Reviews

I've wanted to watch this movie for a while once I saw that Peter Jackson was attached to the project and at long last, I've seen it. A lot of the reviews here are essentially spot on with the negatives they witnessed, but I don't think they have fully discussed the positives, which are as follows:

1. MOVING CITIES?! Now that's cool! I haven't read the novels so I didn't have anything to base it on but the way they adapted the books to film was extraordinary. From what I could see, they visualised the moving cities or 'traction cities' quite well, and the grand size of the cities next to scavenger cities showed the reasonable fear that humans experienced when coming up against the traction cities.

2. Cast. The cast of the film were really strong; Hugo Weaving, Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan... I actually really liked Jihae as Anna Fang though. I'd never seen Jihae in anything before and I was amazed at how her character, Anna, captured my attention and interest.

3. Visuals. The visuals in this movie were spectacular! Reminiscent of Peter Jackson's the Lord of the Rings, this movie shows the vast space that a traction city requires and gives us the viewpoint of a tiny human looking up at it. Incredible photography.

Now for the bad aspects:

1. Story. For someone who hasn't read the books, this is notoriously difficult to follow along with. There's a brief voice-over at the start that explains some of the history, but it doesn't provide much information. Part of this is because of the 2 hour runtime... Perhaps it could have been better represented in a TV series?

2. Weapons. It's very strange that for the first three-quarters of the movie, the traction cities use nothing but grappling hooks to reel in smaller cities to conquer. Yet towards the end, they seem to have cannons that they use to fire at the Northern Air Fleet. Very strange that they only suddenly decide to use them.

3. Characters. Some of the characters just pop out of nowhere and don't appear again for about an hour, yet seem to be relevant to the plot. There's considerable time spent introducing them and then they're never seen again. Very strange.

Overall, this was a really great film and I feel like its critics have been overtly harsh. Its box office was unfortunate but I think this movie was a solid 8/10. Thanks for reading :)

It's really hard to start with this movie. It basically covers two estranged brothers - One who has embraced a quiet, family life; the other, dedicated his time to the United States military. Through a series of events, they come in contact with each other again during a MMA tournament. Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton capture the hearts of the fans with their emotional, tear-wrenching performances, with Nick Nolte as their father delivering the most emotional performance of them all. With the film being a MMA movie, it's strange to think that drama would be so prevalent but essentially it is the backbone of the story.

The addition of The National's 'About Today' cements the final scene as a definite tear-jerker.

Big Brother is a heart-warming yet conflicting film that addresses the difficulties faced by students in the high school system. It highlights the lack of support that the students in this fictional school receive from the schooling system and the negative effects of their home life on their studies.

Donnie Yen's character, 'Mr. Chen', arrives and begins teaching with a series of unorthodox techniques that allow him to identify the issues his students are dealing with. One of the best quotes that I drew from the film was "If I can do it, you can do it!", which encapsulates Mr. Chen's teaching style and determined personality.

Supplemented by several adrenaline-pumping martial arts action scenes, fast-paced go kart racing, and tender moments, this film is definitely under-rated.