Furious 7

Fast and Furious 7, featuring the late Paul Walker, in his final movie.  Fast and Furious 7 is the seventh movie in a long chain of Fast and furious movies. The 4th, 5th and 6th installment were sub par to the franchise but the 7th has heroically brought back the reason why we all loved the fast and furious series. In order not to give away many of the plot twisting scenarios which have managed to tie together the entire story from the very first fast and furious to the last. 

The story starts with Dwayne 'the rock' Johnson assisting the leader of the pack Vin Diesel who was free from persectuition to help take down the bad guy, Owen Shaw, before he kills everyone in the team and retrieve his ultra powerful hacking tool 'Gods Eye' to track him down. Along the way you come to discover many of the relations between all the characters and understand why small things which happened in the previous movies occured when they did. To intrigue your mind why was Vin Diesel seen at the end of Tokyo Drift? In this movie you find out everything, amongst the great plot and wrapping up of the story it was also great to see a small commemoration of Paul Walker. 

This movie was great and I recommend watching it i give it 8/10.

Alex

A Horror fans dream - IT FOLLOWS

Before I start, I dont often watch horror movies. I have seen my fair share though, enough to know when one shakes up the genre. That movie is It Follows, the movie is about a girl who after sleeping with a boy that she has meet is told that he has now passed to her a demon just reffered to as "It". It is transmitted through sex and once it starts to follow the individual. It never stops. The scary part is that it walks, and never stops, it could look like anyone and wherever they are it is ALWAYS COMING. This is why the movie is so good because from the begining of the movie you are on edge the whole time. The movie dosent rely on jump scares but it builds tension, using its amazing 80s inspired techno soundtrack. The reason you are always scared is because "It" is always on its way and always coming closer, I was shaking the whole movie.

The acting in this movie is fantastic, all made up of relitivly unknown teenage actors due to the fact it is an indie movie. The cinematography is incredible as well, so many 360 degree views, which makes you always looking for one person walking in a strange way.

POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS

Another thing I loved was the way the by the end of the movie almost nothing is resolved, you still dont know what It is and everyone is still in the same situation as the begining. Thats what the Directors aim was, to make a movie that was not cliched and that you could never guess what was happening.

NO MORE SPOILERS

In summation, It Follows is a fantastic horror movie that at times can slow down a little bit and did have a few cheap scares but still is probably the best movie horror movie I have seen and will join the ranks of other horror greats throughout  the decades, it also had the best soundtrack of any movie.

8/10

Jordan

Interstellar...disappointment to Startrek generations

The movie Interstellar is a Sci-Fi movie with star-studded casts – Matthew Mcconaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine and Matt Damon, to watch this movie you will need set aside 3 hours as that how long the movie is.

The premise of the movie is that the Earth resources cannot copes with human population. NASA is a secret organisation they have discovered a wormhole near Saturn 50 years earlier and the wormhole lead to distant galaxy where there are three planets Earth-like conditions.

  

The Interstellar, in my opinion will be a disappointment to Armageddon and Startrek fans. I watch Interstellar is for purpose of writing this blog. I expected to be immersed far-fetched technology that Hollywood can come up with but instead for first 50 minutes the setting is around a farm with barely any modern technology.

Final verdict: 6/10   

Khoa Tran

The ANZAC Special

Today being the 25th of April I thought it was relevant to discuss The Water Diviner, Russel Crowe's newest movie. This World War I movie looks at a much different perspective than other similar WWI Movies.

Crowe plays the part of a grieving father of three sons who are all enrolled in the war. His character Joshua Connor travels to Turkey after the battle of Gallipoli in search of his three sons. When he finds the dead bodies of two of his sons, he assumes all hope is lost. However when a Turkish general tips him off that his third son was not killed and was in fact taken prisoner Connor begins to search for his missing son, as it is the last thing he has left. When the Turkish and Connor find a connection, it exaggerates the idea, that nobody knows what they are fighting for, as they are all portrayed as like minded people, as equals. This is also demonstrated later on in the film, as Connor teaches the Turkish military how to play cricket, and they all laugh and have fun.

While all this is happening, Joshua Connor meets a girl in Istanbul named Ayshe, who originally doesn't like him, however as she discovers that he is looking for his son, and is not hostile, she begins to sympathise and becomes friendly with him over time as she has a son herself. At one point she does a coffee fortune reading for Joshua, which is a common Turkish Tradition. This coffee motif is then used to show the importance of coffee and marriage, later in the film.

The ending also comes back to the coffee motif. After Joshua locates his son, he returns to Istanbul and finds Ayshe who does not seem surprised to see him return, when he asks her she states "I saw it in your coffee a few weeks earlier." She then hands him a coffee, although when he puts his spoon in it, it reveals a large lump of sugar, this symbolises marriage. If a coffee was sweet, it meant they were interested in a relationship. This is open ended however as they both stand up and smile to each other and it cuts directly to credits.

