Movie Reviews in Five Dotpoints of Less - Part III

Fight Club (1999)

8.9/10 on IMDb
79% on Rotten Tomatoes

It's been 16 years since this film came out, so firstly I don't need to say what the plot is, and secondly I have already long known what the plot twist was and never really could be bothered to watch this film (also because, ages ago, my family watched less than half of this film and my parents got annoyed at it and turned it off)

Maybe because I already knew how the movie was going to play out, or what the plot twist was going to be, but I didn't find this film as enjoyable as it has been hyped up to be

Of course, the acting is superb (and Brad Pitt is perfection here), the writing and dialogue is amazingly profound, and the twist is great; but I just felt like after the enjoyable first half of the film, it drags out quite a lot and it just feels SO LONG (I was really surprised it wasn't 3 hours long when I finished)

But, as I said, maybe this reaction is just because I knew what the twist was already (although, apparently the film itself didn't have a good response when it first came out), and unfortunately I can't erase my memory and rewatch it completely afresh

I did enjoy, though, all the hints and subliminal images (I spotted two!) that were planted throughout the film; it was clever


Cast Away (2000)

7.7/10 on IMDb
90% on Rotten Tomatoes

A classic that everyone should at least know about

Tom Hanks gets stranded on a deserted island and the only way he can get off is to reveal how amazing of an actor he is

A must watch

One word: WILSONNNNNN!!!


The Impossible (2012)

7.6/10 on IMDb
81% on Rotten Tomatoes

In December, 2004, a family of five were vacationing in Thailand when an enormous tsunami struck and separated them; this is the true story of their experiences of the infamous Boxing Day Tsunami

While the acting and the script is not the best, the worst is really at the beginning of the film, so if you just deal with the bad beginning, then the rest of the film is a lot better; once the tsunami hits, it's an intense physical, emotional and mental journey as the family struggles through the tsunami, the injuries, and the separation

Naomi Watts was actually pretty good in this film; when you see her scream, you can feel her pain; when you see her cry, you can feel her pain; she did a great job

There is one scene in the hospital towards the end that was EXTREMELY INTENSE and because of the suspenseful build-up, it was SO FRUSTRATING and I got SO ANNOYED AT IT! WHY DID THEY HAVE TO DO THAT TO MY NERVES, I SERIOUSLY HATED THAT SUSPENSE

Anyway, I would highly recommend this film; it's intense, it's scary, it's very very VERY real, and it matches almost perfectly to the true story of the family's survival of the terrible tsunami that we all heard about in 2004; it gives you a better understand of the scale of this event and just how horrible it would have been to go through this


The Ides of March (2011)

7.1/10 on IMDb
85% on Rotten Tomatoes

Apparently my Chinese name is a flower that grows in a muddy swamp but still remains beautiful and clean; it's meant to symbolise how I, despite growing in a tainted world, can remain pure and innocent

That is essentially the plot of this film, but extended towards politics, where Ryan Gosling is the young and pure campaign manager who does things only when he believes in them and who follows a candidate only when he believe he is the right candidate; but what happens when such a naively innocent person enters the corrupt world of politics?

I think this film is very good and I would definitely recommend it; but it doesn't really have that re-watchability characteristic

George Clooney's directing is great; it was intense, it was serious, it was entertaining, and it made me interested in politics - something I'm not really into... like, at all

Beware, the Ides of March... (And, because I can't help it: Et tu, Brute?)


A Dangerous Method (2011)

6.5/10 on IMDb
77% on Rotten Tomatoes

Keira Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, the mental patient that catalyses the relationship between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), and thus plays an important role in the development of analytical psychology and psychoanalysis

Fassbender, as usual, was great in this, and Mortensen was incredible in this - he completely disappeared into the role and there was no trace of Aragorn left whatsoever

The true star of the film, however, was Keira Knightley, whose portrayal of a mental patient with episodes of hysteria was so amazing (some may say it's over the top, but I think she did a good job; although granted I've never witnessed an episode of hysteria before)

The film is a great informative story on the development of psychoanalysis and psychology, but I think you need to be interested in or know a little bit about Freud and psychoanalysis to be able to appreciate it

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustle

So glad to finally catch a break from doing uni work, and even gladder to catch up on some 2014 movies I didn't get to see last year!

