JMT-Studios Reviews

Gone Girl (2014)

You never disappoint me Fincher

[10/10 · 9 October 2014]

So Gone Girl is directed by the amazing David Fincher and essentially centers on a man named Nick (Ben Affleck) who comes home to see that a table in his living room is destroyed and his wife has gone missing. Honestly if I said anything else besides that I might spoil something because this movie had an amazing marketing team. I went into this movie expecting it to be sort of a who-done-it type of movie but what I got was so much grander. This movie is utterly messed up and I loved every second of it.

We've got a lot to talk about so lets get going. First off, the acting in this movie is great. All around great. Rosamund Pike gives what should be an Oscar nominated performance. A lot of the movie is told through flashbacks of things she wrote in her journal and it's so engaging and I just wanted to figure out everything I could about her and the people she surrounded herself with. One crazy thing, at least to me, was that whenever Ben Affleck was on screen I never saw him as Ben Affleck, I really did see this character he was playing. He wasn't this strapping, good looking guy. He honestly looked like he gained weight for the role to look like the average suburban guy. I just couldn't see an actor the whole time and that is worth commending. One of the huge surprises was Tyler Perry, dude where has this Tyler Perry been all these years?? I want more of this because he was great! Same with Neil Patrick Harris, he's a great actor and deserves good roles.

David Fincher's direction in this movie is on point. Every second of this movie looks amazing on a technical level. Each shot has this depressing filter on it that compliments the tone of the movie perfectly. David Fincher always knows how to make his movies look exactly right but he also always makes sure that every shot is the perfect one to use and I can see it done for this movie. Something I love about this movie is it's portrayal of the media when it comes to cases like these and how they constantly try to get the public to agree with everything they say even if what they're saying is completely wrong. To be honest this movie had me believing the media in it for a good majority of the run time until things began to add up about half way through the movie. But I won't dive into that because I'm keeping this review spoiler free.

Another thing I love about this movie is it's ability to keep me guessing. Is this character going to do this and is this character going to kill this character? For the full 2 1/2 hours I never lost interest and for a movie to be that long, along with the fact that 99% of the movie is just talking, and still keep me totally invested is pretty great. It also helps that the movie was so great to look at.

I could gush over this movie all day and night. David Fincher has crafted another amazing film and I can't wait to get this movie on Blu- Ray in a few months.

I give Gone Girl a solid 10/10 and recommend anyone who is a fan of David Fincher's other films to go see this as soon as you can.

Not Cool (II) (2014)

I'm proud of you Shane

[7/10 · 24 September 2014]

I gotta say, the amount of passion that you can see Shane put into this movie is enough to bring a big smile to my face. As a long time fan, I'm proud of you Shane.

So "Not Cool" is directed by long time YouTuber Shane Dawson and is a very simple premise type of movie. It centers on Tori (Cherami Leigh) who simply doesn't fit into any type of crowd so she constantly has this negative demeanor towards everyone and everything until she accidentally hits a boy named Scott (Shane Dawson) with her car and decides to give him a ride to a party where his ex-girlfriend is but on the way they end up having sex and Scott begins to fall for Tori.

There's actually a second story in this as well. This one centering on Tori's friend Joel (Drew Monson) who wants to get with Scott's sister Janie (Michelle Veintimilla).

Overall this is what I'm gonna say, if you're not a fan of Shane Dawson and his style of humor then you're not gonna like this movie. Plain and simple. But lucky for Shane I'm a fan of his humor and I'm a fan of this movie.

The acting isn't A+ acting and that doesn't mean that it's bad, it's a low budget movie made by a first time director, so I let it slide. I did really like Shane's performance in it though, I want to see him take on a more dramatic role in a serious movie. "Smiley" doesn't count because that was kinda ridiculously over the top.

The humor is dark, go in knowing that. If you're easily offended then please don't watch this and harp on it. You're a bigger downer than the main character of this movie. Dark humor just appeals to his fan base more. Like Fight Club is one of my all time favorite movie because of how dark it is. If you're not easily offended and open minded about comedy then I think you can find something to enjoy in it.

