Once Upon A Time Season 1

I never actually thought that I would get to this review. After I watched the pilot, I was sure that I was done with this show. After I couldn't really take it after 4 episodes later, I thought that I was done with this show... and yet here I am reviewing the entire first season of Once Upon A Time.

The truth is, right now I'm really excited for the new season of Doctor Who. But since I don't have BBC, I have to wait until the episode becomes available online. I'm in a bit of a fantasy mood and I was trying to find a show that would hold me over until Doctor Who started up again. This kind of filled that hole for now.

If you need a recap of what I thought of the pilot, here's that review.

Basically the premise of the show is that Emma Swan (played by Jennifer Morrison) enters a small town by the name of Storybrooke with the help of an annoying as hell small boy claiming to be her son.

The boy, Henry, claims that the town is populated by the characters of beloved Fairy Tales, like Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, Beauty and the Beast, Rumplestiltzkin and others. Except they don't know who they are due to the curse of the evil Queen Regina (played by Lana Parilla) This curse was enacted after Snow White and Prince Charming were married and Regina swore to end their happiness... and she did it by throwing them into the real world 2011... where Regina is mayor... and the adoptive mother of Snow White's grandson... yeah... quite the evil plan you got there.

And I'm just gonna get this out of the way...

If any of you thought I was going to grow to like this kid, you were wrong. I hated this kid from the very beginning to the very end of the season. Every time he was on screen, I was hoping that he was going to eat a poison Apple Turnover and bite it... and for a minute there he almost does. But of course he's important or something and had to live for the entirety of the season.

Furthermore he did nothing productive in entire season. The only reason he is in this show is because he provides a goal for the main character. For one reason or another, Emma really likes this kid and eventually wants to have custody over him.

I understand there's only so much kids can do in shows like these but c'mon even Hansel and Gretel did more than Henry did. In the end, the kid just made me angry

Now that I have that out of the way, I can talk about the remainder of the season because while he showed up in a lot of the first season, it started to focus more on the fairy tale characters and the mysteries behind them instead of Henry.

But that won't stop me from starting about the other pair of characters that were nothing but annoying for me during the entirety of the season.

And that was the storyline between Snow White and Prince Charming, or David and Mary Margret.

And its mostly the interactions these two have in the real world. While their fairy tale story is annoying in its own right because these two fall in love way too quickly and with no substance whatsoever, they at least have some somewhat interesting fight scenes and "interesting" backstories to build up to the fairy tale that we all know and love. While its not the same story because the writer's wanted to mix things up, you know how their story ends, Snow White ends up eating the apple, Charming finds her and they live happily ever after. The fairy tale story is more annoying because its predictable. I'll talk more about the structure of the fairy tales later but I want to stay on Snow and Charming

In the real world however, its just annoying.

Have you ever seen Sleepless in Seattle?

While I'm realizing it might not be the best comparison, the real world interactions between these two just remind me of that movie except Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman just did it so much better.

For the first few episodes, David is in a coma. But magically wakes up and falls in love with Snow White because, you know, that's what they do. But then he has this wife who he has the memory of loving but cannot bring himself to actually do it. And Snow White is just caught in the crossfire as David can't figure the fuck out what he wants to do, its just this back and forth of bullshit every single episode and eventually their little love triangle/will they or won't they motiff just gets freaking annoying. First they're going to be together, then they're not, then they're going to be together again but whatsherface is pregnant, then she's not pregnant and its just so stupid!

Furthermore these actors are just bland and not really great. Its probably how they're written but Ginnifer Goodwin is just this wide eyed innocent little heroine who they tried to make a badass but failed just miserably. The Prince is pretty bland as well. They're just both undeniably good and when they do the wrong thing it just seems out of character.

But maybe the show could be salvaged by the main character?

Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan... I didn't love her.

I suppose she provided a good protagonist who is able to fight the bad guy, have her struggles, and come out the victor in the end but she's not incredibly interesting.

Besides a few arbitrary traits like her desire to find her parents and how she's a grounded individual who doesn't believe in fairy tales, Emma is more of a vehicle for the viewer to view this adventure.

Cracked did a great video on the phenomena, it should give a great explanation as to what Emma Swan is in this show.

Heres' the Explanation

While it works for most mediums, it doesn't exactly create for an incredibly complex character. Emma Swan is the neutral mask and while she is the main character, there's really very few episodes that focus on her development. I know ever since ABC got away with 6 seasons of Lost having fifteen billion characters, they've been knocking out shows with huge casts. But if you don't take the time to really develop Emma, when it comes to the end of the season and she's suddenly suppose to be the Hero again, it kind of falls flat because they sat on it for so long. There's only a few episodes where she actually shows some development, actually shows some sort of moral dilemma, and actually becomes a characters rather than a neutral mask for the audience.

And then there's the villain.

Regina/ The Evil Queen is a complex character to review because she does actually have a backstory, there is actually a little bit of method to her madness and there's at least an effort to make her a sympathetic villain, one that, while you still see her as the villain and want her to lose, you can't help but feel sorry for her.

Lana Parilla's performance and the way the character is written has its ups and downs. On one hand she does have her moments where she is quite evil and gives off the feeling as if there's no way she can be beaten. This is actually very effective. On the other hand, Lana Parilla is not the greatest actor one note evil can get kind of dull. On another hand, her backstory does allow for her to be a sympathetic villain and gives her a little bit of a reason for why she's so evil besides just... being evil.

However... her reasoning for being evil, her reasoning for hating Snow White so much and wanting all of the good characters to lose their happy ending... is really... really weak.

The majority of the characters throughout the season have origin stories, Jimmny Cricket has his story of how he became a Cricket, Rumpelstilzkin has his story of how he became the way he was and Regina has her story of how she came to hate Snow White... and again, its weak.

Regina begins as a wide eyed undeniably good character believing in true love. So much that when she saves the King's daughter, Snow White and is proposed to by the King, she wants to run away with her true love. Well her controlling mother will have none of that. But Snow White figures out that she is in love with someone else. Regina tries to get her not to tell but Regina's mother coaxes it out of her and ends up killing Regina's true love.

