Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui. I got bored.

22 jump street...

Okay so I only recently watched 21 jump street as the missus recommended it, and it whilst not as funny as she or others had made it out to be it was still okay. Sure it was dumb, but it at least made me chuckle a bit. Oh and it's worth pointing out that my favourite part of the movie is the meta humour near the start, where the chief is about to do the classic 'movie title is a line in the movie' and messes it up, or he comments on revving a franchise from the 80's.

I went into the sequel with low expectations as trailers made it look, well worse than the first. The sequel then is more of the same, deliberately so though. Sure there's dumb humour still, and this got the biggest laughs from the audience, but damn this movie is so smart and self aware! Me and my two friends sat laughing solid throughout a good 10/15 minute chunk of the film at the amount of meta humour that was going on. Sadly this seemed to be going completely over the heads of those around us, so far as for a girl sat in front to ask her friend what we were laughing at.

It's not just the one section though, the film is littered with meta moments (especially the incredible end credits) and to me it transformed an at times silly and dumb action comedy into something smart and incredibly self aware. Definitely the best surprise movie for me so far, I can see why others wouldn't find it funny, but I'm a big fan of meta and anything that pokes fun at the industry and itself.

Saw Trans4mers last night and I'm going to put it about on par or slightly ahead of the first movie. The action is pretty good and they gave the bots enough color variance this time that you can actually tell who is doing what. My biggest gripe is that there should have been 45-60 minutes of editing done, because this movie runs waaayy too long. It's the kind of long where you start checking your watch. Other than that it was money well spent, and Dinobots FTW.

Despicable Me 2 - This movie turned out pretty well. I liked a lot of it better than the first one, but I felt the abundance of the Minions brought the movie down a peg to make it just a bit weaker than the first one. Yes, I know that might not make sense, but if you cut out a good 10 minutes away from the pointless minion scenes, this movie would be better than the first one as its jokes are funnier, more memorable, and its plot is better. Lucy was just awesome. However, because of the pointless Minion scenes, the movie is dragged down in a more childish manner that takes away from the over all story. I give the movie a 7/10 though, which is the same score I give the first one.

Edge of Tomorrow - I got dragged to this against my will but it was actually not a bad movie. It was kind of boring, but the characters were good and it was nice to see Tom Cruise not play a pompous know it all for a change. The alien creatures were kind of interesting and the concept, while not original, was well executed. The parts that were supposed to make you laugh did so and you did feel for the characters, even if the concept did ruin the stakes a bit. It isn't a movie I will ever care if I see again, but there are worse bays of movies out there to view at the moment. If you have already seen the best this summer has to offer (X-Men, Godzilla, Capt Am) you can't do wrong with this movie at all. I give it a 7/10.

I love that movie!

Watched Robocop and Arachnoquake on Bluray over the weekend.

Robocop, at almost thirty years old, is showing its age. Honestly Robocop has all of the ingredients of a bad film, the plot thin, the characters thinner and the dialogue stilted, it's a barely two dimensional satire framed with dated effects. However it's so gloriously silly and so of its time that it sorta goes right through being terrible and comes back on itself as awesome all over again.

Arachnoquake tries to be self aware and tongue in cheek but it takes a certain refined intelligence for a z-movie to poke fun at itself and come out on top, and Arachnoquake is a film utterly devoid of intelligence. Honestly, Arachnoquake is way more awful than I remember it being overall. I wouldn't say it was a downright bad movie, just a sloppy one and one that isn't nearly as fun as the title. Bleh.

The Phantom Menace - All of this Star Wars talk has put me in the mood to rewatch the movies. Unfortunately, The Phantom Menace leaves a lot to be desired. The visuals, sound, and fight choreography are great, but once you move past them, this movie has very little substance. In fact, the movie moves so fast from one scene to the next there is no time to even enjoy the visuals. The characters are so dull and lifeless that the movie is just boring, and that is probably this movie's biggest issue. Jar Jar is beyond annoying, Anakin is a little brat you just want to spank, Padme is one dimensional, while Obiwan is just there because he needs to be in order to connect this movie with the original trilogy. Quigon is the only character that really does any thing at all, but he is just there to set up Obiwan. The sound editing in the pod race is down right incredible and the battle against Maul is fantastic. Unfortunately, Maul served absolutely no purpose. He has no character arc or anything other than to kill Quigon and then die himself. Come to think of it, aside from being boring, this movie has nothing to it. It is just made so they can make the next one instead of being able to hold its own without its sequels being there to pick up its slack. This movie sucks and I give it a 4/10.

