In 2022, I watched a lot more movies that I anticipated to and actually finished a couple of series as well. Ironically, I have trouble completing TV series but I guess I don’t have that problem with movies.
This was such a fun movie series. Fun fact, my favorite movie genre is action and more specifically, action comedy. One of my favorite movies is “Man From U.N.C.L.E”. I also like my books to be action packed and heists are the cherry on top. If you’re Indian or South Asian, you probably know the movie series Dhoom. Each movie follows a cop trying to catch a villain/thief/criminal and I always root for the criminal lol. I mean come on, Dhoom 2, is amazing.
The Ocean’s Eleven series follows Danny Ocean plotting the biggest heist ever. In the first movie, we follow Danny plotting his scheme to rob a casino and him recruiting different criminals with super specific skills including but not limited to someone who specializes in explosives and an acrobat. A heist always requires an acrobat.
The second movie follows the after effects of the heist in the first movie. I have to watch the series again to determine my favorite movie in this series, but I think that the second movie is my favorite. We know the characters, there’s added tension from the continuing story line from the first movie, and I loved Julia Roberts in this movie. The first movie was more action focused whereas this movie was more comedic.
The third movie had a whole different tone to the movie. We’re diving into a new plot and the characters were separated a lot in this movie. One of the things I love about these movies is the found family aspect so them not being together in this movie wasn’t the best but, having said that, I still enjoyed this movie a lot.
I probably watched parts of this movie series growing up but never really sat down to watch them straight through until last year. I’ve got to say my experience watching these movies was a literal journey, one that probably rivaled Frodo’s. Overall, this was a very escapist series, especially the first movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring”. The plot got more tense as we made it deeper into the movies but like with “Ocean’s Eleven”, I really loved the found family aspect of this series. While I did know about Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, Aragon, and Frodo, I did not know that Frodo’s three friends would also be joining them in their journey. I liked the different relationships all of these characters had with each other and how they all were willing to do anything to get Frodo to his destination.
My favorite part of the movie series besides the world building, politics, and the visuals/graphics that surprisingly held up over the decades, was the relationship between Gimli and Legolas. My least favorite part of the series was Frodo. I was so sick of Frodo by the end of the movie that I really wanted someone, anyone, to push him off a cliff. Samwise literally carried Frodo’s storyline and I know, I know, the ring didn’t exactly help but I still stand by what I said lol. I think that my favorite movie of the trilogy was the second one, “Lord of the Rings: Two Towers”.
I definitely watched at least one of these movies or parts of these movies with friends at university or when I was younger but like with “Lord of the Rings”, I didn’t remember anything. I had this phase last October where I was really embracing spooky season and watched this movie series like there was no tomorrow.
My ranking for these movies go in release order. The first one was the best. The jump scares were fresh and there was added tension as we got close with the family only to be introduced to a new set of characters who were far more interesting than this run of the mill family who should have just moved out a long time ago before things got as bad as they did lol. The second movie was good as well. The paranormal violence got worse in this movie, the images more horrifying, and there was this dark cloud that followed Lorraine throughout the entire movie that she as a character couldn’t shake and us a watcher couldn’t help but be wary of. My one grip with the second movie was the ending. I thought the ending was far too easy and rushed. The third movie was my least favorite of all of them. It felt more like a true crime case and it kind of dealt with a whole different side of the paranormal aspect that I wasn’t expecting. It was also the first movie that I really looked into the actual case that inspired the movie and found somethings that I didn’t really like about the Warrens and their involvement with the case.