A strong cast drew my attention to this new film on Netflix.  When a film can boast a cast including Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam and Pedro Pascal, you know there will be some attention.

Triple Frontier is a heist film, mixed up with a survival tale, with a sprinkle of the Expendables.  Violent and tense, the film does a great job of taking a simple story and making a compelling movie.

Five ex-special forces soldiers reunite to do one final mission which includes stealing millions of dollars from a reputed drug lord in the jungles of South America.  Unfortunately, problems begin happening to the group and suddenly, they begin to question the morality of their actions while trying desperately to survive.

The five characters are played well, and there are concepts that are touched upon, but much of the really deep choices are left out of the script, like bags of money at the bottom of a ravine in the Andes.  I have a feeling that the actors brought much of the character traits to the film themselves and that the script may not have fleshed them out as much as it could have.

However, there is a lot of great action beats here and the group is likable enough to form a rooting interest.  There is a surprise that happened about two-thirds through the film that caught me off guard and really laid out the situation for the group.  I liked the twist, but it did feel that there was not the sufficient pay off for the situation as it should have been.

I enjoyed the film although it is not quite as awesome as it could have been,

3.5 stars

Wow, this really shows how great a filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was.

Just kidding.  Of course, the conspiratorial rumors of the actual moon landing being faked and filmed on a stage set have been around for years, but I do not know how anyone, even the most conspiracy theorist, could deny the fact of the moon landing after watching the wonderful documentary by director Todd Douglas Miller, that took us where many movie viewers wanted First Man to go… following the lead up and the eventual moon landing of the astronauts of Apollo 11.

This is the 50th anniversary year of the moon landing and this documentary gives you an amazing look at everything as it happened, from the day of the launch right down to the splash down back on earth.

Apollo 11 depends on archival footage, much of it unseen, instead of interviews, recreations and voice overs.  Because of this, this documentary had a feel to it as if you were watching a news account of the event that shaped history for this country at the end of the 1960s.  And none of the visuals used were weak.  It was crisp and clear and made the storytelling that much more effective.

The music in the background of the film was amazing.  It was something that really stood out in most of the scenes in the doc.  The music truly helped audience members feel what was going on in the film, connecting even more than just the nostalgia of the moment in time.

This helps show the three astronauts, Neil Armstrong and pilots Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins, as the true heroes that they were.  One of the biggest things I noticed was seeing how much of a celebrity these men were at the time and how big of a deal this launch was.  The footage of the people coming out to watch the blast off really tells you how important that was.  I could not shake the thought of how much the space program has fallen over the years with the public as any launch over the last 20 years or so was greeted with apathy.  Such a shame.

This documentary does not fail to show you a great story and provide the pride of a country in a race to reach the moon before any other country.  Let’s put the conspiracy theories about the moon landing to rest.

3.85 stars

I was not going to go to see this film because the reviews were low and I have been known to skip the poorly reviewed animated movies.  I am not usually their targeted audience.  However, there was an open space of time between Apollo 11 and Captive State so I decided to watch this instead of just sit in the lobby and wait.  I made the right choice.  This film was better than I thought it was going to be, but it was not one of those animated films that will transcend the age of the audience.

June (Brianna Denski) was a creative and active young girl, who was constantly building things for a model of an imaginary theme park called Wonder Park.  Her mother (Jennifer Garner) was very supportive of her child, even when her most recent construction leveled a good chunk of the neighborhood.

However, June’s mother took sick and needed to go away to try and get better, leaving June alone with her somewhat bumbling father (Matthew Broderick).  The angst over her mother’s illness put a halt to her creativity and her imagination as she obsessed with keeping her father healthy.

When she winds up in the woods, something magical overtakes June and she finds herself in the actual Wonder Park, but it was anything but how she knew it.  It was run down, broken and consumed with darkness.  June teams up with the personification of her stuffed animals to try and stop the darkness and return the park to its glory.

The story was painfully predictable, but might not be for the young children in attendance.  There was some nice colors and character designs, the villainous chimpanzombies were cute, and there was some decent voice work, especially from HBO’s John Oliver as a porcupine named Steve.

The story itself though felt extremely rushed and crammed together and, because of that, did not deliver the emotional response most of the time that it was looking for.  Some of the early parts of the story with June and her mother were good and the very ending in the park, while predictable as can be, felt as if it carried a little bit of weight.  Unfortunately, most of the rest of the movie was basically fluff without the depth that could have elevated the idea here into something more than a way to waste 90 minutes with the kiddos at the theater.

While I found this more entertaining than sitting and looking at my phone in the lobby of the theater, Wonder Park is not a great movie by any stretch.  I do think it has some value for the very young movie goers and it flies rapidly through to prevent the parents from being too bored.  Of course, that very rush in storytelling will also make it challenging for the parents to be entertained.

