Netflix Night

How to Train Your Dragon Again and 22 Jump Street seem to have no problems earning money over the weekend. Also, I'm not sure if this upcoming weekend is going to be good on their releases, although there is some hope with one of them(No, it's not Think Like a Man Too, how dare you!).

Since 22 Jump Street is review proof, not in that there's nothing I can say about the movie that would quantify as any sort of meaningful criticism because these movies "aren't supposed to be taken seriously" but in that anything I have to say about the movie would just be spoiling it on why it works and why the movie is just so damned funny.

So, let's do a one off thing! Are you looking through all of those Netflix titles and thinking to yourself "Man! There are just too many options. I don't know what to watch." Well, let me point out some of the more interesting titles. I can't guarantee that you'll like every one of these movies, but they are all "different" enough to warrant some kind of viewing.

Dredd

I'm going to start off with a movie that's a little more simple. Not very many people went to see Dredd when it came out but, as far as action movies go, this one outshines even the biggest blockbusters. It's one of those movies that "goes big" by going small just by having the entire movie take place in one building. But, having everything feel contained is what works in the movies favor, much like in The Raid, as all of the stakes revolve around the main characters and it's not about some "end of the world" macguffin that tries to hide the fact that the makers didn't know how to actually put a story into there movie. So, it's really no wonder why a movie this small hits the mark better than most summer action movies with a wide scale in destruction. I think the most effective way to describe this movie is Die Hard but with Judge Dredd.

And, no, it's NOTHING like that one Stallone movie.

Bernie

Once again, trying to keep things a bit simple here and to guarantee that what you'll watch is going to be something enjoyable. But Bernie goes for incredibly hard biting commentary on the life style in a small town and what was going through the mind of the person who committed an actual murder that happened in real life. Bernie mixes between this sort of faux-documentary style with actual movie story telling, but the transitions are seamless and it's engaging all the way through as it is funny. The fact that the movie can go into a true story with this sort of black comedy angle takes guts and skill; this movie has both.

Maniac

So, how would a film play out where Elijah Wood plays a serial killer and the entire movie takes place in a first-person perspective in the eyes of said serial killer? If nothing else, the provocative nature of this movie is what makes it memorable but I'd go so far as to say that it's also just really, really good. Yes, the movie isn't going to be for everyone. Yes, the film is very dark, gruesome, and disturbing. But a film that's this bold and audacious plays out to be more than just a standard "slasher" movie. The movie is intimate on Elijah Wood's character while also having no problem with saying that, yeah, what he's doing is wrong.

At the same time though, it's definitely not for somebody with weak stomachs. I really liked this movie but be warned that this isn't really a fun movie to get into even if you are into this kind of stuff.

Only God Forgives

Directed by the same person behind Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn, this one is more interesting on a visual level more than anything else. I think it also might be fair to say that it's kind of indulgent as well, not in the sense that this guy just likes to see violent imagery and people getting killed in some horrific ways but in the way of how the director likes to film his movies. He's all about playing with the audience on this one with long visual cues and scenes that I'm not even sure if they really make any sense. However, I think I did like this movie even if I didn't completely understand it.

God Bless America

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was shocked, horrified, and even scared. A movie where a guy decides he's had enough with the sick trends and the blatant worshiping of being an anti-intellectual, so he decides to kill everyone who's a part of the problem? I mean, I agreed with the things that the main character was saying but I wasn't sure if I could handle the fact that he was going out killing people because of it.

But, after my trip to California, I feel a lot more okay about this movie than I did earlier. I think it really had a lot to do with being exposed to more reality TV than I would have like to have been(IE any reality TV at all). The movie is about as pitch black as a comedy as you can get with the movie still having a light hearted feeling to it. I guess that's about the only way you could really approach this movie without it seeming like a threat to most of humanity.

And, honestly, I think I did really like this movie.

Hot Rod

This about the goofiest movie I've ever really seen anyone attempt. Yes, it's even more off the walls than either of the Anchorman movies. A young man wants to live out his dream as a daredevil and, as you know, hilarity ensues. But the movie goes a step further by not just having its jokes be about the main character failing spectacularly but by also having all of the characters act in all of these bizarre ways in incredibly bizarre situations.

After showing this movie to my brother, he said it was pretty stupid even though he did laugh through a lot of the movie. And yeah, this movie does seem to aim for that kind of humor, but it does so with skill. It's not a smart movie but it's smartly made and these guys know how to tell their jokes.

So, cool beans!

Robot and Frank

A man with Alzheimer's is forced to have a robot helper because his son is really worried about him. Also, this guy likes to go off and steal as a hobby. It would have been easy to just have the movie be about a guy who's showing in his years and finally finds the strong friendship with his robot pal, but the extra turnaround where Frank actually doesn't really have a clean hobby and manages to get his robot to help him out is what makes the movie a little more complex than how it could have been. This movie has the ability to show that what Frank is doing isn't right while also being able to make us care for the character as it takes you along for a heartfelt ride. It might hit a little too close to home for some people but this movie really is quite a watch.

Fat Kid Rules the World

You know what I hate about some recent movies? How they try to frame one of their characters as an outsider, outcast misfit and it just becomes absolutely stupid because they are no different than any of the other actors in the movie. Movies like the terrible Carrie remake, the terrible Amazing Spider-Man movies, and the somewhat decent The Spectacular Now all fall into this problem where we're supposed to believe that the main character or one of them is supposed to be "weird" or someone that no one would want to be around for some reason.

Fat Kid Rules the World is pretty much the antithesis of that terrible drudgery. The main character is passive, alienated, hateful towards himself and others, but he is really sympathetic throughout the whole movie. However, something happens(I'm not going to say what) that ends up with him getting dragged around by a kid who wants to start him up in a punk rock band, even though the kid doesn't know how to play anything. I was a bit disappointed by the end of the movie when it the movie takes a shift onto the kid who's dragging the main character around because he has problems of his own. I mean, they give the main character an arc on how he starts taking a more proactive role in life, but, since this is one of the few times where I actually related to character, it kind of wasn't enough for me. However, the movie is really well written and well directed.

There were a couple of other movies I wanted to talk about but I wasn't sure if they were really "good enough." The two that stick out in my mind, and are actually kind of similar in strange ways, are Cash Back and The Lifeguard. Interesting in some parts but also sort of mind boggling in how they "miss the mark" as well. Maybe you'll see me talk about them later, who knows.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Before I start, you should make an effort to go see 22 Jump Street. I can't delve too much into it to talk about why the movie is as good as it is, but it should suffice to say that it's really funny, incredibly smart, and it has a pseudo love story that plays off better than movies with serious love stories.

