Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

The Zone of Interest (2023)

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The next film in the June Swoon 3: A Cinematic Flashback is the second consecutive Oscar winning international film. The Zone of Interest is a look at a slice of life among a career driven man, his wife and happy family as they deal with the daily events of their lives.

Oh, did I mention that he was a Nazi commandant?

Oh, not just any Nazi commandant, but Rudolf Höss of Auschwitz?

I knew the film was a Holocaust setting, but I was unaware what I was about to watch. Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), along with his wife Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller), were our main protagonists. I did not figure out who they were until a bit into the film and to say that I was shocked when I figured it out would be an understatement.

There were a couple of times where I had to stop and say to myself that I was not feeling sorry for Rudolf Höss. The film did a great job of showing the entire person that this evil man was and displaying that even evil men and women have sides to their personality that you may not expect.

I do not think the film humanized Rudolf Höss as much as it showed how real life has plenty of shadows and moments where even the worst of us have quiet times.

Sandra Hüller appeared in her second consecutive film in this year’s June Swoon with her role as Hedwig. This was a wicked woman too as the film showed her being soft and loving, as well as moments when she would switch immediately to cruelty and a savageness that was unexpected. There was a scene where she told her Jewish servant that she could have her husband scatter her ashes across the land. I literally gasped at that comment.

As an A24 film. The Zone of Interest did not really have a laid out plot. It was more of an exploration of daily life just outside of the worst concentration camp in the Holocaust. It did not feel as if anything was building to a climax. It was just a series of scenes that were very powerful in their own.

One of the most effective techniques used was the management of sound. The film would have scenes with the happy family or of the beautiful home they enjoyed, but in the background, you could hear the sounds of gunfire, or dogs barking, or the suffering of Jewish prisoners. The sound cues of the film made this a truly haunting effect, without ever having the visual imagery on the screen. This juxtaposition is clearly why the film was able to win the Best Sound Oscar at the Academy Awards.

I have to say that the beginning was an odd experience for me. The film began with an extended black screen, though I could hear sound going on. I honestly thought that there was something wrong with MAX. I almost stopped it so I could see why it was not showing a picture. I was able to determine that this was intended.

This was the Academy Award winner for Best International Feature Film (although it was not up against Anatomy of a Fall) and received a nomination for Best Motion Picture as well as Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jonathan Glazer. This is one of those films that could stay with you for awhile and the image of the ending with present day Auschwitz was extremely poignant.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

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The third annual June Swoon got underway this morning with an Oscar winning foreign film that I had missed from 2023. Anatomy of a Fall received a lot of Academy buzz earlier this year as it was nominated in several major categories, oddly enough except for Best International Film.

Anatomy of a Fall tells the story of a couple and their 11-year old son. The couple had been having troubles since an unfortunate accident that led to their son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner),when he was four years old, losing much of his vision. Moving back to his hometown, Samuel (Samuel Theis) struggled to write, battled his guilt over Daniel’s accident and resented his wife, Sandra (Sandra Hüller).

So a day after an especially violent fight, Samuel was found outside of their home, dead from a fall out of the third story window. Isolated as they were, Sandra became the prime suspect in the death of Samuel and she is placed on trial for the murder.

This may be a spoiler, but I do love how the case is resolved (or not so much), storyline wise. I find that an intelligent manner of storytelling and allows you the viewer to add to the tale being told.

There were some excellent performances. Sandra Hüller received an Oscar nomination as Leading Actress in a Feature, and it was well deserved. Hüller brought plenty of emotions to the role, from an icy response to passionate rage. Milo Machado-Graner was just as excellent as the visually-impaired Daniel. Daniel had to go through a lot of pain and anguish during the film, and had to perform as a visually-impaired child too. He may have been the I See Child Actors Award winner at the EYG Year in Review section had I seen this film last year instead of during the June Swoon. His work was exceptional and every bit as compelling as any of the adults in the film.

The film may be slow for some, but I was engrossed from the first moments of the film, wondering the whole time what the truth of the story would be. The court scenes were fascinating too, as this was the first time I had ever seen a court case portrayed from a French court. The differences were striking from the US courts that I am more familiar with.

Anatomy of a Fall is beautifully constructed as a mystery, as a courtroom drama and as a personal story of a family filled with pain just trying to get by. Great performances fill the two hours and thirty minutes of the film and I can certainly understand why it had received as many Oscar nominations as it did.

