Movie Reviews

The Animatrix (Review)

Fans of The Matrix or good anime, will enjoy this one. "The Animatrix is a collection of several animated short films, detailing the backstory of the "Matrix" universe, and the original war between man and machines..." Worth a watch B+

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First Man


If you thought Hollywood incapable of making a beautiful movie, First Man would prove us all wrong. First Man is a beautiful movie from its first scene to its last. It's The Right Stuff meets 2001 A Space Odyssey. First Man is a biographical drama focused on Neil A. Armstrong, staring Ryan Gosling (as Armstrong), directed by Damien Chazelle, who should have walked away with a Best Director Oscar and Best Supporting Actress for Claire Foy. This is movie making as it was meant to be, and what reminds us, so rarely, of what top shelf movie making, from acting, to sets, to effects, to music, to casting, etc can look like when people really care. While the tech and the journey to get to the moon is a central theme, the movie humanizes those men and their families in a way no movie has before it, not The Right Stuff, nor Apollo Thirteen. A very rare A+

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Title: hunter killer
Starring : gerald butler, blah blah blah..
Storyline: a fictional tale of how some brave american servicemen saves the russian president from a coup masterminded by some hawkish rogue military elements... all very thrilling and entertaining, but who is to say that its not very likely to ever happen in real life :)
Great moments : its a high octane actioner. No let downs with its fast pace. That makes it a great watch from start to end. It helps that the production itself was way above average. Solid performances, effects and easily one of the top sub themed movies to date.
Plot: 2 main parallel stories fuel this movie. One on board the sub and the other a seal team on the ground. the third story revolves around the enprisoned president and the power hungry madman. Both teams of american rescuers eventually meet towards the end. But not without the usual heroics and ultimate sacrifices for freedom and liberty.
Conclution: a very engaging movie. the actors did good. Recommended
 
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Mortal Engines

An overblown mess. Great visuals don't make up for wooden acting and cheesy dialogue. The entire premise of giant moving cities is ridiculous, and the plot and outcome as predictable as the others of the genre. Pretty much everything wrong with modern movies covered in this one movie. I'm just happy I recently saw such an outstanding movie like First Man (see review on this page) before this movie to remind me Hollywood et al can still make great movies. Mortal Engines is not a great movie... C-

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Fantastic Beasts II

This is much better movie than the first of the series, which not difficult to achieve as the first one one kinda sucked. Great visuals, some good but predictable dialogue, good acting, and not too many annoying cheesy creatures per last movie. It's a good mindless watch, but with one glaring fault: it literally end in the middle of scene. Most movie series, while it's obvious they're setting you up for future installments, try and deliver at least a partial wrap up, this one literally just end in the middle of a scene, leaving the viewer profoundly unsatisfied. With a proper ending, would have given this one a B+, with that ending, a C.

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The Tick Season 1 (Review)

Trailers of this show looked like the dumbest thing I ever saw, yet it gets good rating for multiple seasons now. It was not at all on my radar, but wondering around Amazon Prime for something watch, I saw season one of The Tick listed and checked out. This is how super hero shows should be! Funny as chit, well written, adult, and explores what having super heroes around in modern society would actually be like. They have ego, they're crazy, neurotic etc. I power watched season 1, and will continue on, happy I discovered this fun well written show that deserves more interest. A-

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Avengers Endgame

I have not gone to a theater to see a super hero movie since original SuperMan if that tells you anything. But, this one getting so much build up and hype, and I wanted something mellow to do Fri night, I decided to check it out. For such a long movie, there's not as much action as one might expect. Much time taken up with the aftermath of losing half the population of the universe and so forth, and set up for how they plan to fix it, and so forth. It's ultimately a pretty satisfying albeit predictable conclusion to the saga for those who enjoy the Avengers movies. A few well known Avengers do check out permanently, so if there's more in the series, it will be a different approach no doubt. Worth going to the theater for? Unless you're a die hard Avengers fan, no. Worth seeing if you enjoyed the last one? For sure. A-/B+

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HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

If you enjoyed the first two, you'll enjoy The Hidden World. Like the the others, the visuals and CGI are A+, but the dialogue and story gets cheesy and hokey at times, much more so then the last two installments. Worth a watch if you like the great CGI/visuals and a fun story line, but this franchise has runs its course for sure... B+

 
The Wolfs Call (French with English subs or English Dub on Netflix)


If you're into Sub stuff at all it's a must watch since there isn't much out there. Even aside from that, it's a decent movie for any war/military/thriller fan. I'd recommend watching with French audio and subtitles.

