Last night I decided to sit down and watch three movies that were all on my “If I don’t have to pay, I’ll see them.” I haven’t done a movie review for awhile, so here we go… three movies!
Pacific Rim:
This movie has everything a teenage boy could want. This movie is about giant robots fighting giant monsters. Outside of that, very little needs to be written about the movie. The story line is incredibly predictable and the acting is nothing special. It is far from a good movie, its not going to win any awards for anything but maybe the CGI. But its GIANT ROBOTS FIGHTING MONSTERS! It doesn’t need really need anything else.
I did want to give a quick compliment to the music. Specifically, there is one scene where a Russian Robot, a Japanese Robot, and an Australian robot are in all out brawl with the monsters. While the music overall stays the same, depending on which robot is the focus the music changes to fit with it. This is most noticeable with the Russians (who have horrible russian accents), but if you put your ear to it you can hear the difference.
Iron Man 3:
I think my friend put it best when he said “Someone really wanted to sell more action figures.” This movie was a far cry from Iron Man 1 and 2.
First off, Tony Stark’s character loses a lot of his humanity. His love for Pepper Potts is really the only thing that keeps him as a sympathetic character. He is suffering from PTSD and an anxiety disorder, but the way they display it is a severe downplay on how severe these conditions can be. It also comes off more as Tony Stark being an asshole than as a man suffering from any mental condition. While I’m glad they tried to show that these conditions can even take down a man who has fought gods, I feel like it could have been done a lot better.
They did show that Tony Stark was pretty cool outside of his armor. Despite him having 42 suits now, much of the movie is him wandering around as just a genius. While it was great of them to show this side of him, I wanted Iron Man. I wanted to see him use his armor to solve specific problems, not see Tony Stark try to be super spy.
I’m going to give a big spoiler here, so stop reading if you don’t like them. I really enjoyed the fake out. The previews, and through a lot of the movie, it sets up the villain to a character called the Mandarin, played by Sir Ben Kingsley. Ben Kingsley is well known for being a great actor, and in a lot of serious roles. The Mandarin is also one of Iron Man’s arch-nemesis. The Mandarin is often decried as a racist character because he’s one of the few Arabs, and of course he works for a terrorist organization that hates America and speaks in this broken english style. The fake out is amazing. The Mandarin isn’t an evil terrorist, but just some poor actor. He’s being paid to pretend to be this terrorist by the true villain, and the villain is just buying into everyone’s fears, into everyone’s racism. The Mandarin and terrorists are a scapegoat for a rich white dude to profit off of. I really appreciate that.
As a comic book fan, I like the storyline and all that they set up and hinted at for future movies. There was lots of comedy, the acting was well done, and it was entertaining. But, it could have been so much more. I had decent expectations of the movie, and the movie didn’t meet those.
World War Z:
This movie was the opposite for Iron Man 3 for me. I had no expectations of this movie. Hell, I didn’t even have a desire to see this movie, but a friend owned it and I was too lazy to get off the couch when he hit play.
I love the book World War Z. World War Z doesn’t have a major protagonist. It doesn’t follow just one guy around as he, and he alone, tries to save the world from the horrible zombie apocalypse. It’s a bunch of characters with different backgrounds fighting to survive. Breaking away from that makes it no longer World War Z to me, and so I didn’t even want to see a movie that was destined to ruin the book.
I do dislike that part of it did become that. It is Brad Pitt, super-spy-soldier dude, travelling the world to try to find a cure and put an end to the Zombie Apocalypse. It does have a “this guy is our super hero!” ending feel. It doesn’t go into the “Lobo,” it doesn’t focus on a bunch of single characters. The book focussed, and felt, like a bunch of individual characters just fighting to survive, while the movie was Brad Pitt saving the world.
But the cure they do find is the type of unique creativity I’d expect from the World War Z. They also include a bit of my favorite part of the book: namely, a lot of the book is about why certain countries survive, while others completely collapse. They briefly mention why there is little to no infection in North Korea, while going into more detail for a few other cities and countries. While no-where near as comprehensive, it was still insightful.
