Action & Adventure

Harry Potter 8 Review

April 5, 2015 by JD Hansel

Let’s talk about Hermione. By that, of course, I mean let’s really overanalyze her character and make theoretical presumptions about her mindset without having read the books. What, you don’t want to talk about Hermione? You just want a review of the movie?

No. We’re talking about Hermione.

I love this character. Hey – I see that smug smile on your face, and no, I don’t mean it that way! I mean I care about this character because I empathize with her. I like her approach to life … unless of course what I really like is my assumption of what her approach to life is. Let’s think about this – she’s muggle-born, and that means she’s doomed to be mocked, scorned, and called a – cover your ears, kids – mudblood. Ouch. So, putting myself in her shoes, I think about what the best way to handle the insecurity that comes with such a burden would be.

Here’s the cool thing about wizardry: it’s established by Hagrid early on in the franchise that pretty much any wizard can cast the same spells with about the same effect as any other wizard, after enough practice. There isn’t much in the Harry Potter world, or at least not the cinematic world, to suggest that the purebred wizards always do better wizarding than those with human blood mixed in. So, it would seem that being a great witch or wizard is not determined solely by nature, but is in fact largely just know-how. Essentially, in a world in which everyone has access to the same spells, and with practice can use them to about the same effect, whoever has the most knowledge has the most power.

Let’s bring it all back to Hermione. She could have handled her insecurity about being muggle-born in a number of negative ways. However, Hermione, in her awesomeness, was wise enough to instead take on a pursuit of knowledge, which would naturally give her power over most other witches and wizards regardless of bloodline. This is where the genius of Hermione lies; it’s not in her book smarts, but in her passion for learning. She doesn’t need to be a chosen one, a prodigy, or a legend in order to have power. She has her brain. So, when I sat down to watch the final film in the franchise, I was waiting to see how good ol’ Hermione ends up.

I’ll come back to that in a moment, but first let’s get the real review-ish part of this review out of the way. The film looks as good as its last two predecessors, with a score that’s about the same, although maybe slightly vamped up. The story is by and large very fascinating because it keeps the audience asking new questions while simultaneously answering old questions. I was mostly sucked in, although it’s hard for me to care about what happens to Harry as much as I care about what happens to Little Miss You-Know-Who. I could have used more focus on the relationships in this than on the Horcruxes, but it’s still cool all in all. I love the Snape twist. I was actually very thankful for the epilogue scene because the series didn’t feel like it had enough closer without it, and it made it a little easier to say goodbye to these guys.

But Hermione. What was her reward for her brilliance? Surely J.K. would reward being wise more than being chosen by fate, right? After all, to do otherwise would essentially value superstition and luck over reason and thinking. Guess what! In this movie, Hermione has more bad ideas than good ones, feels like a side character, marries Ronald, and is upstaged by the outstanding development of … wait, I have to go look up his name again … oh, right, his name’s Neville Longbottom. I forgot. I’m not making it up; I really did.

I’d have jumped up and cheered had the wand Harry was using, upon flying into the air, flew through the sky over to Hermione, but noooooo . . . it makes far more sense for it to go to Longbottom. Look, Longbottom is allowed to really grow as a character, and he’s allowed to avenge his parents, but it’s just not right for him to be given more glory than Hermione. Heck, when I was a little boy, I’d get to suck on a red Dum Dum lollipop if I was reasonably well-behaved at the doctor’s office. That’s a decent prize for a small feat, but since Hermione has just been flippin’ brilliant throughout the whole franchise, she deserves a lot more than getting to suck on a redhead dum-dum for the rest of her life. Does it show that I don’t particularly care for Ronald? I really don’t. His only role in the franchise seems to be showing up, eating, panicking, swearing, and leaving, and I had no interest in seeing him together with Hermione, who honestly seemed to have more chemistry than Harry anyway.

I digress. Wait, no I don’t. I’m still not totally okay with this. I care about Hermione, and I don’t even know if she ever gets to reunite with her parents. The movie could have focused on her a lot more than it did, but on the whole, it was a good, fun film that seemed to give the series the completion it deserved. It just didn’t give Hermione what she deserved. Ten points from Gryffindor.

