Sunday, March 15, 2015

'Cinderella' (2015) Review

Nominated For: Best Costume Design.

Cinderella is a pleasant retelling of the classic tale by Kenneth Branagh, who directed Thor. I really enjoyed the film and thought the visual effects that were used were spectacular. I liked the creative decisions made by Branagh especially everything that the Fairy Godmother changed for Cinderella. The costumes and production design were both fantastic and beautiful to view. The acting in the film is great, I especially liked Cate Blanchett as the evil Stepmother and Lily James as Cinderella. This film has fewer twists and changes to the classic tale as opposed to the changes that were made from Sleeping Beauty to Maleficent but there are indeed a few changes and twists to the overall story, they just don't affect the story too much as I expected they'd differentiate from the classic Disney animated version. This film provides much more backstory before the events of the ball, etc. Another incentive to seeing the film is that there is a short film Frozen Fever attached that takes place after the events of Frozen. This short film is very entertaining, recaptures the tone of Frozen in only a few minutes, and features another great song. Overall I would highly recommend this film if you enjoy the story of Cinderella or were interested in watching Cinderella or Frozen Fever.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

'Chappie' Review

I recently saw Chappie and enjoyed it despite the mixed reviews  however I will admit that I even had mixed feelings about this film. The best parts of the film are the visual effects, action scenes, and Chappie himself. It is very entertaining to see Chappie become more self aware as an A.I. The parts I disliked is that there is a South African gangs present in the film that seem to serve no larger purpose for the plot of the film and are quite irritating. It was very annoying to watch them corrupt Chappie in some parts of the film. I will say that Hugh Jackman gives an incredible performance as the antagonist and this has made me very excited to see what he does in Pan as Blackbeard. This wasn't too surprising to me as Hugh Jackman seems to be great in every film. I really liked his character as he was ruthless and manipulative. Another character I liked was Chappie's creator who I felt wasn't given a large enough role to service the plot but was fun to watch. Overall, Chappie is a good film but not a great one. I would only recommend watching it if you were previously interested in Chappie