Movie Reviews

X-Men: Days of Future Past

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: X-Men: Days of Future Past
  • IMDB: link

X-Men: Days of Future PastHoping to bridge the gap between the success of X-Men: First Class and the more star-studded original X-Men films, and wash the taste of how horrifically that series ended, 20th Century Fox brought back director Bryan Singer and decided on adapting one of the long-running comic’s most popular stories for the big screen. The task set before Singer was no small one but the director steps up with X-Men: Days of Future Past and, in a Geoff Johns-ian effort of making disparate (and often inane) pieces fit, finds a way to deliver the best X-Men movie to date.

Opening in a dystopian not-too-far future the film sets up its basic premise of the time travel of a character’s mental consciousness in an opening action sequence involving Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) along with several mutants we haven’t seen before: Bishop (Omar Sy), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Blink (Bingbing Fan), and Sunspot (Adan Canto). What we learn is that Kitty can send a X-Men’s mind back in time to his younger self to warn of coming dangers and change the outcome.

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Chef

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Chef
  • IMDb: link

ChefAlthough the storyline doesn’t veer far from well-established basic themes we’ve seen in countless films over the years involving reinventing your life, father-son dynamics, road trips, and overcoming adversity, with the right ingredients and cast writer/director/star Jon Favreau delivers a sumptuous treat as delectable as the various food on display. Calling on the help of a handful of his old Iron Man buddies, Favreau offers up his best film yet in front of, or behind, the camera.

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Gugu Mbatha-Raw is the Belle of the ball

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  • Title: Belle
  • IMDB: link

BelleInspired by the 1779 painting of mixed-raced aristocrat Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) beside her white cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon) with whom she was raised by her uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson), Belle is an interesting look at a woman who grew up in lavish luxury but still searched long and hard for her true place both within her family and the wider world to whom she was seen as (at best) an outcast.

With no diary to draw directly from and only scattered reports of what the woman’s life would have been like under her uncle’s roof (such as not being allowed to dine with guests), screenwriter Misan Sagay certainly takes liberties with the story. At its best Belle is a strong character drama although it also devolves at several points into a time-period-specific romance novel. The rougher moments of Sagay’s tale are saved by the terrific performance of Gugu Mbatha-Raw who infuses the character with passion, strength, and a dogged determinedness which serves her well (but also gets her into spots of trouble).

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Godzilla

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Godzilla (2014)
  • IMDB: link

GodzillaGodzilla returns to the big screen in an American film for the first time since 1998. Although better than Roland Emmerich‘s much despised film, while outdoing the director known for CGI disaster porn, the new version of Godzilla isn’t without its own issues. As a summer popcorn flick the new Godzilla may satisfy in the short term but it’s unlikely to entice me to return to its story anytime soon (if ever).

Opening in 1999 in the Philippines where an ancient monster is awoken before it makes its way to Japan unseen (this happens more than you’d expect in the film) and destroys a nuclear reactor to feed on the radioactivity for the next 15 years, the film jumps forward to present day where the scientist in charge of the facility (Bryan Cranston) still struggles with what really happened. Although much of the extended opening centers around Cranston (which could be trimmed considerably), the movie’s main character is the scientist’s son Lieutenant Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a bomb disposal expert whose skills will come in quite handy before the end of the film.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Amazing Spider-Man 2
  • IMDB: link

The Amazing Spider-Man 2Building on the groundwork laid two years ago in The Amazing Spider-Man, the sequel returns all the core members of the first film (minus the Lizard) while continuing the story of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and the harsh lessons which frame Spider-Man’s mythology.

Although needing to spend the time setting up two different villain origin stories, one of the aspects of the sequel I most enjoyed was the fact that it never lost focus that this is primarily Peter Parker’s movie. Jamie Foxx is adequate as Electro, a super-villain with the power to absorb and control electricity, even if he’s given a rushed paint-by-the-numbers origin that relies on the introverted electrical engineer going from confused super-powered freak just trying to understand what has happened to him and deal with his new taste for all things electric to full-on super-villain a little too quickly for my tastes. The same could be said for Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) whose relationship with Peter doesn’t have enough time to develop and deteriorate to the point that the script needs to earn its eventual payoff.

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