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An error has ocurred. Please try againMy list for this may change quite significantly in a few years as there's a few critically acclaimed films from 1999 I haven't watched yet such as The Matrix, American Beauty (though I'll be watching this one very soon) and The Mummy.
Reviews
Choose or Die (2022)
Real life video game horror at it's finest
Choose or Die made me really want to time travel to the 80s, simpler times but better times. I thank the film for introducing me to the amazing song Are Friends Electric by Tubeway Army. Character wise I thought Isaac was a decent but under developed character, it was fitting he liked retro video gaming and retro 80s music so much. The best characters were the villain, Hal and Robert Englund whom unfortunately only got a minor role, the other characters though were mediocre or just without personality at all.
The film was a bit short so for that it lets it down a bit overall, though the best characters may have benefited from this such as the creator of the game, Hal and Robert Englund as they made a prominent interesting mark yet there's still so much we don't know about them and therefore so much mystery which can make you mind buzz a lot. The levels of the game were interesting and although some say the film isn't original, it doesn't matter if it's original but it was reasonably original in my book.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Greatest Movie Ever
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has been in my view, the best movie of all time ever since I first watched it at the pictures back in 2005 when I was 8 years old. I could write for ages about all the great things in this movie, but I'll try and keep it to a respectable length. Firstly, I'll explain my thoughts on the things people often criticise this movie for. One of the criticisms is Vader's 'noooo' at the end but I don't see this as a flaw at all and I think the film is flawless. All Vader's friends and loved ones had died, he obviously thought his kid had died as well. He couldn't really do anything at this point except follow Palpatine and Palpatine at this stage was the only one he could really talk to. At this crucial point of time, Palpatine was pretty much the Emperor of the entire galaxy so for Vader to argue with Palpatine would've been suicidal, it would've destroyed him and made his life totally meaningless had he done that so it made total sense for him to show some restraint and take his anger out on the medical droids. There wasn't really much of a reason for Vader to turn on Palpatine at this point anyway, although he did say he could save his wife if he joined the dark side he did mislead Anakin a bit but he also implied Plagueis had achieved it so it makes sense to me that Vader wouldn't of had a reason to try and attack Palpatine so I think the people who hate on the film because they believe Vader should've tried attacking Palpatine for it to be realistic are wrong I believe.
The CGI was amazing and the new worlds Revenge of the Sith introduced were amazing, Mustafar's got to be one of the best locations ever for a fight scene because of how sinister and threatening Mustafar is with it's lava which could easily burn one of the characters to death and therefore the added sense of urgency and danger it gives to the fight. I love the bright lights of the planet and the flying vehicles everywhere gives it a nice futuristic civilised look. The lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin is easily the best of the entire saga and this movie has the most lightsaber duels in any other Star Wars movie. I don't think lightsaber duels are the only good thing about Star Wars but when the lightsaber duels are as exciting and fast paced as they were in this film then they can be an amazing part of the film. The lightsaber duels were well choregraphed and pretty much all of them had a lot of emotional weight especially the one at the end between Obi-Wan and Anakin. The duel scenes in this movie are not only brilliant action scenes but they are also very complex in the sense that the duel scenes are very unique and interesting which make it more interesting and difficult to decide who's the most powerful characters in the movie.
One of the other criticisms people tend to have is they don't believe Padme died from a broken heart. But considering she was carrying twins that would of made it a lot more easier for her to have bad pregnancy complications and therefore die because of a broken heart right after giving birth. Padme really loved Anakin and Anakin turning into a different person like Padme believed happened so fast that it overwhelmed Padme. Obviously Padme didn't really believe Obi-Wan when he said Anakin turned to the Dark Side and the whole thing occurred in a short space of time so it clearly would've been difficult for Padme to process all that sad harsh information in such a short period of time, such stress and shocking news that it would've been is especially bad when she's pregnant as stress causes more issues for pregnant women. Anakin also force choked her and she fell on the ground, hit her head hard so the fall probably was also clearly a huge contributing factor on top of all the stress Padme went through in a short period.
Anakin's transition to the Dark Side was stunningly executed. It was very tragic because Anakin loved Padme so much to the point he was willing to sacrifice everything to save her from certain death and despite all the bad things he did Anakin still saw himself as the good guy as he loved Padme a lot and believed she was more important than anything else, to the extent where he viewed pretty much everyone except Padme and Palpatine to be evil lying monsters so from his perspective he was doing a good cause but of course there was conflict which resulted in some confusion over his actions but ultimately he was willing to do everything to save his wife and his unborn child. The Jedi Council annoying and disappointing him and suppressing his training for years before the Clone Wars was what led to him to have second thoughts about how good they really are. Ultimately Anakin was doing what he thought was right, the greater good but tragically he lost everything, his wife, his kids, his friendships and his potential to be by far the most powerful person ever. It's a very tragic and complex story.
Anakin is very similar to me in many ways so it's nice to be able to relate to him a lot in the movie. Like me, Anakin had so much to lose and then in a short space of time lost pretty much everything because of unfortunate unlucky circumstances and the imperfect world being extra imperfect for him. Anakin is also a lot like me in the sense that he was once kind to humans and things in general and then became quite hostile and unforgiving to people and aliens in general after pretty much giving up on the rest of the world and in Anakin's case, letting his emotions overwhelm and being as emotional as possible. The film really shows how much people like Anakin can love someone like Padme and his unborn child to the point where he is quite literally willing to fight the rest of the universe if it means saving Padme and his child. For a child to learn that their father was Anakin and went to such huge lengths and committed terrible acts to protect them and their mother really shows how much of a loving and protective father and husband Anakin was and I find that very deep and emotional. So with that in mind, the movie pretty much influences people not to focus/love on only one or two people in your life and love everyone else more than the 2 people you love the most but for me and Anakin we'll never commit to that because of the way we were brought up and how society in general treats us. Overall this is a very emotional, complex, tragic thought provoking movie with brilliant characters, brilliant soundtrack, brilliant scenery and the film is consistently brilliant from start to finish. 12/10 for me and I think this will always be my favourite movie of all time.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
A masterpiece after the first 35 minutes
This is a great movie, especially for it's time. I think the overall character line up of this film was nearly as good as A New Hope, as whilst Obi-Wan still made some appearances he wasn't in this nowhere near as much as A New Hope, though Yoda in this film makes up for that a lot. The lightsaber duel between Vader and Luke in this was much more better than the duel between Obi-Wan and Vader in A New Hope so it's definitely far better than a New Hope on that. This film has many great parts such as the Dagobah part and some of the spaceship parts in this (particularly the asteroid field part) were pretty entertaining.
