Synopsis
When the Transformers learn that an ancient Cybertonian ship is on the moon, the Autobots must race to discover its secrets before the Decepticons do.
Review
After the disappointment of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I went into the third live-action Transformers film with caution. Thankfully, Transformers: Dark of the Moon seems to have learned after Revenge of the Fallen and treats the audience with more respect. The humor isn’t as immature as before. In fact, there is not as much humor as there was previous films in the franchise. Whereas the last two films had jokes coming from multiple sources, this movie primarily relies on Shia LeBeouf to carry that aspect of it. Instead, it takes itself much more seriously, which ends up helping overall because the story is much bigger and epic than before. Like Revenge of the Fallen, it goes bigger than the films before in a true sequel fashion. This focus on the story and characters rather than the childish humor creates a much more engaging and exciting experience.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the definition of a “blockbuster” movie. It’s big, it’s loud, and it takes you on an adventure. It isn’t as glob-spanning as Revenge of the Fallen but that’s okay. While the world trotting grandeur isn’t there, the action is much bigger, which is saying something considering the last film. The best part is that this movie does a much better job of framing the action scenes around the robots than the previous films. There are still multiple close-ups during the fights making it tricky to see everything but for the most part, the camera stays further back, giving a better view of the fight, especially against the backdrop of Chicago during the final act.
I thought Transformers: Dark of the Moon was GOOD 🙂 Just like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen went bigger than Transformers, Dark of the Moon goes bigger than Revenge of the Fallen. Even though the film is longer, the story is much more focused and the humor is much better, being toned back severely and being more serious in general. Overall, it is a vast improvement on all counts than the let down of its immediate predecessor in the franchise.
Trivia
According to ILM, the company employed its entire rendering machinery to use on the film. This added up to using more than 200,000 rendering hours per day, the equivalent of 22.8 years of render time in 24 hours. (via IMDb)
Trailer
Cast & Crew Michael Bay – Director
Ehren Kruger – Writer
Steve Jablonsky – Composer
Shia LeBeouf – Sam Witwicky
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley – Carly
Josh Duhamel – Lennox
John Turturro – Simmons
Alan Tudyk – Dutch
Tyrese Gibson – Epps
Patrick Dempsey – Dylan
Frances McDormand – Mearing
Kevin Dunn – Ron Witwicky
Julie White – Judy Witwicky
John Malkovich – Bruce Brazos
Ken Jeong – Jerry Wang
Glenn Marshower – General Marshower
Peter Cullen – Optimus Prime (voice)
Jess Harnell – Iron Hide (voice)
Robert Foxworth – Ratchet (voice)
James Remar – Sideswipe (voice)
Francesco Quinn – Dino (voice)
George Coe – Wheeljack (voice)
Tom Kenny – Que / Wheelie (voice)
Reno Wilson – Brains (voice)
Leonard Nimoy – Sentinel Prime (voice)
Hugo Weaving – Megatron (voice)
Charlie Adler – Starscream (voice)
Frank Welker – Soundwave / Shockwave (voice)
Keith Szarabajka – Laserbeak (voice)
Synopsis
Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is recruited by the Rebel Alliance to steal the plans for the Empire’s super weapon, the Death Star.
Review
As much as I enjoy the Star Wars films, I love delving into the Expanded Universe, exploring characters and stories that take place outside of the films. These stories help enrich the Star Wars universe, making an already great story even greater. Rogue One is unique as it is the first Star Wars live-action movie that is not an “episode,” a spin-off meant to expand on events of the main Star Wars story line. With the pre-Disney Expanded Universe out the window, Kyle Katarn is gone and in his place is Jyn Erso and her band of Rebel misfits to steal the Death Star plans for the Alliance.
One thing that the original trilogy never showed was what it meant for the galaxy to be under Imperial rule. We see their villainy through Darth Vader, Tarkin, and the Emperor but don’t actually feel their grip besides what is told to us by the characters. Rogue One shows what life for ordinary citizens in the Empire was like, having a Star Destroyer loom ahead and stormtroopers walking around city streets. The original trilogy also shows the Rebellion after its success and as the Empire begins to fall apart. This movie takes place during the height of the Empire, when the Rebellion is at their most desperate. It’s a tonal shift from the other films but works so well because it makes their accomplishments during the original trilogy mean so much more.
