Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Expectations:

Normally a movie like Crazy, Stupid, Love would not interest me at all, but I am a HUGE Steve Carell fan, making this a must-see for me. I did expect the film to be too much of a chick flick for my liking. I mean, the word love is in the title! Even with the obvious love theme, the trailers made me laugh a lot, so I was depending on the comedic aspects of the film. I wanted Crazy. I expected Love. I prayed for no Stupid.

Plot:

The storyline was a bit bipolar in my personal opinion. For the first hour of the movie there was a lot of focus put on Cal (Steve Carell), as he reacted to his recent divorce. Every once in a while you would leave his story to focus on another character, but I just seemed disconnected from the main plot when the camera wasn't on him. There was also a lot of strange background music that for some reason distracted me and was just weird. I just thought I would throw that out there. So after an hour or so of boredom and a few laughs, BOOM! a HUGE plot twist is revealed. One that I never even saw coming and won't ruin for you. The scene where the twist is revealed was amazing. I could not stop laughing. Possibly because I was in shock that there was a scene that great in a romantic comedy. Of course the movie goes on, as all romantic comedies do, to a happy little ending.

Characters:

Steve Carell is great as his usual self as he plays Cal, a man struggling with divorce. He is not quite as funny as usual, mostly because his role is more serious, but he does a great job of handling the serious scenes. Ryan Gosling plays Jacob, who is great with women and really helps lighten the mood for Cal. His character was absolutely necessary, but I felt his love story with Hannah (Emma Stone) could have been left out of the mix entirely. Plus her love story with Richard (Josh Groban???) was completely useless and weird. As I said before, the plot was disconnected when the focus turned from Cal. The plot twist certainly helps bring all of the characters together, but the twist was not good enough to make up for the prior wasted hour.

Best Character: Robbie, Cal's son, played by Jonah Bobo, was undoubtedly the best character in the movie, but I don't think he would have been without the addition of Jessica, played by Analeigh Lipton. Robbie was thirteen years old and struggling with his crush on seventeen year old Jessica. I really enjoyed watching each of their parts unfold, and Robbie really made you feel bad for his sufferings stemming from the divorce.

Worst Character: Half way through the movie I was prepared to declare Hannah (Emma Stone) one of the most useless characters in the history of film, but things get better with her, so no worries there. With that being said, the worst character crown must go to David Lindhagen, played by Kevin Bacon. Not only do I not like Kevin Bacon, but he really distracted from the story between Carell and his wife as the movie progressed. He had a good part in the movie, but he should have had a smaller role.

Conclusion:
Crazy, Stupid, Love is certainly not the worst movie I have seen in my lifetime, but it isn't the best either. The second half of the movie saved it by far, and there were some extremely funny scenes. This is one of my least favorite Steve Carell movies, but he is still amazing. There was certainly more of a love theme than anything else, and my girlfriend loved it, which probably means it was a good chick flick. I didn't quite find the story very intriguing. People almost always have mixed feelings about divorce, which makes the plot a bit predictable. In the end, Crazy, Stupid, Love gets 2.26 out of 5 stars and apologizes greatly for that first hour of Stupid.

X-Men: First Class

This is my first ever blog post, so everyone should be extremely excited to have the opportunity to read it! I tried not to spoil anything so you should be able to read without ruining the movie.

Expectations:
As a huge fan of the original three X-Men movies, I was certainly setting my expectations high for the prequel. The Wolverine origins movie was a disappointment to me, and I was scared that this would be too much like Wolverine. I am not a comic book buff so I did not know what the true storyline was supposed to be, leaving the movie as one big unbiased surprise for me. The biggest question for me was can they match the storyline up with the first three movies.

Plot:
The feel of the movie overall stayed very true to that of the original X-Men movies. The opening scene was the exact scene from the beginning of the first X-Men movie, which surprised me a bit. Because of this scene, I really felt like the movie was connected to the first three films right off the bat. As you learned more and more about the main characters (Professor X and Magneto), the rest of the story began to unfold. There is an intriguing connection between the Professor and Mystique that I believe should have shown up in the other three movies if this were to be accurate. There are many other cool characters, but the true storyline is always kept as the most important: the relationship between Magneto and the Professor. The bad guy, played by Kevin Bacon, was a bit boring at times. I could care less about him. I just wanted them to get back to the X-Men. There were two things that I noticed that did not line up with the original films. In X2, Hank McCoy is not yet blue, and, in The Last Stand, the Professor and Magneto visit Jean Grey together, each walking quite well. Overall, I was interested the entire time but was not surprised enough. I wanted to see something awesome that had a result in the first movies, but I was never amazed.

Characters:
James McAvoy was brilliant as the Professor. I felt the connection between him and Patrick Stewart immediately and was very satisfied with the choice. With Magneto on the other hand, I did not feel that connection. I don't know what it was, but Michael Fassbender just did not satisfy me. Jennifer Lawrence did a great job as Mystique, while Kevin Bacon just wasn't frightening enough as Sebastian Shaw. The best character award definitely goes to James McAvoy as Professor X. The worst character award goes to Rose Byrne, who played a CIA agent who somehow turned out to have a love connection. I just did not understand why she was at all necessary.

Conclusion:
Not bad at all, considering they had to match this film with three others. Yes, there were some problems, but there were way fewer than I expected. The cast was good, not great. Certainly better than Wolverine, but not as good as the original trilogy. The best scene award goes to the director for having the guts to open with the same exact scene as the first X-Men movie. The worst scene was how the professor became paralyzed. It just wasn't exciting enough for me. Finally, I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars and will be buying it to add to my X-Men collection in the fall.