I do enjoy these DC Animated movies. It is nice how they are able to adapt versions of important comic story arcs into stand alone animated movies. They tell stories that do not interlink. They can have characters that could die at any moment without affecting the ability to use the character in a future film.

In Injustice, the Joker comes to Metropolis, kidnapped Lois Lane (after killing Jimmy Olson), and tricks Superman into accidentally killing Lois (and the unborn baby she just realized she was pregnant was). Because of this, Superman kills the Joker by putting his fist through the Joker’s chest. Superman then decides that he was going to start changing the world by stopping the violence and the wars.

Members of the Justice League split to different sides. Wonder Woman backed Superman’s potentially Fascist tendencies. Batman, Green Arrow and Nightwing wanted Superman to stop.

I was expecting not to like this movie, but I have so say, I enjoyed most of this. It worked so much more than expected. The voice acting is spot on. The animation was okay. The animation on the DC Animated films has never been a strength. They maybe could have expanded on the time provided for the story. That would allow the story to breathe a little bit. Maybe if this was a two part film like the Dark Knight Returns or The Long Halloween, it would have felt more complete. It could have helped Superman feel less like he was doing things that went against his character.

However, for what we had, the story of the film worked well enough to make it interesting.

I did not like one big thing… Deadwing. While the idea and use of the character is fine, the use of that name was laughable.

The ending ends a bit too fast and could have wrapped up things some more, too.

I did think this was better than I anticipated and I was happy that I watched it. Using these films to be like Elseworlds stories is a fine use of them. Good cast and lots of characters help to balance out some of the structural issues of the film.

3.4 stars

Western. Real life historical figures. Fictional story.

Netflix’s new Western dropped this weekend on the streaming service and it is fire. Filled with an astounding cast and a hot tale of revenge, The Harder They Fall is stylish, exciting and energetic.

Outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) learned that the man who had killed his parents and carved a cross on his forehead, Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), was being released from prison with a full pardon, and Nat Love set his sights on exacting his revenge on the infamous killer.

Jonathan Majors continues his remarkable streak recently with an amazing performance as our protagonist. From Lovecraft Country to He Who Remains, Majors is showing himself to be a fantastic actor and everything that he starts in is something to pay attention to.

The interactions between Nat Love and Rufus Buck in the movie are just powerful and full of emotion. The chemistry between Majors and Idris Elba is off the charts and drives much of the film. Both men are fully invested in the material and the final scene with them is really strong.

Zazie Beets as Stagecoach Mary Fields and Regina King as Treacherous Trudy Smith brought serious rivalry to the screen and their knock-down battle in the third act is totally earned over the course of the film. Both of these actresses are dominant in their presence on the screen and bring a special touch to their characters.

The rest of the cast is solid too. We had LaKeith Stansfield as Cherokee Bill, Delroy Lindo as Sheriff Bass Reeves, RJ Cyler as Jim Beckworth, Danielle Deadwyler as Cuffee, Edi Gathegi as Bill Pickett, and Damon Wayans, Jr as Monroe Grimes. It is a cast of who’s who among black actors today.

The soundtrack of the movie was tremendous and really brought a new energy to the straight-forward story. The blend of period music and rap is original and some of the best of the year.

There is a ton of violence in the film, perhaps too much. It certainly does not shy away from some of the more graphic moments of bloodshed or teeth loss. There was a grit that the film was shot with that really made it feel down in the dirt. A lot more of the violence worked than did not, but I could have done with a little less. Then, much of the third act felt too produced, in contradiction to the violence up to that point. It was all shiny and ordered.

It is also perhaps a little long. The film clocks in at 2 hours and 10 minutes and could have shaved off about 15 minutes or so. Still, the film does a good job living with the historical figures in the fictional location.

Stylish to a fault, The Harder They Fall is an excellent revenge Western and boasts some great performances. It looked top notch and sounded better than most movies. The story may have been simple and the violence graphic, but The Harder They Fall is an enjoyable watch.

3.9 stars

This is the second Tom Hanks film to debut on Apple TV + over the last two years. In 2020, we saw Hanks in a World War II naval film called Greyhound. Now, we follow Hanks into a post apocalyptic world with Finch.

No matter where Tom Hanks heads, he is as charming and engaging as ever and he makes everything better around him, even a moderate, middle-of-the-road post apocalyptic film about a man, his dog and a robot.

Devastating solar flares caused rampant destruction to the earth, leading the human race to destroy itself. There are a few exceptions. Tom Hanks, playing Finch, is one of them. He was a knowledgeable engineer who could construct robots and use remaining technology to protect himself and his dog, Goodyear, from the dangerous UV rays that could cook you from even a few seconds of exposure.

Finch, with a understanding that his life would be changing soon, built a new robot, with the capability of speech and thought, and a prime directive to protect the dog above all else.

Eventually named Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones), the robot and the man learned about humanity, life and friendship when forced to leave Finch’s bunker because of a terrible storm.

