Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

The Planet Of The Apes franchises had it's ups and downs. The older movies seem dated to some and the gigantic reveal at the end of the original movie is part of modern movie-history. With the prequels/reboot of the franchise they managed to salvage what Burton destroyed in his 2001 remake with Mark Mahlberg, so how did the 2nd part of the reboot series do?

I was in love with Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, so I had high hopes for the much anticipated sequel, however I was a little bit concerned about the fact that James Franco was missing from this part.

The story of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes continues 10 years after the first installment and in the meantime the face of the earth has changed. Most people are dead and the surviving has become a struggle for the few surviving victims (who are most likely genetically resistant to the virus that was unleashed in the first movie).
In contrary to the humans, the apes are doing just well. They aren't dependent on electricity and technology, so their life in the woods around San Francisco is pretty easy.
It seems like the small group that escaped from the humans in the first film has multiplied and the general intelligence seems to have increased as well, with some of the apes even talking.
Caesar is the chief and leader of the apes and seems to be doing just fine with his two sons and wife.
While hunting in the woods the apes come across a human scouting team (they previously thought all humans were gone) and one of the apes is shot by the human.
And that's when the story starts rolling. Both camps (human and apes) are full of distrust against each other and the humans constantly underestimate their evolutionary brothers.
Koba, the scarred ape from Rise turns out to be the main villain of the movie, even using the humans' machine guns (quite impressive footage) and trying to overthrow Caesar and putting the humans into "concentration camps" - crazy monkey, but he was abused in many laboratories, so his hatred towards humans is quite understandable.

Overall, the characters (human and ape alike) and their actions are quite comprehensible and the story never gets boring - at many points even emotional. You start rooting for both camps, when facing a common enemy in Koba, who effectivly starts an all-out war between the two races (likely being picked up in part 3)

The thing that annoyed me most about the film was the constant use of sign language. I would have preferred if most of the apes would have been able to talk, just so that it is easier to follow the movie (I really hate reading subtitles all the time). At the end of the movie, many more apes start to talk, though.

The CGI is just remarkable and much improved since the first part (if that's even possible). There will be one point - sooner or later - for every viewer to forget that those apes are actually not real, it's incredible. Andy Serkis, who did the motion capture for Caesar has done - once again - a splendid job, and the animators even more so.

In conclusion, the ape-spectacle continues while tackling real human issues of modern times, wrapped in some nice action-filled blockbuster movie. Plus, the best CGI since Gravity.

Gravity [2D-Review]

One of the big winners at the Oscars this year was Gravity. The movie combines a claustrophobic thriller with an emotional, realistic struggle for survival with exquisite acting by Sandra Bullock. Of course let’s not forget the incredible visuals…

When I saw that Gravity won 7 Oscars, I wasn’t surprised at all. Even though I was kind of disappointed that Sandra Bullock didn’t win best actress I completely understand why the movie ruled in all of its categories (which were mainly in the technical area).
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the movie in 3D, but the 2D Blu-Ray made it quite clear to me, that this movie was meant to be watched in 3D, at the cinema – nowhere else. Don’t get me wrong the visuals were still amazing, but whenever something realistically floats around in the vacuum in front of the actors you want to bite your butt for not paying those few dollars to see it on the big screen in 3D (pretty much like Avatar back in the day).

The story is not very hard to explain. A few astronauts and their spaceships are hit by satellite-parts orbiting earth and at the end only one survives. She struggles to find a way to return to earth and improvises several times, changing from one spacecraft to another in a seemingly hopeless situation. In addition to that the woman (played by Sandra Bullock) has a rough past and almost loses her will to live in the middle of her ordeals. George Clooney, basically playing himself has not a big part in the movie, but his presence is crucial for her to remember her training and take her chance of survival…

There is not a lot, that’s wrong with this movie’s script, but there was one major flaw in it: Sandra Bullock’s character lost her daughter when she was very little and ever since she remained emotionally unavailable, cold and depressed. Now, can anyone tell me why NASA would send a depressed and mentally unstable person on a mission to outer space, however save everything seems? Did she lie about her past in the interview or did she fake her psychological test? No matter how crucial her position and her work is for the success of this mission, it’s never worth risking the lives of other people just because you took an unstable
person on a trip with them.

This little plot-hole aside, the movie rocks, and Bullock’s performance is believable and incredibly touching. Clooney does an unimpressive but solid job playing a different version of himself and the visual effects as well as the directing transform this movie into a masterpiece of modern SciFi cinema.

I hope this movie gets a re-release at the cinema following its big successes at the Oscars, since I really would like to see the 3D effects. But even without them, this will not disappoint you, and if you like watching actors doing a great job and suffer with them through extraordinary situations, this movie is the right movie for you. It’s definitely not a boys-only, girls-only movie, this piece of art will touch everyone equally… And apparently there has never been a movie that captures life in space as accurately and scientifically correct as this one!
Probably the best movie of 2013.