Regina's mother commits the murder, controls her with magic, its later figured out that she coaxed it out of Snow White and who does Regina blame for the murder of her true love? If you guessed the mother, well you were wrong, she blames Snow White?!?! Even after she figures out that the events of the episode were all orchestrated by her mother she still blames Snow White.

Listen Lady, you're a grown ass adult. You want to murder a dumbass little girl because she was manipulated by your manipulative mother? Really?

Again... very weak.

However, one of the criticisms I had of Regina was that it didn't really make sense for her perfect world to be the modern real world where she's mayor and the adoptive mother of her worst enemy's grandson. But the show does actually work it out to show that she does care for Henry. Why she does I'm not sure, and that's not just because Henry annoys the hell out of me but why the grandson of Snow White?

Maybe she didn't know but then it begs the question, how did Henry grow up resenting Regina so much?

I think it would have made more sense for Henry to be a little bit of a product of Regina's upbringing, maybe don't make him an asshole but a prodigy of her teaching, an heir that if she loses him, like she is so worried about in the show, it actually has a consequence. She's not just losing a son, she's losing an heir, someone to carry on her name and goals. I don't know. Maybe that's better explained in the second season but in this season she just cared for Henry well... because. Maybe its her good side, maybe its just a poorly written script but for how evil Regina is, she legitimately cares about Henry and you see it in the end of the season.

So I'm torn on whether or not I like Regina as a villain. I think she has her moments but she's not phenomenal.

 What was phenomenal was Rumpelstiltskin/ Mr. Gold.

I wrote in my review of the pilot that Rumpelstiltskin was the best part of the pilot because he seemed like a fun, unpredictable character, making you unsure of what side he's on and what he's going to do next.

I started to rethink that stance when I watched the next few episodes because while he is Rumpelstiltskin in the Fairy tale world, he kind of overacts and has some dumb dialogue. A little bit more subtlety would have helped the character a lot.

But then as the show goes on, you learn his backstory, how he came to be the powerful being he is and especially the meddling and scheming he does in the real world, suddenly you start to realize that he is the real threat, not Regina, but by the time you realize that, its too late.

The other part of his character that was unexpectedly really good was switching him for the character of the Beast in the Beauty and the Beast themed episode. Suddenly Mr. Gold becomes incredibly complex, and a tormented character. He's much more of a sympathetic villain than Regina and he's just all around better. Now maybe its just because Regina is not that great of a villain that Mr. Gold (the real name is too hard to type out) is just flushed out better and seems like a better villain in comparison. I don't know.

The last character worth mentioning is not even a consistent character. He guest stars every once and a while. He's the Mad Hatter (played by Sebastian Stan)

Now maybe I'm just a little bias because he happens to also be Bucky Barnes or The Winter Soldier from Captain America, (sorry to spoil that if I did). Needless to say, he just comes off, to me, as a more competent actor in comparison to the rest of the cast.

While its not perfect, his story is actually a really compelling one of how he agrees to help the Evil Queen to give his daughter a better life and ends up getting screwed over by her. And his fate of knowing he's a fairy tale character in the real world but being apart from his daughter is incredibly tragic and again, just makes him more compelling.

Again, he's not perfect. They probably didn't have to make him the Mad Hatter. This version of him is more the Sad Desperate Hatter instead of a Mad Hatter. He doesn't seem crazy at all. Especially since the audience knows that he is actually a fairy tale character, while Emma may think he's "mad", we all know he just has a tragic story and he's trying to make things better for himself. At no point though did I think he was crazy and that's a little bit of a waste of a iconic character in my opinion. That however, is more on the writing of the character. For what he was written, Sebastian Stan is by far one of the best parts of the show, unfortunately he only shows up every once in a while.

And that's the unfortunate part about this entire season. The majority of the season is so inconsistent. There are some episodes that are very, very good and knock the whole two worlds storyline they try to do out of the park. The Mad Hatter episode, the Little Red Riding Hood episode, the Rumpelstiltskin episodes, they were all very good. But then you have the Snow White and Prince Charming episodes. Episodes centered on boring characters with boring performances and no matter how much they try and tell you that the forces of evil are working to make sure Snow White and Prince Charming don't get together, we've seen the ending, we know this works out in the end.

And that's another problem with the show, it adds in these little extensions to the fairy tale characters we know. For example, they go into Grumpy the Dwarf's (Played by Lee Arenberg) backstory. Well we know Grumpy ends up apart of the 7 dwarves, we know he goes on to help Snow White. So when you bring in the same love story you've done a couple times now where it ends up not working out, we're not surprised because we know the story, we know how it ends. Grumpy doesn't end up with a fairy played by Amy Acker (who is still gorgeous). Maybe its just enough to know how they came to be the way they are, but they use very similar stories for a lot of the characters. Either they're Snow White and Charming and its just a back and forth waiting till they finally get together. Or its a random character who gets screwed over by the Queen like the Mad Hatter. Or its a story of "true love" that gets thrown off by power or society not allowing them to be together. Overall, it gets to the point where its just predictable and annoying.

And I suddenly realize that I know exactly what this show is.

Its Lost: Fairy Tale edition.

Think about it. You've got a large cast of characters stranded in a mystical and mysterious land and they have to work together to find a way to escape. All the while, they're having flashbacks to their old lives, their past failures and successes, all hinting towards the end result of them all being sent to this mysterious and mystical land.

And I can't really blame ABC for going for a similar formula. While I ended up not finishing Lost, mainly because things got a little contrived for me and I just didn't have time, I will say that the show is pretty well written. The mystery is one of the most iconic tropes that TV shows have been trying to replicate since and the characters are complex and well written. Again, I can't blame ABC for getting Adam Horowitz and Edward Ktisis to go back to what they know. The problem with it, however, is that the characters are not nearly as well written.

