X-Men: Days of Future Past

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: The latest X-Man film has the Wolverine’s consciousness sent back to his 1973 self to prevent a catastrophic war in which mutant robots destroy the world while wiping out mutant humans. The Wolverine must rally the forces of two enemies, Professor Xavier (James McAvoy/Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender/Ian McKellen), so their future selves can become BFFs (see Image 1).

Image 1. Actual screenshot from X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Source: twitter.com/SirPatStew

Dustin: So Nick, what did you think of X-Men 7: Days from the Future in the Past?

Nick: A little disappointed, but overall satisfied. Since there are so many characters in the past and future, little is seen of each. While Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) appears the most, it wouldn't be surprising to find out he has the least amount of dialogue of any character. The same could be said of Mystique. We see her a lot, but not too much comes out of her mouth. Or maybe it just feels that way since she is always in a different face.

Dustin: That somewhat sums up my criticism of the entire X-Men universe. There are so many characters, some with multiple powers that sometimes feel made up on the spot, none of them can be more than a plot device, and newbies might feel lost. The reason I never got into the cartoon as a kid was because I gave it a couple attempts and just couldn’t understand the characters or what was going on.

This film, however, does a decent job balancing the characters with the plot. Some characters will probably confuse those who’ve never seen an X-Men film (like the Asian X-(Wo)Man who can apparently open portals in thin air). But most of the screen time is devoted to X-Men who don’t require an explanation, like Wolverine or the Beast.

Nick: While your argument is mostly correct, I would prop up X2 as a shining example of a film that has a plethora a characters, but all follow the same path and it’s ultimately the first Wolverine film. That film follows Wolverine trying to find his “creator.” The rest of the cast is trying to stop the same guy because he threatens all mutants. This is actually brought up in this film quite a lot and makes the secondary bad guy Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage). Every X-Men film should be about one of the many character’s stories with the others going in and out.

Did you notice the actors’ names? The Asian X-Woman you speak of is Blink. Her real name is Bingbing Fan, and Warpath is played by Booboo Stewart. Love the latter’s name!

Dustin: I noticed that when I looked at the cast on IMDb to get the spelling of their names right. I liked that Bingbing and Booboo were an effective pair in the film.

I think this film was emotionally satisfying in the arcs of the main characters, especially Professor X and Mystique (America’s Sweetheart, Jennifer Lawrence). I thought they also did interesting things with young Magneto (Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave). You never know whether he will commit to the good side.

Nick: Really?! I think you can always know he will do the bad thing. Though, I read the comics, watched many different cartoons, seen all the movies, and even had a Where’s Waldo version of X-Men (which I need to find). The only reason it may seem as if Magneto will do the good thing is because of how much belief (albeit false) Xavier has in him. He obviously only realizes the errors of his ways too late. This film sometimes felt like the James Bond story arc I talked about during World War Z. They kept traveling from one exotic location to fuck some shit up. I’ve read many interviews where directors admit to doing this because they like to travel and go places they have never been. Sometimes during Days of Future Past it seems like that.

Dustin: That’s one of the things I actually liked about this film: the variety of shots. You have the bleak future shots, the 1970s New York locations, ‘Nam, Paris, Washington, D.C. I can imagine the director likes to travel, but somehow I doubt they actually visited all those places. The Chinese future sets could have been CGI, you didn’t see enough of ‘Nam to believe it wasn’t filmed on a California backlot.

Nick: I’m not talking about the bleak future setting or the ‘Nam setting, but when Magneto tried to kill Mystique in Paris and Trask is there and the scene cuts through televised images that go to the White House where Nixon (Mark Camacho) is watching. All of sudden Trask is in that room! So Nixon waited like a week to be like what are we going to do about this? Trask was also in Paris to try to give his weapons to the Russians and the Vietnamese, so why did it need to take place in France? The crew actually didn’t fly to many places. From my research I could only find information that most of, if not all, the film was shot in Canada. I was commenting on the feeling of the pointlessness of saying you are in France selling weapons to Russians and the Vietnamese and then segue shot to the same character selling the same weapons to Nixon. How many scenes were of Trask selling his Sentinels (mutant robots)?

