johnplocar

"Crazy Rich Asians" is the story of when Nick Young takes his girlfriend, Rachel Chu, to Singapore for a wedding where she gets the chance to meet Nick's family for the first time. However, it turns out that his family is...well...'crazy rich'. When they arrive it becomes apparent that Nick's mother doesn't quite approve of his new girlfriend. So will they figure out how to put their differences aside or will this be the end of Nick and Rachel as we know it?!

So from the plot, it's fairly obvious that we have seen several times before; whether it be "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", "Meet the Parents", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", etc. Anyone could probably picture in their head how this film might play out and they would be exactly right. It has every cliche in the Rom-Com book. The characters are every stereotype we've seen before. The story is one-hundred percent predictable at every turn. Yet, somehow, this manages to be a very genuine and even sweet film. I was able to accept the constant cliches, the wildly familiar archetypes and the lack of ambition in narrative because I found most of the characters likable and even enjoyed the exploration of Asian culture. By all accounts, this was a rehash of a movie that has been made countless times in the past, but it was a good example of how to work with something that is familiar yet finding a way to make it still entertaining.

In the opening scene the film establishes everything that one needs to know about the Young family, specifically the character of Nick's mother, Eleanor. This family can make one quick phone call and they are immediately the brand new owners of a five star, high class hotel in London. This family has powerful connections and Eleanor is always at the ready to use that to vindictively strike at anyone who threatens them. This intro really does help set up the mother and why she is the way she is when Rachel comes into the picture. Eleanor is basically another iteration of Robert De Niro's character in "Meet the Parents"; she's quick to judge Rachel for being a mistake for Nick to be with, resulting in her trying to put a wedge between the two in hopes to break them up. Nick is pretty much golden child of the family, especially to his mother, and is in line to take up the mantle for the family business. He's smart, successful and completely responsible; practically the perfect guy with seemingly no flaws at all. And Rachel is an economics teacher at N.Y.U. who loves her job in benefiting youths' lives. Daughter of a single mother who raised her all of her life after her father passed away before she was born. She too is successful in her career, but not quite to the standards of the Young family.

A huge factor that held this film together for me and kept me from being irritated by the familiarity of it all is how much personality is interjected into these characters. I believe that to be heavily due to the terrific actors who do their best with their roles. I wouldn't say that there is anything groundbreaking or even Oscar worthy by any means, but the actors involved supply enough charisma and depth in character that I couldn't help myself from being somewhat invested in the story. Michelle Yeoh as Eleanor in particular gives a layered performance that is interesting and understandable, especially when the relationship between Eleanor and her mother-in-law is revealed. You get where her character is coming from and why she is as strict as she is when it comes to Nick and his decisions. On the other hand, you certainly don't agree with Eleanor interfering in Nick and Rachel's lives the way that she does. Instead, it is fairly easy to route for Rachel to persuade Eleanor, or at the very least prevail against Eleanor's efforts to cut her out of the picture. When Nick and Rachel share scenes together, their relationship is extremely cute, and was actually touching in one scene in particular involving the wedding that they were invited to attend. Plus, the acting on Constance Wu's part as Rachel is very solid work; it's near impossible not to feel a bit of emotion any time something stressful happens to Rachel to the point where it makes her eyes start to well up.

Like I've said, this is a story seen so many times before that it'd be insane if someone didn't know where this film was going. The boyfriend/girlfriend takes girlfriend/boyfriend to meet the family. The family, specifically one parental role, disapproves or is weary of the relationship. That parent does everything they can to sabotage the romance. The 'outsider' does everything they can to brush their efforts off and persevere. There's a number of quirky characters that add to the wackiness and stress of our main character. Once the third act hits, there's a big misunderstanding that leads to the two romantic leads to break up. They spend the next several minutes in heart break over the loss of their love. But in the last remaining moments, love concurs all. The romantic leads realize that they love each other and they have no reason to be apart while the judgmental parent finally learns the error of their ways and accepts the newcomer into the family. The end.

So what makes this a more enjoyable pill to swallow than say something like "Meet the Fockers"? Aside from the acting doing a good job at making the characters feel lively, the writing makes an effort to put its own unique spin on every event that happens in the movie. The misunderstanding is something that is something that goes beyond even the knowledge of our lead characters and there's no real way that it could have been cleared up prior to when it is brought up in the narrative. The rivalry between the girlfriend and the significant other's mother doesn't come across as naive on anyone's part, but rather it comes from a place of honor and tradition for the Young family.

Speaking of the Young family, there is a decent amount of care in detail provided with the extended family of Nick. Taking a peak into the lives of several of his cousins, showing several examples of what a significant fortune does to a large family. There's the ones living the care-free, rock star lifestyle. Others that just pour money practically into every aspect of their lives. The most interesting, however, is the cousin Astrid who is going through a sort of rough patch in her marriage with a man who also wasn't seen as a 'worthy' inclusion of the Young family. The dynamic between Astrid and how she tries to keep her family, as well as her money, completely separate from her husband because it somehow makes him feel inept. Again, it is a subplot that is predictable from the start, but I thought that the acting was good enough to support it and I also liked the character arc of Astrid.

The culture that all of this takes place in gives everything its own interesting context, as well as a unique flavor. This film is very stylish in how the scenes are lit and edited; I mean, it never hurts to supply some eye candy to the movie and with the Chinese aesthetics displayed all throughout the film, it does have some beautiful imagery. The most impressive of which has to be the wedding scene. In all honesty, the wedding sequence was possibly one of the most visually appealing weddings that I had ever seen in a movie; it was truly gorgeous to watch as it went along.

Another aspect about this movie that probably helps it stand strong is that it actually is relatively funny. The comedy here, for the most part, is handled very well. It doesn't feel like a string of juvenile or sophomoric humor being shoved into the movie, nor does it try to make the dialog into two hours worth sex puns. Thankfully it also doesn't take part in a modern trend I'm sick of with the actors providing line-o-rama the whole run time. The comedy is much more character based and feels natural from where the jokes stem from. With that said, however, there is one character where the comedy felt particularly forced. That, for me, was in the supporting character of Peik Lin Goh who is played by Awkwafina. I found her remarkably annoying. For some reason Peik felt like the least natural part of this whole film and could have undoubtedly been cut from the film with a simple rewrite. The actress's style of comedy was just obnoxious and constantly mugging to the camera, I found that grating to watch. Especially when everyone else is so good and is already funny on their own, so it feels pointless to include this supporting comic relief that doesn't match the tone for the rest of the cast. There were a couple of moments where she was 'fine', but any time she popped up on screen I wanted to chuck her out a window.

So my final thoughts are that...yes, this has been done before. But when it's done right, then why fight it? Just enjoy the ride. And that is exactly what I did. I sat back and enjoyed the ride. I delighted by the characters, I had my fair share of laughs, I admired the visual spectacle of the film's locations and aesthetics, I knew where the plot was going and I was okay with that. There was one character that I slightly hated and wished was dead, but if that's the worst thing that I can say about this movie then I declare this to be rather a success. If you would like to just have a date night and watch some cute movie fluff then this is pretty perfect for that. Check it out and turn your brains off.

This is the second directorial debut from a comedic actor I've seen this week and this was also, in my opinion, a solid effort. "Eighth Grade" does a terrific job capturing that awkward part of puberty that I think we've all gone through, while also showing how difficult it can be to establish relationships in today's society with the youth constantly obsessed with being on their phones and what's going on in social media. It also finds the humor with a girl just getting into her high school years such as the rocky kinship between her and her father, her going through having a crush on the 'bad boy' in school, figuring out certain things about sexual interactions, etc. Bo Burnham has always been a talented comedian, but I think he proves that he has more range in his talents here; he shows that he knows what he's talking about with being young and lacking confidence in oneself because of those awkward phases.

"Eighth Grade" centers on Kayla Day, a young girl who is in the very last week of her eighth grade year. In preparation of going into high school she goes through an arc of trying to figure herself out while also attempting to overcome her own personal anxieties such as being afraid to speak out and simply put herself out there so people can get to know her, trying to get the attention of the boy she likes, or even finding a way to make friends with some older kids that she finds to be cool.

What I really appreciate about this movie was that it felt like a story that someone personally went through, as if Bo Burnham had held onto his pre-high school experiences and wrote them all into his script. That is what this feels like to me and I dug that about this movie. I do remember feeling awkward at that time, honestly throughout most of my time in school, feeling the want I had inside of me to be more confident and put myself out there yet lacking the confidence to do so. It's tough at that age and it's made all the more difficult nowadays with the increase in technology integrated into our everyday lives, especially with teenagers. The movie does a really good job showing that puberty is confusing and more awkward now more than ever because we somewhat lack true human connection because the majority of kids now are consistently having their eyes focused on the screen of their phones rather than actually having a conversation in person with someone right in front of them. It also shows how much that has kind of driven the kids that feel left out to seek friendship and attention out in the world wide web whether it be via posting videos on YouTube or liking everyone's picture on Instagram. We all seek a connection in some way and that's what today's youth has pretty much been led towards to find it.

But when the youth finally comes across a human connection, what happens? This movie goes into that territory too. Kayla has opportunity after opportunity to interact with her father and she squanders it because that's not really the attention we want at that time, right? We want the cool kids to like us, we want the cute boy/girl to notice us, we want a million people to listen to what we have to say and hopefully like us for who we are because we want to feel special. Kayla has her father right there telling her right to her face that he believes her to be special, yet she blows it off. Why? Because at that age we're arrogant and stubborn. We want anyone who isn't family to tell us that same exact thing because somehow that makes it real. That awkward search feels fully realized in this movie.

I also like how this feels like Burnham's eighth grade equivalent to a film like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". In certain aspects, particularly in the comedy and certain 'inopportune timed' moments, it was very reminiscent of what "Fast Times" would do with its characters that wound up in sticky situations. I laughed quite a bit in this movie, pretty hard at times as well. There's one specific running gag with a soundtrack choice that would play whenever the 'bad boy' would show up that really made me laugh every time. Although, like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", it may be a funny movie but it also can get serious quick. With this movie there is a scene with Kayla and a high school boy that she meets and while it doesn't necessarily go into anything outright disturbing, it does get somewhat intense as things in the scene progress into a very uncomfortable level. And it doesn't feel out of place or tonally inconsistent, it feels natural to the story and captures that terrifying feeling when you're alone with someone and things just aren't quite right. The drama is also handled very well, in a way that feels realistic and believable. Especially with the scenes between Kayla and her father that seemed to understand how hard it is for a dad to talk to his own daughter in a way that reaches her without being too weird, but usually failing.

