Dafster

Not the sort of movie that's likely to score well with critics (for some reason, crtics often can't seem to enjoy anything that's remotely vanilla; if it's not profound, it's no good apparently), but in my opinion, it was a blast. It's weird to think now that when the trailer first launched soon after Detective Pikachu's, it very clearly paled in comparison and people were convinced that Pokémon would come out on top. Since the redesign though, Sonic's done a complete 180 and after seeing it, I am happy to say this is frankly the best video-game-adapted movie ever. Something that became apparent to me early on was how endearing and fun not just Sonic, but every character was in their own way, including Tom and Maddie. The real show-stealer however is Jim Carrey as Robotnik. They give a bit of a backstory for his personality, and Carrey plays up the absurdity of this personality to silly extremes, which made for some of the film's highlight scenes. Sonic is also a very likeable character, despite having many jokes and quips that often don't land. Ben Schwartz does a perfect voice for him however, and Sonic's super speed makes for some great visual gags. There is one speed-related gag in particular part way through the film that made for one of the coolest comedy action sequences I've seen in recent memory; from a visual standpoint, it might even turn out to be one of my favorite sequences from a movie this year, even if it's not entirely original. As far as flaws go, I'd say there are mainly two. Firstly, Sonic's whole universe and it's mechanics (such as rings, the function they play, Sonic's speed, his back story etc) is a LOT to fit into a film that's trying to be fairly straightforward. Because of this, they don't really do a great deal to explain anything too much - they'll give you an explanation for what rings do for example, but won't explain why and just sort of expect you to accept this because it's in the games. This example didn't bother me too much, but there was another instance regarding Sonic's backstory that I thought was a little unecessary - it was just some extra lore that was never established in the games that felt a little unecessary. I understand the function it played on the overaching story, but it also bothered to introduce us to a new character who we only ever see once, and I just felt that was a bit of a waste. These issues however were only minor and didn't hinder the experience for me too much. Easily the bigger issue however was the film's runtime - although the film isn't trying to be a huge epic, it still could've benefited from an extended runtime for some more detailed character and plot development. Unfortunately the message that the film's trying to bring up about "loneliness" really didn't have much of an effect on me, which was likely due to the short runtime not leaving enough room to weave any kind of profound moral messaging. I also think that the climax of the film could've felt far more epic had there been a greater buildup of ups and downs before that moment. Ultimately though, Sonic the Hedgehog is not only a good video game to film adaption, it's a GOOD MOVIE. If you're a Sonic fan, you'll enjoy it a lot and if you're not, you'll still have a lot of fun with the zany plot and characters. Yes, it's a fairly straightforward, vanilla plot but this was all this movie needed. It's also left a lot of potential for a sequel, as you realize towards the end particularly that there is a lot of this world left to explore (and if you stick around to midway through the credits, it becomes clear that the film makers likely have this in mind)

I can see how this movie wanted to mix up the usual fairy-tale aspects, and while it did have some nice ideas especially revealed towards the end, I felt as though basing it on another story rather than being completely original held back what could've been done with these ideas. That being said, Jolie was great and it is still entertaining enough. I'm giving it a 6.5.

What I like about Interstellar is that while it has your classic sciency space travel elements, unlike other space-themed movies it does not put this element at its center. It's core rather, is something much deeper - a story of a father and his daughter and their struggles of being apart. Space just happens to be one of the perfect themes for this idea and as a result, the movie is told well. I highly recommend it, as it is in no way "just another space movie".

Heaven is for Real doesn't try and apologize for what it is. It's a story that says: "Whether you believe this or not, here it is". As far as the structure of the movie itself went, it started off quite fast paced and seemed to rush quickly through a lot of the parts that were more drawn-out in the book. An example is when Colton goes to hospital - in the book, this was told in much more detail, and showed the gradual increase in Colton's sickness, right up to the point where Colton goes to hospital. In the movie however, the hospital scene seems to come out of no where and is rushed through extremely quickly, creating much less of an impact compared to if there was more of an emphasis here. I can say though, where the film lacked here, it made up for in the scenes with Colton's descriptions about Heaven. These scenes were some of the highlights of the film, and they just seemed to flow better in the way that they occurred compared to the book which felt more like a ton of questions and answers (To be fair though, they were very interesting questions and answers). One thing that I also liked more about the movie than the book, was that it really showed the families struggles going through hard times with the Church. Colton's sudden descriptions of Heaven really fitted well with this idea as well. Overall, the Christian themes and values in the movie were something that everyone, Christian or not, should be able to relate to, and the story is one that I hope people will feel encouraged by, Christian or not, and for that reason, I recommend this movie to everyone.

