Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials review

MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS:

UNDENIABLY EXCITING BUT THE FILM SUFFERS FROM CONFUSING PLOT ELEMENTS AND SOME OF THE FLAIR OF ITS PREDECESSOR WEARS THIN!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** 1/2 out of 4

20^TH CENTURY FOX

Welcome to The Scorch Trials

            Last year, a film adaptation of James Dashner’s young adult sci-fi novel, The Maze Runner was released. Pretty much any young adult novel can be adapted into a film these days, while I was familiar with Harry Potter and Twilight (PS: No I never read a Twilight book and I don’t plan to!) before they had film adaptations, like The Hunger Games and Divergent, I had pretty much no background information on The Maze Runner books, so I came into the movie to judge it as a film, rather than as an adaptation of a book, and I thought it was a decent movie.

            The Maze Runner movie was nothing that spectacular, but I liked the creativity of the Maze set and the designs of the deadly creatures out to kill the protagonists, the plot was a mixed bag though. A lot of the movie felt like a combination of The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies and I’m sure I’m not the only person to make that judgment, but it kept me entertained and I wanted to know what was going to happen to the main characters after they escaped the Maze, then again I was spoiled by better 2014 film releases like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Guardians of the Galaxy.

            So after I saw it, I never really spoke about it after my review, and I didn’t know what to expect with a Maze Runner sequel. In comes Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, based on Dashner’s second book in his Maze Runner series, which like the first film, I didn’t read the book prior to this, so I will be judging it as a movie again.

            Dylan O’Brien (MTV’s Teen Wolf), Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Nanny McPhee, Phineas and Ferb, Game of Thrones), Ki Hong Lee (The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Kaya Schodelario (Clash of the Titans, Skins), Alexander Flores (The Wackness, Rescue Me), and Dexter Darden (Joyful Noise) all reprise their roles from the first film. And like in the first movie, they still do a decent job portraying their characters, they’re not Harry Potter or Hunger Games characters, but they’re certainly better than the bland and dull lifeless Twilight character puppets.

            Shortly after escaping the Maze, Thomas (O’Brien) and his fellow Gladers are about to face their greatest challenge yet, searching for clues about the mysterious and powerful organization named WCKD that may be the ones responsible for putting them in the Maze in the first place. But first they must escape a facility run by Mr. Janson (Aidan Gillen-Shanghai Knights, Calvary, Game of Thrones) of the WCKD organization who has been experimenting on the kids and teenagers they keep there.

            Once they escape the facility, they end up in a desolate landscape known as the Scorch filled with unimaginable obstacles and zombies (Yes, zombies!) to destroy Thomas and the Gladers. Upon making it into the Scorch, the Gladers team up with resistance fighters who want to put an end to WCKD for good, so they take on their superior forces and possibly uncover the secret plan WCKD has planned for them all.

            Overall, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials didn’t leave much of an impression with me, much like its predecessor, but it’s not terrible and I’m relieved that it wasn’t bad in the end, especially after viewings of Seventh Son, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fantastic Four,Hitman: Ag ent 47, and The Transporter: Refueled. The characters are portrayed decently, the action is a lot of fun, and some of the twists and surprises can be suspenseful.

            However, my biggest issue is a lot of the plot elements, mainly the undead zombies in the Scorch, perhaps it makes more sense in the book, but here, it feels like they belong in a completely different movie, literally when they showed up I kept saying to myself “I thought I was watching Maze Runner, when did this become Resident Evil?” but don’t worry, it’s not as bad as that franchise.

            Other problems I have with the film is that the story feels like it’s very far away from The Maze Runner, I didn’t know what to expect but I was expecting the film to hit familiar territories with the first movie, seems like it jumped the shark. I had to remind myself that I was watching a Maze Runner movie half the time.

            But with that said, if you enjoyed the first movie and want to see how the story continues, you shouldn’t be disappointed. However if you were disappointed or underwhelmed by it, we got a third movie on the way in 2017, so hopefully it’ll be better and hopefully the story will start making sense, but I’m pretty much expecting a Hunger Games: Mockingjay style ending with this series, we’ll just have to wait and see.         

