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Total Recall (2012)
Would've been better as a standalone film
So ... I think I know what happened with this film ... some writer is like "hey I have a great idea for a sci-fi film" and the producers read it and were like ... well I think it's not good enough to stand on its own ... so we'll make it a remake of Total Recall.
It's the only thing that makes sense to me because this film COULD have been great if they'd done it as an original film. As it is, it's TERRIBLE. They threw in a bunch of homages to try to tickle fans of the original and they ALL fall flat. The visiting Rekall doesn't make sense for this character ... none of it makes sense. They lost everything that made the original so awesome, and no one's heart seemed to be in this film. They had a bunch of great actors all giving half-assed performances. You could tell nobody cared.
Throw this one in the garbage and watch the original ... it's VASTLY superior.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
This movie is for the fanboys ...
For normal movie goers ... like myself ... this film is a 4-hour long melodramatic, meandering, syrupy, arduous slog of a film... that could've been an hour shorter if Snyder would just ease up on the slow motion effects... YIKES.
Snyder tries to make up for the fact that he's missing 3 films to fill in backstories for his primary heroes. So he tried to cram 4 movies into one AND set up a sequel. It's no wonder the primary plot of the film gets completely lost amidst all of the flashbacks to the point where an hour in ... I couldn't tell what was going on and was bored out of my mind.
Was it tonally more consistent than the previous JL? Yes... but I don't know that it was a good thing. Everything in this film is SO HEAVY. The music has to punch EVERY dramatic scene up to an 11 which makes everything feel schlocky and syrupy instead of carrying actual weight.
And the end result of the film is the same: you don't need a Justice League if you have a Superman. It was REALLY obvious in the previous film and it's still obvious in this one too ... which means that this movie is essentially pointless ... twice.
Plus Steppanwolf still looks like crap and isn't scary at all... so why'd Snyder bother changing him?
In short: don't believe the hype if you're a normal person ... it's 4 hours of your life you won't get back.
365 dni (2020)
Just think of it as porn ...
It interesting how much venom people have for this film. Is it completely unrealitsic? Of course ... but ... uh ... it's a movie! Is it full of bad messaging about relationships between men and women? Absolutely, but so is 50 Shades of Grey, and Twilight, and the Notebook ... and pretty much EVERY steamy romance film you've ever watched.
Is the dialogue terrible? Sure.
Is the plot weak? Absolutely.
So ... yeah it's porn. It's titillating and has lots of steamy sex scenes and absolutely no substance at all. And so ... in that frame ... it does exactly what it is meant to ... and better than most.
Should we be appalled at the fact that people find this kind of stuff sexy?
Well ... you can examine most of our media in this light and find it EXTREMELY problematic. There are all sorts of art forms that could be considered appalling. The way I see it is films and television are meant to be fake and unrealistic and so long as you're not sitting with your daughters pointing at the main guy and saying "definitely try to marry a guy like this when you grow up" ... I think this film is no more appalling than 50 Shades ... or Rambo or Kill Bill or thousand of other films out there.
It's basically an NC-17 Beauty and the Beast, and Disney made 2 of those movies.
Lastly, this film is based on a book series written by a woman ... for women. Just like 50 Shades ... just like Twilight ... and on and on. So before we brand this as hyped male fantasy ... it's not. This is 100% FEMALE FANTASY. Maybe women need to take a look at why WE find this stuff to be sexy before we talk about how NOT-WOKE it is.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
It's a whole lot of style and not much substance
I realize a lot of people will disagree with me ... but personally ... I don't like movies that leave me scratching my head with a lot of questions at the end. I prefer to ... you know ... understand the movies I'm watching.
Now we get from the film that the world as we know it has ended. They are fighting over gasoline and are running out of water. There's this guy Max who used to be a cop who has become a drifter trying to survive. There's this guy Immortan Joe who is really scary, clearly has health issues, and is bogarting all the water from the people. He's got a bunch of blood sucking kids dressed as skeletons who are his lackeys ... and he keeps a harem of women against their will (gross).
Furiosa grew up in a "green" place with a bunch of other women ... was taken by Joe when she was young. She wants to get back there and the "breeders" beg her to take them. And the film is basically them trying to get away from Joe who is trying to get them back. As plots go ... it's extremely basic.
But that is it ... that's all we know and it's all we find out (except that the green place is gone). There are a lot of MENTIONS of things that never actually get explained AND THIS IS MY PROBLEM.
Who is Immortan Joe?
Why does he look like that?
How did he wind up controlling all the water?
Why are they drinking breast milk?
Why are the boys called "half-lives" and dressed like skeletons?
