How to train your dragon 2

There are way too few dragons in movies . Dragons have always had this mythical status in media, a kind of "the less is better" status. Dragons are often talked about on books and movies but very seldom seen. Dragons are amazing, powerful and awesome creatures and they deserve to be featured a lot more in movies.

Que How to train your dragon. A delightful movie filled with childish innocence, mature writing and lots of dragons. It was a great movie that wasn't afraid of using as many dragons as possible.

A few years pass by and along comes How to train your dragon 2, my expectstions ran very high. Not only was this a sequel to a very good movie, but it also promised way more dragons. So, how did it fare? Before we go into the actual review, let's taje a look at the story.

A few years has passed (mirroring real life) since drafons and humans found peace. Hiccup and his friends have grown up and so hace the rest of the village. The humans now live in symbiosis with the dragons and life is looking really good. Hiccup and tooth are as inseparable as ever. They constantly exploring the world, expanding the map and discovering that the world is a lot bigger than they thought. At the same time, Stoick is coming to terms with the fact that hiccup woll havr to take over the role as chief soon. Something that Hiccup has no interest in doing. Tensipns are running high, but when a threat appears on the horizon Hiccup will have to lead the rest of the dragonriders to save all of humanity and... dragon...ity from an evil warlord.


How to train your dragon 2 is a perfect example of a sequel. It's bigger and it's louder but in terms of quality it lacks that certain something that made its predecessor so great. The magic is still there but it can't topple the feeling you got when you saw the first one, not that they aren't trying. The movie is full of all the stuff that made the original do good. Great voice performances, awesome flight sequences and a blistering sense of forward momentum. All of this is great but all the time I was sitting there I couldn't stop thinking that I had seen this before

A very nice detail, that most "kids movies" forget to use, is the progress of time. Where the first one was about kids having a fun time, this movie is all about teenagers on the cusp of becoming adults. It made the characters come alive a little more than if they had still been 12 years old.

Other than that, How to train your dragon 2 did'nt bring anything new to the table. It was just more of the same wich in this case meant more dragons, more action and more fun, so I am not really complaining.

Transformers: Age of extinction

I always liked the Transformers, the old TV-show as well as the new movies, I even liked Revenge of the fallen. I always knew in the back of my head that these movies were actually crap, but my argument was always the same, big ass robots and even bigger explosions. Now, normally, that shouldn't be enough. Normall you would need plot, character development, directing and good acting to be called an actual movie, but in the case of Transformers I have always just accepted it for what it is. Big ass robots and even bigger explosions.

Last night, as I sat down to watch Age of extinction, I was expecting just another Transformers movie. What I got instead was a...

You know what? Trying to describe what I experienced in that movie theater with mere words is impossible, there are no such words in the human vocabulary. I find it hard to even explain to you what I felt as the credits rolled. All I really can tell you is that I was exhausted when got up from my seat, I was physically exhausted, because I had just witnessed 165 minutes of pure and utter hell!!

From beginning to end, Age of extinction was a disaster, a trainwreck, a fucking piece of shit. There was no rhyme of reason to any of it, it was pure torture.

To go into any detail would be a waste of my time because I can describe every aspect of the movie with the same word; SHIT.

Acting was shit, plot was complete shit, directing was non existant and when ever it showed up it was so much shit. The sound effects, CGI, the music, the action and especially the editing were all fucking shit.

This movie had no redeeming qualities, it wasn't even a movie. It was a robbery, this... thing was designed to steal money from anyone who even remotely enjoy Transformers.
When I started writing this review, it was my intention to not tell you my opinion but after writing about my anger and actually getting more angry I feel it is my duty to spread the message, together with every other filmcritic out there.

Do not watch Transformers: Age of extinction. Don't throw your money at this garbage, spend it on something good instead (like helping starving children or an ice cream, anything but this). Because if we continue to give all our money to Michael Bay and his kind, we will forever be plagued by shit movies like this...

Deliver us from evil

"As a cop, I've always had a... heavy hand"

This sentence is uttered more than once and I find that "mantra" to be very fitting when dissecting this trainwreck of a movie.

The story revolves around Liutenant Sarchie. A police from the Bronx that stumbles onto several cases of the same nature, the same supernatural nature. Together with a priest he begins unraveling a mystery of apocalyptical proportions.

This movie must have been some kind of dare from the producers. Can you actually mix horror with a procedural cop movie? The answer is...not in this one. Horror and cop is mixed together in this movie, with varying degrees of success, but in the process of fuse these two very different genres something happened. The movie has influences from almost a dozen different genres. Horror, cop TV-show, buddy cop, action, kitchen sink realism, faith and spirituality, found footage and even a little bit of comedy.
The director, Scott Derrickson who also did the much better The excorsism of Emily Rose, can't seem to handle the fusion of the different genres and somwhere along the way he got lost. The movie switches between the genres back and forth and the script suffers. Issues are brought up and used to instigate certain emotions and reactions but then never spoken of again. All this makes the movie very confusing and the actors aren't helping. Eric Bana does a good enough job of playing the obnoxcious but still releatable Sarchie but the rest of the cast, including Joel McHale as the comic sidekick... in a horror movie, feels out of place. I can't put the blame solely on the performances but also on the characters them selves. Very few of them actually fit in a horror movie and even the point was to work against all the clichés, it all still feels weird and out of place.

The story hints at a very large scope and this movie could have been played out on a large canvas but instead it limits itself to the confines of the Bronx and about five people, the threat never feels real and because of this the movie fails to scare at all. I usually scream and jum and cover my eyes when I watch horror movies, but thus time I sat absolutely still for the movie

To say that this movie was a terrible fucking movie would not be a complete lie. It was a very interesting experiment that sadly, failed miserably.

22 Jump street

Sequels have a habit of not reaching the heights of it's predecessor, we have seen it a thousand times. The lost world, Taken 2, The walking dead season 2, Psycho II and of course Terminator 2.

No, just kidding, Terminator 2 is awesome. Speaking of awesome sequels (horrible transition), because there are actually a few out there, 22 Jump street.

I hopped on the 21 Jump street train pretty late. When the movie first came out I thought it would be one of those lame cash cow films trying to coast on an earlier success, but then it showed up on Netflix late last year. I had nothing better to do so I figured I should give it a shot. I was overwhelmed. It was a very funny, close to hilarious, and managed to break free of its predecessor and become its own thing.

Fast forward to 2014. The sequel emerges and from the get go it looks exactly like 21 Jump. The plot is the same and the jokes appear to be the same. It all feels like a cheap way to cash in on the success of the first movie. With some reluctance I decide to go se the movie. I sit down and the ominous feeling of dissapointment rears its ugly head. 15 minutes later I am laughing my ass off.

22 Jumo street manages to do something very few sequels do, it re-invents the wheel, improves it and at the same time creates something new and fairly original. There is no denying that the core plot of 22 is exactly the same as 21, but the directors and screenwriters doesn't try to hide it, instead they use it for some very effective meta comedy. By acknowledging the similarities between the two movies they are able to joke about the fact that the 22 Jump is basicly a more expensive version of 21 and that the actual assignment in the movie is just a more expensive assignment than the last.

This kind of comedy permeat the entire movie and is its biggest strength as well as its only weakness. Towards the end the meta becomes a little to much and I lost touch with the plot and characters.

22 Jump street still manages to be one of the funniest movies in recent years though, it builds perfectly on all the characters from the 21 Jump and expands them into more 3 dimensional characters, something that is becoming more apparent in modern comedies but really works the best here.

22 Jump street is a perfect example of a sequel outdoing the predecessor, it is also a perfect example on how to make a almost perfect comedy. Can't wait for 23 Jump street, 24, 25 and all the way up to 2121.

Tracks

Warning, there will be minor spoilers in this review. Nothing earth shattering, but you have been warned.




Do you see the poster above here? Do you see how empty and devoid of...anything it is? It used to say "TRACKS" and "Leave everything behind" and "Coming soon" but I painted over all that. I usually manipulate the Posters for the movies I review because I prefer a sleek and minimalist approach when it comes to art, and to some extent movies (Exception; all action movies. The more the merrier). When I first saw some clips and pictures from Tracks, I was awestruck. The solemn traveler in an endless sea of sand. The hollow beauty of the desert and the stripped down (Oh yeah) and honest portrayal of a alone human being.

For me this movie was the best movie I had ever seen, and that was before I had even seen it.


