Category Archives: All Movie Reviews

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

Rough Night (2017) Movie Review

June 16, 2017 Alex Brannan

10 years after their senior year of college, Jess (Scarlett Johansson) is running for Senator. She is also getting married to an awkwardly twee guy named Peter (Paul W. Downs, who also co-wrote the film). To celebrate, her college friends bring her to Florida for a crazy bachelorette party weekend full of partying, drinking, and perhaps some illicit drugs.

Oh, and did I mention the dead stripper?

The first half hour of Rough Night plays like a female version of the Hangover films. Then, the break into the second act comes with its twist—the aforementioned dead stripper, of course—and the film becomes something more Continue reading Rough Night (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it

47 Meters Down (2017) Movie Review

June 16, 2017 Alex Brannan

In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws changed the way people viewed sharks. Seemingly, he changed that perception forever, as every so often a movie like 47 Meters Down comes out to remind us just how bloodthirsty these giant sea monsters can be.

Now, there is nothing wrong with Continue reading 47 Meters Down (2017) Movie Review →

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

Cars 3 (2017) Movie Review

June 15, 2017 Alex Brannan

Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) isn’t the youthful race car he once was. In fact, Cars 3 makes it a point to reiterate again and again that McQueen is quite old. Given the age of sentient cars is an abstract, hard-to-track concept, I guess this is acceptable.

Technology has advanced (somehow…who builds these cars?) to the point where new rookie racers are optimized for high percentage wins (then again, if antagonist Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) is the next big thing, wouldn’t all the new cars optimize to the same level of racing, thus making all races even again? And if McQueen can be given those advancements as well, what exactly is stopping him from Continue reading Cars 3 (2017) Movie Review →

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

Megan Leavey (2017) Movie Review

June 12, 2017 Alex Brannan

Megan Leavey is your basic determination story. A short, scrawny U.S. Marine recruit (Kate Mara) struggles her way to a position as a bomb-sniffing dog handler. After she does that she has to train the most ornery Marine dog in the camp. After she does that she has to fight to bring that dog home.

While this narrative shows little signs of originality, it does provide Continue reading Megan Leavey (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Mummy (2017) Movie Review

June 10, 2017 Alex Brannan

In the 1930s and the 1940s, Universal made a name for itself creating monster movies. Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman, among others, were hugely popular intellectual properties in Hollywood. They made household names of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. They were undoubtedly iconic films.

Now, Universal is rebooting the franchise. They first attempted this interconnected horror universe with Continue reading The Mummy (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

It Comes At Night (2017) Movie Review

June 8, 2017 Alex Brannan

It Comes At Night is a terse family drama disguising itself as a horror film. Still, it remains the scariest filmgoing experience of 2017 thus far.

The film takes place in an idyllic cabin hideaway in the woods. It is the sort of place that you would run off to on a lazy Summer weekend. But this house also has wood boarding up its windows. It has a pair of doors—one prominently red—locking itself off from the outside world.

This is no vacation. It is survival.

This contrast that director Trey Edward Shults plays with is crucial to the thematic understanding of It Comes At Night. In the film, a family of three have just buried Continue reading It Comes At Night (2017) Movie Review →

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

Wonder Woman (2017) Movie Review

June 2, 2017 Alex Brannan

First good DC cinematic universe film?! All female screenings?! Uproar over a movie based on children’s comic books?! Interrobangs?!

Diana “Prince” (Gal Gadot) is Princess of the Amazons on Themyscira. Trained at a young age as a warrior god, Diana becomes transfixed with the concept of vanquishing Ares, the god who defied Zeus and condemned the world of man to war.

When a Great War soldier, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), enters Themyscira through a portal, hurtling out of the sky in a crashing fighter plane, Diana rushes out to save him. The German army in hot pursuit of Trevor, the Amazons must fight them off, and Diana gets her first glimpse at the horrors of war.

From here, she sets out to Continue reading Wonder Woman (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Love It

Raw (2017) Movie Review

June 1, 2017 Alex Brannan

Raw is a beautiful, disgusting mess. And it’s fantastic.

In the prestigious veterinary school newly attended by Justine (Garance Marillier), hazing is tradition. Midnight dorm raids. Mandatory partying. Buckets of blood dumped Carrie-style. Eating raw rabbit kidneys.

For most, this would be frustrating but tolerable. But Justine is also Continue reading Raw (2017) Movie Review →

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

The Girl With All the Gifts (2016) Movie Review

May 31, 2017 Alex Brannan

Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is confined to a cell. She must strap herself in to a wheelchair at gunpoint before she can leave it. She is kept under close, militaristic watch. She is dangerous. And she is also a child.

In a secure compound, children like Melanie learn by rote during the day and are held in lockdown at night. They are test subjects for a Continue reading The Girl With All the Gifts (2016) Movie Review →

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

The Lovers (2017) Movie Review