Movie Review: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Release date: November 18th, 2011

Rated: PG-13

Directed by Bill Condon

Written by Melissa Rosenberg and Stephenie Meyer

Studio: Summit Entertainment

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), plus those they love, must deal with the chain of consequences brought on by a marriage, honeymoon, and the tumultuous birth of a child...which brings an unforeseen and shocking development for Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). -- (C) Summit Entertainment

Review:

I'm going to start off by saying that Breaking Dawn was by far my favorite Twilight film.  I consider myself a Twilight fan, but I'm not really a fan of the books themselves.  I'd much rather be reading well-written fanfiction about the wolves.  As far as the movies go, I've enjoyed them.  They weren't the absolute best movies, but they were entertaining.  Breaking Dawn blew me away though.  I thought it was the best shot Twilight film so far, and I'm sure Part 2 will be the same as it has the same director.

One thing that really surprised me about this movie is that I had a huge smile on my face for at least the first half hour because of how cute it was.  I don't like Edward and Bella much.  I've never really cared about them a whole lot.  Sure, I want them together, but there's so much about them as a couple that annoys me.  It bugs me how unhealthy their relationship is.  But I has a huge smile on my face during the wedding and most of the honeymoon.  I kept thinking about how adorable they were together.  That didn't happen for me in the books.

One of my favorite parts of the movie was getting to see more of the wolves.  They are by far my favorite characters.  I love getting to see more of them.  My friend Haley and I got excited everytime Seth showed up.  (I love him.)  I also loved seeing Jacob, Leah, and Seth as a pack, since their three of my favorite characters, and I love how they interact with each other.  The scene where all the unimprinted wolves (the previous three I mentioned plus Embry) were talking about imprinting was great, and I'm not just saying that because it involves my top four favorite characters.

I got way too excited at the end of the paper.  From the moment I knew Bella was about to go into labor until the end of the movie I was on the edge of my seat.  From the moment Edward tries to hand off Nessie to Jacob and he won't take her I was sitting in my seat whispering, "Oh my God.  He's going to imprint."  You can ask Haley because I'm sure she heard me.  Since it was done differently than in the books, I got a little mad when Jacob went outside instead of imprinting.  That scene was so perfect though that I got over it quickly.  Even if I was slightly worried for a minute that he wasn't going to imprint...

I'm still not sure how I feel about the "fight" scene between Sam's pack and everyone else.  I think it was well done, but I also don't think it was entirely necessary.  It did kind of let us see their reactions to Jacob's imprint though, which I guess is a plus.  And of course the fighting looked really cool.  I think it was done better than the battle in Eclipse.

The only absolutely negative thing I have to say about the movie was the wolves' voices when they were phased.  What was with that?  Having CGI wolves talking through voice-overs is going to be a little cheesy anyway.  Did they have to make it worse by adding weird effects to their voices.  Most of the time I could barely understand what they were saying, and even though I can tell most of the wolves apart (way too obsessed...), it was harder to distinguish between their voices, which would make it harder for people to follow who's who.  I think they should have just used their voices without any effects at all.  It would have worked a lot better.

I never get fangirly over Twilight unless it involves the wolves, and even then, I'm not usually this bad.  I loved Breaking Dawn though.  In addition to showing more of the wolves than I think any of the previous films have, it was also shot really well, and I think everyone who worked on it did a great job.  It's definitely my favorite Twilight movie.

I'm editing this to add a couple of things I forgot to mention.  The way they made Bella look like she was dying was amazing.  It was almost hard to watch because she really did look almost dead.  It was also really cool when they showed her turning into a vampire.  I thought that was neat.  The whole labor scene was shot really well too.  As someone who's extremely squeamish around blood, I didn't have an extremely hard time watching it, which was nice.  Hopefully I've got everything now and won't need to come back and add on to this again!

After the DVD came out, I made a post about the special features.  You can read that here.

DVD Review: The Young Victoria

Rating:  PG

Running time:  1 hour 40 minutes

Release date:  April 20th, 2010

Distributor:  Apparition

Directed by:  Jean-Marc Vallee

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

A dramatization of the turbulent first years of Queen Victoria's rule, and her enduring romance with Prince Albert.

Review:

I love both history and romance, so I was really looking forward to seeing this movie.  It didn't dissapoint.  I loved it.

It's rated PG, but young children would probably be bored by the movie.  They'd also probably be kind of confused for most of it.  My sister's fifteen, and I had to explain some things about British history and such as we were watching the movie because she didn't get it.  If you're not a history fan, this probably isn't the movie for you, but if you enjoy history (and romance) then I definitely recommend watching it.  it was a wonderful movie.

Special features:

Deleted and Extended Scenes:  I loved watching these, but one thing bothered me.  They were kind of out of chronological story, so for every scene, I had to try and figure out where it would have been in the movie.

The Real Queen Victoria Featurette:  I loved this.  I always like learning new things about history, and Queen Victoria was someone I didn't know much about before this movie.  I learned some interesting things.

Making of the Young Victoria:  I always like seeing how movies are made, so I really enjoyed watching this.

Lavish History:  A Look at Costumes and Locations:  This was also interesting.  Again, I'm always interested in learning how films are made, and this talked about some jobs in film making that I think are often overlooked by the general public.

The Coronation Featurette:  I also enjoyed this.  It's more about filming the coronation scene than about the actual coronation of Queen Victoria.  It was very interesting.

The Wedding Featurette:  This was a lot like the coronation one and was also very interesting.

DVD Review: The Last Airbender

Rating: PG

Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes

Release date:  November 16th, 2010

Distributor:  Paramount Pictures

Directed by: M. Night Shamalan

Written by:  M. Night Shamalan

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live-action feature film is set in a world where human civilization is divided into four nations: Water, Earth, Air and Fire.

