Transcendence - Movie Review

        Transcendence is directed by Wally Pfister. This is his directorial debut. He is a cinematographer, mostly known for his work on the past six Christopher Nolan movies. And Christopher Nolan is a producer of this movie. This film stars Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Paul Bettany, and Kate Mara. It is about three scientists (Bettany, Hall, and Depp). Two of the scientists (Depp and Hall) are husband and wife. The scientists are working on inventing artificial intelligence, but Johnny Depp’s character gets shot by a bullet laced with radiation. The group of people who did this is highly against inventing A.I. One of them is played by Kate Mara. Anyway, Depp’s character does not have much time left, so Hall’s character decides to upload his conscience into the computer to save him. Though, they do not know if he is a computer or really Depp’s character. After that… some things happen.

            This movie had so many things going for it. It had a very interesting premise that could make a great movie, a fantastic cast, and it is produced by Christopher Nolan. Though, it does have a first-time-writer and -director, which could go wrong. It does.

            This is a big let-down. It is a very dull movie. But it also has other flaws, like with the overall direction. We see to have no influence over the actors. They have nothing to bounce off of. It seemed like he just told them to do what the script says their characters do. It also seems like Pfister had no control over the scene in the movie. There seems to be no tone. It was just the scene written in the script. And the pacing was not handled at all. I would say it was handled horribly, but Wally Pfister did not but anything into the movie that the script did not have. Because of all of these things, the movie came off very bland and dull. The movie did look good. That seemed to be the only thing Pfister cared about as a director.

            The script was also very bad, too. It seemed that the writer was only interested in a few scenes in this movie. He did not think about the buildup to that scene. Because of that, there were a lot of scenes, all very, very short. It did seem like it was fast-moving that way, but it was still dull and nothing was happening that way. The dialogue here is also written incredibly lazily. For example, at one point a character asks a question then makes a statement. Then, another character answers the question a second later. That does not reflect human conversation. The person would have asked the question, and then while they were making the statement the other would be answering the question. But the writer did not want to add in the interruption.

            

            The script also has other problems. There is no character depth. Sometimes a character will talk about something that happened in the past, but it will not give them depth. Because of that, every character was two-dimensional and I did not care about any of them. Also, nothing really happened after the half-way mark of the movie. After the middle, it just got really boring. There were no stakes.

            While the script does have many bad things, there were hints of greatness here. For maybe one scene, I could see just small pieces of greatness. And there were some really great ideas in here.

            The actors here are trying, but there is nothing here. Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall are trying to be good, but they do not come off as good. Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman really do not have much to do here, and they are at about the same level as Hall and Depp, except maybe a bit higher. Paul Bettany is actually good in this movie and Kate Mara is the same as the others: trying but cannot really do anything. She actually comes off the worst of all of them. Her performance seems bad, but it is not her fault, which applies to all of the other actors that did not come off as good.

            This is just a bland and dull movie throughout the entire running time. After the middle most of it was boring, and that was when I would start looking at the time every five minutes, wondering when it would end. It would do this think where it would get really interesting for a twenty-five second scene, then cut to another where it would be boring for another five minutes. That pattern repeated for most of the second half of the movie.

            Yes, there were some themes in this movie, and some ideas it introduced, but because the narrative made no sense, the themes the film brings do not make sense. And the themes are told in such a straightforward manner that you do not even have to think to get them. They are told directly to the audience, so they are barely even a positive to the movie. Though, some of the ideas it introduces work really well. It is just that the thought-provoking elements do not work as well.

            Transcendence is a dull, poorly written, poorly directed film. Although it does have some glimpses of greatness and some great ideas, they do not save the movie. Pfister did not take control of the scenes. He only worried about the visuals.

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Movie Review

        Being a Marvel superhero film building up toward The Avengers: Age of Ultron, this film had a lot of anticipation with it even before the trailers. Then, everyone saw the trailers, and there was a big hype for the film. I was also really looking forward to seeing this movie. Then, reviews started coming in of people saying that they loved it and it is fantastic. Critics liked it, too. Well, believe the hype, because this is the best of the Avengers Marvel movies (in my humble opinion).

            I enjoyed Captain America: The First Avenger (this film’s predecessor) and thought that it was an alright movie, but this is a great movie. It has as much action as your normal, every-day superhero movie, but it also has this very political side with the organization of S.H.I.E.D. which really works to boost this movie into a political thriller, because that is what half of it is like. The other half is a non-stop action thrill ride that is constantly riveting. These two factors help balance out the film and make it as great as it is.

