Category Archives: Like It

Movies I liked but likely won’t watch again. Something was off that I wish had been done differently.

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) Movie Review

On a planetary system called The Sovereign, the Guardians of the Galaxy defend some golden batteries from a large squid monster. Upon success of this task, the golden inhabitants of the planet that houses these golden batteries pay the Guardians. They then chase them down violently when it becomes evident that one member of this indelible crew, Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), stole some of these batteries for his own gain.

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This long diversion about batteries aside (and, yes, batteries take up a large portion of this film’s narrative), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is about Continue reading Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Circle (2017) Movie Review

Mae (Emma Watson) is stuck at a dreary temp job. Her car barely runs. She lives at home with her parents. Effectively, she’s stuck.

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Then, through a connection in friend Annie (Karen Gillan), Mae lands an interview at The Circle, a hip-and-trendy tech outfit that is, on contact, Orwellian. Or, at least, Continue reading The Circle (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Alien 3 (1992 & 2003) Movie Review

There is a stigma to Alien 3, the third installment in the massively popular Alien franchise and David Fincher’s first directorial effort. Pulled out of the world of music video directing, Fincher was given the lofty task of continuing the sci-fi horror series. The end result was massive studio interference that led to two drastically different cuts of the film.

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The 1992 theatrical cut was heavily edited down, leading to a far less cohesive film. It is still Continue reading Alien 3 (1992 & 2003) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Free Fire (2017) Movie Review

Free Fire, the new film from Kill List director Ben Wheatley, takes place during a contentious international arms deal in a spacious abandoned warehouse in 1978 Boston. As expected, it does not go as planned.

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Interestingly enough, the deal plays out in an anachronistically polite way. Not tea party polite, but more polite than Continue reading Free Fire (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Fate of the Furious (2017) Movie Review

In Havana, Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) cousin (Janmarco Santiago) gets his car towed by the man with the fastest car in Cuba. Toretto challenges the man to a race for the cousin’s car. What comes from this is a race of the fastest car against the slowest car. It is a race predicated on family and honor, and, of course, Dom wins.

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Those unfamiliar to the The Fast and The Furious franchise may find this cold open to The Fate of the Furious, this eighth installment to the series, silly, both in theme and in how it plays out. But it is also Continue reading The Fate of the Furious (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Hero (2017) Movie Review

Lee Hayden (Sam Elliott) is a washed up white-hat Western hero dreaming of his next movie while smoking joints and recording voiceover for advertisements. The Hero is a movie about a sad old man, a lightly humorous meditation on living with differing physical and mental ages.

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Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Lee wanders through his twilight existence trying to find Continue reading The Hero (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Furious 6 (2013) Movie Review

The later three The Fast and Furious films, excluding the upcoming The Fate of the Furious, are heralded as the rare occasion in which the later installments of a franchise are better than their predecessors. This trilogy has been hugely successful from all sides. Fans like them. Critics tolerate them, at the very least. And the box office loves them.

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Furious Six is where all pretense of the franchise’s premise fall away. The film is barely about Continue reading Furious 6 (2013) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Golden Exits (2017) Movie Review

Golden Exits is a film about the over-lapping lives of people they don’t make movies about, as admitted by the film itself.

Nick (Adam Horovitz), a mild-mannered archivist, is married to the increasingly depressive Alyssa (Chloe Sevigny), who is sisters of Gwen (Mary Louise Parker), a client of Nick dealing with the death of her father, who has an intimate relationship with the mentally troubled Sam (Lily Rabe), who is friends with consoling Jess (Analeigh Tipton), who is married to her boss Buddy (Jason Schwartzman). And all wrapped up in this is a young Australian woman abroad in New York (Emily Browning).

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Browning’s Naomi is a character that the film touts as a glorified siren, a sexual object to tempt Continue reading Golden Exits (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Ghost in the Shell (2017) Movie Review

In an indefinite future, cybernetic enhancements have become a growing trend. On the forefront of this advancement is Major (Scarlett Johansson), a human mind placed into a robotic shell. To some, the perfect weapon.

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The premise of Ghost in the Shell leaves the narrative bleeding with Continue reading Ghost in the Shell (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Dark Tapes (2017) Movie Review

The Dark Tapes is an independent found footage horror anthology. It is a film in the same family as the V/H/S films, The ABCs of Death, and the recent XX. The difference between those films and this is that, while other anthology films split its work among multiple directors who each take on a self-contained short, The Dark Tapes is a film written by one screenwriter (Michael McQuown, who also shares directorial credit with Vincent Guastini).

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As such, the frame narrative should share some cohesion across the film. The immediate impression, thus, is that the various “chapters” bleed together. Glitches transition between the shorts on the “tape.”

What this does at first is cause Continue reading The Dark Tapes (2017) Movie Review →