[McLovin]

Saw HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2. Pretty good, maybe not as good as the first, but awesome animation.

[QuickTidal]

Saw TF4 today (we didn't get out to it on the weekend), and aside from being overlong and having REALLY bad dialogue (mostly the humans) I agree with SaltMan's review. It's VERY entertaining, and is easily as good as the first. The second thing being that it really does FEEL like the beginning of a whole new trilogy/era...I almost didn't feel like I was watching a continuation.

The Dinobots rule.

Some spoilerific stuff:

Spoiler

Lockdown was a great villain (whilst we establish Galvatron! Who was SO voiced by Frank Welker! Original G1 Galvatron voice coming at ya!)) who's goal was not galaxy domination, but cash from the "creators" of the transformers...Oh man, does this mean that we are looking down the barrel of seeing Primus and Unicron and the beginning of everything laid out in future films? Or are we looking at the Quintessons first...that shot early on before the seed drops on ancient earth LOOKED like a biological hand and the Quintessons had biological parts. Either way, the mythos can only help, so I SO hope this is the case. I like the fact that Bay tone down almost all of his 'isms in this flick, and that includes heavy military presence (replaced by the more subdued CIA thugs), and instead of the US government trying to mess with stuff, we get the Steve Jobs-like character that was intro'ed. Love the addition of the metal that makes them possible being essentially mined. Some new mythos being built and I'm fully cool with that. I suspect that the end-game villain for the new trilogy will definitely be Unicron. I DO, however, think the series needs to end with the bots getting Cybertron back.

All in all I was supremely entertained and it's easily one of Bay's more toned down efforts.

And no one misses stupid shia labeef.

EDIT: $302 million opening weekend take. That's damned big. Critics are always going to hate these flicks, but damned if there isn't a huge audience for Baysplosion extravaganza's. I'm a part of that quotient.

EDIT #2: I'd also like to note that I've noticed some people complaining about the Chinese financiers influencing the shooting locations and cast additions...but if I'm honest I thought it was a wonderful addition to have the third act take place entirely in Hong Kong, and there is even a chase/fight sequence between Mark Wahlberg and Titus Welliver that would not have looked out of place in a Tsui Hark film. The city added a nice, proper global flavour to a series that (even though it went to Egypt and Somalia ect. with the past films) never really felt global and was too centrally American...this changes that slightly and I liked that aspect.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 01 July 2014 - 03:25 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

Yeah, I don't get the Hong Kong criticisms when the entire first act of TF2 took place in Shanghai.

[D'rek]

I watched Pacific Rim for the first time yesterday and agree with what Apt said above. There are a lot of massively illogical explanations or lack thereof in that movie. It seems like it is trying to handwave those things aside, basically shout "look how cool our giant robots and monsters fighting are, yeah!" and also try to be all serious and dramatic at the same time. I don't think it really meshed any of those 3 things together very well. Transformers is certainly not a better intellectual movie, but it knows its own silly tone and can get away with "the government are incompetent morons because its funnier and sets up the plot that way", it even seems natural for that to be the case with the tone of those movies. With Pacific Rim trying to be so emotional and dramatic in its non-giant-monster scenes, it can't really pull that off.

[Silencer]

D, on 03 July 2014 - 01:52 AM, said:

I watched Pacific Rim for the first time yesterday and agree with what Apt said above. There are a lot of massively illogical explanations or lack thereof in that movie. It seems like it is trying to handwave those things aside, basically shout "look how cool our giant robots and monsters fighting are, yeah!" and also try to be all serious and dramatic at the same time. I don't think it really meshed any of those 3 things together very well. Transformers is certainly not a better intellectual movie, but it knows its own silly tone and can get away with "the government are incompetent morons because its funnier and sets up the plot that way", it even seems natural for that to be the case with the tone of those movies. With Pacific Rim trying to be so emotional and dramatic in its non-giant-monster scenes, it can't really pull that off.

I think some people are suffering Internet Hype Syndrome and/or are really not understanding the angle Pacific Rim was coming from. XD

[Silencer]

TF4 - enjoyed it immensely. There are the usual caveats about the human cast (who were nonetheless a phenomenal improvement over any of the previous movies), and even the plot felt like it got a lot more attention and care put into it.

