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

Elizabeth Mitchell was awesome in LOST as Juliet. Her relationship with Sawyer was one of the highlights of the last few years of the series.  I will always love her as an actress, even when she is in terrible movies like The Purge: Election Year.

To be fair, Elizabeth Mitchell is easily the best part of this film.  She and Frank Grillo (the dearly departed Crossbones from Captain America: Civil War) really hold together this film, but there are so many other issues here that even two extremely likable figures such as these two can save it.

The Purge: Election Year is the third movie in the Purge series, focusing upon the upcoming race for President of the United States (which, by the way, happens in May, according to the movie.  The sequence at the end with the election coverage really was weird.)  Elizabeth Mitchell’s character Senator Charlie Roan was a survivor of a horrible Purge incident when she was a child which framed her into the person she was now… a crusader against the Purge.  She is running on the platform of repealing the Purge.

This, of course, puts the Purge supporters into a tizzy, and they plan on sending some Neo-Nazi bad guys to grab the Senator and kill her on Purge night.  Frank Grillo reprises his role of Leo Barnes (at least I think he reprises the role, as he was only ever called “Sergeant” in The Purge: Anarchy), who is the head of Senator Roen’s security detail.

We also meet Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson), a local deli owner, whose shop lost its Purge insurance the day before the Purge commences and he decided that he had to protect his property.  There were several other characters in Joe’s orbit, but none of them are worth the time to talk about.  Joe was okay, but he felt like a catch-all character.  When they needed a funny line about white people, he spit it out.  When he needed to be a former gang member (which isn’t stereotypical at all…sarcasm), he was breaking out the gang whistle.

That is, of course, except for the worst of the worst:  Candy Bar Girl.  This girl who tried to steal a candy bar from the store, was downright hilarious.  I know that wasn’t what they were going for here, but everything about this woman was laughable.  It was an insult to amateur actors to call this acting amateurish.  Watching her eyes bulged out, covered in blood, Candy Bar Girl showed everything that was wrong with this movie in just a few scenes.

The dialogue of the film was horrendous.  Outside of Senator Roen and Leo (and maybe Joe), there is not one developed character.  I was pretty surprised that the members of the NFFA (the organization that was in power and brought the Purge to America) didn’t twirl their villain mustaches like the villains of old.  These villains were nothing more than people to be evil and to say “Purge and Purify.”  There was not one shred of character development from any villain, including Senator Roen’s presidential opponent, Minister Edwidge Owens (Kyle Secor).

There really wasn’t any horror here.  As I said, I found myself laughing quite a bit.  There was no tension.  Even when Leo had to pull a bullet from his own shoulder, there was little tension (and the bullet from the shoulder was done 100 times better by Sawyer on LOST- pre-Juliet days.  Bringing the review back to LOST.)  This would be a perfect film for the RiffTrax gang to riff.

None of the action stood out in my mind.  Sitting here, I cannot think of one exciting scene of action that took place in The Purge: Election Year.  The only things that I remember are the over-the-top cartoon aspects of the movie.  And that might be okay if the film doesn’t try to take itself so seriously.  However, this is not a spoof or a parody.  It is intended as an action film with horror aspects.  And it failed in that.

Hopefully, we can all purge from this series of films from now on.

1.8 stars 

WTF????????

I mean….

WTF????????

The Neon Demon is one weird ass movie.  There is just no denying that.

16-year old Jesse (Elle Fanning) is in Los Angeles, looking to begin her career as a model.  And Jesse has that something special that everyone is after.  They describe it in the film as beauty, non-tampered with and real.  She becomes the belle of the ball immediately, drawing the ire and the jealousy of the other models with their plastic surgery induced faces.

Then, the film takes a rapid nose-dive into territory that might befit a horror movie, including some huge eyebrow raising moments.

Yes, there was a cougar (literal cougar, not an older woman on the prowl for younger men) that broke into Jesse’s room at the rundown hotel where she lived.  Thankfully, she was able to get her landlord, Keanu Reeves, to take care of the animal.

Yes, Keanu Reeves is in this movie as a lowlife landlord.  He is not on screen for long, but we really grow to have a severe dislike for the man.  The film was not trying to be subtle with the characterization of Reeves’ character, that was for sure.

Actually, there was very little in characterization.  The models were all stereotypical, shallow and superficial.  The agents and photographers were all one-note.

The only character who had anything of interest besides Jesse was make up artist Ruby (Jena Malone), but she descends into a spiteful and horrid creature for little reason, completely spoiling the seemingly caring woman that she had displayed.  She dove directly into the weirdness with one of the more disturbing scenes of her and a dead body.  Yes… that is what I mean.

