THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE

 

 

As many of my friends know, i am a HUGE Jim Carrey fan and also am a fan of Steve Carell with my favourite Carrey film being Ace Ventura : Pet Detective closely followed by Liar Liar. Whilst my favourite Steve Carell film is The 40 Year Old Virgin closely followed by his hilarious performance as Brick Tamland in Anchorman. However, this film is nowhere near the quality of any of those mentioned films and in my opinion is a colossal failure, but i will explain why i feel this way. The plot is very simple, you have your two friends Burt Wonderstone {Carell} and Anton Marvelton {Steve Bushemi}, 2 school friends who when a very young Burt gets a magic set for his birthday and after impressing Anton with his skills, form a partnership to one day become huge stars in the magic industry. Many years pass and they do just that, they make it huge in the famous Las Vegas strip, perfoming every night for years to packed out theatres and amaze thousand with their routines along with their assistant Jane {Olivia Wilde} and things couldn't go any better. After a while though, people start losing interest in their routines and slowly the numbers diminish, couple that with Wonderstones lack of enthusiasm and out of control ego, their show loses its spark as the crowd want something more daring and "in your face". Whilst walkiing along the strip after a nights performance they see a large crowd gathered around a street magician name Steve Gray {Jim Carrey} who is exactly what the people want, he's more of a David Blaine, Cris Angel kind of magician than the traditional performers like Wonderstone & Marvelton. After Gray wows the crowd with a funny "card trick" the two realise they have competition as Gray is soon hailed as the future of magic.The rest of the film is a battle for the top spot between Wonderstone & Marvelton against Gray and try to out do each other. I won't go any further into the plot as i don't want to spoil anything for people who are interested in going to see this but quite honestly i don't think there will be alot of eager people going to see this one, its awful and i'm disappointed to say that guys but it is. Steve Carells character comes across as a total egomaniac, which for the most part of the movie is meant to be that way, but when he has his moment where he realises that he has to see the error of his ways {which seems to happen alot in movies these days} and that only happens when Burt and Antons friendship becomes immensely strained, i didn't care by that point and it felt forced to me personally. In my honest opinion, this film is only tolerable when Jim Carrey is on screen, and he is only a side character in all fairness and even some of his parts got old very quickly. There are a couple of good cameos in this film though and you may enjoy that. This supposed "comedy" is far from one, the jokes seem to fall flat near enough every time and even with the talent they have in this film they were given a script that is not worthy of their humour. I have to say this is one of the most disappointing comedies ive seen in a long time and cannot see this being a box office success as it's just not funny in my opinion. I would only recommend this if you are a die hard Jim Carrey fan and even then i don't think you would get your moneys worth. In the cinema where i went to see the film, there was only 7 of us in there, and with 30 minutes to go, i was the only one left watching it! Maybe they had more sense than me on this occasion.

 

 

Rating - 3/10

 

 

Positives - Jim Carrey, Steve Bushemi, 2 short but sweet cameos

 

Negatives - Jokes fell flat, Steve Carells character was too annoying, simply was not funny

 

 

Thanks again guys for reading this review, please check out my other reviews and hopefully you enjoy them aswell as this one and i will upload a new review very soon :}



DJANGO UNCHAINED

I know this film has recently finished its cinema run,but i love this film so much that i will be pre ordering this and cannot wait to have this in my dvd colection! Now i will confess, ive not seen alot of Quentin Tarrantino's work {I know i must have been living under a rock} apart from the fantastic Pulp Fiction so i'm not as big a fan of him as alot of people seem to be. However once i saw the trailer for this film i was immediately impressed and wanted to see what it had in store for me. Wow, this film is brilliant! Again, i will not spoil the film for you incase you havent seen it and want to buy the dvd and go into it blind folded, in brief though, the films main stars are Christoph Waltz as Dr King Schultz , Jamie Foxx as Django, Samuel L Jackson as Stephen, Kerry Washington as Djangos wife Broomhilda Von Shaft and in my opinion THE star of the entire film, Leonardo Di Caprio as Calvin Candie. The film is a western and as i've never watched a western i went into this not expecting anything too spectacular and with a runtime of 3 and a half hours, i did hope it wasn't going to be a disappointment. The film starts with a group of black slaves { the film being set in 1858} being transported after being bought by The Speck Brothers {Ace and Dicky}. Amongst these slaves is our hero, Django. Along their journey they meet Dr King Shultz, a german doctor, and they are unaware he is a bounty hunter. After a bloody conforntation resulting in both Specks being killed, Shultz encounters Django, he asks if he knows of the Brittle Brothers, django says yes in which Schultz offers Django freedom in return for partnering with him to find and kill the Brittle Brothers. After agreeing, Dr Schultz rescues django and the other slaves and django and schultz ride off together in search of the bounty. This film has some amazing music and score, really setting the mood for the film and takes you right into the western themed world they have set. Django starts out as hate filled, but a mere novice in bounty hunting, but after collecting their first couple, he and schultz make a very formiddable team and theres a genuine bond there that shows their excellent chemistry on screen.