My main gripes were basically also some of its strengths. Namely: this movie actually felt a lot more like the creators had pulled from the original series, with a lot of hints around the larger universe coming in which were awesome. The downside?

Spoiler

Since when has Grimlock EVER EVER EVER been that easy for Optimus to 'tame'/beat?! It seems like there is no practical reason he can curbstomp however many new!Decepticons he did but was beaten by Prime in like five seconds. Again; this sticks out to me more BECAUSE of the closer 'feel' to the original series where Grimlock more or less could kick Prime's ass - the only reason he and the other Dinobots were under Prime's control is because they accepted that they kinda needed Prime to organise them to make them effective and not just chaotic destruction.

So it's a bit of a dichotomy. I felt it was a good move overall, but it did kinda have perfectly avoidable pitfalls that, if anything, were only not viable to avoid due to the already 3-hourish runtime.


Loved the main bad guy - he was totally badass as fuck. And probably should have won. XD

[Illuyankas]

It was entertaining enough, though about half an hour too long, the final two fights should have been combined into one huge free for all and though much reduced the usual Bayisms were still there - at least the terrible stereotyped black person appearance was thankfully just a cameo, though it'd be better to have not existed - but holy shit:

Spoiler

That Shane guy was creepy as fuck! "Hey Girlfriend's Comically Overprotective Dad, not only am I the kind of guy who'd go out with a 14-year-old at 17*, but I literally have the legal statute saying I can bang a minor in my wallet, just to show people who would find my banging of a minor wrong in some way, because that's not skeezy at all! Let me just throw this in your face while we recover from the horrible death of your friend!" What an asshole.





*I will note that I may have misunderstood the stated legislation from the movie, which I thought meant that relationships between two minors are protected from one being legal age to when the other also reaches it, meaning he was at least 17 and 3 years older than her, so correct me if I'm wrong but who keeps that kind of stuff in their wallet, man

creeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppppppyyyyyyy

The important thing is that Frank Welker's in it.

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 06 July 2014 - 07:15 AM

[Traveller]

Silencer, on 06 July 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

D, on 03 July 2014 - 01:52 AM, said:

I watched Pacific Rim for the first time yesterday and agree with what Apt said above. There are a lot of massively illogical explanations or lack thereof in that movie. It seems like it is trying to handwave those things aside, basically shout "look how cool our giant robots and monsters fighting are, yeah!" and also try to be all serious and dramatic at the same time. I don't think it really meshed any of those 3 things together very well. Transformers is certainly not a better intellectual movie, but it knows its own silly tone and can get away with "the government are incompetent morons because its funnier and sets up the plot that way", it even seems natural for that to be the case with the tone of those movies. With Pacific Rim trying to be so emotional and dramatic in its non-giant-monster scenes, it can't really pull that off.

I think some people are suffering Internet Hype Syndrome and/or are really not understanding the angle Pacific Rim was coming from. XD

I think I'm with you there. When I first saw it I was so distracted by all the plotholes, cheesey speeches, 'wacky' scientists and massive, massive parallels to Independence Day that it just left me feeling pissed off with it.

Despite this, I put it on again the other night because I wanted to see giant monsters fighting robots, and it totally delivered - I let the other stuff slide and let it do its thing. I guess i liked it more because my expectations were so monumentally low after the first time.

(That guy from Torchwood/Thrones still sticks out like a sore thumb with his horrendous comedy scientist overacting though.)

This post has been edited by Traveller: 06 July 2014 - 12:09 PM

[Silencer]

I honestly had the same kind of issue with Avatar. It was hyped, the story and acting was meh. But if you just watch it for pure eye porn? Brilliant.

So my initial (and enduring) opinion of it was that it's a crap film. But subsequent viewings did allow me to appreciate it's strengths a lot more without the hype filter.

[QuickTidal]

Silencer, on 06 July 2014 - 05:53 AM, said:

Spoiler

Since when has Grimlock EVER EVER EVER been that easy for Optimus to 'tame'/beat?! It seems like there is no practical reason he can curbstomp however many new!Decepticons he did but was beaten by Prime in like five seconds. Again; this sticks out to me more BECAUSE of the closer 'feel' to the original series where Grimlock more or less could kick Prime's ass - the only reason he and the other Dinobots were under Prime's control is because they accepted that they kinda needed Prime to organise them to make them effective and not just chaotic destruction.

