Letterboxd — Your life in film

Absolutely nothing special, and a little bland, but overall just a simple, enjoyable film. The A-listers here are clearly just doing it for pocket change, but a handful of the characters are fun to watch. The writing gets a little convoluted at times, although on the whole there's nothing too extravagant here. I wanted to stare at the gorgeous Ben Barnes for an hour and a half, and I wasn't disappointed.

I finally watched The Artist and I am happy to say that I absolutely adored this film. It's a flawlessly-made love letter to silent films of the past, while at the same time has Singin' in the Rain-levels of self-awareness which is both incredibly endearing and very refreshing. All actors' performances are fantastic but Dujardin and Bejo in particular are simply stellar. There's not much to dislike here, and by the end I was grinning like an idiot. Absolutely marvelous.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. Hoult's performance is great, and he carries the film basically singlehandedly. Rob Corddry initially seems miscast but really fills out his role as the film progresses. It drags on and seems directionless for a large portion in the middle of the movie, but ultimately the film's payoff is exciting and actually quite charming. Warm Bodies is original, fun and - forgive the pun - heartwarming.

Die Hard + Air Force One - awesomeness + taking itself way too seriously = Olympus Has Fallen.

The plot is ridiculous (those darn Koreans!) and the performances are uninspired across the board. Butler and Eckhart's characters are simply uninteresting (but that's the fault of the writers, not the actors), and Melissa Leo chews more scenery than you would think is possible. While we're at it, the entire opening sequence is basically pointless. Topping the film off with some bad direction and shoddy editing, there is a lot here to make you roll your eyes in disgust.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Olympus. I enjoyed it the way you enjoy a ridiculous, over the top action flick where guys are shredded with bullets left and right and there are high-tech machine guns and exploding helicopters everywhere. That and a reasonably exciting climactic scene are about all this film has going for it; it's a stupidly enjoyable, stupid action movie. Don't expect anything more and you'll be fine.

It's remarkable how such shocking things happen in this film and yet the audience is kept so completely detached from it all. You, the viewer, are not drawn into the plot, you are an observer. And I think that's what works best about this film.

The characters on their own are not very interesting at all. It's the relationships that unfold between each of the characters that is what engages viewers. The plot is very slow and drawn out, and ultimately feels like a joke without a punchline, but at the same time it's just intriguing enough that you can't look away.

This, coupled with some brilliant direction, great performances and entrancing cinematography, makes for a surprisingly enjoyable film.

Pretty much what we were all hoping for. If you're a hardcore fan of the comics you might be upset by the tweaking of the comics' plots and their eventual amalgamation, but otherwise this film is just damn good fun. You'd be hard put to be disappointed by it.

Robert Downey Jr. continues his fantastic work here and it's great to see a much more vulnerable side of the usually-unwavering Tony Stark. Most of the side characters are slightly misused/underused but still nice to watch; Ben Kingsley especially is hilarious, and Gwyneth Paltrow does well too.

There are hefty amounts of both comedy and drama to be had here; while both are excellent in their own right, they do not always mix well which stops this film just short of being absolutely stellar. However there's not much else to criticize and Iron Man 3 comes out as yet another explosively awesome installment to Marvel's film legacy.

Maybe this doesn't translate through generations. Maybe I didn't appreciate it correctly. Maybe I was in a bad mood. Whatever the case, this film just didn't do it for me.

The film dragged on despite its 1.5-hour runtime. I found all of the characters unlikable and most of them downright annoying. The endless, run-on dialogue was occasionally humorous and yet completely exhausting, and several of the performances left much to be desired. The direction and cinematography was similarly bad. I appreciate what this film did for the genre and for cinema in general, but all in all, I was happy when this one ended.