With the kickoff to the summer season, there were quite a few movies out this past month. Here is my quick take about what I thought about the ones I checked out at the theater!
Ex Machina
Although I have never been very fond of movies about robots, I was very enthralled with Ex Machina. The film was a surprise, full of suspense and wonder. Starring Domnhall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac, the film follows a young employee (Gleeson) who wins the opportunity to spend a week with the mysterious CEO of the company he works for. When he arrives to the mountain retreat, he finds that his boss wants him to test the project he has been working on. Alicia Vikander portrays Ava, the artificial intelligence, with a quiet calmness. With twists and turns, you don’t know who you can trust, and it makes for a very tense and exciting film (with a little bit of humor due to a very strange dancing scene.) All three cast members are on the rise for big success, and this film is definitely worth a viewing.
While not as fun as the first, The Avengers: Age of Ultron is still enjoyable, primarily due to the cast. They all seem to be having fun, and while the stakes don’t really feel that high, watching the characters come together again is exciting. The new additions of Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor Johnson as Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver are good additions, and I personally welcomed the teasing Bruce Banner and Black Widow relationship. Some of the action scenes get a bit tedious by the end, and a few of the individual characters may have suffered with such a large cast. Having been pretty indifferent to Hawkeye, I did enjoy seeing his role in the spotlight. His scenes even bring a few unexpectedly touching moments as we find out more about his life. The film ends with a new set of Avengers, which I think will bring some renewed excitement for Marvel’s next films. As for the villain this time around, James Spader’s role as Ultron was strangely spooky and fascinating, but I must admit I couldn’t help but miss Loki’s deliciously devious presence.
The Age of Adaline is little cheesy and features a somewhat odd narration, but I found this film magical and beautiful, aided by the beautiful setting in San Francisco. Blake Lively was elegant in the lead role of a woman who doesn’t age after a heart stopping car accident. I was most surprised at Harrison Ford’s performance though as a man from Adaline’s past. The film made me imagine how life would be like if this happened to me and what I would do in her shoes. It certainly isn’t a perfect movie, but it gave me the perfect escape for an afternoon.
After seeing the trailer for Pitch Perfect 2, I was not confident I was going to be pleased with the second round from The Barden Bellas. To my surprise, I found the film to be hilarious, sweet, and humorously awkward. After an embarrassing situation gets the Bellas kicked out, the girls must go on a quest to win the international accapella tournament in order to be reinstated. A German group, Das Sound Machine, is out to defeat them though, which leads the girls to come together again, experience some team building, and also accept that their years as Bellas are about to end. Rebel Wilson’s role of Fat Amy is increased, with a chuckle-worthly romance with burrito-tossing Bumper (played by Adam Devine.) I do wish that Anna Kendrick would have had a bigger presence, along with the entire group of Treblemakers, but liked Hailee Steinfield’s role as the newest Bella. I will be anxiously awaiting to see what comes next from these girls.
My mom and I have a tradition of seeing disaster movies. We love some of the classics like The Towering Inferno or The Poseidon Adventure, and enjoy some of the newer films like Deep Impact or The Day After Tomorrow. While some are better than others, they are all a bit over-the-top and feature similar moments (people managing to accomplish impossible feats to save someone, people being mere inches away from something that could have killed them, romances develop as the world is crashing around them, etc. ) The disaster in this film focuses on the San Andreas fault line as it causes the biggest earthquake ever recorded. The cast includes Dwayne Johnson, Paul Giamatti, Carla Gugino, and Alexandra Daddario as they all fight to survive. As ridiculous and cheesy San Andreas is, there is something about The Rock that makes it just a little more believable. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could actually maneuver a helicopter, drive a truck through a crumbling California, fly a plane, escape the plane by parachuting, and get over a tsunami with a small boat in the search for his daughter. As cool as he is though, he couldn’t make the lame dialogue work for me, especially the groan-inducing final line of the movie.
Mad Max: Fury Road is not a movie I would normally go for, but gave it a chance because of the great reviews. I’m glad I did because I found it to be such an exciting adrenaline rush; one that really works on the big screen where you can be fully immersed. I had never seen any of the original Mad Max movies, but found this film visually striking and memorable. In the middle of a vast desert land, Max (Tom Hardy) and the determined leader Furiosa (Charlize Theron) join together in a post-apocalyptic world to take a group of women to the safety of Furiosa’s childhood home. As I left the theater, I felt like I was emerging from a ride at Disneyland or something, because of the non-stop action and sounds of the engines revving up. All the startlingly creepy and strange characters make for such an interesting experience and even though there really isn’t much character development (or backstory), I was rooting for Max, Furiosa and The Brides to succeed on the furious road.
Once this film finally made its way to the theater in town my mom and and I quickly went since we are both very fond Carey Mulligan and period films set in England. I was unfamiliar with the novel, but the film was filled with whimsy and the setting was incredibly gorgeous. The story follows an independent young woman, with the memorable name Bathsheba, whose parents passed away when she was a child. She takes over a farm that was left to her by her uncle and shows her strength and determination to succeed. Bathsheba’s freedom is tested by three different suitors she encounters throughout the film. I found myself incredibly frustrated midway though the story when after so much emphasis on her self-reliance, she quickly marries a man who is very wrong for her. It seemed so abrupt that I was left in shock. Her marriage brings a few unexpected twists, but as an viewer I knew within the first few minutes of the film who was right for her and how the story needed to end. The film is pleasant, endearing, and elegant (although a few scenes with sheep may leave you a bit scarred for life) and a lovely escape.
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