In the end Shane put his heart and soul into this movie and it shows. I got some big laughs out of it and I'll certainly watch it with some of my friends that are Shane Dawson fans.

I give it a 7/10. It knows the target audience and appeals to them. That's a win in itself.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

You really should know what to expect by now

[6/10 · 7 August 2014]

Here we go…

So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the reboot to the ever so popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman for some reason and produced by Michael Bay, also for some reason.. You all know the story by now. 4 mutated turtles grow up in the sewer raised by a giant rat who knows martial arts and trains them so they can protect the city from Shredder. No difference in this movie.

So the movie opens up in sort of a graphic novel type animation telling the story of the turtles which I'll admit was a nice nod to the original source material from which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came from. From there we meet April (Megan Fox) who's trying to get a story about the evil foot clan that have been terrorizing the city. She then witnesses the turtles stop them and follows them to get evidence of their existence. The turtles stop her and return to their master who says they need April's help. I won't spoil why. From there they must work together and stop Shredder from releasing a toxin on the city.

I wanted simply one thing from this movie after all the crap I've seen from it over the last few years. I want the turtles to be the turtles. I want them to reflect how they were in the 2003 cartoon preferably. A darker take but still humorous and likable. I grew up on that and the 80's cartoon and 1990's movies. Thank the lord I got that. The turtles are the best part of this movie. They deliver some funny lines although not everyone of them hit. Like you can feel that the jokes were modeled for kids which the whole movie is basically. It's like a big toy commercial. Or a Crush soda commercial. Or a Samsung phone and tablet commercial. Yeeeeah lot of product placement in this movie. Very obvious at that. Anyways as for the other characters we have April O'Neil played by Megan Fox who was alright. I really wish they worked on her dramatic screams though because those were just awful. We also have Will Arnett as her camera man who I guess is supposed to be the comic relief in this movie but literally does not have one funny joke in the whole thing even though you can feel you're supposed to be laughing but I didn't even smirk. It was like watching a stand up comic bomb his performance. Splinter was an enjoyable character. You could really see how he tied this family together.

Now if there's one thing I like in a movie it's a good villain. Did I get this? No. No I did not. Shredder has no character to him at all. In the 2003 version of him he got all this character development and I learned the motivation behind why he did what he did. In this he's literally just a guy who wants to make money. Or at least help Eric Sacks (William Fichtner) make money which is a very stupid motivation in my book. Usually villains steal money for the purpose of something bigger but in this.. they just want money. Which Eric already has because he lives in a freakin castle on top of a mountain! How much more money does he need?! Sigh.. Shredder was just so one dimensional and uninteresting. I was so let down by this.

Well what about the effects? They're actually pretty good. They did make the turtles sweat a lot though. Like A LOT. But it looked nice so I was happy about that. One downside is the CGI went down a little when interacting with humans. Like in Transformers 4. Not much to say other than those two things because I didn't focus on it much.

One last thing and I know every reviewer is saying this but it can't be said enough. The climax of this movie literally is the end of The Amazing Spider-Man only in the day time. Seriously watch The Amazing Spider-Man before you see this and see how similar it is. It's crazy.

Going in if you know this director and producer you're not expecting anything amazing. I went in with extremely low expectations and they surpassed them but only very very slightly.

I give it a 5.5/10.

The theater had a bunch of 10 year olds who thought the movie was amazing so at least they hit their target audience. But as a long time Ninja Turtles fan I left disappointed and wanting a little more. If it earns back the money maybe a sequel will be better. It won't but a guy can dream.

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

You most likely know what to expect walking in

[2/10 · 29 June 2014]

Oh boy.. here goes nothing.

So Transformers: Age of Extinction is the fourth installment of the Transformer movie saga and is once again directed by Michael "jerk out explosions" Bay.

