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Movie Reviews

Shazam! (2019) Review

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I am not a huge fan of live action superhero movies, but I love them in comics and animation. That said, I really wanted to like this movie. Who doesn’t want to see Captain Marvel in action! Unfortunately, this movie leaves a lot to be desired. This movie follows a foster kid Billy Batson who receives powers from an old order of wizards to protect the world form antient evil. If it already sounds generic, that is because it is incredibly so. It is a troubled hero who is searching for his mother so that he can feel complete, only to have this search complicated by this new condition.

What I thought the movie did well was how Billy initially reacts to his newfound powers. Suddenly, he has the powers to be an adult and he takes full advantage, engaging in adult activities teenage boys fantasize on. He buys beer for he and his friend, he goes to a strip club, and he excuses himself from school. It neat to see that he isn’t a completely good hero because his main interests aren’t to be traditional hero, but to use this power for personal gain. But this novelty quickly dissolves under the same tired formula we see in all origin stories. I for one am tired of watching training montages. It was good in Rocky and it worked in Spiderman but at this point, it just feels like padding for a movie that barely has a story. This montage isn’t anything new, it is the same jokes you see in every other movie where you see Billy fail over and over until he has some small form of mastery. If you are still watching the movie at this point, it doesn’t get any better.

What you get after is an uninspired forgettable villain that he must defeat. And he is forgettable. When he shows up for the big fight, I had honestly forgotten he was part of the movie because there is nothing interesting. You get a bit of backstory, but not enough to set him aside as this menace. There is no pressure for him to become stronger like there is in other movies of the genre because the villain is mostly absent from the movie, save for the times he is sprinkled in to remind the audience. Early on you get the feeling that there aren’t any real consequences, even though people do die in this movie it doesn’t matter because you can probably guess that Captain Marvel will win through the power of friendship. It literally tells you minutes into the movie, and as generic as this movie is, you should not be surprised. It is apparent that this movie was just a cheap attempt to cash in on the super hero craze and it is a shame because I have seen DC movies where they are able to tell a compelling story without reverting to the same old tropes.

Because there is no story, this movie lacks the character development to make even Captain marvel forgettable. The movie will flat out tell you important character traits, it’s an incredibly lazy way to fake a story. For example, there is a scene after the training montage where Billy sneaks back into the foster home his foster parents are disappointed that he ran away after the first night. He conveniently walks in at the end of this conversation and somehow understands the trouble he is causing. This is shown through a zoom cut to a remorseful Billy. There are no scenes where they spend time together, breaking down the metaphoric walls he’s built to protect his heart. There are no heart-warming scenes that suggest that maybe this collection of misfits could be his family. Instead you get a kid playing with his superpowers for a day and the movie telling you that Billy is experience character growth because it is written in the script. I wouldn’t have an issue with this if the movie hadn’t put so much emphasis on it’s importance. In the end when things seem the darkest, it is the love for his newfound family that gives him the power to persevere. See, it’s the same thing you’ve seen over and over again but not very well done.

I wouldn’t pay for this movie. If you were unfortunate to pay for it, I am sorry you got ripped off. I wouldn’t even recommend this film if it were free because there is nothing really worth watching. It is a shame because I do prefer the DC universe, but it seems that they aren’t able to get their formula correct. Oh well, skip it.

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Good Time (2017) Review

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If you want to know what it means to be anxious, watch this movie. The tension, the acting, the suspense and the pacing will have you at the edge of your seat as you watch bad decision after bad decision being made. To put it simply, you get to feel what it is like to be truly cornered by an inescapable fate and it is an amazing ride.

The movie follows Connie Nikas who is on the run from the law after a bank robbery goes wrong. Now he must avoid getting caught as he tries his hardest to get his brother out of custody. His brother gets caught after they robbed the bank. Now it is a race against time.  What makes this movie amazing is how it creates tension through small details that constantly present themselves as he tries to stay hidden. It is clear early on that this isn’t going to be easy for Connie, and it shouldn’t be. While on the run, Connie will pass multiple cops who are currently hunting him down. You learn that Connie is kind of a piece of shit, and you learn through his failed attempts to find asylum that he has no where to go. What do you do when you have no where to hide? You run! And there is a lot of running in this movie. This is a high octane; high tension movie and you will have no choice but to echo the small sighs of relief and respite that Connie finds through out his journey. And these moments are few and become more far in between as he digs himself deeper and deeper into trouble.

