How To Movie - NextScorsese Reviews.

My personal review thread.

Reviews in order.

Kubo and the Two Strings. (2016)
Ben-Hur (2016)
The Disappointments Room (2016)
Snowden (2016)
Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

The newest film from animation company Laikia.

The film centers around a young boy named Kubo who lives in a cave with his mother. Kubo makes money in town by using magic to tell stories with origami figures. But one night, Kubo is forced to flee his village due to circumstances I don't wish to spoil, and he is forced into an adventure to find the three pieces of his fathers armor, which will help him stop an evil force. He is accompanied by a monkey and a samurai beetle on the adventure of a lifetime.

MY GOD THIS MOVIE IS FREAKING AMAZING!

I would like to start with thanking the MPAA for not being pansies for once. This film is rated PG, and it's real PG. There was a moment in this film sent a real cold shiver down my spine, so be ready for that if you plan to take a child to the film.

I guess I'll start with this, the characters were really good. Kubo, while simple at times, feels like a real kid and a likable one at that. He's learning ways to take care of himself and his mother in his own way. and when he's faced with danger for the first time, he doesn't act like an idiot, he runs.
And there's Beetle, who was more or less the comic relief character. Take notes people, this is how you do a comic relief character. He was funny, but still very helpful and not annoying in the slightest.
And we have Monkey, who kind of stole the show for me. While Beetle is the comic relief character, Monkey has a lot of really good lines as well. But she is more of the no nonsense get stuff done person in the group, but she's never overbearing and she doesn't try and make things less fun. And there is a twist involving her that I didn't' see coming that adds an entire layer of complexity to her character.

The animation is beyond beautiful. This is quite possibly the best stop motion animation I've ever seen in my life, and it fuses so well with the bits of CG animation throughout. The characters move so naturally and fluidly that it adds to the illusion that they're really alive.

This film also has some really exciting action, I have never seen such good action in an animated film in a long time.

Literally, the only flaw I have with the movie is that the villains over all motivation is kind of weak, however, he still does have motivation, so that's something.

What else can I say about this film, the story was very well told, I legitimately didn't foresee plot developments, I wanted to know more about the world they were in, I wanted to know what happened to the characters, and I had an all around fun time with this movie.

Ben Hur (2016)

Ben Hur is the third remake of the 1925 classic, it was remade first in 59. I hold the 59 version as one of the all time great epics. Does this remake live up to that title, lets see.

So the plot centers around the prince Ben Hur and hiis adopted brother Messala. When Messala becomes a general in the Roman army, he falsely accuses Ben Hur of treason for his Jewish heritage. Ben Hur is then seperated for his wife and must spend years working as a slave. But through fate and a series of spoilers and stupid events, the Ben Hur fights for revenge against his brother in the chariot arena.

I guess I'll just start with what I liked.

The acting in the movie is surprisingly passable, with one exception I'll talk about in the negatives. Toby Kebbell was the "standout" performance in the film, as in he was good while everyone else was okay.

The very first action sequence is really well done, it's intense, you can make out whats going on, they mix the CGI with practical effects pretty well. And the sound design made the battle feel huge.

And now for the negatives.

Remember the one performance that I mentioned that was bad, yeah, it's Morgan Freeman. The best actor in this movie gave the worst performance, he didn't try at all. You could easily see on his face that he did not want to be there and that he just wanted a paycheck. And his character is supposed to have an accent, no accent, just Freemans usual monotone that doesn't work for this film like it does with his other ones. Throw in a really bad dread lock wig that makes Battlefield Earth's wigs look decent, and you have this Razzie worthy performance.

And the action after the first battle scene goes completely down hill. I'll give the movie credit for using practical effects instead of CGI, but the cinematography and the camera work are abysmal. I looked like the director was trying to use both Paul Greengrasse's and George Miller's action styles and combine them, and it doesn't work at all. There is far to much shaky cam that doesn't know how to keep focus, and even if it did, there are way to many edits to comprehend whats going on.

And now the story, for the most part, it's the same as the originals, only in this one, they're focusing much more on the revenge aspect and not the character of Ben Hur. For the most part, I'm actually fine with that, they're doing something sort of different with a classic tale, that's fine. But what makes me mad, is the ending. It is one of the laziest, most rushed ending I've ever seen in my life.



So long story short, the movie started as just bad with a one or two good moments, but those good moments are over shadowed by the laziest ending in human history, and thats what makes it truly awful

Okay, the spoiler wrap isn't working for me, so here is the horrible ending.

SPOILERS!

[spoilers= So after Jesus is crucified, his blood mixes with the rain and cures Ben Hur's mother and sister of their leprosy, okay, fine. But then, Messala is facing Ben Hur and his family ready to kill them. But get this, basically, they tell Messala to stop and he does, just like that, all is forgiven. No grudges held from anyone, all is forgiven in two seconds. They then all skip off into the sunset and Freeman's unaccented voice narrates them out as it fades to white. ARE YOU KIDDING! There was zero transition into forgiveness, everything is happy at the drop of a button.[/SPOILERS]

The Disappointment's Room (2016)
(I know, and it's too easy.)

The film centers around a family that moves into a new house and find that a certain room in the house has a tragic history. (That's all the plot the movie decides to give.)

With most bad films, they still at the very least have some form of plot and or story, they usually have a clear beginning, middle, and end. But the Disappointment's Room feels like an hour and a half long first act. They set up multiple plot threads that just kind of end as soon as they start, I can't recall a single scene that really went anywhere. And on top of that, the movie just kind of ends, after literally nothing happens.

Kate Beckinsale gives her usual performance, she's just kind of there and looks hot, riveting. Her character is an "architect", and the movies understanding is that architecture involves looking a blueprints and saying "hm", I counted, and there is five solid minutes of her just looking at blueprints. And her husband, oh my god, her husband. Imagine if Garey Busey got his balls chopped off, his jaw paralyzed, and he was always squinting, that's the performance of the husband. And you want to know how likeable a character he is, I'll show you with a direct quote from the film, "My job is to play Xbox, take naps, and watch my wife work.", dick.

For a film called The Disappointments Room, there isn't much of the room in the film, and that's where most of the "scares" comes from. They don't even really try to scare you all that much, it's mostly Beckinsale looking around the house or at Blueprints, or the husband being a bum. This is one of the least scary horror films I've seen in my life, and given what I've seen,
that's

saying

something.


There honestly isn't a whole lot for me to say. The Disappointments Room is a truly abysmal piece of sh*t. It is without a doubt one of the worst "movies" I've seen in a very long time, I don't even think I can call it a movie, not a positive thing I can say about it.
Even taking the Disappointments out of the title wouldn't help. (Think about it.)

Snowden (2016)

Oliver Stone's latest film tells the real life story of Edward Snowden, a man who leaked secret government files and let the world know that the NSA was watching them.

It makes me sad to see how hit or miss Oliver Stone's films can be now a days. He used to be one of the greats, and is still considered one by many people. So is this a return to fame, or is this another Alexander or Savages, lets find out.

So to start, without a doubt the best thing about this movie is the Joseph Gordon Levitt. I don't think they could have found a more spot on actor to play this man. And this is easily the best performance that he has ever given, he looks almost exactly like him, and his voice work is phenomenal, listen to Snowden on interviews, it's actually almost impossible to tell the two apart. This is one of the best performances in a Stone film, I hold it up with Tom Cruise in Born of the Fourth of July and Michael Douglas in Wall Street.

The rest of the actors are fine, they all do their part well enough, but then they're held next to Levitt's performance witch kind of makes them seem less impressive.

The writing in this film is pretty decent, it takes some stuff that could come off to some as pretty complicated, and makes it, I don't want to say simple because it's not simple at all, just less complicated. And I don't think it stomps on peoples opinions, it doesn't exactly say that what Snowden did was right or wrong, it shows you the evidence and lets you form your own opinion.

The films most glaring issues are sadly with Oliver Stone's direction, there are multiple moments throughout the film where the pacing was a glaring issue, I feel like they spent to much time on some subjects and not enough on others, and at many points it really shows and I felt the film suffer for it.

I also think that the tone of the movie was kind of off. This movie should have been focused on realism like Platoon or Born of the Fourth of July, but I feel like Stone was trying to make a Paul Greengrasse film at times. He focuses to much on making it like a movie and not like a real life story.

Overall, I think the film is passable, despite of the glaring problems with the directing and pacing, I feel the film does what Snowden did justice, and still lets you form your own opinion. But I would recommend this film almost solely for Joseph Gordon Levitt's powerhouse performance, I'm not joking, this is some Oscar worthy stuff, and as of now, he would have my vote for best actor. But in the end, I think I would still just suggest watching the Citizenfour documentary.

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg collaborate once again to tell the story of the crew of the oceanic oil rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and killed many of the oil crew in 2010.

