You do not have to be a fan of pro wrestling to enjoy the wonderful new film Fighting With My Family, a biopic about the rise of WWE female superstar Paige and the drama that that opportunity caused amongst her family.

Now, you may not have to be a wrestling fan, but I am one and because of that, I came into the movie with some background knowledge on Paige.  More on that later.

The movie tells the story of Paige (Florence Pugh), who started wrestling at 13 years old with her father (Nick Frost) and mother (Lena Headey) and older brother Zak (Jack Lowden) in their low brow, independent wrestling company in their hometown of England.  Initially uncertain about what she wanted, as soon as Saraya (Paige’s real name, Paige is her WWE wreslter name) found the thrill of performing in the ring, she was hooked.

After several happy years, she and Zak sent a tape to the World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE, to apply to join.  When the siblings received a tryout, their whole family was excited.  The problem was that Saraya was signed but Zak was sent home.  Because Zak’s dream was dying before him, this event sent a ripple through their family and damaged the close relationship between Saraya and Zak.

This movie is really about the relationships between Saraya and Zak, as well, to a lesser extent, the other members of her family.  It is an underdog story that wisely focuses on the characters involved and Florence Pugh absolutely slays it as Paige.  She brings so much to the role as the WWE star that she dominates every scene she is in.  Jack Lowden is exceptional here too, really playing the hurt and betrayal of having his sister succeed in his dream where he had failed.

The movie, produced by WWE Studios, does a great job of showing the challenges and struggles faced by the men and women attempting to break into the business of professional wrestling,  especially for the WWE.  Vince Vaughn played Hutch, the “coach” at the development territory who pushed the wannabe-superstars to their limits.  While this is a true story, the character of Hutch is an amalgam of different backstage real people in the WWE who helped encourage the real Paige in her dream.

Written and directed by Stephen Merchant, the movie has some very effective humor to go along with the real family drama.  I never felt as if the humor was out of place and I thought it balanced perfectly well.  The character of Paige’s father, Ricky, played by Nick Frost, is a wild man with great humorous traits.  There is a scene at dinner with Ricky and his wife Julia where they tell about how they fell in love and the troubles they faced.  This scene was very touching and showed how wonderful of a connection these two characters had.  It was truly one of the sweetest parts of the story.

The one problem I had with Fighting With My Family was the fact that I am a wrestling fan and that I knew much about Paige prior to seeing the movie.  In particular, SPOILERS…the film built to Paige’s debut on Monday Night RAW.  In the movie, Paige was shown as someone who was not ready for RAW but was able to have an exciting match with Diva Champion AJ Lee (played here by Thea Trinidad, Selena Vega in WWE currently).  However, Paige was already a big deal in NXT, the WWE’s developmental organization, and she was the NXT champion.  Paige had been tearing up the NXT shows and was certainly ready for the main roster.  The film changed that up and, while I can understand why they went the route they went, it was just a tad distracting for me, knowing how it actually went.

Now, I am not saying that a biopic needs to be 100% accurate.  In fact, the way they showed the event in the movie was extremely effective and well done and maintained the general spirit of the RAW segment.  It is just that I knew the way it actually went down and I could not get past it in my head.  It is a minor gripe of mine, but it was going through my head when I was watching the film.

“The Rock” Dwayne Johnson, a producer on the film, came across the story and helped get WWE Studios to produce the film.  Johnson also had a couple of top notch cameos in the movie as himself.

You do not have to love professional wrestling to love Fighting With My Family because it is not just a wrestling movie.  It is, first and foremost, a character study of a family and their personal demons that affect their choices and lives that just happened to involved pro wrestling.  It is remarkably well acted and moves briskly.  Paige was one of my favorite female wrestlers and I loved getting to see the story of her rise to stardom in the WWE.  WWE Studios has not had a ton of critical hits under its banner, but this one is the best film they have ever made.

4.6 stars

The “final” installment in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy came out and does an amazing job of bringing the series of films to a close.  Of course, we have seen that, if something makes money, it does not matter if the film is a perfect ending…Hollywood finds a way (pssst… Toy Story…4?)