Now, the film may have been narratively challenged, but the visuals were astounding.  Every shot was beautifully compiled and photographed, the colors and shades a perfect balance.  Director Nicholas Winding Refn created a feast for the senses in The Neon Demon. Even though there were some scenes that I had no idea what was happening, it always looked amazing.

Even with the lack of characterization and the questionable story (we never did really find out why a 16-year old was alone in LA), I was enjoying the visual storytelling going on and would have probably recommended this…until… the end.

To say that the last 20 minutes of this film altered everything would not be too strong of a statement.  I assume that Refn was using the events of the ending of this film as an analogy for how the modeling perfection eats up the young and innocent, requiring the girls to become something not quite human to  survive.  However, he took this analogy into too much literal ground for me, robbing the film of any subtly it may have had.

The image at the end of this film with the model and the eyeball that was laughable, if it weren’t so grotesquely shocking.

Elle Fanning is a beautiful young actress that has a great career ahead of her despite this weird movie.  The film has amazing visuals throughout (especially Fanning), but the lack of characterization, story and too many WTF moments really dragged down anything that The Neon Demon was trying to accomplish.

2.5 stars

Matthew McConaughey has been having a great stretch of films and performances.  All good things have to come to an end.

I was bored with most of Free State of Jones.  In fact, I may have nodded off at least once during the exceptionally long run time of 2 hours and 19 minutes.

Matthew McConaughey played Newt Knight, a Confederate soldier/nurse who decided that the philosophical ideals of the Civil War was not for him and he deserted.  Taking up residence in a swamp in the county of Jones in the state of Mississippi, Newt starts aiding other deserters and runaway slaves, forming a tight-knit community.

Based on a true story, Free State of Jones never really reaches the level that it seemingly was trying to reach.  It saw itself as a Revenant, but came up very short.

Matthew McConaughey was pretty solid in this role, though many times he felt like he was just playing Matthew McConaughey.  I kept waiting for an “alright alright alright” to break out.

There really wasn’t that much that happened in this movie.  Characters would talk for a while and then someone would have their farm burned down.  Then some more talking.  If the film had dynamic dialogue like a Hateful 8, all the talking might not have been bad, but the dialogue was anything but compelling.

There were also way too many irons in the fire.  We are about a half hour into the movie and then suddenly, we time jump ahead into the 1950s for a trial of one of Newt’s descendants.  Those future scenes really threw me for a loop at first, and, although I kind of dug the story those scenes were telling, it did not correspond with the story being told in the 1860s section of the film.  I think there might have been a story that could have been told about this true story Mississippi trial, but it needed more focus to include it.  As it is, this is a section that could have easily have been edited out to trim some of the time off the film.

There was an interesting dynamic between Newt and Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Newt’s first wife Serena (Keri Russell), but this plot line was not expanded upon.  This was another story element that could have carried a much bigger chunk of the film, and is an example of the film trying to tell too much story.

I did kind of enjoy the history lesson feel that parts of the film went for, but I could not shake the idea that I would have enjoyed this movie more as a documentary.

Moses (Mahershala Ali) was one of the stronger characters in this film, and his fate was one of the most emotional beats of a film that struggled to connect emotionally with its audience.

Free State of Jones could have done with a sharper focus on what story they wanted to tell instead of trying to tell everything.  It is overlong and leaned toward dull (as my power naps may attest) but it has an intriguing story with a good performance from several of the cast.  This could have been so much better.

2.65 stars

Director Roland Emmerich recently made some negative comments directed at super hero movies, specifically to Marvel, calling them silly.  After seeing Independence Day: Resurgence, Emmerich’s comments makes him look like the ultimate glass house owner throwing stones everywhere.

This film wishes it could be a Marvel movie.

A sequel to the big time, albeit corny, 1996 Independence Day, Resurgent focuses on a futuristic world where the citizens of planet earth have taken the alien technology and advanced their society with the expectation that the alien attackers would, one day, come back.   Fortunately, the aliens choose the 20th anniversary celebration to launch their return to earth, sending out earthlings into a tizzy.

Will Smith did not return for this sequel and you can feel his absence.  His character, Steven Hiller, is said to have been killed in a training exercise with the alien tech, and now his son, Dylan (Jesse T. Usher) stepped up to replace him.  At least, that is what the movie wanted, but this character is one of the weakest characters you will find, unlike Steven Hiller.

We also had new character Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth), the typical rascally sci-fi hero.  Liam Hemsworth is at best average here, playing a character as cliched as you get.

This is a big problem with this sequel.  There are a ton of science fiction cliches here.  You hardly go five minutes without another cliche rearing its ugly head.  There is nothing new or original here, and the movie suffers for it.  In fact, if you look closely, the beats of this movie very nearly match the original.  There really is not much difference.  The biggest difference is that the original had characters that you could connect with.  This one, not so much.