We have a lot to talk about here today. So I'm gonna be honest I think people are being just a little too harsh on this movie. Don't get me wrong, it's bad. But I will say that it was better than revenge of the fallen so it gets points there.

So what's our story?… I'm gonna be honest, I have no freaking clue. From what I could muster up, it seems humans want all the transformers off the planet but there's this other thing where a company is using the metal transformers are made of to make their own kind of transformers that like break down into these little cubes and there's another plot with this thing called the seed and one of the robots that the factory made named Galvitron has Megatrons mind inside his head but for some reason doesn't go by Megatron and just keeps the name that the humans gave him. I couldn't follow any of it. This movie like the others follows the 3 act system that the first one made. Introduce main characters, government steps in with something against the transformers, 45 minute fight sequence. The most predictable thing ever.

What about the effects? I think they just put all their money into pyrotechnics because the CGI in this movie is awful. Just awful. The worst of the saga. There's a scene where two human characters are fighting and one gets thrown out a window and you can actually see the slight blur around his sides where the green screen was. The cube transformers looked very much like they weren't actually there and at times really hurt your eyes cause you couldn't follow how they transform. Same with the other transformers, unlike in the first one, when they transform you just see a bunch of crap move around and then they're robots and back again. In the first you can see where every little piece went and it was so cool to see. With this, not so much. Also this really isn't an effect but I think the subtitle guy just got tired one day and was sick of translating what the Chinese people say so as these two guys are talking to each other in Chinese, one of their friends comes over and starts talking to them in plain English and the guys respond in Chinese and then the guy who just spoke English speaks Chinese to them. I don't know, maybe that's just a nit pick. How can we not talk about effects in a Michael Bay movie without mentioning explosions. I never thought I'd say this but there were so many explosions that they actually began to bore me. It takes talent to make someone bored of something that can make action scenes even more fun. Michael Bay just had a field day with this one.

How about the characters? I'll tell you, I did not give a single crap about anyone. They all acted just fine but I just didn't care about them at all. They were just kinda.. there. They seriously could have been taken out of the whole movie and it may have gone the exact same way. Or Optimus would have just stayed in hiding forever. As for the transformers we have Optimus and Bumblebee as pretty much the only returning ones from the old movies with some very minor exceptions and then 3 completely new Autobots. One is a stereotypical assassin, one a stereotypical army guy and one a very stereotypical Japanese samurai. They made him really really Japanese. I kinda liked the army guy one but besides that I just did not care about any of them. Which sucks because 2 of them are played by some great actors, John Goodman and Ken Watanabe. Although if you told me it was Jackie Chan I most likely would believe you.

I gave this a 6/10. It's entertaining but it drags on for SO long with stuff you don't care about.

Snowpiercer (2013)

New Cult Classic

[9/10 · 29 June 2014]

New cult classic? I think so!

So Snowpiercer is a movie from Korea directed by Joon-ho Bong about a train that carries the last remaining humans after global warming causes a second ice age.

I'd been hearing good things about this movie very recently and saw it was only out for very limited release so I tried to find it streaming somewhere online since it wasn't playing in any theaters near me and finally found it.

I have not been this emotional over a movie in awhile. I felt connected with so many characters so anytime a character died I felt actual sadness. They make the characters very interesting so that you get sucked into the movie.

So whats our story? We have Curtis (Chris Evans) who lives in the very back of this train with all the scrubs. All they get to eat are these protein bars that look like blocks of jello and as you would guess, Curtis and everyone in the back are sick of living there and try to find a way to make it to the front. From there it's a race to survive through the many cars on the train till they can reach the sacred engine room.

The acting in this movie was on point. This is a movie where I don't mind the slow scenes at all and I love when a movie can do that. Along side the great acting is an all star cast of Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell and Octavia Spencer. Ed Harris plays the owner of the train and gives an amazing performance giving a speech to Curtis when he finally reaches him.

With a budget of around $39,000,000 it really gets put to use because the environment outside the train looks great. Also the action scenes actually got my heart racing which is saying something considered every scene just takes place in a small room. Speaking of which, they were able to do some great cinematography with the little amount of space they had, especially in the back of the train where it was always crowded.

