Screw reboots. Continuity should be damned. You know how many iterations I have seen of Spiderman in animated form? I do not need to see Spidermans origins covered ever again.
IMO live action superhero movies should copy the DC animated movies model. They just pick a good story - from a graphic novel usually - and go with it. I will not go near this Amazing Spiderman reboot rubbish.
gamingeek said:Why rebbot spiderman? Pointless. Only Spiderman 2 was actually good.
I started watching Let the Bullets Fly last night. It sold out in the far east, was never released in Europe so I had to wait and import it from america of all places.
The trailer and title have you thinking its some slick action movie, then you start and the first half hour is a clusterfuck farcical comedy mish mash.
You spend the first half hour or so thinking "this is going to be shit" but it's a 2hr 12 m film so you stick with it. And it does indeed bed down and get a lot better once a certain character dies and kicks in a game of wits between rival warlords. However it does not appear to be an action film and is dialogue heavy and more interested in the mind games both rivals get into and the games they play.
I can't really explain what is so clever about it without revealing some important plot points, but it can be very clever and has a few spots of mega-black comedy, one which had me laughing in shock at how outrageous it was. One weakness so far is that it seems that a lot of the scenes are overplayed and could be done in a much slicker, more subtle way. In some ways the excessive dialogue and overplayed scenes are reminiscent of a Chinese Tarantino film, only more convoluted and not as slick. And it still retains that slight element of Chinese farce which sits uneasily with the western pallet.
I still have about an hour to watch so I'm hoping it has a strong ending as the reviews were quite good and it's got me all over the place so far as to whether the whole thing will come together in a satisfying way.
Finished watching it. I was expecting some balls to the wall action scene at the end. Nope.
This is categorically not an action movie.
Basically some bandits hijack a new governor of a town on his way to take up office. They pretend to be the governor instead to make money, they run into an asshole gangster in town who rules the town and they do their best to screw him over. It's like a western.
It does come together in the end and the way they finally nabbed the bad guy at the end was precious, so funny. This is a clever, sometimes funny movie that can be slightly overplayed and somewhat farcical.
It's good, but not great and should bring a wry smile to the corner of your face. 
Battle Royale film = 
I finished the book a couple weeks ago, and, despite some problems I had with it early on, I grew to enjoy it. I was expecting the film to share the book's more serious tone, but it's more like a really bad action-horror-comedy. WTF? I haven't finished the film yet; I'm only about halfway through.
Ravenprose said:Battle Royale film =
I finished the book a couple weeks ago, and, despite some problems I had with it early on, I grew to enjoy it. I was expecting the film to share the book's more serious tone, but it's more like a really bad action-horror-comedy? WTF?
Oh yeah, it's funny. That's part of why it's so good. Overwrought super emotionally charged Japanese teenagers bumping each other off whilst wondering about the meaning of life.
Some of the story changes from the book to the film were odd. I'm disappointed Sakamochi wasn't the villian. The funniest part in the film was that super happy girl in the training video.
Ravenprose said:Some of the story changes from the book to the film were odd. I'm disappointed Sakamochi wasn't the villian. The funniest part in the film was that super happy girl in the training video.
I liked it when the guy was given a frying pan as a weapon.
gamingeek said:I liked it when the guy was given a frying pan as a weapon.
Frying pans are awesome weapons! See Disney's Tangled for proof.
One guy in the book was given a dinner fork as a weapon.
Did you finish watching it yet?
I watched half of Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.
Decent so far but not a patch on Detective Dee, from the same director.
Finished Flying Swords of Dragon Gate
Good entertainment. Nowhere near as good as Harks previous film: Detective Dee but entertaining nonetheless.
The films first 30 minutes is a waste of time, things only get going when two groups of people get together at Dragon Gate Inn and the games begin. Then things become more interesting and exciting.
The story is that there are 3 badasses going around bumping off corrupt officials. The officials are trying to stop them and bump off a concubine who may be pregnant with the emporers baby. They all head towards dragon gate inn following this woman. They end up in the middle of an incoming sandstorm and come across a group of bandits waiting to plunder a buried palace of gold. Neither group wants the other there so they start the games to get rid of each other.
The action is good, with perhaps a little too much over reliance on CGI. And the film has a mistep in the main female character never really IS the main female character. In fact the two leads are sort of sidelined which is odd and the first half hour of the film is needless, overlong-yet-unconnected lead in to the main action and story at the inn.
Overall it's good but not great. I repeat my reccomendation: GO SEE DETECTIVE DEE RIGHT NAO
I have seen lots of movies lately. Well not that many, but I usually go to the cinema once every few months, so it is many for me!
I could tell you my impressions of the Avengers. Or I could tell you about Prometheus and how the movie does not make any sense! Still a good movie though. Or the latest Mel Gibson movie 'How I spent my summer vacation'. I even saw a non Hollywood film, the Invader.
But forget about all those movies. Heck forget about the new Batman for a minute. You need to see this movie:
All those movies mentioned before pale in comparison. See it as soon as possible, your life has no meaning until you see this! Your life still won't have any meaning after you see this, but go watch it anyways.
Saw Wuxia.
