Just recently saw the movies, The Expendables 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Get on Up and Boyhood! Ill start with The Expendables 3! I don’t even know where to begin with this one, so….. Here’s my review of The Expendables 3. Like most people I loved watching 80’s action movies, I actually consider some of them as my personal favorites, like The Terminator, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Robocop, First Blood, Commando and Predator. You see those movies are not only awesome action movies, but there all very memorable, well acted, well directed, intense, adrenaline fueled, fun and entertaining movies. I love 80’s action movies and back in 2010 when the first Expendables movie was coming out I was really excited because I was excited to see all my favorite action heroes be in a movie together. Unfortunately though, the movie was bad, it was really bad. The first Expendables movie was a really lame action flick, with bad one-liners and probably one of the lamest characters in a film franchise. I was incredibly disappointed with the first Expendables film, but I was curious to see what they were going to do with the second film. I’ll admit the second film had much better action in it, but the one-liners were still annoying and the characters were even lamer in this film. The second one wasn’t worse than the first film, but it still wasn’t great, so I lost all hope in these Expendables movies. Now here I am reviewing the third film, which once again brings back the all-star cast and even more cameos. The only thing this movie did different was instead of being an R rated action movie like the previous two films, it’s a PG-13 action movie, which I have no problem with as long as the movie is good. Was this movie good? Nope! This movie is just as shitty as the first movie; it’s actually even shittier than the first film. I know some people thought this movie might be a step up from the first Expendables movie because Sylvester Stallone is not directing the film and they put more action stars in this movie, like Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson and one of my favorite actors, Harrison Ford. Honestly none of those actors helped this movie one bit, both Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas were equally shitty in this film and Mel Gibson plays probably one of the dumbest villains in an action movie. Speaking of villains why is Mel Gibson playing a villain in this film? If these Expendables movies are paying homage to 80’s action movies then shouldn’t Mel Gibson be playing a hero because he’s usually a hero in most of his films, especially his films in the 80’s? If they really want to homage to 80’s action movies, then they should probably get an actor who played a villain in a famous 80’s action film, like Alan Rickman, or Rutger Hauer, or even Kurtwood Smith. Mel Gibson was a terrible choice and plus the villain he played in this movie was a shitty villain. The rest of the cast returns in this film, so Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Terry Crews are all back and they all once again have terrible chemistry with each other and all they done in this movie is shoot people and say bad one-liners. Also to top it all off this movie has a few more Expendables members, who are played by some random actors that we don’t care about. But all said and done people watch these stupid movies for one reason and one reason only and that is for the action, so how was the action in this Expendables film? It was really bad! The action was never top notch in the previous films, but there was always at least one action scene that was entertaining, however in this movie there isn’t a single fun action scene. Now the PG-13 rating isn’t the reason why the action was bad, the action was bad because the director of this movie has no idea how to film proper action scenes. Patrick Hughes directed this film and after seeing his so called skills in this movie I don’t think this guy should direct another action movie again because he clearly has no idea what he is doing. Dave Callaham and Sylvester Stallone wrote this film and just like the director they clearly had no idea what they were doing either, I felt like they were just writing down some random shit and just throwing in random 80’s one-liners. Plus the dozens of plot holes in this movie were way too obvious, so that again is all due to bad writing. So, The Expendables 3 had bad writing, bad direction, bad acting, bad characters, a bad villain and one of the worst action scenes in a movie this year. So what were the good things in this flick? Well…… Harrison Ford was decent in the movie and that’s about it. So if you enjoyed these terrible Expendables movies, then you might get a kick out of this one, but if not, then you’ll probably be bored as shit watching it and wishing you were watching Guardians of the Galaxy instead. So avoid this film if you can and watch something better this weekend. Ill give it 2.3 out of 10. Next is the movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Im just going to start off by saying that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were never that great, so for all those people saying that this movie right here ruined the entire movie franchise, I think you need to take a better look at the original films because if you watch them closely there just as cheesy, dull and sloppily executed as this new Ninja Turtles movie. Now I dont want to give this new Ninja Turtles movie a positive review because the movie was god awful, Im just saying that the other films werent any better. The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that came out in 1990 was an okay movie, I guess. The one-liners were lame and the acting was shit, but Jim Hensons designs on the turtles were very well made. Jim Henson may have not directed the film, but he designed most of the costumes and puppets, which were hands down the best part of the film. The action was okay, but a bit dated and the movies score was well composed, but the soundtrack is too cheesy. The first