The good:

• – The humor is sometimes great even fantastic. I loved the scene were two Stormtroopers wisely avoided a raging Kylo Ren. The moment when the Wall-E knockoff was doing a thumbs up with its torch was the best one of the movie
• – The effects are well done
• – The Stormtroppers finally can hit something in front of them
• – The Midichlorians were never mentioned. On the contrary the force was again portrayed as something mystical. It’s as if Episodes 1 to 3 never happened

The mediocre/bad:

• – Was there any original idea in this movie?  Let me give a short sublist of stuff they copied from the old Star Wars films:
  • ° A map is the McGuffin of the plot
  • ° A droid escapes with the map
  • ° First part of the movie takes place on a desert planet
  • ° Main character lives on the desert planet
  • ° Main character gets introduced to the lore by a father figure / mentor
  • ° The Wall-E knockoff BB-8 is also a R2D2 knockoff
  • ° Darth Vader is back again – this time as a whiny brat with a helmet
  • ° The brat is of course a former Jedi who killed all other Jedi in his vicinity as soon as he changed sides
  • ° The Emperor became the big holoogram guy
  • ° The Empire became the First Order (whatever that is)
  • ° The rebellion is also back again
  • ° The brat receives orders from a hologram as did Vader
  • ° The General feels very similar to the Commander of the first Death Star
  • ° As was Vader in Episode IV, the brat is a part of a bigger story and not the all commanding supersoldier
  • ° The Death Star is here again and bigger than ever. Let’s call it Death Star 3
  • ° Death Star 3 destroys a planet to show off its power. Nothing of consequence is happening afterwards as did happen with Alderaan
  • ° Death Star 3 gets blown up because of a technical weakness as did Death Stars 1 and 2
  • ° Of course, the final fight is a race against time, before Death Star 3 can destroy the rebellion with its superweapon
  • ° Some X-Wings fly in a ravine to the important target to destroy Death Star 3
  • ° Leia stands in the command centre listening to everything and hoping for the best
  • ° Han Solo is on the run
  • ° The cantina is back – even the musicians are the same
  • ° Yoda became the female alien of the new cantina
  • ° The brat is walking in a dark alley like Darth Vader did in Luke’s vision
  • ° The girl is kidnapped
  • ° The ‘confrontation’ between Han Solo and the brat is happening like the confrontation between Darth Vader and his son: over a large, endless pit
  • ° Speaking of pits: Someone falls to his (presumed) death. How many times did that happen? I count four: Darth Maul fell down an endless pit, as did Luke, the emperor and now Han Solo
  • ° A father figure dies
  • ° The brat most likely survives as did Vader
  • ° All hardware (X-Wings, Tie fighters, Star destroyers etc.) is more or less unchanged from the previous episodes IV to VI
• – Ray is a wasted and boring character. From the beginning she was portrayed as the perfect superhero – and thus got no room for growth or change. For example, she was able to immediately understand all technical elements of the Millenium Falcon. She also could fly the Millenium falcon amazingly well from the get go. She was better than the guy who lived on it for years. She could also use the force without any training whatsoever and wield the lightsaber as if it were nothing special. She could fight and more or less win against the new Darth Vader – who in turn becomes a joke of an antagonist. Seriously…the girl who didn’t even know she could use the force until some mere minutes earlier was immediately able to win against a dude who learnt the ways of the force for years from the best…Yeah, sure.
• – Finn was a total waste of time and potential. As in the trailer he “wakes” up and is a good guy. There was no inbetween or gradual change. He just decided he didn’t want this despite receiving brainwashing since childhood.
• – What is First Order? When, how and why did they become a thing? How could they build Death Star 3? How can they even exist? Are they supported by the Republic? I don’t know, all of that stuff was never explained.
• – Because the film focuses on two outsiders we viewers basically start off from scratch and on the outside as well. Instead, the focus should have been on one of the main characters from the old movies because so much stuff in terms of broken relationships and tragedies are left unexplained or were presented in a superficial and thus boring manner.

There is certainly more I could write about but this is the gist of it. Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens is mindless popcorn entertainment at best and the quality certainly does not justify the massive financial success of the movie.

The post Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens first appeared on madmind.

Granted, Age of Ultron uses this sub-context already heavily in its plot. For example, Natasha has to live with the consequences of her training, Bruce has to live with the consequence of him turning into “Bad Hulk”. But strangely enough, when the plot called for a memorable illustration of the consequence of choices the most, the filmmakers chickened out. So, which moment in the movie do I mean? It’s when the Helicarrier suddenly arrives in the last moment as a perfect deus ex machina to save the day and every person on the floating island.

