Here we go.

I did not hate Batman v. Superman on first viewing, but it was one of those movies that, as I thought back, got worse and worse.  Man of Steel was the same way.  I gave it an overall positive review, but the more I thought about what I had seen, the less I liked it.

I am a huge fan of Marvel.  I always have been.  I will not apologize for that.  I do like the DC characters, and I really was hoping that Suicide Squad would be that film that broke the DC Extended Cinematic Universe’s streak of weaker films.

Then I started hearing about some of the reviews.  At this minute, Suicide Squad is at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Chris Stuckmann gave it a C.  The Schmoes neither had it at fresh.  Suddenly, I was frightened.

Then I saw the movie and you know what… it was pretty good.  I would go out on a limb and say that, in my opinion, it is definitely the best of the recent DC movie universe films.

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), determined to provide a defense to the metahuman problem, decides to put together a team of the worst of the worst villains to face anything that might be a greater threat to the nation. She put together villains Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje),  Diablo (Jay Hernandez), and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courntey) with soldier Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Japanese swords fighter Katana (Karen Fukuhara).

The team of villains were forced together by Waller with the threat of death, after a bomb was implanted into the villains’ heads.  She sent them after the witch Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), who was trying to take over the world by bringing her brother into the world and creating some weapon.

Positives:  There are several of these.  Will Smith was outstanding as Deadshot.  Deadshot was the most developed of all of the characters, showing a very wonderful relationship with his daughter.  He was funny and well written.

Margot Robbie was perfect as Harley Quinn.  Her relationship with the Joker (Jared Leto) was displayed beautifully.  These two crazy characters really showed themselves as a perfect pair.  Jared Leto’s Joker was a very interesting take on the character.  I was never a fan of the tattoos or grills at first, but they all seemed to work here.

The Squad itself worked very good together.  The charisma shown by the members of the group were great.  In particular, I liked the relationship that developed between Deadshot and Harley Quinn.  I liked how the movie introduced these characters and brought them to the screen.  There was a lot of music used to introduce many of these villains, and I liked most of that.  They may have over used the music a little, but they picked some really good songs, so that was good.

Viola Davis was unbelievable as the downright cold and vicious Amanda Waller.  She was as bad as any of the villains of the Suicide Squad.  Joel Kinnaman was good as Flag, Jai Courtney was surprisingly solid as Boomerang.  Jay Hernandez was okay as Diablo.

The first hour or so was very entertaining.  There was a nice tone for Suicide Squad.  It was still the darker tone much like previous DC movies, but it was able to sprinkle in more humor and fun to the film, something that was dramatically missing from Batman v. Superman.  This film showed that you did not have to constantly making jokes or being light-hearted to make an entertaining film.  It was also not constantly grim and depressing as the other DC movies.

Negatives:  For those who gave this movie a negative review, I can understand why, because it is anything but a perfect movie.  There are several problems with it.

There was just not enough Joker.  Despite being featured heavily in the promotional materials, Jared Leto’s Joker does not appear very often.  This would have been a much better movie had the Joker played a bigger role.

The villain of The Enchantress was horrible.  Her “brother” was worse.  These were probably two of the absolutely worst villains in any comic book movie.  There was no motivation for the characters outside of being evil.  Then, the look of these characters was horrendous.  The Enchantress did all kind of weird movements (like she was constantly doing the hula) and her brother made me think about the Green Lantern movie.  Plus, the expendable monsters they created as canon fodder for the Suicide Squad to kill looked ridiculous.

As good as the start of this movie was, the third act battle was just as bad.  Honestly, this third act really threatened to pull the entire film off the track (and I am sure many of the negative reviews out there were negative because of the last battle scene).  The story leading up to this was a mess, but at least the characters were entertaining and we had solid character moments.  The last fight was very much laughable in many ways.  These great characters that we had been introduced to deserved a better conclusion to their movie.

Killer Croc, especially, but also, to a lesser extend Boomerang and Katana, didn’t have much to do.  They were here to fill out the team and that was about it.  Killer Croc was basically there to grunt or to do something with his strength.

I can see how the finale could ruin this movie for some people, but it did not mess it up for me. I was able to enjoy most of this movie despite the weak ending.  I found myself leaving the theater happy that I saw it.  The miscredits scene was really great and a much better way to introduce some information than we saw in BvS.  Deadshot and Harley Quinn stole the show and I really wanted more Joker.

3.5 stars

I did not see the original Jason Bourne movies.  I saw the Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner and it was okay.  So I did not have any real feelings about Matt Damon returning to this role.  I was coming in to this as a newbie.

Honestly, I didn’t hate it, but I was not a fan either.

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) comes back after going underground to find answers about the death of his father and how he was recruited into the government program.  CIA Agent Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) was part of the investigation, led by CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones).  Dewey sent the unnamed Asset (Vincent Cassel) after Bourne.  Action happens.

The action was fine, but there was nothing exceptional about the action and I was so tired of the shaky cam shots that permeated the movie.  Now, I hear that the earlier Bourne movies had employed this technique and maybe for some it wouldn’t have felt like a Bourne movie without it, but I feel like that is a cop-out.  I couldn’t tell what was happening a lot of the time.  How am I supposed to enjoy action if I cannot tell what is happening?  This shaky cam stuff is just not fun to watch.

Matt Damon does a good job in the role.  It is clear that he feels comfortable as Jason Bourne and his performance is one of the stronger aspects of the film.  I also enjoyed the performance of Vikander.  She is a star.  My favorite character in the film is Tommy Lee Jones’s CIA Director Robert Dewey, who plays Tommy Lee Jones.  Jones is always fun to watch.

The story had no surprises and the “twists” in the film were painfully obvious.  I found several sections of the Jason Bourne movie kind of dull.

They even had a different angle of the great shot from the trailer of Bourne knocking the fighter out with one punch.  The shot that was actually in the film was so much less impressive than what was in the trailer.  I don’t understand why someone didn’t use the original shot from the trailer cause it was so much better.

I am not a fan of the Bourne movies, but I didn’t have to be to watch this movie.  I just think the film could have been so much better than what it was.

2.8 stars

This looked like just another bad behavior movie that would be like all of the others.  They are never funny.

And yet Bad Mom was better than I thought.

Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) is a mom who has so many things to do.  Working at a coffee company, running her children around, PTA and bake sales, and handling the sudden vertigo of the family dog, Amy reached her breaking point.  Then she finds her husband online cheating on her, she kicks him out and heads out to the bar,  She meets up with two other moms, Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn), and they decide that they would now become bad moms.

After becoming bad moms, Amy found things starting to improve.  However, she was still having troubles with the bully PTA president Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate).

Now, Bad Moms is definitely a predictable film, but the three main actresses are funny and have a great chemistry together.  Kristen Bell was my favorite of the three because of how uncommon her character was.  These performances really helped keep this from becoming just another bad behavior comedy.

There was a good message shown in this film as well.  The importance of family, friends, breaking the role of women, and what is important in life is focused on and the film actually does a really good job of it.

Christina Applegate’s movie was a terrible stereotype, until the very end.  That character really has an interesting change at the end. I wish I had more of that throughout the film because I might have found her as more than the just simple bad guy character that you see in all of these films.

In the end, Bad Moms entertained me more than I thought it would.  I thought the actresses were great and the film was funny.  Emjay Anthony was Amy’s son and he is always good.  (I still want him to be the Sam Alexander-Nova in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  He would be so perfect.)  Yes, it was predictable, but that did not take away from the enjoyment I had.

3.3 stars

An internet based game that can cause people to become crazy and obsessive?  Come on… how can I believe that?

Okay, perhaps the sarcasm is a bit too strong because clearly, the concept behind the new movie called Nerve is not that far of a stretch.  The fact that this could happen is a plus in this film’s column.  However, those cell phone batteries in the movie that never seemed to fail… wow, those batteries were way better than mine.

Shy wallflower Vee (Emma Roberts) finds herself trying to bust out of the shadow of her best friend Sydney (Emily Meade) and so she signs up to the new online game sensation, Nerve, where people sign up as your followers and offer you dares that can earn you cash.  Youhave to complete these dares by filming yourself on your phone and putting them on the Nerve website.  Vee meets up with another player Ian (Dave Franco) and the two of them take on the game.

I found a lot of this movie charming.  I did like the relationship at the start that developed between Vee and Ian.  I was very taken with the lovely Emma Roberts, who was beautiful and carried this film well.  Vee started to come out of her shell as she playfully accepted each increasingly more challenging dares.  These dares would become more and more dangerous as the night moved along.

I also liked the secondary characters here, as they really reflected the world of social media taken to the nth degree.  I was interested in how the relationship between Vee and Sydney was disintegrating the more Vee became her own person.  There was also a relationship with Vee and her friend Tommy (Miles Heizer) that I would have liked more of.

The film, though, really started to weaken as it reached its climax.  In fact, the entire third act falls apart.  Suddenly, there was dark forces behind the game.  Ian had a mysterious past and was in the game for a more dastardly reason (even though we hadn’t seen any of this before) and the hackers, who we hadn’t seen much of anything prior, become a big time deus ex machina.

And the conclusion to the film was downright ridiculous.

There was a “Purge” feel to this film, as we never learned anything about where this game came from, who these mysterious forces behind the game were or why they were so focused on creating this game.  With the villains undefined, when this became a big struggle against the game, things started to not make sense.

The “snitches get stitches” line is just childlike.

Then, the film tried to make a statement about how people can be such horrible people by hiding behind screen names, looking at the community of online line, such as Twitter and message boards.  That felt very forced as well.  The implication was there throughout Nerve.  It did not need to beat us over the head.  It could have been more subtle of a message.

This really felt like a dual film.  One part I enjoyed quite a bit.  I felt entertained for awhile.  The third act really found the movie lacking.  So I was not sure what I was going to do for a score.  I feel as if the film is somewhere between a 2.8- 3.2.  So I will go right in the middle.

3 stars

The Killing Joke is one of the greatest graphic novels of all time.  Perhaps my favorite Batman story, and, certainly, my favorite Joker story of all time.  It was brutal and vicious and very psychological.  Of course, when I heard that the book was being adapted into an animated movie by DC and that it was going to be rated R, I was very excited.

And even more exciting was that Fathom Events would be hosting the movie on the big screen in select movie theaters for one night only.  Well, that eventually became two nights only (as they added July 26th to the original July 25th date) but I knew that I wanted to see this on the big screen.  The DC animated movies have always been extremely well done, and I was sure that The Killing Joke would be no exception.

After seeing it, I would say for sure that it was no exception, but it was not quite as brilliant as I thought it might be.

Here was the thing.  The movie added about 30 minutes of story to the graphic novel.  I understand that fully.  There was no way that the graphic novel’s original story could be adapted for a run time around 90 minutes. As it turned out, with the new material, the film ran for 76 minutes.  And, the only other option was really changing the story around and just barely being recognized as The Killing Joke.

Marvel Studios do this very well.  Captain America: Civil War doe snot resemble the comic series at all.  Basically the theme or overall concept is similar while what the movie does is very different.  That works for Marvel Studios.  However, it would have been disappointing for the animated version of the Killing Joke to follow suit.  The animated version of The Dark Knight Returns was remarkably adapted.

Because of that, DC had to add content to the story.  They chose to spend those thirty minutes or so focusing on Batgirl (Tara Strong).  That was an interesting choice, since Batgirl really is a peripheral character in the Killing Joke.  She was important, but only for motivation.  And there is actually less of that here.

That first 30 minutes feels long, and not vital to what was going to happen.  The whole story arc of Batgirl and the villain Paris (Maury Sterling) was just too tacked on.  The controversial sex scene did not seem to push forward the story either.  If that first section was its own animated episode, it would be fine, but here, it just felt superfluous.

However, once Batman went to see Joker at Arkham Asylum, only to discover that this was not the actual Joker, the story really picked up,  Of course, this was where they started to make a much more faithful adaptation of the comic.

The back story of the Joker is heartbreaking and tragic.  You can almost feel sorry for him, despite the maniacal murderer that he developed into.  This is one of the most epic confrontations between these two characters who are opposites of each other, and the story is such a tale of strength and of the human spirit.

The ending is spot on perfection.  If you do not know how The Killing Joke ends, I will not spoil it for you, but the adaptation to the screen was wonderful.

Reuniting Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as the Batman and the Joker was a masterstroke.  No voice actors have nailed their parts like these two.  Mark Hamill’s Joker is so iconic that this is the way most of the generation of Batman fans imagine the Joker to sound.  Many other voice actors who have tried to tackle these two characters over the years simply do imitations.  So it was amazing to hear these two maestros at work again.

The evening’s activities began with a short interview with Mark Hamill, detailing his past as Joker and his reasoning for returning to this role.  I really enjoyed his comments and his story.

Ray Wise (Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks) voiced Commissioner Gordon and he did a fine job as well.  I have always enjoyed Wise’s work and I am glad he continues to add to his resume.

The animation was nothing to write home about, being kind of choppy at times.  The score though was dark and beautiful, perfectly complimenting the darkness that was happening on screen.  The song The Joker sang was a highlight.  Mark Hamill does an amazing job with that song.  There was a short documentary about the music after the film that was also very entertaining.

Overall, the film does a magnificent job of adapting one of the greatest comic issues of all time, but the tacked on section of the film, while understandable and acceptable, was, at best, fine.  It felt too forced and did not add anything to the story that would follow.  However, when you get through the Batgirl material, this film really takes off, with the return of the iconic voices of Batman and Joker, and the dark and twisted story of the Joker and his origin.

3.7 stars

Absolutely Fabulous is anything but fabulous.

I really disliked this movie.

Now, I was unaware of any previous incarnation of this.  Apparently, Absolutely Fabulous, or Ab Fab as it is sometimes referred, is a BBC sitcom featuring these characters, written by Jennifer Saunders, the actress who portrays Edina.  So maybe if you are a fan of this source, perhaps you would enjoy this more than I did.

PR agent Edina (Jennifer Saunders) and her friend Patsy (Joanna Lumley) love the good life, and are accustomed to drinking champagne and going to parties.  However, the world around them see them as people to be avoided or laughed at.  So when the model Kate Moss decides to change her PR people, it sends Edina into a frenzy, hoping to sign her.  However, Edina does not intend to accidentally knock Moss of a balcony and into the Thames.  With the country thinking that Edina had killed the supermodel, Edina tries to escape from her life and find a lifestyle she can appreciate.

My biggest problem with Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie was that I really did not like Edina or Patsy.  They were so despicable that I could not root for them at all.  Yeah, I know that they are supposed to be unlikable, because that is meant to be where the humor comes from, but I just do not enjoy it.  In fact, I have never liked this type of comedy.  Dumb and Dumber was okay.  They were, at least, relatable.  I had no connection to these obnoxious women and their negative attitudes.  Becaus eof that, I could not find much to laugh at.

There were a few chuckle moments, but the film is so over the top that it couldn’t help but have some giggles.

Again, let me state this.  I have never seen the British comedy that this film apparently follows, and I have seen comments that having that background knowledge would help the viewing of the movie.  I cannot say.  I will say that seeing this movie does not inspire me to go and search out those BBC comedies for viewing.

I actually considered leaving before the film was up.  I thought to myself that I could be doing plenty of other things with my time than watching this.  I did stick it out, but the film did not improve.

I hope that if you are a fan of the BBC show that you enjoy this more than I did.

1 star

The third film from the rebooted series Star Trek came out this weekend with Justin Lin, director of Fast & Furious 6, taking over for J.J. Abrams, and provided fans of the franchise a film that boldly went where no one had gone before with action and adventure and characters embodied perfectly by the new cast.

Star Trek Beyond sends viewers on an exciting voyage into the stars, and fills the screen with exciting action throughout.  This film catches the exciting action of the reboots with the intellectual tone of the original series and blends them together into something that feels like classic Trek.

We catch up with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise as they are arriving at Starbase Earhart after failing to negotiate a treaty between two warring factions, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) was starting to feel the strain of this five year mission.  Spock (Zachary Quinto) hears news of the passing of Ambassador Spock (the late Leonard Nemoy) and has to reflect on his own choices.  With the crew slowly being pulled in different directions, the Enterprise heads out to navigate through a nebula to aid a ship whose captain requested assistance.

Unfortunately for Kirk and his crew, the request was a trap and the Enterprise is attacked by a swarm of some kind of creatures.  The Enterprise crashes on the planet below and the crew is scattered into smaller groups, trying to find their way back together.

Meanwhile, the leader of the swarm was Krall (Idris Elba) who was after a “macguffin” that was on the Enterprise, a weapon they tried to present to one of the warring races as a peace offering.  One wonders what Krall would have done had that race of small rock like creatures had accepted the peace offering of this weapon.  Still, Kirk realizes that Krall wants this weapon and keep sit away from him.

The strength of these characters are really seen as they are split into pairs.  Kirk and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin) are together, searching for the weapon.  Bones (Karl Urban) and Spock are together, with amazing, crackling dialogue that lights up every scene that they share.  Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are captives of Krall and Scotty (Simon Pegg) meets up with new, bad ass alien Jaylah (Sofia Boutella).  Each section brought something different and entertaining to the ensemble and moved the movie along.

Karl Urban was, once again, the standout as Doctor “Bones” McCoy.  Urban is so perfect in this role that the iconic character has really become his own.  Urban receives all of the best lines of dialogue and he delivers them with a robust, cantankerous enthusiasm that would make DeForest Kelly proud.  Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, played by movie co-writer Simon Pegg, is also provided with wonderful lines within the script, both funny and compelling.

Idris Elba provides a solid villain for the protagonist, but there were a couple of lines that I am not sure what they were going for.  His motivation was made clearer in the third act of the film, but there were some moments where I was expecting something more about him.  Still, as always, Elba was outstanding as the counter to Kirk.

The action was excellent, though there may have been too much use of shaky camera for my tastes in several of the action scenes.  The use of “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys in the trailer felt out of place and forced, but the song’s inclusion in the story itself was perfect and made complete sense.  It also provided a fun and rocking moment in Star Trek Beyond that found me nodding my head and tapping my toes along with the crew.

Star Trek Beyond is another outstanding film in the new, rebooted series of films.  There is great action, strong characters we love and has more of a feel of the original show than ever before.

4.2 stars

Several years ago, there was a short film on YouTube with the premise of a creature that would disappear when the lights were on.  It was a sensation on the video web site.  Taking that concept, they expanded it to a 90 minute film.  Was that a mistake?  There were plenty of concerns that the idea of the short would feel too stretched out by trying to have it go a full movie.

I am pleased to say that those concerns should be dismissed.  Lights Out not only does not feel stretched out, it was a remarkably frightening time at the theater.

Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is not sleeping.  He is too afraid to sleep because his mother (Maria Bello) is talking to some mysterious female creature named Diana, who only can be around when the lights are out.  When Martin starts to fall asleep in school, they tried, unsuccessfully, to call his mother.  Instead, they called his half-sister Rebecca (Teresa Palmer), who was estranged from the family, but she knew what was happening…because it had already happened to her.

Lights Out is a fantastic film, with tension and suspense from the early scenes right up until the finale.  The key aspect of this movie is they focus on characters.  We spend some time getting to know Rebecca.  We learn back story involving her mother.  We see how these things cause stress and worry for a really strong little boy in Martin.  We even get a look at Rebecca’s “boyfriend” Bret (Alexander DiPersia).  All of this character development really pays off when these characters are placed in peril later in the film because, unlike a lot of these types of films, we care for what happens to them.  They are not disposable victims for the creature to kill.  They are well imagined and real, engaging characters.

The film does contain its share of jump scares, but they seem to do a good job of maintaining the tone of the film and they create serious tension.  And since the characters are important to us, these jump scares do not stand out as blatantly as they might in a lesser film.

Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey) is very frightening, with her moving int he shadows and only seeing her apparition.  It is less effective later when we see more than just the shadowy figure.  I enjoyed her back story and her connection to Sophie the mother felt very tragic, as if the life of Sophie had been forever tarnished by this ghost.

Gabriel Bateman (who is on CBS’ American Gothic) is amazing here.  Again, everything is resting on this child actor providing the audience with the sufficient fear without being over-the-top.  If this child was not a solid actor, the film would drop off the map.  Fortunately, Bateman was outstanding, playing several levels at the beginning, shouldering the fear all to himself, not only out of need, but out of guilt.  He knew he had to support his mother and he couldn’t just run away.  Then, the bond he formed with his wayward half-sister was wonderful.

I also enjoyed Bret quite a bit.  He was anything but the cliched horror movie boyfriend.  He was funny, very supportive, and heroic.  Because I liked him so much, I was very worried that he would fall victim to Diana.

However, though the typical cliches are in the film, Lights Out actually turns them around, successfully deconstructing them in the process.  There are several examples of this, but I don’t want to spoil it.  Let’s just say that the kids do not do the typical stupid things.  They react like real people would react, and that was refreshing.

Now, the film does change the rules about Diana later in the movie, which was done simply because they needed certain things to happen, but the change is not a major one, and does actually continue t amp up the suspense.  Still, some of the parts later in the film with Diana were the weakest sections of the film.

Lights Out was a really good time, if you enjoy being frightened.  This film had some really solid scares and some good performances by solid actors.  The time used on the characters was time well spent and made us care about what happened to these people.  Lights Out is one of the best horror movies of the year so far.

4.3 stars

Good news.  My childhood has not been ruined.  It is safe and secure.

And to quote the great 21st century philosopher Taylor Swift, “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”

I do not believe that I have ever come across a movie that created such a whirlwind storm of hatred before it was ever seen than the reboot version of Ghostbusters.

The hatred began when it was announced that Paul Feig would be directing a reboot of the 1984 classic Ghostbusters featuring an all female cast.  This news was received poorly as some misogynists hid their hatred for the idea of all-female cast behind cries of an unnecessary sequel and claims that this would ruin childhood memories.

Then came the trailers.  Whoever put together this marketing plan for Sony needs to be fired immediately.  The trailers were terrible.  Immediately, the haters jumped on these terrible trailers as a way to hide their misogyny.  And those people who did not mind the casting of four females taking over had to chose their words carefully so as not to upset the feminists who believed the haters were all the same.

However, surprise, surprise… the reviews started coming out for the new Ghostbusters and they were actually pretty good.  Many people were saying that the movie was nowhere as bad as it had looked.  Even the negative reviews were saying that it was okay.  It was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at 74%.

But that did not deter the haters.  They simply dug their heels in and continued to claim that this movie was shit, and that anyone who would give the movie a positive review were bowing to pressure of the feminists (kind of like how Marvel was “buying” off the critics to give Batman v. Superman negative reviews).  I read some YouTube comments on the Schmoes Know movie review of the film and there were so many idiotic comments, spewing vitriol and venom at anyone who might like the film.  One woman made a sensible and intelligent comment and she was chastised and berated for it.  And many of these hate-filled comments were from posters who had not yet seen the movie.

Now, let me say this… if you have seen this movie (with an open mind) and you hate it, that is your prerogative.  Everybody has the right to their subjective opinions when it comes to movies.  If you saw the trailers and decided that the movie looked like shit and chose not to see it, that is also okay.  I have not seen certain movies that I do not think I would enjoy.

However, if you have not seen this movie, then you cannot, under any circumstances, say that the movie IS shit.  That is completely unfair.  There have been all kinds of movies that the trailers looked terrible, but the movie was awesome.  Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise springs to mind.  You may think it looks terrible, but without seeing it, you cannot claim it is terrible.  So many of the YouTube posters, who fall back on anonymity, are in this category of people.

Now, with that out of the way, I went to the IMAX 3D version of Ghostbusters today with an open mind and no expectations.

And I really enjoyed this movie.

Let the hate commence.

I found this movie very funny.  The chemistry between the four main actresses (Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Lesley Jones) is off the charts exceptional.  You believe they are friends and you connect with them because of that chemistry.  The first 45-60 minutes of the movie are fantastic.  I was amazed how engaged that I was during that first part of the film.  The CGI is very good, and the ghosts looked fabulous.  The dialogue was very clever and quick-witted, especially with the interactions with McCarthy and Wiig.

Lesley Jones, who looked to be easily the worst from the trailers, was probably my favorite character here.  She was incredibly funny and engaging.  She fit in with the group extremely well, and the character made sense.  Way more sense than Ernie Hudson joining the original team did.  She was an expert in New York City and her knowledge was vitally important to the story.

The story was pretty simplistic, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  If this tried to be too complex, I think the humor would have bogged down and would not have worked as well.

Chris Hemsworth was great here.  He played the bumbling, downright dumb Kevin, the receptionist.  I have heard a couple of different ideas about Hemsworth.  Some people thought he was a stand out with great comedic timing.  Others thought that his act wore thin because he seemed to be cartoon-like stupid that it took them out of the film.  I can see both arguments, but, for me, I laughed ever time Kevin did something stupid, so it obviously did not bother me.

There was also an outcry that every male character in the film was portrayed as stupid and some have indicated that there may be a reverse sexism going on.  Some have said that there would be an outcry if the receptionist was a blonde woman shown to be as stupid as Kevin was shown.  That might have some validity to it, but I would argue that none of the characters of the film were shown in depth enough to make that judgment, except for the four main leads and Kevin.

Another point of contention I have heard is the character of Holtzmann, played by SNL alumni and recent Emmy nominee Kate McKinnon.  Some people thought she stole every scene she was in while others believed that she was acting in a different movie and her cartoon-like performance hampered the film.  Again, to me, I would come in somewhere between these arguments.  I thought she was fine for what she was supposed to be.  Her character was meant to be over-the-top and borderline crazy, and that was what I got.  I did believe that she was capable of creating the Ghostbuster weaponry though, which was her main role in this film.  Because I believed that she was goofy enough to make this work, I did not mind her.

The end credits were a lot of fun, and there was a post credits scene.  This was the best credits I think I had ever seen.  I really enjoyed the way they spliced material into the credits, including a great dance scene from Chris Hemsworth.  This was brazenly original and creative and I hope more films follow this example.

Now, this is not to say that I thought this was a perfect film.  Actually, there were several issues I had with the movie.

The biggest of these issues was the flow of the film was interrupted throughout by cameos and throwbacks to the original Ghostbusters.  A few of these little “Easter Eggs” would be fun, but it seemed like these were coming full steam constantly.  If it was not a cameo by one of the cast of the original (they were all here, except for Rick Moranis), it was a shot that came directly from the first film, or it was a line of dialogue from the script.  A little bit of this would have been clever, but they beat the horse to death with it, over and over again.  I really believe the film felt like it was paying homage to the Ghostbusters legacy, but instead it was only taking away from itself as a film.  Honestly, only a few of these homages even worked where as most of these felt shoehorned/force fed into the story.  They simply drew attention away from what they were trying to do.

