I Had Almost Forgotten The First One..."The Huntsman: Winter's War"

The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016)

Rated PG-13

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt, Nick Frost,

Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

The Story:

A sequel and a prequel, all in one. This tells the story of Eric (Hemsworth) growing up under the "care" of Queen Freya (Blunt). His affection towards Sara (Chastain) caused him to be removed from the kingdom, and you know what happened next if you saw Snow White & the Huntsman. The rest of the movie shows Eric on the search for the Magic Mirror before it can be used to bring Ravenna (Theron) back to life.

First, they did the best thing by not bringing Kristen Stewart back for the sequel.

She was my least favorite part of the original, and she is definitely not missed.

:)

The new additions to the cast are enjoyable, but it's almost like they couldn't decide if they wanted to tell a prequel or a sequel.

Splitting time between both gives you enough storyline bouncing back and forth to make for one movie, but it seems a little less coherent that way.

At times there was almost too much plot going on with attempted plot twists and turns seemingly around every corner.

The cast is game though, and the movie looks great.

But at the end of the day, it's just an average movie, and doesn't inspire any reason to rush out to see it.

Final Grade: C

Super Secret Sleeper Agent! "American Ultra"

American Ultra (2015)

Rated R

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton, Topher Grace, John Leguizamo, Walton Goggins, Bill Pullman

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh

The Story:

Mike (Eisenberg) is a stoner who works a dead-end job at the local convenience store while drawing his graphic novel about an ape with super-powers. His girlfriend, Phoebe (Stewart) seems to love him a great deal, but he fears he's going to lose her because he can't seem to get past the phobia of leaving their dreary little existence. Then one fateful evening, a woman (Britton) says some words to him and it unlocks memories and skills that transform Mike into the ultimate secret sleeper agent killer for the CIA. These skills might just help him survive an assassination attempt by the CIA to get rid of him once and for all.

So, watching this movie and it all seemed vaguely familiar. Then I put my finger on it, this is pretty much the tv show, Chuck.

Fair enough. I enjoyed that show.

Sleeper agent assassin who is an amazing killing machine. That they put him into the body of Jesse Eisenberg makes the situation more ironic.

However, it's a pretty fun movie.

Although, if you cannot stand Eisenberg (you know who you are) this movie would probably grate on you for the entire duration. It's also a nice chance to see Stewart doing something other than moping around and longing for vampires.

Topher Grace is hilariously evil as the CIA operative who demands Mike's death, and sends scores of agents into this town to kill him. All that was missing was the twirling of a villainous moustache.

A very fun script by Max Landis and great direction by Nima Nourizadeh makes this one a much more enjoyable experience than Nima's last effort, Project X,  had been.

Overall a pretty fun viewing experience and with a few tweaks (possibly including recasting Eisenberg and Stewart who have little chemistry together) this could have been even better.

Final Grade: B-

Twilight's Humble Beginnings.... "Catch That Kid"

Catch That Kid (2004)
Rated PG For Language

Starring Kristen Stewart, Corbin Bleu, Max Thieriot, Jennifer Beals

Directed by Bart Freundlich

Maddy (Stewart) loves to climb, just like her dad.  She's out climbing buildings, towers, whatever she can find.  However, her dad suffered an injury climbing Everest, and only a very expensive experimental surgery could save him.  Maddy figures she will enlist her two best buds (Bleu & Thieriot) and they will rob the bank where Maddy's mom (Beals) works installing a new security system.  They're only going to take enough to cover the operation, and Maddy swears she'll pay it back.

Still a better love story than Twilight.

Sorry, you knew it was coming.

So, looking over Stewart's credits, and this was one of her first roles for the girl that would grow up to drive all the vampires and werewolves batty.

Meh, I still don't see it.

But here, she's still just a kid, and the boys are enamored by her.

The boys, well Bleu grew up to move to High School Musical, and this was Thieriot's first movie, and he's gone on to many other films as well.

