Sunday, June 2, 2013

Evil Dead (2013)

I had mixed feelings about this movie. If you've seen the original, you would too. The movie was not as scary as it could've been, and it definitely was not as great as I had anticipated. IMDB rates it a 7 out of 10 but I have to completely disagree. The gore factor for the movie was way over done. It legitimately has a scene where it is raining blood. The images, however, are terrifying; I cannot argue with that. The transformation done for the character Mia was shocking. If you haven't seen or heard of this movie, it is about a group of friends who go to a cabin to have an intervention for their friend Mia. Some idiot finds a book and reads the incantations despite the fact that it says "don't read it. Don't write it. Don't say it," on the page. All the happiness crumbles from that point on. Although you never truly see a demon, you can definitely see the possession part. I cringed in my seat a few times and definitely jumped out of my seat a few times. There is no down time though after Mia gets possessed; so don't expect any time to collect your thoughts. I would probably rate this 5.8 out of 10 stars. It was not the best.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Where do I even begin to discuss this movie? It was ridiculously great. Scott Fitzgerald would be proud to see his book displayed in this way. What can you expect with a great cast: Leonardo Dicaprio ( Jay Gatsby), Carey Mulligan (Daisy Buchanan), Isla Fisher (Myrtle Wilson), Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway), etc. If you've ever read the book, your expectations would be pretty high for a movie such as this one. Compared to the 1974 version, this movie captured way more of how  I had imagined while reading the book. Leonardo Dicaprio delivered quite the phenomenal performance. He really captured the essence of who Gatsby was with the whole idea of dwelling in the past. You could just see his passion for Daisy and how much he wanted her to change her mind. There were some differences from the book, such as Nick Carraway writing the story called the Great Gatsby to deal with depression. This movie truly revealed the carelessness of people and how disturbing New York was towards drugs, alcohol, and the treatment towards people. My sister even cried in the movie, because it was that powerful. Every bit of the book was exaggerated to how it should have been. The different parts of New York looked how they should have been and you could fully see the contrast between West Egg and East Egg. Each character was fully identified to how he or she should've been. For example, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) was exactly I had pictured he'd be in the book. He was very athletic and very self centered. Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio) had the mysteriousness that he had in the book. It was like I was almost reading the book. I would definitely highly recommend this to anyone whether you read the book or not. This movie gets 8.9 out of 10 stars on my movie scale.

Sinister

If you love scary movies, you need to watch this movie. I am a huge scary movie fan. I cannot get enough of them, and I was not disappointed by this movie in the least bit. Most scary movies can make you jump, but the scare factor is generally ruined by a lack of character development and stupidity of the characters and ideas. However, this movie was different. Sinister is about an author (Ethan Hawk) who is trying to make his next big hit. His books usually uncover some type of truth of a crime that was overlooked by authorities. He comes across a rather strange case when he tries to figure out the mystery of a missing girl. He uncovers a box of tapes from his attic after moving into a new house with his family. He soon realizes that by watching these tapes that he is in way over his head. Strange events start occurring and he ultimately releases a demon named Bagul. Things go from bad to even worse throughout the movie. Director Scott Derickson definitely knew what he was doing. The movie had a great ratio of pop out scenes to plain out weird scenes. After a scary scene, the audience had down time to just recover, but one would be completely clueless as to when the next scary scene would occur. The entire movie was filled with surprises and terrifying images. I honestly was terrified and shaking in my seat. I may have even screamed a few times. Overall I would rate this a 7 out of 10 on my movie scale. It was definitely one of the better scary movies I've watched.

Dreading Dredd

Recently I watched a movie called Dredd. If you have not heard of it, it is an action flick about Megacities and drug lords. Now I for one greatly enjoy action movies; however, this movie, although quite entertaining, was not what I had hoped for. The movie is about a group of people called judges who provide order to the Megacities in the post apocalyptic wasteland of the world. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) protects one block that has been over run by the Mama Gang. Throughout the movie you see several uses of drugs and lots of violence. It had its moments; I will give it that. I thoroughly enjoyed the psychic, Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), and the cyborg. Plus all the action was such an adrenaline rush. It was a  pretty cool movie, however they could not pull the plot off as well as imagined. Overall on my movie rating scale, I'd give it 5 out of 10 stars.