Also, Mild Spoilers from here on out, but it was either spoiled by the trailer or something that I'm sure people should be able to easily guess about a kids movie. So, here we go!

The first How to Train Your Dragon was a real surprise for pretty much everyone. It wasn't just a good movie but it was also an enthralling and engaging one with some admirable lessons about science and exploration. I'm not sure if it was really memorable enough to be more than just a really tight story hidden inside a big-budget kid's animation film, but everything really did come together so nicely in it. The visuals were great, the process of Hiccup training his dragon was fun to watch, and all of the designs for the dragons were just down-right awesome!

After we got things settled from the last movie which established Vikings having pet dragons in order to help their colony, where else could the story go in order to expand on a dragon-filled Viking universe? Well, this films answers this question by having more people needing to realize that they too can train their dragon.

Yeah, I'm really not all that sure about this one.

It's not that How to Train Your Dragon 2 is bad, in fact, there are lot of things about it that are really good. But my first instinct was to just write it off as a retread of the first movie, however it feels a lot more accurate to describe it as a celebration for the first film being an unexpected hit. The movie just sort of jogs in place as it just lets itself have a lot of things happening in it that might constitute as some sort of story or plot, which there is one, but it's pretty disjointed and thin. But, here it goes.

"Tell me the one again where nothing happens!"

So, the story starts off by showing how well the Vikings have taken to siding with the dragons and integrating them as a big part of their culture. Stoick, the chief of the entire Viking gang, has decided that his son, named Hiccup, is fit enough to become the new chief. However, Hiccup doesn't feel prepared into becoming the new Chief and he's been avoiding his dad because of this. When his girlfriend, named Astrid, finds him, she's excited for him and wants to push him along into this noble honor.

All of a suddenly, Astrid and Hiccup get attacked by seemingly rogue vikings. Though, it turns out that their village was attacked by a trained dragon army and they immediately place blame on the two people they see riding tamed dragons, thinking they are under the enemy master of Drago I'm-an-Evil-Badguy. When Hiccup tells his father of this encounter, it turns out that Stoick and Drago have had a history and that it's really hard to change Drago's evil ways. Hiccup is unconvinced and wants to try to change the heart of Drago.

Oh, and there's one part of the story that should have felt like a really big reveal only to come off as a way to just fit in a lot more dragons into the movie so it can lead up to the climax of the story.

So, even though this film is trying something a bit new and different with it coming down on the side of the grumpy disapproving father figure who knows that you really can't change the baddest of bad guys minds, it all really comes down to Hiccup still being more right in his methods than anyone else and that it's kind of hard to just not see that coming. Where as Hiccup and crew embrace the dragons as friends and loyal followers, Drago is the bad guy in that he takes the more hypnotic and cruel approach in controlling the dragons. Guess which side gets the award for winning by being good guys and by being nicer to the dragons which causes them to win the battle?

And, no, there aren't any prizes if you guess correctly.

It's not that I couldn't accept a plot like this in that Hiccup must learn to embrace responsibility as he inherits the role as chief, but I couldn't help but feel that the plot was a bit clumsily put together. It all starts off incredibly nicely and everything feels really tight. But, when it comes time for the second act , it just sort of feels like the movie is waiting around until an impressive big finale(No, not every movie follows a three act structure, but this one does and think it kind of suffers because of it).

At this part of the story, everything sort of takes this abrupt halt and lets everyone that isn't the main character go off and make sure that a plot is going to eventually happen. I was so disengaged with this part that even a big dragon battle just didn't feel like it was enough to keep me from feeling bored through the second act. But things do pick right back up at the end, as everything really comes together for an awesome closing act. It was finally around the time when the stakes to the story actually felt like it mattered.

If nothing else, it's definitely a great looking movie. It introduces even more dragons and all of their unique designs are just so awesome. There a lot of great scenes of Hiccup flying on his dragon and that he even gets to partake in flying on his own. Also, Hiccup has A FREAKIN' LIGHTSABER FIRE SWORD and one of the characters wore this unique costume that I just fell in love with. I really like the unique style of this film and how compelling everything is just on a visual level. This is probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing movies since the last time vikings got involved on the big screen(Thor 2, in case you were wondering).

I'm not sure if they explain how this awesome sword works, but who cares? It's awesome!

In the end, I think I just wish the story was tighter through some parts and that it wasn't as predictable as it was. Sure, the movie sets itself up through a lot of surprising things, but it doesn't feel like it really does much with it. I felt like a couple of characters who were actually supposed to feel major and vital to the story just ended up being there in order to get the everything going. Still, there's enough good in here that I wasn't thinking that I wasted my time after leaving the theater. There are enjoyable and even engaging parts with the story and especially with the visuals. It just takes a bit of patience to get to these parts.

But at least the kids will like it.

The Edge of Tomorrow

I sort of have a feeling that I'm supposed to hate Tom Cruise at this point. With him being a super egocentric, Scientologist nut-job, he hasn't exactly been scoring any cool points as of lately. As for me? I just don't care one way or the other. As far as I'm concerned, he's a good actor who specializes in movies where he runs a lot. Last year, that movie was Oblivion, an epically boring science fiction film with no real story or depth as it disguises its fault with plot twists in order to make itself look smarter than it really is. Granted, I wasn't exactly looking forward to that movie coming out, but it wasn't like I wanted it to suck though, it just...did.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I actually was looking forward to The Edge of Tomorrow(even if the title is just soooo dumb, why couldn't they have just left it at All You Need is Kill?), but that was mostly because the premise in this movie was pretty killer. Tom Cruise lives through the same day over and over in his life in order to improve his fighting skills and strategies against an alien invasion. How he acquired those powers was kept away from the trailers, but it all gets established early on in the movie. Tom Cruise plays a character where he runs around a lot, but, this time, he's aided by wearing a weaponized robot suit that was built for winning against the driving conflict of an alien invasion. So, in short, what we have here is a killer time-loop premise mixed with robots and aliens.

Yeah, I can dig that even if the movie was less than stellar.

Luckily, the movie goes in with a surprisingly tight screenplay and story. It'd be one thing to have an action hero gain the super power to go back in time and redo his action scenes in order to get better in the fights he's had before, but what if this was happening to a guy who wasn't an action hero or anyone special? What if it happened to one of the most inept people to get thrown into combat in the first place? That's the clever turn around in this movie as Tom Cruise plays an incredible loser who they just throw into the lower ranks of "grunt combat" because the guy he plays is sort of a scumbag that nobody really wants to deal with.

As Sinistar once said "Ron Howard!!!"

