The best yet from writing team Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. This movie is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. This movie will be appreciated by comedy nerds and members of a broader audience alike. Hilarious jokes, fantastic special effects, sweeping epic apocalyptic imagery, and a great story that addresses the topics of celebrity, self-importance, selfishness, sacrifice, and friendship. Watch this movie today.
The third and least funny of this trilogy, this installment deviated from the “let’s piece together what we did last night” formula. In my opinion, this hurt the movie. As implausible as this formula was, it was an effective device to create two successfully funny comedy capers. This movie clearly had a big budget but not enough of it went to staffing the writers’ room. The laughs were there but they were infrequent.
I knew it was going to be ridiculously over the top. I knew it was going to be haphazardly slapped together. I knew it was going to be brim-filled with cheesy one liners. What I didn’t know was that it was going to be tremendously sentimental. I can look past the terrible editing and the physics defying stunts because I was a huge fan of the original when it first came out and this movie is rambunctiously nostalgic. Removing that from it though, the movie could have been about 30 minutes shorter. This movie has a third act, then a second third act that is solely self-satisfying. ALSO, the post credit scene will make your mind implode! I don’t know if it’s a harbinger for something good, bad, or equally mediocre but I’m definitely going to see the next installment.
Guest Reviewer: Trent Sellers
Absolutely fantastic. I am not a Trekkie or whatever they are called and I did not feel excluded. Special effects were great. Great acting from all involved. Zachary Quinto and Benedict Cumberpatch nailed it. Alice Eve is now on my radar. The Khan’s blood/tribble revival thing was a pretty heavy-handed Chekov’s Gun. That’s my only complaint. I won’t say any more about that but you’ll know when you see it.
Blood! So much blood! Sharp things, scary things, ultra-creepy things with yellow eyes! Evil Dead! Did I mention the blood?
Iron Man is my favorite superhero because his superpower is that he’s smart. That’s it. He’s really really smart. I saw this movie in 3D and it was great. I think they could have done more with the 3D stuff like maybe more POV camera angles when he’s flying.
I haven’t read the comics and I don’t really care how the movies stack up against them. The Iron Man movies are internally consistent with the rules the studio has established, with one exception. In the first movie, Tony Stark invents a power source that powers his suit. In the third movie, he keeps having to charge his suit like it’s a smart phone that he keeps draining by playing Angry Birds. This doesn’t make sense to me. Did I miss something?
I laughed out loud several times during this movie. Very light-hearted and fun. I liked it a lot.
*edit*
Trent Sellers also wrote up a short thing about this movie:
I went into this movie expecting to only mildly enjoy it and I left this movie feeling very sad. The reason: I don’t think I will watch another movie this year that I will enjoy this much. It’s going to take another viewing to be sure but I feel like I just watched a perfect movie.
I like the idea and the story. Dialogue was a bit off. The movie begins with the capture and arrest of a former member of an activist group that was active in the late 70s and was responsible for a bank robbery that went awry and resulted in the death of a security guard. Robert Redford plays a man with ties to this group who ends up on the run from the law. Shia LaBeouf is the quintessential intrepid journalist who seeks the truth. I had a hard time buying Anna Kendrick as an FBI agent but mostly because historically she tends to play adorable characters and I was viewing her through that lens.
I saw this movie on a date and she pointed out that this screenplay feels like it should have come out 10 years ago. I think I agree. The movie painted a picture of 1980 as a year of turmoil, picketing, and protests. Perhaps the book upon which this screenplay was based dialed all the events back ten years so that the Weather Underground (the activist group in the movie) was actually active in 1969-1970. Plot points in the movie dictated that “present time” be 30 years post the dissolution of the Weather Underground so Redford made the call to adjust the timeline.
Other notable performances: Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon, Terrence Howard, Sam Elliott.
Yesterday I saw Life of Pi. It was a movie about a boy whose family died and he got abandoned on a life boat with a tiger. My favorite part was when he found an island and at day the lake as crystal clear and at night it was poisonous. I liked the movie. The End.
By Milo, age 8
I dreamed I had a huge ham and was carrying it around and eating it. It was a really big ham. I tried to take a picture of myself with the ham so I could Instagram it but the ham was too big – I needed both arms to hold it. I was walking around trying to find people who could take my picture with the huge ham. I ended up finding my uncle Paul who took the picture for me.
My like and dislike switch was continuously being flipped during this one. Oblivion has good acting and really neat special effects. I’m also a sucker for the Kubrick-esque set designing. Despite the super pretentious, expository opening monologue by the Cruise missile, I was still really interested in finding out what exactly is going on in this movie. I was on the edge of my seat until they lost the only thing they had going for them. Once the jig was up I realized that I’ve seen this movie before and it’s called Moon. This basically made the 2nd and 3rd act completely predictable and lacking in suspense or intrigue. While I don’t feel my money was wasted at the theatre I probably won’t be buying the Blu-Ray.
Guest Review by Trent Sellers