Here is the second 2019 film that was given its wide release in 2020. meaning that I had a chance to see it for the first time.

Just Mercy is the true story of Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), a Harvard educated lawyer, who moves to Alabama to start up a group to try and provide justice for people convicted and awaiting execution on death row.  He met up with Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), a man convicted of a brutal murder that he did not commit, but was railroaded onto death row because he was black and because the community needed someone to pay for the crime.

It is astounding that injustices like this case can go on in America and it truly highlights the issues we have in our judicial system when it comes to race.  How a man could wind up on death row with such a flimsy case against him is shocking and should be something that we all are ashamed of as Americans.  Because the case was so thin, the drama provided in this movie is top notch.  There is a sequence involving an electric chair execution that is just painful to watch.

Jamie Foxx is tremendous in his role.  He goes through the full ringer and the acting in the third act of the movie is some of the best I have seen from him in any movie.  Michael B. Jordan is solid as Bryan, but he is not at the same level in this movie as Foxx.  The secondary characters are well acted and provide a lot of balance for the film.  Brie Larson is good as Bryan’s aid/associate.

This is a performance heavy film, though there are strong moments throughout as well, including the aforementioned execution scene.  There are a couple of scenes where Bryan faces racially motivated situations that show how racism is embedded within our culture.  The fact that this was going on in the town where Harper Lee based her “To Kill A Mockingbird” and people kept referring to the museum dedicated to that book is one of the most ironic aspects of the film.

Just Mercy was better than I thought it would be, as I had heard some middling reviews of it.  Every review stated how good Jamie Foxx was in his role, and I agree completely.  The film ended with a statistic that for every 9 executions in this country there is one person released from death row who was falsely convicted.  That is a devastating stat and makes one wonder about the effectiveness of the death penalty.

4 stars 

For me, January 2020 is currently 0-2 so far.

The second movie I have seen in 2020 that was actually first released in 2020 (not counting 1917 or Just Mercy) was Underwater, a sci-fi/horror thriller film that takes place at the bottom of the ocean inside a subterranean laboratory.

At first, the crew believes that the lab is devastated by an earthquake, but, as it is crumbling around them, they realize that it is much more than an earthquake that they will need to survive.

While there is some tension involved, there are way more problems here than there are positives.

The biggest issue is that there were no characters with any depth to them (pardon the pun) at all.  The characters are as follows:  Kristen Stewart, the Captain, T.J. Miller, the black guy, the bearded guy and the other girl.  Their attempts at characterization included “you have a daughter” and the fact that bearded guy and other girl were a couple.  T.J. Miller carried around a stuffed animal and did his T.J. Miller shtick and that was about all.  Honestly, it became a joke to me as I was watching, using these names for the characters as they went along.

Kristen Stewart was fine and there was a spot near the end where she proved herself to be queen bad ass.  Stewart was easily the best part of the movie and she continues to distance herself from Bella Swan with every choice.

The setting was a total mystery because they spent almost zero time setting up the location.  I had no idea where we were at any point and it bugged me that this could have been a very frightening situation with a touch of world building.

Things were hard to see throughout and there were problems with the science of the whole thing.  The logic was way off (other girl apparently had never been in one of the diving suits despite working at the bottom of the ocean.  That seems as if it is a bit of a job requirement).

There were some interesting sequences of tension, but, since I did not know anything about any of these people (you’ve got a daughter!), I had a hard time caring at all.

I did think the ending was decent as they wisely focused on the main character, Kristen Stewart.  She was the one whom we had the most to connect to and she pulled off that epic bad ass moment just recently.

In the end, this is better than the last 2020 horror movie (The Grudge), but not by a ton.  Skip this and go see 1917.

1.75 stars 

Every year there are a handful of movies that are released in 2019, but are not released wide enough for me to see until 2020.  I place those films on their own special list at the Year in Review in December.  I think I have found the film that will be at number one on that list.

1917 is a masterpiece.