After an extended war sequence where Tom Cruise runs around and barely survives every single alien encounter he goes through, he kills one of the alien forces through dumb luck but dies due to the aliens acidic blood pouring all over him. Of course, a guy like this would have died through combat, but, after his death scene, he awakens back to the beginning of the day where he finds himself in the lower ranks. This time, it's realized that they are fighting a losing battle and it must be something to do with the alien blood that got dumped all over Cruise's face. Of course, as he tries to explain that he's been through this day before and tries to warn everybody that the battlefront they are getting into is actually going to be a death trap, nobody believes him. So, it's up to him to use this new found power to his advantage.

I've talked with people who were worried that the scenes were probably going to get repetitive since he would have to be living through the same day over and over again, but the movie is way too smart to let this happen. Sure, we'll see the same scenes play out differently after Tom Cruise realizes that this certain action is what's going to kill him, but they cleverly cut out all of the scenes that we don't need to see again. Most of the time when they do repeat a scene, it's usually back to back as they show Tom Cruise perform an action, die due to something stupid, a shot of him getting mad and frustrated, and then back to the same scene but he corrects his mistake this time. You could probably compare it to a video game only if it were the kind of video game that will let you choose the point you would want to redo again.

This movie also highlights something weird that inevitably crops up in every action movie, which is how improbably skilled and lucky our main hero is as he goes through these impossible endeavors. Nearly every action-lead to any kind of movie will have his reflexes amped up to actually see the danger that will come upon him. Even if a bad guy is pretty good at hiding his own telegraphed attacks, the good guy is always one step ahead of him, being able to predict each move and what he needs to do in order to counter it.

But who needs that kind of skill when you have rockets strapped on to your back?

Had The Edge of Tomorrow been your standard action flick, we would have gotten something very much like what I just described. But then the movie highlights that it'd be impossible for the main hero to survive unless he didn't know what was going to happen before hand. Movies can compensate by actually making it feel like the main character is going through split second decisions, but the premise to this movie gives it all of the excuses it can have in order to provide for some really inventive action scenes while also pointing out that action scenes can only happen like this if the main character had a super power like this.

The movie doesn't hit its mark all the way through however as the final action scene loses a lot of momentum when it ironically becomes Generic Action Movie: The Movie. This might be due to Tom Cruise losing his time loop power during the last bit of the movie(No, I don't consider this a spoiler, because it gets established really early on that it is possible to lose this power. When they establish it, you can pretty much set your watch to how long it takes for him to finally lose his power since the movie feels it needs a way to increase the tension), but, where as the earlier fight scenes involved guys in robot suits and aliens trading off super power attacks against each other, the final part doesn't even bother to try to get creative when they strip off Tom Cruise's robotic suit to fight the final boss fight. There's a couple of gun shots, a grenade gets thrown, and then other stuff happens that's supposed to resemble conflict.

Also, while I do think the robot suits are really well designed, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of there drab, brownish-grayish color. For one thing, this isn't exactly a dark kind of movie where it needs to have this sort of "grey look" in order for it to have a dark tone. This movie is a lot more fun than that and a little more color to these things would have gone a long way(save for a little bit of red on Emily Blunt's costume). Also, the design for the aliens look overly-complicated and messy. There's not really much in the way of separating the aliens in this movie to a lot of other movies. They're just kind of boring and not all that memorable.

Also, more samurai swords would have gone a long way as well!

However, when it all comes down to it, what we have here is actually a pretty daring and solid film. What could have been an empty action movie with a some-what clever premise goes in for a tight and character-driven screenplay that makes The Edge of Tomorrow more than an empty-shell. I'm not sure if this movie is going to go down as any sort of classic or if it will really strike anyone as more than just a solid sci-fi action flick, but it does everything it needs to pretty admirably. I had a good time with it and I'm pretty sure it will please many others as well.

The Fault in our Stars

The terrible truth that plagues all of these adaptions of "young adult" novels is that the reason why the movie is bad is because the original source material is bad. I may not be the biggest fan of the Hunger Games, but they're a god send in the midst of sparkly vampires, the "oh crap, the Hunger Games is popular, let's cash in on that"(Divergent), and the "oh crap, the Hunger Games is popular, let's cash in on that but tailor it to boys."(The Maze Runner) But if there's one person who you wouldn't think fall victim to this tragic plight is John Green. John Green is one of  the most important people to get famous on the internet. I'm not his biggest fan, but his ability to explain and break down incredibly tough and complex issues to help people learn and understand is highly admirable. So, if anybody is going to create a good young adult novel that's based on tough and complex issues, why not the guy who's known for being really good with tough and complex issues?

So, I just really have to ask...what happened, John?

When I found out that The Fault in our Stars was by John Green, I almost felt assured that it'd be at least pretty good. But when I was done reading the first chapter of the book, I had to go back and make sure with other people that I was reading the right book and not some dumb knock off. The book is so simple and contrived that I was kind of offended by it. I could tell something was off just by the fact that Green had to reassure everybody that this was a made-up story but fictional stories still have their value. I was halfway expecting him to also remind us that this was a story that we're about to read; you'll experience it through this thing called a book. Not that he actually says that, but some of the things the narrator says throughout the book can be along the lines of that kind of attitude. One of sentences explaining, and I am not joking, that this part happening in the book doesn't happen like this in other stories when it comes to standard narrative conventions. I think that was the one part where the novel was actually showing signs of getting good, but then Green has to show off by writing in "Ooohh, look how edgy I got there!"

The story is written in a blog-like manner, which I can see it being something that could be potentially interesting but Green doesn't seem interested in exploring that kind of story-telling. The parts where he thinks he's getting clever in the story made me re-read the part as I couldn't believe someone let him get away with this in the editing process, especially one part where he cuts a sentence off as the narrator was talking about a book that ends right in the middle of a sentence. (A-ha! I see what you did there!)

What ever hope I had for the movie was absolutely shut down after reading the book once I knew that Green consider the movie a really faithful adaptation. But it sort of saves me time, because whatever I have to say about the movie is pretty much the same thing on what I have to say about the book. Asides from the usual big difference of a book having a constant narrator and a movie having to have the visuals tell its story, the book and the movie go hand in hand and its really baffling to see all of the things that went wrong with The Fault in our Stars.

Especially this part....

The main character in this story is Hazel Grace, who's suffering from a cancer that's affecting her lungs, so she carries an oxygen tank around. Her knowing that she's going to die anytime soon makes her depressed. I mean, that's what the movie informed me as Hazel Grace narrates the story at some parts to fill the audience in on stuff that they already know. Hazel assures her parents and her doctor that she's not depressed, even though her mom lists off symptoms and behaviors that Hazel has which suggests that she has depression along with a couple of shots of her lying on a couch watching TV.

