Movie Review #10: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Keeping with my top five favorite musicals, here is my second favorite. When this movie first came out, I wanted to see it because it was another Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaboration. Alas I couldn't because my parents are really strict on me seeing R-rated films. So like I did with most other movies, I waited. When I finally got older, I watched it and I was blown away.

Johnny Depp play Benjamin Barker, who was once a London barber and husband to a beautiful wife named Lucy. Her striking beauty and lovely yellow hair attracts the attention of a corrupt judge played by Alan Rickman, who casts Barker into exile for 15 years just to obtain her. After serving his sentence, he returns to London, where he now goes by the name of Sweeney Todd. He decides to set up shop above a failing meat shop run by Mrs. Lovet, played by Helena Bonham Carter. And they form a partnership together between her meat pie shop and his barber shop. From there on out, revenge, tragedy, murder and cannibalism ensue.

I have always been a huge Tim Burton fan. I've grown up with his films and he has been a big inspiration on me. I love his unique visual style and creepy sense of humor. Even if some of his films come off as a case of style over substance. Looking back on his filmography, it's hard to find many stinkers or bombs he has had. From his debut with Pee Wee's Big Adventure until Sleepy Hollow, I don't think he made a single bad film! That is until Planet of the Apes rolled its ugly head. And for most of the new millennium, Burton has been directing remake after lame remake. Yet he's had an occasional diamond in the rough with Big Fish and Corpse Bride, but my personal favorite recent film of his without a doubt his adaptation of this Stephen Sondenheim's musical.

I was also amazed how well Tim Burton brought this musical to life. This is the first musical that he's directed and you'll swear that he's done this before! The film demonstrates that Tim Burton isn't a one trick pony. He has so much potential and in this film it shines.

The film also has killer songs. (No pun intended). Some of the songs can both be moving while others are darkly comical. Few musicals can say that. In Les Miserables, many people said that the weakest link was Russell Crowe. In this film, I couldn't find a weak link in the vocal department. Everyone from Alan Rickman to Timothy Spall was excellent. There's even a kid actor that managed to not annoy me and impress me with his pipes! Whenever there's a kid actor in a movie that doesn't irritate you, that's a win in my book.

You never would have guessed that a movie about cannibalism and a throat-slashing barber would ever be this enjoyable. It sounds weird how I'm saying it now but if you watch it you'll understand. If you are easily grossed out by the sight of blood, steer clear of this film because you will most likely pass out or vomit while watching this.

Final Report: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street expertly balances dark, macabre and sinister elements with those of love, emotion, despair and tragedy. Mix that in with some beautiful songs courtesy of Stephen Sondenheim, typically gorgeous visuals and production values and an all-star cast with Johnny Depp in a career best performance and you have Tim Burton's most mature film to date. What else can you call it but a bloody work of art?

Movie Review #9: Les Miserables (2012)

When I heard that they were making a movie adaptation of the legendary musical, I assumed two things:

1: My parents and sister, being huge fans of the musical, would take me to see this.
2: I would be bored senseless.

I was correct on the first and COMPLETELY wrong on the second.

During the second French Revolution, a frenchman named Jean Valjean, (Played by Wolverine), who agrees to take care of dying factory workers' daughter. While this takes place, Valjean is being hunted by Inspector Javert, played by Russell Crowe, because he broke his parole.

Now of all the musicals that I have seen, this is by far stands out as the most powerful. I don't think that this film would have been as moving if director Tom Hooper didn't  make the cast sing live. That was what made the movie for me. By making them sing live, it showed the raw emotion. The actors were able to incorporate a true sense of pain, sorrow and sadness. Now the singing isn't smooth all the time, but it pays off in the end. In most broadway film adaptations, they choose actors with the more star power than vocal chops. This time they got actors with both. Hugh Jackman was terrific, even though his voice takes some getting used to. He definitely earned that Golden Globe. Anne Hathaway was perhaps my favorite part of the film. You will have tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat when she sings I Dreamed a Dream. Now many people gave Russell Crowe a lot of flak for his voice. I am not one of those people. He played his character well, he looked the part and I'll admit it, I got a little misty-eyed when he sang Stars. Aside from the leads, the supporting cast is even better. Whether you're talking about Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter or even Sacha Baron Cohen, all of them are perfect.

