Poltergeist

People look for work, and this movie is here for them

A down-on-their-luck family moves into an old house to subsidize their current living situation. The father who is recently out of work, and mother who has made her living staying at home and writing, must deal with their children who are not happy about all of the recent changes. Unfortunately, this old house has angry spirits dwelling within it, and they might take more than the family's finances before the night ends.

A brief history on the "Poltergeist" movie franchise before I get into the actual review (or more accurately a curse... fitting right?). If you are a fan of this series like I am, you will have undoubtedly heard of the curse that surrounds the "Poltergeist" movies. Two unexpected deaths happened while one of the movies were in production, one happened to the child actress that brought life to the phrase "They're here!," the other was the big sister in the first film. Two more deaths happened to actors that played in this series but they were foreseeable. Ever since than this movie has lived in Hollywood as a small omen to avoid, whether people actually believe in this stuff or take other's advise is completely subjective. I guess we will all have to wait on the news to see if the attached cast of this remake is getting haunted.

Anyway, now that I have set the tone let's get into it.

As stated in the above history/curse lesson, I am a big fan of the first film, and I watched the others. The first film scared the hell out of me. The first film through out the rule book for scary movies and just did what they wanted. The first film gave the family a false since of security, then flipped the switch and terrified them. The family knew strange events were happening in the first film, and proceeded to have fun with their haunting. The first film was great, but what of this? Honestly, it is still scary, but not nearly as scary as the original. It is damn hard in this business to do away with preconceived notions when making a remake, but this made a fair enough effort. A big thing that holds this movie back is recycled characters. I know we are making a remake movie, but it doesn't hurt to try and play around with characters that could have popped off the page. We've seen the little boy that doesn't get listened to, and it comes back to bite the family in the ass. We've seen the over privileged, foul-mouthed, teenage daughter. Fortunately, their are two characters that kind of save this movie. I love the father's arc of recent unemployment and feeling like a failure to his family. I love the overly caring, but not caring enough mother.  The youngest daughter is the same as she was in the first movie, and that is kind of integral to the story, so they get a pass on that. The story itself was filled with a lot of cliches, but still managed to scare me, and in the end that is the only thing that truly matters,

Gil Kenan is not known in the directing world at large. He has a small body of work, that only contains this movie, "Moster House," and "City of Ember." I hope this movie sets him up to make more horror films, because this was shot exquisitely. I think the way this movie was shot gives credence to why this film was so scary in the first place. He let your mind do the work, and build the tension. You might have known what was going to happen to a character, but your mind asks "what if it didn't? What if the thing under the bed is actually the thing in the closest? And what if it was a lot bigger than I remember? And what if it kills the boy? Is it going to kill the boy? Please don't let it kill anyone?" It doesn't quite get your brain to that level )I mean, it wasn't the scariest movie in my life), but it gets your mind in that area of thinking. The sound haunts every shot, and makes you want to be scared. The camera angles lead to tension. Every bit of this movie bled horror onto the screen, Thus I was frightened.

The thing that drags this movie down. The thing that is even worse than recycled characters. The thing that annoyed me about this movie the most. The acting. Wow. Just WOW, is the only thing that comes to mind when the cast at large is phoning in these performances so hard you would think they were someone's lifeline on a game show. Sam Rockwell paints us a pretty picture of what it is like to be looking for work, since he seems so damn disinterested in the work he is doing now. He may have been perfect for the role, if he was trying to show us a realistic take on how his character got fired from "John Deer." Saxon Sharbino is clearly not ready to helm a film of this caliber, and if she doesn't learn to emote she never will be. Nicholas Braun is quite possibly the worst example of "act scared" that I have ever seen. His one scene where he had the most screen time was filled with so many issues, I honestly don't know where to start. The term "don't look at the camera, but don't try to look like you are not looking at the camera" comes to mind, the guy letting out the most fake of fake screams in the world, the guy not knowing how to look confused after he was just "acting" scared. He was the worst, and I ask that no one put him in movies again. Please. Luckily, not all is lost since we have Gil Kenan to save us from the depths of despair. I may still miss the old woman from the original, but this guy knows how to act, and I can appreciate that. The rest of the cast went from mediocre to bad, but I won't go into too much detail, this is that highlight reel after all.

Final Verdict: Rent it A movie that scares me is truly hard to find these days, but when actors are so bad that they take away from the tension it is a bit upsetting. Still worth some money, see it if you have the time. 

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Robots and avenging, cha cha cha. Ultron is the bad guy, cha cha cha.  

We rejoin our friendly neighborhood Avengers in the wake of Hydra surfacing, and Tony Stark taking over funding for the team. They raid a Hydra base in order to find the Tesseract scepter Loki controlled in the first movie. They retrieve the Tesseract, and confront two super powered test subjects Hydra was keeping under lock and key. The super powered beings leave the Avengers to take the scepter, and Tony Stark finds blueprints to create artificial intelligence. He and Bruce Banner mess with the blueprints and accidentally make Ultron, who proceeds to try and help humanity by killing it off. It is up to the Avengers to stop Ultron before he completes his goal to end our species, while trying to deal with the same super powered beings from before.

