The Avengers: Age of Ultron review

There are very few movies that I come out of not having an exact opinion on the first time. Sure I'll watch a movie a second time and pick up something I didn't before and it will probably change my opinion, but at the same time, I usually have an idea of what I thought of the movie right away.

With Avengers: Age of Ultron, I wasn't totally sure what my initial reaction was. In a way I did. Honest to god, I sat through this movie the first time I saw it on the Thursday before it came out thinking throughout the film this little clip from my boy Aziz Ansari.

Him saying that was just on a loop in my mind over and over and over again.

This movie was so hyped up. There were so many trailers, and more trailers, and trailers after that. I knew so much about this film well before it came out and yet I still walked out of it blown away.

So yeah, the too long didn't read of this was that Avengers: Age of Ultron was incredibly entertaining. I enjoyed it like any other Marvel movie that has come out. Marvel knows how to give me an entertaining film.

But is it worth looking into it more and deciding whether or not Age of Ultron is a really great film. Because after watching all the Marvel films one after another, watching the original Avengers, you have to wonder if these films are good or are they just better than what we've seen in the past. For the past few months, it has all been about perspective. I have decided that Phase one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is actually not that great. The reason we love these movies is because they brought about a renaissance of superhero films and they're just down right better than Daredevil and other superhero films that came out before.

Then Phase 2 came along and showed that Marvel can evolve and make good movies because the shock of a connected comic book life universe was/is starting to wear off on us. We got great movies like Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy.

And then we have the second team up film of its kind. Avengers: Age of Ultron. The initial shock of seeing all the Avengers together is gone, we need to focus on the story. We need to continue this so that five year plan they announced actually happens because fans actually care about the story now.

So does Avengers: Age of Ultron stand alone as a great film, while creating a final statement for Phase 2 and introducing Phase 3. Its a big order to fill. And that's why it has taken me almost a month to actually see this movie again and give you a proper review

Let's take a look.

Just for some background, I've done everything leading up to this film (with the exception of Iron Man 3, you'd think I would have done this by now.) Here's those reviews for some review.

Phase 1
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captain America
The Avengers

Phase 2
Thor: The Dark World
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy

So here's the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Since the events of Winter Soldier, the Avengers have been searching the world for remnants of Hydra and rooting them out as they are evil and that's what the Avengers do.

The Avengers are a team now. They work better than they ever have before and they've learned to work as a team.

They are searching for Baron Von Strucker (played by Henry Goodman) because he has taken possession of Loki's staff, the main weapon used in the first Avengers. they find him near a small Eastern European town called Sokovia. As we saw in the end of Winter Soldier, Strucker has been experimenting on humans and has his secret weapons in the Maximoff twins, Pietro and Wanda (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen).

The Avengers are successful at retrieving the staff but the Twins get away.

With the technology acquired from the raid, Tony Stark (played again by Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (played again by Mark Ruffalo) begin researching an ancient program with Loki's staff that could bring them to the next level of artificial intelligent.

In Stark's mind, he is creating the perfect defense for the world as he is still haunted by the idea of forces from out of our world invading like they did when they attacked New York and that is only exacerbated by Wanda Maximoff manipulating his mind in Sokovia.

Just as he thinks he has failed, Stark accidentally creates Ultron (voiced by James Spader). Ultron is the ultimate artificial intelligence and he immediately absorbs his mission, the situation around the world, and everything the Avengers have done and comes to the conclusion that the world would be better if the Avengers were destroyed.

Let's start right off the bat by talking about Ultron... sort of. There's going to be a review of this film for the first half and then an analysis of the film. Hell this might even be a two parter. We'll see.

What I'll say right off the bat is that I absolutely love Ultron. For half a second I thought that Wilson Fisk from the Daredevil TV show was going to hold the crown for the best Marvel villain. While he's still up there and might be tied for the number one spot, Ultron is definitely in the running to be the number one villain Marvel has to offer. I'll explain more in the analysis, but James Spader's performance brings a villainous and yet hilarious flair to Ultron. What I love about it is that Ultron is James Spader. If you've read my reviews on The Blacklist, you'll know that I adore Spader in that role and he brings that same charm and humor, and yet that same threatening voice to the character that I'm almost certain that Ultron is just Raymond Reddington in robot form.

But anyways, Ultron's plan is to utilize the Maximoff twins in his quest to create a perfect evolution of artificial intelligence and humanity and use it to bring about the destruction of the human race and of course its going to take all the Avengers to stop him.

I'm first going to talk about this film as a movie alone. This will allow people who are only interested in knowing what I thought about the movie to get what they need and be on their merry way, and the second half will be what I think of the intricacies of the film, how it stands as a film on its own, whether or not its good, and how it connects to a larger universe that Marvel has created.

So as far as a movie goes, Avengers: Age of Ultron is huge! The scale of this movie is huge. It has a lot of characters, a lot of stories to keep straight, and a lot of things going on to make the final product. The disadvantage it has to the first movie is that this movie actually had to be good. I swear you could have had The Avengers fighting the entire time in the first movie and it still would have been the huge splash that it was because we had never seen something like that before. Because of that, the story was simple, Loki is attacking Earth, the Avengers must stop him.

And the plot for Age of Ultron sounds simple, but its not. A lot happens outside of Ultron just being the baddy and the Avengers going to stop him.

