Let's Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

What better way to review something than to review its ending. As I’m not going to review any of the other Harry Potter films this is exactly what I’m going to do. This film being about the final half of the last book is the very definition of a story’s ending but how well of an ending is it? Let’s review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

The Negative

My first complaint comes from the digital effects. Out of all the films in the series, this one seemed to have the weakest digital effects. Certain scenes like when Harry was looking through the pensieve or the final magic battle between Harry and Voldemort or the effects on the Grey Lady, all of it really seemed to stand out as poor graphics. I personally think that this was caused by the effects teams trying to compensate for the 3D effects and/or because they were rushing to get the film released on time. Whatever the reason behind, the digital effects in this one weren’t really up to snuff like some of the previous installments.  For the best comparison for what I’m trying to get at, watch the Priori Incantatem (the great big magic energy beam stalemate between Harry and Voldemort) in Goblet of Fire and compare it to its appearance in this film, it really is a poorer quality.

 

Another problem is how fast the villains die. Both Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort die extremely quickly. Bellatrix has been built up as a very frightening very powerful villain, and she only started appearing in the 5^th film. Her character has been established as a force to be reckoned with so to have her final fight and death be resolved in under a minute is kind of unworthy of her character. As a matter of fact her death by dehydration curse comes off as incredibly silly and ruins the emotional satisfaction of having her death occur. Voldemort’s death happens fairly quickly but that’s how it happened in the book. My actually problem with his death is the fact that there really isn’t a final word between Harry and Voldemort before the fatal blow is cast. This brings me to my final complaint.

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FINAL BOOK OR SEEN THE FINAL MOVIE, YOU SHOULD NOT READ THE FOLLOW PARAGRAPH AS IT CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS TO THE ENDING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

Exposition is one of the main devices for storytelling. The purpose of exposition is to inform the readers about the background information about plot, characters, setting, or themes. This has been used in storytelling for centuries. This is something also present in the Harry Potter novels. This is something that is not included in the final scene of the final film. In the novel after Harry confronts Voldemort and ‘dies’, he has a very ethereal conversation with Dumbledore. This conversation is used to explain how brave Harry was to accept his fate for the greater good, but what had really occurred was Voldemort killing the horcrux that was attached to Harry himself. This is the point where Dumbledore encourages Harry to get back up and finish the fight with Voldemort for he is truly the only one who can finally defeat him. This is the last time we see Dumbledore in the movie. After the final battle with Voldemort, the novel continues with Harry having a conversation with Dumbledore’s ‘spirit’ which now resides in a portrait in his former office. This conversation explains the entire plot of not only the final book but most of the secret plot threads running throughout the entire series. This scene explains the importance of the deathly hallows (the namesake of the title), why Dumbledore’s brother hates him, why Dumbledore’s hand was cursed in #6, what Harry plans to do with the power of the Elder Wand, and many more secrets revealed. They don’t have this all important scene in the film. WHY?!?!?!?! THIS IS THE MAIN POINT OF THE SERIES GETTING EXPLAINED, WHY WOULD YOU NOT INCLUDE IT? Instead we get a brief scene of Harry and pals talking a little on a bridge before Harry breaks the Elder Wand like a twig and chucks it. The scene barely explains any of the plot threads and is hardly the ending we deserve. The major problem is not explaining the main point of the horcruxes. These mystic items were the title of the darn thing but they barely get a focus on in the story’s plot. This was the same problem with film 6 when they spent no time at all with the Half-Blood Prince’s book or with Harry learning all the new skills from it, but still cared enough to have Snape randomly point out that he was the Half-Blood Prince (for anyone who hasn’t read the novels, this comes off as ‘yeah I’m that guy who wrote in that book you had the first 3^rd of the film before getting rid of it to focus on more teen drama scenes’) By not focusing on the Deathly Hallows and their importance to the entire plot of the series, we miss out on a great conclusion to an amazing series. It also just seems funny to name something after something that barely means anything to the plot after removing the exposition for it. The film should have been called Harry Potter and the Sinister Search for the Seven Soul Slices just to match the plot it presented better.

The Positive

This film was a wonderfully well done conclusion to a well accomplished film series. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and have only a few complaints with very little that I would change. I believe that splitting the final book into two parts gave it a lot more breathing room and both parts benefitted from it. That being said there are a few areas of the film I want to praise.

