Optimus Reviews

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-11-15

Christian Bale is really talented but he's stuck in a rut at the moment. He's always shouting and using that husky batman voice and it annoys the hell out of me. He was great in The Fighter aswell tho.

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Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-12-15

Has anyone seen American Psycho 2?. And if so is it worth watching.

Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-27-15

Death Race
Directed By: Paul W.S Anderson

I've never seen Death Race 2000 so this movie was all new to me. I've seen this movie on the tv numerous times lately but I've never given it ago until last night. I dunno, I always got the impression it was a cheap looking movie like one of those straight to dvd movies you see on sale in your local dvd store. The movie stars Jason Statham who I actually quite like. I've enjoyed some of his movies in the past like Snatch, The Transporter, even Crank was entertaining ( but still pretty sh**). He's also one of The Expendables and one of today's big action movie stars...but with a hairy chest and a bald head of course. Damn how our action movie stars have changed over the years. Anyways, he's a pretty good actor so I finally decided to give Death Race a shot. My verdict... It was actually pretty entertaining.

Movie Trivia: Originally written as a sequel to Death Race 2000 (1975) titled Death Race 3000, a race around the world with futuristic hovering, invisible and transformer cars, but had to be rewritten due to production costs.

Joan Allen was the production's first choice to play the female warden. Much to Paul W.S. Anderson's surprise, Allen was just as keen to do the film, wanting to shake up her image.

David Carradine, who starred in the original Death Race 2000 (1975) plays the voice of Frankenstein in the opening scene.

Jason Statham trained so hard for the role that he went from 20% body fat to 6%. It took him 3 months to do so.

That's a real scar on Natalie Martinez's face, the result of a childhood accident.

To get into fighting shape, Jason Statham trained for months with an ex-Navy SEAL, one of the key trainers who built the Spartans of 300 (2006).

The thing I enjoyed the most about Death Race was it's violence. It doesn't hold back on anything and some scenes are actually very brutal. Don't let that put you off tho, Death Race is a very fun movie with some crazy cars, cool races, and some wacky characters. Characters with names like Frankenstein, Machine Gun Joe, and The Grim Reaper all add to what feels like a movie/video game, which I wanted to take control of and play along with. Death Race does have it's cheap thrills amongst all the glorious action. It's full of bad dialogue and cheesy scenes which you can expect from a movie like this. And it also has some bad performances especially from Tyrese Gibson. But it really doesn't matter because the madness takes over and the fun kicks in.

Overall Death Race was surprisingly good. It's not deserving of any awards but it is what it is, and that's fun. It has loads of cool action, crazy car races, and is a wacky cross between a prison movie, and a fast and furious movie, so what's not to like. Ime currently adding Death Race 2000 to make watch list so I can see what the original was like. It should be interesting to see how I feel about it having watched the remake first. So all that left to say is "Release The Dreadnaught".

Last edited by Optimus; 02-12-16 at 09:16 AM.

Gatsby

Msg

Master of My Domain

03-27-15

Originally Posted by Optimus

Has anyone seen American Psycho 2?. And if so is it worth watching.

No, it's not.

And you said you haven't seen the original Death Race 2000, we'll the remake and the original is pretty much the same quality. Although a particular someone might disagree.

Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-27-15

I always thought the original was more superior from what I've read. I'll still give it a shot and see what I think.

The Sci-Fi Slob

BANNED

03-27-15

Death Race is 2.5/3 stars for me. Popcorn action fun with cars and Jason Statham-Brando.

honeykid

MoFo Whisperer

03-27-15

Originally Posted by Gatsby

No, it's not.

And you said you haven't seen the original Death Race 2000, we'll the remake and the original is pretty much the same quality. Although a particular someone might disagree.

Indeed that particular person does disagree.

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Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-27-15

Originally Posted by honeykid

Indeed that particular person does disagree.

I had a feeling it would be you

honeykid

MoFo Whisperer

03-27-15

It usually is.

Captain Spaulding

Defending Champ

03-27-15

Very good reviews, Optimus. As others have noted, you have a real knack when it comes to formatting.

Iron Man is my favorite Marvel movie. When it comes to superhero films, my friends usually prefer the sequels because they boast more action and more villains. I'm the opposite. I usually prefer the first movies because telling an origin story requires much more emphasis on character development. Iron Man is a perfect example.

I had never heard of Starred Up until recently, but it's gotten a lot of praise and popped up on a lot of best-of-the-year lists. I watched the trailer that you shared. Some of the adjectives thrown its way -- "brutal," "poetically violent," etc.-- bode well for my potential enjoyment.

Big Hero 6 looks like a fun, harmless movie. I'm surprised it won the Oscar this year for Best Animated Film. Hopefully I like it more than you, but I doubt I'll love it.

Judging by some of your favorites, if anyone was going to like Exodus, it would be you, so your negative reaction must mean the movie really sucks. I don't think I've read a single positive thing about it, which is disappointing, because I was genuinely looking forward to it.

American Psycho is okay. I like the dark humor and Bale's performance, but I'm not overly fond of the movie as a whole. I seem to be in the minority, though, because lots of people love it.

Your thoughts on Death Race echo my own, even though I'd rate it a full popcorn less. I haven't seen the original, either, but the remake was entertaining. I rented the direct-to-video sequel, too, but it was pretty poor.