That is the only one of the Bionicle movies I can actually sit through. I couldn't stand how chopped up the masks looked in the first one, and I'm not a fan of the Hordika designs in general.

Maul appears in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Anyway, I finally got around to watching Pacific Rim.

Don't watch Clone Wars, have no intention to since it was canceled without an ending. Nevertheless, Maul should have had development in the movie he came in as he is dead afterwards. There is not much you can do with a dead character other than McGuffin him.

The last season was released as a Netflix exclusive.

Kung Fu Panda 2. Holy crap, WHY DIDN'T I WATCH THIS MOVIE SOONER! The music is great, the characters are very well written and the animation, sweet jesus the animation! Not nearly as moving as How To Train Your Dragon 2 but pretty damn close. All in all, very very good.

On a side note, I really liked the relationship between Poe and Tigris to be very good as well. You really get a sense that, while different, the two can both see eye to eye with one another. Kind of like an older sister younger brother type deal. I really do like relationships like that and I do wish to see more of them.

Oh yeah, and the god damn Peacock was frigging nuts and loved every second he was on screen!

Attack of the Clones - Man, what is up with these prequels? They don't feel like they are actually trying to tell a story, but instead, they are just putting all of the pieces into place so the events of the original trilogy make sense? Once again, what should have been a great story is sacrificed in order to bait the next movie. Every piece of dialog that comes out of Anakin's mouth feels forced or poorly improved. Not to mention the way he acts towards Padme is more on the obsessive stalker side of things instead of just being infatuated with her. Padme is really just there to be a baby oven. And there is no development at all for Jango Fett or even Count Dooku. In fact, Christopher Lee has this look on his face that says, "I'm talking to air but I don't care because I'm getting paid a lot of money for this." Obiwan is the only character in the movie that does anything and he is the only one to have any sort of development. In fact, he is pretty much just Quigon Jin's character from The Phantom Menace, but relevant. The choreography, visuals, and sound are all fantastic. Unfortunately, everything else is subpar. At least it is an improvement over the first one. At this rate though, the series won't be perfected until the fifth entry. :) Overall, I give Attack of the Clones a 5/10.

Revenge of the Sith - There are many things great about this movie, but at the same time, there are things bad about it. First off, the movie just starts out fantastic with a great battle in space the likes we have never seen before and it is accompanied by an incredible score of drums. Unfortunately, it seems to dwindle down once Anakin and Obiwan reach Grievous's ship as Count Dooku is dead while Grievious runs away like a coward. I just do not understand what the purpose of Dooku was in this entire series. He shows up in the last half hour of the previous movie and then is dead within 15 minute of this one. He had absolutely no character development and his character was entirely irrelevant to the plot of either movie. It was like they just wanted to have Christoper Lee's name attached to it. Also, the Grievous portrayed here is the exact opposite of who he was in the Genndy Clone Wars cartoon. As that Grievous was bad ass, would go all out on a fight and not stop until his prey was dead. Here, he is a cheater and a coward, which completely contradicts his character to those that watched the cartoon that had been released at that time.

Obiwan is once again the star of the movie as every scene he is in is nothing short of excellent. It does not matter if it is just him having a discussion with Yoda to his battle with Anakin, this man is amazing. Palpatine also stands out here, but did they really need to give him a reason for having an ugly face in the original trilogy? Couldn't he just have gotten ugly from both age and his own corrupted desires? Once again the visuals and the sound rule the movie as we are treated to some great landscapes, pretty battles, and some of the best music from the series. Sadly, the more things improved, the worse some areas got. Padme's dialog is just atrocious as all of her lines feel forced and unrealistic. Anakin has improved a bit, but not enough to warrant anything less than a smacking. One of the best scenes of the movie is when Palpatine is talking about Darth Plagus to Anakin though as it truly built up some mythos that could be explored in future times, which is something the previous two movies lacked. The movie overall is quite good, but could have been better if it did not exist just to set everything up for the original trilogy, which is ultimately where this trilogy as a whole fails at. Instead of telling its own stories, and giving us a series full of finely detailed characters with rich development, they gave us three movies that were made to just set everything up for what comes after, killing any sense of suspense or mystery that could have been made.

Overall, I give this movie a 7/10.

