Hancock (2008)

Directed by: Peter Berg

Written by: Vy Vincent Ngo & Vince Gilligan

Hancock is a superhero whose ill considered behavior regularly causes damage in the millions. He changes when the person he saves helps him improve his public image.

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Hancock has been on my watchlist since I really started liking Will Smith, which was about a year ago. When I finally managed to watch it, I didn't know much about it, apart from it being hopefully a different kind of superhero movie.

At first the movie feels refreshingly simpler compared to the epic superhero movies we keep getting. It felt like most of the idea came from how in those epic superhero movies the heroes cause a lot of damage to the city and its people. But as the story goes forward the story does become richer and, even if I hate the word, more epic.

It's refreshing to see a character like Hancock. He is like an asshole, clearly an antihero (it's already refreshing not to see a brooding white man antihero, mind you), but there's more to him. And what's important we actually can see how he feels about the people kind of hating him, even if he tries to save them. It's not just superficially shrugged off. 

I also love how the music is used so well with the story. When the movie becomes more like a superhero movie the soundtrack feels more like a classic score for that type of movies. 

Hancock is an entertaining and a surprisingly good superhero movie. I think I would've preferred something simpler, something more refreshing, but Hancock is good for what it is. Of course it's a bit typical, but it has several new elements, and it has great cast. And while the story is not great, there are a lot of things I like about it. Hancock definitely is worth seeing whether or not you are tired with the typical Marvel or DC movies we get.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10

Charlie Bartlett (2007)

Directed by: Jon Poll

Written by: Gustin Nash

A rich kid becomes the self-appointed psychiatrist to the student body of his new high school.

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I saw the trailer for this movie ages ago, but didn't actually get too interested in it. Then I noticed the movie in Netflix, and thought hey, maybe now it's the time to watch this.

As a high school movie Charlie Bartlett is great. In the best movies, high school is never portrayed realistically, because it would be way too boring. High schools in movies are always way more colourful and have many big events during quite a short while. Stuff happens faster. It makes you kind of nostalgic for high school, while knowing it never was like that. But it's always fun to see typical sub-culture people like punks and goths and jocks and such, while the cliques might not have been so clear in your school.

Charlie Bartlett is both funny and sad. It's funny, because there definitely is humour there, even though it might be quite dark sometimes. Meanwhile it's also sad to see all these kids with their problems and seeing how little help they get - before Charlie shows up, of course.

However no matter how fun Charlie Bartlett might be, it feels also a bit boring. At least it's kind of a dull way to get all these deep, meaningful messages out. They get drowned in dialogue which isn't always that intriguing. There are several intense scenes that catch your attention though, but they are here and there and it's easy to not focus.

Charlie Bartlett is a good high school movie, but when it comes to movies in general, it's just decent. Most of it charms comes from Anton Yelchin, who was a talented, very present young actor. His performance alone makes this movie worth watching, however it doesn't quite reach my expectations.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

6 / 10

May - Quick Reviews

17.5. Point Blank (2010) - 5 / 10

I was renting movies but my friend was impatient and pretty much any time I even touch a movie I had to pick that one. So that's how I ended up watch Point Blank, or originally Á bout portant. I didn't know anything about this movie prior to watching it, and I didn't even know it was French.

Point Blank is a decent action thriller. It's thrilling, action scenes look good and the main character is easy to root for. The cinematography is also very nice. More artistic than in most action movies, and very nice colours. But while it all clicks it doesn't really stand out from the typical action movies. So in short, it's alright. If you like action movies, it's worth seeing, but if you'd like to see something different, then maybe this movie isn't for you.

18.5. Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) - 7 / 10

I liked this movie way more than the first time. I actually enjoyed watching this, while the humour was of course sometimes a bit dumb, but like the first one, Horrible Bosses 2 is a dark comedy. When done well it can me hilarious, when done poorly it can be absolutely horrendous. With Horrible Bosses 2 they did an okay job. Sometimes the dark jokes go too far, but sometimes they are also just right.

Still I got to laugh a lot, which is always a good thing when watching comedies.

One thing that bothers me though is that the name is still Horrible Bosses while there really isn't a horrible boss here, not as clearly a in the first one at least. This is what can happen if you make a sequel when you didn't exactly plan it carefully. It has the title, and while Horrible Bosses 2 had a better plot, better twist, it's still carrying the name which is a bit ehh.

There's also a chance I enjoyed this movie more now that I've learned to like Charlie Day. Like I've always found him adorable but because of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia I'm starting to really, really, like him.

20.5. Hardball (2001) - 6 / 10

Hard Ball is a very typical sports drama. It's whole purpose seems to be to get a huge emotional response from the viewer, but when isn't that a purpose of a movie? And Hard Ball definitely succeeds at this in so many ways. It's an average movie, an alright movie, and the story is hardly anything special. However it's well made.

30.5. What We Do In The Shadows (2014) - 7 / 10

I have seen a lot of footage of this movie, so I finally decided watch it. This movie is an excellent mockumentary, and absolutely hilarious. I love how they used very classic vampires instead of trying to make a modern version where they leave out certain parts of the myth or come up with new features for the vampires.

What We Do In The Shadows is a brilliant fantasy-horror-comedy, and in its way very unique. It's definitely entertaining and well made, even if it's not really my type as a movie.

Ant-Man (2015)

Directed by: Peyton Reed

Story by: Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish

Screenplay by: Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay & Paul Rudd

Based on the comics by: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby 

Armed with a super-suit with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, cat burglar Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.

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Ant-Man? Marvel isn't making movies about the actually interesting heroes, but we get a movie about Ant-Man?

