"Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For" review.

The first "Sin City" movie my favorite graphic novel adaptation, and one of my favorite movies. It was visually stunning and fun to watch, so I was very excited to see the second film. It took Rodriguez 9 years to make the second one, so I was a little worried that it is not going to stand up to the first one. Fortunately, it did.

I am not going to lie, I liked the first one more, but this movie is also very good. It looks just as cool and stylized as the first "Sin City" and the visual effects are awesome. Sometimes I forgot that the whole movie was made on a green screen, because I was so invested in this world. This film consists out of four main story lines, 3 of which are prequels to "Sin City". My favorite ones were the segment with Eva Green and Josh Brolin, and the one with Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke. "A Dame to Kill for" (the segment the movie is named after) was very good. Eva Green was absolutely amazing as the femme fetale, and Josh Brolin did a good job as Dwight, previously played by Clive Owen. The story was very interesting, and the characters were also intriguing. Eva Green absolutely made this movie work. I could not imagine seeing anybody else playing her role. The segment with Jessica Alba takes place after the events of the first movie, and it follows her as she seeks revenge for the death of Bruce Willis. Jessica Alba did a great job in the movie, outshining her performance in the first one. She was paired with Rourke, which was really interesting to see, and I liked them as a team. The segment with Joseph Gordon Levitt was interesting, but not as good as the other ones. JGL did a good job playing his role, I just did not find the storyline to be as intriguing as the other ones. Lady Gaga has a brief Cameo in this movie. She was also in "Machete Kills", Rodrigueze's previous film, which earned her a Golden Razzy award. In this movie she is much better, which was nice to see. The action in this film is very violent and stylized, which I really liked. The music composed by Rodriquez himself fit the movie very well, and all of the actors did a great job. The movie is shorter than the first one, and the pacing is very good. It flew by in what seemed to be half an hour. The only big problem I have with "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For" is the ending. I felt like it was a little rushed, and lacked a larger scale climax.
Rodruigez films are usually either awesome, or awful. I am glad that this is one is closer to "Planet Terror, "El Desperado" and "From Dusk Till Dawn" than "Spy Kids" or "Machete Kills".
Overall, I really liked this movie and was not disappointed.
I give it 8.5/10.

"Transformers: Age of Extinction" review

Due to a lack of films playing near me, I decided to finally watch the latest installment in the "Transformer's" franchise. Going into this film I did not expect to get a very good storyline, or interesting characters, I dared only to hope that this movie would entertain me. After about 30 minutes I realized how miserably "Age of Extinction" is failing to do so.
The fourth "Transformers" are full of the director's cliches: explosions, evil government officials, mean corporations, low angles of people getting out of cars, attractive but incredibly stupid female characters, racial stereotypes and attempted humor... aah, good ol' Michael Bay.
The movie follows Mark Wahlberg and his family as they fight the government alongside Autobots in order to defeat.... the bad guys I guess. This is where the movie really starts to dig a hole for itself. I had no idea who the hell the bad guys were. There was this evil transformer who I think was supposed to be a Deception, there was Stanley Tucci, who played a corporate villain, there was this other dude from the government who wanted everyone to die, then there were these fake Autobots, and there were also the creators of all the Transformers who are also evil, and should die.
After I realized that I have no idea what the hell is going on, I decided to at least enjoy the action scenes. And so I waited for them to happen. And then I waited some more, and then some more, and then it happened. Boring, shaky action that I was not invested in at all, because I had no idea who the characters are, and I did not care for their safety. For some reason the movie is 2 hours, 45 minutes long. Now, I don't mind that, as long as the runtime is justified. Not only does this film not justify its lengthy screen presence, it also failed to justify its existence. I struggle to understand who this film is intended for. Many films can use the excuse that they are made for kids, thus explaining the absence of common sense and intrigue, but I can not imagine a kid sitting through the boring, pointless dialogues, and miserable character development to finally get to the exciting stuff, which is not even that good. I was bored out of my mind through most of this movie. I took two lengthy  bathroom breaks, not because I had to go, but because I had nothing better to do. I talked myself into staying to see what the "Dinobots" are going to look like. They were advertised as a large part of the film and actually looked pretty good in the trailers. After not seeing the dinosaur transformers for about 2 hours, I started suspecting that the trailers were lying to me. When I finally got to see them, I had no doubts that the trailers were lying to me. The damn creatures are in the movie for 5 minutes and serve no purpose whatsoever. More importantly, they aren't even that cool to look at.
Despite seeing the movie very recently, I can hardly remember the characters or the plot. "Age of Extinction" left no aftertaste. For nearly 3 hours I watched as Michael Bay desperately tried to make the movie more memorable with explosions and loud noises. Seriously, EVERYTHING explodes. *MINOR SPOILER* During the climax of the movie, one of the Dinobots crashes through a solid concrete wall. As I was watching it, I said to myself: "There is no way that the wall is going to explode, there is no way that Michael Bay is brave enough, to make a concrete wall explode on impact with a metal creature." I was wrong. The wall exploded as if a couple megatons of nuclear weapons were dropped on it. I do not remember the rest of this movie, due to the facepalm that covered my eyes for the next 15 minutes.
Surprisingly, there are actually a couple things that I liked about the movie. The cinematography was good at times, and Mark Wahlberg was a huge improvement from Shia LaBeouf. Wahlberg's daughter looked nice, and some explosions were pretty cool.
I would sum up "Transformers: Age of Extinction" like this: It is a cake that looks pretty nice on the outside, however, once I took a bite, I realized that the creators of this movie took an extensive dump in the mouth. The worst thing of all, is that movies like this, make more money than the far superior "Pacific Rim". So if you want to see a movie about monsters and robots, do yourself a favor and do not go and see this at the theaters, instead watch Guillermo DelToro's kaiju movie.
I give transformers 3/10, for some decent action, a couple cool moments, Mark Wahlberg's hot daughter, and the courage it took to explode a concrete wall that a dinobot crashes into.