It still doesn't really have a proper ending. And by proper ending, I mean the original planned ending with General Grievous kidnapping Palpatine :p

Anyway, I am watching Fantastic Four.

American Psycho - This movie is weird, really weird. The first 3/4s of the movie are fantastic and then I feel like it kind of fizzled out in the end as it just seemed to stop instead of having an ending. I do understand why it ended that way, as it leaves things everything ambiguous as to whether or not that was all in his head, but still. I think the part that the movie just completely lost me at was the chainsaw chase, as things just got a little goofy. Nevertheless, aside from that, the acting was great, Christian Bale was freaking awesome in it. Overall, I give it a 7/10. It will not be a movie I will go out of my way to rewatch any time soon, but I am glad to have finally saw it.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 was awesome. :D (Although I'm pretty sure that, at this point, they've basically forgone the books.)

Watched The Raid on Bluray:

Speaking specifically about the Bluray it's...fairly unspectacular. I understand that this is a low budget movie from Indonesia but this is the modern digital age, I can't fathom why this picture is so lacking in detail or a nice crisp finish. I'm sure it looks great when stacked against the DVD but as far as Bluray picture quality goes this is incredibly unspectacular. The murkiness may be, to some extent at least, intentional but that doesn't mean it somehow forgives how bad it looks overall.

Although The Raid lacks some of Dredd's polish, the film is able to have a lot of personality and style in its own way. True, it doesn't have the brilliance that is "Slo-Mo", but for a film made for around a million dollars with a cast of unknowns, and a director I'd never heard of behind the camera it's impressive just how well made this film is. Every sequence moves with the action, not against it like those horrible shaky cam flicks, and with the fluid sweeps of the camera it gives every sequence a real dynamic look and it feels like you're right there in the middle of it all.

Iko Uwais is truly spectacular, he doesn't look like a conventional action hero but when you see this guy move - and fight - it's such a glorious thing to see. Both Uwais and the true main villain of the piece, Mad Dog, who is played by Yayan Ruhian aren't actors but fight choreographers. This is important, because it means they're doing their own stunts in action sequences they themselves have orchestrated. It's not easy to put into words but when you see how it impacts the action on the screen you realise it really does make a world of difference.

Fights feel larger than life but flow in a way that feels natural, pencak silat is a martial art that is as deadly as it is beautiful and this movie showcases it wonderfully. There are loads of knives, machetes and guns but the best fights come from having a man stripped of his weapons and armed only with desperation - which is the crux of the final act of the film. It's the tower block itself that becomes the deadliest weapon from door frames to fridges to light bulbs.

If I was to have any real complaints with the action, it's the copious use of CG. From muzzle flashes to blood sprays, pretty much all of it is CG and the kind of naff, cheap CG that looks painfully obvious. Surely if Z-Grade movies were using bloodbags and squibs like fifty years ago, it can't be a cost saving measure to do it today with CG. So not only does it look frustratingly bad but it was an unnecessary creative decision which could have been avoided and made the film look better for it.

I know this is going to feel like somewhat of a moot point, but as you can see I've only really been talking about the action up until this point... because that is really all there is to The Raid. I get that coming to a film like this and expecting Shakespeare would be ludicrous but this is the first time I think I've seen a film where it barely has any semblance of plot, characters or purpose. It is literally a two hour showcase of violence, which is fine for the right audience I suppose but with the so so presentation of the Bluray I think I'm going to be coming back to my copy of Dredd much sooner than I'll be coming back to this.

Drive.

Just rewatched The Grey on Bluray:

I know I usually come down on film grain in HD releases as it just doesn't look very good but I'd say The Grey does it better than most, since it rarely intrudes into the gorgeous cinematography. In particularly busy sequences The Grey looks as garbage as I've come to expect from these kinds of Bluray transfers but in quieter sequences it adds a certain harshness to the already harsh conditions, and you can eventually forget about it all together as it does blend into the diegesis well. I'd still always take a clean, crisp finish when it comes to a HD transfer over noisy, grainy pictures but The Grey really doesn't look too bad overall.

Given what has happened to Neeson over the years with his own wife you can tell he's bringing a lot of stuff from deep inside to Ottway while really losing himself in the character. Neeson seems to divide people a lot but I wouldn't believe you if you questioned his talent after watching this, I think this is one of my most favourite performances of all time. Ottway proves a complex and multi layered character who often within the same sequence must dramatically shift from the polar ends of the spectrum emotionally and we spend as much time in the harsh Alaska landscapes as we do inside Ottway's head and heart.