The romance in this movie had a lot of emotion and chemistry in it, The romance added another ark to the tension between Han and Luke as they were both competing for Leia's affection so I found that quite interesting and complex. Overall this film is the 5th best Star Wars movie for me and the 71st best film for me.
A lot of people put this film first or second on their list of best Star Wars films but I feel a lot of people do that because they watched Star Wars saga for the first time in non-chronological order and instead by release date which would make that big reveal at the end more memorable and emotional for them. The problem with rating a movie based on shock value is because the shock or surprises a film has only really does that on the first viewing so yes if you watched Empire Strikes Back before the Prequels then that scene would be very shocking but I don't tend to include shock value in my rating as a lot of people watch a film more than once. Besides I think watching the films in chronological order (starting with TPM) is better and more shocking, seeing Anakin become Vader, chopping Windu's hand off, as a person who watched the Prequels before the Originals I think that scene was more shocking on first viewing than what it would be if I had watched the bit where Vader reveals he's Luke's father in Empire Strikes Back before the Prequels.
The first 30-35 minutes of this film were somewhat boring for me, there just wasn't much interesting complex things happening all it was was Vader simply finding the Rebel's secret base on Hoth and most of it was just mindless boring basic action involving a spaceship battle (though the bit with the yeti like monster and some lines Han said were quite good). The rest of the film though is what makes this film truly great. The Empire Strikes Back is also the only Original trilogy film which has bits of truly great scenery as I really liked the look of Cloud City, the rest of the scenery though (with a mild exception for Dagobah) was pretty drab and dull I think.
The Vader scenes where Vader seemed to be hesitant to violently face his son and tried his best to convince the Emperor to spare him I felt were pretty interesting and emotional. I also really liked the bits where Obi-Wan and Yoda are hesitant to train Luke because they see too much of Anakin in Luke which I felt was a great way to really connect Luke and Anakin and I always felt that Yoda probably wouldn't have accepted Luke being further trained in the force if Yoda and Obi-Wan weren't so desperate to defeat the Emperor.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
An artistic visual masterpiece that takes you to a great science fiction universe
I love this film and Attack of the Clones is ranked 20th on my list of the best films for me and I also rank it 2nd on my list of the best Star Wars movie for me. I grew up with the Prequels so I'm very much part of the Prequel generation of Star Wars fans. I was 5 years old when Attack of the Clones was released so I may be slightly biased. Moving on as to why I think Attack of the Clones is such a great film, well the obvious really is the CGI, I love the CGI in this movie. The CGI in this film is commonly criticised by I think the worlds in this film such as Coruscant and Naboo were so beautiful to look at. To see those futuristic flying ships flying about on Coruscant makes it look so futuristic. Naboo looks so beautiful, I love the look of the rooms and buildings in the entire Prequel trilogy, many of those rooms and buildings wouldn't of looked so great without the CGI.
I feel Attack of the Clones shows what life is like on Coruscant the most out of all the Star Wars movies, showing ordinary people just going about their lives on the futuristic capital planet of the Republic. Watching the Coruscant scenes felt like it was Earth In the year 2200 or something like that so it just felt incredible and fascinating to imagine the possibilities of all that kind of future technology. The CGI doesn't really look like it's aged at all, none of it looks fake. The CGI still looks very real to me and that's the main thing really, the CGI may not look so real to some people but the main thing is I still feel the CGI looks realistic in the old Prequel movies so therefore as long it doesn't look fake to the point it distracts you from being immersed in the film then there's really no problem with it.
The Dexter's Diner and the Outlander Club buildings looked particularly great in Attack of the Clones and both hold a special place in my heart. Dexter's Diner will always be a great place to look at for me especially as it was the hub for the first Lego Star Wars game and I just love the look of the futuristic dining furniture, the weird alien cuisine, the eccentric robot waitress and a feeling of Dexter basing the diner off a 1950's American diner from Earth like as if they have knowledge of the Earth from thousands or hundreds of years ago. The thought of going to the diner to be greeted by the friendly alien Dexter and be well accommodated by great interesting cuisine, great ambience and affordable prices for the food whilst at the same time getting wise knowledgeable advice from the smart alien known as Dexter Jettster has always made me really want to go to that diner or at least a diner be made like it in real life as a replica. The bright lights, music and gambling activities at the Outlander Club also fascinated me and I imagine that would probably be the best place to get drunk if it existed, especially with their bright exotically coloured Star Wars alcoholic beverages served at the club. The extreme psychedelic and euphoric effects Death Sticks offer would give people would also be a great thing to have and really makes one want to be part of the amazing heart thumping adrenaline rushing, Female Jedi buttock pounding Star Wars universe, so yes death sticks was an interesting and very euphoric aspect of this movie which is great imagining about, just a shame they aren't very safe and highly addicting.
The character line up in this movie was amazing, having great characters such as Anakin, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu and they even added some characters to this film which weren't in the Phantom Menace such as Dooku. I also thought Dooku was a better character than Darth Maul, more interesting than Darth Maul so that's one of the reasons why I prefer Attack of the Clones not just because it features more beautiful worlds but also because Dooku is a more complex character, not so black and white in my opinion as in my view Dooku was never a true Sith Lord. I believe Dooku actually only pretended to be a Sith Lord to try and stop Palpatine. Dooku never had yellow eyes like Sith Lords, never really used Dark Side powers except in duels and he was an old Jedi Master before 32 BBY.
