ulmeto Reviews

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)

"Bad Lieutenant" (2009) is a good movie for Cage to go crazy.

[7/10 · 26 May 2017]

Nicolas Cage - an Oscar winning actor in Werner Herzog's movie "Bad Lieutenant" which has nothing to do with Harvey Keitel's 1992 film, goes absolute crazy in some scenes, but not as furious as he can. These limitations can be for good, to keep movie's tone in check. And there are no reasons to break drama genre and go bizarre into even more comedic and crazier tone. Because comedy is a pretty usual thing in this flick. Cage's character Terence McDonagh is a drug addict, very reactionary, he is frightening at times, because of what he is capable of, but inside he is a good , selfish person, who just seeks a way out. He has this back problem, taking pills, which aren't helping, he basically takes his own medicine ,using cocaine mostly with his prostitute girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes). After a group homicide of several immigrants Detective McDonagh is assigned to investigate. This and his personal problems lead this character into an interesting ending. Watching the movie you can't dislike Terence, the direction is really effective to make us care about, at first look, a scum like McDonagh. The plot goes many unexpected ways. Thanks to screenwriter William M. Finkelstein, who definitely wrote an engaging script.

After loosing the main witness for immigrant's case, McDonagh goes rogue, uniting with the drug-boss, to make some quick money in order to pay debts and save his girlfriend from what she got herself into. That lead to a group of absolutely unexpected events that are not to be estimated anyhow. Nic Cage's character is that chemical element, provoking those events as he becomes a completely different person throughout the film.

The humor in this film is one special part that I enjoyed the most. Not only McDonagh is a guy who threatens helpless old people, but does it with style, and with script's emotional help by making those old people not only victims but villains in that scene, which is it absolutely funny, because emotionally you expect and want McDonagh to do so.

There no much action in this film, at some point it becomes a little fantasy of a drug addict. Moments of him, seeing dancing sole and stuff like that makes this movie even more bizarre, but Herzog doesn't overuse scenes like that, so to make this movie a good combination of drama, comedy and addict's fantasy.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

The second movie isn't as good as the original, but still has the same greatness in its core.

[9/10 · 8 May 2017]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The sequel to the great and already classic first Guardians of the Galaxy which became absolutely one of the best in its genre. James Gunn also written and directed the second movie, as he did with the first one.

This film is a continuation of the first Guardians of the Galaxy storyline, in which guardians are mercenaries, who work for money or something else of value. The came back to what they all know how to do, but now they have a name and their services are special.

The Sovereign had their home planet attacked by an Abilisk that was wreaking havoc on the world and trying to eat the planet's power source. Believing it to be beneath them to fight it themselves, their leader Ayesha hired the Guardians of the Galaxy to kill the beast in exchange for Nebula, who was captured by the Sovereign attempting to steal Anulax Batteries.

The action in this movie moves the story very well, as after the job well done Rocket steals those batteries and all the Sovereign fleet is on their tail. Then they go to an asteroid field, so far it is more looks like an Empire Strikes Back narration, but even some posters are very much Star Warsish so to have at least a couple similarities in the movie. Indeed, this movie has similarities with Star Wars in pace and a little in its storytelling. Great that all that fleet of autopilot Sovereign ships are destroyed by one mysterious man who appeared from nowhere just after Quill's ship was about to be destroyed.

Many great dialogs, a great premise of funniness and smart talk from Drax, or Rocket, interacting with Baby Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel, the humor is entertaining and hooking, it is built up by many good dialogs after which all the jokes make sense. From the start the atmosphere is the same just as in the first movie, but the scenes are showed with more advanced technology in cinematography which made the beginning a little new, more looking like higher budget film already. More attention is focused on Baby Groot, his new personality, what he is right now and how cute he might be. There are a lot of CGI and visual effects in this film, sometimes more than it was required. And one of the biggest differences from the first movie is that everything seems so expensive in the second one. To the end it felt like required for that terrain and circumstances CGI was overused. Vol. 2 lost in atmosphere to be more relying on fun and entertainment. But after all the movie still feels like the original Guardians.

Exploring Quill's parentage appeared to very fun, his father is a very complicated dude, there is a lot to be explored about him and the whole history of his origin in the movie. Peter and Gamora are still unsure about their relationship with each other, it is also explored in the film. One of the biggest parts of the movie is the ravagers, their code, which Yondu broke by kidnapping children. There are many clans of ravagers, it is a one big family led by Sylvester Stallone's Stakar Ogord. His role is more like a cameo, looking on what little screen time he had, he still made it fun and had a couple cool lines. This how James Gunn explores the Marvel Cosmic Universe, it became more big and wide-ranged, many more things are to be explored next. Some characters had such a wonderful development. Yondu is such an interesting character. He raised little Peter for good. Nebula is a great character as well. How it is to be raised by Thanos, more terrible details about that and her relationship with Gamora. A lot of emotional feelings to all those stories we have seen or heard about in those two movies, as James Gunn makes it all connected and actually also brings his great storytelling with his hidden philosophy just as he did in the first one, where he had drama, action, comedy and space-opera in one movie with many issues that he addresses to massive audience.

The second film does it all, but the pacing was a little bit more rough, some advantages of the first movie were sacrificed to bring more jokes and crazy good moments. The villain is not disappointing, but pretty much like Ronan The Accuser, very serious, but also to be made fun of sometimes. And really ,Guardians always make fun of their villains, but this one will be too powerful to be actually funny, while destroying the Galaxy. Ronan was funny, with his too over-the-top serious lines, maybe because he was too serious he was beaten, but this villain, in GOTG Vol. 2 is not. Not to spoil anything, but there are more, than was shown in the trailers, much more, so can't talk about villains a lot in this movie. But this one is horrifying in its convictions.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 of cause has a beautiful soundtrack. Peter Quill is that motor that aggregates common jokes, referencing to some older TV shows or singers from Earth. Overall, this whole thing is about saving the Galaxy again, but also about family and friendship, brotherhood. The second movie isn't as good as the original, but still has the same greatness in its core.