The Visit review

THE VISIT:

A RARE SHYAMALAN VISIT WITH CHILLS AND HILARITY THAT CAN BE THOROUGHLY ENJOYED!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Don’t leave your room after 9:30 during The Visit

            HALLELLUJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry just had to get that out, anyway, director M. Nigh Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs) had quite an interesting career in filmmaking. He started off on top of the world with the 1999 Oscar nominated thriller, The Sixth Sense starring Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, and Haley Joel Osment which was widely praised by critics and audiences alike, was a box office hit during its theatrical release, and was nominated for numerous Academy Awards.

            The following year, he directed Unbreakable, it received favorable reviews from critics and audiences when it came out in 2000, though more people were split on the movie, but it certainly wasn’t bad. Then we move into the 2002 film Signs which starred Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, and Abigail Breslin, which like The Sixth Sense received very positive reviews from critics when the film was released, but later reception was more negative, and thus beginning the hilarious downfall of Shyamalan’s career.

            After Signs, his movies kept getting sillier and sillier, from The Village, Lady in the Water, The Happening, to his cinematic tragedy, The Last Airbender, his hilariously bad, Devil, and the movie that failed to make Jaden Smith a star, After Earth, all hope was lost for Shyamalan to direct a good movie again like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable…until now.

            In comes his latest film, The Visit, produced by Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity franchise, Insidious trilogy, The Purge), which at first I was expecting this movie to crash and burn like Shyamalan’s other recent films after I first saw the trailer before one of Jason Blum’s other recent thrillers, Unfriended. Shortly afterwards I posted a link to the trailer on my Facebook wall claiming that if it doesn’t get at least a 60% or higher score on Rotten Tomatoes, I wouldn’t go see it, well, it did, so a deal’s a deal and I went to go see it.

            And it pretty much delivered what I was expecting, but in a good way, the film is shot in a found-footage style with a handheld camera and cheap effects, a creepy tone, and when it needs to be, unintentionally hilarious, although perhaps it could just be M. Night Shyamalan making fun of his own directing style, but it’s a thoroughly entertaining film by him and these come incredibly rarely.

            Brother and sister, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould-Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Paper Planes) and Becca (Olivia DeJonge-The Sisterhood of Night) are sent to their grandparents’ remote farm in Pennsylvania for a weeklong visit by their single mom. At first it seems very pleasant, the grandparents are nice, the home is comfortable, the farm and woodland area is strangely beautiful, and the nearby town has a lot to see, perfect for Becca’s homemade documentary film about her mom and grandparents’ lives and for Tyler to gain inspiration for his dream career of being a rapper.

            However their Pop-Pop (Peter McRobbie-And the Band Played OnZ, elig, Big) informs them that Nana (Deanna Dunagan-Men Don’t Leave, Running Scared) is “Sick” and tells them that they have only one rule, don’t ever leave their bedroom after 9:30 PM because they’re old. But that’s not entirely true.

            Every night, Becca and Tyler hear noises coming from downstairs and they eventually realize that there is something wrong; their grandparents are involved with something very disturbing. Either they’re paranoid, psychotic, or just odd.

            They’re determined to find out what’s wrong with them but their chances of returning home safe and sound are growing smaller every day.

            Overall, The Visit is a thoroughly enjoyable M. Night Shyamalan movie, the film is shot well and mimics a home movie, it doesn’t go right into the horror or Shyamalan traditions, lots of buildup and atmosphere and it’s decently done here, and of course it’s chillingly funny, still not sure if it’s intentional or not.

            Oxenbould and DeJonge are pretty decent young actors and unlike other Shyamalan movies, they don’t talk or act like Shyamalan characters, their acting seems very natural to how kids usually act, I hope they go somewhere because they got talent. Now the traditional Shyamalan characters are present and they’re the grandparents, every time they’re on screen they look like a blend between both kind and threatening.

            Fortunately the Shyamalan twist doesn’t derail the movie, it’s a well thought out twist, but it does result in hilarity overload, but not in a bad way. This movie blows The Last Airbender and After Earth out of the water when it comes to Shyamalan, it’s no Shyamalan masterpiece like The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, nor do I consider it a “Good Scary Movie”, but in terms of entertainment and just plain absurdity, this movie delivers and it’s a sign that M. Night Shyamalan is slowly making a comeback to good movies, as long as we don’t get The Last Airbender 2. 

