Reviews

There's nothing hidden or secret about the plot if you're paying attention the first time. The amount of praise and hype for this film set pretty high expectations and I wish that it hadn't but it was too late. Parts of the story and some characters were enjoyable but for the most part, it just felt flat and was grossly underdeveloped for the amount of storytelling needed to make me care at all about any of these characters. Everyone fit into a perfect mold for their role in the story. There's not really anyone who feels like a real person, but if you can somehow find yourself connecting to the main character, you might have a shot at enjoying the movie. I did not, and I tried. Not the worst movie I've seen in the last couple years, but in the bottom 10 or so.

Christopher Robin does a fair job of bringing back everyone's favorite Pooh Bear with enough references to the animated classics that you won't forget you're watching a Disney movie. Personally, I would have been more impressed if Disney didn't try to pretend that they invented the characters. It's fun and touching, especially for us hard working dads who sometimes forget our priorities. No matter how nice that is to trek back through the Hundred Acre Woods, ultimately the film itself is pretty forgettable.

The formula for Alpha feels reminiscent of early to mid-eighties family epics. It's light enough for kids yet just edgy enough for adults. If you can suspend judgement and critical thinking about historical, timeline or overall accuracy, you are capable of enjoying this movie. There is no English, all dialogue is subtitled, and there's more dialogue than I expected, but most of it is one-sided. It's fairly predictable and the plot is a bit of a contrived means to an end. I mean, come on, it's a feel-good movie, not a tragedy, that's not even a spoiler. Sit back, relax and take the ride, you'll be touched by it.

I grew up with Kurosawa and Mifune. I get the frustration one might have going into this expecting a classic samurai film. I'm not sure what people are talking about saying that was an homage to 7 Samurai. 13 Assassins is a faithful remake of the same name film from 1963. On its own merit, it's a great ride if what you're hoping for includes epic samurai swordplay and bloody carnage with a dark political background story. I love this movie despite multiple minor faults. It's not an insightful journey into the psyche of the samurai experience, it's an epic and gritty action movie with dramatic elements, period.

One of the better creepy movies out there, definitely in the top 10 or 15. It's paced to build a sensation of frustration, confusion and hopelessness. Don't expect a lot of exposition and plot development, it's meant to drag you along through the unknown. Unfortunately, what keeps it from being great is the classic mistake of breaking formula to wrap up loose ends. Still worth the watch.

It's not Slenderman himself that's scary, it's the alone-in-the-dark deafening silence and dread that made the game frightening. Freddy Krueger was scary in the first Nightmare because they didn't focus on the character, but rather the psychological terror. Slenderman tries and fails to build a story around something that only needed to bring a feeling. It tried to get us involved in the lives of shallow and boring cookie-cutter horror-movie fodder characters. The horror genre needs to be left to the artistically gifted and intelligent artists. Slenderman is yet another mass produced generic label product waiting to be forgotten. Watch the trailer, it's way better than the movie. Or better yet, watch The Ritual for a better example of what Slenderman should have looked like.

While I wasn't overwhelmed with this movie as a whole, there is no denying that the action sequences were over-the-top in the best way possible. Costuming and design was brilliant along with some outstanding stunts and effects. I enjoyed the action and thought that Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron contributed all they could. It's an action movie and that's about it.

I guess I expected a little more substance being a fanboy of the prior films. In fact, I think Thunderdome is still my favorite for the amount of humanism in it. Maybe that's the point I missed, that people are pretty much gone. Humanity is a relic of the old world. But it's more than that. It seems like this script is more what you'd expect from Hollywood - the villains don't get to be human anymore, they're too busy being archetypal bad guys, only the heroes get the opportunity for redemption. I don't like black and white characters and everyone felt pretty flat.

The visions that Max had were just odd to me too. They seemed way out of character for him. I know he's a tortured soul, but I felt like we were missing something. He's always been the reluctant hero that ends up saving everyone but himself. I've always hoped Max would maybe stumble across Never Never Land one day and find a new way, but this is just a reboot, not a continuation. Too bad.

I really could care less about Marvel universe whatever, this is just a really creative and funny movie. Clearly, with a big budget and creative team, you can do just about anything visually, but this goes well beyond that to deliver outstanding comedic acting with great writing behind it. Well done!

It is evident from the beginning that The Revenant is a work of passion from everyone involved. Technically speaking, the directing, camera work and editing were some of the best I've ever seen and combined with beautiful settings and detailed costumes: visually, this film is absolutely stunning.

The Revenant is an epic adventure told with minimal dialog and content. Every step of this film is purposed to drawing the audience along its path and it does so without the need for added fluff or exposition. It's a pretty heavy drama, so best to have some puddle stompers and a rain coat handy. This isn't your average light viewing.

I actually fell asleep a couple times while trying to get through this film, so maybe I missed the best 15 to 30 minutes of movie-making history and don't realize it, but man... what I did see was not at all what I expected.

If you really love Marvel movies, check it out, but otherwise, it came off for me as way too much CGI and not enough substance. This wasn't like Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Thor: Ragnarok, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy or even Doctor Strange where you can go and have a good laugh with some well-written characters and ride along for the action. This requires you to be pretty invested in a lot of background noise with pretty lackluster explanations, cardboard characters and no real payoff. I was expecting something epic to happen and it pretty much came down to the Gungan battle in The Phantom Menace. Entirely unimpressed.

Without comparing this to anything else in the Star Wars universe, Rogue One lacked a lot of story and character development. It could have been two movies, if written with more care by a creative storyteller. There was absolutely NO character development at all. Everyone played a two-dimensional role and dialog was boring. The story was rushed to give us just enough to see what happened without putting us into the people and places that made it happen. As a result, the acting felt like a bad script reading.