Fast forward to the 13:th of June (the Swedish premiere date). I am getting up and leaving the cinema and feeling so...empty, which would seem appropriate after watching this, but it is not a good empty. It is the "I spent two hours of my life and 17 $ (100 SEK) to watch... nothing" I felt like Bernard Black after watching Armapocalypse (somewhat obscure reference to Black Books, deal with it).

This was a movie devoid of everything. There was no plot, no suspense, almost no dialog and no nothing. All it were was Mia Wasikowska walking through the desert. You would guess that the annoying photographer following around the entire movie would add some excitement and spark some sort of character development, but instead he is used for sexual relief once and after that he turns himself in to a strung along man purse. THe only reason for him existing in the movie is to leave Water deposits along the route and then he serves no purpose. That may be fortunate though since Adam Driver is even more weird and annoying in this movie than in Girls.

traveling by foot across thousands of miles of sizzling hot, inhospitable and dry as fuck desert should be dangerous right? no, not according to Tracks. She doesn't run out of food until the last night, the man purse leaves water everywhere, there is one snake in the entire movie. Let me remind you that the movie takes place in Australia, the home of the most poisonous snake ever and the most amount of dangerous and poisonous animals ever (Don't quote me on that though) and she only runs in to one snake during a six month trip? Oh yeah, there is also this one Horny camel she has to scare away. They try to make it sound dangerous but all I saw was a horny camel frothing at the mouth.

The character Robyn Davidson never gets explored as well. You spend the majority of a two hour movie with one character and still you don't know jack shit about her at the end. So her mother died when she was eight and the first thing her father does is shoot her dog and send her of to live with her aunt. That was kind of sad, but we later learn that her relationship with her father is very good, so no damage done? Why does she feel alienated by everyone? Why does she hate being among people so much that she goes out into the Australian desert all alone without any real experience.

She starts out as a blank canvas, and at the end of the movie she is still pretty blank. Someone spilled some backstory onto her but not much.

Ultimately, Tracks is not a horrible picture. It's not particularly good, but it has some beautiful landscape scenes and Wasikowska does well with what she got. I wasn't even going to write this review at first, mainly because there is so little to say about it, but I felt I had to say what little there was to say...There is so little to say I am actually trying to fill the page with the word SAY.

All in all a pretty boring movie that could have been way better. Although, it teaches us one important lesson about film making. Just because the story was good in real life doesn't mean it will make a good film. Films, unlike real life needs more or less constant excitement. If that comes in the shape of explosions, dramatic speeches, gut wrenching horror or tear jerking fare wells, doesn't matter. as long as something happens on screen it is good. A movie where more than half the time is spent watching a woman walk slowly forward is not exciting. It is not good acting (I can walk on film, try me) and it is not a "gorgeously rendered adventure saga" (actual quote from Variety film critic Justin Chang).

The congress

It's kind of hard to review or even properly critizise that wich you don't fully understand.

Most of the time, I watch simple movies. Not stupid, but simple movies about people and their emotions and convictions portrayed in a somewhat graspable fashion. The, sometimes, I see a movie that goes beyond my intellect.
At first I thought that The congress was such a movie. In the middle I got so confused with this world that was being created on the screen that I actually lost touch for a while, but at the end I understood why I got so confused.

The congress is about an actress (Robin Wright as a somewhat fictional version of her self) that is at the end of her career. She doesn't make any movies and hasn't for a long time. All she cares about is taking care of her sick son. Miramount (Miramax/Paramount) offers her one last contract. She agrees to let computers create a digital clone of her that will continue to appear in movies, but never grow old and never say no. She will greatly compensated but she, the real Robin, can never act again.

This is where the movie goes bananas.

20 years later, Robin attends the futurist congress, wich is being held in the animated zone. A place in wich you must inhale a chemical that gives you the illusion of being animated (apparently it'll be all the rage in the future). She will be there as one of the first actors/actresses that ever did this and she will become the first ever actress that you can become. Weird, I know. The idea is that you will consume a chemical that gives you the impression of being Robin Wright.
At the same time, there is a revolution going on. A bunch of people are angry at Miramount, who has moved away from film and has become some sort of megacorp that deals in theese chemicals, for some reason. In the middle of this revolution Robin meets Dylan. He turns out to be the animator who has been animating Robin for the last 20 years. He is madly in love with her. At the same time the world keeps changing around her and these animated hallucinations takes over the real world. And in this crazy world, Robin is trying to find her son.

As you can see there is a lot going on 7n this movie.
At first, it all moves along at a sensible pace, but as soon as the animated world is introduced the movie rushes of and a lot of concepts are introduced without getting a proper explanation. This made me lose focus and ultimately interest. Sure the animations are amazing in a retro, hand drawn way, but the script gets lost and when it slows down my care for the characters and their struggles had diminished gravely.

In the end, The congress becomes to much of a effects driven spectacle. Wich proves that any director can screw up if given to much money.

The congress touched on a lot of heavy subjects such as free will or rather the illusion of it but never really makes a statement in the matter. It is more concerned with pretty pictures, a problem you rarely encounter in theese kind of "smaller films".

But I did say to you that I didn't fully understand this movie. Maybe I missed something vital. Maybe this is the movie of the century and I just didn't get it, it certainly aspires to be that, so it is up to you yo watch this movie and make up your own mind. Don't let me tell you what to think of this movie, make your own decision.

Use your free will...

Edge of tomorrow

Over the last years I've started suspecting that Tom Cruise is having some sort of age crisis. All his latest movies have been spectacles. Ghost protocol, Oblivion, Jack Reacher and now Edge of tomorrow. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm actually glad we get to see the energetic and very action savvy Tom Cruise again. Edge of tomorrow only proves that he is in his right element when doing action.


In Edge of tomorrow (I'm saying that alot here) the world has been invaded by parasitic aliens and humanity is quickly losing the war for earth. Major William Cage (Cruise) is the face of the American army. He is in charge of press and media relations, and has come to england to oversee the last ditch attempt to fight back against the invaders. Instead, he gets drafted and placed on the frontline of the war. Cage is not a real soldier though, he is just a posterboy, and within minutes of landing he is dead. Somehow he wakes up 24 hours before he died and has to relive his last day over and over again because everytime he dies he wakes up at that same time 24 hours before he first died.

Without any sugarcoating, I'm going to say that this is one of the best Sci-fi movies of the last 20 years. It has everything you want from a good Sci-fi. Great plot, well written characters, awesome effects and that elusive feeling of experiencing something out of this world.

The plot does a terrific job of telling you about the mechanics of it all, time travel and the awesome mechsuits, without going into too much detail. Most "good" Sci-fi gets bogged down in details and explanations and forgets to tell a compelling story. Edge of tomorrow finds the balance between world building, plot and characters like few other movies. It manages to convince the audience that the world is being taken over by aliens and that the only thing that can save us is a time manipulating Tom Cruise, weird right? Not really. To sell somerhing this crazy, you would need good actors and a good director, and this movie has both.

Tom Cruise carries the movie with the style and grace only he has but he is also backed up by the astounding Emily Blunt, bad ass warrior aptly nicknamed Full metal bitch. When you first see Cruise in action, he is playing against the typical Cruise action guy. He is a slimey, cowardly deserter who does not know the first thing about combat.
It felt good to see him try something so... un-Cruise. Then there is Emily Blunt as the angel of Verdun, Rita Vrataski. She rocks every scene she is in. She plays this hard assed, almost superhuman soldier who trains Cage and for every day he re-lives that day she manages to shape him into the classic hero.
Together the are probably the coolest action heroes since the 2010 A-team.

Doug Liman, whose previous efforts include The Bourne identity and Fair game, orchestrates the whole thing with a perfect sense of timing and humour. He manages to find the comedy in the most unexpected places but still manages to keep the over all tone grim enough so that the audience never find the whole thing silly.

Edge of tomorrow excels in all areas and rarely dissapoints. There are of course some flaws, but they are so minor that they barely even register.

If you're only going to the cinemas one time this summer, make sure you go and see Edge if tomorrow.

Peer pressure: why peoples sexual preference should not matter

WARNING!!! I will be spoiling some details about The last of us and the last of us: Left behind



I am not a feminist. Feminism has become so twisted and mutated that most people who call themselves feminists (or at least the ones that I have met, not judging beyond my own knowledge) don't know what it's all about, and I won't go into it because that's not what this is about.