I had times in Lost where my perception of a character was changed drastically after one episode explaining their backstory. Sun, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, all of them had really compelling stories that changed the way you thought about these characters because you had more to base your judgement off of than how they interacted with others on the island.

My point is, I watch an episode on Jimney Cricket, I see a kind of boring explanation as to why Jimney Cricket is a Cricket. A couple times they have a cool moment revealing what character the towns person is, but those episodes are few and far between because a lot of the towns people's characters are really obvious.

You mean to tell me that the waitress at the dinner "Grannies", named Ruby and wears a lot of red is Little Red Riding Hood? WHAT?!?!?! That's crazy. That's not to say her backstory was not interesting. But there's just a lot of characters that you can point to them and say, you're this character.

Some are a little bit harder but when its finally revealed you kind of have to wonder, what was the point of all the secrecy?

But I digress.

I'm starting to watch the second season and they're starting to kind of blend the two worlds together. The Fairy tale Characters in the real world are starting to use magic and act like their old selves in the real world. To me that is a lot more interesting. I just hope that it actually amounts to something. To me the first season was a lot of boring soap opera drama that I could watch... in a soap opera. I don't need to see David and Mary Margret go through a weird affair and have a will they or won't they storyline. Its boring, I want to see some magic, I want to see these characters actually be fairy tale characters. Maybe it will get better. Maybe it won't.

Overall, the first season of Once Upon a Time is an inconsistent mess. Some episodes really nail it, a lot of them don't. If you're looking for cheesy, poorly written ABC characters, you really don't have to look much further. If you're looking for a cheap knock off of Lost, look no further. If you're looking for cheap CGI, look no further. You found it in Once Upon a Time.

However, if you're looking for some fun liberties taken with well known fairy tale characters, Once Upon a Time actually has that. I feel like I want this show to be more than it is. And a part of me feels like this show wants to be more but is held back by something. Perhaps its the introductory season, maybe its ABC and its family friendly programming, who knows. In short, I think Once Upon a time could be a lot more than it is. What it is right now... well its not great.

But those are my thoughts on Once Upon a Time: Season 1. I really want to hear from people who are consistent watchers of the show. I want to hear what about the show that keeps bringing them back and if any of the criticisms I brought forward are things you agree with or maybe I'm just being too hard on it. Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. I mainly watched Once Upon a Time because I was waiting for the new season of Doctor Who. I'm not sure if I'm going to do a review of the first episode, maybe of my initial thoughts on Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Regardless, here is the trailer for the new season.

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado about Nothing is actually one of Shakespeare's plays that I have neither read nor seen. So coming into this movie was like coming into any other movie, this movie just happened to be based on a Shakespearian play. One of the other big draws about this movie was the fact that Joss Whedon directed it.

Something that I didn't know until I watched the film was that Joss Whedon basically called up all his friends from projects he had worked on before, Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse, Firefly and The Avengers and had them all come together to work on this film.

Much Ado About Nothing is the modern retelling of the Shakespearian play by the same name. It accounts the story of a wealthy man (played by Clark Gregg), his daughter Hero (played by Jillian Morgese) and his niece Beatrice (played by Amy Acker) being visited by the Prince of Aragon (played by Reed Diamond) and his companions, Benedick (played by Alexis Denisof) and Claudio (played by Fran Kanz)

As in any Shakespearian comedy, characters fall in love right away and it is matched up as Claudio falls in love with Hero. Benedick and Beatrice immediately find a certain distain for one another and both swear that they will never fall in love. Then comes the plan of their families and friends to get them to fall in love with one another.

All the while the Prince's brother (played by Sean Maher) and his companions have a secret plan to create mischief and turmoil for his brother and his hosts.

Honestly, there's a lot that happens in this story. There's the plot that Claudio is in love with Hero, then the plot to get Benedick and Beatrice together, and then there's the plan to persuade Claudio that Hero has been unfaithful, then there's the plan to fool Claudio into thinking Hero is dead. All the while Beatrice and Benedick are falling in love with each other under the false pretense that the other one is falling in love with them.

Its a really fun story and I'm actually kind of surprised it has taken me this long to hear the story.

Now is it Shakespeare's best comedy? Not at all. The characters have these long monologues about how they'll never fall in love and its painfully obvious that they're going to end up together in the end. Don John, the Prince's brother, is the antagonist of the movie... I guess? At least in the film he is a very underdeveloped character and just wants to cause trouble... well because.

All that being said, the movie is fun. While I don't love the story, it still is Shakespeare, its still good and the actors give a good interpretation of it.

The way this movie comes off as, it looks like this was not Joss Whedon's Magnum Opus, it was just a fun pet project he was able to do upon the success of the Avengers. Which I have to give him credit is actually really cool. Just getting your friends together to do Shakespeare sounds like a director's dream.

Now with that, I have to say I don't know if I really saw any real signs that this was absolutely a Joss Whedon film.

Before I begin this rant, I want a little bit of a disclaimer: I really like Joss Whedon. I loved The Avengers, I loved Firefly and I know he's a really talented director and writer.

That being said, I get a little peeved when people oversell Joss Whedon. We all know he's finally getting the credit he deserves with him helming a lot of the Marvel Cinematic universe but I will not be one to say that he's only done gold his entire career.

I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer is good... ish. I personally don't think its as ground breaking as some people do. I have not seen Angel. I loved Firefly but I'm not one of the many that think it should be brought back. Would I enjoy it if it was brought back? Yes. Is it a necessity? No. While it didn't deserve being pulled off as early as it did, it had problems and was not a perfect show. Dollhouse I can't really speak on but there had to have been a reason for it being cancelled so early. Also he wrote Alien Resurrection and did Cabin in the Woods, a movie I enjoyed only because it was a little quirky but most people did not enjoy... again, not all his stuff is gold.

Even The Avengers I don't think you can give all the credit to Whedon. You have to remember that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was started before Whedon was brought in and it was only after all the characters had been developed and starred in their own movie that Whedon took the wheel and knocked it out of the park with The Avengers.