Finch is a similar movie to Castaway, as Hanks is the only main actor, though this time, the volleyball Wilson, can speak back to him. And there is a dog.

This is one of the fluffiest post apocalyptic movies you are ever going to see, which makes it one of the more original one too. They cover some of the general topics that most post apocalyptic movies do, but the real focus of the movie is the relationship between the three characters: Finch, Jeff and the dog.

As mainly a Man (and robot and dog) vs. Nature conflict, it frames the characters into a small box and allows them to interact and discover more about each other. Jeff developed into more than just a robot, as he learns and makes errors along the way. Finch’s overall motive for constructing Jeff is eventually revealed and it make more sense than at first.

I am not sure that the story would hold up if there were any other actor in the lead role than Tom Hanks. However, since he is our protagonist, Finch worked considerably better than it had a reason to be.

3.75 stars

Eternals is a movie unlike any other Marvel Cinematic Universe movie we have had before. I can see that some critics have taken some shots at the movie, and I can understand why they may have the feelings that they do. The Eternals are not a property that is well-known, even among comic fans. I am a deep comic fan, but I do not have a deep knowledge of the Eternals. I believe that is part of the issue some will have with Eternals. I also believe the fact that the MCU is taking some huge swings with this movie that they may not have done in other films will be divisive to some. I went in nervous about the movie. I came out really enjoying it.

This movie truly is more of a science fiction film than it is a Marvel movie. Sure, they have the superhero beats involved and they have a few casual mentions of the MCU, but Eternals is much more its own thing than we have had before.

Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao was in charge of this film and she produced an epic that spanned the history of the universe unlike few films before it. She shot an absolutely gorgeous looking film with some massively interesting scenes and imagery. Chloé Zhao was allowed to make a Chloé Zhao movie inside the MCU. This was a huge risk.

In the Eternals, a group of powerful beings arrived on earth with instructions from the Celestial Arishem to protect the humans but to not interfere in their world unless there was an attack by the monstrous creatures known as the Deviants. After the Deviants are all destroyed, the Eternals spread apart, awaiting on earth for Arishem to tell them what was next.

They were around for 7000 years on earth. We get a bunch of flashbacks in the first part of the movie that helped suss out the list of characters in the Eternals. And there were a bunch of them.

Angelina Jolie was Thena. Gemma Chan played Sersi. Richard Madden played Ikaris. Salma Hayek played Ajak. Kumail Nanjiani played Kingo. Lia McHugh played Sprite. Brian Tyree Henry played Phastos. Lauren Ridloff played Makkari. Barry Keoghan played Druig. Ma Dong-seok played Gilgamesh. There was also Kit Harington as Dane Whitman. That is a ton of characters. When the flashbacks were happening in the beginning of the film, I was a little uncertain about these characters. I had very little connection to them and I was not sure how well the flashbacks were working. However, when the characters returned later in the film, without exception, I had a feeling that made me care about all of them. This told me the work the film did early on that might have been considered the iffy part was well worth it for the long run.

The film is utterly beautiful. The spanning shots of the world was amazing. Seeing the Celestial on the big screen is beyond any scope that we have seen to this point. I will admit there were a few moments of CGI that did not look great, but thankfully a lot of the film was shot in practical effects which allowed the CGI to lack here and there and still not derail the look of the movie.

The performances of the ensemble cast were just exceptional. Angelina Jolie was amazing. I loved the characters of Kumail Nanjiani and Brian Tyree Henry, especially. They brought an unbelievable amount of diversity without making it obvious that they were going for it. The diversity was not force. Every minute was earned.

The film is nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but I did not feel the length. Perhaps the first 45 minutes or so dragged a touch, but it was a necessary time to establish the characters that would pay off in the second and third acts.

Eternals will take the MCU in a direction that is unexpected and ballsy. Without spoiling either of them, the two post credit scenes absolutely blew my Marvel-loving mind. Both post credits do some yeoman work setting up important moments for the future of Eternals, but also of the MCU.

This is a movie that demands that you pay attention to or you will be lost. While the film is exposition heavy, it impressively does a lot of its heavy lifting in dialogue between the characters. This is not a movie that talks down to the audience and it requires the audience to keep up, which is refreshing in a lot of ways. There is some humor in it, but, truthfully, some of it does not hit. Most of the humor involving Kumail Nanjiani worked the best. His relationship with the other Eternals and with his valet (Haresh Patel, who is a stand out in every scene he appears in) is great and works on every level.

Some of the music choices were off for me. While I enjoyed the inclusion of Pink Floyd in the early part of the film, some of the other songs, especially The End of the World by Skeeter Davis felt out of place.

I was nervous about Eternals, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It is not my favorite Marvel movie of the year, but it turned out to hit with those big swings much more than it missed. It is a great cast and I think a second viewing may help me enjoy it even more. There is a lot of hate of Eternals out there, but none coming from me.

