Yawn.

I had this one rented on iTunes for a while now, but the length always was an excuse.  With the rental period coming close to being up, I had to make the decision on whether or not to watch it.  I watched it.  That was the wrong choice.

Song to Song is pretentious, boring, and lacks any real sort of narrative structure that would engage anyone other than perhaps the most hoity-toity film student.

The film has a great cast in Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara and Natalie Portman, and their performances were fine (despite the constant whispering of the cast), but I did not care much for any of the characters involved here.

The movie felt more like a series of voice-over shorts than any sort of complex tale.  It was dull and uninspired.

Terrence Malick continues to create sleepy and dream-like films that are visually interesting to look at, but of which I have not been impressed.  Song to Song is yet another in this line.  Perhaps this fits best in a small coffeehouse with an audience of beatniks and snooty film connoisseurs.  I did not like this much at all.

1.6 stars

Spy thrillers have been done many times over the years, and, fact is, there are plenty of scenes and parts of Atomic Blonde that we have seen before.

However, there are several parts of Atomic Blonde that are really good as well.

Lorraine (Charlize Theron) is a British MI6 agent sent to Berlin in 1989, just prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall to find a list.  This specific list has the names and basic information for all of the countries double agents and spies on it and plenty of people want to get their hands on this list.

Does that sound like a familiar trope in the spy movie genre?  Ever seen that plot element before?  Yes you have.

Once Lorraine arrives in Berlin, she meets up with David Percival (James McAvoy), another agent whom wants to aid her in the attempt to recover this list.  The Russians are also after it and so… action scenes.

Yes, the plot is fairly basic, although, it does become quite convoluted here as well.  I think the film wants to be more than just an action flick, but it tried to hard to make itself into a spy thriller.  In fact, there are some things that happen in the ending of the movie that do not work, twists that feel as if they were added on for some reason.

Now, the action scenes are tremendous and Charlize Theron is magnificent as this kick ass Lorraine.  Something I really liked was that the makers of Atomic Blonde allowed Theron to look like she has been through these hellacious fights. She has bruises and scars and the signs of war that most spies and heroes in this type of movie seem to recover from without any trouble.  Showing Lorraine wearing the results of her battles really helped me believe that this woman was a bad ass and someone to reckon with.

By the way, there are many great action scenes here, and the action scene in the hallway int he third act is edge-of-the-seat dramatic.  One of the best, hardest hitting, brutal fight scenes you are going to see this year.

James McAvoy is also great in the movie, as an agent that you are never quite sure about.  Whose side is he on?  Also, Sofia Boutella arrives as Lorraine’s love interest and French spy, Delphine.  The scenes between Lorraine and Delphine are very hot, but they are also included to humanize Lorraine.  The time with Delphine is the one time that Lorraine allows herself to be normal, not constantly lying and covering up.  Honestly, there could have been more between these women, because Boutella is not used as much as you would hope.

Let’s talk music.  The film is full of great 1980s songs that I had an awesome time singing along to in my seat.  However, there were some times that I found myself more invested in the music than what was going on in the scene.  This would be an issue, so, although I did enjoy the selection of the different songs, I am not sure they were used as effectively as they could have been.  The music was not as effectively weaved into the story as it was in Baby Driver or Guardians of the Galaxy, that is for sure.

Atomic Blonde is based on a 2012 graphic novel entitled The Coldest City, and the film does feel very stylish like a graphic novel might.  With the action set pieces and the look of Theron and McAvoy, there are plenty of imagery that would appeal to action fans.  Theron is not only an action hero, but she also looks absolutely gorgeous and does most of this action in some serious heels.  The story itself is not as strong, and I do not think it can be categorized into the realm of a classic spy thriller, despite it wishing that it could.  Still, I did have fun watching the film and the action is top notch.  This is one that could have been really fantastic with a little bit of adjustment.

3.4 stars

Ugh… what a pile of

How did I feel at the Emoji Movie?              

What else do I have to say?  Some kids might like it.

1.5 stars

Sleight came up on iTunes and I wanted to see it.  I had hoped to see this when it was out in theaters,  but it never came to my area.  Of course, these days there are a ton of outlets that provide movie content besides the theater.

The story is a small one but that is not a knock against it.  Bo (Jacob Latimore) is a street magician by day, but has to supplement that income by dealing drugs at night.  He is the sole guardian of his little sister Tina (Storm Reid) and his love for the sister is apparent.  Bo meets the beautiful Holly (Seychelle Gabriel) who also has a tough life with a physically abusive parent.   After being forced into a violent act by the head drug dealer Angelo (Dulé Hill), Bo comes up with a plan to fix it so he can rip off Angelo and get out of the drug dealing that was doomed from the start.

Oh, did I mention that Bo also has some electromagnetic power?  I’m not too sure about the origin of the powers, but there is some indication in the film that he cuts into his shoulder to implant some kind of electromagnet to help with his magic tricks.  Honestly, the film does touch upon the background of the powers, but it is not a major part of the story.  It is actually just a part of the character.

