Asterix the land of the gods, and what is wrong with making animated comicbook-movies

Here me out before you rage out in the comments. I personally liked the new Asterix movie, the score was great, the style was spot on and the charachters are amazingly desinged and written. But thats the problem, its too much like the comics, observe:

Look at the composition of the panel, the top half is all text, this does not work in a movie, there are large chuncks of nothing in every frame, causing the point of attention moving around, tiring the viewer, and thus, making the movie feel longer than it actually is. 

But thats not the biggest problem. I asked my friends about the film, but neither had seen it. Why? they didnt grow up reading the comics like I did. But why am I even talking about this? does anyone remember 2002? Thats the year when Scooby-Doo the live-action film came out, and it featured a digital title character, and it looked horrible. Somehow that started a wave of such movies, Garfield, Marmaduke, Smurfs..... It didnt end until this year when Asterix came out. And now there are 5 more movies with the same kind of style announced: Peanuts later this year, Popeye some time in the future, a Smurfs reboot is rumored etc. They all look the same again, Same bouncy, comicbook-style with the same empty space where the speech-bubbles would go. 

But is there a way to fix this? yes there is! And its right here on this wall of text! How convinient!

The Solution To Fixing Comicbook Animation Movies

Rule 1

Thy shalt not reuse the same animationstyle in every movie

Rule 2

Thee shalt comprise the frames like any other movie

Rule 3

Remember all those other movies and dont make yours like theirs was

Rule 4

Stay loyal to the source-material but consider new audiences who are not familiar with it

And thats how you make a good animated comicbook movie. But if there is a Calvin and Hobbes movie I will start a riot! It wasnt meant to be one long story! Leave them alone!

Hot Fuzz: Cornetto trilogy retrospective: part two

This is part 2 of a 3-part series of posts, expect spoilers, swearing and gifs! You have been warned!

Hot Fuzz was not a logical continuation for Shaun of the dead, but the fact that the trilogy only shares the cast, editing style and a joke, we can overlook this minor detail. Most of the cast did indeed return, like Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Bill Nighy. The fast-paced editing and pseudo-realistic action return aswell, thouhg this time mocking the fact that cops in movies never do any of the considerable amount of paperwork that they should.

As mentioned, this time around Pegg and Frost are police-men-officers in the small town of Sandford, Pegg playing a sergeant, Nick Angel, who has without his consent, been transferred from London, for the reason that hes too good, and they can't have that. Frost, on the other hand, plays the local village-idiot-cop, Danny, who feels like he's missing out on the action, due to being from Sandford.

The story is as follows,  Nick gets sent to small town, befriends Danny, no-one else likes him, shit goes fuck-up. In the beginning of the shit going fuck-up, Nick notices that things are not right in Sandford, crimes arent dealt with acordingly, minors are allowed at the pub, and no in the police force gives a shit. Angel meets the townsfolk, who are not normal, and starts noticing how everyone appears too good, and theres never anything going on. Then, a speeding solicitor and his mistress are found dead after their interpertaiton of Romeo and Juliet turns out to invoke this face:

Nick doesent believe that the cause of death was actually a traffic-collision as is lead to believe, but rather it was cold-blooded murder. (it was) As a result, the entire station starts hating on poor Nicholas, and starts pranking him. Later a wealthy business-man gets himself blown up by leaving the gas on after making himself a fry-up. Once again, Nick is suspicious. And while everyone else is in denial of the truth, a church-fete is held, and Angel is put as host, leading to more bulliyng.

Then, the editor of the local newspaper gets a piece of chuch-roof down his skull, once again leading everyone to believe that it was an accident, despite Nicks best efforts. During all this Nick and Danny get closer, and while on Dannies birth-day, Nick goes to buy him a plant, He witnesses yet another murder, and even though he chases a suspect, no one believes him.

After conducting a search of his own, Nick concludes that the murderer is Simon Skinner, the manager of the local super-market. After finding no conclusive evindence against him, the case is closed. However, the very same night, the 7-foot tall Lurch, under the guidance of Skinner, attacks Nick in his hotel room. After following the lead to the castle, a random twist appears, I won't spoil it, just in case you only came here to be able to be a part of the cool kids who can talk about Hot Fuzz.

