Movies I wish I had skipped. This could be for any number of reasons: the film was made sloppily, the narrative didn’t engage me, or I simply could not connect with the film in any way for whatever reason.
Sometimes it takes a movie like The Meg to make you wonder at how perfect a movie Jaws is. Of course, The Meg isn’t trying to be Jaws. It’s more self-aware than that. It’s Sharknado with a budget. It’s dumb fun meant to inflate the popcorn market.
Right? I mean, it seems to take itself pretty seriously. When it’s in on the joke, it’s all in. Most of the time, though, Jason Statham and pals maneuver their way straight-faced around a giant mythological shark. It is harder to Continue reading The Meg (2018) Movie Review→
There are two very different movies wrapped up in Disney’s new live-action adaptation, Christopher Robin. One is an optimistic family film about a grown man named Christopher Robin (Ewen McGregor) learning to, for the better, think like a kid again. The other is a horror film about abandoned sentient toys who track Christopher down and lure him back into the foggy, ominous Hundred Acre Wood.
In this sense, the beady black eyes of honey-loving bear Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) are both abstract enough to be endearing and dead enough to be terrifying. Whichever way you perceive it, Christopher Robin is a film that Continue reading Christopher Robin (2018) Movie Review→
Imagine a world where over 90% of all children die from a strange, highly contagious disease. Does the government, for the sake of the future, take every precaution to protect the few that remain? Of course not!
No, U.S. President Gray (Bradley Whitford) has the military round up all of the surviving children, who are all carriers of the disease and thus have one of five distinct color-coded powers. Kill the ones that can’t be controlled. Imprison the rest of them in labor camps.
There is something inexplicable about The Equalizer 2. For one, and perhaps most importantly, it is the first sequel that legendary actor Denzel Washington has chosen to take part in. Why this particular project struck his fancy is hard to say. He seems to enjoy the wise man action hero personality. He has a history of collaboration with the film’s director, Antione Fuqua.
But the script for The Equalizer 2 couldn’t be called impressive. It structures a feature length film. But the plot slides away from the brain like bland scrambled eggs off of a nonstick pan. There is nothing Continue reading The Equalizer 2 (2018) Movie Review→
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is both what you expect it to be and not at all what you might want it to be.
For one: if you have a soft spot for the silver screen Mamma Mia!, don’t expect a whole lot from the original cast. One hall of fame actress, in particular, is in noticeably short supply. And don’t go into this thinking, based on the trailer, that Cher comes in to fill the void.
But don’t fret: there is still plenty of Pierce Brosnan. I just can’t understand why they don’t give him numerous musical numbers…at least he mugs, pursed-lipped, to camera at every chance he gets.
Chances are that you already know if you want to see Skyscraper. It is a 1980s style action film with a poster featuring Dwayne Johnson hanging precariously from a building. There isn’t much mystery as to what the appeals of the film are.
Name an action movie, and it is somewhere in the bones of this film. Terrorists hijack the world’s tallest building in Hong Kong—it is three times taller than the Empire State Building—setting it on fire. Trapped inside are Continue reading Skyscraper (2018) Movie Review→
Uncle Drew. A feature length, wide-release Hollywood film based off of those Pepsi commercials I don’t remember. On paper, it sounds like a corporate scheme. Let’s round up a couple basketball stars, some hot-right-now comedians, and throw them into a sports movie template with enough empty space in the set dressing for product placement.
It could have been a cynical business move. Surprisingly, though, Uncle Drew shows more integrity than that. There isn’t a blinding amount of corporate sponsorship on display. There are some Pepsi and Gatorade logos, and Aleve is both name-checked and on prominent display in the film’s climactic location. Still, it is no Continue reading Uncle Drew (2018) Movie Review→
I scrawled this note—thin and chicken scratched—in my notebook about an hour into J.A. Bayona’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the sequel to Colin Trevorrow’s smash-hit 2015 film Jurassic World (itself being a soft reboot of the Jurassic Park franchise envisioned by Steven Spielberg).
Action Point is like Jackass, in that it contains dangerous stunts and people finding humor in harming the human body. It is also far removed from Jackass, in that it is a narrative film. This is to say that, you know, it has a narrative.
This is the first misstep that Action Point makes. The plot goes about its business, setting up set pieces and montages that show off the back-breaking stunt gags. It does this fine. Sure, it can be funny the first or second time that Continue reading Action Point (2018) Movie Review→
Driving home from the theater last night, I saw something really quite lovely. Turning down a curved street, and entering my line of vision for no longer than a second, I saw two people in conversation sitting on a ledge outside of a hotel. The pair—one a man, his back to me, and the other a woman, a warm smile on her face and a soulful tenderness in her eyes—each sat with their legs pulled up to their chests, almost as if they were mirrors of each other.
They were experiencing a genuinely human moment, captured through the film of my windshield. It was a silent movie. It ran for 1.5 seconds or less. But that snippet had more life, energy, and emotion than every shot in Solo: A Star Wars Story put together.
Now, you may be thinking: what do two people sitting on a ledge in real life have to do with a multi-billion dollar franchise’s sequel/prequel? In execution: nothing.
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