Category Archives: Long Reviews (>400 Words)

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

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Movie Review

July 9, 2017 Alex Brannan

2002. B-Movie horror crowd-pleaser Sam Raimi brings the iconic friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to the big screen.

2012. Following two Raimi Spider-Man sequels—one to great acclaim and one ill-fated—Sony revamps their comic book property with Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man.

2015. It becomes public knowledge that Sony and Marvel Studios reached an agreement to bring the red spandex, arachnid-based superhero into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Now, 15 years after his first big screen appearance, Spider-Man (Tom Holland, in this instance) makes Continue reading Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Movie Review →

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

2:22 (2017) Movie Review

July 4, 2017 Alex Brannan

Dylan (Michiel Huisman) likes the stability of life. He sees patterns in everything. It fits perfectly with his air traffic control gig, even when he almost kills 900 people in a nearly botched landing.

On this plane is his new love interest Sarah (Teresa Palmer). They meet at the hilariously-named air ballet “Beginnings,” in which they Continue reading 2:22 (2017) Movie Review →

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

The Beguiled (2017) Movie Review

June 30, 2017 Alex Brannan

In a wooded hideaway in Virginia is a school for girls led by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman). Three years deep into the Civil War, Confederate patrols make their way through the area frequently, but Martha and the girls also lie in fear of potential Yankee parties. They whisper stories of Union soldiers raping Southern women, painting uncivilized pictures of the unseen army.

It is understandable, then, that the inhabitants of the plantation take to wounded soldier Cpl. John McBurney (Colin Farrell) with Continue reading The Beguiled (2017) Movie Review →

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

The House (2017) Movie Review

June 29, 2017 Alex Brannan

Scott (Will Ferrell) and Kate (Amy Poehler) Johansen need money for their daughter’s (Ryan Simpkins) college tuition. The city council-sponsored scholarship she was supposed to earn was pulled due to budget cuts. Scott and Kate fail to get raises at their respective workplaces.

Then there’s Frank (Jason Mantzoukas), the gambling and internet porn addict best friend of Scott whose wife has left him. In shambles, all Frank wants is to Continue reading The House (2017) Movie Review →

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

Baby Driver (2017) Movie Review

June 27, 2017 Alex Brannan

Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a getaway driver. He works under Kevin Spacey’s Doc, a heist mastermind who never works with the same crew twice but who considers Baby his lucky charm. A lucky charm that he has under his thumb thanks to a juvenile mistake that Baby pulled on him at a young age.

Baby is the eccentric protagonist and your archetypal “mysterious quiet type” character. After an accident left him both orphaned and ailed by tinnitus, Baby lives Continue reading Baby Driver (2017) Movie Review →

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

The Bad Batch (2017) Movie Review

June 26, 2017 Alex Brannan

Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut as a feature director came in the form of the genre-bending vampire romance film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. The film, shot in supple black and white over a soundtrack of trance-inducing electronica and angsty punk, was a beautiful piece about maintaining relationships in an environment rife with isolation.

On paper, Amirpour’s second film The Bad Batch exists in a similar world. Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is released from “Bad Batch” prison into the desert wilderness of the Texas-Mexico border.

A dystopian world in which cannibalism is a viable form of survivable (viable to the point of being morally questionable as opposed to morally intolerable), isolation is all Arlen has. Especially after she is captured by a family of cannibals and Continue reading The Bad Batch (2017) Movie Review →

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

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) Movie Review

June 21, 2017 Alex Brannan

Transformers: The Last Knight is, surprisingly, a movie.

The film is a direct sequel to Transformers: Age of Extinction, not that that is important. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), leader of the Autobots, is adrift in space, frosted over in route to his homeworld.

And he will remain frosted over for most of the movie.

Meanwhile, on Earth, various humans have agendas related to Transformers and Continue reading Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) Movie Review →

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

Colossal (2017) Movie Review

June 20, 2017 Alex Brannan

Colossal masquerades itself as a certain type of movie. It opens on the ominous, lingering image of a Kaiju-like monster. Then, sweeping shots of the New York skyline play out over a driving, Dark Knight trilogy-esque score. Then, Gloria (Anne Hathaway) enters, hungover and rambling thinly-veiled excuses to her boyfriend (Dan Stevens) about where she has been.

It doesn’t quite match the previously set tone, does it?

When her boyfriend leaves her due to her drinking problem, Gloria moves back to her hometown, where she falls in with an old friend named Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). An old friend who just so happens to own his father’s bar.

Remember that Kaiju that I mentioned earlier? Whelp…turns out it pantomimes the actions of Gloria when she sets foot on a playground she knew once as a child. It pantomimes everything, including Continue reading Colossal (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

All Eyez On Me (2017) Movie Review

June 17, 2017 Alex Brannan

At first, All Eyez On Me, the new biopic on rap sensation Tupac Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr.), comes off as a film trying to be efficiently synoptic, if not a bit rushed in getting to the point.

Within 15 minutes, we watch Tupac’s pregnant mother (played with a tenacious vigor by Danai Gurira) being released from prison, Tupac growing up in a family being watched by the FBI for Black Panther and perhaps criminal affiliations, and moving to Baltimore where his love of poetry and Shakespeare eventually leads to his rap career (once he moves again, this time to Oakland).

This is the first half of the first act. The film runs rampant with Continue reading All Eyez On Me (2017) Movie Review →

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 →

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