2.6 stars

I was looking forward to this movie because I had really no knowledge of what it was.  There aren’t too many films that hit the theater where I was uncertain about what it was going to be.

And then I saw this film.

Honestly, I hated this movie.  I was bored within the first ten minutes, I had absolutely no connection to any of the main characters and they kept bringing other people into the film that I had no idea what their purpose was for.  The story was disjointed and confusing and I really was not sure what was going on.  And not in a good way.

John Goodman was here.  He was a Chicago detective after the aliens had arrived and taken over the world.  Chicago was walled off and became a craphole.  There was a resistance inside Chicago, I think, and they were trying to do something.

Vera Farmiga, who I love and never gives a bad performance, is totally wasted in this role.  She has like two throwaway scenes and then ends up in a convoluted climax that tries to tie everything up in a nice little bow so everyone left the theater knowing what was happening.

I came very close to walking out of this movie on several occasions but I made it through to the ending.  The guy snoring loudly in the row behind me made it through as well, but he did not see as much of this travesty as I had to endure (plus, he was with a girlfriend/significant other… can’t you elbow him when he is snoring that loudly?  Geez, you want to snore, go the #@#$ home).

Hated this one.  Skip it.

1 star

Vincent D’onofrio directed this new Western featuring the legendary encounter between Billy the Kid (Dane DeHaan) and Pat Garrett (Ethan Hawke).

This encounter has been shown on film before but this time, the main focus of this film is on a different Kid than Billy.  Rio Cutler (Jake Schur) is a young adolescent boy who shot and killed his father as his father was beating his mother to death.  Running from his vengeful uncle Grant (Chris Pratt), Rio and his sister Sara (Leila George) accidentally come across Billy the Kid and his gang.  Unfortunately for them, this is just prior to Sheriff Pt Garrett’s arrival and capture of Billy.

Spinning a yarn about why they were there, Rio and Sara accompany Garrett as he is on his way to take Billy the Kid back to stand trial and to be hanged.

Along the way, Rio struggled to deal with what he had done, while seeing the two Western icons as potential role models.

The Kid is quite violent and bloody in many spots as the consequences of these bullets are obvious to the audience.  The film does not shy away from the idea that actions have consequences and the main theme of it is important of what you do next is a key one.  There are some strong ideas at play here, some covered better than others.

Dane DeHaan is excellent as Billy the Kid. He is charismatic and likable and, with this portrayal, you can understand why the young outlaw was able to accomplish what he did.  Ethan Hawke is very strong as he always is as Pat Garrett.  Hawke shows his struggles with doing what is right while sticking true to his core values.  The relationship between these two characters is one of the more intriguing parts of the movie.

What did lack at times was the relationship between the two icons and the boy, Rio.  I can see Rio as idolizing them and connecting himself with both of them, but, especially with what occurs, I am not sure that the relationship from the adults really fit well.  And it felt as if it were just a plot contrivance when Rio goes to Garrett to confess.  I am not sure I believed that they had a close enough relationship for Rio to take the chance he did.  Maybe he felt as if he had no other option.

Certainly, Billy the Kid sees himself in Rio and perhaps he wishes that he could be at a place in his life where he could have chosen another path.  Garrett did not seem to have the same connection with Rio outside of a caring adult to a child.

The sister becomes nothing more than a plot point though.  At first, she is the one getting in Rio’s head about telling what happened, and then, after she is taken away, she becomes the MacGuffin for Rio.  On the same weekend as Captain Marvel flies high with female power, The Kid does not have much of its own.

D’onofrio does a great job with the shots of the film, bringing that feeling of an authentic Western to The Kid.  The shootouts are dramatic and filled with tension and the message is strong.  I enjoyed the film for the most parts, though it felt as if there were some connective tissue missing in the plot and between the characters.  It was a decent Western to watch on a rainy afternoon, though.

3.3 stars

There has been a lot of controversy online surrounding Marvel Studios’ new film, Captain Marvel, starring the lovely Brie Larson.  I have heard the hatred of the trolls trying to review bomb Rotten Tomatoes before ever seeing the film.  I heard initial reviews being highly positive, but followed by reviews, from a lot of online reviewers that I respect and listen to, saying the movie ranged between okay and meh.  BY this point, I had no idea what I was getting into.

Sorry haters, but I loved this movie.