Indeed.

Spoiler

ESPECIALLY because in the main mythos it was actually Grimlock who Alpha wanted to make the Prime of Cybertron, but when Grimlock went missing (to earth with his compadres) Alpha had little choice but to upgrade the Autobot archivist Optimus instead. I was less annoyed by the fact that Optimus cowed him so easily, but I still noted it as well. I'd like to see the dinobots in the next one and have Grimlock challenge Optimus for leadership as a result.

[QuickTidal]

Illuyankas, on 06 July 2014 - 07:12 AM, said:

It was entertaining enough, though about half an hour too long, the final two fights should have been combined into one huge free for all and though much reduced the usual Bayisms were still there - at least the terrible stereotyped black person appearance was thankfully just a cameo, though it'd be better to have not existed - but holy shit:

Spoiler

That Shane guy was creepy as fuck! "Hey Girlfriend's Comically Overprotective Dad, not only am I the kind of guy who'd go out with a 14-year-old at 17*, but I literally have the legal statute saying I can bang a minor in my wallet, just to show people who would find my banging of a minor wrong in some way, because that's not skeezy at all! Let me just throw this in your face while we recover from the horrible death of your friend!" What an asshole.





*I will note that I may have misunderstood the stated legislation from the movie, which I thought meant that relationships between two minors are protected from one being legal age to when the other also reaches it, meaning he was at least 17 and 3 years older than her, so correct me if I'm wrong but who keeps that kind of stuff in their wallet, man

creeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppppppyyyyyyy

The important thing is that Frank Welker's in it.

Spoiler

Yup. My issue with that stems from Ehren Kruger's script...why did Lucky Charms have to be 20? Why on earth could they not have just made him 17 as well? I mean it makes zero sense to have that creepy ass feature in the script. Dad-who-doesn't-let-his-daughter-date can still be overprotective of her dating a person her same age can't he? I mean what was the purpose of putting that in there at all? It just seems uber-creepy from a grown ass adult screenwriter who felt it pertinent to put it in there. It affects the story not one bit to remove it and age the boyfriend down a bit.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 06 July 2014 - 12:56 PM

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 06 July 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

Does the South Park movie offend Canadians at all?

It never offended me or my friends. We saw that movie multiple times and laughed our tails off. Why?

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 06 July 2014 - 09:25 PM, said:

Just wondering. I haven't watched it since it was in theaters so I really forgot the plot till I happened to catch it today. I damn near pissed myself when the senators where all picking on the Canadian senators for saying "about"-"aboot"!

It's a damned fine comedy film, I always laugh when it's on.

[Spoilsport Stonny]

Caught RAID 2 last night. Perhaps caught is a bad way to phrase it. It was more like HYPNOSIS VIA VIOLENT BLOODY BALLET THAT SEEMED AS IF IT WAS NEVER GOING TO END.

Seriously, that is not a bad thing. I felt as if I was being driven as mad as the main character because he had to kill - and this is an understatement! - so many people. I have never seen anything like it before. Just wild shit.

[worry]

It's like someone saw the hallway scene in Oldboy and thought to themselves "Hmm, this has inspired me to make the greatest movie series of all time."

[Spoilsport Stonny]

The hammers had to be an homage.

[QuickTidal]

Say what one will of Ridley Scott's recent flicks...what he does REALLY well is the sand and sandal epic (GLADIATOR, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN)...so this film is probably one of the most anticipated of the year for me.

[tiam]

Even the bible is getting a gritty reboot recently. Noah was ok this looks like it could be good.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

QuickTidal, on 09 July 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Say what one will of Ridley Scott's recent flicks...what he does REALLY well is the sand and sandal epic (GLADIATOR, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN)...so this film is probably one of the most anticipated of the year for me.

The video was removed. What was the name of the film?

[QuickTidal]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 10 July 2014 - 04:15 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 09 July 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Say what one will of Ridley Scott's recent flicks...what he does REALLY well is the sand and sandal epic (GLADIATOR, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN)...so this film is probably one of the most anticipated of the year for me.

The video was removed. What was the name of the film?

EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS...it's up at Apple Trailers in Quicktime.