One of these years there will be a movie based on a video game product that is good.  However, Assassin’s Creed is not that movie.

And it was a shame, because I really thought this could have been the one.  After Warcraft earlier this year was not very good, we turned our attention to Assassin’s Creed, starring the excellent Michael Fassbender.  Trailers looked entertaining.  The question about if this would be the movie that finally broke the trend of crappy video game movies was raised.

Then, we saw the film.

Assassin’s Creed was poorly written, boring, and wasted that opportunity to be a trend setting film to bring the genre of video game movies into respectability.

Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender) was on death row and was executed for some crime involving a pimp (apparently).  However, he was brought back to life by a company led by Sofia (Marian Cotillard).  How did they do that?  Well, you know, by doing it.  That was a detail that was not important here.  Instead, what they wanted was to hook Cal up to a machine that could send him back into the past (15th Century Spain to be exact) where he would be inside an ancestor of his named Aguilar, a member of the group known as The Assassins.  Through Aguilar’s eyes, Cal would try and find a MacGuffin called the Apple of Eden.  The Apple apparently held the power to cure the human race of free will or some kind of crap.  Sofia was backed by the Templars, an organization that has always been fighting the Assassins and who wanted the Apple for their own nefarious and underdeveloped reasons.

Plus, when hooked up to the machine, not only did Cal get sent back into the body of Aguilar, but his present day body did all the same actions and movements of the body from the 15th Century.

Oh, and Jeremy Irons was here too.  He played Jeremy Irons as the father of Sofia.

I was sorry to be watching this movie ten minutes into it.  I was bored and wishing it was done almost immediately.  As soon as the movie showed us young Cal (Angus Brown) seeing his mother dead by his father’s hand, things began going downhill.

By the way, Christopher Columbus appears in this movie (played by Gabriel Andreu).

This film had a lot of potential but it squandered it away with a rotten and needlessly convoluted story, dull characters with muddied motivations, and some full out dumbness.  Even the action, which was okay, was hard to follow since the camera was constantly cutting form one scene to another.  It was impossible to see any of the potentially good action scenes.

The film was filled with cliches as well.  At one point, a runaway wagon pulled by horses rushed toward a cliff.  Seriously, haven’t we seen this a hundred times?

This film tried to be two different films and, by doing that, really damaged both.  It made little sense and was dull, dull, dull.

Assassin’s Creed, with its great cast, could have been the movie that made the video game movie genre not be the butt of the jokes any longer.  Unfortunately, this is not even close to being as good as Warcraft.  That is a really sad thing to say.

1 star

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.

The newest animated film, Sing, is nothing groundbreaking or wildly original.  It is just a good time with great music and a lot of fun.

We meet our main character Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) as a young koala as he is being enthralled by the theater.  Young Buster decided right there that the life of the theater would be the life for him.  Unfortunately, it had not worked out quite as well as he hoped.  Wracked with money problems and several shows that failed, Buster needed to come up with something amazing to save the theater from repossession.

He decided to throw a singing contest.  He was going to offer a prize of $1,000, but an error in printing led to the prize being advertised as $100,000 instead.  Buster was having to scrape together everything he had to make the $1,000, so $100,000 wasn’t going to work.  The problem was Buster did not realize it until it was too late, and he had cast his show.

The list of amateur performers who were looking to cash in on the non-existent grand prize included ape Johnny (Taron Egerton), who was supposed to drive getaway car for his father’s big robbery, Ash (Scarlett Johansson), a porcupine who is selected over her boyfriend in the contest, mouse Mike (Seth MacFarlane) who crooned like Sinatra, Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), the housewife pig who with her 25 piglets and unobservant husband was being beaten down by life and Meena (Tori Kelly) the beautifully voiced but painfully shy elephant.

The animation was okay, but hardly anything that could be compared to Pixar or Laika, but the cast of voices here is fantastic, and, along with the fabulous music, is easily the standout aspect of Sing.  There are all kinds of great songs performed by these characters as well as wonderful songs played in the background.  The soundtrack of Sing kept my toes tapping the entire time.  Sure there are some songs that you would absolutely expect to show up here (“Hallelujah” anyone?), but that is not a negative.  There is a reason why these songs are included.  They are beloved.

I really liked Buster Moon as well.  McConaughey brought a great voice to the character who was part huckster, part inspirational speaker.  He was Kermit the Frog from the Muppet Show mixed with PT Barnum.  You always knew where Buster’s heart was found and, even when he would lie about the money, you could understand what he was trying to accomplish.

Sure, the story is simple, but that is not a bad thing.  This is not the complex Zootopia with its cultural commentary, or Kubo and the Five Strings with its grand epic narrative.  Sing finds its groove early and sticks to what it does best.  These musical performances were excellent and took a simple story and filled the theater with entertainment.  Plus, there were some feels as we had several characters complete their arcs successfully.  Predictable, perhaps.  Yet, fully engaging and enjoyable.

The whole family can enjoy Sing and parents will not be bored.  The music energizes the film and elevates the material to another level.  Jukebox musicals do not always work, but Sing is one that does.

4.1 stars

In the year of the horror movie, I found another one.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, this film was released limited in August.  It never came anywhere near here.  However, I found it on Netflix and decided to give it a try.

And this is another horror winner for 2016.

Teenager John Wayne Cleaver (Max Records) is seeing a therapist.  The reason?  He has homicidal tendencies.  He shares many of the same traits as other serial killers, yet, he is not one.  Or at least, he seems to be trying to avoid becoming one.  So he has rules.  When he has the feeling that he wants to hurt someone, he makes himself give them a compliment.  John keeps himself in check this way.

Of course, his own family life is out of control.  He works with his mother at the local funeral parlor, while his sisters fight with her.  His father can’t be bothered.  It tends to make a sociopath upset.

With a local murder taking place, John suddenly discovers that his neighbor, the nice old man Mr. Crowley (Christopher Lloyd) is not only the murderer, but that he is more than what he seems.

This is a very creatively original movie that had me sucked into its tale early on.  John is such an interesting protagonist because, being a clinically diagnosed sociopath, his choices and decisions are pulled into question.  He struggles with his own internal strife while also trying to figure out exactly what is going on with Mr. Crowley.

Christopher Lloyd is wonderful here.  He gives a riveting performance as the old man with a dark secret.  The fact that he really loved his wife (Dee Noah) gives this creature humanity.  Everything he has done is for her.  How many times can you relate to the monster involved in a horror movie?  This is certainly one of the times.  Heck, there are moments when you wonder if John is the actual monster here instead of Crowley.

This avoids most of the horror genre tropes and really creates something original.  It is one more horror winner for 2016.

4.4 stars

Casey Affleck really knocks this one out of the park.

Manchester By the Sea could be considered a downer of a movie, and, to be fair, there are plenty of parts of this film that are depressing, but when the pieces are all brought together, this is a real somber tale of damaged people and their struggles to survive the pain of their past.

When word reached Boston handyman/janitor Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) that his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) had died, Lee headed back to his hometown of Manchester, a town that held devastating memories of loss for him.  Discovering that Joe had left Lee as the guardian of Patrick (Lucas Hedges), his son, Lee does not know what he can do.

As he tries to get by, Lee continues to be haunted by the memories of his past, and the reason why he moved away from Manchester in the first place.  He has to see his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams), Patrick’s alcoholic mother Elsie (Gretchen Mol) and his brother’s friend and partner George (CJ Wilson).

This story is a real human story.  There are none of the manipulative emotional notes like those that are crammed in your face like in Collateral Beauty.  The subtlety in this film is perfect and real and hits the audience hard.

Director Kenneth Lonergan is quite the storyteller as Manchester By the Sea spends much of the time using flashbacks to reveal the history of Lee and why he is acting as he is.  The tragic circumstances really make you understand why Lee is the unlikable jerk that the film seems to be showing.  These flashbacks are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the narrative beautifully, creating a very original feeling story.

Casey Affleck will gain many awards and nominations for his amazingly layered and complex performance in this movie.  He could easily have been over the top but his acting choices creates such a rich character that he carries this film.  Michelle Williams is also wonderful in a smaller role.  Every time Williams is on the screen, you know something powerful is going to happen.  And the connection between Lee and Patrick is strong despite actions by both characters that could damage that connection.  Lucas Hedges is remarkable here, spending most of his time opposite the stellar Affleck and holding his own.

The dialogue of the film is so true that if you told me that they just filmed real people talking, I would believe it.  There are no weak points in the writing of the dialogue or any other aspects of the script.

Manchester By the Sea can be a tough movie to watch because it takes you on such a roller coaster ride of emotions but it also challenges an audience to take that trip naturally, without the manipulations that many tear-jerkers try to use.  It is a wonderfully performed film, with realistic dialogue and flawed characters.

4.2 stars

Sentimentality at its worst.

This film had some possibilities, especially with a very solid if not spectacular performance from Will Smith, but the writing of this was sloppy, the story itself was predictable and at times cruel, and only one of the film’s two twists nailed.  Still, this is not as bad as some critics have made it out to be.

Admittedly, this feels as if it would be more at home on Lifetime or Freeform as a TV movie, Collateral Beauty has an A+ cast.  Unfortunately, I would say that the cast averages out to a C+ performance.