Just imagine if the helicarrier wouldn’t habe arrived to save the day. Imagine a team of superheroes having to make a decision, a decision with consequences: “We have to destroy the island before it hits the ground. And we have to kill everybody still remaining on the island by doing so. And this is a decision we have to make”. This simple difference would have given Age of Ultron emotional and moral weight. This simple difference would have given something to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that goes beyond popcorn entertainment, where seemingly nothing is of consequence and – for example – almost no major character ever dies.

The more I think about it the angrier I get, because the possiblities would have been endless. Imagine a devastated Tony who saved the world by having to make a decision, a decision which was forced on him by himself by creating Ultron. Consequently, the team would certainly have been shattered as trust and teamwork no longer would have been possible. In fact, it might have even resulted in the team seeing Tony as a possible enemy because he acted on impulse without asking everybody and without thinking about possible … consequences.

Man, Age of Ultron could have become the perfect second movie of a trilogy by being the absolute low point where all hope is lost and the Avengers have to live with that one consequence at the end of the movie.

Oh, and by the way: The fact that Thanos makes an appearance also solidifies the fast food feeling of Age of Ultron because it basically tells us one thing: Everything that happened is more or less of no consequence because the big bad guy is only now starting to act and therefore everything up to that point is only a prelude.

The post Avengers: Age of Ultron is like Fast Food first appeared on madmind.

If you love generic action movies that lack any logic and coherence, Colombiana might be the right thing for you. If not, stay away from it.

Uhura Saldana looks hot in almost everything she wears, that much is sure. But that alone makes no entertaining movie and the writers should have put more brains into the actual plot.

It all starts with the basic premise: Saldana is the assassin Cataleya who as a child witnessed the murder of her parents and from that moment on is out for revenge. Problem is that the movie isn’t truly about revenge for a lengthy portion of its run time.

Cataleya might act out of revenge but much of what she does is not connected to the drug lord who killed her parents. One time she kills a fraud, another time it’s some sort of serial murder hooker. So why does she kill them and wasting her time for that? Is it for money to buy weapons? Or to buy information about the location of said drug lord? Nope, she kills them to paint an orchid named Cataleya on the dead bodies. It’s a message for the drug lord:  I’m living and out to kill you.

The surreal thing is that the message is not being delivered because the FBI keeps the paintings a secret. So Cataleya has to kill a whooping 22 people before the paintings are revealed to the public and thus to the drug lord.

I think a letter would have been faster, cheaper and easier.

Okay, after many years of unsuccessful mail deliveries the police force finally tells the public about the paintings – and the drug lord reacts in a pretty normal way: he tries to killer her before she can…although she could have hunted him down years ago, but well…

The kicker is that Cataleya doesn’t live underground and hidden. In fact she lives with other relatives in Chicago and her uncle helps her in this assassin business. In other words: not being able to find her would be a wonder.

For an assassin with a brain Cataleya sure acts rather stupid. Well, at least this painted flower stunt is stupid.

Other than that Colombiana is also plagued with chances and convenient writing of the worst kind. Cataleya knows exactly who’s going where and is doing what, the FBI is stupid as hell and the world acts and reacts in ways only to advance the plot. There are so many smaller and bigger moments, events and occurrences where this happens that I could possibly write ten pages about it, but I leave that well enough alone.

Basically it’s like this: Colombiana doesn’t rely on logic or good coherent writing. The characters act surprisingly stupid, the world is a gathering of convenience for the main character. If you like that, watch Colombiana, or if you like some okay-y action sequences.

Rating: 4.5 (Generic action flick that could've been way better)

The post Colombiana – The Review first appeared on madmind.

Well, it’s not an epic waste of time.

It seems to be common nowadays to film scripts as soon as they’re first or second drafts because I couldn’t help but feel a little bit lost in the chaos I watched.

It already starts at the beginning. I was amazed and confused to see that the creators didn’t decide to focus entirely on Hayden Christensen (who seemed to be in his Star Wars acting mode by the way) and how he awakes his powers. Instead the first act entirely focuses on the character in his younger age who doesn’t even look similar to Hayden. Jumper nevertheless revolves around the awakening but in the worst way possible because there’s so few background information given that I didn’t start to care about him.

Then the movie jumps forward several years where he developed his powers and gained a life on his own off screen. Okay, but the question is: why? Why did it jump forward in time? The only reason seems to be to have finally Hayden in the movie (and not only written on the posters) but other than that I don’t see a reason. In fact, it would have been way more interesting to not jump forward because after he robbed the bank for the first time it would have been the perfect setup for a worldwide chase filled with high tension and pressure. By jumping forward, that tension is completely lost.