He constantly escapes the harshness of reality into a something that is never quite a memory but never quite a fantasy either where he is reunited with his wife in a warm, clean and sun streaked bed. It isn't until the end of the film, where we get a true idea of what those flashbacks to his wife mean for him as a character and it does a good job of explaining why Ottway is the way he is, in a way that fits the tone of the film. His romanticism of death up until this point becomes suddenly very real, and horrifyingly so.

Ottway's massive size and gruff exterior obviously very deliberately gives him the appearance of some great beast, and with his rich understanding of how wolves operate it is as if he's become a wolf to hunt a wolf. He even makes a joke about becoming a wolf man when he's bitten early on in the film, I like to see this as a self aware nod at himself, which makes Ottway feel real and lived in.

Apparently The Grey was quite proud of its spiritual aspect, appealing to Christian Groups in its marketing, despite this however I'd say the film is the complete opposite of spiritual. When Ottway cries out for help to "The Almighty" he gets nothing and he only ever gets to the point of crying for God's help when all other options are exhausted. The Grey's message is that religion is a last resort for the desperate, not a final hope for the righteous and the only person you can count on, is you. That is about as damning of the Christian Faith and the followers as you can be, without being a satirical political cartoon.

Still, even if it isn't spiritual, Ottway's character arc is still incredibly rewarding. Losing his wife Ottway loses his purpose but somehow this gives his life greater value, as he can prove he is in control of it by taking his own life rather than losing it to something else. However when he survives the plane crash and is thrown into a survival game, death no longer becomes his choice and he then seizes life as a rebellion. Life as rebellion? What a beautiful fucking thing.

There are no fire breathing mutations or building sized wolves here but it doesn't really matter, the wolf pack has organisation and tactics that Ottway's ragtag group lacks which leads them to be fairly swiftly picked off and as Ottway's group struggles through the snow and battles the cold, the wolves are right at home - literally - and make full use of their home turf advantage. A lot of films like to suggest that desperation will save any average man but desperation doesn't help our survivors, if anything it makes it worse for them.

For the most part we never see the wolves bar for quick close ups of eyes and snarling teeth, even when we get full body shots they're disguised by storms and shadows. The idea of them is supposed to be enough to elicit the horror required from the audience, and Carnahan rightly fears any wider reveals of the wolves would slip the film into exploitation territory which would be a giant misdirection considering the tone of the piece. Some have complained the ending is abrupt, myself included, but upon watching this again the ending fits perfectly, especially when accompanied by the after credits shot.

There is never a moment in the film where the weather will give way to the kind of carnage witnessed in the likes of a film directed by Roland Emmerich and once again I feel this is the right decision by Carnahan given the tone of his film. In general Carnahan directs this like a true master, every creative decision feels right for the film and he always feels like he's in total control of his picture. Carnahan has been often remarked as a breed of more intelligent action director but I can't honestly say I've seen much of his body of work, or really cared for what I have seen, but this movie really shows his talent as a filmmaker and I hope he makes more films like The Grey in the future.

If I was to have any real complaints of the film, it'd be the deaths. No film I've ever seen has been able to give every character a death as memorable as one another, but when you see how great the death of characters like Talget can be with the haunting and heartbreaking visit from his daughter in the snow and the similarly heartbreaking but downright fantastic "death" of Ottway, I can't help but feel deaths of other characters - which includes dying in their sleep or simply giving up - lose some impact which takes away from what the film is trying to. Overall a minor complaint, but a complaint is a complaint.

Another - not so much complaint but "audience divider" - will be the films pace. It's two hours long, and although the film wastes little time dropping our men into a survival horror film, once it gets there it takes its time and slows down a lot. If you keep it in mind that this ISN'T an action film, you can enjoy the slow burn of the rising tension, the heavy dialogue and rich character focus but I'm sure there are going to be so many people in the audience who expected a completely different film, which is certainly the marketings fault, and not the audiences. The film is likely to taste pretty sour to them.

Overall, how often do you see a film where the rewards are greater than the concept? In the era of Syfy Originals I'd say almost never. The Grey then, is a breath of fresh air for all genre fans desperate to find a little injection of depth into the things they love. Betrayal by marketing aside, I honestly can't see how anyone could dislike this absolute masterpiece. I'd honestly go as far as to say it's one of the greatest films ever made.

