PassPopcorn Reviews

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 25 May 2014]

X-Men: First Class was a successful movie and a most needed breath of fresh air in the franchise, but everyone knew that the X-Men franchise would be getting its real rebirth once Bryan Singer returned in the director's chair. It took over 10 years, but Bryan Singer finally returned with X-Men: Days of Future Past, which isn't the best X-men movie there is (X2 is still holding that title), but is damn near being so. X-Men: Days of Future Past is the first movie in the franchise that introduces a time traveling element in the plot, in an attempt to fix any continuity errors between X-Men: First Class and the rest of the franchise.

In the future, the world has been torn apart by a war between the mutants and Sentinels (giant robots made for killing mutants). In a desperate attempt, the last several surviving mutants send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), because that event apparently triggered the mutant/Sentinel war. But Wolverine can't find Mystique alone – he needs help from the younger versions of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender). However, Charles Xavier is addicted to a medicine that helps him walk, but makes him lose his mutant powers, and Magneto is locked up in a super secret prison below the Pentagon.

The plot Days of Future Past isn't a rather simple one – the movie occasionally shifts focus from the past to the future and back again. The plot is mostly described through exposition, in form of dialogue between characters. The quality of these expository dialogues isn't always that good; especially in the beginning of the movie, when the characters explain to the audience the whole back story in 30 seconds flat. Nonetheless, after getting by that forced exposition, the movie suddenly starts being quite enjoyable, fun and interesting. Days of Future Past is possibly the funniest X-Men movie there is, filled with pleasant characters (Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, stands out the most), great action sequences, and numerous amusing references to other movies in the franchise.

All the actors in the movie, with a few exceptions, are comfortable in their roles and are as good as ever (after all – the majority of them portrayed these characters at least once before). The exceptions to this rule are Ellen Page and Jennifer Lawrence. Ellen Page, in spite of having a very short screen time, is very unconvincing in her role; and Jennifer Lawrence is unusually wooden, which is a shame since she is the almost sole cast member who has won an Oscar. Thankfully, there is much going on in the movie, so it's not like their performances badly hurt Days of Future Past. On the contrary, the movie could actually be hurt by its third act which doesn't feel like a real finale. Instead, it is a very mild ending to a highly entertaining movie.

Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

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[6/10 · 23 May 2014]

After the first X-Men movie and X2, the things were looking really good for the X-Men franchise, and then along came X-Men: The Last Stand. This drastic change in quality between movies is mostly attributed to Bryan Singer, the director of the first two movies, deciding to direct Superman Returns instead of this one, and being replaced by Brett Ratner. Since then, Bryan Singer has officially stated he regrets his decision. Considering how Superman Returns isn't a much better movie than X-Men: The Last Stand, it's a shame things went this way. Instead of a satisfying third X-Men movie, the world got a X-Men movie that felt like it was directed by Michael Bay.

There are two main plot lines in X-Men: The Last Stand. The first one is about a cure for mutations that changes mutants to humans. The mutant community is divided by this cure – some of them want to change to humans, while the others strictly oppose this cure and want to destroy it by all means. At the same time, the X-men discover that Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) isn't dead, but Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) warns them she maybe isn't the same old Jean Grey they used to know. This turns out to be true when Jean Grey's alter ego, Phoenix, takes control of her body.

While the first two X-Men movies are classics of the superhero genre, X-Men: The Last Stand is simply a very bad movie. It had almost twice the amount of its predecessor's budget ($210 million) and it still seemed like a cheaper movie. The special effects are bad, but so is everything else. The dialogue is worse than ever, the plot is uninteresting, and the freshly introduced mutants are awful. The X-Men franchise is mainly about its characters – misunderstood individuals feared by the general public – and their moral dilemmas; the strong characters and character developments are the main things that made the first two movies so good. Both of those aspects are lacking in X-Men: The Last Stand. New characters like Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) and Angel (Ben Foster) are one-dimensional and forgettable caricatures, and the character of Dr. Henry 'Hank' McCoy aka Beast (Kelsey Grammar), while somewhat interesting, was a only of shadow of what he could have been.

If you can get past the ludicrous writing, the silly acting and the simple characters, and just want to see mindless action scenes and mutants beating each other up, than X-Men: The Last Stand could just be the movie for you. However, if you strive to watch something above the generic Michael Bay tropes, you should definitely stay away from this movie. While there is some charm to dumb popcorn action movies, X-Men: The Last Stand is still an insult to the whole franchise, and doesn't deserve to have the words 'X-Men' in its title. Unfortunately, things for the X-Men franchise didn't get much better with X-Men Origins: The Wolverine.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

X2 (2003)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[8/10 · 23 May 2014]

The first X-Men movie was, in a way, a revolutionary movie. It was, more or less, considered a low budget movie and nevertheless it managed to earn a ton of money, making way for future movies. Not only did the movie turn out to be a huge financial success, but it was also quite a decent superhero movie which managed to perfectly combine action and drama. After the first movie's financial boom and positive critical reception, a sequel was bound to happen. 'X2′ was a much bigger movie then its predecessor – it had a bigger budget ($110 million), it earned more money (over $400 million) and was overall a better movie.

The movie opens with a mutant, later identified as the Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), attempting to assassinate the President of the USA. This failed assassination triggers a harsh human response against the mutants, and the Presidents goes with the plan of one William Stryker (Brian Cox), an army colonel who wants to storm Professor Charles Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) School for Gifted Youngsters. At the same time, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) wants to learn more about his past, and Magneto (Ian McKellen) is still in his plastic prison, but Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) has her own plans for busting him out.

'X2′ is the ideal example of a sequel done right. The movie contains everything which made the first one good (the social commentary, the acting, the memorable characters), and it upgrades some things that didn't really work in the first one (some of the dialogue, Halle Berry has a significantly smaller role), but still has a voice of its own. There are several newcomers to the franchise who are properly introduced and developed throughout the movie, but the one who stands out the most is Brian Cox as the movie's villain, William Stryker. Cox, aided by two other veteran actors (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen), makes for one impressive triumvirate of actors. This movie is worth seeing because of acting alone, but when you add to that the great fighting sequences, the amazing set pieces and strong writing – you get one really remarkable superhero movie.

'X2′ is not only better and bigger than its predecessor, but it's also 30 minutes longer, which may be its biggest problem. Not that the movie is boring, but there are so many subplots in the movie that 'X2′ sometimes feels like two movies crammed in one, thus being somewhat overcrowded (especially in its third act). Nonetheless, 'X2′ is still an impressive entry in the genre of superhero movie and the whole X-men franchise. Unfortunately, right after this movie, things went south for the X-men franchise.

Rating: 8/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

X-Men (2000)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 23 May 2014]

Undoubtedly, we live in the golden age of superhero movies – in the last several years, there have been more superhero movies than ever and the majority of them were big box office successes. And the movie which is almost solely responsible for this current situation – the movie because of which the superhero movie fad reemerged, after it nearly died in the 90s – is Bryan Singer's 'X-Men' (2000). In spite of being considered a low budget movie in the summer blockbuster season, 'X-Men' managed to earn almost $300 million world wide, thus spawning more movies in the franchise and making way for other superhero movies. In its own way, 'X-Men' played an important role in cinematic history.

Set in the near future, 'X-Men' follows mutants (extraordinary individuals with superhuman powers) in their plight to be accepted by the human race. There are two notable fractions among the mutants: The X-Men, led by the peaceful, intelligent Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the Brotherhood of Mutants, who operate as terrorists, and are led by the brilliant, but vengeful Magneto (Ian McKellen). Two mutants – Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a former military personnel who can't remember his past, and Rogue (Anna Paquin), a confused teenager – get caught up in the rivalry between the fractions.