 

The make-up designer did an amazing job with the goblins. I have never seen make-up on mythical creatures look so realistic before. It looked as if it were made from actual skin and that an actual goblin was sitting in front of them. I was absolutely astounded by the vastly impressive work I saw here.

 

Another thing I want to praise is the pacing of the film. Its 130 minutes long yet still feels like it gets over too soon. Not once did I look at my watch while viewing this film. When the credits rolled I was confused because I felt like I hadn’t been there that long. It truly is amazing pacing when you sit through 130 minutes and feel like you’ve only been watching a half hour.

In Conclusion

The Harry Potter film series will be forever known as a cinematic success in fully adapting a lengthy book series. The conclusion is as wonderfully constructed as all the other pieces in this series. The Harry Potter films will truly be a missed feature to look forward to every year. 4 out of 5

Let's Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I am behind in a number of film reviews but the one that is the most behind is Pirates 4. I have been very busy lately and have put this off for sometime (even putting other posts and reviews in front of this one). It’s nothing personnel, I just haven’t gotten around to it. So without further waiting, let’s review Pirates 4.

The Negative

This is the film where the cast and crew become divided. It’s the sequel where some felt that the last film should have ended it, and some wanted to keep going. This happens with many film series and it’s always an awkward transition. We lose some of the main characters and some of the driving creative force that made the films good. This is something the Pirates 4 does a good job at fighting but ultimately stumbles through this.

 

Have Captain Jack Sparrow as the new main character keeps the film going but brings the character down a peg. Until this film, Jack wasn’t the main star of the series; the narrative had always been about Will and Elizabeth. Putting Jack into the main seat means that some of his more bizarre antics need more explanation. Jack Sparrow operates as a mobile plot device. His actions always further the plot for our main duo in a bizarre and humorous way. This is his appeal. By making him the main character, he can no longer play the moving plot device and must have other characters move the plot for him. Jack Sparrow is mostly just pointed to the next plot piece by all of the supporting characters and sent on his merry way. It’s almost as if Captain Jack was forced onto this adventure by his peers and is less fun because of it.

 

Speaking of missing cast members, where was everyone else? I understand that Will and Elizabeth weren’t going to be in this one, but what about all the other supporting characters? The only returning characters in this film are Jack, Barbossa, and Gibbs, what happened to the rest of the crew? I was expecting to see Cotton, Marty, Pintel, Ragetti, the Prison Dog, anybody who was a small supporting character but still memorable. None of these characters return, instead we get a heartfelt missionary, a smitten mermaid, an annoying cabin boy, and Scrum.  (I’m not joking that’s his name). While these new characters were entertaining at some points, I have to wonder why no one else decided to return. The story of how the Pearl got capture might suggest that they are all dead which would simply be just a letdown and a loss of good characters.

 

My final problem with the film is that the Zombies just didn’t work for me. The only magical enchantment that was at Blackbeard’s disposal that seemed to be real was his sword controller for the ship. The voodoo dolls, the prophet, and the zombie generals just felt really forced into this film. I feel like this was the producers wanted a new mystical element in this film since we could no longer have skeleton pirates or fish people. I get that having cursed crews is a key recurring plot device in the series but the zombies just didn’t pull it off for me. The effect was rarely used, but when it was used it just looked cheap and fake.

The Positive

 

Any scene that had Jack and Barbossa together. These two were priceless and every scene they had together was hilarious. With Jack taking up the role of the main character, Barbossa was taking over Jack’s role. He would appeal at random moments and move the plot along in a bizarre and humorous fashion. This actually significantly made Barbossa more likable and all of his interactions with Jack became the highlight of the film.

 

I ended up really liking Blackbeard as a villain. He was portrayed as an aging pirate who was seeking to immortalize himself as well as redeem himself for his newly found daughter. This is how most of the main characters played out in this film. Age was getting to them; while they were seeking out a way to become immortal they were also trying to find was of redemption. Blackbeard was an old villain on his last leg and he was desperate to save himself. For me that really worked as a villain. I don’t quite understand why we need the Spanish as a side antagonist; they served no real purpose and were barely featured in the film. The film would have been fine with just Blackbeard as the main villain without any interference from the silly Spanish army. (As a side note I also really liked Blackbeard’s enchanted sword even though it was never explained and became useless once they were away from all the ships.)