Review:

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge fan of the Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series.  When I heard about it being made into a movie, I was excited but worried about how good it would be.  Before going to see the movie in theaters, I had extremely low expectations, and because of that, wasn't really dissapointed because I was expecting to hate it.

My biggest complaint about this movie is how they pronounce a bunch of names wrong.  It's not based on a book series where different people could read a name and pronounce it differently.  It's based on a TV series that clearly pronounces each name a certain way.  I don't know how you can mess that up, but somehow they managed to.  They even pronounced Avatar wrong.  It made me cringe throughout the whole movie.

Watching it for a second time, I noticed a few things I didn't notice when I watched it in theaters.  I actually like the movie a little more now.  Not that much more, but my hate has gone down a bit.  It could have been worse I guess.  I did think a few of the actors did a good job (I've been a Dev Patel fan ever since Slumdog Millionare.), but I think a lot of the characters could have been cast better.  For one thing, they could have been Asian.  I have an Asian friend who was extremely annoyed that so many white actors where cast when all of the cultures of the show are based on Asian cultures.

I did think the bending looked pretty cool although I didn't like the air bending too much.  I understand that they wanted the audience to see the air, but it just looked really fake to me.  I also thought Momo and Appa looked pretty cool.

One thing that only occured to me when watching it for a second time was the difference in the relationships between the characters.  I'm mainly talking about Katara and Aang (and Sokka and Aang too really).  In the show season one (which the movie is based on) covers several months, and by the end of the season, Katara and Sokka have become extremely close to Aang.  In the movie, it's implied that this movie has actually taken place over a whole year, but at the end of the movie it still feels like Aang has just met Katara and Sokka.  They get along and have become friends, but they don't really seem that close.  I guess the actors just didn't have good chemistry or something.

(This is the first time I've ever really ranted about everything I think is wrong with the movie other than a video I filmed right after seeing it the first time, but I missed a lot then.  I left out a few minor complaints in here, but I think I mentioned all of the major ones I had.  It actually feels pretty good.)

Special features:

Origins of the Avatar:  I think this was a nice interview with Mike and Bryan (the creators of the awesome show) for people who aren't Avatar fans, but many fans will already know everything they talk about.

Deleted scenes:  I always enjoy watching deleted scenes.  I can see why all of these were cut from the film, but I enjoyed watching them.

Outtakes:  I was greatly amused by the outtakes.  Most of it was pretty funny.  I noticed that a lot of people on the set liked to randomly start dancing, and everyone seemed to fall down a lot.

I kind of wish that I could have gotten the combined Blue-Ray/DVD, so I could have the extra special features (I love special features), but we don't own a Blue-Ray player.  Oh well, I didn't like the movie much anyway, and I don't care to buy a BLue-Ray player just so I can see some special features.

Movie Review: Despicable Me

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

"In a happy suburban neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences with flowering rose bushes, sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, hidden beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by a small army of minions, we discover Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), planning the biggest heist in the history of the world. He is going to steal the moon (Yes, the moon!) in Universal's new 3-D CGI feature, Despicable Me. Gru delights in all things wicked. Armed with his arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, he vanquishes all who stand in his way. Until the day he encounters the immense will of three little orphaned girls who look at him and see something that no one else has ever seen: a potential Dad.The world's greatest villain has just met his greatest challenge: three little girls named Margo, Edith and Agnes."

My review:

Before watching this movie the only thing I really knew about it was that it was about some villian that hate cute, little minions.  That was all I could remember seeing in the previews, so I had no idea what the plot even was.  This really had nothing to do with the movie itself though.

I thought the movie was adorable.  The minions are cute and hilarious, and I love Margo, Edith, and Agnes.  The whole story was really sweet, and there were a lot of hilarious moments in the movie.  I really enjoyed it.

Movie Review: Letters to Juliet

Synopsis:

"When a young American travels to the city of Verona, home of the star-crossed lover Juliet Capulet of Romeo and Juliet fame, she joins a group of volunteers who respond to letters to Juliet seeking advice about love. After answering one letter dated 1951, she inspires its author to travel to Italy in search of her long-lost love and sets off a chain of events that will bring a love into both their lives unlike anything they ever imagined."

Review:

I thought this was a really cute movie.  If you're into chick flicks than I think you'd like this.

I mean, it has a very predictable plot, but so does pretty much every romance movie ever made.  I loved the characters though.  Except Victor, I didn't like him so much.

This film made me want to go to Italy even more or anywhere in Europe really.  I think it would be kind of cool to write a letter to Juliet even though I don't really have anything to write about.  Plus, I'm not a huge fan of Romeo and Juliet.  In fact, Juliet annoys me more than Bella Swan does when it comes to romantic situations, and that's saying something.

Anyway, I really liked this movie and would definitely recommend it to any girls that enjoy romance even if it is extremely predictable.

Movie Review: Inception

Synopsis:

"In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one's mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset."

Review:

Let me just start off by saying that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of my absolute favorite actors of all time.  I'd probably watch anything if he was in it.

You should probably also know that I have trouble paying attention to movies when I watch them at home.  I get too distracted by other things.  So, at the beginning of the movie I was paying extremely close attention.  By the end though, I was paying really close attention.

I really enjoyed the movie although I was a bit confused.  My sister tells me this was because I wasn't paying close attention, and I'm sure she's right (which doesn't happen often).  I still enjoyed it though and was able to make sense of most of it.  I'll probably watch it again in the future and try to understand it better.

I'd definitely recommend watching it if you haven't.