Category: review

It’s been a busy few weeks, so it took me a little longer than I preferred to get this written down, but I loved Thor: Ragnarok when I saw it two weekends ago.

First, let me back up a sec: I generally haven’t been a fan of the Thor movies.  The first one was boring, had way too much CG going on, and I really didn’t care for any of the characters.  The second one, Thor: The Dark World, was less boring, but still didn’t seem all that necessary in the grand scheme of things (Note: Technically, they did bring in one of the Infinity Stones, but they didn’t make a big deal about it until after the credits, so did it really matter all that much?  I guess not?  Who knows).

Anyway, the very first trailer for Ragnarok set a different tone from the outset: this movie would be funny and irreverent, and likely a departure from the earlier Thor movies.  It made it look more like a sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy than Thor.  Heck, it used Immigrant Song in a trailer to great effect.

And it didn’t disappoint.

The film kicks off with Thor in a precarious situation that involves more comedic lines than the entirety of the first two movies, so the viewer gets a good idea of what to expect.  Chris Hemsworth‘s comedic chops have been used to great effect in other movies like Ghostbusters, so it’s good to let him “breathe” a bit in his own Marvel movie.  He’s certainly been funny in the Avengers franchise, but never to this level.  After returning home to Asgard, he finds things are not as he left it because his brother, Loki, has surreptitiously been leading in their father’s place.

Cutting a bit forward, due to some pretty important plot bits, their sister, Hela, breaks out of her prison and seeks to take out Asgard.  In the process, Thor is banished to Sakaar, where a series of intergalactic gladiatorial games take place.  Conveniently, Thor finds Hulk there, where he’s been for the past few years since Avengers: Age of Ultron.  The rest of the plot, predictably, involves their return (with the help of a new character, Valkyrie) to Asgard to fight Hela and her minions.

“Predictably” kinda sums up the movie, really.  It’s pretty obvious where things go, especially if you’ve seen any of the trailers, but it’s just so darned fun, you don’t really care.  They finally get into a rhythm in this movie where you have fun while you watch, rather than dealing with Thor’s brooding personality that was established in previous films.  It’s almost as if he’s a completely new character, when in reality, it’s Hemsworth finally getting to just be himself.

Ultimately, though the plot was predictable, I still had a great time with it.  Already pre-ordered it to add to the collection.

Honestly, I wasn’t planning on seeing Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in theaters until I started seeing reviews and spoilers.  As a one off story that wasn’t a “numbered sequel,” it seemed like one I could skip.  Also, I wasn’t very familiar with most of the actors in it (aside from Forrest Whitaker).  Ultimately, I made the trip down to Sedalia to watch it in 3D (using their crappy 3D glasses…next time, I probably won’t even bother with that 3D system…).

The story serves as a transitional film between Episodes III and IV, centering on the group of rebels who steal the plans for the Death Star that allow Luke Skywalker to destroy it in A New Hope.  Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is joined by other rebels in an attempt to reach her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), who is a key figure in the science program tasked with building the Death Star.

First, the good: the movie is steeped with nostalgia.  Director Gareth Edwards does a great job replicating the 1977 Star Wars: A New Hope look, complete with 70s-era hair and prosthetics.  There are quite a few digital characters interspersed, but they generally looked great.  The sets also look dirty, which grounds the film in a sense of realism.  The dusty storm trooper helmets and dirty ships make the viewer feel as though there is history here, as opposed to a clean, sterile look.  As other reviewers have noted, the movie also does a good job of adding stakes to the Rebellion that weren’t really there in A New Hope.  You get a sense that these rebels are actually fighting for something, instead of some ethereal principle that was discussed in the Original Trilogy.

As far as the characters go, many of them do serviceable jobs, but there aren’t that many stand-out performances.  The only exception is Alan Tudyk, who voices the repurposed Imperial Droid, K-2SO.  He steals the show in any scene he’s in, providing just the right level of comic relief.

Also, spoiler: Grand Moff Tarken is in it.  Played by Peter Cushing.  Who died in 1994.  He shows up in at least 3 scenes and he looked gooooooood.  It’s kinda controversial that he’s in there at all, but having his interactions shown at the birth of the Death Star were invaluable to the story.