In Conclusion

This was one of the better films in the series but at the same time, like its characters, it is showing its age and is on its last leg. The Pirates series is enjoyable because of brilliant characters. People want to go see what these characters are doing and what they’ve gotten themselves into this time. This has made movie goers to forgive the incoherent plots because of the likable characters. The problem with this is when you get rid of most of the main cast members, people realize more and more how bad the plot really is. 3 out of 5.

Let's Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

The problem with reviewing sequels is that I probably haven’t reviewed the previous films, so you don’t know what my opinions are on the previous films. That being said, this film was better than the 2^nd film. At the same time, that’s like saying ‘Look everyone! We’re above ground!’ (Seriously, did anyone like the 2^nd film?) Without getting too far into my immense displeasure at the 2^nd film, let’s review Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The Negative

This film is 2 hours and 35 minutes long, while only having an hour long plot. That isn’t to say that the movie was slow, just that its plot could have been accomplished much faster if it had decided not to spend an hour and 35 minutes on fight scenes and Sam Witwicky complaining about life. With the new favored film formula of trilogies make the big bucks, I kind of expected this film to be bigger in scale. What I was expecting to see was Vector Sigma, Dinobots, Unicron, or even Primus (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s because I know more Transformer mythology than you). What I got instead was an evil Sentinel Prime, a rehashed telling of the Ark, and space bridges. You could say that I expected too much from this film, but then we have grown to expect films to resolve their story lines within 3 films time, with the third film always upping the ante to the extreme, and this plot just didn’t accomplish that task.

The scale of the battle felt surprisingly low for the Decepticons taking over the planet. Humans and transformers were slaughtered by the dozens without so much as batting an eye. There wasn’t any gravity attached to the hundreds of deaths because they were all nameless background characters who died in seconds. If you want to pull off death on a high scale onscreen then you need to attach some emotion to it, instead of just showing these people dying and then continuing the film.

A major problem in the film is the random racism. Notably, nothing in the film hits the bad racist stereotypes that Skids and Mudflap presented in the 2^nd film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still there. Many of the newly introduced Autobots are simply defined but what accent they happen to have, the character Dutch (while being a very interesting new addition to the cast) is at times presented as being a psychotic Dutchman, and we have an Asian character refer to himself as Deep Wang. Deep Wang is by far the most glaring racism in the film. He comes right the f**k out of nowhere, corners Sam in the bathroom, takes his pants off, and shoves a great big piece of paper the was residing in his underwear into Sam’s face. What was the point of Deep Wang at all? Sam could have easily gotten the information elsewhere, there was no need to have a character called Deep Wang appear in the film.

Speaking of Sam, why was he in this film? I feel like his character was really forced into this story. All he does for the first hour is complain about how much his life sucks after saving the world twice with giant robots and getting a medal from the President. I can promise you that if I even do that once in my life time, I will die happy. The true purpose that Sam features in this film is to explain the plot of what’s going on from a human perspective. I actually feel like we’re missing out on the awesome transformers movie because we keep focusing on him and not the killer robots behind him. We could have gotten a film that actually told the story from the Autobot’s perspective, instead we are once again told about the Autobots from a whiny human perspective.

The Positive

This film was a tribute to Transformers fans. Little things throughout the entire film were references to the classic Transformers. It was awesome to see Optimus Prime finally have his trailer attachment, and then to find out that it contained his armory and jets (instead of just magically disappearing whenever he transformed like in the original TV series) was just the coolest moment. Other moments like having the Ark, or Optimus willing to return leadership to Sentinel, or having Laserbeak be a major character was what really made the film for me.

The first scene with the Decepticons really sold this plot for me. Megatron was wounded, but not beaten. There was still an ace up his sleeve and he was about to reveal it. I feel like it’s a shame that they didn’t have Megatron really appear in the film at all. This was the plan that he was executing and he was just sitting it out and letting Sentinel take over.