Dustin: I think this film did a good job balancing the light and dark elements, especially after the recent Marvel comic book movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The comedy scenes were very well done (Quicksilver breaking into the Pentagon was easily my favorite sequence, Evan Peters stole the show for the few scenes he was in, which is saying a lot). The humorous scenes added variety to the experience of the film, rather than clashing horribly in tone like the new Spider-Man 2.

Nick: Certainly the funniest film I have had the pleasure of seeing in 2014. Quicksilver did steal the show, and when he asked about their flight plans, I almost thought he was going to go with them, but sadly he didn’t. DOFP did balance humor with darkness wonderfully. So many scenes were funny, but then some major characters (while in CGI mode) were torn in half, burned alive or beheaded. The film never lost momentum nor felt disjointed. Bryan Singer is a welcome relief in the director’s chair. Singer directed the first two X-men films, and now he returns for DOFP. One of my favorite sequences was Magneto calmly walking down a corridor in stylish ‘70s garb while playing with two magnetized floating balls. The scene was shot with humor and mystery. The camera was low, which made him seem like such a large presence. The outfits were immense, especially whenever young Xavier looked like a pornographer with his ‘70s threads, long hair, drugged-out face and dirty facial hair.

Dustin: I think young Xavier might have actually been Lt. Dan.

Nick: The drug-addled Xavier was a bit much for a film already spending so much time on other “important” quests. While I liked the idea, the fact that he is supposed to be addicted, but quits because Wolverine emphatically for the fifth time tells Xavier he needs his powers (which he loses if he’s using). They could have had more fun with it like after he says he is going to quit and he uses his powers some, but later when needing his powers he says he is not able again. It felt forced into the film for what addiction is and how it's portrayed.

Dustin: My main criticism of the film is perhaps the epilogue. The only other X-Men films I’ve seen are the first one and The Wolverine (which I made a point of seeing because it stars my sister-in-law--look for her in the background during the scene in Ueno Station). I wanted to go back and watch the rest of the films, but this one, without getting too deep into spoiler territory, seemingly undid the outcomes of previous films during the epilogue. This will definitely take away my suspense if I go back to watch them.

Nick: You should definitely watch X2 (it is still my favorite) and X-Men: First Class. If anything they will give you more appreciation for the subtle comedy and shock throughout this movie.

Dustin: I’d recommend this film to general audiences. It was funny, exciting and pleasing; and you don’t have to be a fanboy to enjoy this film.

Godzilla

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 4 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: God’s Not Dead is a religious movie in theaters now starring some actors, including Dean “Cain” Tanaka and a guy from Duck Dynasty, about a Christian college student who proves to a smug philosophy professor, a stand-in for all educators teaching anything other than Creationism, that God, in fact, is not dead.

Nick: Uhm, Dustin, we’re supposed to be reviewing GodZILLA, not God’S NOT DEAD. No offense, but you are a fucking moron.

Dustin: Oh, I must’ve misheard you when you said which movie you wanted to review this week. I guess it’s a good thing, because I didn’t actually see God’s Not Dead (currently 17 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). I tried to purchase a ticket for God’s Not Dead at the window, but they gave me a ticket for Godzilla, probably figuring I must’ve been mistaken in which movie I meant to ask for.

Dustin: Godzilla (2014) is the 30th movie featuring Toho’s amphibious dinosaur. This time Godzilla is awakened to save San Francisco from a couple of kaiju “parasites,” nicknamed MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), who will destroy humankind as the giant monster insect things breed and hatch their young under the city and feed on nuclear power.

What did you think of Godzilla (2014), Nick?

Nick: First explain why you keep putting 2014 behind Godzilla. Is it so people don’t confuse this review with the amazing Matthew Broderick film from 1998?