"Game of Thrones" season 1-4 review. SPOILERS

I've been watching HBO's "Game of Thrones" for quiet some time, and I can't wait for season five, which still seams so far away. Meanwhile, let me tell you what I thought of the first four seasons of this great show.
Season one really got me into it. It grabbed me early on, and did not let go until the very last episode. It has great character development and introduces us to the story beautifully. It sets up the world really well, and some interesting things happen. I just started reading the books, and season one is very close to the source material. Ned Stark's death is a huge turn at the end of the season which makes it impossible to not want to watch season two.
Season two was also very exciting.  Since Ned Stark is no longer around, this season allows other characters to step into the spotlight. The story focuses on Robb Stark and his mother, as they are fighting a war against the crown. I enjoyed watching the two families go against each other, however I do have a major complain about this season. It did not show any of the battles between the Starks and the Lanisters. I get why HBO did not show any of the battles - they would be very expensive to shoot, but I would still like to see more action and more of the actual war. Near the end of the season however, they do show us a great battle. I am talking about the battle of the Black Water, which was made pretty well. You could see that the creators were limited in their budget and CGI, but it was good enough and overall, I really enjoyed this season, not as much as the first one however.
The third season is most famous for "The Red Wedding". Once again, the main protagonist dies a horrible death. So does his mother and pregnant wife. I actually really liked the twist, and thought that it was done really well. Unfortunately, it was spoiled for me so I saw it coming, but it was still very impactful. Also in this season they introduce us to a new story line with Bran Stark. I thought that this was the weakest part of the season, and I did not enjoy their journey as much as I did the other stuff. This is also the season where Tyrion Lannister really shines. He became my favorite character, and he still is. The things going on with Daenerys are also really interesting, and I could't wait to see where she would be going in season four. Jon Snow has a pretty important story line in this season. He gets trapped by the wildlings and has to join their ranks. I really liked his story in season 3, and especially I enjoyed his relationship with Ygritte. I was excited to see how it would progress in future seasons.
Season four was by far my favorite one. A lot of very important things happen. In the very beginning of the season King Joffrey finally dies. It was really satisfying seeing this little sadist die in pain. He is a really awesome character that is hated by everyone who read the books or watched the show. However, Joffery's death gets Tyrion in trouble. Most of this season he is locked up awaiting for his trial. The dwarf gives an amazing speech and requests a trial by combat. The fight between the Mountain and Oberyn was really cool and gory, and I was shocked that Oberyn got killed, which means that Tyrion was going to be sentenced to death. However, Jamie helps him escape. During his escape Tyrion kills his father. I really liked the character of Tywin and I was actually surprised that he died. Another pleasant surprise was the battle on the wall. This was my favorite episode of the season, and it was really well made.
Overall, I've really enjoyed the first four seasons of this show, and I can't wait to see more.