Final Report: I rarely cry when watching movies. Heck, I barely cried when I first saw Toy Story 3! But by the end of this movie, I sobbed for roughly 20 minutes. Les Miserables was one of my top 10 favorite movie of 2012. I might even say top five.

P.S. While typing out this review, I decided that I will start posting reviews of my five favorite movie musicals. (This musical being number one).

Movie Review #8: The Amazing Spiderman (2012)

Disclaimer: I know that in my review of Oblivion, I said that I wanted to add some variety to my reviews. By that I meant less superhero movies. Yeah, in this review I just went back on what I said, but hear me out. This review is different. This is the first movie I hated that I'm reviewing. So in a sense I'm adding variety to my review archives.

Well, a Spiderman reboot was inevitable. But five years after the last movie? Wow. This movie had the word "Forced" written all over it. Hollywood is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one guys.

From the very first trailers released for this film, we were promised the "untold story" of Spiderman. (Look at the poster I added). That was one of the main reasons I was excited for this movie. They hinted us along during the beginning of the film by showing that Pete's parents were a part of something that lead to their deaths. We received none of that. No payoff. They pulled a bait and switch with us and we (or I) fell for it. Typical Hollywood.

I felt that Andrew Garfield was a good choice as Peter in the looks department. In every other department, not so much. There was just something about his portrayal of Peter Parker that just bugged me. I enjoyed him as Spiderman swinging around on the screen, but I couldn't stand him when he was out of the suit. My favorite character in the whole movie was Dennis Leary's character. He was funny, and he reminded me of Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin. Those two are like twins. Speaking of funny, this movie lacked just that. All of the jokes came as both awkward and unfunny to me, with the exception of Dennis Leary because he's just awesome. The villain on the other hand was not. The Lizard's backstory is so generic and obvious that it's almost absurd how dumb it is. The film is also too long and doesn't get interesting until about an hour and a half in! If they shaved a good 10-15 minutes off the runtime, It wouldn't have dragged on for too long.

Regardless of how much this movie infuriated me with it's uselessness and pointlessness, it had it's good elements. My favorite part of the movie are the visual effects. The final battle was stunning and actually quite thrilling! Another positive was the believable romance between Peter and Gwen. It makes sense considering Garfield and Stone are dating in real life. So that always makes thing more believable!

Final Report: Bring something fresh to the table when your rebooting a franchise so quickly. It reminded me too much of Sam Rami's Spiderman. I hate this movie so much that words can't begin to describe my hated. A completely pointless movie.

Movie Review #7: Oblivion (2013)

Now that I have finished reviewing all the Avengers films, I wanted to review all the Batman, X-Men and Spiderman movies. But then I figured that I should take a break from talking about superhero movies. I should add diversity to my list of reviews and you guys are probably sick of hearing me fanboy over these comic book films. It'll be refreshing for me to talk about something new for a change. Then I thought about reviewing a movie that's in theaters. This was the only film that spurred my interest, so why not?

Now Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic science-fiction movie starring Tom Cruise. Apparently earth was at war with an alien race and even though we ended up winning the war, the earth was lost and deemed unfit for living. So the entire population of earth left to colonize and only Tom Cruise and his partner remain to harvest the left of the earth's materials. And yes, that's the plot of WALL-E.

Now before I begin to dissect this film, I'll talk about what was cool about this movie: Tom Cruise was awesome in this movie. This movie really shows that Tom Cruise is one of the best actors in the business. He truly is a star. The supporting cast is fine, but they could have been played by anyone. Sam Worthington could have played Morgan Freeman's character and the movie wouldn't be graded any lower on Rotten Tomatoes. Aside from Cruise showing off his acting chops, the movie is gorgeous to look at. The visuals are stunning, the props are elegant in that futuristic way and the cinematography is amazing. Even if you despise this movie, you have got to admit that it's looks pretty cool.

What hurt this movie the most is that they showed too much in the trailer. If they didn't show Morgan Freeman in the trailer at all, the surprise would have felt more like an M. Night Shyamalan plot twist instead of a mild surprise. This movie also rips off movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Independence Day, Moon and WALL-E. It rips of movies that came before it without being as memorable as them.