'X-Men' works both as a decent action-drama movie and a superhero movie. What differentiates 'X-Men' from other superhero movies is how seriously it deals with its source materials and topics – the topics of homosexuality, racism and even America's fear of communism. In the hands of another director, 'X-Men' could have been nothing more than a generic mindless action movie, but in the hands of Bryan Singer (himself a homosexual), who also worked on the movie as a writer, 'X-Men' definitely stands out among other superhero movies/franchises. Although it deals with serious topics, 'X-Men' never comes off as preachy; it equally portrays two legitimate, opposing views – that of Charles Xavier and that of Magneto. In spite of Magneto being the movie's bad guy, he makes some interesting remarks about the nature of humans, and the audience can easily side with him morally (which is unquestionably a sign of a well written villain). Casting Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in their respective roles of Charles Xavier and Magneto was a genius move, since both of them give magnificent, memorable performances. The then actor newcomer, Hugh Jackman, doesn't fall behind in his most iconic role to date – that of Logan aka Wolverine.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the movie was on the same acting level as McKellen/Stewart. Especially not Halle Berry, whose acting was clingy and awkward, and created a very unnatural Storm. To her defense, she did have possibly the worst lines of dialogue in the movie (especially the infamous 'you know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning' line), but she still was the weakest link in the acting crew. And speaking of dialogue, it seemed like throughout the movie the dialogue slowly started deteriorating, with the dialogue in the movie's third act being sub par to the rest of the dialogue in the movie. In addition to that, 'X-Men' clearly could have benefited from a bigger budget since some of the action sequences in the movie were oddly executed. Luckily for the audience, the sequel, X2, learned from its predecessor's mistakes and was an even better movie.

Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

Godzilla (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 23 May 2014]

The Godzilla (or, in Japanese, Gojira) franchise features a series of 28 original Japanese Kaiju ("monster") movies. Inspired by the success of 'King Kong', the first 'Godzilla' was released in 1954 and was extremely influential, and it was adapted by Americans into 'Godzilla, King of the Monsters!'. Godzilla inspired many other movies, video games and comics. Four Godzilla movies have been produced in America and one in Italy (also known as Cozzilla),while North Korea released 'Pulgasari', which was similar to Godzilla. The monster was created as an allegory of the effects and consequences of the hydrogen bomb, and represented the Japanese fear of the Hiroshima disaster happening again. This 'Godzilla' is a reboot of the one from 1954, and not a remake of the badly received 1998 version.

In 1999, a couple of researchers are investigating the finding of a massive skeleton under an excavation site in the Philippines, along with a strange cocoon attached to it, and one that has apparently hatched. In Japan, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is worried that the periodical 'earthquakes' occurring lately may cause damage unless the nuclear power plant he's working in is shut down. As his wife (Juliette Binoche) approaches the reactor to check it for damage, a strong tremor causes a breach in the reactor, Joe's wife's death, and the collapse of the building. Fifteen years later, Joe's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) lives in the USA but is called to Japan to bail his father out, who's been trespassing in order to find out what really happened the day his wife died. At the 'abandoned' nuclear plant, that has been turned into a military-protected research center, what happened in 1999 starts happening again.

Interestingly enough, the two characters that looked like main characters in the trailer – Godzilla and Joe (Bryan Cranston) – are the ones you'll see the least in the movie. I didn't find this characteristic to be that bad, in regards to Godzilla. It manages to build tension and expectation as you wait for the monster to appear, and it also gives you time to appreciate the monsters Godzilla's fighting – the so-called MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms). But the fact that Aaron Taylor-Johnson was the 'human lead', instead of Bryan Cranston, was just bad. Because Mr Kick-Ass isn't a good actor, has no charisma, and the public doesn't get anything from the script that can help sympathize with him. He has a wife and small child, and I could really care less, because most of the (too many) actors in the movie are just expendable and forgettable. The dialogues don't help, either.

On the bright side, like I said, the movie is tense. Many scenes occur at night, in silence – when all of a sudden a huge monster appears and destroys everything while shrieking maniacally, which is just beautiful. The CGI is great and the cinematography doesn't disappoint, just like the majestic soundtrack. There aren't as many action scenes as one would expect, and the MUTOs and Godzilla are gradually revealed, up until the final big fight. The fact that some serious effort has been put into creating an interesting story – and actually, the mere fact that there is a story, gives this movie an automatic thumbs up. All in all, this 'Godzilla' is an interesting, tense, fun monster movie to watch, that can be appreciated by newbies and long-term fans of the franchise equally.

Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[5/10 · 23 May 2014]

Up until X-Men: The Last Stand, the things were going very good for the X-Men franchise – both X-Men and X2 were good movies. Looking back at it, X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn't a bad idea. On one hand, X-Men: The Last Stand was a disaster, but why not continue this commercially successful franchise in form of a prequel of its most marketable (and possibly the most interesting) character – Wolverine? However, just like X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a simply bad movie. And yet two years later, the X-Men franchise managed to redeem itself with X-Men: First Class.

The movie follows Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) during his pre-X-men days. He and his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber), both immortal mutants with amazing healing powers, spent most of their lives fighting in major wars (the civil war, WWI, WWII, Vietnam) before settling in a secret military group, led by William Stryker (Danny Huston), which goal was to supposedly fight for American interests. During one routine mission in Africa, Logan is disgusted by the groups' methods of persuasion and decides to leave them. But, several years later, his past comes back to haunt him.

There are several things very wrong with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. First of them being the serious lack of any kind of coherent, noteworthy plot. The movie is packed with (PG-13) action sequences every five minutes or so, which does get pretty boring very fast; and there is no real dramatic conflict to back those action sequences up. Not only is the plot not satisfactory, but the portrayal of the mutant Deadpool, isn't either. Deadpool, a fan favorite, made his big screen debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but in his case the source material is completely disregarded – he is nothing like his comic book counterpart – and as a result, his character is inane.

It's a shame Deadpool was portrayed the way he was since he was played by Ryan Reynolds, an actor many people agree is the perfect choice for playing Deadpool. However, not every casting choice in the movie was as good as this one. For some reason, the singer of Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am, was in the movie and was awful at playing the mutant John Wraith; and the brilliant Brian Cox, in spite of being interested in doing so, isn't in the movie reprising his role of William Stryker. Instead, he is replaced by the charmless Danny Huston. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are good as mutant brothers (especially Jackman who, after all, is a veteran in his role), but that isn't enough to keep this movie from falling apart.

Rating: 5/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

Neighbors (I) (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 9 May 2014]

I'm not a Seth Rogen fan. The only movie I've seen featuring him was "This is the end", and I thought it was boring and unfunny. Moreover, a movie featuring Seth Rogen will most likely prompt me to ignore its existence, instead of making me want to see it (is it because of his face?) – and that's exactly what happened with Bad Neighbours. But, you got to do what you got to do, so I just went in the theater with the lowest possible expectations, and came out pleasantly surprised. I love it when a movie does that. Still, Bad Neighbours isn't great and has flaws I'll be sure to point out soon.

Bad Neighbours is about a couple, Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne), who have just moved into their new house with their little daughter. They don't want to feel and be seen by friends as old, but at the same time they realise their life has been irreversibly changed by their baby. So when a fraternity, led by Teddy (Zac Efron), moves in the neighbouring house, the couple act friendly and participate to a party, hoping to get the fraternity to keep quiet in the future. When this doesn't happen, the couple and the fraternity declare "war" to each other.

One of the best qualities of this movie is that it succeeds, more or less, in being a comedy. In this modern world, plagued by Adam Sandler and similar untalented money-making people, comedies are definitely becoming a genre more intelligent people avoid. In Bad Neighbours, however, even some primitive or infantile jokes are able to make most people laugh. Another commendable feature of the movie is its cast: all of the main actors are very good – Rose Byrne really stands out, even compared to Rogen – and those in smaller roles, while not being important (almost) at all, are fine.

Now for the negative characteristics. While some jokes work, others are so extreme they just make you uncomfortable, and many scenes make you feel what Germans call "fremdschämen" - the embarrassment felt on behalf of someone else. Because of all of this, the movie is often difficult to watch. Also, if you catch yourself trying to uncover the reason or the logic behind some (many) of the actions – like for example, why aren't the other neighbours ever complaining about the noise? – you'll find there is none. This is a frustrating trademark of bad movies that will probably hit you once you exit the theater. But, ultimately, if you're looking for a couple of good laughs in a not very smart comedy, Bad Neighbours is a good choice.

Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 25 April 2014]

In spite of earning a lot of money, the first installment in The Amazing Spider-Man franchise wasn't a very good movie. It had pacing and script problems while offering nothing new in return, and it overall seemed like a pointless reboot. Luckily, there's the unwritten rule that the sequel to a superhero movie will usually be better than the original. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 follows that rule, and is better than the first one, but not by a long shot. This movie has all the big problems its predecessor had, and if this franchise wants to rise above mediocrity, these problems should definitely be solved in future movies.

Beginning where the last one left, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 follows the life of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) as he somewhat struggles with being Spider-Man. He is in a relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), although he feels guilty because of it, since he promised her late father (Denis Leary) he'll stay away from her. At the same time, he encounters a new threat in form of one Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) – an electrical engineer turned super villain during an accident. Also, Peter's childhood friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) returns to the city after his 8 year long absence, and he seems to have sinister plans of his own.

The best thing about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is surely the charisma between its two leads – Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Garfield found his voice to a greater extent in this movie - he seems somewhat more relaxed and natural in his role and is arguably superior to Tobey Maguire – and, of course, Emma Stone is as sweet and likable as ever. They are accompanied by another strong performance – that of Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn. DeHaan was a breath of fresh air to the franchise and I personally can't wait to see him in future installments. In addition to the overall quality acting, Marc Webb's direction is great, even better than in the first one. Not only that, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is also a nice combination of, more or less, thrilling action sequences and some grim elements which should generally entertain audiences who are looking for nothing else.

However, once again, the movie utterly fails in this, perhaps most important, aspect – the script. No one expects Oscar-worthy scriptwriting from a superhero movie, but the dialogues (and some scenes) in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are laughably ridiculous, and the character of Max Dillon aka Electro was so poorly written that even an experienced actor like Jamie Foxx couldn't save it. Furthermore, once again, the villain designs were horrible: both Electro and Green Goblin looked cartoonishly goofy. And in spite of some action sequences looking great, some of them felt like they were taken directly from a video game (which is never a good thing) and were accompanied by a cheesy dubstep-like soundtrack. In brief, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is better than its predecessor, but that unfortunately isn't enough, since the movie is, at its best, mindless popcorn entertainment, and at its worst is a serious insult to intelligence.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at passpopcorn.com

Noah (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 21 April 2014]

'Noah' is definitely one of the strangest movies that came out this year. Not only is it controversial (the movie is banned in several countries and it spawned countless internet arguments between Christians and atheists), but it also feels like a weird step in the, otherwise very successful, career of Darren Aronofsky. Apparently, Aronofsky, in spite of being an atheist, has had a fascination with the biblical character of Noah since childhood and really wanted to do this movie. Ironically, his dream project turned out to be his weakest movie yet, and overall a very uneven experience.

When Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, they had three sons – Cain, Abel and Seth. One day Cain slew his brother Abel and fled from his parents and God (who is referred only as The Creator) to some land where he started having children and being the father of people. However, unlike the people who were born in the line of Seth, people who were born in the line of Cain were mostly evil and corrupt. Noah (Russell Crowe) is one of the descendants of Seth and he starts having visions of a great flood that will purify the Earth. He soon realizes he is receiving messaged from the Creator that tell him to construct a giant ark in which he'll put two of every animal species in the world and sail until the flood withdraws, so he could start the human civilization anew.

'Noah's' story has many aspects to it; aspects that seem quite disconnected from each other and should be analyzed separately. First, there is the biblical aspect of the story, which was done alright – it was nice to see this biblical tale on a big budget, grand scale, accompanied by an A-list cast (of which Jennifer Connelly stands out the most as Noah's wife Naameh, and, absurdly, Russell Crowe stands out the least as the titular character – throughout the whole movie he had the same facial expression) and a clearly talented director (the movie is absolutely beautiful, with wonderful shots and interesting visuals).

Then there is the 'realistic' aspect of the story, which was the most interesting one. The character of Noah is portrayed as a troubled figure, who is disturbed by the choices he has to make. His family is no different – all of the members have their own separate problems they have to deal with. This realistic/dramatic/human aspect somewhat differs from the biblical tale, but was nonetheless the most fascinating thing about the movie. This aspect was pleasantly utilized through the movie's more or less talented cast - the exceptions were Russell Crowe, whom I mentioned before, and Douglas Booth, who was quite forgettable as Noah's son Shem.

And the last aspect of 'Noah' that should be commented was its 'fantasy' aspect, which was horrible and almost destroyed the whole movie. Inputting completely made up elements in the movie, like stone giants (yes, stone giants) and magic stones not only underwhelms the movie's 'dramatic' aspect, but also wrecks its source material. Add to that the ridiculous comic-book style rivalry between Noah and the movie's villain Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) and the occasionally clingy CGI, and 'Noah' doesn't rise much above the flood of generic action, big budget movies.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 21 April 2014]

Rebooting the Spider-Man franchise just five years after Spider-Man 3 may initially seem like a pretty pointless and unusual thing to do. However, when you take in mind the Sony-Marvel contract, which mandates Sony to make a Spider-Man movie every five years or they lose the rights over the characters, the picture becomes clearer. Originally, Spider-Man 4 was planned, but there were some creative differences between Sam Raimi and the studio, so he pulled out of the project, and Sony ultimately decided to reboot the whole franchise. Considering how awful Spider-Man 3 was, the reboot idea doesn't seem that bad anymore, but The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't offer anything new and it still feels pointless.

In case you don't know – the movie follows Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), a teenager whose parents mysteriously left him when he was a young child and who now lives with his uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and aunt May (Sally Field). One day he learns of a doctor named Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), who worked with his father, and decides to visit him at his workplace – Oscorp. There Peter gets bitten by a strange spider and soon develops spider-like abilities and uses them to become a superhero named Spider-Man. He meets his first villain when Dr. Curt Connors injects himself with mutagen chemicals and becomes the menacing Lizard.

The Amazing Spider-Man definitely isn't a terrible movie: the casting and the acting are great – Andrew Garfield is a very believable Spider-Man, and the always likable Emma Stone is superb as his love interest Gwen Stacy, and they have a lot of chemistry. The action sequences and the visual effects are decent: they are by no means superb, but are exciting enough for a generic superhero popcorn movie flick. And the director, Marc Webb (who never directed a big blockbuster movie before), did a satisfying job. Furthermore, the movie is darker and more brooding than Sam Raimi's trilogy (actually, the movie is more similar to Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy than to Raimi's movies), which works surprisingly well.

Even though The Amazing Spider-Man has some strong points, the movie utterly fails script wise. The movie spends a big chunk of its over 2 hours runtime on a origin story which the audience is already familiar with. Not only that, but all the characters in the movie are conveniently tied to one another in an absurdly naive fashion. Moreover, some scenes are ludicrous (Peter not being able to control his powers and the infamous cranes scene). Because of that, The Amazing Spider-Man can get both tedious and silly from time to time, which may severely annoy some viewers. And speaking of silly, The Lizard design could have been improved to some degree (he should at least have kept his lab coat on!). In a nutshell, The Amazing Spider-Man isn't as bad as it could have been, but it still is a pretty dull and pointless movie which offers nothing new to justify the reboot.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

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[6/10 · 6 April 2014]

Having only seen one movie by Wes Anderson before (Moonrise Kingdom), it was difficult to predict what to expect from The Grand Budapest Hotel. Moonrise Kingdom isn't a good movie, despite all the good reviews it got: in fact, it's quite boring, style-over-substance-ish, and counts on people liking it because the main characters are "sweet innocent kids". TGBH, on the other hand, looked promising – interesting, featuring an awesome cast, funny jokes and an actual story and events you can follow. And after all, Wes Anderson is considered a good director, whose movies, including this one, gained mostly positive reviews. Unfortunately, Mr Anderson will be Mr Anderson, and TGBH is yet just another style-over-substance flick.