Coming back to Much Ado, its good. Its not ground breaking. And if I didn't know that the majority of the cast were people that Whedon worked with in the past, I would have no inclination to think that Joss Whedon directed this film.

As far as individual performances go, its a pretty solid cast.

Alexis Denisof is a strange actor because I'm not totally sure if I like him or not. The minute I figured out he was in this movie, all I could think about was Sandy Rivers from How I Met Your Mother.

Muy Caliente!

He's a little over the top which I know Shakespearian actors need to be because often the text is too complex and non-verbal acting is required to bridge the gap of understanding the play. But Denisof just has this very strange method of acting. I'm still out on whether or not A) I like it and B) It's good.

Amy Acker plays Beatrice and by god is she gorgeous.

The one problem I had with Amy Acker's interpretation of Beatrice is that almost all of her dialogue seems like she's talking sarcastically. I don't know if that's true to the tone of Beatrice in the play, but if it is, its kind of annoying that every single line of dialogue she brings is sarcasm. Now Amy Acker does it in such a cute way that I would not be surprised if any man would fall in love with her if he overheard someone else saying that she had fallen in love with him. But its just overused and it gets a little bit stale after a while.

The other actors in the movie are quite good. Clark Gregg just reminds me of Coulson the entire time, Sean Maher is fun although under utilized in my opinion. There are a lot of good performances but again, like the film, this doesn't seem like an award seeking or winning movie, it just seems like a fun chance to do Shakespeare.

But if anybody in this cast stole the show, it was definitely Nathan Fillion.

Now if there is any fads or beliefs that I have jumped on the bandwagon for when it comes to Joss Whedon properties, its that Nathan Fillion needs more work. I personally thought that the man deserved more than a CGI cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy and needs to be a superhero sooner rather than later.

But in Much Ado he's the head of the Prince's security or head of the night's watch. Him and Tom Lenk just give this super funny performance whether its physical comedy or how they deliver their lines. Unfortunately their parts really aren't that large but if you're going to remember anything from the film, its probably these two. Now I won't say that this is the film you should look to to see that Nathan Fillion needs more work, you can look to Firefly or Castle for that. But this, again, seems like just a fun chance to do Shakespeare, nothing more.

And perhaps thats all this movie was meant to be. It wasn't meant to be ground breaking, it wasn't meant to be a great movie, just a good one. If you're looking for a good interpretation and modern take on Shakespeare, I don't think you have to look much further than this movie.

Again, lets not oversell this movie or Joss Whedon and say its the greatest thing since sliced bread, lets just say it was good, not great, but good.

Oh and if you're wondering why its in black and white... well I have no idea...

But those are my thoughts on Much Ado About Nothing. Have you seen this film? What do you think? Do you think people oversell Joss Whedon or do you think people aren't selling him enough? Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. I may have put this up before but I think since this is a Joss Whedon film, it might interest you to hear the theory of how all of Joss Whedon's works are connected. Enjoy!

The Lucky One

So... In case you're wondering... I did watch this with my girlfriend. I didn't just sit down in front of the TV one night and say, let's watch a Nicholas Sparks movie... that's not how this night went... just so you know.

But I may have gone into this movie with an unfair bias. I mean its one thing that its a Nicholas Sparks movie, its another thing that its Zac Efron. As you can probably tell, this movie was not made for me.

The Lucky One follows the story of a Marine (played by Zac Efron) who one morning after a night raid in Iraq finds the picture of a woman in the sand. What follows is one or two situations where he should have been killed and he survives. He tries explaining that the reason he survived was because of this photograph, as if that woman was his guardian angel.

Now, before I move on, I must point out the elephant that's in the room.

I do not buy Zac Efron as a Marine. I've met Marines before. Nothing against the Marines, I have a deep respect for them, but they're fucking nuts. You have to be a special kind of crazy to be a Marine, and Zac Efron does not look or play a character that I would buy as a Marine. Maybe as someone in the Army, and that's not suppose to be a knock on the Army, but even then, its a stretch. Maybe, again, I'm coming from a bias that I can only see Zac Efron as the guy from High School Musical, I haven't seen him in enough stuff to differentiate him from that, and this movie doesn't do it for me.

Well Zac Efron returns home and goes to live with his sister. Now obviously, Zac is suffering from some major PTSD. Like he is kinda messed up. So there's a quick sequence at his sister's house, his nephews are assholes and he leaves. And the PTSD is never mentioned again.

Seriously, I had a couple moments where I thought the PTSD was going to kick in. He is asked to drive someone, I thought it was going to kick back his PTSD... it didn't. I thought the tractor he was fixing was going to backfire and kick in his PTSD... it backfired... and nothing happened. After the first sequence, his PTSD is never mentioned, ever again.

I don't think the movie is at all offensive to the military or people with PTSD, but it doesn't really do a great job portraying either.

But moving on, Zac goes out to Louisana to find the girl in the picture and he finds a woman by the name of Beth (played by Taylor Schilling) who owns a kennel at her house with her grandmother and her son. Zac tries to tell her why he came but ends up getting a job with her and not telling her that he kinda creepily stalked her... but I'll get to that.

Now I had better talk about the other elephant in the room with this movie. Taylor Schilling is a little bit older than Zac Efron. Now its not a huge age different, Efron is 26 and Schilling is 30. Its not that weird.

Well it kind of is. I don't mean to knock Schilling, she is a gorgeous woman and if I found her picture on a battlefield and it saved my life, I would want to come find her as well. And I don't think its because she looks old, I think its more that Zac Efron looks young and makes her look a lot older than he does. Again, Taylor Schilling is gorgeous, I just want that to be put on record. I had no problem watching her in this movie. She was very easy on the eyes.

It just kind of made the dynamic between the two a little strange when they actually look like there's a big age difference between the two.

I mean look at this picture.

Its not because she looks old but because Zac Efron looks so young that it looks like she's his mom. There's no mention of it in the film but there's kind of this weird cougar Oedipus complex between the two and its a little bit weird to watch them have sex.