Howard (Will Smith) is an advertising executive who suffers a great tragedy and loses his daughter to a rare cancer, and find that his life has little meaning.  His partners and friends from the agency (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña) try to snap him out of his trance in order to save their company by selling it.  The problem, they cannot move forward without him (because he has voting rights). So this threesome decide to hire three actors to portray Love, Death and Time after the discovery that Howard has been writing letters to them.

That’s right.  Howard’s friends try to gaslight their grieving friend and colleague to make him believe that he is going crazy.

Their cruelty is meant to be offset with their individual personal issues.  Whit (Edward Norton) has a daughter who doesn’t want to see him because he cheated on her mother, Claire (Kate Winslet) wonders how long she has before her biological clock stops ticking and Simon (Michael Peña) is dying of cancer.

One of the major problems of this movie is that these people are horrible people and their selfishness is not an excuse for them to pull the manipulation that they do.

The three actors hired by this trio included Helen Mirren as Brigitte, Keira Knightley as Amy and Jacob Latimore as Raffi.  These three want their play financed and are willing to do whatever to Howard that is necessary.  Amy does show some doubt about the plan, but she does go through with it in the end.

Meanwhile, Howard is struggling with an attempt to go to a grief group filled with other parents who lost a child.  Madeleine (Naomi Harris) leads the group and has a bond with Howard almost immediately.

Will Smith is really good here, as he completely envelopes the role, and the relationship with Madeleine seems intriguing and hopeful.  I must say that, although I thought Smith was really good for most of the movie, the scenes of him on his bicycle riding around the city making a variety of faces bordered on hilarity.  Except for those moments, Smith was excellent.

The same can not be said for some of the other actors in this movie.  Edward Norton seemed to be going through the motions and I haven’t seen as poor of a performance from Kate Winselt in a long time.  Both of these actors looked to be cashing a paycheck for these roles.  Michael Peña was okay, but I had a hard time buying his motives in this movie.

Helen Mirren was her normal solid self.  She seemed to be the only one of the three actors, she was hired as Death, to have much of anything.  He scenes with Smith were all very good, and she got more out of Peña than expected.  Unfortunately, her work was wasted in this garbage story.

There were two surprises at the end of the film.  One involved the relationship between Howard and Madeleine, and I thought that was fabulous.  I did not see that coming, and it made a nice little bow on that story.  However, the second twist was telegraphed so early in this film that it really took away any magic that might have been generated by the movie.

The movie tries really hard to tug on your emotional strings, but all of this baggage felt forced and manipulative.  These emotions did not come naturally from the story, but shoehorned into it by weak writing.

A few good performed scenes does not make a good movie, and Collateral Beauty is not one.  I heard someone claim that this was the worst movie of the year, but that is not the case.  It is not that bad.  But it is nowhere near a good movie either. There is no Christmas magic here.

2 stars

I will admit that at one point, I did not think the idea of Rogue One was a good idea.  I mean, why did it matter how the Rebel Alliance got the plans of the Death Star in Star War: A New Hope?  They just did.

Then I saw Rogue One.  I was wrong.  It was important to know.  It made the original Star Wars better.

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) was the daughter of an Imperial scientist/inventor (Mads Mikkelsen) who was taken away from her when she was but a child by the Empire.  The Empire wanted Jyn’s father, Galen Erso, to design the weapon that would become the Death Star.  Jyn, alone, was discovered and raised by extremist rebel Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).  Later in her life, she was recruited by the Rebels to try and find her father.

Without spoiling too much, I am going to leave the story right there.

We are introduced to a series of amazing new characters in this film, as we filled in point of contention from the original Star Wars and built a cohesive story around what did not feel like a major gap in continuity.

Let’s look at some of these great new characters we got in Rogue One.  Jyn is an amazing, kick ass female lead who you could relate to.  She was deserted as a child, wanting only to find her father and regain what she had lost.  She was really well done.

Saw Guerrera was not in the film enough to really connect to him, but Forest Whitaker is always a solid actor.  I believe that the character of Saw could be the focus of other prequels.  Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) had that lovely rogue role that Star Wars seemed to need.  I did like the actor and the character grew on me enough to look past him as a han Solo ripoff.  However, K-2SO (vocied by Alan Tudyk) stole every scene he was in as a former Imperial droid who was working with Cassian.

Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) was a great addition to the cast, playing the blind warrior dedicated to the Force.  He was protected by Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) to the nth degree.  Sure, Chirrut is not a new character (Daredevil’s Stick has been blind fighting for decades before), but this pairing brought another classic Star Wars trope to the front.

We also got Riz Ahmed, who was brilliant in this past year’s HBO show The Night Of, as former Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook.

Are all these characters basically constructs from past Star Wars movies?  Yes, that is true.  However, there was enough chemistry among the cast and enough exciting action to carry the film through. However, I get the feeling that had I read some of the books and stories from all of the Star Wars canon, I might have thought more of these characters than this.  For me, they were all basically the same type of archetype that I have seen before.

