Leon: The Professional

“The rifle is the first weapon you learn how to use, because it lets you keep your distance from the client. The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn.”

            In movies and TV shows I think it is interesting to see the good and bad sides of characters. I have learned that no character is truly all bad and no character is truly all good. You can see this on the show Once Upon a Time. The Evil Queen did not start off evil she was a beautiful kind woman who was influenced by her mother into becoming evil. Snow White and Prince Charming have some darks moments in their past that have literally left a dark spot on their hearts. One of my favorite things in TV shows and movies is when a character breaks down and becomes either good or bad. I just like seeing different sides of people I like seeing what is in them and they are capable of.  In the real world no matter how bad some humans may be there is some good in them somewhere (unless you are talking about Hitler and the Nazis but that is an entirely long other story).

            Léon: The Professional is about a man who is a badass deadly assassin with no emotional attachments until a little girl changes everything for him. He could be seen as a bad guy who gets his heart changed and turns to doing killing for good. It is not a cheesy soppy story it actually gets more awesome as it progresses.

            Léon (Jean Reno) is an assassin for an Italian mobster named Tony. Tony has him go scare off a drug dealer who is refusing to leave town. Léon single handedly takes out all the guards and sneaks up right behind the dealer.

            After the job he heads to the convenience store like any normal person in society and buys two cartons of milk. While walking to his apartment he sees the little girl Matilda (Natalie Portman) his neighbor’s daughter sitting near the stairs smoking. He goes into his apartment but looks out the peep hole to see a dealer and his men roughing Matilda’s father. Apparently he was given a package of coke that had been one hundred percent pure but now it is at ninety percent. The father swears he did not cut it he has no idea who did. The head dealer Stansfield (Gary Oldman) tells the father that he has until noon the following day to find out who cut the coke.

            The following day Stansfield and his men come back. They show no mercy and shoot up the entire department including Matilda’s father, younger brother, and step-mother and sister. Matilda was fortunately out at the convenience store and was spared ending up like her family. She comes home and realizes what is happening. She walks past the apartment to Léon’s and begs him to let her into his apartment. Matilda tells Léon that she is not sad about her father and step-mother and step-sister being killed she is sad about her little brother being killed because he was innocent and the only one she liked. She wants him to kill the men who killed her brother but he will not do that. Then Matilda asks Léon to let her stay with her and train her to be a cleaner like him. Léon tells her he does not believe she has it in her to kill people. She grabs one of his guns and shoots it off into the street.

            Weeks go by and Léon trains Matilda how to shoot. They each take care of each other. Matilda still wants Léon to help her kill the men who killed her brother and he still will not help her. She goes back to her apartment to grab some clothes and some of her stuffed animals. She hears detectives come into the apartment along with Stansfield who it turns out works for the DEA. Matilda does some recon on Stansfield so she can get her revenge.

            Matilda’s revenge does not work out as well as she had hoped. Luckily she left a letter for Léon telling her what she was doing and where she would be. He saves her life and later sacrifices his own in order for her to have a better life.

            My summary of Léon: The Professional is not that great but trust me the movie is very good. I liked the relationship between Leon and Matilda. As an eleven year old Matilda thought she was in love with Léon but really looking at it she was “in love” with him because he was the only one who ever really cared for her. Léon liked her because she brought out his caring side. Gary Oldman was insane he was the best part of the entire movie. Léon: The Professional is a movie worth seeing at least once. 

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

“Some believe that before the universe, there was nothing. They're wrong. There was darkness... and it has survived.”

            Thor: The Dark World takes place two years after Thor (Chris Hemsworth) first came to earth. He wants to return to earth but after the events of the first Thor movie and The Avengers his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) refuses to let him go. So in the mean time Thor has been fighting off enemies and trying to bring peace to the nine realms of his world. He has had a guy named Heimdall (Idris Elba) looking out for his earthly lady love Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). One day Heimdall cannot see Jane and Thor rushes down to earth.

            Jane and her trusty sidekick intern Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) track down a wormhole like the one Thor came through in the first movie. Jane gets sucked into the wormhole to another dimension/realm/world… whatever you wanna call it. Wherever she goes she is brought near this big rock type thing that is filled with this red stuff called Aether… let me explain what this Aether gunk is…

            Thousands of years ago the Asgardians fought off these people called The Dark Elves (yep I said The Dark Elves). The leader of the elves Malekith and his second in command Algrim escape to await their chance to come and fight off the Asgardians.

