Trailer Park #1: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Saving Mr. Banks, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

If you haven't seen how this segment works yet, click here. Now that you're caught up...

Here we go!

In the first installment of Trailer Park, I'll be reviewing the second trailer for teen supernatural flick The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, the first trailer for Disney's biopic Saving Mr. Banks, and, lastly, the first official trailer to The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

I'll be honest; I wasn't a fan of the first trailer. Looking at it, I felt sorry for the fans of the original novels; with such a devoted following to The Mortal Instruments series, this movie would get a lot of hate. Looking at this trailer, I feel more or less the same. For the most part, I will say that the story of demon hunters does look slightly more intriguing, but it feels just like Percy Jackson; the bait is good, but I'm afraid that the catch won't be that great. After Abduction, I've lost all faith in Lily Collins as an actress--she was a terrible love interest in that film, and I highly doubt her abilities as a leading lady, so I'm definitely not excited about that. And the werewolves reference at the end, really? I guess it's part of the books' mythology, but a month before the film even hits theaters, I know that it's going to be a bad idea in the long run. Werewolves are just one step away from being as big a threat as Lucifer & co. I mean, just look at Jacob Black in Breaking Dawn! So while the film may end up getting a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I just see this as a cheap cashgrab to reel in teens before school starts with an established franchise (although I don't think that they're trying to hide it), I'm not excited, and I won't be scrambling to see it on August 23rd. I'm saying that this trailer FISHTAILED.



Our next film is Saving Mr. Banks (pictured above), a film about the rough process of making the Disney classic Mary Poppins. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything here, this trailer makes me so happy and giddy inside--literally, my stomach has butterflies. This movie looks amazing, and seeing Walt Disney portrayed to comedic perfection by Tom Hanks is just wonderful. The film looks like it'll be the best movie of the year, in my opinion. I can't wait to see it in theaters. I don't think I've felt this way from a trailer since my first time seeing the Lincoln trailer with the John Williams score playing in the background so reverently. So, yeah, make sure you catch this movie on December 20 because this is as STURDY as trailers get!




Our final film is the next movie in The Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug, probably one of the most out-there titles for a book adaptation, but I digress. (If you haven't caught my review for the preceding film An Unexpected Journey, make sure you check it out here.) This trailer's main purpose is to show you the dragon Smaug and it does it well--Benedict Cumberbatch has never looked better. I kid, but Smaug looks pretty cool. Not terrifying, but he serves a dragon's purpose and that is, to look cool. When I initially saw this trailer, I thought there was a bit too much Legolas and elves. Upon another viewing, however, I realize that they're there to fulfill one of the things that I praised about the last film: bridging the gaps! While I doubt Tolkien wrote much about Legolas in his appendices, I am excited to see how Peter Jackson pulls this off. It is disappointing, though, to see that the CGI orc is still here... well, beggars can't be choosers. That said, with Gandalf visiting the lair of the Necromancer, and Howard Shore's score still impressive, this may end up being better than Journey. I'm not making any predictions, but I will say that it will be a battle for the Christmas box office with this coming out on December 13 and Saving Mr Banks on the 20th. After viewing this trailer again, I'd say that The Desolation of Smaug trailer is STURDY.

That's it for today. Which trailer did you like the best out of these three and what trailers should I review next week? Make sure you leave your thoughts on these trailers and this segment in the comments below!

Intro to Trailer Park: A New Review Segment

After thinking about it, I've decided that I want to talk about trailers to films. Trailers are what gets us into the movie-watching experience; every time you put in the new DVD or sit down in the theater chairs, you will be introduced to new films yearning for you to see them. Some of them are great and wonderful and exciting, others are... well, you know.

A great trailer shows us a snippet of an experience we will get, showing us the main story, giving us a feel of it, yet not revealing too much plot details. A terrible trailer would give away almost the whole movie, show a good number of the movie's weaknesses, and doesn't add any drive for a viewer to go see it. And I want to give you my thoughts on them.

Every week, I'll try to review three trailers. But I won't be using my standard five-star rating system; I want to have some fun!  I'll designate a trailer one of three ratings:

• Sturdy (designates a great trailer)
• In Need of Repair (an iffy trailer. While slightly interesting, trailer may have some flaws, or; the movie just doesn't look that appealing.)
• Fishtail (To put it bluntly... it sucks. Either its showcasing a movie that will probably stink to high heaven, or the editor gave too much away or did an icky job of it.)

