Neon Synopsis

Bridge to Teribithia movie review

Beware! Possible spoilers below!

So i was on Reddit and was reminded that I wanted to see this movie for a while. Leslie’s death was spoiled for me on Reddit, but i honestly forgot about that spoiler until she actually died.

But once again, I started this movie expecting something else.

When this movie came out, i remember hearing people compare it to Narnia and call it a rip-off. I guess that’s what I expected when I started watching it - another type of Narnia story.

It wasn’t. At least, not to the same lever. That’s two movies this weekend that I started watching expecting something else (the other was Pan’s Labyrinth).

Over all, I liked it. Since I came in thinking there would be more magic, i spent sometime wondering when magic will start happening. And it did, naturally, but still not the Narnia level I was expecting.

Otherwise, I really liked the slice of life bits. The story was made believable, which made me happy. That meant I didn’t have to trick myself in order to comfortably sit through the movie.

I was a bit confused when towards the middle/end the producers brought in church and God and hell. In looking back, that should have been my cue to remember the spoiler, but I was too confused by the introduction of religion. The whole beginning of movie went by without one mention of religion or God, and now suddenly we find out that Jess and his entire family are pretty religious. Honestly, I felt like this was a cop out to make the father/son moment at the end, in the forest work. You can’t have a father/son talk about heaven and hell without previously mentioning their beliefs. Still, that threw me off. I believe they could have handled Jess’s sadness in a different way.

When Leslie did die, I was actually pretty surprised. What was the point of killing her off? To show the contrast between reality and imagination that Jess’s dad was already showing? Was she killed off just for the religious speech at the end? Leslie helped Jess grow stronger in his imagination, and not fear it. But it’s not like Jess was completely hopeless in the beginning. So, what was the point of introducing Leslie just so that she could die? Her death didn’t amount to anything more than the religious talk with his dad and building the bridge across the river and inviting his little sister. So, what was the point?

I’d recommend people watch it because it was good, and i really enjoyed the kids’ acting. Have Kleenex ready though. 

4/5

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman Review

Beware! Spoilers ahead!

(picture found on Google).

This is a tough one to review! I can’t say that I absolutely loved it (it’s not exactly my cup of tea…) but i have to admit that it is quite magnificent. It’s not fast paced, at least I didn’t think so, but I finished it fairly quickly. Neil Gaiman has this way of writing that I can’t exactly put my finger on. When I was describing this book to a friend, the closest example I could come up with is the feeling you get on one of those days, where you feel…brain dead. You’re not depressed or upset or happy or angry, your thoughts keep swirling around and around. I can’t find an adjective that appropriately describes this feeling. It’s as if his work gives me so many feelings that my brain and my heart don’t know which one to focus on first!

That’s not to say that the book was boring and left me with no feels (oh, I had plenty of those for the next few days!) but the way the emotions in the book were blended was absolutely spectacular! It’s one of the things that attracts me to Gaiman’s writing; when I read his work, the character’s emotions flow smoothly. It’s not a roller coaster ride - more like smooth sailing or cruising down a winding road. If you’re looking for a drama, this isn’t it. This is something much more that hits you much deeper.

I think above everything I enjoyed the bitter-sweet humor the most. The one liners, the well placed jokes… while reading, I felt as if I was side by side with Richard, walking in a foggy state - not quite believing what was happening. But in the end, I too would have chosen London Below.

I recommend Gaiman to everyone wanting to try something new. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a style such as his. His work might be hard for some to get through (like i said, this wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, so it may not be someone elses) but if you’re looking to broaden your mind and literary exposure, Neverwhere is a good place to start.

Rating: 4/5

Percy Jackson & The Olympians Series Review

Beware: Spoilers!

(Image copyrighted to respectful owners. Image found on Google)

Author: Rick Riordan

I decided to review all 5 books together (aside from the first one, which was half reviewed and half compared to the movie in an earlier post), since this series has already been completed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the series. I do have to admit that I had trouble getting through the first book. In my opinion, The Lightning Thief was still more of a draft. It wasn’t too exciting and I bit bland for my taste. In all honesty, if I hadn’t already taken out the second book and had it laying on my desk when I finished the first one, I would have probably never kept on reading. 

I liked the other 4 books much more. I thought that the plot and style of writing continually improved until the very end. Where as the first book seemed too baby-ish, the rest were presented in a more…solid? manner.

I have to admit that the ages of the characters confused me. Percy is 12 in the first book and ages a year during each sequel. However, what threw me off is the amazing insight and deep thought that Percy and the other characters presented. Yes, they are  demigods, but their wisdom, understanding and insight was over the top. Throughout the series, I kept picturing the main characters’ ages to hover somewhere around 15-17. Heck, when Nico di Angelo was introduced and said to be 10 years old all was a-okay until he suddenly had his mental growth spurt in the 3rd and 4th book. Seriously. It’s like the kid aged a good 5 years.

