Lucy

It is a long dispelled myth that humans only use %10 of their brains. But I am okay with myths if they make good movies. Lucy looked like a good movie. The trailers were promising, it had the star power of Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman, and it had a premise that could work. But all of this doesn't necessarily a good movie make.

Lucy is an American woman studying abroad in Taiwan. She likes to party and has just started dating a new boyfriend. Unfortunately her boyfriend only wants to use her naivety to traffic drugs for him. After being kidnapped by his employers and had a package of a new type of drugs sewn into her abdomen, Lucy has reached rock bottom. But that changes when one of her captors kicks her in the stomach causing the drugs to leak into her bloodstream. Lucy's cerebral capacity is increasing and she now has the knowledge to defeat and escape her captors. Lucy is now hardly human it seems and to get answers she tracks down the one man everyone wants to explain things: Morgan Freeman...err Samuel Norman.

Even though I was irked that it seemed like a blatant rip off of the far superior movie Limitless, I was more than willing to give Lucy a fair shake. It is Hollywood after all and almost everything is based on someone else's idea. Unfortunately though Lucy is straight up a terrible movie. I will go as far to say the worst movie of the summer. It wasn't just that it was boring, or that the dialogue was sometime eye roll inducing, or that the ideas and situations were downright laughable; it was all of that combined. One positive thing it has was pretty sweet visuals and a good car chase. (even though it wasn't even a car chase, just a car driving fast.) I have to say I can't believe some of the praise this movie got while the FAR superior Transcendence was panned earlier in the year.  Everyone has been asking for years where a good action movie was that had a strong woman as the lead. Everyone hoped this was it. It may be action but it certainly is far from good. Look elsewhere feminists, look elsewhere. C-

Hercules

2014 brought not one but two Hercules films. The Legend of Hercules released back in January was terrible. I had higher hopes for this one starring my man Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and based on a kick butt graphic novel. But were my hopes met?



Hercules has it tough. Sure he's a demigod but lets take some things into account: He never knew his father, his step mom (the goddess Hera) is jealous of him and wants to kill him, the only way to stem Hera's wrath is to complete twelve incredible labors. After completing the labors he may or may not have gone temporarily insane and murdered his wife and children. Yeah poor Herc has it tough, but he's now traveling as a mercenary trying to earn enough money to live out the rest of his life in exile. But when the world needs a hero...

I think the January Hercules took itself way too seriously. This Hercules corrects this and doesn't take itself seriously at all. It's as much a comedy as anything. And that is OK. It deconstructs Hercules legend into semi logical and realistic roots. It's not a brilliant movie but it does what it means to do and truly entertains. B

The Purge: Anarchy

Unpopular confession: I loved The Purge. I think it was a brilliant movie. The thing people don't think about when they complain about the Purge is that it was made on the minuscule budget of 3 million dollars. Ethan Hawk starred for free with a deal to benefit from the profits. It was a compelling concept that had to be made smartly. The only reason people didn't like it is because you had to listen, pay attention, and think about everything being said or hinted at, and people don't want to think. They want a purge, a mindless bloodfest filled with empty brutality. Or they want brainless Bayist explosions... Now I'm going to stop complaining about people who didn't like the first Purge and actually review the second.



It's twelve months after the last purge. America still enjoys a flourishing economy and a crime free society the other 364 days of the year. But what if it's not because the Purge allows people to release their aggression but because the people killed during the Purge are the poor and undesirable? Is it OK to Purge for certain reasons? If you get stuck outside, do you help or raise hell? These are all situations that several people will have to face during this monumental purge. This night their lives will change...if they can survive the night...

I was tentative about Anarchy. It looked like they made the movie people wanted and ignored the message they tried to communicate in the original. I have to say they made both. The street point of view is a much better soapbox and they still offer quite a sermon on class warfare and violence in America. (Side Note: I nominate Frank Grillo as the next Punisher because he is kick butt in this.) It's message hit home especially poignantly as while I walked out the theater I observed a boy no older then 10 walking with his parents talking about how cool the Purge was.   A

Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer was a movie I almost missed. I saw one trailer and while intrigued by its premise it seemed to be uninspiring. Then reviews and audience reactions surfaced (it currently holds a 94% on rottentomatoes) and I knew I had to pay attention. Now after seeing it thanks to VOD I'm left feeling.....underwhelmed. Confused.