When viewing a trailer, I'll primarily look at:

• Appeal/Excitement Factor
• Editing (i.e. cuts, intertitles, etc.)
• Mood (how is it conveyed?), and
• Story

I hope that this new segment will be entertaining for you and for me. Let me know what you think of this idea in the comments section below.

****UPDATE**** 

Due to a limited time in my schedule, starting with Trailer Park 5, I will only be reviewing one trailer per installment, which will no longer be a weekly thing. Check back monthly to see what's new!!

CLICK HERE for Trailer Park #1

CLICK HERE for Trailer Park #2

CLICK HERE for Trailer Park #3

CLICK HERE for Trailer Park #4

CLICK HERE for Trailer Park #5

CLICK HERE for Trailer Park #6

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Movie Review

I meant to post the review much earlier, back when it was still in theaters, but I never got to completing it until now. So... to celebrate the DVD release(?), here are my thoughts on the first part of Peter Jackson's next epic trilogy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a stunning return to Peter Jackson's cinematic interpretation of Middle-Earth. After Peter Jackson's last Tolkien adaptation Return of the King won 11 Oscars in 2003, people have had high expectations for The Hobbit. And honestly, I may have liked this new one more.

Now I'm probably not the best person to ask about The Lord of the Rings, simply because it's been a year or so since I've seen the extended versions and I didn't have a critical eye back then. But I can say that The Hobbit is much better than Fellowship of the Ring, which took so long to end after the best character dies.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, Frodo's favorite relative from the last three films, and how he's involved in setting major plot points of The Lord of the Rings into motion, while half-willingly helping brave dwarves take back their homeland. And that's important to realize before seeing this film. Many people will walk in to this thinking they will see an entire story play out before them, when in reality, it's a third of it. When I saw this in the theater, several people around me complained that the movie didn't end with much of a resolution. When I explained to them that it was only the beginning of a trilogy, they were dumb-founded, unconvinced that Jackson can pull it off-- and that may be the weakest point of the film.

There are many great scenes in this film, the prologue, especially. We get the backstory of the dwarves and the Big Bad, Smaug the Dragon, narrated by Bilbo Baggins. But it's not the Bilbo Baggins that you see in the picture above, but the Bilbo from The Lord of the Rings, played by Ian Holm, pictured below. Those who have seen the originals will feel SO nostalgic and happy, like me (regarding the latter), and an unexpected cameo can't not make you smile. The beginning of this film is undeniably Mr. Jackson's way of saying, "This is a prequel. This is where I am having the story told." After the prologue, we go back sixty years to the beginning of the adventure.

"You haven't aged a day!" Perhaps he knows Ripley....

Martin Freeman (Sherlock, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) plays the youthful Bilbo Baggins wonderfully, which is good since I much prefer Bilbo over Frodo, who can't help being killed by the Nazgûl every half-hour. And in this film, it's absolutely shocking how similar Freeman looks to Holm. Ian McKellen is back as Gandalf and better than ever, and the dwarves, though many, each make their characters unique, even though the screenplay doesn't make their identities completely explicit. Regardless, you still are attached to them; for example, the brother dwarves Fili and Kili are seen together in their introduction, but when they are separated at one scene, you are worried about the characters, similar to the misadventures of Merry and Pippin in the original LOTR films. Either way, none of the characters are particularly boring.

Everyone's major criticism of the film is the overlong first hour, which I must agree with since I did start getting a little restless towards the end of the beginning. However, in retrospect, I can't imagine what I would take out of the first hour. Maybe it's because I liked that scene in the book, and Peter Jackson just did a great job presenting it. Others have criticized Radagast the Brown, a character only mentioned once in The Hobbit and hardly seen in the Lord of the Rings book.

Radagast the Brown, the nature wizard. Don't expect a new Gandalf.

It is absolutely safe to say that Peter Jackson is taking creative liberties by making the nature-man Radagast an absolutely quirky hermit. Is he still the nature-loving Istari from Tolkien lore? Yes, but his character is 100% comic relief. Contrary to what some critics are saying, Radagast does serve some purpose, but not one integral to the main plot with the dwarves, but rather serves the purpose of connecting the Hobbit trilogy to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While some will absolutely love this character, like my viewing party, but others have compared him to Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace negatively. I guess he's just a matter of taste, but I personally laughed when he was on screen, as was the purpose. Here's this: If you liked Professor Slughorn the tiniest bit in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, you will most likely like Radagast.

