Movie Review: Dragonheart

I remember watching this movie as a girl, curled up on the couch, living through the next dragon movie with my father. It’s a good memory; say what you will about family, but one thing my father and I could always agree on was dragons were the coolest. Just the best. And this was one of the movies that made it happen.

Although I have this in a multipack on DVD with some of it’s successors, those are still at this time packed away. When I bother to get them all out and watch them properly, I’ll post about any differences I might find (in as much as my own review standards permit) but in the meantime, Dragonheart and it’s sequels are all on Netflix, and I… well. I got a smidge bored. So I figured I’d peek in and see what could be seen. And I am so, so glad I did.

I don’t remember crying over this movie, as a child. But as a jaded adult? Yeah, I admit it. I cried. I wept. It was great.

I missed this movie, through the years. It was nice to watch it again. A Knight betrayed by those he loved, Oaths turned dark by hearts that didn’t believe in them, a good, solid vengeance story?

Some people say this movie didn’t survive the test of time. I suppose, to them, it probably didn’t. But watching it and applying what I know of science and mathematics, it’s still a really strong movie, especially considering what tools and understandings they had at their disposal back during filming. Every hint of what it takes to sustain a dragon, plus the touch of mysticism and lore, it’s huge. It’s great.

Any dragon-lover who enjoys that touch of realism, I think, is going to enjoy Dragonheart.

And the nostalgia isn’t bad, either.

–Natasha

Movie Review: Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)

Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

So I stayed away from this movie for a long, long time, because I thought it had something to do with Monsters Inc and I rather liked that movie, and I wasn’t prepared to let something ruin the sweetness at the time.

Turns out, I needn’t have bothered. Monsters vs Aliens has nothing to do with Monsters Inc. But there are monsters (though I use the term incredibly loosely; they’re kind of adorkable) and aliens (…subjective) and they are definitely fighting over something.

The main character is a young bride who didn’t even make it to her wedding night before things go terrible in her relationship; the party gets crashed in the first handful of minutes in the movie, and her reactions are kind of awesome and absolutely something I would probably do in the situation.

The movie has a little bit of adult humor for those of us who aren’t tiny anymore, while still keeping itself light-hearted and innocent enough for those who are. There are morals, too (morals!) which is something I always like to see touched on. “Don’t change yourself for another,” “You’re good as you are,” “It’s fine being different,” are all very good morals, and there are some other, more subtle ones that harken back to days of old and are a little out of my skill to articulate. Alas.

On the technical side, the graphics and screenplay were pretty impressive, and I really do approve of whoever the scriptwriter was for this. They did a good job. I’m going to have to look up who the voice-actors are too (because, although  I link you to the imdb page, I only read enough of it to confirm it was for the correct movie) because I’m desperately hopeful those people got a bunch of work, after.

Ah, Bob.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: Bright (2017)

Bright (2017)

Listen, I have great love for all Will Smith buddycop movies. I will watch all of them given the chance. I also have an epic love for fantasy. Combine the pair? Bright wasn’t something I was going to miss.

This movie covers a lot of topics in a short amount of time, and originally, back hearing about it, I thought it was a series. Which would have been awesome on all levels. Alas, that was not to be. Moving on.

Let’s cover issues of racism, speciesism, issues of classism. Let’s cover how the real world doesn’t always match fairytales. How sometimes, you have to tell a lie to cover the truth– because even though the truth is the right thing, no one would believe you. How you have to do the right thing because without the lie, people get hurt. How you have to do the right thing even though it’s hard. How your actions effect people around you; a drop in the water makes a ripple, and that comes back to you, eventually.

How to hold onto your dreams. No matter what.

There are problems in the world. There are sides taken. But sometimes– you have to pick a side, but you don’t have to cast aside who you are for it.

These characters are top-notch and well-developed, with enough realism and eagerness to match up with the world at large. You can really get buried in it. And I would absolutely love about thirty hours in the world of Bright, exploring everything that it is and can be.

I don’t have that, unfortunately. But I do have Bright, and I’m glad I got it. If you’ve Netflix, maybe give it a peek.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: Logan (2017)

Logan (2017)

I have to admit, when I first heard that Hugh Jackman was preparing to pass the Wolverine mantel on, I was not prepared to hear there was going to be one more Wolverine movie featuring him. I was not prepared for this movie in any way. If I had been, maybe the train bearing that mountain of feels might have missed me, but probably not.

Man, I still can’t talk about this film properly without trying to gush spoilers, so I best make this short and sweet: Logan is about Logan, obviously. Dealing with being remarkably human, in a world where the X-men no longer exist. Dealing with issues people deal with every day, and things I’ve always wanted to know how mutants would handle.

