Top 5 Moments From Comic-Con 2014

Now that Comic-Con is over and I’ve had a week to reflect on my experiences, I thought I would share my top 5 moments from this year’s show. Looking back on the week, most of my favorite moments were impromptu or surprises. My list showcases how important it is to be flexible and open to happenings around you. Without further ado, here are my favorite moments from 2014 San Diego Comic-Con:

5) Nintendo Lounge – Building on their success from last year’s lounge, Nintendo’s setup was similar to last year’s except it had more upcoming titles, fun tournaments, and speed runs going on all weekend. As someone that hasn’t bought a WiiU yet, I was happy to get my hands on a couple of upcoming titles that excited me and may have convinced me to purchase one in the future. The speed runs and tournaments brought a sense of excitement to the crowd. The lounge was packed most of the weekend but the majority of demo stations didn’t have very long wait periods. It was also a great place to get streetpasses from other Nintendo 3DS owners.

4) Paramount panel – Since Paramount didn’t announce what they were bringing to Comic-Con this year, there was little buzz going into the panel on Thursday. By doing this, Paramount exceeded expectations and had quite a few big surprises. Two of the biggest moments were Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson entering Hall H through the crowd and gaving his legendary wrestling line, “Finally, The Rock has come back to Comic-Con” and Matthew McConaughey and Christopher Nolan showing the new trailer to their movie “Interstellar”. The Rock had such stage presence and had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Christopher Nolan and Matthew McConaughey had never been to Comic-Con so that was a big moment. Not to mention that the Interstellar trailer was the best one I saw all weekend.

3) Xbox Lounge – Microsoft had a huge presence at Comic-Con this year. They not only had a booth on the show floor but also had the Xbox Lounge in the nearby Grand Hyatt hotel. The lounge felt like a mini E3 with loads of upcoming games available to play. They even had a stage for developers to show live demos of their games that weren’t playable. I found myself spending a lot of time there when I wasn’t on the show floor and went hands-on with a number of upcoming titles.

2) Video Games Live concert – On Thursday night, I was able to attend the Video Game Live concert with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. It was a beautiful night with some beautiful, nostalgic music. As someone that grew up on video games, it was so cool to relive games I played through their soundtracks. It was a good break from the craziness of Comic-Con and I hope to make it something I do every year.

1) WB TV screenings – I have to hand it to Warner Bros. for not only playing all three of its pilots to the Comic-Con audience, but also bringing the casts of Gotham, The Flash, Constantine, and Arrow on stage for a panel. It was the largest panel ever in Hall H. Stephen Amell (Green Arrow) hosted the panel and you could sense his excitement. All the attendees also got a nice swag bag with popcorn, water, a comic, and an exclusive t-shirt inside.

This year’s Comic-Con went surprising well. I was able to get into almost all the panels I wanted and had a great time meeting new friends and old. I can’t wait to see what next year will bring.

Guardians of the Galaxy Review

A thief, two thugs, an assassin, and a maniac team together to fight evil in the galaxy. Sounds like a great premise for a movie. Now, what if I told you one is a tree that can only say three words and another is a talking raccoon that loves guns? Crazy, right? Well, that tree and raccoon steal the show in Guardians of the Galaxy, the newest installment in the Marvel cinematic universe. Not only is Guardians the funniest Marvel movie to date, it’s also one of my favorites of the year.

Chris Pratt headlines as Peter Quill, or as he would like to be called, Star Lord, a human from Earth that was picked up by Yondu (Michael Rooker) and brought to space as a junker. Junkers are sent around the galaxy gathering valuables to sell to the highest bidder. At the beginning of the movie, he steals an orb of unknown value and origin and finds that it’s of greater significance than first thought.

Peter Quill, along with the supporting cast of Gamora(Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), are all given enough back-story to understand their motivations yet the exposition doesn’t hold the film down. Instead, it soars though humor and one of the best soundtracks in years. Some of the songs used will forever be linked to moments in the film. They are almost the sixth member of the group and show how music is the universal language.

Pratt was perfectly cast as Peter Quill. He brings a loose, cool vibe to the team, not unlike Hans Solo did for Star Wars. But he is not the star of the film. As ridiculous as it sounds to non comic book readers, Rocket and Groot are the best part of the movie. Every time they are on screen, they are funny, doing something hilarious, or being badass. Groot also creates some of the most beautiful scenes in the movie. Every kid that sees Guardians will want all the Rocket and Groot merchandise their parents will buy them.