Besides that, the chemistry between the two isn't phenomenal and that's kind of essential when it comes to a Nicholas Sparks movie.

But I digress.

Zac comes to work for her and her grandmother and learns that she has a son she would do anything for, and she had a brother who died in Iraq. She also has an ex-husband who is the Sheriff in the town. Basically, Zac comes to work for them, they fall in love, they have a misunderstanding facilitated by the evil ex-husband that eventually works out, the bad guy gets his kumuppins, and Zac and his girl get together. Its very, very predictable and cliche. If you've seen a Nicholas Sparks movie, you've probably seen this movie. Maybe not with the EXACT plot but you know what happens, how the relationship happens, how it gets thrown off and how in the last 5 minutes comes back together. Its not a spoiler, its a Nicholas Sparks movie. 

As far as individual performances go, I've already kind of talked about Zac Efron in this movie. 

He doesn't sell himself as a Marine, he doesn't sell himself as a 25 year old, he's just Zac Efron. The only reason he's in this film is because somebody (probably Sparks himself) said it would make a bunch of horny girls go nuts to see Zac Efron in a romantic Sparks movie and make the studio a lot of money. Again, I have not seen enough to convince me that Zac Efron is a good actor. I've heard he was good in That Awkward Moment and Neighbors and maybe is making a name for himself as an actor now. But what I'm saying is he's not doing it with this movie. All he does it stand around, looking awkward and piercing me with those steel blue eyes. 

I've already talked a little bit about Taylor Schilling. Her performance was a little bit better than most of the cast. I have seen her in Orange is the New Black and I think she is talented. Now I don't think this is the best movie for her and the chemistry between her and Efron is still off but there's a little bit of solace in the fact she wasn't the worst part of the movie. 

Then there's the kid, he's not great, he's not horrible, he's just a kid actor. He's only there to create another element to the plot. I'm not gonna say much more about him. 

The character I do want to talk about is the ex-husband. 

Oh man, talk about a running cliche. From the very beginning, the ex-husband (played by Jay R. Ferguson) comes in to the plot and might as well have said, Hello, I'm going to be the asshole in the movie. You're not going to like me for the entire movie. I'm really only here to create problems for the main characters. 

And the unfortunate part is that there really isn't any reason as to why this guy is an asshole, he's just a southern, asshole Sheriff. I think that they try and give him some reason near the end on how he's still in love with his ex-wife, but if that was the direction they were trying to go, they didn't do it that well. So this guy goes the entire movie just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. He's not a deep character, he's just the asshole who points a gun at the main character and his dog. 

And the worst part is that instead of being an actual bad guy or creating an actual problem for the main characters to overcome, he ends up just being an annoyance. Like I said before, the most extreme thing he does is point a gun at Zac Efron and his dog. If they wanted him to create some real drama, they would have had him kill Zac's dog or run away with his son. In the end, they didn't want to go too far with him because near the end they try and redeem him. With how weak of a character he is, when this guy bites it, instead of feeling bad like the movie wants us to, we just feel, well that annoying character is dead, now for the resolution. 

So in the end you kind of wonder, what was the barriers here? Was it his PTSD? No that goes away really quickly. Was it the ex-husband? Sorta? That kind of goes away half way through the movie when Taylor Schilling stands up for herself. So the real drama comes from the picture. 

Now unless you're stupid, you probably figured that a guy having a picture of a woman he doesn't know is going to create a problem. Even more when you realize that that picture belonged to her now dead brother. 

The movie actually walks a very careful line to make that action charming instead of creepy. Zac basically says that he feels as though he was suppose to die multiple times and if he was ever to find the woman in the picture, he would thank her. Well it could have been a lot worse and seem a little stalkery. The movie does an alright job at making it a little less creepy than it is when you think about it. 

In the end, is it a horrible movie? No. I'm not saying its good, but it does provide a romantic movie if that's what you need. Are you a guy looking for a romantic movie night? Its probably not the best choice but its cheesy, its romantic, and it'll appeal to most girls inner dream to be courted by Zac Efron. In short, its a good date movie. Not the best but not the worst. 

Expect some hokey acting, expect some really cliched story and if you're still interested you might as well pick it up and experience it for yourself. 

But those are my thoughts on The Lucky One. Have you seen it? What did you think? Am I crazy in thinking there's this weird cougar Oedipus complex going on between Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling? Comment and discuss below. 

I'll leave you with this. I think this is probably the only good thing that came out of the High School Musical movies and its The Sound of Music being dubbed over footage from High School Musical. Enjoy!

The Expendables 2

There's a great line from 22 Jump Street. Do exactly what you did the last time. Don't change anything!

The Expendables 2 did pretty much just that but upped the ante, or tried to at least.

The premise of the Expendables is very much the same. Bady guy is doing bad things in a different country. The Expendables are hired to stop him. They go in, they shoot a lot of things, they kill the bad guy. Lots of fun is to be had.

This time, the bad guy is Jean Claude Van-Damme. He's an evil Mercenary using a small village in Bulgaria's mining to get plutonium and the CIA doesn't like that. The Expendables are originally brought in with a new member Maggie Chan (played by Yu Nan) to get a computer with the location of the plutonium.

Van Damme kills Liam Hemsworth, a new member of The Expendables and Silvester Stallone and the Expendables seek revenge and end up saving a Bulgarian town from the evil Jean Claude Van-Damme.

I'm sorry if Jean Claude Van-Damme killing Liam Hemsworth was some kind of spoiler but to be totally honest, I was really relieved when I saw it happen like that.

I don't care how badass you try and make him, I don't care how many Afghanistan war stories he had, Liam Hemsworth will never be as cool as Chris Hemsworth.

And I've gone on this rant before.

Its got to be tough being Liam Hemsworth. To have more of a pretty boy look compared to Chris who is freaking Thor. And he still looks like he's 18 years old. So I just don't buy it when you try and sell him as a Army Scout Sniper. He can shoot all the people he wants, Liam Hemsworth will never be cool enough to be in the Expendables.

