Divergent

Well I feel like I should say welcome to the decade of the young adult series turned into a movie franchise, but really I should have said that before the first hunger games… wait I forgot about the dreadfully awful twilight movies, so I guess we are nearing the end of that decade then, unless any of you know of a series that is being converted that I’m not aware of.

Welcome to the dystopic future of Chicago, where we think we might be the only living humans left on earth, unlikely, just like the fact you can’t rebuild basic com systems to check, but you can make all this crazy new tech… I will let this one slide, this time. Society has been divided into 5 different groups that manage govern and protect the people of the city, and when their children reach the age of mid-teens they are tested and have to decide where they want to proceed to their future.

Our story follows that of Beatrice Prior, a young woman going for her pre-selection test, but when her test comes back inconclusive, more commonly known as Divergent, she doesn’t know what to do. Normally those raised in their faction tend to continue on in their faction, but the point of the selection is to give you the ability to choose where you want to continue, posed with this problem Beatrice wants to make a difference in her life and thinks the best way of doing that is by joining Dauntless, the warrior faction. In choosing Dauntless she has to leave her family and friends back in Abnegation.

Beatrice, now going by Tris, has to work harder than ever to meet the expectations of Dauntless, and to keep her secret hidden from everyone, because as Tris finds out, one of the main things that Dauntless does to protect the city is to hunt down and remove Divergents with the help of the Erudites, the intelligence seekers and lawmakers.

In comparison to Hunger Games I thought this was a better story, and movie. I definitely want to read the books now that I have a taste for it. I have stated before, I think in a Nothing Presents podcast, that dystopic is one of my two favorite movie genres, the other being time travel. I really didn’t have too many problems with this movie, other than small things like the not knowing if they were the only humans left.

It is a great movie to see in theaters, but it isn’t a have to see, unless you go IMAX, then definitely go see it in theaters.

I give it a 4 out of 5

Written by Jeff Potts

Need for Speed

I have always thought that video game movies should be easier to make than comic book movies, but they fail at recreating the experience all the time. Look at the main selection of video game movies out; first there’s Resident Evil, a movie where all they did was take a concept and messed it up severely by adding a whole team of people instead of keeping it a single player experience. Then there is Hitman , a game about a lone assassin, but a movie about an assassin that becomes a knight in shining armor. I could go on about Max Payne and Doom but you get the idea, I will say that Doom had that one sequence that was very game like, when they went into first person shooter mode, that was fun but very unnecessary. I am not even going to touch on the atrocities of Uwe Boll.

These types of games (racing) should be the easiest to make into a movie, and let me tell you it was. Now I haven’t played the newest Need for Speed games, but this was very reminiscent of Hot Pursuit, one of my favorite versions of the Need for Speed series. From the cars they used, to the locations they picked, even down to the police radio talk to the checkpoints in the race, the last half hour of this movie was Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.


Toby Marshall, son of a late great racing legend, makes a deal with a very old rival, Dino, to build a car for him to sell, so that Toby can save his father’s garage. But where egos and cars are involved there is always a race. Dino challenges Toby to either win Dino's share of the profit or lose his, Toby accepts, but his friend also talks his way into the race, against Toby’s warnings. A heart pounding race ensues where Dino is in the lead until they almost cause a huge accident on the freeway where Toby takes the lead, in the last stretch of the race in fear of losing going over 200mph, Dino taps Pete’s bumper and causes Pete’s car to flip and turn in to a big ball of flame hurtling down the highway and off a bridge. Stopping to go back and try to save his friend from a fully engulfed car Toby gets arrested and accused of Pete’s death, while Dino runs and creates an alibi.

2 years later Toby gets out of jail, looking for vengeance only the way a racer can, calls in a favor and starts a cross country sprint to get from New York to California in less than 48 hours, to make it to the De Leon, a special race where its winner takes all. Upon learning of this development Dino places a bounty on Toby to keep him from the race, but you can’t stop vengeance.


Now on the other side, comparing this movie to the Fast and Furious series. FF has a more developed story, not just because they’ve had 6 movies to do it, but each movie has more story to it than this did, but I am not saying that is a bad thing. For being a video game movie this movie did exactly what was necessary, it came up with the plot of a game and had you watch it instead of play it, it would be so easy to go into the game and recreate every scene, minus the cut scene character development segments. This movie has also delivered in a way that the FF series hasn’t, this movie married the racing aspect to the acting segment almost flawlessly. The other thing that was great about this movie was you learned all about the back story in about the first 5 minutes so it could spend most of the movie moving forward instead of dragging its feet in the past.