Basically, I have a bone to pick with Rick’s choice for the characters’ ages.

I also had to *tsk* to myself when it was revealed that Kronos had power over time. Kronos is a Titan - Chronos is the personification of time. Not a big deal, but it made me mentally face palm.

I kept on hoping that the Greek Gods would appear more, especially the kinder ones (Hermes, Apollo, Hephaestus, Poseidon…) but whenever any appeared, it was the ones I wanted to slap. I remember hating on Artemis when she first appeared - I think her feminist ways are ridiculous; Ares was kind of a given - seeing as he’s the god of war and bloodlust (though I liked his Roman counterpart much more); I thought Aphrodite was a bitch, and still do. Her comment about gaining enjoyment from pairing people up and then breaking them apart made me want to punch her. Zeus was a dick. Period. Athena and Hera were just very full of themselves. Hera’s part in Heroes of Olympus made me hate her so. damn. much. Hades was okay. I wish we got to see more of him. His fight with Zeus and Maria di Angelo’s death nearly broke my heart. All that pain and suffering of numerous people because Zeus was a dick. Demeter and Persephone made me want to slap myself. Dionysus is also a dick, but a different kind of dick from Zeus. How apathetic can you be!?

As for the kinder gods, I wished we saw more of them. Riordan really humanized them and made them more…eh…understandable? I felt for them. I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the minor gods in Heroes of Olympus. That should be fun.

I do hope the crueler gods get their just deserts. Especially Zeus and Hera. Their feeling of self-importance ruined quite a few lives. Not much would be bring me such pleasure as seeing these two getting their asses whooped somehow. Seriously. No joke.

I have to admit I hoped Luke wouldn’t die and go good side. But now that he’s gone, I hope, hope, HOPE he stays gone in Heroes of Olympus.

I do have to wonder if anyone ever thought about helping out poor Mary Castellan. I’d think Dionysus would’ve been able to cure her madness, no? And technically shouldn’t it have been lifted when Hades’s curse was lifted from the Oracle? Hm.

The Prophecies made me laugh. I had most of them figured out when they were introduced. One thing that pissed me off were all the secrets. Most of the issues/problems could have been solved without casualties had Chiron, Annabeth, Percy and others just spilled the beans. Ugh. So many unnecessary deaths.

Er, I think this is it. For now. I feel like there was more I wanted to mention, but that might just be my shipping-wars thoughts. Oh well. I’ll update if I remember anything else that’s relevant.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10 (upped the max. 5/5 is too high, 4/5 is too low)

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Book and Movie) Review

BEWARE SPOILERS.

 by Rick Riordan

Naturally, my obsession with (Greek) mythology dictates that I (finally) jump on the Percy Jackson bandwagon. Though in all honesty, I’ve been meaning to re-watch the movie ever since Jake Abel = Adam Milligan = Luke. And Jake Abel = <3 <3 <3

I’ll start off with the book review first.

Only reviewing book 1 (The Lightning Thief) right now, because it’s the only book I’ve read so far, and because there’s a movie to compare it to.

I like it. It feels a bit childish now, but I know I would have absolutely loved it a few years back. I didn’t jump on the bandwagon back then because I was completely uninterested in mythology. My childhood was all about fantasy and magic. Godless magic.

I felt that the book flowed very quickly, very nicely. The plot made sense. Loose ends got tied up nicely, and the author managed to keep the ending open for sequels. 

In all honesty, through the narration of the book, I didn’t see Percy as a 12-year-old. He felt much older. I also liked how he was so realistic (minus the demigod powers, of course). He cries over his mother, he is sometimes impulsive, and he stays true to his heart. I really like that.

At this point, I’m not head-over-heels into it, I’m mostly reading to cross it off my “to read” list. We’ll see where I stand after book 2.

And now for the movie::

Personally, I thought the movie and the book are comparable in terms that both are good without the other. In this case, I have to say that I liked the book more only because it got deeper into the plot. I think they did a decently good job with the movie. 

I’ve googled responses and was very surprised to see the amount of hate for the movie. Why? Because they made it a click pen instead of a capped one? Because they took out Ares, Kronos, Naiads, Dionysus, the Oracle and the like and inserted Persephone? Seriously? Rick Riordan made a nice, open ending, although he most likely knew whether he would be writing a sequel. Movies don’t work like that. Will this make it harder to make sequels, since they will start diverging from the books more and more? Yes. But nevertheless, it was a very good adaptation.

