Kung Fu Panda's Jumping The Shark

Sequel = Pointless

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    Kung Fu Panda (2008) is probably my favorite animated movie ever, but it suffers from a curse that many other movies also suffer from: Unnecessary and stupid sequels. Why is it unnecessary and stupid? Here's why:
  1st, the villain is uninteresting.
  2nd, I found the plot is dull when compared to the first.
  3rd, it's not as funny or as charming as the first.
  4th, Po and Tigress are actually falling in love.
  5th, they also try to expand on Po's back story, but they didn't have to, I really didn't care much.
  6th, the ending of the first film was when it should have been over. Some movies just shouldn't have sequels, and Kung Fu Panda is no exception. The first film had a good ending. To keep on continuing like this is a sin. Those money hungry jerks at Dreamworks should be ashamed.
  Well, I guess it's not a horrible film, but when compared to the first it's crap, and it was totally pointless and should never have been made. I just want them to leave a good movie alone, but they actually have a 3rd movie planned. Gee, are Po and Tigress gonna start kissing in this one? It is pointless and should never have been made.

My rating: 4.5/10

The Avengers (2012) Review

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  Alright, the Avengers. First I'm going to talk about the flaws, this movie suffers from 2 very major flaws: Bad pacing, and too much focus on Iron Man. Let me go into more detail.
  The pacing is just way too fast. There's this one scene where Iron Man and Loki are talking, seems nice slow after all that chaos earlier in the movie, and then suddenly Loki's army comes, and then everyone starts fighting. And this all happens with in like 5 minutes! I'm like SLOW DOWN ALREADY!
  And then there's just way too much focus on Iron Man. He already got 2 movies, Captain America should be the star of this. But NOPE. Iron Man, Iron Man, Iron Man. I mean, Cap isn't even my favorite, but he should still be the main hero because he was the leader in the comics. It just makes sense.
  Now by this time you probably think I'm going to give this movie a negative review right? Well actually no. This movie did something that I don't think any other movie series has done, making several different movies and having them lead up to this. It will probably influence many other films in the future. Oh, and That character Coulson, I didn't like him very much, but after watching the Avengers I changed my mind about him, and was actually kinda pissed when he died. But it's got some pretty amusing moments too.
  One thing that's great about this is Hulk. This is the way Hulk should be. The other movies just couldn't get him right for some reason. Ang Lee tried to hard to be "artistic" or whatever, and it ended up being boring. The 2008 film didn't have as much artistic crap, but still kinda dull. Avengers did him right, and I'm glad.
  So the pacing is horrible, and Iron Man is really starting to get on my nerves, but I give it a thumbs up anyway for doing something new, being funny, making Coulson more likable, and finally doing Hulk right.

My rating: 7/10

Batman Returns (1992) Review

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  The film starts out around 30 years ago, where the Penguin is born. He's really ugly and his parents are afraid of him, so they drop him in a river, and he floats into the sewer.
  It then goes to the present where a bunch of maniacs are attacking the city, so commissioner Gordan turns on the bat signal, and Bruce Wayne sees it and turns into Batman. You would think Batman would have a more exciting return than just looking at the bat signal, but I guess it's alright.
  So Batman saves the day, and we meet Max Shreck, a businessman, and his assistant Selina Kyle. Selina learns about Shreck's evil plans to make a power plant that will actually suck the energy out of Gotham. She knows too much so he throws her out the window, but a bunch of cats go around her and nibble on her fingers. Somehow this gives her 9 lives, at least I think, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
  So she goes home a becomes Catwoman, and The Penguin reveals himself to the world, by pretending to save a baby. He says he never knew his mother and father and lived in a sewer all his life, so everyone starts feeling sorry for him and let's him figure out who he really is. He finds out that he's Oswald Cobblepot, and after that he tries to become mayor with the help Max Shreck. Shreck is helping him because he needs his power plant built and if Penguin wins the election he can make that possible.
  Penguin starts framing Batman, making the people of Gotham believe he kidnapped and woman, and even pushed her off a building. Batman doesn't really do anything to regain their trust, they just start trusting him again anyway. It's weird.
  So Batman gets a CD of The Penguin talking about his evil plans and plays it over and over, and that makes everyone in Gotham go against Cobblepot, so he flees back to the sewer, and to get his revenge he decided to kidnap all the first born sons of Gotham and kill them, but Batman saves them all.
  So instead he sends out a bunch of Penguins with bombs to kill everyone, but Batman stops that too. And in the final battle Max Shreck dies, The Penguin dies, and Catwoman disappears with only 1 live left.
  Many people didn't like this movie because it was "too dark". That wasn't really an issue with me, I just thought it was kind of boring. The plot was okay, kinda complicated, but it was still okay. One thing that annoyed me was how Batman would kill, he did that in the first too. Didn't Burton even care to keep it like the comic books?
  It's not really a bad film, it just lacked the atmosphere of the first and didn't have as interesting villains. It did however have a great soundtrack like the first film. If you're a big Batman fan I say watch it, if not you can pass it. But make sure you check out the first Tim Burton Batman, it's really good and one of my favorite movies ever.