However, while some story beats were strong, others were quite weak.  The solution to getting the plans from the Scarif planet surface to the Rebel Fleet in orbit didn’t make much sense to me.  The convenience of having the daughter of the critical guy at the center of the Death Star Project (and why he’s so necessary is never explained) available to the Rebels.    The fact that Jyn Erso turns-on-a-dime from “The Rebellion Is Stupid” to “We Must Stop The Death Star At All Costs.”  The shallow character development of nearly all of these individuals in why it all matters (which, again, is addressed, but to do it right, more is necessary).

I enjoyed the movie, but I bet I could have waited to see it as a rental.  It does a good job of setting up A New Hope and provides a healthy amount of “Easter Eggs” for the most die-hard of Star Wars fans, yet those that aren’t really big fans of the series will find plenty of plot holes to pick apart.

Let’s just start here: Star Trek Beyond is a good movie.  It may even be a great movie, though I probably should see it again before I make that assessment.

In some ways, it’s better than it has a right to be.  J.J. Abrams directed the first two movies in the “reboot universe,” Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness (both of which I was a fan of), but as he was busy with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he wasn’t available to take on another Star Trek sequel.  Though, Abrams remained as a Producer, Justin Lin stepped in to direct, along with a new writing staff that includes Montgomery Scott himself, Simon Pegg.  Lin directed four movies in the Fast and the Furious franchise, and that influence showed quite a bit in this film.  The action is fast and frenetic, the one-liners are quick and intelligent, and overall, the movie is just fun.  Pegg, an unabashed Star Trek fan, co-wrote a solid story.  It isn’t anything Oscar-worthy or anything, but it evoked a classic Original Series episode.

To back up a bit, the crew of the Enterprise is midway through their “five year mission” and you can tell the crew has settled into their routine.  Kirk runs through his Captain’s Log toward the beginning, giving the viewer a feel for how life on the ship has progressed since we last saw them.  They stop off at Space Station Yorktown when a mysterious alien arrives, asking for help in a nearby nebula.  After the Enterprise heads off to investigate, the crew ends up stranded on a planet run by Krall, played by Idris Elba.  The crew members are separated, putting Bones (Karl Urban) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) together; Kirk (Chris Pine) with Chekov (Anton Yelchin); Sulu (John Cho) with Uhura (Zoe Saldana); and Scotty (Simon Pegg) with another alien, Jaylah (Sofia Boutella).

This arrangement kinda makes the whole movie.  In the first two reboot films, everything centered on the fact that this was a new timeline.  The first movie brought the crew together, while the second still very much depended on the fact that a separate timeline was created.  Star Trek Beyond, on the other hand, is the first one that really feels like it’s own, separate story, one that isn’t dependent on what came before.  When you see Spock and Bones alone together, they act as you’d expect them to, not based on the previous two movies, but based on 50 years of those characters’ histories.  We get to see them working together to solve problems, where it isn’t just Kirk that saves the day, but each character really gets their moment to shine this time around.

I have mixed feelings about the villain, Krall.  He had legitimate motivation for going after the Federation, information that comes out toward the end that ties back into the series, Star Trek Enterprise.  There’s nothing critical about that information, but it was a nice touch that the writers tied it back in for fans who are familiar with the franchise.  Idris Elba is a gifted actor, and while he did pretty well (and improved as the movie progressed), it was obvious he found it difficult to get his performance past the prosthetics he wore to play the role.

I also thought the CG effects were good, but maybe not as good as the previous films.  There were a few scenes that were pretty obviously on green screen.  Perhaps that’s because so much of the film was outdoors instead of on the bridge of the Enterprise, but still, it was noticeable.

That said, there’s a badass scene toward the end that deserves all the Oscars.  You’ll know it when you see it.  And it involves the Beastie Boys.

The last thing I wanted to mention was that they did a good job writing the death of Leonard Nimoy into the movie.  That’s really the only connection to the previous two films that may require explanation to a newcomer, but they handled it nicely and added some depth to Zachary Quinto’s version at the same time.  Justin Lin also re-edited a scene toward the end of the movie as a nod to Anton Yelchin, who died recently after filming had completed.  The word is that, in the next movie, Yelchin won’t be replaced and they will somehow write out Chekov.  While it’s difficult to imagine the bridge without that character, I appreciate that this family sticks together and can’t simply exchange one actor for another.