And lets speak about the character of Bo.  He is a very interesting protagonist as he is not the most honest of people.  He makes some choices that really question his person character.  Even his plan to rip off Angelo felt like a stupid idea.  That was contrasted by a young man who clearly loved his little sister and was extremely tender with his girlfriend.  The fact that he does some of the things that he does in this movie made me wonder exactly how much of a hero Bo really was.   I think those tender moments went a long way in making sure that the audience did not turn on Bo and gave them a reason to root for him.

Jacob Latimore is very solid in this movie, which completely depends on the character of Bo to carry the film.  He was very subtle and restrained consistently and brought a real emotion to the character.  We like Bo so it is easier to excuse the bad judgement as youthful mistakes.  The relationship with Tina and Holly grounded the youngster and helped us overlook the fact that he did chop off a guy’s hand.

The final confrontation with Angelo is fun and the final scene of the movie leads you to wonder exactly what was going on.  I doubt that a film that barely made any money will receive a sequel, despite obviously being set up for one.

The film is very small and quiet and that was a welcome tone.  This could have been big and bombastic, and I don’t think we would have liked Bo as much as we did. The humanizing of the hero helped this become a much better film.

3.3 stars

Luc Besson, the writer and director of The Fifth Element and Lucy, returns to the big screen with his new science fiction space epic, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.  This movie was based on a classic French graphic novel, Valerian and Laureline, which inspired many other sci-fi creators (including George Lucas when creating Star Wars) and brings as much creativity and originality to the theater as any film has in a long time.

Valerian (Dane DeHaan) is a major in the military, on board the gigantic space station Alpha, where over decades races of humans and aliens have come together to create this hub of all information from the universe.  Valerian’s partner is Laureline (Cara Delevingne), whom Valerian has feelings for.

The pair head out on a mission to retrieve a certain macguffin that the officers aboard Alpha want to find.  Along the way, Valerian and Laureline discover their feeligns for each other as well as a mystery involving an unknown race living in the red zone of Alpha.

I really enjoyed this movie.  The visuals for Valerian is simply astounding.  There was so much to look at throughout the movie, it made you think of Besson’s past movie The Fifth Element, but also films such as Avatar and, to a lesser extent, Jupiter Arising.  The CGI was one of the most amazing aspects of the film.

There was also more creativity here than I have seen in a long time.  Some of the great ideas and sci-fi concepts worked really well. There was a great scenario where Valerian had to go to a desert planet to retrieve the macguffin.  The planet looked like a desert until you wore special glasses and special gloves that allowed you to interact with the market in a different dimension.  This chase through the market between dimensions was as breathtaking and imaginative of a scene as you will see in movies this year.

I have seen some criticism of the two lead actors in this movie, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, for not having chemistry or being very good actors, but I enjoyed them in this film.  I did not feel taken out of the film by either of them.  In reflection, the criticism that they looked to be too young for the parts may have some credibility, but, honestly, I did not think about that during the film’s run time.

Speaking of run time, this is one of the issues I had with Valerian.  It is too long and needed to be edited down some.  I think there were several scenes that could have been condensed to make the film feel more tightly woven.

The dialogue was hit or miss at times during the film, in particular between DeHaan and Delevingne.  The early part of the film’s dialogue in particular where the movie takes a lot of time to explain to us about these two characters by having them talk about each other seemed unneeded.

Some people have complained about Bubbles, the character played by Rihanna in the movie.  This is a character that does not spend much time on screen, but was one that I really liked.  She reminded me very much of the Diva Plavalaguna from The Fifth Element for impact.  Her dance performance was extremely visual and entertaining, but don’t go into the movie thinking that Rihanna will be a major player, because she is not.

I do worry that this movie will flop dramatically at the box office.  Reportedly with an $180 million dollar budget, Valerian seemed like the type of film that won’t come anywhere close to that figure.  It has been spoken that this has been Luc Besson’s dream project for years, but one wonders if there was a way to make this at a lower cost level to be able to regain its money.  I’m fearing that this could be in the range of John Carter type flops.

And that would be a shame because this is one of the most original, most creative, most imaginative films made in years and such creativity should be seen as a good thing.  The few negatives in the movie do not take away from the epic nature of the film and I can honestly say that I enjoyed this a great deal.

4.4 stars

I saw this film on iTunes and I had no idea what it was.  I noticed Tom Felton (from the Harry Potter series) was one of the stars, so I figured I would give it a try.

Matt (Tom Felton) and Olivia (Troian Bellisario) are twins.  Olivia is a great student, expected to be the valedictorian.  The twins were as close as they could be and they promised to always be together.  Tragedy struck as one of them die in an accident.  The other had to try to continue without their sibling.

It is hard to write about this without spoiling.  I will say that the story started on a path that I wasn’t really liking, and then the story switched and I was suddenly engaged.

The film becomes a story about eating disorders and it was much more interesting at that point.

Without spoiling anything else, I did like this film.  It made for a decent weekend rental.

3 stars

This is another film where I am split on my thoughts.

Girls Trip is the story of Ryan (Regina Hall) and her husband Luke Cage (err… I mean Stewart played by Mike Colter) who are heading to New Orleans to promote their new self-help book and finish up a big time promotional deal at Essence Fest, and Ryan wants to use the weekend to reunite with her “Flossy Posse” friends from college, Sasha (Queen Latifah), Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Dina (Tiffany Haddish), who were wild during the day but who had grown apart in the real world.

