PG-13

THG: Mockingjay – Part 1 Review

December 9, 2014 by JD Hansel

(MINOR SPOILERS)

Wow. Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. Wow.

It takes a lot for a movie to have me this emotionally invested, in spite of the fact that I don’t personally identify with the main character all that much. The film does so much right. The acting is very good, as usual, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s “animation” is unnoticeable in just about every scene (with the exception of his first scene, oddly enough). The music works, the lighting works, the editing works, the cinematography works, and it all fits together nicely. The sets are really impressive as well, though it’s hard to tell which were built and which were just CGI.

The story is intriguing and well-built, with good twists and turns, even though a few of them are somewhat predictable. It’s clever and delightful, at some points making me beam with excitement, and at other times just about bring me to tears, which hardly ever happens. The pace is a little slow for my taste, and the humor is lacking, but this is not a comedy, so I guess that’s okay even if it makes the movie less appealing to me. The focus on the marketing and propaganda involved in war is delightful, making this film of particular interest to me since that is the element of war I find most fascinating. The ending, as other reviewers have pointed out, is really its biggest problem. I fully agree with Doug Walker that the second film in the series cut at just the right time, and this one did not – it really needed to cut sooner.

Despite my minor issues with it, it’s a good movie. Even if you’re not into action or war movies, just as I usually am not, it is still totally worth seeing.

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.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) Review

August 17, 2014 by JD Hansel

If you’re trying to choose between seeing Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there’s no question about it – see Guardians. TMNT is really boring, not because it lacks in action, but because it is so cliche. I couldn’t care about anything that happened because I had seen this plot before, I had seen villains just like these before, I had seen characters just like these before, and I had seen action scenes just like these before. What makes the film even more boring is the lead character, April O’Neil, who is played by Megan Fox. She’s essentially a version of Lois Lane with the personality of a Triscuit.

I don’t want to give Megan all the blame since I know that the writing and directing contributed a lot to the dullness of the character. The sad part is, I couldn’t really get into the other characters all that much either. The only turtle that I found somewhat relatable was Donatello, who did not have all that many lines. Will Arnett, who I remember being very funny as LEGO Batman, was supposed to be funny in this film, but he really doesn’t get many laughs. It actually took the movie about an hour to get me to laugh once, which is pretty sad, and what’s worse is that I was never concerned for any of the characters either.

There were some things about the movie that were actually pretty smart. For example, and this is where this review gets spoilery, April O’Neal sort of had the turtles as pets, which makes it more believable when she felt the need to really pursue the answers to her questions about the turtles. However, this makes it less believable that she just so happened to be the first person the turtles encounter (aside from the Foot Clan, which is also unrealistic since the Foot Clan is working with the creator of the turtles). This is one of those movies that did have some thought put into it, but the number of coincidences that take place and the amount of nonsense the audience is expected to endure nullifies nearly all of it. On the bright side, the animation looks nice, as are many of the shots in the film, but since the first shot in the movie is unnecessary shaky-cam, I wouldn’t call it a beautiful-looking film at all.

I want to give the movie some slack for being better than some fans expectations, and I know that Doug Walker’s review has many more good examples of things that were done well in the film. I suppose if you were a kid, you would enjoy the movie a lot, and to the movie’s credit, it is mostly appropriate for a kid to watch, especially in comparison to most other superhero movies. So, maybe take a kid to see it… maybe. But if you want a movie that will show your kid what a good action/comedy movie with talking reptiles looks like, show him Muppets Most Wanted instead.

Gravity Review

August 2, 2014 by JD Hansel

When I first saw the trailer for Gravity, I must say that I was impressed. It was clear that the movie had excellent lighting, keying effects, and cinematography. However, my fear was that the movie would turn out to be rather boring because it might lack character interaction and development of relationships. Unfortunately, I was correct in thinking that way. I think that people who enjoy movies that are good from a technical standpoint will love this movie, and those who like dramas, or who like the main actors in it, will probably like Gravity a lot too. I, however, found the movie to be slow, not very interesting or exciting, sometimes predictable, and often annoying. There was one part of the story that was really starting to get me interested and excited, but the moment that part began, the movie ended. That kind of infuriated me, so as much as I respect the film’s technical achievements, I have to say that it just didn’t do it for me.