Predestination (2014)

7.4/10 on IMDb
84% on Rotten Tomatoes
I'm not going to say the plot of this, but all I need to say to you to sell you this movie is: time travel.

I seriously think this is one of THE BEST time travel films out there. The only thing standing in between this film and the #1 spot for the best time travel film I have seen, is Back to the Future. But in terms of serious time travel dramas, this is definitely the best.

Now I LOVE me some time travel. I've always loved the concept of time travel, and loved reading about all the different theories, paradoxes, and alternate timeline explanations for time travel stories. One of my favourite books is on time travel (The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - but for the love of God DON'T watch the film), and while X-Men: Days of Future Past was one of my favourite films last year, I guess you can't really label it a time travel film (it's more a superhero action film than true time travel).

This film though... it's amazing. It is the epitome of time travel and time travel paradoxes. The entire film is just one amazing adventure leading up to a huge mind blow.

Ethan Hawke is the main character and he does a great job in this, but Sarah Snook is the one that absolutely steals the spotlight. She is completely AMAZING in this, and I'm really excited to see her future performances.

The opening is quite interesting, because it introduces you to this world of time traveling, but some may think that the rest of the first act is quite boring. This was the part of the movie where I started to question myself like, "Is this film really about time travel?", and even my mum and brother asked me, "I thought you said this was a time travel film. Where's the time travel?"

Now, it definitely does take quite a bit of build up, but even though I was questioning where the time travel was, the first act was still very very interesting to me. There is hardly any action and it is more of a recount of events, but Sarah Snook's performance was so amazing that she alone holds your attention. Whilst this section of the film is the longest and has the least amount of time travel, I think story-wise it is the best part of the film because (and without saying too much for fear of spoilers), it really helps to establish the characters, establish the setting and establish the story.

The second and third act was when the mind blow started to happen, but the very end of the film was extremely weak. I know why they included it, because they needed a plot device to carry the film through, but it was just extremely weak and quite a bit of a cop out.

Nonetheless, this film is incredibly amazing, with a really really interesting storyline, a really great, pure and classic time travel paradox/theory/situation, and it is a MUST SEE! Everyone NEEDS to see this. It's no longer in cinemas, but it really doesn't matter. See it for the TIME TRAVEL! I guarantee you will enjoy it. Your mind will be blown. Your life will change. You will be a better person.


Nightcrawler (2014)

(I know, it's not in English, but I couldn't find another good poster that was in English)
7.9/10 on IMDb
95% on Rotten Tomatoes
No, this film has nothing to do with one of the coolest X-Men characters that ever existed (although how cool would that be!), but don't worry, it's still a good film!

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a thief who discovers the art of photography. Specifically, photographing and documenting vicious and gruesome crimes across the town so that he could sell his footage to the news channel with the biggest wallet. Over time, he picks up the skills to succeed in this trade, but as the world of media and sensational news gets more and more demanding, he soon blurs the line between being an observer of crime and being a participant of crime.

Jake Gyllenhaal here is amazing. He completely transformed himself; he lost A LOT of weight (through his own initiative), he completely changed his body and facial language, he rarely blinked, and he overall just became an extremely creepy shell of the actor we know and love.

I think this film introduces some really great conundrums that we face in this day and age, and it really makes you think. We are living in the information age; the digital era. At the click of a button, we can get information delivered to us the second it becomes known. With the internet, we are now more than ever connected to what is happening around us. As a result, the media competes for information like vultures competing for a carcass. The media may be cold hearted, but they are just doing what they can to earn money. The media may be feeding us with non-news such as the latest celebrity rumours or the latest fashion trends, but they are just playing to what society wants from them. And when it comes to serious crimes, the media knows how to target certain demographics. White people only tune in to news about white victims? Then who cares about vitims in minority groups! Our target population wants drama, blood, guts and gore? Then who cares about sensitive information! Who cares about informing the police when we can inform the public!

These are all very real and applicable issues being dealt with in the film. So much so that when the news about the Parramatta shooting occurred, I got a bit worried seeing video footage of the shooting from a nearby rooftop. After watching Nightcrawler, I'm a bit concerned that the person shooting that footage actually knew what was about to happen. And instead of stopping it, maybe they just decided to film it so they could cash it in to the news channel with the biggest offer (in this case, 7 News).

The film is really scary in this sense, because this stuff could actually happen in real life. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance also does not help in your feeling of unease, because even when he smiles he looks like a freak who could murder you.

