Last night, a friend of mine messaged me with a comment about the new film Sound of Freedom. He called it worth the watch. I told him I did not know if I was going to see it and that it depended on my schedule. This led to a debate between us.

He shared with me a YouTube video stating that the movie was trying to be buried by the woke Hollywood media and it used a series of negative reviews of the movie to prove their case. I called this a clickbait video, which I still believe. I did watch the video and saw that they were using a series of reviews that had QAnon in the headlines. Yet, Rotten Tomatoes had the film at a 74%, which did not seem to match the narrative the YouTuber was saying.

I wanted to have as much knowledge as possible so after I watched the video, I read some of the negative reviews listed on it. These included Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Jezebel, and, to be fair, these reviews did focus more on the QAnon aspect than the movie itself. However, I do not think that is uncommon as there were several critics who recently panned The Flash because of the controversy surrounding its star Ezra Miller. So I wondered why the reviews were targeting Qanon in these reviews.

It does seem as if the lead actor of Sound of Freedom, Jim Caviezel has made the rounds in promotion of this movie and has made some comments that are out of the QAnon playbook, insinuating some things about the collection of adrenochrome at some QAnon conventions and he mentioned some other conspiracy theories on far right programs. When an actor of the movie makes comments in the media like this, I do think it is fair to include that criticism in a movie review.

I find QAnon to be a horrible thing and that this has given a place for the bigots, racists and white supremists to get together. However, I want to be fair to the movie and I have been doing my best to not judge anything that I am reviewing because of an artist involved. My philosophy is look at the art not the artist. That way, I can enjoy or dislike a film by Mel Gibson, Ezra Miller, Woody Allen, Jonathan Majors or others because of what I see on the screen, not what happens behind it. It is a difficult chore at times, but I am constantly working on it.

So with a lot on my mind, I found a showing this morning at Cinemark for Sound of Freedom and I went with as open of a mind as I could have.

The film tells the true story of Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel), a former government agent whose job investigating the world of child sex trafficking was tearing him down. He became involved in a case that led him to rescue a young boy (Lucás Ávila) from the sexual predators. The boy told Tim about his sister Rocío (Cristal Aparicio), who had also been taken the same time that he was. The little girl becomes a driving force behind Tim’s choices, deciding to head to Columbia in an attempt at a rescue.

Jim Caviezel does a very good job as Tim Ballard. Caviezel’s use of his expressive eyes is very effective showing you what the man is feeling and thinking about without a lot of dialogue. Tim’s connection in Columbia, a character named Vampiro (Bill Camp) was one of the most interesting characters in the film and his reactions with Tim were strong. When Vampiro told the story of why he now spends his time buying children and helping to free them from the sex slave life was probably the best moment of the movie and Camp was outstanding in that scene.

I would also like to shout out Lucás Ávila and Cristal Aparicio, who both did an excellent job portraying these abused children. I believed everything that they did and their performances felt very real and sincere.

The music of the film, scored by Javier Navarrete, was wonderful. Each use of music did a great job of spotlighting the emotions of the scene.

I was not a fan of the third act, where Tim went into the jungle to try and find Rocío who had been purchased by the leader of a group of rebels. This entire section of the film felt hard to believe and seemed to be exaggerated for the film.

Some of the dialogue of the film was weak, but I do think that the strong performances helped to elevate the material.

Sound of Freedom was heavy and dark, difficult to watch at times and filled with a horrendous truth about the evil of human trafficking going on in the world. This is a real problem facing people across the planet and should not be used as a political talking point. Even though I do not believe that the Hollywood media is having a meltdown over this movie’s success, I do wish the movie could be judged on its own merits and not on its adjacent connection to QAnon. That is because Sound of Freedom is a solid thriller on its own.

3.5 stars

Wow

Wow

Wow

I was one of the lucky ones who was able to see an early screening of the seventh film in the Mission Impossible franchise. I will say it right now. I have enjoyed the Mission Impossible franchise so far, especially the last three or four films, but Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One is the best Mission Impossible movie yet.

This is nothing but a thrilling ride, chocked full of adrenaline-rushes and edge of your seats action that enthralls the audience, hoping that the heroes can survive the impossible situation that they are placed in.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is on a globe spanning adventure chasing the film’s McGuffin, a key that unlocks… something… that will give the user the power over an AI called The Entity. Of course, there are a bunch of people after this key which leads to a bunch of unbelievable action and stunts.

Ethan’s team members return for the film which include Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. Also returning is the slimy former head of the IMF Kittridge, played by Henry Czerny.