The Transporter: Refueled review

THE TRANSPORTER: REFUELED:

MORE LIKE THE TRANSPORTER: REHASHED!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * 1/2 out of 4

EUROPACORP

Ed Skrein as Frank Martin AKA the Transporter in The Transporter: Refueled

            Wow, and I thought rebooting the Fantastic Four was a pointless idea; this is beyond desperate and confusing at the same time. English rapper, Ed Skrein (Game of Thrones) takes on the iconic role that made Jason Statham the action star he is today in the fourth installment of The Transporter franchise, The Transporter: Refueled, not to mention the first Transporter movie released since 2008’s Transporter 3, which was a pretty weak sequel to an enjoyably silly franchise.

            So what did they do here? Make it even weaker, for example replacing Jason Statham with Skrein, that’s strike 1, the film rehashing elements from other Transporter movies, specifically Transporter 2, that’s strike 2, and the film tries too hard to find a midpoint between a sequel and a reboot, and ultimately fails at both, that’s strike 3. This pointless movie was made pretty much just to do what they did for Jason Statham with Ed Skrein.

            The first Transporter is a fun movie, undeniably flawed but it’s an entertaining movie that’s over the top, and full of thrills and suave. Jason Statham’s performance isn’t Oscar worthy but he’s a likable action star and he sure knows how to kick some ass, so naturally the film was a hit so producer Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, The Messenger: Story of Joan of Arc, Taken trilogy) started getting ideas for its sequel, Transporter 2.

            Some of the fun and action wasn’t quite as fresh the second time around with Transporter 2, but the plot was well put together and gripping and it’s usually the Transporter movie plot that most people remember, and of course it got plenty of Jason Statham cool that helped keep it afloat, so again, big hit, third movie was on the way.

            Transporter 3 released in 2008 was when the franchise really started to lose its action packed fun, the action was generic, the characters lacked development, and overall you just don’t care for anything and anyone that happened throughout the movie, so it was a dud, like most third installments.

            So about seven years later, Besson returned with a fourth installment or a reboot or something known as The Transporter: Refueled, in the director’s chair is Camille Delamarre (Brick Mansions) and Ed Skrein in Jason Statham’s place as Frank Martin AKA the Transporter, and boy does it fail hard.

            Frank Martin, a former special-ops mercenary is now living a less perilous and more peaceful life, so he thinks. Transporting classified packages for questionable people. His father (Ray Stevenson-Punisher: War Zone, Thor, Divergent) visits him in the south of France and their father-son bonding takes a turn for the worse when Frank is called in by a cunning femme-fatale, Anna (Loan Chabanol-Fading Gigolo, Third Person) and her three seductive sidekicks to put together the bank heist of the century.

            Frank must use his covert expertise and fast car and fast driving knowledge to outrun a sinister Russian kingpin or thrust into a game of chess with a team of beautiful women out for revenge.

            Overall, The Transporter: Refueled is thoroughly pointless and questionable in its existence, the film needs to pick one, is it going to be a sequel or is it going to be a reboot? Because it fails at being both, the film tries too hard to do fan service from better installments of the series while doing things that are completely different.

            Remember the deadly disease that was spreading in the second movie? Yeah, they do that again here with Frank’s father and people who have seen the second movie can probably guess what was really put into his body. And of course the traditional parking garage gang fight from Transporter 2 returns in this, only here it’s incredibly awkward due to Jason Statham not being the one fighting and this Transporter cliché really overstayed its welcome, it’s just constant rehashing of the first two movies and a climax that consists entirely of typical action movie clichés, and ultimately becomes a watered down, half ass hybrid clone of the first two movies but without Statham.

            Even on its own, The Transporter: Refueled fails as an action movie, aside from a few fun action sequences and an awesome chase on an airplane runway, the action is very standard and it’s all stuff we’ve seen in the other three films, that’s usually the time to look at your watch and see how much longer you have in the theater.

            And let’s not forget, Ed Skrein’s performance as the Transporter, prior to watching this I looked back at the other three Transporter movies with Jason Statham and Skrein doesn’t even come close to matching Jason Statham. He’s clearly trying to mimic exactly what Jason Statham did in the other three movies and it comes off as awkward, this guy isn’t the Transporter, it’s a guy pretending to be the Transporter, Statham is the one true Transporter and this is a failed attempt at recreating it.

            It isn’t as bad as Fantastic Four or Hitman: Agent 47 but it’s still a very lousy installment of the once great Transporter franchise. If you want a better sequel/reboot experience, stream Mad Max: Fury Road instead, it’s a much better option as a sequel or reboot and it works on its own as a film, this clearly doesn’t.

