My Review: A Million Ways to Die in the West (5/10)

"I'm not the hero. I'm the guy in the crowd making fun of the hero's shirt; that's who I am."

A Million Ways to Die in the West is a comedy that fails at so many levels, but since I had gone into it with low expectations I wasn't really disappointed by it and found some of the scenes extremely funny. On paper this should have been the year's best comedy because it had an excellent cast and an interesting premise. MacFarlane proved he could direct a comedy in the big screen after the success he had with Ted (which I liked, but wasn't blown away by). The first major issue I had with the film was that despite its Western setting it never felt like any of the characters belonged to this world. My second issue was with Seth MacFarlane's performance. He is a funny man, but he is good at writing and doing voice work, not acting, and that was a major flaw in this film because he was one of the main characters and the way he delivered some of the jokes fell flat. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this comedy was that every time they were trying to get the story going and forcing some dialogue scenes they would try to add a poop or fart joke in there somewhere. It was way overdone. I can see how people might have been disappointed with this considering it had so much potential, and despite not liking this film I didn't think it was as terrible as many people claimed because at least it had some funny moments. Still, this is a rotten film and barely enjoyable because it's full of flaws and way too long.

Seth MacFarlane is talented doing voice work and writing some great jokes, but he has some problems with the delivery (something we saw when he hosted the Oscars a couple of years ago). He really hurt this film considering the rest of the cast was pretty funny. Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Charlize Theron, and Liam Neeson all give some funny performances and deliver a few laughs. My favorite moments were definitely the cameos (there were some great ones that had me laughing really hard, but I won't spoil them), and I also enjoyed the surprising death scenes and found them kind of hilarious. Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor, but those scenes worked for me. The rest of the film is just overlong and a bit tedious with several jokes that fall flat, making me feel the same way as the townspeople after hearing MacFarlane trying to deliver jokes and avoid getting killed during the duels: dead silence.

My Review: Wreck-It Ralph (9/10)

¨My name's Ralph and I'm a Bad Guy. I'm 9 feet tall. I weigh 643 pounds. Got a little bit of a temper on me.¨

Wreck-It Ralph is my favorite animated film from 2012. It reminded me a lot of Toy Story, only this time the characters that come to life aren’t toys, but video game heroes and villains. The characters are really well developed and everyone who enjoys playing video games will love this movie. Adults will also enjoy it as the film gives us a sense of nostalgia and love for some of the older games. The graphics of the movie are all really cool; especially the scenes that take place in the ¨Sugar Rush¨ game. The Sugar Rush game has some similarities with Mario Kart and the Wreck-it Ralph game with the original Donkey Kong game. It’s really hard not to fall in love with these characters, especially with Ralph and Vanellope who shared a wonderful connection together. I think that it was a plus that the actors’ recorded their characters´ voices together in the studio because you could really feel the connection between them, unlike in most other animated films. This led to some extremely funny dialogues which were probably mostly improvised. The flow of the movie was much better this way and I really enjoyed it. I hope it wins the Oscar for best animated film because it was much better than the competition. I also loved the short film, Paperman, that was released with this film. A wonderful short story that helped set the nostalgic mood for Wreck-It Ralph.

Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is the villain of his arcade game Wreck-it Ralph. His mission in the game is to wreck an apartment complex which Fix-it Felix Jr. (Jack McBrayer from 30 Rock) tries to fix, therefore making Felix the hero and beloved character. When the arcade game shuts down at night, these characters come to life inside their games and they can travel to other games inside the arcade through the machine´s electrical plug. There is a ¨Game Central Station¨ where the characters can travel from one game to another and therefore Ralph decides to go to a meeting with other villains from other known video games to express his feelings. He is tired of being the bad guy and wants everyone to like him so he doesn’t have to be on his own. In order to become a hero, he decides to enter another game and try to win a medal so he can prove to the rest of the characters that he can be a hero. He suffers an accident inside one of the video games and ends up in Sugar Rush where he meets Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) who happens to be a glitch inside her game. They discover they share a lot of things in common like being an outcast so they become friends and decide to help each other out on their mission to be accepted.

