Movies: Dr Strange

Movies: Dr Strange

Introduction
Yet another Marvel movie released from the vast story bank from the minds of Marvel. This time however, its not a sequel, but the introduction of a new character not yet seen in the previous movie. Dr Strange! Yes! Not Mr, not Miss, not Master, not Prof, but Dr. Most of the time, the doctors you hear about in the movies tend to be evil, like Dr Doom or Dr Frankenstein. But finally, you have a literal medical doctor and not the scientist (or mad scientist) kind of doctor in a movie. This plays importantly into the background introduction portion of the movie and what happened to the main character before introducing us into the world of multiverses and magic.

If you seen the trailers, you will have notice that this movie bears a bit of similarity to inception which was considered a pretty good movie. So how did Marvel perform for their version of inception? Lets break it down and find out...

Doesn't look very doctorly...

Storyline 4/5

Storyline was pretty strong in this movie. The movie took its time of introducing us to the main star alongside his background and character. Of course, as Marvel stories always go similar to other marvel origin stories, something happens and main character wants to do something about it. So somehow or other this character gets his power and faces his first big opponent and of course wins. (this is not a spoiler.. its expected okay!)

Nonetheless, the pace of the movie is fantastic and interspersed with not TOO much talking at one go. Therefore, it doesn't end up lulling u to sleep at any point of them and the things that are happening are distinct and interesting enough to not feel boring. There are also drops of good humor over the movie that makes the whole experience a enjoyable and good paced affair. There are many things that are introduced to the audience and it requires some listening and understanding, but does not become too confusing.

All in all, storyline is nothing ground breaking, but all it in all, it is told very well.

Characters 4.5/5

Character development of the main star, is fantastic. Other characters have a pretty good fleshed out background and do act in accordance to their personality. All the characters have their own believable principles and that adds a lot to helping the audience understand and reason out why things happen in this movie. The audience will be able to feel and understand better, why things are happening for the main characters (villain included) and this does add to the immersiveness of the movie.

Cinematography 4.5/5

This is clearly the draw of the movie. Not only does this movie provide exciting action scenes, there are epic airborne shots to show the hugeness of some of the characters in the marvel universe (no spoilers so you have to see it to find out) and also alot of world bending. Quite a lot of movies make the mistake of having too much action but lack of light or good focus on what is going on. This movie doesn't have that. Everything is positioned nicely and it is easy to follow what is going on.

The only little grouse i have that explains the .5 gap is that... it had a very good potential to go all out exciting action movie similar to avengers with a large scale battle but overall, there was big monster fight with tiny human kind of scenes, but no epic many on many fight scenes.

Music 4.5/5

Music and effects is quite strong in this movie and is a definitely an enhancement to the over all feel of the movie. Somewhat inceptionish also....which is a good thing.

Spectacle 5/5

There are already so many marvel movies and so many DC movies that are more or less playing around in the super powered action genre. To make your movie stand out and not be a cliched hero meets enemy and this and that happens till the heroes win, is not something easy to do. Of course if you took the comedic perception such as deadpool, you will have an easier time to stand out.

Dr Strange manages to do this also. It will still be an origin story, but the pace of the storyline and the style and direction of the movie is where it still manages to stand out. It uses the multiverse and worlds bending onto each other, mirror worlds to show that Marvel's magic scene can still be different enough from the current offerings and what we are used to. Hence, with the good paced story introducing us to the magical world and its practices, as well as the different fighting style and methods applied by people in this magical world, this movie is still able to stand out and shine.