Why do they need "blood bags"?
What is with the silver teeth thing?
What is all this Valhalla, shiny, chrome, what?
Why do they have a vehicle that spits fire with a dude playing electric guitar on it?
How did Furiosa lose her arm?
Who was Furiosa to Joe?
WHO DID KILL THE WORLD? (they keep asking and it never gets answered even a little bit)
I had to look it up ... and I hate when movies don't explain things to the point where I have to look them up. That's what is called BAD STORYTELLING.
I won't spoil it by telling you what was there but there is SO MUCH CRAZY INFORMATION that the movie just left out to make room for more fighting and chase scenes. This movie is 2 hours long and they couldn't fit any more story into it?
Sorry guys ... that's some bad bad writing.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Better upon a second viewing
OK so I always struggle with time travel as a plot device. Mostly because I consider it to be lazy in terms of the story writing ... don't like how the ending went? ... we'll go back in time and undo it! It's LAZY.
And when I saw Endgame in the theaters I LOVED the beginning and they kill Thanos and I'm thinking "ok he destroyed the stones ... how are they going to undo this?" and then they go "TIME TRAVEL" and my heart just sank. So the first time through I missed a LOT due to being bummed out. And I walked out of the theater with a disgruntled smirk.
However ... the second time, I had a chance to pause and rewind when Dr Hulk explains the time travel rules and, to my surprise, they actually do make sense.
Which made me far less irritated when he explained why they couldn't just go back and kill baby Thanos. And with that part making better sense I was able to pay more attention to the other bits that bothered me the first time and upon second viewing I realized that they actually did a pretty decent job of telling the story and nearly everything lined up.
I still have bones to pick ... for instance, it was purely coincidence that Nat and Hawkeye went to Vormir? Cuz if Nebula and Rodi had gone then they would've been screwed. Seriously nobody knew the trick to getting the soul stone but they sent nearly the only pair that could make it work? Just dumb luck? OK ... fine. And I don't understand why the 4 had to land on Morag and then split up ... but ok. And then Captain America going back in time wouldn't have messed up his own timeline but he would've messed with Peggy's. Wouldn't that mean he would end up on a different trajectory? So he wouldn't have ended up on that bench at the end?
See this is the problem with time travel.
And I was disappointed by some missed opportunities. What I loved about Infinity War was the mash-ups of the different worlds, the characters meeting and collaborating. And with the exception of Nebula there weren't really that many mash-ups. I would've loved more Okoye ... even some Okoye would've been nice. She was relegated to 1 scene and then the end ... bummer. I would've loved a lot more Rocket. I think it would've been better if they'd left Shuri alive and had her contribute to the science since that part of Infinity War was awesome. And more Captain Marvel of course though I know why they did what they did with her ...
All of that being said, the final battle is one of the greatest things I've ever watched. I loved it both times and wanted to watch it again immediately after finishing which means I'll likely watch this film several more times.
Endgame is a wonderful conclusion to an outstanding film series ... the most epic ever attempted. And while it's not perfect it's still very well done.
The Punisher (2017)
Ultimately ... disappointing
I would rate season one a 10. It's a beautiful, heart-wrenching story about a man who has lost everything and trying to figure out how to live his life. He's haunted by the things he did for his country, the death of his family, teetering on the edge of sanity and whether to become a full-blown psychopath. The characters are fantastic, the story is compelling, and they beautifully shed a light on America's forgotten soldiers. The men asked to commit atrocities in the name of freedom only to be cast aside and treated as garbage by the country they gave everything to "protect".
It's a masterpiece and I love every minute of it.
And then ... there's season 2.
A weird hodge-podgy mess that can't decide what it is. I think the first episode was probably my favorite of the show. It maintained the tone of season 1. And then it turned into a "save the girl" thing ... and then an underlying conspiracy thing. Which would've been fine except that we've seen it executed SOOO much better ... like in Daredevil Season 1.
Betrayer best friend becomes the villain ... so cliche. They give Billy amnesia which just made all of his actions pointless. It doesn't feel like very much happens in this season ... but it's really long so most of it is filler. Nothing is explored in depth. We don't feel anything for any of the characters. And there's no deeper meaning to any of it so it just feels empty.
Yeah the fight scenes were well done but I'm not going to rate a show highly because of fight scenes.
It's just really a shame. Netflix can't write a good season 2 to save its life and it is just so damned disappointing! We know these actors are excellent but they were given nothing good to work with. I'd give season 1 a 10 and season 2 a 5 ... so split the difference is a 7.5.
