The Sound of Music Live Movie Review

Before we start it is important to say that we are reviewing the Sound of Music movie that was released in 2013 starring Carrie Underwood and not the original 1965 version. I have to confess that this is the first time that I see the play in any capacity. I had not seen the original movie, nor had I seen in on stage. That should give me a little advantage when reviewing the movie because I have nothing to compare it to.

The first thing that I have to say is that everyone in the musical has a voice that belongs on the stage. I was not disappointed at all by any of the vocals. I was especially happy with Carrie Underwood which proved that her voice is made for this type of music more than it is for country music. She has the pipes and she definitely uses them in this movie. Also loved Audra McDonald as Mother Abbess and Stephen Moyer as Captain Von Trapp, and of course the kids.

Now, singing is one thing and acting is something completely different. Everyone in the movie was great, but you can tell that Underwood simply is not an actress. That does not mean that she cannot get there as there were some great moments for her in the Sound of Music, but from time to time we were reminded that acting as of right now is not her thing. I do hope that she works on that because as I said before she does have a voice that should be on stage.

Overall, the Sound of Music Live was entertaining, but not as much as other musicals that have been on TV or at theaters in recent times. We still recommend that you watch it, but keep in mind that we are giving it 3 out of 5 possible stars. That means that “The Sound of Music Live” has more positives than negatives, but the negatives are very noticeable.

Deadpool Movie Review

So Deadpool has gotten mostly good reviews, but it is still hanging around in the 80’s in rottentomatoes.com at the moment (it is at 84 as I write this). That leads me to believe that some movie critics simply do not understand the character or they simply are too much of a snub to admit that they enjoy raunchy humor.

Deadpool is indeed one of the best superhero movies ever made, though I am not sure that we can call the title character a “superhero”. He is not a good guy, not by far. However, I think it is ok to call it that because it does exist in the X-Men universe. We do see the X-Mansion, Colossus, and the Negasonic Teenage Warhead. The movie is also the best R-Rated movie in the genre. Overall I am ranking Deadpool at number 4 among all the superhero movies ever made and I have seen all of them. I am thinking that only Avengers, Captain America Civil War and Age of Ultron are on top of it which means that in my least it knocked the Dark Knight down to number 5.

There is no confusing this movie with a kids’ movie. It is violent, raunchy and there is a fair amount of nudity and sexual jokes, but nothing ever feels forced… except for the international women’s day celebration; that does feel forced, but in a good and funny way (you will get it when you see the movie).

The villains were great and the interaction between Deadpool and Ajax was amazing. Perhaps they used a joke about the name a little too much, but I was still laughing at the end. Angel Dust is also a great character which I hope we get to see a lot more of in sequels or even in the X-Men movies.

Colossus, Negasonic and Weasel were also highlights of the movie. You get a good cop-bad cop feel from the Colossus-Deadpool relationship and it works perfectly. Negasonic Teenage Warhead is very different from the comics and she reminded me more of Cannonball, but since Negasonic was not in the comics much I did not mind it. Negasonic was at the end one of my favorite characters.

For those of you that did not know it, Deadpool is one of the few characters in comic books that regularly breaks the 4th wall and he does so in the movie in very funny ways. That also includes the after-credits scene. The fans will love that scene tough non-fans are likely to wonder what it was about.

In the end, Deadpool is a must see movie. It is funny in every way and it was structured so that you are never bored. The movie is intense and you will likely want to see it again and again. We are giving Deadpool a very high rating of 4.9 out of 5.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Review (No Spoilers)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica or otherwise known as Magical Girl Madoka Magica is a magical girl anime that will make you feel as if you are about to see a silly show about a happy go lucky girl’s life… and you would be wrong. The look of the main character Madoka is different to most of the other characters in the show. She looks innocent and happy and to top it all off she finds a creature that looks like an adorable cat, and the cat talks! If you want a cute show then you cannot go wrong, right? WRONG!

This show is dark and full of twists. Characters are not what they seem and though friendship is important to the main plot of the show, it is not the way you would think. There are characters that you think you can trust or that you should hate that turn out not to be what they seemed to be at the start. The idea is that a girl has to become a magical girl to fight witches and save those tortured by them. They get their powers by asking the cat for a wish which most of the time is granted but then they cannot go back to their previous lives.

There is of course a lot more to the show and the plot, but telling you more than that would risk going into massive spoilers. We will not be going into those because we want you to be as surprised as we were. What we can tell you is that despite the look this is not a show that you want to watch with your kids as it deals with scary situations, death and suicides.