Samuel L. Jackson is totally wasted as a character here, no cool acting can sugarcoat that. Not only is he almost never on screen but when he is, he only blubbers some pretentious bullshit I don’t care about. Funnily enough, Samuel L. Jackson isn’t even the only antagonist in this movie because two thirds into the movie, Hayden suddenly plays tag with his fellow jumper over a bomb. That guy, by the way, is essentially wasted, too. We learn nothing about him, he only serves as a temporary antagonist and a way to give Hayden and us viewers some exposition about the overall situation.

No, this movie isn’t really worth to be recommended, at most I’d say you can watch it on DVD or TV when there’s nothing else you can do or watch. The really sad thing is that there was big potential in all of this. The setup is intriguing and could’ve lead to an ever-expanding franchise. Who knows, perhaps someone might create a series franchise out of this now that Stargate is off the air.

Rating: 4.5 (Chaotic mess that doesn’t live up to its potential)

The post Jumper Movie Review first appeared on madmind.

IT’S SO FLUFFY!

Agnes is the cutest girl put on screen in recent years. Even more amazingly, the whole bunch of the three kids is not annoying and this, my fellow readers, is a feat not seen very often.

Is there anything else you should know or that’s important? With the exception of one another thing, the answer is mostly ‘no’.

Despicable Me is you standard, run-of-the-mill 3D animated popcorn family movie that is so predictable I cannot even make fun of it. The writer s completely relied on the standard story template where you only have to fill in some jokes, funny sidekicks and the character’s names. The rest of the script’s already finished with the usual structuring and an ending promoting the usual family oriented values of friendship/trust or something similarly shallow I’m sick of as of late.

As with all the other 3D animated flicks everything that happens on screen is harmless, even friendly at times. So the plot lacks any depth or true character growth because Gru is not evil to being with. The closest thing I can come up with to describe him is “grumpy” and therefore his change to the better is not convincing because there’s no real change at all. Just compare Gru to Syndrome from The Incredibles and you can see the vast differences immediately.

Strangely enough the lack of depth doesn’t really hurt Despicable Me because the creators wisely decided to make the other characters the heart of the movie and Gru the dude who connects everything. Besides the girls, which are almost Japanese anime levels of cute, there’s of course the Minions which are the big other exception I’ve mentioned above.

The Minions are the not so hidden stars of Despicable Me and rightfully so. Seeing those cuddly little guys in action with their quirks and childish behavior was a blast to watch and I just couldn’t get enough of them. The producers knew very well that they were sitting on a gold mine so they’ve added the Minions in every scene possible. It was the best decision they could make and because of this I assume that the producers were well aware of the fact that the plot is one big stereotype without substance.

It’s the three cute girls and the Minions that completely save Despicable Me from being a disaster. Surprisingly, the two elements make this movie a far better watch than its true plot quality could ever achieve.

I was also quite thankful to see that there are also not that many pop culture referenced jokes in Despicable Me – or I simply didn’t notice them because they were too subtle. One of the best pop culture jokes in recent years is the Bank of Evil which – as the sign says – is a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers. If for nothing else, everybody else in Hollywood should use this joke as a perfect pop culture referenced joke. It’s funny but it’s subtle and when you’re not fast enough you’ll miss it. Compare that to some of the other 3D animated movies which often seem to be solely written for the purpose to connect some unfunny pop culture references.

That alone is a reason to give Despicable Me a big hug.

Rating: 7.0 (Predictable plot married to Agnes and the Minions. A win nonetheless.)

The post Despicable Me … Not (Movie Review) first appeared on madmind.

After dismembering Tron Legacy and before continuing to work off my list of planned movie reviews it’s time again time to wander into the Obscure Movie Territory. This time it’s The Way Back, a survival movie directed by Peter Weir (Truman Show).

The Way Back tells the story of several Siberian Gulag prisoners who can escape the camp and flee south to reach India. Since there’s nothing out there many hardships await them and of course not all of them reach their goal.

While in theory the setup sounds extremely suspenseful, the actual results feels just bland that lacks any drama, suspense or action intensity. The Way Back wants to be more than a mere survival movie; it wants to give its genre a new spin by being realistic. But by doing that it throws everything out of the window that makes a movie a good movie.

The Way Back lacks any form of conflict. There’s no tension at all which is kinda surprising since one guy is a murderer who still loves Stalin like a hero. Do you think this would cause some high tension between him and the escapees that were imprisoned by Stalin? Nope, doesn’t happen! Or do you think the fact he’s an armed murderer causes high tension? Nope, doesn’t happen either.

Another example: despite being a movie about escapees, The Way Back lacks any force of opposition. When the characters are imprisoned in the Gulag, the guards remain almost completely invisible. After the characters flee, nobody hunts them down. When the characters reach the Sowjet-Mongolian border, nothing prevents them from easily leaving their home country. Of course, what happens is really realistic. But I don’t watch movies for realism. I already have that day in day out.