That's why they killed him off, that's why nobody really cared when he died.

Now it created for some fun revenge action because while the rest of the world didn't really care that Liam Hemsworth was kick stabbed in the first half hour, apparently Sylvester Stallone cared and so we have the rampage to avenge Gale and again, save a small Bulgarian town.

Like I said before, the movie falls under the same formula. It does however, I think, do it better this time around.

The real draw of this movie is that its an 80s action movie made in 2012. You've got old action movie stars, 80's style action, and some one liners that just make the movie cheesy and epic at the same time.

The problem I had with the first Expendables was mainly due to the fact that these characters were so stock and ordinary that any of them could be replaced with the other and the movie really wouldn't change. You could have made Terry Crews the knife guy, Jet Li (who is barely in the second film) the shotgun guy and none of it would have changed. And the fact of the matter is, the core group of the Expendables really isn't that interesting of a group.

You've got Sylvester Stallone who's pretty entertaining besides the fact you can't understand half of what he's saying, but then you have boring Jason Statham, Terry Crews who doesn't get nearly enough screen time or Old Spice References, Dolf Lundgren who most people only know from Rocky 4, and that other guy, Randy Coulture or something. Besides Stallone and Statham, this core group really isn't that iconic of actors, they're just a funny group.

Now I could maybe understand the concern that you don't want too many stars to compete with each other but then I would challenge you with saying this.

The most fun parts of the movie was when other 80s action stars showed up for brief cameos or guest star roles.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Freaking Chuck Norris!

Its when these guys show up that the movie actually starts to have fun. These characters have such brief appearances that they give a one liner, shoot up a good number of bad guys, and then they go away.

I just wish that that was more of what the movie was. I don't care about Terry Crews or Dolf Lundgren developing as an iconic team, I want to see Chuck Norris one arm shoot a bunch of bad guys... the Entire movie!

One of the best parts of the movie is when the bad guys are in an airport doing bad guy things, and suddenly the glass of a window shatters and Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger all saunter forward shooting an automatic machine gun and just blowing people away. Who cares if they're clear and present targets that would be gunned down in a second, that scene was freaking awesome.

And that was the disappointment that came along with both Expendables. The movie just needs to have more fun with itself. Don't get me wrong, I think it is having fun with itself, but I think it can do more.

You're already having Chuck Norris walk on set, how serious of an action movie can you get here?

Now with that! Just because the Expendables is a funny weird joke, doesn't mean that the movie should be a big joke on purpose.

The video I'm putting a link to at the end of this will explain this point a little better but the reason these action heroes like Schwarzenegger and Willis were so good was because those movies in the 80s were so serious. Yes they were over the top and ridiculous, but the entire way, Willis kept on like the true 80s hero. While the movie was ridiculous, Willis being serious made us feel like this movie was serious and just freaking awesome.

So, if I had any complaints about this movie, it would be that they need to restructure the team into a group that is actually recognizable and a dream action movie team up film.

My dream Expendables team from what I've seen:

Stallone, Willis, Schwarzenegger, Norris, Jet Li, I guess Jason Statham (maybe switch him out with Mark Wahlberg), and Tom Cruise. My point here is that the team actually has to be that dream team... instead of Dolf Lundgren...

Or Vin Diesel! Put Vin Diesel in The Expendables 4 please!

My point is that if you put these big names in the trailer, have them actually be in the film, not just a cameo where Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "I'll be Back" shoots a guy and leaves, or Chuck Norris walks in, shoots a guy, and walks out with that western music in the background. Was it cool? Yes. Was it disappointing, yes! If you're going to have a cameo like that, don't tell me, just surprise me!

As far as villains go, Jean Claude Van-Damme nails it. Honestly, I don't think anything is really known about Van-Damme's character in this film. Maybe they had a scene where they explained who this guy was... I think I missed that scene if it happened, but my god, that guy must have had a ball with this film because while you don't know anything about him, Van-Damme portrays himself as just the most badass villain. He's a stock bad guy but he does it so will and he's so entertaining that I didn't care that I didn't know anything about him. He was just bad.

Is he incredibly memorable, no! But was he fun at the time, hell yes he was.

The movie itself, I think, just fixes a lot of what the first movie was not able to accomplish. It most likely had a bigger budget, more time committed from the big actors and it was able to do more. It fixed the problem of down time for the most part and it started to show the inclining that it was having more fun with the movie, if not a little bit too much.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Expendables knows what it is, its not trying to be a ground breaking drama filled movie. Its taking a bunch of action movie stars, giving them a gun and having them go nuts.

All I would ask is that if they're going to be recreating these action movies of the 80s, recreate them, don't parody them. Don't make The Expendables the Scary Movie of action movies because why would you get all these great action stars and not make something serious enough for it to be epic? Again, I'm not asking for an Oscar Winning action film here, I'm just asking for something really fun and 80's...y.

Now as far as films go, the movie is not good. The dialogue is complete shit, the story is generic and boring. But again, that's not what this movie set out to do. For what this movie is out to accomplish, it did it. I just think they can do it better.

Now the reason I watched the first two, is that I actually did see the 3rd one... sort of. I watched it in a Drive In... you never really watch movies at a Drive In. But I watched enough of it for me to actually want to see the entire movie. Am I going to pay full price to go see it? Probably not. But hopefully soon, you'll get the full review of The Expendables 3.

But those are my thoughts on the Expendables 2. What did you think? Am I over thinking this movie? Who is your dream Expendables team? Comment and Discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. I mentioned this video above. You may see some correlation between what is said in this one and the review but its some good ideas for the most part. Enjoy!

The Expendables

Here is the wonderful thing about this movie. I have watched it twice, and I still don't know the main characters names or really what the movie was about.

The Expendables is exactly what you think it is, its a movie with a bunch of action movie stars thrown into a mixing pot of testosterone and gunplay. And the result... well.