Top 20 Favorite Films of Summer 2015

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9

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5

4

3

2

1

Honorable Mentions: Magic Mike XXL, Southpaw, We Are Your Friends, American Ultra, Minions, Tomorrowland, Pitch Perfect 2, Ted 2, Entourage 

Hitman: Agent 47 review

HITMAN: AGENT 47:

THIS “HITMAN” MISSES ITS TARGET!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * 1/2 out of 4

20^TH CENTURY FOX

Rupert Friend is Hitman: Agent 47

            Here we go again, another live action movie based on the popular Hitman video game series, originally developed by Eidos but is now owned by Square Enix’s IO Software. The first Hitman movie released in 2007 was widely panned by critics and fans of the game, no shock, but when I first watched it, I honestly kinda liked it, at least as an action movie, I’m sure as a video game movie it fails hard, but Hitman wasn’t really a video game series that I followed that much, I’ve played them once in a while, they’re good but they didn’t leave much of an impression on me, it certainly did with other people and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

            The first Hitman movie starred Timothy Olyphant as the genetically altered killing machine, Agent 47 and while the film is undeniably flawed and not technically a good movie, Olyphant was somewhat entertaining as Agent 47 and had some development as a character and the action for the most part was over the top fun. But it didn’t matter because while the film did well at the box office, the reviews were very negative and the sequel was canceled during production.

            So in its place, we have a reboot, Hitman: Agent 47, directed by newcomer Aleksander Bach, written by Hitman (2007) writer, Skip Woods, and starring Rupert Friend (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Young Victoria, Homeland) as Agent 47. Unlike Fox’s other reboot that came out this summer, Fantastic Four, which I had no expectations for, I pretty much had low expectations on this movie from the start, a reboot of the Hitman movie, really, what can you do with this?

            And they pretty much do exactly what every other video game movie does, little to no understanding of the original source material, cardboard cutout characters that are just called in to “Look” like the game without really trying, overwhelming action sequences, and moments where a character should look threatening but it mostly comes off as unintentionally hilarious. Even the first Hitman movie had some watchable elements, whether you’re a fan of the game or not, this however will probably make fans of the Hitman games have a whole new appreciation for the first movie.

            The film centers on Agent 47, an elite assassin who was genetically altered from conception to become the perfect killing machine. This man feels no emotion, has a barcode on the back of his head, he named himself after the last two digits of the barcode, and his sole purpose in life is to kill, kill, kill, he’s practically like the Terminator, except not nearly as fun to watch as Arnold Schwarzenegger, but just as robotic in his acting.

            47 is the culmination of decades of scientific research and 46 earlier Agent clones, very much like the Smith clones in the Matrix movies, with unprecedented strength, speed, stamina, and intelligence, it’s like Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes on steroids and heavy firepower.

            His target is a top-secret organization that plans to unlock the secrets of Agent 47 to create an army of Agent clones that would possess powers that could surpass 47’s capabilities and an equally powerful Agent henchman (Zachary Quinto-Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness). Teaming up with a young woman, Katie van Dees (Hannah Ware-Cop Out, Shame, Oldboy) who also have the same powers as 47 and powers that may surpass his, and her father, Dr. Litvenko (Ciarán Hinds-Excalibur, Road to Perdition, Munich), the scientist who created the Agent program, 47 confronts revelations about his own origins and faces off in an epic battle with his deadliest foe yet.

            Overall, Hitman: Agent 47 is a pretty weak attempt to breathe new life into a dead video game movie from 2007 and basically it ends up being like every other video game movie ever made. You name it, lazy character development, amateur acting, and heavy focus on overwhelming action sequences over telling a decent story, it’s a mess, plain and simple.

            But with that said, some the action sequences can be over the top fun like an exciting car chase through a parking garage, a bloody shootout in a factory, and even some of the scenes where Katie learns how to use her skills can be pretty neat, when they’re not turning an action scene into a seizure inducing light show. Unfortunately all throughout the movie I’m just saying to myself “These action scenes are cool, but do I really care who comes out on top?” And the correct answer is No.

            47, Katie, and her father are not developed well, they’re not characters but rather tools to just get the movie going. You don’t feel for these characters, the backstories are through extremely choppy editing, and Rupert Friend and Hannah Ware are very bland, at least Timothy Olyphant was sort of interesting back in the first Hitman movie, and Zachary Quinto is basically just re-enacting his Vulcan emotions from when he played Spock in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies, except they worked better in those movies than they do here.

