Movie Review: Hercules (2014)

Okay, I'm going to admit something a little embarrassing here.  When I was a young boy my favourite two heroes were Superman and Hercules (classical mythology character rather than the Marvel Comics character - who I've never read, but I'm sure I'd like), and NO, that isn't the embarrassing part.

I used to think that if I were to grow up to be a superhero, I would either be called SuperKirk or Kirkules.  Also I made friends and certain siblings call me these names sometimes, and also I may have had a theme song or two I would sing to myself...

Anyway, I bring this up to provide context.  Anytime a new Hercules film or show comes out I'm bound to check it out and then to comment.  And as I have this convenient blog sitting here, I think I'll get up on my soapbox and begin.

This movie was fun.  It was like a mix between the plots of Dragonheart (1996) and King Arthur (2004), in that Hercules is depicted as a man who puts on a show, and that the story is played as a type of story-behind-the-legend type of narrative.

One thing I will definitely say about Dwayne Johnson's performance, he really comes across as a man who has spent years fighting and working at his craft (being a warrior), and his portrayal of a man living up to a legend was actually one of the highlights of the film for me, even more so than the action sequences, and they were great.

The film does play around a little with 3D, so watching it on my regular-old 2D television at home makes it look a little strange anytime things poke out at the screen, but otherwise, the story was fun, the visuals were great, and honestly the end-credit sequence was surprisingly fun and enlightening.

Well worth a watch.

Movie Review: Pain and Gain

Earlier this week my wife and I went to an advanced screening of the new Michael Bay film, Pain and Gain, starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, and based on the Sun Gym kidnappings in Miami in the early 90s.

To be perfectly honest, the reason we went to the movie is that my wife is a pretty big fan of Mark Wahlberg.  Although I liked both of Michael Bay's earlier films (Bad Boys and Bady Boys II), I haven't really been a fan of the transformers movies, and I felt Armageddon wasn't quite as good as Deep Impact.

That said, I actually found Pain and Gain to be a really funny, refreshing movie about a horrific and stupid series of kidnappings that has to be read to be believed (the first of the newspaper stories the film was based on can be read here)

The story plays with multiple points of views, has a villain you can't quite feel sympathetic for, and was an all around fun movie to watch.  It does have some excessive violence and language, but assuming you're not bringing your kids to see it, it is definitely worth the watch.