I had low expectations for this film.  And you know what, after a slow start, I really got into this comedy.

Maximo (Eugenio Derbez) made a vow after witnessing the truck that his father had accidentally driven though their house explode to find a way to have money and not work.  And he found that way… becoming a gigolo for older, rich women.

He lived comfortably for many years with his sugar momma until he was dumped for a car salesman, leaving Maximo broke and struggling to find his way.  He wound up staying with his sister Sara (Selma Hayek) and her son Hugo (Raphael Alejandro), and began a plot to seduce a new rich older woman (Raquel Welch).

I started out being pretty bored with this film.  Then, something strange happened.  I really started to enjoy it.

I give most of the credit for this film’s turn around to the wonderfully written relationship the film developed between Maximo and Hugo.  This unlikely pair really became the driving force behind the movie and turned Maximo from a one-note character into something more.  The scenes where Maximo is trying to help teach Hugo how to get the girl that he had a crush on (Mckenna Grace, who just started in Gifted) to like him are great.  Of course, Maximo’s reasons were not selfless as he wanted the chance to seduce the girl’s grandma, who was coincidentally the rich woman he was hoping to meet (Welch).

Sure the story was pretty predictable.  You knew that, despite his motives being less than admirable, Maximo would wind up connecting with Hugo and then would do something to show his original motives- causing a rift between them.  That is exactly what happened.  And yet, I was so engaged by the Maximo-Hugo relationship that I forgave the predictability of the situation.

We also had some really great scenes between Maximo and his sister Sara.  This relationship was developed, allowing Maximo to use his ability to pick up women as a strength to help Sara get past her fears and go out with a nice guy she had liked.

The humor here was hit and miss, but there was more funny than not.  Sure they did plenty of over the top jokes that were misfires (including the jokes involving Welch’s arms) but there was also a sweetness to these people that made you want to root for them.  Maximo may not have been your typical protagonist, but I found him to be likable and relatable.

Plus… “Weird Al” Yankovic makes a cameo!  That was equal levels of unexpected and awesome.

There are other characters in the film and some of them do not work nearly as well.  Rob Lowe is fine as Maximo’s fellow gigolo friend, but Rob Riggle and Rob Huebel are nothing more than bullies and used as foils for Maximo.  Raquel Welch’s role is also not a strong section of the film, but her inclusion leads to the wake up call that Maximo needed.  Michael Cera plays the car salesman that seduces Maximo’s old flame and he is great in his short time on screen.  Kristen Bell’s role is a funny one, but fairly unrealistic and I honestly do not remember who Rob Corddrey played.

Lind Lavin (from “Alice” fame) does have a small, but wonderful cameo that works extremely well.

The real strength of this film is your three actors, Eugenio Derbez, Selma Hayek, and Raphael Alejandro, who have great chemistry with one another and are developed into solid, three-dimensional characters.  I found myself invested in these three characters and I enjoyed the second half of How to Be a Latin Lover very much.  It is a little uneven of a film, but it really picked up steam when the main character decides to become a real character.

3.7 stars

What happens when Google blends together with all the forms of social media and becomes Big Brother?  That is one of the questions poised by the new film starring Emma Watson.

Unfortunately, The Circle never really pays off the high concept questions that it introduces in any sufficiently supportive manner.

Thanks to a friend, Mae (Emma Watson) gets an interview with the big company, The Circle, where the future has become the now.  She gets the position, which is just a phone answerer, but she realizes soon that this company does business in a different manner.  Employees are encouraged to put every aspect of their lives onto the social media, employees are encourages to participate in the social activities on the Circle campus and to engage with a smile with everyone.

There are also meetings where one of the founding fathers of the Circle, Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) does presentations much like Steve Jobs at Apple, where he presents ideas for the group to be pondering as well as presenting the next step in technology to help the world.  These meetings are also attended by founding father #2 Stenton (Patton Oswalt).

Mae quickly rises up the ranks and suddenly becomes one of the stars of the Circle when she agrees to wear a camera 24/7 and go translucent.  Everyone, everywhere with access to every bit of your life.  As the technology continues to push the limits, it starts to poise some questions about exactly how sincere the Circle is.