Jim Henson Idea Man

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Director Ron Howard brought the new documentary of EYG Hall of Famer Jim Henson to Disney + today, and it was lovely, showing the magic that this amazing man brought to the world through his creations.

The Muppets have been one of my favorite IPs for decades. I remember coming home from elementary school to watch the Muppet Show. It was a seminal show for my childhood, and Jim Henson was the driving force behind it.

The loving manner in which Ron Howard moved us through the early years of Jim Henson right up to his death was beautifully conceived and joyous to watch.

With interviews from the Henson kids, Frank Oz, Rita Moreno, Jennifer Connolly, and other Muppet performers combined with older and newer clips of Jim Henson himself, the documentary does an excellent job of giving the story of genius.

The section of the documentary that spoke about the death of Jim was especially affecting, and the clips from the funeral from the group of speakers was very emotional and seeing Big Bird sing “It’s Not Easy Being Green” was an amazing tribute. I was unaware that Henson passed away at age 53, which is simply too young. The mind boggles at what this creative genius could have accomplished if he had spent more time on the earth.

The doc went into his time on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and his feature films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Some of his early short films were fascinating to see and illustrated what a creative force Jim Henson could be. It was a wonderful love letter to the legacy of this man who was responsible for so much entertainment during his life.

The doc pushes all of the nostalgia buttons while still providing an engaging look at his life and career and how much he affected the world. This is an excellent documentary on an amazing individual.

4.6 stars

The Garfield Movie

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I have not been looking forward to this movie because the trailers for The Garfield Movie have been truly awful. Still, I went in with the hope that this would be better than I thought it would be.

Sadly, it is not.

I did not like The Garfield Movie at all. There are so many things that I just did not work for a Garfield movie. This was an action movie with a character that had always before spent all his time on the couch eating lasagna. The entire storyline with Garfield’s estranged father, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), just did not work. It was something that did not work for the character and stood out as a huge problem with the script. Seeing Garfield jumping from drone to drone just should not happen.

The animation was good. I think some kids would like this movie, however, my theater was mostly filled with youngsters, and there was very little responses during the film. Very few laughs. There was no energy in the room. I did not think that was a good sign for the film.

I know there was some controversy with Chris Pratt as the voice of Garfield, but he was fine. I do not think that the voice performance of Chris Pratt was the problem of this movie.

This film did not resemble the classic Jim Davis Garfield character at all. He became an action hero and the relationship story with Vic was both ridiculous and predictable. There was not enough humor and the story was weak. Some youth may find this entertaining.

2.5 stars

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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I was one of the people who thought Mad Max Fury Road was just okay. I did not love it like most of the people who saw it. I feel much the same way about the prequel film, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth.

It was fine. I did not love it. It was passable for me.

According to IMDB, “As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.”

There are a lot of good things in Furiosa. To start with, the film looks tremendous. The effects, many of which were practical, were epic. The stunts are wonderful and work very well with the story.

Anya Taylor-Joy does a great job taking the role of Furiosa in this prequel. However I do think the standout performance of the film was from Chris Hemsworth, who just eats every scene away every moment he is on screen as Dementus. He is not just playing Chris Hemsworth nor is he just Thor. He is a fabulous villain in Furiosa.

My biggest problem is the story, which is the same basic problem I had with Mad Max. There is not much to the story, though I did like the background of Furiosa’s life. There is a lot of action, but I would appreciate more story beats to chew on.

So I liked Furiosa. I appreciated the work done by director George Miller and the cast, especially the main two, were top notch. You should see this in the theater. If you loved Mad Max Fury Road, you will love Furiosa too.

3.4 stars

Twister

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I wanted to do a rewatch of the 1996 film Twister starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton since there is the movie Twisters, which I do not know if it is a sequel, reboot or continuation, coming out this summer. I rented it on Amazon Prime tonight and gave it a rewatch.

I was not a fan of Twister the first time I watched it back in the 90s. I did not see it in a theater so it must have been a rental. I remember thinking it was pretty dumb.

I do not think my opinion of the film changed much after watching it in 2024.