It's enjoyable from the first frame to the last. With only a few parts that were difficult to understand I gave it an 8.5/10. It's not perfect but it's pretty dang good.

22 Jump Street (2014)

As good as the first

[8/10 · 29 June 2014]

There isn't a fourth wall in this movie. It's gone.

So 22 Jump Street is the second movie directed by Phil Lord & Chris Miller to come out this year. The other being The LEGO Movie. It's also the sequel to the reboot of 21 Jump Street. Is it as funny as the first?

Yes. Yes it is.

The characters of this movie are pure gold and you can't help but love every single one of them. That even includes the antagonists because nearly every person in this movie get's funny stuff to say. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum reprise their roles and do it perfectly all over again. Nearly every joke hits perfectly. Especially a scene where Jonah Hill and the antagonist are trying to fight but keep stopping to argue over what they're doing.

The movie follows the same story as the first one and shoves it down your throat that it's doing so. Though there is a slight twist as to who the bad guy is. Besides that it follows everything. They get to college, one is having more fun than the other, they argue, they make up, they stop the bad guy.

I was kinda skeptic to see this because there were lots of movie coming out that had my attention more than this one but I can say for a fact that I'm very happy I went to see this. I know I'm super late with this review but I had other stuff I wanted to see.

There's a scene in this movie where Ice Cube freaks out because of something Jonah Hill did during the mission that had me fighting back tears from laughing so hard. He might make the most fourth wall jokes besides the police chief. All of them are very very funny.

A great comedy with two actors that share perfect chemistry.

I gave it an 8.5/10.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

Most fun movie of the year so far

[10/10 · 15 June 2014]

The summer movie season is in full gear and this movie is helping it kick off incredibly.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 is the sequel to How To Train Your Dragon (duh) and takes place 5 years after the first film. Dragons now all live in Berk and everyone gets along great until a man named Bloodfist (if that's not the most cliché villain name ever I don't know what is) begins rounding up dragons to start an army and take over the land. Meanwhile Hiccup (being played again by Jay Baruchel) finds his lost mother who has been keeping dragons safe under the protection of an alpha dragon. Now they must team up with the dragon riders of Berk to stop Bloodfist.

If this doesn't get some kind of visuals award at the Oscars I'm gonna be angry because this movie is beautiful. I got the joy of seeing it in Imax 3D and it's so freaking amazing to look at. The animation is amazing, you can make out like every hair on Hiccups chin. The flying scenes make you feel like you're right there on a dragons back taking out the enemy. I don't know what else I can say besides how amazing and fun it was to watch. Now with the good also comes what may be somewhat of a nitpick. So bloodfist has recruited his own alpha dragon to use against our heroes alpha. Here's my problem, what he does to recruit dragons for his team is tie them down, swing his club in the air and scream at them. He doesn't like scream a special chant or anything, he just screams like some kid with very bad autism. I maybe, just maybe can understand how this could work on smaller dragons but this alpha dragon is bigger than the queen dragon from the first movie and he somehow got it to listen to him by waving a stick and screaming like a kid who didn't get the McDonald's toy they wanted? It's tough to believe but everything else in the movie completely makes up for this plot hole.

There's a major character death in this movie that I won't spoil but it actually left one of my friends in tears and my other friend fighting back tears. If a movie titled How To Train Your Dragon 2 starring the guy who plays a stoner in 90% of his roles can make someone cry then you know it's doing something right.

By far the most fun and entertaining movie I've seen so far this year and I can't wait for the 3rd one.

a 9.5 from me. It would've gotten 10 but that plot hole was waaay too big.

Friday the 13th (2009)

In My Opinion, Much Better Than The Originals

[6/10 · 11 June 2014]

So this may anger fans of the original movies but personally I can't stand them. They look bad, the effects are bad, they're acted bad, it's just all bad. Don't say it's cause they didn't have what they do now cause with movies like The Thing coming out around this time, the movie could've been waaaaaay better.

