Even after his own first Captain America movie, followed by his major role in The Avengers, I still don’t really see Chris Evans as being a good fit for the title role. Don’t get me wrong, I think he is an awesome action star and leading man, but he just doesn’t really have that blonde,…
Category: Movies
Movie #18: Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
As a kid, I grew up hearing Chinese folk tales as bedtime stories. The most well-known of them all is the Journey to the West: the story of the trickster-god Monkey King and his companions as they travel across an ancient China plagued by demons. When I heard that Stephen Chow, writer and director of…
Movie #16: Coherence
First off, this sci-fi film is not the second in the Divergent trilogy. Rather, it’s a head-scratching indie-sci-fi (a growing sub-genre that I’ve loved ever since I discovered the movie Primer — check it out if you like tying your brain in knots). Anyway, set mostly over the course of a single evening’s dinner party,…
Movie #13: Ragnarok
It is hardly surprising that people compare Norwegian director Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s movie Ragnarok to something by Steven Spielberg (most obviously Jurassic Park). Once again we have a scientist (this time an archaelogist rather than a paleontologist) looking to prove his wildly dismissed theories about the past (in this case it’s about the site where…
Movie #12: Noah
I was pleasantly surprised by Noah, partly because director Darren Aronofsky was able to bring a new take on a story that is so familiar that it’s primal. In fact, this epic retelling of the story of Noah (played by Russell Crowe) may not be totally true to the account found in the Bible (or…
Movie #11: Muppets Most Wanted
While I was OK with the previous Muppet Movie (which was a much-needed re-energizing of the franchise), I loved this Muppets take on the spy-fi genre. Coming as kind of a direct sequel to the previous movie, the Muppets decide to keep the momentum going on their celebrity by staging a world tour. This idea…
Movie #10: The Congress
I guess it’s not surprising, but so often with independent films with sci-fi themes, you are never quite sure what you’re going to get. Being science fiction gives them the license to go almost anywhere with story and character because the anchoring concept can be something totally out-there. The Congress is an odd blend to…
Movie #9: Divergent
Riding on the dystopian, young-adult coattails of The Hunger Games, Divergent was another series to make it to the ranks of blockbuster movie adaptation. Even before reading the book, I was skeptical of the premise. In a future-Chicago, society has split everyone into factions based on individual ideals (e.g. the selfless belong to the Abnegation…
Movie #8: Kick-Ass 2
From all the negative reactions to this movie in theatres, I was expecting a very disappointing movie (especially after I loved the first one so much), but I guess that lowered my expectations enough that I actually kind of enjoyed it. While the first movie was something of a landmark, this one is a bit…
