rcnaylor

Oscar worthy? No. But, if you're in the mood for a nice, fun comedy, action, thriller... it is A-OK. Has a couple of twists. Keeps you wondering where its going. If the plot gets a little sketchy here and there, have some more popcorn and give it a bit!

I enjoyed it more than many higher rated, more pumped movies I've seen lately! Grab ya a bucket, a nice beverage and have a little fun with this one!

First, the bad people here are those concerned about over population and what we are doing to the planet and our own support system. Without any true spoilers, they are painted as wrong and/or stupid in the end (from what I read).

Yes, I walked out half way through. That isn't entertainment. It is attacking a weak position that justifies support far more attention and support than we collectively are giving it at the moment, in the name of selling tickets.

What is really sad is how many among us will willingly ignore that in the name of catching a monster flick. As usual, most of the biggest problems humanity faces can be traced to how many humans can be easily (mis)led.

This one is a reminder of the many parts it takes to make a good movie. And, that a miss on a part often results in "a miss is as good as a mile."

Here the story is a good one and well worth telling. It has substance of content that the vast majority of movies today can't touch. Men engaging in the passing art of rodeoing and the toughness that takes, and the toll it often extracts.

The cinematography is also well done. It does a good (not great) job of capturing the rough, and beautiful, country the rodeoers inhabit. Worth the price of admission alone.

However, the acting is basic level and the story telling is slow to the point of snoozing. The plot, while full of drama on its own, still misses the kind of dramatic devices most really good drama movies incorporate. It was more like a day in the life kind of device than a major motion picture.

A day in the life of Americana worth seeing in a place worth seeing. Lives that are dramatic in their own low key struggle sort of way. Expect that going in and you can enjoy this movie for what it is. Expect a Hollywoodish drama, with skilled actors conveying a storyline full of dramatic plot devices... and you probably won't.

As a film goer, I give it a 10. It conveys a sense of the greatest moments in world history with the type of emotion such an event deserves. As an aside, it, by comparison, shows where the other movie on the event "Dunkirk" failed so miserably. "Dunkirk" took one of the most riveting, awe inspiring events in history and made it play out like a few guys stuck in an elevator in a burning building. "The Darkest Hour" carried the film goer into Churchill's drama and helped the movie goer experience it as the turning point in history it was.

Now, as to the actual history, as many films do to capture the emotion referenced above, it seems to have dropped out some very important aspects of the historical event. Not being a true historian of the period, I would note it disserved the sacrifice and valor of the French army that fought and died to buy Churchill the time needed to get his army off the beach. There may have also been historical inaccuracies in how and why Churchill played out the political hand he had to work with - BUT, what I think it captures well is that Churchill was the guy who had two diametrically opposed routes, capitulate and Hitler would have governed Europe for who knows how long, or lead England into a win or die war. He insisted upon and charged full ahead into the latter and, at a minimum, saved the world from a period of Hitler ruling Europe (the level of his race genocides were not known that that time).

Lastly, there is the "what if" historical questions that are mostly left un-inspected. It would be a whole different film, almost a sci-fi one, if they had been dealt with. What I mean is, the pacifist/peace at almost any cost people were not as wrong and/or ignorant as post war sentiment casts them. As someone noted above, the cost of going to war and defeating Hitler was financially staggering and diminished the UK to a second/third tier power after the war. Obviously the cost in lives and human terms was staggering as well. But for Hitler later veering off into genocide, would "what if" history have Britain looking as bad for making a deal with Germany to subsist in some form along side a unified Europe under German domination? In a historical context, how different is that history from today's "history" post Brexit?

In my opinion this film can't be castigated for not going more into the latter two issues. Films that try to tell too many big stories almost always fail. It captured the emotion and sacrifice that led to a defining moment in history very well. And I can not say often enough how it did that very well while "Dunkirk" was an abject abomination on that score. It took a huge, emotionally riveting historical event and somehow made it seem small and tepid.

This movie is about as good as the genre gets. If you are looking for a heavy drama, a social conscience kind of movie or one that will win awards, what are you doing in this action comedy/buddy kind of movie? For the kind of flick it is, it is great! It tons of action, of course. Plenty of fun interspersed throughout, especially if you layer in the actor's involved. (They are clearly having fun with it.) Some romance and even some higher ideals/messages if you choose to buy in a bit.

Selma Hayek's character is roll on the floor laughing fun.

Good fun kind of movie.

My expectations for this film where high. Its a great story. Not giving away any spoilers to note its history: a 400,000 man British army trapped at the start of World War II. Under constant Germany attack, strafing and attack on land and sea. Rescued by a flotilla of average citizens.

