Movie Review: Real Steel

            Okay, I’ll admit something: first time I heard about Real Steel it was in the pre-movie trivia slides. The picture of the robots in the ring was blurry, not giving me a good idea of what to expect, and I thought, “Oh, great, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots 2.0. That will be terrible.”

            I was wrong. (I say this with pride)

            The movie was surprisingly poignant and touching. It was less about robots and more about a man reconnecting with the son he abandoned at birth, about the underdog taking a stand and rising to the top (or, at least, close to it), about redemption. While I didn’t approve of eleven-year-old Max’s (Dakota Goyo) language habits, Charlie (Hugh Jackman) proved to be a better dad than he thought, and I was moved close to tears near the end, at Atom’s and Zeus’ fight. (I LOVED the look on the Japanese guy’s face when he broke the glass panel in frustration. Priceless!)

            Anyway, the story moved at a good pace, introducing us to the main characters and possible problems right away and not lagging at all. It moved to show us dilemmas (broken robots, no money) and Charlie’s arrogance and isolation in the world—until he meets Max, that is. While first I found myself indignant he would try and sell his son (as Max puts it), he redeemed himself later when he let Max keep and work with Atom, the generation 2 sparring bot that Charlie doesn’t think stands a chance in the ring. Well, he turns out to be wrong.

            Charlie’s relationship with Max progresses into a father/son one and less of broke-deadbeat/cling-on-pest. Charlie starts boxing again—at Max’s wish—to get Atom ready for fights he never thought the bot would win, and at the end he uses Atom’s shadowbox technology to nearly take down Zeus, the bot-boxing world champ.

            One thing to note is the smooth integration of a high-tech society into what we would see as a modern-day world. There’s no super-robot-servants or flying cars, but technology like 20-year-from-now-phones and boxing bots and their controls are super-high-tech and very impressive, making me feel less like an outsider looking into the future and more like someone who could walk into Detroit and see the bot-boxing ring any day of the week.

            Also, characters were connectable and real, a pleasant change in the world of Hollywood. I was on the edge of my seat the entire last 15 or so minutes, begging Atom to take down Zeus…but then I realized at the end: it’s not a story of a robot winning the title of bot-boxing champion. It’s a story about the people reconnected in a common cause, about redemption of a deadbeat dad and his young son who was disappointed in him. It was refreshing and touching at the same time, and I would see it again any day. 5 kernels out of 5.

Movie Review: Apollo 18

            Oh, dear, what to say about Apollo 18. My my my.

            Now, I usually like mockumentaries. They interest me, really they do. But I think Apollo 18 took this and…threw the genre down a garbage disposal. I heard things about it when I first considered saving it. For example, it would make me jump. No, it did not.

            First ridicule, the story is hardly exciting, even when the plot “thickens” with the discovery of dead cosmonauts on the moon. The astronauts get to the moon, and they look around. They talk. They go to sleep. Wow, I’m riveted. Outside we catch one or two glimpses of something strange moving around where there’s supposed to be nothing. Great, an alien. Didn’t see that one coming.

This leads me to my second ridicule. Will this one look like a bug, too? It’s even better. It’s....wait for it…a bug that looks like a rock. ._. Really? A rock-bug alien? Is there nothing better to attack astronauts with, nothing more deadly in the realm of all things science fiction? Couldn’t a zabrak jump out and attack them for Pete’s sake??? All this time I’m sitting in my seat in theater 7 hoping to heaven that this will not be a waste  of my time, wondering what deadly animal could have led cosmonauts to die with fear plastered to their faces (cosmonauts!!!), wishing the thing would just be shown already…only to find it’s a bug-rock. Way to let a girl down.

                                                 a zabrak (namely, Darth Maul)

Third, NASA was filled with jerks who knew what was going on in the first place and sent the astronauts simply to verify that cosmonauts had landed…WITHOUT the intention of bringing their boys home. Translation? The Americans were stranded without a hope. While this would have been a good twist if the story had been written right, it only proved to frustrate me even more. I was left thoroughly unsatisfied and begging to be thrown a bone, and I ESPECIALLY hated that their families were told they all died in a training accident. Wouldn’t this sound, I don’t know, FISHY to them?? All three pals dying in a freak training accident for NASA?? Yeah, okay.

