Focus Review

I went to an early screening of this movie with no idea what to expect. When I got the ticket, they gave me a poster and a hat, and I had no idea of whether I would wear that hat with pride, or angrily tear that poster off my dorm-room wall.

The movie stars Will Smith as a master con man, who teaches his craft to a younger woman played by Margot Robbie. After they separate, they meet again three years later in the midst of  one of Smith's  schemes.

While I was expecting this to be, not necessarily a serious film, but a sort of crime drama, there were several comedic elements to it. And several of these were successful with the audience.

Focus deals with the brain and how it can be tricked. The film's protagonists get their way by using several elements of mind-f**k to get their way. This is part of what makes the film so intriguing. However, there are points where it gets ridiculous, like where they try to put a number into a stranger's subconscience. This is a very intricate plan which involves them having a ridiculous amount of control over what he sees, and requires several people to act the way they want them to. As you can see, this is unlikely, and the more I think about it the more holes I can find in it. But for pretty much everything else, their plans are more simple, and leaves you interested in how easily the mind can be manipulated.

The plot is also an intriguing crime story. It is very entertaining throughout most of it, and leaves you somewhat invested in the characters. And keeping up with the message of tricking the mind there are several plot twists.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie a little more than I thought I would. It is good entertainment, and deals with intriguing ideas about the mind. While I don't think I needed the hat and poster as much as other movies that I like, I liked Focus enough to not throw them away.

4.0 out of 5 stars

Kingsman: The Secret Service Review

Today, I celebrated Valentine's Day by going to the movies alone. Woo hoo! Okay, maybe this may not be the ideal Valentines Day, but I guess I'll take it. Besides, if I had a girlfriend she might take me to Fifty Shades of Gray, and if what I heard about it is true, then I guess this is an good alternative.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is about a young man in London, who meets a man played by Colin Firth, who is part of a top secret espionage organization called The Kingsmen. He decides to join the Kingsmen, with Firth mentoring him. He must now prove that he is worthy, and come on board to stop a brilliant internet billionaire, played by Samuel L Jackson, who is part of an initially unknown terrorist plot.

One part of the movie that best sums it up is a brief conversation between Firth's and Jackson's characters. Jackson asks Firth if he likes spy movies, and he responds by saying that he used to, but nowadays they have become too serious. They spend a short time reminiscing about the older spy movies, with gadgets and over the top villains. Evidently, the creators of this movie felt the same way, because this film is a throwback to those movies.

This movie is over the top and ridiculous, satirizing most early James Bond films. It features the high tech gadgets, and violent fight sequences. The villain is also the stereotypical James Bond villain, minus the accent (though he has a speech impediment). He has a henchman with swords for legs, which is not much more ridiculous than many James Bond villains' henchmen. And when the evil plan is known, well let's just say the henchman becomes the most believable aspect of the villain.

This was a really fun time. It has plenty of humor, and great action. There is some violence in it; just a warning for those who are squeamish. It is a great tribute to early Bond films, that left me laughing at plenty of points, and entertained throughout. If you are a fan of blockbusters, then this should tie you over until summer.

4,5 out of 5 stars

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Review

Now, I was nervous going into this movie. I grew up watching Spongebob, and I still enjoy the show, but the previews for this movie just didn't look good. I wasn't sure if I was okay with a live action version of the show. But was it really that bad? Let's find out as we start my review of The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

Now, first thing out of the way is that this movie is not marketed the way it should be. All the advertising for this movie makes it look like most of it is in live action. It makes it look like half of the movie is the small characters wandering around a small beach town filled with humans getting into mischeif, (Smurfs movie much?) and the other half is them human-sized with superpowers fighting pirates on land in that same beach town. (Am I on acid?) But in reality this only make up the climax of the movie, and most of it is in the traditional animation of the show. This material works better as an ending scene then it does the entire movie.

So why would it be marketed in a way that makes it look like such a piece of crap. My theory (and I could be wrong about this) is that they probably wanted to sell more 3D tickets. They probably knew that people would doubt that the original 2D format would translate well into 3D, and decided to market it as something that would have depth. I don't know how well the 3D worked, because I saw it in 2D, but I know they probably needed to convince people it wouldn't hurt their eyes. But why even put it in 3D other than to make money?