There are a lot of problems with this movie.  One, the story has plenty of problems.  The action does not really pick up until late in the third act, which makes the first two acts slow and quite dull at times.  The film does a poor job of creating any sort of antagonist within the Circle.  Sure the film does imply that there are shady dealing going on, but it hardly comes to the forefront of the story.  Even at the end, there is little presented to us that indicates that Bailey and Stenton weren’t exactly who they were.  They always seem like good guys who just may be misguided with the use of the technology.

Two, some of the acting was truly bad.  That is a tough comment to make with this film’s superior cast, but there were several moments that I thought to myself, “Boy that is really wooden acting.”

Three, the film really does not make good use of the great cast.  Tom Hanks, who you are led to believe by the trailer is a huge piece of this film, is really only in the film for a handful of scenes, most of which take place on the stage in front of the audience.  John Boyega is in this film as the third “founding father” but he appears even less than Hanks and feels completely wasted.  Karen Gillian, who plays Mae’s friend Annie- who gets her involved, even wasted as well, and provides some of the worst scenes in the film.  She goes through some kind of depression and seems to lose her way, but I am not sure why that happened or how it started.  It seemed as if she started going downhill as soon as Mae started having success.  That was all I got from it.  That is three pretty big stars to waste.

Fourth, the concept of the movie, though pretty interesting and topical, is never truly paid off.  Emma Watson’s character changes paths several times throughout the film without reason or motivation.  Her interactions with John Boyega was completely ignored.  She switches teams on a dime.  There is little sense made and that certainly hurts when you are meant to connect with her.

I did like Mae’s parents.  I did not even realize until after the film that Mae’s father was being played by the late, great Bill Paxton.  Mae’s parents (the mom played by Glenne Headly) were actually the more developed of the characters.  Paxton played Mae’s father who had MS and was struggling to keep getting through.  Had the rest of the characters had as much care in writing as these two, The Circle would have been a much improved film.

The trailers made The Circle look like a cult, but that was not really the case.  It was more about social media and its inclusion in our lives and how technology can come at a cost of our privacy.  I feel like there were so many better ways to have approached this film that it wasted a real opportunity to have a great message with a great cast.  Emma Watson is fine, but not remarkable.  Tom Hanks is not the villain he looks like in the trailers.

The Circle does not live up to its potential.

2.2 stars

A24 has been very successful over the last few years with their usually original and offbeat movies.  Last year’s Swiss Army Man was a perfect example.  Free Fire is their most recent film and, while there are a lot of creative and fun parts of the film, this one falls short of some of the highs of their other filmography.

That is not saying that Free Fire does not have its moments, because it is an enjoyable film in many ways.  In fact, I am going end up giving this a fresh review, but it certainly did not reach the heights that the concept could have reached.

Inside a warehouse, there is an arms deal going down between two factions.  The sellers, led by South African gunrunner Vernon (Sharlto Copely) and the buyers led by Frank (Michael Smiley).  Each group had a ton of hired help on each side.  However, two of the hired guns Stevo (Sam Riley) and Harry (Jack Raynor) had an altercation at the bar the night before bringing them into conflict with one another.  Once bullets started to fly, nothing was going to stop the slaughter.

The cast of this film was tremendous, and was clearly a strength of Free Fire.  Armie Hammer played Ord, my personal favorite character.  Brie Larson was here, although honestly her character was woefully underwritten and lacking.  Cillian Murphy played Chris, one of Frank’s men who was just trying to get Brie Larson’s character out of the line of fire.  Copley was fantastic as well as the annoying Vernon.

There was actually a lot of humor in this film.  It played more like a comedy than it did a thriller, despite all of the gunfire that was going on around these characters.  There were several quips between the characters, and their interactions with one another really was the best part of the script.

Although I liked the original conflict between Stevo and Harry, it sure seemed to escalate quickly.  Even after gunfire began, it seemed as if there were chances for someone to step forward and put an end to the violence.  Instead, we just kept firing at one another.  And firing at one another really badly.  These people were terrible shots.  Bullets either completely missed or only grazed people throughout the entire film.

This also made a lot of the fire fight scenes run together too much, and they ended up becoming kind of dull.  Add to that the fact that they were shot with that shaky cam style that made it hard to tell what was happening, the gunfire was not the strongest part of the film.  The thing was it was, by far, the largest part of the film.

