John Wick - Movie Review

            It was probably Point Break that made Keanu Reeves famous, and then after that Speed. But everything was set in motion when The Matrix really made Reeves into the star he is now. People say he’s “the most liked bad actor.” And I believe that to be true. However, he is a good actor in some ways. He does usually fail in his emotional performance, but he almost always delivers in his physical performance. And he proves that here.

            In John Wick, Keanu Reeves stars as the title character who just lost his wife to illness, but soon after receives a gift sent from his wife right before she died - a dog in place of her. But as people who are relative to somebody in his past do him wrong, we learn about who he Wick used to be as he goes on a quest for revenge against his past employer.

            Sound familiar? That’s because this story has been done multiple times before. Yes, this film is disappointing generic. Just about everything in the plot of John Wick has been done before multiple times. Therefore, it’s a very predictable and rather dull movie. I will grant that there were times where it held my attention and times in which I was enjoying it. However, those times are not in abundance. Most of this film had me slightly bored. No, it was not painful to sit through. But it was not exactly entertaining either. And by the one-hour mark, I checked my watch.

            As clichéd as the plot is, it’s hard to make this movie good. However, there is some relief in it. For one, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski (only Stahelski was listed in the film’s closing credits, but both were present in the IMDb credits) provide good-looking and, at times, stylish direction. Some moments (most dialogue) come off as cheesy, but the action sequences are directed smoothly and with precision, not to mention the incredible stunt work. That is where Keanu Reeves shines in this movie. As usual, his portrayal of John Wick as a character with emotions isn’t very good, but his work in the action scenes completely sell the stunt work. And the products are very good action sequences that can compensate for some of the clichés in the plot. But not all of them…

            The familiarity is not only in the plot of this movie. We have the typical action clichés here, like a character blowing something up and slowly walking away from it, not looking - little things like that. They are profuse here and do not fail in annoying the viewers. I, myself, stood them, but definitely did not like them.

            The dialogue wasn’t great either. Not that it was bad, no, but it was very thin and quick. You mostly learn about the character of John Wick through his various actions, but some of it has to be given in dialogue. And that’s basically all the dialogue does - cover the general idea of some of the characters… and provide one-liners for Reeves to say in order to exhilarate the audience. They didn’t work for me, though. They just added onto the various action movie clichés. No good was done.

            One thing that takes away from the action sequences is the score. There aren’t very many compositions exclusively for this film. Most of the music choices are big, hip-hop, loud music to help the audience have more fun with the film. I thought it was a mistake to put those songs in the movie. It made the well-executed sequences seem more silly and unrealistic. The loud music did not add anything to the film. It just drowned out everything else and annoyed me. And when there were actual compositions, they were no different. Loud music meant to do the same as the song choices, just without words.

            John Wick proves to be an over-composed and mostly dull experience. It’s riddled with clichés and the plot is familiar. The dialogue just provides clippy one-liners and some character exposition. Yes, the action sequences without the music are very good, but other than that, there’s not much here. I say skip this movie. Maybe rent it when it comes out on DVD or stream it on Netflix, but don’t go to the theater.  

Dracula Untold - Movie Review

            

            Now that it seems as if all of the other gimmick ideas have either failed or run in short supply, we now have a Dracula film. The “Untold” story that has in fact been told multiple times before is now on the big screen… again. Luckily, the film has a budget of $100,000,000. Will that save it? As reflected in my rating. I think not.

            Dracula Untold tells the back story of Dracula. We learn how he became the vampire he was and his life before the story of Dracula came into play. He was a prince - an English prince. His father had given him away as a slave to the Turkish, who were ruling over many lands at the time, to show his loyalty. But Dracula was such a fierce warrior that he got away and was able to retake his castle. Now, many years later, he is an adult. The Turkish and Dracula are at some crazy form of peace, but they are soon brought to war, and because Dracula is outnumbered greatly, he must do something that he does not want to do in order to protect his people.

            Dracula is not known as Dracula in the beginning of the film, but as Vlad. Luke Evans is credited as playing Vlad. Dracula becomes his name later on… Luke Evans tries to give a good performance as Vlad/Dracula. He tries… but the director of the movie does not seem to know how to direct actors. All of the performances come off as either over-acting or just simply bad performances. No matter how much they try, no one is good here, and that includes Evans. Sarah Gadon, playing his wife, also tries. And she is not good either. Neither is Dominic Cooper.

            But it’s not only the poor direction of actors that makes Gary Shore pail at directing this film. Every scene feels halfway done. This film is not well made. It seems like every take put into this film was the worst of the bunch. It really felt like people going out and making a movie, and not doing a good job at it. Does the film look good? It looks fine, but it’s not getting any extra credit for that, because the cinematography is not above average. It is… average. No points lost, no points gained.

            One praise I can give the director is that the action sequences are not filmed poorly as I expected them to be, judging from the poor direction of other scenes. There are actually some shots that I felt were very stylistic and added something to the movie. There were times here in which I felt that the director had some vision. However, those times were not in abundance.

            Now it’s time to move on to the poor writing of the film. The near-90-minute run-time of the film is highly reflected in the very small amount of depth, sense, and justification of the film. Things just happen. And the scenes don’t fit together either. One ridiculous dialogue scene happens with Dracula/Vlad and his wife, and then the scene ends in a way that the next scene regarding something having to do with a plot or subplot is set up.

            As for the character development, there are but about two scenes. Of course Vlad/Dracula got the most character development, but I really never felt him to be a fleshed-out character. Even he didn’t have very much, and the rest of the characters had either little or none. His wife is there to be his wife. His son is there to be his son. The villain is there to be his villain. And the villain is to the hero as black is to the white. The hero is good. The villain is bad. The conflict goes no further than that.

