Do you bleed? You will. (After watching this movie)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

7.8/10 on IMDb
31% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Low-energy entertainment
Watch it if you: Have friends over and need something playing for ambient music or maybe even to laugh at; Are drunk and/or high and just need something to satisfy your eyes; Really really REALLY want to see Batman fight Superman (even if it's only for 10 minutes in a 2.5 hour film)
This film follows the events of Man of Steel after the city-wide destruction caused by the Superman-Zod fight. In fact, at the start we see what Bruce Wayne was doing during this fight, so it was really interesting to see it from his perspective. Ben Affleck's great acting really helped this film. In fact, I will venture to say that the Batman/Bruce Wayne scenes were the only redeeming factors of the film.

Let's talk about Batman for a bit first.

As I said, Ben Affleck was a good Batman. I had my reservations, but he did a great job at it.

The actual character of Batman was a bit... unusual. He was very violent. A lot older than the typical Batman that we see, this Bruce Wayne isn't the fun, witty and playboy Bruce Wayne that we're used to. But that wasn't a big issue; it was handled quite well because at least the serious tone of this movie was well established.

My main concern with Batman is that it didn't even really seem like he cared much about morality. His one code is that he doesn't kill people, but suddenly he just wants to straight up kill Superman, and along the way just kills several people?

I don't really want to go into describing the plot of this film because it keeps changing, so I don't know if I will be spoiling something for you, so let's just move on to Superman.

Henry Cavill is an alright Superman. He's got the good looks and he's a good enough actor to portray him, but there's something about either his portrayal of Superman or maybe Zack Snyder's depiction of Superman that results in something being just a little off. There is not much character development for Superman, which is a shame because they raise some really interesting issues, such as, "Do we need a Superman?". There are a lot of really good discussions on this, and they do affect Superman and Lois Lane quite a lot, however we as an audience don't end up caring too much about how it affects them. When we see news about people hating on Superman, Henry Cavill's face is a bit sad, but nothing more. We get more emotion out of Lois Lane (who doesn't just look sad, she looks CONCERNED, heck, DEVASTATED even!), which is unsurprising since Amy Adams is such a great actress, but damn it we should be able to get emotion out of Superman!

The dialogue in this is also quite bad. It allows us to feel nothing, and it didn't allow us to respond in any way except maybe cringe or chuckle a bit. At one stage of the movie, a character was reading an email that was so stupidly written, I turned to Alice to chuckle about it... only to find Alice asleep! That was probably one of the best experiences of the movie... seeing Alice asleep.

But back to the dialogue. You can tell that there would be a moment where Superman's mum is trying to say something inspiring to him, but it doesn't really translate. Superman is trying to say something about saving people, but it doesn't really translate. These are moments where we are supposed to feel something from our hearts, but they don't make us feel anything. In the end I don't care for the characters, because nothing they have said or done has made me want to care for them. Even when Lex Luthor says something diabolical, it's like very low-level diabolicalness, so it doesn't even affect you; you don't feel scared, or worried, or concerned. At most, you are left confused, and a bit uncomfortable.

Which brings us to Lex Luthor.

My main concern with this film was that Jesse Eisenberg was cast as Lex Luthor. Once the casting announcements were up, all my hidden doubts about the film came to surface. I started imagining all kinds of weird, socially-awkward scenes with Jesse Eisenberg trying to portray a villain, and I was already very very fearful.

And you know what?

It's even worse in the film.

Yes, that's right. The scenes of Lex in the trailer are probably his best scenes.

I doubt that it was Jesse Eisenberg's idea to portray him like this; Zack Snyder probably had this portrayal in mind, seeing that they cast Jesse Eisenberg in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Einsenberg's acting, but he is fantastic as a socially awkward loner, not as a villainous... well, villain.

They kind of tried to make him like a weird Joker, or like a Jim Carrey-esque villain. It was pretty weird.

He went all out though, he had little twitches, he had weird high-pitched non-human voices, and it was just all very cringeworthy. Every single scene he was in removed about 1 year from my life span just from the stress of seeing him on the screen.

Next up, let's talk about Wonder Woman.

The actress was great, I mean she did a great job at portraying Wonder Woman. But was she necessary?

Nope. She didn't add much to the film except to set up the next film.

