Category: Movies

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Give Us A Chance!

It is hard to believe that Us is only the second movie that Jordan Peele has written and directed. He is already proving himself to be a master, and he has once again used the horror genre to shine a light social issues without being preachy. This time the focus shifts more to classism instead of racism, but not completely. However, if you are in the theater for thrills instead of sociology lessons, never fear, Us has them in spades.

Us is about a family on vacation at their summer home in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, CA, but instead of rest and relaxation, they are attacked by murderous doppelgangers of themselves. They will struggle to survive and keep to their family alive.

The first two thirds of Us are just about perfect. The building sense of dread, and the initial attack, but it falters a bit at the end. It explains the in universe origins of the doppelgangers a little too much. Horror works best as a nightmare with no explanation needed. Because once you start explaining things and adding logic to them it invites the minds of the viewers to start picking at the movie as well. Making the flaws a little more apparent, but honestly that is a nitpick. The film is fantastic otherwise.

The best part of Us is the performances. With each actor having two roles to play, and all of them doing a great job, but Lupita Nyong’o is the real standout. She manages to play off of herself brilliantly. Which I am guessing is not super easy to do. Elisabeth Moss gives a very fun performance as well. She was clearly having a lot of fun making this movie.

Us delivers chills and thrills a plenty, and quite a few good laughs. With just a small helping of social commentary. Like they say, “A spoonful of colored corn syrup helps sociology go down.” I can’t wait to see what Jordan Peele has next. If his first two movies are anything to go by it will be chilling and thought provoking.

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Shazam! Teaches DC The Importance Of Fun And Family!

Somehow here in the year 2019 DC has released a “Shazam!” movie. With this film, DC and Warner Bros are really testing if audiences are willing to see minor heroes make their way to the silver screen. Now to be fair, Shazam was in theaters before. Albeit he was then known as Captain Marvel (no, not that Captain Marvel), and that was nearly 80 years ago, so your grandparents may remember him if you alert them to the name change. Despite all that, Captain Marvel “Shazam!” is the best movie beginning to end so far of the new DCEU.

“Shazam!” like most superhero movies is about an orphan, but what makes this movie different is that he is still fourteen. You see an ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou in his second Captain Marvel movie of the year) needs a champion to protect the world from the Seven Deadly Sins, but when things go south, he needs to settle on a troubled foster kid name Billy Batson (Asher Angel). When Billy says the wizard’s name, Shazam, he is transformed in to the perfect man. Who in this case is Zachary Levi.

If this makes you think the movie is a little like Big, but with superheroes, you would be right. Though, that would be unfair to “Shazam!” because it makes the most of its premise. Because while the trailers show that this film is funny, they don’t show all the heart, and its focus on the importance of family. Whatever that looks like. In this case a group home that Billy is placed in, and the movie is at its best when Billy/Shazam is with his foster brother Freddy Freeman played by Jack Dylan Grazer. The three leads have great chemistry. The rest of the family is very good too, but they are there mostly filler.

The villains on the other hand are not as good. Mark Strong’s Doctor Sivana is not given anybody to really play off for his scenes, so he falls a little flat, though I think his story pays off really well at the end. Also, the Sins are CGI characters that push the budget for this movie a little too much, so they stand out in a bad way, and they make the movie too creepy for younger children. Otherwise, this probably could have been a PG movie, but these are minor flaws in a great movie.

Wonder Woman would have been perfect if it had found a way to have a third act without a big grey thing to fight, and “Shazam!”‘s third act pays off the movie’s themes in a creative way, so while Wonder Woman is a better movie in parts, “Shazam!” is better as a whole. What I am saying is, “Shazam!” is probably the best movie in the DCEU and you should see it. Maybe take your grandparents, it might bring back some memories.

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Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom Is Dumb

Some movies don’t deserve to be reviewed. Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom is one of those movies. I am not sure what happened with this movie, but oh man this movie dumb. The plot is dumb, the dialog is dumb, all the character “motivations” are dumb, and whoever thought that a manor basement was a better location than an island is dumb, but even more than that, my mind is still struggling with a dinosaur aiming gun. WHY NOT JUST SHOOT THE PERSON WITH THE @#$%ING GUN!!!!!!!!!!!!

In conclusion, don’t watch Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom. It isn’t even the fun dumb, or so bad it is good. It just isn’t worth your time, and Universal should feel bad for releasing it.

