Solid movie, although nowhere near as great as its current rating suggests. After the flop that was Avengers 2 (not at the box office, but in terms of quality), this was a nice mix-up. While technically called Captain America: Civil War, this movie straddles the line between an Avengers movie and a Captain America movie. One of the biggest problems I had was the motivations for Captain and Iron Man as to their positions on the accords. Based on everything that we've seen from the two in previous movies, Iron Man is the relaxed character while Captain America is the stern government-follower. Their positions should have been flipped, comics be damned! Spider-Man was delightfully annoying, as he should be. Something that they try to do in this movie is make all the characters even in terms of powers, probably to sell action figures. Hawkeye was in a major fight and he was almost holding his own, insanely unrealistic. Other than these petty complaints, it was a decent movie with OK acting and average humor for Marvel. The action is pretty top notch and lots of blood was spilled, although I wish there was at least one character death.
Reviews
13 Reviews
Seven Years in Tibet
(1997)
Good movie
17 March 2016
OK, the first thing that needs to be mentioned is the accent. Brad Pitt's Austrian accent is quite poor, but he does a good enough acting job that he nearly makes up for it. The music and visuals are great, although about average for John Williams. The main draw for this movie is watching Harrer's transformation from arrogant prick to thoughtful man. I haven't read Harrer's autobiography so I can't comment on that, but I like the somewhat subtle uses of historical events throughout this movie. The secondary character, Peter, is another interesting character and acts as a moral foil to Harrer's arrogance throughout the first hour. The scenes with the Dalai Lama were funny and emotionally touching, but the child actor laughed way too much in the first few scenes with him. To wrap it all up, Seven Years in Tibet is an emotionally gripping film with a cliché but touching plot and above-average acting.
Zootopia
(2016)
The Inside Out of 2016
6 March 2016
Wow, this one surprised me. I saw the early trailers for this movie and had extremely low expectations for this movie, expecting to just be another awful March movie. However, when I saw that it then had a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, I decided to go see it. Well, I was wrong to judge it so early just based on the trailer. This movie was absolutely brilliant. It had more to say on relevant issues than a vast majority of adult live-action movies do, and it still found a way to do so in a clever and not overbearing way. The plot, while formulaic, was still interesting and the message and humor more than made up for the relative unoriginality of the plot. The characters in this movie were also rather cliché, but the movie used that nicely to make many points about stereotyping so that can't be used as a negative. This is a must-see for both kids and adults, the best true "family" movie in years.
Making a Murderer
(2015–2018)
A (the?) perfect show
28 February 2016
Wow, I can see how this has a 9.0 on here, absolutely incredible. It doesn't matter how you go into this show, you will be disturbed continuously. It is disgusting that this happened to a real person in real life, but kind of sickeningly am glad that it happened so that I could see this masterpiece. The show moves at a rather slow pace, which is neither a positive nor a negative but should be pointed out for potential viewers. Going back to disturbing part, this show feels like a horror movie without the cheesy blood effects and obvious jump scares. A possible complaint against this show could be that it's too black and white, but this really happened so why shouldn't the show portray the assholes as what they are? The title sequence is great and so are the visuals, so I couldn't see any other possible complaint. If you want to know what this show is about, just resist and watch the 10 hour show for yourself, any hint would be too much.
Borat
(2006)
Hilarious
16 February 2016
By far the best Sacha Baron Cohen movie. That isn't saying much considering the others are pretty mediocre, but Borat is absolutely hilarious. You can watch this solely as a silly comedy and there will be tons of great parts for you. However, the reason why this is such a good movie is because it's more than slapstick. The documentary aspect of this movie improves it so much more, especially since many of the scenes weren't staged and show real civilian reactions to Borat's shenanigans. The plot is fairly standard, but who's watching Borat for the plot? Instead of watching for the plot, watch this movie for the insanely quotable lines. Everyone knows at least one line from this movie, and if not then you at least know the iconic Mankini. Great movie that has been properly judged by critics but overlooked by the people, unfortunately.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
(2015–2019)
Slow start, but gets a lot better
15 February 2016
After watching the first episode, I was disappointed but wanted to give it a couple more episodes. The show felt empty and oh so clichéd. If you watched the first episode and didn't laugh a single time, don't give up. After the very mediocre first episode, the quality increased exponentially throughout the season. The second through forth episodes are decent, but everything after #4 is pure gold. If I was rating solely based on the first episode, I would give this show a 5/10. If I was rating solely based on the first four episodes, I would give this show a 7/10, but the rest of the season is strong enough to give it an 8. The show is approachable enough for basically anyone, but quirky enough to keep you interested. This is a good example of how to make a family-friendly comedy show with some bite, it would be a perfect PG-13 if it was a movie.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
(2014)
Terrible
16 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I still haven't recovered from how bad this movie was, and it's been 18 months. If somebody tries to show you even a small snippet of this train wreck, immediately leave the room or physically stop them, if needed. Everything about this movie is lazy, this review probably took more time to make than the script. The main villain's motivation for becoming evil is because Spider Man didn't remember his name, are you serious? The romance in this movie fits in so awkwardly with the other scenes. They should've made a fun adventure Spider Man movie and a sappy romance, instead of horribly combining the two. The product placement®(Sony) would be glaring for anyone not accustomed to it getting shoved down their throat at every movie, like we all are. Mary Jane or whatever her name is, dies near the end of the movie in a horrible cliché scene that made me burst out laughing. After that, Rhino makes a brief appearance and then the movie ends exactly the same as the trailer did. The whole point of a trailer is to provide anticipation for things that will get resolved in the movie that they want to sell to you, but they just cheap'd out and decided to not even film that scene. But don't worry, it'll all be in the next movie!