B+
 
Atlita

When people complain about modern movies, this is a perfect example of what they're complaining about: It's a movie with zero originality or anything else not done 100 times before. It's a movie made from the book of generic plots and over the the top CGI to distract from the fact it's the same movie they have seen before, where the most lethal weapon system on the planet happens to look like a cute teen age girl. It's Ready Player One meets The Running Man (and 80's Arnold movie for ye youngins out there..) and not in a good way. Dystopian post war future, gotta play a killer game to make it, yada yada. The visuals are impressive at times, but it does not make up fir this 200 million dollar pile of garbage for a movie. It's literally everything wrong with modern movies rolled into one shining example. Finally, it does not even try and pretend it's not made to be an ongoing franchise and leaves the viewer with zero satisfaction as to the ending... C-/D+

Side tangent, obviously targeted to a specific demographic, but it's also a surprisingly violent and mean spirited movie so it's not always that easy to tell who the demographic is at times.

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Shazam

Shazam is super hero movies when they were fun and didn't take themselves too seriously. Imagine a 14 year old suddenly gets super hero powers, and you have Shazam. Funny dialogue, modern use of social media works, The bad guy is bad enough to be fun, and a silly good time is had. It drags in spots, could have been a tad shorter, and the all inclusive racially culturally diverse family thing gets hokey, but it still works. B+

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Deadwood The Movie

Anyone who was a big fan of the HBO series Deadwood was major pissed at how it ended, and wanted to choke the idiots at HBO for that, but I digress. Deadwood was one of the all time great HBO series, and they decided to make a movie to at least rap it up for fans of the show left hanging a decade ago. Too little too late? No, but close. It was great to see the full cast back together, it does a good job of tying up how it was left hanging, and there are some powerful scenes. For any fan of Deadwood, yes, it's a must watch, and no, it does not forgive what HBO did to its loyal viewers. A-

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John Wick 3

John Wick 3 is one long first person shooter video game in movie form. It's visually impressive and the highly choreographed fight scenes are fun to watch - if not utterly implausible - and classic John Wick. Wick says maybe 10 words in the entire movie. I enjoyed it more than John Wick 2 myself, but I didn't find either great movies either. Fans of John Wick and the genre will enjoy this movie, but the first movie remains the only one actually worth seeing. B-

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Can I attend this review class?
I just watch Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. I'm a huge fan of her's. And she was pretty cute back in the '70s. I'm still a young'un and my girlfriend and I were definitely the youngest ones in the theater. It was so good. It's a very good retrospective on her career. She has leaned her voice to more recordings Than any other pop star. Not only solo stuff but Trio, Frank Zappa, Paul Simon, etc. She had the voice of an Angel. Then it gets sad when they talk about her Parkinson's diagnosis and how she can't sing and is really shaky and it was sad.
I introduced this movie to everyone I know in my Apknite company. Must see for any Linda fan. Would recommend!
 
Godzilla King Of The Monsters (Review)

Godzilla, King Of The Monsters, is a good old fashioned monster movie that benefits from modern special effects and CGI. Not only that, there's an actual attempt at back stories for some of the characters, character development, and some fun dialogue and an actual plot. It's a visual tour de force and quite pretty to look at in some scenes. If you grew up with an appreciation for Godzilla movies and the ilk, worth a watch for sure. B+

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Ad Astra

Ad Astra wants desperately to be deep, philosophical, profound, and existential, and it misses the market totally. This movie is a big mess with disjointed action scenes that are unrelated to the plot (shown if the trailers to get people to see it) which drags on and on through one implausible event after another. We get long internal monologues from Pitt on the meaning of existence his inability to form close relationships with people, and so forth. The visuals/CGI range from breathtakingly beautiful to cheesy and cheep looking. The build up to the grand finale at the outer reaches of the solar system so anti climatic I looked at my watch to see when this movie would end, and that's never a good sign. The all star cast does their best to make it work, and Pitt is always compelling when on screen, but none of them could save this movie from itself. Finally, and there's zero excuse for this in 2019, there was a lot of bad science in this movie all of which could have been avoided by consulting someone from NASA etc who are always happy to see good science being had in such movies. I had high hopes for this movie (and made the rare trip to a movie theater to see it...) but it as not to be. It's clear director James Gray was attempting to make this generations 2001. He failed and failed badly. Oh, and critics will love this movie cuz it makes them seem edgy and woke. C+

 
Shaft II


The last Shaft made in 2000 was a much better movie that actually surprised me; it was much better than I'd expected. This one is more in line with what I expected: some good one liners, some silly fun, and suspension of disbelief needs to be engaged to enjoy. It was fun to see Richard Roundtree (the original Shaft) getting in on the fun. Jackson does his usual thing, and a fun time had by all, but a great movie it aint. B-

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Terminator: Dark Fate (Review)


Linda Hamilton and Arnold are back together in this latest installment of the franchise. The movie is full of modern all inclusive woke-ness which gets annoying, dialogue is awful, ending is predictable and rehashed from 100 prior movies. Hamilton can't act her way out of a paper bag, and it's almost 200m worth of over produced meh. Seeing Arnold return as the original terminator has some fun moments, the visuals and action are good, and the new hybrid lady not-a-terminator-but-sort-is, played by Mackenzie Davis does a good job of what she's given. Watchable on rental but no apparant effort made to do anything remotely original in this one. C+

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