So why do I hate the originals but like this one? Well maybe like a lot but more than the first one? It's just much more entertaining. Is it acted bad? Yes, but not in the way the old ones were. Those were movies where people actually tried and failed. This one is more people acting like the people of the originals. Intentionally acting it campy like. It follows the rules for horror movies that the originals created but executes them in much better fashion.

6/10

This is one of those movies that I feel knows what it is and doesn't try to be much else. A movie that's bad but fun to make fun of. While the originals, to me, just put me to sleep and aren't even enjoyable to poke fun at. It's actually more frustrating watching those people.

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

If You Read The Book You'll Enjoy It, If Not Then You'll Most Likely Hate It

[9/10 · 5 June 2014]

The Fault In Our Stars. Another book turned movie in recent years due to peoples inability to make stuff up themselves.

We have the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster played by the lovely Shailene Woodley (who seems to be on her way to becoming the new Jennifer Lawrence. She doesn't really need the replacement already but I digress) and Augustus Waters played by Ansel Elgort.

Now to be fair I did read the book but I went into this strictly to see how well it was as a movie and you know what? It was actually pretty enjoyable. You can tell it's definitely aimed at the young adult/teenage audience with it's attractive young actors, teenage humor and well... young love. Do these things take away from it for adults? Wellll if they didn't read and enjoy the book then most likely. I sat in a packed house of teenage girls, their mothers and boyfriends who looked like they really didn't want to be there. I left the theater and didn't hear anything but weeping from about 90% of the crowd.

Alright let's look into the story. Hazel is a young cancer patient who's lungs don't work properly but doctors have given her an air tank to drag around and help her breath. She goes to cancer support groups where she meets Augustus Waters, a young, philosophical man who lost his leg due to his cancer. Over time they begin to develop feelings for each other. She shows him a book that she loves and he decides that he will use his make a wish foundation wish to let her meet the author of said book. Upon meeting him he turns out to be a drunk who wants nothing to do with them. To make up for what the author did Augustus takes her around Amsterdam to see the sights and she admits that she has fallen in love with him. The next day he admits that his cancer has returned with a vengeance and he doesn't have long to live. Hazel and her friend Isaac (played by Nat Wolff, who actually does a great job in this role)write Augustus eulogies before he dies so that he may attend his own funeral. Augustus sadly dies 8 days later and at his funeral the author returns to give Hazel a letter that Augustus wrote for her.

A very long and complex story gives you enough humor and tear jerking moments to keep lovers of the book and lovers of the romance genre satisfied. Along with that, it follows the source material very very well. John Green himself said the movie followed his book very well. They leave out little details but they're all forgivable. A movie that follows it's source this well is a rare find these days but I'm very happy with the final result. An A+ book gets an A+ retelling on the big screen.

What about acting? People are saying Shailene Woodley gave the best performance and I won't deny that she did a great job portraying Hazel but honestly to me the stand outs were Ansel as Augustus and Willem Dafoe as Peter Van Houton (the drunk author). My guess is most males are going to say Ansel was just playing the pretty boy role that anyone could do but honestly I thought he was a very enjoyable person to watch. I laughed at all his jokes, I felt myself welling up when Hazel finds him slowly dying at the gas station. Willem Dafoe also was very enjoyable to watch, he makes a good drunk, I'll give him that. One of the big surprises here out of everyone was Nat Wolff as Isaac. You remember him? From The Naked Brothers Band on Nickelodeon? That guy has really matured and grown as an actor and I'm glad. It's good to see child stars grow up to do good things.

The verdict. The Fault In Our Stars is a faithful, light hearted, retelling of a great novel.

a solid 9/10 for me.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Now This Is An X-Men Movie

[10/10 · 22 May 2014]

Fun, action packed, smart and engaging as they come. I enjoyed every second of this amazing movie, despite it having many time paradoxes. Though that comes with the territory of time travel movies.

