One of the weirder “based on a true story” movies that you are going to see.

Every May, the group of five friends come back together (wherever they may be) and resume the same game of tag that they have been playing for 30 years.  However, this year is different.  Jerry (Jeremy Renner), who is getting married, is supposedly retiring from the game after never having been tagged.  So Hogan (Ed Helms) pulls together Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm), Kevin Sable (Hannibal Buress), and Chili Cilliano (Jake Johnson) in a determined effort to finally tag their friend.

I really enjoyed this movie.  The chemistry of the five characters, as well as Isla Fisher who played Hogan’s wife, Annabelle Wallis who played a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, and Leslie Bibb who played Jerry’s fiance, were off the charts strong.  The interactions between characters is what kept the movie from losing itself in some of the more over-the-top situations that it found itself in.

There are some really funny moments.  Many of them came about when the group has come up with a convoluted plan to trap Jerry but Jerry finds an even more convoluted way to escape it.  Jeremy Renner is fantastic in this movie, really showing the arrogance of Jerry.  The film would stop and give us an inside the mind play by play of what Jerry is thinking as he avoids the tag.  This is very similar to the way Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes breaks down a scene where he needs to act.  Renner was excellent, especially since he had both arms broken in the filming of this movie and much of what we saw on screen was CGI renditions of Renner’s arms.

The tone of the film changed as it progressed, turning nastier as the group continued to push the envelope further with each attempted tag.  There may be some times that people think it steps over the line of good taste, but I did not find myself feeling that way.  The third act did seem to become darker than expected, but that was explained near the end of the film.

Tag may feel lightweight, but it really does have a lot to say about friendship and how friends can grow apart over time.  There is a good amount of exploration of friends and the lengths that they have to go to remain in each others lives.  And even though you may consider yourself a friend, there may be parts of your friends’ lives that you are not aware of and that truly affect them.

Tag ends with some real life footage of the real life group playing their game of tag, if you doubted that this was based on a true story.  I had a good time with Tag despite the story getting a little too dark in the third act.  A great cast and some good laughs carried the film to a successful end.

4 stars

Fourteen years later…

Incredibles 2 picked up literally where the original film left off.  Usually, when a sequel has this much of a gap between when the original came out and when the sequel came out, the film suffers (ex. Dumb and Dumber 2, Anchorman 2, Zoolander 2).

That is not the case for Incredibles 2.

Brad Bird returned to the director’s chair for this latest Pixar film featuring the amazing characters of the Incredibles.  Voice talents of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Vowell returned to their iconic roles for the sequel making everything feel like it fit together perfectly.

In the world right after the attack of the Underminer, super heroes are still illegal and the Incredibles are forced back into hiding.  However, a wealthy industrialist (Bob Odenkirk) and his tech savvy sister (Catherine Keener) approached Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) with a plan to try and convince the world to reinstate the legality of super heroes.  Elastigirl went out into the world to fight crime and work on the image of super heroes while Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) stayed home to raise the kids and deal with the troubles of their lives.

Incredibles 2 was a lot of fun from start to finish.  Where to start?  The voice cast, as I have already mentioned, is tremendous.  They all do a great job here, especially Craig T. Nelson who has to play a increasingly frustrated Mr. Incredible.

The animation was amazing.  You can see how much technology has advanced in the last 14 years since the first film came out.  However, Incredibles 2 still retained the distinct style and feel of the animation of the original.  It was like a perfect blend of new animation and the classic Incredibles art.

The character of Jack-Jack stole the show, having some of the best scenes of the movie.  The uncertainty of the powers of the young baby was very fun and presented the film with most of its biggest laughs.

However, Incredibles 2 was definitely Elastigirl’s movie as she was out front and center in the storyline.  The film does a fantastic job of highlighting how creative she is with her powers and what visually awesome things that you can do with a stretching hero.  As much as Mr. Incredible was out front in the original, that was how much Elastigirl led the way in the sequel.

The action in this movie was out of this world.  They had some amazing sequences throughout the film showing how these characters creatively use their powers and there was not one action scene that wasn’t top notch.  There seemed to be more use of Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone here too and his ice powers are used just perfectly.

I did have a few issues with the film.  First, it seemed to be a little slow at the beginning, but it picked up quickly.  The storyline was fairly predictable and the film certainly did not take too many twists or risks.  The villain Screenslaver was adequate, but certainly pales in comparison to the first film’s Syndrome, arguably one of the best villains in any super hero movie.  I was also not a huge fan of angsty Violet (Sarah Vowell) as that felt too cliched.

