Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame is visually interesting, but the story is somewhat confusing and the action falls flat.

I saw a trailer for Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon that looked cool, so I requested it from the library. When it came in, I checked IMDb to see if it was any good or not, and I found out it was actually a prequel. I figured I had better watch the original one first. I love the  Huayi Brothers movies. They're always so gorgeous. The costumes in this movie were great. The sets were beautiful; I loved the use of different colors of light. It was cool how the eyes of the Buddha looked out over the city; it was such an interesting shape to look out of.

The action was confusing, though. I had no idea what was going on half the time. I think I'd like to see fewer movies choreographed by Sammo Hung. It just gets boring when you can't follow what's going on. I had a hard time following the characters and the plot, too. I could've used some of the pop-on character names from the Tai Chi movies here.

Machete Kills

Machete Kills isn't as good as Machete. There aren't as many big surprises, some of the jokes/ideas that come around again aren't funny a second time, I didn't buy half the performances, and it drags in quite a few places. It still has some great gags, lines, and situations, though, and it was a lot more fun than Gravity.

 Machete was a great movie, so I was hoping Machete Kills would be good. Roeper only gave it a C, but I don't know how much I can trust him anymore. Based on that review, I decided not to see it at the theater. Once it came in on DVD, I thought I did want to see it at the theater; it took so long that I forgot what I decided. But now that I've seen it, I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater. I'm sure people would've been laughing/reacting a lot, and I hate hearing that.

Gravity

You don't see a lot of mundane movies about space, really. Gravity is interesting if you're into that kind of thing, and it does maintain a good level of tension. There are some nice shots, and the soundtrack is fine, but it's not that impressive overall. 

I wasn't really interested in Gravity, but it got so much hype, I had to watch it. I'm not a huge Sandra Bullock or space fan, but it wasn't so bad. She didn't really have a lot to do here, it seemed like. I was skeptical about watching her float around space in a space suit for an hour and a half, but luckily she gets out of the suit and does some other stuff inside spacecraft, too. It wasn't the most amazingly beautiful thing I've ever seen. There were some nice shots of the Earth, but if you've seen any of Chris Hadfield's pictures on tumblr, you've pretty much seen all there is to see (in fact, more interesting stuff than there was in Gravity). The score had some nice moments, but it was mostly unremarkable.

Sellebrity

In a word: boring.

I watched this movie over a couple days in about 8 sittings. I figured it wouldn't be worth sitting through all at once, and I was right. It wasn't very interesting or insightful, and it focused a lot on blaming the public for why celebrities exist and have such a hard time getting any privacy. I guess that's a valid assessment, but I wasn't expecting it to be the focus of the movie. I didn't really learn anything by watching this; I think E! probably could've done a better job in one of their specials.

The Counselor

The Counselor looks good and the soundtrack is cool, but that's not enough of a reason to watch it. The plot is laid out poorly, and the dialogue is pretentious and out of place. Whatever they were going for didn't work. 

It's been two months since I've seen a movie. So much for my "one movie a week" plan. The Counselor was a really disappointing return to movies. I didn't get a clear idea from the trailer what the movie was even about, but it looked slick. Roeper really steered me wrong on it - I can't believe he gave it an A+! I should've checked it out on IMDb; they're closer to the mark with a rating of 5.5. The actual movie was a lot like the trailer. I had no idea what was going on a lot of the time, and some things still weren't clear by the end.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game is well-made. The acting, writing, and production value are all fine. It's mildly interesting, but it doesn't really pick up until the end, and I wound up wondering why I watched it.

I haven't read any of the Ender's Game series, but the movie kind of looked interesting, and Roeper gave it a B at least. The acting was fine, and Asa was likeable enough as Ender. I'm not sure I would've kept the last name "Butterfield" if I were Asa. I guess he likes it.

The movie more or less held my interest, and it moved along at a quick pace. Probably too quick of a pace; in the book I imagine they had more time to draw things out. The pace made things seem a little choppy in the movie. It was well-made; it looked good, and the writing/dialogue was good. It was still a little flat, though. People on IMDb described it as "too linear" and "rushed," and I guess I'd agree with that.

The Lone Ranger

I don't know why The Lone Ranger got such bad reviews. It's a fun Disney movie with action, comedy, villains, likeable characters, and great cinematography.
 

The Lone Ranger got some pretty bad reviews, but it still looked like it might be fun. I don't really know anything about the TV series, so I went into it with a completely blank slate on that front; no expectations, and nothing for the movie to live/match up to. I was skeptical about Johnny Depp playing a Native American, and I was right to be; it wasn't so much like watching "Tonto" as it was just watching "Johnny Depp in makeup," but that's okay. I enjoyed his performance anyway.

I really liked what Armie Hammer did with the character of The Lone Ranger. He was pretty endearing. I liked how he always wanted to do the right thing, but he was naïve and kind of bumbling. He just seemed like a good guy, totally out of his element.

It kind of came across as a kids' movie, but then there was a lot of drinking and prostitutes and eating people going on, so it was weird in that respect. It was Disney, after all. I don't think Helena's character Red really needed to be in it. She didn't do much. And Helena's starting to look old. 

William Fichtner gave the performance of his life as Cavendish, or maybe the character design people just did an awesome job. He was barely recognizable; I didn't even know it was him until halfway through the movie. That lip problem he had going on was really disturbing. All the rangers were so dirty, too. That was weird.