Man of Steel

Who has never seen a Superman movie? Who does not know the story?

Some people apparently don’t… one of my friends didn’t until this last one came out (I know… shocking lol) O_o

But I’m not here to tell you about the story; it’s the same as the ones before. I’m here to point out the reasons why I liked this one so much, why I would definitely watch it again and why, in case you haven’t yet, it might be good fun to go see it.

Superman’s real father is quite the warrior himself. I remember in the previous movies, sending his son away involved a lot of emotion. In this one however, he is more decisive and courageous. He even fights!

I think they chose the perfect actor for the role. He portrayed it very well :) Not to mention that they finally got rid of the curl on superman’s forehead. It was ok back in the 80’s but they still used it in the 2006 movie… come on!

I really like the relationship between Clark and his adoptive father. He believed in him so much! And even though he didn’t understand his son’s powers, he always made him see it as a positive thing. He made him feel especial and not “weird”. He believed in him, in his potential, in what he could become. It would be nice if all kids received such treatment from their parents nowadays. It would make it easier for them to believe it themselves…

Superman is not as confident as in the previous movies. He doesn’t think he was all that. And this is one of the things I liked the most about it.

There’s a scene in the movie where he doesn’t know what to do. He is not sure if he could trust and then someone tells him:

“Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.  Trust comes after.”

Confidence was something he had to build up with each step he took, with each decision he made and with each enemy he faced.

So to sum it all up, I liked this version of superman because it shows more than just an alien who had super powers. It shows his indecision, his vulnerability, his fears and most importantly, his decision to believe despite all that.

Now, there’s something we can all relate to ;)

And to finalize, there is a sentence his biological father says in the beginning of the movie. He says:

“You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards…”

This sentence stayed with me ever since. I really like it, but the reason I do has nothing to do with superman ;)

Fast and Furious 6 – Two reviews and a question

                     

Since I watched this movie I’ve been thinking on how to best express my opinion about it, and I came to the conclusion that it is quite difficult to do it in one review only.

So I am going to write two: A good and a bad review.

Good Review

I’ve watched all the Fast and Furious movies, except the Tokyo one (for some reason I still have no interest in watching it) and when I watched the trailer of Fast 6 I immediately wanted to watch it. They were bringing the whole team back. They were even “resurrecting” Letty, which in my opinion was quite a stretch but a smart move nonetheless.

So I went to watch it and this is no doubt an action movie. It has action from beginning to end. From one scene to the next you find yourself at the edge of your seat or biting your nails, or wondering what’s going to happen next.

And it has a lot of funny parts, which is a plus in any movie. I laughed quite a bit throughout.

Everything else is the same as the previous five movies, fast cars, races, fights, you know…

That’s it for the good review, now moving on to the bad.

Bad review

The movie has no plot, no interesting story. The “plot” you see in the trailer is the one you will see in the movie. Nothing more, nothing less.

But there they are living the good life, enjoying all the money they stole in their last “job”, until the police comes knocking at their door asking for their help. These criminals are so “good” at what they do, that not only do they get away with whatever crime they commit, but they are also needed by the police, who apparently is not competent enough to do their own job. So now it’s criminals trying to stop other criminals… uh huh…

They portray the team of “good” criminals in such a way that they make them look good in the audience’s eyes. As if they have principles, as if who they are justifies what they do.

The guy says, “Everyone has a code. Mine is family”. Meaning that stealing, killing, breaking the law and whatever other crime you might commit is ok as long as you do it for family. Are you kidding me?

And the funny (for lack of a better word) thing is, after all their wrongdoing, they gather together at the table to have a meal and they all join hands and thank God for everything they have. WHAT? I’m not even going to say anything about that.

The Question

 Fast and Furious has a lot more wrong messages. It has wrong messages all over the place. Everywhere. All the time.

If you’ve already watched the movie, can you guess what they are?

If you do, just leave your comments below.

Sure it’s a cool movie, fast cars, tough guys and all, but the core message? All wrong.