I love everything about it. Even the parts that made me cry. Especially the parts that made me cry. You might like it too, but remember: there are parts that may make you cry.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: Moana (2016)

Moana (2016)

I cannot help but feel like I’ve already written something about Moana, that I’ve gushed about it somewhere…

But I can’t find it, so clearly I must do it again.

Let’s start with: I was not expecting such an epic Disney princess to emerge last year, which is silly of me, because aren’t all Disney’s princesses epic? (Even the ones who aren’t considered official princesses! Moana is the chieftain’s daughter, after all.)

Moana of Motonui has been chosen by the Ocean to play a very special part in Disney’s film: the Hero. She’s not waiting for a hero to come find her and rescue her, and Moana (the movie) isn’t about that at all. Moana is about Moana rescuing herself. Well, rescuing everyone else– and rescuing herself by proxy. About growing up, and doing the right thing even though the right thing is hard. About being stubborn, and sticking to your guns, and believing in yourself.

So much of this movie is about believing in yourself.

Born the chief’s only child, Moana stands to inherit leadership of her tribe. He’s been training her for that role her whole life. There’s just one little problem: she’d really rather… not stay on land for it. She doesn’t want to. She tries really hard not to not want to, but she doesn’t want to. It works about as well as expected. Which goes over about as well as anybody could have thought it would. Because nobody goes beyond the cove, and nobody truly leaves the island.

The whole thing is set in Ancient Polynesia, and I’m no expert in the culture, the location, the mythology– but I understand the people who crafted the movie and plot went out of their way to learn those things from the people immersed in them. I know that they also collected local talent for the voice acting, which boosts it to an A+ for me.

One of the interesting things was the music. There’s at least one entire song that never got translated to English, which gives the whole thing very much a more realistic feel to it, and I was very proud of that fact. All too often I feel that I’m not invested enough in things, but that one song being beyond me– I don’t know the words, but the words didn’t matter. I didn’t have to know the lyrics to get drawn up in it.

Also “You’re Welcome” is going to haunt me for years.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: The Last Starfighter (1984)

The Last Starfighter (1984)

Sometimes you have to shake the dust off the good ol’ times. You  have to look at your childhood and say, yes, this one.

The Last Starfighter is one of those. I don’t remember the first time I saw this; I was young, impressionable, and enthralled with space movies. It was probably around the first time I saw the Star Wars films, come to think of it, which, uh, wow, that was a time ago. Star Wars is a different post, eventually, when I get around to it.

In the meantime, this film is over thirty years old, and managed to age pretty remarkably well. Okay, sure, the digital graphics are pretty outdated, but it was made thirty years ago, you have to give it a pass. The storyline, though, the character design, the plot? None of it comes off as cheesy, none of it is badly written. The costumes are solid, props are well made, and, well, I just love it, okay? There’s not a lot of I can tell you without absolutely gushing about this movie.

It doesn’t matter that it’s old. It was well done. And if you can get over the fact that some computer-generated graphics are a little jarring after we’ve been spoiled by new-age things so long, I heartily recommend it to you.

It’s not Star Wars. But then, nothing can be Star Wars. The Last Starfighter is just what it says on the tin, and nothing else.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: The Great Wall (2016)

The Great Wall (2016)

So even adhering to my no-spoilers rule, there is so much I could talk about in this movie that I could vomit words at you for days and still, somehow, find more. I’ll try not to do that. But where to start?

Let’s try with what it says on the tin.

“The Great Wall tells the story of an elite force making a valiant stand for humanity on the world’s most iconic structure.”

The opening covers, also, how long the wall took to build and asks the question: what were they trying to keep out?

I’m sure there are a lot of mythos about why the Wall was built, and some were true and some possibly weren’t. No one currently alive lived in that time period, so no one can say accurately that any myth or legend is wrong, only improbable.

We do know a lot of people were hunting for black powder at the time the movie is set, and anyone who brought it home would have been set up for life, which is what starts are opening scene: possibly the only white guy in the movie and his cohort are heading for China and dealing with bandits along the way.

And that’s one of the things I love about this movie. Not because it’s got diversity– and let’s be realistic here, a movie set in China about Chinese legends is about Chinese people, so the Chinese people don’t count as part of the diversity for the movie, the non-Chinese people do– no, that’s not it. But the movie deals with very serious, realistic hazards of the time period: bandits, long stretches of limited supplies, and how very dead you can be if you lose your food. Also the hazards of native fauna.