Star Wars The Clone Wars Bonus Episodes 5-7 [Review]

This weekend, German television Channel "Super RTL" once again aired a missing story arc from the bonus episodes of Season 6 from The Clone Wars. This time the story centers around Senator Amidala, Anakin Skywalker and old frienemy Rush Clovis.

I really enjoyed the first one of the missing story-arcs, which was mainly about "Order 66". This one here focused once again on intergalactic politics, jealousy and scheming and was also quite impressive, however far from perfect.

The story was much quicker, left only little time for relaxed, fun moments, even though the action was quite impressive in this arc. Like last time I won't recount the story completely, rather than picking out highlights that I really enjoyed and things (if there are any) that I didn't like at all.

First of all, I loved the setting. Scipio is amazingly well-designed and the Banking-Clan buildings looked very cool and smoothly integrated into the planet's snowy mountains. In addition to that I really loved their means of transportation which highly reminded me of a mix between Jabba's Skiffs from Return of the Jedi and Santa's sleigh.
The bounty hunter the protagonists have to run from in the beginning is really cool and the downhill-chase is just thrillingly fun to watch - reminded me of a more mature version of the one in Ice Age ;-)
And then comes the dull part. Anakin and Amidala get in the middle of a big scheme: Palpatine/Sidious longs for power over the intergalactic banks and tries to use Clovis to achieve his goal.
Amidala gets entangled in the whole plot and makes Anakin jealous, since she gets quite close to Clovis in the process.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the idea of seeing a jealous Jedi again, since that's the main reason why love is not allowed in this order, but for a 20-something-minutes TV episode it was a lot to swallow in terms of character development.
Best part about the the whole subplot is when Obi-Wan reminds his former Padawan about his blundering with Dutchess Satine and why it is so important for a Jedi to not give in to his feelings. Loved it.

Of course the whole situation gets solved and all we have is yet another really enjoyable Clone Wars Adventure (even though neither clones nor war is overly present in this one, which is fine by me).

I really do not miss Ahsoka so far and the quality of these stories is way higher than our average The Clone Wars episode. Now I totally understand why they didn't throw these stories away but wanted to show the audience what great plans they had for season 6.

I definitely enjoyed these three episodes, much more than the single Jar-Jar Episode they aired after that...

Pacific Rim [Review]

Well, Pacific Rim... You're like Megan Fox. You're really, really hot, but if you have a closer look at your thumbs you realize that even the hottest chick comes with her flaws (I'm gay by the way, so no sexist gibberish). You wonder what this lead-in has to do with the following review? Me too...

Ok story: This guy (from Sons of Anarchy) fights against monsters from some kind of other dimension - called Kaijus - in a really huge, impressive Robot called Jaeger. That's all... there you have it!

However I really enjoyed this movie. There's not much I can say about the story, since there is not a lot of it in the movie: Mankind is fighting against this awesomely  good designed Monsters that came from a breach in the Pacific Ocean. They destroy everything without a reason.Which weirdly makes sense to me...
However story (and they even put in some mildly interesting side-stories and back-stories for the otherwise quite stereotypical characters) isn't what makes this movie watchable. It's the action and the Jaegers/Kaijus destroying whole cities.
Hong Kong was one of those and I think they could have portrayed it in a better way. The fighting scenes between men and monster were obviously shot in North America. I really love Hong Kong and think that it's a really beautiful city and they just didn't manage to capture this beauty on screen... In other words - I didn't really care about it, because as far as I'm concerned it could have been any other city located around the pacific.

However this is a nice movie. I enjoyed it with all of its flaws and at the end of the day it has a really nice message: You always have to work together to overcome great obstacles. During the whole movie you get this really nice team-spirit and a lot of odd couples find out, that they are most effective when working together and not against each other, embracing their respective counterparts with all of their flaws and edges.

Go watch it, get it on Blu-Ray, enjoy it on a rainy Sunday... you can't go wrong with this movie.

If you loved Independence Day you will like this movie...

The Hunger Games - Catching Fire [Review]

I know it's late, but why not talk about this already much talked-about sequel to 2012's The Hunger Games. So here are my opinions...

First of all, I have to say that I enjoyed the first part of this four-part trilogy (yes, they are turning the last book of the novel-trilogy into two separate movies - a trend that I don't really like btw) and that I couldn't wait to finally see the second part.
The first part introduced us into this post-apocalyptic world, where children are forced to kill each other in an arena - with the slaughter made into a big television event, watched by thousands of people similar to popular reality competition shows of our times.

Before watching the first part I was kind of hesitant, because I heard that it's yet another movie of the so-called Twilight-generation, but since I found Twilight trashy and cheesy enough to actually enjoy it in the end, I thought - why not give The Hunger Games the same chance?

Ok, but this is about Catching Fire... The beginning of the movie came in a bit too quickly, which made me regret not rewatching the first movie before, but after five minutes I got used to the characters and to the new situation and some memories of the first movie were refreshed in the first part of the film anyways.
Let me say, I really like Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. She is a very talented and beautiful actress and her heartfelt performance of the first installment was only exceeded by the emotional rollercoaster-ride she showed us in this sequel.
Plus, whoever designed those costumes has done a marvelous job (once again), her "wedding"-dress was one of the best things in this movie.

