Review: Arrival (2016)

Oh boy. I know this year has been a bit of a stinker for blockbusters, but overall I personally think it’s been a fantastic year, and now a new movie has rocked up threatening to become my favourite of the whole year. November, you are awesome. This also means that I’ve been to the cinema two weeks in a row, which is honestly the first time that’s happened all year. Two Amy Adams movies in a row, too!

Arrival is directed by Denis Villeneuve, the master behind Sicario, Prisoners, Enemy and Incendies. He’s currently working on Blade Runner 2049. This man is fantastic, I can’t emphasise that enough. I haven’t watched a movie of his yet that hasn’t wowed me, and Arrival is no exception. The UK has been marketing the hell out of this flick, in fact last time I was at the cinema, during the trailers we were shown 2 different Arrival trailers in a row. It was starting to get on my nerves a tad, but only because I didn’t want to know so much before going in.

First and foremost, this isn’t a Sci-Fi in the typical sense. It’s an alien invasion, for sure, but if you’re expecting Independence Day then this isn’t the movie for you. The world is most definitely at risk here, but there’s no room-shaking action sequences or alien punching of any kind. Our main character is Louise (Amy Adams), an expert linguist recruited to work with scientist Ian (Jeremy Renner) to learn from the aliens what their purpose on Earth is. Twelve pods have descended in seemingly random locations around the world, and they don’t seem intent to blow us into smithereens. 

I never excelled in science, and I can’t speak a second language, so I was grateful for the fact that I could easily understand what was happening during the movie, and actually found myself completely in awe of the linguistic work that Louise was doing. It’s fascinating stuff! How she went about teaching the aliens (heptapods, if you’ll excuse my most likely bad spelling) simple vocabulary, to lead up to actually asking a question was something that seemed impossible at first, but when broken down into stages, actually made a lot of sense.

Louise herself is a captivating character. We are drawn to her instantly and warm to her within the first few scenes when we’re shown a tragic moment in her life. She feels so real, and relatable. I’m pretty sure if we were sent up into a pod to talk with an alien we would freak out as much as she did, rather than staying cool and calm, with our hair and make-up perfectly in tact. But I’m getting off topic now.

I’m almost trying not to talk about the movie to be honest, because I want to be really careful about what I say. The less you know, the better, because the final 20 minutes of Arrival was one of my favourite movie experiences ever. That feeling in your mind of everything clicking into place is just amazing. 

Safe to say, my husband fully forgave me for scaring the crap out of him last week when we saw Nocturnal Animals, and he’s even gone so far as to say this might be his favourite movie of all time! It’s definitely threatening to become my favourite of the year.

Looking Forward to Seeing at the Cinema: November 2016

As always, I'm writing this post a little earlier than 1st November, so it's absolutely terrifying for me to be thinking about movies coming out in November when I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet! For the record, by the time you're reading this, I'll have already had the annual 'Christmas Planning Meeting' with the Husband, probably over breakfast at one of our favourite American Diners. Spoiler alert for any friends and family reading this: you're all getting movies!

Enough of that though. This post is a little different this month, because there are a ridiculous amount of movies coming out that I want to see. It saddens me knowing that I won't make it to the cinema for them all, but hey, at least I'll look forward to seeing them on DVD next year. No, this month, there is a movie out every single week that I want to see!

I don't know much about Nocturnal Animals, I've tried to shy away as much as possible, because honestly, with Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal as leads in a Thriller/Drama, that's all I need to get me excited. It looks dark, gritty, and I think there are going to be a few twists and turns as the story unfolds.

Nocturnal Animals will be released in UK cinemas on 4th November 2016.

Amy Adams is killing it this year! Just 1 week later she's starring in a Drama/Mystery/Sci-Fi alongside Jeremy Renner called Arrival. Again, I've tried not to dig to much into the plot of this one, but it's the Director that's really selling it to me. Dennis Villeneuve has directed some of my favourite movies, Sicario, Enemy, Prisoners and Incendies to name a few. This guy is hella talented, and I can't wait to see Arrival.