Actually, this was probably the part where a narrator actually did fill us in on something that we wouldn't have known because, as far as I would have seen without that particular bit of information, I wouldn't have known she was really suffering from anything. Even before her "life-changing experiences," she acts about the same as she does through out the rest of the movie. She's snarky, she's energetic, and, since we don't really get any insight on her character besides her narrations telling us stuff, we never get to see what's really wrong with her. But the movie assures us that she has a problem and that there's going to be some sort of magical fix to all of this.

Are you ready for what that fix is? Because, here it is!

It's the dreamy guy from Titanic who knows all of the secrets to the happiness of life and is willing to share it with Hazel Grace because they both find each other physically attractive. And I'm not just being sly by making that Titanic reference, this story is pretty much Cameron's Titanic if everything in that movie went incredibly wrong. Titanic isn't exactly the greatest movie, but at least that had all of its basics right. The Fault in our Stars isn't even willing to go that far.

As they wait for something interesting to finally happen...

The guys name is Augustus and he's the plot device of this story. He's not really there to change, to grow, or to even straighten up from his usual douche-baggery, rather just be the sort of Manic Pixie Dream *insert gender here* that plagues so many other bad love stories. In fact, only one character throughout this entire thing actually feels like a real, breathing character and isn't there to just be a narrative tool to trudge the story along. It's a guy named Isaac where he had a pretty decent life he was enjoying until he had cancer and, in order to save him, they had to remove his eyes which turns his life upside-down. There's drama with this character, there are even emotions to him as well. In fact, his story feels like something that the main character should have in order for it to be a story. Instead, we get boring guy meets boring girl who do boring stuff together with a narrator that tells us how we should be feeling throughout each scene.

I'm not exactly the only one to point out that none of these characters feel like real people and it all has to do with the writing. It's not that I need every character to feel like humans with traits and emotions that humans generally tend to recognize, but they have to act in a way that makes sense. If they were trying to go for the "quirky" angle of this kind of story (and it feels like they were) where people are slightly more silly or less human than movie characters generally tend to be, you need to contextualize it(Wes Anderson is the master at this and I don't think it's a coincidence that I mention his name in a film like this) Character actions and dialogue hardly make sense throughout The Fault in our Stars, with Hazel's snark and jokes not even making sense or Augustus grossly misusing the word "soliloquy." It's like an incredibly poor knock off of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode.

Luckily, some of the performances do make the screenplay somewhat bearable, though I have to wonder why the actress for Hazel Grace looks like she's on the verge of smiling throughout most of the film. But a special mention has to go out towards Willem Dafoe. He is completely awful in this movie. He looks like he's so utterly bored and that he loathes himself for being here. You can almost see what he's thinking in his face "Just a couple of scenes and I get my paycheck. Just a couple of scenes and I get my paycheck." I won't say who he plays, as that is technically a spoiler, but I was actually really excited to see him in this movie only to find out that he doesn't even try to make the hellish dialogue in this movie sound good.

"I regret everything..."

Had I not known John Green and you told me that this story was by one of the smartest, most insightful, and most influential people of our time, I would have thought you were crazy. But since I do know who John Green is, I'm just sad now. How can someone so smart and cool have the capacity to just trudge out something like this? How can an optimistic guy who carries a positive influence among many people make me more tired, bitter, and cynical than usual? Just, why?

The faults within this story is just so tragic and grossly mishandled that I'm willing to just pretend that this was something that John Green wasn't behind. The Fault in our Stars is a terrible film with rarely any good qualities and, with all of that said, I am incredibly disappointed.

Top 5 Movies I'm looking forward to this year!

I didn't get to see any new movies this weekend. So, I don't really have anything that topical to say. Because of this, I just wanted to do this "off" thing where I shamelessly get to talk about myself.

If it's anything about me, I have this knee-jerk reaction to judge movies just by hearing about it being produced. There's a new Ninja Turtles movie coming out that has Michael Bay involved and the guy who directed Battle LA directing the upcoming reptiles in masks movie. Just from knowing that these two guys are involved, I don't exactly have high hopes for the movie, though I still hope it turns out good in the end. Also, whenever I heard of Maleficent, as it tries to be a dark and gritty take over a Disney fairy-tale, just sounds like a bad idea to me all across the board because...well, these things hardly play out to be good(though, I am hearing surprising things about that movie).

Also, I need to give a special mention to Lucy. I mean, the movie does have an interesting sort of concept, even if the whole "You only use 10% of your brain" is complete bullcrap. But, hey, it's got Scarlett Johansson kicking ass with super powers, which makes me think that this alone might be the quickest way to get me to want to see your movie. But, then I see other things in the trailer that involves her taking out an entire room of bad guys with just a wave of her hand. This is probably going to be something saved by the end of the movie, but I can't help but think what kind of tension this breaks when the main character is able to kill everybody with just a snap of her fingers. Unless she turns into the bad guy by the end, to which the movie will probably end with people trying to stop her. And there's a very likely chance of this happening because the movie pretty much advertises its own theme in the trailer by having Johansson's character saying "It's as if all the things that make me human are fading away" while Morgan Freeman talks about her unlocking secrets and knowledge that humanity might not be ready for.

Really?

I mean, really? That's what you're seriously going to do? "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if you were like super smart? But it could come at a cost of ruining humanity, that's why no one should know too much!"

I just really, really don't get it. Instead of coming off as smart and intelligent, which I imagine this movie is trying to do, it comes off as scared because its afraid of not being ignorant.

Anyways, yeah, I think the reason why I wanted to write this was to vent about my thoughts on Lucy, but I will say that it doesn't look like a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, it looks like it'll be a well-made film, even if I feel like its taking its concept from the wrong angle. It's just kind of weird having things in a movie that would make me want to see it no matter what while also bringing up things in a movie that would make me despise even knowing about its existence. It sort of feels like they're trying to do "God is Not Dead" as a science fiction action thriller.

But, believe it or not, there are movies I am excited for. So, instead of venting and complaining, like I would usually do for upcoming movies, here are movies I'm actually excited to see.

5. Edge of Tomorrow

"Edge of Tomorrow" is a really, really dumb title for a movie. It was originally called "All You Need is Kill," which is a much better title but I'm not sure if it would be fitting for this movie. The premise was enough to peak my curiosity. Tom (Runs) Cruise is playing a character where he lives through the same day over and over again and, because of this, he is able to make better combat decisions the more he learns about the consequences of his decisions. If nothing else, the science fiction setting and look of the movie definitely gives it a unique edge on a lot of other action movies coming out, but with the early reviews coming in where people are actually really, really liking this movie is the one thing I need to confirm my excitement for this movie. Even if the title is still the dumbest thing ever.

4. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

I'm not exactly sure what can really be done with this movie that isn't just treading water until the planet of the apes officially become the planet of the apes. But if there's anything that will get me excited for any kind of movie, it's seeing monkeys horse-back riding. There's really not much  I would be able to say about this movie then just me looking forward to seeing some serious ape battles that are going to look really cool, but I'll be damned if seeing monkeys horse-back riding really isn't one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I liked its predecessor quite a bit as it was being a compelling origin story of how this whole monkey business (I regret nothing) started. So, while I am weary of what could be done with a sort of "In between story" with the humans and the apes at conflict with each other, it's probably going to be at least pretty good.

Also, monkeys riding on horses! I mean, hell yeah that's cool!

3. The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

If anything else, I'm more than a little eager to finally get the Hobbit movies over with so Peter Jackson can finally do the next Tintin movie. But, even with that in mind, having these movies while I wait for my next favorite kind of high-budget, well casted, well acted, well written B-movie isn't exactly the worst kind of place holder. Sure, it might be a bit strenuous to have one book stretched out into three movies, but I've been having a little too much fun with these movies to really even care. I even like the stuff in this movie that gets criticized a lot, which was mostly the stuff that just felt like filler. But, hell, I loved the part in the first movie where it takes about 45 minutes for the adventure to really start. I love the sort of complex class disparity issues that dragged out the second movie to be as long as it was. I love the action scenes, the barrel rides, the heads getting cut off, the giant rock monster battle that came out of nowhere.

There's no doubt that there's going to be a lot more to the last movie than there was in the books as this part of the story happens when the book only had a few pages left. But, whatever they have come up with in order to expand on the story, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. The only part I didn't really like was the action scene with Smaug at the end of the second movie. But everything else has been great!

2. Guardians of the Galaxy

I think I might as well come out and admit that I'm not sure if I'm on board with the new Captain America movie as much as everyone else has been. The movie definitely had everything that I should have liked: Captain America, Captain America punching people, Captain America using his shield as a frisbee, a tight spy thriller story that gets political on recent things the US has done, Captain America punching people, and, while there were some editing and shot choices that made me scratch my head, the action scenes were pretty top notch with the Winter Soldier pretty much stealing every scene he was in. And yet...I just don't know about it. Maybe it's the fact that I felt like this probably went too much into the territory of "You better have seen all of the previous movies, otherwise, you'll be lost" that threw me for a loop, even though a lot of people who aren't into the whole Marvel comics continuity experiment ended up really liking this movie. And, because of that in particular, I feel weird about having this sort of disconnected feeling with the movie.

But, pretty soon, we'll get to see space battles, a talking tree, a green alien space chick, and a raccoon with a space gun. So, I'm hoping things will even out with this movie.

1. Interstellar

What is this movie about? I couldn't tell you. Will it be good? I certainly hope so. Could I predict how this movie will turn out? Probably. Would I want to? I just want to see the movie for myself. But even though this looms over every other movie in my mind just by being something that's mysterious and different, it just makes me want to see this movie more. Trailers have a really bad habit of showing way to much to where they leave almost nothing to surprise the audience when the actual movie comes out(I wouldn't be surprised if the trailer for Lucy has pretty much shown everything). But here? They just give you a small taste, a small glimpse, something that will peak your curiosity and see it just to see what this movie is going to be about

I know that with the previous movies I've mentioned on this list, I'm probably starting to sound like some sort of simpleton who just generates saliva by the thought of lazers, robotic suits, guys getting their heads cut-off, monkey battles, and green alien space chicks, but I'm always up for something as intelligent and interesting looking as Interstellar. 

I look forward to Oscar season movies as much as anyone else, they just don't get as much marketing until Oscar season finally does roll around. But a movie that the producers think actually is marketable to a summer movie kind of audience that just teases at what might actually be happening, which probably throw the audience through a loop and make them experience something unlike other movies? I'm a little more than looking forward to seeing how a movie like this turns out. It's not like I think this movie will be too smart for any kind of film-going audience member, rather that I'm surprised that there willing to advertise this movie at all when people are about to see your standard summer action movie. There's nothing in this trailer that doesn't look like something that's out of the normal.

I'm not sure how this movie will turn out or even if its going to be as smart and interesting as it's advertising to be. But with how little they showed and how much they are teasing, I'm really excited about seeing this movie, even if there's a possibility that it'll be crummy. However, knowing which people are behind this movie assures me that this movie will at least be pretty good.

But, if nothing else, it will definitely be the most memorable film-going experience we will have this year!

Why Godzilla Fails as a Movie

I don’t do “top worst lists” of any kind of movies ever. And movies like Godzilla are why I don’t do them. Sure, there was that one point where I made that one blog that nobody read which involved what I thought to be some of the worst games of 2012, but the reason I felt they were so bad was because they were soulless, cash grabbing, boring messes. But when something sets out to actually try to be what they thought was going to be special and noble only to just fall short by a lot of levels and make it into the sort of “bad” territory that Godzilla falls into, I would start to feel bad for calling it something like “one of the worst of such and such.” And, make no mistake, if I made the worst of 2014, Godzilla would probably make it on the list. Granted, it wouldn't be in a very high position on the list and they are definitely worse movies out there, but Godzilla’s bad parts are just so bad that the parts in this movie that are actually really good kind of make the bad parts stick out even worse.

And make no mistake, the parts that are good in this movie are just so good. Unfortunately, all of the good parts happen by the end of the movie. Everything before the end is the movie feeding us a mess of a story that’s tortuous and boring to sit through. And those boring moments are the parts that I want to talk about because they miss the mark by so much, it’s really baffling when you think about it.

Oh, and, by the way, this is going to be a thorough analysis of the movie, so there are going to be spoilers.

Anyways, here we go.

The movie starts like just about any monster movie. In fact, the point of reference you can make here is Jaws, where the looming threat of the movie starts at the beginning, but it’s only a small taste of what’s to come. In this movie, it involves a major accident happening in a nuclear power plant in Japan. Bryan Cranston’s character, named Joe Brody, but why would anyone bother remembering the character’s name when just calling him Bryan Cranston is easier,  thinks that this major accident wasn’t from anything natural. This major accident kills Bryan Cranston’s wife, giving him a personal vendetta with what happened at this nuclear power plant. So far, this all works. It looks like we have a clear protagonist where they set up the characters history, he’s being played by everyone’s favorite actor of the now, which is Bryan Cranston, and, best of all, he’s being played by Bryan Cranston. Bryan Cranston is a good actor, and if it were up to him the carry the entire movie on his shoulders as the only good character, he probably could have saved this movie.