The story was quite simple: The two main characters had to do the Hunger Games again, because the evil Capitol felt that Katniss shouldn't become the symbol (Mockingjay) of freedom to the rebels, but this time the winners from all the previous games were in the running.
The games itself were located in a fake-tropical paradise with various dangers like thunderbolts, waves, aggressive monkeys and creepy skin-cauterizing fog. Compared to the first movie the dangers of the arena were a bit more intimidating, but the adversaries were simply mundane. As a viewer I did not feel like Katniss was in immediate danger from any of the other tributes at any time. The ending conveniently told me why, though, which kind of satisfied me. However a bit more action and brutality wouldn't have hurt the movie. But since the books aim to a teenaged audience, the script had to adapt to that target group.

In conclusion, the movie has its ups and downs. When the two main protagonists spend some time in the capitol - that's when the real story happens. The rest, of course is pure action and entertainment, but the real, creepy, compelling part of the movie is the scheming and manipulating of the government. It shows the audience how much power media has over them and sometimes even makes the viewer wonder how much he is controlled by TV, Internet and all those "modern" things himself...
In a hypothetical way, this vision about the future comes quite close to what our fate might really look like. However the whole fiction lacks in depth. We don't get a lot of back information in the movies. I haven't read the books (yet) but I know, that even those won't answer questions like "What happens to the rest of the world? Does every country have the same system? Are there any other countries?"

Ok. If you liked the first movie, you will also like the second one. It's not an epic, must-see classic, but it's fun and inspiring - at least for some of us. And Jennifer Lawrence is doing a magnificent job!

Star Wars The Clone Wars Bonus Episodes 1-4[Review]

Thank god for German television.
I never thought that we were going to get the new The Clone Wars bonus content before the U.S., but I guess I was wrong.
German TV-Channel "Super RTL" showed the first 4 episodes in a row and picked out the long awaited "Order 66"-arc for the "season"-premiere. So here's what I think about these 4 episodes...

Before I start, big "thank you" to the guys from Lucasfilm Animation who made this possible. It is not very common for a cancelled show to release new content after its cancellation (and I really enjoyed the end of season 5 when Ahsoka walks away from the Jedi Order), so the fact, that we have a whole set of new episodes is really awesome!

The first 4 of the new episodes were broadcast exclusivly at German TV Station "Super RTL", aiming for a younger audience. However they made the content available online after it aired so with a VPN even people not living in Germany (like me) got the chance to experience this chapter of this galaxy far, far away.

The plot was centered around clone-trooper Fives and his pal Tup, who was seemingly infected by a virus, making him murder one of the (previously unseen) Jedi generals (picture above) during a fight against the droid army.
After evil leader Count Dooku finds out about this betrayal he commands his troops to capture the seemingly sick clone and bring him before him, but Anakin Skywalker and Fives manage to free and safely return him to Kamino where further examination is being done.

However Fives - with the help of a very entertaining medical Droid AZ-3 - finds out, that the Kaminoans are planning to kill his friend in order to protect the secret of the built-in bio-chips every clone has in his brain. These chips  - of course - let the clones execute Order 66 (that's why the Clones start shooting at their Jedi friends in Episode III).

During the climax of the story-arc, Fives - unable to safe his friend, but equipped with the devastating truth - is hunted through the streets of Coruscant after being conned by Chancellor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious himself. The tragic ending makes sure, that the Jedi still have no clue about what's really going on...

The episodes were very entertaining and didn't feel like 4 single episodes, but like a solid, dark, interesting Star Wars movie.
The animations were even better than ever and the cast did an enourmosly good job. Especially the character of Fives (who we've met before during the regular run of the show) was incredibly deep and you would regularly forget that he's "just" a clone.
These 4 episodes also make a perfect lead-in to the final installment of the prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, since Order 66 is explained and the Republic, as well as the Kaminoans are portrayed in a more shady and secretive way - slightly detached from the formerly all-powerful Jedi Order.

However, the episodes also have their downsides. Sometimes it seems like Fives is too strong and intelligent compared to the quickly-defeated clones and easily-tricked Kaminoans. Another thing that I didn't enjoy was the space station that surrounded a whole planet like a huge ring. They could have used it as a much more integral part of the plot, however it's like any other spacestation or starship - a mere stage to an exhaustingly repetetive fighting scene.
On the other hand the scenes, in which Anakin and the clones travel through the vacuum of space are intriguing and the death toll of Tup's kidnapping and rescue is quite high. The whole mission to rescue Tup positively reminded me of the scavenging done by the Crew from Firefly.

In conclusion, the good parts of the arc predominate the few weaker aspects and all you get is a great, actionpacked mini-movie worthy of its brand-name.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the bonus episodes.