I highly recommend that you see this in theaters, the only downside I have with the movie is that it wasn’t presented in IMAX. I would also like to thank the script writer and director for not going heavy handed on the little love story that was going on in the movie, they gave it as much as was needed and didn’t make it the center point of the story when it started.




I give this a 4 out of 5

Written by Jeff Potts

300: Rise of an Empire

So at the beginning of this movie when they said the protagonists name, I was like he sounds like the name of a street drug, Themistokles. If that street drug made you a bad ass warrior then you get to keep the name.

Set as a companion piece to the original movie, Rise covers the naval battle that happened in the north of Greece to protect Athens from the Persians. It also covers the story of why Xerxes hates the Greeks and how he became the God King. I will say in a not too spoilerish way that the end of this movie teased an awesome battle just like at the end of 300, that we also didn’t get to see, but it also takes place 6 months before the end battle in the first movie, which happened a year after the fall of Leonidas.


10 years before the events of 300, King Darius and his Persian army tried to invade Greece, but the Athenians, led by Themistokles, attacked before they had completely disembarked from their ships. In the heat of battle Themistokles witnessed Darius on a boat and took his chance to end the battle, by loosing an arrow upon him. Seeing the fate about to befall his father Xerxes tried to save him, but it was too late Themistokles’ arrow found its mark and the Persians retreated.

Darius warned Xerxes not to take revenge on the Greeks, but his hate blinded him as well as the counsel of the Kings greatest general, Artemisia, who convinced Xerxes that he could become a God and wipe the Greeks from existence.

Artemisia, is said to be unrivaled at naval combat, but Themistokles puts that to the test.


I did the best thing ever which was to watch 300 right before seeing this movie, and let me tell you, that was a great experience. There were a few things that happened at the end of this that made me want to see how they happen so I could see how they tied into the army vs. army battle at the end of the first movie. There were some fun cameos in the movie, but with the fact that the only way we saw Leonidas in the movie was the way we saw him, I doubt Gerard came back, I think they CG overlaid characters interacting with him from the original movie. The thing that bothered me in the movie was that they replayed the second in command father son story from 300, the only difference was the father didn’t want the son there in this movie, the son snuck in to the war camp.

The movie was a little bit better than the original, but it also didn’t feel like the same movie (I know it was different directors), maybe because they used a blue tint, to mirror the sea, whereas the first used a brown tint, for the land. There was a bigger story at play in this one as well, where I felt the first movie could have used some of it. My hope is that someone will do a master cut and make one movie in chronological order, I think that would be amazing.

In conclusion, if you are in to these kinds of movies see it in theaters, the 3D IMAX made the naval battle really interesting, but it isn’t necessary for enjoying the movie.



I give it a 4 out of 5

Written by Jeff Potts

Non-Stop

Being as specific of a movie as this was, there isn’t much to synopsis without giving major spoilers, so that will be quick this week and then we will get to the good stuff.


An air marshal, Bill, on a transatlantic flight receives a series of text messages that threaten the lives of everyone on board, every 20 minutes, unless the airline transfers 150 million dollars into an account. In an attempt to save everyone Bill uses some unorthodox methods to find the killer, while the killer drags his reputation through the mud shifting all suspicion on to Bill.


 Like I said short and simple. Looking at the movies that Liam Neeson has done in the past few years is very surprising, they have been some amazing films, but it is interesting that the industry took a bit of a leap to make an older actor the new action star of the decade. To me, other than playing historical figures his roles have mostly been supportive father or villains lackey. So it was a surprise to see him in Batman Begins at the end with a sweet fight scene, and then to follow that performance up with Taken, a masterpiece of action that was expertly executed by Liam. But I will say even though he is amazing, he runs the risk of overdoing it, he has had a movie out almost every year and they all follow the same basic plot, of a man who is either an officer/agent or an ex officer/agent that is in a situation where he needs to kick ass and solve the problem. I have not been let down yet by one of his movies, but Taken 2 was not as successful as the first and they are in the works of making a third instalment, so we have to watch out for that. Out of all the older male action stars, the only 2 that I respect the films they make to this day are Liam Neeson and Bruce Willis, all the others are just beating the dead horse of their action careers and need to move on to other genres of movies.

That being said Taken on a Plane, I mean Non-Stop, was a decent movie. It wasn’t a great movie, but it was an interesting study in dangerous situations in a confined space. If you are looking for something to watch it is a good choice, but you don’t have to see it in theaters, just in a dark quiet room so you can achieve maximum movie mode out of it.


I give it a 2.5 out of 5

Written by Jeff Potts