As a character, Connie is brilliant. He only cares about two things, himself and his brother and it is echoed throughout the movie as he does whatever it takes to get his brother back. He does so even if it means hurting and using both the people he knows and strangers. Connie is smart, despite his continually making bad decisions. When faced with a problem, he is quick to make decisions. The lies he forms, the quick change in appearance, how easily he seems to move from one problem to the next suggest that he is a veteran at his craft. But he is not the traditional cool headed, or even hot-headed action hero thief as seen in similar films. As he gets more and more cornered, you see him start to break. You can see the toll the chase is taking on him. He is tired, he is thirsty, he is desperate and that makes him human. Being human is important because it adds to the tension in the film. You feel that at any moment, his journey will end with one mistake. And as his journey progresses, you can see that he is learning from it. The key is that through all this chaos, he does experience personal growth and he ends up at the end of the movie changed by the outcome, even if it isn’t the traditional bad ass that we have become accustomed to. Robert Pattinson’s performance alone should be reason to watch the film.

If you haven’t seen this movie, I would definitely recommend it. If you saw Uncut Gems and liked it, then you should watch the far better older brother. It’s a great movie for those who love thrillers but are tired of the same tired formula.

Movie Reviews

Stuber (2019) Review

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It’s another buddy cop movie, and not a very good one at that. Even worse, it’s an update to the movie Taxi. Same general idea but surprisingly not as good. If you can get this one for free, go for it. It isn’t a terrible sit, but I wouldn’t pay for this movie because It’s not really worth it. It is incredibly generic save for the forced politically correct jokes that it will interrupt the flow of the movie with. There are scenes where they will play these jokes as an odd nod to millennials and it does not work. Is this a new trend? I saw a lot of this in the newest Men in Black movie and it was honestly distracting. I do not have an issue with these types of jokes mind you, but I do have an issue with how they are delivered in these movies. Often times it will be in the middle of a random scene where the politically correct token character will stop the scene in order to correct something insensitive that was said. Once in a while, sure this might be a funny jest and get a decent chuckle but when it happens every time it loses it’s effectiveness. And in this movie, it becomes a little preachy. I don’t want to be preached at when I am watching a comedy.

Kamail Nanjiani is a token in this movie. His role could have been casted by anyone with a similar build. He is wasted in this film. The acting is not terrible, and you will get some chuckles out of it, but you will not remember watching this movie. The movie does very little to stand out, save for constantly mentioning uber. Batista plays a big dude and they will take every opportunity they get to point that out. Nanjiani is a skinny loser and they will take every opportunity to make sure you know that he is. Like every other movie, they will not get along but because of their journey together they will ultimately forge a lasting meaningful friendship. That is to say, they will become friends because the script says they should.

There isn’t anything deeper to this film and I know that I shouldn’t have gone into this film expecting such but I at least expected some kind of story. Instead what you get is just these caricatures being moved from joke to joke as they are forced to grow closer to one another as is tradition with this genre of film. All this is loosely inter-weaved into some drug case that I honestly forgot was a thing until the very end. The driving force behind this whole adventure merely comes forth in small segments in between all the jokes about uber and bickering between the lead. In the end, several plot points are breezed by and some of them are forgotten if not hastily tied together because they have to remind you what UBER is again.

All in all let’s call this film what it really is, a giant commercial for UBER. The films will stop multiple times to explain different aspects of the app on both the rider and driver side. Take these out and the PC jokes and the movie sadly becomes hollow because there is nothing more to this movie. Who wants to pay money to watch an UBER ride? All in all it is not the hardest sit, there are worse out there, but don’t pay money for this. This is a movie you throw in the background while you do chores or Netflix and chill if that is still a thing.

Movie Reviews

Lucy (2014) Review

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If you are looking for an action movie to scratch your need for suspense and thrills, go elsewhere because you won’t get any from this movie. Nothing happens in this movie.

This movie’s biggest weakness is that the main character is too powerful. The movie is about Lucy unlocking the next level of evolution but in the first 10 mins of the movie she is already overpowered. The issue with having such a powerful character is that it removes any danger her actions might bring. The fights are boring because Lucy can end the fights instantly. It doesn’t help that Scarlet Johansson is a robot in this movie. While this may fit with the narrative of the film, it isn’t interesting to watch. Lucy realizes that the reason that humanity is unable to evolve is because they are too hung up on aspects of life that aren’t important. This would be the aspects of humanity that give people personality. This apathetic performance makes the movie even harder to watch because there is no danger and there is no emotion. The performance isn’t bad, it was just a weird choice for this already boring movie.

