The OJ Reviews 3rd Anniversary

Welcome to my third anniversary post, an annual update for the site showing stats, changes and previews!

Stats

Numbers

Page views of all time - 33,203

Comments of all time - 19

Total Members - 11

Top Three Countries With the Most Traffic -

1. United States (16,119)
2. United Kingdom (4540)
3. Germany (1307)

Posts

First Ever Post - OJ Reviewing Megamind

Most Viewed Post - ORIGINAL VS REMAKE - King Kong

Last Post - OJ's Movie Review - Fantastic Four

Changes to the Site

As you my have noticed, I have not been keeping up with the three-reviews-a-month plan, sometimes there just arn't any films I have any interest in, sometimes I can't afford to go to the cinema, or I lack motivation to find a Back In Time review or Original VS Remake. So as of now my posts will not be stuck to any kind of schedule except the fact that the minium posts a month will be one, so there will at least be one review a month. Apart from that nothing else is changing.

Upcoming Reviews

After this I will be reviewing either The Maze Runner sequel or Everest starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin to name a few; and towards the end of the year obviously Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Television-wise I need to catch up on the final season of Falling Skies so I shall review that after watching and the eighth series of Doctor Who which should be airing soon. 

Shoutouts and Thanks

The only person to give me a shout out this past year was @had0606 on Instagram, so thanks Hayden!

That's it for this Anniversary post, thank you very much for reading and if you are new then take a look around and if you want to see more then The OJ Reviews is also on:

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- OJ

OJ's Movie Review - Fantastic Four

Oh the potential...THE POTENTIAL!

Look, don't hate me but I enjoyed the first two, I mean sure I was 7 and 9 when they came out but I laughed and was amazed at the superheorics at the that time, they remain fond memories. So when I heard this was getting a remake I was a tad disappointed, and then it starts production and we see nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a logo; months go by and we have no poster, "first image" and from what I remember only two secret set pics. It was strange but then I watch that first trailer and my hopes lifted tremendously, that first footage was really good and from then on I was expecting this to be a dark horse, a real good film.

      And you know what? It was....for the first half. I mean literally, I could pinpoint the scene where it starts going downhill rapidly. But let's focus on the good just for now, I loved the beginning. The set up was so good, we were introduced to these interesting, likeable characters; the actors had good chemistry, the script was pretty solid and I was happy with where it was going. The origin was awesome to see, it was tense, horrific and I thought the special effects held up pretty well. Then there was a bit of a jump in the plot and it felt odd... just...odd. The only way I can explain it is that it was like different films, the first half being an origin story and then the latter half acting like it was deep into the franchise and this was happening after a bunch of sequels; imagine watching Iron Man and then Avengers: Age of Ultron without anything in between. Fantastic Four has so much missing in the way of development and narrative flow it just did not work. The climax felt incredibly rushed and they weren't really acting like a team and they spouted out lines as if it was from a cartoon and then you had that giant light going to the sky like every other major film seems to be doing. So plot-wise, 50% good, 50% horrible.

  The actors themselves did really good in their roles though, Miles Teller is a great Reed Richards and I enjoyed Toby Kebbell as Victor a lot too. That is until he turns into Dr. Doom for.....no reason what-so-ever, with a really bad costume and very undefined powers.

  In the end, I don't know the specifics of what director Josh Trank was up to on set or what the studio was wanting it to be like, but like it's production, Fantastic Four unfortunately was just weird and disappointing. If you do watch it, stop after the first half.

  5.5/10

OJ's Movie Review - Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Rogue Nation? Isn't that the Star Wars Anthology movie? Ah, I always get those mixed up.

You know, I really like the Mission Impossible franchise, maybe it's because I like Tom Cruise movies, maybe because each film has a different director so they all have a unique feel to them, in any case, they get a thumbs up from me.

  So in this one, we join Ethan Hunt for a fifth time and he's on the search for a secret organization called The Syndicate. A simple premise but enjoyable non-the-less, it's fun to see him and his team work things out and what makes it more enjoyable is that all the members of his team are from previous movies so we're comfortable with them and it feels more like a group of friends, which was nice. The story itself I really enjoyed too, the twists, the turns and just a lot of points worked excellently. The action scenes are some of my favourites I've ever seen, there were thrilling ones, tense ones and downright fun spy-themed ones which is what I love. And this is one of the few movies where I felt it just had a really satisfying ending, I mean you get good movies but there are some where it comes to a climax and all things are being resolved in a certain way and it just puts a smile on your face.

  Casting was all good too, as I said I like Tom Cruise movies so it's always fun to see him, Jeremy Renner was a great side-guy too and had his own problems which added to the story, he always seems to play a good secondary character but not a successful main guy. It was nice to see Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames back, both being the computer guys, but both serving their purpose. Two new peeps we got for the rogue nation were Rebecca Ferguson who was awesome, not only was she easy on the eye but looked like she knew what she was doing during her action scenes which made for a great character; secondly was Sean Harris as the big baddie and boy was he such a good villain, I loved this guy, he was so creepy and threatening, definitely one of the better antagonists of the franchise.

  If someone forced me to pick a problem then I would say that a certain scene that was pushed in all the promotional trailers and pictures was used straight out the gate and had no bearing on the plot which seemed a little odd.

  To conclude, personally this is my favourite Mission: Impossible movie so far and look forward to the next one!

10/10