As the ladies come together, they engage in a series of over the top, raunchy situations that put a stress on the friendship and the deal (and already weakening) marriage of Ryan and Stewart.

This film’s concept is much like Rough Night, another buddy girl gone wild film from earlier this year, but Rough Night turned darker while this film remained in the raunchy comedic category.

The cast of this film is tremendous, and you completely believe that these four ladies are friends.  They call each other on their bull and support each other like true friends do.  Pinkett Smith, Latifah, King and Haddish have A+ chemistry with one another which allows much of the over-the-top comedy to work where as if they did not have such great connection then much of the comedy would have fallen flat.  Tiffany Haddish, in particular, is downright hilarious in Girls Trip, finding a new level of vulgarity and lewdness, but doing it in a charming manner.

And it helps that there are a lot of laughs to be had in the movie.  There are many scenes that are really funny, and are carried off by these ladies.  Not everything worked, mind you, but it succeeded more than it failed.

Now, as a personal preference, there are a lot of drug/drunken jokes here, and I am not a fan of that kind of humor.  I have never been a huge fan of the “wild party” comedies that you see on a semi-regular basis.  Because of the solid cast, this one gets some help.

The movie is definitely predictable in story beats.  You should be able to predict what happens right up to the last moment, if you have seen any number of films like this.  Girls Trip does not find a whole lot of new ground to cover.

And the film is too long.  Girls Trip is over two hours and that was too much time to fill.  Many of the problems that the ladies had could have been solved considerably earlier and thus shaved off 20-30 minutes of the film.

So I am torn on Girls Trip.  I enjoyed a lot of the film, but I don’t think the movie itself was a great film.  There was funny moments, especially the crass ones, but there were also moments that fell flat.  Haddish was exceptional, getting most of the best lines, but all three of the other ladies were great too.  In the end, my initial thought leaving the film was that this would be just under a fresh film for me, so I will stick with that.  If you like a bawdy, crass comedy like the Hangover or like Bad Moms, you’ll find things to like here.

2.9 stars

This might be the most difficult movie to try to review that I will have this year.

The newest film from director Christopher Nolan is Dunkirk, which tells the true story of how 400,000 British soldiers were stranded at Dunkirk, just across the English Chanel during World War II.  I did not know much, if anything about this moment in history, so the movie had the unknown going for it.

There are people who love Nolan more than I do.  He is great as a director, but I was not a huge fan of Inception.  I thought Interstellar fell apart in the second half of the film.  I disliked much of The Dark Knight Rises.  Sure, I loved the first two of the Batman trilogy and I like other work that he has had, but I am not opposed to disliking Nolan.  I believe there are people/critics who hear the words “Christopher Nolan” and immediately dub the film a masterpiece.

I have heard the term masterpiece bandied around in reference to Dunkirk as well, but I would take an issue with that.

I have not been through a movie like this in my life.  I will tell you that I saw Dunkirk in IMAX and the sound was just unbelievable.  The problem was the sound was so immersive that I felt as if I had actually been through the war myself.  The sounds of the bullets, the airplanes and the bombs rattled my seat and my chest.  I actually felt kind of nauseated at times.  The spinning sky during some of the aerial fight scenes was also a challenge to watch.  I was uncomfortable physically watching Dunkirk, and, despite how the sound effects were remarkably realistic, I think that did take away some of the enjoyment of the film for me.

So I squirmed and tried to ease back during excessive times during the film. Because of my efforts to keep my pretzel down, I was also having problems following what was happening in the movie. I did not realize until later in the movie that the film’s narrative structure was not being followed in a chronological order.  Scenes would flash back and forth between night and day and I did not understand what was happening.  Now I knew the structure was like this, but, again because I was so intent on how I was physically feeling, I did not realize it until near the end.

Another issue I had with the structure was I did not know any of these characters.  This movie was more of a film about an event that had happened, and not about how that event affected people.  We had just a bare minimum of character development – going as far as not naming most of the characters we were following.  At least, I did not know who we were following and so I had trouble following the time jumps for these people.

The main characters that had some kind of development were on the boat piloted by Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance).  We got his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his friend, George (Barry Keoghan).  I did feel some connection to these three because I got to know them slightly.  Not a lot, mind you, but more than the others.

There was a great cast.  Tom Hardy played the heroic airplane pilot.  Kenneth Branagh played the British Commander.  There is Cillian Murphy who played the pilot who had been shot down first (listed literally on IMDB as the ‘Shivering Soldier’).  There are multiple actors playing multiple soldiers who all seemed to look alike to me.

Sure the situations of the film were ones where you simply hope to see the soldiers survive, if I had more of a connection with them, or an understanding of exactly what was happening to them, I would have cared more about what the movie was trying to do.  I understand that one of the themes of the movie is how war can be all encompassing and how it can be a true horror, but I wanted to care more about the soldiers than I did.  Where as I was physically going through a lot in this movie, I was surprisingly emotionally distant for much of it.

There was very little dialogue in the film, which did not bother me.  I can understand that there would not be much dialogue going on during this circumstance and you can tell a story with other techniques than just talking.  In fact, I think the dialogue itself was about right for Dunkirk.

