The Amazing Spiderman 2

Harry: I thought it was… good. It felt a little bit like a video game with all of the boss battles.

Sally: I don’t know what that means.

Harry: Like… there were way too many enemies-

Sally: Oh ya! At the end I was dreading that we have to watch more of the same fighting. I thought the best part of the film, and more importantly, from a female perspective, was the chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. It was the most interesting part of the movie and when he was fighting I was like, ‘Ok I don’t care, move on’, but I just wanted to see more of them together on screen. And as always, Emma Stone is just delightful.

Harry: I think you can tell that the two are in a real relationship off screen, and I agree, I felt it was the most original part of the movie and that’s what I will remember the most from the film. At times it was actually a very touching love story. I was expecting the typical hero fighting villain movie, but the scenes they were in together was electric.

Sally: Every single Spiderman fight is the same. Confirm or deny?

Harry: I thought the fights were a lot of fun. I think showing Spiderman’s “Spidey Sense” in these films made the fights a lot more fun than they were in the original Spiderman films.

Sally: I just think Andrew Garfield is cute and he defines what the new hot is and fits it to a tee. I enjoy watching his lanky awkwardness a lot more than the fighting. More Andrew, less villains. But more to the point, as a date movie make sure to bring a long a bag of snacks and drinks. In one of the 80 fights in the film I was really thinking, “Gosh, I could use a good piece of chocolate right now.” Really the only thing that kept me engaged was the chemistry between the two leads.

Harry: Ya… From a male perspective I enjoyed the action, but I was also hoping we would see more of a growth to Peter Parker and all of his relationships in the film. However, trying to cram that storyline in, while also having, like you said, a large number of action set pieces took away from what could have been a pretty touching love story. They could have done a lot more with the idea that the two characters are living completely separate lives and all they have in common is each other.

Sally: Ultimately I enjoyed it.

Harry: Me too, but if you’re going to see this film, it has to be a date night where you make the trip to the theatre. We just watched the first one at home so we could catch up and I can safely say-

Sally: I fell asleep.

Harry: Yep you did. Its a fun action movie and worth seeing.

Sally: Much better than the first one.

Harry: Oh yeah, much better. The chemistry between Stone and Garfield was so much stronger and that was really enjoyable. That was definitely missing from the first film.
As a date night movie I give it 4 out of 5.

Sally: I agree, a solid way to end a date. For sure!

Thor: The Dark World

Sally: Chris Hemsworth has a lovely body. A point which Thor has proven twice over now.

Harry: Whoever his personal trainer is, he knows how to sculpt a man.

Sally: They also give him just enough screen time to show that this is what he looks like under all those clothes.

Harry: It wasn’t as dramatic a reveal as the last one, but it was still pretty good.

Sally: It was just as sensual!

Harry: And there was water. But more importantly, what did you think?

Sally: Um, I really enjoyed it. I think I laughed a lot more than the first one. But I do have a soft spot for origin stories. They are my favourite. So the second one always takes me a bit longer to get into. But it was just as good as the first one, if not a little bit better.

Harry: It was a much stronger story than the first one. You look back on it now and you realize just how simplistic the first one was. They must have looked at it and thought “is this going to work? Are people going to like this dude running around with a hammer?” You can tell with the amount of money they threw behind this one compared to the original. It was a much more complicated story. It had much more captivating story lines.

Sally: I still, this is what I said about the first one, don’t understand Thor and Natalie Portman’s relationship. I don’t think they have that much chemistry together. I think they have zero chemistry together.

Harry: Natalie Portman is honestly just having too much fun to actually be acting.

Sally: The whole romance bit is second fiddle to the fighting and action stuff.

Harry: It was definitely a much more entertaining film. In terms of pure action and bang for your buck action movie, it was great.

Sally: I love the big last fight scene with everything flying between worlds.

Harry: It was so well done.

Sally: And it was sooooo funny. I think with superhero movies, which I am a connoisseur of, you need to keep it light-hearted and fun and Thor ticked all those boxes.

Harry: It made reference to the Avengers and what happened in New York, and it also did it really well with the bit about Captain American and Loki. It showed that the other characters still exist, but that it wasn’t their story.

Sally: Loki was just as hilarious!

Harry: Yeah! He always steals the show. I think it will be hard for Marvel because-

Sally: They’re getting rid of Loki???

Harry: No. It would be so cool to see a Loki movie.

Sally: They will never be able to do that. I really like Asgard and visually, they do such a good job with all of that. All the cool things they added in, like those flying boat things.

Harry: It was cool to see more of Asgard. That was my favourite part of the film. In the first one, they touched on what Asgard will look like conceptually and this one showed that reality. In terms of a sequel; that was one of the best sequels I’ve seen in a long time.

Sally: As a date movie, from a female perspective I think it completely works because you got all your action, superhero fix and I got Thor’s body and I love superhero movies in general. It’s funny enough that even if you are not into the fighting and action, there’s enough to make you interested.

Harry: It’s a perfect date movie because it’s not inaccessible as a superhero movie. It’s easy to follow the story.

Sally: All in all, 4.5 hearts out of 5!

About Time

Sally: So….

Harry: That was not what I was expecting. That was more of a father-and-son story than a love story. You know? The focus wasn’t if he ended up with the girl. It was more that it doesn’t matter how many times you can time travel.

Sally: I found that at times I was bored.

Harry: Yup. The movie was too long.

Sally: It was. It kinda stumbled. I kept thinking “are they going to tell the entire life story of this guy?” Because I don’t really care. He, as an actor, was really funny. But I don’t know…maybe there was too much dialogue?

Harry: Compared to other Richard Curtis comedies, the dialogue wasn’t tight. Love Actually was very tight. And I think it’s because a lot of Richard Curtis movies deal with many different story lines so it forces him to wrap it and keep it tight. It reminded me of Definitely, Maybe in that it really plods.

Sally: Ugh! I hate that movie. The movie has demonstrated that Rachel McAdams is a lovely actress. She just has that beautiful smile and she rocks the rom-com genre. I need to watch The Notebook again!

Harry: She’s pretty much the same person in every movie she’s made. She as a person is very sweet and all those characters suit her.

Sally: I also found that I did not like the music.

Harry: Yeah, it was pretty sappy and basically the same score over and over again and it got really boring.

Sally: Confirm or deny: you want to move to Cornwall and live in that adorable beachside cottage?

Harry: OH! That was the first thing I wanted to say to you! London needs a code of paint, but Cornwall looks delightful.

Sally: Bill Nighy is great. He’s also the same person in every movie.

Harry: Yes, but I can forgive that because the person he is, is fantastic. In the touching moments, he was perfect. They had a great chemistry; the main character and Bill Nighy,

Sally: I think I just came into the movie with too high expectations and I kept on wondering when it was really going to wow me. Because it’s not wowing me. You know?

Harry: It took me a while to realize it was not a love story. So I thought this was a pretty sub-par love story because there was no real conflict because he can cheat.

Sally: It doesn’t have that traditional story arc. The beginning of those love stories are all lovely, but this one really jumped into it very quickly. There wasn’t really an intro so I wasn’t really into the movie yet.

Harry: I agree. Yeah. It’s difficult to really put my finger on why that movie was off. But as a date, it was so light-hearted you could get away with it.

Sally: Ok, out of five hearts, what would you give it?

Harry: Three. I think, honestly, I’d have a much better time watching that with my dad. It had some laughs, but not the greatest in terms of the romance factor.

Sally: So all-in-all, a cute movie to see. But you could probably watch it at home on a date night. Not really necessary to see in theatres.