            This is directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Here, they really help the movie. You can feel how well-done this entire movie was. Though, during the action sequences, they sometimes liked to use a close-up, quick-cut style. Sometimes, it actually worked as a style and helped boost the action sequences, but sometimes, I could not tell what was going on. I have no idea why they chose to do that, because the choreography here is great. You can see all the actors in these scenes doing their own stunts and that really boosts the hand-to-hand combat element of the action sequences. It is just brought down a bit by some of the quick-cut editing that does not work here. Though, during other types of action sequences, the camerawork is really good, so the action is amazing. Though, most of the action in this movie is riveting, by the way they were done (other than some of the camerawork).

            This film has great acting: Chris Evans as Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Robert Redford as Anthony Pierce, and Anthony Mackie as Falcon. I will not say would plays The Winter Soldier, but I will say that they are fantastic and the bringing-out of The Winter Soldier is fantastic. When we get our first looks at him, he is incredibly menacing. And even as we see more and more about him, he is still incredibly menacing and an extremely strong villain. The plot goes in a very unpredictable direction in this movie that I loved. I will not spoil it, but it is a great way to go. Also, the work for the villains that are not The Winter Soldier in this movie is fantastic. It really seemed like they thought that they were doing the right thing and they did not just want to do bad.

            We get some character development on our main characters in this movie (Captain America, Black Widow, and Nick Fury) and we see them starting to go in different directions. I thought was great that we actually had character progressions in this movie and we go to see characters change. Even when there was not action on the screen, I was very interested in seeing where the plot goes and learning more about these characters. For half of this movie (action half), I was riveted and felt a huge exhilaration. For the other half, I was really interested in what was going on. This film never gets dull. The action is amazing and the score makes it all-the-better.

            While this film does have all of these great things, it still does have flaws, like the quick-cut style that does not work half the time. Though, it does not have many at all, there is one more that I would like to address. I know this is a comic-book superhero movie, but I have to address that things happen which are way too unrealistic to let slide. There were some little things that I did let slide, but there were some big things that really got under my skin.

            Those are actually all the flaws I had with this movie: two. I thought that this was a great movie with an exhilarating action, great acting, fantastic villain-work, and an excellent political side, but some of the direction was not-so-great and there were some unrealistic things.

The Walking Dead Season 4 Finale "A" Review

        Season 4 of The Walking Dead comes to a close with the season finale, “A”. After I saw this episode, I thought that it would be a very polarizing episode, and it seems to be turning out that way. Here are my thoughts.

            I really liked this episode. I did not have any true flaws with it. Though, I did have a flaw with this half of the season at the end. But right now, I am going to talk about the things I liked about it. First off, this is a very fast-paced episode. It got to just about everything it needed to get to very quickly. And I was just about riveted for half of this episode. For the other half we got some really cool character progression (technically regression) in Rick. This is told through flashbacks… and him biting out of that one guy’s neck.

            In the flashbacks, we see Rick’s transformation from a crazy leader into a farmer. Now, we are seeing him go back to a crazy leader. But we see his side of it. We see that he is still Rick and not always this lunatic. He did what he had to do to protect his son. I really liked seeing that. And the scene where we see that is riveting. We have four things going on at once, and it was pulled off masterfully. Even if Rick did not bite into that guy’s neck, the scene still would have been fantastic. And it was not only directed and shot masterfully; the score really fit the “going crazy” tone that it was going for.

Later, we get some more character development before the big finale. We see that Carl thinks that he is a monster, and that is where we learn that Rick is still Rick. That character development is not as interesting in the development we got earlier, but it definitely is not dull.

            After all of this, we get the big finale at Terminus. Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Carl choose to go in the back. Though, they see that everything seems to be fine at the beginning and they are introduced to Terminus. But they soon see that things are not right, and the people there are wearing the clothes that other people in their group had. They quickly catch on to this, and we get another riveting scene. At first it seems like the Terminus people have terrible aim, and the scene was almost ruined, but we find out the Terminus people were not trying to hit them, but guide them. I found that a very smart move in the writing.

            And then, finally, they go in the train, and Glenn and Maggie’s group is there. We then get the last words that have aggravated many, both made many cheer. “They’re messing with the wrong people.” Personally, for me, it did give me the idea of cheering, but I was a bit mad. I was expecting Rick to say something that he knew that no one else knew that he knew. Though, it was pretty cool. As for the ending, I am a bit mad that about three episodes during this half of the season just wasted time so that there was not enough time in the last three episodes for much to happen, but at least it leaves us wanting more and not less. So I will dismiss the ending as fine.

            Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. I was just about riveted by half of it, and enjoyed the other half. It had a good interest in the characters, so it did not seem dull. This was also a very well-done episode overall. The action sequences all had a very close-up and intense feel that was pulled off very well and made the sequences so intense.

            There are still two things left open. Are we ever going to see Beth again? What will happen to Carol and Tyreese? I am thinking they may be part of the other crew’s escape from Terminus. There still is the buried bag of guns right outside the fences of Terminus. The beginning of season five could be pretty awesome. We just have to wait and see…