Oh and one last thing, does it bother anyone else that no one really cared about what happened to Gisele at the end apart from the Japanese guy, or is it just me? O_o

Iron Man 3

I had never heard of Iron Man before the first movie came out. I actually thought it had to do with the “The Man in the Iron Mask”… I know, I know… complete different movie. But anyway… Back then I wasn’t as interested in super-hero movies (that has changed) because they were usually all the same thing. There was a villain, there were the innocent people and there was some kind of super-hero that would save them all. But that has also changed.

The basics continue the same, but now it’s so much nicer than before. They have better especial effects, they plot is usually very good, they have the action, the romance, that some of us just can’t go without, and in the case of Iron Man, they have Robert Downey Jr. who, in my opinion, brings the entertainment to a whole new level in any movie he is in.

I enjoyed the first two Iron Man movies, but this third one is just very nice!

And the best thing is that it is so funny. My goodness! I laughed the whole time! It was very, very entertaining indeed.

So, if you also like super-hero movies, you definitely have to watch this one.  And watch out for the Mandarin, he is really, really dangerous. The worst villain in all the movies I’ve watched O_o  

However if you haven’t watched any of the Iron Man movies, you should watch them in the right order so you can really understand the story. Here’s the correct order:

Iron Man

Iron Man 2

The Avengers – if you don’t watch this one, you don’t understand why he mentions New York so much in the movie. He keeps saying “Since New York things are not the same”, “I can’t sleep since New York”… but this is just a tip ;)

Iron Man 3

I wanted to discuss something about the last fight between Iron Man and his enemy, but I can’t because if I do, I will spoil it for you. All I can say is that it has something very much in common with the last fight between Batman and his enemy on the last Batman movie.

If you’ve watched both movies, my question is, do you know what I’m talking about?

Let’ s see who paid attention… hehehe.

Zero Dark Thirty

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I was very curious to watch it. Did you know that depending on what they show in the trailers, you can tell whether it's going to be a nice movie or not?

For example, if they show a lot of the story, a lot of scenes; if they give a lot of the plot away, then it’s probably not a good movie and they are trying to convince you to go watch it by showing you the whole story in the trailer.

When a movie is good, they usually show only bits and pieces of it. They give you just an idea, a small hint of what the movie is about and that’s exactly what makes people want to see it… they want to find out what happens next.

But that can be quite tricky sometimes. It could also be that they don’t show you a lot because the movie is just plain garbage and therefore they don’t want you to find out before time hahaha…

So when I saw the trailer for “Zero Dark Thirty”, I was a bit divided. They don’t show a lot of things, just that a woman was probably responsible for the capture of Bin Laden.

Ok, so let me tell you a bit about the story of the movie.

It’s about a team of CIA agents who were assigned to track down the hiding location of Osama Bin Laden after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. In the beginning all the agents were working tirelessly to hunt him down, but after using numerous strategies and investigating all the leads they had, they started accepting the fact that they might never find him.

Until a female agent was hired to work on the investigation and boy, did she make a difference!

There are lots of nice things about this movie, but if I tell you then I will be saying too much. So instead let me say what I liked the most about this movie.

It shows how strong, determined, efficient and influential a woman can be when she decides to.

It clearly illustrates how sometimes in life people will not believe in you or your ideas, sometimes no one will, but that shouldn’t be a reason for you to give up.

And here’s my favorite: The power of focusing and investing on something you believe in.

There’s a scene in particular that I really liked and that got stuck in my head since I watched it.

One of the heads of the CIA came to speak to the agent I was telling you about, and trying to make small talk, he asked:

“What else have you done for us in these 12 years you’ve been working for the CIA?”

Her reply was:

“Nothing. I’ve done nothing else.”

This sums it all up for me. This is the scene that spoke louder that all the others, but in order for you to understand it, you will have to watch it ;)

A Good Day to Die Hard

Remember my review about “Jack, the Giant Slayer” last week?

You haven’t read it yet? Ok, so read that one first before continuing with this one.