Overall

Storyline: 4 (good paced storyline, but of course in the end it is a super hero origin and meeting his first villain story, just told slightly differently)
Character: 4.5 (character development for the main and important characters are strong, with good amount of time for most of them.)
Cinematography: 4.5 (Good fight scenes, good epic shots, good graphics and strong CGI)
Music: 4.5 (good music that enhances the movie experience)
Spectacle: 5 (as a movie set in the marvel universe, it is still told in a very good and distinct way and fights and cinematics are done very well)

Overall: 4.5 (a very clear score that states that if you are a marvel fan, you will not regret seeing this movie. If you are an action fan, you will still like this movie. The only person who does not like this movie will be a person who does not like action and the marvel franchise. Go ahead and see this movie, weekday or weeknights, it will be worth it. Also, apparently the movie was specifically made to fit the IMAX 3D screen. Hence, if you dun mind the extra cost, go ahead and watch it. For me the normal screen is still enjoyable enough)

Movies: X-Men Apocalypse

Movies: X-Men Apocalypse

Introduction:

This would be the third movie in the rebooted X-men series of movies. The third one that will star the younger Magneto, Xavier as well as all many other characters. For those who are confused, X-men actually has had about 6 main X-men movies before this one, a few origin stories (with few more going to come out in the near future).

The first few of these movies were the one that starred the old guard and the most famous of which was Hugh Jackman who would then, thru these movies, become synonymous with Wolverine. So in sort, things happened in the first few movies, and more or less everyone died. So in X-men First Class, the storyline creators used Hugh again, to go back into time and this resulted in the alteration of the future. Note that this alteration means that the story after X-men First Class can and is very different from what had happened in the previous timeline that Hugh Jackman acted in. Therefore, they are able to start the whole story from scratch and tell it whatever way they want again. Nothing is set in stone and they pretty much can do anything they want to the X-men cinematic franchise from this point onwards.

X-men movies focuses on team work and team dynamics. Other movies tend to focus on other aspects of their movie characters to make it have their individual draw to the audience. Movies like Hulk focuses on the internal conflict of the person, Thor focuses on the god aspect coming from another planet, Iron man focuses on technology while Captain america focuses on super soldier and leadership aspects of the superhero world and their interaction with shield. Avengers on the other hand actually appeals to the same audience as the X-men but the advantage they have is that all the characters back stories are already fleshed out by the preceding movies. Hence X-men movies have a tough internal competitor that they would be competing with. So how did this movie perform when we break it down?

All the mutants, good and bad... and the ambiguous

Storyline 3/5

The story is quite standard, in fact, you it is kind of like pokemon whereby both sides, good and bad, spend some time going around the world getting their characters/heroes/mutants in the picture with Xavier on one side and Apocalypse on the other side. Then they just meet in the middle and start to duke it out.

You get to see many of the mutants with their various powers but all in all it is those mutants that we have already known for a long long time and as a result, the whole storyline is quite standard. There is no particular big twist and everything just progress "as expected"

The problem with the storyline is that the end is already more or less too obvious to be really exciting. Add to this that the movie focus is on storytelling of an already expected storyline, and the lack of action scenes, this movie is unable to really stand out far enough amongst the other movies out there.

Character 3.5/5

Character wise, I would say that we would already know most of their powers and there is nothing that will totally amaze the audience. Because they need to spend so much time recruiting new characters, all characters probably get only about 5 or 10 minutes of time as a introduction, and u see them again for another 5 minutes in their battle with each other and that is it. There is very little character building on both sides and the audience will not really feel for any of the characters at all.

That is really the problem with having too many characters in the movie, needing to introduce all of them, and yet trying to invest in the storyline all at one go. At the very least however, all the mutants are distinct and their powers are pretty varied so it is still exciting to the audience when you see them use their abilities. If only there were more screen time allocated to them using their power to the fullest potential though.

Cinematography 3/5

Sadly, this part got the movie down. For a movie that already has missed out a lot of opportunity for action portions, the further lack of using good action shots to entertain during the action portions itself made this movie quite ordinary. The only slightly good scene was the quicksilver scene but when it got to the main fight, it lost the steam a bit too quickly. Lots of lost opportunities there.

Music 3/5

Music was ordinary, I was not able to pick out the music being particularly beneficial to what was happening during the movie itself but at least it didn't harm the experience either.

