Chicken Run

Even after all this time, this is a really good movie!

I was kinda dreading going back and seeing this again, it was a movie I watched a bit when I was younger so I thought it would not stand the test of time. And honestly, it's just as good as I remembered it. I feel I appreciate the movie more now than I did back then, because I've seen more movies and my views have changed significantly since then. The story might be familiar to you, a young chicken named Ginger is fed up with living in cages and wants to escape her terrible chicken farm in order to live a better life. She creates scheme after scheme to escape but most don't work until a rooster named Rocky lands in their chicken farm and says he'll help them escape. It's The Great Escape. Apart from select few elements, it's The Great Escape minus the nazis and the multitude of death. And you know what? I really like The Great Escape! So this movie works regardless of whether you have seen that movie or not, it always kept my interest, I really liked all the characters, and I wanted to see which escape plan was the one that worked. They did The Great Escape plan fairly early on, so the ending is not what you think and I applaud that it's not just a family friendly rehash of the movie. They have fun with the idea of hens trying to escape a chicken farm, and it is very funny. Ginger is a great lead, you understand her struggle and her dreams for a peaceful life, she's an endearing character that has her limits but wants nothing but the best for everybody. Rocky played by Mel Gibson is a cocky, womanizer of an american and it clashes well with the british sensibility of the other hens. But my absolute favorite character is Ginger's best friend Babs, holy sweet sugar and sprinkles she absolutely slays me. I have no idea why, but she made me laugh and smile so much, I just love her character to tiny little pieces. In fact all the side characters are very good, and the villains are fun too. We got Miranda Richardson as the head of the chicken farm, and I couldn't tell that was her! I'm a fan of her work, and she is a hilarious woman, so seeing her as this bitter, mean spirited, and just horrible lady really took me back, you don't see her in roles like this. Even in Blackadder II, when she is Queen Elizabeth she's a bit off her rocker but still very cheerful and funny despite that she would have you executed if you so much as even slightly bored her, but I don't know it was just a shock to know it was her. Regardless, it's a really good movie. No joke, people pushed for this movie so hard at the Academy Awards that they had to create Best Animated Feature! Chicken Run did that! Not Beauty & The Beast or Fantasia, but Chicken Run. In 2001! It took them about 80 years to create a Best Animated Feature category and all thanks to this movie. So if anything, it should be remembered for that, but give it a watch you'll have fun with it. Well that's it for this week, kinda went on a tangent, but you have to expect things like this for almost 3 damn years and still going so I will not apologize for that. You know me, I rant and rave, give good movies recognition and barely touch bad movies (though I do fear a month of nothing but bad movies), occasionally give lists but I enjoy it and I hope others do as well. Not sure what to do next week, gonna have to sit and think for a bit on that one. Until then!

The Expendables 3

This movie is horrible! It's friggin' horrible!

Where do I start with this terrible movie? Everything you enjoyed in the last two Expendables movie are no longer here. The Expendables 2 is the best movie out of all three of them, and to tell you the truth I didn't like the first Expendables movie that much, but I could give it a pass because it was the first movie in the franchise, it's not easy creating a world and creating the characters in that world and just having it's own image and it's own way of doing things. By the second movie, they got it really right! Expendables 2 was glorious, it was awesome! By the end of that movie you were still talking about some of your favorite scenes, but not in this piece of garbage! The story is boring, we get a whole new cast of members of The Expendables that we don't care about, there is hardly any blood in the movie whatsoever unlike Expendables 2 where there was blood and limbs and heads being shot off, this movie barely has a cup of blood to show on screen, the CGI is terrible, I mean terrible in this movie. Before, the CGI was decent and looked semi-realistic but in this movie it looks like it came straight out of a video game from 2003, in fact all of the effects are terrible and shoddy in this movie, and really you know what it is like? It's like a direct to DVD Expendables movie. Those bargain bin movies you see at a video store that are so terrible and cheap you wouldn't think for a second to even look through them. That is this movie! And I am serious here, half the damn movie and I do mean half the damn movie is spent looking for these new assholes to join the team. There are several scenes that just waste your time like there are two scenes, I swear to God that pretty much goes like this...Mel Gibson the villain walks into an art museum looks at a painting, describes how horrible it looks and buys it for $3 million dollars. End of scene. Soon to be followed by, Mel Gibson's character delivering said painting to some nameless woman we never met before and will never see again. End of scene. Waste of time! But oh wait, there's more! In one scene Sylvester Stallone informs the old members of The Expendables that they are getting too old for the job and he breaks up the band, so of course we have to see the old members moaning and moping around for about three minutes before we can finally get back to the story, or what passes for a story. What's the story you might ask? Well The Expendables are hired to take out Mel Gibson's character and we soon discover that he was a member of The Expendables too back in the day (dun dun duuuuuh!!!) but he went rogue and did unspeakable things that the movie never decides to tell us about, and I am serious. I was expecting some sort of flashback scene to explain why the characters get so huffy when he is brought up, it never happens. We don't barely have any backstory to his character, and while it is kinda fun to see Mel Gibson just kinda be Mel Gibson in this movie, and he does make you chuckle in a few scenes but ultimately is forgettable. We get Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas in this movie as new members of the team, and Antonio Banderas is so annoying in this movie, all he does is talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and maybe shoot a few guys, and talk. And Wesley Snipes, you know the first time you see him the team busts him out of this prison train and he's got this beard and like this afro, so for the rest of the movie I called him Afro Blade and he does nothing but he did make me laugh a bit. Horrible! This movie is fraking horrible!! Do not watch this movie! It is not worth your time and money! Watch The Expendables 2, do not touch this movie. Even if you are curious do not see this movie! I need a damn drink after all of this...and the funny part was I have never seen this movie before, but I really didn't want to watch or review this movie. I mean at all. I did not want to watch this. I swear I have this sixth sense about movies where I automatically can tell if it's going to be a huge piece of crap, okay, or pretty damn good. This was a huge piece of crap. Stay away from this movie!