79% on Rotten Tomatoes
The Theory of Everything follows the life of Stephen Hawking, including his relationship with Jane Hawking and the progression of the ALS disease on his body.
Can I just say that I love Eddie Redmayne, and have loved him ever since Les Mis. But his performance in this film is just phenomenal. He is such a great actor, and I was really excited for him winning the academy award for Best Actor for this performance.
In fact it was so good that Stephen Hawking apparently "said there were certain points when he thought he was watching himself."
The crazy thing was that in an interview, Eddie Redmayne actually said that because they filmed it out of chronological order, he had to chart out a timeline of the progression of ALS so that he could accurately portray him. I just find that so amazing. He actually did such a great performance with the way he spoke, the way he moved and even his facial expressions; they were so spot on.
Felicity Jones was also great in this. Man, she's so pretty. I could look at her face all day.
Professor Lupin was also in it, and he looks and sounds like he just came straight out of Harry Potter to do this film. Legit it appears he has almost no versatility.
As to the actual content of the film, it follows Stephen's life pretty accurately, as Hawking himself even said this film was "broadly true". He actually watched the film when it was only just finished, then agreed to lend the rights to his voice for the film to use.
In fact here's a good site on what's true/not true. Yes, you can tell it's important to me after my last blog post.
As a result, it was actually quite an emotional film. I was crying so much throughout the film. Just seeing the difficulties he had with his disease, as well as the toll it took on Jane's life was too much for me. And while the ending wasn't a sad one (he's still alive), it was really emotional.
The only thing that bothered some people is the fact that this film doesn't focus on the science part too much. They have a bit of basic dumbed down physics for us, but it doesn't really focus on his scientific achievements as much as it does on his relationship with Jane. I wasn't disappointed because I didn't expect it to do so, but some people were expecting it.
So in the end, I think this film is great, and I would recommend it if you think you are interested. But if you want a movie with a lot of scientific discoveries and epiphanies, this is not your film.
72% on Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the true story of Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in the U.S. military history, this movie focuses on his marriage with Taya Kyle, and the struggles he has in balancing this with his deployment to Iraq following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
I wouldn't say I was super keen for this movie, but I was definitely interested after that first trailer that I saw.
Unfortunately, the movie was quite a disappointment for me.
Firstly, it was extremely difficult to understand what everyone was saying, and thus it was hard to follow on with the conversation, especially when it came to major plot points or tactics during the military scenes.
Secondly, the film is quite repetitive. After meeting his soon-to-be wife, the film becomes a cycle of Chris going to the army, being a legend of a sniper, coming back and having problems adjusting to his home and family, then going back to the army, to reinforce his legendary sniper status, to coming back home, have more problems, and so on. Because of that, it dragged on for quite a bit and I felt it was really boring, so I almost fell asleep. Of course some scenes were good, but I think they could have done a better job with the plot and giving us a bit more during the military scenes, as they weren't too engaging.
That being said, Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller were pretty great here. You could see how much Bradley committed to his role, but, once again, he committed too strongly to that accent and so I had no idea what he was saying. Sienna was also much better here than when she was in GI Joe, but I still cannot recognise her. She looks completely different each time I see her. In GI Joe when she was brunette she looked like a different person to when she was blonde. And here some scenes she even looks different to the previous scene, and as a brunette she looks completely different to her blonde self in Foxcatcher.
Anyway, before I wrap this up I'm just going to talk about the ending for a bit.
~SPOILERS!~
Anyway, overall, I wouldn't really recommend this film.
92% on Rotten Tomatoes
Okay I completely forgot I needed to review this, but here goes (and here's a disclaimer: this is going to be very short).
Honestly, I can't really remember much but it's obviously a sequel to the first How to Train Your Dragon. We see Hiccup here, taller, older, and more handsome (but I still like young Hiccup better), and we see the island of Berk teeming with pet dragons.
I've forgotten most of the plot, but we have a glimpse into what Hiccup's mother was like before she was swept away from Berk by a dragon when Hiccup was only a mere baby. We also get to look at some amazing new dragons unseen in the first film.
I don't think this can compare to the first How to Train Your Dragon at all. It was my favourite and I watched it like 5 times in just two or three weeks.
However, in saying that, I loved the additional dragons, I loved that end battle in trying to overcome the Alpha dragon, and overcoming the hypnotic thing that occurs with Toothless.
It was still a good film, and if you loved How to Train Your Dragon there's no reason not to see this.
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