Spectacle 3/5

Unfortunately, this was the main killer of the movie itself. Being a marvel film, everyone would already have a set expectation (which probably is gonna be quite high). On the storyline sense, unfortunately, this movie has the difficult job of setting the new stage right for the new X-men timeline but it was entirely, ordinary, collect your mutant style with too little twists. From the action aspect it also suffered greatly. Basically, every mutant is a 1 or 2 trick pony with just about 3 - 5 mins of them using their power in the entire movie. The ordinary cinematography also did the movie no favors and in the end, its the very much expected everyone just dump their power on the main bad guy and see him explode kind of movie. If it did not have any competition in the movie market, this may have been good enough, but in a world with avengers and DC comics coming up with their own movies, this movie did not really enthrall the viewer enough.

Overall

Storyline: 3 (Pretty obvious and uneventful storyline with too little twists to keep things interesting)

Character: 3.5 (Sure there are many mutants, and all their powers are distinct, but much opportunity was lost as they did not have the time to showcase their powers)

Cinematography: 3 (Lack of good shots for action scenes except that very one quicksilver scene)

Music: 3 (Ordinary music, did not harm but mostly did not support the movie either)

Spectacle: 3 (Unfortunately, they tried to focus on storyline which was overall too weak and obvious. Action wise, they did not manage to captialize. It wasn't bad, but neither was it any much more then average)

Overall: 3.1 (Well the score is quite telling of whether you should or should not see the movie. Basically, its a average movie, that you won't really call a total waste of your time, but there is no need to really make the time to see the movie if you don't have the spare time. Nothing much really happened this movie (you could just start the next movie with no impact from this movie) and the action did not really pull the audience in. The fact that people who already seen the other x-men movies would not really be impressed by this alternate retelling of the movie and the way the mutant powers are utilized as everything happens in a very ordinary, expected manner. You can go ahead and see it if you have the time, but if not, wait for the next one and DVD it if you needed to before the next movie.)

Well? What did you think of this movie? Did it hold a candle to the avengers series? Let me know in the comments!

Movies: Batman v Superman

Movies: Batman v Superman

We have seen batman, we have seen superman, but never had we seen these two on the big screen at the same time. and what's more, this time they dont seem to be friends!

In this first DC reply to Marvel's avengers series, we finally get to see more then one major superhero in a single movie and similar to the next big marvel movie coming out very soon, these two guys are gonna have a moment sizing and beating each other up!

Note that unlike the more recent marvel movies, actors for superman and batman tend to very QUITE wildly.  You can actually see all the other batman movies and still get a different vibe from them because they are all really quite different. This is the same case for superman and I personnally never actually seen this superman (I believe he did act in another previous superman movie)

Nonetheless, this movie is dark, both in terms of lighting and in the storyline itself. DC movies seem to be trying to protray itself in a entirely different light from the Marvel movies and there is little comedy to be found here. So how did this movie perform when you break it down? Lets take a deeper look.

Which side are you on?

Storyline 4/5

The storyline is strong and it makes quite a fair bit of sense on how these two end up fighting in the first place. There are some slow moments during the movie as they try to expand on the universe but the moments are not too excessive before it gets back into something interesting.

Like i said previously, this movie is entirely dark and there is also quite a bit of thinking required. Especially for people who have not read the comics, you will either end up quite confused throughout the movie because they will throw a lot of confusing DC universe plot items at you or end up realising how big the DC universe is and that may pique your interest and make you go learn more about the universe from the net. That means that if you want to enjoy the storyline, you are gonna need to read up a bit to prepare yourself OR be prepared to keep a very open mind to try to interpret what is happening on screen the moment you see it.

That being said, if you just want to follow along the line of the main story and are not too concerned about what those flashbacks and videos mean, then the storyline is still sufficient to entertain you and will keep you interested in what is happening as there are enough immediate plots that are happening during the movie and it can keep things engaging enough. In fact, in this movie there are at least 3 intertwined main storylines so it is difficult to get bored of what is happening.

