Harry Potter Finale on the Way: Rating the Potter actors Part 1

I was thinking that with the final of the eight films on the way this summer a little run down of the casting and how well they have done through the years would be in order. If nothing else I thought it would entertain myself and perhaps a little bit entertaining to you other people out there.

Michael Gambon/Richard Harris (Albus Dumbledore)
One of the only casting changes in the film and this one was only done because, sadly, Richard Harris died between movies. I will be honest, I don't love either one of these guys in the role although both of them obviously are fantastic actors. I don't think either of them fully embodied what Dumbledore really was although both of them pull of some of those traits well. Richard Harris was better in some ways, Gambon in others. Harris was closer in the sense that he was unflappable and unperturbed by anything and everything, but in all honesty he was to old and frail to play the role fully. He was just not physically imposing enough to emote the charisma and bearing that Dumbledore had. I could never see Harris putting on the asskicking boots ever and I don't think I could have bought a wizard's duel between he and Voldemort. Gambon has that in spades, and in the last movies really pulled off some of Dumbledore's more comedic lines as well. But on the whole he plays the character a little too...emotional and raw at times for my tastes.

Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy)
Felton went through the most dramatic physical change of any of the actors in the film, I think. Between films he changed so drastically that I really just couldn't believe that it was the same kid. Overall he has done a very good job. He was perfectly smarmy to a tee in the earlier movies, and plays the older darker, yet not quite deatheater dark Malfoy quite well. He pulls off the character playing it as one that believes he has huge amounts of entitlement but not much self-confidence to really go with it.

Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy)
Isaacs was one of the people I was most excited to see cast. I don't know why, but I have always been a fan of his. Even when he is playing a character that isn't evil, he just always seems to radiant a cold, calculating, pompous, evil aura. I think it has something to do with his eyes. But mostly, I was just excited because in one of those conversations people always have before the movies came out, I picked him as the perfect choice to play Lucius. I think he is doing a fine job. He plays the early Lucius well, but is a good enough actor to convincingly pull off the emotional chance Lucius makes towards the end.

Domhnall Gleason (Bill Weasley)
A fairly minor character on the whole in the books, and an incredibly minor character so far in the movie. A big fail on this one. Bill is supposed to be Rockstar cool. The coolest one in the family. This guy is not remotely that. Actually he kind of looks like a guy the twins would have pranked mercilessly then beat with a bludger bat.

Thor Movie Review 8/10!

Originally I was kind of skeptical when I saw that Kenneth Branagh. I really just wasn't sure what I thought about him directing a superhero action movie. Branagh has only directed his Shakespearean stuff and a version of The Magic Flute. Not exactly a the kind of resume that makes me think he can deliver on a high budget, action heavy, special effects smorgasboard. Then it hit me. Branagh is the perfect guy to direct Thor. Thor is Shakespearean. You have father/son issues, you have a jealous brother, you have treachery. Thor really is something like Hamlet with super powers. Lots of directors can get action right, but it takes a special kinda director to see those elements in a film and know how to bring them out WITH the action.

I really liked the Thor movie, despite the fact it had Natalie Portman in it. (just not a fan, I just don't see her as very talented, and I don't think she is attractive either) The casting was excellent. Anthony Hopkins as Odin is just freaking awesome, but where the casting really shines is with Thor and Loki. Chris Hemsworth was perfect for Thor. Much like Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, I just completely bought him lock, stock, and barrel as the god of thunder. He just looks and acts the part. He SHOULD be a huge action star, but he wouldn't have been such a success in this film if the role of Loki wasn't cast just as well. Tom Hiddleston is fantastic. He is everything that Thor is not, dark to his blond, slender to his muscular, crafty and wily to Thor's brute strength. Hiddleston plays this incredibly well. Loki is a reason why Branagh was perfect for this movie. He sells him as a somewhat oily, but not evil character in the beginning that has a tragic twist that plunges him into the throes of despair. He sells Loki as a tragic character, rather than one of pure malignant evil. At times, I felt sorry for him, I could see how he made the decisions he made, even if I didn't agree with them. That is an indication that a villain has been done well, we know why he is the villain, rather than just being told he is the villain.

All in all, I can't recommend Thor enough. It looks great, is well acted, and is as entertaining a summer movie as you will find.

Battle:Los Angeles 7/10!

Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day with a little bit of District 9 thrown in. That's exactly what it is. This film was incredibly derivative of those titles. BUT, thats not really such a bad thing. I liked all of these films, and I enjoyed this mashup of the three. Blackhawk Down is one of the few movies I have ever seen that really created a sense of tension in me. It makes me feel like my blood pressure is rising. It's a very tense film. Battle: Los Angeles establishes that same sort of tension in me. It is a very visceral movie, filmed almost exclusive with hand held cameras, and artificially produced news footage. Those of you that get motion sick should probably avoid it however. Because it appears to be almost entirely shot with hand cameras it very shakey, like Cloverfield, or Blair witch project. I myself got a little nauseous during it, just do to the way the camera shook. Thats not a criticism of the film, its just a style choice, just a warning to those that might have trouble with this type of film. I knew several people who had that issue with Cloverfield and Blair Witch, and this one is more action oriented, and more likely to cause a problem in that regard.