I thought the plot was pretty ingenious and I loved the world that was created by director Rich Moore and his team. Moore is mostly known for directing some Futurama and The Simpsons TV episodes. He made some really memorable characters and I think the improvising between the actors added more funny moments and heart to the film. I really loved this story and the world they created through these videogames - some invented and others authentic like Pac Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, Zangief from Street Fighter, Bowser from Mario Bros, Q´Bert, Paperboy, and Tapper who all have some cameo appearances that fans will enjoy. I also have to give a lot of credit to Sarah Silverman who did an excellent job with her character. I loved the way she delivered each line and made her character so loveable. I think her performance was the highlight of the movie. The chemistry with John C. Reilly was incredible as they shared a lot of lines together. I also thought McBrayer was really good voicing Felix, and Jane Lynch the same with Calhoun, the general from another videogame called Hero´s Duty. Overall I have to say I really loved this movie and found it entertaining. I absolutely recommend it.

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My Review: Take this Waltz (3/10)

¨Life has a gap in it, it just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it.¨

Thanks to Take this Waltz, I`ve found my worse film of 2012 so far. This is a movie that looked extremely good in the trailers, but didn’t work at all for me as a film. The movie had some beautiful shots, the scenery was incredible, there were some strong performances as well, but the story just didn’t work for me and it never felt believable for one moment. Just because this film manages to break all the romantic genre conventions doesn’t mean that it`s going to be good. I never felt the chemistry between any of the characters, and everything just seemed forced. This is Sarah Polley`s second feature film after her successful 2006 movie, Away From Her, which won several awards and also received two Oscar nominations (one for Polley as a screenwriter and another for Julie Christie`s leading performance). Polley also wrote the depressive screenplay for Take this Waltz where a married woman struggles to remain faithful to her husband after meeting a very attractive young man who just happens to live in the road across from them. Michelle William`s character really had several issues and I just found her behavior extremely rare. Her relationship with her husband was more of a playful friendship than anything else. I don`t know what her neighbor found interesting in her as she behaved awkwardly all the time. I found this movie hard to follow as I couldn’t connect, sympathize, or relate with any of the characters. The entire movie just dragged for an entire two hours and if it wasn’t for some beautiful photography I would`ve hated this movie even more.

Margot (Michelle Williams) is a writer who is on a trip working on her assignment when she meets an artist named Daniel (Luke Kirby). Both of them happen to share seats in the airplane flight back home to Toronto and sparks seem to fly between them. Coincidentally when they arrive and share a taxi together they realize that they live across the street from each other. Margot tells Luke that she`s married and they say their goodbyes. Margot enters her home and we are introduced to her husband, Lou (Seth Rogen), who is a loving and friendly husband. He is a cook and is working on a cookbook with different chicken recipes. Lou and Margot`s relationship is strange however, Margot is distance at times and acts like a teenager. Both of them are very playful, but she seems to have some sort of psychological disorder. Margot begins feeling like something is missing in her life and begins spending more time with Daniel as she feels physically attracted to him. She begins to feel conflicted and guilty because she realizes this and doesn’t want to cheat on her husband. This pretty much summarizes a plot where almost nothing else happens outside of Margot`s world and the tension she faces between choosing to stay with Lou or giving in to her feelings towards Daniel.

I was really looking forward to this film because the trailer seemed really interesting and the critics have been praising this film, but I was really disappointed with the way things turned out. I did not like the story at all, and felt Michelle Williams`s character was annoying. It was painful to watch her at times. I did not feel the chemistry between her and Luke Kirby at all, everything felt forced. I must say Seth Rogen is probably the best in this film and it was interesting to see him in a dramatic role. Sarah Silverman also has a supportive role in this film, and her character is way more interesting than Michelle`s. Too bad Polley didn’t decide to make the story revolve around her instead. The only positive thing I can say about Take this Waltz is that it has some beautiful shots, the photography was great, and the soundtrack was actually really good, but the rest of the movie failed tremendously. This is the worst film I`ve seen this year and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

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