Finally Back!

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Well it’s definitely been awhile. Between moving into a new place last fall, work, and getting engaged to my beautiful fiancée I’ve simply just lost track of this blog. I’m happy to be back though and hopefully in the very near future I’ll have a few new posts to share. Ahhh it’s nice to be back!

My Top 5 Characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Thus Far.

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5. Nick Fury
Played by Samuel Jackson you knew right away this would be a badass character. He’s a great character because he’s everything the former leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to be. He did what he thought was right even if it meant pissing off some folks at times. At the end of the day Sammy J was the perfect man for the role. His loud, badass side suited him well for this character. It will be interesting to see what his role will be following the debacle during Captain America The Winter Soldier.

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4. Agent Phil Coulson
What you’re shocked he made my top 5? Who doesn’t love this guy? Played by Clark Gregg he’s one of the most beloved characters in the MCU. He’s a guy you can relate too. I mean wouldn’t you be in awe if you met Captain America? He’s always willing to do what’s necessary and although he has no powers he shows as much heart as any Avenger. Let’s be honest, when we all thought he died during The Avengers it was truly depressing and I think that says a lot about his role.

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3. Captain America
Ahh Mr. Can’t Do No Wrong. We all know that guy that always has to do the right thing. 90% of the time that guy is extremely annoying. Well not in this case. Captain America will do the right thing then proceed to kick some ass. That’s a pretty awesome if you ask me. The calm headed “leader” of the Avengers has been great so far in all 3 movies he’s donned the red, white, and blue. He’s the kind of guy you hope your kids grow up to be like, you know minus the super soldier stuff. I’ll be honest, I doubted Chris Evans playing this role after he played the Human Torch. I’m glad to say I was wrong about that one. ‘Merica!

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2. Loki
Known as the God of Mischief, Loki truly has lived up to his title thus far. Around every turn he has a trick up his sleeve. If you find yourself watching him in any of these movies just know he’s always playing along to help his cause. His character is absolutely brilliant and it makes him such an easy villain to love. Tom Hiddleston is literally the most perfect human being on the face of the Earth to play Loki. Ladies and guys alike either love this guy or want to be him. Heck I know my mom LOVES Loki….or maybe just Tom Hiddleston. Either way Carmen (hi mom!) is a huge fan. Just remember the best is yet to come. Last time we saw him he was sitting at the throne of Asgard. *evil grin*

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1. Iron Man
Here we are at number 1. What better character than the one who started it all for the MCU. Before the release of Iron Man in 2008, people really doubted it would be a success. You heard things from “he’s a C list character” to “he’s nothing without the rest of the Avengers”. Well guess what everyone was wrong. No scratch that, everyone was terribly wrong. Robert Downey Jr. made this an A list character. He’s witty, he’s intelligent, and, he’s easy to back. RDJ was everything Tony Stark needed to be. It’s says a lot that 6 years later Iron Man is still one of Marvel’s best films. RDJ is the cornerstone this franchise was built on and whether you like it or not Iron Man is now an A list character. So even if you only see RDJ as Stark in 2 more movies (Avengers 2&3) just appreciate everything he’s done for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel in general. You’re the man RDJ!

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this. Hoped you enjoyed it. Now we wait and see if Guardians of the Galaxy will shake up this list next week! 🙂

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review!

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes takes place 10 years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It’s now a world where the Apes, led by Caesar, believe the human race to be extinct; killed off by disease and war amongst each other. It has been 2 years since the apes last saw a human. This seems like a peaceful world for the apes, until one day, a group of humans from a small colony in San Francisco wonder into the woods and stumble upon the apes’ civilization.

Now, I don’t want to get into much of the story, so I’ll leave it at that. From that point though, the movie never slows. It’s dramatic, action filled, and what stood out the most is how emotional it was. This movie hits home in several different ways by exploiting every conceivable emotion. You get happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and everything in between. This was the most well put together plot of 2014 so far.

Andy Serkis, who’s best known for his expertise with motion capture, was BRILLIANT as Caesar. He might have been a CGI ape, but he brought the character to life so well. You could truly connect with Caesar in this movie. I once thought Gollum (from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy) was his best role. Caesar is the best motion capture/voice acting he’s pulled off yet.

This movie will leave you wanting more ape action. Start to finish you’ll love it. There’s no cheesy acting, no cheesy lines, just good film making all around. I would completely suggest this to anyone and everyone. Hell, I’m more than likely going to go see it again in theaters.

At the end of the day I give this movie a 4/5. It’s up there as possibly the best film I’ve seen in 2014 so far. Well everyone thanks for reading and now it’s full speed ahead to Guardians of the Galaxy, which opens August 1st. I look forward to hearing your responses and I hope you enjoyed this review.

