Sicario
They’re filming a sequel to this, which I didn’t realize when I turned this on. After watching the movie, I can definitely see why. I enjoy when movies leave me with questions and this is certainly one of them. The score set the tone for the film and I thought it was spectacular. It’s not surprising to find out that the composer won a Golden Globe for The Theory of Everything, which I probably won’t see as I don’t care for the subject matter.
Movies like these make me wonder why I don’t watch more movies. Drugs, guns, the Southwest…those are drawing cards for me, particularly in tandem. Josh Brolin didn’t play a character all that similar to Llewelyn Moss, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that until the plane ride to El Paso. The twist after the tunnel crawl didn’t surprise me very much and that probably should have made me enjoy the film less, but it was pretty well disguised. Without deep knowledge of the subject matter, it would have been difficult to tell. Very intense movie, the kind which the faint hearted probably do not care for. Loved the way Benicio Del Toro’s character lurked around the periphery until it was time for the final operation. The first operation and subsequent scene on the bridge was classic. I can see why people would criticize Emily Blunt’s character for seeming weak, but it was only weak in comparison to the savages and sociopaths that inhabit that world. The portrayals were very realistic in that regard.
I don’t particularly have a favorite part as to say I had a favorite part in a movie like this would make me sound like a sick fuck.
9/10
Green Room
Green Room is a thriller about a punk band who winds up being unwittingly roped into doing a gig at a neo-Nazi club on their way to Washington DC. During their set, somebody gets stabbed, after which one of the members walks back to the green room and sees it. I try to watch movies without finding out whether or not they’re good, and in the case of one like this, it’s easy to do so. It was fairly low budget, low publicity, and I’d never heard of it until BZ suggested that I check it out. I agree with critics who say this was a good movie, but I don’t think this was a great one.
Imogen Poots and Patrick Stewart seemed to have the most complex and interesting characters. Poots played a skinhead named Amber, who didn’t exactly take kindly to finding out her friend had been killed. Stewart in the role of a neo-nazi leader was different than how I’m used to seeing him. I suppose my problem with the movie is that neither of those two were in the band itself. For a supposed horror movie, it was pretty light on gore, which is just fine with me. All effects appeared to be more practical. The culmination of the movie was nothing great, and to wrap this up before posting any spoilers, it fell flat and seemed to be drawn out too long. That being said, having a movie go under 90 minutes isn’t something I’ve seen very often.
7/10
The Avengers
I finally checked this out, and there’s not a whole lot to say about it that hasn’t already been said. I was very surprised that anyone could pull a movie like this off so well. The screen time was fairly evenly spread out, with the exception of Hawkeye who was obviously on the screen less than others. His character wasn’t very fleshed out and that’s one of the few flaws of the movie. I don’t know if that was rectified in future movies, and I don’t really want to be spoiled so don’t tell me. Black Widow on the other hand needed time on camera and got it. Regardless of how much screen time was given, dialogue was far less than that. That being said, a movie with so many parts coming off without anyone being left out was great. Of course, there’s lots of fan service moments as well, which was great. The Cap-Tony dynamic carried over pretty well from book to film.
As I already said, I don’t know what happens in the rest of the movies, but I intend to watch them pretty soon. I don’t see how anyone can live up to Tom Hiddleston’s portrayal of Loki and keep my interest as a villain, then again I don’t know if he’s in any of the other movies besides Thor 2. I assume so. Regardless of that, this movie was anything people could have hoped for. A small negative is that without any comic book knowledge, nobody could have understood the intentions of the Chitauri. I also thought it was goofy the way Hulk didn’t turn on anyone else in the team during the big fight at the end. Of course there’s an explanation for that, but it is goofy. The movie was also quite long in developing, which was necessary but can make it a bit much to tackle.
7.5/10