Wreck-It Ralph (2012) Review

WRECK-IT RALPH (2012)
Director: Rich Moore

Writers: Phil Johnston, Jennifer Lee, Rich Moore, and Jim Reardon.

Producers: John Lasseter, Clark Spencer, and Monica Lago-Kaytis

Editor: Tim Mertins

Cinematography: See the animation department list from IMDb.

Music: Henry Jackman

Voices: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, and Alan Tudyk

Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes

Rating: PG (rude humor and mild violence)

Genre: Comedy, Family, Animation

Release Date: November 2, 2012

Before Watching the Movie: It would be nice to have an at least basic knowledge of older videogames before watching the movie, since they make so many references to them, and you'll miss some of the jokes.

Intro: I first heard about this movie over the summer at some point, I think when I saw Brave. The concept intrigued me, but I didn't have a lot of interest in seeing it. While animated movies can be good, they are not my favorite, and it seemed like the movie wouldn't be anything special. I also didn't have the gamer motivation to see it that a lot of my friends do. I like playing videogames, but I never get around to playing them and I definitely don't obsess over them. Anyway, a few of my friends invited me to go, so I went and saw it, with average expectations since it had good reviews. It turned out that the movie exceeded my expectations. Wreck-It Ralph, though it may not appeal to everyone, is very entertaining, completely original, funny, and a very cute movie that pays great attention to detail and is probably the best animated movie this year (I really can't say though. Brave is the only other one I've seen).

Plot: Sorry this may get a little lengthy, but it's a complex plot. Ralph is the villain in a retro arcade game called Fix-It Felix, where he wrecks a building and Felix fixes it again. Felix (McBrayer) gets all the awards and love, and after a while, Ralph (Reilly) feels rejected and wants some recognition. Unable to get any from his own game mates, he decides to leave his game in the arcade and try to he a hero in others to show them he, the bad guy, can be a good guy. He goes into a first-person shooter called "Hero's Duty" to get a medal. After getting it, he gets into trouble by piloting a spaceship out of the game and crashing---with the alien from the other game---in a candy-related racing game called Sugar Rush. He loses his medal and it gets taken by a character in Sugar Rush named Vanellope (Silverman), who uses it as a coin to enter the race she had previously been prevented from racing in, since she glitches. Ralph soon realizes he and Vanellope both want some recognition in their respective games, so he teams up with her so he can get his medal back, since the winner of the race gets all the coins, including Ralph's medal, in winnings. Soon, Ralph begins to endanger his game along with Sugar Rush, so he, along with Felix and the commander, Calhoun (Lynch) from the first-person shooter, need to save both games from ultimate destruction, which is being unplugged.

Things people may find “objectionable”: There's a little violence, especially in the scenes involving the first-person shooter game, but there's no blood or gore at all. The violence is all pretty mild. There's also some toilet humor, which shouldn't offend anyone. You really shouldn't worry about any of this unless you have a kid under like 6 years old.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Animation: 9/10. While it isn't as visually gorgeous as Brave and went for the more unrealistic look, Wreck-It Ralph featured some pretty good animation. It was more subtle, but you could tell especially with the scenes with the first-person shooter that the animators knew what they were doing. It was also cool that at times the filmmakers transitioned between classic videogame 8-bit graphics to the computer-animated graphics. What was also neat is having some characters move exactly like they would in their game, like they did with the residents of the building Ralph always destroys. The way they made characters glitch was also really cool.

     -Acting (Voices): 9/10. Good voice acting. They definitely chose good voices for each character. Vanellope's voice got a little annoying at times, but otherwise I had no complaints, and I think that's not even the voice actor's fault. I think the editors heightened the pitch a little. There's no way Sarah Silverman talks that high in real life.

     -Writing: 9/10.

Ralph at a Bad Guy-Anonymous meeting. It's subtle jokes and references
like this that make the movie so enjoyable.

          -Story: 10/10. A reason I liked Wreck-It Ralph is its originality. I'd have to say that this is one of the most original plots I've seen in a new movie for a while, when every Hollywood story is an adaptation of something else or slave to some formula. It's really refreshing to see new ideas in Hollywood. It was also nice to see how unpredictable the story was. As I've probably mentioned many times in reviews, I think this is one of the most important qualities a movie should have.

          -Script: 8/10. Not a half bad script. Wasn't the best ever written, but it was decent. They wrote in some funny lines too. for example, one character says, "Ralph can't be serious," which is followed by a cut to Ralph saying, "I've never been more serious about anything in my life."