With a movie like this it could be really easy to make a teen girl that lashes out and acts moody most of the time extremely unlikable, maybe even downright irritating. Luckily with smart writing and a great performance by Elsie Fisher, the character of Kayla is relatable and I really routed for her to find her place in life or at the very least be happy. She made me laugh, she warmed my heart, she made me worry for her, Fisher does a lovely job and I am looking forward to seeing her in the future.

If I were to name any complaints, I suppose that maybe it would be that the film lacks focus at times. Not terribly so, but the structure could have had a more solid foundation. There are also some subplots and scenes that probably could have been cut or shortened. But at the same time, this movie was made to capture the feeling of the early teen years and how life kind of comes with its own set of random events, sometimes those events don't add to more than just 'well that happened and it's over now'. I had a good time with this movie; it's smart, has good commentary on social media/technology, downright funny and touching writing, quality acting, and a pretty decent soundtrack. "Eighth Grade" is entertaining and I strongly recommend to check it out if you haven't already!

Usually after I watch a movie, I try to give myself some time in order to process everything, evaluate and even re-evaluate the film. Just an attempt to let everything really sink in before I give my thoughts on it. I think that may have been a mistake this time around to have given myself so much time between now and when I watched the film, which was just last night, because I've already forgotten a lot about "The Happytime Murders". This movie is just that forgettable, that should not be a defining characteristic about a movie involving muppets being brutally murdered and have outlandish sex scenes. That just should not be the case, at all. I should remember everything about this movie, even if it was a bad movie I should not be saying that the R rated puppet comedy has already fleeted from my brain less than twenty-four hours later.

"The Happytime Murders" takes place in a world where puppets are alive and they coexist with humans; after private investigator Phil Phillips receives a case from a mysterious puppet woman, he happens upon a string of murders that he believes are linked by the victims being involved in a television show from the 90s (reminiscent of Sesame Street) called the Happytime Gang. But in order to find the killer, Phil must team up with his old human partner (Melissa McCarthy) and together they come across quirky puppets as well as some mayhem.

From the synopsis alone, I feel like I should be describing this film as anything other than simply mediocre. Unfortunately that is exactly what "The Happytime Murders" is, mediocre. It is more or less like any other modern comedy that you can find Melissa McCarthy or Will Ferrell doing nowadays; little story and heavy amounts of adlibbing. To be fair, it's not the worst offender of having the 'line-o-rama' syndrome, but I don't want lame babbling mouthed idiots that go on forever in my supposed 'over-the-top' puppet screwball flick. I wanted way more of what the trailer promised quite honestly. I wanted all the gruesome puppet murders, the insane puppet sex scenes, cracked out of their mind puppets offering sexual favors...and we get a little bit of that. Here and there, but no more than what can be found in the previews for this movie which is extremely disappointing because it is mostly just the characters going back and forth with adlibbed lines. And I can be fine with adlibbing and improv in film, when it is does right and edited properly. Robin Williams as Genie in "Aladdin" is a good example of how that can work well. The original 1984 "Ghostbusters" with basically its whole main cast that improvised a good amount of their lines. But with those movies the characters felt consistent, the actors got back on track with the script speedily, and the editor made sure to keep the excess fat from their improv out of the final cut. Comedies don't do that much anymore, they have their leads go back and forth while practically throwing out the script and the editor basically keeps every take in the scene when it should be severely trimmed down. "Happytime Murders" does the same thing, but at least I can say that it keeps its run time under two hours, unlike other offenders that needlessly push that two hour mark. Plus the adlibbed segments don't detract from the plot too drastically, but enough to hurt the project as a whole.

Aside from the adlibbing, the film feels as though it is played so safe. If you took out the puppets and a few specific moments of violence, this movie is like any other raunchy comedy. That to me is hugely disappointing about this movie. It should have been more ambitious in how ridiculous and over-the-top it could have been. For most of the run time I was constantly thinking about how much better Peter Jackson's "Meet the Feebles" was in comparison to "The Happytime Murders", because at the very least I can say that Jackson went all out and pulled no punches with his film. That film wasn't afraid to go places and it got dark, which supplied a substantial amount of its comedy. While with "Happytime Murders" I went for some seriously long gaps without laughing. I believe I literally went for fifteen to twenty minutes without uttering so much as a light chuckle. That should never be the case for watching a comedy. I never sat there mad or anything like that, and I certainly have seen plenty worse comedies from this year, but I was extremely bored through a lot of it.

I will say that I did appreciate that this movie took inspiration from old noir thrillers such as in its narration, the story being a murder mystery that involves a private investigator, and there's even a femme fatale. The puppeteering also has some top notch work done here; I truly enjoyed how these puppets were brought to life and how they function in this unique world of puppet/people cohabitants. The main puppet, Phil Phillips, was a good lead and actually carried me most of the way through. The violence and absurdity of the world, what little there is, is funny. When a puppet gets his head blown off and there's cotton flying everywhere, it is very humorous. Or when something like a cow puppet is filming a porno with an octopus puppet, again, it got a laugh out of me. But those moments are so rare that at no point did I ever feel like I was watching the dark comedy that this was meant to be. Also, for a film that takes such heavy inspirations from noir crime mysteries, it looks so bland. The cinematography just looks so clean and basic, when a noir is dark and full of atmosphere. Even the concept art for this movie looks much closer to a noir tale than what the final product turned out to be. The story was also very predictable, which I could have forgiven if the movie was funnier, but I only laughed a handful of times.

While no one does a particularly bad job in their roles, in terms of the actors, I really do wish that this starred dramatic actors rather than comedians. I understand that this is a comedy, therefore, yes it does make sense to cast comedians. However, if this film had starred more dramatic actors I feel that could have fed into the comedy way more because I personally find it funnier when the characters are taking their world seriously. For example, in "Airplane", the majority of that cast was acting in a way that made sure their characters were grounded in that absurd reality. They took everything in their world seriously, making the goofy things that happen all the funnier. No one here acts like this is their world. Everyone comes across as a comedian trying to be zany in front of the camera because 'comedy'. But that's not funny to me. There can be times where that works fine, but here it just comes across as simply trying too hard. Plus, if there were more dramatic actors in the movie that would largely eliminate the adlibbing problem.

Overall, I thought this movie is probably okay to turn on in the background or if you're bored and it pops up on Netflix. I say that because there are some good things about the movie, things that I do appreciate such as the puppeteering and I would hate if that were to go unnoticed. But it really isn't all that funny. It's not entirely groan inducing, but it should have been a lot better. Or at the very least a lot more memorable. I could have accepted this movie more so if it was a dumpster fire because then I would remember it. As it is, I'm going to forget that I even saw this in the next couple days. However, if I were you, I would just seek out "Meet the Feebles" because I promise that won't be boring for anyone.

There are some directorial debuts that are just fine and there are others that are complete train wrecks. Bradley Cooper knocked his debut right out of the park because this film is one of the best I've seen all year. I loved this movie and it even pulled some legitimate tears from my eyes, which is saying a lot because I've also seen the 1976 adaptation of "A Star Is Born" starring Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand; a film I also love.

If you haven't seen any of the previous iterations of "A Star is Born" or don't know the plot then here is a synopsis; Jackson Maine is a drug addicted alcoholic musician with his career going on a steady decline, one night runs into a girl named Ally in a bar who is an unknown singer with the potential to really do something with her talents. From there a love starts to bloom as Jackson helps Ally start off her career while he battles his own demons of depression, regret and addiction. I have to say that this film is an emotional powerhouse. There is some real impactful human drama here that is made all the more poignant by the actors who do an incredible job.

With a film like this, pretty much everything can fall apart if the romance isn't believable. Luckily with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in the lead roles, the chemistry is amazing between the two and one hundred percent believable in every scene. From the start of the movie it is apparent that these two people are somewhat of a mess, but in completely different ways; Cooper's character is a hardcore alcoholic that is squandering his music career away while Gaga's character lacks motivation and confidence to do anything more with her singing. However, when they find each other it's clear that they supply a lot of positivity to one another, such as Jackson finding a rekindled love for creating music and Ally finds the confidence to put herself out there. However, with those positives also comes consequences. These two actors, without a doubt, convey a truly authentic feeling love that can be seen clearly throughout the film; because of that it is easy to be charmed by their romance and route for them when things hit a down swing.

Every conversation in the film feels real, I don't just mean the ones between the two romantic leads, but the entire cast. There's just something about the dialog that comes across as discussions I could picture myself or anyone having, rather than something cleaned up and manipulated to fit the Hollywood world. When Jackson and Ally are talking about music or just getting to know each other, it feels heartwarming but never cynically "cute". Or if two characters are fighting, it could have come across as melodramatic, but here it feels legitimate and relatable. Speaking of characters in conflict, Sam Elliot also plays a supporting character in the film as Jackson's older brother and Elliot is brilliant in the role. There are scenes where Elliot doesn't even have to say a word, but the performance that he gives just in his face alone says everything you need to know and it hits hard; especially in one scene in particular between Elliot and Cooper that really tugged at the heart strings, I don't want to say too much as to what is said but there is a moment of silence for Sam Elliot after Cooper leaves the scene that was really emotionally difficult to watch because of his performance. And I mean that in the best way possible.

That reminds me, there's another silent moment in the film involving solely Bradley Cooper that really delivered such a strong emotional response for me. It was towards the end of the film, again, I won't say exactly what is happening but the whole scene starts with a somber tone that ramps up with suspense in anticipation as to what this character is going to do. Then with one look on Cooper's face, you understand everything that is going on in this guy's head and I couldn't help but get choked up. It was terribly difficult not to simply cry through whole scenes because of the tragedy going on in these people's lives. That's one of the great things about this movie, I forget that these are even characters, I feel like I am getting a peek into real peoples' lives. The movie really hit me right in the gut with one of its final shots involving Jackson Maine and Ally. When it got to that moment, I'm not going to lie, I shed a lot of tears...I mean...I'm a manly man, I don't feel feelings. Feelings are stupid...I need another tissue.