The main characters include Madoka, her best friend Sayaka, the mysterious Magical girl Homura, two other magical girls Mami and Kyoko and the “cat” Kyubey. I say “cat” because if something talks it is not a cat. All characters are explored in the series, some more than others, but you never feel as if you are missing something. Everything in the show happens for a reason.

The animation for the show is one of the better ones in the magical girl genre. The witches are very artistic representations and though it is confusing at first you get used to it pretty quickly. The stakes for the characters in the show are very high and that is something I appreciate in any movie or show that I watch. So we are giving Magical Girl Madoka Magica a 4.3 out of a possible 5 stars.

Yuki Yuna Is A Hero Review (No Spoilers)

We decided that we will expand our horizons and talk about things other than movies and the first thing that we are expanding to is anime. Yuki Yuna is a hero is an anime series that is available on Netflix as of right now and it is the story of 5 girls granted powers to defend the earth from “vertexes” which sound like demons.

The premise seems a bit normal and not that exciting, but the reality is that there is a lot more to it than that. The girls start their journey loving the idea of being heroes, but they do not realize that there is a price that must be paid for sing their new powers.

Although Yuna Yuki is clearly the main character of the show, the other characters receive a lot of attention and you love all characters by the end of the show. Fu is the leader of the group and one that seems to have a lot to lose because not only is she putting herself at risk, she is also the one that got her younger sister Itsuki involved in the “Hero Club”. Togo is Yuna’s best friend and a character that we learn a lot about and Karin who does not appear until episode 3 is the one with the biggest character development and my favorite of the series.

The series is 12 episodes long, but binge watching it is not difficult as the episodes go by really fast. The show manages to keep watchers entertained and intrigued with a bit of a slow-down taking place around the half-season mark. Some things do go unexplained and that is why the series does not get the highest marks. It is still something that you should watch though, and that also goes to those that are not into anime (I was not into it until I saw it).

I would say that the show is not for kids and it deals with some mature subjects such as suicide. The animation is beautiful and the story is actually very good.

We are giving Yuna Yuki is a Hero 4 ½ stars out of a possible 5

“Bitten” Movie Review *Spoilers*

“Bitten” is a movie that most of you have not seen, but that you can get as a DVD or while surfing your Roku or Netflix. It stars Jason Mewes as Jack and Erica Cox as Danika. In the movie Danika is bit by a vampire and left for dead in a dumpster just outside of Jack’s apartment and Jack just happens to be a paramedic. She refuses to go to the hospital and so he does what anyone would do when faced with a super-hot chick that needs help… he opens his door and lets her stay.

A romance between the two grows, but then they realize that Danika has transformed into a vampire, don’t worry, there is no glitter. She cannot eat normal food and blood from the blood bank will not do so she does the next best thing and feeds on Jack’s ex and the neighborhoods dealers.

This is not by any stretch of the imagination a great movie, but I found myself surprisingly entertained by it. The plot is fun, the movie does have a few funny moments that made me laugh and I would not call it a complete waste of time. Plus, Erica Cox is really good looking and not a bad actress either. I found myself wondering why I have not seen her in other things. If you pay attention to her she is more than just a cute face and a sexy body though she does have a lot of that… can you say “new crush.”

You should not expect to be scared by bitten, it is not that type of horror movie. While there is some bad acting by some people which I will not mention or the most part Mewes and Cox carry the movie. This one is perfect if you are in the B-Movie mood where I would say it is better than most, but that is not how we review and rank movies in this blog so we will give it 2 and a half stars out of 5. That’s right, I enjoyed it and I would say that you should watch it if you are simply looking to be entertained.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review (Spoilers)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out and it feels good. The movie is almost as good as the original trilogy with a lot of action and enough for those who went to enjoy the nostalgia to leave the theater happy.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE SO IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE PLEASE COME BACK LATER

Right from the beginning this movie is action packed and all the new characters are to be enjoyed. There is no Jar-Jar in this movie or anything that comes even close to it. There is also a lot of fun to be had as this movie has a lot of laugh lines without ever going into the realm of comedies. Chewbacca and Han Solo have a lot of the best lines and Chewy was definitely the funniest of the bunch.

The new droid BB-8 was amazing and if you do not have the action figure yet, you have like 3 seconds to get it before the prices are too ridiculous. The little fellow steals the scene every time that he is around. He is expressive, funny, fun and all I can say is that if he were around I would give him thumbs-up.

In a rare event, every new character in the franchise is really good and every one of the actor delivers what they need to and more. Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac) is an amazing character and left us wanting a lot more of him. Finn (John Boyega) was fun and brought a lot of energy to the film and Rey (Daisy Ridley) is one of the best female heroes in film history. The villains are a bit more complicated as we do not know much about Snoke and Hux for example and Kylo Ren was the only character to give us mixed feelings.