            Back to Jane… Jane was gone for five hours. When she comes back Thor appears. Jane is happy to see him but also not since he was away for so long. And he also destroyed a portion of NYC with the Avengers. The police arrived to try to help look for Jane. When they go to touch her the Aether that she was smothered in sends out this wave of energy that knocks everyone down. Thor takes her back to Asgard to be cured of whatever the Aether stuff is.

            *Skipping over a lot of stuff*… the Dark Elves comes back and destroy Asgard. Through the wormhole in time they plan on going down to earth and using the Aether as their weapon. Naturally Thor and Jane and even Loki (Tom Hiddleston) all have a hand in bringing down the Dark Elves.

            The cast was great except for Natalie Portman. Ok before I get shit thrown at me, Natalie Portman is a good actress and she was very good in this Thor but I feel she just is not right for the part. She is not convincing as a scientist and as someone in love with Thor. DO NOT for one second think I am saying Portman is not convincing as a scientist because she is pretty that is not at all what I am saying in the slightest. There was just something about her that did not convince me she was a character rather than just an actress playing the character of a scientist. Jane and Thor’s relationship is not convincing either. To me they have as much chemistry as two poles. It could just be me and how I am sick and tired of romantic love interests in certain movies. I a shipper hardcore of certain love interests in movies and TV shows but I am finding I would rather see a man and a woman work together as partners to get shit done without the romantic entanglements… wow that turned into a rant, I apologize. Kat Dennings once again steals the movie in what limited screen time she is given. She saves the movies for me. Tom Hiddleston is just a hot sarcastic piece of ass as Loki. Loki also saves the movies for me too because he is a hot sarcastic piece of ass. Good lord, I am such a damn girl I cannot handle myself. Once again, I apologize.

            Unfortunately Thor: The Dark World not hold my interest at all. I feel really bad for some reason but the stories of the movies have not held my interest. The stories I found a bit dull in both movies and the characters are just not convincing to me, well I will say except for Loki, Tom Hiddleston just nails playing a villain. Thor: The Dark World, like Iron Man and some of the other Marvel movies are worth seeing because they are awesomely made and written (except for the characters in Thor). 

Thor (2011)

“You can't kill an entire race!”

“Why not?... And what is this new found love for the Frost Giants? You, could have killed them all with your bare hands!”

“I've changed.”

Thor is yet another Marvel superhero story where a vain, greedy man is shown the error of his ways once something happens to him after he had done a not so good thing. This time instead of a rich billionaire like in Iron Man it is literally a mythological god who is sent down to earth.

            Several centuries ago there was a war between some mythological figures the Asgardians and some kind of ice people. The ice people were defeated and all the realms lived in peace. The leader of Asgard is a king named Odin (Anthony Hopkins). He has two sons Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Thor is the oldest and set to become the next king of Asgard should anything happen to Odin. He is eager to go to war with any realm who wants to start one.

            Somehow during a ceremony the ice people manage to break into the castle at Asgard. Thor gathers Loki and a few of their friends to go to the realm of the ice people and start shit. Well, they start a pile of shit that gets so huge that Odin comes and gets super pissed at his son because now peace with the ice people has just ceased. Odin banishes Thor to the realm of earth without his powers and the ability to pick up his mighty hammer unless someone becomes worthy of it like Thor once was.

            Thor comes crashing down on a site that is being monitored by scientists Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Erik Selvig (Stellan Skargard) and student helper Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings). Jane unavoidably hits Thor with her car and they take him to the hospital. In photographs they took of the lightening strike that came before they crashed into Thor they see the outline of his body on the lightening. They rush to the hospital only to hit Thor yet again with the car after he escaped from the doctors and nurses.

            Back in Asgard Loki learns some things about himself that do not please him at all. He becomes vengeful and evil. He wants Odin to die so he can be king and seek his revenge. He also wants to find Thor and kill him. Loki has always been jealous of Thor as the older brother who got whatever he wanted.