Having said that, the film itself was a masterpiece in cinematography and imagery.  It was shot beautifully and had an epic feel to it.  The effects were stunning and every visual moment (when I could watch it) were breathtaking.  It is certainly a marvel with its action scenes.  I thought the ending section of the film was well done and was emotionally satisfying.  The score was deeply amazing as well.

I am going to say that I respect Nolan’s efforts to make something different than all the other WWII movies out there, and he certainly does that.  I just did not enjoy my theater going experience with Dunkirk as a whole, but I think that is part of the idea.  As a movie itself, you should see it because the film making is tremendous.  Just know that the film is about the event and not the characters.

3.1 stars

There have been some very well done, low-budget horror films this year.  This is not one of them.

Low-budget…sure.  But well done?  Hardly.

And truthfully, to define this as a horror movie is stretching the genre

Clare (Joey King) is an unpopular and picked upon high school girl, whose mother (Elisabeth Röhm) committed suicide in front of her, and whose father (Ryan Phillippe) has spent the last years of his life dumpster diving for salvage.  During one of those dumpster dives, the father, Jonathan, finds a discarded Chinese wish box and decides that this would be a cool early birthday gift for Clare.

Once she has possession of the box, Clare is able to read some of the writing on the box (conveniently she is taking Chinese in school) and it says that the owner of the box will be granted seven wishes.  At first, she did not believe what was happening and it was all a joke, but Clare realizes soon that the wish box has more power than she expects.

For those of you who watch Once Upon a Time, you know that magic always comes with a cost, and this Chinese wish box is no different.  For every wish Clare makes, something bad must occur as well.

That is your basic plot to this film.  I am going to go into spoilers for the movie, because it just must be spoken about it those terms.  Clare is clearly a selfish and spiteful girl and you, as the audience, find a severe dislike for her.  Her friends were just a rotten, and you are immediately shown that they are mean spirited.

Yes, Clare has been picked on in high school.  Of course, the bullies are the popular kids and the main bully is a beautiful blonde.  This is, of course, stereotype number one.  Darcie throws a latte on a poster that Clare had spent all night working on.  She posts things on the internet about Clare, including about her dumpster diving father (who has to go through the garbage outside the school… seemingly every day.  Never when the students are in class…only when they are out front so everyone could see them).  So the first wish Clare makes is wishing that Darcie would rot.  Now, she did not believe this was real, but the next day, Darcie has been admitted to the hospital with a flesh eating disease.  Clare and her friends (particularly Sydney Park’s Meredith) laugh about it and are happy that Darcie has contracted this terrible, potentially fatal, disease.  That was especially cruel… and these were meant to be the film’s protagonists.

As the film continues, Clare keeps making wishes that make her own life better.  And people keep dying.  They keep dying in the stupidest and most ridiculous ways.   Poor Uncle August (Victor Sutton) slips in the bathtub and hits his head, slumping under the water.  Now, you would think that this would be enough, but you would be wrong.  Uncle August’s eyes pop back open and he tries to sit back up…only to strike his head on the faucet again.  This was one of the first moments when I laughed at something in the film.

Seriously, this movie was very unintentionally funny.  There were some really funny laughs to be had in Wish Upon.  I cannot wait for the guys at RiffTrax Live to get their hands on this one.

When Clare talks to her two best friends, the aforementioned Meredith and June, (played by Shannon Purser…Barb from Stranger Things), they rightfully call her out on her selfishness.  Meredith says that she would have wished for world peace or a cure for cancer.  Or at least something for herself and June.  Not kidding.

June wants Clare to throw the box away, but Clare has become obsessed with it.  She found out, through the typical horror movie trope of researching the item on Google and approaching an expert to help them, that if you lose or throw away the box, all of your wishes revert back.  Clare did not want that because the wishes had made her a popular girl with a lot of money, and helped her father become cool and stop dumpster diving.

So even though Clare knows that the wish box is causing people to die around her, she keeps on making wishes.  This leads to another hilarious scene where Clare and June fight over the box at the school and June falls down the stairs in the most awkwardly funny way possible.  Jeremy Jahns does a great example of it near the end of his review.

The kills were mostly all funny, not tension filled or suspenseful.  The film seemed to want to be Final Destination, but really plays more like a spoof of Final Destination.  In fact, this might be a better horror movie spoof than Haunted House or Scary Movie.  Too bad they are not trying to make it a spoof.  This is played straight-up seriously, but the laughs are just everywhere.

Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne on Twin Peaks) appears as a neighbor who is killed when she gets her hair caught in a garbage disposal and it breaks her neck.  This was after the film spent about three minutes teasing her sticking her hand down the garbage disposal and nearly hitting the switch to turn it on with her hip (yes, the garbage disposal switch is at hip level in this film.  Certainly a lawsuit waiting to happen.)

The performances are all weak to terrible.  Joey King is giving it her all, but there is just so little here.  It feels like it is more the direction than the performances though.  The director of this film is John R. Leonetti, who has directed such classics as Annabelle, The Butterfly Effect 2, and Mortal Kombat:  Annihilation.  That is not the oeuvre that will earn you acclaim.  Wish Upon fits right in with those.

As I said, there is entertainment to be had at Wish Upon, but it is not the type of entertainment that was intended.  It is a great spoof movie of a low-budget horror flick, but, as a low-budget horror flick, it truly fails.