The older generation was also great, especially Han Solo and Chewbacca. I would have wished a little more of Luke in the movie but I get why we didn’t. Leia was also back and in a position we all imagined she would be after the events of return of the Jedi. I also wished for more R2 and C3PO but I got that this was BB-8’s turn to step into the spotlight.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) started off as an amazing and powerful villain. That scene where he stops the blast from reaching him at the beginning was pretty badass and it was clear that his soldiers feared him; he was shaping up to be a perfect villain, but then once the mask came off all that changed. After that, it felt as if he was just a brat and Hux who at one point had fear in his face started flat out disrespecting him.

The other thing that needs an explanation is how in the Star Wars universe a character like Kylo Ren can lose a fight to two untrained individuals. It is clear that Rey had some experience using the force in the past but she hasn’t since she was a kid so it should have been an easy fight against a guy that had been training since he was a kid. There is not even such benefit of the doubt with Finn though. He was stolen from his family as a kid and it could be that he was force sensitive and that is why he was kidnapped by the First Order but there is no hint of that in the movie. Kylo Ren should have won that fight easily, but he didn’t and that is one of the problems we had with the movie.

The other problem that we had with the movie is that it was a bit predictable. Was there anyone watching that did not know that Han Solo had his future written out the moment that Leia asked him to bring their son back? Even if you did not realize it then, you should have the moment that Han saw Ben on the bridge. We all knew that Poe could not be dead in the crash and we knew R2D2 would come back at the end.

All that said, the movie was very enjoyable and we left the movie theater excited once again for the franchise. It is not the perfect movie and it is not even the best Star Wars movie, but it is up there. We are giving it 4 stars out of a possible 5.

X-Men Apocalypse Trailer Recap/Review

 

Yes, we are going on a mission

So the first wide-release tráiler for X-men: Apocalypse is out and I have a couple of thoughts about it. First of all the trailer does not look bad and it was good to see Cyclops, Beast, Angel and Jean in it. I hope that they have Ice-Man in it so that we can have the entire original team. We also saw Storm, Jubilee, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Magneto, Havok, Quicksilver and a very bald Professor Xavier which made me just say “finally!” I think that will be his look at the end of the movie, and that shot that you see may be the end of it.

Go-go Power Rangers

They also made sure not to give us too many shots of Apocalypse and not a single shot was from an angle like the one in the picture that made him look like a Power Rangers villain. There is also a scene where you see Apocalypse grow in size which is one of his iconic powers, but I am not sure how that will look in the big screen. Officially I am still not down with the look of the character, but that has the potential of being a good thing because it lowers expectations. You can have a bad looking character that is also awesome at the same time. His voice is not menacing, but until I see the movie I cannot tell you if that will matter as much.

The next thing I will bitch about, because that is what I do better, is the fact that they cast Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique. Don’t get me wrong, she is an awesome actress. I think Jennifer Lawrence is the best young actress in Hollywood at this time and that is the problem that I have with the casting. They must feel that because it is such a huge name and an amazing talent that you are dealing with that they have to make her good. I would rather see her being evil and in Apocalypse’s side and I know that Lawrence can pull it off and she would be great at it, but they won’t do it because she HAS TO be a hero.

"And Emo Kid, go write a song"

The one thing that people say about this movie that I am not too concerned about is that there are a ton of characters. As I said before in the list of people that we saw, there are plenty of characters is true, but we don’t know how they will be used. We know that Magneto, Angel, Psylocke and Storm are going to be the 4 horsemen and we know that some of the mutants will go on the mission to stop Apocalypse which is fine because the X-Men are a team. We know that Quicksilver, Jean Grey, Psylocke, Beast, Nightcrawler, Mystique, and Charles are going to be fighting, but we don’t know what role Havok, Jubilee and Wolverine will have.

Now on to the positives, I think the movie looks good for what they are trying to do. I am pretty sure that we will get a great movie because this is the one Fox property that they have started doing right. Fox may have no idea what in the hell they are doing with Fantastic Four, but as long as Bryan Singer is involved with X-Men, they are in safe hands. I like the casting choices for this movie (minus Mystique and Beast), because they seem right for the role. The stakes look really big which I like and the villain despite the look and sound of him, will be the biggest threat that the X-Men have faced on film.

I cannot wait to see this movie. You can bet that we will be there on the day it is out and I do not mind that I will be there probably at 10 AM to the matinee show. The movie looks like it will be great on IMAX too.

That look you get when you are watching someone sleep and they wake up