A lot of people criticise it but I really enjoy Anakin and Padme's romance in this film. A lot of people say their romance was too fast and they fell in love too quickly, but I like that aspect of it because it's more romantic and gives you a lot of hope as falling in love quickly is one of those amazing fantasies of a lot of people. Some people can fall in love very quickly in real life, it's not like it can't happen in real life though it isn't common. One of the reasons they fell in love so quickly may have been something to do with the Chosen One prophecy which would give them more reason to fall in love fast. I think Anakin's mother's death also sped up their romance for realistic reasons, Anakin's mother's death was another really great scene in this film. Padme was there for Anakin when he needed her and in a way because Padme could see how much Anakin cared about his mother, it proved to Padme just how good a person Anakin is. I don't see any real problems in Attack of the Clones, of course there is the hated line where Anakin talks about sand which gets a lot of criticism but I've always thought that line made perfect sense because Anakin came from a desert planet and he hated Tatooine, had a terrible childhood on Tatooine, sandstorms occur commonly on Tatooine so that also would've made life unpleasant for Anakin on Tatooine, it was also very hot in Tatooine so that probably would've given him sunburn at times and Tatooine is sandy so it makes sense as sand would remind him of Tatooine, a place which would've brought back terrible memories for Anakin. So to me that line made sense and I think the line is great.
I really liked Hayden's portrayal of Anakin in Attack of the Clones. I like the progression of his character because in Episode II Anakin was a bit like Luke was in A New Hope where he was a whiny spoilt teenage farm boy and in Episode II Anakin was similar being whiny, spoilt and very arrogant Padawan Learner. So it really drew a good parallel between father and son so I did like that aspect and shows how similar Luke and Anakin and showcases that special father and son bond. Teenagers are after all more prone to tantrums so I thought that was realistic. I felt Anakin's anger was portrayed brilliantly, especially during the scene where he reveals to Padme he killed the Tusken Raiders, I thought that was perfectly delivered and very realistic. You could really see the anger when he said that and he was obviously trying to bottle up his anger to try not to show Padme, be less awkward and be more Jedi like but when he finally released his anger when he tells her the truth, it just made it so much more emotional, satisfying and realistic. I also think Attack of the Clones had the best duels in a Star Wars movie until Revenge of the Sith. The Clone Wars and the big battle was fantastic and was a good way to show how powerful the Jedi Order was as well as the likes of Obi-Wan and Anakin, especially as there were 200 Jedi that took part in the battle and only Anakin, Obi-Wan, Mace, Shaak Ti and a few other Jedi Masters survived so it really shows the correlation between the average Jedi, skilled Jedi and Jedi Council members so overall Attack of the Clones is a great film, great settings, great action scenes, a really complex plot, much more complex plot than the Original Trilogy movies and had a brilliant character line up.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Way better than the first film
This movie had a lot of brilliant scenes. I absolutely love the flying car scenes, that always makes me want to have one of my own and makes me want to be in the HP Universe. I also loved the way Harry became hated by his classmates in this movie, it reminded me of myself being misunderstood throughout my life and being blamed for things that's not my fault so I could really relate to Harry in this movie. I can't really point out any significant flaws of the film, but the film would've been better if Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were already in this movie, that would've made for even more interesting characters. It definitely does have less interesting characters than later Harry Potter movies.
The Karate Kid (1984)
A film which demonstrates nicely how unlucky people can be
No human is perfect, every human has flaws, some have more flaws than others and as this film points out rather well, some humans seem to have more luck than others. This movie really makes me sympathise with Johnny and Daniel, with Daniel having so much bad luck at the beginning of the movie whilst Johnny's life was turned upside down by the end of the movie.
The plot of this movie is very deep and complex if you think about it in the right way. I won't list all the plot elements of this movie which I found very interesting and complex as there's so many but I found the way Daniel had to lose contact with his friends because his Mum wanted to move to a different place for a better job to be quite interesting, especially when it proved difficult for Daniel to make new friends at the beginning of the movie and when he started getting bullied. Making new friends isn't easy in a place far from any places you've been in your life so that part of the movie makes me question Lucille LaRusso's intelligence and love for her Son.
Of course the relationship between Daniel and Johnny in the film is a very complex one, ultimately both characters did some nasty things in the movie but it's very debatable as to who was most to blame of the two. A part of me wanted Daniel to just go back to living at his previous address so that Johnny and Daniel could leave each other alone as whilst they were in each other's lives back in the 1980's, they always seemed to make each other's lives worse, especially as Johnny still had so much to lose (and went on to lose it all) at this point. The rather unfortunate unlucky events of Johnny in the later part of the movie such as Ali becoming the girlfriend of his worst enemy and then going on to lose the All Valley Tournament made it seem like in a way God was punishing Johnny for perhaps being a bit too rough with Daniel but unfortunately this was pushed too far to the point where Johnny's later life experiences more than enough made up for what his slight overreaction to Daniel. The action scenes in this movie are very entertaining but there's not too much action to the point there's little character development.
The Karate Kid was one of the big reasons which led me to learning Karate when I was a kid so this film will always be rather special, nostalgic and meaningful to me. I find the Karate Kid very emotional and I think the characters are all above average. Johnny is my favourite character (and one of my favourite characters of all time) from the movie and I relate a lot to Johnny in terms of seeming to have a lot of bad luck and once being happy when I was a very young and then losing all of it in later life. Johnny is quite similar to me in many ways which makes him a more interesting and likeable character for me. The Cobra Kai TV series makes this film even greater due to more information on the characters in the film as well as knowing what the fate of the main characters will be 34 years later. All the characters (except the ones with less than a minute of screen time) all seem to have so much personality in this movie.
This movie is well above average from start to finish, with a minor exception of a very short part of the movie where Daniel finds out there's a problem with his homes tap (faucet for American readers) and I just thought that part of the movie was rather pointless, boring and unnecessary. I'm not sure why this film's makers thought that would be a interesting and necessary thing to put in the movie but as that part of the film is only a few measly seconds it really doesn't do anything to destroy the overall quality of this movie.
The Karate Kid is one of the best movies of all time for me and I highly recommend The Karate Kid to everyone but in particular those who are going through difficult times in their life or simply love martial arts.
The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)
A film with a lot of wasted potential
This film had so much potential in the sense that the main character's unusual and interesting lifestyle and history could've made him one of the best characters of all time but due to the wasted potential the main character only managed to be the only good character in the movie. I found the main characters extreme fascination with action figures and comic books interesting, he was like a kid trapped in a adult's body which made sense as the main character probably identified his childhood years as his best years as those years were the days he didn't worry about getting a girlfriend and having sex, therefore he probably struggled to like more grown up things in his later somewhat poor life due to almost certainly having a more fulfilling life prior to puberty.
The most interesting thing about the the main character was that he didn't own a car and the only vehicle he had was a bicycle. I found this very interesting as it opens up so many possibilities as to why the main character only has a bicycle for personal transport and the lack of fast transportation makes it harder for the main character to properly move into adulthood and the bicycle still in a way traps the main character to his childhood. It's nice to consider the reasons why the main character didn't have any fast personal transportation, was it because he hasn't had any friends or social life at all since at least 17 years old and therefore had significantly less reason to get a car, was it simply because he was a terrible driver and never passed his test or was it because he enjoyed riding a bicycle far more than driving a car because of his probably better childhood years having so much more influence on his adult mind compared to his post-childhood years? We'll probably never know the answer but I find this aspect of the film very interesting and a connection to myself.
I was disappointed that the 40 year old virgin swore so much because it normalised him a bit more and therefore made him more boring, it would've been more interesting if he didn't swear at all to make him more interesting, childlike and a character who doesn't have any real desire to really grow up.
Whilst this comedy movie did make me laugh three times in the movie, I feel it would've had more potential for success if it wasn't a comedy movie and instead focused more on the serious effects and consequences of a man being quite lonely and a virgin for 40 years, scrapping the comedy scenes in favour of more serious scenes of the main character showing that he doesn't like his life very much and more backstory on how his life ended up how it was at the beginning of the movie would've made the film much more interesting complex and meaningful. Instead that side of things isn't really explored in this movie and therefore makes the main character somewhat mysterious at the expense of the viewer not really knowing exactly how lonely and sad the main character's life really is which in turn makes the main character seem more like an ordinary boring person and less like a unique interesting character full of a lot of personality and interesting backstory, especially as the main character's life in the movie implies his virginity and poor social life don't seem to sadden or depress him significantly due how tidy his home is, lack of drug use and no scenes of him basically being home alone whilst majorly sad.
Not including the few laughs I got out of the movie, this film didn't really have any significantly emotional scenes due to the light-hearted comedic feel to the movie throughout and usually whenever I was felt I was getting somewhat close to feeling very sorry for the main character something funny happened or the main character did something which made him seem more like a typical adult who didn't have a bad life. So this isn't really a film to watch if you want to watch a film with a lot of deep meaning behind it which'll make you emotional.
The other characters in this movie except maybe one, were pretty dull and ordinary. Some of them had some pretty good quotes, but good quotes every now and then doesn't necessarily make a character great. Basically the 40 year old virgin's work colleagues were just average joe's whose only real role was to give the main character advice about getting sex so I just thought those characters were kind of meaningless. The young blonde woman in the bathtub at the end of the movie though was somewhat interesting, she definitely had some character to her but unfortunately she didn't have much screen time.
The movie had a few scenes I found boring, one of them was when the 40 year old virgin's black work colleague is arguing with another black man, a scene or two involving a old bearded man who only talks about sex and another scene involving a man filming his buttocks in the place he works at. I suppose a person constantly talking about sex and a man filming his buttocks at his place of work may be amusing for some people but I didn't find these bits funny or entertaining. Some of the advice the 40 year old Virgin receives is pretty obvious and simplistic and therefore boring but some of it was pretty good particularly the advice where he just keeps asking women questions rather emotionlessly, it was interesting figuring out what sort of women would find that sort of behaviour from a man pleasurable.
I thought the ending of the movie was predictable, cliché and boring, basically just ending like most romantic movies. I also thought the line that the main character said where he basically said now I realise that I've just been waiting for someone like you' to his spouse was silly and ridiculous as many people in the world never find the right sort of romantic/sexual partner. Overall I recommend this movie to young men and teenage boys who are desperately trying to get a girlfriend but otherwise I wouldn't really bother with this movie unless you're bored and you're able to watch it for free or for a very cheap price.
Plot Complexity: 15/20
Characters: 7/10
Emotion: 6.5/10
Consistency: 6.5/10
Back to the Future (1985)
A film great for history enthusiasts and fit for the whole family
I've a history enthusiast so time travel films tend to be generally interesting for me and Back to the Future is arguably the best time travel movie of all time. The setting and years that the film took place I suppose could've been better, I think I would've preferred there to have been scenes involving 3 different years in this movie but just having 1955 and 1985 worked very well with the complex entertaining plot this film gives us. 1950's and 1980's USA are certainly not my favourite historical periods but they are both definitely interesting history periods so overall I really liked it and loved seeing the contrast and changes of the various buildings in Hill Valley in 1955 and 1985. It would've only made small difference in years in the film's time setting but I would've preferred Marty to have gone back to 1960 or the late 1950's instead of 1955 and had pretty much the same story with his parents except it would be 4 or 5 years later and that way they'd be more of a Rock n Roll, greaser and rocker culture in the past setting of this film, but that's just my personal preference.
