Five Year Engagement Review

Check out my Five Year Engagement Review at Movies.Com.Au

The Avengers Review

This is a quick Avengers review! The Avengers, if you’ve been stuck under a rock for the past few years, is the coming together of the main characters in the films Iron Man 2, Captain America, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk.  The film stars Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johannson and Jeremy Renner and is directed by Joss Whedon.  In a nutshell, this movie is about Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye coming together to form the Avengers team in order to defeat Loki from destroying the world with the help of his alien friends.

I would definitely recommend watching the earlier movies before watching this one, especially Thor considering Loki is Thor’s evil brother and gives the backstory into why Loki would be doing this, and the movie doesn’t have time to waste on filling you in, so be prepared!

Joss Whedon, who also wrote the script, has done such a great job in making sure no one character overshadowed another, and they all got pretty much equal screen time which I thought would be a tough task. 

I just wanted to break down certain parts of the film because it is such a huge movie…

·      Best actor/character: As much as I love Robert Downey Jr, I’m going to go with Mark Ruffalo on this one, he replaced Edward Norton as the Hulk and I’ve got to say he did really well at being the gentle scientist and then the crazy Hulk.  When he was the Hulk, he was hilarious, it wasn’t stuff that he said obviously because most of it is just “ARRRGGHHH” but just little things he did and how he did them.  It’s also very cool that he was able to play the Hulk as in the actual green man, because Lou Ferrigno, who has been playing the Hulk for years and years, usually does that.

·      Most boring character: I’ve got to put it out there, I really do not like Thor, he is just so boring (and I actually fell asleep during Thor) and it sucks that if you really want the whole picture you have to watch Thor. He may as well talk like this “I Thor, I strong. Save world now.”

·      Best line: Probably Captain America, when he’s giving all these orders to the Avengers and then he just goes, “and Hulk…smash!” which the audience loved.

·      Worst line: I don’t know if it was the delivery or something, but I didn’t like the part after Iron Man says, “I’m bringing the party to you!” And Black Widow says, “I don’t see how that’s a party…”

·      Most heroic: While they’re all obviously super heroic, I think Iron Man really saves the day and you see him completely risk his life to save everyone else, which is very different from Tony Stark’s selfish character.  

It was probably a little bit too long, but fans of the other movies will definitely enjoy this one, and although I hated seeing New York get destroyed in the final scenes, I’m going to give the movie 4.5/5

21 Jump Street Review

The highly anticipated film adaptation of the TV show 21 Jump Street definitely lived up to my expectations, and is probably one of my favourite movies of the year.  I haven't watched any of the TV show, so I can't give a good comparison but I can safely say it's going to be one of the best comedies of the year. 

The film stars Jonah Hill (also the writer of the film) and Channing Tatum as the main characters Schmidt and Jenko.  It begins by showing us Schmidt and Jenko in high school, Schmidt is the nerdy white guy known as Not So Slim Shady and Jenko is the school jock.  The two meet again when they both join the police academy, joining forces so that Jenko can help Schmidt with the fitness side of things and Schmidt can help Jenko with the academic side.  After graduating they expect a life of excitement and being badasses, but it's mostly riding police bikes through the park.  After bungling an arrest of a well known drug lord they are sent to 21 Jump Street to join an undercover assignment which sees them heading back to highschool to find the source of a new drug taking over the schoolyard.

I honestly don't think that there was a period longer than a minute that I wasn't laughing, there are some hilarious one liners that literally left me with a sore side from laughing so hard.  The film, like a few recent films made fun of its genre and the fact that it was a remake, similar to the way that Friends with Benefits makes fun of the romantic comedy genre, and I think that is what helps it be as funny and good as it is.  There were plenty of hilarious car chases, and explosions that left you on the edge of your seat wanting more.  It's definitely not a movie for kids though, with every second word being a swear word, and a lot of crude humour, two things which I usually hate in a movie, but it just seemed to work with this one!

Channing Tatum is proving himself as a great comedic actor, we saw little bits of it in She's the Man and The Vow etc., but this is definitely the best show of his comedic chops.  Jonah Hill is hilarious as always, and this is the film he famously lost almost 20 kilos for.  The duo work so well together and you can tell there's a bit of a bromance there.  Dave Franco stars as the popular kid at the school who sells the drugs, and plays a character kind of similar to his Scrubs character, Cole.  Ice Cube is also really hilarious as Captain Dickson, the man in charge of Jenko and Schmidt, "You are here because you some Justin Beaver, Miley Cyrus lookin' muthas."

I would gladly watch this movie again, and although other people might not agree with this, I'm going to have to give it a 5/5! If you haven't already, watch the trailer, and run to the cinema!