            On earth Jane and Thor begin to fall in love (what a damn bore). Jane is willing to risk her reputation and her life to help Thor to retrieve his hammer. The only issue is his hammer has been sealed up by S.H.I.E.L.D who want to study it. He breaks into the facility but he is still not worthy of the hammer after what he did to the ice people.

            To make a long story short: Loki comes to earth looking for Thor, Thor fights Loki and he once again becomes worthy of his hammer, the brothers fight and it looks like Loki has died, Thor is upset and brooding because he has come to like earth and he cannot see Jane again.

            .The cast was great Marvel is amazing when it comes to casting even their most secondary of characters. I loved seeing Kat Dennings she cracks me up so much no matter what she does or says. She brought great comedy to the movie right from the beginning. Darcy said what every woman who watches this movie is thinking when it comes to Thor/Chris Hemsworth. Tom Hiddleston was brilliant. I have seen The Avengers more times than I can count so it was finally nice to see what crept up Loki’s ass to make him so vengeful and evil. I have a harder crush/love for Loki than I do for Thor and that is down to Hiddleston I think he is such a brilliant actor. I felt the character of Jane was not very well written or acted. She just felt flat either due to the writing or Natalie Portman’s acting. I have to mention Josh Dallas, Prince Charming from the TV show Once Upon a Time, played one of Thor’s buddies. I was dying because he had blond hair and an awful mustache and I just kept thinking of him as Prince Charming.

  My family has raved about Thor since it came out. They constantly rave about how much they love Thor. It has taken me four years to finally sit down and watch it. The story of a spoiled man-child reminded me of Tony Stark. With Tony Stark something happened to him that made him turn his life around. Same with Thor, he got kicked out of his home realm and he realized what a dick he was and he changed. That kind of story drives me a little nuts. But as a whole Thor was a goodAs with most of the Marvel movies I have watched so far Thor is worth seeing as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And of course I would not be a woman if I did not mention that Thor is worth seeing for a shirtless Chris Hemsworth… shallow I know but deal with it.

 

Your Highness (2011)

“They only say that stuff because of you, because you go out and have to pretend to be the best, and they look at me like I'm some sort of idiot.”

            Since the dawn of filmmaking there have been movies about knights in shining armor out to save their fair maidens from torturous old wizards. All of them have been sweet, heroic, chivalrous stories with knights you want to take home to your mother and maidens so fair they could make a guy propose on the spot.

            Your Highness could have been your typical medieval romantic farce… and I say could have been because it is rude, crude and totally hysterical from beginning to end!!  

            Fabious (James Franco) is heir to the throne of a faraway kingdom. He has completed many quests and is loved the kingdom over. Fabious has conquered the evil magician Leezar (Justin Thoreau) and taken his captive maiden Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) as his bride. His brother Thadeous (Danny McBride) on the other hand has done nothing extraordinary with his life. He likes nothing better than getting laid, high and wasted. At the same time Thadeous is very jealous of his older brother but does not have any plans to do anything about it.

            On the day Fabious is to marry Belladonna, Leezar comes and takes the bride back to his castle. Now Fabious has to go on a new quest to get his bride back and wants Thadeous to come with him. Thadeous is none too pleased he has no desire to go on a quest with his brother.

            There quest takes them to many faraway places and they encounter many people/creatures including the incredibly sexy and courageous Isabel (Natalie Portman) who winds up protecting and helping the brothers on their quest.

            If I gave away any details it would completely spoil the movie and many of the scenes and lines are so dirty I blush a little (but laugh at the same time) thinking about them.

            Everyone in the movie was fantastic. Natalie Portman was awesome I liked seeing her as the tough ass. James Franco was so cute and dopy all I wanted to do was hug him. Zooey Deschanel as always was ridiculously adorable but she faked a horrible British accent! Justin Thoreau was so slimy but good as Leezar. Danny McBride is just hysterical that is all I can really say about him.

            Your Highness is a modern comical take on all the knights and shining armor movies and medieval stories. I cracked up non-stop throughout the entire movie. It was nice to get away from all the classic movies I constantly watch and see something with crude humor. I liked the movie so much I cannot wait to get it on DVD.

            Your Highness is very crude and has a lot of sexual jokes and references but if you have a very good sense of humor definitely see the movie.