This movie doesn't really bring anything knew to the table, pretty standard military drama except for the aliens. It is fairly well acted, Aaron Eckhert is always someone I enjoy, and the rest of the cast was at least competent. The one person I don't understand is Michelle Rodriguez. She routinely gets cast in films, and I really don't think she brings anything to the table. The movies she are in are good sometimes despite her, not because of her. The movie does, however, introduce some interesting concepts about the aliens, but they are really only mentioned in passing. They really show the aliens as a faceless enemy. They are pretty scary though, mostly because their weapons are incendiary based rather than ballistic. It's pretty scary when all the injuries are burns, probably do to our inborn fear of fire as a people.

All in all, this film doesn't really bring anything original or new to the table. However, it was still pretty enjoyable, and if your in the mood for a gritty war movie with a science fiction twist I would say go see this. Just take your motion sickness medication.

Paul Movie review 7.5/10!!

I am unashamedly a huge fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I even follow them on twitter, and actually read what they tweet even. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are two of my favorite films, and when you combine that with the fact they were playing a couple of nerds like me in Paul, I was seriously looking forward to this film. I was not disappointed. It's not as brilliant a film as the other aforementioned films, but it was funny, and I enjoyed the nerd moments quite heartily.

This movie is a bit different than their other fair because it is a little more offensive. This guys like satire and spoofing stereotypes and in this one they chose one to make fun off that hits a little to close to home for many people in the bible belt. They chose to poke fun at protestant religious zealotry. I am not convinced the film was completely anti-Christian as much as it was anti-extremist, but, I can see how the argument for either can be made. I think, that, how offended people get by the anti-Christian sentiment depends a little on what kind of Christians you know. The type of Christian made fun of is the Christian that uses by rout arguments to answer anything that doesn't fit into her schema as a perfect fit. To be critical and attack anything that isn't what she believes in, violently and ignorantly. But underneath it all, she is just a superficial hypocrite that desperately wants an excuse to do drugs, swear, and "fornicate" as she puts it. Many people will say that kind of person doesn't exist and they are just trying to label all Christians as this sort of person. Those people, of course, haven't spent much time in NorthEast Arkansas. Perhaps, because I despise seeing this kind of person myself, I took the approach that this film was more that extremes in anything were bad, and there were steps taken to show that a more moderate approach in all views is the better one. The problem is I don't think they made that nearly as clear as they could have. Regardless, I am pretty certain that there isn't much chance that this film is going to piss someone off.

That being said, I still thought the movie was funny, cute, and ended with a feel goody sort of feeling in which every character learned a little more about themselves in the end. The exposure to Seth Rogen was pretty limited, and he didn't have anything to do with the script, which was a good thing. I like him better when he sticks to acting and leaves the writing and directing to someone else. I would recommend this to most any of my nerd friends, but if you have thin skin this one probably isn't for you. It has a lot of aspects to it that would prevent anyone with a good solid background in nerdery from getting a lot of the jokes. It is a bit of a movie that was made for nerds by nerds with a bit of a feel good type story thrown in on top to hook the straights.

Drive Angry Movie Review 4.5/10!

Generally, this is actually the exact type of movie that I like. It's supposed to be a retro style movie, in the vein of what Robert Rodriguez did with Machete. But it's not tongue in cheek cheesy enough to come across as an homage and its not really filmed in a gritty enough style to match the script. Problem number 1 with this film is that it has Nik Cage in it. I used to not be this way towards him, hell, I used to like him quite a bit, but frankly, he has been phoning it in for awhile. He is terrible in this film. He is getting dangerously close to Corey Feldman type laughability at this stage of his career. Seriously, he has ridden bad mullet hair and weird forced laughter for way to many miles.

There actually were a few things about this movie that liked. The Accountant character (apparently the guy who counts the souls in Hell) was actually really funny and well acted. The chase sequences were also really well done. (I guess with the title there has to be good car scenes) The action in general was pretty actually all pretty bad ass. The problem for me in this film basically breaks down like this. First, it was supposed to be a gritty seventies triple feature kind of movie, but their campy stuff fell flat, and it was filmed entirely to smooth for the suspension of disbelief required to not just shake your head in disbelief at the dialogue. Secondly, Cage just can't act any more. Either that or he just doesn't care anymore, one or the other. And in the end there is one other very large problem for me with this film. This doesn't happen very often, but on the whole this movie was just to vulgar for me. It didn't advance the plot, it wasn't funny, it wasn't part of some overall campy charm. It was just disgustingly vulgar. Even though, with all of the crap, I still kind of enjoyed seeing it, but due to that I could never recommend it to anyone, or watch it again.