Captain Marvel (2019)
Most of these reviews were posted before the film even hit theaters
Suspicious much? I on the other hand thought this movie was really fun. It's one of the weaker Marvel films to be sure ... but I thought the AntMans or Thor 2 were both far weaker and I liked this one more than Black Panther. I loved Brie Larson, I loved her character, and it was AWESOME to finally see a truly badass female superhero. Like truly badass ... like I-wanna-see-Captain-Marvel-vs-Superman-cuz-I-think-she-could-take-him badass. It's about freaking time!
AMAZING soundtrack ... all the 90's stuff was really fun (especially if you were alive during the 90's) and there were several laugh out loud moments. Was it super cornball at times ... sure. Were some of the "reveals" kinda hooky? Absolutely. But this was overall a solid, fun, film. My husband and I both left the theater smiling.
Haters need to get a life.
Iron Man Three (2013)
It's got some serious issues ... but I still really like it. :-)
So to start off I want to say that I really like this film ... and I recognize that it has some pretty glaring consistency issues.
A lot of people hated the Mandarin twist ... I liked it. I don't think that's an issue but then I never read the comics. My issues have to do with logic and consistency.
The first big issue is the inconsistency on the new suit that "codes" to Tony.
So Tony has to implant a bunch of electrodes in his arm to make the suit reassemble on him ... but then with a couple arm movements he's able to put it on Pepper? Then later Rhodes asks for a suit and Tony says "they're only coded to me" ... but then he again does the movements and puts the whole suit on Killian???? If he has to "code" the suits then how can he just arbitrarily transfer them with a couple arm waves to anyone he wants? And if he can put the suits on anyone why was he implanting electrodes in his arm? For the conducting?? Anyway ... weird.
OK so next is Iron Patriot ... AIM apparently did the upgrade on War Machine to turn him into Iron Patriot. And they were able to program it to encapsulate the president, fly and deliver him to Killian. So why didn't they also build in an override to bring Rhodes to them? Or an "open sesame" button to pop Rhodes out of it? They do all the work, they built in override capability, having the suit was completely necessary to their plan ... so why did they have to create an elaborate ruse to capture Rhodes? And then all the heating to get him out of the suit? Why not just push a button and it spits out Rhodes and brings the suit directly to them? Would've been easier.
Oh and quick side note: what was with Rhodes able to active the blasters from the outside while he's rescuing the president? Seriously you can do that ... cuz that seems like a SERIOUS design flaw. Anyway ...
Ok and then lastly is the suped-up soldiers and Killian and the various ways to kill them ... or not kill them. So with the primary bad dude soldier: a 3000 celsius blast DOESN'T kill him ... a blast to the head DOESN'T kill him ... burning, gunshots, nope and nope. But a laser to the chest kills him? Why does that work? Their heart has to be destroyed to destroy them? If that's true why doesn't blowing up work? Or fire? How does that make sense? Then later during the final battle fight the super-soldiers ARE taken out by explosions? I mean the Iron Legion had to have taken them all out because there aren't any left by the end ... it's unclear HOW they accomplish this but we do see some of them exploding and it appears to be working.
But then we get to Killian ... dismemberment doesn't work, punches, blasts, nothing. Then Tony puts a suit on him and explodes it ... that should do it right? NOPE. Somehow still alive until Pepper explodes him a second time ... so two explosions work???
Yeah and let's not forget Pepper ... falls 200 feet into fire ... and survives. So it just makes absolutely no sense at all ... seemed like the movie writers were just making it up as they went along and just shrugged at the end and said ... whatever ... people will still like it.
And hey ... they were right. :-)
The Greatest Showman (2017)
One word ... saccharine
Forget the songs that all sound the same and were CLEARLY written before there was a film (you can tell by the vagueness of the lyrics and how some of them don't make any sense in the context of the film). Forget the overly auto-tuned vocalists even ones who don't need to be auto-tuned!! Forget the multitude of under developed or one-dimensional characters we're never given a chance to care about. Even forget the constant moralistic hammering of equality equality EQUALITY into every single freaking scene.
The overwhelming feeling of this film is ... in one word ... saccharine. As in NAUSEATINGLY sweet. Sappy. Mawkish. There's no real drama no real heart, and the film makes it impossible to believe that anything will get these spunky go-getters down for too long. PUKE.
Look I didn't hate it ... it wasn't nearly as bad as La La Land which I had to turn off within 30 minutes because it was so terrible. I DID end up fast forwarding through the songs after 3rd or 4th one because there was nothing gained by them and I have a life.
Maybe that's the bar: if you liked La La Land ... you'll probably like this. If you thought La La Land was irredeemable dreck then definitely do not waste your time on this movie.