As I said, during Rogue One, the Rebels’ backs are against the wall, leading to a feeling of desperation. This creates a darker, grittier tone for the film. One of my favorite Star Wars video games is Republic Commando. In that game, the player is taken to the darker side of the Clone Wars, fighting battles away from the flash of Jedi lightsabers. This reminded me a lot of that. It looked at the Star Wars universe where blasters are the norm and laser swords are nowhere to be found. Although the tone was darker than your standard Star Wars fare, it never became dispiriting. Whenever things began to go bleak, there was a quip or a funny action to lighten the mood, mainly from everyone’s sure-to-be-new-favorite droid, K-2SO.
K-2SO is only one of the several new characters introduced into the Star Wars universe. Besides K-2SO, there is Jyn Erso, an Imperial prisoner and daughter of the engineer overseeing the Death Star’s construction, Cassian Andor, a Rebel intelligence officer, Chirrut Imwe, a blind warrior, Baze Malbus, a mercenary and friend of Chirrut’s, Bodhi Rook, an Imperial defector, Orson Krennic, the director of Imperial weapons research, and many others. Already, you can see that it has become cumbersome. This doesn’t change in the film either. Jyn gets the most development, with most of the other characters just kind of being there. This makes them feel underdeveloped, especially since this is the first time we are meeting these characters. However, I like to think that this movie isn’t really about these characters but about the Rebellion itself and, like I mentioned before, showing where the Rebellion was before the original trilogy. Yes, it would have been nice to learn more about these new characters but I don’t think the purpose of this film is to care about the characters, it’s purpose was to care about the Rebellion. By following this line of thinking, the minimal backstories given for the characters is enough for me.
Throughout the original trilogy, every action is seen as black and white; The Empire is bad, the Rebellion is good. This film mixes that up a little bit and trots into the moral gray area of war. There is still the feeling of Empire equals bad, Rebellion equals good, but throughout the movie, there is a subtle blanket over the film that removes that cheery atmosphere from the original trilogy. This helps create the grittiness to Rogue One. Although these are Rebels, it wouldn’t be difficult to picture a few of them fighting for the Empire based on their actions and our views on Imperials developed in the original trilogy.
It is clear from A New Hope that Grand Moff Tarkin was integral in the Death Star’s history. It is also clear that the villain of this film is supposed to be Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), so the film had the difficult task of needing to have Tarkin in the story but not too much that he overshadowed Krennic. I think they used just the right amount of Tarkin to make it clear his importance to the Death Star but still allow Krennic to remain front and center as the main baddie.
Peter Cushing, the original actor to play Tarkin, passed away in 1994 so he obviously wasn’t available to reprise the role. Rather than recasting the role or using Wayne Pygram, they used a body double and CGI’d Cushing’s face onto the actor. The effect looks amazing and if you just look at him, it would be hard to tell it wasn’t actually Cushing… until he talked. I don’t know what happened, but when Tarkin talks, his mouth doesn’t move quite right and is very distracting. Not many things have pulled me out of a film but that was one of them.
Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars without Darth Vader having some sort of presence. Like Tarkin, the film had to balance how much Vader was in the film to not take way from Krennic or the other characters introduced in the film. Again, he has the perfect amount of screen time. His first scene with Krennic showed us this was a return to the Vader of old, not the Vader seen at the end of Revenge of the Sith. That he was a force to be feared, even by his own men. Then his final appearance in the hallway of a rebel ship, mowing down Rebel troops was something out of a Star Wars horror movie. This is a return to form for the character, showing how badass and powerful he is.
The announcement that Rogue One would not contain an opening crawl created contention among fans. How can a Star Wars film not have an opening crawl? Everyone knows that’s how they begin. Although it is a controversial decision, I do think it worked well. The plot is pretty straightforward and first few scenes did a fairly decent job setting up the film that I don’t think not having the crawl negatively impacted the film.
Now, I will admit the film did start off rather slow. Since the movie was dealing with all new characters and they bypassed the opening crawl, it had to take the time to establish them. The second act was not much better. It still moved slowly but not as slowly as the first act. However, it did a great job of building off of what was established in the first several scenes. I think one of this film’s strong points was that it got exponentially better as the film went on, each scene improving on the last. As I said earlier, there wasn’t a whole lot of development for the new characters but this movie slowly established a connection with them and the Rebellion. So by the time the movie hits the explosive final act, I cared enough about the characters to feel some emotion towards them.
