The Expendables Epidemic

             The Expendables movie franchise has become a plague. Sylvester Stallone, star of the Expendables, started this movie series with the hopes of making people’s dreams come true. He wanted to bring a bunch of badass actors from the past and present together on the big screen for an action adventure. Stallone failed at utilizing the full potential of this concept by being involved in the writing and directing process. He thinks to small and ends up delivering bland stories with craptastic scripts.

               I personally am all for watching ancient action stars kick booty, but only if it’s done right. Yes the Expendables franchise has plenty of glorious action moments, but it lacks in areas such as story, humor, and effects.

The humor in these movies is redundant and stale. I rarely laugh in these films, because of the corny nature of the jokes. Famous lines like “I’ll be back” which was said by Arnold Schwarnegger are used quite a bit. Characters make mediocre jokes that don’t flow well with the script.  You get a sense that the actors themselves went up to the director and said, “Hey let me make this really corny joke, I promise it will be funny.”  A great example of this are the short jokes about Jet Li. Jet Li is the butt of jokes constantly and it’s really annoying now. Jet Li deserves betterL.

 

 Dialogue is pretty basic. The actors have wooden deliveries for their lines and boy is it apparent.  Actor Dolph Lundgren is given horrendous lines. You can barely understand what he’s spewing out. He sounds like the jolly green giant mixed with Phil Collins.

              The effects for these movies are OVER the top bad (Sci fi television bad). I’ve never gotten a good quality production atmosphere from these films.  I understand that studios only offer a certain amount of money for films, but at least make the effects look good. Often times in the film franchise CGI helicopters, explosions, blood, etc are used. The helicopters and explosions look like they were cut out of a newspaper and then added in post production. Stuff like this makes the movie feel cheap which a good thing isn’t.

 

  Finally the story. The plot for these movies is very generic. You get the cliché antagonist that kills for money, the random love interest and the near invincible protagonists. I can always tell what’s going to happen before it happens. In every single movie the good guys take on an army of bad guys and completely destroy them. What makes it worse is that each character is killing at least 10 bad guys at a time in set intervals. There’s no tension because you know they’re going to win. Action scenes like this make the movie boring.

 

Overall, the Expendables needs a major overhaul. Talks about a fourth movie are in the process. New writers and directors NEED to come and take the control. Stallone has a limited vision when it comes to the Expendables. The stories could easily be better. Improved effects would be much appreciated. When I see cheap effects I feel like I’m not worthy of seeing a solid movie production. Time and effort should always be put into making a film the best that it can be.

P.S.

Expendables 3 comes out this Friday.

 

 

THE STRAIGHT TO THE POINT HERCULES MOVIE REVIEW

Hercules sucked.

The Rock can do better.

Don't waste your money.

P.S.

Brett Ratner has really disappointed me ,especially since he directed Rush hour 1 and 2.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VS TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

 

VS

 

 

  In a few weeks Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will hit theaters. Both of these films are coming out at the very end of the summer movie season. Studios usually release movies in August because the movie is risky financially. Neither of these films can do bad because they're launching new movie franchises.

  The things that Ninja Turtles has going for it are Megan Fox, Micheal Bay, and nostalgia. Everyone knows who the turtles are. I grew up with these characters. Cheesy pizza and martial arts was and always has been the Turtles trademarks.Micheal Bay is producing this film. His name is PLASTERED all over the advertising. His success with the Transformers movie franchise had a hand in this.  You can  even see Bay's filming style in the previews even though its directed by Jonathan Liebesman.

 

   The hot pocket actress Megan Fox plays April O'Neil. This is the first role for her in a while  where she isin't the typical eye candy. Her clothes are on this time. Hasbro is hoping that this combination will sell the movie. The designs of the turtles are questionable.  This movie isin't exactly jumping at me like it should. I don't think that Megan Fox was the best choice for April. Her dialogue just seems wooden.  The Shredder looks like the best part of the film. His suit and just overall demeanor look right.

 

 

 

 

   Guardians of the Galaxy has also has few things going for it. MARVEL is backing this movie. Right now Marvel is the top comic book studio in Hollywood. Avengers made over a billion dollars. This is a risk movie for Marvel. It will show whether or not they can expand their universe successfully with lesser known properties.  The Guardians are a generally unknown group of superhero's so it should be interesting to see.  The previews have really stressed who each character is for those who don't know about them.

 

 

   Vin Diesel, Benicio Del Toro, Chris Pratt,  Bradley Cooper, and Zoe Zaldana are just a few of the diverse cast members. I'm not sure how I feel about this movie. Just like Turtles nothing is jumping at me. There's cool scenes , but nothing that warrants me driving to the theater and paying to see it.