The antagonist, Ronan (Lee Pace), gives a good performance. He is menacing and looks great on screen. However, I did feel he was a bit underdeveloped and didn’t explain his motivations well. He did too much talking through exposition and not enough showing the audience his role in the galaxy. I also felt that Nebula (Karen Gillan), the daughter of Thanos and Gamora’ssister, was not used enough in the movie.

These are minor issues for a spectacular film. It has giant scope and even though most of the characters are aliens, they all have humanity to them. While Guardians probably won’t win many awards, I have not had a better time at the theatre this year. And sometimes that is what is most valuable. Guardians will make you smile, laugh, and feel. Take the family and get ‘Hooked on a Feeling’. You won’t regret it.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review

As the summer movie season winds down, there are only a few more blockbuster films left. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the sequel to the surprisingly well-done Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). While the entire human cast has been turned over, Andy Serkis is back to reprise his role as Caesar. Serkis’s performance was truly astounding and one of the best of the year.

 The story takes place in 2026, 10 years after the end of the previous film. The virus that was created to potentially cure human brain ailments, has spread across the world and wiped out all but a few who are genetically immune.  The film’s first 20 minutes are used to show how the apes have created their own home and community in the redwood forests. All communication is done via sign language and minimal spoken word.

 We later find out that the humans, who live in a desolate, abandoned San Francisco, are in dire need of a power source.  They need access to the dam near the home of the apes, which they intend to use as a power plant. Caesar agrees to allow the humans access and even agreed to help them.  Not all the other apes side with Caeser’s decision and a power struggle ensues.

 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (besides being a horrible name because wouldn’t the dawn happen before the rise? But I digress…) succeeds on so many levels. It is so visually astounding that I never questioned the authenticity of the apes.  It is remarkable what studios are able to do with current technology to create real characters within a computer that can emote through facial expressions. I also really enjoyed the performances of the human group, especially Gary Oldman (Dreyfus) and Jason Clarke (Malcolm).

 The director, Mat Reeves, who is a relative newcomer to directing, does a great job showing the size and scale of the apes’ home with sweeping shots, yet still keeping the heart of the movie intact by focusing of the eyes and expressions on the apes.  You feel for the apes and what they have gone through, not through words but emotions shown on screen. Michael Giacchino’s score is also a standout. Movie scores are typically a difficult mix, as you want them to be heard but not overpower. Giacchino’s score walks this line by providing emotional weight without being too heavy handed.

 I hope Serkis will get credit for his performance as well as the effects team, but I also think Toby Kebbell deserves praise for his performance as the antagonist, Koba. Kebbell is new to the motion capture game but still delivers a performance worthy of recognition. I feel like we have finally crossed the line with visual effects to a world where we as the audience don’t know what is real and what is computer generated. It is time we reward the actors for their performances underneath the pixels.

I was skeptical if this sequel would be able to meet the quality of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I believe that Dawn not only meets Rise, but also surpasses it. Dawn has more stakes, more scale, and more heart.  I highly recommend seeing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It is a movie for everyone and I believe it is one of the best films of the summer.

Snowpiercer Review

During the summer blockbuster season, there are few films that manage to surprise. Snowpiercer has been released with little fanfare and managed to create buzz and surprise despite its limited release. Staring Chris Evans of Captain America fame and directed by Bong Joon-Ho, Snowpiercer is a movie not to be missed.

The movie takes place after a failed experiment to fix the global warming of Earth. The entire world becomes frozen and uninhabitable after the release of a chemical meant to cool the Earth’s temperatures back to normal levels. The story takesplace entirely on a train that is perpetually traveling around a world where the only survivors are the people aboard the train. A class system is implemented to create order within the confined train cars. Evans plays Curtis Everett who leads a mutiny for the poor against the elites. Tilda Swinton plays Mason, one of the elites put in charge of keeping the poor in order by the train owner Wilford (Ed Harris). I won’t spoil what happens but the rest of film follows the revolt as it moves towards the front of the train to confront Wilford and bring fair treatment to the tail section. Curtis wants to correct the class system and get answers from Wilford about why the poor have been held down all these years.