Ready Player One (2018)
Boring and predictable
It's Willy Wonka meets Avatar set in the world of Idiocracy with a hundred pop culture references thrown in. There's nothing new here. The leads are un-engaging, the story has been done a thousand times before, and the dialogue is just embarrassing. There's nothing to draw you in, nothing to connect you to the characters, nothing to make you care about this world. Even the special effects aren't anything new.
Remember when Spielberg used to make GOOD movies??
It gets 2 stars because I didn't turn it off mid-way but I was bored most of the time. Probably the video-game generation will love it but for those of us who grew up in the REAL world it's a snooze fest.
Do yourself a favor and watch Wreck-It-Ralph ... a very similar story done FAR FAR BETTER.
Black Panther (2018)
Not my favorite Marvel film
I had heard that Black Panther was supposed to be excellent so I was excited to see it. I think I can understand, having a movie about Africa that ISN'T about slavery, genocide, apartheid, AIDS, war lords, or child soldiers is kind of unheard of ... and in that light this film is awesome. I applaud the long list of strong female characters present in this film. And they got the freaking A-List for this film, the acting talent was unimpeachable.
My issue with this film is the story: they used such a generic and overly used storyline which was DEEPLY disappointing. The plot is just a superhero version of the Lion King which we all know got its plot from Hamlet. It made me feel like a movie I'd already seen 15 times before and that really bummed me out.
Meanwhile the film is populated with all these interesting characters and a new country and culture that we never find out much about. Who are the Dora Milaje? How did it come to be that Wakanda is protected by a group of badass bald females? What's with the hand to hand combat to determine the next king? What's the significance of the masks? Why does that mountain tribe worship Hanuman (whose roots are Hindu)? Why is the mountain tribe all trouble-making? What's the deal with the Wakandan spy missions all over the world? What's with the lip tattoos? Why do they glow like that? How do they get them? Are they hereditary or what?
Or how about just more history on the relationships between the primary cast? What's the story between T'Challa and Nakia? Was Shuri born a child prodigy or was she trained to be head of technology? What's the deal between Okoye and W'Kabi? Are they lovers? Married? What? And what's T'Challa's relationship with W'Kabi? Did they grow up together? Are they best friends? We're told extremely little about any of these people and we're just supposed to infer everything based on a few random interactions.
So I was left not feeling very much for these characters as they jump from action scene to action scene to action scene to ... yawn. Plus, there was nothing new to the action sequences ... and it's just all been done before so many times I got bored.
THEN, add to that, I'm not even sure WHEN this movie is supposed to be taking place. During Civil War? After Civil War? Because if it's during Civil War ... like after the father was killed and before Bucky was brought to Wakanda ... then it blows the big is-T'Challa-dead part of the film because we know he has to live to go after Bucky. If it's after Civil War then why did they say in Civil War that T'Challa was king? It's sloppy stuff like this that makes me crazy.
And lastly, the film felt tonally off from the other films ... and not in a good way like Thor Ragnarok. It's like this film couldn't decide what tone to take, so it was part storytelling/fantastic/mythology ... then part gritty/urban/dark ... then part glossy/tech-heavy/action flick. If it had just picked ONE of those and stuck with it I probably would've loved it but instead it was a mishmash and didn't do any of them well and left the whole thing feeling off.
I give it a 7 because I didn't really dislike the film, and for me even a so-so Marvel film is still way better than most movies Hollywood makes today. But I was disappointed. I wanted better and it's a shame that this film didn't get a richer, unique story to do credit to the acting talent and overall opportunity that existed in the making of this film.
47 Ronin (2013)
Really not as terrible as I thought it would be
I really think the failure of this film was bad advertising. When I saw the trailers for this film my primary thought was, "Why is Keanu Reeves in a Samurai movie?" It felt like white-washing like Great Wall ... it made no sense ... and immediately turned me off from wanting to see the film.
What I didn't know ... that the studio REALLY should've emphasized ... is that the main character is half asian and this explains why you'd cast Keanu Reeves ... and kinda makes him perfect for the role. But why they wouldn't bring this up in the trailers is beyond me.
The story itself is like a mystical Sho-Gun. It's not original, borrowing from a million stories we've seen before, but the mystical elements are definitely intriguing and the final battle is one of the best choreographed I've seen in a VERY long time.
The pacing is poor, the acting is just ok, and I think Americans won't like the ending ... but it wasn't horrible in fact it was much better than I thought it would be.
Wyatt Earp (1994)
Could've been done in half the time and would've been twice as good.
