Mad Max Fury Road. Awesome and Shiny!

Mad Max Fury Road is the newest installment in the George Miller Post Apocalypse fun house. This movie is the fourth in the series and it did not disappoint. While the three Prior Mad Max movies stared Mel Gibson, George Miller decided to go a new direction and give the lead role to the super villain Bane, (Tom Hardy). The movie was originally supposed to be filmed in Australia where the story takes place, unusually wet weather in the Australian desert  forced them to delay shooting and eventually shoot the film in Africa. The film, which was highly publicized and anticipated, was released on May 15, 2015.

Without saying to much to spoil the movie, It contained enough Explosions and fireballs to make Michael Bay giddy.

The movie definitely stuck very close to its roots which is most likely due to George Miller’s continuing with his project, on top of the fact that he has a passion for using practical affects rather than using CGI for action sequences. Throughout most of the movie, there is a large truck chalk full of guitar amps with large drummers on the back. In front of the amplifiers, a single guitarist hung by bungie chords playing a flame spitting guitar. While most people even myself thought much of his scenes might have been CGI, a recent interview with MTV would prove different. It was revealed that not only did the guitar shoot large balls of fire, but it was also a fully functioning guitar plugged into a fully functioning wall of Amplifiers.

While the Guitar playing “War Boy” (As they are called) does not draw focus and take away from the film, it is a rather welcome addition as it only adds to the feel of the movie. The guitar combined with the war drums, is almost a rally cry for the War Boys as they chase Max through the desert. On top of the moving concert, many of the war vehicles were also completely drivable and used through the entire movie. This only made the movie feel more realistic. While i didn’t see the movie in 3D, i can only imagine that it would have made the movie that much more intense, to combine many practical affects with the in your face 3D glasses.

One of the big points of this move was Charlize Theron, who plays “The Imperator Furiosa” in the movie. the Imperator is basically the right hand of Immortan Joe which was played by Hugh Keays-Byrne. Many people complain that movies have become very sexist against women, in the fact that women can only be kick ass characters until a man shows up and then they become helpless and need the man to save them and basically save the day. This movie did not come off on that in any way. If anything i felt that Mad Max would have been dead long before if it wasn’t for Furiosa and her ability to be hardcore.

  One of the scenes that sticks out is when one of Immortan Joe’s brothers is tracking their truck at night and is using a spotlight and random gun fire to lure them out. Max fires two shots, missing both. Furiosa comes up and takes the come from him and knocks out the spot light in one shot. There are many other scenes, like when Furiosa climbs out and repairs the rig while Max is driving, or several fight scenes where she is shooting bad guys and taking out everyone that tries to climb on her truck and stop her. While some people complained about her being too tough, i honestly thought it made the movie that much stronger having Furiosa, as her own independent badass that helped Max save the day, and not stand there while he does everything. 

If you have not seen this movie, i highly recommend going out and getting a ticket. While i can’t say that it is worth the 3D ticket price, i can tell you that seeing it in the theater only makes it that much better, one of the best movies of the year by far.

Interstellar, not what i thought it would be.

I am quite possibly the last person to watch Interstellar. That not to say that i didn’t want to see it, i just was not that interested in it at the time. I love space movies as much as the next person, but i can’t say that this one was really one on my top to watch list. I know that there are a lot of people who claim that this movie is amazing and that the science behind it is pretty solid. They had an Astrophysicist who helped out with the science while writing the story, as well as Neil Degrasse Tyson was very vocal about his thoughts on the movie which coincided with the fact that the theories behind wormholes and black holes and long distance space travel were all pretty reasonable and well thought out.

What bothers me about the movie was the story that revolved around the movie. Basically if you haven’t seen the movie, Matthew McConaughey is a pilot who has to become a farmer after the earth begins to die and food becomes scarce. He accidentally stumbles upon a secret research facility that is planning to launch a ship through a wormhole that randomly appeared just past Jupiter. He finds out that they had sent a ship once before but had lost contact with the scientists that were the first through the wormhole.

McConaughey has a daughter who is a genius just like her dad, but she seems to have a ghost that is haunting her room, pushing over books, and breaking things. It is in that room that they discover the location of the secret Space facility. His daughter begs him to stay and that she doesn’t want him to leave, but McConaughey is convinced that if he leaves, He may be able to find a planet that can sustain life so that the rest of the planet can board some larger ships and follow them through there.

They make it through the wormhole and find themselves heading towards the first planet. They arrive only to find out that the planet has large tsunami’s one of them destroyed the ship they were looking for. One of the astronauts dies when he gets caught in the Tsunami. Ann and Matthew survive. Ann is rescued by this robotic AI called kip. McConaughey keeps talking about returning home in time cause he misses his family but the one planet have set them back.

They find out that Ann’s boyfriend played by Matt Damon is on one of the planets. His transponder keeps sending back data. They find his ship and bring him out of his cryo sleep. while investigating the planet one of the astronauts is blown up and they find out that Matt Damon has been faking the data so they would come and rescue him cause he didn’t want to stay on that planet alone. Matt Damon runs and blows up part of their main space ship.

Eventually McConaughey realizes they need to use the last of the fuel in their lander ships so they can get to the final planet by using the black hole as a slingshot. Ann realizes that McConaughey is going to sacrifice himself along with the AI Kip so that she can make it to the planet.

