VertiGo - A Wall-Climbing Robot Including Ground-Wall Transition

Who knew that Disney did all this cool technological research? (See Video Below):

I can see it now, coming to theatres:

Big Hero 7: Baymax and VertiGo Team Up!



AntMan Vs Vertigo

VertiGo Go Gadget!


And will VertiGo be a new toy for photography at an angle, like a Selfie Stick??





And I've been watching Arrow Series One. Is the name a D.C. reference? If it is, it's unintentional!

Movie Review - Fantastic Four (2015) - Jonathan On Paper

Photo Source: hdwallpaper.in

 This week I saw the new Fantastic Four movie. I was intrigued as I went it to find out what had made this movie less successful in it’s opening weekend than the first two Fantastic Four movies (2005, 2007). It made $25.7 million on the first weekend, as opposed to the first movie’s equivalent takings which were $56 million (more than double). 

Photo Source: Xmovies8.tv

This week I saw the new Fantastic Four movie. I was intrigued as I went it to find out what had made this movie less successful in it’s opening weekend than the first two Fantastic Four movies (2005, 2007). It made $25.7 million on the first weekend, as opposed to the first movie’s equivalent takings which were $56 million (more than double). 

The problem with Fantastic Four (2015) is that it never feels like a superhero movie. It has a negatively mysterious mood, which is aided by the gloomy colour tuning and depressing feel at times. The heroes’ super powers are painted as curses, not benefits. It takes a long time to get into any action and takes too much time setting up the story and the characters.

Fantastic Four has the Marvel logo at the start, but it is co-produced by 20^th Century Fox, not Disney like the other Marvel cinematic universe movies. It seems like Fox was trying to buy into the current success of Disney’s Marvel series (while already owning the rights to this property). 

But this never feels like a Marvel movie. It has some humour, but it is not the wise-cracking happy sense of humour as in the Avengers and Ant Man. The action was never really fun. Fantastic Four’s main issue is that it doesn’t know when to be silly and when to be serious. It was is too serious.

Photo Source: hdwallpaper.in

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Somebody was trying to make some dough out of Fantastic Four, but they missed. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! If you want to make money out of a Marvel movie, make it like Disney does – hilarious and heart-warming with epic cartoony action.

@Steve_sipple

Movie Review: Big Hero 6.

When Disney Enterprises purchased Marvel a few years ago, there was plenty of new creative material to add to Disney's production schedule. Some examples are The Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron (2015) and it's associated superhero stories. But they also now owned the rights to a whole library of comic books and graphic novels.John Lasseter saw some pitches from Disney creatives  and decided to make Big Hero 6 - an action comedy with a big heart.

Baymax and Hiro.

The creative aspects of this movie are splendidly excellent.The visual design is delightfully colorful but also classy and appealing. It has an aptly dramatic and emotionally moving score created by Henry Jackman (X-Men, First Class & Wreck-It Ralph.

This movie is well-crafted in it's writing - it is very funny. Many of the jokes are to do with the robot Baymax's unique way of thinking and saying things. Technical aspects like Baymax running out of battery power also give the audience lots of laughter.

There are grand, almost spiritual themes explored such as self-sacrifice and serving others. 

There is a theme of "the darkness within" as a character wrestles with the desire to seek vengeance on another character.  covers deep and personal themes of loss, family, friendship. 

I really enjoyed it. As a Disney movie, I found this was better than Frozen and way, way better than Wreck-It Ralph. There was fun and exciting action that adds to the story-line The movie also appeals to a slightly more mature audience than the other recent Disney films. This is due to the sophisticated story-line and more relate-able characters.

One thing I would say at this point is that it is refreshing  to see a young teenager depicted as the main character instead of a older teenager or young adult. This gives a different perspective to the story. It is also nice to see an animated Disney movie set in a modern city world, rather than a fairy-tale kingdom (Tangled, Frozen) or a fantasy Video Game world (Wreck-It Ralph. There was nothing wrong with those settings for those stories - but this dynamic is something I enjoyed with Big Hero 6.