Dustin: Or the Haruo Nakajima film of 1954. Or Godzilla 1985 or Godzilla 2000.

Nick: According to IMDb, Godzilla 2000 came out in 1999. Godzilla (2014) was fantastic. It reminded me of anime in that it was mostly “fan-service.” People in the audience were clapping and roaring throughout the film. I wasn’t one of them, but I felt their exuberance.

Dustin: The audience I saw it with also clapped throughout, especially when the American hero breathed blue fire onto the MUTO. They were probably more emotionally invested in the title character’s struggle than I was, but I certainly enjoyed it for the most part. I feel like the trailer promised it would be more dramatic and epic than it actually was. This seemed like another silly Godzilla movie to me, which is fine, because the whole series is silly, but I was a little let down because it didn’t really live up to the trailer for me.

Nick: You certainly have to be able to enjoy the silliness of Godzilla in order to fully enjoy the movie. Every time Ken Watanabe (Dr. Serizawa) had something drastically important to say it was said with a grin and a nod to the series of old to where it would make the audience chuckle.

This was the first movie where a giant is crushing a city and I actually felt extremely small and scared that I would more likely be randomly crushed by falling buildings than a “god” smiting an ant.

Dustin: The audience I was with also laughed every time Ken Watanabe delivered a line. I’m not sure that was the filmmakers’ intended reaction, but even I had to chuckle when he was like, “Let them fight!”

Nick: It was Gareth Edwards’s intention. Monster movies are what he grew up on, and he delivered the fan service while making something truly respectable. His low budget film, aptly named Monsters is on Netflix. Check that shit out!

Dustin: This was definitely the best-made Godzilla movie. The series is famous for its low production value, but this film has state-of-the-art special effects. (The original Godzilla of 1954 wasn’t even state of the art for 1933.)

King Kong (1933) clip

Godzilla (1954) trailer

Dustin: One of my complaints about Pacific Rim, which was also a great kaiju film and from a narrative standpoint, superior to this film, was that it didn’t linger enough on the monsters. This film develops the monsters slowly, as a classic monster film should, but doesn’t disappoint when we see the full effect. We see the monsters up close plenty of times and they look great.

Nick: Though it’s not just the monsters that are well done. The buildings shown after the MUTO rampaged by were creatively destroyed and very realistic. All those scenes were hazy and dirty, while the top edges of random buildings where the MUTO stood atop were damaged.

The narrative of which you speak is the weakness of the movie, but what could the storyline have been in order to make it better?  My brother’s issue was that the main character’s motive was to get back to his family. This didn’t bother me because it didn’t bring it up constantly. You know it’s what he wanted, but he was doing other important things that he hoped would protect his family more than him being in close proximity to them.

Dustin: I think simple motivations are the best, and more believable. A well-developed character usually has a conscious and subconscious motivation. The conscious motivation for Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kick-Ass 2), was to return to his family. This was a manifestation of his subconscious desire to have a family that’s whole, which we can infer from his mother dying in a kaiju-related accident at the beginning of the film and his being estranged from his father (Bryan Cranston), who he considers to be crazy.

The narrative was good, but I think the characters got lost in all the over-the-top action, and a lot of it was silly, which deprived weight from the emotional elements, and they consciously made Godzilla a hero, as some of the Toho films do, which is also preposterous.

Nick: Godzilla is silly, but that’s why going into the film knowing that will make it all the more great. I’m quite ecstatic that they didn’t try to make it to serious because that’s not what Godzilla is in our culture. While it might have been Toho’s original idea for Godzilla to be frightening, it ended up being a film that people love watching to see the human in a costume destroying prop buildings. The 2014 film did a great job of, once again, delivering a little seriousness for newbies while throwing in winks to the people who consider the whole series an enjoyable joke. I like Godzilla as not serious, Cloverfield and whatever monster movies Hollywood comes up with can make new serious monster movies and I’ll probably, hopefully, enjoy those as well.

