Movie Review: Power Rangers

I kind of remember watching the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on TV as a really young kid, with my youngest brother being a baby almost. Back then we liked most anything that was colorful on TV, while my Mom did not. Having older brothers that could change the channel when she left the room was handy. These memories made me curious about this weeks movie, Power Rangers.

The movie starts in the Cenozoic era on Earth, 65 million years ago. It shows volcanoes erupting in the background as a Red Power Ranger crawls on the ground. He gets to the Yellow Power Ranger and takes her power coin, causing the armor around her to disappear, revealing the dying alien inside of it. Then the Red Power Ranger continues crawling while asking Alpha 5 to aim the meteor towards him. He takes the power coin and buries it with the other four he has including his own telling them to find someone worthy, when he is then confronted by the Rita Repulsa (played by Elizabeth Banks). As they speak, we find out the Red Power Ranger is Zordon (played by Bryan Cranston) and he is trying to save the world from Rita. Rita says that Zordon won't survive fighting her, and Zordon says they will both die together. The meteor hits shortly after, sending Rita into the sea with a green power coin, drowning her, and killing Zordon immediately.

It then moves to the present day where two high school students are bringing a cow into the locker rooms for a prank. One says that they should have done something else instead and begin arguing, when they hear police signals from outside. One of the two, Jason (played by Dacre Montgomery) gets in his truck and starts driving away. The police chase after him, but he escapes from them and continues driving away. Just when he thinks he is good he ends up in a car crash that wrecks the truck, injures him, and gets caught by the police. It goes to six days later when he is being dropped off to his school by his dad (played by David Denman) for detention. They talk about why Jason has to go there, how disappointed his dad is, and shows the ankle tracker that he now has to wear because of his actions.

The story plot was ok, but honestly I thought with the action at the beginning that we would have a decent amount through the whole movie, but that was not the case. As with a lot of origin movies, most of the action was at the end. I would compare the length of time between the beginning and the action to Batman v Superman, but I think this one had a bit more in it. Even though it takes a while to get to most of the action, when it does it makes you feel like a young kid again. Or at least, that's how I felt for a moment or two. It was nice to have that nostalgia on knowing how they all became Power Rangers in this, plus some backstory on the first Power Rangers as well. But with how graphic some of the violence in this, I would probably not recommend very young children going to see this.

The acting was not as cheesy as the original Power Rangers, but still pretty up there. I think it is just their trademark at this point. I actually think that is why Elizabeth Banks was so perfect for her role as Rita. She knows the perfect balance between cheesy funny and cringing cheesy. She also managed to bring some actual feeling of terror of her character to the roll, which again helped with that balance. I will give props to RJ Cyler who played the Blue Power Ranger Billy as well. It is told early into the movie that he is on the autism spectrum, and how he portrayed that was done well. Another movie that has a main character with autism is The Accountant. These of course affect me personally, not because I am on the autism scale, but because my difficulties have what they call autistic tendencies. I think it is great for kids to see people like this as someone they can look up to. The other actors were good for their roles for the most part as well, and with the mid-credit scene you know they will have more movies to improve and build from here.

Overall, the acting was done very well considering the roles and cheesiness, and the story went very in depth with most everything they never explained before. If you are or were a long time Power Rangers fan, or are just starting into it, this movie is definitely something to watch. As for negatives, keep in mind this is supposed to be a kids movie, but probably not for kids under the age of five. And so, for the reasons above, I would rate this movie 7.8/10.

Movie Review: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I have grown up with Disney movies in my house my whole life. Though I don't remember it very well, we had the original Beauty and the Beast on VHS when I was very young. I am told that we would watch it a lot because it was one of my favourites, so I am excited to see what they will do with the live action version. So, I hope you enjoy my review on the new Beauty and the Beast.

The movie starts out nearly the same as the 1991 animated movie does, but this time it's not told on stained glass. It shows a hand picking a rose, then as a narrator speaks the story of the spoiled Prince (played by Dan Stevens), we zoom in on him getting makeup on to get ready for his ball. He had only the most beautiful people and things ever surround him. As the party is going on a storm arises and there is a thunderous knock at the door. As the Prince rises to check it out, the doors burst open and in comes an ugly beggar woman asking for shelter in exchange for a rose. The prince laughs as do the others around him. The woman says to not be deceived by looks, but the Prince casts her out again. It is at this moment that the old woman turns into the beautiful Enchantress and places a curse on him and his castle.