One brilliant thing that I would like to touch on is the cinematography; as a whole it is terrific, but there is something specific that this film does that I absolutely love. Throughout the entire romance there are these really specific moments that happens between these two characters that are made to feel even more significant because when they happen it switches to Jackson's point of view. Such as when they look directly at each other for the first time, the camera switches to Jackson's point of view staring right at Ally's face. When it is their wedding day, Jackson and Ally are standing at the alter and say 'I do', the camera briefly looks right at Ally's face. And then at the end it does it again, but in a slightly different way that I won't say. For me, this was a genius way to help the audience fall for this girl and understand exactly what is going on with these characters internally. Another technique the cinematography takes is how it films Jackson when he's intoxicated or high; a lot of the time it takes a while for the camera to give a full look at Jackson's face and everything feels just slightly off kilter. I thought that was a cool way to make certain scenes feel kind of odd and even on edge, much like how it is when you're in a room alone with someone who's completely drunk and you're sober. There's just a different vibe in the room, I think anyone who's been there knows what I'm talking about.

The music of this movie blew me away. I was in awe of how much character and story could be fleshed out in just a single song. But again, the actors pull it off perfectly. Whenever they have to perform on stage or they're just simply playing along together in a private setting, it is made wildly clear how these people feel and what is going through their heads. When Lady Gaga's character is somewhat coerced into singing live on stage with Jackson for the very first time, you get everything going on with her in that moment. The terror of failure, the excitement of singing to a crowd full of thousands of people, the joy in finally letting go, back to fear, back to excitement. It's a flawless performance honestly that's made even better with the use of very long takes. Instead of constantly cutting, the editing is very minimal while you get a full look at everything going on with her. Lady Gaga really was a bright spot in this already great film, I loved her in this movie and cannot wait to see what she does next.

A funny little tidbit about this movie is that it has a lot of supporting cast members who are comedians; Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Alec Baldwin, and Eddie Griffin to name the ones that I noticed. Andrew Dice Clay plays Ally's father and he's surprisingly really solid. I've never seen him outside of comedic roles before and I've certainly liked him in those, but never in a dramatic role like this and I think that he nailed it. Dave Chappelle, while briefly in the movie, also does a fantastic job and I actually kind of wanted to see him more in the film interacting with Jackson.

Overall, I think this is one of the best remakes that I have ever seen. A bold statement, I know, but this is a bold movie. It doesn't pull punches or ever feel manipulative, it's raw and heartbreaking and beautiful. I said it before, I'll say it again, I love this movie. The acting is perfect, the editing and cinematography is outstanding, and the story solid; possibly more so than any of the other adaptations quite honestly. If you're emotionally stable enough to make it through a heavy romantic tragedy then this is well worth your time. Check it out as soon as you can, if nothing but to feel something great.

What this movie is about is a bunch of comedians coming together to improv whatever they want on screen for over an hour and a half, that's what this movie is truly about. It's not about story or character or even supplying enough context to provide legitimate entertainment. No. It's about the actors mugging at the camera with constant line-o-rama and then occasionally a mediocre, manufactured right out of the of the Hollywood production line comedy that we've seen hundreds of times before. This is if "Back to School" with Rodney Dangerfield had every actor forget about being a character and just kept babbling to the camera for the whole run time and then maybe remembered to be a movie in the last 10 minutes.

However, the movie would probably argue that the actual plot starts off with Kevin Hart, clearly suffering from a learning disability reminiscent of dyslexia, dropping out of high school and years later he appears to have a decent enough life; a secure job with a promising future as a grill salesman, a successful interior designer as a girlfriend that he plans on proposing to, a sweet car and apartment. All seems to be right with the world, until some wackiness ensues after his marriage proposal that leads to his place of work blowing up. Now he needs to get his G.E.D. to get the job that he wants, so he goes to night school where unfortunately that means dealing with an old high school rival as the principal and a foul mouthed teacher full of attitude...that's all folks. There's no more real story to this, just 'jokes'. Do you know how long it takes for the movie to get to actual night school? Over half an hour. This movie meanders so much because all of the actors are adlibbing and the editor seems to be missing so every scene stretches out so much longer than needed with line-o-rama and low-brow, sophomoric humor. Instead of ever getting to the point of any scene, we get a padded out mess where no one shuts up. A scene may start out seemingly straight forward, but then the actors have to get into a long winded discussion about pubic hair or anal sex or just something stupid; it goes on and on until the editor has used up every take and is forced to move onto the next scene.

For a movie that's called "Night School", it is barely focused on actually showing Kevin Hart's progress in the class. In the whole movie I think there might have been maybe three classes shown, which was supposed to represent an entire semester passed. But even when it did concentrate on him being in night school, it was always just to provide more babbling from all the actors about nonsense. The movie will stop dead in its tracks during one of the classes just so it can show a random prison fight for no reason. Or when it gets into this segment when the night school class students decide they want to steal the answer key for their midterm, so they break into the school one night. Sounds simple enough right? Shouldn't take that long. You'd be wrong, because we have to make sure that the actors adlib about one of the students not wearing black for the break-in, stretch figuring out what to do with a person they incapacitated, talk about 'what is it about butt sex today', turns out they broke in while the school had a parent/teacher conference so now they need to distract the principal before he gets back to his office by being awkward and talking about butt sex again, then when it comes to them escaping we need a full conversation on a rooftop babbling about trying to find the hypotenuse of how to jump across a gap and repeating the word 'hypotenuse' as much as humanly possible. No worries, the scene ends with one of the characters severely injuring his arm to the point where it is twisted behind his head...he's fine. There's no cast or sling worn by that character or even any mention of the event happening afterwards, like it never happened or was even relevant to have in the movie at all. This isn't the only time something like this happens because in the first act Kevin Hart is propelled from an exploding building, while inside, landing on top of a car...completely unharmed. It would be one thing if the movie established that it was just set in a sort of wacky world where nothing has any real-world consequences like a cartoon, but it never does that; it doesn't build that sort of humor up or earn that, it just feels lazy.

Aside from the awful adlibbing this is plagued with, the story is wildly mediocre, what little there is. Guy goes through traumatic experience in his youth, cut to years later when he's become a jerk with a relatively decent life now must learn the error of his ways and better his own life. Misunderstandings occur, which results in a third act break-up between the lead and his love interest, but is easily resolved with a speech moments later. I mean, even that speech at the end of every movie like this is ruined with how much bad adlibbing there is because Kevin Hart starts to talk about sperm in the middle of this 'oh so touching' monologue he has for his graduation speech. The third act break-up feels particularly forced, because you know that it's coming but it could have been avoided and when it does happen it feels like it could still be cleared up so easily. To give more context, when Kevin Hart is forced to go to night school he feels as though he has to keep this information from his fiance or else she may break up with him; he is under the impression that the second she has to pay for anything or if she finds out that he's not some huge success then she will just leave him. Okay, if a man truly believes that the woman he's with will break up with him because she pays for a meal then he either has no faith in that person or that woman is completely shallow; either of which means that they should not be together anyhow, so why should I care if they break up?

Which that brings me to another relationship portrayed in this movie...so there is a supporting character who is clearly in a verbally abusive relationship, like to the point where this man controls pretty much 100% of her life, forced her into being a stay-at-home mother and yells at her if she doesn't follow his instructions. This movie pretty much says that the way to take care of a situation like that is just to have the wife give a stern talking to her husband and presto! He's a sweet as a kitten, no problems in the marriage anymore... I really don't think that's how that works, but I'll let women speak for that one. Another problem is that I just don't care about anyone in this movie. Like I said before, Kevin Hart's character is a jerk that I don't care if he gets his G.E.D. or the girl.

Overall, this movie is just simply annoying. That's the best way to describe this, annoying and obnoxious. I can't recall a single time I laughed, which is something one should never say about watching a comedy. I didn't like or care about anyone and I know that all the actors involved are better than this. I've seen every single actor work with much better material than what is presented here and I expect more from them.

"Venom" starts off with a spaceship crash landing on Earth that is filled with alien entities , later labeled as 'symbiotes'. A secret science facility under the control of a powerful corporate tycoon, Carlton Drake, performs experiments with these symbiotes in an attempt to merge them with human test subjects. Eddie Brock, an investigative journalist, finds himself in the mix when he breaks into the facility to find out what's going on which winds him into a symbiotic relationship with the alien entity who calls himself Venom. Venom starts speaking to Eddie and even supplying him with special abilities. From there Eddie and Venom have to work together to save the day by stopping Drake's experiments and his diabolical plans to combine humanity with man eating symbiotes.

I enjoyed this film, seemingly more than what a good portion of people thought of it. I avoided as many spoilers as possible, but it seemed like the word of mouth about "Venom" was relatively mixed. Either people hated it or they thought it was fine. I'm with the latter half and thought it was fine. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this was great or any sort of masterpiece because I had my fair share of issues with the film which I will get to, but for what I got I was decently enough satisfied.

I would like to get into the positives before the negatives because I feel like the negatives may take up a bulk of this review honestly. Before we get to that, let me point out what I liked about "Venom". Number one being Tom Hardy; he is easily the best part about this movie. His performance as Eddie Brock and voice work as Venom was solid, I was mainly entertained by a lot of the humor found in their banter with one another; honestly the film could have used a lot more screen time of their quirky, opposing odds relationship. The look of Venom is pretty cool, it's nice to see a fairly accurate visual representation of the comic book character translated to the big screen. The action was fun to watch, aside from some poor CGI in parts, I thought that the fight choreography and action beats in general were well done. And that's about all I really got...

This leads me to the negatives, a lot of which aren't necessarily the movie's fault, however the similarities between "Venom" and "Upgrade" are so undeniably there I can't help but compare. If you haven't seen Leigh Whannell's "Upgrade" here is a quick synopsis: "Upgrade" is set in a not so distant future where a mechanic, Grey Trace, and his wife are attacked by vicious criminals. The assault leads to the unfortunate death of Grey's wife, as well as Grey becoming a quadriplegic. Weeks later, Grey is approached by an old acquaintance that claims to be able to give him the ability to walk again with the help of an implant called Stem. After the surgery to implant the Stem microchip, Stem reveals that it can actually speak and begins to help Grey seek revenge on his wife's killers by supplying a set of new special abilities to him. And what you get is a superior version of "Venom".

Both films involve a second party taking control of a man's body while this second party also has the capabilities of conversing with the human being effected, not only is this a major part of their stories but it also feeds into the action and the comedy of the films. However the symboitic relationship between Stem and Grey is far more developed and goes into far deeper themes than the one between Eddie and Venom which mostly feels simplified and more acceptable for mainstream audiences. Plus, as decent of a job that Tom Hardy gives with his physical performance, it really doesn't compare to the one Logan Marshall-Green gives in "Upgrade" where it truly feels as though there really is something else actually controlling his body functions. Both films deal with a romantic tragedy of sorts and "Upgrade" is the far more effective one because the one portrayed between Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams just feels underwhelming. The villains in "Upgrade" are so much more menacing and memorable than the corporate baddie or the other CGI splooge monster that I've seen a million times in other comic book movies. Which also brings me to the effects work; some of the CGI in "Venom" is bad. I mean really, really bad. Once it got to the third act climax when all I could make out from the action was the occasional face and a bunch of rubbery alien gack all over the screen, I was relatively annoyed by the incomprehensible mess on screen. Some of the effects were okay, but when you compare them to..."Upgrade"...there is no comparison. The practical effects in "Upgrade" are simply phenomenal and even the rare use of CGI in the film are decent, but with "Venom" it was severely hit or miss.

