X-Men: First Class’ Initial Reception

I just wanted to make a quick post for any and all who are questioning the coming film X-Men: First Class, as whether it will be good or not. Well, the way I make my film seeing choices is off of critics reviews, and so far, this movie has done pretty well for itself.

34-1 fresh ratings on Rotten Tomatoes from all of the critics who are accepted there, with a 3-0 from top critics.

Some quotes from the reviews:

“It’s good, clean summer movie fun where the money they spend is up on the screen — with actors and effects — so that we won’t mind spending our money on it.” – Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

“It’s remarkable how many things “First Class” gets right, whether it’s the decision to have characters speak different languages as the film’s frequent globe-trotting dictates, or the casting of Fassbender and McAvoy.” – Justin Chang

Variety

Top Critic

“Audacious, confident and fueled by youthful energy, this is a surefire summer winner for a wide global audience.” – Todd McCarthy

Hollywood Reporter

Top Critic

These reviews and scores are much higher than Thor’s, a movie which I thought was the best comic-book movie of this recent era. This really gives me hope for the future of action and comic book movies, if one summer can raise the standards so much with back to back films.

I guess I’ll wait and see how I feel about it until Friday. Stay tuned for my own review!

UPDATES: Review now at 50-1 for all critics, 6-0 for top critics. Ridiculous!

FINAL EDIT: The score has been knocked down to an 87%, 116-18 all critics, and 23-9 from top critics. Not as incredible a finish as it started, but still a very high score for the genre. Can’t wait to see it.

Get Excited! – Beginners

A young man is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer, and that he has a young male lover.

This film brings together the legendary Christopher Plummer, and one of my favorite actors, Ewan McGregor. It’s been a while since I’ve seen McGregor in something dramatic and serious, at least in a lead role. I seem to be on a streak of seeing really good movies about bonds and relationships between two people, like the father and son in this movie, that are written and directed by some lesser known, but critically acclaimed people (in this case, Mike Mills).

The early reviews are looking good, despite there not being too many so far. And movies almost always start off with good reviews. So not too much can be taken from that, but its something to think about.

Plus, who doesn’t love a sympathetic dog?

The Hangover: Part II

Right after the bachelor party in Las Vegas, Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug jet to Thailand for Stu’s wedding. Stu’s plan for a subdued pre-wedding brunch, however, goes seriously awry.

I’ll start this review again with a rant on the current state of movies. Next time a movie that I want to see comes out, I am going to see it early in the day on a weekday. I thought it was just when I was younger that I noticed ass bags in the theater, but, as it turns out, older people, in their 20’s, are actually worse. Drunken people everywhere, yelling incoherent jibber jabber, and laughing at everything that ever happens. I probably missed out at least 10% of the dialogue of the movie from all of their noise alone. I thought human kind’s average intelligence was low before, but my word, this was not pleasant.

The other thing that wasn’t very pleasant was the movie itself. This is probably the most unoriginal movie that I have ever seen in my entire life. As you can tell by the trailer, the formula and script and screenplay are all drawn up in LITERALLY the exact same way. I can sort of say that I can see where the writers were trying to go with it, but they absolutely failed. I knew exactly what was going to happen at all times, nothing surprised me, and to be honest, the increase in sexual “humor” was disgusting and shameful.

The performances were mediocre, since all the actors had to do was exactly what they did in the last movie. Ed Helms was way over-done with his wimpy guy attitude, and Bradley Cooper looked like he wanted to be acting in a real movie elsewhere the entirety. The new cast in this movie actually did even less of a good job, bringing nothing at all to the movie from the only differences, the less-important characters.

This is a good example of the way sequels and movies are being done in this Avatar age. People just want to make money, and that was clearly the point of this film. The sad thing is that it worked, and will probably work for a long time to come (refer to my showing the low intelligence of our race). They could (and probably did) write this movie in 6 minutes. I would bet money that another one is going to be made.

All that being said, I can’t deny my having laughed a few times. Probably like twice. So I guess they got to me a little bit. Zach Galifianakis has some decent one-liners.

My Rating

The Hangover: Part II brings The Hangover back to screen, and charges you to see it again. But this time, I guess there’s a monkey instead of a lion. This movie gets and old, dried out, smelly rotten tomato. Feel free to watch it on television in a year if you are falling asleep and delirious, but other than that, I wouldn’t waste my time.

IMDb – 30%

RT – 30%

Get Excited! – The Muppets

With the help of three fans, the Muppets must reunite in order to save their old studio from a greedy oil tycoon.

I could not tell you how excited I was to see a cornerstone of my childhood entertainment coming back to life. That alone drew me in to this movie, but what I found after looking into it was ridiculous. Jason Segal is apparently the one behind this whole thing happening, and he has written the screenplay and holds the executive producer title. Not many people know that he wrote Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I thought was really very good, so I think he has the talent to carry this project. Another thing is the cast. Christ on a cracker the list of people is huge. I have no idea what sort of roles any of these people are playing, but the list of people in the movie includes:

Zach Galifianakis	…	Hobo Joe
	Emily Blunt
	Amy Adams	…	Mary
	Ed Helms
	Selena Gomez
	Jason Segel	…	Gary
	John Krasinski
	Neil Patrick Harris
	Jack Black
	Danny Trejo
	Rashida Jones
	Ricky Gervais
	Katy Perry
	Eric Stonestreet
	Donald Glover

… and many more. That is a ridiculous list. This movie will probably get bashed by critics, and looked over by most everyone over 7 years old, but not this guy. I will be seeing this in the theater.

I will try and update this with info in the future, as I do not really know too much about it at the moment. Stay tuned!

Links

IMDb

Get Excited! – Super 8

After witnessing a mysterious train crash, a group of friends in the summer of 1979 begin noticing strange happenings going around in their small town, and begin to investigate into the creepy phenomenon.

If you are any sort of movie buff, this has been in your eye for over a year. JJ Abrams story based off of personal experiences making movies as a kid, and he brings Steven Spielberg to complete the story and produce with him? What the hell more could you possibly ask for? From everything I’ve read about the production, which has been anything I can find, these two, JJ especially, are putting so much into this movie. There is a want, a need even, to show everyone what it was like to be a kid in the 70’s/80’s and making movies with your little super 8 film camera.

The start of this project was Abram’s wanting to make a movie called Super 8, with 8 kids making movies on their camera like he did as a child. The characters have been plotted out forever, and I assume that the development and detail in them will be awesome. After some time, though, Abrams realized that he did not have enough plot-wise to get people into the theaters to see this film. So, along with Spielberg, another genre aspect was added, and they [mostly Abrams, says Spielberg] came up with this Sci-Fi plot, having something to do with something escaping after a train heading to/from Area-51 crashes in this little town.

Another small note, Elle Fanning is in the movie, although not with large role, I don’t think, but I think she is a capable actress that deserves the attention that her sister Dakota received. Her performance in Somewhere was delightful, and I hope she does well in this film as well.

Here is an interview of the two main producers, Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams. LinK

I will most likely be updating this almost every other day with new tidbits and such. Check back!