All in all, the film makes a great attempt at looking at both sides of the war from a different perspective, and at the same time does not glorify the Australians, or the Turkish. It is a film about equality. The premise is ok. However the storyline is obvious and simple to guess.

Final Verdict 7.5/10

Scott

Sandler gets Blended up with Barrymore for another hit film!

Blended: I recently watched Adam Sandler's recent film'Blended', and as someone who has seen their fair share of Happy Madison (Sandler's own Production Company) productions I must say I was thoroughly impressed. 'Blended'came out in mid 2014 and now in mid 2015 it seems like a good time to review on the booming success of this film and how it breaks ground for what we would usually expect from Sandler.
Blended is not your typical Happy Madison production, it is, bold, funny and full of familiar actors as we have grown to expect from Sandler's films, however the film is set in Africa and is centred around a holiday resort for 'blended families',this gives the film opportunity to explore the dynamics of meaningful family relationships without the traditional slapstick humour often employed in Sandler's films.

An interesting trope which Director Frank Coraci has employed is the similar formula used for the film, as the film contains many Actors from former films Directed by Coraci, For example the Sandler, Barrymore duo is the third film the two have done as co-stars, along with 50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer. The same formula for reusing leading characters in a film set in a different but relate able setting can be noted from Nicholas Stoller's films; Get him to the Greek' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' where Russell Brand and Jonah Hill are both characters with major screen time, and due to the success of Brand's and Hill's chemistry in 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' Stoller decided to make the two co-stars in a film of their own, this is similar of what Coraci has done with the winning formula of Sandler and Barrymore.

Finally The film, due to its light-hearted nature and simplistic storyline is able to be enjoyed by a wide range of audience members and thus it is an excellent film for families, couples, individual movie goers and groups of movie goers alike.

The film has its flaws, being the same duo used for former work and the simplistic humour of Sandlers's films, however these are tropes fans of Happy Madison Productions have come to love.

If you're a fan of Sandler's previous work, then you're going to love Blended, and while it breaks new ground for Sandler as an actor and Coraci as a Director, it still has a familiar feel to it, and you cannot help but enjoy it.

Rating: 7/10

By: Brett

Avengers Assemble Again - Age of Ultron Review

Last night I saw the advanced screening of Joss Weadons new adition to the Marvel Cinimatic Universe. Avengers Age of Ultron sees the Avengers fighting the almost unbeatable villain Ultron (voiced by James Spader). I will avoid as much story information as possible but I will talk about the ups and downs of the film.

Avengers has a decent runing time, clocking in at almost 2 and a half hours, but it never seems enough. Time flys by so fast and you never want it to end. This movie has so much going for it its rediculous. The action is solid once again and the addition of QuickSilver and Scatlett Witch helps to keep it fresh. The last 20 minutes leave you breathless. At times the movie takes a much darker turn as Scarlett Witch initially takes advantage of the Avengers getting inside their heads and manipulating them. This gives us a good look into their past, especially Black Widow. As a whole i was glad to see Black Widow and Hawkeye get some more screentime, at times Hawkeye feels like the leader of the group which i am glad about because in past films he feels like a second thought. In fact it felt like all the heros got their time in the spotlight which made every character feel important.

Once again the humor is great in the film again and it never feels forced or out of place. Specifically an ongoing joke about something Captain America says in the begining. Joss Weadon has outdone himself, his ability to match action, humor and dark themes is the sign of an amazing Director. 

Lets talk about the acting in the film. It the sign of a fantastic actor when your actual body dosent need to be in the movie for it to be an incredible role. James Spader brings one of his most chilling, dark and ominous roles yet as the always one step ahead villain, Ultron. Downey Jr once again hits it out of the park as Tony Stark. The rest of the avengers including Chris Evans as Captain America, Aussie Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner and the amazing Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. They all once again bring the characters to life. Even new additions like Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen as twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff fit straight into thr universe. The fake Russian accents were annoying at first but the grew on me.

No film is without its flaws. I felt like there was a problem with continuation especially from Iron Man 3 where Tony Stark destroyed all of his suits and said he would never be Iron Man again. But in Avengers 2 he seems to have more suits and tech then ever which i felt was a little confusing. Also i felt that the relationship between Black Widow and Bruce Banner was a bit strange and random. Not saying it was bad but it felt a little unneeded. My final problem which is small but a personal issue, i felt like the ending did not establish the next film which will be Civil War as much as it should have. 

Overall this film was a fantastic additions to the MCU it would never match the joy of seeing the avengers for the first time ever on screen but nevertheless, small insignificant issues dont hold this movie back from being all round awesome.

FINAL VERDICT
9/10

Jordan