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Letterboxd

False Writer

NJPW: King of Sports

03-27-15

Originally Posted by Optimus

Just a mini review next of Disney's Big Hero 6. I'll be posting both mini and detailed reviews in this thread.

Big Hero 6
Directed By: Don Hall, Chris Williams

I managed to catch Big Hero 6 over the weekend and I was left feeling quite disappointed. Ime a big fan of animated movies, there fun for everyone and normally have some great characters. But that just wasn't the case here. Sure I enjoyed Baymax, but the rest of the characters are very weak. There is no development at all and they left feeling like pawn pieces in the background. Big Hero 6 is not a bad movie by any means, but I was expecting a lot more considering this was disney and a Marvel adaption.

I liked Big Hero 6, but I do agree with you that it wasn't quite on the level of the other recent Disney movies. It seemed like it was missing the things that made Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and Frozen great. I'd give it 3.5 out of 5 while I'd give the other three 4+.

Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-28-15

Thanks for the reply's guys.

And thanks for the compliment about my formatting Spaulding. I only use my iphone to post so it can be a big of a pain.

christine

Dreams is freedom

03-28-15

Enjoying your reviews Optimus - keep up the good work!
I agree with you about Christian Bale.I don't rate him that highly but he has done a few outstanding roles for which he has had a particular affinity. American Psycho was one of those.

Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-30-15

Originally Posted by christine

Agreed, he is very hit and miss. I love him in American Psycho, The Fighter and Harsh Times. I also thought he was okay in The Prestige, and Equilibrium, but in Batman trilogy he was pretty boring. He wasn't bad but I much preferred Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne.

Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-31-15

Guardians Of The Galaxy
Directed: James Gunn

Ime a huge fan of the Marvel Universe movies. Some have been fantastic, some have been average, and some have been pretty poor, but as a whole they have all been very entertaining, exciting, and pretty damn cool. One thing I would criticise about all of Marvels films as of late was that they all started becoming abit repetitive. After years of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America nothing felt fresh, or new. Everything felt pretty much the same, which ime not saying is a bad thing because those movies where great. Ime just saying Marvel needed to inject a spark into there movies and damn did they deliver with Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Movie Trivia: When Dave Bautista found out he got the role of Drax the Destroyer, he broke down in tears, overjoyed at getting a Marvel comic-book role. He immediately signed up for extra acting classes in order to prepare for the role.

Vin Diesel recorded all of his "I am Groot" lines in several different languages, including Russian, Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French so that they could use his real voice in the film around the world.

The soundtrack album "Awesome Mix, Vol. 1" reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, the first film soundtrack ever to reach number one without a single original song. It is also nominated at the 2015 GRAMMY Awards for Best Soundtrack

If ime totally honest I only seen this movie for the first time last night, so my excitement is still pretty much fresh. For the past few months people have kept telling me how good this movie was and how I needed to watch it. But the problem was the trailer did nothing for me. A talking raccoon, a living tree, and a former wwe wrestler hardly had me filling with joy. So what i did was I read some reviews on here and decided to finally give it a shot, and damn am I glad I did. Guardians Of The Galaxy is one of the most exciting movies I've seen in a long while. It's action packed, funny, emotional, and just so damn fun that I just wanted more. The talking Raccoon that put me off this movie in the first place ended up being the highlight of the movie. The former wwe wrestler that had me cringing actually had me laughing. And the Tree man that looked lame and stupid was actually a great character. The whole movie was just a complete surprise and a pleasure to watch.

Movie Trivia According to Vin Diesel, his performance as Groot helped him through a dark time in his life; he was dealing with the loss of his best friend and "Fast and Furious" co-star Paul Walker: "It was the first time I came back to dealing with human beings after dealing with death, so playing a character who celebrates life in the way Groot does was very nice."

James Gunn stated that Chris Pratt's audition was so good, that he was prepared to offer him the role even if Pratt did not lose weight and get in shape in time. Gunn joked that he was willing to CGI a six pack on Pratt's body. However, Pratt asked him to give him 6 months to lose 50 pounds and he ended up losing 60 pounds.

Overall Guardians Of The Galaxy is marvel at it's best. Great characters, great cast, and some really cool action that's looks amazing. This is certainly a movie I will be re-watching very soon and a movie that I would place is my current top 50 movies without a doubt.

Last edited by Optimus; 03-19-18 at 05:43 AM.

The Sci-Fi Slob

BANNED

03-31-15

Nice review.I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty good, and Dave Batista wasn't as bad as I thought he would be.

Optimus

"""" Hulk Smashhhh."""

03-31-15

Originally Posted by The Sci-Fi Slob

Nice review.I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty good, and Dave Batista wasn't as bad as I thought he would be.

He actually shocked me too to be honest. He's wasn't bad at all, and I actually liked his character a lot.

Sedai

A system of cells interlinked

03-31-15

I thought Guardians was decent, but also probably one of the most over-hyped flicks in recent memory for me. I would place it somewhere in the middle of the comic book movie pack, with stuff like The Dark Knight, Avengers and Winter Soldier being a tier above it, and much better, less cheesy and melodramatic films overall. IMO, of course.

Meanwhile - good work on the review!

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Captain Spaulding

Defending Champ

03-31-15

I feel like one of the only people on the planet who still hasn't seen Guardians of the Galaxy. I had similar misgivings, but it sounds like the film manages to inject some much needed fun and humor into a genre that has started taking itself too seriously. Nice review, Optimus.

Sedai