Most of those issues would be nitpicks and none of them really affected my enjoyment of the movie.  This felt like an exciting second adventure in the lives of the Incredibles and I was glad that I was able to watch them again.  Though the sequel may not quite reach the level of magical awesomeness as the original did, Incredibles 2 comes pretty dang close.  Hopefully it does not take another 14 years to get another Incredibles movie.

4.6 stars

Perhaps it is just me, but I did not enjoy much about the reimagining of the 1970s blaxploitation film Superfly.  Maybe it really is about seeing a world of which I have no connection, but either way, I did not like this.

Youngblood Priest (Trevor Jackson) is a young cocaine dealer in Atlanta with broad plans of expansion.  Wanting to make a lot of quick money so he can escape the world, Priest looked to become a larger scale dealer.

He comes into conflict with other cocaine dealers in the area which leads to violence and wild parties full of sex and people throwing money on the floor.

I had several problems with SuperFly.  First, the film obviously wants you to be in the corner of Priest, but I found him just as crooked and criminal as all the others. Sure, Trevor Jackson plays him with a considerable amount of charisma, but that does not change the fact that he is a cocaine dealer.  He is surrounded by a couple of friends who are worse than he is and do little to create a connection to me as an audience member.  I don’t see any difference between most of these characters except for the clothes that they wear.

The women in this movie are treated much like they would be in a 1970s film as we basically see only the worst traits displayed by almost everyone except for Priest’s girlfriend (one of them, at least) Georgia (Lex Scott Davis).

There feels as if there are a ton of story threads tossed into the narrative seeing which ones might stick.  There is a story with Priest and his old mentor (Michael Kenneth Williams), one with two dirty white cops who show up about 2/3rds of the way through the film from out of nowhere (and one was Emma Swan from Once Upon A Time and I could not place her face for the longest time- very distracting), and there was one with the head drug family and the man in charge Gonzalez (Esai Morales-who was another face that I had trouble placing).

This felt more like a rap video than it did a feature motion picture and that really had me checking out of it early.  I wanted to like Priest, but the film showed him to be pretty much the same type of character as everyone else …just better at it.  And of course, his hair was epic.

There were a lot of questions surrounding the motives on what they were doing.  None of it seemed to be more than, “we want more money to make rain at parties.”

There were no characters worth rooting for and because of that, I checked out of the film early.  Lots of uses of the N-word, which I never like, though I understand is in the vernacular of the African-American community.

I am not sure the purpose of this film.

2.25 stars

The Rider is an interesting movie that tells its story in a new and original manner, written and directed by Chloe Zhao.

We get three characters who are basically playing themselves in this film.  Brady Jandreau played Brady Blackburn, a rodeo cowboy who had a horrible head injury that causes him have to give up bronco busting.  Tim Jandreau, Brady’s real life father, played Tim Blackburn, Brady’s hard boiled father.  Lilly Jandreau, Brady’s real life sister, played Lilly Blackburn, Brady’s sister who has Asperger’s Syndrome.  We also have Lane Scott who played himself as a bull rider who was in an accident and has become a paraplegic.

Because of these inexperienced actors who are playing characters that are basically themselves, the film has a distinct realness to it.  There is definitely a truth to it- especially with the relationship between Brady and Lilly.  She does not feel like she is saying lines at all.  I wonder if they allowed them to just react as brother and sister in the situation without an specific dialogue.  It certainly feels that way.

I kept thinking about the 2008 movie The Wrestler as I was watching this movie.  There is a connection between the movies.  Both characters are struggling to move on with their lives after a health issue takes away what they love to do.  There are family issues involved as well.  Both films have that real feel to the filming and has that independent touches to it.

There were some truly amazing scenes focusing on Brady’s ability to train/break horses and the film allows this skill to play out.  It was some of my favorite scenes in the film.  We see how important of a relationship Brady has with the horses that he works with.

I did enjoy this movie very much.  The cinematography is beautiful and the pain of the loss of what Brady loves is something we can all relate to.  There are too many puke scenes, though (I hate those).

4 stars

This was a film that I was anxious to see in theaters, but it never came around this area of the country.  I had heard a lot of positives about it, so I started watching for it on the different streaming services.  Finally, it arrived on Amazon Prime so I rented it and gave it a watch.

Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke) were childhood friends who had grown apart.  However, they reconnected later in life and bonded over their individual lack of emotions and the troublesome nature of Lily’s nasty step-father Mark (Paul Sparks).  Amanda floats the idea of getting rid of Mark in a permanent manner, and the girls try to convince low level crook Tim (Anton Yelchin) to help them do it.