But then the movie gets turned on its head when you realize that Bryan Cranston actually isn't the main character as he dies towards the beginning of the movie.

Instead of the only character in the movie that was sufficiently written as a character being the protagonist, we get a boring military guy who just runs around and doesn’t really do anything to affect the plot. Also, he’s Bryan Cranston’s Character’s son, even though this doesn’t really matter throughout the rest of the movie. You might think they were trying to set up a thing where they have the main character act as a surrogate to view all of the main events that happen in the story. You know, somebody like Watson from Sherlock Holmes or Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit are there as a way to help ease in the audience on the events of the story with the same understanding as the main character. 

Bilbo isn't somebody who goes on adventures and he isn't somebody who’s really familiar with any of the strange things that happen outside of his home. Sure, he gets his moments of heroism here and there, but if the story had just been about the Dwarves going off and skillfully doing all of the things without a character that the audience can connect with, it would have been pretty boring. But the Dwarves keep on facing challenges and they need Bilbo’s help every once in a while. And, by the fact that they chose a character who everybody would assume was incredibly inept is something that is used to all of the Dwarves’ advantages. With Watson, he is used because he has about as much as a fascination with Sherlock Holmes as most of the readers or viewers do. He’s inept at solving cases as most people are and he doesn't see things the same way Sherlock Holmes does. He’s pretty much there so Sherlock Holmes can explain how he solved the case.

Explain it to me, Sherlock...explain it to me, hard...

Now, with all of this in mind, why did they choose this kind of character for the new Godzilla movie? It’s pretty baffling, because he’s not really involved with the plot all that much and he’s not really there to view any of the action that’s going on as all of it happens pretty much wherever he isn’t. People have pointed out that the actor playing this character, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is pretty bad in this part, but I’d go as far as saying it’s because he really isn't giving anything to do, even if he is the main character. I would have accepted it if he was there because he was reluctantly following Bryan Cranston around because he didn't believe it when Bryan Cranston was really sure that something big and evil was going on. I mean, it could have worked out this way as he thinks Bryan Cranston is crazy only to find out that he had a point and it turns out that he was right and that the government should be careful when they are hiding things, especially if it involves the safety of passerby citizens. So, Bryan Cranston’s son could have been pulled into these situations where Bryan Cranston is doing all of these things to try to save people and the fact that nobody believed him caused catastrophic events to everybody, which could have produced a direct conflict between the main characters, the government, the citizens, and the monsters.

But, instead of something like that, we get a story that doesn't really have any conflict with any of the characters at all.

Anyways, the movie does a time jump where its 15 years after the terrible event at the nuclear power plant, but, now, we’re following the main character of the movie. As we established, the main character is Brian Cranston’s Character’s son, and he’s an army guy. It starts off with him coming home to his family and I guess we’re supposed to like him because he has a family? Like, he has a caring family he comes home to after he’s done doing army stuff and this is supposed to make us feel stuff? Yeah! Nice try! How about a character who would be interesting even without a family? Or maybe a character with a clear motivation throughout the movie? Oh wait, that’s right! They actually have that character, but he dies.

Anyways, the family gets a call saying that the guy’s father got arrested in Japan because he was investigating something that the government was hiding. It’s up to the main character to bail him out, but Bryan Cranston decides to drag him along in order to prove that the government is really hiding something. The main character doesn't believe him but he goes along with it anyway. They go to their old house in Japan and they get the seismograph record from the Nuclear Power Plant incident. Then, they go off to investigate a place that has been shut down due to radioactive activity. Except, when they get there, they find out there the place isn't toxic at all, which means that the government must be hiding something if they don’t want any people in the area. This gets them arrested but, instead of throwing the guys in jail, they decide to bring them along to the thing they’re hiding because Bryan Cranston has the record from that terrible incident when people thought that any recordings of it had been lost. It turns out that the seismograph records that Bryan Cranston has match with the seismographic readings that are happening in the area. This confirms his belief that they are really hiding something.

And, yeah, shocker! It turns out they really are hiding something.

Who could have seen that one coming, except for everyone...ever?

So, nothing immediately wrong is going on with the plot so far. I mean, yeah, the 15 year jump leading us to boring characters where they skip all of the build up and conspiracy kind of hurts the movie by...well, a lot, but all of things in this movie go by in a sort of consequential order. One event leads to another, which causes something else to happen. It doesn't fall into the “And then this happened!” trap that some other summer movies fall into. But when the first monster shows up, that’s when this movie officially starts to fall apart. The guys get readings from this radio-active egg which hatches and releases the first monster in the movie. And, when this happens, everybody thought the same thing…”That’s not Godzilla! That’s the Cloverfield monster!” But my immediate next thought was actually a pretty positive one because I didn't know the movie was going to handle things this badly, but I was really excited to see that this movie was going to lead up towards monster battles. But, this was the point when Bryan Cranston dies due to all of the destruction which made me realize “Oh...I guess Bryan Cranston isn't the protagonist, it’s going to be the boring military guy.” I realize I’ve only kept on referring to him as the main character but that’s because the character is so bland and boring that it’s really not even worth remembering his name. Only that his last name was Brody, but that’s because it seems like we need all of the guys who fight monsters are named Brody for some reason. There’s Jason Brody from Far Cry 3(he fights one monster in the game, that counts!) and then there’s Adrien Brody from real life.

Well, since the main character is a military guy, they bring him to a military base and fill him in that the giant monster is called a MUTO, which stands for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Object, even though they seem to know a lot about these monsters if they calling them Unidentified.  But then they talk about a new monster that they have been researching and trying to kill for years...except they can’t. So, they gave him a name...Godzilla. But then one Japanese guy says that Godzilla is actually a good guy. I guess he knows this because he’s Japanese...oh...I know that might sound kind of bad, but this movie doesn’t really give an explanation of why Godzilla is the good guy other than that one Japanese guy says he is. He says he’s there to bring balance to the force and to destroy the sith.

Surprisingly, Googling "Godzilla with a lightsaber" yielded results

But the main character is sent to Honolulu so he can go back home from an airport. Though, the reason they dropped him off at Honolulu was because they were there because they were expecting the MUTO or something. And the MUTO comes and destroys stuff. And, at this point, in a weak attempt to raise the stakes, the main character gets stuck with a kid who gets separated from his parents. And since this kid is a kid, I guess we’re supposed to hope that he doesn’t die because he’s a kid...I dunno. The fact that the kid got involved did absolutely nothing for the rest of the movie. Forget that a lot of kids probably died when the monster attacked, the fact that this kid survived and made it back to his parents makes everything okay...I suppose.

