Noahboy

Your run-of-the-mill based-on-a-true-story comedy-drama from Ben Affleck. But I kinda dig the average Affleck flick.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

What they did with the animation in this one is almost unbelievable at 2 1/2 hours

Too dark to see, too long, too bland. She's a great singer, I'll give her that. But like most animated movies, The Little Mermaid simply doesn't work in a live-action setting; and especially if the story is fundamentally unchanged.

Really solid. Barbarian had a lot of interesting ideas, and it is genius in its structure. Very well acted. Uses a wide range of scares to keep the movie fresh as it goes along. Surprisingly funny, but the horror is shocking at moments. Try not to go in with any expectations, good or bad (do that with most movies anyway). Mild criticism aimed at the writing for two police characters, and maybe it was too silly at some points (but maybe that was kinda the point)

Yeah, this one's kinda wack. It's a movie where you want to scream at the protagonist for the stupid decisions he continues to make throughout

This movie is filled to the brim with great performances, good cinematography, unnatural dialog, and really bad directing.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good. Regardless of your opinions about Trump or Moore, you have to admit that he's a damn good filmmaker. The editing, while at times makes his opponents look dumber than they are, is pretty good most of the time. Moore's narration is also very effective, however it definitely makes the whole documentary feel very, how do I say this, like a long YouTube video. Some of the things he says in this movie are conspiracy theory-ish, and while these specific points will definitely appeal to Trump-haters, they'll most likely deter anyone who's not in the choir, if you know what I mean. Overall, if Moore's intent was to make Republicans dislike Trump, then he probably failed. However, if his goal was to convince people who are somewhat in the middle of the political spectrum, maybe he succeeded. Or, maybe he was a little too radical. I don't know. Like I said, I liked it.

Alhough a bit unfocused, The Stanford Prison Experiment has some amazing cinematography, musical composition, performances (notably Ezra Miller's), and directing.

Walking into the new Lion King, I was excited. One of my favorite childhood movies was being given the “live action” treatment, and the marketing for this film had been through the roof. However, when I left the theatre that one fateful night, I only felt disappointment, confusion, and, I have to say, rather depressed. The signs that this movie would end up being a disaster were all there: most of the trailers were shot-for-shot from the original, the Rotten Tomatoes score was, at the time, 52%, and the previous two Disney live-action remakes, Dumbo and Aladdin, were unpleasantly substandard to say the least. But this abysmal effort by the Mouse House may be the worst remake of them all, and that’s due to the main draw to this film: its visual effects. The Lion King is a 2019 American photorealistic computer-animated movie directed by Jon Favreau, and distributed and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is a remake of the 1994 2-D animated movie of the same name. Donald Glover stars as Simba, a prince lion who is exiled from the Pride Lands after his uncle, Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) kills his brother, the king (James Earl Jones), and convinces Simba that he was to fault. After reuniting with his childhood friend (Beyoncé), she persuades him to come back to the Pride and take his rightful place as king. The Lion King was announced soon after the critical and commercial success of Favreau’s The Jungle Book (2016), which used the same technology to recreate it’s CG animals, which were realistic looking and had clear facial expressions. It seems, however, that Disney thought it wasn’t realistic enough, because not a single animal in The Lion King expresses a shred of emotion. In the original, you can tell what each character is all about just by looking at the expressive animation, but every character in the remake shows the same expression the entire time. The CGI is also a detriment to the backdrops of the film. The iconic opening scene with vibrant, expressive colors and loud, african singing is replaced with a rather bland sunrise with heavily toned down colors and a much less loud and powerful rendition of the Academy Award nominated song, “The Circle of Life.” Speaking of songs… Every song in this movie is poorly executed, with the choreography being bland and repetitive, and the songs having less energy than the original. While in the original, the songs were presented with bright colors and a grand, cinematic spectacle, with animals jumping and dancing from location to location, the remake just has them walking around. Two songs in particular were especially butchered: “Be Prepared” and the Academy Award winning “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” The former was shortened down to around thirty seconds and has Scar talking in a sing-song voice, while the latter is rushed and is set during mid-day. In fact, many things seemed rushed, as the pacing in this film is erratic. While the first act seems to drag on and on, the second act seems to speed by, adding pointless side-characters that don’t get expanded upon. This makes the third act less satisfying, as we, the audience, don’t see the main character go through as much hardship. Although this film is mostly devoid of quality, there are still many things that I did like. Other than Beyoncé, whose performance is distractingly fake-sounding, the voice-work in this movie is surprisingly great, notably Seth Rogan, Billy Eichner, and Chiwetel Ejiofor who play Pumba, Timon, and Scar respectively. The sound editing is also fairly impressive, as well as the lighting, and additional scoring by Hans Zimmer. However, none of these things can even begin to save this film. The only reasons to remake a piece of entertainment are either to make it into a different language, to add your own spin on the classic tale, or to improve upon the original. The Lion King does none of these things. It’s still in english, almost every plot-point is the exact same, and the flaws of the original are still present. Three more live action remakes are on the way: Maleficent 2, Lady and the Tramp, and Mulan. While my expectations are low, I still have a shimmer of hope that they’ll at least be better than this. 3.5/10