There were many emotional scenes in this movie, the film gives me some thought provoking scenes which makes me think deeply about my parents and love life, but for the most part in an emotionally positive enthusiastic way, especially as this film has a happy ending for the most part. There's so many emotional scenes in this film that it's too much to briefly mention all of them but most of them are emotional scenes involving a son and his parent or parents so if you have a particularly interesting relationship with your parents you'll probably find these scenes more interesting and emotional than most people, generally speaking.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any dull boring scenes this movie had, all the scenes are good and therefore the film is good from start to finish, the consistency of this film is brilliant. The film has a relatively slow start, but the slow start was necessary for character development to a certain extent. Some of the scenes at the start such as the first scene where Marty just walks around in Doc's home for a little while and the clocks start ringing and Marty's short journey from Doc's to his school are some examples of scenes that do make the beginning of this film relatively slow and relatively boring compared to the later parts of the film, but even those two scenes I mentioned were still definitely watchable and reasonably good in their own right.
The plot of this film is flawless and epic. The chemistry between father and son, mother and son and friendships in this film will make you very entertained, if you're a history nerd like I am the looks of the various vehicles, as well as the old fashioned skateboards and diners from the 1950's will give you some joy. How this film has a young teenage boy pretty much healing himself and his parents whilst protecting his parents from a dangerous bully known as Biff Tannen 30 years into the past is in my opinion a very interesting complex plot full of emotion, facts and simple bliss.
The character line up in this film is far from the best character line up in a movie, but most of the greatness this film has in my eyes comes from the film's plot, not the characters; the quality of the characters don't quite stack up compared to the quality of the film's plot. But the character line up in this film is still way above an average film, the only dull characters in this movie were the ones that didn't get a lot of screen time such as Marty's siblings and Jennifer, I felt Jennifer was a very under developed simplistic character for a character that's supposed to be the main character's girlfriend and she seemed to be a rather stereotypical boring unoriginal Hollywood Female character with no unique character traits of her own.
The main characters though, Marty, Doc, Biff and Marty's parents were all above average characters, but they're all far from characters that are genuinely complex, well developed and sublimely unique. This film cleverly relies on the epic plot of the movie to make it so entertaining without having much in the way of great characters so really the characters never needed to all be great for this film to work as the turns the plot takes in this film makes much of the plot very relatable to the average person and therefore interesting and thought provoking.
Crimson Peak (2015)
A Great Gothic Horror
Overall this was a very entertaining, dark, somewhat mysterious Gothic horror film. I loved the period that the movie is set in as I'm a big fan of Victorian era fashion, technology and culture. The scenery was very good thanks to the amazing setting the film was in, the snow surrounding the Sharpe's large house in the middle of nowhere made the film even more dark but at the same time more beautiful and memorable.
Plot Complexity: 15/20 - A lot of quotes Thomas Shape says are very thought provoking, such as the way he tells the protagonist she's childish and consumed by unrealistic childish dreams, it makes me wonder what he said there was true or whether it was simply his way of dumping her because of her father so even after watching this movie there are still some nice interesting questions to carefully think about after watching. The way Thomas' sister gets evidently jealous when he dances with the protagonist in the beginning was quite interesting as it shows his sister isn't content with their relationship being sexual every now and then, for her their relationship MUST be sexual all the time.
Characters: 8/10 - I felt each character in this movie had some personality to them, even the protagonist to a certain extent though she was a very stereotypical Female character in many ways.
Thomas Sharpe was easily the most interesting character as he had the most interesting thought provoking quotes, was the smartest character and had a lot of knowledge which made his quotes generally very interesting for history enthusiasts such as myself as well as giving the character a more broad range of things to say as a result of his vast knowledge. Tom Hiddleston's acting was top notch and the film did a great job of making it difficult for the viewer to decide whether to support Thomas or the protagonists father during their few scenes they have together.
Emotion (not including laughs): 8/10 - The film had many emotional scenes such as the protagonist's father's death, Thomas' death and Thomas' dumping of the protagonist, the dance scene as well as the sex scene between Thomas and the protagonist.
Consistency: 10/10 - No boring scenes in my opinion, overall a very entertaining film from start to finish, you probably won't long to watch anything else when you're watching this movie for the first time.
Scare Factor: 5.5/10
Sex Factor: 6/10
Laugh Factor: 1/10
The Shining (1980)
A sad tragic horror movie
This movie was so good I even looked up what hotel the Overlook hotel was based on in real life. There are many scarier horror films than The Shining but The Shining is nonetheless my 2nd favourite horror movie of all time.
Terrific acting with a complex interesting plot and some nice twists such as Grady's ghost and the picture at the end etc make for a brilliant classic movie.
No characters were extraordinary interesting, but there were no dull characters either. Jack and Grady were genuinely great characters, they were the most interesting characters. But like a lot of films set in the real world it fails to have characters that are truly unique from the people on Earth. What makes the characters so great to watch in this movie is the circumstances they're in, not so much the characters themselves. If you took away the story and it was just Jack and his family on a car journey it would be probably be difficult to keep watching.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any boring scenes the movie had. There was a certain car scene though that could've been much more entertaining. There's a lot more emotion in many other films compared to this film, but The Shining has a good level of emotion in it like the final bit when Jack went mad and went after his wife and son and also when Jack goes to the bar craving for alcohol.
The fact the Overlook hotel is based on a hotel in real life makes the film even more intriguing and the film is very tragic in the sense that Jack was a good person who loved his wife and son but was desperately trying to stop being an alcoholic, he used the hotel in the middle of nowhere which had no alcohol in it obviously as a great strategy to overcome his alcoholism but in the end the hotel was more deadly and harmful than his alcoholism which made the film so tragically emotional and because I'm an alcoholic I relate a lot to Jack's character which makes it seem what happened to Jack could of happened to me.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
Very emotional end to the best film series
This was such a great ending to Harry Potter, it went out in such great style. Like a lot of the other Harry Potter movies, every scene is either great or brilliant. This movie had almost the same level of surprises as Prisoner of Azkaban did, but the action was better in Deathly Hallows 2 and it also had more dramatic scenes (like the resurrection stone scene, Voldemort's final defeat etc) than Prisoner of Azkaban. My only minor criticism is I think the movie was a tad too focused on action, some more dialogue between Harry and his dead parents would've been lovely. Deathly Hallows Part II is the 6th best movie of all time in my opinion.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Harry getting more like James with every scene
If you compare every Harry Potter film to the books, this is the biggest disappointment. Although the book it was based on was the longest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the 2nd shortest Harry Potter movie.