According to IMDB, “TV weatherman Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) is trying to get his tornado-hunter wife, Jo (Helen Hunt), to sign divorce papers so he can marry his girlfriend Melissa (Jami Gertz). But Mother Nature, in the form of a series of intense storms sweeping across Oklahoma, has other plans. Soon the three have joined the team of stormchasers as they attempt to insert a revolutionary measuring device into the very heart of several extremely violent tornados.“

One of my biggest problems was the lack of any real characters. There was near zero development among any of the characters. A slight attempt was made to give Jo a background with a childhood trauma, but it was barely touched upon in the movie and the few times that it felt like it was handled, it was tossed in with little to no explanation.

The rest of the cast was just people to read the doppler and yell “Yahoo” as the tornados whipped.

Admittedly, the special effects looked pretty good for the mid-90s, although the flying cow was unintentionally funny. However, watching Bill and Jo running through the fields towards a barn with all kinds of things flying past them made me wonder why the tornado was unable to pick them up as it was pulling fences out of the ground.

The story is basically going between different tornados and trying to release this new device and failing. There is not much, if any, real human conflict. They gave them a rival tornado chaser, played by Westley himself, Cary Elwes, but that character was as one-dimensional as you could get.

I did not recognize the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his role as Dusty, the oddball who yells a lot. Alan Ruck from Ferris Buhler’s Day Off and Jeremy Davies, who would play Faraday on LOST, were here too in unimportant background character roles.

I do like Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as leads, and their chemistry did make up for the lack of plotline between the couple. I did feel bad for the fiancé Melissa because you could tell that she never stood a chance. I did like how they wrapped up her story though, with her just realizing the truth and breaking it off like an adult.

Some of the tornado sequences became kind of boring after awhile since there was little else to keep me engaged. The final tornado was better than some of the others, but it was also a big chunk of the time I was rolling my eyes at this movie.

It is a watchable movie, but you have to shut down your brain and just watch the spectacle around it to enjoy it.

The Strangers Chapter 1

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This film was promoted, seemingly, as a prequel to the original The Strangers, which was a surprise classic. However, it does not feel like a prequel when you watch it. Worse yet, this feels like a terrible movie.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 takes all the worst parts of the horror/thriller movie genre and highlights them through a ninety minute film that felt considerably longer.

The worst parts of horror? Jump scares. There are plenty. Characters being stupid? Check. I do not know how many times one of the Strangers appeared directly behind the character, particularly Maya (Madelaine Petsch), and was not seen, and was gone when she turned back. That is a scene that is overused in horror films and had to have happened in this movie ten times at least.

There were several times that I had to laugh out loud at what was happening in the movie, and it was not a scene that was intended to be a laugh moment.

I honestly would say that there was not one moment in the film that was an original idea. I think every last bit was from films that were much better. Now I understand that there have been a lot of horror films and it might be getting difficult to find things that have not been done before. So I would guess that you should just write something clever or create some suspense instead of just relying on the tropes.

The following may be considered a spoiler….

By the way, the ending of the film was quite a cop out. TO BE CONTINUED? I mean, really? My guess is, after watching this thing, we won’t have to worry about a Chapter 2.

End of Spoiler

So far this year, there are four films that are in contention for the worst film of the year and I am not sure which one will take that ‘crown.’ The Strangers: Chapter 1 is not at that level, but it is not too far off either.

1.25 stars

If

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Ryan Reynolds is back in a new film named If. If stands for Imaginary Friends, which has had a long history in the films. There are quite a variety here as these Ifs are trying to find purpose after their kids forget them.

There were several references to Ifs fading away, particularly from Blue (Steve Carell), which I believe is an allusion to Bing Bong from the Inside Out film.

According to IMDB, “A young girl who goes through a difficult experience begins to see everyone’s imaginary friends who have been left behind as their real-life friends have grown up.“

The young girl, Bea, is played by Cailey Fleming and she does a good job opposite Ryan Reynolds, who played Calvin, and John Krasinski, who played her father. Fleming is charming and has a nice chemistry with the other actors. There is a lot placed on her shoulders and if she is unable to carry the load, this movie would absolutely fail. She is very good in this role and very believable.

The designs of the Ifs are fine, albeit fairly average. Nothing really stands out on the design but none of them are bad either.