It then goes to Belle (played by Emma Watson) coming out of her house and singing about the provincial town that she lives in. She bumps into the town baker and buys some bread and talks about her book briefly but he is not interested. As she goes along the rest of the town comes to life saying hello and good morning to each other. Belle gets to the town library, which is really small, returns the book she had just read and borrows one of her favorites. It is at this time we meet Gaston (played by Luke Evans) and LeFou (played by Josh Gad) coming back from a war while talking. Gaston talks of how he wants to marry Belle, and then it continues on with the song.

The story plot was very much like the original for people going for nostalgic reasons. The changes they did make were pretty noticeable though as well. You know there are going to be changes made, especially when going from one and a half hours to two hours. There were additional storylines to round out some of the characters, as well as some musical numbers. I am not going to go into specifics and spoil the movie, but for the most part they were a great touch. There were a couple that I thought were distracting to the story, though. I am torn with some of the new songs as well. Some were good and some seemed unnecessary and almost gave the movie an unfinished feel.

First I would like to say that the people who chose the actors made a wonderful choice with all of them. The one thing I probably missed most from the original movie though is the deep voice Gaston had, but with the way Luke Evans portrayed him, it almost didn't matter. Emma Watson did a great job with Belle and showing us her strength, but I did miss a little of her initial warmth we get with the animation. She may have brought a little too much Hermione over from Harry Potter forgetting that even when Belle says no to Gaston proposing marriage, she was gentle and kind. That may have been the writers as well, it's a tough call with that one. The one that surprised me the most though was Dan Stevens. I have been watching him on his new show Legion and he has such a quiet voice there most of the time I could not see him with the rough growly persona of the Beast, but he pulled it off brilliantly. I just wish we could have seen more than just his eyes for most of the movie as he is great with facial expressions, more than the CGI face of Beast was anyways.

Overall, the story plot had some good changes and some not as good ones, and the acting might have been a little better in some places. But as much as negativity goes, it's better to see the good rather than focus on the bad, which I think might be the moral of the movie. And so, I would rate this movie 8.2/10.

Movie Review: Logan

This weeks review is on Logan, which I could not see on my own due to its 18A rating, so I would like to say thank-you to my Mom for accompanying me to this. I did look up the reason for the rating before hand and figured if the movies I have watched with 14A ratings that should have been higher, like Deadpool, I could handle the violence that they say is the reason for the higher rating. I was really interested in seeing where they took Wolverine after having watched all the previous X-Men movies.

The movie starts out with Logan (played by Hugh Jackman) waking up in the back of a limousine with some movement and noises happening outside. As he stumbles out the door, he finds a gang trying to steal the tires but failing. He is old but tries to warn them to stop. They think it is all a game and shoot him. He gets back up and brings out the claws, but one does not come out all the way. The gang start to fight him and it starts to look like they're winning, until the limo gets shot. Logan gets angry and starts chopping off limbs and killing them. Some of them manage to get away, but Logan is still pretty upset that the limo is damaged.

We find out it is the year 2029 and Logan is working in El Paso, Texas as a limo driver. We see him working his way through a variety of fares ranging from business people, to wedding parties and funerals. It is while he is waiting at a funeral he is approached by a woman who recognizes him as Wolverine. This makes him really upset as she insists she needs his help and he is the only one that can do it. He tells her to leave and gets back to his current client.

The plot in this movie is probably the most heartfelt and honest plot in all the X-Men movies. We see Logan struggling with old age, which he has never had to worry about before. Being over 170 years old, you can see it upsets him. He is sick and can't heal as well. He is almost all alone as the other X-Men were hunted and killed. All he has left is Xavier (played by Sir Patrick Stuart) who is also struggling with failing health. There is a huge emotional element to the story as they bring in what appears to be the first new mutant in a long time. The movie does get its 18A rating for good cause though. There is quite a bit of language and one brief nudity scene, but there is a massive amount of violence. We are talking literal heads rolling violence, but it was not in bad taste considering the story. The only slight downside was there were a few scenes that seemed to drag on, but the action made up for it.

