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Friday, April 29, 2011

Thor

So another Marvel character...
Thor is an odd one on top of things, a true god in a sense when all others are normal guys to start with. So possibly less likeable...

So another product or a true success like Ironman? Well more the former I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong : it's good. The actors are really good and everything has the high production values that marvel has got us used to. Special effects are flawless and they convey the true massive scale of something like Asgard.
They also manage to make Thor very likeable.

But I guess the movie gets the problems of a 1st in a franchise. It needs to set up everything, gods and humans alike. As a consequence the human characters feel very 2ary, since the plot revolves around problems in Asgard.
Also the action is slightly ln the backburner, with the coolest bits at the beginning.

But that doesn't prevent the movie to be entirely highly enjoyable, with a nice setup towards the Avenger movie, which holds a lot of promises...

Oh yes one thing worth of note is that the 3D conversion was OK. That means that it didn't feel annoying. But it didn't feel necessary either.

Anyway, just Captain America to go now...

Source Code

This one went completely under my radar. Probably because I'm still yet to see Moon, despite being highly recommended...

Anyway, I somehow managed to catch this one and that was well worth it.
It's simply the best SF movie I've seen in ages.
The Groundhog Day premises is extremely well exploited and manages to be fresh (although some ground has been covered already). But the main success here is the coveralls treatment of the story. You just feel for the main character and the way all is shot has throw backs to gems like 12 Monkeys.

It's funny how because of this, compared to something like Inception (another brilliant mind bender), as much as I love Inception, I would still be tempted to give Source Code the sympathy vote.
Because it manages to give hardcore SF thrills while still being accessible, with an independant feel, and a big warm heart. That's how good it is...

I definitely need to see Moon....

Monday, April 18, 2011

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch got me hooked whenever I saw the 1st trailer. Katana wielding girls against gatling equipped giant samurai? How much cooler can you get? This had "FILM OF THE YEAR" written all over it (for me at least).
The idea of Zack Snyder running loose on such material was hugely appealing.

I have to admit that the cold shower of the reviews did get me to slightly lower my expectations before I went in. However, as expected, they were wrong. But I'm grateful as that made me enjoy the movie even more!

Although I might already have seen something better this year (more on this later), and despite a few annoyances here or there, I just thoroughly enjoyed this crazy ride.
Snyder has got an incredible eye and his mastery of special effects make this piece a pure wonder to look at. He achieves a scale and ambition that only few can pretend to. I found some sceneries just jaw dropping.
And although he pushes the over the top slomo quite hard, it (almost) always looks just so cool it just works (for me at least).

On top of this visual feast, the movie also manages to be more clever than it looks. Sure, it's more about style than substance (it's pretty much always the case in his movies), don't expect Inception-like mind bends, but still the story and the layering is interesting (as here, the real story is told through a dream) and it nicely links the set pieces together. Did I mention they were awesomely cool?

So it's another awesome rollercoaster ride from Snyder...
Can't wait for his Superman...

Friday, April 08, 2011

Paul

OK, once again, I went to see this ages ago.
I just can't make time. Especially for reporting bad news: this one didn't really work for me.

It's a movie that I would have loved to love. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Don't get me wrong: there are a lot of qualities on display. I especially liked the Seth Rogen voiced alien and Jason Bateman as a stiff no nonsense FBI agent.

However, I don't know, I didn't laugh that much... Maybe it's because the movie didn't surprise me that much, which is crucial for laughs.
You see the pitch and you expect something and the movie just gives what you expected. That's fine, but as a consequence, I felt there was something missing.

On the upside you get a few cool references and punchlines, but overall I found too much to like but not enough to love.
I'm thrown back to The Other Guys which had a bit of that problem, but managed to deliver so good franks laughs along the way.

I love Pegg & Frost as a couple ( ;) ), but I didn't quite connect this time.
Maybe next time... !