I'm looking forward to finding out which other new stories Disney brings us - whether they be from Marvel's story bank or elsewhere. And I boldly declare it - we are definitely in a new golden age for Disney animation!

And one last thing - if you like extra scenes in the credits, then stay in the theater through the credits, and I don't think you'll be disappointed!

The Lego Movie - Movie Review

No beating around the bush, The Lego Movie is a very fun, very funny movie. I went to a screening on opening night – one of only a few times I have done so. Why rush out to see a movie like this? Because to me, The Lego Movie is one of a select group of movies that are hilarious, pure fun. It was obvious from the promotional material that this movie would be really fun – and it delivers on that promise.

The Lego Movie is about a regular guy – Emmett – who has a great adventure before him. With friends like the mysterious girl Wyldstyle and Batman, Unikitty (yes, a cat who is a unicorn) and Random 80's Lego Astronaut, the fate of the whole Lego world rests in Emmett’s plungers... I mean, plastic lego hands.

There was a new logo tacked on the front of the movie: WAG “Warner Animation Group”. It was a cool design for a logo and one I hadn't seen before. Perhaps this indicates a renewed focus on animation for Warner Bros. That would be a welcome trend, if the Lego Movie is anything to go by.

Let me go a bit deeper. There are two things I don't like about some family movies.

Case study #1: the Madagascar syndrome. These are the problems with the Madagascar movies: The humour is too crazy and too quick. I need time to think between jokes. This was the case x 1000 with the Spongebob movie which I had the burden of seeing at a school once. And the Madagascar movies are not one big story like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. They are too episodic for my liking.

Case Study #2: Kinda Happy Feet. So, Happy Feet was animated by the same studio as The Lego Movie, Aussie group Animal Logic. But I have a feeling that The Lego Movie was written in Hollywood by different people than Happy Feet. Anyway, The villains in Happy Feet were the elders of the penguin community, of whom the spokesperson was a grizzly old male penguin. The thing I didn't like was that he used religious jargon and all of it was used negatively. I didn't appreciate words I was familiar with through my faith being used in that way. That is was ruined the film for me. That and the egotistic artistry and mostly un-engaging storyline.

So I like to avoid movies I think will fall in the areas of crazy-random-empty to serious-miguided-empty. To me, The Lego Movie was fun, family friendly and hilarious! I wasn't the only audience member laughing their socks off in the theatre. I had to pick all the socks up when the lights came up :P

By Jonathan 

Movie Reviews

In early 2012, I volunteered to write movie reviews for a favourite radio station's website. I have lots of fun writing them - and of course viewing the films!

This is a list of links to all my movie reviews over at Light FM's website:

The Muppets (2011)
In this, my first review, I was experimenting and working out my style.

http://lightfm.com.au/movie-reviews/movie-review-muppets

Any Questions For Ben (2012)
From the creators of "The Castle" and ""Thank God You're Here", I enjoyed seeing Melbourne on the silver screen.

http://lightfm.com.au/movie-reviews/movie-review-any-questions-ben

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011)
An Academy Awards' Best Picture nominee, this film follows a family whose lives were turned upside down by the New York World Trade Centre Attacks on September 11th, 2001.

http://lightfm.com.au/movie-reviews/movie-review-extremely-loud-incredibly-close

The Amazing Spiderman (2012)
I wrote this review right after I saw the movie. I loved it so much I raced to the computer and got it down.

http://lightfm.com.au/movie-reviews/movie-review-amazing-spiderman

Finding Nemo 3D Re-release (2003, 2012)
This was the first 3D movie I reviewed. I love this movie. I got a lot more out of it as an adult than as a teenager when it came out.

http://lightfm.com.au/movie-reviews/finding-nemo-3d-movie-review


After you have read one or two reviews, please leave a comment on this page - I would love some feedback on my reviewing style.

Update: For a more recent review, this time for a music concert, click for My "Owl City Concert Review" link.