Terrible Plan! Movie Reviews

What I liked: The Matrix was the movie during middle school. It’s pervasive influence has persisted ever since: you know we all took matrix pictures on the ironing boards in the MTC. Now that I’ve seen it I suddenly recognize many many more references to this film than I ever realized and I get them all. Not only that but this was the landmark film with the what is reality premise; Inception, Source Code, Minority Report, and Tron, all children of the Matrix. Matrix was also revolutionary in special effects and the dystopia which had been roughly the same since Planet of the Apes (given the current glut of dystopian films and fiction I don’t know if I actually appreciate this). I mention all of this because I have seen so many movies influenced by the Matrix that seeing their inspiration was pretty cool. For being almost 20 years old, the Matrix is a really good movie. The premise is cool, it would probably have been cooler if I didn’t already know from 20 years of spoilers what h

   What I liked: The scenery as always is stunning. I would like to visit these places. It was nice for people in a kung fu movie to have a happy ending. Don’t worry many of them still died but I think that it’s nice the characters have some hope of surviving and finding fulfillment instead of being resigned to a miserable death or miserable life. While a staple of all kung fu movies, I always like it when they fly. Some of the jokes were funny. I laughed quite a few times actually and probably about half of them were in places the filmmakers intended. Overall, I think the moral may have been don’t be a mercenary, but I could be wrong.      What I didn’t: If you are expecting more of the same of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, that is not what you will get. I don’t know if that is good or bad for you but it is worth knowing. The fight scenes are less intricate, there are no subtitles and no chinese, the mood is less brooding, and the plot, well actually this is about as convoluted at

     What I liked: I liked the rolly polly backpacks. I don’t really know that they had a purpose or would have been very good at whatever that purpose was, but they looked pretty cool. I liked the tiger lady’s afro. I liked that the main characters thought that effective disguises would be wearing cloaks with hoods. I mean can’t you even try the token haircut that all spies do? I like that despite the full blown war, oil spill, zombie apocalypse, lasers, and localized earthquake the subway system still seems to run with remarkable punctuality. I did really like that no one was fooled by Catnis’ terrible lying. “I have to tell you that I lied” “Yes we all know and have known the entire time” “really? I thought I was convincing.” “No, no you were not” I liked that some of the people that I was watching with were fooled by Catnis and the evil plots. Clearly they don’t watch enough spy movies.       What I didn’t:  Before I get into the characters, plot, etc. a note on the filmi