But, then, it finally happens. A strange but enormous monster appears out of the ocean. The audience feels it coming. It creates a huge wave destroying streets in the city. The creature comes out with each step plunging through the earth. There’s a great shot where they show the camera all the way from the bottom to the top of this enormous figure. There he is! There’s Godzilla in full form! He releases the mightiest of all screams. It’s iconic! You can feel the tension building and you think “Holy shit! This is going to be awesome!” And then...it cuts to a couple of news clips of the MUTO and Godzilla fighting and then...there’s the aftermath of the city.

*sigh*

Everything that’s wrong with the movie is summed up by this entire sequence. For one thing, the Main Character gets caught up in a monorail that gets destroyed by the MUTO, where he has to hold on tight to survive. But, then, after that, all of the action takes place off screen. There isn't any direct conflict with any of the characters we know and the monsters. And the movie doesn't even bother to show us too much of what the monsters are doing, even though, until this point of the movie, everything was building up to this scene. And the fact that the movie just decides to not do anything with the scene where we finally get to see Godzilla in full form, I kind of wonder if Gareth Edwards wanted to make a Godzilla movie in the first place. I almost kind of feel like he had these copy cats of the cloverfield monster that he just fell in love with and, after finishing a script with these monsters, he got called into a meeting and got asked “Hey! This is kind of cool, but...do you think we can add Godzilla here?” So they just shoehorned him into the movie. It may not have happened like that...but it sure feels like it.

Sorry! I'm busy with other movies right now, so I can't be in this one for long.

So, let me compare this to King Kong. “Which one?” you ask. Well, the Peter Jackson one is going to illustrate my point better as that movie and the new Godzilla movie try to paint the main monster as being sympathetic or the main hero. However, the original King Kong does what the new Godzilla movie was trying to do, only a lot better as well. Both King Kong movies understand build up and plotting and conflict. But the new King Kong does what the new Godzilla movie was trying to do, which was make their monster an icon again.

In Kong, there’s talk of a mysterious beast on the island they are going to, but nobody is really sure about it. Also, everybody feels like they are wasting there time by going to this island and they don’t like dealing with Carl Denham in the first place. But, when they end up there, they realize it’s actually a really dangerous island filled with natives who perform sacrificial rituals. In their attempt to escape, Anne gets captured and ends up getting caught up in one of their rituals, where they offer Anne to the mysterious beast of this island.

When the beast collects Anne, we only catch glimpses of him from Anne’s point of view and we see him as being incredibly scary. After an hour of build-up, we finally get to see King Kong in full form, and it all works because everything before this point has been leading up to here. Anne manages to break away from Kong because she still feels she’s in danger in front of him. However, she manages to find herself in the midst of even more scary creatures and ends up getting chased down by dinosaurs. At this point, we’re afraid for her and hope she makes it out alive. 

Suddenly, however, Kong appears out of nowhere in order to save Anne. Whatever Kong is doing during his fight against the dinosaurs, he always makes sure that Anne is unharmed. And when there is a final confrontation with the last Dinosaur, we see Kong and the Tyrannical Lizard standing across from each other with Anne in the middle of the two beasts. Except Anne finds herself siding with King Kong because she realizes that he has been trying to protect her. And, at this point, we’re fully on board on siding with King Kong. He’s protecting a character we've come to know and understand and we know that Kong winning this fight is what is going to help Anne survive.

Huh...I guess we didn’t need a Japanese guy to tell us that Kong was one of the good guys, it was actually the story that told us that.

Even in the original, since Ann's life was determined by whether Kong won or not, we we're still rooting for everybody's favorite giant gorilla monster!

But Godzilla is a story about the humans and how they have to deal with Monsters coming in and messing up their cities, right? That would be fair enough, except...none of the characters we follow in this movie are directly affected by the monsters. Sure, some soldiers die and cities get destroyed, except they are more of a statistic and we don’t really get a feel of the impact on the monsters. Cloverfield had us following characters that were directly affected by the monster that was invading, and we spent the entire movie hoping they would survive. They weren't military guys or they didn't have any special powers in order to help save the city, they just had one goal in mind: to get out of this mess alive.

I guess you could say that the main characters had a goal to destroy the monsters and you could consider every time they failed to save a city as something that would affect them. But they always cut away from action and we never really feel any of the conflict throughout the entire movie. They cut away from the monster battles and, any time they have any direct confrontations with the monsters, anything the main characters do are completely inconsequential and they never really affect the plot all that much. I guess there was that one time when they were trying to transport nuclear bombs to see if they can use it as a weapon, which causes the monster to come by and take one of the bombs as nuclear bombs are a part of his food, so maybe we can consider that part working.

It nearly worked when they finally showed Godzilla in full form because that was the only part in the movie where there was any sort of build up to anything. But everything after that is just people waiting around until they finally get to the final battle of the movie. Because of this, I just don’t remember anything that happens between the sequence in Honolulu all the way up to the final battle. There’s no momentum in the plot anymore and they don’t take the time to really do anything with the already boring characters they have. The rest of the movie is just the Japanese guy saying “trust me, Godzilla is the good guy, he’s our only hope of stopping the monsters.”

"Go fight the monsters by yourselves, I'm napping right now!"

But, we finally do get to the end of the movie and the reason why this part is so good is not just because it’s when we finally get to see Godzilla fight with the monsters, but it’s also because we finally get to see conflict play out. The military is having a direct fight with the monsters, hoping to save San Francisco. And they've finally decided that Godzilla is one of the good guys and we hope to get to see him defeat the monsters in order for the city to be saved. And the military actually does stuff that progresses things like helping Godzilla out, especially with The Main Character being able to distract one of the MUTOs by destroying her eggs, which saved Godzilla's life. And the moments of Godzilla fighting the monsters are so well staged and well directed that it really does almost make the entire movie worth it just for those scenes.

But, in the end, that’s what the entire movie was missing. Any real sense of conflict or drama. The only character with any sort of motivation or personality gets killed off in the beginning of the movie and were left with a bunch of characters that we don’t know much about or really even care about. I think they were trying to go for an angle where nobody is sure that Godzilla is the good guy and the would eventually have to accept that they need his help because any attempts they had fighting against the monsters were futile, but they don’t show any conflict between the characters who trust Godzilla and the ones who don’t. And, because of this, it makes it feel like the movie is waiting around until the very end where they finally feel confident enough to show monster action, or any sort of conflict at all.

Maybe some people found Pacific Rim overly simple and broad, but at least it understood the very basics of conflict. The Kaiju were always a looming threat throughout the entire movie and it was all about doing everything they could in order to stop the invasion. And, as far as build up goes, the reason why Jaws does it so well is that, even though we don’t see the shark until the end of the movie, we feel the impact of what the shark is doing to everybody. It’s causing people to fight, to divide, to get scared. In Godzilla, there isn't any real impact to any of the characters we know. Stuff just happens off-screen without us feeling anything for anybody.