I am all for equality. I have spent my life treating everybody with the same amount of respect, or at least the amount of respect they deserved, not making any difference between man or woman.
I like to believe that most people think like me and from my experience I have never really encountered sexism or racism in my day to day life. Sure you hear some inappropriate jokes from time to time, but when the chips are down and things are being taken more seriously I have never met a person who is outright hateful in any way shape or form.
I guess some would call me sheltered because of this and I probably am to some degree, but this has given me the opportunity to develop along the right paths. I never had to scream my beliefs in someone else's face and never had other peoples beliefs screamed in my, until a couple of years ago.

It may sound unbelievable, but it was only recently that being gay became widely accepted. At the turn of the millenia, people would still be lynched if they came out. It was weird and wrong to be gay and people would be upset when someone told them they were gay, but the something happened. All of a sudden it was ok, great, we can finally start accepting people for who they are and people could finally be themselves. There was, and still is, a lot of resistance to the whole thing but over all the world said "it's ok to be gay" but then something else happened. Gay rights movements, Feminists and anti-racism groups started taking to the streets. they figured that since it was ok to be gay, it was also ok to start raising you voice about it. This is of course a good thing, spread the message, but they became so passionate and almost fanatic about it that they started hating people who, wasn't necessarily against gay people and feminists only not as vocal or involved in the discussion as they were.

If you weren't at the front of the Pride parade you were a gay basher, this was their philosophy, and that sounds so wrong to me. Why did the fact that it became acceptable to be gay turn so many gay people into militant advocates for their cause? there is no need for anger anymore, shouldn't we rejoice in the fact that the anti-gay community have shrunk tremendously over the last few years?
The situation has spiraled so far out of what it once was that straight people are actually scared not to voice their opinion even if they are positive towards homosexuality, because if they don't say that they are pro-gay they think people will believe the opposite.

A perfect example (and the reason why I wrote this) is the DLC for The critically acclaimed video game The last of us. in the DLC we get to play Ellie (one of the main protagonists of The last of us) before she appears in The last of us. We get to meet her best friend and see how their friendship develops. At the end of the game they have to go their separate ways and at that moment they share a kiss.
For me, that ruined the game. Not because they were gay, but because the issue of homosexuality was addressed so incredibly blunt and not to mention the fact that love ruins friendships. Sure, this was the last time they were going to see each other so their friendship was kind of getting ruined anyway but why did the writer, Neill Druckman who also directed it, feel the need to address homosexuality so abruptly?

The funny thing is, In the main game, homosexuality had been introduced but in a much smoother and better way. The character named bill Was gay, he lived in a town with his partner and it never got shoved in your face. Instead we got a incredibly touching scene where Bill finds his partner dead. His homosexuality had never been mentioned before but the second you saw that scene you knew Bill had loved that man more than as a friend. it was a perfect depiction of how un-spectacular it is to be gay in the world of today. Homosexuality has become such a ordinary thing that there is no longer a need for people to make a big deal about it. Instead of looking like a person who's fighting the good fight, they come of as ignorant for shouting out what we already know.

Of course, homosexuality is still not accepted everywhere. There are still countries where it is punishable with death to be gay. That is where the fight needs to be. I recently read about the first ever Pride parade in in Nigeria. That was a truly brave act, but to hold a gay pride parade in Sweden (where I live) seem like a wasted opportunity to me, instead take the fight where it needs to be fought.
Stop shouting in my ear about gay rights, I know all about it and I am all for it.

After reading some interviews with Neill Druckman it becomes clear that he is a victim of peer pressure. Before the game was released, there were never any mentions about homosexuality and Feminism (both subjects are expertly handled in The last of us). He had simply written characters who had a purpose for the story, not adding a bunch of female characters to make the game more appealing to women or shoving in Gay relationships for the sake of them being gay. This was simply a game filled with different, and very human in all manner of ways, characters.
After the discussions about Ellies sexuality started popping up on the Internet, Neill started to change his opinion. All of a sudden Ellie had always been gay but there was not a chance to explore that properly in the game, why did'nt he just say she was gay from the beginning? Why did he choose to reveal that first after people started speculating? because he was afraid people would be mad at him if he had said that she wasn't.


The point I am getting to, and have already mentioned but I'll do it again for the sake of things, is this. There shouldn't be such a big deal that a Video game protagonist is gay. We live in a world where it is as normal to be gay as it is to be straight. We should not emphasize the fact that She/he is gay, instead we should focus on the things that these two persons love about each other.
Focus on the love and the attraction rather than the sexual preference.

Like Seth Rogen said in Paul

"It's all about the pleasure thing"

Maleficent

What makes a work of art?
Is it the motif, the way the colours blend to create the illusion of light?

Perhaps it is the story behind the painting, what the artist was trying to tell the observers.

What makes a true work of art is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, what you find shallow and ugly might mezmerise and intrigue someone else.


In the case of Maleficent, artistry definitley outweighed story. While the photography and music blended perfectly with the beautiful scenery, the story rarely made me care. It just wasn't told good enough. This could be blamed on the script itself, but since this is merely a re-imagening of a classic and very loved tale, it's failiure to capture my attention lies in the hands of first time director Robert Stromberg.

Having previously mainly worked with visual effects on such movies as Pans labyrinth and Pirates of the carribbean: At worlds end, it becomes clear that he is much more interested in the visual rather than the cerebral.

The first 20 minutes are amazing. We get to see the magical world of Maleficent in all its glory and it might be one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen.
As soon as the story kicks into gear though, the movie becomes slow, boring and highly derivative. Some scenes goes on way too long and it almost borders on the ridiculous.
The moral of the story is revealed very early on but The spin on the original story works good and it even managed to make me tear up at one point. The pacing is way off though and, for what sometimes felt like an eternity, I sat there wondering when the story would pick itself up again.
The second act is close to completely unnecessary. We get the same scene of Maleficent watching over baby Aurora again and again. There is some plot development but the movie, even at just under 100 minutes, is in need some serious trimming.

The actors doesn't help either. While most of them do a good enough job, especially Elle Fanning who brings a perfect youthful innocence to the role of Aurora, Stromberg forgets to restrain the actors when the script calls for it. This is very evident in the scenes with Sharlto copley who constantly overdoes it as the mad king Stefan.
His acting is all over the place and his scottish accent is horrible, it was funny in that one scene in The A-team but it doesn't work for an entire movie. He can be a brilliant actor (District 9)
but he needs a director who can show him the way to perfection, especially when he plays the bad guy.

Angelina Jolie is good as the titular Maleficent. She plays a very different role than what we are used to see her in, and most of the time it works. There are a few scenes where the acting is close to laughable but the good outweighs the bad. She is the center of attention for most of the film and is the only character who is given any sort of emotional depth. It would seem almost impossible to convincingly turn one of cinemas most evil villains into a hero, but Jolie manages to pull it off better than I thought most other actors could. On the visual side she definitely brings it, she is both hideous and beautiful at the same time, and manages to portray both the hero and the villain in the same character.

What it all boils down to is this, Maleficent is a beautiful piece of cinema. The camerawork and visual effects creates some of the most stunning pictures I have ever seen, but the direction, writing and to some degree the acting work against the beauty and turns it into something mundane.


In the end it's all just pretty pictures. Very, very pretty pictures...

The timeparadox, or why Days of future past didn't make sense

Before we begin, I would like to say that this article is just for the laughs. Do not take it to seriously since it will have some plotholes and inconsistensies.


X-men: Days of future past was a good movie. It was very entertaining and well made, except for one thing. The script.

Normally, if the script is as bad as it was here, I would hate the movie with every fibre of my being, but DoFP was so good I almost managed to look past the horrible plotholes.
Most people online agree that the movie was awesome, some of them acknowledge the plotholes, but no one has even mentioned the one thing that really perplexed me.

How can Trask be alive in 2006 if he died in 1973?

I can already hear people screaming obscenities about how ignorant I am, but just hear me out.

Let's begin in 1962. First class. Charles Xavier starts the school for gifted children. Erik Lensherr goes around the world killing nazis. Together they help the humans avert the Cuban missile crisis, but after that they go their separate ways.