Let's get this out of the way. I loved this movie, but no movie is perfect so I'll say some of the things that bugged me about this movie, then we can geek out together. Like one big Marvel family.

So, my main overlying problem with this movie is that they didn't really explain the Vision (if you have paid attention to the trailers or posters at all you know he is in this, so no spoiler for you). When he arrives in the movie we come to know him as a powerful being, but we never really know what his powers are. Sure, we get to see him use a laser beam, super-strength and flight; and I know that he has the ability to control his physical density, by reading the comics; but, what about the people who didn't read the comics? The only reason I saw him "phase through" something is because I was looking for it, but if the people who didn't read the comic saw that would they just assume that he had this ability? I don't know, I could have just done with a 10 second piece of dialogue that said "Oh hey, here are Vision's powers." Also, Scarlet Johannson still refuses to give me a Russian accent, and it is becoming a bit of a nuisance. I know it sounds a bit "nit-picky," but it annoyed the hell out of me this time because of a certain scene in this movie. The only other thing I didn't like about the movie enters spoiler territory. Aside from these oversights, I loved the film.

Let's talk about the positive shall we. No need to be so bleak on an otherwise joyous occasion.

This movie was awesome, and I can say that while knowing some faults. Why? Because it was the most fun I have had at a movie throughout the year thus far. I loved the way they made the Vision look. I loved the Hulk "Bruce Banner"/Widow relationship, because it makes so much sense. I love the Hawkeye story. I love the way they did Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. I love Ultron. I love the fight scenes. I love almost everything about this movie. The story was intriguing, the characters grew depth. The new characters fit into the film quite nicely. I don't mind that the "true origin" of Ultron was changed from the comics. I don't mind that we only get a small taste of some other characters. I don't mind that Ultron's plan can only exist in a universe where Tony Stark never saw any of "The Terminator" movies. I don't mind these things, because I was too busy having my hair blown back with fan service. There are certain parts of the movie that comic readers will love, there are certain parts of the film that people who only watched the Marvel Movies will love. Will you be lost if you haven't seen any of the Marvel Movies? Yes, but at this point that should be expected. The people who have seen every Marvel movie are rewarded time and time again in this movie for their dedicated service. I thank Marvel for not making crap movies.

The way this movie was paced was also great. Sure there was the one thing that could have been explained better, but everything else was right on the nose for me. The movie rushed passed some of the bits of information that we only needed a quick overview for. Ultron's origin? Yeah, he is an AI, finds all the bad stuff people have done, wants to kill us to keep us safe. Those twins? He's a speedster, she messes with peoples minds. There was no more that needed to be explained really. If they wasted a whole bunch of time getting us to know these characters the audience would have a lull point. They picked and chose what to pay attention to and it turned out great in the end.

We know the actors for the old Avengers right? I don't need to go into them right? Cool, I won't. Let's talk about the new people. Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch was great, she could have been a bit darker, but she kept the soul of the character intact. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was a perfect Quicksilver, and yes I say that because he did a better job at it than Evan Peters did in "X-Men: Days of Future Past." The portrayals were entirely different than one another, but Aaron seemed to get lost in this role a lot more than Evan did. Paul Bettany is finally shown in the flesh, and he is perfect as the Vision. He has this somber, mechanical tone laid over some genuine emotion, that makes him seem emphatic to the human race; but, also makes him seem above them. It's like a robot dad looking over his human children, it's perfect. James Spader as Ultron blew me away. I didn't expect them to add a funny component to Ultron, but I am so glad that they did, because it fits. He had this cruel sense of humor, which when mixed with the amazing voice was pure gold.

Does this hold up to "The Avengers?" I can't tell. This movie had more character depth, a better plot (or similar plot with some twists), some great fan service, a great villain, and amazing action sequences..... but "The Avengers," was THE Avengers. We had Loki, we got our pay off for waiting for the movie for so long, we had moments like "he's adopted," " puny god," "I got that reference," we had shawarma, we had Hulk smashing, we had Captain America shielding, we had Iron Man blasting, we had Hawkeye shooting, we had Black Widow espionage-ing, and we had Thor thundering. I love both films and can't really say which one was better..... than again.....the first one was totally better. Look this movie was better in a storytelling aspect, but when I watched "The Avengers" for the first time, I found no flaws. Sure after re-watching it a bunch of times I found some holes, but I was too entranced to spot them in the first couple of viewings. This movie was amazing, "The Avengers" is on a different level in my head.

Final Verdict: Buy it Yes, my highest rating. Just so you know that even though a movie has flaws, doesn't mean the quality degrades overall. Sometimes a movie just is, and this movie is amazing.