And here’s the last example: despite being a movie about escapees on the verge of physically and mentally breaking down, The Way Back lacks any form of deep character development or character arcs. The main character is a pitch perfect example of that because he indeed has a powerful motivation: he wants to find and forgive his wife for selling him out after being tortured. He knows she will never forgive herself for what she did so he has to do that. This is his driving force to survive, to not give up. But guess what? We only learn about his motivation three thirds into the movie. Up to that point he’s only a guy who wants to be free.

On a visual level the movie is quite gorgeous to look at. You get vast sceneries of eerie beauty and vastness in which the characters literally feel like unimportant dots. The guy behind the camera did a really good job, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure we can thank National Geographic for the visual feast.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the editing. The Way Back is one of the worst edited movie’s I’ve seen in years. A very good example of this is the scene where the characters flee from the camp. The first thing we see in this particular scene is a failing generator. Two cuts later the alarm goes off and the escapees are already at the fence, breaking through. Another two cuts later they’re outside. To say I understood what’s going on would be a huge exaggeration because I had no single clue whatsoever about what happened.

This sloppy and erratic editing lurks its way again and again into the movie: We see the characters walking in a deep wood surrounded by masses of snow. Cut. We see the characters walking in a forest without snow. Another example: we see the characters walking. Cut. One escapee wakes up and they’re at the Chinese Wall.

But there is one jump cut I can only describe of so bad it’s pure awesomeness again because it basically destroys half of the movie: we see the characters in the desert and how they fight against this desert and their imminent death of thirst. One character already died so it’s man vs. nature. Cut. We see one of the characters taking a relaxing bath in a river.

When I saw that cut I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was like “Ehm, what? What happened just now? Where’s the climax? Did they forget a roll?” This jump cut is amazingly bad. It’s as if Star Wars would jump cut from the moment the Death Star appears at the rebel base right to the moment everybody is celebrating their win.

All in all The Way Back remains a strange movie which left me in a state of confusion of what its point is or what it wants to tell me.

Rating: 5.0 (Strong images, weak characters. Much suffering, no drama.)

The post The Way Back a.k.a. The Bland Way Back (Movie Review) first appeared on madmind.

Amazing visual effects but a stupid plot. That’s the original Tron movie in a nutshell. But that didn’t prevent from Tron becoming one of the biggest nerdy sci fi cult movies ever. So after roundabout thirty years of standby Disney made the logical decision to reboot the franchise with Tron Legacy. Was the effort worth it?

For most parts, and especially the plot, the answer is no. Tron Legacy felt to me as if the two writers Kitsis and Horowitz mistook the movie for the famous TV series Lost, for which they wrote 21 episodes each. Why? Because as Lost, Tron Legacy suffers from the horrible plague of “hinting”, “setting up” and “never paying off”.

Tron Legacy starts rather promising, though, because they were able to not shove the best things of the digital world down our eyes in the very first few minutes. It’s quite the opposite as the movie begins rather slowly with a talk between Sam and his father Flynn, who besides other stuff hints at important things to come. But then Flynn disappears from the world and Sam has to grow up without his father. Okay, this is typical blockbuster stuff at work here because Sam grows up to be your usual off the shelf genius beauty boy with a hang for extreme sports and righteousness. While this setup is a cliché of clichés I went on with it at first because of the welcomed slowness of the plot and the mystery surrounding Flynn’s disappearance.

The Encom break in scene some minutes later proves, though, that Tron Legacy doesn’t give a shit about itself, its plot and worst of all us viewers. Sam’s not only able to break into the Encom building, nope, he also uploads their newest OS into the internet in a timeframe I can only call seconds. But it gets better because only some seconds later the Encom board is already informed by this – but is beaten already by a TV station that’s one second faster than them…Ehm what? Did nobody get the feeling that this is, well, bullshit?

I assume they knew but didn’t care because starting from that moment on the quality of the takes a nosedive and is never to be seen again. The absolutely tragic part about this disaster is the fact Tron Legacy had some amazing potential. Heck, it had the chance to easily surpass its predecessor in terms of story quality. But instead of doing that the two writers decided to shit on their script.

Nothing in Tron Legacy feels epic, mysterious or at least gives the impression of a movie that knows what it’s doing. The writers bring in so many different subplots that it’s no wonder Tron Legacy has no coherent plot let alone a plot that’s properly build and resolved.

Out of all different subplots that problem’s especially evident with those mysterious Isos Flynn mentions at the beginning. Instead of build upon this idea and creating a truly epic story, the writers decided to use that as a background story for Clu’s betrayal of Flynn.

