Mad Max Fury Road Review

I did not get to see this movie until the Monday after it opened, so I had seen the reviews. I knew I was going into a great movie, but it truly did not disappoint. For those of you that have not seen it yet, go see it. For those of you that have, go see it again.

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Characters

I thought going into the movie that the action was going to stick with me, but what has really stuck with me is the characters. It is tough to pick a favorite. Nux, played by Nicholas Hoult, is a great character with a great arc through the movie. His character goes through a great transformation during the movie and really enjoyed him. Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, is another great character. A true warrior who does what needs to be done. She has some powerful scenes in this movie both in physical battles and in emotional struggles. A great fight scene with Max too. Speaking of our titular character, Max really plays a minor role in the movie on first look, but thinking about it more Max is really us in the movie. When he learns things we learn things. We know as much of the situation as Max. Although Max does have more post-apocalypse skills then us. Very clever and I liked Tom Hardy's portrayal of him. I was not surprised that these characters were good, because I have liked these actors in other movies before, but Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Splendid, was really surprising. This is the same actress that is in Transformers Dark of the Moon as the Meghan Fox replacement. She was powerful in her scenes. Her role called for her to be bold and she was. I could seriously go on with more amazing characters, but that would take too long. Just know you are going into  movie with great characters.

Action & CGI

George Miller has decided to upstage every CGI loving current Director out there and make one great action movie with minimal CGI. I would describe the action as a kid playing with his Hot Wheels in a sand box. Excellent chase scenes with crazy unique vehicles. The action is so very real. My favorite George Miller quote about this movie is around how technology has changed in the 30 years since the last Mad Max. What about technology has changed? That CGI makes every thing easier and possible? No. That digital cameras are so cheap now he could put them anywhere to get the shot and not have to worry about them breaking. That is awesome. That is a Director who understands what it takes to make a great action movie. This whole movie could have been shot in front of a green screen, but it wasn't. People are actually doing the stunts in the desert for this movie, which is crazy. This movie's action is going to hold up great for years. When there is CGI in this film, it is excellent too. The sand storm, seen in the trailers, looks so great and feels real. Furiosa's arm is great too. If you did not know from the trailer, she is missing her arm and has a mechanical arm. You show this movie twenty years ago and everyone would think that Charlize Theron did have a left arm. George Miller is in full control of all the stunts, action, and CGI in this movie and it really pays off.

Fast Points

• Saw the movie in 3D, it was cool, but it takes my eyes too long to adjust to truly enjoy it. If you can handle 3D, I would see it in it. 
• The whole religion behind Immortan Joe and his followers, the War Boys, is amazing world building. Spraying chrome on their teeth and yelling witness me, super crazy and helps make for terrifying villains 
• I love that you cannot tell if this is a reboot, sequel, prequel, or whatever. It is just a Mad Max movie and it super entertaining. Too many labels for movies in Hollywood. This is just a kick butt movie. 
• Even though this is just an action movie with one big chase scene, I really feel like I need to see it again to fully appreciate it. 
• I am not completely sure why this movie was rated R. I don't remember a lot of bad language in it (Captain America approves of this). It is violent, but not bloody violent or gory. It just feels like a border line R to me and I was expecting more of a Terminator 2 level R movie. Nothing wrong just pointing it out. 
• Finally, I want more movies like this....

Final Verdict: A

A must see action adventure with great character and an amazing world. Don't miss this in theaters!

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Review

After completing the very first Zelda game, it seemed only natural to play the newest (not counting remakes/releases) Zelda game out on the market... A Link Between Worlds! Well that and because I have a 2DS and it is ranked as one of the best on the system...

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How long does it take for me to beat a game? Well it took me since I finished my The Legend of Zelda review until now to finish this game. Moral of the story... when you get old you get less and less time to play video games.

Story & Dungeons

This is not an extremely deep or epic story, but it is a good one. A sorcerer invades Hyrule and starts turning people into paintings and is after Princess Zelda. Your job is to save Zelda and get back the paintings, which are hidden in the mysterious and mirrored world of Lorule! Very simple, but I liked simple in this case. It is a game on a mobile gaming device and I really felt that I could just pop in and play for a couple of minutes or a hour or two and either way it didn't hurt the story or make it confusing what is going on.  