My Rating: 6/10

Friday the 13th (1980) Review

  Happy Friday the 13th! To celebrate, here's a review of the very first Friday the 13th movie:

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  So a bunch of teenagers are staying at Camp Crystal Lake, and there's a killer stalking them. That's about it. In this the killer is not Jason Voorhees, it's actually Pamela Voorhees, his mother. She's killing everyone at the camp because in 1957 Jason was at the camp trying to swim, but no one was doing their job and keeping an eye on him, and he drown. Now she wants revenge.
  The first half of the movie isn't very good. Just some boring deaths and a bunch of sex. Plus you don't even see the killer's face. Although there is this one pretty cool kill, a boy is laying down on a bed, when from beneath the bed an arrow comes up through his throat.
  The second half of the movie is better. You can see the face of Pamela Voorhees now, and there's only one kid left, so they focus on just her now. The remaining kid chops off the head of Mrs. Voorhees, and then gets into a boat. Well she's in the boat Jason somehow comes back from the dead and pulls her into the water, but she wakes up in the hospital. And that's the end of the movie.
  When they start talking about Jason it really gets you hyped to see the next movie where he's actually the killer. I'd say watch it if your a horror fan. But remember the first half of the movie is going to be pretty boring. And if you watch this one, be sure to watch part II soon after. It's much better, very suspenseful and could actually make you jump too.

My Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

The Wolfman (2010) Review

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  I am a big fan of the original 1941 Wolf Man movie. He's my favorite Universal monster, so I got interested in seeing the remake from 2010. As far as remakes go, it's not totally horrible. I've definitely seen worse.
  Plot goes like this, Lawrence Talbot is visiting his father and gets bit by a werewolf, he kills a bunch of people and goes to an asylum, he finds out his father is also a werewolf, he kills some more people, he fights his dad and kills him, and then gets killed himself.
  It starts out pretty good, it feels like a Wolfman movie, but they change the storyline a bit. In the original Larry is testing a telescope and spots a girl, he goes to her shop to talk to her and buys a special cane with a silver wolf head on it. He takes her and her friend to get their fortune told by some gypsies, and they get attacked by a werewolf. He kills the werewolf with the silver cane after getting bit, and that's how he gets the curse. In this he meets an old man on a train who gives him the cane, and then it doesn't appear again until the very end. It doesn't really have much to do with the story, I think it's really just there because they wanted to pay homage to the original movie more.
  He does meet a girl, but she doesn't have a very big effect on the plot, unlike the original where the girl is a lot more important and indirectly caused him to be bitten by the wolf.
  Kinda like Tim Burton's Sleepy Hallow, they try to make the main character more interesting by giving him more background story. And like Sleepy Hallow, it was unnecessary, and didn't make me like the character any more. If they wanted to make him more likable, they needed to try to replicate what Lon Chaney Junior did. His acting was just much more dramatic, and I liked the character more. But in this Benicio Del Toro was just kinda blah through the whole movie, and I really didn't care about him much.
  There's a lot of boring parts, and a lot of scenes that try to make you jump, but they don't really work too well.
  The end was cool when both him and his father were werewolves fighting each other. I always wanted to see two werewolves fight. And then when there was an angry mob with a bunch of torches going after the monster. That's when it started to feel more like a Universal monster movie.
  At the end he catches his girlfriend and hesitates killing her. I didn't really like that too much. He's not supposed to have feelings for her when he's a wolf, all he wants to do is kill, or at least that's the way it should be.
  So anyway, she ends up killing him with a silver bullet, he turns into a human and they have an emotional moment together, and that's really it. Of course it's going to have flaws, and it's not going to be as good as the original, but as far as remakes go it's not too bad. At least it doesn't demolish the Wolfman's good name like some other remakes have done to other characters. And I'm glad it only uses CGI when it really needs to. If you are a fan of Universal Monsters and the Wolfman, go ahead and check it out. Just remember it's not going to be that great.

My Rating: 6/10

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) Review

   Last Night I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. To be honest, it was kind of stupid. First of all it didn't have a very good plot. Bunch of killers go around blasting the guts out of people, and then there's this sheriff who wants to get revenge on them for killing his nephew, well an unlikable girl gets caught up in it. It's pretty lame.

   All the villains in this movie aren't very cool, not even Leatherface is. He was okay in the first movie, but in this he's just some stupid love struck retard. And Choptop is one of the most over rated horror characters of all time. People say he's cool because he's over the top and really weird. Well, it's true, he is over the top and weird, but not in a good way, he's just stupid. I think Angry Video Game Nerd's Choptop parody was actually better.

   There are a few good things about this movie though. The beginning when Leatherface is killing those teenagers in the car was kinda fun, probably the best scene in the whole movie. But everything else in the movie was so dumb and pointless.

   It wasn't very good as a horror movie, and it was terrible as a comedy. I didn't laugh once. They didn't seem to try too hard with this. I will probably avoid the other sequels, but I might just watch the remake. Kinda curious as to what that is like.

My rating: 4/10

Gojira(1954) Review

GOJIRA(1954)
  Gojira, aka Godzilla, is the first a a long line of giant monster movies by Toho
Co. Ltd in Japan. In a nutshell, the film's about a prehistory creature who is unleashed upon the world by an atomic explosion, and attacks Japan. It was created as a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear weapons, and is much darker and more serious than later movies in the series. 
  The special effects are nothing compared to today's standards, but I still appreciate all the work that went into the miniature sets and all that the suit actor had to go through. Did you know that the Godzilla suit was originally over 200 pounds? The actor, Haruo Nakajima, passed out from the heat every now and then.
  The music by Akira Ifikube, is magnificent. One of the greatest soundtracks of all time. 
  If you don't have the patience for slow movies it might not be for you, otherwise it's highly recommended. Also if you don't like reading subtitles, than you might want to watch Godzilla, King of the Monsters! instead. It's more or less the same movie, just with scenes of an American guy added in. I personally think the Japanese version is better, but if you don't like reading subtitles than you might like that version more.


My Rating: 8.5/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) Review

  When I first saw this movie I absolutely hated it, now I don't think it's really bad, it just seems bad when you first watch it cause you have such high expectations, and the last two were so good, and then it kinda lets you down. If you are a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean, then I say go ahead and watch it, but don't expect it to be as good as the others.


My Rating: 6/10