Ultimately, that’s this movie: it’s a family, working together as a team, to solve an apocalyptic problem.

Just like Star Trek has always been.

Independence Day was a phenomenon in 1996.  The marketing blitz was astounding.  That movie was everywhere, and as a newly minted 14-year-old, I was the perfect age to eat it up.  It had impossible stakes, fun and interesting characters, and mind-boggling special effects that were unmatched for the time.

Twenty years later, now we have Independence Day: Resurgence, a movie that has, in all likelihood, been bouncing around Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin‘s minds for 2 decades.  In so many ways, Emmerich tries to re-capture the magic of the original, with old and new characters and even more effects.  While I don’t think the movie is a failure, I also don’t think it lives up to its past.

ID4 took out the White House, the Empire State Building, and some random building in Los Angeles.  These are epic, iconic moments in film-making that nearly everyone has seen (or, at least images of those scenes).  The closest Resurgence gets to that is the picture above (spoiler alert?…it was on posters and in trailers…deal with it…).  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool scene, but it isn’t iconic.  In 20 years, no one will remember that scene.  In this effects-driven era of movie making, something like that just isn’t as impressive anymore.

Speaking of “impressive,” I remember watching the special features on the ID4 DVD set, fascinated by how they used practical effects to make fire travel sideways down city streets (they ended up building a model set, turning it on its side, and using the small buildings as a chimney for fire to pass upwards through).  Resurgence just relies on CGI.  A lot of CGI.  Granted, these effects don’t look bad in the least, but there’s so much of them, it just isn’t as impressive anymore.  It’s almost lifeless.

With regards to the characters, we’ve got many old faces returning, including Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Brent Spiner, Vivica Fox and Judd Hirsch.  For the most part, these characters are given the right amount of stuff to do, while still providing ample time for The New Class (Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher and Maika Monroe) to do their thing.  Overall, they do okay, but they aren’t Will Smith (painfully absent), and they don’t have the chemistry that Smith and Harry Connick, Jr. had.  Again, it just feels somewhat lifeless, that they’re trying too hard and not hard enough all at the same time.  Sela Ward is a perfect example of this, playing the President…though not nearly as well as Pullman did 20 years ago.

That all said, Resurgence still had a decent story.  It’s as simple as “more of the aliens return to Earth,” but also introduces a few new ideas that make it more than a re-hash of the first one.  It honors the mythology of the original while also “expanding the universe” beyond its current borders, making it very obvious they want to franchise it out into more movies.  Based on its current box office performance, that dream may be in doubt.

Ultimately, we enjoyed it.  It wasn’t offensively bad, which compared with some of Emmerich’s other movies, it could have easily gone that way.  Resurgence does its best to raise the stakes beyond what the original did 20 years ago and makes some obvious stumbles along the way, but it was still worth seeing.

I think it’s safe to say that one of the earliest movies my parents remember me liking was Ghostbusters.  I somewhat famously watched on a nearly daily basis for one summer (a “sanitized” version, of course).  In another 20 years, I suspect that the movie we will look back on that Meg watched constantly for a long period of time is Finding Nemo.  Granted, she didn’t memorize each and every line from it like some of us did for movies in the mid-80s, but she watched it at home and in the car to a point where Brooke and I were getting a bit tired of it.

Fast forward a few years to the announcement of a new movie in the franchise, just at the age when Meg can appreciate it, but releasing 13 years after the original: Finding Dory.  And it released on June 17th, right before my birthday, so Meg and I decided awhile back that we’d go “for my birthday” (awwwwww…).

The story centers on Dory and her journey from childhood as a young fish with short-term memory loss, on up through the events of Finding Nemo (there’s a brief flashback to when she met Marlin), and then finally to about a year later.  A lot of the movie is told in flashbacks back to Dory’s childhood as she remembers specific events around the time when she lost her family.  As each detail pops back into her little fish brain, she gets another clue to lead her back home and, of course, Marlin and Nemo come along for the ride.