Nonetheless the fifth book was my 3rd favourite book, whilst the fifth film could've easily had 20 more minutes of screen time, it's still a very great film.
Sirius Black was great, the Ministry invading Hogwarts was great, everything about this movie was great. Snape's bad memory scene was my favourite part of this epic emotional roller coaster of a film
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Funniest Harry Potter movie
I loved how funny this movie was, and in that regard it was an improvement over all the other HP movies. It was the funniest HP movie, but most importantly it didn't have too much humour either, so it was able to retain the dark and hopeless theme whilst also being funny in parts.
This film didn't ever have a dull scene, I felt the entire film was good from start to finish. Outstanding consistency. Sirius Black is my 2nd favourite Harry Potter character and my 3rd favourite character of all time so I did miss Sirius a lot in the movie so that was a disappointment, however I really liked Slughorn so he almost made up for the absence of Sirius. Slughorn was a very cheerful jolly character which almost always made me feel very happy every scene he was in, he'd be a great person to have a beer and a laugh with, Slughorn drinks quite a bit during the movie so that's partly why I think this film is the best Harry Potter movie to watch drinking alcohol.
I felt the film should've included the full Battle of the Astronomy tower though, in the books Dumbledore's Army has a little battle with some of the Death Eaters. They should've included this in the movie. So although the absence of Sirius, adult Voldemort and quotes about James Potter was depressingly noticeable, the film was the funniest, most alcoholic and most drug fuelled Harry Potter film which made up for the loss of some the best characters somewhat.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010)
Most depressing Harry Potter film
Whilst I think they did the right thing in splitting Deathly Hallows into two movies, Part I was just unfortunate that it got the worse half. Like all Harry Potter movies, the story makes sense, there are little to no plot holes, it has great acting and a great story. As it is the first half of a book, the story is quite slow and dragged on compared to other HP movies and for that reason it suffers. The other thing that lets it down is by this point is that both one of the best HP characters Sirius and Dumbledore are dead, the absence of these two truly entertaining characters lets the film down a bit.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Best film ever in 1971
This movie is the oldest on this list and was the best movie ever released back in 1971. Unfortunately, this lasted no more than a year as the Godfather came out a year later, 1972, to steal it's crown. It's great figuring out the bizarre world's society. The film doesn't reveal a lot, but gives clues to what it's really like and it's great figuring it all out. The movie also has some nice witty lines.
The main character was iconic, and the doctors and the other members of the gang were also nicely developed. Although the rest of the gang didn't have much dialogue, a lot of their personality was expertly revealed through the characters actors. Not really a dull scene, although some of the scenes when he was at home were a little dull.
There were many scenes in the movie that could've been very emotional, but due to lack of character development with some of them, the execution of the scenes was a bit off. The scene where the main character is forced to listen to the music he hated was a bit emotional. The rape scene could've been far more emotional, as we didn't know who the woman was it failed to make me very emotional.
The Green Mile (1999)
Haunting film
The plot was quite complex. The characters got good character development, it had some nice unpredictable twists and the characters were very complex. The guy with the mouse's death was very emotional, as was John Coffee's and saving the dying woman. The murder of the girls at the beginning was also very emotional. There was one mediocre scene. The scenes with Tom Hanks' character and his wife were a little dull.
John Coffee was probably the best character. Although all the main characters are good characters, I don't think any one of them was a truly outstanding character. None of the characters had any truly unique powers (except Coffee) or circumstances for example. It was just one movie, despite it being a long one it's hard to develop even the main characters well in a single movie. My biggest problem with the characters is they just felt too normal, none of them seemed truly unique, which is ok because that's common for films that take place in the real world.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
A friendship you'll crave for
The close friendship between Steve Rogers and Bucky is brilliant in this movie, and truly does make Captain America an amazing and highly respected character with his outstanding heroism.
Plot complexity: 16.5/20
It had a great twist at the end, Hydra are great villains. I liked how Captain America was on the run from everybody pretty much, but at the same time wanted to find a way to get to Bucky.
Characters: 9/10
Brilliant characters with good actors to play them. Captain America is one of my all time best characters, and Bucky isn't far off either. Most of the characters had interesting backstories, interesting personalities and interesting roles in the film. Sharon Carter could've been fleshed out a bit more though.
Consistency: 9.5/10
There wasn't an awful scene in the movie, but a scene or two involving Peggy's daughter was a bit mediocre.
Emotion: 9/10
This had many emotional scenes, like Steve visiting Peggy on her deathbed, and Steve refusing to fight Bucky were the highlights of the emotional scenes.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Best Harry Potter Film
This film is in my top 5 movies of all time and the rating is EASILY a 10/10 in my opinion. This movie is consistently great throughout, never has a dull scene. I would say it has about the same amount of twists as Prisoner of Azkaban, it is just as surprising as the 3rd movie. But what makes the Goblet of Fire truly special was that it had roughly the same level of action in it as Deathly Hallows Part II and it was more surprising than Deathly Hallows Part II and on par with Prisoner of Azkaban in that category. So already Goblet of Fire is the better movie on the first watch but watching a genuinely great movie is almost always nearly as good as watching it for the first time for me.