Dungeons are a key part to the story in A Link Between Worlds (like most Zelda games) and they are very good in this game. Most dungeons you need a specific weapon for and they really use the weapon well in each dungeon. With all the weapons there are in this game, it helps to have specific dungeons for a weapon to showcase it.

Weapons & Special Abilities

A Link Between Worlds brings a new debate to weapon ownership... buy vs rent. In this game you are not finding all the main weapons in dungeons/castles, you are given the option to buy or rent. I feel like Nintendo decided that they need to teach children around the world about the age old debate of buy vs leasing, because that is exactly what the decision feels like. I found myself asking and thinking "This weapon is needed for this dungeon, but am I really going to need it afterwards?", "I could just rent every weapon right now and just save my game a ton and I will save so many Rupees!!", "I love this weapon, I going to buy this weapon." This is a fun feature, but really in the end there is no debate because this game just throws out the Rupees. You can easily buy every weapon when needed (this may not be true in Hero mode).

My go-to weapons were the Hookshot and Ice Rod. Hookshot was really helpful against the shield wielding foes and useful against all foes. The upgraded Ice Rod really helped when I was really surrounded by enemies (aka the Treacherous Tower). I found myself having these two equipped for as much as possible in the final castle.

I briefly commented above, but there are a lot weapons in this game, maybe too many. Example, I did not really use the bow at all in the game. A classic weapon like the bow could have been featured a little more. I don't think it takes away from the game by having too many weapons, I would prefer having the opportunity to really use all the weapons.

Wall-MERGING really EMERGES as a great new feature (I am too funny)
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I loved the merging with wall feature in this game. They really hit it out of the park with this new feature. Annoying enemy coming at me... merge into wall. Not sure where to go... merge into wall and run around. It is such a fun new feature to play with. I would see cliffs and would make note of them to find how to merge to a wall to get there. Puzzles were a lot more fun with this ability too. It makes you think about not only where you need to go, but how to get there. I would be very happy if this feature made a return in another Zelda game.

Rapid Fire

• I am a huge fan of the look of this game. Instead of going for super realistic, which the 3DS cannot handle, they went with the more what I consider cartoony look, which the 3DS handles great. There is nothing wrong with the cartoony look. Bad realistic is the worst thing ever in games. Play to what your system can handle and that is what they did here.
• Huge shout out to the compass in each dungeon! Without you I would have been a mess. I am not a fan of search dungeons for treasure that could or could not be there. 
• Although I own it on Game Boy Advance, I have not played A Link to the Past (I know I need to play and will in due time). Those that have will probably enjoy this game even more since it has the same map as Link to the Past.
• Since I own a 2DS, I cannot comment about the 3D experience in the game. I can tell the part that it would be used and I am sure it is nice.

Final Verdict: A

Great gameplay, good story, great visuals, and great wall merging make this a must own for 3DS owners and all Zelda fans. 

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

I, with the rest of the US, saw Avengers: Age of Ultron this weekend. Here is my review! There are some spoilers in the review. You have been warned!

Ending of Phase 2 

I wanted to start with what I think really holds this movie back... The fact that it is part of a SET Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you couldn't tell from the bolding and uppercase lettering, set is a key word there. The first Avengers we had no idea where we were going. There was going to be more movies, but really we were just part of the ride. Multiple superheros are getting together in one movie and it worked great. I remember being in the theater during the opening scene being like "Wow this is really happening." Now that it is happening a second time and I know where everyone is going, it takes the some of the charm away. We know Iron Man and Captain America are going into a Civil War against each other. We know Thor is going into a movie that could be really bad for some other worlds. We know that there are two more Avengers movies that are going to be huge. Nothing could happen in AoU that could take my mind away from that. At no point was I like "Oh wow Thor is not going to make it" or "This is it for Iron Man." Looking back at it, this movie ends with a lot of cool open ended questions, like where is the Hulk. This could have been Han Solo in carbonite level question, but he know they are coming back.

"Watch the Language"

Just like the first movie there is a lot of funny moments in the movie. The whole bad language inside joke throughout the movie is excellent. There were a couple of laugh out loud moments in the theater I was at. Superhero movies cannot be too serious (see Man of Steel) because they are meant to inspire and cheer us up. It also helps make the character much more real. You can connect with the characters that make jokes and that we have inside jokes with. I have read some people hate on Joss Whedon for all the one liners he puts in his works. I love them and if you love them then you are going to like this movie. To be honest, I think the jokes have stuck with me more than crazy action scenes/fights. 

