Mini Reviews: High-Rise (2016), Triple 9 (2016) & Dirty Grandpa (2016)

As we approach the middle of the year, all the movies that I missed in January and February are slowly released on DVD and VOD, meaning I can finally catch up and rack up a few more 2016 releases on my 'watched' list. That means, for the first time in forever, one of my Mini Reviews posts has a theme. These three movies were all released in the UK at the start of 2016, and I've caught up!

OH MY GOD WHAT WAS EVEN GOING ON HERE. Seriously. I was so excited for High-Rise (2016) when I first saw the trailers. A suited and booted Tom Hiddleston? I’m in. A weird and quirky plot? Excuse me, I already told you I’m in but now I’m excited. I was gutted I missed this in the cinemas, but now? I’m relieved. This movie was so weird. It was like Snowpiercer but in a high-rise building. Snowpiercer also had a plot! This had so many suit-clad characters I forgot who was who. What made it worse was that the movie starts with the ending, so it’s not like I felt the need to stick with it to find out what even happens. Argh!

I had no intention of seeing Triple 9 (2016) in the cinemas, truth be told, it’s not my kind of movie, but I saw it get a lot of decent reviews, so I made sure I gave it a try once I could. It’s your typical action-heist movie, filled with dirty cops and criminals, and takes a few turns that the veteran action fans probably smelt a mile away, but I really enjoyed it! My fiance (probably husband by the time you read this!) plays a game called Rainbow Six Seige, and I got that vibe from this, so he was kind of bummed that I watched it without him. Still, he gives me this proud kind of look when I start spewing lines about breaching the door and stuff…

I don’t know what made me give Dirty Grandpa (2016) a watch, but sometimes you just need to watch some mindless comedy, you know?! These things are so hit and miss and even though general consensus seems to be that this is one a stinker, it just hit my funny bone in a way that a comedy hasn’t for a long time. Maybe it’s my growing appreciation for Zac Efron, or the shock of such foul words coming from Robert De Niro, but this worked for me. Sure, the plot is tired and has been used time and time again, and yep, 99% of the comedy relies on rude jokes, but what more did you expect? I’m still laughing at the ‘Jenny from the c*ck block’ line, and it’s been weeks.

Review: The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Me and Allie were texting each other this morning and I mentioned whether we had posted our review of The Hobbit.  Much to both of our surprise and shock, we hadn't even written it.  Our excuse is that we both saw it not long before Christmas and then the excitement of Christmas and presents took over.  We were both pretty amazed that we missed it though as we both loved it.  Lucky there is two of us to remind each other....

To think you reviewed The Fault in Our Stars twice before reviewing this once...shocking, I tell you, shocking! Technically, I wrote this one before the second Fault in our Stars review but was waiting on your verdict before I could publish ;-)

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the third installment of The Hobbit trilogy and it picks up where the second one left off with Smaug heading to Laketown and causing destruction, until Bard steps up and saves the day (swoon!!).  This however, leave the mountain unprotected and soon word spreads that the gold is up for grabs, bringing five armies together for the ultimate battle.

Did we really need Bard as the title image for this?! Could we not have had my lovely elven king instead? Or Bilbo himself!? Sigh... Nope, I started it, I chose the title image...but you can have the second one....

Yay! Thanks :)

I think this was my favourite of all the Middle Earth films not just The Hobbit trilogy, I was engrossed throughout (unlike the second instalment where I fell as well until the giant spider scene) and I understood the story.  I still don't understand most of the LOTR story, making it quite hard to enjoy sometimes.  I did find the Smaug scenes at the beginning a little bit odd, they felt like they should have been at the end of the last one, however I think that would have made the second one the longest film ever and this one a bit short (in Middle Earth movie terms) so I guess that's why it was done.

After reading the book from being far too impatient to wait for the third installment, we really didn't need three parts. As much as I enjoyed The Battle of Five Armies, it was almost literally a giant battle scene made 100 times more dramatic than in the book. Which I do understand as the book is for children, but unnecessary regardless.

I still feel a bit sad that we will never know what happens to the characters between this movie and the LOTR movies, particularly Tauriel.  As soon as I got out of the cinema, I googled her to see why she wasn't with Legolas in the next lot of movies and it turns out she wasn't in it because she was made up.  She was never in the books, therefore was never considered in the LOTR's movies and was specifically made up for The Hobbit Trilogy.

Yeah, again, another reason why three parts just weren't needed. Every story needs a romance arc I guess? It was a nice touch though and I did really love Tauriel.

The ensemble cast were brilliant as always, a particular highlight for me being Richard Armitage his portrayal of Thorin as he begins to lose his mind is played out incredibly. 

There were a few character entries, that I think may have had more relevance in the book, Saruman for example in the short scene with Galadriel and Gandalf appeared unfitting to the rest of the film and a little redundant.  Maybe there is more explanation to this in the book? Any readers want to enlighten me?

Now I'll probably make myself sound like an idiot, and a much smarter fan will call me out on this as I've only read the Hobbit, but from what I heard the scenes with Saruman and Elrond and the others were put in to forge some kind of bridge between the end of the Hobbit films and the start of the Lord of the Rings ones. Thanks! (Not just a pretty face you know)

But yes! I loved the cast as much as I did in the other films. Richard Armitage was particularly brilliant as the good guy you wanted to shout at for being an ass!

Anyway, back to the review.  A great finale enough action to keep you entertained but not so much that can no longer tell who is fighting who and I actually understood the story which is a bonus... Now I need to do a marathon of all 6 films over a weekend, see if I can understand LOTR any better!!

WHYY can we not give half scores?! I don't want to open that can of worms but this is one of those scenarios I was on about before we even started this blog! It's a 7.5 from me...7 seems too harsh but I gave The Desolation of Smaug an 8 and I preferred that one to this... We are not getting into the half score debate again, you got 'out of 10' in stead of 5 so schtum! ;-) I'm trying to work out what 7.5 would work out to be if we used that system...3.77777/5?