Season of the Witch Movie Review 3.5/10!

When I saw how terrible this movie was doing with critics and fans alike I decided that I had to see it. I was probably going to see it anyway because for some reason I see most everything Nic Cage is in, and because I really like Ron Perlman. But the reviews were so odd a scathing I really wanted to see for myself what all the abuse was about.

When we are watching movies we tend to judge them a bit based on how we saw them. If we see them in theatre we tend to be a bit more scathing of them. If we rent them we tend to be less judgmental but still a little bit critical. If we, say, watch it on Netflix streaming, most of us can get some enjoyment out of stuff thats actually pretty terrible. The problem is Season of the Witch is a pretty decent and entertaining made for me TV movie. It looks and feel like one of the Sy/Fy channels made for sy/fy movies. This would be a fantastic success if this was in fact a made for TV movie. Unfortunately, its not. This was a mainstream release with with a made for TV special effects budget, that sadly, includes a lot of moments that use special effects.

This movie misfires a bit on a few points. I think most of this problem lies with the direction and the script. I actually thought the story was kind of interesting, not very deep, but a fairly interesting concept, but although the story is interesting, there are just parts of it that have problems. This is supposed to be a period piece. Not like A Knights Tale, which is a period piece that is tongue and cheek and uses modern language, and terminology as part of its charm. This is truly supposed to be set during the Crusades. Yet, they drop modern language (mostly swearing) in ways that truly stick out. It doesn't fit the situations, it feels forced, and mostly it just doesn't make any sense. Nic Cage is emotionless, even more so than usual, but this might be because of the less than inspiring dialogue. Ron Perlman is Ron Perlman. Big, imposing, ugly. Just the way I like him. The supporting cast is in general, sub-par. The one thing I liked visually was the terrifying way in which they portrayed the black death. It was, of course, completely inaccurate, but despite that, I think they did a good job about showing how terrible and terrifying this disease was. The disease makeup was the best part of the effects, and that could be because it was apparently actually makeup instead of CGI designed by some kid in his basement.

The effects really were terrible. I don't want to go into to much detail about it because I would have to give away the plot, and I don't want to do that. Seriously, though. I am not using hyperbole when I say its about the same as late night made for TV science fiction. Actually, probably not as good as some of the stuff I have seen. Its probably about Alien Apocalypse level.

All of that being said, if I was bored at home at had gotten this in from Netflix, I would have enjoyed it well enough, just like I enjoy movies on Sy/Fy, but as a mainstream release this was just, production quality wise, inferior to what it should be.

The Green Hornet Movie Review 6.5/10!

So, the Green Hornet. A classic old school action hero. I resist saying comic book hero, because he really isn't. He got his start as the hero of a radio serial and most people remember him because of the television show, which starred Bruce Lee as Kano. He became a comic book hero well after all of this. That being said, in today's culture he is at best a third tier hero character. He has waned in the public eye and honestly, I think most people probably don't even know who he is. I kind of wonder how many people who only nominally follow comic heroes got him mixed up the Green Lantern, or Green Arrow. My guess is quite of a few of them. That makes this movie quite a risk. Unlike a lot of franchises, this one doesn't really have a large built in fanbase. Actually, it doesn't have much of a fanbase at all.

All that aside, I really did enjoy this film. It compiled a pretty decent cast, although they are really under utilized. I get the feeling that Seth Rogen enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice. Jay Chou is no Bruce Lee, but he does well enough, and he and Rogen seem to play well off of each other. Cameron Diaz isn't much in this movie, her role could have been played by just about anybody. I am not a huge Diaz fan, but the fault is not really her rather than the fact there just really isn't anything special about that role. Generic love interest #3, come on down. Christoph Waltz is very quirky and entertaining, but with him as well, it really felt like he could do so much more.

This movie has some rough edges, and I think the biggest part of it is the lack of a likeable character. Rogen just is kind of a jerk in this movie. Even after he decides to "cleanup" he still is just a jerk. It's Rogen's normal loveable dope character, just take out the loveable part. And since he had a lot of control of this movie, he gave himself LOTS of lines. Way more than was really required. A few times during the film I found myself rolling my eyes and saying "ok lets just get on with it."

That being said, I really did enjoy this movie. Despite the douchebaggery of Rogen's character, I will really felt this hero had a little more of an everyman feel. If you take out the wealthy partying media mogul aspect. It probably has more to do with the fact the Green Hornet had no powers, and no special skills. The one downfall is that it really plays out like a fratguy version of Kickass, which is kind of unfair since the Green Hornet is an old idea, but I could see today's pop culture thinking that sort of thing. Final verdict. See it.