monkeyboxer15 Reviews

Lucy (I) (2014)

Fun to watch if you don't listen to anything and like stock footage

[5/10 · 30 July 2014]

The film follows Lucy as she gets super powers, kicks butt, and tries to find existential meaning as she unlocks her brain's potential. This sounds fun but the writing was truly terrible. The production value was good aside from the lazy stock footage. The majority of the acting was solid.

The huge issue that ruins this movie stems from writer's steadfast determination to hate google. The majority of the plot is based around super outdated, never actually true info on the human brain. The sad part is the writer could have literally pulled out a smartphone (or the browser on the computer used to type the script) and searched the lines that were written and found out the lines didn't make any sense.

Freeman plays a doctor that tries to convince his peers that humans only use 10% of their brain's capacity and you basically become a god if you unlock more. Listening to his monologue I imagined how silly he must have felt. I'm sure he knew, or at least found out, that the lines were silly and based on nothing. Then this info ended up being the plot for the rest of the movie.

If you can get past the whole premise being a lazy shot in the dark, you'll be joined by the most determined drug lord ever. The bad guy for this movie takes part in smuggling drugs if you don't know what a drug lord is up to these days. Spoilers coming: He's using people as drug mules and this ends up going bad because Lucy get's god powers from the drugs. Instead of cutting his losses and buying more drugs that he obviously had access to, he goes to hunt down Lucy himself (along with his cronies). This parts almost believable, but when he starts chasing her around the world and losing men it stops making sense. This guy wouldn't get to be a drug kingpin if he's this terrible at resource management and so silly he's going to attack a superwoman by himself.

If that's not good enough you will get some very generic wildlife stock footage to denote feeding, hunting, and mating and their current relations to the actual scene at hand. I'm fairly confident this was meant as imagery to make the audience 'feel' something, but it was so blatantly sludged in that it felt lazy.

Once you're done digesting the script you will get to enjoy some interesting fight scenes. The special affects and the 'kick-butt' scenes come together well and Scarlett pulls off a convincing god-like being struggling with such traumatic changes to... well... everything.

Overall, plug your ears and enjoy some clever shots of Scarlett being a superhuman.

Getaway (I) (2013)

I felt empty inside

[4/10 · 1 September 2013]

When the film finished the first thing I thought about was how empty I felt. Now, before the film finished I thought about the blurred shots, the complete disregard for continuity, and how twisted all of these characters must be to think the way that they do. In the end, I finally realized that yes, I should have looked up reviews before going to see this.

If you plan on seeing this film, I recommend that instead you go to your local zoo and try to train the monkeys to dance by mimicking your actions. Once you have accomplished this film it and then you can go to your friend that saw this film; once your friend finishes his or her rant, show off the video of dancing monkeys that you captured. You will feel far more complete and happy.

The film wasn't entirely bad. The acting wasn't great, but again, it wasn't bad. The acting had much more potential if the dialogue wasn't limited to s-words and only s-words. The best part of the film was watching a henchman on a motorcycle try to use the bike to fight a much larger car. It was very quick, but the fact that it was there provided some laughter.

RED 2 (2013)

Fun... and some more fun

[8/10 · 19 July 2013]

This was a very enjoyable film. The story continues with the retired - and more dangerous than anybody else - agents. Frank and his comrades find themselves treading all over the globe and finding conflict at each stop.

If you haven't seen the first film, you can still enjoy this piece. You won't understand all of the relationships immediately, but the story stands on its own. And it does a very good job at that.

The movie was so much fun. It had clever and well-thought out jokes throughout the film. The jokes kept coming and were very skillfully timed.

The action was thrilling. Along with the jokes, non-stop action to get your blood pumping filled this film. They kept the same feel of cool, unreasonable stunts and explosions from the first movie, but they also added a lot more hand-to-hand combat, which was still very amusing to watch and excellently choreographed.

The acting was great and the story was well-written with actual twists. The soundtrack and sound effects made all the guns and explosions that much more convincing and enjoyable.

This film had a much higher body count than the last one, but still managed to keep it pretty light-hearted. If you liked the first one, this film will not disappoint. If you haven't seen the first one it's still very entertaining to watch.

Pacific Rim (2013)

I enjoyed it thoroughly, the movie was OK

[7/10 · 14 July 2013]

First off, I loved this film; it made me happy watching it. Surrounded by my friends and their popcorn, I sat and smiled contently for almost three hours.

Just because I loved it does not mean I am going to waste your time with a 10 out of 10 review. It was certainly entertaining, but I'm afraid that they were afraid of taking this film to its maximum potential.

Let's start with the action: It was amazing... half the time! The crunching blows delivered from giant robots, and the cheezy attacks that all giant robots are made to have provided some heart-pounding, action-packed fights. But then a different shot. The camera was thrown all over the place and the flashy lights made for a continuation of havoc, but the fight was gone. There were no monsters or robots, just shaky lights and loud noises, or blurred shots of convoluted combat. It's cheaper to film this way, but it was done far too much.

The plot: cliché, but did keep continuity. The plot had flow, and the story was well-paced and kept a good feeling of urgency, but there were some aspects of the film that could have easily been replaced with more cleverly written lines and action. Some of the plot's predictable quirks were enjoyable and the film would suffer without them, simply, because they were fun. The rest of the story, however, was far too predictable and it wouldn't have taken much effort (or funds) to mix it up a bit.

The acting: great, that's it. It was great. Some of the acting avoided being wonderful because of the predictable story. Knowing what would happen next and then finally seeing the shot where they react was uneventful, but the whole time everyone was believable and did well. There were two very enjoyable actors. They provided jokes, like-able characters, and good development. I think they will be a deciding factor for this movie. They were funny and without them this movie would lack any comedy. You'll know who I mean.

The production values were high, the majority of the time, and the film was just flat out fun to watch. It's worth seeing, even just for the epic shots of monster smashing.

If you avoid violence, then don't see the film. It's violent - a little gory with the monster beating. That's mostly the point of the film, and they did a really good job with it.

My favorite part of the film was the sound effects and music. The sound clenching my ears was always thrilling. The monsters were fierce and the soundtrack took the fights from cool to brutal (the good kind).

If you hate clichés or violence you'll be disappointed. If you don't hate cliché's or violence, or can at least tolerate them... well, then you'll probably enjoy this film, at least for some giant pugilism.

ByKy