The movie
begins like Ocean’s Elevens, in which the magicians are picked up depending on
their styles. We have a magician, who lost its former glory, only reduced to
use his tricks to bang some girls. Also the thief who is broke and a hypnotist
who acts like a smart-ass… which is hilarious by the way. The fourth member of
the four horsemen is a woman who can escape from everywhere, which exists in
the whole movie is reduced to be the love interest of the other members. She
has absolutely no purpose. On the other hand we got the three “antagonists”. An
FBI Dectictive who dislikes his job and doesn’t believe in magic. An Interpol female
agent, which acts always unprofessional and has no other purpose than being his
love interest. Yes, the women are only nice looking sidekicks, at best. The
last one is Morgan Freeman, an ex-magician who now has a show about uncovering
their tricks.
The story
is split in three arcs. Every arc covers one of the shows of the four horsemen
with all their nice tricks. The smaller one is explained right on the stage and
give hindsight what trick they will use in their grand finale, which always
resolve around the fact, that they give their audience money from several bad companies.
The show and explanations are really nice and nothing unknown for people, who
saw a few magic shows and they of their tricks. They make sense and are great captured
by the camera. The two detectives on the hand play the role of the unknowing
watcher who grasp by everything the magicians do, always just toyed with.
The grand finals
of their show on the other hand are at least possible, but look ridiculous. It's
like, alright it would be possible to do in real life, but what would be the
chances making it work so perfectly? None, besides some really bad computer
effects that doesn’t make sense and wouldn’t be explained. It's like, the trick
would never work so let us go forward and ignore the principle of explaining
everything.
At the end
of the movie happens a lengthy action sequence which feels forced. It is too
long and depends too much about the fact, that they fight against magician with
throwing cards and “teleporting”. It's nice but not astonishing. Most of the
time we get dialogues that are enlightening by
some good jokes, which are the best thing about the whole movie. The
movie would have been boring without Woody Harrelson and Morgan Freeman. Jesse
Eisenberg and Mark Ruffalo on the other hand didn’t do well at all. I’d
expected more from such great actors.
In
conclusion:
The movies had a great idea and manages to go with it till the end
with decent explaining. Nothing that happens is jaw dropping and sometimes the
movie felt long, besides its 2h run. The cast is great and most of them at
least act decent. They the best part of the movie. Besides the unnecessary of
female characters and forced love story is the story itself interesting. The
ending on the other hand is just bad. You won’t guess it, but that doesn’t mean
it is a great one.
Man of Steel is Warners newest attempt to create a successful Superman movie and
another DC Comic hit, beside the already ended Batman trilogy. Now they are
trying the same formula with the biggest comic franchise. Expect a darker, grittier
Clark Kent and an intelligent plot. You could say that the use the exact
different approach than marvel, with their plotholes and humorous action
movies. Did it work? No, at least not for me. The quality of Man of Steel tore
me apart, because it jumps from magnificent to utter boredom within minutes,
but let me explain right from the start.
Summary of the Beginning:
In a lost age the world is divided into four equal powers: Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. In each nation there's a group of gifted people known as Benders who have the ability to manipulate their native element using martial arts and elemental magic. For thousands of years the nations lived together peacefully. But then disaster struck. The young ruler of the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Sozin, began a war of world conquest. The only one who could have prevented it was the Avatar. The Avatar is the human incarnation of the Spirit of the World, he alone can master bending all four elements. But, just when he was needed most, he disappeared. Now, 100 years later, a young Waterbender named Katara and her older brother Sokka stumble upon the long lost Avatar, Aang, who was encased in an iceberg for 100 years. Now, they must help Aang master all four elements before summer when Sozin's grandson Fire Lord Ozai will use a comet to deal one last deadly strike against the other nations and claim a Fire Nation victory. But, all that is easier said than done with the Fire Lord's determined and hot-tempered son, Prince Zuko, hot on their trail. Summary on IMDB written by Melanie
The plot and story of the first season isn't the biggest point of Avatar. It's the world and setting that sucks you in and makes you love the story. The characters are funny to watch and the gags are hilourisly most of the time with a only few kindish execption, which was kinda expected in a show meant for kids. The series shows a lot of great fundamental concepts of budhism like equality, harmony, peace, living with nature and the bad side of human behaviour, which makes it a great series for children. The plot is episodic and has each time a little heart warming conclusion to the side story. The problems are simple, because of the limited time but most of the time varied enough. The real exciting parts are these in which the character grow in their characteristic. Be it the love life of Soka and the withcoming problems of getting a girlfriend and Aangs loneliness of being the last one of his kind. A greater plot is hinted all the time but fully executed at the end of the season, which kinda felt short coming and to forced. It would have been better to give it one more episode to stretch it more. The first season focus clearly more on the world and the growing bound between the group members. Next weeks post will be about the second season called Earth.
