King Arthur: Legend of the Sword Review

A new long waited Guy Ritchie film, which wasn't that well marketed came out just in May, and I didn't have time to check it out until now, so here is my thoughts on it. 

I am always excited about new Guy Ritchie projects, like Spielberg's or Nolan's. He, like some other great directors, has this personality, which is bigger than movies he does. And I think, that King Arthur suffered because of that in the first place. The style, brought by Ritchie didn't help to tell the story, it was bigger than the movie, and that only created a mess, in my opinion. Maybe, the biopic didn't work for many people, but we know that Ritchie can make good movies, and tell stories. The style definitely helped him with Sherlock Holmes and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., not even speaking of his first movies, that kicked of his career. But now it is time to admit, that this time it didn't work. Usual people didn't dislike King Arthur as much as critics did. And I am not saying, that this is a bad film, it has some goodness in it, that is why it's not trash, and also a good part of the audience liked it. 

Everybody has got a bad part of their careers, and I hope that for Guy Ritchie this is the lowest level possible he can fall ever. The movie itself is a story, the british legend about the legendary sword and King Arthur. And I am not sure about magic part of that story, but the fictional part of it might have been the reason why the style didn't match the tone, with which this movie could have worked. You can tell that, just looking on other the movies Guy Ritchie made, and there was no magic in them, so it was al least interesting, how it could have matched this particular story, but apparently the first time didn't pan out to be a good one. 

The film starts with the betrayal of the King's brother Vortigern, played by Jude Law, who was one of the bright sides to the movie. The magical part blends very well with his character, this time the magic actually works really well to bring drama to the character and make him complete. The kingdom as it was, fell, and the only person who survived the purge was the King's son. The narrative was so rapid at first, that in 20 minutes the story was already focused on an adult version of Arthur, played by Charlie Hunnam. And he did a good job playing this character. I thought he was the second good thing about this movie. Arthur had character development, but the way the he was written, made him dull at times. And I think Hunnam did the best version possible of King Arthur, mostly ignoring the flaws of the narrative in this movie. That is one of the biggest issues of mine with this movie - it has a floppy narrative. I couldn't understand anything, what was going on, it was paced so abruptly. Ritchie's quick cuts made this movie a big disappointment. Not that it is a bad movie overall, but this style and tone the director goes for all the time in his movies, just didn't work for this story. It was a good idea, but the execution wasn't great.

And then the whole movie is focused on adult Arthur, who was raised by the lower classes. He have become a commoner on the streets. While the sword reveled itself, the movie already becomes some sort of a huge "exiled-and-returned" cliche. Vortigern of cause wants to kill Arthur to gain the power of a true ruler and the Excalibur's might. But the "true ruler' can't even use the sword, he is resisting the sword. So, that Arthur with his forgettable friends, finds himself for the whole movie, trying to maintain the power oh the sword. I found this journey incredibly boring, and even worse, when the movie ended the way, I knew it would end. A mix of magic, legends and terrible demons have not worked for this movie, it is unwatchable and sometimes unpleasant.

But Ritchie, turning Arthur in a street lad, has created so much oddities filled with the image of a new take on the legend of King Arthur, that I think the audience was not ready to see such an excessive departure from the traditional vision of cinematography.  

Alien: Covenant (2017): Movie Review

In 2017 there are so many different movies, from horror to comedies, even horror comedies. But, Ridley Scott brings a classical Alien on screen again, and it is special. We haven't seen a traditional Alien movie for a very long time. Since the Resurrection, Alien didn't appear in any standalones, and it was 20 years for now. There were crossovers with the Predator, but this is the very first standalone Alien film with actual alien in it since 1997.  

Prometheus, which came out in 2015, was the first prequel to the Alien (1979). In that movie Ridley Scott explained the origin of life and Xenomorphs' existence. Alien: Covenant is the second prequel, which actually called "Alien" this time. And as trailers and every poster says, it has an Alien in it. Watching little prolog videos which are a part of the marketing campaign for this movie is really helpful, they explain some parts of the movie and help to get into the story as quick as possible without spoiling anything. 

The story of a crew members on a spaceship Covenant, which takes a huge colony on a decent for life and colonisation planet. But the ship crashed and crew members woke up from the cryosleep. During the repairs, one of the pilots intercepted a message sent by a human. The planet from which this message was sent seemed even more pleasant for colonisation and the captain decided to check it out and find the source of the signal. 