1973. Having left Eriks band of mutant thugs, Mystique goes after a man called Bolivar Trask. He is building a robot that can target the mutant gene in anyone who has it. These "sentinels" are meant to help the humans against the mutant threat. Mystique finds Trask in Paris and shoots him dead. This fuels the anti-mutant movement and the sentinels are deployed in full force. For decades the sentinel hunt down almost every mutant on the planet, but then they start targeting humans who will give birth to a mutant.
By the year 2023 there is almost no humans or mutants left. Xavier, together with Lensherr, Logan, Ororo Monroe and a few other hatch a plan to end the sentinel threat and even undo all that has been. They send Logan back in time by projecting his 2023 concious into his 1973 body. There he has to find Xavier and together they will stop Mystique from sealing the fate of the world.

They manage to stop Mystique. Human-mutant relations are shaky but at least there won't be any sentinels. Xavier continues with the school for gifted children and soon forms the first X-men. All is relatively calm until the beginning of the second millenia. Senator Kelly, staunch anti-mutant, proposes that since the mutants are rapidly growing in numbers, a mutant registry should be put to use. This is not something that Lensherr is particularly fond of, given his time in the Nazi concentration camp. He decides that senator kelly should have a taste of hus own medicine, so he simply kodnaps the senator and...well you know the rest.

What I am getting at here is that the 2023 we see in Days of future past is actually the first timeline, the original if you will, that begins with first class and Trask being shot. When Xavier and Logan stops Mystique from killing Trask in 1973 Logan wakes up in a 2023 where the Sentinels never got activated and everything was peachy until 2000 when Senator Kelly...well you know.

All this time we have been watching the outcome of Logan timetraveling in Days of future past. We have been watching the alternate timeline ever since the first X-men movie.

Of course this isn't a 100% airtight theory. If it was then at least Jean Grey and Scott Summers should still be dead at the end of Days of future past, Xavier could be alive since we see someone talking with Xaviers voice in the end of The last stand.

Another plothole would be that we see glimpses of the "alternate" timeline when the 1973 Xavier reads Logans mind, but the only thing we actually see that could work against this theory is when he kills Phoenix.

What they should have done was to show the sentinels killing everybody throughout the years. It could have been a great montage set in the 70:s, 80:s and 90:s. That would have been the perfect way to set this movie apart from the first three but still not ereasing them from history. Xavier says to Logan that they have a lot of catching up to do at the end and that's when he tells Logan about the first three movies.

So there you have it, my interpretation of the Days of future past. It's not meant to be taken seriously, just as a fun excersise of your imagination.



I should point out that X-men Apocalypse is not accounted for in this theory, we'll have to wait another two years to see how that one fucks up everything by being set in the 80:s

X-men: Days of future past

In order to review this movie with any kind justice, I will have to spoil some details. Trying not to reveal to much of the plot of course, but if you're very particular about details I would recomend you watch the movie before reading this.

SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.


In the future, robots, called sentinels, have taken over. They began by targeting all humans with the mutant gene, then they started killing people who carried the gene without having any powers. All hope seemed lost. Only a few X-men are still alive. Among them are Professor Xavier (miraculously alive after being obliterated in The last stand) who have one last idea that could save the world from the sentinels taking over completely.

By sending Wolverine back into time, or at least his concious, to stop a man from being killed, he can reverse history and change the future...

So, before we go into what I actually thought of the movie, I have to adress the faults or at least what I found faulty.

The script was horrible. No, horrible is to strong. The script was good, just full of plot holes and inconsistensies.

First of all, how can Xavier be alive?
He was turned to dust back in The last stand. Of course we have the post credit scene in The last stand that sort of explains him being alive, but that is a very weak explanation.
To base the resurgence of a main character on a hidden on a post credit scene is mot a valid decision by the screenwriters. How many people take the time to sit through the entire credit roll? I actually didn't see it until this week when I re-watched them all.
Shouldn't his resurrection have been better explained in this movie? Why do they just assume that everyone saw that scene?

And then there is the case of the sentinels. Where do they come from, why are they never mentioned in the earlier films? Acording to the story they tell you in Days of future past, the sentinels were created after Bolivar Trask, the man who invented them, was killed by Mystique. This was in 1973. Now, we know that the first X-men movie takes place in the not too distant future. This was in 2000 so the not to distant future must be 2005 something?
The last stand takes place a couple of years later, around 2006-7 maybe?

Then we have The Wolverine, the 2013 stand alone that ended with a tie in to Days of future past. There we see Professor X and Magneto meeting up with Wolverine some time in 2013. In that scene they seem to know something, they hint at what we see Days of future past.

Days of future past have a pretty clear date when it takes place, 2023. So somewhere between 2013 and 2020 sort of, the Sentinels appear and starts killing everyone.
The project have been in progress since the 70:s though and back then they already had working prototypes. How could the sentinels just come from nowhere and take over in a matter of years? What happened between 2013 and 2020?

They could have explained this but instead they gloss over it by simply saying, the sentinels came and took shit over and now they rule the world.
Then they do something that I really can't get a grip on. In the last stand, a man called Trask is sitting around being a typical government man. He is played by Bill Duke and is alive and well in 2006-ish.
In the Days of future past, Bolivar Trask is played by Peter Dinklage. One could aegue that this is only a change of actors, nothing to take notice of, but the Peter Dinklage Trask is killed in 1973.

At this time, one would assume that the screenwriters are ignoring The last stand. They have Xavier alive and Trask is dead, but then we se flashes of Wolverines past. We see him in WWII and we also se him killing Phoenix, wich happened in The last stand. This means that the events of The last stand happened and are part of history, so how can Trask be alive in 2006 but dead in 1973?
This creates a very interesting time paradox, wich is way to complex to discuss now. I will however write an article about this on the not to distant future (haha!)

These are huge plotholes. Not something that they could just ignore. Trask may be a small role in The last stand, but he was still there, they mention his name several times.

These things annoy me.
I am sitting there marveling at the acting, the directing, the action, the setpieces, all of it is borderline spectacular. James MacAvoy really shines as a broken man only trying to forget the past. Jennifer Lawrence takes her rendition of Mystique to new heights, adding a lot of emotions to a previously one dimensional character. Evan Peters stands out as newcomer Peter"Quicksilver"Maximof though. For the brief moments he is in the movie, he owns the screen.

Despite all these great performances, the script keeps ruining every scene for me. The plotholes won't let go of me and they stop me from enjoying the movie too the fullest.

I rarely feel so torn about a movie. Often a film is good, the script is good, acting, photography, everything. If the movie is bad, it is often bad across the board.
Days of future past is a great movie...except for the script, wich really doesn't hold up at all to the level of quality the rest of the movie displays.


After spending the entire week trying to pump myself up to like this movie. I am now left in a position where I can't decide wether it was a complete failiure or a good way to spend two hours. I ask myself, why I do this? The worst part is that I will probably do it all over when X-men Apocalypse comes out in a couple of years.
For some reason I keep coming back to these movies, even though they keep dissapointing me.

Weird...

X-men: First class

Prequels. Everybody who knows me will call me a hypocrite after this, but I'm not going to lie 100%, just a little bit.

I hate prequels, not all prequels but most of them

You sit there and look at these pictures of stuff you already know, because they discussed all of this in the earlier movies.

A perfect example is Terminator: salvation. For three movies we were told about the war between man and machine and how the machines were losing so they sent a terminator back in time to kill the human leader before he was even born. He, the leader,finds out about this and sends back the man who will become his father to stop this terminator. Very confusing but they spend a considerable amount of time to explain this in the first three movies.

We know exactly how the war went and we know how it began and how it ended, so why make a movie about it? Many will argue that the same can be said about the star wars prequels and they are right...but it's Fucking star wars man,even if I wish the second one wasn't.

So here I sit and talk about things totally unrelated to First class
Let's discuss why I don't like that one instead.

Unlike many prequels First class actually tells us a story we haven't heard before, and it does so with great effort. Top notch actors, a great retro feel and spectacular action scenes. Still, there is something not right about all this. A lot of details doesn't make sense. Like the fact that Mystique and Xavier are surrogate siblings.

Now, keep in mind that I have not read the comics
I am basing my knowledge solely on the movies and there this doesn't make sense.

And all these other mutants that are in this movie, they are never mentioned in the original trilogy, so it's easy to assume that they will die quite soon.


