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COLME AARON
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  • Movie Reviews
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Movies In RevIew

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part - Review

1/26/2019

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Release Date: February 8, 2019​​​​​​​​
Literally Part 2

The Lego Movie was for adults but was disguised as a kids movie. Fully appreciating it required understanding all of the tricks it was using to abuse tropes in its favor. Not knowing this, going into the movie, was fine because it left clues for the audience to discover if they were paying attention. The Lego Movie 2 tries really hard to recapture the same magic while adding its own glittery flair. A lot about it feels very familiar but makes sure to separate itself.

I usually try and talk about positive things about the movie I just watched, but I am going to first put up a disclaimer. If you do not like musicals, there is a good chance that you will not like The Lego Movie 2. There are multiple instances where characters break out into song. So just a warning to those who stay away from musicals.

The Lego Movie 2 tries to have an emotional center like the first movie did. Relying on a growing moment to tie the story together while telling the audience a little about themselves. It makes liberal use of comedy to get its points across and it truly succeeds in making you laugh. 
The creativity put into bringing the world to life was amazing to see and made the film more enjoyable. Huge shoutout to Batman since he's probably the best character, again, because he is given some of the funniest moments. 

There were a couple of things that did make it hard for me to fully enjoy the movie though. I did not realize I was going to be watching a musical and probably would have liked to know that before I saw it. The Lego Movie 2 also used much more live action footage than I was expecting, which I did not enjoy. It used so much of it in fact, I thought I was watching a live action Toy Story movie at times. I can fully respect how the first movie handled the difference between the Lego world and the real one, but this film has a plot point that defies logic which made it hard for me to accept.

​The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part comes down to how much work you want to put into finding more enjoyable aspects of the movie; it’s here where its true value comes out. There are enough jokes throughout for kids to enjoy it and for a middle-aged lady to laugh louder than everyone else. It’s exactly the same as the first in that respect; if you like the first, you’ll enjoy the second. Do you need to rush out on release day to see it?— not really, but the decision ultimately comes down to you. All I can say is: I laughed and was annoyed— which created a completely balanced experience for me. 
4.5/10
I want to thank the advertising team for not spoiling the movie in the trailers
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Glass - Review

1/18/2019

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Release Date: January 18, 2019​​​​​​​​
As Fragile as Glass...

To say that Glass was highly anticipated would be an understatement. Excitement for the movie, birthed from Split but nurtured by how it connected to Unbreakable, was palpable. Helping this feeling of inevitable success was the trailer. It hit all of the right notes for people interested in the culmination of this story. It seemed like the grounded superhero tale audiences want, the perfect antithesis of what Marvel and the DCEU provide. How could the movie not be great?

The obvious standouts are Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy. They do a great job putting the movie on their back and making parts standout. McAvoy’s amazing performance returns from Split as the constant rotation of personalities is expertly brought to life. Jackson delivers in bringing tension when he’s set free, reminding the audience why he’s one of the bad guys. With an assist by Bruce Willis, the movie’s leads prove why this was so hotly anticipated. It helps that this is Willis’ best work in seven years.

For the movie itself, the opening was fine. It starts off a

little slow and convoluted but quickly starts to set up the rest of the of the story. It's not boring which is a huge plus and makes liberal use of varying camera angles to try and keep the fight scenes dynamic. 

It's in the first act I caught on to a couple of things that was going on. The overuse of single take camera moves cut together with stationary shots created a stop and go feeling. It felt slightly jarring and was extremely noticeable. It seems that this was done in an attempt to make the movie feel more serious and grounded. The second thing I noticed was the weird way fights were edited together. Instead of showing fights where you can see the action take place, the audience was relegated to close up shots of actors' faces. There wasn’t even that much choreography in the fights themselves. The first fight is just two people hugging each other before jumping out a window.  

Once people realized there was a third movie in the Unbreakable/Split trilogy, it became a guaranteed hit. But the simple fact is that even though there are moments of brilliance, Glass ultimately drowns in a small puddle. Some will say that the slow second act works because of the slow pacing throughout, that the drama is somehow escalated in this part. They are wrong. If you thought Glass was the superhero movie we needed, to an extent, so did M. Night Shyamalan. He constantly reminds you about comic books and superheroes as he has the characters say the word “comic book” almost ten times in twenty minutes. The idea that these people are superheroes is shoved down your throat for an hour. A nice way of putting it would be that this film lacks subtlety.


Before I get to my conclusion I want to bring up a couple more points that stood out to me. The fight scenes continued to be poorly represented in the movie. The only time you get to see anything slightly interesting is from security cam footage, probably due to budgetary reasons. The stationary camera allowed for easier VFX shots to be done and at a distance, lowering the cost for the few in the movie. Next, is the fight choreography. It seems that this was not a priority at all as there is very little action on display. Most of the fighting comes down to hugging or is almost unseeable due to it happening in the background of a shot.

​I had high hopes for Glass. It's almost comical how you can watch the trailer and know about 90% of what is going to happen. The movie dropped the ball so hard and I don’t know if Shyamalan can recover. I would definitely be wary of any of his other projects and would not trust him to make a big budget movie. I guess if you really need closure to the Split storyline or wanted Unbreakable 2 you can watch this movie. You are not going to like with how this story ends as it feels like even M. Night didn’t even know what to do with these characters.
2.5/10
​I literally didn't even know what to put here
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