darknightrisese-blog - Tumblr blog

[darknightrisese-blog]

'Toy Story 4' movie review: the fourth film is a satisfying ending to the Pixar franchise

Woody, Buzz, and the rest of gang have come a long way since they first made their way onto our screens – and into our hearts – in 1995’s Toy Story. From creepy next-door neighbours and greedy toy store owners to tearaway toddlers and evil teddy bears, they’ve seen it all.

Most of us thought we’d said goodbye to the franchise forever with 2010’s Toy Story 3, which saw Andy (John Morris) go off to college and the toys get a new loving home with Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw). While it felt like a pretty satisfying ending, the creators at Pixar felt that Woody’s (Tom Hanks) narrative arc wasn’t quite yet complete.

Admittedly, they were right. Viewers who are skeptical that there is still a story left to tell with these characters should know better than to doubt a studio that rarely puts a foot wrong. Not only does Toy Story 4 feel fresh, with a well-crafted plot and cast of new characters, it also feels like a natural progression of the original characters’ journey, taking them in a direction that is unexpected and exciting, yet could just as easily be where they were headed all along.

Toy Story 4

Top summer movies 2019: From Toy Story 4 to The Lion King, here are the hottest blockbusters coming out this summer

As the toys adjust to life in Bonnie’s bedroom, Woody is struggling to figure out exactly what his role is in this new domain. He can’t help but reminisce about his “golden years” with Andy, back when he was still a favourite toy. Bonnie’s favourite toy, meanwhile, is an art-and-crafts project she made during her first day at kindergarten by sticking some googly eyes on a plastic fork. Forky (Tony Hale) – as Bonnie christens him – needs a lot of convincing that he is no longer trash, and the ever-dutiful Woody takes up the task of mentoring him.  

The latest addition to Bonnie's room is Forky, an arts-and-crafts toy made of an old plastic spork. Photo: Disney/Pixar

It is while he is knee-deep in parenting duties that Woody is reunited with an old flame – Bo Peep (Annie Potts), whom we haven’t seen since Toy Story 2. Now we get to find out how Bo was separated from the rest of the group, and what she has been up to in the years since.

As it turns out, she’s been through quite the transformation. For one thing, her reappearance will make you realise just how far computer animation has come over the years. She is far more realistically rendered than she was in the first two films – but that’s not the only radical difference. 2019 Bo Peep is brimming with street smarts and charisma – porcelain she may be, but fragile she is most definitely not. She shows Woody that there is a big wide world beyond a child’s bedroom, and gradually, helps him find a new purpose in life.

[darknightrisese-blog]

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises: Ends with a Shrug, Not a Bang

It’s hard to say if anything would have lived up to the expectations we had after the phenomenon of The Dark Knight, but we can’t sit here and argue about what could’ve been, we can only argue about what we got. Now that a couple weeks have passed and the fervor has died down a bit, I think it’s safer to come out and take a good hard look without fear of the overzealous reactions of the die-hards. I’m not criticizing their excitement, I am a devout believer in the greatness of Christopher Nolan and what he created before, but this new chapter left a lot to be desired and we shouldn’t feel the need to threaten people who point that out.

the dark knight rises full movie in hindi download 480p openload

So, onto the firefight… SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS (is that enough of a warning? No? SPOILERS!) This is truly one of those movies you cannot review without giving tons of plot points away, especially since the plot was one of the biggest problems. If you haven’t seen it yet, first leave me a comment with a really good excuse why not, and secondly, go see it now and come back here when you’re done. The Dark Knight Rises picks up eight years after Batman flees the city as their new fallen angel. Other than references to the hidden truth about Dent and the death of Rachel, the previous chapter could have been skipped over altogether. Nolan made a point of trying to respect Heath Ledger by not mentioning him at all in this film (for fear of being seen as using his death as an emotional whip on the audience), but by doing that he also removed the most dynamic piece of the film and created a shadow where the phenomenon used to be. Add to that the main villains for this final chapter are direct continuations from the first film, Batman Begins. This ties the whole trilogy together nicely as one coherent story, but it also makes The Dark Knight stick out like an intermission in the middle of another movie.

Before I get too far in, let’s go over some of the things that did work. Anne Hathaway surprised many, but not me, with her layered performance as Catwoman. She wasn’t given nearly the breadth and depth of character to work with as Michelle Pfeiffer got in Batman Returns, but she gave weight to it a way very few could. Her biggest downside was she didn’t get nearly enough room to make the relationship between her and Wayne believable, especially considering the ending (don’t say I didn’t warn you about spoilers). I also give Tom Hardy real credit for pushing with every ounce of his talent to bring emotional context to a character whose face is half covered the entire film. Very few characters are written well enough to pull that off and even fewer actors can play them (Hugo Weaving as V in V for Vendetta and David Prowse/James Earl Jones as Darth Vader in…actually you better already know that). Now, let’s move into what didn’t work so well. Throughout the film, it felt like nearly every scene was another allegory, another reference either to society in general or the theme of the film. That can be really awesome when striking an overall tone for a film, but we already knew the tone, we’ve had two other movies to get used to that, whereas in this final chapter it came off as heavy-handed and unnecessary. The infamous pit that Bane and Talia sprout from for instance, we can all grasp the idea of something evil scraping and clawing its way out of hell. That’s absolutely someone who should be feared. The problem lies with the jail itself. It never showed a clear reason why people who climbed all the way to that random ledge couldn’t just keep climbing. The walls looked like they were the same texture all the way to the top. Also, who the hell anchored that rope in the first place? If they could do that, why couldn’t they keep going and plant another one, so on and so forth until they got out? Lastly, no matter how strong you will is, if you’re just coming back from a broken back, a fall like that on a rope with no give at all would not only re-injure your spine, but pretty much make you a para-pelagic instantly. I’ll stop with the pit now, but there are so many other problems with that plot point, it begs huge forgiveness from the audience. Next, let’s look at the stock market attack sequence. The idea of this is cool, but it seemed to get stuck in its own way. If Bain and his minions are trying to tell the middle and lower class folks in Gotham that they are taking the city back for them, you’d imagine they would bankrupt everyone in the city, not just Bruce Wayne. Plus, the secondary motive in the crime was to help a hostile takeover of Wayne Enterprises, so it couldn’t just look like they were after him alone. Yet when the whole scene is over, you only hear about insane losses by Wayne, no one else. Then we would have to believe that the people in charge of the stock exchange and the financial authorities would take at face value any trades or data that came out of that building from the moment it got hijacked? Every transaction would be suspect, especially ones that magically bankrupted one of their most prominent citizens. So, once again, a major plot point in moving the story forward was inherently flawed. There is more to rant about, both good and bad, but I am reaching my limit for a single post, plus my fingers began hurting while my ire was growing. Will this go down as the greatest comic book trilogy in movie history? Maybe. Nolan created something no one expected and the entire genre moving forward will be better off for it. Was The Dark Knight Rises the finale we all hoped for? Not really, but it’s what we got.