And, while visually compelling, the action scenes come across almost as rehearsed. Little drama. Slow for such a riveting story line. Most of the army characters seem like they are either demoralized zombies or weaklings scurrying anywhere to save themselves.

Even the character who represents all the brave citizen sailors who risked everything to come to the aid of their military men comes across as more fatalistically compelled than heroic. An event of heroism on an epic scale is broken down into individual groups cast in a light with little of it.

Its a large, compelling, riveting story, that the movie maker turns into small, slow, uncompelling and, frankly, almost an amateurish, paint by numbers yawner. It is a story that deserved a far better film rendition.

First huge problem with this film. Virtually none of the characters are the least bit likable. They also react and make decisions not like the well trained crew of a huge, expensive space ship with 2000 people they are responsible for. No, they react cowardly, weakly, with histrionics and with such poor judgment the viewers are soon rooting for the Aliens to dispatch them faster to put them, and the audience out of its misery.

The big ending is telegraphed long before it arrives.

Without spoilers, I can't mention some of the other failings of this movie, suffice it to say that I have never had the urge to walk out of science fiction movie, but the urge started in this one about 20 minutes in, occurred repeatedly and had I not been with a date, I would have happily left this mess of a movie.

Obviously, I am in the minority, judging by other ratings. However, this movie reminded me more of the rom/com that was neither romantic nor comedic, The Breakup, than an comic action movie.

While the action scenes were fine, the plot had viewers sitting and watching their parents fight and screaming "good one Mom!" "Way to pound her Dad!" I mean, really, what are these characters supposed to be for viewers? HEROES. How does one enjoy watching one hero beat up, not a bad guy, but a good guy? Another character that is supposed to be your "hero".

To borrow from an old phrase, with fans like that, what comic book hero needs enemies.

And a bit of a spoiler alert, the ending is much like the resolution in The Breakup as well. An hour and 46 minutes to get that?! Obviously, I must be taking the roles of the comic book heroes too seriously. Much like Batman v. Superman, fans watching them bash EACH OTHER for a couple of hours seems to be good fun for many. To me, it just seems the writers have run out of good plot lines and have turned to eating their own tails, so to speak.

First, the movie was made by directors and actors that had the knowledge, skill and money to make a good movie. As an aside, I watched a movie on Mohammed Ali a few years ago that had a great life to make a movie about, and turned it into a boring 2 hours because they didn't know how to make a good movie.

The guys making this movie know how to push audience buttons to make a good movie. The problem, it seems to me, is that this movie undermines the premise all readers, movie-goers, all those who choose to spend any time letting their minds enter a story, give the story teller: accepting the premise of the story or movie won't be abused. There will be enough sense or cohesion to make the investment in the literary fiction worth it.

Spoiler alert This movie, to try to mix the genres, has to abuse the literary fiction to a degree that has the audience questioning the value of listening to stories. First, the only way an 1870's human can have a chance against technology advanced enough to get here from space is for an alien to leave its technology lying around in arm's length of a human.

Then, to get the audience satisfying ending the film maker/story teller wants, the female heroine starts behaving more like a fairytale god mother than either a cowboy or alien. She comes back from the dead, got here by some kind of teleportation yet needs to walk around like us and needs the alien technology to be able to fight/destroy the aliens.

This is a well made movie... except that it abuses the trust we place in good movie makers to not require the audience to ignore all reason and logic. In almost all literature we give the story teller a fiction or two.

This one asks us to not just buy in to a literary fiction, but to really be mindless and or stupid movie goers.

It would be like getting to the end of The Godfather and have someone sprout wings and fly off to get the plot where the movie maker wants it to go.

This movie is neither fish nor foul and simply asks the audience to be dumb so two genres that don't fit together can be toyed with by the movie makers. It would have been just as satisfying to have Daffy Duck pop in at the end to save the day. There are reasons for genres. A large one is so the audience can trust where and how the story is going. Anything less than following certain "rules" and we are just watching random dots bouncing around on the screen without rhyme or reason. What mish/mash can I put together to keep you watching for 2 hours, say these film makers.

Liked the acting. Loved a lot of the cinematography. Hated the way they ignored audience mindset, reasoning and story teller trust.

I had just as soon have had Bugs Bunny convey the clichéd message of the movie: we all hang together or hang separately. At least anything he did I would have known was being done in the boundless arena of a cartoon character.

I watched Thor last weekend. A comic book movie with other universes, and I think there are more plot devices in Fast Five that requires the audience to suspend logic than there are in Thor!