There were returning characters in this sequel.  Bill Pullman returned to the film as former President Whitmore, now damaged mentally from his experiences of the first film.  I thought there was some interesting aspects to be told from this story, but in the end, he basically became the replacement for the Randy Quaid character for the sequel.  Also back was the “not-dead” character of Dr. Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner), who came out of his coma for this story.  Spiner was so over the top and ridiculous that I hated every moment he was on screen.

The only returning character that I felt was done somewhat okay was Jeff Goldblum’s David Levinson and that was because of Goldblum’s presence.  David’s father Julius (the never aging Judd Hirsch) is here as well, somehow surviving an event that should have easily killed him only to wind up driving a bus full of random children to Area 51.

Not only were the characters weak, the dialogue was unbelievably campy and poorly written.  Sure, the original film had campy dialogue as well, but this one sure seemed to take that camp to a whole new level.

Some of the CGI was not bad, but I definitely got a Star Wars: Episode I vibe from the film.  You know, a load of crap on the screen at once, nothing that stands out as amazing.  There were lots of ships shooting lasers through the sky, but none of it meant anything.   And then, the ending sequence  with the SPOILERS Queen looked as sloppy as you will get in CGI.

The film is really stupid and has little fun, unlike its predecessor, which took the campy, dumb action flick and gave you characters that you could care about.  Go and watch the original if you want. It is considerably better.

1.9 stars

A killer shark has returned to the big screen with the new film The Shallows, swimming into theaters this weekend.  There have been a ton of big screen killer shark films, done to perfection with Steven Spielberg’s 1975 Jaws.  The Shallows is not Jaws, but there are plenty of good thrills and tension to make this film worth a view.

After the death of her mother, Nancy (Blake Lively) went on a personal trek to find a special hidden Mexican beach that her mother had found while pregnant with Nancy.  Nancy wants to escape the pain of her life and do some surfing.  However, she is attacked by a shark and becomes stranded on a rock just off the coast of the beach.  She attempts to survive against this vicious beast.

The film is beautifully shot.  The water around these islands is astonishingly beautiful, full of amazing colors and shades of blue.  No matter what else, this film is wonderful to watch.

Blake Lively is also as beautiful as the surroundings.  Blake Lively is a gorgeous woman, and she fills the screen with her beauty.  She is also very strong in this film.  She has a compelling background that we get a flavor of and she portrays her pain and her fear.  She is also very believable as a determined fighter not willing to give up despite the overwhelming odds.

The shark was very scary.  The CGI of the shark really stood out to me as this creature looked awesome.

I enjoyed much of this film, but there were some problems.  In particular, the ending (which I will not spoil) just seemed pretty dopey.  In fact, it was almost unintentionally funny, which kind of spoiled a lot of the stress and suspense that had built up throughout the film.

Of course, there is required suspension of disbelief to make this believable and, at times, it might need to be stretched too far.

And there was a beginning surfing montage that was ok for a bit, but got long pretty quickly.

In the end, I was entertained by The Shallows and I found it suspenseful where they wanted the suspense to be.  The ending was too laughable and made the previous parts less effective.  If you approach this film with the proper mental preparation, you should enjoy our new deadly shark.

3.75 stars

The next Pixar movie goes back to a familiar character from one of the movie studio’s most popular films.

Some recent animated movies have not been as good after taking secondary characters and trying to spread them out as the leads of their own films (I’m looking at you, Minions), and I was worried that Dory would fall into the same category.

However, Dory fit beautifully as the lead character in Pixar’s new film, Finding Dory.

Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the charming blue tang fish from Finding Nemo, steps front and center as she travels the oceans in search of the family that she has forgotten.  Aided by Marlon (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence), Dory tries to piece together random flashes of memory of her mom (Diane Keaton) and dad (Eugene Levy) to find clues of where they were.

Along the way, Dory meets a crew of new and creative characters including Hank the Octopus (Ed O’Neill), Destiny the Whale Shark (Kaitlin Olson), Bailey the Beluga Whale(Ty Burrell), and Fluke the sea lion(Idris Elba).

The story does a great job of advancing without being too cutesy or sweet.  It also does a really great job of  using the technique of Dory’s short term memory problems without it feeling like it was overused.  The writing was very strong with this character.

And because the writing of Dory was so strong, you can’t help but become invested in her attempts to find her family, despite so many overwhelming odds.  We see Dory as more than just a comical sidekick as she was used in Finding Nemo, but a challenged hero who refuses to be defeated by her shortcoming.  Dory is a true role model to any person whose disability causes a loss of balance in their lives.

Another example of the exceptional writing is how many times they took something that Dory did in Finding Nemo and gave it a reason.  Writer  and co-director Andrew Stanton, who wrote Finding Nemo, did a beautiful job of weaving everything together into a well fitting narrative without anything feeling forced.