Dustin: At least this film didn’t ruin an iconic character and a classic Led Zeppelin song at the same time *cough* Godzilla (1998) *cough*.

Nick: Roland Emmerich’s version is the antithesis to Godzilla (2014). Everything that is done well in the new film was done poorly in the 1998 version. Though to be honest I somewhat enjoy the complete idiocy of the earlier film. It’s extremely horrible in a horrible way, but it makes me laugh.

Dustin: Roland Emmerich shouldn’t be allowed near a camera any more.

Nick: His movies are more enjoyable than Michael Bay’s films. Not counting The Rock.

Dustin: I wonder if the inevitable sequel will have the Peanuts summoning Mothra to assist Godzilla defending the earth from its next monster calamity.

Dustin: Anything else to add about Godzilla (2014)?

Nick: RWAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dustin: I think that was the actual line in the screenplay for the part when Godzilla literally roared for 90 seconds.

Neighbors

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 2.5 of 5 stars Average: 3 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Nick: In Neighbors new parents (Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne) find themselves living next to a fraternity boasting such talents as Zac Efron, Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin). While having a plot that could have been overwhelmingly funny, it never made me laugh out-of-control (nor even laugh at all).

Dustin: I think you pretty much summed up the plot well in one sentence, but I thought this movie was funny enough. The jokes didn’t come as rapid-fire as other comedies of its ilk (Knocked Up, Superbad), but it delivered enough for me to recommend it.

Nick: I smiled a lot because there was a lot of good ideas, but not executed well enough to earn a laugh. Is this the first comedy we’ve reviewed? I’ve always found comedy to be the hardest to agree upon because it’s the most subjective of all genres.

Dustin: We’ve reviewed other comedies, here are some links to make our site more “sticky”: The Hangover Part III, Cockneys vs Zombies, The World’s End, Bad Grandpa, Anchorman 2, After Earth. I can understand why some people would be put off by some jokes in this movie. One character, Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz) used the N-word twice. The first time in an impression of Barack Obama, which was incredibly good, but then he dropped the N-word at the end, the joke being Obama wouldn’t talk like that. I laughed more at the shock. Then he used it again later, quoting a rap song. But the lyrics coming from a white guy made me cringe. Maybe that was the filmmaker’s intention, but I can understand why some people wouldn’t like the joke, even though they “got it.”

Nick: I never feel offended, though I as well sometime cringe. But hardly anything in this film made me laugh like past Nicholas Stoller movies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek). There was a moment when the couple and Jimmy were making phone calls doing impersonations of celebrities to a radio station in order to get so many people at the frat’s party that they will be kicked out of their house. Rogen does a Julia Child and Ray Romano impression, which is funny because who would go to a party just because one of them would be there. Beyond that and the idea of the Robert De Niro impersonation party (totally going to steal that idea) nothing was particularly rememorable.

Dustin: I thought this was better than most movies in its genre: which I’ll dub the culminating-in-a-giant-party-that-wraps-up-everything-Hollywood-trope genre. As far as party/drinking movies go, it was a notch higher than could be expected. There was some real emotional depth in the scenes that showed how anxious Zac Efron was about graduating and having to go out into the real world with his less-than-stellar GPA and nothing to show for his years of college than a lot of parties. The emotion was somewhat muted, but there. It never felt forced or shoe-horned in like last year’s 21 & Over, which had a suicide subplot that just made the humorless movie even more depressing.

Nick: The emotional scenes felt forced to me. The emotional scenes don’t establish themselves. They last for one scene or are focused on characters that you don’t really get to know. Such as the “break-up” of our married couple which lasts all but 10 seconds and as you say Zac Efron’s one dimensional character who is given an arc where he is afraid of what’s after college. Though the idea is good the script never follows Efron’s character enough to where any emotion can be had. Although where his character ends up is very clever!