The film added a new character, thief Grace, played by the exquisite Hayley Atwell. Atwell and Cruise share a ton of chemistry and some wonderfully written banter as they are being chased through a city and struggling to survive while stabbing each other in the back. Atwell was one of my favorite parts of the seventh Mission Impossible installment.

The action was out of this world. Everybody has seen the motorcycle/cliff jump sequence in the trailer and advertising for the film. I really wish they had kept this stunt under wraps and debuted it in the film, but it is hardly the only example of amazing stunt work. There is a train sequence that is utterly breath-taking and several chases that make beautiful use of the setting. There is also a bomb scene that is as tense as you are going to get.

This is also one of the funniest editions of Mission Impossible so far. The dialogue is very funny and the quips hit almost every time.

The cast is packed full with amazing actors. Besides those already mentioned include Pom Klementieff as a new antagonist femme fatale, Vanessa Kirby returning as The White Widow, Esai Morales as main antagonist with a link to Ethan’s past, Gabriel, Cary Elwes as Director of National Intelligence Denlinger, and Shea Whigham as an enforcer for the Community who was chasing after Ethan.

Though there were a limited use of the villainous A.I. The Entity, (I expect there will be much more in Part Two), what we got with this A.I. was truly terrifying. There is a scene with The Entity in a club that brought chills to me.

It is a long film, but the pacing is outstanding and you do not feel the length. You are too busy holding your breath, gasping at the incredible imagery of the skilled filmmakers. Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie seems to have a real grasp on this franchise as he is signed up to direct the next film as well as this one. Though this is a part one, the film has a perfect ending, allowing it to feel like a complete film.

I was totally gripped throughout the entire film, laughing, gasping, and thrilling to the adventure. Tom Cruise is excellent as Ethan Hunt (and runs all over the place), having a true understanding of the character and Cruise and Atwell are charming as the day is long. There are some surprisingly emotional moments that are totally earned and surprise the audience.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One is a huge success and everybody should go out and support this film. It is exceptional. I can’t wait for Part Two!

5 stars

Who could have guessed that a movie about the creation and promoting of a smart phone would be so compelling?

The film tells the story of the rise and eventual fall of the first smartphone, the BlackBerry, and the men behind the product. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), his best friend Doug (Matt Johnson) tried to pitch their new phone idea to Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), whose ambition has gotten him into trouble with his company. Seeing the possibilities in the phone, Jim goes back to Mike and Doug and offers to help them if they make him CEO.

Mike eventually makes the deal with Jim and they begin to work on building the first major smartphone, the BlackBerry. However, things turn on BlackBerry quickly as well.

This is a very engaging and entertaining movie, even though you wouldn’t think that it would be. The subject matter did not sound like a winner, much like the Apple TV+ film Tetris from earlier this year. Like Tetris, BlackBerry far exceeded the pleasing potential and provided a story that grabbed the audience’s favor.

Jay Baruchel does a phenomenal job as Mike. He started out as a shy, timid technician trying to create a company to become a power leader of a company that caused him to drop some of his personal morals.

It was fascinating to watch this movie, knowing that BlackBerry the phone would be eaten up by Apple’s iPhone. Every moment that you wanted to root for Mike, you would realize that this company was doomed. Meanwhile, Jim was consistently shown as a jerk who knew how he could work around problems, even if he had to bend the law to do it.

I rented BlackBerry on Vudu and I found it to be engaging and thrilling. It does not sound like a captivating story, but it absolutely is.

4.5 stars

Patrick Wilson starred in and directed the fifth and supposedly final installment of the horror franchise Insidious, this one subtitled The Red Door.

Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), who split with his wife Renai (Rose Byrne), is taking his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) to college. Their relationship was strained from the events of their past. Dalton meets a girl named Chris (Sinclair Daniel) who was accidentally assigned to the same dorm room.

Dalton’s art class encourages him to dive deep into the depths of his memories, causing him to question a time when he believed he was in a coma.

Strange things happen, and he eventually finds his way back into The Further.

Insidious: The Red Door is basically a bunch of jump scares with attempts to be shocking for the audience. There is not much to the story. It felt like a lot of retread from previous Insidious installments.

Ty Simpkins was fine as Dalton, but I am not sure what he did not remember the events of his father trying to murder him when he was a kid. He had some nice chemistry with Sinclair Daniel.

There was an idea that could have been developed more, involving the reaction from these kids whose father, though possessed, tried to kill them. How did that affect their lives and relationships? This was in the film, but it was nowhere near as developed as it should have been. Instead, we just try and solve the mystery that we already knew.