Seeing how these are both action films, it only makes sense to touch on that aspect of course; and I've got to say that the action was more visually interesting and innovative in "Upgrade" with its concise camera movements and amazing fight choreography. "Venom"'s action was good, but with all the bad CGI and the fact it was so obviously afraid to go for an R rating, it does sully the action a bit. It teases trying to insert a very light amount of gore, but because of how "Venom" is shot and edited it is barely coherent of what even happened. "Upgrade" keeps its story tight with an hour and forty minute run time while "Venom" pushes its run time to nearly two hours; which would be fine if it was filled with more of the arc and relationship between Venom and Eddie, but it squanders a good portion instead on unneeded scenes that only reiterate what the audience already knows. My last criticism is the ending; "Upgrade" has an ending that is risky and provocative while "Venom" has a very generic 'setup for sequels' type ending that was extremely on the nose and just simply lame.

So I know that I basically bashed on "Venom" for most of this review, in all honesty I do recommend that you watch "Upgrade" over "Venom" any day of the week, but I actually still liked "Venom". I just had my issues with it. The villains, the special effects, the arc between Venom and Eddie, and the story all had their problems. But there was also enough entertainment gained from Tom Hardy, the action and comedy that it did carry me through easy enough. So if you are in the mood for some light action fluff, then "Venom" is perfect for that.

This game, like many of Rockstar's line-up, hits it right out of the park. From beginning to end I was consistently riveted by the several hours worth of story, entertained by countless amounts of side quests and random occurrences around the insanely large open world, wowed by the impressive visuals as well as perfect music ques in every scene. I loved this game and everything it had to offer. I wouldn't consider myself a gamer so to attempt to review this game on a technical aspect in terms of game-play or controls would be silly, although I do plan to touch on that briefly. Mainly what I would like to discuss is story, character, pacing, cinematography, and voice acting.

I suppose before getting into the nitty-gritty of the sequel, I feel that it's appropriate to share my thoughts on its predecessor to give a better understanding of my mindset going into this installment. Unfortunately I never got around to playing Rockstar's "Red Dead Revolver" from 2004, but I have played 2010's "Red Dead Redemption"; a game that I claim to be one of the greatest games I have ever played. Joining the party a few years late, after all the hype surrounding the game amongst friends as well as the internet, I was somewhat worried that I would find the game underwhelming in the case it was possibly over-hyped. However, it turned out that I absolutely adored it. The writing blew me away and even broke my heart in parts, the action and violence were deviously enjoyable, the game mechanics felt natural and fluid, the world building was incredible, the side missions were fun, and John Marston is easily one of my favorite game characters ever. He's funny, charismatic, a total bad ass, and extremely sympathetic. You get a real feel for who this man is, interesting ideas about his past and where he is now in seeking redemption. "Red Dead Redemption" gives great detail, as well as great care, to its world and its characters, something that is heavily carried over in its follow-up.

"Red Dead Redemption 2" supplies everything the first game had to offer; from a well-crafted story, interesting characters that are likable, exciting action beats, addictive game-play, and a full world that feels truly lived in. It is quite remarkable what they have accomplished with this game. I mean they put such attention to detail, not only in a physical matter, but within character interactions too. The plot focuses 12 years prior to the events of the first game, so it is less a sequel and more of a prequel, but I would still strongly recommend that you play the 2010 game first before getting into the sequel because when the player has some of the context about what will happen to certain characters later on it gives everything even more poignancy. Anyways, in this prequel we mainly follow a character named Arthur Morgan, an outlaw that is joined up with Dutch Van Der Linde's gang who also includes John Marston, Abigail, Uncle, and Bill Williamson from the first game; plus a few new faces that haven't been seen before. Arthur is pretty much Dutch's right hand man, there's a real bond and trust between the two that brings a good amount of depth to the Dutch character that wasn't necessarily seen previously. From the beginning Dutch and the whole gang are on the run from the law, as well as certain other outlaws that try to put an end to them, after a robbery went wrong. Moving from location to location throughout the entirety of the story just trying to shake them and gather enough money to hopefully put their troubles behind them for good and disappear from everyone who wishes them harm.

Early on, you get a sense of how this gang works and why these people have taken refuge with Dutch. The game shows how inspiring and charming Dutch was in his prime. And over the course of the game, which takes place over a few months approximately, you see his descent from a powerful figure among the group to a man where the lines have blurred so much you're not sure if he's really doing things to benefit everyone or just what suits himself. When starting the game, I wasn't too sure of what to make of Arthur Morgan. I was concerned that he wasn't going to be nearly as interesting of a character to follow as John Marston was in the first game; especially since John Marston is also a major supporting role. But luckily I was proven wrong. We see a man full of several layers, with a dark past and a personality that I can see how it fed into Marston to lead him into becoming the man that he does later in life. Arthur Morgan is a bad man, trying his best to do the right thing. When you learn more and more about the things that have happened to him, how he got to this point, and what he's going through now; it leads to some pretty impactful moments. In lesser hands, Arthur could have come across as a 2-Dimensional, generic cowboy hard ass. With Rockstar though, he is given a backstory full of intrigue and sadness. I don't want to go too deep into spoiler heavy details about the game, but know that this game recaptures a lot of the heart ache that is felt from the first; which Arthur has a lot to do with in multiple points of the story.

The world created here is ridiculously filled with so much content, I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to do it all. From talking to people on the street, random scenarios that play out in the world such as robberies or kidnappings, you can also rob stagecoaches and trains, go fishing, hunting, drinking, horseback riding (obviously), play poker, blackjack, swimming, mountain climbing, dozens of side quests involving toy boats, science experiments, bounty hunting, taking pictures, watching silent films and plays, searching for buried treasure, helping out a traveling zoo, cook, farm animals, discover plants, and so much more.

Plus there seems to be a couple of different ways that the story can play out, or at least certain things that happen in the world from the choices that you make; which will also preoccupy my time I'm sure. I will say that if I do have any minor criticisms it would be the handful of bugs I ran into while playing; occasionally my character would get stuck in spots that made no sense, I would supposedly be getting arrested but then a weird moment of the game freezing for a couple seconds and then all of the sudden the game declares that I've died. Some textures wouldn't pop in for a bit longer than it should. With all that being said I believe this game, along with the first, to be masterpieces. The storytelling and world building is something right out of a Michael Cimino film like "Heaven's Gate". Most of everything I've played under this developer I have enjoyed and I still look forward to their seemingly bright future. Frankly, I'm ready for "Red Dead Redemption 3". Something I never thought I would say since I thought the first to be a great stand alone that shouldn't be tampered with, but after playing the second I am all for another sequel.

I just want to make things clear before I get into my review that I like the band Queen, I like Freddie Mercury's work, and I thought that this movie was fine. But that's just it, it's just fine and doesn't go any further than just being 'okay'. The reason I am saying this from the start is because I'm probably going to be speaking about mostly the negatives. I don't believe that this is necessarily a bad film, I just think it has a lot of squandered potential.

Now onto the bashing...just a joke...sort of.

Bohemian Rhapsody is the story about Freddie Mercury and his band Queen. Starting out at the when the band gets together through Freddie Mercury's sexual exploration and drug years, to the bitter end of the legend Mercury himself. And that is basically it, which is kind of my problem with the film. It is pretty much a 'bullet point' biopic. What I mean by that is that the story seems to be nothing more than making sure to hit on all of the major historical points for this band and Freddie's life. That's it. There's no overarching story line really, nor much focus on character depth or chemistry.

The plot is simply -

Step 1: Band meets and gets together.

Step 2: Band writes first hit .

Step 3: Band records first album.

Step 4: Freddie gets married.

Step 5: Queen music tour montage.

Step 6: Freddie starts figuring out he's gay.

Step 7: Queen music tour montage.

Step 8: Queen fights and writes a new hit song.

Step 9: Queen music tour montage.

Step 10: Queen fights and writes Bohemian Rhapsody.

Step 11: Queen music tour montage.

Step 12: Freddie realizes he's gay and he breaks up with his wife.

Step 13: Queen music tour montage.

Step 14: Queen breaks up.

Step 15: Freddie becomes self-destructive with sex and drugs.

Step 16: Queen gets back together.

Step 17: Queen performs on stage for the last 20 minutes of screen time.

The End.

Now this is decent material to work with in a script, but without enough character development or a story that feels like it truly links everything together it just comes across as 'things just happening'. Now, I want to emphasize again that I don't think that this is bad, but it does make the film feel generic. However, in my opinion, the story of Freddie Mercury and Queen should really be anything except generic.

To get into character, there's no specific character that's technically bad but I feel like I don't really get good enough insight into who these people really are. Freddie Mercury is eccentric, gay, and is good at performing...that's all I got out of a nearly two and a half hour movie. His wife was...definitely a woman. The band mates of Queen...could have been doctors and engineers. Paul is...evil. Yeah, I'm trying and I'm drawing a blank for everyone. Which is probably one of the biggest sins that a biopic can commit, not giving your audience enough understanding of your characters who actually exist.

Anyways, if I want to watch a recent biopic about a band that also dealt with a character that contracts AIDs, I would rather go with "Straight Outta Compton". Or another biopic that handled the character arc of discovering one's sexuality in the 1970s and 1980s, "Battle of the Sexes" was also another film that did a better job with those themes. "Bohemian Rhapsody" kind of fumbles where those other two found a good balance of story, character and hitting all of the bullet points too.

To get into the positives though, this is a very stylish film. The cinematography and editing is really solid, I mean it. It is superbly gorgeous, through and through. Probably one of the best looking films I've seen all year. The acting on everyone's part was also all very good, especially from Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury who did a fantastic job. He was honestly a major reason that the movie held my interest for as long as it did. Running at about two hours and fifteen minutes, without Malek's performance, I would have been more irritated by the film and its faults. Towards the beginning of the film, I will admit that I did find the fake teeth that they put in his mouth to be distracting and somewhat silly. I know that Mercury's teeth were also very prominent, but they at least seem more natural with his face while with Malek it looks like his mouth is just fighting against the prosthetic rather than working with it. After a while though I got used to it, plus it looked slightly more natural once it got to Freddie's mustache years. And my final positive would be the final act, it's probably the best part of the film. I think the reason for that is because it finally feels like it has focus and the music segments are more emotionally ramped up.