Aladdin
(1992)
Meh
13 January 2016
Not the worst Disney movie, but pretty close. Lacks any real emotional depth, and just replaces it with Robin Williams slapstick. A Whole New World is one of the Disney songs, but a generic even for Disney plot and clear racism counteract that. This movie doesn't have any depth, just some white Indians defeating the evil, dark Indians. Some might commend this movie for being the first one with out an extremely pale Disney princess, but making her skin slightly darker doesn't change the fact that she's an even more out of touch brat. Some people might not like reviewing children's movies, but when a movie is so widely loved like Aladdin, I say it's fair game. Children are gonna like the movie no matter how bad it is, so why not review it for the 13+ demographic?
Daddy's Home
(2015)
Fun movie
10 January 2016
This is not the next artistic breakthrough of the 21st century, but rather a silly Will Ferrell comedy. As a silly Will Ferrell comedy, I think it's one of the best. The plot is a little unoriginal, and by a little unoriginal, I mean so clichéd and predictable. While the plot is very generic, the characters are surprisingly not. The child actors are not the best, but their innocence combined with hilariously unexpected lines worked well. The best parts of the movie, in my opinion, are at Will Ferrell's workplace, the Panda. This is a funny and care free comedy that you can just shut your brain off while watching. The movie straddled the edge between PG-13 and R at some points, so if you're an overbearing parent then you might not want to take your eleven year old just yet.
Commercialism at its worst
10 January 2016
As a film, this does not deserve a 1/10. It is about average in all categories. The cast is fine, the music is fine, the directing is fine. Everything about this as a film is average. If I were solely rating this as a regular teeny bopper movie, it would get a 5/10. I gave the first movie a 5/10 and this is about as good as that, less interesting plot but also less shaky-cam. However, I can not just look at what is being presented. Mockingjay was a short children's book, 390 pages to be exact. This was split into two movies to sell tickets, not to add depth or whatever the studio makes up this week. By giving this a rating above let's say 4/10, you're saying that you're fine with this greedy behavior. This might not have been a terrible movie, but we want the big studios to think that it was so they end this cash-grab behavior.
Breaking Bad
(2008–2013)
*Speechless*
10 January 2016
Absolutely amazing show. If you're one of the seven people that haven't yet seen this show, let's make that number go down to six. People frequently talk about the decline of television, "Back in my day, we had good shows I Love Lucy, now there's only Jersey Shore and American Idol." This show cancels out any garbage "reality" shows that are on TV right now. Many consider this show to be another anti-hero show, and I'd have to disagree. Without spoiling anything, the main character of this show, Walter White, has very little redeemable qualities by the end of the final season. While this is listed as Drama, this show is not some boring cop procedural, it can be viewed as a (very) Dark Comedy if you want it to be. Only Game of Thrones has achieved as much adoration since Breaking Bad, and I love GoT, but this is just better.
The Big Bang Theory
(2007–2019)
At least it has Kaley Cuoco
10 January 2016
I have no idea how this horrid show has such a high rating on here. I've seen dozens of episodes and I've laughed maybe one or two times. The show is like a wannabe IT Crowd with none of the humor but all of the awkwardness. Laugh tracks stopped being cool in the '90's, but I don't think the creators of this show got the memo. This is probably the worst well liked show ever, it makes Glee look like Breaking Bad. Jim Parsons is unbearably annoying in role as 'quirky' Sheldon Cooper. The rest of this cast is about as note worthy as a brick wall. If you want to watch an interesting and intellectual comedy, look elsewhere. If you want to watch a cringe-worthy show with Hollywood nerds, then here it is.
Boring
10 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
If you're going into this movie expecting the original trilogy, you will get exactly that. Not because the movie is original or well acted like the first three movies, but rather because the plot is identical. The movie had very few battle scenes, and one of those had a storm trooper fighting with some weird sword thing and the other had an inexperienced girl beating a supposedly powerful sith lord, Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was much more like Anakin in Attack of the Clones than Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, so prequel fans (I know that's an oxymoron) can have something to enjoy too. I never thought I'd think these treacherous thoughts after midichlorians and Jar-Jar, but I kinda miss Lucas. Of the new characters, Poe is the only interesting one at all. Rey combines the blandness of Luke with the uselessness of Leia and Leia is pretty useless in this movie also. I only gave this movie a 4/10 because this movie was at least well made. In a year of disappointing sequels and reboots, The Force Awakens almost looks good.
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