The movie very much discovers the origin of Xenomorphs. Ridley Scott really thought up a great explanation and the story is quite interesting. This movie doesn't lack the connection with the events which happened in the Prometheus. Without spoiling, I might say that the Xenomorph is not the only alien in this movie. Traditional Alien is some sort of an ancestor to another monstrous creature. That is why this film is not exactly an Alien movie.  It has one in it, but it wasn't a cliche from 1979, some parts remind of that movie, but in Alien: Covenant Xenomorph is not the one and only threat, so it mostly looks like a fight between the whole spaceship crew and different alien creatures, and the Xenomorph appears only at the end. 

This film is worth watching. Horror element is very strong, but it wasn't that much scary. The plot is exciting, there are no huge negatives with the story. There are no big issues with the decisions of the characters, it all seemed organic and natural. Michael Fassbender has done it again and crushed it with his roles in the movie, as well as Danny McBride and Katherine Waterston. 

One of Ridley Scott's most notable mistakes, again (just like in Prometheus), is the absence of the same atmosphere as in the original film, when prior to the meeting with Xenomorph, none of the members died, and there was more time to speculate and build up the mystery of the alien. And all that brings up the biggest issue with the movie - its pacing. The movie is slow at the beginning, quite moving during action scenes, but very slow and even boring between them. I have to say, that everything would have been better at a pace, if the film had been one hour longer. If you show all the details, don't cut out the big parts of the movie to get to the boiling point, in which people start dying. It seemed more like the script was originally meant to be at least twice as long, especially in the ending. To put it mildly, Alien: Covenant may not be such a good film, not to mention a good film about Alien. 

But it's still worth watching. It's visually stunning, and the origin of the Xenomorph is finally very well explained. The story itself is good, there are some great plot twists, which I personally saw a mile ago, but still, you might not. And the predictability didn't ruin any pleasure from suspense and the reveal. 

Ghost in the Shell (2017) Movie Review

Synopsis: In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.

I was waiting for this movie for quite a while, not that I knew and liked the source material, but the trailers got me by their weirdness and difference, from what I have seen before. I love Matrix(1999), and this movie looked a lot like it - familiar, but different at the same time so I just was sold on this film. Scarlett Johansson is a great action star, her talents were perfectly used in such films as: The Avengers (2012) or Lucy (2014), so she perfectly fits the character of Major, who can fight and needs a great actress to play her right. Major is very complex, her body is synthetic, but the consciousness is taken form another person, who almost died. She was created in a lab, so she could be a terminator for the government stopping the most dangerous terrorists. 

This movie has a unique style. The world looks beautiful, the film is visually stunning. The atmosphere, generated by the visual look and deep, magnificent soundtrack already makes this film worth watching. I really enjoyed the entourage of that gorgeous city, in which this movie takes place. Everything looked fresh and great. I think, that the CGI was well put in the wide shots, the city looked very impressive, especially at night with all those huge moving commercials, it felt absolutely great. 

This film is more about character development and style, with which this movie is made. Scarlett Johansson is great as a mostly robot-hero, having also her memories from the past. The mystery behind her past life is explored more and more until the end. There are some longer scenes of maybe boring dialogs about important things, and those dialogs are not necessarily the best, so overall it looked slow paced, and some plot devices, that were purposed to connect the parts into one, were not well used, leaving the taste of a bad storytelling at times.

I think, that there is nothing horribly wrong with this movie, it is different and good in its own way, but understandably so, this is not the best directorial work by Rupert Sanders, and it didn't appeal to a lot of people. However, the cinematography was great and some characters were very interesting, so I thought, that the story was better than the way it was moved by some obscure plot devises. Obviously, this movie will be forgotten very fast, but I really saw something in it, even though I understand, that this movie is not successful.

Power Rangers Movie Review.

Synopsis: A group of high-school students, who are infused with unique superpowers,harness their abilities in order to save the world.

Everybody says it is really fun movie. Power Rangers TV show was always fun and very goofy but it was enjoyable. This movie is more realistic and settled for a more gritty tone. It has good actors in it, more realistic action and a good feel of a descent superhero movie. Nice interactions between the characters and funny humor are the basis of this film's success. It is successful in achieving it's goal - being funny, entertaining, not super serious and visually great.  

Power Rangers is a big teenage flick, it does have a high school feel, the way people talk reminds of some sitcoms but it is still a good acting from that cast. The mythology was pretty good and well explained, the story is very simple - a cliched superhero plot and all in that manner. But this movie had a strategy of being fun and entertaining so the bad side of this film isn't noticeable that much. 