Speaking of the final act, what an action scene! Say what you will about Gareth Edwards, but he has a knack for setting up action sequences. The fight scene at the end of Godzilla was pretty epic and that pales in comparison to this one. One of my favorite thing about The Force Awakens was its use of practical effects as much as possible and that praise applies to Rogue One as well. Return of the Jedi is my favorite film of the original trilogy mostly because of the final battle on and above the forest moon of Endor and the duel on the Death Star II. There was something very similar in this movie, with Jyn and her squad battling stormtroopers on Scarif’s surface while the Rebel fleet battled Star Destroyers in space above the planet. The scale is amazing, the action is well shot, and it is easy to follow despite jumping between several places. Not only is this my new favorite action sequence from the Star Wars saga, but it is one of my favorite action sequences of any movie.
I thought Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was GREAT :-D. I’m a bit of an oddity when is comes to being a Star Wars fan. I like the prequels more than most and The Force Awakes less than most. It may then come as no surprise that I really enjoyed Rogue One. The disappointing amount of character development can be overlooked if you focus on what the movie was trying to focus on, which is the Rebellion as a whole, not the individual people within the Rebellion. When Lucasfilm announced they were doing one Star Wars film a year until 2020, I was a little skeptical. After seeing how the first two films have turned out, I’m getting more optimistic towards the future of the franchise.
Trailer
Cast & Crew
Gareth Edwards – Director
Chris Weitz – Screenplay
Tony Gilroy – Screenplay
John Knoll – Story
Gary Whitta – Story
Michael Giacchino – Composer
Felicity Jones – Jyn Erso
Diego Luna – Cassian Andor
Alan Tudyk – K-2SO
Donnie Yen – Chirrut Imwe
Wen Jiang – Baze Malbus
Ben Mendelsohn – Orson Krennic
Forest Whitaker – Saw Gerrera
Riz Ahmed – Bodhi Rook
Mads Mikkelsen – Galen Erso
Jimmy Smits – Bail Organa
Alistair Petrie – General Draven
Genevieve O’Reilly – Mon Mothma
Ben Daniels – General Merrick
Ian McElhinney – General Dodonna
Paul Kasey – Admiral Raddus
Stephen Stanton – Admiral Raddus (voice)
James Earl Jones – Darth Vader (voice)
Guy Henry – Grand Moff Tarkin
Synopsis
Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) is a bad guy, and he’s tired of it. After constantly being overshadowed by his games titular hero, Fix-It Felix, Jr. (Jack McBrayer), Ralph sets out to claim a medal of his own and prove that he can be a good guy, too. However, after game jumping, he ends up in Sugar Rush, where he loses the medal after he meets the misfit Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman). She agrees to help him get his prized medal back if he helps her win a race to get a spot on Sugar Rush’s character selection screen.
Review
I love to play video games and grew up on the likes Mario, Sonic, Pac-Man, and many others. So when I first heard that Disney was creating a movie in the world of video games, as you can imagine, I was pretty excited. Finally I would get to see my favorite game characters together on screen. Wreck-It Ralph, the resulting mash up, was greater than anything I could have imagined.
Wreck-It Ralph is the Who Framed Roger Rabbit of video games. There are characters from Nintendo, SEGA, Konami, Capcom, and many more that I can’t even remember right now, all interacting together. When the characters are walking through Game Central Station, a parody of New York City’s Grand Central Stations located in the power strip, there are many, many cameos. You really have to look close to catch them all, and even after a few viewings I am still finding nods and references I haven’t caught before. It’s a real nostalgia trip.
There are four distinct worlds in Wreck-It Ralph: The “real world”, Fix-It Felix, Jr., Hero’s Duty and Sugar Rush. The animators did a great job of making each world feel unique. The world of Fix-It Felix, Jr. has a flat color palate reminiscent of the 8-bit era. Everything is based around squares; The dust is square, cake splatter is square, even the characters only move at right angles. Hero’s Duty is much darker and has greater contrasts and sharper edges than the other worlds. On the other hand, Sugar Rush is much more colorful than the others and everything is rounder and softer. These little nuances between each world makes each one a unique experience.
Reilly wouldn’t have been my first choice to voice Ralph, but he did phenomenal in the role. His humor carried over well from his movies like Step Brothers and Cedar Rapids and made the part energetic, while at the same time not becoming overbearing. McBrayer and Silverman fit their roles appropriately and Jane Lynch filled the role of the no-nonsense Sergeant Calhoun surprisingly well. But the biggest surprise was Alan Tudyk as King Candy, the ruler of Sugar Rush. I didn’t even realize it was him until the credits rolled! He did an amazing job and I hope he does more voice acting (He voiced the Duke of Weselton in the more recent Frozen, but that was only a minor role). Disney did great casting the right people for this film.