1.3 stars

People have been calling The Big Sick a romantic comedy, but I am not sure that is the most accurate term for this movie.  That seems to surface for such a wonderful and powerful film as The Big Sick.  Maybe a better term is a relationship comedy.

Whatever you call The big Sick, it is an outstanding movie that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish.

The Big Sick is based on the real life story of Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, the married couple behind the writing of this movie.  Kumail played himself in the film, while Emily is played by Zoe Kazan.

After heckling Kumail’s act at a Chicago comedy club, Emily meets him and they start “dating.”  However, Kumail’s family is still trying to arrange a marriage for him up with a list of Pakistani women.  Kumail’s mother (Zenobia Shroff) is very old school and wants her son to follow all the traditions of Islam.  Kumail tried to keep his feelings about Islam away from his mother so he would come to dinner and she would bring in the next woman she had arranged to “drop by” in hopes of fixing him up.

However, Kumail and Emily are growing closer the whole time.  When the topic of parents came up, the couple found something they could not overcome.  Soon after they break up, Emily falls ill and has to be placed in a medically induced coma.  Kumail ends up at her side, and has to call her parents.  Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano) arrive knowing about the problems that drove Kumail and Emily apart, and are displaying their own personal issues.

Kumail and Beth and Terry have to spend a good chunk of the second act getting to know each other and bonding over their individual feelings for Emily.

The film is downright hysterical.  I laughed constantly through The Big Sick.  Kumail Nanjiani was wonderful in this.  He was laid back and real, with great comedic timing and sharp dialogue.  I did not know this was about his real life relationship until the film was over, but you can see that he was amazingly comfortable here.  He also carried himself exceptionally well during the more dramatic scenes, including an epic meltdown on the comedy club stage.

The rest of the cast is tremendous.  Holly Hunter is great Emily’s mother Beth, the over protective mom who simple does not know what she can do to help.  And Ray Romano is amazing as Terry, Emily’s father.  His deadpan delivery is really funny, and you can see that he has his share of problems.  These two parents connecting with the former boyfriend of their daughter is some of the best scenes of this movie.

I really found myself connected to these characters and I was seriously concerned that things were not going to work out.  Again, I did not know that this was based on their real relationship, and that knowledge might have changed the way I viewed some of the scenes, so, because of that, I am pretty pleased that I did not know that fact.

Some of the jokes were really funny, even though some of them play on the racial stereotypes of Muslims.  There is a great scene where Holly Hunter nearly gets into a fight in a comedy club with a heckler who is heckling Kumail about his ethnicity.  None of these jokes are mean-spirited.  They are just smart and funny.  Humor helps depower these racial stereotypes and The Big Sick does that brilliantly.

I hope people do not take that the wrong way.  For example, in the film, Ray Romano says to Kumail that he wants to have a conversation with him about 9-11.  Kumail said ‘you never had a conversation about 9-11 with people?’  Romano continued the awkward conversation with a ‘what do you think?’  Kumail said that it was a tragedy and that they lost 19 of their best men that day.  I laughed out loud at that line, as he played on Romano’s character’s awkwardness and unintended bigotry with humor.  Thing was… while I laughed out loud, I was the only one in the theater that laughed at that.  I hope people did not think that was a joke that shouldn’t have been made because laughter can really help cure problems.

I really don’t have much to say as a criticism for the movie.  Perhaps it was a little too long, but I am not sure what parts I would have left out.  I really enjoyed The Big Sick and I think it is one of the best movies of the year.

5 stars

Tonight, I attended a triple showing of the three recent Planet of the Apes movies, including the brand new War for the Planet of the Apes.  The new trilogy has been considered one of the best of all time.  So I was really excited about seeing the third installment.

And, I was pretty disappointed with what I saw.  It was okay.  But it was nowhere near what I had expected.  After seeing all three films together, I believe that War of the Planet of the Apes is the weakest of the three films.

The battle between apes and humans have been going on for two years, and there has been problems on both sides.  Caesar (Andy Serkis) wants things to end, bringing peace to the apes.  However, the Colonel (Woody Harrelson) is not ready to give it up.  After some tragic losses, Caesar’s darker instincts take over and he sets out for revenge.

Let’s say that, of course, the film looks beautiful.  The effects of this film continue to blow your mind.  You look at these apes and are constantly amazed that they are not real apes.  The look of these characters are astounding.  The cinematography was lush and rich and amazing to watch. Plus, apes on horses… what else do you need?

Unfortunately, this felt like the least compelling the character of Caesar has been.  This character did not work nearly as well with the vengeful concept as it did with the first two movies.  I was the least interested in Caesar than I had ever been.  I was also less involved in the performance by Andy Serkis.  It seemed as if all Caesar would say was “I don’t know” and do things that was out of character for him.  Sure, i understood why the character was acting as he was, but it just did not feel right.  I think as a narrative, it just did not work to place Caesar into this situation.

I though the addition of Steve Zahn’s Bad Ape to the cast was a misstep.  This character brought an element of humor into the film that just was out of place.  It was more uncomfortable most of the time than it was funny.  I did enjoy the character of Nova (Amiah Miller) for what she was.  The little girl had a decent character arc and had a fascinating tie in with the original (1966) film.  The connection between Nova and Maurice was very fun and sweet.  Nova never felt as if she stepped over the line into too saccharine sweet, which could have been a danger for this type of character.