The Expendables follows the story (pulling most of this from Wikipedia) of Barney Ross (played by Silvester Stallone and his band of mercenaries called the Expendables. This band includes names like Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolf Lundgren, Terry Crews, and Mickey Rourke. Together they pack a giant punch, taking down anything that comes in their way for the highest bidder.

Now I wish I could tell you these characters are very unique and they bring a variety of character and depth to the team... well they don't.

Even as far as stereotypes go, the kinds you see in video games, the different members don't really have that much distinction to them. Jason Statham's character throws knives, Jet Li is a little bit better at martial arts. There's not much that really makes each character distinct. You could take any of these characters and switch them out and they'd pretty much be the same character.

And then when the movie tries to make these characters distinct from the other ones, the movie slows down... a lot!

But I'll get to that in a second.

Basically, the Expendables are hired by a mysterious Bruce Willis to go into a Mexican island where a dictator (played by David Zayas) has taken power and kill him. They soon realize that the Dictator is a puppet to a rogue CIA agent (played by Eric Roberts).

Basically, they go in to recon the area, they get in a fight. Dolf Lundgren gets corrupted, they fight. They go back to Mexico, they fight some more, the bad guys get killed. Its really really a simple movie. Its basically a video game. It could have been really really simple to make just a mindless action movie. But no, they had to get bogged down with that pesky thing called a story.

To be fair, when the movie has an action scene, those action scenes are on point. They're brilliantly shot, they're exciting and just a fun time. These are the moments that, while these characters aren't really that distinct from each other throughout, they do shine forward and give some funny lines while they're shooting faceless bad guys.

Furthermore, it does seem like the movie tries to fast lane you to the action scenes, I don't think the movie was trying to be a really thought provoking movie.

However...

Like I said before, when they're not shooting things and trying to actually bring some character development... it fails incredibly.

Frankly, I don't care if Randy Couture was made fun of because of his cauliflower ears. I don't care if Charisma Carpenter doesn't know what Jason Statham does for a living and cheats on him but he gets back together with her. I don't care if Jet Li is having struggles because he's small. When the movie tries to be more than it is, it slows down a lot and it just gets down right boring.

As far as individual performances go... I don't know, its the Expendables what do you expect?

Sylvester Stallone mumbles everything, Jason Statham has the same monotone not give a fuck british voice he always has, Jet Li is... well Jet Li and the others are just kind of vanilla and there. Bruce Willis was kind of fun but he was gone very quickly. Mickey Rourke... was just awful.

No doubt the best part of the film was Terry Crews with a shotgun.

And it really just puts the icing on the cake of what this movie is really about. Getting a bunch of action movie stars together, give them some guns and have them just go nuts. As long as that pesky story doesn't get in the way, the movie is actually kind of a fun ride. Is it good? Oh fuck no!

As long as you go into it with the expectation that the story is going to be shit, the action is going to be incredible and Sylvester Stallone is just going to mumble the entire time, you'll have a fun time with this movie. Who needs drama when you can just watch Terry Crews with a shotgun?

But those are my thoughts on The Expendables, what did you think? Is mindless action your thing or is it really not that great after all? Comment and discuss below in the comments.

I'll leave you with this. How else could I end a review like this if there was an Honest Trailer for it? Enjoy!

Guardians of the Galaxy

If you read my review on the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, you may have noticed that I was hesitant about this movie. I was of course going to see it mainly because its the next chapter of the Marvel Cinematic universe, why wouldn't I see it?

But I wouldn't say I was expecting it to get on the top of my list for favorite Marvel movies.

After seeing it, I'm not sure if I just only like this movie or if I really love this movie. Its one of those movies that the reaction isn't totally clear from the initial watching. However, I feel the more I watch this movie, the more I will enjoy it and the more I will come to love it.

Guardians of the Galaxy takes place in the universe set up by previous Marvel movies. The same way Thor takes place in the universe where Asgard and the Frost giants fight, The Guardians of the Galaxy takes place in a totally different world populated by different species and creatures. Right off the bat this was kind of a strange part of the movie because it just seemed like the different species of this universe were just different colored humans. I became a little confused on why everyone looked like humans except with blue or red on their face. Unfortunately, this was never explained. Is it a huge deal? Not really? I mean the people of the Nova core look a lot like humans and yet we're to believe that Avengers was one of the first instances where Earth has been exposed to the wonders and dangers of the universe, so why is Glen Close and John C Riley out there in Xandar looking all human like?

The world created by Guardians of the Galaxy kind of reminded me of the world created by Farscape. Now I have not seen almost anything of Farscape but the few episodes and clips that I have seen puts that guy that is in every sci fi thing ever and almost makes him the only human in a world of humanoid creatures and species.

(Disclaimer: Again, I have not seen all of Farscape so I'm sure there are other humans out in this universe, i just never saw them)

The difference is that with new special effects and just a better budget, Guardians of the Galaxy just pulls it off a little bit better and makes the world a little bit more real and not a world of crappy prosthetics.

But moving onto the story, it focuses on a human by the name of Peter Quill, or self named, Starlord. (played by Chris Pratt) In short, Starlord is a loser. He plays himself off as a mixture of Han Solo and James T Kirk but he's just not the legend those two are at all. At the beginning of the movie he finds a mystical orb that everyone seems to want to get their hands on.

In a movie like this, Chris Pratt is a really great choice. I don't know much of his previous work but he does a really good job playing a quirky and over confidence thief in a galaxy far far away... but not a Star Wars Galaxy far far away.

He plays a great leader as well. I'll get into more of that once all the characters are introduced but just remember that if they were going to have anybody play Peter Quill, Chris Pratt was a great choice for it.

So through a series of events of people trying to collect bounties on Starlord and take back the orb from him, he finds himself in prison with a band of misfits. You've got Starlord of course, but then you have Gamora, (played by Zoe Saldana) the daughter of Thanos working to get the orb as far away Ronan the Accuser, the main baddy in this film at all costs. Zoe Saldana plays this role as she plays every role, excellently.