Think of everything I said about “Jack”. Now imagine the complete opposite…

That would be my review on “A good day to die hard” lol.

I have not watched the previous “Die Hard” movies, but this one… is something else.

It has no plot whatsoever, the acting is quite poor and the story just doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s just… I have no words.

There is however, something you will find A LOT in this movie: Destruction.

From beginning to end.

There are a lot of explosions, fights, people going through windows, falling from the highest buildings but never dying, more explosions, gunshots, buildings getting destroyed, more explosions and the main characters still come out of all that alive!

I guess that’s why it’s called “Die Hard”, because no matter what happens, they just don’t die!

So to summarize: “A good day to die hard” is not a movie worth spending any money on. I would not watch it again. I wouldn’t have even watched it if it weren’t for “Les Miserables”.

Oh I haven’t told you about my “Les Miserables” story, have I? Come back next Friday and I will tell you all about it. Oh my! 

Skyfall

Since Skyfall is coming out on DVD now, I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about it.

007 movies huh? What do you think my opinion is going to be?

Let me start by saying that I was never interested in these movies. All I remember from when I was a kid was that the things James Bond could do were just too much, too unreal and as my dear father used to say, it was just “uma mentirada danada”, which translated means “just too many lies”.

After I grew up I wanted to give it a chance and see for myself what the deal with James Bond was. So I watched “Die Another Day” with Pierce Brosnan… O_o

My goodness! What a terrible movie!! It was just… ridiculous. The whole plot was awful and that did it for me. No more 007 movies!

But when they released the first trailer of “Casino Royale” I couldn’t resist and went to watch it.

Loved it!!

Yeah… I’m into these secret agent movies hehehe.

I like it a lot because, apart from the fights, which I also like by the way (no, I’m not a violent person, I just happen to like watching choreographed/fake fights), it usually has an interesting plot, a mystery to be solved. And that’s exactly the case with “Casino Royale”. In my opinion they chose the perfect actor for it.

Anyway, needless to say I changed my opinion about 007 movies… as long as they keep the same actor, that is. After that, I don’t know.

So, I watched the next one, “Quantum of Solace” and obviously I just HAD to watch Skyfall as well!

And I really, really liked it :)

It’s quite different from the previous two. It doesn’t have a lot of fights or car chases, but there’s A LOT of story. A lot of unanswered questions throughout the movie and the plot develops quite nicely. The kind that makes you want to solve the mystery.

I know this is more of a guy’s type of movie (or so I’ve been told) but I just love the whole “my name is Bond, James Bond” thing lol

So if you are also into movies like this, this is the movie for you to watch this weekend.

But if you are not… hey, here’s your chance to try something new ;) 

Safe House

This is a R rated movie

After watching The Vow, which was not very good, I went for some action.

What can I say about Safe House…?

Denzel Washington is in it, which is already a reason to believe that the movie is going to be good. 

And so it was.

I really liked it but it was not so much because of the plot, but more because of the action. It’s definitely the kind of story we have seen before, but good nonetheless.

There are fights 90% of the time, so if you are not in the mood for something slow and mellow, Safe House is probably the movie for you to watch.

It’s kind of like ‘Bourne Trilogy'. The fights look very real and the guy actually gets hurt… A LOT lol.

I like movies like this (not the kind where people get hurt of course, but the ones that keep you on the edge of your seat), but I understand that not everyone does.

So, for those who liked Bourne, I recommend it. You will probably like this one as well.

If not, then maybe you should just stay away from all the fighting ;)

Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows

 I’m going to keep this review really short.

You know when the first movie is very good and the second is a complete disappointment?

Well, that is NOT the case with Sherlock Holmes 2. In fact I think I even liked this last one better.

It’s very entertaining, very intriguing and most importantly very funny! I laughed throughout the movie.

Robert Downey Jr. plays his role exceptionally well, including speaking with a British accent.

They couldn’t have done better.  

Excellent, excellent movie!

You must see it!!!