Movie Review: Suicide Squad (2016)

I guess now was a good a time as any to watch this movie and review it as I didn’t last year when it came out. And I mean, I could technically use this as a sort of lead-up to “Justice League” later this month. Fuck it, moving onto the review.

Ladies and gents, what are we, some kind of… “Suicide Squad”.

When a supernatural entity threatens to wipe a lot of stuff out, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) decides to put together a team of criminals to try to stop the evil shit. So now we have our action movie plot. So is it any good? Difficult to give a hard answer. On the one hand, unlike “BvS”, it doesn’t have a thousand plot threads that get all tangled up, making it feel a bit more streamlined. And there are some decent ideas throughout the plot, but the overall execution feels a bit weak. I was interested enough to keep watching, but I never felt truly invested in the plot in any way. The stakes were high(ish), but it never felt like that. The plot here was… eh.

The characters in this range from interesting to duller than dishwater. Will Smith plays Deadshot, the most accurate marksman in the DC universe. Out of all the characters in this, he’s given the most development, and I found myself actually kind of caring about him. And Will Smith is really good in the role. Margot Robbie plays Harley Quinn, psychiatrist turned crazy person. She’s given some decent development, and she’s pretty enjoyable. And Robbie is really good in the role. Viola Davis plays Amanda Waller, the take-no-shit-from-no-one woman who puts together this squad. And like her comic/cartoon counterparts, she’s tougher than tough and kind of badass even if some things involving her in the movie are kinda dumb. But David was great in the role. Then we have Joel Kinnaman as Colonel Rick Flag, the non-criminal member of the squad. And while they try to give him some emotional weight in this, he is quite bland and I didn’t care about him. And Kinnaman is just… fine here. Jared Leto as the god damn Joker… I see the potential in him, there are bright spots in his performance, showing that he could be a good Joker. But his rather brief appearance and less than stellar writing doesn’t exactly help him out. But overall I guess he’s fine… could’a cut him out of the movie. Jay Hernandez (who should return to “The Expanse”, please and thank you) plays Diablo, a troubled man with fire powers. He is given a decent emotional core and I thought his character was pretty interesting. And Hernandez was good in the role. Then we have Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang. One of my least favorite actors as a character I have a hard time taking seriously. And somehow, against all odds, I actually enjoyed his appearance in this movie. He was a less serious character than some of the others, and I thought he was entertaining. So yeah, Courtney is surprisingly good in this (who’da thought?). Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays Killer Croc, and he gets sidelined for most of the movie… he does almost nothing here. And he’s… meh in the role, mainly due to writing/sidelining. Cara Delevingne plays Enchantress, the villain of the movie (there, I said it). She is clearly supposed to be a somewhat complex and interesting villain, but she just comes off as a dancing idiot. And Delevingne is… okay in the role. Then we have Karen Fukuhara as Katana, she’s got my back, I would advice not getting killed by her, her sword traps the souls of it’s victims. That is an actual exposition dump from this movie. And while she sounds kind of badass, she’s sidelined here. Does jack fucking shit in the grand scheme of things. So I can’t exactly comment on Fukuhara’s performance here other than saying that I think she was fine… I guess. Also, this movie waste’s a couple good actors. David Harbour, Common, Scott Eastwood, Kenneth Choi… wasted. But overall the movie is pretty well acted.

The score for the movie was composed by Steven Price and it was fine. Typical orchestral stuff with some mild electronic sounds thrown in every now and then. Not bad, not great… good. Worked decently well in some scenes, didn’t do much for others. They also used a whole bunch of licensed tracks throughout the movie, from The Animals to Skrillex. Some tracks were used pretty well throughout, actually kind of fitting the scene. Other times it feels like they chose some random tracks to throw in… strangely enough it is the tracks pertaining to my music tastes that mainly felt out of place. So overall this movie has some good music.

