Pages

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

January Movies

Hey guys!

It looks like the slight return of my writing mojo last month is once again trumped by my crazy schedule *sigh*, and again i waited until the last days of the month to share my movies review haha (btw this month we only watched one movie WTH is happening...), whatever i am just determined not to skip it.

Watched a total of four, all very mainstream and popular movies last month, and i like all of them quite a lot.



Yeah well, it's definitely one of those "everybody and their dog has watched it" kind of movie, i mean... Who haven't heard of The Greatest Showman, right? And like the majority of those who had, i also like the movie - a lot. And i put the soundtrack on a repeat. But i am not crazy over it tho...

Phineas Taylor Barnum, or better known as P.T. Barnum is a poor orphan with a big dream to become the greatest showman. Alongside his childhood sweetheart who eventually become his wife, he pulls himself out of poverty to working class. When his job is suddenly gone, he is struck by a sheer genius (if sneaky) idea to get the capital he needs from the bank to start his wax museum (which is apparently aplenty in his era) that he keeps on innovating into a freak show/oddities circus. He become super successful but his thirst to be accepted by the upper class makes him become obsessed and when he sees the opera singer Jenny Lind, he sees it as his ticket to enter that very world and lost sight of everything that matters.

Yes, it is highly, highly entertaining. It is touching, the songs are super good and catchy, the casts are wonderful and deliver stunning performances - it made me cry, made me laugh and it totally warmed my heart. Would i go and watch it the second time in the cinema? Probably not (although i know a friend who went to watch it 3 times). It's the kind of movie that i would highly recommend, especially for those who enjoys musicals - but personally it's not something that i would rewatch over and over again. Oh and also, i am very annoyed at people who gets mad because it depicts P.T. Barnum in such a good light and because it's not historically really accurate... It's a freaking musical, people! Even though it's loosely based on the real life P.T. Barnum, ofc it is going to be 1000% dramatized and added with different spices! 

2. Insidious : The Last Key
So honestly the third installment of Insidious hardly excited me (partly because Patrick Wilson is no longer in it but mostly because it's kinda lacklustre overall) but somehow i was still looking forward to the fourth one... Especially after seeing the trailer that looks scarier than the third one... And it was! It doesn't get very good rating or whatever, but for horror junkies like me who are always thirsting for a decent horror movie... It's not bad! 

This movie tells the beginning of Elise (apparently she is a Parapsychologist, i thought she was just a psychic :p), right from the very beginning of her as a very young girl who lives nearby a prison where her father works as a executioner. Elise can already see the ghosts (mostly of those who were executioned) and her father (i'm pretty sure he is actually super scared and his method of coping is denial) is very angry about this, he forbade Elise to say that she sees ghosts but she refused to lie, this leads to her being punished mercilessly and eventually, to her mother's death. One day during her teenage days, she decided that enough is enough and fled her house, leaving her younger brother behind with their monster of a dad. Fast forward to decades later, the current owner of Elise's childhood house reached out to her because the entities is that house are disturbing him to no end - and now Elise must face her greatest fear and face the horror of her childhood.

I like how this movie has a solid storyline and how we get to learn a lot about Elise, and atlhough it is called The Last Key which made me suspect that i would be the last movie, this movie actually introduces us to a possible future heroine in the form of Elise's niece. I enjoyed The Last Key very much, it is scary enough to appease me and the pace is also pretty good that it left no time to be bored but the ghosts don't appear way too much that they stop being scary. If you like scary movies, it's not such a bad movie to spend your time watching.

It's one of those movies that hunny picked, i didn't really mind because i think Liam Neeson is a total  badass (and it was a nice surprise that Patrick Wilson is in it too...) grandpa...

Michael MacCauley is a former policeman who now works in insurance, he commute by train everyday from his house to his office that he develops a routine and get to know some regulars. One day he is suddenly fired and generally is having a horrible day when a woman approached him in the train and began striking a conversation with him. She proposes a hypothetical situation to Michael, asking him to do a little thing that would affect another passenger. Michael doesn't take her seriously at first but his curiosity and needs for money eventually moves him to try it and thing spins out of control. He is now forced to find "Prynne" with almost no hint while his family's life's at stake.

It was a bit hard for me to focus at first and i couldn't really understand the plot (i guess my mind was preoccupied :p), but soon i was immersed. Although Liam's role here is a little more human than his usual almost super hero like roles, he still takes quite a beating - especially for an older gentleman! It's not the best movie of the year or whatever, but it's decent and quite entertaining. I wouldn't call it a must watch, but it's definitely a good one and you wouldn't leave the cinema feeling cheated or whatever.

So... If you read my reviews on the first and second movie you'd know that i really, really like the first movie and i pretty much fell more and more in love with Minho's character. I really find the first movie refreshing, unique, unpredictable (well, because i never read the novel too haha) and just different. I still enjoyed the second movie but it was just not as good as the first one (i guess because the title is the Maze Runner and without the actual maze, it starts to get a bit lost). As for the third one, i left the cinema feeling half obsessed (mainly with the casts) but utterly unsatisfied as it is the last movie but a lot of loose ends are still hanging and there are just a LOT of unexplained details. 

I then did some digging and after reading a few articles i finally understood why i was left so dissatisfied. So apparently Maze Runner the book series is a 6 parter, and the details are explained more on the fourth and so book (which is actually a prequel to the first book) but since they are ending the movie in this third movie, a lot of details from the books are left out (which leads us to the many many unanswered questions).

Picking up from where the second movie left off, Thomas and his friends go on a crazy mission to save Minho - they succeed with the mission, but Minho is nowhere to be found. Since Vince from the Right Arm Resistance wouldn't risk what security they have to go on another mission impossible to rescue Minho (which has become the gladers' sole purpose), Thomas, Frypan and Newt (later on joined by Jorge and Brenda) decides to go by themselves to the legendary last city - which turns out to be nothing like what they expected. It truly is the last city, the last modern, functional and fully armed city controlled b y WCKD.

I also read in another review on how if you watch The Death Cure as a stand alone movie, it's actually pretty spectacular. And i agree. However, it is not a standalone movie. Is is the finale of the trilogy and supposed to be answering all of the questions we have (unless you're read the novels, in which case you might be busier comparing the changes they make from the books haha) and it just doesn't. I actually disagree with the harsh critics (have i ever agree with them :p...) as i find the movie still very entertaining, and i still looove the casts. However, it definitely failed to give me the satisfying closure that i hoped for, and i just feel like the magical first movie deserves a much better ending. I personally do think that the series is simply spiralling down since the first movie and it's such a shame! I don't think this movie is all bad (i still enjoyed it a lot), it's just a far cry from my expectations...

Soooo... Those are all the movie that i watched last month. Like i said earlier, i only watched one movie in February (it's the Black Panther) and i am still very undecided if i should still review it next month or should i chuck it together with movies that i'm going to watch next month?
#Pink

No comments:

Post a Comment