film wasnt a complete piece of shit, but the movie still wasnt that great. The second and third films were both torturous to watch; between their lame stories and sloppy direction, I have no idea how I made it through both of those movies, but I did and they both sucked. Now as for the comic books, I never read them and as for the cartoon series, I watched a bit of it, but it just wasnt my type of thing. So as you can clearly tell I was going into this new Ninja Turtles movie with really low expectations and assuming it was going to suck. So did the movie suck? Hell yeah it did! This new adaptation of the Ninja Turtles is not only the worst thing out of the franchise, but its also the most boring. As much as I didnt like the original films they at least had some enjoyment out of them, however brief it was. With this new movie it was just a straight up CG fest with loads of mindless action until the end credits. After watching this movie I still feel like I havent seen the movie yet because the movie didnt even feel like an actual movie, it felt like a really long trailer. The story was changed a bit in this version and it makes even less sense than the original story. The characters in this film were all forgettable, especially the ninja turtles, which was stupid because there the characters were suppose to be rutting for. Neither one of the ninja turtles said or did anything funny or interesting. The leader Leonardo was probably the blandest character in the film, the tough guy Raphael was probably the most forgettable in the film, the nerd Donatello was probably the most annoying character in the film and the funny guy Michelangelo was probably the least funniest character in the film. Plus the CG on the turtles looked like crap; I know everyone likes to use CG in their films now, but sometimes CG looks very fake and kind of ugly at times. In this movie the CG was both fake and ugly, the characters all looked ugly and the CG on them looked like crap, especially on Splinter. Now as for the acting, it was of course terrible, but who are we kidding when you have a movie that stars Megan Fox you should know already the movie is going to have bad acting in it. So yeah, Megan Fox plays the lead character April ONeal, whos pretty much an attractive female reporter who likes to scream a lot and be the damsel in distress. Now as poorly written as that character is the character can still work if you have a good actress playing her. Megan Fox is obviously a terrible actress and of course played a terrible part in this movie. I dont why they casted Megan Fox as April ONeal, of all the choices of actresses they could have chosen they had to choose Megan Fox. They couldnt have chosen Anna Kendrick, or Shailene Woodley, or Emma Stone, or Christina Hendricks, or even Emma Watson to play April ONeal. Megan Fox didnt fully ruin this movie, but she was still terrible and I think they should have casted a more talented actress. Speaking of things that ruined this movie, I should talk about the rest of the cast members. Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Johnny Knoxville and Noel Fisher play the four ninja turtles in the film and they were awful. Did they try at least? Sure, but that wasnt enough. This movie had such a terrible script it didnt even matter how good or bad the actor was because the movie would still be let down, but as for the acting goes, it was pretty bad in this movie. Will Arnett was pointlessly in this movie and he was only in the movie to make bad jokes and hit on Megan Fox, which is actually the same thing Michelangelo did in the film. William Fichtner is one of the bad guys in the film and to be honest I thought he was going to be Shredder, but he actually wasnt he was just some scientist guy that helps out Shredder. Shredder in this movie is some guy in a big robot suit that has barely any dialogue or motivation. Seriously this characters plan makes no sense at all, basically hes just there to be diabolical and beat up the ninja turtles. I dont know who the actor was who played Shredder because he never shows his face, but his acting was pretty terrible same with William Fichtner. Everybodys performance was terrible in this movie and some of the reason why they all sucked in this movie was because some people in this movie cant act worth of shit, but the main reason why was because of the movies script. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a horrible script that was filled bad jokes, generic dialogue, bland characters and a predictable plot. Michael Bay only produced this movie, but you would think he actually directed the movie as well because this entire movie feels like a Michael Bay movie. Jonathan Liebesman directed this film and if you look at his career you would see he hasnt made a single good movie yet and unfortunately Teenage Mutant Turtles now adds to his list of bad movies. Jonathan Liebesman isnt the worst directed Ive seen, but he really needs to learn how to execute his films properly and direct his actors better because in this movie both the acting and execution were horribly done. The action was also very generic and just filled with bad CG. You see when you watch a Ninja Turtles movie the action is suppose to be fun not loud, ugly and all over the place. It takes a certain director to direct good action scenes and when it came to this movie the action scenes werent that good. Everything in this movie wasnt really good and Im just tired of seeing these Michael Bay type movies, once again I know Michael Bay didnt direct this movie, but I know he had a lot of say in the creative process, so I know a lot of this movies failure was due to Michael Bay. I really hate Michael Bay and I really hope his movies start becoming flops in the box office, it didnt happen with Transformers: Age of Extinction and it didnt happen with this movie either, so Ill just keep hoping someday it will happen. Until then Im just going to keep bashing his movies and warn people to stay away from them. So for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I highly recommend that