Review: San Andreas (2015)

It’s been quite some time since I saw a disaster movie. Not counting Fantastic Four, har har! You know what I mean, catastrophe, earthquakes, tsunamis, that whole thing. Disaster movies seemed to be all the rage a few years ago, but I either got bored of them or there’s just not as many being made anymore! Anyway, my family and I held a big ol’ movie night the other weekend for the first time, and San Andreas (2015)  was deemed interesting enough for our audience ranging from 13-65. Argh, I saw this and I think I forgot to review it, says a lot about the film I think....

In San Andreas, California suffers multiple earthquakes, one which goes down on records as the biggest ever in history. Lawrence, a seismologist (Paul Giamatti) and his team have developed a device that can predict earthquakes, but no one seems to be listening to him. Meanwhile, Ray (Dwayne Johnson) is having some problems of his own. His divorce to Emma (Carla Gugino) is taking it’s toll, as her and their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) are about to move in with Emma’s douchebag boyfriend Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd).

Within the first 5 minutes, I knew exactly what this move was going to be filled with. Stupid people doing stupid things. Sometimes, that’s all you need for a bit of enjoyment. The living room was filled with cries of:

“Don’t check your phone whilst driving round a mountain”

“Run! Why are you just standing there?!”

“Now is the perfect time for a kiss, obviously. Now run!”

“Does he own this helicopter, or has he just abandoned his day job?”

“RUN!”

Why did everyone spend so much time standing around having heart to hearts?!

This film provided so many flashbacks to the first time and Allie watched Sharknado, I can imagine her and all her family randomly shouting at the screen wondering how there happened to be a t-shirt with sleeves big enough for Dwayne Johnson's arms to fit in but still fit perfectly in the chest, in the store they happened to crash into!!

I think San Andreas needs an alternative title, let’s call it California and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It sums it up perfectly. (ha!!) Just when you think everything is okay for at least the next 5 minutes, the movie is just like ‘NOPE’ and throws something else into the mix. It’s exhausting to watch, but also quite funny in places. There’s this one moment where Ray and Emma are driving a boat just as the tsunami hits (obviously) but all is okay because Ray says they just need to drive over it before it crests, and then just as they reach the top, hey presto! There’s a gigantic freight ship just at the top. Doh! That scene was so amazing, I quite literally elbowed by Dad in the ribs to confirm that he too was in awe of the breaking of the laws of physics!  There were so many scenes in this film that defied the laws of physics, there was too many to count, but the quite clearly dead girl eventually coughing up a bit of water and being fine was pretty incredible, with no oxygen to her brain for approximately 5 minutes, surely she should have been brain dead, no?!

Honestly, San Andreas is one of the craziest movies I’ve ever seen. I’d nearly go as far as saying it’s like Sharknado with a giant budget, but I had an awful lot of fun watching it, too. The visual effects were pretty decent, and the action didn’t stop once for the nearly 2 hours run time.   I'm glad to see you agree on the Sharknado front, I just don't understand how a movie can be so bad with such a big budget, maybe they needed to put more of the money into the writers and less in the graphics.

It’s not something I fancy watching again, but it was the perfect choice for an action packed family movie night!  

I really wanted to love this film and it was great seeing the sights of San Francisco but where the terrible lines and ridiculous plot points in Sharknado is funny, in this it's just cringeworthy!!

Mini Reviews: Saving Mr Banks (2013), Cake (2014) & Ex Machina (2015)

I can’t quite believe Saving Mr Banks is 2 years old now, it feels like I’ve been putting off watching it for a couple of months, not years! I remember little of the Mary Poppins story, in fact I can only recall a couple of the songs, and maybe that’s why I put this film off for so long. I’m glad I gave it a shot though, as this was a beautiful story.

Emma Thompson does a fantastic job at portraying this frustrating character who you struggle to warm to at first, but by the credits roll I had tears in my eyes. The whole cast made this a wonderful film to watch, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Aniston and films that tackle depression have always interested me, which I realise sounds quite morbid! Therefore, I thought Cake would be a film I would really enjoy. Cake is a dark story of a woman who becomes obsessed with the suicide of a friend in her support group for chronic pain, who also tries to deals with her own severe issues.