The acting was extremely enjoyable. We had class A actors who have embodied their characters for many years. This is the movie they have been waiting for to really bring them to life in the end of their run. The introduction of new comer Dafne Keen who played Laura was great. She almost stole the whole movie away from Hugh Jackman. With the two great actors she worked with and could learn from, it is no wonder that she could do nothing else but shine. There were a couple of corny villain actors in my opinion, and I am not sure if that is just a bit of a throwback to the origin of the movie franchise. However, it wasn't enough to ruin the movie but just enough to be slightly noticeable.

Overall, the acting was phenomenal with many great moments throughout the movie. One of the very few things I might have changed about this would be making it a little less cheesy in some parts, but other than that, it was the best X-men movie I have seen. And because of this I would rate this movie 9.2/10.

Movie Review: The LEGO Batman Movie

Before I begin, I would like to say that I do realise this came out a month later than it should have. I was busy with some school stuff and I didn't have full access to the computer to work on it. I have decided not to change some things written down, but with so much time I had to think, some stuff did change from what I had first. But other than this, I hope you enjoy the review.

This weeks movie is a nice light way to spend the weekend after the thrilling film festival I reviewed last. In true LEGO fashion, this Batman movie looks to be a lot of fun and nothing too serious. The kid in me that used to play with LEGO is excited to see it come alive on screen. Lets see if it can live up to the hype of what's to come.

The movie starts out with the usual opening credits, but with a twist. Batman (Voiced by Will Arnett) making comments and narrating in his own way through the whole thing. As we see Gotham City come into focus and a plane flying over head. It turns out two friends are transporting an obscene amount of explosive materials while Joker (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) and his crew of all the super villains are trying to hijack it. There is a ton of crazy things going on which include a bomb being set under the city so Commissioner Jim Gordan (Voiced by Hector Elizando) turns on the bat signal only to find it has been egged. All hope seems to be lost and so Mayor McCaskill (Voiced by Mariah Carey) gets air lifted to the central core of the city to surrender it to Joker and his gang.

As all the villains gather round to witness their victory, Mayor McCaskill strips down to reveal that she was actually Batman in disguise. He gets to work single handedly taking down all of the criminals and even stops the bomb under the city from destroying it. The citizens all cheer and Batman returns home to his island where he gets to enjoy his Batcave with left over lobster and watching Jerry Maguire on the screen alone.

The entire plot of the movie is a satire on the Batman franchise and Will Arnett does a great job bringing that to life. As Batman goes through a self discovery journey to recognize his weakness and change, there are so many references to previous movies and TV shows that you can't help but laugh. The way it mocks itself reminds me of Deadpool, only kid friendly. The only thing that might be a downside is that some of the jokes seem to require knowledge of all the previous versions of Batman, which most kids will not get, but will probably work for a lot of the adult audience. Do not attend this movie looking for any type of serious note in relation to the Batman universe, though.

The voice acting is richly entertaining. Will Arnett does a great job doing the gravelly voice people have come to expect with the character, but in such a way that you just can't take it seriously. The supporting characters also are brilliantly brought to life with a few standouts being Michael Cera as Robin, Rosario Dawson as Batgirl, and Ralph Fiennes as Alfred. But the great banter between Batman and Zach Galifianakis' Joker was fantastic. I really have to give props to the writers who gave these voice actors some great lines to work with.

Overall, the voice acting was very well done alongside the story plot. Though it wasn't the best of all the Batman movies, it still did a pretty great job. The animation they did for these LEGO movies is exceptional, however I did lose interest shortly from time to time while watching. And for these reasons I would rate this movie 7.6/10.

Short Film Review Compilation

This post is going to be different from the other posts I usually do. This is because I attended a mini film festival here called "Final Breath Filmfest" and there were multiple short films with a horror/thriller theme instead of a whole movie to review. It was all local talent rather than Hollywood and other box office things I commonly get to watch. I will be honest with my thoughts still, and treat them like the big names they hope to be one day. So with that being said, I hope you enjoy the reviews.

