AmbushBug26

Krampus may not be the scariest film this year, but it's certainly entertaining and you can tell the creators gave it their all. Even if not everything in the film ends up working.

The director is very talented at creating legitimate thrills and building up suspense. There are no false jump scares or lame fake-outs. When the film is building up to something, it builds and builds. Showing just the right amount at just the right time. That scene in the trailer where the girl is being chase under the car, is exactly how a chase should be done. It's tense, it's fast paced, and it's awesome.

This may be the first film in years that captures the feeling of being stuck at home in a snow storm, perfectly. I actually remember shivering at one point and wondering if the theatre had turned on the AC, but it was actually just that the film looked cold. The fireplace always looked cozy and warm and inviting, and the claustrophobia of staring outside and seeing a blank white page of environment really sits in. It feels exactly like you're there, stuck in that house.

There are so many moments, that are insanely creative. The opening credits sets the mood perfectly and there's a pretty cool animated stop-motion segment in the middle of the film that evokes those old Rankin/Bass holiday specials. These are great ways to bring a little more life to the film and shake things up a little.

There's a lot of creativity in the monsters. From demonic sharp toothed teddy-bears, a jack-in-the-box caterpillar monster, and maniacal laughing mischievous gingerbread men. Krampus looks great as well. He kinda looks like Santa Claus on Meth, which is a unique design. Although he does have one main flaw, his face is just so lifeless and cheap looking. The Krampus in the animated segment showed more personality in a matter of seconds, than the actual live action costume.

The actors for the most part are good. Conchata Ferrell gets all the best lines. But the other actors all do good work with what they're given. I thought I was going to hate these characters, but strangely enough the performances of the actors involved actually made me end up rooting for them to survive. They tried their hardest to work with the limited material, and it shows.

The ending was the worst part. It ends three times. The first I was perfectly fine with, and felt like a legitimate place to end the story. History repeats itself, lessons are learned. But then it just kept going, and the second ending was kinda lame but at least was serviceable. We got to see more of Krampus' crew which was kinda cool. The third ending was just flat out dumb. I get what the creators were trying to do. The old divine intervention ploy we've seen in The Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, but unlike those films it just felt like a cop-out and unearned.

It's not drop dead funny, it's not soil your pants scary. It's just kinda in the middle. There's some good stuff, there's some bad stuff. But in the end, I was entertained by the film. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to see it on the big screen, but watching it at home by the fireplace with a cup of hot-chocolate, totally!

The original Jurassic Park was a technological marvel, but it's not perfect. The internet has brought the numerous plot-holes of the original film to the fore-front, but it still holds up. We can watch that movie and ignore the fact that this supposed hacker genius teenage girl isn't smart enough to not turn off a flash-light that's attracting the attention of an angry T-Rex. We can watch that movie and ignore the fact that Hammond spares no expense in everything, but hires one man to write all the code. We ignore these things because the special effects in that film, hold up to this day. The feeling of terror during the T-Rex reveal scene, still holds up. We forgive the fact that it's not a perfect film logically, because it's still a perfect film technically and emotionally.

There's no way of topping the first film. Spielberg couldn't even do it himself with The Lost World, you just can't recapture that nostalgia, and to expect that much of THIS movie is pretty asinine...the best it can do is be it's own clever film that still respects the original.

That being said, the film comes pretty dang close. It's probably the most entertaining Jurassic Park sequel thus far. It's not overly stupid like the third film, and not overly preachy and emotionless like the second film. Instead it's just kind of stuck in the middle. There are MANY of good things in this film, but SO MANY missed opportunities.

The actors do a good job. Chris Pratt is pretty much just playing Chris Pratt. Vincent D'onfrio is a decent dumb bad-guy. The brothers get a few good scenes and prove to be somewhat capable actors. Surprisingly the best character is Bryce Dallas Howard, she's still a stereotypical character like the others. But at least she goes through some form of an emotional arc throughout the story. She's pretty much the Alan Grant of this film, the only character that changes during the movie. The other characters are pretty much just there to help that character to survive.

The big missed opportunity with the film, is the special effects. They're god-awful. Apparently they used animatronics on set, but the entire film looks fake. All the dinosaurs look like CGI cartoons. I'm guessing they "polished" the animatronics to make it look more realistic....it didn't. It just looks like the actors are responding to air.

So the film failed to be as technologically inventive as the original, but at least the film TRIED to be as emotionally effective. It's not just a bunch of disaster scenes with dinosaurs. It does actually stop and let the characters breath. The action doesn't even start till about half and hour into the film. Everything up to that point is letting the characters explore and showing off the park. Even when the action does start, there's still a rather sad scene with Claire and Owen and a Brontosaurus. But that's not to say there isn't a ton of cool scenes with the Dinosaurs. It does actually try to show-off the coolness of the dinosaurs. The scenes with the Mosasurus is cool, the Pteranodon attack is a blast, and the climatic battle is AMAZING!!! Such a thrill!!!

I walked out of the film, satisfied. The special effects are garbage compared to the original. But the actors all do a good job with their stereotypical characters (The original had it's fair share of stereotypes), one of the characters does go through an emotional arc, it's about as logical as the original was, and the film does actually stop and breath and show off the real stars of the show, the dinosaurs.

It's okay.

7 out of 10

I'm honestly shocked how much the critics just seemed to hate this film. It's a far better improvement over Elysium and even though District 9 had the better story, I felt that Chappie was a far more emotional film. I'll admit, I shed a manly tear for that robot. Something I didn't even do for the aliens in District 9.

I don't think I'd call the film original, cause a lot of what the film does has been done before. But at least the film does try to do those things well. You can certainly feel that Neill Blomkamp tried his hardest to make this a good film, he didn't set out to be cheap or just rob people of their money. An A for Effort has to be awarded in that aspect.

Sharlto Copley pretty much carries this film when it comes to the actors. He captures the childlike innocence and utilizes the motion capture almost to perfection. Chappie's purity and the emotional struggle of discovering and observing the pros and cons of being alive make him an engaging and likable character.

Too bad the rest of the cast wasn't like that. Hugh Jackman is pretty standard as the bad guy, although his final pounding from Chappie was certainly a satisfactory experience. So if it was fun watching the hero beat him to near death, he must have done something right to make us hate the character. Dev Patel is okay, but doesn't do much outside of act as the father fighting for custody of his own creation. Sigourney Weaver has only two scenes, she's pretty much only in the film because it's a science fiction film.

This is also the acting debut of Ninja and Yolandi Visser. Yolandi does an okay job as the mother figure, and she's cute enough that you don't mind watching her. But Ninja was just mediocre. He wasn't likable, his character was more annoying than entertaining and the only time I liked him was when the film made fun of him by having Chappie act like him by "being cool". I get that Chappie's "mommy" and "daddy" is supposed to act as the angel and devil on his shoulder throughout the film, and comment on human upbringing. But I felt they could have done that with better actors and characters.

On the whole, I enjoyed the film. It was sad, it was funny, it was action packed, the special effects were fantastic for a low budget. It doesn't really do anything new and with the exception of Chappie, there isn't really any other engaging characters to follow. But the film does at least attempt to be something more.

8 out of 10.