Another small example is the coin Flynn gives his son at the beginning. Instead of using this coin as a symbol for the bond between father and son, the writers decided to reduce the coin to a gimmick which Sam nonchalantly uses for a gaming machine – although he treasured it enough to keep it for twenty years. The same goes for the fastest lightcycle of the grid, which is used solely for driving into the city. You know, I’m not the brightest when it’s about screenwriting, but even I know that it’s total bullshit to mention something when you as a writer have no notion whatsoever to use that later.

Another thing is the disc of Flynn. This gadget has the master key necessary to leave the grid and therefore is important enough that Flynn keeps in hiding for a very long time, so that Clu is not able to get his hands on this valuable item. To a certain point this makes sense to me. What I don’t understand, though, is the fact that Flynn does absolutely nothing when his disc gets stolen. I felt totally cheated because at first I truly believed Flynn might have some sort of plan which made it necessary to “lose” it. Like a virus. But nope, there was nothing going on. In other words the writers again didn’t care at all about their plot and our intelligence.

The icing on this trainwreck of a subplot is the revelation that Flynn doesn’t even know what Clu’s up to. The only thing he knows after he lost his disc is that he wants to reach the portal despite the fact it’s pretty useless to go there without the key. Okay, Clu wants to get out, too, but I call this idea stupid because it’s rather risky in my eyes to not get the disc first. In the end we can gladly thank Mr. Chance leading our heroes right to the main head quarter of Flynn. I don’t know when the last movie I watched had so many chances.

But it gets even better because the plan of Clu is only one thing: absolute illogical bullshit. Okay, Clu was programmed to create a perfect world. That much is clear. But where the heck does “bloody” gladiator fighting fit into this? Where’s perfection in that? And what has all of this to do with the real world? I don’t get it.

Moreover the plan itself is utterly stupid…or to be more precise the premise of the plot. The more I think about it the stupider it gets and I sincerely wonder how the writers believe a computer works. Okay, so humans can enter the grid via the laser. Tron Legacy makes the statement that this process can work in the opposite direction as well. In other words: programs/code can become reality. Seriously, why did they write this? Didn’t they think about it for a second? Everything on the grid is basically code in one form or another. But by implying that some hundreds of lines of code can become a normal intelligent human is as if this blog post would become a book including a heavy cover and many paper pages.

I can understand that the writers needed some sort of crisis but the quality of that crisis is so lackluster that I cannot forgive them for writing this. Compared to Tron in which the MCP was a threat to the world, Tron Legacy has nothing whatsoever of that scale. Everything takes place in a computer completely disconnected from the world. Basically it’s a crisis in a sandbox. If the secret door wouldn’t have fallen on Sam at the beginning, nothing would’ve ever happened to the real world. They even state that the portal cannot be opened from the inside. So thanks a lot, dear writers, you created a scenario with no urgency at all.

The plan itself also doesn’t feel as if the worlds at stake. What could’ve been the worst scenario if Clu were able to enter the real? I’m sure Clu’s thousand untrained, unarmed henchmen would’ve been the perfect shooting training material for the US military. (By the way, Tron Legacy made a massive mistake with this whole evil plan subplot which the writers weren’t able to solve at all: since the grid resides in a disconnected computer it’s absolutely impossible for Clu to send a message to Allen.)

Thinking about Allan/Tron brings me right to the thing I hate with a passion about this movie: the way the writers care not about the eponymous character Tron. Instead of building on the idea of a fallen hero regaining its “human” side, Tron gets reduced to Darth Maul. Nothing happens to him that is of significance. There’s no character arc. Nothing. Only right at the end the writers remember about Tron and decide to let him – out of the blue – fight for the users again. Some seconds later, Tron is never to be seen again. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I watched this scene. It’s really amazing how every single writer didn’t use this amazing potential of a plot but kept on feeding us this shit.

Sigh.

On a visual level there’s not much to not like. The world inside the grid is quite impressive with its minimal minimalism. Unfortunately, the result doesn’t come close the first movie and its gorgeous and radical minimalism. In a way I’d say that the new grid of Tron Legacy is looking good but too often feels like our world with some neon lights added here and there. In light of the possibilities of today’s computers and rendering abilities I expected a little more to be frank.

One thing that totally annoyed me, though, were all the small illogical details of the grid. Why does a digital world have clouds, thunder or lightning? What do they represent? Or what is about all the dust that gets blown up almost everywhere? Or the earth? Why is Flynn able to eat something? Does that mean he needs to go to the toilet now and then? It’s those details that almost ruin this world for me because they’re inconsistent and not digital at all. They’re stupid as hell.

Since Tron Legacy was hyped because of its visual style, too, the result feels surprisingly bland and uncreative. And I don’t mean the visual style in general but the concrete buildings, designs and gadgets used throughout the story. When I watched Tron Legacy I had the eerie feeling I’ve seen everything already. And that’s no wonder because I’ve already seen everything of importance in the first movie which got recycled for the sequel. The recognizers, the lightcycles, the grid, the flying cruiser with the army that looks like a copy of Sark’s ship and the solar sailor. Everything, really everything was a modernized copy of the original.