The most interesting part of this film is the performance of Olivia Cooke and how she portrayed this sociopath, Amanda,  Amanda tells Lily that she does not feel joy or sadness, that those emotions are something foreign to her.  Working her way through life without these basic human emotions is a fascinating character trait that you would think would make someone a rotten human being and yet you can see how human Amanda is despite the way that she acts.  It is clear that she cares about Lily, but in a way that is not the way we are used to.

Lily is actually more rotten of a person as she hides her own feelings and actions from her family and even from Olivia.  She has many of the same tendencies of Amanda, but she does it for more selfish reasons.  Everything seems to be about her.

It was both great and sad seeing Anton Yelchin on the screen again.  This was, I believe, his final performance before his tragic accidental death.  The young actor had a bright future ahead of him and, to prove that, he was great in this role as Tim, a small time thug who was not sure of what to make of these two girls.

This movie is dark and violent, and shines a light on some characters who are anything but likeable.  Honestly, the sociopath Amanda might be the character most worth rooting for in this film.  The way the girls react with one another and the rest of the characters is fascinating and shows how a psychological character drama can be done well.  This one may not be for everyone, but if you like a dark tale of flawed characters who may not always make the best choices, Thoroughbreds is one you may want to check out.

3.6 stars

2028.  Los Angeles.  Riots.  Trouble all around.  What do the criminal types do when they are injured?  Why, if they are a member, they head to Hotel Artemis where they get patched up and saved, but make sure you follow the rules.

This movie feels like the concept of the Continental from the John Wick series of movies, though the film does not feel like a John Wick movie.  Honestly, it was like this took place in the same universe as John Wick, but without the amount of action.

We meet several characters who have been admitted to Hotel Artemis where The Nurse (Jodie Foster) runs the hotel and helps patch up the guests using high tech futuristic medical supplies.  Everest (Dave Bautista) is her bodyguard/handyman/assistant health care provider who is loyal to The Nurse.

Other characters who are admitted to Hotel Artemis include Waikiki (Sterling K. Brown) and his brother Honolulu (Brian Tyree Henry) who are fresh off a bank robbery, Nice (Sofia Boutella) who has her own mission, Acapulco (Charlie Day) who is a big mouthed jerk, Morgan (Jenny Slate) a cop with a connection to The Nurse, and The Wolf King (Jeff Goldblum) who actually owns the place.

Jeff Goldblum really made the movie better the minute he arrived.  Goldblum has quite the presence and you can feel it here.  His scenes with Jodie Foster were some of the best of the movie.

The strength of the movie is definitely the characters and the interactions between the characters.  I loved the scenes with Jodie Foster and Dave Bautista.  Bautista has really come into his own as an actor and I can’t wait to see his next role.

The story itself though is not as strong in Hotel Artemis as it could have been.  The story felt very isolated, almost as if it were a group of smaller scenes pasted together without enough connection.

There was some action, but not nearly as much as I would have expected.  There is an action hallway scene with Sofia Boutella which was solid, and Bautista had a few moments, but that was about it.  The film is more about the dialogue and the connection with the characters.  Some of the characters work better than the others.

This feels as if the concept of the film was greater than what we got, but I did like the fact that we got a group of interesting characters who were interacting with one another.  Another borderline film that I am recommending.

3.1 stars

I had not seen this when it first came out because it just did not interest me.  This was a remake of a movie from 1987 with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn (which I have never seen) and I had heard a lot of negatives from the critics about the film.  That does not usually prevent me from going to a film, but the scheduling of seeing this is what kept me away.

Today, however, I had an open spot in the afternoon and Overboard fit into my schedule so I decided to give it a chance.

And it was better than I thought.

Honestly, the film started off and I was not a fan.  I really disliked the character of Leonardo (Eugenio Derbez) and I was ready to check out of the film.  I actually even considered leaving early.

And I found it pretty unrealistic that Kate (Anna Faris) would put this man through such a travesty of pretending to be his wife.  It reeked of fraud and kidnapping and so I found it to be a really rotten thing. Add to that that the kids were involved too and I was having trouble with the plot.

Then something odd happened.  I started to enjoy the story.

Sure, it was predictable as heck.  There were no surprises or twists along the way.  Exactly what you would expect to happen, happened.

But I found the story to have some charm that I did not anticipate.

I think most of the credit for that goes to Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris.  They were very strong and charming together.  I liked them as a couple and I was able to get past the idea that she was basically cruelly condemning this man to a life that is not his own because of their connection.  The sweetness of the pairing overcame the weakness of the story.