This movie takes a cool concept and isn’t able to deliver on it. This story works in Futurama because you have a lot more context and you get to experience the growth and change of Bender as he comes to similar realizations. This movie, there is no growth or even character establishment because it drops off all of these points and expects you to fill in the blanks. There is no character growth because you do not know anything about the character except for snippets of forcefully placed exposition that suggest that Lucy isn’t the most put together person in this universe. You also get very little context of who the bad guys are or the magic that is bringing on the transformation. The most jarring problem is the fact that whoever is responsible for this movie keeps trying to validate this movie through disproven science. They make it a huge plot point that man only uses 15% of their brain and lucy is unlocking the rest of it with the help of magic. The problem with this is that the story isn’t very sound. There are a lot of holes in this plot and that will become obvious because this movie is boring.

This film also includes random clips of nature. Partly to pad a movie they couldn’t make any longer, and partly to make it seem deep. The problem again is that it highlights the weakness of this movie. The main weakness is that there isn’t enough story for this to be a full movie. Another weakness, it isn’t that deep. The movie isn’t the worst thing you’ll ever see, but it isn’t anything impressive. It is clearly an overzealous project that doesn’t deliver what it promises.

I would skip this movie because it doesn’t really count as a movie. This story has been done a lot better in futurama, go watch that instead.

Movie Reviews

How to be a Latin Lover (2017)

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Let me just start by saying that this movie was not what I expected. I’ll admit, I went into this thinking it was another generic romantic comedy that I was being forced to sit through. Although not transcending by any means, this film did a great job keeping my attention. That alone should mean a lot as I do not have the best attention span. And yet I found my self watching every bit of this.

The film follows an incredibly unlikable character Maximo who spends the whole movie trying to find a sugar mama so he doesn’t have to work anymore. Maximo is an asshole, but Eugenio Derbez truly makes him a likeable one. Maximo lives a life of luxury where people constantly wait on him. This means that he will act in the selfish way that we would expect a character of this to act. Although you never truly root for Maximo in his endeavors, Derbez makes him bearable. His and Salma hyaks performance alone is reason enough to watch this movie. The on screen chemistry between Salma Hyack and Derebez. The time the spend on screen together is almost enough to see it just for the banter. And the way they incorporate being bilingual is so natural and made this movie truly a unique experience. Being bilingual myself, I was happy to see people who not only looked like me but also talked like me. It was a nice change from the movies I usually sit through and that’s a good thing

As a tip, don’t go into this film expecting something deep because it is comedy. The story is pretty flat, but it is unique enough that it will keep you entertained. If you want a date night movie, look no further. Even if you are bored at home, this is a great watch. It has a certain charm that you should experience.

Movie Reviews

Hellboy (2019) Review

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              I am not too familiar with the source material for this film unfortunately, so my review will focus on the movie and its story and not the comic book it is based on.

              This film was an interesting ride. It didn’t do anything extraordinarily bad, but it did little to make the film remarkable. The film is a super hero movie and thus it will follow a lot of the already established tropes. It also follows a familiar story that you have seen so many times so the fact that it doesn’t add anything to make this story feel fresh and new is a bit disappointing. Hellboy will constantly recite cheesy one liners, and most don’t really land. You will have a lot of scenes that try desperately to establish Hell Boy as a bad ass but it becomes a bit distracting. How many times can we watch a hero pretend like he doesn’t care only to find out that he does at the end? I take it not much longer and this movie will probably one that will become obscure over time because it’s the same story.

              What hurts this film is the CGI. This story might have been better if it were animated. The cgi in this film isn’t the best and the fights look ugly on the big screen. There were multiple times where I didn’t know what I was looking at because of how cartoonishly bad action scenes would play out. This comes as a huge disappointment because there are a lot of cool designs of demons and monsters that would have looked a lot better if it were all animated. If you want to watch this for the action, wait till you can watch it on a smaller screen, it might look better.

              Another issue with this movie is the acting. Maybe it is the scripts fault, but it seems like most people sleep walk through this film. Some of the acting is out right wooden and it kills a scene because if the actors don’t care, I don’t either. You can tell that this was another paycheck for most of the people here. If you are looking for a good story, go elsewhere because this one will feel generic. I honestly don’t know how this film got a theatric review when it feels like a Netflix original. It is a shame because I have seen how cool of a story can be, and I wanted to like this movie so bad but it just doesn’t do the series justice.

