Then why bother remaking it in the first place? Make it be something else instead. If it is good enough to stand on its own, it doesn't need to have anything in common with the original movie.

The Thing is a perfect example of a remake done right. Carpenter took what was a low quality B movie and turned it into one of the best science fiction horror movies of all time. Same goes for The Maltese Falcon. Hell, that movie was made three times in a 10 year span and it wasn't until the third version that they actually got the movie right. Even Hitchcock remade The Man Who Knew Too Much because he knew his original was quite amateurish.

On the other hand, The Manchurian Candidate remake, while not a bad movie by any means, had no business being called The Manchurian Candidate. If they had called it by something else, it would have been well praised.

Which brings up another point. By remaking a movie, you are automatically going to force the audience to compare it to the original. King Kong (Jackson's version) is a great movie, but because it is a remake, it is a pointless movie because the original is already one of the best movies of the year. Why watch a 3 hour good version of a movie when you can watch the vastly superior 100 minute original masterpiece?

I agree that The Gift turned out to be quite spectacular. I wouldn't put it close to Inside Out or Ex Machina, but yeah, it was a really great pyschological thriller. This is probably as close to a modern day Hitchcock movie as we'll ever get.

 

My biggest issue with that one was what they did with Galactus, I've seen some excellent modernizations that allow the character to "look" like himself.

Other than that, they're good movies. The Four themselves were all incredibly well cast and had they given Julian McMahon more material to work with I feel his Dr. Doom would have been better received.

 

Technically, the 2001 movie is what the original movie should have been. More than enough to justify its existence.

Yeah, I hear you. I didn't know who Galactus was, so that's why I had no problem with their version. To me, it was just their version of Unicron.

 

My wife and I watched RIPD the other night. We had fun with it. It was very much a Men in Black rip off but that didn't bother us. 7/10

 

The lego movie: 10/10, never gets old seeing this one

 

Straight Outta Compton - 7/10

I know next to nothing about the NWA, but this film got me up to date and made me care for all of these guys. Ice Cube, Easy E and Dr. Dre's friendship and individual struggles were all pretty moving to watch. The only problem with the film is that it's a wee bit too long.

 

Terminator: GeniSys - 4/10

I don't know why I torrented this.

 

Duel - pretty good, Spielberg makes a taut thriller out of a relatively bland concept, and the cinematography for what was just a tv movie was amazing. I never realized how Spielberg cribbed some ideas about using the camera for storytelling from The Twilight Zone before, but it was kind of obvious here, and totally welcome. The ending is flat, and the voice over narration is heavy-handed when it appears, including a few places near the end where he just should have said them out loud, but overall it holds up. 7.5 / 10

That led into...

The Car - this stunk, and I couldn't believe how many things were weak sauce compared to the previous film. The cinematography despite being a big-screen movie looked like late '70s tv, the vistas were misused, the setup was incredibly flat, and while James Brolin led a cast with much-needed personality, the actual story felt hollow and empty. A big problem was that this movie doesn't really have much to say, so it pads with light soapy writing which derails the buildup. Also, the titular Car looked really crappy, George Barris gave it a rush job with corny lines and cheap fabrication. The movie was pretty harsh to wives and girlfriends, one of the heroes is a wife-beater who doesn't even get his comeuppance. I've seen worse films, there are some interesting ideas, but only about 20 minutes of them. 3.5/10

Couldn't join them for Christine, unfortunately.

 

The Breakfast Club 8/10

 

Frozen- 8/10

Overrated in terms of anyone calling it one of the great animated films of all time but still a really good movie.

Tron: Legacy- 7/10

The news of the sequel being cancelled pissed me off but if series truly is done than this movie ended it on a mostly satisfying note. Lots of cool sh#t and it's a pure beauty to the eyes and ears on blu ray.

 

hobbit : battle of the five armies - 8/10

this is probably the third or fourth time i've watched this. i think i'm the only person who likes the hobbit movies more than the lord of the rings movies.. like, substantially more.

 

On a surface level that's true, but Unicron occupies more of a Satan analogue in TF fiction where as far as I know, Galactus is more like a force of nature to whom the notions of good and evil are ignored in favour of "Am I hungry? If no, continue on. If yes, eat planet".