Yes, the movie itself is not that great, but I found it to be a sweet film.  I am not sure that the film needed to be remade.  I have some problems with the ending of the movie especially SPOILERS how quickly and easily Leo forgives Kate, but I really enjoyed the two of them together.  I liked a bunch of the secondary characters and Kate’s three girls were cute and funny.  There was heart in this movie and I did not expect that.  It turns out that, after the first 15-25 minutes of the movie (which was terrible), Overboard really came around and made me happy that I found time to see it.

3 stars

Hereditary is the latest horror film to come out, directed by first-time full lenght feature director Ari Aster, and Aster does a great job creating a tone/mood of this movie that is distinctly scary.  There are legitimately multiple moments in this movie that completely creeped me out.

The film starts out with the death of Annie’s (Toni Collette) mother.  They had an estranged relationship for years because of a history of issues between them.  Unfortunately, after the death, Annie begins to have problems, hearing things and sleepwalking, which lead to question about what was happening.

I don’t want to go into too much details because of spoilers, but I can say that the cast of this movie was brilliant.  Lots of people have been pointing out Toni Collette’s performance as one of the best performances so far this year, and that is most definitely correct, but her performance would not be as strong if she did not have the equally wondrous work of Alex Wolff, who plays her son Peter.  Wolff is outstanding here and brings a level of emotion and anxiety unlike we have ever seen from him.

We also have great performances from Milly Shapiro, who plays Collette’s daughter Charlie, and Gabriel Byrne who is the father of this family.  The cast does a ton of heavy lifting in this story, and stand out among any aspect of Hereditary.

The film does start pretty slowly, but it was necessary to do it that way.  The early part of the film does feel poorly paced, but it does pick up as the film progressed so that when that first major shocking event takes place, the film is in high gear the rest of the way.

I was fully engaged in the film and the horrific scenes were shocking and disturbing.  The film was becoming a classic horror movie with some really scary moments that were sticking with me.

Then, the ending.  Without spoiling anything, I have to say that I really disliked the end of this movie.  The final five-ten minutes changed my perception of the entire film.  At one point, I was thinking that they were going one way, but, instead, they chose a path that I found too cliche and disappointing.  While the ending may not have completely ruined what had come before, I was severely disappointed with how they chose to end this film that had been so well done up until that point.

So this film is a really great film, but I do not agree with the hyperbole that I have heard that this movie is this generation’s Exorcist.  The ending just does not allow it to step up to that mantel, though it was definitely on the way to that for much of the film.  Toni Collette is undeniably brilliant with her role and she is equally matched by young Alex Wolff.

3.75 stars

The latest of the Ocean’s franchise came out this weekend, with a new cast featuring all females.  Thankfully, this film does not cause the stir that Ghostbusters did a few years ago and that is probably thanks to the strength of the cast.

While, unfortunately, Ocean’s 8 is not a full out smash, it has definite moments that are fun and entertaining.

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), Danny Ocean’s sister, has spent the last five years in prison, planning on the perfect heist and every detail that needed to be determined.  Once out, she goes about recruiting a team of females to pull off this heist of a $150 million dollar diamond necklace.

The cast is a strong point of the film.  Cate Blanchett played Debbie’s friend Lou and Cate is her normal great self.  Helena Bonham Carter is solid playing the oddball fashion dresser Rose Weil.  Rhianna was good (certainly better than Battleship) as Nine Ball, the computer hacker.

Still, the actress who stole every scene she was in was easily Anne Hathaway playing actress Daphne Kluger.  Hathaway was always engaging and brought a great energy to this character.  I thought she was absolutely the best part of the film.

Now, I did find much of the movie dull, especially the first half.  The second half of the film did pick up and begin to feel more interesting to me, but that first half was so boring that I was actively thinking about other things.

The heist itself had its moments, but I have always found fault with the Ocean’s franchise because these heists require so much suspension of disbelief that it stretches credibility.  Here, there were a couple of “wrinkles” thrown into the crime, but they seemed to be handled so expertly that they just did not provide any sort of stakes or dangers for the characters.  I never once doubted that they would succeed in the heist.

Ocean’s 8 is breezy, light-weight and slim in story and characterization among many of the female characters.  Outside of Bullock, Hathaway and Blanchett, these characters are fairly one note.  They do their part of the heist and not much more.

This is another example of a film that is basically so so, despite a tremendous cast.  I did like the familial bond between Debbie and her “dead” brother Danny, and I would have enjoyed more of that.  There are major plot holes that are filled too easily, keeping from there being any real tension in plot.  Ocean’s 8 is a film that is showing you a heist and how they pull it off.  If that is enough for you, there is some goodness in here.  If you want more from you movies, this one might be lacking.

2.9 stars