Of all the Decepticons, Laserbeak was randomly the most effective. He got the job done through deceit, manipulation, cunning, and murder, exactly how a Decepticon should accomplish his goals. The darkest scene in the movie comes out of nowhere, when Laserbeak slaughters an entire family on Megatron’s whim. Laserbeak was how the Decepticons should have been acting from film one.

In Conclusion

I have very mixed feelings about this film. I feel like it should have been more, but I’m not entirely angry with what I got. If they should decide to continue the series, I can only hope that they figure out a way to have a bigger plot in a shorter amount of time. Less time spent with the humans and more time spent developing the Transformers, the better the next film will be. 3.3 out of 5

Top 10 Greatest Butlers

Welcome again to the Guide to Geekdom. I’m tired of writing only film reviews. I’m also tired of my feet hurting and not being waited on hand and foot. With that mindset, I decided to come up with the Top 10 Greatest Butlers list. Searching all of Geekdom, I have selected the best of the best of all butlers. Before I start this list a few notable mentions of butlers who were considered for this list but ultimately didn’t make the cut:
-Klahadore (One Piece)
-Rosie the Robot (The Jetsons)
-Wong (Dr. Strange)

Now without further ado let’s start this list

10: Edwin Jarvis (Iron Man)

Jarvis has long serviced Iron Man and then latter on the Avengers, being the one constant that the team has always had. On occasion Jarvis has even joined the Avengers on some of their heroic adventures. When Iron Man wanted a new butler to replace Jarvis after he left to go serve the Avengers full time, he simply programmed a powerful artificial intelligence to be a copy of Jarvis. The program was named Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. This computerized version of Jarvis is what appears in the Iron Man films.

9: Mercy Graves (Superman: the animated series)

 

Mercy Graves is the bodyguard/ assistant to Lex Luthor. Graves is almost loyal to Luthor to a fault, blindly following his every whim and need. Graves gained the attention of Lex Luthor by once stealing his briefcase without his notice. The feat had impressed Luthor and he has had her as his assistant ever since.  If it weren’t for Luthor’s tendency to only care for himself, he would have her absolute loyalty.

8: Max (Cats Don’t Dance)

Max is the loyal manservant to the evil Darla Dimple (an evil Shirley Temple for those who haven’t seen this film). He is literally a mountain of a man who is a force of nature in his own right. Darla uses Max throughout the entire movie as an enforcer who ensures she gets absolutely everything she wants no matter what. Max is representative of the uphill battle it is for unknown actors to enter the show business industry.

7: Lurch (The Addams Family)

“You rang?” This Frankenstein like butler is the faithful servant to the abnormal Addams Family. Lurch may not be the greatest butler, but he takes great pride in his work. Lurch is fully willing to do any task for the Addams, no matter how demeaning. At times Lurch appears to grow tired or annoyed of his employers, but he considers them family and will continue to serve them without end.

6: John Lawless (The Happiest Millionaire)

John is the most recent butler for the Biddle family, but he is also the longest lasting butler. John’s bizarrely always chipper nature has allowed him to easily jump into the antics of the Biddle family and become one with the family. At one point he even ends up getting a dance number with an alligator in the film. John is a great butler because he is able to perfectly adapt himself to the Biddle’s every need and always gets the job done one way or another.

5: Kato (The Green Hornet)

Kato is the butler/sidekick to the crime fighting hero The Green Hornet. Kato is a skilled chauffer who drives The Green Hornet anywhere in The Black Beauty (basically their Batmobile).  Kato is a master of martial arts (helped by the fact that he was originally played by Bruce Lee). Kato’s popularity was so great that they renamed the TV series The Kato Show in Hong Kong. Of all the super heroic dynamic duos, The Green Hornet and Kato have always been a fan favorite.

4: Domovoi Butler (Artemis Fowl)

The Butler family has been in the service of the Fowl family for centuries. Each of the Butler Family members are train to be the ultimate bodyguards and servants to the Fowls. They are all assigned a family member to protect, acting as a constant second shadow, obeying every command without hesitance. Domovoi is one of the greatest bodyguards in his family and has followed Artemis Fowl II mastermind adventures through the long hidden realm of magic. He is also the only human to have engaged a troll in combat and win.