This movie was written and directed by David Ayer, but edited by Warner Bros. I say this because I can tell that David Ayer directed a tight(ish) and interesting action movie, and then some WB people came in and edited a lot of it. Parts feel like they’ve been cut to pieces, missing key parts. And then during certain scenes there are these weird edits thrown in that the execs probably thought were “cool”, but just came off as obnoxious and annoying. As for the action in this action movie, it’s not bad… mostly. The battle(s) in the streets aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re still pretty entertaining. The action in dark, close quarters offices were… okay, I guess. The final encounter… not very good, could barely see what was going on. So the action here ranges from good to… shit. As for humor (since they wanted to attempt that here), it is okay. Some jokes land, some don’t. The CGI in this movie is also like that. Some of it looks awesome, and some wasn’t good.

This movie hasn’t been the most well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 25% positive rating. On Metacritic it has a score of 40/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6,2/10. The movie won 1 Oscar (wut?) in the category of Best makeup and hair. 

“Suicide Squad” is… fine. It has a meh plot, okay characters, good performances, good music, good(ish) directing, weird editing, and okay humor. Time for my final score. *Ahem*. My final score for “Suicide Squad” is a 6,22/10. While heavily flawed, I’d say that it might be worth a rental.

My review of “Suicide Squad” is now completed.

Since I’m in the middle, will both sides of the argument hate me now?

Movie Review: The Big Short (2015)

Finances. While they are important for society (somehow), I find it hard to give a shit about them. They’re not interesting, they’re not fun, and they often make little to no sense.

Disclaimer: I know this thing is based on a true story, but I will not base my review on how perfectly accurate to the real situation it may or may not be, but I will instead judge it as a movie… which it is. Disclaimer over.

Ladies and gentlemen… “The Big Short”.

In 2007, some people working within various sectors of the financial world predict that the global economy is gonna collapse in a very near future. So we follow these men as they either try to do something about it or try to earn a profit from it. And this gives us all a deep look into the world of banking, finances, and the people behind all of that shit. And while it’s an interesting enough idea for a plot, I was never really invested in it. It does a pretty good job of trying to explain things in a way that an idiot like me can kind of understand, I felt like this plot wasn’t that strong. It felt a bit unfocused and the tone was a bit inconsistent. It went from comedic to really serious at times. And while that can work in a movie (See “Up in the Air”), here it felt a bit off. I wouldn’t necessarily call it bad, overall it is an interesting plot and I was never bored… but the clashing tones and the amount of plots going on makes it a little messy.

What this movie lacks in plot, it makes up for in characters. While none of them are heroes in any way. they were all fleshed out, entertaining, and interesting to watch. Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, a really smart but kind of socially awkward guy who is the first person to kind of predict the financial crisis, and Bale is great in the role. Steve Carell plays Mark Baum, a man who’s part of all of this who also happens to be kind of prone to anger. And Carell gives a great performance. Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett, a wall street man who more or less acts as our narrator, and Gosling was good in the role. Brad Pitt plays Ben Rickert, a veteran within the business, and while he wasn’t in the movie much, he was really good in the role. Then we also got a whole bunch of great supporting performances from people like Hamish Linklater, Melissa Leo, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Marisa Tomei, and a whole bunch of other people.

The score for the movie was composed by Nicholas Britell and it was really good. What I especially enjoyed about it was how it played around with a whole bunch of different styles. From more serious and gloomy piano pieces to fun and energetic tracks. And it worked very well for the movie, often elevating scenes. There were also a whole bunch of licensed tracks throughout the movie, and not only were they often overall good songs, but they also worked very well in the scenes they were used in.

This movie was directed by Adam McKay and he did an okay job. His direction takes on a very documentary-esque style, containing a lot of quick zooms and feeling very amateur-ish. And while that can work for certain movies, I don’t think it worked too well for this one. Especially with some of the weird fourth wall breaks that the movie has. Again, it’s not necessarily bad directing, but I feel like it wasn’t the best choice for this story.