However, let’s not think about that.  Let’s think about the fact that this movie is a beautiful and emotional end to the series that started almost a decade ago.  Having just rewatched the first two films last week, I found the third film was a wonderful companion to those movies.

Berk has begun to become overcrowded with the crew, led by newly minted chief Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), having spent the last year rescuing captured dragons from dragon hunters.  Unfortunately, they have come across the dragon hunter who has killed almost all of the night furies, Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) and the existence of Toothless became a quest for Grimmel.

Realizing the real danger his tribe was in, Hiccup chooses to try and lead his people and their dragons into the mythical Hidden World, the birthplace and homeland of dragons.  Along the way, they are shocked when they discover a female fury, they dubbed a light fury, that has stolen Toothless’s heart.

Above all else in the Dragon trilogy, the animation is stunningly beautiful.  The scenes with Toothless and the light fury flying through the clouds are some of the most gorgeous animation you are going to see.  The flying sequences are typical among the most breath taking in the trilogy, and these are no exception.

Most of the humor is on target as well, though I must say that I did not find the antics of the side characters such as Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (Justin Rupple, replacing T.J. Miller) funny.  In fact, they were more annoying than humorous.  The voice work is fine, but a lot of this humor just did not hit for me.  Much more interesting was the humor with Craig Ferguson as Gobber.

Astrid (America Ferrera) is one of my favorite supporting characters in the movie.  Hiccup’s mom Valka (Cate Blanchett) and Eret (Kit Harrington) is underused here and I would have liked to see more of them, especially a teased relationship between them.

The story itself felt a little repetitive at times to me, but I was happy to go along.  If I was ranking the three films, this would be my least favorite of the three, but not by much.  The three movies are all very consistent in their excellence.  Once again, How to Train Your Dragon is a series that has a theme about growing up.  Each movie has allowed its characters, in particular Hiccup, a chance to grown not only physically, but emotionally and that is rare amongst animated movies.

The movie moves at a brisk pace and never feels boring.  The story, while not as compelling as the first two, is not lacking too much and does have some seriously poignant moments.  The animation is, once again, epic and the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless is still at the heart of the tale, no matter what other characters become part of their world.

A great final chapter of a trilogy that never failed to entertain.

4.35 stars

I have never been a huge fan of rom-coms, but the promotional materials for Rebel Wilson’s new project, Isn’t It Romantic, seemed to take the genre and satire it.  The trailers were fun so I thought I would give this one a chance.  And I am really glad I did, because this was a lot of fun and an enjoyable time at the cinema.

It does a weird thing too.  It makes fun of romantic comedies, all the while, being one.

Natalie (Rebel Wilson) was an architect who was down on love and her life and was lacking confidence in herself.  When she hit her head during a mugging, Natalie woke up in a New York City that was right out of a rom-com.  Everything was perfect and her life and job were way better than she remembered.  It was not long before she realized that she had been caught, somehow, inside a romantic comedy and she started looking for a way to escape back to her own dirty and grimy world of NYC.

The idea here is very clever and creative.  Rebel Wilson is the perfect lead character for this type of genre satire, as she delivered all the tropes and the cliches normally found in a romantic comedy and called them out as they were happening to her.  She did it in a charismatic and funny way and it helped create a bond with her and the audience.  The cynicism she showed truly masked her true feelings and they were on display.  There was a fourth wall-esque breaking without actually breaking the fourth wall.

The writing was also very clever, as it threw in allusions to many of the classic rom-coms of all time, from Pretty Women to When Harry Met Sally to Jerry Maguire.

There were also several musical numbers that were used here that were so cheesy and over-the-top that they turned out wonderfully and fit right into the tone being set.

Liam Hemsworth and Adam DeVine were both solid as Rebel Wilson’s love interests.  I’d even go as far as to say that this was one of my favorite movies featuring the “other Hemsworth.”

The people who created this movie clearly loves romantic comedies and have made a film that not only points out the genre’s flaws, but also lovingly includes them in their story.  The movie is a quick watch and is entertaining.

3.7 stars

Horror and comedy are a really great mix and the original Happy Death Day was a prime example of that combination.  It came from nowhere to surprise the movie going audience and turned into a sleeper hit for the horror studio aficionados Blumhouse.