I will say that the film was actually a bit slow, and there are quite a few scenes that drag on a bit, but it is still a good watch and you don't need to see this on the big screen or anything as there's no real need for great quality. But the idea and themes are really good and it is worth a watch for anyone who is interested but not too sure if they should watch it.

Help is Only 140 Million Miles Away

The Martian (2015)

8.5/10 on IMDb
94% on Rotten Tomatoes
Astronaut Mark Watney is left presumed dead on Mars after a storm forces his crew to leave the uninhabitable Red Planet. The only thing: he's not actually dead.

It takes four years for another manned mission to Mars to rescue him, so Watney needs to figure out a way to turn a space hub, designed to last the crew 30 days, into a sustainable home, lasting long enough for him to be rescued.

I was super super excited for this film. The premise is intriguing, the cast is amazing, and the science looked legitimate.

I was so grateful that this ended up being quite good! At last, Ridley Scott is back to form!

Seriously, I was quite worried for Ridley Scott.

"Drew Goddard, who wrote the screenplay for the film, was also at one point set to direct, but left that role to go direct the Sinister Six film. After that, Ridley Scott read the script and jumped into the project, rather than making a Prometheus sequel." -IMDb
Instead of a Prometheus sequel? Thank God!
There were some really great visual shots in the film, which really hammered in how lonely it was for Watney to try to live on an unlivable planet.

Matt Damon as Watney was also amazing. The film had an ensemble cast, but he really pulled the weight of the film. The rest of the cast didn't really need to be there as they didn't do much, but their performances were still great, so I guess you can't really fault it. I guess as well it might be reflective of the theme of the movie (great actors coming together for one film to reflect humanity coming together for one man)? Or that might be a bit of a stretch...

Watney's character is so great. I think it's really easy to have a full on drama when it comes to stories like these. A man is literally stranded on a planet where nothing grows; he is completely alone in unfamiliar territory. It's so easy to take the depression route and go with someone going completely insane and giving up, but Watney's character is so funny and optimistic even in this terrible situation. It's really refreshing.

And while doing this is really risky, I think the film had the perfect balance between humour and drama. The film knows how to make us laugh, but it also knows how to keep us on the edge of our seats.

When I saw the trailer, it looked quite serious, but YouTube commenters were saying that the book was quite funny (with a lot of it being just poop jokes apparently). I expected the film would be sort of funny as well to reflect the novel, but I was still so surprised at just how funny the film was, and how that didn't detract from the seriousness of the film.

There is some great science in the film as well. According to IMDb, NASA was actually consulted so that they would accurately portray space and space travel in the film. Because of this, the mission to Mars in the film actually reflects the missions that NASA is currently planning for the future, with the spacesuits and technology being based on fact, but only modified to "look cool" on screen. Another surprising thing is that apparently to portray NASA in the film, you need to fulfill certain requirements (such as taking the matter of space travel seriously and how NASA handles space issues), and to do this, the writers had to actually add 50 pages of the script to please NASA.

Neil Degrasse Tyson was even a part of this promotional video for The Martian back in August:


How amazing does that look!!!
So in the end, I think this was a great film about space travel, survival, and the human condition. It was a great watch in the cinemas, with some amazing visual imagery of the Martian terrain, and it had the perfect balance between humour and drama. I think this is a film that everyone would enjoy, from kids to adults, from space nerds to your average Joe. Obviously, understanding a bit more about space would help, but I think they did an okay job at explaining things (even though sometimes I was a bit confused).

A few side notes:

-IMDb says: The writer of the novel, Andy Weir, first published his book for free on his own site as a blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then people asked him to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did at the then min price of $0.99.
Man, what a good guy.

A few side notes that sort of contain ~SPOILERS~:

-My only concern as far as the SCIENCE went: are we seriously going to just take it for granted and assume that Mars' soil can SUPPORT LIFE?! Like he just grew potatoes using the Martian soil and didn't really explain whether or not all Martian soil could be used. I actually did my own research on this and apparently YES it IS possible, but maybe the film could have explained it to us a bit more, rather than assuming that we just assumed that Martian soil was life-supporting? After all, they did explain pretty much everything else to us...
-I thought he was going to be super method and actually lose the weight, but alas, it was CGI. I read that he actually did want to get rid of the weight himself, but Ridley Scott was just like naaah

And just for funsies: