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

Unfortunately, I can’t say that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3.5 stars

Very disappointed.

I was looking forward to this movie because I have liked the trailer and I hoped that it would give us something new and different.

Nope.

Chloe Grace Moretz plays Frances, a young and desperately naive girl living in Manhattan.  She finds a handbag left on the subway and she wants to do the right thing so she returns it to the owner, Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert), a sad and lonely older woman.  They strike up a friendship, bonding over shared losses in their lives.  Then Frances discovers that Greta has been duping her and had planted the bag on the subway to try and lure someone into returning it.  At this point, Frances tries to end the relationship, but Greta has a different idea.

The movie started out solid and I had hopes that it would take things in a new direction. It does not.  Honestly, I saw a possibility to take this into a realm where it is Frances’ fault.  She really treats Greta poorly immediately after she discovers about what she had done and ignored the old lady’s pleas for forgiveness.  Had the film gone in a different direction here, I think we could have had something original and even emotionally satisfying.  But it didn’t.  Sure enough, we discover that Greta is considerably more bat-shit crazy than we thought and was more of a predator than was let on to at the beginning.

By this point, Isabelle Huppert stops playing any sort of subtlety to the character and just begins chewing the scenery.  The film turns into a cartoon at this point and things go truly stupid.  I hate when supposedly intelligent characters do STUPID things in a movie just because the plot needs them to do it, and the second half of Greta is one stupid move after another.  I did not understand half of the decisions that Frances makes or fails to do (especially this part because there are things that are obvious and she fails miserably at doing them).  And she is not the only one doing stupid things.  Her roommate (Maika Monroe), who I liked in most of the movie, and Frances’ father (Colm Feore), jump head first into the dumb ass moves as well.

Greta also seems to become super powered as she arrives in places that she shouldn’t be able to do and does things that she couldn’t possibly get away with.  Greta reminds me of Jason Statham in the Fast and the Furious franchise, suddenly appearing right where he needed to be to cause the most trouble. The police are completely incompetent and there is a private investigator that simply is a waste of screen time.

There was a neat use of a dream sequence that kept me off balance near the back half of the movie which I liked a lot.  More of this would have helped to balance out the movie.

While the ending does have some satisfying resolution, it also has some simply ridiculous aspects that you have to stretch credibility to accept.

With the acting talent involved and a well shot film, this had a chance to be something special, but, unfortunately, this became just another film of this type, where a friend is shown to be actually an obsessive crazy person.  There are a ton of these films from the 1990s and Greta falls right in line with those.  There are moments of enjoyment here, especially if you want to pretend like the film was trying to be purposely campy, but the stupidity and implausibility of everything that happens just took me out of the movie and ended with a huge disappointment.

2.2 stars 

I had missed this movie for the last several weeks.  When it came out, it just never fit into the schedule and it was too easy to skip over.  However, I had liked the Mel Gibson original, What Women Want and, with this week being a slow one (and a Madea movie to ignore), I decided to finally go to see this gender swap remake starring Taraji P. Henson.

Meh.  It was okay.

Taraji P. Henson played Ali Davis, an agent working for a big firm who keeps getting passed over for partnership.  Frustrated at her inability to break the glass ceiling into the boys club at the firm, she becomes determined to sign the hot new basketball player, Jamal Barry (Shame Paul McGhie).  In order to sign the young player though, you had to navigate his obnoxious-Lavar Ball-like father, Joe (Tracy Morgan).  Meanwhile, Ali met bartender Will (Aldis Hodge) and they started a relationship.  Unfortunately, as you would expect in this type of a film, her work put their relationship in jeopardy from her poor choices.

This film is quite the mixed bag.  It is remarkably predictable and break little to no new ground, but there are a few moments of sweetness and nice character moments among a lot of mean-spirited comedy.    Every time I was ready to completely write off the film, it would have a scene that brought me back into the moment.

I found Taraji P. Henson to be over-the-top too much.  She was too much of a cartoon for most of the movie.  The dialogue was extremely weak and did not feel realistic.  The humor was awkward at times and downright unfunny at others.  All of the men at the agency were utterly sophomoric and idiotic.  None of them felt real.  They were exaggerated stereotypes that were a waste of time.  There were some moments that were funny, but there were not enough to forgive the faults of this movie.

Shout out to Erykah Badu, who played the tarot card reading psychic named Sister.  She was easily one of the best parts of this film.  She was a hoot and was the most original part of the movie.

What Men Want was not a terrible movie, though it was too long and could have been made better with some removal of several parts.  It is predictable and lacked too much humor, but it did have moments of heart that rescued it from being a complete failure.

2.6 stars

You do not have to be a fan of pro wrestling to enjoy the wonderful new film Fighting With My Family, a biopic about the rise of WWE female superstar Paige and the drama that that opportunity caused amongst her family.

Now, you may not have to be a wrestling fan, but I am one and because of that, I came into the movie with some background knowledge on Paige.  More on that later.

The movie tells the story of Paige (Florence Pugh), who started wrestling at 13 years old with her father (Nick Frost) and mother (Lena Headey) and older brother Zak (Jack Lowden) in their low brow, independent wrestling company in their hometown of England.  Initially uncertain about what she wanted, as soon as Saraya (Paige’s real name, Paige is her WWE wreslter name) found the thrill of performing in the ring, she was hooked.

After several happy years, she and Zak sent a tape to the World Wrestling Entertainment, WWE, to apply to join.  When the siblings received a tryout, their whole family was excited.  The problem was that Saraya was signed but Zak was sent home.  Because Zak’s dream was dying before him, this event sent a ripple through their family and damaged the close relationship between Saraya and Zak.

This movie is really about the relationships between Saraya and Zak, as well, to a lesser extent, the other members of her family.  It is an underdog story that wisely focuses on the characters involved and Florence Pugh absolutely slays it as Paige.  She brings so much to the role as the WWE star that she dominates every scene she is in.  Jack Lowden is exceptional here too, really playing the hurt and betrayal of having his sister succeed in his dream where he had failed.

The movie, produced by WWE Studios, does a great job of showing the challenges and struggles faced by the men and women attempting to break into the business of professional wrestling,  especially for the WWE.  Vince Vaughn played Hutch, the “coach” at the development territory who pushed the wannabe-superstars to their limits.  While this is a true story, the character of Hutch is an amalgam of different backstage real people in the WWE who helped encourage the real Paige in her dream.

Written and directed by Stephen Merchant, the movie has some very effective humor to go along with the real family drama.  I never felt as if the humor was out of place and I thought it balanced perfectly well.  The character of Paige’s father, Ricky, played by Nick Frost, is a wild man with great humorous traits.  There is a scene at dinner with Ricky and his wife Julia where they tell about how they fell in love and the troubles they faced.  This scene was very touching and showed how wonderful of a connection these two characters had.  It was truly one of the sweetest parts of the story.

The one problem I had with Fighting With My Family was the fact that I am a wrestling fan and that I knew much about Paige prior to seeing the movie.  In particular, SPOILERS…the film built to Paige’s debut on Monday Night RAW.  In the movie, Paige was shown as someone who was not ready for RAW but was able to have an exciting match with Diva Champion AJ Lee (played here by Thea Trinidad, Selena Vega in WWE currently).  However, Paige was already a big deal in NXT, the WWE’s developmental organization, and she was the NXT champion.  Paige had been tearing up the NXT shows and was certainly ready for the main roster.  The film changed that up and, while I can understand why they went the route they went, it was just a tad distracting for me, knowing how it actually went.

Now, I am not saying that a biopic needs to be 100% accurate.  In fact, the way they showed the event in the movie was extremely effective and well done and maintained the general spirit of the RAW segment.  It is just that I knew the way it actually went down and I could not get past it in my head.  It is a minor gripe of mine, but it was going through my head when I was watching the film.

“The Rock” Dwayne Johnson, a producer on the film, came across the story and helped get WWE Studios to produce the film.  Johnson also had a couple of top notch cameos in the movie as himself.

You do not have to love professional wrestling to love Fighting With My Family because it is not just a wrestling movie.  It is, first and foremost, a character study of a family and their personal demons that affect their choices and lives that just happened to involved pro wrestling.  It is remarkably well acted and moves briskly.  Paige was one of my favorite female wrestlers and I loved getting to see the story of her rise to stardom in the WWE.  WWE Studios has not had a ton of critical hits under its banner, but this one is the best film they have ever made.

4.6 stars

The “final” installment in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy came out and does an amazing job of bringing the series of films to a close.  Of course, we have seen that, if something makes money, it does not matter if the film is a perfect ending…Hollywood finds a way (pssst… Toy Story…4?)

However, let’s not think about that.  Let’s think about the fact that this movie is a beautiful and emotional end to the series that started almost a decade ago.  Having just rewatched the first two films last week, I found the third film was a wonderful companion to those movies.

Berk has begun to become overcrowded with the crew, led by newly minted chief Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), having spent the last year rescuing captured dragons from dragon hunters.  Unfortunately, they have come across the dragon hunter who has killed almost all of the night furies, Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) and the existence of Toothless became a quest for Grimmel.

Realizing the real danger his tribe was in, Hiccup chooses to try and lead his people and their dragons into the mythical Hidden World, the birthplace and homeland of dragons.  Along the way, they are shocked when they discover a female fury, they dubbed a light fury, that has stolen Toothless’s heart.

Above all else in the Dragon trilogy, the animation is stunningly beautiful.  The scenes with Toothless and the light fury flying through the clouds are some of the most gorgeous animation you are going to see.  The flying sequences are typical among the most breath taking in the trilogy, and these are no exception.

Most of the humor is on target as well, though I must say that I did not find the antics of the side characters such as Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (Justin Rupple, replacing T.J. Miller) funny.  In fact, they were more annoying than humorous.  The voice work is fine, but a lot of this humor just did not hit for me.  Much more interesting was the humor with Craig Ferguson as Gobber.

Astrid (America Ferrera) is one of my favorite supporting characters in the movie.  Hiccup’s mom Valka (Cate Blanchett) and Eret (Kit Harrington) is underused here and I would have liked to see more of them, especially a teased relationship between them.

The story itself felt a little repetitive at times to me, but I was happy to go along.  If I was ranking the three films, this would be my least favorite of the three, but not by much.  The three movies are all very consistent in their excellence.  Once again, How to Train Your Dragon is a series that has a theme about growing up.  Each movie has allowed its characters, in particular Hiccup, a chance to grown not only physically, but emotionally and that is rare amongst animated movies.

The movie moves at a brisk pace and never feels boring.  The story, while not as compelling as the first two, is not lacking too much and does have some seriously poignant moments.  The animation is, once again, epic and the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless is still at the heart of the tale, no matter what other characters become part of their world.

A great final chapter of a trilogy that never failed to entertain.

4.35 stars

I have never been a huge fan of rom-coms, but the promotional materials for Rebel Wilson’s new project, Isn’t It Romantic, seemed to take the genre and satire it.  The trailers were fun so I thought I would give this one a chance.  And I am really glad I did, because this was a lot of fun and an enjoyable time at the cinema.

It does a weird thing too.  It makes fun of romantic comedies, all the while, being one.

Natalie (Rebel Wilson) was an architect who was down on love and her life and was lacking confidence in herself.  When she hit her head during a mugging, Natalie woke up in a New York City that was right out of a rom-com.  Everything was perfect and her life and job were way better than she remembered.  It was not long before she realized that she had been caught, somehow, inside a romantic comedy and she started looking for a way to escape back to her own dirty and grimy world of NYC.