It was a pretty bad shoehorn, and even when they shoehorned her in, she still didn't do much. Which is a big statement to make since her appearance pretty much rendered Batman useless, left to sit in the corner behind a wall twiddling his thumbs and playing around with his gun if that helps to boost his ego.

Speaking of shoehorns, though, the universe building was really really lazy. Like really lazy. Like I can't even fathom how lazy it was. It doesn't really get you excited for the next film because it is so badly done.

You know what? Right now I'm just going to apologise for this shockingly put-together blog post. It's all over the place, my mind is running wild with ideas and criticisms, and there's not much of a logical flow in this review.

But you know what else? This is how the film is. There was too much going on.

With my main concern being Lex Luthor, my second concern was just how many characters and how many things were in this film. And once again, I was right. Just like this badly-written review, this film was a mess.

The first half of the film was actually somewhat interesting solely for the plot, as it focused on Batman and Superman emotionally, mentally and physically going up against each other. But during the second half, the already bad first half of the film got even worse as it looked like a 13 year old boy took over the controls once Wonder Woman was on screen. The Wonder Woman theme song that comes up tries to make it epic, but it's just so cringeworthy and annoying and overdone.

While there were some really good fight scenes (there is a good ole Batman rescue scene in there that was fantastic, and the actual Batman v Superman fight was pretty good too), most of them are made for the eyes and not for the brain. There was one car chase scene where there was just too much happening. Random obstacles would be popping out of other places and it all happened way too fast for me to understand any of it. Also, the very first Batman fight scene was terrible. I didn't know if it was just me, but I was looking at it and thinking, "Man, for a Batman fight scene, this is very VERY subpar." But it wasn't just me, because Alice turned to me and said, "This fight scene is so shit!"

Apart from that, there were too many plot elements. I already said I won't go too much in detail with this, but I mean if you really want to, just go ahead and watch the second trailer again, it pretty much told you the entire film. I'm not even exaggerating, that trailer gave you a summary of what you were going to see in the film. You know why? Because they COULDN'T DECIDE ON WHAT PLOT TO STICK WITH, so they just SHOWED YOU EVERYTHING!!! Just like them, I'm having trouble with telling you what the plot was because there was no single plot to cover all these small stories.

Now what about the music? Surely the music was at least alright?

The music was terrible.

Just completely terrible. None of it seemed to match the scene, and at one stage when Batman was entering the Batcave, there was this really epic drum-beating occurring, and Alice turned to me and asked, "What is it beating up to?" It turned out, it was beating up to nothing.

He entered the Batcave in like two seconds; they didn't even build up the suspense and awe, and in the end I didn't even care about it which is stupid because one should ALWAYS care about how Batman enters his cave.

In the end, this film is a complete mess. Some fight scenes are good, and some of the visual effects were done really well, but Zack Snyder has a real problem with actual PLOT and STORYTELLING. The film ended up being really long because it was trying to focus on way too many things, the dialogue was lazily written, the soundtrack did nothing to the film, and everything was just really lazy. It's not worth seeing it in the cinemas, and it's probably only worth it if you've got friends over for some drinks and want something on the telly to laugh at and be rowdy about.

A few side notes:

Do we really need another Batman flashback?

There are a lot of dream sequences in this film, so Zack Snyder was either trying to channel Christopher Nolan's Inception, or he was just channeling his work from Suckerpunch. Either way, I was not a fan

Martha? Really?! That was just stupid. The second he said, "Martha" I knew something stupid was up.

If you have doubt after what you've seen, imagine the doubt of those who haven't

Risen (2016)

6.9/10 on IMDb
56% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Are Christian; Are interested in discussions on religion


I think it's funny how in 3 days I saw two films that I thought were going to be completely different, but ended up having some common themes show up. Hail, Caesar! has an actor playing a Roman officer during the Crucifixion era who comes upon Jesus and then has some amazing religious epiphanies. Hail, Caesar! also does its own part in trying to convert you to the religion of Hollywood.

Risen is obviously more religious and more serious, but there are some common elements. It too looks at the crucifixion of Jesus, but before you stop reading, wait! It's actually not ON the crucifixion! We had that movie already, it was called the Passion of the Christ and I was really young when I watched it and even ended up sleeping in the theatre. So no, I don't want to watch that film again.

Instead, Jesus is dead before we even see him, as the film looks at the aftermath of the crucifixion. Clavius, a Roman tribune, is ordered to find where Jesus' dead body is in order to dispell the rumours that a Messiah has arrived.

