Terminator Genisys Review

July 4, 2015July 5, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I debated about posting a review of Terminator Genisys because it is going to be tough to review without some spoilers, so I will just say at the beginning- spoiler alert. I will do my best but you’ve been warned.

Terminator Genisys is our 5th entry in the Terminator franchise and while I wasn’t miserable watching, it is not a good movie. In fact, it is only better than 4 because it is muddled rather than boring.

The story is so silly. I was joking on twitter it should be called Terminator: Plothole City…There is so much in this movie that makes no sense. Some of the big reveals and the actions of characters come out of nowhere and especially when you consider the first movie which it plays into a lot it makes even less sense. Even down to the last line of the movie I was scratching my head wondering what the heck the director Alan Taylor was thinking?

Pretty much it has John Connor in 2029 trying to defeat Skynet after the Judgement Day and War of Machines. As part of the initiative he sends Kyle Reese back to 1984 to try and protect Sarah Connor from the T-800 of the original Terminator movie.

We actually see a very convincing CG version of 1984 Arnold but he is done away with very quickly. That is a problem this movie has in droves. It will introduce an interesting concept and then do away with it or forget about it for long stretches. There is also old Arnold who has raised Sarah and is her protector.

At the beginning we also get a T-1000 who is a pretty cool but a copy of what we had in Terminator 2 with the metal melting and all the same special effects.

But he is also done away with fairly quickly. Then we get moved up 2017 because an app is going to be launched and they need to stop it or Skynet will have control over everyone’s devices. Now if you knew that this was going to happen why wouldn’t you give yourself a year, a couple of months, something with a little bit of time? They have to take down Skynet for goodness sakes and turn off an app that has 1 billion downloads preordered and they give themselves a week I think?.

Kyle Rees is played by Jai Courtney and he is so bad. My theater was laughing at how he delivers the terrible dialogue. The man should not be in movies. Stop it Hollywood! He and Sarah Conner played by Emilia Clarke are supposed to have chemistry but they don’t. It is treated like a given they are going to get together and so there is no tension or witty banter or anything to enjoy.

The characters are all pretty stupid. They know the T-1000 and other Terminators can’t be stopped by bullets and yet what do they grab? More bullets and guns!. I kept thinking ‘try something else!’ In an underground lair there is acid in 1984 that will kill the terminators (I guess put there by Sarah) but why not take them immediately in that room and have a room like that built in your underground spot in 2017? Why bother with the guns and stacks of ammunition? Why not spend your time creating acid guns that will spray at the terminators?

Plus they have a terminator with them. Why not use the one you have to convince other people to support them? They are continually chased by police officers and other humans when they could have had tons of support. They could have had the US government get tons of acid or magnets and destroy Skynet or something that was slightly smart!

Magnets also destroy the Terminators. Never did I think an MRI would be a weapon in a movie! Go figure. Surely they could have come up with something powerful they could carry with magnets with all this time? Arnold says he was even working in Skynet when it was being constructed. You think he could have come up with something more helpful than crashing through walls and destroying security rooms?

Skynet is also so poorly designed. It looked like the smoke and catwalk factories we’ve seen since the 80s. I don’t know if they were trying to go retro but it did not look like 2017 in any way. And wouldn’t Genesis be developed in China in 2017? Would everything all be in one compound? The execs manufacturing and labs all there together? Plus wouldn’t they have the Genesys upload in some kind of server off-site if it was going to uploaded to a billion devices in one instant? That’s one heck of a compound! It doesn’t make any sense.

John Connor is played by Jason Clarke from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and he is so bland. He is supposed to be dealing with his parents and yet none of them show any emotion or conflict. It is all shooting and explosions and a pretty cool bus crash. Furious 7 (also with a bus crash teetering on the edge of a precipice…) had way more heart than this film and this deals with the end of the world! It’s not really his fault though because he has very little dialogue and most of the time is shooting at our heroes and getting beat down by an MRI.

JK Simmons is also completely wasted as a cop who meets the trio in 1984 and spends 30 years trying to convince everyone alien robots do exist. He is the equivalent of the damsel in distress in a Superman movie. Someone that exists to be rescued and to cry out ‘No way! You’re real!”.

The redeeming factor in Terminator Genisys is Arnold Schwarzenegger who has a lot of fun with the part and I enjoyed. He does a few call backs to the original movies but most of it is him behaving in a way consistent with a father figure robot for Sarah Connor. His personality actually makes sense- something I can’t say for the rest of the characters.