The real conflict of the movie, without giving away too much, is this: The Krabby Patty formula disappears mysteriously, and the Plankton and Spongebob are both blamed, and need to team up to find it. The rest of the movie is... when you think of it, no less of an acid trip than the commercials, much like the show. It involves a post-apocalyptic landscape, a time machine, a magical space dolphin from the future named Bubbles, and, of course, the characters fighting pirates on land in a beach town using superpowers.

This movie was actually pretty funny. It contains the charm of an episode of Spongebob, and it doesn't feel like a dumb sell out move like the commercials portray.

This is something that is good for a fun family-friendly time at the movies, but nothing more than that. This movie focuses more on fun than other material, like emotional material or heart. So if you're looking for a Pixar-style family film that will make you cry, you will probably hate this movie. But if you like Spongebob, and you just want to laugh, you will probably enjoy it.

So in conclusion, this movie was surprisingly not terrible. It was fun, although not a classic animated film. I would say it is about as good as the first one, although the message of the first one is better than the almost non-existent message of this one.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Super Bowl Trailer Reviews

Yesterday, the biggest television event in America aired. The Super Bowl. The Seattle Sea-hawks lost after a bizarre and humiliating final few minutes, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. Being uninterested in sports, I watch the game for the commercials. And now I'm going to give my thoughts on the trailers that aired.

To be clear, this article will only be about the commercials for upcoming movies. I am going to talk about all of them that I find listed on a website (http://www.slashfilm.com/2015-super-bowl-movie-trailers/), and I'm going to just give a few brief sentences (or most often short phrases passed off as sentences) on each rather than going fully in depth into all of them. This was also the first time I get to see some of these previews, because in the middle of the third inning the fire alarm went off in my dorm building, and it needed to be evacuated for a short time, (no kidding!) so I missed them when they aired.

Okay. So here I go.

Insurgent
Sequel to Divergent. Wasn't really a fan of the first one. This teaser looks all right I guess, for fans.

Fifty Shades of Gray
No comment.

Furious 7
Seventh Fast and Furious movie. Shows some ridiculous action. Which is the reason people like this franchise. I enjoyed it. Interesting to see how they handled Paul Walker's death in this movie.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Amusing pun, and satire of deflate-gate.

Inside Out (Puppy Bowl)
For this one, Pixar decided to advertise their next film during the Puppy Bowl instead.  Nothing here that particularly grabbed my attention, but it's Pixar, so it will probably still be good.

Jurassic World
In this movie, Jurassic Park was opened to the general public. Does anybody reading this think that this could possibly end well? This one had some great footage. However, I am also concerned about some aspects of it. For example, near the end, it looks as if Chris Pratt is leading raptors to fight the genetically modified dinosaur. And that's f**king stupid. Although to be fair I'm still not sure if that's what's going on yet.

Kingsman: The Secret Service
Could be good. Evidently, at least some critics liked it,

Minions
Despicable Me spinoff. Commercial was all right I guess.

Pitch Perfect 2
Never saw the first one. This looks like it could be funny.

Seventh Son
Never heard much about this movie before, and it's apparently coming to theaters this Friday. Nothing great here, but nothing terrible either.

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
 I'm a big fan of Spongebob Squarepants. I grew up with the show, and it still hasn't lost its charm. With that being said, I don't know how to react to this movie. I'm not sure if I like a live action version of it; it kind of reminds me of the Smurfs movie. The previews also don't look very good. I'm probably going to see it anyway, if only out of curiousity or to write a review of it online. Besides, it's probably the same writers. How bad could it be? (I hope)

Ted 2
Interesting how they got a Super Bowl commercial with Tom Brady at the same time he was in the Super Bowl. Makes me wonder if this scene was in the movie or shot just for the game. Anyway, the comercial was funny. Kind of racy for a commercial.

Terminator: Genisys
 Commercial looks okay. Still somewhat skeptical about the movie though. The trailer made it look kind of confusing, but at least Arnold's back. Just let this at least not be another PG-13 rated film.

Tommorrowland
 A movie based on a portion of Disneyland? Well, at least it has a good director (Brad Bird, who did some of Pixar's best). I still don't know anything about what this movie's about, but maybe that's a good thing, I don't want the advertising to give away too much (cough The Amazing Spider-man 2 cough). Overall, this looks good, but I'm still not particularly interested in it over a lot of other movies this year.

And those are my thoughts on the Super Bowl trailers for 2015.

I think that my favorite of these was the Jurassic World commercial, despite my skepticism of how they were treating the raptors. Overall, most of these commercials were at least adequate, and for the most part I am looking forward to another year of movies.