The best part of the film was clearly Woody Harrelson as the Colonel.  Harrelson was thrilling and downright frightening as the psychotic soldier who is preparing for all out war.  I enjoyed the way Harrelson interacted with Caesar and I also liked the ironic resolution of the character.  Some of the horrific things that the Colonel does really resonates with the audience and brings a hatred of him as the villain.

The film did drag a bit for me in the initial stages, picking up dramatically in the second and third acts.  Speaking of the third act, without spoiling anything, there is a big old deus ex machina that reared its ugly head near the end of the film that comes along at the perfect time.  Deus ex machina tends to be a lazy way to bail out the characters, and this is really no exception.

The action was very good and I liked that it was not overused.  The action scenes really punctuated the feel of the film properly.  My problem with War for the Planet of the Apes was not a lack of action.  It is kind of difficult to put a finger on it.  I wonder if seeing the two superior films prior to the third one affected my thoughts.

There were several scenes meant to elicit the feels from the audience and some of them work fairly well.  Others of them were forced and were not as effective.  A couple were predictable and lacked the necessary oomph for what the film was going for.  There is heart in the film, but it is not as strong as the previous two films.

I don’t mean to be overly negative, because I am going to give this a moderately fresh review and recommendation, but I suggest not going into the film with expectations too high.  It is not your typical summer blockbuster and if you are looking for that, you will be disappointed.  War for the Planet of the Apes does bring the trilogy to a satisfactory conclusion, but the third film just does not feel as substantive as the first two films.

3 stars

I have seen several 2017 films on some of the different streaming services available today.  These are films that I would have missed since they did not come to a theater near me if not for these services.  What a world we live in today.  I’m going to do short reviews of these films that you can also search out if you so choose.

YouTube

First up was T2: Trainspotting.  This was a bigger film that came out this year, but still did not come to a theater in my area.  It is the sequel to Trainspotting, a film that I had not seen.  It starred Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan Bremner, Kelly Macdonald and Robert Carlyle.  I thought not seeing the original might really hinder this film since the idea was that the McGregor’s character returned after 20 years to his old town after screwing his buddies out of money that they had stolen.  The film was very funny, dramatic and was filled with character development.  Carlyle (Rumpelstiltskin from Once Upon a Time) was great as the vengeful Begbie, who took the fall for the crime.  T2: Trainspotting worked on its won, but I am guessing that fans of the original would receive more from this than I did.  Still, I really liked this movie and was glad I took the time to see it.

4 stars

iTunes

Second, a thriller called Money, which is out currently in limited release.  Money is the story about two businessmen are about to get away with selling their company’s secrets for $5 million dollars.  However, a new neighbor shows up spoiling their plans when he reveals that he is not who they thought he was.  The film starred Jamie Bamber, Kellan Lutz, Jesse Williams, Jess Weixler and Lucia Guerrero.  There was a few moments of tension here before we realized exactly what was going on with the situation but these characters acted unbelievably inconsistently throughout the film… especially Jesse Williams and Jess Weixler.  The dialogue was below average and the situation became increasingly ridiculous as the night progressed.  The ending of the film came prodding along and seemed to take a character into a place where we had never seen that character before.  It made little sense and stretched the initially intriguing premise too far.

2 stars

Third film is The Reagan Show.  This is a documentary focusing on the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  The documentary is told almost exclusively through film clips and reports from the press, particularly the later stages of the presidency.  A major aspect of the film dealt with the relationship between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and the attempt to bring the arms race under control.  By focusing on this, the documentary did not deal with many of the more interesting aspects of the Reagan years, including not even mentioning the assassination attempt and not dealing with the rumored Alzheimer’s that Reagan suffered through.  However, you can certainly see how charming and folksy Reagan was and you can see why he was as popular of a president as he turned out to be.  The title reference the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, dealing with the theme of how Reagan was an actor and how he used the public persona to deal with his job.  One could argue that Reagan was the father of today’s political theater.

3 stars

Netflix

Moving along to Netflix, the fourth film is Take Me, the story of a man who is struggling to get his business a foothold in the world.  The problem is his business is Kidnap Solutions, LLC, specializing in abductions that provide alternative therapy for the clients.  Ray Moody (Pat Healy, also director) finally got a big client who wanted to be kidnapped for the whole weekend.  The client, Anna (Taylor Schilling) becomes more than he expected.  I wasn’t expecting much from this film, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.  It was very funny and the performances by Healy and Schilling were very solid and full of a compelling chemistry.  The characters are well done and the story is part crime story and part slapstick comedy, a blend that works for this film.  There was some predictability to the plot, especially the ending, but the rule of funny comes into play here.  Something that is funny will make up for other problems.

3.5 stars

Speech & Debate is the final film on Netflix for this review and it was a decent, if unlikely, story of three outcast students at a high school trying to find their niche at a school that is constantly suppressing their voice.  The film is an adaptation of the off-Broadway play of the same name, but many of the topics from that play have been downplayed here.  In fact, most of the teen issues taken up by the movie are not spotlighted enough to make this a teen issue film.  However, the three main leads, Liam James, Sarah Steele, and Austin McKenzie, are so likable and engaging that you want to follow these kids to see if they can overcome the drama of their lives.  There are some really entertaining sections to the film, though much of the real bite to the movie seemed to be missing.  The ending sequence that included a staged musical performance is completely impossible to believe, yet thrilling to watch.  If you can get past the fact that so much of this film could not possible happen, then you should enjoy Speech & Debate.