The bluray also comes with twenty minutes of deleted, extended or alternative sequences and most of them prove why they were cut from Ottway being saved by a polar bear to a pointless scene of Flannery getting dragged over a corpse. The little changes, additions and extensions to the campfire sequence though are most welcome and I'm sad they weren't included in the finished product. And the scene of them looting the plane was fun but wouldn't have fit with the film, so it makes sense to cut out, even if it was a good scene.

Night of the Hunter - I was expecting this movie to pretty much just be "The Stepfather" but it turned out to be a lot more than that. It was well done, the kids did a great job at acting, and the pacing was great. I do feel the last five minutes of the movie got a little weird when there was a random angry villagers scene that emerged for no rhyme or reason, but aside from that it was really good. I give it a nice 8/10.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - To get ready for the new one, it was time to rewatch this movie, and honestly, it was an overdue one as I have not seen it since I first bought the BD. The movie is quite good as it really builds up Ceasar's character and hey, a movie where James Franco does not look like he is stoned all of the time. The plot is well done, albeit flawed, but the execution is good and the movie is just enjoyable overall. It is a great start to a rebooted universe and they use the CGI right in this thing. Overall, I give it a nice 7/10.

Aliens vs Predator When Lighting Fails... I mean Requiem - Words cannot describe how much this movie sucks. It is so bad that it makes Alien Resurrection look like Aliens. There is nothing to like at all in this movie. You cannot even say you like the designs of the monsters because you can barely ever see them. The PredAlien looks down right stupid from what you can make of it, and the movie puts plot and character development to the side lines so it can just throw at your action sequence after action sequence without there being any rhyme or reason for it. Everyone in the city is just there to die. What is worse is the fact that these so called Brothers Strause (have no idea what they have done before or after this movie) try to copy things from previous movies and cannot even get it right. They have a character named Dallas, obviously meant to be a homage to Dallas from Alien even though this guy is an utter moron and we know next to nothing about him other than he was once a thief. Then there is some military woman and her daughter, clearly meant to represent Ripley and Newt, but again, without any story to go with it. We are just supposed to like these characters without having a reason to do so. What is worse is the movie goes for shock value with the likes of having a Xenomorph burst out of a child's chest and then the pointless nursery scene. None of it was done for scare factor, it was done to get people talking about the movie to say, "OMG, I cannot believe they did this." There is no reason to watch this movie at all as the effects are crap, the CGI looks like absolute ****, and the Predator is easily the worst design yet. And why would he go to Earth by himself? That makes no damn sense. The only scene that makes this movie worth suffering through is watching the blonde dumbass getting killed by the Predator saw frisbee boomerang thing. She so had her death coming and it was over due. Overall, this movie is nothing but crap and it is pretty much Battlefield Earth bad. It is an insult to everything Scott, Cameron, Weaver, O'Bannon, and Giger created. I give this turdfest a 1/10 stars.

Grease. Oh. My. God. I freaking LOVE this movie!

*walks away singing Greased Lightning*

The Killing - Aside from the fact that I think this movie should have been called The Mumbling, since that is what a lot of the characters seemed to do, this was fantastic. In fact, I felt like I was watching a Tarantino movie at times because of the way the story was told. It was incredible and right up there with the likes of Touch of Evil, Double Indemnity, and The Maltese Falcon. The story was incredibly told with excellent pacing and the characters were all interesting, even if some of them were under developed. Overall, I give this movie a nice 8/10 and that ending... wow... talk about depressing.

Rewatched Up on 3D Bluray.

"My name is Dug. I have just met you, and I love you."

Speaking specifically as a Bluray, being that it is a relatively new animation outing by the juggernaut that is Pixar it was gonna be a given that the film looks great anyway and there is no need to really go into it any more than that. What I will say is the 3D was really spotty for me, my TV uses passive 3D and I have to sit 3D glasses over my own (it is not as uncomfortable as that probably reads) but Up is the first movie where I visibly noticed the backgrounds remained out of focus and weren't popping into 3D. I dunno whether it'd be different if you could see or if you had active 3D but I found this distracting in my experience from an otherwise visually splendid film.

And my God is visually splendid a term not up to scratch. The visuals are heavily stylised which I guess is the only real barrier for the audience but other than that, this is just Pixar working its magic once again. I dunno, I guess the great thing about Up's look is it's so...memorable. The image of the cosy pastoral house with the rainbow of balloons coming from the chimney as it floats through the clouds, it's an image you can see so vividly in your mind even after your first viewing. Up may have more emotional depth than it does narrative depth, but the films visuals are what cement this as truly unforgettable.