The last film the Wahlberg and Berg made together was Lone Survivor, and while I did like that movie a lot, I had a huge problem with Bergs directing style, it felt like he was trying to make a movie, not tell the story of brave men who tragically died. But that leads to what I think is the best part of this movie, Peter Berg's direction.

I love seeing directors learn from their mistakes, and under his direction, there was never a single moment that felt like a "movie moment". I felt like I was on board the rig the entire time, it felt really realistic. It actually felt like he was telling a true story through a movie this time. He also shows what is at stake the entire time. You see that the characters have families, and that these families are real people and we feel the fear that they feel when they see what's happening.

The film is also really well written. There isn't a whole lot of dialogue, but just like in the Martian, it takes things that are pretty complicated, and makes it simple enough to understand them easily.

The "action" sequences (parts where stuff blows up), are also really well done. But that should be expected from a Berg film, even in a film as stupid as Battleship, the action was still exciting. And once again, it does a great job of putting you on the rig. If you look at the news reports, it looks like it's just on fire, but no, there are explosions, rooms drowning in oil, and the rig itself is sinking into the ocean, it's scary intense.

Now, the acting, not a bad performance in sight. Especially from Wahlberg, this is quite possibly his greatest performance since The Departed. I could possibly see an Oscar nomination for him this year. (He wouldn't beat Levitt in Snowden though).

There is one downside to this film, the story editing. While the continuity is fine, the film jumps around between the rig and land rather abruptly sometimes, I don't mind switching locations in this film, but it's just completely out of now where and it's super jarring.

I'm glad you liked Kubo and the Two Strings, I really wanted to watch the film, when I went to my local theater, it wasn't playing, and when I checked at the adjacent, less local theaters, it wasn't playing either. As a strong support of the stop-motion genre, I wanted this film to do well at the box-office. Unfortunately, the film's hefty 60 million dollar budget (same as the rest of Laika's) has no chance of being recouped. The only saving grace is Laika's owner has a lot of Nike money to keep itself afloat.

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

The prequel to (in my opinion) one of the worst horror films in recent years. Is it as bad as the first, is it even worse, or is it, better?

The plot centers around a family that scams people into thinking that they can communicate with the dead, and will help them get closure with passed loved ones for a price. This goes bad when they decide to use a Ouija board in one of their scams and they accidentally awaken an evil spirit that haunts the family.

So I was not looking forward to seeing this film, in fact, the only reason I saw it was because my sister was home from college over the weekend and it was the only movie she wanted to see. So you can imagine that going in, I was ready to rip this film a new one, but then something peculiar started to happen, I started to like it.

First off, the performances are top notch for a horror film, especially in this today. While everyone in this film is good, the youngest girl in this film, holy sh*t. If I had to choose this years Oscar for best supporting actress, it would go to this girl, Alexis G. Zall, you are going places. I never thought I would say this, but she is actually on par with Linda Blair in The Exorcist, yeah, that's the kind of performance this is.

And Mike Flanagan's direction of the horror is brilliant. Everything is very well paced and shot, and not to mention, there wasn't a single cheap jump-scare in the film. Every scare was built up and payed off fantastically. He also frames the film very nicely, it was never obvious when something scary was about to happen, there are multiple details in the background that add to the atmosphere. And to add to the tension, he never used the music to scare us, whenever something scary was on the screen, the music didn't jump, they just hold on a scary image and really let in sink in to the point of maximum scariness. That also plays into the films editing, no shot is held to long, it all ends precisely when it needs to.

There are also a lot of really cool Easter Eggs to lovers of old cinema. the film is set in the 1960's, so they had the 60's Universal logo at the beginning of the film. There are even reel bounces, and even "cigar burns" for the projectionist.


The film does have one major flaw, the characters. While not terrible, annoying or unlikable, they are just beyond forgettable and boring. While I didn't want them to die, I didn't really care if they made it through the safely, with the exception of the little girl. They do actually try to add character but it's just not that interesting, and when I'm not invested in the slightest with the characters, I'm not really invested in what they're going through.

So, this might just be the greatest prequel/sequel/spin-off. of all time, as in, it took one of the worst horror films I've ever seen in my entire life and actually made one of the best horror films in recent years. I think it's safe to call that an improvement. This is one of the scariest films I've seen in years with great direction, good performances, and great understanding of the horror genre, all of these manage to over-shine it's almost complete lack of investing characters.

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