly generic, (chuckle but not laugh out loud,) road trip comedy, with a really cool CG alien. The movie is clearly designed to appeal to geeks, as it has many, many, many asides, to Star Wars, Star Trek, Comicon, etc. This did not bother me, because I’m a geek, but all non-geeks out there will chuckle even less. The alien Paul, is voice by Seth Rogen, who’s laugh and recent comedies I HATE.  I was all ready to dislike him in this film, but surprisingly I thought he work well. The CG and animation also look great and put Paul firmly into the world as a tangible smoking “bro.”  Overall “Paul” has flickers of promise, but it falls short in a few to many places (one of the big ones being the laughs I could tell it was trying so hard to get.)

The Social Network

Fincher had me concerned when I watched Benjamin Button, but it’s safe to say he’s won me back.  While the movie doesn’t have a very discernible building arch, it’s meticulous pace is engrossing none the less.  I found it fascinating to watch the strange and rocky way this empire evolved.  Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg was great, and he really made him an ass, but one I found myself rooting for.  The Winklevoss’s were fantastic characters and funny as heck.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

A very different type of film that’s designed to speak to a very particular age range.  This is not to say if you don’t fall into it’s target demographic you wont enjoy it, but if you grew up playing games, and reading comics, you’ll be able to pull so much more from it.  It’s got some great fighting, and flashy effects, and a fairly well paced story with outlandishly cartoony characters.

The Expendables

A waist of time and energy for the cast and the audience.  I didn’t expect it to be great, but I  assumed it would be one of those, “so bad it’s good” type flicks.  This was not the case, and it ended up being just plain bad…  To bad.

Inception

Christopher Nolan has created another fantastic film, in Inception, and it will be hard to talk about it without giving anything away, but here we go.

This is definitely one of those films that demands a 2^nd viewing just so you can try to get a handle on on the concepts. Inception knits a web of ideas and world rules so thick that I often found myself taking pause to try to figure out just what was happening. Inception walks that fine line between richly complex, and needlessly cryptic.

The characters definitely run the gambit of quality in Inception. Leo’s character, Cobb, was nicely layered and felt on par with the magnitude of the film, though not as strong as the one he gave in Shutter Island. Ken Watanabe’s character, Saito, was almost completely impossible to understand at times, because of his heavy Japanese accent, and Ariadne, played by Ellen Page, felt rather useless and unimportant, and her performance – while not bad – was nothing to talk about.

The music was brooding and worked extremely well. Though it lacked a strong theme element, it had repeating patterns of low brass sustains that took their place.

The visuals were also great, from bending cities, to explosions, to sweeping establishing shot vistas.

The major thing that held this film back for me was also it’s cornerstone. The relationship between Cobb, his wife, and his children never effected me on the level it should have. It felt more like they were going through the motions, and I never felt for them as a couple. This seems to be a theme with Nolan, as he is fantastic at bringing smart action to the screen but he has a hard time delivering the emotion.

Inception is another great film by Nolan film to tide us over till his next Batman movie.  He really is becoming one of my favorite film makers, though I’m going to wait to see if he succumbs to the Comic film shitty 3rd movie curse.

Predators

Ok….. Every Predator film after the first one has been progressively worse culminating in the Pg-13 AvP bullshit churned out for mass appeal. That didn’t bode well for the franchise next attempt.  However, when they announced that it was going to be rated R, a small glimmer of hope came forth. Then I found out Adrien Brodey was the male lead, and the glimmer fizzled out. Then I saw images of the Predators, and they looked great. They were reminiscent of the the original design, and not WWF’ed out with overly muscular body builders with predator heads on.

So…. Did it earn it’s R? Well, kind of. It certainly had the gore, but it felt subdued and not as intense as the original. There were a few Gory moments but they felt few and far between. I would have like to have seen a little more liberal use of blood and spines.

Adrien Brodey, did surprisingly well in his role. I believed him even though he was nowhere near the size of Arnold, but it worked. It would have been a bad thing if they had gotten someone to try to be Arnold, instead of create something new. His nose is still extremely distracting though, i’m sorry.

The predators were also great. They looked cool, and moved well, and I really don’t have anything bad to say about them. The CG predator dogs however, where the week link. They were obviously computer generated, and didn’t fit with the rest of the practical effects in the film.

I also really enjoyed the score, as it was basically the same score from the first film, re-done and altered slightly in a few places. This coupled with the fact that there running around a jungle really help place this in the canon of the first movie.

The rest of the characters were fairly weak. I would have like to of had a few of them fleshed out a little more, so we cared more when shit happens. There is also a moment at the end that feels drastically out of place, and really put me off a bit.

Overall Predators is a solid action movie. It’s not very deep, or even well written, but it’s fun and has plenty of references to it’s inspiration, and is fun to watch. It could have been better, but it’s the first squeal to feel like it belongs with the Original.

Iron Man 2

I was really hoping that Iron Man 2 followed the growing tradition amongst comic movies where the squeal is a vast improvement over the first. Such was the case with, Spiderman, X-men, the new Batman franchise, and the Hulk reboot, etc, etc.

Unfortunately what I got was less attention on characters, and a more effects-heavy, and staged visual extravaganza, where more CG =’ed better. There were some fun sequences where the visuals provided some fun eye candy, but it all felt rather hollow.

One thing that can be learned from the horrifying bad Transformer movies, is that when you have CG things, fighting other CG things the visceral sense of danger is removed, and with it the tension and suspense. I never felt as if anyone was truly at risk, and this coupled with the bland character development, and evenly paced story pushed the Iron Man franchise back below it’s predecessor on the quality scale.

Now with all that being said, the film is still fun to watch on it’s own. As an action movie it still provides some thrills and, while hollow, the visuals are all bright and sparkly and shiny. I was just expecting so much more.