Thursday, January 25, 2018

Nine (and a fraction) short movie reviews

I recently had to take a business trip to Singapore. This is a very long trip from Virginia (about 24 hours each way, including a connection), and since I can never sleep much on a plane, I had the opportunity to watch a lot of movies. I ended up watching nine and drifted in and out of sleep watching a tenth.

Because I'm crazy enough to think others might want my opinion, here's the list of films, complete with trailers and my comments. No plot-summaries (you can follow the IMDB links and watch the trailers for that), just my random comments and opinions.

Enjoy


Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)

I really loved this movie. Lots of great action. Incredible special effects. A plot that has a moral center to it. Characters you get to know and care about. The good guys end up winning and the bad guys end up completely destroyed. Everything I look for in a movie.

This one's a keeper. I'm going to have to buy the Blu-Ray so I can watch it at home on a big screen with surround sound.


This Means War (2012)

A really fun, if predictable, romantic comedy. At least the kind of romantic comedy I like - the kind with guns and mega-size action sequences. And a happy ending for all the characters. A bit too much to watch with young children, but something I would definitely recommend for family movie night.


The Dark Tower (2017)

This movie was a bit disappointing. I love the concept, and I think the characters are compelling, but the overall story arc is a bit simplistic and predictable. And there are far too many loose ends.

What I did not know when I saw the movie is that it is actually based on the first book in a series by Stephen King. That would explain the loose ends - I assume they will get resolved over the course of the rest of the novels. I assume the rest of my complaints are due to the fact that King wasn't involved in the screenplay (he isn't credited) and the writers didn't do a good job of adapting it to film. They probably cut too much in order to fit the story into a 90 minute movie.

But I'm interested enough, that I will have to read The Gunslinger if for no reason than to find out how the story was originally intended to play out.


Logan (2017)

I've been a fan of the X-Men movies for a long time, so there is no way I could possibly not like this film. That having been said, I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with Marvel's releases and have therefore not yet gotten around to seeing Days Of Future Past (2014) or Apocalypse (2016), so I was missing quite a bit of important backstory.

Nevertheless, I was able to figure out the important parts of what I missed and was able to follow and enjoy the story. Well, enjoy is a funny word for this film, since nothing good happens to anybody. But it was a good story, well-told and has a satisfactory (but definitely not happy) ending.

Definitely worth seeing if you're an X-Men fan (but be sure to watch the previous X-Men movies first), but skip it if you aren't a fan of the franchise.


Ghost In The Shell (2017)

I am embarrassed to say it, but I never got around to watching the 1995 anime film that this movie is based on. Fortunately, you don't need to know a thing about it. It tells a different story and they do a good job of filling you in on all the backstory information you need to know.

This movie goes all out with the special effects. And their vision of the future is both awesome and scary at the same time. Gratuitous excesses of technology everywhere, although I suppose it really isn't gratuitous, since the movie's plot centers on the fact that almost everybody in society has been cybernetically enhanced in some way and that robots are everpresent. Either way, it's a compelling vision that you can't stop watching.

This is another movie I'm going to have to buy a copy of to watch on a big screen with surround sound. Headphones and a seat-back monitor are just not sufficient for watching a movie this big.


Suicide Squad (2016)

Oh wow. What a strange long trip this movie has been! Although taking place in the DC Extended Universe series of movies, you don't need to have seen the prior two films (Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman) in order to enjoy this one.

Take some of the most evil (and psychotic) bad guys from the DC universe and throw them all together to take out an even worse (and more psychotic) bad guy and what do you get? Insane amounts of violence and action scenes that make you stand up and say "What?!?!"

I don't know if this is a movie I'd want to watch a second time, but I'm really glad I saw it once.


Passengers (2016)

This is a great concept for a story, well executed, well directed, great effects and (mostly) believable technology. So why, after having seen it, do I feel disappointed?

I think it's because there is no possible way for this kind of story to have a truly happy ending. It's not a "rocks fall, everybody dies" ending, but everybody was forced to make the best of their situation and settle for the results. Which was, it seems, the moral of the story. This is all well and good, but it is just not satisfying to a person like me, who likes to see the characters all get what they deserve - both good and bad.

And (spoiler alert!) how is it possible that in the epilogue, we find that the two main characters, having lived alone together on the space ship for decades, did not end up having any children?


Sleepless (2017)

This movie truly surprised me. I put it on because I was starting to run out of movies in the system that I wanted to see, but having seen it, I'm glad I did.

In some respects, it's your much-clichéd story about crooked cops, mobsters and Internal Affairs. But with a few twists - several of the characters turn out to be the exact opposite of who you start out thinking they are. So there end up being some surprises by the end of the movie.

Very violent, but a good film.


xXx: Return Of Xander Cage (2017)

I've been a big fan of the original xXx movie, so I was expecting good things from this one. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed.

While the action scenes are incredible, the actual story is simple and predictable. Had I paid money to see this in a theater, I would have regretted it. But for the seat-back of an airplane, it was fun to see.

My recommendation is that if you get a chance to watch it on TV or Netflix or at a friend's house, or when it appears on the discount rack in the future, go for it - it is an enjoyable hour-and-a-half. But I wouldn't suggest paying good money to see it - it's just not that good.


The Lost City of Z (2016)

This is the movie I didn't stay awake to watch. I drifted in and out of sleep while watching it. So this review isn't really worth a hill of beans. I'm sure my opinion will change if I get around to watching all of it.

But this is the Internet, where anybody can voice an opinion on something even when he has no right to one, and so I will.

This movie is a historical docu-drama about a period of history that I know very little about. I thought it did a good job of depicting the look and feel of the time and places (including 1920's England and the Amazon jungle) present. I also think they did a good job with the ending - making the audience wonder what happened, just like everybody else (both in the movie and in real life) never found out.

This isn't the kind of movie I typically like to watch. I much prefer sci-fi and action-adventure movies (as you can probably tell by now), but if you are someone who likes historic drama, you will probably like this movie.

No comments: