The Little Prince (2015)

Have you ever read The Little Prince? I remember it being one of the first books my mom gave me when I was young.  Its been so many years that I haven’t read it.  From the moment I saw the trailer of The Little Prince, I just fell in love with it and it shot up my list of to-see films.  The problem was that The Little Prince didn’t have a set date as to when it was hitting theatres in the Montreal area.  By accident, I was checking out hours for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and it had hit theatres just this past Friday.  Imagine the joy I had! Hello, movie theatre and the best part is my husband volunteered to go with me even if its not really something he knows anything about.  Right before we went to the theatres, I even found time to read the book also! On that note, you should be expecting a review of that soon.

Let’s check it out! 🙂

The Little Prince (2015)

Director: Mark Osborne

Voice Cast: Jeff Bridges, Mackenzie Foy, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Riley Osborne, James Franco, Paul Rudd, Benicio Del Toro, Ricky Gervais, Paul Giamatti

A little girl lives in a very grown-up world with her mother, who tries to make sure she’s prepared for it. Her neighbor, The Aviator, introduces the girl to an extraordinary world where anything is possible, the world of The Little Prince. – IMDB

I don’t think any story has ever captured youth and being a child like The Little Prince.  The novel, I mean.  I guess its why I was a little nervous about how this would turn out.  Reading the novel before I went to see this movie was a good move though.  It wasn’t necessary to understand the story at all but it does justify the need for having a side story of the Little Girl and her meeting The Aviator next door who tells her the story.  Some of the art was taken from the book which helps us connect the stories.  The best part of The Little Prince has to go to using CGI for the modern day story and The Little Prince’s story of his travels was done with stop motion animation. I loved the contrast of that because it gives it a storybook feeling for the recounting of the story.  It was a lovely touch.

Before we talk about the next point, go back up to the voice cast names up there. The talent embedded in this movie is amazing.  Marion Cotillard played The Rose and her elegant voice matches that role completely.  Then we have The Fox who was James Franco.  I feel like Jeff Bridges hasn’t been in any commendable live-action movies in a while but his voice for The Aviator was just fantastic.  As was the voices for young actors doing The Little Prince, Riley Osborne and The Little Girl  by Mackenzie Foy.

Another aspect that was done really well for The Little Prince was the music.  It was beautiful from the score to the soundtrack. My favorite has to be this one called Equation.  I watched it in English so it had the English version but I love this French one even more!

Light-hearted, soft, warm, sweet, cute.  These are all terms I’d associate with The Little Prince.  It knows when to tug at our heartstrings also with the little side story regardless of its The Little Prince or the parallel of The Little Girl finding her youth when her mom has truly been raising her to look into the future as a grown-up before she’s even experienced enjoyed being a child. The Little Girl really finds herself with the story of The Little Prince and spending time with The Aviator.  Their friendship together is really a sweet one and grows in a beautiful way.  It uses gentle hints at the more dreary things that as an adult we can understand.  The Little Prince plays around a little with the original though by inserting their own little adventure of The Little Girl and The Aviator and extends to her going out to find The Little Prince.  I won’t expand on what happens after there as to keep it fresh.  I’m a little hesitant on how that part is contributing to the story itself but it did hold its message well enough.  I’m not sure if it keeps the subtle message that the novel The Little Prince was trying to say and for that, I’m not exactly sure die hard fans of the book might like this change, but while I question that decision, it didn’t stop me from fully falling in love with the characters and catch myself tearing up at certain parts. I’m not one to nitpick on making adaptations exactly like their source material and for that, I could enjoy this one quite a bit.  It adds something extra while telling the beautiful story of The Little Prince that we are familiar with.

Overall, The Little Prince is a beautiful animation.  It handles the source material well and adds something different to help us resonate the message it holds.  With a masterful mix of computer graphics and stop motion animation, it brings a new touch. The voice cast is stellar and brings life to each of its character.  The unexpected friendship between The Little Girl and The Aviator is a special one that connects well. At the same time, it never makes us forget about the heart and imagination of being a child.  While I feel that the last segment felt a little weird and the part where maybe it might make some fans of the book hesitate to enjoy this movie as much as others, it did its best to expand upon the source material in their own way and for that I enjoyed the heart behind it. The Little Prince is definitely worth a watch if you enjoy beautiful animation and soundtracks mixed with an imaginative story.

Have you seen The Little Prince? Did you ever read the novel? What are your thoughts on it?

Contagion (2011)

I’m starting to feel like I’ve been living under a rock because in the past while, I haven’t really known much about any of the movies I watch. Usually, I just do that for B-horror and this isn’t one of those.  Honestly, I never had a doubt about Contagion because Steven Soderbergh (who I love) directed it and the entire cast is pretty strong so there were high expectations for this one.

Now, just to see if they actually lived up to my expectations 🙂

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bryan Cranston, Chin Han, John Hawkes

When Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) comes home from a business trip feeling ill, the following day she has a seizure and ends up dying.  Shortly afterwards, her son is also infected and her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) is quarantined.  At the same time, multiple people around the world also start falling ill and dying with similar symptoms.  Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) is brought in to take care of what seems to be an epidemic and with the help of Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) to find out what this virus is exactly; Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to go out into the field to contain and help set up facilities for the widespread virus and treatment and Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) to Hong Kong to investigate where and how it all began.  They are racing against time to figure out the vaccine that will save the lives against the constantly changing lethal virus.  While at the same time, they are up against the turmoil in the public along with people doubting their motives such as Alan Krumweide (Jude Law).

Contagion is a drama thriller as you would probably expect with the topic on hand: epidemic and racing with time.  I love thrillers and I believe since Outbreak I haven’t quite found one about spreading virus that has quite as much impact.  Funny enough, I have never reviewed Outbreak.  These movies tend to be heavy and I spread out the viewings.  But, I will do it soon.  With that said, Contagion 1-ups Outbreak.  I’m going to tell you a little story of what happened while I was watching this.  I turned this on Saturday night after dinner and I was sitting in my room and then Gwyneth Paltrow enters and shortly leaves because she dies fairly early in the flick (is that considered a spoiler?) It becomes obvious that coughing is a symptom and then as they were going through this intense part of infected people around the world sweating, coughing, hazy vision and then they go back to Laurence Fishburne and the other doctors talking about it and then right then when its more silent and tense, my mom starts coughing.  I kid you not, I jumped out of my chair and I tensed up really quickly.

Contagion was a kick-ass thriller.  I have nothing but good things to say about it.  The opening sequence, Gwyneth Paltrow, the buildup of the virus, the balance of chaos and tension, the whole tone of the movie: everything worked well together. The only thing was that they involved so many characters that at times, I needed to recall who those people were and a lot of times, it didn’t give the space to relate to them much.  The one person would be Marion Cotillard’s character who pretty much is dismissed at the second half for a good part until she resurfaces for just a small part.  Some characters, like Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne and Jennifer Ehle had more impact on the movie as they were the main leads of the whole operation on different sides of the situation. Matt Damon was the biggest loser in this though.  He lost his wife and his stepson and even when he’s being the overprotective parent, I still felt that I supported his idea in this one.  He really didn’t have much else to lose so even if it seemed unfair, extreme measures, right?  I had to write some on Matt Damon because I don’t watch a lot of him and he is usually in the “meh” territory but this one, I did like his character.

Still, the other characters did a great job.  I particularly like Kate Winslet’s character.  If you’ve been reading my reviews, you already know I’m a HUGE fan of hers.  She is just a classy awesome actress who can do no wrong.  And if there is wrong, its the movie, the story, the writers and whatever else, but nope, never her.  In this one, she just totally steals it.  As for Laurence Fishburne, the only thing that bothered me was his moustache.  It just doesn’t suit him well but other than that, his character was great.  He tried to keep the pieces together and his character was human because it wasn’t a perfect savior.  He just tried to balance his own personal worries during the tough time and make as objective as possible decisions based on what he had.  Along with Jennifer Ehle, who I have never seen before this, was pretty awesome.  She was really just in and out of scenes for short amount of times but she was in a lot of the critical scenes and handled them very well.

