The Lego Batman Movie

Who didn't love The Lego Movie am I right? If you didn't, please leave. I'm just kidding, but if you seriously did not enjoy The Lego Movie, there's no way you're going to enjoy this film. And if you say you enjoy this one but not The Lego Movie, you are most definitely lying about not enjoying The Lego Movie. Because you can't enjoy this without enjoying the movie before it. Deal with it.

THE

 LEGO BATMAN 

MOVIE

                  Will Arnett reprises his role as the best incarnation of Batman since The Dark Knight Trilogy directed by visionary director Christopher Nolan. And this time, he's dealing with some personal issues while also having to deal with the new Commissioner in town: Barbara Gordon.

                  Now if you're a big DC Comics buff, you'll probably be a little confused about this whole

version of Barbara and Bruce's relationship. I was, too since I played the Arkham Trilogy (phenomenal game series by the way) and their relationship was almost intimate. In this Lego adaptation however, Barbara Gordon is completely unaware of Batman's true identity as Bruce Wayne.

                  Also, Barbara, as I mentioned before, becomes the new Gotham City Police Commissioner, relieving Jim Gordon from duty. Now Jim is not as complex or as driven as the Jim Gordon we know from Nolan's film trilogy. Instead, Lego Jim is completely reliant on Batman and whenever there's trouble, he just pushes a button that turns on the Bat signal. And conveniently, Batman comes to the rescue.

                  At the beginning of the film, there's the typical villain release, crazy plot to drop a huge boat-load (actually a plane load) of bombs on the city and Batman comes and saves the day. The way he beats all the villains is actually the best thing I have ever seen. It was Arkham Trilogy sick, it was Lego hilarious.

                 He comes in with a song and it's actually got a pretty sweet beat to it. So once he starts his rapping, he just wrecks everyone in a matter of a minute or two. The Joker takes maybe an extra 30 seconds to beat, but overall he makes quick work of everyone.
                 Then he goes home to Alfred and his Batcave. From there, he meets Richard Grayson at the party that's held to honor Jim Gordon's retirement. He adopts Richard (later known as Dick) and he takes him on a daring mission to get the weapon that will be able to send villains into the Phantom Zone.
                 And finally, all the villains escape from the Phantom Zone, and Dick, Batman, Barbara, and Alfred save the city. Overall, it's a hilarious ride full of heartwarming storytelling.

THE

 LEGO BATMAN 

MOVIE

Ratings:

Family Friendliness- 9/10 Batarangs This is probably one of the most family friendly movies you'll see out there since The Lego Movie. There's some pretty funny references to past Batman films, and there's one part where when Bruce meets Richard, Richard says "The other kids call me 'Dick'", to which Bruce replies "Well children can be cruel."

Humor- 9/10 Batcaves Left and right jokes, puns, and insults are being thrown around, and they're all (relatively if not completely) clean! It's one that not only kids will enjoy. Adults will have a ball, too!

Story-line- 7/10 Batmobiles It's a pretty cliché story. The bad guy wants to destroy the city because the hero does something to him that hurts him and the hero has to wrestle with his greatest fear in order to team up with other heroes and beat the bad guys. At the end of it all, Batman and the City of Gotham are once again in harmony.

Overall- 9/10 Stars The score should have been 8, but c'mon. This is a Lego movie, and it's one of those films that you'll watch over and over again on Friday nights to lay back and relax. You may even forget about that big project at work you have or that big exam coming up!

Bibliography:

"The Lego Batman Movie" <https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HbwrGI_NbfY/maxresdefault.jpg>

"The Lego Batman Movie: Barbara Gordon" <https://images.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_470,q_auto:good,w_620/bmzh6yjgut1g4o52vr0z.jpg>

"The Lego Batman Movie Trailer" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQUKzSDhrg>

Split

Review #2 of 2017. I've gotta pump out a lotta these to make up for nothing in January. I didn't even post about how lonely I was!!! But hopefully I can make it up to y'all and you can forgive me. Okay, here goes.

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                  Love M. Night Shyamalan? Well, you ain't seen nothin' like this. Actually, you may have.

But still, I've only seen a handful of Mr. Night's works such as Unbreakable, Signs, The Last Airbender, and The Sixth Sense. So I've no clue if he's ever made something along these lines, but either way, this was phenomenal. James McAvoy really brings his skills and talents to the table, delivering a horrifying and fantastic performance as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with 23 split personalities. They all bear different names, different psyches, and different objectives.
                  Now, thank God that Mr. Night didn't show us all 23 of Kevin's personalities, or else I would have ripped my hair out. But the ones that are portrayed are done phenomenally. Their names are Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig, Barry, Orwell, Jade, and The Beast. The Beast is the 24th personality that manifests itself at the end of the film.
                  The action starts pretty fast, actually, almost immediately. Casey Cook (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a shy high school teenager that has a rather suggestive past, and is quiet because of it. She is waiting for her uncle to pick her up from a birthday party that has just concluded. Claire and Marcia are the other girls that are also waiting for rides.
                  Claire suggests to her father that they just leave because Casey's ride is probably going to be there any minute, but her father refuses. Casey comes over and says that her uncle's truck broke

down on the highway, and Claire's dad offers to give her a ride home. Casey accepts.
                  Claire, Marcia, Casey, and Claire's father walk out to the car and jump in. Claire's dad is at the trunk a little too long, and a strange man steps into the vehicle. He's wearing glasses and has a dark grey button-down shirt with some nice slacks for bottoms. He puts on a white honeycomb carbon mask and uses a spray that knocks out Claire and Marcia.
                 It seems, however, that he does not notice Casey. He begins to prepare himself for driving when Casey opens the passenger seat door. The car alerts the man to the opening of the door and responds by knocking Casey out with the same spray used on Claire and Marcia.
                The three wake up in a room with two twin size beds and a single door. There is a bathroom off to the right with a single red rose in an elegant vase. But nothing has happened to them at all. None of them have been assaulted and none of them have been abused. It's a very strange situation indeed.
                Dr. Karen Fletcher is a psychological doctor who is studying Kevin. She is aware of the 23 different personalities, and has met Barry and Patricia before. However, she has not met Dennis. And recently, Barry has sent Dr. Fletcher random and very urgent emails that aren't very self-explanatory. They make no sense in fact. She suspects something is going on between all of the personalities, but isn't sure what.
                We find out later on that it is Dennis that captured the three girls and brought them to their current dwelling place. They meet Dennis again and he introduces them to the bathroom and asks that they keep everything neat and orderly. As the film progresses, you also meet Patricia who is very motherly in nature. Hedwig is a nine year old that likes to dance and has red socks.
               All the while the girls are trying to figure out how to escape the personalities' plans for their demise, Dr. Fletcher must discover what is happening that Barry and Dennis will not say. She eventually finds out that the personalities believe that The Beast is coming to Kevin, and it will be the greatest personality that is contained in Kevin's body. It has a desire for human flesh, and believes that any who have not suffered are not pure, therefore they must die.
             And guess who is pure? Well I'm not gonna tell ya, you've gotta see the film!

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Ratings:

Family Friendliness- 7/10 Personalities There are some suggestive things that occur, like Dennis asking the girls to remove their shirts so that he can wash them, and then near the end when the Beast has manifested itself completely inside of Kevin, he kills Dr. Fletcher, Claire, and Marcia. That should tell you who lives. Or does she?

Story-line- 8/10 Rooms I love M. Night Shyamalan's work (except for The Last Airbender though, that was awful) and this definitely lived up to his name. The story was not very hard to follow at all, and the way it is told is beautiful. You see things from Casey's point of view, and it's a little confusing when you see flashbacks of her childhood at first, but once you reach the end it all fits perfectly. At least, I understood what the flashbacks' purpose were.

Acting- 9/10 Flashbacks Alright, this is something I've never done with a review, but I think you know that I try to spice every review up a little bit, so this is no different. I just had to point out that this movie's actor talent was through the roof for a relatively low budget. James McAvoy delivered an amazing performance and really brought life and character to each of the different personalities that were portrayed. I honestly couldn't have thought of a better actor to play Kevin. Well, maybe Tom Hardy. That would have had me shook.

Overall- 9/10 Stars This was a phenomenal film. I was really impressed with how Mr. Night was able to pull off such a thrilling movie with such a small budget. I mean, compared to other films (*cough*Captain America: Civil War*cough cough*) the budget was small.

Bibliography:

"Split Wallpaper" <http://www.desktop4ipad.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/split_xxlg-500x500.jpg>
"Split Hedwig" <https://movies.universalpictures.com/media/split-gallery-2-5797dc2868ec8-1.png>
"Split Dennis" <http://dirtyhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/rs-split-f0a299c5-db50-4c61-afdd-b7423a8ca912.jpg>

Don't Breathe

Alright, so this is going to be the first review of 2017!!! First of all, Happy New Year everyone. Sorry I didn't do an official New Year's Post, but I was in NYC for the Ball Drop and to visit my cousins who were visiting from Texas. So let's get goin'.

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                  Rocky, Alex, and Money are three friends who live in Detroit, Chicago trying to make a buck. What do they do? They break into people's houses and loot them of valuable items to sell. Alex is the hacker that can disable any house alarm system just with the push of a remote button.

Money is the one with the tips of the valuable houses, and Rocky is the pretty girlfriend to Money.

                  Money gets a tip for a house that has $300K in cash. That much money would allow the trio to get out of Detroit and go wherever they want. Alex doesn't want to do it because having that much money as a trio of kids from Detroit would raise major suspicions in states abroad. But he does it anyway, and researches their guy.

                  He's an army veteran that got a Veteran's compensation of a handsome sum, and is living modestly in his neighborhood. So the trio set up a camera to watch the house for five days. Their guy doesn't leave, and on the sixth day, they're in a car across from the house in question debating when they're going to pull their heist. They see their guy walking his dog, but he's blind. So they decide to go in that night.

                  At 2 A.M., the trio walks up to the front door and find it has four locks. Alex suggests the side door and throws a little something to the blind man's bulldog to make it fall asleep. They find that the side door is barred and locked, so they try the cellar just to the left of it. That's locked, too. However, there's a window just up and to the left of the cellar that Rocky can fit into.

                  She climbs in and shuts off the house alarm and then lets the other two in. The house is all hardwood, so they take off their shoes to avoid making a lot of noise. Money cooks up a little concoction that, when released as steam, will cause the blind man to sleep heavy-like. So Money goes upstairs to find the blind man's room which has a television running, and stabs a pencil into the water

bottle and then looks up.

                 The blind man is sitting up. He picks up a remote and turns off the t.v., then goes back to sleep. Money lets the concoction loose and heads back downstairs. They try breaking into the cellar, which has a lock to it, and Money can't get it open with a crowbar. So he whips out a pistol.

                  Alex freaks out and says he wants no part of this if there's a gun involved, so he leaves. Money then shoots the lock and is about to open the door when he and Rocky look right. The blind man is standing in the doorway that leads to the upstairs.
                 "Who's there?" he asks.
Money holds up his hands and backs away from the door. "Look man, I was high, and I just stumbled in here, so that's my bad. I'll be going now." The man starts walking towards Money with his hands raised, and Money points the gun at him.
                "Whoa now, don't move. I'll shoot you." The man keeps pressing forward.
                "I swear to god old man, I'll shoot you!" He keeps moving forward, and Money shoots a nearby pipe. "I'll shoot you! Back off!"
                When he's close enough, the old man grabs the gun with one hand and Money's throat with the other, pointing the gun at Money. Then he pulls the trigger.
                Outside, as he's walking home, Alex hears the gunshot. He books it back. At the same time,

the old man begins making his way to his front door. Rocky then moves to a nearby closet. Alex walks in, closing the door behind him silently, then turns towards the hallway and sees the man walking straight for him. He presses himself up against the hallway wall, and slips on by to the bathroom.
                The old man locks his door with all four of the locks, then just as he's about to walk away, he stops. He sniffs the air. Then he sniffs again. He crouches to the floor, sniffing like a dog, and finds Rocky's and Money's shoes. He takes a good whiff, and he's aware that he's got at least one other person in his home.
                 So begins the struggle to escape this unnamed blind veteran's home. He's a merciless killer, and he will stop at nothing to kill every last intruder.

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Ratings:
Family Friendliness- 4/10 BIG no no for anyone below the age of 14. I'd even go so far as to say this is not appropriate for 15 year olds. But then again, it's your judgment. Just please watch it first before showing it to your younger kids. ****There is a scene where the old man is going to place his sperm into Rocky in order to have a child through her because his daughter was killed in a car crash, so he just wants another kid. Super gross, but just had to letcha all know.****
Story-line- 6/10 It's kinda the cliché Chicago kid story. They're poor, wanna get rich quick and get out, so they do something stupid and dangerous and end up, well... you'll have to see the film. It's very suspenseful and stressful though. So if you're into that kinda stuff, this is the movie for you.
Suspense- 7/10 I get very stressed out very quickly during films, and this was one of those extremely stressful films. I recently saw "Split", and I'll tell ya that this film was stressful, but "Split" was a brilliant stressful. Stay tuned.
Overall- 7/10 In terms of the math, this movie is not the best that I have ever reviewed. It's a nice Friday night film to watch with your friends when you're all bored, or if you're having a Halloween Sleepover like I often do. The math was actually supposed to come out to a 5.6, but I gave it grace because this kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a little graphic and suggestive, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.


Bibliography:
"Don't Breathe" <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Don't_Breathe_(2016_film).png>
"Don't Breathe Old Man" <http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday/images/stories//2016May/3_090316114656.jpg>
"Don't Breathe Old Man (2)" pic of the trio <https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/DontBreatheHP-1200x630-e1472769485847.jpg>