First you've got Tony's dilemma. He feels the need to protect the Earth because he's seen what's beyond the atmosphere. He knows the dangers and its the stuff that keeps him up at night. The one huge purpose of Iron Man 3 that I will get into when I do that review finally, is that Tony's psyche is the biggest obstacle. Marvel's doing a great job at creating a devoted and mission set Tony Stark who has resolve and will be an obstacle in Civil War. But he has what I can only call an obsession in this Ultron program and the results of it. He always thinks he's right, even when everyone is telling him he's wrong.

Then you've got Hawkeye (played again by Jeremy Renner)

Any naysayers of Hawkeye prior to this film (myself included) were very quiet after this film.

Because Hawkeye is one of the best characters in the film. He's apart of the team, he's not there for a five second cameo like he was in Thor, he's not possessed for half the film like he was in The Avengers. He's an incredibly vital member of the team.

You also figure out a lot about Hawkeye in this film and he becomes the person kind of holding the group together in a way. That used to be the job of Nick Fury and in a weird way, Hawkeye kind of took on that role. And the best part is, he's just a guy. He's not a god, he's not a genius, he's not even an assassin to the level that Black Widow is. There's just something very simple about Hawkeye and that is shown in this film and it distinguishes him from the rest of the team. He's got his own storyline and I'll call it job in the film that directly effects the team (I'm being vague because I've decided this is the spoiler-free review)

And then you've got Black Widow (played again by Scarlett Johansson)  and The Hulk

 Now I heard a while before this movie that Hulk and Widow were going to have a thing and I wasn't totally sure how I felt about that. It just seemed random and I was just like Meh...

And that's how I felt half way through the first time I saw it. But there is a scene where it all makes sense and really makes the movie better because of it.

Surprisingly enough, I really liked the two of them and I thought that with their background and the way it is explained in the movie, it actually makes a lot of sense and the two work really well together. Its something that I hope that they delve into more in the later films because if this is the only time its brought up, it might turn out like the way the romance in The Hobbit films turned out, except this time I really liked it and want it to turn out better, as opposed to the dwarf elf romance that was shoehorned into those films. Everybody thought it was going to be resolved more in the last film... but it wasn't. I just hope they resolve this romance in later films which I'm almost certain they will.

Then you've got Vision/ Vision and Ultron/ Ultron himself.

This will be something that I delve more into in the second part as it does delve into spoilers. But here's my thoughts on Vision and his relationship with Ultron.

I'm iffy on Vision, but I love the dynamic between him and Ultron. I'll explain more in Part 2.

But let's go back to Ultron for a second.

Now why do I say that Ultron is in the running to be the best villain Marvel has given us, its in his motives. I've talked about in a lot of my reviews how the best villains are the ones who believe that they are the good guys. I talked about in my Cinderella review that the best villains are the ones you sympathize with, understand their actions, but still really love to hate them. 

Ultron is one of those villains. And that is difficult especially since he is machine. How do you understand the cognition of a machine who wants to destroy everyone? Maybe its James Spader but they do it in "spades". 

And then you add the Maximoff twins. 

Horrible Eastern European accents aside, I really liked these two. They could have easily been

manipulated henchmen. They could have easily been evil for one half and easily swayed to the good side in the other half (sorry if that's a spoiler).

But like Ultron, you sympathize with these two and you understand their struggle, why they do what they do, and their motivation the entire time.

Now, I will say that I enjoyed Elizabeth Olsen's performance a little bit more than Aaron Taylor-Johnson's and lets be honest, we all know for a fact which Quicksilver is better and its not this one. Its definitely Quicksilver from Days of Future Past. The thing is, that's okay in this situation, because the Quicksilver from that film would seem out of place in this film and the Quicksilver from this film would just be... well boring in that film. But I think both fit well with each film.

So there are a lot of moving pieces in this movie and its a big one. I'm actually not surprised they pushed this movie to three hours because it felt like it at times. And I would have been okay with that.

Joss Whedon actually recently came out and kind of started bashing Marvel. The man is now, for the most part, done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he's not directing Infinity Wars, and I can only imagine the hoops that he has jumped for Marvel. I imagine that they've given him a lot of control but with all the control, I'm sure he's still had his moments where he hasn't gotten his way.

Looking at some of the stuff I want to mention about Mr. Whedon and his work with this film, it almost seems like he deserves his own post. I'll have to look at what I've already written about writer and director spats with Marvel and I might actually do a separate post on why Whedon coming out and kind of talking some trash against Marvel might mean something bigger.

However, what I was going to say is that one of the things that I have heard from the production of this film was that Whedon had a cut of this film that was four hours long. It included Loki, it included a lot more scenes and development of characters and the thing is, I'm sure it would have been great. I would have been first in line to watch the four hour cut of Avengers Age of Ultron and I really hope they come out with that.

However, I do understand why that wasn't allowed and I'm actually kind of surprised if that actually was a grievance of Whedon's against Marvel. Usually, I try and see both sides, I don't always side with the creative artist nor do I always side with the studio, but if this is accurate and Whedon has some beef with Marvel because they cut his four hour long movie, that's something wrong with Whedon.

He knows that people don't go to four hour long movies and they don't make as much money. Its why movies are not usually four hours long unless you're Ghandi. That's the job of the director and the storytellers to get the movie to a manageable two and a half, maybe three hours, and still tell a comprehensive story.

Because of this, it does feel like a lot is crammed into this movie and it kind of feels that there are some things missing. That sounds contradictory but I feel like some of the essential things were taken out and some of the unnecessary things were crammed in.