In bridging the films, Peter Jackson made several embellishments in adapting the material, some of which are based off the appendices of Return of the King, but one of the major subplots involving Thorin, the main dwarf, and a heavily-CGI orc is completely unique to the film adaptation. While it may very well tick off many a fan, I think everyone in my theater was thoroughly involved in this plot, and some may say it is "epic," especially come the film's climax. As a major fan of the original novel (it's towards the top of my top 10 list of books), I didn't mind the liberties; in fact, I think it made the film somewhat better. And when I say heavily-CGI, I MEAN heavily-CGI. It's very odd, though, that the Big Bad Orc is CGI when all the orcs from the original films were mostly real actors in extensive makeup and costume.

Lastly, the best sequence in the movie involves the best character in Middle-Earth. The "Riddles in the Dark" sequence with Gollum (who I listed as the best literary character of all time) is tense and entertaining. It shows Gollum slightly more human yet slightly more feral; you can tell he's had the One Ring for a long time, so long it's become a part of him (wink wink) and his daily life, and that's a huge credit to Andy Serkis, who reprises his role once again as the cursed creature. Unlike in The Lord of the Rings, he's not hunting his "precious," but rather living as a scavenger below Goblintown. It's a shame that Gollum won't likely make a reappearance in the next two films (since he doesn't appear again in the novel), so part of me hopes that we'll see Gollum's journey to Moria to set up his cameo in the tomb during Fellowship of the Ring. Regardless, though, Gollum was a welcome addition to the picture, and his role was played enough for the films.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey does suffer from being a tad long and from an overabundance of very apparent CGI, but the rest of the film works so well that I'm going to give this film 4 out of 5 stars. I'm sure that I'll revisit this film after the whole trilogy has been released, but for now, I thought the film deserves that score, and I also thought that it was a much better opener than Fellowship of the Ring.

So what about you? Did you like it, and did you prefer The Lord of the Rings over this book/film? Or how about the age-long question: Bilbo vs. Frodo, who do you prefer? Comment below, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Warm Bodies: Movie Review

Supernatural romance is the latest craze in fiction, spawning Twilight, The Host, Beastly-- books and movies where humankind falls in love with the Nosferatu, the intergalactic, the...tattooed--and now we have Warm Bodies, a zombie romance.

Believe it or not, this is a very good film. Warm Bodies is the latest picture from critically-acclaimed director Jonathan Levine, who is perhaps best known (and critically lauded) for 2011's cancer dramedy 50/50, which several critics placed in their top ten lists for that year. The real issue that this film was facing was to not copy  the Twilight craze, and Levine pulls out another good one.

The film has good performances for sure, with Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine), Nicholas Hoult (X-Men First Class), and Teresa Palmer, (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)-- who, ironically enough, looks strangely similar to Twilight's Kristen Stewart--leading the movie's cast, but the true masterpiece of this film is the direction. Jonathan Levine takes extraordinary advantage of the cinematic medium in this picture. Throughout the film, Hoult's R--the lead zombie--narrates, showing the inner thoughts of a post-apocalyptic zombie. That way, we get character development from a character whose spoken vocabulary is as complex as that to Tarzan. But I don't praise the narration for the characterization; I praise it because the way it's used can only be done effectively through film--while Warm Bodies is based off a popular book, I can't imagine that a brief segment where a zombie starts tearing his face (non-graphically) could've had the timing like in the film. In the book, it would have been clunky writing rather than the smooth wit and charm that the medium produces. It's a simple technique, but by Jove, this is why we see movies--to experience believable events as if it were real life without having the description read to us like a blind man.

As I said before, the performances are good. Nicholas Hoult pulls off a believable zombie, but also a lovable, if flawed, person, almost like a kid film's Frankenstein's Monster (not the novel one; he's too smart and too scary), that you feel sorry for when he's misunderstood. Palmer acts realistically--in any other zombie movie, you'd be agreeing with some of her early actions, but this film puts things in perspective; following R, her actions seem overdramatic, yet, as I said before, in any other movie, you would have been on her side-- and I liked that. The stand-out star, though, is Corddry as R's friend M, being easily the movie's funniest character.

The only "negatives" that people could find in this film is its plot's familiarity and its cheese factor. But, in my mind at least, the original portions and the thoroughly funny moments and timing, outweigh the all-too-familiar love story present in the film. And as for the cheese, it's delightfully so! We already have zombies falling in love with humans (it's well-explained in the plot), so the cheesier plot points, why complain? Just go with it; it's not as if it weighs the movie down.