people should stay as far away as possible from this movie.Ill give it a 2 out of 10. Next is the movie, Get on Up! When this movie came out I didnt know what to expect from it, so I didnt see it right away, but I finally watched it and I think as a film it works very well. Get on Up is the biopic of the music legend James Brown. This movie explores the life of James Brown, through his entire music career, his family life and his childhood. Like most celebrities James Brown had a very interesting life and it was even more interesting watching it on the big screen. Now I know for a fact that this movie wouldve failed if it wasnt for its director, Tate Taylor. If no one knows who Tate Taylor is, hes the guy who wrote and directed the movie The Help, which was also a pretty decent movie. With this movie, Tate Taylor did something very unique and he made it very captivating and stylistic. When you watch Christopher Nolan films youve seen a bunch of times a story that is not told in precise order, like The Prestige, Memento and Batman Begins. Now Christopher Nolan is probably one of the few directors who can make that kind of style work for his movies. Now when this movie, Get on Up started I thought it was going to be a lame movie that was trying to be artistic, but as the film kept going it kept getting more and more interesting and more and more creative. I dont know if Tate Taylor could do this type of style for all his films, but for this one I thought he did a good job. This films style was really unique and it was also really well structured and executed. The editing was another thing in this film that was really well done, each transition to each scene was very well edited and all the editing was very smooth and never choppy. As for the performances in the movie, most of them were really good. Chad Boseman plays the lead of James Brown and he was fantastic in his role, I know the Oscars arent for a while, but I hope he gets a nomination for his performance because he was incredible. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, two actresses from The Help are both in this film and they were both great in this film as well. Nelson Ellis was great in his performance and Dan Aykroyd was also great, which was a relief because Im tired of seeing Dan Aykroyd playing in terrible movies, so it was good seeing him play in a good movie again. The music throughout this film was also very well done, if you love James Brown, then youre probably going to love the music in this movie. The score was done very well and the cinematography was good enough for this movie. So what were things that I didnt like in this movie? Well, for one thing this movie went kind of melodramatic at times, which is understandable because it is a biopic, but I wanted this movie to be different, which it was, but I didnt like the melodrama in this movie. This movie also has the typical biopic clichés, like the abusive parents, the selfish main character, the drug addictions and the prison scenes. Some of these clichés didnt really bother me, but some were kind of annoying and I can tell this movie was trying to be really clever and original, but sometimes it just put these random clichés in, which werent necessary. That being said I still really enjoyed this movie and Im glad I saw it and I would recommend it to people. The music is really powerful, the acting is strong, the story is interesting and the direction was fantastic. Ill give it an 8 out of 10. Next is the movie, Boyhood! This movie Boyhood is unlike any movie I have ever seen and I am so glad I got to finally watch it because this movie was just amazing. Richard Linklater, who Im a huge fan of, wrote and directed this movie and this movie is about a boy named Mason and this entire movie is about his young years. This movie is filmed over the course of 12 years meaning this movie literally took 12 years to make and the movie itself is through the course of 12 years of the character Masons life. I think what they did with this movie was just incredible, not only was the commitment from the entire cast and crew impressive, but how this film was shot and told was just breathtaking. How, Richard Linklater directed this film was not only clever, but it was just epic. Sure some parts in the movie get jumbled a bit, but when you really pay attention the film isnt that hard to follow. I always thought the Before trilogy were Richard Linklaters masterpieces, but after watching this movie I think thats going to change because this film was original in every way. The performances all these cast members give were all top notch. I usually dont like Patricia Arquette in movies, but she really showed me how good of an actress she can be and I think she proves it in this movie. Ethan Hawke was always good in the Before trilogy and I still think he was better in the Before than he was in this movie, but still his performance in this movie was really good and I enjoyed his character very much. Now as for the main character Mason, whos played by Ellar Coltrane, I thought he was fantastic in this film. I enjoyed seeing his character grow up and I enjoyed watching all the things he experiences. Richard Linklaters daughter Lorelei Linklater was in the movie as well and shes another person we get to see grow up and experience new things, which was also interesting. I thought Lorelei Linklater was a good actress in this film and I look forward to seeing her do more movies. Now, of course what made this movie amazing was Richard Linklater himself. Between his flawless direction and captivating writing this movie was a flat out masterpiece. This movie is the most realistic movie you will ever watch, some people might not be able to get into it and the only people who wont be able to get into it are people who cant appreciate top notch filmmaking because this movie right here is top notch filmmaking. Boyhood is a brilliant film that has to be seen because there will never be a film like it, so give it a watch. Ill give it a 10 out of 10.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 21:51:26 +0000