I was very suspicious when Ant-Man was announced. Who actually gave a chicken-shit about Ant-Man? However my mind changed once I learned Edgar Wright was one of the writers. I've liked his style so, you know, even if Ant-Man had been total rubbish, at least there was some skillful writing - not just from Wright.

The most distinct thing about Ant-Man is how much simpler it is compared to the massive Avengers franchise. The story is simple, mostly revolving around a heist instead of some huge, epic fight that will cause millions of dollars worth of damage to the cities. It's simple, yet still interesting enough to watch.

Another special thing about Ant-Man is how much more relaxed it seems. There's no giant need to make it super serious and stuff a lot of philosophical pondering in there, which usually does go to total waste when it comes to superhero movies. Ant-Man is an action comedy, and it usually manages to make even the most important fights quite funny in rather easy ways. Ant-Man does a way better job at making the situation lighter than, say, Avengers: Age of Ultron, where they just zing kind of cheesy one-liners here and there to get cheap laughs from the audience. Could it be because writers of Avengers are working under this huge pressure and they can't really enjoy themselves, while reaction to Ant-Man being announced was pretty much "Why the fuck would you make this movie?"

Of course there are annoyances, which are too common with any superhero movies, and they get recycled over and over again. There's that unnecessary romance, predictable structure, but what's most annoying to me is you can't really watch a Marvel movie unless you've seen like at least three others. I'd love to be able to watch Ant-Man as Ant-Man, because it's actually funny movie, but there's hint to movies I haven't seen, and I don't want to watch. This is the biggest problem with the franchise system - you can't just watch movies individually. Like sure I wouldn't watch Iron Man 3 without seeing the first two, but like this is the first Ant-Man movie and still I have to know so much? It's a buzzkill.

All in all Ant-Man is a very entertaining movie, but it has the same flaws every superhero movie has. Thankfully though it's hilarious and way more relaxed than any other superhero movie I've seen - apart from Deadpool, of course.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10

Carlos (2010) - Theatrical Version

Series directed by: Olivier Assayas

Written by: Olivier Assayas, Dan Franck and Daniel Leconte 

The story of Venezuelan revolutionary Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, who founded a worldwide terrorist organization and raided the 1975 OPEC meeting.

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I'm tagging this as "mini-series" and "TV" even if I saw the 185 minute long movie cut. Now of course I haven't seen all the footage I could've, but I'm going to write this piece based on what I did see.

I actually chose to see Carlos (or Carlos the Jackal which seems to be the name here and in some other places) very randomly. My friend just picked something out for me because she thought I was wasting too much time browsing in the video store. I had actually knew nothing about Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, aka Carlos, prior to seeing this. I'm not exactly sure why there was such a gap in my knowledge, but as I learned he was an actual person (learned this from my dad before I watched the movie or series)  the whole story became much more interesting. Of course there's the "this is work of fiction" announcement at the beginning, so there's still the "what's true and what's not" since I haven't done research like at all.

Apparently that doesn't matter when watching Carlos. If you know, it's intriguing to see the fictional side of this, if you know nothing, it's intriguing to learn about everything.

In the movie cut the structure is a bit hard to follow sometimes. Characters come and go, time doesn't mean anything... But after I learned it's a mini-series it makes more sense. They had to cut like two hours. Still they saved an awful lot of the OPEC stuff while skipping the 80's completely. Now I don't know how long the OPEC situation is in the series, did they cut a lot or did they want to keep that whole thing, but it felt longer than any other part of the movie. It kind of ate the balance. It seemed like that was the point instead of, you know, Sánchez's life in general.

Also sometimes the music is a bit weird. Like it's good music but feels somewhat ill-fitting for the movie and what it's about.

All in all the story is definitely intriguing and from all the research I did do, Edgar Ramírez is extremely talented and a good choice for the lead role.The biggest problem is how much was cut and how rushed everything feels and what important events didn't make the movie version. Maybe I should watch the whole mini-series some day, to be able to give this a better, more accurate rating.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

6 / 10

30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 30

Day 30 - Your least favourite movie

I can't choose just one because I don't have an actual "least favourite movie". There are several I dislike but I don't really hate anyone with such burning passion it would be my least favourite movie. 

These are all the movies I've only given one star on IMDb. Note, maybe all of these aren't like the worst movies ever made but for some reason I was super angry with them, and also there's a chance I changed the score after seeing it.

• A Change of Seasons (1980)
• This was so boring and just obnoxiously annoying. Why are people like this?
• Batman Forever (1995)
• I have kind of the same reasoning for this as I have with Spider-Man 3. The movie is absolutely ridiculous and kind of embarrasing, and you don't necessarily realise that when you're a teenager who's grasp of corny isn't as accurate as right now.
• Liar Liar (1997)
• I would like this movie way more if it wasn't such a Family Friendly Fun and blah.
• Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
• To be honest, I saw this years ago and I have no idea if that score would be accurate if I watched this now. 
• Manhunter (1986)
• Not at all how it should be.
• Ruby Sparks (2012)
• I didn't even finish this movie.
• Spider-Man 3 (2007)
• Possibly the worst Spider-Man movie out there. It feels like it was written by an angsty 10-year-old, which can be the reason you can enjoy this movie when you're 10 but not really after that.
• Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
• These movies failed to understand what was up with Star Trek. Also casting a white man as Khan? Obnoxious.
• The Mask (1994)
• Again, I have no idea why I've given this only one star. I've only seen it once and that was years ago.
• The Last Heist (2016) 
• Such stupid, disappointing movie that pretty much failed at everything that could've made it even at least a bit decent. Waste of my fucking time