MOVIE REVIEW: Warcraft

I had never played Warcraft before and I know that films that are based on video games are mostly a miss. However when I found out that Duncan Jones aka David Bowie's director son who made two of the outstanding indie sci-fi hits in recent years: Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal and Moon with Sam Rockwell, my curiosity and expectation with Warcraft became increasingly high to find out if Jones can succeed with his first big budgeted flick.

I did some background research of the game first before watching. The battle never ends on Azeroth with the human and the orcs competing against each other to live. Unfortunately, the movie has too many characters that we are inclined to follow at every step. That can also be said about the X-Men movies but unlike the Marvel franchise, the Warcraft ones are written poorly that in the end we moviegoers don't give a damn about since unlike the game, we aren't the ones playing.

At some point, Warcraft aims for Lord of the Rings grandeur but the CGI simply overpowers everything and instead of replicating the Oscar winning trilogy of Peter Jackson, Warcraft turned out to be more like the other trilogy: The Hobbit.

MOVIE REVIEW: X-Men: Apocalypse

The third part of the X-Men reboot is set ten years later after 2014's Days of Future Past, 1983 to be exact and as the title suggests the world's about to end as one religious group was able to unleash the first mutant Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) after being betrayed and trapped underneath ancient Egypt. He consumes power from other mutants and is ready for world domination and to destroy humanity as a whole.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are both back reprising their roles as Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto respectively. The two hold their own in a movie filled with lots of characters that can get confusing at times but not like in  the previous film with the old and the younger versions of the mutants join together. Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique, perhaps due to her stature as one of the biggest Hollywood actresses is more of a heroine than a villain in the film - it works!! Nicholas Hoult (Beast) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) are also here in the third installment.

Isaac always had the magnetic presence whether as the titular character in his breakout role in Inside Llewyn Davis and as the hero Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Unfortunately, he is covered with tons of make up as Apocalypse diminishing his star value and at some point the character looks like a typical villain in a bad sci-fi B movie. 

X-Men: Apocalypse is one of the entertaining action packed films in the series. It does not top the greatness of 2011's X-Men: First Class which for me is the best in the franchise but it sure is worth the money and the time to enjoy

it on the big screen.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Angry Birds Movie

The first animated film based on a game app of the smartphone generation, The Angry Birds Movie is made with those who had played the game in mind. Like most of us, if you are familiar with it, you will easily be entertained and know some references in the film. The creators upped up the prestige factor by casting some of the finest actors around to do the voice work. Jason Sudeikis is Red, the lead character: a red bird with some extreme anger issues that forced him to be isolated on Bird Island. Danny McBride is Bomb, the bird who detonates when mad, Josh Gad more popularly known as the voice of Olaf in Disney's blockbuster Frozen as the fast and speedy Chuck  and just like in real life when he made the headlines because of his temper, two time Academy Award Winner Sean Penn is perfect as Terence, a big red bird with issues. Together the four bond together when Pigs visit the Island with suspicious intentions. Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Peter Dinklage and Keegan Michael-Key complete the outstanding voice ensemble which makes The Angry Birds Movie notches above other films based on video games.

The animation is gorgeous with color palettes blended perfectly well and the jokes are for all age demographics from the harmless to one or two that are as green as the pigs color. 

The Angry Birds Movie exceeded my expectations and it is an hour and 40 minutes well spent with the family and friends.