     -Music/Score: 7/10. Pretty good, but didn't stick out to me, probably because it was often overpowered by dialogue and/or sound effects.

     -Power/Emotion: 8/10. You do feel for Ralph and the other characters, especially at the beginning. The characters are pretty relatable and likable, since the goal of both Vanellope and Ralph is just to be recognized and liked, which are things nearly everybody wants. You also feel for ralph when he has to make decisions

     -Adrenaline: 7/10. Animated movies tend not to thrill me as much as live-action ones, but Wreck-It Ralph does a pretty good job with this.

     -Intelligence: 10/10. Probably my favorite thing about Wreck-It Ralph is all the references it makes to videogames or other things. It adds a nice layer of deeper humor intended to entertain the parents as well as the kids. For example, one character has a glitch and she explains this to another character by saying she has, "Pixlexia." It's offhand comments and references like this that make the movie as enjoyable as it is. I think I laughed at as many if not more of these jokes than I did the main humor.

     -Humor: 8/10. The movie wasn't strictly a comedy like Airplane, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Blazing Saddles are, but it had some pretty funny moments. Like I said earlier, the funniest moments come from all the subtle jokes and references written into the script to entertain the older audience. This is probably the second-funniest movie I've seen all year only to Ted. It's sad that there aren't that many new, great comedies coming out any more. It seems new comedies go for dumbed down bedroom or gross-out humor and/or make fun of pop culture. While these things can be funny in the short term, the great comedies in movie history all have smart, universal humor. I'm glad to see Wreck-It Ralph try for this type of humor. If only all comedies would. Anyway, that's my two cents on comedies. Moving on...

     -Best Credit: None. All of the minor characters in Wreck-It Ralph are cameos by famous videogame characters, so none of them have original names. 

     -Final Score: Wreck-It Ralph is a very cute and enjoyable movie. It's one of those great movies that is pretty universal, as it can entertain both kids and adults, providing smart humor for both audiences. While Wreck-It Ralph isn't the best movie of the year (See Avengers, Argo, Lincoln, and Skyfall), it's definitely worth viewing. I'd recommend this to anyone who remotely considers themselves a gamer or wants an animated and/or family movie that is universally appealing. This is definitely one of, if not the best animated movie of the year.

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Lincoln (2012) Review

LINCOLN (2012)
Director: Steven Spielberg

Writer: Tony Kushner

Producers: Jonathan King, Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll, Steven Spielberg, and Kathleen Kennedy

Editor: Michael Kahn

Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski

Music: John Williams

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, David Strathaim, Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Runtime: 2 hours 30 minutes

Rating: PG-13 (war violence, war carnage, and language)

Genre: Biopic, Drama, History

Release Date: November 16, 2012

Before Watching the Movie: It may help to quickly read up on the Civil War, especially the last months. It isn't necessary for the enjoyment of the movie, but it allows you to pick up on who's who and what's what a little better.

Intro: From the time I heard they were making Lincoln, I knew it couldn't be bad. Steven Spielberg is a great director who does a fantastic job at historical movies, and I saw they assembled a pretty impressive cast. When it came out a week ago and got good reviews, I was encouraged even more to see it. As if I needed any more encouragement to see it, my AP Government teacher told my class that we'd get extra credit if we saw it. And that was the nail in the coffin and I went to see it earlier today. Lincoln was pretty much as advertised and as expected. It had incredible acting, especially from Daniel Day-Lewis, a great script, and was slow at first but was very engaging by the end. There is almost no doubt it will be nominated and win several Oscars in February.

Plot: The movie tells the story of President Lincoln's last 4 months in office in 1865, focusing on the passage of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, and the negotiations with the South to end of the war. The emphasis is on the 13th Amendment, as the movie tells the story of how Lincoln and his supporters won the necessary votes in the House of Representatives to get the Amendment passed. There's not a lot I can say here without giving a full-on history lesson. If you want to know more, I suggest googling some of these topics.

Things people may find "objectionable": The main thing is language. There are 2 usages of the F-word, along with some other mild language. There is also one war scene at the beginning of the movie that is intense, as it shows people fighting and getting shot and stabbed. There is also a scene or two that shows the carnage of the battles, which involves a lot of corpses. Other than a couple instances, the movie really isn't bad at all in this department.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography: 9/10. Subtle but solid directing. It didn't stick out as much as Spielberg's directing usually does, but nonetheless it was very well shot and the visuals were good. If nothing else, you expect good directing when you see a Spielberg movie.