Lastly, the plot was predictable. I knew when I was going to “jump” and what would happen next. While I usually don’t mind guessing at the plot, being spot on every time is annoying. I like to be surprised, and the only surprise here was at myself, that I had actually decided to see Apollo 18.

There was hardly a thing to make me want to see this again, a B-A-D quality for a movie to have. Seriously. 1 kernel out of 5.

Oh, and don’t waste your time with Apollo 18.

Movie Review: The Thing

            Walking into the theater, I had no idea what to expect from The Thing, other than my first creature feature (I say that with pride). Sure, I was a little apprehensive. Horror films are notorious for disappointing endings and sloppy writing with information gaps as big as the Grand Canyon. What can I say of The Thing, then?

            It was terrible.

            First, let me say I had never imagined so many ways for the human body to be grotesquely distorted. And (in all honesty) two parts forced me to avert my eyes from the screen (but perhaps that’s simply my own sensitivity). But that’s not what let me down most about The Thing. No, no. Far from it.

            Put simply, I found myself wondering, “What writing atrocity happened upon my theater’s screen?” The plot points were predictable and I said multiple times, “Yep, saw that one coming” (although, I put props out to the writer for not killing the black guy first and for giving me an unforeseen ending, the two good points of the film). As stated earlier, the Grand Canyon was indeed present in this film. For example, they never explained HOW the “virus”—if one would call it that—transferred from person to person and made them the Thing. Never explained! At least Resident Evil gave us the T-Virus, for Pete’s sake. We have Lars, the Norwegian who supposedly doesn’t understand English at this point, but does at this point, and the vans that start up at the end even though their wiring’s been cut so no one can leave. But people do leave in them, I’m afraid. Explain that one.

            One thing I also noticed at the end was the dead English guy in the chair near the radio (which—surprise surprise—didn’t work when they needed it to). What the heck happened to him? No explanation.

            My last gripe about The Thing would have to be the alien design. Why, oh why, do all aliens according to filmmakers HAVE to look like some bug?! PROPS to George Lucas for integrating thoughtfulness and creative design into his alien races.

            While I may be berated for being harsh on a B-Movie (or was it supposed to be one?), the facts speak for themselves. The Thing was as predictable as Queen Victoria’s favorite beverage. I walked in expecting a semi-decent movie; lo and behold, I was disappointed.

            To quote the big-headed, cliché, know-it-all head of operations scientist—Sander—“You’re not here to think.” Because this movie requires no thought.

Overall, the film gets a ¼ kernel out of 5.

Introduction to MoNoMuGa

            Hey, there, bloggers. Welcome to Movies Novels Music Games, the blog that reviews just about anything it can get its hands on…well, we review it, my mother and I. Mostly, since we have strong ties with the local theater, we’ll be getting into movies more often than the others, but when something strikes a nerve or cord, it’ll end up on here (like albums and games, hence the title). We don’t watch every movie that comes in, but the ones we do will be here. Some reviews will be given by our guests, namely my brothers, because as in all things in life, we all have different tastes. They watch some movies whereas I watch others,

            To introduce ourselves, my mother’s name is Mary K. Wiebe. Mine is Caitlin M. Schesser. I’m almost 20 and a student right now, and mom is 47 and works at the theater as an assistant manager. She’s the best woman I know, having raised four kids with special needs on her own, and we’re a team when it comes to everything. My brothers and I have Tourette’s Syndrome, and with that comes ADHD, OCD, sleep deprivation, tics, and anxiety disorders. While some people may not get all that, we got the whole lovely cocktail. :-D Yay, us.  So I hope you can stick with my eclectic, spazzy, yet very intuitive reviews!

            Anyway, we’re also writers, and we have seven novels under our belt—though they’re unpublished, it still counts. Even if your book’s not in stores, you’re an author nonetheless. That’s one of the reasons we’ve got this blog up, because as writers, it’s hard to sit by and watch people hit the theater without knowing what they’re in for when it comes to a movie, or book, or whatever it is they’re considering but aren’t sure about. That’s where the reviews come in. We’ll write them, you read them and make your decision. It’s a mutual effort. :]

            The other reason we’ve got the blog up is because I’ve surfed the web for Christian reviews and found very few that gave me information on the things I was looking for. It annoyed me very much so. So! Here it is, Movies Novels Music Games (or, MoNoMuGa).