I think this is my opinion on it
Let’s Be Cops. Let’s not.
Let’s not be unfunny. Let’s not be about a white getting drunk on the authority of the badge. Let’s not be about his black friend worried about where that power is taking them. Let’s not be about fake cops breaking the law. Let’s not be real cops using any means necessary to capture the bad guy. Let’s not be about fake cops abusing their power.
In the days since #ferguson, this movie is worst and worst. Cops is bad. Fake cops is badder.
2 of 5 stars.
Watching Guardians of the Galaxy gave me the feeling that I had seen this movie before. If only I was 7 years old again and without the internet hype machine, then watching this movie would remind me of Star Wars.
Like Star Wars, there was a ragtag band of scoundrels gathered together to save the universe. Instead of Darth Vader, there was some Kree dressed up in darkness. Instead of a princess, there was a bad ass assassin. Instead of Chewbacca, there was Groot. Instead of Luke and Han, there was Starlord and the raccoon. And there was Draxx.
Lucy started off as a revenge flick, then ended up being 2001. Wha, what?!
Scarlett Johanson plays Lucy, an American ex-pat in Asia, who gets caught up in a drug trafficking scheme. The drug in question if taken in a large enough dose makes you use 100% of your brain. And when you use 100% of your brain you can manipulate matter! Wha, what!!
I really wanted a revenge flick. I wanted to see Scarlett Johanson to kick drug kingpin ass. But she was done far too early. Then we started exploring what the heck.
Scarlett Johanson was Data from TNG.
3 of 5 stars.
Hercules has the Rock in full on scene chewing mode. It also has the rest of the cast including Ian McCane, John Hurt, and Rufus Sewell digging in and chewing it up just as the Rock has. If you need to see a B movie this summer, you can’t do wrong with Hercules.
This film tries to dispel the Hercules myth. Son of Zeus? Doer of the 12 trials? Lover? Warrior? Indian chief!
According to the movie, Hercules is a band of ne’er-do-wells who survived all the trials and tribulations to make the myth of Hercules. Of course, the actual Hercules leads this band which includes a ‘leaf’ smoking soothsayer, an Amazon, a Celtic berserker, and Rufus Sewell who you will wait for the third act turncoat. The Amazon made the movie for me. She had a striking resemblance to Nicole Kidman. I kept wishing it was Nicole Kidman, because the movie would’ve been awesome if it was. But it wasn’t, and yet I kept seeing Nicole Kidman kicking ass.
So we find out the myth is bigger than the man, but the man is as much a hero because he acts like one. Cool. Watching the movie helped out a boring week on bug watching for work.
3 of 5 stars.
Snowpiercer currently has a 95% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Reading through the capsule reviews most all of them really like the movie. I must be in the minority 5% because I did not like the movie one bit.
Snowpiercer is science fiction movie about a future Earth covered in snow and cold with the remnants of human civilization living on a train that constantly circles the world. If it stops, humans will go extinct. Passengers on that train are either the haves, the upper 1% who inhabit the front of the train with sushi, clubs, and books, or they are the have-nots the sorry passengers at the back. They yearn for the type of stuff that the haves have. Into this world is Chris Evens who wants to go from the back of the train to the front. He leads a revolution.
With that set up, Snowpiercer would lead you to believe that the film will be an allegory. Except, it wasn’t. Yes, there was the battle between the haves and the have-nots. But there was also the musical number in the middle. And then Bong Joon Ho’s favorite, the key master and his daughter. They came from another movie. The allegory was lost. The movie had many different tones to it. How can you really make it an allegory when it was all over the map?
I think that Sucker Punch had a better train fight. This is the second Bong Joon Ho film that I didn’t like as much as others had. The first film? The Host. I didn’t like that one as much. This film makes me feel like I did during The Dark Knight — I think I’m missing something.
2 of 5 stars.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 gets the thankless task of being the last film to open before the big juggernaut of Michael Bay’s Transforming dinobots or as I like to call it: The End of Days! Dragon doesn’t have the same action cache as a Michael Bay film, but it is a part of a better, coherent franchise.
