A quick rundown of three films I've seen recently:
Indy 4 : Awesome. It did what it needed to - poked fun at his age maybe twice and then moved on. It didn't matter how old he was - he's Indiana. And Shia being 'Shia' didn't detract, like some anti-Shians thought it would. Everything worked, it felt right, the effects were amazing, and the pace was pretty much perfect. A huge success in my mind.
Death Note Live Action (dubbed): I'd already seen this in Japanese, and simply from a story perspective, this movie works. It focuses on key, interesting sections of the early manga and gives it a few twists. As a Death Note film, it's a success.
Judging it as a live action dub, however, is difficult. I really like the english VAs they have for the anime. They're the same as in the movie. But, dubbing over flesh and blood actors as opposed to unarticulated 2D mouth flaps is very hard to pull off. They tried valiantly, and at times, things matched perfectly. For the most part, L was done in such a way that it wasn't that noticeable. But overall, it was distracting and detracted from the emersion experience directors aim for with films. I hold to it that the acting was superb, but I'd still rewatch it in Japanese rather than English (except for Alessandro Juliani's bits - they were priceless).
Iron Man: Amazing. Thrilling. Brilliant visual effects. Funny. An absolutely gorgeous man as the lead. Need I say more?
I will. I knew next to nothing of the comic when I saw the first trailer for this. In my mind, it came off as over the top, with unoriginal humor and as another lame attempt to breathe life into the written (or in this case, drawn) word, as opposed to coming up with something fresh and new. I didn't want to see it. At all. My brother went with a friend opening night. He invited me. I declined. He said it was awesome. I ignored him. He then saw it, like, the next day with our cousin. They both continued geeking out. Then, slowly, I heard other reports of how "amazing" it was. The final straw that pushed me to see it (and don't look to much into this) was SomeGuy posting how much he'd enjoyed it. Bombarded from all sides, I gave in. And how glad I am that I did. It was nothing at all like I'd imagined. And since what I'd imagined was rather tepid and unpleasant, that's actually a good thing.
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Films I plan to see over the summer (list subject to change):
Kung Fu Panda (June 6)
The Happening (June 13)
The Incredible Hulk (June 13)
Get Smart (June 20)
WALL-E (June 27)
The Dark Knight (July 18)
Why did tickets have to go up to $10? It's Monday-Thursday $5 showings for me. Other than tonight. I was willing to sacrifice for Harrison. ^^
