DrCrowTStarwars said:
Dawn of the planet of the Apes
6.5/10.
I'd rate it similarly. My biggest problem with it was how predictable it was. Not just that, but they threw out the social and political commentary that makes the PotA films (aside from the Burton remake) so endearing to me, and instead replaced it with a cliched and tired plot that disguised itself as 'political'. Rise had the annoying references, but at least that film had a 'heart' to it , and it had some ideas of its own. I'm still kind of baffled that people ate this up, the same kind of people that criticized Avatar for being unoriginal, while this is almost as bad in that regard. And the less said about the bland characters, the better (...not that you can say a lot of things about bland characters, but whatever).
Then again, I thought Boyhood was just okay, so maybe (i.e. clearly) I'm the crazy one.
Nightcrawler - A good film that becomes a not-quite-great film thanks to Gyllenhaal's performance. It's worth seeing just for his performance alone. Everything else - direction, screenplay, other characters - was fairly standard stuff, although not necessarily bad. Cinematography was really good. The score was really out of place, it sounded like it belonged in an inspirational sports film. Maybe it was the point to sound like that, but if it was, I thought it was a failed experiment.
7.6 out of 10 Taxi Driver Diets.
Spider-Man 3 - Better than The Amazing Spider-Man...both of 'em. It has plenty of issues, but it's still pretty entertaining thanks to Raimi's direction. He nails the tone that a Spider-Man film should have. While it may have some of the same issues as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (too many subplots, too many villains, a nonsensical romance), at least you can tell that there went some care into this, whether you look at the Sandman introduction or the action scenes. It's not the bland commercial dreck that was The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The CGI also holds up really well, especially if compare it to the newest film.
6.1 out of 10 Sony products.
Black Christmas (1974)- Some people argue day and night about what the first slasher film is...and I think it's this one. It's not as well made as something like Halloween, but it's also much more stylish and moody than Friday the 13th. There's some hokey acting here and there, but overall, it's a slasher flick worth seeing.
7.1 out of 10 glass unicorn figures.