Some of the movies I've caught the past few days. I took some time off to have a mini vacation in Chicago this weekend, so I had the opportunity to see quite a few.
The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie (2014)
I've been a fan of this guy since I started browsing Youtube, so it was awesome being able to see his character on the big screen. Practical special effects, video game references, over the top performances, campy humor, and a bunch of cameos. A really fun movie. One of my favorite theater experiences, the whole theater was packed, and everyone was laughing, and cheering the whole time. I never get to go to this kind of stuff in the theater, I love it!
Magic In The Moonlight (2014)
It started out alright, the build up to introducing Emma Stone's character had me kind of interested.Colin Firth plays a fine grump, but if you've watched a lot of Allen's films, you pretty much know this guy. Stone's character was pretty bland, her only interesting trait was her "powers." Once the romance between the two starts building, it gets really boring, lots of scenes go on for too long, most of which just involve the characters aimlessly pondering about a relationship that personally I didn't even see. At least most of Allen's comedies I would deem as just OK gave me some light, mostly frequent belly laughs, like
Scoop, or
Curse of The Jade Scorpion. Not this one.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Didn't plan on seeing this one, but I got stuck in a parking garage due to the amount of people trying to get out at one time, so yeah. I'm not an ultra TMNT fan, I like the first two live action movies, but have never gotten into any of the animated series, even though I would like to. I expected good dumb fun, but that was definitely not present. The movie just had such a overly serious tone, but mixed in with the goofy Ninja Turtles, which mixed horribly, especially when the turtle's new ugly designs don't fit their personalities at all.
The camera work was disorienting, most of it looked like someone was spinning around in an office chair with an unfocused camera right in front of everyone's faces most of the time. Some of the action sequences were kind of cool, mostly involving Shredder (who was a metal mess, but still kind of looked cool,) and Splinter, the worst example of CG in the movie, but I have to admit, did kick some ass. But surprisingly, that doesn't happen often. You have to listen to exposition focused on an origin story that's been told in the series more than I can count. The human characters were all bland. All of them. Plot? Barely there. Forced throwbacks to the old series,fart jokes, ass jokes, boob jokes, etc. It's all pretty bad.