Psycho review

So yesterday I went to a screening at my local drama centre, it was a horror film and as my upcoming project for college is a horror opening I decided to go and see what it was. The film they showed was Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho. The film is more of a thriller than a horror as there are not as many scares in the film.

The story starts in Phoenix, Arizona where a girl named Marion talks to her boyfriend about leaving to pursue a better life. She goes to work later that day and a man about to buy the building she works for gives her $40,000 to put in the bank. she pretends she is ill and steals the money. She is then caught being suspicious by many people like the police and the car salesman. She stops at a place called 'Bates Motel' where she gets a room after they have a talk about Norman Bates's mother problem. She starts having a shower until she is murdered by 'Mrs Bates'. A week later a P.I turns up due to her suspicious disappearance, he later gets murdered and that leads Marion's sister and boyfriend to go to the motel and try to see what is wrong. Marion's sister founds Mrs Bates's corpse, Norman tries to kill her and then is stopped and after that, he is sent to prison. The story ends with the police finding the car with Marion's body and the $40,000 inside.

That's the story out the way, now for the cast. The cast had stars such as Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Janet Leigh as Marion, Vera Miles as Marion's sister Lila, John Gavin as Marion's boyfriend Sam and Paul Jasmin as the voice of Mrs Bates.

Some of the camerawork had a lot of impressive shots such as the freaky close-up shots and they also had a clever use of lighting which made it more effective in black and white than it would be in colour.

Overall Psycho is a film that is a classic example of a thriller. It has impressive shots and angles and a great use of lighting. However, the film has aged a little due to it being released 57 years ago so not all the scares are as terrifying as they were back then. However, the ending is freaky with Norman in his cell with the voice of his mother in the back round.

I would give Psucho a 9/10- Impressive camerawork and lighting, not all the scenes have a big impact on the audience anymore.

Darkest Hour review

Welcome back, everyone.

The most boring month of the year is drawing to a close. As apart of the last weekend of the month till another year I decided to review a film that at the moment has won lead actor Gary Oldman a lot of awards, yes I'm talking about Darkest Hour.

The film starts in the first year of the Second World War and Neville Chamberlain is booted out of Parliament for allowing Hitler to invade Poland, his party is forced into electing a new Prime Minister for a new coalition Government. Churchill is elected due to him be the favourite of the opposition so he should work well with them. The film covers two events in the war which are Germany's invasion of Europe and the Dunkirk crisis where the whole British Army could have been demolished by the hands of the Nazi's. With Britain in a lot of trouble, Churchill is struggling to decide what is best for the country as there is a temptation for peace talks with Mussolini one of Hitler's most trusted allies.

The film could be nothing without it's cast as it has some strong actors such as Gary Oldman as Churchill, Kristin Scott Thomas as his wife Clementine Churchill, Lily James as his typist Elizabeth Layton and Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI. There also some other minor roles such as Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain and Stephen Dillane as Lord Halifax.

The film expresses Churchills personality very well and you forget that he is Prime Minister as the film portrays him as a man who is trying to do what is best for the people. The film also as a lot of good moments between Churchill and Layton as they both trust each other and become good friends by the end of the movie.

What I found that was interesting was that no one believed that Churchill would be good and would resign leading to a vote of no confidence to do the peace talks, Once that looks like it will happen Churchill strikes back by talking to Parliament saying that England 'will never surrender' which leads both sides to agree and the rest is history.

I would give Darkest Hour a 10/10 good performances throughout which made the film enjoyable to watch.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review

Hi everyone happy new year,

I know it's been a while since I have reviewed a film as per usual but I thought I'd start up again by doing the latest addition to the Star Wars Saga (if it's still called that). This movie has had many good reviews calling it the "Best Star Wars yet", the audience, however, are debating if the film is good or that its bad. People have been calling it bad due it being more of an end of a trilogy than a sequel. So without a further doubt let's continue with the review.

The film takes place a few minutes after the Force Awakens and the Resistance are desperately escaping the clutches of the First Order. As the Resistance are about to finish there evacuation the First Order have found them and start to wipe them from Existence. On the other side of the Galaxy Rey (Daisy Ridley) has found the location of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on the island of Ahch-To where there was once a Jedi Temple until destroyed by Ben Solo or as he is known Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). After being tracked through light speed the Resistance are trying desperately to find a new base without being stopped by General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and the First Order. Poe (Oscar Isaacs) has a plan to get someone to stop the First Order from tracking them by shutting the core down on Supreme Leader Snoke's (Andy Serkis) star destroyer. Finn (John Boyega) and a new character named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran)  go to a planet called Canto Bite where they find a hacker named DJ (Benicio Del Toro) who help them on to the star destroyer before betraying them for an award. The plan fails so the Resistance evacuates to a planet called Crait where they hide until Rey comes back to help fight and get them out of the First Order's clutches.

