Life of Pi

Life of Pi is a book adaptation that was supposed to be unfilmable. Well director Ang Lee said to hell with that and made the best visual and 3-d film I have seen since Avatar. The story is about a boy who has lived in India for his whole life and how his family made money was they owned a zoo, but now they need to move and they are taking the zoo with them. When Pi's ship goes down and he is by himself on the ocean on a boat with a wild tiger form the zoo. To what this film did good.

The visuals. The visuals. The visuals. It is a visual masterpiece. Like I said in the intro this is the best cgi and 3-d film I have ever seen. The tiger looks so life like and you really believe that it is there with Pi on the boat. Then on top of that there are some crazy good 3-d. Ang Lee did a great job with this he had some shots in here that are just breathtaking. The 3 scenes that are just great in this film are the ship wreck scene, this scene with a whale and a fish scene that got showed early. The acting in this film was very good Pi played by three different people all did great.

Now that it is out of the way I am going into what I am on the fence about. The script has some problems and so does the pace of the film. The script is mainly why the film is poorly paced. The first 30 minutes of the film is all character development. Now this is good that they did this and helps you get attached to character and is really needed. Its just a little boring and some people will just want to get to the castaway stuff. Also there is scenes were if you do see this movie in only 2-d you also may think it is boring. So this if you are going to see this movie spend the extra money and actually see in 3-d it is very worth the money.

Now to my rating. This is actually one of the harder to rate films for me, because this film really does tell a great story and is amazing to watch. So i am going to rate this film very diffidently because this film is to good to be a 4 but not good enough to be a 4.5. So my rating is going to be

RATING
4.25 out of 5 Ticket Stubs

Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians is the next animated adventure form Dreamworks. They have been doing a lot of really good work. Like with  How to Train Your Dragon and that was great. So I was really looking forward to this film form the trailer. The story is about the Santa, Easter-bunny  Sandman and Tooth-fairy are real and they protect the children of the world.  Pitch Black is coming back to plung the world into darkness and the Guardians need Jack Frosts help to stop him.

Now what I enjoyed about this film was the voice acting done by all the leads. The ones that I thought were the best were Jack Frost and Pitch Black. This is my all time favorite villain for a kids movie next to the villain in Wreck it Ralph. Jude Law as Black was so good. The voice was so creepy and chilling I loved every minute that he was on the screen. Then Frost voiced by Chris Pine he was really good here. He made you really feel for the character. Another good thing about this film was the action and the score. The action was pretty sick like the fight scenes were very cool. Then the score made everything have this great scene of tone and action based feel.

Now what I what I didn't really like about this film. The humor was really hit and miss for me. Like it had some moments that it was pretty funny and smart. The other part about the humor I never really had a big out loud laugh. So i was really looking for a really funny and cool animated film and i didn't get that. Another thing about this film. It had a lot of holes and problems with pure storytelling. I felt that if the movie was a bit longer then they could have fixed this, but what kids is going to sit thought a 2 hour animated film.

So when it comes down to it. This film is still really enjoyable. The kids will really like it, but the adults will find it boring and not as heart warming. It was still a over all descent film. So my rating is going to be

RATING
3 out of 5 Ticket Stubs.

Lincoln

Lincoln is the new film by the master of film himself Steven Spielberg staring some of the greatest actors of our time one being Daniel-Day Lewis as Lincoln himself. Tommy Lee Jones as a leader of the republican party. Sally Fields as Lincolns wife. The story of the movie is about the last 4 months of the Abraham Lincoln life and doing two very important moments in American History one being the passing of the amendment that ended slavery and ending the civil war.

To start off the acting in this film is the best I have seen all year. Tommy Lee Jones explodes off the screen and this great character that is so easily likable it amazes me. Sally Fields as Lincoln's bipolar wife was perfect. Then of course Daniel-Day Lewis was Lincoln. His performance alone should pay for your ticket. Lewis became Lincoln. There are moments when I forgot that I was watching him play Lincoln, but actually thought it was Lincoln himself back form the dead.  If Lewis doesn't get a nod for this there should be riots in the street. Now the screenplay of the this movie is just off the walls good. Best written movie of the year. Hands down the best written movie the year. The dialogue in this movie is some of the best I have ever heard and I will be saying form now one. The scene where Lincoln asks if we choose to be born or fitted into the time is mind blowingly good.

Now that those parts are out of the way. Spielberg in the chair again is always a great thing in my eyes. He knew what he had in his hands and let the actors and the screenplay tell this story. He made a great tone for this film. He had some great drama and actually some pretty good humor in it. This film is easily the best Spielberg film in awhile. I liked this film more then last years War Horse. (which is underrated by fans in my opinion) John Williams score is good not his best but good none the less. And of course this film was shot great. Not the best of the year but totally the top 5 of the year.

I did have a few problems with the film. The biggest problem with the film is the way its done. This movie has a lot of talking in it. I mean a lot. In fact is the whole film is just talking. Now I personally loved it for that. Show me good talking scenes and I am good. I mean my favorite film of all time is a talking movie(Pulp Fiction). Now my problem with this is that if you are not expecting this your going to be very upset. This film won't be seen by many teenagers or a younger crowd, because there is "no action". So since it does have a good enough mass appeal. I have to give this movie

RATING
4.5 out of 5 Ticket Stubs.