This film is waaaaay too long and is bogged down in unnecessary details. I believe the effort was to have fully formed and well established characters but what we end up with is a film that feels like 90% introductions and 10% plot. Every cast member is a well-known actor so we think they're all important ... except that a lot of them aren't to the telling of the story.
So Wyatt Earp ends up being boring and meandering instead of a thrilling western. Not worth the runtime.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Good god this movie was awful.
Why would you cast Channing Tatum as a spy and then write him into a coma within 5 minutes of introducing him? Why would you cast Jeff Bridges as the folksy team leader and then only give him 2 minutes of screen time? Why would you give Halle Barry that haircut and put her in those glasses ... why dear god why?!?
And way to muddy the waters on the drug legalization issue and reinforce negative stereotypes about southerners and conservatives.
The story is a mess, the talent is completely wasted, and the humor is way way way off. What happened to the fun, action-packed, romp like the first film was?
Jessica Jones (2015)
Season 2 isn't very good
My star rating is for Season 1 and I'm going to let it stand because, in my opinion, Kilgrave is one of the greatest villains EVER to be portrayed on film. David Tennet is beyond terrifying on all possible levels and Season 1 of Jessica Jones is my favorite of all the Netflix Marvel shows.
That being said ... Netflix can't seem to do a decent Season 2 to save its life... and that's across the board. Season 1's they do EXTREMELY well but all of their Season 2s have been very poor by comparison.
Jessica Jones unfortunately is no different. Where season 1 had a terrifying villain and a nail-biting crescendo to the finish, season 2 just kind of meanders along without tension or build toward anything. I found the mother survivor story to be boring, I found the Hogarth arc to be unnecessary, and I was extremely disappointed in the lack of cross over. It's just a huge dud. Extremely disappointing since Jessica is my favorite character.
Justice League (2017)
It wasn't horrible ...
I've definitely seen superhero mashups be worse. Mostly this just felt like a not-as-good-Avengers.
The thing with superhero mashups is that there isn't a lot of time for character development. Characters can have arcs but they have to be small ones so we need to know the characters beforehand so we can care about them. So DC messed up in that we only really knew Superman and Wonder Woman. We knew a little about Batman from the Batman vs Superman movie but not really. So that's half the characters we have absolutely no history with when this film starts ... that's a lot of gaps to fill.
Justice League tries, but the characters all feel flat even the ones who previously had stories and personalities. I'm not sure what happened but we get zero development, zero personality ... just deadpan performances all the way around.
Add to that, pretty terrible CGI.
Then there's fact that Superman makes the rest of them seem useless. I thought the Flash was supposed to be faster than Superman? I thought Wonder Woman was supposed to share Superman's level of strength? Batman seems especially useless in this film ... like he gets them all together but he's old and clunky in his suit and can't fight worth a damn.
Aquaman I just don't get. He lives in the water ... there's some jokes that he talks to fish ... he's strong? But we don't get to see him flex his water muscles, he does most of his fighting on land, he's got his trident thing but he basically just uses it as a pitch fork. So I don't get it.
And as soon as Superman shows up it looks as though he could've single-handedly taken out the big bad. Like he wasn't working hard at all which made the defeat of Steppenwolf extremely unsatisfying.
So yeah ... not awful but just kind of meh.
Logan (2017)
Close to perfect
Gorgeously tragic, deeply moving, a perfect end for an amazing hero.
Beautifully acted and written, possibly the greatest of all the Xmen films.
The only complaint I have is when the doctor "monologues" at the end ... even though it's nice to know about the evil plot to end the mutants the movie could've ended without the ridiculous speech and we still would've loved it. In fact leaving a big hanging question mark over what happened to all the mutants would've worked just fine.
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Stiff, uneven, and preachy!
I knew it was going to be bad when the film opened to a horrendously auto-tuned Emma Watson. Why ... when Hollywood is TEEMING with incredibly gifted actors who can both sing and dance ... do they insist time and again on casting actors ... in MUSICALS ... who can do neither? Maybe Emma looked the part of Belle ... but that's all she resembles in the character. She lacks the confidence, charisma, spark, and energy of the animated Belle and her vocals are downright puny. Luke Evans has the talent for Gaston, Josh Gad is fine as LeFou, Ian McGregor while not sounding French in the slightest at least has the vocal talent for Lumiere ... if they had to have Emma why not dub her over like they did for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady??