Honestly though, if I had to pick a word for Up, I wouldn't choose "unforgettable" but "transcendent". Yes Up's plot is paper thin, and held together with clichés but it's such an imaginative, emotionally rich cinematic landscape that it becomes less of a film, and more of an event.

Some films will make your lips quiver, they'll make you chuckle but that is about it, that is the height of your emotional response. Up is the kind of film, where when it makes you laugh, you bellow that laughter at the top of your lungs until tears run down your face and you have to pause the film to catch your breath. Up is the kind of film that when it makes you cry, it leaves you a blubbering mess ripping through boxes of tissues at a time until you have to pause the film to catch your breath. Up is a cinematic experience of the best kind. The ultimate adventure.

Then there are the characters, never before have I loved such a bunch of archetypes. Carl and Russell are nothing new, and neither is their dynamic but they're so richly drawn, feeling lived in and flawed in ways only real humans can be and the film makes us care for them so personally we love them despite their familiarity. In some ways maybe even because of it. The biggest props though, go to Kevin and Dug. One of which doesn't get a line of dialogue and the other where the whole joke is they do.

Some have claimed Up loses its way when it starts to "relax" into a more adventure driven story and if you think that...well done, you just missed the whole point of the damn movie. It's the best Pixar has ever been, every moment in Up feels refined, perfected and complete.

I've seen Up time and and time again in my life but this is the first time I've actually sat down and put my thoughts down on paper and I realised it's probably my most favourite film of all time, and that says something considering my massive love for Blade Runner. I'm so grateful to own it on Bluray so I can laugh and cry and go on this magical adventure over and over again.

Last night I saw Firefox which stars clint eastwood!

That movie is so awful it's almost profound.

I watched Tomorrow Never Dies earlier. It was OK, not the best Bond movie ever, but better than A View to a Kill. Practically anything is better than that.

Nah, AVtaK has Christopher Walken in it. That automatically makes it better than any Brosnan movie sans Goldeneye. :)

Actually, I don't hate AVtaK as much as other people do. It is better than some of Roger Moore's movies previous movies, it's just that he looks way too damn old to be Bond in it.

I have a couple on the DVR I need to watch. City of Bones: Mortal Instruments, Frozen, Thor: The Dark World, and there's another I'm forgetting.

Who's Kevin? It's been ages since I've seen Up, I don't remember a character named Kevin with no lines.

The bird.

:lolOh right, I forgot about the bird.

I don't normally like physical comedy but Kevin is just so beautifully animated I just love it.

All fun movies, although Frozen is the only one that is legitimately great. In my opinion, yo.

I got dragged to Rifftrax Live Sharknado. No, the Rifftrax was fantastic, but it was Sharknado. I give the movie a 1/10.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - The Planet of the Apes franchise is one that is a mixed bag. There are some incredible movies in the series, but there are also a few major stinkers in the mixed. Nevertheless, Rise was a really movie in the series, the best since the original, and this one is even better than Rise. The movie has a great plot and there is a lot of character development for the apes, especially Ceasar. Gary Oldman was good in it, but he was pretty much just reprising his role as Commissioner Gordon instead of doing anything new. The action scenes are great but there is a moment where the CGI takes a dip in quality as you can clearly tell the fire behind them was green screened. Aside from that, this movie is one of those times when CGI is used intelligently instead of being there just for the sake of being there. There is nothing after the credits, so no need to stay. Overall, I give it an 8/10.

I've never been a hater of Bay's Transformer movies, quite the opposite to begin with in fact. I love the first movie, really enjoy Revenge of the Fallen despite its flaws and outright hate Dark of the Moon. So naturally, the decline gave me pretty low expectations for Age of Extinction.

The film surprised me somewhat, it's the best of the Transformers sequels in some respects but by far the worst in others.

The basic plot of the film is pretty solid, but quickly gets muddled with things that either didn't need to be there or just plain don't make sense. Transformers weren't born they were created! Unneccessary Dinobots! Prime's a knight all of a sudden!. With the exception of Stanley Tucci all the human characters were equally as awful as the ones in the first first trilogy.