Age of Scarlet Witch

I wanted Ultron to be a great villain. He had great lines, but really at the end of the day he wasn't much of a villain in this movie. Yes he is the one with the world destruction plan they are trying to stop. Yes he was menacing. But without the Scarlet Witch, I am not sure he would have made it far. He kind of failed... a lot and at everything he tried. For an AI he did not do a great job evolving and learning from mistakes. I think Ultron the villain suffered from all the set-ups to future MCU movies. It is really too bad, because they have a good baddie here. 

Quick Points

• All the action scenes in the movie are on par with Avengers. 
• Hulk Buster vs Hulk was a lot of fun. I thought it was going to be a re-tread from Avengers, but it wasn't
• The final battle seemed a little rushed to me. Rushed in the sense of it quickly started. It seemed like one second we are in this part of the world, the next second we are somewhere else, and then BOOM climax final battle.
• Love all the Avengers characters old and new. Marvel is truly great at casting. 
• Black Widow and Hulk? I thought Captain and Black Widow were going to be a thing after Winter Solider and their chemistry, but that was after all the Black Widow and Hawkeye stuff from the first Avengers. The MCU is not going for a love triangle they are going for a love pentagon!
• Not a fan of the random Thor story here. Feels really out of place, but...
• Shout out to Thor for someone somewhere in the MCU being like "Why are all these stones showing up?"
• I wonder if we are going to look back on this movie and wonder if this movie was needed in the MCU. Lots of set-ups to future movies, but what did it change?

Final Verdict: B

Solid super hero movie with great action, funny moments, but suffers from being a middle movie in the MCU and under using Ultron.

Jurassic World Official Global Trailer Thoughts

This summer is going to be a telling summer for movie franchises that are trying to recapture the magic. Terminator, Mad Max, and Jurassic World all are trying to restart their franchises. Indy 4 failed to recapture. Terminator has failed to recapture it once already. The Hobbit trilogy was no where in the ballpark of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Is it even possible to recapture the magic? More movie franchises are going to try and recapture the magic soon, Ghostbusters and Harry Potter. We will find out this summer if it is possible. Terminator is already not looking good. But I doubt Mad Max will fail. I also doubt that Jurassic World will fail from the trailers we have seen.

Here is the trailer that dropped today!

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I felt the fear in this trailer. The first two Jurassic Parks movie had a lot of fear in them. I wouldn't call it horror just a sense of fear for the characters, fear of the dinosaurs, and just an atmosphere of fear.

First the characters. I love Chris Pratt. Probably my favorite actor right now. He killed it on Parks & Rec (which is funny because I hated his character at first). He was amazing in Guardians of the Galaxy. With the wrong lead, that movie fails. You needed someone super charismatic and really can pull the dramatic strings when the movie needed it. I also love him as Emmet in The Lego Movie. Again super charismatic in that movie too. First part of the trailer we get to see him earning the respect out of the raptors. If raptors respect him so should we. Vincent D'Onofrio makes his first trailer appearance and I like him already. I literally love the show Law & Order Criminal Intent because of him. Such a strong actor and brings so much intensity to his roles. Super pumped he is in the movie and I hope he plays a big part. "Light him up!" I have no problem with kids in the movie. It is traditional to have kids running from dinosaurs in a Jurassic movie and I am all for traditions in movies. If you like the characters, you are going to fear for them. Bryce Dallas Howard... not excited for her in the movie. She has not had good "luck" with movie franchises. She is my biggest concern for this movie.

From the trailers I have thought the dinosaurs looked good in the movie. There is no terrible Terminator CGI here. Some of the comments to the video on YouTube comment about bad CGI, I am not seeing bad CGI. I was nervous about the hybrid dinosaur when I first heard about the movie. After seeing what they are going for, I like the idea. At least a raptor/T-Rex hybrid sounds different and fresh. Speaking of T-Rex, we got a small siting of him/her and another goat! Poor goat.... I have a sneaky suspicion that the T-Rex will play a bigger part than we are seeing in the trailer. Raptor training is an interesting idea. I need to see how it plays out before I judge. I hope there is more than three raptors in the movie. Hybrid and Raptor training has got some negative comments and they mainly seem based on the fact they "created" a new dinosaur and Raptor training does not sound realistic. That is a tough argument for a movie about extinct dinosaurs that were brought back to life with Dino DNA from a sap covered mosquito with the help of frog DNA. If you have a problem with hybrid dino and trained raptors, you should have a problem with the whole concept of the movie franchise. We have not seen a lot of friendly dinosaur moments in the trailers, I hope there is some. Those were some of my favorite scenes in the first two. The other noticeable dinosaur leads into my last point.