There were so many missed opportunities in Terminator Genisys. They could have done really cool things with the time travel in both 1984 and 2017 but it is all so dopey. And like I said a lot of the times I felt like sections had been left out and I was thinking ‘what?’

The acting is terrible. The special effects are lame (with a few exceptions). Part of it felt like they were trying to look like Edge of Tomorrow- a movie that is actually smart and kind of involves time travel. Jai Courtney is no Tom Cruise. I can tell you that much.

Emilia Clarke is not nearly tough enough to be Sarah Connor and they do not tackle a single element of time travel messing things up. Like they meet the young Kyle Reese so wouldn’t Kyle recognize Sarah Connor when he see’s her and wouldn’t he know Arnold isn’t a bad guy because he saw both as a kid? He has a picture of her but only because of what John told him about Sarah. Well and if Kyle Reese is a kid in 2017 and his kid John Connor is an adult in 2029? Even if Kyle is a very young Dad that doesn’t work? And if it is an alternative time dimension having 2 Kyles and Johns should cause some kind of space-time continuum problem?

Anyway, like I said it doesn’t make any sense. It’s really stupid movie.

That said, you won’t be bored. Arnold is kind of charming. I’ve seen worse movies but especially when you’ve got such great movies in Terminator 1 and 2 it is very disappointing. Just stay home and watch those (or give Edge of Tomorrow a shot).

It’s also clearly trying to do what X-men Days of Future Past did but that had amazing fight scenes, great acting, cool special effects and focused on getting one character Mystique to make one different choice. Not destroying a billion app downloads and all of Skynet and having 2 characters fall in love and ‘mate’ etc.

But then again, I wasn’t miserable while watching it. I can see why you might have fun with it but I was frustrated by it. Arnold is a lot of fun so that’s always good…

Overall Grade- D+

Jurassic World Review

June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So I just got the chance to see one of the big movies from the summer, Jurassic World. It is the 3rd sequel to the 1993 classic- a movie I saw in the theater 6 times because it hung around my town theaters forever. It’s interesting because I don’t normally like scary movies but I’ve always had a nostalgia for the original.

Jurassic Park 2 was a disappointment with the scenes in San Diego feeling more like a Godzilla movie than Jurassic Park. Jeff Goldblum as the skeptic makes 2 watchable along with Steven Spielberg’s direction. 3 is just plain silly with Tea Leoni shrieking her way through every scene.

After all that we get Jurassic World and they acknowledge all of the previous films. There are little hints, easter eggs for all 3 throughout the movie (something I did enjoy).

That said it makes for a premise that to me was hard to get on board. It’s supposed to be 20 years after the original movie. That means how many years since San Diego and the island in the 3rd? It takes a long time to build a park like they show in Jurassic World and yet they not only built it, contained the dinosaurs, and convinced 20k people to come all the way to Coasta Rica on a regular basis after what happened in San Diego? No way. (And like I said the previous movies actually come into play so it is not a moot point).

I went into the movie hoping they would convince me that such a park could really exist and I was not convinced.

But let’s accept that it does and move on. Surprisingly I didn’t hate this movie. In fact, if you want a popcorn movie it is entertaining on that level.

Basically they have the park up and running and Bryce Dallas Howard is the corporate non-kid friendly woman in heels we’ve seen in a million other movies. She was such a weak uninteresting character. And there is a scene where she literally outruns a t-rex in heels!

She makes such idiotic choices again and again. It’s the equivalent of a person in a horror movie who decides to keep going back into the house of the crazy person. Evacuate the island! (Laura Dern is sorely missing in this one, or even Julianne Moore).

Chris Pratt plays an animal trainer who has managed to train 4 raptors who he has given names. I really liked his character and just as in Guardians of the Galaxy, he is funny and sarcastic and very confident.

There are also other solid side characters like Irrfan Khan as the CEO of Jurassic World who is a little more sensible than Howard’s Claire. BD Wong also makes an appearance (another wink to original movie).

(How does he look exactly the same from 1993?)

We also get Claire’s nephews played kind of blandly by Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins. I heard an interview with them and they asked what they would do differently than their characters in the movie? The little boy said “I would be smarter than they were” Yep, they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

The key that makes this movie watchable and entertaining is the cat and mouse chase between the dinosaurs and the people. Claire and the park has created a new creation called Indominous Rex. Evidently people have gotten bored with a regular T-rex.
Funny because nobody has gotten tired of Shamu? Circus’ still draw crowds with their elephants. I think people would be plenty excited for a t-rex!
The new Rex is unpredictable and breaks out killing dinosaurs and causing mass panic. It was pretty scary but not too scary.

This part of the movie worked as spectacle and I was entertained by it (and it is a lot of the movie so that is saying something). Because it is a new dinosaur we haven’t seen in 1-3 it was a little unpredictable but my friend and I kept whispering to each other ‘ah she’s a goner’. It was so easy to predict who was dinosaur fare and who wasn’t.

Vincent D’Onofrio plays a black hawk type security guy who wants to take the dinosaurs and use them for warfare. This whole plotline even for a stupid popcorn movie was so ridiculous. I couldn’t wait for him to get off screen and get back to the dinosaurs. The idea after San Diego of controlling the indominus rex or even the raptors is so absurd.

I’m making it sound like I didn’t like it very much but that isn’t the case. It is stupid and dopey but some good scares and Pratt is charismatic so I was entertained. I think the average moviegoer will go and enjoy themselves.

It could have been much better and the ending is too dark. I couldn’t tell what was doing what. And I though the iconic music was way underused. I guess they didn’t get John Williams to do any new variations on his themes? It wasn’t grand enough for this kind of popcorn movie.

Like I said if you want to go to the movies and see kid-friendly scares and laugh at the dopey characters and story than you’ll enjoy it. If you can’t dive into an imperfect movie than give it a pass.

Any of you seen it? What did you think? What do you think of all the winks to the other movies?

As far as content there are lots of kills but minimal blood and some scares but nothing a kid old enough to see the Harry Potter movies can’t handle. There’s a very silly scene where a woman rolls up her sleeves and unbuttons her shirt to show she’s tough…groan but that’s about all the skin you get. Minimal language.

Overall Grade- C Content Grade- B+

Also even with inflation how did this cost 50 million more than the original. A few of the special effects looked really green screened and cheesy? Hollywood needs to get the budgets under control.

Love and Mercy Review

June 6, 2015June 7, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Sometimes I see a movie that leaves me completely at a loss. I walk away not knowing if I like it or not. Love and Mercy was that kind of film. On one hand it is brilliant but on the other it is muddled and confused and a little frustrating. At the very least they could have done a classic bland biopic and tried to do something different. I respect that.

Love and Mercy is the story of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. What makes it unique is it flips between two versions of Brian- Paul Dano is a young version and John Cusack is an older 80s version.

The scenes with Dano battling voices in his head to make an unconventional sound are brilliant. I love the Beach Boys and their greatest hits album is one of the first I remember listening too. My Dad had a tape and we danced to all the songs. The entire creation of Pet Sounds is in the movie and it is amazing to see them bring in animals and strange instruments and build layers of sound. It felt like it might be close to the way it actually happened.

A side of me wishes we could have stayed with young Wilson but then it would have been more of a standard biopic, so I’m torn. But we do miss a big gap of Wilson’s life. We hear that he stayed in bed for 3 years after a breakdown but we don’t see the actual complete meltdown. This left some to the imagination but I could have seen more.

Meanwhile in the 80’s John Cusack is dating Elizabeth Banks who works at a car dealership. All the while he is closely monitored by his “doctor” played very creepily by Paul Giamatti.

I didn’t think Banks and Cusack had great chemistry but the tension between Giamatti and Banks builds in a believable way. It feels like such a different movie than the music part with Dano. One is like a standard biopic of troubled musician and the other is a creepy thriller. It’s a very weird combination. There are moments when you believe Dano and Cusack are playing the same person and you do get hints of both lives in each other’s performances (they never met in shooting which is kind of amazing) but there are other times when it feels like such different movies it doesn’t really gel.

But there are scenes that work so well in both stories. Like when Dano’s Wilson puts the pieces together for Good Vibrations. It is so exciting to see and hear all the parts of the song build to this great track we all know and love. It made you want to cheer to see such a troubled person make something so great. We also don’t get the expected drug montages like in a standard biopic. Dano’s Wilson definitely is an addict but he does it in unusually staged shots, a lot involving water that reminded me a bit of The Graduate.

Another great scene is when Giamatti flips out at Banks at her car dealership. I was scared for her. It is incredibly convincing. Like I said the two of them are very good together.

There were a lot of moments in Love and Mercy that worked and it did surprise me. It is strange and different and not something you can put your finger on after one watch and there’s something to be said for that.

One thing I hate is we got those annoying paragraphs at the end of the movie. To me that is the directors way of telling us he couldn’t finish the story. It’s a movie cop out and especially in this case because there is a lot of story of both plots we missed out on. For instance, we don’t get to see the downfall of Dano or the revenge of Cusack. Reading about it is so lame!! I’d rather have it just be left to wonder what happened than get the paragraphs.