Dragon 2 begins a few years after the first one ended. Dragons are the norm in Hiccup’s town; they are embraced, loved, and cared for. The town spends their time doing dragon races. Hiccup spends it exploring the world for more dragons. He’s grown up and may be ready for being the leader of his town. His dad thinks so. He doesn’t.
While exploring Hiccup eventually finds his mom. She’s a recluse living in a dragon world communing with dragons. She’s a natural dragon rider who believes her son has inherited her skills. Hiccup has but is not in a league like her mom. Hiccup has inherited his mother’s dragon nurturing skill. He’s nothing like his dad. But the movie will show that he will be his father’s son.
The mother could’ve been a more interesting character. She’s strong willed and talented. She knows dragons showing Hiccup a thing or two about the Night Fury he rides. Yet, as the movie progresses she becomes boring. She doesn’t get to use her dragon prowess to defeat the big bad. She disappears from the plot in the tail end of the movie. She could’ve been used better.
The animation looked phenomenal. The famous DP, Roger Deakins, is a consultant, and the camera work is absolutely amazing. It’ll wow you with its depth of field, shading, and lighting.
Finally, as with Godzilla, this film had kaiju. It’s a big kaiju lovefest.
3 of 5 stars.
If you like to see Tom Cruise die horrible deaths over and over again, then Edge of Tomorrow is right up your alley. The movie is best thought of as the bastard son of Groundhog’s Day and The Battle of LA with Tom Cruise forever running into horrible deaths.
This movie evokes many other movies beyond Groundhog’s Day repeat until you get it right premise. There’s Aliens with the sergeant played by Bill Paxton leading the rag tag group of soldiers with a large ‘Tank’ type and a ‘Vazquez’ type as well. Then there’s Matrix with the Mimic enemy looking like the tentacle bots. For me, it reminded me of the Endless Eight debacle from season 2 of Haruhi.
Nice movie. Failing at the box office. You’ll catch this on HBO in December. It could be interesting. It could be non-boring. It’s a summer movie. At least it isn’t Transformers.
3 of 5 stars.
Chef is Jon Favreau returning to a smaller, intimate movie. It is the story of a highly celebrated chef caught in a bind serving a menu he doesn’t believe in because he’s trapped in a restaurant that is not his. Favreau plays the chef who has a meltdown, gets fired, and has to pick up his pieces thanks to his ex-wife. He finds the menu he finally believes in in Cuban sandwiches served from a food truck which he drives from Miami to LA. This drive redeems him as a person and a cook. It also redeems him with his son who accompanies him. They reconnect over cooking and the food.
This movie seems to be Favreau addressing his role as a filmmaker. He was a hotshot as a writer with Swingers then moved onto the big stage by directing Iron Man 1 and 2. Did that move cost him his auteur status? Did the knocks against Iron Man 2 make him freak out? Perhaps, but to address it Favreau returned to a smaller movie which he wrote and directed.
When I watched this movie, I had already had dinner. With scenes of cooking, it made me want to have another meal. Don’t watch this if you hadn’t eaten yet. Don’t watch it if you have. It’ll make you hungry.
3 of 5 stars.
In the X-Men movie universe, they never had the Dark Phoenix Saga. Therefore without Jean Grey, there is no Rachel Summers. Without her and her telekinetic powers in the X-Men movie universe, the filmmakers of X-Men: Days of Future Past substitute Kitty Pryde as the mutant to send Wolverine back in time.
Right there is all that’s wrong with the X-Men movie universe. No Dark Phoenix, Wolverine as the main protagonist of Days of Future Past, Kitty Pryde having some kind of weird telekinetic power, Weapon X program in the 70s, Bolivar Trask as the mark, young Mystique. Just plenty of things that are not like the comic I know.
The only hope I had for the movie was seeing Jean Grey alive again. And Cyclops! But I was secretly hoping for Madelyne Pryor and sometime later — Inferno!
3 of 5 stars.
