Olympus Has Fallen REVIEW

The Motion Picture Buff would like to present a review for the film starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman, called, Olympus Has Fallen. In this movie Gerard plays a disgraced former Presidential Guard. After an attack on the white house, he uses his skill and knowledge from his previous job to try and save the president from bend kidnapped by North Korean terrorists.

Well well well . . . I want to start of this review by saying that this movie is an enjoyable action movie, but it has nothing else going for it. The cast is good yes, but they aren't great. They just make the film able to watch. Before I get into the acting involved in this movie though, I want to talk about the main bad thing this movie had, and that would 100% have to be the special effects. Oh my goodness, the effects in this movie were just absolutely terrible. Now this movie came out back on March of this year, 2013. So personally I do not understand why the graphics would be that bad, because the special effects of today have progressed immensely. There wasn't one scene in this movie where I wasn't saying, well thats fake. My guess is that the budget of this film was wasted on the well-known actors in this movie that they couldn't pay for the great special effects, because honestly they were just terrible. The effects in this poster I have above are better than the whole movie. I just wanted to mention that because that was the main negative throughout the whole thing.

Moving on I want to talk a little about the acting in this movie. Olympus Has Fallen, has some pretty well known actors in it. As mentioned earlier, Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman, are all in this movie and they do a good job. They don't do anything special though. Its not like they were giving a performance of their career. I would have to say that Gerard Butler's performance I enjoyed the most because he just seemed more believable in this situation. Gerard has kind of taken over Bruce Willis in the roles that Bruce used to perform in.

Which brings me into the screenplay of this movie, or the story I suppose. What I want to mention is the fact that it is a little bit predictable. You know what is going to happen, you know they aren't going to let something happen that they are trying to trick you into thinking happened. The story is your basic and generic disaster/action film that you have seen countless times before. You still enjoy the ride which makes this movie a great popcorn movie night movie, which is what it became for me when I watched it.

Now wrapping up this review I want to say that Olympus Has Fallen, is an enjoyable film that serves a good purpose. That purpose is to be a good popcorn movie night film. It works perfect for a rental movie and thats what I did with it, so that is the recommendation I will give it. Only rent this movie, it really isn't worth a buy. You are going to enjoy it once and then there will be no need to watch it again. Anytime you are trying to think of a movie to rent for a popcorn night with a girlfriend, group of friends, or anytime, this movie gets my recommendation for that. I will also say that this movie gets a 5/10 star rating.

Well I am hoping that you have enjoyed this review of Olympus Has Fallen. Tonight will be a post about why The Lego Movie trailer is this week's TRAILER OF THE WEEK, so you are going to want to stay tuned for that. There are also more movies to be reviewed, so stay tuned for more . . . coming soon.

Noah Mark Bitney

Vanilla Sky REVIEW

The Motion Picture Buff would like to present a review for the 2001 film, Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise. In this film a successful publisher who has it all gets into a car accident, when he tells a jaded lover of his that he doesn't want to be with her. After the accident his whole life takes a turn in the wrong direction.

Before I start this review I want to say that I am going to format my reviews a little differently. Before I used to do one paragraph on negatives and another on the positives. Now I think I want to meld the negatives and positives together and just write how I feel about a movie in different but similar paragraph format. This is just a warning if your a little confused on why it was different all of a sudden. I just want to see how this works, and if I don't like it (or you don't) I will go back to my old way. I will still do my summary of the review at the end though. 

So this movie was quite interesting to be honest. Part of me was enjoying this movie, but then there was another part of me that was like . . . "WHEN IS THIS MOVIE GOING TO END." I found this movie to be very slow. There were points in the movie where I thought of shutting it off because I found no value in what was going on the screen. Tom Cruise though did an excellent job with his character, which kept me somewhat involved in the movie. Tom Cruise has always been a great actor, and he does a great job in this movie, he is what is driving this movie in my opinion. With his character he has to jump from one emotion to the next and to the next. The character he plays, David Aames, has experienced an emotional roller coaster and Tom plays out it perfectly. The chemistry between him and Penelope Cruz is great as well. You can see it in there eyes, that they actually do care for each other. They worked perfectly together.