And then, I understand that Gaston is the narcissistic, brutish, mysoginist, obsessed and stalking Belle ... not taking "no" for an answer... he's the bad guy, I get it. And we the audience are shown why we should dislike him within his first 30 seconds on screen. But his first interaction with Belle is odd to say the least. He approaches her with a lovely bouquet of flowers, and politely asks her to dinner. She looks at him with a disgusted incredulous look and says "no." It's unclear whether this is the first time 1. she's met him or 2. he's asked her out. But if either of those things are true ... Belle was kinda b****y to the guy. I'm a woman, she's free to say no for whatever reason she wants, but if a guy brought me flowers and nicely asked me to dinner I'd at least attempt not to grimace. I know this guy's a jerk and he vows to keep pursuing her which is a total d**k move, but their first encounter doesn't give her any reason to be hostile, and even their second encounter feels like she's overreacting. The movie doesn't make me hate/loathe Gaston enough to want to see him treated badly ... which Belle does. And it makes me dislike her, not him.
Actually Emma feels stiff in the whole movie, it's almost like they bad cgi-d her to mimic realistic movements so everything looks unnatural.
And perhaps worst is Disney with their ham-fisted political messages. It's not enough for Belle to be the quirky odd-ball because she's smart and enjoys reading ... now she ALSO has to be an advocate for female equality and secretly teaching girls to read. An issue I totally agree with, but why does it have to be done so sanctimoniously and heavy-handed?
Belle's father stopping to get the rose was STUPID. You escape the wolves and the creepy possessed castle but then have to stop for a rose? I think your daughter would understand with your life and safety on the line if you forget her damned flower. Her dad deserved to get caught. And why they chose to cast Kevin Kline as Belle's father I really don't understand. He wasn't a crackpot scientist, he wasn't a zany kook, and he wasn't even that convincing as a loving father ... he wasn't endearing on any level.
The beast is too cartoony to be frightening, I'm sorry but Emma Thompson (whom I love) is just no Angela Lansbury. The beast's backstory was unnecessary melodramatic drivel. Belle's backstory was just depressing and made us lose focus from the primary story. The plot just meanders all over the place, it's an absolute mess and everything dilutes from the primary plot line so it loses all its potency by the end.
Some of the singing talent in this film is absolutely outstanding which only highlights how terrible the leads are. I don't understand why you'd need famous actors for roles that are 90% CGI ... why not get stronger vocal talent? It would have vastly improved the film.
There are some moments that are stunningly beautiful and proof of the magic that can be real-life vs animated films ... but they are few, far between, and never at the right moments. The musical numbers never even approach magical which is really disappointing as those were most of the high points in the animated version.
The crescendos all fall flat, the whole film feels anti-climactic. Nothing builds, there's no momentum. The pacing of the movie is all over the place, some parts way too slow and other things felt rushed. This film tries to distinguish itself from its animated predecessor but it's like Disney forgot that many consider Beauty and the Beast to be the best of all the animated Disney films. Every change they made only served to make it worse.
The animated film is vastly superior. Don't bother with this one.
Snatched (2017)
What's with all the negative reviews?!?
I've watched dozens of comedies far far worse than this one that are rated far better and all I can figure is that the haters really turn out to bad mouth Amy Schumer. People seem to either love or hate her... and if you're the latter, why would you watch this film in the first place? That's like watching a Tarantino film and then complaining that it's so gorey. Hello ... pointless!
I really enjoyed this film! I was not expecting to like it at all ... and the way it began, I thought I was going to be right ... and then it made a sudden hilarious turn. I found it a riot! It had me repeatedly laughing out loud (which is not an easy feat).
I think if you're a 30-somethings daughter or a mother of a daughter you'll really enjoy the dynamic between Schumer and Hawn. They're both fantastic, their chemistry is amazing, the story is solid, the acting is great ... loved LOVED Joan Cusack and really enjoyed Wanda Sykes.
Seriously this movie is a light comedic romp, I don't know why people dislike it so much.
This is a totally solid comedy and fun to boot. Don't listen to the critics.
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
What a mess
This film can't decide what it is.
First it wants to be Aliens: send a bunch of badass military dudes to rid the world of horrible monsters. Then it tries to be Jurassic Park: scientists dealing with out of control ancient species. And then it goes all Heart of Darknessy/Apocolypse Now with Samuel L. losing his sh**. And by the end it's Predator: human against alien species revenge for killing his men flick. But it doesn't do any of them well and the entire thing ends up feeling completely unnecessary.
They go to the island (which has been actively avoided since the beginning of time) to protect the world from the "monsters" who live there. What? The things never leave the island ... nobody's ever seen them ... but we need to destroy them before they destroy us. Right ...