The idea here is very clever and creative.  Rebel Wilson is the perfect lead character for this type of genre satire, as she delivered all the tropes and the cliches normally found in a romantic comedy and called them out as they were happening to her.  She did it in a charismatic and funny way and it helped create a bond with her and the audience.  The cynicism she showed truly masked her true feelings and they were on display.  There was a fourth wall-esque breaking without actually breaking the fourth wall.

The writing was also very clever, as it threw in allusions to many of the classic rom-coms of all time, from Pretty Women to When Harry Met Sally to Jerry Maguire.

There were also several musical numbers that were used here that were so cheesy and over-the-top that they turned out wonderfully and fit right into the tone being set.

Liam Hemsworth and Adam DeVine were both solid as Rebel Wilson’s love interests.  I’d even go as far as to say that this was one of my favorite movies featuring the “other Hemsworth.”

The people who created this movie clearly loves romantic comedies and have made a film that not only points out the genre’s flaws, but also lovingly includes them in their story.  The movie is a quick watch and is entertaining.

3.7 stars

Horror and comedy are a really great mix and the original Happy Death Day was a prime example of that combination.  It came from nowhere to surprise the movie going audience and turned into a sleeper hit for the horror studio aficionados Blumhouse.

However, this sequel to that movie does something odd and unexpected.  It really switches genre.  Oh, it is still comedy, but the horror aspects, while there in small bits, are pushed aside for a more of a science fiction feel.  And I think it works.

One of the top reasons why it works is the great performance from lead Jessica Rothe, returning as Tree Gelbman, the college student who, in the original, gets stuck in a loop repeating the same day that always seemed to end with her death.

She was able to break the loop in the original, but, who knew, she would wind up back in another loop, repeating the same day, once again. This time, however, there are some subtle and some not-so-subtle differences from the previous time.

The film goes into some explanation about why this was happening to her, and, at first, it felt a bit dubious in trying to explain what was happening, and the whole science fiction part was a bit iffy to me.  They made references to a certain 1980s movie that the film really is similar to.

However, after a little while, once the stage is set for Tree to be back front and center in the story, the film took off and it became great again.  Jessica Rothe is absolutely on fire here and she is the main reason this film works at all.  She is intense, angry, upset, emotional and ticked off, many times all at the same time, and pulls it off totally.  She emotes everything she is feeling and she also drives much of the comedy, most of which works well.

There are also some real emotional moments that she takes the audience through, much more than what you would expect in a film like this.

I have heard some criticism of the mystery surrounding the killer being weaker than in the first movie and I agree with that, but it is not intended to be.  The killer is a side plot that is there to show you different aspects of the character of Tree.  It is not the driving force of the plot and is really not that important.  It still provides a strong scene near the end of the third act.

There is a mid credit tag that feels as if it is setting up a third film, but it is not near as strong as the rest of the film, though there is a funny joke contained within it.

I enjoyed watching Happy Death Day 2U and feel that it is a strong sequel to a movie I was surprised to like as much as I did.

4.25 stars

It has been a long time coming for Alita: Battle Angel.  Based on a Manga graphic novel, the film is directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-written by James Cameron.

I was underwhelmed.

In a futuristic year of the 26th century, Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), a surgeon specializing in cybernetic replacements discovered the torso of a young woman whose brain is still alive.  He took the girl back and gave her a cybernetic body, treating her like the daughter he lost.

In the world, there is a floating city named Zalem which is where the special people live and the planet below is where all of the rest of humanity has populated known as Iron City.  Everyone from the earth wishes they could make it to the city in the sky.

When she awakens, the young girl does not remember anything of her past and is given the name of Alita by Dr. Ido.  It soon is shown that this young girl with the new cybernetic body is a fighter of high level and more than just another pretty face.