Deathly Hallows Part II is the most dramatic Harry Potter movie, it is the most emotional. But Goblet of Fire is equal to Deathly Hallows Part II in this category too. Goblet of Fire has plenty of emotional scenes like the graveyard scene, the attack at the quidditch world cup, Ron falling out with Harry, the Yule Ball and Harry and Ron trying to find dates. The thing that made Goblet of Fire so unique was the amount of teenage angst there was in the movie. Ron and Harry were so awkward with girls and trying to get a date and I loved this aspect of the movie, I could relate a lot to Harry and Ron struggling to find girls as teenage boys. We just don't quite get to see this in any of the other HP movies so in this regard it's an improvement. I suppose you could say Goblet of Fire had the best romance by far in a HP movie.
The graveyard duel was particularly emotional and it was pleasing to see Harry's Dad finally have the chance to more properly take on Voldemort as he didn't have the chance before as he didn't have his wand with him. Overall I recommend this film to everyone, the music was very good and whilst some people may criticise Michael Gambon's acting in this movie, I thought Dumbledore's shouting at Harry after his name was found in the goblet a very sensible thing a smart man like Dumbledore would do in order to find out the truth from a teenage boy.
Plot Complexity is a 20/20. Quality of Characters is Easily a 10/10. Emotion (Not including laughs) is easily a 10/10. Consistent quality of scenes is easily a 10/10. Scare Factor is 4/10. Laugh Factor is 6.5/10 - Ron's dress robes were hilarious. Sex Factor is 3/10.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Soulless characters compared to main HP Series
I struggled to connect and love the characters in this movie. There were no iconic characters like Dumbledore or Voldemort in this movie. Saying that though, Grindelwald was perhaps the exception, but he didn't get much screen time and his character wasn't very well executed.
I didn't think the plot of the film was that special either. I felt the plot was a bit too simple to be perfect. The more positive sides of the film was that it was set in the world of Harry Potter, had some cool displays of magic, great action in the latter stages of the movie and I really liked the scene where the Muggle police got involved. It's a slow start, but I genuinely think Crimes of Grindelwald will be an improvement over this, it has more potential.
Plot Complexity: 15.5/20 Characters: 7.5/10 Emotion (Not including laughs): 10/20 Consistency: 7/10 Scare Factor: 3/10 Laugh Factor: 4/10
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Emergence of the best Harry Potter character
Gripping from start to finish. I loved Marge blowing up like a balloon and then flying away, lol I always imagine how on Earth she was taken down every time I watch it, if she was at all. The Sirius Black part is epic, and the scene where Harry finds out from Cornelius Fudge and Three Broomsticks bartender that Sirius 'betrayed' his parents never fails to be so emotional for me. You can clearly see Harry's grief in that scene, terrific acting from Daniel Radcliffe.
It had a lot of unexpected twists this movie. There was Ron's rat actually turning out to be Harry's father's school friend who betrayed James and Lily, framed Sirius and faked his death. Sirius turned out to be the one who betrayed his parents at first before being revealed he was innocent all along. And then there was hope Harry's Dad was still alive when a stag made the Dementor flee, but in yet another unexpected twists it turned out to be Harry all along. Absolutely brilliant movie, consistently great all the way through and full of surprises and twists, plus several superb action scenes.
Plot Complexity: 19/20 Characters: 10/10 Emotion (Not including laughs): 10/10 Consistency: 10/10 Scare Factor: 3.5/10 Laugh Factor: 6/10
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
A slow start to the best film series ever
The first Harry Potter film, and for that reason it had to have an introduction to Hogwarts and how Harry Ron and Hermione became friends. The scenes where Harry meets Ron and Hermione for the first time on the train is a little boring to watch nowadays. It is a vital part of the movie and it had to be there, but I can't deny the scene isn't very spectacular. It wasn't just this scene that was a bit dull though, all the scenes that reveal more of Ron and Hermione's personality are great to watch for the first time but they really lack replay value. They have to be there though for character development For example the scene when Ron making fun of the way Hermione says wingardium leviousa is a little boring to watch now but it's necessary for Ron's character to become as good as it was in later movies.
My other criticism of the movie is there just simply isn't much going on in the first half of the movie, it's just Harry getting used to his lessons at Hogwarts. While these lessons aren't exactly boring, they aren't extremely entertaining scene, not on the same level of entertainment as the later films. But like the train scene, the lesson scenes were crucial to understand how Hogwarts works. The chess game was good and the big reveal at the end was shocking. Overall it's a very good film, it just has a necessary slow start but picks up eventually.
Plot Complexity: 14/20 Emotion (Not including laughs): 8.5/10 Characters: 9.5/10 Consistency: 9.5/10 Laugh Factor: 4/10 - didn't really make me laugh but Harry giving Dudley a pig's tail might make some laugh Scare Factor: 2/10 Sex Factor: 1/10
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
A film full of cheese
This movie is a very low 8, pretty much borderline 7.9/10-8/10. I found this movie moderately entertaining but quite strange, the movie doesn't seem to know what it is, whether it's a horror movie or comedy. The first 60% of the movie it's a genuine horror film, but the last 40% it has a lot of comedy in it which is very different to other horror comedy's I've watched which tend to be comedic throughout the entire film and not have as much horror in it as this film. The effects were brilliant for it's day, the ghost scenes were good gore and still stack up well to this day. Scare wise, it's probably one of the least scariest horror films made in the last 60 years, but it has it's moments. Jenny Agutter was amazing in this movie and kept tempting me and my mates to squish her fat cheeks throughout the entire movie.
The setting in Britain was very nice and accents were pleasing to the ear with great beautiful scenery of Britain's fun fertile lands in the Northern English countryside. Several scenes made me laugh and this film gives you the impression the British characters think the Americans are very strange to say the least.
The characters were full of character, there wasn't a dull soulless character in the movie, the dart player wasn't a bad man but had a temper and a lot of honesty, the chess player was quite mean dishonest character with an even worse temper than the dart player, Alex was a very adventurous motherly nurse, Jack was a entertaining character who made a lot of good jokes and the main character was just hilarious and a bit cowardly to a certain extent. For a film that's not even 2 hours long it had a rich complex set of characters. I thought the ending was a bit disappointing though, the main villain at the end was killed far too easily and seemed to be under powered when it came to it versus firearms.