The movie starts with a girl, reading a book titled The Grand Budapest Hotel, next to its writer's bust. It then switches to the old writer (Tom Wilkinson), that starts recalling the events that led to writing the book. We then see the young writer (Jude Law), staying at the Grand Budapest Hotel and meeting its owner, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), who decides to tell him the story of how he became the owner of the hotel. As a teenager, Mr. Moustafa was known as Zero (Tony Revolori) and worked as a lobby boy in the same hotel he owns. The legendary concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) becomes his mentor and best friend, and together they embark on strange and dangerous adventures.

Despite being pointless and strange (since the characters of the old writer and the girl reading his book appear again, briefly, only at the end of the movie), this kind of beginning has its charm, and nicely introduces the whole story. The setting in general is wonderful: the costumes, the outdoors and indoors, the colors and all the playing with shadows and light make TGBH a truly beautiful movie, that's impossible to watch without wanting to be sucked into its world. Another great movie quality is represented by its cast of famous and excellent actors, who, luckily, don't condemn TGBH to the fate many other movies with good casts had recently (The Counselor, Movie 43). And even the less known actors, like for example Tony Revolori, are good.

Probably the movie's biggest issue is that it can't decide whether it wants to be serious or silly. Both aspects work fine when seen alone, but put together, they just make the movie confusing – especially considering the background story is one of war and totalitarianism. One may argue that life is like that, a combination of seriousness and silliness, but that again doesn't fit the surrealistic vibe of the movie. There are also a lot of jokes that fall flat – if they are, in fact, jokes, which I suppose they are since some members of the audience in my theater were laughing hard at them. Ultimately, the story exists, but it feels like it would be the same if there was nothing going on: again, too much style, too little substance. TGBH definitely had potential, but ended up being an empty, cold and distant, although visually stunning, movie.

Rating: 6/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.com/

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 4 April 2014]

Captain America: The First Avenger was somewhat strange – it combined an interesting origin story with goofy plot elements and dumb action sequences. In the world of superhero movies, there is an unofficial rule that the sequel is better than the first movie. Luckily, this is the case with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Not only is 'The Winter Soldier' clearly superior to 'The First Avenger', but this movie is also (arguably), for now, the best movie in the Phase 2 of Marvel Cinematic Universe. That being said, Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn't as good as everyone makes it out to be (it currently has pretty high ratings on both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes).

The movie follows Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) as he tries to find his place in the modern world, and that definitely isn't easy for him – the world clearly changed and even S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't what it used to be. He is most worried about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s project Insight, which is basically a plan to launch 3 next generation Helicarriers to the sky to neutralize, from above, any possible threat. The situation gets more complicated when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) gets attacked in broad daylight, and Steve Rogers doesn't know who to trust anymore – could it be that S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised? Of all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier feels the least like a superhero movie. There's a certain James Bond/spy movie vibe to it, and Kevin Feige, the movie's producer and President of Marvel Studios, went as far as to describe it as 'a 1970s political thriller masquerading as a big superhero movie'. In spite of being described as a '1970′s political thriller', 'The Winter Soldier' is still a relevant movie, in the way that it deals with some major recent events (the post 9/11 world and WikiLeaks). This new direction in Marvel movies is definitely a brave one and should definitely be applauded.

Visually, the movie looks great, which could be explained by another novelty in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the use of visual effects is reduced to the minimum (which was the decision of the movie's directors, the Russo brothers). The action sequences are well shot and edited and rank amongst the best ones I've seen in Marvel movies. As for the actors in the movie, some of them played their characters so many times now, they need no special analyzing (Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson & Scarlett Johansson), and the newcomers did a satisfying job – Robert Redford was believable as Alexander Pierce, Anthony Mackie's The Falcon was nicely introduced and Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier was alright (despite he doesn't really play that important a role for someone who has his name appearing in the movie title).

Even though Captain America: The Winter Soldier does many things right, it still suffers from the same flaw many movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe do: the villains are not that good. By now, 9 movies have been released in the MCU, all of them producing only one memorable villain – Loki. The villains in Captain America: The Winter Soldier are forgettable at worst, and average at best. Not that a movie necessarily needs a great villain to be great itself, but it definitely helps if the audience has an interesting villain to help them sit through the movie (with its runtime of 136 minutes, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the second longest movie in the MCU, which is a little too much for a solo superhero movie). Also, as the movie progresses, it gets increasingly worse, with its action packed third act suffering from some ridiculous elements. Undoubtedly, all these elements – the bland villains, the runtime, the inconsistent quality – are precisely what keeps Captain America: The Winter Soldier from reaching its full potential.

Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 2 April 2014]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is hitting the theaters in my country in a few days, so I decided to (mainly because some characters re-appear in the sequel) look back at Captain America: The First Avenger, the last solo Marvel movie that came out before The Avengers. On my first viewing, Captain America: The First Avenger struck me as one of the weakest and most forgettable movies of Marvel Phase I. I hoped my initial impression would change upon this viewing. Unfortunately, it didn't.

Set during World War II, the movie follows Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who wants to join the army but is rejected because of his health and physical issues. His luck, however, changes when he meets the mysterious doctor Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who helps Steve join the army despite his disadvantages. During his military training he shows intelligence and bravery, and doctor Erskine enlists him in an experiment, which goal is to create super soldiers. After the experiment is successful, Steve's body completely changes (he gets much taller and stronger), and soon he becomes Captain America.

Captain America: The First Avenger can roughly be divided in two parts, with the first one ending when Cap puts on his suit and starts punching Nazis. The first part of the movie, which is almost fully devoid of action sequences, is the origin story and with its interesting character development, setting and plot, is much superior to the second part. Chris Evans (in spite of how silly he looks before the super soldier experiment) is a fantastic choice for Captain America and truly does a remarkable job. Hugo Weaving, who's always great at portraying villains, is (at least before he reveals his true face) good as the movie's bad guy Johann Smith aka Red Skull. The rest of the cast (mainly Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell) don't fall behind these two. During this part, Captain America: The First Avenger is a decent and enjoyable period movie, which sometimes is more than enough to entertain. And then, the second part of the movie happens.

The second part of Captain America: The First Avenger is more or less a montage of dumb action sequences, explosions and people killing each other. During this part, the movie's cheesiness becomes apparent and makes the movie look more stupid than it should. Scenes of a ridiculously looking villain (let's face it – no matter how you portray Red Skull, he'll still be somewhat ridiculous) and a ridiculously patriotic protagonist punching each other in the face, while speaking awful lines of dialogue, come almost as an insult after the movie's solid first part. While there is some lighthearted humor here and there, overall the movie should have taken itself less seriously than it did (for the right amount of serious and unserious, look at the first Iron Man movie). By taking some of its silly elements too seriously (the Red Skull, the Hydra, the patriotism) and by having too many action sequences tightly packed, the movie overall undermines its full potential and it ends up being forgettable and of rather poor quality.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

Divergent (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[5/10 · 31 March 2014]

Divergent is yet another bestselling novel I've never heard about, and part of yet another young adult trilogy, by yet another female writer (Veronica Roth) I've, again, never heard about. Also, this is yet another movie I would never have watched, had I not had to write this blog – basically because it looks awful, boring and unoriginal. Before I turn this into a rant against this newest fashion everyone seems to be crazy about, I'll talk about the movie. Divergent is probably best summed up in an anecdote: while trying to point out the difference between The Hunger Games and Divergent, the latter's director Neil Burger started explaining what it was about – and his explanation could have easily been applied to both movies. Ironically, Divergent hails individuality while being a copycat itself.

Divergent is set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, where people are divided in five factions, depending on their virtues: the Erudite are smart, the Amity are kind, the Candor honest, the Dauntless brave and the Abnegation selfless. Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) and her family are Abnegation, but she and her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) have to take the aptitude test to determine which faction they truly belong to. Beatrice's results are inconclusive, she's dubbed Divergent and must keep this secret. Eventually, she chooses the Dauntless faction and starts a difficult training after which the weakest ones will be cast out and become factionless – all the while, hiding her true, Divergent nature, as Divergents are being hunt down and killed.

Surprisingly, Divergent didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be. It might be because the director is Neil Burger, who also directed Limitless and The Illusionist, which are good movies. Also, the acting isn't bad, although, sometimes, somewhat underwhelming. This applies especially to Kate Winslet, who plays the 'bad girl' in the movie, the Erudite Jeanine – and the fact that she's bad is evident from the first moment she's on screen, just because she's cold and falsely kind. Her character isn't developed any further, she remains irritatingly perfect, as if that was enough to make a good villain. But in this case, the problem is mostly of the screenwriters – and probably the novelist, who created the interesting setting and faction system, but didn't exploit their potential fully or elaborate them enough to avoid plot holes and inconsistencies.

As I mentioned before, the movie reminds much of The Hunger Games, but I don't see that as the movie's (or the book's) bad quality. What surprises me is that, after all those silly young adult flicks we've had and still have, people and mostly teenagers are, once again, interested in the same old story – just check out Divergent's box office results. The market is saturated and it's extremely difficult to create a new YA series that will be truly good anymore. Divergent (the movie, but I doubt the book is better, at least story-wise) isn't good: it's predictable, filled with clichés, boring, too long, unoriginal and so on. And still, the book came out and it was a success, and the movie came out and was a success, too – and this will most likely happen to all the other similar novels and movies that will be published in the future. I can only say, if you want to get rich fast, just write a teen love story, with a wannabe social commentary, not set on out planet and/or in our time, and you're guaranteed to succeed.

Rating: 5/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.com/

Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 31 March 2014]

'The Muppets' was a charming, enjoyable and fun movie that relied a little too much on the nostalgic factor of its audience; however, its financial success was the major factor that secured a sequel. In terms of financial success, the sequel, Muppets Most Wanted, turned out to be a box office disappointment – it had a very bad opening weekend, struggling against Divergent. Of course, a movie's poor box office performance doesn't necessarily mean the movie itself is poor, and vice versa. That being said, Muppets Most Wanted is not only inferior to its predecessor in terms of box office success, but also in terms of quality (as sequels usually tend to be).

Muppets Most Wanted starts where the previous movie ended – the Muppets learn that their previous movie was successful and start working on a sequel. After some singing and dancing, the crew is contacted by a manager, called Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), who offers the Muppets his services and, when they agree with him being their manager, takes them on an European tour. What they do not know is that Dominic works with an evil frog mastermind, Constantine (voiced by Matt Vogel), who looks like Kermit (except for a Marilyn Monroe-like mole) and who has sinister plans of his own. In old comic fashion, a switcheroo occurs – Constantine starts managing The Muppet Show instead of Kermit (voiced by Steve Whitmire), who gets thrown into a Gulag.

There are several big differences between Muppets Most Wanted and its predecessor. Nevertheless, none of these changes affect the musical numbers and the celebrity cameos, which are as good as ever. The utmost difference between the two movies is the humor, which may be explained by the fact that Jason Segel hasn't written this one. In spite of the fact that many jokes in the movie are great (once again, a large portion of the jokes consists of self-referential and self deprecating humor), quite a few of them fall flat and are ridiculously shallow – a situation that almost never occurred in 'The Muppets'. Because of this, the comic aspect of Muppets Most Wanted feels uneven.

My biggest criticism of 'The Muppets' was that it relied too much on the nostalgia factor of its audience, thus the members of the audience who never watched previous Muppets projects couldn't easily empathize with the movie's protagonist Walter (voiced by Peter Linz). Thankfully, in Muppets Most Wanted, Walter stepped out of the limelight and now people who had no previous association with Muppets projects may enjoy the movie as much as people who did. On the other hand, now that Walter is no longer the protagonist, the space of the protagonist remains open, with no one actually filling it in. Muppets Most Wanted follows several equally important plot lines, which makes the movie feel somewhat disconnected. Also, Muppets Most Wanted lacks some powerful emotional moments, which 'The Muppets' managed to portray with songs like Pictures in my Head and the Oscar winning Man or Muppet. Overall, Muppets Most Wanted is best viewed for its entertainment value, but that too can leave you rather disappointed.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

The Muppets (2011)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 26 March 2014]

In spite of some initial development problems – like the distinguished Muppeteer Frank Oz turning the movie down because of his dissatisfaction with the script – 'The Muppets' managed to be, as of today, the highest grossing Muppet movie of all time. This big financial success may come off as a surprise, considering that this was the first theatrical Muppet movie in 12 years. Although Frank Oz expressed his dissatisfaction with the script, I would say that the simple, but very effective script (written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller) is the movie's best aspect and maybe the biggest reason why the movie performed so well. From what I gather, the movie's plot is very similar to other Muppet projects, which is a perfect way of not alienating the old fans while reintroducing the characters to new ones.

Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) is an everyday Muppet who finds it somewhat hard living in the human world, despite of having a very supportive human brother, Gary (Jason Segel). One day his life changes dramatically – he discovers the classic Muppet show and is amazed by the Muppets performing in it. When Gary and Gary's girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) plan to celebrate their 10th anniversary in Los Angeles, they invite Walter to accompany them and in the meantime visit the Muppet studio. Walter there finds out that an evil oil tycoon, Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), wants to buy the studio and raze it to the ground because, apparently, there's oil beneath it. The Muppets' only way of keeping the studio is raising 10 million dollars, and the only way to do so is to put on a show.

'The Muppets' has all the charms of previous Muppet projects – the abundance of gags, the musical numbers and the cameos – and all of these elements are perfectly combined in one satisfyingly enjoyable movie. The humor in the movie is very self-referential, sometimes self deprecating, and sometimes even filled with subtle social criticism. No matter the form the humor takes, all the jokes and the gags in the movie, with the exception of a rare few, are fun and entertaining. The musical numbers are colorful, original and could easily warm the heart even of some cold bastard who doesn't like musicals (like me). And of course, there are the celebrity cameos, which were quite unforgettable and delightful.

While, just a few moments ago, I hailed the effectiveness and the simplicity of the plot in regards of reintroducing the characters to the news generations of fans, I fear those newer fans (myself included) might have a somewhat harder time enjoying the movie than the old fans, since they lack the nostalgia factor. The main character in the movie, Walter, grew up with The Muppet Show, he idolizes its characters, but those of us who didn't have such an experience growing up could have a harsh time emphasizing with him as the movie's protagonist. By all means, the lack of a stronger protagonist in no way affects the movie's fun value, but occasionally you need something more from a movie than just fun value to be truly amazed.

Rating: 7/10 Read more at passpopcorn.com

Non-Stop (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 18 March 2014]

Who else saw the trailer for Non-Stop and thought, "oh dear, here's another movie that will make me feel ashamed when I go buy the tickets for it, I'll probably give it a low grade and write a negative review about it – what a waste of time and money!"? I hope it wasn't just me. I mean, an action movie, set on a plane, and the main character is played by Liam Neeson. Not my kind of movie, to be honest. I just couldn't understand what Julianne Moore was doing in the movies, as she's a good actress. Well, it turns out Non-Stop is actually a good movie that managed to keep me interested all the way. I was never bored and some scenes and twists even surprised me. My apologies to the movie makers for my jumping to conclusions!

In Non-Stop, Liam Neeson plays Bill Marks, a U. S. Federal Air Marshal, and a divorced alcoholic who doesn't like flying. On the flight from New York to London, he meets Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), who asks him about his private life in order to relieve the fear he feels while the plane is taking off. While over the Atlantic, Bill receives a message on his secure phone from an unknown person who threatens to kill one person every 20 minutes unless $150 million is transferred to a bank account. Bill asks the other air marshal on the plane, Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), for help, but they get into a fight and to save himself Bill kills Jack – at the 20 minutes mark.

Why did I presume this would be a bad movie? Well, first of all, it's an action movie. More often than not, little effort is put in creating an interesting and original story to accompany the action scenes in an action movie, and you get a Steven Seagal movie – which means a boring collage of shootouts, explosions and deaths. Fortunately, Non-Stop didn't make this mistake: its story isn't original, but it's entertaining and gripping, and the non-action scenes aren't just tedious fillers – you can actually enjoy the movie as a whole, as it doesn't rely exclusively on action. Of course, there are some cheesy and silly scenes, but they don't ruin the overall enjoyment this movie provides; they just temporarily relieve the tension in the scene.

In action movies, acting can be bad, because who cares about the actors as long as there's guns and fire and car chases and bad guys dying? Again, Non-Stop avoided this trap gracefully. Liam Neeson is good, most of the time, Julianne Moore is great in every scene, and none of the other supporting characters feels unnecessary or acts bad. The only disappointment may be represented by the villain, who, when finally discovered, doesn't really have time to leave an intimidating impression, and whose motives are kind of silly and unbelievable. It would almost have been better had he remained faceless throughout the movie, but this wouldn't have made much sense. Overall, Non-Stop is a good action movie whose flaws are easy to ignore, and I'd recommend it for a Friday evening with friends.

Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[3/10 · 6 March 2014]

I think almost everyone can agree that a sequel to 300 is completely unnecessary. However, deeming something unnecessary doesn't certainly make it bad. In an ideal world, one may even argue that a sequel to 300 might be a very good movie: considering how the original had its fair share of flaws, the sequel could easily eliminate these flaws, while still focusing on what made the original enjoyable. The only problem with that argument is that we don't live in a ideal world (actually, we live in a world where a big chunk of sequels are made exclusively for profit, not for improvement of the first installment) and that 300: Rise of an Empire is just a horrible movie, which everyone should skip.

Calling 300: Rise of an Empire a sequel to 300 could be a misinterpretation. Rise of an Empire's plot timeline occurs before, during and after the original movie's timeline. The movie is narrated by King Leonidas' wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), who tells the story of an Athenian hero called Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton). Themistokles killed Xerxes' father Darius (Igal Naor) during the Battle of Marathon. Ten years after that event Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) decided to revenge his father and destroy all of Greece. This time Themistokles must stop the giant Persian navy lead by Xerxes' second in command, the menacing Artemisia (Eva Green). Even after just glancing at the movie's synopsis, it's very obvious that 300: Rise of an Empire's title doesn't make much sense. There are much more than 300 warriors in the movie (none of them Spartan) fighting the Persian hordes, and no empire is rising during the movie. There are some talks about uniting the Greek city-states, but that's about it.

I know Rise of an Empire wanted to be connected to the original movie in some way, but throwing a bunch of out of place references definitely isn't the best possible way of obtaining that. Even the Persian emissary, who was famously kicked in the bottomless pit in the original, makes a cameo appearance. But in Rise of an Empire not only does he have nothing against women speaking in front of men, but he even plays an important role in Artemisia's military career. And speaking of continuity errors – Queen Gorgo's narration doesn't make much sense since the movie portrays some situations in which she clearly didn't participate; and not only that, but there were also some flashbacks in the movie, which weren't her own! Continuity errors and plot holes similar to these two (there are much more) quickly destroy any suspension of disbelief and ultimately ruin the movie-going experience. I'm thoroughly aware that some people could label this plot hole criticism as simple nitpicking, but Rise of an Empire also fails in many other aspects, not only in delivering a coherent plot.

Rise of an Empire has all the flaws the original one had, without any of its charm or virtues. The characters in Rise of an Empire are even less developed than they were in the original (believe it or not!) and the slow motion is as abused as ever. The man who replaced Zack Snyder in the director' chair, Noam Murro (who only directed one movie before this), struggles between ripping off Snyder's visual style and finding his own voice. The ultimate result of this painful struggle is a bland, boring and uninspiring movie, which does almost nothing spectacular. Some action sequences (especially the ones of naval battles) looked decent but everything fell apart when the fake CGI blood (which looked like something created in Microsoft paint) started spraying around. The two leads, Sullivan Stapleton and Eva Green, do their best to save this movie, but even their combined forces aren't enough to make Rise of an Empire a watchable movie. In the end, it's not the lack of coherent plot that made me hate Rise of an Empire, nor the awful special effects, nor the non-existent character development; what made me hate it is the possibility of another sequel.

Rating: 3/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

300 (2006)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 5 March 2014]

Zack Snyder is probably one of the most divisive contemporary directors, with almost all of his movies completely polarizing the audience – and his 2007 box office smash '300′ is no exception. I first saw this movie – based on the Frank Miller comic book of the same name – upon its theatrical release, when I was still a lad, and I quite enjoyed it (as an early teen, who wouldn't?). Fast forward 7 years, I decided to watch it again, to refresh my memory in preparation for the unnecessary sequel – 300: Rise of an Empire. This time I wasn't as satisfied as when I first saw it. Actually, I thought it to be mindless and silly and I'm less enthusiastic about the sequel than ever.

'300′ loosely portrays the Battle of Thermopylae during which the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler), aided by 300 of his finest soldiers, stood against the mighty Persian empire, ruled by the self proclaimed god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) – and that's pretty much the whole movie. Of course, there are some scenes depicting the Spartan way of life, and a subplot concerning Leonidas' wife, queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), trying to influence the Spartan council to send more soldiers to aid Leonidas, in spite of corrupted councilman Theron's (Dominic West) intentions too keep the army at bay, but all of this is utterly overshadowed by the movie's action sequences.

With its thin plot and extreme historical inaccuracy, it wouldn't be an overstatement to call '300′ a style-over-substance movie. Not that that is necessary a problem, but some people (including myself) may find the movie to be bland if they want something more from a movie, instead of excessive violence nearly all the time, and in return get senseless scenes and poorly developed characters (one of the more prominent characters, played by Vincent Regan, is only called and credited as Captain, and his only character traits are that he has a son, and is a captain). As for the movie's style, '300′ is most famous for its unrestricted use of slow motion, which, to be honest, does look impressive when used correctly. However, more often than not, slow motion is used incorrectly and in certain scenes is simply unnecessary. Due to this incorrect use of slow motion, quite a few scenes in the movie look like excerpts from some music video, which isn't a good thing.

'300′ definitely isn't a horrible movie. Like I said, some action sequences look truly impressive (which should be more than enough for action movie fanatics) and the movie does have the charm of a mindless popcorn flick. In fact, I think '300′ could have been more enjoyable and better if it had been somewhat less serious than it actually was. Without that little special something, '300′, in spite of its cool looking action scenes, some memorable quotes and characters, doesn't really stand the test of repeated viewings, at least not in my case.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

Pompeii (I) (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 3 March 2014]

I never thought I'd say this, especially after understanding the story, seeing the trailer and the bad ratings the movie got, but – Pompeii really isn't that bad. If we also keep in mind that it was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, who directed stuff like Alien vs. Predator and the Resident Evil movies, it might be even more surprising that this, mostly ignored and avoided, February release actually turned out to be fairly good. Of course, Pompeii is predictable and its many flaws will make you laugh quite often, but that shouldn't be a bad thing. Yes, the movie fails when it tries to create drama and the audience laughs instead, but at least it's not boring. It's just frustrating if you expect it to be historically accurate.

Pompeii is about a Celt named Milo (Kit Harington), whose horsemen tribe is slaughtered by the Romans when he's very young and, left alone, is taken as slave by a group of men. First of all: you call an ancient Celt Milo? Seriously? Why can't people just google "ancient Celtic names", pick one from that list and avoid cutting such a poor figure? And yes, I am aware (and I already said) that this movie isn't historically accurate, but this thing with the name really bothered me. Anyway, as he grows up, Milo becomes a gladiator in ancient London, where the slave owner Graecus (Joe Pingue) sees him fight and decides to buy and take him to Pompeii. There Milo meets a rich patrician, Cassia (Emily Browning), by accident, and they fall in love instantly, but an evil and corrupt Senator (Kiefer Sutherland) wants to marry her instead.