Sigh.

When I think about it, Tron Legacy almost feels like a piss poor direct to video sequel after Tron turned out moderately successful. Sure the look is polished and modern, but neither the writers nor anybody else added something new or exciting to the franchise and the mystery.

Compared to the hype, the fan love and the amazing possibilities, Tron Legacy is quite a letdown. If the producers would have spent a “little bit” more time polishing the script and go for something truly new, the sequel could’ve turned out to be the new Matrix. Seriously, the foundation was there. But nope, the producers didn’t care about that at all. I felt that ignorance in every single frame. This is a movie without a creative spark or a cool idea; it’s just a money making machine. It’s nothing more. Of course, all movies are money making machines, but Tron Legacy is so blatant it hurts.

So what’s left of the cult classic sequel called Tron Legacy? Not much as it left me cold on almost every level. I didn’t care for the characters, I didn’t care for both worlds at stake, I didn’t care for the plot, I didn’t care for anything. At its core, Tron Legacy is worse better or worse a badly written direct to video sequel that was released on the big screen. With regard to the already bad story quality of the first movie that’s the worst thing that could happen.

Rating: 4.0 (Disjointed, incoherent techno ride without substance or logic.)

The post Tron Legacy: The Sequel Review first appeared on madmind.

It took me about one hour to figure out what Country Strong truly is. But it was worth it: Country Strong is like Baywatch with the bouncy babes replaced by melodramatic country singers.

It’s remarkable how well Country Strong incorporates Baywatch’s main raison d’être of filling screen time with gorgeous but absolutely useless filler material. Just like the famous beach series more than half of the runtime of that movie actually is filled with such filler. Worst of all is that the rest of the movie not only is unconnected because of that but also contains several plots fighting for attention during the few remaining non-filler minutes.

It doesn’t take ten minutes to notice the fight of the various plots:

Country Strong starts with Beau Hutton on a stage, singing country music as the credits roll. My first impression was: of course, it’s about that guy. After the gig is over, he goes to his work in a hospital to male nurse Kelly Canter, a country diva that entered hospital after her drinking problem got out of hand, caused by a past drama. Okay, my impression slightly changed: it’s about the relationship between those two country singers.  Then Canter’s husband enters the room and force talks her back on stage for a comeback tour. In those minutes Country Strong drastically change my impression that it’s about Canter’s tour and her way to redemption. Unsurprisingly, Beau Hutton is nowhere to be found in those scenes. A little bit later yet another character enters the stage:  Chiles Stanton, a young beauty queen striving for country fame. In those moments Country Strong gives the impression it’s about the relationship between Beau Hutton and Chiles Stanton, while the drama of the diva forms some sort of background setting.

I’m still wondering how writer-director Shana Feste got away with creating basically a one hour long movie with that many subplots and relationships. Did nobody tell her that this idea is bad? Unfortunately I’d say that Feste would’ve continued with her creation of a disaster anyway because everything else in this movie proves that she never read a book about screenwriting.

Country Strong is so full of clichés and unintentional comedy thanks to its horrible dialogue that I started to wonder if this is a practical joke. There’s a baby quail in a box for no apparent reason, a cute little boy with cancer and a beauty queen who wants to be taken seriously. Cliché? Check, check and check.

Then, of course, there’s Gwyneth Paltrow who goes from one alcoholic disaster to the next, uttering cheesy lines like “Don’t be afraid to fall in love, it’s the only thing that matters in life”, although she has a deep trauma regarding the death of her unborn baby. Other times her husband tells her “The first time I heard you sing – I thought that it must be what angels sound like; thought I died and gone to heaven”. The laughter of the audience and me still lingers in my ears.

The last thing that makes Country Strong such a bad movie is absurd character motivations. Let’s take Gwyneth Paltrow’s character as an example. Her baby dies because of her alcoholic problems. Okay, that’s some bad stuff. But why does she seem so perfectly well during rehab in the beginning of the movie? When someone is emotionally destroyed one doesn’t normally sprawl in bed while composing music with a male nurse. There was no indication of a big trauma whatsoever. So what is it? What drives her back into the depths of alcoholism? Does she want to forget? Does she hate herself? Or is it about her career? Her tour? Or is it the music that in a way leads to her trauma? The lack of being loved? Which is it? Country Strong gives no answer whatsoever about this crucial stuff.

Sheesh.

Instead of focusing so much time on cheesy country music, Shane Feste should’ve wasted her time in fleshing out the story and the characters. But since she didn’t do it there’s only one thing left to say: there is no redeeming quality in this movie with the exception of one or two good tracks.