Crucifixion is pretty terrible, so at least we didn't have to see it, but for those of you who don't know what it involves, scroll down a bit where I do a little rundown on the torturous form of execution.

Back to the film.

As a movie, it dragged on a bit and felt REALLY long even though it was only less than 2 hours.

Joseph Fiennes' acting was great as you could see the conflict in his facial expressions, however everyone else's acting was pretty terrible (I didn't know we had some British people employed as Roman soldiers?). One of the disciples especially had really weird acting that just made everyone feel uncomfortable.

I am also really glad they got an actor who wasn't white with a brown beard to play Jesus. It was more realistic in that way, even though the actual actor is a New Zealander, but at least he looked more like what Jesus would have actually looked like.

There was a really pwoerful moment in the film, and it was really good how they handled the whole concept of doubt. As a not-so-strong-Christian myself, I thought they did this really well, showing how you could have the capacity to doubt a lot of things despite being pretty much certain in something.

So in the end, it is another religious film, but it was definitely handled better than Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and Noah (2014). I haven't seen the former yet, but I've heard enough to know that both Christians and non-Christians do not like the film, which means it's pretty bad. I did like Noah, but I know a lot of Christians did not feel very well about the creative licencing that they employed.

This film, however, follows the source material (i.e. the Bible) much more closely, and therefore becomes more 'realistic' in Christian terms. It provides an interesting viewpoint as the main character is a non-believer who struggles to cope with the possibility of there truly being a Messiah. So, it is definitely a good watch for those who are already interested in this sort of thing.


A few side notes:

Hehe, Lucius Malfoy

Joseph Fiennes looks like a weird version of Ryan Gosling


A Brief Rundown on Crucifixion
Okay, so I learnt this before, but I forgot all about it until my friend was telling me about it during the movie.

Crucifixion is a form of torture, with the only goal being to give you a slow, humiliating, and very painful death (hence the term "excruciating"). They were often reserved for the worst crimes, because they were the worst punishments.

Some crucifixions were conducted on trees or upright poles, however the ones we are looking at (the ones Jesus and the other criminals of Rome died in) were crossbeams.

Now, imagine you are being executed via crucifixion.

Firstly, you're naked. Secondly, before the actual crucifixion, you would most likely be whipped first, across the back/bottoms/legs/etc. with a short whip that has sharp objects interweaved into it, meaning some of your flesh would be torn out and you'd be bleeding quite profusely.

After this, you'll likely be forced to carry the crossbeam to the execution yourself. Depending on the size and type of wood used, this would weigh around 45kg. And if you think this is an alright figure for you to carry (to everyone who boasts about how much they can lift at the gym), remember that you've just been whipped and beaten, you're naked, the public has gathered around to laugh and throw random stuff at your raw, wounded and bloodied body, and you have to carry this crossbeam potentially for a distance of, say, 1km, up and down the city stairs and streets, or else succumb to some more whipping until you can carry it. And remember, it can get pretty hot under the day's sun.

Once you get to the place of execution, your crossbeam is attached to a post already in the ground.

But before you can find any relief in catching a breath, a nail is then driven into each of your hands and feet to attach you to the crossbeam you have just gotten used to carrying. Sometimes, you are already attached to the crossbeam, which is then attached to the post, and the post is then lifted up with you on it. Either way, you cannot escape the nails in your hands and feet (although, technically, some people did, as they were tied to the posts with cord/rope - the nails were just if you wanted to be extra spiteful).

So what position do you find yourself in now?

Well, you're naked and up in the air for the whole public to laugh at you.

But that doesn't matter because your back, butt and legs are bloody and sore from having been whipped prior to being forced to carry a heavy piece of wood for quite a long distance. Not only that, but these areas where you were whipped, and now have large open wounds, are conveniently resting on this uncomfortable piece of wood that already has your own blood and sweat on it because, remember, you just spent all your life's energy on carrying it to the place where you will now die.

But even that doesn't matter anymore against the loud and painful throbbing in your extremities because now you have four nails driven into you.

This is the end of what the people will do to you, so maybe science can go and do something great and give you a quick death.

THINK AGAIN. Another reason that crucifixion made all the Roman Emperors giddy was because it made the person suffer for several days before they would be able to finally die.