Many have noticed (as it's not really subtle) that Pompeii reminds of Titanic a lot. Just like in Titanic, here the disaster is just the background for a love story involving a rich girl and a poor boy who can't be together. The love between Milo and Cassia would have benefited from more screen time: it's difficult to believe in love at first sight if the first meeting lasts 2 minutes and only a few words are spoken, and two of them meet only once after that, before the volcano erupts. Also, since the movie is mostly about Milo and Cassia and their relationship, it's strange that much more time has been put into developing the relationship between cellmates and fellow gladiators – Milo and Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). Still, it was pretty well done, especially thanks to the good performances of the two actors.

The rest of the cast was good, too, and none of the actors delivered a horrible performance. The main problem with this movie was the dialogue: very basic, repetitive, filled with clichés and oscillating between ridiculous and cringe worthy – just like some scenes, that were supposed to be dramatic but left me laughing. The CGI was all right, and perhaps it's worth paying more to see Pompeii in 3D, since its focus is almost exclusively on action, but I can't really tell since I didn't see it in 3D. All in all, I'm not sure I'd recommend Pompeii. It's one of those movies you can watch on TV, one evening, if you have nothing better to do. It will entertain – if you can withstand the bad dialogue and overall ridiculousness – but won't teach you anything about the true tragedy and how it all really happened.

Rating: 6/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[7/10 · 22 February 2014]

I finally got to see the second part of Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac last night. As you might remember, I didn't really like the first part – it was mostly pretentious artsy stuff that couldn't keep me interested, and also I didn't come to the theater to masturbate, as some people seem to be doing. And seriously, how can they? I admit that this movie can make you horny, but every sex scene is coated with depression and isn't really sexy, which ultimately ruins the mood. But I digress. Nymphomaniac vol. II turned out to be quite surprising. It was better than the first part, and more interesting, as it focused more on the main character's relationship with society and how her 'condition' affected it – and therefore, it was much darker and heartfelt.

Note: skip this paragraph if you plan to see the movie as a whole, as it reveals some important plot points from the first volume. In this part, Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is still telling her story to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard), but his role is minor as he mostly listens and doesn't have many witty, maths-related remarks – which I thought was positive, and I liked that Joe asked him how could he possibly be thinking about mathematical formulas while she's talking about sex. My thoughts exactly, but this gets explained, too: Seligman is an asexual virgin. For the sake of drama, could he really have been anything else if not Joe's exact opposite? Also, this part shows us Joe ruining her monogamous life with Jerôme (Shia LaBeouf) because of her addiction, and we can finally see and understand the pain her addiction causes her.

I like to think this part of the movie is more Trier-like: there is less pretentious crap and less oh-so-shocking sex, but more is said about the main character and the story actually goes somewhere (while the first part was mostly about young Joe having sex). Volume II finally tackles the subject of nymphomania as a serious addiction. Just like a junkie, Joe gives up everything for her daily dose, even her loving husband who just can't satisfy her need. And even when she, in one scene, claims she loves herself as she is – a sex addict – it's hard not to smile and feel pity for a person that tries, in every possible way, to justify her behavior, while being aware of the lies she's feeding herself with. Still, I understand why the first part of the movie is lighter and focused on Joe's sexual adventures: every addiction feels awesome at first, just like youth is a much easier life period than all that comes after. Because of this needed transition, it's much better to watch the movie as a whole, if you can manage to sit through its 4 hour entirety.

It was also easier to concentrate on the actors' performances in this part of the movie. Stacy Martin is finally gone, thank God, except for a small part in the beginning that doesn't really show her bad acting. You can now really appreciate Charlotte Gainsbourg as an actress, as she does more than just sit on a bed and talk. Mia Goth is really good as P, even though this is her first role in a movie ever. Willem Dafoe got too little screen time to be really impressive, although he wasn't bad, but Jamie Bell as the sadistic K was great – so naturally intimidating, even his facial expressions make you shiver. There are still some scenes that make you cringe, the pretentiousness isn't completely gone and the movie is tedious from time to time, but I'd suggest you see it, preferably as a whole. It's not perfect, but it's definitely an interesting experience.

Rating: 7/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.com/

The Monuments Men (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[6/10 · 21 February 2014]

George Clooney is usually considered a good actor and an even better director. Although he directed only a few movies, almost all of them were good, especially The Ides of March and Good Night and Good Luck. So it was natural to expect much from The Monuments Men, particularly since, even before its release (and its postponement), it was considered an Oscar contender. Add to all this the cast of good and talented actors, and the interesting true story (I'd never heard of the monuments men before), and you'll get something that's probably too good to be true. But The Monuments Men isn't good: it's a very confusing movie that is either extremely comedic or extremely dramatic, and it doesn't work.

The Monuments Men are a group of art historians and museum directors and curators, led by Frank Stokes (George Clooney), who are sent to Europe during World War II in order to try and prevent the Nazis from stealing and destroying art pieces, and to find the art that has been stolen so they can return it to the rightful owners. They start off as a group, but are then sent, as couples, each in a different town, throughout France and Germany. The story is simple, but it's very difficult to follow what's happening, since there are characters who look similar (Hugh Bonneville is like a combination of Bill Murray and John Goodman) and only Matt Damon and George Clooney's characters are properly introduced, from the beginning. All the others eventually gain some personality towards the end of the movie.

It could be said that there's no villain in this movie. Of course, the Nazis are the bad guys, but it's not easy to feel the tension of war and fighting if you don't have a physical character that represents the bad guys. There are some shots of Hitler and various generals/officers, but all of them are just generically sleazy and irritating, like there hasn't been put any effort in making them quality villains, because we already know Nazis were bad people. Another big problem with the movie is that, for a lot of its duration, it seems like a collection of loosely connected individual stories, and when one ends and the other one begins, the most common reaction is "oh, I forgot this guy was in the movie". And this happened every time they showed Matt Damon on screen. Logically, you can't connect with the characters and feel for them – even when somebody dies, you couldn't care less.

The soundtrack isn't objectively bad, but it's more suited for a Disney movie than The Monuments Men, and it makes even the most serious and dramatic moments look pathetic and silly. The things that redeem this movie are the good performances by the cast, some well-executed scenes and the story – because, as I've already said, I had never heard of the monuments men before, this movie taught me something. It's just sad that such an important and interesting part of history has been ignored until now, and has been ruined with this movie, that can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama, so it goes from tragic scenes of death to scenes that look like spoofs. In short, you better skip this movie.

Rating: 6/10 Read more at passpopcorn.com

RoboCop (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[4/10 · 7 February 2014]