But it’s at least an ambitious movie. It could have played it safe but it tries things and when it works I loved it. When it doesn’t I was still intrigued. I think it may take seeing it a few times for me to come up with a solid conclusion on my thoughts. I guess that says something pretty good about the movie!

Any of you see it? What did you think? A side of me just wishes it was 2 movies instead of 2 in 1. It kind of reminds me of that Bob Dylan movie I’m Not There with all the different actors playing him.

I really don’t know what grade to give it but I will go with a B-

As far as content there is some language, sexuality mostly off screen, some drug abuse sequences and one very creepy dude. Mental illness is dealt with but in an interesting visceral way that shouldn’t offend anyone. Content Grade- B

May Youtube Videos

June 1, 2015June 1, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

As is my tradition I like to keep you all informed on the latest movie related videos on my youtube channel. Please give them a watch, thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already done so. Thanks so much!

And this one doesn’t really have anything to do with movies but it turned out pretty well and I think you all might enjoy it.

If you have any suggestions for movies you’d like me to review either here or on the channel (or TV or anything else) let me know!

San Andreas Review

May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I guess some spoilers below if you care about that kind of thing.

I’ve been trying to go out of my comfort zone in the last few months. Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, Ex-Machina, and Furious 7 are outside of my wheelhouse and all 3 of those I enjoyed or was at least entertained by.

So today I had the choice to see Aloha or the new disaster film San Andreas and normally I would go right for the romance but it had such horrible reviews and I like Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson so I decided to give San Andreas a shot. Unfortunately even as an absurd dopey action movie it didn’t work for me. To put it in perspective it is more Armageddon than it is Deep Impact. It is more 2012 than Independence Day. There is a way to do these types of movies and make them work. The first is the cast has to be charismatic and large. If you think about movies like the Poseidon Adventure or Airport from the 70s they had huge casts and all of those people got time spent with their characters.

In Independence Day we spend the majority of the time with three huge talents of Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman. In San Andreas The Rock is very charismatic but he needed two or three stars of that caliber to carry the film. That is one thing that Michael Bay gets right is he does stack the Transformers movies with a lot of charismatic talent.

Which brings me to the next thing that needs to happen. There needs to be a sense of a superhero to the leads. The Rock does that but it is nearly always in the service of his family only. There is one scene where he gathers a bunch of San Francisco citizens on the safe side of the stadium and they all thank him for saving the day.

That was a good scene but it is one of the only one’s that is not exclusively The Rock saving his daughter or wife. We really needed a Vin Diesel or a Kiefer Sutherland to round out the cast and co-save the day. As it is San Andreas ends up feeling like the Sylvester Stallone turkey Daylight than a great disaster flick. Another thing is the special effects need to give us something new or forget it. When we saw the white house blow up in Independence Day none of us had ever seen something like that before. When a tornado races through Twister none of us had seen that before. All of the effects in San Andreas we’ve seen before and especially on the 4th or 5th building that topples over it feels more like Transformers 3 than a quality movie.

I thought the scenes on the ground in San Andreas were much better than anything we saw aerial. The real howler is a scene on a boat where the rock out races a giant tsunami with a little medical coast guard boat. It’s so absurd. (At least there is no comic relief like Michael Bay would have had. That is the worst!). A movie like Deep Impact or Independence Day stick pretty close to the disaster going on whereas movies like Armageddon venture off into stupid romance and really bad dialogue. (When I was in high school I remember watching Armageddon with my friends and looking mystified they were enjoying the garbage. My least favorite movie for many years). San Andreas isn’t that bad but the little asides are pretty groan inducing. We get The Rock and his wife Carla Gugino arguing about their divorce and her new squeeze Ioan Gruffudd who we are supposed to instantly dislike because he is rich and has his own plane. No The Rock is the helicopter guy. That’s legit! Ha. There is an absoloutely ludicrous scene where The Rock rescues Gugino from off of a skyscraper in the middle of a 9.3 earthquake. (and again back to main problem where we are only concerned about rescuing one person). There’s also his beautiful daughter Blake played by Alexandra Daddario who I guess is the Liv Tyler of this movie and she’s ok but there is little to no chemistry with her rescuer Ben played by Hugo Johnston-Burt. Let’s just say you can see why Ben is highly motivated to help rescue Blake because it’s definitely the only shot he has of getting a girl like her! The last group is Paul Giamatti as an earthquake expert who laughably discovers how to predict earthquakes literally about 2 minutes before the first giant earthquake that destroys the Hoover Dam. And then later he is upset because nobody listened to him. When were they supposed to listen? I guess because nobody bought his book but according to the movie they hadn’t been able to predict anything so why should they have listened to him? It’s kind of a joke when Giamatti has to get students to hack into the local media and warn the people in San Francisco to evacuate after the first earthquake. I don’t think any hacking would be required to have an expert on the 24 hour news cycle and I think people were evacuating after a 9.3 earthquake already! Plus, the half a day notice he gives them is hardly the lifesaver that the narration claims at the end.