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Captain Marvel Is For Better Or Worse A Marvel Movie

After nearly eleven years and twenty films, the MCU has finally added Captain Marvel to its lineup. This twenty-first film of the franchise is the first to be headlined by a woman, and she is the most powerful Marvel hero yet to get a movie. While I enjoyed the film quite a bit, I was also a little disappointed that they stuck so closely to the tried and true Marvel formula.

I thought about how best to do a synopsis of the film, and due to the fact they wanted to try and tell an origin story backwards, so that the hero could have her powers for the entire film, it is hard to do without getting all spoiler-y, but let’s just say, it is set in the 90’s and Captain Marvel doesn’t know she is Captain Marvel because she lost memory. Also, Jude Law is there to tell her not to worry about her memory, but to just worry about taking out the Kree’s (a Marvel alien race) enemies.

I get what the writers were trying to do. It is lame to have a superhero film where the hero doesn’t have their powers for half of the movie, but I am rarely a fan the tired amnesia storyline. The characters are all good enough to mostly pull this off, but I would have rather them done a traditional origin story, or just skipped the origin and moved on to something else. Like I said, with cast this good, they can do just about anything well, but I have seen a few too many people who cannot remember their pasts in my movie going history. Captain Marvel also had shares a problem with Aquaman, where the filmmakers have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to cover it, so the movie doesn’t really get to dig in with any one major plot thread. It just rushes from one thing to the next.

Speaking of the cast, this one was stacked. With Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Annette Bening, and Jude Law just to name a few. They pull of the signature Marvel quips and one-liners with aplomb. I know some people were worried about Brie’s Captain Marvel because the trailers don’t give her a lot of personality, but that is mostly due to the amnesia. As she starts to remember who she is, her personality starts to shine though.

Captain Marvel was not a perfect movie, but it is very much a prototypical Marvel movie. With all the action and humor you have come to expect, and now Avengers: Endgame has added a powerful hero to try and undo what Thanos has done. There are some things I would have changed about this movie, but I am happy Captain Marvel has finally made it to the big screen. It is has been a long time coming, and I hope she is here to stay.

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Alita?

If James Cameron is to be believed, the technology that he pioneered to create Avatar was so that he could make Alita: Battle Angel, based off the popular manga (Japanese comic) series Gunm (Alita: Battle Angel is its subtitle). However, Avatar got too big, and now the 800 sequels that he is writing and directing are taking up all his time, so he handed the job over to Robert Rodriguez. Who I will say did a commendable job, but the movie has its flaws.

Alita: Battle Angel is about a young cyborg (Rosa Salazar) that is pulled out of a trash heap by an old scientist/doctor named Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz). She doesn’t know who she is, or why she knows how to fight so well, but she is determined to find out, and maybe kick a little cyborg butt along the way.

Apparently, Rodriguez needed to comb through 600 pages of Cameron’s notes to turn Alita in to a shoot-able script. It suffers from being chopped down. There is a forgettable and pointless boyfriend (Keean Johnson), and it doesn’t have a complete story arc. The movie establishes Alita in the world and then gives her an objective. Then it ends. Fans have said this movie is true to the source material, and that makes sense, establishing the world, the characters, and the rules are usually what volume one of any comic books series is for, but I don’t think it works well for a movie.

Those two issues aside, the rest of the movie is pretty good. The cast is fantastic. I mean it has Christoph Waltz, Mahershala Ali, and Jennifer Connelly. It also has whatever a Keean Johnson is, but it makes up for that with a Casper Van Dien. Rosa Salazar as the star is more than able to hold her own with all that talent, and it looks like she will have a bright future, but the real star of a James Cameron movie is always the effects, and Alita: Battle Angel has them in spades.

Everywhere you look there is something cool to see in Alita. It is full of awesome moments, and I am sure that it will end up in a lot of Blu-Ray collections so people can show off the advanced features of their TVs. It does fall in to uncanny valley at times, but it is mostly able suspend your disbelief.

Alita: Battle Angel is a fine opening movie to a series, but the problem is that we have no idea if Alita 2 is going to happen. It was an expensive movie to make, and its returns have so far been the minimum to show a profit. Plus, Disney is in the process of gobbling up Fox, so Alita might end up back on the trash heap. Its best hope is that James Cameron wants it to happen, and James Cameron usually gets what he wants. As it stands by itself, it is a passible action movie, with great special effects. I had fun, but don’t expect Alita to be a game changer.