This movie is difficult to rate, I've never seen anything quite like it before. From watching the trailers, I thought "Okay, I guess this is one of those horror movies made scarier by having a happy context", but after watching, I realized that it's not your standard horror film, even for what I just mentioned. I guess I'd still classify it as a horror (even though it's not technically that scary), but a very different type of horror. I can at least say, it's quite a different movie, definitely unique, and overall, quite stressing but in a way that's intriguing. I honestly don't know how I'm going to rate this, it's one of those movies that you just have to watch for yourself, but I'll give it a 7 anyway.

A cleverly made movie depicting what the end of the world could be like. It has you hanging on all the way through, though the second time I watched this, it wasn't as enjoyable as I already knew what was going to happen. The movie relies heavily on suspense, but at the same time, the plot line's quite clever

Being a prequel to "The Wizard of Oz" (Which, by the way, is the most critically acclaimed movie on all of Metacritic), people probably had high expectations for this movie. Because it wasn't amazing, I think that many people are under-rating it. It's still good and as far as a prequel goes, I thought they did a good job. While at times they add that "Disney Magic" which as much of an inner child I am does slightly annoy me, the story line works well. The visual effects aren't exactly Avatar standard, but they don't stoop as low as "Spy Kids: Game Over" either. For the movie that it was, I thought the visual effects were reasonable. Overall, it's not the most amazing movie you'll ever see, but it's still enjoyable.

Pacific Rim is a solid sci-fi film that mightn't stand out from the rest but at the same time is not the same thing you've seen a million times. Although the flow of the film suffers a bit, it makes up for it with memorable characters, creative ideas and an interesting plot. The acting is fairly good and the special effects are no less than amazing. It's not revolutionary, nor is it incredible, but it's not a failure either. It's worth seeing if you like the look of the trailer, if you don't however, you may still find that you like the characters, otherwise the trailer sums up most of what to expect. In short: Solid movie, not amazing, but not terrible either. 7/10 from me.

The reason that I orignally wanted to see this movie, was because it was about video game characters in a games arcade and it featured many cameos from famous game icons. After seeing this film, I can say that it had all of that and more. Having 'Sonic the Hedgehog' appear more than three times in a movie already makes it awesome for me and there's plenty of fan service for everyone else too, ranging from 'Super Street Fighter' to 'Pacman'. There's just so much attention to detail, from the way some characters movements have an extremely low frame-rate like in some retro video-game, to a scene where Ralph pulls out of a sink a 'Super Mario' mushroom, an exlamation mark from 'Metal Gear Solid' and Zangief of 'Super Street-Fighter's unerwear. There are so many other scenes and aspects to the movie that have so much attention in the detail more so than any other movie that revolves around video games would, so I won't spoil it for you by saying any more about this (Besides, if I told you about every detail and reference to real video games in this movie, you'd be reading this for hours, anyway.) So they've definetely got the video-games side of this movie right, but what about the plot. Well, I know a bad guy who is looking to be good to be "wreck-ognized" isn't exactly the most original plot. While I haven't seen any movies that have actually used this plot before, I am sure it has been done and it also feels like the typical type of Disney plot. But to be honest, this did not disappoint me. You may think that this is because the video-game elements would distract you from the not-so-original plot, but I have to say, that isn't all. The reason the plot didn't bother me is because it was interpreted so well. Of course an animated movie revolving around video-games is quite a new thing, so this does not feel old. But the plot is just done so well at the same time. I cannot explain exactly how it does it, all I can really say is that you should definetely consider seeing it. If you play video games, don't even consider it. Just see it without question. And if you don't play video-games, the storyline is enough to make this movie worth seeing. I would give this a 9/10, but Metacritic only allow whole numbers, so I'll give it a 10. But to be honest, I have no problem giving it a 10. See it.

When I saw the trailer for this, the only things that really drew me in were how the Coldplay music and drums were synchronised with the titles and how pretty the water looked under the night sky and sunset. After seeing this, I can say that there is so much more to it that I enjoyed! The first half hour was fairly slow paced as it was all about Pi's back-story. Through this part I was thinking "Gee, they're taking some time with this, I wonder when it's going to really start, will they even have enough time for the main parts?" Well after that half hour, it definitely made up for the slow start - it just got better as it went on! When I saw the trailer, I was wondering how they were going to make the majority of the movie on a life boat out at say without getting boring after a while, but it turned out that I enjoyed every second of it! And it somehow gets even better towards the final 45 minutes or so. I highly recommend this - a lot of it can be evoke emotions and is quite deep. When I walked out, I was thinking: "Wow. That's the best movie I've seen in AGES." I can easily recommend this, the only thing that's stopping from giving it an 8.5 is that...Metacritic doesn't allow 0.5 after any number. Go see it! It IS incredible!

At first I thought this was a pretty good movie with some great special effects and I thought it would have a really in depth storyline. After a while though, I noticed the acting wasn't the best and just when I'd gotten over that then the credits started rolling. They came much too soon to the point where you wonder whether the company had a time limit and had just run out. It's not as bad as some people are saying it is, but personally I just couldn't get over the abrupt ending.