The evening started out with the red carpet being laid out for all of those who attended. It was nice to have a small feeling of being at a big premiere event. There was excitement with the crowd as we watched the actors and crew involved in the main film being featured, Final Breath, enter the building. After some photos were taken we all headed into the theater. Norm Coyne of UNLTD Media & Events did a great job introducing the film fest and getting everything going. You could tell he was a little nervous and excited because he was pacing the stage as he talked.

The first short film is called "The Big Deal" by Jonathan Chuby. It is about two guys waiting to do their first big illegal deal and the events that happen during it. All I can really say is it was not what I was expecting coming into the film fest. Though I saw what they were going for, it was more of a comical film than a thriller. It had a little overacting, but that did help with the comedy element. It was a fun way to start things off.

The next short film is called "Through Blood Like Ice" by Chad Magnant. It is about some kidnappers waiting for their ransom payment with an unexpected twist. Though the acting was very good, I found there were too frequent of jump cuts. I understand needing the backstory in this one, even with the little amount of time they had, but I think there were just a couple too many and it actually slowed the story down. However, I did enjoy the plot twist and think it is worth watching again.

"Back Up" by Daniel Stark was the next short film to be presented. It is about a guy driving down the road at night when supernatural things happen. The actors did a great job on this one, even if they didn't say a word. This may not have given us much story to go with, but it added to the horror factor a little bit. This was also one of the shorter short films, but it did bring the scare factor into the evening.

The fourth short film featured was called "One Null" by Evan Ollenberger. It is about a group of teenagers who are fed up with people nowadays and try to escape to "The Null" but things do not go as planned. This one was by far the one that scared me the most out of all of them. Though the acting was a little flat at first, it did pick up pretty fast.

After a music video by Jer Breaks called "Come Down", featured at the end of the blog, we watched the shortest of the short films called "The Scratcher" by Daniel Stark. It is about a guy who might be having a nightmare, or is he? As this was the shortest of them all, there wasn't very much to go on. However, this one did give us a bit of a laugh as well while still giving a little bit of a scare factor.

"Defenseless" by Chad Magnant was the final short film to be shown before the main event. This one shows two guys getting high together and the things that could happen. This one was the goriest of all the films shown that night. I noticed a few people having to look away a couple of times. I liked the conflict, both individual and between the characters. 

The main event was "Final Breath" by Kim Feragen, and was one of the winners of the Storyhive by Telus creative grants for a digital short by a female director. This Film Festival was a debut of the finished product. The story is about a videographer who films peoples stories just before they die. She comes to one lady who starts telling her about the day she and a friend went looking for a lost dog and ended up in a chilling situation. I actually really like the idea of the story, but after hearing about the true story that brought about the idea, I wished they would have had more time to expand on it. It is a great idea for a full length movie where they could really develop the characters.  However, since the challenge was to create a short film, they did a great job presenting the story and giving us a build up and twist.

If you would like to check out the video for yourself please head over to Storyhive. The finished film is now in a final competition stage for a grand prize. If you like it too, then please vote for Final Breath to win. Voting can be done everyday no matter where you live and from every device you can.

The overall experience for my first film festival was fun, with a great mixture of humor, gore and thrills. Norm Coyne definitely brought a lot of energy to this event. If I could, I would go to many more of these short film festivals.

Movie Review: Split

This week's movie is Split, and just the trailer got me very interested. How the mind works and different possibilities has always been an interesting topic for me as long time readers might know. I enjoy checking out movies that give a focus to these ideas. For some added fun this one is a thriller, so hear are my thoughts on if it lived up to the hype.

The movie starts with what looks like the end of a birthday party and a girl, Casey Cooke (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), sitting at the table but looking alone. Next we see two other girls, the birthday girl Claire (played by Haley Lu Richardson) and her best friend Marcia (played by Jessica Sula), talking to Claire's father (played by Sebastain Arcelus) about how this happens when you give a pity invite. They are talking about Casey who is standing alone by a window on the phone. She walks over and explains that her ride broke down and will not be coming and she will just take the bus. Claire's dad says he will give her a ride home.