That is the whole story of the film. So what did I think of it? I thought it is a pretty decent film, I understand why people hate it as there is a lot of unanswered questions such as Snoke's Identity as he is killed off in his second scene in the flesh. The good things I thought that it had an interesting use of two separate stories that link together at the end, they gave Poe a bigger part as he was forgotten about in the last film, Carrie Fisher had a bittersweet part and also Yoda was back. However, like all films, there are also bad things such as Snoke's part in the whole film, the Canto Bite scene, The fact it had a lot of unnecessary jokes which make it more of a Marvel Movie than a Star Wars Movie, Also Luke's personality and that he shied away from the force. Also an extra mention to the film's ending, the ending is a small child who we saw a scene prior for a second, looking at the resistance leaving through the Millenium Falcon and for some reason he has the force. Why. Rogue One has a more satisfying ending with the Darth Vader scene.

Now there were things that I did find weird in the movie as well one was the blue milk coming out of this seal on the island as it was awkward and added nothing to the plot, C-3PO had a Gold Arm,This is awkward for me it looked like he had a red arm for most of the 30 years before the Force Awakens so the fact that this film takes place literally after the destruction of Star Killer Base why has his arm gone back to gold, Also the falcon wasn't flown with Han Solo as he is mostly with the ship and the fact the character is no longer with was a little bit heartbreaking. But then again the new Solo Movie is coming May this year so we'll see how that will turn out.

But the main question people want an answer to the most is what did I think of the Porg's? Honestly, nothing much they seemed to waste a lot of time that could have been added to certain characters they were good as they had a funny relationship with Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo not Peter Mayhew) also R2-D2 was played by Jimmy Vee as Kenny Baker unfortunately died.

So overall I'd  give the Last Jedi an 8.5/10 good movie, not the best executed.

Justice League Review

Now the last time I did a review I did the last Wolverine film and since then there's been a lot happening with rumours of Fox being purchased by Disney just to get the Fantastic Four and the X-men which shows that they are very desperate to get those characters and put them into the MCU which has been on the screens for almost 10 years now. Anyway, that's one worrying factor in Superhero films here's the film that by what the media is saying could make the future of the DC universe change forever. Yes, I mean Justice League.

Now before I start I want to say I have wanted a Justice League film since I watched the animated series and when the Avengers came out it was a complete gamechanger. So when I heard DC will do there own I was hoping when they got to a Justice League film that it would be the same, shamefully that didn't happen but it might be the second best movie in the DCEU so far which, to be honest by the way their movies are going that's not the greatest place to be at the moment. But then again at least Wonder Woman was good and everyone was worried about that.

Now let's begin, it starts at least a year after the events of B vs S and much has changed. Batman's trying to investigate these disappearances and Wonder Woman works in a museum. While the others are out of hiding. One problem I have with this movie is you sort of have to forget events from the last as it portray's Superman as this g-d like character which to be far he saved everyone just in a very questioning way.

Anyway, crime increases and whats worse is that the main villain Steppenwolf voiced by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds comes to Earth to locate three motherboxes that together can recreate the world in his image. This action is called the unity. The Justice League eventually come together to stop him and use the last remaining motherbox to revive Superman, this happens and he turns on the Justice League and Lois Lane is used to make him calm down as he almost kills every member of the Justice League.

The League go to Russia and stop Steppenwolf from using the Unity, Superman returns after having calmed down and helps them defeat Steppenwolf and turn his Parademons against him and is sent to who knows where. All the heroes are reunited and are able to live happy lives until the next event in the DCEU. There is also an after credits scene of Lex Luthor having escaped Arkham Asylum and having talks of forming the Legion of Doom or the Injustice League with the help of Deathstroke portrayed by Joe Manganiello. 

The overall movie is alright there is nothing that special and it is nothing like there version of the Avengers which is a shame because if they got all the solo movies done first then it might have worked instead of just dragging them into the movie but to be fair they did introduce them into the last movie so that was good. The villain contributed nothing to the plot as he kept saying 'mother' and other lines that didn't make sense. My main issue is that the story was a bit of a mess as it was very rushed and not all the scenes made complete sense which was a major issue.

I'd give Justice League a 6.5/10. Good new characters, enjoyable to watch at times, disorganised plot.