              I say skip this one. Don’t pay theather price because it isn’t worth it. Wait for it to come on Netflix but even then it would be for background noise as you will probably lose interest in the story. It’s not terrible, but it’s not good. 

Movie Reviews

Little (2019) Review

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              Where can I start off with this movie, if you can even call it that. Little is one of those comedies that you just have to sit through. This movie will name drop better movies of its genre, making you regret not being home watching those instead. If you’ve seen the movie “Big”, you’ve seen the better version of this movie. Hell, if you have seen the trailers for this, you’ve seen the better version of this movie as it does not add any new jokes. You aren’t missing much.

              First of all, this movie is incredibly shameless about its product placement. You can’t miss it because every scene stops in order to plug in its product placement. Lyft should seriously have a bigger acting credit than Regina Hall as it has more screen time than she does. It is a shame that movies, at least the shameless popular ones, seem to be giant advertisements and are losing their ability to tell a story effectively. I understand that a movie like this probably wouldn’t get enough funding with out such shameless product placement, but when it is this bad, just don’t make the movie.

              The jokes don’t always land, and yes you will have to sit there through entire scenes that are not funny because they had to pad out the run time somehow. And the few moments that do make you laugh are not enough to merit a viewing at the theater. How this movie got a theatric release astounds me. This should have been a Netflix original.

              Don’t waste your time or money and skip this movie. This isn’t even a fun bad movie to make fun of. It is just a bad long commercial with few barely funny jokes sprinkled throughout. Just watch the trailers or watch big as it will be a better sit. If you are curious and want to watch this movie, wait till you can stream it. Cheers.

Movie Reviews

Captain Marvel (2019) Review

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It is no secret that I am not fond of Super Hero movies. At least I do little to hide my indifference towards them. For the most part, these films aren’t able to create a captivating narrative. Most of these movies rely too much on gimmicks instead of using an actual story to tell narrative. These gimmicks are what carry over from the old tired tropes that we’ve experienced in action movies too many times. There is too much lore in super heroes for there to be an effective narrative. Because these movies need to have action, often story needs to be sacrificed and replaced by heavily edited and disorienting fights. The issue with origin story movies, like Captain Marvel, is that her character needs to be introduced and the action needs to be sacrificed. I don’t think that film is the best medium for this because you end up with a rushed narrative and a sloppy outcome.

This is where captain Marvel suffers. A brand-new character needs to be created. I’ll admit, I am not familiar with the source material. And not having the entire series committed to memory, I was lost a few times. The story itself is easy enough to follow, it just isn’t interesting enough to sit through. If you are here because you want to see some action, look elsewhere. You will have to sit through multiple layers of flashbacks that unravel too slowly to be worth the price of the ticket. By the time you do make it to the action, it is heavily edited, and it looks bad. The worst part of super hero movies is the action because of how disoriented it is to watch. The camera constantly shakes the poorly choregraphed fights to give off the illusion of action.

The story itself is rather bland. Captain Marvel doesn’t do enough to stand out and be unique, instead she falls into a generic action movie star in a movie that has very little action. There isn’t anything terribly unique or engaging about this movie and you can tell it was just another cash grab.

This movie is shameless about its product placement. Product placement has been a part of cinema for a while, but it seems lately that product placement has become a huge part of the narrative. This movie will stop it’s narrative to plug its product placement. It’s already a slow movie, it doesn’t need any more stops and the product placement in this movie becomes distracting.

All in all, I would say to hold off on this one. It is in not way the worst super hero movie, but it isn’t worth the movie theater price. It doesn’t look good on the big screen and the story isn’t compelling enough to add to any must watch list you might already have. HOLD OFF

Movie Reviews

Next Gen (2018) Review

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Next Gen is a poor man’s Big Hero 6, and given the choice, you should probably go watch that instead. This more poorly written knock off is a Netflix original that you probably won’t miss if you don’t watch it. This movie attempts to be an edgier version of Big Hero 6 through its plot, design and music, it fails to entertain. It doesn’t push the envelope hard enough and has more holes in its plot to make it work. Granted I might not be the target audience, but you can still make a movie geared for kids that is still entertaining to other groups.

This is a movie about a trouble teen, Mai, who lives in a world where robots are a part of everyday life. The problem is that she hates robots. The movie suggest that her dislike of robots is due to her distant mother’s obsession with robots. The movie will suggest a lot to give the illusion of plot and character development. As these movies go, she is also troubled by a past you get in small bits of dialogue and flash backs. Because her father left at a young age for whatever reason, she is now unable to trust anyone and therefore forces herself to be alone. Her sad past is what makes her destined to be this movie’s hero. And as this movie’s hero, nothing bad will happen to her.