3.1 stars

I have waited for Spider-Man to return to the hands of Marvel for a long time.  It seemed as if it were never going to happen.  Sony Pictures had the rights to the characters and was determined to keep a hold of Peter Parker forever.  Not that I blame them, but seeing them put out Spider-man 3, ruining the Sam Raimi trilogy with a emo Peter and a waste of time Venom and then trying to reboot the series with the failures that was the Amazing Spider-man (2 in particular), well it appeared that Marvel would never regain the web-head.

And then it happened.  A deal between Sony and Marvel Studios to share Spidey.  Unbelievable.  Then, Spider-man appeared in Captain America: Civil War and, in admittedly, a small sample size, wowed one and all.  Tom Holland was wonderful as the youthful Peter Parker and the world that had grown tired of Spidey from the last reboot suddenly found that missing love for the wall crawler.

That brings us to Spider-Man: Homecoming.  The cooperative film from Sony and Marvel Studios, where Marvel was the driving force behind creative and Sony was responsible for marketing and promotion.

What a great movie.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is hot of the heels of helping Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in his battle with Captain America (Chris Evans), doing good in Queens with his Stark-made Spidey suit.  Peter wanted to impress Stark and join the Avengers while still getting through the struggles of high school.  Dealing with the small time crime in Queens takes a turn when Spidey comes across some bank robbers with amazing technology.  His investigation of this technology leads him to the winged villain, The Vulture (Michael Keaton).

I am ready to say that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man is my absolute favorite version of the character that we have gotten on the big screen yet.  He personifies this character so perfectly.  The youthful enthusiasm, the responsibility, the humor… all of it is vintage Spider-Man.  Tom Holland pulls it off with charm, warmth and a spot on delivery.  Spider-Man: Homecoming is a funny movie.  None of the other Spider-Man movies got the quippy manner of the character correct.  They tried in The Amazing Spider-Man films, but it did not work nearly as well as here.  They also got that sense of how Peter Parker is a hero.  He goes out of his way to save everyone.  There is a scene near the end that made me smile this great big smile as Peter is shown to respect all life.

You also get the feel of the “Parker luck” in this film more than any of the others.  You can see how sometimes things just go badly for Peter.  The problems he faces from his every day life because of his alter ego is one of the reasons we can identify with Peter Parker so much.  He is us.  And Tom Holland shows that side of the character brilliantly.

There have been some changes made to the character in the film, particularly to his supporting cast that might cause some comic fans to be upset.  There is no sign of the “Spidey-Sense”, but I did not find myself missing it.  I can understand that that might be a difficult visual to display in this medium.  You wouldn’t see the black squiggly lines above his head, like you do in the pages of the comics.  The side characters all are adjusted quite a bit, from the young and attractive Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) to the Ganke-like best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) to the spoilerific change to Liz (Laura Harrier).  None of these changes bothered me.

In fact, I would go as far to say that I enjoyed every side character here.  It did not bother me even slightly that Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori) was not a jock bully and is more of a rich kid millennial bully.  The core aspect of the character is still there.  Ned is a wonderful addition to the film even though Ned Leeds is a totally different character in the comics than here.  All of these characters felt like real kids at a real high school.  Marvel said that Homecoming would takes its cue from “John Hughes” coming-of-age movies, and you can absolutely get that tone.  There is a great homage to one of John Hughes’ classic films in the movie that is awesome as well.

Another secondary character involved here is Tony Stark.  In some of the promotion for the film, it seemed as if this was more of an Iron Man 4 than a Spider-Man movie, but that is as far from accurate as you can get.  This is absolutely a Spider-Man movie, and Tony Stark, while playing a good supporting role, is not in the movie that much.  And Iron Man is in it even less.  Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) actually might appear more than Stark does, as Tony places Happy in charge of keeping an eye on Peter.  The uses of these characters helps to remind us that this Spider-Man exists within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it does so very smoothly.  The use of the Chitauri invasion from the Avengers movie is also a great piece of storytelling that solidifies Homecoming’s place in the MCU.

The film is remarkably fun.  The action scenes are dramatic and feel contained.  They are not huge, world shaking battles.  They are smaller, yet important, scenes to show this kid, still learning to be a super hero, is exciting action.

Michael Keaton is spectacular as the Vulture.  He is a very well developed villain, someone whom you can understand and even relate to in a strange way.  Keaton is severely menacing in the film and the confrontations between him and Peter were as well done and as original as any super hero movie that you have seen.  He was one of the best Marvel villains we have gotten.

This is not an origin story, but we do get the chance to see Peter learning how to work his suit and how to become a hero.  They do not mention “Uncle Ben” in the film at all, but you can feel the specter of him.  There are a couple of scenes where you can tell the loss of Uncle Ben was still felt, but, we as the audience, did not need to go through that again.  You could tell by the way Marisa Tomei acted that the loss of her husband was still fresh for her and there are a few moments where Tom Holland lets the death come into his performance.  It was very well done.  I initially thought that I wanted some kind of scene where Uncle Ben was acknowledged, but how they wound up dealing with it in Homecoming was considerably better than I could have imagined.