Arrival will be released in UK cinemas on 10th November 2016.

If you know me at all, you'll know how much I love Harry Potter. I started reading the books when I was just a kid, I attended midnight openings for the last 3 in the series, and if I really don't know what to watch, I'll stick on a Harry Potter movie. It's obvious that I'm looking forward to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Is the news about it being a 5 movie series true? I actually hope not, I'd rather have movies that explore other areas of the wizarding world, but I'll see them nonetheless.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them will be released in UK cinemas on 18th November 2016.

Shameless choice alert! It's been nearly a whole year since my Adam Driver obsession started (blame Benedict Cumberbatch for going quiet for so long) and so I'm desperate to see him in something new. He's been the only shining star in too many terrible movies, so I'm not sure where to set my expectations for Paterson. I also don't know how to convince the husband to see this with me. Perhaps Jenna will be free...she saw Midnight Special with me...

Paterson will be released in UK cinemas on 25th November 2016.

Mini Reviews: Identity (2003), The Bourne Legacy (2012) & The Last Witch Hunter (2015)

I do love a good mystery/thriller! It’s hard to hunt this kind of movie down because once you know there’s a big twist, you find yourself trying to work it out, so when a work colleague mentioned Identity (2003) and said it ‘was a bit of a weird one’ I yelled for them to say no more and watched it that very night. It’s a brilliant movie about a bunch of strangers who all find themselves trapped at a motel, which is creepy enough until one by one they all get murdered.

It was an entertaining watch, and I didn’t see the twist coming, but my real complaint is that the twist came too early, and the actual ending itself was pretty unnecessary. Still, a good movie and I’d recommend it to other fans of the genre.

It took me far too long to watch the original Bourne trilogy, and with the latest movie on the horizon, I thought it was about time I watched The Bourne Legacy (2012). Plus, it’s got Oscar Isaac, so that was a selling point. (Spoiler Alert - That was a bit of a Cabin in the Woods moment for me, doh). I think my fiance enjoyed this more than I did, but it was an entertaining watch on a rainy weekend evening, with some great action scenes that had me on the edge of my seat and a little twist I wasn’t expecting either.

If nothing else, it’s got me really excited for Jason Bourne later this year!

It’s family movie night. We’d been planning for the last 2 weeks to watch Everest together. At the last minute, my Grampy decides Everest looked boring (argh!) and suggests we watch The Last Witch Hunter (2015) instead. Well….I do always say that I’ll watch any movie once. I didn’t even realise it was actually set in the present day, which cheered me up a little. It’s the kind of fantasy movie my 14 year old self would have loved, obsessed over actually, but now, it just wasn’t enough. It was entertaining at the time, but 3 weeks later I can barely remember it.

Which made me feel like a total snob when the credits rolled and my family gushed about how amazing it was. Well, they are the same family who hail San Andreas one of the greatest disaster movies! Sorry…

Mini Reviews: The Maze Runner (2014), Fantastic Four (2015) & Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Doing overtime at home to pay for our cat Loki's vet bills has meant I've worked my way through a lot of movies recently, which in turn means plenty of reviews to write up! This little set mainly contains movies that Jenna's already seen and reviewed, so it seemed silly to dedicate a whole post to each!  You know I drafted a post for Mission Impossible but never wrote it or posted it?! You didn't?! I thought you did, ha!

I have very little interest in the Fantastic Four series, it’s just never had much appeal to me. However, I won’t miss a chance to see a superhero movie and despite the appalling reviews, I gave Fantastic Four (2015) a go. Boy, it really was terrible. The introduction was alright, although the characters were boring, and the ending was okay, especially in terms of special effects. The main problem was everything else, cheesy dialogue, awful acting and just a boring plot that didn’t flow well at all. I guess Green Lantern isn’t the worst superhero movie anymore, huzzah! I’ll take that as a win. Damn it!!