3: Walter C. Dornez (Hellsing)

Is there nothing scarier than meeting the angel of death incarnate? Perhaps if you found out he was the butler to someone even more powerful. Walter has long served the Hellsing organization as their lead vampire hunter, being famous for his ability to wield microfilament razor wire as if they were but an extension of his own body. Being in the later years of his life Walter retired from being the lead vampire hunter to being Hellsing’s butler. It is an absolute feat to be considered the Angel of Death incarnate by Alucard himself.

2: Alfred Pennyworth (Batman)

I suppose you were expecting this one. If there was one butler that anyone could remember off the top of their heads, it would be Alfred. I really don’t think I have to go further in with this character other than he is Batman’s butler. If you honestly can’t remember his name, you will know him as Batman’s butler.  A constant alley to the Dark Knight, you will be hard pressed to find a better butler.

That being said here is number one…

1: Sebastian Michaels (Black Butler)

“Suddenly, Ciel came back, along with a pitch-black butler.”

If you have never picked up this series, you are missing out. What if you had a butler that could accomplish absolutely every task or order you gave him? What if this butler would also act as a guiding light, leading you to your ultimate destiny of vengeance towards everyone who had ever wronged you or tarnished your honor? What if this butler would go to the ends of the Earth just to service your every whim? What if, at the end of it all, all he wants in return is your soul? Sebastian Michaels is the ultimate butler, because he is a demon. Signed into a Faustian Contract with Ciel Phantomhive, he will act as the boy’s greatest servant until his life’s goals are completed. On that day he will collect his soul and devour it, but until then he will remain at his side as his black butler.

 

Let's Review: Green Lantern

This film has received a lot of negative reviews, so when I went into the theater to watch it I was expecting certifiable crap. What I ended up getting was crap but not as big of a dump as I thought it would be. The way some reviews were critiquing it, I thought Green lantern was sending comic book movies back to the Stone Age, but it ended up disappointing me in how bad it was suppose to be. In any case let’s review Green Lantern.

The Negative

 

If there was one thing that continually bothered me about the film it would be the editing. Scenes were spliced, cut, mismatched, and placed in all sorts of orders that made no sense and really took me out of the movie. One scene that stands out for me is the origin scene, when Hal places the ring on the lantern and speaks the oath for the first time. This is supposed to be the big iconic moment of the movie (the iconic moment of any superhero movie) when he first gains his powers. The scene was spliced together with the scene of Hector Hammond gaining his powers through the Parallax infection. The scene would show 2 seconds of Hal, then 2 seconds of Hector, then back to Hal, then back to Hector, and so on and so forth.  This was a confusing choice on the editor’s part, because I had seen both scenes separately and completed in some of the movie’s trailers. Why would they go so far out of their way to ruin what should be one of the most iconic moments from this character’s origin by plastering it together with the villain’s origin?

 

The specific reason they did this is because of the complete mishandling of Hector Hammond’s character throughout the entire movie. Throughout the entire movie, they kept trying to get across that Hal and Hector were equal opposites, both gaining their respective powers at the same time, except Hal was destined for fame and glory as the hero while Hector was the discarded, disrespected son who becomes a monster. The problem is the film never sets this up properly. We get one scene that is almost 2/3 through the movie where we find out that Hal and Hector knew each other and had once been friends of some sort. Hal is favored by Hector’s father, while Hector is almost despised by his father. Before that moment the characters have no interaction with each other, instead they are both randomly featured in each other’s origin scene. Where have I seen this done so much better? The Spiderman movies. This entire relationship between these two characters was done so much better between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn. Their friendship was built up so well throughout the films so that when they finally confront each other in the 3^rd film it actually has some meaning to it. The relationship between Hal and Hector was mishandled and it ruined the emotional ties that were supposed to be felt when these two went into combat with each other.

 

My final problem with the film is that ALL THE SUPPORTING CAST MEMBERS ARE COMPLETELY FORGETTABLE. His best friend, the love interest, the entire green lantern corp., the scientist woman, the senator, none of them were really memorable when all was said and done.  I don’t even care enough to look up the love interest’s name because if she was memorable at all I wouldn’t have to look up her name after the movie was over. They were all just flat characters who were just there so that Hal and Hector had somebody to bounce their ideas off of. The Green Lanterns are in the movie for all of 10 minutes. We never really get a moment to truly experience what it’s like for the Green Lanterns at all.