Maybe watching this in chunks throughout my lunch breaks didn’t help, but I found the story so hard to understand, I had to read half on an IMDB synopsis to work out what was going on. Once I worked it out it was more enjoyable, but still fell flat for me.

When the posters and trailers came out for Ex Machina came out, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. I didn’t even notice it come and go from my local cinema. However, anyone I knew who went to see it or watched the DVD said how brilliant it was, and the got my curiosity. It’s hard to even explain the plot of Ex Machina without ruining the experience, but I would recommend it to anyone.

It starts of as a family friendly, futuristic film and out of nowhere, takes a very dark turn, and rapidly turns into adult-only territory. I haven’t seen anything like it, and although I don’t think a re-watch will give the same impact, it was a brilliant experience first-time.

Review: Cinderella Man (2005)

I downloaded this film onto my iPad to watch if I was bored in the airport on the way to some other far flung place and thank god I did as I ended up on an 11 hour journey to get home (which should have taken 4 hours) so I had plenty of time to watch everything I had downloaded.

This film is the true story of James J Braddock a boxer during the Great Depression in 1930's America who loses everything.  Him and his family struggle after he gets ditched from boxing and they have to fight to survive and provide for their children.  Years later, Braddock gets the opportunity to box again and the rest they say is history...

I didn't think I was going to enjoy this film, the cover looked depressing as did the description, but it just goes to show you can't judge a book by it's cover.  This film was amazing, loved every minute of it and I was completely gripped from beginning to end.  I spent 20 minutes of the film sobbing, on a train in Germany no less so maybe it wasn't SFT after all. I have to be honest, I've never even heard of this film, and when I saw the title Cinderella Man in the draft section of our blog, I actually thought it was going to be a cheesy Disney film! I now realise I was thinking of A Cinderella Story...sorry.

The film seemed quite slow but that didn't take away from the story at all.  Russell Crowe was brilliant at the down ad out boxer trying desperately to avoid having to send his children away and the fact that it's based on a true story makes it that much more poignant.  Your heart breaks where their heart breaks and you feel the pure joy whenever something happens to him and his wife, played by Renee Zellweger (who possible wears too much make up for someone with starving kids in the height of the depression!).  Giamatti is perfect in the role of Braddocks trainer, Joe Gould who looks on with the perfect amount of sadness when it all goes wrong and himself gives everything up in his belief of Braddock.

A definite must-see even if you don't think it's for you, give it a try anyway, you might be surprised. I'm going to take you up on that one!

Review: Turbo (2013)

I've done a terrible thing. I told you all in my Best and Worst: Ryan Reynolds post that I'd seen every film Ryan Reynolds was in, and I hadn't! Technically I don't think this should count as it's just his voice in the film, but as me and Jenna were going through IMDB lists, I suddenly realised I hadn't seen Turbo yet. Netflix to the rescue! Really? I'm amazed, I remember you being so excited when it was announced.  I actually saw this on a flight to god knows where while it was on at the cinema in the UK.

 

 

It doesn't matter how old I get, I'll always be excited about animated films. I've always loved DreamWorks films, possibly more than Disney, but let's save that for a planned post we have for the future! WHAT?! This is definitely a discussion we need to have in the future!!

 

You can probably guess the story for Turbo without watching the trailer. Theo is an ordinary garden snail who dreams of winning the Indy 5000, a famous car race. He winds up in an accident which gives him nitros powers, essentially changing him from Theo into Turbo.

 

I'll be honest, the plot was incredibly obvious, but you have to remember that this is predominantly a kid's film; you shouldn't expect an Inception style plot! Nevermind the kids, you wouldn't understand it if they made it too complicated!! ;-) - Hey!! That said, the story is still enjoyable and you really do root for Turbo throughout the film. The other snails are perfect side characters too, and virtually everything that Samuel L Jackson's snail, Whiplash, says will make you laugh.  Agreed, I loved him!