It had me howling with laughter and the rest of my theater as well. I so wish I could have tweeted Giamatti’s line when asked, ‘who do we need to call?’ . ‘Call everyone…”. Ha.

On a certain level you know what you are getting into with San Andreas but even with those limited expectations it fails. On the wikipedia page it only has 13 listed in the cast. Only 8 get any major screen time. That’s just not enough for a movie like this and like I said the spectacle isn’t new. It feels stale and the sideplots aren’t very engaging. I can see if people think it is a dopey good time but I feel there are many movies where dopier is done much better.

Are you guys going to see San Andreas? Let me know what you think when you do. What disaster movie do you like?

Overall Grade- D I’m sorry. It’s bad folks. Rent Twister, Independence Day or Deep Impact and skip this.

Pixar Review 9: Toy Story 2

May 22, 2015May 22, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

After the drama with Bug’s Life Pixar’s next release couldn’t have been more eagerly anticipated. A sequel to one of the most iconic animated movies ever released. How could it possibly measure up?

Then everyone saw it and Toy Story 1 and 2 are the only original and sequel I’m aware of that both have 100% on rottentomatoes- a rating that is near impossible to get. Toy Story 3 has an embarrassing 99% ;).

So I think folks liked Toy Story 2! And with good cause. It is a great movie!

There are so many things that are smart about Toy Story 2. First of all, they didn’t try and redo the first movie. It would have been so easy for them to introduce another new toy into the room and rehash the same story over again. But instead they go in an entirely new direction and make an adventure!

Toy Story 1 introduced us to the characters and followed Woody as his leadership is threatened. He feels jealous, frustrated, frightened, and deals with insecurities he didn’t even know he had. That’s why people related so much to it. Haven’t we all been there where a rival threatened to displace us? Where we worried we would be forgotten or passed over? Where we felt jealous and envious of another who seemingly has it better? Toy Story 1 crafts a narrative around all those very human emotions.

Toy Story 2 has that emotional core but it is mainly an adventure story. It starts out with Woody getting stolen by a greedy toy collector voiced by Seinfeld’s Wayne Knight. (When you see that character don’t you expect him to sound like Newman?).

It turns out that Woody is a valuable collectible Al has been hunting for to complete his Woody’s Roundup collection to sell to a museum in Tokyo. The rest of the set includes Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammar), Cowgirl Jesse (Joan Cusack) and Bullseye the horse.

They are thrilled to see Woody because it will mean they can get out of storage and be on display at the museum. Woody at first is dazzled by all the collectibles and can’t believe he is the star of a show. The Prospector is also very manipulative in the way he describes the museum leaving out the details that Woody will no longer be played with by children.

Meanwhile Buzz, Slinky, Ham, Potato Head, and Rex all head out to find Woody and bring him back to Andy’s Room. This includes an amazing sequence with them trying to cross the road in cones and a series of adventures in a large toy store.

All the scenes in the toy store are so funny. We get our first appearance of Barbie who moves in the stiff way a barbie moves and is bright and happy. I loved it.

There is also an entire row of Buzz Lightyear action figures and a Delusional Buzz that still thinks he’s a Space Ranger gets mixed up with the real Buzz. This gives so many great laughs and is very nostalgic to the original movie. Tim Allen is great as both versions of Buzz.

At first Woody is set on going back to Andy’s Room but Jesse and Prospector beg him not to go. They don’t want to go into storage and Jesse warns Woody what will happen when Andy is done being a kid. I defy you not to cry during this song (if you don’t then I don’t understand you!). A fabulous job by Randy Newman and Sarah McLachlan.

This puts Woody in a difficult spot, which is our new, different emotional core than we had in Toy Story 1. The original is all about overcoming personal demons where this film is about how much of our own dreams and life we are willing to sacrifice for others. Woody has to decide whether he is willing to give up his life with Andy in order to keep his new friends from a dark life in storage. It’s a very tough question.

But I don’t want to make it sound morose because it’s absolutely hilarious. The writing is so funny with superb vocal performances from the entire cast especially Don Rickles and Estelle Harris (another Seinfeld alum) as Mr and Mrs Potato Head.