Character 3.5/5

You have 2 very important characters and 1 quite important character to develop in a movie lasting 151 minutes. Honestly, the character development for why these two guys are fighting is done reasonably well, but this movie only touches very slightly on the backgrounds of these two guys. That means that if you do not even see any of their movies before this, you will not be able to appreciate why batman or superman does things in this manner or that and may find it hard to believe why these characters end up reacting to the happenings in the storyline in a certain way.

There are not really any other major good guys with much relevance in this movie and the villain is quite well portrayed to be cranky. Overall the characters fit their roles but there is just a bit of difficulty of being fully immersed when you do not know the background of the two main characters

Cinematography 4/5

Cinematography is fantastic for this movie. The shots convey the vast size of the characters and buildings and there are a lot of good perspective shots that add immersion to the movie. The fights are done very impactfully and you can practically feel the pain when your chosen hero gets hit.

The story is told in a very artistic manner and the movie makes uses of flashbacks and videos to expand on the universe which keeps the movie interesting, There is just one small problem with it being too dark (literally) due to the lighting, rain and night conditions.

Music 4.5/5

Music in this game is very very spectacular. The score greatly adds to the feel of the movie and the action scenes are made that much more exciting.

Spectacle 4.5/5

This movie does very well in the action and storyline category and it has one of the best fighting scenes for a super hero movie (its not kungfu though). With the main 3 storylines telling you what happens with respect to Superman, batman and the only woman DC heroine for now, you will not get bored of what is happening and everything flows relatively well. Action is really quite fantastic once you get past the dark tone of the movie. All 3 heroes use their most well known specialities and weapons during the movie which is quite entertaining as you see the difference in their fight style. Pitting the two biggest heroes in the DC universe against each other adds a lot of entertainment value to this and is a very much welcome from the do-only-good previous batman/super man movies.

Overall
Storyline: 4 (There is 3 frontline storyline as well as the overarching DC universe storyline protrayed here. Good flow, but at times slightly confusing without background)
Character: 3.5 (Movie seems to expect the audience to have fair amount of background knowledge already, does have further character development in this movie but harder to immerse if background not already known)
Cinematography: 4 (This is probably the main thrust and attraction factor of the movie. A lot of effort is put into the fight scenes and it is done well and impactfully... if only it wasn't so dark till you cannot see maybe about 5-10% of what happened if you did not focus enough)
Music: 4.5 (Very strong musical score. Adds tremendously to the movie immersion)
Spectacle: 4.5 (Storyline is good, action scenes are great except just for slight gripes here and there. But the very fact that you fit 2 most well known movies together, and put them together to beat each other out, its definitely a draw for the fans, and for the non-fans, the action scenes even for a long movie will be strong enough to keep you entertained.)

Overall: 4.1 (Fair enough score, its definitely not a PERFECT movie, but the things that it sets out to do, it does well above average. Very smart way to draw in the crowds and at least get them the very first step into the DC movie, showing them the difference between them and Marvel. For more enjoyment in the movie however, you may want to just do a quick search about the DC universe so that some of the flash backs and scenes in the movie makes more sense. Don't wiki the movie itself though or you may get spoilt. Even after the movie, you can also go read up more and it will show you how big the DC universe is and hopefully attract you back for the next few DC movies on the pipeline)

So how did you find the movie? Did you manage to guess who was to win the fight? Do you agree with the ratings? Do let me know and see ya at the next movie (most likely going to be another movie where superheroes are pitted against superheroes)

Movies: The 5th Wave

Movies: The 5th Wave

Introduction

Don't fret don't fret, if you think you missed the 1st to 4th wave! This movie starts clearly at the 5th wave! In fact, the movie will go on and tell you all about the first, second, third and fourth wave and what is the state the world is currently.

In a market where there are tons of alien movies, end of world movies and zombie movies, is this movie able to stand out from the rest? Well, one plus point is that this movie combines the alien and end of world segment but of course no zombies in this movie.... yet.