If I had any issue with the movie, it was Annabeth’s sudden friendship with Percy and Grover’s mental strength as compared to the books. In the book, Annabeth’s friendship with Percy grew over time. Not too long, only about a week before they set off on a quest, but in the movie she was on best-friend terms, potential love interest in less than a day. I didn’t like that.

I also saw a lot of hate for Grover’s character. I have to agree, I didn’t really like his flirtatious attitude, but otherwise I felt he was pretty much on the mark as to how I imagined him.

The movie portrayed the antagonists quite a bit worse than the book did. Not sure how I felt about that. I know that i really liked how Percy felt sorry for Hades, Cerberus, even the Furies a little. So yeah.

Overall Rating: 4 / 5

Dogma (Movie) Review

BEWARE SPOILERS.

Why can’t we have ’90s humor back?

I liked the movie, overall. It was pretty funny and I liked the references. The plot was okay. It wasn’t gripping. The movie was meant to be satirical and comedic, so I’m perfectly fine with the predictable plot.

The acting was pretty good too. Admittedly, there were some parts where I had to sigh and think “Once again, no understandable back up for the outburst of emotion. Yay.”

Buddy Christ made up for everything though::

He made everything better. EVERYTHING.

As for the ’90s humor, I felt happy watching a movie where the characters were able to flirt so openly, say “sex”, “Fuck” and “rape” without an issue. I do admit that Jay’s continuous cussing got very, very annoying very, very quickly.

As for favorite characters, I liked Silent Bob, Metatron (heck yeah 13 years younger Snape!!), God and Serendipity. Metatron “impregnating” Bethany freaked me out though. Funny and creepy at the same time. Very creepy, little funny. :C

Overall Rating: 3.25 / 5

Captain America (Movie) Review

BEWARE SPOILERS.

 

Once again, I didn’t read the comic for this one so take my opinions with a little grain of salt.

Overall, I actually liked the movie. It wasn’t epic, wasn’t riveting or gripping, but it set the scene very well. I was actually surprised, because when this came out, way back when, my brother went to see it, and was pretty pissed when he came back, saying that it was absolute crap. I’ve heard mixed reviews ever since from other watchers.

Like I said, it wasn’t gripping and the characters weren’t terribly interesting (heck, I don’t even remember their names), but over all, plot wise, I thought it was good. At the very, very least, i thought it set the scene for Captain America’s return in The Avengers very nicely. It was good “background” movie.

I was slightly disappointed with the meh deaths of some of the characters. They weren’t touching, didn’t make me tear up. Granted, I saw Steve’s and Peggy’s tragedy coming since the first 3 minutes, when they found him frozen in the plane, but I thought that the producers could have tried a bit more to make it more sad.

Bucky’s death was a complete…eh…ripoff? Maybe it was the acting, maybe the lines, but I felt less pain for Bucky (and Steve) than i did for Peggy and Steve. Maybe I’ve just been around the “tragedy” genre too much and know almost everyone way to tragically kill off a character and earn audiences’ tears.

In comparison to Thor, I like CA’s plot much, much more. It was consistent and made logical sense. It wasn’t fast paced but at least it made sense. However, where as in Thor I felt some slight connection with at least 2 of the characters, the characters in CA made me feel nothing. No pity, no understanding, no like, no dislike, but I’m chalking that up to never reading the comics. Even though it set the scene for CA’s return in The Avengers, I couldn’t care less if he actually did return, or not. Basically, the characters didn’t stick.

I’m big on the consistency and the amount of sense the plot makes (even more so than actor choice), so I’m rating Captain America a 3 / 5. Only slightly better than Thor. Only slightly.

Thor (Movie) Review

BEWARE OF SPOILERS.

I BLAME SUPERNATURAL. FOR EVERYTHING. :|

Long story short, SPN got me (deeper) into the supernatural, then into religion and mythology. Then Norse mythology. Now I’m currently looking up Greek myths.

Anyway.

I watched Thor to quench my Norse obsession. I heard many positive reviews and was recently able to get my hands on the movie. So, I gave it a shot.

Now, maybe it’s because I read up on Norse mythology quite a bit, or maybe because I never read the comics, but I was honestly pretty disappointed. This movie was originally suggested to me by my Homeroom teacher, a highly-respected, english teacher, comic/superhero buff, but I was honestly disappointed, and still can’t figure out how my teacher thought it was any good.

I have to admit, I’ve seen worse. But apart from Thor and Loki, no one else stuck. I understand that, yeah, they are the main characters and their story will be continued in The Avengers, but that doesn’t mean that you can do such a horrible job with the other characters!

