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Today, I'm going to do a quick review of As Above, So Below. This one was yet another found footagesque type horror film with a relatively low budget and a mainly unknown, but familiar cast.

This movie didn't really work for me. I found it to be a little boring and the story seemed familiar, much of it seemed to be kind of recycled from The Descent and of course the Blair Witch Project. Some of the supernatural elements were interesting, but in this case the feeling I got was that I had to be there to really know how scary it was.

For some reason, watching this, I wasn't nearly as terrified as the people in the movie were. It felt like the camcorder style it was filmed in kind of dulled the edge. It likely would have been better to make this just as a movie rather than a found footage film. I also found it almost too well lit in most parts...the lighting was a little too bright which kind of removed some of the ominous feel.

Not to mention the mostly not scary antagonists. Lots of noise and horror elements we've seen before thrown in here and some pretty weak bad guys make for some yawns unfortunately.

The ending was way to tidy as well. I really hate predictable endings in an already fairly predictable genre. Someone needs to come along and shake this style of movie up, or just get rid of it. I know this won't happen though because these movies basically print money because they are so cheap to make.

In the end, this movie came a little too late into the genre and the story felt a little hokey to me...like I said earlier, I guess you had to be there.

I was one of the non-believers. I couldn't see how Marvel was going to pull this movie off with a bunch of secondary characters who I really didn't know much about. After all, in the comic adaptation world we've been used to seeing the major players turned into big budget spectacles and the more minor and fringe characters being released by secondary studios...

I have never been so happy to be wrong. When I say I was a non-believer, I was going into this movie fully expecting to see the first Marvel flop in recent times. That said, this wasn't just a movie, it was an event. I honestly believe it launched the long term platform Marvel recently announced and enabled less mainstream characters such as Dr. Strange and Ant Man to get full blown big budget productions.

Much of the movie's success comes from Chris Pratt's portrayal as Peter Quill/Star Lord. He was born to play this character and is a bona fide star and leading man. It's one of those moments when a star is born and it just so happens the platform he did it on was one the best films of the year.

Another thing that makes this movie so great, and what Disney/Marvel are masters at, is making it accessible to everyone. I think everyone form Junior to Granny would have a ton of fun watching this movie. The mix of humour/action/effects/story make it a truly unique experience. It's like they took what they had learnt from all of the previous Marvel movies and combined it into this one. Every detail was put into the production most likely because of people with opinions like mine where we were not sold on this concept.

Something else that stood out for me was that this didn't feel like your typical 'super hero(es) save the earth' story because of the space element. It seemed larger scale and a fresh direction. It was one of the more original story lines because these are aliens and not typical super heroes like The Avengers. All of this combined to create a more unique and refreshing experience. That and the heroes weren't cut and dry good guys, they were definitely more of a grey area.

In the end, if you haven't already, get down to that theatre before it's too late. You don't want to be the person who didn't the full experience of this theatrical event. After that is done, stream it on Amazon so Disney knows how much this movie was loved. This was definitely my movie of the year...there were some other good ones, but none in the league of 'GoG' as it is now known. Flixer Approved!

Believe it or not, this was a movie I was looking forward to watching. I enjoyed Luke Evans in the Hobbit and had high hopes here. Don't get me wrong, I fully understood the differences between this and a traditional Dracula movie. I was just curious to see if it was going to work...

I was a little late to the game, and I could see this movie hadn't got much love, so I had the expectation going in that I was going to be disappointed. Honestly, I wasn't. This movie delivered on it's promise of an action/fantasy movie rather than a horror origin story. It had horror elements, but it was fairly toned down to reach a broader audience. That was probably the main gripe I had with it. I think a Dracula movie geared towards teens is probably never going to be a good idea. Dracula is supposed to be ruthless, brutal, and evil incarnate.. That said, he could be heroic in his early origin, but I think he would still have to be ruthless and brutal and I didn't have that feeling here. He was too much of a good guy for me. Even the way he killed the baddies was kind of watered down on the brutality side (not saying it wasn't interesting, it was more Hobbit than Dracula though) With that out of the way, I enjoyed the performances from Evans and Dominic Cooper as Mehmed. I really liked the effects; particularly the epic battle sequences which did a good job of showing the power that Dracula possess. The story was a little vanilla other than the back story to where the powers come from.

In the end, this movie was a decent action/fantasy flick but it was certainly not the Dracula movie I would have liked to see. Turn up the Dracula and turn down the audience concerns. One last note -- I hated the 'extended' ending...please don't make that sequel.