So what's our story? The future has gone to all hell, sentinels have killed off nearly every mutant and have begun killing humans who may have mutant babies in the future. This all happens because Mystique killed the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask, which showed the government exactly why the sentinels were needed. So it's up to Wolverine to have his soul sent back in time to his "younger" body and stop these things from happening by bringing everyone together.

Now time travel is a tricky subject to work with and as a big fan of Doctor Who I paid close attention to it. Does this movie have some paradoxes? So many but the thing about paradoxes is that they keep people talking. This is a movie that me and my friends will be discussing for awhile.

How about the acting? To me the standout of this movie was Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask. I say this because he is one of the first people I've seen in a comic book movie that goes against the source material (Bolivar Trask isn't a dwarf in the comics) but make me not care about it at all because he's just that great of an actor. Now was he my favorite? No. He stood out the most to me but the character that had me smiling the most was Evan Peters as Quicksilver. He was just so much fun and had people in the theater cracking up. There's many characters that were only given very very minor roles. Though I understand because we don't want the movie too crowded. Everyone does great in their returning parts and the new characters, while being pretty under developed, still were really cool to me.

It's the perfect blend of action, humor and mutants to keep people young and old entertained. A must see for comic book and everyday moviegoers.

Godzilla (2014)

The First Movie To Make My Jaw Drop In A Long Time

[9/10 · 15 May 2014]

This has become my favorite movie of the year so far. This is exactly how a monster movie should be. It was realistic, it was intense, it had my jaw on the floor for some scenes.

Let's start with the story. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) loses his wife (Juliette Binoche) in a giant power plant earthquake but what the public doesn't know is that it wasn't an earthquake at all but a giant cave in where a giant monster known simply as a MUTO has hidden itself in a cocoon for 14 years since that day and is now being hidden away in a fake quarantine zone. Once the monster escapes it's left up to the only other thing big enough, Godzilla, to take it down.

Now I took into account that this is a giant monster movie and for a plot to be something pretty simple like that is perfectly okay with me simply for one reason, the execution of the story is done in a way that I feel as though this is how it would go down if there were giant monsters roaming earth.

Now the acting. Bryan Cranston just kills it in this role. In the scene where his wife died I believed he was truly sad. All around an amazing performance which makes it kind of heartbreaking since he's only in the movie for maybe 20-25 minutes and then just dies leaving us with the rest of the story to be told through his son, Aaron Taylor Johnson. I'll be honest I think I would've liked it better if Cranston had stayed alive and like helped back at the headquarters that was monitoring everything but that's just me. I say this because Aaron's character just feels a little one dimensional to me. Like he didn't have enough character. I cared more about seeing his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) stay alive than him and she's off somewhere hiding while he's risking his life trying to diffuse a bomb to save thousands of people. Elizabeth Olsen does a great job playing the wife in trouble and Ken Watanabe is great as always.

The CGI. I'm just going to run through this one fast because this is something I don't focus on a ton in movies but I was told how amazing the CGI in this was so I knew I'd have to focus on it for this and talk about it. The CGI for the monsters is just beyond incredible, Godzilla just looked all around great and I loved every moment that I got to see him and the MUTOs. Now as for the scenery I felt it was a little lacking, I don't know just when I see those buildings fall apart I had a harder time believing I was actually seeing buildings get destroyed. That's all I really have to say on CGI.