Another problem with the film was that very few of these characters had much development about them.  As I said earlier, the biggest offender of this was the Brie Larson character.  There was a black guy named Martin (Baboo Ceesay) who I knew very little about as well.  Stevo had a friend Bernie (Enzo Cilenti) that was basically played as a homosexual.  Stevo was pretty one note as well, just being a mean-spirited ass.  I will say though that Stevo’s fate was extremely satisfactory.

I really enjoyed Armie Hammer and his portrayal of this character.  Ord was calm and cool through much of the film, giving out nicknames like he was Sawyer from LOST and seeming very competent among a group of amateurs.

There was a betrayal subplot where two other shooters showed up and we knew almost nothing about them or why they were there.  The film does reveal that answer, but I am not sure if they ever specified the reason this pair of snipers had been hired.

In the end, I think the fun outweighed the negatives here as I am recommending Free Fire.  I do wish the end result of this film had been more effective, but there is enough here to enjoy.  I did not love this, but I did like it.

3.2 stars

I went to the movies this weekend with two films on the docket that I had no idea about at all.  I had not heard one thing, seen a trailer for, or had any prior knowledge about either The Lost City of Z or Phoenix Forgotten. That is pretty rare.  I hear a lot about movies and I see a lot of trailers, but these two had slipped past me.  And that was interesting.

I had some ideas.  I thought maybe that The Lost City of Z had something to do with zombies… (SPOILERS…IT DIDN’T).  Meanwhile, I just liked the title of Phoenix Forgotten, even though I just saw Unforgettable last night.  I had no clue about what I was in for.

I liked one a great deal and found the other movie dull and long.

Rotten Tomatoes had Lost City of Z at 87% and Phoenix Forgotten at 56% (at the time of this writing)… however, I would disagree this time with the web site aggregate.  I found Phoenix Forgotten to be a really good time and the Lost City of Z to be boring.

Phoenix Forgotten turned out to be a found footage story based around an event that happened in 1997.  The Phoenix Lights was a phenomenon that happened where hundreds of residents saw these mysterious lights in the sky over Phoenix, Arizona and wondered what they were.  This movie was based in that time frame, making it historical fiction.

The Lost City of Z was actually more of a true story, completely without zombies… but replacing them with cannibals.  This film was the true story of Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) and his obsessive desire to discover the lost city of Zed in Amazonia in South America, and how it consumed much of his adult life, taking him away from his wife and children.

Obsession played a role in Phoenix Forgotten as well as we see two time frames in play.  Back in 1997, after the Phoenix Lights occurred, three teens disappeared in the desert, never to be seen again.  One of the kids, Josh (Luke Spencer Roberts) became obsessed with the lights and he was investigating them by video taping everything around him.  He, along with his friend Mark (Justin Matthews) and Josh’s crush Ashley (Chelsea Lopez) disappeared without a trace.  Then, in present day, Josh’s sister Sophie (Florence Hartigan) was shooting a documentary about her brother’s disappearance, blending the two video tapes into one film.

Back in the jungles, much of the Lost City of Z felt pretty boring to me, as I nearly dozed off several times.  There were some interesting moments throughout the beginning section of the film such as Percy encountering the “savages” of the Amazon forest and dealing with the lazy and whiny James Murray (Angus McFadyen).  Things picked up again when Percy returned home to discover that his oldest son had grown into Peter Parker.  Tom Holland’s arrival in the film was another shock as I had no idea he was in this.  The problem was the character Tom played was amazingly inconsistent.  He was very angry at his father’s seemingly abandonment of the family and reacted in one of the more powerful scenes of the film.  However, this emotional wallop was not followed up upon and the story line was basically dropped as the son grew to become much like his father.  I would have liked to see that relationship fostered more than it was.  For one, that would have made for solid drama, and two, Tom Holland is a very strong actor and I would have loved to see more of him.

In the Phoenix Forgotten, the present day documentary by Sophie was a great technique of tying the old footage together with the present day footage.  When I hear about a found footage film these days, I roll my eyes.  They are, most of the time, pretty poorly done.  I have to say that this was a great use of the genre, and the combination between the found footage shot by Josh and the documentary shot by Sophie was just an awesome way to tell the story.  Plus, this film focused on the characters.  In the documentary, we got to see the parents and family members of the missing kids and how they were still being affected by their disappearance.  One of the best parts was seeing how Josh and Sophie’s parents’ marriage had been destroyed by the events following their son’s disappearance.