Here's a fan's modern take on his design:

 

Straight Outta Compton - 10/10

Really enjoyed this movie. Knew most of the history but had parts that i didn't know happened too.

Also happy the audience didnt make it a sing-a-long too.

 

Wait...is that really a thing? FFS, no. I'd be screaming like a crazy person to get them all to shut up.

 

Fant4stic
Not gonna lie, I torrented this movie because I didn't want to waste my time and money on it.

I'll mirror what everybody said that the first half of the movie was well done until Doom's reason for drunk teleporting. Yeah, nice going there, though I admit I was touched a bit when Ben was asking for Reed's help while he was transforming. But Reed's escaping alone abandoning his friends felt out of character, though this is a different interpretation of the the FF so I'm not gonna complain much about that.

I already mentioned that I did like the suits and aesthetic choices they made with each character and with the exception of lack of clothes, I do like Ben's rocky form, but dat wig. They didn't even bother making it the same color? The acting wasn't that great and there was barely any emoting of connection between them in the second half with the exception of Ben's scene I mentioned earlier. Michael B. Jordan seemed like the only one into his character and it felt like he was trying his best at it, but Reg E. Cathey as his father was the best acted character of the bunch.

Lucy- I mean Doom's screentime was very little for a movie villain. We barely know anything about him other than his introduction scene and how stupid his reasoning why for starting the whole mess and final fight wasn't that satisfactory.

The movie wasn't a good Fantastic Four movie, but honestly... it wasn't as boring as everybody claimed to be. Yeah, there's little to no action but I was still invested in how the characters were dealing with their project and changes and their adaptation. As a Fantastic Four Comic Book Movie, it's terrible. Nothing in it bares anything Fantastic Four. But as a generic superhero flick, it did what it did.

5/10

 

It Follows
It spooked me.

 

Man of Steel- 5/10

I had only seen this twice before. Once in theaters and on HBO last year. Saw it on blu ray for 10 bucks and decided to pick it up.

This film has probably the most poorly contrived second half I've ever seen. You had a story with heart and solid character moments going and it got turned into a boring generic disaster movie littered with tasteless 9/11 imagery. And for f#%ks sakes it's a superman movie. Lighten up a bit will ya? My kingdom for some color.

 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - 8/10

A rather solid period spy flick, truly livened up by what I think is excellent chemistry between Cavill and Hammer (who is a fucking huge man, seriously get this guy into comics movies) as Solo and Kuryakin respectively.

The film also contains one of the funniest Nazi killing scenes in any film I have ever seen. Loses a point for being a tad too drawn to the origin story idea and some of the weird comic panel cuts made it harder to enjoy what should have been an awesome beach landing scene.

 

People should remember that the original Superman was considered very serious, and that the studios didn't want that. They wanted a Superman version of the Adam West Batman.

 

Man from Uncle

i've never seen the show, so i am unable to compare it to that. however, this Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Diana Prince, team up to beat up Nazi's, is a pretty awesome movie. the three of them have a lot of charisma. It is that charm that really drives this film. Especially Mr. Kent.

It's amazing that Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill have WAY more charm in this film, then they did in their respective superhero films they've both been in. I kind of wished, no, i DO wish Cavill played THIS guy as Clark Kent. he was playing the role the entire film. not just Clark, but like 40's Clark. from the Fletchers' shorts. he even carried around that newspaper and everything.

every scene was a lot of fun. mainly because of the three great actors in it. the action scenes are fun. the 60's setting is fun. even the slower, drama scenes were fun. mainly due the factor you never really know what direction a scene is going to go in, until it goes there. every scene has it's own little tiny twist.

i do not know if i would say it is a better film than Impossible Mission 5, but it sure was a fun sit. it sure the HELL is a lot better than Fantastic Four the fourth though. if you have the choice between this and Impossible Mission, i'd say go for Impossible Mission first though. because that was a whole lot of fun. and i can't imagine it being nearly as fun without it being on the silver screen. this however, could wait for dvd.

i give it a solid 8 out of 10. i highly recommend it! heck, I recommend it over Ant Man.