This movie has been very well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an 88% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 81/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,8/10. The movie won 1 Oscar in the category of Best adapted screenplay. It also got an additional 4 Oscars in the categories of Best picture, Best supporting actor (Bale), Best director, and Best film editing.

“The Big Short” is a movie the critics loved, but I thought was only fine. It features an okay plot, good characters, great performances, great music, and okay directing. My problems with the movie (as previously stated) come from the story being kind of messy and the directing being a little too amateur-ish for the subject matter/story. Time for my final score. *Gulp*. My final score for “The Big Short” is a 8,50/10. While quite flawed I’d still say that it’s worth buying.

My review of “The Big Short” is now completed.

That 8,5 I gave it was on the edge of not being worth buying (8,5 is minimum for “Worth Buying”). So I ask y’all out there, what is a movie the critics loved that you didn’t think was that great?

The new “Suicide Squad” trailer is here

Hi there, ladies and gents. As you read in the title of this post, we have got a new trailer for DC’s upcoming movie “Suicide Squad” and it is absolutely bonkers. Let’s talk about it.

Like I said, this trailer is petty fucking crazy. The first thing that everyone has/will pick up on is the fact that the trailer is set to Queen’s legendary song “Bohemian Rhapsody”. And not only is it a great song, but it is also perfectly used in the trailer with a lot of the action being set to the beat of the song. The trailer also perfectly shows off the characters while also blending in a good amount of action and a surprising amount of humor. I always assumed that the movie would have a little bit of humor to it, but I never thought we could get a movie with so much funny shit. The action looks great and I do believe that everyone will be great in their roles… yes even Jared Leto as the Joker, I think he’s gonna nail it. Everything in this trailer looks promising and I am really looking forward to it. “Suicide Squad” comes out in August of this year.
Enjoy!

“The Legend of Tarzan” trailer just dropped

Hey there, guys. Whenever I talk about trailers coming out it’s because it is something that I’ve been genuinely interested in and had previous knowledge about. But this time I wanna share/talk about this trailer because it just kind of came out of fucking nowhere. I didn’t even know that this movie was releasing a new trailer, let alone knowing it was in production.

So if you don’t know about the story of Tarzan, let me explain it to you, you unknowing person. It started out as a book titled “Tarzan of the Apes” written by author Edgar Rice Burroughs in the early 1900’s. It follows a man named Tarzan who was raised by apes despite being a human and not an ape. And at some point in his life, other humans come to his jungle, one of those humans being a young woman named Jane Porter whom Tarzan falls in love with. And adventure ensues. While I haven’t read Burroughs’ original books, I can at least say that I am a fan of the 1999 animated disney movie starring the voice of Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan. And while this movie seems to stray a bit away from most basic story elements. This will apparently follow Tarzan as he returns to the jungle after living in London.

Now this trailer sets a fairly dark but still relatively lighthearted tone. It’s not overly serious, but also not too silly. And since it is a disney production, it was kind of logical to take a cue or two from the Marvel productions. Okay, so what do I like about this thing so far? Well, I do like the choice of director for the movie. “The Legend of Tarzan” is directed by David Yates who directed the final four “Harry Potter” movies and also the upcoming “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” which really gives me hope for that movie.  As the titular character we will see Swedish (my nationality) actor Alexander Skarsgård who I have seen in some things and thought he was good. At least in the trailer and some photos he does look like he could do it… I hope. I would say that the cast overall looks promising. Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, John Hurt, Djimon Hounsou… this is a great frickin’ cast. So there are a few promising elements to this movie, question is though how it will hold up when it comes out in July.
Enjoy the trailer!

So are you excited for this new upcoming Tarzan movie? Leave a comment.

Top 10 Sexiest Actresses

Ladies, gentlemen and others… it is time. Time for another Top 10, that is. If you had a look around my blog yesterday/the day before I posted a little poll where you could vote for what my next Top 10 would be. To be honest, not many people voted unfortunately which led to there being a tie. The tie was between “Top 10 Batman Movies” and “Top 10 exiest actresses”, the latter of which I suspect my good friend Vinnieh suggested. But seeing as there was a tie at the end of the deadline, I had to figure out how to decide. So I did it the old-fashioned way and flipped a coin and this won. So here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen… My Top 10 Sexiest Actresses.