The movie, as a standalone piece, is great. A great piece of action cinema, but as a part of the cinematic X-men universe it is very derivative. It is setting up a bunch of plots that we already know the end to, and it gives us characters we can't get attached to because we know they will be disposed of. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but that is why I don't like prequels, when if they are very good

X-men: The last stand

MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED



In the scene where Wolverine stands in front of Xaviers monument, and Phoenix starts messing with his head, there is a bug crawling on his jacket. That bug is a perfect metaphor for how I feel about this movie. Something is wrong, creeping around inside and all over this movie but I can't quite put my finger on it

It's not really such a terrible movie as people say it is. It's definitely the worst of the three, and much of that has to do with the change of director. Bryan Singer, the guy who directed the first two, grew along with the movie. The flaws he displayed as a director on the first one were the strenghts of the second. If he would have been the one directing The last stand, it would have been the culmination of an ending six years in the making, but instead they chose Bret Ratner.

Not only was he a novice when it came to comic book movie, he was also notorious for ruining franchises. He made a mess of Red dragon, even if that is still an ok movie and he even ruined his own franchise, Rush hour. The first one was a good Jackie Chan vehicle, but the second and third were complete trainwrecks.

Why on earth would you hire a director that is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be bad at directing to finish your very well recieved trilogy?

The writers were also moved around. David Hayter who was mainly responsible for the screenplays of the first two, was left out and instead Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg (the latter also being the main writer on Days of future past) take over.

Once again, the movie isn't being handled with the kind of respect you would expect for such a hype machine.

So what is it that is actually bad about the movie? Well, first and foremost, Brett Ratners style does not suit an action movie. He moves everything way to slow and sometimes feel uninterested in the characters. Making Wolverine cry twice and run from a fight goes directly against the very nature of the character.

Then the script takes way to many liberties with the intellectual property. I know this was supposed to be the end, but that does not justify killing main characters of screen even if it's just Cyclops. Once again he iss swooped to the side and for good reason, James Marsden really can't act or at least not in these movies.

But for all it's faults it gets one thing right. The whole plot sorrounding the "cure".
While most of the mutants disagree with the idea of calling their mutation a "disease" I fully understand why some would want to be cured. A perfect example is made of Rouge and her love triangle sub plot with Bobby and, former one scene appearence and now fully fledged character, Kitty Pride.

Rouge is having a tough time coping with the fact that she can't even touch the one she loves. Bobby, who for some reason becomes the target of her anger despite him saying in the last movie that he was ok with it and still is in the third, becomes somewhat enamored with Kitty. Rouge sees this and it realise what she has to do.

In the case of Rouge, her mutation isn't what I would call a gift. Everyone tells her it is, but what benefits has it given her? None. It has only made her feel left out, and it is physically stopping her from ever touching a human being. Why would she want to keep such a curse, out of pride? Principle? No, in my eyes her life would be vastly improved by her being "cured".

This is an important point that the script wants to stress more, but it gets a bit sweeped under the carpet to make place for the final battle scene. A gigantic battlefield full of mutants, and somehow Ratner manages to make that scene boring as well.

In all honesty, The last stand isn't the worst movie ever. It does get hampered by some really horrible direction and some of the worst character treatment in the trilogy. What little it gets right is overshadowed by the force of a director that doesn't care and writers on a powertrip.

X2 (X-men 2)

Sequels are always a gamble. The chance that you mess up and tarnish the reputation of your predecessor is huge, and in most cases that is...the case I guess. At the same time, there are a number of sequels who not only manages to equal the original, but also surpass it.

The dark knight, Skyfall, The empire strikes back, The godfather part II, Back to the future part II are just a few. X2, or X-men 2, also fall into that category.

X2 is vastly superior over X-men. It feels like the movie Bryan Singer, the director of both 1 and 2, wanted to make from the beginning.
Almost all of the characters have a reason to be on the movie this time. They are less like plot devices and more like real persons this time around, even if some of them are gravely under developed still.
In X2 we actually get to know the characters and by doing that, we care more about them. Rouge and Bobby (the guy who was in two scenes in the first movie) are on a relationship, but how do you...do that?
as Wolverine so elegantly puts it, causes some tension between the two and we get some much needed "un-super" plot in a story filled with way to much spectacular. Jean Grey is having trouble controlling her powers and is worried that as they grow, her powers will take over. We also get some insight into Wolverines origin as a person from his past makes an appearance.
Storm and Cyclops, however iconic they are, still feels like they have no place in the movie. Something that the screenwriters partly acknowledge by writing Cyclops out of the movie for an extended period of time. The action is also vastly improved in this one. More awesome setpieces and some truly spectacular scenes involving the new character called Kurt Wagner, but in the Munich circus he was known as the incredible nightcrawler...

If there was one problem I forgot to mention in my previous review, it was that X-men had too many plots going on at the same time. In X2, there are not as many, and instead we get some character developmemt and a more focused main plot, and evwn if it's still kind of ridiculous at times, it feels a lot more mature this time.

This is not a perfect movie though, not by a long shot. The direction is still way to blunt at times and plot details that the audience coild have easily figured out for them selves gets thrown in our faces over and over. They are minor things but they still made me scoff.

When I sat down to watch this movie, I was almost afraid to press play. Just like with the first X-men I remembered X2 as beomg an awesome flick and one of the better comic book adaptations to date, but I had been so disenfranchised whit the first one that I was wondering if the second one would be as bad.

X2 may not have been as good as I remember, that will probably be a eunning theme here, but it was a hell of a lot better than the first. More action, better characters, better script and over all a sense of more quality. A sense of quality that not many comic book movies have, even today...

X-men

X-men is considered one of the first movies in the new wave of "serious comic book adaptations". It has always been viewed with a candid lens and is much revered by me and others as a fine example of a comic book movie.
Now, 14 years later, X-men is on of the longest running comic book movie franchises and the latest installment is about to hit the theaters worldwide. So I decided to take a stroll down the nostalgia lane and refresh my memory, since it's been quite some time since i saw it. Now, a couple of hours later, I am deeply regretting my decision...

Everybody knows the story of the X-men right? Humans who have developed superhuman abilities and have to face a world ho either fear them or hate them. The movie chooses to tell the story from the perspective of two characters, mainly. James "Logan" Howlett and Anna "Rouge" Marie. Rouge discovers her "power" early on in the story and becomes the Avatar for the audience, or at least we are led to believe so. The focus quickly lands on Wolverine, who knows he has powers but doesn't realize he is just one of many.

There is the first problem of the movie. By not focusing on the character whom the audience connects with at first and instead gives us this uncaring oaf who doesn't really feel like leading man material. Don't get me wrong, Hugh Jackmans portrayal of Wolverine is stellar and has been throughout all of the movies, but he is not the kind of person we can latch on to.
They do try and "humanise" him and he does become more sympathetic towards the end of the movie, nut this is just a small problem with this movie.

When watching it again, it is like I am watching it for the first time but with a new set of eyes. Granted, I am at least 10 years older than the last time I watched it, and I have developed a more analytic taste in movies during this time. I realize that this movie that I have been putting up on a pedestal for all these years is actually kind of crappy.

The script is filled with incredibly tacky dialogue and nonsensical plot points. Allow me to spoil a little, Its been out´there for over a decade so I'll risk it. When Jean grey explains to Magneto that his machine won't turn the UN officials into mutants, but instead only kill them and make humans fear mutants even more. The movie cuts to the next scene where Magneto doesn't seem to have been in the last scene and promptly starts the machine thinking he will turn all the people into mutants. I mean...what the hell?

Another thing that I never noticed before now is how bad the acting is from most of the actors. Ian McKellen really chews the scenery whenever he is on screen. He really plays the maniacal super bad guy all the way. James Marsden must be one of the most boring actor throughout history, and add that to the already way too uptight Cyclops and you have successfully created a Zombie. He stumbles through the movie without much to do (like most of the other characters as well) and have no chance to express any feelings with his face since his eyes is constantly covered up.
Halle Berry as Storm is criminally underused. She has basically no reason for being in the movie, other than the fact that she is a prominent character in the comics.

Patrick Stewart as the prolific Dr. Charles Xavier is one of the few actors who does well, but the character of Xavier is so one dimensional that the only purpose he fills is to tell Wolverine (i.e the audience) about mutations and human mutant relations, and to answer any questions that might come up during the movie.

That is the main problem with the movie. Every character has a purpose, but after fulfilling that purpose early on in the script, they wander aimlessly through the rest only functioning as a plot device from time to time. the movie quickly becomes very empty and repetitive and never picks it self up. It doesn't even have any big setpieces to talk about. Sure, you have the train, the statue of liberty and the big scene on the lawn with all the police but they are all very brief and doesn't bring much action to the story.
When comparing it to the action spectacles of today, it feels really slow and pointless, But maybe that's just it. It has aged, we have set the standards so high and have become spoiled when it comes to action movies. If you don't blow up half a country and have world war three in space, we are just not interested.

