Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[tweetygirl0606]

Saw Divergent last Friday...I liked it. Found out later there was based on a book (3 actually). I ordered the first book..just waiting for it to arrive

[srboone]

Big movie weekend for me:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Of all the Avenger novies, I like the two CA movies the best. They rely on old-fashioned action formulas with as little CGI as they can get away with. CATWS isn't as slick as the first film, but it does a few of things better, such as character development and story plotting. I liked the efficient brutality of the fight scenes and I loved Nick Fury's expanded role in this film. And the CA films don't involve mechanical insects from other dimensions.

4.5/5

Draft Day: This fim is really for fans of sports stats. For those of us who aren't, it's reasonably entertaining, though this aint Moneyball. The story takes place in a 24-hour period on NFL draft day. The females are just distractions as their subplots go nowhere.

3/5

God's Not Dead: Heavy-handed and predictable melodrama that preaches to the choir (of which I am a part). The supporting characters are more interesting than the leads, as a couple of them manage to rise above the matierial and deliver fine performances. But there is a tension to some of the scenes in the movie that showed me that director Cronk knows what he's doing. Still, the biggest fault of this type of film is that it allows the soundtrack to hammer into the viewer what he/she is supposed to get out of a scene or montage.

2.5/5

[Lincoln]

Not a film, but a mini-series - 'True Detective'. Watched all eight episodes over about a week. Best series I've ever seen, just nudging out 'Breaking Bad'. The acting is superb, the location is fantastic, the plot hooked me within about 5 minutes. It oozes atmosphere, and has a really weird/menacing feel throughout.
9/10.

[srboone]

Heaven is For Real: Despite it's preachy and clunky title, this is actually a very gentle and well-written movie with fine performances by all involved. It avoids the heavy-handedness of the book (which quotes long passages from the Bible in order to prove his point), but there's no mistake as to where this movie is headed. Still, the movie remains non-judgemental in these matters. It does get a tad too literal in places, explaining in exposition what could have been left for the viewer to discover; but the soundtrack is not used to do so. That's my biggest pet peeve of this genre of film and, happily, Heaven is for Real does not fall prey to this tactic--director Randall Wallace is above this. Not really a film that needs to be seen on the big screen, but I'm glad I did.

4/5. Take away one star for those viewers who hold grudges against this genre of filmmaking (ie, IMDB and Rottentomatoes trolls).

[Sock Monkey]

Oculus: Being a fan of director Mike Flanagan's previous movie, Absentia, I was eager to see his newest effort concerning a pair of siblings deciding to destroy an evil mirror that caused the death of their parents when they were young. The movie employs a dual timeline that follows the events of the siblings youth concurrently with the present day storyline of their confrontation with the evil mirror, which could easily fall apart as we know the outcome of the earlier events from the outset of the film. It is to Flanagan's credit as co-writer, director, and editor that he is able to balance both storylines as they build to their inevitable endings.

From what I've read, this film has polarized audiences. They either love it or hate it. I find myself in the former group. Though this won't be the box office smash that The Conjuring was, I do think that over time this will movie will be recognized for what it is: a creepy, cleverly-crafted movie that plays with the minds of its audience as much as it does the characters in the film. Grade: B+

[Sock Monkey]

The Bling Ring: It's sad when the fifteen minute documentary about the actual events included as a bonus feature are more intriguing than the actual movie. Essentially, a group of teenagers break into the houses of the rich and famous--including Paris Hilton and Orlando Bloom--and steal their clothes, shoes, etc. The acting was good and Emma Watson stole every scene she was in, but the film felt disjointed and seemed to lack any momentum. Grade: C

[srboone]