And then you have Rocket and Groot.

I think everyone was expecting these two to really be fun characters. Its a giant tree who only says "I Am Groot" and a talking Raccoon who likes guns. How could they not make this awesome?

But I don't think anybody expected way came out of these two. They're funny in all the right places, they're badass in all the right places, they're dramatic in all the right places. I would be fine with a standalone movie just one these two. Think about that? A standalone film with just Rocket Racoon and Groot. If you haven't seen the movie, you're probably very confused. But they are just one of the best duos of the Marvel Universe. And for me, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper steal the show and it would be a shame if they didn't show up again. And these two just work so well together that in the short time we're allowed to see them develop their characters, they just become so beloved.

Then you have Drax...

Now, I don't necessarily believe that you can't go from pro wrestling to acting and be good... but you can't. The Rock took nearly a decade to actually be good and even still I'm skeptical, David Batista is not going to do it in a single movie like this.

That being said, he did what he had to do. He was an overpowered muscle who is not that bright. And honestly, he's funny. Not as funny as Rocket or Groot. But he's funny. He's so simple minded that its quite comical. I was actually kind of disappointed with his strength as a character because there's a lot of scenes where he gets his ass kicked. But regardless, he's a simple character who has his moments but mostly, he's more funny to me then relatable.

But that's another interesting thing about this film. How much of a comedy it is more than a sci fi Superhero film. Yes, its still a comic book movie, its still got that action but its funny. Its very funny.

I said this in my trailer review but it seems like Marvel knows exactly what they are doing with Guardians of the Galaxy and they know that not every movie is going to fall under the same formula as Captain America, or Iron Man, not even Iron Man or Captain America.

Because I liked this movie so much, I have hope for Ant Man, especially if you take a director like James Gunn who before this film was more known for Scooby Doo and make something awesome and different and yet it feels like it belongs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It takes away any doubts I have that Adam McKay will be able to deliver a different, funny and yet totally in character Marvel movie on Ant-Man.

Getting back on track, the team is formed and they must stop the evil Ronan the Accuser from using the secrets of the orb to destroy anything he desires to destroy.

There's a great line in this movie where Starlord looks at his companions and says, "I look around and I see losers. Losers as in people who have lost something"

Its just amazing because you put together this band of misfits and it really makes a fun movie.

Is it a little strange how quickly they become friends? Yes, it is.

It is a little bit funny and a little awkward at the end when they come together to fight the enemy, there is a part where they basically are brought together and summon the strength of friendship in order to fight Ronan.

That might seem strange but watch the end and don't tell you don't see a parallel to the old cartoons where the only way to defeat the bad guy was to grasp hands and come together with the power of friendship. Especially if these guys only know each other for a few days.

As far as villains go, I do have to say this movie was a little bit lacking. While I feel Ronan the Accuser had a little bit more of something going for him than the 8th Doctor did in Thor: The Dark World, he's still kind of a throw away villain, getting ready for the battle against Thanos.

I'm going to write a separate post on Thanos after this one so I won't talk too much about him.

Before I forget.

Karen Gillan rocks my world. She plays such a good villainess in Nebula and she really plays the antithesis of Gamora. Maybe its my bias towards Doctor Who but every time she was on screen, I really enjoyed her.

It makes the presence of Ronan the Accusers kind of underwhelming. There's no doubt he's a power house and has immense power, but in the end, the minute you see Thanos in this movie, it really kind of throws out the power of Ronan. I think it would have been better to leave the reveal of Thanos to the end of the movie. Like show Ronan doing his evil stuff, keep him in communication with Thanos but always by hologram, not showing him off until Nebula or someone returns to Thanos saying Ronan has failed. Then Thanos turns around and reveals himself.

Its a similar reveal that they did in Star Wars. You figure out later in the films that the Emperor is a greater threat, even more than the looming Darth Vader who the audience has feared the entire time. But the movies gave you time to get used to Darth Vader, while alluding to a greater threat in the Emperor. It pushes the reputation of the Emperor while developing Darth Vader. Now I know they're crunched for time, but Ronan the Accuser kinda sucked as a villain.

Even now, I'm looking at the picture above and I still don't know what Ronan the Accuser did or was. I mean I do, but I don't really care.

Personally I would have enjoyed that as an end credit scene more than the one they actually had. I'm not saying I didn't think it was funny but needless to say, I really hope Disney doesn't go ahead and try and make a Howard the Duck movie.

I want to talk more about Thanos in another post, a post I've been meaning to write for a couple days now. Regardless, I'm going to try and wrap this review up because its been a couple days since I saw it and my memory is getting fuzzy.

Before I get too ahead of myself, close this out and forget about important details, I have to ask, what is up with the Collector?

As you know, I haven't read the comics, Id on't know the significance of the Collector and what he brings to the Guardians of the Galaxy comics. Obviously he's not that great of a guy but he's barely in this film. Personally, I'm a little disappointed. They built him up as this big deal in the end credit scene of Thor: The Dark World and when he finally appears in his Cruella Di Vill outfit, he shows up for about fifteen minutes and then we never see him again. Maybe Benecio Del Toro only had time for 15 minutes of screen time, or someone couldn't pay his salary more than that but he shows up and leaves very very quickly in this movie so don't expect too much but some exposition, exposition that, while important to future movies, could have been explained by anybody to give the Guardians their future endeavors and adventures.

In the end, the more I think about Guardians of the Galaxy, the more I like it.

I still don't count it as the top of the Marvel movies but its hard to say any of the Marvel movies are worse then the others because not only does Marvel know how to make movies, they know how to take something totally alien and unfamiliar to us like Guardians of the Galaxy and make it something full of humor, heart, adventure, and just down right fun.

I have no doubt that if you see this movie, while some of the characters are under developed and could maybe spend an entire movie just focusing on them, its still going to be a fun ride.

But those are my thoughts. What did you think of Guardians of the Galaxy? Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. Here's a great mashup of Star Wars and Guardians of The Galaxy. Enjoy!