Purge: Election Year

If I'm honest with ya'll, the Purges are some of the most stressful films I've ever watched. I know they're good films, just sometimes depressing and mostly anxiety inducing. 

And I was in a car crash on Sunday night, so maybe this wasn't the best decision for my heart rate at the moment. 

But it's a Purge film, and it's enjoyable.

Purge: Election Year basically takes on a lot of similarities as of Purge: Anarchy 

It's just like any other Purge film, the trailer promises it to be very scary with all the masks, and rich white people hating on the poor, all that kinda stuff all over again. I say it's just like any other of the Purges, but this one has a lot more likeable characters, even some of the people purging are somewhat likeable, and by that I just mean the two most annoying and bitchy girls ever seen on film are hilarious. 

She fucking came all the way back to a deli to kill the owner, because he wouldn't let her shoplift a Terry's Chocolate Orange...

She was a good actress.

Again like any other Purge film, there's two different stories going on, essentially the white people who get caught in the middle of the outside world, and the minorities trying to just get through the night. Elizabeth Mitchell (that's Juliet from Lost to you), runs for president campaigning to end the Purge once she watched her family be tortured and killed when younger. She has Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) who survived the Purge: Anarchy, as her body guard. The pair are betrayed by other body guard and some sort of campaign manager, and basically neo-Nazis have A LOT of funding from the founding fathers to capture the senator.

Ofc the pair escape, come into contact with 'murder tourists' and are basically saved because they're kinda useless. 

The pair then come into contact with the other characters, Joe, Marcos and Laney (Mykelti Williamson, Joseph Julian Soria & Betty Gabriel) = my favs. 

These are the best characters, the most funny & the most endearing. Two of whom attempt to guard their deli, while the other roams the streets in attempts to give purgers medical attention. 

And yes it's got all the same tropes, jump scares which made my insides weep. I feel the whole idea of people being stuck out the street while people Purge has just been repeated somewhat here, there are many echoes of Anarchy. Especially as the final climax serves as a replication of rich white people purging together in an act of putting their purges on as a showcase. Y'know JUST LIKE ANARCHY!

But other than that, it's a really enjoyable film, just like the others, but with a message of it being it's last in the franchise. It's full of killing which puts you on edge, as well as somewhat satisfies you - just the good guys killing the bad guys, blah, blah. It's fair acting, mostly from the three most likeable characters, you tend to forget the senator character is even there for the most part, even though she's the main reason the group are together at all. 

I would say this might be the best out of the Purge films, but I can't help but feel that Anarchy just did it a little bit better. 

Finding Dory

It's okay... I mean it's funny, and heartwarming, but perhaps is missing something.

I feel like I'm touching something which doesn't deserve to be put down, and it doesn't - Pixar takes the creative piss in entertaining the young and the old.
I just wish there had been a bit more... cleaning up on the storyline. 

It ain't no Finding Nemo, of course it's not, and I feel like the bandwagon of sequels for Pixar lately hasn't treated them so well. I say that, and am yet only looking forward to Incredibles 2 in the recent future.
I enjoyed it for the most part, I just feel that you shouldn't go in thinking it's going to be like Finding Nemo. I would admit that for about the first half hour it is just taking the same path as Finding Nemo, ridiculous with taking its time to introduce the old characters again. At the end of the film, you'll find it endearing, whilst a ever forgetful Dory suddenly having flashbacks, goes in search of her parents. Her, Marlin and Nemo set off, and I'm still unsure how Nemo got so much time off of school... then a voice comes up in my head like "Sarah, they're fish ffs".
So they meet a lot of fish along the way and by chance they end up getting lost, and being separated, and oh wow once lost the separated three end up where they're meant to be - a rather nice Aquarium of sorts, and rejoin and separate again, and oh there was a lot of getting lost and going round in circles. Anyway, Dory looks for her parents, and along the way finds an octopus, two whales, two seals, a crab couple, Sigourney Weaver, a load of fish who look like her, her childhood home and yet not her parents. And yet again still separated from father and son, Marlin and Nemo, she ends up back the sea... where she finds her parents. And I'll tell you what, it's a sad scene but so happy that it may make you tear up. But that's where the happiness ends, because there suddenly needs to be a massive climax, because it seems like the filmmakers suddenly realised that Dory hadn't actually saved the day or became the hero at all. So they were like "shit" AND PUT HER BACK IN THE AQUARIUM AWAY FROM HER LONG LOST PARENTS WHO SHE JUST FUCKING FOUND, IN ORDER TO SAVE TWO FISH WHO HAD BEEN DICKING HER ABOUT SINCE THE BEGINNING. And there's some more stuff with Hank the Octopus DRIVING A COCKING TRUCK...