Some mediocre sound editing and some jokes that go on for too long can be completely forgiven by the amount of effort that went into the visual gags, the score, some of the directing, the acting, the production design, and especially the cinematography. 8.5/10

Oh this film's fine. I mean, it's not good, but don't know why everyone's so worked up abou... HOLY ****!

At least it's not as bad as Gods Not Dead. That's about the only compliment I can give it.

Poorly lit and abysmal, this propaganda film is just as bad as the ones that came before it, and the ones that will come after.

This movie is the opposite of open-minded, and I think Dinesh D'Souza knows this, and his fans try to convince themselves otherwise.

It is poorly shot, is the opposite of subtle, and preaches directly to the choir rather than giving an actual recounting of events. The agenda of this movie is very clear withing the first few minutes. (I hate using the word "agenda," but there's really no other word available to describe what this movie is obviously trying to convey.) Comparing all abortion doctors to this man is straight up misleading.

This is one of the worst written movies that I've ever seen. The are so many plots going on simultaneously, and many of them don't matter. I'm not sure the actors in this film are bad or if it's the script, but nothing anyone said felt natural. Just give this awful piece of garbage a pass. I wouldn't neccesarily give it a 0/10, but something just above that.

An amazingly dark take on the superhero genre that Snyder somehow couldn't replicate in his DC films.

It's better than the other two, but it still fails to not preach to the choir, causing it to end up isolating non-Protestants.

The Emoji Movie (2017): Dull, unfunny, unoriginal, and a waste of time, this "meh"vie isn't worth your brain cells.

A very weird yet interesting film about the horrors of greed, power, and the meat industry.

Gravity (2013): A breathtaking film with some of the best sound design and one of the most suspenseful scores in cinema, not to mention to jaw-dropping visual effects and incredibly realistic physics. (Although one scene in particular comes across as distractingly dumb and preventable, as well as not making sense.) The cinematography is also a standout, with many scenes last minutes without a single cut, and the directing is phenomenal. This is one of the best movies of the twenty-first century, and it is a definite must-see.

Although it has an interesting premise, X-Men Origins has awful CGI, writing, and characters.

I wasn't planning on how much this movie would ****, but by the two minute mark, I wanted to abort the mission that is watching this film.

Mind-numbingly stupid and in your face, God's Not Dead aims for saying, "All other religions or beliefs are bad, but our's is perfect!" The drama also will leave you screaming, "Who gives a ****!"

Although there is amazing visual effects and acting, this movie has so many plot holes and is so crowded, that it becomes too distracting to ignore.

It's dumb and half of the jokes don't land well, but it's surprisingly creative and not as bad as it looks. That doesn't make it good, but it makes it bearable.

Iron Man 3 (2013): An odd screenplay and forgettable score doesn't slow down this spectacularly directed film that has amazing visual effects, impressive action sequences, surprisingly good acting, and a third act that doesn't ****.

Detective Pikachu (2019): This movie is very average, but most people who are familiar with Pokemon will probably like it. The world-building in this film is great, and you can actually believe that this setting is real. Another aspect of the film that helps with the immersion is the fantastic CGI, and the great character design. The way the light interacts with the hairs on Pikachu is probably the best I've ever seen. But, other than Ryan Reynolds's amusing voice performance, the acting is horrible, namely Katherine Newton's performance, and it takes you right out of the movie. The plot is also very standard and has been done a million times before, and the movie overall is very predictable, and the twist was pretty dumb. Video game movies have a long way to go, but I can say this is the first one that I've seen that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The Happening (2008): With horrible directing, writing, acting, and characters, The Happening ends up being a complete, laugh-out-loud disaster from beginning to end. The writing and acting work hand-in-hand to produce some of the worst line delivery in cinematic history. Another fault in the writing is the way the twist is presented: the movie tells you the twist about twenty minutes in, and it ruins the rest of the already ruined story. The characters are also awful, and many of them are either stupid, pointless, confusing, or all. There is a scene where a group of people are driving in a car. They notice that there are dead people up ahead, so they decide to close all of the windows as to not let any of the deadly gas into their car. One of the characters notices a hole in the top of the car, and instead of plugging it up, he asks one of the other people in the car a math question; it's literally the most stupid thing I've ever seen in a horror movie. Other characters are pointlessly creepy with no payoff or reason, or have weird obsessions with dumb things that have no relation to the plot. On top of the awful screenplay and characters, there are many pointless monologues, baffling directorial decisions that are almost indescribable, few good shots, odd cinematography, and the overall quality of a TV movie.