   Overall, Turtles and Guardians feel  like they're on the same level.  In terms of box office success I seriously don't know who will make more. It could easily go either way. I would love it if both movies ended up having great stories ,especially Turtles. Let me know what your thoughts are. Which movie do you think will make the most amount of money and why?

 

 

 

 

   P.S.

 

 If  Ninja Turtles is bad I wont be able to look at pizza the same way ever again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIRST LOOK AT AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

                               AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next summer the world will witness one of the biggest movies ever conceived on screen. In 2012 we got Avengers. Prior to that we got solo films for Iron man, incredible hulk, Captain America and Thor. Avengers showed the super hero’s bicker, fight and ultimately come together as a team. Avengers 2 will serve as a direct continuation of Captain America 2. In Captain America 2 we saw Hydra’s reawakening and S.H.E.I.L.D‘s disbandment. Needless to say dramatic changes have occurred. This time around the Avengers will be up against their greatest foe yet, Ultron. Who is Ulton you ask?

               Ultron is the ultimate Artificial Intelligence. His body is nearly indestructible. He is a super super super computer on steroids. Thor is afraid of him. The hulk as strong as he is has trouble denting his armor. Ultron has an agenda to revamp humanity and he’s willing to do it at all costs. Plus he looks badass.  The other villains in the movie include Scarlett Witch and Quick Silver.

 Scarlett Witch has the ability to alter reality and Silver has super speed.  I can’t even imagine the battles that will take place with these two. Characters like Hawkeye, War Machine, and Black Widow will be returning.

   Director, Joss Whedon returns to helm the film. He has been expressed the fact that he wants to push himself in terms of perfecting a story. A lot of sequels do end up being weaker than the first. For him to actually want to do better gives me confidence in the movie.  The fact that the villain is pretty much undefeatable makes things very interesting. Joss has stated that the characters will be fighting amongst each other.  The first movie had some of this; this one will have more of it.

I really can’t wait to see this movie. It comes out next summer in early May.  I’m really excited to see Ironman and the Hulk go at it. I’m also very excited to see everyone fight Ultron and fail while doing it.Box office wise this movie will undoubtedly make a lot of money. I would be scared if I was any movie that came out a week or two after Age of Ultron.

P.S. Be on the lookout for footage for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Its coming sooner than you think.

THE NOT SO LENGTHY TRANSFORMERS 4 REVIEW

      The fourth installment of the Transformers movie franchise is BOMBASTIC. Director, Micheal Bay, brings us a new semi reboot of the Transformers. The new cast is includes, Mark Whalberg, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Jack Reynor and Nicola Peltz. In addition to Optimus Prime and Bumblee we get some fresh new autobots that help save the day.

    I have always been a Micheal Bay and Transformers fan....................................until now. Bay has overstayed his welcome. The film starts off  slow in order to develop the new characters.  Honestly, I was a little impressed by the first hour of the movie. That feeling went away very quickly as the movie went on. The human characters were poorly written. Anyone could have played the characters and you still would have had the same quality of acting.

     Nicola Peltz was highly annoying.She plays the cliché female damsel in distress and boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy does she play it.




   One of the positives where the  new autobots. You could feel their vibrant and distinguishable personalities as opposed  to the lifeless robots in the previous films. This one felt like the first movie in the sense that you knew what the robots names were. Each robot had a distinct characteristic and skill.

       The bad guys in the movie were both human and alien. My favorite part of the movie was the villain Lockdown. He moved with a purpose and had a presence. Lockdown was  given the best dialogue in the movie.  Meanwhile everyone else got really shitty lines that were just ughhhh.


. You can't watch a Bay film without some awkward comedy. There was definitely a lot of that here. Some of it worked while other parts just felt very forced to the point where I shook my head.

    The biggest  issue that I had with  the movie was the length. You could have easily made this movie into two different films. I love turning my brain off and just watching action , but there was no mercy here . The movie became tedious and repetitive. At times I didn't know what I was looking at.  The Dinobots were only at the very end of the movie. They barely did anything which is a shame.  Bay wasted these new characters.

   On a lighter note I will say that the last fight scene of the movie was pretty awesome. Seeing  Lockdown fight Optimus and Bumblebee made for a great threesome. Overall T4 is a blockbuster popcorn flick. It's not a terrible movie I just feel like it could have been better especially since its a new take on the Transformers. T4 was forgettable.  I cant  even say that I'm at all interested in Transformers 5 and 6. This franchise needs a new writer and director with a new vision.