Here's the poster!

Its pretty accurate that this movie focuses on these two

So how did this movie perform if we break it up? Let's take a look and see

Storyline 4/5

This movie has a lot of things going for them. It is a new fresh story and a fresh world, which means it is easier to keep the audience intrigued as it fleshes out the current world. It also can spend a bit of time telling about how did the world end up the way it did which will entertain fans of end of the world type of movies.

It also did a good job in having two different main story lines which means that the minds of the audience are kept absorbed by two things that are happening together to tell the entire story. The story flow overall is pretty good and entertaining as it introduces people and the world and there are not too many slow moments that will cause the audience to be bored.

That being said, the storyline also has a bit of a twist towards the end of the movie that makes it that more entertaining with that little bit of surprise and keeps everything quite exciting till the end.

Character 3.5/5

Character development is pretty alright as many of the people are new and need a bit of time to be introduced for the audience to feel any kind of attachment. Time is not on the side of this movie however due to the amount of storyline it has to go through and although you would see the story of about 4 or 5 characters fleshed out pretty well, the rest would be just another person in the group kind of person.

Cinematography 4/5

Cinematography is pretty good in this movie with epic shots of disasters and when it gets to the action part, you would see that quite  a bit of effort is put into the action scenes. The movie however is a storyline focused movie and not so much an action type of movie so there is still a lot of improvement potential.

Nonetheless, it uses the best cinematography form most of the time but does not capitalize and use it more to further immerse the audience.

Music 3/5

Did not really notice the music in this movie as nothing really stood out and no music was used distinctly to push some kind of emotion or feeling to the audience. At least nothing that I noted.

Spectacle 4/5

There are a lot of end of world movies. There are also alot of alien movies. This movie uses aliens to showcase their version of the end of the world which makes the story that bit more distinct and quite entertaining to the fresh audience. It does not excel in action or cinematography and although it does put in effort in the storyline it does not stand uniquely at the top amongst the other movies out there. But put all together, this movie does provide something slightly more different and it translate to a bit of a more enjoyable experience.

First movies of trilogy tend to always do well as it has a great unique source material but as we go into the second and third movie (that may or may not happen), we will see if this movie is able to keep up the interest and the immersion.


Overall

Storyline: 4 (Fresh story line, two interlinked focal point that keeps things interesting)
Character: 3.5 (Main characters have a fair bit of screen time and development but the rest are all pretty forgettable)
Cinematography: 4 (Good choices of shots to bring about epicness and action but really could have more opportunity)
Music: 3 (Music is ordinary, a bit too ordinary and did not feel its particular impact)
Spectacle: 4 (Unique joining of two main type of stories but it did not really pull far out from the offerings you would have seen before)

Overall: 3.7 (Overall, its a good attempt to draw in two types of movies which is the end of world and alien typed movies, and it is done with good shots and a good storytelling method. However the main aim of the movie which is to story tell, uses story line that is not TOO far off what has been shown on the big screen. Did have that bit of a twist in the storyline to keep things fun and entertaining and indeed it is good while it lasted. With a long movie time this is worth the time if you do have time to spare. Not a must see at this point of time and you could wait for the next movie to come out first if there ever will be, but you won't really regret seeing this movie too)

Movies: Attack on Titan

Movies: Attack on Titan

Introduction

Attack on titan. A title that does not make any sense to anyone at all... is there only one Titan? is Titan a place? Maybe a moon? if you are confused by the name... THEN THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY YOU MAY LIKE THE MOVIE!!! This movie is actually a Japanese Anime that has finished its season one quite a while ago. In fact I believe it is a 2013 anime that ended at 23 episodes in Sep 2013. The anime itself has obviously a more well developed storyline as it is more then 10 hours long as compared to this short short 1 and a half hour movie.

