Wreck-It Ralph Review

Wreck-It Ralph is a computer animated comedy to film for people of all ages to enjoy. The video game based film directed by Rich Moore, introduces the viewers to many characters from games they may well have seen many times before, such as Mario and Pac-man, both well loved characters. It is most likely to be a film that any gamer would very much enjoy however, not being a gamer myself I still really liked it, especially as I watched it in 3D.

When the arcade closes at night, the characters from various different games travel between games until morning comes around again. One of these characters is Ralph.

Ralph, a villain in Wreck-It Ralph, dreams of becoming a hero and earning medals like his game colleague Fix-It Felix. Unfortunately he doesn't have the best of plans and doesn't choose the best way of going about getting himself a medal, but becomes a hero in his own way.

As he journeys through 'game central station' on his journey to earn a medal, he visits many other games, however as he ventures into one Sugar Rush, so does an unwanted creature that can only bring trouble and chaos with it.

Ralph finds himself having to defeat this uninvited threat in order to save the game and the friends he has made on his new adventure, but in doing so this earns him the new respect he had been waiting for from Fix-It Felix and the other characters within his game.

When I was sat in the cinema I thought I was going to be one of the oldest people in there until the parents started coming in with their children and families. It's a family friendly film that can easily be enjoyed by anyone.

As I was watching this film I was being told about the game characters within the storyline, so it was a bit of a new learning experience for me too in a different way. I enjoyed watching Ralph on his travels to try to make himself the better person that he'd always wanted to become, and I liked seeing the different games that he ended up within along the way. I thought the 3D made it quite cool as there are a few moments when you notice it quite well although there are also moments where the 3D isn't very effective.

As I sit and think about the film right now, there aren't any faults that come to mind. The only one thing that could possibly count as slightly annoying after a while was that when I left the cinema I constantly found myself repeating Ralph's catchy phrase and attempting to say it in his voice.

All in all, I enjoyed this film even without the knowledge of the many games and the characters. I'd recommend it to all families with children, to people that like games and to anyone that loves a good animation film.

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus Review

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus is quite a strange film and there are times when it’s hard to understand and could get very confusing at times.

The basic outline of the film is about a travelling amusement company that lets their audience have the chance to go inside their own imagination. They get given a choice between a happy and pure path or a dark and evil path. The imaginarium works behind a magical mirror and is controlled by the immortal Dr Parnassus and his mysterious powers.

He has a deal with Mr. Nick (some say he’s the devil) that when his daughter, Valentina, is sixteen years old she will then be Mr. Nicks. The amusement travel around to different places to get a good audience. Along the way they stop over a bridge in the middle of the night to find a young man hanging by his neck under the bridge.  They get him up on top of the bridge and make sure he’s alive and take him with them but when he wakes up in the morning he has no memory of what had happened that night. 

He works with them in a few of their shows and soon later Dr Parnassus gets a visit from Mr. Nick who tells him about the young man. Later on the Dr convinces the young man that he can read his memory and tells the young man that his name is really Tony and he had a charity for children.

Tony decides he wants to help them with their show to get them a bigger audience, and it works, but somehow along the way things don’t work to plan and the amusement team/family turns their backs on Tony and to complete the deal with Mr. Nick they have to kill him.

This film was quite strange and confusing, however it was also good in a weird way. When my friends and I were watching it, we found it odd and hard to understand at some points. 

There are films that I may find confusing that I would watch again to understand them fully, but I can't find myself properly getting into this film enough to watch it again. 

The Hurt Locker Review

An award winning film from Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker is based on a bomb disposal squad going around de-activating and disposing of any bombs that they get made aware of. 

It shows viewers what life is like being a member of their team and having to spend time away from your family in a foreign country to work.

At first the team go out to de-activate a bomb, but unfortunately it doesn't quite go to plan. Sadly the leader of the team gets killed in an unexpected explosion and the team are devastated as he was a great leader and helped the team to work well together.

A few days later a new guy arrives at the camp and becomes a new member of the team. They then have to work together on more jobs to de-activate and dispose of a lot more bombs. The new guy seems to be quite cocky which makes one member of the team think he is trying to replace their old leader.

At first they don’t seem to work that well together but they start to get along better as they realise he’s not trying to fill the old guys shoes; he’s just trying his best to finish and complete the jobs properly with no problems.

I enjoyed this film as it helps the audience to get a better understanding of what it is that these disposal squads do. It helps people to see what their lives are like when they have to leave the ones they love for long period of time and travel across the world just to work. It shows the kind of conditions they live in and helps the viewers to see clearly what the team has to go through out there. I feel that it helps people to have a knowledge of what life is like for a soldier and what the families must go through.