Well done movie, but it had problems in pacing and the story. The biggest problem I had with this movie is that Power Rangers couldn't suit up for the whole movie and did it just at the end. After all, it felt like a Power Rangers TV show so with that the director did a good job. And visually this movie looks great - a good time in the movie theater. 

Passengers 2016 Movie Review

Passengers Movie Poster

Passengers 2016, starring Chis Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen and Laurence Fishburne. Directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Jon Spaihts, who actually wrote the script for Doctor Strange. The film takes place in a short distant future on a spaceship "Avalon", which travels to a distant colony planet known as the "Homestead Colony" and transporting 5,258 people has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers. As a result, one hibernation pod opens prematurely and the one person that awakes, Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) is stranded on the spaceship, still 90 years from his destination. 

After the awakening, Jim finds out the truth about his voyage that he is 90 years yearly so he will probably die as an old man on this ship before it reaches its destination. He has a barmen android as his pal and a very long time to study every data log on the ship in order to repair the broken chamber. He is desperate and lost. Chris Pratt does a great job playing his character as we can understand his desperation and loneliness. Pratt plays a usual guy - mechanic, who is not the most confident or charming but full of surprises. He is a little different from the Star-Lord or Owen from Jurassic World. He is a more regular person.

Passengers 2016. The Ship.

This movie has such a huge work behind it. The production design is stunning. The ship looks beautiful, every detail reminds of a high quality of the future technological progress. This movie shines with the atmosphere of excellence. And this is a very expensive film to make, paying large fees to the stars of cause too. And I think that it was poorly marketed, but at least it was what I expected the movie to be, in order of tone, even though the plot is not as it was shown in the trailers.

As you noticed, Chris Pratt's character wakes up alone. He searches the ship, looks everywhere for the solution for his repair problem, tries to destroy the armored deck door to wake the Captain ( Laurence Fishburne) (Jim obviously just a mechanic and can't use many things on the starship). The road gets him to the point where he just can't stand Arthur (played by Michael Sheen) (the barmen android) company anymore. 

I am not very familiar with previous Michael Sheen's works but he was pretty good in Passengers, he masterfully captured the behavior of the machine with no actual feelings, but with some automatic artificial reactions on a behavior of others. I don't really understand much of Jim's complaints - he had a free bar just for himself for the rest of his life, but that life lasts too long, he is just all along and can't find a reason to stay alive.

Passengers. Michael Sheen and Chris Pratt movie.

And in the moment of the biggest desperation, he throws some item away in anger to come and pick it back up and see beautiful Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) sleeping in her chamber. And then if you saw a damn poster you guess the biggest plot twist spoiled in the very first poster for the movie in the marketing campaign. 

But before that Jim was such a gentlemen to not to wake her up just in a moment he got in love with sleeping beauty. He struggled because he is a nobleman who won't take and bury someone's fortune for his own advantage. Instead, he studies her by her dairy. It turns out she is a writer and seeks adventures just as her father did to write an entertaining book. That is why she volunteered to be on this voyage. 

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.

The flaws of the movie are on the surface, but this is a movie you can enjoy very much for the star power, atmosphere of an expensive movie and for the romance. I didn't see necessarily a strong chemistry between Lawrence and Pratt, they fit each other and these are world class actors but there was less depth for Aurora character. She wasn't explored wisely. She definitely plays a supporting role. All of that made this romance watchable but only for the aesthetic pleasure. 

As for the plot - it was boring, everything was spoiled and the rest was not interesting as it turns out to be an action movie in the third act with most of the problems in it. The drama at the end wasn't powerful due to numbers of flaws. Overall this movie shines in the technological aspects but lacks a good script and solid filmmaking; it looked expensive but too popcorny to be serious enough as it wanted.   

Passengers. Open Space

John Wick movie review.

John Wick is for me a perfect movie about hitman. Everything in it: action, violence, brutality and elegance action are impressive quality. Because of this, we got absolutely original film, a very rare and surprisingly shocking, fact that we did not even notice that we missed hardcore badass movie. After all, before the release of the movie no one expected that it will be as good, and only positive reviews and feedback got people to watch it and allowed to gather good enough money in the office box to make a sequel, which will be released in February 2017.

The main star of the film - Keanu Reeves, who is not as bright as twenty years ago, but I think in this movie, he proved that he is one of the best action stars in the world at the moment. He is well prepared physically, and he has got a real talent for thrillers. He does a great job with delivery of the character to the audience.