A funny still from a funny montage

There's not much to criticize with the movie. It's a great stand-alone film, and a movie well-needed in this nadir of a film year. It's no Oscar material, but there was plenty to love. For me, there's not enough zing in the film to warrant a five-star rating, but I'll go close with 4.5 out of 5 stars.

So what about you? Have you seen this film, and if so, what did you think? What's your favorite zombie movie or TV show? Comment below!

NEW MOVIE: Now You See Me Movie Review

Finally, I review a film that's still in theaters! But, you know, it could always disappear from the box office.

Now You See Me is the newest magic movie, and it sure is creating quite a bit of a buzz at the box office, maintaining a position in the top 5 since it came out on May 31. So this review is belated... but still relevant!! Now You See Me follows four magicians, The Four Horsemen, who, after apparently robbing a bank, are hunted by the FBI in a classic game of cat-and-mouse. But, as Wizards of Waverly Place told us back when Disney Channel was still kicking, everything is not as it seems.

Like the apocalyptic comedy This is The End (which is also out in theaters), this is an ensemble piece if ever there was one. The Four Horsemen are composed of magicians who specialize in different fields of the art: escapism, mentalism, sleight-of-hand, and showmanship, and in the opening stunt of the film, all of these come together in a way. This opening stunt, however, turns out to be a bank robbery, prompting FBI agent Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk from The Avengers), and a French Interpol Agent to enlist the help of a magic debunker, played by Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption, Bruce Almighty, the Dark Knight trilogy, Oblivion, and several documentaries), to get as many steps ahead as possible. Not to mention that Michael Caine gets an extended cameo!

That's really all you need to know about the movie. The acting or character development doesn't quite matter, because the film moves so fast. Would it have been nice to have seen more character development so we can connect with the Horsemen more? Yes, but there was simply no time. While acting doesn't really matter here, I will say that Woody Harrelson really stands out as The Mentalist.  With plenty of one-liners to spare, he has the best charisma of the Four Horsemen. Now if you come to this movie because of Sir Michael Caine, you may be disappointed. His character is treated like he was in The Dark Knight Rises. He's with you in the beginning, and you hardly see much else of him. But, like in The Dark Knight Rises, he's used as much as his character needs to be.

It's a great chase, though. A stand-out scene involves an FBI break-in that turns into a showdown between Mark Ruffalo and "Horseman of Death" Wilder, played by Dave Franco (Scrubs, 21 Jump Street). Wilder uses stealth and classic magic tricks to evade Ruffalo before racing on the street, turning traffic into a massive deck of cards and sleight-of-hand trick. It's probably one of the best action sequences I've seen in a movie to be honest. 

That said, there are a few flaws. Freeman's character, the debunker, certainly is reasonable in his theories of how the tricks are done. However, the movie isn't very plausible. Even Sherlock Holmes and Moriarity could not have been so many steps ahead as these guys are. Yet it is reasonable, so it doesn't detract from the experience too much, but there's a lot of faith and trust that are needed with this pixie dust. One wrong move or gap in the plans and everything that these guys work for would fall like a row of cards. During the movie, I kept thinking of the video in this link.

Plausibility is also hurt in the overabundance of CGI in the magic stunts. I know these guys aren't professional magicians, but at least the screenwriter could have made up practical tricks. The opening stunt is done with a CGI'd machine: while they make sense of it, could the filmmakers not have made a set and device that could actually work in the situation Freeman is detailing? Same with the bubble stunt in the New Orleans sequence. The movie could have been lightyears more impressive (and perhaps less expensive) if practical magic tricks had been done. Also, the screenwriter doesn't seem to understand the art of magic as a whole. He knows a little bit of the illusion of magic, but when he tries to create sequences with some illusions, he uses the concept of that illusion to make sense of things rather than building the sequence on how the illusion is done, making the film less real because of the need of the CGI and makes the writer seem, well, disillusioned. I may not be making the most sense, but when you see it, you'll know what I mean.

Lastly, did we need a love story? Ruffalo and Interpol are supposed to fall in love, but, honestly, I thought it felt forced and really did not work in the film, being used only as a weak distraction. It kind of took away from Ruffalo's character, to be quite honest. I could have done without it, and the film would hardly have changed.