Toy Story 3 (2010): Sweet, refreshing, and surprisingly dark, Toy Story 3 brings another great, albeit less well written installment in this series. It starts with Andy playing with his toys through the eyes of his imagination. While this scene is good and a nice homage to the first film, it fails to trump Toy Story 2's visually creative and memorable opening. Years later, after Andy puts all if his toys other than Woody into a bag in front of the attic door, the plot is set in motion when Andy's mom mistakenly thinks that the toys are trash after the attic door just happened to close on its own. This ends up being a problem with the movie: things just happen with no explanation or character involvement. There just happens to be an inside window open in the daycare, and Mrs. Potato Head's eye just happens to work when the plot needs it to. It's okay for this to happen once or twice in a movie, but when there's a kite on the center of the roof of daycare for Woody to use, it become unrealistically ideal. But, other than that, the movie is outstanding. The characters in the movie are some of the best in animation, with both Woody and Andy containing basically the same character arc throughout: learning to say goodbye. The characters are also wonderfully voice-acted. It has a beautiful score by Randy Newman that enhances every scene, especially Lotso's origin, the incinerator scene and that tear-jerking ending. But, the highlight of this film is its animation, which holds up today just as well as it did back when it was released. Overall, while the screenplay is just okay, everything else about Toy Story 3 is spectacular from beginning to end.

Toy Story 2 (1999): The animation is great, the twist villian is surprising, it expands the world, and it introduces many new characters; a stark improvement over it's predecessor.

Toy Story (1995): While the villian didn't really do anything wrong (as he didn't know toys were alive), Buzz pretending to be a toy doesn't make sense, and the animation doesn't hold up, this movie is heartwarming, funny, and entertaining for all ages.

Cloverfield Paradox (2018): This movie is really, really bad. Things just happen for seemingly no reason, and nothing makes any sense. I can't say much more about such an unenjoyably dumb movie other than that the plot is really messy.

Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile (2019): Although there are plenty of narrative missteps, the production design is a bit generic, and the script is far from perfect, Zac Efron gives a spectacular and somehow likeable performance in this chilling, impeccably directed film.

A revolutionary and flawless film, with outstanding directing, writing, and acting.

Dumbo (2019): This movie tries way too hard to bring a "serious" story about an elephant that flies. For some reason the king of style over substance, Tim Burton, thought that an over-reliance on CGI and poor child acting would help.

Aladdin (2019): While the first half is just a shot-for-shot recreation of the original, and it fails to create any sort of chemistry between the two leads, it still is mildly entertaining, and the cinematography is surprisingly great. But, the second half is where this movie takes a full dive into stupidity: it becomes a cliched mess, the pacing becomes extremely inconsistent, the cinematography becomes bland, the dance choreography is generic, and it "overstays it's welcome" pretty hard. However, there were some surprises: Will Smith, Naomi Scott, and Marwan Kenzari who play the Genie, Jasmin, and Jafar respectively, actually bring great performances.

One of the most predictable and disconnected movies I've ever seen. The performances are a mixed bag, though.

A Dog's Journey (2019): Manipulative and predictable, A Dog's Journey is not a fun watch. Although it starts out okay, as the story progresses it becomes more and more clichéd and annoying, doing the "child pretends to be parent over the phone," and the "obvious future love interest starts out as childhood friend" clichés. The story seems to repeat itself when there are two jerk-boyfriend sequences, and both ending fairly unsatisfying. I also felt a disconnect from any of the death scenes, as they never felt permanent, even if they were. Other than the screenplay problems, which also contains adults acting like children and a pointless cancer scene, the cinematography is average, the aging effects look awful, and the acting from Henry Lau and voice performance from Josh Gad are awful, although it may due to the lackluster script. Even though it's occasionally cute, with the opening and Boss Dog sequences being great and full of emotion, the overall story is hollow, forgettable, and riddled with things you've seen a million times before.

Perfect production design, cinematography, and directing, while there are little flaws like scenes going on for a tad too long.

An amazing example of tension-building, sound mixing, improvisation, and editing.

A few pacing issues can't stop this impeccably acted, directed, and shot film!

A beautiful and realistic portrayal of growing up as a poor, LGBT, African-American.

D'Souza has a complete disregard for political history; he resorts to cherry-picking worse than Fox and MSNBC combined.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The story is flawless in every way possible. The acting is pretty good. The editing is pretty good. The character-development is spectacular. Nothing bad to say about it. It's the only non-documentary movie I would give a 10/10.

This film must be the best April Fools joke I've ever endulged in. Nonetheless, 'tis garbage.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]