The script tells us the story of John Wick - legendary assassin, who retired from this terrible profession, for the sake of his wife, who is dying from a rare disease, and it becomes incredibly hard for John. He loses his purpose in life and sees no light at the end of the tonel. All that he has left - his favorite car and empty beautiful house, bought with money earned from long-term hitman career. Before her death, his wife buys John a dog so he would love something in his life, and that would remind him about her.

It is difficult to imagine what John Wick felt in the first days after the funeral, but we can imagine how can feel a hired killer in a period of complete despair. And better not to make funny of him and not to anger him at the moment - especially not to break into his house at night and not to kill the very dog, which embodies all the love of John for his departed wife. Plus, the robbers also stole his favorite car so John is ready to return to the past for finishing one last thing. The robbers are local bandits led by Viggo Tarasov - the very man to whom Wick worked the last time. Robbery organized by his son Joseph - selfish and uncontrollable, he violated the agreement between Wick and his father, thus making himself a prime target for John. Viggo himself would do everything to stop Wick, but to do so he will need all available resources and all waves of thugs he can afford.

The film is very well reveals Wick's feelings and emotions. We are invested into the character and completely understand his motives and actions. Also there are numerous parallels for the depth of the movie. Also, there are a lot of philosophical questions , making the film a piece of art. 

Guardians of the Galaxy movie review.

Poster

I just love this movie. It is filled with beautiful moments and well combines comedy and superhero genre. The uniqueness of the film is the soundtrack, which surprisingly conveys the whole atmosphere and emotionally makes it clear who is Peter Quill (Chris Pratt).

In general, the character is very funny and serious at the same time. Played by magnificent Chris Pratt - a master of charismatic characters. The entire film is built on his story, feelings, experiences. He clearly is a leader and the link to unite the guardians together. 

The movie plays from the beginning on viewer's feelings, makes it clear that the film will go deep into the character of the Star Lord. We are shown his connection with the family and why he keeps the player and the songs given to him.

I really appreciate the director's hand in the film. The whole production looks very cinematic, and, despite a more entertaining genre movie is worth to recommend it to all lovers of the cinema. By the way, the film is included in the rating of thousands of movies that you have to see in a lifetime. Rating compiled by serious people who put this film along with timeless classics.

The film is also filled with wonderful characters, in addition to Qwill. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) - Green cyborg-killer at heart quite nice, as well as Drax (Dave Bautista) poorly understands metaphors and epithets taken on Earth, making interaction with Peter Quill even more fun, because the last one often uses them.

Drax the Destroyer - another member of the team, a fearless warrior seeking revenge to the main villain - Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) for the death of loved ones. He will do everything for the sake of meeting him.

Raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) - companions, bounty hunters. Also very funny and nice characters. I will not list all of the many scenes in which the chemistry between guardians creates a hysterical joy (in a good way), because the whole film is built on their relationship. Groot - by the first look is a dump tree, with unique skeleton, allowing him to grow limbs and even do some tricks. He aslo has his own unique character, completely  loyal to friends. The Rocket is opposite very selfish and does not risk for the sake of others, he loves money and is best expert in electronics. And I liked Yondu Udonta played by Michael Rooker. He is the leader of the Ravagers. He has a special relationship with Quill, and indeed he is surprisingly very comic character.

It might seem difficult for these five different characters to form a great team. I have to say - it won't be easy for the first time , but thanks to their common goal, they are able to become a power to stop Ronan and save the Galaxy. 

John Wick's new poster and trailer released.

John Wick: Chapter Two is coming soon on February 10th, 2017 and already got us super excited about it. Since the first movie was great and now with a new trailer and poster it has a potential to be even more successful in the box office. 

On the poster we see John Wick surrounded by dozens of guns, all in blood. Go see it back and we can expect the same incredible action and fight scenes that we have enjoyed in the first film.

It should be noted that of the first film about John Wick has its own unique style of showing action with beautiful atmospheric music and Keanu Reeves's sharp sharpened movements, dividing wonderful tricks so gracefully that unconsciously you compare the film with the "Matrix".

An important role in these scenes also plays the role of the operator executing the inimitable scenes with great professionalism. Here is what to expect from the new John Wick. In addition, he went to Rome, from where you can also expect excellent atmospherics and a new spirit of the criminal world.

The same day, a new trailer was shown at the New York Comic Con and just confirmed everything I wrote above: great action, great views of Rome and John Wick, like the devil, effectively killing all around. First look at the hero Laurence Fishburne.And as a small shot on a new John dog, apparently also taking part in the action. I hope it does not die in this one.

I personally love the first John Wick, and now I'm even more looking forward seeing a new film, thanks to the trailer I was finally convinced that the film will not let me down and show what I'm looking for.