But when it's all said and done, I liked Now You See Me. It was an entertaining ride with more twists than a Shyamalan film, some entertaining dialogue, and clever action sequences, only weighed down by implausibility, yet to be saved by reason. I give Now You See Me gets 3 out of 5 stars. I won't drop another eight bucks to see it again in theaters, but I won't walk away from a sequel.

Morgan Freeman explains a trick. Fortunately, the film does not fall in flames, being an entertaining time at the movies.

In short, if you like chase films, you'll like Now You See Me. It's no Oscar contender, but it's certainly a fun time at the movies to hold you over until The Conjuring or Frozen comes out in the next few months.

What about you? Will you be seeing Now You See Me or will you instead go see Man of Steel or Despicable Me 2? Have you seen Now You See Me, and, if so, what did you think? Do you want more NEW MOVIE reviews? Comment below! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The Walking Dead Season 1: "Days Gone By" TV Review

From the director and writer of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile comes... a zombie apocalypse TV show?

Earlier today, my girlfriend privileged me and my dad to an episode of The Walking Dead, and if the rest of the series is anything like the first episode, this show deserves every amount of hype it gets.

The pilot episode follows Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a Georgia Sherrif's Deputy, as he awakens from a coma to find that the world has been infected with a zombie-like virus. Miraculously saved by a massacre at the hospital, Rick is horrified to see piles of dead people everywhere, as well as more gruesome sights called "Walkers," the Walking Dead. While trying to figure out this new world, he is captured, and later befriends, Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and his son Duane, who bring him up to date on the world since the zombie apocalypse outbreak and give him warnings concerning the Walkers before Rick makes his way to the heart of Atlanta, Georgia to find his family, where, unbeknownst to him, a horde of Walkers await him.

Frank Darabont has done it again! While there is certainly a bunch of zombie guts shown throughout this episode, the mastery of it is that it's not focused on the apocalypse, making it more of a backdrop to the human element of it. One of the best moments in the episode was when Morgan once again tries to put to rest his zombified wife as quiet, simple notes play to heighten the emotion of the somber scene. The show could have really failed if it chose to go the route of recent horror movies, like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, and choose to simply have the good guys mow down the infected and whoever falls behind is a sissy. The show would have probably lasted only until its first season then. But I was emotionally attached to the few characters we saw, so much that the television show is very much like a movie. That said, Darabont is one of the biggest names in Hollywood's screenwriter community, so it really isn't that big a surprise that the show is good.

The actors pull off very believable, realistic performances. My girlfriend constantly said, "That's what I would've been like if that happened to me!" Lincoln as Rick shows that, yeah, a person would have some culture shock, but eventually they'd get over it as he soon returns to the Rick we opened the episode with in the prologue and shootout scene.

The only negative I could really come up with is that there's a bit of an overabundance of headshots. It certainly makes sense that they're there, since it's a definite kill, but, to me, they're a bit gratuitous.

Overall, the show is masterfully written and directed, the actors make their characters believable and relatable, and the little extra elements are nice icings on the cake to make a zombie show not completely about zombies! It shows that AMC really is the king of TV. I give the pilot episode 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Trust me! It's not as dumb as it looks.

Have you seen The Walking Dead yet? What did you think? Should I do more TV reviews? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows-- Movie Review

Guy Ritchie proves once again that making a Sherlock Holmes movie is not "elementary, dear Watson." Oh no....

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a 2011 action film inspired by the classic Holmesian story "The Final Problem" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Returning from the 2009 mystery film Sherlock Holmes are Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) as the incredible detective, Jude Law (Road to Perdition, The Talented Mr. Ripley) as John Watson, and Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels) returning to direct. In this film, Sherlock Holmes enlists the help of his soon-to-be-married friend John Watson to go against "the Napoleon of Crime," Prof. James Moriarty, played by Jared Harris (Mr. Deeds, Mad Men) in a global game of cat-and-mouse. Supposedly, we're to see two of the greatest minds go against each other, but instead, we get a rather boring, dull action picture.

Notice in the introduction, I called Game of Shadows an action film and its predecessor a mystery. While the 2009 film certainly strayed a bit from the source material by including a rather polarizing Satanic villain, it still captured a bit of the spirit of Holmes while still giving a unique Holmes experience. Instead of getting a great mystery film, for the majority of the picture, it's just countless action sequences and very minimal Doyle-style detective elements, which is a very terrible shame. I was looking forward to this film, thinking it would trump the prior film, but it fell flat.