And like I said everything with Delusional Buzz and the Barbies is funny. I also love Wallace Shawn as Rex who is preoccupied for most of the movie with defeating Evil Emperor Zurg who we get to meet in this movie (so funny).

The ending at an airport is stunning where the characters get mixed up in the various belts and mechanisms that deliver luggage around the airport. When you think of where they were in Toy Story 1 it is an especially amazing visual.

There is even a tense horse ride down the tarmac. It really has the feel of an old Western chase scene and I always get those butterflies wondering how they are going to get out of this mess (again like a good action adventure should do).

In the end, Woody realizes things may change but it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the moment while it is here. His purpose is to be played with not looked at under glass. It’s a sweet lesson for all of us. We all need to find our purpose and not let anyone manipulate us into giving that up.

Toy Story 2 is a total and complete delight. As I always do with these reviews I watched it 3 times over the last 2 weeks and it never felt old or tired. I smiled, laughed and was completely engrossed in the tense sections. Mostly I just love spending time with these characters.

Everything new they tried worked while still holding on to the emotional core and likability of the original characters. The addition of Jesse is the cherry on the sundae. Her journey from being a nervous, depressed character to full of life is wonderful. Her song is gorgeous and I love her spunk!

I would definitely recommend adding Toy Story 2 to your blu-ray library as it is enjoyable for the entire family. I love it!

(Also the audio commentary on Toy Story 2 is hilarious and very interesting. I highly recommend giving it a listen).

Overall Grade- A+

Mad Max Fury Road Review

May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

When I saw the trailer for Mad Max Fury Road I was positive it would be one I couldn’t see. I don’t like violent films and it looked like a gory, violent mess. However, I always go through my process I describe for evaluating movie content in How to Be Mormon and Like Movies. I look at reviews, the detailed content summaries on screenit.com and I ask friends who have seen the movie. To my surprise I found it to have virtually no profanity and to not be as violent as I anticipated. It is an R but most of that is more battle like violence, some nudity and vehicular battles. Convinced it was within my comfort level I decided to go check it out .

It’s a very tricky movie to review because it does what it is trying to do masterfully well. I don’t know how that can be debated. Whether such a master work is your cup of tea is another question. It’s certainly not a movie I will be frequently rewatching but I did think it was good and engaged me more than I would have guessed. All in all it is a success and I can see why many people love it.

I have not seen the original Mad Max movies because I always figured they were too violent so perhaps I will give them a watch. This Mad Max doesn’t have much of plot. It’s one action sequence after another. It does not try to have symbolism or a puzzle like a Nolan film might have. It doesn’t have a strong lead character like a Bond film. The title is perhaps a misnomer because Mad Max has only a few lines of dialogue and is an ensemble player with Charlize Theron and others.

Basically the plot that does exist starts out with setting. It is a desert post-apocalyptic world that is ruled by a man named the Immortan Joe. Max has been arrested and is forced to be a blood bag for a War Boy played by Nicholas Hoult. Charlize Theron is Furiosa who abducts 5 of Joe’s wives called the breeders.

The rest of the movie is Max, Furiosa and crew getting chased by Joe and having intense battles with each other. Each of the cars is so imaginative with one even being a giant speaker system with a guy playing an electric guitar. There are cars that have long poles for people to swing onto other cars. There are rigs with gasoline and others covered in spikes. It keeps the action exciting because you don’t know how the cars work and how the fight will play out.

For not speaking much Tom Hardy is good as Mad Max. But the movie doesn’t give you a lot of time to contemplate his character. I can’t even imagine how awful it must be to shoot a movie like this with all the dust and dirt but he is convincing as the stoic anti-hero.

The CG is kept to a minimum and it at least appears to have a lot of practical effects. The stunt work is flawless. I wonder how much Hardy and others did of their own stunts? Whatever the percentage is by professionals you definitely can’t tell. It feels earthy and real which we haven’t seen in an action film in a long time.

I loved how Mad Max handled its female characters. It reminds me a little bit of Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow. These are not cliched warrior women or damsels in distress. Even the breeder women are relatively complex especially for this kind of movie. Charlize Theron is amazing! She is tough but has heart and there is a moment that is completely devastating for her and she sells it.

There are different kind of women- old women, young women, pregnant women and they all defy female tropes. The last thing I expected in a movie like this is an awesome group of women and it definitely helped sell me on the film.
Hugh Keays-Byrne is good as the villain Immortan Joe but most of that credit has to go to his costume and mask.