Final Report: Oblivion is gorgeous to look at with creative visuals and props, but lacks creativity in its script.

Movie Review #6: The Avengers (2012)

The possibility of an Avengers movie had been talked about since Iron Man premiered in 2008. Ever since then, countless comic book fanatics haven't shut up about this movie, and a year later it's still being talked about! Now few highly anticipated movies like this ever fulfill the ridiculous expectations. This has happened time and time again.

And going into a movie with high expectations is NEVER a good thing to do. But when I saw this on opening day, my high expectations were surpassed! Here's why:

This movie would have been a completely different film if anyone other than the great Joss Whedon wasn't the writer and director. Joss Whedon was the perfect choice for this because he can write a script for a movie with a ton of characters and craft it in such a way that no character in particular steals the show or hogs the spotlight. He developed all of the Avengers even more so than from their previous films. Heck, he made Black Widow and Hawkeye relevant! Even though the script is written so that no character steals the show, but lets be serious, Loki steals every scene he's in. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, it's just that Tom Hiddleston is SO GOOD! I could watch him work at the DMV and he would have me interested.

Another aspect of this movie that will have you interested are the visual effects. With a budget of over $220,000,000, you know that they spared no expense on the visuals. And boy oh boy does it show! This movie is worth seeing for the final battle alone!

I feel that one of the reasons why I love this movie so much is because when I was watching this movie on the big screen for the first time on opening day, it was such an incredible experience. It was a cinematic experience that I had never experienced before and I adored every single second of it.

Final Report: Not only is the Avengers my favorite superhero movie, but it was also my favorite movie of 2012.

Movie Review #5: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

In my opinion, it's a win-win situation when you have a sweet action movie, an encouraging underdog story and a history lesson wrapped up in one of the most patriotic movies since Independence Day.

Captain America is the story of Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, who's a skinny white guy in the 1940's that want's to join the army but can't because he's shrimpy. Luckily he meets Stanley Tucci who's a scientist that is working on a serum for the super-soldier program and chooses Steve as his guinea pig. The serum works and transforms him from an awkward, skinny white kid, (like me), to one ripped dude. Now that's only one side of the coin. I didn't even get to talk about Red Skull, Hydra or the Tesseract. So in one sentence, the Red Skull is a Hydra leader who has a weapon called the Tesseract, which is a cube of unlimited energy that he tries to use to win WWII and conquer the world. There, that was easy!

This movie is highly entertaining. Not in the bad sense like Batman and Robin entertaining, but truly enjoyable. The film is well done in almost every category. The entire cast delivered strong performances, but the best was Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. Weaving is a phenomenal actor to start with, but he was perfect as Red Skull. The script is well written. I enjoyed how it focused on the propaganda of WWII. The only gripe I have about the film is that it ended on a low note. Yet again, so did Empire Strikes back and that's one of the best movies ever made!

Final Report: Captain America has a little something for everybody:

• There's a superhero aspect
• a history lesson
• a love story
• flashy visuals and riveting action
• true American patriotism
• and an underdog story if there ever was one!

Captain America is the best superhero movie that doesn't feel like a superhero movie.

Movie Review #4: Thor (2011)

Kenneth Branagh, the director of movies like Hamlet and Henry V, directs a superhero movie. Am I the only one who thought that was a bit of an odd choice? Regardless of it being an unusual choice, it works.

Now, Thor is the story about the God of Thunder. Thor, (played by Chris Hemsworth) is the son of Odin, (played by Anthony Hopkins) and Thor will become king of Asgard, the heavenly realm the gods live in. But after taking the throne, he is banished to Earth for almost starting a war (and because he's pretty arrogant).

Chris Hemsworth is great as Thor. Not only does he look the role but he kills it. Even though Chris Hemsworth is epic as Thor, the real scene stealer is Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Loki is one of those characters that steals every scene he's in. He's like Doc Holliday from Tombstone in the sense that he's the fan favorite character. Loki is also one of those few villains that even though he's evil, you can't help but like the guy! Natalie Portman plays the human love interest for Thor and she's super pretty as usual (why wouldn't she be?).