Rating: 2.0 (Baywatch for Country Lovers. Not worth your time.)

The post Country Strong? More like Country Weak! (Review) first appeared on madmind.

I know there’s a plot in there that would make me care. I just cannot find it.

One of the many problems I have with Thor is that the plot strives for drama but falls short of its own ambition, lacking any kind of tension or depth. The result is a bland, flat and boring movie and I frankly didn’t care about anything that happened in Thor.

Surprisingly enough, Thor starts rather promising because Thor is a good asshole you can dislike with passion. It’s not great of a setup (in fact it is pretty generic) but it captivated me enough to look forward to how his character change unfolds. You cannot imagine my disappointment when I watched the actual plot stumbling forward after Odin banishes his son to Earth. That isn’t drama with some comedy; that’s wannabe drama.

What’s so hard about throwing a guy to the bottom? And I don’t mean the lackluster “bottom” found in Thor. I mean the absolute lowest point ever.

What about having Thor have no chance at all of winning against the agents, continuing his humiliation by letting him beg on his knees to see Mjolnir? The finishing blow could’ve been the moment his own hammer rejects him. He goes all emo and after a little bit of whining he realizes something important of moral value on soap opera level.

The result wouldn’t be awesome either but at least something with a little weight to everything. But instead of that we get a seemingly powerless guy that manages to beat some of the best trained humans while a one-dimensional girl drools over him. I’d be happy if that would the lowest point ever in my life.

This brings me right to the action of Thor. What that movie throws at us doesn’t feel very epic or amazing for a very simple reason: the action isn’t getting bigger. The first fight against the ice guys at the beginning promises some really, really huge final fight because that’s what an action movie normally does. So when a movie begins with the clash of civilizations including some freaking huge monsters the final fight has to be extraordinary, right? Wrong. Thor quite contrary to my expectations and to my utter amazement, manages to reduce each major action sequence compared to the one before.

Take the fight of Thor and his friends against that robot thingy. Everybody is just standing on the street for most of the time and show no sign of teamwork at all. Therefore the action lacks any form of tension, speed, urgency or danger. It’s just some robot shooting some fire and that’s about it. Come on guys, you’re supposed to be gods, what about some fast, kinematic action of epic levels?

In that regards the final fight between Loki and Thor is one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory. There’s literally nothing that makes that sequence memorable or amazing. Thor vs. Bridge isn’t necessarily something I’d book as fantastic action, especially after nothing big happened at all despite some little magic tricks and some Swing of the Hammer.

The world of Asgard suffers from a similar disease as the action sequences. At first it looks great but the longer I saw it the less I could endure that over the top and bombastic epicness. Everything in this empty world is big, fantastic and sparkly and seems like a mixture of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. This goes especially for this cold, aseptic look (Odin’s armor for example) that reminds me of those infamous Star Wars prequels. Just because those guys are supposed to be gods doesn’t mean that everything has to look sterile and boring. At least the creators decided to counterpoint this “bombastic plastic” with a rundown town in the middle of nowhere but that’s the only positive thing the rundown town adds to the movie. (By the way: the script totally forgot to add real confusion to a guy who never came in contact with modern technology)

In the end Thor is a movie that gives us basically nothing. The action is lackluster and the character change from asshole to comic book god is too flat to be really interesting. The same goes for the sterile CGI worlds of Asgard.

The crowning moment of all this is that nothing gets truly solved. When the movie ends the girl is on Earth while Thor is stuck in Awesomeland. In the meanwhile Loki’s on the hunt for some Device of Doom© that is in possession of S.H.I.E.L.D. When I saw that final scene with Loki I wondered how the heck he managed to not only reach Earth but also find one of the very few humans on Earth able to get in touch with that Device of Doom©. When the screen went black something important dawned on me, though:

Thor isn’t a movie in the normal sense of the word, it’s in fact a pilot movie for The Avengers.

Rating: 4.0 (Flat drama, boring action. Hopefully the sequel will be better.)

The post The Thor movie? Not that good. (Review) first appeared on madmind.

Pixar is hailed as the one studio that moves animation to new boundaries. Not only on a technological level but also and foremost on a storytelling level. Where other studios pat themselves on their shoulders for shoving yet again exactly the same message of friendship and family down our throat with slight variations in the plot and animal characters (sparkled with yet another 40,000 pop culture references I might add), Pixar goes beyond that.

But how good are the various Pixar movies really? Sure, they beat the crap out of almost every other 3D animated movie out there but that’s telling nothing in terms of their true quality. So here is yet another list of the Top Pixar Movies in pure madmind style.