Both films were mysteries, in a sense.  For me, I was much more engaged and enthralled by the mystery of what had happened to Josh and whether or not Sophie would be able to uncover it than I was for the whereabouts of some mysterious city that I had no emotional investment in.

Both films had endings that were purposefully ambiguous, and neither ending was great.  I thought that the Phoenix Forgotten was a stronger ending that just needed some more wrap up.  The Lost City of Z ending was too wishy-washy and had come way too late.  The Lost City of Z was a long movie at over 2 hours 21 minutes.  In contrast, Phoenix Forgotten came in at a cool 1 hour 20 minutes.  The latter of the movie’s time was about perfect, needing about another 5-10 minutes to really put a stamp on the film whereas the former of the film was way too long and dragged on through much of the film.

Sure, Phoenix Forgotten is similar to the Blair Witch Project, but that does not make it a bad film.  In fact, I really liked how they combined the past found footage with the new documentary filming to create a hybrid of film genres.  Phoenix Forgotten is not a perfect film, but I was thoroughly entertained by the film whereas the more polished and high brow Lost City of Z was deadly dull to me more than intriguing.

Among two films that I had no idea about…one was a great success and one fell flat.

Phoenix Forgotten

4.5 stars

The Lost City of Z

2.4 stars

“…That’s why darling, it’s incredible… that someone, so unforgettable… thinks that I’m…unforgettable too.”

Those are lyrics from Nat King Cole’s classic version of the song Unforgettable.  I have no idea why this movie is titled Unforgettable, because, unlike Nat King Cole’s beautiful song, it is certainly very much forgettable.

You know this story.  Every year we have a form of this exact same story.  In this year’s version, Rosario Dawson plays Julia, a woman with a dangerous past, who has found her true love (Geoff Stults) after escaping an abusive relationship.  Unfortunately, David (her true love) has an ex-wife named Tessa (Katherine Heigl).  Tessa turns out to be crazy and becomes obsessively jealous of Julia and David’s relationship.

There is a little girl here too, the daughter of David and Tessa, that winds up getting caught in the middle.

One of the big problems with the film is that we know immediately that Tessa is crazy.  She has that look on her face.  She never felt like a normal person who has lost her love and has been driven too far.  She was just simply coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.

Rosario Dawson is fine as the lead role, but she is pretty inconsistent.  The writing of the film is pretty poor as well.  The whole plot by Tessa makes no sense, and depends on Julia and David not talking to one another.  Tessa goes wildly sporadic in this movie as well as the character does all kinds of crazy things.

Cheryl Ladd appears as Tessa’s mother and really takes the role over the top in B-movie goodness.  Of course, the rest of the cast seemed to be playing their roles straight making Ladd’s performance standout even more.

Once again there is nothing new or interesting about this movie, despite the attempt to catch the magic that was Fatal Attraction.  Every year we get a film like this and every year it is pretty standard and dull.  These characters do stupid things and that is always a problem.  If your story is a blatant rip off, at least do something clever.  Unforgettable does not do anything clever and,because of that, this film has no chance.

Unforgettable is fully forgettable.

2 stars

Personification at its finest.

Disneynature is back with their annual foray into nature movies by taking a trip into China to focus on several animals while creating complete fictional stories about them.

If you haven’t seen one of these Disneynature films before, what happens is that they send in cameramen to shoot different animals in their natural habitats, usually breathtaking habitats by the way, and then there is a narrator who gives these animals names and tells you the fictional story of these animals’ lives.

This time, we had three main animals to focus on: A cuter-than-hell panda bear named Ya Ya whose the mother of the even cuter Mei Mei, a family of monkeys featuring the young male named Tao Tao and the snow leopard Dawa and her two cubs.

There is absolutely no doubt that these three main animals are the stars of this movie.  Ya Ya, Tao Tao and Dawa’s plights are followed, seeing how these animals and the animals around them survive over a year in the Chinese landscape.  We see the perils of the seasons changing, including a dramatic snowy season, other predatory animals, and the struggle of these animals to find enough food or comfort to keep alive.