     -Acting: 10/10. Phenomenal acting. There's no doubt that Daniel Day-Lewis will at least be nominated for Best Actor and will likely win. He was really fantastic. The rest of the cast was no slouch either. I really respect Tommy Lee Jones and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as actors, and they both do a great job. This is easily the best part of the movie. Not to say everything else was bad, it's just that the acting was that good.

     -Writing: 10/10.

          -Story: 10/10. Can't really grade this on the story since it's history and not fiction, but I can grade the selection of the story to make a movie about. It's about time someone made a good biopic of Lincoln. It's really about time. And no, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter doesn't count.

          -Script: 10/10. Very good script. It was solid and produced a lot of good lines. This and the acting were the best parts of the movie.

After seeing Lincoln, I was inspired to make this teaser trailer for a fake biopic about our 

9th president, William Henry Harrison. In case you don't get the joke, he died after 31 days in office.

    
     -Special Effects: n/a. Not needed at all. Lincoln was a movies that would have functioned just as well if it were a stage play.

     -Music/Score: 9/10. The score was subtle, but good. Is it possible for John Williams to write a bad score? I mean, seriously.

     -Power/Emotion: 7/10. It started off relatively slow and I slowly felt more and more for the characters. Even after seeing the movie, I am still feeling for the characters and the situations they were in. The movie is slow in the beginning and then begins to suck you in, and I think becoming more engaged with the characters and situation help this a lot.

     -Adrenaline: 5/10. Not as much as I would've liked. The tension was slow and took a while to build and also wasn't constant like it was in Argo. It's also kind of sudden. You somehow subconsciously become engaged. This was the weakest point of the movie, though in Lincoln's defense, its point wasn't to thrill you.

     -Intelligence: 9/10. The movie really makes you think and is pretty intellectual. It taught me just how much corrupt bargaining and haggling the Lincoln administration had to do to pass the 13th Amendment. One reason I like Spielberg movies is that when he does historical movies like Saving Private Ryan or War Horse, he likes to get the facts straight. As a total history geek, I really enjoy and respect this, and it was cool to get some of the historical references in the movie.
     -Humor: 4/10. There were actually some pretty funny moments worked in. The majority of the movie was serious, but the comic touches were nice. In my opinion, it's always good to have at least some comic relief in any serious movie.

     -Best Credit: None. The problem here is that since it's so historical, nearly every character you see is an actual person. And for those who weren't actual people, their roles had boring names like "Congressmen" and so forth.

     -Final Score: Lincoln was exactly the type of movie I thought and hoped it would be--and that's a good thing. It will undoubtedly win multiple Oscars, probably at least for acting or writing. It will also be in contention with Argo for Best Picture. If I had to pick a Best Picture winner between those two, I would probably pick Argo, but both movies are deserving. If you like historical movies or want to see an extremely well-made movie, see Lincoln. While it starts off slow, it becomes great by the end.

Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966) Review

When it was released, it was released as a
double feature with Jesse James Meets
Frankenstein's Daughter, which I also
took the liberty of recording. I will write
a review of it soon.

BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA (1966)

Director: William Beaudine

Writer: Carl Hittleman

Producer: Carroll Case

Editor: Roy V. Livingston

Cinematography: Lothrop B. Worth

Music: Raoul Kraushaar

Starring: John Carradine, Chuck Courtney, Melinda Plowman, Virginia Christine, and Bing Russell.

Runtime: 1 hour 13 minutes

Rating: Not Rated. Comparable to PG

Genre: Horror, Western, Drama

Release Date: April 10, 1966

Intro: (Please bear with me. I know it's November now, but I started writing this in October. It's a good intro though, so I decided to keep it.) I love October. The weather starts to get cooler and it actually starts to rain again (I mention it a lot in my review of Drive), the baseball playoffs are on a lot and those consume a lot of my time, and, of course since it's near Halloween, there are tons of cheesy horror movies being shown on TV. This is where I found Billy the Kid vs. Dracula. While perusing through channels, I found it and immediately set up the DVR to record it. I mean, can you really pass up recording a movie called Billy the Kid vs. Dracula? I sure as hell couldn't. It turns out that the movie is about as stupid as you'd imagine it would be. Billy the Kid vs. Dracula had very little hope and budget starting out, and with the hope and budget it has, it doesn't do much with it.