I’m sure this list might cause some disagreement and I’m fully prepared for it. So which Pixar movies are your favorites and how would you order them? Let the discussion begin…

11. Cars

Cars is the biggest dud Pixar ever produced. The premise of talking cars with eyes instead of windows alone is ridiculous. Even Pixar couldn’t make a good movie out of that premise, as you can almost feel how the creators hadn’t a clue whatsoever of how to tell a touching story with cars. So they relied on a plot which is so full of clichés you think it’s not made by Pixar.

10. A Bug’s Life

1998. DreamWorks vs. Pixar. Two movies one world: ants. It doesn’t really matter who had the idea first because both movies are not worth mentioning. Sure, A Bug’s Life has its funny moments and a nice cast of misfits but the message is as cliché and shallow as it can get. Having ants fight for themselves also doesn’t provoke that many emotions because… they’re ants. At least DreamWorks had the nice twist of actually presenting an anthill as a totalitarian society.

9. Up

The beginning of Up is well made and poignant; there’s no doubt about it. But as soon as the house drops onto land again (after a far too short voyage in the sky I might add), the story quality takes a massive dive.  What’s worse than that is the fact that the second half doesn’t fit at all to the first half. You cannot have talking animals in a movie that establishes itself as the most realistic and most grounded Pixar movie ever.

8. Toy Story 2

Some say that Toy Story 2 is even better than the first incarnation. I disagree. Despite having some poignant moments and some good humor, the overall plot about Woody being stolen doesn’t come close to the first one. There was no real twist and also no real danger. Toy Story 2 also suffers from the same problem any sequel suffers from: the novelty wore off.

7. Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is a big adventure movie, possible the one with the longest journey ever of a Pixar movie (Up doesn’t count because that journey took only fifteen minutes). Despite the interesting premise, setting and its bravery for showing death and sadness Finding Nemo never caught me on the level as it did with others. It’s a good movie but not one of the best from Pixar.

6. Toy Story 3

Too many escapes and a plot that wastes some really good opportunities. Those are the main problems I have with Toy Story 3. Sure, Toy Story 3 to date has the most poignant scene ever in a Pixar flick but the rest of the plot falls flat in comparison, especially the subplot regarding the thrown away toys. And come on…one escape is okay, but two escapes are too much already. Having three escapes in a single movie screams “We had no other ideas” and “We needed some additional filler”.

5. Monsters Inc.

Monsters Inc. is not a perfect movie but I really like the premise, the fun and the world Pixar created which is interesting and unusual. Compared to the other Pixar movies I’d say that Monsters Inc. is the most lightweight in terms of poignancy, conflict and message. Monsters Inc. isn’t aiming for much more but that is actually a good thing. You don’t have to shove in some deep stuff to make a good movie. Sometimes less really is more.

4. Ratatoullie

Great premise, good characters while having enough fun throughout make Ratatoullie worthwhile to watch. What lifts Ratatoullie almost above every other Pixar movies is the fact that the creators didn’t sugarcoat everything which you see in so many animated movies. The life of a chef is hard as hell, as is the life of a rat. This goes especially for a rat (a common pest) trying to become a chef. You could say that realism is the main driving force of the plot (hiding the rat, trying to communicate with the rat and so on). The one thing I don’t like at all is the cliché ending with Remy being all “Hey, I’m cool”.

3. Toy Story

Out of all Toy Story incarnations the first one is the best. It has a nice charm to it and I love the twist that Buzz really believes he’s an intergalactic superhero. That twists adds a message and drama no sequel ever achieved. Toy Story also sports some subtle yet amazing feel of grandeur and mystery to everything. This is best represented by The Claw in the pizza diner. Add to that a bunch of lovable, eccentric characters as well as a fitting “villain” and you have a winner.

2. The Incredibles

Hands down, The Incredibles is simply awesome. I absolutely love the tale about superheroes that could do so much to help but are forbidden to do anything because of the destruction and mayhem they cause themselves. The frustrations lurking in every major character are present in almost every scene at the beginning and you can absolutely understand it. It’s not “I want to be…” but “I am, yet…” The action is cool, the 60s look is fantastic and Syndrome is a great villain doesn’t want to have some cliché world domination but wants to be loved and respected. Really, there’s not much to not like.

1. Wall-E

Wall-E is Pixar’s best movie for so many reasons it’s hard to count them all. Basically Pixar had one stroke of genius after another. The main characters are wonderfully characterized and have more flesh to them than most of their live action counterparts. Wall-E also proves that you can tell almost a full story without any dialogue whatsoever which makes everything just the more fantastic.  The background story of a completely garbaged world might sound cliché and way too moralist at first but the amazing sceneries Pixar created make up for everything. Although the second part doesn’t come quite that close to the first half, Wall-E still remains a movie to be seen and Pixar’s best.

The post The Top Movies by Pixar first appeared on madmind.