Movie Reviews

Star Wars 7 – So, that was pretty great. It’s not, like, mind blowing. Honestly, I’m not sure if that’s even possible. When was the last mind blowing action/scifi movie? Matrix? Avatar, I guess? Technology just hasn’t changed like that in a while. Maybe VR will do it. But really, their job was to not fuck it up. We want more star wars, with the people we like, and the universe we love, and just don’t fuck it up. They didn’t fuck it up. The humor was at the right level, the action was good, the acting and writing was actually pretty good except for one absolutely terrible scene between two classics pumping out WAY too much exposition. And the story is… familiar. But the new characters are fantastic. And just otherwise pretty great. Second time through it was even better, once I stopped worrying about whether they were going to fuck up star wars.

Deadpool – Super fun! It’s super juvenile, but it’s not shy about it. Blood and guns and cussing and jokes. But it’s not juvenile in a way that makes me roll my eyes or feel a little icky. The 4th wall stuff is great, the sense of itself is great, the whole character is great. I had a ton of fun.

Furious 7 – Pppt. Whatevs.

Trainwreck – I don’t know. I laughed a bunch, for sure. I didn’t actually think Amy Schumer was very funny. Actually, the funniest parts, and the best performed parts, were Lebron James! What?! The rest of it was funny, half the time. I don’t really get the story. I mean, I get it, she’s a mess. And most of these comedies the dude is the mess, and the straight laced girl cleans him up, and they reverse that. Buuuut, I don’t like those movies. So why would I like this one? Dunno.

The Man from UNCLE – Pretty decent. I like the Guy Ritchie style, so that’s fun. I love the music. I didn’t love the main guy, his faux american accent was weird, but not too offputting. There wasn’t anything that revolutionized the genre, but it was fun and that’s what I was looking for.

Beasts of No Nation – Yikes, that’s rough. I don’t know much about child soldiers. I read that Ishmael Beah book a few years ago. This movie made me feel very much like that book – mostly sad. The movie is beautiful to look at in all its horror. I don’t know film making well enough, but there were some visually captivating scenes. The music was outstanding. There were multiple times where I had to stop and appreciate how much the music made a scene. Idris Elba certainly did a great job, but in all the shit with the oscars, I’m surprised the conversation is about him and not the kid. That kid was insanely good. Over all, fantastic movie that I never want to watch again.

Mad Max: Fury Road – There’s a lot to like about this movie. As everyone said, the effects are fantastic. The whole look and feel of the constant battle is awesome. The cockeyed ingenuity of the mechanisms is a lot of fun. The movie really doesn’t waste any time, there’s very little bullcrap in between all the cool shit we want to see. There is some oddly placed hokeyness, the guitar guy? and drum guys? wtf? But for the most part it’s cool. There are a few times (at least that I saw) where they use CGI and it is god damn terrible. The fight with the aforementioned guitar guy is painful. The big wreck toward the end with shit in the air – was that made that way for 3D or something? It was real bad. But that’s literally like 5 minutes out of 2 hours of goodness.

Ant-Man – Pretty good. Nothing mind blowing, but it was fun and funny and everyone did a good job. More entertaining than most of the 1st and 2nd gen marvel movies. Not as good as Guardians, but next in line.

Fantastic Four – Nope. Nothing good here. First of all, why are they teenagers. It was bad enough when they tried to give the 25 year old white sideburns in the last movie. Now they’ve just given up all pretense and they are kids. I mean, the actors aren’t kids, but the characters are kids. So, that’s dumb. The rest of it isn’t necessarily terrible, but certainly not good. Just meh.

Chappie – I actually liked this. I had heard it wasn’t good, but I was entertained. It’s not super unique, it’s kind of like a lot of other things, but I thought it was cool. The gangsters are astonishingly annoying. Like, really hard to watch. But I like the rest of it. The gangsters are a pretty big part of it… I don’t know, I still liked it.

Cinderella – Bad. Bad bad. Why does this movie have good reviews? I’m so confused. It had none of the magic of the cartoon. All the changes seemed forced just to be different, not because it made it better. The CG was holy god awful. At first I was pointing out every time super obvious CG showed up, but I honestly got exhausted. And then the fairy god mother. WHAT?! First of all, why make her young. She was an adorable old lady, why ruin that. Second, if you are going to make her young, why give her an AWFUL CG old person face for 30 seconds just to get rid of it. Cuz you thought it would be fun to trick us? But you didn’t, because your CG looked like a PS2 game. Also the waistline thing, also ruining the dance song, also brown eyebrows with blonde hair. Not good.

Jurassic World – This was pretty fun, for the most part. It’s pretty dumb, but it has moments of self-awareness. And really it’s just silly and cool, and that’s all I really needed from it. The last sequence though – what the fuck? It’s just a clusterfuck, throwing everything in that they could think of. I imagine they thought it was a badass ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny. But I literally laughed out loud; which was not their intention. Fun besides that, though.

Inside Out – I liked this a lot. Except for some questionable characterizations (sad is fat? happy is skinny?), I feel like it’s a pretty good story/message. The value of sad was maybe overly simplified, but it can only do so much in 2 hours. But still, that idea that you can’t be all one thing, that it’s super valuable to have different parts and the balance between happy and sad, in particular, is important, that all seems really good to me. Plus it’s sweet and funny and cute. It’s not the first half of Wall-E or the first 10 minutes of Up (nothing is the first 10 minutes of Up), but it’s good.

Terminator Genisys – I mean, I guess. It’s not terrible, it’s just kinda there. Shooty shooty, a couple funny references. I like how they futz with the timeline. But whatever, just a fun action movie.

Horrible Bosses 2 – Okay, I’m pretty sure I watched this… buuuuut…. ? I think it was probably funny? I’m gonna guess… over the top, a bit too wacky? Probably kinda stupid? I dunno, how am I doing?

Predestination – This was really really weird. Really weird. It’s based on a short by Heinlein, I think. It’s pretty hard to describe without giving it all away. It’s time travel, and it just, uh, kinda, really leans into that. It’s well done, I think, smallish in scale but that fits the story. It’s kind of complicated, but in the end really isn’t. Really it kind of ends up a bit stupid, but I think it’s still good enough.

Air – So, two dudes are stuck in a bunker. Charged with maintaining a sort of life bank for humanity, to wait out some sort of disaster. Then stuff happens cuz when two people are trapped somewhere they go kind of kooky. I liked the idea of it, but it wasn’t that interesting in the end, I’m not totally sure why.

Spy – Goofy movie about Melissa McCarthy being a spy. Cuz fat people doing skinny people jobs is funny, right? Half the movie is that kind of humor, which I think is dumb. But surprisingly, the other half is pretty funny. When she gets all sassy and insults people I was having a great time. Statham’s character is pretty hilarious. Pretty fun.

What We Do in the Shadows – So weird. Mocumentary about vampires living in modern day New Zealand. Super goofy, super over the top, but super fun. It makes no sense, but I was laughing a lot.