Plot: In the Old West, a mother and her brother are heading from the East to see her daughter named Betty that she haven't seen since she was a child and her brother has never seen. On the way there, the wagon picks up a mysterious foreign traveler with weird attraction to the picture of the mother's daughter in a locket she has. When they stop for the night, an nearby indian girl is mysteriously killed by two incisions on the neck (hint) and the indians stereotypically rampage and kill everyone on the wagon train except for the strange man (Carradine). The strange man (It's Dracula, ok?) finds the locket in the wreckage of the wagon and assumes the personality of Betty's uncle she's never met named James Underhill. Meanwhile, Betty and her boyfriend Billy the Kid (or just Billy) are planning to get married when "her uncle James" shows up and tries to pull the two apart, since Dracula wants Betty for himself. While Dracula tries to trick and seduce Betty and ultimately make a her a vampire, the foreign housekeepers and Billy suspect something is wrong and try to save Betty before it's too late.

Things people may find “objectionable”: Not that much. There are a couple BWC shots and a couple scenes with minor blood, but nothing major. One thing that might offend some is that the Indians are extremely stereotyped and portrayed in a way that would have you believe that the directors are a bunch of xenophobic white guys. And you know what? You're probably right.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography:

     -Acting: 5/10. John Carradine, who plays Dracula, is actually what you may consider a "real actor." He's kind of like Vincent Price and Nicholas Cage in that he's a pretty good actor, but at least towards the end of his career, he picked really crappy movies to star in for whatever reason (seriously, Cage needs to fire his agent). His performance is more cheesy than anything else, but I'd blame that on the director. Everyone else can't act that well, but it's not truly awful acting like the kind that is seen in I Eat Your Skin.

     -Writing: 4/10.

          -Story: 4/10. I really didn't see much creativity in the story, as it's pretty formulaic aside from the whole Billy the Kid meeting Dracula thing. It did have kind of a cool vampire legend twist that was intriguing and something I hadn't heard before, but the rest of the story was worthless and cliché.

          -Script: 4/10. Very forgettable script. Wasn't great but wasn't awful like the one in The Last Airbender. I wouldn't consider the script a strength or a weakness. It was just kind of there.

     -Special Effects: 1/10. Laughably terrible special effects. The best special effects were the super-fake flying bat (see picture below).

Two of the greatest shots from the movie: the über fake bat and Dracula's creeper stare.
 If someone looks at you like Dracula is in the picture on the left, call the police immediately.

     -Music/Score: 3/10. The music was very lame and cheesy. They got a lot of work out of the one harpist the hired, as every single time Dracula does his creepy stare (see picture above), a harp plays the exact same pattern. everything else just seems cheesy and formulaic. There was absolutely no creativity in writing this score.

     -Power/Emotion: 3/10. They kinda try to get you to care about the characters, but it doesn't work exceedingly well. In their defense, the writers' work was probably done when the movie's name convinced people to spend their $5 on this movie, creating a small, quick, profit.

     -Adrenaline: 4/10. The movie is really pretty boring until the end. The story gets caught up into this whole character development and love story crap and forgets what the audience is there to see: Billy the Kid fighting Dracula. It is pretty entertaining at the end, but it isn't that suspenseful.

     -Intelligence: 3/10. This movie really doesn't make you think at all. It's pretty mindless and serves pretty much only as cheap entertainment, which was its purpose.

     -Stupidity: 7/10. The title of this movie should give you a good insight into what

     -Humor: Intentional: 1/10. Unintentional: 5/10. The movie attempts to have a little bit of humor in it, but it fails for the most part. The movie is unintentionally hilarious because of the fake flying bat, Dracula's creepy stares (see picture above for these two) and mostly because of this lovely scene below, which is during the climax of the movie:

The funniest scene in the movie, and how Billy takes out the vampire after

 using many bullets to no effect and losing a fist fight to him.

     -Best Credit: None, sadly.

     -Final Score: The bottom line is you just shouldn't make genre mashups involving westerns and try to make them serious. I think Cowboys and Aliens failed for the same reason. Trying to mash genres is hard enough, but it's even harder when you try to make it serious. Still, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula fails more than Cowboys and Aliens because of the lack of budget and A-list actors. I would recommend this to any b-movie fans out there looking to kill about an hour and a half. If nothing else, the death scene and the scenes with the bat are entertaining and a brilliant way to kill time.