Logan review

Logan marks the last Hugh Jackman film as the popular X-Men character Wolverine. The film has a different tone to other X- Men movies and its film certificate. Due to the success of Deadpool, Logan was rated a 15 and boy did they stick to that. The film has more violence which suits the role of Wolverine very well. Also he swears quite a bit like his comic counterpart. The story is set 6 years after the events of days of future past were we see that Logan is one of the only mutants left in existence, he stumbles across a girl who is just like what he used to be so he, Professor X and the girl must find a save haven. once they do they see other mutants and take them to safety so the mutant generation can live on.

The cast like any X- Men movie is well built. Some performances to spot are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Stephen Merchant unrecognisable performance as Caliban. Newcomer Dafne Keen did a good job at playing X-23 or the New Wolverine as she is now in the comics. Director James Mangold has down a good job on his last two Wolverine films and hope to see him in future X- Men films. But Logan marks the end of the current X-Men franchise so I doubt I'll see him do another film like that again.

There isn't really any negatives I can say to this movie as it is not a usual X-Men type film, it is more of a drama just with comic characters. I guess one thing could be Wolverine's clone X-24 (spoilers) as they sought of went a bit too far with that idea. That I guess it the only negative I can come up. But all that aside I would give Logan a 10/10 as it is one of the best Wolverine/X- Men movies I have seen in quite a while.

Hidden Figures Review

Now we all know about the Oscars and it's recent bluff that has been over the news but usually I never see a film that is Oscar nominated before. Here is one of the films were I actually have seen and got nominated. Hidden Figures is about 3 Black women working at NASA in the early 60's which played a crucial part in the unmanned space rocket tests before the 1969 moon launch. The three main characters are called Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) who was a crucial part of the success of the rocket tests as she figured out all the coordinates needed, Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) a woman who tried her best to become the IT supervisor who never got the job never mind her attempts but she helped in working the IBM machine and eventually becoming the supervisor and Marry Jackson (Janelle Monáe)  a woman who become the first black person to graduate at Hampton University to become an engineer.

The Characters are well developed and you can understand each character no matter of the screen time they share to the other characters. The soundtrack as well is good with numerous songs by Pharrell Williams and of course composed by Hans Zimmer who is well known for numerous films. There are not many negatives I can say to this film as it is based on true events found from a book a year prior to the films making. However I personally did not think it was Oscar worthy. I mean don't take this the wrong way it is a good film but I have seen a few films like these and I found them all the same unless there is something special to them. To me this film didn't have anything special to it apart from the characters would standout to most of the scenes in the film. Feel free to comment on this.

Overall I thought the film was good and I enjoyed it. There are a few scenes that might make you tear up and most of them will get you thinking on what society was like in those times. Anyway I would give Hidden Figures a 8.5/10

Justice League Dark review

Justice League Dark is an animated film as a part of the DC animated universe. The outline of the story is a being called Destiny hypnotizes people into thinking they are seeing everyone as a trans dimensional beasts. Just as they are about to kill people, various members of the Justice League are in time to stop them. They then consider that magic could be involved with the current events. Batman grows suspicious and decides with the help of Zatanna to go to John Constantine to see if he has any insight on what is happening. With Constantine's help they form a team and come together to stop Destiny from causing chaos in the city.

The film starts off very differently to what I have seen through other DC animated films, this helps to establish just how mad people can be when they are being deceived into seeing something else. The cast contains Matt Ryan reprising the character of Constantine as he has done in the Amazon Series, Arrow and now the upcoming animated series on the CW. Jason O' Mara returns as Batman for his seventh time on the role, Nicholas Turturro voices Deadman a ghost of a living ghost of fallen acrobat Boston Brand, Grey's Anatomy star Camilla Luddington voices Zatanna an ex of Constantine's and Alfred Molina voices the villain Destiny a man who is willing to get revenge for what happened to him 500 years ago. There many other roles but it will go on for sometime so I decided to shorten it down.

Now its time for the negatives, the films story was very basic and like other DC animated films I have seen it was nothing special, which is a shame as it looked really good when in the trailer. Also Batman didn't feel like he was a part of the team he was just there for some familiarity, he just growled at everything which I'll admit I laughed at but he didn't suit the team in anyway apart from being Batman. Also the character of Swamp Thing is hardly in the movie either. Which I found was a shame as not many people would know about him and if he had a bigger role he might have actually been member able than most of the other characters.

Anyway negatives are down here's my overall opinion on the movie. Overall I thought
Justice League Dark was an average movie that had a lot of area to improve on. Some of the characters were good and some I felt weren't need at all like the Justice League (Including Batman). I felt using the actors from Constantine was a nice idea and hope to see more from them in the future years however I found the story was very basic but effective and the thought of a sequel might come but I think it was a one off movie. I would give Justice League Dark a 7/10.