 

There are plenty other famous voices in this too which you'll have fun trying to identify, especially the little old lady who runs the nail salon! I'll give you a hint - The Hangover! The cast of this is pretty incredible to be fair, if all these actors were in a live action film together it would have to be a must see!!

 

I really did enjoy this film even if it was missing the hidden 'just for adults' jokes that Shrek provides.  It was more for kids and less for adults with a liking for kids films.  The story as Allie said was predictable but you don't expect anything else and it is perfectly enjoyable (and ideally SFP!!).  The animation (as expected these days) is faultless and has your eyes glued to the screen even if the storyline doesn't.

 

If that's not enough for you, there's a great moment poking fun at how the internet just takes everything too far! 

 



 

All in all, a decent movie that your kids will love, even if you don't. Plus, at least now I really can say that I've seen every film Ryan Reynolds has been in!  Well done, quite an achievement!!

Enjoyable but for me a 'one watch wonder'

 



Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I finally went to the cinema to see this last week and I was not disappointed (as I knew I wouldn't be!) I am a huge fan of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man and he completely lived up to my expectations, building on the character from the first film and making you love Spidey even more!! I had to wait till yesterday but I was seriously looking forward to this, the first one is probably one of my all time favourite comic films.

This sequel focuses mainly on Peter Parker (Garfield) trying to find out what happened to his parents as well as battling various enemies including Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) and - all be it briefly - Rhino (Paul Giamatti).  It also continues to build on the relationship between Parker and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), which personally is my favourite part, but I'm a sucker for a love story! How can you not be when it's Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, probably the cutest couple on the planet ever?!

As a big fan of the Amazing Spider-Man film, I had high hopes for this and superficially I wasn't disappointed, the flying scenes were particularly impressive, even without 3D.  The comedy one liners from Spider-Man were there and the love story was there.  However, I did feel like the whole film came across a bit choppy and hard to follow.  One minute it's this bad guy, then it's that one and then this one is back and then oh look another different bad guy.  It almost felt like two different versions had been filmed and then cut and pasted together.  Certain parts of the film felt rushed while other parts dragged on and on.  When I left the cinema, I read the reviews as I do for every film and the Total Film review actually mentioned that MJ was going to be in this film and Shailene Woodley had filmed scenes but they were all cut. 

The comical moments were great, with one exception! Electro in Times Square, cue dramatic music, tens of police officers on standby, guns ready, and what does he say? "It's my Birthday...time to light my candles..." Urghhh... This clip below though? Comedy gold!

I wish I watched this at the IMAX Giant Screen like I did with the first, because some of the action scenes would have been incredible! They were great enough in 2D to be honest. My heart was literally racing throughout the final fight scene, it was incredible. I thought the film was fine to follow, but it all got a bit rushed at the end. There was really no need for Rhino at all, he was only really in it for about 5 minutes anyway.

I personally didn't see the big shock of the film coming, but after it happened I looked back at the whole film and they had been teasing and hinting at it all the way through, dragging it out unnecessarily I think.  I won't put any spoilers in here but it was a shock for me but it was clever as it curves away from what a comic book movie would normally do, if you have seen the film this will make perfect sense, if you haven't - well go and see it and get back to me!

I've read the comics so I knew what was coming, but damn they really didn't try to hide it. I've learnt from this to never like a film's Facebook page until you've seen it, as I saw a lot of people's angry reactions when a screenshot was posted with the caption 'Will Peter have to pay the ultimate price?'.

None of these 'issues' took away from my love of the film though, it held my attention and I was gripped from beginning to end.  I love the actors and the way they play these characters (although never saw Paul Giamatti as Rhino but it worked!!) and I did very much enjoy the story and would happily watch it again and again.

Great filming, great actors and great characters, if only the story had kept up this would have been a 9 for me. I can't give this a 10 because even I will point out some flaws, but I loved it and can't wait to see it again.