Then the first thing they do once they reach this pristine untouched wilderness is drop a bunch of bombs on it. And when Kong comes out to defend the island he's branded a "monster" and they go immediately to "KILL IT!" Which in the end gets a lot of men killed ... oh but that's Kong's fault. Hey genius, how bout you turn the choppers around when the big monster comes ... run away ... save more men. But no ... Kong is the bad one.
Then they encounter a huge spider thing who's just strolling along and minding its own business ... it accidentally skewers a dude with one of its legs ... and instead of running away or hiding ... no they start shooting and hacking its legs off. So it defends itself ... kills more guys ... and they wind up butchering the poor thing ... probably the only one of its kind in the world.
So the military just stomps through destroying land and killing endangered species and calling themselves the good guys. And the Colonel gets WAY more guys killed going on his revenge mission than would've if he'd actually thought about the health and safety of his men. So is this supposed to be an anti-war film?
And then the film segues to a soldier who dropped there in WW2 and a strange mute civilization that worships Kong and then evil skull crusher lizards. So now you're really on Kong's team cuz he's like the protector of the people. Which is all just gearing up for the big showdown between Kong and head lizard which Kong wins of course.
And then there's the eyeroll-worthy push for the freaking "monster-universe" at the end ... gag. Ugh, Hollywood is just a bunch of greedy garbage pushers at this point. And they're so shameless about it. So yeah ... 2 stars.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Utter garbage
I understand that Disney is in to this game to make money. And this movie did make money ... outside the US. And deservedly so ... it's a horrible horrible mess of a plot, terrible dialog, Jack's personality has been reduced to "drunk guy", the new characters are unexciting and lack both chemistry and charisma. Not to mention the complete waste of talent... bringing Kiera Knightly back for a hug and a kiss? I hope she charged them $10M for that.
Disney spent $230M on this picture ... why couldn't they get a decent script? It continues to be my issue with pretty much everything that Disney puts out. Why are their scripts such garbage? It's the cheapest part of the entire production. Why can't they do it better? This script wasn't even that terrible it just needed some good editing. A few tweaks here and there and it could've been great.
So why not do that? Why not hire some good script editors, make a movie that's actually GOOD and make even MORE money? Why not make a movie that doesn't get immediately panned by critics, is a huge splash in the US, and STILL kills overseas? Sounds like definitely the way to go. And yet ...
With this much money there's no excuse to make crap movies and yet Disney has made this their MO. So they have fabulous effects, decent actors, and just sh*t stories. Apparently they don't care.
La La Land (2016)
A musical with no memorable music and talentless actors ... how is this a hit?!?
Musicals don't necessarily have to have leading stars who can sing and dance. Frank Sinatra was no great dancer but managed to hold his own, Rene Zellweger was dwarfed next to Catherine Zeta, and Christian Bale's Santa Fe ballad complete with cowboy dance in Newsies is downright laughable, hell Rex Harrison SPOKE his songs rather than sing them ... BUT given incredible music we the audience can forgive a lot.
That being said, it's not like Hollywood is hurting for actors who can both sing AND dance. Neil Patrick Harris and Kristen Bell both immediately spring to mind. Now if you'd paired those two in La La Land you MIGHT be able to overlook the huge glaring flaw in this musical: the fact that the music STINKS.
5 minutes in I was bored ... I was supposed to be wowed with a huge musical opening number ala "All that Jazz", "Carrying the Banner", "Sweeney Todd", or "Singing in the Rain" and instead I couldn't tell you the title of the song and I couldn't have been less blown away by the opening dance number. BORING.
Then we meet our protagonists and ... I couldn't care less about either of them. At 15 minutes in I was ready to bail out but I figured I should at least hear Gosling sing and see both of them dance before I called it. Man am I sorry I waited. At 30 minutes in we finally get to the first big song/dance number and it just really could not have sucked worse if it were a preschool production. If that was all the singing required, couldn't they have cast Channing Tatum? I'm sure his voice could have been auto tuned as much as Gosling's and he's an excellent dancer. Everyone made fun of Helena Bonham Carter's Ms. Lovett because of her airy nothing of a voice ... well Emma wishes she had the lung capacity of Ms Carter.
Midway through the train wreck of the first musical number I couldn't take any more. If I'd seen it in a theater I'd have demanded my money back. I heard there's some good John Legend moments ... I'll just try to find them on youtube.
So Hollywood casts not 1 but 2 actors who can't sing or dance worth a lick in a musical with utterly bland and completely forgettable music. How is this rated 8.6 stars? Why is this film not overwhelmingly panned by critics? Is this what passes for good from Hollywood now? Because if so they should just turn in the keys because the whole place is bound to go down in flames any second.