The end of the trailer just has an atmosphere of fear. The pterodactyl attacking and snatching up the tourist with the music set a very terrifying seen. You shouldn't feel safe around dinosaurs (at least in my opinion) and that is the sense you get in this trailer. Once the D-Rex starts breaking them out, it is chaos and fear. Just like in the first one when the T-Rex busts out.

I am excited for this movie! We have not had a good dinosaur movie in a long time and this looks like it will deliver!

Batman v Superman Trailer Thoughts

Another day and another huge trailer goes online!

I think it is official. You cannot plan a theater event for a movie trailer, because it is going to leak and it is going to force your hand to release an actual good copy of the trailer.

Here is the trailer!

Just to start out, I am not a fan of Man of Steel. I could talk about why, but I think Honest Trailers does a good job of summing up my feelings. Here is a link to that video.

I am excited for a Ben Affleck Batman. He seems like a very good cast for this movie. Jeremy Irons will be a good Alfred as we can tell from the voice over. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor I am on the fence about. I loved him in The Social Network, but that was a part he was just born to play. I am not a huge fan of the rest of the cast. Mainly because I was disappointed with Man of Steel and a lot of them are coming back.

This trailer is super dark. It looks like everything takes place at night. Everything is gloomy. I understand the idea of dark and gritty. That just gets heavy after a while, so I hope the whole movie is not like that.

There are a lot of shots from the trailer that remind me of The Dark Knight trilogy. Batman on top of the Skyscraper holding on to a pole looks like the exact shot of what we saw in Batman Begins except Affleck is looking away from the camera. The Dark Knight trilogy has a pretty unique Batmobile and now this Batmobile is extremely similar. More of a tank than a car. The whole Alfred telling Bryce something important message with Bryce staring at him with a serious face, this happened in every movie in The Dark Knight trilogy (this is pretty generic, classic Batman though too, so maybe we should give them a pass). A shot of the Batsuit looks sooo similar to Nolan's movie. It bothers me that they don't show off more in the trailer how this Batman is different. There is rumors about Robin. It has been said that Batman has been around for years. Show off that stuff in the trailer more than everything that is so similar to the Dark Knight trilogy's Batman. I did like the Alfred voice over and Ben's Batman voice.

The "Do you bleed?" line is an awesome line. It is a weird line for Batman to say to Superman. I know the title implies they will fight, but we all know there is going to be some other main villain that will unite them together aka dawn of justice. When Batman and Superman fight in The Dark Knight Returns comic, it is under circumstances that make sense for both characters. Those do not make sense based on Man of Steel at least for Superman. I hope that it makes sense why Batman would go into a fight saying that and wanting to fight Superman.

One thing I love when Marvel and DC movie trailers come out is fanboy fights in the comments section! First I think it is stupid judge them against each other. There is no reason to. Fanboys on each side are going to see both movie franchises. Second, DC has only had Man of Steel in their "cinematic universe" there is no way to tell what it will be like in the end. We had no idea what Marvel would be like after one Iron Man movie. Thirdly and very fanboy of me, I think the new Star Wars movies will blow both out of the water.

I came out of this trailer with my first thoughts of this movie reaffirmed: everything Batman related in this movie will be good... everything else will probably be Man of Steel quality. For some that is exactly what they want, it is just not what I want.

Star Wars The Force Awakens Teaser 2 Thoughts

Woo hoo! Trailer number 2 for The Force Awakens! What a great day!

Here is the trailer.

First off the voice over... Awesome call back to Return of the Jedi. I think it is Luke. Most people have referred to the voice as Luke. When I listened to it first with head phones I thought it was Luke. I thought it was amazing how his voice sounded exactly the same as in Jedi.  Then I listened to it without headphones and it didn't sounds like Luke. It got me thinking "What if it isn't Luke?" Vader's helmet, the family of a brother and sister, the similarity of what Luke said in Jedi...could it all be a red herring and someone else is saying this? "My father has it." That implies the father is alive and Vader is not "alive". Luke and Leia are not the only brother and sister ever. I am terrible with voices and matching them to actors, but maybe this is Domnhall Gleeson??? Is he Luke's son and Domnhall as an actor is trying to sound like Mark Hamill? I am not sure. Probably Luke's voice. Okay so I took a break and watched the trailer again and I think it's Luke's voice again. I am keeping my not Luke thought because that is a cool idea.  