There is such attention to detail. The amount of time that must have been spent to get teeth right, skin layered and dry, lips cracked, everything covered in dust is mind blowing. The makeup on the war boys including Nicholas Hoult is very convincing. They are brainwashed to believe if they are obedient servants to Joe they will achieve immortality at the gates of heaven.

Mad Max Fury Road is not a movie that gives the audience much time to breathe. There is very little dialogue and I did feel kind of exhausted by the end of it. But then again I feel like it was trying to do something completely different and new and from a comic book guy like George Miller it makes sense it is primarily a visual spectacle. Still, it pushed me to my limit of apocalyptic car battle sequences (who knew I had such a limit? 😉 ). I’m a little surprised it is so universally loved because I would think a few people might be bothered by the thin plot and lack of character development?

I guess they just accept it for what it is- a new dazzling creative vision of what a war movie looks like. After all do we complain that the villains in a WW2 movie aren’t fleshed out enough? Do we want more dialogue in our John Wayne war movie? No. Same with this. It is visually incredible and the action is immersive enough to carry the day.

Like I said, the women put it over the hump for me to a strong recommendation. It was such a pleasant surprise and I bet you could see the movie and not even notice most of the women. They are just characters in the movie like anybody else. It looks gorgeous. The action sequences are stunning and I was entertained.

As far as content it has some nudity from a distance and women are milked like cows in one brief shot. Characters are stabbed, impaled, tortured and shot in the battle scenes. Another you see briefly has his face ripped off from a mask. A lot of crashes, explosions and sand storms that are intense. A woman has a c-section mostly off screen and an IV is seen being inserted. I know it sounds crazy but its actually more tame than you might think. No language. Mostly it is a lot of cars and broad fighting like a battle than one on one violence like you might get in a horror movie.

A grade is tough because I did feel a little bit weary by the end but it looks so great, the action is so well done and I loved the female characters so I grade it an…

Overall Grade- A- Content Grade- C

Also the music by a guy named Junkie XL was outstanding with a great combination of electric guitar, medal sounds and a traditional sweeping score.

Pitch Perfect 2 Review

May 17, 2015May 17, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I rank comedies on a very simple scale- did it make me laugh? If it did then it did its job. Pitch Perfect 2 made me laugh. Throw in some good music and you’ve got a fan!

In Utah and particularly my alma mater, BYU, acapella is a huge deal. I went to many competitions to cheer on my favorite groups and we even had a team on the Sing Off a few years ago. Acapella is just part of campus life in my book so the first Pitch Perfect had huge nostalgia points for me.

It also did the rare feet of being funny without being too vulgar. I still will frequently put it on and laugh my head off while listening to great music.

So how does Pitch Perfect 2 measure up to the original? Well, it’s a tough question because they are basically the same movie. They totally do the whole Mighty Ducks 2 thing where you do the exact same plot but you have it be the World Championships instead of the Nationals.

That said, it still made me laugh.

You’ve got all the major players from Pitch Perfect 1 back plus the addition of Hailee Steinfeld as a new legacy freshman to the group.

I love these women!

Anna Kendrick is great even though Hailee Steinfeld is kind of playing her part from the first movie. Rebel Wilson steals the movie once again and made me laugh every time she was on screen. Her confidence as Fat Amy is just so likable, lovely and funny.

I kind of wish they had developed a few of the other Bellas a little more, and they do go back to the same joke a bit too many times. For example, a Guatemalan girl named Flo is repeatedly given the immigrant joke and it was naughty the first time but got a little old after a while.

Elizabeth Banks (who directs) and John Michael Higgins return as the announcers and this time podcasters of the acappella world and they are hilarious. Every time they are on screen it reminds of Fred Willard in Best in Show and cracked me up. I would love to know how much of their dialogue is improved like the Christopher Guest movies which Higgins is often in.

David Cross from Arrested Development appears briefly along with a cameo that has mostly been spoiled but I will let what few of you that haven’t heard of a certain new acapella team be surprised (was so funny!)

Keegan-Michael Key is very funny as Becca’s boss for an internship she gets at a record label. He has this hipster employee that drives him crazy which made me laugh.

The plot is completely stupid. Basically a wardrobe malfunction happens and the Bellas are suspended from national competition. However, they can compete at the World Championships (see totally Mighty Ducks 2). The big competition is a German team called Das Sound Machine.

For the most part they are the cliched German bad guys but they are given some funny interactions with the girls and they are pretty good singers. I liked that it at least seemed like a fair fight.

The boys are mostly relegated to a few scenes which is fine with me. We need more female heavy pictures especially with female directors!

