JD Hansel

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Review

December 1, 2014 by JD Hansel

Boy, is this a tricky one to review. I saw this movie for my first time this past Thanksgiving night on Netflix, and I had no idea it was a Thanksgiving movie until I started watching! I love coincidences like that, but in movies, coincidences have to be handled very carefully (segue, segue, segue). Planes, Trains, and Automobiles does a remarkable job at playing up the absurdities of its continuous coincidences, and making the disastrous circumstances as funny as possible. From a writing standpoint, it is a very well-built film, which is uncommon for a movie that is essentially a series of things going awry. The acting from Steve Martin and John Candy, who were on top of their game in this film, is perfect. The film also has some great attention to detail, cool shots, fun cameos, and a very nice ending.

The problem that I have with it, however, is that it requires laughing at the suffering of the protagonist. One could argue that laughing at the pain of others is the essence of comedy, but as Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger; comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” In other words, if something bad happens to you, it’s tragic from your perspective, but funny from mine. Similarly, in television, film, and other media, it is easier to laugh at the suffering of those with whom we do not identify. Since this movie made me empathize with the main characters, it was difficult for me to laugh when they were suffering because I “felt their pain.” So, I found the movie kind of uncomfortable.

Regardless, I am impressed with the film and its ability to take a rather common kind of comedy story, and make a special one of a very high caliber. It’s just what one would expect from John Hughes.

Big Hero 6 Review

November 13, 2014 by JD Hansel

MINOR (MINOR) SPOILER ALERT

Watching this movie was an odd experience for me because I felt like I was a spectator rather than part of the experience. That is not to say that I did not enjoy it. Big Hero 6 is a well built film, that successfully makes the characters likable, the story understandable and interesting, and the twist sorta kinda mildly surprising. The score to this movie is really cool, and it accompanies the lovely animation (that often had me gushing at its beauty, which I hardly ever do with CG movies) very nicely.

They were even kind enough to label the hero of the movie! I’ve been wanting movies to do that for a long time.

Essentially, this is a good movie that was done correctly. However, it felt distant to me. Maybe it’s just because CG films tend to have that effect on me for some reason, or maybe it’s because I went in with an observer-like mindset. I think a large part of my problem was the fact that it was, at its core, a superhero movie. It is about a genius who has the ability to make the gadgets and gear necessary to fight a masked criminal, who happens to be the guy who caused the death of someone important to the hero. We have seen that movie before. This movie may introduce new elements, but it does have a rather cliché story, and pretty cliché characters, making it seem like I have seen it before. It also has notable Disney movie clichés, which also make me step out of the experience and become an observer.

Still, this is a fun movie that has many impressive elements, and is certainly a good time for the kids. If you like simple stories in slightly futuristic worlds with simple characters and great animation, you’ll really enjoy this one.

Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home Review

November 9, 2014 by JD Hansel

The Star Trek movies and I have an interesting relationship. I love the original series, but I find that with the films, even Wrath of Khan, which I really like, I can never remember anything that happens in them. I have no memory of how the first one ends. Or begins. Wait … did I even finish that one? Once I even forgot that Christopher Lloyd was in Star Trek III. Actually, I keep forgetting the whole plot to that movie.

I believe this curse on my poor brain has finally been broken by a Star Trek film I can remember: The Voyage Home. I watched a wee bit of the third movie before hand so I would know what was going on, and then I started what I hoped would be a fun blast. It was a fun blast eventually. I really do not like it when a movie waits over 25 minutes before the inciting incident, but this one only went over that by a couple minutes, so I can cut it some slack. Once the story finally gets moving, it turns into one of those crappy movies in which the characters who are normally seen in their own world are suddenly transported into our worldand have to figure it out. (Seriously, they spend the film in 1986 San Francisco.) This movie however, much like The Muppet Movie, Follow That Bird, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, did it very well.

This is the movie that the franchise needed after a bunch of serious movies – a film that felt a lot like an episode of the show, like Wrath of Khan did, but a comedy that shows off the characters at their best, and their funniest. Unfortunately, because it continues the events of the third movie (and now I forgot even the name of the third movie) I can’t recommend this to everyone who has not seen Star Trek before. Actually, I think I will anyway. I will just suggest that they watch it with me so I can explain what they “missed.”

