Tag: review

Was everyone dumb in Jurassic World? Chris Pratt and his horde of velociraptors? The head of the park, her heels, and her fear of kids? Her underling acting babysitter? Those kids! Gaah! Those kids: let’s roll out of bounds! THOSE KIDS? The park visitors? The control room duo?

Gaah! Everyone was dumb! Including me to have watched this film and expected something else.

I wanted this to be rated R so that we could’ve gotten more gore. I wanted to see the fleeing victims ripped to shreds. I wanted to see the dumb park wranglers get ripped to shreds. I wanted to see THOSE KIDS ripped to shreds. I wanted mayhem level of blood on the screen. But I didn’t get it.

This was epitome of mindless summer entertainment. Don’t be fooled.

2 of 5 stars

I wish the guys who did The World’s End, Hot Fuzz, and Shaun of the Dead had done Spy, because it would’ve been funnier and more action packed. It was fun and funny, but it could’ve used satire a bit to make fun of the spy movie genre. It was flat in points, and its tone was mixed through the movie. Was it supposedly a satire or was it a real action movie? Who knows? That’s why you don’t even remember that it was in the theatre just last month.

Hunh? Where’d it go? Here! On this blog post which I done wrote a few weeks after I had watched it.

3 of 5 stars.

It should’ve starred Simon Pegg.

Tomorrowland continues Brad Bird’s infatuation with Specials. The spunky girl protagonist is special. The young George Clooney is special. House is special. Only special people have the wherewithal to make the world a better place. Yeah, that message is tired and needs to be retired.

With that said, I enjoyed the movie. It may not be a good one, but its earnestness with trying to make the future a better place is nice to have in this day and age. Tomorrowland is future and hopeful.

Also, CG is bogus after you have seen Mad Max: Fury Road. The first jet pack flying seen? Its not as shiny and chrome as actual War Boys on poles catapulting after cars. CG? THhhphhhtttt!

3 of 5 stars.

When first announced, I thought Mad Max: Fury Road was going to be a waste of time. Do we need to go down that road once more? Mel Gibsons not Max. This rehash of 80s movies is getting out of hand. Why another one?

YEAH! I was wrong.

It was awesome. The best action movie of the millennia. I’ve seen it twice. I want to see it again in 3D!

Don’t miss it. It makes all other action films with CGI look like films done inside a computer. Mad Max: Fury Road brings back live filmed stunts. There were CGI shots, but the majority was cars crashing into cars. It just made the movie.

5 of 5 stars.

If you wanted to see an AI built from the hubris of man, you can watch The Avengers: Age of Ultron. You could also watch Ex Machina. This AI was just as hell bent on destruction of a more personal kind.

The film, for those who haven’t seen it which is all of you, is about a programmer sent to his boss’s remote home to conduct a ‘Turing Test’ on a robot to see how human she is. Ava, the robot, has a woman’s face and hands, but the rest is a sleek, sexy android. Data has nothing on her. She was built by a programmer modeled on a mishmash of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and the founders of Google. His company is also a mishmash of those actual programmer’s companies: Facebook, Microsoft, and Google.

The worker was chosen as being the best in the company. It was a test of who was the alpha programmer. It really was the boss who was the alpha. He played his underling, but played himself into a corner.

I thought this was sly. I thought the robot was being naive. She was really being human — complicated, conniving. I really wondered if we were all being played.

3 of 5 stars.

There was a whole lot going on with The Avengers: Age of Ultron. It wrapped up the Hydra plot, introduced Ultron and (SPOILER) the Vision to the Marvel Cinema Universe, added the Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver to the Avengers line up, set up the conflict for Captain America: Civil War, and brought us the Infinity War/Gauntlet. All this in two and a half hours.

That is why it was not as good as the first one. It had too much. Although, it was missing Tigra. Overstuffed is the word for it. Still lots of action, but it feels like the middle of a larger story like being at the crossroads or at a train station junction. Lots going on, but people are passing through to better destinations.

3 of 5 stars.

I think I will watch anything Naomi Watts is in, so I found myself in the matinee show of Noah Baumbach’s latest film, While We’re Young. The film is about Generation X and Millennials.

Ben Stiller is an older documentary film maker in a rut in his 40s. His latest film has been in work for years, and he makes excuses for finishing it up. His hot wife, Naomi Watts, is just hot.

Adam Driver is a young, hip videographer who styles himself after Affleck. His hot wife is Amanda Seyfried, and she makes ice cream. Unfortunately, I don’t find her hot. I wish it was Greta Gerwig.

Charles Grodin is in it, and he plays Watts’ father. He is also a successful documentary film maker and represents the Baby Boomers. Ad Rock is in it. He plays a new father friend of Stiller’s. He’s meant to symbolized the adult Gen Xer. He’s got old, too.

Stiller and Driver become friends after a film lecture by Stiller. They are soon going out on couple’s dates and block parties together. Stiller is enamored of the young man’s inhibitions. He even goes out to a ridiculous new age, peyote ceremony. He is liberated from his stodginess.

Unfortunately, the final third of the film tries goes into old man mode: ‘Get a hair cut, ya hippie!’ The film creates conflict just to indict Millenials: Driver isn’t as genuine or truth striving as Stiller. It is rather shallow, but it does throw out the good cross generational feelings as done in the earlier bonding scenes. Perhaps it just goes to show that when you’re old, the young suck.

I’ve seen two and a half Noah Baumbach movies. Most of them I did not like because they made me uncomfortable. I did like his collaboration with Gerwig in Frances Ha. This film really is his most accessible. As a Gen Xer without kids, I liked it. The slight jabs at Millenials remind me that you can hate the young, but that was you at that age, too. Youth is wasted on the young

4 of 5 stars.

It’s been so long since I’ve written a blog post. I was stuck in Hawaii and Los Angeles for a few weeks. Now I’m back and needed to post these reviews of the movies I saw while shipped out to Marinette on work. I don’t remember much, so I’ll just blurb these three films.

Cinderella is the live action Disney flick. Someday your prince will come. It’s the film that only Disney can make. It made me want to puke, but that’s what a Saturday in Marinette would do to you: go see Cinderella.

2 of 5 stars.

The Second Best Marigold Hotel is just as good as the first one. It’s serviceable for a Sunday afternoon. It was more of the same, but with more Bollywood dancing.

3 of 5 stars.

Get Hard made me dumber after I watched it. Plus, it had a lot of gay-tred in it. It was trying to make pretend that it was scary being gay. Not sure why, but it was the worst. Please, don’t watch this movie ever even if it comes on Comedy Central. You will be dumber afterwards.

1 of 5 stars.