You wouldn't know anyone famous was in it apart from Ellen DeGeneres unless you looked at IMDB. However it's like half Modern Family cast, and by that I am over-exaggerating, it's only Ed O'Neil and Ty Burrell. But Ed O'Neil is refreshing in playing the only role he's prone to as of late, which is a grump. The Octopus Hank, played by O'Neil however way one of he funniest characters.

Aaaaand after looking up the IMDB for Finding Dory, I regret saying that the film is lacking within the big limits, it's not really... but then again it is. This film man, it was nice, a nice film. It was fun even, and there were certain parts which I would say were very funny... It is clear though that it is a built up production and marketing had shown that it is indeed a children's film, but more fool me fo no believing that it is solely that. Yet there is the Sigourney Weaver jokes which would go over any child's head.

Finding Dory is a good film, but only to the point of it being a child's film, and I would also maybe advise you of using your cinema trip for something else if you're not looking for such a gushy film as such. The funniest parts mainlyconsider the roles of two seals played by Idris Elba and Dominic West BTW.
Now this review was all over the shop. Feel free to ignore it.

Suicide Squad

Why does everyone hate it so much? I quite liked it, I was settling in ready for a let down due to all the relatively negative reviews, but well pleasantly surprised. 

But so, I can understand why it didn't live up to the trailer, I suppose most people got the image of it being a serious film with elements of humour... not injected with the cheese I was met with. But it's lucky that I can handle a certain amount of cheese within a film. 

I realise I'm not making much sense, but neither does much of the film...

So, let's start off with it's mainly the fact that likeable characters are carrying the film throughout, I wouldn't say that the storyline is particularly amazing, as well as the directing job. David Ayers has done well, just to the point of making sure the film echoes the fact that it is in fact based on a comic book. Maybe most audiences forgot that fact, I dunno.

It's enjoyable for the most part however, it's fast-paced to point where I guess you could say it feels a little rushed at some parts. And you've got to give it to this take on antiheroes - this is one reasonably multicultural gang.

Will Smith and Margot Robbie take over the show overall, as Deadshot and Harley Quinn. Afterall we were expecting a good performance from Robbie, but I would say we got a pretty freaking great one. Other than that you'll find Captain Boomerang funny, El Diablo and Killer Croc both quite lovable in a strange way and Katana isn't given anything but a background role of  'helper'. However Viola Davis is always as good as ever, there's no two ways about it, just her presence on screen gives me life.

People who could have done better begins with Cara Delevinge, supposedly she didn't ruin the film by her hand alone, but one of the ending scenes of the Enchantress downfall made up my mind that this woman is not a good actress, She's okay... but not good. And um, I hate to say this but... I didn't really enjoy Jared Leto's Joker. Not as much as I thought I would anyway, I suppose the hype built around the whole film has let some people, fans and non-fans, down to a certain degree. The Joker is a hard role, like c'mon he was taking on a lot with it. But the promises were made and not delivered as smooth as would have liked. He seemed very awkward throughout it all, like the persona was so totally under his control that he had to force out the crazy. 

Let's just say that Margot Robbie made crazy look easy, whereas Jared Leto made me feel uncomfortable but not the right way. And also, let's face it, there's only ever going to be Heath Ledger's live action, and Mark Hamill's voice to put he shame in the Joker category. 

But here's the once part which left a bad taste in my mouth, Enchantress was so boring and over-animated it made my head hurt. Now I'm no fan of the Suicide Squad comics or their place within the DC universe, I haven't got a lot of knowledge about them, and that probably doesn't help int he way of anyone reading this sub-par review. But I came away from the cinema reasoning the choice of a fucking witch being used as the enemy. I assume her character is the same in the comics, but think of it this way if you can't get your head around the absurdness of a group of bad guys fighting against a witch. The film would've found it hard for the essential 'bad guys' to be fighting for the greater good against Superman or Batman. With the Suicide Squad joining forces with the army, it had to be an object with unnatural force for them to want to fight to save the city. 

Does that make sense?

No, none of this really does, I know. This was a hard film to review.

At the end of the day, don't come into the cinema with a mind set on what you saw in the trailer, there's a lot to the film which you won't see in the way of storyline and will probably take you by surprise if you enter with your mindset in the way of a serious superhero film. It's a comedy, with action in it, try to take your mind away from the fact that there's alien-like creatures used as an army against the protagonists and an actual witch as the force of evil.  

I would advise to go in with limited high hopes, because you will be surprised for the better. Things you will take away from Suicide Squad is the enjoyable characters, and the fact that Ben Affleck's Batman has only about 20 seconds of time on screen. 

However it has a pretty great soundtrack, songs I haven't listened to since I was 17 and attempting to write my own graphic novel...

*Ted Mosby voice* - But more on that later. 

I'm joking, no one will ever want to make my graphic novel, because I am too lazy to write anything further than these lame reviews and a couple of essays for uni... 

God help me this dissertation year.