This is one of those movies where things happen because shitty writing. That is to say that they will make shit up to write themselves out of all the plot holes and it isn’t subtle. For example, her encounter with the robot of the movie, Project 77, as so credulous. She is able to sneak past all of these security robots which makes me believe that robots in this universe are useless if they can’t stop a single little girl from sneaking into a secret lab. Even more troubling is the lack of consequences in the movie. Just reaching Project 77 she causes enough property damage where she should have at least been fined, but of course nothing ever comes of it. Maybe they forgave her because they knew she was destined to save the world.

Then you get the weirdest abusive relationship in cartoon history. Project 77 imprints on Mai and the rest of the movie is Project 77 trying to break through Mai’s hardened character. The issue is that Mai only keeps him around to hurt the ones who hurt her. This is one of those movies where the character has to have the saddest life so everything is wrong with her. Now project 77’s quirk is that he only has a limited amount of memory and he must erase certain memories to keep making new ones. And you never really care because Mai isn’t a nice person. You can argue that her past, the one that was poorly written for her, made her act this way, but I didn’t feel bad for her. I didn’t want to follow her around. She was extremely generic, as characters of this genre often are, and the relationship between Mai and 77 wasn’t captivating like that of the Iron Giant or Big Hero 6.

The other big issue with this movie is the plot. The villain of the movie is ridiculous. His plan to take over the world is to mass produce these robots that he gives to everyone. He plants bombs in these and his plan is to activate them to blow up and destroy humanity. The problem is that these explosions do so little damage that by the end of it you wonder if it was even necessary for Mai and 77 to get involved. Like I have mentioned before, this movie has no consequences and therefore, you will never really care for this movie.

This movie is bland. Netflix seems to be pumping out movies for the sake of pumping them out. These knock offs are not content and instead we get our feed bombarded with crap they keep labeling as original. I wish that instead they would spend more time between releases, so they can make watchable content. They have the ability, I have seen some Netflix content that I didn’t mind but lately it just seems like they are churning cheap rip offs of shows and movies that were successful. The problem with this is you get content with very little substance that panders and it is getting harder and harder to justify paying for the subscription when good content is diluted with this crap. Skip this so they don’t keep making crap like this.

 

Movie Reviews

The Greatest Showman (2017) Review

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Recently re-watching The Greatest Showman I can say that this is one of those movies that you can only see once. The first time watching it, I was mesmerized by all the pageantry, the singing, although the plot still leaves me unimpressed. The plot follows a young boy who grows up poor that falls in love with a girl who is a different social class. Because of his own status, it makes this love one that is frowned upon and now Hugh Jackman makes it his life’s goal to become a man that is worthy of his love’s affection. To do this, Hugh Jackman’s character gathers a group of “misfits” and creates a show of oddities. A circus if you will. But, as he becomes more successful and is no longer poor, he is never fully accepted by high society. This need for acceptance becomes an obsession for Hugh Jackman’s character and we get to watch as his motives are no longer to earn the affection of the woman he loves, which he has from the beginning of the movie, but rather to gain acceptance in a society that he doesn’t really want to be a part of. Because of his obsession, he ends up forgetting why he started the show in the first place and hurts the only people that had faith in him.

As plots go, you aren’t watching this movie for the plot. You are watching it for the singing, so I will excuse all the holes and some of the bad dialogue in this film. And as far as the singing goes, I have seen way worse musicals. The issue is that on second viewing, this movie lost all its charm and I was bored with it. Maybe it was watching it on a smaller screen with weaker speakers, but it didn’t hold the magic that I remembered it having when I watched it first.

I wish that they had gone a little more over the top in this film and not try to be as serious. I wish that they didn’t use so much CGI in this film. And I wish that Hugh Jackman’s character wasn’t such a dick. I get it, the premise was clear, but I didn’t spend enough time with his character to forgive him being a dick when he turns into one. My biggest issue is how quickly all of the drama in the this film is solved. Again, I can excuse this because of the genre of the film but it doesn’t change the fact that this is one of those movies that you can only view once or twice. I don’t see this movie having a long shelf life like other films of the genre because the story and the songs aren’t extremely memorable. Maybe I am not the target audience, maybe I don’t know enough music to fully appreciate it but I couldn’t get into it the second time around.

If you haven’t seen it, I recommend watching it. It’s a good sit the first time around. If you have already seen it, you should know where you stand. Check it out.