Overall, I'd say that the film is okay even with all its problems. I'd say that if you catch this on television or Netflix then this will be perfectly fine where you can occasionally pause to take a break or have parts play in the background. Especially since I think that fifteen minutes or so probably could have been cut from the movie to make it a bit tighter, so if the movie loses your attention for a few minutes here and there I don't think it'll be so bad at home. It's a beautifully shot film, edited well, acted at the best of everyone's capabilities; it just lacks in story and character.

Film is subjective, this I certainly understand, but I believe this to be the best and definitely the most underrated film of 2017; probably even one of the most underrated films I've ever seen. There isn't a single, solitary scene that doesn't have its place. Every single aspect about this movie is executed with perfection. The story of this explorer who becomes obsessed with finding proof of a lost civilization that predates what his peers and elders believe to be true is pulled off with true tenacity in its writing, direction, cinematography, editing, tone, pacing, and performances. Charlie Hunnam takes a hold of the entire screen and commands every line he projects. In the years to come I do hope that this film is remembered fondly as being one of the greats of all time because I sincerely believe that this film is one of the greats. This is an epic in the same vein as something that would have been made back in the New Hollywod Era of the 1970s and early 1980s such as Godfather Part 1 and Part 2, Papillon, Heaven's Gate, and even The Mission. If this film isn't studied in film schools at some point down the line just like how Citizen Kane is, then there is something wrong with this world. Lost City of Z explores a man's obsession to find something greater than himself, what a man's legacy means and if the acts of a person should be what he's remembered in history for or who he really was as a man. Is a man's legacy what makes the man or is the man what makes the legacy? I loved this film and I hope that it finds way more love in the future.

Going right into another sports movie; this is if someone were to make a "Goodfellas" styled film about a professional ice skater, but snorted a little extra cocaine. It is insane and amazingly edited. Hilarious, surprising that this is an actual true story, and in the end I won't lie that I held back some tears just from Margot Robbie's performance alone. If I had a small gripe, it would be some of the CGI used; while not necessarily bad, it was noticeable at times. Other than that, I loved this movie from beginning to end.

I knew very little about the story of Billie Jean King or Bobby Riggs going into the theater, but coming out I found myself caring immensely for these two individuals. Watching Billie Jean slowly discovering her sexuality in the midst of all this personal mayhem she's going through in her tennis career, her marriage, the media, struggling for women's rights, and this very public rivalry with Bobby Riggs she has to keep up with. One of the best things about this film is the writing of Bobby Riggs who could have easily been portrayed as this 2-Dimensional villain like what he had been satirizing at the time. Instead he's written to be layered with charisma to spare. If you haven't checked it out, please do. It is touching, humorous, and even inspirational.

I'm pretty sure that everything that could be said about this movie has already been said several times over. It is Hugh Jackman's swan song to the character of Wolverine. The action is bloody greatness, the characters all have spot-on chemistry together, the tone is a cool blend of a classic western and a sci-fi action. And somehow it's even better in black and white. Easily the best comic book flick I've seen this year.

I'm starting to notice a trend with PIXAR over the last few years; good, bad, mediocre. What I mean by that is that they make a good movie, then a bad one, then one somewhere in the middle since 2011. Cars 2, bad. Brave, good. Monsters University, mediocre. Good Dinosaur, bad. Inside Out, good. Finding Dory, mediocre. Cars 3, bad. Coco, frikkin great! I genuinely loved this movie. Full of heart and visual creativity, it has a fun adventure that even has good morals for kids to learn.

Going from the most accepted horror film of the year to one of the most controversial. I completely understand why people wouldn't like this film, me personally however I immensely enjoyed this bit of chaos on screen. Simultaneously being a throwback to the early days of psychological horror like with works of Roman Polanski while also being an allegory to multiple biblical stories, all wrapped inside a plot about a woman suffering from anxiety while countless numbers of strangers enter her home. Mother! goes from zero to oblivion and it is awesome. Give it a shot if this interests you at all.

Like everyone else who saw this movie, I was really surprised by Jordan Peele's directorial debut. It had the perfect balance of tension and comedy that I haven't seen in a while. Turning the premise of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" into an absolute nightmare. Unpredictable, intense and hilarious with a terrific character arc performed fantastically by Daniel Kaluuya. If you're the one person who hasn't seen this yet, go check it out, it's good!

Wow that was a major pretentious and misguided piece of trash. For about 95% of it being mainly forgettable with some annoying things sprinkled in, then with the last few minutes it gets into such unnecessary and manipulative crap trying so hard to be 'poetic' but it's not. This was dumb.

The plot is that a teenage girl in high school winds up reliving the same day over and over again, a la "Groundhog Day" until she finally learns the value of life. This movie goes exactly where you think it's gonna go from the very beginning and it has a message that you'd expect from something like this but it does it so poorly that it makes the moral completely mute. I'm just going to have to get into spoilers in order to fully explain my problems with the movie that make it as bad as it is, so be warned.

With the setup of the narrative we see this teen girl, Sam, she runs with the popular girls and they basically pick on everyone. Initially starting off on the wrong foot for our leads because they are so unlikable with how cruel they are it is near impossible to sympathize or even care to follow these four despicable monsters. Especially the leader of the girls, Lindsay, who is the sole purpose of driving a poor girl in their school to resort to suicide. Yeah...good luck making me like someone that pushes an innocent girl to want to kill herself. Luckily Lindsay isn't the lead, but she's still in second place for screen time shared and Sam only becomes likable because of the actress doing such a good job at working as hard as she does to make her seem relatable and not so terrible an individual as the movie goes on; even though it takes some time to actually get to that point.

So the arc is pretty obvious from the start of the picture; Sam begins slightly corrupt but by the end of it she finds a way to redeem herself and in this film's context means that she must sacrifice her own life in order to save the girl that enacts in her own suicide by jumping in front of a moving car. That right there makes the entire arc that Sam goes through totally pointless since she slowly learns to be a good person, realize the path that she's heading down is wrong and will only result in tragedy if it continues, and all that is thrown right out the window so that the movie can jerk itself off thinking it's giving such a "beautiful ending" by having the lead character die and claiming her death "saves the other girl's life". There's no reason for it, it's forced and doesn't make sense, her death will only cause more harm than good if any good at all. Guaranteed her parents are gonna be a little more than distraught by her passing, not to mention her little sister. Most likely ending in her parents' divorce that will screw up her little sister's life even more. Her friends and the boy who had an undying love for her since the third grade probably aren't going to be quite the same after said event either; especially since the suicidal girl can easily get blamed for Sam's death and I'm sure that will result in Lindsay only bullying her even more. But that's okay because she had to die in order for a suicidal girl to realize not to suicide. A death that didn't even come across as a real sacrifice, but more like an accident. Sam didn't even push the girl out of the way, they both just stupidly ran in the road and Sam was dumb enough to stand in place to see the truck hit her. Plus, a girl with suicidal depression I doubt is going to be cured at the drop of a hat like this movie seems to suggest.

It also doesn't make any sense that Sam is, for some reason, being punished to relive the same day again and again when Lindsay is really at fault for everything that happens. If anyone needs to learn the lesson to not be a terrible human being and not to bully defenseless people it's Lindsay, not Sam. Sam at worst is a girl that is just a bit on the wrong track at the moment, but more than likely once she goes to college and inevitably distances herself from Lindsay she'll probably be a morally decent person. Sam doesn't need to be taught a lesson that ends up with her dying unjustly. Lindsay on the other hand is a monster and it would totally make sense for, I guess God, to make her learn this lesson. Instead I guess God said, "B*tches will be b*tches, but that Sam girl who has potential...yeah, she gotta go. Kill her." What? Oh, sorry, I'm confusing God for the writer. Seriously, it makes no sense and is just another idiotic thing about this movie.

There's a lot of other things wrong with this movie such as the characters consisting of a lot of unlikable jerks, narration that is complete and utter teeny bopper pretentious poetic garbage, nothing feels at stake and the premise of the girl reliving the same day several times over is stale. This premise has been done before and done way better with other films that actually take advantage of the possibilities of the idea while this movie does practically zilch with it. The most it plays with the concept of a teen girl reliving the same day forever and gets "crazy" with it is that at one point she wears her makeup a little heavier than normal, acts like a bitch to everyone, and wears somewhat inappropriate school attire...gee. The excitement from that sentence alone. I mean come on, it's a teenager that realizes she can do anything she wants without any consequence. I'm not saying that she should have gone full "Groundhog Day" and drove a truck into an oncoming train, but at least do something with that. Anything! Have her make out with everyone at school, flip off the teachers, set a classroom on fire, pants the nerdy kids, pull a freaking fire alarm, take a shit on her desk...SOMETHING! I would have settled for her filling out a scan-tron with a pen. Anything to liven up this bore fest. The movie really is mostly boring and forgettable with a lot a predictable and self-indulgent writing to go along with it. This sucked.

I went into "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" not expecting a masterpiece by any means, but I was sold by the trailers for it and thought I was in for a pretty fun flick. I liked the trailers and I've liked most of Guy Ritchie's filmography, setting aside "Swept Away"...that was bad. I didn't think I was going to dislike this movie as much as I did, to the point where now I've grown to somewhat hate the movie. Out of all the King Arthur related movies I've seen this one I think is the worst of them; whether it be Disney's "Sword in the Stone", John Boorman's "Excalibur", "First Knight" with Richard Gere and Sean Connery, or even Antoine Fuqua's "King Arthur" I still believe are better than this and Fuqua's "King Arthur" is pretty boring but at least it didn't have editing done by a retarded chimpanzee and characters with less common sense than that.

If you don't know the premise it is more or less the same as most of the 'King Arthur' legends that you can find out there. Arthur is the child of King Uther that, for one reason or another, is lost over time following his demise. Years later he finds himself pulling the sword from the stone, revealing to all that he is the true King of Camelot and he must go up against a certain evil to defend it; in this circumstance it is his fiendish Uncle who has taken over the kingdom. There are a lot of similarities as well as differences in this story from past iterations.