Let's talk what is good with the film. Downey and Law do good with the material they have, Jude Law probably being the highlight of the film. Alone, the action sequences are fun. Harris does well as Moriarty, and the introduction of Mycroft Holmes was a nice surprise. However, the best part of the film was definitely the final sequence. At the end, Holmes and Moriarty (finally) show their mastery of detail and intricacy in a game of chess, each predicting the moves of their "pawns" outside in a gala. Each man has a plan, and the game finally comes to a head. Honestly, I wish that that was what the rest of the film was.

My biggest complaint, I think, is that the film is too darn long. Clocking in at a little over two hours, the film drags in several parts, and the dialogue doesn't help. This is Sherlock Holmes! The dialogue should be pristine: natural, yet intellectual. Nothing is particularly interesting, and we the audience have to sit through two hours of it. This film could have EASILY been a little over ninety minutes; BBC's Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (both of whom will be featured in this winter's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) does ninety minute mysteries, which, aside from Series 1: Episode 2, always hold the viewers' attention. Sadly, a TV show's version ("The Great Game" and "The Reichenbach Fall") trumps a cinematic version on so many levels. I think what really drags the film is how Ritchie decides to show Holmes's plan of attack in slow-motion, predicting his attackers' moves and how he will beat them, and then playing the entire sequence again in normal time. The first film had these, but it seemed to be overkill this time around.

I also didn't feel as if there was that much connection between scenes and ideas. I really can't say much about the film because the film felt so empty, which is ironic since the next film in the series will probably be partially based on "The Adventure of the Empty House," the sequel to "The Final Problem." The script didn't make me feel that Moriarty was menacing or intimidating. Everything just felt like it was there, nothing much more. Even the score by Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Rises, The Lion King), who I feel is one of the best film composers to date, isn't as vibrant or memorable as the one in the first film, which is a terrible shame. I felt the same way with John Williams's (the best film composer ever) score for Star Wars Episode II was weak in comparison to the scores of hundreds of films he composed before and after. Poor films, iffy scores.

I know not everybody will agree with me on this film. One YouReviewer on YouTube, Chris Stuckmann, who I highly respect and who I know has great opinions on film (except with his reasoning for disliking The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) felt that this was one of the best films of 2011, his reasoning being that it was a fun movie with clever action sequences. Never once in his review did he mention things such as the detective elements, the analysis of Holmes, or the chemistry between Holmes and Watson that makes Doyle's Holmes work, instead praising the antithesis of Sherlock Holmes. The fact that The Game of Shadows bases itself in the antithesis of Sherlock Holmes is why I can't give this film anything higher than 2 out of 5 stars, and I won't be clamoring to see Sherlock Holmes 3 anytime soon. Fortunately, Jaws is coming in my mailbox soon, so I'm looking forward to that!

Although I was expecting a film like the Bride, I ended up feeling like Holmes with a movie like Watson.

Have you seen Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows? Did you like it? Do you disagree with my thoughts? Will you see a sequel? Tell me what you think in the comments below!

Summary: 2 out of 5. Too much action, not at all enough Holmes or suspense.




As with my Unbreakable review, I'll reflect on a spoiler-filled portion here that doesn't change the score I gave the film. So if you don't want the film spoiled for you, proceed with caution.

Call me crazy, but I thought Guy Ritchie made a terrible decision of basing the story on "The Final Problem!" We've only had one film to get to know his version's characters, and throughout the film, characters die, but we haven't had the time to get emotionally invested in them. In "The Final Problem," Holmes fakes his death and he does so as well in the movie. The thing is, Warner Bros. isn't going to stop making a franchise at movie 2, so killing off the lead character doesn't seem probable, so we don't weep when Holmes or Irene Adler dies. What Ritchie should have done is adapt The Hound of the Baskervilles or a little known story he could have put his twist to, adding Moriarty hints throughout, setting up for this as the big finale. That way, we could have gotten to know Mary, Holmes, and Watson enough so this film affects us as an audience more. Had there been more character development in the last two films, I would have much more liked A Game of Shadows. But alas, that was not the case. It's a shame, since Holmes is such a fascinating character. Maybe Ritchie should work with Poirot or Dupin and let a better director take care of the next film, whichever direction they're going to try to go, because I haven't the slightest idea how they're going to get much better than the last two with the hole they've dug themselves in. It's a shame.