And it's not even the starvation or dehydration that gets to you. It's the asphyxiation.

That's right. Death by crucifixion meant hanging you in a certain way until you no longer had the energy to breathe.

Remember when I said you had four nails driven into you? That's all that's supporting you, so your chest, head and butt all drop down, only stopping when your arms can't go any further down. During head up crucifixions (like the crossbeam ones), you may be given an extra bit of wood on the post for your bum to rest on, but this doesn't mean you're lucky. In fact, you may die longer now that you're a bit more comfortable.

Because of this, the most widely accepted theory is that you die from asphyxiation because you need to keep pressing down on your foot (that already has a nail driven into it) in order to lift your body and head up, open up your lungs and diaphragm, and then grab a breath. Once you grab a breath, you can continue living for a few more minutes, but you're now exhausted from the effort, and too tired to even think about doing it again the next time. When you simply have no more energy to do this, you asphyxiate because you can't breathe. Of course, this is just a theory, because to test this on actual people would be highly unethical to say the least.

Other theories are a) that you actually do die from dehydration before you run out of breath, b) your wounds from the whipping and nails are infected, speeding up your death, c) animals start to come and eat you as your body slowly rots, d) your body just messes up (e.g. heart failure, cardiac rupture, shock, etc.).

Jesus apparently died only after 6 hours or so, but most people die after several days. If you're taking too long to die though, the Roman soldiers might do you a small mercy and break your knees. The resulting increased blood loss, as well as the inability to push off of your feet to draw a breath, results in a quicker death.

To make sure you're dead, the soldiers would then put a spear through your ribs and lungs (just in case you went into a coma instead of dying).

Once you're dead, you might think that you are given one last decency: a burial.

NOPE. If someone isn't rich enough to buy your body, your body gets chucked out onto a pile of other rotten corpses, left out in the open for the dogs and birds to slurp up your intestines and peck out your eyeballs.

So that's crucifixion for you. It's not a pretty sight, and thank the heavens it is no longer practiced.

Movie Reviews in Five Dotpoints or Less - Part VII

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

8.4/10 on IMDb
90% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed and recommended by Chloe
Watch it if you: Want to watch a classic film about a heist gone wrong; want to be entertained by a well-directed who-dunnit

Tarantino's debut film, and boy was it great, looking at the aftermath of a heist gone wrong and trying to see who betrayed everyone

The acting was fantastic; Michael Madsen is also so handsome and suave in this, I absolutely love Tim Roth, he was amazing in this and he was my favourite character in The Hateful Eight

Whilst I do think it is a great film that needs to be watched, I don't know if I liked it better than The Hateful Eight... it has better pacing as it's only 1 hour and 40 minutes, however I thought that the way the characters' backgrounds were introduced was too short and needed elaboration, I thought it was pretty obvious who wronged them, and the dialogue, while still good, was not as witty or amazing as the dialogue in other Tarantino films

However, the film is still great and you don't need me to tell you that it's highly recommended

Lastly, the torture scene *shiver* and the Mexican stand-off scene were great


The Raid: Redemption (2011)

7.6/10 on IMDb
85% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: A must-see
Watch it if you: Want great, non-stop action; don't mind reading Indonesian subtitles

An elite police force raid an apartment complex run by drug lord

Crazy crazy CRAZY action

The main actor is pretty cute in this too

An amazing film that needs to be watched


The Raid 2: Berandal (2014)

8.0/10 on IMDb
79% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Want the first movie, but with more plot

A sequel that directly follows on from the first film

Still crazy action but there is more of a plot to this story

The added dialogue and plot makes this film a bit slow, and I didn't like it as much as the first one

I was actually falling asleep but maybe that was because I watched these two films back to back

Some of this movie is just absolutely ridiculous (e.g. Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man)


Blue Valentine (2010)

7.4/10 on IMDb
88% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed and recommended by Chloe
Watch it if you: Want to cry, or feel sad; are alone (please don't watch this with someone you love, because that will just be heartbreaking and awkward); are ready for a feels trip looking at love and marriage

So heartbreaking; it made me upset for the rest of the day

Switching in between scenes of them being out of love and scenes of them being in love just makes it even sadder; like if you watched a scene of them in love without knowing their current marital problems, you'd be so happy, but knowing that they lost all that love is just so depressing

Middle-aged Ryan Gosling is not sexy at all

This film is such a feels trip and a fantastic film to watch, however I will warn you it will bring up all kinds of doubts on love, marriage, true love, and just happiness in general

Would That it Twere so Simple

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

6.8/10 on IMDb
83% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Like the Coen brothers; like really weird and quirky humour; really really like the Hollywood industry (because you work in it); aren't expecting anything great; want to laugh a little but also have some philosophical insight into the Hollywood industry


This film, being a love letter to Old Hollywood, follows studio producer/fixer Eddie Mannix and the seemingly never-ending list of studio problems he needs to fix.