All that said, I think if I do do a post on Marvel and Joss Whedon, I will most likely fall on Whedon's side. But the four hour long thing is funny to me.

I'm going to wrap this up because there are a lot of intricacies and analysis I want to do on the film that delve into spoilers. So I'm going to try and wrap this up.

Avengers: Age of Ulton had a lot to do in its movie. It had to create a viable threat against the Avengers in Ultron. I think they did that very well.

On top of that though, they had to give decent screen time and "development" to all the characters from Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, all the way down to Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and even some lesser characters like War Machine (played by Don Cheadle). On top of that they had to introduce new characters like the Maximoff Twins and Vision. Introduce new relationships like the one between Banner and Widow. And on top of all of that, they needed to create a new threat and foreshadow the events coming up in the slate to come like Civil War, Infinity War and others.

I think this movie had a lot more to live up to than its predecessor did. And for the most part, I really think it was successful. Its not an absolutely perfect movie but I think it comes pretty darn close. It took on the task of just having this be another Avengers team up movie, this movie tried to be more than just a big fight. It had heart, it had character development, and it had drama to it.

The pacing may be a little off, the action maybe takes the place of parts that perhaps needed more development or explanation, but I think for the most part it was a cohesive story and was just too damn entertaining. Its a brave movie and I'm hoping that future movies that are this big that come out of Marvel, or any studio (pay attention DC) knows what to do and what to avoid when taking on a huge project like this.

Overall, I loved Avengers Age of Ultron and it has been my favorite movie of 2015. Now to be fair, I actually haven't seen too many new movies of 2015, but I wanted to give you my thoughts on this film and hopefully I'll be getting some other great new films on this blog pretty darn soon.

But what did you think of The Avenger: Age of Ultron? As a film? I'm going to be doing a second part talking spoilers and a little bit more of an analysis as opposed to my thoughts. But what did you think? Comment and Discuss below! Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on movie news and reviews. You can also shoot me a message giving me thoughts on my reviews and send me requests.

I'll leave you with this. Well the guys at How it should have ended had the same idea I did and put their video in two parts. Here's part number one. Enjoy!

The Rescuers Down Under

What can I say? My girlfriend really likes Disney movies and Netflix has a lot of them.

The Rescuers Down Under is actually a hidden gem of Disney because I don't think a lot of people really thought the Rescuers had much left in them. The original film came out in 1977 and to be honest, I don't remember it that much. I think it was the start of mice who weren't Mikey, going out and solving crimes, a trend that Disney and other production studios did for a long time. And oddly they really let go of the franchise for 13 years before making a sequel.

Surprisingly enough, I think the sequel is a lot better than the original.

The movie starts off introducing the little boy Cody, who would eventually be the goal and kid that the Rescuers are going out to rescue.

Cody is your average blue eyed blonde American accent boy who lives out in Australia...

Well Cody is one with nature and lives to help his furry critters. He is tasked to help out a Golden eagle and holy shit, this Eagle is freakin huge. This is like mythical the size of this bird.

Of course, the bad guy comes along as a poacher named Percival McLeach (voiced by George C Scott). He wants the bird, Cody knows where the bird is, he kidnaps the boy but not until some mice see the act and transmit it all the way to New York where the Rescue Aid Society of Mice is ready to take up the case.

Of course the obvious candidates are the team of mice from the US and Hungary, Bernard and Miss Bianca (voiced by Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor).

The two heroes from the original return and park their bags to go to Australia. All the while, Bernard is trying to figure up the courage to ask Miss Bianca to marry him.

Now being a cynical asshole and not totally buying into the illusion, especially one where mice talk and have their own society going while humans are doing their thing unaware of the mice. How did Bernard get a hold of a ring so small it could fit on the finger of a mouse like Miss Bianca? Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but that bothered me for some reason when I watched this film.

The fun part about this film is that a lot of the same cast came back for this film 13 years later. Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor. Unfortunately Jim Jordan passed away and could not reprise his role as Orville the Albatross that helped them get to their location in the first movie.

Luckily, and smartly, they brought in the talent of John Candy to play Orville's brother Wilbur.

They land in Australia, and are greeted by a debonair named Jake (voiced by Tristian Roberts) and they go on their adventure to find Cody and save him.

The unfortunate thing about this movie is that in the middle... not a lot happens. Jake leading Bernard and Miss Bianca around the wilderness of Australia, all the while making Bernard jealous and insecure about Miss Bianca saying yes to his proposal of marriage. Wibur is randomly held up in a crazy mouse hospital, and Cody is just imprisoned by McLeach.

And oddly enough, this movie has the tendency to introduce characters and then just kind of forget about them for the rest of the movie.

If you've watched it, you might know what I'm talking about. It starts with Wilbur. He's just kind of left at the hospital and left to do John Candy quips, not really helping Bernard and Miss Bianca at all.

Before that, you have this random bunch of Australian critters that show Cody where the eagle is...

Never seen or heard from again.

What's even more sad about this film is that Cody spends a good portion of the second act in a room where McLeach keeps all his live animals he has trapped.

Sure they have some laughs and shenanigans in that room but once Cody gets taken out and used as bait to find the eagle, you never hear from that Koala again. You never see them freed, for all we know they starved to death in that dark outback cave.

But Cody wouldn't forget about them, would he? He loves all critters!

Nope

Cody flies off and says Fuck off to every character that wasn't on the back of his mythical bird. He forgets Wilbur, he forgets his forest friends, and he leaves his fellow captives to die.