The villain of this movie was also REALLY weak.  There was nothing to this character at all.  Rowan North (Neil Casey) was an interesting looking person, and he delivered some effectively creepy lines of dialogue, but there is absolutely zero story behind who he is, where he came from or why he was doing what he was doing.  I don’t need a ton of information on the villain but a little bit allows the viewer to understand and maybe even emphasize with the villain as well.  There was none of that.  Calling Rowan a one-note character is even a stretch.  He was simply a bad guy.

The ending sequence turned into nothing more than a large CGI spotfest.  The action was not compelling or interesting.  There were very few real stakes involved and seemed just to be here for a large scale finale light show.  Each Ghostbuster was able to show off their fighting skills (which apparently they have) and the spotlight was passed around nicely, but there was little to care about here.  Honestly, the thing I cared about most was “would Kevin make it out safely?”.  That shouldn’t have been the first thought in my mind.

I came out of Ghostbusters thinking that this was a really good time at the theater.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie, and I am very glad that it was able to prove the haters wrong.  Of course, there will still be plenty of people who think this is garbage, despite not seeing it, and to those people, I feel sorry.

This is nowhere as good as the original film, but I would go on record as saying I think this is better than Ghostbusters 2.

3.6 stars

The newest film that is based on a true crime story is The Infiltrator, starring Bryan Cranston as an undercover agent trying to do good in the war against drugs.

US Customs agent Robert “Bob” Mazur (Bryan Cranston) is the basis for this film, as he went deep undercover as a money launderer in an attempt to infiltrate Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel in 1985.  Mazur, posing as Bob Musella, is able to befriend Escobar’s top lieutenant Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt), with the help of a questionable undercover cop named Emir Abreau (John Leguizamo) and a rookie agent Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger).

The story itself plays out slowly and not nearly as intensely as the film wants, as there seemed to be some implication that the undercover cop has some morale issues in what he/she is doing.  I found that story to be as interesting as the drug stuff itself and I wouldn’t have minded more of a focus on it.  As it is, that felt like a last minute add on in the third act to excuse some lazy writing.

Bryan Cranston continues to show that he is a superb actor who can take any material that he is handed and can wring the most out of it.  Cranston is clearly the best part of this film, displaying amazing emotions with his facial features and his expressiveness.  What tension you feel in this film is based on Cranston’s wonderful performance.  Seeing him go from celebrating an anniversary with his wife into an improvised diatribe against the waiter for show was astounding and is one more example of how this man really elevated everyone around him as well as the scenes that he is in.

The rest of the film feels like your run of the mill crime story.  Without Cranston, this thing fall completely apart.  You would think the story of one of the biggest drug busts of the 20th century, bringing down multiple criminals and one of the largest banks in the world would provide a stronger story than this does, but there really isn’t much else here.  It can even be a little dull at times, especially when Cranston is not around.

Based on Robert Mazur’s book “The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel”, The Infiltrator has its moments, and it is not a bad movie by any stretch.  It just is not a special movie either.  Without Bryan Cranston, this is completely forgettable.  Fortunately for The Infiltrator, it has Bryan Cranston and that makes this a watchable movie.

3.2 stars

Okay, I didn’t hate this.

I really thought I was going to hate this.  I mean, this type of stupid, bad attitude comedy is not my cup of tea usually, and I am not saying that I liked Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, but it did not feel like a complete waste of my life.

High praise, I know.

Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) are brothers who have had a tough time growing up.  Their bad behavior and overt partying have ruined many family outings.  So in an attempt to be proactive, Mike and Dave’s father (Stephen Root) and mother (Stephanie Faracy) have come up with an idea to make sure that the boys do not ruin their sister Jeanie’s (Sugar Lyn Beard) wedding.  They insist that the boys bring dates instead of going stag and riling each other up.  But here is the catch.  It must be “nice” girls.

Mike and Dave place an ad on Craigslist as a way to find “nice” girls, looking for two girls to take with them to the wedding (which was being held in Hawaii).  Of course, a free trip to Hawaii stirred up the crazies and Mike and Dave saw many coo-coos.

Definitely not “nice” girls, Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) saw the brothers on television and, since they both needed a vacation, concocted a plan to get Mike and Dave to take them.  In order for this to happen, the girls needed to pretend to be respectable.

And, if  you don’t see where this is heading, you haven’t seen this kind of movie before.  The story is as predictable as it comes.  It is completely paint-by-numbers with the most cliched end imaginable.  Go ahead, tell me what you think will happen…I will almost guarantee you that it will happen.

I really did not enjoy Mike either.  He is played as such an overbearing idiot who feels like it is a good idea to shout his lines every second that he became extremely annoying.  Some of the things he does is just so idiotic that it makes it hard to believe that his brother, the somewhat reasonable one, wouldn’t have told him to get the hell out of his life before this.

I thought Zac Efron was pretty good in this role, even though he has played the same type of character many times.  Efron does have some comedic timing and he helps make several of the jokes hit.  He also has a nice relationship (albeit predictable) with Alice, who he helps get over her tragic break up with her ex at the altar of her own wedding.  Efron and Kendrick work well together.

Plaza and Devine both play similar characters, except for the fact that Plaza’s Tatiana does not require screaming every line.

Stephen Root is very funny as the boys’ consistently disappointed and angry father.

The humor is hit and miss.  There are some funny laughs, but they seem to come from times when the cast is allowed to create the humor themselves.  The funniest bit was the blooper real that played over the credits, showing the ad libbing skills of the cast.  Too bad there was not more of this.