There was a lot of visual nostalgia, for sure. The effort put into the CGI was astounding. The idea for the story was great. Challenging, because everyone knows this story. Everyone who's familiar with Star Wars knows exactly how this ends. But this story deserves a character study. It needs to make the audience want to be involved. Instead, we got an epic 2 hour commercial for more Star Wars merch. It was beautiful, it was big, it ended with a shrug.

The great age of Star Wars ended for me a very long time ago when Lucas began tampering with the original trilogy and systematically removing parts of my childhood and replacing them with shiny new CGI. Nothing... absolutely nothing created in the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy has raised that bar. I don't believe that anything ever will or ever should be expected to. Sorry, I needed to get that out of the way.

On it's own merit, I feel that Solo does a fair job of introducing us to some familiar and new characters in the Star Wars universe. It's both fun and shallow, just like Han himself. There aren't any breakthroughs here and much of the story is very much contrived to hurry us along like tourists on a Hollywood bus tour. But if you want your nostalgia nerves to tingle just a little bit and enjoy a simple action adventure, Solo was a pretty good effort, particularly from the cast who did a commendable job.

I was disappointed in how the drama surrounding the making of the movie and pressure from corporate probably did have a negative impact on the overall development. We could have gotten a better movie, but it also could have been much worse (it could have been Rogue One!).

This is not a film that the well-adjusted among us will greatly appreciate in most cases. Tully doesn't tell a subtle story. It takes broad sweeping strokes and occasionally smacks you in the head just a bit to get the point across. It does this expertly with an elegant charm and without pandering to the audience. It can be infuriating at times to watch characters that seem to lack common sense, that seem to do exactly the opposite of what you want them to do, and that's the point! This film is empowering for women in a way that women should be empowered - finding your own inner strength without tearing out and discarding the girl inside you.

Tully explores people as people for a change, and while some stand out as "quirky", we all have to own up to our individual quirks. Tully doesn't fit into a genre any more than you do. It's a well written story that I found myself smiling my way through. This film comes across as a project that everyone involved was passionate about. Unfortunately, movies like Tully that stem from honest and creative storytelling stand out simply because they are rare.

This film is the epitome of heartbreaking drama, and that it's based on real events makes it deliver the punch even harder. Performances from everyone in this film are top notch. There isn't one moment that feels out of place or contrived.

If you GOTS TO HAVE YOSELF some Marvel Universe, then please stop whining and go watch Avengers! This movie is hilarious, period. That's about it.

I'm loving that the comic book snobs are just up in arms about having to watch this for their Marvel cameo completionism. I'm also loving the looks I get bringing my 12 year-old with me to watch it. He hears worse dialog playing Fortnite, come on. It's not like he's not going to watch it eventually.

If you're a self-aware degenerate who laughs hysterically at the expense of those who take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY, do yourself a favor and see this movie. Kick some snotty comic fans in the shins while you're at it.

Tag may not be what you were expecting, if you listen to the typical marketing hype. But that doesn't mean that it's not enjoyable for what it truly is. Watching Tag might be compared to taking a cruise through the Bahamas. There isn't anything particularly unique, aside from the true story that inspired the film, but it's a pleasant experience and in the end, maybe you'll wish that cruise lasted just a little longer. Tag has just about everything packed into a friendly and amusing character development story about friendship. It's lighthearted drama with some action and humor sprinkled on top. For this, I applaud the effort to not over-sensationalize the script any more than it did. It actually did end exactly where it needed to. What you take from it depends on what you bring to it.

Hey, it's a movie about dinosaurs roaming the earth in modern times! Keep your expectations realistic. Every single Jurassic Park has the running theme of morality behind it as it applies to the question of human responsibility over technological development and now that we've crossed that line unapologetically, what is our moral role as keepers of our own creation? No surprises here, same story, different point in the timeline.

What makes this Jurassic Park any different? It's all about feelings. I'm not going to give any spoilers, but I'd say, much like Star Wars, we're simply seeing a rehashing of the original trilogy. Welcome to the Lost World of Jurassic World.

I still love Land of the Lost - the original TV show, so as long as Hollywood wants to pump big money into dinosaur CGI, then I'll keep enjoying it for what it is. I'll keep my fingers crossed that one of these Jurassic movies comes back to bite us all in a bigger way than it has dared to as of yet.

The Witch is an atmospheric period drama/fantasy/thriller that is true to its surroundings. At the time and place, superstitious ideas about witches and devils, sins and redemption was a very social and personal normal condition. The Witch takes the classic fairy-tale approach down a dark path and one becomes a helpless spectator in a world that is both beautiful and frustrating at the same time. The acting is superb and writing borrows directly from historical Puritan and Elizabethan documents to preserve accuracy of dialog, set pieces and culture. It's a disquieting journey with a twist, but if you appreciate this kind of emotional investment in a film, you should find The Witch to be rewarding. What one makes of the ending is entirely personal.

Hereditary is no doubt an instant cult classic. The performances were 100% on point with the material. The mood of this film is unrelenting, uncomfortable, unforgiving and unapologetic, which most refreshing considering how much audience pandering is typical in movies. Thematically, it is very similar to The Witch with the same dark and despairing undertones, but also with occasional humorous visualizations reminiscent of The Visit or Get Out (sans hipster connotations). Whether the humor was intentional or not was unclear, but not disruptive. Hereditary is a disturbing visual and emotional cruise that asks the audience to simply sit back and um... enjoy the ride. If you can do that, then you will appreciate Hereditary's dramatic capability. If you're seeking another banal ghost horror movie, look elsewhere.