These individuals running the camera get the most amazing shots of these characters where it seems as if you can tell what they are thinking.  These animals’ expressions are more revealing, emotional and telling than most of the actors from Unforgettable.

John Krasinski is our narrator for Born in China, and he does a fine job.  He does not make himself the star while still delivering the lines provided for him with good humor and timing.  Krasinski knows what is selling the tickets for this movie, and he does not step on the animals and their screen presence.

Chuan Lu directed this movie, and he lives up to his billing as one of the top young Chinese directors.  The shots are wonderful.  As I said, you are certain that you know what every animal is thinking at all times.  The land of China is stunning, with beautiful cinematography in every shot.

I must say that there was one scene with Tao Tao, his baby sister and a hawk that stretched my quota of believability.  I believe that the entire sequence was made up by piecing together a series of shots to tell the story.  Maybe they did that for the entire movie, but that was the only moment that felt manipulated.

I must say though, I was wondering why none of the camera crew wouldn’t slip poor Dawa a burger or something during the winter when she was having trouble finding food to feed her cubs.  There is another time when I find it difficult to believe that the documentarians did not intervene on behalf of poor Dawa, (SPOILER), the most tragic of these animals.

This movie was beautifully shot, had engaging animal characters that you felt for, and had enough humor to engage an audience.  Some of the scenes felt orchestrated, but most of the film was realistic.  Born in China dealt with some heavy issues of life and death and the circle of life and it did it by giving these animals human thoughts and characteristics.  And damn if those animals’ faces did not tell the same story.  This was an entertaining film, and one of the better offering from the Disneynature series.

4.3 stars

Gifted is a simple movie, but I do not mean that in a bad way.  In fact, I think this is an extremely charming film with some really good acting.  But the fact of the matter is that the ideas and concepts in Gifted are not groundbreaking.  Again, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Chris Evans plays Frank Adler.  Frank’s sister was a mathematical genius, but was at a point in her life where she could not deal with the pressure or their mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) and she kills herself.  She leaves her infant daughter with Frank to raise.  However, it becomes apparent that the daughter, Mary (McKenna Grace) is also a genius in math.  In fact, she was those one in a million type geniuses.  Frank wants to send Mary to school, and give the little girl a normal life, the life of a child.

When the teacher and principal notices that Mary is far beyond 1st grade work, they try to get Frank to enroll Mary at a specialized school, but Frank chooses to dismiss that option, still claiming that he wanted Mary to be a normal child.  This led to a phone call to Evelyn, who found Mary a second chance to become a world renown mathematician.

This led to a court case over the custody of Mary, between mother and son- Mary’s grandmother and uncle.

Gifted was a very charming movie.  I found myself really enjoying the writing of the film, as these characters became important to me.  They were smart and they were written that way.  There was some sharp dialogue and powerful chemistry.

Chris Evans was excellent as the conflicted uncle who is really not certain that he is doing what is right.  He believed that he was doing what his sister wanted, but he had some doubts.  Evans’ delivery of these great lines of dialogue was spot on and he showed himself to be a star in this film.  He also had remarkable chemistry with the young McKenna Grace.  She was amazing throughout, feeling completely genuine.  You felt for Mary as she made her way through the story.

I also found the relationship between Chris Evans and Lindsay Duncan to be wonderfully original.  This was a mother and son who did love one another, but just could not get out of each others way.  Frank had clearly run from his mother after the sister’s suicide and the mother had no interest in her son, who was always second best to her daughter.  But yet, they had some wonderful scenes together talking to one another and these scenes provided quite the insight to both of them.

Octavia Spencer is also here, playing nest door neighbor and friend Roberta.  Spencer gives yet another strong supporting performance, having strong scenes with both Evans and Grace.

Now, the ending was a bit out of left field, and I could have used hints to this throughout the film- some foreshadowing- so it did not feel so much of a deus ex machina.  But the result of the ending was satisfying so I can excuse that.

Marc Webb directed Gifted and returned to form after the troublesome Amazing Spider-man 2.  Gifted felt like something that would be in wheelhouse and he knocked it out of the park.  I found this movie to be very entertaining and well written.  There were great performances by the cast which help balance out the predictability of the story.  The ending may be too sweet for the rest of the film, but that is a minor complaint.  And in fact, I was happy when the film ended.  It had taken us on an emotional journey and Evans and Grace have a lot to do with that.