Kind of makes the entire movie really dark doesn't it?

Put all that aside, the movie isn't bad. Its got a good cast of characters, its got some good adventure, it made every child, and me want a huge mythological eagle to ride, and it was a good continuation of The Rescuers that I think was better than the original.

Its a Disney animated sequel that wasn't totally a cash cow and had at least a little bit of heart put into it. Is it a classic? No. But its a decent enough time and I think you might enjoy it when you give it a second look years later.

But those are my thoughts on The Rescuers Down Under. What do you think? Comment and Discuss below! Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 in order to get updates on movie news and reviews. You can also give me your thoughts on movies and give me requests for future reviews.

I'll leave you with this. Its fair to say that this movie probably inspired Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers and I think there's a blatant flaw with that show that needs to be addressed. Here's that flaw. Enjoy!

Lilo and Stitch

I remember the first time I saw Lilo and Stitch, I had no idea what I was getting into. Honestly, it didn't really stick to me as a Disney movie that I really connected with or incredibly enjoyed. I thought it was well made, but it didn't really make an impact on me. Furthermore, this movie kind of came out around the time that I was getting a little bit old for cartoons. I still saw it but I wanted something more. I think my sister connected more with this movie and I understand why. Watching it when I'm 22 now, I've come to enjoy it a lot more. Does it have a bigger meaning years later? Well...

Lilo and Stitch starts in space when an alien government is putting an insane scientist Dr. Jumba Jookiba (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) on trial for creating an illegal life form. This life form of course is the blue alien Experiment 626 (later to be known as Stitch).

In short, 626 escapes on a spaceship crashing towards Earth. The aliens think he will drown at first but they then figure out he landed on the island of Hawaii. Jumba is tasked to go after Stitch and bring him back with the help of another alien who is an Earth expert named Agent Pleakley (voiced by Kevin McDonald).

Now as a kid, this was the part of the movie I actually liked the most. It had a flair of Star Wars to it that I liked to speculate on and imagine all the fun stuff that happened. So when the movie turned its focus to a pair of sisters in Hawaii, I was a little bit less interested.

But now, I actually think the part with the sisters is actually the better part of the movie.

Enter Lilo and Nani (voiced by Daveigh Chase and Tia Carrere, respectively). Nani is quite a bit older than Lilo and since their parts tragically died before the movie, she has to take care of Lilo.

The thing is, Lilo is a very rambunctious little girl and is quite the handful to take care of. Furthermore, Nani is her sister, not her mom. That makes the relationship even greater.

I don't know what it is, but the relationship between Lilo and Nani is just phenomenal. I watched a review of this film where the critic said, why couldn't they have just made the movie about these two and excluded all the parts in space and all the parts with the weird space aliens. I actually have to agree because Lilo herself is just hilarious.

I really didn't notice it as a kid but Lilo is incredibly entertaining just when she's doing her own thing.

What's more is I never realized how young Lilo is. She's really young. I would not be surprised if she's like 4 or 5 in this film. And yet she says these things that are just hilarious and they're things that I might guess a really smart and misunderstood 4 or 5 year old might say.

The great part is the two sister do love each other. They are dealing with the loss of their parents and Nani is trying her best to help Lilo, but she herself needs Lilo just as much as Lilo needs her. Again, its a great relationship.

But back to the plot, Nani is trying to get her and Lilo's life in order because a social worker (voiced by Ving Rhames) is watching her closely and is threatening to take Lilo away if Nani can't provide a stable household for her.

So that is the plot of the movie... plus the fact that Lilo adopts Stitch when he is mistaken for a dog at a pound and Stitch, being more intelligent than he lets on, uses Lilo as a sort of shield to avoid being captured or killed by Jumba and Pleakley.

Don't get me wrong, Jumba and Pleakley are kind of funny. I mean it is Richard McDonald we're talking about here, the more I watch with him the more I just enjoy everything he's in. But I just hear the voice of that critic that said, if this movie had more of the relationship between Nani and Lilo and less of the aliens, this would actually be a great film.

While Stitch is forced to be Lilo's pet, he acts out because he is a monster with a primary directive of destruction. Lilo basically sets out to teach him how to be good.

The weird thing is, that never actually happens. Stitch continues to act out, he continues cause destruction and I'm not totally sure the movie ever gives itself the chance to develop a really great relationship between Lilo and Stitch, which you think would be the primary purpose as the movie is called Lilo and Stitch.

There's a little bit of an analogy of the ugly duckling as Stitch's new directive is to find a family or something like that and that does tie into the idea of Ohana which of course everyone and their sisters has said over and over again.

But I think a huge opportunity was lost when trying to make this film about family when it probably should have been about loss and staying together as a family.

That doesn't totally mean that the character of Stitch is a horrible character. He's not, he's actually really funny and I understand why people have gravitated towards him as a lovable Disney character.

Unfortunately, to me, Stitch has never gone down as one of the greats. He's unique sure, but he's not so iconic that I couldn't imagine Disney without him. Let's just be honest, Lilo and Stitch is not the first movie that comes to mind when you think of Disney cartoons. And that's okay, it was near the tail end of the animated films and its definitely not the worst of the animated bits.

There are great things about Lilo and Stitch. And yeah, years later, I do enjoy this movie a lot more because I understand it more than I did as a kid when all I saw was this cute blue monster crawling around Hawaii. The movie I think has its strengths but I also think it has its weaknesses. The weaknesses are not glaring, its just some parts are done better than others. I did come out of this movie a second time with a better appreciation for it.

But those are my thoughts on Lilo and Stitch. What about you? What do you think of Lilo and Stitch? Have you seen it since you were a kid? What do you think of it now as opposed to then? Comment and Discuss below! Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 in order to get updates on movie news and reviews and shoot me a message on your thoughts and requests for future reviews!

I'll leave you with this. Something I really do like about this film is the music and the setting. Yeah you've got the Elvis Music which I love, but you've also got the Hawaiian setting and music. I really do think this is a really fun set up for the film and a really good song to start off with. Enjoy!

The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls was not my first choice of a movie to watch a couple days ago. I have no idea why my buddies said, hey let's watch Boxtrolls while we're recovering from a hangover, but for some reason we did.

So what is The BoxTrolls about?

Victorian age Cheesebridge (a fake town) is overrun by nocturnal creatures called The BoxTrolls. According to myth, they come out at night and steal children from their beds, bring them down to the sewers, and eat them whole. At least that is the story told by Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Ben Kingsley). Snatcher intends to snatch all of the Boxtrolls and kill them all and by doing that he will win the approval of the Mayor of the town (voiced by Jared Harris) and win a White hat that will get him into a cheese tasting club that only the privileged can get into.

The story of course is turned on its head when you figured out that the Boxtrolls are not evil monsters, but instead are kind, innocent, and simple creatures that are only curious about world above and simply hide away when threatened.

They do come into possession of a boy they name Eggs (voiced by Isaac Hempstead-Wright) who they raise into believing that he is a boxtroll.

How he learns proper english in a cave of monsters saying nonsense, I still don't have the foggiest of clues.

As Eggs grows up, the Boxtrolls are becoming more and more scarce as they are being snatched by Snatcher and his gang of henchmen (voiced by Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, and Tracey Morgan).

Finally, Eggs can't take it anymore, he decides to disguise himself as a human and make his way above ground and find his friends who have been snatched.

With the help of a spunky and a little bit sadistic little girl (voiced by Elle Fanning) who happens to be the daughter of the mayor of the town, the two uncover the conspiracy of Archibald Snatcher and hope to uncover his plot to win a white hat, no matter what the costs.

If you can't tell from the animation you've seen in the pictures of this movie, the animation is stop motion and a little bit unorthodox. However, it is done very well. Yeah its not exactly what everyone is used to but that doesn't make it bad by any means.

As far as story goes, its your basic don't judge a book by its cover story. Everyone has their preconceived notions of the Boxtrolls, everyone except the person who has been living with them for years and knows them as family. Eggs is your Tarzan like character as he has his moments where he's incredibly clueless about how he's suppose to act as a young boy. The little girl Winnie of course has her preconceived notions about the Boxtrolls but is quickly proven wrong by Eggs as they go through the adventure.

Furthermore, the movie does touch a little bit on how fear is a horrible weapon to use against people.

Snatcher is your typical villain utilizing the system to get his way and he uses it against the Boxtrolls to win a white hat and make everyone clueless to his actual motives which are quite sinister.

I actually could never really tell that it was Ben Kingsley voicing this character which I applaud him for. Maybe I don't know Kingsley's voice as well as I should but he was playing it very well and I really enjoyed his part and how sinister he was.

On top of that, Snatcher is allergic to cheese. So it seems silly for him to want to get into the cheese tasting club. But that's another part of the story that I think its trying to convey to kids. The story is very much about class and how it shouldn't define you. For Snatcher, its not about the cheese and how it tastes, its about the class and the prestige that comes along with being apart of that upper class and the evil things people do to get to that point of being accepted.

Overall, The Boxtrolls was just kind of a surprise in a half. Is it a great movie? No, I don't think so. But you could tell that a lot of heart and soul was put into it. There's a funny scene at the end where it gets a little meta and the stop motion characters start talking about the possibility of them being controlled by bigger beings, how every move is being orchestrated and photographed over days. All the while they show the animators moving the characters limbs back and forth and showing exactly how the stop motion animation works. You can tell a lot of work was put into the film.

I think if you like British humor, and you want your kids to like British humor, this might be a good place to start with that. The movie, from what I remember, did make me laugh and for the most part was very entertaining.

It did have its grotesque animation but that was actually part of the movies charm. This isn't a Disney animated film, its allowed to take risks and be a little bit more grotesque than Disney animation and I like it. Some people might not enjoy the style or the animation but I say, at least give it a try. You may think its weird, but try and enjoy it and soak up the story because it is entertaining and does have a good message for kids in there.

Am I going to remember The Boxtrolls? Probably not. This movie was up for best animated picture alongside Big Hero 6, and if you've read my review, you know that I loved Big Hero 6. Especially without the Lego Movie in the running, there was no competition for Big Hero 6 in my mind prior to watching this movie and there still is no competition after seeing this. But it is a fun animated flick and you might be surprised like I was.

Have you seen The Boxtrolls? What did you think about it? Comment and Discuss below! Also if you like this and want more, follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on movie news and reviews and shoot me your thoughts and requests for future reviews there too.

I'll leave you with this. If you like Parks and Rec you'll like this video. The context is that Ben doesn't have a job and he decides to try Claymation. He's spent the entire day doing this claymation video and he's ready to show it. Enjoy!