Plot Complexity:11/20 -Slightly above average complexity
Characters: 7.5/10
Emotion (not including laughs): 6.5/10
Consistency: 10/10 - Can't think of a boring scene
Scariness: 5/10 - Less scary than most horror films
Laugh factor: 7/10 - As funny as the average comedy movie
Sex factor: 7/10
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Gets far too much hate
I'm a huge lover of the Prequels, I grew up with them and I suppose statistically someone born the same year I was is much more likely to like the Prequels than most other people. People criticise this film most because of Jar Jar but if you take the Darth Jar Jar theory into account it really isn't that bad. If you go back and watch Phantom Menace kinda from Jar Jar's perspective as some secret Sith Lord, then it really does make it so much better. There's a bit where Jar Jar waves his hand when Sebulba attacks him and Sebulba starts to back off so it's like as if Jar Jar does a mind trick on him there.
But even if you can't believe Jar Jar is a Sith Lord then I don't think he's as annoying as constantly whinging idiots make him out to be. If you can't believe Jar Jar is a Sith Lord then yeah Jar Jar is almost useless, but without Jar Jar Palpatine would've never become Emperor because it was Jar Jar who passed emergency powers to Palpatine, so at least the Phantom Menace showed what a idiot Jar Jar was if you don't believe in the Darth Jar Jar theory.
I thought Jake Lloyd did a fantastic job as Anakin Skywalker, there were some lines that were maybe unnecessary though such as 'yippee'! But I pretty much accept that line because it's words kids tend to say, if he didn't say it then he might've come across as too mature than what he really was. The line is also amongst many in this film that little Anakin says which shows the stark contrast between little innocent Anakin and Darth Vader so the cheesy childish lines Anakin makes makes it so much more emotional and baffling that Anakin would turn into a monster as an adult.
The action scenes were brilliant, Qui-Gon's death was tragic was a necessary sacrifice which had a very positive impact on the saga in the long term, had Qui-Gon not of died Anakin wouldn't have turned to the Dark Side which would've made the rest of the saga relatively boring. This film had the best overall character line-up of any Star Wars film except Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith in my opinion. There was loads of interesting Jedi with complex, unique interesting personalities and all the Original's have as main characters is a stereotypical Princess, a naive farmboy (Luke's not a bad character he's a great character but except Obi-Wan and Vader he was the only great character in the OT) and a space cowboy who was a decent character at best. At least Phantom Menace didn't have completely useless characters like Chewbacca who couldn't even speak and didn't do anything interesting.
The Phantom Menace adds so much history and lore to the Jedi, it had many great sequences such as the podracing scenes, Anakin's childhood, the duel on the desert, duel of the fates etc. Without the Phantom Menace and the other Prequels the history of the Star Wars Universe before A New Hope would've just been a big deep black hole with noting in it. One of the other popular criticisms of Phantom Menace is the mid-chlorians but it makes sense and it's a plausible explanation for Jedi and Sith power. A lot of people thought it was just 'magic' that caused the Jedi and Sith powers before Phantom Menace but even magic favours certain people or species more than others.
So many great characters in this film as well, Obi-Wan, Maul, Qui-Gon, Yoda, Windu, Anakin, Padme, Sidious, they were all very memorable and complex characters. I also liked how this film isn't a stereotypical film which has a happy ending and always lets the good guys win because that makes the Phantom Menace so much more unpredictable, more interesting as a result of not knowing whether even the morally good characters will die, closer to our own non-fictional reality and therefore feels more connected to our own depressing real world. The Phantom Menace is one of the most underrated movies of all time, I recommend it to everyone and even though critics and people alike may tell you it's awful, deep down you'll probably really enjoy it.
Star Wars (1977)
A Simplistic Classic
This film is a very low 9. This film was absolutely astounding in it's day and in my opinion one of the best film ever made when it first came out, but nowadays it's like an old beat up boxer that can't compete with a lot of the top young fresh boxers. The lightsaber duel was kinda pathetic compared to the more recent lightsaber duels. There was some emotion in it, I'll give it that but other than that the lightsaber duel felt like a rather serious insult to Vader and Kenobi's actual power and made them seem like regular humans. I was also disappointed that the lightsaber duel didn't have hardly any references to the Prequels when they were fighting.
Special effects still stack up well to this day in some aspects, especially the space scenes. There weren't many great characters either, there were some great characters but compared to some of the other films they aren't that many. I've never been a big fan of Chewbacca or Princess Leia, I think Chewbacca was a rather useless character and a waste of screen time, there's no point in having a character in a movie when you can't understand it 95% of the time and all it does is shoot things (not in a very unique way at all) and growl.
The plot was rather simplistic, not very complex and generally speaking films with simple plots aren't very thought-provoking and doesn't give you much to deeply think about and for me the more complex a film is generally the better it is because it gives you more stuff to think about during the film and after the film, not just complexity of the plot but also interesting characters you can connect to a lot as well. Overall this film is a simple classic, a very good film but far from the best.
Rogue One (2016)
Disappointing new characters
Had quite a good cast of characters in this, Darth Vader was the best character but unfortunately he didn't get a lot of screen time. New characters were lacking, the droid had some funny lines but other than that it was a pretty useless character. Cassian had some interesting backstory but it was very underdeveloped and seemed to lack much personality and uniqueness. Jyn was a bit interesting, but not much. The action scenes and special effects were brilliant but I disliked there wasn't any lightsaber duels, though the Vader scene at the end made up for that a bit. Some of the space battles were entertaining. It was nice to see Mustafar again.
The characters overall were too fresh, they only had one film to get the viewer to know their character and for such a huge franchise like Star Wars having the main characters as new characters with hardly any personality is very disappointing. They should've at least made the major new characters relatable to previous well established Star Wars characters, the lack of interesting new characters is the main reason I can't give this film a 9/10.