It's an exciting action film and definitely one of the best wars films I've seen. I would definitely recommend this film to anyone I know. 

Ill Manors Review

Ben Drew’s 2012 film Ill Manors, about life after growing up in foster care shows the characters doing what they feel they have to for them to get by, even if some of those decisions are bad ones. Using his rapping as a way of narrating the story gave it a unique feel, instead of it just being a completely stereotypical film about gangs, violence and crime.

The film shows people what others feel is necessary to get along in life. Even if we don't agree with their choices and actions, we can understand the reasons behind them. At times I felt the storyline was a bit difficult to follow as there was always a lot going on at once with the different gangs. The storyline would switch between the gangs so that the audience could see what each were doing at the time. The locations used are the expected stereotypical ones you would expect to see in a film like this where drugs, gangs and violence are involved, for example a park where the gang hang out waiting for people to come and buy the drugs from them, this makes it work in its genre.

The acting, well, what is supposed to be called acting, I personally felt was poor from some of the actors involved in the film. There were some lines in the film that could have sounded so much better and come across as more convincing, and I think this applies mostly to the character Kirby (Keith Coggins) as it could have been played so much better.

This isn't the type of film I would choose to watch for myself and the reason behind that is because I don't particularly enjoy this sort of drama in a film as that's not my scene. Seeing this film gives me more of a reason to dislike it as I didn't enjoy the acting or storyline. I wouldn't recommend it to people I know unless I was aware that they enjoyed this type of thing. 

Dear John Review

The film Dear John is a romantic drama about a young soldier who meets a girl while he’s on leave for two weeks. In those short two weeks the pair fall in love and spend as much time together as they can before he has to go back to the army. 

This film stars Channing Tatum as the young soldier, John Tyree and Amanda Seyfried as the young girl, Savannah.

When John leaves home to return to the army the couple stay in contact by writing to each other constantly. Savannah goes over to visit Johns father a few times as she met him before and she enjoyed talking to him about his coin collection and the different types of coins that he has acquired over many years. 

You eventually realise that Johns father is slightly different to other people as he is very quiet and likes to keep things the same and have a routine or pattern. For example every Sunday he would make lasagne for their dinner. You only really hear him when he’s involved in talking about his coin collection as its a subject that he takes great interest in.

As John is in the army they get put into some dangerous situations. With the 9/11 tragedy they are all shocked and want to extend their stay in the army to do as much as they can to help. The soldiers were given one weekend to decide whether they were sure that they wanted to extend or not as it was all in or none in. John went back home on that weekend to see Savannah but she didn't take the news well as she knew she would miss him terribly until she knew he was back home, safe and sound. As he returned to the army to extend with the rest of the men he didn't receive a letter from Savannah for quite a while until he got an unexpected heartbreaking letter which resulted in him burning every letter he had saved.

As his stay in the army reaches an end he wants to extend his stay but finds himself being sent back home instead to some terrible news. He finds out that his dad had suffered a heart attack and wasn't doing very well. Sadly he passed which left John on his own.

I thought this was a great film and left me in tears from many heartbreaking moments. 

He may not have had a brilliant relationship with his father but it hurts anyone when they lose a loved one. I thought it was sad that he was selling his dads coin collection but he didn't have anything he could do with it and he sold it for a great cause. 

Dear John is an amazing film and anyone that loves romance films or a sob story will love it.

I'd suggest watching with a box of tissues as company as you're more than likely to need them handy. 

A Little Intro To Me....

Hey, my name is Lily and I'm currently a media student at Portsmouth Uni. 

Obviously as a media student I love watching films, mainly rom-coms and comedy's but I still like to watch the occasional action or horror film now and then as well, as well as the normal television programmes. 

Films are a great form of entertainment as you can forget whatever has happened and just sit back, relax and lose yourself in the story. Even though it's nice to have someone to watch a film with, it isn't a requirement so you can put on your favourite chick-flick or thriller whenever you fancy it, and dive into a bowl of popcorn and bottle of fizz. 

I don't know anyone that doesn't like to watch films which is great because I always have someone to watch them with and share my thoughts and opinions. However, as I had blogged in previous years for other subjects, I thought I would create one so I can share my reviews on many different films for anyone willing to read them. 

I don't have specific days that I'll be writing the reviews as different films are always being released, all I know is that when I watch a film, whether it's an old or new one, it'll most likely be followed by a review published onto this blog and then you can come up with your own thoughts and ideas.

There may also be the odd blog post here and there that might have nothing to do with films really but it may just be something that I like and want to share with you, this blog will basically be used for film reviews and any other exciting things I come across :) hope you all enjoy it no matter what. 

I'll keep you posted!!