Cinderella

Really, I didn't have too much of an interest in seeing Cinderella. Believe it or not, I actually did see Maleficent and I was a little bit unimpressed. So much so that I didn't even finish a review for it. Eventually maybe I will, but back to my point, I was not impressed with Maleficent and Cinderella isn't my favorite Disney take on a fairy tale anyway so I wasn't opposed to skipping it.

However, what I am more interested in is the future of Disney live action films. There is a long line of classic Disney fairy tale cartoons being remade into live action. Some of them I'm really excited for, like Beauty and the Beast with probably the best cast I've seen of a movie in a long time. Others I'm not incredibly interested in, like Dumbo or another Alice in Wonderland (both helmed by Tim Burton). Regardless, Cinderella, to me, seemed like the start of this long line of live action films and while I wasn't jumping out of my seat to go see the film, if given the opportunity, I would take a look. On top of everything, I'm a fan of Kenneth Branagh and had the idea that regardless, things would be well directed.

Well that opportunity came in the form of my girlfriend and her family so I got to go to Cinderella.

The prologue of sorts of this movie starts when Ella is a young girl and actually goes into what her life was like before the classic cartoon actually started. It shows how she had this incredible childhood, her and her parents are both alive and just the happiest of families.

I kind of get the feeling that the movie was trying to set the beginning of this film up with an Up style prologue, showing them all happy, then showing it all tragically crash down when the mother dies. Unfortunately, for me it just didn't feel that way. Sure it was sad that the mother died but something about the set up didn't feel incredibly real or relatable so, yeah it was sad, but its not Up sad.

Anyway, the mother dies and Ella's father eventually marries again when Ella is older (played by Lily James). And you know the story, he of course marries the evil step mother (played by Cate Blanchette) and she brings along her evil but not too bright step sisters (played by Holliday Granger and Sophia McShera).

Now when I say evil, that's just a matter of setting up that they are the antagonists of the story. They're really not evil, at least they're not set up that way. They're just privileged and unkind. I'll talk more about the step-mother because she's actually done very well.

The nice thing about the film is that the decline Ella faces becoming a slave to her step-mother and step-sisters is not a sudden one. Its gradual and it makes sense in the context of the story. At first its just Ella being kind and helping out, and that kindness is abused until she's no longer a daughter, she's a slave. And its only made worse by the death of Ella's father.

And the circumstances only exacerbate the situation. When Ella's father dies, the Step-Mother realizes her family is in financial trouble. Suddenly, pawning her daughters off to the Prince isn't just pawning her daughters off to the prince, there's reasoning behind it. The Step-Mother is not longer the ominous villain, she has a motive and doesn't see herself as the bad guy. And if the story can make you almost feel bad for the villain, that's the mark of a good story.

But let's talk about Ella.

I'll be honest, when I first saw the trailers for this movie, I wasn't totally sure this was the Cinderella I was familiar with. The cartoon from 1950 is really kind of iconic and I just didn't really feel she was the right choice for the role.

However, I ended up really liking her. Cinderella's big thing in this film is that she is incredibly kind and courageous. That's her thing.

But the thing about her is that she's not all happy go lucky, you can tell she's a person just like anybody else and she's just incredibly kind. You see her trying to do the best she can for herself but at the same time putting others in front of her. And to top it all off, I kind of felt that this isolation had an effect on her. At first she's talking to the mice like they can talk back. Its played off as though she's kind of an imaginative little girl. But when she's isolated and alone and she starts talking to mice, it kind of seems like she's going a little bit crazy being alone like this.

It really makes you take a second look at the story and realize that there's a little bit of nuts in Cinderella.

I mean I know its a fairy tale but being abused by your family for that long has to have to negative effects on her. Its not incredibly noticeable but its kind of an interesting element to the character.

Now she does have her moments where she's a little bit too perfect. There's a point where her father is like, "I'm going away, but what do you want as a present when I get back." Of course her step sisters are like, "I WANT A PARISOL! I WANT STUFF!" But our second coming of jesus over her gives probably the weirdest answer ever. She says she wants the first branch that graces your shoulder. I mean its a cute little way of telling her father she wants to be with him but its a little too perfect.

Speaking of perfect, eventually Cinderella actually runs away and accidentally meets...

God almighty, gift to all women and men from here to the ends of the earth, Richard fucking Madden.

Seriously though, my god, would you look at that smolder!

Well Cinderella and Prince Charming (Or Kit as they call him) meet in the woods and Kit doesn't tell her that he is the Prince. They immediately are attracted towards one another.

The secret point of all of this is to make it so there is some kind of interaction between Cinderella and the Prince. In this modern age of Frozen romances, people can't fall in love at first sight. They have to have one conversation, dance a little bit, have another conversation, THEN fall in love with one another.

I liked what they did here honestly. I didn't feel like it was too love at first sight but at the same time, since it was so little of a time actually knowing each other, there is a little bit of an element of them falling for one another right away which I think shouldn't be lost in Disney Fairy Tales, its what they're kind of known for. Call me old fashion but I kind of like it.

Furthermore, they develop Kit as a character rather than just a guy she meets. Do you remember the Prince's name in the cartoon? No? Well there's a reason, its because he never had one.

They also have real conversations between Kit and his father the king (played by Derek Jacobi).

Its done pretty well and it doesn't feel like they're adding unnecessary stuff.

The kingdom is very small and the king is dying. The king and his counsel are worried that the Prince will not have what it takes to take on the throne and they need a princess from another kingdom to come and give the kingdom strength.

