The Zachtastic Movie Blog

(Poster courtesy Wikipedia ) As I had already noted in my review of Risen , I have an interesting relationship with faith films. Since I am very committed to LDS standards, faith is an integral part of my life. Even so, I have often been unimpressed by Christian filmmakers who ineffectively attempt to preach through their films. While it may be admirable for a writer and director to work at moving their audience, solid faith-centered pictures are still hard to come by. Given this overall trend, I was not excited for Miracles From Heaven upon hearing about its release. Nevertheless, I am willing to give any film a chance, and such was what I gave to this one as well. The story of Miracles From Heaven focuses on a young teenage girl who one day learns she has an intestinal disorder. Considering that the characters all make up the stereotypical white, Protestant family from Texas, a trial of faith also occurs among members of the family. This particularly takes place in ...

By now, it is safe to say that Marvel has seen unprecedented success with their Cinematic Universe series of films. While their faithful comic book adaptations will not win any Academy Awards, they have many fans from both critics and audiences alike. Once Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy was finished in 2012, DC seemingly wanted to jump onto Marvel’s bandwagon by connecting their extensive comic book lore for the silver screen. Man of Steel kicked off said series with a mixed critical reception, but as a natural result of its large box office receipts a sequel has now arrived. With the onset of Batman v. Superman , is it fair to say that Warner Bros. has given us a worthy prelude to the upcoming Justice League films? 18 months have passed since Kryptonians Superman (Henry Cavill) and General Zod (Michael Shannon) have done battle in the heart of Metropolis, in which their extraterrestrial conflict resulted in the death of thousands of people. Bruce Wayne (Ben Af...

So even though this is primarily a blog for movie reviews, I am not exactly a partial. You might say that I am an equal opportunity media writer since I also enjoy talking about video games. In recent years, film has emerged as a more mature hobby for me due to its longer history as an art form, but video games still have a soft spot in my heart--especially since they were a major part of my childhood. With that in mind, I will occasionally take the opportunity to write about various games on this blog. This trend in blog posts will begin with quite a bang, for this article is a review of the PS4 game Broforce . The PlayStation Network offers free downloadable games to its PlayStation Plus members (those who pay for online multiplayer and other services) each month, and this particular title was chosen for March by user voting. I am certainly glad that it was, for Broforce is a fun, difficult and delightfully nostalgic shooter. In a hilarious cross between The Expendables...

I am going to be quite frank with you up front: I do not like the first two entries in this franchise. I am not one to sugarcoat my opinions when writing reviews, although I do my best to be professional and sensible with each new post. The fact of the matter is that upon watching the first two films in The Divergent Series (they were released during my mission), I was not excited for what the filmmakers were going to do for the series moving forward. Nevertheless, it is my goal to give chances to as many filmmakers out there as possible, so here we are. Allegiant is the third installment in the sci-fi film franchise adapted from the Veronica Roth trilogy of novels, so now that the filmmakers are this far along with the material, did they find a niche that works for the screen? Some time after the raid on Erudite, the faction system in Chicago fell apart. Executions of Erudite conspirators and leaders begin, and then Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) as well as her comrades ...

We have seen in the past that J.J. Abrams, no matter what the public may think of him, is a genius with marketing the films produced by his company Bad Robot Productions. Star Wars: The Force Awakens saw massive success even with the unfathomable amounts of hype, and now more recently he has pulled the rug underneath filmgoers by unveiling 10 Cloverfield Lane . The debut feature from director Dan Trachtenberg (he made this excellent short based on Portal ), it is considered to be what Abrams calls a “ blood relative ” to the 2008 surprise hit Cloverfield --also produced by Abrams. After its completely unexpected reveal to the public a mere two months ago, is this film a worthy continuation of the aforementioned found footage hit? Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) walks out on her boyfriend one day, leaving almost everything behind to begin a new life. Unfortunately for her though, while en route to her “destination” she gets into a terrible car accident which leads to h...

Note to readers: "mini reviews" are shorter articles dedicated to films that are lower-profile releases (foreign, independent and arthouse cinema), but still deserve your attention. Even if I do not like one of these movies, I still feel the need to share information and my honest opinion. Although my girlfriend Amber is very artistically-inclined, she is not exactly one to watch animé. I personally grew up watching a couple of different Japanese animated TV shows and have watched numerous films as I have grown older, so these type of films are more akin to my tastes. Therefore, with the advent of The Boy and the Beast coming to the Harkins theater at Tempe Marketplace, I decided to expose her to this subgenre a little bit more. My personal curiosity for this picture was piqued by a brief trailer I watched on Facebook, and now after seeing it, I am pleased to say that we made a wise decision to attend a screening. At this point in time Amber is still contemplating h...

Disney Animation Studios seems to have been going through somewhat of a revival these past several years. Ever since Tangled came out in 2010, every single one of the films they have released thereafter have been consistently good. Maybe not all of them have been on the same level of quality, but each had something to offer. Once again the veteran studio seems to be capturing the hearts of moviegoers across the globe, for their newest film Zootopia has broken various box-office records and garnered an extremely positive word-of-mouth. Touting a talented voice cast, impeccable visuals and a subversive storyline, does Disney’s latest animated film deserve all of this attention? For many years, a rabbit named Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) has dreamed of becoming a police officer. She recognizes that her species has never succeeded at such a feat, but her determination to fulfill her dreams fuels her desire to accomplish her life-long goals. Eventually after graduating from t...