Nick is then forced away from the village, but he returns, armed and dangerous. Shooting up the entire village, killing no-one and absolutely ridiculing every modern action movie. Joined by Danny, the hero cop arrests all those responsible for the killings. The climax ends in the entire fucking police-station blowing to little bits. 

The movie retains most of the charm of Shaun of the Dead, all the while manageing to be unique and fresher than than the ingridients that make up crandberry juice during the winter. Also, laying down the groundwork for using old Bond-actors as minor villains was done with this film. And while not the best in the trilogy, no one can question its genious and greatness. So go rewatch it, then go Watch The Worlds End, for though I might return next week with a twinkle in my eye, I will indeed be blind! of laughter, after making the final part of this retrospective, all about The Worlds End, and the Cornetto trilogy as a whole aswell. And maybe I might make a review of Inside Out, if you guys are nice! And maybe in the future I might make another Retrospective of another trilogy. and maybe I allready have teased it. 

The Dark Knight Rises and how Bruce got back to Gotham in one day

Warning, Spoilers for the Dark Knight Rises ahead!

One of the biggest complaints about the conclusion of the epic Nolan Batman-trilogy was, that Bruce Wayne got back to Gotham, from the pit, in just one day. But heres the twist, he didn't. 

First, look at this line of dialouge, just before bruce tries to escape for the second time, failing, presumably on the same day.

Then, he tries again, without the rope, succeeding, this could have happened anywhere between later that day, and 22 days later. Then we get the scene of Gordon ranting about there only being 18 hours, later that day Batman shows up.

Conclusion: Batman came back to Gotham in a timespan of anywhere between 22 and 1 days.

I can't believe I'm the only one who has noticed this, its so obvious, yet there are hundereds of people complaining about this being a plothole. Also, he's, the goddamn Batman!

Shaun of the Dead, Cornetto trilogy retrospective: part one

This is the first part of a three part serie of analyzations, reviews and discussion about a movie series. Expect spoilers, cursing and Gifs!

The first in a Series known as the Cornetto Trilogy (sometimes The Blood and Ice-cream trilogy) of wich Shaun of the Dead is perhaps the best known. The movie is a social satire and pokes fun at modern horror movies by making a realistic take on what a group of survivors would do in a zombie-apocalypse. "And why should I see it, because it has an Orangutan impersenation? Fuck-a-doodle doo" I hear you say. Because it's fucking hilarious!

The film opens at the Winchester where Shaun is having an argument with his girlfriend Liz, while we are being introduced to the other carachters; Shauns flatmate Ed, and David & Dianne, a couple who live with Liz. From there we get the now iconic credits that show extremely well that a zombie invasion might go by completely unnoticed in our modern society.

We then see Shauns daily life as an electronics-shop sales person. We do get some hints of the zombies happening, such as people being sick, glimpses of news reports and the military spreading around London. Shauns step dad, Phillip, comes to remind him about a visit to his parents house, and we can see that the tension between the two men really high. After work Shaun gets a phone call from Liz asking him if their anniversary dinner was okay, wich it isnt, so he has to go over to Liz's place to make it up, but the plan backfires badly and the couple ends up breaking up, leading to the hatred between Shaun and David getting set up

After a night of drinking and foreshadowing at the Winchester with Ed, Shaun decides to party around with him, leading to the reveal of Petes, the third flatmates, injury, he has been bitten by some crackheads, At this point we get some brilliant writing in the form of Pete telling sort his life out.

The next morning Shaun and Ed find a girl in the garden, realize that shits getting out of hand and come up with a plan to save themselves, Shaun's mom and Liz, allthewhile getting to a safe place and dealing with Phillip whose been bitten.

It all goes fuck-up but they manage to get to the winchester with David and Dianne tagging along.