Wu Xia is a 2011 martial arts thriller film directed by Peter Chan and starring Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tang Wei. Yen also served as the film's action director
The film is set in 1917 in a post-Qing Dynasty era, at Liu Village on the border of Yunnan, China.
Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) and his wife Yu (Tang Wei) are an ordinary couple with two sons, Fangzheng (Zheng Wei) and Xiaotian (Li Jiamin) , living together in Liu Village. One day two bandits enter the village and attempt to rob the general store. Liu Jinxi happens to be in the shop and he fights with the robbers when they turn violent towards the shopkeeper and his family. He kills them during the fight. During an autopsy, detective Xu Baijiu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) , who is sent to investigate the case, discovers that one of the dead bandits was Yan Dongsheng (Yu Kang) , who is among the government's ten most wanted fugitives. The local magistrate is pleased, and Liu Jinxi is regarded as a hero by his fellow villagers.
However Xu becomes suspicious because he does not believe that Yan Dongsheng, a fighter, could be easily killed by Liu
Unlike Let the Bullets Fly and Dragon Gate Inn which underwhelmed compared to some reviews, Wuxia is worthy of the praise it's received.
It's not really a martial arts film, even though there are several action scenes in the movie. It's more like a modern crime film. Yen is a simple paper maker who kills two bandits who try to rob and kill the people in his shop. A detective comes to town and starts investigating how it all happened. It's really well played because you cannot tell if the detective is having delusions or not. The action is filmed with a 500 frames per second camera for super detailed slow mo. Very innovative scene and interesting, engrossing story. It all plays out like a modern crime film at the end and the whole thing is just really well done.
The action scenes in the movie showcase a really great style. The scenes are not memorable because of other reasons, the actors, the actual situation and story. BUT the actual choreography is totally awesomely done. It sits right plumb in the middle between realistic and fantasy, never veering too far one way or the other. It's just perfectly balanced and something I didn't think Yen was capable of choreographing. This movie as far as I know is not availible in Europe or the States which is a shame as it's one of the better asian movies to come out last year.
GG, have you seen the Wolverine and The X-Men cartoon? I just started it last night (God knows why) and so far it's actually pretty good. There's some hilarious dialogue in it, though: "IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!" etc.
Foolz said:GG, have you seen the Wolverine and The X-Men cartoon? I just started it last night (God knows why) and so far it's actually pretty good. There's some hilarious dialogue in it, though: "IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!" etc.
I own the whole thing on DVD. It's actually very good and consistent. If it lasted for more than one season it would be Avatar The Last Airbender series good. Make sure you watch them in order.
gamingeek said:I own the whole thing on DVD. It's actually very good and consistent. If it lasted for more than one season it would be Avatar The Last Airbender series good. Make sure you watch them in order.
Yep, I'm watching it on DVD so that shouldn't be a problem. Definitely looks like they're building up an overall story arc which is great...unless it then ends on a cliffhanger.
Foolz said:
Yep, I'm watching it on DVD so that shouldn't be a problem. Definitely looks like they're building up an overall story arc which is great...unless it then ends on a cliffhanger.
The whole of season 1 is based on the Phoenix story. It's sort of like a remix of it and blends with some Days of Future Past concepts.
Then at the end they were going to do the next season based on Apocalypse and avoiding this future dictatorship but the series was cancelled as they could not work out the funding. I think the team went on to do the Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes series which is pretty good, but not as consistent as Wolverine and the X-Men.
gamingeek said:The whole of season 1 is based on the Phoenix story. It's sort of like a remix of it and blends with some Days of Future Past concepts.
Then at the end they were going to do the next season based on Apocalypse and avoiding this future dictatorship but the series was cancelled as they could not work out the funding. I think the team went on to do the Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes series which is pretty good, but not as consistent as Wolverine and the X-Men.
Ah, well I have no idea what that is. A comic storyline I assume? My experience with the X-Men is two of the Hugh Jackman films. And now this.
Foolz said:Ah, well I have no idea what that is. A comic storyline I assume? My experience with the X-Men is two of the Hugh Jackman films. And now this.
Yeah they are long running famous X-Men themes and stories, but here they remix things and characters.
Went to the cinema in glasgow last night to watch TDKR. I enjoyed it for the most part though I had a few minor complaints. I kept thinking there was something wrong with the sound balance - some of the dialogue was indecipherable and the explosions and hans zimmer's score were too loud (but i think the other nolan batman films were like this too so maybe it's by design).
Good film, even for a non cinema goer, non holywood blockbuster person like me.
I also liked the trailer for "the Watch" ... looks like it will be a fun movie in the style of "The Other Guys" or "Dodgeball". Looking forward to that
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
That would sort of be the reason for a reboot or at least one of them. You didn't like most of the original trilogy, so now it's time to try it again and win over viewers like you. As far as the other reasons is they want to spend more time on Spider-Man as a teenager instead of rushing through it like the first movie did. The first decade of the book he was in high school, and there are stories that happened there you can't tell later in his life. Plus, the former editor in chief of Marvel, Joe Quesada (may he rot in the fires of Hades forever), wasn't a fan of adult Spider-man, so I'm sure he had a role in this decision too.
I'm actually fine with the reboot. They're done all the time in the world of comic books so in my mind it just comes with the territory. Hell DC comic just rebooted their entire universe (to better than you'd expect results too).