Bria Lou Reviews

  Next up for the Bucket List was a re-watch. I watched this film for the first time a couple of years ago, mostly out of curiosity. I've seen the 2005 version multiple times, and have absolutely loved the current slate of Kong and Godzilla movies, so I wanted to see how it all began (and I love that a Godzilla film is on the bucket list too, though not the original). For the most part, taking into account the film was released in 1933, I think it holds up well. Yes, the visual effects are completely dated, but the story itself has been retold multiple times because it's something that could easily happen today - someone travelling to a mysterious island for posterity, or in today's world to post their pictures on social media. It really works. The acting is great, you really believe the characters are going through this experience and the actors all do a great job with their roles. It's also a reminder of the way films can be told succinctly. I have no problem with a l...

  After a devastating loss, Hanno (Paul Mescal) uses his hidden past to battle the powerful emperors trying to conquer his home. I watched the first Gladiator film as part of last year's movie bucket list and I liked it. I didn't think it absolutely needed a sequel, but I was interested to see one nonetheless - even moreso after it got an Oscar nomination. I thought this film was fine, there were things I liked and didn't like almost in equal measure. I really liked the opening sequence, it was really engaging and took the audience straight back into the world of the first film. I also really liked the way this film connected to the first one. The visuals are stunning, particularly all of the scenery and set pieces.  From the offset, I cared about these new characters less than I cared about the first ones. Maybe because it's a sequel, but in the first film there was a real connection to the characters that this one wasn't able to replicate for me. It felt a lot lon...

  Rue is happy with her life as a biotech engineer with few friends and no repeat hook-ups until she meets Eli, the extremely attractive man trying to take over the company she works for. Torn between loyalty and an ill-advised connection, can Rue make the right decision to save her company and her heart? I'm a huge fan of Ali Hazelwood, so this book was high on my most anticipated books for this year. She always writes romance really well so, even though there was a disclaimer at the beginning of this book stating that it's different from her other works, I was sure I'd still enjoy it. And while I did enjoy it, I was also disappointed with it. But like all of Hazelwood's books, it was really easy to get into. I picked it up to skim the first page and ended up reading the whole first chapter because I was already hooked. I felt like I knew Rue just from that and really liked being in her head. It was also just an easy read all the way through. Even when I wasn't lik...

  One of my favourite things about this year's bucket list is that there are more horror movies! I was really disappointed that last year's only had a couple, but this one has a good few and they're mostly more modern classics, which is nice. I didn't really expect this film to be on the list. Even when I saw it I initially assumed it would be the original version, but no, the 2017 version is now considered a classic horror movie and I'm here for it! I've rewatched this so many times since first seeing it in the cinema, so I was excited to see it again! I can't pinpoint my favourite thing about it - there's so many amazing things to list. For a start, the cast. All of the actors did an amazing job with their roles, and it's been nice to see some of them continue to have great careers off the back of this. They had great chemistry, they all worked really well together, and even though this was a horror movie it really did look like they had fun making...

  After Blake (Christopher Abbott) and his family are attacked by a mysterious creature in the woods, Blake begins to make a strange transformation. I hadn't heard great things about this film when it came out, but it still had an intriguing enough premise that I was looking forward to seeing it. Unfortunately, the reviews weren't great for a reason. For a start, the opening scene was way too long without taking the time to make the audience care about these characters. And even when the characters change and the film actually gets started, we never really get the chance to care about them, and we never really connect with them. Everything felt like it was taking a really long time to happen. The film is called 'Wolf Man', so why did it take such a long time for us to actually see the wolf man? At almost an hour in (bearing in mind the film is only 1hr 43 mins), nothing had really happened. I've seen so many general complaints online about the lighting in movies and...

  Former spies Emily (Cameron Diaz) and Matt (Jamie Foxx) are pulled back into the CIA when their secret identities are compromised. I wasn't really planning to watch this film, mostly because I didn't think I'd enjoy it that much. But after seeing it pop up again and again and again on Netflix, I decided to give it a go. Thankfully, the film was better than I thought it would be. Though that's not to say it was great. For a start, a lot of the dialogue felt like a parody - like the film was a spoof making fun of other similarly-themed spy movies. This got better and more believable as the film continued, but at the beginning it just hits the ear wrong. The action scenes, though, were really well done in the sense that they were really fun, creative and moved the story forward. Another fun thing about the film was the soundtrack. Not all of the songs completely fit the scenes they were used in, but they were entertaining regardless. Where the story fell down for me was ...