Although native is somewhat subjective, given the movie…

The ‘elite force’ in the movie is a massive army based entirely on the Wall, which I can gleefully tell you without spoiling makes an amazing fortification. That’s part of the reason the wall exists, right? Fortifications. The army is carefully designed and fully functional, and if they existed in that context today, nobody would dare dream of invading China. Or, you know, anywhere else with similar fortifications.

I kind of want to build those fortifications. Between those and the army, they’ll make a mean reference for tabletop campaign.

I think everything the people in this show pull off is within the human limits, given proper training and equipment. And I mean a lot of proper training. Please do not watch this movie and then try it at home. I’m serious. If you want to try some of this, go find proper methods of doing it. Bungee jumping, wall climbing, learn you some martial prowess. And then remember that even this army doesn’t do it without safeguards unless they have no choice.

The graphics for this movie were superb. I know a lot of it was computer generated and much of this likely took place in front of a green screen, but unless you know for sure which is generated and which is animatronics, it’s unlikely you’re going to guess it. I can’t say for sure animatronics are in this movie, but considering the huge comeback they’re making, I also can’t say they aren’t. Terrifyingly everything in this movie looks real enough, and plausible enough, that I should be very suspicious of alternate realities where they went over and filmed this nonsense occurring.

The plot of the movie is good too. It’s not a “hero from another land” — or at least, not in the traditional sense. Sure, he’s great at warfare. Sure, the movie focuses on him. But all movies have to have a lead point of view somehow, even if that’s just you. And it’s unlikely actual traders would have gotten very far, why not send a mercenary who knows how to fight and keep himself alive?

The characters are real, intrinsically human instead of two-dimensional cookie cut-outs. And for William, the POV character? His redemption arc is pretty solid.

Bonus for those of you who get twitchy? No romantic subplot!

–Natasha
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Movie Review: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

On the list of new age remakes I was leery about, Beauty and the Beast sat pretty high. It wasn’t the most special of my Disney Princess phase as a child, but it was important— and it colored much of me as an adult, up to and including my ‘objects have personality’ obsession.

Disney covered a lot of my formative years, alright?

But I probably shouldn’t have been the least bit apprehensive. The remake was amazing. They did some minor changes, rearranging the song layout and adding and removing some of them to better fit the video. Other minor issues were done, such as with the town, trying to add more impact to why Belle was such an outcast, I suppose. It did well.

Keeping with my No Spoilers, I can’t detail to you a bunch of why I liked this movie. However, you might have heard that they changed the Dress. The dress I can talk about, because it’s been all over the internet, and it’s gotten a lot of flack. But honestly, the new movie’s dress is gorgeous. Simple pictures cannot do it justice, and it feels more like Belle to wear something like this than the traditional ballgown from the animated version. It’s covered in real gold leaf; it’s not simply yellow. I recommend watching it in high definition on the big screen, but if you have to wait until it’s out on disk, HD is probably a must.

Disney says that they’re going to do some more remakes, and I heard the rumor that the next one is Mulan. With Mulan being my favorite, I confess to being worried about it– but Beauty and the Beast has alleviated some of my fears.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: Assassin’s Creed (2016)

Assassin’s Creed (2016)

Following the story of Callum Lynch, descendant of Spanish Assassin Aguilar, the Assassin’s Creed movie provides another installment of the series of the same name, as well as marking the first Blockbuster– but not the first movie of the franchise, which gleefully sprawls from a whole slew of video games to novels, comic books to fan-made movies and animated shorts.

The Assassin’s Creed series has proven to be a durable sort to cover multiple media, and good enough to attach deeply to many multitudes of people throughout the world. But while we’re not here to talk about the series on the whole today, just this one movie, there is a little context you have to know about it.

Assassin’s Creed is based on the idea (among other ideas) that through the use of specific technological advancements, the lives of our ancestors can be re-lived by tapping into the genetic memory they pass down through our DNA. In Assassin’s Creed, the machine that lets us do this is called the Animus. Chiefly the Animus is built and used by the Templar Order, who are at war with the Assassin’s Brotherhood and.. uh. Well. What they’re trying to do overall is a little fuzzy, and I wont spoil what they’re trying to do in the movie because of my no-spoilers policy.

Which is, incidentally, why no one has seen this review yet, even though I bought and watched this show weeks ago. I was just way too excited and couldn’t figure out how to discuss the movie without spoiling something. So I had to sit on myself or risk word-vomiting to the whole world. Which would have been downright unacceptable.

So I can’t talk overmuch about the plot.