4 stars

I saw this film on Netflix and I wondered about it.  It sounded interesting so I gave it a chance.  Lo and behold, there was Robert Redford staring back from my computer screen talking to Mary Steenburgen.  That first five minutes of the film with these two powerhouse actors set up the film very well and the next moment instantly grabbed my attention and engaged me completely.

Netflix has been the place to be for new bingable television series, and the streaming service has been heading into feature film releases as well.  I decided to give the remainder of this film a look.

Set in the near future after “the discovery,” the world was a different place.  Dr. Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) had a major breakthrough and was able to prove the existence of an afterlife.  However, this led thousands of people to “reset” their lives by killing themselves.

Harbor set up his lab on an island where a group of followers, cult-like, came to join him and help him in his continued research.  Harbor’s son Will (Jason Segel) came to the island to try to reason with his father.  Along the way, Will met Isla (Rooney Mara), whom he saved from her own attempt to kill herself.  Will and Isla begin to grow closer as they try to determine exactly what his father was up to.

Very much of  science fiction story, The Discovery played like a mystery as well.  Will finds a recording of another man’s “memory” and he tries to discover exactly what was happening.

There are some very intriguing metaphysical concepts at work here, and I do like the general story this film presents.  I can’t go into more detail without spoiling what that is and I would not want to do that.

This realization does lead to what is a cool reveal at the end about what had or was happening.

One thing I am not sure the film does a good job with is the character of Dr. Harbor.  He, at times, is played like a true scientist while other times is played like a crazed cult leader.  I am not sure which one of these Redford is really playing, and that is a major issue with the film.  Redford played the role well, but the writing of the character just felt all over the place.

I do like Jason Segel here though.  His story arc is well developed and I enjoyed his relationship with Rooney Mara, though it may have been rushed too much.  I believed that this connection was strong, and that is something that is vital for the ending piece to work.

Unfortunately, the film does not match the intensity of that first five minutes, but it does offer a very intriguing concept of an after life and does allow for an exploration of what this all means.  Despite flaws, The Discovery was a solid film to watch on my day off.

3.3 stars

I was led to believe from some of the reviews I had see for The Case for Christ that this film did not fall into the traps that other faith-based films fell.  Unfortunately, I have to disagree with that.

Journalist Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel) and his wife Leslie (Erika Christensen) were out at dinner with their daughter when she began choking on a piece of candy.  Calling out for help, Rose from LOST (L. Scott Caldwell playing a nurse called Alfie) came to their aid.  After saving the little girl, Alfie said that she and her husband hadn’t intended on coming to this restaurant, but said God had brought them to this restaurant instead.

Lee and Leslie were admitted atheists but Alfie’s words brought feelings up in Leslie that she did not expect.  She began to turn to Christianity.  Lee remained a skeptic and found the sudden change in their status quo causing troubles in their marriage.

Lee decided that he would do what he did best… investigate Christianity with the intent of disproving the resurrection of Jesus, something that he found more difficult to do as he proceeded.

Now, I think there could have been some really interesting story options here.  How the differences between a believer and a non-believer would affect a marriage, especially with the sudden change from atheist to believer, is a fascinating dynamic and it would be interesting to explore the idea without judging one or the other.

However, this film immediately casts judgment on Lee, making him jealous of Leslie’s newfound relationship with God.  He then begins a downward spiral turning him into a hot mess during his investigation, going as far as making him fail at his job at the newspaper.  This couple showed no signs of having any problems prior to the daughter choking so all of this came after Leslie’s change of perception.

The other interesting concept that this film used was the actual investigation into Christianity, but this is very one sided as well.  Every “expert” Lee talks to is condescending and approaches the subject through the eyes of their own biases.  The film needed to balance the investigation with some experts for Lee’s side as well, to make the journey feel more true to life.  There was a scene with one of the experts in a debate about this very topic.  That debate would have been a great addition to this movie.  It was not included to make sure that the other side did not receive the proper consideration.