Spider-Man 2 has long been considered the greatest Spider-Man movie made, but I think it is possible that Spider-Man: Homecoming could overtake Sam Raimi’s classic.  With so much fun, relatable characters, exciting action, hysterical comedic timing, and the best Peter Parker variation ever, Marvel has shown that they know how to present their characters.  Plus, it has one of the greatest (at least funny wise) post credit scenes of all time (all the way at the end… have patience).

Spider-Man: Homecoming was everything I could have wanted.

5 stars

“You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”

That quotes was a one of the classic quotes from The Princess Bride.  It was uttered by Inigo Montoya to Vizzini the Sicilian after his repeated use of the word, “Inconceivable.”

It is an all time great joke, one of many from the film, and it is always what I go back to when I hear the word “inconceivable.”

Of course, this is nothing like The Princess Bride, unfortunately.  It is much more like Fatal Attraction, only with babies.  The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, anyone?

This film reunites Nic Cage and Gina Gershon from Face/Off as Brian and Angela, a married couple who have been having issues with having a baby.

Inconceivable.  Get it.

Brian and Angela went to a company that provided donor eggs, and they had one implanted in Angela, and she gave birth to a beautiful little girl.  Meanwhile, the donor had also given birth to a baby girl.  And I guess there was a third embryo somewhere.

The donor turned out to be Katie (Nicky Whelan) who was a mysterious woman who moved to town with her daughter to escape an abusive past.  However, she we learn quite quickly that Katie had a serious issue… with murder.

Katie ingratiated herself into Brian and Angela’s life, becoming close friends and ending up as their surrogate.  This was after she had seduced and then murdered the woman they had initially intended on having be the surrogate.

Oh, spoilers, but let’s face it, you weren’t going to watch this anyway, were you?

Katie does her predictable best to gaslight the former addict Angela while keeping the secret that she is the egg producer of all of the kids on screen.  Meanwhile, for most of this movie, Nic Cage was reduced to the bumbling husband who can’t believe his wife when she was telling him what was going on because… I guess because he is just dumb.

The acting is poor, especially since we had two solid performers in Cage and Gershon.  Oh, and Faye Dunaway is here too.  She is Donna, Cage’s mother who suspects Katie at first, until the time when she needs to suspect her.  Dunaway was better here than she was in Bye Bye Man, though…so there is that.

The script tries to have a twist at the end, but it was very much predictable and, story wise, unnecessary.  But that could be a description of the entire movie of Inconceivable.  It would have felt more at home on Lifetime as a movie of the week.

1.9 stars

I have never been a fan of Will Farrell movies, but every once in a while, he has some that I enjoyed.  The Campaign, The Lego Movie, Daddy’s Home (third act really saved this one), Megamind, Stranger Than Fiction.  However, most of them are film that I really dislike.  I wondered which camp The House would fall into.

Having seen it, I wonder no longer.

This is terrible.

Will Farrell plays Scott, whom is married to Kate (Amy Poehler) and they have a daughter Alex (Ryan Simpkins) who is ready to go to college.  She has applied to her dream school of Buckley University and is accepted.  Scott and Kate are over the moon, but discover soon after that they do not have the money for tuition.  The pair, along with their loser friend Frank (Jason Mantzoukas) start an underground, illegal casino to raise the money for her college.

This film is just unfunny.  There may be a chuckle or two, here or there, but nothing that can sustain itself over the course of the movie.  It has three characters just going over the top to try and make the ridiculous situation worth the time, and they fail consistently.  The only real laugh I got was from the bloopers during the end credits with Jeremy Renner (who appears ever so slightly in a cameo).  Without the blooper, this Renner cameo would be wasted.

With most comedies, failures in the script or the plot can be forgiven if the movie makes you laugh, and this just does not do it.  Because the laughter is so sparse, you can’t help but wonder why these characters are doing the stupid things that they are doing.  There are strange and unlikely plot contrivances that feel as if they were added to the story to give it something more to do than just be a series of scenes that lacked continuity.  Nick Kroll showed up as Bob, a city government official whose part becomes important nearing the third act.  The actions of the local cop (Rob Huebel) was impossible to believe.  The guests of the casino were constantly yelling and acting like morons, including poor Kenneth from Speechless (actor Cedric Yarbrough).   These are all things I have to think about because I was not spending my time laughing.

I did appreciate the relationship between Scott and Kate and their daughter.  It portrayed them as a loving family who enjoyed their time together, albeit weird time (watching The Walking Dead as a family?  Product placement?)  The familial connection may not have been realistic, but it was kind of nice.

Jason Mantzoukas does have a few good moments of humor, most of which are already in the trailer.  The rest of the time, it feels like he, along with Farrell and Poehler, are trying too hard to make the ridiculousness around them funny and it comes off more as a desperation.

Unfortunately, this falls into the category of Zoolander 2, Anchorman 2, The Other Guys, Blades of Glory, Bewitched, (the first two acts of) Daddy’s Home, Starsky and Hutch, Casa de mi Padre as films starring Will Farrell that you can forget about.

1 star