leebutler Uncategorized

‘War For The Planet Of The Apes’ Review: Damn Dirty CGI Apes

Uploaded to MoviePilot on 28th July

This is in a style I attempted for MoviePilot briefly when I thought I could put reviews on there… they weren’t a review place, this was me being dumb. Also, this style isn’t one I like, but I’m keeping this for reference purposes. Oh, and yes this is why I didn’t review War For The Planet Of The Apes before now. 

The modern-day Planet Of The Apes franchise has garnered a rather impressive reaction, especially when compared to the Tim Burton attempt at the franchise. Both Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes got really high praise, something that many found stunning considering that a lot of us still were getting over that 2001 version. So, here we are, the third movie in the series and it has a lot to live up to.

How did it handle the high bar that the two previous films set? Let’s figure that out.

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leebutler Uncategorized

The Circle

Released 17th August (Australia)

Seen 11th December

The Circle.jpg

Directed by James Ponsoldt
Written by James Ponsoldt & Dave Eggers
Produced by 1978 Films, Imagenation Abu Dhabi FZ, Likely Story, Parkes+MacDonald Image Nation, Playtone, Route One Entertainment
Starring Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, Patton Oswalt & Karen Gillian

WARNING: Mild spoilers for the end. No specifics will be mentioned but there’s a lot of hints, because that’s where most of the problems lie. I would cover those with a spoiler plugin but I don’t have those yet. I’ll speak in very general terms and not name characters or locations, but just warning you now.

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leebutler Uncategorized

Justice League

Seen 16th November (Opening Day)

Justice League.jpg

Directed by Zach Snyder
Written by Chris Terrio & Joss Whedon
Produced by Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Comics, DC Entertainment, RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC, Lensbern Productions & Warner Bros.
Starring Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa & Ray Fisher

In 2012 the long awaited movie The Avengers was released to rave reviews. It was a movie that took years to set up, build an entire universe, introduce a ton of superheroes to this new cinematic entity that was created and was one of the highlights of the 2012 film scene. Marvel proved that you could create an amazing superhero team up movie and, in the process, cemented their place as a company that would define how superhero movies were going to look for the next decade… DC would like to do that, but it sounds hard!

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leebutler Uncategorized

Monster Trucks

Released 12th January

Seen 10th November

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Directed by Chris Wedge
Written by Derek Connolly
Produced by Disruption Entertainment, FortyFour Studios, Nickelodeon Movies & Paramount Pictures
Starring Lucas Till, Jane Levy, Thomas Lennon, Danny Glover & Rob Lowe

One of the classic film tropes that have been a major part of cinema is known as the “A Boy and His Dog” trope. The idea is that the story revolves the bond between the boy (Usually our main character) and his dog (Though this can vary). Monster Trucks is absolutely a Boy and his Dog kind of film… it’s just that I don’t care about either the boy or his dog/giant-alien-truck-controlling-creature.

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Thor: Ragnarok

Released 26th October

Seen 8th November

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Directed by Taika Waititi
Written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost
Produced by Marvel Entertainment & Walt Disney Pictures
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston & Cate Blanchett

Every Marvel film since the start of the MCU has had a very specific format. When you break it down to its core component they all have this “World is ending, main character only one who can stop it” narrative and all you have to do is change the name of the character and possibly the severity of the threat, but they all have that same basic idea. For Marvel to really take a risk and break out of that strict mould would take a lot. Thor: Ragnarok might not break that mould, but it’s worn the edges of it down considerably and that’s enough of a welcome change for me.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie

Seen September 23rd

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First there was the Lego Movie, and it showed everyone that you could create a piece of art using a licenced toy that was actually good. Then came Lego Batman, which showed you coulde play around in multiple established universes and still tell your own story. Then there was Ninjago… it was a movie.

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