The character I hated the most (and I believe we are supposed to hate) was Jude Law’s Alan. The man was batshit crazy and obnoxious and just ridiculous.  You know the guy that pours oil on fire.  Thats him.  As the story intensifies, his face just irritated me.  Plus, Jude Law actually did pull off those facial expressions so well.  All in all, he did everything his character needed.  Great job, Jude Law.  You never let me down.

Because of all the characters involved in this, switching from different levels of investigation and management and research for this epidemic, the plot stays focused on the big problem on hand. It stay tense and compelling throughout its slight short of 2 hour run time but I never felt it was even that long.  Plus, in the Hong Kong scenes, they actually used some of the Hong Kong entertainment industry’s familiar faces so it hit even closer to home for me.

Overall, Contagion has an amazing cast, a gripping plot and it may possibly be the best epidemic disaster movie I have seen ever! So yes, I’d totally recommend this.  Its smart and it brings out the scary level of this especially since we’ve already experienced some similar scares (not quite to their extent, thank goodness) in the past decade.

Have you seen Contagion? What do you think of its plot and the cast? Did it get under your skin? 

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

After postponing date night, my boyfriend and I finally got around to going to see The Dark Knight Rises at the theatres last Wednesday.  I’ve never shared the same love for this movie as many superhero fans have.  These Batman movies are definitely ranked among the  higher ones.  I had revisited the first two over the course of the last 2 weeks.  This was good because I never had seen Batman Begins and really wanted to get a better idea of how Batman (Christopher Nolan version) got to where it was, instead of Batman just already had made the decision and was fighting the big bad guys in Gotham.  I have been debating how to structure this post but finally decided to not make a quick review of Batman Begins and Dark Knight instead this is just a review of this movie alone (although it is hard to not link to the previous movie).

I did a bit of research and looked into what other movies Christopher Nolan did.  He has definitely made a lot of movies that I’ve really appreciated. I think the first movie I watched from this director according to IMDB was Memento.  That movie was amazing and original.  He did the Prestige as well.  Although this one was enjoyable.  The part that made it less amazing was the fact that around the same time frame, The Illusionist came out and I had enjoyed watching that one a little bit more.  I’m sure that could have a debate going. It just depends which one is more to your taste.  What do I have to say about Christopher Nolan? He makes movies with darker and more serious tones and his ideas are very original, from setup to the character development, etc. I’m into that genre of movies so I’m fine with that. I like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.  Watching those two made me want to go see The Dark Knight Rises.

Going into the Dark Knight Rises, I had taken the time in the last few months to watch most of the trailers released (I think there was 4).  I wasn’t really sure how the movie would pan out.  The trailers made the movie look pretty awesome, in a somewhat vague way.  It gave us an introduction of the cast, but we already know the cast since its mostly carried forward from the first two in the trilogy.  I’m a huge fan of Anne Hathaway so I was really excited to see how she’d pull off Catwoman.  On the other hand, I was a bit worried as well.  I really loved Michelle Pffeifer’s Catwoman as well.  Then we come to Bane.  He is the villain of the final instalment.  Last time I saw Bane was in Batman and Robin, okay, bad memories, especially since that Bane didn’t say anything.  So I have no idea what is the deal with Bane and why does he hate Batman to the extent of ruining him, and wait, was he able to talk all along?  The previews also gave us the very much aged Bruce Wayne, walking with a cane, etc., but that made sense after I finally stayed awake for the final part of The Dark Knight and he runs off into the dark, so that was a bit more clear.  Now all the issues I had are laid out, lets see how my expectations turned out.