Inside the pub things go good at first but thanks to David being a prick, they are confronted by half of London in zombie form. they manage to defend for a while until Shauns mum reveals that she's been bitten earlier, leading to one of the most awsome emotional scenes in a movie ever; David wants to shoot her but everyone else opposes causing a wild reservoir dogs reference to appear, ending in Shaun finishing the job himself. But due to David being a twat, He gets himself torn to pieces and lets the hoard of zombies inside to the pub. Dianne makes things worse by opening the door for twice the zombie fun! With only Shaun, Ed and Liz remainig, they defend off some of the zombies until Ed gets bitten by zombie-Pete who made his way to the pub. 

With the three cornered behind the bar, they make their way to the cellar, but cant get the hatch open. In their desperation they think of using the last two shells in their rifle on themselves. Emotion ensues when they find a way to get out but are forced to leave the zombifying Ed behind. The military shoots up the pub and we cut to six months later when Liz and Shaun are back together and living together. We are shown via newsreports that the zombies are used as cheap labor and that the outbrreak has been contained. In the last shot we see that Shaun brought zombie-Ed into the shed in his backyard to play videogames with. 

The Film was a huge success making four times its budget, and leaving people to quote it for years to come. 

There are several runnug gags and repeated dialogue in the movie and it requiers several viewings to notice them all, so go see it again, and after you see it go see Hot Fuzz, as its the topic for the next part of this retrospective, coming next week. then after youve done that, go see the Worlds End, as its the last part. And after that, you should come back here to suggest another trilogy to do a retrospective off, and then you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest, with a herring!

Pixels

Its crap, go play this if you want pacman =)

pacman in the google logo

Fant4stic

Thought I wouldnt make fun of the title, did you? you were wrong!

Of all the superhero-movies coming out this year, this is the worst. It tries to justify itself by talking about patterns, and how everything has one, but then while that apples to movies, all the other scientific techno-babble is completely made-up and fals, and the film makes no attempt to mask this, anything can be debunked if you give it a little thought.

But how is the movie? its, bad, worse than the previous two films trying to make a movie about four pseudo-scientists getting superpowers and wearing matching blue suits. And atleast the 2005 version tried to make the characters real, or even charachters, there is no develoupment. there exists the faintest idea of a real group of people. this is clearly an attempt to make the superhero market seem more diverse than it actually is, it tries to show that a superhero can be from any place from the world, while its really just two white guys, a black guy, and a white girl trying to represent ethnic diversity by giving them foreing backgrounds and making them fight an  east-europian "bad-guy". the quotations are there because he isnt really one. Doom's motivations, powers, and reasonig are never explained, nor is his survival in the other dimension.

Just dont go see this film, there are lots other, better, moviees about these guys out there, three to be exact. go watch those, this is just another the amazing spiderman, made because the studio would lose the rights unless they deliver a movie. (trivia, so was the very first, unreleased 1994 movie). Go see the one starring Chris Evans, it has Chris Evans.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Its no Ghost protocol but damn, its great. Ethan Hunts latest adventure takes him to a lot of desparate situations, including the side of a plane, but that is by far the most intresting part of the film, and its put at the very beginning. I admit that that was probably the best choise considering the plot of the film, but then why have it? Its obvious that this is just another film made partially to boost Tom Cruise's self-image, but it also has some great action besides that, and while a lot of it is BS, one can enjoy it quite a bit.

The movies best parts are in the interaction of the characters, Benji is once again my favourite bit, relatable and realistic to the situation. Ethan is Ethan, wich he should be, but he at times seems a bit too immortal and you cant really believe that he's actually in danger, unlike other characters. The villain wasnt mentioned in the trailers, so I wont spoil it, but I'll mention that while menacing, he has the appearance and voice of a tortoise grandmother. 

The stuntwork isnt as engageing or tense as in M:I 4, and most of the tension comes from the quiet scenes. It is much more heartpounding to watch a beloved character face death than seeing an indestructible action-man dodge CGI-beams that have no reason to be there. But over-all, the movie does its job, even with a little convelution in the plot. Go see it if you liked the previous one or are a fan of good chemistry between characters.