The film starts out alright with some of its action, but quickly fell apart for me. The story rushes through so many plot points within the first 10 minutes that I could have sworn somebody sat on the remote and accidentally fast-forwarded through an entire film in and of itself. We're introduced to King Uther and his brother (who's name escapes me and I don't care, played respectively by Eric Bana and Jude Law. Right away the story is pretty convoluted, not explaining things straight away that need explanation for later on and even when things are finally explained they don't really make too much sense and it feels out of place. A lot of scenes and sequences feel extremely out of place. We can start off in one scene observing two individuals discussing then in the middle of that discussion cut to one of them in the next scene for all of 5 seconds just sitting not doing anything and then cutting back to the previous scene to finish off the discussion so it can followup with that individual again walking into the place he was sitting in the 5 second clip. Or later on we're following Arthur being saved by a small rebel group from the death sentence given by his Uncle Jude. They travel through miles of the woodlands to finally make it to their hideout where Arthur converses with their leader and in the middle of the conversation the film cuts back to something it initially skipped for literally all of 10 seconds just to cut right back to their conversation. Instances like that are scattered throughout this whole movie and it doesn't come across as stylish, it feels like the editor bashed his face into his keyboard while cutting the film together which resulted in...what a shock...a colossal mess.

There is no real fluidity from one scene into the next, it all feels discombobulated and jumbled together so it can not exceed too much over its 2 hour run time limit. Entire story lines and journeys are randomly shoved in and condensed down so drastically it makes me wonder why they were included at all. For instance there's a sequence where Arthur, after being saved from getting his head cut off by order of the Jude man, he must journey through what is called 'the Badlands'. There he faces off against giant mythical creatures and hallucinations that challenge him physically and spiritually; this whole journey could probably make up for an entire film on its own...this movie cuts it down to literally about 1 to 2 minutes...I'm not kidding. All these crazy looking monsters, overwhelming landscapes and surreal mirages he faces is a quick montage. And this isn't the only time the movie does something like this because there is practically an entire movie's worth of backstory pertaining to Arthur's father Uther and his Uncle Judie that is seriously only briefly and confusingly makes its way on screen for maybe 30 seconds or so and is gone as quickly as it arrived. It could have been completely cut out and I would have missed nothing at all, but because I have a feeling that the original script probably had a longer running time in mind but that unfortunately didn't sit well with the studio so they chopped a lot of it down and just stuck the leftovers wherever fit.

Because things are so rushed and scenes are placed anywhere like someone aiming at a dart board, the story and the pacing feels so disjointed. Going back and forth between one scene and the next and the previous for no reason and whenever any of the action or violence came about I wanted to set fire to the screen. There is so much erratic camera movement, jumping back and forth between slow-mo and fast-mo, zooming in and out constantly in all of the fight scenes that I just wanted to yell out "Would someone PLEASE fire this camera operator?!". So much of it was incomprehensible that I couldn't tell what was going on except for the split seconds it goes back into slow motion to show that someone is being launched into the air or a sword is clashing with another. Then it would zoom in and out, speed up, slow down, speed up, zoom in, out, in, speed up, slow down. It ticked me off big time. Plus it was very apparent that the studio wanted to show as little blood as possible so they cut out 90% of the violence. There are some shots that I could tell that this movie was most likely made to be rated 'R' and so the editor chopped up the movie even more to get away with a 'PG-13' which irritates me to no end. Mainly because what was once likely to be a decently shot violent action film turns into a made-for-television edited nightmare. There are times where it is impossible to tell where someone has been supposedly cut or stabbed or shot because it doesn't show it. In a couple of scenes someone's throat is cut; first time it is completely done out of frame and the other is entirely bloodless. A guy's ear gets cut off, but it is framed where you can't tell for sure and the ear is mostly covered up by another man's hand so you can't even tell what he's holding.

There is no reason why a film should ever be chopped up and compromised just so it isn't rated 'R'. If a film is meant to be an 'R' then let it be an 'R'. The rating isn't going to stop the majority who want to see it from seeing it. Last year's "Deadpool" is plenty proof of that as well as any given slasher film from the 80s. If people want to see it then they will see it, even kids will find a way. Don't take a film that was written to be a two and a half - three hour hard 'R' epic and shit all over it so you can cut it down to about a two hour run time with neutered action in order to get more screenings and dumb ass kids in seats. All you get out of it is an unholy mess that no one likes...except for the moron sitting a couple seats away from me that was entertained by absolutely everything that made a sound on screen...this guy would have been fascinated by a cup of milk sitting on a table for two hours, that's how dimwitted this man seemed to be.

Oh, and the CGI in this movie ranges hardcore. Sometimes the effects looked fine. The opening with the giant elephants was alright as well as one or two things later on. Other than that it looked like garbage. People quickly turn into rubbery cartoons flying around with a bunch of terrible looking smoke and dust effects that made everything look fake. It was terrible. It was like watching the Halle Berry in "Catwoman" levels of bad with how obvious it switches from a real person to a CGI plastic puppet. I would have taken traditional 2D animation over some of the CG in this...so bad.

There is no reason why this movie should look or feel the way that it does. Whether that be in terms of action and violence being terribly edited, even for a 'PG-13' because I saw "Kong: Skull Island" a couple months ago where there was blood flying directly at the camera and limbs being severed left and right and that was rated 'PG-13'. In terms of epics, this should not have been as disjointed and cut down as much as it is since I just saw another version of a Hollywood epic about two weeks ago called "The Lost City of Z" which held a real man's journey that felt larger than life and was totally great...also starring Charlie Hunnam who was fantastic in that film and owned every single scene he was in. Hunnam was also good in this, but the movie around him did not hold up.

So I say if you absolutely have to see an 'epic' then I implore you to seek out "The Lost City of Z" which is a film that feels like a lost epic from the New Hollywood era in the 1970s and early 80s that would have been made by Michael Cimino. If you need a fun modern day action adventure in the theater then go see "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" again because I know you already saw it once. If you want a perfect example of 'PG-13' violent action movies that don't look like something stuffed in a garbage disposal then watch "Kong: Skull Island" or 2014's "Hercules". Watch anything but this. If you have to see it, wait until it hits DvD where maybe it'll get an extended cut with all the violence not being made for babies.

This was really irritating and at times boring to sit through. The story was a mess going back and forth and stuffing in too much in inappropriate and confusing times. The action was not fun to watch or suspenseful. The villain played by the Law of Jude was flat and the two times the movie tried humanizing him made no sense. Backstories and character motivations were all over the place with how little sense they made.The effects were mostly trash. Don't waste your time with this.

I must say that I'm a bit let down by this one. It is by no means a bad movie and in the end is fine, but going off of the very funny and fast paced trailers for "Free Fire" I was expecting a film that was going to be much more than simply "fine". To be fair, this could be a case where expectations tanked my perspective and slightly ruined my experience with this movie, but I still believe that this could have been something really spectacular.

The plot, if you are not aware, is that two small groups of criminals get together to make a gun deal in an abandoned warehouse when it turns out one member from each side have a banter that resorts to a deadly shootout for all parties. From the start of the hysteria there is a lot of gun fire winding up in some humorous injuries and even deaths as they all seem to go down one by one.

Although I can't say that I was ever irritated or even all that bored during the run time, I just was hoping for somewhat of a rapid fire pace with some humorous and witty dialog. This movie is a lot slower than I originally anticipated with the majority of the dialog resorting to the characters simply yelling "F*ck you" to one another in the middle of shooting, which grows relatively old after a while. Even though the film doesn't do anything inherently wrong at all, the material never rises above just being "okay". And that's fine for a movie to be...well...fine. But when I see a trailer that promises a hilarious comedy with high-octane action for 90 minutes only to deliver on a somewhat humorous and mildly entertaining quarrels with repetitive action, I can't help but feel let down; especially with the ending going with a disappointing resolve.

"Free Fire" for all its faults is alright. It did the job it was meant to by giving me some entertainment for an hour and a half, but ceases to go beyond that in any way. I will say it probably won't anger anyone who watches it, but it also won't be something that'll stick with viewers much either. All the actors do a fine job; the standouts for me being Armie Hammer, Sharlto Copely and Cillian Murphy doing what they can in order to give colorful enough characters to follow. Everyone else does well enough, but the material doesn't give anyone much to really work with. The story has a promising concept that's reminiscent of older works by Quentin Tarrantino or Guy Ritchie, but never fully lives up to that potential. The editing and camera work was fine, although it had trouble correlating where all the characters were in relation to each other through much of the movie; after a while I just gave up and accepted that they were shooting at each other even if they looked like they were shooting in the wrong direction. If you're looking for a movie to pass the time this certainly will do the job adequately enough.

The movie is not as great or as groundbreaking as it thinks it is. The story about a young and ambitious executive from a business conglomerate is sent to retrieve the company's CEO that is located in a wellness center in the high mountains of Sweden. Once arriving things seem to take a turn for the worse as this young man unravels the horrifying secrets of this strange place.

From the description, you can probably gather what is likely to be included in this movie for its plot points, story/character elements, and aesthetics. This takes things seen many times before from similar stories and does nothing new with the material. Even though the camera work and effects are spectacularly thought out and well crafted, the story and characters are rehashed tools who's only purpose is to further the plot at a snail's pace. I thought that the cinematography was gorgeous and inspiring in parts, but this is the perfect example of when "style over substance" does not work for a film. The lead, played by Dane DeHaan, is boring. Not that DeHaan necessarily does poorly, I personally find him to be a phenomenal young actor, but he doesn't give much personality or charisma in this role. I don't know if that's at fault of the writing or direction but regardless, the character is bland and totally uninteresting to follow. Although, aside from being bland, the character is also exceedingly moronic; almost at every turn of this story he is doing something stupid that he obviously shouldn't be doing. Whether listening to the creepy doctors that are clearly up to no good, stirring up trouble with said doctors thinking he has the upper hand by threatening then when he's unmistakably at their mercy, drinking things he should know he shouldn't be drinking, going back to the "wellness center" after he's made it out and can leave without any difficulty but doesn't. Stupid. Really stupid.

There's nothing truly inherently wrong with this film, it is at the end of the day "fine". Other than some huge story gaps that the film seemed to have edited out in favor to keep in the sequences that serve no real purpose other than to "disturb". I was never disturbed in this movie, never scared or even the least bit creeped out. I sat there, not particularly angry or even all that annoyed by the movie, apart from a few moments. I was just bored. It gave me nothing to be interested in, even its mystery. On paper, the mystery of the "wellness center" is fine and I may have been able to get more invested in it if there was a significant amount of this movie cut down because there are so many times it goes with the cliche of there are conversations going along and then before any answers are revealed it cuts it off to be "eerie" and "ambiguous" but I've seen that done before several times in other similar movies and this movie does that to drag its rather thin plot about forty-five minutes longer than it should be. This movie really is far too long; "A Cure For Wellness" clocks in at nearly two and a half hours for a plot that should have been wrapped up at the 100 minute mark, max. By the time all is revealed, I was checked out and didn't care anymore.