I'm a fan of the original 'RoboCop' movie – I find it to be fun, satirical, enjoyably violent and overall very good. Naturally, I wasn't very thrilled when I heard it was getting a remake. I was even less thrilled when I heard the remake will be rated PG-13. I mean – how can you make a 'RoboCop' movie without excessive violence and blood squibs? Now that I have seen the movie, I can freely say that the PG-13 rating is the least of this movie's problems. Initially, I didn't want to compare the remake to the original, I wanted to view it and review it as a stand-alone movie. Now that I have seen it, I think I'll have to compare the two movies after all, since the remake possesses none of the qualities that made the original such a classic, and by simple comparison I can easily explain why the remake is an utterly flawed and ridiculous movie. The movie opens with a political show, called the Novak Element, led by the host Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), during which we see a news footage of OmniCorp droids (including the famous ED-209 and the freshly introduced humanoid drones called ED-208) patrolling and inspecting the streets of some Islamic state. Novak compliments the droids and then starts attacking The Dreyfuss Act – a law that forbids the deployment of such drones in the USA. We are then introduced to Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), the CEO of OmniCorp, who is trying to find ways of tricking The Dreyfuss Act and start deploying his products in the USA. He gets the idea of incorporating both man and machine into an ultimate law enforcement product. We are then introduced to our protagonist – Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) – who is soon heavily injured in an explosion and is used as a guinea pig in this newest OmniCorp program. Like I said before: the 'RoboCop' remake lacks everything that was good in the original movie. First of all, there's no worthy satire in the movie. Society is sometimes mocked through the character of Pat Novak, but the satire isn't very subtle nor intelligent – actually, I'd say it is very primitive and expeditionary. Second of all, the nature of Robocop's character is very different from the original movie; he's not a robot, but more a man in a robotic suit, and his family plays a fairly big role in the movie. And I would be perfectly fine with these changes if the main actor, Joel Kinnaman, didn't have the charisma of a paper bag and could, as a matter of fact, act (!), and if Abbie Cornish (who plays the role of Alex Murphy's wife – Clara Murphy) wasn't so irritatingly bland. The revelation of the RoboCop suit and the suit itself were also poorly done. In one scene, Michael Keaton's character criticizes the suit design that appeared in the original movie by saying something along these lines: the original suit wasn't tactical enough. Well, at least the original suit didn't look like a black dildo! The villains in the movie didn't get a much better treatment, either. Among the several villains that appeared in the movie, none was memorable or even remotely interesting. But, to be fair, not everything sucks about the 'RoboCop' remake. Some of the acting was OK (mostly by experienced actors like Jackson, Keaton and Oldman) and the special effects did look really good. But what's the use of awesome special effects when the majority of the movie's boring and tedious? Add to all the aforementioned flaws the PG-13 rating, which destroyed the potential of some scenes, and you'll get one weak and forgettable movie. In the original, one of the most memorable lines goes 'I'd buy that for a dollar'. In addition to butchering everything else, the remake also butchered this line. In one scene, Jackie Earle Haley's character Mattox bashes the concept of Robocop saying he 'wouldn't buy that for a dollar'. As for myself, if I knew upon purchasing my ticket what horrors were awaiting, I wouldn't have bought it for a dollar. Rating: 4/10

The Lego Movie (2014)

Pass the Popcorn! review

[8/10 · 6 February 2014]

To be honest – when I first heard of 'The Lego Movie' I thought it to be a ridiculous idea and automatically dismissed it as something bad. However, when I gave it a second thought, I realized I kind of liked the idea. I mean, why not create a big budget movie that takes place inside the Lego universe? At least it's somewhat original (there have been previous Lego movies, but they were all direct-to-video, and from what I realize – they are much different from this one). And in this age of spin-offs, remakes, prequels, etc. originality is more valuable than ever. Add to that the amazing cast in the movie, and I, for one, needed no more reasons to see this movie – and I ultimately enjoyed it. The movie opens with the movie's villain, Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell), stealing a mysterious artifact called the 'Kragle' (I hope I've written it correctly) from a wizard named Vitruvius (voiced by Morgan Freeman), in order to destroy the Universe. During their encounter, Vitruvius tells of a prophecy about a Chosen one, who will find another mystical artifact, called 'The Resistance Piece' and will put an end to Business's mettle. 8 and a half years later, Lord Business's alter ego – President Business – is ruling the whole world in a sort of totalitarian way. We then meet the movie's protagonist, Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt), who one day accidentally stumbles upon 'The Resistance Piece' and is thought to be the Chosen one by a group of Lego characters called the MasterBuilders. Despite the fact that The Lego Movie's plot summary may seem a bit complicated (and despite the fact that I hailed the movie's originality a moment ago), the movie is actually pretty predictable and formulaic. That isn't necessarily a bad thing – actually, the movie has an explanation of some sort for why it is so predictable – but the movie does get slightly tedious from time to time. The only other possible downsides to the movie besides that, are the movie's third act, which gets clingy in some parts, and some of the action scenes. I like how the animation is a combination of both stop motion and CGI, but this unusual style of animation may be hard to follow during a few action scenes – and I fear this scenes might be even harder to follow if you decide to watch the movie in 3D. Nonetheless, all this downsides to the movie are easily overshadowed by its qualities. The movie's biggest quality is definitely that it is fun. The Lego Movie is a nostalgic look back at childhood and it helps to realize that our child games were often very silly, ridiculous, over the top and funny – and in that way The Lego Movie could be better appreciated by adults than by children. Virtually almost every scene contains a silly joke or gag and I was constantly giggling throughout the whole movie. The Lego Movie easily succeeds in being a feel good, ridiculously entertaining movie that is worth your time. Moreover, another The Lego Movie's quality is that it has quite an impressive cast (Pratt, Ferrell, Banks, Day, Brie, Freeman, Hill, Neeson, Offerman, O'Neil, etc.), that portrays a bunch of very colorful and memorable characters. In short, if you are interested in watching a nostalgic throwback to your childhood or just want to watch a fun, feel-good movie, you mustn't skip The Lego Movie. Rating: 8/10

RoboCop (1987)

Pass the Popcorn review

[8/10 · 30 January 2014]

In the last several years, Hollywood has made a habit of remaking, 'sequeling', 'prequeling' and rebooting anything they can get their greedy hands on. These unnecessary spin-offs rarely work as quality movies, but apparently they are very profitable. Long story short, this year (among other things) we will get a remake of the 1987 Action/Sci-Fi classic RoboCop. Although I strongly oppose remaking RoboCop (but I oppose remakes in general), this review wasn't meant to serve as criticism of the remake, but as a look back to, and a glorification of, the original movie. I will be tackling the remake when it is released, of course. In spite of being considered a classic action movie today, back in the day almost every big director passed on the opportunity of directing RoboCop – before Paul Verhoeven eventually settled as the director; and he also would have passed the opportunity if it weren't for a pleasant turn of events of his wife reading the script and convincing him to direct it. The reason I'm mentioning this is because Paul Verhoeven is the ideal director for such a movie, and if it weren't for him, I doubt RoboCop would have achieved the cult status it has. But I'll get to that in a moment.

'RoboCop' is set in a futuristic/dystopian version of the city of Detroit, which has a big problem with crime, and the police can't seem to do a thing. The police's main problem is one Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), who is a notorious cop killer and the crime boss of 'Old Detroit'. Besides him, the police has trouble dealing with Omni Consumer Products (OCP), a company which signed a contract with the city that puts them in charge of controlling the city's security and police department. As an attempt at decreasing the city's crime rate, OCP has been developing some weapon programs – amidst which is a certain Robocop program, that would create a cyborg super cop who could easily deal with the troublesome crime rate. Luckily for them, a cop named Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) gets killed on duty, and they decide to run the prototype of the Robocop program using his dead body.

To be honest, the concept of the movie does sound a bit ridiculous (which might explain why everyone passed the opportunity of directing it), but that's exactly why Paul Verhoeven is the perfect choice for directing it. He easily manages to turn the source material upside down and create something that is, at the same time, excessively violent, funny and satirical. And in that way 'RoboCop' isn't much different from Verhoeven's 1997 underrated gem Starship Troopers. His subtle director trademarks (the commercials in the movie and the religious imagery) are precisely what makes 'RoboCop' a good movie that stands out from other/similar action movies. Furthermore, Verhoeven directing is absolutely brilliant (the scenes in which RoboCop gets revealed come to mind) and he puts just the right amount of excessive, sometimes cartoonish, violence in the movie, in order not to avoid the campiness of the movie's premise. All of this makes 'RoboCop' a very unique and enjoyable experience which wouldn't have been possible without Verhoeven.

Of course, not all of 'RoboCop' is Verhoeven's one man show. Props should be given to the people who designed the suit and to Kurtwood Smith, who plays the villain – Clarence Boddicker. His Boddicker is menacing, unpredictable and crazy, and the rule 'each film is only as good as its villain' undoubtedly works for 'RoboCop'. The only minor flaws that could be attributed to 'RoboCop' are that some of the special effects are really outdated, and that Peter Weller's role in the movie is unusually small, in spite of him being the titular character: he doesn't do much in terms of acting (more flashbacks could have helped with that problem). But I understand that some people may consider these as nitpicks. Finally, just like the old saying goes – 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Got that, Hollywood?

Rating: 8/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.com/