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Skyfall (2012) Review

SKYFALL (2012)
Director: Sam Mendes

Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan

Producers: Anthony Waye, Callum McDougall, Barbra Broccoli, and Michael G. Wilson

Editor: Stuart Baird

Cinematography: Roger Deakins

Music: Thomas Newman

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Albert Finney

Runtime: 2 hours 23 minutes

Rating: PG-13 (intense violence, some sexuality, language)

Genre: Action, Adventure, Suspense, Thriller

Release Date: November 9, 2012

Intro: Well, I knew from the start that this was a movie I wanted to see. I have only seen two other James Bond movies before this (Casino Royale and From Russia with Love), but I know the franchise as a whole always puts out entertaining movies. Anyway, it was one I wanted to see, but wasn't expecting a lot out of. It turns out I was wrong. Skyfall is really well-made thrilling movie with great directing, a great score, and a surprising amount of emotion and intelligence.

Plot: A computer drive containing a list of MI6 British agents from around the world has fallen into the wrong hands, and it is James Bond's mission to get them back. While fighting a bad guy on top of a train, M (Dench),  the head of MI6, has another agent (Harris) nearby who is ordered to take a shot at the bad guy and missed and hits Bond (Craig) instead. Bond is believed to be dead until he shows up months later after MI6 has been blown up due to some cyberterrorism. He returns in bad shape to MI6 and to a point where M's job is on the line. Bond follows a man and through visits to Shanghai and Macao and it leads him to an encounter with the real man named Silva (Bardem) behind the plots against MI6 and especially M. Bond must work to protect M at all costs and to control Silva before he gets revenge and sabotages MI6 and England.

Things people may find “objectionable”: The main thing here is violence. The movie, as with all action movies, is very violent, and fighting is a central part of the story. There is also quite a bit of blood, but only one scene where you see it actually dripping as opposed to stained on someone's shirt. Finally, there is some mild swearing, but it isn't too bad.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography: 10/10. I am big on the visuals of a movie, and this one did an exceedingly good job. The whole movie was full of striking imagery and interesting shots and lighting. My favorite scene visually was Bond fighting Patrice in the building in Shanghai, where it was dark except for the flashing advertisements, and the whole area was covered with glass windows, which perfectly distorted the light and made for engaging action. I also like the attention to detail. Since 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the release of the first Bond movie, Dr. No, there were numerous references to the number 50 or to 1962, which was a cool touch.

     -Acting: 9/10. Seriously, Javier Bardem needs to play the crazed villain in every movie. He's great at it between his role as Silva here and the bad guy in No Country for Old Men. Everyone else did a good job of acting, though I don't see anyone getting nominated for Best Actor or Best Actress, maybe except for Javier Bardem. Also, I like Daniel Craig as James Bond. I think he does well in the role.

     -Writing: 8.5/10.

          -Story: 9/10. Very well-done. The story was interesting and exciting as well as suspenseful throughout. I liked it also in that it did not follow the typical Bond formula, as the "Bond Girl" plays a minor role and the attacks mostly come from within MI6 instead of from the outside. It also pointed out some of Bond's weaknesses and portrayed him as more human, which I much prefer to him being almost an invincible superhero.

          -Script: 8/10. Good, just didn't stand out. I doubt any memorable lines will come from the movie, except for the "Bond. James Bond." line that isn't specific to Skyfall at all.

     -Special Effects: 9/10. Not much CGI, but very good special effects as far as the explosions and guns are concerned. Everything looked pretty realistic and they really added to the visuals in some scenes.

All the actors who have played James Bond. From
left to right: Daniel Craig, Timothy Dalton, Pierce
Brosnan, Roger Moore, and Sean Connery.

     -Music/Score: 10/10. The score was great. It was fast-paced and really added to the suspense of the movie. I'd be willing to bet the score will at least be nominated for an Oscar.

     -Power/Emotion: 8/10. I do like the recent trend in Bond movies (at least in this and Casino Royale. I didn't see Quantum of Solace) of making 007 more human. It really makes you feel for him, and in Skyfall you feel bad for both him and M, as both their careers are on the line as some deem them unfit.

     -Adrenaline: 10/10. As an action movie, Skyfall definitely succeeded. This is the one aspect you should get out of Bond movies, as it's kind of the point.

     -Intelligence: 7/10. Actually pretty thought-provoking, considering it's an action flick.

     -Humor: 3/10. Definitely not the point of the movie, but there were some funny moments and lines, mostly used as comic relief for the very intense rest of the movie.

     -Best Credit: Peter Boyer as an Orchestrator (For a friend. You know who you are if you're reading this. And there was no best credit anywhere else).

     -Final Score: Skyfall greatly exceeded my expectations. It is very well made and well-rounded as well as thrilling. Will it have a lasting legacy or win many awards? Probably not, but it's worth watching. I'd recommend this movie to any Bond fans or action movie fans. I think it is a movie that can be enjoyed by people with all tastes.

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