Hello! After a long hiatus, we’re back on track. You may have found yourself watching tonnes of blockbuster movies this month, as they tear your soul (and your wallets) scene by scene, movie by movie. April/May is the official start of the blockbuster season this year, and it sure starts with a bang. With this post, I will be reviewing Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Transcendence, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Edge of Tomorrow.
(Also, please be noted that the months of the blockbusters we will be reviewing will be based on Indonesian release dates.)
APRIL
1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
The nationalistic, gifted-with-huge-abs superhero is back in action. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is now in the present day, learning how to deal with modern life, as he unravel the conspiracy in S.H.I.E.L.D. and defeating the new, mysterious villain, that is the Winter Soldier. With a little help from his new friends, of course: Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). The film catches our eyes through its action sequences and plot twists, which makes it really unpredictable, for a start. Another thing that makes this a good film is that it’s not just an action-y Marvel film, it also builds up a good political thriller plot and also a wonderful answer to all the “what happens if” questions addressed in the movie. However, not a lot of comedy is used in this Marvel film, but, nevertheless, the movie remains one of the most exciting and intelligent movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Rating: 4.5/5
2. Transcendence
This is the film debut of Wally Pfister, Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer. It stars Johnny Depp as Dr. Will Caster, a dying scientist who had his consciousness uploaded to the Internet, with his wife (Rebecca Hall) always by his side, and started questioning him when things got into a darker turn. I expected this to be a mind-boggling piece, something like Nolan’s, but it’s not. It lacks scientific basis and it has a quite boring plot. Yet it has an interesting concept and some hella rad effects to make up for it, and also the interesting performance of Rebecca Hall. Rating: 3.5/5
MAY
1. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Spidey is back! Our favorite web-weaving superhero (Andrew Garfield) must face a new enemy, Electro (Jamie Foxx), and has to confront a rich Osborn kid (Dane Dehaan) who wants to live longer, and also has to keep up with his girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). This star-laden sequel of the first movie has an exciting plot build-up and lots of humor. The creation of the villains were made from a good set-up, but sadly, aren’t explored more, giving time to explore Peter and Gwen’s relationship, which makes it really cheesy and reminds us to the target audience of this movie (teenagers!). Nevertheless it has damn good effects and it’s suitable for teens. But not for me. Rating: 4/5
2. Godzilla
This is the first time we can get to watch Toho’s super huge monster on IMAX screens. Godzilla is faced with two new enemies and is going to restore balanced to the world, all seen through the eyes of the Brody family (Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen). Guaranteed: you’ll be crying nerdy, manly tears watching this. The effects will make you cry manly tears; seeing Godzilla walking through the streets, restoring peace will make you cry. The effects were spectacular, the sound design’s magnificent, but sadly, the 3D isn’t worth it. Also, it lacks depth of emotion – some of the scenes from this movie could’ve been like the opening scene of 2009 Star Trek if it tried harder to engage its audience emotions. And the Gyorgy Ligeti-scored scene you saw right here in the trailer might be beautiful, but rather unfitting to the overall tone of the movie. But we have Alexandre Desplat’s music to fix it all up. Rating: 4/5
3. X-Men: Days of Future Past
Okay, so in a world where mutants are being hunted down, Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) sent Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to the past using Kitty Pryde’s (Ellen Page) powers to confront younger Professor X (James McAvoy) to confront Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) to make peace with the humans and not cause havoc while younger Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is still making trouble. Confused? I am, too, for a while. But this film charms us in every second with its social-political concepts, ideas of time travel and parallel plotlines (which makes it the most, if not, one of the most complex storylines in the X-Men movie universe), the enigmatic performances of the actors, the vague-ness of good and bad, and QUICKSILVER (Evan Peters). Yes, yes, he’s the mutant who stole the whole show. Rating: 4.5/5
4. Edge of Tomorrow
It’s Groundhog Day meets aliens and 113 minutes of Tom Cruise being absolutely clueless to Tom Cruise being absolutely badass. In this film, Tom Cruise is a war major stripped down to a soldier preparing to combat a race of advanced aliens, when some substance from the alien makes him repeat that certain day, on and on, until he can stop the alien race. Only Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a Special Forces soldier, knows what he’s going through. This film is intelligent for a summer blockbuster, and it has wonderful humor and they succeeded to not make the time loop concept boring. The effects were cool, the sound design was hella rad. The only thing that disappointed me was the very gritty and rough camera work. Bravo. Rating: 4.5/5
So, that’s it for the April + May blockbusters. See you in June!
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