However, this sequel to that movie does something odd and unexpected.  It really switches genre.  Oh, it is still comedy, but the horror aspects, while there in small bits, are pushed aside for a more of a science fiction feel.  And I think it works.

One of the top reasons why it works is the great performance from lead Jessica Rothe, returning as Tree Gelbman, the college student who, in the original, gets stuck in a loop repeating the same day that always seemed to end with her death.

She was able to break the loop in the original, but, who knew, she would wind up back in another loop, repeating the same day, once again. This time, however, there are some subtle and some not-so-subtle differences from the previous time.

The film goes into some explanation about why this was happening to her, and, at first, it felt a bit dubious in trying to explain what was happening, and the whole science fiction part was a bit iffy to me.  They made references to a certain 1980s movie that the film really is similar to.

However, after a little while, once the stage is set for Tree to be back front and center in the story, the film took off and it became great again.  Jessica Rothe is absolutely on fire here and she is the main reason this film works at all.  She is intense, angry, upset, emotional and ticked off, many times all at the same time, and pulls it off totally.  She emotes everything she is feeling and she also drives much of the comedy, most of which works well.

There are also some real emotional moments that she takes the audience through, much more than what you would expect in a film like this.

I have heard some criticism of the mystery surrounding the killer being weaker than in the first movie and I agree with that, but it is not intended to be.  The killer is a side plot that is there to show you different aspects of the character of Tree.  It is not the driving force of the plot and is really not that important.  It still provides a strong scene near the end of the third act.

There is a mid credit tag that feels as if it is setting up a third film, but it is not near as strong as the rest of the film, though there is a funny joke contained within it.

I enjoyed watching Happy Death Day 2U and feel that it is a strong sequel to a movie I was surprised to like as much as I did.

4.25 stars

It has been a long time coming for Alita: Battle Angel.  Based on a Manga graphic novel, the film is directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-written by James Cameron.

I was underwhelmed.

In a futuristic year of the 26th century, Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), a surgeon specializing in cybernetic replacements discovered the torso of a young woman whose brain is still alive.  He took the girl back and gave her a cybernetic body, treating her like the daughter he lost.

In the world, there is a floating city named Zalem which is where the special people live and the planet below is where all of the rest of humanity has populated known as Iron City.  Everyone from the earth wishes they could make it to the city in the sky.

When she awakens, the young girl does not remember anything of her past and is given the name of Alita by Dr. Ido.  It soon is shown that this young girl with the new cybernetic body is a fighter of high level and more than just another pretty face.

I had several problems with Alita.  The biggest one is that I just could not get past the CGI of the characters.  The surroundings of Iron City was amazing and most of the CGI of the action scenes was tremendous, but every time they put the camera on Alita or any of the other cyborgs with human heads, I thought the CGI looked rubbery and fake.  The characters reminded me very much of Steppenwolf from Justice League, and he was my absolute least favorite part of that movie.  I remember thinking immediately how much I noticed that this was CGI and how, during Avengers: Infinity War, I had not thought of Thanos as being CGI until 3/4 into the film.  I thought the distinction was clear.

As I said though, the action CGI was done considerably well and was, for the most part, fun to watch.

Rosa Salazar, who was the motion capture actress of Alita, does a fine job.  I think she delivered as much as you could expect from this film.  I felt as if Christoph Waltz was out of place any time the film took his character outside of the house/lab.  When he ventured out onto the streets of Iron City, Waltz stuck out, and not in a positive way.

The story itself was pretty lacking.  It was long and the film felt long.  There were distinct moments where I found the movie dull and I was wanting more.  I did not buy the relationship between Alita and Hugo (Keean Johnson) and there is one scene here involving Alita’s heart that was downright laugh-out-loud funny when it was supposed to emotionally resonate.

Mahershala Ali played Vector here and he is fine.  I would have liked to have seen him as more of the villain than what he turned out to be.

The film was not a total fail, but I did find myself wishing it was over on more than one occasion.  It certainly sets up for a sequel that, actually, could be more intriguing than this one was.

2.5 stars