Like most Disney movies, Wreck-It Ralph has a lot of heart. I’m sure almost anyone can relate to Ralph’s struggle to be accepted by those around him or Vanellope’s desire to fit in. The oddball relationship Ralph and Vanellope formed together can be seen in many of our own friendships. Whether you are an adult or kid, you can find some part of yourself in this movie.
Wreck-It Ralph pays homage to many of the great video game characters and successfully brings them all together, very similar to the cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The animation is superb and each video game world feels distinct. Every voice actor was perfectly cast, but Tudyk stole the scene as King Candy. There is a lot of heart to the story and something for everyone to relate to, either in the story or characters. Disney has once again created an animated masterpiece that everyone, young and old, can enjoy.
Synopsis
When Princess Elsa (Idina Menzel) was a little girl, her parents closed the doors to the castle because they feared their kingdom would not accept Elsa’s snow magic. On the day of Elsa’s coronation ceremony, no one is more elated than her sister, Princess Anna (Kristen Bell), since the castle doors will be open for the first time in years. Excited to meet someone special, she runs into Prince Hans (Santino Fontana) , who quickly proposes to her. When the two ask for the new Queen’s blessing, an argument erupts between the two sisters, causing Elsa’s powers to surge out of control, cloaking the entire kingdom in an eternal winter, and Elsa to run away. After gaining the help of Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), an ice salesman, and the talking snowman Olaf (Josh Gad), Anna heads off on a journey to find her sister and convince her to end the curse that has befallen the land.
Review
Finally. Finally Disney is starting to regain its musical glory from the 1990s. The Disney Renaissance (the time between The Little Mermaid and Tarzan) gave us some of the greatest animated musicals, and Frozen successfully recaptures the magic that made them fun, entertaining, and heartwarming. It appears Disney has learned from the last few years and has created an animated musical that could propel them back to the King of the animated feature.
Frozen is different than your normal princess movie because it has not one but two princesses: Anna and Elsa. The two sisters are very different, but their contrast is what drives their relationship. Anna is without a doubt my favorite of the two. She is quirky, outgoing, and awkward, whereas Elsa is more reserved and poised. However, both sisters have aspects to their character than anyone can find something to relate to. It’s such a refreshing take on the Disney Princess.
Despite what the trailer or my synopsis may portray, Elsa is actually not the villain. Rather, she is more of a catalyst for Anna’s journey. Eventually, she becomes comfortable with her gift and accepts what she can do. Never once does she have any malevolent intent to her actions. The true villain doesn’t reveal themselves until about the last third of the movie. It was a good reveal and it took me by surprise.
Olaf, the hard-not-to-love snowman, almost single-handedly stole the show. I would say he is great as the comedic relief, but that is not really true since every character has some comical elements to them. He is, however, the funniest character of the bunch, not just in what he says but also his actions. Kristoff is fun, particularly when he is “conversing” with his pet reindeer, Sven.
The animation is gorgeous. It is amazing to see how far the computer animation has improved over the last fifteen or so years. Some of the ice effects are some of the best I have seen. These amazing effects help evoke emotions that really bring you deeper into the story. Disney’s other recent computer animated films, Wreck-It Ralph and Tangled, were well animated, but Frozen improves on them to create one of the most visually pleasing movie since How to Train Your Dragon.
The moral of the story is unlike Disney’s previous princess movies. One of the character’s actions make for a good jaw-dropping moment. It still has to do with “true love” but isn’t exactly what you would expect. I’m not going to say any specifics, but it was a good twist that is more inline with modern views.
The songs can make or break a musical and the score in Frozen is the best since the aforementioned Disney Renaissance. The husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez did great penning the songs. They were reminiscent of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, but still felt like their own. Elsa’s song “Let It Go” has become one of my favorites. I may or may not have once listened to it on repeat for an hour and a half… Anyway, I’m hoping Lopez and Anderson-Lopez write for the next several Disney musicals because I can’t wait to be wowed by the pair again.
Frozen is one of the best Disney movies in years. Anyone can relate to the bond between Anna and Elsa. The animation and score do wonders to enhance the already stellar story. If Disney Animation continues to create movies of this magnitude, this could be the start of another Disney Renaissance.
Synopsis
Drew's Movie Reviews 