I want everyone to see this movie because no other Trek movie I’ve seen has topped it. I nearly gave this movie 4 ½ stars, which I only give to my highest favorites (call me snobby, but I’ve reserved 5 stars for my top favorite film). The opening is slow, and the “save the whales” message gets a wee bit annoying after a while, but it is still good. This is the one I’ll remember.

Signs Review

October 12, 2014 by JD Hansel

(SPOILER ALERT)

It’s easy to criticize a filmmaker as infamous as M. Night Shyamalan and completely ignore his good decisions, but in Signs, one must acknowledge that there’s a lot of good aspects to this movie. The credits are visually appealing, the music is basically good, the characters and their development are fine, the suspense is well done, etc. From what I’ve seen though, Shyamalan seems like he doesn’t take things very seriously. The upside to that is that he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, which makes working with him easier. The downside is that he doesn’t seem to take his films seriously either.

He ignores the obvious problem in the story completely, making it one of the most talked about plot holes in history: the aliens that must not touch water came to a planet that is mostly water. There are other story elements that do not make sense, such as how every television station decided to stop broadcasting their regular programming to show the same network’s coverage of a story that may have been a hoax. This is completely unbelievable, and while some may say that the unbelievable is acceptable in a science fiction story, when ordinary humans are portrayed reacting to events inappropriately, it really hurts the story. From a dialogue perspective, the writing is still not totally realistic in many parts of the film, but the children were written for rather well.

While the child actors are certainly very impressive, the movie offers little that is new or impressive from a story perspective, and does not stand out all that much as an alien invasion story. It is not terrible, and it has some redeeming qualities, but its flaws make it feel very “meh.”

God’s Not Dead Review

September 14, 2014 by JD Hansel

Or, The Epitome of Disrespectful Film-Making

This is it – this is the movie that I can call my least favorite film without reservation. It is the perfect example of disrespectful film-making that slaps its viewers right in the face, and its audience falls for its tricks, applauds it, and brings the whole family for a second viewing. From a technical perspective, this film is not too horrendous, but if it were, it would be “so bad it’s good,” which is not the case here. What I mean to say is, it is not shot, lit, or edited too poorly, though it is shot/lit/edited in the most emotional way possible. Why? Because this is an extremely emotional movie that tricks its audience into thinking that it is intellectual. What really makes this movie disgusting is that it is offensive to atheists, Muslims, Christians, and humans everywhere.

The movie is obviously offensive to atheists, but not just because it counters their beliefs. What makes the movie offensive to them is the way that it portrays them, and the way that it portrays atheism as a concept. To say that all atheists had what I call a “Pure Flix tragedy” which caused them to hate God, leading to their atheism, is really silly. Think of how many people there are in the world who are never exposed to the god of the Bible, but are only exposed to other gods. They would assume that if there is a god, it would be whichever they thought was the “normal” god, which would be whichever god they had been exposed to previously. This video explains some things that atheists are frequently told about themselves that they find offensive, and as the fellow in the video pointed out in his own article about the film, it would seem that God’s Not Dead put just about all of them in the film.

The movie seems to try to say that the Muslims themselves are not necessarily that bad; they are just forced to be outcasts, hide any interest in other beliefs, and shun family members who disbelieve. First of all, people being kicked out of their homes for religious reasons happens in various religious households, and Christian ones are no exception. Secondly, this is to say that Islam is itself a prison that keeps its followers unhappy. It sure is good news that all those miserable Muslims can come to Jesus and be happy people!

Christians have two main reasons to be offended: the first is how the movie repeats the same old Christian movie clichés, thus insulting its audience’s intelligence, and the second is the bad influence this film can have on Christian youth. The movie almost seems to run through some sort of Christian movie cliché checklist. It has the annoying blonde girlfriend, who is a bad influence on the protagonist; the “atheistic” man (who is really an anti-theist of sorts) whose old female relative died tragically when he was just a boy; the stereotypical pastor and stereotypical African missionary; and it has a couple of Asians and a couple of African Americans so the audience will not notice that the vast majority of the cast is white. Though I must admit that that last one is kind of a Hollywood cliché too.