Fifty Shades Darker (2017)
The worst kind of so-called romance
It's kind of amazing that in 2017 a film like this can be called "romance". The character of Christian is creepy, controlling, possessive, immature, narcissistic, and (if we're going off of the film's own narrative) emotionally distant and psychologically scarred. BUT because he is unimaginably wealthy, physically attractive, and f**ks well ... eh ... who cares... Ana loves him. The guy is a psychopath: he buys the company where she works because her boss is attracted to her, he knows her bank account (why??), and he keeps a file on her. Come on people, the guy is 2 hairs short of being a freaking serial killer. In what bizarro land is any of this romantic?!? Hot?!? Sexy?!?
Let's not even delve into how poorly and shallowly the Dom/Sub relationship is portrayed. Let's skip over the obvious ignorance of the author in their understanding and personal experience of BDSM. Let's ignore the naiveté it would take to pair an abusive childhood with fetishism and pigeonholing sex where anything outside your basic missionary position is the realm of the deviant and disturbed. "Only tortured children grow up to enjoy bondage." Yes, please, let's keep running that narrative.
So far we're upside down on the dream guy, we've undercut the sexual revolution we're purporting to encourage and we haven't even gotten to the worst part: the so-called heroine. Our strong feminine role-model and the ying to Christian's psychotic yang... Ana.
This woman is literally surrounded by creepy dudes. Her "friend" photographs her then displays the prints in galleries without her permission intending to sell the photos to strangers (gross). Her boss, first is the guy who goes after the girl even after he knows she has a boyfriend (eww) then that devolves to him trying to freaking rape her in the office. And her boyfriend keeps a freaking file on her, breaks into her house, tries to forbid her from seeing other men, tries to keep her from working, and hires people to find out every personal thing about her and everyone around her ... oh but she LIKES him so that makes it all OK. Come on people this is just sick!
Ana is constantly needing to be rescued. Anything she achieves is because someone else notices her not because she goes after anything. She's annoyingly mousy, indecisive, and plays little girl ... oh but don't tell her what to do ... because she's not a sub. She tells Christian to spank her so she's totally in control of the relationship ... except that he's manipulating and controlling her the entire time. And we as an audience are supposed to consider her strong. WHAT?
Plus she just rips off the line from Working Girl ... did she know she did that because it seems like she just tried to pass it off as her own. And the rest of the film is like some horrible porn flick with incoherent scenes jumping to more incoherent scenes with excuses for sex scattered every 10 minutes or so just so you're reminded that this is supposed to be hot. There's no cohesion to any of it. There's random gutter girl ... Kim Basinger is Christian's Mrs. Robinson ... a helicopter crashes ... god it's a mess. And on top of ALL of that ... the sex scenes were awful. I thought that was supposed to be the pull of these movies?
Please say there won't be a third one of these!
Just Cause (1995)
Disturbing
Exactly what is supposed to be our take away from this film? Ten minutes in we are privy to two police officers beating and torturing a prisoner in order to coerce a confession. The man is sentenced to death after a joke of a trial with little to no evidence. A Harvard professor is begged by the prisoner's desperate grandmother to appeal the case. The professor takes it on, gets the man freed ... only for him to turn out to be a psychopath and a murderer because he was castrated while imprisoned overnight for another crime he didn't commit.
So the guy ends up being guilty ... so it was supposed to be OK that the police beat a confession out of him? Or that he wound up on death row with little to no evidence to put him there? We're supposed to side with the cops who beat the guy up? Or the system that caused him to be castrated and become a psychopath in the first place?
I mean seriously what are we supposed to gather from this film? Whose side are we supposed to be on? Is this film supposed to be anti-death-penalty or for it because it can't seem to make up its mind.
And to all the people reading this review and saying "it's just a movie, you're taking it too seriously" I'm sorry but there are thousands of railroaded people in prison right now, likely several innocent people currently on death row. It seems to me a movie like this only muddies the issue or tries to make light of a serious problem within our justice system. In either case I find it profoundly disturbing.
Shoot 'Em Up (2007)
This movie rules!
First, I need to make one thing abundantly clear, this movie is the definition of over-the-top. Nothing in this film is intended to be believable on any level. So if you like action films that have a lot of depth and realism ... this is not your film. But if you can buy in to what this film is selling you are in for one hell of a wild ride.
The fight scenes are extremely creative and well choreographed, it's really well acted, it has a decent plot, and best of all it doesn't take itself seriously.
Do yourself a favor, put your logical brain on snooze for 90 minutes and enjoy!