While this movie is not good by any stretch, I did not completely hate it.  For this movie that I was really not looking forward to, should be considered a victory.

2.7 stars

I watch several movie reviews online at YouTube, sometimes before I go to the film and sometimes after I go.  The other day I saw the review of The Secret Life of Pets by Chris Stuckmann, and he made a comment about the film.  He said that this film was a beat for beat copy of Toy Story.  He gave several examples, I laughed and went on.

The thing was..once I was actually watching the movie, I couldn’t stop thinking about that comparison.  Chris was spot on.  This movie absolutely takes the story of Toy Story and adds pets.

Now, that does not mean that this film cannot be good.  Let’s face it, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was pretty much a copy of Star Wars: A New Hope, and I loved The Force Awakens.  There are only so many stories that can be told.

Putting the copying aside, The Secret Life of Pets is okay.  It doesn’t suck, but it is not a great animated film.

Max (Louis C.K.) is a dog who has a great relationship with his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper).  However, Max’s world is shaken when Katie brings home another dog from the pound named Duke (Eric Stonestreet).  Max and Duke immediately have conflict over their place in Katie’s life and home.  Then, circumstances happen and Max and Duke wind up on the sewers of New York with a group of discarded bad-ass animals led by a rabbit named Snowball(Kevin Hart).  Max and Duke try to find their way home while learning to like each other.

So, yes, very much like Woody and Buzz.

The Secret Life of Pets is a cute film that I’m sure kids will enjoy a great deal.  It has some funny moments, but nothing that really is memorable.  Louis CK does a nice job as the voice of Max.  Kevin Hart as Snowball was basically Kevin Hart, yelling all the time.  He was okay with it, but a little of Hart went a long way here.  Albert Brooks’ performance as the hawk Tiberius is a standout.  Having the hawk eyeballing  the other animals, trying to avoid the temptation to eat them was the funniest part of the film.

I also enjoyed the dog Gidget (Jenny Slate).  She was out to help save her fiend and possible love Max.  Gidget had an interesting relationship with Tiberius as well.  Chloe (Lake Bell the fat cat is portrayed extremely well, as most of the cats are throughout the film.  Of course, I am a cat person, so I enjoy the animal’s rotten attitude.

The animation here is not bad, by any stretch, but, much like the overall film, it is not memorable either.

There was also an animated short ahead of the movie featuring the Minions, but I did not like it much at all.  There were only a few funny bits from that short and most of the parts are predictable.

Created by Illumination, The Secret Life of Pets is not a terrible time at the theater.  It is okay.  I thought this was good.  Of course, it was better when it was called Toy Story.

3 stars

Every trailer I saw made me think that this was going to be one big stink pile.  However, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked The Legend of Tarzan.  It is far from a perfect movie, but I found myself entertained and engaged throughout the entire film.

One of the best things about this movie was that it did not start with Tarzan in the jungle.  In fact, the first time we see Tarzan, he is in England, running around as John Clayton, the Lord of Greystoke.  He is civilized.  He is speaking English.  There is no “Me Tarzan” anywhere to be found, except for a few jokes sprinkled into the script.  That was very refreshing.  I did not need an origin story of Tarzan.  And this fit the bill quite well.

John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgård) is approached by American Dr. George Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) to lead a group into the Congo, back to where John had been raised by the apes, to look into a plan by the Belgian King Leopold to colonize and exploit the Congo, specifically the use of slave labor in the building of a railroad to mine diamonds.  This is a true historical situation that happened, and I like how the film used it as a backdrop for its story.

Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) was sent into the Congo by King Leopold to secure some diamonds to pay for his plot, but Rom winds up face to face with Chief Mbomba (Djimon Hounsou), who requests one thing in exchange for the diamonds… Rom to bring him Tarzan.

Of course, with John returning to Africa, he was not going to go alone.  His wife, Jane (Margot Robbie) insisted on going back with him, despite any potential danger.  I liked that, despite having her kidnapped in the story, they made Jane a strong character and not the simple damsel in distress.  She was very capable and handled herself well.

Through a series of circumstances, Rom wound up with Jane and John had to go back to his roots to save her and stop his plan.

As I said, I really liked how they had set up the story, using flashbacks to show the most important parts of the story- baby John being taken by the ape, young Tarzan being chased by powerful apes, Tarzan meeting Jane for the first time.  These flashbacks worked to fill in any blanks we might have had without having to go through the whole story again.

Alexander Skarsgård was good as Tarzan, and he certainly looked the part.  How many sit-ups must that guy do to have abs like that?  Ridiculous.  He had a great chemistry with Margot Robbie too, making me believe that relationship.

Christoph Waltz was okay, but I did not really feel his reasons for doing what he was doing.  Because of that, he did come off as one-note during parts of the film.  I would have liked to have more reason for him besides it is what is good for Belgium.

I really enjoyed Samuel L. Jackson in this movie.  I found his character to be very interesting, very funny and to have the most motivation of any of the ancillary characters in The Legend of Tarzan.

I thought the CGI was adequate for the movie.  There was nothing that really pulled me out of the shot, though there was not the Jungle Book type of CGI either.  Everything here was fine, just not spectacular.

There were sections of the story that fell apart as the film progressed, and this could have probably used another few scenes shaved off, but these scenes did not bother me as much as I thought they might.