Not trying to do a spoiler post here, so I won't go in to them. Its the kind of big action, big Ka-pow movie that the audience doesn't want to get bogged down in the details on if they just want to have fun. (Where's all the money for stuff coming from, how'd that car do that, federal agents really have that on their computers, very rich criminals would really do that?) Ha.

Don't sweat the details and its a good movie to romp around with.

I had hopes this would be a film that would show how use of the 3D technology can be made to bring us into "worlds" regular film can't. Anyone who has ever been in to beautiful under ground caverns can appreciate the depth and texture is missing in film.

Unfortunately, this film, at least in the theater I viewed it in, re-enforced most of what is wrong with 3d. It was often blurry. It seemed to have 3D effect when the film maker had no reason to want the effect, a guys forehead stuck out once. But, worst of all, it rarely put to any good of effective use. It certainly did nothing to help capture the underground caverns.

The movie was more enjoyable when the 3d effect wasn't distracting viewers.

As the plot went, it was a 4 or 5. You come to like the actor who becomes the hero and want him to survive. A decent spelunker movie. But, I left less happy than usual because Cameron didn't follow up Avatar with an example of how 3D can be used to improve movies and be successful, quite the contrary, it was the kind of movie that suggests 3D is more ineffective gimmick than useful story telling tool.

A step back.

Quote: "Dear Hollywood, Hello. How are you? I am fine.

Okay, enough of the pleasantries.

What is wrong with you? Seriously? Did you lose a bet? Have you made some sort of pact with the Devil? I cannot imagine any other reason you would keep putting Kevin James and Vince Vaughn in movies.

There has yet to be a movie outside of "Swingers" where Vaughn is even any good, and even in that movie, I wanted to punch his face with a tire iron.

Kevin James was great on the King of Queens, but television is where his career ends.

Stop it.

Just stop it.

Sincerely, Brad" Its nice to see I'm not the only one who simply finds Vaughn's deadpan superiority approach to acting not only not entertaining but down right worthy of "banning" from movies. Can't quite put my finger on it, but his own screen mannerism is like nails on a chalkboard.

First, with top actors, like this film, it holds the attention well, but, it has a connection to the legend/myth of Robin Hood for one clear reason: the money guys in Hollywood wanted that hook for ticket sales. This is very annoying. They could have just called it 'A commoner nobly rallies the Barons and saves England from the French", but, alas, they would've had problems with that too. A) They fictionalize most of the facts about King John and King Philip, and B) the audience for flicks about English squabbles between King and Barons, and even the French, don't sell well.

Of course, Robin Hood is a fictional character. So, throw his name in there, re-write English history and add a woman doing something implausible and silly (really, showing up for battle against a French army and mounted knights leading a bunch of teens on Shetland ponies?) If they hadn't tried to tie it to Robin Hood and faked pivotal events of English history and a document vital to all western peoples, the Magna Carta, I might give if a 5 or 6 just on popcorn value and top actors. But, now all we will have is a generation of teens that are confused about both the myth of Robin Hood and a turning point in western democracy, the Magna Carta. Boo Hollywood. If you want to make a period piece from the time of King John and the Magna Carta, do it. Or Robin Hood. But both? A low even by money-is-king Hollywood biz standards.

Its a buddy/buddy comedy where two guys, Willis' sidekick partner and a "perp" are designed to carry the movie with their cute annoying mannerisms and banter.

Instead they come off as annoyingly annoying. A couple of decently funny moments interspersed with the kind of nails on blackboard gratingly unfunny stuff that passes like molasses while the viewer is hoping desperately they either quit trying to be cute, or actually get to something funny.

With the rating, I was expecting a decent little popcorn flick. Instead I got a comedy that was so (have I said) annoying, that I seriously considered walking out.

To the bitter end the sidekick plays smugly, but off. A joke and comedy that misses a little is one thing. Comedy that is so un-funny it gets painful to watch is something else.

I wouldn't sit through the first ten minutes of this movie to see all the decently funny stuff it had throughout the whole thing.

The actors did a fine job of carrying their roles. The director made it all look, feel and fit as well as possible.

However, the whole plot and details simply don't deliver for the level of film this one aspires to be.

The "secret" really isn't worth killing over, as is impliedly the case. And, if the CIA or a lifelong spy with such professional and deadly connections are involved, why do they do such completely implausible things? Like leave the dead writer's damning evidence in a room after his death for the next writer to find? Why hire someone that isn't an inside man, if it so important to keep secrets? Why can't such a powerful group have more than the two agents who get tricked to stay on the ferry (and hence take care of the new writer who is a problem? Why not print off a new copy of the manuscript so that a simple code isn't left in the old formatting to be found? After the ex-PM is killed, why doesn't the spy organization use the three months to clean up the loose ends, or at least steal back the critical original copy of the manuscript? A plot motive that is underwhelming and implausible that is carried along by plot developments that are illogical and out of character with the degree of evilness and sophistication that the movie villain is supposed to possess.