Brie Larson, known at first as Vers, is training with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), friend and mentor with the Kree Empire.  She had no memories of her past, and she pretended as if that did not bother her, but it was affecting her decisions and her ability to grasp the training.  Upon a mission to rescue a Kree spy, Vers and Yon-Rogg, along with a group of Kree warriors, is ambushed by their sworn enemies, the shape shifting Skrulls.  After this conflict, Vers winds up in the Skrulls’ control and finds herself on the way to earth, where, strangely enough, many of her memory flashes seem to be from.

Once on earth, she meets up with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the two try to discover the mystery of Vers’ past as Carol Danvers and how she is connected to a scientist named Larson (Annette Bening).

I know some people might claim that the beginning of the film is slow and takes a long time to get going, and I would agree with that assessment.  However, I would disagree that it was a bad thing.  I really liked the slow burn at the beginning of Captain Marvel, and I believe that it was a must.  Marvel Studios threw a lot at us in that opening part and all of the set up needed to be in place for this film to work.  And I really thought all the stuff with the Kree and their planet of Hala worked well.

Oh, and by the way, I had tears in my eyes in the first 20 seconds of the film.  No spoilers, but it was perfect.

The relationship between Nick Fury and Carol was great and Samuel L. Jackson was the best version of Nick Fury we have had since we have met the character.  Before all the horrors of the world brought him into the pessimistic super spy that he was before he was dusted, this version of Nick Fury was funny, quick witted and, certainly, a cat lover.

And speaking of the cat… Goose the Cat is an absolute scene stealer and a huge part of this film.  Look for this character as one of the break out characters of Captain Marvel.

Going back to Samuel L. Jackson, the de-aging technology they used on Jackson was freaking unbelievable.  He was not just in a few scenes.  Sam Jackson was a co-lead.  And never once did I think, oh look… they CGI’ed his face.  It was an astonishing piece of technological marvel.  Unfortunately, Clark Gregg, who played Phil Coulson here, was not as lucky.  Coulson’s de-aging was okay, but nowhere near as perfect as Jackson.  For Coulson, you could tell they had done work on him.  It was still nice to see Phil make his MCU return and to see the connection between him and Fury.

I did not see the story going the way it went, and, even after the story took a turn, I did not know what to think.  There was a point where I thought to myself, “I really don’t know what is going to happen” and that was awesome.  There were some real surprises for me and I was shocked that they chose to go in that direction a couple of times.  I really appreciated those decisions.

I have heard a lot of people complaining about Brie Larson and claiming that she was miscast as Carol Danvers, and I could not disagree more.  I found her to be wonderfully charming and a perfect fit for the character of Carol.  I have always liked Brie Larson, so maybe I was predisposed to liking her in this role, but I truly thought she was the Carol Danvers that I knew from the comics to a tee.

Ben Mendelsohn as the Skrull leader, Talos, was brilliant as well.  I loved this villain and he was such a surprise with a much deeper story arc than I ever believed he would have.

Some of the 90s references were a bit ham-fisted.  It did seem as if the film was trying pretty hard to hit you over the head with the fact that this film was going on in the 1990s.  I am not sure the nostalgia bits of Captain Marvel worked very well.

As I am speaking about the parts that were not my favorite, I must say that I was not a huge fan of the CGI on Captain Marvel in the space scenes that we have seen in the trailer.  The final copy of this was better than in the trailers, but it did not live up to the levels of young Nick Fury in this movie or Avengers: Infinity War Thanos.  She looked too video game-y when she would have the helmet and the Mohawk on.

It also may be a bad thing to make Carol too powerful.  She may have trouble connecting to the normal movie goer if she is too strong.  I mean, who can stand up to Carol and be believable?

And there may be a few too many moments where the movie was explaining why something was as it was in the current day.  Let’s call it the “How Han Solo got his name” effect.  We did not need to see the origin of how Fury came up with the name of the Avengers Initiative.  There were too many of these Easter eggs which stretched the film’s credibility a bit far.

There are two extra scenes.  The mid-credits scene is absolutely amazing and made me all the more excited for the future of this franchise.  The post credit scene is … well, I think it is Marvel just F@#king with us.  It was awesome, mind you, but… they are f@#king with us.  They have to be.

I loved Captain Marvel.  Sure there are a couple of flaws in the production and some of the humor did not necessarily land (although I would say more landed than didn’t), but the story was compelling and the mystery of Carol’s past life kept you guessing.  The acting in top notch and the Skrulls are amazing…as is Goose the Cat.  There is great excitement and the film felt like it flew by for me.  There is wonderful character moments and I loved Brie Larson as the MCU’s big dog.

I cannot wait for Avengers: Endgame.

4.75 stars 

This was tough to watch.

First of all, I am listing this documentary in the Movie Review section because this 4 hour HBO documentary debuted at Sundance Film Festival this year and was aired on HBO March 3rd and 4th.