Snowpiercer feels like Truman Show and Les Misérablesmeets Hunger Games and has great pacing throughout the film. You are always eager to see what will happen next and you are constantly surprised by where the narrative goes. There are great performances by the entire cast but especially Evans and Swinton. Swintongives a haunting performance that I hope gets recognition during award season. They are both captivating in their respective roles.  The cinematography is striking, especially during a slow motion fight scene in the middle on the film. The ending did fall a little flat for me but that is a small complaint compared to all the memorable moments that happen throughout the rest of the movie. 

Snowpiecer is the anti-Transformers movie. It is memorable, grounded, and thought-provoking. It moves at a brisk pace while still developing the characters. If you’re tired of watching mindless movies full of explosions this summer, I can’t recommend Snowpiercerenough. Seek out this movie, you won’t regret it.

Transformers: Age of Extinction Review

The Transformers movies have become a summer staple, grossing just over $1 Billion dollars worldwide. Now in its 4th installment, Transformers: Age of Extinction, the entire cast has been overhauled. Even with this change, Michael Bay doesn’t stray from the same tired formula that raked in the money on the previous films. There is lots of dude/bro action, a damsel in distress, horrible dialog, and most of the cast playing extreme caricatures. While fun at times, it is hard to overlook the glaring problems.

Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) is an inventor/tech expert from middle of nowhere Texas who happens upon the broken down version of Optimus Prime. Cade is able to revive him, because of course, Optimus is found by someone with the exact skill set needed to fix him. The plot revolves around humans becoming the enemy to the Autobots and Optimus has to get the band back to together to stop the humans from murdering the Autobots one by one. It is actually a pretty cool premise and directly relates to the destruction of Chicago in the previous film. Unfortunately, this premise is poorly executed. The only praise I can give this movie is that it is the longest movie I’ve seen this year at 2 hours and 45 minutes of unedited footage. There was so much in this movie but what it needed most was an editor. Maybe the editor could have cut out all of the obvious product placement throughout the movie such as Cade stopping to drink a Bud Light while the city is being attacked or a Beats Pill speaker being shoved in your face.

The movie was funny at times but for all the wrong reasons. The dialog got a number of laughs, all of which were not intentional. We meet four characters from Texas: Cade with a Boston accent, his friend/business partner who is a surfer (because who wouldn’t want to surf those renowned waves in the middle of Texas), Cade’s daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) who has no accent, and her boyfriend who has an Irish accent for some reason. Cade is not only a struggling inventor but also a horrible parent. Why he decides to bring his daughter along for this extremely dangerous adventure is beyond me.

The group travels to Chicago to find the company that is helping the US government destroy the Autobots and build new transformers for them to control. The government has aligned with a tech company run by the worst on screen version of Steve Jobs, which is conveniently located in Chicago, to help them build the new transformers out of a new material called…wait for it…transformium. The government official, played by Kelsey Grammer, also has an agreement with another alien transformer, Lockdown, who wants to capture Optimus. How that meeting happened was of course never explained. I’m guessing he just rang him on his alien cell phone and they hashed out the details.

Tessa plays the same role all the women do in Michael Bay movies, a hot damsel that can do little but be pretty and run away. Even running away is a problem for her as in one sequence she falls down four times after taking a few steps because running is hard sometimes. She is a 17 year old character dating a 20 year old guy that carries a laminated copy of the “Romeo and Juliet Law” in his wallet to justify the statutory rape in their relationship. So, he’s a real winner and a guy that a dad would meet and want to take on this adventure with his daughter. Again, Cade is just waiting to receive that father of the year award.

Michael Bay still hasn’t learned from his previous Transformer films as the group of Autobots consists of more racial stereotypes and they are just as offensive. There is a Samurai Autobot that has broken English and he even brings back Brains, the mini robot who sounds like he is straight out of Compton and was the source of many complaints in the last Transformers movie.

The Dinobots do make an appearance for the first time in the Transformers series but not until very late in the film. Seeing them was some of the only enjoyment I had in the last hour of the film. Unfortunately, it is far too little too late. If you love the previous Transformers, camera upshots and American flags in almost every shot then maybe you will enjoy Age of Extinction. I found that the only thing that went extinct was my time and a few brain cells.