The Lone Ranger

I had some friends who were lucky enough to work on this movie. Unfortunately, they didn't receive credits, but it must have been a hell of an experience. Also, unfortunately, this film has been receiving bad reviews. People are too cynical these days.

Starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, "The Lone Ranger" is a retelling of the old TV show from the '50s. It is about an masked Texas Ranger who partners up with a Native American to fight justice. It's a pretty cut and dry plot, but Gore Verbinski makes it entertaining.

For some reason, this only has a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. This brings me to my rant section of the blog.

I don't like Rotten Tomatoes system at all because the critics can only choose "Approve" or "don't Approve". Given them two choices will not necessarily define what they thought of the movie. Take for instance my opinion of "The Purge". Did I like it? No. Would I recommend it to a friend? No. Do I think it's better than the 38% that rotten tomatoes gives it? Yes. I think, if we're talking percentages like it's a grade, I would say it was a 52%. For a movie to be fairly critiqued and rated, you need at least a system of 1 to 5.

Anyway, I digress. This movie was quite enjoyable. That doesn't mean I thought it was good. There is a difference between enjoyabl-ity (shut up) and quality. There was a time when I would have said this movie was stupid because it wasn't deep or meaningful. But that's when I was in my movie hipster days. All hipsters and cynics are just immature people who haven't grown up enough to realize you can enjoy the stupid things from time to time. Not everything needs to be philosophical. Some things can just have action sequences that defy the laws of physics.

Now, brings me to my hypocritical point in the blog. Historical Inaccuracies! That is one thing that is unforgivable in my mind. In this movie, they sang "The Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem in 1868. "The Star Spangled Banner" wasn't adopted as the National Anthem until 1931. It's earliest recognition as a national song was by the U.S. Navy in 1889, 21 years after this movie takes place!

Also, Johnny Depp isn't Native American... but who cares?

What does all my ranting and going off topic mean? It means people shouldn't be so critical. If you legitimately hated this movie, I understand. But to give it a low rating just because it wasn't "The Godfather" or "Gone With the Wind" is just silly. I hate how cynical this world has become.

My Grade: B

Monster's University

It's kind of cool going to see the sequels (or prequels) of the movies I loved as a kid and seeing them for the first time as an adult. It's also interesting seeing the creators of the movies reference the older movies, seeing if they reference the same stuff you remember so vividly. "Toy Story 3", along with being an emotional roller coaster, did that very well.

All the great monsters are back! But only this time, we get to see their college days! We get to see how Mike and Sully start off as enemies and become friends, and we get to see how Randall became so evil. Kicked out of the Scarer program at Monster's University, Mike and Sully team up with an unlikely team to join the Scar Olympics in effort to win a bet with the dean and win their place back in the scare program.

The one thing I loved about "Monsters Inc." was the differences between the Monster world and our own. The creator's don't miss a beat in this prequel. One of the best bits in my opinion is when the mother of one of the fraternity brothers drops them off at Monsters Inc. She tells them "I'll just wait here and listen to my tunes". Click here if you don't mind hearing the joke before seeing the movie.

I can only imagine what rebels listen to in their world.

"Monsters University" has a great cast of new and old characters voiced by great actors such as Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Charlie Day, Dave Foley, Alfred Molina and Nathan Fillion. Pixar has a way of making every single character interesting that very few studios can do. It's great to see how they all interact with one another.

It has a great message and as always has jokes for both the youngest of children and the oldest of adults. As much as I miss Pixar doing original movies, I like that they're doing sequels to some of their classics. Now we just need "A Bug's Life 2" and "The Incredibles 2"

"Monsters University" is a great movie for kids of all generations.

My Grade: B+

Wreck-it Ralph

I won't lie to you. Unless it is the old 2D animation, or Pixar is involved, I am skeptical about all animated Disney movies. I don't have any reason to be. the only movie of theirs I though was terrible was Bolt. The rest have been decent. But even with the highly anticipated Wreck-It Ralph, I wasn't anxious to see it. I had little expectations for it.

But there is no greater feeling than when you are proven wrong about a movie you expect to be bad. Arguably, it's even better than a movie you're excited for meeting your expectations.

Essentially telling the fictional untold story of Donkey Kong, Wreck-It Ralph tells the story of Ralph, voiced ever so fittingly by John C. Reilly, an arcade game villain who has been the bad guy for 30 years and ignored by his peers. He is tired of living in the shadows of his "nemesis" Fix-It Felix, voiced Jack McBrayer and wants to be accepted by the other characters in his game. To do so, he "game jumps" in an attempt to win a metal. But this puts his game in jeopardy of being unplugged. So Felix must find Ralph, or Ralph must get his metal before it's to late.

I'm not a huge gamer, but this movie had a bunch of references to games that you don't have to play video games to understand. It is an interesting take on the old adage "the villain is the hero in his own story".

Wreck-It Ralph  is a fun movie for all ages.

My Grade: A-