Sunday, August 24, 2014

Mash-up Review: The Giver/If I Stay Movie Reviews


So in the month of August, the long anticipated "The Giver" and "If I Stay" movies were released on the silver screen (The Giver a week prior to If I Stay's release). I have been waiting to see these movies since their first trailers were dropped in March; and I just saw both of them a couple of days ago. But the question is which movie is worth seeing or how well the adaptions are.

The Giver
I will be starting with The Giver movie since it released earlier and I saw it before I watched If I Stay. The basic plot of the movie is that about a teenager named Jonas who is chosen to be the Receiver of Memories and is to be taught by the Giver. But with the training secessions, Jonas learns how the world really was back before the Communities were founded.

I personally really enjoyed this movie. I thought that the acting was fantastic, and I especially loved Jeff Bridges performance as the Giver himself. But everyone's acting was great overall (like Taylor Swift as Rosemary who I didn't even realize was in the movie until I looked it up on wikipedia). The characters were just like they were from the book (from what I remember) but I didn't find them super interesting or having a whole lot of depth in them. I think my favorite aspect though was that we learn a little bit more about the world than we did in the first book; I don't know if we learn more about it in the previous books, but it was nice to include it in the movie. Although the Triangle of Memories thing did confuse me a little bit since it had more of a paranormal feel to it, but a minor complaint.

The adaption overall was pretty good for this movie. It wasn't like Catching Fire good or Fault in Our Stars good. I would put it just below Divergent on my scale (which means it is a 7), so I would say it was a good adaption, but an average on. I did love this movie, but I think I won't buy the DVD when it is available. But it was a good movie and if you loved the book or are at all interested I recommend you watch it. For my usual scale, I would give it a solid four stars.

If I Stay

If I Stay is about a girl named  Mia who gets into a car accident along with her whole family, and needs to decide if she wants to stay with Adam (her boyfriend) and her grandparents or if she wants to go with her family.

This movie, was very well done. It was a beautiful story and I think the movie made me love the book more. The characters were fantastic, and I think that it attributes to the fact that I felt the acting was just phenomenal, I swear if Chloƫ Grace Moretz doesn't get at least some recognition for her performance in this movie I will be very mad. Everyone's acting in this movie was fantastic though and it did make me cry (Translation: Cry = shed a couple of tears). I also loved how this movie was constructed. From the very beginning, it switched back and forth between Mia's flashbacks and what was happening in reality; just like the book.

Overall, this movie was just so so good. I know that since it has a depressing feel to it, some people might not want to watch it; but it actually did make me laugh a couple of times. If you loved the book, then you will love the movie (it even ends on the exact same cliffhanger as the book!). On my personal scale, I would put this right between Divergent and Fault in Our Stars, but if we are talking about solid numbers than I would put it on par with Fault in Our Stars, so a 9. I definitely recommend this book and I will buy the DVD as soon as I can.

So there is my Mash-up review on The Giver and If I Stay movies. Please tell me what you thought of them down below in the comments; or which of the two movies you plan on watching.

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