Its not exactly Game of Thrones politics, but it does add a little bit of intrigue to the plot and gives Stellan Skarsgard the opportunity to be a slimy conniving bad guy in this which I kind of enjoyed.

I also liked the relationship between The Prince and his father. Despite the fact that Derek Jacobi does look like the animated king from the cartoon, he's a really good actor and the two compliment each other very well.

And apart of me is pretty glad that this wasn't cut throat Game of Thrones politics, its nice to see Richard Madden get a happy ending and a real wedding...

It still hurts...

The story goes on exactly how you would have expected it to go. The king holds a ball to get the Prince a wife. Cinderella's step-mother refuses to allow her to go, Cinderella is visited by her fairy god-mother (played by Helena Bohnam Carter). She gets her dream dress, carriage, and perfect night out at the ball to meet her Prince Charming. After midnight she loses the dream and she must flee the ball as her gifts go away. But of course she leaves her glass slipper and the Prince looks high and low for her. Happy ending, yada yada yada.

The thing that I liked about this film was how close it held to the original story and the original 1950 cartoon.

In an age of Frozen, which don't get me wrong is a good film, every movie for kids is politically correct. The female lead can't be "the princess" anymore.

Now don't get me wrong, I think its good to have stories that provide a good example for women because let's be honest, as great as the classic disney cartoons are, they do have their morals that can be skewed if the wrong audience takes them too seriously.

For example, the original Cinderella could be seen as a message to young girls as if you wait long enough, your man will come and you'll be set for life. There are a lot of worse lessons that if you really look into certain Disney films closely you'll be appalled. Here are some people who look WAY too into it, here are my examples.

Now, while I think the video has some points about the portrayal of women, and how we've kind of progressed since, I do think there is some merit to the stories of old. There is some romantic about Cinderella and the Prince falling in love almost at first sight. There is something romantic and old fashioned about the tale as a whole.

And that's where I think bringing in Kenneth Branagh in was a brilliant choice.

The man has been able to show us that he is able to tell a story in a fantastic story. He's a Shakespearean trained actor and he just knows how to tell as story with that Shakespearean flair to it. And that's the fun part about this movie.

While its very much a live action version of the same cartoon you watched when you were a kid, it hold the flair and mood of a Shakespearean style play. The characters are more developed, the way the movie is shot is done really well, and the use of special effects just makes it very well done.

But while the story does feel like a Shakespearean play, the costumes and feel of the story gives the feeling of a fairy tale as well. The mix of Branagh's storytelling and that fairytale flair gives the movie a really entertaining and familiar feel to it.

Branagh's take on the story really kind of negates any criticism I heard of the film not being totally great because it was missing the musical elements that were in the original cartoon.

The reason Branagh's storytelling make it so the lack of music doesn't bother me is because most Shakespearean plays don't have music in them. That's just how he does his storytelling and its good to have that differentiation.

On top of that, I would ask the hardcore fans who believe that the movie needed music to ask themselves one question.

Think back to the Cinderella cartoon. Take out Bipity Bopity Boo and can you name one song from the original Cinderella cartoon?

I mean if you can, I think you're in the minority. The music from that movie is not exactly memorable and its not as well known as the other cartoons that were musicals from the classic Disney flicks.

Now if Beauty and The Beast didn't have music, I might be a little bit concerned. I'll still see it but I don't know if the story is as iconically Disney without that music.

And then you ask the question, could they have used the music from the Broadway musical? Personally, as someone who has seen the musical, I would have been fine with that, but that music is not nearly as iconic or memorable. Not to say the cartoon is, but I don't think Cinderella was known for its music as much as it was known for the story and the characters.

And when I talk about characters that are more fleshed out, I obviously am talking about the Prince and his father because both of them do a very good job. But the main praise I'll give this film is the development of the evil Step-mother.

The Step-mother, or Lady Tremaine as she's called in this film does get more development in this story as it does start a little bit earlier and develops Ella's story as well.

There's a great scene where Lady Tremaine finds the glass slipper Cinderella kept and tells her her background on how she married once for love. And then when that love died all she focused on were her daughters despite the fact that they were not that bright. So while the actions of the step-mother are horrible and incredibly mean to Cinderella, you understand her actions and sympathize. Again it goes back to the villain being understood. She sees herself as the good guy and her actions, though inexcusable, are understood.

And I think she was done well as a villain because at no point did I say, Lady Tremaine is an anti-hero because of her backstory or because I understand her point of view.

Too often these days we run into the pitfall of just because a villain is understood, we call them anti-heroes. I think that is totally wrong. Someone can still be a villain but have a compelling story. You can still understand why they are doing what they're doing without calling them an anti-hero.

Anyway, I really liked Cate Blanchett's character and she played it nicely.

The one complaint I have with the movie is in one character...

Now to be fair, Carter was not bad in this film. I didn't go out of this film thinking it was absolutely ruined by Carter.

But the thing about it was, it wasn't Helena Bohnam Carter playing the Fairy Godmother, the Fairy God-mother was Helena Bohnam Carter. Its the same character Carter plays in almost every movie she's in. The quirky possibly crazy/possibly drunk British woman that I can only imagine Carter is in real life. I didn't feel like she separated herself from the character the Fairy God-mother.

Now, to be fair, all she had to do was narrate for the film and do a five minute scene where she turns everything into the stuff Cinderella needs to go the ball. She probably didn't need to put a lot of effort into it. But while everyone else was really taking this movie seriously in a good way, you just had Helena Bohnam Carter in a dress saying Bipity Bopity Boo because... you know... that's what the fairy God-mother says.