The movie is a bad influence because young Christians will think that all of these clichés and stereotypes are actually parts of life that they will probably encounter, and that they can use the arguments presented in the film to bring their classmates to Christ. Here is the problem with that: nobody uses those arguments anymore. This article from a Christian/creationist organization explains that an atheist with any knowledge of Christianity would be able to refute the arguments presented in the film because all of them are bad, and any Christian apologist who suggested using them would be laughed out of a Christian university in a day. What is especially bad about all this is that a Christian may lose his or her faith when these arguments fail, and said Christian would be very depressed, stressed, and confused. He/she would feel betrayed by God, when he/she should instead feel betrayed by the film. This movie will ultimately kill God for the Christian youth.

There are many ways that a film can be disrespectful to its viewers, including offending them, influencing them wrongly, and being too cliché. The greatest form of disrespect, however, is probably taking advantage of them. When a film knows that with good marketing it can make a poorly written film that will sell anyway, that is taking advantage of the audience, and that is exactly what this movie did. This suggests that the film thinks its audience is stupid, and it sadly makes the Christian community look bad for falling for the clever marketing and the seemingly harmless focus on faith. It tries to trick its audience into thinking that it is clever with its outdated arguments that win over the class, with its variety of subplots that are barely strung together, and its attempts at symbolism and foreshadowing. (I bet the director thought he was clever for putting the woman who listened to the song “Ones And Zeroes” in room 101010 in the hospital, but someone forgot to tell him that symbolism and foreshadowing are supposed to mean something.)

A lot of the acting is pretty bad, but what is far worse is the writing. The story has too many subplots that only connect due to odd coincidences, and this takes away time that it could be spending showing viewers the protagonist’s background, parents, friends, other classes, etc. The dialogue is ridiculous, and only stays somewhat conversational for a few seconds in each scene before it turns into a speech or sermon from one of the characters who for some reason has to share his/her beliefs. As I wrote in this article, the movie did such a bad job at defending Christianity that it ended up supporting its antagonist’s beliefs. In one scene, when the antagonist walks in from the back of the room slowly clapping for the protagonist to mock him, it made me fall out of my chair laughing. The idea that a professor could yell at and grab his student in the hallway for all to see, and then still keep his job, is possibly crazier than the idea of a professor who tells students to renounce their religious beliefs. The fact that all of this nonsense is in the film, and that it actually was successful, and that it influenced my friends and loved ones, makes it the movie that I hate above all others.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Review

September 10, 2014 by JD Hansel

(SPOILERS)

I think a better name for this film would have been Harry Potter and the Half As Much Snogging As There Should Have Been, because frankly, it’s all about the characters and their relationships. The characters’ relationships are what have me anxiously watching the film and enjoying it. Harry and Ginny keep one glued to the screen, and Hermione and Ron even more so. The scene with Ron as he unconsciously mutters Hermione’s name is absolutely brilliant. I would have written something like that myself if I could have thought to do it that way. What makes that scene even more delightful is Snape standing there, presumably trying not to vomit. I think this film makes the main characters, especially Hermione, finally get the attention they should have had in the third and fourth films.

Oh, and there’s also a plot in this movie somewhere, but it’s not very strong. In the end, we learn that the task that Harry must complete in the climax of the film (if you can call it that) really doesn’t do much good. All of the efforts made by the characters in this film seem somehow futile, aside from giving them an idea of what they need to accomplish in the next film. It feels empty, and all of the focus on the Half-Blood Prince does not help. It might have meant something had it been revealed in the end that Snape was evil rather than at the beginning of the film, but because of the way this was set up, the big reveal does not feel very big at all. The Half-Blood Prince could have been just about anyone and it wouldn’t have made a difference: Lucius Malfoy, Hagrid, Dobby, Hedwig, or H. R. Pufnstuf.

The ending with the death of Dumbledore does emotionally impact the audience, and it is rather well done, but because this is pretty much the note we end on, the movie just doesn’t feel complete. It seems like this whole year was just setting up for the events of the year to come, which it kind of was, but a movie should not feel like it as one watches it. It’s like when I order an expensive meal at a restaurant, eat it all, and I’m surprised to find it was not filling at all and I’m still hungry. Still, even if making the movie was just an excuse to show the scene with unconscious Ron mumbling about Hermione, I’d be totally okay with that and I could forgive many other aspects of the film. Also, my rating of this film is right on the border between 3.5 stars and 4 stars, and this was a very, very difficult decision. Sadly, because its story is weak, I do not think it would be fair to give it the same rating as I gave movies 2 and 5.