My beef with the movie is this: No one stuck. No one “grew”, no one else made and impression. Heck, the acting was terrible too. What were the names of all the main-ish humans Thor met? What was his love-interest’s name? I have no clue. Why? They made no impression on me. Saying it was purely bad acting would be a lie; I thought, if anything, their random involvement in the plot was bad.

Well… the terrible acting made a negative impact too… :/

I liked Thor, Loki (and Heimdall, to a degree) the most. Something about them stuck: the actors, the characters, their roles. Not one managed all three, but still better than the others. 

Thor had the looks, and I’ll give him half a point for his acting. 

Loki (or, more accurately, Tom Hiddleston) pulled me in from the beginning, but even though I like his acting, his lines and character development were TERRIBLE. His hate towards his family was unconvincing. Like, AT ALL. I think that his good acting actually helped the piss-poor development. The movie was based on his estrangement from his family when he finds out he is adopted, but my god did the writers do a horrible job conveying this. And to think, he’s coming back in The Avengers to continue his rebellion. How is he supposed to pull off a convincing villain in a mass-cross over, when he wasn’t able to do it in his own movie?!

In Heimdall’s case, I give him points for pulling off the character’s role, personality and what little lines/screen time he had.

Everyone else, though? Shame.

Odin? Convenient sleep. Convenient wake.

Frigga? Convenient supporting mother, that obviously does not have enough influence over either of her sons.

Sif and Warriors Three: Convenient childhood love interest and convenient faithful friends to help Thor (and overthrow Loki). AND THEY STILL SUCKED IN THEIR FIGHTS.

Jane? Convenient main love interest that is able to break through to the inner Thor.

Darcy? Convenient token joke friend.

Selvig? Convenient voice of reason.

Destroyer? CONVENIENT FLAMING ROBOT THAT LOKI CONVENIENTLY HAS. CONVENIENT DISTRUCTION OF TOWN. CONVENIENT FIGHTING FAIL BY THOR’S FRIENDS AND CONVENIENT RE-OBTAINMENT OF MJOLNIR.

HOLY, that was ALOT of convenience (and fail).

So yeah. Pretty damn disappointed, overall. At this point, the only reason I will see Avengers is to see more eye-candy that is Tom Hiddleston and Edward Anthony as Tony Stark. 

Rating: 2.5 / 5

Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book”

So I thought I would kick off my summary/review/critique blog with a book that I finished reading… about 20 minutes ago.

That way, at least it is fresh in my mind.

(FYI, there ARE spoilers below).

Picked up this book two days ago at the library. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure what it was that I expected from it after reading the summary on the inside cover… On one hand, it is written by Neil Gaiman, for whom I’ve developed immense respect from the 20-something pages I’ve read of his Good Omens (i’ll be finishing it as soon as my bought copy arrives), so surely that meant that this would be an interesting read, right? On the other, I found the inside summary to be lacking. It’s come down to the fact that if the publishers cannot write a good, interesting, curious summary, I am likely to pass over the book (I’m set on breaking the habit soon though).

I guess, in the end, I decided to take it out because of all the positive reviews I’ve heard about the writer.

I’ve got to admit: I was an inch away, numerous times, from putting the book back into my backpack and finding something else to do. The beginning is not catchy, the plot is not riveting and the language was too dry for my taste. I think the reason I pushed through it was because I’ve read worse, and although this did not captivate me, it certainly did not repulse me (that and the fact that I hate not finishing books that I have started).

The book follows the early years of the main characters, Bod’s, life, and it wasn’t until he was older (about 3/4 of the way in) that the story began to actually move in set direction. Everything up until the point were separate encounters as he grew. I can’t say I minded the longer-than-necessary set up of Bod’s life, but the last 1/4 of the book felt a bit too rushed. Quite a bit was revealed in the last segment, and I would have honestly liked for the author to expand on the world in the book some more (that or a sequel).

It’s an odd feeling when you have serious trouble getting through the first half of the book but then are borderline desperate for more at the end.

Kudos for tying up the bigger loose ends, though. It’s a personal pet peeve of mine to have an author leave the loose ends hanging, which these were not.

I was disappointed with the ending though. It was common sense that Bod would have to leave his home sooner or later, but I thought that having him “grow out” of the Graveyard’s Protection was unnecessary. We’ve already established that Bod enjoyed being with humans, but there was no need for Gaiman to (figuratively) kick Bod out from the Graveyard. Bod could have, just as well, left on his own and kept the Protection.

Ah. Well. I guess I’m slightly biased against bittersweet endings.

The bottom line? I won’t be harassing my friends to read this, but I would love to discuss this book with fellow fans. It definitely won’t be dropped from my mind any time soon. :)