It goes without saying that the production values are spectacular, from the animation to the voice work.  Quite a few actors are attached to the movie, including some of the originals (Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks, though Alexander Gould was replaced by Hayden Rolence because of, well, puberty…), and they perform just like it was 13 years ago in the original film.  Newcomers like Kaitlin Olson, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy and Idris Elba also make their marks, though in many cases, more screentime would have been great.  They’re memorable new characters, much like the “aquarium crew” in the first film were, and they do a great job filling out the story a bit.  Ed O’Neill as the “septapus,” Hank, steals the show in many respects, partially because of the intricate animation of an octopus sliding across the floor and using camouflage, but also because his curmudgeonly demeanor serves as a good foil for Dory’s otherwise sunny disposition.

The story itself isn’t quite as strong as Finding Nemo was, but perhaps it’s just because I haven’t seen it countless times (yet).  Multiple reviews for the film have rightly pointed out that Finding Dory is really about living with disability, and on that level, I agree that it succeeds.  At the same time, while Pixar pushes that boundary forward for kids to try and learn something out of their entertainment, I think it still goes over the heads of many kids.  Meg really didn’t “get” Inside Out when we watched it last year, but over time, I bet she’ll understand it more and more, and likely, Finding Dory will also work on that level eventually.  Right now, Finding Nemo is a show (for Meg) about a kid that gets lost, and the parent that does everything to find him.  Finding Dory, as Meg said during the movie, wasn’t really about “finding Dory” because she doesn’t get lost the same way Nemo does.

Eventually, Meg will understand that “finding” has a few different meanings in this context.  As an adult, I get that.  As a 6-year-old, Meg isn’t quite there.

Still, she enjoyed it quite a bit and is seeing it again tonight.  Can’t argue with that. 🙂

It took a few weeks, but I finally got to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens last night.  I didn’t try to avoid spoilers over the past few weeks, so I didn’t exactly go into it with “fresh eyes,” but it was still cool seeing it.  I’m absolutely glad I saw it in theaters, though it wasn’t IMAX and wasn’t in 3-D.  Those screenings are somewhat limited in Sedalia at this point…

Overall, I thought it was “good.”  I wouldn’t say it’s a “great” film – just “good.”  There are actually elements of the movie that were legitimately “great,” including the acting and special effects.  Unlike the Prequel Trilogy, which was largely terrible (with the possible exception of the third one…),  the acting was solid among the new and old cast.  As everyone knows at this point, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill were all back in varying (or even limited) capacities in this movie, and did a good job evoking their characters from the Original Trilogy.  However, I was especially impressed with the acting chops of the new cast and how well they fit into the universe.  Oscar Isaac was perhaps the best-known actor on this list, but newcomers like John Boyega and Daisy Ridley really stole the show, wiping away the stench of Hayden Christensen in the Prequels (ew…).

With regards to the effects, again, J.J. Abrams relied more heavily on practical effects this time around, unlike George Lucas in the Prequel Trilogy, who had nearly every scene in front of a green screen.  Sure, there was a ton of CG in The Force Awakens, but it wasn’t over-done this time around.  CG characters were better integrated into the background.  Buildings were inserted into actual, live environments rather than having the entire environment built on a computer.  It was much easier to “fall into the world” watching this movie, as it was easier to convince yourself that everything you were looking at on the screen was real.

My main gripe with the movie concerns the story.  It isn’t that the story is “bad” – it isn’t.  But it’s absolutely derivative.  Perhaps I was clouded by post-release articles, when everyone was talking about it, but The Force Awakens is absolutely a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope.  Not shot-for-shot, but in the critical story beats, it’s totally that original movie.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Rebels find some critical information that they’re trying to keep away from the bad guys and store it in a droid.  That droid, on a desert planet, happens to find a young person who also happens to, we come to find out, be “strong in the Force.”  That person hooks up with a “bad guy with a good heart” kinda person, as well as an “older mentor,” as they try to return this stolen information to the Rebellion.  All the time, they’re being chased by a evil guy in a black mask that can Force Choke you.  I’ll stop right here to limit potential spoilers, but seriously, take all those characters I just mentioned and continue on through A New Hope and you’ll know what happens.