Now for our main man, The King Of Monsters himself. Godzilla. I had a few nitpicks in everything but this guy right here is the reason this movie got a full 10/10 from me. To describe him in one word, Epic. Just all around epic. His grand reveal sent chills down my spine and left my heart racing 10 minutes after the scene had ended. Every time that roar came out I just melted with pure nostalgia and love. This is exactly what I want Godzilla to be. He's not a "hero" he's not an "enemy" he's just an animal trying to take out things he feels threatened by. He didn't attack humans, only if they attacked him and even then it seemed like he didn't purposely try to hurt them. He seemed more scared than angry. I feel he doesn't attack humans simply because well... they're humans. They're no threat to him, they tried to drop nuclear bombs on him and he just walked it off. He fights the MUTOs because they're a threat to him. They want him dead and have the strength to back it up. The fight sequences between Godzilla and the MUTOs are something out of your childhood dreams. He throws these things around into buildings and the second you see his tail turn blue you just get this amazing feeling in your stomach because you know what's coming. ATOMIC BREATH!! Me and my friend saw Godzilla grab the larger MUTO's jaw and we said how we thought he was gonna break it's jaw and it was going to be awesome but what does he do? He freaking uses his laser breath and shoots it down the MUTO's throat until it's head falls off. My jaw was on the floor out of sheer amazement at this sight.

In conclusion Godzilla is a great movie with nice acting, good effects, and one bad ass monster. A definite must see for any Godzilla fan or fan of monster movies.

The Lego Movie (2014)

A fresh breath in the animated movie genre

[9/10 · 14 May 2014]

I went into this movie with very low expectations and I left feeling like an idiot for doubting it so much. First of all, going in I didn't take into account that the writers of 21 Jump Street made this movie and I loved that movie. So let's start with the story, while being a little clunky at times it's still very enjoyable and the story behind why all this is happening (and I won't spoil it) made this movie go from good to great. Too amazing. The animation in this movie is so incredibly creative. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING including smoke, water and explosions are made with LEGOS. I would've never thought to do something like that and I loved it. Enough that I saw this movie in theaters twice on the same day just cause I wanted to see all of that again. The over the top animation of the characters with the acting is hilarious. In the words of the movie's theme song, everything is awesome!

Pacific Rim (2013)

A Movie That Knows Exactly What It Is

[9/10 · 14 May 2014]

A movie about giant robots fighting monsters, admit it, you or at least people you knew thought this was going to crash and burn. I on the other hand looooove giant monster movies. Seeing that this movie knew exactly what it was and watching it deliver all the giant fighting robot action it could was just too amazing. This is one of those movies I wish would be re-released in IMAX since I didn't have an IMAX theater at the time this came out. I want to cheer with my friends as these giant monsters and robots fight. Everything about this movie just makes you want to stand up and cheer out of pure epicness. The story is as simple as it gets. Big unexplained portal in the ocean opens up and giant monsters come out, we make robots to fight them. Boom, movie. The characters aren't the most interesting but I didn't expect them to be at all, they had more character than I thought they would so I'll give them that. The effects, holy crap they're intense. The best? No. Good? Oh they're really really good. If you love monsters or robots then I'd say buy it. If you want just a cool action movie to watch then I'd say stream it.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Amazing isn't quite the word

[6/10 · 11 May 2014]

I went into the movie with my expectations a little lower than the first installment and actually was happily surprised that this one was much more fun and written better than the first. While not my favorite Spider-Man movie (that belongs to Raimi's Spider-Man 2) I will say this, this Spider- Man film for sure pulled my heart strings way harder than previous ones. In fact it hit me harder than any other comic book movie ever has. This was all because of "the big scene". I'm talking about the clock tower scene. The way they handle Gwen's death in this movie is /perfect/. I honest got a little teary eyed. Overall it's a really really fun film. Anything perfect? Not at all, but really nicely put together and surprised me.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Best movie of 2013

[10/10 · 11 May 2014]

I saw trailers for this movie at the beginning of 2013 and honestly the movie just never caught my attention. One day I was walking around the mall and went to the movie theater to see what was playing and I saw this was playing. I'd already seen Hobbit so I went to this instead and I must say it was the best choice I'd made in a long time. It's funny, it's edgy, it's smart, it's incredibly acted, it's just all around perfect to me. If I wasn't a Scorsese guy before I certainly am now.Who would've guessed a movie that is purely centered around drugs, sex, money and power could be made into something that really makes you think. Though I don't think I'll ever trust wall-street ever after this. Go buy the movie if you haven't already done so.