Still, Die hard came out 12 years before X-men and is still one of the best action movies ever made. Maybe it's just that the feeling of this new and exciting genre that X-men kind of started has become saturated with to many sequels and spin-offs and copy cats that have consistently upped the ante and left its forefathers in the dust? Will I dislike X-men 2 just as much, even though I liked it better than the first one?

Only time will tell...

Godzilla (2014)

Unlike this movie, I will keep my review short and sweet.


I did not like Godzilla (2014).

To be honest, my hopes were not that high to begin with. When I first saw that trailer where they jump out of the plane, I thought they were holding back on the themes of the movie and only showing us a spectacle.
The more I watched and read though, the more excited did I become and this morning I was actually really looking forward to this movie.

Now, an hour after the movie ended, I regret spending all that money and time on such a boring movie.

So, why didn't I like it? Well, to begin with, Godzilla barely appears for the first 90 minutes. Instead we have to look at this weird M.U.T.O (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) thing that looks like the lovechild of Clover and one of those spider monsters from Starship troopers.

But, any good creature feature is never actually about the creatures, it's about the humans trying to survive. Too bad that all the characters were portrayed as bland, faceless clichés that had basicly no redeeming qualities. The only good actors were Juliet Binoche and Bryan Cranston, but they only get about 20 minutes of screentime...combined.

Well, so they failed with the human aspect, there is at least a lot of monster fightscenes to enjoy. Sorry, not really.
There is of course one big epic fight that takes place in a burning San Fransisco, but the camera constantly cuts away from the action and continues to focus on the stonefaced humans. It's like they are trying to make the movie out to be this epic drama about love and undying loyalty and therefore only using the monsters as some kind of deus ex machina to drive the story forward. That leaves us with a monster movie with very little monster action, and no human protagonist that we care about.

So what was good then?
The scope and scale of the movie was good. One of the first scenes show this massive quarry where thousands of little people scurry about and you get the feeling, right away, that this film is going to be big.
The monsters are also gigantic, and when they slam each other into buildings, it looks really cool. The sound however doesn't...sound at all.

When you think of Godzilla, the first thing that pops into your mind is booming footsteps and deafening roars. For a 300 feet lizard, Godzilla is an excelent sneaker. Rarely do the ground shake from his footsteps and when he roars you are not really blown away by the awesone force. Not even when all three monsters tear each other apart do we get a cacophany of screams and explosions. I don't know if the director was trying to go the realistic way and make all the sounds very distant, because there are scenes where Godzilla is right behind our hero and you can't hear a thing. It's almost as if they forgot to add the sound effects in some scenes.

I promised I would keep this short and sweet, and I am a man of my word.

All in all, Godzilla was a gigantic failiure on almost every point. To watch this movie is a waste of your time and money. You would get a lot better bang for your buck if you watch the original Godzilla or Cloverfield instead.


Godzilla? More like Borezilla.

Cloverfield

New York must be one of the most disaster stricken cities ever. King Kong, Several alien invasions, The green goblin, Magneto, warriors, Godzilla, Cosmo Kramer and of course the monster known only as Clover.

To say that Cloverfield is a better monstermovie than Godzilla (1954) is tantamount to blasphemy, but if I have to be honest, I have to say that I like Cloverfield more.

It is not because of the special effects or some age thing. Cloverfield wins purely pn pacing. Where Godzilla gets stuck for long periods of time in some kind of Story vacuum. The relationships between the characters becomes its own little movie within the monstermovie.

In Cloverfield, the relationship between the protagonist and the damsel in distress becomes the catalyst that keeps the movie going. The monster becomes this unbeatable force wich our hero is willing to cross paths With to save the one he loves.

Where Monsters was basicly a tragic love story with monsters in it, and Godzilla was a monstermovie with a love triangle in it, Cloverfield trancends genre perfectly and uses the monster to further the human story.

I also love the direction, specifically in the first act where they are all at the party. It is not often that a movie manages to involve the extras and make them feel like integral characters in the universe of these four main characters. The way our leads casually interacts with a core group of extras and how they are impemented into the procedings of the party makes it seem as though these people are more than just background.

If there is one thing I initially did not like, it eas the fact that the movie is a "found footage" movie. That medium had, at the time, been over saturated with bad movies and it felt like an easy way to lure in the crowd by saying "yeah, come see Cloverfield. We are just as cool as all those other movies". It felt loke they drank to much of the Hollywood Kool-aid, but in the end They use it to their advantage and it becomes one of the better "found footage movies" to date.

Cloverfield wasn't just a good movie though, it was a intriguing concept. The way they used viral marketing to build upon the mystery sorrounding the monster, months before the movie premiered.
There were the fictional company Tugrauto, who were suspected of awakening the monster with their deep sea exploration. Videoblogs, articles and rumors all created to build upon the mystery and made it almost as fleshed out as some world building fantasy novels.

All this, with the movie as its centerpiece, made Cloverfield become so much more than just 90 minutes of explosive fun. It became one of my favourite multimedia experiences ever.

Godzilla (1998)

14 years ago, a bolt of lightning cuts through the sky and we see a Japanese fishing vessel powering through the stormy sea. Something bleeps on the radar, the captain takes one look and sounds the alarm. Gojira is here.


The 1998 re-make/re-boot was the first Godzilla movie to be produced by an American studio. In fact, it was the first Godzilla to be produced by a non Japamese company ever, and the initial hype pointed towards something awesome.
Thus was the first Godzilla I ever saw and so I tend to get a little biased when talking about it, but I think we can all agree that this is not a good movie. Even I can say that after watching it yesterday for the first time in over 10 years.

Bad as it may be, it isn't the worst Godzilla movie I've ever seen, that prize goes to Godzilla vs Megalon.

The story actually have a few great points. Like the fact that Godzilla is not in New York to destroy it, he is looking for a good place to nest and we just happened to be in the way.
If the original Godzilla was natures way of getting back at humanity, this godzilla was a product of our arrogance against nature. That almost works better in some ways. He is a generally not aggeessive against humans unless we provoke him and the only reason we see him as a threat is because he is bigger than us.

In that way it plays better on our innate fear of what we cannot control than the original, but...

That is all it does well. The rest of the movie is more or less a disaster. Very fitting since it is the master of disaster himself who both wrote and directed it. None other than Roland Emerich.

The acting is flat and stiff from almost every major actor/actress, the only real exception is Doug Savant as the stuttering Sgt. O'neil and Hank Azaria as news camera man "Animal"

But the worst part of re-watching this debaucle was, except having your childhood beliefs smashed by your own adult sense of critisism, is seeing how badly it has aged. Where the effects in the original still had some dramatic impact, the 1998 version did not wow me at all. The monster looked downright horrible in some scenes.

It only makes it worse when you look at The lost world, a movie that came out the year before and still looks convincing today.

Godzilla 1998 was by all means a failiure, but it doesn't deserve all the hate it recieved. It wasn't the worst Godzilla ever and the franchise had by that time already started to fade away. There aren't that many good Godzilla movies at all if we're going to be brutally honest. The American just had the misfortune to give us false hope and therefore become a scape goat for past sins.

Monsters

Gareth Edwards. The man responsible for the rebirth of the king of monsters, has actually already made a monster movie. The aptly named "Monster".

It is based solely on that movie (since it was his directorial debut) that they placed their full trust in his hands, concerning the re-boot of this much beloved franchise. So, was this "Monsters" any good?


The short version. Naaaah...

The long version. In a movie called Monsters you would expect some monsters, but for the very brief 89 minutes this movie goes on, you get to see four monsters. What the hell man?

The title is a bit misleading though. It isn't reffering solely to monstrous creatures from space, it is trying to ask the question "who are the real monsters?"

The idea is a classic zombie movie idea, you know. In a zombie invasion, your worst enemy is not the zombies, but the humans around you. It is a very good premise for a monster movie but very little is ever said about either human or monster in this. There are a few short scenes where the humans are depicted as kind of bossy and empirical, but not more than in real life. And the monsters are barely in the movie, so, building an opinion as to wether or not they are the bad guys becomes impossible.