So not bad for the cast, all three have grown up to stay in the spotlight and they haven't lost their minds.

Yet.

Someday I Will Be Followed By The Supernatural!

The movie itself is cute enough, and employs a fun way to rob the bank that works to make an exciting final act to the film.

We had seen it once back in 2004, and I remembered that everyone had enjoyed it.

Picked it up from Blockbuster's going out of business sale and we gave it a spin.

Eh.

A decade later... while it was okay, it wasn't nearly as good as any of us had remembered.

No harm no foul though.

Final Grade: C+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Well, I own it.  Time to put it in the vault, and we'll crack it open for the 20th anniversary. :)

Get Ready to Twi Hard! "Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2"

The thrilling conclusion to the eleventeen part movie trilogy...


The Story:

Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now a vampire, married to her man Edward (Robert Pattinson).  Their baby is growing up...fast!  And this threat is going to bring a war to end all wars between every vampire ever seen on the screen, and a whole bunch of newbies created just for this film.  Oh, and there's werewolves too (Taylor Lautner)!

Yes, I've seen them all.

No, I'm not a delusional teenage girl.

Nor did my delusional teenage girls even remotely make me get this series.

What had happened was....

The first Twilight movie came out, what seems like a lifetime ago...  It was nifty enough, not a total waste of time...

So I've watched the whole thing, and now that it's over...

It is over, right?

I shrug my shoulders and think "it could have been worse".

So it's not bad... it's not a train wreck.  The three leads have the charisma of a wet paper bag, so I've gone with the fact that they are actually surrounded by interesting side characters.  The Cullen family and Bella's dad are great throughout the film series.

The introduction of a whole lot of vampires in this film was actually interesting, and I wouldn't mind seeing more of them.  Retroactive history, I would have preferred to watch several movies starring those characters instead. :) 

Otherwise, this one brought the series to a close relatively nicely.

It was marred by some creepy CGI-ing a face onto a baby and kid though.  Ick...

And I have to admit, the 'final battle' got me.  That's how little I pay attention to the film, I fell for that trick!

I'll give the saga as a whole, a C+ for execution.

This installment, a solid C, a big improvement over Part 1 which was a 2 hour placeholder.

Would I Own/Rewatch:  No, I received enough grief for subjecting everyone to it once already. : )
throughout the film.  Disturbing to say the least.

Evil Never Looked So Good..."Snow White and the Huntsman"

Mirror Mirror on the wall...

Okay, let's take a look today at a slightly different version of the Snow White legend...

The story:

Snow White.
Wicked Queen.

So far so good...Huntsman doesn't kill her...got it...instead he helps her, teaches her to fight, and together they try and escape the queen's clutches and bring about her downfall.  Sprinkle in 8 Dwarves, and the rest is history...

Interesting.

So, remember when I said I wasn't able to get into Mirror Mirror?  Yeah, the "other" Snow White picture of the year.

This one, I had no problem with.  It was actually fairly entertaining.

Though I must confess, I did mock the film a few times for lifting scenes (or at least ideas) directly from other films.  

My favorite was when the Queen is interrogating a would-be assassin, and I started chanting "Mola Ram"...

But yes, The Mummy, Jurassic Park and a few other famous lifts were had.

However, it was still an enjoyable journey, provided you can, with a straight face honestly say that:

Kristen Stewart is more beautiful than Charlize Theron.

THAT is the biggest, and most difficult leap of faith the movie asks you to make.

Even at her worst, I'm not buying it, and think the Magic Mirror was slightly broken.

The dwarves are played by non-dwarves, which probably is against union rules, but Hollywood apparently only casts little people as Munchkins, all other fairytale creatures under 4 feet tall will be outsourced to tall actors.

Naturally, Hemsworth is awesome as an underpowered Thor.  The guy is on the verge of being typecast as a brawling action hero.

I am fine with that.

: )

Plus the film leaves you wondering who really was Prince Charming?

Okay, at least who would live happily ever after with Snow White?