A potential PR nightmare with a knocked-up actress, an image-changing cowboy-turned-drama-actor transformation, and a handsome tap-dancer with a little (big) secret and it's no wonder Mannix is having problems trying to quit smoking.

He's the fixer, after all. He does whatever it takes to fix the studio's issues to boost up their image. And since there's not enough already on his plate, his main star has been kidnapped and he needs to pay a $100,000 ransom...quickly.

There is a lot going on in this film, and yet, this film is pretty much about... nothing.

It is very hard to place because it is so weird and wacky, so funny and yet sometimes so cringeworthy.

The trailer sold it as a movie with an ensemble cast working together to try and get George Clooney (their main star) back. And yet, some of the big faces in the movie (Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes) don't do much at all. Heck, even George Clooney doesn't do much and I would say he's the second main character!

So the film pretty much relies on the Coen brothers' quirky sense of directing as well as Josh Brolin's great acting (which, luckily, it was).

The Coen Brothers do a great job at making a lot of their shots look like postcard shots, so the film is really visually pleasing, which is nice. It's also quite funny, even just looking at say, how Channing Tatum stands in a particular scene, can be funny.

The film is also really meta, and this is the part where it's going to be the indicator of whether you like it or not. As I said, the film isn't really about anything in particular because it's about Hollywood in general.

This comes as a huge advantage at times; you get to see some really great movie-within-a-movie moments, there's quite a bit of diversity in the things you are seeing, and it just looks amazing to be able to see everything all come together. A lot of stuff that goes behind making a movie is seen: huge sets are built for some scenes, the director doing cuts and yelling out directions for the actors ("Squint... SQUINT AGAINST THE GRANDEUR!"), actors looking like perfection and then struggling to get out of their tight costumes, the old-timey grain you can see in the movie-films, even just seeing all the cameras and film reels in operation was pretty cool.

However, the film becomes a bit of a mess. The variety of things you are seeing appear to be the awkward result of an amalgamation of wonderfully wacky ideas the Coen brothers had that didn't have enough steam to take into a full movie. The movie-within-a-movie moments go as quickly as they appear and, despite you wishing so very hard for them to come together nicely at the end, they don't. They kind of just leave you hanging. All the behind-the-scenes stuff you see can get kind of boring or dragged out.

It becomes a film you're not sure will be received well by the general public because... well, if you write a love letter to a particular human being, if a third party reads it and does not really know much about the intended human being, who's to say they will enjoy reading the love letter? Similarly, being a love letter to Hollywood means that people who work in the Hollywood industry would probably love it, but it's going to be weird for a lot of people. Towards the end, the film is really hammering in the fact that the Coen brothers LOVE Hollywood, so much so that they believe Hollywood is "the RIGHT thing" to follow. It's almost religious. Instead of being bible bashed, you are movie-mauled by the dogma of everything.

Having said that though, the film is still enjoyable by the general public because it's pretty funny (I say pretty funny, because there are only moments of hilariosity, the whole movie in itself wasn't all funny). There are some great moments where a line is said just ONE more (or several more) times, making it ten times more hilarious. There are some moments where it lingers just that second longer on a person's hysterical face, making it ridiculously amusing. The best scene in the film (refer to the title of this blog) has both of these and had the audience laughing like crazy.

So, it wasn't a great film, and it probably won't be a satisfactory film for a lot of people, but I still think it was an enjoyable peek into the whimsical minds of the Coen brothers. Don't watch it for the plot, or because Scarlett Johansson is in it and you think she's going to be super hot and seduce you with her beautiful voice. Don't even watch it because George Clooney's in it. If you watch the movie for these reasons, you are sure to be disappointed.

BUT, watch it for the humour, and the very unique and quirky style of directing, and you... might not be disappointed.