The Amazing Spiderman 2: A grossly misnamed movie as the fifth outing for the Spiderman franchise is ANYTHING but amazing. Once again, in the name of trying to up the ante from the previous film, AS2 is over-plotted, over stuffed with too many villians, and overly familiar. It's at it's best in its slower segments of human interaction, which are too few in number. In the first film, what distinguished Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker from Maquire's was his twitchy ousider-ness. But now, he's become the cliched wise-cracking superhero of the comics and action movies. He's very good in the role (In fact, all the perfomances are uniformly excellent), but the screenplay writers let him down. And the CGI effects are top-notch. The giddiness of Spiderman's free fall culminating in his shooting webs and swinging through the city is exhilerating to experience, but it gets old quickly and becomes boring. (Coupled with the inanity of the action sequences, AS2's 141 min run time feels twice as long.) But as good as the CGI is, it's nothing compared to the sparks that fly when Emma Stone as the brainy bombshell Gwen Stacy is onscreen. Stone (along with Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn) is the best thing about the movie. This movie feels like Raimi's Spiderman 3, but will be compared to his Spiderman 2--which is one of the best comic book movies ever made.

A movie only a fanboy could love. Which means it will be a blockbuster and there will be an AS3.

2/5

[Teriw]

Transcendence - With the flashy action movie like teaser trailer, Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman, how can you go wrong? APPARENTLY VERY WRONG! due to the teaser trailer I went in expecting at least some semblance of an action movie, at least the kind with plot and not Michael Bay over the top, Just SOME ACTION. Instead I got a BORING AS FUCK drama about the downsides of technology. I found alot of the ideas didn't even make sense when it came down to it. I love Scifi movies and if you give me an explanation for something however ridiculous then I am okay with it but this was just stupid. JD's(I still love you) performance was bland and boring just like the rest of the movie and morgan freeman's character was just meh. Anyway I really hated this movie and it felt like it went on forever but wasn't even that long. It's not too often I feel this way about a movie. I am usually in a neutral "well it entertained me for two hours" kind of mood after a movie unless I LOVE It but this was one of those "Can I please have that two hours of my life back" Kind of movie.

[Dan Hocker]

The Amazing Spiderman 2: A grossly misnamed movie as the fifth outing for the Spiderman franchise is ANYTHING but amazing. Once again, in the name of trying to up the ante from the previous film, AS2 is over-plotted, over stuffed with too many villians, and overly familiar. It's at it's best in its slower segments of human interaction, which are too few in number. In the first film, what distinguished Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker from Maquire's was his twitchy ousider-ness. But now, he's become the cliched wise-cracking superhero of the comics and action movies. He's very good in the role (In fact, all the perfomances are uniformly excellent), but the screenplay writers let him down. And the CGI effects are top-notch. The giddiness of Spiderman's free fall culminating in his shooting webs and swinging through the city is exhilerating to experience, but it gets old quickly and becomes boring. (Coupled with the inanity of the action sequences, AS2's 141 min run time feels twice as long.) But as good as the CGI is, it's nothing compared to the sparks that fly when Emma Stone as the brainy bombshell Gwen Stacy is onscreen. Stone (along with Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn) is the best thing about the movie. This movie feels like Raimi's Spiderman 3, but will be compared to his Spiderman 2--which is one of the best comic book movies ever made.

A movie only a fanboy could love. Which means it will be a blockbuster and there will be an AS3.

2/5

Interesting. I am by no means a fanboy, never read the comics, only really watched the 90's cartoon series as a kid, but I really liked this movie a lot. Maybe it's just how much I don't like Toby Maguire, and I know I am in the minority here, but I really don't think Spiderman 2 was all that great of a movie. Overall I thought the Sam Raimi Siderman movies where alright but by no means the best comic movies ever made. I pretty much think everything about these new Spiderman movies is better than the originals.

Spoiler!

Using the spoiler tag here, not sure this is really a spoiler but didn't want to risk it. As far as the too many villans thing goes, I don't really get that. There where really only 2 villains and the second one wasn't a villain most of the movie and is really just a setup for the next movie. The 3rd villain I don't think even really counts at all as he was in the movie for all of a 2 minutes at the end again to set up for the next movie.

I am by no means a expert on movies and I judge how good I think a movie is by how much I was entertained by it. This movie pretty much hit all the marks for what I'm looking for in this type of superhero movie. All that said I'd by no means give it 5/5 but I'd probably give it a 4.