I was surprised at how much I did enjoy The Legend of Tarzan, as I was not looking forward to it and the film has received a series of negative reviews (as of right now, 34% on Rotten Tomatoes).  However, I got an early eighties action movie vibe from this, and I enjoyed the way the story was presented to the audience.  There were also strong performances from Skarsgård, Robbie and Jackson.

Tarzan falls into that category of heroes, like Zorro, Lone Ranger, Conan, or John Carter, that could be considered iconic, but whose time may have passed, making a retelling more challenging.  I think director David Yates and everyone involved in this did a good job bringing us a vision of Tarzan that audiences in 2016 could enjoy.  It certainly surprised me.

3.3 stars

Roald Dahl is a wonderful writer.  He has created such amazing pieces of work as James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda, as well as one of my favorite dark poems of all-time, “The Pig.”  Meanwhile, EYG Hall of Famer Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors around helming such classics as Jaws, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Schlinder’s List, Saving Private Ryan and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Putting these two icons together should create magic.

2016, we get The BFG.  An adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel by Steven Spielberg.  Unfortunately, it does not reach the level of expectation that these two names create.  However, there is a certain charm to this movie.

Young orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) couldn’t sleep and was up wandering around the orphanage one night when she accidentally catches a glance at a giant.  The giant, who would come to be called BFG (Mark Rylance), could not leave the girl to blab about what she had seen, so he took her from the orphanage back to Giant Land.  Sophie thought he was going to eat her, but BFG laughed it off.  See, he was a kind giant.  BFG stood for Big Friendly Giant, a name given to him by another human who he had befriended.

Sophie and BFG bonded together until other, larger giants, who called BFG “Runt”, came around sniffing for the girl.  These giants did eat “beans” (as they called them- instead of “beings”) and they wanted to make Sophie the next meal.

Together, Sophie and BFG had to come up with a plan to stop the evil giants.

Now, this is a fine little movie, but it is anything but a magical story.  In fact, if I am being honest, I was really bored for the first hour or so of this movie.  Yes, the two characters (BFG and Sophie) had a nice relationship, but there was just nothing much that happened.  As I was preparing to hit this film with a negative review, something happened.  The film took a major switch and I was suddenly engaged.

SPOILERS

When Sophie devised the plan for her and BFG to go see the Queen of England (Penelope Wilton) and ask for help with the evil giants, this film really took off.  That entire section was so perfectly devised and executed that everything before that had bored me was gone from my mind and I was entertained.  It was such an unexpected turn and a strange, unlikely way of dealing with the problem that I just loved it.  The sections with the Queen were very funny and it really saved the movie for me.

END OF SPOILERS

Mark Rylance donned the motion capture suit for this role and he does a wonderful job as BFG.  He emotes so much with his eyes and his face that he really raised the bar in the art form of motion capture.  Plus, Ruby Barnhill feels like she stepped right out of a Roald Dahl book.  Her performance is an important one here and she definitely carries her own weight here.

Now excluding the motion capture, I will say that much of the CGI looked like CGI and it pulled me out of the movie, especially in the early part of the film.  I would have expected better visual effects from a Spielberg movie.

While part of this movie was dull, the second half really brought the game.  The BFG was a charming family film that everyone in the family can enjoy.  There are some good messages here, and the ending is A+.  Unfortunately, the entire film does not live up to what this film should have been.  It is good.  It just is not great.

3 stars

“The farting corpse movie” is what Swiss Army Man has become known because of its use of flatulence to add humor to the movie.  However, that is simply an unfair classification because this movie is way more than that.

Hank (Paul Dano) has been stranded on an island and ready to end his life from the loneliness and the despair when he spotted a body on the beach.  Before you know it, the dead body is passing gas, and Hank is riding the dead body like a jet ski.

No, really.

The thing is… that is not the weirdest thing that happened in this movie.  When the dead body starts talking to Hank, this film really takes off.  We find out that the dead body’s name is Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) and he does not remember anything.  But Hank starts using Manny in all kinds of ways that is unexpected in an effort to get home.

And I laughed throughout the entire movie.

Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe are brilliant.  Radcliffe especially, since he was playing a dead body.  The physical demands of the performance was off the charts and Radcliffe was just astounding.

The dialogue was riveting and brilliant.  The relationship between Hank and Manny developed more than most movie relationships.  Manny is so innocent and Hank tries to explain everything to him and the results are amazing.  You care more about this dead body than you do about anyone from The Purge: Election Day.

Yes, there is farting in this movie, but it takes the bodily function and makes it an irreplaceable aspect of the story.  It is not just fart jokes.  The use of the farts helped move the story along and even became an important character development.  I never thought I would say that but the farting was integral to the plot.

If anyone wanted to complain that this was the same as “Weekend at Bernie’s” then they simply did not watch it.  Swiss Army Man is both unbelievably funny and remarkably poignant.  This movie is about life and the way we live it.  It is perhaps the most creative and original concept I have ever seen.  I was never sure exactly what was happening and I really wanted to understand.  The film does such a fantastic job of creating doubt about Manny.  Is this magic?  Is this all a delusion?  Is he not really dead?  I thought all these at some point.  Swiss Army Man is a transcendent experience.

I was just a little uncertain about the ending of the film, not sure if that is how I wanted it to end, but that was a minor point.  I have to say that I did love how the film used the character of Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), which I won’t spoil, but it went against all of the preconceived notions, and most films would not have gone that direction.  It was just one more example of how this film broke the mold.

Swiss Army Man is funny and wonderful.  One of the best movies of the year.

4.8 stars