We follow them out to the car where they start loading up all of Claire's gifts into the trunk. Clair's dad keeps loading them while the girls get in the car. While the other two girls talk in the back, Casey watches in the mirror for Clair's dad. When she hears the trunk close, they all put on their seatbelts, but Casey stopped when she noticed some of the stuff spilled on the ground instead of being in the trunk. A man, who we find out later is named Kevin (played by James McAvoy), gets in the driver seat in place of Clair's dad. The girls in the back say he got in the wrong car, and he puts on a mask and sprays them with something, knocking them out. Casey, who hasn't been noticed yet, tries to slowly escape, but when the door opens it makes noise in the car, and she gets sprayed too.

The acting was extremely well done by James McAvoy. The way he had to play multiple characters in one body was crazy, and he played them all perfectly. The acting by Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula wasn't quite as good, but they were only having to portray one character. The characters of Claire and Marcia were almost stereotypical of rich privileged girls with little understanding of anything else. This is probably what they were suppose to be like to enhance everything James McAvoy had to do and the subtle acting of Anya, but it dragged the movie down a little as well. 

The story plot was slightly confusing at times, only because of a lot of back and forth scenes. I understand having some of them there helped with the building suspense, but a few flashback scenes just didn't tie into the story as well. It may have been to add to character development, but more seemed added in to make it be longer and took away from the build up. However, it had a great theory behind the whole thing and what makes it even more chilling is how possible it really is. I did a little reading on real Dissociative Identity Disorder's (DID) and it was interesting. You can check out these ten famous cases here.

Overall, the acting could have been better from some people, and the story plot could have had some things cut out as far as I could see. It was still a very well made movie, and really did make for a great thriller movie. For these reasons above I would rate this movie 8.6/10.

Movie Review: Passengers

I hope you had a happy holidays over the past few weeks. What a wonderful time of year for everyone. But what would you do if it was just you and one other person alone in space? How would you celebrate? This weeks movie touches on that subject and more. I have been waiting to see this movie since I saw the first trailer. I would have done this review last week, but I decided against working during the holidays. Here are my thoughts on if it is actually as good as it appeared to be.

The movie starts with a shot of space then the space ship flies through. We have an empty and nearly soundless tour around the ship, when we reach the main control center. A system error shows up on screen, and it fixes it right away. An asteroid field shows up on screen and the ship is shown diverting power to the shield. Its scanner shows a very big asteroid in the field, but the shield breaks it into small pieces flying away in all directions. One of them hits the ship, which then fixes all but one error; a hibernation pod.

This wakes up Jim Preston (played by Chris Pratt), one of the 5000 passengers aboard. He goes through some things to help wake him up, then sends him to his room for rest. After resting, he wanders around, noticing nobody else is awake. After finding no other person in any area, he finally finds someone behind the bar on the first floor. The bartender Arthur (played by Michael Sheen) notices Jim and offers a drink of whisky. Jim sits down and, now realising Arthur is an android, says that his pod malfunctioned and he's the only one awake.

The storyline was slow moving at first. Now I understand needing to show the length of time of loneliness but I am thinking it got to be a little too much before we had something mildly interesting happen. Almost like a drawn out adult version of the first alone part of Home Alone. When we introduced Jennifer Lawrence as Aurora Lane into the mix it gets a little more interesting but still takes a while before getting into the meat of the movie. When it does pick up though it is good and keeps you on your toes.

The acting was way more real than I was expecting. The way Chris Pratt displayed the loneliness in the ship was almost exactly how someone would react. And when Jennifer Lawrence came onto screen, she made it feel like we were really watching her struggle and more. So what I am saying is the acting is not the reason the movie felt so long and drawn out in the beginning. Without the great acting I think the movie would have been really hard to watch, instead they kept our interest when the story lagged in everything else. I do not think they were as good as Matt Damon in The Martian, but I still really enjoyed what they brought to this movie.

Overall, it started out pretty slow, but with the acting being so good, it almost doesn't matter. And with the amazing graphics all around, you would almost believe this were a real space trip. So for all the reasons stated above I would rate this movie 7.9/10.