Tag: Eddie Redmayne

Movie Review: FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM – uneven, underwritten movie that will mostly be only appreciated by hardcore Potter fans

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie ReviewsLeave a comment

fantasticbeastsposter_0

Wow, I had so many issues with Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them that it’s hard to pick a starting point, really.  I’ll preface the following with this disclaimer, though:  I am not, and never have been, a fan of Harry Potter.  Sure, I’ve seen all the movies, but despite trying to listen to Stephen Fry reading the first in the series, my exposure to the books has been nil.  The movies were largely a hit and miss affair for me, ranging from pretty good (& The Prisoner of Azkaban) to mediocre (& The Chamber of Secrets).  I’m certainly not a Harry Potter hater – the books came along at a time when childhood reading habits were plummeting, and Rowling was instrumental in the early development of the YA sector.  So while I will never be a fan of the Potter phenomenon, I have a healthy respect for it.  In saying that, my lack of any intricate knowledge of the Potterverse didn’t contribute to what I felt were shortcomings here.

Continue reading “Movie Review: FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM – uneven, underwritten movie that will mostly be only appreciated by hardcore Potter fans” →

Movie Review: JUPITER ASCENDING

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie ReviewsLeave a comment

jupiter

I’ll be upfront, I’m not a fan of The Wachowskis.  For me they exist in the same bracket as M. Night Shyamalan  – filmmakers who are still good on the directing side, and remain convinced they can write, even though it’s painfully clear that they no longer possess that ability.  It’s been an incredible 17 years since the Wachowskis last wrote a good script.  That movie, of course, was The Matrix, a movie that will remain a seminal action movie for decades to come, but whose inevitable sequels seemed more perfunctory than anything else.  Whereas The Matrix Reloaded was The Brett Ratner-quality sequel, Matrix: Revolutions was the Uwe Boll capper, a sequel so spectacularly terrible it could have been done by people who hated movies.  And since then, The Wachowskis have gone to make a string of unwatchable crap – (Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas) – culminating in their latest, and worst, effort Jupiter Ascending.

Continue reading “Movie Review: JUPITER ASCENDING” →