When the trailers came out for The Maze Runner (2014), I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. I hadn’t read the books, and I was still in awe of The Hunger Games so I wrote this off completely. Curiosity got the better of me though and I ended up enjoying this much more than I thought I would. The tension and now knowing where the plot was going kept me hooked and I was pleasantly surprised. Dylan O’Brien impressed me in Teen Wolf and he makes a great lead in this. I’m quite looking forward to watching The Scorch Trials now!

Although I was very late to the party, I really enjoyed 2011’s Ghost Protocol and when the trailers came out for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) I couldn’t wait. It sounds silly but it’s probably one of my favourite trailers, I think it was the music that did it for me. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the latest mission. Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg have such a great on-screen chemistry, I’d happily watch them together in anything! I got a little lost in the game of ‘Is Isla a good guy, bad guy, double agent, double double agent’ malarky but that’s normal for me, ha.

Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

How long have we been waiting for this movie? I think the world and his wife went out to the cinema this weekend to see the long awaiting sequel to 2012's Avengers Assemble (The Avengers to the US residents among us) - the cinema was packed out and we went to see the very late 2D version in the hopes that it would be a bit quieter.  No such luck!

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) tries to protect the Earth from alien invasions using the power of the Sceptre to create Artificial Intelligence in his robot army.  Unfortunately, things don't quite go to plan and its down to Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth),  Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) along with newbies Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) to save the world....again.

Do you think there will ever be a superhero film in which the world is perfectly fine on its own?

So this was not what I expected, I expected a replica of the first Avengers but with a different storyline, I thought it would be just as playful and witty and off the cuff as the first, but it wasn't.  Initally, I thought it was a bad thing, I didn't understand why they weren't sticking to the tried and testing formula that worked so well for its predecessor and the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy.  Instead it took a tone more like the Captain America sequel, much more dark and in some ways realistic.  It has to be considered that going through these battles and wars with various monsters and bad guys would leave some psychological scarring, and this touches on that, particularly with Tony Stark (RDJ) and his fears for the Earth. 

We definitely got into their heads a little more than last time. One thing I really enjoyed was the amount of screen time Hawkeye and Black Widow got, they're easily forgotten and so it was a breath of fresh air to see them more.

It may not have been what I expected but that doesn't mean I didn't like it.  There were a few niggles that bothered me, the Russian twins god awful accents and the lack of Thor's biceps but nothing that ruined the film for me.  In fact, the inclusion of a bit of romance, a well kept secret and a developing bromance kept my interest peaked for the majority of the film, but what kept me well and truly gripped was Ultron.  James Spader's angry, calm, uber-intelligent robot just stole the show at every opportunity, took me the whole film to place the voice and I still found out from the credits but he was perfect.  He was the perfect villain.

As much as I enjoyed Age of Ultron, I too have my niggles about it. The romance was a little un-necessary I thought, and kind of came out of no where! The spoilerific (yes, I made that word up) ending which I won't go into detail fell flat, and I found myself glad it wasn't what the film had been hinting at from the very start!

James Spader as Ultron was brilliant! I wasn't bothered about Ultron in the slightest before the film, and I couldn't remove the image of The Office's Robert California until Ultron's reveal, and then I realised just how great the casting was. Still not a better villain than Loki I'm afraid!

There was nothing I didn't like about it, I may have preferred a few more comedy one-liners in there but I think that would have taken away from the overall goal of the film.  There was no messing about either, the opening sequence made way for a fast paced, non-stop, action packed superhero fest.

It was definitely darker, but the running joke about Captain America disapproving of swears never got old, and the scene with everyone gathered around Thor's hammer was hilarious! I'm trying my very hardest here to not make jokes about being able to raise Thor's hammer...

Great cast as always and a few surprise cameos (one that I hoped for didn't appear *sob*) made this just as good as the original but for different reasons. 

Seeing this in 3D IMAX made this an awesome experience for me, but I think the original is just that little bit better.

OH, and can I just say? Worst mid-credits scene ever. Tell us something we didn't know, Marvel!