Even though Thor is a superhero fantasy movie, it's also a great story of redemption and honor. That's why I think that Kenneth Branagh was a great director. He said in an interview that his Shakespeare movies had the same lessons that Thor does. Both deal with family and honor, and that's why he worked as the director, even though he's primarily known for directing Shakespearean films.

Final Report: Thor is the best Avengers prequel since Iron Man and I couldn't be more stoked for the sequel due out this November. Thor is worth buying even if you're mainly a Shakespearean kind of guy.

Movie Review #3: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Well, with all great superhero movies, there comes the forced sequel. Let's face it, it's inevitable with every franchise success.

Now Iron Man 2 has a lot of plot lines. Some of the main plots include:
1: Tony keeping the Iron Man suit out of the U.S. Government's hands.
2: Stark dealing with an alcohol addiction.
3: Tony Stark dealing with an opposing weapons dealer named Justin Hammer (played by Sam Rockwell).
4: Stark trying to find a new, long-lasting material for the Arc Reactor in his chest.
5: Stark dealing with Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke) who teams up with Justin Hammer as they both plot Stark's death.

I know, it's pretty cluttered.

I feel that if the movie focused on Tony Stark keeping the Iron Man suit away from the Government, that would have been great! Or even if they focused on two of the five plots presented in the film that would be fine also! Instead the studio forced director John Favreau to crank out a sequel in only two years. If Paramount had given Favreau three years instead of two, that would have given them time to write a less cluttered script and also focus more on making the characters less one-dimensional.

The only part that is really worth watching is the final battle scene because all of the action in the trailer and perhaps the entire movie is in that scene. And that doesn't even go on for very long! Maybe a couple of minutes.

Final Report: Iron Man 2 is an overstuffed sequel with one entertaining battle sequence. This could have been better. It was wasted potential like the Star Wars prequels. At least Robert Downey Jr. was still fantastic.

Move Review #2: The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Now that I've reviewed Iron Man, I figured I should just go through all the Avengers prequels in chronological order. It just makes sense right? This does not include Ang Lee's Hulk. I'm not going to review Hulk because it doesn't connect to the Avengers timeline and is really borring. But this is a much better version.

The Incredible Hulk is the second of the Avenger prequels and many people call this the least memorable of them. I agree with that statement, but that doesn't mean it's a bad movie. In fact, it's a pretty good movie. That just means that Marvel has perfected their art of making superhero movies. (I'm getting off topic now). In the Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner. Banner is a scientist who experimented with the super soldier serum used in Captain America, (Don't you just love tie-ins?) So after developing a possible serum he tests it on himself, (because that never goes wrong.) The serum of course does, and he becomes the Incredible Hulk, a green creature that is only triggered when Banner becomes angry. Now Banner is hiding in brazil because William Hurt wants to find him because he says that Banner's body is property of the U.S. Government. Now I felt that Edward Norton was believable as Banner due to his shrimpy stature. I also enjoyed how this movie focused on Banner dealing with the Hulk on a regular basis. I found that really cool. What's far cooler than that is when Banner Hulks out. It's one of my favorite action sequences in any of the Avengers prequels. If you're like me, (an easily entertained high-school freshmen), when he starts smashing you will laugh with pure delight. It's pretty awesome.

Now even though The Incredible Hulk kind of feels out of place since Edward Norton isn't in The Avengers, it is a great Marvel movie and the best Hulk movie to date.

Final Report: If you collect superhero movies like me, The Incredible Hulk is probably in your archives. But I think that people who aren't huge superhero fans will at least rent this and have a fun time watching it.