Love the music in the trailer. Very classic Star Wars music but with a new twist. I am good at matching Star Wars music to movie scene and after listening a couple of times I cannot place it. So new music that has the classic themes in it? That is awesome and exactly what I want. 

All the visual effects look great. Practical or CGI. In 2015 you would think all visual effects would look good, but watch the new Terminator trailer... The crashed Star Destroyer looks awesome at the start. The Tie fighters have a different look. The wings almost look translucent. All the spaceships at least look CGI to me. What is cool is that they have eight month to only make it look better!

The Darth Vader helmet and Luke's/Anakin's lightsaber make an appearance. Both have already been rumored to be part of movie. It was nice to see in the trailer. It will be interesting to see how Luke's old lightsaber was recovered. Side note: if I ever get a Force FX Lightsaber (which I really should), I want the Luke/Anakin Lightsaber, it is too iconic to pass up. I am expecting on some level the villain(s) of this movie are going to be Vader worshipers or followers or something. Vader is such an iconic character that it tough to not have his presences in the movie if it is just his helmet.

The Han and Chewie piece at the end was nice. A very good line for Han to say for a trailer. It looks like they are in the Falcon, so it kind of implies that the Falcon isn't owned by him anymore? Han Solo and Falcon go together like bread and butter. The idea of a different owner is a little sad. The Falcon can still fly that is for sure. Chewie looks like he hasn't aged. The benefit of being a wookie I guess.

I want to see more of everything in this trailer. More X-wings flying around. More Chrome Trooper. More droids. More new characters. More classic characters. December cannot come soon enough!. 

Terminator Genisys Official Trailer 2 Thoughts

We got two new trailers today! Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys. One was fun and great! The other was super spoiler filled and a weird marketing play. We are going to talk about that one.

Here is the Terminator Genisys Official Trailer 2.

Wow. This trailer gave us a huge plot twist and I have no idea why. This movie has not looked great. Was the hope of revealing more would get the buzz up? I am sure they are getting some bad press for this twist and any press is good press, right? I have no problem with the twist itself, but why show it in a trailer when you lose the shock factor in the theater? My only guess is that this is not the biggest twist in the movie. We still do not know Matt Smith's character in the movie so maybe that is a bigger twist??

Casting for this movie is way off and you can tell from the trailers. Jai Courtney is not Kyle Reese. He is not even close to the actor that Michael Biehn was in the original. I read that he is not trying to be like Biehn's Reese, because it is a different movie. What? We know for a fact that a shot for shot recreation of Reese's arrival and shopping center scene are in this movie. How is that a different Kyle Reese? Jason Clarke as John Connor wasn't a big deal to me, because I thought he was going to have a small part. Well, looks like his part is huge. So... not excited for this now. Jason Clarke was kind of forgettable in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and I am not sure he can be war hero John Connor. Bad guy John Connor maybe. Also, I think his scars look terrible. Also, I feel like Jason and especially Jai are way too beefy and muscular in this movie. I know this is a weird take, but they are survivors in a Man vs Machine post-apocalypse war. You are not going to be that ripped. Are they drinking protein shakes in between huge battles? End of weird take.

The Machine War scenes look terrible. The Terminator and T2 made the war look super terrifying. This looks like a cheap SyFy movie or a cheap video game. Why are we inducing new machines in the war that are terrible CGI? I am talking about you weird machine that jumps in front of John and Kyle, better seen in the first trailer. The machines in the originals are prefect. Those war scenes from the original still freak me out because they are so real and a metal Terminator is so scary looking.

Final thought. Why are they pumping up the 1984 Arnold vs Old Arnold fight so much? We know it will be an early scene. We know who is going to win. What is going to make it so amazing? It is a fun idea and could look cool, but why was that one of the last teases in this trailer? I am not going to go to this movie to see that.

I am fully expecting this movie to bomb. In fact, right now I am not sure how it is going to succeed.