Terrible Plan! Movie Reviews

What I liked: This is really good for a third installment of a film that was planned as a stand alone. The first one was surprisingly funny; this one was much the same: surprising. I was impressed that they were still able to make me laugh. I was impressed that after making a cuddly panda the most powerful kungfu fighter in the animal world in the first movie, and the second, they were able to not only come up with increasingly strong villains to challenge the panda but also that they were able to have somewhere for the panda to grow as a character. There was some cool animation especially with some parts at the end with drawing with light. And the baby pandas are really cute. I liked the portion of Po trying to teach the Kung Fu class. I'm not sure that the panda army would be nearly as effective as the movie portrayed. Sometimes being you just  isn't  as good as being a ninja assassin, or Batman. But the only kids movie the would say that is one from Pixar so we can live wit...

What I liked: You might remember that one of my major problems with the last Avengers movie was that it wasn't funny. They tried to be funny and it didn't work. This time the funny is back. I laughed at the heroes, at their interactions. So well done, writing team. I really liked Spiderman. That's a sentence I never thought I would write. Spiderman was to Avengers 3 what Quicksilver was to X-Men 2: unexpectedly fun. One thing that helped Spiderman be successful in this movie was that since he was surrounded by grown-up heroes he was free to be a geeky teenager, something that is hard to do when you are the serious good guy in the film. I liked the characters who were carelessly introduced in the last Avengers film, they were coming into their own and seemed much more normal, you know in a flying, phasing, reality altering way. There were only two that I had to ask the person next to me who they were. They didn't know either (the person was clear on their own identity ...

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 t...

     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 cha...

     What I liked: I liked the lady on the code cracking team. She was fun and spunky. I think Cumberbatch did a good job portraying Turing with all his really odd personality traits. Actually, I think the whole core cast did a very good job being believable little dweebs completely convinced of their own brilliance and dedicated to proving it. I laughed several times at the exchanges that he had with other people in the film. I liked the behemoth of the thinking machine. I liked the clips from famous speeches inserted into the film. Maybe it is because I visited the Churchill museum this year but I thought it was cool to hear from the good old prime minister. I liked the director of MI6; he wasn’t M but still fairly acceptable. “You are suggesting conspiracy at the highest levels of government!... sounds like exactly my kind of thing.” I liked the bonfire. I did some fact checking on the movie and actually most of it was exceptionally sound. I actually discovered...

What I liked: This was a good movie. I thought that they did a good job capturing the feeling of the beginning of the Cold War. I wasn’t actually around during the Cold War so I might not be qualified to comment on that but there was the sense of intense patriotism on both sides and the start of East Germany trying to become a real power. They also had the construction of the Berlin Wall. I thought that they did a good job of portraying the confusion that instilled. I liked the main character. He was a stubborn persistent lawyer. The whole first part of the movie reminded me about John Adams defending the British soldiers from the Boston Massacre. The overwhelmingly positive message from the film was the positive effect that one principled person can have on history. I also liked that for the most part they movie focused on the history. Yes, I’m sure that there was fabrication and Hollywoodization but it didn’t feel as fictionalized as some of the films that are “inspired by real ...