The things from The Further were unremarkable and seemed to have little reason for being. There were some downright silly moments too. Plus, I hate puke scenes and there were a couple here.

Lin Shaye’s Elise Rainer is shoehorned into the film too in a seriously dumb manner. I guess they felt as if they needed her in the Insidious franchise, but how they did it was barely worth the time.

Insidious: The Red Door felt as if the franchise had run out of ideas and was just revisiting the past to try and find something new. It failed at that. Keep the door shut.

2.1 stars

We recently had a solid comedy film that leaned toward the raunchy side of the spectrum in No Hard Feelings. Typically, I have never been much of a fan of this type of comedy, but No Hard Feelings exceeded my expectations. Joy Ride is the next film that falls into the same category. It was the second one in a row that I really enjoyed.

Audrey (Ashley Park) was a lawyer assigned by her agency to go to complete a deal in China. Audrey was a Chinese-American who had been adopted as a child by an American couple. She could not speak Chinese so her lifelong friend Lolo (Sherry Cola) was going to go along too. Lolo brought her sister Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey was meeting her actress friend she met in college, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), who worked on a TV show in China.

The four of them started on their big adventure in China, which would lead Audrey to look for her birth mother.

As I mentioned, this movie is extremely raunchy and I typically have not be a huge fan of this style of comedy, and, honestly, a lot of the raunchy aspects of the film were the parts that I was not a huge fan of. I am not sure that a lot of the humor worked as well as I wanted, though there were some funny bits. Yet, I enjoyed the film because there was more than just the vulgarity involved.

In fact, the film had four main characters in Audrey, Kat, Lolo and Deadeye and they all were real, well-developed characters that had motivations and were relatable. None of them were just Chinese stereotypes and the interactions between the four of them were outstanding. The cast is easily the main reason for this film to be as successful as it is,

And the movie did not only give us the raunchy humor. There were a ton of character moments that really worked well. Even then, a lot of the bawdy humor really fit with the characters as well, informing us who these people were and their hopes and dreams for their lives.

No spoilers, but I also loved the cameo by Daniel Dae Kin, who played Jin on LOST. It was awesome seeing him once again.

Joy Ride was much more than just a comedy with a lot of swear words and sexual innuendo. It is actually a smart, clever, witty film with the heart centered with the main four characters.

4 stars

I went to the new animated movie Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken today and I was the only person in the theater. I do love that. It allowed me to not have to suffer this movie in silence.

Honestly, I did not like this much. I would admit that Ruby Gillman is not necessarily targeting me as its main audience. However, this was the same studio that made Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon which were two amazing animated movies that could be enjoyed by adults and kids alike. They were intelligent, clever and entertaining. Ruby Gillman is not much of any of those adjectives.

Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor) is a 16-year old Kraken pretending to be Canadian and attending a normal high school. Her mother Agatha (Toni Collette) has insisted that Ruby never reveal the truth behind her Kraken heritage. She is determined to keep Ruby out of the water.

When Ruby’s crush Connor (Jaboukie Young-White) falls into the water and starts to drown, Ruby goes after him, discovering that she has more abilities than she knew.

Ruby finds her way to her Grandmamah (Jane Fonda), who just happens to be the Queen of the Kraken.

At this point, Ruby meets up with a mermaid named Chelsea (Annie Murphy), who was also pretending to be human at the school. They bond and spend time swimming together. Chelsea tells Ruby a story about their mothers fighting over a trident and how they could retrieve it and bring peace to the oceans.

The animation of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was fine. The colors were bright and flashy for the little kids. The character designs were okay, but did not jump off the screen as being tremendously interesting. I could see this being a solid work of animation for a TV program, but as a feature film, it could not reach levels of past glory for this studio, let alone other more exceptional animation studios.

The story was simple and straight-forward, dealing with a typical theme of being who you are, not hiding who you are. Other themes of this movie get all messed up and mishmashed together. I immediately knew what was going to happen and I really wished it would have taken a different path. They had a couple of cool concepts here, but it was so clichéd that it was hard to watch.

I enjoyed the voice work by Jane Fonda, especially the insistence of being called “Grand-MA-MAH.” Toni Collette does a reasonably decent job of balancing the chaotic worry over her daughter with the calmness of trying to pass along vital info. I like Sam Richardson, but his character Uncle Brill was not funny and one of the more annoying of the characters.

As I said, I would not be the targeted audience for Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. I was pretty bored early and I did not find a lot of charm here. Younger kids might find it more acceptable, but it certainly cannot reach the stars of some of Dreamworks classic animated films.

2.6 stars

Past Lives is writer-director Celine Song’s feature debut, one of those remarkable times when your first movie is exceptional.

