Tag Archives: Samuel L Jackson

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

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) Movie Review

July 4, 2019 Alex Brannan 1 Comment

Note: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame

The Marvel Studios machine keeps turning. With Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, there was a satisfying conclusion to the three-phase arc that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far. This epic two-part film event provided caps on long-standing MCU characters without really hinting at anything beyond.

Yet MCU phase three, as it is currently outlined, concludes with Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Far From Home shows a world which has moved on from the havoc wreaked by Thanos—the havoc was Continue reading Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) Movie Review →

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

Captain Marvel (2019) Movie Review

March 8, 2019 Alex Brannan 1 Comment

Note: If you consider a plot synopsis of the first act of a movie a spoiler, then spoiler warning for this review. That is all.

Vers (Brie Larson) lives, with partial amnesia, on Hala, the homeworld of the Kree civilization. She spars with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), who encourages her to Continue reading Captain Marvel (2019) Movie Review →

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

Glass (2019) Movie Review

January 17, 2019 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

M. Night Shyamalan has created a comic book world completely divorced from real-world comic books, yet all he wants to do in Glass is fit into the canon of superhero comics. The exposition often harps on, among many other things, comics—their origins, their narrative formulae, their character construction.

Glass is a superhero film, in that it recenters Shyamalan’s Split into a superhero versus arch-villain plotline, in which James McAvoy’s multiple personality super villain “The Horde” is Continue reading Glass (2019) Movie Review →

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

Incredibles 2 (2018) Movie Review

June 16, 2018 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

Brad Bird’s first contribution to Pixar animation, 2004’s The Incredibles, was a rather prescient film. Using 1960s Silver Age superhero comics as inspiration, The Incredibles foresaw a future of superhero films and cheekily toyed with the tropes before they were firmly established (the modern era of the genre, led by Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and the formation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was a few years away).

It commented on a lack of female representation in the world of caped crusaders. Its plot involved complications around fear and distrust over supers, long before Captain America: Civil War and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. And how many modern silver screen superheros still Continue reading Incredibles 2 (2018) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words)

The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) Movie Review

August 21, 2017 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is a bodyguard. Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) is a hitman. The bodyguard must bodyguard the hitman. Hilarity ensues.

Except, not too much hilarity. Some hilarity. Well, maybe hilarity isn’t the word. There are some chuckles.

But mostly the film is heavy on the Continue reading The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) Movie Review →

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

Kong: Skull Island (2017) Movie Review

March 9, 2017 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

Big Ape. Island. 1970s Vietnam backdrop. Movie. Synopsis over.

Kong: Skull Island is a Vietnam era period piece, something that acts as an important backdrop in the film. The stereotypes of U.S. in 1970s wartime dictate exposition and characterization.

The setup of Kong is messy in its expediency. A constant underscore of period relevant soundtrack keep conversations short and lacking in anything more than political platitudes.

Characters, as a result of this expediency and poor scripting, are Continue reading Kong: Skull Island (2017) Movie Review →

A Movies, All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Love It

I Am Not Your Negro (2017) Movie Review

February 18, 2017 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

In archive footage, we see at the beginning of I Am Not Your Negro an interview with the subject of the documentary: writer James Baldwin. The interviewer, when addressing with Baldwin the plight of the black man in American during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, he says “Is it at once getting better and still hopeless?” To which Baldwin responds, quite simply, that there is no hope to it.

I Am Not Your Negro is a literary chronicle set to motion through photographs, film clips, and sweeping landscape shots. The raw power of Baldwin’s words is something Continue reading I Am Not Your Negro (2017) Movie Review →

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

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) Movie Review

September 29, 2016 Alex Brannan 1 Comment

The preamble to Tim Burton’s latest, a fantasy novel adaptation, introduces a multi-faceted allegorical fable that mixes grief, childhood imagination, and Holocaust fears into a hideaway fantasy realm. Miss Peregrine’s (Eva Green) children’s home remains perpetually in September 3, 1943, the day when a German air raid bombed the building out.

Jake (Asa Butterfield), a lonely boy in his own right, travels to find the home (in 2016) following the death of his grandfather (Terence Stamp), a former resident of the home. Through way of the cavernous entrance into a Continue reading Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) Movie Review →

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

The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Movie Review

June 30, 2016 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

In The Legend of Tarzan, Jane (Margot Robbie) and John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgard), aka Tarzan, return to the jungle years after Tarzan has acclimated to high class civilized life. The story of their relationship is told in flashbacks, where Tarzan is seen as a boy raised by apes and Jane as the daughter of an American teacher.

These flashbacks are shot with little care. Motion is blurred. Camera angles are distorted and displeasing to the eye. The color palette is drab and cold.

When slave traders led by Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) steal Jane away, Tarzan ventures to save her. The narrative is simple, and thus not the crux of entertainment value to be found in this film. What the film is meant to provide instead is Continue reading The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Movie Review →

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

Cell (2016) Movie Review

June 14, 2016 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

Cell is a movie based on a novel by Stephen King. In this adaptation, Clay Riddell (John Cusack), is an artist who, while in an apartment, becomes witness to an apocalyptic event in which a cell phone signal causes users to become feral (in inconsistent ways). They foam at the mouth, attack people, attack themselves, and become utterly unaware of their own humanity.