4.4 stars

How many times have we had a prequel to a movie come out in the same year as the original movie? I can’t think of any examples of this happening before, but the Netflix film Army of Thieves is a prequel to the Dave Bautista starring vehicle Army of the Dead from earlier this year.

It is also intriguing that the prequel to a movie about the Zombie Apocalypse does not feature zombies in it. Sure, there are a few references to the outbreak of the virus happening in America, and there are a dream sequence or two, but the main story is not about zombies. It is about a theft. Even more than just a theft, it is about a mythological journey.

In Army of the Dead, we met safecracker Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), recruited by Dave Bautista to crack an uncrackable safe, the Götterdämmerung. Little did Bautista know, but the Götterdämmerung was the White Whale at the end of the story for Ludwig Dieter.

In Army of Thieves, we meet loser Sebastian Schlencht-Wöhnert, the real name of Ludwig Dieter. Sebastian was working a nowhere job, going through a humdrum life and making YouTube videos about the world of safes and safecracking that literally no one was watching. When one of his videos finally received a view and a comment, Sebastian was excited. When the comment invited him to a mysterious location, he could not resist.

The location turned out to be a safecracking contest that he had been entered in without his knowledge. Though surprised and uncertain about the whole situation, Sebastian won the contest, impressing everyone in attendance.

We then meet Gwendolyn Starr (Nathalie Emmanuel), who had set Sebastian up to enter the contest to see how good his safecracking skills actually were. She was looking to recruit a new safecracker for her team in order to go and commit three crimes, all involving cracking the legendary safes designed by Hans Wagner, based on Richard Wagner’s legendary set of four operas, collectively called the Ring Cycle. These were all inspired by Norse mythology.

The rest of Gwen’s team included hacker extraordinaire Korina (Ruby O. Fee), getaway driver Rolph (Guz Khan) and ‘action hero’ Brad Cage (Stuart Martin).

The film immediately set the tone of the movie as we are introduced to Sebastian and see his miserable life and how pathetic he is. There are some really funny moments throughout Army of Thieves that work extremely well. Matthias Schweighöfer, who was also this film’s director, was one of the standouts from Army of the Dead, one of the quirkiest and most likable characters in that zombie film, and basing a prequel around him was a stroke of genius. I promptly connected with this character and could relate to his desires to strive for more than what he had. He was not a criminal at first, but the call of the challenge was too much for him to ignore. He was the antithesis of a heroic protagonist, but that only made him more relatable.

The film does a great job of playing with the tropes of a heist movie too. One perfect example was how they called out the old trick in the movies when the crew of a heist would talk their way through the crime and there would be a montage of what they were doing. Typically, this would then be complicated when they actually runt he plan. Here, however, when they were done talking it through, we realize that the plan was already done and their talking it through was actually them committing the robbery.

There were several moments like this in Army of Thieves. The dialogue was very clever as it constantly alluded to the movies and to the future in Army of the Dead. Sebastian kept having nightmares about zombies, the only place where the monsters would make an appearance in Army of Thieves.

I’m not sure how I feel about the very end of the film. I might have liked more of an open-ended conclusion instead of what we got, which I cannot go into details on without spoiling it. It just felt a little out of character for some of the participants.

I really enjoyed this movie. I would go as far as to say that I enjoyed this movie more than I enjoyed the Army of the Dead, which was something that I had not expected. Who knew what we needed was a film about the backstory of a secondary character from a zombie movie, without any zombie?

4 stars

The Paranormal Activity franchise was once one of the biggest in the horror/found footage subgenre, but its time ran out. The last few films in the series were not at the same level as the first few. However, now on Paramount + streaming, the franchise tries to return to prominence with a new film, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin.

Unfortunately, it felt more like a poor man’s Blair Witch Project crossed with Weird Al’s Amish Paradise (only not as cool as that would be).

Looking to film a documentary about … the Amish?… two documentarians follow Margot (Emily Bader) who is heading into an Amish community to hopefully find information about the mother that gave her up as a child. Once Margot arrived at her extended family, strange things start to happen and Margot, Chris (Roland Buck III) and Dale (Dan Lippert) try to figure out what craziness is going on and why her Amish long lost family is acting in such a bizarre way.

Like all found footage films, the camera is constantly shaking, there are moments when you wonder why the camera is still on and why they have not dumped the camera.

So even after suspending your disbelief about the camera, the three of them have to be some of the stupidest people alive. I will admit to liking Chris and Dale some because they were such a odd pair. Chris had some funny lines, and Dale got on a horse.

Jacob (Tom Nowicki), Margot’s birth grandfather (?) was clearly a creep. This group were so obviously up to sinister plans that you wonder what kind of documentarians these people were.

I do not expect that this film, technically Paranormal Activity 7, will re-invigorate the Paranormal Activity franchise. If I had to guess, they placed the Paranormal Activity label on this film in hopes of increasing the eyes on the product. It won’t matter. This product is bad.

1.2 stars