Tag Archives: 2014

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

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I’ve watched this movie a few times already, but even now forget what this movie is about. While I appreciate the attempt of bringing this older IP to a modern audience, it isn’t a very good attempt. This is a Ninja Turtles’ movie from the perspective of April. Instead of an action packed war against the Foot clan, you get a very bland about investigative journalism. 

Megan Fox is not a strong enough lead to make this movie work. With as stronger lead, this might have been a better movie, but it’s not. This movie needed someone who could at the very least act as if they were interested in solving crime or getting a story. Instead, you have an unenthused Megan Fox whose acting is inconsistent, her personality is flat, and she has no chemistry with any of the other characters.  

The other characters don’t fare much better. There isn’t enough time with the turtles to establish their personalities. You get a few pop culture references that will help age this movie terribly, but outside of that, they don’t make the impact they should. They are massive, each step seems to shake the world around them, but the dated CGI makes their movements look awkward and incomplete. The combat is boring to watch because it is so slow and ugly. If you are watching this film on anything larger than a smart phone, it is difficult to ignore how terribly this movie is aging. This movie will not stand the test of time, and it shouldn’t. 

You can find it on YouTube for free, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to look for it.  

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Honeymoon (2014)

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Honeymoon is a low-budget horror movie that is worth checking out. The movie follows a newlywed couple on their honeymoon in a lake town. Everything seems fine at first. They are able to enjoy a few moments of marital bliss before their lives change forever. Their honeymoon becomes shrouded by an ominous mystery, and Paul (the husband) spends the rest of the movie trying to solve it. There is something off about Bea, but you will need to watch the movie to find out what.

The plot is simple, and the ending is a bit disappointing, but the acting saves this movie from mediocrity. The leads do the best with what they are given. It is their chemistry and acting ability that make this movie enjoyable. I recommend you watch this movie just to see these great performances.

I have absolute respect for this movie’s creative storytelling. You can tell where the budget affects the movie, but it isn’t terrible or distracting. The way they use the isolation and peacefulness of the lake to create horror is impressive. I appreciate that this isn’t another generic horror movie that relies on cheap jump scares and gimmicks. Instead, Honeymoon attempts to create horror around an overbearing mystery that we get to piece along with Paul. I would love to see what the filmmakers could do with a bigger budget. But as is, it works. 

This movie is worth checking out if you like suspenseful horror and don’t mind the low budget. As I said, the acting is what sets this movie apart. You can watch this on Amazon Video if you have a Prime membership.

Movie Reviews

Lucy (2014) Review

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If you are looking for an action movie to scratch your need for suspense and thrills, go elsewhere because you won’t get any from this movie. Nothing happens in this movie.

This movie’s biggest weakness is that the main character is too powerful. The movie is about Lucy unlocking the next level of evolution but in the first 10 mins of the movie she is already overpowered. The issue with having such a powerful character is that it removes any danger her actions might bring. The fights are boring because Lucy can end the fights instantly. It doesn’t help that Scarlet Johansson is a robot in this movie. While this may fit with the narrative of the film, it isn’t interesting to watch. Lucy realizes that the reason that humanity is unable to evolve is because they are too hung up on aspects of life that aren’t important. This would be the aspects of humanity that give people personality. This apathetic performance makes the movie even harder to watch because there is no danger and there is no emotion. The performance isn’t bad, it was just a weird choice for this already boring movie.

This movie takes a cool concept and isn’t able to deliver on it. This story works in Futurama because you have a lot more context and you get to experience the growth and change of Bender as he comes to similar realizations. This movie, there is no growth or even character establishment because it drops off all of these points and expects you to fill in the blanks. There is no character growth because you do not know anything about the character except for snippets of forcefully placed exposition that suggest that Lucy isn’t the most put together person in this universe. You also get very little context of who the bad guys are or the magic that is bringing on the transformation. The most jarring problem is the fact that whoever is responsible for this movie keeps trying to validate this movie through disproven science. They make it a huge plot point that man only uses 15% of their brain and lucy is unlocking the rest of it with the help of magic. The problem with this is that the story isn’t very sound. There are a lot of holes in this plot and that will become obvious because this movie is boring.

This film also includes random clips of nature. Partly to pad a movie they couldn’t make any longer, and partly to make it seem deep. The problem again is that it highlights the weakness of this movie. The main weakness is that there isn’t enough story for this to be a full movie. Another weakness, it isn’t that deep. The movie isn’t the worst thing you’ll ever see, but it isn’t anything impressive. It is clearly an overzealous project that doesn’t deliver what it promises.

I would skip this movie because it doesn’t really count as a movie. This story has been done a lot better in futurama, go watch that instead.