The voice cast of the Ifs are tremendous. besides Steve Carell, there is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Awkwafina (who is in every animated program now apparently), George Clooney, Emily Blunt, Jon Stewart, Matt Damon, Bill Hader, Richard Jenkins, Keegan Michael-Key, Christopher Meloni, Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph, Amy Schumer, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Blake Lively, Matthew Rhys, and Sebastian Maniscalco.

The film does run a little long, and the final twist was pretty obvious, but the story itself was charming and showed the strength of the film. Ryan Reynolds is always likable and funny, and this is another example.

I did not feel that this was exclusively a children’s flick. In fact, I believe there are some big time concepts that will appeal to the adults in the crowd as well.

3.75 stars

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

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The franchise of The Planet of the Apes released its fourth film in the new series of films and its tenth film overall in the franchise. The previous trilogy has been claimed by many pundits as one of the best trilogies of all-time, and some wondered why there was a need for a new film and how it would fit into the story.

Well, the film takes place several generations after the end of the War of the Planet of the Apes and focuses on a new set of protagonists, while still using the legacy of Caesar in the basic plot.

Our new protagonist is named Noa (Owen Teague) and he is trying to find his tribe after the were taken away. He was joined by the elder orangutan Raka (Peter Macon) and a human named Mae (Freya Allen). However, it turns out that Mae has her own motives for tagging along.

Our new antagonist is Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) who arrived about an hour into the movie. He is trying to get inside this vault built into a cliffside where there were a bunch of human weapons.

I thought this new film was okay. I did like how they built this new group of characters and starting creating the world around them. I think it has set up for the future films well. The first part of this movie felt kind of dull at times. I did like the character work here, but there felt like too much going on.

The apes continue to look tremendous. The special effects are great. I will say that a few of the time when I would see Raka walking, it looked weird. Other than that, everything looked fabulous.

The third act was a lot of fun. I may have a small criticisms of it, but they are not major problems.

Truthfully, there were some ups and down for this film. I liked parts of it. There were parts that I found boring. It looked awesome. I do think it could have shaved off 10-15 minutes for the runtime. This may be better when you look back on this after the whole trilogy is done.

3.5 stars

Tarot

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So I did not think there would be a movie subjectively worse than Madame Web this year. Then I saw Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2. After that, I saw Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver. Now today, I have seen another movie that could be considered the worst movie of 2024 (and we are only in May), Tarot.

This horror movie was so generic and featured a group of characters who I did not care about at all, who I did not know anything about or who had no distinguishing characteristics at all. One of them was Jacob Batalon, who played Ned Leeds in the MCU Spider-Man films, but that was the only connection I had to anybody. They tried to use the tarot readings to give information about each character, but that was a failed attempt because none of the readings were interesting or controversial enough to create any sort of intrigue about knowing more about these people.

The group find a deck of tarot cards, hand painted by the way, and decide to do some readings, tying it to astronomy. Then, the readings started coming true in much more tragic ways than what it sounded like when they were done.

Then they had to try and figure out how to survive their apparent fate. The story was so dumb and the dialogue was so generic that there was little to no energy in the film. It was horror movie basic and it did not take anything to another level.

There were a bunch of jump scares, with loud music emphasizing when you are supposed to be scared. Truly dumb and a waste of time.

The race for the number one spot on the list of worst movies of the year during the Year in Review this December is now four deep. I sure hope there are not too many more. How could I decide?

1 star

The Fall Guy

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I am a person of certain age who actually watched The Fall Guy TV show on ABC back in the eighties with Lee Majors. It may not have been one of my most favorite shows, but I always enjoyed it. However, I would be lying to say that I thought the idea of making a full length feature film based on the show wasn’t a silly idea.

I have to say though that I really enjoyed the new film starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. I knew I was going to love this when Kiss’s “I Was made for Loving You” blared from the screen to start off the movie.

Directed by former stuntman David Leitch, The Fall Guy follows the life of stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), who disappeared after a brutal accident on set, and ghosted his girlfriend at the time Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). After a while, Colt returned to the film world when he was told that Jody wanted him to do stunts on her first, big-budget sci-fi/action flick. When that turned out to be untrue, Colt discovered the reason he was actually summoned back… to help find the movie’s main star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who had gone MIA.

The Fall Guy is just a lot of fun, filled with some great characters, some funny moments and a ton of breath-taking action, including a world record for number of times rolled by a car (8 1/2).