But I can talk about how much I love what they did with it. I admit to having been a little unsure originally, because game to movie adaptions are done with about as much skill as book to movie adaptions, but this turned out really, really well. The movie manages to stand alone, though having context of the games and novels enriches the flavor somewhat. The technological progression is done well, too– I was glad to see how the Animus evolved. I was also glad they picked a character who hadn’t got much play in books, games, or comics. It really gave us a chance to flesh out the world somewhat, and it has permitted fans to continue world building on their own without feeling like all their work has been sabotaged by the creators.

As to graphics, well. My brother could probably tell you more about how smooth it is between real film and computer generated graphics in the movie, but if I didn’t know that there’s really just some things we can’t pull off in real life yet, I wouldn’t have any idea there were any comp-gen. Scene transitions and how it’s set into the show are really smooth and seamless, which just goes to show how far we’ve come in the film age.

For an Assassin’s Creed movie, there was significantly less blood than I thought there might be. Less is more, show don’t tell, are both good descriptors, and the movie did well on both points, providing just enough of an info dump– spread out far enough, no less– to give the viewers an understanding of the overall history for the world the movie is set in. It makes it accessible for the people who’ve never touched any of the rest, which is extremely important from a marketing standpoint.

That said, don’t assume it’s safe just on my word about it. If you’re unsure if you want to watch it, you can always have a trusted friend watch it first to make sure nothing will cause any issues. Or if you’re worried about your children, you can always watch it to ensure it’s at a grade you’re comfortable with them watching. But I do highly recommend this movie, both to hard-core fans and newcomers alike.

–Natasha

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Movie Review: Vampire Academy (2014)

Vampire Academy (2014)

So. Where do I begin. Does this have a book? I hope this has a book, it would be great, I want to read it. There is so much content in this movie that I would love to see expounded upon, from the way Moroi society is structured to the training course the dhampir go through during school and the nuances that permit them to exist at all, and how, exactly, the Strigoi came into being.

So, this movie is about Rose, a young dhampir charged with protecting the last of one of the twelve royal houses, and as we start out, they’re kind of on the run. A few years ago the majority of the family was killed in a car accident, and feeling entrapped at school, Princess Lissa and Rose escape from the vampire/dhampir boarding school known as  Saint Vladimir’s. But now the rest of the dhampir guard has caught up with them and taken them back to the relative safety of the school.

I use relative because this is a movie about vampire politics, and Saint Vladimir’s is a high school for vampires, and everyone knows that the most vicious people in the world are teenagers.

So there are three brackets here.. well, four. There’s the mortals, there’s the secret undead and semi-dead society of the Moroi and their dhampir guardians, half-vampires sworn to protect the Moroi with their lives, and then there’s the Strigoi, more vampires.

The apparent differences between the Moroi and Strigoi start with the diet: Strigoi will feed and kill, because there’s power and freedom in it, while the Moroi take enough not to gorge themselves but more importantly do not kill while they do it. Any Moroi who takes a life during feeding becomes Strigoi. Moreover, the Moroi have elemental magics, while I’ve seen no evidence of that in the Strigoi.

The dhampir do not have magic, and it takes “five of us to kill one of them” – that is to say, about five dhampir to kill one Strigoi, who’s meal-plan gives them +50 strength and -15 charisma, plus about three hundred percent of “you no longer have a soul.” But back to the core of the movie.

Aside from the politics and high school shenanigans, Rose and Lissa’s life still manages to not be normal even for their variety of life. Their taste in men, for instance. Lissa is attached to the school pariah, who’s parents turned themselves into Strigoi and who everyone is sure will follow in their footsteps. Meanwhile Rose is crushing on the new school head dhampir while they’re both attempting to keep Lissa safe. The romance is a low-key plot point in the movie, it doesn’t get played up a lot and it isn’t thrown in your face too obviously for most of it– you know, aside from that moment when it becomes important, because Plot Point? Come on, it’s a movie about high school.

I would have loved to see some more fleshing out of the characters, but considering the plot of the movie, the required pacing for aforementioned movie, and the way it circles primarily around Rose and her attachment to Lissa, fleshing out the rest of the cast would be a little tricky, so I understand that they gave us as much as they could in the time constraints. Not many people are willing to sit down for four hours and just watch TV, nor do they have the time to, and even fewer people are willing to sit down and watch it over a period of time when they could do it all at once. Ergo the reason we have so few mini-series, I suppose.

I do like the interplay, what little we could find. I hope I can find some more of this universe to sink my teeth into.

–Natasha

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