What bothers me about this is that They have the technology to create a nearly self aware robotic assistant that can move and even saves Ann Hathaway, not to mention the cyrochambers that keep them in a suspended animation for months on end and yet with all this technology they never created a way to remotely run and or eject the ships that were connected to the main ship. I realize it is a movie and that is how McConaughey discovers that the black hole isn’t really a black hole, but still i am pretty sure they could have ejected those ships without any loss of life.

The only reason why they find the last of the math they need is because McConaughey plunges into a black hole. but as he is plummeting in, he ejects into the black hole and  after some intense experiences, he finds himself in this weird place. Kip is also alive and they come to realize that they are in a forth dimension where McConaughey can see every aspect of time and space from behind his daughters bookshelf. He then tries to send messages through the shelf trying to prevent his younger self from going into space. This is were i start to get a little confused and put off by the movie.

Basically through the last 30 mins of the movie you are told that either Aliens or a future race of humans put this fourth dimension here for McConaughey to find so that he could send his daughter the information on the black hole and how gravity and time work so that she can solve this complex math problem. I realize that they believe that if you left earth in 2014 and went through a wormhole, even though it would be 2020 on earth, you will still be in 2014, thus you would technically gone back in time.

The thing that i hate is that they believe that going back in time could create a time paradox if you were to change something in the past. McConaughey spends a handful of his time in the 4th dimension, trying to prevent his past self from going into space before he realizes that he was the one who sent himself into space with all the coded messages. The problem is that if McConaughey had actually stopped himself from going into space, then he would not be there in the present to give himself the message, thus creating a time Paradox.

Eventually he sends the information and the 4th dimension begins to collapse around him. He then finds himself floating through space and running out of air. Somehow a ship comes out of nowhere and saves him with only minutes to spare. decades have past and while he is 129 in earth years he is only in his 40’s because of being near a black hole, and see’s his daughter who is in her late 90’s.

As far as I am concerned the science behind the movie is solid as far as i can tell, since i am not a scientist, but just the fact that he somehow survived a black hole and floating in the void of space seemed a little farfetched. The fact that he sent himself the coded message so that his daughter could solve the gravitational problem seemed a little bit of a slap to the face. I realize they had to figure something out as a way to sent it to her i just thought the going back in time to when she was a young girl was a bit of a stretch when she was in her 30’s 40’s by the time he was in the black hole. But then again as i sit here and write this, everything he did, could have spanned in the time of maybe one or two years, it was just him seeing himself in the room and trying to prevent his past self from going into space that kind of ruined it for me.

I am not saying that the movie isn’t worth watching i just am not sure how i feel about the ending. it seemed like a kick to the stomach.

Age or Ultron: Best or Worst Avengers yet?

Fortunately or unfortunately for me, it is 2am as i write this because i just got out of the Midnight screening of Avengers: Age of Ultron. It probably doesn’t help that i am hopped up on Cherry coke but i digress.

Never before have i gone to the midnight screening, mainly because the movies release on a week night and i work, but i decided that i wanted to be one of the first billion or so people to see it as soon as i could. I took my dad along because he had enjoyed the previous Marvel movies and i figured it would be cool to hang out and watch the movie. I must say that the Star Wars trailer was awesome. Even my dad was excited for that movie to come out.

After the two hours of previews and the 30 or so minutes it takes to get through the Marvel Logo, we were treated to another Avengers Movie. I probably should mention that i saw the movie in 3D, but that really didn’t make the movie that much more mind blowing. While it was good, they could have done a lot more with the 3D. I have to admit that there was a lot more to the 3D in this one than previous movies i have seen in 3D, but still not blow your mind out of the back of your skull 3D.

A lot of people have been complimenting or complaining about how dark movies have gotten lately. The Batman Trilogy, Winter Soldier, Iron man 3… the list goes on. Everyone has made it known that they think Comic book movies are taking a dark turn, but most of them don’t seem to mind it. I can see why, things have to get worse before they can get better and that is what it is doing. Each movie is a small story in a larger plot that is building up to one giant climax. If you watch the end credit scenes, you can pretty much put together exactly what is going to happen.

For as dark as the movie was, it was done incredibly well. I felt the despair and sadness the movie was trying to purvey but there was also quiet a few up beat moments in the movie. I couldn’t believe the amount of jokes that they managed to throw into the movie at the perfect times to really keep you on the edge of your seat. I found my self breaking down the movies scenes and dialouge, thanks to recent college classes i have been taking. Everything was so smooth and the up beat moments really helped keep the movie from going down a dark road.

I must say that i was incredibly impressed with the movie. I was constantly engrossed in the movie that the time flew by. I must say that this is by far the best Avengers to date. I really think they went to an all new level with this movie. They really put together something that is going to make people return to the theater to see it again as well as become hungry for the next Captain America.

On an unrelated side note, about an hour into the movie, the guy sitting right infront of my dad passed out. he was out for a solid fifteen seconds. He was there with friends and the woke him up, but there was definitely a min of panic as we were trying to make sure he was ok. I am not sure what caused him to do that, it could have been he was tired and just fell asleep or any other number of things, but he was awake the rest of the movie. Also the guy sitting right in front of me felt the need to check his phone every twenty minutes with his screen on Solar bright. Buddy its 12 in the morning, no one is texting you.

I give this movie an A+ i plan on seeing it again in theaters.