Worst of all is the Autobots though. I get this is a film about them being hunted. I get that this is a film about Optimus Prime questioning his morals. But the Autobots in this film do not feel like heroes. For a film that doesn't really have any proper Decepticons and a minimal amount of villains, these bots are really obsessed with killing. The bloodthirsty Optimus thing is always something I've found more humorous than anything, but in this film its taken to the extreme and its really unsettling. His first true lines are literally "I'll kill you", and basically tells the Dinobots that can either help him or die when they haven't been involved in any of this.

The good though? Lockdown is brilliant, Galvatron is awesome and the voice casting was spot on (especially John Goodman). Props for making the Autobots feel like actual characters this time around too, even if I wasn't a fan of them.

My sister and I watched the Lorax movie... it's just as bad as everyone says.

Rewatched Trolljegeren on Bluray.

This is such a beautiful film, which makes no sense within its context at all. Although it was intended as a documentary within the narrative of the footage, within the wider narrative we're watching this as a rough cut built by people investigating the footages legitimacy. So the very beautiful, artistic, look of the film is truly baffling from a storytelling perspective.

I mean it's still the best looking film in the found footage genre - how many people watched this and immediately wanted to visit Norway? It looks very cold, and wet, but also otherworldly gorgeous too - but if they wanted to just go out and do beautiful shots of the Norway scenery, why bother with the framework of found footage which forces you to lower the quality of the presentation?

It isn't just the cinematography of the Norway landscape that is gorgeous either. Made for less than five million US dollars (estimated) it's as about as small as you can get budgetwise these days but the effects in this film are stunning and almost flawless. This, once again though, leaves me baffled. Found footage is a novelty to hide and distract from the fact that your ideas and ambitious far outlive your budget but Trolljegeren proves that is has the talent to great blockbuster set pieces on a small budget anyway and if it has nothing to hide, why the found footage novelty?

I mean seriously, speaking purely of this film as an action film or just a thrill ride, does it a lot of justice as it's really bloody fun. To have such convincing CGI and such imaginative set pieces is breathtaking at points, especially considering Hollywood itself is just getting to grips with CGI on budgets that dwarf this one. The movie could have saved its budget, played it like they played Jaws and say they did that on purpose creatively, but instead they just GO FOR IT and my God does it pay off.

It also really helps that for what plays itself mainly as a tongue in cheek comedy Øvredal really put a lot of thought into his narrative and mythos. You wouldn't often call a movie like this "clever" but Øvredal has some big ideas here, and he pulls off pretty much all of them. Taking his favourite parts of Norwegian Folklore, he's added a dose of reality and logic to it that is delivered in a passionate and naturalistic way. Honestly if nothing else, it's just nice to see a film embrace the roots of its culture, making the film accessible on the quality of the storytelling and not by dumbing down and Americanising.

A character like Hans is always going to be risky, because if you make the fantastic mundane you risk losing your audience but Hans is a risk that - unsurprisingly by this point - is something Øvredal pulls off splendidly. Hans casual approach to the extraordinary is honestly half the reason he's so wonderful. From him marching into battle in armour to face Trolls with a "God, I hate this crap." to him casually eating his breakfast, spouting off knowledge about trolls like it's every day trivia and doing his Troll Slaying paperwork for that nights kill Hans makes it feel so ordinary, which makes his character feel real and lived in.

This really helps the illusion of the movie too, because at points it's gloriously silly but having a character in the heart of all the silliness who feels real and fully fleshed gives our reality something to grip onto. Yes there is a middle aged man fighting a three headed CGI giant with a tanning lamp but in the moment I'm so convinced by it all because Hans himself feels so real, that it all seems the most sound thing on the planet.

There is a weird sense of mean spirit around André Øvredal when it comes to religion, which may echo Norway's sociopolitical landscape in general. Kalle is literally killed for his beliefs only to be replaced seconds later with a new character and barely a ripple of emotion or resonance.

This new character provides an interesting new question about trolls and religion but rather than exploring this late game narrative thread the new character - introduced in the closing moments of the film I must stress - seems to only exist to hold up Øvredal's religious pessimism. Malica's defining trait, much like Kalle's, is blind scepticism in an ironic clash with their own beliefs.

Honestly though I didn't care about any of the student characters which may be the greatest, and only true failing, of the film. I went to uni and I've met people like Thomas, I didn't like them then, either. And Johanna? She is so bland, she feels like part of the furniture in most of the sequences, at points I forget she exists all together. I understand that in found footage, we have different expectations from our protagonists than a usual narrative film, but again I ask, why do this?!?! Trolljegeren doesn't need to be found footage and would have been so much better if it wasn't. What a shame.