What can be a more noble goal than "Cancelling the Apocalypse"?

So, the movie didn't fall short because there wasn't enough of Godzilla or monster fights, but because it lacked any real or meaningful conflict throughout the majority of the film. However, it does have the potential for conflict. It has all of the ingredients to make a really good movie. But they didn't seem to know what to do with the ingredients other than they knew that people wanted to eventually see monster fights...and that they wanted to attempt the whole build up in order for them to look smart and intelligent in movie making without really understanding how building up to scenes work.

In the end, I don’t think Godzilla is all that bad of a movie. It’s just disappointing and underwhelming in a lot of parts. Things don’t work in the movie and they spend way too long before they finally show any real drama. But, by the time it gets to the good parts, it’s all handled so well that it really does make this movie “almost good!” Here’s hoping for a better future for our hero, Godzilla!

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Well, it only took a couple of weeks for summer movies to finally get good.

I'm half way expecting that some of you are eager to know what I think of Godzilla and wondering why I didn't say summer movies didn't get good until last week. Well, honestly, a lot of people have probably seen that movie by now and, by now, it deserves more of an analysis than a review. So, I'll get to it...eventually. Until then, here's the X-Men movie named after a Moody Blues album...probably.

It's pretty weird to talk about a movie that's just so simple and straightforward with any sort of praising attitude. And I'm not kidding when I say that this movie is about as straightforward as stories get, but the sad thing is that all of the things that this movie gets right are all of the complete basic things that most "popcorn flicks" get so wrong on such a baffingly inept level. Movies like Godzilla and the Amazing Spider-Man, to name the most recent movies, are movies that feel like a couple of guys wanted to throw thing that looked cool up on screen and hoped that it would stick. Me saying that this movie is better than most blockbusters by it actually having scenes and characters and a story and even comprehensible dialogue just feels kind of wrong. Has the movie industry gone so far up its own bum that it's forgetting the very, very, very basics of film or story telling?

Well, luckily, X-Men helps bring us down back to a level of a film with clear stakes, a plot, and coherent main characters. Days of Future Past really is a great movie and I'm even willing to call it the best of the X-Men movies so far. And it's not just because this movie understands the basics of story telling(though, at this point, I am kind of willing to take a pretty decent, basic action film over the bloated schlock Hollywood has been force feeding us by calling it a Spider-Man movie), as the story is rather compelling here, even if it does stumble at a couple of things that kind of made me scratch my head.

The X Guys are fighting a losing battle against the Sentinels, so, in order to have any chance of winning the fight, they send Wolverine back in time in order to prevent the battle from happening in the first place. It turns out that the main bad guy, named Dr. Trask(played by Tyrion Lannister), started up the Sentinel program because he felt the mutants were an upcoming threat. However, what triggered the Sentinel program to be finished was Mystique, who has the mutant power of turning into Jennifer Lawrence, killing Trask, which caused the Mutants to look incredibly dangerous in the eyes of the government. Wolverine must go back in time in order to prevent this from happening by gathering the rag tag team of Charles X-Man and The Blue Guy and the Magnetizer.

One of the highlights in the movie was the use of Quick Silver. Even if he was in the movie for only a brief amount of time, the scenes he appears in are really entertaining. His mutant power is being able to move incredibly fast, even to a point where he can slow down time for himself. In fact, the way he uses his power kind of begs the question of why they just sort of left him once they accomplished that one goal for which they needed him. Then again, he is a young kid in this movie and maybe they didn't want to put him in any immediate danger, especially since he's still living with his mom, but, whatever.

Another question is as follows: Time travel? Well, the way they travel back in time is that Kitty Pride somehow has the power to transfer somebody's conscious into their past selves. Through this way, they can alter the past knowing what happens in the future. They don't really explain how Kitty Pride got these powers, but this also seems like a pretty hard thing to do, especially within the place they have decided to do it in...which was out in the middle of Russia where the big battle was occurring. Probably could have picked a better hiding spot then where the enemies were.

Also, this whole thing seems to happen in real time which would make this whole thing seem like a real pain to do. The movie builds up to a scene where the tension comes from "Will Wolverine alter the past in time before his X-Friends get killed in the future?" This had me thinking that this mission they sent Wolverine on took more than a couple of days to complete. So, was the entire X-Group waiting around that long until Wolverine finally completed his mission? Also, Wolverine doesn't really do much when he goes back in time. He just takes a back seat from all of the direct action involving Professor XXX and The Human Magnet. I guess it would have been better than just sending Wolverine back to the past to give them a brief warning and hoping that things work out for the best. But maybe they could have handled that a little better, especially if Kitty Pride had to sit there doing her stream of consciousness power trick for a really long time.

I guess this was inevitably going to happen when you ivolve time travel in a story. Even Back to the Future had a bit of trouble following its own rules in part II, but that movie still wasn't any less good. And the same could be said for this movie, as I'm really just nitpicking at this point. But while I wasn't thinking about plot holes while watching Back to the Future, I was noticing them while watching this movie. The Time Traveling plot device was probably better than finding a sort of "Chemical Zed" in order to beat the bad guys plot device, but this also means that a lot of cool X-characters get short shafted when the movie is more focused on the already familiar characters. And the X-dudes they show at the beginning are incredibly colorful and creative, including a girl who jumped straight out of an anime and is able to shoot portals like in that one video game where a girl shoots portals. In fact, the battle that takes place in the present are kind of a bit more interesting than the things that happen in the past as the Sentinels are really tough bad guys and it involved all of the mutants having to use their powers in creative ways.

Still, even with all of the weird things that are going to happen because they wanted to do a time travel story, a strong, simple plot and some fun action scenes really do put this movie over a lot of other mediocre action movies. I know it sounds like "damned by faint praise" by merely calling it better than the last two summer action movies(The AmaSipdfk[I'm getting sick of typing that title out] really did set a low bar for the rest of the summer), but this movie really does work beyond a basic level. A big part of this is because they like to play with some big issues about "Survival of the fittest" and some conspiracies in politics. These small things help make this movie a little more memorable.

I'm not sure if there's really anything more to say about this movie than that it's just damn good. Out of all the X-Men movies, I was definitely most engaged with this one than all of the others and I'm even willing to say that it's getting up to be Avengers good. Days of Future Past is a fun thriller from start to finish while also coming into full circle of making X-Men relevant again in this day and age. And with the likes of the disappointing, yet ambitious Godzilla finally making its debut and The Amazoinafsd; rearing its ugly head around the corner, a movie like this is more than anyone could have hoped for.