Now, does the story follow it exactly?  No.  Some things happen in a different order.  There are also gratuitous scenes in this movie that are intended to evoke the original movie (like when the two main characters, Rey and Finn, happen across the Millennium Falcon, on that desert planet that they happen to be on), and obviously those scenes wouldn’t have existed in the first movie.  There’s a great deal of nostalgia here, definitely, but that’s most of what this movie has going for it.

Which is to say, if nostalgia is what you’re looking for, The Force Awakens has it in spades.  It’s intended to make you feel like a kid again, seeing Star Wars for the first time.  It’s intended to remind you of what made you like the Original Trilogy and why no one (except demented, horrible people…) like the Prequel Trilogy.

But it isn’t an original story.  Heck, A New Hope wasn’t even an “original story,” as it was just ripping off the classic “Hero’s Journey” monomyth.  But it at least put it in a sci-fi setting with a budget that could really wow an audience.

And also, Star Trek is still better than Star Wars…

I took Meg to her second theater-based movie this past weekend, and her first in 3D.  She’s a fan of most Pixar movies and, while we weren’t originally keeping an eye on this movie (unlike Finding Dory), Brooke read a few blog posts suggesting that Inside Out may be helpful for young kids (girls, especially) to visualize their feelings, especially as young people tend to get rushes of emotion and don’t necessarily know how to deal with them, or how to express the complexity of what they’re experiencing.

Inside Out centers on an 11-year-old girl, Riley, whom we meet at birth.  At that time, we also meet Joy, her one and only emotion.  Over time, other emotions appear as Riley gets older: Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust.  Ultimately, these five emotions work together to help Riley navigate her life, frequently conflicting on how exactly Riley should be “controlled” in a given situation.  Sometimes Disgust needs to take over (when broccoli is presented to Riley), while other times, Fear is the one in control.  All of this action appears in a “Control Center,” of sorts, where each emotion works at a control board to control Riley, and new memories are formed and sent off for storage.

The action balances between Riley and her interactions with her peers and parents, and the emotions inside Riley’s head.  Without spoiling the finer points of the plot, the writers provide an interesting take on Riley’s entry into adolescence, giving the viewer an intriguing take on how a kid can go from jubilant and goofy, to morose and reserved.

As an adult, I can recognize this shift pretty clearly, as someone that went through it at some point in my life.  It’s intriguing to think back on how my emotions changed during the first decade-and-a-half of my life, where memories come from, how you forget things over time, how things just “pop in there” randomly.

Meg, however, didn’t get any of that.  At the age of 5, she simply isn’t aware of it yet.  Oh, she has emotional outbursts, but the experience of a 5-year-old is different from what was presented in the film.  She hasn’t gone to school yet.  She hasn’t had similar situations quite yet as what Riley goes through.  I suspect that she’ll appreciate it much more in the next few years, but right now, to her, it was “just a movie.”

Overall, I think it was really good.  It blew over Meg’s head, but I certainly appreciated it.  The voice actors they chose for each emotion were spot-on, between Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith (Sadness), Bill Hader (Fear), Mindy Kaling (Disgust), and Lewis Black (Anger).  I don’t think they did much motion capture of the actors while reading these lines, but I saw them in each of the oddly-shaped cartoons as they spoke.

Hopefully, in a few years, Meg will appreciate it on different levels upon subsequent viewings.  I guess that’s as good a mark of a successful film as any.

The first movie I remember seeing multiple times in theaters was Jurassic Park.  Pretty sure it was three times.  And I was 11.  I loved this movie and still think it holds up to a ridiculous degree, considering it’s over 20 years old and ushered in an era of CGI-based summer blockbusters.  Seriously, I picked up the Bluray last week and we watched it this weekend.  Those dinosaurs still look good, better than many other heavy CGI movies that come out today.

The sequels were “decent,” at best.  I don’t remember if I saw Lost World in theaters or not, but I know I didn’t watch Jurassic Park III until it was out for rental.  Neither movie had as good a story, and both of them started to try doing too much with their effects.  If I recall, many of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park III looked about as good as what you see on any given Saturday night on SyFy Channel.

