Watched any good movies recently?

[Dong Zhou]

Watched Muppet Treasure Island which had pretty much everything I could hope for after a slightly off start. Songs were not memorable but they are catchy and fun within the film, Tim Curry did a very good job as Long John Silver as he provided a charismatic presence, lots of Muppets jokes, Kermit (loved his relationship with the Eagle), Miss Piggy, Gonzo and so on, Muppets happiness to break the 4th wall. Was an amusing, fun, family adventure

Me: 7.0 Sis: 6.5

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Watched Sky's Christmas TV movie adaptation of Jasper Fforde's fantasy novel The Last Dragonslayer. Premise: In the ancient kingdom of Herefordshire, orphan Jennifer Strange (Ellise Chappell) is adopted by The Great Zambini (Andrew Buchan) however magic and dragons are starting to die out....

I think I can see why they picked this, there is humour in things like the Kingdom of Hereford, in characters like the King (Matt Berry), the media mogul (Danielle Bjelic), Sir Griffon (George Webster), there is fantasy, a bit of adventure, a potentially powerful ending. Unfortunately what we get is something of a mess where nothing fires. Main problem, I don't know how many characters the book has but this adaptation has way way way way way too many who pop up for a spell then vanish which undermines some of the things it tries (like romance). It's ageing process is confusing as two orphans age up, another remains young. Strange is a somewhat bland character particularly compared to figures like Zambini or the King while the main supporting characters for awhile, Mawgon (Pauline Collins) and Moobin (Ricky Tomlinson) fall flat.

There are moments, the climax works quite well, there are some funny characters but the overall feeling is just bland.

Me: 5.0 Sis 5.5

[Sun Fin]

Watched the second maze runner last night. I remember thinking with the first one that it hadn't particularly gripped me. This one was much better. Worth getting through part 1 for I think!

[Dong Zhou]

I much preferred part 1 myself, second one was way too obsessed with the lead character

[Dong Zhou]

Watched horror-comedy The Final Girls. Premise: A year on after the death of her actress mother Amanda (Malin Åkerman), Max (Taissa Farmiga) is pressed to come to a showing of Amanda's most famous movie: cult slasher film Camp Bloodbath. Due to events, Max and her friends are sucked into the film...

It is a nice, fun movie. The characters be they from the camp or Max's friends are either likeable or amusing, it's use of the gang being aware they are in a film led to plenty of enjoyable moments, the cast are figures you have likely seen before but not big names who do a good job (particularly Angela Trimbur as Tina). There is a lot of good humour and they play the slasher elements +romances for humour, spoof the summer camp slasher movie clichés while the relationship between Amanda's character and Max is sweet. It does run out of steam in the end phase with ideas getting tired before a strong finale.

Personally: Fun, pleasant movie
Both: 6.5

[Dong Zhou]

Watched high-school romance based on Kody Keplinger's book The Duff (alas not about Duffman). Premise: As Bianca (Mae Whitman) and her popular friends Jess (Skyler Samuels) and Casey (Bianca A. Santos) prepare for homecoming. Bianca is rather upset when neighbour Wesley (Robbie Amell) tells her she is the Duff of the group: the less good looking friend who makes her friends look better.

I remember when it came out that it was called the first social media generation version of Clueless and Mean Girls. It does use social media, bar one very clumsy speech, fairly well as part of it's appeal including some nice touches. The only other new thing it does is adapting the cliques towards a new generation, most of it is a high-school romance you have seen before (not a bad thing). It does a fair bit well, the cast like the youngsters and teachers played by Ken Jeong, Chris Wylde and Romany Malco all do well, there is a quite enjoyable humour from most characters, the friends feel like friends, one can see where the characters come from when they behave badly, all the characters apart from the amusing comedy villain Madison (Bella Thorne) are nice people. The romance is very enjoyable, it is built well, there is very good chemistry, humour and charm, the scenes between the two are very enjoyable.

Yet it feels like it is not as well constructed as it should be and it undermines it, led to moments where I was out of the film. Casey is amazingly sidelined, it struggles to juggle all it's characters, writing has clumsy moments and the big ending gives the wrong feeling.

That the couple were behaving like jerks. Cheating, ruining someone's dream moment when they could have waited, shafting the two best friends

Personally: Fun with a good romance but flawed
Both: 6.5

[Sun Fin]

I much preferred part 1 myself, second one was way too obsessed with the lead character

Personally I felt that with none of the characters being to remember their past they lacked depth and I quite frankly didn't care about any of them. This movie I felt more of a connection with the characters and even got sad at one point:

When I thought the awesome Asian dude was dead!

[Dong Zhou]

I much preferred part 1 myself, second one was way too obsessed with the lead character

Personally I felt that with none of the characters being to remember their past they lacked depth and I quite frankly didn't care about any of them. This movie I felt more of a connection with the characters and even got sad at one point:

When I thought the awesome Asian dude was dead!

Fair enough

Watched Deadpool which should win an Oscar for it's marketing, Ryan Reynolds and co played it brilliantly to get a fan project into a major film, successfully pushing against the studio to at least some degree (I can see why a studio would be reluctant to finance this film, any attempt to age it down on other hand was just daft), the chance of Reynolds superhero redemption, they knew how to appeal to the fans. I liked the idea of a 18+ superhero who with 4th wall stuff, would provide something different, I really enjoyed some of the more innovate marketing which could be really funny but I was concerned as I found the humour off in the trailers. So which way would it go?