I had several problems with Alita.  The biggest one is that I just could not get past the CGI of the characters.  The surroundings of Iron City was amazing and most of the CGI of the action scenes was tremendous, but every time they put the camera on Alita or any of the other cyborgs with human heads, I thought the CGI looked rubbery and fake.  The characters reminded me very much of Steppenwolf from Justice League, and he was my absolute least favorite part of that movie.  I remember thinking immediately how much I noticed that this was CGI and how, during Avengers: Infinity War, I had not thought of Thanos as being CGI until 3/4 into the film.  I thought the distinction was clear.

As I said though, the action CGI was done considerably well and was, for the most part, fun to watch.

Rosa Salazar, who was the motion capture actress of Alita, does a fine job.  I think she delivered as much as you could expect from this film.  I felt as if Christoph Waltz was out of place any time the film took his character outside of the house/lab.  When he ventured out onto the streets of Iron City, Waltz stuck out, and not in a positive way.

The story itself was pretty lacking.  It was long and the film felt long.  There were distinct moments where I found the movie dull and I was wanting more.  I did not buy the relationship between Alita and Hugo (Keean Johnson) and there is one scene here involving Alita’s heart that was downright laugh-out-loud funny when it was supposed to emotionally resonate.

Mahershala Ali played Vector here and he is fine.  I would have liked to have seen him as more of the villain than what he turned out to be.

The film was not a total fail, but I did find myself wishing it was over on more than one occasion.  It certainly sets up for a sequel that, actually, could be more intriguing than this one was.

2.5 stars 

This was a strange movie.

As I was looking at iTunes, I was attracted to the title of this film under the “Notable Indies” section.  Apparently it is in theaters in limited release right now.  I watched the trailer iTunes had and I was sold.

Then I started streaming the film and it was, as I already mentioned, strange.

The two big things in the title of the film, the killing of Hitler and the killing of Bigfoot, total maybe 5-8 minutes of the entire film.  It really is not about either of these events.  It is about Sam Elliot’s character Calvin Barr and his dealing with the choices that he has made in his life, choices that, despite being a myth and a legend, led to him being a lonely old man, alone with his dog.

Sam Elliott is exceptional here as he always is as a man who has to sacrifice happiness for an attempt at saving his country.  And the best part of the film is definitely his recount of the events surrounding his killing of Hitler.  The anger and resentment of his success and failure and how that changed the path of his life forever was very powerful and stood out among the laid back tone of most of this movie.

I also found the relationship between Calvin and his younger brother Ed (Larry Miller) fascinating as well.  Larry Miller is excellent here playing off the strong work of Elliott.

I can see people being unhappy with this movie after being drawn in by the fanciful title, expecting something different.  However, if you can get past that, as I did, you should enjoy this smaller, character-driven story of a unknown hero.

3.75 stars

Creepy kids can be very scary and that is something that The Prodigy has.

Good old Georgie from the remake of Stephen King’s It, Jackson Robert Scott gets the lead character here, as Miles, an extremely intelligent young boy who seemingly develops a darker side.

I was impressed with Jackson Robert Scott as he did a fine job as the bad seed Miles. Even more distracting was his mother, played by Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black.  I could not place her the entire movie and it bugged me the whole film.  I couldn’t believe when I finally saw the actress’s name in the end credits that I wasn’t able to immediately recognize Piper from OITNB.  It did distract me for much of the time she was on screen.  That was my problem, not hers.

The Prodigy was a mixed bag most of the time as there are good scenes and bad scenes. There are some times when you know exactly where the film is going and other times when you think you know, only for it to swerve off course.

Honestly, I found the first part of the movie pretty good.  I was engaged in the story and I was interested in what was going to happen.  Scott was doing his best creepy facial expressions and the jump scares were mostly well done.  I wanted to know more, and not just where I knew that actress from.

Unfortunately, the third act took the film off its rails completely in a sadly predictable and downright dumb conclusion that took away any chance The Prodigy had of being more than a forgettable and disposable horror movie.

2.7 stars