(On a side note The Dark Knight will probably hold the "Best Comic Book Movie" award from me for a long time)

[subie09lega]

I'm going tomorrow night with a group of buddies and I was a little concerned about it since I saw the trailer and it looked to me like there were too many villains (Spiderman 3 felt to villainy to me) so it's good to here it's not completely flooded by them.
My movie group has been to some recently and the ratings have been all over the board:
Noah - no one liked it
Transcendence - this one was very polarizing. I liked it but the feelings were not shared by all (see TeriW's review) - liked, meh, bored
Winter Soldier - I think the CA films are the best of the Avenger movies
Oculus - better than I expected based on some reviews I read. Certainly no The Conjuring but worth a watch
Divergent - not bad but I didn't feel like I needed to watch it again
Robocop - a pleasant surprise, very different than the original and much improved
The Monuments Men - another good one but I can see how some would be bored
Shadow Recruit - I'd watch this one again, I like the character and this was an interesting origin story. But my favorite is still The Hunt for Red October

[Tommy]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Squire on this one, I actually think he was a bit too nice, to me, the whole thing felt like a loop of scenes which should have been cut and added to a bonus section on the bluray release, It's a two hour movie but I swear it felt like 3+ hours to me, the quips make me groan at this point, words like trite, hackneyed, rote...etc come to mind, for the first time in a long time I wanted my money back

[T-Dogz_AK47]

I am going to agree with Dan. I thought this movie was highly enjoyable and definitely an improvement on the previous franchise. Most of the criticism from the last movie stemmed from the central premise being too similar to the first Tobey Maguire outing. This movie however, takes the comic hero's antics into fresh new territory and develops the backstory of Peter Parker's parents, which had previously been omitted.

Andrew Garfield is much more comfortable in the role of Spider-Man now that he has matured, and he delivers his lines with the self assured confidence and manner befitting a modern day superhero. I particularly liked the way the film-makers chose to give Spider-Man and Gwen Stacey a far more nuanced and complex relationship, with the former suffering from guilt and haunted by visions of Gwen Stacey's father, whom he had made a promise in the last movie to keep her safe.

The CGI effects in this movie are in a completely different league to the previous Tobey Maguire movies. Seeing Spider-Man web slinging through the streets of New York was an exhilarating experience especially whist watching this movie in IMAX 3D which gave these scenes added perspective. Overall, I thought this movie was a highly enjoyable instalment to the new franchise with enough thrills and suspense to satisfy most movie-goers. It also set the scene quite nicely for next movie as it delivered a perfectly judged 'slingshot' ending.

4/5

[srboone]

But the after-credit tag was awful! Not worth staying through the credits for.

And of course the CGI in AS2 was better than that of S2. There was 12 years between the two films. But the effects in Raimi's Spidey sequel were always in the service of the story, not placed just to have a spectacular CGI scene.

For me Spiderman 2 and The Dark Knight are examples of what a comic book movie should strive to be. Character-driven movies where the internal struggles of the protagonist are on equal, if not greater, footing than his/her external struggles.

If I prefer The Dark Knight to Spiderman 2, it would be because of Heath Ledger's dazzling performance. And the fact that it doesn't have a "2" in the title.

[Dan Hocker]

But the after-credit tag was awful! Not worth staying through the credits for.

And of course the CGI in AS2 was better than that of S2. There was 12 years between the two films. But the effects in Raimi's Spidey sequel were always in the service of the story, not placed just to have a spectacular CGI scene.

For me Spiderman 2 and The Dark Knight are examples of what a comic book movie should strive to be. Character-driven movies where the internal struggles of the protagonist are on equal, if not greater, footing than his/her external struggles.

If I prefer The Dark Knight to Spiderman 2, it would be because of Heath Ledger's dazzling performance. And the fact that it doesn't have a "2" in the title.

I get that, but I think for me it all still really comes down to Toby Maguire and the version of Peter Parker he played in those movies. There wasn't much of anything I liked about that Peter Parker, he was a pretty unlikable character (at least for me). As bad as the third movie was I think the portrayal of Peter in that one pretty much sums up why I didn't like any of those movies. That one was just everything I didn't like about the other two, just amplified to the next level.

[Tommy]

I agree that Tobey was my least favorite part of those films, I wish I could take Andrew Garfield (and Emma Stone) and swap him into the Raimi films, That would be...Amazing!