Tag: review

Damn, I should’ve written this Ghostbusters review soon after I had seen it a couple weeks ago. Right now I can’t remember anything to say about it.

Okay, now I know. Escalation of stakes was missing from this one. In the original, as the movie progressed the stakes were raised. And the stages could be felt. For this one, not so much. I guess they couldn’t mimic the original too much lest they are accused of cheap imitation. It could’ve used some escalation.

The actresses were fine though. They actually were the funnest parts of the movie. And to be honest, the first scare had me hiding my eyes behind my fingers.

I will enjoy this when they run the Ghostbusters double feature on Comedy Central.

3 of 5 stars.

Finding Dory. Another sequel from Pixar. Sadly, that is what they’ve been doing a lot lately. Maybe their magic is ending.

I caught this in a theatre out in Newport Beach, CA. The theatre had reclining leather couches. I fell asleep for a few minutes nodding off unsuccessfully for the previous five before my cousin woke me up with a hard nudge. I don’t think I was snoring, but I was really sleepy.

Finding Dory isn’t a boring movie per se, but it is more of the same. More of the same is boring.

3 of 5 stars.

Independence Day: Resurgence is no ID4. It is, 20 years later, ID4’s sequel. It has many of the same characters from the first one. It features Earth against alien invaders. It destroys the White House, the Capitol, Paris, London, and the East Coast all over again. It isn’t any good.

The first one was a summer smash. This one is a dud. We’ve seen the Earth destroyed countless times since ID4 that it is no longer special. Ho-hum. This one is pure popcorn. Nothing special. I almost forgot that I saw it but since a co-worker had seen it on the opening weekend. There was something to talk about.

At least Jeff Goldblum is still alive.

2 of 5 stars.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is as good as a sequel can be.

That’s a damning one line review. It’s just like a sequel to not live up to the expectations of the first movie even though the first movie didn’t live up to my expectations. I came expecting more. Instead I got grown ups again and a weird fixation with parents having sex.

The sequel starts with Rose Byrne and Seth Rogan planning to sell their house and move to a more respectable one in which to raise their children. But they seem to not feel like proper parents. They have parent regrets and worries but that’s because they maybe are terrible at parenting.

Then we shift to freshmen girls attending sorority rush and finding out how disappointing greek life can be for girls — lots of sexual harassment by frats. These girls then move into the neighborhood to start a sorority that can be all it wants to be — women. They begin to party and wreck the chances of their neighbors to sell their home.

The girls and the sorority are all lead by Zack Efron. He has a quarter life crisis. His frat brothers have settled down even Franco is marrying his best man. What he does to pick himself up is to lead the sorority through making money to keep their house. Of course, being older, he falls out with the girls and then joins the neighbors to get them to stop partying for 1 month.

I actually didn’t mind the flick, but it could’ve been better. It could’ve achieved Neighbors level of hilarity but it was missing a hootie-hoo scene. It could’ve used a hootie-hoo scene. As now, several weeks later, I can’t remember a dang thing.

3 of 5 stars.

Captain America: Civil War suffers the same issues as Avengers 2: it feels bloated. It’s not the spritely First Avenger or the wonderful thriller of Winter Soldier. It’s the kitchen sink and ginormous plotting of Age of Ultron. Perhaps this comes from the source material, the Civil War comic event.

It was nothing like the book but the plot was similar. Should the government control super heroes? Should there be a licensing arm? Who watches the watchmen? It was a story that needed to be told about power and who wields it, but this movie made the scope smaller. Not a civil war between super heroes against super heroes, but Avengers versus Avengers. Small in scope. What does this mean for Marvel Cinematic Universe? The end of Captain America? The end of Iron Man? The end? We’ll have to look for X-Men to carry us to Apocalypse.

3 of 5 stars.

Here’s one of those blog posts which was in my queue and died there. I should’ve finished it weeks ago. Better late than never.

Keanu means cool mountain breeze in Hawaiian. And it was the name of the kitten in Key and Peele’s first movie, Keanu. Now like all sketch shows which spin off a feature length movie, sometimes it feels like a too long stretched out skit. Keanu has that feel. One note played over and over for laughs.

I feel this one may be a cult classic like Fridays ended up being. It’s not too funny at first but when high you’ll laugh. And like pot I think I forgot all about this film.

3 of 5 stars.

Back in the 80s whenever a movie concept hit it big, they made a dozen or more copycat B movies and and straight to video movies. It was knock-off city. The plots were similar to the inspiration movie and feature C grade actors and double D actresses. The Huntsman: Winter’s War seems to revive that tradition. If you ever wanted to see a live action Frozen then here’s something similar. But they actors are not D grade. There’s a few Oscar winners and nominees in the cast. And also Chris Hemsworth. This film is also a double dipper — it’s a prequel and a sequel to the first Huntsman movie. It was also a very terrible movie.

Like those B movies of yore, it had a derivative plot, one which doesn’t make any sense. It starts with the Frozen rip off. Hey, we need an Ice Queen because FROZEN! Emily Blunt plays the Ice Queen Freya; she uses here power to take over other lands and taking the children from them because she believes that they will be her army of Huntsman. Imagine if Elsa from Frozen took a decidedly dark turn instead of the sunny Disney treatment. Freya keeps the children and nurtures an army but for what? Who knows? Does she challenge her sister with her army? Nope. She just mopes because she does not love.

Like those B movies of yore, it had funny sidekicks. There was the dwarves both male and female. The males hated the females and the females hated the males. These dwarves answered the question from the Lord of the Rings movies: what do girl dwarves look like? They had to answer. Who cares?

Like those B movies of yore, it had quests. Get the mirror back, because why would the mirror not have been destroyed at the end of last movie. For sequels! And what happened to Snow White from the last movie? Why did she not want to cash in like everyone else on this sequel?

This movie is just made for cashing in. I wish I never decided to watch it. Movies such as these are why its the golden age of storytelling on television.

2 of 5 stars.

10 Cloverfield Lane was several movies in one.

It started out like a horror film — the tortured, imprisoned girl. Is her captor a savior or someone else quite menacing?

Then it turned into a slice of life in the bomb shelter. What to do when the world has collapsed?

Then it returned to horror. Dear god, this guy really is crazy and he did imprison and kill some other girls. I’d rather go out into the mist.

Finally, it became a science fiction film where she had to defeat alien invaders. ALIEN INVADERS! Like a crazy War of the Worlds.

It was alright. A good experiment, but one you quite soon forget. I started this two weeks ago and had to finish it up because I need to talk about Batman and Superman.

3 of 5 stars.