Movie Review #1: Iron Man (2008)

Now their are two reasons why I haven't posted another review since my first post on monday:
Reason #1: I'm going to see Oblivion on friday and wanted to figure out a review posting schedule, (like I review only on  mondays, fridays and saturdays).
Reason #2: I have been trying to figure out what I wanted my first movie review to be! It seems ridiculous but for me this is as important a decision as any high-school can possibly make.
But enough talk! Let's review Iron Man:

So Iron Man is the first movie in Marvels five year master plan to The Avengers. Many people claim this to be the best solo Avengers movie. To all the people out there who think that, I agree. This movie not only demonstrates how to make an awesome comic book movie, but a great movie in general. Now the man behind Iron Man is Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr. This was such a smart casting decision. I honestly can't think of a better actor to play Tony Stark. I can't describe it any better but by saying that this is the role that Robert Downey Jr. was born to play. He is the living embodiment of Tony Stark. He's a billionaire weapons dealer living the rock star life. You know, those little things that every guy aspires to be. This movie also captures Tony Starks transition from being carefree to completely giving a care masterfully. They demonstrate this when Stark is captured by terrorists and held in a cave for roughly three months. During this time he discovers more or less that the world is a very scary place. This shows him the error of his ways.

Iron Man shouldn't be considered an Avengers prequel, because by itself it stands as a solidly made action movie with witty dialogue, lovable characters cool visuals and a great story of redemption.

Final Report: Iron Man is easily one of the greatest comic book movies ever made and is worth buying because you are going to end up watching it again and again.

Television Review #1: Doctor Who Series 1

I remember the very first time I watched Doctor Who. When I was seven years old, I was sick one night and couldn't fall asleep. So I sleepily stumbled out of my room and waddled to the living room to tell my parents that I couldn't sleep. So being as any good parent would do, they told me to stay up with them until I fell asleep. When I was sitting with my parents waiting to fall asleep, I noticed what they were watching. I asked them what it was and they told me it was a science fiction show called Doctor Who. So me being the easily entertained child I was/still am, I decided to watch it. This is how I discovered my favorite TV show of all time.

So Doctor Who is a long-running british sci-fi show that has been going on since the early 1960's. The backstory behind The Doctor is that he is an alien called a Time Lord from the planet Galifrey. Time Lords look like humans but they have two hearts and whenever a Time Lord is killed or dies, he will regenerate and look completely different. The Doctor is the last of his kind because the rest of the Time Lords and the Planet Galifrey were wiped out by the Daleks in a war called the Time War, (more on that later.) The Doctor ends up traveling all of time and space in his ship called the Tardis, (it stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space,) saving civilizations, planets and historical figures while battling a plethora of alien races. Now he never travels alone, he always has a companion by his side to accompany him. I know it's a huge backstory to take in, but if you watch the first episode of this series alone you will completely understand everything that's going on.

Series 1 begins with Rose Tyler, an ordinary english 19 year old, (played by Billie Piper,) and from the first few moments you see her you can tell that she doesn't particularly enjoy the life she has. You can tell she's bored of London and wants to actually do something with her life. And then she meets him: The Doctor, (played by the ever so fantastic Christopher Eccleston.) They first meet when he saves her from an army of department store dummies brought to life, (yup you read that correctly.) Together they stop the manequins from wreaking havoc over London. When that's all over he asks her if she would like to travel with him, to which she says yes, (who wouldn't?) Now our adventure begins.

Now I won't tell you the summary of all the episodes, (Spoilers!) So I'll just review the aspects of what makes a great show.
1. Good Writing: Writing is key in any TV show and Doctor Who is no exception. The writing is truly fantastic. Each episode is filled with adventure, excitement, mystery and very funny dialogue delivered by strong performances by the cast. Leading me to my second point.
2. Characters: Nothing is worse than a character you don't like. Let me touch on the main characters:
The Doctor: Many people give Eccleston a bad rap because he isn't very good looking and comes off as rough or mean. I personally think the opposite. With every different Doctor, not only their appearance changes, but also their personality. That is why no Doctor is exactly alike even though they it's the same man/alien.
Rose Tyler: Rose is the textbook definition of the girl-next-door. She is sweet, kind, funny and really just wants to do something with her life. She's the first companion the Doctor travels with in the 21st century version of the show. She is the original and there will always be a special place in my heart for her.
Captain Jack: Jack doesn't appear until Episode 9: The Empty Child, but he is one of the funniest characters to ever travel with the Doctor. Jack was so popular, he ended up getting his own called *Torchwood.*

So all in all, Doctor Who Series 1 is an awesome introduction for anybody interested in this show.
Final Report: I can only describe this show in one word. The word is Christopher Eccleston catchphrase as the Doctor, which is: Fantastic!