Again, not a deal breaker, it's fine. But again, it was just Helena Bohnam Carter in a dress.

But that is literally one of the complaints I have of the movie. Is it my favorite movie? No. Is it superb? No. But it is a well done movie and does give me a little bit of hope for the future of live action movies, especially if they are done with such care and thought that Kenneth Branagh put in this one.

But what did you think of Cinderella? Are you excited for all the Disney Live action movies coming out in the next few years? Comment and Discuss below! And if you liked this, follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on movie news and reviews and to send me your thoughts and requests for future reviews.

I'll leave you with this. Here's the honest trailer for the 1950's cartoon. I've got a list of reviews to get through, I gotta keep moving. Enjoy!

Graceland (Season 1)

You ever wonder what a show would be like if you took a crime show like The Wire but not as intelligent, threw in a lot more action, and gave the show a style like that of the OC. Of course, that sounds terrible!

However, Graceland is in fact actually an incredibly interesting crime drama worth talking about. The sad thing is, I started watching the first season of The Wire, got caught up with other stuff, started watching this, and breezed through this faster than you can imagine. Call me a horrible person but my god this was a lot easier to get through than the first season of The Wire. I'm still working on it, I'm still interested, but damn I gotta get HBO Now or something because there is nothing like watching a show, especially a crime drama on a platform like Netflix. And they hit the jackpot with Graceland.

I'm gonna be honest, the first half of the first episode of this series is really boring. I mentioned the OC earlier because you might get the two confused.

The story plays out following the trail of Mike Warren (played by Aaron Tveit). He's a top of his class grad at Quantico and he's being assigned to Los Angeles to take part in a special team that bands together a conglomeration three different federal law enforcement agencies that take down organized criminal activities in the Los Angeles area. They do this by going undercover and getting in deep with criminals in the area.

Now they try and make this assignment sound like it was something slammed on Mike and I guess I get where they're coming from as he did put his preference as working in DC. But from what this job looks like, it looks awesome.

These guys are living on the beach, they're doing undercover work... about half the time. And they love every minute of it. Why is this not everyone's first choice?

And the cast of this show is actually pretty solid. Yeah they're all a little bit OC for my taste, but they actually cover it up pretty well and make the show at least a little bit gritty.

You've got the ring leader, Mike's Training officer, Paul Briggs (played by Daniel Sunjata). Briggs has a reputation of being a great FBI agent. He is cunning, incredibly intelligent. And of course has his secrets.

There is Johnny (played by Manny Montana) who plays the goofball. You've got Charlie (played by Vanessa Ferlito). All of which are FBI agents. Then you have Jakes (played Brandon Jay McLaren) who is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Then you have Paige (played by Serinda Swan) who is DEA. There are a couple others who come in and out of the house but those are you main cast and a lot of the tension plays between them.

From the very beginning, Graceland is very much a family like story. Every member has his or her own role that they play in the house and they clash and mesh with the others pretty darn well.

The show could seem very generic despite the novel idea of the house being one that they seized from drug dealers and converted into a place for federal agents to work out of, something that does actually happen apparently. Speaking of which, I'm really glad this show didn't try to sell it to me that this show was based on true events. Cause I don't think it is, its just a situation that does actually happen.

 No the intrigue of this show comes from the relationship between Mike Warren and Paul Griggs.

See the twist behind it all is that Mike is sent to Graceland in order to investigate Griggs and the possibility that he might be dirty.

This obviously creates an interesting dynamic between the rookie FBI agent and his possibly corrupt training officer.

There's a little bit of a Training Day vibe to the whole relationship. Its obviously not to the level of Ethan Hawke and Denzil Washington but it is pretty well done.

All the while there are undercover operations going on that are incredibly entertaining and of course make for some good television.

Is Graceland the next True Detective? Obviously no. Its airing on USA, its obviously going to pull some of its punches and its got to have some appeal to a different audience. Believe it or not, there are people who prefer this kind of television over something like True Detective or something that you would find on HBO.

I disagree but I can't tell them they are necessarily wrong.

What I can say is that Graceland is actually a really fun ride. Its only 12 episodes for the first season so you can get through it pretty quickly.

Again, the relationships between the characters are pretty fun.

At times the show does seem a little bit soap opera-y. I suppose that does kind of happen when you have a show set in Los Angeles. However, lots of that goes out the window when they get into the criminal investigations. Them going under cover is a lot of fun.

Now I don't want to give too much of the ending away as I am going to continue to watch the second season on Netflix. When I do the review for that season I can give my thoughts on the end of this season and how it connects and by that point I will have a better idea of where exactly the show is going and how exactly the ending plays out. Let's just say the answer to the question whether or not Briggs is dirty or not and the motives and everything of everyone weren't exactly satisfying and didn't exactly give me a sense of closure, but I think they wanted to extend the season on so we'll see.

Hopefully I'll be finishing that season real quick.

Overall, Graceland is a fun ride. Its something you can watch pretty casually and not get super lost, or you can binge watch it like I did and enjoy a lot of it.

But those are my thoughts on the first season of Graceland. Have you seen it? What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to shoot me a message and give me your thoughts. You can also follow me to get updates on more movie (and TV) news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. While I was watching this I was playing Grand Theft Auto 5. I'll give you the honest trailer for GTA 5. Enjoy!