Absolutely 100% brilliant from the start to the finish.  Director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, Road to Perdition, American Beauty) has created a film that is powerful, poignant, emotional and gorgeous (as well as sadly dour at times).

Two young British soldiers (Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay) are sent on a mission during World War I behind enemy lines to try and prevent other troops from being led into a German trap.

That’s all I’m telling you about the story.  It is such a wondrous film that you want to go in with as little prior knowledge as you can to really appreciate what the actors and the production team was able to accomplish.

Both Chapman and MacKay do outstanding jobs as the two young soldiers, determined to struggle to get the message through.  We learn about these characters through their dialogue and actions, amazingly showing us who these two men are without telling us in needless exposition.

The imagery of the war was breathtaking.  There are so many horrific images around here that there can be no mistaking the terrible price of war.  The entire trip is filled with tension and creates a distinct feeling of anxiety in the audience that you are never sure what is going to happen.

The story is simple, but the simplicity of the story is what made this so amazing.  It did not require plot twists and surprises because what they have is so powerful on its own.  Gigantic stakes in both emotion and physical.

Recently inducted EYG Hall of Famer Roger Deakins is utterly perfection in his cinematography in this film.  The shots are totally brilliant and tell the story in such an unbelievable way.

The one thing that I found a bit shaky was the whole “one-shot” technique that the movie was filmed in because early on in the film, I was looking for the places that were where the filmmakers would have the cuts.  That was a little distracting at times early and felt a tad gimmicky.  However, those feelings disappeared as we continued on into the movie and that technique helped create a distinct audience feeling that we were right there with the actors.  So while at first I was distracted, I get used to it and it really helps the storytelling.

1917 is a master class in technical film making.  It is also completely thrilling, emotionally compelling and beautifully shot movie that really should be seen at the theater.  It was one of the best movies released in 2019.  Now that it is released wide in 2020, do yourself a favor and go see this masterpiece.

5 stars

Well it is January.

And it seems as if the first movie of the year is always a horror movie.

January is the month where, typically, movie companies dump the films that are not very good because they just want them to get out there and get done with their runs.  Most of the time, that makes January movies bad.

That is not always the case, of course.  There is a few gems in the month too, but I did not expect one of those when going to see the new version f The Grudge.  Unfortunately, the January movie expectation was fulfilled once again.  The Grudge was terrible.

The film seems to be focusing on Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough), who was one of the detectives investigating the latest murder in a specific house.  It is a house where there seems to have been several cases of murder over the years.

Muldoon’s partner, Goodman (Demián Bichir), had worked a case at the house before, but he tried his best to avoid it because of feelings he had.

As the film moved along, we find out more about the other murders that took place in the house, and we find out that anyone who enters the house gets haunted and eventually kills family members and dies.  Then we go about seeing all of these stories.

There are literally at least three stories from different time lines (maybe four) going on at the same time.  The years flash large and loud on the screen when they first start flipping through time, but trying to tell these different stories was a mistake.  One, there wasn’t enough time to go into any specific details of any of these characters so they simply become one-note characters and two, we know they are dead so there is little to no tension.

It becomes confusing and truly just drops the plot.

Every horror trope/cliche is active in this movie, especially the jump scare.  While some jump scares are fine, this film has more jump scares than any film I have seen in a long while and drives them into the ground.  Plus, the movie is just not that scary.  Even with the jump scares, there is no fear involved.  The jump scares are telegraphed so much that it is painfully apparent when each one is going to happen.

The one good thing about all the jump scares is that it kept me awake.  The film was so boring that I found myself ready to doze off, but every time I got close, there was a loud jump scare to bring me out of the daze.

The acting was about as good as you could expect considering the story that was presented to them.  Lin Shaye (from Insidious) played her role to the hilt, but there was not much character to it.  Jacki Weaver was interesting too, but she suffered from the same issues.

There was nothing in this movie that we hadn’t seen before and better.  The first movie of 2020 certainly only gives the rest of the year’s films nowhere to go but up.

January strikes again.

1 star