            Besides the acting and poor development, the film’s characters are horrible at looking threatening. Every time Agent 47 is walking in slow motion and that techno music plays, I burst into laughter because of how silly and over the top it looks, but it certainly isn’t threatening, it’s funny, not to mention Zachary Quinto has plenty of moments that are unintentionally funny, but unfortunately it doesn’t have enough unintentionally funny moments to be considered “So bad it’s entertaining” like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation or the Super Mario Bros. movie, hell even Pixels and last year’s Need for Speed movie were better than this.

            If you don’t like movies based on video games, there’s pretty much nothing in here for you. And all this action just makes you wish you were back home playing your Xbox. 

Straight Outta Compton review

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON:

A MINDBLOWING TRIBUTE TO RAP MUSIC AND THE BATTLE FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** 1/2 out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, MC Ren, and Easy-E are Straight Outta Compton

            Director F. Gary Gray (Friday, The Negotiator, The Italian Job) joins forces with big name rap superstar, Ice Cube (Boyz n the Hood, Friday, 21 Jump Street) to bring the incredible true story about a rap group’s battle for freedom of speech and human rights to the screen in Straight Outta Compton, named after the rap group, NWA (N*ggas with Attitude)’s first album. When I first saw the posters, ads, and constant memes, I wasn’t sure what this movie was supposed to be, that and I don’t follow rap music that much, but after seeing talented people like Ice Cube’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr. in his father’s shoes, Corey Hawkins (Iron Man 3, Non-Stop, The Walking Dead) as Dr. Dre, and Paul Giamatti (Sideways, Win Win, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) starring in the film and the incredibly positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, I decided to gave the film a viewing and I can gladly say it’s one of the best rap movies I’ve seen since Hustle & Flow and 8 Mile.

            The movie manages to balance between an inspirational biographical music drama about the origins and success of a rap group, an intense gangster film, and a movie about freedom of speech and discrimination. But what makes the film truly shine is the chemistry between the NWA members, they’ll make you laugh, they’ll make you cry, and they’ll make you dance, that and when the intense moments happen, they feel uncomfortably real and tragic, but don’t worry it’s not 12 Years A Slave uncomfortable.

            In the mid-1980s the streets of Compton were some of the most dangerous streets in the country. You name it gangs, violence and murders; corrupt law enforcement, to name a few.

            Fed up with it all, five young men translate their experiences growing up into brutally honest rap music that rebelled against abusive authority. Consisting of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, the late Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell-Texas Killing Fields, Contraband), MC Ren (Aldis Hodge-The Ladykillers, A Good Day to Die Hard, The East), and DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.-Out of Time, Never Back Down, Battle: Los Angeles) these then-newcomer rappers join forces to become the rap group, NWA and fight for freedom of speech and against discrimination towards African-Americans, with brutally honest songs like Fuck Da Police and Straight Outta Compton about the corrupt police force in Compton and how they arrest and harass African-American people, even if they didn’t do anything.

            From fines and jail time to riots in the city and money scandals with their former manager of Ruthless Records, Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), NWA will do anything to get their message across to the world about freedom of speech and ending corrupt law enforcement.

            Overall, Straight Outta Compton is a very ambitious project, but the cast and crew pull it off very well, with solid acting from the lead cast, dope rap songs that’ll make you dance, intense and emotional drama, and a very important moral, especially for rising star rappers. The origin stories of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and the rest of the NWA are executed very well and they even talk about Dr. Dre’s collaboration with Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube’s successful film career with Boyz n the Hood and Friday, which were both critical and commercial hits when they came out in theaters.

            The film also teaches lessons about scams involving record managers and how violent they can get, certainly some very helpful advice for newcomer rappers. It proves that sometimes a criminal can be working with you when you’re big in the industry.

            The songs the group performs in the clubs and stages are amazing and will certainly make you bop your heads, tap your feet, and stand up in the theater and cheer, it makes me want to buy their first album. Even the aggressive Fuck Da Police song is well choreographed, catchy, and it makes a very strong point about how corrupt law enforcement can be.

            If you’re a fan of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and rap music in general, you’ll love Straight Outta Compton, the music, moral, and plot are executed very well and is both informative and entertaining, though I’m not entirely sure how accurate the film is to the real events, but I’ve heard it covers most of what happened. But as a movie I strongly recommend it to both moviegoers and music enthusiasts.

FUCK DA POLICE AND FUCK DISCRIMINATION!