This is a small, A24 film with two Korean leads with both Korean and English language being used throughout. It was one that I found a lot to relate with and one where my feelings went back and forth between what I wanted to happen.

According to IMDB, “Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.”

I bought into the relationship between Nora (at first named Na) and Hae Sung immediately. They were shown as 12-year olds on a cute date, set up by Na’s mother because she wanted to give her good memories of Korea before they immigrated away. Then, years later, Hae tried to find Na (now called Nora) using social media and she saw him. They spent time communicating on the computer, Nora living in New York and Hae Sung still in Korea.

Nora decided they needed to stop talking because she could not focus on her writing career. It was at this point when she met Arthur (John Magaro), and ended up marrying him.

I loved John Magaro in this movie and his character made me reevaluate my opinions on what was going on. With Arthur, along with Nora and Hae Sung, you had three, extremely developed, brilliantly written characters that felt so real that they were so relatable.

The cinematography of this movie was sensational, especially when Hae Sung and Nora are walking around New York. There were so many excellent shots, it was beautiful to see.

This is a slow burn film with some amazing characters and a story that gives us wonderful dialogue and character moments. Past Lives is a really great film that I liked more than I thought I might.

4.3 stars

Oh bother…

You know how you drive by an accident and you just can’t help but look. Welcome to Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.

I knew this was horrendous before I watched it. It had 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. 3%? I watched a Dan Murrell video about the first half of the year and he spoke on how bad this film was. I couldn’t help myself.

I rented Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey on Vudu and it was just terrible. It looked cheap, the acting was ridiculous, things happened that made no sense. There was really no story after the animated opening that was the best part of the film.

When Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) grew up, he left for college, deserting his friends in the 100 Acre Woods. They faced hardship and problems, not having food to survive, pushing them to make some unexpected choices (who knew Eeyore would be so yummy?). Eating their friend drove Winnie the Pooh and Piglet mad, sending them into a murderous, bloody killing spree.

Not sure what happened to Owl or Rabbit who were there at the beginning. Maybe I missed it.

There were so many characters that just showed up out of nowhere to give Pooh someone to brutally kill. None of them had any sort of development. Even Christopher Robin, who had returned with his wife, was nothing more than just a body.

The look of Pooh and Piglet was absolutely laughable. They also looked very little like the iconic characters as this could have been any type of unnamed characters. The killings were bloody and, of course, the lacking characters did a ton of stupid stuff.

The ending was also remarkably anticlimactic. It was just over. I had to go back and rewatch a couple of scenes because I did not know how it was now over… albeit mercifully.

Dan Murrell was right. Don’t watch this. I am ashamed to have contributed to the financial well being of this travesty. Don’t let my pain be for naught. Skip Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. You’ll be glad you did.

It was mostly in focus so….

0.2 stars

Well, this was better than Crystal Skull.

I know that bar is low. I absolutely loved Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade. I liked Temple of Doom. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull… I can remember coming out of that movie with a couple of friends of mine feeling like we were shocked at how bad it was.

The newest installment in the Indiana Jones franchise opened today with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Indy (Harrison Ford) is preparing to retire from teaching when his god-daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) showed up looking for an artifact that her father had during the war. Former Nazi Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) also comes after the artifact with his own henchmen. The part of the artifact was missing so Indy, Helena and Voller went on a race to reclaim the rest of it.

I am fairly split on this plot of the movie. The first part of the movie was an exciting action bit, but was really almost too dark to tell what was happening. The darkness helped with the de-aged Harrison Ford. The middle part was slow and kind of middling. There were sections that were in there that felt like it should have been cut from the film (such as Helena’s crimelord fiancé) and the seemingly never ending chase scene could have been edited down. The third part was mixed… some felt like classic Indiana Jones and other parts felt really silly, almost a cartoon.

It is always great to have Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He does an excellent job as this iconic character. He is great both as the young Indy parts and as the older, aged Dr. Jones. He is charming and you feel for him during the emotional bits that happen.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge grew on me as the film moved on. I was really not a fan of her in the first part of the movie but as that character moved on, I liked her better. Mads Mikkelsen is always a win.

James Mangold has directed some amazing movies such as Logan and Ford vs. Ferrari. He has done a decent job on Dial of Destiny, but it seemed to lack some of the magic of past Indy movies. This film cannot be compared to Logan in any way.

In the end, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is not a bad movie. I would recommend people to watch it, especially if you are a fan of the Indiana Jones franchise. However, it is not a brilliant film. It is okay. Parts of it are outstanding. I wish it would have been better.

3.3 stars