Adds up to an adult crime thriller/drama that is neither smart nor clever and that 12 year olds would not be inclined to boast about deducing early in the film.

But, how any reasonably intelligent adult could find such plot holes and contrivances satisfying or entertaining to any appreciable degree is the biggest question this film leaves unanswered.

The acting and plot lines were OK. But, the "imagery" was over done and simply not good enough to merit all the screen time given imagery. As for me, I will pay to see some spectacular scenery, but video imagery is a lot like poetry. Something that is really only enjoyed by most in small doses. And, sorry to say for the filmmaker, here it is just not good enough to give so much time to.

I saw Avatar. Its imagery is so amazing you can watch it for a good part of the movie and be entertained. This movie wants its imagery to be that good, but, it isn't.

The plot then is rather predictable and the results, except for the means the protagonist is ultimately "handled", just goes along without any great suspense or anticipation.

Such a loss is tragic in a family. And it never hurts for audiences to be reminded such things do happen. So, go see the movie for that.. and good acting. But, don't expect much else.

(Spoilers) First, I've never been a big fan of the Bond franchise. I've seen most of them and would call myself a fair weather fan. The good ones are OK, take them or leave them otherwise.

But, I just caught the last one at the dollar show and was simply amazed by what it was and what it wasn't.

I remember remarking on here awhile back that it was curious that the latest Bond flick was rated better by women on IMDb than guys, considering what Bond flicks were. Well, now I understand. The latest incarnation of "Bond" bears almost no resemblance to what the original Bond recipe was all about.

Originally it was about a suave, macho lady's man (in the way feminists reviled) who used gadgets and brains to beat the other side in the cold war to save the free world. Lots of T and A.

The cold war is over. The latest one is, once you get through all the plot subterfuges and smoke screens to make you think something to affect the world is going on, is really just a bad ol multinational corporation going through all these terribly dangerous and expensive machinations to get to be the new utilities company for a relatively poor South American country. Huh? All you do is bribe the govt and collect your money. World wide attacks on top intelligence agencies not required. Of course, the producers try to give it the obligatory green twist required in Hollywood today that Bond is saving the planet somehow (here groundwater), but, really, there is just a few "secret" dams. The water is there, we saw this same "bad guy" building dams in old west movies about water rights. (The bad guy is starving us poor little honest folks downstream Mr Western hero.) Instead of a the macho free world saving Bond, we have one that is running around being loyal and trying to get revenge for one woman and save his other one (Boss lady M). Put him on a white horse and let him go charge a castle. Big Whoop.

Nothing more than a cell phone, diggy camera and internet link are used as his "edge" in gadgets and technology.

Leaving T&A as the only remaining element of the Bond franchise to keep it true to what this whole Bond thing is/was supposed to be about for its fans - and there was none. Literally. "Marley and Me" designed largely for 10 year olds had more sex and titillation than the friggen Bond film. Seriously.

This certainly had a neutered James Bond whose only goal in life was to show two women how special they were. Sex and the City fans would have been proud. Bond fans? Give it a 4 on competent action movie scenes of car chases, boat chases and fist fights to the death. The plot was ridiculous bordering on non-existent. The global threat was a joke. The Bond actor was fine as an action hero/knight on white horse for the ladies in the audience. But, he bore no resemblance to the character that made Bond, Bond.

They literally made a Bond film without anything a real fan of Bond films would call a Bond film.

The next time you owe your lady a chick flick with hero worried only about saving his lady love, call Bond, James Bond, but frankly, you'd probably enjoy a Sex in the City movie more. At least there will be a little eye candy in those.

Its hard to really like any of the characters except perhaps the spunky minor role of Billy.

The heroine is heroic, but not terribly lovable. Annoyingly pretentious and petulant. The kind of child that most in the audience probably thinks needs to learn a good bit more about life than she does to become a better person.

The advance of the plot almost seems to by a paint by numbers approach.

The best part of the movie is that it is visually stunning.

Everything else just doesn't really draw an audience, at least an adult audience, in. You're just sitting there going "OK, and..." and then the movie is over with teasers for the next one to come. And, frankly, the character to be saved in the next film has hardly made you care enough about him to invest in a whole plot to save him.

You come, you go. You certainly don't want to invest in seeing the pre-designed sequel.

We all know that cattle have to be killed, de-hyded, entrails removed and carcass cut into pieces for us to have the hamburger, but, we don't want to have to watch a movie with actors who employ their craft well to re-create the disgusting details.