Pulp Fiction Review

March 25, 2015 by JD Hansel

So,there are some movies I’d recommend that people see without any knowledge of what the film is about, what’s going to happen, or who’s in the film. The Truman Show is a good example, as is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Then there’s a movie like Pulp Fiction. I think I was only able to like it because I knew all about it going into it.

I knew the type of storytelling and approach. I knew it was a weird Tarantino film that would jump around, and I knew he had carefully structured everything so that he was ahead of the audience, and no one could ever predict where the story would go next. I knew he would use everything that the movies have trained us to expect to happen in a story against the audience to trick them. I knew to expect that I would never know what to expect, and most importantly, I knew better than to play The Movie Game.

The Movie Game is my term for when the audience member tries to figure out where the plot is going, and what will resolve everything, with the understanding that the movie has to set up its twists and turns ahead of time, and the story will follow the standard structure. This is partially based on a great quote from screenwriter Terry Rossio: “You know that the audience will try to guess where you’re going with the story. It’s a given. It’s fun. After all, they’re sitting there virtually motionless in the dark for two hours, with nothing better to do but second-guess you.” When The Movie Game is too easy, it’s a boring game, so it’s a bad movie. I played a great game with The LEGO Movie, and the movie won. I beat Frozen, but it was still a good game, and therefore a good film.

Naturally, when I get most upset by a movie is when I feel cheated, particularly because the movie doesn’t follow any normal structure, so I don’t get to play my favorite game. The way to avoid feeling cheated is simply to know what game the movie is playing before going in, rather than assuming it’s playing the same game as I am. What game is Pulp Fiction playing? I have no flippin’ clue, but it’s not quite as fun as The Movie Game.

It’s nice, every once in a while, to see a movie that does storytelling really differently. However, because of how different the storytelling is from what I’d ever seen in a movie before, and because I didn’t get to play the game, it didn’t feel like a real movie to me. It felt like a crazy Tarantino art project. I happened to find out that Tarantino felt the same way about it when it first came out. I respect it since so much in the film is impressive, but it didn’t feel quite like I was watching a movie, nor was it quite as entertaining as a more ordinary film. The entertainment value is lost to some extent when the movie doesn’t build in any normal sense, so some scenes are essentially pointless. Again, they may be impressivescenes, but they serve no purpose other than displaying themselves because the director feels like showing these scenes to the audience because they mean something to him, even though they mean nothing, in some cases, to an overarching story.

I don’t identify with the characters, so they are not my favorites, but they are strong. The dialogue is perhaps more profane than it needs to be, which I generally view as a Cinema Sin of sorts because that generally means the writer is either going for shock value, or simply can’t think of anything meaningful or interesting to write. However, the writing is very, very impressive – Tarantino is pretty darn good at dialogue. The way he interwove the three main stories was clever. The soundtrack is nice overall, and the visuals, while sometimes more bloody than I like, were overall very well done as well.

So, in the end, I really like this movie for what it is, but I don’t know that I like it much as a movie. When I don’t get to play The Movie Game, I feel a little like I’ve been invited over to a friend’s house to play a game with him, but he’s just playing it by himself and encouraging me to watch him; I don’t feel included, and that’s just boring. I think I’ve certainly learned a lot about film, storytelling, and myself from watching it, which means it has good reason to be considered a classic. So, I like it. It’s good. But give up on The Game before it begins, because he just isn’t playing along.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3 Review

March 24, 2015 by JD Hansel

*Sigh of mild disappointment, but understanding why it is what it is.*

It has its moments. It was fun seeing their take on the Academy Awards, even though I missed a few of the references. (The girl in the traditional Native American attire was a clever throwback that got me laughing.) The 24-hour Johnny Mathis station was brilliant. Aside from that, the movie is rather weak. However, this is the type of sequel that is enjoyable not because it is on par with the original, but because it is an opportunity to spend more time with the characters we love and miss. Those are important too.

Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World Review

March 5, 2015 by JD Hansel

(MINOR SPOILERS)

When I first saw the trailer for this movie years ago, I thought it was a remake or reboot of some sort. I really couldn’t figure out how Spy Kids could be remade since it is so unique, or why it should be since I’ve always found it kind of stupid. I think I found it stupid because I saw it as a movie, or movie franchise rather, as one that used a bizarre, off-putting, artsy style to make up for a lack of quality. Over the past month or so though, I have been thinking that the bizarre, off-putting, artsy style had just been keeping me from seeing all the quality that’s there.