The film also has Pixar’s normal humor and emotional depth.  There were a few times that I had some wetness in the corners of my eyes.  Now, I would not compare the emotional impact of Finding Dory to other brilliant Pixar films such as Inside Out or the Toy Story series, but it does have its moments.  I would say especially with the times that Dory was alone and questioning her ability to accomplish what she wanted, Finding Dory truly comes through.

The animation is, once again, an amazing Pixar specialty.  The colors of the fish and the ocean and the Oceanic Institute is wonderful.

Ellen Degeneres is magnificent as the voice of Dory.  She brings a heartfelt and humanity to this fish that makes you want to root for her.  You feel for her with her memory problems and you admire her for her courage.

Pixar proved that a secondary character could carry a sequel film and they have made yet another wonderful film that both children and parents will enjoy.

4.1 stars

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart team up for the latest buddy cop film in this weekend’s Central Intelligence,a  film that has many similarities to other films of this ilk.  However, there are two big things that take this from typical fare to an entertaining movie: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart.

Johnson and Hart are fantastic together, sharing an effortless charisma and chemistry, making what is truly an average film around them something better than it ever hoped to be.

Bob (Dwayne Johnson) was a loser in high school, a fat kid who was bullied and laughed at by most of the student body.  Calvin (Kevin Hart) was the big man on campus, the homecoming king, the sport stud, the dramatic actor, dating the most beautiful girl in school… he had everything.

One day near the end of their senior year, a group of bullies grabbed Bob from out of the school shower and tossed him, butt naked, onto the gym floor in front of an assembly of the entire school.  Everyone laughed, except Calvin, who gives Bob his letter jacket to cover up with.

Fast forward twenty years and Calvin, who had been named the student most likely to succeed, found himself in a job that he did not like, being surpassed by people he trained, and feeling like his life was a disappointment, despite being married to his high school sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet).  On the eve of the 20th class reunion, Bob approaches Calvin for some help.  However, Bob was fat no more, displaying a surprisingly muscle bound look.  Even more surprising for Calvin was that he found himself smack dab in the middle of a CIA mission as Bob reveals to him that he is an agent of the CIA.

Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are the reason to see this movie.  They are really great together.  They are funny, and surprisingly complex, considering the rest of the movie.  Bob has never really gotten over that defining moment at the assembly and he wears the scars fully.  It is shown that, despite his remarkable transformation, Bob has yet to overcome the psychological aspects of the moment, remaining an innocent, childlike man, mountain though he may be.  Meanwhile, Hart is considerably more subdued in this film than he is in other film vehicles (ex. Ride Along etc).  Yes, he still does too much screaming, but it is not as much.  It is as if he can tell that the smoothness between him and The Rock was special.

I did have some problems with Central Intelligence.  As a teacher, I found that initial scene at the assembly to be so far fetched that it almost pulled me out of the film.  Something like what happened would never be allowed to be treated as a joke and the students involved in this terrible incident would be treated severely, which is not the impression this film gives.

I do like the fact that the film does take an anti-bullying message, and I can certainly understand how an event like this could make Bob the way that he was.  It was just that the whole situation stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit far.

Which is done many times throughout the movie.  The action scenes are extremely out there.  Many of them are good and, especially, funny, but that does not change the fact that they are stretches.

The film is very predictable.   Now, in order to effectively talk about this, I am going to have to go into spoiler talk, so…

SPOILER

In a flashback, we are introduced to Bob’s partner who Bob said was murdered by a shadowy figure known as The Black Badger.  As soon as I saw that Bob’s partner was being played by Aaron Paul, I knew what the story was leading to.  You don’t get a star the caliber of Aaron Paul to kill him in a one-off flashback.  So I knew he would turn out to be alive and the villain in the end.

Now, having said that, the film does an adequate job of making you wonder if that really was the case.  The film plays it as if Bob was actually the villain behind this entire plot, and that he had killed his own partner.  It did this “twist” so well that I was even questioning whether or not The Rock was our film’s hero.

END OF SPOILER

Bob did get kind of annoying at times, but I enjoyed the choices made for the character.  He was a remarkably sad man, who claimed that Calvin was his best friend, despite not seeing him for 20 years.  Calvin was the only person who ever treated Bob with respect and Bob found a connection.

Yes, this movie is predictable, and you have seen everything here before.  The script was nothing special and the action was okay.  The reason this film succeeds at all is because of its two main stars.  Every time they are together on screen, it pops (including some very funny outtakes just prior to the credits).  If this was any other two people, Central Intelligence would not work at all, but it is not two other people.  It is Ke3vin Hart and Dwayne Johnson.  And they are great.

3 stars