The problem with this movie is that the director of the movie took his own artistic direction to the movie. It will not be like the anime, but whether this is a good or bad thing, it will depend on the audience. Ok so what is a Titan in this movie? Sorry its not the roman Titan that fights with Zeus and Poseiden all that. It is merely this ugly fella

Yum yum little humans!

And what more! Like humans, they come in different shape, sizes, pose, gender, and even ugliness. Only that all those aspects, they have a much bigger range. Except gender.. They are genderless and merely look female or male or a genderless thingy. Of course this is the anime version. To whet your taste bud.. here's the movie one!

Roar! I'm so HOT! Global warming has taken a toll!

Woops! Sorry if you puked or anything... Here's some pictures of the staff to get you back on your feet

Posing! Looking good.... or relatively similar actually...

Ok! Enough of small talk. So is this movie worth seeing? Lets break it down

Storyline 2 (If you really hate people not following the canon) 3 (if you try stay neutral) /5

Lets get it out there at this point of the review. This movie is not going to follow the anime. I would say that besides the presence of the same Titans, use of same equipment, use of same names, it is a pretty different show. In fact, try to look at this movie as an ALTERNATE dimension of their world and maybe it would just be more palatable to you.

That being said, the speed of this movie is slightly too slow. It unfortunately cannot start off running like the usual action movies where at the very beginning there are already action scenes. As a result its a slow start that introduces the background and everything else but in general, it was still too slow for me. Once the action picks up however, it gets a bit more exciting and flowing but there was also quite a slow segment towards the middle of the movie and after that it is mostly action all the way.

However, the storyline as it has to be fitted into 1 hour and 30 mins, suffers from too many jumps and everything finishes a bit too quickly (if you can really consider that the movie finishes).

Character 3/5

There is some attempts at character development and there is effort put in to create a distinction between all the characters in this movie. But its short play time is back to haunt this movie as at the end of the movie, you would probably not feel too much for most of the supporting characters of the movie.

People who follow the anime will at least be able to know more clearly what the significant difference in the characters are but then again, it is still quite different from the movie itself.

Cinematography 3/5

For an action flick, this movie is just missing a bit of the more traditional shots. Sure there is some high speed shots where you can see how fast the characters are flying here and there but there are some parts of the movie that is pretty dark and it is just missing out on extra effort such as epic top down shots and more. 

There is a good feeling of speed and excitement but there is really much more this movie could have done to make every battle that bit more exciting.

Music 4/5

Actually, the movie and sound effects in this movie did do pretty well to add some elements of disgust and fear and excitement throughout the movie. It really did bring out the hopelessness of the world that they live in.

Spectacle 3.5/5

Again from a neutral stand point, this movie does introduce a pretty interesting new world that we live in where nothing is in favor of man kind. So the storyline would be fun for the newcomer. Sadly, the short movie length means everything ends just a tad bit too soon and all the action scenes are relatively short and ordinary. The whole movie could be made to have a lot more exciting action on a more large scale basis but guess that was not the direction they wanted to take overall.

Overall

Storyline: 3 (Too short, not able to tell enough without making sacrifices to depth of story)

Character: 3 (Too short, not able to have the opportunity to build up audience empathy to characters)

Cinematography: 3 (Has some good action shots, but that's about all the shots they have and they are generally a bit short lived and quick to end)

Music: 4 (Good use of sounds and music to bring up evoke audience feelings of disgust and more)

Spectacle: 3.5 (Average on the storyline side, also average on the action side. It gets a .5 as it is a new alternate world which still helps to keep the movie new and engaging)

Overall: 3.3 (Overall, I would say that this is a fair enough action flick, for the short 1.30 hrs movie in the midst of 2 hours action flick, this movie may not be exciting enough to be a must see yet. It's a good way to spend the time if you were looking for something to do and like to see an action movie in a alternate world with some gore and quite a lot of dying. For fans of the anime, you can enjoy this movie, but you must first set aside all expectation that this is the same as the anime. It is probably not a movie that you MUST see at this juncture and you will not really be missing too much by not seeing this movie.)