The Positive

 

I was a big fan of Oa. Every moment with the Green Lantern’s was like getting a peak into an awesome universe that could rival some of the greatest galaxies the Sci-Fi genre has to offer. That said, it’s such a shame that it makes up so little of the film. I almost feel like the film should have kept all of the sci-fi stuff out of the film until Hal got the ring from Abin Sur, being done in a similar way to The Last Starfighter, and just have the rest of the film be in space until the climactic battle of Hal returning to Earth to fight the villain.

 

That being said, I actually really liked Parallax in the film. I feel like Parallax was a successfully pulled off version of Galactus that they wanted for the 2^nd Fantastic Four movie. He was a cosmic level threat that was coming to finish off the weapon that had once defeated him. At the same time, I also felt that it was a fair adaption of the villain from the comics. What we saw in the film wasn’t really Parallax but rather his presence possessing an individual and forwarding his goals by acting through them. That’s the kind of Parallax I remember from the comics and that’s what I kind of got from the film’s depiction.

In Conclusion

Green Lantern isn’t the worst superhero movie ever made, but at the same time I wonder who was on the cutting room floor who severely butchered this film. This film had the potential to be so much better than what it turned out to be. If only they had planned out the overall story a little better, this could have been something big. I want to see DC keep trying to give us something new. I’m really tired of only getting to see Superman and Batman films. I was really excited when I heard they were making a Green Lantern movie. I only hope that this fumble has deterred them from making more films about their vast number of characters. 2.5 out of 5.

Let's Review: Priest

 

So let me ask you something. Did anyone else know that Priest was actually based on a Korean comic? This is a true fact. It’s just a shame that even though it is based on the comic, it almost completely ignores it. I actually read up on the comic before writing this review and found myself awfully surprised to have absolutely nothing to compare the movie to.  This just goes along with my overall problems with films based on comics that ignore the story but that’s not what I’m going to talk about. I’m here to talk about the movie, so let’s get to reviewing Priest.

The Negative

 

If Star Wars, Blade Runner, Mad Max, and Van Helsing had a love child with the Western Film Genre it would result in Priest. While that may sound good on paper, it ends up as a big mess on the big screen. The plot was uninspired and predictable. At its most basic the story is ninja priests vs. cowboy vampires, once again this sounds really cool on paper but would you really want to watch a whole film about this and not just a cool fight scene (which are surprisingly rare). The film is barely held together by the plot. After awhile of watching the film I started listing off plot twists from Star Wars and watched as they slowly appeared. Some of the more interesting plot twists and character motivations are barely touched on and result in a very bizarre film.

 

One of my major problems with the film is the sheriff Hicks. Not once in the entire film do I actually feel like he is competent at all. I’m fairly certain he only shoots 5 vampires in the entire film, if that. At one point in the film, Hicks threatens the Priest that if his kidnapped girlfriend has been converted into a vampire he will kill Priest in order to stop him from slaying her. I found this to be the funniest moment in the entire movie. Nothing leading up to that point had actually made me believe that this guy could even shoot an elephant standing in front of him, so to have his character defiantly state that he would kill the Priest to save his girlfriend came off as childish and impudent.

 

My final problem in the film was the concept of highly trained ninja assassins. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the idea but I found it oddly portrayed in the film. Our main Priest is very poorly armed only carrying on him a knife and cross shurikens. When planning on going after someone kidnapped by a vampire hoard, I would have brought a lot more weapons with me. You could argue that he doesn’t need any more weaponry, but then I see the scene where he fights the large vampire monster in the hive and I feel like a larger blade would have done the trick. Then there are 3 of the Priest that are killed really easily by the main villain. One of the Priests was simply showing off his amazing choreography before having a hole punched in his chest. For being highly trained assassin’s they went down a bit too easy.

The Positive

 

The best thing going for this film was its visuals. The city, the desert, the weapons, the motorcycles; everything in this film had a visual stylization to it that looked amazing. I would re-watch the movie just to enjoy the atmosphere and background of the world these characters walked in. I feel like the beautiful visuals were wasted on such a poor plot.