Dustin: I agree the break-up segment felt rushed. I get the impression there were some scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor there. I felt the same way when they introduced the character “Assjuice.” They never established he had been abused as a pledge until they needed him for the plot. But I still think Zac Efron did well with his role, and the film added some depth without it feeling cynical or forced. Although, what’s with all these bro comedies culminating with men telling each other “I love you”?

Nick: OK, that party was pretty funny when Efron and Dave Franco quote movies to tell each other how much they love one another. They used a lot of lines from Good Will Hunting, and I noticed some other references, but movie quotes have never been a skill set of mine. I also enjoyed the 5 minutes worth of Lisa Kudrow as the Dean and whoever played the couple’s realtor.

Dustin: If one thing was forced, it was the epilogue where Seth Rogen and Zac Efron made up. It was funny enough, and I understand the filmmakers wanted the audience to leave happy, but I just couldn’t imagine them becoming “cool” so quickly after everything that went down.

Nick: I’m a little tired of jokes referencing doctors being stupid towards their patients. It seems to happen frequently in comedy shows and movies. I’m referring to the scene where the doctor said, “Your kid has HIV.” It can be pretty funny at times but that was the least inspired funny doctor visit.

Dustin: This was a better-than-average comedy that should appeal to it’s intended audience. I’d recommend it if you liked Judd Apatow’s films or any other Seth Rogen comedy.

Nick: I like or love all of Apatow’s films and most of Seth Rogen’s, and yet I barely recommend Neighbors.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Dustin: 3 of 5 stars Nick: 2 of 5 stars Average: 2.5 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, and not to be confused with the 2004 film Spider-Man 2. This time around, Spider-Man faces off with a motley crew of villains including Electro, the Green Goblin and Rhino, while juggling personal relationships with love interest Gwen Stacy, guardian Aunt May and friend Harry Osborn. He’s also trying to come to terms with why his parents seemingly abandoned him as a child. This summary may make the film sound as if it’s bloated and overly complex.

Nick: The film tried to be dumb fun with serious drama, and the two never fit well together. All the drama scenes felt forced. Like Peter and Gwen’s break up. How long after the first film ended did this film begin to where we had to witness their break up? Which wasn’t much of a break up. They got back together right away.  

Dustin: There were lots of scenes involving acting and a story. Coming off cartoonish action sequences with Spider-Man’s wisecracks while dodging bullets, the tone of the serious scenes felt off. I had trouble caring about the drama between the action. I thought this may have been because I didn’t see the last film, but probably not.

Nick: I’m in the minority of people who liked the chemistry of Peter Parker and Mary Jane in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man more than Peter and Gwen in Marc Webb’s version. While Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are arguably better actors, the characters crafted for them are not very complex and their charm wears thin. Same could be said of the villains. I actually didn’t mind at the beginning how flat the villains were because I was taking the movie as silly, but the more complex the film tried to be, the more frustrating it got that Electro’s main goal was to be noticed.

Dustin: I thought the Sam Raimi movies had more emotional weight. This screenshot from Spider-Man (2002) is iconic because you actually care about the romance:

The new Spider-Man movies are disposable entertainment. I don’t think that’s necessarily bad in and of itself, but these movies have the appearance of being darker and more character-driven without actually delivering on that front.

Nick: Concurred. If the villains had better reasons to be villains beyond their hatred for Spider-Man then there would be more emotional weight. Even Sam Raimi’s third Spider-Man film (which is still the worst in the franchise) had a villain, the Sandman, who wanted to provide for his dying child as the intended main villain. Raimi was forced to make Venom the main bad guy by the studios. Venom was a character Raimi didn't care for, and that is why the film ultimately failed. Too many bad guys and none of them get enough screen time to impose their character on the audience. The same could be said of this movie.

Dustin: If this movie was just about Spider-Man versus Electro, and only introduced the Green Goblin as a teaser, the story would have been leaner and felt more appropriate in length. It could have cut most of the Peter Parker story as well. I found I didn't care about those scenes. I couldn't care less whether Gwen went off to England. The “dumb fun” elements of this movie were actually pretty well done. But ever since the Dark Knight series, all super heroes need to be dark and brooding.