I thought the film as a little slow at the start as we were being introduced to our new cast, but the second and third acts really picked up.  The battles in the third act were full of drama and action.  This was a war movie set in a Star Wars universe.

There was also plenty of nostalgia involved in Rogue One.  We see toss-backs to past movies, including what looked like the exact location from Return of the Jedi.  We see characters we loved make cameos and appearances. and of course…

Darth Vader.

We know Vader makes an appearance in the movie from the trailer.  I think they used Vader a perfect amount.  They did not over use him, and when he did appear, he was shown to be one bad ass man.  The voice of James Earl Jones is perfection coming from one of the greatest movie villains of all time.  Now, he does make a pretty rotten pun that almost wrecked the first scene he was in, but we the second time we get Vader makes up for that in spades.

I also feel that the ending of this film was really well done and was quite brave.  To avoid spoilers, I will leave it at that for now.  I am impressed how much uncertainty there was despite knowing that the ultimate mission (to find the plans of the Death Star) was going to be successful.  I never dismissed parts of this story because I knew that those plans would find their way into R2D2.

Rogue One was a beautifully shot film, and Gareth Edwards, director, does a fantastic job shooting this massive film.  I believe that this film fit perfectly in with the Star Wars films, filling in gaps that might have been problematic issues.  Rogue One feels like both a different Star Wars film than we ever have seen before as well as a comfortable fit into the continuity and Star Wars world.  That is quite an accomplishment.

4.2 stars

I have never seen a movie that made me want to take a shower more than Miss Sloane.

Miss Sloane shone a light on the career of political lobbyists, and that light make them scurry for the shade.  No, really… this movie showed these people as the slimiest and most repugnant people around.  They made them seem considerably worse than members of Congress…I know right?

In fact, there is the typical scene where the lobbyists have members of Congress on each side and they have to swing certain ones over to their side to win a vote.  It was like the scenes in American President with Annette Bening… except with Bening not being the sweetheart she was.  I don’t know if I can watch that scene again without wondering what dirty trick is really going down.

Jessica Chastain played Elizabeth Sloane, one of Washington’s most successful and downright rotten lobbyists around.  When a bill attempting to place restrictions on guns comes to the floor of Congress, Sloane leaves her current company to try to help get the bill passed.  And she does just about whatever she needs to do to make it so.  No line is too far to cross.

Of course, opposing her is the NRA and their own bag of dirty tricks and lobbyists willing to do whatever is necessary to win.  Miss Sloane apparently knows all the dirty tricks because she showed a remarkable ability to anticipate what her opponents were planning and to counter that with her own slimy trick.

There were people shown on Sloane’s side that were not as slimy as Sloane herself.  There is Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who had a good reputation as a knowledgeable worker who had a hidden past with gun violence.  There is Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong) who spear-headed the group trying to get the bill passed and he brought Sloane into the fold.  Some of the other characters on Sloane’s side were interesting, but most of their contributions to the story was to stare, slack-jawed at the things that Sloane would do.

The gun supporting side was basically played off as the heartless villains, but they were still shocked at the lengths stooped to by Sloane.  One of the negative notes of the movie is how the other side was not more positively portrayed.  Gun control does not have to be one side is right, one side is wrong…especially with the lobbyists characters falling so hard into the shades of gray section.

But it is clear that no one is smarter than Miss Sloane, and that is fine, especially since she is such a flawed and downright rotten person.  She is played brilliantly by Jessica Chastain and she makes you root for this awful woman, despite the constant travesties that she engages in.  Chastain showed the human side of this woman, creating someone that could easily have been a caricature.

The film was a little long, but the ending payoff is worth the wait.  Yes, it is unrealistic (No SPOILERS), but it paid off the film in a big way.  Kudos to not only Chastain, but also John Lithgow, who played a senator in charge of a Congressional hearing into Sloane’s business practices.  Their showdown was high drama.

Never once did the fact that Miss Sloane was a powerful woman come into play, and I liked that very much.  This was not a story about a powerful woman taking on the NRA, but a powerful lobbyist doing the same.  It felt as if we had taken a step past identifying her as a woman.  She just was.  That is a great thing.

As I said, the whole story pays off big time, but the suspension of disbelief is remarkably high.  If you cannot accept that, Miss Sloane is going to fall apart for you.  I had no problem with the end, so I really did enjoy the film.  I do wish the pro-gun side would have been less villainized, but I understand why they did it.

Jessica Chastain is excellent and the character of Miss Sloane is an enigmatic woman who wants to win above almost anything else.  She does not need to be seen as a hero.  In fact, she is as dirty as any of them.  However, she is shown as a complex and real person who has reasons for her choices.

Our political system really is messed up.

4 stars