Mitchell Rowe’s Movie Review for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: AUJ was basically everything I hoped for! The movie had all of the parts I was looking for, and any changes that were made (Azog and Radagast for example) seemed to make the first part of the trilogy a standalone epic on it’s own. The movie sets a strong foundation for the next two and I think when all is said and done the movie will look brilliant after much bickering over this or that in regards to the lore of Middle Earth. The prologue including Erebor’s history, and the coming of Smaug is just as epic and beautiful as any of the prologues found in the LOTR series. You came to feel bad for these dwarves and their perils (especially after the touching exchange between Bofur and Bilbo), and felt resentful towards the greedy dragon that would wreck a people’s living for some treasure. The Unexpected Party(named after the book chapter) scene was so spot on and perfect that I could not possibly ask for more. The individual dwarves all have wonderful, different looks and they were fleshed out as well as one could hope from one movie dealing with 13 dwarves (though I anticipate much more in the next installments). The CGI was fantastic! There are no movies I know of that can hold a candle to the special effects of AUJ, the highlights being the three trolls, Gollum and the Great Goblin. The tone of the movie was very consistent with the book transitioning from silly to serious throughout film. All of the action sequences were great and gave us much more fighting than the acutal book gives us (a good change for making a film). The only problems with any of these scenes would be some of the totally unrealistic events such as the goblin’s hatch fall, the stone giants, and the falling bridge after the Great Goblin’s death, or Bilbo’s fall down to Gollum’s home. Surely no one, not even hearty dwarves, could survive such impacts. Some inclusions I would like to address are Azog and Radagast. Azog’s CGI was good enough to make him feel like an actual presence and threat. I thought he made the eagle rescue scene much more coherent for a movie adaptation, while adding some drama with Thorin and setting up Bilbo being accepted by Thorin finally. Radagast was a great change up to what Gandalf and Saruman gives us as wizards, and I appreciated getting to see this mysterious brown wizard mentioned in the books finally. I thought he was played excellently by Sylvester McCoy and I look forward to seeing how his character is developed in the future. Overall I loved this movie and any current problems one may have with it will come to light and be remedied in the next two installments, I believe. Though it is not EXACTLY like the book it has all the proper changes to make it a fun and coherent film. I look forward The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of Five Armies!!! – See more at: http://www.theonering.net/reviews/review.php?id=1653#sthash.d1ytFQ7X.dpuf

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Transformers Age of Extinction Review

Well last night I finally made the trip to see Transformers Age of Extinction. It was everything I thought it’d be. If you’ve seen any of the previous Transformers movies then you know not to expect masterpiece story telling. Simply put: Michael Bay likes to blow shit up and once again that’s what he delivered.
By now I’m sure you’ve read the numerous complaints on the fact that this movie is 3 hours long. It’s very long yes, BUT it truly never felt that long. The movie uses excellent pacing of action scenes to keep your attention. The fight scenes and transforming scenes were incredible and this was easily the most visually beautiful movie of 2014.

Anyhow, I don’t really want to get into the plot much because I want this to be completely spoiler free so I’ll just say a few things: Mark Wahlberg was a massive improvement over Shia LaBoob. That’s because of two (2) reasons, one he’s an all-around better actor and he’s always been great on action movies. Two: he’s not an enormous asshole like the latter. Kelsey Grammer plays a good bad guy and Stanley Tucci was really funny most of the movie. Oh, and one more thing, Michael Bay definitely filled his need for a very attractive girl in every movie with Nicola Peltz, who actually played a half way decent role. She didn’t just stand there and look good like Megan Fox used too.

This movie can be great if you’re into big budget summer blockbusters. It’s big, it’s explosive and Optimus Prime is a real ass kicker once again. So if you’re the kind of movie goer that loves to find anything they can to complain about then I would completely avoid this. I will say though that I had just a few minor complaints so here they are.

-This movie has some of the cheesiest lines I’ve ever heard.

-The villain was badass but in my mind you didn’t get enough face time with him

-The overall looming threat for the next 2 movies was a bit confusing if you’re a casual movie goer and not a lifelong fan.

-Last but certainly not least, NOT ENOUGH DINOBOTS! Grimlock was so cool but don’t expect to see much of him.

Well thanks for reading everyone, in the end I’d give this movie 3.5/5 for an action movie. Now you go see it and make your own judgment.

Upcoming: My Full Review of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Thus Far.

Hello everyone, I’ve decided that my first big thing I want to accomplish with this page is to break down every movie one by one in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. My reason for doing so is that I want to talk about the one group of movies that I truly love the most right now. This will be strictly the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies or MCU. So sorry Spidey or X-Men fans I’ll get to those hopefully next month.

I really gave some thought to doing a review on the Lord of the Rings trilogy first because I love the books and movies so much too. Lets be honest though, for as much of the MCU we have seen so far, there is still so much to come. That’s what intrigues me the most, it’s rare you see this kind of lengthy plan for any stories, let alone so many different ones that will all interconnect. Another sticking point for me doing this is because I get the opportunity to talk about where I believe the MCU should go from here. I’ll attempt to watch every movie again the next few days, which might be a tall task working a full time job. Marvel stories are something I’ve truly loved since I was a child and now that there all finally coming to the big screen it’s such a happy time in my life. 

I hope everyone reads my upcoming reviews and I look forward to seeing where other people think Kevin Feige and Marvel should take these movies in the future

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Movies I’ll be breaking down:

  1. Iron Man
  2. Iron Man 2
  3. The Incredible Hulk
  4. Thor
  5. Captain America: The First Avenger
  6. The Avengers
  7. Iron Man 3
  8. Thor: The Dark World
  9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Movie Review: The Lego Movie

Let me start out by saying I had very low expectations coming into this movie. While I was indeed a fan of Lego toys as a child I had real doubts that this movie would deliver much entertainment to anyone 16+ years old.

 

………BOY WAS I WRONG!

 

Let me start out by saying that this movie had me laughing from start to finish. Chris Pratt voicing the main character was great, he’s really growing as an actor. Every big celebrity in this had me laughing, especially Jonah Hill as Green Lantern. If you go into this movie with an open mind I think you’ll really enjoy it. I’d suggest it for any age as long as you’re a creative person and not a boring buzzkill. It’s just fun to watch and never really gets boring. If I had one critique though it would be that I personally found no reason for the movie to be as long as it was. Granted I was tired as hell from work so maybe that’s my fault for watching it so late.

 

So if you need a movie to rent this weekend whether it’s for your kids, maybe a date night, or even if you’re like me and watch tons of movies alone, this is a great choice. Now it’s not an award winner or anything like that but is not a waste of time either. Hopefully you enjoyed this review and and you end up enjoying the movie too!

In the end I believe I’d give this movie 3 out of 5 stars which is good considering I predicted it to be worth about half a star.Image