The Raid: Redemption

There are some interesting action pieces in The Raid: Redemption, but the tone is way off, and it feels more like a first writing/directorial effort than the third that it is.

A friend recommended The Raid about a year ago, and I just got around to watching it. I usually don't like the same things he does, but I figured you couldn't go wrong with a pure action movie. The tone was pretty weird. The director said in the commentary that he was going for kind of a horror/suspense vibe, which I didn't get at all, and a lot of the scenes he thought were funny didn't come across that way to me. So it just seemed really uneven and amateur.

This was the writer/director's third movie. It comes off more like a first. The title makes it seem like it's a sequel. It's actually not, but there is a sequel out now. I'd kind of like to see it to find out if he was able to learn anything from this one/improve the next one. Somebody else did the screenplay for the sequel, so that could potentially help.

Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang

Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang is kind of frustrating in how it just skims the surface of Cai and his art, but it's still interesting to watch.

I read a review of Sky Ladder on Ebert's website, and it sounded interesting. Unfortunately, the review pretty much laid out the entire movie. The movie seemed to just kind of skim over the surface of things. It didn't go in-depth on much. I guess it really was mostly about the Sky Ladder project, which is a pretty weird project.

Pacific Rim

I would've enjoyed Pacific Rim more if it weren't for some weird logic issues, but it was still fun. You pretty much know what you're getting into – it's mecha fighting Godzilla monsters. The characters are engaging, the plot kept me interested, and it's Guillermo del Toro, so you know it's going to look good.

I wasn't interested in Pacific Rim when it came out, but somehow two years later, I decided I should see it. I was expecting Josh Duhamel for some reason. I guess he's in Transformers, which some of the fights in Pacific Rim actually did remind me of. Raleigh looked a lot like Chuck, who naturally looked a lot like Herc. I didn't get them confused or anything, but it seemed weird that they would have so many characters were so similar. I didn't figure out that Chuck was Herc's son until near the end of the movie. I did actually have a bit of trouble figuring out who was who and what was going on with Chuck and Herc.

Mad Max: Fury Road

You know from the trailer exactly what you're getting with Mad Max: Fury Road. The action isn't that spectacular, but the world of Mad Max is always interesting, I liked the characters/actors, and the plot was fine.

I have a lot of nostalgia for the original Mad Max series, from forever ago. I'm pretty sure I watched it about 15 years ago and didn't like it. But I don't remember that anymore, so it's basically just back to the nostalgia. I didn't see the point in watching Fury Road. It didn't seem like the movie was necessary, or anything that was going to be that great. I do like Tom Hardy, but I'm not a huge fan of Charlize, and "Furiosa" is the dumbest name ever. I guess it *might* kind of fit in with the Mad Max univerise, though.

The opening of the movie is pretty cool. It's hard not to get behind Max's narration. I did like the look of the war boys. And the canyon people's outfits were cool, too. I thought Nux looked like Nicholas Hoult. I keep confusing other people for him, but I was like, "No, this time that really *has* to be him." Some of the car stuff was cool I guess. I wasn't super impressed with it, or the guitar player, although I did like the war drums. I could've done without the sped-up footage effect.

The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven has a lot of flaws, and the acting isn't good enough to carry the lack of plot and character development. Some of the action is cool, but it's not really enough to make it worth watching.

The Magnificent Seven got mixed reviews, but I was hoping it could be carried on the virtue of the actors. Turns out it couldn't. The plot is ridiculously simple, but you know that going in, so they really need to do some character development or have some cool tricks or something, but they don't. It felt really tired and unispired. The whole "defending a small town with tricks" thing has been done to death. You've got to have some spectacularly impressive tricks if you're going to make it entertaining, and they didn't.