Monday 31 March 2014

OJ's TV Review - The Musketeers series 1

Yeah, the only reason I really watched this was because Peter Capaldi was in it.


The Musketeers is the BBC's latest gritty period drama starring mostly people I've never heard of. The trailers looked interesting though and I wanted to see some Capaldi acting before he shows up in Doctor Who later this year. To start off I really didnt like The Musketeers, I thought the first few episodes were kind of boring and Capaldi's Cardinal was by far the most intersting aspect of it; what suprised me though was about half way through the series it picked up tremendusly; episode 6 aired and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, all the episodes after that were also really entertaining. I dont know if it was the story arc unfolding or just the singular plots in general had gotten better but the latter half of the series was far superior to the beginning. I think I was expecting it to be like the 2011 movie which I really enjoyed but The Musketeers is its own thing and in the end was pretty fun to watch. As finales go the last episode was very good and we eventually got the "All for one..." line which showed how far the characters had come since episode one. In the end IT WAS OK+.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

OJ's Movie Review - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Wow, now that's a game-changer.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, film number 9 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a most relevant one at that. The directors, producers and writers all said it was the one that followed most closely to The Avengers and would go almost directly into Avengers: Age of Ultron and all-in-all a big game-changer; they weren't kidding. The movie is unlike the rest, it doesn't quite seem like a Marvel movie most of the way through but rather a really unique spy movie, which it is. The plot is extremely well done, I loved it from beginning to end, very good points that flowed the story and even some twists that pleasantly surprised me. The new characters they brought in were fantastic, the Falcon I especially enjoyed, his character was cool, comedic, and just an enjoyable person to watch; Robert Redford's political character was also on top form although the characters' traits and ambitions I have seen in other movies. Now talking of characters, the movie's subtitle the Winter Soldier was a fantastic, unique character who's life was deep and interesting to watch, the majority may know of his true identity already as Marvel haven't really done anything to cover it up as it is obvious from about 5 mins of casting research, but I felt the character wasn't used as much as I thought; his name is in the title but his story isn't the main arc, he was in less scenes than I expected. Another disappointer for me was that the climax seemed to have a lot more violence than previous ones, not as graphic as Thor: TDW, but certainly quite strong, almost distracting - although that may have been the cinema experience. In the end I thought Captain America: The Winter Soldier was one of the best of the MCU, and even Marvel movies in general. Pure AWESOMNESS.

Monday 3 March 2014

OJ's Movie Review - Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Dreamworks' latest animation about a time-travelling dog and his adopted son - how could you resist?

So I went to see this with not much expectation at all, the one trailer I had seen didn't really grab me but I decided to see it anyway and was pleasantly surprised. Mr. Peabody is this extremely intelligent dog who can talk and his adopted son Sherman is a 7-year-old boy who is a sponge for facts but quite slow practically. They go on adventures through time to learn about history. The movie sets that up in the first 15 minutes, which by the way it was done it looked like the movie was going to be some kids documentary about history but when it actually got into the story it was really fun. The comedy made me laugh, the visuals are stunning, I wish I could've seen it in 3D, the story is quite unique but also had similar elements of other movies, I got a Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure vibe and you get some pretty generic characters that you've seen in quite a lot of animated movies but the plot was't boring; I was interested to the end. The voice acting is pretty average but the way Mr. Peabody says things do add a certain something to the film. It's my third 8/10 this year: I'D SEE IT AGAIN.