Well, that is the crux of this movie. It demonstrates in revolting detail how our police forces manipulate their employees into deceiving and manipulating everyone in their lives to achieve the goal the govt wants. A two hour movie of two guys in pain outmanipulating each other with supposed freindship, loyalty and support, each creating more pain for themselves and the other in the process.

Deep interpersonal and spousal deceit in the name of personal career advancement.

Spoiler. The funny thing is the director seems to know there is nothing sympathetic or noble about either character. He seems to know there is no need to bother trying to explain the bigger patriotism involved, because it doesn't really justify the personal manipulation and dishonesty. Rather, in the end the "heroic" action by the main character is to disavow all that the movie has had him doing the whole movie and rise above the sordid conduct by leaving it behind just as he has proved his adeptness at it.

There is nothing entertaining in watching such personal manipulation and, unlike other movies where there is larger payoff, such as with Mel Gibson's painful movie about Christ, this one really just leaves the audience with no real higher reward. Just the sad realization that such "slaughter" occurs and is not fun or pretty to watch.

A movie that promises grandiose answers to society's survivals pressing questions.

It never quite articulates what questions, and provides no answers except that what we are doing, in-fighting and violence, is wrong. Duh. We need a movie to take two hours to tell us that in neither an original, enlightening nor particular entertaining form?

This movie, in its cinematic story line is nothing but a chase movie with no answers. "Look, things are bad". And, "you can't trust people". Yeah.

Either don't promote it as a movie with answers, or provide some that people didn't learn in the first grade. "We really need to start playing nice" is a very unsatisfying message to sit through 2 hours of a movie to get.

Slapstick comedy developed into mindless comedy which has devolved into crude humor comedy.

But, come on folks, how low are we willing to sink in the name of a giggle or two? This movie is so mindless, and panders to such a low humor in its 'target' audience it should be embarrassing to Americans to think that anyone among us would find this approach worth paying money for. The more people there are who pay to see this movie, the more it proves what bad tastes we have.

Let me encourage us to be better than that! Show the money guys in Hollywood there really is a point of classlessness that we won't allow them to sink below in the pursuit of profit from us!! We may not have the world's most refined tastes in this country, but, surely we are better than the "below low brow" class this movie thinks we have?

If a film maker is going to try to make money off an event that I cherish this close to the event, and make most of his money off Americans, he darn well ought to produce a film that I find patriotic and uplifting as an American.

This one does not.

It is a politically correct CNN/Al Jazeera paint by the numbers rendition of the events. It displays the human side of the terrorist more than it does those who are their victims. It displays the uprising of the passengers not as heroic, inspired and noble, but as a some folks who just decided they might as well.

I would not have contributed my money to profit this film maker's bank account if I had known ahead of time it was going to be so worried about projecting a "balanced" voice (from a European's perspective no less) that it could not truly honor the sacrifice of those who stood up on that plane and prevented terrorist from achieving the greater bloody propaganda coup they would have achieved had they reached Washington.

It is mildly entertaining because it has such a noble story to work with. But, it steals the honor from the very heroes it seeks to profit from by feeling compelled to show the "human side" of those who came to murder those on that plane and in Washington. 0 out of 10 and negative numbers would be better.

For those who expect sci-fi, especially future space sci-fi, to have some "answers" since they are so advanced and in the future, this film will give you something in that regard.

Nice plot, nice acting, nice message. Its really kind of a good old fashioned "heroic man attempting to overcome the odds for great purpose" kind of movie. But, it works. Mal is a leading man of the old school Hollywood variety and makes for a good old fashioned movie hero. Of course, some of his leading ladies engage in enough sock'em action to make the Hollywood leading ladies of days gone by swoon.

My only complaint is I thought the space ships and space battles weren't technically quite up to par with most recent films. I guess every movie has a budget.

My feeling about this movie was it was starting to be a fair action/suspense movie when it ended. I can't find a run time on it, but my guess is scarcely over 70 75 minutes. If they had developed the romance or characters with the extra time, it would have been a pretty good movie. Instead, it was almost like: "OK we have all the special effects in the can and we're out of money, lets finish this off as cheaply as possible". I wouldn't recommend it at full ticket prices. Catch it at half price for half a movie, and you're OK.

For an average film it was A-OK. For what should be a blockbuster, it was below par. The biggest problem was there was nothing compelling except the special effects... and they didn't have the "wow" factor the original did with surround sound.

There are no surprises. Nothing to wonder what will happen next. The love story is not made interesting and, when you add in dialogue that is simply without pizazz, you are left waiting for battles and effects to make it worth your while - and it doesn't.