Now I always like to talk about the story of a movie. In, Vanilla Sky, they had an interesting story, but it was extremely boring and not to mention extremely confusing. Throughout watching this entire movie I never really knew what the heck was going on. From the very beginning I was just down right confused. I was asking myself, "Why is this happening? What does this have to do with the story?" In the end of the movie everything was somewhat explained, but I was still in a general confusion of what happened. Director, Cameron Crowe, really played around with the storyline of this script and in my opinion made the movie so much more confusing than it needed to be. The end of the film, like the last 20-30 minutes is probably the best part of the film because you start understanding the whole thing, but in the end you still finish the movie thinking what the heck did I just watch.

Each and every movie in my opinion has a lesson, a tone, or even a feel to this movie that drives it. Usually you can pick that up near the beginning of the movie, in this movie you don't get what is driving the idea behind this movie until the very end. I like what is driving this movie but I feel like if the movie had hinted at it earlier along in the film, I think everyone would have understood it more.

Summing up this review I would have to say that it is somewhat enjoyable and interesting once you get to the end and start understanding it. It has some pretty good acting in it that I did enjoy, but the whole ride of the movie leaves you with so many questions. Watching this movie you might want to shut it off, but stick around for the end because that it where it gets more enjoyable. I would give this movie a rent worthy rating. It is not worth a buy in my opinion because you are only going to want to watch it once and that is it. Vanilla Sky is one of those movies you should make sure you are paying attention to the whole time though, just to make sure you don't get more confused than you already are. As for the rating I would give Vanilla Sky a 5/10 star rating.

Well lets hope you enjoyed this review of Vanilla Sky. It was a little different talking about it in this way but I hope it works. Leave you comments below or even on the Facebook Page. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Well stay tuned for more . . . coming soon.

Noah Mark Bitney

Brave REVIEW

The "Motion Picture Buff' presents a review for Disney's Pixar film "Brave." The rating that I believe this film deserves is a sad 5/10. Keep in mind this though: I do believe this film is a good kid movie. For Pixar though I had a few problems with this film.

Starting now with the negatives in this review is that halfway through the film, when she decides to change her fate, the complete tone of the film decides to change. The first half of the film had a completely different tone than the other half, but then at the end it went back to its original tone, and they didn't change slowly, it was like BAM change of the movies tone. For this it lost about two points on my scale. Then apparently she changed her fate? I feel like what had happened (trying not to give away any spoilers) really wasn't a change of fate at all. For that it lost about two more points, it really bugged me. Then the one other point came from it trying to hard to be funny. I feel like the film just tried way to hard, I mean sure I laughed at some points and such, but at some points it was just plain old stupid.

Now to end on a positive note it was funny (in some spots) and cute. I loved the voices for this film, everyone who voiced there characters did an absolute amazing job. Pixar seems to do a great job with picking people to voice there characters. For example: Monsters Inc., Toy Story, The Incredibles, and others. One more thing that I liked you could say was the messages that "Brave" tried to tell. I said earlier that I hated how the transition was between them, but I have to say I do like what they were trying to say, just not how they said it.

All-in-all this movie had a good message for kids just didn't it abruptly and not in a good fashion. A good kid movie I guess, but unlike other Pixar's (excluding Cars and Cars 2) where they have it so parents can enjoy it also. So a deserved rating of 5/10. Now people might not like it but what can I say I didn't like how the plot went with the tone. Could have been better.

Now remember to subscribe to the blog by your email in the sidebar (I do not use anyone's email adresses at all, I honestly can't even see them). Subscribe to know when I update the blog with another review or some movie news that I want to talk about. One more review should be coming VERY soon though. I also saw Disney's "The Avengers" the other night (for the 4th time), so I can review that also soon. Leave comments below if you have seen "Brave" and let me know what you though (remember you don't have to have a Google account to comment, just pick anonymous and you can post a comment that way also). Well make sure you subscribe for more "Motion Picture Buffness."

The Motion Picture Buff