Adam DeVine is probably in it the most of the young men and he is very funny as Rebel Wilson’s love interest. His idea of a romantic meal totally cracked me up.

In the end Pitch Perfect 2 isn’t creative or different but I can’t deny that it made me laugh and I loved the music. If you didn’t like the first one and didn’t find it funny than you won’t like this. It’s as simple as that. I did so I liked this. It isn’t as good because first is always best but still I really enjoyed it.

Humor is completely subjective. What makes one laugh may leave another stone faced and cold but I at least appreciate a comedy that isn’t completely raunchy like we were getting for a while. There is nothing in Pitch Perfect 2 that made me want to cringe like in the Judd Apatow movies.

For some reason a lot of people that read this blog don’t like comedies. I don’t really get that. I like to laugh probably more than I like dramas. I also love musicals. In other words, Pitch Perfect 3- sign me up!

As far as content there is a scene at the beginning where a woman is exposed off camera and it is discussed. There’s talk of making out and sex but it is all pretty tame. That’s about it.

Overall Grade- B-, Content Grade A

Any of you see it? Did you think it was funny too?

Ex-Machina Review

May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Like some scifi? Then Ex-Machina is the movie for you! Normally I stay away from movies that look scary but the more I read about Ex-Machina the more I saw it is actually more a movie like Kubrick/Spielberg’s AI than a horror robot movie. In fact, it’s better than AI.

It’s about this guy named Caleb who works for a popular search engine and wins a prize to visit the company’s reclusive founder named Nathan. He has a compound only accessible by helicopter (and not even that. You have to then hike by a river to get to the house).

Evidently Ex-Machina was shot at a hotel in Norway. I want to go to that hotel. It was amazing! The exteriors were lush and green. The interiors were cold concrete with frosted glass but with a lighting that reminded me of those happy sun lights you can buy for depression. It was different than anything I have seen in these types of movies.

Once Caleb gets to the compound he meets Nathan who creeped me out because he looks a lot like my older brother (who is also a CEO of a hipster company with a shaved head and long beard! Even some of his way of speaking reminded me of my brother. Creepy!). Oscar Isaac is great as Nathan who is brilliant, arrogant, drunk, stupid, charming, psychopathic and naive. It makes me excited that both he and Domhall Gleeson, who plays Caleb, are going to be in the new Star Wars movie!

It turns out Nathan has brought Caleb there to test out his robot called Ava to see if she is a viable AI. We then get a series of experiments over Caleb’s 6 day visit. Caleb begins to bond with Ava and we see more into the mind of Nathan.

I don’t want to be accused of spoilers so I will leave the plot at that. The ending for me was a bit of a letdown but overall it is a very satisfying movie. It is shot very well. The characters are complex and it looks gorgeous. The lighting in every shot was as good as I’ve seen in a movie in years.

I know comparison is silly but I couldn’t help but think about another recent Kubrickesque picture Interstellar which also has a robot albeit of a more vintage style. They are very different films but I think I still prefer Interstellar because it had me more emotionally engaged. I really was drawn into Murphy’s journey in a way I never was with Caleb. Interstellar had a wider scope of emotions and I didn’t know what was going to come next. Ex-Machina is pretty predictable.

As a sci-fi movie should, it tries to ask bigger questions about reality of being, sensuality, evil, creation etc and it does that pretty well. I might have pondered those questions more if I was more emotionally invested in the characters but it definitely made me think.

All the performances are good and Alicia Vikander is haunting as Ava. I also liked the design of the robots with the clear fronts and sparkly heads.

That said as a sci-fi thriller it was very well done. It’s creepy, weird without cheap jump scares or unnecessary gore. You might know what is going to happen but it is a very entertaining journey to get there and again it looks so beautiful. The pacing might also be a little bit slow for some less seasoned film-goers but I was engrossed

As far as content there is some cussing but I didn’t find it excessive. Some people will be offended by the nudity but because it is robots and not sensual it felt more like Greek statues to me than actual human nudity. There is a scene where a character slices their arm open which is tough to watch. I’d say it is a strong R and adults only but I wasn’t offended by it. I strongly recommend checking out http://www.screenit.com before seeing it to know if it is the type of content you are comfortable with.

Overall, I think Ex-Machina is a very good movie. It’s cinematography, visual style, set design, and the design of the robots are outstanding. The performances are good especially Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander. The story is classic sci-fi even if it is a bit predictable especially the ending. I wish I was a little more invested emotionally in the characters but it is still a movie worth seeing and enjoying.

Overall Grade- B+ Content Grade- C-

Any of you seen it? What did you think?