It's the near future. Humanity is panicked by global warming and coats the atmosphere with a substance to cool the earth... It backfires and sends the planet into an ice age. The remnant of humanity survives on a super sized train that constantly circles the planet yearly. Now after 17 years, the passengers at the rear of the train are sick of being abused, neglected, and regulated by the occupants of the 'first class' passengers. Curtis Everett is ready to march to the front, take the engine, and make things right. But its a long trip to the front, and this ain't your normal train.

I was excited to see Snowpiercer. Once I saw its star studded cast and glowing reviews I began to build high hopes. In some aspects, Snowpiercer was an incredible movie. Sometimes it felt like completely contrived syfy drivel. The quieter moments of Chris Evans tearful confession, ("I know what people taste like." is one of the most chilling and heartbreaking lines ever delivered.) the ridiculousness of Tilda Swinton, and the menacing Ed Harris are all flawless. The sweeping syfy attempts fall short. The ending is especially disappointing. Here's a movie that should have spent less time on set pieces and more time between characters but all in all it's still far from a terrible movie. B-

Film Freak: A Year in Review

Well friends, I bet you didn't realize that a year ago I started my movie reviewing blog. I figured if I was going to go every week to the movies I might as well tell people what I think. Well I thought I would give everyone who has been keeping up a little update.

My first blog post was The Lone Ranger and the Critics NAM Syndrome on July 6th, 2013. I tried to keep coming up with clever lines to include in the titles (Like R.I.P.D. Dead on Arrival) but I dropped that quick when I realized I wasn't clever enough to do it for every movie.

The Lone Ranger remains the most viewed post with 27 views. The top ten list of my 59 posts looks like this:

1. The Lone Ranger
2. The Conjuring    
3. We're the Millers      
4. Despicable Me 2
5. The Wolverine              
6. Red 2            
7. Pacific Rim            
8. Noah
9. Captain Phillips
10. Elysium                

I have a grand total of 1,423 views.

By country:

United States	1177
Russia	46
United Kingdom	37
Malaysia	37
Serbia	30
Germany	23
Netherlands	14
France	7
Spain	6
Lithuania	4

By month:

July: 331

August: 272

September: 101

October: 150

November: 22

December: 166

January: 136

February: 2

March: 23

April: 63

May: 33

June: 116

And that's how the year was. Thanks for reading and keeping up!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Sigh... remakes and reboots are tedious... That's why they rarely work. As much as I love Spider Man you cant watch the reboot without thinking about where you first watched Toby McGuire kissed Kirsten Dunst in the first movie. That's why when you have a piece of cinematic history that is Charlton Heston damning humanity to hell on a beach in front of the statue of liberty its very hard to rise to that same level. It's why no one remembers the nightmare that was Tim Burtons 2001 Planet of the Apes remake. After ten years though Rise proved that there was still a story to be told, a good one. Now in 2014, a great story is told.



It's been five years since Caesar famously led the free smart apes across the Golden Gate bridge to freedom in the redwoods. The deadly simian flu has wiped out most of humanity and the apes live in peace. One day a chance encounter with humans and a gun fired in fear shatters the peace and tranquility. Can ape and man finally put aside their differences and live in peace? As Caesar said in Rise: NOOOO!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a movie that I've been looking forward to but not really paying any attention to. In the beginning of the year it was Captain America 2, Godzilla, and X-Men Days of Future Past and when I looked to fall it is Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, and Mockingjay. An at the end I added, "oh yeah, and Planet of the Apes." Then I caught the buzz. Rewatched the trailers. And suddenly I started paying attention to July 12. I can now say that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the best movie of the year so far. It is the best Planet of the Apes movie bar none. It deserves an Oscar nod for best picture, everything technical, and had better earn Andy Serkis his LONG overdue Best Actor nod. I said back in May that Godzilla was the first Must See of the Summer. Now I'm saying Dawn is the TRUE MUST SEE.  I could go on and on about the drama characters, the fantastic opening and closing, or the two really great tracking shots that seriously left me speechless. I could go on about how seeing an ape riding a horse with a machine gun in each hand didn't make me laugh but elicited true fear. (That's not a sentence I ever thought I'd say) But I wont. Here's what I have to say about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: It's not just a good action movie.It's not just a good syfy movie. It's a freaking GREAT movie by any standards. Long live the reign of the apes. A+