Something tells me that this was a short film from the beginning. The script simply doesn't stretch far enough to keep you watching for 90 minutes and that is very sad, because Monsters show so much potential. It has a well thought out backstory and some very beautiful photography. The script, however, focuses on the lovestory between the two protagonists. It is always to get the focus of the main plot for a while and develop the characters, but in this one, focus is completely taken of the plot and placed on the character for the entire movie. The few times they actually discuss the monsters, and the governments way of controlling the situation, it becomes slightly askew. Since either person doesn't seem interested in the politics sorrounding the monsters it gets a little unnatural to hear the talk about it.

The love story is good though. A woman who is not sure if she is still in love with the man she is about to marry. The man who has a son but he can't tell him he is his father, these two character travel through the jungle and get to know each other and digs deeper into their on soul as the journey takes them deeper into "the quarantine zone".

The monsters, what monsters? Oh yeah, there are som creatures in the quarantine zone, but they aren't important.

Like I said in the beginning, a movie called Monsters should have a lot more monsters in it. This could might have been a story of two people traveling through a war torn Irak. The creatures become deriviative, and the charaters become derivative as well, since all you do is wait for that monster to appear.

Godzilla (1954)

Godzilla is a prehistoric monster Asleep on the bottom of the sea, he/she is awakened by mans desire for power and infuriated by our love for pyrotechnics.

Re-watching the Japanese original, this isn't just the explanation as to where Godzilla comes from, but also a perfect metaphor for the excsistence of the entire franchise.

Now that a new Godzilla movie is here, I Take a look at the movies that led to this moment and What we can learn from the past.


The sea is stirring. A fishingboat Cuts theough the waves. On deck, the mood is good, the sailors play games and sings. Then, something happens. A bbright light appeares beneath the surface and in a matter of seconds, the boat is engulfed in flames.

More and more boats get attacked and soon it becomes clear that this is not something natural. Then, something happens on the island of Odo. A giant monster appears, the elders call it Godzilla...

To watch the original Godzilla today is kind of bittersweet. It is a wonderful movie that tackles the issue of nuclear weapons with little to no discretion, much like the original Scarface went after organised crime.
While the message and moral of the story is still pretty easy to re-shape and attach to any major issue to day, the same can't be said about the pacing of the movie. It takes the better part of an hour before we even get to glimpse the monster, and then it is ever so slightly that if you blink you will miss it. The first proper "Godzilla walks in and fucks everything up" Scene happens when there is less than 30 minutes left. In todays movies we are used to a slow burn, because the movies of today are almoat always over two hours long. There are however limits to the exposition, Lone Ranger for instance. Two hours of practicly nothing and then a finale with less excitement than a funeral. But I'm getting sidetracked here, what I'm saying is that the tempo of 1950:s cinema was completely different than it is today and that is Godzillas one major drawback.

The same cannot be said about the special effects. Sure, they look very aged and a guy in a rubber suit feels more comedic than terrifying, but at the same time I found my self saying Things like "wow" and "damn". The scenes of a burning Tokyo with Godzillas sillhouette against the flames is very effective and still looks awesome.

When re-watching any old movie it always comes down to how well it has aged. Some movies are timeless and never age, like The Evil dead and A shot in the dark, that probably never will grow old, and then there are movies that are almost unwhatchable. The original The hills have eyes is a perfect example of a movie that hasn't aged well at all.
Godzilla falls somewhere in between, the story is still some what relevant and the special effects work, more on the symbolistic plane than on the technical one, but the pacing and directing falls shprt and the movie gets bogged down by lengthy scenes of people looking at monitors and talking into radios. Plus the love triangle sidestory does not transfer into modern times, not because we don't have those today but because is slows down an already slow movie. But just like the titular Kaiju, Godzilla is an immortal force that we will never be able to destroy, and 60 years from now, Godzilla will still be the king of monsters.

Non-Stop. A review and a look at the birth of the modern retro action thriller

I like the Taken movies. No, scratch that, I fucking love those movies. Fastpaced action, condense storytelling and one of the best on screen action heroes of this millenia.

Bryan Mills is both the best and the worst dads in the world. He is overbearing and clingy, and he doesn't realise that his "little girl" is actually a grown up... oh well, a teenager. At the same time he travels the world, puts hus life in danger and kills over 30 people in cold blood, all for his "little girl".

So why am I talking about Taken when I should be talking about Non-stop?
Well, without Taken there wouldn't have been a Non-stop.

Taken is, on paper, nothing but yet another Van Damme or Segal movie. An ex-superagent wants to reconnect with his somewhat estranged daughter. Well, he's in luck (sort of), she gets kidnapped and he only have 48 hours to find her. With his superagent detective skills and a fair amount of excessive force, he battles his way through Paris and finally finds his daughter in the nick of time.

With a little imagination this could actually be mistaken for Schwarzeneggers classic Commando or Van Dammes Die hard wanna-be Sudden death (both very enjoyable action flicks) except for one major difference; Liam Neeson. Neeson is a major actor, I'm not saying JCVD or the terminator are not major actors, but we can all agree that Liam Neeson is in a whole other league.
Casting Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills transformed Taken from a silly but entertaining 90 minutes into a gritty, serious action thriller that portrays a crime that happens all the time in the real world that we might not be aware is that serious.

Neesons acting skills elevated the movie out of the B-action swamp and turned it into a world wide sensation, and thus a new genre of action movies was born.

In rapid sucsession, Liam Neeson appeared in several action and thrillers.
Unknown, The A-team, The grey and of course taken 2. They were all B-movie material (The grey is the exception. That movie is actually an amazing movie) that were graced by the presence of a great actor. This made the rest of the cast&crew work extra hard to make the movie better than it should have been.

I'm probably generalising a bit. A-team woild probably have been awesome even if Neeson didn't play Hannibal.

Of course, by becoming a household name among action fans, Neesons earlier movies have been somewhat over shadowed. Movies like Schindlers list and Kinsey that really made use of his acting skills. But can never forget that it was because of these earlier performances that we reacted the way we did when Taken came out. That a serious actor (with a somewhat tarnished rep after a certain Sci-fi epic) would take on a silly action movie and actually make it good.

Todays audience will always think of Bryan Mills when they hear the name Liam Neeson, while the somewhat older audience might think of Rob Roy, Oscar Schindler or even Qui-Gon Jinn. But some of us will remember how Liam Neeson transformed himself from actor to the greatest actionhero of the second millenia.


So what about Non-stop? Any good?

It's basicly taken 3 (that one is actually coming next year) and Neeson once again saves a kind of lackluster thriller and makes it enjoyable by simply being awesome at what he does. apart from a few silly twists and a way to over the top ending, both the writers and the director have made decent enough efforts to make a good movie.

The quiet roar

It's not very often that a movie opens with a disclaimer, saying that in order to enjoy this film, you need to stop thinking. Don't try to understand or analyze, just relax and go along with what ever is happening.

For the first 20 minutes or so I tried this, and what I experienced was something quite unique. I wasn't watching a movie, I was watching a painting come alive before my eyes.

Magical vistas, framed by a gentle camera in constant motion and a silence that made you deaf. It was truly beautiful. After after a while I had to turn on my brain though, I realised that I had stopped breathing, and that's when the spell was broken.


The quiet roar is a relationship drama with hints of Sci-Fi. It explores the notion of coming to terms with ones past in the face of death, or rather accepting your fate at the end of your life. Trying to understand past choices and finding the reason, or accepting the outcome of those choices. A very heavy bunch of subjects that could easily be a very interesting bunch of subjects when given the specific ingredients they require.
The quiet roar fails at this. Not for the obvious reasons. The director, and writer, Fredrik Hellström has chosen to almost completely ignore the story he has written and focuses on the beauty of the swedish nature (a constant backdrop to the dreamy cinematography) and in the 77 minutes the film lasts, maybe 15 minutes is spent on the story and characters.

To what supposed effect he makes these choices, I don't know. The final product falls very ahort of the masterpiece it could have been. What we are left with is a hauntingly beautiful movie (I teared up halfway through because of the wonderful landscapes) that is almost totally devoid of... well, anything.

Eva-Britt Strandberg does the most with what little material she is handed. A few times she is actually very good and managea to bring some very needed humanity to the movie. The other actors do a decent to half assed job at portraying the shallow and very alien characters that inhabit the script.


The quiet roar wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't very good either. It had some very good moments but they weren't enough to balance out the emptiness.


The quiet roar... actually a very fitting name now that I think about it.

