Movie reviews

So, over the weekend, I watched three movies in three days.  As part of my goal to blog about all of the tasks on my 101 list, I'll be doing reviews of all the movies that I'm counting towards the list.  Below I'll provide some short (mostly) spoiler-free reviews.  Enjoy!

Clash of the Titans (2010) - I saw this movie at the dollar theater Friday night.  Let me just put it this way:  I'm definitely glad that I waited for the dollar theater to see it.  It was an enjoyable flick, don't get me wrong, but it wouldn't have been worth paying full price to see.  Some movies make you think.  Some movies create deep, thought provoking discussion.  This is not one of those movies.  This is a movie that you simply turn your brain off and enjoy the action.  Even taking that into consideration, however, it was still merely mediocre.  The acting was fairly shallow and the plot fairly thin.  The special effects were pretty awesome, and I can't really complain about any movie with Gemma Arterton in it.  Final rating: 2.5/5

Toy Story 3 - I got to watch this movie at a 3D showing on Saturday with my family.  In a word, amazing!  Honestly, a Pixar movie has yet to disappoint me.  I don't think I like it as much as I like the second one, but it was still awesome.  The whole film has a bit of a melancholy feel to it, since Andy is moving away to college, and leaving his toys.  I'm not going to lie, there was a sequence near the end of the movie that nearly had me in tears.  And I don't cry in movies.  Trust Pixar to create an awesome movie that also touches people emotionally.  One of my criteria for judging movies is how much I can feel for the characters, and believe me, you're feeling everything right along with Woody, Buzz, and the whole gang.  Also, as a side note, they got the same voice actor back to play Andy.  Just another example of Pixar being amazing, down to the fine details.  Final rating: 4.5/5  (Bonus info: go here)

Behind Enemy Lines - Sunday night I watched this movie that I got from Netflix and I've had sitting on my desk for probably a month.  I had just never gotten around to watching it.  I wasn't expecting a whole lot, so I think I ended up enjoying it more.  I had heard that it was cool, but not much more than that.  I was impressed with certain action sequences, and the story was pretty gripping and intense.  I do have a few complaints, though.  Admittedly, I know next to nothing about war and military activities, but it seemed that much of what was going on was somewhat abnormal even to the point of 'that could never happen in real life.'  Also, the soundtrack was a bit eclectic and didn't always fit together that well.  For example, I don't imagine patriotic marches with snare drums galore next to a bass-heavy, techno-inspired piece underscoring a chase scene.  All in all though, a good movie, and one I'd recommend watching at least once. Final rating: 3.5/5

Also, as an aside, I accomplished my goal of climbing a tree this afternoon with two friends.  Admittedly, I didn't make it all the way to the top, but that's because someone was already up there, and she had to come down.  So I'm now 2/101 on my list, along with progress made towards watching all the movies as well.