The biggest selling point for the film was the chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. They were amazing together and, if there were any times where the film was slipping into camp, these two were able to provide the proper amount of pop. The dialogue between them was fire. They made a remarkable couple, one that you could absolutely root for as the movie continued to pull them apart.

The action was brilliant. The stunt work, which seemed mostly practical, was some of the best that we have seen in a movie in a long time. It was a variety of different types of stunts, but it was clearly a love letter to stuntmen and their contribution to the world of movie making.

The film was totally meta as well, as we saw a lot of the behind the scenes of a movie being made, especially from the perspective of the stunt team. The insanity of making a massive film like they were doing comes across with every back stage scene of the movie.

This movie is not perfect. It felt too long, at 2 hours and 5 minutes. I think it could have shaved off 15 minutes and been a tighter watch. Some of the sound mixing seemed off as there were some times where the dialogue was obscured with the background music. The final massive scene was kind of messy too, stretching some credibility.

The story itself is totally ridiculous, but it never took it too far. There is no doubt that there is a lot of silliness going on, but it felt more like a homage to the Fall Guy TV series and several ’80s movies that had obviously been an inspiration for this film. Most of the silly aspects of the script seemed to play well with the humor of the movie.

At first, I thought the story was jumbled and made little sense, but it really did take a turn and made everything that I was ready to criticize make perfect sense. It was actually pretty clever to how it worked out.

Winston Duke is great in his role as Dan Tucker, the head stunt coordinator on Jody’s movie and an old friend to Colt. Hannah Waddingham was fantastic as well as the over-the-top Hollywood producer who was backing the movie. And then there was the dog. The dog stole every scene.

I was hoping that there would be a remix of the original Fall Guy TV theme, which was recorded by Lee Majors, sung by Ryan Gosling. Part of my wish was granted as there was an updated version of the theme playing over the credits, but it was done by Blake Shelton, not by Ryan Gosling. It was okay, but I wanted another performance from Gosling.

The credits after the film included a ton of great footage, including a mid credit scene so stick around and watch them. It’s worth it.

In the end, I had a lot of fun watching The Fall Guy. There were some exceptional action, a lot of humor, some amazing chemistry between two of the most likable actors working today and a story that works itself out after a shaky start. Solid entertainment to kick off the summer movie season.

4.25 stars

Challengers

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Okay, I looked up the Rotten Tomatoes score for this and it was in the upper eighties, but I found myself hating this movie.

Again, it is not the worst film of the year by any stretch and it will not be on my year’s worst list. I just had plenty of problems with it and those problems hampered my enjoyment of the story.

Zendaya played Tashi, a soon-to-be tennis superstar who chose to go to college before turning pro. She met fellow tennis players and close friends Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). Patrick and Art were both struck by Tashi, and were interested in pursuing a relationship with her. Patrick and Tashi hooked up first, but their rocky relationship was shaken when Tashi injured her leg playing and could not compete any more.

Tashi and Art get together after this break up and they wind up getting married and having a child together. Meanwhile, Tashi becomes Art’s coach and he wins several Grand Slam titles, failing only to win the US Open. Patrick’s career falls on hard times and he has to hook up with random women to find a place to stay.

Both Patrick and Art wind up in the finals of a smaller tournament and their one-on-one match carried a ton of stakes.

I had a real problem with a bunch of stuff in Challengers. First off, I never believed that the connection between Tashi and Patrick was strong at all. The film seems to want me to think that they have this irresistible pull between them, but I never felt any sort of chemistry with them. Because of this, the character of Patrick was a horrendous person and I did not want to root for him in the slightest. I also did not find myself liking Tashi very much, and I liked her even less as the film progressed. I do not understand some of the motivation for the acts that she did in the film and so she was very unlikable too.

I disliked the scoring of the film too. There would be certain scenes between individuals and then suddenly this pounding music beat into the theater, dominating what was going on. I usually am not struck by scores that much, but this one was so distracting and constantly out of place that I found it troublesome.

No spoilers, of course, but I absolutely despised the ending of the movie. There were some parts of the film that I did not mind and I might have let it slide by if the ending would have brought me something more than it did. The ending was nonsensical and remarkably disappointing for me.

The acting was good. Zendaya was very strong in this role. I did not like her character, but she pulled off what she had to do. Josh O’Connor was great too as I hated his character and it was as much because of his smirky little looks as it was what his character did.

