Review: Creed (2015)

Jenna! I can’t believe you’re leaving me to start off this monstrosity of a post. I think by this point in our blogging adventure, it’s expected of me to have not watched an all time classic movie, but you?! Let’s just get this out of the way. Neither of us have ever watched a Rocky movie. Nor do we have much knowledge about boxing in general. So if you’re even still reading at this point, you’re probably wondering why on earth we even watched Creed. But it’s tipped for awards, and we’re trying to watch all the big awards movies, so we gave Creed a shot together!  In our defence we have Rocky on our Blind Spot list for this year and we are kicking it off with that one in January but yes it is true we have not seen a Rocky film between us and I think in watching Creed we may have inadvertently 'spoilered' ourselves. 

So, as far as I understand, Creed is the story of Apollo Creed’s son, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) as he follows his father’s footsteps in becoming a boxing champion. To help him on his way he hunts down retired Rocky Balboa himself (Sylvester Stallone) who eventually agrees to mentor him.  Not that we could understand what he was saying!

For the record, this was so much fun to watch together, as we shared what little we knew about the Rocky series. I think everything we know can be summed up like this:

- There are some steps that Rocky ran up in the originals. They didn’t actually look that difficult, but then neither of us have tried.

- I think Rocky had a love interest called Adrian. Also pretty sure there’s a moment where we cries ‘ADRIAAAAN’. I don’t do a very good Stallone impression.

- According to Jenna, the famous Rocky music sounds a lot like the traditional wedding march. haha! OK play this and listen to the first part of this and tell me it doesn't sound like the wedding march......

It doesn't sound like the wedding march, and now you're going nowhere near any of my CDs at the wedding in May!

Moving swiftly on…

I thought Michael B. Jordan was absolutely perfect for this role! He’s everything I imagined a young boxer to be. He was confident, and a little arrogant, but he oozed so much charm at the same time. It was really sweet watching him in the early stages of his relationship with Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and I can’t wait to see more of him in the future.
I felt like we may have ruined this film for ourselves because I get the feeling nostalgia goes a long way with this one, that being said I did really enjoy the boxing scenes (it also reminded me that I forgot to review Southpaw!).  Michael B. Jordan was the perfect choice for Adonis, he was great and i'm so glad hes brought it back after the disaster that was Fantastic Four.

One thing I will rave about are the boxing scenes themselves. They were intense! Especially the final scene, which I of course won’t ruin. Jenna and I were literally shouting and cheering at the TV at that point, acting as referees. If you love the sport, don’t ever watch it with us. Seriously. Our favourite parts are the ‘hug it out’ moments as we call them!  I was scaring the bejesus out of the cats with my impressive boxing moves and every time the boxers 'hugged' we put on our rugged manly voices to 'yeah yeah hug it out' - I think we might actually be insane but its the most fun I've had watching a movie in a long time!  Can anyone actually explain why they hug?!

I just feel that my lack of knowledge/interest in boxing, coupled with the sad fact that I’ve never watched a Rocky movie ultimately hindered my enjoyment of the movie as a whole. I can certainly appreciate it for what it is, but it felt too long to me.

It did seem to go on a bit and I don't usually mind long films, a lot of the scenes just seemed a little dragged out where they could have been shorter but overall an entertaining watch that i'm guessing fans of the franchise will love.

Review: Fantastic Four (2015)

Yet another case of blogging memory loss, I could have sworn I had written and published this review but I hadn't even started it - What the heck!?  As you all well know I was really looking forward to this and hoping it would not be a disaster after being perfectly happy with the 'rubbish' original...

Reed Richards (Miles Teller) spends his young life working on a teleporter with the help of his best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), which when working with scientist, Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his daughter Sue (Kate Mara) realises it transports to an alternate reality.  Reed, Ben, Sue's brother Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) and Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) get drunk and decide to test the transporter before the Government can take it away from them.  Unfortunately, the alternate universe is not what they expect and they end up with strange super powers.....

I had such high hopes and said hopes were dashed...epically.  This was nothing like I expected, the CGI and the graphics were amazing which IS what I expected but the story was terrible and really not much about super heroes as much as a really boring story about four boring people (one of which is barely in the film!).  Ben's character barely had any presence at all but randomly got called by Reed near the end to be included in the trip (and therefore become The Thing), Victor von Doom, the supposed bad guy, is ridiculously likeable (and to me more like how I would expect Johnny Storm to be) and Johnny Storm was just plain boring (much like his sister). 

I was so excited to see Miles Teller again, after falling in love with him in Whiplash and he was so unbelievably bland, I couldn't believe it was the same actor.  These were all great actors, so it must have been down to the story or the screen play because it just had nothing about it.  It spent so long on the run up to the 'transporter disaster' and hardly any time on the 'becoming super heroes' part - I fact where it ended, I thought that would be in the first 40 minutes or so.  I get that it is setting up for a series (as per usual) but it is blatantly obvious that Fox have rushed out a remake to avoid losing the rights to the characters and threw in as many up and coming actors/actresses as they could get their hands on to hype it up.

Not good, not good at all.  I am VERY concerned about Deadpool now!!!

Review: That Awkward Moment (2014)

I actually watched this on a plane, I can confirm for certain that it is NSFP!!!  As it was on the movie listings on the plane, I thought 'how bad could it be??' It was bad and it got worse, I was in a world of my own watching the film and all of a sudden this face appeared in front of me and it was a steward asking if I wanted a drink.  So I paused the film, only to realise it was the scene where Zac Efron lies across the toilet naked to go to the loo, then the guy next to me wanted to get out to go to the toilet so I couldn't play again.  I felt like everyone was staring at me and I must have been the colour of a beetroot.

 

That Awkward Moment follows three best friends who, after Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) finds out his wife has been having an affair, choose to make a pact to stay single.  Things start to get more complicated when Jason (Zac Efron), the serial singleton, meets the girl of his dreams.

This is a typical American comedy with stacks of sex and toilet humour (sometimes both, see above!) and gross out gags galore.  However, it still made me laugh, there is a scene around the middle with Jason and Daniel (Miles Teller) in a sex shop that literally had me howling with laughter (which is pretty impressive on a plane when you consistently fight the urge to laugh/cry/shout at the screen at all costs).

 

That scene was brilliant, I also loved the 'dress up' party scene - 'Rock out with your c*ck out!'. I have to say that after this and Bad Neighbours, Zac Efron has done well to shake that High School Musical image away from my mind.

 

I absolutely fell in love with Jason and Ellie (Imogen Poots). Both me and Jenna are suckers for a good love story and theirs was just adorable. One of the final scenes with them at the book reading was my absolute favourite, I was smiling from ear to ear!

 

There are some awkward moments in the film (should have expected it really) that make you cringe so badly that you desperately want to turn the film off but no you don't because all of a sudden that awkward situation becomes quite funny.  The film plays the rom-com cards from the male perspective, which although has been done before, is quite refreshing.

 

I would say that although there are plenty of funny (and awkward!) parts in That Awkward Moment, it most definitely leans more towards the romantic side of the romcom, which I actually enjoyed. The plot isn't completely predictable either, as I boldly claimed 20 minutes in I knew how it would end, and I wasn't completley right.

The rom-com that both men and women will enjoy, bit too much toilet humour for my liking but would definitely watch it again.