Rule #1: Same as always; my list, go bitch about someone not sharing your opinion somewhere else.

Rule 2: Which actresses qualify for this? Those who I consider sexy/hot/attractive/beautiful. If you do not agree with what I consider hot/beautiful, read rule #1 and come back when you understand it.

Rule #3: In this list there is no rule #3.

Let’s go!

Number 10: Gwyneth Paltrow.

Someone who has been considered one of if not the most attractive woman in the world makes it in to number 10 and for good reason. She is a gorgeous woman. Those blue eyes, the great golden hair and overall gorgeous style puts her here at number 10.

Number 9: Halle Berry.

How could I not include this dark skinned beauty? For fuck’s sake, she turns 49 later this year and she still looks fantastic! Okay, this picture looks like it might be a few years old… but still. She is one beautiful lady who also happen to be a terrific actor. Also, if you have seen the Bond movie “Die Another Day” you know how great she looks in a bikini.

Number 8: Jennifer Connelly.

This dark-haired beauty has over the past few years become one of my favorite actors, proving herself with movies like “Requiem for a Dream”, “A Beautiful Mind” and “Blood Diamond”. She also happens to be pretty damn attractive with those pretty eyes and the aforementioned dark hair. She is a beautiful woman.

Number 7: Margot Robbie.

I had never even heard of her before I watched “The Wolf of Wall Street last year” (Where she was terrific by the way) and I haven’t seen her in anything since then. But I can say that I both curious and a little excited to see her play Harley Quinn in next year’s “Suicide Squad”. Until then we can at least appreciate those gorgeous eyes, beautiful hair and overall pretty face.

Number 6: Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Here we have the sister of one of my favorite actors (Jake Gyllenhaal). And to give credit where credit is due, she is also a really good actor. Not as good as her brother, but still really good. But the little she lacks in acting skills (compared to her brother) she makes up for in beauty. She captured me with those amazing eyes of hers (Sidenote: As you may have noticed, I am a sucker for eyes) and that really pretty smile.

Number 5: Charlize Theron.

This South African beauty goes in for one of the top spots. It is easy to see why so many people call her one of the most beautiful people in the world. Just look at her! Not only in this picture, but on pretty much every picture out there. Except from the movie “Monster” because in that she looks terrifying. But if you stay away from those pictures you’ll be fine. Also, did you know she’s married to Sean Penn? I sure as hell didn’t until I made this list.

Number 4: Karen Gillan.

A lot of people will go “Who?”. But the majority of the people who know who she is probably know her from her time on “Doctor Who” as Amy Pond. Not only is that red hair beautiful to look at, but her eyes too are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Also, going back to what I first said, you regular people have probably seen her without realizing it. She played the blue alien Nebula in “Guardians of the Galaxy”.

Number 3: Scarlett Johansson.

Fucking duh.

Number 2: Jennifer Lawrence.

One of the few celebrities in recent times that (properly) show off that curves are beautiful. She isn’t one those that has to be ultra skinny or have the biggest ass/boobs, she knows that good curves come naturally. Plus, she is overall a truly gorgeous woman. She is also a fantastic actress.

Honorable mentions: Linda Hamilton (circca 1991), Mila Kunis, Carey Mulligan. Anne Hathaway.

NUMBER 1: Keri Russell!

Yes, yes, yes! Keri Russell is my choice for number 1. Why? Well… look at her! Beautiful eyes, gorgeous hair (both her old curly hair and her current non-curly hair). There is no actress I think exceeds her in beauty. She is a beautiful woman who I hope to see more of in the future!

I know my descriptions were kind of vague, but I did my best with it. So what are some of your favorite sexy/beautiful/hot actresses? Leave a comment.

Have a good one.