Expectations were definitely not failed.   I thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises.  As usual, the effects were fantastic and the story had enough going on for me to stay awake through the whole thing (and I don’t even want to talk about how bad my day was).  The final instalment was definitely exactly that.  You probably would enjoy the experience so much more if you had gotten around to watching the first two movies.  I don’t see this as a problem though.  The trilogy was meant to be seen as a whole to portray the story of Batman in a complete way from how he came to be to how he rose up.  I’m not sure who would actually go see the final instalment, after seeing all the previews and expect to be amused.  Well, you would probably still be amused because its a decent storyline and there was enough action and obstacles to keep your attention.  Either way, my suggestion, if you want to see this one, do go see at least The Dark Knight, just to have an idea of what how the characters had developed to where they were, especially how Batman got to this stage in life and better understand what he does.

Stemming from that, I loved the fact that they were able to keep ALL the actors from the previous instalments for all 3 movies.  Lets just say, I enjoyed this trilogy because they casted a lot of actors that I liked.  Michael Caine (playing Alfred) is remarkable as usual with his comments and he came out with this one with a bit of a different approach, showing his deep care for Batman/Bruce Wayne and had a pretty heartwarming and heartbreaking moments.  Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox) was awesome also.  He captures that role pretty good.  Gary Oldman (as Commissioner Gordan) was fantastic.  The new additions were great.  We have Anne Hathaway (as Catwoman/Selena) which pretty much has convinced me that she can play any role (the anticipation for Les Miserables is growing).  She played a pretty captivating role with a nice side story.  Another actor that was included in this instalment was Joseph Gordan-Levitt (as Blake).  My goodness, this guy is moving up so fast and his acting has improved where he can do well in roles of many genres.  We come to another actress that I love a lot is the elegant Marion Cotillard (as Miranda). I’ve seen her in mutliple movies before and she has always owned up to her character. Finally, Christian Bale (as Batman/Bruce Wayne)…..I’m at loss for words.  He is one hell of an actor, I’ve loved him in so many movies.  He sure kicked most of the previous Batmans in their ass.  So with the characters, at this point in time, we have all bonded with the people on screen and its due to the repeating cast appearances and familiar faces.  We have grown to understand their characters and their influences and significance to Batman/Bruce Wayne.  The only thing that brings on mysteries is now that Batman has retired and we see Gotham City 8 years later after the previous incident with the Joker and Rachel and Harvey’s death, we see the changes that have occurred and the good part of the beginning is set in introducing the new roles and also the new situation being on new dynamics between the cast.

I won’t sit around and say I liked which one in the trilogy I liked more.  I found all of it contributed to  an exciting Batman experience.  I thought this one was great and gave it a nice ending.  The only issue I always had was how the villains were never really awesome.  Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow was alright but was he an exciting villain, not really in my opinion.  But then, on the other hand, who can comment about Heath Ledger’s The Joker…he was crazy.  What made his character as a villain extremely convincing was he had no reason behind what he was doing.  You never knew what his next step was, and who likes to watch movies where you already expect the next step.  This was my issue with Bane as the villain.  I watched a good part of the movie and the reason why I was intrigued was not that I had no idea what he wanted to do but why? I kept waiting for the reason to come up.  Or at times I wondered if I missed it because of the comprehensible voices for the characters.  I had three movies to adapt to Batman’s voice, but now you give me Bane who has a muffled voice because of the breathing apparatus.

Other than that, this movie was a thrilling watch. As usual, there was character development for Batman even if his appearance was not very abundant.  The only issue was that there was a whole lot of side stories also.  Everyone seemed to have a story but there was not enough time to go in depth for anyone.  I felt at times that Blake could have had more character development especially with how they ended the movie.  The ending was done very well as it tied up the loose ends that were question marks throughout the movie.  So I was pleased with it all, especially since the ending had a slight unexpected factor.

Overall, this movie was an enjoyable movie experience. I would definitely recommend people to go see it, but with the urge that you have seen the previous movies of the trilogy to fully appreciate what this one has to offer.

On a side note, The Dark Knight Rises was so hard to review by itself.  I almost wanted to add a mini review of the first two just to have a more thorough review.  If you had a chance to see the movie, tell me what you thought about it.

Lots of good movies being released..I should be heading out to the theatres soon enough.