Now Playing: live action film reviews

[James]

In case you missed it, we're doing mini-reviews of live action films!

The Lone Ranger, White House Down, World War Z
http://animatedviews.com/2013/the-lone-ranger-and-more/

Pacific Rim, The Wolverine, R.I.P.D.
http://animatedviews.com/2013/now-playi ... -and-more/

[ShyViolet]

Cool!

[Dacey]

Saw the score for Pacific Rim.

I'm sorry, James, but I don't think we can be friends anymore.

[LotsoA113]

Yeah, I'm with Dacey on this one. Your a great writer James...but Pacific Rim was spectacular!

[James]

Spectacular... spectacle... they're from the same root! Plus I used spectacular once in the review! "the film fails so spectacularly"... Does that not count!



You guys can't say that if I took out all the robot fighting scenes and showed a montage of just the characters talking to each other that it would not be embarrassing dialogue and bad acting.

Do the opposite, take out all the actors and dialogue and leave in just the fighting scenes and I'll upgrade its score!

[Randall]

It felt like the screenwriters said “The audience is just here for giant robots fighting giant aliens so we can just phone in the bits between”.

See, that totally works for me. I am definitely the audience for this film.

[James]

It's like the Sharknado discussion we were having. What were they aiming to do?

I think they were trying to make a good "giant robots fighting giant aliens" movie that was also a good overall movie itself. So judging it as a film I think 1/10 is spot on. Judging it as a "giant robots fighting giant aliens" movie I gave it 6/10. I guess that's a good example of why I like having two scores to rate with.

[Dacey]

You guys can't say that if I took out all the robot fighting scenes and showed a montage of just the characters talking to each other that it would not be embarrassing dialogue and bad acting.

I can.

Seriously...the script was smart, the characters were genuinely fun and likable, and the cast was clearly having a good time with their roles. The fact that I wasn't constantly saying to myself "when are we gonna get back to the action?" speaks volumes about just how good everything was.

Pacific Rim is one of my favorite movies of the year so far, and it's unfortunate that Grown Ups 2 ultimately stole a huge portion of its audience. Now there's a movie that probably does deserve a 1 out of 10.

[LotsoA113]

I mean, look, if Hannibal Chau isn't one of this years best characters, I don't know who is!

[James]

I get that there can be disagreements over everything else I took issue with. But the lead male and female actors in this film were truly horrendous! I really can not off the top of my head think of worse performances in a major studio release. Everything else can be chalked up to different strokes...

[Ben]

Pacific Rim is like RoboJox never happened!

[Vernadyn]

I thought Pacific Rim was reasonably enjoyable, and I'm not familiar with most kaiju or giant robot films (save the original Godzilla and the distasteful Transformer films). The story was very predictable, and the main character looked laughably similar to the jerk Jaeger pilot who worked with his dad. (In fact, I was confused by that scene in the factory where the main character is watching the Australia attack on TV, and it shows that other pilot--how could the main character be in two places at once?) And the great penultimate action sequence was much better than the actual climax, which felt like a bit of a letdown.

But even given these issues, I thought it was a much stronger film than the remarkably off-putting Lone Ranger, which pretty much had the one train scene going for it. And even then, I thought the action in Pacific Rim, while certainly not untouchable, was better directed.

[Vernadyn]

I pretty much agree with your assessments of World's End, Elysium, and Kick-Ass 2. Out of the Cornetto trilogy, I like Hot Fuzz the best, though all three are great. I like Edgar Wright as a director, and one need only look to Paul to see how important a good director/co-writer is--just putting Pegg and Frost together will not guarantee greatness. It was also kind of funny that two James Bonds have appeared in two of the films in this "trilogy."

Elysium was fun, but very straightforward and not as good as District 9. I've only seen Sharlto Copley in these two films, but he was great in both of them.

And I was a big fan of Kick-Ass 1, and there were things I liked about Kick-Ass 2, but Matthew Vaughn's presence was sorely missed. If there is a third film (the third comic will be the last), I hope Vaughn and Goldman return. I loved the musical score from the first film, and as soon as Henry Jackman's main theme started playing under the studio logos, I got a smile on my face; though I don't like the score quite as much as the first, it's still one of the most enjoyable of the year so far. Chloe Moretz is unnervingly talented and I agree that it's only a matter of time before she gets an Oscar nom--if Hailee Steinfeld can get one for a good but not spectacular performance, surely Moretz can as well. Tellingly, Moretz said in an interview that she would only return for a third Kick-Ass if it had a good script and director, "probably Matthew [Vaughn]." Unfortunately, Kick-Ass 2 hasn't done well at the box office, though it may recoup its small budget.