Wreck-It-Ralph

Wreck-It-Ralph is the next Disney animations studios production. That means no Pixar. Now Disney's own animation hasn't been that good, they did redeem themselves with Tangled. To start off with a little bit about the story. The main character in this is Ralph the bad guy in a arcade game called Fix-it-Felix Jr. He is sick of not being recognized as a character and always looked at as a mean person. So he goes off on this adventure to get a medal and be seen as a someone. Then crazy stuff starts to happen when he gets his medal form a game called Heroes Duty. The story really takes off when he gets to a game called Sugar Rush.

The animation in this movie is great looking. It doesn't fail in this at all. The things the animators did with the characters in the games were great. Like the way the talked and moved. It was a great treat to watch as a retro gamer myself. Besides the look of the movie the sounds were great. Really funny sound effects along top of great score.

Now the tone and the pace of the film were great. I have a little issue with the pace but it all works together as a whole so I really can't complain to much about it. The tone of this film I thing was absolutely perfect. It is  a great way to do a kids movie. It started off really lighthearted and letting you get stuck to the characters and then it turns to this very dark tone (for a kids movie) that the parents can actually really enjoy. Another good thing about the film was the humor. Even the jokes in the trailer I still laughed at. I really have to give to the voice work to that. They really sold there characters to me. All the jokes in the movie landed perfectly and all very funny. Also the over all moral of the movie was great. I don't think many kids will miss it and its a good lesson for kids.

Now there were there were very few problems with the film. One of them being that the movie has all the classic Disney cliches in it. They even find away to get a princess into the movie. I personally love all these Disney things because I am a big Disney fan so it didn't bug me that much, but it could bug others. That is really the biggest problem about, but none the less it is still a great time at the movies and easily one of my favorite animated films of the year. All really should enjoy it so I am going to give it

RATING
5 out of 5 Ticket Stubs 

Skyfall

Skyfall okay James Bond wow this movie is good, but it does have some faults. It took me two viewings to get this review down packed. First off a little bit of the story. Bond is trying to get back this list of agents who are secretly undercover. He fails in this mission and the list starts to leaked on to the web. Now Bond has to figure out how to get it back. Lets talk about the acting. Craig returning for the third time as Bond. I think he now can fully cement him as Bond. He played Bond perfectly. He had all the moves. This is his best work as Bond to date. Now the supporting cast around him was also very good. Javier Bardem plays a great bad guy. Man did I love him in this role. Everything he did worked and his performance comes right off the screen. Now on to the direction of Sam Mendas, he made this great world around Craig and this amazing story. He had a great tone of pure serious all the way thought and this great pace. Then the final thing I want to talk about is the way this film was shot. This is easily my favorite shot film of the year. I thought the Rises was good but holy crap. Roger Deakins doesn't get a nod for best cinematography. I will very upset. The shots at night look amazing and the shots during the day look amazing. There really isn't a bad shot in this movie. The scenes in china are some of the best scenes that I have personally ever seen. The way Deakin use lighting just blew my mind. Now form reading that you are thinking to yourself what didn't you like about this movie Kyle. Here it is. My biggest problem is that it slows down right after this great action scene. This scene is so will paced at put together. Then goes to really slow section of the movie. Which really thought me off. The worst part about this is that the scene that slows it down is actually really well done. So maybe if they would have put it somewhere else or did something I don't know it would have worked better. Also this is not a personal for me, but some people my not like it. This movie doesn't feel like a Bond movie at all which I can see a lot of people getting pissed off at. So for those two problems with the film that are almost unfix-able  I have to give it

RATING
4.5 out of 5 Ticket stubs. (doing that really hurts me)

Argo

Argo is the true to life story about a group of 6 people being held captive in Iran and how the CIA got out them out. This film is acted and Directed by the same person named Ben Affleck. I am going to talk about what this film does great. Which is pretty much everything. To start it off everyone in this movie is so good. There is not any bad actors in this film. Even the small roles that have one or two lines they are played great. John Goodman, Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin and Bryan Cranston(which is all the main characters) were my favorites in the movie. Ben Affleck should get at least a nomination for his great performance.  Now moving on to Affleck direction. This is his best movie to date. It had a great tone, it was thrilling and it was really funny. It had this very tease feeling which I really enjoyed. I was on the edge of my seat the last 45 minutes of the movie. The pace done by Affleck was perfect it was a two hour movie it ever lagged or got boring. The way this film was shot was beautiful to look at and felt great not my favorite of the year, but still good. The script was very well written, all the stories were summed up and complete. Its safe to say this is why I like the October, November, and December season a lot more then the summer season. The films that come out are great and very good dramas and very tease. This is as of right now my favorite movie of the year. Followed by The Avengers and then The Dark Knight Rises and finally Cabin in the Woods and ParaNorman. So I am going to give this my highest rating of

RATING
5 out of 5 Ticket Stubs.