The Count of Monte Cristo Review

Today I wanted to do a review on a great movie called "The Count of Monte Cristo," staring the amazing Jim Caviezel as Edmond Dantes, or the Count of Monte Cristo. This is a story of absolute betrayal and the relentless quest for revenge. Its dark, eloquent, and takes you on a great adventure. With the cast of Caviezel, Guy Pearce, Dagmara Dominczyk, and the late and great Richard Harris, this movie is a power house and worth the watch just for the acting alone.
To begin the story, young Dantes and his best friend (Guy Pearce) Fernand Mondego cross path with the infamous Napoleon who asks Dantes to deliver a letter to his sick friend. (Dantes can't read so he did not know the letter was really spy information.) Thus begins the down fall for our dear hero Edmond Dantes.

It starts off simple enough, Dantes is innocent, but put on trial for treason, why? Because his best friend was jealous of Dantes and set him up to be proven guilty, even helps aprehend him, and send his best friend to the deepest, darkest dungeon to be tortured and broken for years. YEARS!
Enter Richard Harris. From the moment he is introduced to the story things start picking up for Edmond, despite still being in prison. Harris teaches Edmond to read, write, philosophy, math, all the things you could think of, including sword fighting.
For years the two of them work together to escape the prison, and gain their freedom... I don't wanna tell you the whole story, because its worth the watch! Edmond is freed from his prison and begins his long quest for revenge against his former best friend, who by the way, is married to Edmonds old girl once he gets out of prison.... I know! How Edmond gets back at Mondego is fascinating, as well as all the others who were in on his betrayal. This story shows the depth of the human soul and the relentless force of revenge, but at the same time wrestling with love and regret.
I like this story very much and would recommend it to anyone!
4.5 outta 5.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Review

It's the end of the world and Apes are taking over! Thats what I thought this movie was supposed to be, but it turned out to be a little more personal and reason driven than that. In this epic tale, you follow a genetically enhanced ape, Caesar, who was the main character more or less through the first movie as he has raised a family and society in the forest with his fellow, super intelligent, apes, and other primate breads. Today's review is about them in the movie "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."

The set up for the story is basically that the human race has been almost completely whipped out bc a virus, and Caesar and the rest of his family even wonder if there are anymore humans left, until a small group of them stumble upon Caesar and his kin. What follows is a heart felt story of trust, betrayal, and ultimately facing our own demons, realizing things are not always as simple as we make them out to be.
I like how they set this up where the humans are basically hanging on for dear life, but still hold to the idea that they are human, they are in charge, and what they say goes. Caesar makes it very clear very quick that that is not true and it causes some friction as you can imagine. Still despite everything, Caesar doesn't want to risk war or destruction to his kind or the humans, so they find a compromise.
The whole story is a fight for survival, but not from weather, starvation, or even war. Its a fight for the very soul. Right and wrong. Finding away to coexist, and sadly showing the true end to such things, or at least how they would more than likely play out.
The way the apes are made and designed in this movie is amazing and very entertaining. I love the fact that they communicate with sign language, even though they can speak actual words. Its like they do it because they feel speaking is a human's way of communicating and they want nothing to do with it. The first time you hear Caesar speak in the film, even though you know he can, is when the human's show up.
I liked the feel to this movie, the post apocalypse that i haven't seen before. Most are desert, and wasteland. Earth destroyed by man and thats how it came about, with this one it was more of nature overrunning the world and destroying man. So its a very flush and green world. Not your normal doomsday.
The movie was open ended so i do wonder if they plan on making a third anytime in the future.
I give this movie a 4 outta 5.

Unbroken Review

The other day I went and saw the incredible true story, "Unbroken." Directed by Angelina Jolie, this powerful work will make you stop and think, "Ya know, maybe I don't got it that bad." The title unbroken goes a long way to mess with your head as about 30 minutes into the movie I would consider myself to be broken. Seeing the hardships and endurance of the human body and soul in this picture really made me question my own personal strength, and despite my hope that when the day comes that the machines rise up, or the zombies overrun the planet that I would have the strength to pick up a weapon and be the hero of my own tale... looking at what this movie's main character Louis Zamperini went through as the hero of his makes me realize I would probably be the first one killed off.

Starting his life off the wrong way, Louis, or Louie, is young and steeling, thinking he's not worth anything to anyone. Then his brother challenges him to try out for the track team at school and through hard work, discipline, and the simple truth his brother told him, "If you can take it, you can make it," he becomes an olympic runner who competed in Germany before the second world war broke out. Hence where things start to go very wrong for our inspiring hero. He becomes a crew mate on a bomber in the air force, raiding and bombing the empire of Japan. Ironically, during a rescue mission, the plane he is in malfunctions, sending all but three of the crew to their deaths in the vast ocean of the Pacific, and there begins the long hard journey of survival for Louie and his two crew mates. Now I won't go into too much detail, but lets just say I have a terrible fear of the ocean, and ESPECIALLY sharks, so this part of the movie was difficult for me to watch, but what is to follow the hellish journey on the ocean was far worse. Which is where my whole thought of being broken came from. If you split all the things that happen to young louie into 5 separate incidents, I'd been dead on part 1. I think most people would have been, but sadly that was just the beginning. 

Stick with the story from the moment of the crash till the end, and you will have witnessed the darkest cruelty of man, as well as the unbreakable spirit of our stories hero. This movie will make you cry, it will make you cringe, and it will make you want to stand up and scream, "For the love of GOD!" more than once. I give this movie 5 outta 5. 

A must see.