Movie Monday: The 14.5 hour flight edition

Okay, so this is kind of a cheat-y version of Movie Monday, I know. But apparently when you see Les Miserables at the movies for the third time in a month, they give you a free dose of consumption, so I've been hacking up a lung since I got home. Between that and the obligatory jetlag, I've been going to bed at 9pm, which has somewhat hindered my movie watching time.

Thankfully, the flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles (and vice versa) is fourteen and a half hours, which gave me ample time to catch up on recent releases that I somehow missed at the movies. So I figured I'd talk about them today.

The Bourne Legacy

Source

I was a little sceptical about how they were going to make a Bourne movie work when it didn't actually feature Jason Bourne. But Jeremy Renner pulled it off pretty spectacularly. It was a lot of action with not a great deal of plot, but that's pretty much what ALL the Bourne movies are, right? That said, I think I'm going to need to watch it again when the dialogue isn't constantly being interrupted by screaming one year old twins and hosties!

The Amazing Spider-man
Not quite sure how I missed this one when it was on at the movies, but it was pretty spectacular. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are completely adorable, and it was really awesome to see a superhero who can be hurt and exhausted and broken. I mean, he's a teenager. He's going to make mistakes, you know? I know a lot of people thought it was unnecessary to make another Spider-man movie so soon, especially with a different actor in the lead. But it kept me entertained on a plane for three hours, so it gets a big thumbs up in my book!

Brave

Source

Holy hell, this was amazing. The animation was spectacular, the story was adorable, and the cast is phenomenal. Plus, a princess who can stand up and fight for herself. WIN. Obviously, I'm a little upset that they didn't find a way for my all time favourite Scot to be included (hint: his name rhymes with Schmavid Schmennant), but they had Billy Connolly in there, and what more do you really need?! If you haven't seen it yet, you really really should.

The Dark Knight Rises
Confession: I watched this one after the airline had declared it sleepy time, and as a result I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open several times. I know, I know. I'm a bad person, it's amazing, blah blah blah. It's a really freaking long movie, you guys. And I must confess, Batman is one of my least favourite superheroes (my least favourite of all is Superman. Because he's kind of lame, and his disguise is shit). I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so freaking tired. But at this point in time? I'm not really feeling the need to rewatch it and find out.

Megamind

Source

I really enjoyed this, possibly because I was 13 hours into a 14.5 hour flight, and hadn't been able to sleep, thanks to the screaming one year old twins in front of me. So a movie intended for small children was about all my brain could cope with at that point in time! It was fun to see things from the villain's point of view for a change. And Minion was awesome.

Looper
I kinda sorta hated this movie. I mean, the idea was intriguing. But for me, the execution wasn't that great. There wasn't enough explanation to any of it - the random addition of people with telekinetic powers, how you decide that being a looper is a good career choice, why time travel appears to be used exclusively by the mob to dispose of people who have outlived their usefulness. Plus, having Joseph Gordon-Levitt using some kind of drugs that ultimately changed the colour of his eyes just seemed weird. I mean, was that added into the script after they did the casting? Gah.

Frankenweenie
I wasn't a huge fan of this either. It was more Tim Burton doing what Tim Burton does best, and frankly I'm a little bit over it. On the upside, it didn't feature Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham-Carter. On the downside, it featured Catherine O'Hara and Winona Ryder, so he's still using the same actors over and over again. Sigh. Sure, I teared up when the dog died, but you can pretty much guarantee that ANY time something happens to a dog in a TV show/movie, that I will cry.

End of Watch

Source

I don't know what I was expecting from this, but it didn't meet with any of my expectations. This isn't to say it was bad. It wasn't. It was pretty awesome, actually. It's filmed in a documentary style, and for a large chunk of the movie, the events don't seem to tie together. It's just a film following two ordinary cops through their daily lives. The friendship between the two main characters is brilliantly done, and I definitely didn't see the ending coming. Well worth watching, although I don't know that I'd bother to see it on the big screen.

So there you have it, the movies I watched en route to/from Los Angeles. Have you seen any of them? If so, what did you think?

K xx