It is just extremely derivative of many other projects I've seen of this nature; whether we're talking about Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island", the second season of "American Horror Story", or even "Misery", "The Shining" there are numerous aspects taken from those films or movies like them to make up 100% of this one's story. If none of those films were made, this movie could never exist because it borrows so heavily from them. I will say that it was visually interesting with its darkly surreal and disturbing imagery but the majority of it has little to no context to it, amounts to nothing and stops the narrative dead in its tracks just to give the audience some gross-out moments. In a sense I do have to say that I respect the filmmakers for having the balls to release a solid "R" rated horror movie with the sequences that it incorporated to the mainstream audience, but without much reason it becomes gratuitous to slog through.

I will admit that I was slightly expecting "A Cure For Wellness" to be this year's "The Neon Demon" in the sense that it would be a highly stylized and gorgeous to look at thriller with some messed up imagery and to a degree it is that, but without any originality or substance to it whatsoever. Whole scenes and extended sequences could have been easily cut and this movie would have been all the stronger for it. As it is, it's not terrible but it could have been so much more. It could have really tackled some psychological themes, played with reality and have given context for some surreal imagery. Instead it settled to be gross while trying to mask itself in rather pretentious writing and direction.

I can't believe what I just saw. This film was simultaneously about nothing and yet a complete conglomeration of everything they could squeeze into 2 hours. The plot doesn't even actually come into play until an hour and a half into the film and even when that happens it makes no sense. I can't say a single good thing about this movie. Everything about this movie is...for lack of a better term...f*cked. The direction is f*cked. The story is f*cked. The characters are f*cked. The tone is f*cked. The editing is REALLY F*CKED. Everything about this movie, aside from a few good camera shots, is terrible. Everything. The acting somehow was terrible. When you have Richard Gere and Steve Coogan in a movie, I expect at least them to be good in their roles and not even they could escape the suckfest this film is.

I wish I could say what this movie was even about, but even if I had a gun pointed directly at my head I couldn't tell you for sure what this movie is really about. Here's my best try though...okay...two older rich white couples with rich white problems go to a luxurious restaurant for dinner to have flashbacks about their spouses having cancer, mental disorders, their kids throwing basketballs through store shop windows, mommy issues, compare all their problems to the Battle of Gettysburg, and when they have the time they finally get around to talking out loud about how they should figure out whether or not to turn their sons in for murdering a homeless woman at an ATM by setting her on fire...which the ATM camera filmed...and they also filmed with their phones...and posted it on a discount YouTube site...

But don't worry about any of that because by the end of it, NOTHING IS RESOLVED. It literally at the most awkward time I've ever seen a movie end, it cuts to black. The parents decide to wait a few days to think on whether they'll actually turn their boys in for murder, in the meantime they'll take a vacation. One of the parents (played by Steve Coogan) is crazy and attempts to murder his nephew (Richard Gere's son), which is one of the sons involved that is blackmailing Coogan's son. Gere and the wives arrive before Coogan can do anything, Gere beats up Coogan and they all call the boy on their phones to try to get a hold of him to make sure he's alright. I think they do get a hold of him, but it was unclear. Camera takes one last look at Coogan being winded from getting his butt kicked. Cut to black. Credits...screw this movie.

Everything about this movie was shockingly incompetent. From relatively awkward to jaw dropping, God awful editing. Pretentious and hollow dialog and character writing. Nonsensical story with zero structure to it. Cheap looking cinematography that tries its hardest to look like it has a budget but falls short. The tone is about as stable as a man hanging himself from his busted ceiling fan to jerk off to crumpled pictures of goats...yeah, I dare you to get that image out of your head. Seriously, this movie is the definition of a train wreck. I sincerely wish I had just went to the train tracks near my apartment, laid down, and waited. It would have been a more productive use of my time instead of sitting around for 2 hours, waiting for this piece of crap to finally blow its own brains out as an ending.

I'm a pretty big fan of the "Planet of the Apes" films. I love the first one, my favorite is "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes", and the recent reboot series comes along and I've been trying to love them as much as everyone else does, but I can't seem to bring myself there. I liked "Rise" just fine. It has a decent character driven story with a likable main cast, but suffers from pretty poor looking special effects and blatantly abuses CGI; while also having some pretty standout bad moments shoved in at inappropriate times. Overall a fine film.

Then "Dawn" comes along and it improves in some aspects, but takes some major missteps in others. It is a fantastically made film, the character of Caesar and most of the apes are phenomenally well done, the effects were great and the story was very solid. Problems mainly resided 100% in all of the human characters whether they were hollow 2-dimensional shells with no personality nor charisma whatsoever or they were complete idiots only there to further the plot with their stupidity which was annoying and not believable in the slightest. Again, overall a fine film.

Now "War for the Planet of the Apes" comes in and holy moly this is a great movie. Legitimately a great film. It is everything I have wanted out of this reboot series and more. It's dark, one of the bleakest films to come out of 2017 for sure but also has plenty of levity to it as well. It has humanity and personality and style throughout its entirety. All of the characters are interesting and 3-dimensional beings. The villain, played by Woody Harrelson, is terrifying and Andy Serkis as Ceasar is beyond a shadow of a doubt one of the greatest heroes ever portrayed on the big screen. Ceasar's character arc is one of best I've seen in a movie series and it comes to a true glorious end here.

The cinematography is gorgeous with its feel of an old school epic, the story is enthralling and beautifully poetic, tonally pitch perfect, and the action as well as every plot point feels monumental. Easily one of the best films of the year.

Totally love when I followup one of the best movies of the year with easily ONE OF THE WORST of 2017. This somehow managed to learn nothing from the god awful mistakes of its predecessor and made an almost exact identical movie, but even worse...how do you do that??!! How can Tyler Perry figure out a way to make the exact same movie twice, yet worse the second go around???

I hated the first movie and I seriously loathe this one. Everything about this movie sucks. The writing is lazy since they just rehash the first movie all over again. The story is basically the same from the first movie. Tyler Perry's daughter is a terror that does whatever she wants and has no respect for her father. She sneaks away to go to a frat party for Halloween. Madea and her gang of morons get together to try and get her back home. "Spooky" things start to happen about halfway through the movie to where the characters believe that there are ghosts and people dying. Turns out it's all just a prank to teach the daughter a lesson to not be an ungrateful brat. Roll credits.

The characters are all annoying and unlikable. Madea, along with her two lady friends, are just loud and obnoxious from beginning to end. They have two modes; either they are talking about literally nothing with their terrible adlibbing skills or they're screaming at the top of their lungs like idiots and that's it. The other Tyler Perry character, Joe, has three jokes throughout the whole movie that he repeats over and over again; Madea is a dude, he likes drugs, he's a pimp. And that is all the depth we get with his character. There is nothing else he has to say other than "Madea's got a dick", "Come on now, I need to get me some drugs", "I run bitches and hoes like nobody else 'cause I'm a pimp. I pimp all you hoes, bitch." ...THAT'S IT! Tyler Perry playing...Tyler Perry...is probably the least annoying character in the whole flick, but he's still not funny. The daughter is a total nightmare, like she was exactly in the first one as if the events of the first movie never happened and she didn't learn a single lesson about how much an entitled little monster she is. The movie adds in a few new characters to the mix; Tyler Perry's ex-wife who is obviously the reason why their daughter is such a colossal monster of a human being. The daughter's new step-father...who has almost no lines and adds nothing to what's happening. And lastly, Tyler Perry's new friend, played by Tito Ortiz...who is easily the worst actor in the whole film. He has very few lines yet somehow that was too difficult for this guy to perform with. He was legitimately a terrible actor. I may have hated the other characters more than him, but at least I could say they were acting. Tito Ortiz is not an actor and I have no clue as to why he was included in here, other than to make everyone else look "good" by comparison.

I didn't laugh once in this...SOMEHOW 90 MINUTE TORTURE DEVICE THEY CALL A MOVIE!!! The comedy in this movie is the same tired material that they used in the last movie and repeated for 90 minutes. An hour and a half of everyone trying so hard to improv and not landing a single funny joke in the process. Aside from the comedy being absent, the production value of this movie somehow is also bad and even worse than before. The makeup they put on Tyler Perry and Patrice Lovely to make them look like their older people is so awful this time around that I'm pretty sure they just went to a Spirit Halloween to get this done. It always looked bad to me before, but this time it's as if they're cosplayers of the characters they're supposed to be. Yet somehow this movie cost 25 million dollars to make. Not a joke or an exaggeration, this movie supposedly cost 25 million dollars to produce...I call bull. Tyler Perry pocketed every cent of that. I'm calling it right now. There is no way that this "made for television in someone's backyard" piece of crap cost more than what I have in my wallet right now. No freaking way.

Oddly enough, with as cheap as this movie looks and feels, there are just such glaringly cheap moments that don't even make sense to me. Like the fact that they build these small sets and break the fourth wall by literally running through it. For instance, there's a scene where two characters are sitting in a tent where it is obvious that the production crew cut out a giant hole in order to film the two as they sit completely still at their marks. And then when someone comes up to the entrance of the tent attacking them and the characters literally run through the hole specifically made to be filmed through and not actually supposed to be there. There are also times where, instead of having an editor chop down this needlessly long and repetitive dialog containing curse words, they blatantly censor and dub over random cursing. For some reason, half the run time they're allowed to say sh*t, piss, hell, and damn but other times they aren't. And when they're not allowed to say those words they'll literally just blank out that dialog or clearly dub over it with another word like 'darn'. I don't know why, it is bizarre and jarring every time it happens. Especially since there's a scene where a character says the 'N' word and 'f*ck' in the same sentence, but in the next sentence they dub the word 'damn' with 'darn' three or four times in a row. It makes no sense.

I hate this movie so much. I really do. I couldn't stand every second of this thing. Listening to all these extremely annoying characters constantly talk about random nonsense that adds nothing to the plot and isn't funny. And repeat those unfunny things again and again. Hearing them scream and yell in between those unfunny bits of dialog. Seeing zero effort being put into this thing at least on a production level. It was a truly miserable time I had watching this. It nearly broke me, I couldn't take another second and I hope to God that there isn't a third movie. Please...I can't do it...don't do this to me again. I'll do anything. I'll become a priest, just make it stop. No more.