Nick: It’s funny that’s your take from this movie when that was my biggest complaint about Man of Steel. Speaking of, Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 sure had a lot of advertisement. Especially for its own business, Sony! Every phone, laptop and TV had to let you know it was a Sony. While there might not be as many obvious product placements as Man of Steel, it feels even more annoying, since Sony is advertising themselves.

Dustin: Trust me, I noticed the Sony product placement in the Sony movie. I also thought they went a little too far in the scene where they showed the man use a Samsung Galaxy and then die of brain cancer.

I think Man of Steel was a little more consistent in tone that this movie. The shifts from cartoonish to dramatic in this movie were too jarring. And since I enjoyed the cartoonish action scenes and was bored by the dramatic moments, I think the film should have just stuck to the fun stuff.

Nick: Since you didn't see the first movie, let me tell you that Gwen Stacy’s father (Denis Leary) dies at the end of the movie and finds out Peter’s secret identity. He tells Peter to leave his daughter alone because Peter would be putting her in danger by proxy. The tension his wish created in this movie caused a lot of my annoyance. Peter constantly seeing her father everywhere he goes and this weighing down on him feels more forced than it should. I blame this for a lot of these tonal shifts. This moment Peter is OK, then he thinks of Gwen’s father, and now the tone is sadder, and the next scene he feels guilty, but the next moment he doesn't give a fuck anymore, but in the next scene the guilt comes back again. GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! It also feels weird considering Gwen doesn't seem so distressed by her father’s death, while Peter sees him everywhere he goes.

Dustin: I think the movie did a fine job establishing that backstory for people who hadn’t seen the last film. They showed the ghost of Denis Leary in his cop uniform looking at Peter Parker disappointedly whenever he got too close to Gwen. Just like Leary did in the previous series as Harry Osborn’s father.

Denis Leary

Nick: It always bothers me when plot is built by misunderstandings. Electro did not want to hurt anyone, but couldn't contain the power, and Spider-Man was trying to help, but the police kept shooting at Electro and making him angry. Then Electro misunderstands Spider-Man and ends up hating him. Harry ends up misunderstanding Spidey’s intentions as well and ends up hating him. Though on Harry’s side I didn't fully understand why Peter was so opposed to giving him a vial of blood that would save his life. His reasoning was was it could kill Harry. Ummm… he’s already dying at an alarming rate. New reason, please!

Dustin: I thought the misunderstandings added good tension between Electro and Spider-Man. They could’ve been friends if Electro calmed down a second and listened. But, like you, I also didn’t understand why Peter wouldn’t just give Harry a vial of his blood if it would save his life. I imagine Peter Parker not donating blood to the Red Cross because he doesn’t care for free cookies. I also didn’t see how Peter Parker and Harry Osborn could have ever been friends. We’re given some dialogue about Harry being there for Peter as a child when Peter’s parents died, but their personalities are so different, and Dane DeHaan gives such a creepy vibe, the scenes between them were just awkward and painful to watch.

I felt much more emotionally invested in the friendship between Tobey Maguire and James Franco in the 2002 film, and when Franco turned against Spider-Man, the conflict was much more tense and ironic. However, DeHaan makes a much better Green Goblin. He just looks like a goblin, and he makes a great villain.

Nick: The moments between Spider-Man and Electro before he turned evil provided the most entertaining moments. (I had to say something positive!)

Dustin: I thought Jamie Foxx was miscast as Max Dillon/Electro. While Foxx is one of the most versatile and talented actors in Hollywood today, he just isn’t believable as a nerdy social outcast. And it didn’t really matter after he turned into Electro, as anybody could have been Electro’s CGI stand-in.

Nick: I’d skip this movie and go catch Captain America: Winter Soldier a second time--a movie that is light while having more of a genuine emotional impact.