Tropic Thunder Review

Quick Description:

Tropic thunder is a really funny comedy that brings together Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downy Jr., and Tom Cruise, Just to name a few. They play the role of actors acting in a movie, that’s behind schedule, and there’s a risk that it’s going to be cancelled. Their stereotypical actor attitudes aren’t making things easier. The director decides that it would be a good idea to throw them into the jungle, and film them with a handheld camera. Things don’t go as planned, and the actors are soon trying to fight their way out of the jungle. 

Quick Review:

9.5/10 Tivos.

Tropic thunder is a friggin’ hilarious movie. For starters, how often do you get to see Robert Downey Jr dressed as a black man, or as he puts it, a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude. If it wasn’t funny enough to see that, there’s also Jack black playing a B-list comedian trying to break into serious cinema, Ben stiller as a washed up action star, and let’s not forget Tom Cruise… but I don’t want to spoil it. Jay Baruchel plays an up and coming actor, while Brandon T. Jackson does a really good job portraying a rapper-turned-actor.

The movie mercilessly taunts the film industry, from distraught directors to, premadonna actors, to crazy casting agents trying to get their actors Tivo. “You want the Tivo? I got the Tivo.” They make fun of actors peddling energy drinks, super forced product placement, and drug addicted actors. We’ve all seen comedies that are just too much, too over the top. Although this one has over the top moments, they’re handled well. When this movie does have over the top moments it’s usually to make fun of those kind of movies.

Detailed analysis

**Spoiler alert?**

This is a funny movie. It doesn’t need analysis. But there are some overall things I thought I’d talk about. For instance half of this movie was improvised, which is kind of impressive, bro. And check out how awesome these prosthetics are:

Aren't they cool?

Also, the fake trailers at the beginning. They’re funny because they’re true. This movie came out at a good time for making fun of Hollywood:

Stop releasing these before the world explodes please.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Review

Quick Description:

Tinker Tailor solider spy is a confusing spy movie where you have to pay a lot of attention, or you will not understand what is happening. The Circus (A British intelligence agency) has discovered a mole in it’s midst, and it’s up to George Smiley (Gary Oldman) to find out who it is. The plot twists and folds as we discover each character’s part in the story. The movie features actors like Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Collin Firth, John Hurt, and those are only a few of the huge crowd of characters that you can’t keep track of. Good luck.  

Quick Review:

Rating: 65/92½ main characters.

Firstly, I didn’t actually dislike this movie, I just didn’t really understand it because I haven’t read the book. After watching the movie I don’t think I will read the book. The biggest problem with this movie is that the story is too big to fit into a two hour movie. It’s not even because the basic story is complicated, but because of all the other stuff they throw in on top of it. In addition, they didn’t choose a style of film making that’s good for conveying ideas clearly. They kind of pass by important details, and fail to focus on important things. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not very clear. So watch the movie a couple times, and you’ll have a better chance of understanding.

Analysis:  ***Spoiler alert***

This movie does not do a good job of using flashbacks correctly. They make no distinction between flashbacks and scene changes, which gets pretty confusing. Let’s say we have two characters sitting in a car. Then a flash back happens. Usually we expect to return to the scene in the car after. Instead, we’ll often return to present day, but in a completely different scene. In a movie that’s already complicated this does not help. They obviously wanted the story to be non linear, but more care should have gone into ordering the scenes and flashbacks for clarity.

The movie also features characters who are barley developed, and little used, such as John Hurt’s character, and others. Gary Oldman’s Character, George Smiley, had pretty strong character development, and he did a good job playing the character, but all the other characters feel under used. Granted, this is a movie about emotionless cold war spies. The actors pull this off very well, but I think it would have been a good choice to develop them further. Without doing that, I find it hard to care one way or another about these people.

The Writing for the actual dialogue and production of the movie are very good. The overall feel of the movie is genuinely period appropriate, and the somewhat drab and monotone adds to a really neat feel. Tom Hardy in particular did some really good acting, and his character also livened things up a bit. By keeping most of the movie calm surprising events feel very exciting, and carry a stronger impact. So was this movie worth watching? Yes. But I’d suggest reading the book first (which I did not do.)

Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol Review

Quick description.

Everyone’s favorite secret agent, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back for some more impossible missions. He’s out to foil “Cobalt” who is looking for nuclear launch codes, and he’s brought his team of… More secret agents. Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner, join tom cruise in the search to stop Cobalt, but things get complicated when Ghost protocol is enacted. What’s Ghost protocol? Well watch the movie.  

Quick Review.

Rating: 8.5 tom cruise sunglasses out of 10

Mission Impossible 4 is the best action movie out so far this year. Although there’s still half a year left to find out if it’s the best action movie of the year. Why? Because it has everything that an action movie needs: good chase scenes, nuclear missiles, intense music, and cool locations. If you’re looking for more, this might not be the movie for you, but if you want to see an archetypal action/spy movie, like Die hard, or Goldeneye, then Mission Impossible is the best choice for you. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Mission impossible 4, it’s probably the best one yet.

Detailed analysis

****Spoiler alert!****

Alright, although it doesn’t have the most creative story ever, it’s probably one of the better spy thrillers. Sure, at some points it feels like tom cruise has a batman utility belt, “Thank goodness we brought our slideable hall simulating hologram to fool the guard.” Whatever, it’s Mission Impossible. And I actually found some of their fancy gadgets more realistic than the ones they had in, like 1995, I have iPhone apps that do the same stuff their little machines were doing in this movie.

The story has some issues, in the fact that it’s exactly the same as any other action movie with nuclear missiles in it. Although with this one they pulled it off better than other movies, it is after all, Mission Impossible. It never fails to be entertaining, from Tom Cruise’s real stunts climbing up the tallest building in the world, to the cool ending fight scene in the crazy future parking garage. Speaking of which: the crazy future parking lot. They did a good job of showing actual injury (for the first time in the movie) but nonetheless Tom Cruise was limping around. It looked pretty intense to have them both limping around and trying to go from sliding moving platforms to their objective.

A few new characters are introduced in this movie, like Jane Carter. Her entrance was a little weird, because no one really knew who she was, and then they were like best friends. William Brandt is also a new character who seems to be some kind of lowly analyst, but turns out to be a secret agent. His backstory goes onto build some good tension between him and the test of the team, but it resolves pretty nicely towards the end of the film, where we get a couple cameo appearances. Ving Rhames character, Luther Stickell shows up, who by the way they could have called earlier in the film so many times that it’s not even funny. Then at the end he’s having drinks with tom cruise and I’m like “where were you.” Michelle Monaghan also has a brief cameo at the end, turns out her character is alive. But don’t read that last part if you haven’t seen the movie.

This message will now self destruct.