The tennis scenes were excellent. I also really liked how the film set up their storytelling, bouncing around in flashbacks, centered around this ending match between Patrick and Art. The format was well done and the editing to make this work was exceptional. I just did not love the characters or the way the story went.

I found myself very disappointed with this movie and I came out of the theater saying that I hated this one. Hate is a strong word, but there is enough here to ruin what could have been a fascinating film. The ending I did hate, though…

2.5 stars

Boy Kills World

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This was extremely violent and brutally gory. That does not bother me much, but there were more things that did bother me in Boy Kills World.

According to IMDB, “Bill Skarsgård stars as “Boy” who vows revenge after his family is murdered by Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), the deranged matriarch of a corrupt post-apocalyptic dynasty that left the boy orphaned, deaf, and voiceless. Driven by his inner voice, one which he co-opted from his favorite childhood video game, Boy trains with a mysterious shaman (Ruhian) to become an instrument of death and is set loose on the eve of the annual culling of dissidents. Bedlam ensues as Boy commits bloody martial arts mayhem, inciting wrath of carnage and blood-letting. As he tries to get his bearings in this delirious realm, Boy soon falls in with a desperate resistance group, all the while bickering with the apparent ghost of his rebellious little sister.”

The positives for me was Bill Skarsgård, who I think was really good as the deaf/mute hero. My only problem with him was my own. When I looked at Skarsgård, all I could see was a combination of professional wrestlers Cody Rhodes and Edge and it distracted me constantly. Again, that is not the fault of the film and I thought Skarsgård was very good as this action character.

The action did not work very well for me. There was a lot of camera movement in the fight choreography that was annoying. The fights and the blood did become a bit dull for me because it was overdone. Too much blood and violence dampened the effect of both of them.

The voice over of Boy’s inner thoughts was hit and miss for me. There were some fun lines with it, and others that just felt like it was out of place. I did like the fact that the internal voice was the voice from Boy’s favorite video game as a youth, but the use of “Finish him” or “Fatality” seemed excessive. Funny at first, then not so much.

I became bored by this movie rather quickly, and by the time the third act came around and there was some movement on the story (predictable as it may have been) I had checked out. Not the worst film I have seen this year by a long stretch, just not very good.

2.6 stars

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver

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It has been awhile since I was this bored watching a movie.

I was not a fan of Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire. Dare I say that I am even less of a fan of this new movie, debuting on Netflix this weekend.

The group of characters that had been assembled in the first film ala Seven Samurai return to the village that they had sworn to protect from the totalitarian power of the Imperium.

The biggest problem is that I don’t care about any of these characters which make all the slow-motion action nothing more than just lasers, gun and fights. They meant nothing to me.

There was a scene where the characters sat around a table and told something from their back stories, details that apparently were not important enough to give us in the first movie when we were introducing them. It is truly some lazy filmmaking. Exposition at its worst.

There are so many bloated action scenes that, admittedly looked good, are just there to show off the visual work, but are filled with stupid decisions and eye-rolling levels of senselessness.

So much slo-mo.

Zach Snyder directed this in his most Zach Snyder-esque style. It is lacking in just about everything except action (which does get tedious) and CGI. There is not much more after that.

1 star

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

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Inspired by true events, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare gives us a fairly unknown story of a major event during World War II that helped bring the US soldiers into the war in Europe.

In this film, we get a group of bad boys who are out to sink a supply ship that would help to cripple the German U-Boats.

The crew included Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza Gonzalez, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Babs Olusanmokun, and Henry Golding.

Directed by Guy Ritchie, this is a fun, action movie that presents enjoyable characters against Nazis. Nazis always make great villains to root against.

The story is not incredibly deep, but the the action is certainly fun. Probably my biggest problem with the action is that I never really thought that any of the crew were ever in any danger. They would stroll through each situation shooting people with guns and arrows with little failure. That is a dangerous way to make it boring, but the action is well done enough that it never does get that way.

Henry Cavill is great in his role. He feels like the star of the ensemble. Eiza Gonzalez was excellent as the spy/vixen inside the viper’s den. Alan Ritchson was an awesome action star with his massive muscles and power moves.

As I said, the story is not especially deep, but it is a fun time in the theater as a popcorn movie.

3.6 stars