Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

This movie was a bit more serious than I was expecting. It was interesting to see how the group fit together… though I have to say, I didn’t really like Mason’s character all that much. Or Ollie’s. Both of them seemed quite immature as characters… and there wasn’t really that much depth to them.

I did like Cole’s character, at least to a certain extent…. but even him, I didn’t think there was enough character evolution. While there were some interesting aspects to his character, I didn’t feel there was enough of a character journey.

The concept of working as a DJ was a pretty interesting one. I thought it was cool to see how Cole was able to manipulate the crowd of people. I actually found myself tapping out the beat towards the end without conscious thought.

I thought the character with the most potential was Squirrel. I found him easy to empathise with and I would have liked to know more about his past… actually, all of them, really. It felt very much like I was being thrown partway into the story. While that wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, there wasn’t really much of a background to the characters and their relationships.

While I did find Sophie to be an interesting character, there wasn’t enough depth to her for me to be able to take her seriously. Although there were hints of more depth to her, I did’t think there was enough time spent on her either.

I did find myself losing a bit of interest as this movie went on. I personally found it quite hard to connect emotionally to the characters, even though there were some good actors in this. There was a lot of potential in this movie, but I think it tried too hard to be too many different things. It’s not one I intend to watch again.

(This review may contain spoilers).

Having seen Owen Wilson in mostly comedy films, I was quite interested to see him in a much more serious movie. Even though I was a bit put off by the subject matter, I decided to give this movie a try.

I found myself drawn into this movie really easily. The beginning did a good job of setting up the characters and their relationships. The family were likable, even though Lucy was at that ‘difficult’ age.

The atmosphere in this movie was really intense. While I did find it a bit difficult to believe that Jack could think so fast on his feet and make plans ‘ten steps ahead’ (I didn’t think there was enough setup for that to be a believable part of his character), I liked him… and I liked the way Owen Wilson played him. The way Jack cared for and wanted to keep his family safe came across really well.

There were some really good camera shots that added to the tension of the movie, such as a few slow-motion elements and one scene that allowed viewers to feel the ‘ringing’ in their ears after an explosion.

There was a lot of violence in this movie, but I thought it was interesting that some of the violence wasn’t shown… or, at least, not shown in full detail. There were sounds of the violence and glimpses of the aftermath… and that somehow made it even more frightening. I thought that was used to good effect.

While I can understand not necessarily naming the country, I didn’t really agree with the references to it as ‘Asia’. Asia’s a massive place, made up of lots of countries. The setting seemed kind of stereotypical… but I did think that the tense atmosphere came across very well at the beginning of the film.

I cared about the characters, but it was good to have the citizens of the country shown to be people trying to protect their families and livelihood… even if I did lose a lot of my sympathy for them by the end of the movie.

I don’t think I’d watch this movie again, but I did find myself really drawn into it. It’s definitely worth watching… and the actors I recognised played their roles really well.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thought the concept of this film was an interesting one, though I didn’t think the title really fit well with the plot. It wasn’t very clear how the first scene fit in with the rest of the film… even though it was a really sad one.

Although this movie was rated eighteen, at first, it didn’t seem like there was going to be much gore. There was quite a lot later on, but I thought that, although there was clearly quite a lot of shock value involved, there wasn’t gore where it didn’t make sense.

The fact that the movie took a little while to allow viewers to get to know the characters was good, though I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for most of the characters. Gulley and Black were probably the ones who came across as more well-developed characters. I did have a lot of sympathy for Gulley, even if he did come across as a bit of a coward.

I found two of the characters quite difficult to differentiate between. There were some amusing parts in this film at first, but there was a lot of tension as the movie went on.

The flashbacks to the past events were especially creepy, whether they concerned the girl or the drifter. There were also some good connections between things that happened in the movie… though I do have to say that I saw some of the things coming. There were still a couple of surprises, though.

I thought that this film was quite low-budget. There were only about ten actors and only a few sets. But I thought the atmosphere was quite good. And knowing what was coming made it worse.

I wouldn’t watch this film again, but I enjoyed watching it with my friend and it was a fairly good movie that I didn’t have to think too deeply about.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I watched this movie with my niece, after my night shift ended. I’d been quite taken with the possibility of seeing two Avengers not yet shown in most of the Avengers movies (Ant-Man kinda counts… but not really).

There was a bit more violence than I was expecting, though my niece did enjoy watching this well enough. I thought the first scene did a good job of establishing Steve’s character… though I was somewhat confused about his relationship with the other members of his platoon.

It was interesting to see Bruce Banner in this movie and his obsession with trying to figure out the serum. I did feel sorry for Betty, since it couldn’t have been easy for her being with Bruce.

I felt very sorry for Iron Man, particularly knowing that he experienced something similar in the comics. It was cool to see Tony in his other element, though… even if it was hard to reconcile someone who likes partying and women with someone who worked alone as a hero.

There were some amusing moments in this, especially when Thor made his original appearance. My niece and I both laughed at that scene. I also particularly liked Giant-Man and Wasp. It was cool to see them in this incarnation and I liked the way they bantered, even while clearly caring deeply for each other.

There were some good elements of conflict and tension in this movie. I think my niece was a bit disappointed that Hulk took a while to appear… but she seemed happy when he did.

I did also like seeing Natalia in this. I would have liked to be able to see more of her interacting with some of the others. I didn’t think the graphics were anything special, but I did like the designs of the characters and there were some really nice images, especially the one in the graveyard.

This film doesn’t really follow the comics completely, but it is entertaining to watch. I’ve already promised my niece will be watching the sequel in the future.