There are some things I really liked: the romance had two characters really suited to each other while Reynolds and Morena Baccarin (also in Gotham) had great chemistry, there was spark and sweetness, I rooted for them. Weasel (T. J. Miller) was amusing, X-men figures Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand, first major film) and Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), they linked well with Deadpool, provided a lot of good humour while Colossus provides a good contrast to Deadpool. I liked that the big powerful henchperson was a woman in Angel (Gina Carano) and hope she returns, her big fight was the one time the action clicked for me. I want that whole group to turn up in the sequel basically. Some really funny lines, there is an element of realism as part of the 4th wall that works really well like things rip, some superpower stuff is going to hurt. From what little I know, Deadpool the movie understands Deadpool the comics (bar lacking a bit of tragedy) and that never hurts. When Deadpool is with others, it is a fun movie.

Yet there were also patches of "meh". Deadpool by himself moments don't work, he doesn't carry the film and the humour becomes a lot more miss then hit, his action scenes fall flat and I much preferred action with the side characters. Deadpool vs the big baddie Ajax (Ed Skrein) also doesn't work for me, Ajax gets more development then a lot of Marvel villains but they lack a chemistry, their scenes tend to get boring for me. The 4th wall stuff is great at start but begins to run out of steam and the humour... there is some brilliant stuff, Deadpool has some great lines, great humorous exchanges and so on but there was a lot of humour that fell flat and it didn't help that a fair chunk of the film's humour just wasn't to my taste.

Personally: It was fun enough and I would happily watch a sequel, want to see more of the side characters
Me: 6.5 Sis: 6.0

[Sun Fin]

Personally I loved Deadpool and found it hilarious. I took my fiancee (now wife) to see it on Valentines Day the stand up guy that I am, to my surprise and relief she loved it as well!

[Dong Zhou]

Personally I loved Deadpool and found it hilarious. I took my fiancee (now wife) to see it on Valentines Day the stand up guy that I am, to my surprise and relief she loved it as well!

Clearly your a bad influence

Watched 10 Cloverfield Lane which I had heard (and read here) good things about and seemed my sort of thing. A bit of a slow start but once it got going, there was good moments of tension, the hints at the outside world had impact, there was a good dynamic between the three characters with the cast doing very well, bits of humour, good conversations. I thought they did well with mysteries, solving them

bar if Howard ever killed the girl

before they ran out of steam and ensuring the new mysteries felt naturally introduced. Yet it never fully clicked into as good as it should be on paper, there were moments where I dropped out the film for a minute or two and the ending was questionable, it ill suited the type of film it had been.

Both: 6.5

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Watched Pixels. Premise: Aliens invade the earth using 80's computer games as their model so those who gamed in the 80's (all white, male, American) led by Brenner (Adam Sandler) have to save the world.

It did not get good reviews and I can see why, it a boy's fantasy but in many ways not a well made one. It is disappointing that after the arcade has both boys and girls, only men come to the rescue with one women in support+love interest role (Michelle Monaghan's Violet) while the talents of Jane Krakowski and Ashley Benson are wasted, I thought the main romance made a good comic duo but not as a romance. Some of the humour is...outdated and Adam Sandler feels like his delivery is a little off so his jokes are hindered, one game cameo is annoying very quickly and long outstays it's welcome, after-credits are a waste, the characters fit the nerd stereotypes. Dinklage's character is just annoying

Yet we did have fun, I thought most of the cast bar Sandler and Dinklage, did a good job, there were jokes we did enjoy and enough to give us a nice time. The action scenes generally went on well enough and had fun with those, I did enjoy most of the characters in a comic way. One enjoyable cameo

inventor of Pacman, had a nice speech

, don't think they did anything particularly inventive with the video game idea but it worked out well enough.

Me: 6.0, Sis: 6.5

[Dong Zhou]

Watched black comedy Seven Psychopaths. Premise: Annoying screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) is struggling to come up with his script about seven psychopaths so his dog-napping friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) decides to help...

It is a nice film with some really good stuff and some that doesn't quite work. The vignettes about the Seven Psychopaths are great,the film comes alive in those moments and it has impact, excitement, a bit of emotion. There is humour, some very good dialogue, an adorable dog, the side characters are an intresting bunch. The romance between Hans (Christopher Walken) and Mayra (Linda Bright Clay) is great, it feels like a real married couple who know each other inside out, there is chemistry and warmth. The baddie Charlie (Woody Harrelson) is reasonably amusing though perhaps not as good as writer/director Martin McDonagh thought.

The problem with the first half of the film was when it concentrated on the two main figures, its quality seemed to drop, dialogue went from intresting and clever to quite crude for crudeness sake, Marty is annoying with little to like or enjoy while Billy is somewhat enjoyable but not enough to carry their scenes. The second half, their dialogue does get better and their stuff matches up with the rest of the film but I found my attention drifted a little at times, ending had clever ideas but execution messed up. Throughout women are really shoved to the side and not characters bar Mayra despite some potential they could have run with

A lot of the flaws do seem to be becuase the film is making a real effort to point out the issues in action and gang films like the swearing or absurd parts of plots but sometimes the parody hampers the film. Meanwhile it's point about films treatment of women is welcome but feels like it never earns the right to do that given the film's own poor treatment of women is hardly setting an example. I imagine the poor handling of women is part of making the point but couldn't they have found another way?

Personally: Nice and intresting but flawed film
Me: 6.5, Sis: 7.5