I liked it, but I didn't love it. I feel like saying that is just asking for someone to point a sniper rifle at my head, but I won't lie that I have problems with this movie. Not sure why I'm discussing my opinion on the movie now since most of America has probably already seen this movie twice. However, I have things to say so why not?

The story picks up immediately where "The Force Awakens" leaves off; what remains of the Resistance, led by Leia Organa, is on the run from the First Order while Rey has gone off in hopes to retrieve Luke Skywalker since he may be their last hope to defeat Supreme Leader Snoke and his army. Finn wakes up as the attack is persists on the Resistance and has to come up with a plan with Poe Dameron and a new character named Rose Tico to create an escape for what remains of Organa's army.

From the start, this is a very entertaining movie for sure. The characters are all likable and interesting to watch. The action is actually some of the best the entire series has ever had to offer. The effects are spot on, along with the cinematography which is absolutely terrific. I was totally engaged in the dynamic between Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Rey (Daisy Ridley). I was hooked onto the internal struggle that continues on with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). And I was actually pleasantly surprised by the character arc that Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) goes through. Also expect a few heart string pulling scenes with Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). There is some astonishingly great moments in this film that I really did love.

So if I love so much about it then why do I only like it as a whole? Because the story, while not bad, is very familiar much like how "The Force Awakens" was very familiar. "The Force Awakens" is known to be extremely reminiscent of "A New Hope" with elements of "Empire Strikes Back". "The Last Jedi" I would say also has a very similar issue being similar to "Empire" and "Return of the Jedi". I wouldn't say that makes it a bad movie by any means, I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching it. However, I was hoping for something a little more original and for something in this movie to shock me. May I feel that way because of how much "The Last Jedi" parallels itself to "Empire Strikes Back" which is a highly original and surprising sequel for its time and even today continues to shock first time viewers of it. "The Last Jedi" follows a lot of the same beats of "Empire" and "Return" that it's hard not to compare; a somewhat naive youth travels to a remote planet in order to be trained by an old, quirky Jedi master. While that goes on the youth's friends are being chased across the galaxy by a dark shadowy figure along with his army of Storm Troopers to the point where they have to take refuge on another planet. Rey learns about the force, what makes up the light and dark side of the force, experiences surreal visions, and has a revelation about her heritage much like Luke Skywalker went through in "Empire". There is a whole third act revolving around whether Rey will join the dark side, Kylo Ren attempting to convince her to join him like Darth Vader tried with Luke in "Return". Snoke acting in place of the Emperor in "Return of the Jedi" when he brings the young Jedi to his throne room on a giant space station to enable this big confrontation as he reveals the chaos ensuing on her friends in the distance.

It is near impossible not to see the similarities and that is a huge reason why I can't say I loved this movie. I already have "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", I don't particularly need a repackaged version of those films. But there is enough differences and slightly unique turns that the story does take that I still found myself enjoying the movie. I am trying my best not to spoil as much as I can, everything I've said can be easily speculated from seeing the trailers so I don't believe I've said anything that's really all that hidden. Speaking of those unique aspects of the story, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is one of the best qualities of the film. He is equal parts funny, intimidating, cool, and even kinda scary in parts. Hamill absolutely owns this role, hell I think he fights to own this whole movie. He is giving his "A" game to this performance here in "The Last Jedi" and is a huge factor in separating this movie from being "just a rehash". Rey is easily one of my favorite heroes of the entire franchise, largely because Daisy Ridley is so expressive in every emotion she performs that I can't help but sympathize with her character and want to know what will happen next with her. That and I just love her energy that she gives in every line she reads.

Now Kylo Ren...my god, he is so good in this. I really loved Adam Driver's performance in "The Force Awakens" and was one of my favorite parts of that installment; in "The Last Jedi" he has become one of my favorite villains of any movie in recent memory and certainly rivals being one of the great villains in all of Star Wars history. The struggle and torment of this character is so interesting to watch that I am constantly wondering what he's going to do next. His relationship between him and Rey is nail biting at times as it develops. Starting out severely rocky of course with how the events of the last movie panned out, but then slowly progresses into an oddly believable bond that they share. Both of them trying to find their place in the world, or galaxy in this case, and maybe even finding it together. Again, another element that helps differentiate itself from being "Empire Strikes Back...Again".

John Boyega's character, Finn, returns in this movie and tags along with a new character named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran). Personally, I didn't have any real problem with their subplot together as it seems like many critics and fans do. I thought that it was fine. I didn't love their story line, but I thought that it worked well enough, didn't take up that much screen time, and it concluded in a satisfying way. Could it have been cut? Sure. Could it have been better? Most certainly. But I can't see much else that Finn could have been up to in this rather simple story. I won't spoil exactly what Finn and Rose do, but they have to embark on a mission in order to help the Resistance escape certain death.

Poe Dameron is also a part of this plan that results in a lot of conflict between him and Leia as well as Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) who takes over the lead for escaping the New Order when Leia becomes preoccupied. Even though I did like Poe Dameron's arc in learning how not to always go on the offense and has to know when not to be so aggressive in his plans, I didn't much care for his dynamic with Laura Dern's character, Holdo. I found her relatively unlikable and even idiotic when it is revealed what her plan is. But it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker from my enjoyment, just a small irritance honestly.

Aside from that, I don't really have any other criticisms on the film except for one that's actually a spoiler so I won't get into it. But even with that spoiler I have a problem with, I actually do kind of like what will result from it and opens the doors wide as to where things can go in the next sequel. If you've seen the movie then you might know what I'm talking about. Overall I did really like this movie and I do recommend it as a highly entertaining space adventure epic. The characters are great, the visuals are breathtaking, and the story is still solid even if it does feel a bit derivative. It's just far from being perfect is all and I wish that it would have taken a few more risks that would shock the audience. If you liked "The Force Awakens" then you will like "The Last Jedi". If you had a problem with "Force Awakens" being so similar to "A New Hope" then "Last Jedi" won't be much of an improvement to you.

Do not expect a remake, reboot, or re-imagining of any sort. "Jigsaw" is exactly what the rest of the series after the third installment has been; complete and utter ridiculousness for 90 minutes. For better or worse, this does not change much of anything in terms of the "Saw" spirit. This includes all of the over-the-top acting and gore shows, the intricate contraptions and puzzles that take account the one in a million precise placement of all its victims, Tobin Bell with his creepy voice, and a story that makes no sense with an absurd twist right at the end. And I personally had a blast with this sufficiently stupid movie.

The premise is more or less the same as all of the others in the series; one plot line follows a select few detectives investigating what schemes the Jigsaw killer is up to while the other revolves around a small group of characters being terrorized by a maze full of deadly puzzles and traps set up by Jigsaw. Simple enough in premise as always, but the story line is never simply a straight line with the "Saw" movies. Constantly being thrown curve ball after curve ball whether it makes sense or not, yet somehow that is all part of the fun, even when it may become frustrating.

From frame one it is very apparent that the film knows what it is and couldn't be happier to bring back the franchise. In the film's writing throughout there was always just something about it that felt delighted for the return of "Saw". Truth be told I haven't been the biggest fan of the series, but I will say that there is an odd charm to it and for one reason or another I remained interested to see where it went next; even though they progressively got worse in my opinion. Comparing this to the rest of the previous installments is certainly difficult for myself because objectively speaking "Jigsaw" is probably worse than the majority of the "Saw" movies, but subjectively speaking I probably had the most fun watching this totally ludicrous sequel.

The characters are nothing more than chunks of meat waiting to die in one gruesome fashion or another of course, at this point with these films I wouldn't expect anything else. The cinematography and editing is actually different from the other ones. Aesthetically speaking with the camera work, this honestly doesn't resemble anything before it. I'm not entirely sure if that's a good or a bad thing. I've never really liked the look of the "Saw" movies with the quick cuts, bright flashes or that fast-forward vision while all taking place with 'dungeon' lighting. Although this movie looks borderline television quality, not necessarily bad looking but not exactly theater worthy either.

Do I recommend "Jigsaw"? Sure. If you've seen all seven of the others then why stop now. If you think this one should be taken seriously though, you're out of your mind or you will be immediately after seeing this because this is total nonsense. Be warned now, you start trying to use your brain on this one I promise you that it will be mush by the time the credits hit...the opening credits. So I suggest to those who plan on seeing "Jigsaw" should just sit back and let the movie happen, you may have a good time with it that way. At least that's how I did. So take that for what it's worth. Is it good? God no. Is it stupidly entertaining? Hell yes. But that's kind of "Saw" in a nutshell.

I do thoroughly enjoy a large amount of what Netflix has been dishing out over the last few years, whether that be in their television series' or their films, I find that there is a lot of quality entertainment that they've released. "Wheelman" is another fine example of their good work. Nothing big by any means, it keeps things simple, but that's how it accomplishes so much. By restricting the narrative to center around simply a wheelman for a robbery is stuck in this messy heist gone wrong and he has to figure his way out alive in one night. The story gives more than enough material for Frank Grillo (the wheelman) to work with and provide enough cool chase sequences to entertain significantly.

Frank Grillo, as mentioned before, is the lead and he does a terrific job carrying this movie. His character isn't anything new that I haven't seen before in other countless films; a man who in an attempt to help out his family owes an underground criminal syndicate a large sum of money and the only way to pay them back is by committing enough crimes until the debt is paid. Plus he's also become estranged from his daughter and separated/divorced from his wife. But Grillo has screen presence and more than plenty of charisma that I'm still able to let myself become invested in his character.

In terms of 'getaway/car chase' movies, this comes to me as a breath of fresh air. Particularly since the last couple of examples I had seen in this genre were "Overdrive" and "Kidnap", which were both utter garbage. "Wheelman" outshines the both of them easily in narrative, characters, action, editing, acting, and basically everything else that comes to filmmaking. The makers behind "Wheelman" clearly know how to make the scene look good with stylish camera work and not just shaking it around while the editor has a field day with cutting every second, leaving the viewer disoriented in the most obnoxious way. The screenwriter knows how to build tension in a cohesive way that goes along with the plot, as well as the movie's characters, instead of forcing silly and idiotic moments that pulls the audience out rather than reel them in as it should.

If you're looking for a decently suspenseful car chase/getaway movie with a cool style and intelligently put together action beats then I believe that this should appease. Sure there are numerous of movies that are reminiscent of this film, but when it's done well like it is here, then it can still be a fun ride. So check it out if what I've said entices you at all.