 

I actually found myself really liking the villains of the movie. The vampires themselves came off as being similar to the alien Bugs species from Starship Troopers, in that it was a swarm of mindless killers being lead by one silent brain whose overall goal is left a mystery to us. Karl Urban as Black Hat was an interesting villain whose overall plot and motivation should have been a centerpiece to the film. Black Hat was a former Priest who was captured by the vampire swarm and converted into one of them. His relationships with the other Priests are barely touched on and I feel like we missed out on something important.

In Conclusion

I had a really hard time writing this review and have been putting it off for quite some time. The reason for this is that the film was just not that memorable. I found myself hard pressed to be inspired enough to write about this uninspired film. The fact that a movie where Ninja Priests fight Cowboy Vampires should tell how desperate film studios are these days to try and get our money. 2 out of 5.

Let's Review: X-Men: First Class

Hey Geeks, welcome to my next Let’s Review. I’ve been a bit behind in my movie reviews but until I get around to those I’m going to talk about the film that’s fresh in my head. I’m going to be talk about X-Men: First Class, so if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want it spoiled go see it now then come back and read my review. Back? Good. Let’s Review X-Men: First Class.

The Negative

 

The reason I like to go over the negative first is so I can end the review on a good note so it doesn’t seem like I’m just bashing the film, but I really don’t have that many complaints about the film. There were only two things that really didn’t sit well with me throughout the film. The big problem with the film was its special effects. Some of the effects worked really well like Mystique’s shape shifting or Banshee’s sonic screams but some of the effects were very noticeable and of poor quality.

 

The big sore thumb in the special effects was Beast. Nothing against the actor at all, He did an amazing job playing Hank, but the effects for his powers were horrible. Beast’s original powers made his feet and hands bulky, but in the film he just had these poorly rendered hand feet. After changing into the blue lion were all use to, the effects only got worse. The makeup design was poor and the eyes were digitally rendered and IT WAS VERY NOTICEABLE. WHAT THE HELL WAS THE PROBLEM MARVEL, YOU ALREADY PULLED OFF BEAST’S APPEARANCE IN X-MEN 3, WHY DID YOU HAVE A PROBLEM THIS TIME.

 

My other problem with the film is how underdeveloped most of the characters are. A lot of the X-men team get brief moments of Professor X helping them with their powers and this helps their character become stronger, that’s about it. The worst case of underdevelopment goes to the villains. Sebastian Shaw’s motives throughout the film are very briefly touched on in a psychic interrogation and it comes off as being akin to a James Bond villain. The evil scheme is a bit over the top and feels like a Saturday morning cartoon villain’s plan, which was the same problem with the first film and Magneto’s scheme. The rest of the villains barely get any development and their motivations are left obscured. The villain Riptide actually doesn’t get any lines in the film. This is a problem because we don’t really get good villains so much as bad special effects that move the plot along.

The Positive

 

This movie was great. It was completely enjoyable from start to finish. Whereas every other character got very little development, the three that did really carried the film. Magneto comes off as strong and powerful but not yet in control of his abilities. It’s ironic in that Professor X is the one who eventually teaches him how to fully harness his magnetic powers. Mystique spends most of the movie learning to accept herself which surprisingly isn’t helped by Xavier but rather Magneto as it is Magneto who is the one who tells her that she is beautiful as is. This functions as a great turning point for her as this is when she decides to side with Magneto.

 

 James McAvoy as Professor X was awesome. I will admit that I was hesitant at first when I found out that he was playing the professor but he completely submerged himself into the role and gave an amazing performance. This Professor X is like none we have ever seen before. Xavier is seen as a youthful, cocky lad who is full of himself. It almost comes off as a good thing that he becomes disabled because it is a very humbling act for the character. Once he is in the wheelchair he can no longer be the wild youth with immeasurable but must become the professor who knows how to lead his people into prosperity.

In Conclusion

 

The film is actually one of the better X-Men movies. It accomplishes what it set out to do, to show us the origin of the X-Men. This is pulled off amazingly well and even redeems the 3^rd movie (Not the Wolverine movie, nothing can redeem that {Quote within a quote, Hugh Jackman’s small guest appearance as Wolverine is one of the funniest moments in the film}). I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoyed the other X-Men films. I give it 3.5 out of 5.