This documentary told the stories of two men who, as boys, were allegedly sexually abused by Michael Jackson for years.  Wade Robinson was a 7-year old boy from Australia who met Jackson through a dance contest.  James Safechurch was also a young dancer that Jackson helped in his career.  Both men relived graphic sexual encounters that they claim to have had with Jackson and how these encounters shaped their lives from the first moments on.

I have to say that I would have always considered myself a Michael Jackson fan.  I loved much of his music and was impressed with his amazing dance talent.

I remember never believing the accounts in 1993 when Jackson was originally sued for sexual abuse by a young fan (which was settled out of court).  Nor did I believe that Michael Jackson was guilty when he was placed on trial in 2005, when he was acquitted.  I was always seeing this through the eyes of Michael Jackson, unable to accept that he would ever do such a thing.

After watching the documentary, I believe every word that Wade and James said.

This was a painful and emotional roller coaster from the first moments and laid out a picture of a sexual predator who knew just how to take advantage of his celebrity to manipulate and control these children and their families, allowing him to get what he wanted.

The supporters of Jackson claim that these two men are liars (both of them had lied about the abuse for years to everyone, and Wade went as far as to testify for Michael in the court case) and that there was no shred of evidence.  While this may be true, the stories of Wade and James are compelling and their responses are convincing.  Watching the After Neverland documentary special with Oprah Winfrey that followed the documentary, seeing James literally shake and quiver sitting their tells me something had happened.

Both men told their painful stories fully and held back nothing in the documentary and, like many sexual abuse encounters, the only real evidence is the testimony of the victims.  In that case, their stories felt very creditable and totally believable.

Director Dan Reed, when confronted with the accusation that this documentary was one-sided, responded that the doc was really the story of Wade and James and the film would not have been serviced with people on the other side who could only state that Michael Jackson was a good guy and couldn’t have done this.  Truthfully, the only people who could have known what really happened was the boys and Michael and that is where the story was focused.

The Jackson family issued a statement about the documentary that said, in part, “The two accusers testified under oath that these events never occurred. They have provided no independent evidence and absolutely no proof in support of their accusations.”

This documentary changed what I thought about Michael Jackson and about the reputed sickness that he had been rumored to have.  This was a harrowing documentary to watch and difficult to finish.  Everyone, especially parents of little children, should see this film to understand the potential dangers that can come from places that are unexpected.

I’m not rating this documentary as that feels wrong, but I am recommending everyone watch Leaving Neverland and see what you think about the stories of these two men.

I had heard nothing about this movie. I had not seen one poster, trailer or promotional material.  After seeing it on the Cinemark listing this weekend, I did check out the Rotten Tomatoes score and it was high (in the upper 80s if I remember) so I was excited.  I was hoping to start off the review with the line, “I never heard of this movie, but it is now one of the best movies of the year.”

Unfortunately, I can’t say that.

It was really good, but it did not completely enthrall me as I had hoped it would do.

Don’t mistake me though, Arctic, starring Mads Mikkelsen, is a fabulous movie of survival in the harshest conditions imaginable.  There were many times when I thought to myself, “This guy is doomed.”  That was good storytelling.

Mads Mikkelsen is a character who is never specifically named in the movie, but had the name “H. Overgard” on his coat, so it looked as if that is his name.  Apparently, according to IMDB, the director Joe Pinna had hinted that the name was Hannibal.

Overgard had crashed his plane in the snow and the winds of the Arctic and he had been trying to survive for awhile when we first meet him.  Then, a rescue helicopter was spotted and it seemed like it was going to be a short movie.  However, the copter crashed too and Overgard had to try and help one of the copter pilots, a young woman who we never get named, played by María Thelma Smáradóttir.

The mostly unconscious pilot and Overgard had to face a number of dangers in a desperate attempt to survive.  It gets so tough that you never know what was going to be the next tribulation they had to face.  Of course, we have seen all of these winter survival hazards before, but Mikkelsen make them all feel fresh again.

The film was a beautifully shot film, with amazing scenery with every moment.  It becomes very intense at many times as Overgard tries to save the pilot by going on a trek back to her camp by following a map he found in the wreckage.

Mads Mikkelsen was tremendous in this performance, especially since there was very little dialogue for him to use to get across his thoughts and concerns.  Despite this, you never doubted what Overgard was thinking and the internal struggle was apparent all over his expressive and snow damaged face.  As only one of three credited actors, Mads Mikkelsen carried this film on his shoulders from the first scene.

Unfortunately, I cannot claim this is one of the best movies of the year, but it is a fine film that should keep you on the edge of your seat.  I really have had enough snow this year to last me for a good long while, but this one was worth seeing a little bit more.

3.5 stars