They discover later in the film, that Django's wife is being held captive at a plantation owned by Calvin Candie and this is where for me, the film shows how truely talented Di Caprio is. He has a certain air of confidence, whilst being genuinely evil and he plays the character up so much which makes you like him even though you should dispise him. You want Django to succeed but when Candie is being evil you tend to like him too in a strange way, obviously a compliment to how well acted his character is. Samuel L Jackson as Stephen is fantastic, he himself a slave to Candie but seems to have an air of self importance about him, like he's better than the other slaves and that does make for some comedic moments but in an instant he can go to being downright threatening showing how diverse he is as an actor. As many people who are fans of tarrantino's work come to expect certain aspects to his films, Lots of blood, over the top action sequences, and alot of foul language aswell as edgy language {the use of the N word in this particular film}, and all of those are in there, very much so! Some people may be upset with the amount of times the N word is used in the film but i didn't at any point feel it was too much or not needed and in my opinion is probably reminiscent of the language that was used at the time in history. I have not gone any further into the film because it is a 3 and a half hourt film and i couldnt possibly mention every part of this without spoiling it so i won't. There's even a couple of cameo appearances in this that will surprise you.

Simply put, this is a must see film. Its brilliantly acted, well shot, very stylistic and apart from 2 small moments where they use 2 Rap songs in a scene which took me out of the film a couple times, this is a fanstatic film which not only will please tarrantino fans, but fans of great films in general.

My rating - 9/10

Positives - Acting {Especially Leonardo Di Caprio and Christoph Waltz, funny in the right scenes, Musical Score.

Negatives - 2 out of places song choices in 2 scenes, a little too long {run time}, blood is too fake looking

Thanks again guys for checking out my review, i'm still in the early stages of learning to do blogs so bare with me if you can. Please feel free to comment and i will be doing another review very soon :}

MAMA

After seeing the trailer for Mama i was immediately intrigued into going to see this film. I'm a sucker for horror movies in general and after seeing creepy kids in the fantastic Sinister {I dont now why but creepy kids in horror films freak me out!} i couldn't wait to see it. It stars Jessica Chastain {Annabell} and Nikolaj Coster Waldau {Lucas} who play a couple who are desperately searching for Lucas' Nieces who were last seen with Lucas' brother, who after shooting dead his wife following a breakdown occuring during the 2008 financial crisis, takes his daughters hostage in his car. Following a crash, he takes his daughters into the woods where they discover a cabin. In order to take refuge, Lucas' brother takes the girls into the cabin, in a state of panic he attempts to shoot one of his daughters when something, or indeed someone, stops him in fatal fashion, this is where we meet "Mama" for the first time however not in full view which leaves the viewers imagination to wander what this thing looks like. 5 Years pass and whilst Lucas and Annabell continue, in vain, to search for the girls, the girls have been miraculously been surviving thanks to berries from "mama", by this time nearly all human traits of them have disappeared and now resemble animals, crawling around, lingering in the darkest corners of rooms and generally looking scary! The girls are eventually found and Lucas and Annabell get to see how animalistic they have become and Lucas decides he wants to take the children {Victoria,the eldest and Lily the youngest} into his home and try and provide them with a more "normal" life, which at first Annabell understandably doesnt seem too keen, but eventually agrees. However the gitls have not come alone, "Mama" comes along too and this is where i stop revealing the plot of the film as i dont want to ruin it for you. We do see a few jump scares at the beginning though i won't lie, but it soons stops and in all honesty the best actresses in the film were the kids! Jessica Chastains character at first comes across as a complete bitch. She's in a rock band and comes across as a hard nosed,with a i don't care attitude and initially doesnt warm to the kids, but after time and one specific heart warming scene she learns to love them. However, "Mama"'s jealousy shows and soon all hell breaks loose! There is some good special effects in this film and not alot of blood which is'nt essiential in a horror movie anyway but its a warning to you if you expect gore as there isnt any.There is A LOT of CGI in this film though i'm sorry to say and that takes away the scares from the film and just makes it look cool in parts as supposed to trying to be genuinely frightening. This is not your usual run of the mill horror film as {no spoilers} towards the end of the film it centres more on a fantasy element which makes me feel like the producers didn't know what film genre they wanted to hit. The children are genuinely creepy and Annabell and Lucas play a good part. There is some very impressive images in this film and whilst the ending was'nt to my particular taste, it does do something different and that can only be a compliment to the film. I'm sorry i cannot go any further into the plot without spoiling it and i do not want to do that so i would recommend seeing this film and judging it for yourself.

My Rating - 6/10

Positives - Special Effects, the child actors, Annabell and Lucas
Negatives - The ending, too much CGI, few jump scares at the start

Thanks for checking this review out guys and i will be back with another one very soon :}

Hi guys and welcome to my page! I'm danny and i created this as i am a movie fan and love to review films so what better way than to tae my passion online. I, like many of you, have seen alot of films, some good, some bad and some downright awful {Yes i'm talking to you "That's my boy"}so i wanted to give you guys my opinions and overall reviews of movies i go and see. My favourite genres are Horror,Comedy and Action. I try to give an objective review with no spoliers, and hopefully inject some humour into it too. My goal with every film i go to see {or watch on T.V} is to be entertained, simple as, of course sometimes that doesnt always work and that can be for many reasons. I however do not go into a film expecting too much or too little so my reviews can not be seen as judgemental, I hope you guys enjoy my content and feel free to comment below, thanks :}