Thus, the franchise died.  Until it was revived, over a decade after the third iteration, in the form of Jurassic World.  This movie all but retcons the middle two movies, returning 20 years later to Isla Nublar, which is now fully operational as Hammond’s dream theme park.  They have their own Disney World main street equivalent, roller coasters, hamster wheels that let you drive among stegosaurus, triceratops, and diplodocus – truly a spectacle.

As we’re quickly told by the park’s administrator, Bryce Dallas Howard, they have to constantly introduce new, scarier beasts to attract new guests to the park.  Thus, they have taken to genetic engineering (carried out by BD Wong, the only returning cast member from the original), combining multiple species of dinosaur into a single animal, named Indominus Rex.  Chris Pratt is brought in to consult on the enclosure for this fierce new dinosaur, followed shortly after by the escape of said dinosaur from said enclosure, leading the characters (and audience) on an epic chase through the island.  Indominus Rex is clearly intelligent and uses its genetically-endowed defenses to escape from its captors at nearly every turn.  InGen’s private military force, led by Vincent D’Onofrio, is brought in to try and contain the situation, though he has ulterior motives of proving that Velociraptors would make great soldiers in war zones to fight on behalf of the military.

Yeah, you read that right.  This is about the point where I couldn’t suspend my belief much more.

Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed the movie (Brooke saw a movie with me!!!).  I caught myself smiling like an 11-year-old multiple times, any time I saw my “old friends” from the 1993 original, or they made some reference to the characters of that film.  It really was quite good fan service.  But I don’t think it was as good as the first one.  I suspect it’s because I’m biased toward the property I grew up with, and this new one is for a generation 20 years younger than me.  The two things that hold me back from loving this movie are the aforementioned Soldier Velociraptors, and the excess of CG effects.

First, the raptors.  Chris Pratt is on the island because he’s training 4 raptors to follow commands.  That part’s actually pretty cool.  He isn’t doing anything all that complicated with them, but he demonstrates that he can get in the cage with them and can get them to follow simple orders, but only to the extent a trainer could do so with a lion: they’re still very, very dangerous.  But D’Onofrio is there to get these raptors to follow orders, like “go chase that terrorist in Afghanistan,” and at this, I say “okay, that’s kinda nuts…why would you try to train a velociraptor, who were clearly smarter than the humans 20 years ago in the first movie, to act as soldiers?”  It just wasn’t believable for me.  I feel like the plot would have been stronger if Pratt was there training raptors for his own scientific ends, and D’Onofrio came in from InGen to solve the Indominus Rex problem, but they had no prior connection.  The same plot points could have been there without certain key scenes, while keeping all the awesome action scenes.

Secondly, the effects.  Overall, they were good.  We saw it in 3D here in Marshall, where the screen isn’t exactly IMAX, so perhaps I’m clouded by the less-than-stellar visual fidelity.  In short, many of these dinosaurs were obviously computer generated, whereas I’m still fooled by some of them in the original movie from 20 years ago.  Most of that comes from the fact that Spielberg used a mix of animatronics and computer animation to make a seamless experience, where each dinosaur felt huge and weighed down, adding to the realism.  CG has a problem when you integrate it with the “real world,” where the creatures seem to “float” unnaturally and gravity doesn’t actually affect them because they aren’t a real thing.  Animatronic animals from the original were actually quite heavy, and that showed when you watched the film – and the CG dinosaurs they used in certain shots were designed to match those animatronics in their slow, lumbering movements.  That wasn’t a problem in this movie, as nearly all of the dinosaurs were CG animated.  So while many of them shots looked really good in Jurassic World, there were others that pulled me out of the experience because I knew I was watching dinosaurs that weren’t really there, unlike the way I feel when I watch Jurassic Park.

Hopefully that just made sense…

Regardless, it was a great movie.  Brooke enjoyed Jurassic World quite a bit, but for my money, I prefer Jurassic Park so far as this franchise is concerned.  If anything, Jurassic World was spectacular fan service in the callbacks it made to the original, and certain aspects of the original they brought back to this movie to remind you of the magic you felt in 1993.  At least on that level, it completely succeeds.