seriousbusiness47

Alright, so this was something I was looking forward to. A graduation celebration. A few of my friends, and myself, bought tickets to see it midnight, opening night in IMAX. And it sucked. I honestly felt like crying. $15 bucks each. I was expecting it to be as good as the first. Well, that's not entirely true. I read some reviews of it, and let's just say I had a bad feeling walking into the theatre. But, I figured I'd give it a chance. Large groups of people have been known to be wrong before. Just look at religion. But no. They were all right. It was a bad, bad movie. It felt as if the plot was something they added on after making most of the movie. Sure, it had awesome fight sequences. Sure, Optimus Prime is a god. But everything that made the first a great movie (other than what I just mentioned) was missing. You don't relate to the characters at all, instead you get to see two , small, yappy-type boy dogs humping, as well as a small transformer humping Megan Fox's leg. And let's not forget the giant, robot testicles, eh? They spent more time on cheap, retarded gimmicks for cheap laughs than they did on character development and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, the robots were humping awesome. Jetfire was my personal favorite, and I loved Alice, but that's about it. I haven't really watched any Michael Bay movies, but this seems to be a perfect representation of what everybody says about them. Two-dimensional eye-candy. Also, I haven't watched the show, so I don't know if this actually happens, but Optimus Prime really should not be doing Arnold Schwarzenegger-like one-liners. It just makes it even crappier.

Pixar's new film, Up, is just as dazzling and beautiful as the previous films. The opening sequence alone was enough to make me cry, as it just grabbed your emotions and twisted them about and punched them until they bled. In a good way. It also helps you to understand and connect more deeply with the old man, Carl Fredrickson, voiced by Ed Asner. After his wife dies, he accidentally-on-purpose hits some guy in the head with his cane and the courts decide to send him to an old-folks home. He escapes by attaching a zillion balloons to his house and flying away, off to South America to complete he and his wife's dream of living in a previously undiscovered part of the continent. Along the way, they meet Dug, a dog that has a collar that can translate his thoughts into English (supposedly. I'm not entirely sure how it works). It's almost scary how similar he is to the dogs I know. Adults can be satisfied that they won't get bored, nor will their intelligence be insulted. And judging by the reactions I heard in the theatre (way too many, by the way), kids loved it, too. The animation is, as always, beautiful. Not realistic, but if that's what you were expecting, you must not have ever seen a Pixar film. Also, this is the first Pixar movie I've seen where there was any blood at all, but don't worry. This isn't like The Shining, with a wall of blood gushing towards you. It's a bump on the head.

I have to say, I am in love. Liam Neeson is god. Taken is a fairly run of the mill action movie, utilizing several times the "Bourne" method of camera work during several action scenes. I'm sure you know, but I'll explain it to all the newbies out there (because I'm that popular already). Shaky, shaky camera, cutting back and forth between what's happening, seizure inducing, etc. Liam Neeson is Bryan Mills, a retired spy/secret agent/whatever goes on a kick ass rampage of anger and destruction in an effort to find his kidnapped daughter, who is being sold into the sex trade. It's fun in the beginning, seeing Bryan's goofy smile when he makes his daughter happy, and watching him trying to be a father figure in his daughter's life. But that all pales when you see the transformation from bumbling dad to Deathbringer 5000. The smile disappears, and that's the first indication that all you're going to be seeing from him from then on is lovely, face-breaking violence. One problem I did have was some of the things you're expected to believe, like how he was able to get the exact name and home town from a brief description by a frightened teenage girl and a few moments of Albanian speech. I could be wrong and this sort of thing happens all the time, but it just seemed silly to me. And the very end. They should have just stopped. But they didn't. As you can tell, I was attempting not to give too much away.