This is a weird movie series. Maybe the weirdest I’ve ever seen. It has a ridiculous story running throughout based on a ridiculous concept; it has a lot of heart and messages about family balanced with crude and edgy humor and images far too freaky for kids; it takes place in a nonsensical world filled with nonsensical characters, but doesn’t quite feel cartoony enough or satirical enough to pull it off; it’s a special effects film series with loads of CG, but it looks far too cheap be believable, and yet not silly enough to be funny; continuity is out of the question since the storyline throughout the series makes hardly any sense and the editing is as sloppy as that of a college project. So why the heck do I enjoy these movies so much?

I enjoy the Spy Kids series because I enjoy a challenge, and I see the films as a challenge. I find the movies to be kind of ugly, with strange shots, lousy effects, and poor editing, but I understand that this is a stylistic choice. I think Rodriguez could have made these films properly if he wanted to, but he felt like making them weird, so he did. Heck, it’s a weird concept – a combination of the spy genre and the kids’ movie genre – so why not make a weird world for it? What this ultimately does is challenge the moviegoer to appreciate the more important things in the movie than technical correctness and beautiful shots. The films have great characters, good dialogue, interesting stories/conflicts, effective surprises, strong themes, and clever details out the wazoo. So, I was hoping the fourth film would hold up to the standards set by its predecessors.

Thankfully, it’s a good movie. The plot has more holes than there are Fooglies, but the challenge of the movie series is to choose not to care about that stuff. What matters is that the characters are likable, the story is interesting, the angle is original, the villain is fascinating, and the twists are pretty darn good. Oh, and did I mention that Carmen and Juni come back to make it an epic nostalgia fest?! I was still thinking it might be a remake until I saw Carmen, and when I saw her, I totally freaked out. My excitement continued as I saw all the old spy gear from the previous films, and the feels were just too strong for me to take.

Yeah, it makes no sense and looks kinda crappy, but it makes me feel like a kid again, so who Flooping cares?!

Back to the Future Part III Review

February 9, 2015 by JD Hansel

I love the Back to the Future series, and I recognize that this is the finale that brings everything to completion, but I think it is probably the weakest of the three. Still, it’s a chance to see Doc and Marty on the screen again, and they are still as enjoyable as ever, so I love it. It’s fun, funny, and, as usual with the BttF franchise, keeps the audience in suspense and wonder. (Honestly, the only reason it doesn’t get an extra half a star is that I wish it were as good as the first movie in the series, which may be a little too much to ask of a sequel that a studio demanded.) It unfortunately does not have as many beautiful shots as the first two, but it still has a neat look and feel. I like getting to see the ancestors of the characters, and the things and people that shaped the town. The writing is absolutely brilliant, as one would expect, but it does leave me with one question: how could the future not be influenced at all by the passengers on the train not making it to their destination?

Harry Potter 7 Review

December 21, 2014 by JD Hansel

(MINOR SPOILERS)

Yeah, I got tired of writing out the full titles. They’re really long.

Anyway, the seventh film in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part One is dark. By about the third or fourth film, it was clear that this series was not for the children anymore, but now this is especially true. It’s time to bring back beloved characters, bring back characters we didn’t care about and make us love them, and then finally kill them off. It’s also time to bring back old Umbridge, who unfortunately does not get her heart ripped out of her body and her skull bashed in in this film, but I can dream.

It is more fun to see our heroes in the Muggle world than in a Quidditch tournament, so that’s a plus. There’s basically no Hogwarts or Minerva McGonagall, and there’s hardly any Snape or Dumbledore (despite the fact that this would be a great time to learn more about these two characters, particularly the latter.) I have heard that, in the books, there’s a lot more information about Dumbledore revealed, but the movie is not focused on him. The upside to this is that there is more time spent with the main characters, and the lack of Ron means more time focused on Hermione, who is, in my opinion, the most interesting character in the franchise. I would like it if the films would go into her background a little more, and I’d like to see her brain at work, solving mysteries and showing off, but I guess you can’t have everything.

I do believe that this is one of the films that does not have the charm of the first two movies in the series, but the interesting details that are revealed, the focus on the main characters, the interesting drama, and the fascinating plot make it a nice film overall.