            As for the dialogue, it’s not bad… but still not good. There are some scenes with bad dialogue, and no scenes with good dialogue, but the dialogue in most scenes is not ridiculous but not compelling. Most of it is just moving the plot along. But there definitely are clichés in it. This film is filled with clichés. There are clichés having to do with the husband and wife, the father and son, the hero and villain, the hero and the devil, etc. The film is filled up to the rim with clichés that succeed only in making the audience bored. The dialogue in the script is not good. The characters are only plot devices. The story is nothing new and the arrangement of scenes makes no sense. There is a plethora of logical errors and there is little-to-no reasoning behind what happens. The script is simply bad.

            The bad script and poor execution work together to make Dracula Untold a dull and highly forgettable movie. Throughout the first half of the film, I tolerated it. I didn’t like it, I wasn’t entertained by it, but I tolerated it. Throughout the entire second half, I was ready to get out of the theater. I was done with the film and mentally checked out. I didn’t care what happened; I was just ready to get out. I continually checked my watch for the time and tried to figure out about how long it would be before the film was over.

            The studios found that they could make money off of the gimmick of another Dracula movie because they’re sure to get all of the Dracula fans in there as well as other people who may be interested in vampires.

            This gimmick is not worth seeing and definitely not worth spending money on, renting it or seeing it in the theater.

Gone Girl - Movie Review

            

            The astounding director David Fincher (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) gives us his latest installment, Gone Girl. This film includes stars such as Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. A story exploring the power of media, it pulled me in soon. I was engaged.

            On the anniversary of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and his wife Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), Amy randomly goes missing, and although things have not been great between the two, Nick works to try to find her. Many people think Nick killed her because of what the media says, but the cops have no evidence, even though they are not exactly on his side.

            That is the initial plot of this movie, but it goes in so many different directions that it’s hard to summarize the primary plot of the movie without spoiling anything. But that is the plot of the first act of the film, and you can see where it goes from there…

            As reflected in my rating, I loved Gone Girl. This film was absolutely incredible. I was glued to the screen throughout the entire run time of this movie. And that is thanks to the incredible David Fincher as well as the main actors (Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tyler Perry) and the screenplay writer, Gillian Flynn. Flynn actually wrote the novel and the screenplay. I have not read the novel, but the screenplay is incredible as well as the story, so I have little doubts that I would not enjoy the novel.

            As Fincher does in Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, he takes a 2 ½ hour movie and makes every moment count. He makes it seem fast-paced. He makes it seem like it’s less than 2 ½ hours long. He does that here. The film is long and many things happen in the film, but Fincher’s attention-to-detail direction makes this film enthralling. He of course makes a great-looking movie. The color scheme of the film is incredible. The cinematography and production design are fantastic to look at. The shots are framed so perfectly and the editing choices really put an impact on the film.

            After a while in this movie I stopped focusing on the filmmaking of the film because I was drawn in to the story. I was riveted. The film is so complex and all of the twists and turns work. They do not feel showy or flashy; they feel like they could actually happen given the past events. And even after the film would take a huge turn and the story would be flipped over, I was not pulled out of the movie and I never started enjoying it less.

            The dialogue in this movie is very thick and full of depth. It’s not like dialogue in some movies where it’s just plot exposition and stupidity. Here, it seems like real conversation and it adds so much depth to the characters. It is used to further the plot at times, but it’s also used to make scenes enthralling at times. It’s used to make the film more realistic. It’s used to make the film better.

            There is no “character development” section of this movie at the beginning. Yes, the plot does not start immediately. We do have a little time to introduce the situation…but the plot does get started very quickly. The character development lasts the entire film. The characters are developed inside of the action and through the plot. There is some dialogue that we learn about them from, but we also learn a lot about them from their actions in the plot. Because of this, the plot never turns off so we can learn a quick fact about the main character; the plot is always on and so is the character development. And because of that, nearing the end of the film I started to think about what the characters were thinking. I was trying to get into their heads and find out what they were planning to do. They were so thick and so developed that it was almost like they were real people. It’s very hard, but there are some films that can almost make you think of its characters as real people. I didn’t quite get to the point in which I thought of these characters to be real, but the film was only one or two steps away from that.

            The performances in still film are fantastic. I think this may possibly be the best Ben Affleck performance in a film that he did not direct. He is so good here to give the character likability but also a strangeness that comes out later. He is very natural in his performance; he gives a lot to this character. Rosamund Pike is incredible here. She is absolutely fantastic. Tyler Perry is also great here. I was hard to picture him in his usual, silly roles while watching this movie. He has found a serious role that works so well for him. Neil Patrick Harris was…ok. He had some times when he seemed like he was acting; he seemed wooden at times. There were times that we seemed more natural as the character, but I can’t quite say if that was acting talent from him or directing talent from Fincher. But still, overall, the performances were very good.

            Throughout the first act of this film, the genius filmmaking by David Fincher combined with the strange ongoing music together creates a strange tone of… almost fakeness. The tone interplays with the story here… and I really think it shows Fincher’s talent here. He is able to create this tone with little other add-ons to help him. This tone is modified throughout the story, another reason I think that Fincher is an incredibly director. The changing tone is another thing in this movie that really makes it special.

            The incredibly filmmaking of David Fincher makes this film a riveting experience from beginning to end with no interruptions of the plot for something unnecessary. The character development happens inside of the plot. The huge twists and turns do not affect how enjoyable the film can be. It’s a tremendously entertaining and engaging film that had me on the edge of my seat. Gone Girl is one of my favorite films so far this year.