Noah

Before we begin I want to clarify that I will be referring to God as "he". Why? Because her is three letters and he is two. I'm lazy.


I am not a religious person. The closest thing I have to a god is probably some writer or director that I admire (don't want to play favourites but Christopher Nolan and maybe Frank Herbert).

I have read the bible, not cover to cover but the most popular of stories. Creation, Adam and Eve, Jonah and the whale. The one about the guy...Jesus something. All of these stories that a lot of people found helpful and important I never really cared for, but there was ome that I actually really liked and that was the one about Noah and the ark.

It had adventure, a big ass boat and truckloads (Arkloads?) of animals, everything a young boy likes. Even if the actual message never really made its way into my brain, I haf a blast reading it, and now in my adult life I still don't actually get the whole destroying the world thing. God, to me, seems to be a spoiled child with way to much power. He sits in his big ass sandbox and builds this massive and complex sandcastle, uäbut as soon as something isn't quite working the way he wants it to, he smashes the whole thing like nothing and starts over... bad example.

He has this huge and awesome fishtank with so many different fish in it, but as soon as the water starts filling up with algae and fish start dying, he just flushes the whole thing and buys new fish...that's better.
He does however save his favourite fish and by doing so, this fish gets a sense of entitlement.
The fish starts telling people what to do and sets rules by his own volition...damnit.

Ok, so the fish thing doesn't really work. Fish don't really have the mental capacity to be selfrighteous bastards. What I am trying to say is that by singleing out Noah as his protogé, God is granting one individual with the power of a god. Granted, he does have to do Gods bidding, but he is given way more power than any one individual should have.

The concept of megalommania is however all to foreign to God since he never had to answer for his behaviour. In essence, God is not fit to handle the reaponibilities of a god. Many of you will probably argue that God is not human and therefore can't make any mistakes, that he has always been wise and all knowing. But the Bible is full of examples of him fucking up and fixing it by basicly cheating (Sodom and Gomorrah) and sometimes he just plain mean (Adam and Eve).

All of these stories have one common denominator except for god, and that is the human race. To paraphrase Rust Kohle

We are a mistake. We obviously doesn't fit in to gods plan, since we keep ruinig everything and he keeps punishing us. In the Noah story he had the chance to get rid of all of us but instead he saved a a few of us and look where we are now...

It's true like they say, God works in mysterious ways and god is certainly not human. He lacks the key traits that make one human. Humility and the ability to learn from his mistakes, and that is why he will have to smash his sandcastle and drain his fishtank over and over again.

But enough about that, how was the movie?
Pretty good. Cool effects and som pretty nifty camerawork. Aronofsky seemed a little scared of offending either side of the religious debate so Noah must be one of the most ambigious movie based on a biblical tale I have ever seen.

Jennifer connely overdid it in a few scenes and Emma watson gave the performance of her lifetime. Russel Crow was Russel Crow, for better or for worse wich ever you prefer.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake eater part two

This is the second part of my Snake eater review and the second part in my series called The Metal gear chronicles.

In last weeks part we talked about the first attempt to rescue the Sovjet researcher called Sokolov, and how that turned in to a much more dangerous and critical mission. It ended with Snake entering Colonel Volgins massive base "Groznyj Grad" in search for his targets.



Surprisingly, Groznyj Grad is so vast that security can't cover it all. Snake easily makes his way to the facility where EVA said they were holding Sokolov, but to get in there you need special clearence. This comes in the form of a specific uniform. Captain Raikov Raidenovichs uniform. Raikov is Colonel Volgins "special friend" and he is the only one with all access in Groznyj Grad.

Snake acuires Raikovs uniform and stuffs his sedated body in a locker. He makes his way to Sokolov, and there he sees him talking to EVA. But EVA is disguised as Tanya, her cover identity. Sokolov hands her a microfilm containing all the excersise data from the Shagohod. EVA leaves and Snake moves in to get Sokolov but just as they are about to leave, Volgin enters. He quckly realises that Snake is wearing Raikovs uniform and after that it all goes black.
Snake wakes up. He is blindfolded and tied up, and all he can hear is Volgin torturing Sokolov, asking him where the data is, who's the spy. Sokolov only screams in pain and after a while he stops completely. The blindfold comes of and in the room is Volgin, EVA, The Boss and a GRU operative known as Ocelot. Snake remember him as the leader of the soldiers that have been chasing him the whole time. Volgin starts beating Snake, asking him how much the CIA really knows, what his mission is. The Boss tells Volgin it's no use. That Snake has been trained not to break, by her. He continues to hit him until a small tracking device falls of Snake. The Boss admit to have put it there, Volgins gets suspicious and asks her to cut out Snakes eyes as a sign of total loyalty.
Just as she is about to, EVA/Tanya stops her. This now makes Ocelot suspicious. He calls EVA out as the spy and to test her he forces a form of russian roulette on her. Just as the bullet is about to go off, snake pushes EVA out of the way. The bullet rips open his right eye. Volgin leaves, as do Ocelot. The Boss shoots Snake in the leg and and puts the gun in the waist of his pants and tells him to run.

Snake wakes up some time later in a jail cell. He manages to escape by jumping down a waterfall (Fugutive style) and lands in the river. After a near death experience, he meets up with EVA who helps him with his wounds.
Now that Sokolov is dead, the mission is simple. Destroy the Shagohod and kill Volgin. Snake heads back to Groznyj Grad and doesn't waste time. He places C3 explosives all around the Shagohod and starts the timer, but then he is caught by Volgin, The Boss and Ocelot. Tanya/EVA is there as well With the timer ticking Volgin is challenging Snake to a fair chance at survival, a fistfight. Right before they begin, The Biss escorts EVA /Tanya away from there. Snake see The Boss handing EVA/Tanya something.

Snake easily defeats Volgin,  and with only seconds left on the timer he escapes the hangar.  As he watches the whole facility go up in flames, he notices something moving in the fire. It's the Shagohod,  Volgin somehow survived and is now gunning for snake in a jetpowered supertank. Out of nowhere EVA shows up on a motorcycle. Snake jumps in the sidecart and they escape with the Shagohod on their heels.

In a final showdown, Snake destroys the Shagohod and Volgin is struck by lightning and dies in the wreckage of his own "ultimate deterrent".
The end is is finally in sight and EVA and Snake make it to the escapecraft EVA had planned, but before they leave, Snake have one more objective.

In the middle of a meadow, filled with white flowers, The Boss tells Snake why she defected. She was always loyal to the mission,  it was the enemies who changed. She had become pregnant Years prior to this,  but the military had taken the baby and used it as leverage to make her kill one of her own. The sorrow, of COBRA unit, who was also the father of the child.

A emotional battle begins, but in the end, The Boss forces Snake to end it by shooting her.

EVA and Snake board the plane and head for Alaska. There they spend a night together. Snake lets himself go for the first time and he feels alive for the first time in years. When he wakes up the morning after, EVA is gone. All that is left us a tape with a message on it. EVA tells snake that she was actually not an American spy.  She was working for the Chinese government all along. Her mission was to find the location of the philosophers legacy and that The Boss had given her the location there in the hangar. The Boss had never betrayed America. She was given orders to defect so as to buy her way into Volgins closest circle and find the Philosophers legacy. She sacrificed everything for the mission, her reputation, her rank, her freedom. All for the good of The American people.

Snake returns to Washington where he is awarded the title of Big Boss by the President. Just as he is about to leave, he sees Ocelot peeking in through a window and smiling at him. He shakes it of and heads for the soldiers cemetary. He walks up to a gravestone and places The Bosses gun and some white lillies on the grave, and as a single tear rolls down his cheek he salutes.


                           ROLL CREDITDS



After the credits we hear someone making a phone call. Someone on the other line answers and Ocelot speaks. He tells this person that the threat has been neutralised and that Khuschev is finished and that this person is now at the helm ov the Sovjet union. He hangs up and makes another call. This time to an American.  It seems he had been the real American spy all along. He had made sure that the location EVA had recieved from The Boss was fake, and the real location was now in the hands of America. He ends the conversation with the words "with this money the Philosophers can rise again, even if it's only half. Of course I am always at the disposal of the CIA...Mr director"


And so ends the first story in The Metal Gear chronicles. The next time we will be discussing how Snake, now Big Boss, was kidnapped by his own people for the purpose of finding the other half of the Philosophers legacy,  in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.