The Case for Christ was not completely terrible, but it did not break the issues faith-based films have, and it could have been the faith-based film that accomplished that feat.  If you liked the other faith-based films of the last several years, then this will be another one for you.

2.5 stars

The Hate of the Furious.

That is what I expected heading into the latest installments, the eighth one, in the Fast and the Furious franchise.  I saw the trailers for this film and I hated the whole Dom (Vin Diesel) turns on his team and sides with the bad guys angle they were telling.

I pictured a storyline involving hypnosis or amnesia that would border on the worst of the soap opera cliches that would have me rolling my eyes through the entire run time of Fate of the Furious.

But something weird happened as I was watching this movie that I was sure I was going to despise…

I was enjoying it.

One of the biggest problems that I anticipated turned into one of the film’s strengths.  They were able to take the film’s reason for Dom turning on his “Family” (which, by the way, if you were playing a drinking game and took a shot every time someone mentioned family in this film, you would be drunk off your butt before the end of the first act), and make it viable.  Not only was the reason viable, it was emotionally satisfying and it fit in with the character of Dom and it gave me a reason to root for him.  I never thought that was possible, but that is exactly what happened.

The plot, as it were, was not anything special.  On his honeymoon, Dom is approached by the villain of the film, Cipher (Charlize Theron) and she convinces him to start helping her (I will not spoil how she does the convincing).  When the team heads into Germany to recover a powerful weapon, Dom turns on them, in particular Luke (Dwayne Johnson), and takes the weapon to Cipher.

Because of the betrayal, Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) brings in Deckard (Jason Statham) to join the team and help track down Dom.  Then, action set pieces ensue.

Sure, there are plenty of massive plot holes scattered throughout the Fate of the Furious, but none of those matter. You expect those types of problems in this film.  The Fast and the Furious movie franchise is supposed to be big, dumb, physics-denying action sequences that are like car porn.  Some times I think it is unfair to judge these movies with such a kaleidoscope.  Certainly if this were another movie sans the Fast & the Furious name, we would rip it apart for lacking the basic tenets of filmmaking that this franchise does.

I guess the key is that the Fast and the Furious films have really become very entertaining.

The most entertaining aspect of the Fate of the Furious, far and away, was the interactions between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham.  From the moment these two behemoths meet inside the high security prison, The Rock and Statham are trash talking at its highest level.  Both men are ridiculously charismatic and they share a chemistry like few others might (I would watch the hell out of a spin off movie featuring these two).  Because of this, the audience quickly forgets about the crimes that Deckard had committed in previous films, which included the murder of another of the “family”, Han (Sung Kang).  Thanks to the Rock, as well as Statham’s work with another cast member in one of the more outrageous action set pieces on board an airplane, Deckard is redeemed.

However, it felt as if The Rock did start accepting Deckard too quickly.  I would have enjoyed more of the antagonistic relationship between these two than what we got.  And there was even less of the feeling of anger toward Deckard from the rest of the crew that made little sense.

Although I feel that there were few unbelievably ridiculous action set pieces in the Fate of the Furious, they had their share of moments where you can only suspend your disbelief so much.  Twice they had people leaping from speeding cars going in excess of 200 miles an hour only to roll safely without a scratch on them.  In a situation that should completely crush multiple bones, they are unscathed.

I also wish that whoever marketed this film would have held back the scene of the submarine crashing out from under the ice.  Had that moment not been included in the trailer, I think that could have been a huge moment in the movie.  As it was, I knew it was coming and I found it considerably less engaging.  You could have saved that scene from being spoiled in the trailer and made it something out of this world.

The film also benefited from several smaller performances that had been added to the rest of the cast.  Scott Eastwood joined the group as Mr. Nobody’s new rookie right hand man and he brings an interesting dynamic.  Helen Mirren arrives in an important cameo (although her entire involvement was one of those moments that really stretched the credibility of the film).  Kurt Russell is awesome as ever and I can’t wait for him to be Ego the Living Planet in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  And there was a cool cameo from Luke Wilson as well.

I had no expectations of liking this movie.  I was sure that the Dom “heel” turn was going to be ridiculous and would completely ruin the movie.  I was wrong.  That, as well as The Rock and Jason Statham, was the best reason to enjoy the movie.  It is far from a perfect film, but it does entertain you.

3.6 stars